# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## Does Actualism Accept / Reject Ethics or Psychology? RESPONDENT: Does responsibility and seriousness come with being carefree? RICHARD: No, the utter reliability of being always happy and harmless replaces the onerous burden of being responsible ... and actuality’s blithe sincerity dispenses with the gloomy seriousness that epitomises adulthood. It is funny – in a peculiar way – for I often gain the impression when I speak to others, that I am spoiling their game-plan. It seems as if they wish to search forever ... they consider arriving to be boring. How can unconditional peace and happiness, twenty-four-hours-a-day, possibly be boring? Is a carefree life all that difficult to comprehend? Why persist in a sick game ... and defend one’s right to do so? Why insist on suffering when blitheness is freely available here and now? Is a life of perennial gaiety something to be scorned? I have even had people say, accusingly, that I could not possibly be happy when there is so much suffering going on in the world. The logic of this defies credibility: Am I to wait until everybody else is happy before I am? If I was to wait, I would be waiting forever ... for under this twisted rationale, no one would dare to be the first to be happy. Their peculiar reasoning allows only for a mass happiness to occur globally; overnight success, as it were. Someone has to be intrepid enough to be first, to show what is possible to a benighted humanity. One has to face the opprobrium of one’s ill-informed peers. RESPONDENT: Do you live a moral life? If so, why? RICHARD: Being free from malice and sorrow, I am automatically happy and harmless. Thus I have no need for morals whatsoever. Morals are designed to control the wayward self. RESPONDENT: Would you lie, cheat and steal? RICHARD: If the situation calls for it, yes indeed. Whilst some semblance of social order prevails, such actions as stealing are not necessary. The government bureaucracy however, being adversarial by nature, occasionally calls for some creative massaging of the truth regarding my life-style. RESPONDENT: Which morals are your own and which are seen to exist already? RICHARD: Whilst not having any morals of my own, living in this particular country and benefiting from human ingenuity and inventiveness as I do, I am more than happy to comply with the legal laws and follow the established social protocols ... except for those that are too trifling to conform to and that I cannot be bothered observing anyway. For example: I do not vote ... even though voting is compulsory in this country. The unelected public servants actually run the country, so I could not care less which political party struts the stage. Mostly, their policies are knee-jerk reactions to public opinion polls anyway ... so when some earnest scribe knocks on my door to ask my opinion I invite them in for a cup of coffee. I then hold forth with my views on everything and anything until they stagger out the door with a glazed look on their face. It does not change anything at all, though. * RESPONDENT: If there is no good or evil, right or wrong, why would you want to get rid of human sorrow?? That in itself is a value inferring that those things exist, are to be avoided, and should be eliminated. RICHARD: It is not a value ... it is simply sensible. Do you want to suffer? Do you really enjoy it all that much? Is this not silly? We are talking of peace-on-earth ... and peace-on-earth is freedom from the Human Condition. The Human Condition is a term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of so-called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Freedom from the Human Condition is the ending of the ‘self’. The elimination of the ‘self’ is the demise of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within oneself. Then ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ vanish forever along with the dissolution of the psyche itself ... which is the only place they can live in. Because there is no good or evil in the actual world of sensual delight – where I live as this flesh and blood body – one then lives freely in the magical paradise that this verdant earth floating in the infinitude of the universe actually is. Being here at this moment in time and this place in space is to be living in a fairy-tale-like ambience that is never-ending. I can heartily recommend committing both psychological and psychic suicide. RESPONDENT: And does your freedom entail the total and complete erasure of the human consciousness that moves the common herd or just only the moral conditioning – the sense of right and wrong, good and evil? RICHARD: Yes, the total and complete erasure of the ‘human’ consciousness ... not just conditioning. The moral conditioning – the sense of right and wrong and what you called the knowledge of good and evil – are well-meant endeavours by countless peoples over countless aeons to seek to curb the instinctual passions. By and large this enterprise has proved to be relatively effective ... only a minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner. And although well-meant, it is but an ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, because people are irked by the restraints imposed upon what they indulgently imagine is the freedom of the natural state. Now, while most people paddle around on the surface and re-arrange the conditioning to ease their lot somewhat, some people – seeking to be free of all human conditioning – fondly imagine that by putting on a face-mask and snorkel that they have gone deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. They have not ... they have gone deep only into the human conditioning. When they tip upon the instincts – which are both savage (fear and aggression) and tender (nurture and desire) – they grab for the tender (the ‘good’ side) and blow them up all out of proportion. If they succeed in this self-aggrandising hallucination they start talking twaddle dressed up as sagacity such as: ‘There is a good that knows no evil’ or ‘There is a love that knows no opposite’ or ‘There is a compassion that sorrow has never touched’ and so on. This is because it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. For the deletion of the software package is the extinction of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. That is, ‘being’ itself expires. The reward for so doing is immeasurable, however. The altered state of consciousness known as ‘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 enlightenment is that whilst the identity as ego dissolves, the identity as soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity ... ‘I am That’ or ‘I am God’ or ‘I am The Supreme’ or ‘I am The Absolute’ or ‘I am The Buddha’ 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. This second identity – the second ‘I’ of Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame – is a difficult one to shake, maybe more difficult than the first; for who is brave