Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Affective Feelings ~ Emotions and Passions

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:

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?’ Gary to Peter

Yes, there is a tremendously expansive sense of freedom when at first the bonds of instinct appear to be loosening and then one realizes that they are really disappearing from one’s life ... perhaps forever. I say ‘perhaps’ because, as you, I have not experienced anything like ‘self-immolation’. There is nothing ‘mystical’ about this process – it all seems incredibly straight forward, at least at this point.

This was the most helpful part of your post to me. I had not been aware of the full implications of that modifier ‘perhaps’. It indicates a holding-back and a fear of proceeding, I think. But I can honestly say that I could not go back even if I wanted – and I do not want to. Because these ‘bonds of instinct’, even though they have not been completely and totally eradicated, have been so weakened and the benefit is so tangible from this that there is no comparison to before.

I was reminded of this yesterday. We had a mass staff gathering for the purposes of having a corporate retreat to discuss work issues. To make a long story short, the powers that be made it perfectly clear that they expect and recommend an approach to problem solving that says ‘If I have a problem with you, I’m going to tell you about it’. I was reminded of the drab results that I personally had always gotten from this confrontative approach, and how many times it backfired and made things worse. I was, at the same time, reminded of Vineeto’s recent remarks on this approach to ‘letting it all hang out’. Not only has this interpersonal approach of confronting others not worked for me in the past but also it was always governed by the unspoken expectation that the other change their behaviour to suit me and my whims.

If I have a problem with someone else, first of all it is my responsibility to do something about it, not expect the other person to change. I think that approaching a co-worker and speaking to them about their behaviour is almost always motivated by irritation, annoyance, resentment, fear, etc., all emotional states that one can do something about to eliminate from their life, yet people never carry this work through to eliminate the source of the ‘problem’ with other people, and the reason why we cannot get along with others. Gary to Peter

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

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.

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. 

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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, List AF, No 33

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?

Personally, I have no difficulty getting into my feelings because, being a product of the 60’s and 70’s, I had plenty of therapy from different people most of whom were very concerned with helping me ‘get in touch with my feelings’. Actualism is much more than ‘getting in touch with feelings’. Actualism, as I understand it, is deep investigation of one’s emotional and passionate nature with the end aim being the total elimination of the ‘self’ with its’ instinctual and emotional underpinning.  Gary to No 33

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The amygdala as I understand it is part of the so-called reptilian brain that mediates and activates one’s instinctual passions. It has been explained as operating a quick-scan for danger and activating the instinctual passions and emotions when danger is detected. It happens much quicker than conscious recognition and representation by the cerebral cortex. This happens almost subliminally, without thought, planning or preparation. It is a down-and-dirty survival program that all sentient creatures are genetically endowed with. It is remarkably effective in promoting biological survival of the organism but at a dreadful cost. Gary to No 33

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.

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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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.

Yes. 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? Gary to No 33

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.

In other words, this is my question (which arose from experience) thinking: can it be described as a verbal, imaginary movement?

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.

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.

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. Gary to No 33

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.

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. Gary to Vineeto

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.

Hmm ... this is interesting. Something is happening and I’m not sure just what it is. I am fascinated by the finding that there are, in effect, two memory systems in the brain...one is a computer-like memory function, like a memory for details, that enables us to get through day-to-day type things and function effectively. The other is the emotional memory, no doubt lodged in or linked in some fashion with the reptilian brain. This is where memories of traumas are lodged, childhood hurts, etc. are lodged. It is primal, non-verbal, and largely unconscious. It’s memories are body experiences. These memories are triggered by various stimuli and one can find oneself in the grip of powerful emotions instantaneously, having strong emotional reactions with little provocation. Clearly these are instinctual reactions. This is an emotionally reactive memory, unlike the computer-like memory, which I believe is called explicit memory by the experts. With continued practice of the actualism method, the implicit, nonverbal memory appears to undergo a gradual process of atrophy (I am applying a word that describes the withering and wasting away of physical tissues – it may or may not be justified in this setting) or diminution. I sense that this process, which you describe very well, and I follow what you are saying, is taking place with me, very gradually. There are certain areas of memory which seem, this is strange, but I cannot really recall them fully any more – they almost seem like they happened to someone else. It seems like there is little or no emotion attached to these events, events the memory of which used to trigger extremely sorrowful or malicious reactions in me. Since this is a new thing, I am not really sure what is taking place, and I lack some confidence to speak of it. I don’t want it to be wishful thinking. I’m not sure if the change is genuine or not. There is an easy way to tell actually ... more on that later. 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. Gary to Peter

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.

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.

I was entirely removed from the web of feelings and emotions that glued the other people together, yet amazingly attentive and perceptive to what was going on. It was a strange, yet rewarding experience. Gary to No 18

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.

Perhaps this is what I was experiencing yesterday morn, the fear of engulfment, that this force, this primal energy will wash over me and be my undoing. It is an exciting time right now and I feel that I have come upon something of major importance. Gary to Peter

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Gary to Peter

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. Gary to Peter

I am going in to where I worked this afternoon for an ‘exit interview’ and I am keenly aware of not wanting to bad-mouth anyone and leave on the best terms possible.

I was feeling very hurt and resentful in the situation that occurred at work. Given that I was feeling resentful, in the heat of the moment, I maliciously said a couple of things to the supervisor to wound him. That was on Friday. I continued to feel resentful over the weekend and when the meeting on Monday (almost a week ago now) rolled around, I thought it quite possible that I would make a play to paint a horrible picture of this person to the person who was interviewing me (who was this person’s boss but who had also put in his notice to leave).

I see what you mean and in answer to you I can only say that it is possible that, feeling so resentful, I sought to grab for the positive feelings by ‘not bad-mouthing’ anyone.

While it is a possibility, I don’t think that is what really happened. I was acutely aware of how angry I was, and along with the anger was the fear of punishment (more on that later). What you are pointing out is quite astute and I got a lesson in this by Richard once when I was writing to the Krishnamurti Listening-L list. He quite accurately discerned that angry feelings don’t go away because you decide to ‘be nice’ and forgive another person. One thing which I noticed, and I think it has a lot to do with practising actualism as I have been in the past year, is that although the feelings and emotions I had were extremely intense, they seemed to dissipate in rather short-order, and I was able to get back to being happy. That does not mean that I have not had some ups and downs lately, but the lows are certainly not as low as they used to be and do not last nearly as long as they used to. I noticed this particularly when I rather quickly got over the anger that I had about the job incident and started to take positive action towards finding another job. I realize now that I was not happy in this job for quite a long while and that it was just not working out. Leaving the job has been a good thing for me and has given me a little ‘vacation’ in the bargain. Gary to No 13

Yes, I now think dreams are just random events representing nothing in particular. The content of dreams often concerns real life events, but is woven together willy-nilly with many other things that don’t make sense. I had been conditioned to think that there is some value in dreams in promoting self-understanding but I no longer waste my time trying to figure them out or make sense of them. I do think, however, that the emotional content of dreams often leaves a person in a particular emotional state either while dreaming or right after dreaming – for instance, I have awoken feeling terrified and the feeling has persisted for awhile, colouring what happens next during the day. I have also had dreams with a lot of sexual content that leave me in a state of sexual arousal when I wake up, unusual for me as I have inhibited sexual desire.

The day before yesterday I had a very excellent day – I would say a peak experience or a peak day. There were scarcely any cares or woes to muck up the scene. And the interesting thing is that I would say that night I slept much more restfully and fully, with hardly any dreams, that I can remember. It seems, conversely, that when I am tense, restless, or disturbed by something, that my sleep is much more disturbed. I suffer from insomnia, which is sometimes quite severe. So, there seems to be a correspondence between my state during the day and what happens at night. This hardly seems surprising but I thought I would comment on it. Gary to Richard

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. Gary to Peter

I was wondering about the part where you say ‘This is too serious a business to let down the guard too far’. Because I have found that ‘letting down the guard’ is precisely what is called for in order to investigate one’s identity. It seems that one’s morals, ethics, values, beliefs, etc. are the ‘guardian at the gate’ so to speak, holding down the base instinctual passions which are ‘me’. Investigating these passions is not possible unless one is willing to ‘get in there’ so to speak and experience a definite taste of the instinctual passions. It seems that keeping one’s guard up might prevent this very experiential examination of base instincts, which is why I wonder what you meant when you stated that this is too serious a business to let one’s guard down. I would re-state the case almost directly the opposite: that this is too serious a case to keep one’s guard up. Clearly, this is where it takes the nerves of steel.

I have considered before the use of the word ‘monitor’ in such contexts, and I think that it has similar connotations to the idea of guardedness. If one is monitoring themselves, then there is a ‘self’ that needs to be watched and guarded against. The strict dictionary meaning of ‘monitor’, as a verb, relevant here is (for you dictionary checkers out there):

1. to watch or check on (a person or thing) for some reason;
2. to check on or regulate the performance of (a machine, airplane, etc).

Webster’s New World Dictionary I recently located the following quotation about the difficulty of alternate meanings of words from ‘A Skeptical Manifesto’ by Michael Shermer, PhD:

‘It may seem rather pedantic to dig through the dictionary and pull out arcane word usages and histories. But it is constructive to know how a word was intended to be used and what it has come to mean. They are often not the same, and more often than not, they have multiple usages such that when two people communicate they are frequently talking at cross purposes. One person’s skepticism may be another’s credulity. And who does not think they are rational when it comes to their own beliefs and ideologies?’

I remember someone told me at work that they thought I ‘monitored’ myself well. I thought it a bit ironic at the time as I did not have the experience of holding myself in check that the word ‘monitor’ implies, although outwardly it may appear that way. This caused me to think about what monitoring oneself implies – I think it implies a kind of watchful guardedness. You might disagree with this, and that is OK, but this is what it means to me.

