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Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Guilt
RESPONDENT: While we’re on this topic – I recently read where you (Richard) regard having an ‘I’ as socially reprehensible – as in blameworthy. I’m curious as to just what constitutes being ‘socially reprehensible’ for you ... a mere thought or ‘temptation’ – or more concrete action. You have even gone to the point of using the term ‘guilty at conception’. I wonder what guilt could possibly consist of if not in action? To take this to the extreme – would an aborted foetus be ‘guilty’? Or possibly ‘socially reprehensible’? Is one guilty just because they have the potential to do harm? RICHARD: First of all a normal person does not have an ‘I’ (or have a ‘me’) as they are an ‘I’ (or are a ‘me’) ... and ‘I’ exist inside the body only because all human beings are genetically endowed at conception with a package of instinctual survival passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) which gives rise to emotions (such as malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) and this emotional and passional package is ‘me’ (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). And irregardless of whether ‘I’, who am the emotional and passional impulses, persuade the body to physically act or not ‘I’ involuntarily transmit emotional and passional vibes (to use a 60’s term) into the human world in particular and the animal world in general: therefore ‘I’ am not harmless even when ‘I’ refrain from inducing the body into physical action ... which is why pacifism (non-violence) is not a viable solution. Children also involuntarily transmit emotional and passional vibes (thus they are not born innocent as certain peoples maintain) ... and a foetus would too (albeit in a very rudimentary form). There is nothing that can stop other sentient beings picking up these vibes and/or picking up what are sometimes called psychic currents. This is because there is an interconnectedness between all the emotional and passional entities – all emotional and passional entities are connected via a psychic web – a network of invisible vibes and currents. This interconnectedness in action is a powerful force – colloquially called ‘energy’ or ‘energies’ – wherein one entity can either seek power over another entity or seek communion with another entity by affective and/or psychic influence. For example, these interconnecting ‘energies’ can be experienced in a group high, a community spirit, a mass hysteria, a communion meeting, a mob riot, a political rally and so on ... it is well known that charismatic leaders ride to power on such ‘energies’. Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: it is ‘me’ as the emotions and passions fuelling the violence, or fuelling the potential for violence, who begets all the misery and mayhem. Violence itself (as in physical force/restraint) is essential lest the bully-boys and feisty-femmes would rule the world. And if all 6.0 billion peoples were to become happy and harmless overnight (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation) it would still be essential lest the predator animals should have the human animal for its next meal. Yet even if all the predator animals were to cease being predatory (à la the ‘lion shall lay down with child’ ancient wisdom) it would still be essential if the crops in the field be not stripped bare by the insect world. And so on and so on: taking medication – even traditional medicine – does violence to the whole host of bacterial life; so too does drinking water as one drop contains at least 1,000-10,000 tiny shrimp-like and crab-like creatures; even breathing does violence as a breath of air contains untold numbers of microscopic life-forms. RESPONDENT: For example, I don’t think I’ve done anything that would be considered ‘socially reprehensible’ by most people. Sure, I’ve stolen small amounts of money from my parents when I was a kid – not always told the whole truth – not always been the ‘stellar’ person I’ve wanted to be – but I have never hurt someone in a ‘reprehensible’ way. When I think ‘reprehensible’, I think murder, rape, abuse – all the atrocities in the human world. Now it’s possible that I’ve done something in my past that is ‘reprehensible’ and that it’s not currently coming to mind, but I’m curious just how you intend your usage of ‘socially reprehensible’? RICHARD: I do not necessarily mean it only in the way you describe – there are already enough people censuring behaviour without me joining in the chorus as well – as I am more interested in pointing the finger at the root cause of all the misery and mayhem: the identity parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) ... and this entity is not only socially reprehensible by its very existence but individually insalubrious as well. No matter how well-behaved and well-adjusted a normal person is – urbane, polite, civilised, educated – they cannot help but generate malicious and sorrowful feelings from time-to-time ... and neither malicious feelings towards another nor sorrowful feelings towards oneself, or vice versa, are conducive to a happy and harmless life (be it the communal life or an individual life). And to then become loving and compassionate, either towards another or towards oneself, is to but gild over the negative with the positive ... with less than satisfactory results. And such has been the case for at least 3,000 to 5,000 years of recorded history ... the ‘tried and true’ is demonstrably the tried and failed. RESPONDENT: I’m not out murdering, raping, abusing people and that sort of thing – as many people are not. Is one ‘guilty’ just by having a ‘human nature’? RICHARD: Not by having a human nature ... by being human nature (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’): ‘I’ am guilty by virtue of ‘my’ very presence: it is ‘me’ as a psychological/psychic ‘being’ (at root an instinctual ‘being’) who is guilty of being harmful just by existing ... but it is not ‘my’ fault as ‘I’ am not to blame for ‘my’ existence (if anything it is blind nature which is at fault or to blame). In the normal human world one is considered guilty where one does nothing about one’s human nature. Traditionally people try to avoid this ‘doing nothing’ guilt by living in accord with