Attached to God
“Non attachment” can be tricky to discuss. In standard usage, to be attached or have attachments means to genuinely care about something - usually a person or place. In religion and spirituality, however, attachment refers to identifying egoistically with things or people. Some obvious examples of egoistic attachments are identifying with one’s possessions, wealth, good looks, social status or those of a family member.
“Non attachment” in a spiritual context refers not to a lack of caring, but to putting distance between the self and the ego. In positive terms, it refers to caring that transcends the egoistic self – that isn’t contained or bound by that limited sphere of interest.
Ego attachments include something that we’ve all noticed from time to time in discussions of religion and spirituality: attachment to spiritual thoughts or beliefs. The clearest sign that someone is defending the self and not God may be defensiveness itself, with its rancor, sarcasm, ridicule, condescension and various more or less veiled forms of hostility that are the puff and bristle of an underlying sense of insecurity and threat.
Surely God, (of all people, so to speak) doesn’t need defending. And if a truth remains true even when a particular individual or group fails to recognize it, how unassailable Truth must be!
Everyone has an ego. And probably everyone, at one time or another, has been bothered when someone hasn’t seen things their way in the area of religion and spirituality. It’s a question of degree.
The question of why it bothers us when others don’t share our religious views may be worth looking at if we find ourselves strongly or repeatedly agitated when this occurs.
PS: It’s worth noting that unbelievers can be as attached as believers to their perspective on the truth of the matter where religion is concerned.
“Non attachment” in a spiritual context refers not to a lack of caring, but to putting distance between the self and the ego. In positive terms, it refers to caring that transcends the egoistic self – that isn’t contained or bound by that limited sphere of interest.
Ego attachments include something that we’ve all noticed from time to time in discussions of religion and spirituality: attachment to spiritual thoughts or beliefs. The clearest sign that someone is defending the self and not God may be defensiveness itself, with its rancor, sarcasm, ridicule, condescension and various more or less veiled forms of hostility that are the puff and bristle of an underlying sense of insecurity and threat.
Surely God, (of all people, so to speak) doesn’t need defending. And if a truth remains true even when a particular individual or group fails to recognize it, how unassailable Truth must be!
Everyone has an ego. And probably everyone, at one time or another, has been bothered when someone hasn’t seen things their way in the area of religion and spirituality. It’s a question of degree.
The question of why it bothers us when others don’t share our religious views may be worth looking at if we find ourselves strongly or repeatedly agitated when this occurs.
PS: It’s worth noting that unbelievers can be as attached as believers to their perspective on the truth of the matter where religion is concerned.
Posted by Paul at 8:41 PM Permalink
22 Comments:
But being attached to a particular school of thoughts or belief is actually being detached from your self,since you see the teachings greater than you.
And we need attachment,cause end of the day,pain is the only thing that tells you ,you are living,and useless you have "life" your value as a human doesn't exist.For everything we might hold against our life,we have got it and we are supposed to do something with it,let it be to become a successful person or to go and jump of a cliff.
"The clearest sign that someone is defending the self and not God" ... But then you added that God doesn't need defending, so this means one is always defending the self.
And one's defending of the self is always from insecurity.
So what one uses as a weapon to defend oneself is surely irrelevant. Rancor, sarcasm etc---these are signals which tell us we have stepped on someone's toes, or that the other has stepped on our toes.
As you say, everyone has an ego. Everyone has something to defend: that is to say my security depends on such-and-such ultimate attachment, and if that, or some subordinate aspect of that, is attacked, then I will be as active in defending it as hornets in defending their nest.
So to me there is not "good ego" or "bad ego", or good/bad attachment. It seems to me that everyone can be rattled by something. Knowing what that something is helps us to know a person.
If you get mad when I step on your blue suede shoes, I don't think that's any better or worse than when I insult your god or suggest your mother had a disreputable profession.
But I don't feel I have any right to rattle you in such a way unless there is some compelling and over-riding reason.
Should not the religious in their evangelism respect the attachments of the less religious as much as they would wish that the less religious did not attack their beliefs or their God?
I wonder if the preacher ought to attack the attachments of his congregation! But then, if this was pushed through to its conclusion, a certain type of sermon could no longer be delivered.
The whole thing is tricky to discuss, if you ask me, unless you are prepared for the risk that the whole fragile edifice may topple.
VISHESH: I agree with what you’re saying, but I think it would enhance the distinctions you make not to use the word “attachment” for each. For example, one might speak of being “connected” to truth or of sharing, with other life forms, a will to live that’s distinct from egoism.
VINCENT: “Attachment and non-attachment are often masks for something more basic in the human psyche.” What is it that you see as more basic and how would non-attachment as well as attachment mask it?
The more basic thing is self-preservation, which is the same for saint and sinner. Being unattached to something is the same as not caring about it.
Suicide is an example of being so attached to something (health, wealth, good name, honour or not being despised) that a person becomes unattached to life without that precious thing.
I'd suggest that a person achieves non-attachment when the desired thing (e.g. wealth, sex, life itself) has already lost most of its value in his eyes.
I think we are wired to be always monitoring the environment for potential threats, those that threaten us physically and those we perceive will threaten the social order (which could make the difference between survival and destruction back in the old days). The ego has probably been one of our greatest assets for survival, but it has an ugly downside.
Anyway, to make a long story short.
I honestly felt that if I really loved Jesus or God, I wouldn't be 'willfully' committing sins and so forth.
So, in that way, I don't know if I am 'attached to God' or not.
