Can you explain more about attachment through a story?
A monk was strolling along the bank of a river in the company of his student. They saw a girl drowning. The monk rushed to rescue her and brought her to the bank. The student was just observing. After this, they both continued their walk. The next day, during the monk’s discourse, the student questioned, “Was it proper for you, a monk, to touch a woman, as we have taken the vow of celibacy? Is this not breaking the vow of detachment?’
The monk answered, “I picked her up and dropped the thought that I had picked her yesterday itself! I am surprised that you still carry the thought. Do you realise who is attached here?”
We all live in one world but experience different realities. Why is it so?
There is an external reality and an internal reality. External reality is a world of external objects. Internal reality is a world of thoughts and feelings. What makes a world different is the world of our thoughts and feelings. If you doubt your internal reality, ask yourself as to whether your feelings and thoughts are real. If you say it is not, then you lack self observation. We experience the world more from an internal reality. What impacts our lives is our thoughts and our feelings. Observe thoughts and feelings that make us happy or sad. If something makes us sad, renounce it. Renouncing involves not being attached to your thoughts and feelings as they emerge. You give them a reality when you merge with them. The shadow becomes real if you get attached to your shadow. Detachment is the key. Detachment is not indifference. Detachment is being aware of the sanity of life. Attachment is insanity.
What makes our internal reality of thoughts and feeling so difficult to renounce?
It is our ego. We get stuck to the wrong ‘I’ in us. This wrong self is the ego. Ego exists in ignorance. Ignorance exists because of lack of observation.
