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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 23
Readers Digest actual freedom process Hi Peter and fellow list members. This is a cut of (Re: No 23 Re: Beliefs vs. facts Pt. 3) What you (Peter) wrote sometime ago along with the suggestion to try out the method for some six months and then report my experience with it.
As one may notice the header reads Readers Digest AF process. Although this title is written tongue in cheek it is seriously meant to be what it states; a readers digest. I quite liked your header – it indicates that you are reporting what you have thus far digested from reading and thinking about actualism. A while ago I was on (k-listening) of which the title is suggesting to honour and respect a good and sensible aspect of communication namely the art of listening. Unfortunately one had turned the art of listening, into the art of trying to understand ‘hear’ what the other was saying rather then listening to one’s own ever so subtle reactions to written words. As Gary introduced the term inner critic it suddenly became clear that what generally was happening on that list was ‘projecting’ ones own inner critic on that what was being written. And that the whole process of ‘interaction’ on that list and probably many other the like, was a desperate seeking to find acknowledgement of or justification for holding ones ‘gained’ spiritual values. A few years before I came across actualism, I had a revealing glimpse of the full extent of how human beings are taught and adopt a set of values, morals and ethics and then claim them as ‘my’ viewpoint, truth, fact or whatever. I was listening to my son talking one day when it suddenly dawned on me that he was sprouting as a truth something that I had believed some years earlier. It was shocking to then realize that all of the things I believed to be truths were picked up and imbibed in exactly the same way – by believing what parents and peers had told me was right, wrong, good, bad or ‘the truth’. I saw that these beliefs were what made up my son’s social identity and I knew that my own social identity was as nebulous, as fickle and as tenacious as my sons. Because of the way human beings acquire their social identity, it is no wonder that they desperately seek acknowledgement and justification from like-minded people to validate their morals, ethics, beliefs and truths and so vehemently defend them should they feel their beliefs are being attacked. As you may well be beginning to realize – the only way out of the need to continually prop up and defend one’s beliefs is to stop being a believer and start demolishing your social identity. And the way to do this is to have the fortitude to actively whittle away at all of those beliefs you have, through no fault of your own, taken on board to be inviolable truths. The AF list is significantly different. After having been for many years a convinced K-follower I finally have come to the conclusion that in evaluating his teachings there are 2 possibilities for me to categorize him. A man that was spiritual to his bootstraps (hence a spiritual teacher). A seeker at the virge of actualism, yet not recognized as such or made invisible to be so because of the spiritual cloaking his audience wanted/needed to perceive him in. >^note^ As for the actualist part I’m not saying that he had discovered actual freedom as described by Richard, yet I assume that apart from his spiritual experiences, he may have had glimpses of the actual world which unfortunately he failed to remain in, because he desperately clung to his own believe that there could not be any method designed for bringing about that experience as ongoing, hence his clinging to the statement ‘Truth is a land to which not any path can lead’ and the like his followers are, he remained stuck in ‘the observer is the observed’ thus subtly yet cleverly hiding the I as a spiritual identity, hence never to come to even consider the eradication of identity in toto, which indeed means getting down to business and start digging. If you go by what he said and wrote and how he behaved, J. Krishnamurti is clearly in category 1. If however you choose to deny what he said and wrote and how he behaved and opt to believe he is in category 2, as in ‘yet I assume that apart from his spiritual experiences, he may have had glimpses of the actual world’, then that’s up to you, but it is something entirely of your own imagining. ^note^ Diligently and intently applying the sequence ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ revealed that a method indeed is available. Yet I found it necessary to alter the method a little bit for the purpose of eliminating an aspect of this sequence which I found bearing a seed capable of breeding confusion, namely the part ‘this moment’ I’ll explain why. Personally, I find the term ‘this moment’ to be totally unambiguous and perfectly clear. The aim of the actualism method is to focus an actualist’s awareness on how he or she is experiencing this very moment – not last year, last week, an hour ago, a minute ago, in an hour, tomorrow or next year. Only this moment is actually happening and, as such, only this moment can be actually experienced. You can have emotional and/or cognitive memories of what happened in the past and you can have emotional and/or cognitive fantasies about what may happen in the future, but the only moment you can actually experience sensately is this very moment. The whole point of actualism is not to waste this moment, the only moment you can experience being alive, by being angry, frustrated, sad, bored or such let alone by wallowing in memories of the past or fantasizing about the future. It may have been overlooked by Richard that ‘this moment’ could be interpreted in terms of a time. Hence a willing experimenter (like myself) was to waste needlessly a considerate amount of energy into fruitless attempts to capture ‘this moment’ rather then focussing on ‘experiencing’ which is by now as I understand the quintessence of the method. I’m almost certain that this is not what he (R) meant to happen (correct me if this is an incorrect assumption). If you are interested in this business of being alive – in how you are experiencing this moment of being alive – then any time or energy involved in any aspect of the actualism process is never a needless waste of energy. Obviously wallowing in the past is a needless waste and fantasizing about the future is a needless waste but focussing your awareness on how you are experiencing this moment, the only moment you can actually experience being alive, is never a waste of time ... and can never be a waste of time. Yet through my wrestling with the part ‘this moment’ I came to find out that it is vital to understand the self construed and limiting concept of time. Hence my proposal for a change in this sequence reading now: [How am I experiencing this movement of being alive?] or [How am I experiencing this situation of being alive?] In making this alteration the difficulties in understanding the illusionary nature of time imo are lessened. As one inquires into the kind of concept of time one uses, one can determine for oneself whether one applies this concept in a sensible or silly way. Might I suggest you rephrase your last sentence to read –
