This last manifestation of attachment does actually surprise me, since
normally people who are very involved in the family are usually
considered very loving people.
Well yes. This is because attachment is deeply ingrained within your
culture and is often confused with love. Many people, due to the
education that they have received, have it ingrained so much that
they have internalised it as part of their own personality. The wife is
made to feel guilty when she is not dedicating one hundred per cent
of her time to her husband, her children or her work. When she spends
time with other people outside her family, she risks being the object of
gossip by members of her own family who, assuring her that it is for her
own good, will try to make her feel guilty with comments such as “you
love those people more than members of your own family”, or “have
you lost your way out there, when your place is here with your people”,
or “what will people think of you”. Although traditionally the man has
had greater freedom, he is not exempt from feeling attachment either,
nor from others blaming him through attachment, when he spends
time helping other people who are not part of his family, his circle of
friends, from his people or culture, especially if he is not going to
receive any economic gain.
But I do say that when we dedicate ourselves to the family there must
be something of love there too, surely?
Of course. The one doesn't rule out the other. As I have already said
and will say again, true love does not end. We can love more and
more people without stopping loving our families. But the greater the
capacity to love, the greater the commitment to a larger number of
people and the time available will have to be shared between more
people. This can be perceived by people who suffer attachment that
they are loved less, but this is not the case.
What happens with the family when you decide to change? Perhaps
you don’t neglect your own when you begin to spend time helping
others?
Look, one of the greatest obstacles that you will find if you want to
begin to change, for example, if you start to meet up with other
people to speak about your inner self, is that those around you will not
understand you and will play with your feeling of guilt for not attending
to family commitments.
Look closely and you will see that when people want to go every week
to see a football match, which lasts two hours, and what's more costs
money, or go to a discotheque or a bar, nobody feels that those