Quotes about Detachment

Superficially so like them all, and so eager to outdo them in detachment and adaptability, ridiculing the prejudices he had shaken off, and the people to whom he belonged, he still kept, under his easy pliancy, the skeleton of old faiths and old fashions. He talks every language as well as the rest of us, Susy had once said of him, but at least he talks one language better than the others.

all mature spirituality, in one sense or another, is about letting go and unlearning.

If you do not acquire good training in detachment, you may attach to all the wrong things.

All Mature Spirituality Is About Letting Go

So Jesus pulls no punches, saying you must "hate" your home base in some way and make choices beyond it.

All great spirituality is somehow about letting go.

he just tells him to "descend" from his power position, "go away and get rid of all your possessions." Money is only the metaphor here; the real possession he has to get rid of is his ego.

As Carol Bialock writes in her poem, we cannot stop the drowning waters of our addictive culture from rising, but we must at least see our reality for what it is, seek to properly detach from it, build a coral castle, and learn to breathe under water. The New Testament called this salvation (some might call it enlightenment); the Twelve Step Program calls it recovery.

God warns us to not get too attached to what's around us because it is temporary. We're told, "Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away."9

May the things of this world so lose their power over us that we do not in the slightest wish to be 'worldly'; nay, we even delight in not remaining 'in the world.'

Fasting detaches you from this world. Prayer reattaches you to the next world.

Attachment to being right creates suffering. When you have a choice to be right, or to be kind, choose kind and watch your suffering disappear.