Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have a soft spot for Ram Dass. I love his sense of humor, his wisdom and find myself relaxing when listening to his teachings. I have spend many hours in darkness finding some light in his talks. Another thing that gives me a sense of peace is listening to Zen, like the Tao Te Ching and the Third Way.
When you are on the path of healing, especially when you find yourself in the depths of despair, it is incredibly helpful to be reminded of old mystical teachings from wise beings who came long before us. Nothing that you are going through hasn’t happened to someone else before. There is comfort in remembering that.
These teachings remind us of certain truths, without using them as a spiritual bypass. We still need to do the work. We need to be honest with ourselves and learn to accept all parts, and sometimes seek guidance in therapy (me included!). At the same time, spiritual work teaches us to actually feel everything without clinging to it. To let things move through us instead of becoming identified with them. And it gives you a certain trust in life, and the Divine, one that we often have lost a long time ago.
When you resist your emotions, when you suppress them, you often become identified with them. How often have you found yourself in “victim mode,” where everyone else is always at fault? We’ve all done it at times… even Ram Dass.
The preferences that the Third Way opens with point towards the non-attached state. This is very different from being detached. I never heard of it until I studied Yoga, and was sitting in front of a great Indian yogi called JagJeet who explained that you can never be fully detached.
If you detach from material life, you become attached to spiritual life. If you detach from relationships, you become attached to single life. If you detach from carnivorous life, you become attached to vegetarian life. They work together, go hand in hand. What we should learn to look for is how these states stop us from being non-attached.
Non-attachment is not something you choose. It is something that grows naturally as you do the work, and you really have to do the work. (therapy, whatever spiritual practice you do, contemplation, nature, etc).
Non-attachment means that if I am living in an ashram, it is okay. If I am working in a bank, it is okay. I have no preferences because I have peace and contentment within me. If I am happy.. it is okay. If I am sad.. it is okay.
It also means:
I love you if you are here. [without wanting anything in return]
I love you if you are there. [without wanting anything in return]
I still love you if you reject me. [without wanting anything in return]
And that is a topic for another article, as love is not something many people truly understand.
Non-attachment means that my inner state of being is not dependent on anything external.
The slippery slope is believing you are non-attached when, in reality, it has become a spiritual bypass. You suppress your feelings in order to be okay with everything. “I am non-attached, nothing affects me.” Or you stop showing up in life because you think you should be okay with everything. Anyone familiar with Ram Dass knows how he mentions his phony holy years.. Even those are all part of the spiritual journey..
If I am truly honest; for many years I was attached to being non-attached. Because the whole idea of not being affected by anything or anyone really suited me. No more pain. No more feeling alone. And not needing to feel all my challenging feelings. By being attached to being non attached, I became detached of life.
Still with me? 🙂
Paradox is that you have to feel everything in order to let go of attachments. I was stuck in this attachment for quite some years, until I decided enough was enough, and resolved to be fully honest with myself.
Over the years I realized that we need to go through certain experiences, in order to release what no longer serves us.
I would love to be completely non attached, in deep samadhi, but lets be honest, I would not do much anymore, would I? For most of us, we would just give up. Sit on a rock, and merge with the beloved. There is no growth in that, is there? And most of us.. need.. growth… If not everyone.
Trust me, non-attachment is for the few. For most of us, it is simply a beautiful teaching that we can return to over and over again whenever we notice ourselves slipping into attachment or detachment. See it as a compass, showing you where you are deviating off the path. If you are lucky, you will have moments, periods in your life, touching upon this beautiful state. Until the next layer presents itself again, and you find yourself witnessing another attachment. “ahhhh sooooo”.
Even being good.. is an attachment.
Remember, there is nothing wrong with healthy attachment. We are human. We love. We care. We grieve. And attachments are never to be judged. they too are cues and tools, to grow, or, to stay put.
And as always, remember that there are no errors in the game. These teachings are not rules. They are guidance. Little roadmaps that gently point us back towards truth.
As the Third Way states:
“To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.”
So be honest with yourself, always. Do the deep work.
Trust me… it is so worth it.
Enjoy.
“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for, or against, anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things. Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with activity. As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance. Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.
Do not remain in the dualistic state; avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One, do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.
When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought-objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because of the subject (mind); the mind (subject) is such because of things (objects).
Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains, in itself, the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine, you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.
To live in the great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute; the faster they hurry, the slower they go.
And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited.
Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way, and there will be neither coming nor going.
Obey the nature of things (your own nature) and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage, the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separation?
If you wish to move in the one Way, do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals, but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind is the greatest of all mistakes.
Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams or flowers in air; foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong; such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.
If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally, the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider movement stationary, and the stationary in motion; both movement and rest disappear. When such dualities cease to exist, Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality no law or description applies.
For the unified mind in accord with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish, and life in true faith is possible.
With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value.
In this world of Suchness, there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say when doubts arise, “Not two”.
In this “not two”, nothing is separate, nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space; in it, a single thought is ten thousand years.
Emptiness here, emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen.
So, too, with being and non-being.
Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.
One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction.
To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.”