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|  happy  |  harmless  |  harmony  |  here  |  honesty  |  hope  |  Human Condition  |  humanity  |  humility  |

happy –– Of a person: favoured by good fortune; fortunate, successful. Of an action, speech, etc: pleasantly appropriate to the occasion or circumstances; felicitous. Of a person: dexterous in hitting on the action, words, etc., appropriate to the circumstances. Feeling deep pleasure in, or contentment with, one’s circumstances. Pleased, glad (at, that, to do); satisfied (with). Of an organization etc.: marked by a pleasant spirit of harmony and mutual goodwill. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Within the current limitations of the Human Condition, happiness is a temporary state at best, totally dependent on fortuitous circumstances and, as such, is notoriously fickle. Some people create an imaginary world of bliss and happiness which is based on transcending or denying the misery, violence and suffering both in themselves and others. When one eliminates the opposites of good and evil, right and wrong, as well as the animal instincts of fear and aggression, there remains an actual innocence, purity and contentment that far exceeds anything promised by the spiritual and religious zealots. The direct, pure, sensate experience of the actual world, the perfection of paradise only on earth, here, now is pretty hard to beat.

A personal description of becoming happy and harmless on the path to Actual Freedom –

‘I became vitally interested in ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ And if that meant I was feeling angry, sad, melancholy, lacklustre, depressed, then I would track back to find out what it was that bought on that feeling. What was said, what happened, when did it happen? I wanted to understand feelings, their source, how they worked, what caused them to kick in, etc. Only by understanding them, could I begin to get free of their insidious grip. I also knew that until I was rid of the source of feelings entirely – ‘me’ – I would have to live with them. So best to understand them and best to aim for the felicitous and innocuous ones – and feeling happy and feeling harmless are surely the best one can aim for of the feelings.

For me the clue was in my aim to be happy and harmless. Even in my spiritual days I wouldn’t have described myself as unhappy. Probably that I was reasonably happy, particularly when things were going well. But what I had to admit, almost force myself to admit, was that I was not harmless. Well-meaning, yes, but when push came to shove, or when things weren’t going my way – certainly not harmless. My inability to live with a woman in peace and harmony was ample testimony to this fact. When I read Richard’s journal for the first time it was the first chapters on ‘living together ’, ‘sex ’ and ‘gender’ that pricked up my ears. It was to prove to be my test of fire. I asked myself a simple question. ‘Could I live with a woman in peace and harmony?’ The honest answer was ‘no’. The next question was – ‘Why not?’ The answer to that question took me off on a 12 month investigation into the beliefs, emotions, passions instinctual programming, morals and ethics of gender, sex and living together. As a man, I was fascinated to discover the extent that my social and biological programming actively conspired to prevent anything remotely resembling intimacy – hence the need for the feeling of love to bridge the chasm.

To be reasonably happy is relatively easy. To be totally harmless – to have no instinctual fear or aggression – to be actually free of malice and sorrow is an evolutionary leap. The stakes are high in this game … but so are the rewards.’

Related Discussions 

harmless –– Doing or causing no harm; inoffensive, innocuous. Free from guilt; innocent. Free from liability to punishment or payment for damages. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: A double whammy in the dictionary, for if one causes no harm to others one is also free of the feeling of guilt. The ideal of pacifism is the best that humans have come up with as a collective ethic, but we still keep law and order in the world at the point of a gun after thousands of years of adherence to well-meaning ethics, morals, ideals and dreams. At the very core of the problem is the inability of even two people to live together in perfect peace and harmony, let alone a family, tribe or nation. But the perversity is that every human blames the other for the violence and is in complete denial of the aggressive instinct lurking deep inside themselves. In order to become completely and irrevocably harmless you, as you instinctually know and feel yourself to be, have to become extinct.

The path to becoming harmless involves the willingness to question and tackle the well-meaning ethics, morals, ideals and dreams that keep Humanity forever shackled to aggression and sorrow. As we grow in childhood years we are well imprinted with a sense of right and wrong, good and bad by our parents, teachers and peers. As we emerge into the world we became increasingly indoctrinated into believing and joining certain groups of people whose principles we agreed with. For many in this century the attraction was to socialism, peace, green and eventually spiritual groups. This, of course, meant that one then had to disagree and fight with the other groups representing opposing beliefs. And everybody is in one group or the other. As a consequence, in the world the Left fight the Right, Protestant fight Catholic, the poor fight the rich, Greenies fight the Greedies, Christians fight the Moslems, Democrats fight Communists, tribe fights tribe, the workers fight the bosses, men fight women, women fight men, and so on and on.

