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Page Eight Of A Continuing Dialogue With Konrad Swart
RICHARD: In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was an emotional construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an emotional-mental fabrication ... a sense of identity with its conscience. I also saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with a social entity ... and it was called being normal. To say that I was amazed rather fails to adequately describe the feeling of relief that after all there was a solution to the human situation here on earth. KONRAD: Finally I read something that makes sense. RICHARD: But ... do you understand that what I was describing above was posted in response to you asserting that I am ‘incapable of seeing that the insight that there is no identity to eliminate is correct’? Because in quoting me (above) you have snipped off the part of the paragraph where I describe that in 1980 I saw my ‘self’ in that peak experience ... and that this ‘self’ was the very identity that needed to be eliminated. I was responding to your assertion that, since the ‘I’ is an illusion, there is nothing to eliminate ... remember? Let me copy and paste another piece that you snipped off. Viz.:
So ... what is it that is ‘making sense’ for you? Are you now agreeing with me that the ‘I’ needs to be eliminated? If so, then you would be in agreement with this next bit that you also have not included wherein I clearly say this. Viz.:
If you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you ... have you changed your mind? * RICHARD: The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending. KONRAD: I recognize all this now. I had this very same peak experience when I went through a Gestalt session, where ‘I’ tried to get rid of my nervousness for an exam that ‘I’ had the next day. RICHARD: Whoa up there, Konrad ... this second paragraph that you quote is not a description of a peak experience at all. This is a description of the elimination of the ‘I’ ... which you said in your last post was not necessary at all. So, what are you recognising? In fact, you also told me that because I said that the elimination of this ‘I’ was essential, that I thus showed that I did not understand the insight that the ‘I’ was an illusion ... because the realisation that the ‘I’ was an illusion is enough, you said. So, what are you recognising? And I had said to you that I get this ploy from many long-time spiritual seekers ... that they get to a point where they fondly imagine that there is no problem. I wrote that they say that the ‘I’ is an illusion so nothing has to be done once this is realised ... and I observed that this is nothing but spiritual masturbation. Then you told me that this ‘only shows that the pretences some people make about this transformation is wrong and not the insight itself’ ... remember? I then said that the ‘I’ must be eliminated and not merely realised to be an illusion. I said that this illusory ‘I’ must undergo an illusory death and that this death, when it happens, is indistinguishable from physical death ... it is that startling in its intensity. I went on to say that becoming free from this – at times very real – identity requires far more than the illusory nature of ‘I’ being merely ‘totally realized in the sense that it is observed to be true’ ... as you so accurately described in your reporting of your own personal experience. In fact, I said that if you take the insight to be sufficient to release you from all human suffering, forever, then you are fooling yourself in a most particularly treacherous way. So, what are you recognising? I then told you that I also have detailed the actualisation of this insight to you before ... and then copied and pasted four paragraphs for you to read again. The fourth one is the one you have quoted back to me (above) saying that you ‘recognise all this now’. These four paragraphs – very clearly – do not describe a peak experience at all. So, what are you recognising? I did all this copying and pasting for you because I wanted it to be absolutely clear to you that I had personal experience of this ‘I’ dying a very real ego-death. I even gave you a description of that event which, as you have not quoted it back to me or referred to it in any way at all, makes me wonder if you understand what you are agreeing with when you say that ‘I had this very same peak experience when I went through a Gestalt session, where ‘I’ tried to get rid of my nervousness for an exam that ‘I’ had the next day’. How does this one sentence description of yours fit in with my experience? I will re-post it for you to read carefully this time before rushing in to agree with something that you were so flatly opposed to in your last post to me. Viz.:
KONRAD: This [very same peak experience] was before ‘the process’ started. About 2 years before it, if I remember correctly. It started when I was 22 of age. RICHARD: Surely you are not telling me – by saying that you recognise all this that I wrote – that you underwent an ego-death some considerable time before the ‘process’ started? Just what actually happened when you went through a Gestalt session feeling nervous about the examination the next day? Because you wrote, long ago, describing how and when you realised that the ‘I’ was an illusion some two years or so after this Gestalt Session ... and your ‘I’ as ego is clearly still intact that description. Viz.:
* RICHARD: I must ask, at this point: Do you ever read what I write and send to you? KONRAD: To be honest, sometimes I am sloppy about this. RICHARD: Golly, Konrad ... I am not sure how to proceed now ... because I write to you with the full knowledge of what I have already written to you ... mistakenly assuming that you are following all this and engaging in a two-way dialogue with me. This explains why you do not understand what is being talked about ... and here was I being under the impression that you were either not good with words or were undiscerning ... even just plain stupid. I even failed to see how you could possibly be teaching logic as a profession ... that is how inadequate I found you to be in your replies. So ... now we know why this correspondence flounders and I find myself endlessly repeating ground already covered. But ... I have to ask just what game you are playing with me? Because ... how do I know whether you are going to read all that which I have just written above? If you do not read that, then you are just going to go on accusing me of not understanding you ... these things I write are essential to a mutual understanding. Speaking personally, I read everything you write because I need to know where you are coming from in order to respond accurately. No wonder there has been so much misunderstanding on your part. KONRAD: It is because you deny that what is obvious to me. RICHARD: No, it is just that it is not at all necessary that I agree with every one of your conclusions ... we are having a dialogue. We have been sharing experience and I have been understanding what you have realised ... and I have been suggesting that there is more to explore born out of my own experience. We are communicating as fellow human beings enquiring into life, the universe and what it is to be a human being ... or so I assumed. KONRAD: If you want to be taken seriously, you must not just state that the other is wrong. No, you must first show to him that you understand exactly what he says, and only THEN show him that that what he observes is, as far as observation goes, undeniable, and therefore indeed his observation. RICHARD: But if you do not read all that I write then how can you ever hope to see that I do understand what you say? I send back detailed accounts of my experiences and understandings to show that I can relate to where you are at. But if you do not read them ... what am I to do? KONRAD: But that he still does not understand, because there are things that he overlooks, or has not considered, that might throw a totally different light on his observation. RICHARD: Yet this is what I have been doing with you over and over again. In fact I have most recently done this with the exchange at the top of this very page ... where you blatantly show that you cannot recognise the difference between a peak experience insight and the death of the ego experience. Indeed, you rush in to claim that you had this ‘very same peak experience when I went through a Gestalt session, where ‘I’ tried to get rid of my nervousness for an exam that ‘I’ had the next day’. As you are so totally wrong in this claim, perhaps you might consider looking back through what I have written to you and you will see that I do understand where you are in your experiences and understanding ... and why I can. There has been so much in your E-Mails to me where you show that you ‘still do not understand because there are things that you overlook’ ... things which would indeed ‘throw a totally different light upon your observation’ ... as you so trenchantly remarked just above. KONRAD: But all this can only be done if you accept that nobody is totally blind, and that there are always reasons behind the things he says. Reasons, that make the things he says, for him at least, to be true statements of fact. If you do not do this, you are running the risk of not being taken seriously. RICHARD: Oh no ... I am not going to buy this one, Konrad. A fact is an indisputable actuality ... there can never be a ‘true statement of fact’ for person ‘A’ and an entirely different ‘true statement of fact’ for person ‘B’ and so on. You are now talking about beliefs ... what some people call ‘truths’. A fact is self-evident and obvious to anyone who cares to look. A coffee-cup, for example, cannot be a piece of chewing gum – as a statement of fact – for person ‘A’ and a wheelbarrow – as a statement of fact – for person ‘B’. And you have written about this kind of thing before, months ago when you first came onto the Mailing List ... unless you were thinking of people holding a belief in common when you wrote this. Viz.:
