Today Gurudeva talks about attachment, desire and the spiritual life. He explains how to analyze your attachments and desires in terms of your highest spiritual goals, and then choose accordingly.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam; February 12th. Greetings everyone, greetings!

Today we are going to go to the other side of the island. It is a very long journey. We are having a field trip. We are driving 30 miles. When you live on a small island, as we do, the distances change within your mind. 30 miles is a long, long way. Going to the other side of the island is like driving from San Francisco, 400 miles to Los Angeles and it is a big adventure for everyone. Everyone feels like that on this small island, when they go from one side to another. It is a big adventure. Interesting how the mind works!

The mind can adjust to all kinds of situations. It is so fluid that if we hang on to attachments, then we suffer. What is an attachment? Something that we feel we own. Actually, we don't own anything. The closest thing that you do own is your physical body. That is why we should take good care of the physical body.

Attachment brings pain. Desire brings pain when it is not fulfilled. Many people are attached to their desires. Many people are attached to having pain in their life. It becomes part of their life and they are so used to the pain in their life. But the spiritual life is a life of total fulfillment every moment of the day, total fulfillment. The spiritual life is a life, free from desire and free from attachment. Now this doesn't mean that you don't have any desires at all. It doesn't mean that at all. It means that you don't have desires that are impossible to fulfill. It means that you don't have desires that are bad for you, if you did fulfill them. It means that you don't have desires that totally consume your mind and you'd be totally unhappy and upset if they were not fulfilled.

Analyze your desires. Analyze your attachments. Try to desire the highest and try to be affectionately detached. What is affectionate detachment? It is showering love on each and everyone, but remaining a little bit apart. A little bit detached. Not living other people's lives within them, as most people do. They don't live their own life. They are living their life through the minds of other people, by thinking about other people all the time, especially their faults.

Well, we will talk about this a little bit more tomorrow. We have to pack up now and go on our field trip to the other side of the island. Bye, bye for now.

Aum Namah Sivaya.