Home← The LibraryEnglish · Españolevery practice in the fifty-two books↧ Download the booklet ↧ His Words Only · A5 Global Gnostic Archive →The “I” of attachment that clings to money, to things, to people and to the past, and the detachment born when it dies, in his own words, from the fifty-two books
The map
Tap a part to go to it. Below, a clenched hand holding a house, a coin and a heart, beside an open hand that lets a leaf fall; the caption is his own words, from the passage it links to.
Every word here is his. Nothing has been paraphrased, joined or improved. Each passage was cut out of the book it belongs to by reference, and each carries that book and the paragraph it came from (and, where he was speaking rather than writing, the name of the lecture with the place and the year the volume records for it), so anything on this page can be found again in the source. The teaching is gathered here from all fifty-two books.
The first part is the “I” that clings to life: the clinging to the Ego, to oneself and to life itself, and the attachment that binds even through happiness and knowledge and keeps one tied to the senses: “They do not really want to know themselves, to know something about their psychological identity.” “…it is not possible to transform anything in us if we continue attached to the world of the five senses.”
The second part is the clinging to “mine”: my house, my money, my knowledge, the objects people seize in a fire, the sufferings they will not give up, and the powers and virtues an Initiate may cling to: “If one clings to that which says: “my house,” “my money,” “my properties,”” “People adore their own pains, their sufferings;”
The third part is attachment as a search for security: the fearful who cling to husbands, wives, children and money, the fear of losing a loved one, the attachment to yesterdays, and those too attached to the world to leave it: “People who are internally poor live from fear to fear” “We need to crucify all the human attachments”
The fourth part is the work on it: observing things without identification, finding our exact relationship with money, uncovering the “I” of attachment and the “I” of fear behind a loss, and the death of the attachments that tie one to the earth: “…if one understands that money is transient, that material things are vain and illusory” “If you did not have the “I” of attachment to things and money, you would lose those fifty thousand pesos and you would be laughing, you would not suffer.”
The last part is what is born in its place: the illumination without attachments, freedom from the grasping intellect, and the void as the state of non-attachment: “…illumination without attachments it is the illuminating Void” “There is no better pleasure than feeling oneself as a detached soul from the body, from the affections and from the mind.”
4 passages · 1 practice
The "I" that clings to life is set before the reader as something to be known, while most people stay shut inside the mind, holding to the Ego and not wanting to know themselves. Those overly attached to themselves cannot dissolve the pluralized "I", and the attachment to life is named as the cause of birth.
Whoever wants to dissolve the pluralized I must abandon self-love and over-estimation of self. Those who are overly attached to them selves and like themselves too much will never dissolve the pluralized “I”.
The Buddha's Necklace, 1967 also in Vanity
9 – Upadana: this creative cause of birth is the attachment to life.
For the Few, 1980
A practice
The time has come for us to make an effort to know something about ourselves, to know something about that which we carry within, about that “I” that screams, about that “I” that clings to life.
The Fifth Gospel The Organization of our Inner World Public Lecture – 1975
Unfortunately, people are self-imprisoned within the rigidity of their minds, clinging to the Ego, to the “I”, to the Oneself. They do not really want to know themselves, to know something about their psychological identity. We are totally ignorant, but we do not know that we are. To paraphrase Socrates, I would say: “Not only do we not know, but we do not even know that we do not know.”
The Fifth Gospel The Organization of our Inner World Public Lecture – 1975
3 passages
In the Gita, even luminous Sattwa binds the embodied being by attachment, and Rajas is the source of desire and attachment that ties it to action. Nothing within can be transformed while one stays attached to the world of the five senses.
Of these, Sattwa which from its stainlessness, is luminous and good, binds by attachment to happiness and by attachment to knowledge, oh, impeccable one.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967 also in Laziness
Know thou, oh, Kountreya, that Rajas is of the nature of passion, the source of desire and attachment; this Guna binds fast the embodied being to action.