enough to voluntarily give up fame and fortune, reverence and worship, status and security? One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself to go all the way and no longer be a someone, a somebody of importance. One faces extinction; ‘I’ will cease to be, there will be no ‘being’ whatsoever, no ‘presence’ at all. It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe ... that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for one to conceive that without a wayward ‘I’ there is no need for either a compliant ‘me’ or any values whatsoever ... or an ‘Ultimate Authority’. This is what freedom from the Human Condition is. RESPONDENT: Does actualism reject the useful application of empirical wisdom such as ethics and psychology? RICHARD: You may find the following illuminating: • [Richard]: ‘I am not at all altruistic – nor unselfish – let alone nurturing ... ‘twas the identity inhabiting the body who was. And the altruism I spoke of (further above) – altruistic ‘self’-immolation – is a once-in-a-lifetime event and not the real-world day-to-day altruism (unselfishness) ... such everyday unselfishness falls under the category of morality or ethicality. Where I use the word altruism in a non-biological sense is where it is synonymic to the magnanimity of benevolence ... for example: [Richard]: ‘In order to mutate from the self-centred licentiousness to a self-less sensualism, one must have confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe. This confidence – this surety – can be gained from a pure consciousness experience, wherein ‘I’, the psychological entity [and ‘me’, the psychic entity], temporarily ceases to exist. Life is briefly seen to be already perfect and innocent ... it is a life-changing experience. One is physically experiencing first-hand, albeit momentarily, this actual world – a spontaneously benevolent world – that antedates the normal world. The normal world is commonly known as the real world or reality. (...) The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes pure intent, which will consistently guide one through the travails of daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore. ‘Being’ ceases – it was only a psychic apparition anyway – and war is over, forever, in one human being’. (pages 124-125: ‘Richard’s Journal’ ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997). The growing magnanimity (an increasing generosity of character) referred to as an expanding altruism is a munificent well-wishing ... the etymological root of the word benevolent is the Latin ‘benne velle’ (meaning ‘wish well’). And well-wishing stems from fellowship regard – like species recognise like species throughout the animal world – for we are all fellow human beings and have the capacity for what is called a ‘theory of mind’. The way to an actual freedom from the human condition is the same as an actual freedom from the human condition – the means to the end are not different from the end – inasmuch that where one is happy and harmless as an on-going modus operandi benevolence operates of its own accord ... you partly indicated this (above) where you commented that people are generally helpful toward each other when feeling happy. Where benevolence is flourishing morals and ethics, as a matter of course, fall redundant by the wayside ... unused, unneeded and unnecessary. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 6 December 2002). RESPONDENT: And I mean empirical (proven results through the scientific method). RICHARD: I will rephrase the last sentence (of the above quote) for emphasis: • Where benevolence is flourishing ‘empirical (proven results through the scientific method)’ morals and ethics, as a matter of course, fall redundant by the wayside ... unused, unneeded and unnecessary. RESPONDENT: I mean some very complex ethical issues in my Mental Health work require me to be able to reason Consequentially (i.e. Utilitarian, Situational Ethics), utilize ethical principles (Social Work Values, deontological principles), and have a virtue ethic (having pro-social habits – now actualism (and being in the moment with one’s senses/ emotions/ thought – which is a part of actualism but not exclusive to actualism) comes in here as it removes the ego/soul which of course has the pro-social benefit of altruism. Does actualism deny all this? RICHARD: First of all, ‘being in the moment’ with one’s senses/ emotions/ thoughts is not part of actualism ... thus any question about exclusivity is without substance. Second, actualism does not come ‘in here’ (in here with utilitarian ethics, situational ethics, ethical principles, social work values, deontological principles, a virtue ethic) at all. Last, but not least, the ending of both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul does not have the ‘pro-social benefit of altruism’. For just one example: • [Richard]: ‘I am not altruistic – altruism is an instinctual inheritance which expires as the identity – and any and all (seemingly altruistic) actions are motivated solely by the fellowship regard engendered by an actual intimacy with every body and every thing and every event. It is all so simple here in this actual world. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53c, 30 March 2004). RESPONDENT: I’m sorry, being selfless cannot answer a complex ethical situation with multiple parties where some of the party’s happiness must be sacrificed because of limited resources. RICHARD: Being ‘self’-less in toto renders any ‘complex ethical situation’ (and any complex ethical solution) null and void. RESPONDENT: Do you see what I’m trying to convey? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Have I missed something? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Now that my mind is no longer shackled by religion (and actualism was a major determinate of this secular shift, which I of course had no real free choice in the first place since we are all organisms of causality) I am seeing the richness and sometimes the complexity of life situations. RICHARD: If actualism has been a major determinant in your shift from spiritualism to materialism then you are not the first to report such an event ... and probably will not be the last. Howsoever, actualism – the third alternative to both materialism and spiritualism – has nowt to do with either. * RESPONDENT: I meant by philosophy the ‘love of wisdom’ ... RICHARD: I am only too happy to re-phrase my response so as to be in accord with what you mean by saying that actualism is a philosophy: as actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is not ‘the love of wisdom’ then the question as to whether or not it is well-rounded and/or all-embracing and/or sensible and/or narrow love of wisdom is irrelevant. And just so that there is no misunderstanding: actualism is not the love of an ideology either ... or of an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, a metaphysics or any other of the 101 ways of down-playing/ dismissing