19.9.2000

RESPONDENT: I think we must inquire as to what spiritual means with regard to emotional. To me, spirituality means to be free from all knowledge, from one’s entire content of memory.

PETER: And yet what is called by jargon spirituality includes not only its previous traditional meaning of Eastern religion but has now grown to embrace the mysticism in Western religion – a vast reservoir of psychic knowledge, atavistic memory and altered state experiences. What you are saying is that one denies modern scientific knowledge, one’s common sense and previous life experiences in order to tap into this ancient knowledge. Not knowing and no memory are but platitudes of the East’s so-called wise men.

RESPONDENT: That means you do not get emotional with regard to all forms of thought, because thought comes from memory and knowledge.

PETER: Then how come one is advised to practice right thinking – in order to have right memory and right knowledge? In order to train or control one’s emotions so as to only have the right emotions? Surely if this system worked we could expect the practitioners to be perfect and pure, that they would not get angry, sad, annoyed, cynical, arrogant, be deceitful, power hungry, etc.?

By the way, thinking is what the brain does and all thought does not come from memory and knowledge. The ability to think, reflect and plan is what sets us apart from all other instinctual-driven animals. Thought, when freed of the shackles of ancient beliefs and the influence instinctual passions, is a marvellous thing.

RESPONDENT: However, that does not mean the spiritual person does not show compassion.

PETER: So spiritual people do get emotional, as in showing compassion, which means sharing one’s sorrow or feeling pity for others? The spiritual teachings make no bones about sorrow – sorrow is deemed essential and inevitable in earthly human experience in the ancient teachings, and feeling and sharing sorrow is an indispensable part of all religion. The deeper the sorrow, the more the need for God. The blacker the Darkness, the stronger the Light. This is why religions have always condemned scientific progress, safety, comfort, pleasure and leisure – anything that reduces human suffering is anathema to religion.

You may also have noticed that all religion is founded on fear. Fear and damnation is writ large in the teachings, constantly evoked in the sermons and mutually reinforced amongst the followers. The stronger the fear, the more the need for God. The more hellish the damnation, the more desperate the need for salvation.

And there is no greater fear than the fear of death.

RESPONDENT: The spiritual person expresses love and compassion to its fullest. I would even say that being emotional has little to do with spirituality and love.

PETER: Are you now claiming that love and compassion are not emotions? Are they not strong feelings felt in the chest area or in the gut? Are not the euphoric feelings of Love of God and the gut wrenching sorrow for the Human Condition deep-seated emotions?

RESPONDENT: Yet, that does not mean the spiritual person is not in touch with his or her emotions. Quite the contrary. The spiritual person knows where the emotions belong and does his or her best to keep emotions where they belong.

PETER: You also said – ‘[Spirituality] means you do not get emotional with regard to all forms of thought’. So what you are saying is the spiritual person carefully chooses, as in thinks, which emotions to be in touch with and which not to be in touch with. Keeping undesirable emotions, or wrong thoughts to use the Buddhist jargon, where they belong means to repress them, which as we know from the lives of the Enlightened Ones, is certainly not to eliminate them. This is why perfection and purity is never actualized in the spiritual/religious world, despite all the well-meaning efforts of billions of devotees over the millennia.

RESPONDENT: Emotions do inspire whether in music, dance or many of the arts. I even get emotional over a beautiful sunset or watching children playing in the park.

PETER: Do you get sad listening to music, watching a sunset, do you get upset when watching children fight? Do you also get emotional when you watch the news on TV, when someone says something unkind to you, when you are driving, when you do not get what you want, when you do not get your way? Simple observations of this type will reveal that emotions arising from the instinctual passions conspire to prevent one from ever being unconditionally happy and unreservedly harmless.

RESPONDENT: But when thought comes into play I set aside my emotions.

PETER: This is called right thinking, or very selective attentiveness, whereby one can keep the undesirable emotions where they belong and only feel the desirable emotions. This right thinking is always difficult in the cut and thrust of the market place, which is why serious spiritual practitioners always retreated from the world of people, things and events.

RESPONDENT: Does any of this make sense?

PETER: It does in the spiritual world, but what you are describing is an ancient belief-system about how to deal with one’s own instinctual passions – a practice has failed lamentably to bring anything remotely resembling peace on earth. Each and every human being is programmed with a genetically-encoded set of survival instincts, mainly fear, aggression, nurture and desire, and these instincts give rise to deep-seated emotions and passions. In reality, the human condition can be seen as a grim instinctual battle for survival fought out between individual ‘selfs’ or between groups of ‘selfs’.

It is very clear that only the total extinction of the animal instinctual passions in human beings will bring about an end to the horrific violence and endemic human suffering on this planet.

This act of extinction is purely an individual responsibility for an end to selfishness only comes with complete ‘self’-lessness – the elimination of both ego and soul.

2.10.2000

PETER: Just a comment on your post to No 12 entitled ‘achieving enlightenment’.

RESPONDENT: Some 27 years ago I had that enlightening experience, the light, the tunnel the warmth of the glow and that everlasting sense of peacefulness. We look for the words, but the words only take us away from that which is.

PETER: Unfettered awareness and attentiveness will reveal that one’s thinking is continually affected by one’s animal instinctual passions and this is what creates feelings – a feeling is an emotional-backed thought. When something is said or observed one always has a feeling reaction, which could be a moral or ethical judgement as in good, bad, right or wrong, or it could be an automatic reaction arising from the instinctual passions resulting in feelings of fear, aggression, nurture or desire. Thus one’s thinking is never a complete cycle but rather a continual staccato that appears to be a continual thought neurosis but, if accurately observed, is found to be a continual turbulence of feelings and emotions.

