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Selected Correspondence Vineeto Affective Vineeto, a quick question: You said: Feelings are affective reactions to our surroundings. What is ‘affective’? Is feeling a ‘thought’ (emotionally backed)? Can you elaborate little further? Affective according to Oxford Dictionary is ‘Of or pertaining to the affections; emotional’ and Peter explained it further in the glossary – The three ways a person can experience the world are: cerebral (thoughts); 2: sensate (senses); 3. affective (feelings).
As can be seen from the dictionary definition, the word feeling is generally used for two very different meanings – most generally it is used to describe an affective feeling (def. 3-8), which includes both a pleasant and an unpleasant emotion, whilst its less common use (def. 1,2) is to describe a physical sensation, the sense of touch that detects hardness, softness, temperature, wind on the skin, weight, etc. Given the unique human ability to think and reflect affective feelings are very often expressed as thoughts and when one begins to become aware of the human condition in oneself, one notices that most of one’s thoughts are emotions-backed, i.e. most thoughts have an emotion as their basis instead of common sense or intelligent reasoning. The common wisdom in the East makes no distinction between thoughts and feelings and hence the practice of ‘right’ thinking can be literally translated into ‘right’ feeling – feelings such as feeling aloof, feeling morally superior, feeling pity for others, feeling dissociated from the world, feeling God-intoxicated, feeling Divine Love or feeling Divine. To encourage these feelings to run amok in the name of ‘right’ thinking leads only to full-blown narcissism and delusion. Contrary to popular Eastern-religion-inspired belief, thinking is not the problem, au contraire, when freed of emotion, passion and calenture it can lead to the emergence of a benign intelligence and common sense. Gary has already written about this to you from his experience with Krishnamurtiism. With increasing awareness one is becoming able to distinguish one’s
feelings, label them as feelings – even when they express themselves as thoughts – and examine them. When one
becomes aware of the affective component of thoughts one is beginning to free one’s thoughts from their
emotional-instinctual limitations and ‘one’s native intelligence can emerge into full view of its own accord.
Intelligence will no longer be crippled’. Richard is currently having some interesting
The difference between ‘real’ and ‘actual’ is significant. ‘Actual’ is that which is palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, material and sensately experienced. In comparison, ‘real’ is that which, while appearing actual, is merely the affective interpretation of the actual. As an example: usually people say, ‘I feel that what you are saying is...’, ‘I feel that your are being ...’, I feel melancholic because of the weather...’ – an affective response to and interpretation of the actual. But how would someone who is fond of his affections – because they is the very substance the ‘self’ is made of – be able to experience and understand the non-affective, non-cerebral, but sensate and sensible description of the actual? I can give you a description of a pure consciousness experience, as I have done before, but are you able to read it with clear eyes? Whenever I compare the actual world to the spiritual world I do this to point to the ‘rose-coloured glasses’ that you, the reader, are wearing. When I was a Sannyasin, I had been wearing rose-coloured glasses, it was inevitable. It took great effort, courage and a year of continuous investigation into all my beliefs to be now able to experience the world-as-it-is, without any glasses ie. interpretations whatsoever.
What you might call the witness or the watcher is just the state of being without thought. It is consciousness, being without thinking! What you are trying to tell me is just a psittacism of Eastern teaching. That does not make it a fact. I take it that this sentence is supposed to be an answer to my last letter to you where I wrote: ‘The self-centred neurosis of Human Nature is identified in the East as the problem with human beings but the Eastern religions attempt to eradicate only half of the problem. They aim to eradicate the ego, the ‘mind’, who we think we are, while ignoring the soul, who we feel we are. The resultant attack on, or repression of, all thoughts and thinking (and not just the self-centred neurosis) eventuates in the complete denial of intelligent thought such as can be readily seen by the East’s lack of technological progress, appalling poverty, repression of women, theocratic empires, and a disastrous standard of health and environment.’ This ‘state of being without thought’ is exactly the problem. The affective identity of this ‘thoughtless being’ is fully alive and kicking, causing even more havoc now that all sensible thought is removed. Nobody wants to acknowledge that it is the ‘feeling’ faculty that is the main problem with the Human Condition, and nobody has even bothered to acknowledge or investigate the instinctual emotions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire at the very core of ‘being’. You may not yet be aware that my emphasis is upon examining and eliminating the feelings – affective feelings – that cause our thoughts to dominate the brain the way they do. Thought – the only tool that can bring about peace-on-earth in this life – is denigrated so much ... and the feelings that infiltrate thought get always off scot-free. Maybe re-examining the whole concept of ‘mind’ as being the problem would give you some insight into the actual world as opposed to the spiritual and affective world of ‘no-mind’. Just have a good look at the outcome of life in the East!
...perfection in humans is possible. Whatever is, is perfect. It cannot be any other way. But there can be more. One of those insidious spiritual beliefs. If you look around in the world, human beings are anything else but perfect. Murders, rapes, domestic violence, religious and tribal wars, child abuse and suicides tell enough of a story. This belief that everything is perfect is one of the reasons why people think they don’t have to change, just wait for the grace of god or the master, or the universe to miraculously remove them from this miserable realm of the body. But then you have to deny the body, all its pleasures, its intelligence, its physical senses. Then, the only place you can have peace is in some imaginary world of the psyche. Actual freedom means living in this physical world, as this physical body with its marvellous intelligence. But it also means living without a psyche, without affective qualities – human or divine, without instincts, without imagination, without any sense of self or Self, ego, soul and idea of who you are. Actual freedom is to discover what you are – a flesh-and-blood body, one of 5.8 billion on the planet – completely ordinary with only one difference: one is completely harmless and as such a non-contributor to malice, and one is completely happy and a such a non-contributor to sorrow.
Interestingly though, I find my eyes will still produce tears when I, (or ‘I’), as soul and/or body, am moved by something ... it might be anything ... so I guess there are still some residual, instinctual, or physiological karmic issues to deal with? It is not really a problem to deal with but it is interesting to note and share with anyone interested? I know intellectually the whole process but there seems to be a soul, or physiological ‘something’ in operation still? My laughter used to be almost uncontrollable fifteen years ago, but now I seem to only raise a chuckle ... angst or nervous energy release is dissipated with the dissipation of anxiety. The same seems to be true of tears ... it seems I still feel ... if only for milli-seconds ... all I can do is watch as a most interested observer ... watch and marvel at how me as this universe is working. Any ideas anyone? Tears, sympathy, empathy, love and compassion have been good indications for me that there was something to look at. Once I started to clean up my personal emotions and broadened my perspective from ‘self’-centred to factual, I became more aware of what is happening with other people. Television and new-papers, reports and films – they all gave me a very detailed picture of the malice and sorrow evident in everybody, and the way human beings treat other human beings often caused distress and brought tears to my eyes. Yet I knew that every feeling, be it for myself or for others, had its roots in my own instinctual passions – and they are the only thing I am able to change. My sorrow or being affected by others won’t change their situation, but by eliminating malice and sorrow in me I will stop causing ripples – at least I will then not be contributing to suffering in the world. So, whenever I am moved by even the slightest feeling it is a sure indication for me that there is still the ‘self’ in action. And for me, 99% is still not good enough. To actually care for one’s fellow human beings means to actually change oneself irrevocably.
Vineeto’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