Good and right and true are words used by both sides in the arguments, fights and battles, but at the heart of it all that we human beings actually love to fight, blame and resent other human beings. A good example of this was evident in a TV show by Clive James called ‘A postcard from Chicago’. He was escorted through the Black ghettoes by a policeman who explained to him the gang warfare that continually raged. Boys as young as ten were initiated into a gang by breaking the law – robbing a store or mugging someone were typical acts. Eventually, to earn respect in the gang, the boy would have to kill someone and a random drive-by shooting was the popular method. The policeman went on to explain that the gang structure was essentially split into two major groups – ‘Folks’ and ‘People ’. This grouping did not represent old tribal, ethnic or religious groupings but was an apparently arbitrary split, invented only in the last decades. After centuries of oppression and slavery gradually coming to an end for these people they have now invented new groupings in order to inflict hatred and violence on each other – the ‘Folks’ fought it out with the ‘People’.

The key to eliminating this violence, anger, revenge, retribution and aggression is to see it in ourselves, rather than avoid the issue by blaming others. After all – the first step to curing addictions such as alcoholism, is to admit you have the disease in the first place. At the very core of Human behaviour lies aggression and violence which, despite all the morals, ethics and good intentions, has not been eliminated after thousands of years of so called ‘civilization’. To remain a believer in these socially imbibed morals, values and ethics is to remain seeking a solution within the Human Condition and is to remain either one of the ‘Folks’ or one of the ‘People’ – a social identity.

Only after the work has been done in dismantling one’s social identity consisting of well-meaning but failed ethics, morals, ideals and dreams, does the opportunity then present itself to go all the way and eliminate one’s very sense of ‘self ’complete with the survival instincts of fear and aggression. This radical step of ‘self’-immolation causes a mutation such that the survival instinct no longer plays havoc – no longer does one operate on survival mode and irrevocably bound to outbreaks of fear and aggression that threaten to, or actually do, over-ride any imposed ethics, morals.

This freedom from malice and sorrow is Actual Freedom – fear and aggression cease to operate – one is actually free of their insidious grip.

Related Discussions 

harmony –– Combination or adaptation of parts, elements, or related things, so as to form a consistent and orderly whole; agreement, accord, congruity. Agreement of feeling or sentiment; accord, peace. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: What usually passes for harmony in the world is a begrudging agreement to obey a set of ethics, morals or laws in order to keep the basic aggressive and selfish instincts under control. Given the glaring lack of harmony evident in humans both individually and in their interactions with each other, these band-aid solutions are seen to be mere coping methods to curb and limit the damage of the ‘disease’ rather than offer a permanent cure. The only way a genuine harmony is possible is to remove the source of the problem – the ‘I’ that is lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning and, as such, intrinsically incapable of anything remotely resembling harmony.

Related Discussions Peace 

here –– In this place or position. In this world; in this life; on earth. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: A reasonably explicit definition but unfortunately the dictionary writers overlooked the fact that there are three distinct versions of the word here:

1. normally here – A state wherein humans attempt to be here but are constantly prevented by the fact that who they think and feel they are is a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity that has parasitically taken up residence inside their body. Inside the head a little man or woman frantically tries to control everything and through the heart one desperately tries to ‘connect’ with other lost souls. ‘I’ am inside the body, looking out through the eyes, ‘I’ hear with the ears from inside, ‘I’ smell, touch and feel what is outside and separate from ‘me’. ‘I’ am both cerebrally and emotionally fearful of being here and the world is perceived as being a grim place to be. This is the equivalent of being born wearing grey-coloured glasses.
2. spiritually here – usually achieved by meditative practices involving sensory deprivation, impassioned imagination and fervent belief. The spirit-ual people attempt and sometimes manage with varying degrees of attainment to live in an imaginary inner world – a dissociative state of denial and renunciation of the real world that they so desperately seek to escape. Being here on earth, as a spirit or soul temporarily entrapped in a flesh-and-blood body, is seen as a trial; one is but a temporary visitor, and the sooner you are out of here the better. Meditation and ‘going in’ is the practice and cultivation of a state of getting ‘out-of-here’ and going ‘there’. This other-world, the spiritual world, is given credence by thousands of years of fear-ridden superstition and fervent belief and given substance by the impassioned imagination of a soul seeking salvation and immortality. Thus to feel spiritually ‘here’ is 180 degrees opposite to actually being here. This is the equivalent of putting on rose-coloured glasses over the grey glasses you are born with.
3. actually here – given the absolute dominance of the psychological and psychic entity over the body’s senses and sensibility, humans usually have only rare and fleeting glimpses of actually being here in this physical universe. Often shock or drug-induced, but certainly not always, these peak-experiences or pure consciousness experiences (PCE) are often quickly forgotten or interpreted as a spiritual altered state of consciousness, or satori, in accordance with one’s own particular beliefs. To be actually here is to be here in this moment of time, which is the only moment one can experience anyway. These experiences can be shock or drug – induced but most commonly occur in what are known as nature experiences when all trace of ‘self’-produced neuroses, passions and affectations can suddenly disappear. All of ‘my’ worries, feelings and imaginations suddenly disappear as though they but a dream. The stunning purity and utter perfection of the actual world becomes immediately apparent as the physical senses are freed of ‘my’ burden. There are no ‘self ’-centred feelings of beauty, divineness, oneness or self-love to taint the purity of the direct and unfettered sensual experience of the actual world. To be actually here is to be ‘self’-lessly here, firmly and safely locked in this moment of time. Coming from no-where and having no-where to go I, as this flesh and blood body only, am always here in this moment in time in this place in space. To be actually here is to be the universe experiencing itself as a human being. To be actually here only possible in a ‘self’-less state, either fleetingly experienced in a PCE, virtually experienced in Virtual Freedom, or permanently experienced in Actual Freedom.

