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General Correspondence Page Number 9 (Part One)
Respondent No. 1 RESPONDENT: I’ve read most or everything you’ve posted on [Mailing List ‘C’] (how in the world did you end up there?) and would like to discuss some stuff with you. First of all, I find you seriously non-delusional, so this should be a different kind of discussion. RICHARD: Oh, excellent ... what a refreshing start to an E-Mail (the amount of objections to being happy and harmless here-on-earth that I receive is rather staggering, to say the least)! As for the Mailing List: what happened was Mr. John De Ruiter recently came to the village where I live (Byron Bay, held by some to be the New Age Mecca, is a must on the guru circuit) and an acquaintance went to two of his meetings. Consequently, when she talked to me about him, and as I had not heard of him before, I sent the computer searching the Internet and among several other pages it came across ‘guru gossip’ and thus to [Mailing List ‘C’]. As the main topic of the then 104 E-Mails was about ‘Enlightened Beings’ failing to live up to their own standards (the morality/immorality thread) it seemed to be apropos to what I have discovered ... so I wrote a brief paragraph questioning the belief that ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (and ‘Truth’ itself) was amoral. RESPONDENT: I have some questions and comments based on some of your remarks I found on that forum:
That is my experience almost exactly except I don’t think I ‘dedicate’ myself to this. It is just clearly obvious to me that this body that I refer to as me is simply the universe experiencing itself from this particular viewpoint. No particular method to the madness, other than attention or the willingness to be attentive. RICHARD: The dedication depends upon how far one wishes to go ... I tapped into the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe during a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in 1980. It gave rise to a ‘pure intent’ which I experienced as a palpable life-force; as an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself. Once set in motion, it was no longer a matter of choice: it was an irresistible pull. Thus nineteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the physical world and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ the persona realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ the persona felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the ‘real-world’ that ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into ‘myself’ and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice in every one of us, ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated ‘my’ life to this most worthy cause. ‘I’ became obsessed with changing ‘myself’ fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life – it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s normal life ... one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants. It is so delicious to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! RESPONDENT: You talk about the three I’s. In your terminology that would be the ‘ego’ I, the grand (or transcendent) I, and the actual I, which is simply the awareness of the body/blood organism. I had not come to the understanding of the actual I, as you define it, but I had found that I could find no real me, either self or Self. There was an undeniable capacity for ‘subjectivity’ available to me as a human person, but when I followed it back, it didn’t point to anyone or anything. In other words, there was no subject, only the activity of subjectivity. I very much like the simplicity and the utter lack of separation in your ‘actual I’. Like you, I find no evidence for a soul. I think I may differ from you in that I don’t find the ego I to be quite the problem that you do because I don’t see it as a thing, but more a way of seeing or being aware. But, we’ll see. RICHARD: That you find no evidence for a soul (self/Self) is a blessing in that you will be able to remain ‘seriously non-delusional’ yourself ... a rarity in this day and age! Even if you ‘don’t find the ego I to be quite the problem’, upon investigation you may find that ‘the ego I’ is but the tip of the iceberg of ‘being’; the deeper levels of ‘being’ reverberate throughout every cell in the body, as it were. Why I say this so confidently is that if there are affective feelings current, then in conjunction with ‘the ego I’ there has to be ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) ... you may experience this as ‘a way of feeling’ ‘ego I’ and not solely ‘‘a way of seeing’ ego I’ or ‘‘a way of being aware’ ego I’, perhaps? What I would do is ask myself ‘do I have a deep feeling of being’? ... and sit with the question, feeling out the answer, not coming to any thought-out conclusion (which stops the question dead) so as to find out experientially just ‘who’ I am. RESPONDENT: I love your understanding of feelings – genetically encoded structures of aggression/nurture whose purpose is the survival of the organism. However, I’m not sure how this can explain the ‘human condition,’ since these structures are a part of the limbic system, often referred to as the reptilian brain. As the term reptilian indicates, the aggression/nurture impulses do not originate in the human animal. RICHARD: Indeed ... the aggression/ nurture impulses do not originate in the human animal. RESPONDENT: So, if the impulses of the limbic system are the problem, shouldn’t it follow that other creatures, at least from reptiles on ‘up’ should also share in this problem of the ‘human condition’? RICHARD: It depends upon which neuro-biologist one reads – there are various theoretical models around – as to whether they are referring to a two-tiered model or a three-tiered model (still no consensus at this early stage of research) when they write ... or some other hazy configuration. The two-tiered model goes something like this: 1. ‘limbic-system’ (reptilian brain/ paleo-cortex); 2. ‘cortical-system’ (cortex/ neo-cortex). In this model the brain-stem is included in (1) and both animal mammals and human mammals are in (2). The three-tiered model is more or less like this: 1. ‘reptilian brain’ (brain-stem); 2. ‘mammalian brain’ (limbic-system); 3. ‘neo-cortex brain’ (cortical-system). In this model the ‘limbic system’, however, has to span (1) and (2) in order to encompass both lower-order animals and higher-order animals. As I understand it, the primate animals, although 98.6% genetically identical to the human primate, have no pre-frontal cortex (although evidence of cortical activity corresponding to the ‘language area’ in human primates has been found). It is thus human beings alone who have the unique ability to think and reflect ... and are thus aware of their feeling-fed behaviour and the response/reaction this occasions (although there are some people who are in denial about this). On top of this awareness is the awareness of being conscious ... and the awareness of the inevitability of impending death: one’s mortality. No other animal can do this. The awareness of being conscious, and being conscious of being mortal in concert with the feeling of ‘being’, manifests in the psyche a consciousness of ‘being’ being conscious of being conscious. In other words: ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious. Thus the next step is inevitable: consciousness of ‘being’ being conscious of being consciousness. In other words: ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being consciousness. And so on unto an after-life ‘home’ in some Timeless and Spaceless and Formless realm (for the spiritualist) ... or on into a nihilistic existentialism or some dialectical rationalism and so on (for the materialist). Whichever model (two-tier or three-tier) it is the conscious awareness in concert with the feeling of ‘being’ which causes the human condition ... more than a few higher order animals can be observed to be both malicious and sorrowful in their behaviour and activity from time to time (the same-same as infant humans) without necessarily knowing that they are. It is thus reasonable to deduce the non-conscious feeling of ‘being’ in both the higher order animal and the human infant. Whether reptiles and birds have this non-conscious feeling of ‘being’ is a moot point ... close observation (with either the two-tier or the three-tier model in mind) and the absence of any obvious (pronounced) malicious behaviour and/or sorrowful activity suggests not. Yet I have seen a blackbird, for example, playing ‘catch’ with a slowly-dying cricket just as a cat toys with a slowly-dying mouse. One thing I have discovered for sure is that there is no hard-and-fast ‘rule’ that applies conveniently across all species. Also, I make no pretensions whatsoever of being a biologist ... I am a lay-person dabbling in an ad hoc general reading of the subject. It is important to comprehend that I am putting a story together ‘after the event’ so as to throw some light on what happened for me. My experiential sensate-feeling experience (sensation) tells me that it was the brain-stem (reptilian brain) where all the activity took place to free me from the human condition (the human condition includes the animal condition of course). Yet neuro-biologists empirically pin-point the amygdala (in the limbic system) as being the seat of the emotions/ passions. Given that studies on people with damaged or removed amygdala show that they cannot operate and function optimally in life, I personally favour the Reticular Activating System (RAS or RS) in the brain-stem and the Substantia Nigra in particular as being the seat of consciousness (I am very willing to revise and/or discard this hypothesis if it can be demonstrated otherwise) and that there was a flow-on effect through the entire brain ... including the elimination of the amygdala’s passionate/emotional non-conscious memory (the amygdala functions perfectly now). RESPONDENT: It seems that the feeling capacities of humans become problematic because of humans’ self-reflexive capabilities, the tendency to make ‘meaning’ and ‘self’ out of these biological imperatives, the aggression/ nurture impulses, over and above the base purpose – survival. In other words, ‘lower order’ animals don’t have the same type of problem with their aggression/ nurture impulses that humans do because they don’t have the capacity to think about them, not because they don’t have them. RICHARD: Yes ... it has oft-times been bemoaned by scholars and thinkers that this is the price to be
paid for the conscious awareness of ‘being’ (and which causes more than a few to long for some ‘Golden Age’ in a far
distant Arcadian Utopia). It is also why the hoary myth about the ‘innocence’ of children persists (Tabula Rasa) ... which is
not innocence (free of sin) but simply ignorance (not knowing). I had a discussion on this subject recently with an E-Mail
correspondent, which you can access RESPONDENT: Another point is that higher animals such as dogs, cats, obviously primates, seem to express what could be fairly called more refined feelings – more developed than simple survival would dictate, though still stemming from what you call the biological mud. Also, some primates exhibit some of the qualities that you refer to as the ‘human condition’ (nursing malice and sorrow) including the tendency to make war or attack other species for reasons other than pure survival. RICHARD: Yes ... I have found the studies done on primates very, very revealing, though I tend to consider that too much is being made of the bonobo ape (‘flavour of the month’, perhaps), despite their less overtly-aggressive differences vis a vis the chimpanzee ape ... plus their matriarchal social order. Time will tell, of course ... this is all early days in this fascinating study of consciousness in these last fifteen years or so. RESPONDENT: Some primates have been observed picking on, harassing, taunting and, in short, making life miserable for others in their social groups. Bonobo chimps use sex for all kinds of social purposes, including building friendships, and warding off problems with another bonobo. They seemingly do sexual favours in the present to avoid future problems. I wonder if this doesn’t indicate some capacity for subjectivity on the part of other animals (besides human, that is). RICHARD: Ahh ... subjectivity, eh? Thus is introduced that $64,000 dollar question: who am I? The ‘theory
of mind’ RESPONDENT: Perhaps the distinction with humans is that we create an isolated self out of the capacity to be subjective. RICHARD: My experience tells me the ‘isolated self’ is created out of the capacity to be aware of being a subjective thinking and feeling ‘being’. RESPONDENT: We think there is ‘somebody’ who is being subjective. RICHARD: Humans not only ‘think there is ‘somebody’ who is being subjective’ ... humans both think and feel ‘there is ‘somebody’ who is being subjective’. It is the feeling of ‘being’ which is crucial ... the affective feelings are both prior and primary to the creation of the emotional-mental construct known as ‘I’. It is not solely thought, thoughts and thinking that produces such a tenacious and persistent identity ... thought simply does not have that power. RESPONDENT: From there we think there is somebody who is seeing through these eyes, hearing through these ears, etc. Someone inside this body. RICHARD: Yep ... hence all the misery and mayhem that epitomises human beings across the aeons and in all cultures and all age groups and both genders. No one is exempt ... the human condition is both global and historical in its spread. RESPONDENT: I have been captivated with the meaning of life, reality, the universe, God/Man etc., for as long as I can remember. I find that not everyone, by a long shot, has this particular passion – if I may use that term – and it is enjoyable to find others who do. It is doubly enjoyable to run across someone who seems to have resolved the great matter/spirit split. RICHARD: Yes ... but resolving the split through dissolving the ‘spirit’ (an active dissolution of ‘being’), though. Most people attempt to resolve ‘the great matter/ spirit split’ from within the human condition: either cognitively (philosophy and psychology) or affectively (spirituality and mysticality). Thus the ‘Tried and True’ is the ‘tried and failed’. RESPONDENT: I find the notion that this material world is somehow unreal, and there is a separate world of spirit that is somehow more real, to be silly, to say the least. RICHARD: To say the least ... yes. The key to understanding this tendency is to be found in the psychiatric phenomenon of ‘dissociation’ ... as is evidenced in severely traumatised patients. RESPONDENT: Like you, I haven’t come to these conclusions because I’ve never believed in the other plane of existence theory, it’s just the for some reason I don’t settle very easily. I’m not a very good believer, I am afraid. And when some concept is seen through, well, it’s just seen through. RICHARD: One cannot start believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy once again, eh? RESPONDENT: At any rate, my name is [deleted]. American. I am a 50 year old female and mother of two, one grown, one nearly. Wife, business owner, and ardent lover of this life I live. RICHARD: Thank you ... so as to save space, my résumé can be accessed RESPONDENT: I’ve lots more to say about what I’ve read so far, but don’t have the time for a tome! If you’re up for some ongoing discussions it could be fun. My guess is we’ll find a number of commonalities, as well as some wonderful differences. RICHARD: I am pleased that you chose to write to me ... to find a non-delusional person is refreshing in this post-modernist/ eastern metaphysical milieu. RESPONDENT: You might want to check the Alternate Wilber Forum. The Daism board is the most lively. RICHARD: Thank you for the link. I did access it and the mind boggles upon reading some of what is ... um ... spewed forth. I notice that you have written to [Mailing List ‘C’] ... what great fun modern technology is to provide all these opportunities, eh?
