According to traditional books,detachment is a very important process in the practice of yoga. Can it lead to indifference?Is indifference bad?How far are these two different?
Would like to have the comments of the experienced ones!!!
Thanks a lot.
Good question ? very thought provoking. Why do you ask? What does detachment mean to you? And what about indifference?
Most important: What type of yoga are you speaking of? In millennia of yogic history, there have been all forms of detachment on the Indian subcontinent. At one end of the scale there were advahuts, naked ascetics who roamed the countryside while renouncing all worldly possessions. On the other hand, there were tantrics who wholly embraced the world, making love and consuming wine and meat in their rituals. And everything in between. Were any of these practitioners indifferent? I don?t think so. They certainly were not indifferent towards their spiritual ideals.
Allow me to let Patanjali speak from the classical yoga point of view. Consistent, sustained practice (abhyasa) and non-attachment (vairagya) are crucial to reaching the state of yoga (sutra I-12). To practice non-attachment means to practice non-reactivity to whatever presents itself to consciousness ? thoughts, feelings, sensations. This practice of not reacting leads to freedom from our likes and dislikes of worldly objects and of the primordial forces of desire (sutras I-15, I-16). In this sense, one becomes indifferent. But one does not become indifferent in the sense of no longer caring for the world. On the contrary, the practice of non-attachment tends to lead to more love and compassion. Patanjali clearly advocates cultivating compassion towards suffering for overcoming obstacles (I-33). Nor does it, in my mind, mean that one can no longer enjoy sense pleasures. One just becomes less attached to craving for more enjoyment.
[FONT=Verdana]The short answer to your question is that non-attachment should lead to more love and compassion and not to indifference about the world and its inhabitants.[/FONT]
have you become attached to indifference?
[QUOTE=justwannabe;18850]have you become attached to indifference?[/QUOTE]
I really liked this one.
Thanks a lot for all your inputs.
One friend told me that we are detached as regards to personal relations and can be indifferent to situations!!!
It makes sense and I thought about sharing this with you all.
Namaste
[QUOTE=Mokshda;18901]I really liked this one.
Thanks a lot for all your inputs.
One friend told me that we are detached as regards to personal relations and can be indifferent to situations!!!
It makes sense and I thought about sharing this with you all.
Namaste[/QUOTE]
thank you for your kind comment,
with appreciation
Neil
[QUOTE=Willem;18844] To practice non-attachment means to practice non-reactivity to whatever presents itself to consciousness – thoughts, feelings, sensations. This practice of not reacting leads to freedom from our likes and dislikes of worldly objects and of the primordial forces of desire (sutras I-15, I-16). In this sense, one becomes indifferent. But one does not become indifferent in the sense of no longer caring for the world. On the contrary, the practice of non-attachment tends to lead to more love and compassion. .[/SIZE][/FONT][/FONT][/QUOTE]
I’m a little troubled by this interpretation. We should keep in mind when reading the Sutras that the ultimate goal of yoga is liberation. That requires vairagya or non-attachment. Strictly interpreted, vairagya means complete detachment, or a state of absolute indifference to the things of the world. But we have to understand that this is the highest level of vairagya, and this is not reached all at once. In fact, the literature describes three antecedent states.
Vairagya is not attained by negation of desires, it is a process of replacing the baser instincts with higher ones. Patanjali gives the hint in 1.16:
Indifference to the gunas or the constituent principles attained through a knowledge of the nature of Purusa is called Para-vairagya (Supreme detachment).
This is the highest level, in which, through knowledge of its true nature, the self has lost interest in the material world altogether. In the antecedent states, tamas is overcome by rajas, rajas is overcome by sattva. Non-attachment even to the sattvic objects is vasikara-samjna, the highest level of vairagya.
Indifference is a word used to describe the state of dispassion, but as Willem said, it is really more of a calming of our passions for the things of the world. However, in the final analysis, dispassion does extend even to sattvic elements like compassion for the suffering. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view.
recently I’ve been using the metaphor of a bronco rider to think about detachment – when the person is on the bull, as it bucks and throws the person is automatically waved about along with it. When the person is thrown, and flies through the air, the bull continues to buck and throw but the flying person does not move in response to its continued agitation.
Sure, I need a more voluntary metaphor eventually. But that’s what I have right now.
Does this make sense for others?
It is simple misunderstanding.
It is not detachment. Rather it is the absence of attachment. And it is tempered by the absence of aversion. Ergo it is not at all a lead-in to indifference.
I like the metaphor of the bronco rider. But the method of getting off the bull needs a little work.
As normal people in general, practitioners of this method also may be caught up in various vices and addictions when they first come to the practice. However, for the majority, this usually becomes neutralized in the increased level of receptivity to a greater source of being from within–for when one glimpses this “inner being,” all external sense impression and stimuli seem to dull in comparison. Pattabhi Jois urges his students to pay more attention to this inner receptivity of 'being" in matters of diet, health, nutrition, etc. “Find out what works for you,” he says. “A pure body naturally knows what is good for it! Listen from within and you will gradually be able to know for yourself what is good or less beneficial for you.” The significant feature of these simple exercises is that people certainly improve their health and well being, but also seem to find a new approach to life which involves a greater receptivity to something internally profound.
This came from the Ashtanga website. It seems to reinforce what I said earlier about vairagya being a process of replacing our baser instincts with higher ones.
The words detachment and absolute indifference that I used in my post came from Swami Hariharananda Aranya’s commentary on the Yoga Sutras. People seem to be spooked by the negative connotations of these words. Part of the problem is the difficulty of translating these concepts into English. Another part is the failure to realize that the sutra is speaking in the context of liberation from material existence as the ultimate goal. The words absolute indifference used in this context mean something much different from the word indifference as it is used in the original post. In that sense, indifference is a tamasic quality that would be an obstacle to yoga.
The same is true of the word detachment, which, as IA pointed out, really is better translated as non-attachment. In the context of para-vairagya, though, non-attachment is not limited to afflictive emotions, but applies to sattva as well.
[QUOTE=Mokshda;18802]According to traditional books,detachment is a very important process in the practice of yoga. Can it lead to indifference?Is indifference bad?How far are these two different?
Would like to have the comments of the experienced ones!!!
Thanks a lot.[/QUOTE]
Back to classics
Hatha Yoga Pradipika
The classic esoteric handbook of kundalini yoga.
The yoga practicioner strives for such a state of perfection that some day it will be our nature to be desirelessly happy-and to have good reason for it.
This is BY NO MEANS A STATE OF APATHY, devoid of the dynamics of natural activities. On the contrary, our endeavours will no longer be whipped by passions toward a goal where, with open eyes, we uselessly invest our most precious forces in senseless intoxication. We will LEARN TO EVALUATE OUR
WISHES, to know our own forces as well as the opposing powers. And if we have to renounce, we will then do so with clear understanding, not with a painful sensation of loss.
Detachment arises spontaneously when you no longer identify/confuse your Self as your body, your mind, your experiences. You are pure consciousness manifest in physical form. When you surrender your attachment to your concept of who you are, you can experience your true Self. This Self is boundless and immortal. When you awaken to your non-dual awareness you will be anything but indifferent. For in that moment you will realize that All is in the One and One is in the All. A great compassion arises when “other” no longer exists. Fear not. Detachment is merely the discernment between what is transient and what is eternal. Be still and know that you are all that you seek.
santidevi
A sattvic person would extend their hand to someone who genuinely asked for and needed help… if however this person did not ask for help and was merely suffering from their own doings i.e. drugs, gambling, sex addiction… and the sattvic person seeing this did nothing… it is not a reflection on the sattvic person for being detached but a way of not expending energy toward a situation that is fruitless so to speak… the Lord is there if you come looking… if you turn and face the sun you will feel it’s warmth… in that moment everything will seem very far away…
also, remember what it takes to fly… your soul is like a bird and all your attachments and emotions are like a big coconut that is gripped by it’s talons… if you don’t let go of them eventually they will drag you down… so let go and fly as high as you can!!
Attached people worry for so many things - what will we eat, how will we be dressed, where do we sleep, how can I pay my mortgage, how can I keep my wife happy, can I pay the studies of my children, can I keep my studio running … and to them the calm of one who knows that these are necessary to life, but not of utmost importance, might appear as indifference.
What about the indifference of the sages ? It is indifference toward ignorance, that it is. You cannot help someone and should not help someone until that someone asks for it, and you know that you are able to really help. The sage is not indifferent towards us, rather, we are indifferent towards what he has to offer, and he respects our choice.
My only problem with the bronco rider metaphore is that I am afarid of landing 'cause I can’t be flying forever. 
I’d rather try my best to remain in the saddle, while having no illusions how it will end. Perhaps solving a sudoku in my mind, until the inevitable happens.
Dont worry. You wont become detached from anything by practicing yoga.
If you like Yoga and if you feel that it is going to benefit you (physically, emotionally, etc.), then why not to do it? It will make you a better person. I’m sure becoming a better person is more important than anything else.
All the best!
Renunciation via sadhana gradually washes away all passionate attachments
encountered on the road to Self-Realization and Liberation.
Hari Om!
Adityananda
Words are tricky beasts, as several folks here have pointed out.
It seems to me that my yogic practice has led me to have fewer reflexive emotional reactions to the persons around me. This in turn has made it easier to not get lost in my own projections, and able to perhaps see the other person more clearly, and thus respond from a place of compassion and love more often.
This in turn has helped make my relationships deeper, and more real.
I find perhaps that I’m less attached to what other people think or do. I’m still deeply engaged with people, and I think neither non-attachment nor neutrality necessarily leads to a lack of engagement - quite frequently the opposite: it leads to more effective engagement. Certainly I’ve found that work in NVC, conflict resolution, and all manner of other fields can benefit wonderfully from the ability to move into Neutral Mind.
[QUOTE=Willem;18844] Were any of these To practice non-attachment means to practice non-reactivity to whatever presents itself to consciousness ? thoughts, feelings, sensations. This practice of not reacting leads to freedom from our likes and dislikes of worldly objects and of the primordial forces of desire (sutras I-15, I-16). In this sense, one becomes indifferent. But one does not become indifferent in the sense of no longer caring for the world. On the contrary, the practice of non-attachment tends to lead to more love and compassion. Patanjali clearly advocates cultivating compassion towards suffering for overcoming obstacles (I-33). Nor does it, in my mind, mean that one can no longer enjoy sense pleasures. One just becomes less attached to craving for more enjoyment.
[/QUOTE]
If you don’t mind…I’ve been having issues with what you exactly said here!! How do I remove myself from my own sense of frustrations when dealing with what I consider a moment of issues? I had this happen yesterday. As I realized I did not like where my conversation with a friend was going…I abruptly pointed out that I did not like what was happening…but I got angry. But then I realized I was angry and ended the conversation with, “I hope you have a good day and I’ll talk to you later.” But I still feel that I should have not felt angry at all!! So is it wrong to feel anger at all or any of your sensations? Or was it fine that I realized I was angry and stopped both…the terrible going no where conversation and my own anger?