culturally-determined morals and ethics and values and principles and mores and so on. However, when push comes to shove, this thin veneer of civilised life can vanish in an instant and the instinctual survival passions can come surging out in full force (such as in peoples being trampled to death in the stampede for the exit in a theatre or cinema when there is a fire). I have had personal experience of the veneer of civilised life vanishing: I happened to be in New Delhi in October 1984 when Sikh bodyguards assassinated India’s Hindu Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi after the assault by the Indian army on the Harimandir of Amritsar, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine. This set off a rampage of terror and violence that closed down the city for three days ... the normally ubiquitous police were nowhere to be seen for the entire period. I was there – with a nine year old daughter – and saw with my own eyes what happened: it was out-and-out internecine conflict ... after three days of unrestricted rioting the military came in with helicopters, planes, tanks, armoured vehicles, machine guns and so on and eventually law and order was restored by sheer brute force. The atmosphere – and the destructiveness I personally witnessed – was identical to my experience in a war-torn foreign country in 1966 when I was a serving soldier in a declared war-zone. The solution to all this is to be found in the actual world: in a pure consciousness experience (PCE), where ‘I’ as ‘my’ feelings am temporarily absent, it will be experienced that one is innocent for the very first time ... in a PCE there is not the slightest trace of guilt whatsoever to be found. ‘Tis a remarkably easy way to live. RESPONDENT: If the reason is that one is guilty by one’s ‘potential’ – wouldn’t it be smart to throw people in jail who fit the demographic for criminal behaviour – regardless their actions? RICHARD: Ha ... if people were to be gaoled for their potential then all 6.0 billion peoples on this planet would find themselves behind bars: anyone and everyone who nurses malice and sorrow, and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion, to their bosom has the potential to act, not only in socially reprehensible ways, but in ways which are personally insalubrious as well. RESPONDENT: Guilt by ‘potential’ is a strange concept – and I’m not sure it would fit any common usage of the word ‘guilt’ or ‘reprehensible’. RICHARD: Well ... as I said, the potential to act in socially reprehensible (and individually insalubrious) ways is traditionally held in check by morals and ethics and values and principles and mores and so on – all backed-up either by public censure and/or ostracism or by legal laws enforceable at the point of a gun – so it would appear that there is at least a tacit agreement that ‘guilt by potential’ is in common usage ... if only by implication. RESPONDENT: I realize this must be balanced with your view that nobody is to blame for having a self – though I’d like to read just how you balance the two, if you don’t mind. RICHARD: Perhaps this e-mail will show that there is nothing to balance after all as nobody is at fault or to blame for the human condition (and it is pointless to fault or blame blind nature for continuing to provide the instinctual survival passions which were necessary all those thousands of years ago). Now that intelligence, which is the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for beneficial reasons, has developed in the human animal those blind survival passions are no longer necessary – in fact they have become a hindrance in today’s world – and it is only by virtue of this intelligence that blind nature’s default software package can be safely deleted (altruistic ‘self’-immolation). No other animal can do this. RESPONDENT: I also don’t intend these comments as an attempt to pin you down under self-contradiction – I know there are ‘ways out’ of these quandaries – I’m just curious about your view of these issues. Thanks. RICHARD: Sure ... I have always sought for that which is non-contradictory and would always look askance at any attempt to gloss over something contradictory by someone saying that it was a paradox one just had to live with. I have been unable to find anything paradoxical here in this actual world. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: I am aware that words like guilty, reprehensible and culpable carry the implication that some person or persons (or peoples collectively) decide or have decided what is right and what is wrong or what is good and what is bad or what is correct and what is incorrect and so on ... a standard to be judged by, in other words. The following exchange should be helpful in this regards (especially so as you say in this e-mail that you have wanted to be a ‘stellar’ person):
Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: I do think our usages of ‘socially reprehensible’ diverge. I would reserve the word ‘reprehensible’ for the truly atrocious things that people do – rape, murder, abuse, etc. – but I wouldn’t exclude what are commonly referred to as ‘misdemeanours’ as socially reprehensible either. RICHARD: Putting aside the ambivalence displayed in saying that you reserve usage of the word for major infractions of the social code of conduct whilst simultaneously not excluding usage of the word for minor infractions ... how is this substantially different from saying your usage of the word covers the entire range of antisocial conduct? As a matter of interest only: I have never taken the word as being reserved for the truly atrocious things that people do – I have always understood it as being applicable to anything which incurs criticism – so much so that when your e-mail came in I looked through the various dictionaries I have access to so as to see if I had been overlooking something all my life. The following definition best describes how I have always experienced its usage:
