All of us use things in life and tend to get rather attached to stuff. The cup that you want to drink your morning cuppa in, the pen that you like to write with, the jacket that you find most comfortable, the pillow that you lay down to sleep on, and so many small insignificant things that make your life more comfortable and so you grow attached to them.

Now imagine that there was a fire and your house got gutted. Grief will set in after the shock recedes.

Just how badly do you feel your loss? Is it enough to paralyze you for several days making you wish that you did not have to pick up the shattered pieces of your life? Or is it a lingering sadness that follows you around as you hustle and bustle pulling the strings of your life together again?

As per the philosophy of Vedanta both reactions are bad. If you never owned anything where does the sense of loss come in? You are a visitor to this world in a somewhat modified form which is different from the pure energy that you truly are.

There are some lessons that you must learn and then go back to your previous free state. In the same manner as children go to school each day in a uniform, learn some new lessons and come back home to shed the uniform and play.

So the next time you get upset over loosing some trivial article just remember that it had served its purpose and departed from your life as soon as you had learnt the lesson. Remember to accumulate the lessons in your heart rather than trying to accumulate things that you can never carry back when you leave this school and return to your true home.