Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Last night, while dreaming, I accessed a place of utter calmness, detachment, and clarity. In this place of peacefulness, I fully understood what it meant to be loving and compassionate toward the self and others, while at the same time totally detached and in a state of perfect inner calm balance. I yearned to stay there and I wanted to wake up in the morning and find myself still there. In this state I realized that I did not have to think about anything because the answers to all of life’s mysteries were totally accessible, simply by being open and receptive to them. There was no sense of fear or worry and everything was available because I had no interfering earthly attachments. I failed to write down what I was experiencing. At the same time that I struggled to alert my dreaming self to pick up the pen and write in the notebook I keep beside me while I sleep, I also struggled to alert myself to the importance of holding onto this experience so I could carry it over into my waking state. Eventually, I did pick up the pen and wrote only the following, knowing that it was not capturing the experience: “Rely on the self, the inner knowing.” When I woke up this morning I was disappointed when I read what I had written because I knew it did not express the feeling of detachment that I had achieved. The calmness felt very connected to a sense of complete detachment from everything that is present in normal waking life. I knew that it was very important to find a means to carry this detachment into my day. My question is regarding this sense of utter detachment. How do we understand what detachment means and how do we maintain it? In my dream it felt so natural, yet upon awakening I know that the challenge is to actualize it without attaching to worries and fears that I may be doing something wrong. Can you explain what detachment means?

Detachment, in an evolutionary sense, is a total release from life upon that earth, a release from human emotions, attachments, and cares, but also a total release from all that binds one to that plane and makes one return to it numerous times for fulfillment of human challenges. In order to learn what detachment means one must fully understand what attachment means.

Attachment, in an evolutionary sense, means to use the challenges that life upon that earth presents during a lifetime, to fully explore what it means to be human. To be human to excess or human to detriment are both aspects of attachment. To be utterly controlling of self and others, to be utterly controlled by self and others, and to be absolutely uncontrollable, are all aspects of attachment to life upon that earth as a human being. Such challenges must be met, accepted, and experienced in order for true evolution and detachment to take place. To attach is to learn what it means to be human. To attach to all that life offers, whether in a few lifetimes or in one (though this is highly unlikely) is necessary in order to achieve compassionate detachment, fully loaded with love for all beings, including the self, without attachment.

So you see, though you may find your self caught in your humanness, I suggest that you take your issues seriously as progressive lessons in evolutionary growth. You must learn what it means to be attached to all that life offers in order to take the steps toward detachment that will eventually lead to your calm and peaceful place of all-knowing.

Those who elect to pay attention to the self, as well as the outer world, are doing themselves a favor. In order to evolve, the deeper mysteries of the self must be addressed; the deeper problems, you might call them. The challenges are, in fact, necessary. So, I ask that you first accept your challenges; accept the fact that you are a human being. You are there to experience being human and I suggest that you do it impeccably. Then, by your own intent to grow, I suggest that you ask the self to gradually shift to a place of interest beyond humanness. This intent to shift beyond experiences of humanness will open the door to experiences of spirit, which will, in turn, lead to understanding detachment.

To understand detachment one must understand what you are detaching from. Each personal life is attached in personal ways. Within the context of your own life you must seek to find what these attachments are. Where are your greatest attachments and where are your lesser attachments? Where can you begin a systematic detachment from those attachments?

Imagine saying no, or refusing the normal controlling routines. Imagine pushing aside the desires and needs of the human body and sitting with the utter emptiness of Not Doing. Not Doing must become a new device, a new tool, a new habit, to learn about and experience detachment.

For today, I urge Not Doing as an act of detachment, simply Not Doing something that is normal, routine, habitual, thoughtless, oblivious, whether it be a spoken statement that slips out because of habitual judgments, or whether it is an automatic behavior that you have controlled or has been controlling you for years. Do not substitute this Not Doing activity with anything. Do not put anything in its place. Do not reward the self for Not Doing. Simply experience Not Doing.

This is the first step of learning detachment. This is enough for one day. Today is a day of Not Doing and sitting with the energy of Not Doing, fully experiencing it, disciplining the self to stay in Not Doing, and seeing what happens!