In this self‑help video Aaron Doughty explains that attachment and desire are the primary sources of human suffering. He references the Buddha’s teaching and Dr. David Hawkins’ scale of consciousness, which ranges from shame (0) to enlightenment (1000). Doughty argues that moving up the scale is achieved not by striving for higher levels but by letting go of attachments, desires, and the need to control outcomes. He describes how desire, calibrated at about 125 on the scale, is a low‑vibration state that creates resistance and fear when one clings to it. Doughty shares his personal transformation over the past few weeks, attributing it to nightly reading of Hawkins’ book Letting Go and practicing a specific letting‑go technique: fully feeling an emotion, then consciously releasing it. He outlines three ego zones on the consciousness scale—low ego (powerlessness), middle ego (willpower, identity as a hard worker), and high ego (channeling the divine with minimal ego). By releasing control and trusting the universe, he reports increased synchronicity, joy, and a sense of flow. The video interweaves anecdotes about his past 9‑to‑5 job, earlier personal‑development influences (Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk), and visual aids from his YouTube channel, emphasizing that inner alignment reflects outward reality.
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The biggest causes of suffering are attachment and desire. We attach to emotions, we attach to people, we attach to things, we attach to identity, and we attach to outcome. And when we attach, we create resistance. When we attach, we make something that is not us, us. This episode was really inspired too because I've had from this last, I would say, 5 weeks, 3 to 5 weeks, more transformation in my own life than I have ever had in my entire life. And a lot of it has come, most of it's come from just reading one book and practicing one idea. And it's gonna sound so simple that most people will overlook it, but it really is the most powerful insight that I've ever had and changed my life in so many ways. And maybe that's because, I mean, I think if you look at what the Buddha said, the Buddha said, isn't it interesting that it's called the Buddha? Buddha. The Buddha, like people call Jesus the Jesus. That's interesting. Okay, anyways, that's a side note as well. All suffering. So he said that attachment and desire is the root of all suffering. Say it again. Attachment and desire is the root of all suffering. So if you look at that scale of consciousness, that maybe you've seen me share in like 100 YouTube videos or more, more than that. In that scale of consciousness, at the bottom, you got shame, fear, guilt, anger, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reasoning, love, joy, peace, and enlightenment. And that's going up from 0 to 1,000. Now, to move up the scale, the key is not to climb a higher ring and to reach a higher level, The key is letting go. When you let go, you naturally begin to raise up to your natural state. You naturally are love, joy, peace, and enlightenment. That's who you really are. Anything less than that is because we've attached to different ideologies, different labels, different belief systems, and that's what's kept us in lower vibe. So when we become aware of what those are and we begin to let them go, we begin to feel free. We begin to loosen up that vibe, that attachment. And also, maybe you've heard me recently, I've been on a kick on talking about desire. Desire is something that when we feel desire, and if you look at a calibration of 125 is wantiness or desire. And that's actually a pretty low vibration. It goes from 0 to 1,000. Fear is the level of 100. 125 is desire. And most people think and they're told desire is great, desire is great. You gotta want it, you gotta really want it. Now the thing is, and the trick with this is that what happens is most people will want something and then it eventually propels them to take action. And then as they take action, then they start getting results. And then people say, well, the wanting was good. The problem is, is many people, they get into wanting and they stay in wanting for a very long time and they want and they want and they want and they're focused on what they want. They're also saying that what they want, they don't have, which means they lack it. And they're not okay with the present moment, which means they create more resistance. The more we want, the more that we actually, we repel in our lives. And what I wanted to do in this video is actually go through, you know, every single day what I do when I go to bed at night, I read for about 20, 30 minutes at least, and I go through and I screenshot different segments of a book that I'm reading. And this last month, I've just been going through and going through and going through the book, "Letting Go" by Dr. David Hawkins. And I have many screenshots from the book. And what I thought I would do is go through some of these screenshots, read some of them to you, and then explain them And these are like some of the biggest epiphanies that I've had. Now there's different things that we can let go of. Now, one of the reasons letting go of control is so powerful is because there's, let me try to explain this in a way, 'cause there's not, you know, unless you're watching the YouTube video, there is a YouTube channel called Aaron Doughty Podcast where all the videos of these are, and sometimes there'll be charts that I might share. There'll be ways of explaining things that I think give more of a visual reference. However, when we look at moving and raising our vibration, which the more we raise our vibration, the more synchronicity we experience, the more love, the more joy, the more peace, the more we enjoy the moment, the more magical life is really. Now what happens is in raising our vibration, there's different levels that we go through. Now at the very bottom levels where we have shame, fear, guilt, anger, at those levels, a lot of times