After all, it is you who is proposing altering the method to suit yourself. As it occurred to me that the application of this concept is an important and vital ingredient of my social identity, prior to becoming able to diligently applying the AF method I first needed to ask: How do I experience time? Once I had unravelled this concept there was a tremendous relieve of pressure yet a keen understanding unfolded as to the urgency of applying the AF method as suggested, if I ever was to observe any significance change in the way I am experiencing my aliveness, being instinctual and barbarous at the very core. Because of the fact that once this concept had been gained clarity about, neither no longer I got trapped in expecting results overtime and taking AF to be a gaol to reach somewhere in the near or distant future, nor did I found any excuse to wait until tomorrow because right now I’m to busy and I don’t have time. Thus the method can and needs to be applied immediately meaning here; right where I happen to be. If I understand you correctly, your use of the word ‘immediately’ is akin to the use of the words ‘this moment’. If this is the case, I fail to understand your objections to the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and your continuous attempts to alter it over the time you have been on this list. As for ‘no longer I got trapped in expecting results overtime and taking AF to be a gaol to reach somewhere in the near or distant future’ – if you are practicing actualism with the pure intent to become happy and harmless then results will come over time, and if an actual freedom from the human condition is your goal in life it will happen in the near or distant future depending on the amount of effort ‘you’ put into it. So now my pure intent can be measured not by how long I’m going to apply the method but by the number of repetitions this question is needed to be asked to become as effortlessly as breathing in and out, meanwhile steadily uncovering the process of how identity is generated as described in AF as me the EGO or I the SOUL. And yet the only time asking the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ can be of any use is this very moment. You ask the question, and equally importantly, you come up with a sincere answer. After a while the deliberate practice of asking the question can become more of a habit and then it doesn’t have to be asked in words. You will find that in the very midst of some conversation or situation or event you will find yourself becoming aware as to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. Also for I while I found myself trapped in questioning: who is asking this? Yet this does not happen anymore, because it is now patently clear the one who questions is the questioner and that’s me the experiencer. In the interests of keeping the matter simple, I stuck with the fact that ‘I’ was conducting an investigation into how ‘I’ ticked. And the only way to do this is clearly for ‘me’ to practice self-observation. As the question clearly asks for an ‘answer’ as to HOW this me is being experienced, its purpose is to collect data as to the ingredients the experience is made of. So ... it is only sensible to inquire into the QUALITY that this experience has, iow the shape it has taken as or is being recognized as experience. In the interests of keeping the matter simple, as in sensible, rather than collect data as to ‘the ingredients’, ‘quality’ or ‘‘shape’ of your experience’, why not put a simple label on your experience – such as I am feeling good, I am worried, I am feeling annoyed, or whatever is the appropriate label. To let the question backfire to: ‘who is asking (Advaita shuffle)’ is in fact a silly response to it because one shoots oneself in the foot so to say in not allowing the question to be used as a tool to achieve the purpose it has been designed for. Which is where pure intent comes in because unless you have an aim to be happy and harmless the whole effort of asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ has no practical purpose whatsoever. Without a practical purpose, any action of self-observation can only be directionless and meaningless and, as history shows, all sorts of imaginary states can result and all sorts of deluded personas can emerge. In accurate evaluation of this ‘experiencing’ by answering the question sincerely, I find I (the experiencer) to be consisting of and or containing recognizable ingredients i.e. reoccurring movements like depression, anger, or it’s derivates of that like irritation, yet also pleasure, satisfaction and so on, so I can see for myself that I have not achieved the aimed purpose of becoming harmless in the first place, hence my achieved level of happiness is less then perfect happiness, which observation in turn motivates me in perpetuating my inquiry to the very end of self-immolation, yet not getting discouraged about my lack of perfection with regard to the difference of the aimed quality of harmlessness and the actual degree of ‘my achieved harmlessness’. Also the pitfall to call altered states of consciousness or self-deluded states like ie. Enlightenment ‘the real thing’ is avoided. Your use of the words ‘reoccurring movements’ to describe a feeling such as irritation and deeper emotions such as anger and depression does strike me as very similar to the spiritual admonition to close your eyes and watch your thoughts and feelings go by as if they were clouds in the sky. The spiritual admonition also includes neither to label these thoughts and feelings, nor to identify with them in any way. It’s a clever way of creating ‘a watcher’ identity, a real ‘me’, who then disassociates from the illusionary ‘me’, the creator of these clouds in a spaceless and timeless sky. In the interests of keeping the matter simple, I deliberately avoided creating another identity, such as ‘I (the experiencer)’, and stuck with the fact that ‘I’ was conducting an investigation into how ‘I’ ticked. And the only way to do this is clearly for ‘me’ to practice self-observation. As I attentively am monitoring myself by using the method and carefully yet persistently diligently inquire into my most dearly held ‘spiritual’ feelings, these feelings I find one by one to become exposed for what they are in this ongoing process of discovery. Given your intent to question your spiritual feelings, I take it then that you may well revisit your categorizations of J. Krishnamurti and ask yourself why ‘I assume that apart from his spiritual experiences, he may have had glimpses of the actual world’. After all, this thread did start with you quoting from a post where I said ‘It is impossible to become an actualist whilst remaining a spiritualist.’ So to make it perfectly clear as far as I am concerned in suggesting the alteration of moment into [movement/situation], I neither question the validity of the method, nor do I criticize it or nitpick on it. And yet it is clear that you want to change it, whatever the reason may be. Also not do I suggest to abandon a sensible use of the concept of time for practical purpose. To have a concept of time is neither sensible, nor does it serve any practical purpose. By suggesting this alteration I merely question the transparency of the expression as it were offered in: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’, in an attempt to facilitate the process for any future newcomers on this list and/or those who may have second thoughts about as to wether this method can work, and can be of benefice to a ‘diligent applicant of the AF-method.’ Calling myself the latter hereby I state: [the method works for me.] You neglected to say which method works for you – the actualism method of down-to-earth self-observation or your own personal derivation of observing ‘I (the experiencer)’ observing the ‘occurring movements’ in this ‘movement’ or ‘situation of being alive’. As I said, ‘It is impossible to become an actualist whilst remaining a spiritualist’ and you may well find that your alterations to the actualism method have made it safely spiritual. So thank you Peter, for your encouragement to make this 180 degree turn into a new direction. Yep, if turning around and deliberately heading off in the opposite direction that everybody else is going was an easy business, there would already be peace on earth between human beings by now. To be a pioneer in this business of ridding yourself of malice and sorrow is a challenge that makes climbing Mt. Everest seem like a walk in the park. That is both the challenge and the thrill of being an actualist.
