Changes

The seeker of the integral state of knowledge must be free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p8</ref>

To gain the divine consciousness, one must know how to lose all attachments. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-march-1951#p2</ref>

There can be no true integral surrender to the Divine if any human relations and their habits and attachments are still maintained. All relations must be turned upward and directed to the Divine alone and transformed into means for the union and surrender.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/duty-towards-the-divine-and-others#p7</ref>

Attachment to the likings and repugnances keeps the soul bound in this web of good and evil, joys and sorrows.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-liberation-of-the-nature#p8</ref>

Attachments would be a stupendous inconvenience; for it would bind the reborn being to a useless repetition or a compulsory continuation of his surface past and stand heavily in the way of his bringing out new possibilities from the depths of the spirit

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/rebirth-and-other-worlds-karma-the-soul-and-immortality#p28</ref>

Immortality cannot come if there is attachment to the body,—for it is only by living in the immortal part of oneself which is unidentified with the body and bringing down its consciousness and force into the cells that it can come.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/february-1-1969#p1</ref>

=What Is Detachment?=

Detachment means standing back with part of the consciousness and observing what is being done without being involved in it. There is no "how" to that; you do it or try it until it succeeds.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p2</ref>

A state of detachment: "If I have it, I have it; if I don't, I don't"), there comes a moment when, if your state is quite sincere and you really need something (it must not be a fancy or a desire or a caprice but a true need), automatically the thing comes to you.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/5-may-1951#p4</ref>

Detachment means that one stands back from them, does not identify oneself with them or get upset or troubled because they are there, but rather looks on them as something foreign to one's true consciousness and true self, rejects them and calls in the Mother's Force into these movements to eliminate them and bring the true consciousness and its movements there. The firm will of rejection must be there, the pressure to get rid of them, but not any wrestling or struggle.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/descent-and-the-lower-nature#p12</ref>

Not the detachment which is equivalent to the annihilation of the capacity to feel, but the detachment which brings about the abolition of the capacity to suffer.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/28-may-1912#p16</ref>

The first thing is to detach your consciousness, that's most important. And to say: I-AM-NOT-THIS, it's something that has been ADDED, placed to enable me to touch Matter—but it isn't me. And then if you say, "That is me" (gesture upward), you'll see that you will be happy, because it is lovely—lovely, luminous, sparkling. It's really fine, it has an exceptional quality. And that's you. But you have to say, "That is me," and be convinced that it's you. Naturally, the old habits come to deny it, but you must know that they're old habits, nothing else, they don't matter—that is you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/04/november-20-1963#p77</ref>

It is to be rid of "I-ness" and "my-ness" so as to live in the one Self and act in the one Self; to reject the egoism of refusing to work through the individual centre of the universal Being as well as the egoism of serving the individual mind and life and body to the exclusion of others.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/renunciation</ref>

You must give up all attachment to these things, so that you may feel capable of living without them, or rather so that you may be ready, if they leave you, to rebuild a new life for yourself, in new circumstances

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-fear-of-death-and-the-four-methods-of-conquering-it#p10</ref>

The sign of freedom from attachment is that one has no craving and can do without things without feeling anything for that or disappointment at their loss or absence or hankering or wish to have them. If one has, one takes the rasa in a free unattached way—if one does not get or loses them, it makes not the slightest difference. The true Ananda is the Ananda of the Divine and when one has the Yogic consciousness, it is the Divine one sees everywhere and has the Ananda of that, but there is no attachment to objects as objects.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p12</ref>

To be free from all attachment does not mean running away from all occasion for attachment. All these people who assert their asceticism, not only run away but warn others not to try! This seems so obvious to me. When you need to run away from a thing in order not to experience it, it means that you are not above it, you are still on the same level. Anything that suppresses, diminishes or lessens cannot bring freedom. Freedom has to be experienced in the whole of life and in all sensations. As a matter of fact I have made a whole series of studies on the subject, on the purely physical plane.... In order to be above all possible error, we tend to eliminate any occasion for error. For example, if you do not want to say any useless words, you stop speaking; people who take a vow of silence imagine that this is control of speech—it is not true! It is only eliminating the occasion for speech and therefore for saying useless things. It is the same thing with food: eating only what is necessary. In the transitional state we have reached, we no longer want to lead this entirely animal life based on material exchange and food; but it would be foolish to believe that we have reached a state where the body can subsist entirely without food—nevertheless there is already a great difference, since they are trying to find the essential nutrients in things in order to lessen the volume. But the natural tendency is to fast—it is a mistake! <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-103-104-105-106-107#p8,p9,p10,p11</ref>

