Involvement Without Entanglement – Is it Possible?

Questioner: Many spiritual teachers talk about “detachment” as a major objective. But you stated something very interesting – that without involvement, there is no life.

Sadhguru: This is not my statement. This is the way life is. From your experience, can you know life without involvement? Where there is no involvement, there is no possibility of life. When you are alive, why do you try to stay away from life? Fall dead, and your objective will be fulfilled. This whole nonsense about detachment came up because people are afraid of entanglement. There is a possibility of entanglement only because you are identified with something that is not you. Once you are identified with something that is not you, anything you put your hand on gets stuck to you. Because of this experience, there is fear of involvement, and because of this, people are talking “detachment.” But if you avoid involvement, you will avoid life itself.

Questioner: I think it’s about not wanting to get hurt. You are trying to stay away or detach yourself from the world, and even from your siblings, your wife, and your children, because when you get attached and there are expectations, there is bound to be hurt.

Sadhguru: That is also the fear of involvement. You think that if you are involved, you could get hurt. But actually, you will not get hurt because you are involved – you will get hurt because you are entangled. It is the entanglement that causes pain and suffering, not the involvement. Because people cannot distinguish between involvement and entanglement, because they do not know how to draw a line between the two, a simple, basic solution seems to be detachment. But detachment is not a solution in life. It is a way of avoiding life.

If, in your experience, you clearly know your body sits here, your mind is there, and you are at a distance from both of them, if there is a distinct separation between you and your body, between you and your mind, would you get entangled with anything in life? Only because you are attached and entangled with your body, you get entangled with everybody. If you are not attached and entangled with your body, you will not get entangled with anybody. You can throw yourself into anything. You can get totally involved with anyone without the fear of entanglement.

If anyone sits with me even for two minutes, I am absolutely involved with their life, because there is no fear of entanglement. If I was afraid that if I talk to this person and get involved, this person may do something else tomorrow and I may get hurt, I would hesitate to get involved. If there is a possibility of entanglement and pain, definitely you would hesitate to get involved. But when there is an experiential distance between you and your body, between you and your mind, there is no fear of entanglement. That is when you can throw yourself into everything.