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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 23
Hi No 23, Update!: <Darwinian- to Quantum-theoretical level> M< y >our<*m< Y >our<*M< Y >our<*m< y > <OUR<* ^note as the exclamation sign might suggest that this is an order I make this note to make it clear that the intention of ! Is merely meant to be a ‘strong suggestion’, thus leaving it up to the reader to choose to ‘ignore’ or ‘take notice’. I have no idea what any of this means. That’s perfectly Ok Peter. Vis [thus leaving it up to the reader to choose to ‘ignore’ or ‘take notice’.] as you state you have no idea what it means I take that you have read it ‘face value’ and next decided that you did not understand what the intent and/or meaning of the message was. Yep. Just for the record as pointed out in previous messages these are so called ‘patafok’ instructions. They are small pointers notes/reminders I make to myself they only intend to support the simulation process of a virtual (cyberspace) coffee table discussion. As indeed I needed (don’t misunderstand me here, please) an Emb. EVF’s opinion on that I very much appreciate your response. I’ve have never understood any of these ‘patafok’ instructions and now I know why. So I’ll just continue to ignore them on the basis that you are just talking to yourself and not me. So ... even if the topic seems to have become a little hazy I’ll see if I can ‘nutshell’ it anyway. For purpose of completeness and to bring a little more coherency in the conversation, I just wanna make my position clearest as possible as to why I have been ‘hammering’ on the significance (for me that is) on the ‘Byron conflict’ I was there as an actual witness/ participant of/in a situation that is best described as a rather ‘intensive’ meeting between a ‘graduated’ Humaniversity student dissident and an Emb. VIE (virtual intimacy expert) Now this HS was a self-proclaimed expert on human intimacy. The demonstration of his ‘expertise’ gave me a clear clue how it is on the one hand of utmost necessity to experience an instinctive feeling , yet on the other hand the difficulty actually to choose neither to suppress nor to express it. That’s what nerves of steel (as I understand it) is all about; it has nothing to do with the need to portray oneself as a hero (I have the guts to do it and you don’t, so I’m more daring). Nerves of steel are required to ‘contain’ that kind of energy that is released in the system. Which is basically a vast difference as to a meditation method called the Aum (a humaniversity deviced method in order to explore intense social interaction). I take it you are talking about examining a feeling or emotion as it is happening rather than running on automatic by either suppressing it or expressing it. This is just plain common sense, it doesn’t require nerves of steel at all. For example, if you want to explore and understand anger, it makes sense that you first have to acknowledge that you do feel angry sometimes. By doing so you are then able to become attentive to feelings of anger when and as they occur. If you feel angry and then you blurt it out on other people or blame people, things or events for causing your anger, you miss the opportunity of putting the feeling of anger on the microscope slide and examining it, so to speak. Or, to put it another way, if you are fully involved in suppressing or expressing a feeling, you simply have no time left to be attentive to the feeling as it is occurring. What does take ‘nerves of steel’ is to devote one’s life to this on-going continual process of ‘self’-investigation with the intent not to cease until ‘self’-immolation occurs. ^Note1: I have the last couple of days indeed experienced the ‘Amygdala-effect’; in fact, yesterday night it came to some sort of climax I felt some sort of a cracking at the back of my head next I found myself a bit giggling and I heard myself say ‘this must be the Amygdala’. Now it feels somehow as if the Amygdala is ‘pricked’ up on my spine a bit ET-like, as if indeed I can feel that part in my head. There’s also a bit of muscular activity in my neck, which very much seems to be related to breathing^. I remember when I first read that Richard reported that the precursory event to becoming free of the human condition was accompanied by a physical sensation at the top of the brain-stem. As I recall, he likened it to the turning over of record on one of those old 50’s record players. This happened when Richard became Enlightened and it subsequently took eleven more years until the process of ‘self’-immolation was complete. I was curious at the time that the event of becoming free of the human condition appeared to have a physical component as well as the obvious psychological and psychic components – the extinction of the psychological and psychic entity in total. I say ‘appeared to have’ because we only have Richards’s report of the event and no other tangible evidence to support it. Even so, what I made of the report of the physical sensations was that it could have been related to the physical extinguishing of the instinctual animal survival programming – the genetically-encoded programming that gives rise to the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire in the human animal. Now of course, all this is at best speculation, a working hypothesis until proved as a fact or abandoned as nonsense. But at the time I found the assumption very useful because it set me off on a course that made me open to the possibility that the root cause of my malice and sorrow was utterly non-spiritual and that it was physical in nature – my instinctual survival programming. It made good sense to me that there was a physical cause to human behaviour and this was a breath of fresh air after spending years believing in spiritual esoterica or blaming someone else or something else for my own feelings of malice and sorrow. My particular interest in the physical origins of the instinctual passions
led to Richard writing more on the subject of instinctual passions and to my own attempts to explain their origins in