there is a almost lack of ego in a way. It's almost like a powerlessness. We feel shame, guilt, fear. We're not taking action. We're feeling blocked. Before I got on YouTube and I started making daily videos and I was working that 9 to 5 job selling women's shoes at Barney's New York, which I did for like 5 years. When I was there, I was just like blocked from taking action. There was almost a loss of my own willpower. This is when a lot of people will also get into personal development because personal development resonates at the level of willingness. Willingness is like willpower, personal development, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk. Ironically enough, I began reading a book called "Crush It!" by Gary Vaynerchuk. Back in 2017, and it was all about like how to go out there and crush it. And that was one thing that I think triggered in my mind. I read that book and shortly afterwards, I decided to go daily on YouTube. And that's what really took my channel to a completely new level and just my life into a completely new level. And that changed my self-image more than anything else. I started to see myself as somebody that was a quote unquote hard worker. And from that, started to, it was easier for me to take a lot of action. So when I talk about letting, so there was like a lack of ego, then I started to build the ego. And in a way, when you start taking action, willpower, Tony Robbins, stuff like that, you start building that identity around creating hard work or creating something in your life. And it can be very powerful. Then what happens is you build up this identity, you build up this hard worker, you build up the intellectual, like who you prefer to be. And that's the middle levels of consciousness. The middle levels are acceptance, reasoning, which is the intellect of the mind, willingness, courage. These are all the levels of the ego. But then what happens is there's another level that is above that, and those you could call the higher level manifestation principles. Which is letting go of control, letting go of having to take really hard action, letting go of expectation, and allowing the universe to manifest through you. A lot of enlightened yogis talk about this. There's a lot of books that reference this, a lot of ancient teachings that reference this. You literally allowed the divine to flow through you. Now, the problem is that once you go from, like, so think of it like this. If you have that scale, if you're watching the video, then Daniel, the editor, put the scale right here. And at the bottom, you'll have less ego. In the middle, you'll have ego. And at the top, you'll have less ego. Just that the less ego is a powerlessness at the bottom. Then you have ego in the middle, and then you have less ego at top. But the less ego at top is, a channeling of the divine higher self, channeling of the energy to flow through you. Now, the biggest game changer I've had this in my life really is this last month or so, I've been learning to let go and allow the energy to flow through me, to stop trying to control everything because I'm realizing what I'm doing is I'm bringing, I'm trying to go bring the middle levels into the higher levels and it doesn't make sense. I'm trying to control things in my life and Understand this as well, when you control, it's fear. Like imagine you want something to happen, which remember want is a vibration in and of itself, and you have an idea about how it should happen and when it should happen, and you insist that it happens that way. And what happens is if it doesn't start happening that way, you start to feel fear, you start to lock up, you start to create resistance. The controlling it is saying, I don't trust the universe. I don't trust there's an abundance out there. Therefore, if it doesn't happen the way that I believe it will, then it won't happen. And then I won't be powerful or I won't get the emotion I want or whatever it is. Now, when you release the fear, it is opening yourself up and you release the control. You are opening yourself up to even a better way than your ego may not be able to imagine. So imagine that, imagine that your ego can only have a certain best case scenario. And imagine there's many other probabilities, there's many other possibilities that the ego could bring something amazing to your life. But what we do is we close it off and we say, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't natural for me to let go and allow. But what I've learned is when I have these things and these emotions come up, here's the letting go technique, by the way, from the book, "Letting Go" by Dr. David Hawkins. You feel the emotion as it comes up. You don't try to control it. You let it be there, whatever it is. You feel it completely. And then you just make the choice to let it go. And trust the universe and trust and let go and let the energy carry it. Now, the funny thing is the more you feel it, the more you heal it, the more that it then begins to leave. It's our mind that catches onto the emotion that then recycles it in our energy field over and over and over again. But if we simply let go, we allow it to do its work. The biggest causes of suffering are attachment and desire. We attach to emotions, we attach to people, we attach to things, we attach to identity, and we attach to outcome. And when we attach, we create resistance. When we attach, we make something that is not us, us. A person, ooh, if you were in my life, I would be happier. And then we need that person. And then guess what happens? We are deluded into believing that that person is gonna make us happier, not knowing that we could fill up our own cup, that that person, really what it is, it's an alignment within the inner self, and then that person's a reflection, but we think that person's gonna make us happy. And then if that person starts acting any different than the way we expect them to, we start to feel resistance. Here's the funny thing. All reality on the outside is a reflection of the inside.