Now, you may have been talking about something else there ... but, speaking personally, I call what you wrote the ability to see facts and actuality. * KONRAD: You misunderstand me. You read my explanations backwards. You think, that because I define the ‘I’ as a thought that controls the body I am defending this as a necessity. RICHARD: I do not ‘think’ this ... you repeatedly tell me so. Are you going to change your mind again? KONRAD: I do not have to. For you are either unwilling or unable to see that this is NOT what I am saying. RICHARD: You clearly wrote: ‘a certain thought ... controls the body ... your ‘will’ produces a conclusion and this conclusion is then allowed to control your body ... I assert that this conclusion is a form of ‘I’’. KONRAD: Yes, it is. But it is an I in the form of a ‘what’, to use your language, and not in the form of a ‘who’. RICHARD: Whether you call it a ‘what’ or a ‘who’ is beside the point. My point is that you have been saying that an ‘I’ is necessary to control the body ... and you have been saying I am wrong in saying this. Please stop this puerile dissembling. * RICHARD: I only go on what you say, Konrad ... and you clearly say that without an ‘I’ that all action is impossible. KONRAD: Yes, an ‘I’ in the form of a ‘what’, namely a thought that controls the body. Not an ‘I’ in the form of a ‘who’, for that is an illusion. RICHARD: This is so silly what you do here, Konrad, by side-stepping the issue ... this is not being intelligent at all. You were saying that I was wrong when I said that you maintained that an ‘I’ is necessary (see above). Now you say that it is indeed necessary just like I said you have been saying ... only it is a ‘what’, for goodness sake! What kind of craziness is this to have been accusing me of being wrong about your position vis a vis the necessity of ‘I’ all this while? Can we have a genuine conversation? KONRAD: Your so-called ‘capability to see the world directly’ distorts it in such a way that you do not see that this is not at all what I am saying. RICHARD: This is such a cheap shot that it is unbecoming of a person who teaches logic to other people as a profession ... and is patently untrue anyway. My reading of what you write has nothing to do with my condition. I have shown these words of yours to other people – who are not able to see the world directly – and they all tell me that you are clearly saying that without an ‘I’ you cannot operate in the world’. KONRAD: Yes, Richard. But, again, an ‘I’ in the form of a ‘what’, and not an ‘I’ in the form of a ‘who’, for that is an illusion. RICHARD: You are talking about an ‘I’ that is a product of thought ... just like the Krishnamurtiites. As such, it is an identity ... as in the ‘who am I?’ question. This is because a ‘what am I?’ question can only refer to something material ... namely this flesh and blood body. If I were to ask you: ‘what are you?’ ... you cannot say: ‘what I am is a thought’ because what you are is the body. Even if you try to ungrammatically say: ‘what I am is a thought’ ... then this ridiculous phraseology is still indicating an identity. This is not only bad grammar, this is being silly twice over. KONRAD: I repeat: you read it backwards, and therefore you do not understand. You do not see, that I deny that the ‘I’ has the identity most people, including you, say it has. RICHARD: No, I understand all right. For example, you say that the nature of ‘I’ (what you call seeing the ‘I’-ness of ‘I’) is that no ‘I’ exists separate from thought. You explained this to me in another way only recently. Viz.: [Konrad]: ‘I assert, that without [‘the process’] you cannot become aware of the fact, that no ‘I’, separate from thought exists’. These are your words, Konrad, and this is exactly what the Krishnamurtiites say ... that ‘I’ is the product of thought. In what way do you justify saying that ‘I deny that the ‘I’ has the identity most people say it has’. KONRAD: Most people say that the ‘I’ is a ‘who’, and not a ‘what’. RICHARD: Okay ... have it your way and call it a ‘what’ if that pleases you. At least you are agreeing that I have been correct all along when I have been saying that you are arguing the case for the existence of ‘I’ ... whilst I have been consistent in talking of its demise. Good we can always sort out this ‘what’ business later. * KONRAD: Most people believe, that the ‘I’ is something that ‘has’ thoughts. While I assert, that the ‘I’ IS its thoughts. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti has maintained this all along ... and also with feelings, too. He would say that you do not have fear, for example, but that you are fear ... what is so ground-breaking about parroting him? You have already written about this long ago. Viz.:
Okay ... your discovery – your insight about thoughts called decisions – is central to your claim that ‘nobody has said this before’, is it not? Now, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talked endlessly about a ‘choiceless awareness’ which is the result when the ‘chooser’ is no more. As ‘choose’ is the same-same word description of the activity you use the word ‘decide’ for ... then it appears that you have merely substituted the word ‘decision’ for Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s word ‘choice’. Thus your sentence would make the same sense with Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s use of the word ‘choice’ instead of your use of the word ‘decision’.
Of course, when I report to you that this body’s will is all that is necessary as a source of decisive action – as becomes effortlessly evident when ‘I’ psychologically die – you do not acknowledge that this body’s native intelligence has ‘reached an intensity’ at all ... you say that my actualism prevents me from being able to understand what is going on. In other words: if people do not agree with you, they are not as intelligent as you. Oh well ... c’est la vie, I guess. KONRAD: In that sense ‘I’ deny that the ‘I’ has an identity in the form of a ‘who’. To be more precise, it is a thought controlling the body. RICHARD: If ‘I’ is a thought – as you say it is – it is an identity. Now, in your case – because of your predilection for abstract thought – it may very well have attenuated into being an impersonal identity ... to the point of appearing to be a grammatically impossible ‘what’ to you. But it is still an identity, nevertheless. KONRAD: I assert, that it is the raison d’être of thoughts. They are there, BECAUSE this is the way, and the ONLY way the body can act, behave purposefully. RICHARD: Golly, you do go on and on about this. Will you promise to at least read this bit when I copy and paste again that I agree that thought is required for purposeful action? Viz.:
* RICHARD: What is so good about your life? Do you experience peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this body? Are you free of the Human Condition? Are you blithesome and benign? Are you free from malice and sorrow? Are you happy and harmless? Are you free of fear and aggression? Are you carefree and considerate? Are you free from nurture and desire? Are you gay and benevolent? Are you free from anguish and animosity? Are you felicitous and friendly?’ KONRAD: Maybe I am not. RICHARD: What is this ‘maybe’ business? Can you not answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to such a straightforward question? Do you not know yourself at all well enough to answer unequivocally? Or is this some of that ‘he who says he knows does not know’ spiritual gobbledegook? KONRAD: But ... neither are you. RICHARD: Oh? So you know me better than I do? Even better than you know yourself, eh? What is your ‘knowing’ worth if you cannot even do a self-assessment? KONRAD: Look at the previous mail. Look at this: 1. [Richard]: ‘Now, I repeat again: ‘I would certainly appreciate you copying and pasting the quotes wherein you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move’. In other words: back up your fantasies with facts ... if you want to be taken seriously’. 2. [Richard]: ‘Do I take it then that you are not going to copy and paste those quotes where you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move? Do these quotes exist? Or are they part of your fantasising?’. [Richard]: ‘If you continue to avoid copying and pasting those quotes, where you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move, then it is no mere ‘accusation’ ... by default it is established as being an accurate reflection of your modus operandi’. 4. [Richard]: ‘No, Konrad ... I simply want you to copy and paste those quotes where you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move. You know, those quotes that show that where you could see that ‘this is something even Richard could not deny when I really confronted him with it’?’ 5. [Richard]: ‘Okay ... so you are not going to copy and paste those quotes where you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move ... you are going to run the line that you are being misunderstood instead of backing your fantasy with the facts that ‘this is something even Richard could not deny when I really confronted him with it’, eh?’ 6. [Richard]: ‘No, Konrad ... the point you were making is that Richard stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move. So why not just copy and paste those quotes where you claim that I have stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move ... and stop all this nonsense? Because I have never said or written any such thing ... this is the kind of thing that you say’. 7. [Richard]: ‘Ah ... so I was wrong about the reversal ... you are going to stay with your already-stated position. Konrad, I know that this is what you mean ... you have been saying this for many, many months now. The issue here is that you claim that Richard stated that ‘I’ is a thought that controls the body and that without such thoughts the body is not able to move ... and you will not copy and paste these quotes wherein you claim that ‘this is something even Richard could not deny when I really confronted him with it’?’ No less than SEVEN times you where whining take notice like a little boy. RICHARD: If you say that my persistence in asking you to back up your fantasies with facts indicates a ‘whining little boy’ then you are further out of touch with what is going on than ever before. Past experience has shown me that I need to repeat a request over and over again through many E-Mails until you at last ... and I eventually caught your attention about this matter, now, did I not? You have finally acknowledged that I have asked you to produce the evidence that you were not fantasising about me again. Good. So ... where is this evidence? Because, what with this memory course that you are doing and all, you will easily remember how you assured me that you would stop fantasising about me to other people in order to make them ‘think hard’ as per what you learned from the Objectivists. Except ... I do not see these quotes anywhere on this page ... were you still up to your old tricks with Vineeto then? If you continue to not copy and paste those quotes, then what am I to take of your assurances that you would desist? Viz.:
