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Selected Correspondence Vineeto Psyche, Psychology and Psychiatry As for old fears and insecurities, there were plenty of them. Some of them were so old they dated back centuries and more – the archaic fear of being burnt as a witch, for instance, for daring to question the existence of god, heaven and afterlife and the archaic fear of expelled from society or of being executed for daring to lift the taboos of sexuality and begin to enjoy it for its own sake. Whoa! this sounds almost like reincarnation. I assume you are referring to genetics, passing the memory on from one gene-ration (never noticed before how this word broke down- love words!) to another. I was not referring to genetics, the hardware, so to speak but to the collective software of the human condition, something that in spiritual circles is known as the Akashic Records or etheric knowledge. When a child is conditioned, parents, teachers and peers not only pass on their personal knowledge, their morals, ethics, beliefs and experiences but also impart, on a non-verbal emotional-instinctual level, the taboos, fears and rules of survival that they themselves have imbibed, going back to the beginning of humankind. Additionally, in an altered state of consciousness one can consciously access those records of various cultures and explore the ancientness of human ‘wisdom’ and experience and its instinctually-based fibre. I know Richard mentions this in his book, but is there anywhere on the site, were it is expanded on. I find this subject fascinating. Here is one example –
You find a little bit more in Richard’s catalogue on
I read ‘Osho: The God that Failed’ by Hugh Milne and learned a few interesting things that went on in the movement. He and a few others unquestionably seem to suggest that there is this ‘aura’ or ‘presence’ in people like Osho that made even the westerners with a scientific/skeptical bent of mind lulled into this kind of stuff. Oh yes, there certainly was a rather powerful aura with Rajneesh as is with every genuinely enlightened person. They emanate Love and Compassion and people flock around them to lap it up and in turn give the guru devotional love, material goods and the power to mould their lives. Similarly, non-enlightened people can emanate some or a lot of charisma which then seduces others to follow the charismatic person’s suggestions, as you can see happening in the political arena, in sports and games, in religious movements or in any other group-and-leader activity. Perhaps this is the psychic web or the vibe that has been discussed to some extent in the topica list. It certainly is part of it, yes. Have you felt that yourself in any encounter with anybody? Of course. I was a very devoted disciple of Rajneesh for many years until a couple of years after his death. What kind of phenomenon is that? Is it a willing protocol buried in the subconscious of the Guru and the Disciple – coming to the surface? Or is there some kind of mysterious transmission in the ethereal space? Following a charismatic leader or wanting to lead willing followers is part and parcel of the human condition. I am somewhat reminded of the genetic setup of ants or bees who are born to act as is best for the survival of the tribe. In the case of humans there are other aspects, the lust for power on the side of the leader and the fear of standing on one’s own feet on the side of the follower. There is also the longing for the grand feeling of belonging to a powerful group, to be one with a crowd under one common theme, the sense of unity with others under one aim. Have you never experienced feelings like these? Those ‘transmissions’ not so mysterious after all – they consist of feelings being transmitted and received between humans and the more unconscious but strongly felt the transmissions the more powerful they are. Do these kind of things puzzle you anymore? No, I have thoroughly felt and understood them – what sometimes puzzles me is that people do not desire to become free from their grip.
I would like to discuss with you on matters regarding paranormal phenomenon such as telekinesis, Randi James, and the Universe. In a few places on the AF site I’ve found a regulation to the Randi James institute, by you or Richard, as part of an answer in case of the question being about a prove or lack there-of of a paranormal phenomenon. It is interesting to mention though, that telepathy and feeling of the emotional vibes of souls around you do exit ‘when’ there is a soul, as even evidenced by yourself and Richard. Question no.1: Why if telepathy is indeed self evident, and Randi James can’t prove it (the telepathy), even not for a million dollars, he actually debunks this phenomenon (it is also impossible to manifest a genuine (belly) laughter for a million dollars, as this event is of a spontaneous nature that requires the right vibes to happen) you still give reference to his site? To emphasize that anything pertaining to the psyche is not actual – that it does not exist in the actual world. Question no.2: And as telepathy in fact exist, in the real world, ‘where’ there’s a soul, and Randy James can’t prove it (the telepathy), what about a phenomenon such as telekinesis? There are plenty of reports on this. How would you regard the following reports? : http://www.jackhouck.com/pk.shtml http://www.ppsociety.com/forumtopic.php?id=1378 http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/winston.html there are of course many, many others. So would you say they are just plain lying? Doesn’t sound sensible to me. I have never evidenced telekinesis, so for me it’s a belief it does actually exist. But so never have I evidenced that the world is round, or neither did the scientist 2 centuries ago suspected microbes exist. There are many, many reports of people doing telekinesis. Are all of them just lying? If they do, why do they lie? What is the motive of those who anonymously claim it? After carefully reading what do they have to say, it is silly to just regard it as a non-sense and a blind lie. Question no.3: So if telekinesis does exist, how does it come up with Actualist word-view of the physical universe, especially with the fact that it isn’t a projection of a metaphysical self? Firstly, actualism is not a world view but (1) the direct experiencing that matter is not merely passive and (2) a practical down-to-earth method that enables anyone who is interested to become free from the human condition in toto. Secondly, telepathy, telekinesis and all other paranormal phenomena are pertaining to the psyche, as the author of the website you quoted is well aware of, and the psyche, or soul, has no existence in the actual world. Vis –
And in short –
So actualism sacrifices the error-prone, suffering/malice inducing measurement device called feelings for happiness/ harmlessness and a possibly less aware state? First, feelings are not a ‘measurement device’, they are directly arising from the instinctual survival passions which every human being is endowed with by blind nature for the sake of survival at any cost of the individual and/or the species. Aren’t they ‘sixth sense’ (albeit error prone) that senses the external world (hence a measurement device)? Intelligence unimpeded by instinctual passions beats your ‘error prone’ ‘sixth sense’ by a country mile. I know because I’ve been doing the switch for years now and it works like a charm. Has this intelligence unimpeded by instinctual passions been able to ‘actually’ help another person come out of his/her suffering? How many? For a start, my becoming free from malice and sorrow has freed the people I live with, work with, socialize with and casually interact with from the capriciousness and trouble of my fickle moods, my graceless demands, my ‘self’-centred behaviour, my avarice, competitiveness, melancholy, jealousy, guilt, shame, fear and so on. I am no longer an emotional burden to anybody in any way and neither do I need or expect anybody to do something to help me alleviate my suffering. If everyone became virtually free from the human condition there would be no need for anyone to help anybody and all the millions of missionaries, social workers, therapists, psychologist, psychoanalysts and do-gooders would be out of a job. Apart from that I have no idea, nor do I want to know, how many people have gained an understanding from reading about my experiences with the actualism method, thus helping them to become more free from the human condition themselves. Sharing my experience about the success I have is a pleasure to do but not the main event. Now that an actual freedom has been discovered and the experience how to achieve it is
being reported on the Actual Freedom Website, anybody is free to do with the information what they want.
What I wanted to say is that the scientific method can be successfully applied to the physical world, an objective world, a world that can be touched and measured, but not to the meta-physical, the world of the psyche, which by its very nature is subjective, elusive and illusory. One cannot observe/measure subjectivity with objectivity, it is subjectivity that measures its own subjectivity. The first world is governed by cause and effect relationships, whereas the psychic world is not governed by this law. One can ask himself ‘Haietmoba?’ till the cows come home, if the other ingredients necessary for success are not present, it’s a futile masturbation/ self-preoccupation, resulting in that person becoming a member of the wankactasaurus family. I wonder if your comment that the world of the psyche cannot be observed objectively is based on personal experience because I have found that this is not the case. I spent many years subjectively exploring the psychic world in my spiritual years, so I know that it is a very limited world, varied only by cultural conditioning, and given an apparent veracity by the fervent beliefs and heartfelt feelings of billions upon billions of humans over thousands upon thousands of years. It was only when I began to extract myself from this world was I then able to clearly – as in objectively – see that the psychic world is nothing but a collective illusion: rooted in instinctual fear, hindered by unawareness and mired in superstition. Your conjecture of repeating senselessly a certain sequence of words ‘till the cows come home’ is not an accurate description of the actualism method – you left out some vital ingredients. It is sincerity that reawakens one’s dormant naiveté, which then gives rise to pure intent, which in turn is essential in the process of allowing the PCE to happen. With the clear memory of a PCE and the pure intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent one cannot go wrong.
Hey Vineeto, your comments are also welcome in regard to the different types of ‘knowledge’ derived from consciousness experiencing, as I remember you described both an almost full-blown ASC and a PCE Any ‘knowledge’ from full-blown altered states of consciousness is purely affective, and as such subjective, as you may remember from your own experience. In a spiritual altered state one usually feels as though one has entered into an ethereal reality. Whilst in this greater reality one feels as though one is above and beyond the social morals and ethics and as such is one prone to not only feel compassion for those ‘poor humans’ who are still enslaved by society’s rules and regulations but also feels that one knows all about this part of the human conditioning temporarily left behind – the outer layer of the ‘self’. In such a state one can have access to what are termed the ‘Akashic Records’, an expression to describe contents of the psychic web in which all sentient beings are more or less entrapped and entangled. In an altered state one can be psychically sensitive to what humans through the ages have affectively thought (all of the accumulated truths and wisdoms) and felt (all of the accumulated suffering) … and the power and glory of this feeling of omniscience and of being one with the ‘higher Being(s)’ is the trap that no enlightened being so far has been able to escape from, let alone even wanted to escape from … with one exception. A PCE is very different. One can have a PCE without much thinking happening – so delightful and magical is the direct sensate experience of the actual world that the notion to take notes as it were rarely occurs. Because I was on a quest to find out about the human condition and what to do with my life, during each PCE that I had after encountering actualism I was careful to take note of what was different in a PCE to normal experiencing and to ASCs and as a consequence had direct insights into what exactly is the difference between a ‘self’-centred and a ‘self’-less experience. My intent in a PCE was to gain as much insight about life without ‘self’ as possible and consequently I obtained valuable information that I could use once the PCE faded. The ‘knowledge’ I gained in each PCE was about that which is actual, i.e. that which remains when the affective faculty responsible for both my automorphic worldview and humanity’s anthropocentric view of the universe itself does not interfere with direct experiencing. It is as simple as taking one’s pink and one’s grey glasses off and then what has been lying in front of your eyes all along becomes readily apparent.
This is how you described your experience with the visualisation –
The psyche, which you said was present, is the visualizer. No, I’ve tried to make this clear: it is not the ‘doer’, it is not an ‘entity’. The brain is the visualiser, This seems to be the crucial point of disagreement, which I think can only be settled as an experiential answer achieved by meticulous and ongoing observation. From my own experiences of ASCs I can understand why the psyche does not appear to be the ‘doer’. In an altered state of consciousness ‘I’, the doer, makes way for ‘me’, ‘being’ itself, and the feeling of this expansion is so grand, so vast and so impressive that the ‘being’ itself does not even appear to be an entity because one does not see or feel the edge of it. It is not for nothing that before Richard’s discovery of an actual freedom from the human condition, a permanent Altered State of Consciousness, be it spiritual or secular, was considered the summum bonum of human experience. … just as the brain (not the ‘self’) is the ‘thinker’. Only in a pure consciousness experience does the ‘self’ not interfere with the brain thinking. The brain can produce images of its own accord without ‘me’ painstakingly constructing them in ‘my’ mind. It is the affective faculty born of the instinctual passions that generates ‘images of its own accord’. Imagination is so immediate, automatic and effortless, it is my experience that it takes some practice in observing one’s psyche in action in order to discover that imagination is a function of the affective faculty. I guess it comes down to this: I don’t understand the actualist’s distinction between visual thought and non-visual thought. This recent conversation might clarify the issue –
I know from my own observations that visual images connected to words are often so immediate that it appears as if ‘I’ have no part in conjuring the image, that the image appears of its own accord. It took practice in being attentive to all of my feelings before I began to become aware of the myriad of thought processes that ‘I’ can cause to happen in the brain including the capacity for imagination and visualization. I understand that, when Richard broke through into ‘actual freedom’, his capacity to imagine or visually recollect disappeared at the same time as his affections. Whether this is cause or correlate is unclear. No, Richard made clear that they correlate –
Suppose I have a toaster and a radio plugged into the same power point with a double adapter. I flick off the power switch, and both radio and toaster cease to work. Would I now be justified in saying that the music I heard a few minutes ago was an epiphenomenon of the toaster? For all I know, Richard may be exactly right – but I would like to know once and for all, what basis is there for saying that the brain’s capacity to generate images is an epiphenomenon of an affective ‘self’? The basis is apperception. Is it just that the two disappeared simultaneously, or is there a more solid factual basis for claiming that one is caused by the other? If one takes notice of the reports of others and relates the data from the PCEs (no imagination, no ‘self’) to one’s normal day experiences (imagination, ‘self’) and to an ASC (extra-ordinary imagination, ‘Self’) there is a strong indication that ‘self’ and imagination are correlated. These contrasting experiences are indication for a prima facie case to be made such that can eventually be verified by your own experience. Then there is your own pure consciousness experience – you yourself reported no imaginative activity happening in an experience in which the ‘self’ is temporarily absent. This is experiential, empirical evidence. * Whereas in a PCE the ‘self’ /the psyche, which is not only the ‘Human Drama’ but the very motor for ‘images and symbols’ is absent. Is the ‘self’ is the very motor for ‘thoughts’? Your experience (and mine too) confirms: no. But try explaining that to someone who hasn’t experienced the temporary abeyance of ‘self’. They’d assume the self is still there, you’re just unconscious of it, or something of the sort. The ‘self’ – the psychological and psychic entity arising from the instinctual passions – is the ‘very motor’ for emotional thoughts, also known as feelings. However, many people don’t bother to make a distinction between their feelings and their thoughts and this includes all the spiritual authorities that have been so influential in Western society in the last half-century. * In a PCE I am this psyche-less flesh-and-blood body only, apperceptively aware of the sensual delights and reflective thoughts while they are happening on their own accord. So how are ‘reflective thoughts’ occurring without ‘psyche’? Thoughts are an activity of the human brain. When the ‘self’ or psyche is temporarily absent in a PCE then thoughts are no longer influenced by impulses from the amygdala and the limbic systems and intelligence can function unimpeded. I asked Richard to clarify the difference between ‘mind’ and ‘psyche’ as he uses the terms, and his answer was quite clear: his description of ‘psyche’ was a supernatural ‘life-force’ of sorts, a ghostly metaphysical entity or presence or power or force that is assumed to inhabit the flesh and blood body. When you use words such as ‘of sorts’, ‘ghostly’ or ‘is assumed to’ you indicate that Richard’s description that the psyche is a meta-physical entity inhabiting the flesh-and-blood body is not your experience. However, this is how you described your PCE –
This ‘invisible membrane’ that you seemed to ‘had walked through’ *is* your psyche and this entity, presence, power or force is experienced as something very real when one leaves it behind in a PCE – there is nothing ‘of sorts’, ‘ghostly’ or ‘assumed’ about it at all prior to or subsequent to a PCE.
As you said yourself, past this ‘invisible membrane’ the world is then perceived as perfection and ‘the ‘me’ who had set out for a walk … seemed to be aeons ago’. This ‘me’ is your psyche – so palpable as to be experienced as real and so all-consuming that it produces it’s own self-centred reality. However, when the PCE fades and one is back to normal, it is inevitable that most of the experience is forgotten. That’s when paying attention to one’s thoughts and feelings comes into play because only by paying ongoing attention to how one experiences this moment of being alive can one begin to observe and understand the psyche in action and become familiar with all of its aspects. And to pay attention to one’s psyche in action is part and parcel of fully leaving it behind. What I am calling ‘psyche’ is not in any way separate from the brain or the flesh and blood body. It seems that you are making a case for your second experience (the ‘interesting experience’ with a psyche present) to be not only equivalent to but better than a pure consciousness experience. Your claim that ‘psyche’ is not in any way separate from the brain or the flesh and blood body’ contradicts your own experience that in a PCE there was no psyche present – therefore it must be possible to separate the two. The only difference is that in my mind/ psyche, images are not evidence of a ‘self’, whereas for you (for reasons still unexplained), images (but not ‘thoughts’ or words or actions) are a manifestation of a ‘self’. From the perspective of the psyche images are not ‘evidence of a ‘self’’ because the psyche is the ‘self’. In a PCE, however, when the psyche is entirely absent and with it the action of imaging, apperception is freed to operate and the full scope of one’s psyche can become apparent if one is observant. Then, when one returns to ‘normal’ and begins to practice being attentive to one’s feelings and thoughts the various aspects of the ‘self’ will gradually become more apparent. * I would argue (not to be contrary, and not to suggest that you are wrong to do so, but simply because it seems like the truth to me) that it is indeed ‘one of your tricks’ to treat as ultimately valid only those experiences in which ‘you’ are entirely absent. Within the terms of your goal (actual freedom), this is understandable. But that goal is necessarily ‘one of your tricks’, even if you choose to define it as the only thing that is not a trick. What you are arguing is that ‘my’ experiences of ‘my’ psyche are as equally valid as the only experience that is common to all flesh and blood bodies – the pure consciousness experience of the already-existing purity and perfection of the actual world. I can only suggest that you contemplate on the fact that it is precisely because everyone values their own psychic experiences so highly that peace on earth between human beings remains but a pipe-dream. Yes, that is very clear. (But see how it reads if you substitute ‘mind’ for ‘psychic experiences’ in the above passage.) Okay, this is how it reads now –
The fact remains that you are talking about ‘your’ visualizations produced by ‘your’ mind – and not the activity of the brain when the ‘self’ is absent. Also, it is obvious that the visualizations of ‘your’ mind are not common to all flesh and blood bodies – we wouldn’t be having this conversation if they were. To replace a word to make the experience appear more actual is not going to do the trick – and you said yourself that there was a distinct difference between your PCE and your ASC. You even gave your experience a new name – ‘Neo-Virtualism’ – which you described as
* I know, it is hard to remember what a PCE was like when one returns back to normal and often one begins to doubt that the experience was only a dream. But during a PCE I know with absolute certainty that this actual universe has always been here – I only missed it whilst I was busy being ‘me’. And the realization and recognition of this very fact is what has become my benchmark for determining how to proceed in the process of becoming free of malice and sorrow. In this process ‘I’ willingly decide to instigate ‘my’ own demise and then it is simply a matter of applying attentiveness – something that anyone can cultivate if they so desire. Yes. I think the main difference between us at this stage is that I’m experiencing a certain something which you suggest is caused by ‘me’, whereas I experience it as something that is a perception of me (or rather, something in the brain which generates this virtual ‘me’) rather than something which ‘I’ do. Regardless of whether we agree on the value of this, am I at least making it clear what I mean? Yes, you do make it clear and in much of your descriptions I recognize my own altered states regardless of the fact that mine were full-on spiritual experiences and yours appear to be, at this stage at least, a bit more secular. And I also understand from my own experiences the overwhelming attraction of these extra-ordinary experiences, if only because the feeling of expansion from one’s normal day experience of being shackled feels so fulfilling and feels so liberating. The ‘certain something’ that you experience is indeed rather something that you are instead of something that you do. In an ASC the identity shifts its focus from ‘I’ the doer to ‘me’ the ‘being’ which is experienced as something like ‘one’s true nature’, the real Me, pure being, the One behind the throne – the expressions vary according to culture but essentially point to the same experience. If you are sufficiently motivated to explore your experiences then earnest and diligent observation will eventually reveal experientially that this ‘certain something’ is indeed ‘caused by ‘me’’, the instinctual identity. * However, I am now starting to think that one can have one’s cake and eat it too. Before you get carried away with this thought let me ask you how you think this would work in practice. The cake we are talking about is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, a ‘self’-less flesh-and-blood body living a pure consciousness experience 24/7. To ‘eat it too’ means to simultaneously have a psyche, which perceives the world as ‘pure’ in images and symbols? No, a psyche which is as pure as the actual world. (And no ‘me’ there to ‘have’ it). Rather, it is the very thing that generates the virtual ‘me’. The psyche, the generator of ‘the ‘virtual ‘me’’ is the very thing that generates the human condition. Whereas this generator of ‘the ‘virtual ‘me’’ is temporarily switched off in a PCE, which is a temporary experience of being free from the human condition in toto. You yourself reported that there is a complete absence of any psyche whatsoever, be it pure or impure, in a PCE. To put it another way, ‘I’ am an epiphenomenon of ‘it’ (which is nothing more than the brain in operation), rather than ‘it’ being an epiphenomenon of ‘me’. You are correct when you say ‘‘I’ am an epiphenomenon of ‘it’’ because ‘it’ is one’s innermost ‘being’ expanded thin and wide to such a degree that ‘it’ can appear to be as vast as the universe in which case one can feel oneself to be the universe experiencing itself. In this state ‘I’, the small s ‘self’, is experienced to be an epiphenomenon of ‘it’, the large s ‘Self’, also known as ‘the Ground of Being’. * Yep. The PCE I had last summer had none of this ‘pattern matching’ or ‘symbol-generating’, or ‘plasticity’, and the psyche was not ‘visible’ at all. There was an underlying similarity though that I can’t quite put my finger on, except to say that both seemed to have had a pure and perfect basis. Would it be right to say that the first was a pure, i.e. ‘self’-less, experience while the other was an image of a pure experience created by your psyche? Not quite. The other was an experience in which psyche was present, but it was not created out of or by the psyche. In both cases there was an underlying purity and perfection; in the latter case it was manifest in mind as well as in world. And the presence of a mind-medium (unlike ordinary ‘imagination’) did not in any way diminish the perfection and purity of the actual world as experienced by the senses. The purity of the actual world means that there is no ‘self’ or psyche present and it is the affective ‘self’ or psyche that distorts the clear perception of what is actual. If you decide to reinterpret ‘the perfection and purity of the actual world’ as being an experience of the psyche ‘manifest in mind as well as in world’ then we are talking about two different things. It does make communication a little confusing though. No, not ‘psyche manifest in mind as well as world’. Rather, purity and perfection manifest in mind as well as world. Okay, I have read you wrong here. What still stands, however, is that ‘the presence of a mind-medium’ seems to be what is responsible for ‘this ‘pattern matching’ or ‘symbol-generating’ or ‘plasticity’’ – the very events that differ from your PCE. * Actuality is magical not because there is a hidden meaning or mystery but because everything is palpable, tangible, actual, not passive and right here and this actuality is available to each and everyone in the same magical vibrant coruscating way – if and when the obstructing blinkers of the human psyche are removed. Or, it seems to me (so far), looked through rather than from. In your latest post you made it clearer what you mean by ‘looking through’ –
Despite the fact that you stress that there ‘was nothing ‘metaphysical’ about it’, the ‘psyche as medium’ is non-physical, non-material and as such non-actual, which is exactly what the word ‘meta-physical’ means. Certainly no more ‘metaphysical’ than ‘thought’. Not so. Thought, when unimpeded by feelings and passions, is a function of the physical brain just as seeing is a function of the physical eyes and hearing a function of the physical ears. * And bit of research into the methodology of Eastern Mysticism will reveal that the technique to ‘clearly look at the self-generating psyche’ instead of ‘through or from’ is precisely the technique of dissociating from the ‘self’ in order to transcend it. Is that so? I didn’t know that. There is lots of information on various Eastern methodologies of dissociation and
transcendence available and if you are interested then * And, as Peter put it in his journal –
The LOL! There is no ‘Above and Beyond’ here, just a body-mind looking at itself and the world. If I do happen to become God, I’ll send you a postcard from the asylum ;-) At least you can’t say you haven’t been warned.
Only got time for a quick response right now, but this little passage has turned on a huge light bulb for me:
Thank you! That this ‘invisible membrane’ actually is my psyche had not occurred to me. It has a genuine ring of truth about it. This is excellent because now you know a bit more about the nature of the difference between a PCE and your second experience. This is good news indeed. Yeah, I think so. Let’s see how this sounds ... In a ‘normal’ state of mind, I walk around in the ‘real world’ that most people share. In this state, I experience the mind/psyche as a bundle of personal thoughts, memories, feelings, desires, fantasies, etc, all emanating from ‘my’ brain, all revolving around ‘me’ and ‘my’ world. This is ‘reality’. Walking out of this felt like walking through an invisible membrane, right out of the (comparatively) grim, grey, miserable world of reality and right into the sparkling clear, brilliant, wide open spaces of the actual world. Yes. And as Richard puts it, in doing so, you leave your ‘self’ behind. I’d always thought of ‘me’ as something contained wholly within the body; I didn’t realise that the miserable bugger actually creates a virtual bubble of ‘reality’ that encapsulates and distorts the whole of the ‘real’ world as I experience it – but it’s obvious now. When I walked out of that, I walked out of ‘me’. In hindsight it makes a lot of sense. (As Richard said, not ‘into a bubble of perfection’ but ‘out of a bubble of imperfection’). Yes. Not that anybody did the ‘walking’. I would describe my transition into a PCE more as if a curtain rips, a bubble bursts, a shell breaks, and then suddenly I, this body only, am here in this sparkling actuality, which has been right here all the time. And when the PCE fades ‘I’ know that ‘I’ have work to do, the work of thinning, diminishing, weakening the shell that ‘I’ at the centre create and which in turn separates me, this body, from experiencing the sparkling ever-present actuality. It also sheds some light on the ASC. In the ASC, the personal self, the ego, is gone – but the psyche remains. In that state, the psyche has a wholly different experiential character. It is experienced as something impersonal, something ‘I’ could never produce. And yet it is not actual, not physical, not available to anybody else’s gaze, therefore it is specific to this brain. Yes, any ASC experience is ‘specific to this brain’ because it is produced by the affective/instinctual part of the brain, the limbic system. It is experienced as a jelly-like medium in which thoughts and images arise. I think the images that arise from this ‘medium’ are probably what Jung called the archetypes of the collective unconscious, but Jung was mainly interested in their mythological meaning … When I explored my instinctual passions, loosely classifiable as fear, aggression, nurture and desire, I recognized quite a few of what Jung described as archetypal features and a few more to boot – they are the basic emotional patterns that everybody has regardless of cultural differences or idiosyncratic predispositions. Given that in the altered state of consciousness only the ego is temporarily absent, the archetypal instinctual features come to the fore, stripped of the moral and ethical limitations acquired in one’s conditioning. In an ASC the personal ego and its associated notions of what is right and wrong, good and bad is no longer functioning, which means that all of one’s instinctual passions are then perceived in a new light. With guilt and shame, fear of punishment and hope for reward no longer functioning, an ego-less person then re-interprets all of their instinctual passions as being good, beneficial, justified and/or glorified by the Divine. If you study the lives of people who permanently live or have lived in such altered states of consciousness – Ramesh Balsekar, Da Free John, Mohan Rajneesh, Jiddu and U.G. Krishnamurti or those who occasionally experienced an altered state by chemical stimulation such as Timothy Leary or other drug researchers – you will find that they not only espouse the tender instinctual passions but also defend their savage instinctual passions as not only necessary, but right and just – a clear indication that an altered state of being is within the grip of the passions that underpin the human condition. …whereas, for me, any mythological meaning (including the whole ‘human drama’) was entirely eclipsed by the ‘psychedelic’, geometrical, mathematically perfect structure of the medium in which they arose, and of the actual world in which this body was moving about. (I am quite certain that these ‘structures’ are direct experiences of actual neural mechanisms that underpin perception and cognition; they are not produced by imagination. The similarity of ‘psychedelic’ experiences across cultures and eras tends to bear this out too). Although your psyche felt itself to be impersonal, it nevertheless overlaid, tainted and re-interpreted the physical world ‘in which this body was moving about’ and thus actuality was as much distorted as it is in normal reality. ‘The similarity of ‘psychedelic’ experiences across cultures and eras’ is due to the fact that the psyche of all humans produces similar images and feelings in similar circumstances – the very basis for Jung’s observation of archetypal emotional patterns ‘across cultures and eras’. It might be useful to reflect on the fact that your PCE accorded with those that others describe as being a brief glimpse of being actually free from the human condition, whereas your psychedelic experience accords with those who take psychedelic drugs in order to temporarily escape grim reality. This is my current (tentative, provisional) model of self/world: To extend the physical metaphor of the membrane for a sec, bearing in mind that it’s only a model ... consider a virtual egg. The yolk is the normal self, wherein ‘I’ and ‘me’ exist. Surrounding the yolk is the clear jelly-like goo which is the medium of the impersonal psyche. I think the egg is an excellent metaphor. Generally I use the terms ‘I’ and ‘me’ according to how they are used in other consciousness studies whereby ‘I’ stands for ego or the small-s ‘self’ and ‘me’ stands for soul, psyche or the higher, big-S ‘Self’. In an altered state of consciousness one experiences that the centre, the yolk in your metaphor, has disappeared which results in a feeling of freedom and an expansion of consciousness. But only in a pure, both ‘self’-less and ‘Self’-less, consciousness experience can it become apparent that there is another part to the human condition, the very core in fact, the ‘jelly-like goo’ of the egg-white, which is as much contained within the hard shell of the egg as is the yolk. Outside the shell is the actual universe as experienced in the PCE. Yes. In the ASC, the centre of experience/awareness/cognition is situated not in the yolk or outside the shell, but in the jelly. Yes, or more accurate, one experiences oneself to be centre-less – without a centre as in not having a personal ego or identity but affectively experiencing oneself as boundlessly living in one’s own version of a perfect world. From there, it is possible to look outward to the clear open spaces of the actual world, without any distortion (just as in a PCE), No, the ‘the clear open spaces of the actual world’ are images ‘I’ project on the inside of the eggshell, not a direct perception. The ‘jelly-like goo’, the sticky instinctual substance of the psyche, prevents any direct perception of the actual world outside of the shell, while it simultaneously creates the feeling of boundless freedom. … or to look ‘inwards’ at the virtual entities emerging from the yolk. The one who is looking ‘‘inwards’ at the virtual entities emerging from the yolk’ as well as looking outwards its projected image of ‘the clear open spaces of the actual world’ is but another aspect of ‘me’ … and the most cunning of them all. I understand that the goal of actual freedom lies outside the ‘egg’ altogether. O.K. Do you also understand why? I am still not 100% sure, but I suspect that being outside the ‘yolk’ is sufficient to enjoy the same results with fewer compromises (and perhaps even some as-yet-undiscovered benefits). With this assessment you are in agreement with all of Eastern mysticism, Western mysticism, Sufism and the secular branches of human consciousness studies. The search for ‘some as-yet-undiscovered benefits’ of altered states of being within the human condition has been going on for at least 5000 years of human history, so you will find the supposed benefits listed in the literature of spiritualism and mysticism as well as in the results of psychedelic experimentation. As is apparent from the way human beings, nations and cultural and racial tribes relate to each other, peace-on-earth is not amongst the benefits of ‘being outside the ‘yolk’’. It seems to me, and this is the key point, that the instinctual passions are operative only within the ‘yolk’, but I need more experiences to make sure. What is not operative ‘outside the ‘yolk’’ are the morals and ethics that one normally uses to assess one’s instinctual passions and this is what causes the deception that the instinctual passions themselves are not operating. However, the more you become attentive to, and familiar with, the cunning disguises of the identity and the more you become sensitive to the feelings hiding beneath denial and transcendence – a well-known toxic side-effect of an altered state of being – the more you will come to experience for yourself that the instinctual passions are fully operating ‘outside the ‘yolk’’. Richard has lived an altered state of consciousness –‘outside the ‘yolk’’ – for eleven years without interruption and he was able to step out of the ‘Self’ into the purity and perfection of actuality only by systematically investigating the instinctual passions, particularly the tender instinctual passions. If I’m wrong about that, the whole egg is shattered, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can all go home. In order to find out that I was wrong about my favourite beliefs I needed a good reason to doubt them and the only reason good enough to doubt my identity-sustaining beliefs was my passion for peace-on-earth – something which all of my well-meaning beliefs had not been able to deliver. In my experience, the process of becoming actually free from the human condition is not a matter of hoping for a one-day sudden shattering realization but it is a steady effort to firstly acknowledge, become aware of, discover and diminish and then to successively abandon one’s beliefs and feelings of malice and sorrow, one’s schemes and dreams, one’s hopes and fears that prevent me from being harmless and happy. Then, one day, with apperception more and more in operation, the last of the weakened ‘me’ will simply wither of starvation. It being an actual and not an imagined felt freedom there is neither a leap nor a short-cut. I think No 32 put is very well when he said to No 58 –
Nothing’s for free, not even freedom.
Nor is there any sense of ‘the feeling is that one cannot survive this appalling emptiness without going mad’, as Richard described it. Well, the issue of ‘going mad’ has been on my mind a lot for the last few months. I find it very reassuring that psychologists have classified Richard as mad in real-world terms, which is only logical as he has stepped out of the ‘sane’ world of wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide. However, it is quite a challenge to get used to leaving humanity behind and going mad – ‘mad’ according to my previous standards and to society’s standards. Sometimes there is an almost audible ‘clack’ in the brain, when an old synapse snaps, when I fail to understand how other people think and feel. More and more I fail to understand people’s emotional reactions, their psychological reasoning or the psychic vibes that I occasionally pick up when people report that they are feeling insulted, misunderstood, threatened or when they are desperately defending some non-sensical belief. It is sometimes very strange and bewildering indeed. I would hazard a guess that the three of us would now be classified as ‘insane’ by any ‘self respecting’ psychiatrist. Cute phrase that, isn’t it? When I first started to explore this actual world of the senses, there was a definite sense of ‘you must be mad’. As I scoured the texts, and then the Internet, seeking others’ descriptions of what I had experienced, ‘madness’ was a definite ploy ‘I’ employed in the attempt to keep ‘me’ sane. Fortunately I came across the website of someone who had been certified as insane and the rest, as they say, is history! As far as I can still make sense out of what is happening, my ‘going mad’ is a feeling response to going 180 degrees in the opposite direction of everyone else and of my own old beliefs and emotions and my natural instincts. Further, there is the continuing disbelief that ‘how come it is so simple?’ and ‘how come, if it is that simple, nobody is doing it?’ – or almost nobody. Actual Freedom is like the magic elegant equation of mathematicians – one single solution for the whole bloody mess of the problems of the Human Condition, all of them are going to be wiped out in one stroke, forever! In the last days I have been busy coming to terms with the fact that I am locked into ‘here’ and there is no escape possible. Since my last PCE, which I described to you in my post, I have experienced the limitations of thinking whenever I tried to use thought in order to grasp or comprehend the vastness and magic of the actual world, the immensity of this moment, the aliveness of being here. For a few days it was rather shocking, I felt disoriented, as if grasping for an outline that no longer existed. Thinking now is more episodic, stimulated when needed for practical situations or sorting out a particular issue. The outcome is that I am here in this moment with no way out – no imagination, no feeling (t’would be silly, I tried...) and no intellectualizing. There was a feeling, though – a disorientation, a feeling of being trapped, a feeling of it all being too much. I was reminded of Michael Ende’s ‘Unending Story’ – the boy has a wish granted and he wants to be not fat anymore. In the first stage he enjoys being thin and beautiful, but to complete the satisfaction he then has to forget that he ever was otherwise, that he had been ridiculed and suffered before for his appearance. In a similar manner, with each item of identity that is eliminated, I am going through a transition period until the old synapse in the brain atrophies and emotional memories of former events disappear. Then the unfamiliarity, the oddness, the feeling of ‘going mad’ simply evaporates. As I know well from other issues, like believing in God, I now consider everyone else silly who believes in a bodiless entity, a divine spirit, a God or suchlike. It is all a matter of perspective, you see. Such fun!
Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. |