There is no qualification such as you propose ... and ‘to voice disapproval of’ can range all the way through reproval: from chiding, admonishing and rebuking through to reprimanding, censuring and condemning (according to the various thesauruses and other dictionaries I have access to). Where my usage of the word differs from the norm is to also apply it to that which is the cause of the antisocial conduct ... which strikes me as being an entirely sensible thing to do. RESPONDENT: I also don’t doubt there are such things as ‘reprehensible’ vibes – when it is apparent that someone is hating or being aggressive even without overt expression – but there are more subtle vibes that happen all the time which are sorrowful or malicious that I would hardly term ‘socially reprehensible’. RICHARD: Why not? A difference in degree is not a difference in kind ... are you sure you are not being unduly influenced by your preference to reserve the word for the major infractions (the apparent feelings in this instance) so much so that you inadvertently exclude the minor infractions (the more subtle feelings in this instance) despite saying further above that you would not exclude the misdemeanours? RESPONDENT: ‘Insalubrious’ may be a better term. RICHARD: Why? If something is reprehensible, no matter whether it be major or minor, apparent or subtle, what purpose does it serve to relabel it into being something which it is not? Please note that I am not telling you what you should or should not do in any of this ... I am, rather, suggesting that you question why your line of reasoning is following the path it is currently travelling along. RESPONDENT: As an example, my son may try to hit me when he is extremely upset – but I don’t regard that as ‘reprehensible’ – rather it is ‘normal’, yet ‘insalubrious’ as well. RICHARD: Unless one lives as an isolated hermit or recluse it is a fact that one lives amongst other people (aka society) and it is these other people who will disapprove of actions such as trying to hit someone when ‘extremely upset’ even if you do not. And if you do not bring it to your son’s attention that such emotion-backed behaviour is socially unacceptable – in the sense that society requires him to take responsibility for his feeling-fed actions – then other people surely will (and they will try to instil feelings of guilt and/or shame into him at the same time so as to have him control his aggressive feelings with countervailing feelings of remorse and/or contrition) ... for such is society’s way of dealing with antisocial feelings. To illustrate this I will take the liberty of altering your sentence so as to show what it looks like when the situation you describe is taken out of the family setting and other people are brought into the picture:
Of course I do not know what society you live in but the society I am familiar with certainly disapproves of someone trying to hit someone else when extremely upset. Now whilst your son is not to blame for being born with the human condition hereditarily implanted – it is not his fault that he comes into the world with the basic survival passions genetically endowed – somewhere along the line he will be required to be amenable to society’s legal laws and social protocols just like any other human being. Hence reprehension ... it is society’s way of conveying/reinforcing its conventions to each and every one of its citizens so that some semblance of what passes for peace can prevail. Incidentally, that you consider it ‘normal’ that your son may try to hit you when extremely upset speaks volumes about how ubiquitous the instinctual passions are ... and it is because of attitudes such as this that I take the term ‘socially reprehensible’ deeper into the human condition so as to bring the source of antisocial conduct into the arena of public awareness. This way the cause can be addressed rather than continuing to just treat the symptoms. RESPONDENT: I would agree that being a ‘being’ is personally insalubrious. RICHARD: Good ... I am pleased that this is obvious as it establishes a basis from which to see the communal ramifications of such a lack of well-being (which is where being personally insalubrious is to be socially reprehensible). RESPONDENT: Also, I agree that a ‘being’ has the potential for socially reprehensible deeds. RICHARD: Okay ... my intention, in discussions such as these, is to dig deeper so as to find out how and why the potential exists in the first place (rather than just acknowledging the potential for such deeds exists). Where there is no potential there is no need for checks and balances. RESPONDENT: I suppose my preference is though to reserve the word ‘reprehensible’ for deeds of more severity than common forms of insalubrity. RICHARD: Apart from repeating your ‘reserve for severity’ preference (as if you had never said you would not exclude misdemeanours) I notice that you have written ‘common forms of insalubrity’ rather than ‘common forms of reprehensibility’. If something is reprehensible it is reprehensible whether it be of a severe form or common form ... reprehensibility does not miraculously become insalubrity just because it is a minor infraction rather than a major infraction. RESPONDENT: Use the word however you prefer – I just want to make sure I understand your usage. I do like your convention of sensible vs. silly – it is much better than words that carry blame, like ‘reprehensible’. RICHARD: Essentially all I am doing is taking a word, which denotes the incurrence of disapproval from one’s fellow human beings when one’s behaviour is not in accord with civil order, into an area where it has never been applied before – into where the cause of the aberrant behaviour lies – and it is an area where !Lo! and !Behold! the blaming aspect of the word has no application (it is an exercise in futility to blame blind nature for continuing to provide the instinctual survival passions which were necessary all those thousands of years ago). The release from blame does not release one from consequences, however, hence the word is still applicable when referring to that which is not conducive to living happily and harmlessly with one’s fellow human beings. * RESPONDENT: ... let’s take an example where I am in a car accident and I am deemed ‘guilty’. Now, in this case I am guilty because I am at fault – I ‘caused’ the accident. Yet it would seem to do no good whatsoever for me to blame myself for being the guilty party in the accident. Rather it would be better for me to understand the causes of my negligence and work towards correcting it. I take it you are saying something similar about being ‘guilty at conception’. It is not my fault that I am born as