by Dermot Carroll
The idea of cultivating detachment goes against the prevailing mindset of the average citizen of the western world, where the making of attachments is much more in vogue. In fact this work of cultivating attachments is not just a feature of western societies; it is the predilection of humanity throughout the whole world – even though the root philosophies of eastern
societies tend to emphasise detachment much more than those of the west.
We cultivate attachments from our earliest years, attaching to our parents and families and friends. In later years we attach to partners, to groups and organisations, to careers, to the various spoils of life. Most centrally we attach to the idea of ourselves and over the years concretize this idea
of self into a fixed and immoveable form. By a certain age the “I am” no longer represents the divine spark within but is instead the set of all sets of attachments, physical, emotional and mental, that we have gathered around us on our journey. Not only are these attachments
not the “I am”, they obscure it, hiding ourselves from our Self and bestowing us with an illusionary experience leagues away from the true nature of reality. Detachment is the compass that can lead us back home.
Advocates and practitioners of detachment who realise this truth and begin this journey back to Self will find limited support for their endeavours from the mass of humanity. We are often reminded of this in the Tibetan’s writings on the disciple (like those featured in the last issue of The Beacon). Disciples will find themselves unpopular within their family and
community group because the idea of liberation through relinquishment is counter-intuitive for anyone submerged in the world. It opposes the obvious idea, embedded in us since childhood, that liberation occurs through acquisition. It is upside-down thinking, A Course in Miracles, a form of raja yoga that I often refer to for guidance, describes the world as being upside-down and spiritual training as the method of turning it right-side-up. Both the Tibetan and the Course tell us of the hardship that this can bring for the disciple.
Carlos Castenada, a controversial and once popular influencer of the nascent New Age movement, captured the essence of this hardship in a volume titled Journey to Ixtalan. In this book, Ixtalan is the home village of the sorcerer Don Gennaro, who tells the central character, Castenada, that for years he has never been able to return to his childhood home. He then confusingly says that he has just recently been there. Castenada asks how these two statements can be reconciled. Don Gennaro and the book’s other sorcerer, Don Juan, then explain to Castenada that Don Gennaro is now so greatly changed that he is unable to participate in the spirit of the village life, nor can he anymore relate to the spirit of the people or be comforted by the companionship of the community, all because his experience of, and
understanding of reality has changed profoundly. This isolation from his formative community leaves him somewhat saddened and illustrates for the reader the sacrifices that accompany the path of knowledge. This same detachment grief is depicted in Akira Kurosawa’s film ‘The Seven Samurai’. In the final scene, having helped the small farming community to permanently defeat the menace of bandits, the leader of the seven stands and watches the farmers working happily together in the fields. Realising that he must now return to his solitary, disciplined life he turns to the others and says, “again we lose”.
It is the lot of the disciple to turn away from all that seems good and embrace that which seems to offer nothing. And yet somehow the draw to do this becomes irresistible. We see this vividly in the Gospels when Jesus calls James, John, Simon and Andrew to join his mission. We are told that immediately they left their boats to follow him. Relinquishing their
life’s work, their trade and the prosperity it brought them, in order to walk in the light was, for them, the obvious, irresistible path to take.
So, in practicing detachment we are going very much against the grain. A Course in Miracles speaks about this jarring reorientation in its depiction of the stages that we go through to become what it calls a Teacher of God. Among these are the effects of the detachment process. The Course outlines how, in order to develop Trust, the ‘Teacher’ must go through “a period of undoing”. It states that this ‘need not be painful but it usually is so experienced’, and that it ‘seems as if things are being taken away’ but what is ‘rarely understood’ is that ‘their lack of value is merely being recognised’. This recognizing of what is of value and what is not, is what we would describe in the AAB teachings as looking beyond the astral and
lower mental to the higher mind for an understanding and evaluation of our circumstances. It is the piercing through of the clouds of glamour and the seeing of things for what they are rather than what we have made them be. The heavy sadness that comes from the work of detachment is rewarded by the liberating clear light of the soul that awaits at journeys end.
For the aspirant the work of detachment can seem endless. Certainly, in the early stages it can seem that progressing out of entanglements in order to achieve some vague, ill-defined reward is a valueless endeavour. Yet the faint pull of the light keeps drawing us back to the work, encouraging us to put in the effort. There are endless traps along the way. Castaneda points to these in his depiction of the four enemies of a man of knowledge. Once the aspirant has overcome fear – the first enemy, he will reach clarity – the second enemy. On reaching clarity the aspirant is bound to think themselves a cut above the rest, that they are endowed with a special knowledge and have reached nirvana. If the aspirant should proceed beyond clarity they will attain the state of power and this in turn will be the third enemy. The fourth enemy of a man of knowledge – old age – humorously indicates the amount of effort required to succeed in occult work. The three enemies fear, clarity and power are illuminated more
precisely in the various glamours of the Bailey teachings where we are blessed to have them broken down into a format that we can study scientifically.
Even though, as I have outlined, the work of detachment is indeed difficult, it does not remain so for its entirety. Once we have acquired the method, it, like any task, becomes easier. Time, study and effort in the early stages help us to master the principles. We find ourselves attracted to teachings, individuals and circumstances that aid our learning. Situations arise in our life upon which we can practice. These may seem at the time to be
unwelcome impediments to our spiritualisation because they force us to engage in the mire of worldly activities and the lower emotions of worldly affairs, when we would rather be in our ivory towers contemplating God. But these difficult trials we find, on reflection, are our greatest teachers. His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches us this when he refers to those who
forced him into exile from his homeland Tibet, as “my great friends, my enemies the Chinese”.
The reflections on detachment that we carry out on the Path are a powerful and gentle way of helping us to both comprehend the seeming contradiction in His Holinesses’ statement, to understand and respond to the work of detachment. They are cryptic enough to be worthy of
an esoteric discipline yet specific enough to be understood scientifically. They help us gradually turn the world right side up as we advance closer to the light of our true selves, recognising and leaving behind all of the unhappy things that we have made, and advancing with the miracles we have created. If we tread the path carefully, are reflective and mindful of
the glamours in our way, then the road will be easier and shorter.
