Selected Correspondence: Aggression and Anger

Richard’s Selected Correspondence

On Aggression

RESPONDENT: One other point: If you were in the situation of looking after little kids again, I’m presuming that you would have no difficulty shouting at them if they are being naughty.

RICHARD: I can speak clearly and firmly, lowering the tone and raising the pitch as appropriate, when interacting with any of my fellow human beings – and not just with the younger ones – who continue to not comply with the legal laws or not observe the social protocols even after being reminded of the sensibility of doing so ... if that is what you mean.

RESPONDENT: As this would be seen to many as anger, how would you differentiate?

RICHARD: Hmm ... it would appear that what I described (above) is not what you mean.

RESPONDENT: Could you smack their bottoms if necessary?

RICHARD: There are times when physical force/restraint is necessary with any of my fellow human beings – and not just with the younger ones – as the human condition is endemic per favour blind nature’s survival package of instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) ... no one is exempt.

RESPONDENT: Are you saying that its possible to be stern and forceful without being angry?

RICHARD: Indeed so ... to actually be harmless (be free of malice) means one does not have to pretend to be harmless (be a pacifist).

RESPONDENT: (My experience says yes – unless I am deluding myself).

RICHARD: You are not deluding yourself ... and, not all that surprisingly, interacting sans anger is far more effective anyway (especially in the long-term).

RESPONDENT: Or would you not ever shout at the kids?

RICHARD: Where the voice of reason has no effect (when a fellow human being is in the grip of a passion for example) or where the situation calls for instant effect (when a fellow human being is in danger for instance) speaking clearly and firmly, lowering the tone and raising the pitch as appropriate, is the only sensible course of action with any of my fellow human beings ... and not just with the younger ones.

RESPONDENT: (If you say never shout at the kids, I will find this more unbelievable than the belief in a supreme being!! ;).

RICHARD: Ha ... if one cannot stay one step ahead of recalcitrant children one does not deserve the title ‘mature adult’.

RESPONDENT: If they give you one injection of adrenaline, will you be able to control your angriness?

RICHARD: What ‘angriness’ are you talking off? There is neither anger nor anguish in this flesh and blood body ... do you really take an actual freedom from the human condition to be a suppression, or even a repression, of the affective feelings?

Just for the record, however, when I have a dental injection to anaesthetise the jaw I always make sure the dentist uses a procaine mixture which does not contain adrenaline, which most such mixtures do, because its effect is psychotropic (just as caffeine, a chemical cousin to cocaine, is).

RESPONDENT: I’d be interested in hearing whether Richard and the others here in virtual freedom still experience rushes of adrenaline.

RICHARD: I do not experience rushes of adrenaline.

RESPONDENT: The question comes from the realization that one is ridding oneself from ‘aggression’ in any form.

RICHARD: Yes ... there is a difference, however, between the violence born of the instinctual passion of aggression and the judicious use of physical force/restraint when the situation and circumstance leaves no other option.

RESPONDENT: Now, the aggression found in sport and exercise and much play is many times malicious. It doesn’t seem to me that it must be malicious though. Wrestling with my kid or throwing a football around and running around the backyard is great fun. But I still wonder whether the adrenaline rush is affective. It certainly feels delightful, and much ‘purer’ than emotion. Also related to this curiosity is ‘excitement’ and ‘enthusiasm’. Though an adrenaline rush, excitement, enthusiasm, etc. are certainly often based upon the passions and emotions – must they always be?

RICHARD: I am no expert on the properties of adrenaline – and it being so long ago I can barely remember its effects anyway – so suffice is it to say that the magical perfection of the purity of the actual leaves all other forms of pseudo-aliveness for dead.

In the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, 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.

RESPONDENT: Both Peter and Richard have said they could still defend themselves quite easily if attacked on the street. Where does that ‘force’ or ‘power’ required come from since it’s not ‘aggression’?

RICHARD: The straightforward necessity of acting appropriate to the situation and the circumstance ... if someone attacks somebody they are knowingly initiating a course of action contrary to the legal laws and the social protocol and can rightfully expect whatever consequences which may ensue as a result of their actions.

