|
Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 89
RESPONDENT No 47: I know that ‘affective felicity’ is the only type of ‘felicity’ ‘I’, the identity, can experience – ‘I’ being completely ‘affective’. However, as this is written, I am not currently experiencing a ‘PCE’ (a total absence of identity) yet do not experience this ‘felicity’ as ‘affective’ either. It is mostly caused by an awareness of the existence of actual time, this moment in time, and even though no real confidence in the ‘infinitude’ of the universe is experienced. Now, am I correct in saying that it is not ‘affective felicity’ which enables me to feel good at this moment, as opposed to the ‘affective felicity’ I used to utilize to feel good in my earlier years with actualism (it being the only type of ‘felicity’ I could then experience), but rather the diminishment of the identity which lets sensuousness – something totally unrelated to the ‘self’/’Self’ – operate gradually more and more? Or is it possible that the ‘affective’ part of this ‘felicity’ is so diminished as to not be experienced as such, which is nonetheless ‘affective’? VINEETO to No 47: I’d give you a ‘very likely’ on the last one as I can well relate to it myself. In my experience my happiness changed from a conditional happiness – happiness about certain meetings with people, certain fulfilled expectations, purchase of particular goods or achievement of particular goals – to a more and more unconditional happiness and delight of being alive which prevails when malice and sorrow are greatly diminished or completely absent. RESPONDENT: This absence of conditional happiness, presence of unconditional happiness and sheer delight of being alive never happened during your spiritual days? Strange days that must have been, indeed. VINEETO: No, unconditional happiness didn’t happen in my spiritual days. In my spiritual days my happiness was dependant on a fair amount of ongoing dissociation from the world-as-it-is, dependant on the feeling of belonging to a club of the chosen few, dependant on fuelling my feelings of love for the master and receiving his hypnotic suggestions on a daily basis, dependant on succeeding in transforming my anger towards my fellow seekers and my sadness into love and compassion (which quite often failed), dependant on physically retreating from the world into a bubble of meditation that was usually so fragile and conditional that it was easily broken by trivial events such as someone cutting in at the food queue or seeing my boyfriend flirting with another woman. It was also dependant on having enough cash to remain living in India and not having to go back to the West because that meant leaving the safe haven of the spiritual commune and once again competing in the dog-eat-dog world for survival. As for unconditional harmlessness – that wasn’t even on the agenda. Any outburst of anger could always either be justified as being ‘right’ as in righteous. In hindsight, they were strange days indeed. Have you never had any hands-on experience of the spiritual world?
RESPONDENT: This absence of conditional happiness, presence of unconditional happiness and sheer delight of being alive never happened during your spiritual days? Strange days that must have been, indeed. VINEETO: No, unconditional happiness didn’t happen in my spiritual days. <snipped> As for unconditional harmlessness – that wasn’t even on the agenda. Any outburst of anger could always be justified as being ‘right’ as in righteous. In hindsight, they were strange days indeed. Have you never had any hands-on experience of the spiritual world? RESPONDENT: Practical acquaintance with spirituality: Until two years ago or so, I regularly practiced autogenous training (in a group first, then alone), Jacobson’s muscle relaxation, and some forms of meditation; some with eyes closed, some with eyes open, some unmoving, some moving such a of yoga or other forms of gymnastics. Other methods I have some experience with: general semantics and its heartless offspring NLP and the related methods of cognitive therapy and gestalt therapy. Recently, I also have practiced contemplation, such as HAIETMOBA and the Shalif way. I love to dance. But to explain what I do and why a bit, maybe a look at my non-practical experiences with spirituality can shed some light you might be interested in: <snipped for length> This brings me to my theoretical acquaintance with spirituality which followed from my personal interest: I read books on the above-mentioned subjects, namely anthroposophy and its cousins theosophy and what-not of mystical/magical bovine faeces you find in the early 20th century until today. I also read book about the subjects I have practical experience in, plus books on Zen and its parents Buddhism and Taoism, plus stuff about the ‘enlightenment’ phenomenon in east and west, plus books on epistemology. I did Internet investigations into some of this and some of the people referenced on the Actual Freedom Trust website. A website which proved a good starting point for many investigations, thanks for all the work! Another source was, as you have already noted, Alan Watts, and