By the time I hit six years old, My uncle gifted this pretty cool toy, a car with a
remote control.
Since then, I put away all my toys & played only with that one.
I've cherished it wholeheartedly.
I recall vividly a day when my older brother questioned if he could play with it for a
little while, but I refused promptly.
He insisted & I was like "don't touch my toy, this is mine and mine alone, go get yourself
another one."
And this is how attachment looks like.
Now it's quite healthy for a child to display this kind of selfish attitude in a certain
phase in his development.
However, the problem is that some people never outgrow that stage and carry along with them
that same kind of attachment throughout adulthood.
Only Replace the toy-story with beliefs & opinions.
If you're attached to your knowledge, then it is controlling you, controlling the way
you think.
Your attachment to certain insights will affect your perception, your likes & dislikes, your
actions, and the way you present yourself to others.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have any life-philosophy.
Operating on specific yet helpful principles is crucial to navigate this chaotic reality.
The point is that, you shouldn't become the prisoner of these precepts.
Your beliefs & opinions exist, only because you exist.
you are the innermost center.
FEAR AND ATTACHMENT Your attachment to something instills the
fear of losing it.
EXAMPLE: attachment to success and wanting your goals
too much, instills the fear of failure.
clutshing to people creates the fear of losing them.
Clinging to certain idealogies prompts fear of change and blocks oppenness to novelty.
If you develop a firm attachment to something, the fear of losing it will follow.
And this fear creates resistance toward loss, wich obviously, in turn, causes stress & anxiousness.
This stress manifests often in a form of wishes "I hope this experience lasts longer"
"I hope that person doesn't leave"
"I wish I could feel these pleasant emotions unendingly"
or
"I'd be doomed if I lose that thing."
POSSESSIONS External things are not an inherent part of
your being.
1-You are not your thoughts, you are not your car neither your job title nor your house.
All of these are external possessions that may add value to your life but are seperate
from your construct as a human being, aka body, mind & soul.
A relationship is something that you have and is not part of who you are like your arms
and legs for example.
I'm not trying to be mean & say that your relationships are worthless, I'm just sharing
what the book has to offer like I always do in all my videos.
One reason for your attachment is the belief that that thing makes you look better, it
strengthens your character in one way or another.
"If I haven't been this famous, my friends would dumb me."
"If I didn't own a lamborgini, my girlfriend would've left me years ago."
You blindly believe if you detach yourself from that thing, you become less of a person.
You think you're better off dead than alive without it.
Great, now let's dive deeper:
LEVELS OF ATTACHMENT: The author had broken down five levels of
attachment, each subsequent level is more severe than previous.
LEVEL ONE: THE AUTHENTIC SELF -> This is the level of no attachment whatsoever.
You're not really clinging to anything.
You welcome any event & let it pass through you like any other fleeting occurence.
Whatever happens, you're not affected by it.
You're ready to experience any situation with no yearning for it to extend in duration if
it's pleasant or shorten if it's unpleasant.
At this level of no attachment, you perceive your preferences & material possessions as
seperate from your being.
Moreover, you realize how intense feelings are merely chemicals running through your
body, and are impermanent.
You welcome any emotion with open arms, feel it, let go, and allow the next to take its
place.
The authentic self is a state of being similar to meditating and contemplating your thoughts
as they pass by without holding on to them.
You can also think of it as a pure newborn retaining no ideologies, beliefs or preferances
whatsoever.
This is what level one looks like.
ATTACHMENT LEVEL TWO: PREFERANCE -> At this level you still consider yourself
as detached from your inclinations.
You can easily attach & detach yourself, and you are aware of this process happening.
You are in total control of your beliefs and opinions and not the other way around.
Although you have cherished convictions, you value other people's opposing ideas.
Your peers are not only people who comply to the same ideologies as yours.
Having friends with dissimilar interests colors your life and encourages your experiencing
of the world from various angles.
If you see yourself in level one or two, you're good to go.
Now here's where it gets really messed up.
LEVEL THREE: IDENTITY -> A person who gets stuck in level three
can no longer recognize that process of him attaching himself to something.
