—“Attachment to ‘self’ causes the fundamental spiritual dilemma that entraps us.”
... insuring that salaries and pension plans were intact. His detachment to self would have insured that his investors, many of whom were elderly people with fixed incomes, could depend on the financial statements Enron mailed out. Instead, Mr. Lay dug deep into his ugly self, to pull out ruination for many. Sir Swami Sivananda made a sweeping statement, and it is so terribly true that it almost made me weep, he said that “Tension among communities, religious fracas and political riots, one nation trying to dominate over a weaker one, one class of society discriminating against another, the factional leader exploiting the mob passion for self-aggrandisement, the so-called patriots resorting to violence to satisfy their vanity of regional loyalty, in the name of safeguarding the so-called distinctness of their culture, even though thereby they might strike at the root of national unity-all these are dire consequences of man's morbid, almost paranoiac attachment to self and all that are associated with it (SIVANANDA, 1998). This describes Americans perfectly, and that is so sad to me. It would seem that we have perfected greed, from the tiniest of tots to our president. We are inundated with advertising to flame our desires. Children often know Ronald more intimately than grandma, but then they go to Mr. McDonald’s house much more frequently than grandma’s. So what are we to do, mere mortals we? Perhaps painful, but necessary is what Sivananda describes simply as detachment. Mr. Sivanada describes the ideal of detachment, “If there is a little broad- mindedness, if man tries to rise above his loyalty to self for the sake of those with whom he is directly associated, from his loyalty to regional ties for the sake of national unity and common welfare, from his chauvinistic loyalty for the sake of international fellow-ship-then the all-pervasive violence in life will be lessened to a very great extent (SIVANANDA, 1998).” What he describes does not sound all that difficult, he is saying just think of the others with whom you serve, with whom you are associated, and who depend upon you. If Mr. Lay could have tried just a little harder, things would have been so different in Texas, and now the entire country. We have to pay for the months, n...