A part of me faithfully trusts and a big part of me probably does not, in that sense. Cos if I do, then I will apply that biblical phrase which says something like "if my faith is as strong as a mustard seed, i will be able to move .. mountains?" (or something to that effect.)
A lack of caring, compassion, affection, warmth and so forth isn’t what’s meant by “non-attachment” if you read up on it, say, in Buddhism. Non-attachment is being less egocentric, and it helps free up such qualities. (Have you ever happened to see the Dali Lama interviewed?)
VISHESH: Not sure I understand your smell analogy, but I agree very much with the first part of what you say: I too can’t imagine that perfect and permanent non-attachment is possible and think that egoism is part of the human condition. Still, it’s possible to go some distance in the direction of non-attachment.
BAD ALICE: I know what you mean. To me it seems that in Christianity, at least in my experience of it growing up, there’s often a tendency to view a high level of spiritual functioning as something to be put on a pedestal rather than something we’re to aim for in our own lives.
And exactly – that is, while the ego has been heavily involved in our success as a species, we’re now at a point where the downside of being heavily egoistic is too great. We adapt and begin to outgrow it or we risk dying in a human jungle of our own creation.
PAULINE: I can see how that was ambiguous…
I wasn’t asserting my personal belief in Truth with a capital T, which to me sounds like belief in a stock verbal formula that a person may confuse for an ability to name the whirlwind, so to speak. My point was that those who believe in and purport to defend a Truth that they can verbalize are really defending themselves: what possible defense would Truth need?
“I am partial (attached?) to the idea that there may be an unknowable purpose to life itself, at least unknowable to we humans with our limited senses and our unlimited egos. If I assume that is so, the burden of trying to prove anything to anyone falls away.”
Sounds good to me. That’s why I define God in my book as the One in whom we live and move and have our being. I leave it up to the reader to identify the One with being or reality itself or as a Creator existing in distinction from creation. My focus is experience, not doctrine. Like you, it leaves me with nothing to prove.
MISTI: Your comment points in a number of possible directions. To pick up on one:
“Willfully committed” or “freely chosen” sin is the west’s basic concept of misguided behavior. The east sees such behavior as ignorant or unenlightened.
While decision making clearly plays a role in moral and spiritual life, to me the idea that these decisions are perfectly free makes no sense.
If a person fully knows, understands and appreciates that doing X is wrong – knows why it’s wrong, feels deeply that it’s wrong, has real insight into the kind of harm it does – and, with equal consciousness, appreciates how right Y is… then why on earth would the person “freely choose” X? It would be like offering someone a slice of bread or a stone and they choose to bite into the stone...
I think that there are different levels of knowing right from wrong. Sometimes, for example, a person has partial insight and appreciation for why one line of conduct is right but it doesn’t yet go deep enough to keep the person from doing the wrong thing anyway.
You know, you reminded me of my catechism class when the nun taught us what mortal sin is..
1. The sin must be serious.
2. The sinner must know that it is serious.
3. Knowing that it is serious, the sinner still goes and commit it.
You seem to echo all that in what you said.
You put it so clearly well -- I just begin to experience, get a feel of your ideology of Faith. I am sorry I couldn't manage time to read older posts.I need to do it...
This one, I should say clarified many questions regarding 'non-attachment' in me, which were looking for an answer -- particulalry those in the spititual context...
and what you said for non-believers --I think that reveals the depth and breadth of your ideology.
If on a second reading I have any doubts..will come again.
thanks!
Prayers and Wishes
devika
Sometimes people know things, but not very deeply. What I have trouble with is the notion that people choose wrong with complete freedom. To me, complete freedom would mean choosing wrong despite a clear and deep understanding of what’s wrong with what‘s wrong and what’s right with what’s right.
It would be as if the Buddha, after his enlightenment experience and the full development of his compassion and his understanding of suffering and how to help alleviate it, had decided to devote his life to harming people. He would have had a truly serious – deep, internal, and profound – understanding of right from wrong, and yet gone out and done wrong anyway. I can’t imagine how or why a choice of this kind would be made.
It seems to me that when people cause harm, their knowledge of right and wrong is limited. For example, people often rationalize and find excuses for even heinous acts. I seriously doubt that, say, Osama Bin Laden views himself as a “bad guy” or “evildoer.”
DEVIKA, thanks, and to you and Firebird for giving me the idea of posting about this.
GAUTAMI: Yes. That is, as far as I can tell, the only way to go is a way to go, and finding out more about who you are in relation to life is a never-ending process with both hills and valleys.
And over time, it's possible for the average level of the terrain to rise.
This anxiety is so painful that I immediately try to become "unattached", by giving up my emotional need to hold on, like wiping the slate clean. (easier said than done!) It is the only way I can have peace of mind.
I feel that religious beliefs are not something to be "attached" to, but since people's beliefs often cause them to act in certain ways, that may threaten other people, or harm themselves--then I can see fighting against those actions. I'm not sure if this is the same as being attached to your own belief, but it has the same result.
By the way, all these comments here are wonderfully intelligent, I am enjoying reading them very much!
Please, Vishesh, do explain the "smell" concept, I am so interested!
"Of the Good in you I can speak, but not of the Evil. For what is Evil but Good -- tortured by its own hunger and thirst? When Good is hungry, it seeks food, even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters."
This speaks so beautifully about good/evil, and attachment...
I don't see myself getting to blog till weekend so people may want to respond to each other's comments if more come.
I'll only step in if if comes to fisticuffs.
Gotta love that word...
Bye till weekend...
Blessings,
Lance
Signed "Rhiannon who is trying to keep an open mind in this life the best she can"..I see a much wider open type tunnel now with a rainbow at the end of it.
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