Kuba: So the Bodhisattva saga continues. I had a rather long and intense interaction with @Felix yesterday and it has been on my mind since.
How is it that 2 clearly well meaning individuals can nevertheless ‘lock horns’ despite the best intentions.
It is clear that whatever ‘battling’ was going on was primarily happening on the level of vibes and psychic power play, which makes it that much harder to initially spot and properly outline.
I have been trying to get to the bottom of just exactly ‘I’ was putting out that was ‘dirty’. What I have been outlining since is quite slippery because it hides behind the intention/ identity of ‘helping others’ but really it is just another form of belonging. […]
Hi Kuba,
At a guess, from careful reading of both of your reports in the past weeks, it may well be that both of you have a similar personality – that of being “a high achiever” and wanting to share your insights by ‘helping’. As such you would have been in competition who is the better helper.
The human race is a ‘herding animal’ and as such it is very natural to want to provide assistance to each other, besides being driven by the well-known instinctual passions. It has helped the human race not only to survive but to thrive.
You have now put your finger on the ‘dirty’ aspect of this ‘helping others’ – belonging.
Kuba: It’s the kind of identity that can get ‘me’ right up to the doors marked self-immolation but ‘I’ will never walk through. There is just way too much stock being placed in remaining a member of ‘humanity’. This seems like the bed rock of what ‘Kuba’ is as an identity, it seems the thing has now begun unravelling though. I can see that remaining a member of ‘humanity’ only to continue ‘assisting others’ (which cannot work cleanly anyways) is like enjoying martyrdom, it’s so much painful work and for what. So any proceeding forward has a personal agenda in it, in that ‘my’ whole life ‘I’ have functioned in a framework of ‘find wisdom → share wisdom’. Where ‘I’ simply cannot even contemplate going somewhere without this agenda of coming back with something to offer. The priorities are back to front, which is that much more difficult to pinpoint because it appears selfless.
I can see how this tendency has always sapped fun from various activities, for example in BJJ, as soon as I would develop some new way of doing a technique or what have you, I would immediately begin obsessing over how to teach it to others. It was always felt like an obligation/responsibility, that I was not allowed to keep it for myself. This tendency was one of the longest standing ones that I had to chip away at. It seemed as if things could not be enjoyed unless they were shared with others. But really it looks like the whole thing is just a ploy to cover up the fear of proceeding somewhere completely on ‘my’ own, without the safety of the group.
It is interesting that you say “this tendency has always sapped fun from various activities”. You nevertheless put this no-fun observation aside in your general actualism practice of enjoying and appreciation of each moment of being alive, and now, after other obstacles have been removed it stares you right in the face.
Actualism is not about being “selfless” but diminishing and ultimately voluntarily sacrificing ‘me’, the ‘self’.
Richard: I am aware that, to more than a few, the word altruism has come to mean unselfish/selfless … thus I stress that the word is being used in its biological/ zoological sense.
Respondent: Can you provide an example of a pure conscious altruistic action without any loss/gain for the one involved?
Richard: As there is no altruism here in this actual world there is no such thing as a ‘pure conscious altruistic action’ … any action which has the appearance of being altruistic, in its unselfish/selfless (virtuous) sense, stems from fellowship regard – like species recognise like species – and is actually selfless in the literal meaning of the word (as in ‘self’-less), as a matter of course, and not virtuously.
A virtuous ‘self’ – an unselfish ‘self’ – is still a ‘self’ nevertheless. (Richard, AF List, No. 25h, 9 Jan 2005).
Kuba: This whole thing reminds me of Richard’s observation that if “one is driven by some force (no matter how good), then one is not actually free”. (link)
This is an excellent appraisal. This “force” which is driving you, the passionate force for ‘self’-survival, can, when pinpointed and exposed, give you the necessary passionate motivation for the altruism required for the last step. When you turn it into passionate and genuine care for the well-being of humankind, or intimate genuine care for one particular human being there is a way forward.
Richard had always referred to abandoning humanity as the penultimate step. (Richard, AF List, Rick, # Penultimate Step).
Here he wrote to feeling being ‘Vineeto’ in 1999 when ‘she’ had asked him about what belonging to humanity means –
‘VINEETO’: [Richard]: ‘When it is understood that the one is the epitome of the many and that ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ is ‘me’ … ‘I’ self-immolate at the core of ‘being’. Then I am this material universe’s infinitude experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. A desirable side-effect is peace-on-earth’. What does it mean, when you say ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ is ‘me’?
RICHARD: In the context that the quote was written, I was adapting my oft-repeated phrase ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’ to fit in with the subject matter […]
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. […]
Yet it is the instinct for survival that got you and me and every other body here in the first place. We peoples living today are the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes … we are the product of the ‘success story’ of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Is one really going to abandon that which produced one … that which (apparently) keeps one alive?
Do you recall those conversations we had about loyalty (familial and group loyalty) back when you and I first met … and what was required to crack that code? (Audio-taped Dialogues)
That was chicken-feed compared with this one. (Richard, AF List, Vineeto, 30 Sep 1999).
Everyone’s ‘belonging to humanity’ can have different expressions, whatever each individual is most passionately holding on to.
Cheers Vineeto
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