Book1

Inspiration 10


Progress and Attachment



Summary

To progress on the path not only means that one can head in the right direction with the civil virtues, but that one can also come down with them. There is a sunny side and a shadow side to them. The sunny side of proper regulation is to develop intelligence, love, purpose and identity. There will be an inner light shining brighter and brighter this way. But forgetting to meditate, forgetting to integrate time and again with the Original Person of All Purposes, there will be problems of attachment. Not to progress because of attachments means to fall down into the shadows of desire. One  may become envious in one's devotion, one may be deluded by one's own art, one may become proud in one's expertise, one  may acquire a high position out of greed in stead of honest commitment. With this kind of moves one drops away from the balance of filognostic attainment. But if one is greedy for the true purpose of the transcendental position, one sees one's greed dissolved in His Omnipotence. If one is envious of the intelligence one will see one's envy dissolved in being united in the same Person of Ultimate Intelligence. If one discovers the deluded state of being attached in love that problem will dissolve in surrendering to the greater love of the Person of True Love and Lasting Happiness. If one finally finds one's pride in the identity of progress toward the Person of All Achievement one will see that problem also dissolved in Him. He constitutes the balance that is the cure for the dilemma of progress running into attachment. There is a better form of greed, a better envy, a better delusion and a better form of pride.

Now that we from Inspiration 9 know about different types of work and different types of births, we want to engage with the Person of Example. With Him to be on our way, means to be of real progress, of spiritual progress on the path of self-realization. Not to progress as such means there are obstructions like bad qualities, bad habits and other obscure matters that take away the light that keeps us on the path. These qualities result from attachments. Attachment is the mode of the ego in which we are materially identified with the maintenance of our body and gratification of our needs. Departing from the civil virtues of the regulation of our economy, religion, liberation and lust, we can say that things may either go the right way or else the wrong way with these virtues. The right way we find different qualities of progress and the wrong way we get attached with also different undesirable qualities characterized by a-gression or re-gression. Aggression results from not progressing at all, or being stuck. With anger out of frustration one even can move backwards, in decay, losing qualities while returning to earlier stages in one's development. So what exactly would be the sunny side and the shadow side of our civil virtues of having a regulated life?

As for the economy we may develop greed and desire as a perversion of the economic purpose ending up in the culture of guilt of capitalism and consumerism. As we know, the real purpose is the Person of Purity. Missing that purpose, out of ignorance engaging in service for the sake of earning money, results in the greed and desire that makes one's service a perverted approach. Wrong motives can spoil right actions. Riches constitute a means and not an end. Denying this truth one will become a cheater. In fact no form of wealth constitutes a purpose to go for. And yes, there are more forms of wealth than just riches to be perverted about. The purpose of the person entails the sixfold choice of filognosy. Greed and desire are the non-purposes or bad qualities of wealth resulting from missing the point of the true purpose of service that is to attain the Person. Wealth next to riches also implies knowledge, power, beauty, renunciation and fame. All these different characteristics of the fullness of the Person are means to the end of the Person. They are like the tools that do not make the skill. To develop skill is something else. To attain the Person is a skill, to engage one's wealth is to use the toolbox. We in fact find in the Person of Perfection the complete of wealth as the means of an integrity we normally do not achieve in a lifetime. Going for the means of the Person and not for the Person himself is nothing but a perversion. It will never satisfy, not just because always some type of wealth is missing, but because the real purpose is missing. Finding the Real Person, one also finds His toolbox, His means, His wealth. That is why religions are still popular and will always be the traditional way of finding wealth, provided the path inward is taken. It is simply desire that is the cause of the mistaken notion of being motivated for the wealth only and not the Person.
Not being a fool and keeping it cool, doing it right, we have different perspectives when we engage with different forms of wealth as our means. Fame e.g. serves the purpose of religion. The most famous Persons are the leaders of the world religions. Anyone in the focus of attention can tell you that fame as a purpose stinks. One is rather superstitious with one's own compulsory neurotic religion, than burn up in the fire of the public eye. Many persons of fame fail because of missing the real purpose and fall down in addictions and other forms of escapism. The same way the real purpose of engaging with the means of riches, is to have an inner cultural diplomatic career to redistribute the riches. In such diplomacy engaged in that aspect of the Person one heartens with respect for the other a certain commentary on the system of perversion and foolishness. Foolishness is herewith to be considered as the inability to use the means of wealth properly for its correct purpose of filognosy. It is the old mission of classical nobility not to suffer migraines because of possessiveness, but instead to promote with one's riches and power cultural engagement for the higher cause of the Person. The nobility in the old days engaged all artists in serving the higher cause so that they would not corrupt and be lost with their creative talents. The virtue of riches, to progress with riches is to constitute a cultural, diplomatic lead and example in society. Being rich missing that purpose of filognosy one becomes a materialist who has to live in fear because matter after all is transient. Therefore one first of all must be sure to see wealth as a means and secondly be sure one is directed at the right purpose of the Person of Integrity, not to become a materialist adhering to some kind of replacing -ism.

