Attachments
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, August 20, 2012
Salaroche

Yeah, it's all... it's all a question of attachments. You see... John Smith coming to you and saying "Hi, I'm John Smith". And in that John Smith, the structure of that John Smith, what it is composed of, what it is made of, is just a bundle of attachments, just... from infancy, John Smith has been accumulating attachments, attachment to his mother, to his father, to his family and then increasingly to his own body and his name and his sisters, brothers, his house, his little toys, his bicycle.

And then, as he keeps growing up he gets attached to the school, he gets attached to... increasingly with his country, you know, patriotism that is instilled in children, in all of us when we are at school. And then attachment to teachers and by attachment I don't mean, you know, lovable relationships, you now, that are unforgettable, or that influence us, influence us, but, actually also the bad ones, you know, you get attached to your faults, OK, John Smith had a larger ear than the other and he would cover it with his hair, you know, and well, he was attached to that defect, he says "oops! I got to hir this, I gotta I gotta hide this, I gotta hide it. John Smith says "Hi, I'm John Smith and I'm hiding my ear, you know, to you, so that you don't have... so you don't have the wrong impression of me".

And then as John Smith keeps growing up and becoming and adult, then he gets attached to his intelligence or his lack of intelligence and he gets attached to his characteristics, to his shortcomings, to his abilities, to his gifts and talents, to his ability to, remember grammar rules, for example, or to remember the capital cities of the world and he gets attached to that, and he gets attached to..., guess what? He starts getting attached to possessions even more, "hey, I want a car" and he gets attached to his girlfriend and he gets attached to, eventually, to the car he bought, you know, and then to... what? his membership to the club and he is THAT John Smith..., he says "Hi, I'm John Smith" and... John Smith is all those attachments.

And then he keeps growing attached to other things like, let's say, ooooh Money! Oh yeah! John Smith started getting a good salary and now he has a house and he gets deeply attached to that and, guess what? To his bank account and, along that, attached to his social status, the social status that comes with wealth, etc. Or what? Or he becomes, I don't know why he... made a mistake and, you know, defaulted and, how do you call it?... You know, robbed some money from his company or something and he gets attached to that "Ooops..., John Smith, oh yeah, well I don't want you to know, but, you know, I stole money sometime, he, he".

So, what do we have? I mean, all of us, what are we? We're just a bundle of attachments. From day one, from the day we were born, increasingly, increasingly, we grow attached to..., our surroundings, to ourselves and, of course, the prime, and or, the primal attachment... that we have or, the main attachment that we have is to our body, we say John Smith and he says, "well, I'm, you know... six foot one and, you know, and I am athletic, or not, or I am obese and I am five eight, or whatever. That is, John Smith is his body, first of all, and then all the attachments, all the characteristics that he can, that he has been able to attach to that body, including everything that I've mentioned already like, for example, yeah!, I mean, his possessions, and his abilities, and his shortcomings, and his family, and everything that he..., has been able to call... a part of himself of... or his interest... and so forth.

So, what do we have here? If we were to tell John Smith, "Hey man, you no longer have anything", he would probably freak out, which is what happens to many people that lose everything but... then, might, maybe then, John Smith would have a chance to really ask himself "well, if I am not my attachments, if I am not my characteristics, if I am not my shortcomings, if I am not..., you know, my attachment to my wife and my kids... and my money and my house and my car and my talents, if I am not that, if I am not attached to that, if.. I am not made of all those attachments then, who am I? If I am not THAT, who am I?

More people... MOST people would say "well, without that I'm nothing". I mean you, we have, seen it in movies "oh, without you I am nothing without you", we're so attached to our girlfriends or wives or lovers or whatever, that in, in, in a moment of..., you know, intense passion we just tell them "no..., you know, you are my world. Without you I am nothing", you know, because those persons, those individuals are so important to us and we have become attached to them with such intensity, with such strength and force that we imagine that without them we can't live, or that we are nothing basically.

And the same... would be..., if we asked well, Mr. Bill Gates, if we take your billions... how, how much does he have right now, fifty billion, something like that? He's the second richest man, or we asked Warren Buffet, I mean, "Mr. Buffet, you no longer have any money, what will you do?" What will they do? Ah! Those guys probably would start working on something else and try to accumulate money again, but..., those are talented people, to make money, but, some of us, or some other people, if you tell them "hey man you, or hey girl, or hey lady, if you are..., you're no longer that, whoever you thought you were because of your attachments", they might say "wait a minute, if I am not all that, then "who am I? What am I?" Basically, "what am I? if I am not my body, what am I?". You know, "if I am not my possessions WHAT AM I?", You know.

And, well, that's the whole story, there's where the whole thing begins, or, the other side of the coin, there's where everything ends, you know. Basically, when we leave this world that's what happens, you know, everything we thought that we were, poof! Gone! In one second! Finished! You know, no matter how long the process of passing away takes, you know, there's one second in which, that's it! Before there was life and consciousness in our bodies and then the next second there isn't, it's gone, bye bye.

So, that is basically what happens, all your attachments, all your identities are gone! you know, bye bye! WHAT IS LEFT!? After that... many people say, uh oh! There's nothing buddy, that's the end of the story, lights off, lights out, curtain down, end of the story, nothing, nothing, and nothing. I agree, there is nothing, because definitely there is nothing by way of, or similar to what we're accustomed to looking at, sensing through our senses, perceiving through our senses, no! There is nothing like that.

There is something similar on the other side of that gate, and it's similar to joy, to some of the joy, some of the unalloyed joy that we may experience, for example, imagine the best, the purest orgasm you ever had and, it's that! But multiplied by one million, perhaps. That's what it is, and there's absolutely nothing, it's just pure, unalloyed consciousness. Of course, what I'm telling you you have read it, most of you have read it already in a whole bunch of writings, mostly Hinduism, Buddhism and other philosophical books.

An then maybe Spinoza, you know, with Pantheism and so forth, maybe they talk about it, maybe some animists too, could be, I don't know. But, anyway, if you experience that, once you experience that, experience that, you know what it is that I'm talking about, before you experience it you can only imagine it, but it all comes down to the same, it is, when I..., when John Smith says "Hi, I'm John Smith", what he's talking about is just a bundle of attachments, when you say "Hi, I'm such and such", you're talking about the same..., you're introducing to another person the same, same, same, structure, the same bundle..., well it's not the same bundle, but it's the same structure composed, made of... by, you know, a series of attachments that you have accumulated, that we ALL have accumulated since day one.

Oh, why am I talking about this? I don't know. I just..., you know, I'm waiting for my computer to start. That's what happened. But, anyway, this is all..., you know..., we're just passing time here and... we have to go anyway and, so, it is my time to go, so, take care and bye bye.