NON-ATTACHMENT — The mind’s sticking on to the various objects of the world with extreme liking for them is called attachment. It is the mental contacts with the world-outside that bring agitations into the mind. It dances a number to the tune of death to which the finite objects of the world most often dance. Fire in itself cannot burn, but a child gets its fingers burnt, not because of the fire but because its fingers, propelled by a force called desire, come in actual CONTACT with fire.

ABSENCE OF EXCESSIVE LOVE FOR CHILD, WIFE, HOME AND THE LIKE — Excessive love, or affection, is an intense form of attachment to another. It consists in our total identification with the object of our affection. The lover loses his personal identity in his identification with the beloved to such an extent, that he is happy or sorrowful when she lives in joy or suffers from pain. Such an intimate relationship is generally met with in the attachment of a mother to its child.

To build a wall of discrimination around our inner personality and to keep such disturbances away is to discover the equipoise in ourselves — without which no progress or growth is ever possible.

With a little practice, this evenness of mind can be maintained unbroken in all situations of life — DESIRABLE and UNDESIRABLE. A human mind, relieved from its pre-occupations with its own present attachments and affections, unintelligent though they be, will discover in itself a tremendous amount of surplus energy conserved, which might flow into dangerous channels unless rightly directed.

THE RIGHT CHANNELLING OF THIS NEWLY DISCOVERED ENERGY IS INDICATED BELOW:

Asaktih, non-attachment-attachment means merely the kind for things arising from association; the absence of that is asaktih; and anabhisvangah, absence of fondness-abhisvangah, is in fact a special kind of attachment consisting of the idea of self-identification; as for instance, thinking ‘I myself am happy,’ or, ‘I am sorrowful,’ when somody else is happy or unhappy, and thinking ‘I live’, or, ‘I shall die,’ when some- body else lives or dies-With regard to what? In answer the Lord says: putra-dara-grhadisu, with regard to sons, wives, homes, etc. From the use of ‘etc.’ (it is understood that this fondness is) even with regard to others who are liked very much-retinue of sevants and so on. And since both these (absence of attachment and fondness) lead to Knowledge, therefore they are called Knowledge. And nityam, constant; sama-cittatvam, eanimity of mind, mental eipoise;-with regard to what?-ista-anista-upapattisu, the attainment of the desirable and the undesirable; mental eipoise with regard to them, always, without exception. One does not become happy on the attainment of the desirable, nor does he become angry on the attainment of the undesirable. And that constant eanimity of mind which is of this kind is Knowledge Further,