Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Self-immolation

In the same vein, the prime minister of the country where I live recently announced a new initiative to promote harmony within the 200 odd ethnic groups that live in this country and suggested as part of this initiative that people should ‘celebrate their differences’. It obviously never occurred to him, or those who wrote his speech, that it is precisely because people cling to their differences – their old cultural, social and ethnic conditioning – that there is ethnic conflict and disharmony in the first place. In the case of your observation, the idea that encouraging people to continually air their grievances towards each other can achieve peace and harmony in the workplace makes no sense at all.

It is much the same in the US, a multi-ethnic society as is Australia. There is the same ‘celebrate diversity’ theme trotted out again and again as a means of promoting ‘tolerance’ for others of a different stripe ethnically or racially. Yet only because there is disharmony, hatred, intolerance, greed, aggression, expansionism, etc is there this need to promulgate the antidotal tolerance, love, and compassion for others different.

Differences are a simple fact of life for biological creatures. Biologically, we seem to share much more in common as human beings than we have different. Social differences are also apparent, whether differences in customs, mores, ethical practices, etc. I think it is not so much differences that are the root cause of hatred, intolerance, warfare and strife but identity in any form. It is the instinctual passions that form the rudimentary sense of identity in sentient creatures that are the root cause of our inability to get along with each other and live in peace and harmony. Once the root cause of the problem is eliminated, along with it go any sense of being unique, different from others, as well as any need to defend worn-out ideals, beliefs, truisms, and political, social, or religious systems of thought. The actualist’s solution to conflict and disharmony is self-immolation – the elimination of all that stands in the way of living with other human beings in peace and harmony. It is the end of ‘me’. With the end of ‘me’, there is no need to be defensive or even on my guard against possible encroachments. Gone too is any sense of insult and every form of grievance. Because any kind of identity for human beings seems to be a breeding ground for resentment and grievance, I think.

Every ethnic, religious or racial group has had its own nasty tale of historical grievances – every group has had its own dreary history of being discriminated against. Even so-called ‘dominant’ groups in society today were once in a position to be discriminated against and discriminated against others in their turn.

There recently was a retrospective of the Roots program of the 1970s on TV. I remember watching this back in those days. There was the interest at that time for people, particularly Americans, to find out their ‘roots’, and there was a proliferation of the uncovering or the discovering of ‘who I am’ as one’s ethnic identity. In any event, I was struck while watching the program by the anger of the people they were interviewing as they talked about their reactions to the program. There was this universal feeling of rage and anger among people they interviewed, this abhorrence of slavery, the realization that they were themselves descended from slaves and that these horrors were perpetrated against their own ancestors. But I was particularly struck by the anger, and it seemed to me that it makes no sense to be angry about these things because if one is angry and holds a grievance, then sooner or later that feeling is going to be expressed, it must be expressed, in some sort of action against others. If one is angry, then one essentially feels that someone is to blame for these horrors. In my personal experience, anger must always have a target. It always comes out one way or another.

It seemed as I listened to the anger of these people on the program, many the descendants of slaves, that the same sense of outrage, grievance, and resentment was unleashing itself afresh on those who are held to be responsible. I realize that I am on a bit shaky ground here as the issue of race is an extremely complicated one and an extremely volatile one to discuss in a public forum. But in a sense I am not really talking about race, although the topic does touch on the issue of race, but I am talking about identity. One identifies as a black person, or a white person, or a person of Italian ancestry, Polish ancestry, or what have you. One identifies as a member of a ‘dominant’ group in society, or as an oppressed person, a minority. Actualism is about the demolishment of all kinds of identity, and it is this that people find so difficult to stomach, because people really cling to these identities, even to the death.

One need only open one’s eyes, look around the world at what is happening, to see the havoc that identity is causing. Gary to Peter

So, pat yourself on the back, for you are doing what you wanted to do after your PCE – finding out exactly how ‘you’ tick with the aim of eliminating ‘you’ who stands in the way of a pure consciousness operating in the flesh and blood body called Gary. The only way to find out how ‘you’ are programmed to think, feel, react and operate as a social and instinctual being is by becoming increasingly aware of your social and instinctual programming. You gave a good example of being aware of your reactions and feelings in the situation at work, which then gave you valuable insights into both your social and instinctual programming. This observing and being aware can be likened to shining a torch into a dark cupboard and the act of investigating and understanding can be likened to taking a dustpan and broom and cleaning out the cupboard.

