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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 42
RICHARD: The reason why I am interested in what way it is that you try to test, understand, or make sense of, where my experiencing deviates from Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s is because when I write and explain that it differs in regards to the matter of ‘being’ itself – an impersonalised ‘presence’ by whatever name – which remains in place in spiritual enlightenment, and that it is only when identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is not that there is peace-on-earth, I am somewhat handicapped by not knowing how to otherwise phrase these words ... to put then in a way that might very well make them clear to you. RESPONDENT: It has become a little clearer in your other two posts which I’ve just answered. RICHARD: Good. RESPONDENT: The distinction between ‘I’ and ‘me’ also strikes me as wrong in the context of k’s language. RICHARD: Aye, you will get no disagreement from me about that ... yet in no way is it wrong in the context of Richard’s language. * RICHARD: For example, in regards the matter of ‘being’ itself: when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talks of ‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’, and implies that there is no ego-self in ‘being’ (whereas there is in ‘becoming’), does this then not speak to you of being an impersonalised ‘presence’ (a soul-self by whatever name) ... rather than being an everyday ‘personality’ (ego-self) such as maybe 6.0 billion people are? RESPONDENT: Yes, except for your term ‘soul-self’, which to me is identical with ‘ego-self’. RICHARD: As the term soul-self refers to a spiritual identity, as in spirit-self for example, as distinct from ego-self which refers to a corporeal identity, as in body-self for example, are you saying that there is no spiritual dimension at all ... that everything is material including consciousness? For example:
Is this what you mean, when you say that soul-self is identical with ego-self, that any ‘otherness’ (that which is other than matter) is also material, a construct of thought operating as imagination? * RICHARD: And when I write of ‘being’ itself ceasing to be as well (meaning no soul-self whatsoever remains) does this then not speak to you of being a flesh and blood body only living freely in the actual world of sensory experiencing – there is no inner or outer in actuality – rather than being either a ‘personality’ (‘I’ as ego) or an impersonalised ‘presence’ (‘me’ as soul) by whatever name? What if I were to say that it is only by going beyond enlightenment (which means that there is no longer any god or goddess – the truth by whatever description – energetically meddling in human affairs) that there is peace-on-earth ... and that peace-on-earth has been here all along anyway? All the tumult and turmoil has never been anything other than the playing out of the human psyche. RESPONDENT: I agree with your broad map, but see no reason for the extra step you seem to be adding between the self and truth-beauty. RICHARD: What if I were to say that there are no instinctual passions in this actual world – the world of the mountains and the streams, the world of the trees and the flowers, the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night, and so on and so on ad infinitum – and that they only have their existence in the animal world ... in sentient beings? Would this be a factual statement?
RICHARD: ... so far I have only been able to come across 15 passages where Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti uses the word ‘genetic’ and nowhere on those 15 occasions does he come even anywhere near comprehending the implications and ramifications involved in the affective feelings being rooted in the genetically-encoded instincts ... rather than in conditioning (be it societal, familial, peer-group or environmental conditioning). For an example: ‘The other day as one was walking along a secluded wooded lane far from the noise and the brutality and the vulgarity of civilisation, right away from everything that was put together by man, there was a sense of great quietness, enveloping all things – serene, distant, and full of the sound of the earth. As you walked along quietly, not disturbing the things of the earth around you, the bushes, the trees, the crickets, and the birds, suddenly around the bend there were two small creatures quarrelling with each other, fighting in their small way. One was trying to drive off the other. The other was intruding, trying to get into the other’s little hole, and the owner was fighting it off. Presently the owner won and the other ran off. Again there was quietness, a sense of deep solitude. And as you looked up, the path climbed high into the mountains, the waterfall was murmuring down the side of the path; there was great beauty and infinite dignity, not the dignity achieved by man that seems so vain and arrogant. The little creature had identified itself with its home, as we human beings do. We are always trying to identify ourselves with our race, with our culture, with those things which we believe in, with some mystical figure, some kind of super authority. Identifying with something seems to be the nature of man. Probably we have derived this feeling from that little animal. One wonders why this craving, longing, for identification exists’. (10 March 1983; ‘Krishnamurti To Himself’; ©1987 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.). But he does not wonder why it is probable that ‘we have derived this feeling from that little animal’ for very long as soon he has left behind everything that thought had put together and has completely forgotten himself ... RESPONDENT: Of course k isn’t so interested in tracing our behaviour to it’s animal sources. Leave that to the scientists. RICHARD: Being born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have maintained a life-long interest in observing the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings did not and does not need scientific verification. And even from my comfortable suburban living room I can watch documentaries on this very topic ... only recently a television programme was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to see fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, nurture, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on being displayed in living colour. RESPONDENT: Of course our instincts evolved with the creatures we stem from. RICHARD: Yet it is not the instincts per se I am referring to but the instinctual passions – the genetically-encoded affective feelings – such as what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was wondering about. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: K’s interest is only in the self, the psychological malfunctioning our species succumbed to, and if it’s possible to walk away from that. RICHARD: So I have noticed. * RICHARD: ... so much so that soon there is no longer any sense of being a human being even. Vis.: ‘As you climbed, leaving the little village paths down below, the noise of the earth – the crickets, the quails and other birds began their morning song, their chant, their rich worship of the day. And as the sun rose you were part of that light and had left behind everything that thought had put together. You completely forgot yourself. The psyche was empty of its struggles and its pains. And as you climbed, there was no sense of separateness, no sense of even being a human being’. (10 March 1983; ‘Krishnamurti To Himself’; ©1987 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.). The word ‘dissociation’ seems particularly apt. RESPONDENT: I’m not sure. I’m a bit leery of tendency to use language in such definitive ways. RICHARD: As this paragraph is rich in symbolism – such as chant and worship and climbing in the light with no sense of separateness and no sense of even being a human being – it amply embellishes what he means when he says the ‘answer’ is not to be found in the world:
RICHARD: The feeling self (‘me’ as soul) is primal and the thinking self (‘I’ as ego) is derivative and both are, fundamentally, affective in substance: as the essential affective feelings are in situ before thought first arises in infancy – a baby is born already feeling – the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in the species ... it is an hereditarily programmed, or genetically encoded, instinctually passionate inchoate presence, a rudimentary survival ‘self’ as it were. RESPONDENT: The senses are ‘genetically programmed’, embryonic feelings are probably due to prenatal experiences, the ‘rudimentary survival self’ is the beginning of learning. RICHARD: If the embryonic feelings are due to ‘prenatal experiences’ – and are not genetically programmed – are you suggesting that feelings arise ex nihilo? RESPONDENT: A foetus can be traumatized in many ways, but it shares much of the mothers chemistry. If the mother is tense, the foetus experiences this. There are studies that link gender ambivalence is boys to this. RICHARD: I do understand that, as babies born of heroin-addicted mothers are born suffering withdrawal symptoms, the many and varied chemicals which surge through the mother, when she is feeling fear or aggression or nurture or desire and so on, also pass through the placenta (thus flooding the foetus with these substances) ... but if the affective feelings are due only to ‘the mother’s chemistry’ – and are not encoded in the genetic blueprint at conception – then where did the mother get the chemicals from in the first place to thus pass them on in utero? * RESPONDENT: To introduce the word ‘self’ in this context can only lead to confusion. RICHARD: Not necessarily ... there are those peoples, who are not out to preserve the sanctity of the feeling self at all costs, who tell me it leads to clarity. RESPONDENT: This is too cryptic for me. RICHARD: I was responding to your use of ‘only’ ... just because you found it to ‘lead to confusion’ does not mean everybody does. * RICHARD: Any and all imprinting which happens after birth imprints itself onto, into, and as, this already existing basic set of survival passions that form themselves into being the intuitive presence which, at root, is what any ‘me’ ultimately is ... as does any and all societal, familial, and peer-group conditioning. RESPONDENT: This would be a major departure from k, right? RICHARD: It would be indeed ... a radical departure, in fact. So far I have only been able to come across 15 passages where Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti uses the word ‘genetic’ and nowhere on those 15 occasions does he come even anywhere near comprehending the implications and ramifications involved in the affective feelings being rooted in the genetically-encoded instincts ... rather than in conditioning (be it societal, familial, peer-group or environmental conditioning). RESPONDENT: I agree his knowledge of the language of genetics was marginal. RICHARD: So is mine – I am but a lay-person and not a geneticist – yet it takes only simple observation to comprehend that basic instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, are part and parcel of the biological package ... I could see this whilst still in childhood even. RESPONDENT: I don’t think it matters. His distinction between functional thought and psychological thought can easily cover your distinction between ‘affective feelings’ and conditioning. RICHARD: If I may point out? As the distinction I draw is between biological inheritance (that which is innate) and conditioning (that which is acquired) his distinction between ‘functional thought and psychological thought’ comes nowhere even near covering it. RESPONDENT: Conditioning is the entire psychological package (both thinking and feeling). RICHARD: Yet conditioning needs substance to latch onto, sink into, and be ... if it were not for the innate survival passions such conditioning would wash off, like water off a duck’s back, before it could get a hold. RESPONDENT: Rational functioning of our genetically inherited faculties is the sane package. RICHARD: Are you saying that instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, are not only a sane package but would function rationally if it were not for conditioning? * RICHARD: Both imprinting and conditioning need substance to latch onto, sink into, and be ... it all washes off a clean slate like water off a duck’s back. Innocence is something entirely new to human experience. RESPONDENT: Why not ‘a quality we, as species lost, as the self displaced it’? RICHARD: Are you suggesting there was an era when the human species had no instinctual survival passions? RESPONDENT: I don’t define innocence as the absence of an instinctual survival mechanism. RICHARD: As I specifically asked about the instinctual survival passions – and not an instinctual survival ‘mechanism’ – I am none too sure if you see innocence as being inclusive of passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, or exclusive of them. I would appreciate your clarification of what innocence means to you in this respect.