In a recent conversation you (Peter) suggested to substitute I for ‘one’ in the sentence: As one inquires into the kind of concept of time one uses, one can determine for oneself whether one applies this concept in a sensible or silly way. As indeed I found the statement sounding, like having traces of fundamentalism I find it sensible to rephrase it. I hasten to say that in a way I still find ‘one’ an interesting expression, as it gives a sentence the touch flavour of old traditional sort of gentlemen style, yet it sounds rather distant from personal experience, so ... I come to: In my experience this concept of time appeared to be one of the main ingredients from which my social identity was being generated. BTW, I find it, Peter, kind of surprising that, you don’t find time considered to be a concept.
And yet I didn’t say that I ‘don’t find time considered to be a concept’. Human ‘beings’ have a psychological and psychic persona who thinks and feels it exists over time and therefore time is experienced as a psychological and psychic concept. Hence ‘I’ have emotional memories of ‘me’ existing in the past and imaginary fantasies of ‘me’ existing in the future. Whereas, in fact, the only time that can be experienced as an actuality is this very moment. This is not to deny that past moments did not exist or that there will be future moments to then experience but the only moment that you can actually – i.e. sensately – experience is this very moment. Hence, as I said – ‘To have a concept of time is neither sensible, nor does it serve any practical purpose’. Also as to: ‘one’: Having attained to meetings where Krishnamurti spoke and also having been listening to tapes of his talks for a long time, this use of ‘one’ rather then ‘I’ illustrated how I have been indoctrinated by him on some level. K’s way of speaking must have been an influence on me, as hardly ever or very rarely I have heard him refer to himself as ‘I’. Although the old chap is death since 1986 I almost felt that I had betrayed him by being not longer a faithful spiritual believer. From that my posing:
Can be merely taken as a sentimental attempt to give the man a last chance in taken myself responsible for the fact, that I’m being a failing student of his teachings, desperately hoping that after all his’ will be agreed upon as to be as ‘having to ‘be meant’ to be non spiritual’ and it solely was my own spiritual way of interpreting that made them spiritual. So I guess after all a sort of childish wishful thinking. This type of wishful thinking is one that millions upon millions of other seekers have fallen for. I also remember feeling a fool when I started to realize that the famed Eastern Spirituality was nought but Ole Time Religion – with the only essential difference being that instead of a belief in a single God with subservient prophets, family members, messengers and saints the Eastern religions are pantheistic – allowing anything to be worshiped as a God or anyone to declare themselves to be a God. Now this sentimental feeling I find, deriving from the bare fact that in spite of having been deeply disappointed in him as a teacher yet, he had invoked feelings by me for him as a person, sort of like a son may have for his father. It may sound a bit silly but in a way still I even feel embarrassed by his exposure of being just an ordinary Guru. The feeling of being disloyal – and even of being a traitor – was very strong in me when I abandoned my Guru. But the good thing is that it I realized it was is only ‘my’ feelings that stood in the way of acknowledging a fact – feelings such as disloyalty, foolishness and pride. When I realized this, it became apparent to me that it was even more foolish to keep on feeling a fool by holding on to my beliefs when all I needed to do was to acknowledge a fact and then the associated feeling disappeared by itself. Personally I do see not much harm in copying/emulating a style to a certain degree, it’s probably so to speak also a sign of the good old ‘monkey spirit’ in me. Spirit not being used here in any traditional spiritual way, but rather spirit meaning nature/instinct. Iow, I found monkey spirit better sound then monkey nature. As a child already, I appeared to be highly sensitive to any perceived subtleties in the appliance of language and as to that, I sometimes was a source of annoyance to people, as I generally rather persistently insisted in appropriate pronunciation and use of words, thus many a time suggesting to make corrections where nobody was really interested in doing so or even cared to take notice. As recently was mentioned that it is most common in spiritual tradition to abandon or minimize the use of words as one (oops, slip of type board) mainly aims at ‘silent’ communication, I find it very refreshing to see that many of the actualists do not shun to sometimes express their thoughts in a rather abundant flow of words. Spiritualists are notorious for their misuse and abuse of words, often using them to mean something they do not mean and were never meant to mean. As for actualists, I can only speak personally. I didn’t start to write before I became an actualist, so no doubt a good deal of my writing style is influenced by Richard’s extensive vocabulary of words. It made a good deal of sense to me to use the same terminology as Richard uses for both clarity and consistency which is also why I wrote a glossary of terms used in actualism. You may have noticed the tendency in the spiritual world for every new pundit on the block to dress up the hackneyed ancient wisdom in new terms, thereby declaring his or her ‘discovery’ to be fresh and new. Obscuration and inconsistency are essential to sustain spiritual belief, whereas clarity and consistency are intrinsic to the process of actualism. Most often this seems to be a demonstration of the joy the writer has experienced in making an effort to express his thoughts with a degree of accuracy that is found satisfactory. Yet being far from an expert in the English language it is inevitable that certain expressions will sound silly to the ears of a native tongue or come over more/less strongly than intended. Iow, how do I write in such a way that the writer/reader is not to invest unnecessary energy in en/decoding the message as for to find out where to put any accents on words?; is a rather basic question to me. The first time I ever wrote anything of substance was when I wrote my journal. I had two basic criteria when I wrote and that was to write from my own experience only and to be able to stand by what I wrote. Yet sometimes this question ‘bites me in the ass’ so to speak and things become too complex, so ... as to –