I’m patting Peter. Just to explain what was going on: I was experiencing for several days (this is now, oh, about two weeks ago) a rather intense fear and dread the likes of which I have not had for quite some time. It all seemed to be centred around work and somehow tied into the supervisor incident. A couple of times I awoke in the morning with my mind racing, experiencing considerable anger and resentment (also related to the fear) and also a palpable sense of foreboding that something terrible was going to happen to me (loss of my job, loss of my relationship, insanity and being locked up were some of the specific fears I had). I was helped considerably by my reading, at the time, of the writings about fear on the Actual Freedom website and some of Richard’s correspondence.

I gradually began to piece together what was happening to me and to see what a radical step I had taken to begin to undo this social and instinctual programming. The fear diminished greatly in the course of one day and I had a PCE which lasted about 30 minutes which was a very beautiful experience. I was interested to experiment a little and see if I could go a little further with the experience, go a little deeper as it were, but no sooner did ‘I’ resolve to go further into it than I had the sense of wanting to back off of it and retreat back from it. So there is this back and forth process going on with me, on the one hand of wanting to go further towards self-immolation, and on the other hand of wanting to retreat back to the safe and familiar, well-worn, trodden paths of Humanity. It was a curious experience: the fleetingness of the PCE, how quickly it is gone, and ‘I’ return. As soon as ‘I’ thought ‘I’ was going to do something with the experience, it was gone. I am finding it helpful, as was pointed out in Richard’s writing on Fear, to see that ‘I’ am fear, that actually there is no separation between ‘me’ and fear, fear and ‘me’ are one and the same. Gary to Peter

The actualism writings have broadened in scope somewhat to now include the recent scientific discoveries about the instinctual passions and we have even presented these schematically to make the neurobiological processes even clearer. However there is no reason why the whole approach could not be slanted in terms of freeing oneself from the normal neurotic and psychotic conditions that result from being an instinctually-driven socially- subjugated ‘self’. This is, of course, what is meant by ‘self’-immolation and the resulting elimination of instinctual malice and sorrow.

I remember when I approached actualism Richards talk of ‘self-immolation’, extirpation, elimination, sacrificial offerings and such scared me out of my wits. It reminded me of the Nazi’s talk of the Final Solution and I would picture flaming bodies and torched cities.

Gradually, I came to understand what was being talked about and the words began to lose some of their emotional charge. In actualism, self-immolation occurs as an actual brain event in which something turns over in the base of the brain and the entire psyche, with its’ affective and imaginative faculty, is deleted. Not physically of course, the physiological structures still remain but perhaps the neuronal pathways are in some way obliterated. I am speculating here. Gary to Peter

I’d like to go back to a previous thread about sorrow – back on October 6, to be precise. The subject matter is sorrow. You had this to say, among other things, about the experience of sorrow –

There is a clearly a sacred and inviolate covenant that the common-to-all bond of sorrow and suffering is what ultimately unites the human species. Thus in order to break free of the human condition it is necessary to continuously and persistently ‘pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps’ so as to break free of the spiritual/social and automatic/instinctual predisposition to indulge in, and wallow in, the deep set feelings of bitter-sweet sorrow.

I’ve been doing one heck of a lot of ‘pulling’ lately, because just in the past day or two I’ve had an acute onset of sorrow, or rather I could say an eruption of those bitter-sweet feelings of grief, angst, sorrow, and disappointment, quite unbidden, and yet so, so familiar. Yesterday I felt almost paralysed by these feelings, they were so intense. Again, I am reminded that actualism is about examining and experiencing one’s feelings in the light of a sensuous awareness, not about suppressing or repressing one’s emotions.

I wonder if, as one is breaking free of the Human Condition, one is liable to experience fresh onslaughts of the ‘automatic/instinctual predisposition(s)’? I remember reading in Richard’s Journal the kind of scary, intensely abnormal and psychotic state that he experienced as he was on the verge of self-immolation, the description of which should be enough to deter any but the most serious of inquirers. I don’t want to suggest necessarily that that is what I am going through. But I have noted that the further and further I go my own way, depending on nobody, practicing attentiveness and sensuousness, and demolishing the social identities I have formed since birth, the more intensely do I seem to experience the raw survival program of the human species. So, last night, as I commenced to get a grip on my boot straps, a fascinated awareness reflected on ‘So this is human sorrow and suffering – this is the bitter-sweet feeling of sorrow, so deeply embedded, so ancient, so much a part of being a human being that it is in a sense my very life. It is what my life has been about, never very far around the corner, always lurking in the background, something I have tried to ameliorate through compassion and acts of pity and helpfulness, something I have tried to assuage by loving others and being loved, through being comforted and comforting in turn’.

