Fr Jim Cogley
Experience teaches us that the more we hold onto to someone or something the more we tend to lose it; the tighter the grip the greater the fear, and the more attached we are, the deeper our level of suffering. Common to all the great spiritual traditions are teachings about the importance of detachment as the path to inner peace and freedom. In the Christian tradition this is expressed as renunciation of the ego self and the way of the Cross. When we attach ourselves to something outside ourselves we relinquish our inner power and substituted a something or someone that ‘must be’ there for our happiness. This becomes even more insidious when we make the statement, consciously or unconsciously, that ‘unless I can have the object of my desire I can never love myself.’ When this happens we turn self-love into conditional love and have created an expectation that must first be met before we can experience happiness. The power of life resides within us and can never come from anything without.