KONRAD: This is no peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this body. This is no freedom of the Human Condition. This is not being blithesome and benign. This is not being free from malice and sorrow. This is not being harmless. This might being free of fear, but not of aggression. RICHARD: Oh? My merely being persistent in asking you for evidence that you are not fantasising – when you made such a fuss about me calling you a Fantasist – indicates to you that there is no freedom from the human condition and that malice and sorrow and etcetera are still in existence, eh? This is so trite, Konrad ... and is but a smoke-screen designed to dodge the issue, anyway. KONRAD: This is not being carefree and considerate. This is not being free from nurture and desire. This is not being gay and benevolent. This is not being free from anguish and animosity. This is not being felicitous and friendly. This is expression of frustration. RICHARD: You do try so hard to get a rise out of me, Konrad ... and fail miserably each time. You pulled this stunt before, a few posts ago. Viz.:
* RICHARD: Let me put it this way: Do you ever get sad? Do you ever get lonely? Do you ever get sorrowful? Do you ever get depressed? Do you ever get angry? Do you ever get spiteful? Do you ever get envious? Do you ever get hateful? Do you ever get bored? Do you ever get peeved? Do you ever get irritable? Do you ever get anxious? Do you ever get afraid? Do you ever get guilty? Do you ever get resentful? Do you ever get ashamed? Do you ever get apprehensive? Do you ever get embarrassed? Do you ever get distressed? Do you ever get jealous? Do you ever get self-conscious? Do you ever get fearful? Do you ever get aggressive? Do you ever get ... I could go on and on, but do you get the point? Yes? No? The point is that do you ever experience any of this list of feelings, emotions and passions (and the list is by no means exhaustive)? Because if you do not, and you can unequivocally declare that you will never, ever experience them again ... then you are free from the Human Condition. But if you do, and you cannot unequivocally declare that you will never, ever experience them again ... then all your prose is intellectual masturbation. KONRAD: Now you put a number of questions. Although they are obviously rhetorical, I am going to answer them anyway. Do you ever get sad? No, never. Do you ever get lonely? No, never. Do you ever get sorrowful? No, never. Do you ever get depressed? No, never. Do you ever get angry? Yes, I do. Do you ever get spiteful? No, never. Do you ever get envious? No, never. Do you ever get hateful? No, never. Do you ever get bored? No, never. Do you ever get peeved? Yes, I do. Do you ever get irritable? I think I do, because, if I understand the word correctly, it is the effect I have on others. I have definitely that effect on you, because else you would not repeat the same thing all over again in different forms for no less than 7 times. (Oh yes, you are going to deny this. I know. do not bother.) Do you ever get anxious? No, never. Do you ever get afraid? No, never. Do you ever get guilty? No, never. Do you ever get resentful? No, never. Do you ever get ashamed? No, never. Do you ever get apprehensive? Yes, I do, for I care about my fellow men. Do you ever get embarrassed? No, never. Do you ever get distressed? No, never. Do you ever get jealous? No, never. Do you ever get self-conscious? Yes, I do. It is easy to be conscious of the self. For it consists of principles. And I always study principles, and their power. Therefore I am conscious of the self. But I am NEVER self-conscious in the sense that this self is dominant. Do you ever get fearful? No, never. Do you ever get aggressive? No, never. Now, what about having some of these emotions, and others not? Is this then partly intellectual masturbation, and partly not? How about something wrong with the thesis that every emotion is necessarily bad? RICHARD: It is not a thesis but a fact ... however, you tell me which emotions are not bad, then. And do not even bother putting love onto your list, as so many people have been killed because of love that it is staggering to contemplate how harmful a feeling it is. And while you are at it, why not provide a list of the advantages emotions bring ... twice in your last post you stated this to be the case and twice I asked you what these advantages were. Viz.:
I do not see your answer to that on this page either. I am reminded of your very pertinent observation only recently. Viz.:
* RICHARD: You do defend the necessity of ‘I’. Here, let me copy and paste your own words. Viz.: [Konrad]: ‘Witnessing is therefore not put into words. For this is only possible when an ‘I’ is formed. If all thought stops, the true nature of the ‘I’-ness of the I is revealed, but the action of speaking is then impossible, for there is no ‘I’ that can speak. For ALL action is then impossible, including speaking (and typing)’. KONRAD: Yes, Richard, the necessity of an ‘I’ as a ‘what’, but not a defence of the ‘I’ in the form of a ‘who’. Why are you evading this fact? RICHARD: Mainly because it is not a fact ... by the use of the word ‘I’ in little quotes we have been talking about an identity all this while ... as well you know. Just because you have conveniently re-classified this identity as a grammatically impossible ‘what’ does not take away from the fact that any ‘I’ that is a product of thought is an identity. KONRAD: I have defined the ‘I’ as a ‘what’ as a thought that controls the body. I have asserted, and remain asserting, that without such a thought the body is not able to act, to behave purposefully. But I have definitely NOT been defending the necessity of an ‘I’ in the form of a ‘who’. Your omission of me making this distinction suggests, just by its omission that I am a defender of some subtle form of ‘I’ in the form of a ‘who’. And that is exactly what I am definitely not doing. RICHARD: This side-stepping smoke-screen that you are throwing up again and again in this post just does not fool me one little bit ... you are defending the necessity of an identity merely under a different name. Golly, you have even given me lengthy discourses on the tautological – self-referential – nature of this ‘I’ that is a product of thought. Playing with words does not make the underlying problem go away ... and the underlying problem is evidenced by the marked symptoms of this identity that you display in your daily life. To wit: getting infuriated and having to have emotion-backed principles in order to manage to operate and function in a socially acceptable manner even when driven by the instinctual animal urges of fear and aggression that blind nature endows all sentient beings with. In other words: you are still a victim of the human condition ... you are encumbered by an identity still. You even explicitly say the word ‘identity’ in the very next sentence (below). KONRAD: What I AM saying is that it might appear that there is such a thing, but in reality it is not an identity, but something completely different. Its true identity I have shown in this robot metaphor. RICHARD: Except that it completely ignores one pertinent fact. Blind nature does not endow robots or computers with survival instincts like fear and aggression and nurture and desire. It is these instinctual passions that form the rudimentary self that all sentient being are ruled by. Now the human animal, with its ability to know its impending death, transforms the physical survival instinct into an emotion-driven will to survive as a psychological and psychic entity ... ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ a soul. KONRAD: Rubbish, Richard. This is just wild speculation of somebody who clearly does not see the true identity of the ‘I’ in the form of a thought controlling the body. RICHARD: Do you see your liberal use of the word ‘identity’ there? You even go so far as to say that you have discovered a ‘true identity’. Now, what is the difference between a ‘true identity’ and what the Masters and Sages call their ‘real identity’ – their ‘True Self’ – apart from their capitalisation? KONRAD: Emotions cannot control the body. The only thing they can is respond to a controlling thought either in a positive or negative way. RICHARD: Where you say that ‘emotions cannot control the body’ I see this is an area worthy of discussion as you are obviously somewhat confused about this matter. Because in other E-mails, where you have said, for example, that [quote] ‘feelings, emotions, stem from another source, the SELF, and even THESE cannot be stopped by the ‘I’ [endquote], you seem to be saying that emotions, in fact, do control the body ... and that an ‘I’-thought has to keep them under its watchful eye. You emphasise this by saying that [quote] ‘feelings can only be repressed, not stopped’ [endquote] ... which clearly indicates that for you a censoring ‘I’ – a product of thought – is ultimately ineffectual. A somewhat impotent identity, in other words. May I copy and paste some more of your previous confused understandings about emotions so you can see what the problem is? You will notice that your argument is circular and does not, in fact, say anything meaningful at all other than to point out that society’s standards generate feelings. In doing so you completely ignore the instinctual animal urges which, being passions, are indeed affective ... and have nothing to do with originating in society’s dictates. Viz.:
KONRAD: Let me give a simple example. Imagine a lemon, as lively as possible. Imagine that you hold it, and you squeeze in it softly. Now imagine that you cut it in two halves, and squeeze softly in it. Imagine the juice going up. Now imagine that you bite in this lemon. Now does saliva come up in your mouth? With most people, no, with almost every individual who does this, this will be the result. In the same manner principles generate emotions as responses to the film and its actions. These principles are then reactive in nature. Still, these emotions are not able to control the body directly. They are reactions to the film, and therefore are NOT and NEVER CAN BE the controllers of the body. An instinct or principle might produce a negative emotion in a life threatening situation. But it is not able to make the body act, move purposefully. Only such a ‘film’ can do that. RICHARD: Never mind lemon-juice and saliva ... what about the human animal in an actual life situation? When someone lashes out blindly in a murderous rage – which happens frequently in a life-threatening situation – is this not the survival instincts making the body act purposefully? The purpose being to stay alive at all costs? Thus blind nature’s instinctual passions rule the roost ... and have to be kept under control by a socially-trained ‘I’. An ‘I’ that is a somewhat ineffectual identity, in other words. * RICHARD: In the Eastern Mystical Enlightenment process, ‘I’ as ego, desiring to perpetuate itself for ever and a day, passionately feels itself to really be ‘me’ as soul – and an immortal soul at that – and becomes ‘Pure Being’. It then identifies as being ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’ (this narcissistic self-aggrandisement is epitomised in the phrase ‘I am God’). No robot or computer does this. KONRAD: That is not what happens. The essence of ‘self’, or ‘soul’ is, that it is a picture that corresponds to the general principles that can apply to many lives at the same time, in the way I have described in the robot analogy. RICHARD: Not so ... the essence of soul is its desire to exist for ‘All Eternity’ ... and robots do not desire immortality. In fact a robot has no desires at all ... this is a silly analogy. KONRAD: I agree, that it [the robot analogy] has many shortcomings, and that it needs to be worked out more fully, but it shows clearly the essence of the true identity of the ‘I’. RICHARD: But it does not at all ... the ‘true identity’ of the identity is affective, not cerebral. You came close to acknowledging this yourself in your last post. Viz.: [Konrad]: ‘I try to make people aware of the fact, that the ‘feeling’ they have that they are ‘I’s, persons, WHO do things, is a mistaken vision on themselves’. Do you see the word ‘feeling’ in there?’ KONRAD: Maybe a better word for it is ‘elimination of cognitive dissonance’ as a perpetual action. RICHARD: Methinks the elimination of your own cognitive dissonance Do you see the inanity of saying this? KONRAD: Because the ‘I’ hypothesis is a principle, there are thoughts generated by the creative part of the brains that are consistent with this principle, and therefore are directed to eliminating the cognitive dissonance that exists between the factual nature of the ‘I’ as a ‘what’, and the illusionary nature of the ‘I’ as a ‘who’. This causes an ‘emotion’ of ‘existence’. But this ‘emotion’ of ‘existence’ is not the controller of the body. Therefore it is NOT a form of ‘I’. RICHARD: Please correct me if I am making a mistake here ... but am I reading it correctly that you are doing one of your remarkable about-faces and now saying that an ‘I’ is not necessary? KONRAD: For, as I have defined repeatedly, the only candidate of the controller of the body is a ‘picture’ or ‘film’ of a desirable future state. (Desirable meaning, corresponding to the principles. I therefore do NOT say, that these desires are able to control the body. Only a picture that corresponds to them can.) RICHARD: So you are now saying that a ‘picture’ or a ‘film’ controls the body which means that you are run by images, eh? And images born out of desire? And, of course, we all know that desire is affective ... as I quoted you saying further above. Viz.: ‘wants are desires, feelings generated by the SELF’. Do you see the word ‘feelings’ in there? These are your words, Konrad. KONRAD: I can even go further. Your actuality even blinds you for seeing that, that what I say the true nature of the ‘I’ is, is not a theory, but a statement of fact is an inability. For you believe that the world can be observed directly, without thought and thinking intervening. RICHARD: Round and round we go again ... however, I can say it again: I say that the world can be observed directly only when there is no ‘I’ as ego or ‘me’ as soul extant in the body. Thinking may or may not occur ... but feelings have disappeared entirely. If purposeful action is required by the circumstances, thought swings into action. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness going on’. KONRAD: Seen in the light of the above whining about not copying and pasting this is clearly being blind for your own irritation. Of course you are going to ‘explain that away’. RICHARD: No way am I going to ‘explain that away’. All I have to do is draw your attention to a similar incident several E-Mails ago where you desperately tried to find evidence that you could get me irritated. Viz.:
* KONRAD: Therefore you take this misunderstanding as an observation. RICHARD: No, Konrad, no ... it is not a misunderstanding at all. You say that ‘I’ is a product of thought, therefore there can never be an absence of ‘I’ without an absence of thought ... for you, this is. Therefore, you cannot comprehend that it is possible to be able to operate and function – do purposeful action – without an ‘I’. I am suggesting that you look deeper into the nature of identity ... deeper than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did; deeper than Mr. Gotama the Sakyan did; deeper than Mr. Rinzai did ... deeper than any of these revered peoples. Can you do this? If you do you will find that the identity – as ‘me’ as soul – is a product of feelings ... and at root the rudimentary self of the instinctual passions. Will you do this?’ KONRAD: Already done, Richard. RICHARD: Could you explain just what it is that you have ‘already done’ because nothing you have sent me yet details any such ‘doing’ at all ... and I have over two hundred pages of your writing to look through. Would you care to elaborate and send me details? KONRAD: And then I became conscious of the organ that has taken no less than one million years to develop. Namely the power of logical thinking itself. And then there was a clear realization, that its power has given us all of technology, and its self-referential nature makes perfectly clear, that we are not ‘who’s’, but ‘what’s’. RICHARD: As you have been making such a big thing about this discovery of yours about not being a ‘who’ but a ‘what’ in this E-Mail ... perhaps you might care to consider just where you obtained this [quote] ‘clear realisation that we are not ‘who’s’ but ‘what’s’’ [endquote] from. You do seem to be overlooking just you who are trying to teach with this discovery of yours. This is so silly what you are doing, Konrad ... and you do it again and again. Now, please read some quotes from a few different E-Mails over the last few months ago ... they should bring you to your senses. If they do not – if you cannot see this very important fact – then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you. Viz.:
KONRAD: This insight made me realize, that this is the complete fusion of the greatest achievement of the East, namely the ‘process’ of enlightenment, with the greatest achievement of the West, namely explicit awareness of logical thinking. But no ‘apperception’. RICHARD: Indeed no apperception, Konrad ... it is patently clear that you have no capacity to allow apperception to play any part in your life whatsoever. Your stubborn adherence to the supremacy of abstract logic makes you blind to the obvious ... this is cognitive dissonance in action. KONRAD: Reality can NOT be observed directly. If you believe that, you make such, sorry to say, stupid mistakes as you are making here. RICHARD: I agree ... reality cannot be observed directly for it is an illusion just like the ‘I’. Only actuality can be directly experienced ... and only when any identity whatsoever becomes extinct. KONRAD: You make a distinction here between actuality and reality, while, in actual fact, there is no real difference. (Notice how these two words are present in the last sentence?) A person on the K mailing list explained that to me. What he said is that both the word ‘actual’ and ‘real’ mean exactly the same thing, namely existence. RICHARD: I am well aware that the dictionary makes no distinction between the word ‘real’ and the word ‘actual’ ... and someone does not have to be a genius to be able to read a dictionary. I explained to you some time ago why I use the words differently to the dictionary meaning. Perhaps you might actually read it this time, eh? Viz.:
And your smart answer, when I presented this Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy example on another occasion, shows just how interested you are in finding out about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in the world as it is with people as they are. Viz.:
Of course you were to ‘take that serious’ ... do you think that I am writing to myself? All this is very pertinent, Konrad, and if you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you. Look, the normal reality of the real world is an illusion. The Greater Reality of the Mystical World is a delusion. There is an actual world that lies under one’s very nose ... I interact with the same people, things and events that you do, yet it is as if I am in another dimension altogether. There is no good or evil here where I live. I live in a veritable paradise ... this very earth I live on is so vastly superior to any fabled Arcadian Utopia that it would be impossible to believe if I was not living it twenty four hours a day ... and for the last five years. It is so perfectly pure and clear here that there is no need for Love or Compassion or Bliss or Euphoria or Ecstasy or Truth or Goodness or Beauty or Oneness or Unity or Wholeness or ... or any of those baubles. They all pale into pathetic insignificance ... and I lived them for eleven years. So therefore, when I use the word ‘reality’ I refer to the reality that is an affective experience of the world of people, things and events ... whereas I use the word ‘actuality’ to refer to the sensate world only (and this sensual experience is ambrosial, to say the least). Thus, by the ‘actual world’, I do not mean the ‘real-world’ of normal human experience. Actuality is only seen by people in glimpses ... it is as if everyday reality is a grim and glum veneer pasted over the top of this actual world of the senses. When ‘I’ vanish in ‘my’ entirety – both the ego and the soul – this ‘normal’ everyday reality disappears and the underlying actuality becomes apparent. It was here all along. To experience the metaphysical Greater Reality – usually with capitalisation – is to go further into the illusion of normal everyday reality, created by ‘I’, and to create a supernatural ‘True Reality’ ... which one could call an abnormal reality. Thus normal everyday reality is an illusion and the abnormal metaphysical Greater Reality is a delusion born out of the illusion ... a chimera, as it were. This is why only 0.0000001 of the population ever become enlightened ... it is extremely difficult to live in a hallucination permanently. Speaking personally, I was so deluded, that for eleven years I lived in humanity’s greatest fantasy, before the dissolution of ‘me’ as soul finally brought salubrity through release from the human condition itself. Then one is here in this actual world – not the real world that five point eight billion people are living in – but the actual world that is accessible only when ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct. Have you never been deep in a rain-forest ... or any wilderness, for that matter? Have you ever, as you have travelled deeper and deeper into this other world of natural delight, ever experienced an intensely hushed stillness that is vast and immense yet so simply here? I am not referring to a feeling of awe or reverence or great beauty – to have any emotion or passion at all is to miss the actuality of this moment – nor am I referring to any blissful or euphoric state of being. It is a sensate experience, not an affective state. I am talking about the factual and simple actualness of earthy existence being experienced whilst ambling along without any particular thought in mind ... yet not being mindless either. And then, when a sparkling intimacy occurs, do not the woods take on a fairy-tale-like quality? Is one not in a paradisiacal environment that envelops yet leaves one free? This is the ambrosia that I speak of. At this magical moment there is no ‘I’ in the head or ‘me’ in the heart ... there is this apperceptive awareness wherein thought can operate freely without the encumbrance of any feelings whatsoever. It is not my ambrosia nor yours ... yet it is here for everyone and anyone for asking ... for the daring to be here as this body only. One does this by stepping out of the real world into this actual world, as this flesh and blood body, leaving your ‘self’ behind ... where ‘you’ belong. KONRAD: The reason why there are two words that have the same meaning is because of the use in communication. The word ‘reality’ is used to make a distinction between the imaginary. And the word ‘actuality’ is used to make a distinction between the possible. RICHARD: This is fascinating, Konrad ... is this your latest insight? Are you not yet suspicious about what passes for sagacity in your mind? You chop and change again and again, making things up as you write them to me. KONRAD: Let me be more exact. RICHARD: If you must ... but what you are writing has nothing to do with what I mean by differentiating between the word ‘real’ and the word ‘actual’ whatsoever. I do not suppose this fact will deter you one little bit, though, will it? KONRAD: First the terms ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’. Our creativity can make all kinds of imaginations. Still, there is a limit. Not every sentence, or collection of sentences that is grammatically correct can be the expression of an imagination. When the sentence, or collection of sentences does not contain a contradiction, the imagination can form a picture that corresponds to this sentence, or it forms a picture that corresponds to all of the sentences. RICHARD: I see that you are describing your own modus operandi quite accurately ... I can see why you are so confused about what is actually going on in the world of people, things and events. KONRAD: In other words, you need logic to see the total scope of the imagination. The imagination is limited by logic, and by logic alone. If a description does not contain a contradiction, the mind is able to form a picture that corresponds to this description. This thesis is discovered by Henri Poincaré, who expresses this by saying: ‘existence is consistence’. This thesis has been worked out further, and now the position in mathematics is, that if you form a picture that corresponds to a set of statements that does not contain a contradiction, and it is a picture of such generality, that every addition to this picture leads to an extra rule needed to describe this new picture, the original picture is called ‘categorical’. So a categorical picture is a picture that corresponds to the set of statements that do not contain a contradiction. RICHARD: But just because something is mathematically correct does not make it work in everyday life. We are living human beings ... not mathematical robots, Konrad. KONRAD: And, further, if this picture is changed in any way, by making it more specific, this new picture needs an extra rule. Logic has developed quite far in making this clear. Now this picture is called REAL if it can be observed in the things we see around us. These kinds of pictures are at the base of our ability to name the things we observe around us, both in their concrete appearance and in their abstract appearance. RICHARD: But your hero Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti constantly warned of the danger of making pictures ... he called it ‘forming an image’. KONRAD: So a description of something is real if it can be observed either as an attribute of something that exists, or if it is a total description of something that exists. We then say, that this description is a description of something that can be found in existence. What does the word ‘possible’ mean? You can only have a clear understanding of this word if you have studied enough physics. For then the most clear definition of ‘possible’ can be given. Something is possible if it is not impossible. This is, logically speaking, a tautology. But this changes if you ask what is meant with the term: ‘not impossible’. For the most clear definition is then: ‘If that what is imagined does not contradict any law of physics’. So, in other words, if some imagination does not contradict any known or unknown law of physics, it is a representation of something that is possible. RICHARD: Your saying ‘known or unknown law of physics’ makes this simply a circular argument which does nothing but prove itself to be right in its initial surmise by its initial surmise. How on earth do you get away with teaching logic as a profession? KONRAD: Now how does actual relate to possible? If that what is seen to be possible is created by either a combination of factors occurring in existence, or is deliberately made to appear by bringing the factors in nature together whose interaction makes it appear, this possibility becomes actual. In other words, a possibility becomes an actuality by using factors of existence together with insight in laws of nature. This means, that the possible is not only limited by logic, but also by physics, and derivatives thereof, like economics, law, and the other problem fields of Man. So the only difference between actuality and reality is its focus. RICHARD: If you read through this you will see that it does not make one bit of sense after the words ‘in other words ...’. How can you possibly come to the conclusion: ‘so the only difference between actuality and reality is its focus’? This is not only not sensible ... it is not even logical. KONRAD: Reality is distinguished from the imaginary. The distinction between real and imaginary is something that belongs primarily to the domain of logic. RICHARD: Aye ... and there you remain stuck. There is an actual world here, Konrad ... right under your nose. KONRAD: And actuality is distinguished from possibility. The distinction between actual and possible belongs to the domain of physics, or derivatives thereof, like economics, law, etc. But both the actual and the real have in common that they both refer to existence. This is why you making a distinction between actuality and reality is completely bogus. Therefore, if reality cannot be observed directly, neither can actuality be observed directly. It is, because it are two words for existence. And existence cannot be observed directly. RICHARD: And so we are back again – after a wandering dissertation – to your theme-song. To wit: It is not possible to perceive actuality directly. Yet I say it can ... and that I do. * KONRAD: Reality can NOT be observed directly. If you believe that, you make such, sorry to say, stupid mistakes as you are making here If THAT is what Actualism does with the mind, then it is very, very dangerous. RICHARD: Oh? And in what way is it dangerous? 