252
Aptavani-1
say that one has truly renounced all attachment? Only when one
renounces maya while enjoying the luxuries and comforts of
worldly life can it be said that he has truly renounced. How can
one be considered free of all illusion when he renounces his wife
and children but at the same carries baggage of nothing but
illusion? How can you say that he has become free from maya,
illusion?
Wherever he goes, as long as he identifies with feelings
such as ‘mine’, ‘yours’ or ‘I did this’, his maya and attachment
will remain with him too.
A man came to me crying profusely. He told me that it
had become very difficult for him to continue living and that he
felt like committing suicide. I knew that his wife had passed
away about fifteen days ago leaving behind four children. I
asked him how long he had been married and he told me ten
years. I asked him whether he would still cry for her if she had
died more than ten years ago, before he had seen her. His reply
was how could he cry when he did not even know her? I went
on to explain : ‘Let me tell you why you cry for her now. When
you went to marry her, you went in grandeur with a procession
of brass band and music. During the ceremonial walk around
the fire, you began to wind the feeling of ‘This is my wife… this
is my wife…’. Everytime you looked at her you kept thinking
‘This is my wife’, and thus began to wind and twist within you,
the feelings of attachment. If the wife turns out to be good, then
you become bound with a silk thread, and if she turns out to be
difficult, then you become bound with a cotton thread. Now if
you want to be free, you will have to unwind your attachment
by saying ‘She is not mine…She is not mine’, just as many
times as you had wound with ‘She is mine’, only then will you
become free from your attachment.
He understood exactly what I told him and started to