Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Love and Non-Attachment
Love and Non-Attachment:
The Apparent Paradox within a Free Heart
I have learned that many things can happen when you drive for six hours with your teacher. If your teacher happens to be Jean Pierre, two things will surely take place: half of the trip you will laugh at yourself joyfully and for the rest of the time you will be sure to get into some sort of trouble-he will transform every question you ask into an assignment! By the time we had arrived at our destination, which was Charlottesville, Virginia (we were driving from New Jersey), what I had called ?my week of vacation? was turned into a research trip: I was to ask the attendees to the Federation of the Sufi Message Meeting what is their definition and, of course, their experience of non-attachment.
Immediately after we had met Saul in his wonderful carpet store Jean Pierre pushed me without delay into the water: ?Saul? - he said- ?Latifa has a question for you.? Gravely, I went ahead and stated my question. As soon as I finished talking Saul gave me a bear hug that included one of his legs around mine. ?I can tell you what attachment is!!? he said flirtatiously and then burst into laughter with that particular mixture of power and tenderness that only he is capable of attaining. Then he continued: ?Non attachment is to have sense of humor, not to take yourself too seriously; in my case that means: go and see a movie!? Then, he quickly raised his eyebrows a couple of times, like uncovering for a second the green secret of his glance, and there I had my first answer!
Aslan played a huge role in helping me to discover the importance of a sense of humor in the quest for non-attachment. He shared with me his version of a saying from Joe Miller that stands as a treasure of wisdom, true and simple: ?Spirituality is about 3 things: common sense, common sense and a sense of humor... or a sense of humor, a sense of humor and common sense, depending!? Aslan also gave me one of the most beautiful answers to my question when he replied: ?I don?t know, and I don?t care? he said, thrilled, while he laughed with his hands on his belly. I laughed too and understood that Aslan not only knew very well but cared very lovingly. He knew that concepts/explanations can be misleading and cared enough to realize that my heart could use a little joke. Later on he approached me and asked me to consider compassionate non-attachment, which I felt as being very far from indifference, just as Aslan was. All this connected naturally with Nawab?s answer. He said, gracefully as the gentleman he is, that non-attachment is very hard to define but that it comes out of love ?a wide, wide love, a love with no horizons!? He recalled a segment of The Inner Life in which Hazrat Inayat Khan uses the metaphor of toy tea cups offered to the spiritual person by a child: the wise would play with the tea cups never letting the child feel that he or she does not believe they are real, but the toy tea cups do not define the wise man or woman, they do not contain them.
?Non-attachment is a practice from the East and when it was brought to the West it became greatly misunderstood? explained Rani. She said that after being hurt we tend to build a wall around our hearts, and thus we remain separated. She explained that disappointment is a complex; unlike sensations which have a beginning and an end, disappointment becomes an anxiety, an ongoing state of terror, and because of this we look for ways to defend ourselves, every day new ways to maintain our isolation. Nonetheless, not caring or giving things up is not only unhealthy but unrealistic. She gave me an example of a young American monk she met in an Ashram when she visited India. He was very proud in saying that his only two possessions were his robe and his bowl. One day, his bowl was moved from the shelf of the kitchen and he got really upset. He made such a stir over his bowl having been moved! The lesson Rani derived from this was that ?we can narrow our attachments as much as we want but they only become more ferocious! We must learn to see ourselves, observe ourselves, and find a way in which our needs are met and at the same time we can enjoy pleasure and beauty without attaching.? Then she used that moment of our retreat as an example: ?We have this beautiful sunny afternoon on this deck; we are here now, and we enjoy it? but soon we will be called in, and the night will come, and later on we will go home and it will be over. Should we not enjoy this afternoon, this sun light, these relationships, this food, simply because we are aware that it all will end? No! By being detached our love becomes freer, unconditional, without expectations?. As Munawir said: ?Attachment is a great thing, necessary for the development of the ego?but there is a time when you must grow up. The capacity of loving everything requires that you no longer identify with others or yourself in order to embrace all. Like a well that keeps giving water: Loving just because.?
