Love and Attachment

Post by **swetha** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 6:05 am

Can you love someone without getting attached to that person?

Is it the most conscious way to love someone? My mom told me this.. but I am still wondering how does one practice it?

spiritalk · Post by **spiritalk** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:47 pm

I recently lost my best friend.  For over 20 years we were 'joined at the hip' so to speak.  We did so much together.  IMO it is called being a soul mate to one another.

We had both had other marriages that were a bust.  Together we were stronger than being one alone.  

I don't know if that is attachment you are talking about - but I miss my other half.  We completed one another.

Puritychild · Post by **Puritychild** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:32 pm

I think love itself IS an attachment. By loving that person you form a connection. I don't think you can have one without the other.

santhosh.G · Post by **santhosh.G** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:50 pm

when you love one person it has attachment.when you just have love in heart and you pour that to everyone just because you are loving..then it has no attachment.

spiritalk · Post by **spiritalk** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:27 pm

Even a love for humanity has to have a base - attachment - through the outpouring of concern, action, thought, and prayer.

Amethyst-Jen · Post by **Amethyst-Jen** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:21 pm

spiritalk wrote:I recently lost my best friend. For over 20 years we were 'joined at the hip' so to speak. We did so much together. IMO it is called being a soul mate to one another.

We had both had other marriages that were a bust. Together we were stronger than being one alone.

I don't know if that is attachment you are talking about - but I miss my other half. We completed one another.

I am so very sorry for your loss.  *hug*

I don't know if you can truly love someone without becoming attached to them?  Then it's just like or even tolerate....love means you're giving your all, everything you have.  I don't see how you can do that without giving a part of yourself in the process

agata · Post by **agata** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:11 am

Swetha, I think that your mum wanted to say that the best thing that you can do is to love someone and let them abandon you if they don't want to be with you. It's just the matter of letting somebody be happy without you, letting them go. If you really love someone and it's not a selfish love then the most important thing for you is to feel that he or she is happy no matter if they're with you or with somebody else. However, it's very difficult to stop thinking about your own need of being close to the person that you love, so you're right that consciousness is very important factor here. You have to use your mind more than your emotions in this case.This kind of love and way of thinking are probably the most mature and wisest one. And such attitude has also one important advantage: the less you attach to somebody the less you suffer if they leave.
Personally, I don't think I'm able not to attach to people who I love or like very much. I don't think that majority of the people can. It's just too hard because for majority of us to love someone is to posses them. That's why people often say "I belong to you" or "You will always be mine", etc.

Post by **swetha** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:51 am

yes agata... I think that is what she meant... because attachment leads to unhappiness when expectations are not fulfilled... which again leads to resentment and hurt...
Love without any inhibitions

But is it actually possible to practice it...?

Aegeus · Post by **Aegeus** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:01 am

"if you love something let it go,
if it returns to you it's yours"

I guess the question could be is it possible to connect with someone without becoming attached.

Rook · Post by **Rook** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:32 am

"And such attitude has also one important advantage: the less you attach to somebody the less you suffer if they leave."

I think if you practice this your love is doomed to fail.  You can't love half-heartedly, keep your distance and not open your heart.  Not if you are in a relationship.  If you love and worry about getting hurt so don't commit fully, you will never experience that true union.  Love and pain go hand in hand.  If you don't experience both I don't think you are truly living.  Everyone dreams of perfect happiness, but this is a destination and life is a journey.

If you can't love because that person is already in love / relationship / marriage, then the choice is yours whether you pursue that person and potentially ruin their existing relationship / marriage (something I personally don't condone except in incredibly extreme situations) or to acknowledge that love but let it go as not meant for this lifetime.

Post by **swetha** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:18 am

Aegeus wrote:"if you love something let it go,
if it returns to you it's yours"

If it doesn't return,
It was never yours.
And if it doesn't even realize that you have let it go but is busy watching tv,
Then you are probably married to it

Aegeus · Post by **Aegeus** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:45 am

It is possible to find contentment and completeness within and thus be able to give love unconditionally, trust what you put out will come back to you and not be attached to how it comes back.

agata · Post by **agata** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:18 am

Rook wrote:"And such attitude has also one important advantage: the less you attach to somebody the less you suffer if they leave."

I think if you practice this your love is doomed to fail.  You can't love half-heartedly, keep your distance and not open your heart.  Not if you are in a relationship.  If you love and worry about getting hurt so don't commit fully, you will never experience that true union.

I didn't say that I would be able to limit my attachment for a long time, though I've already tried it in my life (unfortunately). But then the reason was because I was afraid that my significant other was not as involved in our relationship as I, so actually it was a way of self defense and I don't think it was healthy.  I know that limiting yourself when you're in love and trying to believe that it comes naturally when it doesn't leads to the situation when you mask your own unhappiness in the whole situation.You think that it's safe but it isn't. It's just pretending that there's no problem with trust or openness. And I know it. When writing the sentence "the less you attach to somebody the less you suffer if they leave" I was thinking about the situation in which people love each other so much that they don't think about own happiness only. There are rare cases in which people say that somebody left them and are now happy with somebody else, so it's good because it's what matters the most. But it's good only if what they say is really true for them, if  they really can think like this and are not cheating themselves only because they are so unhappy that they don't know how to console themselves for their loss. However, I think that this kind of love requires maturity and even some sort of spiritual development which allows to let things and people come and go. So you may suffer but you accept the fact that somebody left and you know that it just must have happened.

I think that it's good for this discussion to divide attitudes towards attachment into three separate attitudes. First is forcing yourself to limit it because of fear, second is when it comes naturally because you really are not involved in relationship (in this case you probably don't respect somebody else's feelings), and third is when you love someone very much and this love lacks selfishness so you let the paticular person be happy even if not with you. And I was writing about this last case.

spiritalk · Post by **spiritalk** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:01 pm

Amethyst-Jen wrote:
spiritalk wrote:I recently lost my best friend. For over 20 years we were 'joined at the hip' so to speak. We did so much together. IMO it is called being a soul mate to one another.

We had both had other marriages that were a bust. Together we were stronger than being one alone.

I don't know if that is attachment you are talking about - but I miss my other half. We completed one another.
I am so very sorry for your loss. *hug*

I don't know if you can truly love someone without becoming attached to them? Then it's just like or even tolerate....love means you're giving your all, everything you have. I don't see how you can do that without giving a part of yourself in the process

The difficulty in giving yourself completely is that both parties have to give.  When you are in a relationship where you have given your all and the other has not, it sooner or later fails.

To love is to give completely.  When it fails is hurt and despair.  But then life is full of those experiences for us to learn and grow.  

When we can truly say we have loved and lost, then are we complete in our love.  We can only be responsible for self and that means we love completely, even when not reciprocated.  But even love dies when it exists in a vacuum without return.

Aegeus · Post by **Aegeus** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:27 pm

It takes two to tango. One sided relationships are doomed to collapse.

I heard an aunt of mine saying she loves dancing cause you can't be in a bad mood with your partner when dancing, or you wouldn't be able to dance.

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Love and Attachment

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