Inter-  Faiths  Dialogue

Detachement > About detachement

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U nless we become dead to the world and the things in the world (1 John 2:15), how shall we live the "life that is hid in Christ" (Col. 3:3) when we have not died for the sake of God? How, as holy Symeon {the Studite} said, shall we contemplate God dwelling is us as light?


quote 3427  | 
The Discourses, p. 127, Trans. C.J. de Catanzaro. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1980. 




P aul says that those who are still alive will be lifted up to the clouds where they will meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thess. 4:17)} … in every way endeavor to be lifted up even but a little from the earth. Should this wonderful thing happen, which would astound you, that you should float up from the earth into the air, you would not at all want to descend to the earth and stay there! But by "earth" I mean the fleshly mind, by "air" the spiritual. Once the mind is set free from evil thoughts and through it we contemplate the freedom that Christ our God has bestowed on us, we shall never again be willing to descend to our former slavery to sin and the fleshly mind.


quote 3419  | 
The Discourses,Trans. C.J. de Catanzaro. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1980. 




J ohn tells us that we should neither love the world nor the things of the world. (1 John 2:15-16)} But what is "the world"? What are the "things that are in the world"? Listen! It is not gold, sliver, or horses, or mules. All these things that serve our physical needs we ourselves possess {even though we are monks}. It is not meat, nor bread, nor wine, for we ourselves partake of these things and eat them in moderation. It is not houses, nor baths, nor fields, nor vineyards, nor suburban properties, for great and small monasteries consist of these. So what is the world? It is sin, brethren, and attachment to things and passions…


quote 3418  | 
The Discourses, pp. 109-110, Trans. C.J. de Catanzaro. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1980. 




P eter said that he and the other disciples had forsaken everything in order to follow Christ (Mt. 19:27)} By the word everything he included lands, money, their own wills, to the point of contempt and abhorrence for this transitory life in order that they might taste that life which is substantial and eternal. It is altogether sweeter and preferable; it is nothing else but God Himself.


quote 3417  | 
The Discourses, p. 357, Trans. C.J. de Catanzaro. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1980. 




T hose who are ailing do not know these things. Indeed, they do not even understand that they are sick. And who then can ever persuade with argument people thus inclined that they are under the sway of sickness and disease? They imagine rather that it is health to accomplish the wishes of the flesh, and to practise all its lust and desire. And, just as no one will ever make those who are gone mad and deranged take account of the fact that they are insane, just so neither will anyone persuade those who are wallowing in the passions, and ruled by them, and unconscious of their being possessed, that they are in a bad way, and so make them change for the better. For they are blind, and neither do they believe that anyone else can see. Thus they live, deprived of sight and unconvinced they can lift up their eyes.


quote 3415  | 
On the Mystical Life : The Ethical Discourses. Trans. Alexander Golitzin. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1996,(Vol. 2), p. 75 




I t is not only he who commits sin who is separated from God and becomes His enemy, but also he who loves it and covets something, or has an attachment in his heart to anything that is on earth. This constitutes friendship with the world (James 4:4). Thus is is clearly proven that, even if one is deprived of everything and commits no sin whatever in action, but merely likes it and favors it and, so to speak, is attached to it, he is an enemy of God. Thus John says, "If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). So the Lord Himself says, "You must love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your strength and with all your soul" (Mk. 12:30). Therefore he who craves or has an attachment to anything else transgresses this commandment.


quote 3414  | 
The Discourses, p. 111, Trans. C.J. de Catanzaro. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1980. 




I f your intellect is freed from all hope in things visible, this is a sign that sin has died in you. If your intellect is freed, the breach between it and God is eliminated.


quote 3356  | 
Abba Isaiah the Solitary: "On Guarding the Intellect", taken from the Philokalia 




T he monk must die to everything before leaving the body, in order not to harm anyone.


quote 3352  |   Desert Fathers
Abba Moses: The sayings of the Desert Fathers : the alphabetical collection. Trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications Inc., 1984, 1975, p. 141, Moses 2 




R emember him who gives death and life. Hate the world and all that is in it. Hate all peace that comes from the flesh. Renounce this life, so that you may be alive to God.


quote 3339  |   Desert Fathers
Abba Anthony the Great:(p. 8, Anthony the Great 33) 




