Chrono: I’ve been on a break but am back to writing now. Mostly I had kept hitting a wall of resistance which I can’t seem to get a look into. I figured maybe it may present itself if I just allow myself to do something else for a while but still not entirely. The resistance is of a psychosomatic nature. Like the trunk of the tree which makes up ‘me’. Only recently I saw it as being made up of loyalty. And it’s like the loyalty to the Human Condition itself if that makes sense.
Hi Chrono,
Welcome back.
It’s excellent that you identified this obstacle as “loyalty” and more so “the loyalty to the Human Condition itself”. You probably remember Richard saying that –
Richard: The hallmark of ‘peasant-mentality’ is, in a word, loyalty. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 28 May 2015)
So there you have all the ingredients in one, the loyalty in regards to “what others feel”, who are not only the people who you are in contact with, but in the end all of ‘humanity’. You realise with startling clarity that if you continue you will be a traitor to humanity and its addiction to suffering. Everyone has the same genetic make-up of the instinctual passions and of their social identity and everyone desperately wants to remain within the fold. But when fully understood that ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’ you really are a traitor to your ‘self’ by your endeavour to leave your ‘self’ behind.
Here is a poignant paragraph from Richard’s Journal, Article Twenty on what ‘humanity’ means in the real world (I recently read that article again and found it extraordinary in its eye-opening brilliance) –
Richard: One’s psychological existence is so precarious that one needs constant endorsement, so as to feel that ‘I’ am alive, that ‘I’ still exist. When the ‘whole’ accuses one of being selfish – which it relentlessly does by extolling the virtues of duty, obligation and responsibility – one can then chastise oneself, thus maintaining one’s sense of being a social identity. With suitable remorse, one has then been coerced, cajoled and shamed into having one’s usefulness to the community restored … and one feels needed again. Nonetheless, one is actually crazy to chastise oneself because ‘I’ am selfish by ‘my’ very created nature … and ‘I’ will always be self-centred. Self-castigation only serves to crystallise ‘me’. It is essential to the community’s ‘well-being’ that ‘I’ remain selfish. Because the ‘whole’, having created ‘me’ so as to perpetuate its own existence – and being utterly selfish itself – desperately needs self-centred members. ‘I’ readily invest, morally, in the community for there one recognises one’s ilk … ‘I’ am a lonely soul and it is essential that ‘I’ have a sense of belonging to the like-minded ‘whole’. It is an illusion of togetherness designed to assuage the feeling of aloneness that both oneself and the community experiences … ‘I’ and ‘humanity’ feel lost and lonely in what is perceived to be the vast reaches of space and time that make up an empty universe. The search for extra-terrestrial life is but one outcome of this feeling of separation. (Richard’s Journal, Article Twenty).
Here is something more to ponder at a quiet moment –
Richard: … in order to successfully escape one needs to abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods, so that the energy one is frittering away fruitlessly is available for the unknown path, the unfamiliar path, the path that does deliver the goods.
James: I don’t know if the unknown path delivers the goods because I don’t know what it is.
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?
James: I only know that the known path does not deliver the goods.
Richard: And why will ‘I’ not abandon the known path that does not deliver the goods … even when ‘I’ know that the known path does not deliver the goods?
James: The known path is ‘me’. That is who ‘I’ am.
Richard: As ‘I’ am suffering and suffering is ‘me’ then ‘my’ path is the path of suffering … which is humanity’s path is it not? And, as humanity is suffering and suffering is humanity, is it not equally true that humanity is also addicted to suffering?
And further to that point … have you ever noticed that humanity reveres its addiction so much that escape is taboo? (Richard, List B, James3, 5 Nov 2002).Richard: As ‘I’ am suffering and suffering is ‘me’ then ‘my’ path is the path of suffering … which is humanity’s path is it not? And, as humanity is suffering and suffering is humanity, is it not equally true that humanity is also addicted to suffering? And further to that point … have you ever noticed that humanity reveres its addiction so much that escape is taboo?
James: Interesting. It does make sense that humanity is addicted to suffering but I am still not sure if it is addiction to suffering or if it is fear of not surviving. The fear of ‘me’ not surviving could be causing the addiction to ‘me’ suffering.
Richard: I should have put scare quotes around the word humanity as the word itself can refer to two different things: in its all-humankind meaning it is a more comprehensive word for what the word group refers to (which ranges through family, band, clan, tribe, race, nation and species) and, just as the group’s survival traditionally takes precedence over an individual’s survival, the group’s fears of not surviving have priority over an individual’s fears of not surviving. When fear comes into the picture, however, the word humanity no longer refers to all people collectively but takes on a life of its own, as it were, and becomes an entity in its own right in the same way ‘I’ am an entity inside the flesh and blood body.