what someone recently described as pseudo-scientific terms. (see The reason I am writing this is to give you some background to what you are now terming the ‘Amygdala affect’ – and I like the term, by the way. There is no doubt that on the path to actual freedom many weird and wonderful psychic and psychological events can and do happen and that sometimes there can even be physical sensations that occur. From my experience, these events may well be par for the course but they are neither the main event nor are they a sure sign of anything in particular. The only sign of success on the path to an actual freedom from malice and sorrow is the incremental reduction of feeling malice and sorrow and the subsequent emergence of more and more of the felicitous feelings in everyday life. For a sincere actualist there can be no other measure of success than this. Consequently I came to see that marking my success in becoming free by the occurrence of physical sensations was akin to a spiritualist marking their success in becoming God by how much their Kundalini was rising or how much their third eye was opening. I also saw that if Richard had said his ankle twitched when he became free there could well be a generation of followers all limping around saying ‘all is going well, I’m nearly there’. As I write I am reminded of the ‘Placebo effect’ wherein a patient does not know whether any improvements are a physical result of the treatment or purely imaginary. My point is not to take what is written about other people’s experiences as a gospel because believing can lead to all sorts of imaginations. And not to confuse sincerity with humourlessness – it’s essential to be able to laugh at all the weird and wonderful experiences, be they psychological, psychic or physical, which happen on the path to actual freedom. The last thing an actualist does is take one’s ‘self’ seriously – that’s what the spiritualists do. ^note2: my tendency to over explain has been previously discussed (I have taken notice of that). I seem to have the same tendency as I have had numerous complaints that my posts are too long to even bother reading. And just to make it clear, I personally have no problem with over explanation because actualism is brand new in human history and as such takes a lot of effort to both intellectually and experientially understand. My comments about your posts relate to the desirability and usefulness of keeping the conversation ‘on topic’ and my inability to understand your ‘patafok’ instructions to yourself. So ... as to your [I have no idea what any of this means.] and [I’ll pass on the offer, as I long ago gave up taking a walk in someone else’s imagination.] I leave it with that for now. Me too.
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. So ... am I: 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? Let’s start with: am I a dreamer? I take it this is a question you are asking of yourself and not of me. I have no idea what your particular predilections are. Your own investigation of your own particular beliefs, feelings and passions that form your identity is entirely your business and it can only be your business. However, every human being born has been subjected to an almost identical social conditioning and every human animal has been genetically-encoded with exactly the same instinctual passions. This means that we can swap notes and share our discoveries on this list because we humans share a common heritage, both social and instinctual. * So ... to set the stage so to speak: ping- pong level 4 defcom off ‘chess mixmode’ quake off <TAN-GO on! I well can imagine to have happened a dialogue the like ‘At the point of a gun’ while sitting at the Byron cafe had not been there, certain influences, so to speak well over my hat, that prevent this from happening. ^note: it is being assumed that the reference to this so-called ‘incident’ rings a bell as to the nature of that conflict is being rooted for the main part in a loyalty conflict, yet if any elaboration is requested I’m willing to go into details^. I’ll pass on the offer, as I long ago gave up taking a walk in someone else’s imagination. Well maybe how about a little beach jogging instead of walking? Yet on the other hand I’m not sure if I can ‘simulate’ a cyber beach meeting, it was already kind of not very easy to manage a virtual coffee table not to even mention the fact that thus far the topics that have been issued have not really been done in a coffee table manner but rather as an exclusive one to one conversation. And yet not in any way exclusive. Not only is this conversation available for those on the mailing list to read and join in if they wish but it is archived on the AF website so as to be available for others to read, wherever they may be. Spiritualism is always exclusive to the faithful believers of a particular sect or movement which is why tolerance of others is constantly required. Whereas actualism is inclusive to everyone who is interested in becoming free of malice and sorrow. Yet I’ll make an effort. I read the report: Article 1 ‘A Conversation with a Spiritual Teacher’ on a meeting between Richard and an ‘enlightened being’ who had come from the other side of the ocean to ‘sniff out’. Actual freedom as an alternative for spiritual enlightenment. I have a hunch that possibly V was there also and maybe you (P)2 but that’s just a hunch, not that it is very important, because what I found most interesting was R’s artistic interpretation of the situation Despite your hunch, I was not at the meeting and nor was Vineeto. Nil out of two for hunches. Hunches, intuitions, instinctual guesses, gut feelings, speculations, sixth senses and the like have been scientifically tested to be no better or no worse than flipping a coin to decide whether something is true or false, right or wrong, silly or sensible – 50/50 or thereabouts. Richard is truly gifted to take a reader in a sort of Dostojewskian way to a staged environment. If you are referring to Dostoevsky, I can only say that my memory of reading the famed Russian writers was one of unrelieved doom and gloom.
