Krystal Barschig

We took a last minute road trip to LA this past weekend to help my grandparents. They are moving out of the house they’ve lived in for the past 55 years. They’ve raised 2 children and 4 grandchildren in that house. They’ve traveled the world (literally, there is not a single place left on the planet they wish to visit which they haven’t already been), and they’ve collected treasures from every corner of the globe. There have been, of course, countless memories made in that house as well, but because I want to actually get through writing this post and not end up in a puddle on the floor yet again, I’m going to stick to the stuff for now. So, 55 years spent acquiring really cool stuff… and now it’s time to let it all go.

We all already know about detachment as it relates to stuff — “you can’t take it with you” and such, but what about other intangible things to which we feel really attached? Things we may even feel define us or are part of our identity?

“If I am honest, I must admit that I own nothing. I have to give back everything when I die: my body, my feelings, my mind, my thoughts, my experiences, my education, my husband, my children, my family, my friends, my profession, and even my yoga — absolutely everything that I think I am.” — Judith Hanson Lasater, Living Your Yoga

We most often define ourselves by and feel most attached to what we do and who we love. But there is/we are something beyond all those things. And if this other thing is supposedly what we’re left with when all is said and done, well then perhaps we ought to not only uncover what it is, but also get really intimate with it. When the relationships and roles and thoughts and emotions and stories are gone, what’s left? What is truer and more constant than all those things?

“The common expression is ‘I love you.’ But instead of ‘I love you,’ it would be better to say, ‘I am love — I am the embodiment of pure love.’ Remove the I and you, and you will find there is only love. It is as if love is imprisoned between the I and you. Remove the I and you, for they are unreal; they are self-imposed walls that don’t exist. The gulf between I and you is the ego. When the ego is removed the distance disappears and the I and you also disappear. They merge to become one — and that is love. You lend the I and you their reality. Withdraw your support and they will disappear. Then you will realize, not that ‘I love you,’ but that ‘I am that all-embracing love.'” — Amma (widely respected humanitarian known as “The Hugging Saint”