# Actual Freedom Library

Related Discussions Richard | 2 | 3 | Peter | 2 | Vineeto _________________________ Related Links Schematic: Our Animal Instincts Instinctual Passions _________________________ Related Questions & Objections What are the Instinctual Passions? What to do with the Instinctual Passions? Can I Survive without Instinctual Passions? No Instinctual Passions No Hormones? No Such Thing as Blind Nature You Cannot Change Human Nature
Please note that the text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.
## Nurture Nurture: 1 Breeding, upbringing, education, as received or possessed by a person. b Moral training or discipline. 2 That which nourishes; nourishment, food. 3 The process of bringing up or training a person, esp. a child; tutelage; fostering care. Also, social environment as an influence on or determinant of personality (opp. nature). Oxford Dictionary Peter: All sentient beings are born pre-primed with certain distinguishing instincts, the main ones being fear, aggression, nurture and desire. They are blind Nature’s rather clumsy software package designed to give one a start in life and to ensure the survival of the species. While absolutely essential in the days of roaming man-eating animals, rampant disease, high infant mortality, these very same instinctual passions now threaten the survival of the species. The instincts only ‘care’ for the survival of the species – the strongest, most aggressive, the crudest. Further, blind nature gives not a fig for your happiness or well-being. We are relentlessly driven, despite our good intentions and moral codes, to act instinctually in each and every situation in our lives and this is the cause of all our angst and confusion. Usually we divide our instinctual passions into groupings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and try either to repress or deny the ‘bad’ ones – fear and aggression – while giving full vent and validity to the ‘good’ ones – nurture and desire. Nurture is essentially the instinct to procreate, provide for, protect and pass on any knowledge, customs, morals, ethics and beliefs to the next generation. By nurture one is ‘compelled’ to blindly defend one’s ‘own’ – regardless of the sensibleness and appropriateness of the action. Nurture causes us to care for, comfort and protect those we consider our ‘own’ and leads to dependency, jealousy, empathy, duty, sacrifice for others and needless heroism. Nurture also causes us to feel sorrow for ourselves and others similarly afflicted persons, to desperately cling to others for comfort and solace. Women are programmed to reproduce the species and men are programmed to provide for, and protect, the offspring – a blind and unremitting instinctual drive. When nurture fails within the species, as it inevitably does, we turn to animals, pets, trees, ‘endangered’ species, ‘mother’ earth and other non-reciprocating, safe objects. For the spiritual seeker, the journey ‘in’ is a journey to find one’s instinctual self – one’s roots, one’s original face, the Source, etc. If, on this inner journey, one ignores or denies the passions of aggression and fear and concentrates one’s attention on the passions of nurture and desire, one can shift one’s identity from the psychological thinking neo cortex – the ‘ego’ to use their term – and ‘become’, or associate with, or identify with, the good feelings of nurture and desire. This is a seductive and self-gratifying journey, for one is actively promoting the flow of chemicals that give rise to the good, pleasant, warm, light-headed, heart-full and ultimately ecstatic feelings. These flow of chemicals overwhelm the neo-cortex to such an extent that they become one’s primary experience, and the input of the physical world as perceived by the senses and the clear-thinking ability of the cognitive modern brain are both subjugated – or ‘transcended’ to use their term. One then ‘feels’ one has found one’s original ‘self’, which one has of course, though t’is all but a fantasy of one’s imagination. Thankfully there is a third alternative, which is the total elimination of one’s ‘self’ in total – the whole of the amygdala’s instinctual programming that gives rise to the animal passions.

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