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... with these normal minds steering the ship. Scientists – with their highly developed abstract thinking and ‘heavy mathematics’ – invented the atomic and nuclear bombs ... are these not dangerous? What on earth are you talking about? KONRAD: Let me respond to this with a little ‘tease’. Are you not meaning to say: 1,600,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone ... and not: 160,000,000 people have been killed in wars this century alone? Haven’t you pushed your ability to be blind to abstract thinking too far? For you consistently make the mistake to be off with a factor of 10. I know, it is just a minor mistake. Not one to draw too big conclusions from. So I will not. However, it proves one point. Your ability to observe reality directly, without thought intervening is less infallible than you pretend it to be. RICHARD: Do you see how you neatly side-step answering the actual question that I asked? Another smoke-screen to avoid answering a very valid point. You said that actualism is very, very dangerous because of what you perceive it does to the mind ... and I ask you about both the normal mind’s dangerousness and the abstract mind’s dangerousness. You are making unsubstantiated allegations about actualism’s effect on people’s minds ... and totally fail to address yourself to the real problem. Namely: humanity’s inhumanity to humankind. If you can successfully answer my original question ... then I will successfully answer your ‘little tease’. KONRAD: For [Vineeto] also took my pointing out to her that certain things can only be understood if the intellectual equipment is developed enough as a personal attack. RICHARD: I think not ... she was clearly talking about human relationship. You ignored this completely and aired your knowledge of higher mathematics to demonstrate that she could not know what she was talking about if she could not understand certain formulae. Let me copy and paste it for you. Viz.: [Konrad]: ‘If you were a trained female, and really knew what I was talking about when I sent you the Maxwell equations, you would not have failed to notice that the last equation I sent you was false. The last equation if this set is false. It should read: div B = 0. It is a mathematical description of the impossibility of the occurrence of magnetic monopoles’. Now, I ask you ... what has all that to do with human relationship? What has all that to do with peace and harmony? You made yourself look so silly, Konrad, and by bringing this gaffe up again here ... you make yourself look silly all over again. Any comment? KONRAD: She misunderstood [my response] to be statements to the effect that I was telling her that she was not up to my standards, while this was not at all the point that I was making. RICHARD: Okay ... here is your opportunity to explain. What was the point that you were making? KONRAD: I was pointing out to her, that her hypothesis (yours too it turns out) that thought is a form of male aggression is flawed on both accounts. RICHARD: Yet neither Vineeto or I ever said that [quote] ‘thought is a form of male aggression’ [endquote]. I used the words ‘abstract logic’ and Vineeto used the word ‘logic’ It is just nonsense that you have made it up that either of us said that ‘thought is a form of male aggression’. I will copy and paste what was actually said so that you can see for yourself. Viz.:
You are patently twisting both her and my words into something they are not. KONRAD: It is neither male nor a form of aggression. It is a tool we cannot be without. Furthermore, I tried to point out to her, that this tool has, at least in the domain of the technical, solved many problems. RICHARD: But ... there has never been any dispute about technological process. You just do not get it, do you? The topic was human relationship ... peace and harmony. KONRAD: As a next step I wanted her to at least consider the possibility that further use and further development of it might solve social problems, too. RICHARD: You say ‘might’ ... yet logic has been around for thousands of years – you are so fond of referring to Mr. Aristotle the Stagirite – and all abstract thought has not worked, has it? There is as much suffering now as then. There is no peace on earth. KONRAD: Besides, when I began to explain to her what my daily life was like, the things she asked about, I was suddenly confronted with all kinds of blind accusations of me being busy to defend male domination, and to be an exploiter of women. She twisted many of my words to fit that picture. Of course I had to show her, that at least this picture was totally wrong, for she read her own frustrations in me just telling to her what my situation was. You cited: [Konrad]: ‘You know what? I stop here reading you. Probably the rest you write is just one huge attack on what I represent, and probably there is nothing good you can find in me, now that your mind is set. So I do not want to waste any more energy on you. Not again such a stupid exchange of misunderstanding upon misunderstanding’. When I later read the rest, it INDEED WAS a huge attack in just the style I predicted it to be. I wanted to let her know, that I did NOT exchange with her just to be used as a ‘punching back’ for her analysis. As I inferred from the beginning of the mail, and was vindicated later by rereading, was that she had completely forgotten that there was a human being present at the other end of the Internet. A human being that did not allow her to just strike blindly from the picture straw man she had formed. And by writing this she indeed came to realize it, for the next mail showed at least some cognisance of that fact. So it had the effect I intended it to have. I wanted to COMMUNICATE with her. Something she stopped doing by hitting me on the head with these false interpretations. If you reread this mail, you will see that I was right in doing this. RICHARD: What you write above is not a very enlightened response now is it? If you can only stop feeling so insulted you will see that she ‘attacked’ women too. Viz.:
See how she used the words ‘female weapons’ as well as the words ‘male weapon’ ... or have you stopped reading this bit? Blind nature endows women with the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire too, you know. And woman’s intuition is as useless as male logic when it comes to bringing about peace on earth. KONRAD: And now we are at the subject. This is a perfect example of my position. I always acknowledge that a ‘definition’ of an individual is an implicit denial of the potential part that is present in every human being. A picture you form from an individual, cast either implicitly as she did by defining me as a ‘male chauvinist’ (or whatever) or explicitly into a definition as you have done with this ‘fantasist’ term, reduces the individual to a ‘thing’. This denies the fact, that human beings are life forms who USE definitions. So a human being always has a part that escapes any definition you can form. Not realizing this leads to verbal aggression of the kind you often unleash on me, like those copy-paste demands of yours. For, in my eyes at least, there are two possibilities. Either definitions are contained in men, so that they are tools of men, or men are contained in definitions. The first leads to the constant awareness that a human being is always more than the definition you make of him, so that there is always room for further communication, as is constantly happening between us, despite our differences. And the second leads to the position, that a human being is less than the definition. And therefore, also less than the person who unleashes this definition oh the other. Therefore it is a form of arrogance that can, in its most extreme case, lead to the mass murder of the Jews as has happened in the second world war. (Remember, I live in Holland, close to Germany. The memory of the slaughtered Jews is much alive here, and even now still leads to scandals that come in the open, like theft by many governmental officials of the possessions of those slaughtered Jews.) This is the background of my strong protest against the way Vineeto treated me. Notice that I did not attack her, I just let her know, that I did not like what she was doing to me. Namely, treating me as totally equivalent to her definition of me, and using that as an excuse to use me as a punching bag. You know my vision on how thought can end all wars. It is that a society can bring benefits to individuals in two and only two ways. 1: by transfer of knowledge. 2: by gains in time that is the result of division of labour. It was my thesis, and it still is, that when this is realized, all social conflict ends. (Not all conflict, but all SOCIAL conflict.) Next to this, I wanted to show her, that she was too hastily in attacking thought, logic and thinking. Recently I have an even more encompassing view. When the abstraction of self-reference is reached, and is also recognized as a self-referential state of thinking itself, any conviction is seen as just a tool. On this level there is no longer conflict, because convictions are thoughts. And as such they are special cases of thinking itself. On this level they are seen to be just tools, no more, no less. Seen in that light the conflicts we see around us are not the result of either thought or emotions being dominant, but are the result of the fact, that the thinking organ has not yet reached its full maturity. This should not be a surprise, for the thinking organ has been developing for only one million years. Evolutionary speaking, this is nothing. This vision makes me realize, that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was right when he said, that thought is the ultimate and root cause of all conflict. But his ‘solution’, that we therefore have to go ‘beyond thought and thinking’ is wrong. For the problem is not, that thoughts, and therefore convictions are present that necessary contradict one another, but that the thinking organ is not yet that mature, that it is able to withstand the domination of any particular thought. So the imbalance is a manifestation of immaturity of the thinking organ. And not, what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti and his followers assert, its activity. Therefore my solution to what you call ‘the human condition’ is exactly the opposite of both that of you and that of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. It lies in the development of this organ so that it becomes totally mature. THIS is the reason why I defend both thinking AND emotions. For emotions are a manifestation of the creative part of this organ, creating possible solutions to problems, while thinking is the critical side of this organ, causing it to eliminate false, or ineffective thoughts. Therefore neither thought nor emotions should be denied. This makes me to be against both your vision and that of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. For either one of you are attacking two sides of the most powerful organ evolution has ever brought forward. RICHARD: Okay, Konrad ... it is your life you are living, when all is said and done. I can only suggest ... what you do with my suggestions is entirely your own business. As long as you obey the legal laws and observe the social protocols you are free to live your life as foolishly or wisely as you see fit. It is you who reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. * KONRAD: You believe that the world can be observed directly, without thought and thinking intervening. RICHARD: Round and round we go again ... however, I can say it again: I say that the world can be observed directly only when there is no ‘I’ as ego or ‘me’ as soul extant in the body. Thinking may or may not occur ... but feelings have disappeared entirely. If purposeful action is required by the circumstances, thought swings into action. All the while there is an apperceptive awareness going on. KONRAD: Therefore you take this misunderstanding as an observation. RICHARD: No, Konrad, no ... it is not a misunderstanding at all. You say that ‘I’ is a product of thought, therefore there can never be an absence of ‘I’ without an absence of thought ... for you, this is. Therefore, you cannot comprehend that it is possible to be able to operate and function – do purposeful action – without an ‘I’. KONRAD: You are unable to see that your mind is making an interpretation of what I say that is simply and flatly false, and you stick to it, for you cannot even imagine that this is a clear case of that what I have been telling you all along. RICHARD: No, no, no ... not at all. I am not ‘making an interpretation’. I read what you say ... I understand what you say ... I know what you say experientially ... I lived in the enlightened state for eleven years. KONRAD: I understand now from your description of what you went through, that you have first discovered the identity of ‘I’, and later that of what you call the ‘soul’. Your thesis is, that if you are without both, you are in your state of Actualism. I can see now what you refer to, and see that I have been in that state for 3 years, before ‘the process’ set in. RICHARD: No, Konrad ... from what I read you have not ‘been in that state for 3 years’ at all. KONRAD: Let me show you that I understand completely what your state is, as observed by you. First I begin with what your current state is not. The elimination of the ‘I’ leads to a form of action, whereby your actions are experienced as you being the representation of some ‘higher’ form of ‘Being’. You are no longer your own little ‘me’, but you experience your actions as the expressions of something that surpasses your own personal life, your own ‘petty’ individual situation, and your own personal gain. The reason for this is, because you see that the personal situation you are in is connected with your individual situation you, as an individual, are in. Now, if the ‘soul’ takes over, you are the representation of a larger ‘whole’. You are its ‘spokesperson’. No, more than that, you experience a new form of ‘I’ whereby you ARE this ‘whole’. The best descriptions I have read of this state is that of Osho Rajneesh. In it he constantly refers to the ‘ocean’ metaphor. In his words: ‘The drop cannot imagine that it is the ocean. But if you understand what the ‘drop’ is, you can see, that the ocean can only exist because it is composed of a huge number of ‘drops’, and, in fact, it is nothing else than the merging of this huge number of drops. Therefore every drop is partly ocean. Enlightenment is the condition, that the drop realizes, that it is not just a drop, but it is part of the ocean. As a drop it can disappear, evaporate. But if it falls into the ocean, and loses its boundaries, it has become the ocean ... etc, etc, etc. RICHARD: I see that you intellectually understand it quite well. Good. KONRAD: Now, as I have said before, ANY vision can, whenever it is a true description of reality as it is seen by an individual, be transformed into an actual experience of it. RICHARD: Only if one undergoes an ego-death ... which you have not had happen for you. Otherwise you are talking about
someone believing something so intensely that they imagine that they have arrived ... the personal growth movement and the spiritual movement is
full of wankers KONRAD: This ‘ocean’ metaphor exists in many forms. Some, like Lao-Tzu use ‘the sky’ instead of ‘the ocean’. Some call it Brahma, like the Hindus. and others might even use other names, like Nirvana. And there are even social forms of it, like ‘material dialectics’ of the Marxians. But whatever its name, it is something that is imagined to be a possibility to ‘dissolve’ the ‘ego’. RICHARD: And here is where you reveal your book-learning ignorance. For it is indeed possible to die an ego-death ... all the Masters and Sages have had this very thing happen to them for thousands of years. KONRAD: It makes the individual to experience his life not as an individual, but it makes him experience his life as a manifestation of some ‘higher’ form of existence. This ‘higher’ form can be ‘existence’, ‘life’, ‘society’, etc. Since all of these ‘higher’ forms exist, or are imagined to exist even after the individual dies, it is seen as a form of escape to the inevitable death. That is also why they appeal so much. Still, whatever its form, it is an illusion. You are clearly aware of this, because you write: ‘In the Eastern Mystical Enlightenment process, ‘I’ as ego, desiring to perpetuate itself for ever and a day, passionately feels itself to really be ‘me’ as soul – and an immortal soul at that – and becomes ‘Pure Being’. It then identifies as being ‘I am everything and Everything is Me’. (This narcissistic self-aggrandisement is epitomised in the phrase ‘I am God’). So the individual is no longer his ‘little ol’ me’, but experiences itself as far greater. This is the ‘self’ in total command. This condition is what you equate with ‘enlightenment’. RICHARD: I see that you intellectually understand it quite well. Good. KONRAD: I return. This condition is also something I went through, many years ago. RICHARD: Not so, Konrad. KONRAD: When this ‘switch’ from ‘I’ to ‘Self’ occurred within me, it had drastic consequences. It made me stop acting in an aggressive, egotistic way. It had also a profound effect on my nervous system. For, if I remember correctly, one of my eyes was not operating. But after this transformation, which happened when I was 22, I could suddenly see with two eyes. Therefore the world became literally and suddenly 3 – dimensional. The identity that became dominant in me can be best described as being one, not with existence, and also not with Nirvana, also not with life, but the particular form of this ‘I’ in me was one wherein it was one with ‘society’. This is, why I have never understood your words. I have overlooked this stage of myself, because it was so totally different from your description. RICHARD: You see ... this is where you not only make yourself look stupid but you reveal yourself to be actually ignorant. Because what you are so casually talking about is being enlightened ... which is such an earth-shattering experience that no one – no one at all – could possibly ‘overlook’ it! Are you for real? KONRAD: This is, because of my ‘science’ background. I considered every religion to be rubbish, at least until I was 23 of age. Therefore I have never become one with any type of ‘soul’ you described. RICHARD: Then this should be you own proof to yourself that you never died an ego-death and became enlightened. Good grief, Konrad, come to your senses, please. KONRAD: Now when I was 23, there was this exam. And then I felt a great nervousness. Since I was experimenting with the Gestalt of Fritz Perls, I wondered. Could I end this nervousness? Could I end this tension? Maybe one of the therapy methods of Fritz Perls could do the trick? So I went home, locked myself up, and began to hit against a pillow. While doing this, I was constantly asking myself: ‘Where does this tension come from?’ ‘Where does this nervousness come from?’ And then, after a few hours beating, it became conscious. It was ‘society itself!’ My actions were ‘one’ with society. And then, at that particular moment, ‘society’ became visible. I did the, for me, astonishing discovery, that society was not outside of me, but it was IN me. No, better, it WAS me. It was my ‘I’. Seeing this liberated me completely from the ‘Self’, or, as you call it, the ‘soul’. RICHARD: Ah ... this is the description that I was asking for at the top of this page. Good. This is not a description of an ego-death. Good. You are not enlightened, Konrad. Now we can proceed basing our discussion on the clearly established fact. KONRAD: And from that moment on, matters pertaining to the ‘I’ were totally uninteresting to me. The only thing that interested me, were my capabilities as a life-form, as a human being. I see now, that it is THIS condition you are talking about constantly. RICHARD: No, Konrad ... you are totally wrong. KONRAD: In this condition you do no longer experience yourself as a ‘who’, but as a ‘what’. RICHARD: What I am is the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. I am not this ridiculous ‘what’ of yours (that is an ‘I’-thought’) that you have turned this ‘what I am’ statement into. KONRAD: It makes you interested in the ‘thing’ you are. At that time, since I was studying physics, it made me wonder about what exactly it was that I am, and what exactly it is what a human life-form is. As far as I can tell, every statement you make is consistent with the way ‘I’ experienced the world and myself. RICHARD: No, Konrad, no ... you are way off the mark. Way, way off ... right off, in fact. KONRAD: I remember a conversation I had later with my father in law. He told me, that in his youth he wanted to be something special. But later, when he had a family, a house, and the car he wanted to have his whole life, he drove to work, and realized that the idea that he was special was recognized by him to be an illusion. This understanding made him totally calm. I could recognize what he said, for that is exactly what is left after you go through that transformation. You do not consider yourself to be special, for you do not think about your person in any comparable terms. You just look upon yourself as a phenomenon of existence, of which there are many around you. Nothing more, and nothing less. Everything else is considered to be just false pretence, egoism, and illusion. Now I considered this ‘state’ not to be special at all. Why not? Because, here in Holland, students led a very protected life, shielded