Detachment

To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness - Erich Fromm

When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you. - Jessica Lange 

Attachment, Detachment and Indifference, are often linked and thought to be interconnected. The only connection that they have is that there is no connection between them. Attachment and detachment are not opposite, just as color black and white are not opposite technically. The absence of any color is the opposite of white, while black itself is a color too, and white is coming together of all the colors. Same way, the absence of any kind of attachment is detachment and not, forcing yourself and attaching yourself to process of detachment. Hence while attachment and detachment are not opposite, Indifference and detachment are not synonyms either. While indifference is to be not concerned about particular person, thing or emotion, detachment is to be completely interested but not holding it tight, or getting attached to it. Its about enjoying it till it lasts. When its not there any longer, you move on to the next moment, realizing that whatever was there in past, is past now and it fulfilled its destiny and the role it was supposed to play.  

So why is detachment necessary? Is it possible to feel emotions and still be detached? Why in a social structure we have created, we are often accused of being detached by the people close to us?

Detachment is very much necessary if you want to enjoy a color in a picture completely, while not comparing it with other colors present there or anything else.  I would go further and say that detachment is the process of seeing or feeling something in isolation but in totality. And when we see or experience something in totality we tend to do justice on both the parties. The source as well as self, who is receiving it. And when all such individual colors come together fulfilling the role they were meant for, a beautiful picture is created.

The way an artist cannot be biased towards any color or shade to come up with a justified masterpiece we also should not be biased towards any emotion or person by being too attached to it. And when we stop running after the butterfly of life, but instead are composed and calm with inner peace, the butterfly of life comes and sits on our shoulders, granting us all that we desire, are interested, but will not grieve if we ever loose it. Because if we loose it eventually, it means we were supposed to loose it in first place.

Getting attached to the presence disrupts the bigger picture of enjoying the presence. We inhibit the flow of life, stopping it to pour into us a new person, feeling, emotion or experience.

The society we live in, there is often confusion between detached and indifference, our loved ones often accuse us of indifference while all we try to be is detached. We do not feel the pain or loss as much as they do, because somewhere we enjoyed it till it was there completely and we accept the fact that it can no longer be there. We move on comparatively faster than other, but then most of people stick us with label of Indifference, while all we are doing is tying to be detached. Also it is absolutely possible to feel, and feel completely all the while remaining detached. Attachment eventually creeps into when we are into love, or in any comfortable feeling, but that is the test, the difference we need to keep, the distance we need to maintain. And by being there and still not holding it, by having it and still not missing it, by living it and not being dead or living some other life , is the key to enjoy , feel an emotion in totality and still be detached.

Hence for a person who has had problems because of attachment, detachment is not the final stage. It’s the middle state of things. Once the person is detached, then a new sun rises, and the person is able to breathe in a new fresh air. The person starts valuing and cherishing every breath, every moment.

After all sometimes we need to destroy whatever we have, so that can create something new. Isnt empty hand the one that can hold the most, of whatever it may receive.

Pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. - Khalil Gibran

They who go Feel not the pain of parting; it is they Who stay behind that suffer. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.- James A. Baldwin

Somewhere while walking on the path of Having Faith, we sometimes tend to loose patience, hope or infact faith itself. The reasons may be various, internal or even external. But they moment the Faith is lost, specially when we are waiting for someone or something a sensation runs across our soul and sends a shiver down our spine. And that is the moment when pain stings you. Physical pain can be dealt with; the body itself takes care of it. It is all the non –physical kinds of pain that we as humans have to deal with our conscious mind and cringing heart.

The cry of a spouse when it finally sinks that the other half has left forever to never come back, The lost eyes of a person who has missed out the opportunity which would have been turnaround in life, never getting one more chance when you would have made things correct, wanting to be with someone and still being left alone, Not being able to be as happy as you want to be, and few other such instances make us go through a feeling of helplessness. And somewhere that helplessness grows into pain. Because no matter how much we want to share it , we cannot. Either because the person with whom we can, is no longer there, or the people who are there around us, will never be able to experience the intensity of it.

But is pain always looked down upon in a negative sense? Why are we also taught, conditioned to either not accept the presence of emotional pain, or incase if its obviously visible to others then we are supposed to conceal it. Why crying is not allowed when we are sad? Why has the society built up a mould where the presence of pain is a sign of weak human being ? Instead, isn’t it the one who can handle pain and still tries to come out of it more stronger, than one who has never encountered pain?

Physical or non physical, we encounter pain quite later, after we are actually wounded, bruised, hurt, or Loss. If we actually take away all the feelings, I am pretty much sure the only feeling that would be left behind will be Pain. Isn’t it also that when we are in Pain we are actually unable to feel any other emotion? And what would be remaining if we cannot feel pain? I guess we will never be able to feel happiness either then. Hence its anyday better to have lost and hurt than to never be able to smile!! 

How do we deal with this not at all wanted and yet inevitable emotion? The only to get out of pain is to go through the pain. There is no shortcut or substitute for it. Though it’s a poison, it’s a cure to many other ailments. Anything else that we may approach instead of confronting this will be temporary, transient and will not heal it completely. At the same time while engulfed in pain it is equally important to atleast have one hand stretched out for people around us to pull us out, just incase pain may become deathly. Because the start of pain is somewhere the end of our understanding, End of circumstances, feelings, things under our control. Everyone of us has our own way to deal with it, face it, confront it. We may device our own ways of living with it, but we need to make space for other feelings too, either by reducing this emotion itself or increasing our capacity to feel more about things and people around us. After all pain is temporary too.  Eventually it will reduce something else will take its place.

And the scars it may leave behind, well those will be your beautiful scars, the sign that you had loved, been happy and above all Lived. !!

Faith

Faith :

“Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods” - C.S. Lewis

“Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to”

“As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe. It's not that we don't want to, but too much has happened that we just can't.”

After going through various emotions which somewhere create turbulence within, the stillness in the waters of emotions start with Faith. The moment we hear the word, we visualize sereneness with the strength of a rock with gentle breeze flowing, or the same rock in rushing gurgling waters holding itself against the stream. That is faith. Not in the stone but in behaving like one while there is turbulence in life. After all that is one rope that swings us through life when all the bridges have burnt down.

The irony with faith is that while the dark shades need to be half of what they are in a particular moment, Faith needs to be double of what it is during such times. A person who has never loved, or a person you have never lost are still ok to come across, but a person who has never had faith misses out so much in the life of being human. They actually miss out on the magic of moving mountains.

There is also a big difference between trust and faith. Trust is knowing that it won’t go away when you already have it, while faith is knowing it will eventually come, when you don’t even have it. When a child waits for his father to turn up on time in evening back from office, it’s his trust & when someone waits for the person whom they love a lot to come back in their life, it’s their Faith. While we place trust on other people in our life, we need to have faith in ourselves, within.

 Also, there is no space for doubt, when we have faith. Not even for a second. Because it is never known that universe is addressing which emotion of ours to manifest. Hence even if there is doubt for an inkling of a second, then faith is gone, lost, broken. Moreover faith doesn’t make the absolutely impossible possible , but it helps you to learn how to cope up with it, accept it eventually, in a more positive manner. 


Our forms to reinforce faith maybe many. A visit to a shrine, waiting for an omen or signs , lucky colors are some forms of our physical representation of faith. Though discarded as superstitions, if not gone over board, these physical actions help a lot to establish and reestablish faith. If you believe and believe completely, if you don’t even imagine any other option, except to go ahead, the waters will eventually part and you will reach.  

After all, faith is not a destination; it’s a lovely companion for a testing journey to a beautiful destination.