AF Presentation – actual freedom – the third alternative

A new, non-spiritual, down-to-earth method of freeing oneself from the genetically-encoded animal instinctual passions, enabling one to become actually free from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow … *to be both happy and* harmless.**

The search for freedom has been a search for freedom from the rigid shackles of one’s instilled social identity and the search for peace and happiness has been a search for a means of finally bringing an end to both personal and global malice and sorrow. The shamans and priests have commandeered this innate search with the promise of an ultimate peace and happiness in a mythical ‘life-after-death’ should one bow down to and worship a particular God or follow a particular teaching. This seductive promise of immortality for one’s ‘self’ or soul is a powerful lure that is passionately fuelled by the basic fear that underlies the innate survival instinct – the fear of death. The Eastern religions further add the possibility of becoming a God-man whilst on earth – a position of ultimate power and authority over others that is irresistibly appealing for many – and the resulting enslavery inherent in the master-disciple system is the antithesis of freedom. The search for a ‘spiritual’ freedom, peace and happiness, based on ancient superstition and metaphysical ‘other-worldly’ beliefs has been on-going for thousands of years and has now had its day. It’s time for a pragmatic and practical approach to finding a genuine and actual freedom from the Human Condition in total. A freedom from ancient belief and spiritual superstition. A freedom from the necessity of forever attempting to obey pious morals and follow unliveable ethics in order to keep one’s instinctual passions under control. And, finally, a freedom from the instinctual animal instinctual passions themselves – a freedom from the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. It’s now time to get to the very root of the real problem on earth – the ancient, hoary and persistent belief that ‘you can’t change human nature’.

The modern scientific empirical discoveries of neuro-biology and genetics, with regard to the human brain and how it functions, have revealed two very fascinating aspects –
1.	That the brain is programmable in the same way a computer is programmable. The program is formed by physical connections or pathways between neurons, and this program is mostly formed after birth. These pathways (synapse) are also capable of being changed at any time. The old connection simply ‘dies’ for lack of use and a new one is formed.
2.	That the human brain is also pre-programmed, via a genetic code, with a set of base or instinctual operating functions, located in the primitive brain system which causes automatic thoughtless passionate reactions, primarily those of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, to be transmitted via chemical messages to various parts of the body including the neo-cortex. Physiological alterations that could eliminate this crude programming, as a biological adaptation to changed circumstances, are well documented within the animal species.
	The first discovery accords with the practical experience of being able to radically change one’s social identity – the program instilled since birth that consists of the morals, ethics, values and psittacisms that make up our social identity. It stands to reason that a psychological identity that is malleable to radical change is also susceptible to total elimination.
	The second discovery accords with the practical possibility of eliminating one’s very ‘being’ – the emotive source of the instinctual survival passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. This blind and senseless survival program is now well and truly redundant for many human beings and can now be safely deleted, for the human species has not only survived … it is now beginning to flourish.

to recap …

Human beings are unique amongst the animal species in that we have a large ‘modern’ brain, the neo-cortex, capable of thinking, planning and reflecting overlaying the primitive reptilian brain – the source of the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

Recent studies by LeDoux and others empirically confirm that the ‘quick and dirty’ instinctual passionate responses of the primitive brain are primary in that any instinctual response is so quick and so strong that it invariably negates the possibility of thoughtful, considered responses of the neo-cortex.

We are in fact genetically programmed to be driven, consumed or overwhelmed by the animal instinctual survival passions. Thus, in spite of all our best and well-meaning efforts to keep our malice and sorrow under control, to be ‘civilized beings’, we are but ‘brute animal’, at our very core.

LeDoux’s studies concern the relationship between the thalamus (relay centre), the amygdala (primitive brain) and the neo-cortex (modern brain). The most significant observation of LeDoux’s experimentation is that the sensory input to the brain is split at the thalamus into two streams – one to the amygdala and one to the neo-cortex.

The input stream to the amygdala is significantly quicker – 12 milliseconds as opposed to 25 milliseconds to the neo-cortex. Also, less information goes to the amygdala – it operates as a quick primal scan to check for danger, or opportunity, which is why it is described as the ‘quick and dirty’ processing pathway.

This quick-scan pathway not only results in automatic thoughtless instinctual-emotional responses but the amygdala also has a direct connection to the neo-cortex – thereby setting off a secondary thoughtful instinctual-emotional selfish response.

The resultant cocktail of chemicals set off by these responses serves to make the emotions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire so palpable as to be compulsive and, very often, addictive.

All humans are instilled with an instinctual animal ‘self’ that is the very core of the self-survival program. Although the instinctual survival program is genetically-encoded in animals so as to ensure the survival of the species and not the individual, in humans the survival program is also ‘self’-centred.

Our instinctual-rudimentary ‘self’ is both palpable and potent due to the surge of chemicals arising from the primitive brain. This ‘self’ is our instinctual ‘being’ at our very animal core – instinctual, thoughtless and emotional.

Further, this primitive ‘self’ is made more complex in human beings by our ability to think and reflect and, as such, we have a more elaborated ‘self’ consisting of ‘who’ we think ourselves to be as well as ‘who’ we feel ourselves to be. ‘Who’ we think and feel ourselves to be is both a psychological ‘self’ and an instinctual ‘self’ – both mental and emotional – manifest as a discordant and alien identity that appears to be located as a thinker in the head and as a feeler in the heart and gut.

Given that the instinctual animal ‘self’ in humans has morphed into a sophisticated and cunning psychological and psychic identity that appears to live within the flesh and blood body, it is obvious that the instinctual animal passions can only be eradicated by eliminating both the psychological ‘self’ and the instinctual ‘self’.

The elimination of one’s ‘self’ needs to be total – both ‘who’ you think you are as a social identity and ‘who’ blind nature has programmed you to instinctively feel you are … in spiritual terms, both the ‘ego’ and the ‘soul’.

The good news is that with the extinction of who you think and feel you are what you are will emerge – a flesh and blood human being, free of malice and sorrow and free of any metaphysical delusions whatsoever.

To deliberately set out on a course of ‘self’-immolation seems madness in the extreme, but one only needs to take a clear-eyed look at the Human Condition with the mayhem of malice and sorrow and the frantic and futile attempts to rein it in, to see what is fondly regarded as ‘sanity’ in operation.

Whilst the elimination of the instinctual passions may appear a worthwhile and sensible thing to do, the real lure to do so is to be found in the glimpses of the innate purity and perfection of the physical universe itself that is evident in temporary experiences of ‘self’-lessness known as a Pure Consciousness Experience (PCE).

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