One should not attach too much importance to the life of the body. The body is only an incident in the progress of the soul. Evolution of the soul is the objective of Karmic existence. When one has realised the soul, knowledge and enlightenment come and all the problems are solved. But before that, one should try to get peace, calm and light. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/levels-of-the-physical-being#p29</ref>

Detach yourself from the outer being; live in the inner; let the Force work from the inner being—it will change the outer being.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p66</ref>

Detach yourself as much as possible from the body, think of it as a mere case, leave it to the care of God and His Shakti. Above all dismiss anxiety and fear. You cannot care more for yourself than God cares for you. Only your care is likely to be ignorant and unwise; His is with knowledge and uses the right means to the right end.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/11/yogic-sadhan#p60</ref>

=Why to Practice Detachment?=

To become indifferent to the attraction of outer objects is one of the first rules of Yoga, for this non-attachment liberates the inner being into peace and the true consciousness.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#</ref>

To lead the spiritual life … the first point is to overcome, all the attachments, for all these are absolutely contrary to the spiritual life.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/conditions-for-admission</ref>

Entire loss of all relations of friendship and affection and attachment to the world and its living beings would be regarded as a promising sign of advance towards liberation, Moksha

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/human-relations-and-the-spiritual-life#p8</ref>

As for immortality, it cannot come if there is attachment to the body,—for it is only by living in the immortal part of oneself which is unidentified with the body and bringing down its consciousness and force into the cells that it can come. <ref>htttp://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/transformation-and-the-body#p29</ref>

An attitude of perfect detachment and equality, a firm removal of the natural being's attraction to the objects of the senses and a radical freedom from the claims of that constant clamorous ego-sense, ego-idea, ego-motive which tyrannises over the normal man. There is no longer any clinging to the attachment and absorption of family and home. There is instead of these vital and animal movements an unattached will and sense and intelligence, a keen perception of the defective nature of the ordinary life of physical man with its aimless and painful subjection to birth and death and disease and age, a constant equalness to all pleasant or unpleasant happenings,—for the soul is seated within and impervious to the shocks of external events,—and a meditative mind turned towards solitude and away from the vain noise of crowds and the assemblies of men. Finally, there is a strong turn within towards the things that really matter, a philosophic perception of the true sense and large principles of existence, a tranquil continuity of inner spiritual knowledge and light, the Yoga of an unswerving devotion, love of God, the heart's deep and constant adoration of the universal and eternal Presence.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/the-field-and-its-knower#p7</ref>

==For Understanding One’s Nature==

The initial advantage of this process of detachment is that one begins to understand one's own nature and all Nature. The detached Witness is able to see entirely without the least blinding by egoism the play of her modes of the Ignorance and to pursue it into all its ramifications, coverings and subtleties—for it is full of camouflage and disguise and snare and treachery and ruse.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-three-modes-of-nature#p12</ref>

By this act of partial detachment we are able not only to experience ourselves dynamically in the becoming, in the process of movement of conscious-force itself, but to stand back, perceive and observe ourselves and, if the detachment is sufficient, to control our feeling and action, control to some extent our becoming. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/memory-ego-and-self-experience#p5</ref>

Vital attachments and impulses be replaced by the spiritual motive. Bhakti, devotion to the Divine, and the spirit of service to the Divine are among the most powerful means for this change. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/work-and-yoga#p62</ref>

==For Peace==

The mind can become quiet only when you detach yourself from it and see the thoughts as things that pass. Then you don't think yourself but see thoughts passing through your mind

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p23</ref>

When one goes into the inner consciousness, it is felt as a calm, pure existence without any movement, but eternally tranquil, unmoved and separate from the outer nature. This comes as a result of detaching oneself from the movements, standing back from them and is a very important movement of the sadhana. The first result of it is an entire quietude, but afterwards that quietude begins (without the quietude ceasing) to fill with the psychic and other inner movements which create a true inner and spiritual life behind the outer life and nature. It is then easier to govern and change the latter.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude#p8</ref>

==For Harmony==

Detachment is the ESSENTIAL condition for the establishment of true Harmony in the most material Matter—the most external, physical Matter

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/january-31-1961#p11</ref>

==For Progress==

Detachment, silence, inner peace are certainly indispensable for the spiritual progress—a quiet peace-filled detachment.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace-the-basis-of-the-sadhana#p28</ref>

A calm, equal and detached mind can alone reflect the peace or base the action of the liberated spirit.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-intelligence-and-will#p11</ref>