This is how my understanding of non-attachment started to unfold. Contrary to what we are inclined to believe, the ideal of attaining a state of non-attachment is not to distance our hearts or to protect them. Non attachment, in reality, opens up space for our hearts to keep growing, wider and wider, breaking up the limitations of our always-so-serious-ideas of who we are and how things ought to be. Subhan?s answer also referred to this. He said that attachment and non-attachment are part of our relationship with everything in life, big or small. He also said that ?When the bonds of the heart are released, we attain freedom.? He added that those bonds from the past could have been useful and even played a role in keeping us safe during our development but there is always a moment in which we must learn to let go.
My conversation with Halima added another piece to the experience of ?letting go?. We sat on the deck and for a second I felt as if she blended with the view: she was part of the forest behind her, so calmly full of life. ?Why are you asking about non attachment?? She inquired softly, just as the gentlest wind would try to make the leaves tell secrets. ?Well? I don?t know? I said, uncomfortably sitting in my concerns about relationships, my desire, my pain and my fears. Halima said: ?Everything passes; life is in continuous movement. Who are you? What are your opinions? What are your ideas about life? Even what you think God is will change. You will let go. You are in constant transformation. There is an essence, a core that remains, but all those other layers will fall.? Halima mentioned death and I said that I did not have an accurate idea about my own death. She looked tenderly at me and replied: ?But darling, death is not an idea, it is a reality.? I had to laugh, in both appreciation and humility in the awareness of my youth. Then she continued: ?I stared at my child when he was 5 minutes old, 5 hours old, 5 days old?and one day he will die. I could not imagine my life without him but a year before he was born I would not even dream about having a child.? Then she concluded: ?Impermanence and non-attachment are linked? and she said so, smiling peacefully.
Ananda also mentioned death in her answer. She mentioned that we die and die, once and many times, while the diamond of our heart is cleaned up from its covers. She also said that our physical death is the most accurate reflection of how attached or detached we are to life. Will we depart gracefully or with struggle? One of the many stories Asha told me, day by day as she elaborated on her answer, is related to this struggle: Once, when wondering about how life felt like, Vishnu allowed himself to descend free fall onto the world and he happened to land in a pig?s body. He laid down under the sun, fresh in the mud. He got so comfortable there that his work as the maintainer of the worlds begun to suffer and therefore the other gods decided to send an archer to awaken him. As Vishnu slowly left the pig?s body, he could feel this sort of regret?a God himself, he experienced the pain of leaving denseness!
As part of her answer, Latifa brought in the ?Death Box.? I walked with her when she went to pick it up from her car?s trunk and she, kindly and with care as everyone else, asked the reason why I was inquiring about non-attachment. I had already reached that point where my heart accepted that this assignment was far more relevant to my life than what I had previously thought. The pain of all the times when I had felt abandoned, deprived, disappointed or uncomfortable with how things turned out to be, probably showed in my eyes. I answered: ?You know? relationships and ideas about who I am and how things should be.? She nodded in understanding. She shared with me that there was a time when she was terrified of death and that was why she was given this ?Death Box? (a beautiful box that contained a plastic replica of a human skull and bones). She told me that she currently keeps it on her altar and she explained that once she overcame her fear, her awareness of death helped her to keep all things in perspective. Perspective is an important element of non-attachment, as I began to realize, because the right perspective allows space between us and ?our seductive point of view?, as Rama would say, and therefore we can see all things and circumstances in their perfection, even, or especially, when they contradict our expectations and desires.