That sounds the exact opposite to Richard’s writing style to me but, hey, if that’s how you read him, that’s how you read him. Not only that, he also writes in a pure stream of consciousness and makes his ‘inner process’ visible almost palpable, so that an attentive reader can have the sensation as if taken by the hand of a person that is outside the human condition and being jogged into a PCE while reading. If that’s what you feel when you read his report of the meeting then that’s what you feel. I would only comment that your use of the term ‘pure stream of consciousness’ can be confusing because ‘stream of consciousness writing’ is a term specifically used to describe an un-ordered and totally random flow of emotive thought written down as they occur. Even if you put the word ‘pure’ in front of the term ‘stream of consciousness’ as it is normally used, I personally don’t see how this relates to Richard’s writing style. Again the term ‘inner process’ usually refers to the psychic or psychological machinations that go on in the head and hearts of normal human beings. I have never seen any evidence of Richard having an ‘inner process’, in the 5 years I have known him, nor any sign whatsoever of a psyche in operation in any of his copious correspondence. You also use the word ‘sensation’ in the phrase ‘the sensation as if taken by the hand’ when I take it you mean ‘the feeling as if by taken by the hand’. You may take all this as me being pedantic but, having spent years reading spiritual gooblygook, I enjoy conversations where words are used to mean what they should mean. For me that PCE experience ‘kicked in’ where I as the reader suddenly became aware, that the conversation was observed by two other people and that even there was some sort of an audience more or less being impressed by Richard’s passionate exhibition of Actual freedom in motion on the market place, thus the moment that one of the staged characters is brought alive brings, about a dramatic shift as to the atmosphere in which the conversation was happening and as a reader I was forced to take sides for Richard being indeed the one who is ‘laughing’ the best. Because doesn’t it become glaringly obvious, that in spite of all his spiritual blah.blah, this enlightened person clearly demonstrates malicious behaviour? Because when a female fellow being makes an effort to break the ice so the speak, her direct approach not only strikes a chord but also seems to push a button. Vis: Richard: ‘my colleague has misconstrued his statement about ‘having to do some work’ and asks, sincerely, just what he meant by this. With a contemptuous abruptness he turns upon her and rudely berates this assumed impudence. He said that he was talking to me and not to her.’ Indeed when this conversation would have been focused on the creation of a willingness to compare notes what better question could have been asked then [just what he meant by this.] As a matter of fact I find it also kind of puzzling so I wonder what he could have meant with saying that ‘‘having to do some work’ as to [He said that he was talking to me and not to her] No 23: Formerly speaking he was indeed probably stating a fact, yet [a contemptuous abruptness] leaves little left to the interpretation of the situation described by R. From R’s viewpoint this is a clear demonstration that this enlightened person still is nursing Malice and Sorrow in his own bosom. So ... indeed when R continues to reflect upon this previous perceived demonstration of contempt, [What hope is there for Peace On Earth if this is the behaviour of one who lives the Divine Solution and travels the world inspiring others to do likewise?] What else is the reader left then whole heartily repeat with Richard this question ‘What hope is there for Peace On Earth, if this is the behaviour of one who lives the Divine Solution and travels the world inspiring others to do likewise?’ What else can a reader do? when facing the facts as demonstrated in this little beach conversation, than agree/admit that The ‘divine Solution’ is a failure and thus the alternative ‘Actual freedom’ must be the only ‘hope’ for Peace On Earth. As later on the enlightened being is ‘labelling’ Richard as a ‘vortex sucking all into his category’, Richard even admits that this statement is found to be accurate and he does not even take that as an insult, though from the readers view point, that could have been very well the case given the fact that already contemptuous, not to say degrading behaviour had been demonstrated. As the reader does not get any clues as to the way that statement had been presented, this is in my vision a clear demonstration of R’s great capacity to not only read face value but also to perfectly hear and interpret the digital meaning of a sentence and thus filtering out any emotional bias. I remember when I first read Richard’s Journal that I found a lot of his writing quite difficult and dense, if I can use that word to describe writing. There seemed to be so much packed into it that was difficult to read let alone understand. It wasn’t only his use of words that stretched my vocabulary and often sent me scurrying for a dictionary. It was that every sentence needed scrutiny and thinking about so I could ascertain exactly what he meant. And then what he meant needed a good deal of contemplating on – sometimes for days and even weeks before the penny dropped. I don’t know if you know the expression but it is a good description of having a realization about something. I would at first develop an intellectual understanding about something he wrote and after a period of contemplation a realization would happen – an Ahhh ... – almost as if a penny dropped into the slot machine. A realization is as though a fog has lifted or a light suddenly goes on in a dim room. A realization is when a belief implodes and clarity, based on a rock-solid understanding and acknowledgement of a fact, suddenly occurs. Spiritual people