Worldly detachment (ICA)

This occurs when an individual is reconciled with the fact that this world is not his home. He becomes detached from the world of relative relationships and things that used to give meaning to his life – family, nation, job or whatever – no longer wield power over him, so he is free to plunge into any activity with all his being.

A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination. He has burnt all his bridges and there is no going back. There is a sense of amazement that he could have really been so attached to all those things that previously claimed his life and that he will no more allow himself to be claimed in such a way. A new vitality comes with the realization that he could live the rest of his life in this state of detachment.

There are no regrets, but a sense of single-mindedness, where even life and death decisions have no power. In the midst of this utter seriousness about his life, an individual is able to smile with a detached kind of humour that even his detachment is finally nothing.

This state is number 30 in the ICA Other World in the midst of this World.