|
Others ~ Selected Correspondence Bernadette Roberts
I did a search of google and aflite and could not find any existing references to this, so I wanted to mention http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77.It’s a site about ‘empty mind’ experiences and practices of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. The creator of the site (who I emailed telling about actualfreedom.com.au and this mailing list) has several descriptions of his own experiences which sound very much like PCEs, and also there are descriptions of other people who have had experiences at least one of which (http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77/178bernadetteroberts.htm) could be construed as achieving actual freedom vis: (...) Although much of the material smacks of PCEs turning into ASC’s and then being misrepresented, I know Richard has been looking for someone else living Actual Freedom, so maybe this will be of interest. Just a few words about Bernadette Roberts and Actual Freedom. You related in a recent post that she may be another person in actual freedom and that Richard might be interested. He may have some other interest in her, but certainly not as another person in actual freedom. I say this as one who has studiously read a number of her books multiple times as well as flying out a few years ago to a weekend seminar with her – with plenty of chances to ask questions and ask for clarification. Just a few things you will find that are 180 degrees apart...
Being that Bernadette Roberts really doesn’t have anything new to offer (she is offering centuries old mystical Christianity blended with her own experiences) – and there seems to be nothing ‘ambrosial’ about her current state – I think you will find after further investigation that BR and AF are worlds apart. I think you will also find that what one person or group means by ‘no-self’ can be quite different from what others mean (if they really know what they mean in the first place – since for most it’s borrowed belief anyway.) No 37 to No 21
I have studied UG Krishnamurti, Bernadette Roberts, and Richard’s writings all very closely. I can tell you that what Richard is reporting is not at all the same as UG or Ms. Roberts. In fact, I flew to California a few years ago to a weekend seminar given by Bernadette to observe her closely – what she says, how she speaks, how her experience of the world is... etc. Not only is she far from Richard, but there is some distance (though maybe not as much) from UG as well. It may do well to keep in mind that because someone’s ‘state’ of consciousness might be labelled by ‘enlightenment’ or ‘no-self’ – there appear to be wide varieties of instantiations of such. That is more than obvious. OK, but since I started this particular thread in response to your claim that (according to you)
– has it also become ‘more than obvious’ that UG and BR are not of the same variety as an actual freedom? I can only disagree. May I ask on what grounds? * Thanks, but I already own her books. Do you also realize that she is a practicing Catholic that believes that Jesus is the saviour of humanity, as well as believing in ‘heaven’ and purgatory? AND that ‘Christ’ and the ‘Eucharist’ are keys to understanding her experience. Her clues are very telling to me without resorting to believing in those. She herself admitted that when there is no self, there is no god also. It is not for her that there is ‘no god’ when ‘there is no self’. Here experience of God is what vanished, not her belief in God. She has characterized her sharing of her ‘experiences’ as ‘for the glory of God’, so it is not at all in question whether or not she believes in God. Richard would say that it is not possible for him to believe in God, since such a thing would require the ability to imagine, yet it is still possible for Bernadette Roberts to believe and preach that God exists, etc. Though maybe she calls this godhead she does this (and many others symbolic similes) because that is her mode of expressing. When we talk of understanding one’s background etc. here is good example how the no-self exp. can be veiled (by Christianity) still being valid. It might be helpful to hear just a bit of how she describes her own ‘experience’. First, she would not claim that she is using a ‘mode’ of expressing – she would say that she is speaking the truth – not simply a ‘mode’ of expressing. To strip her claims of what you are calling her ‘mode’ is to not take seriously what she says. Another clue can be found in the fact that BR describes her experience of the world as ‘flat’. In other words, people and things appear to her almost as if they were cardboard cut-outs, like a 2 dimensional scene in a play – except everything is like that – which is a clue to recognizing her ‘state’ as dissociation. Richard says he recognizes such experiencing from the time he spent ‘enlightened’. The world is now experienced in full 3D according to his reports. Also, BR, not unlike UG has represented her transition to ‘no-self’ as something of a ‘calamity’ as well – saying that she wouldn’t ‘wish it on a dog’. Upon clarification, she did state not that her state of consciousness is undesirable, but the transition from her mystical union with God to ‘no-self’. Richard does describe some disorienting symptoms that occurred when he became actually free, but states explicitly that the event is wonderful, glorious – in fact, unimaginably so. * This topic is, in fact, not ‘so vast’ at all. I don’t know much about Richard’s familiarity with Bernadette Roberts, but I do know that he has read UG quite closely. UG would the better candidate of the two that might be ‘closer’ to what Richard is reporting as Bernadette Roberts is still quite religious and one does not have to wander far into her reports to see that it is a far cry from what Richard reports. But upon close inspection, UG will also be seen to be far, far, away. Could you show some blatant discrepancies? I have been doing so. Here are a few more –
* A good starting point to think about this is the fact that Richard recommends self-immolation, resulting in a persistent, irreversible PCE – which is the final accomplishment, the ‘meaning of life.’ Whereas UG does not recommend pursuing his state of consciousness and refers to it as a ‘calamity.’ No small difference there. I listed below some quotes which are just a bit of all, but as you said you already read all. Well, I did not say I have ‘read all’. I said I studied them closely. I think they are very clear, rational and helpful and come from empirical experience. What is unacceptable for instance about them? Perhaps you, Richard, could make comments where you see the fundamental differences? About affective system: The affective system, Roberts says, is the cause of all suffering. Out of it arises all fear, anxiety, and psychological suffering. It would follow, she suggests, that those who have lost the affective system, are free of psychological disorders and would have no reason to seek professional help, and that is why the psychiatric literature has no description of those who have gone beyond the self. Among the questions that arise is the concern that the lack of an affective system might lead to lives that are cold, detached, robot-like. Roberts says that one has to live the no-self life to understand it. She says, ‘All that need be said is that it is a dynamic, intense state of taking care of whatever arises in the now-moment. It is a continuous waking state in which the physical organism remains sensitive, responsive, and totally unimpaired. When fully adjusted to the dimension of no-self, nothing is found to be missing or wanting. It is only in the encounter with other selves that a self or affective system is a reminder of what *was*.’ She says that one of the reasons people cannot imagine life without an affective system is that few grasp the whole picture of what the affective system is. It is not merely the extremes of love and hate. It is personal energy and will, and these giving rise to all desire, and these desires or expectations colouring our world, our thoughts and perceptions, our experiences, our spiritual experiences of love, bliss, lights, visions, sounds, ecstasies, etc. It is all the self, the affective system. It is who we are fooled into believing who we are. So when the affective system, our psychological familiarity, our spiritual feeling, our desires, our self, falls away, what is left to serve as a standard? There are no standards, no values, from the perspective of the no-self. The no-self needs no values. It is already in the now moment. There are no options to consider, no standards to consult. The no-self is so empty that it is empty of love, bliss and joy, and empty of hate, sadness and evil. It is in the now moment. The practice of virtue is absent. Virtue is simply present. The bottom line is that the will, which is the core of the affective system, disappears, and it was will that had put virtue and vice into motion in the first place. This was Roberts’ major discovery about the self: ‘that its very nucleus is the will or volitional faculty.’ When the affective system first falls away, it is the will that abruptly goes, and later the emotions and feelings. Other interesting: ‘For the most part it rarely occurs to anyone that the human sensory system can function without consciousness. Usually people believe it is the other way around – namely, that consciousness can function without the senses. This latter belief, however, is based on the notion that consciousness is eternal or an immortal soul perhaps, but in truth, matters are actually the reverse. Man, like the animal, can function without consciousness, but neither man nor animal can function without the senses...’ <snipped more quotes from Bernadette Roberts> Just a few comments: First, BR makes out the problem of self as a problem of consciousness – the tendency to objectify or reify. This is the typical stance of ‘thought’ is the problem. She also describes empirical reality as ‘empty and meaningless’ – yet a direct experiencing of actuality is neither empty nor meaningless – rather it is magical. UG and BR both make out the ‘problem’ – as in why normal people don’t ‘experience’ the world the way they do as being the structure of experience – that experiencing requires an experiencer – get rid of the experiencer and you no longer have experiencing – just some sort of meaningless sensation. This is far, far away from what Richard and other actualists are describing. Experience continues, yet is pure and unmediated by an emotion based ‘self’. Possibly a way to cut right to the essential part of all of this is that both UG and BR are in some sense solipsists. Other people and things are like ‘cardboard cut-outs’ in their ‘flat’ world, and there is no ‘other’ for them because they themselves do not exist as separate entities. And all of this is directly opposite to actualism. You could say that mysticism pursues the subjective to the vanishing point of the self – everything becomes subjectivity. In other words, ‘I’ envelope the world to the point where the distinction between subject and object no longer makes sense and the objective is ‘sucked into’ the subjective with no distinction between the two. Actualists pursue objectivity to the vanishing point of the self – ‘I’ become so whittled down that eventually the distinction between the objective and the subjective collapses, but this time it is the objective that replaces the subjective – everything becomes (as it already is) objective – factual. No 37 to No 61(R)
Post from No 37 that is useful:
Being a former Christian mystic and reading all BR’s available works, I find No 37’s post to be ‘spot on’. Arguing with someone about the similarity of R and BR’s experience of life is as silly as arguing that cheese is meat not dairy (i.e. while I may repost some old posts that any serious explorer could have already found and read themselves, no I will not be taking or answering any questions about this. To be clear: I don’t have the time to waste on it). No 66 to No 94(R), 26.6.2005 Web page designed by The Actual Freedom Trust |