Esoteric Treatise of Hermetic Astrology, 1967 also in Desire and Will, Laziness
Life is our impressions and the latter can be transformed. We need to learn to transform our impressions. However, it is not possible to transform anything in us if we continue attached to the world of the five senses.
The Revolution of the Dialectic also in The Transformation of Impressions
4 passages
Whoever clings to "my house", "my money" and "my knowledge" cannot change or see his own inner misery. At a fire or a shipwreck people seize worthless things and feel themselves in them, and he asks why anyone should be so attached to some furniture.
If one clings to that which says: “my house,” “my money,” “my properties,” “my job,” “my virtues,” “my intellectual capacities,” “my artistic capacities,” “my knowledge,” “my prestige,” etc., then, one cannot change.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
So, clinging to “mine” or to “my” is more than enough in order to prevent recognition of our nothingness and interior misery.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975
One is astonished in front of the spectacle of a fire or a shipwreck. At such a moment desperate people often seize many things that are ludicrous, things of no importance. Wretched people! They feel themselves in those objects; they lean on silly objects; they become attached to objects, which do not have the least bit of importance.
Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, 1975 also in Greed
And if the furniture gets lost? It got lost! And, so what? More was lost in the Flood! Why are we going to get so attached to some furniture? Afterwards, the problem passed, we continue to live in some place, and the problem is left behind in time. What became of the problem?
The Fifth Gospel The False World of Appearances Third Chamber – Mexico City – 1976
3 passages
People will give up parties, films and alcohol sooner than their own pains. Attached to the false feeling of the "I", they keep their sufferings as they keep photographs of themselves.
Of course, people love that type of suffering very much, and they would sacrifice everything except that. A person can afford to sacrifice a party, not to go to it; or sacrifice a movie, not go to it, etc., but what no one would sacrifice so easily would be their sufferings, they love them too much. The whole world is attached to their beloved sufferings.
The Fifth Gospel The Reason of Being of Objective Justice Lecture – Interview – Mexico City – 1975 also in Entropy and Sacrifice, Suffering
All of us, in the depths of our hearts, always have a feeling of ourselves, but it is important to know if this feeling is correct or mistaken. It is necessary to understand what this feeling of the “I” is. First of all, it is urgent to understand that people would be willing to abandon alcohol, movies, smoking, parties, etc., except their own sufferings. People adore their own pains, their sufferings; they would more easily detach from a moment of joy than from their own sufferings.
The Fifth Gospel Psychoemotional Metamorphosis of Man Third Chamber – Mexico City – July 27, 1977 also in Suffering
There are people who are not capable of ever detaching from the false feeling of the “I”. They have a series of photographs of themselves that they would not abandon for anything in life, not even for all the treasures of the world. They enjoy their pains, and giving them up would be worse than death itself. People live complaining and enjoy complaining, and they would never abandon their pains.
The Fifth Gospel Of False Feelings
3 passages · 2 practices
Attachment can fasten even on hidden powers and on the qualities that direct knowledge grants. The disciple is to act as if he had no powers, since Initiates attached to them depart from humility and fall.
A practice
3. The attachment towards hidden powers. If you have them in abundance, act as if you do not; 4. Release yourself from your own self. Convince yourself that even though your internal God is very exalted and grandiose, you are nothing else but a shadow of your God, a sinning shadow that must be annihilated; and 5. Resolve yourself to die. Do not aspire to immortalize your “I ” Resolve to die completely, for you are nothing else than a poor shadow. Thus, this is how you will be lost within your internal God and only the Son of Man will remain dwelling within your Christified Soul.
The Aquarian Message, 1960 also in The Intimate Christ
Those Initiates who are attached to magical powers are departing from humbleness and from nothingness, therefore, they fall into the abyss of perdition.
The Aquarian Message, 1960
A practice
The direct knowledge grants us very beautiful qualities, but whosoever walks on the direct path must not be attached to such virtues.
Runic Magic, 1969
3 passages
Fear makes the boy cling to his mother and the husband to his wife, and the internally poor attach themselves to husbands, wives and children. The fearful old man holds with anxiety to money, traditions and memories as if seeking security.
