Break Free From Attachments

This is the third concept in Next Age Basics. Humans in the next age will be free from attachments. We will not carry around all the things that weigh us down. Our minds will be quiet. We will have inner peace, free from worrying about all the things that tie us down now. With the shift to the next age we will be free to experience life in the moment, not in the past or future. To explain this concept, there needs to be a definition of what attachments are and how they play a role in inhibiting us from the freedom that is our natural state. It’s time to break free!

Break Free

There are so many aspects to the description of attachments and how they affect us in duality consciousness that it will take 3 posts. Some of the examples of attachment will be controversial and tread on some deep seated beliefs. but as I have previously stated, the new consciousness will be a complete overhaul of our perspective and how we interact with each other. We attach our selves to things, to jobs, to spouses, to our children, to expectations and outcomes.

Attachment To Things

In present day society the attachment to things is a huge factor in how we live our lives. We love to accumulate stuff. We protect our stuff. We worry about whether our stuff is OK and whether someone will take our stuff. We spend a third of our lives working to have the money to buy stuff. Countless hours are spent looking for stuff to buy. Our happiness sometimes hinges on whether we can buy more stuff. Our home, our cars, our things become a part of us. They are attached to us. We take them with us wherever we go either by literally taking them or by thinking about them when we are away from them. A huge amount of our lives is spent on obtaining, thinking about, worrying and taking care of our stuff. We seem to love to amass it, store it and have to get a large truck to move it. What does our stuff do for us?

Does it make any real difference in our lives? Does it bring us happiness? Does it give us status in society? Does it make others love us more? Does it merit the importance we seem to give it?

Does it ties us down? Is it hard to leave our stuff for fear of something happening to it? Our stuff is attached to us. It can almost rule our lives if we allow it.

This practice of looking outside ourselves for things to bring us happiness has grown into an albatross that hangs around our necks making us do many things that we probably wouldn’t do if we didn’t have the intense desire for accumulating stuff. What would our lives be like if we didn’t have this stuff? What would we think about? What we buy with the money from our hour intensive jobs? I like to look at poor cultures that don’t have the access and ability to buy the stuff that we have in our so-called modern society. Are these people happy without a lot of stuff? They sure seem to be.

Attachment To Jobs

To gives us the ability to buy stuff we need jobs. We need to earn an ever increasing amount of money to be able to keep buying and storing this stuff. These jobs become so important that we get attached to them. We carry them around with us also. They define who we are. They define our status. We worry about losing them just like we do with our stuff. They also occupy a huge chunk of our thoughts and time in the day. The next question when meeting someone after name is “what do you do?” They are attached to us like a badge that tells all who we are. They can also take over as the highest priority in our lives. Is what job we have who we are? Is what we do more important than what we are. This attachment to a job is merely the outcome of the importance we place on things in our daily lives. When we realize that things aren’t important then our priorities and perspectives about jobs will shift with them.

Now the controversial examples of attachment. The attachment to people.

Attachment To Spouses

Many cliches are used to describe the relationship to our spouse. We enter into wedlock. We tie the knot. Our better half. Marriage. The union of two people.

These words all denote an attaching of two people together. The prevalent belief is that we are not whole without the joining with another. This concept is deeply rooted in duality consciousness where there is two separate opposite things. Male-female, good-bad, right-wrong. With this belief we look to join with another to attain this feeling of wholeness.

With that union comes the feeling of ownership of the other. My wife or my husband. They are expectations of how the other should act. It can create feelings of possessiveness and jealousy. It can cause thoughts of fear of losing them or feelings of inadequacy or standards that are not lived up to.  A myriad of negative emotions can result when we attach to another person. The same things as my description of attachment to things can also apply with people.

This example of attachment may be hard to understand but all attachment is the same. Attaching or trying to own another can cause disagreements as to which way each one chooses to go. If the other person doesn’t live up to your expectations of how you think things should be then arguments follow. The results can be a separation from each other both figuratively and literally. Freeing each other, untying the knot that comes from this form of attachment. Seems the most successful relationships between two people is when they both recognize that they are whole unto themselves.

With the next age, we know that we are god. That we are whole. That we have all we would ever need inside our selves. That we do not need anything or anyone outside of our selves to feel complete. That each person is an entity unto his or her self. Enjoying the time together but allowing each other to grow and experience things of their choosing. Accepting and respecting each other’s choices in all things.

This doesn’t mean that a relationship has to be total autonomy. When we remove the pressure to do things because we feel we should or because we think the other wants us to, the end result is usually we spend more time together and care less about what the activity is. When we know we are free to choose without fear of repercussions, the choice and who initiates it becomes less important. This freedom comes with detachment of expectations of the other.

As I have said, this subject is long and possibly painful to examine. It touches areas of our beliefs that some may label as unthinkable for us to ever change. The next segment will discuss the attachment that we have to our children and how this attachment causes us endless worry and prevents us from being truly free.

Related posts:

1. The Tough One – Freeing From Our Children
2. My Personal Experience With Attachment