Bhagavad Gita Quotes on Attachment

Release attachment, fear and anger, and the mind turns clear.

Leaving things behind is easy; leaving the clinging is the work.

Attachment to doing is as heavy as attachment to having.

Hold things as a guest holds a room.

Free yourself from attachment, and from enmity as well.

Don’t cling to the pleasant or flee the unpleasant.

Clarity is lovely, but do not cling to it.

Attachment to doing can be as binding as attachment to having.

Attachment adds weight to every step; set it down and walk.

Hold nothing so tightly that its loss would break you.

What you cling to determines where you land.

Cling less to pleasure, cling less to pain; your path grows lighter.

Notice what you are attached to; that is where your story repeats.

Know how you are tempted to hold on.

Victory over attachment is the quietest victory.

Pause before adding the next 'mine'.

Blindness is not only of the eyes; it is also of the heart’s partiality.

Possessiveness is the heaviest thing we carry.

To renounce is to loosen the grip on 'mine'.

Much confusion is just clinging and pushing in disguise.

Attachment to your moods and qualities shapes your path.

Attachment gives life its direction; awareness gives it freedom.

Even good qualities can hold you if you cling to them.

Some of us cling to comfort, some to busyness, some to numbness.

Notice how often 'mine' crowds out 'ours'.

What you cling to follows you.

Notice how often we say ‘mine’ before we say ‘ours’.

Possessiveness is the heaviest thing we pack.

Delusion loosens when you see how connected you are.

Ownership shrinks the heart; sharing widens it.

Ownership is a thin thread in a vast fabric.

‘Mine’ is the smallest word with the largest weight.

Attachment narrows the questions we ask.

Hatred of the bad binds you as tightly as craving for the good.

Use what you have; don't be possessed by it.

Own less in the heart, not just in the house.

Ask yourself: what am I clutching that was never mine to hold?

Hold the passing world gently; hold the eternal firmly.

The less you possess, the less possesses you.

Let go of the habit of acquiring and guarding.

Own less in the mind, and you will carry less.

Own little; belong deeply.

Attraction and aversion are two sides of one attachment.

Attachment to enjoyment steals the focus wisdom needs.

Let go of ‘mine’ and anxious hope; keep the effort.

Loosen the fist; the hand will hold more.

What are you still calling yours that you could simply use?

Aversion binds as tightly as attraction.

Let go of one clinging and you often let go of its twin.

Attachment is the water that makes the leaf wet.

What you cannot keep, you need not cling to.

Test what you cling to.

Wealth, pleasure, and duty can all become cages when clutched.

Ask what you are holding on to that no longer serves you.

Selfish accumulation weighs on the heart.

Possessiveness turns work into worry.

Attachment makes even good habits anxious.

Look at your daydreams; they show your real attachments.

What are you gripping that you could simply hold?

What result are you gripping hardest right now?

What are you trying to hold back that time is already moving?

Where are you holding someone too tightly?

What are you most attached to right now?

Which result are you still carrying that you could offer up?

Where might your love of being 'good' or 'wise' be holding you?

What do you cling to most: comfort, activity, or numbness?

Which attachment is feeding your fear today?

Which pleasure are you leaning on too heavily?

What do you hold more tightly than it deserves?

What is your mind attached to as you begin to learn?

Surrender is not giving up your work, but giving up your grip.

Loosen your grip; keep your hands working.

Craving is the glue; remove it and action slides off.

Hold others without clinging to them.

Love your family without owning them.

Care deeply, hold lightly.

Refusing to act is also a way of clinging.

What you keep dwelling on slowly becomes what you cling to.

Peace begins where 'mine' and 'I' loosen.

Know the difference between what you have and what you are.

See without grabbing and without pushing away.

Fear of loss loosens when you know what cannot be lost.

Your home and your people are gifts, not possessions.

Hold the people you love with open hands.

Do not hate your states when they come, nor cling when they go.

Act as the wise have acted: fully, and without clinging.

Do not cling to the good moment, and do not curse the bad one.

Liking and disliking cloud our seeing from the very start.

Desire and aversion are two sides of the same bewilderment.

Do not mistake a temporary shelter for your true home.

Let the vastness of time loosen your grip on small things.

Love that sustains does not need to possess.

Enjoy what you have, but do not build your home on it.

Let go of the fear that rivers are lost in the ocean.

Be fully present for your loved ones without clutching them.

Even peace can become a possession if you grasp it.

Beware the busyness that feeds on wanting more.

Notice your favourite way of getting stuck.

Cut the tangle with the axe of detachment.

Loosen one rope at a time.

Peace is the reward of a heart that has stopped grasping.

