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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Gary
VINEETO: Hi Gary, How are you doing? By the sound of it you are having fun exploring and honing your communication skills. GARY to No 16: I assure you nobody on the Actual Freedom list is giving me diction lessons or correcting my copy for conformity to certain linguistic standards. That my post could have come from someone else is not in itself proof positive of a cult being in existence. Sometimes while in the process of writing a post to this list, I may check the Actualism Glossary to see if I am communicating about certain things in a way that facilitates dialogue. That does not mean that I pattern my speech or behaviour on what others do. It only means that having a common understanding of terms and definitions sometimes makes it easier to communicate about certain phenomenon. Gary to No 16, 12.7.2001 VINEETO: Like you, I take sometimes a considerable time to write a letter so as to make sure that it really spells out what I am attempting to convey. I even take ‘diction lessons’ from Peter for English grammar and for accuracy of communicating this process that is so utterly new to human history. My words may be misunderstood nevertheless, but that is mostly due to the fact that an actual freedom from the Human Condition is so radically different to any spiritual belief and unimaginable to a worldview steeped in superstition and cynicism. Every now and then I sit back and wonder what it is specifically that people do not understand about the difference between a fact and a belief, about the unambiguous term ‘non-spiritual’ and about the method of investigating one’s own emotions and beliefs. I am less and less able to empathize with any of the objections and sometimes that leaves me bewildered and confused, even to the point of mental anguish, about the utter incompatibility of common sense on one side and the human psyche that is instinctually driven by beliefs and emotions on the other. The common thread in the difficulty to understand even a glimpse about actual freedom, however, is that one’s emotions, feelings and beliefs by default are given far more credence than simple common sense. Given the findings of Joseph LeDoux’ that the input stream to the amygdala is quicker – 12 milliseconds as opposed to 25 milliseconds to the neo-cortex – then rash thoughtless reactions are more understandable. Unless one develops a keen awareness about this automatic input into the most primary part of one’s brain, it is almost impossible to separate one’s emotional and instinctual reactions from the facts of the situation. In this context I am curious as to what made you overcome your initial fear of actualism being a cult, as you described it to No. 16 –
What was it that fuelled your intent to move on beyond the common aversion to cults that most human beings have and investigate into the content of what was being said rather than the framework it seemed to be presented in? So far I have only my own and Peter’s experience to go by and I am still bewildered as to why so few people seem to be genuinely interested in becoming happy and harmless. I think I have written before as to what helped me move past my first hurdles of fear – it was my keen interest to live with one man in peace and harmony where both have a commitment to investigate everything that would prevent this peace. That this desire for a peaceful living together would eventually turn into the all-encompassing adventure of pursuing an Actual Freedom from the Human Condition was at first quite a surprise, but by then I had already tasted too much of delicious actuality to turn away. The other thing that helped me over my initial fear of questioning all my dearly held beliefs and move into completely unknown territory was the fact that I found Richard to be utterly sincere and genuine – he lives what he says. Further, my extensive explorations within the spiritual world had made its failures to bring about a happy and harmless life all too obvious and I was less and less willing to sacrifice my life on this earth for a spurious after-life or after-enlightenment-life. I had always felt inferior compared to fellow seekers who were much better able to ignore and deny the physical world, but I was simply not able to pretend that ‘life in the marketplace’ was something to suffer nobly or that did not in fact exist. When I met Richard and he presented his stunning discovery of actual freedom, Peter and I were the first to be seriously interested in practicing the method of actualism. Of course, there was no concern for me at all about entering a cult, there were simply the three of us, sometimes joined by one or two others, talking about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. But when I was questioning my spiritual belief of being a Sannyasin there was great concern that I did not replace one belief with another – I wanted something tangible, stable, permanent, something that I would never ever have to question again, something that did not depend on me believing in it to be true. Needless to say that my first major pure consciousness experience confirmed experientially that actuality is not a belief but the purity and perfection of the physical universe itself. I still can’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that this actual world is so invisible most of the time to most of the people while being right under our very noses.
VINEETO: I am enjoying your posts as they come into my mailbox, and I don’t really have much to comment or add to. I guess it’s another proof the every actualist is on one’s own, once the method is understood and successfully applied. I find it serendipitous that you are writing while in the midst of it, as your experiences are fresh and your descriptions vivid. I often have a hard time to remember ‘who’ and how I was a few years back as the emotional memories disappear with the problems and the passions that used to give such substance to ‘me’. These days I am sometimes busy with understanding the bigger picture of the Human Condition and also in giving up trying to understand what can only be left behind. Now to your letter – * VINEETO: What was it that fuelled your intent to move on beyond the common aversion to cults that most human beings have and investigate into the content of what was being said rather than the framework it seemed to be presented in? GARY: ’Tis hard to remember, but I think I just took what was being said at ‘face value’ and evaluated it for myself so as to see whether it made sense or not. It seems to me looking back at it that there were plenty of assurances that whoever was writing to me was not telling me what to think or what to do. For instance, in early correspondence with Peter I remember explicitly his assurances that he was not telling me what to do or what to think but rather that I would have to find these things out for myself. I found this also with you and with Richard. That is not to say that I have not had plenty of objections to actualism myself. No, wait a minute, ‘objections’ is too strong a word. I have had ... questions. I have had confusions. That might be a better way of putting it. How can one object to being happy and harmless? I suppose one always can, but to what point? VINEETO: It is curious – such a simple aim – happy and harmless – and yet, I am again and again surprised how little attraction it holds for most people. It seems to be that some people, like you, are able to take the words ‘at face value’ while others have too much investment at finding fault with the option to even consider that becoming happy and harmless is the most significant thing they can do with their lives. Whenever I try to understand why anyone would want to stay trapped within the Human Condition I come to see the futility of my attempts. Trying to understand the inexplicable keeps me trapped in guesses and feelings, whereas the acknowledgement of the fact that ‘this is the way people are’ puts me right outside of the Human Condition itself – utterly on my own. GARY: One of the things that fuelled my intent to move on ‘beyond the common aversion to cults that most human beings have’, as you put it, was the frank recognition that I had myself fallen into the trap of cultism with Krishnamurtiism. In fact, I think I had recognized this well in advance of my break from Krishnamurti. I had been taken in, suckered as it were, into a deep adoration for the man that I finally recognized to be a sign of religious devotion. I was to a large extent blind to the obvious faults of Krishnamurti the man and I was quite oblivious to the