a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: [I meant by philosophy the ‘love of wisdom’] which is an experiential knowledge, application, and living of wisdom. RICHARD: I am only too happy to re-phrase my response so as to be in accord with what you mean by saying that actualism is a love of wisdom: as actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – is not ‘an experiential knowledge, application, and living of wisdom’ then the question as to whether or not it is well-rounded and/or all-embracing and/or sensible and/or narrow experiential knowledge, application, and living of wisdom is irrelevant. And just so that there is no misunderstanding: actualism is not an experiential knowledge, application, and living of an ideology either ... or of an idea, an ideal, a belief, a concept, an opinion, a conjecture, a speculation, an assumption, a presumption, a supposition, a surmise, an inference, a judgement, an intellectualisation, an imagination, a posit, an image, an analysis, a viewpoint, a view, a stance, a perspective, a standpoint, a position, a world-view, a mind-set, a state-of-mind, a frame-of-mind, a metaphysics or any other of the 101 ways of down-playing/ dismissing a direct report of what it is to be actually free from the human condition and living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. RESPONDENT: Actualism’s living w/o ego/soul falls under this description. RICHARD: Au contraire ... it does no such thing. RESPONDENT: Ok. One can call a philosophy of life simply empirical things like its healthy to get enough sleep, get movement in (i.e. reasonable exercise), eat a well balanced diet of foods, learn a language, play music, play chess (if one enjoys it of course), engage the mind in mathematics and science, learn to think, feel one’s feelings, etc. RICHARD: As you have increasingly down-played actualism – the direct experience that matter is not merely passive – to the point of now equating it to vague generalisations, which you say can constitute a philosophy of life, about some unspecified health benefits of enough sleep, reasonable exercise, well-balanced diet, learning language, playing music, playing chess (provided it be enjoyable), mind-engagement in mathematics and science, learning to think, feeling one’s emotions and passions, and so on, there is obviously no point in me continuing to report/ describe/ explain what actualism actually is ... and what it is not. Especially so in view of the fact that your very next e-mail (to another) after this one espouses the virtues of materialism. * RESPONDENT: Maybe, I’m not writing well. RICHARD: You have been abundantly clear all along ... and you are not the first to have taken the report/ description/ explanation of life here in this actual world and endeavoured to turn it into, and/or relate it to, ethicalistic/ moralistic principles and/or values and/or virtues and/or standards and/or models and/or systems and/or conventions and/or norms and/or mores and/or maxims and/or axioms and/or postulates and/or dictums and/or directives and/or tenets and/or doctrines and/or policies and/or codes and/or canons and/or rules and/or regulations and/or laws, and so on, and you probably will not be the last. RESPONDENT: Richard, as you have used LeDoux, perhaps this [General Sensate Focusing Technique] can be of service. (snip link). RICHARD: First of all, the only use I have ever made of Mr. Joseph LeDoux is his laboratory evidence that a sensate signal goes first to the affective circuitry (albeit a split-second first) and then to the cognitive circuitry ... for example [snip examples].: RESPONDENT: Ok. RICHARD: This is the ‘only use’ being referred to (in the first example provided of what I have written on other occasions on this topic): • [Richard]: ‘... the only reason that any reference is made to them [to scientific studies such as Mr. Joseph LeDoux’s laboratory evidence] on The Actual Freedom Web Page *is so that other people do not have to take my word for it* that the feelings arise before thought in the reactionary process (albeit a split-second first). [emphasis added]. In other words, I have never, ever, personally ‘used LeDoux’ ... as made crystal clear with this sentence: • [Richard]: ‘And, furthermore, his [Mr. Joseph LeDoux’s] laboratory work *played no part whatsoever* in becoming actually free from the human condition. [emphasis added]. Thus all that is left of your (further above) sentence is this: • [example only]: ‘Richard, perhaps Mr. Ilan Shalif’s General Sensate Focusing Technique can be of service. [end example]. And just whom might it be ‘of service’ to? None other than this person (from further below): • [Respondent]: ‘Perhaps his [Mr. Ilan Shalif’s] detailed instruction of how to sensately focus could be of use for a beginning actualist’. [endquote]. As Mr. Joseph LeDoux’s laboratory evidence is qualitatively different to Mr. Ilan Shalif’s psychological management technique here is my question: why would his, or any, psychological management technique be of use/be of service to a person setting foot on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition? Viz.: • [Mr. Ilan Shalif]: ‘I sought for a better way to *manage* the human emotional life. (...) After locating new ways to *manage* the emotional and sensual part of life, it seemed suitable to share it with others’. [emphases added]. (http://shalif.com/psychology/content1.htm#PROLOGUE). In short (more on this below): actualism is not a management technique, a coping mechanism, or any other kind of psychological system. * RESPONDENT: It ain’t AF, but he does a precise job instructing how to focus on sensations and feelings. It would be up to any individual to discover if that could be of any use to them. It is of no use to you, clear enough. RICHARD: As nothing is of use to me personally – including the actualism method – then obviously I am not making myself clear: Mr. Ilan Shalif’s psychological management technique, which is qualitatively different to Mr. Joseph LeDoux’s laboratory evidence, is of no use whatsoever to a person setting foot upon the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition ... whereas Mr. Joseph LeDoux’s laboratory evidence can be of use inasmuch such a person need not take my word for it that the feelings arise before thought in the reactionary process (albeit a split-second first). If this is now clear – that you unwarrantedly linked the two persons, thus falsely ascribing an associative value to the second person, in your intro to the link you provided – then we can look at your (revised) reason as to why you are promoting/ endorsing Mr. Ilan Shalif’s psychological management technique on a mailing list set-up to discuss peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body ... to wit: that he (purportedly) does a precise job instructing how to focus on sensations and feelings and that it would be up to any individual (presumably a beginning actualist) to discover if that could be of any use to them (presumably in conjunction