The fearful boy searches for his dear mama, and becomes attached to her in search of security. The fearful husband becomes attached to his wife and feels that he loves her far more. The fearful wife searches for her husband and children and thinks she loves them much more.
Fundamental Education, 1970 also in Fear
People who are internally poor are always plotting and scheming, busying themselves with trifles and foolishness, gossiping, fulfilling animalistic pleasures, etc. People who are internally poor live from fear to fear, and as it is natural they become attached to their husbands, wives, parents, children, to old, outdated and degenerated traditions, etc.
Fundamental Education, 1970
Every sick and psychologically poor elderly man is usually full of fear, and clings with infinite anxiety to money, family traditions, grandchildren, memories, etc., as if seeking security. This is something we can all prove by carefully observing elderly people.
Fundamental Education, 1970
4 passages
What a husband calls a greater love for a wife in danger is the fear of losing what he depends on. Where there is neither fear nor attachment something new can happen, and he shows a humble life need not be feared by one not attached to his possessions.
New things can only happen where there is no fear, where there is no imitation, where there is no attachment to things, money, people, traditions, customs, etc.
Fundamental Education, 1970 also in Fear
When a wife is pregnant or in danger of dying because of some illness, her husband believes that he loves her much more, but what is really happening is that he fears losing her. He depends on her for many things, such as food, sex, laundry, caresses, etc., and is afraid of losing her. That is not love.
Fundamental Education, 1970
However, those who asked me that, did not succeed in destroying, not even for an instant, the philosophy of momentaneity. With no money coming in for such payments, then what? Like many others, I would have sold the furniture of the house or I would have moved to a little room, somewhere humble and modest, and then what? Would I have died for that, or would the order of the universe have been changed or would I have succumbed to hunger or misery? No, my dear brothers, none of that would have happened. Simply, I would have changed the residence and that is all.
The Fifth Gospel The Ephemeral Mechanisms of the Mind Lecture given to the brothers from El Salvador – Mexico City – 1970
Maybe the creditors would have taken away the objects they had sold to me, and then what? Since I am not attached to those objects... – because attachment is formed by other type of “I’s”–. Why do we have to fear life? Why do we have to fear a humble, simple life? Fear is something we must abandon, my dear brothers, if we really want to live according to the philosophy of momentaneity. The only thing the mind is really good for is to torture our existence and nothing more.
The Fifth Gospel The Ephemeral Mechanisms of the Mind Lecture given to the brothers from El Salvador – Mexico City – 1970 also in Fear, Greed
3 passages · 2 practices
Clinging to past scenes and memories halts the march toward the Super-Man. The disciple is told not to turn his head to past attachments like Lot's wife, and to crucify the human attachments even while the past cries out.
A practice
We need to crucify all the human attachments, abandon all that which signifies carnal passion. This is extremely difficult. The past screams, clamors, cries, beg... This is terribly painful.
The Perfect Matrimony, 1950 (ed. 1966)
Any moral code can detain us on the march towards SUPER-MAN. Attachment to these or those yesterdays, to these or those scenes, can halt us on the path which goes up to SUPER-MAN.
The Great Rebellion, 1975 also in The Great Rebellion, The Law of Opposites
A practice
Drink the wine of light, the liquor of Mandrake, the liquor of the Gods, so you may keep yourself heroic and rebellious against the evils of the world. Do not be like the Biblical Essau who exchanged his birthright for a bowl of porridge. Do not be like Lot’s wife, by turning your head to past attachments, or wanting to live among the painful tombs of memories.
Dissolving the I, 1964 also in The “I” Is Memory
4 passages
Those too attached to the world linger in agony at death and suffer afterward in the purgatorial region. A dead man's personality, held by emotional attachment to this world, can still be seen repeating his habits in the street.
“ADHAESIT PAVIMENTO ANIMA MEA.” Poor souls who were attached to terrene things, how they suffer within the Purgatorial Region.
Runic Magic, 1969
Because there are people who are too attached to the world, and it is clear that they do not want to leave it, and they linger, agonizing hour after hour.