RESPONDENT: Richard, I have been enjoying your web site immensely. You’ve done a very nice job for someone new to computers. Things have been quite busy here. I keep thinking I’ll have time to write an extensive response, but have decided to just cover some of the bases in the time that I have. In response to your question of sorts to me: What I would do is ask myself ‘do I have a deep feeling of being’? No. I do not. I lost all depth a number of years ago. The result of that is I find myself very much here, on the surface, in this body mind, in this world now. All present and accounted for. I no longer feel that there is a deep core of me that is more me than my usual me. I find no other me that is more real. In fact, what I refer to as me, turns out to be very arbitrary. The sense I had of it once, and has stayed with me, is that it is like drawing a circle in the sand and then saying that any wind that blows through that circle is me. However, I feel that this body/mind presentation is very real, or actual if you would prefer. Also, I never think of being as a noun, such as a being, but as a verb or more accurately a gerund I guess – as in the activity of being. As in being alive, or the universe being itself as a human, or a rock, or a bird, etc. So, when I use being I’m referring to an activity, not a state. RICHARD: Good ... I am not too sure how familiar you are with ‘consciousness-raising’ phrases (Mr. Alan Watts wrote a lot about ‘verbing’ instead of ‘nouning’) because peoples mostly experience themselves as being the ‘do-er’ of being alive and enlightenment is when the ‘do-er’ dies/ dissolves and the ‘be-er’ of being alive emerges (‘being’). If this style of description is something you are familiar with, then how about this phrase to describe what you are saying (above): ‘I am the doing of being alive’ (rather than ‘I am the being of being alive)? But scrap the whole lot if this nomenclature (jargon) does not jell ... I am simply wishing to understand accurately so as to not make assumptions. RESPONDENT: There are, however, patterns of feeling, emotional memory that still hold a certain amount of influence over me. I am still swayed by those feelings at times. But, on the other hand, I never thought of the phenomenon of feeling quite so simply and starkly until I ran across you. But, more about that at another time. RICHARD: Okay ... the entire affective faculty (the psyche itself) is a subject that interests me very much. RESPONDENT: Re: the matter/spirit split. You say, ‘yes, but resolving the split through dissolving the spirit (an active dissolution of being)’. I would counter that both matter and spirit as they were understood while split are dissolved. RICHARD: Hmm ... I also wrote: ‘most people attempt to resolve ‘the great matter/spirit split’ from within the human condition: either cognitively (philosophy and psychology) or affectively (spirituality and mysticality)’. By this I indicated that peoples attempt to integrate matter and spirit (either cognitively through mental understanding or affectively through feeling recognition). My experience (which is where all my description/understanding is drawn from) is that ‘spirit’ goes whilst ‘matter’ (this flesh and blood body) is alive. And also, research has shown me that, despite peoples best efforts, there is no 100% successful ‘healing’ of the matter/spirit split. Thus traditionally, for the spiritualists, the matter/spirit split is resolved at physical death when ‘matter’ (the body) goes ... and ‘spirit’ lives on in the Timeless and Spaceless and Formless void. And for the materialist, both ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ goes at physical death. Which is why the spiritualist usually triumphs, in those materialist/spiritualist debates on TV or the Internet as the spiritualist can ascribe meaning to life (drawn from value ascribed to the quality of the after-death state) while the materialist cannot (hence the Existentialist Philosophers’ twentieth century dilemma of knowingly creating value ex nihilo). RESPONDENT: I have noticed that you apply many of the traditional attributes of spirit to matter: infinite, eternal, benevolent, benign, even, I believe, intelligent in a non-anthropomorphic way. RICHARD: Not ‘applying’, no ... these ‘attributes’ are actually properties (infinite and eternal) and qualities (immaculate and consummate) and values (benevolent and benign) and are my direct experience, each moment again, and those words are my description of what is actually happening (properties plus qualities equals values). It is that peoples for millennia have been ‘stealing’ the properties and qualities and values of this physical universe and attributing them to their particular metaphysical fantasy (whichever god or goddess that is the ‘flavour of the month’) ... and anthropocentrically adding a few (power-based) properties and qualities and values while they at it in order to make him/her into a supreme being. I am simply bringing those properties and qualities and values back where they have belonged all along ... to this infinite and eternal universe (stripping the power-based extraneities along the way). But the universe itself is not intelligent (even in a ‘non-anthropomorphic way’) ... this universe, being infinite and eternal, is much, much more than merely intelligent. Intelligence, which is the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for benevolent reasons, cannot comprehend infinity and eternity (as infinitude has no opposite there is none of the cause and effect relationship which is what intelligence needs in order to operate). Only apperceptive awareness can perceive and/or apprehend infinitude (thus I am this universe experiencing its own infinitude apperceptively). And, as a human being, I am this universe experiencing itself intelligently (just as the universe experiences itself as a cat or a dog or whatever: as a cat, this universe experiences itself miaowing and as a dog this universe experiences itself barking and so on). Thus this universe is not consciousness per se (nor capital ‘C’ Consciousness). RESPONDENT: If you take away that which perpetuates the split (everything that is mutually exclusive, which can only be ascribed to either spirit or matter), then everything is present here and now. I am not trying to make a theist out of you by this statement. But, I also understand that you are not a nihilistic, an existentialist. RICHARD: What I experience is neither ‘existentialistic’ (materialism) To be actualistic is to be living the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity: where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everyone. We do not live in an inert universe ... but one cannot experience this whilst clinging to immortality. I am mortal. RESPONDENT: This present, physical universe doesn’t need a god/guy to make it eternal, wondrous, joyous, endlessly creative. And it doesn’t need to be dead matter, empty of meaning, empty of life to be accepted for what it is, the physical universe. For me the wonder of life is not to be found on some other plane, in the realization of some other self or Self, but for me, wonder there is. From the way I see it, this reflexive body/mind is the universe experiencing all of itself as this particular and unique experience. A number of years ago, after many years of work in consciousness, sometime in the middle of my mystical period (which ended abruptly in 1990), I discovered that the first hint of something coming into consciousness in a way I could directly experience it was when I felt the sought after object, experience, knowing was lacking. RICHARD: Could you provide more details of both your ‘mystical period’ and why and how it ‘ended abruptly in 1990’ so that I may have some indication of what this ‘hint of something coming into consciousness’ means to you? I am somewhat puzzled by ‘in a way I could directly experience it was when I felt the sought after object, experience, knowing was lacking’, you see. But only if you are so inclined, of course. RESPONDENT: Which brings me to the moon as goddess and theoretical physics. You stated that for a long period of time man regarded the moon as a goddess but later scientific discoveries proved that it was just rock and that’s all it had ever been. The discovery that the earth was just rock was dependent on extension of the senses (telescopes, space vehicles landing on the moon, etc.), that simply were not present at an earlier time. So, from that point of view, man did the best he could with defining what the moon meant to him when he called it a goddess. And, further scientific discoveries could greatly expand on what our present understanding of the moon is. Most likely will. But man, unlike a beetle or a rabbit, has the capacity to be aware of the moon, to reflect on its meaning, its impact on himself and the world. Yes, the accuracy of interpretation is important, but the ability to search out and make interpretations, to be consciously in relationship to all the objects of the universe (as well as the space and the timing) is a true marvel. RICHARD: Yes, this amazing ability (self-conscious awareness) is what sets the human animal apart from other animals. Yet when self-conscious awareness disappears in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and apperceptive awareness operates unimpeded by any ‘being’ ... the magic of it all unfolds moment-by-moment. For the PCE to be an on-going experiencing twenty four hours a day for the remainder of ones’ life ... ‘I’/‘me’ must knowingly and willingly self-immolate. RESPONDENT: One last thing for tonight. About a year and a half ago I was watching a PBS TV program – something about the caves in France where the first cave drawings were found. The narrator said that those men were modern men, identical to us in every detail. He said that if you took a child from that time and whisked him into the present, there is nothing that child wouldn’t be able to do in terms of learning, technology, etc. Blew me away. I thought ‘Well, what’s taken all the time? What’s taken 10 or 20 thousand years’. And my answer was culture. RICHARD: Yep ... hence my ‘crusade’ (as others have been known to call it) with regard to all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages who have perpetuated human suffering. But it is an exposé on enlightenment itself that I am actually ensuring takes place. RESPONDENT: Well, enough for tonight. Am glad to see No. 3 from [Mailing List ‘C’] is still in conversation with you. I probably shouldn’t have butted in. RICHARD: Oh, no ... please do ‘butt in’ all you wish. The more feedback the better for all.