with the actualism method). Okay? * RICHARD: In short (more on this below): actualism is not a management technique, a coping mechanism, or any other kind of psychological system. RESPONDENT: I know. RICHARD: Then why would you promote/ endorse such a system on a mailing list set-up to discuss peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body? * RICHARD: As for the link you provided to Mr. Ilan Shalif’s web site ... if you could provide an example of how his ‘General Sensate Focusing Technique’ has been, or is being, ‘of service’ to you in regards to the actualism method there will then be something of substance to discuss. RESPONDENT: 1) The GSFT was a pointer that peace could be found out side of spirituality – thus a precursor to be being open to AF. RICHARD: I copy-pasted the word <peace> into a search engine and sent it through Mr. Ilan Shalif’s entire web site ... only to have it return nil hits. Howsoever the word ‘serenity’ features several times ... for instance: • [Mr. Ilan Shalif]: ‘... those [ongoing appraisals] of the structure in charge of assessing the amount of present and future dangers, are made along the ‘Fear-Serenity’ continuum which is better known as the Basic Emotion of ‘fear’. (http://shalif.com/psychology/content1.htm#KEY TO). The ‘Fear-Serenity continuum’ referred to there is otherwise known as Mr. Charles Darwin’s second principle in his theory of emotion. Viz.: • [Mr. Ilan Shalif]: ‘In the second principle of his [Mr. Charles Darwin’s] theory, he claimed that each of the basic emotions consists of a pair of bipolar antitheses – like the two opposing poles of fear and serenity’. (http://shalif.com/psychology/who-win.htm). And: • [Mr. Ilan Shalif]: ‘A study was carried out (...) Results support Darwin’s claim that each of the basic emotions is a bipolar entity. (http://shalif.com/psychology/who-win.htm#Top). And: • [Mr. Ilan Shalif]: ‘... our study gives substantial support to Darwin’s (1872) second principle of emotion which claims that the inborn emotions are bipolar. The bipolar findings are also congruent with findings of modern neurological studies of the Amigdala of the Limbic system of the brain. Clearly demonstrating this are findings about the bipolarity function of the Amigdala in the creation of the emotional experience of the basic emotions – as showed by Fonberg (1986) and Panksep (1986). (http://shalif.com/psychology/who-win.htm). Thus if ‘serenity’ is indeed the ‘peace’ you are referring to then it is to be found somewhere towards one pole of the ‘fear-serenity continuum’ in what Mr. Ilan Shalif classifies as ‘the Basic [bipolar] Emotion of ‘fear’’ ... which means that, for there to be serenity in his management plan, the instinctual passion of fear must persist. RESPONDENT: 2) I have broke some habits with it: a) obsessive TV watching. b) smoking. c) overeating. c) and others of a more personal nature. RICHARD: As most things humans do are habitual then for no other reason than because you say ‘obsessive’ in regards television viewing, and as ‘overeating’ is another way of saying ‘excessive’, I will presume you are referring to habits which fall into the obsessive-compulsive-excessive category – else it makes no sense to single out a few amongst the many for attention – such as obsessive and/or compulsive and/or excessive hand-washing, for an obvious instance, or obsessive and/or compulsive and/or excessive sex, for another (there are a multitude of such usual, regular, routine, consistent, normal, customary, ordinary, everyday activities which can become a concern for such obsessive-compulsive-excessive reasons). As Mr. Ilan Shalif makes no secret of the fact that his technique is designed to dispense with having to have recourse to counsellors, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and any other professionals of that ilk, it is not all that surprising you have had success in those areas. Viz.: • [Mr. Ilan Shalif]: ‘The popularity of dealing with psychology in the past decades, has resulted in an increased awareness of the different processes which occur within the individual. (...) There are also more people who are no longer content – and thus *do not consent to leave their feelings and ‘emotional problems’ to the professionals who specialize in this field*. This trend is similar to the spreading tendency to take part in sports and other physical activities for health and body maintenance outside of any formal framework or organization. This tendency expresses – among other things – the wish to eliminate the monopoly of orthopedics and other specialists on the maintenance of the well-being of the skeleton and muscles. Similar tendencies can be found in the wide stream of movements for *the liberation of the individual from the reign of ‘Professionals and authorities in their field’*. This stream expresses the growing tendency of people to take responsibility for their own functioning and place in the world. (‘Eliminating School’ and ‘Medicine’s revenge’ of Ivan Ilitch are among the outstanding books aimed at achieving this end through ‘destructive’ means. They try to do it through their contribution of ‘Exposing the conspiracy of the experts of the establishment’.) There are also ‘constructive’ means to meet this end. Many people take the trouble to make organized knowledge – based on applied sciences – available (accessible) to the layman. They take the pain to ‘translate’ scientific findings and professional publications into texts written in everyday language, and invent new techniques of the ‘do it yourself’ type. And so, the previously mysterious knowledge of the chosen few becomes intelligible to the ordinary person, who with this help *can becomes (sic) independent of professional assistance*. The knowledge accumulated by me and my trainees and brought to this book – and especially that which is brought to the chapter ‘Do it yourself’ is of the ‘constructionist’ kind. It contributes our share to the growing body of knowledge that *enables the liberation of the individual from total dependency on professionals*. This growing body of knowledge contributes more than any other modern factor to the growing feeling of the freedom of people in modern times. *One is no longer forced to choose, again and again, between self-neglect or fearfully submitting to the experts* ...’ [emphases added]. (http://shalif.com/psychology/content1.htm#FORWHOM). RESPONDENT: Sure – there is something to it – and its free. RICHARD: If I may point out? There is probably ‘something to’ all of the 101 psychological management techniques available these days to the lay public ... quite possibly any one of them could have enabled you to have had success in those obsessive-compulsive-excessive areas. * RESPONDENT: 3) I have improved my emotional climate: a) I have reduced the intensity and frequency of ‘being angry’. b) I have reduced the intensity and frequency of anxiety. RICHARD: There are, of course, 101 psychological management techniques available these days to the lay public and, as you have made it known previously you work in the mental health field, it is understandable that you would have an interest in that area ... howsoever, as psychology/psychiatry has not brought, is not bringing, and will not bring, peace-on-earth, nothing that a psychological/psychiatric approach has to offer has, is, or will, be of use/be of service to a person setting foot on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: All w/o god, spirituality, meditation, therapy, money, ideology, ‘positive’ thinking. 