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Selected Correspondence Peter Desire
But I also wonder whether desire and altruism also disappear together with fear, nurture, aggression, egoism and narcissism when the process is completed. I can certainly affirm that all of the instinctual passions and their consequences disappear completely in a PCE, and from my own experience of living in a virtual freedom from the human condition for some 6 years now I can report that, whilst altruism is still a motivating force in my life, the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire have all but become ineffective … and from 7 years of close observation of Richard I can confirm that not a skerrick of them is observable in action in someone who is actually free of the human condition. What specific desires have you lost along the way, if you can nominate just a few? Desire for me is the most shadowy item in the actualist bookstore. This is what I wrote about instinctual desire in the AF Glossary –
Before I became an actualist, I had a good deal of experience of the failure of materialistic pursuits to bring me happiness, let alone allow me to be harmless. The instinctual passion of desire most prominently manifests as the desire for wealth and its associated power over others, the desire for fame and the adulation of others, the ceaseless accumulation of possessions and property always seemed paltry pursuits. Whilst I had previously found these pursuits wanting, as an actualist I have come to experientially understand the brutal and senseless instinctual passions that underpin these desires. Once I came to experience raw instinctual survival fear and consequential aggression, the deep-seated emotions that arise from instinctual drive began to lose their affective power, so much so that I no longer harbour any moral or ethical objections to material wealth per se. Nowadays I am appreciative of the tangible benefits of the safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure that are the by-products of wealthy societies. I have also had a good deal of experience of the failure of spiritual pursuits and I have already written about this extensively so I won’t go over the territory again, other than to say that I discovered the spiritual world to be an incestuous cesspool of self-gratification. The most primal instinctual passion is the desire to procreate – to impregnate or be impregnated, depending on one’s gender. Of all of my investigations into the human instincts this has proved to be one of the most rewarding as not only have I succeeded in disempowering the brutish and senseless sexual drive such that I am now free to enjoy the sensual pleasures of sex but I have also freed others from my sexual predatoriness. In hindsight, the investigation into instinctual sexual desire has been one of the most fruitful aspects of my investigations into the instinctual passions as it has not only opened the door to being able to live in peace and harmony with my partner but it also help attune my senses to the myriad of sensual delights of everyday living. One desire, however, still remains active and persistent and that is the desire to become actually free of the human condition. And I’m not sure whether Richard is running on altruistic auto-pilot. For if he’s not on auto-pilot, then what motivates its actions? (based on your own experience of PCEs). In a PCE, ‘me’ and ‘my’ instinctual passions are temporarily in abeyance. With the whole affective faculty temporarily inoperative, neither selfist nor altruistic feelings are present because everything is experienced as being utterly perfect in the actual world of the senses. In a PCE, consideration for one’s fellow human beings is an effortless consequence of the total absence of instinctual malice and sorrow. This consideration is effortless in that it is not a product of any moral or ethical requisites whatsoever and nor is it a product of the tender half of the instinctual passions. And further this consideration is not passive in a PCE as one taps into the intrinsic benignity of the universe itself and as such, one literally wishes the best for each and every one of one’s fellow human beings. My observation is that Richard’s effortless well-meaningness is the inevitable outcome of his being free of the human condition.
How can my desire for freedom be strong and ‘deliver the desired results’ when it seems that that very desire often moves me away from experiencing this present moment? Comments are welcome. The universal human desire for freedom is not an enemy, nor is it the cause of human misery, as the spiritualists would have us believe. The desire for freedom is based upon the experiential understanding that there is more to life than you normally experience. Whether you consciously remember these experiences or not – sometimes people find it difficult to remember their pure consciousness experiences – the disparity between these experiences of the perfection and purity of the actual world on one hand and your life as-it-is now on the other is the very source of the desire for freedom. Thus far in human history, the shamans, gurus and Godmen have latched on to this innate human desire for freedom, peace and happiness and have cornered the market by peddling their alluring fairy tales of immortal souls and spirit worlds and seductive states of God-consciousness. However, in this newly emerging post-spiritual era, this sham can now be clearly seen for what it is – ancient superstitions and myths fabricated upon the urge for ‘self’-aggrandizement that is built into the animal instinctual survival program. Only when you come to fully understand the breathtaking scope of this scam are you able to finally free yourself from the spiritual platitudes and inanities that have squashed, crippled and perverted the human desire for freedom for millennia. Then you are free to gaily crank up your own desire for a genuine freedom from malice and sorrow – free to roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the fascinating business of finding out exactly what is preventing you from being happy and harmless now. And what a grand thing to do – to dare to head off on your own in a direction that is 180 degrees opposite to what everyone else accepts as being right and true – to experience that delicious feeling of committing yourself totally to your search for freedom, peace and happiness for the first time in your life.
A marvellous opportunity is now available for any who are willing to face facts. No longer do we humans have to feel guilt or shame, pray to God for redemption or salvation, seek to escape from evil into an ‘inner’ world of isolation and feeling-only existence, no longer do we have to humble ourselves before God-men. Simply acknowledging the fact that our malice and sorrow results from an instinctual program instilled by blind nature in order to ensure the survival of the species is the first step towards becoming actually free of malice and sorrow. To continue to deny factual empirical evidence is to indulge in denial and this denial actively prevents your chance at experiencing peace on earth in this lifetime. Beautiful. I couldn’t agree more. But ultimately only through seeing the empirical evidence objectively will this statement serve the manifestation of peace and sanity. Methinks seeing things objectively is at the root of Buddhist philosophy. Objectively means –
On the face of it, being objective can sound reasonable until you note the words – ‘disinterestedly, with detachment, dispassionately’. To see things objectively means one has to become an outside observer and not involved which fairly describes the Buddhist philosophy. By cool objective observation, practicing ‘right concentration and right action’, one lives one’s life in objective detachment and thus transcends desire and suffering. Where I come from, this is dissociation. Give me subjective investigation any day. It does mean facing the facts of the human condition, both of the real world and the spiritual world, but the rewards are palpable, tangible and actual. It was only by getting my head out of the clouds and ‘getting down and getting dirty’, getting stuck into the roots of animal passion that I was able to eliminate them from my life.
I’ve just been pointing out that the ego is a phantom and has no reality in itself. I have found that as the phantom is seen through the instinctual processes change. But you will not question whether the other half of your self is equally illusionary. If the ego is illusionary, why can you not entertain the idea that the soul may well be illusionary as well? As for the ‘instinctual processes changing’, all evidence of the Enlightened state is that fear and aggression are sublimated but not eliminated – as you would know – and nurture and desire are given full, uninhibited reign such that people feel Divine Love and even God-realized.
Where I am coming from will never be out-dated. It has been around forever because it is real. But few have seen it. You must have been into a Hindu spiritual teaching. They are always talking about this sort of thing, the higher teachings of Buddhists see the wonder and beauty in this world. It is not that the world is not real, it is the images that separate the human mind from that reality are illusion. No one I respect says to stop thinking. Just watch it and see what it tells you about the way you see the world and how the mind works. When one is just simply aware in the moment thinking can stop by itself. It is in those moments one can awaken to the real. In other words, when thinking stops, awareness happens and one can awaken to the real. Therefore it is thinking that stands in the way of what is real being revealed. All Eastern spiritual practices, that ‘have been around forever’, point to this way of awakening to what is real, hence the emphasis on meditation, stilling the mind, practicing ‘right’ thinking and ‘right’ awareness to steer you away from the illusionary dreamlike, abstract images as well as the seductions of earthy sensual pleasure. Or, as you put it –
This ‘far more subtle view of the world’ does require that one shuts down or distorts sensible thinking and sensate perception in order to see ‘all wars, all hatred, all suffering’ that are actually happening to flesh and blood human beings as only images or believe that they are only caused by conditioned thoughts of the thinking mind. As for ‘the higher teachings of Buddhists’ perhaps we could look to the source of these teachings. The essence of the Buddha’s teaching was said to be the Four Noble Truths:
No mention of ‘the wonder and beauty in this world’, quite the contrary. Like all spiritual teachings one needs to look at the fundamental principle upon which it is founded. In Buddha’s case his core principle upon which all his teachings are founded is that ‘life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering’. The ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ can then be seen quite clearly as a ‘right’ re-conditioning of the mind which is very similar to your teachings of.
For someone whose declared position is that ‘I have never followed any Eastern religion or philosophy’ you do seem to make a habit of using Eastern religion and philosophy to support your case for peace on earth and your ‘non-religious’ philosophy does bear a very striking resemblance to that of Buddhism.
* What is our collective will? Do we even have one? The collective will of the species is a will to survive as a species. Blind nature wires each species with an instinctual response mechanism in order to perpetuate the particular species. It is a very clumsy package and in many species it actually conspires, making survival difficult. The migratory patterns of many birds and animals are such as to cause the futile death of many. For humans these instinctual responses are fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Fear and aggression are necessary to attack and defend against other animals that would kill or eat us. In the human species this includes to attack and defend against other humans in competition for territory, food, mating partners, etc. Nurture is essentially the instinct to procreate, provide for, protect and pass on any knowledge, customs, morals, ethics and beliefs to the next generation. Desire is the drive to survive – it translates into sexual conquest, power over others, and attaining the necessities of survival such as territory, food, offspring, and the protection of others. Played out by 5.8 billion humans these instinctual patterns combined with tribal conditioning results in the Human Condition as we see it in operation on the planet. This is what we humans agree we are, and we further believe that you can’t change human nature. So we all agree that we can’t change ourselves, so no one dares to try. It is now possible to become free of the collective will. But it does take the courage to stand on one’s own two feet, to stop believing what others tell you as truths and start looking at facts. Then one discovers and sensately experiences the delight, ease, magic and perfection of the physical universe.
The Enlightened Ones, having found God and Love, are compulsively driven to spread their message and to gather their disciples. It is intrinsic that if one discovers the Truth then one is impelled to teach it. Truth does not exist without the teachings. Is this true of all Enlightened Ones? There are over 6.000 religions on the planet and nearly as many sub-groups all started by Enlightened Ones or Realised Ones. You can give me all the theories you want but this is the direct result of their teachings, ministries, prophesies, messages or communes. The factual evidence of the urge to spread the message. Does not enlightenment purge compulsion? There is no evidence of it, quite the contrary. All claim a Divine message, a Unity with God, and a desire to share their overflowing. If you are interested you could read Richard’s ‘A brief personal history’ for the inside story of Enlightenment. I take it from your willingness to even talk of these matters that you are not fully Enlightened but only Realised – so you may be curious about another option. The mystical experience is universally identified as being something beyond sharing, so why would such a one engage in the futility of trying to teach what they learned from the experience? I take it you are talking about sharing in the form of – spoken about sensibly with words that make sense then it is an obvious futility. The sharing that is usually practiced is in ‘being in the presence of’, sharing ‘energy’, as in an Ashram, Sangha, temple or the more widely practiced humble ‘sitting’.
Of course, now in 1999, we know that the source of sorrow and malice in humans is but the instinctual program of fear and aggression. In a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt we have called on the instincts of nurture and desire as a balancing act. The Good to do battle with the Bad. Indeed, all does pretty well, as we now have a sophisticated system of moral and ethical rules, backed up by police, prisons and armies to keep the violence to ‘acceptable’ levels. This still leaves the feelings of fear and sorrow rampant, and as a succour to this we still turn to the spiritual world of Gods and good spirits – we get to feel Good and appease the Gods on the side and with the promise of a better life after death thrown in for good measure. It was the best on offer up till now. But there is a way out of this washing machine of neurotic thoughts and churning emotions that avoids the inanities of believing in good and bad spirits, Gods and Demons.
All sentient beings are born pre-primed with certain distinguishing instincts, the main ones being fear, aggression, nurture and desire. They are blind Nature’s rather clumsy software package designed to give one a start in life and to ensure the survival of the species. While absolutely essential in the days of roaming man-eating animals, rampant disease, high infant mortality, these very same instincts now threaten the survival of the species. Further, blind nature gives not a fig for your happiness or well-being. We are relentlessly driven, despite our good intentions and moral codes, to act instinctually in each and every situation in our lives and this is the cause of all our angst and confusion. Thus fear hobbles us with a desperate need to belong to a group, cling to the past, hang on to whatever we hold dear to ourselves, resist change and desperately seek immortality. Aggression causes us to fight for our ‘rights’, our possessions, our territory and our treasured beliefs – to seek power over others. Nurture causes us to feel sorrow for ourselves and others similarly afflicted persons, to desperately cling to others for comfort and solace. Desire drives us to sexual reproduction, avarice and greed. The pretence and delusion of rising above the animal into the divine is but a delusion and has failed to curb the continuing violence and suffering of sentient human beings. The belief that instincts are a constant fixed program is forever dooming this planet to the human hell it really is, either experienced directly by many or watched in comfort and comparative safety on TV news programs by the few. Contrary to popular belief instincts are not hardware but, like all software, they can be deleted thereby paving the way for the possibility of actual peace on earth. Each and every human is capable, given sufficient will and intent, of weakening the stranglehold instincts have on their thought and behaviour to such an extent that they are virtually free of their influence. Then, and only then, is it possible that their elimination will occur through a mutation wherein a total and complete disconnection from their source in the primitive animal brain occurs.
