NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION - 1

NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION

Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as reaction, even
so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. Perhaps all of you have
observed it as a fact that when persons do evil actions, they become more and
more evil, and when they begin to do good, they become stronger and stronger
and learn to do good at all times. This intensification of the influence of action
cannot be explained on any other ground than that we can act and react upon
each other. To take an illustration from physical science, when I am doing a
certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of vibration; all
minds which are in similar circumstances will have the tendency to be affected
by my mind. If there are different musical instruments tuned alike in one room,
all of you may have noticed that when one is struck, the others have the
tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. So all minds that have the same
tension, so to say, will be equally affected by the same thought. Of course, this
influence of thought on mind will vary according to distance and other causes,
but the mind is always open to affection. Suppose I am doing an evil act, my
mind is in a certain state of vibration, and all minds in the universe, which are
in a similar state, have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my
mind. So, when I am doing a good action, my mind is in another state of
vibration; and all minds similarly strung have the possibility of being affected
by my mind; and this power of mind upon mind is more or less according as
the force of the tension is greater or less.
Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just as light waves may
travel for millions of years before they reach any object, so thought waves may
also travel hundreds of years before they meet an object with which they
vibrate in unison. It is quite possible, therefore, that this atmosphere of ours is
full of such thought pulsations, both good and evil. Every thought projected
from every brain goes on pulsating, as it were, until it meets a fit object that
will receive it. Any mind which is open to receive some of these impulses will
take them immediately. So, when a man is doing evil actions, he has brought
his mind to a certain state of tension and all the waves which correspond to that
state of tension, and which may be said to be already in the atmosphere, will
struggle to enter into his mind. That is why an evil-doer generally goes on
doing more and more evil. His actions become intensified. Such, also will be
the case with the doer of good; he will open himself to all the good waves that
are in the atmosphere, and his good actions also will become intensified. We
run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing evil: first, we open ourselves to all the
evil influences surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which affects others,
may be hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we injure ourselves and others
also. In doing good we do good to ourselves and to others as well; and, like all
other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather strength from
outside.