|
Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Our Animal Instinctual Passions in the Primitive Brain
RICHARD: ... there is more to understanding human nature than pointing the finger at thought. Vis.: [Respondent]: ‘The self is nothing other than conditioning, the thinker/ feeler/ doer is thought’. [endquote]. As feelings demonstrably come before thought in the perceptive process this is but a shallow understanding. RESPONDENT: Why divide the process up? RICHARD: I am not dividing the process up ... that is how it operates naturally (as is borne out by laboratory testing): sensate perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary. The sensate signal, a loud sound for example, takes 12-14 milliseconds to reach the affective faculty and 24-25 milliseconds to reach the cognitive faculty: thus by the time reasoned cognition can take place the instinctual passions are pumping freeze-fight-flee chemicals throughout the body thus agitating cognitive appraisal ... and whilst there is a narrowband circuit from the cognitive centre to the affective centre (through which reason can dampen-down and stop the reactive response) the circuitry from the affective faculty to the cognitive faculty is broadband (which is why it takes some time to calm down after an emotional reaction). RESPONDENT: By dividing the process up, I mean, why bring in the aspect of time or chronology? RICHARD: Again, I am not bringing in sequence (the chronology of time) as that is what happens of its own accord ... and it is so easy to find out for oneself this is so that science is not required at all: there is a loud noise; there is an alarming feeling-freeze-fight-flee; there is thought seeking to evaluate. Ergo: sensate perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary. As animals other than the human animal display this ‘fright-freeze-fight-flee’ instinctually passionate reaction it is patently obvious that the feeling self is primal and the thinking self derivative ... and that the thinking self is, fundamentally, affective in substance. Moreover, there is some evidence that awareness of being this primordial ‘self’ – as in ‘self’-consciousness – has arisen in other animals: the chimpanzee, for example, can recognise its image in a mirror as being itself and not another of its species (such as the canary does for instance) and there are preliminary reports that the same may be happening for the dolphin. Further to the point, as the essential affective feelings are in situ before thought first arises in infancy – a baby is born already feeling – it becomes even more obvious that the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in sentient beings ... that the already existing basic set of survival passions form themselves into being the intuitive presence which, at root, is what any ‘me’ ultimately is long before the thinker comes into being. Any and all conditioning, be it familial, societal, peer-group, or environmental imprinting, needs substance to latch onto, sink into, and be ... it all washes off a clean slate like water off a duck’s back. Innocence is something entirely new to human experience. RICHARD: ... there is more to understanding human nature than pointing the finger at thought. Vis.: [Respondent No. 12]: ‘The self is nothing other than conditioning, the thinker/feeler/doer is thought’. [endquote]. As feelings demonstrably come before thought in the perceptive process this is but a shallow understanding. RESPONDENT No. 12: Why divide the process up? RICHARD: I am not dividing the process up ... that is how it operates naturally (as is borne out by laboratory testing): sensate perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary. The sensate signal, a loud sound for example, takes 12-14 milliseconds to reach the affective faculty and 24-25 milliseconds to reach the cognitive faculty: thus by the time reasoned cognition can take place the instinctual passions are pumping freeze-fight-flee chemicals throughout the body thus agitating cognitive appraisal ... and whilst there is a narrowband circuit from the cognitive centre to the affective centre (through which reason can dampen-down and stop the reactive response) the circuitry from the affective faculty to the cognitive faculty is broadband (which is why it takes some time to calm down after an emotional reaction). RESPONDENT: I have heard you make a distinction between the instincts and the instinctual passions ... RICHARD: As the words ‘instincts’ and ‘instinctual survival mechanism’ my co-respondent was using covers a wide range of innate behaviours – heritable traits such as the display movements of birds (as in peacocks for instance), or the web-spinning actions of spiders, the burrowing habits of marine worms, the prey-catching techniques of weasels or wolves, the food-hoarding activity of squirrels, the browsing methods of antelope, birds flying north (or south) for winter, river eels travelling thousands of kilometres out into the ocean to spawn and the feelings finding their own way back to the self-same river, and so on – it seemed necessary to point out, for clarity in communication, that I was referring to the instinctual survival passions in particular, the genetically-encoded affective feelings, and not the instincts in general. RESPONDENT: ... and here above you are saying that the instinctual passions are pumping freeze-fight-flee chemicals through the body. Do the instinctual passions arise from the instincts? RICHARD: No, they are biologically inherited just as all the other instincts are ... and although there is no absolute consensus among biologists and their ilk, as to what feelings are primary and what feelings are cultivated derivations, wherever I have listened to, read about, or watched professionals in this field discussing the issue, at least four basic passions cropped up again and again: the feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. RESPONDENT: Are they connected? RICHARD: Not necessarily ... although a great many instinctual actions are infused with, if not motivated by, the instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: How does this work? RICHARD: A readily observable instinctive reaction in oneself, that is not necessarily affective, is the automatic response known as the reflex action (inadvertently touch a hotplate, for instance, and there is an involuntary jerking away of the affected limb) or the startle response. A classic example of this occurred whilst strolling along a country lane one fine morning with the sunlight dancing its magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; these eyes are delighting in the profusion of colour and texture and form as the panorama unfolds; these ears are revelling in the cadence of tones as their resonance and timbre fills the air; these nostrils are rejoicing in the abundance of aromas and scents drifting fragrantly all about; this skin is savouring the touch, the caress, of the early springtime ambience; this mind, other than the sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive as this flesh and blood body, is ambling along in neutral – there