I think that the point is that this state of Virtual Freedom is not irreversible – unless there is a pure intent and a desire to evince the best possible one could waver. Pure intent is such a simple term I sometimes find it strange that people have difficulty with it. It simply means I will be the best I can, and if one has had a peak experience then the best is glaringly obvious. So, throwing my caution to the wind – I would say that the last 12 months have been a stage of Virtual Freedom – the use of capital letters to indicate a definable state only. The next phase is to an Actual Freedom – the complete extinction of the psychological and psychic entity, in short the ‘me’ who I think and feel I am. There is no doubt that I am travelling a different path to the one you travelled, one that you have carefully mapped and explored with your companion at the time. Because of this your experiences of becoming Enlightened and clawing your way out are not relevant to my experiences. But the end result and aim is the same – an actual freedom from the Human Condition – a definitive and decisive release from, and extinction of, the alien entity inside this body. In trying to make sense of my different path and your two-stage extinction, I have had a cautious approach as the Rock of Enlightenment always looms large. Having seen and experienced the power-crazed God-men in action and the willingness of there desperate followers to surrender to them and worship has proved a valuable, if sobering, experience . The other part is having experienced the seduction of an Altered State of Consciousness. As a consequence I have been well warned and well prepared. Despite the fact of having had a substantial peak experience (PCE) some 15 years ago and a substantial experience of Divine Love (ASC) some 3 years ago there was still a piece missing. It all seemed to involve either a looking back into my past or sideways to your experiences and trying to draw a parallel. The other nagging issue was a feeling of the unfairness or even perversity of being born into the Human Condition, of being who I thought and felt I was, finding out it was a pretty rotten mess and then having to die, or self-immolate in order to be free. To do that in order to become Enlightened is one thing as one gets to have worshipping disciples, psychic power, fame and wealth – ‘Money for nothing and your chicks for free’ as I cheekily put it. Becoming God seems a not to bad reward for the effort involved – well on the face of it anyway, as long as you are not too discriminating. Of course, once you see the down-sides of Enlightenment, it very rapidly loses appeal – but at least ‘I’ am around to enjoy it. But self-immolation, extinction, the end of me? And even the memory of a peak experience in the past and an intellectual clarity of the whole Human Condition including the delusion and appalling consequences still seemed to leave a slight gap, a wee doubt. Virtual Freedom had brought me to a position where it became obvious that ‘I’ could do no more to clean myself up, I seemingly had done all that ‘I’ could. Something more was needed, and – loh and behold – it came along.
I wrote a bit in my journal about realisations that may be useful – ‘This process of identifying various aspects of the human condition within me became a full-time occupation. Whenever I was not experiencing myself at the optimum level possible at the time, I had something, some aspect of the Human Condition, to look at. This constant looking within myself – my psyche – would then expose that particular belief or instinct as silly, not sensible, and it would eventually disappear. Often the change was sudden and dramatic with a corresponding thrill of freedom, while other issues brought a slow, sluggish release. Often I found myself impatient at an apparent lack of progress, just to realise that this was exactly the issue to look at – perhaps the desire for excitement and achievement, or good old boredom. It was extraordinary that the next thing would come along, and the right circumstances and events would occur, confronting and aiding me. Sometimes, seeing through some part of ‘me’ as a mere belief or instinctual pattern would come as a flash of realisation, sometimes as a slow painful dawning, which I would fight tooth and nail, reluctant to even acknowledge, let alone throw out. But gradually I could notice the psychological and psychic entity becoming thinner, actually weakening its hold over me. It then became apparent to me that I was indeed fixing myself up!’
I agree that some of these emotions have their attractiveness but if that is weighed up against all the times one missed out on opportunities because of the negative effects of certain emotions then a strong argument can be made for sacrificing the ones that are found to be somehow enjoyable. Yep. Tis writ large in the sacred texts of the ‘Human Condition’, sub-section ‘Human Attributes’ – ‘The faculty that distinguishes the human species from other animal species is our ability to feel. In short we are ‘feeling’ beings – take away our feelings and we are but animals or robots’. Of course, this sacred tenet was written in ancient times when the only chance of keeping fear and aggression in reasonable control was to emphasise nurture and desire. Thus it was that ‘good’ and ‘bad’, together with ‘right and wrong’, was chiselled in stone and written on rice paper as the morals and ethics of tribal groups. This was further reinforced by fairy-tales of Gods and Demons, good and bad spirits, and the power and influence of the shamans was set in concrete. To dare to question the Gods and the good was to tempt the Devil, invite the bad to run riot and invoke the wrath of the shamans. All of this is based on primitive ignorance of modern human biological knowledge only evident this century. Human and animal behavioural studies combined with stunning genetic and neuro-biological knowledge has made the futility of sticking with Ancient and spirit-ual solutions patently obvious. What we now know is that human beings have an instinctual program of fear, aggression, nurture and desire and that this is located in the hypothalamus primitive lizard brain. Its task is largely the regulation of stereotyped, or instinctive behaviour patterns and responses. In lower animals this response, sometimes known as ‘fight and flight’ is a simple response to sensorial input – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. In humans with our more complex brain, thought, memory, reflection and self-awareness this simple response becomes an emotional response – an emotion according to Mr. Oxford – any of the natural instinctive affections of the mind. Our treasured and dearly-held feelings are most commonly expressed as emotion-backed thoughts, firmly rooted in the ‘fight and flight’ instinct of fear and aggression. Hence we are ‘feeling’ beings – we live constantly with the feelings of fear and aggression implanted in us by ‘blind’ nature. * If you think ‘a strong argument can be made for sacrificing the ones that are found to be somehow enjoyable’, do you realise that thinking like that, if actualized, could eventually lead to an end of religions and of religious wars – an end to malice and sorrow. It is amazing how this human trap can be desirable, even after great suffering. We do indeed love to suffer and to inflict suffering on others – our ‘entertainment’ is either sad ‘love’ stories and tales of suffering or ‘action’ and violence. We have turned suffering into a virtue and pleasure into a vice. All of the religious and spiritual texts point to the essential and unending human suffering on earth. It is understandable for they knew nought of instinctual programming, and life on earth was a ‘fight and flight’ business – a man eat man business – to put it in its brutal perspective. But it is 1999 after all, and the ‘sacred’ words of Jesus, Buddha and the likes can be seen for what they are – ancient spirit-ridden drivel of no relevance at all to the situation we – you and I, and the others on this list – now find ourselves in.
The aim of ‘How am I ... ?’ is to become aware of how one is experiencing the world and to investigate what is preventing one’s happiness. It is therefore important not to confuse the sensate experience, as in sensation, with the affective experience with its roots firmly in the instinctual emotions. As I have said above, a feeling produces a chemical hormonal response in the body, usually in the heart and stomach areas. Fear produces hormones which quicken the heartbeat and tense the muscles, ready for either ‘fight or flight’. Jealousy, based on the nurture instinct, prepares the body to attack. Sexual desire similarly causes a well-known hormonal reaction, and so on. It is important to recognize that these reactions, while felt in the body as sensations, are actually ‘feelings in action’. It is this emotional ‘self’-centred experiencing that prevent our direct sensate-only experience of the actual world of sensual delight, purity and perfection. It is as though there is a veil or film over the actual that one yearns to break through – to become free of – in order to fully live life – to actually be here, now. It is new territory to question feelings, both those we arbitrarily denote as good and those we label bad but there is a fail safe method of navigation through the maze. The aim always is to facilitate peace and harmony – to become happy and harmless – and this pure intent will prevent one from settling for anything less than the genuine article. The genuine article is you, the flesh-and-blood-body-only you, who seeks freedom from the feelings of malice and sorrow that ruin your happiness.
