Swami Vivekananda said that “non-attachment” is the complete self-abnegation. He also warned that without this “non-attachment”, no Yoga is possible. The term “Non-attachment” may be translated as Hindi: अनासक्ति, Bengali: অনাসক্তি. It means “not being attached to anything”. This non-attachment is a central theme of Bhagavad Gita.
Swami Vivekananda on Non-attachment
- All power is His and within His command. Through His command the winds blow, the sun shines, the earth lives, and death stalks upon the earth. He is the all in all; He is all and in all. We can only worship Him. Give up all fruits of work; do good for its own sake; then alone will come perfect non-attachment. The bonds of the heart will thus break, and we shall reap perfect freedom. This freedom is indeed the goal of Karma-Yoga.[Source]
- All the power of knowledge and wealth once made has passed away — all the sciences of the ancients, lost, lost forever. Nobody knows how. That teaches us a grand lesson. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity and vexation of the spirit. If we have seen all this, then we become disgusted with this world and all it offers us. This is called Vairâgya, non-attachment, and is the first step towards knowledge.[Source]
- By non-attachment and practice, meditation is perfected.[Source]
- By non-attachment, you overcome and deny the power of anything to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has the right to act upon you until you allow it to do so; but what is the true sign of the man who really does not allow anything to work upon him, who is neither happy nor unhappy when acted upon by the external world? The sign is that good or ill fortune causes no change in his mind: in all conditions he continues to remain the same.[Source]
- Cut down the banyan tree of desire with the axe of non-attachment, and it will vanish utterly. It is all illusion. “He from whom blight and delusion have fallen, he who has conquered the evils of association, he alone is âzâd (free).”[Source]
- Have the feeling of personal non-attachment with regard to man, and see how this mighty feeling of love is working itself out in the world.[Source]
- I am really understanding what non-attachment means. And I hope very soon to be perfectly non-attached. (in a letter written to Sister Nivedita, dated 28 March 1900, from San Francisco, United States)[Source]
- If working like slaves results in selfishness and attachment, working as master of our own mind gives rise to the bliss of non-attachment.[Source]
- In Krishna we find … two ideas [stand] supreme in his message: The first is the harmony of different ideas; the second is non-attachment. A man can attain to perfection, the highest goal, sitting on a throne, commanding armies, working out big plans for nations. In fact, Krishna’s great sermon was preached on the battlefield.[Source]
- It is the theory of non-attachment, to be attached to nothing while doing our work of life. Know that you are separated entirely from the world, though you are in the world, and that whatever you may be doing in it, you are not doing that for your own sake.[Source]
- Karma-Yoga says, first destroy the tendency to project this tentacle of selfishness, and when you have the power of checking it, hold it in and do not allow the mind to get into the ways of selfishness. Then you may go out into the world and work as much as you can. Mix everywhere, go where you please; you will never be contaminated with evil. There is the lotus leaf in the water; the water cannot touch and adhere to it; so will you be in the world. This is called “Vairâgya”, dispassion or non-attachment.[Source]
- Knocking everything [that is hypnotic] on the head [leads to] what is called non-attachment; and clinging to more and more hypnotism is attachment. That is why in all religions you will find they wanted to give up the world, although many of them do not understand it.[Source]
- Non-attachment has always been there. It has come in a minute. Very soon I stand where no sentiment, no feeling, can touch me.[Source]
- “Only by practice and non-attachment can we conquer mind.” . . .[Source]
- That Vairâgya, non-attachment, is everywhere in India, even today.[Source]
- The Bhakta’s renunciation is that Vairâgya or non-attachment for all things that are not God which results from Anurâga or great attachment to God.[Source]
- The binding link of “I and mine” is in the mind. If we have not this link with the body and with the things of the senses, we are non-attached, wherever and whatever we may be. A man may be on a throne and perfectly non-attached; another man may be in rags and still very much attached. First, we have to attain this state of non-attachment and then to work incessantly. Karma-Yoga gives us the method that will help us in giving up all attachment, though it is indeed very hard.[Source]
- The body is our enemy, and yet is our friend. Which of you can bear the sight of misery? And which of you cannot do so when you see it only as a painting? Because it is unreal, we do not identify ourselves with it, eve know it is only a painting; it cannot bless us, it cannot hurt us. The most terrible misery painted upon a price of canvas, we may even enjoy; we praise the technique of the artist, we wonder at his marvellous genius, even though the scene he paints is most horrible. That is the secret; that non-attachment. Be the Witness.[Source]
- The highest man cannot work, for there is no binding element, no attachment, no ignorance in him.[Source]
- The veil cast by bad Karma is ignorance. Good Karma has the power to strengthen the moral powers. And thus it creates non – attachment; it destroys the tendency towards bad Karma and thereby purifies the mind.[Source]
- There are two ways to do that mentioned in our books. One is called the “Neti, Neti” (not this, not this), the other is called “Iti” (this); the former is the negative, and the latter is the positive way. The negative way is the most difficult. It is only possible to the men of the very highest, exceptional minds and gigantic wills who simply stand up and say, “No, I will not have this,” and the mind and body obey their will, and they come out successful. But such people are very rare. The vast majority of mankind choose the positive way, the way through the world, making use of all the bondages themselves to break those very bondages. This is also a kind of giving up; only it is done slowly and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things and thus obtaining experience, and knowing the nature of things until the mind lets them all go at last and becomes unattached. The former way of obtaining non-attachment is by reasoning, and the latter way is through work and experience.[Source]
- There must be constant practice and non-attachment to the world. When a man reaches the superconscious state, all feeling of body melts away. Then alone does he become free and immortal.[Source]
- This is the beginning of another peculiar doctrine of the Gita — the doctrine of non-attachment. That is to say, we have to bear the result of our own actions because we attach ourselves to them. … “Only what is done as duty for duty’s sake … can scatter the bondage of Karma.”[Source]
- Vairagya is non – attachment to life, because it is the will to enjoy that brings all this bondage in its train; and Abhyasa is constant practice of any one of the Yogas.[Source]
- When you have acquired the feeling of non-attachment, there will then be neither good nor evil for you. It is only selfishness that causes the difference between good and evil.[Source]
- Without non-attachment there cannot be any kind of Yoga. Non-attachment is the basis of all the Yogas.[Source]
- You find in Krishna that non-attachment is the central idea. He does not need anything. He does not want anything. He works for work’s sake. “Work for work’s sake. Worship for worship’s sake. Do good because it is good to do good. Ask no more.” That must have been the character of the man.[Source]
- You who have read the Gitâ see all through the book that the one idea is non-attachment. Remain unattached.[Source]
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