IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING, SET IT FREE


 


“If you love something, set it free.

If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”

Old Proverb

 

Many years ago, I had a poster displayed in my classroom with the above message. Young boys and girls, would get puzzled… “If you love ‘someone’,” they would understand it that way. So, the advice to set him or her – who they were madly in love with – free would not go down well with them… Detachment is for the old and the sick… This was their (Young ones’) age – the age of attachment. So, after some time, I stopped displaying this message… “Let them enjoy life… Detachment can wait,” I concluded.

Attachment mercifully comes in many forms: Attachment to wealth, people, beliefs, ideas, ideologies, opinions, places, creations and so on. I don’t think, it is possible – rather practical – to rid of our every attachment. Yes, as an ideal -  as a philosophy - detachment is very sublime. But, every one of us is a mortal here on earth; therefore, attached we remain to something or the other, in some measure or the other.

Another important thing, that I have observed about attachment and detachment, is this: It is not possible to let go of an attachment unless we recognize piercingly what that attachment does to us… The strain, the pain, the heaviness, the conflict and the suffering… Yes, these are the direct outcomes of our attachments. When they beset our lives, it’s easy to get in touch with the source – our attachments.

Letting go, thereafter, is simply a ‘choiceless awareness’… It simply comes about… Attachment gets dropped… That freedom is peace.

So, let’s read that old message from the poster, once again:

“If you love something, set it free.

If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”

 

One of the most endearing fables about attachment and detachment is found in Ramakrisha Paramahamsa’s book – ‘Tales and Parables pf Sri Ramakrishna’:

 

THE KITE AND THE CROWS




Once, in a village, the fishermen had just returned after their daily catch. As they were sorting out the fishes, a Kite swooped down, picked a small fish by its beak, and shot up into the sky. Immediately, hundreds of crows appeared from nowhere and started chasing the Kite, making a crazy noise… To whichever direction the Kite flew, the crows followed it… It went on for a long time. Finally, the Kite became tired and decided to drop the fish… The moment the fish was dropped, the crows left the Kite alone and went after the fish…

The Kite quietly settled on the branch of a nearby tree. Sitting there, and looking at the crazy sight, it declared:

“There goes with that wretched fish all my misery.”

As I said, it becomes easy for most of us – the ordinary Kites of this world – to drop the ‘wretched fishes’ we cling on to – yes, once we realize piercingly what that clinging does to us…

Often, after my recounting of this fable, some little ones would ask me this question:

“Sir, how stupid these crows are… There is a boat full of fishes and they are after this one silly fish!”

Whereas, I would ask in my mind “Could this Kite avoid being chased, by dropping the fish right when the crows appeared?”




The chase, I think, was necessary – however stupid and silly it seems, at hindsight!

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic's.: pixabay

 

Video: Dare to Do Motivation

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