Related Discussions Honesty | Integrity

honesty –– uprightness, probity, or integrity. Truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness. Freedom from deceit or fraud. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Honesty is a high ideal that it is not possible in practice within the Human Condition. It falls in the same category as telling the truth. Children are taught the principle of truth and honesty and then are lied to and deceived by parents, teachers and peers. In fact, in many cases, to hold righteously to honesty as a principle would mean to offend or do harm to others. The current New Dark Age version of honesty is usually a sugar-coated recipe for being malicious to someone else, as in – ‘I must be honest with you’ or ‘I am trying to be honest with myself lately, so I just want to share with you that I feel you are...’

The endemic corruption, fraud, graft, deceit, duplicity and deception in each and every human society and organization is ample evidence that the ideal of honesty fails to keep a lid on the inherent rotten-ness of the psychological and psychic entity that will do anything to ensure it’s own survival. Most people avoid the only valid application of honesty – to be honest with oneself. After all, to fool oneself is to be foolish indeed.

Being freed of the hypocritical ideal of honesty allows one to act appropriately, sensibly, and beneficently – in all situations.

In my experience there is yet another quality which may well be as important, if not more important, than altruism in evincing self-immolation.

This quality is integrity –

‘the condition of having no part or element taken away or lacking; undivided state; completeness. 2 The condition of not being marred or violated; unimpaired or uncorrupted condition; original state; soundness. 3a Freedom from moral corruption; innocence, sinlessness. b Soundness of moral principle; the character of uncorrupted virtue; uprightness, honesty, sincerity’ Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Having experienced this integrity of innocence, benevolence and undividedness in pure consciousness experiences it then becomes a prime motivation to experience it 24 hrs. a day, every day. The absence of conflict, confusion, deceit and duplicity – the absence of both the social and instinctual entity that are in constant battle has to be experienced to be understood. One cannot understand it unless one experiences it although it certainly helps if one is prepared to risk rocking one’s boat. By digging into one’s self one is certainly much, much more likely to induce a pure consciousness experience. By doing nothing, one gets nothing in return. Unless one investigates, one never finds out. Unless one changes, one stays the same. Unless one is motivated by integrity then one will remain a very, very cunning entity either fighting it out in the ‘real’ world or travelling on the spiritual path of self-discovery seeking self-satisfaction and self-aggrandizement.

Being guided by integrity or being guided by sincere intent ensures that I will not deceive myself, that I will be honest with myself, that I will not settle for second best – that I will not stop until I live the pure consciousness experience, 24 hrs a day every day, until I am irrevocably free of the Human Condition.

Related Discussions  Honesty | Sincere 

hope –– expectation of something desired, desire accompanied by expectation; confidence in a future event; a person or thing that expectations are centred in. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: It is surely time we abandoned the archaic concept of hope entirely. Humanity has been hoping that peace will come to the planet, hoping for an end to suffering while at the same time anticipating and prophesizing a doomsday end to civilization. Human beings hope that things will get better, be better in the future, while at the same time expecting that this is only possible after death, either in ‘the next lifetime’ or some ‘other-worldly’ realm. To hope or expect a future event, person or thing to bring happiness is to forever postpone the sensible action required to free oneself from instinctual fear, aggression, sorrow and malice and to ensure that one remains entrapped in the Human Condition.

