# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## What to Do with the Instinctual Passions? RICHARD: Zen’s ‘Original Face’ has its genesis in the rudimentary self of the instincts. Eliminate those survival instincts and not only does ‘Original Sin’ vanish ... even the ‘Original Face’ disappears. Then – and only then – is there peace-on-earth guaranteed. This is because it is already always here. RESPONDENT: What is eliminating the survival instincts? RICHARD: The body’s will and native intelligence ... when virtually freed from the constraints imposed by ‘I’ and ‘me’. RESPONDENT: What is responsible for this? RICHARD: Apperceptive awareness. MARK: I have not had any real idea on how to approach them [instincts]. My reason for this being that if we are born with instincts intact right from our first moment and, given that we are a clean slate so to speak, then, said instincts must be encoded in the DNA ... or what? RICHARD: As deoxyribonucleic acid, a self-replicating material which is especially found in the chromosomes of nearly all living organisms, is the carrier of genetic information it would seem to be so that instincts are encoded therein. I say this with the proviso that I am seeking an explanation ‘after the act’ for what happened at the base of the skull where it meets the top of the brain-stem, and I would rather look to the latest scientific probes so as to establish an empirically-grounded account rather than any other hypothesis, as practical science must be factually based. Most scientists’ facts are rather far and few between, however, and many of their ‘facts’ later turn out to be flawed methodology arising out of their expectations based upon their belief systems and/or mind-set. After all, they are fallible, ego-ridden and soul-bound human beings trapped in the human condition like everybody else, and are seeking to find a way through all this mess, that we humans are born into, via the scientific method. Theoretical science – such as this century’s quantum physics with its mystical cosmogony – makes a mockery of the meaning of the phrase ‘scientific method’. Mr. Albert Einstein left a legacy that has the intelligence of the partisans’ of the relativists faction firmly gripped in pursuing fantastical scenarios rather than addressing utilitarian matters ... like human suffering. MARK: And how does one delete a part of one’s DNA (personally speaking my gene splicing skills leave a lot to be desired). I still don’t understand how one is to undo the deepest layers of instinct. RICHARD: Speaking personally from experience, eventually – and ultimately – all the instincts are undone instantly via psychological and psychic ‘self’-sacrifice. This is, purely and simply, altruism at its very best ... and altruism’s energy is an instinctual passion (this is indeed hoisting oneself by one’s bootstraps ... writ large). However, until the initiation of the process that leads to ‘self’-immolation is consciously triggered – whereupon the ending of ‘me’ happens of its own accord – one can become acutely aware of the operation of the instinctual passions as they are experienced moment-to-moment. It is but the same ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ investigation of beliefs and feelings ... only extended deeper into one’s psyche. Strangely enough, it does mean an exploration into the psychic realm ... which is why it is essential that one first establishes a firm base – called virtual freedom – to fall back upon when the going gets tough. A journey into one’s psyche – which is the human psyche – is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee ... one must have nerves of steel to go all the way. The rewards for doing so are immense, however, and the ramifications far-reaching. It means peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body. MARK: But I do feel instinct and its grip weakening as my personal reality is exposed for the mirage that it is. This adds a little to the notion that the whole thing (the self) is an integrated package and a reduction in one area is a reduction across the board. Hence as we chip away at our belief system (the seemingly ‘most visible’ layer of the ‘being’, the outer most layer so to speak) then there are repercussions in our emotional and instinctual arenas as well. RICHARD: Yes, well said. It (‘self’) is an integrated package because it arises out of the instinctual software package handed out by blind nature. At the core of ‘my’ being is the rudimentary animal ‘self’ that all sentient beings have. It is the price paid/trade-off for consciousness being able to arise out of matter. MARK: With all belief systems abandoned, no way to imagine new ones, no trigger for emotions and incumbent feelings, the last days, hours, moments, of the self, (and this obviously conjecture on my part) must be extreme in the poignancy of their primal and purely instinctual nature. RICHARD: Aye ... when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. In an ecstatic moment of being present, ‘I’ expire. ‘I’ am extirpated, rubbed out. ‘I’ cease to exist, permanently. There is a sensation inside the top of the brain-stem that is experienced as a physical ‘turning over’ of some kind ... something that can never, ever, turn back. Something irrevocable happens and everything is different, somehow, although everything stays the same physically ... with the outstanding exception of a perfection and purity permeating all and everything. Something has changed, although it is as if nothing has happened ... except that the entire world is transformed into a magical fairy-tale-like playground full of incredible joy and delight that is never-ending. ‘My’ demise was as fictitious as ‘my’ apparent ‘presence’. I have always been here, I realise, and that ‘I’ only imagined that ‘I’ existed. It was all an emotional play in a fertile imagination ... which was, however, fuelled by an actual hormonal substance triggered off from the ‘reptilian brain’ towards the top of the brain-stem. MARK: As to the question of the instinct’s (and indeed the self’s) only toehold on the body (that seemingly undeletable interface between the body and instincts that I spoke of earlier, that possible DNA connection), is it not possible that the ‘physical turning over of something in the base of the brain’ that Richard speaks of in his last moments as a being, is the final unlocking of some physically encoded something in the ... somewhere! RICHARD: The physically encoded ‘something’ is indeed located ‘somewhere’ ... at and around the top of the brain-stem. Perhaps it may clarify the issue if I post a rather long selection of quotes from a molecular biologist who taught microbiology and biochemistry in Australia and New Zealand universities, the late Mr. Darryl Reanney ... so as to provide a geneticist’s slant on the issue? RICHARD: I discovered that it was a physically inherited cause (a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’) that created the problem of the human condition and thus promote a physical solution (extinction of instinctual ‘being’ itself) derived from my personal experience. RESPONDENT: Please, can you extend your meaning about ‘and thus promote a physical solution (extinction of instinctual ‘being’ itself)’. Please, what is your approximation, what do you mean by ‘a physical solution (extinction of instinctual ‘being’ itself) derived from my personal experience’. Feel free to express as you like, this is to much serious for me, ‘agree or disagree’ will be only my business but I will thanks a lot any personal approach on this point. RICHARD: 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 (otherwise mistakenly known as the ‘original face’ and is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory. Being a ‘self’ is because the only way into this world of people, things and events is via the human spermatozoa fertilising the human ova ... thus every human being is endowed, by blind nature, with the basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. These passions are the very energy source of the rudimentary animal self ... the base consciousness of ‘self’ and ‘other’ that all sentient beings have. The human animal – with its unique ability to be aware of its own death – transforms this ‘reptilian brain’ rudimentary animal ‘self’ into being a feeling ‘me’ (as soul in the heart) and from this core of ‘being’ the ‘feeler’ then infiltrates into thought to become the ‘thinker’ ... a thinking ‘I’ (as ego in the head). No other animal can do this. That this process is aided and abetted by the human beings who were already on this planet when one was born – which is conditioning and programming and is part and parcel of the socialising process – is but the tip of the ice-burg and not the main issue at all. There is much, much more to an investigation into the human condition than ‘the thinker is the thought’, because (to put it in the same lingo) the ‘feeler’ is the feelings ... and the feelings are, as the root of the psyche, ‘being’ itself. The physical solution (extinction of instinctual ‘being’ itself) will not eventuate unless the physically inherited cause (a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’) that created the problem of the human condition is intimately experienced. To proceed from a sound basis, one starts with facts: to be alive (not dead) and awake (not asleep) and conscious (not unconscious) and aware and perceiving (and maybe thinking, remembering, reflecting and proposing considered action) is the human mind that every human being is born with and, as such, is similar around the globe and through all generations. Intimate access to the activity of each mind is personal (as opposed to public) but the basic activities of the mind are not individual (‘individual’ as distinguished from others by qualities of its own). This neuronal activity – consciousness itself – is what the human mind is and thus, contrary to popular belief, consciousness is not its content (content as in conditioning) but the very neuronal activity itself. Because, apart from awareness and perception and thought being what consciousness is, there is the affective feelings (emotions and passions and calentures) such as the instinctual fear and aggression and nurture and desire to consider. Are they not basic traits that every human being is born with and consequently also similar? Or are they the result of conditioning and therefore the ‘contents of consciousness’? What about malice and sorrow and any of derivatives of malice and sorrow – as a broad generalisation, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself – and the compensatory love and compassion and any of the derivatives of love and compassion that arise out of the basic instincts? Are they not latent traits that every human comes into ‘being’ with and thus are also similar because, whatever the emotion or passion or calenture may be, they all have a global incidence. Or are they the result of conditioning and therefore the ‘contents of consciousness’? What about such affectively-based activity as imagination, intuition, visualisation, conceptualisation, believing, trusting, hoping, having faith and so forth – giving rise to epiphenomenon like prescience, clairvoyance, telepathy, divination and other psychic effects – are they not embryonic traits that every human being comes into ‘being’ with and thus are similar as well? Or are they the result of conditioning and therefore the ‘contents of consciousness’? Can it at least be clear that the obvious ‘contents of consciousness’ which are the result of conditioning, such as the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams, are what imposes a ‘collective mind’ imprint? Yet this imprinted ‘collective mind’ (all the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams) would not be able to have the tenacious hold that it has if the human brain was indeed the ‘Tabular Rasa’ brain that so many peoples believe they are born with. All the gender, racial and era beliefs, truths, morals, ethics, principles, values, ideals, theories, customs, traditions, superstitions and all the other schemes and dreams have such a persistent grip only because of the powerful energy of the genetically inherited instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire that stretch back to the dawn of the human species ... which passions have given rise to a rudimentary animal ‘self’ out of ‘being’ itself who is both savage (‘fear and aggression’) and tender (‘nurture and desire’). Is it not obvious that all the animosity and anguish that has beset humankind throughout millennia comes from that which a lot deeper than ‘the thinker is the thought’ ... all the misery and mayhem stems from an animal energy which is much, much more powerful than thought, thoughts and thinking. Actual Freedom Homepage
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