Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 45
PETER: Hi, Welcome to the mailing list. RESPONDENT: Hey everybody, I should like to ask, what is fear? PETER: Given the general nature of your question, I wonder if you have noticed that there is a library section on the website where a good deal of the previous correspondence about actualism and actual freedom has been catalogued by subject. You will find it a useful aid in doing some background reading so as to establish the nature of what is being talked about on this list. I say this because we have had many people come to this mailing list who have not bothered to do their homework. Many think, without bothering to read what is on offer in actualism, that what is being talked about here is yet another version of Eastern spiritualism. What generally happens is that such people only bluster around in confusion and often end up frustrated when they get no kudos for their spiritual wisdom, whilst others have only ended up angry if they persisted to the stage of finally realizing that actualism has nothing at all to do with their precious spiritual belief. I say this upfront as it may well pre-empt a waste of time. To reiterate, I am quite happy to respond to your post but suggest you read through what has already been said on the subject in response to previous correspondents as you may well find the answer to your question by yourself. If after reading you have a specific question let me know and I will be only too glad to correspond with you further. RESPONDENT: Hey everybody, I should like to ask, what is fear? PETER: Welcome to the mailing list. Given the general nature of your question, I wonder if you have noticed that there is a library section on the website where a good deal of the previous correspondence about actualism and actual freedom has been catalogued by subject. You will also find it a useful aid in doing some background reading so as to establish the nature of what is being talked about on this list. <Snip> RESPONDENT: I had a look in the pages suggested, but I could not find anything related with anxiousness and fear for unknown reason, which creates panic. In such a condition do you know if there is any other approach apart of medicines like SSRI (Prozac etc)? PETER: Fear is widely regarded as the most potent feature of the instinctual survival program – the genetic program that is the primary operating system of all animals, including the human animal. The rudimentary survival instinct of animals is sometimes referred to as the ‘fight and flight’ response, often summed up in the phrase ‘what can I eat, what can eat me?’ Traditional methods of attempting to assuage the fear of survival inherent within the human condition include seeking safety in numbers by clinging to family and tribal members, seeking security by hoarding money, possessions and assets or seeking power and control over others, either covertly or overtly. The other traditional methods of counteracting instinctual fear involves dissociating from the feeling of fear by seeking succour and comfort in any of the multitudinous spiritual and religious beliefs, be it the fantasy of having a Big-Daddy God as a personal friend and protector, sustaining a belief in life after death and the immortality of one’s soul or spirit, or imagining oneself to be at-one-with God or even God Himself/Herself/Itself. And, as you say, there may well be medications that can help those who suffer chronically from fear, but I have no experience or knowledge of this, so I can’t make comment on this approach.
It is important to note that actualism, unlike spiritualism, is not about coping with, assuaging or transcending fear – actualism is about becoming both happy and harmless. This may well explain why your question has not been answered to your satisfaction – the emphasis in actualism is solely on becoming both happy and harmless – not in feeling fearless, all-powerful and immortal as in spiritualism. Actualism is a new and unique approach to becoming free from the human condition in that involves progressively eradicating the root cause of human malice and sorrow – the total package of the ‘self’-centred instinctual survival passions. When I first came across actualism and was confronted with the proposition of abandoning the spiritual path and devoting my life to becoming happy and harmless, I remember seeing it as looking into a dark tunnel. I knew the journey to becoming happy and harmless would be the end of ‘me’ – hence the dark tunnel. But at the same time I also understood that the only thing that was preventing me from starting on the path to an actual freedom was a feeling – the feeling of fear. This is the same for anyone who sets off on a journey into the unknown – what initially stands in the way of beginning the journey is fear, but once they actually start the journey the thrill of the adventure takes over. My experience is that if you really want to become free of the human condition in toto, it is important not to let fear stop you – fear is, after all, only a feeling. RESPONDENT: I had read to Krishnamurti suggesting to stay with fear or anxiousness, because I am the fear. He was expriming it saying that the observer is the observed. What do you say about that? PETER: As I said, actualism has nothing to do with practicing dissociation. Dissociating from feelings when they get too raw or too potent is a common psychological reaction and it is well-documented that in some cases this reaction can be so severe that altered states of consciousness can result, either partial or permanent. Of course, in the spiritual tradition dissociation is lauded as the panacea to grim reality and is actively practiced by many people – one simply imagines there is an alternative non-physical spirit-only world, a Greater Reality, and then feels oneself to be living in this world, thereby dissociating from grim reality. With practice, one can even start to feel ‘At-One-With’ this Greater Reality or even be convinced solipsistically that one ‘Is’ that Greater Reality – leading to such twaddle as ‘I am God’ and ‘God is me’, or ‘I am the Universe’ and ‘the Universe is me’ and so on. Then ‘the observer is the observed’ – which is what J. Krishnamurti was talking about. Spiritualists do take their ‘selfs’ very, very seriously. I’ve often contemplated on the fact that, in my father’s time, anyone who went around declaring they were God, by whatever name, would have been confined in a mental institution. Nowadays, with the current fashion for Eastern religion, the world is littered with people who say they are God, or God-realized, and yet rather than be incarcerated they are venerated. As an actualist, you start to take your ‘self’ not so seriously and then you start to see the bizarreness and black humour inherent in the human condition. RESPONDENT: Thank you and sorry for my English. PETER: Your English is fine – you’re doing well. RESPONDENT: Thank you for your answer. I should like to ask for two things. The one is to continue a little bit more our dialogue. PETER: I am always willing to talk to anyone who is interested in actualism and I assume you are interested. RESPONDENT: The other is to forgive if I make spelling mistakes, because if I have to look continuously to the dictionary, then I will lose the coherence of what I am going to say. PETER: Even though English is my first, and only, language, I still have trouble with spelling. I always use the computer’s spell checker which tends to pick up most of my mistakes. It also gives synonyms which I sometimes find useful. RESPONDENT: So, when I was speaking about the observer and the observed, I was meaning it this way: When I look at my fear, then there is duality. Me (the observer) looking at fear (the observed). PETER: This means ‘you’ (the observer) are separating yourself from your feeling of fear (the observed). You have created this duality by creating a new superior-feeling identity (the observer). RESPONDENT: Then me being different from fear, I try to do something about this fear. To end it, to exprime it, etc. PETER: If you investigate Eastern spiritual teachings a bit, you will find that what they are talking about is transcending fear – as in rising above – and not in ending fear. Nowhere do the ancient teachings talk about eliminating fear because this can only be done if the self-centred instinctual passions are eliminated in toto. This is what actualism brings to the table and it is brand new in human history – a scientific investigative process that results in freedom from the instinctual passions as distinct from a mystical dissociative freedom from the fears of being here in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. RESPONDENT: When I stated that the observer is the observed, then I was meaning that I and the fear are the same thing. There are not two different things. PETER: And yet only two sentences before you said ‘Then me being different from fear, I try to do something about this fear’. Either you believe you are different from fear or you believe you and fear are the same thing – to have a bet each way only leaves you confused. In actualism you find the facts of the matter for yourself by your own investigations which saves the confusion and uncertainty of having to rely on believing what others tell you is the Truth. RESPONDENT: Actually I was meaning the opposite of dissociation. When I say I am afraid then dissociation takes place. PETER: You have just totally redefined dissociation to mean exactly the opposite it does in psychiatric terms.
