Attachements pt. 3 - Fanaticism

Are you using knowledge or is knowledge using you? Using the Five Levels of Attachment for the backdrop of this series, I discuss how these attachments distort our reality. 1. The Authentic Self 2. Preference 3. Identity 4. Internalization 5. Fanaticism Level 5 - Fanaticism: At this level... "My knowledge controls my every action." Fanaticism: a rigid attachment to knowledge with an obsessive intolerance of opposing views. It is driven by the need to believe in something 100% even though that something’s meaning is dependent on the agreement of others. Anything that contradicts or puts into question the sustainability of the belief is a direct threat, and the fanatic will believe the threat at any cost… Prejudice, intolerance, and violence are the instruments by which the beliefs are imposed onto the dream of the planet. The driving force behind fanaticism is not hate or anger, but rather an extreme form of conditional love for self and others. This is how any beautiful belief in the world can become lost in corruption, as knowledge controls a persons will for the sake of its own existence. Fanaticism is the complete loss of respect for another living being. When we no longer see an individual as a living being, and instead only an idea or a number. The image of oneself can become so distorted that one’s own perception of their own humanity becomes lost. There is no awareness that a line has been crossed, only an illusion remains.