T he desire for possessions is dangerous and terrible, knowing no satiety; it drives the soul which it controls to the heights of evil.


quote 3337  |   Desert Fathers
Abba Isidore of Pelusia: p. 99, Isidore 6) 




I n a human being is such a love, a pain, an itch, a desire that, even if he were to possess a hundred thousand worlds, he would not rest or find peace. People work variously at all sorts of callings, crafts, and professions, and they learn astrology and medicine, and so forth, buth they are not at peace because what they are seeking cannot be found. The beloved is called dilaram because the heart finds peace through the beloved. How then can it find peace through anything else?


quote 3309  | 
Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi, p. 66, Trans. W.M. Thackston, Jr. Putney, Vermont: Threshold Books, 1994 




W hen the heart becomes empty, the mimbar of the Divine Oneness is placed therein and the sultan of gnosis sits upon it.


quote 3280  | 
The Key To Salvation: A Sufi Manual of Invocation. Trans. Mary Ann Koury Danner. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996, p. 90 




T he essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.


quote 3246  | 
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 47 




C ovet nothing. All belongs to the Lord. Thus working you may live a hundred years. Thus alone will you work in real freedom.


quote 3218  | 
Isha Up. 1-2, p. 208 in The Upanishads. Trans. Eknath Easwaran. Tomales, CA.: Nilgiri Press, 1987 




T hose who cannot give up attachment to worldly things and who find no means to shake off the feeling of I, should rather cherish the idea, "I am God's servant; I am His devotee." One can also realize God by following the path of devotion.


quote 3187  | 
Mahendranath Gupta. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Trans. Swami Nikhilananda. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942, 1948, 1958, p. 155 




I ask people to renounce mentally. I do not ask them to give up the world. If one lives unattached and seeks God with sincerity, then one is able to attain Him


quote 3184  | 
Mahendranath Gupta. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Trans. Swami Nikhilananda. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942, 1948, 1958, pp. 338-339 




L esson of the Gita is: "O man, renounce everything and seek God alone." Whether a man is a monk or a householder, he has to shake off all attachment from his mind.


quote 3183  | 
Mahendranath Gupta. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Trans. Swami Nikhilananda. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942, 1948, 1958, p. 157 




I t (Tasawwuf) means that you be solely with Allah with no attachments.


quote 3133  | 




T he wise unify their consciousness and abandon attachment to the fruits of action, which binds a person to continual rebirth. Thus they attain a state beyond all evil.


quote 2659  | 
translated by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, Tomales, California 




T here are two kinds of attachment: attachment to objects as having self-nature, and attachment to words as having self nature. The first takes place by not knowing that the external world is only a manifestation of the mind itself; and the second arises from one's clinging to words and names by reason of habit-energy.


quote 2559  |   The Lankavatara Sutra
Ch.III, p.296, in Dwight Goddard, A Buddhist bible 




G ood and learned friends, in this method of mine, from the very beginning, whether in the sudden-enlightenment or gradual-enlightenment tradition, absence-of-thought has been instituted as the main doctrine, absence-of-characters as the substance, and nonattachment as the foundation. What is meant by absence-of-characters? Absence of characters means to be free from characters while in the midst of them. Absence-of-thought means not to be carried away by thought in the process of thought. Nonattachment is man's original nature. Thought after thought goes on without remaining. Past, present, and future thoughts continue without termination. But if we cut off andterminate thought one instant, the dharma-body (Law-body or spiritual body ) (1) is freed from the physical body. At no time should a single instant of thought be attached to any dharma. If one single instant of thought is attached to anything, then every thought will be attached. That is bondage. But if in regard to dharmas no thought is attached to anything, that is freedom. [This is] the meaning of having nonattachment as the foundation.


quote 2305  | 
Hui-neng, in the “Plateform scripture” (liu-tsu t’an-ching), in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 26, 17. 




T he Great Tao flows everywhere.
It may go left or right.
All things depend on it for life,
and it does not turn away from them.
It accomplishes its task,
but does not claim credit for it.
It clothes and feeds all things but does not claim to be master over them.
Always without desires, it may be called The Small.
All things come to it and it does not master them;
it may be called The Great.
Therefore (the sage) never strives himself for the great,
and thereby the great is achieved.


quote 2195  | 
Laozi 34, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 7 



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