Living In This World, But Affected By Nothing

As I begin writing this piece, I begin pondering whether or not such a person exists in real life, who although is involved in a plethora of things, yet isn’t affected by any repercussions of it, whatsoever. 

Well, Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita say that such a kind of person does exist in real life, whom Shri Krishna refers to as “sthitapragnya” or the one that is embedded with the knowledge thus being aware of his true nature and real existence. Also, one more thing that does strike me now is how do we know whether or not we are referring to this person operating and acting out of his body and mind, or are we talking of this self-consciousness within. 

Possibly both. Even though the consciousness bit is what is more serious, we could state that things concerning non-attachment relate to the body and mind too. While reading the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, I read that there was the mention of monarchs that practiced and reaped huge benefits from non-attachment and Vedanta. Swamiji even mentioned that no one on earth could be as or busier than the monarchs, yet they didn’t place an excuse before practicing their spiritual routine and urged others to do so. 

King Janaka was one such king that practiced Vedanta and the art of non-attachment with due diligence, and ran his kingdom, taking care of his subjects perfectly well. Now, this gets me thinking that nothing can be that great or that detrimental in life so as not to follow this path, but the question is how consistent could one get. 

In one of my previous blogs, I did mention this constant fear and insecurity in me that states that I am deviating from this spiritual journey, perhaps involving a bit more with the world, in lieu of which everything in my spiritual journey is quite clouded. 

There is this voice in me that says continuously that a lot more needs to be done, and that I got to put in a lot more effort. In one of the lectures by Swami Sarvapriyananda, someone asked a similar question and Swamiji replied that this kind of curiosity is bound to arise in an individual that is quite restless in his spiritual quest, and that’s normal. He even mentioned that this thirst is what will drive the person forward. 

Now, at this juncture, the only thing that I do strive for is attaining peace, gaining success in understanding the Vedantic scriptures, and nailing the art of non-attachment, or detachment. On several occasions, I heard Swami Sarvapriyananda say that one is already detached from worldly pursuits, and one does that quite willingly. 

He talks of the times when we are sleeping peacefully, and those times when we forget about our nearest and dearest possessions, even a mother that has just delivered her baby goes to sleep willingly, leaving her child apart. So, according to him, we are already ahead in this detachment game. 

Now, perhaps we just need to position ourselves and set forth...

Image by Michael Dziedzic