RESPONDENT: I guess I’m searching for some distinction between the feeling of aggression and forcefulness. Also between passionate excitement and enthusiasm and actual being fully engaged.

RICHARD: Perhaps a personal anecdote will throw some light upon the subject of being fully engaged: some years ago whilst in a supermarket my wife and I had a pack stolen from the shopping trolley we were using when our backs were turned; I saw a young man disappearing along the aisle with our pack and on out through the turnstile; I went off after him at a brisk pace, negotiated the turnstile easily, and moved out through the self-opening doors; there was an ornamental garden between me and the car-park wherein off in the distance the young man could be seen heading away; I cleared the garden in one leap – seeing each and every plant and flower in detail as I sailed over it – and soon caught up to him as, glancing over his shoulder and seeing me coming, he headed for a crowded mall to the left ... and eventually regained the pack without a fight or even any display of intimidation. Upon returning to the supermarket I passed by the garden, through the pathway provided, and noticed by its width that I would not ordinarily be able to leap over it ... necessity provides all the calorific energy required.

He was a big, muscular young man such that I would not wish to enter into a ring with as I would be bound to come off second-best in any such organised sport. He knew that he had crossed the line in regards to the legal laws and social protocol and fully expected to pay the price for his actions ... his bluff and bluster collapsed like a leaky balloon when confronted in the mall with the straightforward request for the return of property not belonging to him.

Interestingly enough I was not even breathing heavily.

RICHARD: ‘My’ extinction was the ending of not only fear, but of all of the affective faculties. Extinction releases one into actuality ... and this actual world is ambrosial, to say the least.

RESPONDENT: Do you experience emotions, for example anger at injustice? If not, why not?

RICHARD: No, I experience no emotions. Literally, I have no feelings – emotions and passions – whatsoever ... and have not had for five years. And ‘anger at injustice’ invariably leads to revenge ... it is an emotional inevitability no matter how well one can control oneself. No judge on earth is truly impartial. Even the Christian/Judaic God is a vengeful god!

RESPONDENT: You have stated you have no anger, which is good if it is true.

RICHARD: Not just no anger ... no sadness as well (not to mention all the other malicious and sorrowful feelings, passions, impulses and urges). And it is not ‘good’ ... it is salubrious. It means peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time. This is an actual freedom I am living and writing about ... not some self-righteous preening.

RESPONDENT: Again, do you live in ways that would be considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known?

RICHARD: What do you mean by ‘considered to fall into the immoral category as they are commonly known’ ... are you not the person who has absolute values handed down from high? Because the ‘commonly known’ values vary from culture to culture ... are you asking if I have any relative values, then? That is, are you asking if I observe the social protocol of whatever culture is currently dominant? Are you asking me if I comply with the legal laws of whatever country I am living in at the time?

Seeing that each particular country lubricates its social interactions with its own cultural proprieties – and enforces its legal laws at the point of a gun – if I wish to have a trouble-free social life I would be a fool if I did not. One of the benefits of being free of the human condition is that no restrictions are irksome ... which means no incipient rebellion to have to deal with.

This is a truly remarkable freedom.

RESPONDENT: Only if it is the right kind of freedom.

RICHARD: Goodness me ... I long ago abandoned ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ because far too many of my fellow human beings have been killed because of what is ‘right’ ... or savagely punished because they were ‘wrong’. It is far better – and much more understandable – to appraise one’s feelings, thoughts and actions as being either ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. It is simply silly to drive on the wrong side of the road, for example, because of the obvious danger to one’s own life and limb and to others ... not ‘wrong’ with all its judgemental condemnations of one’s implicit wickedness and badness. It is sensible to find out why one is driven to perform socially unacceptable acts, for instance, rather than to refrain from committing these deeds because such restraint is the ‘right’ thing to do. Because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are emotive words loaded with reward and punishment connotations – which is poor motivation for salubrious action anyway – then one has dignity for the first time in one’s life.

So, the question is: Is an actual freedom a silly freedom ... or a sensible freedom?

It is a freedom well worth living indeed, for in actual freedom lies not only an actual peace but an actual innocence. One is pure innocence personified, for one is literally free from sin and guilt. One is untouched by evil; no malice or sorrow exists anywhere in this body. One is utterly innocent ... innocence, that much abused word, can come to its full flowering and one is easily able to be freely ingenuous – noble in character – without any effort at all. The integrity of an actual freedom is so unlike the strictures of morality – whereupon the psychological and psychic identity within the body struggles in vain to resemble the purity of the actual – inasmuch as probity is bestowed gratuitously. One can live unequivocally, endowed with an actual gracefulness and dignity, in a magical wonderland. To thus live candidly, in arrant innocence, is a remarkable condition of excellence. This alternate freedom has never before been discovered anywhere in the history of humankind ... the most one could aspire to in order to transcend the ‘human realm’ was the much-touted ‘Divine Realm’, which has always brought bloodshed and suffering in its wake. This is because an imitation innocence was produced by the transformed identity now being humble ... it never was and never will be the genuine article. However, the way is now clear for that most longed for global peace-on-earth to happen. Because it is possible in one human being, the possibility exists for it to be replicated in another ... and another ... and another ... and so on. And the crux of its success is innocence.

None of the supposed ‘innocence of children’ comes anywhere near to the matchless purity of the innocence of the actual. Nor does the assumed ‘innocence’ in the status generously but wrongly attributed to those old men, women and children classified as ‘innocent victims of war’; for these ‘victims’ are all guilty of instinctive anger and vicious urges themselves. As much as one might be sensitively considerate about their suffering, they cannot be labelled as innocent whilst they remain being ‘human’. They are not to blame: nobody is born innocent, all humans are already ‘guilty’ at conception. Fear and aggression and nurture and desire are built into the Human Condition ... this is the very human nature that is so often said as an excuse: ‘This is just human nature and human nature cannot be changed’. These intrinsic urges and drives are known as the ‘instinct for survival’.

This ‘instinct for survival’ is an animal necessity to ensure the blind continuation of the species. It served the human animal well until the emergence of the cerebral cortex brain, situated over the top of the primitive animal brain ... the ‘reptilian brain’. This thinking, reflective brain – corrupted by affective feelings – gave rise to a brain pattern known as ‘the mind’. In here the ‘instinct for survival’ becomes the passion-driven ‘will to survive’. Thus the biologically necessary blind instinctual patterns spilled over into the psychological arena ... with disastrous results. For five thousand years or more, human beings have been struggling to overcome the emotion-laden ‘will to survive’ with moralistic injunctions – derived from any Divine Being’ s ‘Teachings’ – to no avail. The ‘Teachings’ were – and are – fatally flawed. Although well-meant, they were abysmally improper. They have led to many appalling absurdities such as institutionalised human sacrifices to numerous gods; exalted martyrdoms for futile ideals; honourable deaths through valour in wars; emotional sufferings whilst contemplating the torments of hells; inspired self-flagellations ... the list goes on and on. The culpability for these preposterous catastrophes must be laid squarely at the feet of those highly revered but sadly deluded Divine Beings. Their futile ‘Teachings’ are but inimical fulminations ... ignorant railings against the neuro-biology of the Human Condition.

The time has come, with the world population as large and as cosmopolitan as it is, to discard the passionate and emotional ‘will to survive’ – with all its biologically-based inherited savagery – and move on to a new paradigm. This paradigm I call actualism, which works to disempower the instinctual passions one is encumbered with by blind nature at birth. One can come upon an actual freedom – the third alternative – which is the actuality that delivers the goods so long yearned for: peace-on-earth, as this body, in this life-time. And it delivers it now in this moment in eternal time and here at this place in infinite space, for it is already always here ... now.

It is yours for the choosing.

RESPONDENT: I did not think you would be doing those obvious evils.

RICHARD: I am not only talking of not doing these things, I am talking of not even having to suppress thinking these kind of thoughts at all ... ever. The reason why I am not impulsively thinking these thoughts is that in an actual freedom I have no furious urges, no instinctive anger, no impulsive rages, no inveterate hostilities, no evil disposition ... no malicious or sorrowful tendencies whatsoever. The blind animal instinctual passions, which some neuro-scientists have tentatively located toward the top of the brain-stem in what is popularly called the ‘reptilian brain’, have under-gone a radical mutation. I am free to be me as-I-am; benign and benevolent and beneficial in character. I am able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being magnanimous, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for virtue completely.