occasional readings in comparative religious studies for a follow-up. Other conversational acquaintances with spiritual people: Almost nonexistent, for the above reason: The ‘esoteric’ and ‘alternative’ people bore me; they appear to me quite silly. As the lines between the patently crazy and the ‘enlightenment set’ are blurry, I have not seeked face-to-face contact with spiritual people, except the inevitable funny occasional conversations with missionary Christian sects such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, whose mythologies are funny as superhero comic strips. The only thing I had serious exchanges about with other people were about epistemology and neuroscience. Presently, however, I have overcome that reluctance for conversations about spirituality and participate on this mailing list where I have found debates I can relate to – although I can mostly relate to the Actual Sceptics. My favourite debates are about raw data and practical, trivial examples, and I have found the answers to my questions – and other’s – questions on this mailing list as well as on the website to be rather thin-mouthed. Maybe the triviality has caused actual boredom... VINEETO: After reading your explanations about what you are interested in and why, I am not at all surprised that you find the answers to your questions on this list to be rather thin-mouthed. It all has to do with the first five words on the actual freedom website – a new, non-spiritual, down-to-earth freedom. Non-spiritual means what it says – not at all spiritual, as in no theism, no pantheism, no deism, no life after death and no intelligent design(er). Maybe a personal story can help you understand –
In short, using the tool of attentiveness in the quest for empirical and sensately verifiable facts, rather than indulging in imagination in a search for ‘the truth’, I have managed to extract myself entirely from spiritual beliefs, the spiritual viewpoint and any superstitions that come with the territory of the invisible, inaudible, ineffable, and untouchable realm of passionate human imagination. However, if, as you say, you ‘can mostly relate to the Actual Skeptics’ then I am certainly not the person to talk to here on this list.
RESPONDENT: HAIETMOBA tackles maladapted thoughts and emotions. RESPONDENT No 66: Basically I think you understand both well. (...) VINEETO to No 66: Do you really think that the actualism method’s purpose is to ‘tackle[s] maladapted thoughts and emotions’? RESPONDENT: Besides what this viewpoint obviously implies or not – would you say that actualism does NOT lead to the elimination of maladapted thoughts and emotions – maybe that’s not its (only) intention, but is this or not one of its effects? VINEETO: What this viewpoint implies or does not imply is vital to the point I was making as actualism is not about tackling maladaptive thoughts and emotions as in making thoughts and emotions well-adapted as do all of the psychological and or spiritual therapies and methods and teachings. The aim of actualism is eliminating ‘me’ in toto, both ego and soul, and that is the end of both maladapted and well-adapted thoughts and emotions – when there are no instinctual passions there is no need to adapt one’s thoughts and emotions. RESPONDENT: Would you agree with the statement that being happy and harmless in the AF sense is, at the basis, a state of the body permitting optimal functioning of whatever will happen of its own accord? VINEETO: No. I would rather say that native intelligence comes into play when one’s beliefs disappear and when attentiveness renders one’s instinctual passions less and less powerful. RESPONDENT: Furthermore, would you say that whatever thoughts happen of their own accord, absent the ‘illusion of a self’ (as I would say it) or absent ‘the self’ (as other actualists would say, maintaining there ‘is’ a ‘self’ in the first place), are not well-adapted (to actuality, as it were)? VINEETO: Several points – First – ‘The illusion of a ‘self’’ is a spiritual-only concept, which denies that humans are born with instinctual passions that inevitably form themselves into a passionate ‘self’. For a normal person, ‘self’ is far from an illusion – it is in fact who one thinks and feels one is. For a spiritual person ‘self’ is taken be so real that the physical world is felt to be an illusion. Those who propose that the self is an illusion do so on the basis that a personal self is an illusion whereas an impersonal Self is substantive as in ‘I Am That’. Second – ‘Maintaining there ‘is’ a ‘self’ in the first place’ is again a spiritual-only concept, which denies that humans are born with instinctual passions that inevitably form themselves into a passionate ‘self’. This concept implies that one could voluntarily decide to disbelieve that there is a ‘self’ which decision would then make the ‘self’ disappear. Such sleight of hand thinking is what leads spiritualists to disingenuously switch identities – the ‘Advaita shuffle’ being the commonly used term of dismissal even within the spiritual world. Third – The flaw of your initial statement lies in the viewpoint that thoughts and emotions