Selected Correspondence Peter

No 00: Try to focus your attention only as these eyes and these brain thinking (for a considerable time, it was in my case like gazing in one point to calm down fidgeting ‘I’)

I thought to comment on your reply to Bart as it contains an agreement and a misconception that could lead others to imagining the actualism method to be something other than what it is.

The phrase ‘mimicking the actual world’ means that ‘I’ do whatever ‘I’ can in order to mimic the actual world in both its purity and in its perfection … and the way that ‘I’ do this is by being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible, each moment again. This intent is single pointed in that being happy and being harmless is one and the same thing – it is impossible to be happy unless one is harmless and it is impossible to be harmless unless one is happy. In the early stages of actualism I focused all of my attention solely on this aspect – the first task being to get my attentiveness as to how I was feeling and what I was feeling in each moment of my waking hours up and running such that it became a constant awareness.

After I got a grasp of the method and of its single-pointed aim and found that I started to enjoy being here doing this business of being alive more and more then I was able – only whenever I was feeling particularly excellent – to bring my attention to sensate experiencing more and more. By bringing one’s seeing to the very surface of the eyeballs, bringing one’s touch to the fingers or the hairs on the skin, experiencing one’s taste as the activation of the taste buds on the tongue and the inside of the mouth, experiencing one’s hearing as it happens in the eardrums and experiencing one’s sense of smell as it activates the receptors in the nose what one is doing is mimicking the sensate-only experiencing that happens temporarily in a PCE or as a permanent experience in a PCE.

The reason I make this point is that if someone focuses on this latter aspect of coming to one’s senses and ignores the first and foremost aspect of the actualism method – removing the obstacles to being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible in this moment – then they are ignoring the crux of what actualism is all about and may well be doing nothing other than treading the well-worn traditional path of denial and dissociation.

For me, it was not a question about associating (as in ‘I’ should really love myself) or dissociating (as in ‘I’ don’t like being here so much ‘I’ want to go somewhere else). By the time I came across Richard I had already discovered by experience that both options are no more than an ultimately unsatisfactory means of coping with the human condition, not ways of becoming free of it.

As such, I found it reasonably easy to drop my resentment at having to be here and its associated cynicism as well as my accumulated spiritual beliefs of an other-than-physical world and get on with the business of being as fully here in this physical actual world as is possible, in this moment – which means to do whatever it takes to be as happy and as harmless as possible being here, in this moment.

No, I mean to do whatever it takes to be as happy and as harmless as possible being here, in this moment.

No, I don’t mean ‘associating with the physical world at this moment via ‘I’’. Once I acknowledged that ‘who’ I think and feel I am is a psychological and psychic non-physical entity, I understood that the reasons why ‘I’ was cut off from (was in fact dissociated from) – and therefore sought union with (an affective association with) – the physical world.

What I then did was to follow Richard’s lead and put the method he used to become free into practice. The first step was to become virtually free of malice and sorrow such that I could live with my fellow human beings in peace and harmony. Only then did the fact that only ‘I’ stand in the way of my freedom become palpable as opposed to an intellectual understanding.

To give you a prosaic example of this approach, it took me a good deal of time and effort trying to become good at my profession, a lot of hands-on experience, many trail and error investigations of what worked and didn’t, and an astounding amount of dismantling of the truths and homilies I had been taught. Over time, all of this came together as it were and gradually I was able to stand on my own two feet which then led to ‘me’ being able to let go of the controls and allow the design of the building or the building of the building happen by itself as it were.

I see the process happening similarly on the path to actual freedom – only after ‘I’ do everything ‘I’ can to become free from malice and sorrow is it possible for ‘me’ to have the confidence to dare risking exiting the stage.

*

When I gave up believing in Eastern spirituality, I was somewhat surprised at the extent to which the mere fact I was born into a Christian family and a Christian society had on fashioning me as a social identity.

Yep. Religious/ spiritual morals and ethics run deep – I remember being astounded as to how they had infiltrated my life and conspired to inhibit my sensual enjoyment of being alive. Nowadays the reason for the need for morals and ethics is obvious – many religious/ spiritual morals and ethics have been invented so as to curb the instinctual passions and inhibit sensual delight lest human beings abandon their social responsibilities in favour of hedonism, licentiousness and debauchery.

That’s where attentiveness comes in to play. A belief is a passionately-held conviction, hence the way to discover beliefs is to become aware of your feelings when and as they happen.

Again, a practical example. Vineeto and I do not have any arguments about anything nowadays. The way we got rid of arguments was that anything we disagreed about we simply put the matter on the table and found out the facts of the matter. What we discovered was that most of what we argued about were beliefs either of us, or both of us, held. Once we discovered and acknowledged the fact of the matter that was the end of belief.

*

One of the good things about the AF website and this mailing list is that one of its founders is a whistle-blower to the whole charade of Enlightenment. Indeed if he hadn’t become free of the delusion of Enlightenment there would be no website and neither would I be writing this post on this mailing list, nor would you be reading it.

No. He reports that being a Messiah did not sit well with him and visiting India – where Messiahs can literally be found on every street corner – opened his eyes such that he never did go public.