RICHARD: As far as I have been able to ascertain Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not use the term ‘the feeler’ (not that I have all his words in electronic form so as to conduct a thorough search) although he frequently used the terms ‘the thinker’, ‘the observer’, ‘the watcher’, ‘the experiencer’ and ‘the meditator’ ... and even if it turns out that he did I am most definitely not using ‘the feeler’ as being interchangeable with ‘the thinker’ as he does with ‘the observer’, ‘the watcher’, ‘the experiencer’ and ‘the meditator’. To blur the distinction between the thinker and the feeler is to lose the plot altogether as the feeler only comes into full being when the thinker is not ... the advice ‘get out of your head and into your heart’ is well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk. RESPONDENT: I have never heard him use the word ‘feeler’ either. What an ugly word it would be. RICHARD: Why do you say ‘... it would be’ when the word already exists? Vis.:
Also, and as a matter of interest, is this word an ‘ugly’ word too? Vis.:
RESPONDENT: But he never talked much about feeling as a distinct state. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... he not only talked often about ‘feeling as a distinct state’ (distinct from the thinking state) he praised its separation from thought highly (albeit lopsidedly). For just one example:
And why I say ‘lopsidedly’ is because I am yet to find something like this:
The reason I mention this here is because it relates to your query about sublimation and transcendence (further below). RESPONDENT: He talked about anger, fear, sorrow but he discussed them as psychological thinking. RICHARD: Am I to take it by ‘psychological thinking’ you mean he talked about these feelings being part of the package labelled ‘the thinker’ (rather than being part of the package labelled ‘the feeler’)? If so, and since feeling comes before thought in the perceptive process, do you not find this lack of attention to what is somewhat odd? * RESPONDENT: K’s ‘do not think’ in this context seems to simply mean ‘slow down all reactions’. RICHARD: As his words ‘do not think’, in the meditation context they are sitting in, do not mean he wants the listener to not think, but to ‘slow down all reactions’ instead, how would he have to phrase it if he wanted the listener to not think? RESPONDENT: k very much avoided using words as definitions. His use of language is extremely flexible and contain numerous contradictions at the verbal level. Because he didn’t want his listeners to become hypnotized by language, he never repeated a sentence exactly the same way. RICHARD: Okay, so seeing that his words ‘do not think’ can mean ‘slow down all reactions’ then, being ‘extremely flexible’ as they are, his words ‘do not think’ could also mean ‘speed up all reactions’ could they not? * RICHARD: Thus the ‘observer’ being referred to is the feeler, not the thinker ... RESPONDENT: The ‘thinker’ interferes with ‘thinking’, as the ‘observer’ interferes with ‘observing’, as a ‘feeler’ interferes with ‘feeling’. RICHARD: And where the feeler interferes with feeling big-time is upon transcendence ... which is where the negative feelings have been sublimated to such a degree that the positive feelings appear squeaky-clean (aka have no opposite). ‘Tis only an appearance, though. RESPONDENT: I have no idea of what you’re saying here. RICHARD: Have you never found it cute that, upon transcendence, the positive feelings have assumed the status of existing as a state of being without equal (wherein the negative feelings have been swept under the carpet)? * RICHARD: Put simply: it is an affective state of ‘being’ ... an oceanic RESPONDENT: You may put it that way, but my sense is that you give greater definition to this state than k permits. RICHARD: As I have many times read the ‘definition’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti time and again gives to the state of non-separation – usually to be found in the last few paragraphs at the end of his talks – I am at a loss to see why this way of expressing it would be ‘greater’ than his expression. RESPONDENT: The word ‘oceanic’ is descriptive and seeks to stimulate the imagination. RICHARD: The word ‘oceanic’ is a simile, an expression conveying connotations of being ‘immense’,
‘vast’, ‘limitless’, and so on RESPONDENT: Even the word ‘affective state of being’ doesn’t quite sound right to me. Too definitive. RICHARD: Oh? Is calling a spade a spade not de rigueur, then? RESPONDENT: k is particularly careful to stay away from that, as in ‘non-separation’. There’s no description there. RICHARD: In what way would describing a spade as being a digging implement, consisting of a sharp-edged rectangular metal blade fitted on a long handle with a grip or crossbar at the upper end, be not conducive to clarity? * RESPONDENT: On the question of ‘thinker + outside’, my feeling is bending towards a yes. When a ‘thinker’ exists, the ‘outside’ is that. When no thinker exists, the outside is no longer outside. RICHARD: And when the outside is ‘no longer outside’ where is it ... is it then inside (as in ‘the outside is the inside’)? RESPONDENT: I’d prefer to say the division between inside and outside disappears. RICHARD: As in the outside and the inside being one?
RESPONDENT: The distinction between ‘I’ and ‘me’ also strikes me as wrong in the context of k’s language. RICHARD: Aye, you will get no disagreement from me about that ... yet in no way is it wrong in the context of Richard’s language. RESPONDENT: Good, that’s what I’d like to focus on. RICHARD: I appreciate that ... and, as this distinction between ‘I’ (as ego) and ‘me’ (as soul) is being focussed on immediately below, specifically in the terms ‘ego-self’ and ‘soul-self’, such focus could very well lead to clarification of why it is not. * RICHARD: ... in regards the matter of ‘being’ itself: when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talks of ‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’, and implies that there is no ego-self in ‘being’ (whereas there is in ‘becoming’), does this then not speak to you of being an impersonalised ‘presence’ (a soul-self by whatever name) ... rather than being an everyday ‘personality’ (ego-self) such as maybe 6.0 billion people are? RESPONDENT: Yes, except for your term ‘soul-self’, which to me is identical with ‘ego-self’. RICHARD: As the term soul-self refers to a spiritual identity, as in spirit-self for example, as distinct from ego-self which refers to a corporeal identity, as in body-self for example, are you saying that there is no spiritual dimension at all ... that everything is material including consciousness? RESPONDENT: For me the spiritual dimension is the dimension beyond matter, its the essence out of which matter was born and to which it may be trying to return. (?) RICHARD: Okay ... why then do you equate ‘soul-self’ (the spiritual-self) with ego-self (the material-self)? * RICHARD: For example: ‘We are going to concern ourselves now with what is called materialism. Materialism means evaluating life as matter, matter in its movement and modification, also matter as consciousness and will. We have to go into it to find out if there is anything more than matter and if we can go beyond it. (...) The brain, if you examine it, if you are rather aware of its activities, holds in its cells memory as experience and knowledge. What these cells hold is material; so thought, the capacity to think, is matter. And you can imagine, or construct through thought, as thought, ‘otherness’; that is to say, other than matter – but it is still matter as imagination. We know that we live in a material world, based on our sensations, desires, and emotions, and we construct a content of consciousness that is essentially the product of thought. We know that, if we do not just romanticise but go into it very deeply and seriously; yet knowing that, we say there must be an ‘otherness’, something beyond that. (...) We have this problem, which man right from the beginning has sought to solve, which is: Is all life mechanical? Is all life material? Is all existence, including mind and consciousness and will, matter? Is your whole life that? (Saanen, July 18, 1974; ‘Total Action Without Regret’ ©1975 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.). Is this what you mean, when you say that soul-self is identical with ego-self, that any ‘otherness’ (that which is other than matter) is also material, a construct of thought operating as imagination? RESPONDENT: Partly. I don’t think k is saying that the other is also material. But there is an ‘otherness’ that thought creates; a projection: ‘We say there must be an otherness’. That ‘otherness’ is material. RICHARD: When I use the term ‘soul-self’ I am not using it in the sense of it being a product of thought but as that which is spiritual, non-material, other than matter, and so on ... would the term ‘spirit-self’ (as distinct from ‘ego-self’) serve the purpose of differentiation better? I only ask because an agreed-upon nomenclature would forestall any semantical collapse of discussion. * RICHARD: And when I write of ‘being’ itself ceasing to be as well (meaning no soul-self whatsoever remains) does this then not speak to you of being a flesh and blood body only living freely in the actual world of sensory experiencing – there is no inner or outer in actuality – rather than being either a ‘personality’ (‘I’ as ego) or an impersonalised ‘presence’ (‘me’ as soul) by whatever name? What if I were to say that it is only by going beyond enlightenment (which means that there is no longer any god or goddess – the truth by whatever description – energetically meddling in human affairs) that there is peace-on-earth ... and that peace-on-earth has been here all along anyway? All the tumult and turmoil has never been anything other than the playing out of the human psyche. RESPONDENT: I agree with your broad map, but see no reason for the extra step you seem to be adding between the self and truth-beauty. RICHARD: What if I were to say that there are no instinctual passions in this actual world – the world of the mountains and the streams, the world of the trees and the flowers, the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night, and so on and so on ad infinitum – and that they only have their existence in the animal world ... in sentient beings? Would this be a factual statement? RESPONDENT: This comes across as a very twisted sentence. Do you see passions ‘in the in the world of the mountains ...?’ RICHARD: What if I were to put it this way? If there were no animals of any description at all – no sentient beings whatsoever – left alive in the vegetated geographical world after some totally devastating biological disease wiped out every single one, without exception, would there be peace-on-earth then? And, if so, does that not mean peace-on-earth is already always existing ... just here, right now? RESPONDENT: Instincts operate in sentient beings, right, not in mountains. RICHARD: I am talking of the instinctual passions – not ‘instincts’ per se – and I am asking if it be a factual statement to say they do not exist anywhere else other than in fauna.