?There is a beautiful paradox, said Shabda, because without desire there is no life!? Then he mentioned that it is often said that we must want our salvation as a drowning man wants some air; he pointed out that there is much passion there. So, he concluded, ?The problem arises when we are attached to the outcome of our desire. We make appointments with our happiness: when I meet my lover, when I get a better job or what ever?and then we are disappointed. Remember what Krishna told Arjuna: Do your work and leave the fruits to me?. Fazl said similarly when he stated that non attachment is doing whatever must be done with all our passion but without worrying about the results. Alima also used a beautiful metaphor from the The Bhagavad-Gita which expresses both complete presence and passion in the action, as well as the necessary letting go of the outcome: you take your arch and arrow, you aim the very best you can and then you release. Later on, Karimbakhsh?s answer nailed the whole thing down. He said that non-attachment is a capacity and its development requires a life-long effort. He added that it was deeply related to the path of attainment. This, in a superficial way, seemed like another paradox because the complete concentration and single-mindness (essential in the path of attainment) challenges our lazy interpretation of non-attachment as an excuse for not engaging ourselves and not tackling things. Karimbakhsh continued explaining that in the path of non-attachment and attainment we choose a goal that should meet three requirements: first, it should inspire us (again, we must work with passion, we must ?bring our hearts to it? as David would put it); second, our goal should be within reach; lastly, it should not hurt others. ?Once you attain that goal you let it go and then move to another one!? he said with enthusiasm.
?What are you attached to? Food, lust, body image, things, your parents, your relationships, being good, being bad??Asha asked, adding very down to earth elements to my inquiry. I replied that I thought I was attached to all of those! Her eyes received my answer and did not react with any judgment. Trying to elaborate on my question, I mentioned indifference and right away she said empathically: ?Oh no! Forget about indifference! Non attachment is more about not clinging.? She continued with the following example: ?Let?s say you want a chocolate and you don?t have any and that is ok: That is non-attachment. Let?s say you want a chocolate, you don?t have any, you go to the store, buy one, eat it, enjoy it and that is the end of it: that is non-attachment. But let?s say you want a chocolate and for some reason you can?t have it and you keep thinking and thinking and thinking about it: that is to be attached!? Then she followed with a story: Once, there were two monks on a journey and one of them happened to help a woman by carrying her across a river. Right before the monks arrived to their monastery, the other one accused him: ?You know that monks are not supposed to touch women!? To this, his companion replied: ?Are you still carrying that woman? I dropped her at the side of the river.?
When sharing about her own experience of attachment and non-attachment, Asha told me a story about a table her husband had built when they had first moved to Virginia, several years ago. Asha had requested a table with special instructions and subsequently, the rest of the house had been built around it. Now, her son in law, who currently lives in the house, wants to get rid of the table and Asha was able to identify the cause of her pain in having to let go. She was feeling attached, not to the table, but to what it represented in her life: ?It is all about identity. About what defines us- it is all about what we let define us. We cling. We are greedy of emotions, sensations... we always want more.?
To cling and to be greedy: That is to be attached. Hamida also brought up the element of greed in her answer when she said that non attachment is ?Not being greedy; letting your heart feel fully, without the fear of loosing.? She added that in the absence of fear we partake in the fullness of life?s experiences without being limited. This fullness of experience was what David pointed out in his answer when he said that we should cultivate ?absolute loyalty with complete detachment- like a warrior.? He said so referring to the fact that all relationships have a beginning and an end but regardless of this we ?must bring our hearts to them.? Thus, it is our fear of loosing that keeps us clinging and attached, but it is our willingness to let go that leads us to freedom and richer experiences and relationships. As David said while gesturing: ?To give (with his palm open), without grasping (closed fist). How do you hold more sand??
We will experience joy and pain, hope, disillusionment and despair. The blessing of non-attachment is not avoiding human life but developing the capacity to allow these feelings and thoughts in our beings without letting them define who we are and then recovering, healing and yes, ?letting them go.? Another one of Asha?s stories, this time about the Dalai Lama, goes like this: Once, his holiness was asked how he could not be in despair after knowing that his country and his people are in such suffering, and he replied: ?Ahhh, but I am. I just recover quicker.?