Enlightened beings live in a psychic bubble of their own creation, an imaginary bubble that protects them from the supposed evil forces in the psychic world. Because the imaginary bubble is psychic and not actual they have to continuously maintain it lest holes appear where evil can seep in or lest it collapse entirely. The best way to strengthen and maintain the bubble is to have people believe that they are a Messiah and that they have a Message, hence the constant drive for fame and adulation.

To directly answer your questions, I have seen an enlightened being totally paranoid that someone was attempting to penetrate his psychic bubble – to give him ‘the evil eye’ as it were. And I would suspect that most enlightened people would initially regard Richard as being a non-spiritual spiritualist but if they did really understand what he is on about they would regard him as the personification of evil for the sole reason that they live in a world where there is only Good and/or Evil – all else is an illusion to them.

The process of socialization that very child inevitably undergoes means that all children are taught to suppress, deny or subjugate their ‘dark side’ hence the seeds of dissociation are sowed early on in life. 

It’s not an ‘idea’ that we have, it’s a very real way of coping with our dark instinctual side that is ingrained in each and every human being for very practical reason – to make each child a fit member of the family, tribe or society it is born into. Given this scenario it is quite natural that human beings associate with having ‘good’ feelings (being good) and dissociate from having ‘bad’ feelings (not being bad).

This is why developing an objective awareness of the full range and depths of one’s own feelings and passions in action is initially extremely difficult – it is an unnatural process that runs counter to all of one’s social conditioning, not to mention one’s ‘self’-centred instincts.

So would it be fair to say that in the actualist method, there is neither associating nor dissociating? If so what do you call that?

Firstly, in re-reading my response with regard to dissociation I realize that I have left out the most fundamental reason for human beings being dissociated – that each and every child is born, pre-primed for a ‘self’ to form. By about age two each child instinctually feels themselves to be an identity who lives ‘in’ the body and is thus alien to or dissociated from not only their own flesh and blood body as well as other bodies but also from the physical world itself. To put it another way, each and every human being experiences an inner world and an outer world and never the twain shall meet – unless one is consumed by spiritual belief whereupon calenture can take over and the inner feelings grow so big that ‘I’ can even imagine ‘I’ have transcended the outer world or even in extreme cases that ‘I’ am ‘The Creator’ of the outer world.

But back to your question. For me, it was not a question about associating (as in ‘I’ should really love myself) or dissociating (as in ‘I’ don’t like being here so much ‘I’ want to go somewhere else). By the time I came across Richard I had already discovered by experience that both options are no more than an ultimately unsatisfactory means of coping with the human condition, not ways of becoming free of it.

As such, I found it reasonably easy to drop my resentment at having to be here and its associated cynicism as well as my accumulated spiritual beliefs of an other-than-physical world and get on with the business of being as fully here in this physical actual world as is possible, in this moment – which means to do whatever it takes to be as happy and as harmless as possible being here, in this moment.

*

Those who go on to succumb to spiritual or religious belief, or the ethical beliefs of secular humanism, take this dissociation a step further in that they actively practice sublimating their dark side and aggrandizing their good side.

What broke me free of this ingrained habit of dissociation was the realization that deep down inside I was as mad and as bad as everyone else.

Have you ever done any meditation? The reason I ask is that if you have you might well be able to answer the question yourself from your own experience.

If I read you right, you have come across the common conundrum that many people have when mulling over actualism – how can ‘I’ become aware of ‘I’, or how can ‘I’ change ‘I’ or how can ‘I’ eliminate ‘I’?

Personally, I didn’t get too hung up about such questions. Maybe because I am a practical, down-to-earth person, I figured that if I wanted to change then it was up to me, if I wanted to be free it was up to me and if I wanted to become aware of ‘me’ and how ‘I’ operate then I have a brain whose function is not only to be aware of things but also to make sense of things.

In short, spiritualists regard thinking as the root of all evil and hence they abandon clear thinking and common sense in favour of refined feelings and imaginary scenarios. In contrast, actualists acknowledge the fact that the instinctual passions are the root of all human malice and sorrow and in doing so they are then free to engage clear thinking and common sense in order to come to their senses.

*

Put briefly, the idea of meditation is to cut off from sensate experiencing and to stop thinking (as in become the watcher) and allow imagination and affectation to take over … and lo and behold … a new very-grand ethereal-like alter-identity emerges.

Personally, I don’t favour using the terms ego and soul as they are terms that have such historical baggage that their meaning has become so confused as to be often meaningless – for example, in those cultures yet to be afflicted by Eastern Mysticism, someone who felt themselves to be God-on-earth would be regarded as the ultimate ego-maniac. I much prefer the terms social identity and instinctual identity to describe the two aspects (nurture and nature) that together make up ‘me’ as an identity simply because they accurately and succinctly describe the sources, causes and resultant effects of being a feeling ‘being’.

I remember when I abandoned my spiritual beliefs I discovered two distinct layers of fear.

The first fears were to do with being an outcast, not belonging to a group – quite valid fears given the history of ostracization and even persecution that those who have left religious/spiritual groups have been subject to … and are still being subject to.

The other level was far, far deeper – an atavistic fear that unless one looks to the Heavens one will end up in Hell and if one should turn one’s back on God then one will indeed incur wrath of God, be it a He, She or It.

