Attachment can be on two levels – either internal or external.
Some common examples of external attachments are attachments to:
* people,
* objects,
* your physical body,
* your position or role in your family, society or in your professional field,
* money,
* places,
* physical comfort/comforts,
* the way you look or dress up or carry yourself or your physical personality in general,
* a particular skill/skills,
* a particular interest or hobby like watching movies, online social networking, etc.
* your routine or a certain way of working at home or at the workplace,
* respect from others,
* how people see you or behave with you or what they think of you, etc.
Some common examples of internal attachments are attachments to:
* your ideas,
* your beliefs,
* your opinions or viewpoints,
* your memories,
* a certain way of thinking
* a particular virtue/virtues or specialty/specialties,
* a particular power/powers,
* a particular sanskar/sanskars – either positive or negative, etc.
Whether the attachment is external or internal, the act of attaching is always internal. e.g. if you attach yourself to your job, you will say "my job Your job is something external, but you hold on to it inside you – inside your consciousness.
Each time we attach ourselves to anything which is external or internal, we create fears, amongst which the main one is the fear of loss of what I am attached to. The attachment not only gives rise to fear but also brings with it emotions like anger, ego, sadness, jealousy, greed, comparisons, hatred etc. All these emotions have their roots in attachment, which gives rise to insecurity.
Any type of attachment mentioned above are the sanskar that is so deeply embedded inside us that it seems normal to us. It is just a sanskar but it has immense amount of power and it manages to imprison us completely, but most of the time we do not even realize we are imprisoned. The negative emotional states connected with this kind of attachment create a state of internal mental pressure or an inner emptiness and make us feel absolutely helpless at times. Over a period of time, we have become so accustomed to these attachments and the various forms of suffering connected with it that we have started believing that these are an integral part of the human personality and human life since the beginning and are, therefore, natural. And so we continue with the sanskar and even keep strengthening it, never ever thinking that it should be removed. We do this with internal stress and unhappiness to the point that even our health gets affected adversely. The natural state of the self is free and not attached in this way to anything. Attachments, whether external or internal, are acquired at different points of time in the birth-rebirth cycle and are not natural or there from the beginning. All the things mentioned above have existed from the beginning but attachment to them has not. The present suffering indicates to us that these types of attachments are something abnormal or not natural.
