During the course of his travels, Richard had become quite attached to the spiritual books he carried. He had gradually gathered a small library in a cloth bag. Many times he considered reducing the weight of this burden, but every time he looked through the books, trying to decide which ones to give away, he found he could not part with a single one. Among them were the Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Upanishads, Autobiography of a Yogi, books on Buddhism, one by Shankaracarya, and the Krishna book personally given by Srila Prabhupada. He lugged this bag of books wherever he went, and was often exhausted from the load. One day near Connaught Circus in New Delhi, he set the books down on a street corner, waiting for the traffic light to turn green. When he reached down to lift his bag of books—it was gone. Richard frantically searched the four directions, and finally came to grips with the reality that his books had been stolen. Terribly sad, hopeless of their recovery, he walked away. But now he became aware of how easy it had become to walk. The heavy burden of the bag of books that had troubled him for so long was gone. Richard felt liberated and he reflected:
“The nature of the mind is to interpret nonessentials essential. The mind creates artificial needs, believing it cannot live without them. In this way we carry a great burden of attachments throughout our life. Attachment is itself a great burden on our minds. We may never understand the extent of the burden till, like my books or the earwax, we’re free of it. But if we find joy within, we can live a simple life, free of endless complications.”
This reminds me of the strategy of a hunter in catching a monkey. He makes a hole in a coconut shell and fills it with peanuts. A monkey puts its hand inside, and collects all the nuts. However he is then unable to take his hand out because his fist is closed. If he lets go the nuts, he could be free, but the nuts are precious for a monkey. He clings on to the nuts and simultaneously tries to pull his hand out. The hunter quickly catches his prey. We may have our own precious nuts in the form of non essential attachments of this world. This burden of attachment may then be the biggest hurdle for us in obtaining God’s mercy. As Richard experienced, letting off these attachments of desires gives us the freedom from unending muddles.
Material desires push us to seek more and more, and they also pull us further away from God. This reminds me of an ancient saying from the Niti shastra– the book of Indian wisdom, “Oh these ropes of desires are strange indeed. One tightly bound by them runs all around seeking happiness. One freed from these ropes stays calm in one place.” Talking about non spiritual ropes of desires and ambitions, Radhanath Swami quips, “Once our dreams are fulfilled, misery begins.”
The selfish desire of the mind, driven by our false sense of identity keeps us miserable. To save ourselves from the mind’s constant harassment, Radhanath Swami offers a simple solution, “There is a spiritual principle for controlling the mind. Completely give your mind to God. This means to become so absorbed in God that you completely transcend any false egoistic identity that I am this body, I am this particular sex or particular race or particular color, particular religion or nationality or any other thing.” If instead of offering our mind to God we seek to satisfy its material desires, happiness eludes us. As Radhanath Swami says, “Mind always searches for some reason to be dissatisfied.”
Source: http://www.radhanath-swami.net/mind%E2%80%99s-burden-of-attachments/minds-burden-attachments