Awareness = ‘I’ We seem to have numerous ‘I’s. There is the I of ‘I want’, the I of ‘I wrote a letter’, the I of ‘I am a psychiatrist’ or ‘I am thinking’. But there is another I that is basic, that underlies desires, activities and physical characteristics. A Deikman, Awareness = ‘I’ So, very quickly we have located the psychological ‘I’, and he defines it well. It is beyond ‘desire’, and I assume he means physical desires such as food, warmth, comfort and sex (and hot showers), beyond ‘activities’ like going for a walk, shopping, having a chat or typing a letter, and beyond ‘physical characteristics’ such as the sensately evidenced, solid, verifiable, factual, active, vibrant, tangible, see-able, feel-able, smell-able, hear-able, down-to-earth, sensual, actual world, here in space and now in time. Beyond people, things and events. Note also the disassociation from the process of thinking, as in: ‘I’ am not my thoughts. This is to completely negate what the brain does as its business. The brain thinks, just as heart pumps blood and the liver ‘livers’ (or filters the body’s wastes or whatever it does). What absolute nonsense to deny the brain and its functioning. Basically, the human body is a walking brain and sense organs. In fact, the brain and the sense organs are one – the eyes are the seeing stalks of the brain, the ears are hearing cones of the brain, the nose is the sniffing snout, the mouth its taster and the skin its direct interface as in touch and feel. The brain and body are one and part of the brain’s job is to think and reflect. It is the sole function that distinguishes the human animal from the rest of sentient beings. How do you deny all that and shut it all down? By sitting in the corner with your eyes closed, of course, and then go into your feelings and imagination. But I’m in danger of digressing, so I’ll put the professor back on – Awareness Awareness is something apart from, and different from, all that of which we are aware: thoughts, emotions, images, sensations, desires and memory. Awareness is the ground in which the mind’s contents manifest themselves; they appear in it and disappear once again. A Deikman, Awareness = ‘I’ The Professor goes on to confirm this being ‘apart from’ and being ‘different from’. This new ‘I’ ‘is apart from, and different from,’ anything the other ‘I’ thinks, feels, senses, sees, touches, remembers, desires, worries about, etc. It’s a pretty cosy little set-up, especially if one keeps one’s eyes closed and withdraws from the senses. Desires like sex have always proved a tough hurdle for the inner journeyers, and going out into the real world can often be a trial, particularly in the early days of cultivating this new ‘me’. The new, basic ‘I’ is the ‘ground’ in which all the mind’s contents appear – the thinking, reflecting and the brain’s sensory inputs that directly experience the physical world. Thus ‘I’ am neither my brain nor my body. This new ‘I’ is basic, prior and becoming more and more ‘real’, in direct proportion to the emphasis and kudos it is given. * You will notice that awareness continues as your thoughts come and go, as memories arise and replace each other, as desires emerge and fantasies develop, change and vanish. Now try and observe awareness. You cannot. Awareness cannot be made an object of observation because it is the very means whereby you can observe. A Deikman, Awareness = ‘I’ We have a further confirmation of awareness as being a separate ‘it’ – ‘it is the very means whereby one can observe’ – rather than simply a functioning of the brain itself. We have an almost complete separation of awareness, the new identity, from the flesh and blood mortal body and from the brain and its functioning of thought and reflection.
Yesterday when I was contemplating on ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’, I realized that I am not really understanding the word ‘experiencing’. What I was asking myself was, in fact, ‘How am I feeling in this moment of being alive’. This is so because I was always coming out with answers like ‘happy’ or ‘not happy’ or ‘gloomy’ etc. Which are all feelings. Aye, indeed. And until ‘you’ leave the stage your experience of life will be an emotional, feeling interpretation of the actual. It can not be any other way – human beings are wired that way. The amygdala – the primitive lizard brain – is an organ that is designed as an early warning system to quickly scan the sensorial input for any real or perceived danger and react with fear and aggression. This constant ‘on-guardness’ can be seen in any of the animal species, and in the human animal it produces feelings of fear and aggression. The amygdala is also the source of instinctual nurture and desire producing feelings that again actively conspire to ruin our happiness. So it sounds as if you are starting to realize the primary role that feelings play in the Human Condition. ‘You’ as an entity, existing inside the flesh and blood body can only think or feel about the actual world, and the only direct experience possible is when you cease to exist – either temporarily in a PCE, virtually in Virtual Freedom or permanently in Actual Freedom.
‘We are all one’ is indeed one of the classic lines from the spiritual world and perhaps no other platitude more accurately illustrates the gulf between belief, feeling and imagination and what is fact, sensible and blindingly obvious on the other. ‘We are all one’ and yet ‘we’ continuously and instinctually fight and fear each other in a grim battle of survival. The passionate feeling that ‘we are all one’, engendered by belonging exclusively to one spiritual group or another, gives rise to feelings of elitism, separateness, isolationism, remoteness, seclusion, exclusivity, defensiveness, blind loyalty and blind faith, snobbery, false superiority, intolerance, etc. etc. – anything but ‘We are all one’. In fact the feeling is not ‘We are all one’ but rather ‘We are the Chosen Ones’, and for the Guru it is not ‘We are all one’ but it is the feeling that ‘I am the One’. What a phantasm the spiritual world is, and being ‘admonished to leave your mind at the door, surrender your will, and trust your feelings’ ensures that the followers remain unthinking, unquestioning and off in La-La land – anywhere but here in the actual world and anytime but now, this very moment of being alive. All this nonsense, simply in order that ‘I’ as an identity can remain in existence – anything but a nobody, anything but a no-one, anything but cease to exist. This last 15 months since finishing my journal has been a period of becoming a nobody in society’s terms, a no-one in particular in terms of belonging to a group and a no-self in terms of being a feeling being that lives in fear and needs to fight for survival. As the feelings arising from the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire diminish, being alive here, now becomes such a delicious, ambrosial experience that I am wont to lie about doing nothing, for simply being here is outstanding – and on top of it I occasionally get to do something. I have no objections at all to being here, in fact where else could I be, and where else would I want to be. I am going nowhere, I have come from nowhere, I don’t need to do anything, I am never bored, I have no plans, desires, ambitions. I have no idea what I will do for the rest of my days, nor do I worry – I simply need sufficient money to live. Money for rent, food and clothes and for the pleasures that I fit into the day as well. Without the need to struggle to exist, and with no ‘me’ to defend, being here is indeed effortless. It requires no ‘me’ to be here for I am perpetually here anyway. ‘I’ play no part in pumping my heart, breathing, thinking, sleeping, eating, walking, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching – ‘I’ am but a dinosaurian-redundancy ... a passionate illusion, ripe for extinction.
