Hindus Seek Detachment. Have Plants and Animals Already Found It?

Here in suburbia, next to a glassy corporate office, sits a Hindu temple, its ornate façade surrounded by parking lots. Curious, I pulled in one day, removed my shoes at the temple door and walked into a large open space. Instead of chairs or benches, I saw a room glowing in gold, white marble, and carved pillars, with altars placed throughout. Worshippers strolled from one garlanded deity to the next, circling them several times or standing before them with hands together in prayer, eyes closed, heads lowered.

Along the tops of the walls was a frieze of passages from the Bhagavad Gita, the dialogue between the god Krishna and the warrior Arjuna, about to enter battle. I walked beneath Krishna’s words about detachment:

He who hates no creature, who is friendly and compassionate to all, who is free from attachment, balanced in pleasure and pain, and forgiving…is dear to Me.

He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the world, who is freed from joy, envy, fear, and anxiety, is dear to Me.

He who neither rejoices, nor hates, nor grieves, nor desires, renouncing good and evil, full of devotion, is dear to Me.

He who is the same to foe and friend, and also in honor and dishonor, who is the same in cold and heat and in pleasure and pain, who is free from attachment, to whom censure and praise are equal, who is silent, content with anything, homeless, steady-minded, full of devotion—that man is dear to Me.

I left the temple soothed by the place and by the words, by the invocation of a calm that does not take sides or react or pursue.

In my yard at home, I wondered whether nature sends us the same message about steadfastness that Krishna proclaims. Can we find in other living things a model of that centeredness that rises above dualities?

I’m not sure. A backyard is usually a calm place, but the creatures there are rarely without their “attachments.” Birds search constantly for food and for each other. The trees and bushes and grass, though not outwardly agitated, are hardly “content with anything.” They wilt in drought and burst with life in Spring. All the familiar and lovely animals and greenery are different in good circumstances and bad. What would Krishna say?

He might observe that plants and animals follow their biology with no distracting superstructure of ambitions, expectations, or judgments. He might say that, except for humans and some animals, other living things may fight and may even kill, but they don’t hate; they may shy from danger but are not riven by anxiety; they may react differently to cold and heat but only at a physical level.

So perhaps in the backyard I am looking at an imperfect but good lesson in how beings can do the work of staying alive and yet remain undistracted and unconfused. Can a person find a model of detachment in other living things? Partly, yes.