also have realizations but a spiritual realization happens when an old belief is seen as false and calenture, the desperate clutching on to a new belief, occurs. It is important for an actualist to discern this difference lest he or she seizes upon the realization of a fact and start taking it to be a sign of ‘my’ wisdom rather than understanding the realization for what it is – the collapse of ‘my’ belief and thinking freed of the burden of belief. I don’t want to put a damper on enthusiasm here because such realizations are thrilling and uplifting, but if you can keep your feet on the ground while being thrilled and uplifted you are more likely to want to do the work needed to have more realizations rather than rest on your laurels thinking you ‘know’ it all. The other thing I wanted to say about reading Richard’s Journal was that at some point – and I can’t remember when but I suspect it was after a few of these realizations – I became aware that I had been skipping over the first sections of each chapter and concentrating on intellectually understanding the last sections of each chapter. As I started to really read the first sections of each chapter with the same attentiveness I had read the last sections, I suddenly realized that these were descriptions of how somebody who was free of the human condition experienced this actual world we all live in. I was startled to realize that these were descriptions of pure consciousness experiences except this was somebody’s on-going permanent experience. I know I have said this many times before but there is a gold-mine to be had in Richard’s descriptions of ‘self’-less, ordinary, down-to-earth living because this is the carrot for an actualist, this living can be every human being’s destiny. I only write this because maybe this is what you got of reading Richard’s description of his conversation with a spiritual teacher. And I say maybe, because I don’t know – I can only relate what you are reporting to my own experiences when I first started to dig into actualism and began to try to understand what was on offer and started to have realizations. I remember it as both exciting and turbulent and I soon came to understand a realization – when a belief implodes and clarity, based on a rock-solid understanding and acknowledgement of a fact – was only the start. For an actualist, it is never enough to know something – it must be implemented and put into practice such that a palpable and irrevocable change occurs in my life. Whenever this happens it is as though a bit of ‘me’ has fallen off and I feel lighter, less burdened and more free. More able to feel felicitous feelings and I have less reason or inclination to feel malicious or sorrowful. Because the realizations are based on the discovery of fact and not on ‘my’ adoption of a self-serving belief, ‘I’ cannot claim any credit – although ‘I’ am wont to try. You will recognize this propensity when it comes, it’s the Saviour of Mankind syndrome. But to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and provided you heed the warnings and use your realizations to fuel your fascination with how you are experiencing this moment of being alive, ’tis a grand adventure. Well that was a bit of rave again, but I do enjoy writing about the process of actualism. It is so simple, which I know puts a lot of people off because the human tendency is to like obscuration, mystification, confusion, distraction, complication and vagueness. This is why it takes such an effort to become attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive but the rewards for making the effort is freedom – the down-to-earth freedom that Richard describes in his journal.
No. 00: A sceptical look at The Sceptical Environmentalist http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/lomborg121201.asp Thanks for the link, this is my digest of it. Intro Stephen H. Schneider quote:
There seems to be some disagreement as to the ‘urge’ of the global situation with regard to species extinction. To me it looks like pseudo science is likely to become now the alternative for new Age Babble. This kind of stuff seems to be all geared to keep people having faith in their future and comfortably allow themselves to distort/ ignore/ deny any facts that are counterproductive as to sustain in their fantasy that a better world is coming soon or at least it is not as bad as they thought it were, thus food for the social identity to vigorously grow. By your logic, if one believes that a worse world is coming soon, or at least believes it is not as good as one thought it was, then this will wither the social identity. Authors the like Mr. Lomborg are suspected of making profit of the gullible believing wishful thinking crowd. And yet the impassioned Environmentalists not only make a living out of the crowd, they are also self-proclaimed Saviours of the Planet. His followers are likely, rather then investigating the facts for themselves, to hold their faith in ‘would be experts’ the like i.e. the pseudo-spiritual crap of ‘ Mr. Redfields (the celestial promise)’ Which only begs the questions as to who the followers of Schneider and co. hold their faith in? Whenever I found having faith in what others said, or found myself being cynical about what others said, I took the time and made the effort to investigate the facts for myself. I fail to see how you expect to become happy and harmless in the world as-it-is unless you are willing to make the effort to become free of the beliefs that would have you believe that the world as-it-is is a grim and awful place. Mr. Lomborg claims that
I wonder what kind of reasoning is applied here, could it perhaps be just wishful thinking. I take it from your comment that you haven’t read Lomborg’s book. If this is so, it is no wonder you are reduced to wondering. *
Me thinks more or less is rather a dubious expression in this context. And yet Lomborg provides substantive evidence in support of his statements.
