ɐʇıG ʇɐʍbɐɥB

That, detachment from everything brings happiness, is a bogus philosophy, for if one is to follow it, his ultimate detachment would be with Life itself and that means suicide. Assuming the said philosophy of detachment is talking about happiness in this life, it falls flat on its face. If one is to totally imbibe it, it could be that those who commit suicide, are most detached in the moment when they do it, which is true, but they do it not to achieve happiness but rather to end the emptiness they can no longer live with.

Krishna should have asked Arjuna to commit suicide, if he himself really believed in the philosophy he sermonises in Bhagwat Gita, or should have atleast led by an example and committed suicide himself. On the contrary, we read that he had a wonderful colorful life full of love, lust, possessions, fights for kingdoms, and all other materialistic things of attachment.

Unless... he’s talking about the art of being detached while being attached, which he is. Which is where the wicked twist of "Duty = religious obligation = Dharma" comes in. If one is living life and treats his attachments as his "by birth" duty then one is said to be relatively detached to worldly matters, in some sense, which means one has to think of oneself as not human but a machine. A dependent, ignorant and spiritless machine, with no will of its own, supposedly dedicated to do all its life what it was "created" for. A Brahmin is supposed to follow Brahmin Dharma; a Kshatriya, Kshatriya Dharma; Vaishya, his Dharma and Shudra, his Dharma; as ordained to each one of them by virtue of their birth, and die doing the same. That’s where vice of ego comes in. Once asked of dissolution of one’s ego, and if one is to imbibe, one would effectively convert oneself from being human to a duty bound Dharma propagating machine. "Nothing remains yours. Everything you do is for Dharma."

But since humans are not machines and because even if being asserively told to do everything as their religious obligation, the mind will still ask questions. As Arjuna asks, "Duty to what purpose?" After being sermonised on dissolution of his ego, his humanness, the preacher ironically transforms himself into the "Supreme Ego" and Arjuna is told to dedicate all his deeds to this Supreme Ego. Arjuna, the ignorant, not only fails to counter question Krishna on this demagoguery, but is being said to have fallen in awe of this Supreme Ego out of fear. That’s where his innocent skepticism ends. Fear, puts all his questions to rest and he is ready to be a killing machine, totally detached of its humanness.

Those sermons may be great for soldiers sent to be pawns of war, or to transform one into a Jihadi , but they are not for those who need to preserve their humanness. Because everything we associate with humanness is about bonding and attachments. Love, compassion, kindness, peace, coexistence, harmony, happiness, relationships, zeitgeist, coevolution philosophy, language, art, science; human life is all about being more connected, creating more bonds, with oneself, with others, with nature, with universe; not about detachment.

There is no pre-determined Dharma one needs to follow, because there is no preordained purpose of life. Only Dharma one must follow is of preservation of humanness and pursuit of happiness to the best of what one’s circumstances, surroundings, upbringing, spiritedness and level of Maslow’s Pyramid permit one to. The only purpose of life is the purpose we give it.

Man is an enterprising animal. This enterprising nature of humans, the awareness of self, and the awareness that we are self-aware; is our spiritedness, our ego, our soul, that effectively differentiates us from machines. Without ego, man is nothing. Don't run after trying to dissolve your ego, your self, your soul, into nothingness. Rather, nurture it and give it a sense of direction. That's where happiness is. If that's what you seek. For as long as you live. And then you die. That's the end of your human self, the end of your ego, your being.

Only profound philosophy professed in Gita is, "Change is the only Constant", coinciding with scientifically proven E=MC^2. Once life ends, the matter of body disintegrates into other matter or breaks up into atoms, transforming itself into energy. That's the only afterlife, which one's disintegrated atoms enter into, after dissolution of one's ego, ie one's death.

Tat Tvam Asi. (That Thou Are)