Within the Human Condition, the best one can ever do is to keep a check on oneself, lest one run amok due to unrestrained passions and instincts.

However, I think when one is practicing an alert attentiveness that something entirely different than this monitoring process is occurring. We have spoken before on this list about ‘nipping it in the bud’. I believe I have heard you use this expression as well. When I have nipped a feeling in the bud, so to speak, the feeling or emotion does not even get off the runway, to use an aeronautical analogy. If, for instance, anger arises in regard to some interaction I have had with another person, I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy.

Rather, one’s native intelligence can go to work investigating this feeling, if investigation is needed. The mere presence of the feeling means I have something to look into. If anger continues to cruise down the runway, so to speak, gathering a full head of steam, then I really have my work cut out for me. If not, then voila! ... there is nothing further that I need do.

I like how you described the intrusion of feelings and reactions as ‘yet another opportunity to eliminate them’. This is what is entirely new and radical about Actual Freedom. Short of self-immolation, all one can do is endlessly rehash the same old issues, and practice the same old failed strategies. Eliminating the source of humanity’s inability to live in peace and harmony down through the ages began for me when I abandoned all spiritual belief, superstitions, religious dogma, faith, hope, trust, and other feeling-fed mumbo-jumbo. Recently, when examining the present Iraq crisis in the world, I discovered another needless impediment to peace and harmony: holding opinions. When I examined where ‘I’ stood on the issue of a possible US attack on Iraq, I found myself vacillating between any number of opinions about the matter, including worn-out pacifist ideals, all of which were completely needless, as these opinions only serve to give one an anchor or a position from which to haggle and argue with others with differing opinions. I eventually ended up realizing the futility of feeling that it is necessary to hold a position or an opinion on these grave matters in the world of today, something that I have never quite experienced before in the past. What I am describing is not the same as sticking one’s head in the sand and avoiding looking at the deplorable state of humanity and what is happening in the world. It is not a form of escapism that I am talking about, but it is a process of separating out what is factually known from what is speculation, and what is firmly grounded in actuality from what is opinion and belief.

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This is a finer point of the Actualism method that bears further discussion ... something I have often contemplated: Is experiencing the instinctual passions the same thing as exercising them – giving them a work-out? For instance, if I enjoy reading a good novel, and I find that I am forming mental images and imagining ‘in my mind’s eye’ the things that the author is describing, obviously imaginary and fictitious, is this very imagining exercising, strengthening, reinforcing the imaginative faculty, or is the very act of alert attentiveness to the imaginative faculty whittling it, reducing and eliminating it?

I don’t think it is helpful nor consistent with HAIETMOBA to revel in instinctual passions, or indulge in flights of fantasy, or swoon and bask in grandiose passions. But it is important, on the other hand, to directly experience these passions, and it is this that requires one to burrow past the ‘guardian at the gate’ and sit in the feelings and passions for long enough to get a distinct taste of what they are all about.

Personally speaking, this is very daunting work. It is clearly not going to be possible for someone to do this if they are mentally unstable, have a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder, paralysed by fear and anxiety, or other mental difficulties. It could be downright hazardous to undertake this journey into the instinctual passions unless a person understands what they are getting into. This is one of the things that I think is invaluable about this list – the sharing of information here, the comparing of notes on experiences...this is all very important.

It would be interesting to hear from you more about the ‘worthwhile’ part. Like yourself, any emotional pain that I have had has never been more than I could take. Most of it has been related to atavistic fears of eliminating that which binds me to humanity, as well as fear of being an ‘outcast’. That I am an outcast is abundantly clear to me...not something to any longer regret, although regret it I did in the beginning of all this. Since I am no longer busily searching for meaning and a sense of ‘belonging’ in life, I no longer crave attention or seek to ‘affiliate’ with my fellow human beings.

Since I am no longer driven to seek comfort from or belong to the herd of fussing and fighting humanity, I am free to experience and sample the sensual delights of this actual world, and I can give as much free rein as I desire to my intellectual and rational capabilities.

I personally would not go so far as to say aging has few positive characteristics. But I tend to agree with you as to taking full, active advantage of experiences. However, I am not sure that this is due to aging per se but rather due to the active dismantling of the identity. Since there has been no time in my life when I was not aging, it is rather difficult to discern the effects of what this aging process is on about without engaging in a kind of comparison of the quality of one’s life before and after. I am now 52 years of age. And I can honestly say that I am not driven by ‘my’ impulses to the degree that I was even 5 or 10 years ago.

When I look back at my childhood years, I was on full automatic, with scarcely an evaluative or rational thought that entered my head. The crude biological survival program was ‘full-on’, and my behaviour was driven to the extreme. Since I have practiced Actualism, my drives, impulses, feelings, and passions have been all whittled down to an incredible degree resulting in an increasing sense of ease, comfort, and satisfaction with being here. It seems I could hardly ask for anything more. Gary to No 38

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