How to love without attachment?
How to be indifferent and dispassionate without falling into the trap of not caring?
What is attachment? It is characterised by a connection that has a sense of discontentment with things as they are. It is often accompanied by feelings of fear and inadequacy. Attachment comes with strain, and a dependence on factors external to the Self.
And what is love? Love is also characterised by connection, but it is a connection that is like a celebration. It is a connection that recognises the wholeness of both parts. Unlike attachment, love is not trying to change or compensate for anything. Love does not try at all. It is effortless.
Because both love and attachment are established by a strong connection between the parts, their difference can be subtle, but within that subtle difference is the most radical of existential shifts.
A relationship between two people in which each is depending on each other to address their own insecurities is not love. Are you looking for a relationship out of love, or a fear of being alone? Do you want to have children as a natural consequence of your love for life, or are you depending on your children to have a sense of purpose and meaning? Is it energy-giving love that keeps you willingly in a situation, or are you tied to the situation because you think you need it or can’t cope without it?
The line is subtle, and in many cases, we are capable of having both love and attachment in varying degrees.
To understand love, it is easiest to do so in extreme version - unconditional love. Whoever in the human history coined the term unconditional love, and put it into our modern lexicon was a genius, I thank them for it. For it allows us to meditate on what love is like, without conditions.
Unconditional love
A shallow interpretation of love is the affection and happiness that something gives to you.
A shallow interpretation of unconditional love would be that it is affection without any conditions, that it is a pure love, which exists whether or not such love is deserved or reciprocated, whether we are harmed or benefit from it, over the ages and vast distances. At this superficial level, unconditional love is beautiful, but we can go even deeper than that.
Unconditional love is not confined to time or space, which means that the love is not directed to a single form, but to all forms, including the formless. To have love that is unbound by time means that it is love that has always existed, and will never cease to exist, it is continuous and unwavering. It means that such love is not directional between the lover and the loved. To truly love unconditionally, is to be love itself. In this, there is no question of self and the other, of pleasure or pain, of time or space. There is just the underlying unity of existence. Love.
Once we comprehend the vast scale of differences that exist between the love of what makes me feel good, and the love that exists in the bliss of limitless experience, we are positioned to understand the difference between (unconditional) love and attachment. Attachment is conditional pleasure, comfort, happiness. It is a conditional identification of I am happy with [whatever it may be]. Love needs no such conditions. It is love without I, love without direction to anything in particular, it is just love.
Non attachment
When Patanjali encourages us to practice vairagya (non-attachment), he is not denying us love or pleasure, or happiness. He is not saying that we cannot enjoy food, or family, or the joy of society. He is saying that we should be in love, in pleasure, in happiness, regardless of what we have or what we experience.
Attachments, whether in the form of imprints, tendencies, or preferences, deny us the wholeness of our existence. They limit us in various ways. And for many of us on the yogic path, a large part of our practice is letting go of attachments. Letting go of tension, of painful memories, of self-limiting habits and beliefs. The experience of our ego is that it is a collection of attachments. So many of us strive to overcome our attachments. Unfortunately, a common route is that we practice the negation of our attachments: I am attached to wine, so I will stop drinking. I still love my ex, and I know it’s bad for me, so to free myself, I’m never going to talk to that person again. While this method may work in many instances, the problem is this: you are working upon instances. There will always be instances of attachment. Those on the spiritual path will know very well that for every weed you uproot, every stain you scrub out, there will always be more.
Rather than go through our attachments one by one, a very different approach that I have adopted is this:
Practice unconditional love.
To love without attachment is to be in love. Be in love, without targets or expectations. Be in love without end, and for no reason at all. Be unattached to any form and any outcome. Be love itself.
The virtue of indifference
Sometimes when I am talking about non-attachment, I celebrate the virtue of indifference. Of course, it is important that we care for life and the living, but a lot of us do not pay enough attention to what it is that we care about, whether it is worth caring about, or why we care about it. In short, many of us care too much about pointless things. We create mental attachments, and so our minds are busy, fretting and caring. This is a kind of caring or attachment that is mindless and ego-driven.
To be truly indifferent is to not be affected by any possible outcomes, but to act with care, love, affection, and to be content with whatever happens or does not happen. Indifference is not a coldness. It is not a rejection of life, and it is not an attitude which causes us to be careless and separate from the rest of the world. To be indifferent is to be in non-attachment. To be in a state of freedom where you are content as you are, and you are content with life as it is. In that state, you are not affected by what happens, because it is all an expression of life and love. You are at peace, and anything that can happen is welcomed with open arms. It is a love and affection for all. That is indifference. That is non-attachment. That is love.
Svadyaya - the act of self-study is important for the yogi. The yogi should be watchful at all times. Am I acting out of love or attachment? Am I caring about the right things, and can I be at peace with whatever the future holds?
There is a subtle difference between love and attachment and life is full of opportunities to discern it.
Get out there and enjoy it. Live in love.