As spiritual beginners, we may think that our attachments
cause our entanglement. Such thinking doesn’t probe deep enough – it fails to
ask: Why are we attached? What inner needs are our attachments filling or
promising to fill? Frequently, our attachments promise relief, security,
comfort, joy – promises that they fulfill at best only temporarily and
partially. We are eternal souls, parts of Krishna – he alone can satisfy our
needs perfectly and perennially. But unfortunately, we are detached from
Krishna. That is, we are emotionally uninvolved with him. So, we seek our
emotional needs in mundane objects, becoming attached to them. To counter such
attachments, we need to cultivate our attachment to Krishna. Otherwise, even if
we become detached by raw willpower, the resulting emotional barrenness will
cause our relapse to worldly attachments, sooner or later. To prevent relapses,
we need to become attached to Krishna. The Bhagavad-gita’s flow from chapter
six to seven reflects this progression from detachment-centeredness to
attachment-centeredness. After outlining the detachment-centered path of yoga
in its sixth chapter, the Gita (06.47) declares that this path culminates in
attachment to Krishna (06.47). And in its next chapter (07.01), it outlines an
alternative path to that same summit: bhakti-yoga, which focuses not on
detachment but on attachment to Krishna. Because Krishna is the source and
shelter of everything, attachment to him requires not the rejection of all
other attachments, but the rejection of only our anti-spiritual attachments
–our other attachments can be incorporated within the inclusive scope of
bhakti-yoga. At our seeker stage, attachment to Krishna manifests authentically
not in imagination, but in dedication – not in imagining intimate emotions for
Krishna, but in dedicating ourselves to his service. By such steady dedication,
our emotions will get increasingly purified and engaged in him, thereby
fostering liberating attachment to him.
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