One day a beggar went to see a Sufi fakir and found him seated on a velvet cushion inside a beautiful tent with its ropes tied to golden pegs. Seeing all this the beggar cried: What is this! Honorable Fakir, I have heard much about your spirituality and non-attachment, but I am completely disillusioned by all this ostentation around you. The fakir laughed, replying :I am ready to leave all this behind and come with you. So saying, he immediately got up and walked off with the beggar not even waiting to put his sandals on! After a short while the beggar became distressed. I left my begging bowl in your tent, he said. What shall I do without it! Please wait here while I go and fetch it. The Sufi laughed. My friend, he said, the gold pegs of my tent were stuck in the earth not in my heart, but your begging bowl is still chasing after you!
To be in the world is not attachment. The presence of the world in the mind is the attachment, and when the world disappears from the mind - this is non-attachment.
To be in the world is not attachment. The presence of the world in the mind is the attachment, and when the world disappears from the mind - this is non-attachment.