We are, in fact, inducted into believing the imaginary world being primary and real, and subsequently to regard the physical, actual world as secondary and illusionary. This primary imaginary world includes both a ‘real ’ world-view and its associated ‘spiritual’ world-view, neither of which are actual. This obsession with imagination, belief, trust, faith and hope offers a continuing haven of denial of the facts of the Human Condition and prevents us from getting up off our bums, or up from our lotus position, and taking the necessary action that will lead to the eventual elimination of malice and sorrow from this fair planet.

Above the door of the Actual Freedom Trust offices (if there ever is such a thing) will be a sign that reads ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’.

Richard: To enable one to live in virtual freedom one can, among other things, renounce resentment. For the commitment to achieving peace-on-earth to become total, for it to become a complete devotion to effecting perfection, for it to become a dedication of oneself to the consummation of the freedom-of-the-moment, one gladly forsakes humankind’s ‘wisdom of old’. That ‘wisdom ’ is a wishy-washy, part-time, lip-serving, casual approach to the ultimate goal. It is called ‘Hope’. All peoples are constantly exhorted to: ‘do not lose Hope’. But, as Hope is an impoverished proxy for the actual, the resentment remains. Only by firmly renouncing resentment, by abandoning one’s commitment to proving that life on earth is a ‘vale of tears’, can one’s commitment be staunch only to the ultimate goal. One is then no longer able to agree with others that ‘life on earth is a grim business’. One will easily cease saying things like ‘I didn’t ask to be born’, or ‘sorrow is part and parcel of life’, or ‘learn to accept suffering and grow by worshipping its beauty’. All of these desperate coping-mechanisms become humbug and are never validated again. With each experience of the fact that perfection is already here, the connection becomes stronger. One is laying down a path, as it were, with each cobblestone being the reminder of the purity of the atmosphere which lies at one’s ultimate destination.

Renouncing resentment obviates the need to apply the commonly accepted antidote: gratitude. Gratitude is one of the many ploys designed, by those who expound on the merits of self-imposed suffering, to keep one in servile ignominy and creeping despair. As strange as it may initially seem, gratitude has the same deleterious effect upon one’s well-being as the resentment it seeks to reform. When gratitude is realised as being the panacea that it is, one will gladly renounce it along with the resentment it promises to replace. To successfully dispense with the despised resentment, its companion emotion, the extolled gratitude, must also go. It is a popular misconception that one can do away with a ‘bad’ emotion whilst hanging on to the ‘good’ one. In actualism the third alternative always applies. Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Sin, Hope and Despair, Gratitude and Resentment, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity.

For thousands of years humankind has been struggling along, fumbling around in the dark for some miserable ray of light to act as a beacon to guide one’s way to perfection and peace. All of the philosophies and psychologies and all of the ideologies and theologies have not been able to deliver the goods. Peoples everywhere were forced to live on hope – and hope is a poor substitute for the exquisite purity of the actual. It is the complete eradication of sorrow and malice that is the essential pre-requisite for peace and harmony to prevail. One is then happy and harmless … and well equipped to face the now inaptly named ‘rigours of life’. One is able to make one’s way in the world with joy and delight, marvelling in wonder at the magnificence of being alive on this verdant planet.

Related Discussions 

Human Condition ––

Human – Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of humankind or people; belonging to humankind; of or belonging to the species. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of (the faculties of) human beings as opp. to gods or God; fallible; mundane. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the activities, relationships, etc., of human beings, esp. as distinct from those of lower animals, machines, mere objects, etc. Having or showing the (esp. better) qualities distinctive of or attributed to human beings. Oxford Dictionary

Condition – Teach, accustom (a person, animal, etc.) to adopt certain habits, attitudes, etc.; establish a conditioned reflex or response in. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: The Human Condition is that set of beliefs, conditionings and instincts that forms the habitual and neuro-biological program by which human beings currently operate and have done so, with few significant changes, ever since the the first recorded civilizations. It can be likened to the ‘rules of the game’, defining the parameters and limits of what it is to be a human being that have been established and embellished, over tens of thousands of years. These rules ‘set in concrete’ both our instinct-based behaviour and the overlaying beliefs that form our gender, tribal, spirit-ual and world concepts.

Thus it is established that ‘we are the way we are, because this is the way we are’ and further – ‘this is the way we will always be, because this is the way we have always been’ – simply translated as ‘You can’t change Human Nature’. Bitter experience of continuous failure to curb instinctual animal fear and aggression, combined with the continual failure of morals, ethics and ideals has beget either cynical acceptance or fanciful denial as the prime mechanisms of coping with the Human Condition.

