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Selected Writings from Peter’s Journal Anger and Aggression
As I was sending off my last post to you I noticed that you had posted an attachment to your letter which I had missed. I was preparing to reply to you and re-read my previous post to see where the conversation had reached. I noticed a quality in my writing that I had not noticed before and when I mulled over it I would describe it as one of frustration. I was frustrated that one of the few people who had read Richard’s Journal and ‘would recommend it to others’, who had not only been on the mailing list for some 10 months but was willing to write as well, was still coming up with objections to being happy and harmless. Not only objections but applying shifting conditions as to what, how and who any discussions should be about. So, I saw the cause of my frustration – feeling ‘bound’ by your conditions – and seen that it had caused me to have a ‘force’ in my writing that could cause ripples. I am not talking of being meek or mild in the face of criticism, belligerence, deviousness, deception, denial, or even downright abuse – all of which I have had in most discussions that dare to question Ancient Wisdom. T’is no small thing to stand up and say everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong – all 6 billion people – and then provide the evidence that this is so. As I remarked on the Sannyas list, if I would have said outside the Ashram gates what I was saying on the list, I would have been stoned to death rather than the modern, much safer version of cyber-execution. No, the ripples I am talking of are the type that I may cause – ripples that result from my anger, frustration, peeved-ness, resentment, annoyance, impatience, etc. I wrote about it my journal –
Being a good, kind-hearted, moral and ‘caring’ man at the time it was difficult for me to see this behaviour in myself, or even acknowledge that this was ‘me’ in action, let alone want to put an end to it. For the ending of anger – causing ripples – is the ending of ‘me’. I used the term ‘causing ripples’ in my journal deliberately for I was nearly always able to control my anger – and most other emotions – and, as such, have not indulged in fights or violent acts, let alone verbal arguments, competitive sports, etc. I was a S.N.A.G., a wimp, a pacifist, a nice guy. When I came across Richard and his journal it was the harmless in ‘happy and harmless’ that was really appealing, for I knew that although I was a nice guy I could not honestly say I was harmless. In all my relationships, I knew that was as much the cause of dis-harmony as the other. The challenge of Actual Freedom was obvious – if I, an ordinary normal human being, could become actually harmless then peace on earth was possible. If I could totally eradicate all anger in me – that would be the proof, as simple as that. The situation that mostly brought up anger in me – in whatever form, and no matter how subtle – was in relationships with women; so I used that as my test of fire, so to speak. When that was successful, the ante was serendipitously upped by writing on the Sannyas list, and when that was successful – along came No. 5. Which only goes to prove that Virtual Freedom is virtual as in 99.9%. In seeing my frustration I did my usual thing and kicked back on the couch and contemplated upon my discovery. A curious thing happens when one ‘steps aside’ as it were and lets the brain do its brain thing – apperceptive awareness kicks in. This is not what gets you to Virtual Freedom – that’s all ‘my’ doing – tough, bloody-minded, gritty, determined wilful effort, as I’ve documented. Dismantling one’s own social identity is not a kicking back – it’s the bit ‘I’ actively do, and with gusto. But I digress a bit from my couch contemplating. Now it is not ‘me’ doing the thinking as it was in those early days of getting to a Virtual Freedom, but now it is that thinking happens by itself. This thinking happening by itself can produce some stunning results, and in this case I started with frustration. My frustration at you was instantly recognized as ‘my’ frustration – I am no novice at this game. The shifty-ness of resorting to blaming the other for what is in me was an observation I made very early on the path to Virtual Freedom. So the frustration was clearly at ‘my’ still not getting it, only triggered by my interaction with you. So, I mused over that one for a while and it all slid a bit deeper to the discovery of a very deep-set frustration – not about any issue in particular, not even about not getting ‘it’. At this deeper level it was not a thought – it was not in my head. It was also not a feeling. A feeling is always about something, triggered by something, in my experience. The frustration I had expressed, however covert or subtly, was only a feeling. This ‘next level down’ was the emotional level and I recognized that beneath the feeling of frustration was the emotion of anger. Sitting with it for about 10 minutes or so, I then was able to slide to the next level down where I could