Well, it does look as though the spiritualists are circling the wagons with the latest ‘observer’ waving that hoary old flag – ‘If only we would love each other ...’. No 8, I am curious as to what brought you to this list – was it just for a bit of flaming? Vineeto and I went on to the Sannyas mailing list a few months ago, to see if there were perhaps others who may be dissatisfied with the spiritual path and eventually got cyber-executed for daring to question Rajneesh. As an ‘ex’ I was wanting to let others know there is now, for the first time, an alternative available to the spiritual ‘freedom’ offered by Eastern Religions. A few people did come across to the Actual Freedom List but apparently none are sufficiently interested to take the jump out of the spiritual world. In my experience, it does take a burning discontent with life as-it-is, and I wonder if that applies to you. This discontent can take different forms – for me, one of the discontents was the continual failure of my ‘love’ relationships and a desire to free myself from sexual inhibitions, instinctual compulsiveness and ignorance. Another factor was, having had children, there was nothing I knew that I could pass on to them – I was confused, bewildered, bedevilled ... and definitely not free! I had no answers.
Firstly, there is most obviously an instinctual sense of self-recognition, a faculty we share with our closet genetic cousins – apes and chimps both recognize ‘themselves’ in a mirror. This instinctual primal ‘self’ is made more sophisticated in humans, for the cognitive neo-cortex (the ‘conscious’ to use LeDoux’s term) is only capable of detecting the chemical flows of the amygdala (non-cognitive and ‘unconscious’), and these are ‘felt’ as basic passions or emotions and interpreted as feelings – ‘my’ feelings. Thus, we ‘feel’ this genetic instinctual programming to be ‘me’ at my core. This program thus gives every human being an instinctual self which is translated into a ‘real’ self that is both psychic – LeDoux’s ‘unconscious’ made obvious and real by the ensuing flow of chemicals from the amygdala – and psychological – interpreted as thoughts by the modern cognitive brain. (The modern brain is also taught much after birth – one’s social identity – but I’m interested in the deeper level at this stage.) This explains that the spiritual journey ‘in’ is thus a journey to find one’s instinctual self – one’s roots, one’s original face, the Source, etc. If, on this inner journey, one ignores or denies the passions of aggression and fear and concentrates one’s attention on the passions of nurture and desire, one can shift one’s identity from the psychological thinking neo cortex – the ‘ego’ to use their term – and ‘become’, or associate with, or identify with, the good feelings of nurture and desire. This is a seductive and self-gratifying journey, for one is actively promoting the flow of chemicals that give rise to the good, pleasant, warm, light-headed, heart-full and ultimately ecstatic feelings. These flow of chemicals overwhelm the neo-cortex to such an extent that they become one’s primary experience, and the input of the physical world as perceived by the senses and the clear-thinking ability of the cognitive modern brain are both subjugated – or ‘transcended’ to use their term. One then ‘feels’ one has found one’s original ‘self’, which one has of course, though t’is all but a fantasy of one’s imagination. I particularly remember when I first came across spiritual teachings, the mythology and poetry that alluded to this ‘inner’ world seemed to strike a deep cord with me – the tales of Ancient Wisdom ‘connected’ with this deep (unconscious) level which was a connection with the instinctual memory in the amygdala. I had ‘found’ someone who had the answers, was in touch with the Source, knew the meaning of life, the truth – I had come Home. I began a journey into the inner world of good feelings, made real by the ability to enhance the chemical flow of nurture and desire and dampen, suppress or ignore the feelings of aggression and fear. I was literally leaving the real world behind and seeking solace and succour in the spiritual world. I was thus forfeiting any chance of breaking free of my instinctual passions, in total, for a selfish bid for personal bliss and a permanent place in an imaginary ‘other world’ composed solely of chemically-supported blissful feelings.
After our conversation the other day, I have been musing a bit about the word freedom and what it means to most people.
The dictionary provides a reasonably straightforward definition and for an actualist the pertinent section is freedom ‘from’, as in:
Thus a freedom from the human condition is ‘The state of not being affected by (a defect, disadvantage, etc.), exemption’, from the human condition. Given that the salient attributes of the human condition are malice and sorrow, a more pragmatic definition is an actual freedom from malice and sorrow. Much confusion arises for the seeker of freedom, peace and happiness for the word freedom traditionally means something quite different. In spiritual terms, freedom means an escape from, or release from, something undesirable – life as-it-is, in the world as-it-is, right here and right now - and the discovery of, or realization of, a more desirable somewhere else – being ‘present’ in the spiritual world, anyplace but here and anytime but now. I am having a correspondence with an awakened spiritual teacher at the moment that well illustrates this difference –
There seems to be a very deep-set misunderstanding that arises even from the running of the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ for the traditional approach would be – am ‘I’ feeling safe and comfortable ‘inside’ this body despite what is happening in the rock-solid world ‘out there’? This approach to the question merely perpetuates the self as an entity that is separate from the actual world, it does nothing to actively demolish and break down the barriers that prevents one as a mortal flesh and blood body being fully immersed in and engaged in the business of doing what is happening, right here and now in the physical , rock-solid actual world. This actual freedom is 180 degrees opposite to the spiritual freedom which is the escape from being here, right now in this the only moment one can experience being alive. An exchange I recently had with another correspondent illustrates a further aspect of spiritual belief about the actual physical world where we flesh and blood humans actually live –
Again this exchange illustrates that actualism lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to spiritualism. I don’t seek an escape from being here, now in the actual world – I seek to break free from all that prevents me from being here. In the case above, to do this means breaking free of the spiritual belief that material comfort is the cause of our misery – a deeply cynical and perverse view of life on earth that merely perpetuates human suffering. We were chatting the other day about the marked difference between being here, doing what is happening and the feeling of not being here that can cause a frustration with life as-it-is. The frustration with life as-it-is, right here and now, most often causes a passionate desire to be somewhere else which serves only to prevent one from being here. For an actualist, any period of time spent not being here is clearly a waste of time. Any time spent being bored, angry, pissed off, feeling sad, lack luster, annoyed, etc. is time wasted time lost from fully living this the only moment one can experience being alive. All of these ‘time-offs’ have to be explored and investigated and understood so as to prevent the same old ‘time-outs’ occurring in the future. It takes a bit of practice and a lot of effort and attention as to ‘how’ am I experiencing this moment of being alive, but pretty soon one gets the hang of it. Soon one finds that a switch has been made from being resentful at having to be here to resenting and wanting to eliminate whatever it is that prevents one from being here.
