Detachment from the outcome

We all go through life seeking safety and security. This is built into us instinctually over millennia of species memory. Essentially, we have an inherent fear throughout our lives and most of what we do is driven by this. We attach ideas of acquisition of physical possessions to shore up our insecurities. We focus outwards to effect the conditions that will enhance our capability to acquire more and more goods. However, no matter how many things we acquire, we never really get rid of our insecurities. Therefore the pursuit of physical worldly possessions is a bottomless pit. The true source of all abundance in our lives is the self. Our consciousness knows how to fulfill every need that we have. Every physical thing that we have is merely a symbol of our capacity to fulfill our needs. Human beings are differentiated from all other creatures in the world because of our capacity to tell stories. The value that we attach to all physical things are basically stories that we tell each other about them. The fancy car is only as valuable as the story that is told by someone to someone else about how fancy it is. That monetary value and that religion are stories that have permeated the global consciousness. So what if we stop attaching value to things based on stories that someone has told us, and start building our own stories that are based not on fear and insecurity, but on our self love?

Our intention and attention, and a desire for a particular outcome, can help us apply our purposeful energy into the universe. However, we have to be careful to not be attached to the outcome, but instead, let the results of the aforementioned intention and attention play out. When we are attached to a particular outcome, we are attaching to mere ideas or symbols of yourself instead of your true self. Case in point, that Porsche that you own isn’t you. It is only a story that someone has told you about yourself and your value in the world. Even that education from that elite college that you have is essentially a story that you have told someone and they have in turn told you a story about how much those skills are valued. None of these are stories that you are telling yourself, but essentially external to you. In my humble opinion, by being attached to these external stories, we are always looking for validation and seeking more and more of it. We will never be satisfied. In order for us to be truly happy and harmonious in the universe, we have to practice detachment from the outcome of the energy we are creating in the universe.

With detachment to the outcome, we are free to create whatever we want to manifest into the universe. As long as we value ourselves and the energy we are creating in and of itself, we will be content. Without detachment, we are constantly trying to chase and satisfy mundane needs, trivial concerns and are desperate to prove our worth so that we are in turn rewarded. This leads to a mediocre existence. We go through life thinking that when I have accumulated X dollars, I will retire. However, as we accumulate more and more wealth, we have larger goals as well as larger expenses. Our quest for accumulation of wealth goals evolves and it never ends. After a while, we realize that money comes and money goes. It is an ephemeral thing. The search for security is an illusion. When we are seeking security, we are guided by our ideas of comfort and better times from our past and our attachments to them. This attachment is actually a prison of our past conditioning and leads us to stop evolving. When we stop evolving, we are led to stagnation, disorder and decay. Seneca, one of the stoic philosophers that I admire once said, “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor”.

Uncertainty is the fertile ground where our intention and attention can thrive and creative and nourishing energy. This entails stepping into the unknown with every thought and action that we take. Without this uncertainty, life is just a stale repetition of our old patterns that are born from our insecurities. It never leads to true abundance. If we are not attached to the outcome and we can create freely, accepting the outcome as it is, we will always be in a state of abundance and flow with the harmony of the universe. The result of our creativity will naturally manifest in various symbols of effortless success.

Everyone has their own life journey and most people attempt to live a fulfilling life, improving and developing through their entire lifetime. This growth and evolution can only be sustained if we aren’t attached to the outcome and we love and allow ourselves to create freely. In order to do that, we have to stop being so critical of ourselves and learn to love ourselves first. Our anxieties often come from a perception that we are ineffectual in changing an outcome that we have become attached to unnecessarily. These anxieties feed upon themselves and multiply and are detrimental to our growth. They also block the flow of abundance that can come from freely creating without any attachment.

As a white belt in jiu jitsu, I am often incredibly hard on myself when I can not execute a particular move or I am on the receiving end of a submission (which happens very often). I am also frustrated by my perceived lack of progress - I feel like I am not where I should be in my jiu jitsu journey. These thoughts are, of course, counterintuitive to true improvement in the art. I find myself being distracted by stray unkind sentiments when I can’t seem to achieve certain outcomes. This is detrimental to evolving as I am practicing with an attachment to a particular pace of progress and a particular outcome. Instead, I should be simply pursuing incremental improvements over time regardless of the outcome in any one particular class or lesson. This will open up my creative energies and my unique abilities as I respond spontaneously to any resulting outcome of one particular move or during a roll. By continuous practice of detached intention and attention, my jiu jitsu will improve in leaps and bounds.

The lessons learned on the jiu jitsu mats can be applied to anything you are attempting. I love the sport and the art because of all the lessons that one can learn about life through the experiences on the mats. You are exposed to your deepest insecurities and forced to question why you have them. How could you evolve if you didn’t have them? How would you start getting rid of your insecurities and freeing yourself to create freely and bring abundance into your life. A good start is to detach yourself from the outcome and bring your full intention and attention to anything you are attempting.