Others ~ Selected Correspondence

‘I’  and ‘Being’

How does a body/brain even know of such an event?

Because the body/brain doesn’t not function when the affective identity is functioning.. Thought, cognitive memory, locomotion, etc, all that stuff that bodies and brains do.

I still don’t understand how the body/brain experiences or knows when the ‘affective identity’ is functioning or how the body/brain is effected by the ‘affective identity’ since the body/brain only experiences ‘actual’ things/events.

I don’t really know how that works I guess, or how to explain it. I can just report that in a PCE, I was fully cognizant of how previously ‘I’ (the passional instincts) had been running the show and simultaneously how the body/brain had been there all along, and how ‘I’ previously running the show hadn’t stop the body/brain from being there (and being cognizant), and how the body/brain being there and being cognizant hadn’t stopped ‘I’ from previously running the show. No 101 to No 107, 30.8.2006

The entity transforms the world into a world of objects that exist for its gratification; of course being cunning, it disguises this extreme selfishness in socially acceptable norms; grudgingly and hypocritically granting a deceptively limited freedom to its creations (the limitedness becomes manifest only when the conditions are not met and the gratification is violated).

To be a self is to be utterly selfish... it appears that: to never view another as an object but as a free person can happen only when the selfish center disappears. No 33, 12.7.2005

When I got a glimpse of how selfish I was... I felt very bad. I was in a state of conflict... I couldn’t accept what I saw... I couldn’t cease not to be... I didn’t know what to do...

Then I realized that the value that ‘selfishness’ is bad is causing the conflict. I tried to see the sense behind the value: what if I go ahead with being selfish viewing others as objects that exist for my self-gratification? Other than the ‘feeling’ that is doesn’t sound right, what is wrong with it? I see that the other if learns of my approach may not be very pleased with it... since I am not treating my fellow beings as peers and trying to exploit them. It will create power struggles. It is not conducive to peace. And since I don’t treat them as peers, I have no respect for them and will not care if it causes suffering in them as long as I get what I want. This leads to malice.

I learnt that I can thus step out of conflicting situations by not taking sides with ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but try to see sense... which is the third alternative. No 75 The Third Alternative, 20.5.2005

No 23 : Should such be proven either to be true or not I have participated in this forum for the sake of at least one of the mentioned aspects of ‘working with actual freedom’

Whereas claims are made to be extraordinary and hence presenting an extraordinary method like ie the phrase ‘How am I living my life this moment?’ <Which I’ve tested>

deep bow Namaste

‘how am I living this moment’ – This method, as it were, gives rise to interesting circumstances. First, and most obviously, who asks? The process is, being a particular moment, of which I hope to make an evaluation, and of which I remind myself to do so with the question; ‘how am I living this moment’? Then, in asking my self ‘how am I living this moment’, I am struck to enquire; who is asking? And then arises the following observation, if I am this physical body which is not separate from the question ‘how am I living this moment’ (the questions must needs be this physical body just as all aspects of what is called ‘me’, yes?) why do I need to ask? How can it be that the physical body as one moment is unaware, and then with out adding any-thing physical to itself, be a completely new entity, namely awareness of what it is?

Second, if in fact, I am this ‘physical body’, and this physical body is the question ‘‘how am I living this moment’, how can the question be answered? Is it possible for this physical body to be both the question ‘‘how am I living this moment’ and at the same time be the answering of the question?

In practicing the method ‘how am I living this moment’ it is found that the moment that I hope to be evaluating is obliterated by the moment I choose to be the question ‘how am I living this moment’. I cannot be the moment of which I wish to ask about, and at the same time be the moment that is the question ‘how am I living this moment’. Love

I’m not so sure why it all needs to be so bloody complicated and analytical as you have put it here. When you are at home or at work and someone suddenly calls your name, do you stop and do all this questioning or do you turn and face who is calling you? When I put this question ‘How am I experiencing this present moment of being alive?’ to myself, I am asking myself that question, and the inquiry regards my present experiencing of the moment.