‘Why are you afraid when you’re walking alone in the dark and hear footsteps behind you? You have learned to be afraid. Nearly all of our fears are learned fears.’ And anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks and phobias, are expressions of your memories of fear, said Thompson. ‘If we could find a drug or genetic treatment that would stop the amygdala from signalling to the frontal cortex, then we could effectively treat anxiety disorders,’ he suggested.’ Science Daily ‘Nearly all our fears are learned fears’ is a telling point, for in-depth research into how much of the ‘bad’ passions of fear and associated aggression are genetically encoded, and therefore instinctual, and how much is ‘learned’, will no doubt run into ethical and moral objections. Nurture and desire are always seen in a good light and humans love to see it in action and recognize these emotions in action in other animals. Fear we try and sooth over – alcohol, drugs, excitement or adrenalin rushes being good panaceas, and aggression we simply label as evil or bad and blatantly ignore it in our own lives. The trap for past seekers of freedom is that spiritual concepts are instinctive in that their roots are so ancient that they disappear into the mists of time. The idea of a human spirit or soul, the idea of other-worlds, the idea of life beyond death, are deeply entrenched in Humanity, so much so that they could be regarded as both instinctual and intuitive. Intuitive in that these ideas are implanted in the memory of the amygdala and the amygdala automatically responds to spiritual notions with appropriate chemical responses. Thus the beliefs and myths of a spirit ‘home’, a spirit world and a life after death ‘feel’ right and true at a gut level. The flow of chemicals from the amygdala in response to spiritual input are warming and comforting as the intrinsic human awareness of mortality and the fear of death are temporarily extinguished. As such, the only actual and definitive freedom from the spiritual is to evince a complete cessation of the ‘signalling’ from the amygdala as Richard has done and as those following his method are doing. Neither repressing nor expressing, neither denying nor transcending, neither rejecting nor accepting, but actively observing and developing an understanding of these emotional signals and how they cause malice and sorrow in your life. The critical difference between the traditional approach and the actualist approach to freedom is that the spiritualists attempt to deny the bad instinctual passions and identify with the good instinctual passion and chemical flows, denying the ‘signalling’ – thus one feels oneself to be bliss, oneness, wholeness, love, etc. while transcending or rising above fear and aggression. As Mr. Lowe so rightly pointed out in the opening statement of his recently reviewed book one can ‘find a way of living where you can feel happy and joyful and free of fear’, but the full range of instinctual passions are still present in spiritual freedom for there is still ‘anger, greed and lust’ present, it’s just that he doesn’t ‘identify’ with them any more. The trap for past seekers of freedom is that spiritual concepts are instinctive in that their roots are so ancient that they disappear into the mists of time. The idea of a human spirit or soul, the idea of other-worlds, the idea of life beyond death, are deeply entrenched in Humanity, so much so that they could be regarded as both instinctual and intuitive. Intuitive in that these ideas are implanted in the memory of the amygdala and the amygdala automatically responds to spiritual notions with appropriate chemical responses. Thus the beliefs and myths of a spirit ‘home’, a spirit world and a life after death ‘feel’ right and true at a gut level. The flow of chemicals from the amygdala in response to spiritual input are warming and comforting as the intrinsic human awareness of mortality and the fear of death are temporarily extinguished. As such, the only actual and definitive freedom from the spiritual is to evince a complete cessation of the ‘signalling’ from the amygdala as Richard has done and as those following his method are doing. Neither repressing nor expressing, neither denying nor transcending, neither rejecting nor accepting, but actively observing and developing an understanding of these emotional signals and how they cause malice and sorrow in your life. ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is the method to eventually lead to an awareness and investigation of this instinctive ‘signalling’ from the amygdala such that one can plainly see, and experience, ‘who’ one thinks and feels one is ‘in action’. With this awareness and investigation comes a bare awareness such that one can distinguish between ‘what’ one is – clear thinking, a bare consciousness and sensate experiencing – and ‘who’ one has been taught to think one is and ‘who’ one has been programmed by blind nature to feel oneself to be. My experience is that sufficient time is needed living and experiencing a state of virtual freedom such that the fuses don’t blow when the whole ‘signalling’ system collapses or atrophies. In practical terms, this is a period of virtually no ‘signalling’ from the amygdala and virtually no personal ‘self’-centred thoughts. When one checks out by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and there is no ‘signalling’ , no sadness, no being peeved, no boredom, etc. and no mental worries or anxieties and no desire to go looking for them, then one simply ‘cruises and grooves’. Just a note that I am talking here of the latter stages of the process – in the early days one’s life is so full of discoveries, investigations and insights into the Human Condition and how one functions that one can barely catch breath with the often tumultuous excitement and pace of events. This latter period of ‘nothingness’ can be daunting at first but gradually an existence devoid of any ‘real’ world and ‘spiritual’ world meanings and values becomes delightfully delicious and sensually rich, not as a feeling but as a magnificent and overwhelming actuality. This ‘nothingness’ can be seen as a milder version of Richard’s angst or mental anguish period when all ‘signalling’ had ceased. It’s so good to follow and copy something that works, to follow someone who’s been through it and done it, and to find that modern empirical scientific research is confirming our experiences. And it’s good to be able to describe the process in dictionary definable words and post scientific empirical neurological and genetic research that both confirms actualism and buckets the spiritual belief in an immortal Godly soul. Ah, serendipity abounds ...
The flesh and blood body which sees, hears, smells, touches, thinks, reflects and speaks as distinct from the psychological and psychic entity within (who I think and feel I am) that neurotically controls, is fearful and aggressive, feels lost and lonely, and desperately fears death. Spiritual wisdom has it that the spirit or soul is real and the physical body/mind is but an illusion. The physical body is imagined as the seat of lustful carnal desire and the mind (ego) as the seat of selfish, evil, and non-divine thought. The soul, the imagined seat of the good feelings, is seen as the ‘spirit’ within the body, able to survive the death of the body. The spiritual solution to the human dilemma of malice and sorrow involves actively cultivating the soul – the ‘good’ feelings – into a distinct, superior, God-fantasizing identity. This new spiritual identity is then in total denial of, and transcendent to, the more unpleasant aspects of the body’s instinctual programming that produces lust, anger, despair, violence, fear and depression. To fantasize of a ‘good’ and immortal ‘spirit’ dwelling within an ‘evil’ and, very obviously, mortal body is to deny the fact of that humans actually are – instinctually-driven flesh and blood bodies, able to think and reflect. The Human Condition that enslaves the human body in malice and sorrow is essentially a neuro-biological condition. It is firmly based on the formation of a social identity imposed over an instinctual based primitive self – installed by blind nature to ensure the species’ survival. It is only when we firmly face this fact, cease denying it, and cease believing the fantasy story of a spirit-world, can we sensibly get down to the business at hand – ridding ourselves of the neuro-biological instinctual programming of the human brain. When one does, one discovers that the instinctual programming is exactly analogous to software in a computer – it is nothing more than how the hardware of the brain has been programmed to operate and function, and being software, the whole lot can be disposed of, deleted, eradicated. What is discovered is that the human flesh and blood body, freed of the pernicious restriction of a personal, instinct-based ‘self’, is able to operate at its optimum, to its full potential – freed of malicious and sorrowful feelings. In actualism, it is possible to eliminate the psychological and psychic entity such that one becomes this flesh and blood body only, wondering at the perfection and purity of the physical universe. All is then delightful, easy, carefree, serendipitous and perfect.’
‘From this vulnerable place, our awareness includes the other person but is not focused on them. We do not modify our behaviour to fit in with this other person. Rather we include them in our consciousness and allow modification to happen on its own. As this person comes into our awareness, our energy field adjusts without our having to do anything. When we are present in the moment, change happens on its own.’ Paul Lowe, In Each Moment – A New Way to Live From this inner world of vulnerability one then needs to project an image of love over people who come into one’s awareness. One frantically and desperately dons rose coloured glasses in order to see the world and other human beings in a good light. As one radiates love and acceptance a mutual imaginary feel-good atmosphere is created and this is particularly seen and felt in NDA spiritual gatherings. Everyone present at these gatherings adjusts their energy fields in order to feel part of the whole, to feel one with each other. This atmosphere is particularly strong in mass gatherings, or can be sometimes evoked on one’s own by imagination induced in meditation sessions. These feelings, arising from the conscious effort of expanding the good instinctual passions of nurture and desire, are notoriously fickle and this leads to the traditional spiritual complaint of how difficult it is to live in the ‘real’ world amongst ‘unconscious’ people. Nothing changes at all in this process – the spiritual retreat from the ‘real’ world has been going on for tens of thousands of years, presumably since the first shaman went off on his own to live in a cave so as to better connect with the spirits and the spirit world.