Well I surely welcome a global improvement of the climate maybe we have palm trees growing on the North Pole say in 10 years. And yet there is no mutual agreement amongst climate modellers thus far as to the extent or the nature or the location of the effects of the projected future global warming.
Although you made no comment here, Lomborg provides a good deal of evidence to support his statement. *
So only 1% over 10 years what would I worry about it. I take it you are directly quoting from Schneider’s criticism again. I don’t know what things you worry about, but I wanted to investigate the things I worried about because worrying stopped me feeling good about being here. If I asked myself how am I experiencing this moment of being alive and found myself worrying about some doom and gloom report, I became curious enough to investigate the issue – to take the time and make the effort to find out for myself, rather than go on believing others. This was the only reason I mentioned Lomborg’s book on the list –as an aid for people to make up their own minds, if they wanted to, as to what is fact and what is myth about environmental issues. *
Again I take it that this is a direct quote from Schneider. By posting it are you saying that what he is saying is fact or do you simply believe what he is saying is true? The next time you ask yourself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and you come up with the answer ‘I’m worried about ...’ or ‘I’m feeling sad because ...’ or ‘I’m annoyed that ...’ you might just be curious as to whether you are worrying or getting upset about a belief and not something that is a fact. Or, to use your term, whether you are simply a paid up member of the ‘gullible believing ... crowd’. When I came across actualism, I was challenged to investigate my beliefs because I understood that my beliefs formed an integral part of my social identity. I had good hands-on evidence of this direct link because I had experienced how much my spiritual beliefs had formed an integral part of my spiritual self-righteous identity. I also saw that beliefs are the bane of humanity – beliefs cause so much confusion, so much conflict, so much passion and have such a hold over human beings that they are even ready and willing to kill other human beings to defend them. I deliberately set about on a course of investigating my beliefs by becoming very interested in the beliefs that humanity hold dear. I read, watched TV and observed the human condition and myself very attentively with the very specific purpose of investigating beliefs and ascertaining facts. I put everything on the table and I do mean everything. Because this was the first time in my life I had undertaken such an investigation of the beliefs that form and sustain the human condition, I was able to be very naïve about my investigation into my own beliefs and this naiveté stood me in very good stead. I went literally back to school, not as a gullible child but as a life-experienced, very curious, fascinated-with-life grown-up. However, questioning and investigating beliefs is entirely your business because your beliefs are precious to you and you are the one who has an investment in either keeping them or eliminating them. Well I can only change myself nevertheless it’s an interesting question: How will I be experiencing this moment of being alive 10 years from now? Unless you are willing to question your beliefs – and your need to remain a believer – you will no doubt be worrying about the same things that everyone else will be worrying about 10 years from now. Which means you will not have changed at all. * As a postscript, I came across an interesting article the other day that is relevant to this topic. It’s from Newsweek magazine –
While all this has a very familiar ring to it, it is actually an excerpt from an article in a 1975 edition of Newsweek entitled ‘The Cooling World’. As I said, it is imperative to be naive about your investigations into your own beliefs, sort of like going back to school – not as a gullible child but as a life-experienced, very curious, fascinated-with-life grown-up.