I don’t want to ‘get over’ sorrow just to have it come back again. Is one in a sense subjecting oneself to these bouts of emotion? Am I on the wrong track? Are these ‘pity parties’ totally unnecessary or is there some intrinsic value to going through these experiences? What does one need to do to finally and irrevocably break free from these ‘automatic/instinctual predispositions’? I have a sense that your answer is going to be to get back to being happy and harmless just as soon as one can ... which would be a splendid answer ... but I’ll let you answer this yourself. Gary to Peter

The early stages of an actualist’s investigations into the human condition are marked by a curiosity as to exactly why the tried and true values and dreams of humanity fail, and this stage can be quite dramatic because what one is also doing is questioning all of one’s own values and dreams. By being more and more aware of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ one starts to see clearly that people in the real world are too involved in their own ‘self’-centred battle for survival to savour the delights of being here, doing nothing in particular. It also becomes apparent that the spiritually inclined have totally abandoned all thoughts of being here and have opted to withdraw ‘inside’ in to a fantasy world of their own creation.

As this investigation proceeds there comes a stage when it becomes so obvious that everyone has got it wrong, and always has got it wrong, that one begins to lose interest in, and emotional contact with, where one has come from and starts to more and more wonder and delight at the perfect peacefulness and peerless purity of this paradisiacal planet we humans live on. The habitual feelings of malice and sorrow together with their panaceas, love and compassion, eventually loose their tenacious grip in the face of a fascinated awareness of being here. As one’s awareness of this awareness becomes increasingly ‘self’-less, there is less experience of ‘me’ being aware, and more and more a bare and pure sensuous discernment of the universe happening at this very moment.

The pristine purity and perfection of the physical universe becomes more and more evident as one becomes increasingly ‘self’-less. The senses become remarkably alert and exquisitely sensitive. Each happening, even the most mundane things, are experienced for the delight that they are, without a sorrowful, resentful, anxious, or malicious ‘me’ occupying ‘my’ attention. The sheer delight of simply being alive at this moment in time seems to become more and more a steady feature of one’s present functioning. Given that there has been no final, momentous elimination of the instinctual self as far as ‘self-immolation’ occurring, there is still plenty of ‘me’ around to mess up the experience of this perfection, whether through feelings of boredom, anxiety and angst, or resentment. These ‘self’-centred, affective experiences are increasingly experienced as something potentially instructive and fascinating to look into, as their continued rigorous investigation and scrutiny is what eventually eliminates ‘me’ in my entirety. This is much more than a hope or a belief that this is going to happen. It is a certainty and an assurance built upon the simple fact that the method works to eliminate the blind instincts that every human being seems to be clinging to.

In hindsight, this stage represents a point of no return on the path to freedom as the emotional ties that bind you to humanity – the feelings of malice and sorrow together with their antidotal feelings of love and compassion – are so weakened as to be ineffectual. I once experienced these ties as long tentacles stretching way into the distance behind me – tentacles that stopped me from being free. I also realized that if these tentacles were broken then ‘I’ would be no more. And not only would ‘I’ cease to exist – but even more shocking – nobody would miss ‘me’.

Nobody would grieve ‘my’ passing, for no one really can know ‘me’ because ‘I’ am non-physical and non-substantive. They may think and feel they know ‘me’, as ‘I’ think and feel ‘I’ know other ‘me’s’, but because ‘I’ have no substance in actuality, then it would be impossible for others to even notice ‘my’ demise. If these emotional ties or tentacles were to be broken, ‘my’ final demise would be a very private and solitary experience – followed by oblivion.

What became apparent from this experience was that if these tentacles no longer existed I, this flesh and blood body, would be irrevocably alone in the world. While a feeling of fear arose, there was also an acknowledgement of the fact that I have always been alone in the world in terms of being autonomous and free. Because of my numerous pure consciousness experiences combined with a substantial period of living virtually ‘self’-less, I knew that after ‘my’ demise what I am, this flesh and blood body, would continue on doing what I have always done ... get up in the morning, have breakfast, do whatever I do in the day, and go to bed at night.

Since this experience these tentacles have become even weaker, as is evidenced by an almost total disappearance of the normal emotional ties that bind ‘me’ to the other ‘me’s’ and the lack of any emotional memories that give substance to a ‘me’ having a past or a future.

But the experience did remind me of the fact that ‘I’ have to die, as in experience death, if these bonds are to be completely broken ... and that these bonds have to be completely broken if ‘I’ am to die.