RICHARD: I am not too sure how familiar you are with ‘consciousness-raising’ phrases (Mr. Alan Watts wrote a lot about ‘verbing’ instead of ‘nouning’) because peoples mostly experience themselves as being the ‘do-er’ of being alive and enlightenment is when the ‘do-er’ dies/dissolves and the ‘be-er’ of being alive emerges (‘being’). If this style of description is something you are familiar with, then how about this phrase to describe what you are saying: ‘I am the doing of being alive’ (rather than ‘I am the being of being alive)? RESPONDENT: Yes, okay. That is accurate. We are trying to avoid using the word being as a thing, e.g. a supreme being, because of the usual connotations. However, in the statement ‘I am the doing of being alive’, there still is the opening to ask ‘Who is the doing of being alive?’ RICHARD: Yes... bearing in mind that you have explained that ‘I may differ from you in that I don’t find the ego I to be quite the problem that you do because I don’t see it as a thing, but more a way of seeing or being aware’ and that ‘there are patterns of feeling, emotional memory that still hold a certain amount of influence over me ... I am still swayed by those feelings at times’ then in conjunction with ‘yes, that is accurate ... there still is the opening to ask ‘Who is the doing of being alive?’ would this not indeed be the very opening needed to find out why this ‘a way of seeing’ ... ‘ego I’ or this ‘being aware’ ... ‘ego I’ (which you do not find to be ‘quite the problem’) is swayed by those ‘patterns of feeling, emotional memory that still hold a certain amount of influence over me ... at times’? I only ask because peace-on-earth cannot become apparent if one is still swayed by feelings ... even if only at times. Where is one’s autonomy if something has influence into one’s innate intelligence ... preventing it from operating unencumbered? Which means: even if you ‘don’t find the ego I to be quite the problem’, upon sincere investigation (motivated by the desirability of total peace and harmony once and for all) you may find that ‘the ego I’ is the more obvious aspect to the feeling of ‘presence’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘being’ (not ‘a being’ but ‘being’ itself). I do note that you wrote ‘I no longer feel that there is a deep core of me that is more me than my usual me’ yet if there be affective feelings at all then the more subtle levels of ‘being’ itself must percolate throughout the body (feelings in the amygdala stimulate the release of hormones such as adrenaline). Again I might suggest that you may experience this as ‘a way of feeling’ ... ‘ego I’ (or some other description) and not solely ‘a way of seeing’ ... ‘ego I’ or this ‘being aware’ ... ‘ego I’? I only make this suggestion again because I am very interested to compare notes as I find the presence of affective feelings to be indicative. RESPONDENT: More accurately might be to say, ‘What is the doing of being alive?’ without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the baby being the obvious capacity for reflexive awareness that humans possess. RICHARD: A sensate-only awareness (with or without thought operating) is what the doing of being alive is. But a sensate awareness (with or without thought operating) incorporating a feeling-based intuitive/imaginative facility inclusive to its perceptive and/or insightful ability is who the doing of being alive is ... and is who the baby is who does need to be thrown out with the bathwater. RESPONDENT: It would become tiresome if every time I used the words I or me with you I had to redefine what I mean. So, let me say clearly what I don’t mean when I use I or me – I don’t mean an independent self or Self that exists separately from this body/mind entity – either before, after, or during the physical existence of this body/mind entity. RICHARD: Yes ... I have understood that from what you have already written. As I remarked above I am interested in exploring the feeling of ‘presence’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘being’ ... not ‘a being’ but ‘being’ itself (as in a ‘state of being’). RESPONDENT: The experience of me is wholly contingent on the physical reality of this body/mind entity referred to as me. Let me also add that the capacity of this body/mind entity is marvellously complex with potentialities that have not nearly been fully explored or actualised. RICHARD: Ahh ... excellent. So many people stop short and never, ever go all the way into experiencing the wondrous and magical perfection of the purity of the infinitude this universe actually is. RESPONDENT: I am familiar with Alan Watts, read a little of him years ago. Further down in this email you say, ‘My experience (which is where all my description/understanding is drawn from) ... my experience is also where my understanding is drawn from. Increased clarity, a wondrous fullness, comes from my interactions with others, whether I fundamentally agree or disagree with any particular other. As you said in an earlier post, you are not a professional biologist, but the discoveries of biology, genetics, etc. have added something to your own understanding. I call this ‘free lunch’. I don’t have to be everything: a biologist, a physicist, a psychologist, a philosopher – I can enjoy the fruits of others’ labours and they mine without threat of ‘losing myself’ or needing to delineate ‘what is me’ and ‘what is other’. RICHARD: Okay ... I only asked about Mr. Alan Watts because he was, of course, faking freedom in his day-to-day life (although he expressed his many non-ordinary experiences very eloquently) and wrote about this dilemma. His use of ‘verbing’ rather than ‘nouning’ was a ploy to make the ‘other’ happen (or a facsimile thereof) ... part of the Taoist ‘going with the flow’ fad of that era. His influence has lingered for many Westerners seeking the intellectual solution, though. * RESPONDENT: I have noticed that you apply many of the traditional attributes of spirit to matter: infinite, eternal, benevolent, benign, even, I believe, intelligent in a non-anthropomorphic way. RICHARD: Not ‘applying’, no ... these ‘attributes’ are actually properties (infinite and eternal) and qualities (immaculate and consummate) and values (benevolent and benign) and are my direct experience, each moment again, and those words are my description of what is actually happening (properties plus qualities equals values). It is that peoples for millennia have been ‘stealing’ the properties and qualities and values of this physical universe and attributing them to their particular metaphysical fantasy (whichever god or goddess that is the ‘flavour of the month’) ... and anthropocentrically adding a few (power-based) properties and qualities and values while they at it in order to make him/her into a supreme being. I am simply bringing those properties and qualities and values back where they have belonged all along ... to this infinite and eternal universe (stripping the power-based extraneities along the way). RESPONDENT: Agreed, but ... I think it’s stretching it a bit to say these attributes have been stolen from the universe and misapplied. I did notice that you put stealing in quotes. RICHARD: It is just me being a bit flamboyant ... ‘misappropriated’ would be more accurate (nobody is to blame for the human condition causing mischief). RESPONDENT: I just want to be sure we aren’t presupposing some primordial paradise where humans ‘got it’ and somehow lost it or had it stolen away from them by all those bad saviours and sages. RICHARD: Not at all ... there never, ever was a ‘golden age’. RESPONDENT: My take on this: Man is an animal that evolved the capacity to be conscious of itself being alive. He not only was experiencing being alive, but being aware of being alive he developed the capability of delving into what being alive might mean and how he fit into the scheme of things. One of the repercussions of having the capability to be aware of being aware of being alive is the concomitant awareness of death (and thus your primitive DNA encoded structures of aggression and nurture being an added burden to the thinking creature.) The development of language is inextricably tied to the awareness of being aware. RICHARD: Have you read Mr. Darryl Reanney at all? (‘The Death of Forever; A New Future for Human Consciousness’; By Darryl Reanney; (Late) teacher of microbiology and biochemistry, University of Canterbury. N. Z., LaTrobe University, Australia. Publisher: Longman 1991 ISBN 0 582 87054-2). He made a big thing out of language being the cause of ‘The Fall’ (he placed the ‘development of language’ about 8,000 BCE). Apart from his ‘Golden Age’ before his language/thought dating fantasy, it just does not make sense to me ... so many people overlook the Australian Aboriginal of 200 plus years ago. They were what is classified as ‘Stone Age’ (no metal tools; no bows and arrows; no pottery; no houses/villages; no written language and so on) yet they had a rich vocabulary (approximately 600 different languages and/or dialects) and a complex kinship/ marriage structure; trading agreements with other tribes; an established religion with a mystical possibility for all and so on and so on. Yet they were ‘Stone Age’: if some catastrophe had wiped them out prior to the European’s arrival 200 odd years ago, all that would remain would be traces of stone axe-heads and spear-tips; cave-paintings and bones etc. They would be classified as are other ‘Stone Age’ remnants found in other parts of the world ... and those same chauvinistic ‘stone age equals paucity’ attributes would have been applied to them as well. Just because there is no written language does not mean that a peoples in the ‘Stone Age’ era did not have an articulate, expressive and complex spoken language inclusive of ideation, conceptualisation, imagination, visualisation and so on. RESPONDENT: Language allowed man to share his understanding, thoughts, musings about what this universe is about, about being alive, about death and to hear others’ understandings and be affected by them. RICHARD: It may be nothing more than the way you put the sentence together, but there cannot be ‘thoughts, musings’ before the ‘development of language’. I cannot see how any ‘development of language’ can or ever will be known – or ever need to be known – as a fact. All the fuss about thought and/or language and/or symbols is generated by the mystics who insist that thought must cease in meditation practices for the ‘other’ to happen. I do not find thought, thoughts and thinking to be problematic at all. Thought, thoughts and thinking (and whatever their development may or may not have entailed) are not the root cause of the problem ... it is the feelings (the emotions, passions and calentures) which are the primary cause. And feelings do not necessarily require thought, thoughts and thinking in order to wreak their mischief ... indeed there is little or no thought in