Chrono: Hi Vineeto,
Vineeto: What you really mean by “being a ‘man’” is what you consider the role of a man, the social identity aspects that you swallowed hook, line and sinker (like everyone else). And it is well worth looking at these expectations/ obligations enshrined in the human condition what put so much pressure on you.
Chrono: Yes I have seen these expectations/ obligations featured in many aspects of my life. In relation to male friends (primarily), it could be that I must maintain some outward appearance of confidence, being nonplussed, being “skilled”, being of high status, etc. With my partner, it feels like that I must be a place of safety and comfort for her (backed by the feeling of responsibility and seriousness) and that if I don’t then I have failed or am a failure. At work, it feels like I must always be excelling and must always know the answer. It could all come under some guise of being an ‘authority’. If I had to go a little further, I could say that all of that is about projecting power.
Hi Chrono,
Well said. Having recognized this you can now decline “projecting power” and experiment with allowing the naiveté which you talked about in your last message (quoted further below) – (link).
Vineeto: While you are doing that you can also pop your head around the corner, so to speak, and recognize that in actuality you are already a man, a male human being, and in actuality this is already perfect. So when ‘I’, the identity, comes back in with all ‘my’ demands how ‘I’ should be, there is a salubrious actual perspective which allows you to look at those ‘problems’ in more naïve way and makes it all much less serious.
Chrono: When I think on this, I can understand it intellectually. But in society it doesn’t seem enough. I think it’s about showing ‘my’ usefulness to society. Otherwise I could be discarded. Which means being ostracized, lonely, punished in some way. Everything that I am being perhaps in this entire journal is being kept in place by this fear of retribution from society and humanity. Perhaps another dare.
The dare is to become autonomous, less and less dependant on other people’s opinions and demands. It happens when you gradually find out that there is something better than having the fickle approval and praise from your contemporaries. There is an actual world right here, right now, and right under your nose. You may enjoy this story from Richard (wonder-land-tale).
Vineeto: Indeed … you may even discover that behind the idea of a “being a man” needing “‘sexual prowess’” is hidden a yearning for intimacy. After all, a near-actual intimacy is something so new, it has to be lived to be discovered.
Chrono: Yes, this hidden yearning is what I’m currently trying to locate. Which perhaps may only come about if I abandon the sexual drive as well. I am wondering if that drive has any role to play at all in any of this. I sometimes struggle to see how it could not arise at all unless one is already actually free.
Not so fast. You cannot abandon the sexual drive – it is an instinctual passion. It will only completely disappear when the whole identity becomes extinct. Any attempt to abandon the sexual drive will necessarily lead to suppression and repression. This is the old way which both Western and Eastern religions promoted for thousands of years, and if you only know a little bit of history you already know where it leads to.
What you can do is sincerely examine each of the various aspects of your acquired identity as a man, and if it interferes with being happy and harmless aim for as much naiveté as you dare, which already had such fortuitous outcome.
Here is a short excerpt from feeling being ‘Peter’ regarding male identity –
‘Peter’: What we found in our investigations has been quite shocking – a blow to that insidious feeling of pride that inevitably causes human beings to refuse to admit that their behaviour is just plain stupid and that ultimately prevents any possibility of radical, effective change. How could I have been so stupid? But the facts spoke for themselves. How could I have believed that simply because ‘everybody behaves that way’, I should also behave that way? How could I believe that everybody else was ‘getting it wrong’, and not me? Was I going to endlessly try and change every woman I was with or somehow try and find the ‘right one’ amongst the billions? How could I not see that the only one who l could possibly change was me? (Peter’s Journal, Living Together)
This correspondence may be useful as well –
Gary: However, regarding my ‘social life’, I find that I no longer feel the need to affiliate with other human beings the way I once used to.
In days gone by, I used to think that having ‘friends’ was very important, yet now I cannot really say that I have any ‘friends’ nor do I want any. Because the word ‘friendship’ implies an obligation to stick with another person through thick and thin, and I find that I am not prepared to do that. I would much prefer to go my own way and allow someone else the freedom to do the same, so I cannot say that anyone is my ‘friend’ in that sense. I feel much the same about family relationships (and I am talking about family of origin here, not family of procreation). I keep in touch with members of my family. But compared to other people who I see around me, my sense of a family identity is very weak indeed.
