# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Fear RESPONDENT: Fear is practically the source of all evil. RICHARD: Agreed. RESPONDENT: At the moment of pure fear (that is just a label) there is something indescribable. RICHARD: It is not ‘indescribable’ at all ... it is the adrenaline coursing through your veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). Of course it can be described ... and in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. RESPONDENT: In pure fear, there is only fear. Whatever you write above is after-the-fact. RICHARD: It is not ‘after-the-fact’ at all, it is what is happening at that very moment. If there is not the feeling of fear happening, (and the Oxford Dictionary describes this feeling as ‘the instance of a painful emotion caused by the sense of impending danger’) then it is not fear but something else. And this feeling of fear has characteristics that peoples who are interested in communicating honestly with each other can relate to. Viz.: adrenaline coursing through one’s veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). And such genuinely communicating peoples can describe it in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. RESPONDENT: Not that those things do not take place at the time of fear ... RICHARD: Good ... this is what I have been saying all along. May I ask? Have you just been arguing for the sake of arguing? RESPONDENT: ... but the description, it comes later. RICHARD: Not if one is at all aware ... in my experience all those years ago, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body would ‘sit with it’ as it were and directly experience it as it was happening as the fear which it was (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ... ‘I’ observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist. Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ ... and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’). The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ ... and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. RESPONDENT: But if you are afraid [apprehensive, embarrassed, concerned, have aversion] of using a video camera ... RICHARD: If I may point out? There is no fear here in this actual world ... nor any disquiet, disquietude, inquietude, uneasiness, nervousness, nervous tension, apprehension, apprehensiveness, sheepishness, shyness, timidity, timidness, timorousness, butterflies in the stomach, embarrassment, anxiousness, fretfulness, funk, jitters, blue funk, quailing, quaking, quavering, heebie-jeebies, appalment, worry, worriment, insecurity, anxiety, angst, alarm, agitation, palpitation, perturbation, trepidation, fright, affright, being scared, being frightened, being afraid, being spooked, fearfulness, awe, foreboding, panic, terror, horror, horrification, petrifaction or dread. RESPONDENT: ... why don’t you continue using your audio recorder and make the files available, as you do with the zip files? RICHARD: Because it is the content of the words which is important and not the sound of them as produced by this voice box. RESPONDENT: Wouldn’t it be easier than transcribing them? RICHARD: The only conversations I have ever recorded are the ones already transcribed – and which are available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site – and I have never recorded any more since then (May – July 1997). That experiment is over, finished, done with. RESPONDENT: Richard, lately I’ve noticed during my moments of contemplation I trigger some form of ASC. In this ASC, there is an overwhelming silence in my mind; this contrasts heavily to the normal state of functioning I experience wherein songs constantly play through my head. The disturbing part of the experience is this extreme sense of revulsion and absolute disgust in my stomach, literally a sense of wanting to vomit. Furthermore, there is a sense of meaninglessness. Now, as far as the silence goes, you’ve mentioned somewhere in the correspondence sections about looking into the mirror after the second experience with your brain stem and asking ‘who’ you were without receiving an answer – the answer not even being the ‘silence that speaks louder than words’ but rather being a response to the question ‘what am I?’ (the answer being the body). I would want to equate this silence I experience with the ‘silence that speaks louder than words,’ for the sense of ‘Self’ is still fully apparent in this moments. But did you ever come across the feeling of disgust? RICHARD: Oh, yes ... the feeling of disgust/ revulsion/ repugnance/ repulsion is part and parcel of the attraction/ aversion package of desire – genetically-endowed by virtue of its fitness towards ensuring survival – and is quite primal (a smell, for example, goes directly to the brain-stem) to the point it may very well have been, as is evidenced in single-celled/ simple-celled creatures, the initial nerve reaction upon which the entire nervous system (which includes the brain proper) develops. In concert with other instinctual passions that hedonic attraction/ aversion discrimination underpins sympathy/ antipathy ... out of which affinity/ enmity emerges. RESPONDENT: The only other experience mentioned on the site anywhere is about experiencing a sense of ‘meaningless and purposelessness’ while using the method, and to recall a PCE at that time. Indeed, the three characteristics are nausea, silence, and meaninglessness. RICHARD: The apprehension of meaninglessness/ purposelessness can, in itself, induce emotional/ mental nausea upon a resultant grim foreboding – a desolatory (forsaken, dismal, wretched) or bleak presage – ensuing. * RESPONDENT: I’ve yet to have a ‘significant’ PCE so far, though small ones come here and there. I’m actively breaking down the social identity in an attempt to trigger the ‘significant’ PCE. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the deprogramming from society, which is something I’ve done for some time now even before I encountered the AF website. Now with the organized method of AF, I’m able to seriously get down to business – and what a grand business it is. RICHARD: Aye ... when one gets a handle on it all it can be such fun (as well as immensely rewarding) finding out what makes one tick. * RESPONDENT: If nothing else, at least the fact that I’ve triggered any form of ASC means that my social identity has enough of a dent in it for such a thing to happen – a by-product, a landmark, a road sign, if you will. Yet the ASC I mentioned is most certainly worthless in terms of seeking it permanently. RICHARD: Okay, but do watch out for aversion flipping to its opposite, though, especially via any grim foreboding/ bleak presage, inherent to meaninglessness/ purposelessness, slipping into being a dire foreboding – a minatory (ominous, baleful, menacing) or sinister presage – and thence to an awful foreboding ... a reconciliatory (awing, humbling, reverential) or redemptive presage. I am, of course, only speaking in such a cautionary manner (and from personal experience) simply because you wrote of not finding much about what you were looking for on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. * RESPONDENT: Something else extremely intriguing I discovered while going into the instinctual passions was how the further ‘down’ into ‘my’ core I went, the more my senses were flooded with an altered perception of the environment, much like a buzz one gets from drinking, smoking, or getting high. RICHARD: Yes, the less filtered all experiencing is the more brilliant it all becomes (is). RESPONDENT: That led me to an interesting idea, that the sense of self in the body is nothing more than a biologically programmed chemical high of the body that simply happens to run full time, usually trapped under innumerable layers of social morals and values. RICHARD: There is no doubt that identity at root – as a rudimentary feeling ‘being’ (an amorphous affective presence, an inchoate feeler/ incipient intuiter) – can trigger off all manner of chemicals ... yet to conflate cause (a biological programme) and effect (a chemical high) could lead to a treating of the symptoms and not the disease itself. RESPONDENT: Having understood this, the appeal of having a self severely diminishes. RICHARD: Sure ... what about the appeal of being a self, though? RESPONDENT: I feel some interest in seeking escape. There is a subtle fear of letting go. RICHARD: There is always a thrilling aspect to fear – though the terrifying part usually grabs most attention – thus if one can focus on the thrill then the energy previously fuelling terror is channelled into the thrill of meeting one’s destiny. It is all a matter of attention – total attention – plus a steadfast pure intent. * RESPONDENT: By the way, it almost feels as if you are trying to pounce upon me like a cat on a mouse. RICHARD: I am targeting the thinker ... is that you? RESPONDENT: Yes, of course. RICHARD: Good ... peace-on-earth is at stake. RESPONDENT: There is some fear arising when the stakes are revealed. Can that fear be put to order? RICHARD: Yes ... focus upon the thrilling aspect of fear for the ride of a life-time. * RICHARD: Only you can allow yourself to be ‘taken away’. RESPONDENT: As the thinker assuming divided existence through a one-dimensional adulterating of the more than 3-D fullness of that, I doubt ‘I’ am going anywhere. RICHARD: On the contrary ... ‘you’ are going into oblivion for this is ‘your’ birthright. The doorway to freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus 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 accomplishment. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RESPONDENT: It sounds so terrifying. RICHARD: It is terrifying ... which is why so few do it: meeting one’s destiny is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. One needs nerves of steel to allow it to go all the way. RESPONDENT: Does such a statement signify that I am missing the boat? RICHARD: Not necessarily ... terror is a shockingly raw existential experience for anyone. RESPONDENT: Why am I afraid of ending the conflict? RICHARD: Is it that up until now conflict has been ‘my’ raison d’être? Is it that ‘I’ have invested so much into it that it has become ‘my’ very identity? The reason is not all that important ... what is important is: Just do it. * RESPONDENT: I feel some interest in seeking escape. There is a subtle fear of letting go. RICHARD: There is always a thrilling aspect to fear – though the terrifying part usually grabs most attention – thus if one can focus on the thrill then the energy previously fuelling terror is channelled into the thrill of meeting one’s destiny. It is all a matter of attention – total attention – plus a steadfast pure intent. RESPONDENT: Like turning into a skid when rear-traction in a vehicle is lost. It just adds verve. RICHARD: Yes ... if you focus upon the thrilling aspect of fear you are in for the ride of a life-time. * RICHARD: The doorway to freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus 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 accomplishment. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RESPONDENT: It sounds so terrifying. RICHARD: It is terrifying ... which is why so few do it: meeting one’s destiny is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. One needs nerves of steel to allow it to go all the way. RESPONDENT: Well, then ‘I’ can be counted out :-) Fortunately there is something else that may qualify if and when the thinker gets out of the way and there is that proactive fullness of the universe. RICHARD: Yes ... what you call the ‘proactive fullness of the universe’ is what I mean where I say that the essential character of the perfection of the infinitude of this universe which born me, is living me and will die me in due course, is enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. ‘I’ give ‘myself’ permission to allow this moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present) ... and let go the controls. This ‘proactive fullness of the universe’ is enabled only by ‘my’ concurrence ... if ‘I’ procrastinate it will never operate. All one gets by waiting is yet more waiting. What am ‘I’ waiting for? * RESPONDENT: Why am I afraid of ending the conflict? RICHARD: Is it that up until now conflict has been ‘my’ raison d’être? Is it that ‘I’ have invested so much into it that it has become ‘my’ very identity? The reason is not all that important ... what is important is: Just do it. RESPONDENT: Yes, the me needs a problem to assert it self. No problem = harmony = no divided self. RICHARD: Yep ... whatever psychological/ philosophical explanation which satisfies will suffice for now ... what is important is: Just do it. ALAN: It is important at this stage to be extra vigilant. ‘I’ is making some desperate attempts to maintain ‘his’ existence. This morning I have been through ‘See you haven’t made it at all’, sudden panic attacks and waves of tiredness. I am aware it is only ‘me’ panicking and thinking this and I remain unaffected. I keep contemplating ‘What am I experiencing at this moment of being alive?’ and I continue to drift in and out of PCE’s. RICHARD: If you look carefully at a panic attack you will see that they go nowhere. Nothing happens other than the panic – which can climb to a crescendo – but if one stays doing whatever is the normal thing to do at this time of the day, nothing untoward will occur. I became very adept at handling panic attacks – however unpleasant – by doing nothing about them whatsoever. They were simply a nuisance and did not mean anything intrinsic at all ... though one can hang them onto whatever one wishes to at the time and get into all of a sweat about nothing at all. They eventually pass if left to their own devices ... it pays not to feed them with any fuel whatsoever. Doubt is the biggest enemy to face. It is helpful to remember that doubt is a feeling and not a fact. Bear in mind the quality of your numerous PCE’s and just know that if this is what one must go through to be free of the Human Condition ... then so be it. It is all stupid, I know, but so is war and murder and rape and torture and domestic violence and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide. This is the situation we humans find ourselves in and it is not necessarily a breeze to get out of it. If it were, no doubt many people would have done it before, eh? Waves of tiredness I can relate to too. My current companion is experiencing much, much tiredness at this period and dozes off at odd moments for ten to twenty minutes or so ... despite having a full night’s sleep. It is all very strange – and will become even stranger – but it is all okay ... in a peculiar sort of way. A sense of humour is an admirable asset in these situations! * ALAN: I also managed to get hold of the book you