Questioner (Q): What is attachment?
Acharya Prashant (AP): The way our brain is constituted, it has nothing of its own. If you ask the brain, "Who are you?" It will not be able to say anything if it has been kept in complete isolation. But the brain is never in isolation. It is always in touch with a lot of external things and people, the world. Whatsoever the brain is in contact with, over a long period of time, the brain starts thinking that this is what I am. Are you getting it?
The brain is a totally material thing. Understand it like this, that if you take a nickel plate and a copper plate and you put them together for a sufficiently long period of time, what will you see? That it is impossible to pull them apart now. Their molecules have diffused into each other. Those who have old bikes or cars would know that these nuts and bolts, if they have not been opened for many years, then it is impossible to open them, you have to cut them. Because the nuts and the bolts just get into each other. Their molecules diffuse into each other, they are now one. In space, whatever material is there, its property is to get attached and attachment requires time as well. So, attachment is space and time.
Bring something close to you in space and keep it close to you over a long period of time, and you will be attached. Two conditions; one, bring something sufficiently close to the brain, close to the brain in what sense? Not in the physical sense, in the sense of the senses, that you are perceiving it all the time. The eyes are looking at it all the time, or the ears are hearing it or the hands are touching it. Bring something close to the brain in the domain of the brain and keep it there for a long period of time and the brain will start identifying with it.
You stay in your hostel room for some period of time. And you very well know that it is a hostel room and you have to leave it. But the day you have to leave it, you feel that feeling of, that pain of attachment. Just because you have stayed close to all the material in the room, the walls, and the other things for some time. Material is space and you spend time in that space, and you will be attached. This is a purely material thing. This has nothing alive about it. There is no understanding in this, no consciousness in this. This is just the dead property of material. This is just a dead physical property of material that it gets attached, it just gets attached.
A child is born and you keep the child close to a particular wall for a long period of time. You keep the child close to a wall, whatever he does he must always be close to the wall. Let him play near the wall, eat near the wall, spend time near the wall. And he will become deeply attached to the wall. The wall will become a part of the child’s identity. The child will not understand what is happening and what is happening is purely material. There is obviously no great understanding in what is happening. Yet there would be attachment.
Obviously, attachment is not sentient. Obviously, attachment has to do nothing with love. Obviously, attachment has no understanding about it. You stay close to anybody for a long period of time and you are bound to get attached. Attached in a positive way or in a negative way, you will either start feeling an attraction or a repulsion.
Where there is attachment, surely there is a lack of understanding because only dead material can get attached. Where there is a lack of understanding, there obviously can be no love. Attachment clearly indicates an absence of love. Where there is attachment, there can be no love.
The mica sheet is very closely attached to the wood on the table. Are these two in love, really? But they are attached, they are deeply attached. This is dead material clinging to another material. This is just material clinging to another material. There is no understanding here. They are always together. But are they together because they are great friends? The cement is always together with the bricks, but are the bricks friends with cement? Are they? Is there any love? We started by saying that the brain has a totally material nature. The brain has a completely material nature.
Q2: Sir, the definition of love is different for different people.
AP: It is not a question of definition. What do you mean by defining love? These are not opinions. Opinions vary, facts do not vary. Opinions can vary, facts do not vary. The way the brain operates is a fact. It is not your opinion vs. somebody else’s opinion. And it has come out of great observation, neuroscientists have gone into it, psychologists have gone into it, research has been done, and then it has been seen how the brain operates.
What do you think, attachment is just a loose word that you use? Attachment is a technical word. And thousands of research papers have been published on it after doing careful, very very careful experiments. What has happened is, because your education has not been in the humanities, all you have read is science and science is about the material that you see outside, you have not had any education about the mind; so, the moment somebody starts talking about it, you feel it is his opinion.
It is as scientific as physics or electrical engineering or mechanical engineering and as precise, and as accurate. We are not talking of somebody’s whims and fancies. No opinions here. If you go and research on the internet, you may even get attachment quotients, how they operate. And these experiments take place in very carefully controlled conditions. They are conducted for long periods of time. And they are verified across groups; here, there, across cultures, communities, countries, and then you come to see something.
All attachment means is that I have identified with something. All that attachment implies is that I, the Ego, have identified with something, it has latched onto it. The brain does not have an identity of its own, so it has got hold of an external object, some other object and now it is defining itself in that term; I am a daughter, I am a mother, I belong to such country, I am an engineer or I am something. Some object, either physical or psychological, has been taken up and that object is now the object of attachment.
Attachment in no way means love. Love is freedom. In attachment, when you are attached to somebody, what do you want? Because your identity depends on that person or that being or that thought or that idea, whatever it is. Whenever there is an object of attachment, you do not want to let it free. You will not want to let it go away, even if it is in the best interest of that object to be separated. But you are dependent on it, you are attached to it. You will not let it go.
In attachment, you only harm the object of attachment. When you are attached to somebody, you keep harming him. When you are attached to somebody, you do that person a lot of harm. Because you are dependent on him, when you are dependent on somebody, you want to possess him. You don’t want to let him go. You take away his freedom.
Love is the opposite. Love is freedom. Attachment takes away freedom. Attachment means loneliness, dependency.
You want to get rid of attachment? The nature of the mind is to remain attached. We said, whenever you spend time, a lot of time with something, attachment is inevitable. Whenever we say that something is present in your mental, psychological domain, psychological space, attachment is inevitable. So, attachment will happen.
You can only realize that this is just attachment, nothing beyond it. And the moment you realize that then attachment loses its power. Then, you are free of attachment. The stranglehold of attachment then weakens. That is the way to be free from attachment. Otherwise, the way the brain operates, you will always, always be attached. There is no doubt about it.
