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MEASURING OUR ATTACHMENTS Once I was paying $45 a month to store some
stuff. One day the logical
question hit me, “Is this stuff worth $45 a month?” I went to the
storage bin and decided it wasn’t. I threw away some of it, gave some
away and was amazed at how little of it I kept. We are creatures of habit and one of our
habits is attachment to stuff. And I mean an illogical and
self-defeating attachment. The Buddha taught that suffering comes
from attachment. To me, that does not mean all attachment is bad. It
means we should be alert to the wisdom of our attachments. Once again I am de-stuffing my life. I had
a room full of stuff when I moved to my current address. Because I live
alone and didn’t need the room, I left it piled there. Now I have come
up with a use for that room and am going through the stuff there. I am making three lists labeled, “Could
easily part with,” and “Requires some thought,” and “No way I
could give it up.” When I get through I am going to look at what I
have kept and ask one more question: “Is there anything, anybody, or
any experience I would prefer over this item?” That last question
is based on a law I found to be 100 percent dependable – the
Law of the Vacuum. Every time we move somebody or something out of our
life, it creates a vacuum and something else comes to fill that space.
When someone moves out of your life either by their choice or yours,
think of the kind of person you want to fill that vacuum, visualize that
person, and stay open to finding them and a problem person leaving can
often make room for a satisfying relationship to appear. Take something as simple as old LPs. I
have a couple of thousand. Music is one of my passions. As I move LPs
out of my life, I am putting those I love most onto CDs. The vacuum is
being filled by something better. Hold me in your light as I de-stuff. It is
one of the deepest psyche cleansings of all. We run into all kinds of
old internal boogie bears, fetishes, skeletons, cravings, habits and
attachments. That is why we do so little of it. We don’t want the
trauma of such a deep spiritual cleansing. But…here I go! Dalton’s website is www.daltonroberts.com. All his writings are gathered at www.IPSFeatures.com. Write him at DaltonRoberts@comcast.net
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