charge of Krishnamurti being a spiritualist to the core levelled by Richard. But I did see a kind of devotional fervour on my part towards Krishnamurti, even though he is dead, and it is a fortunate thing that I could see this as it hastened my departure from [Mailing List B]. I also saw the same thing with Quakerism. My involvement with the Quakers predated my involvement with Krishnamurti. I jumped ship from the Quakers with the conviction that their way was not ‘the Truth’ and found Krishnamurti, whom I believed had found the Truth. Eventually and predictably, I became disenchanted with Krishnamurti. VINEETO: What had attracted me to Eastern spiritualism was the situation that there was a living guru to admire and adore, whereas in my Christian upbringing, Jesus had been dead for presumably two thousands years. Therefore following a live divine teacher was for me one of the important factors in belonging to an Eastern religion as I had found the Christian religion too impersonal. At the time I had no qualms about adoring a man I considered the latest divine incarnation. It was only years after his death when none of his promises came true that I began questioning if I was really on the right path. My own life, and observably that of other devotees, was as miserable and as self-centred as that of non-Rajneeshees. However, it took another leap in awareness to seriously investigate and discover that it was not the fault of my spiritual practice and not even the fault of a particular divine messenger, but that the message itself was wrong – there is no God apart from passionate imagination. And it is the belief in God by whatever name that backs up the authority of every spiritual guru from A-Z (http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm) GARY: One might well ask how do I know I didn’t just jump from the frying pan right into the fire, so to speak – in other words, since I had fallen for cultic behaviour myself, first with the Quakers and then on the [Mailing List B], how do I know that I am just not repeating that pattern on the Actual Freedom list? The answer to that lies, I think, in my awareness of the issue of cultism. Since I had been aware of the feelings and passions involved in my own cultic behaviour (albeit a mild example of cultism), I was the more prepared to inquire and investigate into this issue when I first approached the Actual Freedom mailing list. I didn’t and still don’t want to end up in a cult. And I don’t think this is a cult. Uniformity of language, terms, and definitions concerning actualism. Yes, that does occur. But I do not think that is prima facie evidence of cultism. Were uniformity or similarity of linguistic expression a sign of a cult, you might just as well say that social work is a cult, or that teachers are a cult. VINEETO: What I find cute about the whole cult-discussion is that for a cult one needs a belief in a divine message and someone divine who personifies that belief. First, it is impossible to worship a thorough-going atheist as a divine messenger. Second, actualism is the process of questioning and investigating every single one of my beliefs and their underlying feelings, emotions and passions, and it can therefore, by its do-it-yourself methodology, never be a cult. Everyone who considers actualism to be a cult has not yet applied the method of actualism to the point of examining his or her own beliefs. There is great investment in keeping one’s own beliefs alive and dismissing actualism as being a cult is as good an excuse as any other. As for uniformity of language, terms and definitions – when I met Richard I was amazed how much I had to re-learn normal people’s language as defined in the dictionary because Sannyas and Eastern spirituality had very much its own terms and meanings specifically used by cult-members. Spiritual language was repeatedly redefined, poeticized and full of allusions and unspoken meaning, all in the interest of keeping things metaphysical and emotional, vague and open to multiple interpretation. When I write about actualism, pure consciousness experiences and glimpses of the actual world, I have learnt to be as precise as possible in order to maybe convey something of the magic and magnificence that one is able to experience when temporarily free from one’s beliefs, feelings and passions. GARY: Another thing that fuelled my intent to move ahead with the study of actualism was that here was something new and fresh. To begin with, something about Richard’s writing struck me as being entirely original and able to stand completely on its own. In Richard’s writings to others, there appears to be a complete absence of guile, deception, and rascality. VINEETO: Yes, after two of my religious pursuits had obviously failed to make my life more happy and had not enabled me to live with others in peace and harmony, I was stunned that Richard declared this to be possible, here on earth, in this lifetime. I agree with you about the absence of guile and deception in Richard’s writings and I have observed the genuineness and utter sincerity in all his interactions with people, but he surely is a rascal as in ‘a mischievous person’ and a master word-smith to boot. How else could one deal humorously with literally hundreds of objections from dyed-in-the-wool recalcitrant egos and faithful contumacious souls? GARY: For some reason, the framework in which actualism is presented has never bothered me. If someone has found something and wants to share it with others and wants to have a website detailing these discoveries, what the heck – then go for it. If I don’t agree with the information on the website or it doesn’t suit me, I don’t have to stick around. I can take it or leave it as I so choose. VINEETO: I stuck around because there was something on offer that was utterly fresh, sensible, sincere and, contrary to spiritual belief, appealed to my intelligence. Besides, I had nothing to lose but my weakening spiritual dreams and my devotion for an already dead master. Practicing the method of actualism for only a few months brought stunning results in my living together with Peter, and the actual intimacy I experienced by stepping outside of my beliefs and emotions was far, far superior to any feeling of love that I had ever had with any man, woman, group or master. By the time I realised that actualism was 180 degrees opposite to not only what I believed but also to what everyone else believed, it was too late. I have tasted the magic and splendour and innocence of being what I am as opposed to ‘who I feel and believe myself to be’ and that taste is utterly addictive. It has become impossible to ever turn back.
GARY: I am indeed on my own. That has become increasingly obvious to me in past months. I don’t look to anyone else for advice on how to live my life or what to do with myself. Any such advice usually only amounts to the regurgitated ‘wisdom’ of humanity anyway, so it is doubly important to go one’s own way. It seems to me that in the past I was always depending on someone or something as an anchor to keep me from running amok. It is curious what happens when one keeps one’s own counsel. Additionally, I always thought someone had the ‘answer’ to life’s problems... I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t think Richard has the answers anymore than you or anyone else on this list has the answers to ‘life’s persistent questions’. To be on one’s own ... rather than being frightening, it is rather liberating. VINEETO: Indeed, the ancient Eastern and Western male chauvinistic wisdom is regurgitated even on this atheistic mailing list as there seem to be now more masters and teachers on the internet than willing followers. I remember that most of my life I kept looking for the perfect phrase of wisdom to hang on the mirror, the right quote at first from the bible and then from Rajneesh to live by and eventually I found them all to be hypocritical and unliveable teachings. I am completely disinterested in books or films for wisdom or entertainment these days because most simply reiterate or glorify the Human Condition in one form or another. But I enjoy a good comedy and factual reports, although even with these reports one needs to be wary of bias and twists. ‘Life’s persistent questions’ have now turned into ‘what’s the weather like?, any specific appointments today?, what’s for dinner?, did I pay the rent? is there any new mail?’, and such like. Life has become so easy and simple with no soul to take care of and no afterlife’s rewards and penalties to worry about. When I think back, I realize that most of my adult life I was busy pampering and worrying about my soul – did my ‘wounded sensitive self’ receive enough attention, respect and healing and what was the right path to the right afterlife? To be free from the belief in an Almighty God, Christian or otherwise, has rendered all soul-catchers impotent and all soul-searching and soul-saving unnecessary and has freed me to increasingly do what life is about – to enjoy each moment of being alive. * VINEETO: I often have a hard time to remember ‘who’ and how I was a few years back as the emotional memories disappear with the problems and the passions that used to give such substance to ‘me’. These days I am sometimes busy with understanding the bigger picture of the Human Condition and also in giving up trying to understand what can only be left behind. GARY: I get some definite reminders every now and again. I have some bleed-throughs of the instincts from time to time. For instance, I experienced a temper tantrum this week. I have not left the Human Condition, I am still in it. I have to ask myself why these things happen, and I have to admit that I am discouraged when I act childishly petulant and peevish. It is a most uncomfortable state. But I find that rather than ‘snowball’, these negative moods rather quickly dissipate once I get back to running the question. I am writing this so that others will not think that Actual Freedom is some kind of piece of cake, something easily accomplished. It’s darned hard to get right down to it. I have always had the greatest difficulty with anger. I am subject to ‘stuffing’ anger and can easily end up quite unawares that I am actually very angry and then ... kapow! it comes tumbling out. VINEETO: One reason why I was initially drawn to Actual Freedom was because I always felt somehow uneasy when I realized how I was driven by my emotions. There was always something awkward about being blindly driven by emotions which do not make any rational sense and the fact that everybody is affected by, and acting out, the same emotions did not make it less embarrassing. A lot of effort in therapy and spiritual teachings goes into ‘accept yourself as you are’ but it always tasted of insincerity and cheap solace to me. The other night we watched a program that portrayed the life of a lion family over a two-year period. I found it fascinating to see all the various instincts in action without the moral and ethical overlay, which animals simply don’t have. This made it easy to study their aggression, their nurture, their fear, their mating behaviour, their hierarchy, their territorial instincts and their arrangements of belonging to the group – all of their instinctual actions were obviously for their own survival, the survival of the pride and to make yet more lions. To know by experience that these very same instinctual animal programming is operating in ‘me’ makes the intent to move on ever more urgent. You say that the path to an actual freedom from the Human Condition is not easy but after 17 years of fruitless search in the spiritual department I was utterly pleased to have the results tumbling in after a relatively short period of sincere and diligent application of actualism. Once I made the life-changing decision – after my first major PCE – to go ahead with actualism and to question my spiritual beliefs, I delighted to make sense of the world and enthusiastically engaged in finding out the facts of life. No more belief, no more trust, no more faith, no more mystique – to dust off my common sense after years of ‘leave your mind at the door’-teachings was utterly stimulating and liberating. Of course actualism is not a ‘piece of cake’ because the change that happens through applying the method is actual and tangible. To feel oneself to be harmless is easy – and being a feeling, it is as easily disturbed – but to actually be harmless requires removing everything in me that would disturb my happiness and harmlessness and this demolition job requires time, effort and dedication. * VINEETO: It is curious – such a simple aim – happy and harmless – and yet, I am again and again surprised how little attraction it holds for most people. It seems to be that some people, like you, are able to take the words ‘at face value’ while others have too much investment at finding fault with the option to even consider that becoming happy and harmless is the most significant thing they can do with their lives. GARY: It is quite hard to understand. I am not at all happy with the way ‘I’ am. Perhaps No 12 said it best recently. He said he is not interested in changing, that everything is fine as it is. VINEETO: I pondered about why one would not want to become free from the pain that is the Human Condition and I found a similarity to drug-addiction – for the brief hours or days of bliss one is ready to suffer countless days of sorrow, hypocrisy, malice, depression, loneliness and withdrawal-symptoms from that bliss – but to give up both the good and the bad feelings appears to be too much of a sacrifice. It would indeed be the beginning of the ending of ‘me’, my precious identity. I think that the bigger the ‘highs’, and consequently the deeper the ‘lows’, the harder it is to give up the addiction, be it to drugs, to love, to power, to enlightenment, to God, to beauty, to bliss or to mania. I think I mentioned it before – in order to get rid of, for example, jealousy, dependency and loneliness I had to give up desiring for and running after the capricious good feelings that love provided, like security, bliss, sweet dreams and fleeting moments of connectedness. The ‘good’ and ‘bad’ instinctual passions are so closely intertwined, they are in fact one and the same program. Such a simple fact – two sides of one coin – and yet none of the spiritual and religious wisdom expounded by thousands of teachers has ever taken notice of its significance for bringing a solution to humankind’s sorrow, fear and aggression. When one gives up bliss, love, truth and beauty one is not left with dread and emptiness as William James and other wise guys make us believe. Beneath the glossy feelings of love and bliss and the stark feelings of hate and dread lies the unpolluted and wondrous magnificence of actuality. * GARY: Well, I did not come to this list or to this website because everything was fine the way it was. I am interested in changing ... irrevocably and fundamentally. It seems every once in awhile I run smack dab up against the instincts. It seems like it is a matter of practicing unceasing awareness in all your affairs. It seems like I fall sometimes into the trap of not running the question ... kind of like running on automatic pilot. If I trace an explosion of the instincts back to when they started, that’s usually what comes up ... I was not examining my experience, not running the question with honesty and assiduity. VINEETO: I found that there are two kinds of emotional experiences – one was directly connected to my social identity, to my hopes and fears, disappointments and guilt, power issues and threatened beliefs, hurt feelings and passionate imagination. ‘ Running the question’ each time I was feeling disturbed in any way has certainly provided me with the tools to become aware of each and every aspect of my social identity in action. These experiences have nearly completely ceased nowadays due to the substantial weakening of this outer layer of the ‘self’. However, as the underlying raw instincts came to the surface once in a while, I began to understand that there is quite often no particular cause or reason for them – the instinctual program is simply running on automatic. ‘Running the question’ would not necessarily prevent the occurrences of such emotional outbreaks but being aware of ‘how I am experiencing this moment of being alive’ is essential to not let these events blossom into a full-blown dramas but to nip these outbursts in the bud in order to get back to feeling good or excellent. What I am saying is that ‘I’ cannot prevent the instincts from coming to the surface as long as there is a ‘me’ still in existence. Only when the animal instinctual passions come to the surface can I examine them and fully experience their potential ferocity, which in turn fuels my intent to facilitate the ending of ‘me’. Just now a bit of Richard’s screensaver was floating by that may be relevant to observing one’s instinctual passions –
