How to balance attachment and detachment in daily life?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How to practice attachment with detachment in day-to-day life? The important thing is to always have our purpose in mind.
There are times when we may veer towards attachment, when we become too emotional. Or there are times when we may veer towards detachment, when we may just become too cold or hard-hearted. But if we keep our purpose in mind, what is it that I am trying to do over here? That purpose will bring a sense of balance.
Sometimes we may become too emotional, sometimes we may become too cold. That is just like when a plane is flying, the plane never goes in one straight line from point A to point B. Winds come along, sometimes it goes this way, sometimes it goes that way. But then the pilot is aware, this is the destination I want to go to.
The pilot re-orients the plane. That is how the plane reaches the destination. So like that, we will go through phases of attachment as well as detachment.
But if we keep our purpose in mind, then we will be able to refocus ourselves. From whichever extreme we veer towards, we will come back on track. And for keeping a purpose in mind, it is important to make ourselves spiritually strong.
Because what happens in material life, we can have many different purposes. Okay, I want a job, I want this, I want that. These are also important purposes.
But these purposes themselves can work at cross-purpose sometimes. So my role as a professional in office and my role as a family member at home or say my role as a spouse and my role as a parent. There are so many roles which may work at cross-purpose.
So if we understand our fundamental identity that I am a part of God and I am meant to serve God. So okay, I am doing a job, that is for service. That is ultimately one way I am serving.
I am a parent, that is another way I am serving. So when we talk about having that sense of that balance between attachment and detachment, we need something fundamental on which we can rest. So we have many roles in our life.
A role as a parent, a role as a spouse, a role as a professional, this role, that role. But underlying all those roles is our fundamental identity. So if by spiritual practices we root ourselves in our fundamental identity that actually I am a soul, I am a part of God, I am meant to serve God.
And in all the situations, there are just different ways in which I can serve. Serve God. Then with that understanding we can create the necessary distance from whichever role we are acting.
And then because I understand I am not this role, I am not a parent, I am not a spouse, I am fundamentally a soul. So whenever the distance is required, remembering our fundamental identity, that can create the distance. So we can have the necessary detachment.
Along with that we also want to do whatever role we are playing, we want to do it well, we want to do it responsibly. So that again, if we understand that actually I am a soul, I am meant to serve God and through these activities also I can serve. So therefore, I want to do this service well.
So we can be involved in the activity without being consumed by the activity. That will happen when we have a sense of our identity which is different from the role that we are playing. At the same time, we recognize the importance of the role.
So by our spiritual practices, especially by our scriptural study, by our chanting of the holy names, we become rooted. We experience God, we experience security in our relationship with God. And then by that security, we can achieve the appropriate balance of attachment and detachment.
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