Indeed this is perhaps a bit too analytical way of putting it and perhaps making things too complicated, hence the expression: ‘why not put a simple label on your experience’ is being as well as fairly well considered as a question to be resolved, as it is also heartily welcomed as a sensible suggestion. Making things overly complicated and indulging in overly minutious argumentation has a long tradition within the human condition and is a particularly male trait. So, if you find yourself doing it, not to worry. Simply get back to basics and back to the essence of actualism – discovering how to be actually happy and harmless in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. Although it is in AF highly recommended to read ‘face value’, sensible re/interpretation can only be done unless one has some presumptions as to the meaning and/or content of a phrase. My personal experience to that is ‘in reading it out loud’ it often becomes clearer. Understanding what is on offer in actualism is an essential first step in order to establish a prima facie case as to whether you want to abandon materialism and spiritualism and take up being an actualist. Reading what is written ‘out loud’ seems a good idea to me because in doing so you may also be thinking about what is being written rather than skip-reading it with the subsequent likelihood of not taking it at face value and misunderstanding what is being said. When I first came across the writings of actualism, I would have to go over sentences and re-read them many times because what was being said was 180 degrees opposite from what humanity takes to be truth and wisdom. In other words, fact and actuality is 180 degrees opposite to belief and imagination. * And just to finish, you alluded to the use of the word ‘one’ and I will take the opportunity to clarify how I use the word in my writing. I do not use the word ‘one’ as a substitute for I, the personal pronoun, because I find its use in this way to pretentiously silly. Some time ago, when writing to people about my experience in actualism, I became aware of the fact that if I passed on my experience using an impersonal pronoun such as ‘one’, it was a way of avoiding being too personal, because the human condition is common-to-all, i.e. it is impersonal in its universality. As every human being is subject to the human condition, I have tended to use the word ‘one’ as an impersonal pronoun when describing human beings in general. I did consider my use of the word ‘one’ for a while and pondered over its other connotations when people use it as a personal pronoun. But I decided that, provided I did not use it as a personal pronoun, ‘one’ was a reasonable impersonal descriptive word – in other words, whenever I talked about me and my experience, I used the appropriate personal pronouns, I and me.
The below conversation twigged me into serious re-evaluation.
As there were no notion given of AF in 1930’s, the question ‘What would be the appropriate action based on the country learning that Jews were being put to death by the millions in Germany?’ is purely speculative as well as ‘Invade to prevent further suffering or not get involved because fundamentally we can’t influence others?’ as in 1930’s AF not yet even had been discovered so, as to the degree of sensibility of these questions one might as well have asked, to stick to actuality. ‘If Mr. Bush would not have won the US-elections and the US as a whole had subscribed to the notion of AF, how would a different president have responded to the terrorist attack on the WTC provided that such an alike event would have occurred?’ Despite your objections to No 38’s question, your question is still hypothetical and not related to an actuality. (No offence meant, the intent of the question is assumed to be serious) Are Jews and Germany an issue for the questioner? I obviously can’t speak for No 38, but the question that No 38 asked is one that is often asked of pacifists and, as such, deserved a direct answer from an actualist. Despite the long-held idealism of pacifism, the fact is that what humans term ‘civilization’ is but a thin and tenuous veneer that is ultimately only maintained at the point of a gun – i.e. law and order is maintained by armed police and armies. Thus the posing
I found not to be correct, as it reflects the viewpoint of an EVF (expert virtual freedom) rather then that of an AAF (authority actual freedom). A fact is not dependant on who says it – a fact is something that stands by itself. While a fact is not necessarily apparent to all, for personal feelings, passions and beliefs often prevent their acknowledgement. However, if one aspires to actualism, the acknowledgement of facts is essential lest one remains a believer of commonly held viewpoints or in the authority of some person or persons. Yet as the posed hypothetical situation ‘US as a whole subscribed to the notion of AF in the 1930’s’ has been transcribed into or suggested to be of appliance to a recent actual event ‘the same appropriate action that was recently taken by some of the world’s armies to put an end to the genocide that was happening in the Balkans’, it has been taken that:
is representing the viewpoint of an EVF as to his own opinion/ observation/ conclusion that it is sensible and not silly, that police and army are prepared to maintain law and order at the top of a gun. No, the reply I offered was not representing my viewpoint, opinion, conclusion, nor Richard’s. It was offered as a statement of fact. It is based on a clear-eyed observation of the history of humankind and the current situation of the human condition. The other evidence that it is fact is that there are no exceptions, nor have there ever been exceptions, to the situation of law and order being maintained at the point of a gun (or whatever other weapon was used at the time). Thus it looks like he deflects his own responsibility (with regard to maintain law and order by imposing his influence) to those who are willing to participate in army and/or police activity. If by he you mean me, I take it that you are suggesting that I should be responsible for my own protection. Being responsible for your own protection was how it was in primitive societies where everyone carried arms, be it a club, a spear, a bow and arrows or more lately a gun. A brief look at history will show that early humans very quickly gathered in groups and built walls around their compounds so as to be more safe from raids from other groups of human beings. As these groups became more organized they also developed an array of morals, ethics and laws as a code of behaviour so as to maintain a semblance of law and order within the group itself. These codes and laws were either imposed by the shamans under threat of damnation or by the chieftains and kings under threat of physical punishment. When these tribal groups grew sufficiently large and more organized over time, they developed police forces whose job it was to maintain internal law and order and maintained armies whose job it was to defend the group and its territory. There is no doubt that in an ideal world – a world in which the human beings are no longer driven by instinctual fear and aggression – there would be no need for law and order to be maintained by armed police and armies. But we humans who live on the planet now have to start somewhere and somewhere is here – in the world as-it-is, with people as-they are. For those who are genuinely interested in peace on earth as an actuality, the question then becomes a personal one – ‘How can I become happy and harmless in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are?’ Having abandoned the unworkable idealism of pacifism in favour of the pragmatism of actualism, I have no objections to world as-it-is where law and order is maintained by armed police. As history shows, it is far, far preferable to a world where everybody is responsible for maintaining their own law and order by imposing his or her influence on others – that’s what is known as anarchy. Thus also suggesting to be demonstrating some hypocrisy the like of that of a person that eats meat, yet judges the ones who kills the animals in order to provide this meat. I used to believe in vegetarianism in my spiritual days because it was regarded as virtuous. But nowadays I appreciate both the taste and the nutritional value of eating meat and fish, so your comment about hypocrisy is again hypothetical. Also ‘perhaps’ demonstrating that although, having readily ‘ditched’ spiritual believes hence freed/liberated himself from the spiritual identity, part of the social identity still well may be needed to be dismantled/ uncovered/ demolished. Hypocrisy I also find to be in my own experience an important and vital ingredient of the social identity ... (so no offence meant). And none taken, for the good thing about acknowledging the fact that law and order is ultimately maintained at the point of a gun within the human condition is that I don’t need to feel a hypocrite for being happy and harmless in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. In other words, I don’t believe in the ideal of pacifism because indulging in such communal imaginations are but a distraction from the main event – concentrating my efforts on the only person I can change – me. The recent ‘outbreak’ of waves of patriotism in the USA clearly makes it apparent, that the dangers of lurking ‘tribal beliefs generating mechanisms’ nowadays are far more dangerous than so called ‘spiritual/ religious beliefs’. And to have headed off objections at the pass before breaking loose: i.e. crusades are to be assumed to derive from conflicting ‘spiritual values’ (as to point out the dangers of a group of people unifying in a ‘spiritual’ collective the like i.e. Christians.) I find it silly to discriminate between the kind of mayhem that is caused by a group of people mentioned as above in ‘armed police force prepared to do whatever is necessary to stop outbreaks of murder or genocide’ or ‘a group of people unifying in a ‘spiritual’ collective the like i.e. Christians / Muslims / Hindus and so on Speaking personally, I found that when I was a spiritualist, I was more ready to defend my spiritual beliefs than I was to defend my real-world beliefs, i.e. God came before Country. Once I got rid of my spiritual beliefs, I then was able to investigate my real-world beliefs, including my nationalistic feelings. In the process of investigating my beliefs, I didn’t bother to discriminate as to which belief was best or worse, or more dangerous or less dangerous – I came to see that upholding any belief was silly. So ... to update to (f)actuality nowadays: 1. There is – or /are group(s) of people sharing a vision as to how to resolve the questions: ‘How to create/maintain a space for this-these particular group-(s)?’, as such so that this group can/will be enabled to move into the direction that the members can continue to maintain/expand this vision on a solution to the question; ‘How can their members be enabled in doing their ‘business at large’ without getting disturbed while doing it?’ Now this vision nowadays most often goes by a flag of a nation or group of nations yet a religious symbol may also be play a significant part (ie Koran, Bible). The history of humanity is a litany of inter-group and inner group conflict. Tribal leaders have often stirred the passions of their tribe so as to seize the territory of other tribes or to wreak a bloody revenge for some past wrong. And history is also littered with Saviours who declare ‘if you follow me and join my group, one day we will be so powerful that we will rule the world and then there will be peace on earth’. A little clear-eyed seeing will reveal there is scant difference between the vision and messages of real-world dictators and those of spiritual-world saviours. 