Beyond Death
On a certain day I found myself on the 5 de Mayo street, in Mexico City, with an old friend; I greeted him raising my arm and I continued on my way. A few days later I met a relative of my friend and, to my surprise, he told me that Mr. Garcia Peña, the one whom I had greeted, had died two months ago. Undoubtedly, this friend’s ex personality, attached to this world in which we live, made itself tangible repeating the same actions that he was mechanically accustomed to.
The Revolution of the Dialectic also in Personality
It is indubitable that a close relationship exists between the energetic and atomic personality and the quanta which posses their own vibratory frequency. The disembodied, due to their emotional attachment to this three-dimensional world, customarily decrease the quantum vibration of their personalities in an unconscious manner, thus making themselves palpable and perceptible.
The Revolution of the Dialectic also in Personality
4 passages · 4 practices
Observing things and places without identification shows how far one's attachments reach. Money is needed, yet its exact relationship with us has to be comprehended, neither renounced nor coveted; then the pain of detachment ends and physical need is told apart from psychological dependence.
A practice
The observation of things without identification will allow us to know the processes of covetousness, attachments, ambition, etc., etc.
Yes, There Is a Hell, a Devil and Karma, 1973 also in Greed, Identification
A practice
It is irrefutable that for a covetous person, it will entail a lot of work to not become identified with a diamond ring or with a few dollar bills from the bank, etc., etc. Observation of places will allow us to know how extensive our attachments and fascination are in relation to diverse places.
Yes, There Is a Hell, a Devil and Karma, 1973 also in Fascination, Greed, Identification
A practice
We need money, true, but it is necessary to profoundly comprehend our exact relationship with it. Neither the ascetic nor the covetous miser has ever comprehended what our exact relationship with money is. It is not through renouncing money, nor coveting it, that we can come to understand our exact relationship with it. We need comprehension to intelligently recognize our own material needs without disproportionately depending on money.
Introduction to Gnosis also in Greed
A practice
When we comprehend our exact relationship with money, the pain of detachment and the frightening suffering that is produced by competition ends. We should learn to differentiate between our immediate physical needs and psychological dependence on things. Psychological dependence on material things creates exploitation and slavery. We need money to cover our immediate physical needs but, unfortunately, needs are transformed into covetousness. The psychological “I,” perceiving its own emptiness and misery, usually gives money and material things a different value than what they have, an exaggerated and absurd value. That is why the “I” wants to become rich externally since internally it is poor and miserable. The “I” wants to make itself felt, to dazzle its fellowman with material things and money.
Introduction to Gnosis also in Greed
6 passages · 2 practices
A stolen wallet seems to cause the pain, but self-exploration finds the "I" of attachment to money and the "I" of fear behind it. By meditating, sacrificing that pain and comprehending that money is perishable, one disintegrates both, and the pain is gone.
Now, in practice, we have been able to see clearly that really others are not the ones who cause us the pains, the sufferings. We cause the sufferings ourselves. For example, let us suppose that a thief steals the wallet from one of you, he “lifts” it. Then you say: “Man, I just got robbed, I lost my money!” Then comes the anguish: “I’ve got no money!”, the terrible suffering: “I’ve got no money! And now, what do I do?”
The Fifth Gospel Gnostic Consequences of the Immolation of Pain Lecture – Interview – Mexico City – 1976 also in Fear, Suffering
A practice
But let us see: did the thief cause us the pain or who? And clearly, you would say: “the thief”. But if you self-explore yourselves, you will discover that within you there is the “I” of attachment to money, or attachment to the wallet; behind it the “I” of fear can also be there and exclaim: “And now, what will I do without money?”
The Fifth Gospel Gnostic Consequences of the Immolation of Pain Lecture – Interview – Mexico City – 1976 also in Fear
So, there are the “I” of attachment and the “I” of fear; these “I’s” cause anguish. If meditation comes and pain is sacrificed, if one understands that money is transient, that material things are vain and illusory; if one becomes conscious of that truth, if that truth does not remain simply in the intellect, but remains in the Consciousness; if one reaches the understanding that he was attached to his wallet and money; if one reaches the understanding that he is afraid of finding himself without money before the problems of life, then he naturally sets out to put an end to these two “I’s”: that of fear and that of attachment.
