Detachment without Resentment

Dr Sumedha Kushwaha *

The true colours of life aren’t in the palate of feelings and circumstances but in the moments we spend with ourselves. Once we have achieved even moderate success in life our questions are directed towards who am I ? What is the meaning of life? What is purpose of our life? And so on.

The more we climb up the ladder of intellect, the more abstract our thoughts become. Abstract in the sense that they lack monetisation and ruthless competition with the peers around.

When we get the vision of what we want to do, the most important change that happens is the ability to let go. When you are able to give up on the best in life for which the world can die, that’s when you achieve the epitome of liberty.

This is the liberation from excessive attachment towards a goal which we have achieved. This gives us absolute freedom from the boundation of self imposed bars of success. Letting go and giving up are two different things in different perspectives.

While letting go is in the sense of meaning of detachment and performing duties without expectation. Giving up sounds more like resentment, in the sense that you quit doing something because of circumstances.

There is a stark difference in the way we perform these tasks. While the former brings us close to ourselves spiritually the latter draws us away from the mean feelings of status quo that exists in ourselves.

Letting go takes courage and compassion both. Courage because it’s difficult to leave what you love the most with a happy heart and a peaceful smile. And compassion because you do not want to harm anyone in the process of your liberation. Now these are hard things for us to perform with due diligence.

Try and start performing these tasks on a daily basis and see how you feel. Give away the best dress you have deliberately. Share your best piece of cake with someone you don’t like at all. Do a kind deed for someone whom you hate so much. Let go of your most beautiful material possession and see how it feels.

At first it would feel very abrupt. But gradually observe the shift towards feeling nothing while giving away something. And slowly there will come a time when the presence and absence of anything would not make a difference.

Detachment is a beautiful thing to learn. Learning to love and live without attachment is something that will keep all problems at bay.

We human beings work our whole life to study, earn a living, build houses and collect things that we don’t even have to use in life and then one day we meet the ultimate reality of life. And can we take any of it with us? Unfortunately no.

So, isn’t it better to live a little more, breathe deeper, relish the moments of calm with yourself and ones you enjoy what you have!

Detachment without resentment is probably a thing we can all start to learn from now on!