2. In his recent ‘state of the Union’ Mr. Bush, as one of the world leaders of nations, has more or less redefined war as: ‘doing justice’. 3. This way of ‘doing justice’ has been largely agreed upon by a great number of people to be considered as ‘taking appropriate action’. And to have head off objections at the pass before breaking loose: ‘I neither do agree nor disagree on that as to be appropriate action. I do not know.’ Yet I question whether to call this intelligent and/or sensible action. I do not find so, as it is very far from clear in whose interest this kind of actions are being performed and as for now it has not been agreed upon commonly what the word justice is to imply. As I understand there is still a bit of disagreement about that. 4. More over Mr. Bush set the tune that, those nations who disagree with USA-strategies, are assumed to be opponents hence losing the right to either be supported by USA and/or even may run the risk of facing the force of the US-army. Not to mention the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, so far for an update to (f)actuality nowadays. From the thrust of your conversation, I take it that you are more inclined to believe in pacifism and complain about the world as-it-is and people as-they are, rather than take unilateral action by proving you can rid yourself of malice and sorrow. Speaking personally, it took me a long time to rid myself of the seductive beliefs and idealisms promulgated by the ‘good’ people of the word. I found that time and again I would be drawn to take sides in the battle of good vs. evil, lured into believing that there might one day be a solution within the human condition that could magically bring peace on earth. It’s easy work to question and understand the passions that fuel evil and bad but it’s tough work to question and understand the nature of the passions that fuel the sacred and good. Another fact is that ‘I’ as a spiritual identify cannot otherwise exist then as; being unified in a spiritual principle hence being ‘I’ not individual but collective. Thus in uncovering this ‘I’ one uncovers a certain ‘us’ that was cleverly disguised as ‘I’ as the spiritual identity. Iow ‘speaking’ with a spiritual voice (Sannyasin, Buddhist, Christian and so) I represent knowingly or unknowingly a group that has the same principle. And yet many spiritualists manage to disassociate themselves from the group to which they belong as and when it suits them and yet associate with the group, as and when it suits them. The correspondence section of the AF website has many examples of spiritualists, be they Krishnamurti-ites, Rajneeshees, Buddhists or whatever, blatantly denying they belong to a spiritual group ... or even that they have any spiritual beliefs at all. In AF it seems to be assumed that the (malicious) aspects of ‘tribal behaviour’ are rooted in instinctual survival passions (genetically encoded in the DNA of all species with no exception to humans). The only way to prove this assumption to be factually correct is by observation – observation of animal and human behaviour as well as the most difficult aspect of all, your own self-observation. The universal unwillingness to undertake this last aspect of self-observation is the reason that human beings continue to deny that, at heart, they are instinctually driven animals. It has recently been stated by Richard that he finds a Darwinian explanation as to how humans have evolved from apes into humans, a sensible sound scientific approach to support the assumption as to how apes did come to evolve into humans. Thus assuming that the (malicious) aspects of ‘tribal behaviour could be explained/justified, by taken for factual that ‘groups behaviour’ is basically nothing more then a herd of buffaloes following a leader. Thus assuming the situation in which a world leader as i.e. Adolf Hitler was followed by millions of humans, or/and the recent outbreak of patriotism in the USA, to be due to animalistic instinctual group behaviour. Often you hear the term ‘alpha-male’ used both to describe the dominant male in animal groups as well as the dominant male in human groups, so there is some hesitant and tacit acknowledgement of the similarity between human animal behaviour and other animal behaviour. As long as this acknowledgement of ‘animalistic instinctual group behaviour’ is focussed on human behaviour in general or on the behaviour of others, it remains what it is – a purely scholarly observation of interest only to academics. The fascinating journey of actualism starts when you apply observations such as these to your own personal behaviour, feelings and passions. There maybe a different explanation for these phenomena. Apart from the traditional explanation that it is all part of the grand and glorious battle between Good and Evil, or that humans have been created this way by some God or other, by whatever name, did you have any other explanation in mind? On the other hand the AF-method is primary a tool to achieve the state ‘happy and harmless’. As holding the need to be malicious in anyway can be considered to be the main obstacle in achieving a state of ‘harmlessness’, I consider it of secondary importance as to why or how this need of being harmful/malicious has come into being. How can you expect to fix something if you don’t understand why it doesn’t work? How can you expect to become harmless if you don’t understand why you have malicious feelings in the first place? In my experience it is vital to acknowledge that there is a physical basis for the human condition of malice and sorrow, if only to avoid becoming embroiled in the fantasies and the calenture of the traditional metaphysical explanations. Writing this I have taken the position of an AFEx (Actual Freedom explorer) thereby implicitly acknowledging the validity of the method as suggested to apply. And yet in the sentence before, you relegated exploring precisely what sets actualism apart form spiritualism and materialism to a ‘secondary importance’ –
I can only speak personally, but I wanted to know why the human condition is still epitomized by malice and sorrow despite millennia of persistent and well-intentioned efforts to bring an end to it. In having done so I tend to agree that the above mentioned ‘tribal generating mechanism’ maybe firmly rooted in an animal instinct, yet surprisingly I found it may be not rooted in this ‘buffalo instinct’, but, the (genetically encoded?) program that soon as a human infant gets born becomes active running the message: ‘‘I’ need HELP to survive.’ Thus it becomes patently clear that the infant cannot otherwise do but to accept the parent(s) and/or any authority’s concept of help/assistance, in order to survive. As (blind) nature’s interpretation of survival may well read: ‘Maintaining the integrity of the body-system in any situation/environment’ this ‘goal’ is concerned to be achieved long as the infant remains alive. Yet as part and parcel of the dealing with the authority it is inevitable that the HELP-needing infant gets infected with believes as to how this’ integrity’ is to be maintained in the system. Even more important: it has to take on standards as to what ‘integrity of the system’ implies. Figuratively speaking: while growing up, the infants stores data in a compartment of his brain and this compartment has the overall labelling of: ‘required to maintain the integrity of the system’. Now as this ‘security system’ largely is an assimilation of ‘integrity-data’ that hold and reflect the standards of the authorities that supplied the brain with these data, it is safe to say that: the (assumed) instinctual program ‘‘I’ need help to survive.’ Is being transcribed into the above-mentioned security program. As this is for an important part an intellectual process, thus becomes this security program for the main part a function assigned to the neocortex. So one might pose that the ‘I’ as the social identity in fact is a ‘we’ yet possibly not being recognized as such, is a thought pattern that for some reason (to be explored by oneself) still gets the ‘backup’ of this ‘‘I’ need help to survive program’. I have yet not found a way to determine whether this ‘I.N.H.T.S-program’ is being located in the neocortex or in fact in older parts of the brain, so from that I question whether this ‘backup’ of the security program which produces I as the social identity is indeed emotional. Might I suggest the only way to determine this is to ask yourself each moment again ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and seek an experiential answer to the question ... rather than focus on intellectual questioning issues that can only remain abstract theories to you unless you have hands-on experience of them. It’s a bit like trying to understand how a computer works without actually sitting down, using a computer and discovering how it works for yourself. Iow: it is yet to establish whether any other animal than the human species is capable of generating a sense/feeling and thus experiencing ‘I’ in anyway what so ever. Iow: I question Richards discovery that ‘I’ particularly as the SOUL being feelingly experiencing a unifying principle, is indeed basically deriving from the animal instinct. That is not to suggest that the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ is a useless tool for inquiry, on the contrary. Had this question not been available it may be doubtable that I would have been able to progress in my self-inquiry the like I have done. Again I can only suggest abandoning the anguish of self-enquiry, a machination common to Krishnamurtiites, and begin practicing the fascinating business of hands-on self-observation. This way you get to find out the answers to all your questions by yourself – which is the only way to stop being a believer, a doubter, a follower, a dreamer, a philosophiser, an objector, a dissenter, an agreer, a sceptic, a cynic, a fence-sitter or whatever. Neither I would make the mistake of saying that the AF method is alike the many offered spiritual or personal-growth methods and therefore the claim of having an unique approach and offering a solution to men’s misery and mayhem that has been perpetuated for ages, will not be honoured. Far as I can see for me the AF method has been and still is the only sensible ‘practical’ approach so far in history. Nevertheless the claim ‘being the first human being free of the human condition’ needs to be taken sceptical, as taking/accepting this on authority would imply believing. Thus the status as ‘I the flesh body sans identity as me as an Ego or I as the soul’ might be rightfully claimed by others yet so far they have not spoken or showed themselves. Also one might consider the possibility that the state of apperception is the social identity cleverly hidden in denial, silently justifying participation in and agreeing with maintaining law and order at the point of a gun until the global condition has changed. Thus having running ‘a security program ‘for the flesh-body that is hitherto absolutely fail safe, while being able to take advantage of all luxury and comfort that one can afford while having an undisturbed private life. As basically each of us aspires to that so far, I can see in R’s way of redefining ‘Maintaining the integrity of the body system in any situation/ environment’ the most sensible way to go about my business. Ah well, ‘indeed, the world keeps abreast while...’ Yep. Unless you find out the answers to these questions yourself, you are simply swapping the belief in one authority, (K), for another, (R), which simply leaves you a believer, a doubter, a follower, a dreamer, a philosophiser, an objector, a dissenter, an agreer, a sceptic, a cynic, a fence-sitter or whatever.