I thought to answer this post as well given that you have already dismissed Richard’s reply before he replied –

Here are some quotes from a book ‘Living Zen’ by Robert Linssen published in 1958 Grove Press. It makes for interesting reading in conjunction with the Actual Freedom website. There seems to be a remarkable similarity in concepts. No doubt Richard will focus his high powered linguistic microscope on tiny shades of meaning and become lost in the minutiae of stylistic differences. He will tell us that actual freedom from the human condition is not the same as Satori and that no Zen Master has ever trodden his path. I’m sure Richard will be able to invoke other schools of Zen thought that back up his objections but not all Zen is the same. Those of us who realise that language is inherently limited and noisy in meaning, especially in non-dualistic discussion, can broaden our focus and see remarkable similarities:

I see you are using the old ploy of offering up an argument whilst simultaneously denigrating the answerer – so much for having a sincere discussion. And just to add a little oomph to your stance you invoke the support of the royal ‘us’ – those whose focus is so broad that they blithely redefine the meaning of any words to suit their own purposes and fit their own beliefs – so much for having a sensible discussion.

I have tried to have sensible discussions with several Zen Buddhists and always found it to be an impossibility as their perch is so lofty that they can’t help but be condescending … and if one attempts to talk sensibly to them they retreat to a position of dismissing anything that is contrary to their beliefs by disparaging the very idea that having a clear-cut and meaningful conversation about such matters is at all possible – so much so that you can almost see the shutters go down.

The author uses the term ‘I-process’ to highlight the illusory character of identity, seemingly unchanging but borne of process.

It’s pertinent to point out that ancient Eastern spirituality teaches that the illusionary identity (‘I’ as ego only) is borne exclusively of the process of conditioning … whereas actualism establishes by observation and experimentation that the social/ instinctual identity (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is borne of the genetically-encoded instinctual passions.

To summarize these differences –

• Eastern spirituality is archaic and superstition based, actualism is contemporary and scientifically based,

• Eastern spirituality dabbles in the superficial layer of the social identity, actualism tackles the fundamental issue of the instinctual identity,

• Eastern spirituality teaches a transcendence of the personal identity or ego and this transcendence results in the emergence of an unfettered narcissism, actualism instigates the elimination of both ego and soul and this elimination is the ending of malice and sorrow.

A world of difference.

Chapter XX Characteristics of Satori according to the Zen Masters Page 169:

‘.... the condition sine qua non of Satori is the elimination of all thought, all imagery, all memory-automatism of the past, briefly all that which forms the ‘I-process’. All that remains of the ‘I-process’ is that which lies within the apparent limits of the physical, corporeal form. But the latter is freed of all self-identification and attachment whatsoever. There is no longer any psychological, mental, and affective superimposition to corrupt the total adequacy of the instant. So if Satori is realized in the heart of a ‘pseudo-entity whose superficial aspects are personal and finite, the essence of its inspiration, of its very reality, is drawn from the infinite and impersonal source in the depths.’

And thus a delusion is born out of an illusion, for according to the Zen Masters, Satori ‘is realized in the heart of a pseudo-identity’ and ‘it’s very reality is drawn from infinite and impersonal source in the depths’ – in other words ‘me’ at my core. The subsequent ‘elimination of all thought, all imagery, all memory-automatism of the past’, results in an identity that is so aggrandized that it imagines itself to be infinite and impersonal and thus feels itself to be God-like. In short, this is narcissism writ large, albeit carefully masqueraded as humility so as to gain the plaudits of the masses.

You might notice that I am not focussing my ‘high powered linguistic microscope on tiny shades of meaning and become lost in the minutiae of stylistic differences’, but rather I am focussing on the broad and fundamental differences between spiritualism and actualism – in this case that spiritualism teaches the possibility of realizing that very reality of ‘me’ at my source is an ‘infinite and impersonal’ being, whereas actualism points out that ‘me’ at my core is an instinctive ‘being’ – a ‘being’ that will literally do anything, and believe anything, in order to survive.

This interesting quote is taken from Comedie Psychologique by the writer Carlo Suares, apparently without reference to Zen thought. It is reproduced in ‘Living Zen’, chapter XX, page 172:

‘If this ‘me’ is not afraid of losing itself, of no longer having anywhere to lay its head, in short, when, pushed by the magnificent dynamism of absolute doubt, it is not afraid of disassociating itself from everything; of rejecting its old associations, and rejecting the new snares laid by the objects of the world in order to bind it to them; of destroying the new entity which is being re­built on the ruins of the crumbling entity, when this ‘me’ transformed into an incandescent torch, mercilessly burns all that is itself then one day, becoming supremely conscious and no longer finding anything with which to associate, that which remains of it leaps all together into the eternal flame which consumes all, except the Eternal, and being dead as an entity, it is nothing but life.’

A classic description, if ever there was one, of the extreme act of dissociation that is necessary for anyone who aspires to become ‘supremely conscious’ in order that they can realize that they are ‘the Eternal’.