RESPONDENT: I chose some more subtle ones.

RICHARD: If I may point out? They are not ‘more subtle’ at all ... they are an obvious and easy target for any well-meaning zealot who wishes to make people feel guilty in order to get them the feel remorse. Then – if successful – with remorse comes repentance which, if one sufficiently humiliates oneself under the guise of humility, your imaginatively haughty god will graciously forgive ... and the cunning penitent gets off scot-free with all their basic instinctual passions – epitomised by sorrow and malice – intact. Thus ‘I’ survive only to wreak ‘my’ havoc once again.

RICHARD: However, the way is now clear for that most longed for global peace-on-earth to happen. Because it is possible in one human being, the possibility exists for it to be replicated in another ... and another ... and another ... and so on. And the crux of its success is innocence.

RESPONDENT: It is much more than the ‘instinct for survival’. It is the nature of what seeks to survive.

RICHARD: The ‘nature of what seeks to survive’ is indeed the survival instinct. What on earth are you talking about?

RESPONDENT: We seek not only to survive but to be more than we are.

RICHARD: It is the ‘seeking to survive’ that prevents one from being what you call ‘more than we are’ . When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul sacrifices itself psychologically and psychically ... then the freedom that is already always here becomes apparent.

RESPONDENT: Not only does man want to survive and conquer but he wants to be number one.

RICHARD: Indeed ... (and woman too). May I ask? Do you want to not only fail and be conquered but be number ... um ... bottom-of-the-list into the bargain?

RESPONDENT: His ‘natural’ or animal state, that you refer to, puts him in a state of conflict, unlike the animals. The animal has anger or fear, kills, fights or runs and returns to rest or goes to sleep in peace.

RICHARD: Being born and raised on a farm, and having a life-long interest in animals, I have been able to observe over time that, by and large, animals generally do not rest or sleep ‘in peace’ ... they are constantly on the alert, vigilant, scanning for attack. Some, like ducks for example, ‘sleep’ half of the brain at a time. Apart from bears and the such-like in hibernation (oblivion) it is not very restful being an animal.

RESPONDENT: Afterwards, there is no conflict for the animal. He settles down quickly and returns shortly to a relaxed state. The animal does not retain haunting memories that put him in a state of conflict. He has only done what all animals do, and there is nothing else he can do, nor should there be.

RICHARD: Okay ... animals are not aware of what they do: I have seen cats toying with a mouse in a manner that can only be dubbed cruel; I have seen cows ‘spooked’ and then stampede, in what must be described as hysteria, trampling their young as they do so; I have seen stallions displaying what can only be labelled aggression; I have seen dogs acting in a way that can only be called pining; I have seen blackbirds playing ‘catch’ with slowly-dying crickets; I have watched many animals exhibiting what must be specified as fear ... and so on. Only recently a television programme was aired here on chimpanzees about studies made over many, many years of them in their native habitat and I was able to see civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism ... and so on. It is easily discerned by those with the eyes to see that animals are not aware of their actions ... let alone the instinctual passions that drive them.

As I have already remarked: as animals cannot think they are not intelligent.

RESPONDENT: If a man does the same thing the animal does, he is full of conflict and needs outside support to escape from the reality of what he had done in order to achieve a state of equilibrium and rest.

RICHARD: What ‘outside support’ would that be?

RESPONDENT: This is nothing like the animal that inherits a genetic and instinctual way of life with no possibility of any kind of choice in the lifestyle he leads.

RICHARD: Indeed ... only intelligence (the amazing ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for benevolent reasons) will enable the first animal in the earth’s history to begin the process of being free of the instinctual passions.

RESPONDENT: To find peace in the animal state means to be at peace with fear or anger ... killing or rape.

RICHARD: Not so ... peace-on-earth only becomes apparent at the eradication of ‘fear or anger’ and all the rest ... not some chicken-hearted appeasement policy.

RESPONDENT: There is nothing there that would dictate compassion or consideration for our fellow humans.

RICHARD: To be compassionate is to keep the sorrow alive ... where there is no sorrow there is no compassion required.

RESPONDENT: The strong survive and the weak die. That is the law of the jungle.

RICHARD: Not so ... it is the fittest that survive: ‘survival of the fittest’ does not necessarily mean (as it is popularly misunderstood) that ‘the strong’ (most muscular) always survive. It means ‘the most fitted to the ever-changing environment’ (those who adapt) get to pass on their genes. If the most muscular are too dumb to twig to this very pertinent fact they will slowly disappear of the face of the planet over the countless millions of years that it is going to take via the trial and error process of blind nature. One can speed up this tedious natural process in one’s own lifetime and become free ... now. Of course one will, of necessity, have to relinquish the narcissistic desire to be the next manifestation of that ‘Supreme Intelligence’ (aka ‘God On Earth’) ... which means that humility must be discarded along with all those other selfish feelings.

Such as ‘saving one’s immortal soul’.

RESPONDENT: What is this truly existing ego that is fact other than an image or an idea?

RICHARD: It is the cause of all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide ... that is what it is.

RESPONDENT: You suggested that there some truly existing ‘me’ other than an image. Action based on misconception can cause what is suggested. What is a proof of a real ‘me’?

RICHARD: Your anger that ‘comes and goes’ for starters?

RESPONDENT: Observing something that comes and goes is just something that comes and goes. It does not mean there is some ongoing truly existing ‘me’ that is a cause of anger.

RICHARD: What causes the seeming anger in this appearance of a body called No. 22 then?

RESPONDENT: What is its basis?

RICHARD: Its basis is the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings at birth.

RESPONDENT: Again, those are the fruit of misconception and cannot be a basis of some truly existing ‘me’.

RICHARD: When you watch footage of World War Two (or any other war) do you fondly imagine that all that bloodshed is caused by a fear and aggression that results from a ‘misconception’ that there is some ‘truly existing ‘me’ other than ‘a mirage’?

RESPONDENT: I would suggest observing the mind in action instead of movies.

RICHARD: Why would I follow your advice? This ‘observing the mind in action’ has not stopped the seeming anger in the apparent body called No. 22. now has it?

RESPONDENT: Action based on the belief in there being some true centre or self does not necessarily mean there is such a thing.

RICHARD: Not so ... in fact any action based on the belief that there is no ‘true centre or self’ to self-immolate will perpetuate all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide for ever and a day.

RESPONDENT: Listen again to your logic. The widespread suffering that you point to is not caused by a belief in the lack of a ‘me’. There is no such common belief. The root is the common belief in some true division, self, centre or independent ‘me’. A lake mirage is not dispelled by adding a belief in no lake. It is merely seeing that what was thought to be true, isn’t.

RICHARD: As anger still ‘comes and goes’ in the body called No. 22 then you are living proof that the ‘lake mirage’ is not dispelled by ‘merely seeing that what was thought to be true isn’t’ as you so quaintly insist (above).

RESPONDENT: Again, the apparent anger coming and going, is not a proof of a truly existing ‘me’. It is only anger coming and going. That anger may be based on an assumption of a truly existing ‘me’, but that still does not mean there is some truly existing ‘me’ that is angry.

RICHARD: You say ‘maybe based on the assumption’ ... is it or is it not? Can you ever make a committed statement without hedging it about with all kind of conditions?

RESPONDENT: Observing something that comes and goes is just something that comes and goes. It does not mean there is some ongoing truly existing ‘me’ that is a cause of anger.

RICHARD: What causes the seeming anger in this appearance of a body called No. 22 then?

RESPONDENT: Speaking from memory, it is merely the habitual misconception of there being some actual separation, some truly independent thing.

RICHARD: And when was the last imputed time this seeming anger came and went in the not truly existing body called No. 22? In other words, when did this apparently existing ‘me’ in the not truly independent body called No. 22 habitually misconceive that there was some ‘actual separation’ and some ‘truly independent thing’ ? Secondly, how often does this ‘habitual misconception’ occur in any imputed year for this not truly-existing body called No. 22?

