To be nonattached, then, means it’s okay if it goes “this” way, and it’s okay if it goes “that” way. If I see the parade, I will enjoy it, and if I don’t see the parade, I won’t—I won’t miss it. Neutral is a very good space in which to work at that. Neutral, you’re released from your attachments and your—your avoidance and attachments. You’re pretty free. You can either stay or leave, it’s okay. If we make it to the movie on time, we’ll watch it. If we don’t get there, we won’t go. It’s okay either way. You’re not attached: you don’t have to cry that you missed it; you don’t have to get furious that your partner was fixing their hair and you couldn’t get out the door in time, and therefore you missed the movie, or whatever. You know how life goes with people and daily bickering life: “Well, if you’d hurried up, we would have made it in time. Now they’ve changed the price, and now it’s $4.50. If we’d gotten there when it was $3.50 . . .” So, life becomes this little, bickering trivia in which you’re attached to winning and losing, and winning and losing face, winning and losing control.
So, then, at a certain point, one becomes nonattached; therefore, to win or to lose is really irrelevant. If the other person wins the argument, great. You won the argument. “Oh, you let him win the argument.” Why not? It’s fun letting people win. Did you ever do it? They cheat you out of a $1.20 and think you didn’t catch them. I let him have the $1.20. Why not? You know what I mean? What difference does it make, you know? You’re not attached to winning; you’re not attached to losing. You’re not afraid of winning and afraid of losing…
The attachments, then, which we try to relinquish are really coming out of the solar plexus. Everybody thinks sex is the base chakra. No, it’s the attachment. It’s the solar-plexus attachment to that activity and what it does for your ego and your sense of satisfaction and your sense of aloneness, desirability, your self-esteem, so it’s all the things that are piled into the meaning of that. So, we’re attached to the meaning of things, and that’s why we’re addicted to certain activities.
So, the perfect practice, then, in a meditative, contemplative kind of a practice is neither attachment nor aversion. You neither hate it, nor are you addicted to it. You don’t have to avoid it. If you’re attached to things, then you have to avoid them. You can’t have one piece of chocolate, because you know you’ll eat the whole box. I remember when I finally got off chocolate. And I’d released . . . I’d let go of chocolate for a long time, and chocolate kept coming up. Finally, I completely lost any desire, thought, or appreciation for chocolate altogether. And, I said, “Wow! I’m off chocolate. I’m free of chocolate.” I’d got unhooked from Diet Pepsi years past; now I have one can all day. So, all these things you get hooked on. I remember when I got free of chocolate; it was hysterical, because the very next night, the Course in Miracles group was coming out from New York and I had about 40 or 50 of them in the house, and they brought this huge chocolate cake! So, I didn’t have to avoid it, because I wasn’t going to get hooked by it again, so I could either have the chocolate cake or not have the chocolate cake. It was a great sense of freedom.
New! Spiritual Power and Integrity: Uncovering Reality and Realizing Peace, Love, and Divinity: Ch. 3, pgs. 74-75.
This book comprises the transcriptions of Dr. Hawkins July and August 2002 lectures.