Lesson 20 – Bye Bye, Attachments

What is attachment?

Most people know attachment as the feeling of contraction in the body that follows the mental “fear-projecting” of a (potential) loss or lack of something we think contains a portion of our well-being.

In short: we become aware of our attachments as soon as we think of losing something we desire, or not getting something we desire.

But what is attachment exactly?

Attachment is misplaced happiness.

Our attachments to certain things is due to the fact that we have come to associate our good feelings with the presence of certain items, people, or circumstances in our lives, and bad feelings with the seeming lack thereof.

It is really that simple.

In order to free yourself from an attachment to, let’s say, a person, you will need to somehow show yourself—realize—that your happiness did not come from that person, it came from your very own heart, your very own being, and was simply channeled into your body-mind experience as a result of you giving yourself permission to feel good upon seeing or experiencing the other person.

Allow me explain in greater detail:

What is a good feeling?

A good feeling is nothing more than to be in alignment with your True Self’s natural wavelength. Literally, feeling good is the result of having the vibrations of your mind-portion dance in sync—in harmony—with the underlying ever-present wavelength of your True Being; or: your true frequency.

What triggers a good feeling?

A good feeling is triggered by our mind’s perspective of that moment being in alignment with our True Being’s perspective of that moment.

If a good, peaceful, joyful feeling is released into your state of being by your perspective being in alignment with Reality, then what is it that triggers your mind’s perspective to be in alignment with your True Being’s perspective? A thought based in the idea of abundance (usually), or some variation of it.

When we look at our life and perceive an abundance of love, possibility, potential for satisfaction, money, resources, the ability to do what we want to do, free will, appreciation, and so on, we feel good because that is how our True Being perceives every second of our reality.

When we feel good, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual circumstances, for they are inherently neutral and without meaning. When we feel good, it signifies that our way of seeing life is presently in alignment with our True Being’s way of seeing life.Bentinho Massaro

I will explain a little bit more about abundance in the section below, however I will not go too deeply into the practical specifics of abundance and the aligning of frequencies, for that is very distinctly the purpose of the Empowerment teaching. The purpose of this lesson—and the Enlightenment teaching in general—is simply to get to as clear of a picture as we can regarding how and why attachments form, and what they are, so that when they come up, we can apply the proper clarity and “relaxation-into-beingness” to release those misperceptions and remember the true value of our here-and-now existence.

What is Abundance?

Abundance—as a principle of Existence—is the idea that: “Everything is never-ending and originating from an infinite source.” This translates into our human experience more along the lines of: “There is more than enough (infinite amounts) to fulfill every being’s every desire.”

In reality, abundance is one of the given facts of Creation, for Creation itself is infinite, and not bound by space or time. As such, Existence itself (your True Being) does not know the existence of lack. It doesn’t understand it. It doesn’t compute with the idea, with the vibration, of a thought that suggests there is a lack of something in the universe. This is why we feel bad when we think like this.

The source of all negative emotions: “Believing in lack”

As soon as we think in terms of lack—which I sometimes call the “anti-thought” because it goes against everything true about Creation—what happens is that your personal vibration does not match up at all with the vibration of your True Being, which is Existence, or Creation itself.

The bad feeling you get is the distance you feel between your view and the true view of Existence itself.

This is the only reason most people on this planet feel so miserable, scared, confused, and betrayed most of the time: their minds have been taught to believe, through and through, in the existence of something that absolutely does not exist: lack.

Hence, every time you project that something is missing or lacking, or that something could potentially be missing or lacking someday (fear of the future), whether that is a loved one you lost, or a loved one you imagine you might lose some day, what is mechanically—energetically—happening is that you are attempting to separate yourself from the fundamental laws of Creation.

You are, in a sense, creating a gap between yourself and the core frequency of Creation, which is limitless Love, Infinity, Abundance. You attempt this every time you think something rooted in the belief that “lack exists” or that “lack might exist someday.”

