Dispassion or Disinterest?
Question: Jgd Ekta di, Are dispassion and disinterest one and the same. I have lost ambition in Career. I do whatever job is given to me. But my Boss has started noticing it that I don’t go beyond what was asked of me and don’t bring new ideas to the table. A similar thing is happening to people around me who say I don’t love them. I am not involved, etc.
But when I see Gurudev, I see him doing everything with such attentiveness as he is here only to that particular task. He doesn’t look disinterested even though He is dispassionate. How to be like that and how to come out of my present situation? It’s a bit scary not to have plans, ambition, passion.
Answer:
Dispassion has many stages to it. In the initial stages, dispassion seems similar to disinterest. But the stages will progress ahead and its flavour will change. It is a natural happening on the spiritual path so don’t worry too much about it. it gradually transforms like the green leaves transform to a yellow, then to orange and finally to a beautiful crimson red before falling off the Maple tree in Autumn.
Let the transition take its time, its a natural process. It cannot be wished away. It’s flavour/ colour cannot be changed at will either. Only time will tell whether you are a maple red or a maple yellow or a simple green deciduous leaf. In the end, that colour change also doesn’t matter because every leaf eventually falls off the tree.
You will get there once you ripen totally. Once there, everything appears like a game, a play. Then you start playing the game with equal enthusiasm, no matter what the task at hand is. But one must wait to ripen. One cannot force oneself. If you force a bud to be a flower by pulling at its petals, you will only destroy the bud. It will never blossom. That is a real danger on this path. That’s why let nature take its time. You just be!
Learning to let life just take over and just be is an art. Because we are such control freaks, we start thinking that we are running our life out of the passion, ambition, drive that we have. But this is just a lie that every person is telling himself. Somewhere deep down, we all are aware of the truth, that how much ever we try to run our lives, we are not really in control. Everything happens in its own time if it needs to happen. Our striving and thirsting do not necessarily make things happen. There is definitely something higher that is running this game and we are really under HIS control.
Once the Ego makes way for this truth, the feverishness to run drops away. It cannot even be evoked by an external source because you know it as YOUR TRUTH now instead of just theory. This takes time. Give it its time.
Meanwhile, just practice being with what is. When you truly learn to be with what is, you learn on your own about the changing colours of dispassion, the higher power playing the game, the Ego that struggles to be in control, the TRUTH that we are all just waves, we arise, play for a while and fall away. When all this becomes apparent to you [in your own experience not in theory taught by Ekta or the Guru], then you will attain the supreme TRUTH and fall off this tree of Maaya.
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As usual, a beautiful, insightful explanation by Ektaji. Particularly around “You will get there once you ripen totally. Once there, everything appears like a game”
Your experience does resonate. My family started feeling that I am being aloof. But, slowly as transformation in personality was ongoing, things started improving.
In the initial stage, there is more feeling of withdrawal or passivity. But, even that is a mirage. We have been leading a life with a mind filter. The mind is always vacillating, between
Past (he said this, she said that he made this mistake, I want this, I don’t have that, etc. etc.).
Present – aha 2 second of relief.
Future (I need to do that, I will be that, daydreams)
This monkey mind gets 2 seconds of relief and hours of pain. This kind of activity of the mind is just a waste of energy. This is not really an active mind.
A trained mind will have very few bouts of past and future. Most times it will be in the present. Then, you can produce work much faster, cleaner, and in an innovative fashion.
A lot of your past impressions, like vasanas (negative proclivities), sanskars, wants and needs will get erased. This will again bring about tremendous clarity.
I generally don’t talk about myself. But, I had an absolute disdain for art. Never painted, sang, or anything. After being spiritual, I had a sudden interest in art.
Did a couple of paintings. No more stage fright, so I sang songs at parties. And most important of all, created a mammoth 500-pound sculpture. The sculpture does have an amateurish look as it was the first sculpture of my life. But, my family was firmly impressed. Also, built an 8-foot tall wooden shed in the backyard.
Similarly on Job, have been able to complete tasks efficiently and innovative approaches automatically get applied. After all, getting in touch with your core, makes one lot more intuitive.
Neti – Neti, yes others do observe the change. There is a little bit of ambivalence at first. But, overall all things will look brighter. Eventually!!!
Please never forget, you are going from “Passive” (lost in illusion) mind to “Active” mind (full of clarity, intuitiveness, connectedness). Transformation takes time, but you will get there.
🙏🏼Thank you Ektaji, for the advice to just Be and let Nature take it’s time.
I feel that in the first stage of Advaita ( Differentiating between subject and object), the spiritual seeker experiences dispassion plus disinterest. He thinks, “I am not this prakriti ( Neti neti)”, this is all pointless. He starts feeling a separation from the material world. People complain about his lack of involvement.
As he advances into higher stages of Advaita and becomes a jnani, he experiences that ‘’All is one”. The prakriti is an expression of him only. It feels like a game to the jnani, as you mentioned. Then his attitude becomes that of dispassion but not disinterest. (Some jnanis may play the game and some may not, but that depends on their personality and prarabdha). This is what I gathered from my readings.🙏🏼