are only maladapted and therefore need merely to be modified (become well-adapted) while it is in fact the innate programming of the instinctual survival passions itself that needs to be eliminated and replaced by human intelligence. * VINEETO: I ask because this viewpoint obviously implies that well-adapted thoughts and emotions are the solution for the situation human beings find themselves in. RESPONDENT: That is indeed the implication – but not as a goal, just as a consequence. It makes no sense to say ‘I want well-adapted thoughts and emotions – and I want them now’ with any chance of success without some kind of effective feedback process. Just as it makes no sense to say ‘I want to live in Actual Freedom’ – without the appropriate feedback process, it’s never going to happen. VINEETO: And yet the idea of thoughts and emotions being merely maladapted and can be turned into ‘well-adapted thoughts and emotions’ via an ‘appropriate feedback process’ is entirely your proposal. You are – yet again – doing nothing but making actualism into something it is not and then arguing against your own interpretations. RESPONDENT: And when if that effective feedback process is finally enabled: it’s not what a ‘self’ decided to begin – it’s what happened of its own accord, already-always. VINEETO: The process of actualism is neither an ‘effective feedback process’ nor does it happens ‘of its own accord’. The decision to become free from the human condition in toto is a decision that is utterly unnatural as it goes against the very nature of one’s innate survival instincts, and as such against one’s very ‘being’. RESPONDENT: Attentiveness/ openness on all levels – bodily, emotional, intellectual sensations – is what I would propose – because it’s the kind of feedback any self-referential process requires in order to function well. And then, whatever happens next, happens. VINEETO: Yep, and that is Eastern Mysticism couched in terms of Western psychology. RESPONDENT: It’s not important to me whether the ultimate ‘event’ is a switch to the condition Richard finds himself in. That may or may not be the ultimate consequence – but until then, and then, too, I always just exist here and now. The process is more important to me than the goal. VINEETO: And yet it is the goal that determines the process and your goal is ‘openness on all levels – bodily, emotional, intellectual sensations’ while an actual freedom from the human condition is to be free from the animal instinctual survival passions. * VINEETO: [I ask because this viewpoint obviously implies that well-adapted thoughts and emotions are the solution for the situation human beings find themselves in.] In short – enhance the good (well-adapted) thoughts and emotions and suppress and/or transcend the bad (maladapted) thoughts and emotions and voila, the actualism method has yet again been reduced into the well-known ancient spiritual recipe for spiritual enlightenment. RESPONDENT: I can only be amazed at your summary conclusion – that to differentiate attentiveness beyond the HAIETMOBA attitude means –
VINEETO: And yet you did not ‘differentiate’ the attentiveness/ watchfulness method of actualism, you did not even take notice that the method is inseparable from its goal to become free from the instinctual passions. But then again, if I read you right, attentiveness does not seem to be something you are interested in, acceptance, as in ‘I always just exist here and now’, seems to be your process/goal. RESPONDENT: thus, it’s got me beat that in my take at actualism –
VINEETO: Your ‘take at actualism’ has got nothing to do with the actualism described on the Actual Freedom website. But then again you have made it plain that you are not interested in newness.
RESPONDENT: Presently, however, I have overcome that reluctance for conversations about spirituality and participate on this mailing list where I have found debates I can relate to – although I can mostly relate to the Actual Skeptics. My favourite debates are about raw data and practical, trivial examples, and I have found the answers to my questions – and other’s – questions on this mailing list as well as on the website to be rather thin-mouthed. Maybe the triviality has caused actual boredom... VINEETO: (...) In short, using the tool of attentiveness in the quest for empirical and sensately verifiable facts, rather than indulging in imagination in a search for ‘the truth’, I have managed to extract myself entirely from spiritual beliefs, the spiritual viewpoint and any superstitions that come with the territory of the invisible, inaudible, ineffable, and untouchable realm of passionate human imagination. However, if, as you say, you ‘can mostly relate to the Actual Skeptics’ then I am certainly not the person to talk to here on this list. RESPONDENT: I don’t care who’s the person to talk to – I just enjoy what happens. VINEETO: But then again, you would no doubt be aware that who you choose to talk to and what you choose to talk about on this mailing list predetermines what happens, or more to the point, what does not happen. Enjoy. Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer |
