Love and Attachment

 

Things or persons whom we love, draw our minds, and create attachment, hatred and aversion. Love and aversion are only the obverse and the reverse of the same coin; never make any mistake as to this. So they come under the same category. Hatred or aversion is love or attachment turned up-side down. It is not something essentially different. We must get rid of all forms of attachment and all forms of fear by becoming dispassionate and free from personal likes and dislikes. We must be kind without ever getting attached. There should never be any personal claim on  anybody or anybody's love nor should we allow anybody to have any personal claim on us or on our affection. We must love God alone and allow others also to do the same.

We reap only what we sow, and so long as we go on allowing all these likes and dislikes, fettering ourselves and others with the chains of so-called love, we shall remain bondslaves, bringing misery on ourselves and on others. Misery is the penalty we pay for our attachments. In some cases it comes soon, in others late; but all have to pay for their folly.

-Swami Yatiswarananda

in 'Meditation and Spiritual Life'

(Bengaluru: Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, 1979), 143-44