You see ... I want to know how reliable this is as a solution to all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. For example: in the middle of hand-to-hand combat, with an enemy, a spouse, a child and so on, how likely is it that a person might all of a sudden remember and say something like: ‘Golly gosh, here I go again ... I am habitually misconceiving that there is some actual separation again and I am once more imputing that there is a ‘me’ in a truly existing thing and this dratted seeming anger has come again making me try to actually bash one of my fellow human beings into a bloody pulp in a seeming rage?’ Do you then take some time out – run up the white flag for a bit – and sit down cross-legged meditating until this ‘habitual misconceiving’ ceases and the seeming anger then goes ... as easily as it came? And then how do you persuade the not-truly existing other – whose seeming anger has been aroused by your seeming anger and is now manifesting actual violence all over your apparent body in retaliation for your forgetfulness – to do like-wise ... given that you ‘habitually misconceive’ from time-to-time.

Also, this memory that you are plainly speaking from (you did not say ‘seeming’ memory) ... do I take it that it is actual then?

RESPONDENT: It is the same habitual misconception that imputes a someone that can eliminate a ‘me’ or a ‘me’ that can be eliminated or that can attain freedom from a ‘me’.

RICHARD: Not so, I live on a different planet to you ... it is called ‘Planet Earth’. People here call a spade a spade ... it is a lot more simple that way.

RICHARD: You are very quick to re-state your conclusion here ... are you of the ‘Tabula Rasa’ school of philosophy?

RESPONDENT: I don’t know.

RICHARD: Do you want to know? Are sentient beings born a ‘clean slate’ or not? Is this not an important issue? What is the point of building an elaborate hypothesis if the premise it is based on is erroneous? There has been much research into this growing science in these last few years.

RESPONDENT: Actually, it is the reaction: ‘I was afraid and I don’t like it ...’ that creates the self.

RICHARD: Okay then: why was ‘I afraid’ in the first place (before the thought ‘I don’t like it’)? Are you saying that to be fearful (purely fearful) is to be selfless?

RESPONDENT: ‘I afraid’ is also a response of the memory.

RICHARD: Okay then: why is there fear in the first place (before the ‘I afraid’ that is ‘also the response of memory’ which comes before ‘I don’t like it’ which you say creates the self)? Are you saying that to be fearful (purely fearful) is to be selfless?

RESPONDENT: In the moment of pure fear, there is no fear.

RICHARD: Are you also going to say: ‘in the moment of pure malice, there is no malice’; ‘in the moment of pure abhorrence, there is no abhorrence’; ‘in the moment of pure acerbity, there is no acerbity’; ‘in the moment of pure acrimony, there is no acrimony’; ‘in the moment of pure aggression, there is no aggression’; ‘in the moment of pure anger, there is no anger’; ‘in the moment of pure animosity, there is no animosity’; ‘in the moment of pure antagonism, there is no antagonism’; ‘in the moment of pure antipathy, there is no antipathy’; ‘in the moment of pure aversion, there is no aversion; ‘in the moment of pure bellicosity, there is no bellicosity’; ‘in the moment of pure belligerence, there is no belligerence’; ‘in the moment of pure bitchiness, there is no bitchiness’; ‘in the moment of pure cantankerousness, there is no cantankerousness’; ‘in the moment of pure bitterness, there is no bitterness’; ‘in the moment of pure cattiness, there is no cattiness’; ‘in the moment of pure despisal, there is no despisal’; ‘in the moment of pure detestation, there is no detestation’; ‘in the moment of pure disgust, there is no ‘disgust; ‘in the moment of pure enmity, there is no enmity’; ‘in the moment of pure envy, there is no envy’; ‘in the moment of pure evil, there is no evil’; ‘in the moment of pure hate, there is no hate’; ‘in the moment of pure hostility, there is no hostility’; ‘in the moment of pure loathing, there is no loathing’; ‘in the moment of pure moodiness, there is no moodiness; ‘in the moment of pure rancour, there is no rancour’; ‘in the moment of pure repugnance, there is no repugnance; ‘in the moment of pure spitefulness, there is no spite’; ‘in the moment of pure vengefulness, there is no vengeance; ‘in the moment of pure wrath, there is no wrath’ and so on and so on?

RESPONDENT: Everything else is wishful thinking, in my opinion.