You might notice that I’m not nit-picking words because the author has twice used phrases that unambiguously point to dissociation –

‘If this ‘me’ … is not afraid of disassociating itself from everything;’

‘when this ‘me’ … no longer finding anything with which to associate,’

I’ll leave you to find out the difference between this quote that you offer as proof of the ‘remarkable similarity’ between spiritualism and actualism, and what actualism is about, after all it’s your presumption. All you need to do is go to the Actual Freedom home page, click on ‘How to Search the Web-site’, follow the instructions and type in the word ‘dissociation’. You will find a myriad of links that will reveal the unassailable gulf that exists between the spiritual practice of dissociation and the actualism process of becoming free of malice and sorrow in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

You might care to pause to read the last phrase again ‘in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are’ – diametrically opposite to ‘‘me’ … ‘disassociating itself from everything’.

The first observation I had was about ‘relationships’ – the man-woman, living-together type. I was laying back in bed with Vineeto the other night, enjoying a particular intimate moment, when I realized the intimacy I was enjoying was the result of going into the relationship fully, of not holding back, of not settling for anything less than the very best. This continually ‘leaning forward’ rather than holding back was the only way I came to discover what was preventing me from experiencing the exquisite intimacy of the day to day peaceful living with a fellow human being. I say this because it is only by intrepidly going beyond the much-vaunted idealism and feelings of love that I managed to discover not only the guileful constraints that love inevitably imposes on both lover and loved, but also the dark underbelly of passions that love attempts to repress.

Actual intimacy is not at all like ‘real world’ intimacy that I have experienced before. In Actual intimacy, there is no demand or need placed on the partner to the relationship, so one cannot be ‘vulnerable’, in the ordinary sense of that word.

Yeah. The usual advice is that one needs to be open to the other, ‘open to love’, and that in turn means being more emotionally vulnerable. If one is really emotionally vulnerable then one is not only open to feeling love but also to feeling unloved, to feeling jealousy, to feeling not nurtured, to feeling neglected, to feeling wounded, to feeling resentment, to wanting to wound, and so on.

The traditional reaction when one is flooded by unwanted or undesirable feelings is to want to become invulnerable which usually results in withdrawing, closing down or cutting off – of some sort, to some degree. And, of course, if one feels particularly emotionally wounded then a psychological reaction known as dissociation can result.

Again I’ll post a piece from my Journal which describes how I leapt onto the path of dissociation – a journey that lasted some 17 years as it turned out.

‘Over a period of four tumultuous months my wife left me, taking the kids with her, and joined the local Rajneesh commune! I was devastated. My life was totally shattered. If any warning signs were obvious I had either missed or avoided them. It was gut-wrenchingly agonising, as my whole world fell apart. I remember looking at old men sleeping on park benches and thinking that this was my future now that I was alone in life, with no one to care for me and no-one to love. One dark night I picked up one of Rajneesh’s books, and Bingo, here was hope. There was a ‘flash’ in my heart that I was to experience again and again, particularly when in his presence. I was in love! I had, at last, discovered the meaning of life ... here was a Sage who knew the ‘Grand Scheme’ of things – and I was off, unhesitatingly down the Spiritual Path.’ Peter’s Journal, Living Together

It’s fascinating when you begin to discover that the universally-revered and sacrosanct spiritual teachings are naught but ancient fairy tales based on the ‘wisdom’ of dissociating from the material world. For the spiritualist, these other-worldly tales and other-worldly feelings provide a psychological and psychic haven – the desperate urge to not want to be here triggers an equally desperate urge to be somewhere else, a retreat into fantasy based on denial and dissociation.

For an actualist, the solution to becoming free of the emotional roller coaster is the simple act of being attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. This attentiveness firstly withers away at any denial or dissociation that is happening resulting in the gradual unveiling of the sensual delights of the actual world, which in turn leads to increasing experiences of an actual intimacy with all of one’s fellow human beings.

It’s late in the night and I’m walking escorted by Police together with a few friends to the nearest police station. The dark, clear, sparkling summer sky, the pleasant-chilly air of the night is in sharp contrast with the blood springing out of my injuries, with my wrecked T-shirt and with the noisy talk of the people walking alongside me.

It’s not always like this. I remember on other occasions having moments of absolute and irrational anger, being obsessed with revenge plans, sometimes taking the form of criminal impulses. I could see, on this particular life situation, the spiral of violence, the vicious circle which swallows one if responding by the same means, the process of crime, the process which makes you think that you can end violence with even more violence. This is a random example of what is happening at this very moment perhaps with greater consequences in another place on Earth.

From your description you seem to have had an other-than-normal experience of some sort, bought on by the shock of the incident. I have talked to many people who have related similar experiences after car accidents and the like. Some people are even shocked out of their normal ‘self’-centred state into the actuality of being here and when the ‘self’ re-enters the stage, this can lead to various scenarios. If the shock is of having been near-death, a feeling of being grateful (to a Saviour of some sort) for being saved from death is common. If the shock is the death or departure of someone close, a yearning for a permanent (as in immortal), unconditional (as in all-loving), companion (a God of some sort) is common. Both of these reactions are disassociative, in that they are an escape from grim reality into the passionate fantasy of a Greater Reality, a ‘turning away’ if you like.