The very base of the ‘rules of the game’ that encodes and enshrines the Human Condition is what is known as Ancient Wisdom – that set of beliefs, myths, morals, ethics and psittacisms that has been passed on from generation to generation and venerated as the inviolate essence of what it is to be human. In the days of the ancients, the manifestations of instinctual fear and aggression were seen as being caused by evil spirits possessing the body and were appeased or exorcised by reverence, worship or sacrifice to the good spirits or Gods. There was no knowledge or understanding of the role that instincts play in human behaviour, as there is today. The imposition by enticement or discipline of a tribal role or social identity was a survival necessity both for the group and individual. Nowadays this same social conditioning can clearly be seen as creating and perpetuating the separate, distinct war-mongering groups of the past, be they ethnic, territorial or religious based. Thus the Human Condition is built upon an archaic and inane set of ethics, morals, beliefs and false assumptions that have no relevance at all in this modern world. No wonder there is no solution to the human dilemma of malice and sorrow, given that we fervently insist on looking for a solution within the Human Condition – and then base our search for solutions on the wisdom and knowledge of our primordial ancestors.

The only way to become free from the Human Condition is to facilitate and actualize an end to both one’s social identity and one’s instinctual based sense of ‘self ’. The elimination of the ‘identity’ in its entirety is simultaneously the demise of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within oneself. Then ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ vanish forever along with the dissolution of the psyche itself ... that is the only place where they can live in. Because there is neither good nor evil in the actual world of sensual delight – where I live as this flesh and blood body – one lives freely in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow.

Related Discussions 

humanity ––

1. The human race; human beings collectively.
2. The quality, condition, or fact of being human. Human attributes. Also, human affairs. Oxford Dictionary

Peter:

1. ‘Humanity’ is usually discussed in terms of it being an actual grouping of people. This is despite the fact that there are so many on the planet that it would be physically impossible for every one to meet, that the species is so culturally diverse and vastly spread out, and that there is no one person or ‘entity’ in charge. It makes you wonder how it all works so well, really. Humanity as a group is an idea, a mere fanciful concept, not a fact. The obvious fact, evident to those not in denial, is that there are 6 billion humans on the planet, all individually fighting each other for survival. When humans do group together in any type of collective, be it family, tribe, religious or ethnic groupings, they then gather strength of numbers in order to fight other groups for survival. The idea of a collective humanity is a myth, a belief.
2. Humanity, as a quality or condition, is founded on humans having common attributes, the prime of which is that human beings are ‘feeling ’ beings (usually described as having a heart or soul ). Humans are intensely proud of their ability to feel, in complete denial of the fact that the source of these feelings is the animal survival instinct that is inherently programmed in the species. The two prime emotions are sorrow, an ability to suffer even to the extent of feeling it is good to suffer, and malice as evidenced by the passion with which humans fight for ‘rights’ and ‘beliefs’ – even to the extent of killing others or sacrificing their lives for them. The prime and most notable activity of Humanity are the continuous and horrendous wars that human beings have waged against each other throughout history, and this century has been by far the bloodiest yet. The idea or concept of Humanity is a bit like the idea of Civilization – people will forever wait in vain hope for it to bring even a semblance of peace to the world. The only way for peace to be actualized is the elimination of malice and sorrow – the root instinctual animal emotions that give rise to the very feelings that humans hold so dear. Only the ending of Humanity, as we know it, will bring peace to this verdant planet, and the extinction of Humanity will only occur incrementally, individual by individual, as each person takes on the task. This is the next challenge facing each of us – and the time is ripe.

Related Discussions 

humility –– The quality of being humble; humbleness, meekness. b An act of self-abasement 2 Humble condition, rank, or position; unpretentiousness. Oxford Dictionary

Richard: Humility is merely the antidote to pride ... you cannot have one without the other. Where is the need to be humble unless you are first proud? Therefore, being humble is merely pride standing on its head ... and one is proud of being virtuous.

All humility is nothing but the ego being very, very clever ... it is but a product of a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity called ego. One of the chief attributes of a freedom from a ‘self’ or a ‘Self’ and from believing in a ‘God’ and a ‘Greater Reality’, is a completeness ... an absence of the need to control a wayward ‘I’ with moralistic injunctions. Personally I have no humility whatsoever and, of course, neither am I proud. In order to be free of the Human Condition one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement – which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity – and ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body ... including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride ... and they feed of each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility ... it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realizes how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. The opposites vanish. I am simply here where I have always been ... and pride, with its companion in arms, humility, has disappeared along with all the other feelings. I am free to be here now in the world as-it-is. Unadorned and unencumbered, I can stand on my own two feet, owing allegiance to no-one.

Related Discussions 

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