Detachment gives at its highest a certain freedom from the compulsion of the soul by its mental nature. For ordinarily we are driven and carried along in the stream of our own and the universal active energy partly floundering in its waves, partly maintaining and seeming to guide or at least propel ourselves by a collected thought and an effort of the mental will muscle; but now there is a part of ourselves, nearest to the pure essence of self, which is free from the stream, can quietly observe and to a certain extent decide its immediate movement and course and to a greater extent its ultimate direction. The Purusha can at last act upon the Prakriti from half apart, from behind or from above her as a presiding person or presence, ''adhyakṣa'', by the power of sanction and control inherent in the spirit.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divine-shakti#p8</ref>

=How to Practice Detachment?=

Nor will the seeking of the Divine through life and the meeting of him in all the activities of his being and of the universal being be absent from the scope of his worship. All Nature and all life will be to him at once a revelation and a fine trysting-place. Intellectual and aesthetic and dynamic activities, science and philosophy and life, thought and art and action will assume for him a diviner sanction and a greater meaning. He will seek them because of his clear sight of the Divine through them and because of the delight of the Divine in them. He will not be indeed attached to their appearances, for attachment is an obstacle to the Ananda; but because he possesses that pure, powerful and perfect Ananda which obtains everything but is dependent on nothing, and because he finds in them the ways and acts and signs, the becomings and the symbols and images of the Beloved, he draws from them a rapture which the normal mind that pursues them for themselves cannot attain or even dream. All this and more becomes part of the integral way and its consummation.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-delight-of-the-divine#p7</ref>

The desire-mind must also be rejected from the instrument of thought and this is best done by the detachment of the Purusha from thought and opinion itself. Of this we have already had occasion to speak when we considered in what consists the integral purification of the being. For all this movement of knowledge which we are describing is a method of purification and liberation whereby entire and final self-knowledge becomes possible, a progressive self-knowledge being itself the instrument of the purification and liberation. The method with the thought-mind will be the same as with all the rest of the being. The Purusha, having used the thought-mind for release[p.354] from identification with the life and body and with the mind of desire and sensations and emotions, will turn round upon the thought-mind itself and will say "This too I am not; I am not the thought or the thinker; all these ideas, opinions, speculations, strivings of the intellect, its predilections, preferences, dogmas, doubts, self-corrections are not myself; all this is only a working of Prakriti which takes place in the thought-mind." Thus a division is created between the mind that thinks and wills and the mind that observes and the Purusha becomes the witness only; he sees, he understands the process and laws of his thought, but detaches himself from it.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-the-heart-and-the-mind#p9</ref>

==Attitude==

You have only to imagine everything that has been done before and all that will be done later and all that is happening now, and you will then realise that your action is a breath, like this, one second in eternity, and you can no longer be attached to it."

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/29-september-1954#p34</ref>

It is from ''within'' that you must become master of your lower nature by establishing your consciousness firmly in a domain that is free of all desire and attachment because it is under the influence of the divine Light and Force. It is a long and exacting labour which must be undertaken with an unfailing sincerity and a tireless perseverance.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/26-august-1964#p2</ref>

"Act without being attached to the result of action, have this consciousness that it is not you who are acting, it is the Divine who is acting",

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/22-february-1956#p25</ref>

When one wants to detach oneself from something, from a certain movement or activity or state of consciousness, this is the most effective method; one steps back a little, watches the thing like that, as one would watch a scene in a play, and one doesn't intervene. And a moment later, the thing doesn't concern you any longer, it is something which takes place outside you. Then you become very calm.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-april-1956#p7</ref>

Witness means an observer, someone who looks on and does not act himself. So, when the mind is very quiet, one can withdraw a little in this way from circumstances and look at things as though he were a witness, a spectator, and not participating in the action himself. This gives you a great detachment, a great quietude, and also a very precise see of the value of things, because it cuts the attachment to action.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/13-october-1954#p2</ref>

This detachment of the mind must be strengthened by a certain attitude of indifference to the things of the body; we must not care essentially about its sleep or its waking, its movement or its rest, its pain or its pleasure, its health or ill-health, its vigour or its fatigue, its comfort or its discomfort, or what it eats or drinks. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-subjection-to-the-body#p2</ref>

All these attitudes the yoga recommends—beginning with action done as offering, then complete detachment from the result (leaving the result to the Lord), then perfect equanimity in all circumstances, all these stages which one understands intellectually, feels sentimentally, and has fully experienced—well, all this takes on its TRUE MEANING only when it becomes what could be called a mechanical action of vibration—at that point one understands why it must be like it is.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/june-24-1961#p57</ref>

==Towards Work==

"You must be able, if you are ready to follow the Divine order, to take up whatever work you are given, even a stupendous work, and leave it the next day with the same quietness with which you took it up and not feel that the responsibility is yours. There should be no attachment—to any object or any mode of life. You must be absolutely free."