I have had versions of both these types of after-shock experiences in my lifetime and I know well the seductive power of indulging in disassociative states. But I also have had occasions where the shock of particular incidents in my life resulted not in disassociative states but in brief periods of utter clarity. These pure consciousness experiences can be quite challenging because, for a brief period of time, one clearly sees the world as-it-is and people as-they-are. One of these experiences afforded me the opportunity of experiencing that we human beings are involved in an on-going grim instinctual battle for survival – fought psychologically and psychically as well as physically – that is utterly senseless given the cornucopian abundance and perfect splendour of this verdant paradisiacal planet.

I saw that this battle was ‘self’-centred, in that it was fought out by psychological and psychic entities who thought and felt instinctively they were different to and alien from each other. As I pondered the nature of this instinct-driven battle, I understood that only by becoming completely ‘self’-less could flesh and blood human bodies be actually free of this battle. And I also understood that the venerated age-old spiritual path headed in the opposite direction to the solution of ending this ‘self’-centred battle because it was clear that the aim of all spiritual practice is ‘self’-aggrandizement and not ‘self’-extinction.

This pure consciousness experience seemed other-worldly at the time, as indeed it was, because I was shocked out of my normal dream-like reality into the actual world – the actuality of what I am as opposed to being ‘who’ I think and feel I am. I knew not what to do with the experience at the time except that it gave me a glimpse that freedom meant not only becoming free from normal grim reality, but also from the sham of a Greater Reality. Some years later, I serendipitously came across a man who had not only become free from both of these ‘realities’ but was also able to tell me how he did it.

No matter what experience you had after your brush with violence – and I am no arbiter of others’ experiences – any opportunity to be free of the ever-present veil of grim reality whilst avoiding the traps of disassociative states, can afford a human being with a wealth of invaluable information. The insights and questions that come from the temporarily lifting of the veil of reality can also offer a daring challenge – to become actually free from being a passionate participant in the grim instinctual battle for survival that inflicts the current human species.

The reason I write to you is to say that the method Richard used to become free of malice and sorrow works – and it brings incremental tangible results in becoming happy and harmless on the way.

I had a look in the pages suggested, but I could not find anything related with anxiousness and fear for unknown reason, which creates panic. In such a condition do you know if there is any other approach apart of medicines like SSRI (Prozac etc)?

Fear is widely regarded as the most potent feature of the instinctual survival program – the genetic program that is the primary operating system of all animals, including the human animal. The rudimentary survival instinct of animals is sometimes referred to as the ‘fight and flight’ response, often summed up in the phrase ‘what can I eat, what can eat me?’

Traditional methods of attempting to assuage the fear of survival inherent within the human condition include seeking safety in numbers by clinging to family and tribal members, seeking security by hoarding money, possessions and assets or seeking power and control over others, either covertly or overtly. The other traditional methods of counteracting instinctual fear involves dissociating from the feeling of fear by seeking succour and comfort in any of the multitudinous spiritual and religious beliefs, be it the fantasy of having a Big-Daddy God as a personal friend and protector, sustaining a belief in life after death and the immortality of one’s soul or spirit, or imagining oneself to be at-one-with God or even God Himself/Herself/Itself.

And, as you say, there may well be medications that can help those who suffer chronically from fear, but I have no experience or knowledge of this, so I can’t make comment on this approach.

Dissociation Psychiatry. A process, or the resulting condition, in which certain concepts or mental processes are separated from the conscious personality. … Oxford Dictionary

Dissociation is a syndrome in which one or a group of mental processes are split off, or dissociated, from the rest of the psychic apparatus so that their function is lost, altered, or impaired. Dissociative symptoms have often been regarded as the mental counterparts of the physical symptoms displayed in conversion disorders. Since the dissociation may be an unconscious mental attempt to protect the individual from threatening impulses or emotions that are repressed, the conversion into physical symptoms and the dissociation of mental processes can be seen as related defence mechanisms arising in response to emotional conflict. In dissociative disorders there is a sudden, temporary alteration in the person’s consciousness, sense of identity, or motor behaviour. … Encyclopaedia Britannica

It is important to note that actualism, unlike spiritualism, is not about coping with, assuaging or transcending fear – actualism is about becoming both happy and harmless. This may well explain why your question has not been answered to your satisfaction – the emphasis in actualism is solely on becoming both happy and harmless – not in feeling fearless, all-powerful and immortal as in spiritualism. Actualism is a new and unique approach to becoming free from the human condition in that involves progressively eradicating the root cause of human malice and sorrow – the total package of the ‘self’-centred instinctual survival passions.

When I first came across actualism and was confronted with the proposition of abandoning the spiritual path and devoting my life to becoming happy and harmless, I remember seeing it as looking into a dark tunnel. I knew the journey to becoming happy and harmless would be the end of ‘me’ – hence the dark tunnel. But at the same time I also understood that the only thing that was preventing me from starting on the path to an actual freedom was a feeling – the feeling of fear. This is the same for anyone who sets off on a journey into the unknown – what initially stands in the way of beginning the journey is fear, but once they actually start the journey the thrill of the adventure takes over.

My experience is that if you really want to become free of the human condition in toto, it is important not to let fear stop you – fear is, after all, only a feeling.

