Andrew: Thanks Vineeto.
Indeed, I had never considered that I was/am looking for “incoming attacks” constantly.
Again, I am left puzzled at how I was ever going to get anywhere with this!
It reminds me of a comedian who recently talked about general anxiety, where he had thought it was perfectly normal to a certain way around people. (Video-clip)
Hi Andrew,
This is the basic instinctual programming of ‘what can I eat, what can eat me’ at its most basic. It expresses itself emotionally and in varying strength. You can observe it in animals, from the jellyfish to the most developed mammal, and of course in humans.
I was quite surprised about its complete absence when I first became actually free, even though I knew it would happen. I was even wondering how I would get along without this constant instinctual compass, how to deal with other human beings. It turned out to be utterly fine and deliciously intimate to only meet flesh-and-blood bodies. Intelligence is indeed sufficient to assess each and every situation sensibly and act accordingly.
Now, Richard discovered and described a process where one can not only subdue/ suppress/ repress those instinctual passions via the age-old laws of conduct, dating back millennia to some god/goddess or bodiless entity, but that one can, with pure intent, whittle away both the social identity and passions and feelings and eventually manumit the physical body from the entire instinctual-emotional identity as well.
Andrew: It’s less of a warrior, and more of a worrier. I know this because although I do remember saying what you remembered, it was I believe borrowed from someone else saying it, and when I heard them say it, I identified with it heavily. I was in my mid-twenties, in a large corporate setting talking to the drafting manager. At the same time I had been going through extreme psych/ spiritual events whilst leaving Christianity only a few years prior. The process went on for around 5 years. In that time I had even given myself a new private name, which was coupled with (in hindsight) sub-clinical hallucinations both visual and auditory.
(All this is self diagnosing here)
One of the things I had been contemplating in the last few weeks was the amount of terror I suppress. Specifically related to Christianity and the otherwise ghoulish nature of the doctrines of hell and sin. The medieval invention of hell, with its Dante and others horror was more real to me than I had previously thought. Wired into me, and intertwined with everyday anxiety which might be considered more “everyday” and normal.
I appreciate your detailed feedback.
You must have been particularly sensitive and impressible in that the doctrines and descriptions of hell and horror left such a lasting and persistent mark of terror on you.
Andrew: It may all well be something very normal, as there was always this sense that I was craving notoriety, that I had “no excuse” and craved something to explain my ineptitude.
However, even typing that out I can see the “sin nature” doctrine speaking, That I am forever doomed except by the grace of god.
It looks as if you haven’t left Christianity completely behind yet, at least there is still the belief of the devilish and divine interference of some supernatural being operating. Are you perhaps able to remember an early PCE where you experienced that everything is already perfect? (Check out FAQ 64a for inspiration).
It was an insight from a PCE which enabled feeling being ‘Vineeto’ to finally be done with any belief in God whatsoever. But she had already loosened up the belief in the Christianity via Eastern spirituality where a human being is ‘God’ on earth and then questioned the validity of that claim via sensible contemplation. Viz.:
‘Vineeto’: Finally one evening, when talking and musing about the universe, I fully comprehended that this physical universe is actually infinite. The universe being without boundaries or an edge means that it is impossible, practically, for God to exist. In order to have created the universe or to be in control of it God would have to exist outside of it – and there is no outside! This insight hit me like a thunderbolt. My fear of God and of his representatives collapsed and lost its very substance by this obvious realisation. In fact, there can be no one outside of this infinite universe who is pulling the strings of punishment and reward, heaven and hell – or, according to Eastern tradition, granting enlightenment or leaving me with the eternal karma of endless lives in misery.
This insight presupposes, of course, that there is no place other than the physical universe, no celestial, mystical realm where gods and ghosts exist. It also implies that there is no life before or after death and that the body simply dies when it dies. I needed quite some courage to face and accept this simple fact – to give up all beliefs in an after-life or a ‘spirit-life’.
But I could easily observe that as soon as I gave up the idea of any imaginary existence other than the tangible, physical universe, everything, which had seemed so complicated and impossible to understand became graspable, evident, obvious and imminently clear.