is no thought at all and conscious alertness is null and void – when all-of-a-sudden the easy gait has ceased happening. These eyes instantly shift from admiring the dun-coloured cows in a field nearby and are looking downward to the front and see the green and black snake, coiling up on the road in readiness to act, which had not only occasioned the abrupt halt but, it is discovered, had initiated a rapid step backwards ... an instinctive response which, had the instinctual passions that are the identity been in situ, could very well have triggered off freeze-fight-flee chemicals. There is no perturbation whatsoever (no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, and so on) as with the complete absence of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ in the primordial brain the limbic system in general, and the amygdala in particular, have been free to do their job – the oh-so-vital startle response – both efficaciously and cleanly. Cattle, for example, are easily ‘spooked’ by a reptile and have been known to stampede in infectious group panic. RESPONDENT No. 33: ... There is no freedom from suffering – none, whatsoever. RESPONDENT No. 39: I can’t argue based on my own experience but how do you account for Richard’s view? RESPONDENT No. 33: When you say, ‘I can’t argue based on my experience’ it implies, in my opinion, that you are saying there is no freedom from your personal suffering. But a Buddha goes beyond that view. For him personal suffering may not exist, but he still suffers with his fellow human beings. That’s an important distinction between the suffering of X and that of a Buddha. RESPONDENT No. 39: This doesn’t make sense to me because suffering is still suffering whether it is personal or with others. Here is a piece of an article that I posted a few days ago which I found interesting: ‘Fear and the brain: Twenty years ago no one knew how fear conditioning worked. But by surgically removing discrete parts of rodents’ brains – and performing the same simple conditioning experiment – researchers have detailed the underlying mechanisms. The fear system’s command centre is the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure that rests near the centre of the brain and is elaborately tied to other regions through nerve fibres. A rat lacking an amygdala won’t freeze at the sound of a tone, no matter how often the tone is paired with a shock. And though human subjects can’t be carved up or electrocuted for the sake of science, studies of patients with damaged amygdalae show that they have similar deficits. Unlike people with intact brains, they’re no more attuned to emotionally charged words such as rape than to bland ones like handkerchief. And though they can recognize individual faces, they don’t perceive threatening expressions as unfriendly. Even a split-second glance at a hostile face activates the amygdala in a normal brain. (Newsweek, Feb 24: http//msnbc.com/news/873610.asp?0dm=c319N#BODY) . I find it interesting that a person with a damaged amygdala has similar experiences as Richard. Evidently he has found a way to disconnect the amygdala which is where suffering is generated. RESPONDENT: Is your interpretation correct or are you making castles in the air? The above doesn’t mind that ‘a person with a damaged amygdala has similar experiences as Richard’ as you say. It means that a persons or a animal with a damaged amygdala can get a serious deficit for functionality in the outer world. To freeze is a defensive response in rats; the experiment shows that, after injuring the rat many times, the animal can not associate the tone and the injury and so doesn’t rise its defensive system. You are always interested in the amygdala business, perhaps the following can help you: [J Neurosci 2003 Jan 1;23(1):23-8]: ‘Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (a cerebral area) is critically involved in unlearned fear, whereas the amygdala is more involved in the acquisition and expression of learned fear’. [endquote]. Personal comment: Unlearned fear = innate passions. Learned fear = fear from memory. Amygdala doesn’t process especially the so called innate passions but learned emotions, it processes fear from memory (thought based). RICHARD: Here is the paragraph which contains the full sentence from which the quote you provide has been snipped:
As the parenthesised words ‘(a cerebral area)’ are not in the original it would appear they have been added by an interpolator as an explanatory aid ... yet the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis is generally designated as being part of the extended amygdala. Vis.:
The following URL provides both a photograph of a sliced human brain and a corresponding diagram (in which the stria terminus is annotated with the number 9): http://www.vh.org/adult/provider/anatomy/BrainAnatomy/Ch5Text/Section11.html In case the above URL is not accessible the relevant text on that page is as follows:
Put succinctly: the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (small patches of grey matter) lies in the latter part of the stria terminalis (a bundle of fibres) which is the main outwardly conducting pathway from the amygdaloid nuclear complex ... which complex is not generally held to be ‘a cerebral area’. Here is what the word ‘cerebral’ usually means:
Yet the first sentence of the paragraph which contains the full sentence from which the interpolated quote you provide states the following:
As it relates to experiments conducted on rats, and not humans, your ‘personal comment’ that the amygdalae process fear from ‘(thought based)’ memory is somewhat odd – unless you are suggesting that rats can think – as what the words ‘learned fear’ usually indicate in these types of experiments is that the rat has been conditioned to respond with fear to a tone (a tone initially paired with the passage of an electric shock through a metal plate upon which the rat is standing) ... therefore the words ‘learned fear’ in this instance refer to conditioned fear and not ‘(thought based)’ fear. Thus it is apparent that the amygdalae process fear from emotional/passional memory – and not thought-based memory – as is evidenced, for an example, by peoples with damaged amygdalae (as per the Newsweek quote much further above). Vis.:
What is even more odd is that you say that ‘unlearned fear = innate passions’ anyway – all you are doing is entering into the current scientific dispute as to where it is mediated – which innateness (meaning a genetically inherited origin) of emotion/passion is my main point when writing about these matters ... my associated point being that feelings come before thought (12-14 milliseconds earlier) in the perceptive process. Hence it is of little relevance, if any, precisely where in the extended amygdalae the unlearned/innate passions are mediated. RESPONDENT: ... I am not going to lose my time anymore with all this shit on the amygdala, it leads to nowhere. RICHARD: At the very least it has led to your acknowledgement that, at root, fear is an