And why would the Dali Lama- or any of us- want to ?recover quicker?, especially if we understand that we are mostly attached to pleasurable/comfortable things? In my conversation with Nooranisa she had said that ?To be non-attached allows us to be present without lingering in the past or worrying about the future. It allows us to be anchored here and now and to be fresh to embrace whatever comes.? She said that it is a constant returning to the feeling of our bodies, a constant calling to the mind when it starts to wonder away, ?just as we would call a child who is heading towards a busy street.? In perfect timing Karimbakhsh read a fragment of Hazrat Inayat Khan?s words and his reading was completely relevant to the subject. Let me paraphrase: what was good for yesterday is not good for today and won?t be good for tomorrow. If we fail to do what is asked from the moment because we are too attached to our ideas of ourselves, or to what we would have wanted, the precious opportunity of the moment is lost! In caring for the preciousness of the present, Rama advised to be careful even of becoming attached to non- attachment, or to any other principle, because when principles make us too rigid we are likely to not respond to the calling of the moment.
To be present. To be free. To be flexible. To be capable of unconditional love. Yes, it all sounded wonderful. The question was no longer what is non-attachment but how do we become non-attached?
?That is easy, just don?t be there?, said Hidayat, and he gave me the same look children give you when they have done something and you don?t know yet but you are just about to find out?The day before Hidayat had spoken about the phrase ?this is not my body, this is the temple of God? and about the movements that accompany the phrase when doing prayer. He clarified that the movements of the head from left to right and then from top to bottom do not resemble the cross of crucifixion; they express that we don?t accept the limitation of our separated egos as real but that we long to reach the realization of God as the Only being? When Hidayat continued answering my question he scolded: ?Didn?t you hear anything from what I said yesterday?! This is not my body; this is the Temple of God. Sufism is not taking yourself too seriously but taking the others very seriously. That is Sufism, because Sufism means wisdom and that is wisdom!?
A few weeks after the Sufi Federation meeting, our community of friends from NYC was invited to participate in a series of conferences about the Abrahamic Prophets. As part of a discussion panel with representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Sufism, a woman from the public asked why, if God loved us so much, S/He designed our learning and development through so much pain. In answer to this, Andrew Vivic replied humbly by saying that we can not fathom to understand or dare to judge Allah?s reasons, but he also said that pain was not innate to our learning; he said that pain arises from our attachment, because we associate pain to the experience of loosing those things we mistakenly understand as the source of our happiness. He added: ?But nothing real can be lost, if we remember this and return our attention to God Who is the only reality, the rest could come and go?. That is exactly what Zakira said in answer to my question about non attachment. I asked her before the Dances of Universal peace and she gave me the answer after we had finished the Dances with a prayer. She said without any trace of doubt: ?What are you attached to? If you are attached to God everything else disappears.?
*
At the beginning of our trip Jean Pierre had told me: ?I won?t tell you what non-attachment is. I can tell you what non-attachment is NOT: it isn?t not caring and it isn?t not loving yourself and others?. After that, he sent me on my interviewing quest. At the end of the Sufi Federation Meeting and our trip, I had the blessing of understanding that the essence of the answer resided in the question. As Halima said with such precision and beauty: ?This is non-attachment: that you can care and love in freedom.?And what a wonderful synchronicity was it to hear the elders of all the Sufi branches stating over and over during that week: ?What is the Sufi Message? The Sufi Message is the Message of Spiritual Freedom!?
May all beings have the blessing of a family of friends with whom to share the road towards their liberty! May the message of God reach far and wide!
In love and gratitude to all attendees to the 2007 Federation of the Sufi Message Meeting, and especially to Jean Pierre, who could simply state the answers but who chooses, over and over again, to be a loving companion on the journey of all my questions.
