Question: Is necessity different from attachment?

Sri Chinmoy: Necessity is one thing and attachment is another. Food is a necessity in our life right now. If we don’t eat, we will die. If we want to become a voracious eater, we can; but whatever we eat beyond what we need is attachment and not necessity. When we pray and meditate, we come to realise what is really essential in our life. Those things alone we strive to have. Non-essentials and things that are detrimental to us we try to avoid. By drinking too much or by eating too much we cannot approach reality. If our emotional life or vital life or aspects of our physical life are detrimental to our health, we will try to conquer them. Things that are necessary or helpful in our daily life we shall always accept wholeheartedly. But in the ordinary life there are many things which we do not really need. They are all accessories. We find it difficult to give them up because of our long association with ignorance. We feel that these things do help us; we have come to feel that we need them. But this is not true. There are many things that we are attached to that can easily be rejected from our day-to-day life provided we care for a higher, deeper and more fulfilling life.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Canada aspires, Canada receives, Canada achieves, part 1, Agni Press, 1974
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