I had read to Krishnamurti suggesting to stay with fear or anxiousness, because I am the fear. He was expriming it saying that the observer is the observed. What do you say about that?

As I said, actualism has nothing to do with practicing dissociation. Dissociating from feelings when they get too raw or too potent is a common psychological reaction and it is well-documented that in some cases this reaction can be so severe that altered states of consciousness can result, either partial or permanent. Of course, in the spiritual tradition dissociation is lauded as the panacea to grim reality and is actively practiced by many people – one simply imagines there is an alternative non-physical spirit-only world, a Greater Reality, and then feels oneself to be living in this world, thereby dissociating from grim reality. With practice, one can even start to feel ‘At-One-With’ this Greater Reality or even be convinced solipsistically that one ‘Is’ that Greater Reality – leading to such twaddle as ‘I am God’ and ‘God is me’, or ‘I am the Universe’ and ‘the Universe is me’ and so on.

Then ‘the observer is the observed’ – which is what J. Krishnamurti was talking about. Spiritualists do take their ‘selfs’ very, very seriously.

I’ve often contemplated on the fact that, in my father’s time, anyone who went around declaring they were God, by whatever name, would have been confined in a mental institution. Nowadays, with the current fashion for Eastern religion, the world is littered with people who say they are God, or God-realized, and yet rather than be incarcerated they are venerated.

As an actualist, you start to take your ‘self’ not so seriously and then you start to see the bizarreness and black humour inherent in the human condition.

*

So, when I was speaking about the observer and the observed, I was meaning it this way: When I look at my fear, then there is duality. Me (the observer) looking at fear (the observed).

This means ‘you’ (the observer) are separating yourself from your feeling of fear (the observed). You have created this duality by creating a new superior-feeling identity (the observer).

Then me being different from fear, I try to do something about this fear. To end it, to exprime it, etc.

If you investigate Eastern spiritual teachings a bit, you will find that what they are talking about is transcending fear – as in rising above – and not in ending fear. Nowhere do the ancient teachings talk about eliminating fear because this can only be done if the self-centred instinctual passions are eliminated in toto.

This is what actualism brings to the table and it is brand new in human history – a scientific investigative process that results in freedom from the instinctual passions as distinct from a mystical dissociative freedom from the fears of being here in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

When I stated that the observer is the observed, then I was meaning that I and the fear are the same thing. There are not two different things.

And yet only two sentences before you said ‘Then me being different from fear, I try to do something about this fear’. Either you believe you are different from fear or you believe you and fear are the same thing – to have a bet each way only leaves you confused. In the actualism process you find the facts of the matter for yourself by your own investigations which saves the confusion and uncertainty of having to rely on believing what others tell you is the Truth.

Actually I was meaning the opposite of dissociation. When I say I am afraid then dissociation takes place.

You have just totally redefined dissociation to mean exactly the opposite it does in psychiatric terms.

Dissociation Psychiatry. A process, or the resulting condition, in which certain concepts or mental processes are separated from the conscious personality. … Oxford Dictionary

When you say ‘I am afraid’ then there is no distance between ‘you’ and fear – ‘you’ and the feeling are one and the same thing. You acknowledge the fact that there is no difference between ‘you’ and the feeling of fear.

On the other hand, when you say ‘When I look at my fear, then there is duality. Me (the observer) looking at fear (the observed)’ then you have separated yourself from your feeling of fear. You have dissociated from your feeling of fear by inventing a new identity – the one who observes fear but is separate from the feeling.

The actualism process of self-investigation involves neither denying, repressing or dissociating from any feelings that may arise in this very moment, nor does it involve indulging in, expressing or associating with any of those feelings. This enables the actualism process to be an unbiased scientific in-depth investigation of one’s own psyche, a process aimed at promoting the felicitous feelings and eliminating the so-called good and bad feelings, i.e. those that are the invidious and self-aggrandizing.

For more reading on the subject of dissociation: ‘The professor and ‘I’, Notes on Awareness. You can also find more correspondence on the subject of dissociation in the library.

If it is possible not to disassociate the I from the fear in the moment this thing we call fear arise, then I think that there is only fear and no one I, ONE SELF TO BE AFRAID.

In spiritual teachings it is commonly said that ‘I’ am not my feelings’ – they come and go – but ‘I’ (the watcher) remain as a constant. What is usually ignored in this scenario is that ‘I’ (the watcher) gleefully associate with the good and loving feelings whilst disingenuously dissociate from the bad and evil feelings.

Just as an aside, you might find the ‘Book Review’ on the AF web site to be interesting reading as it makes plain the deceit and hypocrisy inherent in all spiritual teachings.

If I understand that I and fear are one composite phenomenon, then there is nothing that I can do about it.

You can’t do anything about it if you believe what the spiritual teachers tell you. If you are willing to abandon your spiritual beliefs then you can make your own investigations of your own psyche in operation so as to determine for yourself the facts of the matter. Of course you have to want to change, in order to change.

So there is no action from the self to do something. And then might be that the self is eliminated all together.

I don’t know whether you have noticed or not, but if you don’t do some action or other, then nothing happens. God doesn’t make your breakfast, press the buttons on your remote control or earn the money for your food and shelter. Why then should you imagine that a God, by whatever name, is going to magically change your life circumstances and free you from your feelings of fear, antagonism, sorrow, angst, etc.