almost completely from the outside world. Therefore I failed to see that there was anything special in that condition. Since you reached this ‘state’ at a far later age, and you probably did not lived that isolated from others, you observe your condition as being totally different from most people. This is probably why you make such a big thing of it. RICHARD: This goes from bad to worse ... now you bring your father-in-law and his homilies into enlightenment too! Good heavens, Konrad ... this is becoming more and more ludicrous as you go along. KONRAD: Still, my life went different. Because I was so shielded, but I also was so oriented on understanding the world around me, I wanted to learn more about the capabilities of the human body. I wanted to know what it was capable of, as a ‘force’ of nature. Therefore I went on experimenting on myself, as a ‘what’. RICHARD: No, Konrad ... you are rewriting history here. You only came across this ‘what’ business three or four months ago when you read my writing on my Web-Site. You wrote and told me so yourself. KONRAD: And what came from that is something I have already described to you. For, Richard, you probably do not believe this, but beyond this actualism of yours lies that what I call ‘the process’, and not the other way around, as you think. RICHARD: I do not believe it, no ... but, then again, I have no beliefs at all. KONRAD: For beyond ‘actuality’ lies ‘potentiality’. I point only at one thing, that might make you reconsider. You deny that there is such a thing as ‘sensate beauty’. This is logical, for if you stop at actuality, you do not move on to potentiality. Pure sensate beauty is the side-effect that is the result of a movement from potentiality to actuality. If you stop at actuality, you also make it impossible to experience pure sensate beauty. RICHARD: This absurd statement does not persuade me to reconsider at all. If for no other reason than the fact that I made a living as an artist, this must surely make you at least consider that I might just know a teensy-weeny little bit about beauty? Yes? No? KONRAD: Remember what I said about the condition necessary to be taken seriously? You must acknowledge the experiences the other has, assuming him to be as honest as he can be. RICHARD: Well then, take your own advice and apply it to me. I made a living as a practising artist ... I supported myself, my wife and my four children, paying off a mortgage on a house and hire-purchase on a car into the bargain. If I do not know something about beauty, then what do you think all those people who bought my work were buying? Ugliness? KONRAD: If you deny that what is an actuality of somebody else, you will, for that reason only, not be taken seriously. RICHARD: Once again, apply your advice to me to yourself and see what happens. KONRAD: For if somebody makes a honest statement, and you deny that there is such a thing his statement is about, you deny that that what he experiences can occur. I simply know from my own experience, that such a thing as pure sensate beauty can exist. Beauty, devoid of any emotion. If you deny that, you deny the experience, and therefore you stop being taken seriously. RICHARD: Beauty devoid of any emotion ceases being beauty. Because beauty is an emotional/passionate response of the psychological and psychic entity in the psyche – the identity – to what is pure sensorial delight. KONRAD: For you can NEVER deny the experiences people have. RICHARD: Yes I can ... and I do. For example: A devout Hindu will have a vision of a blue-skinned Mr. Krishna playing a flute ... as a reality. A devout Christian will have a vision of a pale-skinned Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene hanging on a cross ... as a reality. As they both say that there is only one ‘True God’ then you must deny that one of them, at least, is wrong in their experience. However, as these experiences are only real – and not actual – then they are easily both wrong. So you can see that you can deny someone’s experience. And because of all the religious wars ... it is high time someone did. This is what I am doing. KONRAD: The only thing you can do is doubt the interpretation of those experiences. RICHARD: You are engaging in sophistry here ... and being holier-than-thou about it, too. And, besides ... a blue-skinned Mr. Krishna playing a flute and a pale-skinned Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene hanging on a cross have no basis in actuality ... they are mythological creations. Therefore I not only deny, but I expose both the experience and the interpretation for the fantasy it is. KONRAD: So if you say, that in every form of beauty there is an emotion present, and I experience a form of beauty devoid of any emotion, you can try to point out that I overlook the emotional factor. But, if, after that I STILL do not see ANY emotional component in that what I observe, you must accept at least the possibility that the other is able to experience something you are unable to experience. For else you run the risk to not to be taken seriously. RICHARD: Under your scenario, if enough people were schizophrenic, then their vision would rule the reality of this actual world. Come to your senses, Konrad, this is twaddle dressed up as pious sagacity. KONRAD: The same applies to ‘the process’. What I have read about your understanding of what ‘enlightenment’ is, you seem to think that it ALWAYS contains some emotional component. I agree totally, if you assume enlightenment to be a condition whereby the ‘I’ has dissolved, and the ‘soul’ has taken over. But in ‘the process’ there is NO emotional factor WHATSOEVER present. Since you disagree with this, it might be that you think I just deny this, because I delude myself, or am blind to it, because you cannot imagine a form of enlightenment, whereby this is not the case. But if I tell you, that, as far as I can see, I have NEVER seen ANY emotional component in ‘the process’, I MUST conclude that, as long as you deny this experience, you are not talking about something you yourself have actually gone through. For you can deny the understanding of experiences, by first showing clearly that you experience, or have experienced the way the other experiences. And then pointing to factors the other overlooks, as you do. But if this pointing to these factors does NOT lead to the observations you think MUST be the result of this, it is time to become open for the possibility, that you do not have the same experiences as this other individual, and therefore this other individual might have hit upon something you really do not know anything about. Not really. RICHARD: This tirade completely ignores the fact that I was asking you to examine the source – the root – of the ‘process’. I agreed with you that the while the ‘process’ is happening emotions are in abeyance. But the source of the ‘process’ is affective ... existential angst, in fact. I wrote and told you all this too ... but as you probably were sloppy about reading that bit as well as the others, you will go on making your wild accusations about me. Do you now see that this is what you do? KONRAD: This is why I have been so extensive, also in answering your questions about the place of emotions in my life. Some emotions are no longer present in me. Others function fully. RICHARD: Which is the evidence that the ‘process’ is yet to finish its task ... if you will let it. There is no need for feelings – emotion or passion or calenture – here in this paradisiacal actual world that I live in. Here is the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of this material universe personified. KONRAD: And now for something completely different. Now that I have written all of this, I am going to allow ‘the process’ to intensify up to the point, whereby that what is doing all of this ‘typing’ becomes visible. I am going to do this right now ... what I see is that the ‘I’ IS the picture of ‘you’. And what is this picture? I see a man, with grey hair, somewhat corpulent, about 1 meter 70 tall. A little bit bald, with a baritone, no, higher, a tenor voice. This ‘I’ has had some real experiences, and really believes what he is saying himself. It is not a ‘crook’, an ‘impostor’, or a ‘deceiver’. It is a honest man. A man, who types with two fingers. That what makes my body ‘react’ to this picture is that in this man there is a clear ‘desire’ to make ‘me’ see. For it believes that, with enough sustained effort, the ‘person’ on this side of the Internet will see the ‘illusionary’ and ‘emotional’ side of ‘the process’. So this ‘I’ believes, that there is an opening, because ‘the process’ has not yet completed on this side of the internet. It believes, that there is a ‘potential’ present here, to let the ‘actualism’ penetrate. The actions of this ‘I’ to show this are based on a picture, that is the psychic ‘I’, consisting of here somebody being present that is trapped in some ‘emotional’ soul. The proof is seen in the fact, that here are still emotions present, while this ‘I’ observes itself to have freed itself of these emotions. If only this other ‘soul’ is extinguished, and actuality sets in. What form will this ‘actuality’ take, when you consider that this ‘process’ has been present for so long? THAT is the driving curiosity after the typing. The potential question lurking behind this two-finger-typing individual. There is no doubt whatsoever about having gone beyond enlightenment. So this ‘I’ cannot be convinced of anything this other individual puts forward. The only action consists of trying to ‘end’ this ‘soul’. RICHARD: Thank you for giving me such a clear description of how you fantasise ... it does help me to understand you better. However, this actual world as evidenced by the sensorial faculties – and not accessible by the cerebral or affective faculties – has no need of imagination and intuition ... which is why it is so perfect. By persisting to live in your abstract world, where you can fantasise to your heart’s content, you lock yourself away from the actual. If you cannot see this very important fact, then this correspondence is just a complete waste of time for you.
PAGE NINE OF A CONTINUING DIALOGUE RETURN TO A REQUEST FROM KONRAD SWART RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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