either ‘blind rage’ or ‘love is blind’ or ‘blinded by the light’ and etcetera. For what it is worth and as speculation only, I would guess that as feelings are primal and primary, language/thought ever-so-slowly developed as an extension of the growling, grunting, groaning, moaning, whimpering sounds that are so expressive of the feeling of what is happening ... most histrionic words have an affective etymological root, I have noticed. Thus the ‘first’ thoughts in proto-humans would have been inchoate expressions of the primal feelings as are evident in the higher order animals. RESPONDENT: The capacity for language, the capacity for symbolic communication that had a sturdiness about it, that is an agreement that this word refers to this thing or the experience of this thing, opened the way for the body of knowledge, for culture. This capacity to be aware of being aware and then through language to create a generally agreed upon body of knowledge about what everything is and what it means is a very recent development re: the history of this earth as we currently understand it. RICHARD: Yes ... and I fully endorse the helpfulness of all this ingenuity and inventiveness. Knowledge is vital. RESPONDENT: The body of knowledge was created from scratch, so to speak, and altered, evolved, mutated, whatever over time. The best thought of any culture in any given time was probably the best it had to offer. The attributes we now know (through science, through commonsense, through millions of years of experience) belong to the physical universe were applied to the gods, the heavens, woo woo land, if you will, not to hoodwink the masses, but because that was about as good as could be done up to that point. RICHARD: Indeed ... if I were living ‘back then’ (whenever) I too would know the earth to be flat and stationary whilst it was the sun that was moving. I do remember being told as a child that the ‘flat circle’ moon I saw was in fact globular ... and I looked long and hard at it struggling to comprehend. I fully appreciate accumulated knowledge and expertise. RESPONDENT: So these attributes you speak of weren’t stolen from the physical universe, they were simply misapplied, from a hindsight view. No praise, no blame. To quote biologist Richard Dawkins, ‘There is a big difference between cumulative selection (in which each improvement, however slight, is used as a basis for future building), and a single-step selection (in which each new ‘try’ is a fresh one). If evolutionary progress had had to rely on single-step selection, it would never have got anywhere’. RICHARD: Yes ... I agree. I will revise my use of ‘stolen’ (although there is no excuse these days for those who continue to insist we revert to the ‘dark ages’ as a way to solve modern problems). RESPONDENT: Unless you think there is some teleological explanation for man, that the universe somehow ‘knew’ ahead of time where man was destined to end up, then attributes weren’t stolen, nor are saviours and sages generically responsible for all the woes of man. RICHARD: Not ‘teleological’, no ... as human beings the universe ‘knows’ but the universe per se, being perfect, has no need for a ‘known’ destiny for humankind. Also, I never say that the saviours and the sages are responsible for all the ills of humankind ... I always say they are responsible for perpetuating all the ills of humankind. RESPONDENT: However, there is still plenty of room for mischief, laziness, wholesale conning, and gullible belief, and I applaud your pointing out the inanities in this day and age of swallowing wholesale worldviews borrowed from 2 millennia ago. My point is that just as there was no ‘golden age’ of spirituality, there was no primordial eden-like existence that man somehow lost. I am assuming we agree on this? RICHARD: We do indeed ... and how refreshing this is to read! * RESPONDENT: About a year and a half ago I was watching a PBS TV program – something about the caves in France where the first cave drawings were found. The narrator said that those men were modern men, identical to us in every detail. He said that if you took a child from that time and whisked him into the present, there is nothing that child wouldn’t be able to do in terms of learning, technology, etc. Blew me away. I thought ‘Well, what’s taken all the time? What’s taken 10 or 20 thousand years’. And my answer was culture. RICHARD: Yep ... hence my ‘crusade’ (as others have been known to call it) with regard to all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours and the Saints and the Sages who have perpetuated human suffering. But it is an exposé on enlightenment itself that I am actually ensuring takes place. RESPONDENT: Nothing more unpalatable than a great, big, overstuffed Self, with a capital S, is there? RICHARD: Not with the sanctioning and the perpetuating of all the misery and mayhem to be held accountable for ... no (and I can only say this because of my own involvement in same). RESPONDENT: Regarding [Mailing List ‘C’] conversation – People believe what they believe because it makes them feel real now, and gives hope for continuity into the eternal future. No. 3, in my opinion, represents what I would call the worst of the East. Blind regurgitating of fantastic theories of astral beings, and planes of existence, of ancient wisdom un-critiqued, of ascended beings, and enlightened masters, of you can’t know the awakened state until you have awakened. It’s a horrid, elitist viewpoint that sees others as less evolved, and thus less worthy, perhaps, of happiness. Gods who punish and reward, allow evil but aren’t evil. Saviours and Purushas and on and on. RICHARD: There is a term for this stubbornness against facing up to facts and actuality: cognitive dissonance. The ‘cognitive dissonance theory’ suggests that when experiences or information contradicts existing knowledge, attitudes or feelings, differing degrees of mental-emotional distress is the habitual result. The distressed personality is predisposed to alleviate this discord by reinterpreting (distorting) the offending information. Concurrent with this falsification, core beliefs tend to be vigorously defended by warping discernment and memory ... such people are prone to misinterpret cues and ‘remember’ things to be as they wish they had happened instead of how they actually happened. They may be selective in what they recall, overestimating their apparent successes, while ignoring, downplaying, or explaining away their failures. The scientific method has evolved, in a large part, to reduce the impact of this human penchant for jumping to such amenable yet erroneous self-justifying conclusions. RESPONDENT: There was a time in my life when I bought into some of that at least partly as a way to make sense out of my life. But, for some reason I could never rest long in the consoling absolutes. That worldview may have been the obvious next step thousands of years ago, but its demise has been imminent since the [Age of] Enlightenment (not of the spiritual kind, the historical era) when science began to tease itself out of the clutches of religion. However, science that doesn’t see the full, amazing wonder of the universe is not an adequate substitute. And, the universe existing in time, takes time to know itself. Yes? RICHARD: No ... the universe per se, being perfect, is not evolving. But this particular aspect called the solar system (which is but a current phase in a cycle of eternal cycles) takes time to know itself ... yes. As matter arranges and rearranges itself endlessly (through all eternity and infinity) there are infinite cycles with infinite variety of existence. This current configuration of matter known as planet earth is the first and last time that this particular configuration will happen (nothing is ever the same twice). Whatever has happened prior to this solar system and this planet becoming habitable to human beings, being no longer existent, is simply extinct. Oblivion. When this solar system burns out (or swells and/or collapses and/or whatever latest theory becomes popular) then everything experienced and known to human beings so far will be obliterated as before. It is what is happening in this cycle which is relevant and important ... not the wild fantasies of dissociated self-realised ‘beings’ who conjure up whatever their intuitive/imaginative facility will allow about other realms and other life-times and other planes of existence and so on. Needless to say, the passage of time (past, present, future) is a localised phenomenon ... only this moment in eternal time actually exists. * RESPONDENT: You’ve got to see this one: www.theactualsupremebeing.homestead.com Is this a big goof or does someone think this is for real? RICHARD: Oh, the ‘someone’ would not only ‘think this is for real’ ... he/she would both deeply feel it to be true and instinctually know it to be real. I have had long and fascinating discussions with peoples of this particular bent over the last nineteen years (for about a week in 1981 I was ‘The Parousia’ myself ... I met the real ‘Second Coming’ in a city street one day and realised that there could not be two of ‘Him’ at the one time). It is all par for the course ... given that religiosity/spirituality/mysticality/metaphysicality is a culturally institutionalised insanity anyway. RESPONDENT: In case you don’t know who the God incarnation is he’s referring to, it’s Da Free John/Da Love-Ananda/Adi Da. RICHARD: Yes ... also it would appear that he/she has read Mr. Douglas Adams (of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’ fame) because in the fourth book (‘So Long And Thanks For All The Fish’; ISBN: 0671745530; published by Pocket Books) the hero of the trilogy, Mr. Arthur Dent (left at the end of ‘Life, The Universe And Everything’ with having lost the address for where ‘God’s Final Message To His Creation’ is to found), finally retrieves the lost message on the planet ‘Prak’ ... which reads: ‘We apologise for the inconvenience’. Vis.:
I noticed that The Actual Supreme Being apologised no less than 13 times RESPONDENT: It all gets stranger and stranger RICHARD: Not ‘getting’ strange no ... people have been experiencing this particular calenture for centuries (if not millennia) and the ones successful enough in swaying sufficient other people get to become religious leaders. For example, if you want to see what sane people believe you may wish to access this URL: www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrld.htm It is reported that the ‘Princeton Research Associates’ conducted a poll for Newsweek magazine’s 1999-Nov-1 issue. They found that the following percentage of adults believe that the world will end with the battle of Armageddon as described in the Biblical book Revelation:
Of those who believe in Armageddon:
Of this group:
In 1999-Oct, the ‘Pew Research Centre’ released a study called ‘Americans look to the 21st century’. They confirmed the Princeton poll, finding.