When you say ‘I am afraid’ then there is no distance between ‘you’ and fear – ‘you’ and the feeling are one and the same thing. You acknowledge the fact that there is no difference between ‘you’ and the feeling of fear. On the other hand, when you say ‘When I look at my fear, then there is duality. Me (the observer) looking at fear (the observed)’ then you have separated yourself from your feeling of fear. You have dissociated from your feeling of fear by inventing a new identity – the one who observes fear but is separate from the feeling. The process of self-investigation in actualism involves neither denying, repressing or dissociating from any feelings that may arise in this very moment, nor does it involve indulging in, expressing or associating with any of those feelings. This enables the actualism method to be an unbiased scientific in-depth investigation of one’s own psyche, a process aimed at promoting the felicitous feelings and eliminating the so-called good and bad feelings, i.e. those that are the invidious and self-aggrandizing. For more reading on the subject of dissociation: ‘The professor and ‘I’, Notes on Awareness. You can also find more correspondence on the subject of dissociation in the library RESPONDENT: If it is possible not to disassociate the I from the fear in the moment this thing we call fear arise, then I think that there is only fear and no one I, ONE SELF TO BE AFRAID. PETER: In spiritual teachings it is commonly said that ‘I’ am not my feelings’ – they come and go – but ‘I’ (the watcher) remain as a constant. What is usually ignored in this scenario is that ‘I’ (the watcher) gleefully associate with the good and loving feelings whilst disingenuously dissociate from the bad and evil feelings. Just as an aside, you might find the ‘Book Review’ on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to be interesting reading as it makes plain the deceit and hypocrisy inherent in all spiritual teachings. RESPONDENT: If I understand that I and fear are one composite phenomenon, then there is nothing that I can do about it. PETER: You can’t do anything about it if you believe what the spiritual teachers tell you. If you are willing to abandon your spiritual beliefs then you can make your own investigations of your own psyche in operation so as to determine for yourself the facts of the matter. Of course you have to want to change, in order to change. RESPONDENT: So there is no action from the self to do something. And then might be that the self is eliminated all together. PETER: I don’t know whether you have noticed or not, but if you don’t do some action or other, then nothing happens. God doesn’t make your breakfast, press the buttons on your remote control or earn the money for your food and shelter. Why then should you imagine that a God, by whatever name, is going to magically change your life circumstances and free you from your feelings of fear, antagonism, sorrow, angst, etc. RESPONDENT: Because seems to me that the self is coming into being through psychological action. Like identification for example. PETER: Yes. Spiritual teachings do teach dis-identification as being the panacea to unwanted or undesirable feelings. ‘‘I’ am not my feelings’ and ‘‘I’ am not my body’ are commonly heard spiritual psittacisms. RESPONDENT: Then there is only fear and what can I do? Nothing. PETER: There is something you can do about it but your own belief has already ruled that out – ‘there is no action from the self to do something’. RESPONDENT: Then I think there is no problem. PETER: If you dissociate from your unwanted or undesirable feelings, and dis-identify from the ‘[Respondent]’ who occasionally gets fearful, annoyed, sad, lonely, etc. – then there is no problem. Speaking personally, I tried the spiritual approach for some 17 years before I finally admitted the effort of trying to dissociate from my feelings of animosity and sadness had made me neither happy nor harmless. Admitting failure finally opened the way to try out something new – to head off in the opposite direction from the well-worn spiritual path. RESPONDENT: The problem arises when the dissociation takes place and I say I AM AFRAID. PETER: Again you are redefining the word dissociation to mean the exact opposite it is taken to mean as a psychiatric term. RESPONDENT: That means of course that I must not name it as fear. PETER: This seems to be common Krishnamurti moral – ‘Thou shall not name thou feelings’. You may not be aware of the fact that Richard wrote extensively on a Krishnamurti mailing list for some four years. Eventually a few Krishnamurtiites started to talk about their feelings although most were such faithful followers and had so repressed their feelings that they could not bring themselves to say words such as fear, anger and depression – let alone bring themselves to acknowledge that they had these feelings from time to time. RESPONDENT: The word creates the dissociation, because is the I who says this is fear. Then the I is different from fear. PETER: I am reminded of the icon that nicely sums up Eastern Religion – three monkeys sitting in a row, ‘See no evil’, ‘Hear no evil’, ‘Speak no evil’. In modern times this translates as ‘Don’t watch television’, ‘Don’t listen to common sense’ and ‘Deny your own anger and blame everyone else for the violence in the world’. RESPONDENT: I never believed in higher selves and gods and all these nonsense. I mean I was not meaning identification with god universe etc. PETER: And yet, by what you write, you believe every thing that that old Indian God-man, J. Krishnamurti, spoke the Truth. Again, the ‘Book Review’ will throw more light on the subject of Guru worshipping. RESPONDENT: I was not speaking about enlightenment. I never was able even to understand what that means. Can be any hallucination and illusion. PETER: And yet, by what you write, you are a firm believer in the teachings of Eastern religion – the teachings which say that it is possible for a man to become God-realized, aka Enlightened, on earth before entering into Heaven, aka Nirvana. To believe in the teachings is to actively participate in the delusion. RESPONDENT: Can you also please when you find time to tell me what is the mind? And the difference between the mind and brain? PETER: So as not to divert from the subject at hand, might I suggest reading the ‘Introduction to Actual Freedom’ as it paints a broad picture of the human condition and explains the process of how to become free of it. You will find that it makes clear distinctions between passion and intelligence, imagination and common sense, belief and fact and meekly accepting your lot in life as opposed to doing something about it. RESPONDENT: I should like also to tell you something that downed on me about three years ago. When I look in the out world, lets say at a tree, we usually have the impression that we see what is out there. But we will never know what is out there and if there is any out at all. What comes to my eyes is light in the retina and this is transformed into electrical signals to the brain then what I see is these electrical signals. I am not seeing what is out there (out there is only energy) but what the brain is creating. The same happens with touch smelling etc. If something happens to the brain, I will see different things than what you are seeing. So if I close my eyes I have the impression that the tree is out there green. Instead the colour is created by my brain. There is no colour out there when I don’t look at it. We create the world. Literally. So after all these we can say that there is not a seer. A smeller etc. And the question now is why after all these the concept of self still exist? PETER: By what you write you seem to believe that the physical world does not exist – that all you see is purely your own creation, an imagination, not actual. As to why, after all this belief, ‘you’ – the small ‘s’ self or concept of self, still exist, I can only suggest that either you have doubts about your belief or that you have not gone far enough in really truly believing you are the creator of the world. In other words, you have not yet realized you are the Creator. Personally, I would take this as a good sign in