Every day we renew our determination to be unattached. We cast our eyes back and look at the past objects of our love and attachment, and feel how every one of them made us miserable. We went down into the depths of despondency because of our “love”! We found ourselves mere slaves in the hands of others, we were dragged down and down! And we make a fresh determination: “Henceforth, I will be master of myself; henceforth, I will have control over myself.” But the time comes, and the same story once more! Again the soul is caught and cannot get out. The bird is in a net, struggling and fluttering. This is our life. (II, 6)
A mind which is not trained in detachment will lose itself in selfish motivations. Therefore, consciously we should detach ourselves from unwanted material pursuits, family, relatives and so on. Make mind God oriented and let Satya and Dharma become practical in every aspect of our lives. That would remove beggarliness from the mind and it would become Self oriented and Self sufficient. Swamiji describes such Karma Yogis as men with capital M. Most of the people we see around today have lost their enthusiasm and courage to face life. They have lost faith in themselves and also in values like sincerity, love and optimism. If there is no detachment our old age would become miserable. The misery faced by the old in the society today due to their feelings of isolation and lack of love is because they failed to cultivate detachment in proper time. Our ancient rishis had introduced a stage called Vanaprasta after Grihastasrama giving people an opportunity to detach themselves from active involvement in worldly life. It is time to revisit the idea of Vanaprasta, specially when old people in our families have become unwanted entities, unloved and uncared for.
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