Why does God incarnate?

We love the avatars of God, but, really, how much do we understand why they happen?

An avatar is a particular coalescing of the all pervasive spirit/soul called Brahman (for the non-dualist), or Vishnu or Shiva or Shakti (Devi) (for the dualist as per whether they believe whether Vishnu or Shiva or Devi to be the supreme expression of a personal godhead)

An avatar is said to be called into Being by the heartfelt cries of agony of the sadhus, the pious among us. The sadhus plead for an incarnation or manifestation to take place because of the grave danger mankind has placed itself into.

And then the avatar happens: a set of parents are selected, the form of the avatar enters the womb of the mother, the birthing of the avatar happens. The rest is what we read about in the scriptures – about Rama, Krishna and other major avatars, as well as the minor avatars. (Please note: an avatar is the descent of spirit into matter, while an enlightened godman is the raising of a human into the realm of the spirit.)

For the avatar, this descent into matter cannot be a good thing. Pure spirit confines itself into flesh, becoming subject to its limitations and its inherent problems. Granted, the avatar comes with a particularly divine set of his tools of trade – omniscience, great doses of power and prowess and an understanding of things beyond the ken of man. But, he is ‘born’, and he ‘dies’ and is assailed by all those things we mere humans are assailed by, except he appears to handle them with aplomb and dignity, while we weep and wail our fate.

We who benefit from the avatar’s descent cannot imagine the pain of this descent, although some of more enlightened among us have tried to put them in words for our benefit.

These beautiful lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem A God’s Labour gives a hint to the predicament of an avatar:

He who would bring the heavens here

Must descend himself into clay

And the burden of earthly nature bear

And tread the dolorous way.

We generally give praise for an avatar taking ‘birth’ among us and feel ever so grateful that we have breathed the same air as Him. But we give little, if any, thought to what the avatar would be going through – and we are not talking about any apparent distress caused by physical ailment.

Day in, day out the Avatar has to endure a body of flesh, fluid and frailties – eating, excreting, keeping it clean, stop it from dropping dead. He, the pure spirit, has to encompass that spirit in a limited form called as body and suffer the indignities of that same body.

There is another beautiful telling of a devotee of Krishna who wanted to kill Draupadi, Arjun and several others who were close to Krishna. After reading the Mahabharata, he sat sharpening a wicked looking knife and when asked why he was doing it so intently, he answered he wanted to seek out Arjuna, Draupadi and others and kill them.

He said he wanted to kill them because they had caused so much pain to his Lord: Arjuna for making a charioteer out of Krishna and forcing him into the battlefield in that lowly role and Draupadi for calling on Krishna and forcing him to provide great lengths of cloth to cover her when she was being stripped naked in the court.

He goes on to tell of the other ‘indignities’ other people had heaped on Krishna and how he would hunt them down and kill them.

At first reading this appears to be the ravings of sentimental fool, especially since he was from an era in which Krishna, Arjuna and others were long-gone. But the sentiments behind the raving is something to think about. Here was a man who felt deeply for the Avatar, who felt that we should have treated Him as something very precious, to be treasured and loved, and not taken advantage of, which is what he believed Arjuna and Draupadi had done. And he felt these sentiments as if Krishna, Arjuna and Draupadi existed for him at that time – not as if they were just tales in a book.

We take it for granted that the avatar is happy to be with us and we take for granted that He will ‘be there for us’. We hardly think of the great sacrifice undertaken in the ‘birthing’ of an avatar – the taking of a form on Mrityu Loka – the world of death; the limiting of the spirit into a vessel of matter and the bombardment of negativity that he has to suffer during his sojourn on Earth.

Yes, the avatar’s physical form is put together to take on this negativity. Ramakrishna Paramhansa is said to have taken on the negative forces (illness, mental and physical) of those who came to him, so much so that he was a physical wreck by the time he passed away. Shirdi Sai Baba was took on boils, burns, wounds and sickness from those he chose to save, as did Satya Sai Baba.

Again these lines from A God’s Labour (the full poem can be found here http://intyoga.online.fr/labour.htm):

Coercing my godhead I have come down

Here on the sordid earth,

Ignorant, labouring, human grown

Twixt the gates of death and birth.

I have been digging deep and long

Mid a horror of filth and mire

A bed for the golden river’s song,

A home for the deathless fire.

