Attachment to the Right Things

Dear James,

How are you doing? I spoke with a friend yesterday, who is also a yoga teacher and studies Vedanta. I would like you to correct me, if my thinking is not clear. I said to her that the scriptures say that there is no self-actualization without 100% detachment. There is no self-actualization as long as there is any trace of attachment. She told me that this is impossible (unless one becomes a Swami or a Sadhu.)

From what I understand from the scriptures and from what I have heard from you, it is possible to be 100% detached, even without being a sadhu or a swami. I am the Self and the Self is already 100% detached. How could it be impossible for me to be 100% detached? Any trace of attachment is the result of ignorance. The Gita also shows us that one can be in the world, not be a renouncer, and still be detached – self-actualized.
In our conversation (with my friend), I could see that the main problem is, that is not clear for her, what detachment means. From what I understand from the  studies and from my experience, detachment means:

*Accepting the fruits of actions exactly as they are.

*Having “preferences”, instead of desires and aversions. 

*Get carried away by life, just as a dancer gets carried away in a dance. The field of creation shows us the task we must perform, and we perform it with love and devotion.

*Acceptance

*Where there is the idea that there is individuality, there is attachment.

Ramji:  It’s a word issue, Francine.  The problem word is detachment. Both of you are right.  You can’t be 100% attached as a jiva, so she is right.  And, if you are the Self, you are 100% non-attached, so you are right.  The word detachment implies doership.  A better word is non-attachment.  A doer is always attached to something.  It is natural for doers and appropriate since it motivates doing.  The doer should do.  When the doer recognizes the upside and the downside of attachment, he or she will become attached to the right things and non-attached to the wrong things.

Ramji, I would also like to ask you something. When I dream, my dreams show me a deep attachment. I often find myself having difficulty moving forward, because I try to organize things, objects, scattered around me. I want to carry them all with me, preserve them, not lose them. But I can’t move forward, because as much as I try to keep them close to me, they get lost along the way. This is a frequent dream.  They show me that the vasanas are there, active, alive. The dreams are like an evidence. I haven’t seen these dreams before as a symbol of attachment.

When a self-actualized person dreams, even during the dream, does he-she knows who he-she is? The dreams of a self-actualized person are different from the dreams of a person with active vasanas, aren’t they? Maybe this question is silly. We have already talked about the game of gunas in the waking state. A self-actualized person observes the game of gunas, but does not identify with it. I don’t know if in the dreaming state it is possible for a self-actualized person to maintain self-control as well – to show herself who she is. Could a self-actualized person have such dreams of attachment, as I have?

James:  Yes, but he or she would know that they are just left-overs from the jiva’s stay in ignorance.  These dreams are a source of amusement because he or she is not that person anymore and he or she knows that waking dream and deep sleep experience belongs to Isvara.

The words Self actualized are problem words too because they imply duality.  There is only one Self ever.  It is existence shining as consciousness.  It never was a unactualized so I can’t be actualized.  But the words Self actualized are important because they point out what the Self (seemingly under the spell of ignorance) needs to know, which is to say that merely claiming Self realization without actually getting one’s life in alignment with the teaching (doing nididyasana) is a delusion and won’t lead to freedom from the doer. 

For the past few months I’ve been reading scriptures with comments from you, Chinmaya, and Dayananda. I have read your Mandukya comments twice. It’s a difficult text. I am now reading Kathopanishad (Chinmaya). 

I find it very difficult to get rid of the spell of the names and forms… How to look at all these forms around us, how to transcend them and see instead of all these apparent individualities Consciousness? It is easy to understand when the scriptures speak of the snake and the rope. But when we are among so many images, it is very easy to forget what the scriptures say. 

I feel like a delay. I get lost in the names and forms and after a while I remind myself that they are just illusions and I try to look at them thinking they are nothing but Consciousness. It is still a mental process, not automatic and spontaneous. I am trying to convince myself about that. It does not happen spontaneously. 

James:  Yes, the distinction between satya and mithya is tricky.  If you have a wooden table and chair, are the table and the chair different from wood?  No.  They are just names that are given to wood.  When you think a thought is it any different from the mind that thinks it?   No, thoughts are just different names for mind, which is awareness directed toward a thought.   When awareness is directed to a thought is it no longer awareness?  Is a ray of sunlight different from the sun itself?    

In the last few months I have seen important advances in mind and emotion control. And I have been thinking a lot about self love.

James:  It makes me happy to see that Vedanta works for you.  Give youself a little pat on the back for recognizing the value of this great teaching and sticking to it.

Love,
James