‘We have a possibility now to disconnect from the past. The past is doomed to repeat itself because it is only capable of projecting itself on to an old familiar future. All thought that is based on the past and can only restrict future possibility. <Snip> The greatest intimacy lies in not knowing.’ Paul Lowe, In Each Moment – A New Way to Live Classic New Dark Age double-speak. And this pearl of wisdom comes from someone who is presenting a fresh and unique re-interpretation of religious and philosophical ideas that are over 2,500 years old. To project these ancient ideas, thoughts, fantasies and fairytales into the current situation in which we now find ourselves is an act of appalling ignorance and desperation. The greatest delusion lies in actively promoting ignorance as a Virtue. Of course, Mr. Lowe is talking of an intimacy with God – the greatest delusion. His recipe for human intimacy is to share one’s ‘inner dialogue’ – the emotive outpourings that are so common in spiritual groups and communities typify this therapeutic approach to sharing and togetherness. To promote disconnecting from the facts and allowing ourselves to be ‘who we are, as we are’, i.e. an alien identity residing within the flesh and blood body, is to prevent intimacy and continue alienation, separateness, fear and suspicion. ‘Not knowing’ what the other entity is thinking or feeling promotes the continuation of intuition – the use of a form of ‘psychic radar’ to sense out the other person. To overcome this alienation the common cure is to promote the feelings of love, nurture and duty – a method of relating taught to every human being since birth. This obviously fails to ‘bridge the gap’ on a personal human level, so one is then encouraged to feel a universal or unconditional love – an unfocused love which leads to an even greater distance being formed between flesh and blood human beings as ‘holier than thou’ feelings always set in with fantasy. This vain attempt at intimacy by promoting the feelings that arise from the chemical surges of the instinctual passions of nurture and desire has always offered fickle and fleeting success at best. Feelings of love and hate, giving and selfishness, forgiveness and retribution, etc. come inseparable in pairs and the constant seesawing of emotions in human relating makes actual intimacy an impossibility. At best, a mutual compromise is reached, a set of peace-agreements is established as to ‘safe’ grounds, ‘space’, ‘separate lives’, secrets and deals. This way of living and relating is but a sad and sorry second best as to what is actually possible when the feelings arising from the instinctual animal passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire are absent. With no emotional or psychic ‘radar’, no intuition or suspicion, no ‘emotive sharing’ or fights to pump up excitement, no ‘late night bargains struck’, no wars and no ceasefires, no fear or aggression operating, a direct sensate intimacy is deliciously and palpably evident.
Chapter Seven Work – Is It Really Necessary? ‘When people ask me about the meaning of work, I ask myself, ‘At what level am I going to reply to this question?’ The way most people think about ‘work’ arises from their conditioning and that is usually based on a level of basic survival. I am not interested in that level any longer. <Snip> No attempts to understand or change anything at this level will ever succeed in a deep and enduring way. It is now time to shift from survival to fulfilment. Paul Lowe, In Each Moment – A New Way to Live When one attains to a certain level of Guru-ship, and can convincingly sell the alluring dream of self-fulfilment, there are followers who are eager and willing to pay to provide for one’s basic survival. When a survival level is assured, one then aims to attract a greater following in order to attain a level of comfortable wealth. Once this level is reached the insatiable drive for fame and power really kick in and the desire to have the most followers, to be the best Guru soon overwhelms any remaining sanity and pretty soon we are talking of the desire to be the One and Only God-man. Franklin Jones, aka Da Free John, aka Adidas, is a prime case of this crazed level of megalomania run amok. Fulfilment is an impossibility for a ‘self’ and even if one manages to become a ‘Self’, a deluded God-man or God-woman, enough is never enough. It was never enough for the Tibetan Lamas to feel themselves immortal – when they died they ensured their rotting corpses were coated in gold, provided by ordinary Tibetans. There is a local Guru I know who spends half the year travelling the world in order to spread his fame and gather more followers. I simply see him as a travelling salesman endlessly totting the globe, endlessly after more wealth, more adoration, and more power ... and he will never have enough. The instinctual passion of desire is, by its very nature and programming, always insatiable.
Chapter Thirteen Beyond Choosing The persistent experience of misery in life is not created by significant events or tragedies, but by our unconscious reactions to the ordinary, everyday incidents of our lives. One of the most common ways we lock ourselves up in life is through our attachment to wanting what we want. Practically everything in our lives is a desire. We may call it choice, yet that is often just another word for a demand. We go about our lives demanding the world be the way we want it. Paul Lowe, In Each Moment – A New Way to Live Spiritual teachers – and psychiatrists and psychologists – make out the genetically-encoded instinctual passions to be ‘unconscious reactions’. For the spiritual believers the aim is to gain a higher consciousness – transcending the lower and the unconscious. For the psychiatrist and psychologist the aim is to reduce the worst excesses of unconscious reactions and to bring these reactions back within ‘normal’ socially-tolerable limits. Nobody is willing to call a spade a spade – ‘unconscious reactions’ are the animal instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. To even consider eliminating these passions is to contemplate eliminating both the supposed good passions as well as the more obvious bad passions – enough of a thought to send everyone scurrying for cover. From his chapter opening we are heading into the spiritual furphy of choiceless awareness – denial and acceptance dressed up in a very appealing package.
In the past, there was often little difference for me between losing a $100,000 investment or discovering a dirt mark on a sarong. It was the same thing, the same torture inside, the same desolation in not having what is desired. I have discovered that the way to unlock this self-inflicted pattern of torture is to be there with the feelings. You do not want the torture, so you keep running away from the distress. But it does not go away. The alternative is to be present and feel it, now, as it is happening. It is the same with jealousy or any feeling you do not want to experience. Be there and have the feeling even though you do not know how long it will last. When you do not avoid or energize the feelings by dwelling on them or making them important, they will start to fade away on their own. Paul Lowe, In Each Moment – A New Way to Live On the surface of it, this can appear to be a reasonable approach to investigating and eliminating feelings, emotions and passions until you realize that this is not his Paul’s intention. What he is proposing and practicing is a way of transcending ‘any feeling you do not want to experience’. This is to remain snorkelling on the surface and looking at one’s feelings swimming beneath, as it were, while being present in the moment. The bad feelings start to fade away simply because one disassociates from them. They are still there but they are not you. An actualist is keen and willing to investigate the reason these feelings arise in the first place, what causes them, what is their make up, how do they function, what is the psychology, how and why do feelings change and how do they link together, when do the chemicals kick in and where do they function, what tricks does one use to either to control, repress or avoid, etc. Selective avoidance, maintaining ignorance and practicing acceptance and are useless tools if one wants to investigate, understand and eliminate feelings, emotions and passions from one’s life. You will also notice that Paul is attempting to fade away ‘any feeling you do not want to experience’ and thereby enhance the feelings one wants to experience and identify with – such feeling states as being ‘beyond choosing’, being ‘present in this moment’, ‘living in the depths of ourselves’, ‘feeling bliss’, etc.