Iow, how can you know the difference between what actually happened (emotional memory) and what your imaginary projections are? In order to prise these three separate issues apart, – actual experience, emotional memory and future projections – a practical down-to-earth example may be useful. I will use an example that I have written about in my journal, a time when I was waiting to meet Vineeto – <story snipped> As I have described, at the time this event was happening, ‘I’ had feelings of jealousy raging, and these feelings prevented me from enjoying the sensual delight of what was actually happening at the time. If ‘I’ now had an emotional memory of what happened, ‘I’ would simply be reliving ‘my’ feelings of jealousy in this moment, thereby preventing me from enjoying the sensual delight of being here. By evoking an emotional memory of having been jealous in the past, ‘I’ re-vive the emotion in this moment and thereby run the danger of imagining situations or events to justify ‘my’ feeling jealous now. Given that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, ‘I’ therefore exist over time – in other words, ‘I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations. Good! So I am simply ‘knowing’ that [‘I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations.] as a fact. You don’t need to rely on ‘knowing’ this to be a fact, you can experience it to be a fact for yourself by being attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. Knowing is a only start, but knowing is not a word I would use because spiritualists have so abused the word that they claim they know God exists when what they mean is they think, feel and believe God exists. [I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations.] Ok <snip now is the only moment ‘I’ can experience any reference to future or past (ability to discriminate) can only be arrived upon as a factual instance by appliance of time as a concept (a measure tool) hence I say the discriminating mechanism is the ability to conceptualize time. While you may well think and feel all sorts of things about time, it does not alter the fact that this moment is the only moment you can experience being alive. If you are wasting this moment of being alive by wallowing in past emotional memories or worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future, then it is impossible to be attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. Even more so ... when this ‘mechanism’ is being ‘influenced’, iow, that discrimination ability is being affected, there is an altered state of consciousness happening. For normal people, there is an ‘I’ being conscious of ‘me’ being here which means that the best ‘I’ can do is think and feel ‘I’ am here in the physical world. For spiritual people who suffer from an altered state of consciousness, either temporarily or permanently, the personal ‘I’ is transformed into an aggrandized ‘Me’ who experiences the physical world as illusionary. In the East, countless monks have wasted countless moments using their ‘discrimination ability’ to think about time, space and matter and all of them have come to the conclusion that this physical world we humans actually live in is an illusion. While such types of ‘discrimination ability’ can lead to delusionary altered states of consciousness, this belief is part and parcel of Eastern religion and philosophy. There can come a moment when this mechanism is actually being altered in such a way that [I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations.] can be rephrased as [I’ exist as emotional memories, current affective experience and fearful or worrisome imaginations.] thus making the time aspect redundant here, iow. that’s all there is ‘this moment experience’ thus ‘knowing’ has become part of the factual existence of this flesh-body. The spiritual world is awash with ‘knowing’, and all of it is devoid of common sense down-to-earth experience. This is typified by such quandaries as ‘how to bring one’s meditation into the market place?’, ‘How to reconcile the inner and the outer?’, etc. I’ve learnt by experience that knowing is not the same as doing. * The computer screen is an object made of the stuff of this planet we humans live on, it is not a concept. As to [object made of the stuff of this planet we humans live on] Technically speaking you are now implying that [this planet we humans live on] is made of glass. It would however be a sign of extremely superstitiousness from me, if indeed I would take [stuff of this planet] as such that. You actually tried to make me believe that you meant glass in this context. And yet I didn’t say or imply that this planet is made of glass. What I said is that the computer screen is made up of the very stuff that this planet is made of. Traditionally glass was made of soda, lime and silica, all sourced from the earth and nowadays all sorts of other minerals are utilized in the process, depending on the type and specific characteristics of the glass. There is nothing superstitious or supernatural about glass and yet I always find it magical that glass is made from the rock of this planet. It’s quite stunning what human ingenuity is capable of. So ... I take this ‘stuff’ as what has been scientifically proven to be a movement of matter. No. This stuff – the physical matter that this planet is – exists as a fact. It doesn’t matter whether this stuff exists in its raw state or whether it has been fashioned or formed by human ingenuity and effort into other stuff – it is all the stuff this planet is made of. This stuff doesn’t need to be scientifically proven to be so – it is so. Nor do any of the scientific theories, concepts, hypotheses and fantasies about the ‘movement of matter’ alter the fact that the matter of this physical world exists as a verifiable empirical tangible fact. Assuming thereby that the formulae E= mc square is correctly representing the actual relationship of energy to matter, ie. matter becomes energy or energy is materialized thus the universe in motion. It is commonly assumed that Einstein’s theory is a law that relates to