Cut the Knot of Attachment
Attachment is the first child of Maya. The whole Lila of the Lord is being kept up by the force of attachment only. A sober man just tastes a small peg of Champagne, when he is caught up in an evil company and becomes ultimately an inveterate drunkard through attachment to spirit. A teetotaler just takes a whiff of Gold-Flake Cigarette and becomes in due time a terrible smoker through attachment. There is in the mind a gummy substance which is like a mixture of castor-oil, glue, gum-arabic, mucilage of tragacanth, gluten paste, honey, glycerin, jack-fruit's juice and all other pasty substances of this world. The mind is glued, as it were, to the objects of the world with this mixture. Therefore attachment is very strong.
Therefore O man, never say "My body, my son, my wife, my house, my property, my garden, etc." Attachment is the root cause of the innumerable miseries and troubles of this world. Discipline your mind little by little. The old evil habits will creep in. Destroy them to the very root. Lead a life of perfect non-attachment. This is the master key to open the realms of Brahmic Bliss.
But work incessantly without attachment, without any identification. Then alone you can feel that you are a different being. Karma Yoga elevates a man to sublime, magnanimous heights, when done in the right spirit, with the right mental attitude or Bhav. One should patiently work. That is all. No meditation or Samadhi is ever possible without a preliminary training in Nishkamya Karma-Yoga. To work without attachment is doubtless a difficult task. It is an uphill work. But it becomes a very easy job and pleasant too to a man of patience and determination. You will have to do it at any cost, if you want final beatitude and immortality. Everyone of you will have to do it, though not now, at least after taking five hundred births. There is no other alternative but to do so. But the question is: Why not now? Why not in this very birth itself? Why not cut short the cycle of births and deaths and enjoy the Bliss of the Self right now, this very second? Therein lies real wisdom.
Work cannot bring misery, but it is attachment and identification with work that brings in all sorts of unhappiness and bondage. Understand the secret of work, the technique of Karma Yoga and attain God-Consciousness. This Jnanagni or fire of wisdom will consume all fruits of actions in toto.
