You Must Give Up All Worldly Goods

[spacedout]

According to Hindu scriptures, we have to withdraw from all Earthly desires and attachments in order to free ourselves from the cycle of life and death. In other words, we must give up all worldly goods if we are to ever find happiness.

Do you think this is true?

[torilink]

It depends on how you are defining these concepts. Christianity plays heavy on the giving up of earthly desires & attachments as well.

My personal interpretation is that we must withdraw our belief in them as truth & as existing outside of ourselves. we must not to seek to find our self in them, or make our identity dependent upon them (desires & outer reality)... we are to give up the concept of identity to find our true self (I AM).

[Ariel Bravy]

You gotta give up the attachments to what exists in the world of form, yes.

You gotta go beyond that lusty cravy feeling and rest in the beingness that you are.

You don't have to literally give up everything and become an ascetic. You simply have to give up your attachment to things. BIG difference.

[MiBeloved]

Actually there are two paths. The one mentioned is Nivritti marga but there is another more practical day to day math which is pravritti marge. In the one you mentioned a person give up all his oppurtunities in cultural life while in the other, the person accepts these in an informed detached manner on the basis of understanding that everything here is temporary but valuable nevertheless.
In a book called the Bhagavad Gita, the path of informed detached involvement is recommended to a person named Arjuna, while in a book named Uddhava Gita, the other path of complete detachment and deprivation is recommended by the same teacher to a person named Uddhava.

I (Michael Beloved) translated both both and have two volumes of each, one is merely a translation while the other is a detailed explanation.
see Uddhava Gita English
Bhagavad Gita English
Uddhava Gita Revealed
Bhagavad Gita English
at one of these URL.s

Michael Beloved's Storefront - Lulu.com

Amazon.com:

[Judge]

As I see it, consciousness (you) have made it all for a reason and that reason is to fully undestand what you are. So getting material stuff has value but only if it aids in conscious knowing itself better and growing internally.

It's not the money or the relationships or even the health of the body, it's how those physical things supply consciousness with what it truly desires.

To know and to grow.

Sitting in a cave for 50 years meditating and shunning materialism, seems to deny consciousness the chance to grow via what materialism can provide.

I would say that shunning materialism is based on fear. The fear that materialism is wrong and must be avoided, because there seems to be very little spiritualism withing material pursuits. As consciousness has created materialism like everything else, then has much value if viewed correctly.

Judge

[Eric Roosevelt]

I don't see why we couldn't live in peace while being surrounded with financial abundance. There's no inherent contradiction, except if you decide to create a contradiction in your mind.

[tintin]

correction. its not worldly goods alone...its everything to do with the illusory- gross and subtle .
this also includes...sex,love (exclusive variety),your attachment to your parents and children etc. etc.etc.


frankly this is absolutely insane.
this is called 'vairagya' or unattachment.

the thing to understand is if the roots of illusion are not cut off...which means you are not 'done' with or peaked in whatever your favorite illusion is you can go on pretending that youre detached.but this produces such severe conflict inside an individual that he/she can go plain insane.

so beware.
you cannot force detachment on yourself.

and the funny part is the people around you see through your pseudo-detachment, continuously trying to tempt you to normalize.


the state you are talking about..is a natural level acheived after you are done with the illusions..not before.

you cannot 'do' this if you get what i mean.


its like a beggar saying he wants to give up wealth!!


irony is you gotta have it first to give it up.

some folks have already peaked in previous lives.and you'll see them unaffected by that particular charming illusion.
could be money,could be sex,could be exclusive love...

and ONE thing that will certify that they have evolved in that section is that they will not condemn or look down on it.they will see the absolute truth of that illusion.and may also choose to be in it.

absolutely judge is right.its fear based shunning.and believe me a big huge ego trip.

sitting atop a mountain means nothing if the illusory..(death and life included) are still your truths.

[Xanafax]

I 100% disagree with this idea.

We exist in a PHYSICAL reality, we respond to physical stimuli and are supported by physical nutrients. So it stands to reason we should embrace physicality.

[tintin]

yeah. i fully prescribe to a life lived with passion.

denying your physicality is a waste of time and delusional.we have ,(for gods sakes) CHOSEN a physical human body.because there aint no lessons to be learnt in the ether honey.

embrace it.its joyous.before youre ether again.

[nhaasch]

eeee! normalizations up the wazoo!

Oh and all earthly desires and attachments? That might end up being contradictory.

The answer is going to depend entirely on:
-What are earthly desires and attachments?
-What does it mean to free ourselves from the cycle of life and death?
-Happiness in what ways?

There are ways in which those questions could be answered that would produce a "Yes" answer and other ways to produce a "No" answer.

[Angela]

Well, EVENTUALLY you're gonna have to give up all worldly goods.

