Detachment, Competition and Co-operation.

Become more detached. Ask yourself: “Who is competitive?”, not “Am I competitive?” Of course you are competitive; everybody is. Find out who is. If you distance yourself from the competitiveness and identify with the “who”, then you become more detached. The more detached you become, the easier it is to be detached; it becomes a habit. The thing is to look at what is happening, and to detach from that by not identifying.

Ask yourself: “Who is competitive? Who is hurting? Who is upsetting the group? Who is destructive?” Find out who it is, which of the demons, because it is one of your demons. We all have lots of demons. But if you just say: “I mustn’t be, I must try not to be,” you do not do anything. The demons have many heads, and every time you cut off one head another one takes its place. The more effort you put into not being competitive, the more competitive you will become. You have to replace it with something – co-operation. That comes from the soul, from meditation, through right identification.

You can develop detachment, and as soon as you act from detachment you are already co-operating, you are already in right relationship. It is not something you have to learn. Detachment, sincerity of spirit, honesty of mind, awareness, are themselves the result of a co-operative attitude, and, demonstrated, lead to co-operation. You cannot separate these things: right relationship is another word for co-operation, which is another word, as the Master put it, for unity. Unity, co-operation and right relationship are three different ways of expressing the same thing.

Excerpts: THE ART OF CO-OPERATION… by Benjamin Creme.

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