The Fifth Gospel Gnostic Consequences of the Immolation of Pain Lecture – Interview – Mexico City – 1976 also in Entropy and Sacrifice, Fear, Suffering, The Science of Meditation
A practice
One says: “I will sacrifice that pain, because this is vain and illusory”, and he dissects that pain, he reaches the understanding that it is vain and illusory, because a wallet, some money, all of that, are perishable things. Then one ends up disintegrating the “I” of attachment to money and the “I” of fear, and in this way, he sacrifices his pain and the pain disappears.
The Fifth Gospel Gnostic Consequences of the Immolation of Pain Lecture – Interview – Mexico City – 1976 also in Entropy and Sacrifice, Fear, Greed
Upon reaching these heights, one comes to realize, in truth, who was the one who was causing the pain. It was not the thief who caused the pain, but the “I” of attachment to material things and the “I” of fear. And one confirms it after he sacrifices the pain, after he disintegrates the “I’s” of fear and of attachment; he comes to understand it because the pain disappears completely. So, it was not the thief who caused the pain. One carries the causes of pain within oneself; not outside oneself, but within. If one does not sacrifice pain, one will never be happy. And the causes of pain are not outside oneself, but within oneself. I have reached these reflections. [...] What is most detrimental to one is identification. If an “I”, for example, says to him: “Take revenge on that one who caused you pain”, and it suggests to him the idea of taking revenge and he identifies with that one who is there suggesting those ideas, well then, at the end of the day, he ends up taking revenge.
The Fifth Gospel Gnostic Consequences of the Immolation of Pain Lecture – Interview – Mexico City – 1976 also in Entropy and Sacrifice, Fear, Greed, Identification, Resentment and Generosity, The Law of Causality
Let us see the case where someone steals a sum of money from us. Suppose one of you has saved, for example, fifty thousand pesos in a piece of furniture, in any box of your house, and a relative of yours steals the fifty thousand pesos. Clearly you would suffer horribly, right? Fifty thousand pesos, and losing them like that, from one moment to the next, would cause you a lot of pain, you would cry, you would go to the police, you would file a lawsuit, even if it was a family member. Maybe you would not do so because he was a relative, but you would indeed carry the suffering within. But why do you suffer so much for fifty thousand pesos? “Ah, the thing is that it costs me great difficulty to earn them!” That is why you suffer. If you did not have the “I” of attachment to things and money, you would lose those fifty thousand pesos and you would be laughing, you would not suffer.
The Fifth Gospel The Serious Damages of Mental Representations Third Chamber – Mexico City – June 1977 also in Greed, Suffering
3 passages
The ordeal of air tests how far a disciple is detached from material things. In the Aztec symbol the tiger kills the attachments that tie the Initiate to the earth, and in a later cosmic event comes the supreme detachment from all material things.
The White Lodge’s ordeal of air is only given with the purpose of knowing the disciple’s capacity for resistance against great adversities and for detachment from material things. It is logical that a disciple who commits suicide because of a loss of fortune cannot pass through the ordeal of air. By simply not being capable of morally resisting a failure, it is clear that one does not pass the ordeal of air.
The Revolution of Beelzebub, 1950 also in The Secret Weapon of the Ego
The hearts between his feline paws symbolize “the death of the Initiate.” When Quetzalcoatl rises and transforms into a tiger, he tears apart the heart of the one who awakens him, until he kills within him all of the illusions of his personality and all of the attachments to those things that tied him to the earth. Indeed, the sagacity and fury of the tiger are necessary in order to kill the human personality, so that the seven serpents of the Dragon of Wisdom (symbol of the beheaded one) become resplendent.
Aztec Christic Magic, 1973 also in Anger, Greed
In harmonious rhythmic concordance with this cosmic-sexual event, the supreme detachment from all material things and the radical elimination of the desire to exist takes place, inaudible...
