Attachment With Detachment

Attachment is the source of all our pleasures now. We are attached to our friends, to our relatives; we are attached to our intellectual and spiritual works; we are attached to external objects, so that we get pleasure from them. What, again, brings misery but this very attachment? We have to detach ourselves to earn joy. If only we had power to detach ourselves at will, there would not be any misery.

That man alone will be able to get the best of nature, who, having the power of attaching himself to a thing with all his energy, has also the power to detach himself when he should do so. The difficulty is that there must be as much power of attachment as that of detachment. There are men who are never attracted by anything. They can never love, they are hard hearted and apathetic; they escape most of the miseries of life. But the wall never feels the misery, the wall never loves, is never hurt; but it is the wall, after all. [...]

The perfect man can put his whole soul upon that one point of love, yet he is unattached. How comes this? There is another secret to learn.

-- Swami Vivekananda, from Work And Its Secrets