‘Peter’: (…) Then there are other aspects of one’s social identity that demand attention if one is to ever get to the stage where one can see and treat one’s fellow human beings as fellow human beings and not continue to think and feel them to be separate ‘beings’. A man never meets a woman and sees her or treats her as a fellow human being because men and women have been instilled with opposing gender identities – identities that are mandated by each side in the battle of the sexes and are rife with mutual feelings of suspicion, fear, ignorance and superstition. Similarly, a father never meets a son and a mother never meets a daughter for each has a socially-imposed identity relative to each other – a complex set of social obligations, emotional demands and needs, expectations and resentments that serve to prevent each from either seeing or treating each other as fellow human beings. Similarly, an American never meets an Australian, a Lithuanian never meets a Nigerian and so on, for each believe they belong to a different culture and each call a particular piece of the planet ‘home’. The list goes on, but I won’t, for you will have got the gist by now.
What normally happens in relationships when things start to go wrong, as they inevitably do, is that the each party blames the other for failing to meet their needs, fulfill their expectations, nurture them sufficiently, respect their feelings, and such like. Often a begrudging compromise is reached in relationships or failure is allowed to run its natural course. As you well know from your experience with actualism, the only way out of this mess is to demolish one’s own social identity, piece-by-piece, element-by-element.
And the proof that this process works is that you begin to not only see but to treat the fellow human beings you come in contact with as exactly that – fellow human beings, regardless of their age, gender, kin, race, religion, culture, nationality, and so on. (Actualism, Peter, Selected Correspondence, Social Identity).
As you might see, loyalty plays a big part in keeping the social identity in place.
Chrono: This scan of course is composed of anxiety/ fear and exemplifies the societal conscience. I’m always on alert of what they are thinking of me and if ‘I’ am playing ‘my’ role properly. Seeing this, I then also allowed myself on the same day to meet them right where they are and I am always delighted at how easy interactions are. People enjoy associating with me when I am enjoying my own association. When this happens, there’s a background feeling of ‘this can’t be’ or ‘something will go wrong’. But I find that even when people may become upset, my remaining in this delighting has a rather conciliatory effect. This time the background feeling is that ‘I will be physically harmed and so I must take a step back again’. It’s a rather strange conditioning but feels very real. (link)
Vineeto: This naïve approach is well worth keeping in mind. It helps you to overcome the initial apprehension of “holding back”, feeling foolish or ignorant or whatever, because you already know it has a beneficial outcome for all concerned.
Did you notice that when you have overcome the fear of being psychologically harmed you stepped up the danger to being “physically harmed”, just to keep yourself in line?
Chrono: Thanks I actually did not notice that haha. Now that I am looking back at it, that seems to happen any time I get ‘close’. Some sort of fear of retribution, but proceed anyway.
That’s how it the instinctual passions work – any time you get ‘close’, i.e. more intimate to another fellow human being, there is an apprehension of what might happen, that you might lose yourself. And yet when you pay attention, there is no actual danger, not even real danger. So you can increase the daring just a little bit, and then a little bit more, and be more confident in discovering and enjoying being naïve. It is such fun.
Chrono: As an aside, I have been wondering why it is said that actual freedom has no conditions to happen and that the actualism method is something that you do in the meanwhile. Yet at other times, I gain the impression that there technically are conditions for it to happen.
There are no condition from the actual world, as the PCE confirms when it happens. It is ‘I’ and ‘me’ who create the boundaries and set the rules under which conditions ‘I’ will agree to ‘my’ demise, and ‘I’ will place plenty of (genetically endowed) passionate and cunning objections to obstruct such voluntary agreement. Hence pure intent is paramount.
Chrono: The following is from Henry’s Journal but I did not want to divert it into a different topic:
Vineeto: (…) And once you fully take on board that “I am my feelings and my feelings are me” you have the choice of being a different feeling because it is simply silly, when you have the choice, to be something other than happy and harmless.
You might also discover that there is a certain amount of investment in keeping the suffering going (because of some good feeling you cherish, for instance) – elsewhere referred to the addiction of being a ‘being’ (link), and that is a further topic for contemplation. All this is to indicate that it’s not always straightforward to “activate delight”. Nothing can be swept under the carpet in the long run. (link)
Chrono: Yes it was only after I saw that I had to return to feeling good first that any sort of beneficial changes were noticed and maintained.