As for the religion we know from inspiration 8 that there is the religiousness, divided in a form of spirituality without religion and a gnosis that is the self-realization of a religious person. Going the wrong way with a religion does not mean that restricting oneself to rituals as a theist would be wrong, that that would lead to an obstruction of progress and therefore to the aggression of a superego at war with another claim of that kind. Religions pervert because of a superego lack of modesty, not being able to restrict themselves to the prayer club they all factually are. One should remember that the purpose was to find the Supreme Person of Liberation on the way inwards, not on the way outwards, despite the fact that The Great Example was present in the outer world. Going the wrong way with a religion means that one refuses to use one's own intelligence, let's say, that one is of intellectual laziness, inauthenticity and willful ignorance in fear of an information overload. In worship of a religious leader one may be mistaken about the message. The message of these famous teachers is to emancipate, to follow them to the principle, to internalize them as a teaching and thus find one's own way, and not so much to copy their behavior in envy. Their behavior, apparently, considering their different characters, historically is always different in their adaptations to time and circumstance. Copying is thus not the way. Envy is a dead end street where authenticity is the main street of emancipation. Developing authentic intelligence instead of borrowed intelligence puts an end to all envy.
Teachers make schools that, urging for personal progress, turn envy into pure devotion. In the end one is supposed to graduate from being a school boy or school girl. Thus one may progress as a theist even from one school to the next, eventually going back and/or forward in their historical occurrence and necessity. There is never a dull moment for a true theologian - or devotee of the Person for that matter - in regard of all the forms that the Supreme Personality of Religion assumes. Actually one will never be completely learned in this respect, for having read one Book of Detachment one may start from the beginning, again, realizing that one could not develop attachment or any lasting memory with that book of detachment. It is not just an intellectual affair after all. One has to become wise by one's own experience. Life is the real school. In the negative sense a religion can be described as the difficulty of reading a book of virtue collectively. Therefore intelligence must be fostered as we described it in inspiration 3: there are many vantage points and purposes with the six different visions of filognosy, that only in their entirety may truly be called the full of the intelligence of progress. With each of the six filognostic visions as a vantage point there are equally six filognostic purposes, and therefore there exist many different types of intelligence one's logic may be engaged in. As many a psychologist may confirm, to know intelligence equals to the inability to define intelligence, or, as a philosopher - with difficulty meditating - may say: to engage in intelligence can be a temptation of intelligence. So whatever the mode of filognostic plural intelligence one is in, the intelligence then fulfills its duty and is authentic. With any of these forms of filognosy one may escape from the envy of the discussed inauthentic lack of true self-responsible intelligence. This is necessary, for jealousy constitutes such a disastrous bad quality of many believers in following their teachings, that all true religion is disgraced with it to the point of almost having to be forbidden by law because of its not rarely found subversive fundamentalistic underpinnings.
Thirdly there is the problem and solution of love as the quality of progress when one finds liberation. Not necessarily being religious one still may seek liberation in getting attached to a person one loves. It is usually held as a positive quality to be faithful to the person one loves. But attachment, as said, can be in the way of one's progress. That other person cannot be the Perfect Person one actually wants to attain. Love makes blind, they say, and many lovers abandon their love out of disappointment of not finding the Perfect Hero or Heroin in their partner. Nevertheless, love must not be condemned for getting so easily attached mistaking the outer hero for the Inner Hero. For the virtue of the regulation of liberation, one is supposed to overcome the with love associated infatuation and delusion by changing its misdirection of being attached to a material form. One may realize one's partner to be part of the Ideal Person, and thus progress by this gate of true love, but one should not mistake one's partner to be that Perfect Person. Infatuated one easily denies the omnipresence of the Transcendental Person, while refusing to look elsewhere because of the need of being focussed in one's love. The person inside is much more difficult to focus upon. To find divine love is pure grace from above, not to be attained by ego and attachment. One needs to train one's actions, breath and mind in true yoga to attain this. Many people simply cannot meet the demands this classical spiritual discipline makes.

Fortitude is often missing with a lack of motivation and belief, and detachment is often out of the question when one is in love, certainly when one is loved back. Thus one easily lets go of the religion while holding on to one's partner instead of the other way around. And thus suffocating each other, one misses the progress with an existential constant despair of failing in one's emancipation and liberation of heading towards the Person of One's Hopes. But still, many manage to keep their religion - or their religiousness - as the ideal binding force. Being of that respect any relational problem can be overcome.
At last there is the attachment and progress with the virtue of regulating one's lust. If one manages to regulate one's lust, one may enjoy the same one enjoyed before but now call it one's love for having mastered it, for now being in control of one's senses. Not being in control one suffers pride and anger, two twin enemies rising from attachment that can ruin one's life completely - if not the entire planet. Out of pride one denies the truth and because of untruth one ends up going down the wrong way in aggression and regression. Pride is a most serious form of attachment giving rise to an entire world of make-belief. Our lives tend to be lies because of false pride in denial of the great truth that we need to submit ourselves to the Ideal Person within. When there is a fall and the lie of one's puffed up ego is exposed, there is anger and total bewilderment, like ending up in a civil war after the dictator has been removed. All repressed matters then surface like a volcano, and in fear of that the defenses of false pride are strong. So what can one do about this nasty condition of pride and anger out of attachment, about this inability to let go? Couples knowing the downside of lust, may live apart together (LAT) so as to get a grip on the matter of their attachment, but the greatest problem of this department is not solved as simple as that. Pride is a replacement of identity, just like envy is in case of a failing intelligence of inauthenticity. Many woman may testify of this in their need of emancipation. What is needed to overcome attachment in the department of one's bodily interest of ego, is the regulation of identity. One may identify with all kinds of foolishness that will not stand the test of time. But as an embodied person one is always of a certain age group - also called a civil status, at the one hand, and of a certain profession - or vocation preferably - at the other hand. The societal duties are divided, that is the nature of any civilization, and thus there will always be vocational groups like priests, warriors, traders and laborers. There will always be youngsters, young adults, middle-aged people and elderly people with different status missions of respectively learning, educating, transferring and maintaining the culture. The regulation and balancing in time of this identity matter of status-orientations in different societal functions is the purpose of filognosy that is the remedy for the confusion of a (politicized) identity in lust, false pride and anger. This respect of identity is the secret of full employment to transcend the limited solutions of employment in just the economy department. The economist lacking a behavioral program never knows what to reward and what not, and thus gives way to all the attachment and troubles of missing the progress we need. And the liberal excuse of needing freedom does not repair this shortcoming.

So in conclusion we have four basic qualities of progress: purpose, intelligence, love and identity that we have set against their counterparts of attachment in greed combined with desire, envy combined with ignorance, delusion combined with infatuation and pride in combination with anger. As stated before it is not to filognosy to deny the shadow side of our human condition. The purpose is rather to know where you are in this matrix of good and bad qualities and find the middle way of balancing for the integrity and transcendence of the Person that constitutes the Cure. One is, of course, always attached to the dark side in some manner, at the same time being filled with good intentions for a right purpose. After all, in goodness one endeavors for the sake of a righteous cause with training one's intelligence, with loving each other for a higher kind of love and with answering to one's societal identity in a system that leaves no soul uncovered - no outcastes of class fixations here. On the dole one belongs to the department of the - by detachment ruled - purified intellect with a mission to serve with devotion. Everybody thus has karma and thus work to do, whether one contributes to the economy or not. Unemployment is therefore the great lie of modernity, for one denies that way the reality of our life's normal burden. Evidently the cure for our attachments is constituted by its opposite quality. In the matrix below these four white 'cures' occur with the dark yellow 'remedies' for the brown 'afflictions' of attachment. Finding a mismatch between remedy and affliction for one's progress on the purpose, one arrives at devotion, art and expertise as the temporary solutions that mediate the cure that is actually found in facing one's greed of not being prepared to give up one's life and possessions for the sake of the Holy Person. Finding a mismatch for one's progress of intelligence one finds scholarship, authorship and eloquence as the mediating solutions that, temporary in their nature, are not the definite cure for the envy that is its counterpart. True intelligence faces in progress the envy it is driven by in attachment with the Person of Supreme Interest.

Finding a mismatch for one's progress in love one ends up with relationships, with procreative activities or else an independent perspective, before finding the cure in accepting the deluded state of one's ego of attachment that one needs to give up in surrender to the Person of All Attainment. Finally, the mismatch of having an identity in one's progress, is to hold on to a fixed position (of class) in society, is to be in competition with, or else of imagination with, the attachments that find their cure in uncovering the pride that keeps you away from attaining the Person of Ultimate Happiness, the One you always wanted to fully incorporate. Thus we attain the Person of Realization with the solutions and cures of filognosy... and that is, indeed in the school of life, something easier said than done.

Source for this Inspiration:
S.B. Canto 1, Chapter 10






The Person

De Persoon

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