The beauty of this insight is that it cuts through the heart of every piece of suffering known to humankind. There literally is no type of suffering that I have not been able to trace back to this core idea of lack. Try it out and see for yourself.

All of our suffering—all of our resistance and contraction as a human being—whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual (but it is especially obvious with mental and emotional suffering) is based in the idea that lack can occur or that it has already occurred.

You might not believe that it is this simple right now, but as soon as you start looking for it, you will see that the idea that lack exists or can exist is the root cause of all of human suffering. This is a far more accurate perception than to suggest that “desire is the cause of all suffering.”

I am tempted to explain more, but I want to stick to the intention behind this lesson, so for now this will do. All you need to know at this point is that lack is the root cause of all of your mental and emotional suffering. More on this topic will be explored in the Empowerment teaching.

Now that you know this, let’s use this understanding to again ask ourselves the question:

What causes a good feeling, and how does attachment begin?

As you may have been able to deduce: If we did not believe in lack on any level of our being, we would constantly and effortlessly have “a good feeling” because our vibration would be that of our natural state. Hence, being synced-up, we would feel good, because that is what a good feeling is based on.

In our society, a truly good feeling has become a rare thing and so we have come to associate “feeling good” with certain situations, things, or people. But really, when we look at it scientifically, we are supposed to feel good all the time; it’s our natural state.

We have just become so insistent upon interpreting and projecting lack unto everything that the few times we do feel good, it is because some appearance that enters our life triggers a thought rooted in abundance, which then syncs-up with our true vibration, and because of this link up, we experience good feelings, good vibes.

However, most of us fail to see that the good feeling is due to the alignment of our view with our Higher Self’s view, NOT because it comes from the appearance that entered our perception.

An Example: Lisa and Joshua

This is a fictional story that simply looks a lot like yours. All similarities between these fictional characters and events, and the ones in your own life, are completely incidental.

Lisa was taught from an early age onward that lack is a real phenomenon. Her parents told her to be careful to never let too much of it come into her life.

She was taught to make sure she has insurance for everything and to rely on her government to live a safe life. She behaves well so she doesn’t have to experience a lack of love and an abundance of rejection, which is also seen as lack.

Lisa has never seen lack before, has never tasted lack before, but like everybody else who never truly encountered the presence of lack (because nobody has), she still believes it exists, somewhere… Perhaps right around the next corner? “Who knows—lack might show up at any moment now!”

She believes in this fictional phenomenon of lack so much that she believes it is present in her life right now, even though she’s never seen or tasted it outside of her mental imagery and definitions.

For example, she interprets and defines the abundance of alive space in her house as “the lack of a partner,” and because she sees an abundance of air molecules in her house, and tells herself that she doesn’t ever bump into other skin molecules in her house unless she has guests over, she believes she is currently lacking a partner.

She has been taught by many movies, stories, and by papa and mama’s example, that people are supposed to have a partner in their house. If they don’t, it means they are lacking something called “love and companionship,” which then means they should feel lonely. Hence, Lisa believes she feels lonely, thinking that something nobody has never experienced before—lack—is all around her.

Because Lisa has been unconsciously imprinted with this idea that lack exists in certain ways, she now experiences the only thing that doesn’t exist in all of Creation: A lack of love!

That’s how powerful of a creator, of a consciousness, she is—she can conjure up the illusory experience of a phenomenon that goes against the infinite nature of Creation itself. She is literally creating the experience of the only thing that can never actually manifest—lack!

Lisa is an amazingly powerful co-creator, but she interprets herself as a lacking loser, thus positioning herself out of sync with the truth of Creation (that she is amazing and abundant), and she feels bad.

Then, Lisa’s friend Jack invites her to a party.

At this party, she meets one of Jack’s friends, someone she has never met before. He is a handsome, tall guy with dark hair and good posture. And he looks friendly and approachable. Exactly the image she has of Abundance embodied!

