Simone Wiel Detachment Essay, Research Paper

Simone Weil

DETACHMENT

A simple affliction does not cause a person to detach him or herself from the world. It has to be affliction that goes unattached or untreated. God gave up everything and we should also if we want to know god. If we get ride of all of our worldly passions (attachments) then we can know god. In order to be happy you have to disconnect your self from material things as well as desires. She says there are two ways of renouncing material passions. One is giving them up thinking you are going to get into heaven if you do. And the second is to know what you are giving up is keeping you from getting closer with god and for that reason you surrender them. All things we desire or want even the once we think are good are actually empty things and through giving them up and all of out desires we would get to the absolute good which is God. Intelligence doesn t lead to heaven. You have to clear yourself of material goods and thoughts. After you get rid of everything God will fill the voids left by giving them up. Sometimes we think that the absolute good isn t real because we cannot see it but compared to the material things and thought it is very real. We must leave behind the general belief that sin is sin no matter what religion has taught us. Love god no matter what not just because of its rewards. What we see and believe of the world is because of what we believe our experience and want we put into it. Independent reality comes from detaching ourselves from the world. And we can only see what is really going on when we step back and look at them with no bias. We attach ourselves to things thinking we are feeling better or we will feel better but we end up attaching to bad things. Attachment is never a good thing. We attached to the possisions of things because we think if we give them up they will no longer exist. We feel that if we let something go it will be gone forever. The only reason we can handle the misery is because it is drawn out. IF it all comes at the same time we would not be able to handle it. IF we suffer and it doesn t cause us to give up the worldly things it is a waste of suffering. If we can t see something we can still love it, such as god. We should not want what we love to live on forever. We should just let it be in god s hands. The miser deprives him self of this treasures because he wants it so bad. If he wanted god that bad it would be different. IF the miser got a lot of money it would lose its appeal to him. IT is the same if a person got God all the way. So we cannot get God all the way. IF we love god but thing he dens not exist. Then he will eventually prove his existence.