When the enormous consequence and implication of slipping out of this insidious belief in any God or Higher Being dawned on me, I was at the same time free of anybody’s authority. I was free of the fear that had been spoiling every relationship with every man in my life: father, brothers, male friends and boyfriends, employers, teachers and Master. (A Bit of Vineeto, #oneevening)
Andrew: It would seem that I have only one MO that has results, disappear then cause (in my mind) a “stir” and by someone else’s “grace” get saved. If only for a few weeks.
Ha, that is not very a satisfying way to live, is it?
Andrew: It’s always been a huge source of guilt, that I would desire there to be something “wrong” with me. Whilst these entire time, there was indeed always something that was “off” but it was not directly those things at all.
Thanks. (link)
Guilt is a terrible weapon of dominance, and Christianity is as responsible of wielding it as any other religion. What allowed ‘Vineeto’ to reduce and whittle down ‘her’ guilt of being alive – such as having to be useful to be allowed to take up space, apart from the guilt of being ‘bad’, sinful, disobedient, unenlightened and all the rest – was the factual understanding (confirmed by the PCE, but also via the sensible explanations from Richard who had first made sense of it) how the human condition operates. It also made it clear that ‘she’, like every other human being, is in this situation by no fault of her own.
Richard: The term ‘Human Condition’ is a universally-accepted philosophical expression referring to the situation all human beings find themselves in when they emerge as babies on this verdant and azure planet which begat the human race and whereat humankind flourishes. This well-known phrase refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures down through the ages. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone; all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their affective-psychic nature and a ‘light side’.
The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged since time immemorial and it requires constant vigilance lest sorrow, with its ever-attendant malice, gains the upper hand. An admixture of social mores and cultural folkways seek to control the wayward self which lurks deep within the human breast; and some semblance of peace – an ad hoc and uneasy truce – prevails for the main. Wherever virtuous morality and principled ethicality fails to curb this ‘savage beast’ some form of law and order is maintained – albeit, ultimately at the point of a gun – by state-sanctioned policing.
Richard: As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was deeply mired in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ acculturated ethnicity … ‘I’ was brainwashed into being a ‘man’ and not simply a flesh and blood male body. Under the enculturated layers lies a further identity … the genetically-inherited animal ‘self’. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. By identification as ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’ … I discovered that a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body and that this ‘walk-in’ was ‘me’. (Richard, AF List, No. 12a, 28 Jan 1999)
There is more as that correspondence continues but this part already explains that being normal means being possessed by “‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity”, who, because ‘I’ am not actual, naturally feels guilty and afraid to be exposed as a fake. No god of any description is even necessary to instil this guilt for being a contingent ‘being’ [non-factual, dependant on the existence of the instinctual-passional identity], it comes with the genetically endowed package at birth. Gods/ Goddesses are invented to justify feeling the guilt in the first place. It is my guess that those fictitious deities and supernatural beings wouldn’t have the convincing power they have over human feelings if the guilt of being a ‘being’ wasn’t there in each person to begin with.
When ‘Vineeto’ increasingly understood this, ‘her’ guilt of ‘being’ was gradually dislodged by recognizing that ‘she’ could do something about ‘her’ situation – ‘she’ could reduce the power of the ‘self’ by becoming more and more happy and harmless and enjoying and appreciating being here. To explain in short – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings enhance the identity while felicitous and innocuous feelings diminish the identity and thus sincerity is able to reduce/ even dissipate the guilt or unease being an impostor. Being ruthlessly honest and sincere is an essential ingredient to stop hiding and become naïve, enjoying the adventure of unravelling the mysteries of the way we tick and the conditions we are born into.
So, Andrew, you can safely abandon the terror and guilt of the god of the Bible or the god of Spinoza or any other Supernatural deity now that you know where the guilt originates, coupled with the good news that you can do something about the source of your unease of being a ‘being’.
I suggest you read it slowly, it is at first mind-boggling but will make sense if you allow common sense (rather than defence and terror) to operate.
Cheers Vineeto