I've been having fun surrendering the belief that I own any worldly goods, and it feels good when I remember to do it. I mean, of course I own things in the ordinary sense, I've paid for or been given things; but it's nice to remember that it's really just a long lease I've got here -- I'm really just using these items, temporarily on loan. All of them are only tools; none of them mean anything about who I am.

If I think about losing some something or other and the thought gives me real pain, then I know it's time to surrender that something, because it was never really mine.

[tintin]

thats the way it should be done ^ and the other way is to be in it (which is a painful way of going about it)

really looking i mean rrrreally looking and coming to the truth of it.

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by Xanafax

I 100% disagree with this idea.

We exist in a PHYSICAL reality, we respond to physical stimuli and are supported by physical nutrients. So it stands to reason we should embrace physicality.

I 100% agree with this post

[Johnny5]

Originally Posted by spacedout

According to Hindu scriptures, we have to withdraw from all Earthly desires and attachments in order to free ourselves from the cycle of life and death. In other words, we must give up all worldly goods if we are to ever find happiness.

Do you think this is true?

It's sound so simple and true, but it is not...

When your mind breaks free from the cycle of life and death only when your mind achieve a state of nivarna. In this state your mind would achieve the ultimate pleasure, that it doesn't desire worldly pleasure any more. It means that nivarna becomes the object of your mind.

The process starts with comprehension... about the mind and matter.

the mind always gravitates toward pleasure and move away from burden and pain.

Best Regards,

Johnny

[young]

Originally Posted by spacedout

According to Hindu scriptures, we have to withdraw from all Earthly desires and attachments in order to free ourselves from the cycle of life and death. In other words, we must give up all worldly goods if we are to ever find happiness.

Do you think this is true?

Have you explored this within? Recognize that detachment from the mind is freedom. However, don't just believe it because some scriptures say so. I notice a lot of people trying to believe concepts rather than seeing & knowing.

This question is irrelevant for you because it looks like you're expecting encouraging answers from those who haven't explored their inner self.

[spacedout]

Thank you, everyone, for your excellent replys.

For me, there is truth in the saying that we must give up desires and attachments and the cycle of life and death to be truly happy.

Desire, to me, means to want this and to want that - to desire to be such and such and desire to have. To give up attachments, to me, means to not be attached to either material (car, house, body, spouse, etc.) or non-material things eg. thoughts & emotions. It's okay to have all of those things, but just don't be attached to them to the point that the loss of one or all would be devistating to you. All of the material and non-material things are illusions anyway.

The cycle of life and death can be likened to the birth of a flower and the death of the flower. The flower produces seeds which become new plants which produce buds that become flowers that bloom and die, and on and on. Everything that lives experiences the cycle of birth and death but it's no big thing - it is what it is, so don't become attached to it. Be happy and be full of joy.

[SimonaRich]

It is true. If you are too attached to anything that causes neediness and misery, you are blind. You can enjoy things, but you should not get attached to them. You should be able to easily release them without any clingy thoughts.

[JHL]

Originally Posted by spacedout

For me, there is truth in the saying that we must give up desires and attachments and the cycle of life and death to be truly happy.

...To give up attachments, to me, means to not be attached to either material (car, house, body, spouse, etc.)...

So one shouldnt become too attached to one's spouse? When they die or leave us, we should shrug and say "Oh well, they weren't really mine to begin with" and carry on preparing breakfast?

I think what a lot of people are really trying to do with this whole non-attachment philosophy is to avoid pain. They want to live sanitised lives that are - as far as possible - devoid of uncomfortable feelings rationalising that these "negative feelings" are symptomatic of some unenlightened limiting belief.

Pain and happiness are opposite sides of the same coin. You cannot minimise the one without simultaneously minimising the other.

I leave you with this quote from Viktor Frankl:

What is to give light, must endure burning.

[spacedout]

Dear JHL,

Please go back and re-read the entire contents of my post. I was talking about not being attached to the point that the "loss would be devastating." That doesn't mean you wouldn't care about the loss or grieve about the loss. I know I certainly would and have done so plenty of times. It means that you wouldn't be so devastated as to cause harm to yourself or others. I had a good friend who's wife left him with their children and he committed suicide. This is attachment to devastation.

[JHL]

Originally Posted by spacedout

Dear JHL,

Please go back and re-read the entire contents of my post. I was talking about not being attached to the point that the "loss would be devastating." That doesn't mean you wouldn't care about the loss or grieve about the loss. I know I certainly would and have done so plenty of times. It means that you wouldn't be so devastated as to cause harm to yourself or others. I had a good friend who's wife left him with their children and he committed suicide. This is attachment to devastation.

Now I understand where you're coming from and I'm sorry to hear of what happened to your friend.

[spacedout]

That's okay JHL. And thanks for the condolences.

NAMASTE