Can We Heal an Anxious Attachment Style? | Eckhart Answers

There is an eternal life there. There is a level at which the essence of that person, you know it beyond explanations, is eternal. You speak often about non attachment. I can understand non attachment to objects, but I can't comprehend non attachment to my children or family. How can one be non attached to those we love? Good question. The questioner can understand non attachment to things. Okay, now, non attachment to things. Let's talk about that for a moment. Non attachment to things does not mean not appreciating things, but it means not seeking yourself or to regard things as an extension of yourself. Or think of things as needing them to add to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. That's attachment to things. It's an ego dysfunction, but in a way in which the ego survives. And it's not pleasant because you always need more and nothing really satisfies you. If ever you buy something and seek some kind of self satisfaction through it, very quickly you realize it doesn't work and then you look for something else. However, there is a way of appreciating things, beautiful things or simple things. Appreciate is not being attached. You can love, even love a piece of furniture or whatever it is, a little object or a piece of cloth, something you wear too. Not saying all this needs to disappear. You can like things and appreciate them, love them in a sense of having appreciated without the self seeking in it. And when the thing leaves you, you lose it or it breaks or it gets stolen or whatever. Without the attachment, you'll say, oh, it's a pity, but you don't. There's no reaction and no pain. You're able to let go and that's a sign that something you appreciated. And yet when it's not there anymore, well, that's all right too. I always appreciate it. Since I started in my. Between the age of 30 and well up to the age of 30, I don't know, 36. My main transportation was bicycle and I always appreciated my bicycle. And I developed a strange habit. When I parked my bicycle and changed it to something, a railing, outside, whatever, I would take a few steps and look back on it and just appreciate its being. It's a very strange habit. I look back at it and look back one more time, there it is. And sometimes people ask, why are you looking back at your bicycle? Are you proud of it? But it wasn't a particularly special bicycle, just a normal. No, I just. I appreciate it being there. And one day then I got a car, somebody gave me an old car, and then I lent my bicycle to somebody and suddenly that person came and said, I'm so sorry I lost your bike. I didn't lock it for a few minutes and now it's gone. I had already gone through a shift in consciousness, so I said, it's okay, it's gone. Nothing we can do about it. Hopefully somebody else appreciates it now. Then I developed the same habit with my old car. I would look back when I parked it. I'd look back and just appreciate it being there. And I do the same now that I have a much better car. And now with my good car, people think I must be proud of this car or something. But it's not that I did the same with the bicycle. It's a strange habit. I'm not recommending anybody that he should do that. But it's just a way in which I appreciate it, its being. And it's not attachment. But don't believe me. But the reality of attachment only comes out when it disappears. So let's wait and see. So, yes, it's wonderful not to be attached to things and yet being able to appreciate things. And then comes attachment to humans, attachment to human beings. And the questioner asks, I can understand non attachment to objects, but I cannot comprehend non attachment to my children and family. How can one be non attached to those we love? Well, you can't. It's not, nor is it desirable. Of course you are attached to those you love. And of course, if they should be taken from you, you feel pain and you weep. However, as you awaken spiritually, in addition to your attachment to a person that you love, there is a deeper level also present in which you relate to that person not at all through emotion or the physical, but deeper through presence. You feel their presence, you feel beyond emotion, you feel their essence. And that is vital. Because now it means that the love has become. Well, what word do we use? We could say spiritualized. It's not just emotional, it's only a very limited form of love. But there is. You also realize the. The formless dimension in the other human being and in yourself at the same time. And as if a person should be taken away from you. The level at which you are attached to that person. And that level you feel the loss and the pain of it. And at the same time there is the deeper level present in which you realize that which is not subject to death. There is an eternal life there. There is a level at which the essence of that person, you know it beyond explanations, is eternal, the essence of who they are. And you can sense that in yourself, even while you weep if a person dies whom you love. So we are not aiming for non attachment to those we love. But what we are aiming for is going deeper in our love. So that there's not just the emotional level or the physical level, but a deeper level of true. Ultimately that's the true love. And don't wait until somebody whom you love is taken away from you to find that level. Find that level while they are here with you. But don't look for it in the other, find it in yourself. That's the entire teaching here is about that. Find it in yourself and then look upon the other and sense it and recognize it also in the other. So there are times then when you can relate to a loved one. And that's an important part of the relationship. Not through words and thoughts, not through physicality, not through emotion. Those are there. But from time to time relate to the other on a level that's deeper than physicality. Touch look deeper than words speaking deeper than thoughts, thinking about the other. Deeper than the emotion that you feel, even the closeness. And so you go to that. Is that possible? Yes. Be with the other person in the state of the clarity of presence, just absolute spacious awareness. Look at the other in spacious and through spacious awareness. And soon there's the formless essence arises. And then when they die. Because everybody close to you, of course is going to leave you or you leave them. They die first or you die first. And it's absurd not to consider that. And when death finally comes, yes of course you feel pain, but to react as if that were the greatest unnatural thing to happen ever in the world. Of course that's what it feels like if you've never even considered death, the reality of it, which is all around you. But to go beyond death, don't wait for death. Die now to that exclusive identification with form. Die to the mind made self. That's. And then when death comes, you will weep and feel a deep peace at the same time. It seems almost paradoxical, but I have experienced it and I know others who have. You weep and you feel deep peace at the same time.