I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night

To bring the fire to man;

But the hate of hell and human spite

Are my meed since the world began.

Given that we have the law of karma governing the universe, is there a need for God to incarnate on Earth? The above gives us a hint of why an incarnation takes place.

An avatar is a catalyst of change – each time one comes, the world changes significantly. We, who only read about their exploits, take in only a fraction of the full scope of their doings. We are privy only to their recorded exploits.

• Rama took up a war of attrition that devastated a whole civilisation. And Ravan is now a household name equated with wickedness, pride and arrogance, and the futility of great learning without understanding and compassion.
• Krishna brought about a fratricidal war that decimated entire clans, including his own. His exploits range from killing his own uncle to turning his cousins against each other that sees the end of the Dwapar Yuga, and the beginning of the least benevolent of all yugas for mankind (yet, a yuga which is said to be the best placed for as higher understanding of godhead).
• Parashurama cut down the ranks of the kshatriyas 21 times to cool his vengeance. Sometimes he is seen as an example of the wrath of the Brahmin caste – of what they are capable of if they are not treated with respect and awe. It is a tale of the curbing of unbridled arrogance and malpractices associated with the ruling classes.
• The other avatars undertook epic battles against opponents of great courage and strength, sometimes in battles that ranged over time and space, other times using wit to outwit (to stop Bali’s expansion plans into other realms), others battled for the human soul because of their compassion for humans.

Every one of the exploits of our avatars are told from the point of view of a human being – from the point of view of people who reacted with the avatars. There is no standalone narration by the avatars themselves, including the Gita, which is retelling by a third party of a direct conversation between Krishna and Arjuna.

Simply put, our scriptures, especially the bhagavads, the Puranas, are largely someone’s take on a series of incidents that they saw, heard about or were directly involved in with regards to a particular avatar. It is as Sri Aurobindo says of our understanding: “A fragment of Truth is his widest scope”.

And I pose the question once again: Do we really know why God incarnates among us?

If what Rama, Krishna and Parashurama did was the mission of those avatars – then huge chunks of mankind died as a result. And to what end, just to save (or avenge) a few human beings beloved of the avatar?

Let’s look at the last stanza from set of lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem listed above:

I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night

To bring the fire to man;

But the hate of hell and human spite

Are my meed since the world began.

Let’s replace ‘hell’ with Patala – the underworld of our mythology. While we think of patala as the infernal regions, Narada is said to have said that it rivalled and beat Indralok in beauty, and it abound with every kind of luxury and sensual gratification.

So, Patala, far from being a place of darkness and drear, was a place of light and beauty, a place of sense gratification, love for luxury, hedonism, self-indulgence, intemperance, and decadence.

Since the world began, God has been incarnating because he hates hell – all the things associated with the above-listed negative elements that make our character. And human spite – when we hurt others for the sake of seeing them squirm or suffer – is not something God likes.

So, instead of saying: “Whenever evil rears its head, and wickedness prevails, God incarnates to punish evil doers,” would it be more appropriate to say “Whenever hedonism increases, and decadence prevails, God incarnates to pull the rug from under our feet?”

God incarnating is a saving mission, but executed in a painful way. Its purpose is to

take us back to godhead, to divinity - kicking and scratching, if need be.

For man’s mind is the dupe of his animal self;

Hoping its lusts to win,

He harbours within him a grisly Elf

Enamoured of sorrow and sin.

The grey Elf shudders from heaven’s flame

And from all things glad and pure;

Only by pleasure and passion and pain

His drama can endure.

God incarnates to remind us of our origins, our divinity – ‘To bring the fire to man’. We, in our human folly, believe he incarnates to give us happiness and wealth as we pursue our pleasurable lives on Earth. And we worship avatars to that end – begging and pleading for a long life to enjoy our fruits, families and fumblings. So far from the truth.

The Truth of truths men fear and deny,

The Light of lights they refuse;

To ignorant gods they lift their cry

Or a demon altar choose.

Maybe it is time to put aside our kindergarten approach to our avatars. Let’s not raise a ‘demon altar’ and hope a few minutes of obeisance is enough to sway God into our way of thinking; let’s not ‘lift our cries to ignorant gods” and then complain you

have not been heard; let’s not refuse, and fear and deny, what our scriptures have proclaimed for eons – God is Truth, and in Truth lies the real victory.