Latifa Juanita
Latifa is a mureed in the Sufi Ruhaniat
The Apparent Paradox within a Free Heart
I have learned that many things can happen when you drive for six hours with your teacher. If your teacher happens to be Jean Pierre, two things will surely take place: half of the trip you will laugh at yourself joyfully and for the rest of the time you will be sure to get into some sort of trouble-he will transform every question you ask into an assignment! By the time we had arrived at our destination, which was Charlottesville, Virginia (we were driving from New Jersey), what I had called ?my week of vacation? was turned into a research trip: I was to ask the attendees to the Federation of the Sufi Message Meeting what is their definition and, of course, their experience of non-attachment.
Immediately after we had met Saul in his wonderful carpet store Jean Pierre pushed me without delay into the water: ?Saul? - he said- ?Latifa has a question for you.? Gravely, I went ahead and stated my question. As soon as I finished talking Saul gave me a bear hug that included one of his legs around mine. ?I can tell you what attachment is!!? he said flirtatiously and then burst into laughter with that particular mixture of power and tenderness that only he is capable of attaining. Then he continued: ?Non attachment is to have sense of humor, not to take yourself too seriously; in my case that means: go and see a movie!? Then, he quickly raised his eyebrows a couple of times, like uncovering for a second the green secret of his glance, and there I had my first answer!
Aslan played a huge role in helping me to discover the importance of a sense of humor in the quest for non-attachment. He shared with me his version of a saying from Joe Miller that stands as a treasure of wisdom, true and simple: ?Spirituality is about 3 things: common sense, common sense and a sense of humor... or a sense of humor, a sense of humor and common sense, depending!? Aslan also gave me one of the most beautiful answers to my question when he replied: ?I don?t know, and I don?t care? he said, thrilled, while he laughed with his hands on his belly. I laughed too and understood that Aslan not only knew very well but cared very lovingly. He knew that concepts/explanations can be misleading and cared enough to realize that my heart could use a little joke. Later on he approached me and asked me to consider compassionate non-attachment, which I felt as being very far from indifference, just as Aslan was. All this connected naturally with Nawab?s answer. He said, gracefully as the gentleman he is, that non-attachment is very hard to define but that it comes out of love ?a wide, wide love, a love with no horizons!? He recalled a segment of The Inner Life in which Hazrat Inayat Khan uses the metaphor of toy tea cups offered to the spiritual person by a child: the wise would play with the tea cups never letting the child feel that he or she does not believe they are real, but the toy tea cups do not define the wise man or woman, they do not contain them.
?Non-attachment is a practice from the East and when it was brought to the West it became greatly misunderstood? explained Rani. She said that after being hurt we tend to build a wall around our hearts, and thus we remain separated. She explained that disappointment is a complex; unlike sensations which have a beginning and an end, disappointment becomes an anxiety, an ongoing state of terror, and because of this we look for ways to defend ourselves, every day new ways to maintain our isolation. Nonetheless, not caring or giving things up is not only unhealthy but unrealistic. She gave me an example of a young American monk she met in an Ashram when she visited India. He was very proud in saying that his only two possessions were his robe and his bowl. One day, his bowl was moved from the shelf of the kitchen and he got really upset. He made such a stir over his bowl having been moved! The lesson Rani derived from this was that ?we can narrow our attachments as much as we want but they only become more ferocious! We must learn to see ourselves, observe ourselves, and find a way in which our needs are met and at the same time we can enjoy pleasure and beauty without attaching.? Then she used that moment of our retreat as an example: ?We have this beautiful sunny afternoon on this deck; we are here now, and we enjoy it? but soon we will be called in, and the night will come, and later on we will go home and it will be over. Should we not enjoy this afternoon, this sun light, these relationships, this food, simply because we are aware that it all will end? No! By being detached our love becomes freer, unconditional, without expectations?. As Munawir said: ?Attachment is a great thing, necessary for the development of the ego?but there is a time when you must grow up. The capacity of loving everything requires that you no longer identify with others or yourself in order to embrace all. Like a well that keeps giving water: Loving just because.?
