From Attachment to Detachment

An Explanation by Maharaj Charan Singh

Q: Is it possible that although someone is steadfast on the path, attending to their meditation, that due to their heavy load of karma they’re not conscious of any progress whatsoever during their whole lifetime, but then at the time of death they have actually made enough progress to not have to come back, but never to have realized it before that time?

Well, brother, if there is a wall ten feet in width and you start making a hole from one side, a man sitting on the other side does not know how deep you have been able to make the hole until the last brick is pierced. Then he knows how much progress you have made. Even if the hole has gone nine feet through the wall, still the man sitting on the other side doesn’t know till the last layer is broken. In the same way, with whatever time we give to meditation, we are definitely making progress, but we do not know how thick the wall of karmas is that we have to pierce through. Not a single moment of meditation goes to waste. It is taking care of thousands and thousands of karmas which we have been committing in our past lives.

And as far as coming back to this world is concerned, it is not so much your spiritual progress which determines that, but your attachments. If you are not attached to this creation, if you are not attached to people in this world, although you have not made much progress within spiritually, you may not come back to this world at all. On the other hand, even if you have made spiritual progress, but there are certain strong attachments left in you – your mind has made certain grooves which you cannot get rid of – those attachments can definitely pull you back to this creation again. Then when you come back to this world, again you will make progress and get rid of those attachments through meditation, and you can go back home. Whatever progress you have made does not go to waste when you leave the body. In the next birth, you will just pick up from where you left off.

So actually, it is our attachments which are pulling us back to this creation. Meditation is the only way to detach ourselves from all these attachments. With the help of meditation, we are able to detach ourselves from all these bondages in this world by attaching our mind to the Shabd and Nam, to the Light and Sound within, which pulls us to its own level.
_{Die to Live}

May my mind turn away
  from illusory attachments, passions and vices.
Execute your will in such a way, O Lord,
  that I may desire only you.
_{Sant Dadu Dayal, as quoted in Voice of the Heart}