To become unattached does not mean to give all your worldly goods away. What you have to give away is your attachment to worldly goods. Attachment is an idea. It is an idea that you have to hold on rather than let go. Give away allegiance to the idea of attachment, and you give yourself freedom. Attached, you are tied. Unattached, you are free.
If you live in a house you love, you don't have to give away your house. Yet you must give away your attachment to your house. You can still live in it, and you can love your house and love living in it. To become unattached to your house doesn't mean you're not supposed to enjoy it. Not at all. All nonattachment means is that you well know that you don't have to live in that particular house. Your well-being is not dependent upon the house you live in. Your well-being is not dependent upon anything like that.
Becoming unattached is the same as becoming independent. When you are independent, you don't have to have attachment. You are independent of attachment. This is the same as your knowing that you are not your house, you are not your circumstances, and your happiness is independent of what comes and goes in your life. What you surround yourself with is not who you are. You are not more with possessions, nor are you less without them.
It is a beautiful thing to let go of boundaries, beloveds. Attachment says you are holding on to boundaries. Here is how attachment speaks to you. It says: "Hey, you, you have to have me. You are dependent upon me. You are inconsequential without me. I, attachment, give you your importance. I give you your identity. You have to live in this neighborhood. You have to live in your beautiful house, or you lose your identity. You lose your entitlement. You then become an apartment dweller, or even homeless. You do see how important what you own is to you. You must keep me, your attachment, close to you. I am your saving grace."
Furthermore, attachment says to you: "You are your money. You are your clothes. You are your children. You are your social status."
Attachment says to you: "You must keep everything you have, and you must get more. Life is not about loving your neighbor. Life is about how you look to your neighbor and yourself. You see, without me, you wouldn't care about all you care about. You wouldn't have anything to bolster your sense of self-esteem. You see, the motto I gave you is: 'If I am going to play in life, I am going to play to accumulate.'"
Attachment says to you: "Look, you must surround yourself with trophies. What do you amount to without them?"
Now, nonattachment plays quite a different role in your life. Nonattachment says: "You are really beautiful. With or without anything at all, you are something special. You are even divine. You, just you. A new car is great to have. Name recognition is great to have, and yet you are beholden to yourself alone. All the other stuff saddles you. I, nonattachment, I tell you all this so you know Who you are and what you can create. Really, don't be in hock to attachment. Attachment just wants to get his hooks into you. He doesn't love you. He just wants you to be in need and to need him. He wants you to feel lack. He wants to wrap you around his little finger so you will think that your life depends upon him."
What does your life depend on, My beautiful children? What does your life depend on? Tell Me, on what does your life depend?