RICHARD: ... even from my comfortable suburban living room I can watch documentaries on this very topic: only recently a television programme was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to see fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, nurture, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on being displayed in living colour. RESPONDENT: Of course our instincts evolved with the creatures we stem from. RICHARD: Yet it is not the instincts per se I am referring to but the instinctual passions – the genetically-encoded affective feelings – such as what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was wondering about. Vis.: ‘Probably we have derived *this feeling* from that little animal’. [emphasis added]. (10 March 1983; ‘Krishnamurti To Himself’; ©1987 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.). RESPONDENT: The distinction you’re making here to me is not significant. A significant distinction to me is one that you’re not noticing. Instinctual passions to me are simply instinctual responses. The ‘difference’ I see is between instinctual responses and ego-storage responses. An animal’s responses tend to die down with the disappearance of the trigger, ours too where the ego is not involved. But where the ego is involved, that release doesn’t seem to work. RICHARD: As the distinction I am making is ‘not significant’ to you it could be because you have not thoroughly considered what life on planet earth would be like if each and every human being’s animal response did indeed ‘tend to die down with the disappearance of the trigger’ ... or have you? Because if being subject to triggered feelings of instinctual passions, such as feeling fear and aggression and nurture and desire, which tend to die down ‘where the ego is not involved’ is what you consider to be the optimum which life on this otherwise fair planet we all live on has to offer then nothing I have to say will ever be of significance to you. What does the word ‘peace’
RICHARD: Here is my question: if the thinking self can get such rigorous scrutiny as the mailing list gives it ... why not the feeling self? Is the feeling self sacrosanct? RESPONDENT: Are you using the terms ‘thinking self’ and ‘feeling self’ in the k sense where they seem be extensions of one another or do you see them as different in substance? If it’s the latter, what is their substance? RICHARD: The feeling self (‘me’ as soul) is primal and the thinking self (‘I’ as ego) is derivative and both are, fundamentally, affective in substance: as the essential affective feelings are in situ before thought first arises in infancy – a baby is born already feeling – the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in the species ... it is an hereditarily programmed, or genetically encoded, instinctually passionate inchoate presence, a rudimentary survival ‘self’ as it were. RESPONDENT: The senses are ‘genetically programmed’, embryonic feelings are probably due to prenatal experiences, the ‘rudimentary survival self’ is the beginning of learning. RICHARD: If the embryonic feelings are due to ‘prenatal experiences’ – and are not genetically programmed – are you suggesting that feelings arise ex nihilo? RESPONDENT: A foetus can be traumatized in many ways, but it shares much of the mothers chemistry. If the mother is tense, the foetus experiences this. There are studies that link gender ambivalence is boys to this. RICHARD: I do understand that, as babies born of heroin-addicted mothers are born suffering withdrawal symptoms, the many and varied chemicals which surge through the mother, when she is feeling fear or aggression or nurture or desire and so on, also pass through the placenta (thus flooding the foetus with these substances) ... but if the affective feelings are due only to ‘the mother’s chemistry’ – and are not encoded in the genetic blueprint at conception – then where did the mother get the chemicals from in the first place to thus pass them on in utero? RESPONDENT: Is it ok if I use ‘instinctive responses’ for ‘affective feelings’? There is a semantic swamp opening up here. RICHARD: As there are instinctive responses which do not involve the instinctual passions (the instinctive reflex action for just one instance) surely you are creating a ‘semantic swamp’ here rather than preventing one? RESPONDENT: Elsewhere I’ve explained that I distinguish between instinct-based ‘affective feelings’ (fleeting) and ‘ego-based’ ones (entrenched). RICHARD: And as we are discussing that distinction elsewhere then we can continue with what is being discussed here: as the essential instinctual passions are in situ before thought first arises in infancy – a baby is born already feeling – the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in the species (these already existing basic set of survival passions form themselves into being the intuitive presence which, at root, is what any ‘me’ ultimately is) thus the feeling self is primal and the thinking self is derivative ... which shows that the thinking self is, fundamentally, affective in substance. Meaning that the ego is but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. * RESPONDENT: To introduce the word ‘self’ in this context can only lead to confusion. RICHARD: Not necessarily ... there are those peoples, who are not out to preserve the sanctity of the feeling self at all costs, who tell me it leads to clarity. RESPONDENT: This is too cryptic for me. RICHARD: I was responding to your use of ‘only’ ... just because you found it to ‘lead to confusion’ does not mean everybody does. RESPONDENT: Sorry, I’ve lost the context of the word ‘self’ (above). RICHARD: I was saying that, as a baby is born already feeling, the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in the species ... it is an hereditarily programmed, or genetically encoded, instinctually passionate inchoate presence, a rudimentary survival ‘self’ as it were. It shows that the ego is but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