that it means that you still have some common sense operating. RESPONDENT: Is it a habit? PETER: No. The belief in a creator God is based on ancient fears, superstitions and fairy tales that come from a time when humans believed the world was populated by good and evil spirits, Gods and Demons. Things have moved on somewhat since then to the stage where nowadays there are a handful of people who don’t believe this fear-ridden nonsense any more. And not only don’t they believe in the ancient fears and superstitions, they have found a down-to-earth method of eliminating malice and sorrow from their lives. RESPONDENT: Is it because of the language that by using continuously the word I, I, I, you, you, you, that maintains this concept? PETER: No. The instinctual survival passions give rise to a personal, separate identity that is both a thinking and a feeling identity. This identity, ‘who’ you think and feel you are, is real in that it causes all flesh and blood human bodies to not only suffer but to inflict suffering on others – the ‘fight or flight’ response in action. RESPONDENT: And finally, I read in actualfreedom.com that every person had at least one PCE. I don’t remember having one. And if someone had one and the me was not there, how can be this experience remembered? PETER: Exactly as the eyes are the stalks of the brain that see and the ears are the stalks of the brain that hear, the brain also has a memory function. However, the clear functioning of the human brain is almost always constantly usurped by a parasitical psychological and psychic self – ‘who’ you think and feel you are as distinct to ‘what’ you are. The only time that a clear consciousness operates as the human brain is when this psychological and psychic ‘self’ is absent, either temporarily in a PCE or permanently when one is actually self-less – actually free from the human condition. It was my experience that the only way I recalled having had a PCE was by becoming interested in Richard’s descriptions of being free from the human condition and in the method he used to become free. As interest grew into fascination, one day a penny dropped and I remembered I had had an experience of what he was talking about – a pure consciousness experience, free of ‘my’ pernicious self. In other words, I had to dig down and work hard to evoke the memory that gave me the evidence that a PCE is an utterly down-to-earth sensual experience that only occurs when ‘I’ am temporarily absent. RESPONDENT No 48: When a feeling is given the label, ‘Sadness’, instead of me thinking, ‘I am sad’. Is this apperception or something else? PETER to No 48: Well, as you write it, this is most definitely not apperception but is more likely dissociation. If you notice that you are feeling sad, why not simply note that ‘I am feeling sad’? Saying ‘there is sadness happening’ rather than saying ‘I am feeling sad’ is equivalent to saying ‘my body is sick’ rather than saying ‘I am sick’. Whether one claims ‘I am not my feelings’ or ‘I am not my body’, both are statements of dissociation. I always like to take a clear-eyed look at the fundamental bottom line of any aspect of the human condition and Ramesh Balsekar’s teachings are a prime example of dissociation writ large – <snipped for length> Peter to No 48, 16.9.2003 RESPONDENT: The question of No 48, is very interesting. The only trap here is the word label. If we give no label to the feeling, then there is no dissociation. PETER: Really? I don’t know how much you know about the human condition but if one is feeling sad and intentionally avoids calling the feeling you are having sadness then one is deliberately practicing dissociation, as in
RESPONDENT: But if we say I am sad, then this is dissociation. PETER: It strikes me that maybe you are having trouble with the English language, but if you say I am feeling sad then you are associating with having the sad feeling. The word ‘am’ is a grammatical relative of the word ‘be’, as in
In other words, when I say I am feeling sad, I make no distinction between ‘me’ and my feelings, I am saying ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, I am saying they ‘coincide’ with ‘me’ when they are happening, I am saying ‘me’ and ‘my feelings’ are ‘identical’, I am acknowledging that my feelings are ‘an essential constituent of’ ‘me’ as an identity, I am experiencing that the feeling of sadness is ‘me’. I fail to see how I can explain it any clearer. Of course, the way to validate what I am saying for yourself is to go deeply into the feeling of sadness the next time you experience it and you will find out for yourself that at the very core of ‘me’ there is no distinction between ‘me’ and my feelings. RESPONDENT: Is the me the self who is different from the filling. PETER: And yet what you are saying here is in effect that ‘‘I’ am not my feelings’ – you are plainly making a distinction between ‘me the self’ and the feelings you have. I am left wondering whether you are merely running a philosophical argument for the sake of objecting as you made no such distinction between you and your feelings in a previous post to No 47 –
RESPONDENT: Is the thought who creates the self and says I am sad. PETER: Ah, by the dashing down of another thought, albeit a hackneyed spiritual psittacism, feelings are dismissed as being mere thoughts. I am reminded of all those spiritualists sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed desperately waiting for the dark clouds of ‘wrong thoughts’ and ‘bad thinking’ to subside so that they can latch on to a blissful feeling for a while. RESPONDENT: Peter to my opinion did not get it. PETER: Well that may be your opinion, but I was a devout practicing spiritualist for 17 years so I know dissociation from experience and I know how it operates in practice. There was a lot gained from exploring the lunatic fringe. * PETER to No 48: Whether one claims ‘I am not my feelings’ or ‘I am not my body’, both are statements of dissociation. Peter to No 48, 16.9.2003 RESPONDENT: I agree with that, but is a contradiction in what he said, because above he said ‘I am feeling sad’ is equivalent to saying ‘my body is sick’ rather than saying ‘I am sick’. PETER: By misquoting what I said you have manage to concoct a contradiction that does not exist. This is what I said –
RESPONDENT: When Peter says ‘my body is sick’ rather than saying ‘I am sick’, both are the same. PETER: I don’t know how much you have delved into spiritual teachings and meta-physical philosophies but it is widely upheld nowadays that ‘I am not my body’, so much so that I am never sick, rather it is ‘my body that is sick’. This of course comes from the dissociative spiritual teachings and surreal meta-physical philosophies that propose that ‘‘I’ never die, only my body dies’. By now you might have twigged to the fact that ‘I’ as a psychological and psychic parasitical entity am always dissociated from being what I am – this mortal flesh and blood body – and that any belief in an afterlife and any belief in metaphysical realms does nought but strengthen and consolidate this inherent dissociation. * PETER to No 48: Whether one claims ‘I am not my feelings’ or ‘I am not my body’, both are statements of dissociation. Peter to No 48, 16.9.2003 RESPONDENT: Agreed. But Peter failed to understand, what your question exactly was ... ... instead of me thinking, ‘I am sad’. When you say I am sad is definitely dissociation. PETER: You are claiming I have failed to understand his question yet you have snipped his question to alter the intent of his question. This is what he said –
If you notice he was talking of having the feeling of sadness and my subsequent comment to him was that – for an aspiring actualist – it more useful to simply say ‘I am feeling sad’ when one is feeling sad instead of ‘me’ thinking ‘I am sad’. My comment was not meant to be a statement of stunning philosophical bent – simply a down-to-earth suggestion from one human being to another as to how best to get in touch with one’s feelings so as best to avoid the currently fashionable confusion between thinking and feelings that exists in many circles. RESPONDENT: But you asked him:
You No 48 was actually interested what is if you don’t say I am sad, but if you label the feeling just sadness. Peter answered you, about what happens if you say I am sad, instead you was interested in the earlier ‘Sadness’. If you don’t label it as sadness, then you are it. There is only sadness not you having it. Is one energy expressing its self through a human body with no owner. (The body has no owner). Then there is no self to give the label which automatically separates you from the feeling. Then there is no dissociation. But if you say as she point out that you say, my body is sad or I am sad then there is definitely dissociation, you and sadness as two different things. PETER: Okay, let me try to run this by you one more time. When you notice that you are feeling sad, there is a thought that appears as if it runs through your head and this thought is often expressed in words. It usually goes something like this – ‘I notice that I am feeling sad’. You can then simplify this thought into ‘I am feeling sad’, thereby correctly associating ‘the feeler’ with the feeling. And then – if you want to – you can deliberately make a decision to feel what this feeling of sadness feels like as it is happening. By choosing to do so, you are deliberately undertaking an exploration of your psyche in action, for ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. That’s all I am endeavouring to say. You might not have noticed but I also posted something No 21 had written to No 48 along similar lines –
The only thing I would add is that unless one is vitally interested in becoming happy and harmless, which is what actualism is about, actualism will not only appear to be complicated, it will remain incomprehensible. RESPONDENT No 48: When a feeling is given the label, ‘Sadness’, instead of me thinking, ‘I am sad’. Is this apperception or something else? PETER to No 48: Well, as you write it, this is most definitely not apperception but is more likely dissociation. If you notice that you are feeling sad, why not simply note that ‘I am feeling sad’? Saying ‘there is sadness happening’ rather than saying ‘I am feeling sad’ is equivalent to saying ‘my body is sick’ rather than saying ‘I am sick’. Whether one claims ‘I am not my feelings’ or ‘I am not my body’, both are statements of dissociation. I always like to take a clear-eyed look at the fundamental bottom line of any aspect of the human condition and Ramesh Balsekar’s teachings are a prime example of dissociation writ large – <snipped for length> Peter to No 48, 16.9.2003 RESPONDENT: The question of No 48, is very interesting. The only trap here is the word label. If we give no label to the feeling, then there is no dissociation. PETER: Really? I don’t know how much you know about the human condition but if one is feeling sad and intentionally avoids calling the feeling you are having sadness then one is deliberately practicing dissociation, as in ‘cut off or free from association with something else; separate in fact or thought’. Oxford Dictionary RESPONDENT: But if we say I am sad, then this is dissociation. PETER: It strikes me that maybe you are having trouble with the English language, but if you say I am feeling sad then you are associating with having the sad feeling. The word ‘am’ is a grammatical relative of the word ‘be’, as in ‘coincide with, be identical to; form the essential constituent of, act the part of’. Oxford Dictionary. In other words, when I say I am feeling sad, I make no distinction between ‘me’ and my feelings, I am saying ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, I am saying they ‘coincide’ with ‘me’ when they are happening, I am saying ‘me’ and ‘my feelings’ are ‘identical’, I am acknowledging that my feelings are ‘an essential constituent of’ ‘me’ as an identity, I am experiencing that the feeling of sadness is an ‘act of part of’ ‘me’. I fail to see how I can explain it any clearer. Of course, the way to validate what I am saying for yourself is to go deeply into the feeling of sadness the next time you experience it and you will find out for yourself that at the very core of ‘me’ there is no distinction between ‘me’ and my feelings. RESPONDENT: Is the me the self who is different from the feeling. PETER: And yet what you are saying here is in effect that ‘‘I’ am not my feelings’ – you are plainly making a distinction between ‘me’ the self and the feelings you have. I am left wondering whether you are merely running a philosophical argument for the sake of objecting as you made no such distinctions between you and your feelings in a previous post to No 47 –
Is the thought who creates the self and says I am sad. PETER: Ah, by the dashing down of another thought, albeit a hackneyed spiritual psittacism, feelings are dismissed as being mere thoughts. I am reminded of all those spiritualists sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed desperately waiting for the dark clouds of ‘wrong thoughts’ and ‘bad thinking’ to subside so that they can latch on to a blissful feeling for a while. RESPONDENT: Peter to my opinion did not get it. PETER: Well that may be your opinion, but I was a devout practicing spiritualist for 17 years so I know dissociation from experience and I know how it operates in practice. There was a lot gained from exploring the lunatic fringe. RESPONDENT: My English-Greek dictionary, gave to me the translation of dissociation, as splitting, separation. So I thought that when I say I have pain, there is a separation, me and the pain, as two different things. If I say my body is in pain, then, to me is still a separation me and my body. PETER: I don’t know if you are aware of it but you have now switched topics and are talking about something completely different than what No 48 was talking about, what I replied to No 48 about and what you originally commented on. No 48 was talking about the feeling of sadness – an affective feeling whereas you have now switched to talking about something completely different – the sensation of pain. As an actualist, I found that it was essential to grasp the difference between thinking, affective feelings and physical sensations before I could make sense of how my own psyche operated, and therefore how the human condition manifests in general. After I abandoned my spiritual indoctrination, I found the differences between the three quite simple to understand but it was only by being attentive to the differences in my own daily-life experiencing did I really understand the differences in practice. RESPONDENT: In the way you explained to me in this email, I should rather call it identification. So to recapitalised when I say ‘I have pain’ this is identification, the me, the I, the thought that identifies with pain. Do you agree to this? PETER: What I have explained to you in the previous post has to do with affective feelings which was the topic of my conversation with No 48 whereas the question you now ask is not about feelings it is about thoughts and physical sensations. In the light of this, perhaps you could rephrase your question so that it remains relevant to the topic. To give you a practical down-to-earth, everyday example of the distinction between affective feelings and physical sensations – recently I was working on a building site where one of the workmen had influenza. Not only was he sick – headache, blocked sinuses, muscle weariness, etc. – he was also feeling very miserable as well and, as sick people tend to do, he let everyone else on site know he was miserable. Last week, I had the very same illness that he had but I did not feel miserable, or feel sad or feel unhappy about having the physical sensations of the illness, despite the fact that I had the same symptoms as he did. In other words, to be sick and to have pain is one thing (sensation), to feel miserable and sad about being sick is another thing (feeling). And it is attentiveness that reveals this to be so. PETER: Just a comment on some points you raised in your recent post – RESPONDENT: Now, because of such many different posts on the list, everybody with our own interest, is difficult for somebody to have a coherent following of what is happening. Is like a salad. PETER: Indeed. Do you not find it curious that so many of the people who are subscribed to