innate passion ... which innateness, as far as I have been able to ascertain Which could explain why he never discovered the already always existing peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT No. 33: Correctly speaking, though, identity itself is an illusion. RICHARD: Yes, although the illusion, just like all psychosomatic illnesses, somatises noticeable effects (such as emotional beliefs and passional truths) which in turn affect behaviour ... and which is especially noticeable when the illusion transmogrifies into a delusion (such as ‘Tat Tvam Asi’). RESPONDENT No. 33: Therefore, there is nothing that is rotten or not-rotten to the core. RICHARD: I beg to differ: it is a rotten illusion – just as its delusional core is – which rottenness is evidenced by its effects. RESPONDENT No. 33: There is no core even. RICHARD: Exactly ... which means that Brahman, for example, has no existence outside of the human psyche. RESPONDENT: When you said ‘it is a rotten illusion just as its delusional core is’ do you mean that the core/‘me’ itself is an illusion? RICHARD: Yes, although in this context – aggrandisement into a super ‘Self’ – it has become a delusion (born out of the illusion). RESPONDENT: Doesn’t the core (‘me’) actually exist since it is genetically inherited? RICHARD: No, what sentient beings genetically inherit is the instinctual survival passions – such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – which means that, because the affective impulse for survival is primary, whilst being able to sensately perceive the distinction between this body and that body (which perception is generally called consciousness of self and other) the instinctual feelings have dominance over sentient awareness ... thus the perceptive sense of self and other is usurped by the feeling of ‘self’ and ‘other’ (to the point of intuiting the similarly felt ‘self’ of the ‘other’). All sentient beings would be subject to this effect to some degree or another – however miniscule the effect may be by human comparison – which effect could be called a rudimentary animal ‘self’ for convenience. It is this feeling of ‘self’ (and of ‘other’ of course) which is the illusion ... and it is this feeling ‘self’, the feeler (‘me’ as soul), the ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), who gives rise to the thinking ‘self’, the thinker (‘I’ as ego), which is where cognitive self-consciousness has become cognitive ‘self’-consciousness. And the rest of the expansion of the affective ‘self’ (the delusional aggrandisement into a super ‘Self’) is a matter of ancient history. RESPONDENT: Ok, I think I understand what you are saying: The instinctual passions are genetically inherited and have a perception of self which becomes the feeling of self. RICHARD: No, the genetically-inherited instinctual passions do not have a perception of self ... what they do is usurp the sensate perception of self and create the feeling of ‘self’. RESPONDENT: It is the feeling of self (‘me’/soul/core) which is illusory which gives rise to the ‘I’/ego or thinker. In other words, the instinctual passions are genetically inherited and they give rise to the illusion of the ‘me’ and the ‘I’. RICHARD: Exactly, and what is vital to comprehend is that the feeler is primary and the thinker is secondary ... and that the thinker is but the tip of the iceberg. I kid you not ... the feeler automatically creates its own feeling reality, usurping sensate actuality as already explained, which reality is so all-pervasive that it is only in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that this actual world becomes apparent. RESPONDENT: Are you saying then that in order to eliminate the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ that the instinctual passions themselves have to be eliminated ... RICHARD: No ... and the reason why not is this simple: who would be doing the eliminating of the instinctual passions? As ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ it is an impossibility because the result of trying to do so would be a stripped-down rudimentary animal ‘self’ (seemingly) divested of feelings ... somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ and so on – and has repressed the others. RESPONDENT: ... and in order to do that the layers of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ have to be peeled back in order to uncover the raw instinctual passions? RICHARD: In the end, only altruistic ‘self’-immolation, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, will release the flesh and blood body from its parasitical resident and, as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, the end of ‘me’ is the end of ‘my’ feelings (aka the instinctual passions and all their cultivated derivations). Of course, one does not psychologically and psychically self-immolate just because it seems like a good idea at the time. 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 – as it is a once-in-a-lifetime determination and takes some considerable preparation. So, in the meantime, what one can do is choose to be as happy and harmless as is humanly possible each moment again – the means to the end are not different from the end – and with this pure intent, as one goes about one’s normal everyday life, each moment again provides an opportunity to find out what is preventing one from living in the already always existing peace-on-earth (as evidenced in the PCE). RESPONDENT: The layers of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ consisting of beliefs and identity. RICHARD: Well, as the word ‘identity’ is used to delineate the entity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul), it is clearer to say that the layers of identity consist of, not only beliefs, but all the rest of what constitutes identity. Asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive will incrementally reveal what ‘all the rest’ is made up of ... and of particular importance is the beliefs masquerading as truths. This moment of being alive is the only time one is alive, of course. RICHARD: There is much more to one’s background than conditioning ... one begins to comprehend that all the different types of socialisation (peer-group conditioning, parental conditioning and societal conditioning in general) are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over innumerable aeons to seek to curb the instinctual animal passions. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instinctual passions – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion as an antidote, as compensating pacifiers ... and the investigation ceases. It takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because below or behind the conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the conditioning can prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. RESPONDENT: I seem to remember the statement ‘instincts on rampage balk at investigation’. For the most part, then, we are content to, as you say, paddle around on the surface, avoiding deep investigation into ourselves. We want to have an image of ourselves as reasonable, respectable people rather than the bloodthirsty killers that we are. Pardon the hyperbole; perhaps that is putting it too starkly. RICHARD: Is it really true that ‘we want to have an image of ourselves as reasonable, respectable people’ which makes one ‘avoid deep investigation into ourselves’ ... or is such societal conditioning a necessity in order to curb the savage beast that lurks deep within the human breast? In other words: what if one has been inadvertently blaming conditioning all along for something that is not its fault? If one realises this is so ... then what happens? RESPONDENT: We may never have actually snuffed out a life, directly, but the potential for actual violence is there in the instinctual drives, the ‘human condition’ that you refer to. Yet the instinctual animal passions are there for a reason, are they not? RICHARD: Yes, to give one a (rough and ready) basic ‘software package’ operating system ... so as to give one a start to life. RESPONDENT: What is their basic function or raison d’être? RICHARD: To ensure the survival of the species ... and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned. Survival of the fittest means the most fitted to survive live to pass on their genes ... the species which is most fitted to the environment succeeds in the perpetuation of their species. Those that cannot adapt to the ever-changing environment are automatically weeded-out. The (supposed) ‘resurgence’ of viruses immune to the vast array of antibiotics (for instance) empirically demonstrates this ‘survival of the most fitted to the environment theory’ to be an actual occurrence. Thus ‘The Evolutionary Theory’ is now ‘The Evolutionary Fact’. RESPONDENT: Once necessary for survival, why have they continued on? RICHARD: Is this not because peoples have been conditioned by various sages and seers to blame the conditioning for causing what is actually caused by the human condition itself ... the very instinctual passions which necessitated the controls (conditioning) in the first place. Thus the fixation on the conditioning can and does prevent the investigation of the human condition itself. If one realises this is so ... then what happens? RESPONDENT: That [dissolution of the conditioning] means there are actual chemical or neuro-physiological changes, not the ‘death’ of an imagined psyche although it may seem like ‘me’ dying. RICHARD: One may call the ‘psyche’ imagined; one may call the ‘me’ imagined; one may call the ‘death’ imagined ... yet, as you say, there is a chemical neuro-physiological change. Whatever it is that dramatically ‘dies’ is but a playing-out of the tragedy of ‘being’ ... when the process that ‘I’ initiated with full intent wipes out all the instinctual passions one was born with. You see, there is this rudimentary animal ‘self’ of the survival instincts endowed by blind nature as evidenced in animals ... and there is the rub. The presence of this base ‘self’ – which is ‘being’ itself – has nothing to do with imagination – or with conditioning and programming or thought and memory – you were physically born this way. The psyche is not memory at all ... it is born of the instinctual passions. When ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct the psyche vanishes ... then memory is understood as being the asset that it is and not a liability. RESPONDENT: Whether it is psychological programming or biological programming or both, it stems from accumulated past impressions. RICHARD: Not so ... biological programming, like the instinctive reactions, has its energy base in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that blind nature endows on all sentient beings. Unless you profess a belief in the incredulous Eastern mystical concept of re-incarnation, with its spurious karma, these cannot be ‘accumulated past impressions’. It is these instinctual passions that are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to think and reflect upon its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ this ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. This process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born ... which, as you have said, is conditioning and programming and thought and memory and imagining. It is part and parcel of the socialising process. Biological programming, however, is different to psychological programming ... you were physically born already biologically programmed. How can that programming come from ‘accumulated past impressions’? If you are referring to ‘genetic memory’, then be aware that this is a misnomer ... as it is a description of a biological process that has nothing to do with thoughts’ memory. RESPONDENT: If it is biological programming, that implies it arises from unconscious past impressions that have been stored in matter and operate now in a mechanical way. RICHARD: If I may point out? You are straying from the point? Psychological programming is stored in thoughts’ memory whereas the biological instincts are genetically imprinted as the affective faculty. You are blurring the distinction by using ‘unconscious past impressions’ to refer to both thought’s memory and biological imprinting. RESPONDENT: The so-called fight or flight mechanism is a good example. Doesn’t biological conditioning evolve from organic experience? Of course it does. RICHARD: Indeed ... but the instinctual passions are inherited via the joining of the spermatozoa and the ova. This biological heredity stretches back over many millennia of trial and error on the part of blind nature. This is a distinctly different process from parental or societal conditioning. Please look back (five of your sentences above) for the statement about the psyche that started this particular aspect of this thread. Let me copy and paste so there is no confusion:
I see that you clearly meant thought’s memory. RICHARD: Mr. Joseph LeDoux (and others) has demonstrated that much of the (non-cognitive) emotional memory is laid down before the infant can think ... let alone comprehend cause and effect. This instinctive reactionary behaviour (which he calls the ‘quick and dirty’ reaction) is blind nature’s survival instinct in action. It can (and has been) observed and documented again and again ... yet he and other commentators predict massive denial from all kinds of people to this scientifically demonstrated data. There has been much research into this growing science in these last few years. RESPONDENT: My point is simple: whatever the instinctive response is, it can never be completely described. An after-thought, which compares that response to some other response in the memory, can be described. But pure instinctive response: no. RICHARD: My point is simple too: I say that the ‘pure instinctive response’ can be described ... and that I do describe it. What are you (you who ‘observe with the objectivity of a scientist’ ) going to do with this person called Richard and his report of his experience? Dismiss him and his report ... along with all those scientific investigators like Mr. Joseph LeDoux? He and other commentators predict massive denial from all kinds of people to this scientifically demonstrated data. There has been much research into this growing science in these last few years. RICHARD: ... so far I have only been able to come across 15 passages where Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti uses the word ‘genetic’ and nowhere on those 15 occasions does he come even anywhere near comprehending the implications and ramifications involved in the affective feelings being rooted in the genetically-encoded instincts ... rather than in conditioning (be it societal, familial, peer-group or environmental conditioning). For an example: ‘The other day as one was walking along a secluded wooded lane far from the noise and the brutality and the vulgarity of civilisation, right away from everything that was put together by man, there was a sense of great quietness, enveloping all things – serene, distant, and full of the sound of the earth. As you walked along quietly, not disturbing the things of the earth around you, the bushes, the trees, the crickets, and the birds, suddenly around the bend there were two small creatures quarrelling with each other, fighting in their small way. One was trying to drive off the other. The other was intruding, trying to get into the other’s little hole, and the owner was fighting it off. Presently the owner won and the other ran off. Again there was quietness, a sense of deep solitude. And as you looked up, the path climbed high into the mountains, the waterfall was murmuring down the side of the path; there was great beauty and infinite dignity, not the dignity achieved by man that seems so vain and arrogant. The little creature had identified itself with its home, as we human beings do. We are always trying to identify ourselves with our race, with our culture, with those things which we believe in, with some mystical figure, some kind of super authority. Identifying with something seems to be the nature of man. Probably we have derived this feeling from that little animal. One wonders why this craving, longing, for identification exists’. (10 March 1983; ‘Krishnamurti To Himself’; ©1987 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.). But he does not wonder why it is probable that ‘we have derived this feeling from that little animal’ for very long as soon he has left behind everything that thought had put together and has completely forgotten himself ... RESPONDENT: Of course k isn’t so interested in tracing our behaviour to it’s animal sources. Leave that to the scientists. RICHARD: Being born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have maintained a life-long interest in observing the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings did not and does not need scientific verification. And even from my comfortable suburban living room I can watch documentaries on this very topic ... only recently a television programme was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to see fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, nurture, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on being displayed in living colour. RESPONDENT: Of course our instincts evolved with the creatures we stem from. RICHARD: Yet it is not the instincts per se I am referring to but the instinctual passions – the genetically-encoded affective feelings – such as what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was wondering about. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: K’s interest is only in the self, the psychological malfunctioning our species succumbed to, and if it’s possible to walk away from that. RICHARD: So I have noticed. RICHARD: The feeling self (‘me’ as soul) is primal and the thinking self (‘I’ as ego) is derivative and both are, fundamentally, affective in substance: as the essential affective feelings are in situ before thought first arises in infancy – a baby is born already feeling – the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in the species ... it is an hereditarily programmed, or genetically encoded, instinctually passionate inchoate presence, a rudimentary survival ‘self’ as it were. RESPONDENT: The senses are ‘genetically programmed’, embryonic feelings are probably due to prenatal experiences, the ‘rudimentary survival self’ is the beginning of learning. RICHARD: If the embryonic feelings are due to ‘prenatal experiences’ – and are not genetically programmed – are you suggesting that feelings arise ex nihilo? RESPONDENT: A foetus can be traumatized in many ways, but it shares much of the mothers chemistry. If the mother is tense, the foetus experiences this. There are studies that link gender ambivalence is boys to this. RICHARD: I do understand that, as babies born of heroin-addicted mothers are born suffering withdrawal symptoms, the many and varied chemicals which surge through the mother, when she is feeling fear or aggression or nurture or desire and so on, also pass through the placenta (thus flooding the foetus with these substances) ... but if the affective feelings are due only to ‘the mother’s chemistry’ – and are not encoded in the genetic blueprint at conception – then where did the mother get the chemicals from in the first place to thus pass them on in utero? RICHARD: To blur the distinction between the thinker and the feeler is to lose the plot altogether as the feeler only comes into full being when the thinker is not ... the advice ‘get out of your head and into your heart’ is well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk. RESPONDENT: ‘Get out of your head and into your heart’ obviously can mean different things to different people. But most would agree its a reference to how consciousness is being structured. Many people perceive the world as if that which is looking is centred in or behind the head area. The energy that looks is being channelled that way. As thought quiets down, there is a sinking from the head area into the heart centre so that looking seems to be channelled from there. The division of thinker from thought is absent. There may be a sense of union or non-separation where the lover and the beloved are one. RICHARD: Which is indicative of the feeler having come into full being ... as in no longer ‘me’ feeling the feeling, but the being of the very feeling itself (hence ‘being’ as in no longer ‘becoming’). RESPONDENT: As identifications below the level of conscious thought are exposed and fall away, there is a sense of attention sinking into the centre of the body or the mid-section so that observation stems from there. RICHARD: Yes, the advice ‘get out of your head and into your heart’ is but a generic term as, for just one example, the Japanese use of the word ‘hara’ or ‘hari’ (which translates as ‘belly’) serves to locate the centre of attention, the core of ‘being’ itself, more precisely as being four finger-widths below the navel ... the everyday English equivalent would be the common expression ‘gut-feeling’ (when referring to an intuitive hunch). Another way of saying it is that there are the more superficial feelings (emotional) and that there are the deeper feelings (passionate) and that the emotions are what one has and that the passions are who one is. RESPONDENT: If you go for a walk, from where is coming this desire to go for a walk? RICHARD: This is a loaded question and, as such, impossible to answer in its present form (there is life after desire). RESPONDENT: And if you are making sex where come these erections, out of the blue? RICHARD: No, engorgement of the genitals comes from tactile stimulation. RESPONDENT: I again ask you to excuse me for the questions, but I try to understand. RICHARD: Sure ... it would help your understanding considerably, however, if you were to take note of what I have to report (for example I notice that you have persisted in your ‘the perceiver and the perceived are one thing’ borrowed wisdom in another e-mail recently whilst regurgitating what you told me about the tree’s leaves being green). There is no ‘observer’ to be the ‘observed’ here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: It seems to me more logical, that if something like freedom of the instincts ... RICHARD: If I may interject? An actual freedom from the human condition is a freedom from the instinctual passions – not the instincts per se – plus, of course, the feeling of ‘being’ (usually designated as a ‘state of being’) or ‘presence’ they automatically form themselves into. RESPONDENT: ... must happen to humankind, then nature knows when and something will take place. RICHARD: The identity who used to parasitically inhabit this flesh and blood body acted on the observation that an individual life was too short to hang about waiting for blind nature to get its act together (plus the human condition was already in place by being born replete with instinctual passions anyway). RESPONDENT: Why must depend on you to change your nature? RICHARD: Because at the current stage of evolution it is ‘you’ – and only ‘you’ – who can determine the fate of one flesh and blood body in particular and humankind in general. RESPONDENT: Why you call nature blind nature etc and then you speak about beautiful universe unimaginable etc? RICHARD: The term ‘blind nature’ is a well-known term which refers to the natural process of species propagation being survival of the species most fitted to the environment. In short: it is not an intelligent process (the cognitive ability to think, recognise, remember, compare, appraise, reflect and propose considered action for beneficial reasons, which other animals cannot do, is intelligence in operation). As I never speak about ‘beautiful universe’ your related query is a non-sequitur. RESPONDENT: Do you think that the universe who created you or in your words the universe who is you experiencing its self, is less intelligent that you? RICHARD: This infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is not intelligent (except, as far as space exploration has been able to ascertain, as a human being) ... it is far, far more than merely intelligent. Human beings value intelligence highly, of course, it being what has enabled the species to progress as far as it has thus far ... but to project this highly valued attribute onto the universe at large is anthropomorphism. RESPONDENT: Do you think that you could explain to Iraqis when bombs are falling about to be free from their being? RICHARD: Only if the person concerned spoke English (I have but the one language). RESPONDENT: I find it logical that a jump will take place when is needed. RICHARD: Nobody is twisting your arm to become free of the human condition ... all that blind nature is on about is survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned). Blind nature does not care two hoots about your condition ... the question is: do you? RESPONDENT: You wrote [Richard[: ‘An actual freedom from the human condition is a freedom from the instinctual passions – not the instincts per se’. [endquote]. I am asking you without their passions, exist any more instincts? RICHARD: One example of an instinctive reaction in oneself, that is not necessarily affective, is the automatic response known as the reflex action (inadvertently touch a hotplate, for instance, and there is an involuntary jerking away of the affected limb) or the startle response. A classic example of this occurred whilst strolling along a country lane one fine morning with the sunlight dancing its magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; these eyes are delighting in the profusion of colour and texture and form as the panorama unfolds; these ears are revelling in the cadence of tones as their resonance and timbre fills the air; these nostrils are rejoicing in the abundance of aromas and scents drifting fragrantly all about; this skin is savouring the touch, the caress, of the early springtime ambience; this mind, other than the sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive as this flesh and blood body, is ambling along in neutral – there is no thought at all and conscious alertness is null and void – when all-of-a-sudden the easy gait has ceased happening. These eyes instantly shift from admiring the dun-coloured cows in a field nearby and are looking downward to the front and see the green and black snake, coiling up on the road in readiness to act, which had not only occasioned the abrupt halt but, it is discovered, had initiated a rapid step backwards ... an instinctive response which, had the instinctual passions that are the identity been in situ, could very well have triggered off freeze-fight-flee chemicals. There is no perturbation whatsoever (no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on) as with the complete absence of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ in the brain-stem the limbic system in general, and the amygdala in particular, have been free to do their job – the oh-so-vital startle response – both efficaciously and cleanly. Cattle, for example, are easily ‘spooked’ by a reptile and have been known to stampede in infectious group panic. RESPONDENT: Instincts are very powerful for the reason that they help surviving reproducing etc. RICHARD: 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 the 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 (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto). No other animal can do this. RESPONDENT: If you have not to eat and you have no other way to find food, are you going to die or you will steal? RICHARD: To steal food means there must be food available in the possession of one’s fellow human beings, and, as the country I reside in operates with both an established social security system and social welfare system – plus all manner of local community aid organisations – it is not necessary to steal food these days ... nobody is allowed to starve in a modern society. RESPONDENT: You are doing sex without the reason to make any children, that means still because of the lust are having power on you. RICHARD: Here is the exchange in question:
How you converted my report of the total absence of ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’), which is the psychiatric/psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, into ‘you are doing sex without the reason to make any children, that means still because of the lust are having power on you’ defies any rational understanding. What do the words ‘without the reason to make any children’ refer to if not the absence of libido (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’)? * RESPONDENT: I find it logical that a jump will take place when is needed. RICHARD: Nobody is twisting your arm to become free of the human condition ... all that blind nature is on about is survival of the species (and any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned). Blind nature does not care two hoots about your condition ... the question is: do you? RESPONDENT: Actually blind nature cares about me, that’s why it gave me the condition. RICHARD: If being born as such passions as fear and aggression and nurture and desire is what the word ‘cares’ means to you then so be it. RESPONDENT: Blind nature cares about species, that’s why I told you that when it find out that is the right time will evolve the whole species. RICHARD: And in the meanwhile, as you are going to do nothing about the passions that you are, such as the fear you say you need more than ever today, all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on, will keep on keeping on. As will all the crocodile tears being wept at all the (self-inflicted and thus unnecessary) misery and mayhem. RESPONDENT: As far as your last question if I care, I really don’t know. I have a child to grow and a wife and I feel responsible toward them and I can not see how I can do it, by sitting with my legs on the coffee table watching comedies on TV. RICHARD: Here is a suggestion: first cure yourself of your agoraphobia (there is nothing like a confidence boost to set things in motion). RESPONDENT: Today’s children are becoming even more indoctrinated than we were, as the world is more and more institutionalised every passing day. It really is them that we need to address. But how? RICHARD: By example rather than just by precept ... in other words: when you observe what the world is doing (people in general) and what you are doing – and you wonder at the observation – do you wonder if you will ever see the sanity so completely that you will cease being sane? Do you ever wonder if that is possible? RESPONDENT: Right now, I’m wondering why I ever thought I could carry on a conversation with you. Just because the sorry state of affairs on this planet is insane is no reason for you to call it ‘sane’. RICHARD: Yet I do not call insanity sanity ... the sorry state of affairs on this planet is sanity in action (otherwise you are saying that every man, woman and child on this planet is in a state of mind that precludes normal perception and behaviour, and ordinary social interaction, or is suffering from psychosis, a severe mental illness, a derangement, a disorder, that involves a loss of contact with reality and is often marked by delusions, hallucinations, and altered thought processes ... which is patently absurd). RESPONDENT: I can understand your point of view: ‘if this is sanity, let me be insane ... let me go out of my mind’. RICHARD: No, that is not what I have been saying at all: what I have been asking is whether it is possible for you to see sanity so completely that you will cease being sane ... end of story. Here in this actual world all is salubrious and irreprehensible ... just consider, for a moment if you will, that it is only a sanity-based analysis which would determine that permanent happiness and harmlessness be insanity (it speaks volumes about the nature of sanity that it does so). I know I have said it many times before but I will say it again for emphasis: I do find it cute that peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, be considered an acute and incurable psychotic mental disorder. RESPONDENT: I can even sympathise with going out of one’s mind, as this mind is really ‘screwed’, but perhaps this mind has been made insane, which you call ‘sane’. RICHARD: First of all, it is not only me that calls the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of mind sane ... as most of the peoples on this planet do I am merely following the convention for the sake of both consistency and clarity in communication. But more to the point: as the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday state of mind is not insane it is pointless to speculate how something which does not exist came about. RESPONDENT: Again, it really doesn’t matter if we were born or made ‘sane’ or ‘insane’, as the facts speak for themselves ... RICHARD: If I may interject? What facts are you talking about? You deny both biology and the evidence of your own experience as a simple country girl from Arkansas. Vis.:
It is blatantly obvious for those with the eyes to see that animals are born with instinctual survival passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – it is particularly apparent in what is called the higher-order animals – such that it takes a peculiar myopia to hold fast to the antiquated Tabula Rasa theory. A stubborn refusal to face the fact, in other words, of our animal heritage. Having been born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have been able to observe, and have maintained a life-long interest in observing, the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings renders any notion of having been born a clean slate simply ridiculous. And even in these days of my retirement, from my comfortable suburban living room, I can tune into documentaries on this very topic: only recently a television series was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to identify fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, nurture, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on, being displayed in full colour. I have to hand a National Geographic article on chimpanzees in the wild in which Ms. Jane Goodall uses words such as ‘war and kidnapping, killing and cannibalism’ and ‘affectionate and supportive bonds’ and ‘pleasure, sadness, curiosity, alarm, rage’ and ‘chimpanzees are creatures of extremes: aggressive one moment, peaceful the next’ when describing what she observed over 20-plus years ... here is an excerpt describing cannibalism (she gave each chimpanzee a name):
The text for a photograph has this to say:
And another photograph depicting out-and-out war:
