FROM SATSANGS OF GURUDEV SHRI OJASWI SHARMA
ATTACHMENT AND DETACHMENT
Pointers for developing inner detachment
Extract from 21/2/02 Satsang
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Om Shri Paramatmane Namaha
Q: Somebody asked me, how can attachment go away?
A: Attachment does not go away, or become diluted, simply by thinking. Thin-king helps,
because one comes to know that one has attachments with objects, houses, money, people,
sons, daughters, parents. But two or three factors are important and there are helpful methods
for achieving inner detachment.
The first method is to contemplate, again and again, on how transitory life is. It is an
opportunity for detachment. Life is tempo-rary. Everything is disappearing and will go away.
This is the truth and nobody can deny it. Nothing can stay, so what is the point of having
attachment for it? It is useless. Attachment is foolishness and ignorance.
Houses, money and relatives, all these leave us at the time of death (of the physical body),
but we carry with us the attachment to them (in the subtle body). That attachment is bondage.
Therefore, wisdom lies in getting rid of this attachment before physical death.
Another fact for consideration is that old age, disease and death come to everybody. It is
possible that one may not have any disease, but old age and death will definitely come. In old
age, even if there is no disease, one will become very weak. A time will come when one is
unable even to make a cup of tea! Often one will be unable even to get up from one’s bed
without help. In old age one generally becomes dependent on others, just as a child is
dependent. This is why they say that an old person is just like a child. A child needs the
support and help of others. So old age is waiting for everybody, and death will definitely
come. Therefore the recollection of the concepts of old age, disease and death is bound to
generate detachment from the world.
But more important than this method is the approach of doing service for others. This is the
secret for getting rid of attachment. You should serve others, and particularly those to whom
you feel attached the most. If you adopt an attitude of service for them, then by doing service,
a time will come when attachment to them will come to an end. You will achieve inner
purification. You will have performed the duty which you owed to that person. The debt
towards that person will have been paid off by service. Inner purification will take place and
attachment will disappear.
However, it is not only service towards certain people. Step by step, one has to develop an
attitude of service towards everybody. ‘Everybody’ means whoever comes into contact with
you. It does not mean that you have to go out into the street and ask anybody if you can serve
them. It means that, wherever you are, you should have the attitude of service.
Sometimes here in India very funny things happen. I remember one of the discourses of
Rajneesh. In India there is a tradition of visiting saints, sitting by their side and trying to serve
them in whatever manner possible. Rajneesh relates that some people had asked for an
opportunity to serve him. He said there was hardly anything for them to do. A few of them
FROM SATSANGS OF GURUDEV SHRI OJASWI SHARMA
requested him to allow them to massage his feet, so he allowed them. After a time, when these
people had finished and gone away, another group came and asked if they also could massage
his feet. By the time they finished, it was already midnight and still people were arriving to
massage his feet! He asked them what they were doing, and said that if they did not stop he
would be ill the next day because they were not allowing him to sleep. But there was yet
another group outside his room waiting for the chance to massage his feet! At last he said:
“This is not service! You are creating a problem for me. I have the habit of sleeping from
about 10 p.m. and it is already midnight. There are even more people waiting outside and if I
allow them, this massaging will go on all night! This is not service but torture!”
By ‘service’ we mean our readiness for what-ever action we can perform to bring comfort,
assistance and happiness to others. By adopting these methods, we get transformed. Then a
time comes when in our subtle body, in our mind, the element of selfishness is gradually
replaced by the element of love.
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