RESPONDENT: k’s distinction between functional thought and psychological thought can easily cover your distinction between ‘affective feelings’ and conditioning. RICHARD: If I may point out? As the distinction I draw is between biological inheritance (that which is innate) and conditioning (that which is acquired) his distinction between ‘functional thought and psychological thought’ comes nowhere even near covering it. RESPONDENT: The biological inheritance includes the faculties of thought and feeling, right? Conditioning (in the k sense) would include both thought and feeling that get lodged in the ‘self’. RICHARD: As ‘both thought and feeling that get lodged in the ‘self’’ need to have a ‘self’ in the first place to get lodged in, in what passages in any of his talks and writings does he say that this ‘self’ is rooted in the genetically-encoded instinctual passions? * RESPONDENT: Conditioning is the entire psychological package (both thinking and feeling). RICHARD: Yet conditioning needs substance to latch onto, sink into, and be ... if it were not for the innate survival passions such conditioning would wash off, like water off a duck’s back, before it could get a hold. RESPONDENT: I see it exactly the other way around. The healthy state is where thought and feeling wash off, when the situation changes. What gives them their stickiness is their enfoldment in the ego. What you call ‘innate survival passions’ surely is simple part of instinct. RICHARD: Apart from a lifetime of interaction with animals – both domesticated animals and animals in the wild – even from my comfortable suburban living room I can watch documentaries on this ‘simple part of instinct’ ... only recently a television programme was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to see fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, nurture, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on being displayed in living colour. If this is what you mean by ‘the healthy state’ I do wonder what the word ‘unhealthy’
RESPONDENT: Rational functioning of our genetically inherited faculties is the sane package. RICHARD: Are you saying that instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, are not only a sane package but would function rationally if it were not for conditioning? RESPONDENT: Yes, a state of sanity doesn’t exclude those feelings, it merely prevents them from replicating or propagating helter-skelter. Attention draws its energy from such feelings and prevents them from getting out of control. RICHARD: So this ‘attention’ which you refer to draws its energy from the instinctual feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire in order to be effectual in preventing the source of its energy – the instinctual feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire – from getting out of control ... and this state of affectively-energised attention is what you say is a state of sanity. In other words, the ‘rational functioning of our genetically inherited faculties’ is to respond with triggered feelings of fear and/or aggression and/or nurture and/or desire ... provided those very passions energise the attention which prevents them from getting out of control? * RICHARD: Both imprinting and conditioning need substance to latch onto, sink into, and be ... it all washes off a clean slate like water off a duck’s back. Innocence is something entirely new to human experience. RESPONDENT: Why not ‘a quality we, as species lost, as the self displaced it’? RICHARD: Are you suggesting there was an era when the human species had no instinctual survival passions? RESPONDENT: I don’t define innocence as the absence of an instinctual survival mechanism. RICHARD: As I specifically asked about the instinctual survival passions – and not an instinctual survival ‘mechanism’ – I am none too sure if you see innocence as being inclusive of passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, or exclusive of them. I would appreciate your clarification of what innocence means to you in this respect. RESPONDENT: My answer (above) seems to already cover this question. Yes, innocence would include those passions, with the proviso that they yield to the directive of attention, or sanity. RICHARD: So your scenario for an optimum state, a state of innocence the species lost you say, for human life on this verdant and azure paradise called planet earth would be to have 6.0 billion peoples feeling fleetingly fearful, feeling fleetingly aggressive, feeling fleetingly nurturing, and feeling fleetingly desirous, for example, whenever these feelings are triggered ... provided these fleeting feelings yield to an attention which draws its energy from these fleeting feelings? Am I understanding you correctly?
RESPONDENT: I have never heard k use the word ‘feeler’ either. What an ugly word it would be. RICHARD: Why do you say ‘... it would be’ when the word already exists? Vis.: ‘feeler: (n. feel + er): a person who feels an emotion’. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: Let is exist in the dictionary, or in scientific jargon, and stay there. RICHARD: What if I were to say that it is a useful and necessary word for a meaningful discussion about the heart ... but that it cannot be used inclusively of ‘thinking’? * RICHARD: Also, and as a matter of interest, is this word an ‘ugly’ word too? Vis.: ‘thinker: (n. think + er): a person who thinks’. (Oxford Dictionary). RESPONDENT: No, it’s a useful and necessary word for a meaningful discussion about the mind. But I think it can be used inclusively of ‘feeling’. RICHARD: How? When thought is not and feeling is – which is what this thread is about – there is no ‘thinker’ to have a meaningful discussion about when having a discussion about the mind. For example:
In other words: it cannot be used ‘inclusively of feeling’ after all. * RESPONDENT: But he never talked much about feeling as a distinct state. RICHARD: I beg to differ ... he not only talked often about ‘feeling as a distinct state’ (distinct from the thinking state) he praised its separation from thought highly (albeit lopsidedly). For just one example: [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘Love is a state of being in which thought is not’. (page 16, ‘Commentaries on Living’, First Series; ©1960 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). RESPONDENT: ‘Love’, as used by k above, is not a feeling, i.e. not an affective state. RICHARD: If, as you say, it is not an affective state then why would he say that the very first requirement for a person who would seek truth – the very first requirement mind you – is to feel the beauty of the outside and thus be with it ... which feeling is the feeling of love? Vis.:
Spelled-out in full it could be put this way:
Do you see that, not only does he say that feeling the outside is the very first requirement for a person who would seek truth, he also says that feeling the outside is essential? If so, why do you say it is not an affective state (of ‘being’)? RESPONDENT: It’s a state absent of reaction, free of self. RICHARD: I can easily agree it is a state absent of thought-reaction, free of the thinking-self (ego-self) ... but it is not a state free of affective-reaction, free of the feeling-self (soul-self). * RESPONDENT: He talked about anger, fear, sorrow but he discussed them as psychological thinking. RICHARD: Am I to take it by ‘psychological thinking’ you mean he talked about these feelings being part of the package labelled ‘the thinker’ (rather than being part of the package labelled ‘the feeler’)? RESPONDENT: Yes, feeling and thought surely are a continuum. RICHARD: Here is what the word continuum means to me:
If this is what it means to you as well, and as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti makes clear that love has nothing to do with thought, how can ‘feeling and thought’ be a continuum? Vis.:
* RESPONDENT: K’s ‘do not think’ in this context seems to simply mean ‘slow down all reactions’. RICHARD: As his words ‘do not think’, in the meditation context they are sitting in, do not mean he wants the listener to not think, but to ‘slow down all reactions’ instead, how would he have to phrase it if he wanted the listener to not think? RESPONDENT: I merely don’t attach the same absolute meaning to k’s language here that you choose to do. RICHARD: Sure ... could you provide an example of his phrasing which conveys to you he wants the listener to not think? * RESPONDENT: k very much avoided using words as definitions. His use of language is extremely flexible and contain numerous contradictions at the verbal level. Because he didn’t want his listeners to become hypnotized by language, he never repeated a sentence exactly the same way. RICHARD: Okay, so seeing that his words ‘do not think’ can mean ‘slow down all reactions’ then, being ‘extremely flexible’ as they are, his words ‘do not think’ could also mean ‘speed up all reactions’ could they not? RESPONDENT: Be my guest. RICHARD: I am not asking permission to adopt your approach ... I am interested in what way it is that you try to test, understand, or make sense of, what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti has to say. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: But is it really necessary to push your point that far. RICHARD: As it is still no clearer to me how you try to understand, or to make sense of, what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti presents as being the solution for all the ills of humankind I am incapable of making any point ... I am still endeavouring to find out what you mean by ‘the logic of his language’. Vis.:
Not being a logician I have to be rational instead ... thus I am interested as to how logic operates.
RICHARD: Where the feeler interferes with feeling big-time is upon transcendence ... which is where the negative feelings have been sublimated to such a degree that the positive feelings appear squeaky-clean (aka have no opposite). ‘Tis only an appearance, though. RESPONDENT: I have no idea of what you’re saying here. RICHARD: Have you never found it cute that, upon transcendence, the positive feelings have assumed the status of existing as a state of being without equal (wherein the negative feelings have been swept under the carpet)? RESPONDENT: As above, ‘love’, when it describes a state of being, is not a feeling. RICHARD: When the thinker is not, and love is, there is only that feeling – that affective state of ‘being’ wherein there is no longer ‘me’ feeling love – as in being the very feeling itself (hence ‘being’). In the popular jargon it goes something like this: ‘love is all there is’ or ‘all there is, is love’. Or, more specifically:
RESPONDENT: It is not an ‘affective’ state. Feelings and thought describe material processes. The realm of non-matter may be spoken of as beauty, peace, truth, harmony, love, but here those words must be read not as labels, but perhaps as evocations. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is quite clear as to just what the ‘labels’ he uses refer to ... for example:
Apart from unambiguously saying that love is ‘a total feeling’ and ‘complete purity of feeling’ he specifically addresses the issue you make between ‘material processes’ and ‘the realm of non-matter’ – only he uses the words ‘carnal’ and ‘spiritual’ and the words ‘the profane’ and ‘the sacred’ instead – by talking specifically of the battle thus created by doing what you do here. And what is the word most apt for the love which is ‘a total feeling’ and ‘complete purity of feeling’? Vis.:
And where does passion come from? Vis.:
He is most explicit that if you escape from passion (he specifically says the root meaning of sorrow is passion) you lose that quality ... and that out of that quality comes compassion (and only then you will begin to understand what it means to love). If passion is not affective I would be most interested to hear what is.