(Editor’s note: The screensaver is no longer available due to its incompatibility with Windows 8) * VINEETO: Whenever I try to understand why anyone would want to stay trapped within the Human Condition I come to see the futility of my attempts. Trying to understand the inexplicable keeps me trapped in guesses and feelings, whereas the acknowledgement of the fact that ‘this is the way people are’ puts me right outside of the Human Condition itself – utterly on my own. GARY: It seems like trying to figure out what goes on in another person’s mind and heart is pretty much a waste of time. Being outside of the Human Condition ... in other words, being happy and harmless for relatively long periods of time, one can see that most people are intensely self-centered, very emotional, passionate, and often violent. I am glad in a way that I have these storms of anger. Although disturbing in a way, the raw energy is dissipated and it seems to get it out of my system, then I can get more easily back to being happy and harmless. As Peter, I think, pointed out, the harmless part of the equation is the more difficult part to get. VINEETO: The other day I overheard a conversation between two women who had a sharing over a cup of coffee. The conversation consisted of half-ended sentences, catch-phrases and fashionable allusions, whereby every other sentence ended with ‘you know what I mean...’ From my own experience I know that in a conversation like this very often I did not know what the other woman meant – I was not even particularly interested – but I then searched for a similar feeling experience that I could throw into the conversation as a contribution and as an outlet for my sorrow or my malice. I was certainly ‘intensely self-centred, very emotional, passionate, and often violent’ and only when I started practicing actualism and the cloud of self-centredness slowly lifted did I become interested in and able to relate to the actual person in front of me instead of blindly acting out my own desirous or fearful projections. GARY: When one is ‘temporarily free from one’s beliefs, feelings and passions’, bouts of the instincts can be extremely educative of the difference between raw emotions and the so-called ‘self’-less state of apperception as in the PCE. It becomes easier and easier to discern the difference between feelings, beliefs, passions and pure sensuousness. If anybody thinks, however, that Actual Freedom is a walk in the park, I think they are liable for a big surprise. ‘I’ will do literally anything to survive. VINEETO: Yes, ‘‘I’ will do literally anything to survive’ and ‘I’ am at the same time determined and dedicated to do anything to free this actual flesh and blood body from the cunning entity that ‘I’ am. I do find it intriguing that ‘I’ am the disease and ‘I’ can also instigate the cure. I am stunned to misty eyes by the thought that this universe not only produced life from the unique combination of chemicals and circumstances we find on this planet, but also sentient life and finally intelligent life. And not only intelligent life but an intelligent life that is able to become aware of itself such that we humans are now capable of changing the very animal survival program that used to be necessary for our continued existence. This animal survival program can now be replaced by the qualities of benevolence and sensibility that are inherent to a freed intelligence so that we can now facilitate peace on earth amongst human beings for the very first time. * VINEETO: I agree with you about the absence of guile and deception in Richard’s writings and I have observed the genuineness and utter sincerity in all his interactions with people, but he surely is a rascal as in ‘a mischievous person’ and a master word-smith to boot. How else could one deal humorously with literally hundreds of objections from dyed-in-the-wool recalcitrant egos and faithful contumacious souls? GARY: I see what you mean. I guess I was putting a more malevolent meaning to the word ‘rascality’. VINEETO: When I looked up rascality in the dictionary most meanings are rather malevolent. I only mentioned mischief because rascality without malice is an utterly enjoyable quality as far as I am concerned, both on the giving and on the receiving end. * GARY: The actualism method is really quite simple. It makes eminent sense to me and the more I examine the ins and outs of it, it is the most sensible thing in the world to eliminate everything that stands in the way of peace, happiness, and harmlessness in this lifetime. Not too many people seem really interested enough to see if it can be done. It means the end of ‘me’. But I am doomed anyway, so what’s the fuss? As long as ‘I’ am in existence, I am apt to make a terrible fuss ... and even worse. It’s indeed a bitter pill for some to swallow that ‘I’ am the root cause of all the wars, misery, child abuse, rape, torture, etc, etc. VINEETO: It is strange that people only find it a bitter pill and not a sweet discovery, because I found it incredibly liberating that to change my destiny was finally in my own hands. No more waiting for God, or enlightenment, or another true master, or a blinding flash of light – neither an authority nor a higher power is needed to change my lot in life. To acknowledge that ‘‘I’ am the root cause of all the wars, misery, child abuse, rape, torture, etc’ also means that ‘I’ can do something about it. GARY: Probably now somebody will pop up and say I am proving that this is a cult because I am parroting what others have said before. Oh well, we’ll see. VINEETO: I was thinking of making a catalogue of all the objections thus far against becoming happy and harmless and a list of answers already given to those objections. I think all the possible types of objections have been covered in the hundreds of correspondences so far. Such a list would also save people from soul-searching for more objections because they could see that many others have already raised the same questions. Should anyone be sincerely interested in changing ‘irrevocably and fundamentally’ then investigating their own objections is already part of the process of examining one’s beliefs and feelings. Personally I found that it all boils down to one basic objection to actualism and you have said it well – ‘I’ will do literally anything to survive. Common sense and facts cannot be parroted enough – the world is full of endlessly repeated nonsense, thousandfold replicated unliveable truths and silly ancient psittacisms. The Oxford Dictionary states the origin of the word cult as ‘French culte or its source Latin cultus, f. colere inhabit, cultivate’ – one could say that actualists are cultivating happiness and harmlessness along with common sense. I don’t mind successfully cultivating something that is inherently enjoyable and that the human race urgently needs.
PETER: Once you get the gist that actualism is about going down the road
never travelled before in human history you start to realize the full implications of the fact that everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong. One
then starts to see the folly of the human condition in toto and the envy, umbrage and criticism of others still ensnared by the old ways can be
easily and clearly seen for what it is. GARY: Yes, I think it has never been done before but now it is and I want to be in on it in a front seat. It means the end of ‘me’ and nothing but experiencing the 24hour a day perfection and purity of this physical universe, all while doing what one usually does, whether it be working, driving, tending a garden, going to meetings, whatever. The virtually free state or the PCE is at once an extraordinary and ordinary experience ... I don’t know if you know what I mean about ‘ordinary’. I don’t mean ordinary in the sense of dull or mundane, it is certainly not that. But I mean ordinary in comparison to the ecstatic Altered States of Consciousness. As it is a purely sensory experience, completely devoid of emotional content, it can be part and parcel of one’s ordinary sensory experiencing of life in general. It is something that everyone has experienced before and may be potentially experiencing as soon as they focus their awareness on attention and sensuousness. It is indeed something that is right here and right now. One needn’t go off to some monastery or trooping off to Byron Bay to make a pilgrimage to visit Richard to begin to experience this pure sensuous quality of life. It is right here right now. One becomes progressively more and more practiced in identifying what it is that is standing in the way of experiencing this perfection all the time, 24 hours a day. VINEETO: What a great description of exquisite extraordinary ordinariness. I really like your expression ‘front seat’ – you are spot-on. Those who fondly imagine themselves to ride in the back seat have yet to understand that the bus to an actual freedom does not have any backseats. In fact, it only has one seat, the driver’s seat. What an excellent ride.