Someone told me that he once threw an expensive movie camera into a lake in a fury because it did not work the way he wanted. I have done similar things; most of us have. That energy comes and you explode. One day I started to be with that feeling and not act it out and eventually it started to fade. The preference is still there to have things the way I might want, but now there is no contraction when life does not happen as I would like it too. There is no choice, no demand. When we are ready to give up our demands we will find our freedom. If we want to be free and continue to insist on having what we want, we will never be free. We may say we want to be free, that we do not want the anger or the disturbance, but still, we continue to want what we want. We still want our way and the feeling of discontent will always flow from that demand, no matter how slight it may seem. Paul Lowe, In Each Moment – A New Way to Live What you are describing is transcendence – a rising above the mundane, the physical, the earthly undesirable desires, bad or evil emotions, thoughts and actions.
In transcendence the undesirable feelings are still there, for the instinctual passions are not challenged or questioned. One simply makes a deliberate choice, every moment again, to sublimate the bad feelings and enhance and identify with the good feelings. As you said above –
This is a deliberate choice, a discrimination, a demand, a judgement as to what is good and what is bad, wanting something the way you want it, being the way you want to be – transcendental. Transcendence is when one feels free of the bad feelings and thoughts, one feels free of the body and one feels free of earthly mortal existence – the last being the big bonus that ‘ordinary spirituality’ doesn’t want to trumpet too much lest it be seen as nothing other than old-time religion.
I remember Osho once said that the reason people are trained to have good feelings is that so that they do not cause damage to other people. Or something like that. Indeed. In ‘normal’ society we are socially trained to be good and have good feelings. As a back-up when the ‘good’ fails we have laws, lawyers, psychiatrists, police, fines, jails, armies, etc. to stop the ‘bad’ feelings from running amok. The spiritual solution is to pump up the good feelings to become divine feelings resulting in feelings of superiority, grandness, oneness and wholeness which, if practiced assiduously, leads to the feeling that one is indeed Divineness Itself. By the way, Rajneesh aka Osho says ‘Unconsciousness is evil and consciousness is Divine’ which is nothing other than the Eastern version of Western morality of good and bad. Good and bad (or conscious and unconscious) is as pathetic a division of instinctual passions as is right and wrong a pathetic division of social values. Human beings actually fight horrendous wars over these divisions. The initial stage of Actual Freedom involves investigating these socially and spiritually implanted morals and ethics in order to discover what lays beneath – the genetically implanted instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.
Would you agree that pure intent requires acting the way you know, or feel, is right ... leading to Vineeto’s Truth Machine status? Not at all. Following one’s intuition is to act the way you know, or feel, is right. I have been reviewing a book by a spiritual Guru who teaches following one’s intuition, listening to one’s inner dialogue, etc. and what this means is acting from one’s instinctual passions. Following one’s intuition simply is what everyone does and it means that everyone is instinctually driven to act aggressively and fearfully, blindly seeking a futile fulfilment and solace in nurture and desire. As for pure intent, there is a glossary of terms on the Actual Freedom web-site that I compiled and Vineeto has collated relevant writings and correspondence – in order to avoid confusion, encourage contemplation and aid thinking about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. It was my next project after writing my journal, as it was apparent to me that my spiritual training had stifled enquiry and muddled words and thinking to such an extent that nothing made sense anymore. It is essential to first make sense of the Human Condition we find ourselves in as human beings in order to become actually free of it. Hence the AF Glossary – a common language or words firmly based on dictionary meanings in order to clearly communicate and share our experiences. But one does have to read, and read, and read – it is a prerequisite for an actualist. When I first met Richard I took everything he was saying in spiritual terms for I knew nothing else and it was only by reading his journal over and over again that the penny started to drop and the sparks started to fly. As it says on the Cabot’s paint tins – ‘If all else fails – read the instructions’.
The search for a ‘spiritual’ freedom, peace and happiness, based on ancient superstition and metaphysical ‘other-worldly’ beliefs, has been on-going for thousands of years and has now had its day. It’s time for a modern scientific, practical approach to finding a genuine and actual freedom from the Human Condition in total. A freedom from ancient belief and spiritual superstition. A freedom from the necessity of forever attempting to obey pious morals and follow unliveable ethics in order to keep one’s instinctual passions under control. And, finally, a freedom from the instinctual animal passions themselves – fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Nobody seems at all willing to question the primary role that affective feelings play in perpetuating human malice and sorrow. For most people it is inconceivable to live without battling or blaming someone or something, without feeling sad about something, let alone without sympathy, empathy, love and desire. Thus it is that Humanity wallows in fear, aggression, nurture and desire and will continue to do so until sanity and sensibility manage to gain a substantial foothold. It is both timely and propitious that there is now a third alternative available ...
About this time I started to come to grips with an undercurrent of feelings that had been welling up in me as I got further along this path to freedom. As I began to increasingly understand the full extent of what Richard had discovered, I had begun quite cunningly to plot my role in the Movement that would sweep the world. Images of money and fame began to subtly occur – and sometimes not so subtly. I would see myself travelling and talking to halls full of people, spreading the message! Yes, it was good old power and authority again – the attraction of the Glamour, Glory and Glitz. No wonder the Enlightened Ones are seduced and then trapped by it! It seemed to me an instinctual grab for power by my psyche, which rightly felt threatened with elimination. I also had to admit to myself that power and authority was a definite attraction in my desire for Enlightenment – a sort of spiritual version of ‘Money for nothing and your chicks for free’. It was further brought home to me in my situation with Vineeto, as I would try to tell her where she was wrong and ram it down her throat. Finally I saw that it was up to her to do what she wanted to do with her life, and that I had no power over her. Now I would not want it any other way; it would not be perfect otherwise. A similar thing happened with friends when I tried to inspire them; they usually felt attacked and no wonder – this path is anathema to the ‘self’. To see power and authority in myself and to have seen them in the Enlightened Ones was to prove the critical point in the process of eliminating them in me. No longer would I be seduced down that spiritual path towards power and glory. I had reached the point where the spiritual path and the path to actual freedom radically diverge and go 180 degrees in opposite directions. There is an apparent similarity at first glance in that both identify the ‘self’ as the problem. One, the traditional, goes to God, glory, power and authority; the other goes to actual freedom, which I had glimpsed in peak experiences and which was becoming more and more obvious and apparent in my life. In my experience the other difference is crucial – one works, the other doesn’t. I was becoming increasingly happy and harmless, and therefore different from other people, who remained firmly entrenched in sorrow or were still trying the traditional paths as a remedy. They were still searching while I was busy arriving. Peter’s Journal, God Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