Because seems to me that the self is coming into being through psychological action. Like identification for example.

Yes. Spiritual teachings do teach dis-identification as being the panacea to unwanted or undesirable feelings. ‘‘I’ am not my feelings’ and ‘‘I’ am not my body’ are commonly heard spiritual psittacisms.

Then there is only fear and what can I do? Nothing.

There is something you can do about it but your own belief has already ruled that out – ‘there is no action from the self to do something’.

Then I think there is no problem.

If you dissociate from your unwanted or undesirable feelings, and dis-identify from the ‘Dimitris’ who occasionally gets fearful, annoyed, sad, lonely, etc. – then there is no problem.

Speaking personally, I tried the spiritual approach for some 17 years before I finally admitted the effort of trying to dissociate from my feelings of animosity and sadness had made me neither happy nor harmless. Admitting failure finally opened the way to try out something new – to head off in the opposite direction from the well-worn spiritual path.

The problem arises when the dissociation takes place and I say I AM AFRAID.

Again you are redefining the word dissociation to mean the exact opposite it is taken to mean as a psychiatric term.

That means of course that I must not name it as fear.

This seems to be common Krishnamurti moral – ‘Thou shall not name thou feelings’. You may not be aware of the fact that Richard wrote extensively on a Krishnamurti mailing list for some four years. Eventually a few Krishnamurtiites started to talk about their feelings although most were such faithful followers and had so repressed their feelings that they could not bring themselves to say words such as fear, anger and depression – let alone bring themselves to acknowledge that they had these feelings from time to time.

The word creates the dissociation, because is the I who says this is fear. Then the I is different from fear.

I am reminded of the icon that nicely sums up Eastern Religion – three monkeys sitting in a row, ‘See no evil’, ‘Hear no evil’, ‘Speak no evil’. In modern times this translates as ‘Don’t watch television’, ‘Don’t listen to common sense’ and ‘Deny your own anger and blame everyone else for the violence in the world’.

I never believed in higher selves and gods and all these nonsense. I mean I was not meaning identification with god universe etc.

And yet, by what you write, you believe every thing that that old Indian God-man, J. Krishnamurti, spoke the Truth.

Again, the ‘Book Review’ will throw more light on the subject of Guru worshipping.

I was not speaking about enlightenment. I never was able even to understand what that means. Can be any hallucination and illusion.

And yet, by what you write, you are a firm believer in the teachings of Eastern religion – the teachings which say that it is possible for a man to become God-realized, aka Enlightened, on earth before entering into Heaven, aka Nirvana. To believe in the teachings is to actively participate in the delusion.

Well, as you write it, this is most definitely not apperception but is more likely dissociation.

If you notice that you are feeling sad, why not simply note that ‘I am feeling sad’? Saying ‘there is sadness happening’ rather than saying ‘I am feeling sad’ is equivalent to saying ‘my body is sick’ rather than saying ‘I am sick’. Whether one claims is ‘I am not my feelings’ or ‘I am not my body’, both are statements of dissociation.

I always like to take a clear-eyed look at the fundamental bottom line of any aspect of the human condition and Ramesh Balsekar’s teachings are a prime example of dissociation writ large –

WIE: Do you mean to say that if an individual acts in a way that ends up hurting another, then the person who did it, or, as you say, the ‘body/mind organism’ who did it, is not responsible?

Balsekar: What I’m saying here is that you know that ‘I’ didn’t do it. I’m not saying I’m not sorry that it hurt someone. The fact that someone was hurt will bring about a feeling of compassion and the feeling of compassion will result in my trying to do whatever I can to assuage the hurt. But there will be no feeling of guilt: I didn’t do it!

The other side of this is that an action happens which the society lauds and gives me a reward for. I’m not saying that happiness will not arise because of the reward. Just as compassion arose because of the hurt, a feeling of satisfaction or happiness may arise because of a reward. But there’ll be no pride.

WIE: But do you literally mean that if I go and hit someone, it’s not me doing it? I just want to get clear about this.

Balsekar: The original fact, the original concept still remains: you hit somebody. The additional concept arises that whatever happens is God’s will, and God’s will with respect to each body/mind organism is the destiny of that body/mind organism.

WIE: So I could just say, ‘Well, it was God’s will that I did that; it’s not my fault.’

Balsekar: Sure. An act happens because it is the destiny of this body/mind organism, and because it is God’s will. And the consequences of that action are also the destiny of that body/ mind organism.’ Interview with Ramesh Balsekar from ‘What is Enlightenment’ magazine, Moksha press.

No. Even in my very early days of actualism I understood that what actualism was on about was being happy and harmless, as this corporeal flesh and blood body only, right now in this perpetual moment, right here in this physical place. Actualism is totally upfront about this, which is apparently why so few have thus far been willing to be pioneers in this business.

Well, Ramesh Balsekar has no feelings or issues that get in the way of his feeling pretty damn good because he is utterly dissociated from whatever God decides his ‘body/mind organism’ should or shouldn’t act. The way to avoid dissociation and dissociative states is simple – be upfront, at the start, about singularly devoting your life to being harmless as well as being happy.