I wonder sometimes if the affective, painful emotions that I have eluded to from time to time, for instance, bouts of ‘self’-pity and sorrow, or bouts of resentment, are the death throes of the instinctual ‘self’, ‘me’ raging in all ‘my’ glory, desiring to continue, craving to live, and that ‘I’, on some level, sense my demise and make a desperate grab for attention and succourance. Since ‘I’ am entirely illusory, all these emotions and feelings that arise from the instinctual part of the brain are similarly illusory (although they are experienced as real enough), and ‘I’ only think and feel in ‘my’ bosom that this death of ‘me’ is going to be a painful passage. The awareness that the emotional ties or tentacles that you referred to that bind me to humanity are being weakened and demolished has occasionally filled me with an existential dread. I have found myself wondering if this dread, as it seems to be a by-product of the method, is in some way a sure sign that one is utilizing the method to maximal effect? Perhaps, though, the only real thing that shows that the method is working is one’s own quotient of happiness and harmlessness – is one’s stock on the rise, so to speak? Is one increasingly happy and harmless in all one’s affairs?

Since ‘I’ crave immortality, ‘I’ can only regard ‘my’ death with the utmost horror, as I cling passionately to survival at all costs. Perhaps that is why death has almost universally been regarded as a tragedy (?)

I sometimes find my mind lingering on the thought of death with something like abhorrence or dread, so there must still be an instinctual self, a core ‘self’ dreading the experience and passionately clinging to life. As I have to die, as you say in ‘experience death’, does one go then through the entire range of affective experiences related to death? Is it in other words, although not an actual physical death, a death nevertheless of that which wishes to live forever? This is the ‘main event’ (death) before one’s time is up, isn’t it?

Just a couple of questions that occurred. Gary to Peter

No 16: I’m not clear as to how one eliminates the instincts after one has become intimate with them and then has a 100% commitment. Does this happen on its own or is there something that I need to do?

Richard: It happens on its own in that, as ‘I’ am the instinctual passions and the instinctual passions are ‘me’, there is no way that ‘I’ can end ‘me’. What ‘I’ do is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button – which is to acquiesce – which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. The acquiescing is that one thus dedicates oneself to being here as the universe’s experience of itself now ... it is the unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result of such devotion because it is already here ... it is always here now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of the always already existing perfect purity from becoming apparent by sitting back and moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all (as epitomized in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’). How can one be forever sticking one’s toe in and testing out the waters and yet expect to be able to look at oneself in the mirror each morning with dignity. The act of initiating this ‘process’ – acquiescence – is to embrace death.

At this point I am curious about what you mean by ‘embracing death’.

Krishnamurti talks about a lot about dying to self, dying to your thoughts, your name, etc. It sounds pretty much like a comprehensive dying to everything. But this is not what most of us are doing – quite the opposite, we are cultivating a continuity, craving a permanency. I have found that when I experiment with this death, embrace death as you say, there is a profound disorientation that sets in followed by an exhilarating feeling of freedom. Now, this is not an actual physical death that you are talking about, is it? Elsewhere you talk about one’s demise, one’s self-immolation. So could you say more about what it means to you to embrace death?

In the context where one unreservedly says !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body I am referring to physical death. If it were not for physical death one could not be happy ... let alone harmless.

So, from what you are saying here, I take it that embracing death and embracing life are part, perhaps I should not say ‘part’, but rather they are the same. It seems there is no difference. If one embraces death, I mean accepts it totally, not on a superficial level, but realizes the impermanence of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, then one is free to live totally in the present.

By refusing to accept the fact of death, the inevitable end of ‘me’, by positing notions of eternal life, reincarnation, etc. one is simply postponing living life fully in the now, one is actually resisting life, clinging to the ‘me’ and one’s survival as a biological or spiritual entity. It actually does not matter – one has a notion of oneself as actually continuing in the future, whether through the Christian notion of the resurrection of the physical body at the Final Judgement, or an imagined continuance of a spiritual entity through reincarnation, etc. When one is concerned about one’s survival as a biological or spiritual entity, harm arises as one is clinging to life not surrendering to the inevitable demise of ‘me’. And you are saying the demise of ‘me’ (from your perspective) is an accomplished fact?

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Krishnamurti talks about a lot about dying to self, dying to your thoughts, your name, etc. It sounds pretty much like a comprehensive dying to everything. But this is not what most of us are doing – quite the opposite, we are cultivating a continuity, craving a permanency. I have found that when I experiment with this death, embrace death as you say, there is a profound disorientation that sets in followed by an exhilarating feeling of freedom. Now, this is not an actual physical death that you are talking about, is it? Elsewhere you talk about one’s demise, one’s self-immolation. So could you say more about what it means to you to embrace death?