10 months of off and on again use. I do wish I would have done it intensively before AF, so I could have a better contrast. I thought the scientific study of the emotions with a corresponding non-spiritual method might be of interest to you. RICHARD: I came across Mr. Ilan Shalif’s web site about two-three years ago ... psychological/psychiatric management techniques/coping mechanisms hold no interest to me. Moreover, on his other web site, where he promotes and promulgates [quote] ‘anarchism and other communist libertarian’ [endquote] societies, he has the following quotes and comments: • ‘Without struggle, there is no progress’ (Frederick Douglass). Let’s struggle. • ‘We cannot dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools’ (Audre Lorde). Let’s create new tools. • ‘... by any means necessary’ (Malcolm X). Let’s strategize, mobilize and generate the means. (http://shalif.com/anarchy/). The carte blanche nature of that last quote – ‘by any means necessary’ – leaves me totally uninterested in anything at all he has to say. RESPONDENT: Perhaps his detailed instruction of how to sensately focus could be of use for a beginning actualist. RICHARD: Given that Mr. Ilan Shalif’s management plan depends upon the instinctual passions remaining firmly in situ forever in just what way could his detailed instruction on how to ‘sensately focus’ be of use for a beginning actualist? RESPONDENT: Of course GSFT is not AF. RICHARD: Of course not ... and, as the elimination of fear (for just one instance) would mean, for a General Sensate Focusing Technique practitioner, the ending of their serenity, it never will be. Just as no other psychological/ psychiatric management technique ever will either. * RESPONDENT: Until psychological/ psychiatric management techniques start sensible talk about self-immolating, AF will have no cousins, let alone sisters, brothers or parents. RICHARD: Which, of course, includes the ‘General Sensate Focusing [Management] Technique’ and, speaking personally, I will not be holding my breath whilst waiting for them to start as job security, if nothing else, will hinder such ‘sensible talk’ as you refer to. And here is a clue as to why: it will not only mean the ending of psychological/ psychiatric management techniques/ coping mechanisms but the end of psychology/ psychiatry per se. What do you reckon the first five letters in both those words refers to? SRINATH: Excellent science article on empathy which I found very relevant to my work. Also it aligns with near-actual caring: Attachment: Nautilus – Issue 35: Boundaries: How to Avoid Empathy Burnout [by Jamil Zaki; April 7, 2016; "Caregivers can benefit by understanding a patient’s pain without feeling it themselves"]. .... but not the last self-love bit which came out of the blue! [bracketed insert added]. (Message № 232xx; Slack Digest 03Aug16; 02:29 PM) ADDENDUM: Actually I’m seeing that the article for the most part doesn’t align with near-actual caring or naive intimacy. But it does advocate not taking on emotional contagion, pragmatism and boundaries – which I suppose are sensible real world ways of care-giving. (Message № 232xx; Slack Digest 04Aug16; 02:22 AM) G’day Srinath, As the above article on ‘Empathy Burnout’ (a near-cousin to ‘Compassion Fatigue’) which you link to, and publicly commend as being an [quote] “excellent science article” [endquote] on the ‘Nautilus Magazine’ web site, was composed by an assistant professor of psychology – whose research focuses on the cognitive and neural bases of social behaviour at the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory – it would surely take nothing short of a miracle for any such social behaviourist to write anything at all which even for the least part [quote] “aligns with” [endquote] what Vineeto wrote of as constituting “a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” on the 17th of January 2010 (as quoted by Claudiu in Message № 23185 and re-presented in my Message № 23198 (Richard, List D, Srinath, 28 July 2015) to you as per the top of this page) let alone via them craftily redefining what the word empathy means. Essentially, what the author describes as [quote] “a third way” [endquote] to the self-preservation of becoming empathetically calloused, with its blunted responsiveness, and the crushing risk which the burden of empathically caring imparts – which third way he specifically references as being [quote] “detachment” [endquote] mind you – is a therapeutic distancing technique similar to and/or drawn from and/or based upon [quote] “Buddhist-inspired compassion meditation training” [endquote] whereby savvy social behaviourist-type therapists and counsellors consciously shed a pattern of feeling the other’s emotional pain (which vicarious-feeling is what the word empathy has referred to ever since it was coined, in 1908, to translate the 1858 German word Einfühlung into English) and replace it with patterns of motivation and even positive emotion ... to wit: “a key feature of successful therapy is therapists’ communication of warmth and understanding toward their patients”. A non-empathic warmth, that is, engendered by an intellectual understanding drawn from impressions based upon verbal and visual cues alone. The following half-a-dozen or so paragraphs from that ‘Empathy Burnout’ article more or less convey these essential aspects (with over a dozen key features highlighted, for convenience in referencing those essential aspects, and explanatory info inserted within curled brackets). Viz.: • [Assist. Prof. Jamil Zaki]: “Caregivers can benefit by understanding a patient’s pain *without feeling it themselves*. (...). *Patients thrive from emotional connection with nurses, social workers, and therapists*, but helpers who provide this connection can wilt under its force. The stress of caring can lead to astonishing levels of job turnover. According to one review, 30 to 60 percent of social workers in high-impact sectors, such as child abuse, leave their jobs each year. When caregivers flame out at such rates, it opens cracks in the continuity of care, through which patients frequently fall. Even helpers who do stay often harden themselves to their patients’ emotions. Medical students report lower levels of empathy as their training progresses. Health-care professionals underestimate patients’ suffering and even display blunted physiological signs of empathy for pain. Many helpers feel that they face a double bind. They can