He also has a very gracious, magnetic personality; he seems sincere, too! OMG.

Lisa feels good feelings right now, because she is having thoughts that are somewhat close in vibration to the original vibration of Creation: unending Love, infinite Abundance, all is possible, and so on.

She doesn’t feel completely in bliss, but that’s because the thoughts she is having are not pure truth; they are only marginally close in their vibration to the true vibration of infinite Abundance. They resemble truth closer than most of her thoughts, but they are still rooted in the game of believing in lack.

She is having thoughts such as: “There is the presence of a handsome man in this room,” and “I got to shake his strong hand and look into his beautiful eyes,” and “He said he was pleased to meet me, and he seemed to actually like me!”

These thoughts triggered good feelings in Lisa because these thoughts were aligning her mind’s perspective more closely with the perspective of Existence itself. Her good feelings had very little (or even nothing) to do with the presence of this guy; they had everything to do with the fact that she gave herself permission to have thoughts rooted in abundance, rather than lack—for once.

Since Lisa doesn’t experience her mind being in-sync with her Greater Self very often, she is now associating the good feelings even more with the presence of this guy, because after all, she’s feeling good when he’s around!

Lisa doesn’t realize it was her own shift in perspective from lack to abundance that caused her self’s vibration to be closer to the vibration of her True Being. Hence, she is now starting to build a strong association—an attachment—to this guy. She is beginning to misplace her happiness; she believes this guy can make her happy.

Uh-oh!

2 weeks later…

Lisa and Joshua have been on four dates already since the party at Jack’s house. Things are really looking up for Lisa! Abundance seems to be in her future, and lack seems to have disappeared into her past.

Lisa is getting her hopes up, which simply means that the unconscious idea that she’s been imprinted with, which is that if she finds a good partner, let alone a handsome gracious one, then there will be the absence of lack, and the presence of abundance.

So, Lisa finds herself in this uncertain and transitional phase of being in between a life of lacking a partner, lacking love, and therefore experiencing a lot of sadness and loneliness, and being potentially—but uncertainly—headed in the direction of what could be a life filled with an abundance of love, kind words, intimacy, and the presence of another body in her house.

This is why “getting her hopes up” feels both good and bad at the same time. She doesn’t know exactly why it makes her feel both good and bad, but you guessed it already, didn’t you?!

She is experiencing perspectives rooted in abundance (which feel good, because abundance is all that there is), but this scenario also brings up a lot of her perspectives rooted in the idea that lack exists or can exist (which feel bad, because lack doesn’t exist).

Whenever she imagines, “It is actually going to happen! We are going to be together; there is going to be presence and abundance in my life, and love!” she feels really, really fantastic! In fact, she feels leaps and bounds better than anything she has allowed herself to feel in, like, forever!

Hence, she is starting to become a little attached to the idea of it working out. She has projected her well-being, her abundance, and her happiness onto an idea of a man outside of her. And he could die or he could not like her (once she starts letting her hair down and accidentally farts around the house). He could turn out to be mean, or he could find someone else.

So, Lisa feels good about the idea of being in abundance with him, but she feels worried and anxious at the same time about losing her happiness. After all, if he runs away, he runs away with her happiness, which is now inside of him! If he dies, her happiness dies with him!

Oh lord, what a predicament! Such a double-edged sword this game of lack/abundance, rejection/love has become. So unnecessarily complicated!

Now imagine this: A similar scenario is happening constantly, everyday, to about 7 billion people, and it is repeating itself with no end. What a cosmic show (joke)!

Sometimes I imagine that the aliens are watching the universe’s longest version of “As the World Turns.” I bet they simply cannot get enough of watching a show that is all about trying to create the only thing that Existence cannot create: lack. It’s kind of fascinating.

If this Joshua episode doesn’t work out like a perfect fairytale for Lisa, this will only confirm again that she’s unworthy of love, lonely, ugly, unwanted, and so on. These ideas will root themselves even deeper into her psyche, until she feels there is no hope possible, and she will close down the idea of a relationship altogether.