a ‘being’. And it doesn’t help to wallow in feeling guilty, rather one should understand how to rectify one’s negligence and flawed nature. A question arises about this sort of guilt. Does it help to feel guilty? RICHARD: No ... which is the whole point of realising that it is not ‘my’ fault and that ‘I’ am not to blame: it makes no more sense to feel guilty about being born with the human condition in situ than it does to feel guilty about the colour of one’s skin, for example, or any other characteristic which is determined at conception. The same would apply to feeling shame. It is pertinent to point out at this stage that I am not advocating immorality but rather the elimination of the cause of that which requires morality to keep in check ... then one is automatically amoral (neither moral nor immoral). In a word: innocent. RESPONDENT: No one is to blame, so I’m assuming it doesn’t really help to ‘feel guilty’ – so you are not trying to put a ‘guilt trip’ on anyone, rather pointing out the insalubrity of being a ‘being’. RICHARD: I am not only pointing out the insalubrity of being a ‘being’ but also the social reprehensibility of being insalubrious. RESPONDENT: I find that feeling guilt doesn’t help me at all to rectify anything, but seeing the silliness of something and aiming to be more sensible does indeed help. Maybe what is happening here is that you are using language like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘guilty’ and ‘blameworthy’ and ‘culpable’ where all these words normally imply a feeling of guilt – then you come back and say that no-one is to blame – which for me, is a bit confusing. RICHARD: All I mean by the word guilty in the phrase ‘guilty at conception’ is not-innocent ... and I only use the word because so many people over the years have told me that children are born innocent and that adults have lost their childhood innocence (the Tabula Rasa theory). I see that I first used the term ‘guilty at conception’ – and in that very context – in ‘Richard’s Journal’ many years ago:
Not only did I preface it with ‘they are not to blame’ but I see that I even put the word ‘guilty’ in scare quotes to indicate that I did not mean it in the normal sense (a practice which I seem to have later dropped). * RESPONDENT: So ‘guilt’ for you is not to blame, but to point to the cause of socially reprehensible acts. I have to wonder whether it would be better to stick with ‘insalubrious’ or ‘silly’ – rather than ‘reprehensible’ or ‘guilty’ – which do (to me anyway) carry the implication of blame. RICHARD: Yet neither ‘silly’ nor ‘insalubrious’ work to counteract the ‘children are innocent’ claim. Vis.:
The only other antonym to the word ‘innocent’ that I have come across is the word ‘sinful’. * RESPONDENT: ... Rather than leave my conclusion vague, let me summarize. I agree that being a ‘being’ is ‘personally insalubrious’ – as in being a much better decision for one’s own and other’s sake(s) to self-immolate. One is better off whittling away at the social identity and instinctual passions. RICHARD: I do not see how you can draw the conclusion that it is a much better decision for ‘other’s sake(s)’ from the term ‘personally insalubrious’ only ... if there be no term referring to the communal benefit it would be (correctly) seen as being a selfish enterprise to ‘self’-immolate for personal reasons alone. Besides which the necessary ingredient for ‘self’-immolation – altruism – would be missing thus rendering any such endeavour powerless and doomed to failure from the start. I mean it when I say that, with the pristine nature of peace-on-earth being impeccable, nothing dirty can get in. RESPONDENT: Personally, I would stay away from phrases like ‘guilty at conception’ or ‘socially reprehensible’ to describe human nature because they imply blame. RICHARD: I am well aware that words such as ‘guilty’ and ‘reprehensible’ have blaming implications ... and I invite you to undertake the exercise in futility of putting the blame where it rightly belongs (onto blind nature) so that you can see for yourself how human beings have been unnecessarily berating themselves since time immemorial for something they are simply not to blame for. What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition ... if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’). Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. RESPONDENT: For me, ‘guilty’ is merely a term pointing to a person who caused something (also it is a legal term) – but it has much room for confusion, since one must qualify how it is possible to be ‘guilty’ without ‘blame’. RICHARD: I am at a loss to see how my qualification has ‘much room for confusion’ as I am quite specific about what I mean by the term ‘guilty at conception’ (meaning not innocent at conception let alone born innocent) ... and even without qualification surely it is obvious that one is not personally to blame for that which is determined at conception? RESPONDENT: ‘Reprehensible’ to me carries moral underpinnings. RICHARD: A lot of words can carry ‘moral underpinnings’ – after all they were coined by peoples trapped within the human condition without knowing how or why – yet even so I would rather stay with existing words rather than coining new words. RESPONDENT: There are indeed atrocious and not so atrocious acts and vibes that might be termed ‘reprehensible’, but I don’t see the value in saying that we are ‘socially reprehensible’ at birth or ‘guilty at conception’. RICHARD: Just for starters the value of it lies in setting the record straight in regards the erroneous claims that children are born innocent (and thus irreprehensible) ... which means it has value inasmuch one will cease reaching back into childhood – or back into some projected ‘Golden Age’ – for that which is simply not there ... innocence (and hence irreprehensibility) is entirely new to human history and exists only in the actual world. It has value in that the way is cleared to see what has been just here right now all along. ALAN: The next question to be answered is whether the ASC is a worthwhile goal to pursue. The ASC surely beats the shit out of being ‘normal’ and I certainly felt happy and harmless, to use your expression. RICHARD: Hmm ... ‘felt’ happy and harmless is the operative word here! There is nothing harmless about divinity ... this is a very selfish and self-centred approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. The quest to secure one’s Immortality is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the imagined soul after physical death. So much for their humanitarian ideals of peace, goodness, altruism, philanthropy and humaneness. All Religious and Spiritual and Mystical Quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All Religious and Spiritual and Mystical Leaders fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the Eternal After-Life. The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: the overriding importance of the survival of ‘self’. As for being happy ... the manifestation of love – the antidote for malice – and the manifestation of compassion – the antidote for sorrow – self-evidently bespeaks the spurious basis for their contingent happiness. RESPONDENT: I don’t understand how can anything be wrong in this universe. According to Richard (in fact, according to many Enlightened ones, but Richard never accepts it), the world is so perfect that nothing can be wrong here. RICHARD: Try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to grief to depression and then suicide. And as for religiosity or spirituality or mysticality not being wrong just try saying that to the Buddhist woman who is being raped by a Hindu soldier; try saying that to the Sikh father whose son has been brutally tortured by Muslim terrorists; try saying that to a Jewish grandmother whose entire family has been wiped out by pious Christians; try saying that to a Taoist girl whose life has been violated and ruined by Shinto soldiers; try saying that to a Zen monk whose whole city has been razed by an atomic explosion! Life in the real-world is a grim and glum business. Only this actual world is already perfect. RESPONDENT: Then where is the question of bringing peace to earth. RICHARD: My questioning of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being had all started in a war-torn country in June 1966 at age nineteen – when there was an identity inhabiting this body complete with a full suite of feelings – and a Buddhist monk killed himself in a most gruesome way. There was I, a callow youth dressed in a jungle-green uniform and with a loaded rifle in my hand, representing the secular way to peace. There was a fellow human being, dressed in religious robes dowsed with petrol and with a cigarette lighter in hand, representing the spiritual way to peace. I was aghast at what we were both doing ... and I sought to find a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’. This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. Humanity’s inhumanity to humankind – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in this body – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better than others at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can consistently control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampart. I saw that animal instincts – what I now know to be fear and aggression and nurture and desire – ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with. This is why I am so insistent in what I write. After my experience in a war-zone I wished to do something constructive with my life; I wished to rid myself, personally, of the ‘human nature’ which all people say can not be changed. Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition ... and my attitude, all those years ago was this: I was only interested in changing myself fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. Twenty six years later I found the third alternative ... but only when ‘I’ ceased to exist in ‘my’ entirety. There was no change or transformation big enough or grandiose enough to cure ‘me’ ... only extinction – extirpation, annihilation, expunction – ensures that the already always existing peace-on-earth will become apparent. This is because this actual world is already perfect. SETH: Animals have a sense of justice that you do not understand, and built-in to that innocent sense of integrity there is a biological compassion, understood at the deepest cellular levels. In your terms man is an animal, rising out of himself, from himself evolving certain animal capacities to their utmost; not forming new physical specialisations of body any longer (again in your terms), but creating from his needs, desires and blessed natural aggressiveness inner structures having to do with values, space and time. To varying degrees this same impetus resides throughout all creature-hood. Such a task meant that man must break out of the self-regulating, precise, safe and yet limiting aspects of instinct. The birth of a conscious mind, as think of it, meant that the species took upon itself free will. Built-in procedures that had beautifully sufficed could now be superseded. They became suggestions instead of rules. Compassion ‘rose’ from the biological structure up to emotional reality. The ‘new’ consciousness accepted its emerging triumph – freedom – and was faced with responsibility for action of a conscious level, and with the birth of guilt. A cat playfully killing a mouse and eating it is not evil. It suffers no guilt. On biological levels both animals understand. The consciousness of the mouse, under the innate knowledge of impending pain, leaves its body. The cat uses the warm flesh. The mouse itself has been hunter as well as prey, and both understand the terms in ways that are very difficult to explain. (As Seth-Jane delivered this material, my mind flashed back many years to a summer day when I was about eleven years old. With my two brothers 1 sat in the back yard of the house in which we grew up, in a small town not far from Elmira. Our next-door neighbour’s cat, Mitzi, had caught a field mouse. She played with it in the grass; with conflicting feelings I watched Mitzi, of whom I was very fond, block off each attempt of the terrified mouse to escape – until finally, having had her sport, she ate it. At certain levels both cat and mouse understand the nature of the life energy they share, and are not – in those terms – jealous for their own individuality’. RESPONDENT: To me the above is far closer to Richard’s natural amoral stance. RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: Richard does not have a ‘natural amoral stance’ at all.
The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Did the wisdom of a bodiless spirit called ‘Seth’ (an aspect of ‘God’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom upon Ms. Jane Roberts as amorality indubitably is? And further: how has anyone benefited from a wisdom that promotes a ‘blessed natural aggressiveness’ by equating what a cat does with a mouse as being ‘playfully killing’ and thus ‘that innocent sense of integrity’ and ‘sense of justice’ wherein there is a ‘biological compassion’ because (and this is the central argument) the ‘consciousness of the mouse’ (and a ‘terrified mouse’ at that) ‘leaves its body’ via an ‘innate knowledge of impending pain’ as being a ‘‘new’ consciousness’ by virtue of the ‘emerging triumph’ known as ‘free will’ whereupon all these instinctual impulses are somehow ‘superseded’ by an ‘emotional reality’ induced by ‘the birth of guilt’ wherein committing all the aforementioned mayhem and misery is now felt as being a ‘suggestion’ to live by rather than a ‘rule’ ... and gratuitously called ‘freedom’ ? This inhumane ‘suggestion’ (condoning and/or advocating the inducing of terror in another) and gruesome ‘‘new’ consciousness’ (condoning and/or advocating homicide as it is the body and not the consciousness which is killed) is identical to that divine wisdom found in the Bhagavad-Gita where Mr. Krishna (‘God’ by whatever name) assures Mr. Arjuna that it is quite okay to kill his relatives in war because (a) it is his duty by virtue of the caste he was born into ... and (b) he would not be killing the person anyway but only the body. May I ask? How do you see this as being even remotely close to what Richard experiences and thus promulgates? RESPONDENT No. 1: It surprises me to see morality thrown into a debate about truth. Morality (...) will stand in the way to honesty and truth. A lover of truth (...) is neither ‘moral’, nor ‘immoral’, but unconcerned about it; ‘amoral’, if you want. RICHARD: Indeed, yet a person is amoral only when they can totally and reliably be capable of spontaneously interacting in the world of people, things and events, in a way that is neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible, at all times and under any circumstance without exception. The $64,000 question then appears to be this: Does the altered state of consciousness known as ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’ (an embodiment of ‘The Truth’ by whatever name) bestow such a remarkable freedom that amorality indubitably is? RESPONDENT: If there is just living there cannot be good and bad. RICHARD: Does your phrase ‘just living’ represent amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’)? If so, what are the qualities that epitomise ‘just living’? Does ‘neither personally insalubrious nor socially reprehensible’ constitute equitable qualities worthy of the name ‘amoral’? RESPONDENT: I have no idea where I am going with this e-mail but we’ll just see ... kind of just thinking aloud on issues I have not really thought about. RICHARD: I am sure you will find, as you read through where you went in your response, that although you started with the question on amorality it rapidly became a discussion about morality ... even to the point of positing a ‘True Morality’. The question is about amorality ... not morality (nor immorality). RESPONDENT: Let’s get to the heart of the matter. What I call ‘just living’ is beyond all morals. There are no morals. That is how a child inherently lives. A child may poke his mother in the eye. There is nothing evil in that – he is just experimenting – just playing. Now when we grow older we know that such an action causes pain so we would not do it. A child just lives. When he wants milk he cries. He doesn’t care if it is convenient for the mother. Now what happens when we grow older and realise that sometimes what we want may be inconvenient to others. This is the whole point of morals. Let’s say I decide I need £10,000. So I go and rob some bank, because I don’t care about others. Now that is not an acceptable form of behaviour. And if that is enlightenment then people will say ‘Well you can just keep your enlightenment. It’s not for me’. We live in a society – not in isolation. Society needs rules, and they need to be enforced because otherwise some people will take advantage. So we end up with the type of society we have. Enforcing the rules may cause reactions when some feel it is not fair. Lots of things are not fair. Reactions are the central issue. Reactions happen from hurt feelings and from resentment, when we take things personally. When we react we may perform actions that will deliberately hurt or harm others ... because we feel justified. This is also done on a larger scale – wars are started because a country may feel it is justified in taking a certain position to defend another country, or the rights of certain people. It is all about ‘I am right’ and ‘you are wrong’, which are all opinions. I am merely observing here – not taking a position. So now let’s compare this to an enlightened person – or an enlightened society. Ideally there will be no reactions. Each person does whatever they choose without deliberately hurting another. Sometimes another will be inadvertently hurt. That person does not react but just accepts it as part of life and learns from it – asks himself ‘What is life teaching me’ instead of ‘I’ll get that person back’. It is not a matter of forgiveness. It is much deeper – it is recognising there is no ‘wrong’ and therefore nothing to forgive. It is ultimately realising that whatever happens it is all for a reason – the advaita view – that we are not the doers. Whatever happens just happens – there is a higher purpose. This concept is a central part of many religions. Guru Nanak (Sikhism) talks of this a lot – that God is the Doer – and further says that once we live this way the ego disappears. We are not the doer and there in no more reaction. We want life to happen our way – but it doesn’t. Once we learn to take life as it comes there is no more reaction – we just accept. No more blaming – we live in acceptance of what is. We can still have goals – but we don’t get too concerned with the results. This is the central teaching of the Gita – Krishna explains this to Arjuna. True Morality then becomes a matter of being ourself – doing whatever we choose – just so long as we do not consciously harm another. It is having respect for the freedom of others too. Live and let live. Not the mechanical obedience of fixed rules – but living from the heart. Mechanical obedience of fixed rules creates a ‘good and bad’ standard and we then condemn those who fit into the ‘bad’ category, and this becomes the trap: we now condemn others – blame – this causes resentment. There is no way out. Reactions cause further reactions and before you know it you have WW3 on your hands. RICHARD: There are several key points that come to light in this exploration:
What I was curious about was whether your phrase ‘just living’ represented amorality for you (neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’) and that, if so, what the qualities were that epitomised ‘just living’ ? What I gathered, from your response, is that ‘just living’ is not amorality at all ... and is, in fact, predicated on a ‘True Morality’ that is based on (so far unnamed) heart-felt feelings and at least two clearly stated dictums regarding how other people are treated (with no stated qualities on how you treat yourself). Is this a fair appraisal? * RESPONDENT: Are you saying that a child is NOT born Innocent? Are you saying a child has evilness built in? I maintain that a child is born innocent. Please explain what you mean here. RICHARD: The hoary belief that all children are born innocent (the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory) is dying a lingering death ... but dying it is. The genetic mapping project and brain imaging studies of recent times have conclusively shown empirically that instinctual passions (the survival instincts) are physically encoded in the DNA and/or RNA of every foetus at conception. These genetically-inherited passions include fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... and all sentient beings, to some degree or another, come biologically equipped with this rudimentary ‘software package’ of basic animal passions per favour blind nature as a rough and ready start to life. And the potential for malice * RICHARD: You observe that as the child grows older it realises the inconvenience caused to
others by its unawareness of inconsiderateness ... thus what looks like innocence in a child is actually ignorance (not
knowing). This awakening of awareness of others being the same as oneself is what is called ‘theory of mind’ RESPONDENT: Yes – the child is innocent – but the innocence is from ignorance. This does not take the innocence away – it simply means it is a different type of innocence. The child is still innocent. RICHARD: I notice that you used the word ‘innocent/innocence’ five times in this short response ... just repeating a hoary belief again and again like a mantra does not miraculously turn it into a fact. The fabled ‘innocence’ of child-hood (the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory) turns out to be nothing more than a lack of knowledge, regarding the function that the instinctual passions play, on the part of those who invented that theory. Modern empirical scientific research has shone more than a little light on factors that the ancients simply did not yet know (satellite photographs and astronaut’s/cosmonaut’s reports, for example, finally set the ‘flat earth’ theory conclusively to rest once and for all). A child is instinctively driven just as adults are ... only on a more rudimentary scale. * RESPONDENT: The child is selfish – but there is nothing wrong with that – because the child is not yet aware that there are others to consider. So the child’s quality of ‘being selfish’ is not ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. It is innocent. There is no evil intent. RICHARD: I am not talking of the legal definition for culpability here (wherein the offender has to know that they are doing wrong in order to be guilty). This is not a court of law ... this is biology. RESPONDENT: I am talking about intent. Intent is what matters. If I ACCIDENTALLY kill someone in my car – that is not ‘evil’. If I do it on PURPOSE it would be considered ‘evil’ or ‘wrong’. The INTENT is what matters. RICHARD: Are you really saying that any parent protecting their helpless progeny from a
predator with all their might and main is ‘evil’ or ‘wrong’ simply because of their ‘intent’
to kill. And does the same apply to the military ... who protect you and your kin from invaders? The police ... who
protect you and your kin from banditry? Are they ‘evil’ or ‘wrong’ simply because of their ‘intent’
to kill? Do you propose nihilistic anarchism? Pacifism RESPONDENT: Actually LEGALLY it is different because the law says ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’. RICHARD: Aye ... but if you have ever been a parent yourself you will know by direct