the physical world we live in. I don’t make that assumption, for even a little investigation will reveal that this is not so. Contrary to popular belief there is not one theory about matter, there are currently some eight main theories of matter, and a myriad of sub-theories. Nowadays there is a good deal of consternation in the world of quantum theory because the whole edifice of theoretical particles and assumed relationships has been thrown into question by the lack of any empirical evidence to support it. Some heavyweights in the quantum world are even proposing abandoning the whole thrust of the last century’s theories and beginning again with a new set of theories and concepts. I always find it kind of cute that spiritualists make a big deal out of digging up meta-physical quantum theories of matter, time and space and desperately wave them as a flag in support of their own meta-physical beliefs. Ever aware of the fragility of their own belief-system, they seek comfort in a belief-system that is equally as fragile and spurious – one that is already threatening to collapse like a tower made of playing cards. * And the only moment you can actually experience all this is this very moment. If you are sensually experiencing this moment, there is simply no room for conceptualisations or abstractions, let alone past emotional memories or future fearful imaginations. I may have images of the past or the future yet these are nothing more than then the activity of my brain ie memories. No. You can look at a photograph taken of you in the past and that is an image, but it makes no sense at all to deny that there was an actual flesh and blood body called NO 23 existing at the time the photo was taken. This type of conceptual thinking, i.e. thinking abstracted from facts and actuality, is common in spiritual circles and can only lead to a ‘me’ who imagines ‘I’ am real and the past, the physical world and other human beings are but an illusion. I’m 100% with you here. It is even at the edge of ‘insanity’ to deny that fact. I mean a total waste of energy and who would believe me anyway if I would say: ‘This picture only proves that a picture was taken of this flesh-blood-body called No 23 it does not prove that I the flesh-blood-body called No 23, did exist at the time that the picture was being taken’ or even that I might deny my flesh-blood-body-existence prior to the moment that the picture is being shown to me. Iow, I have just arrived so I don’t know anything about it, I’m quite surprised you show me that picture, yes I just come from planet Lala. I guess that picture refers to a future event here on Planet Earth so I wonder when that event when the picture is going to be taken will, become manifest. One of the TV series I enjoyed was the ‘Red Dwarf’, a space fantasy-comedy where any number of imaginary scenarios were played out about space warps and parallel universes, time warps, time travelling, virtual realities, clones, emotional mechanoids and so on. A good laugh, made even funnier by the fact that there are whole fields of theoretical science and billions and billions of dollars devoted to such not-of-this-world thinking. On the other hand that is maybe too advanced a strategy of avoidance and it could be easy de-masked as unwillingness/ inability to admit that there is a slight form of amnesia happening. Or rather an example of an ‘unwillingness/ inability’ to admit that you are merely believing that the concepts, theories and fantasies of others are true, or are the Truth. * This type of conceptual thinking, i.e. thinking abstracted from facts and actuality, is common in spiritual circles and can only lead to a ‘me’ who imagines ‘I’ am real and the past, the physical world and other human beings are but an illusion. Indeed: one safely can assume that this ‘but’ in [other human beings are but an illusion] can be considered as the great danger that lures in this way of conceptualizing. In the normal world, the concept that we should all get on with each other is always sabotaged by ‘self’-centeredness and in the spiritual world the feeling that ‘we are all one’ is always sabotaged by the ‘Self’-centred feeling of ‘I am God’. Both concepts are well-proven failures. This ‘I’ is capable of any type of imagination as long as it can keep playing a part as in such a way that it can discriminate itself as being ‘separate’ from its own imagination. Thus from that separateness comes either self-aggrandisement as in ‘I’ playing an exclusive/ important as Godman or God himself or the other side a self-degrading ‘I’ as ie. the one at mercy of the divine blessing/ will, aso. Either case in fact is distortion of actual experience because of an ‘unbalanced/ unrestricted functioning of the above discriminating mechanism. Iow, a case of more or less ‘insanity’. And yet it is not only spiritualists who fail to discriminate fact from imagination. Theoretical scientists also seek glory and fame by searching for the Meaning of Life by developing all sorts of meta-physical concepts about space, time and matter. They do so by imagining all sorts of things that cannot and never can be seen, touched, smelt, heard or tasted and by imagining all sorts of events that have never, can never and never will be actually experienced by them. I thoroughly recommend the active challenging of all of humanity’s cherished beliefs – not only spiritual beliefs but real-world beliefs, theories, concepts and psittacisms as well. How do you expect to experience the perfection and purity of the actual world if you fervently believe in a Greater Reality, gullibly fall for the stories that make the world as-it-is into a grim reality or unquestioningly accept the theories that make the world as-it-is into a world of science fiction. * So overtime there is not happening disembodiment, because that would imply that there is something a particular ‘I’, that would/ can/ will be or have been/ become disembodied. Spiritual people believe they are disembodied spirits as is typified by statements such as ‘I am not the body’ or ‘I left my body the other day’. When meditating