RESPONDENT: The word ‘oceanic’ is descriptive and seeks to stimulate the imagination. RICHARD: The word ‘oceanic RESPONDENT: Now it becomes clearer why I rejected the word ‘oceanic feeling’. Because you define it as an ‘affective feeling’, which to me means a material state. RICHARD: Ahh ... you may recall a quote from a previous e-mail:
What if I were to say that one can imagine, or construct through feeling, as feeling, ‘otherness’; that is to say, other than matter – but it is still matter as imagination ... a creation made from the heart? Here is another quote already posted:
And here is a quote in a similar vein:
Then there is this quote:
And this one:
Or this one:
In short: out of the passion of sorrow comes compassion; passion also creates beauty; the feeling of beauty is the feeling of love; love is God/love is not different from truth. * RESPONDENT: Even the word ‘affective state of being’ doesn’t quite sound right to me. Too definitive. RICHARD: Oh? Is calling a spade a spade not de rigueur, then? RESPONDENT: It sound wrong because ‘affective’ refers to matter and ‘state of being’ seems to refer to the non-material. RICHARD: How can you be sure there is indeed a ‘non-material’ in the first place? * RESPONDENT: k is particularly careful to stay away from that, as in ‘non-separation’. There’s no description there. RICHARD: In what way would describing a spade as being a digging implement, consisting of a sharp-edged rectangular metal blade fitted on a long handle with a grip or crossbar at the upper end, be not conducive to clarity? RICHARD: Spades are material objects, a ‘state of being’, as used by k here, is not an object. RICHARD: Hmm ... since when have states of being been exempt from being described? * RESPONDENT: On the question of ‘thinker + outside’, my feeling is bending towards a yes. When a ‘thinker’ exists, the ‘outside’ is that. When no thinker exists, the outside is no longer outside. RICHARD: And when the outside is ‘no longer outside’ where is it ... is it then inside (as in ‘the outside is the inside’)? RESPONDENT: I’d prefer to say the division between inside and outside disappears. RICHARD: As in the outside and the inside being one? RESPONDENT: Yes, that sounds much better to me. RICHARD: Have you ever been unconscious (knocked-out or anaesthetised for example)?
RESPONDENT: The distinction between ‘I’ and ‘me’ also strikes me as wrong in the context of k’s language. RICHARD: Aye, you will get no disagreement from me about that ... yet in no way is it wrong in the context of Richard’s language. RESPONDENT: Good, that’s what I’d like to focus on. RICHARD: I appreciate that ... and, as this distinction between ‘I’ (as ego) and ‘me’ (as soul) is being focussed on immediately below, specifically in the terms ‘ego-self’ and ‘soul-self’, such focus could very well lead to clarification of why it is not. RESPONDENT: Well, the difficulty remains, unless I’m, prepared to jettison k’s language for yours. RICHARD: Why not use Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s language when listening to or reading what he has to say ... and use Richard’s language when listening to or reading what he has to say? I only suggest this because, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is describing a metaphysical world and Richard is describing a physical world, it would be pointless to ‘jettison’ either language. * RESPONDENT: For me the spiritual dimension is the dimension beyond matter, its the essence out of which matter was born and to which it may be trying to return. (?) RICHARD: Okay ... why then do you equate ‘soul-self’ (the spiritual-self) with ego-self (the material-self)? RESPONDENT: ‘Spiritual self’ to me is a contradiction. RICHARD: And is ‘material-self’ also a contradiction? * RICHARD: When I use the term ‘soul-self’ I am not using it in the sense of it being a product of thought but as that which is spiritual, non-material, other than matter, and so on ... would the term ‘spirit-self’ (as distinct from ‘ego-self’) serve the purpose of differentiation better? I only ask because an agreed-upon nomenclature would forestall any semantical collapse of discussion. RESPONDENT: I’d still have the problem with the ‘self’ in ‘spirit-self’. RICHARD: How about ‘eternal-self’ (instead of ‘spirit-self’) – as distinct from ‘mortal-self’ (instead of ‘ego-self’) – so as to be in keeping with the way Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti referred to it ... in his ‘Truth is a Pathless Land’ speech, for example? Vis.:
RESPONDENT: The word ‘affective’ also retains a material quality for me. RICHARD: Aye, the word affective does indeed ‘retain a material quality’ ... being genetically-encoded the passions are most certainly material. * RICHARD: I am talking of the instinctual passions – not ‘instincts’ per se – and I am asking if it be a factual statement to say they do not exist anywhere else other than in fauna. RESPONDENT: That’s how I see it and how I use this language. ‘Instinctual passions’ to me are reactions from instinct. RICHARD: Okay ... do these passionate ‘reactions from instinct’ exist anywhere else other than in fauna? Perhaps if I were to put it this way so as to illustrate why I keep on asking this: if there were no fauna of
any description at all – no sentient beings whatsoever – left alive in the vegetated geographical world after some totally devastating biological disease wiped out every single one, without exception, would there be peace-on-earth then? And, if so, does that not mean peace-on-earth is already always existing ... just here, right now? RESPONDENT: Thanks for your patience. Even if we end up going nowhere, your distinctions (and my having to deal with them) have helped clarify a lot of language for me. RICHARD: You are very welcome – not that patience has played any part at all of course – as my only interest is peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, for my fellow human being ... and any discussion which contributes to this end is a delightful pastime. Speaking personally I find it remarkable what (clarified) language is capable of.
RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX 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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