This is how my understanding of non-attachment started to unfold. Contrary to what we are inclined to believe, the ideal of attaining a state of non-attachment is not to distance our hearts or to protect them. Non attachment, in reality, opens up space for our hearts to keep growing, wider and wider, breaking up the limitations of our always-so-serious-ideas of who we are and how things ought to be. Subhan?s answer also referred to this. He said that attachment and non-attachment are part of our relationship with everything in life, big or small. He also said that ?When the bonds of the heart are released, we attain freedom.? He added that those bonds from the past could have been useful and even played a role in keeping us safe during our development but there is always a moment in which we must learn to let go.
My conversation with Halima added another piece to the experience of ?letting go?. We sat on the deck and for a second I felt as if she blended with the view: she was part of the forest behind her, so calmly full of life. ?Why are you asking about non attachment?? She inquired softly, just as the gentlest wind would try to make the leaves tell secrets. ?Well? I don?t know? I said, uncomfortably sitting in my concerns about relationships, my desire, my pain and my fears. Halima said: ?Everything passes; life is in continuous movement. Who are you? What are your opinions? What are your ideas about life? Even what you think God is will change. You will let go. You are in constant transformation. There is an essence, a core that remains, but all those other layers will fall.? Halima mentioned death and I said that I did not have an accurate idea about my own death. She looked tenderly at me and replied: ?But darling, death is not an idea, it is a reality.? I had to laugh, in both appreciation and humility in the awareness of my youth. Then she continued: ?I stared at my child when he was 5 minutes old, 5 hours old, 5 days old?and one day he will die. I could not imagine my life without him but a year before he was born I would not even dream about having a child.? Then she concluded: ?Impermanence and non-attachment are linked? and she said so, smiling peacefully.
Ananda also mentioned death in her answer. She mentioned that we die and die, once and many times, while the diamond of our heart is cleaned up from its covers. She also said that our physical death is the most accurate reflection of how attached or detached we are to life. Will we depart gracefully or with struggle? One of the many stories Asha told me, day by day as she elaborated on her answer, is related to this struggle: Once, when wondering about how life felt like, Vishnu allowed himself to descend free fall onto the world and he happened to land in a pig?s body. He laid down under the sun, fresh in the mud. He got so comfortable there that his work as the maintainer of the worlds begun to suffer and therefore the other gods decided to send an archer to awaken him. As Vishnu slowly left the pig?s body, he could feel this sort of regret?a God himself, he experienced the pain of leaving denseness!
As part of her answer, Latifa brought in the ?Death Box.? I walked with her when she went to pick it up from her car?s trunk and she, kindly and with care as everyone else, asked the reason why I was inquiring about non-attachment. I had already reached that point where my heart accepted that this assignment was far more relevant to my life than what I had previously thought. The pain of all the times when I had felt abandoned, deprived, disappointed or uncomfortable with how things turned out to be, probably showed in my eyes. I answered: ?You know? relationships and ideas about who I am and how things should be.? She nodded in understanding. She shared with me that there was a time when she was terrified of death and that was why she was given this ?Death Box? (a beautiful box that contained a plastic replica of a human skull and bones). She told me that she currently keeps it on her altar and she explained that once she overcame her fear, her awareness of death helped her to keep all things in perspective. Perspective is an important element of non-attachment, as I began to realize, because the right perspective allows space between us and ?our seductive point of view?, as Rama would say, and therefore we can see all things and circumstances in their perfection, even, or especially, when they contradict our expectations and desires.