It’s as simple as that. Since I am not dissociated or a multiple personality, I am certain that I am asking that question of myself and the answer I get is also going to come from myself and nobody else. I don’t think we have to delve too deeply into these things ... just my thoughts about the matter. Gary to No 22

The longer I am at this actualism thing, the more I realize just how much is involved. ‘I’ will do anything to survive. ‘I’ am constantly trying to keep myself in a job by passionately feeling and re-feeling, over and over again. Thus, ‘I’ am on duty 24/7. ‘I’ never give up. Only the most determined and assiduous questioning of oneself will reveal the passionate folly involved in trying to remain an instinctually-driven human being living in the Human Condition. Actualism involves the ever-fascinating business of investigating ‘me’ at depth. This is in marked contrast to the ways in which, in the past, I have tried various ‘self-improvement’ plans through various kinds of therapies and even by following scriptural injunctions and focusing on eliminating my ‘character defects’. Gary to Peter

The image (a belief?) is in constant denial of the deeply hidden material (sometimes not so deep! even the obvious stuff as below). For instance, I am sexually needy deep inside and the image I have of myself is that of a stoic person.

The sorrow topples the attention and takes you to its own world navigating the past and possibilities (true for any feeling?). I came up with this description of a particular feeling I felt (flight? fear?) I felt: it felt like a snail outside the shell, vulnerable, scary, weak.

What are the effects of these feelings? Fear causes one to not explore into new areas. Sorrow cripples one and consumes one’s energy which can be used otherwise. Not only these feelings don’t feel healthy, their effects are not healthy on myself and in my relationships with others.

The ‘stark reality’ is not the final stop. I keep getting back to a oft visited place in my psyche and despair that I am stuck there forever. No, it is not my final stop. Final stop is without the ‘me’. So I unstuck myself.

The ‘me’ knows instinctively that: work, relationship etc. need an attention away from ‘me’... so it detests it. It can give all that provided that it gets something in return. In toiling and emotional suffering, painful though it is, the ‘me’ is the center... so it prefers that to ‘me’-lessness. All that happens due to the absence of ‘me’, the ‘me’ is quick to claim the credit though it was nothing but a hindrance throughout. What a sucker.

It hurts when others don’t respond to you... (though it maybe because they are busy in other things). An un-replied mail, a wait in the chat window is so painful. The feeling says: you are being ignored. It is painful. The ‘me’ wants constant attention and it thrives on this. Any indication to the contrary, is painful.

Logical synthesis instead of experiential one is one of the sources of false wisdom. The blame is not really on the logic, but on the false logic. Finally we are talking about the objective reality and how can you infer that from logic? The more facts one uses and the less speculation the better. When the speculation is traded for verification or empirical evidence, a good place for falsity to enter.

The ‘me’ blocks the light of rationality so as to survive in the darkness. It needs problems to survive... it creates problems out of nothing and hopes to get credit for solving it. The fear of being caught/exposed disguises itself as morality! amazing. So can I say: morality has its underpinnings in fear?

Another disguise: I was feeling morally superior or that my approach of recognizing the good of others (seen where others are coming from, empathy, not dismissing due to values) which is not found in somebody – but underlying that desire to feel superior was a bitterness that I received – ‘he doesn’t understand me; he doesn’t give credit for my good points; he doesn’t respect my feelings’. So in a very subtle way I was trying to blame him for my suffering... very subtle indeed.

Two ideas for art work: the one I talked about with J two years ago: there is a glass well and there are people inside it. Actually there is a hierarchy – the surface is uneven. But there are some hills (local maximas) on which Enlightened beings are sitting and trying to grab others using a rope. Richard is outside the glass well and has found out a hole in the well. Should develop on it. It is going to grow with me of course for the next few years before I can perfect it. The other picture I have is: each person is enclosed in a glass capsule and they are swinging a long ribbon (there is a dance based on this colorful ribbon swinging) – but whatever they do they remain within the glass.

I experience these pre-defined states like guilt for which the Sinner Archetype is a close description (it is like Archie’s pre-designed cards to suit the occasion). The sinner doesn’t want help or salvation or freedom: he wants to wallow in his suffering and wants others to join this sufferance too (seeking compassion? not freedom). So he is really wishing ill for others. Is this the basis of the Christian thought of suffering? I am talking about the deep layers here not the superficial reasons (and rationalization) that are given for a certain thought/action/concept – the drive itself.

The real world is a make believe world. One covers of the underlying insanity with entertainment. The danger of being drawn into the insanity always exists – the stronger the ego and the social identity the less danger it is. But it is exactly the trip inside the insane inner that is required to be free of it – dangerous that it may be. It is worth the risk. And if one doesn’t lose sight of the facts, the facts of the past and present, it is not that dangerous really. The code has been cracked.

It is not an untrodden territory anymore. Untrodden by the individual self in the individual psyche... but the general map exists. No 75, 26.3.2005

‘I’ do not actually exist.

I’ve been in a bit of a slump recently in terms of writing about actualism. A couple of times I’ve attempted to write, but ‘I’ haven’t been satisfied with the results and have sent my meagre efforts to the Recycle Bin. But here goes anyway.

Your statement gets to the crux of the matter. ‘Who’ I think I am has absolutely no substance whatsoever. That ‘who’ is composed of ideas, memories, beliefs, emotions, passions, and instincts. That there is a unique (supposedly) individual named ‘Gary’, with ‘his’ own unique patterning of experiences in life, ‘his’ values, ‘his’ morals, ‘his’ possessions, ‘his’ childhood, etc, etc – this is an entirely illusory ‘me’ that exists in my mind and heart as an emotional/passionate being. On the other hand, to say or to realize that ‘I’ do not exist, in actuality, is to fly in the face of everything that one is taught to believe in life – what is more, it is pulling the rug out from under oneself so to speak and leaves one on very, very shaky ground. Everything familiar and intimate comes under examination. There is no such thing as an unexamined belief, assumption, or truism.

In a way, it seems incredible that ‘I’ do not exist, for I have been trained by countless other ‘me’s’ to believe in my existence. As a biological organism endowed with the genetically inherited animal instincts, I fight for my existence tenaciously or willingly sacrifice myself and go down in flames to some cause or other. The reality that there is a ‘me’ here can be proven very easily: I have found that being in the presence of another person is a splendid way to test the reality of the proposition that there is a ‘me’ there. For instance, getting on an elevator in a strange building, a stranger gets on the elevator with you, and it is just you and this ‘stranger’ present. If one examines one’s consciousness at these times, one may find the presence of very rudimentary fears, imaginings, fantasies, etc, that are the imprint of this ‘who I think I am’. While this experience is real, it does not exist in actuality. This points up the difference between the real and the actual. This is one of the hardest things to understand about actualism, in my opinion. ‘I’ do not exist in actuality, which is the same thing as saying:

‘I’ do not actually exist. You see, I have gone all around and come in through the back door.

Actualism is the study, the investigation of this ‘me’ who is standing in the way of experiencing a totally incomparable quality of life, second to none, which is freely available to all and sundry, once ‘I’ willingly self-immolate. Trouble is, ‘I’ will do just about anything to stay in existence. Like the proverbial Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, once I think I’ve got it under wraps, fresh new leaks of ‘me’ sprout up all over the place.

Well, enough said for now ... maybe more later. Gary to Alan

In actualism one starts of with the assumption (belief) that there is a me functioning, yet the very believing in its ‘realness’ might generate the necessity of getting rid of it (being the source of malice and sorrow).

It is a lot more than an ‘assumption’ that there is a self, a ‘me’ functioning. All human beings are genetically endowed with the primitive instincts, instincts which are largely overlooked by those who conceptualize of the self as being a thinking ‘me’ or observing and controlling ego operating in the head. ‘I’ exist both in the head and in the heart as passions, emotions, and feelings. ‘I’ literally cannot help being ‘who’ I am because the way has been prepared for ‘me’ by countless human and animal ancestors stretching back in the mists of time to the beginning of life on earth. All of this is genetically encoded in the DNA, of which we are finding out more and more each day. The animal instincts are genetically endowed in the human being, as they are in all other sentient creatures. On top of these primitive animal instincts, which form one’s rudimentary sense of self and being, are layered one’s social identity, of which the way is prepared for one prior to conception. Thus one is born into a family with a discreet sense of its own identity: ‘I am Swiss’ ‘I am Australian’ ‘My ancestors came over on the Mayflower’ etc.

It is not ‘believing in its ‘realness’’ that causes human misery and suffering, it is the very sense of being that humans are genetically endowed with, as expressed in the primary instincts – fear, aggression, nurture and desire. It is this that generates all the wars, abuse, suicides, etc, etc.

So using this me as a tool to get rid of itself (gradually eradicate, selfimmobilate) seems to be a rather futile, even somewhat silly activity from that perspective.

I don’t quite understand what you mean by this statement. It is not ‘me’ that gets rid of ‘me’, as ‘I’ am furiously invested in ‘my’ survival at any cost. What gets rid of ‘me’, it seems, is continually running the question ‘How am I...’, which leads to an obsession with investigating everything that stands in the way of one’s peace and happiness. Further it is experiencing at rock-bottom the animal instinctual passions, and dispelling all of the accrued beliefs, truths, and psittacisms that one has acquired in a lifetime of being a thinking and feeling being. Once one begins to dismantle the beliefs and truths that make up the social identity, things really start to get interesting because one runs smack dab against the instincts, or at least that is what I have found. Gary to No 23

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