This is a valuable experience and a good to keep in.
Chrono: Though overall there is still the addiction to being ‘me’. I have been re-reading the linked correspondence on addiction and some parts stood out to me (also appreciated James’ questions and pondering):
Richard: I was not referring to whatever suffering may be caused by losing in gambling … but to the suffering which ensues as the eventual result of the high evaporating (no matter what particular addiction it is). Therefore I presume that the ‘action’ you refer to is what provides the high … and if so then I further presume that when this action-induced high evaporates then suffering ensues.
If this is the case then it is this suffering which is well worth investigating for its addictive properties. (List B, James3, 24 Oct 2002)
Richard: Is not the reason why ‘I’ do not know if the unknown path delivers the goods – or why ‘I’ do not know what the unknown path is – none other than because ‘I’ will not abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods? (List B, James3, 5 Nov 2002)
James: Ok, it might be possible by seeing that I am doing it for this body and everybody but I am really doing it for ‘I’/ ‘me’ at least in the beginning.
Richard: When ‘I’ see that ‘I’ am as mad and as bad and as sad as anyone else instinctually driven it is actually impossible to say that ‘I’ am doing it for ‘me’ alone … the repercussions of such an event are vast beyond belief. (List B, James3, 28 Oct 2002a)
James: I hear what you are saying but I am not tuned in to the altruistic instinct.
Richard: As it is instinctive it arises as the need arises … just as its concomitant courage does. (List B, James3, 1 Nov 2002)
Chrono: If I compared to my experience with suffering (deep feelings of complete desolation) as described above in experiences of limerence (where I feel anything very deeply), in the midst of the most intense suffering is where I also felt the most “alive”. Within it, there’s a simultaneous desire to end the suffering (because it is intense anguish) but also addicted to being it. This suffering also had a ‘good’ side where I felt fulfilled, but only if certain conditions were met. I’d go in circles no matter how much I noted it did not make sense. Deep down I felt this suffering as my soul itself and sometimes a ‘dream’ would present itself as being the only way out. This was the dream of ‘love’. Which dream is gone now. But I would naturally go back to this place of intense suffering if no attentiveness or anything was applied. I can see that as ‘my’ path.
You have identified the nub of the old paradigm which applies both to the spiritual as well as the materialistic aspect – your ‘being’ searching for the fulfilment that only an actual freedom can provide. Instead, for millennia people have been settling for second best – either spiritual enlightenment or material fulfilment, as in addictions to ‘highs’, ranging from drugs, success, group-highs, winning competitions, admiration or similar ‘self’-enhancing activities.
It is an excellent realisation to have identified this as “‘my’ path”, in contrast to the wide and wondrous path. It is a dead-end road unless you want to settle for second best.
This “limerence” only reifies the ‘self’ and the ‘self’s’ yearning for grandeur in the dream of the ‘good’ side – ‘self’-aggrandisement. The sooner you recognize, and consequently decline, the nature of the “dream” the sooner the attraction to the “most intense suffering” will also abate. Perhaps a thorough investigation of what is left of “the dream of ‘love’” might be useful – (FAQ Why is love (Love) no Solution?)
Richard: Also, intrinsic to the nature of love is its – always unfulfilled – promise of eternity. Our life here on earth has a time-span, so what use is a spurious Eternal Bliss in some conjectured After-Life? Love has produced wars, murders, rapes and violence since time immemorial … it staggers me that it still retains its credibility. To kill for ‘Love of Country’ or ‘Love of God’ is surely proof enough for any discerning person. Then there are those ‘Crimes of Passion’ that are brought about by love’s constant companions: possessiveness, jealousy and envy. If these examples are too extreme then what about the heartache, the longing, the pining and the yearning that all peoples report as accompanying love’s bliss? This leads to the search for ‘True Love’ which, supposedly, does not induce these unpleasant characteristics so common to everybody’s experience of love. ‘True Love’ is simply a fiction … it is impossible to manifest it here on earth, hence the notion of an After-Life to encompass it. To repeat: Love never delivers on its implied promise. It never has done nor ever will. Its days are numbered, as more and more people are beginning to notice that love itself – not the human being – is failing to live up to its reputation again and again. (FAQ 47a)
Chrono: But I do have this desire within to also end the suffering, which I equate with:
James: ‘I’ am telling myself that ‘I’ don’t really want to do it because that will be the end of ‘me’.