?There is a beautiful paradox, said Shabda, because without desire there is no life!? Then he mentioned that it is often said that we must want our salvation as a drowning man wants some air; he pointed out that there is much passion there. So, he concluded, ?The problem arises when we are attached to the outcome of our desire. We make appointments with our happiness: when I meet my lover, when I get a better job or what ever?and then we are disappointed. Remember what Krishna told Arjuna: Do your work and leave the fruits to me?. Fazl said similarly when he stated that non attachment is doing whatever must be done with all our passion but without worrying about the results. Alima also used a beautiful metaphor from the The Bhagavad-Gita which expresses both complete presence and passion in the action, as well as the necessary letting go of the outcome: you take your arch and arrow, you aim the very best you can and then you release. Later on, Karimbakhsh?s answer nailed the whole thing down. He said that non-attachment is a capacity and its development requires a life-long effort. He added that it was deeply related to the path of attainment. This, in a superficial way, seemed like another paradox because the complete concentration and single-mindness (essential in the path of attainment) challenges our lazy interpretation of non-attachment as an excuse for not engaging ourselves and not tackling things. Karimbakhsh continued explaining that in the path of non-attachment and attainment we choose a goal that should meet three requirements: first, it should inspire us (again, we must work with passion, we must ?bring our hearts to it? as David would put it); second, our goal should be within reach; lastly, it should not hurt others. ?Once you attain that goal you let it go and then move to another one!? he said with enthusiasm.
?What are you attached to? Food, lust, body image, things, your parents, your relationships, being good, being bad??Asha asked, adding very down to earth elements to my inquiry. I replied that I thought I was attached to all of those! Her eyes received my answer and did not react with any judgment. Trying to elaborate on my question, I mentioned indifference and right away she said empathically: ?Oh no! Forget about indifference! Non attachment is more about not clinging.? She continued with the following example: ?Let?s say you want a chocolate and you don?t have any and that is ok: That is non-attachment. Let?s say you want a chocolate, you don?t have any, you go to the store, buy one, eat it, enjoy it and that is the end of it: that is non-attachment. But let?s say you want a chocolate and for some reason you can?t have it and you keep thinking and thinking and thinking about it: that is to be attached!? Then she followed with a story: Once, there were two monks on a journey and one of them happened to help a woman by carrying her across a river. Right before the monks arrived to their monastery, the other one accused him: ?You know that monks are not supposed to touch women!? To this, his companion replied: ?Are you still carrying that woman? I dropped her at the side of the river.?
When sharing about her own experience of attachment and non-attachment, Asha told me a story about a table her husband had built when they had first moved to Virginia, several years ago. Asha had requested a table with special instructions and subsequently, the rest of the house had been built around it. Now, her son in law, who currently lives in the house, wants to get rid of the table and Asha was able to identify the cause of her pain in having to let go. She was feeling attached, not to the table, but to what it represented in her life: ?It is all about identity. About what defines us- it is all about what we let define us. We cling. We are greedy of emotions, sensations... we always want more.?
To cling and to be greedy: That is to be attached. Hamida also brought up the element of greed in her answer when she said that non attachment is ?Not being greedy; letting your heart feel fully, without the fear of loosing.? She added that in the absence of fear we partake in the fullness of life?s experiences without being limited. This fullness of experience was what David pointed out in his answer when he said that we should cultivate ?absolute loyalty with complete detachment- like a warrior.? He said so referring to the fact that all relationships have a beginning and an end but regardless of this we ?must bring our hearts to them.? Thus, it is our fear of loosing that keeps us clinging and attached, but it is our willingness to let go that leads us to freedom and richer experiences and relationships. As David said while gesturing: ?To give (with his palm open), without grasping (closed fist). How do you hold more sand??
We will experience joy and pain, hope, disillusionment and despair. The blessing of non-attachment is not avoiding human life but developing the capacity to allow these feelings and thoughts in our beings without letting them define who we are and then recovering, healing and yes, ?letting them go.? Another one of Asha?s stories, this time about the Dalai Lama, goes like this: Once, his holiness was asked how he could not be in despair after knowing that his country and his people are in such suffering, and he replied: ?Ahhh, but I am. I just recover quicker.?