RICHARD: Would this not indeed be the very opening needed to find out why this ‘a way of seeing’ ... ‘ego I’ or this ‘being aware’ ... ‘ego I’ (which you do not find to be ‘quite the problem’) is swayed by those ‘patterns of feeling, emotional memory that still hold a certain amount of influence over me ... at times’? I only ask because peace-on-earth cannot become apparent if one is still swayed by feelings ... even if only at times. Where is one’s autonomy if something has influence into one’s innate intelligence ... preventing it from operating unencumbered? Which means: even if you ‘don’t find the ego I to be quite the problem’, upon sincere investigation (motivated by the desirability of total peace and harmony once and for all) you may find that ‘the ego I’ is the more obvious aspect to the feeling of ‘presence’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘being’ (not ‘a being’ but ‘being’ itself). I do note that you wrote ‘I no longer feel that there is a deep core of me that is more me than my usual me’ yet if there be affective feelings at all then the more subtle levels of ‘being’ itself must percolate throughout the body (feelings in the amygdala stimulate the release of hormones such as adrenaline). Again I might suggest that you may experience this as ‘a way of feeling’ ... ‘ego I’ (or some other description) and not solely ‘a way of seeing’ ... ‘ego I’ or this ‘being aware’ ... ‘ego I’? I only make this suggestion again because I am very interested to compare notes as I find the presence of affective feelings to be indicative. RESPONDENT: Since I read the above paragraphs (and you’ve asked the same question in one form or another in all your letters to me), I’ve taken the time to quietly observe and sense into what it is I am feeling or, perhaps more accurately, who or what is feeling. I honestly can’t say, as you do that there are no feelings, either positive or negative. So, yes, I definitely can discern a feeling ‘self’. RICHARD: Okay, an affective ‘self’ is otherwise known as ‘the seat of the emotions or sentiments; the emotional part of human nature’ ... according to the Oxford Dictionary. Furthermore, and in other words, the deep and abiding human ‘spirit’ (which is ‘being’ itself) is from whence ‘hope springs eternal in the human breast’. RESPONDENT: The thought occurred to me during this process of really examining myself that at one time I thought that at the heart of me was God. That in its time was a huge breakthrough. RICHARD: Aye ... this is why I tend to talk of ‘me’ as soul realising itself as ‘being’ itself (in mystical and/or spiritual terms) to be the fundamental issue to go beyond rather than going deeper than ‘I’ as ego seeking meaning in ‘God’ or ‘Truth’ (in religious and/or metaphysical terms). RESPONDENT: Now I find that the heart of me is animal. I suppose that should be a sobering reflection, but actually there is something light and free about it. I don’t know exactly why. RICHARD: Yes, other people have reported similar relief and liberation. For example:
RESPONDENT: When I speak of the ego ‘I’ as not being such a problem, I think it is a reaction to the eastern idea that ego is like the Christian devil, but rather than being a troublesome entity outside of a person, it’s a troublesome entity inside a person. I have the same problem with higher self, levels of self (whether positive or negative) and the whole spectrum of personalities and strata of being that so many people feel populate the inside of them. It seems like many people experience what they refer to as ‘myself’, the ego, the higher self, God – all apparently co-habiting inside the body. My experience just isn’t that complicated. RICHARD: I tease the identity apart, so as to communicate with anyone who understands different layers or levels of ‘self’, for it is the root feeling of identity that I am always referring to ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself). One’s feeling of being – the real ‘me’ – is what is evidenced when one says: ‘but what about me, nobody loves me for me!’ For a woman it may be: ‘you only want me for my body ... and not for me’. For a man it may be: ‘you only want me for my money ... and not for me’. For a child it may be: ‘you only want to be my friend because of my toys (or sweets or whatever)’. This innate feeling of ‘me’ – this being – arises out of the basic instincts that blind nature endowed us all with as a rough and ready ‘soft-ware’ package to make a start in life. RESPONDENT: I’m just here more or less alone, I guess. RICHARD: Each and every human being is on their own as a flesh and blood body ... dependent upon no one; autonomous. Being ‘alone’ or lonely is a feature of being a self: ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is. * RESPONDENT: I think the development of language was indicative of a self-reflexiveness that included the awareness of mortality. As you’ve said, without thought there is no language, and without thought there is no awareness of death as an inevitable factor of life. The knowledge of death is a predicament unique to humans. RICHARD: Death is generally seen to be ‘a predicament’, yes ... yet experientially understanding death is central to understanding life. Only today I was pleased to receive, out of the blue from someone I conversed with (via the internet) over a year ago, this following observation:
RESPONDENT: I don’t for a second think that the development of the level of consciousness from which language ensues was a ‘fall’ – but our self-reflexive consciousness does create its own set of problems, doesn’t it? RICHARD: It is all part and parcel of the process whereby this universe can experience itself as a sensate and reflective human being: as such the universe can know itself apperceptively. What one does is acquiesce to life by embracing death ... one wholeheartedly dedicates oneself to being here as the universe’s experience of itself right now: it is the unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body. If it were not for physical death one could not be happy ... let alone harmless. RESPONDENT: I recently read that for the first 3/4 of the time that life has existed on this planet reproduction was asexual and change came very, very slowly and the variety of life forms was relatively small. With sexual reproduction there was an explosion of life forms because of the continual combining and recombining of different genetic material. I think something analogous happened with the development of language and communication between humans. The combining and recombining we do in the world of language, thought, communication is truly amazing. It’s comparable to our tool making capacity which extends the reach of our senses. The richness of our language and thought extends us tremendously. I can write the words ‘blue book’ and send those words to you thousands of miles away, and you will understand at least generically what image I am trying to convey to you. RICHARD: Indeed ... is it not an amazing thing that we can communicate our discoveries to one another – comparing notes as it were – and further our understanding with this communal input? RESPONDENT: This ties in somewhat to the ‘stone age’ issue. There was a pre-historical period called the stone age when the norm was no written language, tribal culture, no metal tools, etc. And then you have ‘stone age’ cultures still existing in modern times, such as the Australian Aborigines, tribal cultures in New Zealand, South America, etc. It’s pretty understandable why everyone was ‘stone age’ during the ‘stone age’. But, why did most cultures develop from tribal to medieval and then modern cultures, while others remained ‘stone age’? Geographical isolation and the ensuing lack of combining and recombining of thought, ideas, mores, etc. that happen automatically in more fluid, less homogenous, and larger societies. I don’t think written language developed in most tribal societies because it simply wasn’t necessary in smaller, more homogenous groups. Oral tradition met the needs of tribal societies. RICHARD: Agreed, different species evolve at different rates at different places around the world ... there is no uniform evolution wherein a change here automatically happens there and vice versa. This unsystematic process is called ‘mosaic evolution’. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: I absolutely agree that lack of written language doesn’t equal lack of a deep and complex culture. To sum it up, I think the big thinking brain that is aware of its own thinking is a breakthrough very similar in kind and effect as the move from asexual to sexual reproduction. Both have had explosive results. RICHARD: And is it not marvellous that we are able to be discussing matters of significance ... and of consequence not only the individual, but for all of the humans that are living on this verdant planet because of this? One does not have to rely only upon one’s own findings; it is possible, as one man famous in history put it, to reach beyond the current knowledge by standing upon the shoulders of those that went before. * RESPONDENT: There is, for me, something very similar in both positive and negative feelings. What am I trying to say? I think there is a central figure that in one case (positive feelings – like being in love) is grasping and in the other (negative feelings – being angry, repulsed) is pushing away. There is a centre to all this feeling that tries to maintain itself by what – by nurturing itself by grasping for things, or defending itself by pushing things away? Is this the primitive self structure you are talking about? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: I experience the most primitive feelings towards my children. My teenage daughter goes out at night, and is later than she is supposed to be, and I panic. It is so chemical it is almost comical. I can laugh about it and I do, but the reaction is instantaneous. In my guts, I’m driven to keep both my kids alive. RICHARD: This is undeniably the basic instinctual passion of nurture: to provide, protect, support,
cultivate, nourish ... blind nature’s rough and ready survival package The twentieth century was the bloodiest century in human history. RESPONDENT: So, a question for you: How do you distinguish between feeling-caring and caring? RICHARD: By being here, right now, as this flesh and blood body. A feeling is not a fact; it is an identity’s interpretation of the actual and to be standing back and expressing a feeling – to feel an emotion or be passionate about life – is nowhere near the same as being here now as an actuality. In actually being just here – right now – one is completely involved, utterly concerned; being here now is total inclusion. One demonstrates one’s appreciation of life by partaking fully in existence ... by letting this moment live one (rather than ‘living in the present’) so that one is the doing of what is happening. One dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here now as the universe’s experience of itself. Initially one is deathly afraid to actually be here now, as it can feel rather rudely raw ... one feels more naked and exposed than taking off one’s clothing in the market place. However, feeling rudely raw about the prospect of being here now is not the same as actually being here now ... feelings are notoriously unreliable for ascertaining a fact. Being here now is to be at the place in infinite space and eternal time where all is pristine. This pristine place is this, the actual world ... and it is already always here. This actual world is original; unmarred, uncorrupted, unspoiled, spotless, fresh and perpetually new. It is alarming to feel this immaculateness – it is frightening in its immediate intimacy – which is why one backs off, initially denying its very existence. What happens though, if one takes the risk to actually be here now – instead of standing back and feeling it out in order to make up one’s mind – is that one discovers that oneself is also pristine. Then one is actually benevolent (harmless), actually concerned (happy) for all peoples ... no one is special. There is a vast gulf betwixt feeling benevolent (with feelings such as pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and so on) and actually being benevolent (free of malice). Similarly, the concern one feels for others (worry, distress, anxiety, grief, anguish, torment and all the rest) is far removed from the actual interest one has in one’s fellow human being’s welfare (free of sorrow). RESPONDENT: What do you say to your grandchildren when they are hurt, desolate, crying? RICHARD: The same as I say to any body and every body – no body is special – which is: all mental-emotional-psychic suffering is an unnecessary and self-inflicted wound. Any mental-emotional-psychic viciousness on the part of another, first and foremost, lies in the heart of the ‘giver’ and inevitably turns in on itself as existential sorrow. Thus, in the final analysis, it is the ‘giver’ who suffers the most intimately. As for the ‘receiver’ of any nastiness, it is entirely up to them what they do with it ... apart from physical brutality, no-one can force their cruelty on another without the other’s acquiescence and compliance. It is a truly and remarkably free world we live in. RESPONDENT: I both understand and experience the felicitousness you speak of. I have no problem distinguishing between that kind of well-being and the seesaw of nurture/aggression, love/hate, etc. and everything between the two extremes. I share the sense of wonder for the universe, this world, people just as it all is. I no longer need to displace my wonder into the spiritual or otherworldly. The fact that I am simply here, and the world as it is, is simply here only increases my sense of wonder and joy. RICHARD: True ... it is such a wondrous thing that all this is happening – all in such luscious colour too – and a marvel that we are all doing this business called being alive! RESPONDENT: But, for some time I’ve simply accepted the occasional appearance of suffering as a part of being alive. RICHARD: Ahh ... ‘accepted’, eh? Thereby hangs a tale: the word ‘acceptance’ has a lot of currency these days and popular usage has given it somewhat the same meaning as ‘allow’ or ‘permit’ or ‘tolerate’ ... as I have remarked in an earlier E-Mail, nineteen years ago ‘I’, the persona that I was, looked at the physical world and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ the persona realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ the persona felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the ‘real-world’ that ‘I’ had inherited – the world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. I ceased accepting, allowing, permitting or tolerating suffering there and then. Which is why I say to people to ‘embrace death’ (as in unreservedly saying !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body) as a full-blooded approval and endorsement. Those peoples who say that they ‘accept’ ... um ... a rapist, for just one example, never for one moment are approving and endorsing ... let alone unreservedly saying !YES! to the rapist. So much for ‘acceptance’ as a viable modus operandi. RESPONDENT: I don’t feel either condemned by it or justified by it. RICHARD: Good. RESPONDENT: I’m not tormented by it or uplifted by it. RICHARD: Excellent. RESPONDENT: So, I don’t quite know what to make of your proposition. A simple and simplistic solution to the ‘human condition’ is somewhat reminiscent of the promises of Self-realization and transcendence. RICHARD: Oh yes, it is similar in some respects because it is a condition that lies beyond enlightenment ... and is much, much better as this is actual and not a fantasy just for starters. But there is more to it than that ... there is all the advantages of spiritualism and none of the disadvantages; there is all the advantages of materialism and none of the disadvantages. Actualism is a genuine third alternative. RESPONDENT: Mind you, my problem with the spiritual shtick isn’t that its method for perfect bliss fails – it’s that it distances itself from this perfect world that to me is perfect not because it is happy or unhappy, but simply because it is. So once I gave up on the idea that there was somewhere to go better than here, and something to be better than what I was – it has never occurred to me that being perfectly undisturbed was a prerequisite for being perfectly content with being alive. RICHARD: Only if one wants it ... the universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. RESPONDENT: I was quite successful in my spiritual endeavours, but I found I didn’t want to distance myself from being here, being this body, being a physical being. RICHARD: Yea verily, ‘distance oneself’ is the appropriate term: all religiosity, spirituality, mysticality and metaphysicality is 180 degrees in the wrong direction ... it is unequivocally a massive dissociation. RESPONDENT: I found I just really wanted to be HERE. So, there is something new for me, a new slant about this physical primitive reptilian self you speak of. RICHARD: Great stuff, is it not? Personally, I am so glad to be able to be alive and living in this era wherein all kinds of discoveries have been made which threw off the stranglehold religion had upon the Western mind for centuries (people used to be burnt at the stake for much less heretical writing than what I do). This emerging clarity of Western thought has been swamped recently by the insidious doctrines of the Eastern mind creeping into scientific research ... it is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the pundits of the East down the slippery slope of ‘spiritual science’ and ‘mystical philosophy’ ... thinking that it has nothing to do with religiosity. But I am confident that this is but a passing phase. RESPONDENT: However, I do care about the wars, the domestic violence, the child abuse, the misery of the world. RICHARD: By watching/reading the news bulletins with whatever media one has access to, and utilising one’s affective feelings to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of TV screens daily, one can become vitally interested in ridding oneself of that which the human animal shares in common ancestry with all sentient beings: the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Because unless one deeply, primally cares about peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written on an actual freedom can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. For it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. Freedom then unfolds its inevitable destiny. RESPONDENT: I do enjoy the conversations. RICHARD: It is a pleasure and a privilege to partake in a discussion about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. Because it is us human beings alive today we are discussing ... although other than a handful of people, I am yet to find someone with something original to say; they have all regurgitated either the wisdom of the ‘real world’ or the wisdom of the received teachings from some ‘Greater Reality’. I find it amazing that people are content to live on pap ... and then proceed to complain to me that life is, literally, a vale of tears. Life was meant to be easy.