VINEETO: Last week I sent a letter to a German correspondent commenting on two newspaper
articles that he had sent me analysing the latest events in the US. As I thought the topic might be of interest to you or others, I am posting the
English translation on the list. For you, here is the link for the * [Vineeto]: You said at the end of your last letter –
I don’t agree that eating only cakes will spoil the taste, because nowadays I regard every enterprise as a piece of cake – be it a new task, a familiar piece of work or days of delightful leisure on the computer, in the garden or watching a report on TV. Once one has freed oneself from the grip of one’s sorrows and fears, aggressions and drives, hopes and disappointments, then every enterprise is an adventure and an enjoyable venture. This ongoing momentary-only experience of living without malice and sorrow is the result of applying the method to become happy and harmless. * [Vineeto]: You sent me an article from Peter Lock, ‘Researcher for Peace and Conflict’, on the topic of ‘A Replaceable Figure’, ‘Politics Must Do More Than Hunt For Single Perpetrators’, which I found to be idealistic-ideological rather than pragmatic-practical. The author presents a number of well-known fashionable beliefs and ideas that have little to do with facts or common sense. For instance, he says –
I consider people who indiscriminately, and at any cost including their own life, set out to harm and deliberately destroy another group of people as a dangerous assembly, even more so in the latest case as they seem to have not only a strong following but also the avowed aim and the means to wage a war of terror. The behaviour and action of such a group, wielding such weapons as hijacked aircrafts laden with jet fuel, cannot be excused by anything, whatever may be the political situation in their country, the tenets of their religion, the ideals of their particular social/political philosophy or whatever injustices they claim to have suffered or how righteous they consider their cause. In other words, if someone decides to hate me and attack me, I don’t have to understand the particular justification for his or her aggression in order to stop him or her. When someone threatens me I will call the police, whatever the aggressor’s reason or justification for his or her attack may be. It may be pertinent to note that throughout history the only thing that ultimately stops violence is more violence – which is why we have armed police and armies to maintain law and order. The system may not be fair on some but whilst human beings continue to nurse malice and sorrow in their bosoms, what passes for peace will be ultimately maintained at the point of a gun. Peter Lock continues –
I don’t know what kind of economic development the author has in mind, but in contrast to popular opinion, my impression from the countless television reports that I have seen is that globalisation and world trade are enormously beneficial to economic improvement, particularly in developing countries. Economic globalisation often creates work and income in poor areas, brings information and technology into remote regions, supports productivity and innovation, improves communication and trade and gives a lot of people the possibility to earn more money and lead a more comfortable, healthy, pleasurable and safe life than their parents could have ever dreamt of. In the developing countries, health and education can only improve with increased economic living conditions, and the tackling of the problem of overpopulation – one of the major reasons for hunger and poverty – is only possible through improved education, medical advancement and economic growth. Don’t expect any support from the religions in reducing overpopulation, as pure self-interest drives all religions to increase their numbers by all means. Religions are unison against any kind of birth control – one of the few points of agreement between the various religious beliefs. However, apart from the ever-growing overpopulation in vast parts of the world, ‘the structural inability to overcome the hunger in the world’ is due to the fact that human beings are continuously and instinctually fighting each other for territorial, religious and tribal-political reasons. This grim battle for survival has gone on unabated for thousands of years – the only difference being it is now fought with much more sophisticated weapons and even more convoluted and pious moral arguments. And yet despite this continual vitriol and maiming and blaming of others it is amazing that at least one third of the world’s population lives in considerable wealth, relative security and enjoys the highly advanced technology that we are using today. It is pertinent to observe that all of the advances in civilizing the human species have come from the practical application of intelligence whilst all of the suffering of the human species has come from a senseless clinging to archaic beliefs, unliveable morals and ethics and a lauding of our instinctual animal passions. Right now the same people that a little while ago were morally outraged about violations of human rights in Afghanistan are now morally outraged that the Americans are bombing the strongholds of the Taliban, the very regime they originally saw as suppressing the Afghani people. A little reading of history tells us that the Afghani people have been at almost constant war with each other and against their neighbours for centuries. Warfare, with its inevitable suffering and impoverishment is inherent to Afghan history in this barren mountain-desert region. As far as this country is concerned, the unvanquished ‘hunger in the world’ has nothing at all to do with a so-called ‘economic globalisation’ – for decades this country has never known anything but tribal wars and war and conflict causes more suffering and hunger than any other cause. According to a Red Cross estimate some one billion people were effected by warfare in the last half of the twentieth century alone. As far as ‘the growing importance of violence to regulate economic operations’ is concerned, I don’t see that violence per se has increased but that information and media coverage about violence has improved. Peter Lock does not say relative to which time ‘violence to regulate economic operations’ has increased. Is he comparing today to the times of the brutish Viking invasions, the time when the Romans violently expanded into northern territories, when the Huns overran Europe, the time of the Hundred Year’s War or the time before World War Two? Since which time does the author think the violence between human beings has increased, which is what he seems to be implying? Human history is but a history of territorial warfare, violent conquest and asset raiding. Regulating of economic operations were almost always done at the point of a spear or sword whereas so much is done nowadays by negotiation and exchange of tokens. T’is often no less hard-nosed and ruthless but at least it is less physically violent. It is fairly easy, one could say even hypocritical, to live in the comfort of a rich democratic, capitalistic nation and attack capitalism, world trade and ‘economic globalisation’ and make them responsible for all the evil of humankind. If, however, one puts aside one’s personal anti-capitalist beliefs and takes a closer look, then the facts of the situation are quite obvious. Money itself is not the problem. In a wealthy country most people’s life expectancy, comfort, health and physical security are usually superior to those in poorer countries. And yet even in wealthy countries the emotions of corruption, greed, righteousness, aggression, fear and competition – that most people consider synonymous with and can’t separate from money and wealth – invariably turn one’s own life and that of others into a living hell. To deny others the benefit of economic and social development via economic globalisation – the opportunity and ability to trade information and goods with others worldwide – due to this emotional misconception is a truly myopic and self-centred opinion. In short Peter Lock, like countless others of his ilk, has got it 180 degrees wrong in his attempts to lay the blame for violence and suffering at someone else’s door. Wouldn’t it be much easier, far more realistic and pertinent, to abandon the moral confusion and ethical pros and cons of assorting blame and apportioning guilt and conduct ‘research for peace’ on oneself instead of endlessly pointing fingers at others? Any sincere ‘researcher for peace and conflict’ worthy of his or her name could begin to investigate how it is possible to live with their fellow human beings in complete peace and harmony, be it at home or at work, no matter where they live or who they live with. A ‘researcher for conflict’ could begin to learn about and meticulously investigate the causes of conflict in himself or herself because the causes for conflict are exactly the same in all human beings – our inherent instinctual passions, our animal heritage. Unless this instinctual animal heritage is acknowledged, recognized, investigated and finally eliminated, what passes for peace on earth between human beings can only ever be maintained at the point of a gun – with police, army and a strong justice system. It is not, as is commonly believed, the social, political or economic environment that makes people aggressive but it is our inherent animal-instinctual aggressive nature that can, when push comes to shove, explode at any time. Everyone knows such out-of-control impulsive moments from one’s own experience. Therefore it is completely useless to blame society – not to mention being practically impossible to change society – because the very people who would form the ‘new’ society would still be inevitably driven by their instinctually passions. Peter Lock, Researcher for Peace and Conflict. An Exchangeable Figure. Politics Must Do More Than Hunt For Single Perpetrators. Frankfurter Rundschau 13.9.2001 * [Vineeto]: The article from Dieter Lutz on September 22, 2001 in the Frankfurter Rundschau under the title ‘The Terrorist Attacks Are Also A Warning, Maybe The Last’ reads like yet another description of doomsday. Under the influence of his own emotional impression about the attacks on the World Trade Centre the author offers everything he always hated about the present situation in the world. He lays blame to western society, global warming, the exploitation of natural resources and the battle of the rich and powerful against the poor and weak. He conjures up major catastrophes, chemical warfare, the dying of the forests, the ozone hole and war over drinking water. The article reads like a description of Judgement Day as he mobilizes whatever fear and guilt he can. One could think from his tirade that he was happy that his personal enemies, the Rich and Powerful Ones, had received a severe blow from the terrorists. In an atmosphere of promoting and maintaining the divisiveness of class warfare and ethical polarisation, theoretical political alienations and moral indignation conflict is only increased and further inflamed, not diminished or dissolved. The author is amplifying the worry and fear of his readers for his own political and emotional satisfaction in a rather irresponsible way when he says –
