If you want to reach the Lord and have a vision of Him, the most important quality that you need to develop is Vairagya; detachment or renunciation. Detachment endows you with the capacity to internalise your vision, it allows you to introvert your mind and dwell on the inner beauties. The mind is very strong and very fickle; it is very determined to get its way. Arjuna prayed to Krishna for help in, controlling his mind. He lamented, ‘O Lord the mind is very powerful and wayward’. Krishna replied, ‘Arjuna, if you practice detachment you will certainly be able to control the mind’.
Detachment refers to realizing the temporary nature of objects and not allowing the mind to get attached to these transient things. It does not necessarily mean that you feel disgust or hatred for them, it means that you feel no mental attachment towards them. Totally giving up all the objects of the phenomenal world is not possible. However, you can give up your ‘myness’, your sense of possessiveness. Once you give that up, then you can go ahead and enjoy the various objects of the world; they will not cause any harm. In the phenomenal world, everything, every person, and every object undergoes change. The world consists of three main types of change, growth, existence and decay. These are changes to which all objects are subjected. To delude yourself into thinking that this transient, impermanent world is really permanent, and to become attached to the various objects in it, is very foolish, indeed. (DBG, p. 67)
Detachment involves more than just recognizing the defects and weaknesses in objects, which result from their transitory nature. Detachment also involves the positive quality or getting the most out of the objects of the world. You should always strive to make the best use of an object and appreciate it for what it is. Just recognizing the limitation and the sorrow that objects of the world produce will not confer much joy on you, you must also know how to properly use them to do your duty on the world, then you will acquire some satisfaction. In the larger sense, it is really giving up worldly sorrow and gaining Atmic bliss that is true detachment giving up family, wife, children and properties and then going to the forest cannot be called detachment. Detachment is recognizing the weak aspects in the nature of the objects, as well as it is the intense vairagya, intense detachment, which is essential for progress on the spiritual path. (DBG, pp. 68-69)
The sense of dislike that results from recognition of the temporaries and triviality of pleasure is best called ‘practical detachment’. (SSS Vol.9, p. 7)
Detachment gives peace even amidst troubles. The world is like a shining drop of water that collects on a lotus leaf. It quivers and shakes without being steady. Heaps of attachments will fill the life of man. Trouble and sorrow constitute the screen on which the world shows itself.
As a drop of water on a lotus leaf disappears in no time, even so, we should know that our life is transient and will disappear very much like that and in no time. The world is full of sorrow, and the human body is full of disease. Our life is full of turbulent thoughts’ and is like a dilapidated house. Under these conditions, according to Shankara, it is possible to live in a peaceful manner by following the divine path and getting over all our worldly attachments. So long as one does not know who he is, we cannot escape these sorrows. So long as one does not realise the Ishvara or the presence of God in everything, one cannot escape this sorrow. So long as one does not understand that to be born, to grow, to live and to die is only for one purpose and that is to understand the nature of Atma-tattva and is finally extinguished in the Atma-tattva, or divine principle. This verse conveys that the divine principle is the pond or the lake, that maya, or illusion, is the bunch of leaves, and that the jiva or individual soul, comes out as the lotus flower in this pond, or God. This lotus spreads the fragrance of many good qualities. While spreading such fragrance, even the water in the pond becomes one with the Atma-tattva. The drops of water which come out of the pond of Atma come to the leaves of the lotus and go back to the Atma. This going back to the source is what is contained as an essence in this verse. In the infinity of the Atma, the jiva comes as the lotus because maya spreads in the form of leaves. The jiva, which is like the lotus, spreads the fragrance of the good qualities, which can be ascribed to the jiva tattva. (VS, pp. 250-251)
Detachment is a plant of slow growth; if you pluck the tender plant to look for the pods, you will be disappointed. So too, long and constant practice alone is rewarded by the Peace that God offers. Grace is acquired by Surrender, as Krishna has declared in theGita. (SV)