I am only too happy to send you the full article if that would be of assistance. RESPONDENT: ... for the definitions are not the thing, and the definitions will not free us. RICHARD: It may just be possible that, upon sober reflection, you will find it does matter how you were born after all. RESPONDENT: First I was in the position when hearing the question about whether God exists or not, to chuckle, thinking what weak and fearful these people are ... this was mainly the courtesy of communism – by-the-way another secular attempt to live in peace, yet fatally flawed as it forgot or denied the 4 basic survival rules ... RICHARD: What ‘4 basic survival rules’ are you referring to? RESPONDENT: ... and as such unnatural. I have a first hand experience that this could only lead to hypocrisy, theft, corruption, greed; even brain-washing won’t work, these instincts have an innate ability to turn almost anything to their own advantage and fulfil their priorities. RICHARD: Any system brought about by political change, social reform, economic reconstruction, cultural revisionism, and so on, is bound to fail, no matter how well thought out, because blind nature’s genetically endowed survival passions, and the ‘being’ or ‘presence’ they automatically form themselves into, will stuff it up again and again. I have seen this repeatedly on the familial level, on the local community level, on the national level, and on the an international level ... plus, more pertinently, on the partnership (marriage/relationship) level. Unless one can live with just one other person, in peace and harmony twenty four hours of the day, nothing is ever going to work on any other scale. RESPONDENT: As we humans can live for a couple of days without food or water, a couple of minutes without air, it can be surely said that we are unable to live even for a second without impressions as sensory input. The output is probably our business. That’s where various methods & programmers step in to program the brains, so as to understand the incoming and control the outcome & have a suitable re-action. These methods have failed until this day in my case to bring a joyful existence. To this I was referring when I wrote that you first have to acknowledge the automatic responses of the 4 brains to a particular situation and then try to do something about it, to follow the beast trails into the woods and then have a ‘face-to-face conversation’. RICHARD: The ‘automatic’ reaction you refer to occurs in the brain-stem (popularly known as the lizard brain or the reptilian brain) as is evidenced by crocodylidae family, for example, who do not have a mammalian brain or a neo-cortex overlaid on top of this primeval stem. With the extirpation of the primitive root of such automatic reactions the brain itself is freed to operate at its optimum. RESPONDENT: To establish ‘buffers’ so as not to get in touch with what you are or how the real world looks like, is not a sensible solution in my view. The appropriate responses are what these brains are trained for (both by nature and one’s peers to deal with society entanglements) in order to cope with a particular situation, so various being-impulses arise, both inwardly and outwardly, The fact that there are not so many situations in which they are necessary these days is true, but who can afford to eliminate them? RICHARD: The person who is vitally interested in peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, of course. * RESPONDENT: Some of them, especially the instinctive impulses are ‘being harmful’, no doubt about it. We ‘fortunately’ live in a society where the savage instincts are considered ‘bad’ and as such reprehensible and the tender instincts as ‘good’. Thanks to various god-men. RICHARD: As the many and varied saints, sages, and seers have perpetuated all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on, due to stopping halfway on the road to freedom they are hardly due any ‘thanks’ ... each one of them had, just as I did, the vital opportunity to go beyond enlightenment and thus bring all this nonsense to an end once and for all. If Mr. Buddha for example, if such a person ever existed, had had the intestinal fortitude to become actually free of the human condition then in all possibility the ensuing 2,500 years would have brought about a virtual peace-on-earth, if not an actual peace-on-earth, on a global scale. RESPONDENT: But war is the inevitable outcome of such a state of affairs in the long run, as these instincts tend to explode when repressed for a longer period of time. RICHARD: Exactly ... just as anger and anguish, due to their sublimation and transcendence, ‘tend to explode’ in the many and varied saints, sages, and seers from time-to-time (thus they are indubitably not due any ‘thanks’ whatsoever for their pusillanimity). RESPONDENT: That was not always the case with pre-Christian European societies, all those 4 ruled openly the ‘human world’, so you can imagine how different this world would have looked like – killing was a normal daily business. RICHARD: If you are referring to the civilising process which has enabled people, by and large, to sleep somewhat peacefully in their beds at night it has many factors contributing to it ... and not only religion. RESPONDENT: I was not referring to the ideal situation when one is acting without instincts, neither as communism to repress them, but to acknowledge them, and yes why not to eliminate if that’s a physical safe business. RICHARD: It is the instinctual passions, and not the instincts per se, that can be safely eliminated (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto) now that intelligence has developed in the human animal. As the instinctual passions are the ‘self’ (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) such elimination has a built-in safety factor which ensures success. An actual freedom is what it says it is: it is actual, not a delusion, and thus delivers the goods. RESPONDENT: Capitalism in my view is a more fortunate mixture between Christianity and instinctive drives. RICHARD: The primary distinction between capitalism and communism, as currently and previously practised, is the private ownership of property/means of production (privatisation) versus the public ownership of property/means of production (nationalisation); the secondary distinction is a representative democracy (regular competitive elections for governance) versus a non-representative autocracy (non-competitive elections or imposition of governance); the other distinctions lie in the areas of accountable jurisprudence versus unaccountable jurisprudence, freedom of speech (uncensored media) versus restricted speech (censored media), freedom of association/assembly versus restricted association/assembly, freedom of contract versus restriction of contract, and freedom of religion versus restriction of religion (all of which involve issues of public policing versus secret policing) ... apart from the freedom/ restriction of religion issue where is Christianity part of the mixture? The Christian god not only owns everything, but is totally autocratic, arbitrarily imposes judgement, despotically punishes dissention, condemns proscribed association/assembly, has an authoritarian insistence on an exclusive contract ... and secretly spies on everyone (all of which makes the most notorious dictator but a rank amateur by comparison). However if you can somehow manage to love this god you will be loved in return ... but even that is a matter of caprice (grace).
Footnote: (1.) So far I have only been able to come across 15 passages where Mr. Jiddu
Krishnamurti uses the word ‘genetic’ and nowhere on those 15 occasions does he come even anywhere near comprehending
the implications and ramifications involved in the affective feelings being rooted in the genetically-encoded instincts
rather than being [quote] ‘created by thought’ [endquote]. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 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 ©1997-. All Rights Reserved. |
