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Selected Correspondence Vineeto Benevolence Benevolence is the quality of the physical universe, it is neither love nor compassion, neither ‘feeling’ nor ‘being’. When everything of ‘me’ is eliminated, the actual world becomes apparent. Benevolence is intrinsic to the actual world. ‘Benevolence is a quality of the physical universe’, you say. According to my dictionary ‘universe’ means ‘the totality of all the things that exist; creation; the cosmos’. So we can assume that anything physically limited in space such as a rock, a door, a car, the moon, the sun is not benevolent. But, according to you, as soon as we take it all together, as the physical universe, suddenly there’s benevolence. How can that be? This is a mystery isn’t it? Can this magical and sudden appearance be explained or understood by your common-sense? There is no malice and sorrow in the physical universe. There is no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, sadness, grief, compassion, love, or any other feeling in the physical universe. These are feelings that are in human beings only (and in a rudimentary form in some animals). Feelings and instincts are both the product and the very substance of the psychological and psychic entity within the human body. So when you rid yourself from this alien entity within the human body, when there is no malice and sorrow in this human body, the perfection and benevolence become apparent. It is the Human Condition that prevents human beings from being as pure and perfect as the physical universe and thus from experiencing the purity, perfection and benevolence of this infinite magnificence of the actual world. Also, you, sensing this benevolence, after eliminating all emotions, feelings and instincts, are living in a paradise and you would want others to experience the same. But it isn’t love or compassion, you say, oh beware me no, but benevolence. No, it is neither love nor compassion, for love and compassion are passions (com-passion), they stem from the feeling of separation and loneliness. Without bad feelings there is no need for good feelings to compensate – no malice, no love – no sorrow, no compassion. Compassion is sharing sorrow with other human beings, it keeps everyone trapped in the idea that this earth is a terrible place to live.
And it is simply common sense. Why should I not want everybody to share the same paradise? Why not have peace on earth, for everybody? We are fellow human beings. Anybody, who wants to, can do the same thing that I did and live in the same benevolent paradise that I live in. Doesn’t that make sense? Isn’t this inventing of new terms a playing with words only to separate yourself from other similar sounding statements made by, say, sannyasins? To emphasise that they are 180 degrees wrong and you are right? Well, it you who insists that both should be the same thing. I am not inventing new terms for the same thing, I am using words to describe a different thing. When airplanes were invented, they weren’t called ‘cars’. Two different words for two different things. Love and compassion are feelings within the Human Condition, they are a well-meaning but futile attempt by the psychic entity to mimic the actual intimacy and benevolence which become apparent when ‘I’ disappear. Why shouldn’t it be possible that there is something new under the sun, something that actually works? It is my very experience, every day.
I must warn you right in the beginning, that this is a really long piece of writing. I did not want to be sloppy and explain the subject shorter – the benevolence of the physical universe without the superimposed human invention of a creator or ‘divine energy’. I guess, there is always the delete button... So we can assume that anything physically limited in space such as a rock, a door, a car, the moon, the sun is not benevolent. But, according to you, as soon as we take it all together, as the physical universe, suddenly there’s benevolence. How can that be? This is a mystery isn’t it? Can this magical and sudden appearance be explained or understood by your common-sense? There is no malice and sorrow in the physical universe. There is no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, sadness, grief, compassion, love, or any other feeling in the physical universe. These are feelings that are in human beings only (and in a rudimentary form in some animals). Feelings and instincts are both the product and the very substance of the psychological and psychic entity within the human body. So when you rid yourself from this alien entity within the human body, when there is no malice and sorrow in this human body, the perfection and benevolence become apparent. It is the Human Condition that prevents human beings from being as pure and perfect as the physical universe and thus from experiencing the purity, perfection and benevolence of this infinite magnificence of the actual world. Vineeto, I know this by now. You didn’t answer the question. It is this: you, as an actualist advocate the use of common sense. You say that benevolence is the attribute of the physical universe. Since the universe is infinite, we can assume that anything limited in space, say a chair, is not benevolent. The point of this conversation is that I talk about my experience. Without the feeling of fear or power there is only benevolence around me and in me. To convey a ‘proof’ of that experience to someone who is convinced that the world consists of good and bad, sorrow and compassion, aggression and love is almost doomed to fail. To understand, one needs to contemplate the very possibility of it being possible.
That is where the peak-experience comes in. You might remember a moment or a brief period when you felt neither fear nor love, neither sorrow nor compassion, but a startling at-easeness and clarity, as if seeing this magnificent world for the first time with open eyes. In such a moment of purity, when the ‘self’ and its editing and distorting emotions are temporary absent, one can experience this very obvious benignity and benevolence of the actual world. Now to your question: ... you, as an actualist advocate the use of common sense. You say that benevolence is the attribute of the physical universe. Since the universe is infinite, we can assume that anything limited in space, say a chair, is not benevolent.
Maybe you can see it from the other side – in the physical universe there is neither good nor evil; both good and evil are values of the Human Condition – the basic instincts of aggression, fear, nurture and desire, overlaid by our ‘identity’. Remove that construct and what you are left with is neither good nor evil, but a benign and benevolent physical actuality. But as we are all inflicted with the Human Condition, we perceive the world only in terms of human emotions, interpreting everything according to the way we have been programmed and taught, according to morals and ethics, fear, love and hate. Take rain as an example – somebody might find it beautiful, another feels sorrowful, another angry when a rainy day is disturbing his plans. Everyone has an emotional interpretation, a self-centred reaction. Rain is just rain, in itself benign and benevolent. It is benign in that it intends no harm, and it is benevolent in its quality of bringing nourishment and delight, the delight you experience when you yourself are benign. So why is it that when all physical objects are taken together as a physical universe, suddenly benevolence appears. This is beyond my common sense. Moreover, benevolence isn’t physical, is it. To understand that benevolence is physical you first have to understand the term ‘actual’. Actual means ‘not merely passive’. It describes the experience that nothing in this physical universe is dead, things are continuously evolving and changing. A seed grows into a carrot, when I eat them they turn into my skin, flesh, bones and brain. A timber table has its own life from seed to tree to timber to crafted furniture to aged wood and then it is deteriorating into soil. The continuous movement is a physical one – there is nothing meta-physical in it. It never stops, never ends. Benevolence is the intrinsic movement of the physical universe to be its best. A tree grows the best way it can, using whatever resources are available. Animals have an instinctual capacity to ensure the survival of the fittest, the strongest, the most adaptable. Vegetation and animals on this planet have evolved from the simplest to the most complex. Human beings with our incredibly refined ability to think and make sense of the world are the only intelligent species of the physical universe. This very computer is a visible outcome of the human brain, with colour-screen, background, sound, storage capacity and all its gimmicks. But this human brain is still restricted and distorted by our animal instincts in the primitive brain. The benevolence with its urge to be the best it can be has now evolved to a stage where it is possible to break free of the animal instincts, of the Human Condition. Fed by our intent to be the best we can be the brain can fix itself up, it can re-wire itself and eliminate the redundant instincts altogether. There is no divine, mystical or ethereal energy doing it, the urge to be its best is a physical quality of the universe. To put the idea of God into this obvious perfection and purity is to completely miss the point of the very magnificence happening around us all the time. Should you want to read a bit more on this issue, Peter’s chapter ‘Universe’ and ‘Evolution’ explain these fact a bit deeper, and Richard has written about it at length in his journal and correspondence. *
So actualism is not The Truth after all? No, actualism is not ‘The Truth’. The Truth is an invention as part of the Human Condition. There are, in fact, many variations of ‘The Truth’ – the multitude of religious wars are ample and passionate expression of those variations ... actualism is a tried and tested way of being here in the world as it actually is ... stripped of the veneer of reality that is super-imposed by the psychological and psychic entity within the body. And actualism is not a vision or belief, it is simply an accurate description of the actual world of sensual delight. * Well, it is you who insists that it should be the same thing [benevolence and compassion]. I am not inventing new terms for the same thing, I am using words to describe a different thing. When airplanes were invented, they weren’t called ‘cars’. Two different words for two different things. Likewise it could be said that it is you who wants it to be different. If you insist on being different you may end up creating another movement thus adding to the division in the world and hence intensifying atrocities already there. ‘It being different’ and ‘me wanting it to be different’ are not the same thing. ‘It’ is different and that is a fact. Me objecting to that fact would simply be silly. To acknowledge the fact that compassion is a feeling of ‘me’ within the Human Condition and that benevolence is a quality experienced with ‘me’ absent is anathema to ‘me’. It is not something ‘I’ would want. Actualism is not a movement and never can be, only individual people can clean themselves up and discover the actual world for themselves. Everybody has to do it for him/herself. In actualism, power and compassion simply do not exist, and they are very ingredients needed for atrocities to happen. No passions, no wars.
Vineeto, I would like to know something more about the happiness, benevolence and magnificence of the actual world. I can understand that it would be harmless because without ‘I’ there would be no malice. But wherefrom the happiness comes? Is it just the absence of sorrow ? I had some lengthy correspondence on Once you see the actual physical universe without the grey glasses of malice and sorrow and without the rose-coloured glasses of love and compassion, the magnificence becomes apparent. Take a sunset. Someone in love will see the beauty of the particular scene and be full of gratitude, love and awe. Someone who just split up with his girlfriend will see the sorrow, the transitory nature of all things, the ending of a day, a life, a period. Someone about to go to war will see the power and beauty of his God, pray for protection and feel supported in his passionate mission by the display of the glorious colours. An actualist might see this immense fireball of helium in the sky, giving warmth and light and life to its orbiting planet called earth, all seen through the layer of atmosphere, giving it the wonderful display of ever-changing colours, different each day. To lay any feelings or imagination or even a creator-God over this magnificent event is to miss the actual experience of it. To experience the world around me without the distorting filter of self-centred emotions, feelings and instincts enables me to perceive and appreciate this infinite magnificence, this purity and perfection and this magical actuality of each moment in paradise. Or is there anything positive about it? ‘Positive’ is too small a word, for it is only invented to counteract the original objection to being here. The Human Condition in each of us inevitably results in not wanting to be here but to be somewhere else, in imaginary heights or in a hope for a better future or life after death. When senses and awareness are freed from the shackles of emotions, feelings, beliefs and instincts one is – as Richard says – ‘the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’, nothing less. Then, one is as benevolent as the rest of the universe. I understand where your question may come from. The absence of sorrow, when one is empty of tears, can be experienced as a starkness, grey, empty and dull reality. Because this seems unbearable, one then cranks up some positive thoughts and feelings to ‘believe’ that life is not so terrible after all. This so-called happiness has nothing to do with the gay and abundant experience when there are no feelings and emotions. The wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom is to investigate and remove whatever feeling, emotion, belief or instinct surfaces until slowly, slowly the actual world becomes apparent – and its magnificent and benevolent nature. And you are then the bit of the universe that says ‘WOW, isn’t the physical universe extraordinary and amazing, wonder-full and perfect!’
...‘your care, which with pure love is compassion by the way’ ... Compassion is a passion which binds the one who ‘needs’ compassion. The deal was that Osho gave his Compassion and I gave my devotion, which brought me to a point where I was even ready to die for him. At the height of the war against the fundamental Christians in Oregon, when rumours went around on the Ranch that the National Guards were on alarm and could attack any day, we were ready to lie down on the streets, have the tanks roll over us and be killed for love and protection for the Master. Can’t you see the power in it? Pure love is only an ideal, it is not pure at all. It is always a bargain. Care, consideration and benevolence are not a relationship, they are not even a state of ‘being’. They are simply intrinsic to the human body, once the alien entity has been extinguished. They have no strings attached. I simply ‘wish you well’ in describing what I found out. What you do with it is completely your business.
Vineeto’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