one day, I had an out-of-body experience but such experiences are what is known as hallucinations or figments of the imagination. [I had an out-of-body experience but such experiences are what is known as hallucinations or figments of the imagination.] rephrased as [I had an out-of-body experience and such experiences are what is known as hallucinations or figments of the imagination.] So then it makes perfect sense to say: during that kind of experience the body had become a hallucination/ figment of the imagination.] .I say the spiritual ‘I’ had therefore ‘conceptualized’ a body, iow, ‘knew’ that such a thing was there as a flesh-body, it disagreed with the factuality [this body being palpable experience-able] hence that was a malfunctioning of the discriminating mechanism. Or you could simply say I was ‘out of my tree’ at the time. I was always a little suss of these psychic experiences – they were a bit too weird for me. I guess that’s why I failed in the spiritual world, exactly as I failed in the real-world. * And yet this moment is the only moment you can actually experience. If I may suggest, the only way to know how you experience this moment is to become attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of time – which is precisely the purpose of the actualism method – ask yourself each moment again ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’. At first it takes a good deal of effort for you will find that you have made a habit of wasted a lot of moments by dwelling in past emotional memories, worrying about future events or being angry at someone or feeling sad about something. As you get the knack of it you get this wasted time down to a minimum and you learn to crank up feeling good about being here. With sufficiently stubborn effort the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ becomes wordless and your attentiveness comes to the forefront for the first time in your life. Only by stubbornly and diligently practicing attentiveness can what ‘seems to be’ happening become the direct sensual experience of what ‘is now’ actually happening. The actualism method is unremitting in its efficiency and simplicity, which is why some people take the safe route and make a philosophy out of actualism rather than use the method themselves That’s why the program Patafok was designed; indeed to make sure that there is this attention at any moment available. The program now works to the degree that I just have to snap my finger to, so to speak, ‘crank up’ my pure intent. And a pure intent will ensure you have the necessary impetus to investigate all of the beliefs that prevent you from experiencing the perfection and purity of the actual world. * One of the major difficulties for newcomers to actualism is that they think there is something new to learn in actualism – something they can add on to what they have already learnt. This is quite understandable because all that human beings think and feel to be true or ‘the truth’ has been learnt from someone else. The tendency therefore is to see actualism as something new to learn, a new form of wisdom to be clipped-on or melded in to their existing belief, a new and superior philosophy than the one they had before, a new set of rules and regulations as to how to live one’s life, a convenient excuse for continuing to suppress emotions and feelings, a clever mask for sublimating undesirable emotions and feelings, a catchy concept to strut around and teach others, and so on. I say now so far: To stubbornly hold on to the hypothesis that: given that time is a fact [to have a concept of time is neither sensible nor practical] is a not sensible statement from an actualist point of view] is to miss the boat completely. Hence the question: Can for the flesh-body time only be a concept? Must be answered with no. Only to ‘I’ be it spiritual or social ‘I’, time can be a concept. Thus as already has been mentioned in [This type of conceptual thinking, i.e. thinking abstracted from facts and actuality, is common in spiritual circles and can only lead to a ‘me’ who imagines ‘I’ am real and the past, the physical world and other human beings are but an illusion.] the statement [to have a concept of time is neither sensible nor practical] I wholeheartedly agree with and even more say ‘to stubbornly hold on to ones ‘self-fabricated’ concept of time is stubborn insanity and an utterly redundant activity’. PS. Really, Peter a brilliant move this moment a fact. The amazing thing about a fact is that it doesn’t need anyone’s agreement or anyone’s passionate support for it to be a fact. You can disagree with a fact, deny a fact, distort a fact or try and make a concept out of a fact, but none of these tricks or objections change a fact, make it go away or change it in any way. I like facts because facticity and actuality are intrinsic to the actual world. As the one question still open for me is: [does the table only exist as something situated/ placed/ located/ happening between the future and the past?] yet is rendered unacceptable as you say [I have learnt by experience to bale out when conversations get to this point] though it was not me who asked that question. I say no ... this table you are referring to can only be virtual thus right in this moment you read these words it’s here. And yet the reason I mentioned the table was the following exchange –
My point was that objecting to the fact that this is the only moment you can experience being alive is of the same ilk as objecting to the fact that material objects exists as a fact. As such, I’ll pass on your offer to continue this line of conversation. You will find that Richard has written a good deal on both these topics if you want to pursue this line of investigation for yourself. * Have you ever contemplated upon the fact that this list is the only place on the planet where people are having a conversation about how to become actually harmless and happy? It is quite extraordinary when you pause to think about it. I appreciate your enthusiasm for the topic.
Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
