What is Attached?

We all have so many opportunities to know what is true in life. I mean really true, to know the truth of our Being. Every moment we encounter possible ways we might be relating to life from an illusory perspective. Every moment opens the door to seeing the narrow way the individual self lives and how the truth of our being lives. To see these two differences can be fascinating.

We all know what fear feels like; and worry, and wanting. We all know the grasping that can happen when the future looks scary. The mind goes into a pattern of thinking that repeats itself over and over. It feels like it’s stuck into a groove that it can’t escape. It feels attached to a story that can cause tremendous suffering and despair.

Of course the opportunity is to recognize these attachments. It’s not the stories that are necessarily the problem; it’s the attachments to them. These attachments are what can cause mind to repeat itself in a never ending predicament. And it’s the attachments to the story that cause us to actually believe that the stories are true. These attachments have nothing to do with the outer world, they are all happening within us. The invitation is to get curious about these attachments.

By attachments, I don’t mean all our belongings, our loved ones, or our life itself. By attachment, I mean what is stuck, what has actually attached itself inside. An attachment is the actual location of where a story or belief has attached itself, and what it has attached itself to. When we are attached, that is when we feel the small helpless, fearful self. The attachments tell us the world is a certain way, and people are a certain way, and things should be different. The attachments to these stories are what make up the small self. To see this location within; is to locate the small self. When we identify the location of the attachments, we are locating the small separate me. The attachments to beliefs are the same thing as the small self. They are not separate.  Once we locate where the beliefs are attached, we can then provide the space to identify the small self from the perspective of awareness.

Awareness does not have a problem with attachments. Only the small self will feel the need to do something about them. Awareness is fine; it might even feel some compassion for the small self and all its beliefs. From awareness we can even see how these beliefs might have created the world in which we find ourselves. The opportunity then is to see how awareness is not attached to these beliefs; that these beliefs that make up the small self are merely an energy that is contained within our body. Awareness of this energy, this small self, can give us tremendous distance from it. Awareness of this energy of the small self can be the grace to really rest in what we are, that which is free from all attachment.

But we must remain diligent to identify attachment, especially after recognizing what we really are. Awareness itself can remain free of attachment, but so often the small self can become attached to an experience of pure awareness! And this small self can subtly manipulate the pure perspective of awareness into something that is an experience, not a perspective. The small self will develop a definition of this experience of awareness, with certain attributes and names. These attachments to the experience of awareness might even trap us into the idea that awakening should feel a certain way, and not another way. The small self might even decide that now it “knows” about this experience of awareness, and want to convince everyone else that it knows! Of course when this is questioned, those attachments get all defensive and threatened; alas another opportunity to see them. But now those attachments have a lot invested in them, much more than the mundane attachments. These are the spiritual attachments, and the small self loves these so much. These attachments can make the small self feel good and important. They can make the small self feel accomplished and advanced.

What is unattached does not define itself in any way. What is unattached is free to move through each moment as a completely authentic expression. It does not confine its experience of itself in any definition. Both the non-dual perspective and the dual perspective may be experienced. But again there is no attachment whatsoever from this perspective. The freedom to flow wherever the moment wants to go without looking for even a conceptual “free” moment or “awakened” moment. The unattached is beyond every definition or description, because those are potential attachments as well.

The discovery of complete detachment is an ongoing one; we don’t just arrive there after awakening into our true nature. To discover the unattached is to discover pure potential, that which is not limited to any experience, concept or belief. To live from our true nature of no attachments will show us the most subtle attachments that may still exist within our body, and the invitation to keep discovering our limitless potential in the recognition of them.

Copyright 2011 Joi Sharp – Posted 3/22/11