This is a very difficult subject you are asking me. If you can get it, you are the master of yourself. In India, we have been thinking about this for many thousands of years. How to live a detached life? Why not renounce everything and go to the mountains? We realized that does not serve the purpose.
There is a very good book which most Indians study every day, known as the Bhagavad Gita. This book deals with this basic problem. It is neither the western society nor the eastern society, but it is in the nature of man to live a life of attachment. This instinct of attachment is so peculiar that it cannot only bind you by a big property, but it can also bind you through a small needle.
You may have attachment for a very big property and I may have attachment for a little gold, but the sufferings are the same. Therefore, you will have to analyse the whole situation. There is no use fighting with the items of attachment. There is also no use practising detachment now and here. There are certain procedures, preparations of the mind which bring you to a point of detachment.
Detachment does not mean dissociation with the objects, your people and property. Detachment is a philosophy, an outlook, a way of dealing with the matters of your life. Even if you renounce your duties and obligations, even if you renounce your family, friends, beloved and relatives, even if you renounce your present situation of life, even if you renounce your country and everything, or you remain half clad in the mountains living on a little food, still you may be attached to your ego.
This external attachment to the object is an expression of your attachment to your ego. If you can detach yourself from your ego, it does not matter where you live, with whom you live and whom you love. This detachment is called sannyasa.
In the Bhagavad Gita, the dialogue takes place between Krishna and Arjuna and this is a constant dialogue on the nature and the aftereffect of karma on man. After all, your suffering comes from the karma, your interactions. You think if you did not have family and obligations you would be very happy. If you had a lot of money in the bank and did not have to work, you think, ‘Ah, how nice it would be,’ you would be the happiest person. You think, ‘I have to work for my family, my parents, my children that is why I have so many sufferings.’ The Bhagavad Gita deals with the problem. The essence is, ‘Work is not the cause of suffering; interaction between two individuals is not the cause of suffering. The consequences of the karma are not the cause of suffering. The cause of suffering is man’s involvement with his own ego.’
The maid-servant is working in your family. She looks after you, your children and everybody. When she receives the news that her child is ill, she is disturbed. She goes away. Then your child falls ill and you write a letter to her saying, ‘Please come, my child is sick,’ but it does not affect her. Her ego is involved there and not with you. Ego is ahamkara. This is your real personality; this is what you are. You must offer this ego either to God, guru, or a higher purpose in life.
If you do not dedicate your ego, you can never practise detachment. Whether you have a family, or you are a monk or mendicant, it makes no difference unless you have dedicated your ego to somebody.
In the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita this is discussed and it is really a very wonderful discussion on the philosophy of practical life. The Bhagavad Gita is a book in Sanskrit which has seven hundred verses. It has been commended by great scholars of the world. Throughout the spiritual history of India, all the great people received inspiration from the Gita.
22 September 1982, Lipica, Slovenia (former Yugoslavia)