Learning detachment should start from childhood

By Shikhar Mohan

When I completed school, I remember one of my teachers telling me all misty eyed – “Now you enter the big bad world.”

The big bad world wasn’t so bad. I hopped on to the University special in the morning, got some pocket money from my parents which was enough for an occasional samosa at the Delhi School of Economics canteen, finished classes at 3 o’clock and roamed in the campus for the rest of the day.

The big bad world was nice!

This isn’t a unique case. Most of us in India live a sheltered existence. As an education expert I was recently interacting with said, “Children in India don’t grow up till they get married and sometimes not even then.” It’s common for children to stay with their parents long into the twenties and family often supports their children’s post graduation education for instance. All in all it’s a fairly sheltered existence for middle class youth.

Come thirties and forties however, the shelter is long gone. The big bad world is no longer a mythical creature you are yet to come face to face with – you have met it and made friends with it. You have jumped in to life, seen the beautiful aspects, swam with the sharks, gotten your hands dirty and lost your rose coloured glasses somewhere on the journey.

It’s at this age that we come face to face with situations completely out of our control with almost no one except us to solve them. The promotion that fails to come through and instead goes to someone you feel doesn’t deserve it. The divorce that broadsides you. The project that your worked on for two years that is scrapped due to lack of funds or a layoff that your never foresaw or simply health issues that reduce your life force.

A lot of us find ourselves facing similar challenges.

That’s when a lot of us turn to spirituality. Some read the Bible, some the Koran to cope with the issues they face in life. Hindus turn to the Bhagavad Gita. My first proper introduction to Bhagavad Gita was luckily when I was still in my late twenties and studying at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), where we were taught some nuggets from the ancient text which would help us in our journeys as managers.

One of they key lessons we were taught was “Karam karo, phal ki chinta mat karo”. Translated it means, “Work without worrying about the fruits of your labour”

The lesson does not imply that one should work without expectation of accomplishing something. No, that would be madness. The import of the words is far more subtle and was explained in simple words by Swami Samarpananand, a monk at Ramakrishna Ashram who taught the course.

The words imply: Work with an aim to accomplish something, but don’t get attached to that reward at the end of the tunnel, because what you are gaining lies not at the end of the tunnel, which is material and transient, but instead what you become in the process.

This was beautiful. Except many years later, I am still trying to come to terms with the learning and live by it. Why is this the case? Why should it be so difficult to learn detachment?

I thought about this a lot and was pushed to pen my thoughts when I saw an ad on TV. The ad was for the Honda City. Below is the ad. I request you to watch it before you read ahead.

How does one suddenly switch tracks and learn detachment at 30 or 40 when we have been ‘hardwired to become attached to results’ for the majority of our lives?

For instance, it’s common for parents to tell their children that they must get top marks in school and hound them till they perform – like in the ad above, the focus on learning is often non-existent.

Would the story be different for us as adults if parents and teachers said “Don’t worry if you got a B on the exam, you have gained knowledge that will hold you in good stead.”

Would we as a consequence live happier and more content lives as adults? Maybe worry less when the big car comes home later rather than today or the raise two quarters later?