And just as ‘I’ suffer because ‘I’ exist (suffering is ‘my’ very nature) ‘humanity’ suffers because it exists (suffering is very nature of ‘humanity’) and thus a virtue is made out of suffering because the survival of ‘humanity’ is at risk … hence the taboo on escape.
Yet ‘humanity’ has no existence outside of the human psyche. (Richard, List B, James3, 7 Nov 2002).
Chrono: I’m finding that standing on my own two feet in the sense of feeling good come what may is bringing up feelings of doubt and anxiety as I am doing it irregardless what others feel. Others meaning everyone in my life and even what I read on the news. Maybe I should return to the question “can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?”. Or perhaps it’s a storm to simply weather?
A while ago you were wrestling with guilt of being selfish, and it still seems to linger, as in “bringing up feelings of doubt and anxiety as I am doing it irregardless what others feel”. It is pertinent to understand that the goal – and the method – of actualism is to diminish the ‘self’, i.e. the inherent ‘self’-centricity of being a feeling being –
Richard to Martin: Do you see how almost all of that paragraph you wrote as a lead-up to your query about being harmless – as in “but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?” that is – stems from or revolves around that hoary religio-spiritual practice of putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’) so as to counter selfishness?
Yet the topic on the web page which Claudiu linked to (Richard, Audio-Taped Dialogues, Putting the other before Oneself). is essentially about being self-centred – with especial attention upon that term referring to each and every ‘self’ being both ego-centric and soul-centric – and not about being selfish.
As being harmless does not feature in religio-spiritual practice – peace-on-earth is not on the religio-spiritual agenda – then the sooner that nonsense about being an unselfish ‘self’ is abandoned the better. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Martin, 2 Aug 2016).
This whole specific correspondence is worth re-visiting.
So when you understand, really understand, the difference between “being an unselfish ‘self’” and being happy and harmless (aiming to be less and less ‘self’-centric) then your “feelings of doubt and anxiety” in this regard may fall by the wayside.
Chrono: Another feeling that is coming more to the fore is this feeling of weariness. I’m wondering what its cause is. It’s almost like the complete opposite of that sweetness. Now I’m thinking that this feeling is because I’m not able to get past the “storm” of doubt mentioned previously. I am now thinking that this goes back to the previous post where the wall of it is that ‘I will go insane’. And when I look at what this “insane” is composed of, it’s imagery of me not being able to take care of myself or being put in a state of danger. Not having any control.
Yes, in other words, fear.
What you are aiming for – an actual freedom from the human condition – has been classified by professionals in the field as insanity because it lies entirely outside the human condition and is entirely new to human consciousness. “Insane” is the only category the denizens of the real world can think of when they encounter something which does not fit into their paradigm. Just look up Cognitive Dissonance and you will see that far less radical and subversive innovations have been vehemently opposed by the majority of people for centuries until it eventually trickled down that it might be beneficial.
It does indeed require nerves of steel to be a pioneer in human consciousness – but you already have experienced excellent results and insights, and are feeling much better than before, which can give you the courage to persist. Plus, there is the experience of the PCE, of the already always existing actual world, which has guided you to this point.
Chrono: I’ve also been sometimes getting a brief and random experience of what I can only describe as “richness” (as per gradations of intimacy) but more of a nature experience variety. I’m not sure what I’m doing to trigger them. It reminded me of how I used to get more of these experiences when I was younger. Like the universe is ‘in my face’. There’s a while smorgasboard of delight that I’m missing out on every moment. One time I looked at my partner and I started wondering how I can bring this experience with her and really with anyone. What’s in the way is my anxieties but I’m feeling a renewed invigoration to have it happen. If only this part of me that is feeling this storm of doubt and anxiety would subside or come to terms with it then this experience could possibly happen much more. But I’m feeling an increased willingness to divulge what stands in the way. (link)
This is excellent. You might discover that the “storm of doubt and anxiety” might lose its power when you explore remnant or lingering morals of a “religio-spiritual agenda” regarding being an “unselfish ‘self’” and finally throw them on the rubbish heap where they belong. These ideals had 5000+ years of implementation by people trying to live those unliveable morals and ethics, and yet all the wars and rapes and murders and suicides and child-abuse are still going on unabated.
Regarding your “richness” or excellence experiences they are not triggered by ‘you’ but happen whenever ‘you’ step back and allow them to happen, whenever you are felicitous/ innocuous and more naïve, less serious. With the same happy/ harmless and sensuous naïveness you can experience them when you are with your partner and they can be contagious.
I am pleased to hear that there is “a renewed invigoration” and “an increased willingness to divulge what stands in the way”.
Cheers Vineeto