Which he then answers with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker’s advice that –
And in his final conclusion Mr. Lutz explains how his world peace should look like –
Who, may I ask, will be the leader or leaders of this ‘world order’, who decides which ‘law’ of the ‘world order’ is being enforced, what are the rules of their ‘global home policy’ and who determines what is a ‘just peace’ and for whom it is just? Who are the powerful ones in this new ‘world order’? And what happens to the critics of this ‘world order’, people who criticize the new order – the next generation of Dieter Lutzes? I do find it amazing that those who have the greatest objections about the way societies are run today are exactly the ones who then propose their own global solution that is more unpractical and dictatorial than the one they see to be so disastrous. * [Vineeto]: I am glad that I don’t have the task to finding a political solution to ending violence and suffering because there is no solution to be had within the Human Condition. There is no general political solution, no permanent solution and particularly no world-order solution that will work to bring a genuine peace between human beings as long as people are driven by their instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Right now, however, there are only pragmatic law and order answers to be had to present situations and pragmatic solutions are best arrived at by putting aside beliefs and passions as much as possible. My own solution to finding peace on this paradisiacal earth has been to become aware of my own social and religious conditioning and beliefs, my own ethical and moral values, and my own underlying emotions and instinctual passions. By becoming aware of all this programming that society and blind nature had inevitably thrust upon me I was able to incrementally bring them to light and thus render them impotent. The peace and tranquillity that is achieved in this way is independent from the society I live in, independent of any religious belief whatsoever, independent from the emotions of other people and therefore indestructible. Also, it is much easier, and indeed it is only possible, to change oneself to be a peaceful person rather than changing 6 billion people so as to fit them into a mythical new ‘world order’ of ‘just peace’. The simple solution of getting rid of malice and sorrow is now available, applicable by anybody who is interested in being happy and harmless, right here on this very earth and right now in this very lifetime. Artikel 2: Dieter Lutz. The Terrorist Attacks Are Also A Warning – Maybe The Last. Are We Standing On The Eve Of Destruction And Annihilation? / Dieter Lutz About Mistakes and Failures of the Rich and Powerful States. Frankfurter Rundschau 22.9.2001
VINEETO: It’s always a pleasure to hear from you. You said – GARY: Thanks for sending along your response to the terrorism article. As you may have noted, the German language link did not come through on the list. Come to think of it, it is probably just as well as my German is rather laborious. But this is one of those uses of the Internet that never ceases to amaze me: the ability to get news and opinion in foreign languages instantaneously is simply incredible. VINEETO: Thank you for letting me know that the link did not come through. I received my post
with the link intact, it worked in my computer and in Peter’s computer. But I also noticed that the Topica archives do not support direct links,
so in future I will write out the links in full. Merely for the record, and for anyone interested, here is the full link for the letter in GARY: I agree for the most part with your response to the original article. The recent world happenings are extremely interesting to follow, with the wide range of opinion on the issues. There are just a couple of comments that you made that I would like to zero in on as I feel they are worthy of mention. They are reproduced, snipped of much of the original text. VINEETO: The reason why I found the two articles in the Frankfurter Rundschau so interesting and had so much fun commenting on them was because the opinions and resentments stated resembled pretty much my own critical assessments and political resentments that I had as a youth, derived from listening to left-wing university-student’s propaganda. Like many others in my generation, I believed that capitalist society in general and my parent’s generation in particular were to blame for all failures and shortcomings and the misery on the planet, and that our generation would put everything right. How this was to happen was not clear at the time and there was obviously no common agreement to be had as to how the magical change of society was to be achieved. After finishing university and attempting to change a small part of society myself through my social work with drug addicts, it very soon became clear to me that neither education nor revolution offered practical workable solutions. I also saw how many of the idealistic fighters for right and justice ended up either hypocritical or cynical. As neither of these attitudes to life appealed to me, I spent the next 20 years exploring firstly therapy and then spiritualism, only to find out that they too fail to provide a workable solution to changing the human condition. I found it rather fascinating that both these well-established journalists were still regurgitating the unliveable and unpractical ideals of the sixties, whilst conveniently overlooking both the facts of the current situation and the long record of failure of the solutions they offered. To me these articles were yet another clear example that blaming others for one’s feelings and emotions is an integral part of the human condition – a habitual pattern that needs to be tackled if one is at all to become free from malice and sorrow. GARY: For instance, you stated:
The longer I practice actualism, the less and less inclined I am to be concerned with what is ‘fair’, both for myself and for others. My conception over the years of what is fair has shifted and changed, but the basic thing is that I am not interested in nursing grievances and harbouring resentment any longer. If I do notice a grievance or a resentment popping up, it only means there is some underlying belief that needs to be examined and demolished. I am sure that to those who march and labour for social justice, my lack of passion to aid those who are hungry or who are oppressed would appear as a dangerous and self-serving form of complacency and co-option by ‘the system’ but I am burned out on feeling righteous indignation over a pet cause and I have seen the disastrous consequences of defending a righteous cause only too clearly. VINEETO: I fully agree with what you say. My comment that the system may not be fair was an acknowledgment of an ideal that has no existence outside of the human psyche. Life is not fair. The laws of nature favour the survival of the fittest, whether it be it the strongest or most fiendish, or the most sensible and intelligent. The ideal of fairness is purely a man-made ethical value and has nothing to do with what is the inherent nature of life on this planet. However, I found the concept of unfairness to be one of the hardest things to come to terms with and I am glad that you brought up the issue. It is my ideal that life should be fair which sometimes triggers off traces of sorrow, compassion, pity or righteousness when I am watching reports of starving people in Africa, victims of landmines in northern Asia or victims of senseless violence – in short, people suffering physically through no fault of their own, i.e. not self-inflicted. However, to suffer emotionally on top of any physical suffering one may have only exacerbates the situation. Emotional suffering is always ‘self’-inflicted in that only the emotional-instinctual entity, the ‘self’, and never the flesh-and-blood body harbours sorrow, grief and anguish. Only the ‘self’ harbours malice, revenge and resentment, which not only maintains and perpetuates emotional suffering but is also the cause of untold physical suffering. Far, far more people are killed and maimed by human beings fighting and feuding with other human beings than by any natural causes such as disease, earthquake, fire, famine or flood. Which brings the issue of fairness back to precisely what you said – ‘the basic thing is that I am not interested in nursing grievances and harbouring resentment any longer’. By shifting one’s focus in such a way I stop grieving, whatever the reason for it may be, I stop resenting people or things, and I stop being angry or indignant, whatever the reason. It is really very, very simple. It might take a while to fully grasp it, considering that it goes against all of one’s trained socialisation and all of one’s innate instinctual passion, but once the fact is understood that the only person I can change is me, it becomes blatantly obvious that changing oneself irrevocably is the only sensible and only possible solution to ending human misery. GARY: Further on you stated:
This seems to be the crux of the matter. It is a futile exercise to blame social conditions for violence, but it is also an extremely commonplace understanding. For instance I was recently reading a book entitled ‘Fist-Stick-Knife-Gun’ by a man who grew up in the South Bronx, a blighted inner-city ghetto area in New York. His life experience was marked by interpersonal violence from a young age, but he was able to go to college and turned his life in adulthood to helping the young people in these areas as a counsellor. But here again I found that he made the common mistake of blaming violence in the ghetto on the social conditions – as abysmal as they may be. It simply didn’t wash for me, because I know only too well that one can be living in the lap of luxury and still be extremely violent. It is not that I am totally discounting hunger and poverty as being among the causes of violence, but violence has far, far deeper roots that go all the way into our rudimentary animal instincts. One has to start where one is and free oneself from the grip of this primitive survival programming. While the particular form that violence takes is ultimately shaped and determined by the social environment, the propensity for violence, fuelled as it is by the rudimentary instinct of aggression common to all human beings, is to a large extent genetically determined. I feel it is basically incorrect to say that violence is learned, as this South Bronx-bred author does state unequivocally. VINEETO: Recently there was a local television show called ‘Bad Behaviour’ where a journalist interviewed criminals convicted for murder or attempted murder, two males and two females. In the course of the interviews it became clear that for both women something had gone wrong in their socialisation, i.e. their moral and ethical ‘lid’ did not work, a fact that left them without sufficient control when their instinctual passions erupted. The sister of one of the women was owed a small amount of money by someone and the she decided to ‘teach her a lesson’ as she called it, stabbing her to death. Even after the deed she could not feel any remorse, shame or guilt for the act, only resentment that the death of the woman resulted in her being jailed, separated from her young son. She even said if someone would hurt her son, she would kill again. The second woman could be described as a nice friendly housewife but was someone who had trouble ‘standing up for herself’. After years of disrespectful and abusive treatment from her husband one night she lost control and killed him with an axe. ‘I don’t know what came over me’ she said, ‘but I knew I had to go to the police and give myself up’. There are many similar stories where bottled up anger explodes and creates havoc and usually people say they didn’t know what came over them or that ‘I wasn’t myself in that moment’. One of the men interviewed grew up in a street-fighting environment and when his family moved to Australia, he still saw the streets as being full of potential enemies. Subsequently whoever happened to give him a strange look, teased his mother for her foreign customs or looks was an adversary and needed to be attacked. When asked if he would change his behaviour after being released from jail he answered he could change when he gets married and has children. He imagined he would stop drinking, he would have new friends, not his gang-ho friends from the past, and then his attitude and behaviour would change. But without a wife and children he considered the task of changing his habits as being too great. What I found most interesting in those reports was that because the social conditioning of each person had an obvious flaw, one could clearly see the results of the bare instincts operating in their naked brutality and simplicity – kill or be killed, protect your offspring at any cost, fear your enemy. Most sociologists are concerned with the question as to why the social conditioning fails in people and how to prevent it failing while nobody dares to look at the root cause – the animal instinctual passions. The root cause is far too close to the bone, so to speak. But to overlook the fact that each and every human being is endowed with instinctual passion is to carry on inventing better asbestos suits or questioning why the suits always have holes in them instead of putting out the fire. GARY: One need only look at the world-wide incidence of violence to see something much deeper and more resistant to change at work. While there may be one or two isolated, extremely rare cases of tribes way off in the jungle somewhere who are essentially peaceful (come to think of it, I can’t think of a one), human violence and warfare has a world-wide incidence endemic to the human species. Terrorism is nothing new. Anger is nothing new. To blame the terrorism on ‘Muslim anger’ over the treatment of the Palestinians by the US-backed Israelis is akin to blaming the depredations of the Nazis’ to ‘German anger’ over the indignities of the Versailles treaty. It only makes sense whilst one is busily harbouring malice and sorrow oneself. VINEETO: I like your comparison. It makes the nonsense of continuously finding the fault in others and thus perpetuating the cycle of taking offence and seeking revenge so blatantly obvious. Terrorism is indeed nothing new, in fact the sixteen hour BBC series on British history that is on local television right now has shown history to be an almost unbroken series of terrorist acts – tribes against tribes, kings against kings, lords against bishops, not to mention the countless unrecorded acts of senseless violence of common folk against each other. As an actualist, the only thing I can do is to pick myself up by my bootstraps and change myself.
VINEETO: I’d like to add one of my experiences that I had a little while ago to your recent discussion about sorrow. You wrote to Peter – GARY: I’d like to go back to a previous thread about sorrow – back on October 6, to be precise. The subject matter is sorrow. You had this to say, among other things, about the experience of sorrow:
I’ve been doing one heck of a lot of ‘pulling’ lately, because just in the past day or two I’ve had an acute onset of sorrow, or rather I could say an eruption of those bitter-sweet feelings of grief, angst, sorrow, and disappointment, quite unbidden, and yet so, so familiar. Yesterday I felt almost paralysed by these feelings, they were so intense. Again, I am reminded that actualism is about examining and experiencing one’s feelings in the light of a sensuous awareness, not about suppressing or repressing one’s emotions. I wonder if, as one is breaking free of the Human Condition, one is liable to experience fresh onslaughts of the ‘automatic/instinctual predisposition(s)’? I remember reading in Richard’s Journal the kind of scary, intensely abnormal and psychotic state that he experienced as he was on the verge of self-immolation, the description of which should be enough to deter any but the most serious of inquirers. I don’t want to suggest necessarily that that is what I am going through. But I have noted that the further and further I go my own way, depending on nobody, practicing attentiveness and sensuousness, and demolishing the social identities I have formed since birth, the more intensely do I seem to experience the raw survival program of the human species. So, last night, as I commenced to get a grip on my boot straps, a fascinated awareness reflected on ‘So this is human sorrow and suffering – this is the bitter-sweet feeling of sorrow, so deeply embedded, so ancient, so much a part of being a human being that it is in a sense my very life. It is what my life has been about, never very far around the corner, always lurking in the background, something I have tried to ameliorate through compassion and acts of pity and helpfulness, something I have tried to assuage by loving others and being loved, through being comforted and comforting in turn’. I don’t want to ‘get over’ sorrow just to have it come back again. Is one in a sense subjecting oneself to these bouts of emotion? Am I on the wrong track? Are these ‘pity parties’ totally unnecessary or is there some intrinsic value to going through these experiences? What does one need to do to finally and irrevocably break free from these ‘automatic/instinctual predispositions’? I have a sense that your answer is going to be to get back to being happy and harmless just as soon as one can ... which would be a splendid answer ... but I’ll let you answer this yourself. VINEETO: Recently I was watching a re-run of the Hollywood Cinderella fairy-tale called ‘Pretty Woman’. Once in a while I like to watch some kind of emotive movie just to check if they might trigger an emotional reaction in me. And indeed, almost at the end of the film a small scene between the heroine and the concierge of the hotel she had stayed in caught my attention. For a short moment these two were exchanging what one could call a common bond of sorrow, the mutual acknowledgement that life is not a fairy tale existence, that one should always have dreams but realize that they never come true, that it is pretty tough out there to survive. Their short interchange would be usually considered as friendship, even intimacy, mateship, love or shared compassion but, at a closer look, this ‘precious’ sentimental connection is nothing other than a shared agreement in sorrow, a bond that unites all those who suffer similar hardships like poverty, abuse, disillusionment or disappointment. This bond of common sorrow is what connects me to humanity at large because everyone is suffering from more or less the same sorrow. Going to bed that night, I was still probing what exactly it is that makes me prone to tapping into the sorrow of other people, for instance while following the news reports or a even watching the occasional soap opera on TV. The next morning I dreamt about being deeply upset that I never had had any children. I was quite surprised about the dream, because I hardly ever have any emotional dreams any more and also never had any regrets at all about my choice of not having children, so I decided to investigate the topic a bit further. I understood the dream to be closely connected to my bittersweet bond with people suffering the night before in the film. Both, the desire to raise children and feeling sad for a suffering humanity at large stem from the same instinctual passion of nurture, the instinctual drive to perpetuate the species. I could see that nurture and sorrow go hand in glove, so to speak, and that nurture is an integral part of the sticky feeling of belonging to a suffering – and malicious – humanity. I saw that it was the ‘good’ feeling of nurture lurking underneath the bitter-sweetness of sorrow that I had to identify and recognize in order to further loosen the grip that sorrow used to have on me. The only way I know to get out of sorrow is to completely and utterly understand its ingredients. Once seen and understood the automatic-instinctual program stops being automatic and eventually must fall to pieces.
