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Please note that the text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic
(methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free. |
Nurture
Nurture: 1 Breeding, upbringing, education, as
received or possessed by a person. b Moral training or discipline. 2 That which nourishes; nourishment, food. 3 The
process of bringing up or training a person, esp. a child; tutelage; fostering care. Also, social environment as an influence on or determinant
of personality (opp. nature). Oxford Dictionary
Peter: All sentient beings are born pre-primed with certain distinguishing
instincts, the main ones being fear, aggression, nurture and desire. They are blind Nature’s rather clumsy software package designed to give
one a start in life and to ensure the survival of the species. While absolutely essential in the days of roaming man-eating animals, rampant
disease, high infant mortality, these very same instinctual passions now threaten the survival of the species.
The instincts only ‘care’ for the survival of the species – the strongest,
most aggressive, the crudest. Further, blind nature gives not a fig for your happiness or well-being. We are relentlessly driven, despite our
good intentions and moral codes, to act instinctually in each and every situation in our lives and this is the cause of all our angst and
confusion. Usually we divide our instinctual passions into groupings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and try either to repress or deny the ‘bad’
ones – fear and aggression – while giving full vent and validity to the ‘good’ ones – nurture and desire.
Nurture is essentially the instinct to procreate, provide for, protect and pass on
any knowledge, customs, morals, ethics and beliefs to the next generation. By nurture one is ‘compelled’ to blindly defend one’s ‘own’
– regardless of the sensibleness and appropriateness of the action. Nurture causes us to care for, comfort and protect those we consider our
‘own’ and leads to dependency, jealousy, empathy, duty, sacrifice for others and needless heroism.
Nurture also causes us to feel sorrow for ourselves and others similarly afflicted
persons, to desperately cling to others for comfort and solace. Women are programmed to reproduce the species and men are programmed to provide
for, and protect, the offspring – a blind and unremitting instinctual drive. When nurture fails within the species, as it inevitably does, we
turn to animals, pets, trees, ‘endangered’ species, ‘mother’ earth and other non-reciprocating, safe objects.
For the spiritual seeker, the journey ‘in’ is a journey to find one’s
instinctual self – one’s roots, one’s original face, the Source, etc. If, on this inner journey, one ignores or denies the passions of
aggression and fear and concentrates one’s attention on the passions of nurture and desire, one can shift one’s identity from the
psychological thinking neo cortex – the ‘ego’ to use their term – and ‘become’, or associate with, or identify with, the good
feelings of nurture and desire.
This is a seductive and self-gratifying journey, for one is actively promoting the
flow of chemicals that give rise to the good, pleasant, warm, light-headed, heart-full and ultimately ecstatic feelings. These flow of
chemicals overwhelm the neo-cortex to such an extent that they become one’s primary experience, and the input of the physical world as
perceived by the senses and the clear-thinking ability of the cognitive modern brain are both subjugated – or ‘transcended’ to use their
term. One then ‘feels’ one has found one’s original ‘self’, which one has of course, though t’is all but a fantasy of one’s imagination.
Thankfully there is a third alternative, which is the total elimination of one’s ‘self’ in
total – the whole of the amygdala’s instinctual programming that gives rise to the animal passions.
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