Happiness is so elusive that many spend their life time in attaining it. Majority of us think that material possessions will give them happiness, so in order to get it they hanker after the material things. They keep on accumulating the wealth and other things one after the other, which further goads them to accumulate more. But they don’t find any lasting happiness as the wealth and other worldly thing only provide material comforts.

 We get so much attached to our possessions that we are always afraid of losing them and we constantly worry in order to keep them. Similarly, we are so attached to our relationships that we expect too much from them. The attachment to the relationships becomes the source of anxiety and worry. Notwithstanding our desire to hoard, we envy others of their possessions and relationships, which lead to more worry. Thus we enter into a vicious cycle of attachments and worry.

The verse 19, chapter 3 of the Bhagwat Gita says that “therefore, constantly perform your obligatory duty without attachment; for doing duty without attachment man verily obtains the Supreme.”

The above verse guides us to abandon the attachments to our possessions but on the other hand it doesn’t forbid us to possess the things we acquire while performing our obligatory duty. By non-attachment to our possessions we will get rid of fear of losing them and this will give us peace and happiness.

 Further, the verse 10 of chapter 5 says that “he, who acts, abandoning attachments, dedicating his deeds to Brahman, is untainted as a lotus leaf by water.”

 This verse guides us to abandon the attachment to the outcome of our deeds, which we can do by dedicating our deeds to Him. Thus, by our absolute surrender to His will we will be able to get rid of attachments. And we will be able to perform the worldly duties without any worry to their outcome; we will be able to hold on to our possessions without any worry.

By constantly dedicating the outcome of our deeds to the will of the Almighty, we can abandon attachment to them and attain lasting happiness.