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Others ~ Selected Correspondence Malice
If Richard is living this experience 24 h/day, well, he lives on another planet altogether. … another universe... called ‘actual world’ :). I was thinking about the ‘real world’ yesterday... looks like there are a lot of entry points (feelings and instincts) to it but hardly an exit... it appears to me that the ‘real world’ is not contained in ‘actual world’ because then the outside of ‘real world’ will be actual world... I think ‘real world’ is totally a different dimension (albeit imaginary fuelled by instincts, emotions and beliefs) emulating ‘actual world’ in the sense that it has no outside too... So I said – I refuse to enter the ‘real world’ (I don’t know what kind of world I am in now :) ) since ‘exit’ is difficult/impossible. I would say that this was ‘nipping the feelings in the bud’ realizing where it leads me to. And what happens? No more wasting of time in the variations of same ol’ same ol’. I have actually started progressing... pure contemplation is not at an arm’s length now. Life has become excellent... less of sorrow and malice (I should admit, still I get them in some new forms, malice particularly, and it is not clear till I get out of the fangs of it; for instance I felt an urge to shoot No 53-like mails to the list and thanks to no express/no suppress mode and put in the bind technique of actualism, I have finally de-toxicated myself of it :) ). No 75 to No 32, 12.5.2005
It appears that if there is a desire to harm others, it can go out of hand and result in retaliation from others causing unhappiness. so it needs to be controlled by inner mechanisms like guilt. so it appears that malice will lead to unhappiness. or in other words, malice and total happiness cannot coexist. * I think one of the reason ‘I’ write or even exist is due to sheer malice! let me explain: the ‘loneliness’ or some sorrow I was trying to figure out went away once I saw the active malice in the psyche (in the form of pleasure in other’s suffering). so I guess there is some connection to this drive and malice. ‘I’ think it is crucial to acknowledge ‘my’ malice - not just ‘righteous’/justifiable stuff (which is social programming I guess) but the underlying raw animal malice (aggression?) which is a feeling like an animal impelled by a pleasure in hurting others. No 33, 20.7.2005
As I open my eyes to what is really going on in my personal relationships, I’m finding that most of what we call love (or empathy, compassion, etc.) is not designed to actually help or give pleasure to us, but rather generate pain that we can share. Why do we do that? Why do humans gossip? Why revel in others’ pain? I wonder if this a mechanism we use to trigger production of adrenaline, or some other chemical reaction, in order to derive some sort of pleasure. Hmmm. All of the affective feelings, as has been oft noted on this list, trigger the production of a veritable cornucopia of chemicals that result in various emotional states, some aversive and some pleasurable. It is a readily observable fact that one can derive pleasure from malicious actions. I see this happen on a regular basis with the children I serve in my profession. Being cruel, being mean and nasty can be enormous fun. Humans delight in the suffering of their fellow humans, as history has shown again and again. Why else would people dance in the street to see the WTC come tumbling down? As to why we do that, I think the answer is that it is a primitive survival program, which is entirely self-centred, designed to promote survival of the species at any cost. It is a hanger-on from our primordial past, a crude yet effective instinctual survival programming, which is concerned with ‘Kill, or be killed’. Yet now the way is open to delete this instinctual programming as so much useless software thereby enabling one’s intelligence to operate fully for the first time in one’s life. It is this that this list is concerned with. Gary to No 38
…what I wrote was a joke. Jokes does not exist in actual freedom? Yes, except that one no longer laughs at the expense of another; meaning that laughter is not fueled by anybodies hurts and pains. The malicious part of me, which I still have, did find your joke funny…and I did giggle when I read it, but not because of your remark but because of the situation. The patience Vineeto has with you and how she takes in consideration everything that you write to her, despite the fact that you don’t, makes me feel really silly. We are not so different Dimitris, I would have probably kept doing the very same thing you are were I still emotionally involved with Krishnamurti and his words. And exist such thing as ‘sexist’ in actual freedom? Would you like to find out? If no, then means that everybody reached out of his condition. This condition must end <as I understand it> for someone to enter to actual freedom. So this reaction and the comments to my joke were a step backwards. I appreciate your ‘opinion’ but if you knew a little bit more about Actualism then I would take your advice further into consideration and apply it. Or do you think I will be better off applying what you have to offer me now? Was no aware ness in the moment of the reaction. Yes there was. Read what I wrote above when I said I saw the malicious part of me in action again, why it didn’t take root and what finally made me chuckle. So this can only lead me to assume that there ‘was no awareness in the moment of’ your reaction. It was identification with Vineeto. We have to protect what is ours, that belongs to the same group we belong. No, I tried this long ago and look at what happened (except that instead of writing ‘No 12’ I wrote the name of someone who I was trying to denigrate because of what I had perceived as his malice towards Vineeto):
Ha! Try bonding with an Actualist …you’ll be better off trying to make a flea copulate with an elephant or convincing yourself that Krishnamurti was just another person afflicted by the human condition. Is like nationalism. In fact was one ‘ism’ ‘sexism’. I don’t think that actuality excludes the humour. I don’t think so. I have been struck by others’ nationalism many times before, being considered Mexican/American, the Mexicans would call me ‘gringo’ while the Americans would call me ‘white wet bag’. Is this the kind of humour you endorse? To be honest I don’t see any progress to people involving with actual freedom. So I see…if you did that would imply change, and you don’t want to change, do you? This might be not actuals freedom fought, but might due that the student do not study enough. Might, may, could…guess you’ll never know. Unless you try, of course… I say that because I see the self popping up to defend what it is identified to, very easily. I think you are looking at yourself then. No 47 to No 55
One of the most striking things to happen to me since I started practising Actualism is the diminishment of emotional connections to other human beings. <snip> You are right; ‘the ‘need’ to affiliate’ is a sticky business. I remember clearly when I saw Peter for the first time not as an affiliate of any kind but as a separate-from-me fellow human being. In an instant of clear perception, all ‘my’ sticky psychic tentacles that automatically reach out both to objects and to people around me had fallen away. From this particular insight I gained an understanding about what usually happens in interaction with others. I began to see, and unravel, the connections that ‘I’ spun with others, the deals ‘I’ struck, the bargains ‘I’ committed to and the mutual obligations ‘I’ engaged in during my daily interactions with people, particularly those I considered ‘my friends’. A great deal of what happens in day-to-day life consists of instinctual behaviour, which stems from the more primitive areas of the brain. The longer I have been at Actualism, the more pervasive the primitive survival program of the human species, located in the mid-brain regions, appears to be. This holds true I think for all kinds of emotional connections with others, whether they be mutual obligations, hierarchical types of interactions with others such as dominant and subservient behaviour, ingratiating, cow-towing, gossiping, worshipping, etc. – the list goes on and on ... all these types of social behaviour have their root in ‘my’ need to survive as an instinctual entity, find a suitable mate to disseminate my seed, fight off rivals, etc. Perhaps I am too reductionist in seeing the hand of the instincts in all these myriad forms of behaviour and feelings. I have questioned whether I was getting tunnel vision in that respect. However, be that as it may, in Actualism one applies attentiveness as a discipline to one’s own inner world – the world of the feelings, passions, and calentures – and by extension, with the Human Condition as it exists in each and every human being currently alive. And the conventional wisdom, endlessly repeated ad nauseam, is that human beings ‘need’ one another – that ‘no man is an island’ – and other such sentiments. To begin to unravel the ‘sticky business’ of one’s affiliation and social needs is to undertake a hazardous enterprise – hazardous chiefly because it spells the beginning of the end of ‘me’, as I am largely a social creature -raised from my inception to have a place in a social hierarchy, be a member of a particular racial, ethnic, and tribal identity, have ‘my’ loves and hates, ‘my’ attractions and repulsions, all of which serve to fix me in a particular niche in society, make me useful to that society as well as expendable. However, in my own ‘self’-investigations perhaps most revealing of all, once I began to unravel my emotional connections with others, was the seemingly bottomless malice and contempt that I discovered buried under layers of appropriate social conduct. This instinctual malice presented itself irregardless of whom I was with and I could well appreciate, given the depth and force of this instinct, the so-called ‘crimes of passion’ that occur when people go ballistic, run amok, and kill or maim their lovers or close, intimate associates, not to speak their own children. The thing about Actualism that differs radically from other approaches, spiritual included, is that one gets a first-hand, up front, down and dirty taste of the inveterate malice at the heart of my existence as an instinctual entity, as well as really doing something about it in a hands-on way. Gary to Vineeto
Seeing my identity in action in a similar way to you can fuel my intent, can it not? If I see clearly what is getting in the way of living in peace and harmony, in other words the ‘downside’ to affective feelings, then would that not tend to spur my intent to be free from those very things that get in the way? The comparison between a pure consciousness experience and my every day living experience certainly spurs me on. Seeing and understanding, over and over, the ‘downside’ to affective feelings’, as you say, does indeed weaken the magnetism of being ‘me’. However, I think that you need to have the firm intent to live in genuine peace, whatever the price, in order to be motivated to question and explore your identity and find out ‘what is getting in the way of living in peace and harmony’. Then the potent combination of sincerity, naiveté and wonder will tip the balance towards making ‘the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent’, as Richard said to No 37. Firm intent, ‘whatever the price’, is what it takes. It’s a bit like getting out the door to go to work after a long holiday weekend. The bootstraps come into play here. It is important again and again to realize that this is one’s only moment of being alive and this is the only place, right here, right now. Seeing similarities between your social/instinctual identity and others certainly gives you confidence as to the accuracy and veracity of your investigations, but what spurred me on was success in becoming more happy and, even more importantly, more harmless. Experiencing that the actualism process demonstrably works over a substantial period of time and in all down-to-earth conditions then incrementally turns confidence into surety. Another pleasing development has occurred to me along the way ... the core of ‘self’ hatred that always seethed and writhed within ‘me’ has virtually dried up. With the diminishment of the social identity, the constant ‘self’-flagellation and ‘self’-punishment has virtually gone away. This is a most striking development in itself. Gary to Vineeto
Unless this instinctual animal heritage is acknowledged, recognized, and investigated and finally eliminated, what passes for peace on earth between human beings can only ever be maintained at the point of a gun- with police, army, and a strong justice system. It is not, as is commonly believed, the social, political or economic environment that makes people aggressive but it is our inherent animal-instinctual aggressive nature that can, when push comes to shove, explode at any time. <snip> This seems to be the crux of the matter. It is a futile exercise to blame social conditions for violence, but it is also an extremely commonplace understanding. For instance I was recently reading a book entitled ‘Fist-Stick-Knife-Gun’ by a man who grew up in the South Bronx, a blighted inner-city ghetto area in New York. His life experience was marked by interpersonal violence from a young age, but he was able to go to college and turned his life in adulthood to helping the young people in these areas as a counsellor. But here again I found that he made the common mistake of blaming violence in the ghetto on the social conditions – as abysmal as they may be. It simply didn’t wash for me, because I know only too well that one can be living in the lap of luxury and still be extremely violent. It is not that I am totally discounting hunger and poverty as being among the causes of violence, but violence has far, far deeper roots that go all the way into our rudimentary animal instincts. One has to start where one is and free oneself from the grip of this primitive survival programming. While the particular form that violence takes is ultimately shaped and determined by the social environment, the propensity for violence, fuelled as it is by the rudimentary instinct of aggression common to all human beings, is to a large extent genetically determined. I feel it is basically incorrect to say that violence is learned, as this South Bronx-bred author does state unequivocally. One need only look at the world-wide incidence of violence to see something much deeper and more resistant to change at work. While there may be one or two isolated, extremely rare cases of tribes way off in the jungle somewhere who are essentially peaceful (come to think of it, I can’t think of a one), human violence and warfare has a world-wide incidence endemic to the human species. Terrorism is nothing new. Anger is nothing new. To blame the terrorism on ‘Muslim anger’ over the treatment of the Palestinians by the US-backed Israelis is akin to blaming the depredations of the Nazis’ to ‘German anger’ over the indignities of the Versailles treaty. It only makes sense whilst one is busily harbouring malice and sorrow oneself. Gary to Vineeto
