On Attachment

Swami Vivekananda on Attachment:

Be “unattached”; let things work; let brain centres work; work incessantly, but let not a ripple conquer the mind.

To attain this unattachment is almost a life-work.

Attachment comes only where we expect a return.

If working like slaves results in selfishness and attachment, working as master of our own mind gives rise to the bliss of non-attachment.

It is the worker who is attached to results that grumbles about the nature of the duty which has fallen to his lot; to the unattached worker all duties are equally good, and form efficient instruments with which selfishness and sensuality may be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured.

If we were really unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could cheerfully do good work in the world.

To work properly, therefore, you have first to give up the idea of attachment. Secondly, do not mix in the fray, hold yourself as a witness and go on working.

By non-attachment, you overcome and deny the power of anything to act upon you.

Work incessantly, but give up all attachment to work.

Misery comes through attachment, not through work.

Non-attachment does not mean anything that we may do in relation to our external body, it is all in the mind.

Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment.

If we work in this way, if we always remember that our present opportunity to work thus is a privilege which has been given to us, we shall never be attached to anything.

As soon as extreme attachment comes, a man loses himself, he is no more master of himself, he is a slave.

You who have read the Gitâ see all through the book that the one idea is non-attachment. Remain unattached.

That man alone will be able to get the best of nature, who, having the power of attaching himself to a thing with all his energy, has also the power to detach himself when he should do so. The difficulty is that there must be as much power of attachment as that of detachment.

***