experience that society requires that you instil values and principles in your children RICHARD: ... and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like have been the odious result of [belief, faith, trust, hope and the uneasy certitude engendered] for far too long to persevere in giving credence to the fantasies and hallucinations that pass for sagacity. Fuelled by an emotional imagination, human beings down through the centuries have given voice to their passionate dreams and nightmares, with abominable consequences. RESPONDENT: Some of that is karma, people who have raped needing to be raped to understand how rape is not right. RICHARD: Once again ... if your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped would you really stand by saying to her: ‘people who have raped need to be raped to understand how rape is not right’ ? Not only is she being raped but on top of that horrific experience you are hanging a guilt trip upon her that she did some raping herself in a past life ... infallibly intuited, presumably, by your ‘totally accurate’ feelings and non-interpreted ‘ideas’, perchance? RESPONDENT No. 20: Are you speaking about existing without self? RICHARD: Yes, but not only without a self ... without a ‘Self’ as well. One is
well-advised to pay attention to those basic instincts that give rise to what the Christians coyly call ‘Original Sin’ RESPONDENT: Obviously what disappears can not be original face, which is nothingness. RICHARD: Oh, yes it can ... and does. At the risk of sounding like No. 22, ‘nothingness’ is a concept. People, seeing everything to be transient, seek permanence and posit an enduring ‘nothingness’ ... then yearn to live in it. It being a massive delusory hallucination, only a rare few succeed. Yet all this while, this physical universe – being infinite and eternal – is permanent. Why do people look for something beyond it? Something metaphysical? : If there is an actual physical threat yet no immediate evaluative (emotional) response to that physical threat gets registered, a valuable feedback loop is absent. RICHARD: Yes ... the instinctual survival passions are what has enabled all sentient beings alive today to be here on the planet: all animals – including the human animal – are the end-result of the ‘success story’ of what you rightly describe as the ‘immediate evaluative (emotional) response to that physical threat’. RESPONDENT: We have the capacity to immediately intuit through feelings what is what without the time and delay required for thinking that there is a threat, calculating the nature of the threat and assessing in a linear manner what is the optimal response to that threat. RICHARD: Yes, those who study these things with precision instruments have repeatedly determined that the non-cognitive or emotional brain receives the perceptive signal 12-14 milliseconds before the cognitive brain. The non-cognitive brain releases chemicals which flood the brain – including the cognitive brain – and the remainder of the body with what is non-cognitively (emotionally) assessed as appropriate ... this is described as ‘the quick and dirty’ response. The perceptive signal takes 24 milliseconds to reach the cognitive brain: by the time thinking commences thought is flooding with chemicals ... and is receiving signals from the emotional brain through a direct neuro-pathway. There is also a neuro-pathway from the cognitive brain back to the non-cognitive emotional brain which transmits signals for the emotional brain to continue, alter or cease the chemical release. This neuro-pathway back to the non-cognitive brain, in contrast to the ‘broadband’ neuro-pathway from the emotional brain to the cognitive brain, is a ‘narrowband’ neuro-pathway ... which is why thought takes time to calm the non-cognitive brain if its emotional reaction is cognitively adjudged inappropriate. If cognitively adjudged appropriate it can signal an increase in the chemical release which, via the broadband/narrowband feed-back loop, can escalate all the way through to what can be called ‘blind rage’ ... as in ‘I saw red’ or ‘I don’t know what came over me’. This is because the considered cognitive response – being flooded with chemicals – cannot necessarily consider with clarity until the chemical release ceases ... which can result in chagrin or mortification (another chemical release) or some other feeling (some other chemical release) after the event if the emotionally reactive behaviour was inappropriate. Shall I follow this through but one of the many, many possible scenarios? The feeling of chagrin or mortification can result in a feeling of shame or guilt (another chemical release); shame or guilt can result in a feeling of regret or remorse (another chemical release); regret or remorse can result in a feeling of penitence or repentance (another chemical release); penitence or repentance can result in a feeling of absolution or forgiveness (another chemical release); absolution or forgiveness can result in a feeling of thankfulness or gratitude (another chemical release); thankfulness or gratitude can result in a feeling of affection or love (another chemical release); affection or love can result in a feeling of belonging or oneness (another chemical release). These chemical floods are so addictive, of course, that they can lead to what could be called continuous substance abuse ... both legally and morally recommended and sanctioned by society at large. RESPONDENT: The absence of fear in a tree or ashtray or armchair implies that intelligence (clear perception of a threat) is not operating on the level of the particular. RICHARD: The neuro-scientists would be hard-pressed to describe the ‘quick and dirty’ response – the non-cognitive emotional reaction – as ‘intelligence’ or ‘clear perception of a threat’ ... if by ‘clear’ and ‘intelligence’ you mean a non-emotional, thoughtful response. And a ‘tree or ashtray or armchair’ are not perceptive at all ... let alone emotional or thoughtful.
SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON GUILT (Part Two) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED 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.
Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997-2001 |