RICHARD: And where would the human race be without ‘wishful thinking’, eh? Still sitting in a cave, dressed in animal skins and gnawing on a brontosaurus bone? In investigating my nature I am investigating human nature (the human condition) ... and one is one’s own ‘guinea-pig’ because such an investigation is participatory observation ... the ‘investigator’ is both participant and experimenter at one and the same time

Why not approach it this way: as I am a human being – and being born and raised in what is called the normal way – after allowing for idiosyncrasies any study of one’s own psyche is a study of the human psyche? Therefore, any verifiably common discoveries are valid for all peoples, given due allowance for gender, racial and era variance. Through face-to-face interaction and through reading and watching media it is entirely reasonable to deduce that that the three ways of experiencing the world of people, things and events (sensate, cerebral and affective) is common to all human beings. And, essentially, there is no difference between English malice and sorrow and African malice and sorrow and Indian malice and sorrow and so on and so on.

(I use the generally accepted convention of ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ as delineated by most religions and/or philosophies, that fall under the umbrella term ‘The Human Condition’, purely for convenience. In Christianity, for example, the word ‘suffering’ means the same affective feelings as the word ‘sorrow’ does in the translation from the Buddhist word ‘dukkha’ (unsatisfactoriness). Similarly, the ‘Golden Rule’ (found in all religions) known in English as ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ points to the feelings covered under the catch-all word ‘malice’. Basically, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself ... as a broad generalisation).

Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings (which ‘original face’ is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory; being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future.

Hence: ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: And I investigate that mess not to improve the world, or bring peace-on-earth, but because I don’t like this mess that I am in. It is too disturbing, too annoying, and wasteful.

RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... but through your interactions with other peoples – and especially on Mailing Lists such as this – do you not find that other people, more or less, do not ‘like this mess that they are in’ because ‘it is too disturbing, too annoying, and wasteful’ also? What makes you think that you are so special? In other words, whether you like it or not, any investigation you do into yourself is going to be of benefit to ‘the world’ and will be moving towards ‘peace-on-earth’ anyway. Why not acknowledge the fact and give your investigation the impetus it deserves?

Much more productive than arguing over ‘selfishness’ versus ‘unselfishness’, eh?

RESPONDENT: Self-immolation is another separate fact?

RICHARD: Yes ... it requires a rather curious decision to be made: a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again. It is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation because ‘I’, the aggressive psychological entity and ‘me’, the frightened psychic entity will both vanish forever. After ‘my’ close friend’s ‘divine madness’ began to unfold in its inevitable course through ‘parousia’, the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’

This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hooves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality.

CO-RESPONDENT: Richard, lets say hypothetically a stranger had a gun aimed at your face, what sort of thoughts might occur in your mind?

RICHARD: Having been rigorously trained in the military, until the appropriate reflex responses became second-nature, for multiple variations of such contingencies – plus having gone to war as a youth – it can be said with a high degree of confidence that there would be no thoughts occurring at the moment ... there would only be action. The whole point of such intensive drilling is that (to use a cliché) there is the quick ... and there is the dead.

RESPONDENT: Hey Richard! What a gem this is! :-)

RICHARD: The same, or similar, intensive training of reflex responses applies in many fields ... driving a vehicle, for example, where events can occur faster than thought is initially capable of dealing with them.

RESPONDENT: And I got to laugh, a few years back I was over this house with about a dozen or so folks all standing around in the living room. And this lamp across the room started to fall off this table, and I hurled myself across the room and caught the damn thing in mid-air. And everyone’s going whooaaaa, how’d you do that? :-) And I joked and said, I’m trained for this kind of stuff, I raised 4 kids. :-)

RICHARD: Ha ... as I also raised four children, back when I was a parent, I can certainly relate to that.

RESPONDENT: Well that explains it! :-)

RICHARD: I did not become a father until after I came back from war (and the rigorous military training, for multiple variations of such contingencies whereupon the appropriate reflex responses having become second-nature could mean the difference between life and death, was prior to that) ... besides which I was driving vehicles, for example, long before even that (being born and raised on a farm I was in control of machinery from a very early age).

The basic reflex response (aka the startle effect) which sentient beings are born with is what is known as the freeze-flight-fight mechanism ... none of which are always necessarily appropriate.

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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.