In the process of becoming our True Self, a pivotal practice is the conscious act of detachment. Without detachment we do not grow, nor expand or evolve in any direction. In order to make any forward movement, we have to let go of something. In a more conscious and advanced stage of detachment, we know intuitively when an attachment to any form — be it physical, emotional, mental, even spiritual — is a worn-out form, no longer benefiting the growth of our soul or expression of our True Self and we make a conscious decision to detach where it is needed.

As we mature spiritually, we become keenly aware of the movements in life and know when to move on, when to stop, and when to take action that is different from before. Otherwise, even with the most sophisticated education or most beautiful spiritual practices, we can create our own prisons.

When we do something, even a good thing, over and over again, it creates a groove in our brain. If we continue to do the same thing, the same way, every time, it resembles skiing downhill on the exact same spot over and over. Eventually, we will create a deep groove which becomes a rut. Ruts are created in the physical brain as well as in our emotional and mental bodies.

Detachment is emphasized by the Wisdom Teachings as a path of spiritual evolution, also called “transmutation.” Having a healthy brain means to continuously challenge yourself to create new neuropathways. Creating new pathways in the physical brain also creates new pathways in the subtle bodies.

What are we attached to? We have physical attachments such as persons, property, furnishings, food, and ways and habits of living…. Emotional attachments include how we feel, expectations, fears, memories, pains and sufferings, how we define happiness and love, even happy memories that freeze and do not allow for new experiences. Mental attachments involve mental patterns from our education, study and reading and training, interests, music, and books and even discussions and ways in which we write and talk and communicate. How about spiritual attachments? We certainly have plenty of these such as the way we pray and meditate, the way we believe, the way we interpret a religious/ spiritual teaching. Imagine sitting around a man or a women who talks without interruption, and always about the same old, same old thing, in the same tone of voice, in the same way every single time! They remember when….They eat only this….they read only that book….they believe only in this or that….You can see people slowly moving away from such people and avoiding them altogether. Why would anyone want to be with a boring person always living in the past?

Whatever we attach to eventually creates its own reality. These are called delusions, illusions, glamors, ego, vanity, and generally self deceptions — another way of saying “ruts”. Such a state takes all the joy out of life; the creativity and the ability to evolve and grow and expand and see life in new ways. As children, we are open and fresh, flexible, and expectant. As we get older and we let ourselves freeze, we draw the curtains around us more tightly, put up the walls, create comfortable ways of living and ask not to be bothered with anything new or challenging.

To become our True Self we need to have the courage to detach from anything that is no longer viable. Just like cleaning our physical closet, we can do the same for our emotional, mental, and spiritual closets. Periodically, we need to clean them out of the old stuff. Interestingly, when we feel confident that we can detach and clean out, we diminish the power that old associations have over us. We feel free and alive again. Old people who are thinking, doing, growing, are curious and have fresh expectations, are fun to be with and have lots of friends seen and unseen!

In the process of detachment, we feel in touch with an essence inside of us that does not change. The most important and key point in my life is that with detachment we become fearless and open and forever growing and expanding. What a joy this is!

We detach voluntarily every day of our life from little things. Life teaches us through illness, loss and grief, separation, that we need to detach if we want to go on living a healthy life. It is a little more difficult to detach from emotional, mental, and spiritual habits, but we can do it. Healthy people make choices every day and learn to make choices that help them on many levels.

“We may think that to detach ourselves means to hate, to ignore, to divide, to separate, to stand aloof, or to be cold and rough toward a given object. These are not signs of true detachment. True detachment is a Soul attitude, a function carried out on the Soul plane rather than on the physical, emotional, or lower mental planes. Actually you are not detaching from your True Self, from anyone or anything. You are detaching your Self from the inertia of the body, from the glamors of your emotional world, and from the illusions of your mental realm. You are also detaching your Real Self from the objects with which you were identified only through inertia, glamors, and illusions.”

“In true detachment your spiritual identification deepens and widens on the spiritual side of an object. At the same time you identify less and less with phenomena until, eventually, you are able to see the object as it is, free from your personal, mechanical reactions and free from your imposing, forcing will of the lower self, expressed in many ways. According to your degree of success in detaching from any object, your soul love increases, your light becomes brighter, your will stronger, and your joy deeper. Attachment makes you smaller; detachment makes you greater.” (The Science of Becoming Oneself p. 49.)

In the Process of becoming our True Self, the fourth lesson is to learn the art of detachment.

Spiritual evolution, or transmutation, involves all your bodies, your whole life. As we learn to observe using all our senses and learn to meditate and expand our view of life, we build the important bridges to health and joy.

Wishing you freedom and youthfulness!

Gita

A brief YouTube clip of the fourth step of finding your True Self is attached below. You may also view the clip by linking directly to the YouTube site: