PETER: Just a minor correction. It is always the neo-cortex – the so-called modern brain – that is ‘hijacked’ by the amygdala – seemingly the source of the instinctual reactions in the so-called reptilian brain. <snip>

GARY: Yes, of course, that makes more sense. I felt rather a fool after I sent my first post requesting more information. That is because there is such a wealth of information in the AF and Third Alternative website that there is scarcely any need to go further afield. I did obtain an introduction to Evolutionary Psychology off the net which perked my interest. I can see some obvious similarities to some of the things we talk about here. You are right that much scientific writing is not only incomprehensible to the average layman (me) but also replete with misleading emotional-moral-ethical perspectives.

Interestingly, the information from Wiener, entitled Young Men More Likely to Wage War, is a corroboration of a view I have had for a long time: that there is nothing more dangerous than an 18-19 year old male.

That point gets around to what I really want to talk about in this post, which is my recent discoveries regarding the instinctual passions. I feel I have begun to experience, in a more directly intimate way, what previously I had only had very brief, rather superficial glimpses of: the primitive passions at work in me, the so-called battle between Good and Evil. I awoke yesterday morning in a state of anxious dread. As I investigated into it, I found what I will call a fear of annihilation, a naked dread that I wanted to get away from as much as I could. There was raw libidinal energy also swirling around – I seemed to go from fear to sex in a heartbeat and it was very powerful.

I feel I am getting now a direct look at the caldron of seething passions that are ordinarily contained by the thin veneer of morals and ethics. My most obvious spiritual practices were the first thing to go overboard, but as I continue in this work, I am uncovering the less obvious and infinitely more subtle morality and ethicality that is designed to keep these instincts in check. I have noticed that my way of expressing this in language to myself is definitely archaic: words like fornicator, lecher, warlord, beast, wolf, etc. come into my consciousness and I feel I am peeling away the thin layer of 20^th century civilizing influences and getting into a substratum of morality that harkens back to the Christian Dark Ages, or at least it seems that way. There is so much baggage of Christian religion and western civilizing influences that make up the social identity to be dismantled. It is quite evidently thousands and thousands of years old, and deeply, deeply ingrained and embedded.

I have also been having quite a surge of energy with these developments. It seems like some great energy is being liberated inside of me. Something that had been contained and burdened is becoming unburdened and I am feeling marvellously alive.

And there is, for the most part, not that fear that it needs to be clamped down on.

GARY: In your recent post you wrote about the theme of dealing with emotional hurts and wounds. I must admit to a feeling of defensiveness in reading your words, and I am not sure exactly where that is coming from. But whenever I get the feeling of being in a defensive or self-protective mode, I am pretty sure it is about identity: it is telling me that I am up against some deep belief about who I am. Probably ‘I’, the feeler, would like very much to keep dredging up these past hurts and wounds and keep wallowing around in them, re-feeling, and resenting. It is all so totally ridiculous to keep doing this. And I think it is this that you wrote about when you said:

PETER: Personally in my investigations into my psyche, I found it unnecessary to go back into childhood memories or past hurts. ‘How am I experiencing this moment of time’ has always served to keep me busy with the immediate and I found that the most I ever had to skip back was a few days to discover what was causing me to be either unhappy or malicious. Then, when I recognized the incident, reaction, onset of a mood, etc. and I could label it as jealousy, resentment, feeling inferior etc. I was then able to recall similar events and times when exactly the same event had arisen to make me sad or make me angry at someone. Then it simply became a matter of – ‘how long am I going to go on doing this same thing, how many times is this going to go on before I stop’. Once one dares to acknowledge, recognize, and catalogue the debilitating role that feelings play in one’s life it then becomes impossible to be the way you were – one has begun the process of radical and irrevocable change.

GARY: It seems to me sometimes that fits of instinctual passions are like emotional black-holes, pulling everything into them, overriding certainly all reasonableness and sense of balance. I will write a little more about this later, but I think this may be where the mind keeps going back to incidents of the past like a broken record, trying to make sense out of what is basically happening to one. But I think I see what you are saying: that it is unnecessary to keep going back over and over again to review past hurts, and that one needs only to keep the focus on what instinctual passion is operating in the present moment to be able to get back to being happy and harmless. Yes, I have had the sense of futility, when in the midst of these passions, of asking myself how long I going to keep going back to them over and over.

PETER: One of the more curious aspects of the human brain, if I have understood it properly and if it is indeed factual, is that the primitive brain seems to have its own separate memory which is an emotional-only memory of past events. There is also evidence that any long-term memory recall is very short on factual detail and further, that we only recall the last time we remembered the event rather than being able to trace back to the original event. Thus it is that these past memories are primarily psychological and psychic in nature, i.e. they are ‘my’ often irrational and largely emotional memories. When a present event triggers an automatic kick-in of an instinctual reaction it activates an emotion-backed thought in the neo-cortex, and this often opens a floodgate, as it were, and we get past emotional memories flooding in as well. Many people also access these emotional memories deliberately as they like the bitter-sweet feelings of sorrow or grief, or lusty feelings of anger and revenge.

GARY: An interesting article I read, by Van der Kalk, entitled ‘The Body Keeps Score’ (available on Internet), summarizes the present state of knowledge regarding effects of traumatic memories, both the hormonal and the neuronal mechanisms. As I understand it, which corresponds with what you say, traumatic memories are not represented symbolically in memory but in a different kind of memory which operates primarily in an unconscious, pre-symbolic mode. Events that occur in the here-and-now, let us say threatening events, trigger this non-symbolic memory which is probably stored in the more primitive parts of the brain, resulting in the purely emotional and instinctual responses, the by-now familiar ‘hijacking’ of the neocortex. This probably helps to account for ‘flashback’ phenomenon and the emotional triggering and subsequent flooding by emotions that is sometimes experienced when one has been subjected to events like child abuse, wartime trauma, rape, etc. It seems to me that relatively innocuous events and occurrences can trigger the full range of emotional response – as a classic example, the backfiring of a car or a helicopter circling in the sky can cause a traumatized war veteran to emotionally re-experience the war. The non-symbolic memory trace, apparently stored in the primitive, emotional part of the brain, is experienced as a purely visceral experience. I think this is substantially what you are pointing to. But the article by Van der Kalk talks about another startling finding: that traumas such as rape, child abuse, war experiences, torture, etc., cause long-lasting, perhaps permanent, alterations in hormonal and neuronal physiology. Now I realize that I have dwelled quite a bit about memories of trauma and the associated physical and emotional aspects when the part of the experience encoded in the primitive brain is relived. You may wonder why I have focused so much on that. And the reason for that is that that is one of the ways that I make sense out of what is happening to me. You see, the rapidity and intensity with which these feelings and emotions are experienced is truly amazing. Of course, I may just be up against the instinctual passions, period, with no need to invoke trauma and memories of same. But since the instinctual passions are what has caused child abuse, rape, and exploitation by one human being of another, and since the one experiencing this brutality is overwhelmed physically, emotionally, and psychically, I find it helpful to cast about in all directions looking to what goes ‘haywire’ in the brain when one is in the grip of these instincts. Because that is the way I experience the instincts: something so ‘mad’ when one is in its’ grips, something so totally destructive and insane. I am talking here of course about malice and sorrow, but primarily malice. In the past I would have chalked it up to ‘I am angry’, or ‘I am in a rage’, etc. But now, the feeling is so intense and so sudden. What is different now from in the past is that I have closed off or given up my usual escape routes of belief, trust, and faith. During the last experience with what we label malice, I wrote the following in my journal:

‘...somewhat different for me, is that I am totally alone. There is nobody to understand, nobody to help, nobody to tell me what to do. This was a startling realization. I realized that I wanted to pray for deliverance, but could not. I could find nothing to believe in but myself and my own ability to withstand the storm. This is the part where it is said that it takes nerves of steel. I pictured myself deep sea diving, going down to the bottom of the ocean and swimming around in this cavern of dark instinctual passions that were being revealed in me. I fancied picking up stones or upturning corals and looking underneath them to see what was down there but I could not find anything. I felt so desperate, so anxious to get away from this feeling. I wondered where this feeling came from – it seemed so alien to me, so strange and out of place to me, so out of proportion to the eliciting situation. I wondered what terrible things my ancestors did – such passion is so destructive, so lethal, I could easily imagine slaying any number of people with such feelings. But, above it all, the feeling that nobody is there – nobody to help, nobody to understand, I am all on my own, was the most terrible part of it.’

The feeling of total desperation, of complete helplessness, of being in the grip of something dark and sinister, is one of my most prominent experiences of the instinctual passion of malice at this point in time. I am referring to the ‘emotional black-hole’ type experiences where the instinct just overrides everything else and overpowers. On the other hand, I found that there is a point at which judgement, discernment, and intelligence is able to be used. For instance, I applied your ‘silly or sensible’ test to the feelings that I described above, and after awhile of letting the feelings run whole hog or the full gamut, decided that it was silly to be wallowing in it all and decided to break it off and get back to communicating with my partner and getting on with the business of living. Additionally, by frequently running the question ‘How am I experiencing the present moment of being alive’, I am able to identify the other instincts and derivatives of instincts in action. For instance, now if I am feeling anything, I am able, with some reflection on the matter, to identify what instinct is in operation. What is startling is how often I am feeling something about what is going on. When there are times I am not feeling , I believe it is a mini-PCE. At those times, perception is very clear, all is very calm and tranquil, and there is an incredible happiness, but not elation. I find that these periods don’t last very long before something, perhaps the car up ahead, pulls me out of it.

PETER: But generally what happens with a triggering event is that we get a first hit of feeling reinforced by feelings from the past which serves to create and affirm a very-real chemical-backed ‘me’ stretching out over a time period we fondly, or despairingly, call ‘my’ life.

To actively dredge up past memories does nothing but keep ‘me’ in existence as a psychological and psychic entity. They are best nipped in the bud as quickly as possible so that one can focus one’s attention and awareness on the main event – one’s happiness and harmlessness now.

GARY: Yes, they can be nipped in the bud. What I am wondering about is what runs afoul when they blindside you. The shift from being relatively calm (or at least I think I am) to being totally immersed in a storm of passions is so sudden. At least I have experienced it that way. Here is what I have come up with to explain this: there is some kind of triggering event, and feelings are present but one ignores them or suppresses them, so one is not investigating or examining them, then, before you know it, you have back-slided into a morass of feelings. When I looked at what happened to me the last time this occurred, it was clear to me that there was initially a feeling of anger but I reverted to my old tricks of denying the anger, telling myself that I shouldn’t be angry, and it went on from there.

PETER: I can attest to the fact that with the diminishing of ‘me’ as a credible entity, these emotional memories do indeed wither. An actual memory of people, things and events still exist, but they have no emotional component. Undeniably it was this flesh and blood body that was there, did those things, met those people, but it was someone else who suffered those hurts, who had those feelings, who felt lost, lonely and frightened. This is not in any way the formation of a new dissociate identity, or a denial of anything that happened in the past – it is simply that it as though all emotional content of my memory has been erased. It was not me, as-I am-now, who suffered and caused others to suffer. It was the Peter who started this process of ‘self’-immolation.

GARY: Yes Peter, I have had long periods where I thought that the emotional memories had withered away. But perhaps I am fooling myself because recently they seemed to come up awfully suddenly. It also seemed like the emotions were running riot without any clear connection to specific remembered events. I do not know if I am communicating this clearly. In other words, although there is some memory there of some things that happened, and there is a process of referring back to that while in the midst of this intense emotion, the memory seems to be becoming weaker – it is no longer a strong association in my mind. The emotion that I am experiencing, let me say anger, seems to be running wild without a strong associative anchor. I don’t know if this makes any sense – I am not even sure it makes sense to me. Does any of this make sense to you from your own experience?

Oh well, I’m tiring myself out again. Time for din-din. Feel much better lately. Beautiful day here, clear and crisp. Glad to be alive. 10.8.2000

RESPONDENT No. 9 (Gen. Corr): It seems that so much of human interactions is only about this: being stimulated into one feeling state or another and then reacting to that.

GARY: Yes, the primacy of feelings in human life is much evident from here.

I am seeing more and more the revered place that human emotion has in human social functioning. It is brought home to me in numerous situations that many people, and myself formerly, are run by their feelings. And it is all so needless. If one is trying constantly to maintain a comfortable feeling state, one is still run by feelings. Then one is not actually free.

RESPONDENT No. 9 (Gen. Corr): What I noticed during the PCE of an hour’s duration from a month or so ago, was the incredible absence of this dominance by feeling. The filter of feeling was peeled back, and everything was experienced so utterly directly.

GARY: Fantastic. It is indeed possible to live without feelings and emotions. And doing so is so much cleaner and clearer. Feelings are not sacred. They are not holy. And they are the cause of so much of the misery, violence, and mayhem that human beings have brought about on this earth. I had a very clear insight a couple of weeks ago on how people avoid the painful feelings and cling or grab for the so-called ‘positive’ feelings. But they are still feelings, and grabbing for the positive as a means of avoiding or placating the ‘negative’, invidious emotions is merely ‘switching seats on the Titanic’, as others have pointed out.

In a staff meeting at work, I watched the emotional reactions of others and myself. And a curious thing happened. For a time, it seemed that there were absolutely no feelings, no emotions, no ‘self’ on the scene.

VINEETO: The same process of investigation applies for other affective feelings. Unless you feel sorrow you cannot investigate it. Once you have sufficiently dug around in one particular feeling and know all there is to know, you don’t go down the same sad and dull alley again and again, just out of habit or fashion. The cunning entity of the ‘self’ will want to hang on to emotions and feelings even if they have been fully understood, because feeling and emotions is the very substance of the ‘self’. But with sufficient experience one has the choice to deliberately avoid the pitfalls, or, as Richard says, ‘nip the feeling in the bud’. But first, the feelings have to come ‘off the shelf’, be dusted off, be stripped of their moral and ethical taboos and rules and be thoroughly and experientially explored.

GARY: I was using the word ‘avoid’ in the sense of this ‘nipping the feeling in the bud’ that you and Richard are talking about, not so much in the sense of avoiding the Glory and Glitz of Enlightenment. I can see now that ‘nipping the feeling in the bud’ is nowhere near the same as suppressing a feeling. For instance, one can nip the feeling of anger in the bud by recognizing a situation as one in which anger has been habitually experienced or expressed. Given that one has experientially investigated into anger and aggression and understood how anger, in any and all forms, blocks the path to freedom, one has a definite choice as to what to do and experience in a given situation.

This is not at all the same thing that spiritual seekers do as in ‘turning the other cheek’ when angry or offended, which is really just a supercilious and hypocritical suppression of one’s feeling state. The actualist experientially investigates feelings and emotions as they come up, whereas the spiritualist is intent upon following spiritual or moral precepts as a way of controlling the wayward instincts. The actualist is concerned to bring about the always existing peace-on-earth in himself/herself and for others through eradication and extirpation of the rudimentary animal instincts with their corresponding sense of ‘being’, whereas the spiritualist merely substitutes ‘Being’ for ‘being’ in a self-aggrandizing grab for the Glory of Enlightenment. No wonder spiritual people remain so violent and arrogant. 2.10.2000

PETER: Well, my experience is that one doesn’t have to go deliberately looking to plumb the Stygian depths – let alone the Enthralling heights. Everyday life, everyday circumstances, everyday events and everyday interactions with others provide all the opportunities one needs to explore one’s social and instinctual programming in action.

GARY: I think we have touched on this point before. I think I may be looking for the chemical highs when ordinary life begins to look too dull and boring. But why does life look dull and boring at times? Just observing the creep of the feeling of boredom, an interesting emotion (?), into one’s life and routine provides plenty of opportunity for exploration. I think I may seek the chemical highs as a means of assuring myself that there actually is a ‘me’ there, because when things get too ordinary or comfortable ‘I’ am afraid there is no ‘me’ left. So, ‘I’ want the excitement of ‘plumbing the depths’, rather than settling for the more durable sensory pleasures and delights of everyday life which are always apparent: the scrumptious feel of the wind on my face on a late fall day, the hearty and pleasing smell of wood-smoke, the exquisite pleasures of a piping hot cup of coffee on a cold morn, etc. One becomes inured to the pathos and emotional turmoil of life and simply overlooks or misses all the simple satisfactions of a life freed from the emotional ups and downs. So this business of seeking to ‘plumb the depths’ has its’ drawbacks.

There is a time for that when the opportunity presents itself but there is also a time (any time actually) to savour the rewards of typical everyday life. One, I think, becomes more practiced in living life as a sensory experience rather than living life from an emotionally-charged, affective orientation. 5.11.2000

PETER: An extraordinary freedom comes when any memory recall begins to be free of ‘my’ psychological and psychic interpretations, when past memories become free of any emotional pains or colourings, whatsoever. This lack of emotional memories is a clear sign of ‘my’ demise, a practical example of the fact that ‘I’ have no past existence other than as psychological and psychic memories. It is experiential down to earth evidence that ‘I’ am an illusion – whose days are numbered.

GARY: I wonder if you could tell me a little more, personally, about what has happened as (you say) ‘past memories become free of any emotional pains or colourings, whatsoever’. There are certain things that have happened to ‘me’ that used to have a great deal of emotion attached to them. I feel in some respects that there has been a great withdrawal or elimination of emotion from some of these areas. I am a bit puzzled over whether this is a clear sign of ‘my’ demise or just a ‘natural process of healing’, as for instance with age or maturity. In other words, if ‘I’ have no past existence at all, then ‘I’ have no emotional memories whatsoever. ‘I’ am still very much in evidence, as evidenced by ‘my’ emotional reactions. No emotions = no reactions. What has happened to your past memories?

PETER: The feeling of being an outsider is common to everyone, for ‘who’ I think and feel I am is an alien entity, cut-off from the actual world that seems to be happening outside of ‘my’ body. Similarly other humans I meet are seen and regarded as separate and alien to ‘me’. ‘I’ am ever fearful, ever on-guard, ever isolated, and ever lonely. The only relief from these terrible feelings is to be found in the good feelings of being needed, being useful, belonging to a group, and producing, providing for, and nurturing offspring. In the ‘normal’ world, these worldly fulfilments are often insufficient for some and the search begins for the other socially acceptable alternative – indulging in the feeling of ‘inner’ fulfilment and contentment.

GARY: Yes. Then, given what you say, one could watch for evidence of seeking relief from frightened, lonely feelings by seeking immersion in the group or ‘stampeding’ back to the herd, the relatively safe and familiar world of everyday ‘reality’. I think I can see that happen sometimes in my own behaviour. But there have been other times recently when I have been intensely interested in my own dis-ease, these rather intense feelings of fear, or discomfiture, or loneliness that occasionally arise. It is a fascinating opportunity to observe the alien entity in action, to bring one’s full attention to bear on what is at the core of one’s sense of being , being a lonely, frightened, and resentful entity. There is something definitely taboo about going into this deeply. Yet tipping upon these feelings in oneself is an excellent opportunity to see the instincts in operation, to experience in oneself directly what is standing in the way of being happy and harmless. 27.11.2000

PETER: In my later years as a Rajneeshee I plunged head-on into expressive type therapies and found them lacking in substance. I was also shocked soon after to find myself overcome by anger one day and started to be aware that all of my spiritual colleagues suffered from similar slippages. Not only did these type of therapies lack substance but they simply did not work long term to alleviate anger or sorrow. There was a particular group who followed the ‘I am all right as I am’ path of ‘self’-love and these people had no qualms at all about expressing their anger at others, nor about being sad and spreading their sorrow to others.

GARY: One extremely useful and practical thing I have learned from actualism is how to put emotions in a bind: one can put them in a bind when they come up by neither expressing nor repressing them. Any emotion or passion, indeed any movement, can be brought to the full light of a sensuous awareness and looked at as-it-is. One need neither give vent to the emotion nor suppress nor repress. One can also instantly appraise the probable consequence of those actions were one to take them and at a glance determine for oneself what is happening in the moment. When one’s emotions are put in a bind this way, a curious thing happens: they literally dry up – run out of steam – run out of gas – crash and burn. Any particularly vexing emotion or problematic situation can be dealt with in this way. With repeated use of this technique, I have found myself becoming much less emotional. When emotions come up, I can keep my hands in my pockets, observe what is happening, and determine how to get back to being happy and harmless in the moment. When the emotion is experienced fully, the energy is dissipated and gradually exhausted. With each succeeding experience like this, something is happening in the emotional part, the primitive part of the brain (speculation here), something which, given time, persistence and repeated practice, spells doom to ‘me’. I am experiencing a thrill even as I write these words this morning, because this is something that is entirely new, unheard of before, so far as I can determine. It is exciting to be talking like this, experimenting with these things, trying them on for size.

PETER: I have few occasions to recall any events in the past unless I am twigged to recall an experience, as in writing to you for example. Then my memory of an event is of the matter of fact type without any emotional content such as embarrassment, guilt, shame, pride, anger or angst. You may have noticed that I often revert to posting something out of my journal when replying to you because it was written fresh after the initial tumultuous stages of demolishing my social and instinctual identity. I could not write my journal now, firstly because my recall would not be as accurate now as it was when I wrote it and secondly because I could not describe the experiences as the passionate tumultuous events they were.

GARY to Peter: At any time recently when I am going through some troublesome emotion (and I regard all emotions to be troublesome, although they may not seem like it at the moment), I find it helpful to repeatedly remember that what I am going through, while it seems truly awful, is not actual. The emotions, emanating as they do from the primitive animal instincts, are chemical changes occurring in the physical body. They are located and have their origin in the primitive mid-brain region. When an emotion kicks in, it has definite physical correlates as in, for instance, the surge of adrenalin in anger or fear. These emotional reactions and the physical changes that occur in the body seem real but they are not actual. One has certain emotional reactions and others, picking up the vibes due to the psychic web that connects all human beings, often respond with their own emotional reactions. All of this play of emotions is a chemical process taking place in a fervent imagination and it is not actual. Thus, reminding myself that it is not actual kind of pulls the rug out right from under the emotions, with the result that they can be examined and understood by a thorough-going process of investigation. One can step back and see one’s emotional life for what it is: a gross disabling condition that one is better without. 11.1.2001

PETER: Emotions have a curious quality in that they colour and distort not only what is happening now but they also colour and distort what has happened recently. If sadness overwhelms us it seems as though our whole life has been miserable, if anger arises it seems as though it has always been there. This was hard to discern in myself initially but it was obvious whenever I talked to Vineeto in one of our end-of-day chats.

GARY: Yes, I have noticed this too. These emotions, when one is in the throes of them, seem to suck everything into them. Since practicing actualism, I have noticed that my emotions seem to be much more intense when I experience them, but definitely more short-lived. I am able to get back to being happy and harmless much more quickly. I noticed this happening yesterday – I was aware of feeling worried, and morbidly preoccupied – gloomy in fact. A moment’s reflection revealed when the state had started, the associated thoughts, what it felt like, and what is was doing to me. I simply concluded that it was silly to be feeling that way and spoiling a beautiful day, and I found myself getting back to being happy in relatively short order. 20.2.2001

GARY: I wanted to respond to this passage from a post you wrote a while back. I’ve been taking my time in answering these posts, and I think that instead of trying to respond to each and every point, I shall respond to whatever occurs at the moment to be the most interesting point raised. Rather than getting bogged down in a log-jam of posts to be responded to (I count 3 at the current time), I will write when the urge strikes me, rather than feeling obligated to respond to everything that is said to me. You wrote before:

PETER: What I came to understand very early on in the process of actualism is that there is no more fruitful contribution that I can make to my fellow human beings than to bring an end to malice and sorrow in this flesh and blood body. ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is such an engaging activity that it eventually becomes a full-time activity, a complete life-obsession, if you like. There is ample opportunity to run the question in the normal interactions of everyday living and working without indulging in the ‘self’-sustaining and ‘self’-gratifying busy-ness of attempting to change others or save the world by fighting the latest fashionable evil that pops on the scene.

GARY: Central to many religious and spiritual belief systems, Christianity in particular, is the necessity of engaging in ‘good works’ and the performance of certain charitable and ‘humane’ acts in order to effect salvation from what is believed to be the misery of an earth-bound existence. Along with other values instilled in me in my upbringing was the unremitting belief in the importance of service to others and charity to those less fortunate. In the Human Condition, this belief is translated into action by the performance of various ‘do-good’ activities, whether they be in the professional realm, by making charitable contributions, or in the finding of some suitable ‘humanitarian’ interest. As you point out, these activities are ‘self’-gratifying and ‘self’-satisfying to the extreme.

When I first took on actualism, it seemed to be an extremely self-centred and very ‘uncharitable’ (is the only word I can think of) activity. It was difficult to square what you are saying, particularly in this passage here, with my deep-seated belief that one must do something to ease the suffering of others and contribute materially to building a better world. Hand in hand with this attitude was the resentment of whoever or whatever was the cause of the enormous suffering of humankind. At various times the impetus to serve and the impetus to destroy, oppose, do away with, held equal sway over my imagination. Not surprisingly, in younger years, I was attracted to radical politics of the left. Later I saw that these were merely a convenient way to camouflage my hatred and aggression, and that involvement in these activities only served to fan the flames of hatred within me. Then I swung to the other extreme: identifying with the lily-white beautiful sentiments, passions, and grand emotions of the spiritual life. I became obsessed with the feeling that I was channelling Divine Love and radiating it throughout the world. The fact that I was still prone to resentful outbursts and murderous thoughts/feelings did not concern me much because I was sure that the Son of God was redeeming me according to His plan.

So now, while practising actualism, when I am moved by a feeling of wanting to help others through some ‘socially responsible’ activity, that feeling comes under investigation like other feelings and passions that come up. I should say that there is nothing wrong with helping others – I enjoy helping people if I can, that is, if they are asking for help or needing help. But, efforts to ‘steer Humanity’ this way or that are motivated primarily by ideological convictions of the thinker/ feeler, whether they be religious belief, political belief, or ‘humanitarian’ motives. If one is moved by these convictions and beliefs, one is acting out an instinctual agenda: one is moved by suffering to apply humanitarian aid through compassionate relief efforts. Some people make a lifestyle out of being moved by the suffering of others, like the woman mentioned in Richard’s Journal who was moved to tears by the sufferings of Humanity.

In actualism, one can actually do something about ending suffering. One begins the fascinating business of investigating and eliminating the root cause of suffering and malice – the genetically endowed instinctual passions – through demolishing the accrued social identity one has build up through learning and conditioning. Then the fascination becomes an obsession when one sees that this method actually yields results – one is incrementally more benevolent, gay, and carefree. Through eliminating what causes suffering – in oneself, by eliminating ‘me’ – a momentum begins that may well carry one to the ultimate: self-immolation. So the understanding that there is no more fruitful contribution that I can make to my fellow human being than ending malice and sorrow in this flesh-and-blood-body is not an intellectual understanding – it is born of the very practical successes and discoveries that one is experiencing along the way by asking oneself again and again ‘How am I experiencing this present moment of being alive?’ 1.4.2001

VINEETO: I had long discussions with Peter and Richard and read and re-read about the method of Actual Freedom until I had to admit that I had fallen into the trap of attempting to live as a ‘reduced self’, as much as possible devoid of feelings, and that this was the reason why I was feeling so stuck.

GARY: I think there is no doubt but what I have been feeling is stuck in recent months. You may be pointing to a possible reason for my ‘stuckness’. I have a question at this point: Is living in the condition known as Virtual Freedom the same thing as being a ‘reduced self’, or is it different? What is behind my question is this: I can see where consciously striving to reduce one’s ‘self’ by the method of repressing or suppressing one’s emotions and feelings results in a condition of being a ‘stripped down self’, as Richard has put it. But then it seems that by continuous practicing of the method of actualism one is, in a sense, entering into a ‘self’ reduction plan, as one finds that one’s identity is getting rather threadbare, withering on the vine, so to speak, but yet not completely absent from the scene, as there are the inevitable ‘bleed-throughs’ of feelings. Do you see what I am getting at? If one is denying, controlling, suppressing, and repressing, that is not what we are talking about at all here. Because one is then still doing the controlling, whereas we are talking about eliminating the controller, the ‘me’ that is reining in the emotions. I think you are talking about this latter process of controlling or reining in the emotions through control, suppression, and selection.

VINEETO: When I examined this attitude a bit closer, I found it to be a remnant of my past spiritual teachings – despite my initial genuine investigations I had inadvertently transmogrified the method of actualism into the Buddhist-based teachings of transcending or sublimating my feelings instead of eliminating the ‘self’ that generates them. This ‘escape route’ will inevitably present itself as a ‘self’-preserving way of sweeping the remaining ‘self’ and its resultant emotions and feelings ‘under the carpet’ in order to remain ‘me’. At this point the challenge was to see myself coming closer and closer to the point that cleaning myself up was not the whole story – that I was in fact undeniably moving to a point of no return. In hindsight, I can say that attempting to be a rational, sensible but emotion-reduced ‘self’ via sublimated feelings was jamming my foot on the breaks in order ‘to stay in existence’.

GARY: OK. I think we have talked about this before. You have helped me through sharing your experiences of sitting in your feelings, neither denying, suppressing, or controlling, and intimately experiencing first-hand the passions, emotions, and feelings that constitute the ‘Human Folly’. I see that many times I am ‘attempting to be a rational, sensible but emotion-reduced ‘self’ via sublimated feelings’. I was always taught that one should not let one’s feelings get the upper hand, that one should always be rational and sensible. A lot of times I shy away from feelings and emotions. I am a very reserved person. So where I am left? I don’t particularly like to express my feelings. If one is actively always reining in their feelings, it tends to drain away the exuberance and enjoyment of life, doesn’t it? So is it a matter of experiencing one’s feelings, even the feelings that one is trying to suppress and control, along with all the socially-inculcated reasons for the control? Actual Freedom, as I understand it, is about totally eliminating the control, pulling the rip chord, so to speak. This is something I am afraid to do. 16.6.2001

GARY: Permit me to respond to the questions you posed in your recent post. You wrote:

RESPONDENT No. 30: I am a beginner to actual freedom reading, understanding and trying; May I ask a question, which is basically a clarification: when you say ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as the feeler in heart, does not the ‘me’ as the feeler still reside in the head? Is not ‘me’ as a feeler is just a special conditioning (the eastern, the soul etc.) of the ego who gives more credence to the feelings in the heart than the thoughts in the head?

GARY: Feelings, affect, and emotion definitely do not reside ‘in the head’, although there is admittedly a cognitive aspect to many feelings and emotions. Astute observation of and investigation into one’s feelings will reveal that feelings, in other words emotions, are definitely manifested through particular bodily sensations. In other words, they are felt in one’s body, not in one’s head. The expression ‘in the heart’ is a convenient shorthand way of referring to this very physical, corporeal experiencing of one’s emotional life. Another way to refer to it is one’s ‘gut feelings’. One’s guts are in their stomach, not in their head.

One of the things I have noticed whilst practicing actualism is that there is heightened awareness of not only the ‘heart-felt’ aspects of feelings and emotions, but also a much keener recognition of the many cognitive aspects to feelings. Quite often I notice particular thoughts arising in the mind which may be accompanied with particular bodily sensations (i.e. of unease, of tension, irritation, etc.) Through continued and diligent application of the method of unremitting attentiveness to one’s experiencing in each moment, one can ‘nip the feeling in the bud’, so to speak, thus avoiding and side-stepping a full-blown outpouring of the feeling or emotion. One becomes increasingly more and more adept at recognizing the various subtleties of one’s ‘inner’ emotional life, and how one’s emotions affect not only oneself but those about one.

RESPONDENT No. 30: My question is because as I can distinctly see an entity ‘I’, the ego in the head, fictitious or otherwise, I do not seen any distinct entity in the heart; the heart seems to be a place for feelings; and I see that a part of me, still the ego, trying to give exalted interpretations of this feeling (particularly a good feeling :) when felt without other thoughts.

GARY: I know there may be a hue and a cry raised from the cult-busters on this one, fresh charges of ‘clone’ and other nonsense, but permit me to say that one’s primitive animal instincts were well in place long before one developed the intellectual and cognitive ability to form thoughts and beliefs. Again, one’s feelings are in the heart (so to speak) not in the head. However, there are many cognitive manifestations and accompaniments to having an emotion. Say, one experiences anger. Naturally, one has thoughts about that anger, thoughts about the situation in which the anger arose, thoughts about dealing with and handling the anger, as one has variously learned certain methods of either anger-suppression, ‘control’, or expression (i.e. ‘assertiveness’). However, the anger is felt in the heart (or if you prefer, the body) as a corporeal experience, is it not?

I agree with you on your point that there is a part of ‘me’ that still gives exalted interpretations of a feeling, particularly a good feeling. This part has been conditioned too as you say by one’s particular religious and spiritual background, whether Eastern, Western, or somewhere in between. However, the ‘good feelings’ (i.e. compassion, love, exultation, gratitude, etc, etc) are none other than direct derivatives of one’s animal instincts (as nurture and desire). In other words, one finds that all of one’s feelings eventually trace back to or derive from the basic animal instincts, of which there are four: fear, aggression, nurture and desire. 19.8.2001

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Vineeto: ‘Watching’ is a spiritual term and means that you dis-associate yourself from these particular feelings (which spiritual people insist on calling thoughts).’ Vineeto, The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list, No 33

RESPONDENT No. 30: There seems to be some confusion about which is thought and which is feeling ... at least the above writing seems to recognize It ... that seems to be my problem.

GARY: I think perhaps Vineeto might be referring to a common misunderstanding among the devotees and followers of J. Krishnamurti, among whom I used to count myself.

Thought and thinking is given a tremendous amount of attention among the Krishnamurtiites but feelings and passions correspondingly little. Krishnamurtiites speak a lot about bringing thought to an end, little realizing that human beings are for the most part deeply emotional and instinctual beings.

That little commentary aside, if you are confused about the difference between thinking and feeling, I would suggest that you attend to what happens to you when you feel really angry and really annoyed. See if you can differentiate between which of the things that is happening to you can be put in the ‘thought’ category, and which of the internal happenings can be put in the ‘feeling’ category. Feelings are very visceral, very immediate, and very powerful. They consist of a movement, physically, emotionally, and they are happening in your body. For instance, what happens when you are angry?

Do you ever get angry? What does it feel like? Do you get sad? What does sad feel like?

GARY: Feelings, affect, and emotion definitely do not reside ‘in the head’, although there is admittedly a cognitive aspect to many feelings and emotions. Astute observation of and investigation into one’s feelings will reveal that feelings, in other words emotions, are definitely manifested through particular bodily sensations. In other words, they are felt in one’s body, not in one’s head. The expression ‘in the heart’ is a convenient shorthand way of referring to this very physical, corporeal experiencing of one’s emotional life. Another way to refer to it is one’s ‘gut feelings’. One’s guts are in their stomach, not in their head.

RESPONDENT No. 30: The term ‘feeler’ as me – does it denote an entity that feels or the feeling itself?

GARY: I think as we use the term on this mailing list, it is meant to denote the entity that feels, not the feeling itself.

RESPONDENT No. 30: By cognitive aspect, do you mean that the feeling is felt by the neo-cortex a split second later?

GARY: No. By cognitive aspect, I meant that one has certain thoughts or cognitions about one’s feelings. Cognitive-behavioural therapy can be useful in elaborating what the cognitive aspects of feeling and emotion are. For instance, when one is angry, one usually has certain ‘hot’ thoughts (i.e. ‘damned jerk’, ‘what an idiot’, etc). The feelings themselves are not felt by the neo-cortex – feelings are felt in the body as certain sensations, as movements taking place within the body, not in the brain. As I understand it, the neo-cortex is the brain centre of the higher executive functions of the brain – planning, reasoning, thinking, analysing, and processing of data take place there.

RESPONDENT No. 30: Feelings and emotions: do these words mean different things or they the same?

GARY: I think these terms are generally taken to mean the same thing. Except that sensation also involves feeling. For instance the sensation of being cold also involves certain feelings (a cold feeling in one’s hands, or a chill feeling in one’s body). So sensation can involve a conscious feeling or sense impression in the tactile sense. But as the terms are commonly used, feelings and emotions mean the same thing.

RESPONDENT No. 30: Also, the instinctual passions – is it the same as feelings?

GARY: I think of the primitive instinctual passions as being the root of the tree, whereas the feelings and emotions are more finely differentiated branches and leaves. I don’t know if it is correct to say that they are exactly the same. There are generally four basic human instincts – fear, aggression, nurture, and desire – as we talk about it on this list.

And these four basic instincts give rise to a great number of more finely differentiated feelings states. For instance, aggression gives rise to feelings of annoyance, irritation, abhorrence, dislike, antipathy, etc. The list of feeling-type words is quite long, but the core, underlying rudimentary emotional experience directly stems from the instincts. By utilizing attentiveness and sensuousness, one can become intimately attuned to one’s feelings and emotions, and when this happens, I have found that certain instincts and feelings arise willy-nilly, without apparent cause or trigger – they happen whether one wishes it or not. I think Peter has made this observation before. Also, one need not go back very far to understand what caused or was connected to the arising of a certain feeling or emotion.

RESPONDENT No. 30: Is amygdala the brain stem the producer (– not the feeler) of these ?

RESPONDENT No. 30: I am now able to see some of what you are pointing at. But I also see that there is a verbal movement along with the physical, emotional movement happening in the body; for instance when I am angry, there are thoughts that seem to originate in the head along with the anger; after my exposure with AF site and mailing list, because I wanted to trace these thoughts to the source, I have been also paying attention to what is going on in the body; so the focus seems to have shifted from cerebral experience, which was dominating to the affective (which probably was always there, but I wasn’t conscious or aware of it because of my focus on the thoughts); so as there is this movement of emotion as bodily effects, there also seem to be some thinking that seems to originate from the heart – a verbal movement; and there is this thinking from the head with images... whereas the thinking from the heart seems to be emotional not too much imagery is going on...

GARY: I think it is a bit confusing to say that there is ‘thinking from the heart’, but I think you are right on to say that there is a thinking aspect to emotion as well as a physical, emotional movement in the body. The latter part of emotion – the physical and corporeal part of emotional experience consists of chemical changes in the physiology of the body which often are mediated through the fight-or flight reaction: a primitive, instinctual, and raw emotional survival program that prepares the organism for either ‘flight’ – fleeing from the source of the danger, as in running away, withdrawing, or taking evasive action, or ‘fight’ – attacking the source of danger, taking aggressive action, either verbally or, more likely, physically. I don’t know if you have ever noticed what happens when the full-blown, adrenalin-fuelled, fight-or-flight reaction kicks in, but it is extremely powerful, and the interesting thing is that there is little thinking going on at the time. I seem to recall in younger days that my heart would start pounding, my knees would start shaking, the stomach would contract, the mouth and throat would suddenly get dry, as well as many other physical changes taking place, all with a minimum of thinking and thought going on. The emotional changes, emanating as they were from the reptilian part of the brain and mediated through the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, are raw emotions and as raw as they get. So, there is this raw, instinctual substrate of emotional experience, which emanates from the primitive sections of the brain, which takes place at lightning speed in the brain and is translated into action by the physical body, either preparing the body to take evasive action or attack the source of danger. Emotional experiences are rarely as raw and passionate as these, but I think one will find that all emotional experience is represented by certain physical, bodily changes taking place, as well as particular patterns of thought and thinking.

RESPONDENT No. 30: In other words, this is my question (which arose from experience) thinking: can it be described as a verbal, imaginary movement?

GARY: As I understand it, any kind of thought requires language and the acquisition of language. I may be wrong about this, but animals do not really think because they do not have a verbal capacity, or a capacity to manipulate symbols. Part of thinking is imagination, which is the capacity to visualize, imagine something. It seems to be a form of planning activity, which takes place in the mind. The dictionary definition of imagination is that it is the act or power of forming mental images of something, which is not actually present. Through the practice of attentiveness one can see how much of one’s thinking life is dominated by imagination, fantasy, projection, and speculation. It has been a fascinating experience separating fact from fiction and belief, and what is actual from what is desired and imagined.

RESPONDENT No. 30: Is there a specific part of the body (like mind’s eye or forehead) from which it originates or exercised?

GARY: As I understand it, it originates in the higher brain centres, specifically the neo-cortex and its’ frontal lobes, the most recent part of the brain to develop in human beings.

RESPONDENT No. 30: Or it can be exercised from the heart or the gut as well?

GARY: We are not talking in actualism about exorcising thought and thinking. Far from it. But we are talking about freeing intelligence from the raw, instinctual, survival program that all human beings are genetically endowed with. As I am my feelings and my feelings are me, when ‘I’ am extirpated, there is nothing to interfere with the direct sensorial enjoyment of living in perfect ease and peace 24/7. So we are not talking about exorcising intelligence, we are talking about unfettering and freeing intelligence from a primitive survival program that is producing the misery we daily see about us in the world of people and events. When one has a PCE, ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance, and one is free to have a direct, unmediated experience of the actual world of the senses, freed from the primitive, emotional survival program. 5.9.2001

GARY: I think as we use the term [feeler] on this mailing list, it is meant to denote the entity that feels, not the feeling itself.

RESPONDENT No. 30: Given that the feeling is felt in the body, is the entity that feels reside in the body, gut, or the heart OR the head? Can the feeling be felt without the feeler? Do you think the thinker and the feeler are distinct?

GARY: For the sake of consistency with what is written on this mailing list, I think it is fair to say that there is a thinking ‘I’ or ego in the head and a feeling soul located in the heart.

The thinker and the feeler are distinct in the sense that thinking is a cerebral activity and feeling is an affective or emotional activity. But if you want to get technical about it, there is enormous overlap, I think, between the activity of thinking and the activity of feeling. Certain thoughts are ‘hot’ in the sense that they have emotional connotations and there are emotional reactions connected to them. This is easy to observe in oneself and others. I think what we are calling both the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ are entities in the sense that they are intruders inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, and actual freedom eliminates these intrusive entities entirely. At least that is how I am understanding it. The animal instincts emanating from the reptilian brain form the rudimentary sense of self that all sentient beings are genetically endowed with. On top of this rudimentary sense of self is added a social identity through the so-called ‘civilizing’ influences of reward and punishment, carrot and stick. The function of the social identity is to control the wayward self, the rudimentary animal instincts located or mediated through the lower brain centres. So far, what I am saying probably reads like a primer on actual freedom, as it is similar to or identical with what is found elsewhere in the library section of the website or in Richard’s book. Others may correct me as they wish but I am simply repeating what I understand to be the case with both thinking and feeling. If others have an understanding or experience of the thinking and/or affective faculty that is markedly different, it would add immeasurably to the dialogue to put it in writing on the list.

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GARY: I think these terms are generally taken to mean the same thing. Except that sensation also involves feeling. For instance the sensation of being cold also involves certain feelings (a cold feeling in one’s hands, or a chill feeling in one’s body). So sensation can involve a conscious feeling or sense impression in the tactile sense. But as the terms are commonly used, feelings and emotions mean the same thing.

RESPONDENT No. 30: I think there is some inconsistency in the usage of these words; Vineeto mentions that though the dictionary doesn’t differentiate the sensation (particularly touch) from the feeling, one may have to differentiate it (or something like that); and finally, finally I seem to have figured out that the emotion seems to be definitely felt bodily (or should we say the ‘instinctual passion’ here?); the word feeling seems to apply for the emotion sometimes, and for the cognitive aspect of the emotion sometimes....

GARY: I don’t think one can put thought and feeling is distinct little packages entirely cut off from one another. Given the complexity of the human brain and nervous system and the fact that one’s emotions, emanating from mid-brain regions are also represented in the higher brain centres, thought and feeling are obviously overlapped in certain respects. But it is useful to make a distinction and it is a useful distinction, between what we are calling thought, feeling, and sensation. I would like to pose a question to you: Is there a type of thought and thinking that is entirely without any emotional investment or emotional involvement?

RESPONDENT No. 30: I am still trying to figure out (in addition to practising actualism) what mental elements can be called thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensation etc. so that I can use those words properly, understand what is written. The issue seems to be quite complex to me and though one can use these terms behaviourally (to describe behaviours, particularly for others), but to label what one sees in oneself with the right name (thought? sensation? feeling? emotion) seems to be difficult to me.

GARY: I don’t think I experience it to be so hard. I find the categorization of 3 modes of experiencing: 1.) sensorial, 2.) affective, and 3.) cerebral, to be helpful in looking at what is happening at any given time. Perhaps re-reading the information on the website about these modes of experiencing the world might help? In other words, one can have a purely sensorial experience, such as the sensations that come when one rubs one’s hand across a smooth piece of glass. The initial sensations that occur, before a mental representation or percept is formed, is the sensorial experience. The sheer delight of touching, tasting, feeling, hearing the world about one is a sensorial experience. In the Pure Consciousness Experience, the experience of pure sensuousness is heightened to the Nth degree, because the experience is devoid of the thinking/feeling entity inhabiting the flesh-and-blood body. It is possible, although difficult, to remember these experiences and then trigger them again and again. The question ‘How am I experiencing this present moment of being alive?’ focuses one’s awareness on the qualities of one’s experiencing of the present moment, so that one can ask themselves:

Am I primarily experiencing affective feelings? Am I experiencing the present moment cerebrally? Am I experiencing the delightful sensations that are available to me at any given time? In other words, what exactly is taking place? For instance, if one is experiencing a particular affective feeling, an emotion, the quality of the experience can be looked into and uncovered and one can ask oneself further questions designed to investigate that particular feeling or emotion.

RESPONDENT No. 30: In this light, these are my doubts:

GARY: I don’t know if it’s ‘right’, but it seems like a useful distinction.

RESPONDENT No. 30:

• to your question as to ‘thought and thinking that is entirely without any emotional investment’

1. There are thoughts that are ‘hot’ with unpleasantness or pleasantness (should I label them emotion backed?) but no apparent bodily involvement

GARY: I am reminded of Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy which speaks of the usefulness of outlining one’s ‘hot’ thoughts, such as when one is angry. In C-B therapy, attention is given to what one is thinking, in other words, the thoughts and beliefs that lie behind one’s emotional experiencing. However to say that there are ‘hot’ thoughts without any apparent bodily involvement does not accord with my experiencing of that sort of thing.

I almost always find that there are bodily accompaniments to any ‘hot’ thoughts that I have. The actualism method has helped me enormously to nip these affective experiences in the bud, so to speak, before they become full-blown emotional reactions.

Hence, I think it has enormous utility towards assisting one to become virtually happy and harmless.

RESPONDENT No. 30:

2. there are thoughts without these quality of any ‘heat’ (feeling?),

GARY: Yes, I think there are. One can read an intellectual treatise of some sort, for instance, and think deeply about the material on offer without having any particular emotions about what one is reading, can’t one?

RESPONDENT No. 30:

3. and there are these pure feelings of tension, fear, depression which are bodily.

GARY: I think what I have found with the demolishment of the social identity, these what you are calling ‘pure’ feelings of fear, tension, grief, etc. seem to arise more spontaneously.

But if I look into it more deeply at the time, I find that there are thoughts and beliefs operative any time that happens. But I think what is happening is that with the demolition job taking place through utilizing the actualism method, the underlying feelings and emotions are experienced more directly without the thoughts and beliefs to prop up the emotional experience, so to speak. I don’t know if that makes sense to you.

But then there is an enormous freedom that comes because one has accessed the more primitive instinctual passions that lying at the root of ‘me’ and one can experience more directly one’s instinctual heritage. I think it is the progressive and incremental bringing of these primitive instincts to the light of a clean awareness that eventually leads, inevitably and inexorably, to final extinction of ‘me’.

RESPONDENT No. 30: I am using the word thought for a mental process, probably it is appropriate to call it thought feeling or something else, I don’t know.

GARY: I don’t know if my responses are at all helpful but I have tried to convey my experiences with these things. Again, I don’t think you should get too hung-up about it all. Just enjoy the experience of being an intelligent, aware, reflective human being who is capable of experiencing all the delights that life and this present moment has to offer.

It’s really quite simple in many ways. Don’t get a case of ‘analysis paralysis’. 22.12.2001

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