VINEETO: You wrote to Peter about relationships – GARY: So, let me pose the question: What is a ‘relationship’ between two human beings? Are relationships important? Why? Do you and Vineeto have a ‘relationship’ together? Wherein does it consist? I hear many people around me talk about the importance, indeed, the primacy of having relationships in one’s life. The longer I practice actualism, the less and less important ‘relationships’ seem to be to me. This sometimes causes the reflection that I am indeed an outcast and I sometimes experience anxiety to realize that I am no longer part of any particular group, nor do I want to be. However, the anxiety is only occasional, and at other times there is this enormous sense of freedom and ease, a freedom that can only come when one is free from the obligations of being a member of a particular group, a family, a profession, a community, etc, etc. There is a tremendous comfort for me in just being alone, just sitting in my chair, for instance, doing nothing in particular. But again, this statement of mine – about being ‘alone’ communicates the essence of the matter – for there is still this sense of being communicated in these terms. Richard has stated that in an Actual Freedom, even this feeling of being alone, this sense of isolation disappears. <snip> On the subject of my ‘relationship’ with my partner, the matter gets a bit stickier. Since my need to affiliate with other human beings in groups has greatly lessened, to the point of almost being totally absent, I have wondered at times if I transferred these feelings on to my partner and whether I am clinging to her to get these self-same needs met. I do enjoy our being together, and I look forward to our weekends and holidays together, even our simple presence together in the evening when the day is done is very enjoyable. To be honest: I do find myself clinging to her at times with feelings of ‘love’ and affection. Yet I can say that for every moment in which there is this feeling of love and affection, there are counterpoised moments when the invidious passions are in evidence: resentment, peevishness, annoyance. In short, malice. It increases my feeling that you cannot have the positive, loving emotions without having the whole instinctual package. At least, that’s the way I think of it at this point. In other words, the entire package needs to be deleted. So, I guess where this leaves me is to say that I think the closest thing I have to a ‘normal relationship’ is my relationship with my partner. It is here that the instinctual passions of nurture and desire occur most clearly and cleanly, compared to my other everyday ‘relationships’. To sum this all up: it seems to me that a ‘relationship’ is about sharing joy and sorrow, sharing the complete pathos and movement of human emotion and human feeling. If one is freeing oneself from the Human Condition, does one need or desire relationships then? In an actual intimacy, is there any ‘relationship’ with the other that one is relating to? Is there any ‘connection’ at all, or is this entirely absent? These are just a couple of the questions that occur. VINEETO: You say that you ‘think the closest thing I have to a ‘normal relationship’ is my relationship with my partner’ and this coincides with my own experience. When I still had an affective relationship with Peter, I could observe, identify and whittle away all the subtle emotions and feelings that never the less occurred long after we both had recognized that love was not the answer to a peaceful living together. The cozy-good feelings of ‘being connected’, the feeling of belonging, feeling safe and protected from the alien world and not being alone were to persist much longer than the easy to recognize failure of the dream of romantic love. Also I discovered I could quite easily and quickly recognize and nip in the bud the negative emotions of relating such as anger and complaints when they occurred but it took a keen and persistent awareness not to repeat falling into the trap of the sweet rose-coloured moods of connectedness. As a fact, I have been on my own all my life, however, the marked difference used to be that sometimes I felt lonely, insecure or even abandoned by my parents, friends or partners and sometimes, but more rarely, I felt excited, adventurous and thrilled by the feeling of freedom of not being bound by any relationship. These days I would rather say that ‘I am being on my own’ because I am no longer suffering the feelings and emotions that the word ‘alone’ usually conveys. In terms of living together with Peter, I am on my own in that I take care of myself – my job, my finances, my clothes and my health – and I spend my time doing what I like to do. Then I have the added bonus of doing things with Peter together that we both enjoy, i.e. cooking food, playing in the garden, going for a walk, having a chat, watching TV and enjoying delicious sumptuous sex. I can simply be me, what I am, without feelings or vibes, hopes or fears and without any image or a social identity to be maintained. In my understanding that does not really fit into the category of having a relationship because a relationship is usually based on emotional components such as expectation, obligation, hope, love, worry, duty, loyalty, fear of loss, resentment or feeling responsible for the other’s feelings. In other words, in a relationship one social and instinctual identity attempts to relate to the other’s social and instinctual identity and both parties are mutually dependent on the other for maintaining their identity, negotiating their individuality and battling their loneliness because a human being only has an identity in relation to other people. A personality is only better than or lesser than, more needy or less needy, stronger or weaker in relation to – i.e. relative to – other personalities. You are hundred percent spot on when you say that ‘the entire package’, both the good and the bad emotions in a relationship, ‘needs to be deleted’. Last week I met a friend whom I had not seen for seven years and this meeting gave me an opportunity to observe in what way my relating to people has changed since I took up actualism. It was a very enjoyable meeting and a pleasant surprise, contrary to some meetings with other former friends, as we were able to find lots of things in common to talk about despite the fact that I have abandoned my spiritual beliefs and loyalties. It was all made easier by her own discontentment with the outcome of her own spiritual search and her interest in what solutions I have found. What had changed for me since I had seen her last was that I experienced none of the emotional aspirations that are usually inevitable ingredients to a friendship. In fact, I was aware that I easily responded each moment to what was happening – be it her curiosity or bewilderment, a silent appreciation of our surroundings, a chat about food or living in Australia, her future plans or who she met yesterday. I told her as much about how I live now as she asked to know but felt no need to demand her attention or interest. I was simply me, I did not have an image, beliefs or precious feelings to promote or to defend and I did not feel any emotional bonds, fears and obligations interfering with meeting a fellow human being. Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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