My next topic is a general observation about malice. Many people who get angry at others do manage to control their anger at the time – i.e. they do not get verbally or physically abusive – but then they most often take their bottled-up anger out on other people later. As an example, I would often notice a moodiness and irritability in someone at work, only to discover later that he had a disagreement with his wife the previous night. Even if anger is not directly expressed toward others, there is a definite resentful or irritated mood that is passed on to others unfortunate victims – a sort of seeping out of pent-up emotions that are crippling for both the person suffering from anger and for those he or she comes in contact with. A similar scenario happens if someone is feeling sad or depressed – these feelings are always spread out on to others in a unending cycle of mutual suffering. This continuous leaking of emotions is why it is vital to become virtually free of malice and sorrow as soon as possible – for even to become virtually harmless is an extraordinary freeing experience and a significant benefit for those we come in contact with. Yes, I have noticed that there is always a ‘get-even’ component to anger. I have noticed myself letting comments slip at a later time that are the evidence that I felt angry about an eliciting event even though at the time I thought I had not felt angry. As I usually repress anger, this seems to make sense because I am sometimes not very aware of actually feeling angry. Then there are the many shadings of anger, such as irritation, peevishness, annoyance, etc. I agree with what you say about the ‘continuous leaking of emotions’ – they do tend to come out sideways when they are on board, and it usually doesn’t matter who is on the receiving end. To put an end to this is the greatest service that one can do for one’s fellow man and fellow woman. It is of far greater value than doing one’s bit in acts of charity or ‘random kindness’, which is just one’s sorrow and malice in disguise. Then there are those times that I still go off on full automatic – that happened yesterday and I was aghast at my angry reaction to my partner – I remorsefully apologized, but at the same time was thinking that it is all part of the cycle – the anger, the guilt, the apologies, etc. I must have really been missing the boat for this to have happened, and I know I have a lot of work to do. There’s no sense in berating myself for this ‘slip’ – it happens from time to time. I was thinking that there is really no difference between the anger that is expressed in yelling in the house, and the anger that pulled the trigger at Babi Yar, the anger that dropped the bomb from the Enola Gay on Hiroshima, etc, etc. * Every PCE has a slightly different flavour and is revealing in different ways, depending on the situation and the circumstances. All PCEs are exemplified by a sensuous sensate-rich 360 degrees awareness of this astounding universe and a total absence of any persona – either a neurotic ‘I’ or an impassioned ‘me’. However, each PCE can bring different realizations as you become more comfortable in the experience and more note-full of the differences between these pure ‘self’-less experiences and one’s normal ‘self’-centred chaotic existence. As such, each and every PCE is a fresh opportunity to glean even more information about these differences by direct experience and when the PCE passes, it is this information that often provides the issue that next needs to be worked on. I don’t know if it is a PCE, but I have certainly been feeling very, very happy lately. Yesterday I had a dentist’s appointment. I was sitting in the chair, just grinning and beaming at the dentist when he walked in and he asked me, rather glumly I thought, ‘What are you laughing about?’ I responded mirthfully that I was just feeling happy and, after all, there was no law against that that I was aware of. He then warmed up a bit. It may not be a PCE but it certainly is an excellence experience, this mirth, gaiety, cheerfulness, friendliness, etc. The complete absence of malice at those moments. Gary to Peter
While many of the professions are founded on a solid belief in compassion and concern for others, individuals within these institutions, like you, won’t change their ways overnight without readiness. Perhaps a new work-site will facilitate an improved Gary of renewed vigour? Yes, that is already happening. Were it not for the greed, corruption, avarice, rapacity, and dishonesty of human beings, there would be no need for these professions, would there? I don’t think it matters if ‘one cannot get away from maliciousness’ ... and ‘until one self-immolates, one is going to be malicious oneself’... if one is still capable of personal best. The ‘same maliciousness’ may prevail in the new job but one need not be a part and parcel of the maliciousness. I have become happier and more harmless with practice, methinks. I must admit to more than a little difficulty with the phrase ‘personal best’. Perhaps what you mean when you use the phrase is not what I associate to the phrase. What I associate to the phrase ‘personal best’ is the ideals that we were talking about. In ordinary usage, ‘personal best’ seems to refer to the ideal state or condition for which we strive, whether it be happy or harmless or anything else. Speaking personally, my ‘personal best’ has never been good enough. My ‘personal best’ is what inclines me to maliciousness, methinks. Perhaps we could explore this a little more. The phrase ‘personal best’ grates for some reason. Gary to No 13 Web page designed by The Actual Freedom Trust |