Instead, seek the ‘Truth of truths’, the Light of lights. Dive deep into your beliefs, and sometime, challenge them, so as to be privy to the truth they hide among their superfluity. The teachings of our ancients may appear superfluous at first attempt but that is only because they have been dumbed down by those who would use them to their own ends.

Do not let tradition, or traditionalists, hold you from finding the Truth. Do not let culture bind you to the mire. Expand your mind and see the beauty of the philosophy that has endured millennia, that has endured every kind of influx and still remains true to this day.

Notes

Avatars of Shiva

One lists has the following as the 11 avatars of Shiva

1 KAPAALI

2 PINGAL

3 BHEEM

4 VEERUPAAKSH

5 VILOHIT

6 SHAASTA

7 AJPAAD

8 AHIBURDHANYA

9 SHAMBHU

10 CHAND

11 BHAV

Others put 28 avatars for Shiva

Although Puranic scriptures contain occasional references to avatars of Shiva, the idea is not universally accepted in Saivism. As an avatar requires residence in a womb, Shiva as ayonija (not of a womb) cannot manifest himself as an avatar.

The Linga Purana speaks of twenty-eight forms of Shiva which are sometimes seen as avatars. In the Shiva Purana there is a distinctly Saivite version of a traditional avatar myth: Shiva brings forth Virabhadra, one of his terrifying forms, in order to calm Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu. When that fails, Shiva manifests as the human-lion-bird Sharabha. The story concludes with Narasimha becoming a devotee of Shiva after being bound by Sharabha.[47] However, Vaishnava followers including Dvaita scholars, such as Vijayindra Tirtha (1539–95) refute this Shaivite view of Narasimha based on their reading of Sattvika Puranas and Sruti texts.[48] The monkey-god Hanuman who helped Rama – the Vishnu avatar is considered by some to be the eleventh avatar of Rudra (Shiva). Some regional deities like Khandoba are also believed by some to be avatars of Shiva. Other stated avatars of Shiva, according to some sources, are 8th century non-dualist Vedanta philosopher (Advaita Vedanta) Adi Shankara. He was named "Shankara" after Lord Shiva and is considered by some to have

been an incarnation of the god and Virabhadra who was born when Shiva grabbed a lock of his matted hair and dashed it to the ground. Virabhadra then destroyed Daksha's yajna (fire sacrifice) and severed his head as per Shiva's instructions.

In Dasam Granth, Guru Gobind Singh have mentioned two avtars of Rudra: Dattatreya Avtar and Parasnath Avtar.

Avatars of Devi

Avatars are also observed in Shaktism, the sect dedicated to the worship of the Goddess (Devi), but they do not have universal acceptance in the sect. The Devi Bhagavata Purana describes the descent of Devi avatars to punish the wicked and defend the righteous—much as the Bhagavata Purana does with the avatars of Vishnu. Like Vishnu, his consort Lakshmi incarnates as Sita and Radha – the consorts of Rama and Krishna avatars. Nilakantha, an 18th century commentator on the Devi Bhagavata Purana – which includes the Devi Gita – says that various avatars of the Goddess includes Shakambhari and even the masculine Krishna and Rama – generally thought to be Vishnu's avatars. Lakshmi and Saraswati are also goddesses worshipped as Devi avatars.

PATALA. [Source: Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] The infernal regions, inhabited by Nagas (serpents), Daityas, Danavas, Yakshas, and others. They are seven in number, and their names, according to the Vishna Purana, are Atala, Vitala, Nitala, Gabhastimat, Mahatala, Sutala, and Patala, but these name vary in different authorities. The Padma Purana gives the names of the seven regions and their respective rulers as follow: -- (1.) Atala, subject to Mahamaya; (2.) Vitala, ruled by a form of Siva called Hatakeswara; (3.) Sutala, ruled by Bali ; (4.) Talatala, ruled by Maya; (5.) Mahatala, where reside the great serpents; (6.) Rasatala, where the Daityas and Danavas dwell; (7.) Patala, the lowermost, in which Vasuki reigns over the chief Nagas or snake-gods. In the Siva Purana there are eight: Patala, Tala, Atala, Vitala, Tala, Vidhipatala, Sarkarabhumi, and Vijaya. The sage Narada paid a visit to these regions, and on his return to the skies gave a glowing account of them, declaring them to be far more delightful than Indra's heaven, and abounding with every kind of luxury and sensual gratification.