preserve themselves by growing emotional callouses and blunting their responses to those in need. Or they can throw themselves into building connections with their patients and risk being crushed by the weight of caring. New research suggests *a third way*. Caregivers need to be empathetic, but empathy is not one thing. Both neuroscience and psychology have uncovered an important distinction between two aspects of empathy: emotion contagion, which is *vicariously sharing another person’s feeling*, and empathic concern, which entails *forming a goal* to alleviate that person’s suffering. Whereas contagion involves *blurring the boundary between self and other*, concern requires *retaining or even strengthening such boundaries*. Learning to practice one but not the other could be the best example of how caregivers can simultaneously look out for patients and for themselves. (...). Many helpers have rededicated themselves, through organisations such as the Secondary Trauma Resource Centre, to help their colleagues maintain a healthy lifestyle. Their efforts connect with research suggesting that helpers’ success hinges on their ability to experience concern while avoiding contagion {i.e., while avoiding vicariously sharing another person’s feeling; a.k.a., empathy}. When other people’s emotions flood into us, it can make it harder for us to help them. Patients, after all, are often too distressed to realise what might aid them; that is not a condition the helper should emulate. As one clinician put it, “Once you are *in the shoes of your patient*, you cannot possibly be of any help”. Rene McCreary {a counsellor also working in the Kansas City area} describes the state she strives for in her interactions with patients: “I try not to metabolise [sic] their trauma, which allows me to hear what they have to share and not become what they have to share ... I need to be as irrelevant as possible, and *keep the experience about them*”. Allison Basinger {a deeply religious person who visits local middle and high schools, to educate students about unhealthy relationships and teen dating violence, under the auspices of a Kansas City-area organisation which supports teenage survivors of domestic violence} takes *a different approach to detachment*, trying to model for patients how much better they might feel after treatment: “I try to be the face of resilience, to show them how things could be for them”. Research suggests that these strategies can offer an antidote to burnout {i.e., via avoiding empathy}. In the 1980s, the psychologist Katherine Miller and her colleagues suggested that a key feature of successful therapy is therapists’ communication of warmth and understanding toward their patients. She found that concern facilitates such communication, whereas contagion {i.e., empathy} interferes with it. Therapists’ ability to *separate themselves* from their patients’ suffering {i.e., separate themselves from empathy via avoiding vicariously sharing another person’s feeling} also staved off secondary trauma. (...). In one remarkable demonstration of such empathic tuning, the neuroscientist Tania Singer engaged a group of subjects in *Buddhist-inspired compassion meditation training*. (...). Singer and her colleagues scanned participants’ brain responses to others’ distress before and after the meditation training. Before, people demonstrated physiological signs of contagion – for instance, engaging parts of their brain associated with *feeling pain* {i.e., vicariously sharing another person’s feeling; a.k.a., empathy} when watching others experience it. After the training, however, they *shed this pattern* {i.e., they shed empathy} and instead exhibited a pattern of brain activity more commonly associated with motivation and even positive emotion. Singer believes this type of training might allow helpers to “tune” empathy toward concern, working with it but not allowing it to take them over (...)”. [emphases and curly bracketed inserts added]. [http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/how-to-avoid-empathy-burnout]. As your reassessment now has you seeing how the article [quote] “for the most part” [endquote] does not align with a caring which is as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster – a caring which prioritises an actual happiness over an affective happiness any day of the week (inasmuch an actual caring is epitomised by an ever-present preference for the self-imposed suffering of one’s fellow human being to come to an end, forever, sooner rather than later) – it is somewhat intriguing to contemplate just what constitutes the least part, of the above scholastical research by Mr. Jamil Zaki (all duly referenced by the in-accord judgments of Ms. Allison Basinger, Ms. Rene McCreary, Ms. Katherine Miller, Ms. Tania Singer, et aliae), which evidently still remains aligned in your eyes. Incidentally, despite stating upfront that “patients thrive from emotional connection with nurses, social workers, and therapists”, the central theme of this article which you commend as being [quote] “very relevant to my work” [endquote] is all about depriving those patients of what they thrive upon – that “emotional connection” popularly known as empathy (as in, “vicariously sharing another person’s feeling”, that is) but artfully designated “emotional contagion” in academe – and providing said patients with what the caregivers thrive on, instead, via a remarkably deft sleight-of-hand vis-à-vis what the word empathy has referred to since it was coined 108 years ago (so as to translate into English what the German Einfühlung has meant for 158 years). Here is a possible reason why: • [Assist. Prof. Jamil Zaki]: “Helping professionals – in fields such as social work, psychotherapy, and hospice care – are the emotional counterparts to first responders {i.e., fire-fighters, police officers and emergency medical technicians}, gravitating toward experiences the rest of us avoid. (...). Surveys of career helpers find they are *more likely* to report family histories of abuse or substance dependence than professionals in finance, music, and science”. [emphases and curly bracketed insert added]. (http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/how-to-avoid-empathy-burnout). Hence also the high rates of ‘empathy burnout’, of course, as the relationship betwixt helper and helpee – as per the ‘Helper Therapy Principle’ (proposed as “an age-old therapeutic approach” by Dr. Frank Riessman; pp. 27-32, ‘Social Work’, Vol 10‹2›, 1965) – is oft-times of a symbiotic nature. * Given that psychiatry has had at least 150+ years to demonstrate its efficacy in dealing with human suffering – without a single recorded success in bringing such suffering to an end, forever, in any human being anywhere in the world – it is surely an exercise in futility to even think for a moment (let alone type-out a commendation and click ‘send’) that an assistant professor researching social behaviour at the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory would have anything at all to contribute to a discussion about a caring which is entirely new to human experience/ human history. KONRAD: One of the differences between you and me is that I am not against emotions. I think both you and K are wrong in this respect. I do not have to ignore my emotions. Why should you get rid of them, if the underlying principle is sound? Only the fact that one loses control might be a problem. I can also tell you this. The thinkers of almost every culture saw emotions as something bad. I think they are as wrong about it as denying the difference in need of sexuality between men and women. To add something personal, it was quite a relief to accept this. For in the past I wanted to be some model for others, and therefore I denied that I had them, as you still do. But now, now I know that emotions are connected to principles, and we cannot function properly without principles, I do not deny them any more. It is, intellectually speaking, far more difficult to program yourself in such a way that the emotions you have guide you to truth, knowledge, proper action, beauty etc, then to deny all of them just because some of them (maybe all) cause much problems. RICHARD: I would never, ever countenance denying emotions ... repression is silly. Nor do I advise expressing them, either. I talk of the elimination of the cause of the emotions ... which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. Then there is nothing to control ... nor a controller to do any controlling anyway. With no feelings – and especially passions – running the show, then there is no need for principles ... nor morals or values or ethics or any of those coping mechanisms. Because with the extinction of ‘me’ in ‘my’ totality I am always happy and harmless. Whatever the circumstances, I am always able to spontaneously act in the way that is of optimum benefit to one and all. I can rely upon myself completely, totally, absolutely. All my thoughts are benevolent ... always. For example: I do not have to ‘think loving thoughts’ because I never think hateful thoughts ... and so on. No feelings whatsoever (by which I mean also those instinctual passions) means no ‘thinker’ ... because there is no ‘feeler’ polluting thought. * KONRAD: Most people are completely ignorant about ethics, and questions pertaining to the distinction between good and evil. Not everybody is aware of the fact, that Ayn Rand has given an objective basis to ethics, and therefore for an objective distinction between good and evil. I connect an explanation of her ethics which basically shows clearly that the difference between good and evil is grounded in the objectively existing difference between life and death. Life and death also connect ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’. Read it, and you will receive an introduction to questions pertaining to human conditioning. RICHARD: I have eliminated the need for conditioning. I have no need for ethics whatsoever. (...) MS. AYN RAND: ‘The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: does man need values at all – and why?’ KONRAD: I see from your mail that this is exactly what you do and defend. You do not ask this question. Neither did I in the past, by the way. It is exactly this point that was so revolutionary about the understanding of the term ‘ethics’ as brought forward by Ayn Rand. I think that she was the first who had a clear understanding of the concept of ‘ethics’ in general. At least, she was the first who distinguished ‘ethics’ from ‘an ethics’. RICHARD: This is because she needs ethics. Like you, she would presumably still get infuriated and have to have emotion-backed principles in order to manage to operate and function in a socially acceptable manner even when driven by the instinctual animal urges of fear and aggression that blind nature endows all sentient beings with. In other words: her writing shows that she is still a victim of the human condition ... like you she is encumbered by an affective ‘being’ that needs to be controlled. MS. AYN RAND: ‘Most philosophers have now decided to declare that reason has failed, that ethics is outside the power of reason, that no rational ethics can ever be defined, and that in the field of ethics – in the choice of his values, of his actions, of his pursuits, of his life’s goals – man must be guided by something other than reason. By what? Faith / instinct / intuition / revelation / feeling / taste / urge / wish / whim. Today, as in the past, most philosophers agree that the ultimate standard of ethics is whim (they call it ‘arbitrary postulate’ or ‘subjective choice’ or ‘emotional commitment’)-and the battle is only over the question of whose whim: one’s own or society’s or the dictator’s or God’s. Whatever else they may disagree about, today’s moralists agree that ethics is a subjective issue and that the three things barred from its field are: reason-mind-reality. If you now wonder why the world is now collapsing to a lower and ever lower rung of hell, this is the reason. If you want to save civilization, it is this premise of modern ethics-and of all ethical history-that you must challenge’. KONRAD: So Ayn Rand sees the ‘human condition’ as the result of taking rationality not seriously enough, and confusing certain irrational decisions for rational ones. RICHARD: Nevertheless, like you, she would presumably still get infuriated and have to have emotion-backed principles in order to manage to operate and function in a socially acceptable manner even when driven by the instinctual animal urges of fear and aggression that blind nature endows all sentient beings with. In other words: her writing shows that she is still a victim of the human condition ... like you she is encumbered by an affective ‘being’ that needs to be controlled.(...) MS. AYN RAND: ‘The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of the welfare of others-and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is mans highest moral purpose’. KONRAD: See, how her discussion moves very gradually from ethics to the social domain. In effect she is wording here the principle of selfishness. For what she says here, in essence, is that every individual has the right to put his own interest above that of others. Not in the sense that he should consider others as means to his own purposes. On the contrary, everybody should recognize that he/she himself should first consider his/her happiness first, and should be cognisance of the fact, that this applies to everybody. In particular this means that you cannot lay any claim to the means and time of others without taking the wishes of this other into account. For as much as you should put your happiness first, you must also recognize that this principle applies to others, too. This causes you to always have consideration for your fellow man/woman. This having consideration for others is, according to Ayn Rand, the result of selfishness. Not in the form of egotism, but in the form of a