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/10-february-1951#p1</ref>

"Therefore without attachment perform ever the work that is to be done (done for the sake of the world, lokasaṅgraha, as is made clear immediately afterward); for by doing work without attachment man attains to the highest. For it was even by works that Janaka and the rest attained to perfection."

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/the-significance-of-sacrifice#p2</ref>

The renunciation of attachment to the work and its fruit is the beginning of a wide movement towards an absolute equality in the mind and soul which must become all-enveloping if we are to be perfect in the spirit. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/equality-and-the-annihilation-of-ego#p4</ref>

For so long as we work with attachment to the result, the sacrifice is offered not to the Divine, but to our ego. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/equality-and-the-annihilation-of-ego#p2</ref>

Not do action for the sake of any personal result or for any reward in this life or with any attachment to success, profit or consequence: neither will his works be undertaken for the sake of a fruit in the invisible hereafter or ask for a reward in other births or in worlds beyond us, the prizes for which the half-baked religious mind hungers

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/the-gunas-mind-and-works#p5</ref>

Karmayoga? It is non-attachment, it is to do works without clinging with the mind to the objects of sense and the fruit of the works. Not complete inaction, which is an error, a confusion, a self-delusion, an impossibility, but action full and free done without subjection to sense and passion, desireless and unattached works, are the first secret of perfection.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/works-and-sacrifice#p5</ref>

How can we change this nature of the doer of works in us? By dissociating works from ego and personality, by seeing through the reason that all this is only the play of the gunas of Nature, and by dissociating our soul from the play, by making it first of all the observer of the workings of Nature and leaving those works to the Power that is really behind them, the something in Nature which is greater than ourselves, not our personality, but the Master of the universe. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/the-gist-of-the-karmayoga</ref>

"To action thou hast a right but never under any circumstances to its fruit." The fruit belongs solely to the Lord of all works; our only business with it is to prepare success by a true and careful action and to offer it, if it comes, to the divine Master;... the Divine Shakti must be known and felt above and within us as the true and sole worker.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/equality-and-the-annihilation-of-ego#p3</ref>

==Towards Materialistic Things==

Simply this attitude: when a thing comes to you, to take it, use it; when for one reason or another it goes away, to let it go and not regret it. Not to refuse it when it comes, to know how to adapt yourself and not to regret it when it goes. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/15-december-1954#p12</ref>

When he lives in the midst of materialistic things, it is well with him; when these things are gone, it is well also; he is totally indifferent to both. That is the right attitude: when it is there he uses it, when it is not he does without it. And for his inner consciousness this makes no difference. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/3-may-1951#p7</ref>

You must take care of it not because you are attached to it, but because it manifests something of the Divine Consciousness.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/care-of-material-things#p10</ref>

About the attachment to things, the physical rejection of them is not the best way to get rid of it. Accept what is given you, ask for what is needed and think no more of it—attaching no importance, using them when you have, not troubled if you have not. That is the best way of getting rid of the attachment.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p14</ref>

Enjoy your material possessions in such spirit of detachment that you will not be overjoyed by gain, nor cast down by loss, is the test of its reality,—not the mere flight from their presence, which is simply a flight from temptation. The Karmayogin has to remain in the world & conquer it; he is not allowed to flee from the scene of conflict and shun the battle. His part in life is the part of the hero,—the one quality he must possess, is the lionlike courage that will dare to meet its spiritual enemies in their own country and citadel and tread them down under its heel. A spiritual abandonment then,—for the body only matters as the case of the spirit; it is the spirit on which the Karmayogin must concentrate his effort.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/17/the-law-of-renunciation#p17</ref>

==Towards Food==

It is not by abstaining from food that you can make a spiritual progress. It is by being free, not only from all attachment and all desire and preoccupation with food, but even from all need for it; by being in the state in which all these things are so foreign to your consciousness that they have no place there.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/12-june-1957#p5</ref>

As to food the best way usually is to take the food given you, practise non-attachment and follow no fancies. That would mean giving up the Sunday indulgence. The rest must be done by an inner change of consciousness and not by external means. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/food#p2</ref>

==Towards Illness==

Illness is a wrong movement of the body and is no more to be cherished than a wrong movement of the mind or vital. Pain and illness have to be borne with calm, detachment and equanimity, but not cherished—the sooner one gets rid of them the better.

<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p61</ref>

I suppose there are only two ways [to prevent the lowering effect of pain]: (1) to think of something else if you can manage it, (2) to be able to detach yourself from the body consciousness, so that the body alone feels the pain, the mind and the vital are not affected.