FAQS on Sathya Sai Baba

GOD WALKS ON EARTH

Who is He?

In one aspect he is a benevolent guru, respected by many millions and, not shockingly, vilified by thousands others. His name is Satya Sai Baba, of Prashanti Nilayam, in Puttaparthi, Annantpur District of Andhra Pradesh, India. For over 60 years, he has been mentoring the world’s distraught and its believers. Now he is 85 years old, confined to a wheelchair much of the time. He is in the public but still glowing with the power that made Him beloved to over 60 million followers world-wide.

Why is He in a wheelchair?
A pelvis bone that has been broken and mended and a number of other ailments makes him use a wheelchair for mobility, at the behest of his devotees. He has been known to carry on with His ‘duties’ – discourses, managing the ashram, looking after the people – in spite of great pain.

Can’t He cure Himself?

He can. He has done this before. Will He again?

What is He?

An avatar. One that has no comparison in living memory. The closest correlation is of Krishna (5000 years ago) or Rama (25,000 years ago). He has all the compassion and grace of a living Christ, comparable to Jesus’ work as related in the Bible. Except He does say there was more to Jesus than is in the Bible, and that He is the one that Jesus said would come to save the human race.


What is an Avatar?

An avatar is a spark of the universal consciousness that takes shape as a human being for some vital work on Earth. Technically we all humans are a spark of that consciousness, but an Avatar makes a concerted effort to take a human form whereas normal humans are born within the karmic cycle of causality (cause and effect).

The Avatar is a formation of benevolence and compassion but that is only an aspect of His. His true aspects may not be wholly clear to us humans.

The mission of an avatar is only clear in hindsight for he operates at levels incomprehensible to the human mind at its present level of awareness.

When Rama came He undertook a massive war that disseminated a land, killed off soldiers in the hundreds of thousands, propagated His messages of dharma (right conduct) and set the standards for ruling a realm. His life is a role model that has been followed by generations, despite only one book being available of His avatar-hood. Even that book, the Ramayana, has undergone so many changes as to be a point of contention for non-believers, as well as among believers.

When Krishna came, he stole the hearts of his devotees, killed off ‘demons’ and evil doers and master-minded an internecine and global war that set the scene for a further decline of dharma because of the loss of so many elders and followers of Dharma in the war. The survivors of the war are part of our present-day humanity.

The present Kali Yuga is the result of that war, perpetuated by the continual decline of right conduct, growth of avarice, reckless use of resources and argumentative disposition.

Is there anything good He does?

He has set up free hospitals - including super speciality hospitals - free universities and schools and provided free water for millions as part of His example to His followers to serve humanity.

He raises the level of consciousness among human, by sheer force of will as well as teachings and examples. He enables humans to believe in themselves as sparks of the divine rather than a collection of atoms designed to live off the Earth.

For Him, the time on Earth is a crucible for purifying people. Forget heaven, forget hell. These are constructs of organised religions designed to inculcate fear of the unknown, and the possibility of super-sized earth happiness or misery.

This Avatar is here to wring out man from his conditioned behaviour, of preventing the falling back on set pieces to seek solutions, and to bring about a life of cooperative and sustainable living. More importantly, he is here to make man a god.

What can He do?

The biggest hurdle facing Him is organised religion and fanaticism - be it Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or any other religion with a set of followers who believe they only have the truth of the matter. But they are hurdles only from our point of view, not from His.

He has shown extraordinary capabilities; miracles, visitations, cures and safeguarding, including bringing people back from dead. What He does is beyond comprehension of people brought up in either a linear aspect of time or a three-dimensional aspect of space.

What He says is that He has the ability to change situations and circumstance but would rather change the thinking of people to ensure a consciousness level in keeping with our abilities. Our abilities, whether it is of the brain or the DNA, is only a tenth of what it could be. His mission is to raise that ability to more than it is presently.

As can be seen (if one is keeping tabs), worldwide organised religions are taking a battering from the people of the Earth. And it is as it should be. So is the economic models, the political establishments and the social structures. This is all His doing.


What is the purpose behind His mission?