Thinking firstly needs to be freed of superstition and impassioned feelings for intelligence to begin to operate, such that thinking can complete its straightforward simple process of awareness, investigation, evaluation, decision and implementation.

RESPONDENT: Looking back at my experience I realized I broke that cycle, that chain of thought. And in so doing I actually came in contact with the very process of the thought cycle. By the cycle of thought I mean, giving your attention to the experience, following the experience and seeing it become memory which in turn becomes knowledge, and that knowledge becomes a thought and thus action. And that action unites with a new experience. And the cycle goes on and on. That chain of thought needs to be broken. Then there is enlightenment.

PETER: The alien entity inside each flesh and blood human being is a psychological and psychic entity – ‘who’ I think I am and ‘who’ I instinctively feel I am. ‘Who’ I think I am is often experienced as a little man, or woman, inside the head who is running the show, who thinks he or she is in control. The thinker exists over time, made real by past memories and future worries and as such has a life of his or her own and can be likened to a parasite dwelling in the body. ‘Who’ I feel I am is experienced as somewhat deeper, for he or she is an instinctual self – a passionate being, experienced in the heart or gut and given credence by the flow of chemicals that give rise to ‘my’ emotions. To dissociate from the thinker, or ego to use the spiritual term, and become the feeler, as spirit or soul, is to feel as though one has seen the light, become free, become enlightened, found the real me, etc. This new identity is epitomized by feelings of grandness, omnipotence, immortality, Love and Oneness – all feeling and fantasy and no common sense and down-to-earthiness. When the tender passions run amok, delusions or grandeur set in, as is seen by the plethora of Gurus, God-men and spiritual teachers, all vying for customers.

RESPONDENT: What really is enlightenment? Occurs when thought sees its relationship to that which is attentive.

PETER: Your attentiveness must be very selective and solely focused upon what you choose to feel while ignoring or denying what you regard as wrong or undesirable. The new identity that arises from this selective attentiveness is a good-feeling-only identity and must be constantly on guard lest he or she allows any bad thoughts/feelings to intrude to impede or obstruct the good thoughts/ feelings. This is why spiritual people have traditionally retreated from the world of people, things and events in order to live more completely in their own inner feeling world of their own creation. What they have done is put rose coloured glasses on top of their grey coloured glasses and as such are totally oblivious to the sensual delights and pleasures of the actual world. It takes great courage to dare to let one’s guard down completely and take off both sets of illusionary glasses.

RESPONDENT: If you stop and think about it you can logically come to the realization that there really is no thinker at all.

PETER: Okay. By the same logic, could you come to the realization that the feeler is equally illusionary? It would require a degree of awareness that was beyond the limits of selective spiritual attentiveness. One would have to broaden and deepen one’s awareness by unconditionally, and honestly, asking the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ What is preventing me from being happy now or why am I not harmless now? Why am I feeling pissed off, angry, bored, sad, blissed out, etc. What incident, event or words triggered this feeling in me? You would have to become vitally interested in eliminating malice and sorrow from your life and becoming ‘self’-less rather than selfishly seeking Self-aggrandizement in the ranks of the mythical Chosen Ones. One would have to abandon the search for immortality for one’s soul and actively pursue ‘self’-immolation.

RESPONDENT: Thought is the response of memory. When you are asked your name, you respond. When you are asked what you ate for dinner last Sunday you respond more slowly. A searching of memory takes place, similar to finding the correct path to open a file in your computer.

PETER: I watched a TV program documenting the amazing progress that has been made in the last century towards eradicating viral infection and epidemics. In 1918 an influenza epidemic killed 20 million people – more than died in WW I. By the last quarter of the century, defences and cures had been found for most deadly flu strains, polio, measles and chicken pox and smallpox had been eradicated. Millions upon millions of lives have been saved and suffering eliminated by human endeavour and intelligence. Jonas Salk, the pioneer of the polio vaccine, was interviewed and he said that it took until the1950’s before the combination of knowledge, experience and technique was such that real progress and innovation was possible in the fight against the plagues that had traditionally swept through human populations. I liked his definition of the thinking process – a combination of knowledge, experience and technique.

To belittle thought as a response to memory only, is but to parrot one the Eastern Church’s repressive favourite strictures designed solely to keep the priests and Gurus in power and control, and to keep the peasants in awe and gratitude and from thinking for themselves. To wallow in thoughtlessness is a self-indulgent wank.

RESPONDENT: It is a wonderful experience to slow the process of thought down enough to break that cycle. You are given an awakening to a new dimension to you very being.

PETER: And thus peace on earth – the ending of human malice and sorrow – is willingly and eagerly forfeited for one’s own wonderful thoughtless and impassioned experience of being divine and immortal. Over 160 million human beings were killed by their fellow human beings in wars and an estimated 40 million humans killed themselves in suicides in the last century and those who supposedly are the ‘caring ones’ are beguiled and ensnared by Eastern spirituality and blissful ‘other-worldly’ experiences. To actively practice a so-called attentiveness based on ignoring and denying any feelings of anger and sorrow in oneself is but to turn away and stick one’s head in the clouds. I know what I am speaking about for I know well the seductive wonderful experiences and I know that what I was doing was more and more turning away from, and becoming dissociated from, the world of people, things and events.

For peace on earth to be actualized, the spiritual predilection for thoughtless behaviour and impassioned ‘self’-ish feelings must be abandoned and we must now look to a combination of knowledge, experience and technique to tackle the elimination of animal instinctual passions in human beings. This is the challenging pioneering work for those who are willing to put their concern for their fellow human beings above their own innate self-ishness ... or their passionate desire for Self-realization.

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