RESPONDENT: Check this forum out: The Illusion of Enlightenment: lightgate.net/illusion/enlightenment.mv. RICHARD: I visited the forum – I back-tracked through all the posts submitted from the very beginning – then went through the other forum you brought to my attention some time back ... searching through the archives for wherever the moderator’s name appeared. I then explored, at random, different aspects of the entire ‘Light Mind’ Web-Site that all these forum subsist under. It would appear to be the cyber-space equivalent of a social club for aging ex-devotees of Mr. Franklin Jones (going by the lubricated cosiness displayed in the member’s ‘get-together’ photo-shoot section). RESPONDENT: Interesting stuff. RICHARD: Yes, it is interesting to read what peoples do when mysticality has not produced the goods as promised. More often than not, after about twelve or so years without success on the self-realisation path, the typical spiritual aspirant has a tendency towards hopelessness, despair and cynicism ... then an anarchistic nihilism is often the only intellectually acceptable substitute for the gullible belief, fervent faith, uncritical trust and heart-felt hope that their credulous certitude was comprised of. Or else such ‘spiritual burn-out’ oft-times results in a zealous resurgence of one’s culturally-sanctioned religion ... the internet has many ‘anti-cult’ pages which are very, very popular. RESPONDENT: The sentiments expressed by the moderator are very similar to where I found myself until about a year ago. Had seen through the hype and ultimate hollowness of enlightenment, yet had not begun to see that the ‘self’ is a physically arising structure and the Truth, the spiritual dimensions of self, and Reality are spin offs of the self’s immortality project. RICHARD: Ha ... I like that expression: ‘the self’s immortality project’ ... and what an importunate ‘project’ it is, eh? RESPONDENT: For these people the tried and true is tried and failed, but the core self is still seen as transmortal, rather than mortal. RICHARD: For all their disaffected pessimism, they cannot help themselves ... I notice that they continue to post quotes from Awakened Masters to validate their various substitute solutions. I often say that if one persistently proposes a metaphysical cause one will stubbornly seek a metaphysical solution ... such as ‘secular mysticism’ (whatever that means). And so all the suffering goes on and on ... which is why peoples persistently choosing for the metaphysical origin of ‘self’ in the face of all the biological evidence is a subject that interests me greatly. There is a discussion currently happening, on another Mailing List I have written extensively to in the past, regarding human aggression and animal aggression wherein the animal state is somehow deemed to be ‘innocent’ (animals cannot think). Nevertheless, the twentieth century may very well come to be seen historically as a water-shed ... the dawning of the dissolution of the ‘Savage Ages’. RESPONDENT: My understanding was not that God and I were separate, but that God/I was a continuum of limited/ limitless, mortal, immortal, spirit, matter. The ego I was none other than the God the ego was supposedly contracting away from. RICHARD: In spiritual enlightenment the ‘contracted self’ grandiosely inflates like all get-out and becomes the ‘expansive self’ ... capitalised as ‘The Self’ by whatever name. Mr. Franklin Jones’ teaching is basically Hinduism ... and India itself is a living example of the abject failure of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living. To idolise, adulate and worship one’s fellow human being is patently pathetic ... it is all oh-so-obvious once one sees it in action; their very own words blatantly say it all ... and so eloquently. Vis.:
Speaking personally, this ‘slug’ stopped waiting for [insert whatever name here] nineteen years ago and got off his backside and applied the DIY method. The much longed-for golden age has finally been ushered in ... and it is being done by the peoples concerned. There was no need for a ‘Supernatural Agency’ all along. The human condition is such that it can readily respond to the self-help solution; the ability is within the human character to fix things up for itself. The intervention of some ‘Paranormal Paramour’ is never going to happen anyway, for there is no such creature. Human beings are on their own, free to manage their own affairs as they see fit. Whenever one thinks about it, would one have it any other way? If that fictitious ‘Almighty Creature’ was to come sweeping in on a cloud, blowing trumpets and putting everything to rights, would not one feel cheated? Would not one question why human beings had to wait so long upon the capricious whim of some self-righteous God or Goddess who could have acted long ago? It is all nonsense, upon sober reflection! RESPONDENT: There is a large tolerance for your own pain and suffering, not because you are too stupid to notice it, but because the tried and true methods for relieving your separation and suffering are just another set of power games. RICHARD: Yes, power is the nub of the issue ... specifically psychic power. RESPONDENT: The worst power games I’ve been involved in, that is for sure. RICHARD: This is because, in order to become enlightened, one surrenders to the ‘Supreme Power’ that lies ever-unmanifest behind the throne ... ‘not my will O Lord but Thy Will’. Subsequently, the disciple surrenders in turn to the ‘living embodiment’ and the hierarchy unfolds unto its now-predictable outcome. All the while the devotee energy-base is growing through proselytism and conversion (the living disciples are the source of the deity’s power), the master is battling it out in the psychic dimension (the struggle betwixt ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ has raged on throughout the millennia) ... whilst the gods and goddesses (the unmanifest power) fight for supremacy among themselves. The more disciples the more powerful the god or goddess ... and when the last living person believing in a particular deity dies that ‘immortal’ deity dies too. Thus the deity needs the master (as a channel for its fuel supply) as much as the master needs the deity (as a means of salvation from this ‘vale of tears’)... and the master needs the disciple (to appease the deity’s insatiable demands) as much as the disciple needs the master (to obviate personal amenability). Although very, very real for the participants (or rather the protagonists) none of the entire shemozzle is actual: if it were not for all the hurt and hurting engendered it would be immensely hilarious ... it being but a product of the intuitive/imaginative facility born of the instinctual survival patterns. It took me eleven years to extricate myself from the whole sick and sorry mess ... I have no power or powers whatsoever.
RETURN TO GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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