What is in store for humanity can only be assumed. These are, as the writer said, the best of times and the worst of times.

Humanity is poised at the brink of something extraordinary – be it a raise in the conscious level, a catastrophe of unimagined proportions or a golden age. Satya Sai Baba is here to ensure it is a golden age that dawns and not a catastrophe. That is not to say that there will not be calamity or destruction. There will be minor adjustments to the planet, says Baba. How we take to that is what he wants to bring about.

Who are His people?

Everyone is His people. He is everyone. One of the sustained teachings of Satya Sai Baba is the oneness of everything, living and inanimate. And that everything we can sense is a construct of the mind. The background consciousness or the latent ‘divinity’ is what He wants everyone to experience. And those who work towards it, he aids. Those who strive against it, he also aids but in a way that enlightens them of the drawbacks of being enamoured by the senses and the mind. In our terms this could be seen as cruel and vindictive but is done with utmost compassion.

What powers does He have?

The greatest weapon at His disposal is the karmic cycle of cause and effect that rules humanity. As the master of karma, he can dissolve it, telescope it, nullify it, dampen its effect, etc. Karma is generally accepted as the payment, or the fruit of the action, of receiving the benefit or consequences of an action. As everything is interrelated, bound to each other and to everything else, action that benefits the whole is beneficial and action that diminishes the benefit to the whole is unwanted.

This is the sublime lesson that Satya Sai Baba teaches. Of the Onenness of the universe, the Oneness of divinity.

He can accelerate the karmic cycle, of individuals, of clans, of nations, of planets, to achieve what He wants. And He does. He is also the controller of the universe in the sense of a traffic controller – Automatiku Lightsuku Adi Pedda Vadu.

The greatest tool he has at His disposal is the life-affirming grace he can bestow.

His grace is for everyone – but only those who work towards the good of humanity can tap into it. Or anyone with confidence in one’s self.

Technically that would mean that even the atheist has a chance to experience this grace, if he has developed his confidence to a high level. Confidence here does not equate to arrogance, hubris or pride of achievement or skill.

What does He want from you?

Ah! From each He wants the best the person is designed for. The word designed tells all. Each person has a purpose, defined and subtle. The purpose of life is make that purpose apparent, to live up to the full capacity.

Everything and every one is working towards an alignment of purpose, of reaching a ‘decision’ to be One.

What about evil people?

There are no evil people, no sinners. Just people not aligned to the great work that is the play of the universe.

There are only evil deeds: some agreed to as being evil by all of humanity and some which are considered ‘evil’ because they fall out of the explanation we have of good as per culture, creed or conditioning.

Sai Baba teaches universal values, values that agreed on by all of the major religions and ethical societies. These human values, once practiced, shift our perception away from what is bad to what is good. Practice of the good automatically and invariably forces us to move away from doing anything evil.

He also demarcates universal ‘bad’ behaviour and how to stay away from them. These ‘bad’ attributes are anger, lust, greed, attachment and ego, or pride. Practice of humility through service to all and the continued chanting of a divine name(naamsmarana) culminating in the merging of a name with a form (japa dhyan) are the only prescribed doctrines of Satya Sai Baba.

What is naamsmarana?

To steady the mind, it has to be unhinged from the assault of the senses on it and allowed to operate in alignment with the intellect.. There are number of ways to do this – meditation, japa, yoga, etc. Sai Baba would much rather have everyone fill up the mind with the glory of the divine, gradually pushing out anything that disrupts the continued expression of one’s devotion to the divine.

Naamsmarna is the continual chanting of a chosen name of God, over and over again while trying to picture or visualise the form that goes with that name. The end result of this japa dhyan (where the name instantly evokes the form, and the form reminds you of the name repeatedly) is Samadhi (equanimity). It is important to align the name with the form and not to change either the name or the form as it disrupts the mind.

Chanting is not only the vocalisation of the name but the integration of the name within yourself so that it becomes a part of your mind (thinking) through which everything else is perceived. Any thought that rises then is weighed in against the base of the thought on the Divine.

Is Sai Baba God?

Yes. In the sense that everything thing else in creation is God. All we perceive through our senses must be made from something – that something is the material of God, that consciousness

No. God is beyond the comprehension of the human mind/brain. This entity is the basis of creation, the sustenance from which creation emerges and sustained.