Death is a fact to be embraced while alive or it will never be known. To not ‘be’ is inconceivable; it is impossible to imagine not ‘being’ because all one has ever known is ‘being’. What does it mean to not ‘be’? One has always been busy with ‘being’ ... being ‘me’ as ‘being’ itself. What is it to not exist?

It is indeed incomprehensible.

There seems to be a general consensus among human beings that death is a mystery that one cannot penetrate, and that the ‘Mystery of Life’ will be revealed only after death. There, they say, lies Peace and Ultimate Fulfilment. It all appears to be an exercise in futility to think about what is entailed in death (which is the end of ‘being’) ... and it is. The end of ‘being’, at physical death, can only ever be a speculation; it has to be experienced to know it. Just like one cannot know the taste of something until one eats it ... so too is it with death as the end of ‘being’. Yet to wait for death will be leaving it too late to find out what it is to not ‘be’ ... as death is oblivion of consciousness there will be no awareness of not ‘being’. The question is: can one experience the end of ‘being’ before this body dies and therefore penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’, in full awareness, and find ultimate fulfilment ... here on earth?

And that’s quite a question. Should one ‘self-immolate’ and extinguish the ‘me’, is there consciousness of being? I would think not – then there would be no ‘me’ and hence no consciousness of myself as separate observer.

What I did was embrace mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not an opposite ... there is simply birth and death happening as matter arranges and rearranges itself as the infinitude of this material universe. Life is what happens in between each arrangement and rearrangement as animate matter, and as sensate animate matter. Before I was born, I was not here. Now that I am alive, I am here. After death I will not be here ... just like before birth. Where is the problem? The problem was in the brain-stem, of course. It is the instinct to survive at any cost that was the problem ... backed up by the full gamut of the emotions born out of the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. The rudimentary animal ‘self’, transformed into an identity in the human animal, must be extinguished in order for one to be here, in this actual world of the senses, bereft of this identity. Extinction releases one into actuality ... as this flesh and blood body only one is living in the paradisiacal garden that this verdant planet earth is. We are all simply floating in the infinitude of this perfect and pure universe ... coming from nowhere and having nowhere to go to we find ourselves here at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. I am this very material universe experiencing its own infinitude as a sensate and reflective human.

One is reluctant to let go of the basic instinctual passions as they seem, at least in their less violent manifestations, to be the source of earthly and fleshly pleasures, for instance, the pleasure of sex, the pleasure of a good meal ... the sense of power and competency one derives through keeping the physical body fit through exercise, etc..

I’m having a hard time drawing the line, so to speak. Your words imply a strong position of no-compromise, extinction of basic instinctual passions, period. Am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

When ‘I’ self-immolate in ‘my’ entirety the separative entity’s isolation disappears too – along with all craving, all desire for a spiritual continuity, a mystic permanency – and an actual intimacy emerges that beggars comparison. This is because a person’s isolation is formed by the essence of their ‘being’... and ‘being’ itself is the root-cause of all the ills of humankind. One has ‘been’ in the past, one is ‘being’ in the present, and one will ‘be’ in the future. That ‘being’ is what one calls ‘me’, taking it to be me as-I-am. ‘I’ was, ‘I’ am, ‘I’ will be ... this feeling of continuity, an instinctual entity called ‘me’ existing over time, is not me as-I-am. I do not exist over time; I exist only as this moment exists, and now has no duration here. Therefore I am never alone for there is no ‘being’ to be separate ... let alone to crave a continuity, a permanency. One is always here and it is already now ... there can be nothing more permanent, more perpetual a continuity, than this very place here in infinite space at this very moment in eternal time. What ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul was searching for in the ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’ dimension was already always here in time and space as form ... for there is nothing else than this actual world. And this actual world is an ambrosial paradise.

So, it is futile to search for the timeless, the spaceless, the formless. This search is an illusion, as our happiness is here, right now, not in some imagined afterlife. There is something about your words which have a strong ring of truth to me right now, at this time. Perhaps it is a wish to find that ‘ambrosial paradise’ you talk of, I don’t know.

I seriously doubt that I have ‘self-immolated’ and, I must say, I doubt that you have either. I think others have raised these doubts as well. In some respects, to extinguish the in-born, genetically programmed survival responses of the organism to danger seems insane and incredible. Yet, I see what you are saying about harm arising from these same instinctual passions. I am having a hard time reconciling these things. Can you comment? Gary to Richard

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