Forms Of Body-Consciousness - Attachment or Possessiveness

Pure love is spiritual. Its misplaced forms are attachment and lust. But people regard attachment as the "glue" that keeps the household and family unified. In reality, the people or things that I consider as "mine" end up as my captors binding me in a net of worries and fears. The people or things that I cling to through attachement are compensations for the insecurity of the soul to lost in matter. Spiritual love is unconditional but attached love imposes so many conditions according to the likes and dislikes of the parties involved. Instead of being the thread of happiness and unity as it is supposed to be, it is the cause grief and anxiety within any relationship.

For example, a child is born and the parents think, "This is our child, thank God." Yet if the child were to die they would weep and become lost in a maze of negative thoughts, none of which could bring back the child. In this case, the "child" is the body which has died not the soul. The parents are not the creators of the personality, the soul, but only of its vehicle. The soul is the child of God and no human soul has the right to own another through the words "my" or "mine".

In this case, as with lust, we can also see that the basic motivation behind attachment is selfishness. I place importance on a relationship only because I feel there is benefit in it for "me". In body-consciousness those benefits are illusory, transitory. A yogi clings to the attributes of God and becomes unburdened from the subtle chains of attachment to limited things and beings. He becomes unlimited, unbound. The natural state is one of comprehension and freedom and no possessiveness, or "my-ness".