Sai Baba is a coalescing of the all-pervading consciousness that is known by the wise by different names, brought together by the need of mankind for a guide to move them towards humanity. He is the focal point of the agonised calls for deliverance from ages of mistreatment and mismanagement. He himself says this is the main reason He takes a shape and moves among people as one of them.

The other ‘important’ aspects of world regeneration, sustaining dharma, and bringing on a new age is incidental to the answering of calls by the sadhus to take avatar on Earth

Sai Baba is the mirror unto humanity itself – reflecting what each of us is. By making us vividly aware of our shortfalls, Sai Baba is carrying out the education programme of the ages. Once we get to know our shortfalls, we can then look at Him as the example of living our lives. My Life is My Message, says Sai Baba and he asks us to follow His example in everyday life.

What is His mission?

To clear the pathway to divinity. Modern man is encumbered by his short-sight approach to living. The conditionings of individuality, family ties, group attachments, regionalism, nationalism and pride of ownership splits humanity apart. Sai Baba is here to destroy these conditionings, these tethers to ‘me’ and ‘mine’.

What is attachment?

This is the feeling of belonging that a person cultivates in his interactions with the world. Called Moha, these are the feelings we vest into an object, a relationship or an idea we subscribe to. It is a very personal feeling, making us what we are in the social circles, in the world and in our minds.

Sai Baba asks us to practice a certain level of detachment when dealing with the world. Seek not the ownership of anything, seek not the subscribing of ourselves to a creed at the expense of unity, seek not even moksha (liberation) – leave this precious gift to His Grace.

Attachment tethers the soul through the mind to mundane things. Once relieved of these tethers, the soul shines forth, illuminating the intellect which then controls the mind and the senses.

It is attachment which causes our separateness from the One, of individualising us through an ‘ego’ that needs to be sustained with gratification. The ego is the warp and weft of thoughts that are generated in our minds. Sustained over many lives, it is also our karma that determines our purpose and station in life once we are ‘born’.

What is life?

Life is a jail term; a sentence to be carried out to learn a lesson. We are sentenced to ‘life’ to learn the lesson of Truth, Right Conduct, Peace and Love, leading to non-violence of thought, word and deed.

Life is not mere living – it is an exploration of ideas, an expanding of the mind, of looking for the thread that links us all, of identifying the string that keeps the garland intact. Of going beyond the obvious and the apparent to the subtle and true.

Life is not about living well only. It is about dying well too. Everyone has to die. How one dies is more important than how one lives, although how one lives plays a major part in the way one dies.

First step is accepting the fact you are going to die. To accept that death is the only friend one has in this ‘life’. Once this decision is made, life falls into its place. Everything then becomes one massive move towards understanding why we die. Once that is understood, knowing why we are born is also known.

What is detachment?

It is being dispassionate, unaffected by the ebb and flow of life. It does not mean giving up on life but accepting life for what it is, an ebb and flow of events demanding our reaction. Choosing not to reaction is being detached. What is, is to be. Making an input into what is will not change the consequences. How you handle a reaction to a situation determines you level of detachment.

Detachment is based on isolating the mind from the continual bombarding from the sense organs. To train the mind to seek an identity based not on the reactions to sense stimuli but on something more grounded, the intellect. And then to go beyond the intellect, harnessing the consciousness that pervades everything.

Detachment is not disinterest or apathy. It is applying the correct interest in a given situation. To be involved, yet not to an extent that sees one getting wrapped up in a situation, emotionally and physically.

It is like the involvement of a good judge; impartial, objective and yet empathetic. You feel for them, yet are divorced enough not to become them. Detachment is a grinding out of the spontaneous reaction from your involvement with others. It is a thought-out approach based on compassion (of all the things!) for everyone – that means not taking sides!

It means not belonging to any group, creed or thought which would isolate you from any one else. It is NOT saying ‘yes’ to everything that comes your way but seeing that thing for what it is and acting, or not acting, accordingly. It is being a witness of events, unruffled by its consequences. Yet being able to plunge in with no holds barred to help, aid or change a situation so that it serves someone else better. If you plunge in only so that the situation can be changed to help you, it is an act based on pure selfishness.

Detachment is dispassion. Detachment is not apathy. Detachment is equanimity. It is Samadhi.