Whereas I find for myself that it makes no sense to write i (not capitalized) as to pretend to be detached from any sense of an ego in the spiritual form, neither I makes sense of speaking of living in ‘A country’ rather then saying My country in order to pretend that I have freed myself from any patriotic or national thoughts/ feelings. Far as I can see the only way to explore/uncover ‘me’ as the social identity is, to claim the country I live in (or was born) in, to be ‘mine’, thus coming in touch with fundamental territorial instincts, which in fact make up for the basically defensive attitude my social identity displays with regard to possession. Playing the game of changing words, be it making them mean something they are not meant to mean, glibly adopting a new belief and taking on its terminology or playing the impersonal pronoun game, à la Krishnamurti, can only result in fooling yourself. It takes a good deal of work to get to the stage where an actualist can sincerely say ‘the country I live in’ rather than ‘my’ country. To break the emotional bonds of nationalism firstly requires the intent to do so and then a good deal of observation to be aware of these bonds as one’s feelings and passions first kick in. It is this territorial instinct that is being superimposed on my environment, thus allowing for generating the belief that: my possessions (money, clothes, living space and so on) are actually mine, thus this mine is experienced as an extension of me so in fact it is me, yet cleverly disguised as my legal rights maintained at the point of a gun. This mine-ness does not exist otherwise then as an agreement, as to what I am legally (as determined by nations law) entitled to claim to be ‘mine’. From that it becomes clear that my social identity ticks with, and can only keep going on ticking, so long as it is fairly primed with hypocrisy. There is no need to beat yourself up for being a hypocrite because everybody is passionate about ‘their’ possessions, be it land, house, objects, kith or kin. This passion is more than a belief, it is in fact instinctual as can be readily seen in the behaviour of other animals. Most societies have put in place a set of morals, ethics and laws that specifically deal with the issue of possessions so as to suppress and prevent the worst excesses of fighting and feuding over possessions, such as prevailed in the supposed good old days of humanity. Generally this carrot and stick approach works reasonably well, but locking one’s doors and windows is still a prudent action in all societies. Yet however careful one is, things can still be stolen, lost or damaged which can cause inconvenience or even hardship, but to then suffer emotionally on top of this is but to compound the situation. As such, it is useful to become aware of any feelings associated with your possessions, as they occur, because it is feelings and passions such as these that prevent you from being happy and prevent you from being harmless. The moment I drop a coin in a candy bar machine, I become part of a system where this coin is being part of. This system is a malicious system of corruption and violence, there is no arguing about it. The modern system of manufacturing goods, trading goods and exchanging money for goods is an amazing advance on the do-it-all-yourself business of battling it out for survival in the supposed good old days. Contrary to popular belief in some circles, the fact that corruption and violence exist within the human condition is not the fault of materialism, technology, industrialization or the globalisation of trade and culture but they are solely due to the instinctual survival passions. To blame a system, by whatever name, is to relegate responsibility for bringing an end to instinctual malice and sorrow on to someone else, by whatever name. If someone comes along and robs me from my money, do I call the police on my cell phone? I, the social identity, am my country, I am the police and the army of my nation, as these are an extension of ‘me’ saying this is ‘mine’. Speaking personally, I concentrated on investigating my own feelings and emotions about possessions, when and as they occurred. This way I was able to look at issues such as jealousy, envy, desire, greed, resentment, hypocrisy, deceit, pride, etc. as they occurred, and by doing so I was able to work my way through my social programming and down into the very survival passions themselves. This type of investigation is not something you can only think about because it then becomes a philosophy and philosophy is about the pursuit of knowledge and ‘truth’, not about experience and hands-on doing. The moment I agree to have tasks assigned to a second party with regard to ensuring, either my own security at large or my properties and/or possessions, I must allow for hypocrisy. That’s how my social identity ticks. Demolishment of that ... ... is it possible at all? The other alternative to having others do things for you is to do everything yourself, for example making your own candy bars, building your own computer, catching the thief should someone steal these things and so on. This is the ideal of self-sufficiency that is proposed as an alternative to the mutual trading of food, goods and information between fellow human beings. The hills around here are alive with the sounds of people building their mud brick homes and chopping wood for their log fires, in a desperate attempt to be self-sufficient. None succeed completely for the ideal is unliveable – when the going gets tough they tend to rely on neighbours for help, revert to modern technology for survival and comfort and, of course, call on the police for protection. What you have discovered is that you feel yourself to be a hypocrite because you fail to live up to an unliveable ideal. You may identify with this ideal as being ‘mine’, an integral part of your social identity, but by holding on to this ideal you are holding on to feelings such as guilt, shame, blame, self-righteousness, self-flagellation, perplexity and so on. It might be useful to consider that actualism has nothing to do with the failed pie-in-the-sky idealisms that are preached by the self-righteous – actualism offers a radical alternative to the fantasy and hypocrisy of ‘if only everyone would ...’ The process of actualism is pragmatic in that it is solely – and I do mean solely – about changing yourself, the only person it is possible for you to change. Living identified with a spiritual ego largely means assuming that I no longer have the ‘bad’ qualities that can be ascribed to my instinctual nature, thus disowning those qualities, calling it being unattached. In order to create the illusion of being without any social identity, I have to suppress my hypocrisy which is indeed a very difficult task, as self-observation readily is to bring it to light. Why would you want to create the illusion of being without a social identity, when this only creates the feeling of hypocrisy? Having discovered that your feelings of hypocrisy are due to ideals that are an integral component of your social identity you now have a plain and simple choice. Thus the brain has two options – either to disown it completely (suppress to the degree that it becomes invisible) or embrace it as a tool to maintain the integrity of the system of the flesh-body and ‘cloaking’ hypocrisy with honesty, which is probably the most sensible thing to do. Or you could just keep it simple and set your sights on becoming happy and harmless. This way you will find you will willingly give up anything that stands in the way of your becoming happy and harmless. This is something ‘you’ decide to do, not your brain, for only ‘you’ can demolish your social identity. And only the pure intent to become happy and harmless will kick-start you into the enterprise and keep you on the path ... lest you get waylaid by the nonsense that passes for wisdom within the human condition. So ... whereas the domain of the spiritual identity is a Magical Spiritual Lala-land. The domain of the social identity is simply a Lala-land without any magic, but it is Lala anyway. So ... in order to come to self-observation free from any delusion and thus to cure my brain from the disease that this dilemma is causing it to suffer from, two questions seem to be needed to be answered: HOW am I experiencing this moment of being alive? and WHERE am I experiencing this moment of being alive? The first question cannot be answered by thinking about it theoretically or hypothetically – it can only be asked, and answered, in the moment it is asked. Once you have an experiential answer to the question then you have something to think about that is directly relevant to ‘you’ and the social and instinctual programming that makes up ‘you’. By asking ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ you avoid the pitfalls and dilemmas of theorizing by focusing your attentiveness on what is happening right now, wherever you happen to be, whatever you happen to be doing. The answer to the second question is nearly always obvious, even to the most inattentive of people.
Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