this list – and who post their comments to this list have no interest at all in becoming happy and harmless whatsoever – becoming happy and harmless is what actualism is about after all. Once upon a time I would have thought that people would have been either interested in becoming happy and harmless or not and if they weren’t they would have simply gone about doing whatever they were doing before. I remember meeting a friend from my spiritual years several years ago and she asked me what I was in to now and I told her I had abandoned the spiritual path and set my sights on becoming happy and harmless. She thought about it for a few seconds and then said that it would not be for her because she likes the bitter-sweet feeling of feeling sad on occasions and she also likes it that she has had to fight others on occasions. She was honest and upfront in that being happy and harmless was not for her, the conversation moved on and soon she moved on. As for what happens on this mailing list, it is often more of a smokescreen than a salad. RESPONDENT: Also I noticed from your side and I say that with all respect that you are trying to reject everybody that does not agree with you. Does not matter who is Buddha, Jesus, Einstein, Bohm or anybody else. The list shows a crack-up a decay. I bet the original intention of the list was to present a new invention, to present new way of seeing things, but arrived to a point of subtle fights and who is wrong or right. That was the reason I stopped for two years to participate on it. PETER: You might have missed the irony in what you are saying. Actualism does present something new in human history – a new discovery – and yet people subscribe to this list for the sole purpose of defending the status quo, endlessly repeating that the old ways of doing things – the ways of ‘Buddha Jesus Einstein Bohm or anybody else’ are right and that actualism is either wrong or not new. Whenever an actualist responds to these posts they get accused of being defensive, not listening, wanting to be right, not being open-minded, being arrogant and so on. Those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo have always been the most vocal opponents of any new discovery in human history … but given that the core discovery of actualism is a simple straightforward way of becoming happy and harmless, defending the status quo is a de facto defence of human sorrow and malice, something that I find perverse in the extreme. RESPONDENT: As in television when we don’t like a film we change channel, so also hear if somebody disagree, can change list or unsubscribe. PETER: Yep, if you don’t like what is on offer in actualism the solution is obvious. That some people don’t take the obvious solution points to the fact that a vocal minority are essentially here to ‘strut their own stuff’, and that they have either an ulterior motive or an upfront motive for doing so. It is pertinent to point out that by far the majority of subscribers do not post to the list but remain quiet readers and that the vocal minority could well be presenting a minority viewpoint of list members, exactly as the vocal minority most often present a minority viewpoint in society at large. RESPONDENT: Also I noticed discursive incoherent posts, just to post something on the list. I think the majority of the participants, found a place to fulfill their ego or to play it smart, including my self. Under these circumstances the list is useless. PETER: It is not that the list is useless, it is that the objectors’ participation on this list is useless because they have no interest at all in what actualism is about – becoming happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: Also you and your friends I think they overused the dictionary definitions. Here is more necessary the common sense and not the definition of the oxford dictionary for example. PETER: It might have escaped your notice but many of the vocal minority argue or dispute the meaning of words such as spiritual, metaphysical, mystical, being, consciousness, soul, and so on and terms such as common sense, down-to-earth, altered states of consciousness, undivided consciousness and so on, so much so that actualists often have to point out the meaning of the words by posting dictionary definitions. RESPONDENT: Enough! I am not a priest neither a person for someone to imitate me, he should regret if he made so. PETER: I appreciate your sincerity in saying this as it makes it clear that you have not come here to teach that your way or your lifestyle or your method or the teaching you are following should be imitated. RESPONDENT: And one last observation. I am sure including my self, that you will not find in this list any happy person. PETER: You can leave me out of your observation, as I am so happy at being here that it is outrageous by normal standards and even more so by spiritual standards because spiritualists are busy going ‘inside’ as a way of avoiding being here. RESPONDENT: All the participants must by definition be miserable, in conflict with our selves and unhappy, otherwise why to search for happiness? PETER: I was not at all miserable before I became an actualist – but I was certainly searching for something better than being normal and something less self-indulgent than being a spiritualist. My search was always for something better and something authentic and because of this the dare to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless proved irresistible – of course. RESPONDENT: Did you ever saw a rich person with his/her’s girlfriends boyfriends, driving a Porsche going for excursions with his boat, to seek for freeing him/her self from the human condition? If you speak to them about that (to be free from the human condition) they probably say to you ‘go to have some electroconvulsive therapies to come back to your track’. Unless they tried everything and understood that they can not find permanent satisfaction, as very rarely happen with some millionaires. And these becomes the best clients of the gurus. They are their lobsters. Now I can tell you I can see I am the universe experiencing it’s self AS a human being. So what after? To what good is that understanding for me? I must pay the rent tomorrow, the gasoline for the car, the food etc. I am not in the moot to practice HAIETMOBA, is to boring. I prefer being in a bar having some beers or making love. I will die any way no? Is there any immediate way of finding your self in the condition you describe? I don’t want to make any effort. I hate gymnastics and this is mental gymnastic. If I was 20 years old ok, but now to spent the rest of my life for possibly becoming happier in the future, I see it useless, because I can have died by then. PETER: As I remember you have made it abundantly clear that you are not at all interested in making any effort to become happier and I can’t recall you having expressed any interest in becoming harmless either. I can only report that within months of deciding to make becoming happy and harmless the most important thing in my life I found that it produced tangible results – would not this also be obvious to you? I know it is a daunting proposition to fully commit oneself to anything and particularly so to becoming happy and harmless for I remember it was as if the entrance to the path to becoming happy and harmless was like the entrance to a tunnel that had a big sign over it saying ‘Warning. Do not enter under any circumstances!!’ I went ahead any way. RESPONDENT: I never as far as I remember heard you speaking about INSIGHT a thing that can happen to every area in science etc, is something that hits you out of the blue and you have one immediate understanding. You can not invite that. Happens like in the artists musicians scientists etc. PETER: Insights and intellectual understandings are as common as hen’s teeth and utterly worthless unless one gets off one’s bum and does something about it. In the case of wanting to become happy and harmless there is no alternative but to do it, each moment again until the day finally dawns when one becomes utterly and completely and irrevocable free of the human condition in toto – there is no substitute to doing it, nor any shortcut to doing it, nor any other way to do it, nor any other method to do it than to just do it. But then again that is obvious, is it not? RESPONDENT: I see Vineeto, Peter trying and trying and still are where they were. PETER: I often remark to Vineeto that it is so good being here that people don’t know what they are missing out on, let alone can they imagine what they are missing out on – and I am as yet only virtually free of the human condition. Very little has changed in my life circumstances since becoming an actualist – I am not financially wealthier, I still work for money, I still cook my food, I still lead essentially the same lifestyle as I did before I set off to become happy and harmless but the difference is that nowadays I am immeasurably happier than I was back then, I enjoy my own company, I enjoy the delights of doing nothing or the pleasures of doing something, and I am immeasurably better company for my fellow human beings whenever the occasion arises. RESPONDENT: Because I think you can not arrive nowhere slowly slowly. Or you are or you are not. PETER: And yet the whole point of actualism is to be happy and harmless now and provided one is attentive to whenever one is not happy and harmless and gets back on track as soon as possible, the rewards are always immediate – one is simultaneously feeling both happy and being harmless, right here and right now. Attentiveness when combined with sensuous awareness and sincere intent always provides an instant reward – one is either feeling good or feeling excellent about being here or one is engaged in the adventure of discovering why one is not feeling good or excellent about being here. Either way one is fully engaged in the adventurous business of living, knowing full well one that one day one will inevitably be actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: Like a woman can not be a little pregnant and a little not pregnant. Or she is or she is not. Must take place a jump. Like a child learning how to swim, at once one day swims can not be in both states not knowing to swim and swim. PETER: This is plain silly. Any child needs to learn to swim and it is obvious that in order to learn to swim the child first needs to enter the water. When I came across Richard I knew that I had been dabbling around in the shallow end of the pool hanging on to the side, afraid to cast off on my own, whilst he was lolling around in the deep end saying ‘come on in, the water’s fine’. So I let go of the side of the pool and cast off and the do-it-yourself previously-proven method of learning to swim has been the adventure of a lifetime. PETER: A snippet of a conversation to The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List – a mailing list specifically set up to facilitate discussion about the new discovery that it is possible for human beings to become both happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: Do you mean, that there is a violation in the rules of this specific list and Actual Freedom must not be under criticism? PETER: Not at all, but I do take the opportunity from time to time to remind those who are subscribed to this mailing list what actualism is really on about. This is an unmodulated mailing list, after all. RESPONDENT: Do you mean Actual Freedom is one organisation and somebody with different way of seeing things stepped in and is a disturbance for the above organisation? PETER: Not at all, but I do take the opportunity from time to time to remind those who are subscribed to this mailing list what actualism is really on about. This is an unmodulated mailing list, after all. RESPONDENT: Shall this be explained like one effort of gagging? PETER: There is a vast difference between gagging someone and making a comment about a conversation on this mailing list – which is what I did. You might have noticed that I also left out the names of the correspondents because I was not making a personal comment about the personal viewpoints of the correspondents because I found the conversation as ‘typifying the reaction to actualism that comes from those who have been influenced by the philosophy and teachings that emanate from Eastern religion’. (typifying, as in representative of many). * PETER: A snippet of a conversation to The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List ...
RESPONDENT:
Do you find any similarity between your statement and the above original? I only stated that haietmoba is not the way. PETER: You not only made it clear that actualism method is not the way to end the problem of unhappiness, but you also went on to say –
RESPONDENT: Did I state somewhere that the change must not take place in the world but out of the world? PETER: And yet I didn’t say that you said ‘the change must not take place in the world’ – rather I pointed out that you said that that the only thing one can do about feeling unhappy about the world as-it-is and people as-they-are is to watch the problem (being unhappy) and to watch our striving to stop it (wanting to be happy) without interfering –
In other words, you made it clear that, in your opinion, it is impossible to be happy in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are and you went on to explain that this down-to-earth problem that faces all human beings needs ‘to transform to something else’ –
I said WE CAN DO NOTHING, did I said that NOTHING CAN BE DONE? These are two completely different things. PETER: This is what you said about the down-to-earth problem of unhappiness that faces all human beings –
which, as you said, means ‘WE CAN DO NOTHING’ You also alluded to a solution which is ‘the possibility for the problem to transform to something else’ which means you state clearly that something – something other than actualism – can be done. The very reason I wrote a comment to the conversation you were having is that millions upon millions of people have been assiduously practicing ‘transforming’ the problem of their unhappiness, not to mention their acrimony, into ‘something else’ for thousands upon thousands of years … and yet every child currently born still suffers the angst of growing up and gradually becoming aware of the harm that human beings are capable of inflicting upon each other and also of the harm that they can inflict upon themselves. Surely, after this litany of on-going ever-repeated failure, it’s time to try something new? RESPONDENT: You still seems to me that you did not see that the problem is the DOER, who has many names, I, ME, self, Self, thinker, observer, censor, Peter, No 45, etc. PETER: Traditionally Eastern philosophy and religion has it that ‘I’ the doer, or the thinker, or ‘I’ as the ego is the problem, as you call it, and blithely ignore the fact that ‘me’ the experiencer, the feeler, or ‘me’ at the core of my being is the root cause of all of human malice and sorrow precisely because ‘me’ at the core of my being is an instinctual-programmed and passionately-driven being. And I am fully cognizant of this as I have many times in my life experienced the grip of raw instinctual fear, raw instinctual dread, raw instinctual rage, raw instinctual lecherousness and so on. ‘The doer’ is but the tip of the iceberg, which is why the traditional solutions to ending malice and sorrow have always failed and always will fail to bring an end to all the wars, rapes, murders, tortures, child abuse and corruption that continues to plague the human species. * PETER: The other correspondence is in total agreement with this philosophy and picks up on the first correspondent’s lead that there is a possibility for the problem – how to be happy in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are – ‘to transform to something else’ and suggests that her awareness reveals that there ‘begins to be a plane which is established out of this continuum’ – alluding to her own method of dealing with the endemic sadness and acrimony that are the most disquieting features of the human condition that every child born eventually finds themselves confronted with. I say this because I too have experienced the angst of growing up and gradually becoming aware of the harm that human beings are capable of inflicting upon each other and also of the harm that they can inflict upon themselves. My father, who had experienced the horrors of being a soldier in Europe and the Pacific in World War Two, only gave me one piece of unsolicited advice as I was growing up, which was – ‘It doesn’t matter what you do in life, whether you are a street cleaner or a brain surgeon, just be happy’. The only thing was that he didn’t say how because he didn’t know how to be happy. And here I am, many years later, telling my fellow human beings how it is possible to be both happy and harmless and they are busy telling me that the very desire to be happy is the problem and declaring that that happiness can only be found on ‘a plane outside of this continuum’. RESPONDENT: Let’s see the situation from another angle. Your father gave you the advice to be happy. He did not know how to be happy, but he new that happiness exist. He was not that, but that must exist. Somebody told him so, a priest, a friend, your grandparents, and they also have been told by someone else. PETER: No. He knew what happiness is – every one knows what it is to feel happy, even if only for brief periods, even if it is only a relative happiness or a conditional happiness. RESPONDENT: It was one wish for him, one ideal, but not a reality, not one actuality. So he advised you to be something that was not really actual. Do you see the contradiction here? PETER: Indeed. I experienced this contradiction for the first 35 years of my life because whenever I felt happy I was aware that it was at best a temporary feeling, that it was at best a relative happiness and it was at best a conditional happiness. When I abandoned the normal world and trod the spiritual path I eventually became aware that nothing had fundamentally changed – whenever I felt happy I was aware that it was at best a temporary feeling, that it was at best a relative happiness and at best a conditional happiness. And when I came across Richard I became aware that I had been avoiding the fundamental problem of my unhappiness and my acrimony towards others all my life and that it was high time to begin actually do something about it. RESPONDENT: So you were not happy and you decide to become happy. Because if you were happy then you should not have any reason to want to become something that you are. So the unhappiness began to move toward its opposite. You did not know what happiness is, but you knew what unhappiness is, so you saw the happiness like the opposite of the unhappiness. It makes sense no? PETER: No, I knew what happiness was and I knew that it was at best temporary, relative, and conditional and I also knew what unhappiness was, both in my own experience but more tellingly I saw that others where afflicted by the feeling of sorrow, so much so that they suffered horribly from its effects. RESPONDENT: So happiness was a goal for you, you was moving towards something that you don’t know. PETER: As I said, everyone knows what happiness is, especially the feelings of happiness that are temporary, relative and conditional. What really made me sit up and take notice that there was something far better than this type of happiness was the memory of the perfection and purity that is evident in a PCE – a ‘self’-less experience whereby the entire affective faculty is temporarily non-functioning. Whilst I remembered that the direct sensate experience of perfection and purity far surpasses any feeling of happiness, it made absolute sense to me that unless ‘I’ was willing to devote my life to ridding myself of ‘my’ feelings of malice and sorrow I would never, and could never, expect to ever be actually free of the human condition in toto. In other words, if I wasn’t willing to do something about ‘me’ and ‘my’ unhappiness and ‘my’ acrimony, then who or what did I expect would do something about it? RESPONDENT: The unhappiness was real, but the happiness only one ideal, one non actuality. PETER: Have you never felt the feeling of happiness – no memories at all of ever being happy, even as a child? Maybe even moments of unconditional happiness, a feeling of joy at simply being alive? RESPONDENT: And I am asking you now, can the movement of the unhappiness produce anything else than unhappiness? PETER: If you don’t think you can do anything about your feeling of unhappiness then it may go way by itself, or it may get worse or it may linger a little longer and then abide for a while and so on. Speaking personally and as an actualist, any feeling of unhappiness that did occur was a warning light that I had wandered off the track of being happy and harmless and it caused me to get off my bum and root around so as to understand why I was feeling unhappy in order that I was less likely to fall into the same trap of feeling unhappy again. RESPONDENT: I am bad and I for some reason decide to become good. I don’t know what good is, but I say it must be the opposite of what I am. So the badness, me the bad begins to move towards my ideal, formed from my fantasy, which I called good. I move but I am bad, I am trying to become good but in the meantime I am bad. I go to bed in the night to sleep and I am bad, and of course the morning I wake up bad. And I move again. I say give me time and I will be good. (Here enters the factor of psychological time). Because takes time to build a house, I mistakenly made this time enter in my psychological world. Trying to become good, is the best way for me not to look and be involved with my badness. I don’t try to look at my badness, but all my energy is going in becoming good. You see the game? I don’t care any more about my badness, because I will be good in the future. So I have all the time now to enjoy my badness, is not any more a problem for me, because I will be good in the future. If exist the future or not is another story. I need a psychological future one illusion, because in this future I will be good. If I force my self to be good striving meditating etc, then this that I call good is the outcome of the movement of badness and necessarily must be bad. The bad with another mask. Because this good came from the bad and knows the bad. Now even if it was possible to become good, how shall I recognise this state of goodness? Re-cognise means I recognise something because I new it. So I will recognise it from the description of what the so call holly books say or the priests, this pest, or my parents will say to me bravo now you are good. But all that is the condition itself part of the condition. They don’t go to the church on Sunday and on Monday they take their neighbours to the court? They don’t say the priests be good don’t compete love your neighbours and the priest him self wants to become bishop? So I ask you Is the real good, if exist the opposite of badness? Is happiness the opposite of the unhappiness? Because the opposites include it’s other because the one comes from the other. So what if instead to try to become good or happy, we give all our attention to badness and unhappiness? PETER: I do realize that there are a lot of moral and ethical issues involved in wondering whether or not to devote your life to becoming happy and harmless – is it a good thing to do, isn’t it a selfish thing to do, what about everybody else, what about fighting the good fights, how can I be happy when others are unhappy and so on. I racked my head about all these issues, mulling them over and over but in the end there was one simple down-to-earth fact that I couldn’t avoid and that was – if I couldn’t live with at least one other person in utter peace and harmony, how could I expect to be able to do it? And I knew that if I wanted to do this then I needed to do whatever it took to become both happy and harmless, knowing full well that this commitment would be the end of ‘me’. In other words, I abandoned the moral and ethics I had imbibed from past generations of unhappy and acrimonious people who were here before me and did what was sensible and obvious. RESPONDENT: If badness ends and if unhappiness ends might be replaced by something unknown. Don’t ask what is this. The unknown, if you try to imagine it you make it know. PETER: Every human being has had a glimpse of ‘the unknown’ at some time in their life, very often in childhood