September/October 1999
Articles on the theme "Attachment & Detachment"
Life's Parade
by Bob Gonzalez
Of death, meditation, possessions and
true detachment.
Responding Resourcefully to Criticism
Cydné Battreall
Learning to detach or disassociate
to create new ways of responding to criticism.
The Ultimate Release
by Constance Felos
Forgiveness: the conscious, energetic
release of debilitating attachment. Death of the body: the ultimate release
of physical attachment.
You and Your Thoughts
by Patrick Plaskett
The problems of identifying ourselves
with our thoughts and emotional responses.
Cultivating Detachment
by Dr. Neil Cooper
Detachment as part of a spiritual practice.
Its role in connecting us with Source, Spirit, Energy, Qi, Consciousness.
In The Heart of God
by Ron Graham
How attachment and detachment can be
good or bad. Sorting out which is which.
Attachment & Detachment - Their Hidden Meaning
by Magzcha Westerman
The numerological significance of the
words Attachment and Detachment.
The Rewards of Release
by Dr. Audrey Craft Davis
The rewards of releasing losses to
the universe. Releasing others from the bondage of our thoughts.
Transcending Attachment
by Rev. Pat Cross
Using attachment and detachment to
help us reach a higher spiritual level - a connection with our true Source.
Detachment Brings Joy
by Rev. Nancy L. Buchanan
Of going with the flow to achieve a
positive lifestyle.
Other Feature Articles
Natural Health Q & A
by Dolores Puterbaugh
A discussion of some of the physical
and emotional changes and challenges women face going through menopause.
2000 and Beyond!
by David Findlay/ Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
What is . . . Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)?
by Sam Jarcynski and Greg Stanek
Mineral Kingdom
by Judy Power
Featured stones for September and October:
Peridot and Natrolite.
Life's Parade
by Bob Gonzalez
Not much is certain in this life except the fact that we will one day leave it. We are perhaps the only living beings that know in advance of the inevitable end of our outward forms and yet, for the most part, we occupy our lives in ways that are intended to shield us from remembrance of that knowledge.
All that is born must die. All that begins must end. This is an inescapable fact. Do we not fear death more when we identify exclusively with the body? Even many people of great intellect believe that the mind is simply a spontaneous creation issuing from the chemical mix in our cerebral gray matter. Because of this, they fear that death is the total extinction of their consciousness. Investigations into near-death experience have intimated that consciousness can exist independent of a body that has been pronounced clinically dead. This leads us to favor the idea that consciousness connects to a bodily form in order to express itself more fully.
Incarnation or bodily birth is the ultimate attachment just as dis-carnation or bodily death is the ultimate detachment. If we identify ourselves entirely with the body, then when the body separates from us, we are cut loose into the unknown territory of our own mind or consciousness, since we no longer have external sensory stimuli to distract us from the world within us. If we have neglected to experience ourselves as other than the body, we are lost in this eerie 'limbo,' the world of our own thoughts which we ourselves have thoughtlessly created, and in which we now find ourselves. How can we avoid this disorienting experience? By becoming intimately acquainted with our mind while in the body.
Meditation can be seen as the art of dying consciously. Our interior meditations can be an opportunity to experience ourselves as essence, or soul, our core-self. We retire to a quiet room and close our eyes, thereby shutting out external vision and hearing, our major senses. We focus on our breath, our lifeline to our spirit. We can connect a mantra, or mind-control phrase, to the breath. Soon, awareness of body fades and we begin to feel what it is like not being a body. We enter the realm of the mind and experience this territory and perhaps explore the frontiers beyond. This is detachment. Perhaps we can imagine that we are no longer incarnate, but a spirit wandering free in the realm of our imagination, which has become our reality. What will we experience in the realm of our own imagination? At least part of our experience will be the images, emotions and sensations we have allowed to enter. Beyond that we may be persistent enough to encounter realms of higher beings and universal entities. In order to journey to the higher realms, however, we must be willing to let go of the lower ones. It is this 'letting go' that is the hard part.
A story is told of a pious king of India who desired to become closer to God. He called upon a great yogi for advice. The yogi informed him, "You must renounce your possessions." The king left his palace and went to live in a forest cottage. The yogi passed by and said, "You must renounce more." The former king left the cottage for a hut. Later the yogi passed by and said, "You must renounce more." The hermit left the hut and began to inhabit a cave. He wore burlap and ate nuts and berries which he found in the woods. The yogi found his cave and told the hermit, "You must renounce more." The hermit left his cave and made his home in a hole dug in a forest clearing. He had stopped eating and went about naked except for dirt that he smeared on his body. When the yogi found him this time, the hermit was a mere shadow of what he once was. Yet the yogi whispered in his ear, "You still have not renounced enough." In his weak voice, the hermit responded, "Excuse me, you see my body's condition, how I am near to death. I have left kingdom, family, possessions, clothing, food and shelter. How could I possibly renounce any more?" The yogi responded, "What have you renounced? Your body was created by your parents. Your wealth and position bestowed upon you by inheritance. Food belongs to the earth as do the skins you were wearing and the shelters that you inhabited. None of these things belong to you anyway, so what have you renounced? What you must renounce is the illusion that you possess anything. For you possess nothing in this life. You are merely the caretaker of things that are entrusted to you." With that awareness, the hermit was able to return to govern his people as a wise and loving steward of his kingdom.
It is all right for us to possess things in this world, as long as we don't let them possess us. We must get to know the world within us and leave the external world to its own way.
Things constantly change. They go away. They die. If we resist the change, if we desire things to remain forever the same, we will always suffer. Yet things also cycle. Present things return that resemble past things. The seasons return. People are born. Certain themes continue to manifest again in different forms and, in order to harmonize with Life, we must learn to accept this. We must learn to let go now so that we can receive later. For Life's parade moves on and more is on the way.
Bob Gonzalez is a freelance writer who also with his family
manages Ansley's Natural Marketplaces in Tampa, FL. (813) 239-2700.
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