[Deep Dive into Detachment Pt. 1 | MEMBERS' LIVESTREAM](https://www.youtube.com/live/gs-TPWh4L9E?si=IUiM8p6AGRcTXIb2) - Source of attachment: avidya (lack of knowledge) to our true nature. = false identification to body and mind. - Dissociation/apathy: what detachment is not. - Apathetic: very powerful attachment. Resentment towards painful stimulus = walling things off = stop feeling them. - Dissociation: Mind response to powerful attachment.  - Believe interaction with life so painful that you will numb self off to protect self. - Apathy comes from a misunderstanding of how much influence you have in the world. - Detachment: living life with totality and fullness. - I’m going to live life fully, the consequences that come will come. **About taking the right action, not the right consequences** (as we don’t control the consequences). - Focusing on action feels really good. - Without passion/colour: meaning not getting controlled by emotions. Not dominated by one experience, experiencing the totality of what is. - Staying in the present. - Future: having equanimity for outcome. - Not being beholden to the past. - Relationship between self and the outside world - 1st path to Detachment: I have no control over outside world, can devote self to own action. - Path of contemplation - Thinking way to enlightenment. Difficult because mind is flawed. - 2nd path to detachment detachment: recognising opposite is true. Outside world connected to you. When attempting to control the outside world leaning into acceptance, seeing oneself as the world. - Mahavakya (great sentence) - “I am that”: repeating the phrase. OR: recognise it. - EG: you are your behaviours, you are part of a system. Not a separate organism. - Everything around you is a manifestation of you. -  Develops transcendent compassion. (You taking care of yourself) for we are all a part of the same system. = can fully detach. - If all part of one ecosystem managed by you = why would you have to worry. - This is part of me, my choice, my creation.  - Using awareness. - Living life in totality does not mean avoidance of love / powerful emotions. As long as you do so with awareness. - Attachment - NAcc (Nucleus Accumbens): pleasure + craving reinforcement. Leads to higher levels of attachment when not regulated. - Future: Living with expectation of the future / outcome. OR - worry - Regret: living in the past. The “glory days”; OR: what never happened. - Present coloured by past XP - Fractured attention. often comes from attachment. - Indriya: desires come from sensory input. - **Suffering born from expectation**, not action. - Desires / our relationship to universe - Grasping: an attachment formed to a positive stimulus. - Immediately after XP, - Realm of hungry ghosts: can’t appreciate, will continue eating without fulfilment. - Losing self in desire joy of the mind. - Sublimation of desire through observation/analysis. - Lack of awareness means mind can do whatever it wants. More cultivation of awareness reduces desires. [Deep Dive into Detachment Pt. 2 | MEMBERS' LIVESTREAM](https://www.youtube.com/live/_r1VxwKUv_o?si=zdL_OR5pNx6_P5rP) - Desire - A desire creates a void in our experiencing life/contentment. - Happiness we are chasing is “stillness or completeness of the mind”. - We are taught to bring contentment by fulfilling desires. - Video games can produce “one pointedness” - **When we feed a desire, it will re-emerge. You cannot satisfy a desire just once**. - NAcc; dopamine: pleasure and anticipating go hand in hand. - More active our mind/ mesocortico-limbic circuit (involved with anticipation/reward processing) = less happy we will be. Less so = more happy. - Someone who is content doesn’t move, has stillness in the mind. Teaching stillness of mind to become detached = yogi. Detached from the world. - Attached to contentment: Also causes suffering, can learn to accept unhappiness/suffering. EG challenging self with suffering. - Sublimating desires in the moment - Observe/analyse the desire, giving into the desire and not doing so, what the consequences are. - Q: what contentment am I getting from this and how long will it last? - If giving in, do so with awareness, “I have given in todays - More info: Krishna Murti - Will discover you are 100% in control, not that the desire wins, but the want to give into the desire wins. Work on the want. - Subtlety key pathway. - You have the power to give up desire, all you have to do is not do it, you don’t stop because you don’t want to. - Jnana Yoga (knowledge) path. - Compared to raja-yoga (formal meditation practice) - Attachment: - To externalities you can’t control. - Divine: idea that we are all divine.  Universe just is. - Attachment (what could be) disrupts the is/ showing gaps. Embodying true nature of just existing. - Doesn’t mean INACTION. - Detachment from consequences. - Can do what the universe requires in a particular moment. - You are what you are; the universe is what it is. - Contentment doesn't lead to apathy; can respond appropriately to life and live life to the fullest. Use inspiration, be excited by stuff. - Imagine a life where you don’t need X to be happy. - Operate from offering (giving something) rather than desire (filling something). - Ego: The sense of I, "I am..." - Is the source of much attachment. - Being the best, being a good person produces a lot of attachment. - Feel guilt for NOT being a good person / doing the best. - Can never be content if you strive to be the best, you will need to constantly strive to being the best. - Dr K suggests you can be successful WITHOUT suffering. = Be what the situation demands, in totality with your circumstances without ego. - Fixed Mindset (Carol Dweck) / Attachment can lead to people avoiding experiences/challenges  out of ego / not living up to their expectations. - Can also be attached to being a "loser/negative identity", this can hold us back as we sabotage ourselves when we move towards success. - More developed identity becomes, the more you need to maintain it / shape life. - Identity comparative: Tier people up. - Stop being a good person, and start doing good things. - Ego/desire evolutionary necessity for functioning in world. Question is whether E/D controls you, or you control identity. - Do you control your desire (for food/your tongue); or does your desire control you? - People pursue success thinking it makes them happy, whilst the goalposts simply move. - Perception: - Modern world/social media doesn’t encourage critical thinking. Rather runs on anger /righteousness.  - People aren’t critical for ambiguity / have time for details.  - The world is what it is, mostly, our suffering comes from our attachments. - Cognitive bias: - We perceive the world through the lens of our interpretation. - One of the best things we can do is see the world as it is. - Look at the colour of the hurt or your experience. - I am the universe-meditation/ _Aham Brahmasmi_ (अहं ब्रह्मास्मि) - is a foundational Sanskrit mantra and philosophical tenet within Advaita Vedanta and yoga philosophy, translated as **"I am Brahman"** or **"I am Divine Consciousness"**. It signifies the unity of the individual soul (_Atman_) with the universal consciousness or Absolute Reality (_Brahman_) - Existence has matter, energy, consciousness. - We are all pieces of the universe.