A gift with strings attached is only half a gift.

Anger is attachment with a short fuse.

Fear, anger and clinging are three knots; wisdom loosens them.

Peace grows where grasping shrinks.

Wisdom widens the circle of 'mine' until it holds everyone.

Desire for results is the knot that binds.

Preferences are the first veil.

Understanding how things begin and end changes how you hold them.

To know the cycle of arrival and departure is to love more lightly.

Happiness that must be held tightly slips away.

Let clarity visit; do not demand that it stay.

Self-knowledge begins with seeing your pattern of clinging.

Value what is valuable without being owned by it.

A hundred small desires can tie a person tighter than one big chain.

Generosity with strings attached is only half free.

Generosity that keeps accounts feels heavy.

Know the difference between leaving the world and leaving the grip.

Where action is unavoidable, attachment is optional.

Liking and disliking are the two strings that move a puppet.

Anger has a long root; it begins with where you keep looking.

Fearlessness grows where clinging ends.

Hatred and desire are two hands of the same grip.

What begins also ends; do not build your peace on it.

Let go of scheming, and both things and tasks lose their pull.

Pleasures borrowed from time must be returned.

Loosen ‘mine’ and ‘I’, and love finds room.

Grief and craving are two faces of one grip.

Free from attachment, you can love without clutching.

Aversion is as much a movement of the field as attraction.

Each quality has its own way of catching you.

Desire grows in the places you keep returning to.

Enjoyment is lovely, but it is not a place to rest forever.

Three habits do most of the damage: wanting too much, burning too hot, holding too tight.

Gifts given in hope of reward are loans.

Don’t hate the hard task; don’t cling to the easy one.

Chasing the fruit, we trample the garden.

Greed blinds the heart to what it destroys.

Like and dislike are waiting at every door.

Likes and dislikes are the chains; loosen them.

Craving a reward turns every task into a cage.

Every pleasure that arrives will also leave.

Delusion is looking only at the surface of changing things.

Pride and delusion close the door to refuge.

Do not mistake a stay for a settlement.

Knowledge can bind if you are attached to being the knower.

Peace, drive, and fog each want to keep you.

Those who cling carry the results with them; those who release walk free.

A craving doer swings between joy and sorrow.

Like and dislike are leashes; slip them gently.

Ask of everything you hold: will it last?

Work done only for applause ends when the applause does.

Serenity comes to those who stop bargaining with every like and dislike.

Calm that depends on results is borrowed calm.

Delusion is what happens when we forget what we already know.

Cravings promise much and deliver briefly.

Own little, and your mind will have more room.

Let go of the wishes your own scheming creates.

Every action sends a root deeper into the world.

You cannot find where the world begins, but you can decide where your grip ends.

Ego is the glue that makes every deed stick.

Grief honours love; clinging to it too long can cloud sight.

Hold lightly what was always going to change.

Thought breeds attachment, attachment breeds desire, and blocked desire breeds anger.

Be patient with those who cling to what they know.

Hoarding starves even a full house.

Stop keeping score of who you favour and who you resent.

Chasing pleasures is chasing a moving horizon.

Desire slows when you stop feeding it.

Hatred is attachment turned inside out.

Greed is restlessness carrying a shopping bag.

A renouncer can be busy; a clinger can be idle.

Even sweet results bind if you hold them tight.

Emotional highs and lows are the tax on attachment.

Resolve tied to payoff snaps when the payoff fades.

Freedom from possessiveness is freedom to love.

Free yourself from the see-saw of likes and dislikes.

Don't chase pleasure so hard that its absence feels like loss.

Let happiness visit; don’t ask it to stay.

Pleasure and ambition are branches of the same tree.

The deepest calm comes from belonging, not from owning.

Worry about gaining and keeping is the most tiring work of all.

Where do attraction and aversion still steer you?

Free yourself from attachment even as you serve.

A meal eaten alone and in greed is a heavy meal.

Respect the attachments you do not share.

Know the lifespan of a pleasure and you will love it more wisely.

Offer first; expect second.

Need less from others, and relationships grow lighter.

Perform; don’t possess.

Loosen your grip on credit and blame.

What you crave can come to control you.

Fixation feels like certainty but only narrows the view.

What are you gripping or rejecting today without looking closely?

Which feeling are you most identified with right now?

What would you hold on to if you knew something in you never ends?

Don’t let accumulation become your reason for persevering.

What are you either craving or resenting today?

What practices are you holding too tightly?

Which of your desires could you loosen a little today?

Where is your giving mixed with expectation?

Which result could you offer up today?

On what does your peace depend today?

Steady knowledge dissolves the stickiness of action.

What do you value that time will turn to dust?