And why would the Dali Lama- or any of us- want to ?recover quicker?, especially if we understand that we are mostly attached to pleasurable/comfortable things? In my conversation with Nooranisa she had said that ?To be non-attached allows us to be present without lingering in the past or worrying about the future. It allows us to be anchored here and now and to be fresh to embrace whatever comes.? She said that it is a constant returning to the feeling of our bodies, a constant calling to the mind when it starts to wonder away, ?just as we would call a child who is heading towards a busy street.? In perfect timing Karimbakhsh read a fragment of Hazrat Inayat Khan?s words and his reading was completely relevant to the subject. Let me paraphrase: what was good for yesterday is not good for today and won?t be good for tomorrow. If we fail to do what is asked from the moment because we are too attached to our ideas of ourselves, or to what we would have wanted, the precious opportunity of the moment is lost! In caring for the preciousness of the present, Rama advised to be careful even of becoming attached to non- attachment, or to any other principle, because when principles make us too rigid we are likely to not respond to the calling of the moment.
To be present. To be free. To be flexible. To be capable of unconditional love. Yes, it all sounded wonderful. The question was no longer what is non-attachment but how do we become non-attached?
?That is easy, just don?t be there?, said Hidayat, and he gave me the same look children give you when they have done something and you don?t know yet but you are just about to find out?The day before Hidayat had spoken about the phrase ?this is not my body, this is the temple of God? and about the movements that accompany the phrase when doing prayer. He clarified that the movements of the head from left to right and then from top to bottom do not resemble the cross of crucifixion; they express that we don?t accept the limitation of our separated egos as real but that we long to reach the realization of God as the Only being? When Hidayat continued answering my question he scolded: ?Didn?t you hear anything from what I said yesterday?! This is not my body; this is the Temple of God. Sufism is not taking yourself too seriously but taking the others very seriously. That is Sufism, because Sufism means wisdom and that is wisdom!?
A few weeks after the Sufi Federation meeting, our community of friends from NYC was invited to participate in a series of conferences about the Abrahamic Prophets. As part of a discussion panel with representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Sufism, a woman from the public asked why, if God loved us so much, S/He designed our learning and development through so much pain. In answer to this, Andrew Vivic replied humbly by saying that we can not fathom to understand or dare to judge Allah?s reasons, but he also said that pain was not innate to our learning; he said that pain arises from our attachment, because we associate pain to the experience of loosing those things we mistakenly understand as the source of our happiness. He added: ?But nothing real can be lost, if we remember this and return our attention to God Who is the only reality, the rest could come and go?. That is exactly what Zakira said in answer to my question about non attachment. I asked her before the Dances of Universal peace and she gave me the answer after we had finished the Dances with a prayer. She said without any trace of doubt: ?What are you attached to? If you are attached to God everything else disappears.?
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At the beginning of our trip Jean Pierre had told me: ?I won?t tell you what non-attachment is. I can tell you what non-attachment is NOT: it isn?t not caring and it isn?t not loving yourself and others?. After that, he sent me on my interviewing quest. At the end of the Sufi Federation Meeting and our trip, I had the blessing of understanding that the essence of the answer resided in the question. As Halima said with such precision and beauty: ?This is non-attachment: that you can care and love in freedom.?And what a wonderful synchronicity was it to hear the elders of all the Sufi branches stating over and over during that week: ?What is the Sufi Message? The Sufi Message is the Message of Spiritual Freedom!?
May all beings have the blessing of a family of friends with whom to share the road towards their liberty! May the message of God reach far and wide!
In love and gratitude to all attendees to the 2007 Federation of the Sufi Message Meeting, and especially to Jean Pierre, who could simply state the answers but who chooses, over and over again, to be a loving companion on the journey of all my questions.
Latifa Juanita
Latifa is a mureed in the Sufi Ruhaniat