Non Attachment Does Not Mean You Don't Have Feelings

Non attachment does not mean that you don't feel or have preferences. It means that you have the ability to objectively observe the feelings and the preferences and you understand that they are not you.

For instance, you may have a favorite comfy soft T-shirt. You look forward to getting up in the morning and putting it on. You look good with in on. You love wearing it, everyone says it brings out your eyes but you know that shirt is not attached to you. You take it off at night. It is not you. If your lover stated to call the shirt by your name and wanted to get married to it, you would think they were insane. That is how sure you are that the shirt is not you. If you lose the shirt, you get sad about it, because you loved it, but you know it is not you.

While a T-shirt is obviously not you, emotions and our physical bodies are more subtle. We feel them so strongly that they have to be us right? We take them with us everywhere? We can't take them off like the T-shirt, right? However, the fact that you can see them, means they are not you. There is something perceiving them! What is perceiving your emotions? What is perceiving your eyes? Non attachment is knowing deep down to the core of your being that you are the watcher. You are the thing that is doing the perceiving not the thing being perceived. That indeed, even though the emotions and your body are there, they really are not attached to you either.

Do you have the same exact emotions as you did at 3, 13, 23,33, 43, 53 years of age? Do you get upset if someone takes your blanky or Barbie doll? Do you still expect your mom to cook you breakfast lunch and dinner? Do you still believe in Santa Claus? Your thoughts are different. They are not you.

How about your body? Science has proven that our skin cells replicate and over time, every organ gets completely and totally replaced. So they are not you either.

What about your consciousness? The Watcher? The awareness behind all of that? While your thoughts and body have changed, it is still constant. There is still something there looking at it all.

To take it deeper then that, everything is made of energy. Energy can neither by created or destroyed. It just changes form. It always was and always will be. No one or no thing every goes out of existence . Yoga philosophy has always understood this. The Yoga Sutras talks about the manifest and the un manifest. When something is in an un manifested state, it just means you cannot perceive it. It is still there. It is never gone. If you understand to the core of your being that nothing is ever gone, then being attached to it really makes no sense.

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6 Comments

Hi Shanna,

I love this post! The way you explain the concept of non-attachment and the problem of identifying too much with our minds/bodies/emotions is super simple and practical. I hope you don't mind if I borrow it for my own classes!

Posted by: LaGitane | July 17, 2013 at 08:10 PM