Andrew: Turns out, ‘I’ pre-date god!
The discussion with Vineeto about all the ingredients of god and religion essentially existing before any of the religions or belief systems happened, was both very freeing and fresh, but also surprisingly obviously the case!
Hi Andrew,
I am pleased it had this effect on you, and your opening line is quite correct – ‘I’ as the identity formed from the swirl of instinctual passions certainly pre-dates god.
Richard: As I understand it, in the on-going study of genetics the germ cells (the spermatozoa and the ova) have been classified as being of a somewhat different nature to body cells. This has led to speculation that each and every body is nothing but a carrier for the genetic lineage … that the species, therefore, is more important than you and me or any other body. Now, whilst that theory is just a typically ‘humble’ way of interpreting the data, it did strike me, some years ago, that this genetic memory could very well be the origin of the immortal ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ (as contrasted to ‘I’ as ego who will undergo physical death). Hence it occurred to me that the source of ‘who ‘I’ really am’ could very well be nothing more mysterious than blind nature’s survival software.
I have always had a bent for the practical explanation … and solution. (Richard, AF List, Vineeto, 30 Sep 1999).
Richard: Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking … then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts … and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ … which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings (which ‘original face’ is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory; being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old … ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed … carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future.
Hence: ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 15 Oct 1999).
Andrew: So, ‘I’ have had all the aspects of what later were “codified” in religious fear and guilt, love, compassion, sin, etc… long before anyone had imagined the first “handing down” of commandments or any such thing. Even before my favourite “bicameral” people theory, all the passionate energy of ‘who’ I am “really”; blind nature’s rough and ready survival and reproduction “programs”, was there! Fully intact and in full flight!
I’ll butt in here before you go on and insert a feeling, and a fresh identity, into this remarkable insight. I suggest to linger a bit longer in this pre-identifying gap, if you can, and allow some further fascinated reflective contemplation regarding the ramifications and consequences of having been able to shed the wrath and grace of god, and ponder how you can enjoy and appreciate this freedom, and if it is worth to do whatever necessary to maintain such enjoyment of freedom.
Richard: One starts to feel ‘alive’. Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination … and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur. An apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being fully alive right now. This moment is your only moment of being alive … one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here … even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here … and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here … and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now … then one has arrived before one starts.
The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).
Andrew: It’s a remarkably freeing fresh feeling to know this is a fact. I feel it! I feel it in a very direct down-to-earth-way. It’s the same “flavour” as my previous “one with god” illumination years, but without anything between the freshness and the knowing of it. When I have felt this before, it was in the context of new age, “I am god” imaginations et. al. There was that colouring of supernatural power is “around the corner”, and walking on water was inevitable.
This is just feeling the fact of ‘being’ ‘myself’. ‘I’ know what I am!’.
Me? I know who I am! I am a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude!
Simple. (link)
Have you noticed, once you condensed the insight into a feeling and as such into a belief, and then collate it with those feelings of a familiar flavour, similar to previous affective experiences, that the original insight instantly loses its freshness and poignancy? You even conclude (erroneously) “just feeling the fact of ‘being’ ‘myself’. ‘I’ know what I am!’”
Now, a feeling can never be a fact as a feeling cannot experience, let alone know, “what I am”. What you are is the flesh-and-blood body only, as experienced when the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance. Whereas the feeling “of ‘being’ ‘myself’” is a passionate feeling born of the instinctual passions – and it not only changes according to your fluctuating moods but, as you already discovered, can also be changed by choice for your benefit and the benefit of those around you.
Now that you determined (believe) that you are “a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude” – what are you going to do with this feeling? Do you want to live like those ‘dudes’ in the video you attached (Yuri Wong “I am a Dude”), driven by passion, or perhaps be inspired by a more happy and friendly way of life? Such as –
Richard: It is all so simple, in the actual world; no effort is needed to meet the requisite morality of society. I have no ‘dark nature’, no unconscious impulses to curb, to control, to restrain. It is all so easy, in the actual world; I can take no credit for my apparently virtuous behaviour because actual freedom automatically provides beneficial thoughts and deeds. It is all so spontaneous, in the actual world; I do not do it … it does itself. Vanity, egoism, selfishness … all self-centred activity has ceased to operate when ‘I’ and ‘me’ as ‘being’ ceased to ‘be’. And it is all so peaceful, in the actual world; it is only in actualism that human beings can have peace-on-earth without toiling fruitlessly to be ‘good’. The answer to everything that has puzzled humankind for all of human history is readily elucidated when one is actually free. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated and laid open for all those with the eyes to see. Life was meant to be easy. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, Mark, #peaceful)
Cheers Vineeto