Vairagy Non-Attachment Vs Non Attachment

In Hindu meditation texts, Vairagya, translated as “non-attachment”, is weaved throughout scriptures and sutras with both substantial gravitas and significance. To define non-attachment is no facile task, for there exists numerous components of its practice. As a yogic practice, non-attachment applies over myriad manifestations of nature. However, to grasp the role non-attachment plays in yoga, one must examine its qualities and obstacles. Why must one practice non-attachment? Understanding these obstacles to Viaragya is crucial to affirm the existence of a spiritual reality underlying the phenomenal world and to discover the inner Atman. Non-attachment is a process that evolves progressively as practice deepens. Throughout the process, it
is important to maintain the perspective that Yoga is rooted in realizing and controlling the fluctuations of the mind field as introduced by Patanjali in his book, How to Know God (Sutra1.2). This allows one to rest in their true nature, a state of Self-realization, and begin the process of non-attachment (Sutra 1.3). This process corresponds with the flow of Patanjali’s sutras; a process that first requires one to stabilize the mind, weaken those attachments, and then begin the ongoing process of letting them go entirely. By definition, non-attachment is the practice of gradually defogging the mental colorings, or obstacles, that lead one away from the discovery of the Atman (Sutra 1.5, 2.3). The simplest way of describing non-attachment is as a process of letting go. We progressively understand that we must let go of our attachments and aversions, steadily moving subtler and subtler through the layers of attachments in the mind. Why can’t one just practice without non-attachment?
As Christopher Isherwood commentates in the book, How to Know God, “The waves of the mind can be made to flow in two opposite direction – either towards the objective world or toward true self-knowledge. Therefore both practice and non-attachment are necessary” (2.15). If one attempts to practice spiritual disciplines without endeavoring to control the thought-waves of desire, the mind will turn “violently agitated” and “perhaps permanently unbalanced” (2.15). It must be more than simply a rigid negative control of desire. One must raise waves of compassion, love, and devotion and integrate these thought-waves into the practice. For it is important to realize that non-attachment is not indifference. Yoga is not a deliberate shunning of the world in order to withdraw into a selfish discovery of ones own salvation. To realize the inner Atman, one must do the opposite. There must be love of the Atman. For to love the Atman in ourselves is to love it everywhere; and to love the Atman everywhere is to go beyond any manifestations of nature and discover the reality within nature. Isherwood agrees when he wrote, “such a love is too vast to be understood by ordinary minds, and yet it is simply an infinite deepening and expansion of the…love we all experience” (2.15). If one begins to contemplate breaking free from samsara, they must first understand the exquisites of this love. To understand this love, one must practice
disciplined non-attachment. This is exactly why non-attachment is necessary; it is so comprehensively weaved throughout the practice of yoga and through the application of this exquisite love.
What are these attachments and obstacles? Firstly, there are the gross word materials. When one clings to materials like money, fame, food, or luxury, one distorts the mind and leaves an effect on one’s spirit conditions and understanding. This is called samskara. Non-attachment to these materials is also addressed in the Katha Upanishads in a dialogue with Naciketas and Yama. Yama offers to give Naciketas whatever power he desires: “a massive herd of cattle, for elephants or horses, for pots of gold…for a great portion of the earth to be under your ruling and control. Ask for a longer life for yourself”, and Naciketas refuses all of these worldly powers. He refuses because he discerns that these are only subjects of decay and says that, “man can never be satisfied with material things.”
Additionally, there are many types of objects between the levels of the gross world and the subtlest building blocks.
Emotions and thought-waves of “ignorance, egoism, aversion, and the desire to cling to life” (2.3) must become non-attached in order to reach the inner Atman. After the mind calms and stabilizes, these subtler levels are explored and set aside with non-attachment and discrimination. For instance, this includes meditation and non-attachment to pranic energy (3.40), the five elements (3.45), the senses (3.49), and the subtler aspects of mind (3.50). There are the myriad objects of our quotidian lives for which our mental impressions are colored with various degrees of attraction or aversion. This, as part of non-attachment, is the first level of developing freedom from worldly bondage and ascertaining greater inner
peace.
In addition, as Patanjali explains, non-attachment applies to increasingly deeper levels of our being. While one might begin with more surface level attachments, such as the objects and people of daily life, the practice heightens to include all of the objects or proficiencies, including the many powers or experiences of the psychic or subtle realm. Eventually, one will see that even these are nothing but diversions on the journey to Self-realization, and will learn to put them aside as well. Indifference to the subtlest elements, integral principles, or qualities themselves (gunas), attained through knowledge of pure consciousness, is called paravairagya, or “supreme non-attachment”. (1.16) Paravairagya means there is non-attachment even in relation to the most fundamental building blocks of all manifestation. This tier of non-attachment is drawn through the direct experience of pure consciousness (purusha) (3.56).