The Three Mountains, 1972
4 passages
One kind of illumination still has attachments and is called dead water; the other, without them, is the illuminating Void. The intellect grasps and will not let go, so Illuminating Emptiness comes only by breaking the ties that attach us to the mind.
There are two types of illumination. The first is commonly called dead water because it has attachments the second is praised as “The Great Life” because it is illumination without attachments it is the illuminating Void.
The Buddha's Necklace, 1967
The very word "To define" visibly suggests a human finger which points to a definite object and "To grasp" a hand which holds something and does not let go.
The Mystery of the Golden Blossom, 1971
Given this regrettable limitation and attachment, which is profoundly emphasized in the rationalism of the intellectual animal mistakenly called man, it is not at all surprising that the free and all-inclusive "Truth-Prajna" becomes something evasive which is always mysteriously elusive for every thinker.
The Mystery of the Golden Blossom, 1971
On the contrary, it is attained by breaking any ties which attach us to the mind. Only by liberating ourselves from the intellectual jail can we live the happiness of Illuminating Emptiness - free and entirely insubstantial.
The Mystery of the Golden Blossom, 1971
2 passages
The Void points to the non-personal nature of all beings and to absolute non-attachment and freedom. He calls it the highest pleasure to feel oneself a soul detached from the body, the affections and the mind.
The void is simply a term denoting the non-substantial and non-personal nature of all beings, and a pointer indicating the state of absolute non-attachment and freedom.
Fundamental Education, 1970
There is no better pleasure than feeling oneself as a detached soul from the body, from the affections and from the mind.
My Return to Tibet, 1969
✦ ✦ ✦
How this was made. All fifty-two books were extracted (73,105 paragraphs, 2,157,671 words) and swept on his words for it: attachment and attachments; attached and attach, detach and detachment, wherever a psychological object stands in the paragraph and no physical one; cling and clinging; my house and my money; material things, possessions and the things of the world; the fear of losing, letting go and the loss of a loved one; money as transient and everything as illusory; our relationship with money and things. Renunciation, identification, jealousy and sentimentalism were taken only where one of those stood beside them. That returned 183 candidate paragraphs in 42 books. Every candidate was read twice, by independent readers working from a written brief. The two passes agreed on whether to print 95.1% of the time and on the class 87.4%, and a third reader, who saw neither verdict, settled the 9 disagreements. The 13 paragraphs that open a sentence the readers had found running on were then read the same way, and the two readers agreed on all 13. 62 were judged printable and none was left out; where his sentence ran across several short lines the lines were joined into one passage, so 50 passages are printed here. The rest are recorded with the reason each was set aside.
What was set aside. 47 named attachment only in passing, the subject being elsewhere, 22 were false friends, attach and detach in another sense, 16 belonged to another built work, 10 were narrative, and 6 were neighbours on another subject. 30 more were judged and not printed, and 3 were the second halves of sentences, joined to the passages they finish.
Some of it he spoke. 14 passages come from the two Fifth Gospel volumes, across 8 named lectures, each cited by the name of the lecture with the place and the year where the volumes record them.
No sentence of his is cut in half. Each range was extended against the corpus until his sentence closed, a passage that turned out to be the second half of the one before it was absorbed into it, and 14 ranges run over more than one paragraph.
27 passages also stand in a finished work, and every one is marked where it stands, most of them in Greed, Fear and Suffering. The editor ruled that this work prints in full and that shared passages print here too. An overlap is allowed wherever the teaching needs it. What is not allowed is an overlap a reader cannot see.
Checked five ways. Every reader’s note was proved to sit on the passage as it is actually printed. Every printed pair was compared as sequences. Every ragged edge was repaired or named. Every one of the 11 passages marked a practice was proved to carry its own instruction. And every passage was checked word for word against a fresh extraction of its book.
A work of The Egos, the family for the defects to be dissolved and for what is born in their place. It takes the “I” of attachment, which clings to money, to things, to people and to the past, and the detachment that is born when it dies. It wears the family’s smoke and its heavy rule with a gold hairline, in ivy.