Attachment can blind us to reality. Attachment is often the root of suffering. Detachment is freedom.
Attachment applies on many levels of life because it's intricately rooted into our ego-personality-identity construct, our sense of self, self-image, self-view and worldview perception of the world.
The more we value and identify with things, the more we become attached to them. This connection, identification, valuation and attachment of what we do and what we identify with can prevent us from being able to honestly assess, evaluate, discern and judge reality that contradicts our conditioned attachments.
Everything in our environment, society, media, all information, affects, influences and conditions us to be who we are. This mostly happen at an automatic, unconscious and subconscious level of conditioning. Whatever came first, we tend to put more value and weight into. First come, first served our attention, and is the first to shape a view, frame or perspective about reality, accurate or not.
Contradictory information, that opposes the first imprinted information, is rejected due to attachment and cognitive biases.
The attachment to falsity keeps us anchored to it and often unable to view outside of that tunnel vision.
We often fail to see reality for what it is, because we are not looking at things objectively in a detached manner. We will try to find a truth through a lens of attachment which keeps our vision focused. We remain attached and focused to our own self-view and worldview. The way to determine truth is to be detached from ourselves, our actions, behaviors, self-view and worldview. That is objective appraisal of reality, where we don't let our personal preconceived understanding act as a wall and barrier to see reality as it is.
This is mostly problematic as a difficulty when looking to uncover moral truth. We want to "feel-good" about ourselves. We want to believe we are always "good" and "right". We don’t want to admit how we are wrong, in error, doing wrong or supporting immorality.
This is part of the pleasure trap, to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Seeking truth is to welcome both the pleasure and pain of reality. Most people are currently incapable of actually seeking truth objectively because they are too attached to themselves; their egos, self-images, and worldviews and need to maintain these constructs to feel good, integrated and whole about themselves.
Facing hard uncomfortable truths takes us away from our "feel-good" inner states into insecurity and discomfort. This takes a deep level of self-respect and personal responsibility.
Subjective conditioning and attachment prevents accurate perception of contradictory information. Subjective attachment prevents an accurate perception of the world, ourselves and of greater potential for self-knowledge.
Subjective attachment rejects and denies truth in favor of preexisting behavioral programming and patterns for living. This program is incrementally imposed upon us from childhood. We need to unlearn what we have learned. To reformat and install a new operating system for living, because the one we get installed with by the default settings of our current society is corrupted in many ways.
Objective detachment is to detach from the conditioning of how we view ourselves. This allows honest assessment of information apart from its adoption into how we view ourselves. This is most important when discussing moral understanding.
Ex: a person who doesn't work for the state can more easily understand and accept that statist coercive authority is immoral. While someone who is working for the state, is invested in the state, has their actions that support the state, and will be less likely to be able to understand and accept that statist coercive authority is immoral.
Attachment to ourselves and what we do, prevents an honest assessment of reality.
When we can honestly accept and face what 'is', we are then on our way to overcoming that which is ignored and holding us back either individually or as a society.
We can step back from what we have thought we knew to be true since as far back as we can remember.
We can learn to let go of our attachments.
We can admit we were wrong to imagine a better way. Know thyself. Stop being fooled, deceived, manipulated, mind controlled, brainwashed, programmed, conditioned, duped, conned, hoodwinked, bamboozled, and tricked. Each step in the wrong direction is two steps to correct in the right direction.
We can remake the false conditioning of ourselves into truer selves. Remove the conditioning into falsity, and recondition ourselves in truth instead. Unlearn what we have learned automatically and involuntarily. And instead, voluntarily choose to learn more accurate knowledge about the world and ourselves (self-knowledge).
"Heed these words, You who wish to probe the depths of nature: If you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it outside. If you ignore the wonders of your own house, how do you expect to find other wonders? In you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Know Thyself and you will know the Universe and the Gods"
– An inscription attributed to Pythia, an oracle at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece, where mystery traditions were studied and reflected upon
Know thyself and know the universe and the "gods"? Know thyself, consciousness, how it works, as a creator and generator, of our experience and co-creators of aspects of reality that we can alter and live in an artificial created human world. We are the creators, we are the generators, all from within consciousness, the internal, unseen, "hidden" immaterial "spiritual", causal realm of consciousness.
We then manifest our external consciousness expression of actions into the world. Causal creators sowing actions and effects. This is how we are the "gods", when you understand the power of metaphor and symbolism. We as a consciousness, self, "soul", "spirit" or "god" are internally so, and we act in the external reality, existence and universe to create the human world. We're the "gods" creating the world around us through our actions.
The ancient gods of mythologies were anthropomorphized symbols about qualities within consciousness and other metaphors about reality and life. Also, astrology is a "map of the universe", i.e. map of constellations, that is a symbolic representation of our bodies and consciousness qualities. In this symbolic way, we are the universe.
When we learn self-knowledge, knowledge of self, consciousness, psyche, psychology, biases, fallacies, etc., we are better equipped to learn about reality through the lens of the self. Our lens has greater magnification and is more clear, being able to see conflicting information more easily. We are more able to detach from ourselves and be willing and wanting to let go of our errors and wrongs in order to correct them.
To know thyself requires inspection, reflection and contemplation and looking at our self in the mirror. Don't let yourself get in the way of your self-discovery. Have the vision capable of seeing past yourself.
Attachment blind us from really understanding ourselves. If we can't see how we are suffering, or that we are even suffering, then we can't possibly hope to end or reduce suffering.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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