Detachment/Inner Peace

Om with laundry acting as prayer flags

Lately, Chris and I have been discussing the differences and similarities between an experience of “inner peace” and “detachment.” When we find inner peace, if only for a fleeting moment, we are detached. We are neither in the past, nor the future, but feet firmly planted in the present. We require the past to feel a loss, to lament that which has been and we require the future to yearn for what has not yet come to pass, to wish for what we are not, or what the moment isn’t. Detachment has a connotation of less warmth, it speaks of a singularity, where the moniker inner peace feels more pious, more at one with all. Yet by realizing the one in oursleves, we relaize the one in all, and by realizing the unity in all, we are greeted with our true self. Both inner peace and detachment can infuriate another by the sheer non-reactive response, the response that does not seek to please, to perform, to gain, but only to allow. Can one even disagree, without an inner rise, one can shun, love and accept, all from the state of pure detachment? There is an objective choice at play, a freedom of response from one who is married to the moment. The Mother once said, “Freedom from attachment does not mean avoiding all occasion for attachment.” This helped me to see that detachment in the sense of a spiritual aspirant does not mean aloof or cold-hearted. In fact there is a chance for a pure expression when not polluted by what we are attached to—including allowing others to feel the pain to which they are entitled. Nature is not attached, seems to be in a constant state of inner peace, and she does not seem to cry because we are cutting down so many of her trees and soiling the air she breathes--but this does not mean she is not taking action. I learn much from her in that way, I can align my identity with her’s by gazing into the woods, and suddenly, my problems seem to soften.