Richard: Ahh … now to the nub of the issue: have you ever desired oblivion? (List B, James3, 5 Nov 2002a)
My natural instinct then was to end it while being it, but I would go in circles. Maybe I wasn’t doing this:
James: ‘I’ am stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) now. ‘I’ can’t see how to get past that.
Richard: As there has been a, perhaps predictable, retreat back into suffering (predictable as foreshadowed in ‘‘I’ want to hide from this inquiry’ and ‘‘I’ want to back out’ for example), then one starts with where one is presently at (where one is not yet at will emerge of its own accord as one proceeds): as you say ‘‘I’ am stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) now’ then for ‘me’ that is where ‘I’ am currently at.
Therefore, do ‘I’ feel the feeling of being stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) or not? If yes, then through staying with the feeling, by being the feeling (instead of trying to see how to get past that), one will find out, experientially, what it is really like to not have a path and/or not have a plan … other than the one of ‘looking for a way out’ so that one can stick with the known that is. (List B, James3, 21 Nov 2002a)
My suggestion is that as long as the ‘good’ side of your suffering is still active as a promise and therefore desire, you will continue to go round in circles. ‘Vineeto’ knows from personal experience that the (at first often hidden) ‘good’ feelings such as desire, love and compassion kept the bad feelings in place.
Here Richards reports from his own experience of dismantling enlightenment –
Richard: In my tenth year … I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out.
The Altered State of Consciousness – in particular, spiritual enlightenment – needs to be talked about and exposed for what it is so that nobody need venture up that blind alley ever again. There is another way and another goal. The main trouble with the enlightenment is that whilst the ego dissolves, the identity as a soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity – ‘I am That’, ‘I am God’, ‘I am The Supreme’, ‘I am The Absolute’ and so on. This is the delusion, the mirage, the deception … and it is extremely difficult to see it for oneself, for one is in an august state. [Emphasis added] (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 Mar 2000)
Chrono: Also I am curious why Richard suggests in this correspondence not to return to feeling good first but to proceed with the contemplation despite James saying he experiences fear and the suchlike. In what context is this happening? (link)
The conversation was less of a contemplation but rather an affective exploration into the nature of fear and the addiction of suffering and being ‘me’ and it revealed the feeling James had regarding the ending of ‘me’. Viz.:
James: My current thinking is that no path will deliver the goods. Any path I take is more of ‘me’ trying to escape from ‘me’.
Richard: Ahh … but what about the path of no return? So far you have only ever travelled on the path that carries a return ticket. Viz.: [James]: ‘However, since ‘me’ is essentially suffering ‘I’ try to escape through various highs. Once these highs evaporate I am back to being ‘me’ suffering’. [endquote]. Given that the price of the return ticket is yet more suffering – a life-time of suffering in fact – why is it that the price of a one-way ticket is considered too high a price to pay? What price the end of suffering, eh?
James: Because the end of suffering is the end of ‘me’.
Richard: Is this not another way of saying that, because of ‘my’ fear of death, ‘my’ current plan is to not yet set foot upon the path of no return?
When an intense feeling such as the fear of extinction is encountered for the first time, it sometimes requires an affective exploration to identify what it is really about before one can see the silliness of this existential fear and be able to return to feeling good for further contemplation. Besides, this example of the affective exploration into stuckness, fear and the addiction of being ‘me’ could result in the courage to proceed for James or other readers via garnering sufficient pure intent.
Similarly, your own affective experiences of “limerence” revealed that you are “addicted to being it”, that there was “a ‘good’ side where I felt fulfilled …” and “the dream of ‘love’”.
However, there is no point in going into these limerences once you know what they are about or into the feelings of the fear of ending ‘me’ again and again unless ‘I’ am prepared, via discovering and dissolving the last bastions of ‘me’ objecting to ‘my’ demise, especially when you already found out that you “would go in circles”.
Cheers Vineeto