No 48 – When a feeling is given the label, ‘Sadness’, instead of me thinking, ‘I am sad’. Is this apperception or something else?

Well, as you write it, this is most definitely not apperception but is more likely dissociation.

If you notice that you are feeling sad, why not simply note that ‘I am feeling sad’? Saying ‘there is sadness happening’ rather than saying ‘I am feeling sad’ is equivalent to saying ‘my body is sick’ rather than saying ‘I am sick’. Whether one claims ‘I am not my feelings’ or ‘I am not my body’, both are statements of dissociation.

I always like to take a clear-eyed look at the fundamental bottom line of any aspect of the human condition and Ramesh Balsekar’s teachings are a prime example of dissociation writ large – <snipped for length> Peter, List AF, No 48, 16.9.2003

The question of No 48, is very interesting. The only trap here is the word label. If we give no label to the feeling, then there is no dissociation.

Really? I don’t know how much you know about the human condition but if one is feeling sad and intentionally avoids calling the feeling you are having sadness then one is deliberately practicing dissociation, as in ‘cut off or free from association with something else; separate in fact or thought’. Oxford Dictionary

But if we say I am sad, then this is dissociation.

It strikes me that maybe you are having trouble with the English language, but if you say I am feeling sad then you are associating with having the sad feeling. The word ‘am’ is a grammatical relative of the word ‘be’, as in ‘coincide with, be identical to; form the essential constituent of, act the part of’. Oxford Dictionary.

In other words, when I say I am feeling sad, I make no distinction between ‘me’ and my feelings, I am saying ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, I am saying they ‘coincide’ with ‘me’ when they are happening, I am saying ‘me’ and ‘my feelings’ are ‘identical’, I am acknowledging that my feelings are ‘an essential constituent of’ ‘me’ as an identity, I am experiencing that the feeling of sadness is an ‘act of part of’ ‘me’.

I fail to see how I can explain it any clearer. Of course, the way to validate what I am saying for yourself is to go deeply into the feeling of sadness the next time you experience it and you will find out for yourself that at the very core of ‘me’ there is no distinction between ‘me’ and my feelings.

Is the me the self who is different from the feeling.

And yet what you are saying here is in effect that ‘‘I’ am not my feelings’ – you are plainly making a distinction between ‘me’ the self and the feelings you have. I am left wondering whether you are merely running a philosophical argument for the sake of objecting as you made no such distinctions between you and your feelings in a previous post to No 47 –

‘Now can you tell me please in actualism, when you make the question, ‘How I experience this moment of being alive?’ I say for example I am angry because of that and that. Then how we proceed? What after that? I know I am angry and the reason, after that what are we doing? ’To No 47, 3.6.2003

Is the thought who creates the self and says I am sad.

Ah, by the dashing down of another thought, albeit a hackneyed spiritual psittacism, feelings are dismissed as being mere thoughts.

I am reminded of all those spiritualists sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed desperately waiting for the dark clouds of ‘wrong thoughts’ and ‘bad thinking’ to subside so that they can latch on to a blissful feeling for a while.

Peter to my opinion did not get it.

Well that may be your opinion, but I was a devout practicing spiritualist for 17 years so I know dissociation from experience and I know how it operates in practice. There was a lot gained from exploring the lunatic fringe.

My English-Greek dictionary, gave to me the translation of dissociation, as splitting, separation. So I thought that when I say I have pain, there is a separation, me and the pain, as two different things. If I say my body is in pain, then, to me is still a separation me and my body.

I don’t know if you are aware of it but you have now switched topics and are talking about something completely different than what Jason was talking about, what I replied to Jason about and what you originally commented on. Jason was talking about the feeling of sadness – an affective feeling whereas you have now switched to talking about something completely different – the sensation of pain.

As an actualist, I found that it was essential to grasp the difference between thinking, affective feelings and physical sensations before I could make sense of how my own psyche operated, and therefore how the human condition manifests in general. After I abandoned my spiritual indoctrination, I found the differences between the three quite simple to understand but it was only by being attentive to the differences in my own daily-life experiencing did I really understand the differences in practice.

In the way you explained to me in this email, I should rather call it identification. So to recapitalised when I say ‘I have pain’ this is identification, the me, the I, the thought that identifies with pain. Do you agree to this?

What I have explained to you in the previous post has to do with affective feelings which was the topic of my conversation with No 48 whereas the question you now ask is not about feelings it is about thoughts and physical sensations. In the light of this, perhaps you could rephrase your question so that it remains relevant to the topic.

To give you a practical down-to-earth, everyday example of the distinction between affective feelings and physical sensations – recently I was working on a building site where one of the workmen had influenza. Not only was he sick – headache, blocked sinuses, muscle weariness, etc. – he was also feeling very miserable as well and, as sick people tend to do, he let everyone else on site know he was miserable. Last week, I had the very same illness that he had but I did not feel miserable, or feel sad or feel unhappy about having the physical sensations of the illness, despite the fact that I had the same symptoms as he did.

In other words, to be sick and to have pain is one thing (sensation), to feel miserable and sad about being sick is another thing (feeling). And it is attentiveness that reveals this to be so.

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