I also occasionally discover pockets of anger, sorrow and fear, sometimes triggered by what I watch on television but mostly occurring for no particular reason at all. The onset of menopause with its sporadic hormonally triggered emotional spurts is yet another great opportunity to observe bouts of intense feelings that don’t have any other rhyme or reason than to show that ‘I’ am still around.

For me attacks of anger or grumpiness pass quickest, whereas sorrow can hang around longer sometimes. Just the other day I had trouble shaking off a deep sadness about the senseless slaughter between human beings, past and present alike and the fact that there is no end in sight. I was reminded of a conversation I had with Richard three years ago on the topic of ‘my’ connection with humanity that runs bone-marrow-deep.

He wrote –

Vineeto: … there is no difference between me and the hundreds of thousands who have suffered and died and those who have, without success or effective change, tried to help – for ‘umpteen hundreds of thousands of years’. On an overwhelming instinctual level ‘I’ am ‘them’ and ‘I’ have had no solution and never will have a solution.

Richard: There is no cure to be found in the ‘real world’ ... only never-ending ‘band-aid’ solutions.

Vineeto: The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice.

Richard: Yet it is the instinct for survival that got you and me and every other body here in the first place. We peoples living today are the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes ... we are the product of the ‘success story’ of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Is one really going to abandon that which produced one ... that which (apparently) keeps one alive?

Do you recall those conversations we had about loyalty (familial and group loyalty) back when you and I first met ... and what was required to crack that code?

That was chicken-feed compared with this one. Richard, List AF, Vineeto

‘Is one really going to abandon that which produced one …?’ My occasional bouts of intense feelings give evidence that I have not yet abandoned ‘that which produced me’ but I can also see that I have come a long way since I started on the path to freedom. The more experience I gather the more it becomes clear that belonging to humanity through love and fear, malice and sorrow, is not the ‘way I want to spend my life’, as you say.

I suppose if millions had investigated actual freedom and it had only been achieved by a handful, then there would be some justification. Until then – and knowing from the PCE what is possible – it would be logical to continue the investigation.

For me nothing justifies ‘a cessation of investigation’, until the fat lady has sung. That is my aim in life and it does not matter how long it takes because for me there is no other game to play that is worth playing. I left the real world behind when I found that it sucks and I left the spiritual world behind when I found it to be a shallow fantasy and a hypocritical delusion.

Having come this far, surely it would be worthwhile continuing a bit longer?

An actualist is investigating issues that are at the forefront of human evolution, pursuing something that has never been done before in human history, penetrating not only ancient beliefs commonly-held truths and superstitions, but also exploring experientially sacred feelings and the core instinctual passions themselves. By examining the whole range of the ‘good’ emotions and socially sanctioned feelings as well as those deemed bad and unacceptable, one is venturing beyond the universal human threshold – beyond humanity itself. In actualism one is reprogramming one’s brain that has been genetically programmed for survival and procreation as well as socially and spiritually conditioned to ensure that each new member born fits in with the existing status quo of humanity – given the all-inclusive scope of this reprogramming, it is certainly not a small thing we are doing. Therefore it is not only ‘worthwhile continuing a bit longer’, but to me it is the obvious only thing to do – to pursue this task until it is done.

And therein lies the problem. Having stepped up to the brink, so to speak, in the first half of last year, ‘I’ know there is nothing more to investigate, no more discoveries to be made. The only thing left is the final step, the complete elimination of ‘me’.

How can you say that ‘you’ ‘know there is nothing more to investigate’, when ‘you’ are the very entity that is to leave the stage in order for you, the flesh-and-blood body, to be free? How can you say that there are ‘no more discoveries to be made’ when you just reported discovering a belief ‘that it seems to be just as difficult to attain a condition of actual freedom as it is to ‘achieve’ enlightenment’?

I know at times I was as impatient as you seem to be and I consequently got upset when I still discovered another bit of ‘me’ and then another, until I realized that it was the very expectation that freedom should fall into my lap tomorrow that was preventing me from continuing to sincerely question every little bit that ever keeps me from being happy and harmless 24 hours a day.

Two days ago I re-discovered something that I had known before in a PCE but experientially ‘forgotten’ since. I was busy watching a report on National Geographics where several guys were chasing and filming a big tornado in Colorado, US, in order to get more accurate data for weather predictions and also for the thrill of the adrenaline rush of being so close to danger. Suddenly something in me snapped and an ever-so-subtle tension of feeling a part of their adventure disappeared when I realized that I was here safely of my couch, while they were there, on the other side of the globe, in stormy and rainy weather. With the absence of this subtle tension I also realized that a thin thread of emotional connectedness with humanity is almost always latently present, ready to become apparent at the tiniest trigger. My receiver for psychic currents is almost always automatically switched on, connecting ‘me’ to humanity, and it is these subtle psychic currents that I am going to be watching now more closely in order to ween myself away from these insidious bonds to the passions that exemplify human-ness.

I found again and again that it is not enough to discover something once and then rest in the assurance that ‘I know it now’ but I also have to put this understanding into practice until it is part of my daily experience, actual and tangible, an obvious and undoubted fact, an implicit experience on a cellular level. That’s what takes time, and constant practice. There is a constant leaning forward, as it were, inherent in being a practicing actualist, which means one is actively and increasingly progressing towards one’s goal.

And to round it up to what I said at the top – writing is part of this practice because when I am forced to put my understanding into coherent words and explain my understanding to someone else, then a mere mental understanding won’t do, I’ll have to have walked the talk in order to be able to know and have experienced what I am talking about.

In this respect both you and Peter seem to me a bit unhuman, you have reduced yourself to – I don’t know what – denying every human aspect working, feelings, thoughts.

Yes, freedom leaves Humanity behind, that giant club with all variations of individual, collective or instinctually-atavistic beliefs, with all feelings and emotion and instinctual passions. The strange thing is, when one leaves everything behind that is considered ‘human’ one becomes human for the first time because one’s animalistic heritage is being investigated and eliminated for the first time in human evolution.

As I pondered about attentive, naïve and fascinated listening, I have come to see that the major impediment to such listening is the conviction and instinctual feeling of ‘we are all basically the same’. This worldview is prevalent without exception in all the Eastern religious pursuits that are on offer today and stops people from considering or desiring anything outside of the all-encompassing Human Condition. It plugs the receiver into the sender, so to speak.

When I say ‘explore’ I talk about me exploring the feeling experience of ‘we are all basically the same’ and at the same time being aware of what feelings, thoughts and sensations are happening in the brain and in the guts. I found that however seductive and soothing the overwhelming feeling of ‘we are all basically the same’ was, it was nevertheless a feeling and not a fact and as such observable in operation in me. This passionate belief of ‘we are all basically the same’ or ‘We Are All One’ acts as the very glue that holds the psychic web of humanity together – the fervent belief and passionate hope that we as humans are not lost, lonely frightened and very cunning, struggling for survival and desperately hoping that there is a Divine Intelligence, a caring Earth, and a nurturing existence that knows what It is doing.

When I lived in the Rajneesh Ashram in Poona, the feeling of ‘We Are All One’ was based on the love for and devotion to one single man – the director of the psychic orchestra, Rajneesh himself. During the day in the ashram there were so many factual proofs that we were not one at all, that all had different aims and desires, that we were continually engaged in a psychological and psychic battle fighting each other, resenting and complaining about each other. At night-time however, when the great psychic show, the evening discourse, started, we were blissfully back in the feeling that We Are All One. Today, ten years after the death of Rajneesh, his cult is a well-established New Dark Age religion with the usual religious squabbles and legal battles between numerous parties who claim to have the right interpretations or application of the teachings.

The experience of writing on this list has been valuable research for me into the legacy of spiritual teachings. I have learnt how the ‘Friends of J. Krishnamurti’ interact with each other, what they believe, cherish and fiercely defend, how they live their lives, how the Enlightened Ones on this list write, act and live and what solution they offer for malice and sorrow in the world. The solutions offered by various teachers and Gurus may vary at first glance and, as such, cause much dispute and fight amongst their respective followers, but I discovered that every Eastern spiritual advice, teaching and method is about stopping any sensible thoughts and changing how one feels oneself to be – ‘Realize who you Really are’.

Writing has also been a valuable experience about sticking my neck out and proposing something so unpopular as an actual, practical, down-to-earth freedom. It has certainly desensitised me as I discovered yet again that except verbal abuse there is nothing to fear about being a heretic.

Well, No 8, in these last two months I have had yet another thorough examination of the seductive and, at times, overwhelming feeling of ‘We Are All One’, both as an experience in me and as an active observation of how that feeling manifests in others. It was also fascinating to observe how my fear of psychological and psychic death floods the brain with dopamine and other euphoriant chemicals that can readily bring on the oh so famous Altered State of Consciousness that can turn into a permanent state of Enlightenment. But as my intent lies in the actual, sensate and ‘self’-less experience only possible through ‘self’-immolation, I resisted succumbing to the feelings produced by the euphoriant chemicals and ancient seductive teachings and kept observing the workings of the grand Self in action.

Only by having this overview of spiritual passion in action can one eventually see the psychic web as a whole structure, with all the ongoing psychic interactions, bonds and power fights and collective longing for Love and Oneness. By being fully aware of all the ingredients of this emotional-spiritual psychic web I am now no longer part of it and all the emotional, psychological and psychic bonds with humanity ceased to exist and have no more effect on me. First I expected that the ‘connection’ would come back as it is quite bewildering to experience oneself outside of humanity’s woes and hopes, loves and hates, fears and bliss. My head is empty of feelings and neurotic thoughts and my brain often kicks into action only when I need it for work, shopping, driving or writing. The peace of mind that I had sought to attain through anti-thought meditations, has now eventuated through investigating and eliminating the beliefs, feelings, emotions and instinctual passions – the tentacles of the psychic web within humanity.

And now, being outside of the human psychic web, epitomized by the passionate belief of ‘We Are All One’ or ‘we are all basically the same’, I can see that matter-of-factly, actually and physically, every human being is different, nobody is the same at all. Everyone is the product and combination of a different sperm and egg (except identical twins) and every human face is distinctively different. Everyone’s life is unique and completely different. It is only within the Human Condition that ‘we are all basically [programmed and conditioned] the same’ – driven by the same desires, the same fears, the same urges to nurture and the same aggression. Stepping out of the psychic web of instinctual passions one becomes an autonomous individual for the first time – able to be what you are rather than who society and blind nature fated you to think and feel you are.

To study the Human Condition, live, in one’s own skull – what a thrilling game to play.

It’s been a while since I wrote to you last. I was quite busy with my own process of investigating where I am connected with Humanity and I was yet again trying to understand the workings of the psychic web called Humanity. Investigation into an issue is like a scientific research whereby I collect enough relevant data both in my emotional reactions and in observations of the facts and workings of a situation – and then the brain does the evaluation on its own accord. I experienced the stepping out of the psychic web of Humanity as a bewildering loss of interest in other people’s emotional or spiritual issues because my emotional/ spiritual faculty has almost stopped. The other strange experience was that thoughts have stopped running automatically and only switch on when needed, like for working, shopping, driving or writing. I find it hilarious that what I desperately wanted to achieve in 17 years of the spiritual approach of no-thought, now happens as a result of investigating emotions, instinctual passions and the psychic web of humanity’s passions. And, at least for now, it is a very strange experience indeed.

I found that the best I can do for my fellow human beings is to relieve them from my malice and my sorrow – this way, not only do I stop bludgeoning and burdening everyone I come in contact with but I actually reduce the amount of malice and sorrow in the world in the only person I can change – myself.

As for ‘failing my fellow human beings’ – yes, I have become a traitor to the ‘real’ world as well as to the spiritual world, giving up finding solutions and admitting to failure. But it is important to note that an actualist fails humanity and not his or her fellow human beings. Given that an instinct-driven humanity is, always has been and always will be, a failed institution, it makes eminent sense to bail out, as it were. The only way out of the madness of the ‘real’ world is to get out and that means that I stubbornly and persistently decline to play the game of passionate survival that everyone else is playing. I am abandoning humanity and humanity’s problems and, as such leaving my ‘self’ behind.

Hi Richard,

Reading through your correspondence on mailing list B I have come across something that I cannot grasp.

Respondent: If the many are reduced to one, what is the one reduced to?

Richard: When it is understood that the one is the epitome of the many and that ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ is ‘me’ ... ‘I’ self-immolate at the core of ‘being’. Then I am this material universe’s infinitude experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being.

A desirable side-effect is peace-on-earth. Richard, List B, No 12

What does it mean, when you say ‘‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ is ‘me’’?

There was another quote in your correspondence with Alan, where you said:

Richard: Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen hundreds of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. Richard, List AF, Alan

I have taken it simply that ‘me’, my instinctual programming, is as much part of my DNA as it has been the case in every human being on the planet since ‘the beginning of time’. Yet I cannot identify with being ‘so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... ’ Do I need to in order to understand something vital? Does this instinctual ancient ‘me’ have something to do with the ‘many’? I do have a hunch that understanding this could be essential.

*

Last night serendipity provided the answer to my question to you, which had been going on in my head since I wrote to you. The experiential answer to ‘I am many and many is me’ presented itself in the form a TV program on International Humanitarian Aid Organizations and their role and accountability. For one and a half hours there was ample footage presented on human suffering and devastation in war, famine, genocide and racial ‘cleansing’ on one side and the helpless, well-intentioned, yet almost useless effort of people in the aid organizations on the other side.

The presentation was enough to make it utterly and unquestionably clear to me that there is no difference between me and the hundreds of thousands who have suffered and died and those who have, without success or effective change, tried to help – for ‘umpteen hundreds of thousands of years’. On an overwhelming instinctual level ‘I’ am ‘them’ and ‘I’ have had no solution and never will have a solution.

The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice.

Hi Richard,

to continue the exciting issue of the core instincts –

As I understand it, in the on-going study of genetics the germ cells (the spermatozoa and the ova) have been classified as being of a somewhat different nature to body cells. This has led to speculation that each and every body is nothing but a carrier for the genetic lineage ... that the species, therefore, is more important than you and me or any other body. Now, whilst that theory is just a typically ‘humble’ way of interpreting the data, it did strike me, some years ago, that this genetic memory could very well be the origin of the immortal ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ (as contrasted to ‘I’ as ego who will undergo physical death). Hence it occurred to me that the source of ‘who ‘I’ really am’ could very well be nothing more mysterious than blind nature’s survival software.

I have always had a bent for the practical explanation ... and solution.

The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice.

Yet it is the instinct for survival that got you and me and every other body here in the first place. We peoples living today are the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes ... we are the product of the ‘success story’ of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Is one really going to abandon that which produced one ... that which (apparently) keeps one alive?

That was chicken-feed compared with this one.

The subject of the instinctual software package is indeed a fascinating one and the sufficient understanding is crucial and instrumental in cutting the cord both from ‘humanity’ and ‘me’. In the last days I started to understand about the nature of the instinctual programming that is ‘me’ which I would classify as ‘having glimpsed the end of the tunnel called the Human Condition’.

Peter had described to No 5 very accurately the process of examining one’s feeling, sliding deeper and deeper into emotion, then into instinctual passion until, with persistence, one is able to ‘dispassionately observe’ the very functioning of the particular core instinct in action. This method had always served me when I explored feelings and their underlying beliefs, emotions and their underlying ‘truth’, including the above mentioned ‘loyalty back when you and I first met’. Yet up until now I had only felt and experienced a particular emotion, sometimes it in all its devastation like the universal sorrow I described in my last letter, suffered it through, so to speak. I had not yet dared to stay with a surging instinctual passion all the way without objection, looking it straight in the eye to recognize and experience the naked ‘me’ in action in a dispassionate way.

While reading through your latest correspondence I found two paragraphs that enticed me to try out where you described what to do with fear:

Richard: Whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (like ‘I’ am). Speaking personally, what ‘I’ would do, all those years ago, was to ‘sit with it’ as it were (being with it), whilst it was happening. By ‘being with it’ – without moving in any direction whatsoever – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ (‘I’ was fear and fear was ‘me’). Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ was, was that fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature bestows on all sentient beings at birth (at conception). Instincts are genetically encoded in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire.

Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future.

In other words: ‘I am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and aggression and nurture and desire).

May I suggest, that the next time fear happens that you ‘be with it’ without moving in any direction whatsoever until it becomes apparent that ‘you are fear and fear is you’? It is so much easier than all this intellectualising ... and far more rewarding.

Because it will be the end of ‘you’. Richard, List B, No 31