She will feel deluded and stupid for ever having believed in abundance—for even a second. And so Lisa becomes a little pessimistic and a little more sarcastic. She buries the carefree dreamer—the aligned kid—inside of her a little bit more.

After all, can you imagine that, in addition to being unwanted, unlovable, unworthy, and ugly, you are also stupidly delusional? What will people think of her? No way! Lisa doesn’t want that. Lisa would rather play it safe and enclose herself with controlled amounts of lack, so that she can protect herself from potential future surprise-lack.

Lisa is resolved to kill the kid inside her for good, so that she will never have to believe in abundance again. She wants to at least keep her dignity, which she believes means something along the lines of being a realist that doesn’t believe in love, or isn’t open to too many possibilities in general.

Have a look in the mirror

Now, can you do me a favor, dear reader, and walk to one of the rooms in your house where there is a mirror and look into your own eyes?

While you’re looking at yourself, see that you are just like the example of Lisa.

Admit it. Feel it. Acknowledge it. You have this in you as well.

You have been there and done that, at least to some degree. You have played this game of lack versus abundance, failure versus success, realist versus dreamer. And you are tired of it. You are tired of your own pessimism, sarcasm, and beliefs in lack. You are tired of struggling against your natural flow.

Make an agreement with yourself that you will always keep dreaming, that you will keep recognizing the endless abundance which IS Existence itself, and most importantly, that you will always release beliefs of lack as soon as you identify them.

What we can learn from Lisa

There is a lot we can learn from this simple example of Lisa.

For one: attachments exist only because we believe we are lacking abundance, love, and happiness in the first place.

If we did not have any beliefs regarding lack, we would not be able to attach our happiness to a thing, person, or event, because we would know and feel an overwhelming presence of love and infinite possibilities always present in our hearts, overflowing from the inside out, not from the outside in.

We would feel like giving, rather than taking. Supporting, rather than asking for support. Sharing, rather than craving love from the outside.

The more we discover that the entirety of Creation is inside of us, and that we are the Infinite One creating this dream, the less we will be able to be attached to things. Makes sense, no? The science of unhappiness versus happiness is essentially so simple.

This does not mean we become cold-hearted. In fact, our fountain of satisfaction and eternal confidence overflows in the direction of those who do not know. Whether that love is received or not doesn’t ultimately matter. We just cannot stop overflowing when we are in this state of being—confident in the abundance of our existence.

Everyday Practice: Take Action Without Expectation

Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.

You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction.

Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself—without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.

Bhagavad Gita

In order to anchor in the observations you have made by now, regarding how the human mind is trained to project happiness into empty and meaningless appearances and, as such, feel “attached to these appearances,” a really helpful exercise can be to go out in everyday life and learn to take action, regardless of response.

This is helpful in many ways: It helps familiarize you with a state of being that is free of attachments, waiting, hesitating, doubting, hoping, fearing, and perceiving lack altogether.

Selfless action isn’t so much actions oriented only around the idea of “helping others;” selfless action simply means you learn to take action, regardless of outcome. You act based on your intuitive navigation, rather than on your mind’s fear projections.

Any act performed with zero need to be rewarded in any way, is a selfless action and leads you into greater conviction regarding the nature of Reality. It will show you what it feels like to live according to who you truly are, not waiting for anything outside of yourself to come your way first.

Learning to act without expectations of any kind regarding the results of your actions will directly propel you into great bliss through achieving harmonious vibration with your True Self. As such, attachments are simply eradicated.

It is one thing to think about the nature of attachment, and to make helpful observations about it, but what is way more powerful is to go out there and live your life according to your highest impulses—free from the need for a certain outcome and free from projecting your happiness onto your future appearances and misplacing your true connection in that way.

So, once again, to anchor this in, you have to deliver the goods: test it out in your own life. Put it into action.