It happens subconsciously now because most of the time he is unaware of his thought patterns.
For a moment, think of your attachment as a mask.
At this level, you can wear the mask but delude yourself that the mask is you.
The mask could be anything like your skin colour, nationality, opinions, beliefs.
You now see those things as a vital part of your identity.
This is my car, my house, my computer.
This is me.
You no longer see yourself as a independent human being.
You often encourage people to call you by a nickname like james the football player,
the lamborgini guy, the boss, the guitar guy, bob the builder, etc.
Because it's now part of your identity, whatever happens to that thing, you're deeply affected.
Some examples could be:
If your washing machine breaks down, you spend weeks depressed.
You deliberately strike up arguments or get yourself in trouble to defend your political
party's viewpoints.
If you favorite a particular sport's team, you see the opposing team as enemies.
As a capitalist, you scorn communism, and vice versa.
You now perceive your own beliefs and preferances as the ultimate way of living.
This is level three.
LEVEL FOUR: INTERNALIZATION -> At this stage, your attachment gets firmly
established as a core aspect of your persona.
Detaching yourself from it now would literally feel like ripping your soul off.
As a vegan, you beat yourself up if you slip off one day and eat meat.
If you see a stake and feel the desire to taste it, you start thinking that you're a
bad person for having such desires.
Your attachments turn into anchors for self-judgement.
Moreover, you choose your friends based on whether or not they're vegan.
You feel pity for meat eaters and urge them to turn vegan as well, owing to your delusion
that your ways of living are the only truth, and that others ought to be following.
No offence for vegans, I'm just using this as an example.
Not every vegan person is stuck-up by the way.
What I said pertains to any kind of attachment.
The whole premise is that, at this level, the person turns dogmatic & scornful towards
other people's peculiarities.
LEVEL FIVE: FANATICISM -> This phase is concidered the peak of association
with your inclinations.
This is where You start worshiping them.
Your attachment has been reinforced with emotional commitment to attack, degrade or ridicule
those who do not adhere to the same convictions as yours.
You ruin your relationships if you find out that they hold dissimilar interests.
Pause (1.5 sec)
I want you to imagine this guy named james.
James was born in a strickly religious family.
His parents made sure that he follows what they believed in while growing up.
One day, james decided to change his religion.
He had introduced the idea to his parents but his father denied promptly.
And his mom seriously emphasized that if he did, he'll get kicked out of the house.
This is what fanaticism looks like.
The same case in vegan families where the parents insist that their children ought to
be vegan or else they're no longer welcomed as a family member.
yet again, my aim here is not to demonize veganism but to further describe fanaticism.
It's almost as though you're perceiving life through a filter.
People & things that fit into the filter you're able to see them.
Others who do not, are left unseen.
They're no longer part of your reality.
If a book offers a different viewpoint about your beliefs, you stop reading.
If you love self-help but your brother is a videogame addict, you cut off your relationship
with him.
You see opposing ideas as utter nonsense.
Furthermore, you sometimes make use of violance to forcefully emphasize your opinions.
At this level of extreme attachment, your authentic self no longer pertains.
Your beliefs and preferances are now controlling you.
There is no you anymore in the equation.
You've turned into a machine unable to act or think past the programs installed in it.
CLOSING:
Now with that said, Am I SAying you should give up your attachments & ideologies altogether?
No.
The point is to be conscious of them, and to distance yourself from dogmatism.
Use your beliefs as vehicles to navigate reality & not as filters that distort reality.
There is no right or wrong way to go about living your life.
Of course, some ways are better than others but realize that everyone's experience is
unique.
What works for me may not necessarily be suitable for you, and vice versa.
Imagine walking down the streets and every person you cross looks exactly like you.
That would be boring & terrifying.
You'd walk around seeying the same faces over & over, every single day.
Next time you go out in nature, take some time to contemplate the variety of shapes
& colour.
You'll get a sense of what I'm talking about.
The only reason we enjoy each other's company is because we are different.
We are all different.
And we will never get a chance to live peacefully together until we honor our differences.
Thanks for watching.