Non-Attachment and Creative Expression

Non-attachment – as described in the Hindu scriptures to be one of the key ingredients for Liberation – is commonly understood as being not attached to material objects, positions, events, people, relationships, etc. However I feel these are only the external crutches on to which we are discouraged from being attached. It is important to be unattached to these. However I feel real non-attachment, should be to our own inner experiences – emotional, physical and mental.
Almost at any point in time, what characterizes our existence is the experience we undergo at that point in time – the bliss of watching the horizon from the vantage point of a lush green mountain spot, the heat of the sun’s rays beating down on our skin while we travel through a humid city road, the rage we feel at the uncaring attitude of someone, etc. These experiences, which are reactions to external or internal stimuli, almost “take us away”. In the sense – we identify ourselves with the experience at an inner level and become It. We are that. True non-attachment however, I feel is feeling the separation of US from these experiences – not identifying ourselves with our thoughts or feelings or physical sensations. Mind you, I am not saying we should resist these. Instead, I only say that we should disentangle ourselves from it, for these are not US. We stand in the middle, unchanged and unruffled. We need to be always in that middle. There is a field around us in which our experiences play out. It is important to segregate this field with its experiences, from our SELVES. Once we are able to do this, I feel we can realize that the I in US does not change. Only the circumstances around it do.
Attaining this stage, I feel will lead one to not get disturbed by what goes on around oneself. One sees the play of the world, becomes a detached part of it, still does not get identified with or “taken away” by it. It is like the center of a grinding wheel which does not move; only its surroundings do. The farther and farther ones goes away from the center, the greater the turbulence that occurs.
This “centerdness”,I believe, is what one should seek. Once there, I feel one’s response to any situation would not be conditioned by accumulated reflexes of the past or anxieties about the future. Rather, they would be a spontaneous “arising” from one’s inmost self. This I feel, is true creative expression – a process in which something deep within us finds its manifestation.