freedom.”
Who is the one who loves and who is the one who feels attachment?
The one who feels attachment wants birds to be caged. The one who
really loves birds wants them to be free.
Can you give me an example of how the free will of another person is
harmed through attachment?
Yes. There is attachment in the mother who keeps her children by her
side when they are older and wish to become independent for
different reasons, either because they have found a partner, or
because they wish to study or to work far away from home, etcetera.
The mother who has attachment will try to impose her need to be with
them, not respecting that they want to live their lives independently. If
she does not achieve this, she will feel emotionally hurt and will even
say to her children that they do not love her, to try to make them feel
guilty in order to try to keep them by her side. There is attachment in
the father who demands that his children dedicate themselves to a
particular profession, that they must study such-and-such a career, if
not they will be disinherited. There is attachment in the boyfriend who
tells his girlfriend which clothes she can and cannot wear, at what time
she must enter and leave the house, with whom she can and cannot
socialise. This false love, attachment, is like a chain, a cage which
imprisons whoever is the object of the attachment, turning into a jailer
whoever allows themselves to be taken over by attachment, because,
like the person who caged the birds, whoever suffers attachment,
neither lives nor lets live.
It appears to me to be logical when you said that through attachment
we harm the free will of others, but it has surprised me that you said
that through attachment we can harm our own free will. Can you give
an example of how our own free will is harmed when we feel
attachment?
Well yes. For example, the same mother of the previous example,
when she does not allow herself to carry out something that her inner
self needs, such as, for example, spending time helping other people
outside the family, because she thinks that when doing this she
neglects her own, for example, her children, or her husband. If this
woman does not overcome attachment, she will feel guilty even when
attending to matters that fulfil her internally and will even end up
stopping herself from accomplishing these due to that same feeling of
guilt.