general principle. Now many people confuse this form of selfishness as altruism. For is altruism not the same as being kind and considerate for your fellow man/woman? No, it is not, according to Ayn Rand. On the contrary. Altruism as a general principle means, that our lives should be put into the service of others. As a moral social principle it causes you to not only making your time and means available to others, but it also causes you to lay claim on the time, attention, and means of others, and to consider this to be self-evident. But this is exactly the opposite as kindness and being considerate towards others. As a moral principle it not only causes you to not being kind to others, but you are not even kind to yourself. For, whenever you become rich, you feel guilty. This is one of the points Bhagwan was also making. Only he did not make it as clear as Ayn Rand did. RICHARD: Altruism is sacrificing what you personally hold most dear for the good of the whole. The only altruism that is truly effective is when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – for 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 ‘your’ moment of glory. It is ‘your’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘your’ petty life all worth while. Thus ‘your’ ultimate altruistic sacrifice ensures peace-on-earth. Also, 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. (...) MS. AYN RAND: ‘When a ‘desire’, regardless of its nature or cause, is taken as an ethical primary, and the gratification of any and all desires is taken as an ethical goal (such as ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’) – men have no choice but to hate, fear and fight one another, because their desires and their interests will necessarily clash’. KONRAD: This is, according to the ethics of Ayn Rand, the root cause of war. In effect she says, that if people are programmed in their ethics to behave in such a way, that they put the desires of others, or a collective that might include themselves above that of their own, which is in her eyes the same as altruism, war will result. This is why she sees altruism as an evil. RICHARD: Well then ... why do you insist that I read this twaddle? It is so silly. RESPONDENT: Did you follow gurus or shrinks? RICHARD: No. By being born and raised in the West I was not steeped in the mystical religious tradition of the East and was thus able to escape the trap of centuries of eastern spiritual conditioning ... I had never heard the words ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Nirvana’ and so on until 1982 when talking to a man about my breakthrough into freedom via the death of ‘myself’ in September 1981. He listened – he questioned me rigorously until well after midnight – and then declared me to be ‘Enlightened’. I had to ask him what that was, such was my ignorance of all things spiritual. He – being a nine-year spiritual seeker fresh from his latest trip to India – gave me a book to read by someone called Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. That was to be the beginning of what was to become a long learning curve of all things religious, spiritual, mystical and metaphysical for me. I studied all this because I sought to understand what other peoples had made of such spontaneous experiences and to find out where human endeavour had been going wrong. I found out where I had been going wrong for eleven years ... self-aggrandisement is so seductive. As for the ‘shrinks’ ... given that sanity is defined as something like ‘a well-adjusted personality coping with the conflicting demands of both the inner and outer worlds’ then psychiatric medication and psychological counselling are designed to bring those who are suffering from any of three main psychotic categories (Bi-polar Disorder, Schizophrenia and Clinical Depression) and any psychotic/ neurotic sub-categories, back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible (and ‘normal’ is categorised by Mr. Sigmund Freud as ‘common human unhappiness’). No psychiatric or psychological treatment could meet what any ‘I’/ ‘me’ is wanting – and I was looking to go beyond both normal (‘human’) and abnormal (‘divine’) – thus I was seeking to find out, experientially (as I did in other fields) what was the extent and range of other human’s experience and solutions in the West. Psychology and psychiatry has failed just as dismally as theology and spirituality. Yet other humans – some of whom who are downright suspicious of me – have been unable to detect anything untoward at all despite the closest observation possible. There are people here in my daily life who observe me closely – very closely – for all of the waking hours of the day. This kind of scrutiny has been going on for eighteen years now ... and has been fruitless as in regards to finding a fault for the last eight years. No-one has been able to observe a discrepancy between what I say about myself and what they see in my behaviour. No one has been able to observe any trace of an identity or an affective feeling – an emotion or a passion or calenture – in me since 1992. I have been examined by two accredited psychiatrists (and by one of them every three months for more than three years) and also by a psychologist (who followed my condition at three-weekly intervals from March 1994 to January 1997) and I was found to have: 1. Depersonalisation: which is an apt description of being bereft of any identity whatsoever ... there is no one at all (neither ‘I’ as ego nor ‘me’ as soul) to answer back when I ask that time-honoured question: ‘Who am I?’ ... not even a silence that ‘speaks louder than words’. 2. Derealisation: which is an appropriate term because the grim and glum ‘normal’ and humdrum reality of the everyday ‘real world’ as experienced by 6.0 billion people has vanished forever ... along with the loving and compassionate ‘abnormal’ and heavenly ‘True Reality’ of the metaphysical mystical world as experienced by .000001 of the population. 3. Alexithymia: which is the term used to describe the condition of a total absence of feelings – usually exhibited most clearly in lobotomised patients – which has been my on-going condition for many, many years now. It has also come to mean merely being cut off from one’s feelings – as in dissociation – yet the psychiatrists ascertained that I was not dissociating. 4. Anhedonia: which literally means unable to feel pleasure – affectively feeling pleasure in the ‘pleasure centre’ of the brain – as in the feeling of beauty when viewing a sunrise or listening to music and so on. My condition is thus classified as a ‘severe psychotic condition’ in the DSM – IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) which is the diagnostic criteria used by all psychiatrists and psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders. I do find it so cute that an actual freedom from the human condition is considered to be a severe mental disorder. Actual Freedom Homepage
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