before the real-world reality closes in on them. The pure consciousness experience of the perfection and purity of the actual world is what makes all people think and feel there is more to life and it is the dormant memory of this experience that motivates people to seek peace and harmony … and it is this experience that the human beings who came before us have corrupted to the search for an imaginary ‘Unknown’ inner peace and harmony. To put it bluntly, it’s high time for human beings to stop believing in fairy tales and to stop being seduced by delusory altered states of consciousness. * PETER: Presumably this is the very same advice that they would pass on to the next generation – it is impossible to be happy, let alone harmless, in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, what you need to do is follow the teachings of the East and seek happiness and fulfilment somewhere else other than in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. The conversation only served to remind me that those in the post-WW2 generation who by and large rejected the fairy-stories of the Bible and yearned for peace and harmony have squandered these youthful yearnings and settled, in their latter years, for ‘olde-time religion’, albeit with an Eastern flavour this latest time around. It’s times like this that I am especially pleased to have to extricated myself from the quagmire of Eastern religion, philosophy, spirituality, superstition, metaphysics, supernaturalism, cosmogony and mysticism. RESPONDENT: If you were really happy you should not know how to describe this new state. You should change the name also. But seems to me you have more of what humanity had since ever. PETER: I have no trouble at all describing how excellent it is to be virtually free of malice and sorrow. The very process of becoming free of malice and sorrow strips much of the veneer of grim reality that ‘I’ previously coated over the actual world so much so that I more and more experience the world I live in as both benign and extraordinary in its innate vitality. And that all this can be experienced without a skerrick of religious, spiritual, metaphysical or mystical belief whatsoever running is what makes this experiencing brand new in human history. RESPONDENT: I want to comment on the following subject that I think is of big value due to my personal experience. When I was 30 years about, I began so have attacks of tachycardia. Palpitations in a big rate. That was due to the fact that my diaphragm, was by nature a little bit higher in position and that, when the stomach was not empty was pressing the heart and it was beginning to have palpitations, not always but in certain positions, when I was bended for example. That fact gave me one insecurity and due to the fact that 33 years ago Corfu was not so well organised with ambulances etc made the situation even worse. So I began to be afraid to be alone, and not only to go out alone. This was not a classic agoraphobia case, because agoraphobia is a Greek word, which means phobos of agora. Phobos=fear and agora=the market place which used to be an open place. So fear of open places. Because I was afraid in general if somebody was not with me, they call it agoraphobia because they did not found any better word. Last summer though, it came one insight to me. I said to my self, since my heart is fine and nothing physical is wrong with it, then must everything be due to the mind. I realised that due to the fact that this palpitations condition did not happened in the last 20 years, was just a conditioned reflex, one habit formed. So I became aware that actually I was afraid of the fear. Fear of the fear. By being afraid that I might become afraid that was agoraphobia itself. I saw that being afraid that agoraphobia might take place, already this was agoraphobia, itself. I said to my self, I must stay with the fear. Am I different from the fear that I try to control? So I took the car and I went for a round. As it was expected, due to the momentum, the fear began, but I did not try to phone for help or otherwise to interfere with it. It subside, completely, was like a miracle taking place. Not only that, but the sense of fear was begging to give its place to a joy. I stopped the pill, and after two, three more times the fear was just a memory. I tried to make him come but more I was trying to make him come more impossible that was. Since then I am free. My first reaction after that was that I become angry, because I did not think for that solution much earlier and not to loose so many years. This is the story, and I think can be applied to any kind of phobia. Now the thing that I cannot understand, is what had that to do with Vineeto’s answer. On the contrary what I am reporting now, must make her think better what I was trying in other emails to explain her about staying with the fact. And doing nothing about it, other wise somebody cannot see the fact is not in contact with the fact if avoids it. This way helped me also with other fearful thoughts that happen to everybody of us I guess. I don’t move, I stay with it and it fades. PETER: I am pleased to hear that you have eliminated the fear of going out alone – to be free of a fear that had plagued you for so long must be palpably liberating. What twigged me to write was that I appreciated that you explained the course of action involved in getting yourself free of this particular feeling of fear. You were very clear that the feeling you were feeling was fear and had no trouble in labelling it as such, even to the extent of understanding that it was not a ‘classic agoraphobia’. You obviously experienced the physical symptoms of the fear when it kicked in and you had the insight that what you were afraid of was the feeling of fear itself and that this ‘fear of fear’ was making your life miserable and causing you to be unhappy and that it was high time you did something practical about trying to eliminate it. This insight then led you to take action, get into the car alone and to experience exactly what this feeling of fear was made of. What you evidently discovered was that the feeling was only a feeling and that, in fact, nothing terrible happened to you. You then checked it out practically several more times and found yet again that nothing terrible happened to you – thereby confirming that what you had been afraid of for all those years was nothing more than a feeling. The very act of daring to do something practical to test out whether your fear was a fact, or whether it was a just a feeling, led to you becoming palpably and tangibly free of this particular fear. I can relate to your experience because I have used this process of being aware of a feeling, being attentive of its debilitating effects in that it prevents me from enjoying this moment, or equally importantly, that ‘me’ having this feeling is impinging on someone else’s potential enjoyment of this moment, and then – most importantly – wanting to be free of it. Because of my intent to become as happy and as harmless as possible, the necessary and appropriate action I needed to take to become be free of the particular debilitating feeling gradually became obvious to me and sincerity then compelled me to take that action. This is not passive awareness nor is it right thinking – this is taking intent-ful action for the benefit not only of this body but also for other bodies. By your own report, taking appropriate action does work – and, in my experience, making the effort to develop an on-going active attentiveness one can become incrementally free not only of fear, but of aggression as well and one can also become incrementally free of the more grievous aspects of nurture and desire in exactly the same manner – which then leaves one more free to be able crank up the felicitous feelings such as delight, friendliness, consideration, wonder, amazement, joie de vivre and so on. It’s no wonder you felt joy at being free of this feeling of fear – any freedom gained by one’s own actions is a wonderful freedom, and more especially so because you come to experientially realize that your own freedom is in your hands and your hands alone.
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