recognize the instinctual passion that is the very source of anger. This is not ‘located’ in the head and recognized as a thought or felt as a feeling – it was dispassionately observed purely as a physical sensation in the chest area. I could therefore experience this anger more clearly than one normally experiences jealousy, love or grief, whereby one is possessed or consumed by a powerful emotion and thus rendered incapable of being aware of what is going on. This bare awareness enabled me to experience the chemicals in action – to sensately experience ‘me’ at my very core. This is where ‘I’ dare not look and cannot experience, for this is the territory of primordial fear and dread, anger and violence – the proverbial hell. This is what the spiritualists are avoiding in their meditative practices of aiming for a transcendental bliss. At this fundamental instinctual level, ‘I’ operate solely at an automatic-response mode. This is where the genetic animal programming of fear – ‘what can eat me?’ and aggression – ‘what can I eat?’ operates. In we humans, this is experienced as an instinctual fear of ‘dangerous’ animals and all other humans, so one never lets one’s guard down given that anyone can literally stab you in the back at any time. This programming is also experienced as an instinctual aggression because you know you need to ‘get in first’ or you are dead meat. In the last of the primitive cannibal tribes to be studied in New Guinea in the middle of this century, aggression between tribes was known as ‘Trouble-Fight’ or ‘Pay-back’ – get in first or get revenge later. Of course, this is 1999 and I live in a reasonably safe place but this instinctual genetic program is ‘me’ at my core. ‘I’ am rotten through and through as in kill or be killed. LeDoux’s research politely labels this the ‘fight or flight’ response. My experience is that it is more accurate to call it the ‘kill or be killed’ response. I would put aggression before fear, for fear only happens when one’s initial aggression fails. ‘What can I eat’ is primary, when you look at the animal world. Animals primarily need to eat to survive – they can’t survive solely by being fearful I have had flashes and insights about anger and aggression before and understand very well the operation of the instinctual passions. LeDoux’s findings were of immense help to me, for here is the hard evidence that backs up the – now banned – sociological studies of Stanley Milgram and others. This enabled me to do the diagrams and writings in the section of the Library ‘Our animal instincts in the primitive brain’ on the AF web-site. But this latest little journey into ‘who I am’ at my core was experiential – it’s fascinating what you can discover when you dare to strip away belief, abandon morals, ethics and psittacisms – then you start to discover what you actually are. Then you can make discoveries dispassionately without recoiling in horror and/or running off to the sanctuary of the ‘good emotions’ – only to ‘discover’ bliss again. Just a good hard look at things as they really are – no grey or rose coloured glasses. But, first things first. At the start of this process, as a spiritual person, I had been encouraged to express my anger – which is the current New Dark Age rebellion against the repression practiced by the previous lot. There is a third alternative to the usual fashionable swing from one failed extreme to the other. As with any emotion – neither repressing nor expressing does the trick. What ‘I’ initially did with anger was stop expressing it . Seeing what I was doing to others was sufficient for me to shut my mouth, keep my hands in my pockets, go for a walk, lay on the couch – do whatever was necessary to stop acting it out on others. The other bloody good reason for stopping was that I then stopped the endless cycle of being angry, feeling guilty, wallowing in shame, seeking solace in resentment, plotting revenge and building up to anger again. This stopping is not suppressing for the feelings are still there, but now you can do something about them given that you begin to see them clearly in operation. When one is angry or in a blind rage one is consumed and possessed by emotions and thus loses all chance of learning anything from the experience. And saying sorry to someone you have hurt in your indulgence or expressing is but a cop out. I’ve written of this very act of stopping in the ‘Love’ chapter of my journal, as has Vineeto. It’s crucial to stop pissing away one’s opportunity to investigate the roots of anger by indulging in or expressing anger – and it’s an eminently sensible thing to do, both for oneself and for those one comes in contact with! So that’s what came out of our discussions and writings on the mailing list for me – a little journey to the root of instinctual aggression. One does stick one’s neck out writing on this list, but that’s the adventure, that’s the thrill. Good, Hey. P.S. LeDoux’s Web-site is http://www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux/ Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless © The Actual Freedom Trust |