suggested, ‘Collision With The Infinite’, by Suzanne Segal, which gives an interesting perspective on the subject. She appears not to have succumbed to Divine Love and Compassion when her ego ‘disappeared’ – or at least not until some years later, when she came under the influence of various ‘Gurus’. The prevalent (and almost constant) emotion she had until she discovered ‘Love’ was fear. The question which arose for me, when reading her book, was who was feeling this fear? RICHARD: The rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings – hence it is an atavistic fear – which is the incipient ‘Self’ in humans by whatever name (the Zen Buddhists call it ‘Original Face’) ... it is one’s ‘being’. ALAN: In relation to your own experiences, you have said you experienced dread and angst after the dissolution of your ‘soul’ in 1992. Who was feeling this dread? RICHARD: It was all a severe mental agitation seeking resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) and it is indecision that causes anxiety. It is a classic example of the cause of panic ... two conflicting choices cancelling each other out creates either a freezing up – unable to think – or a deluge of racing thoughts (you will find this in any psychiatric text-book). That this disconcerting perplexity was only cerebral was evidenced by no sweaty palms, no increased heartbeat, no rapid breathing, no palpations in the solar plexus ... none of those things connected with ‘being’. If I were to look in a mirror during that period and ask ‘who am I’ there was no answer – not even ‘the silence that speaks louder than words’ that I had been experiencing for eleven years – yet the answer to ‘what am I’ was patently obvious and undeniable ... I am this body. The cognitive anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model). In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. This was no ‘dark night of the soul’ – which I knew from 1981 – this was something else ... beyond either psychiatric or mystic human experience. It was pretty freaky stuff for a mere boy from the farm – who was he to set himself up to be the final arbiter of human experience – and what was I doing in this territory anyway? What had I become? No self or Self (Depersonalisation)? No reality or Reality (Derealisation)? No feeling or Being (Alexithymia)? No beauty or Truth (Anhedonia)? In the context of physical human experience this was a severe mental disorder ... a psychotic condition according to the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders – fourth edition – the diagnostic criteria used by all Psychiatrists and Psychologists around the world for diagnosing mental disorders). On top of that was the obvious fact that everybody else other than me – especially the revered and respected ‘Great Teachers’ of antiquity – were insane ... which is a classic indication of insanity in itself. I do consider it so cute that freedom from the human condition is considered a mental disorder. * ALAN: An aside to write of the outstanding PCE I have just had while it is fresh: it only lasted a few minutes and was occasioned by reading the next few paragraphs and deciding what to reply. I was contemplating that what you wrote was correct – ‘‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history’ and suddenly ‘got it’. ‘I’ only imagine that ‘I’ began existence with this body. ‘I’ have never actually existed, do not actually exist and will never actually exist. WHAMMM!!! As in every PCE, everything was immediately clear and obvious, life was perfect, amazing and full of wonder. Then, intense pressure at the base of the skull – like nothing I have ever experienced before. A flash of dread. A knowledge that this was to be the death of ‘me’. A realisation that this was the moment and there was nothing to fear as it was only ‘me’ feeling fear and fear did not actually exist. I let go of the controls!!! Shaking so much I can hardly write. Fear and excitement. Riding the wave. What an adventure. And Richard is correct – altruism is necessary. ‘I’ cannot do this thing or rather ‘I’ cannot will this thing. It has to be ‘my’ sacrifice for the whole of humanity. It is the only thing ‘I’ can do. ‘I have no choice. The seeing that ‘I’ am ‘my’ instincts and therefore responsible for all of the suffering is too, too much for ‘me’ to bear. And then ... ‘I’ copped out. Obviously ‘I’ want to remain in existence a bit longer! RICHARD: I can recall the ‘Richard’ that was getting chicken-feet at the crucial moment and desiring to return to the familiar and comfortable ... except that when ‘he’ did regain normality ‘he’ regretted not taking advantage of the opportunity presented. Accordingly, the next in PCE ‘he’ went a little further – pushing the envelope – before backing-off once again. Eventually one gets to the point where courage (or the lack thereof) is no longer applicable. Then one is just doing it, anyway, irregardless of the imagined dangers inherent. ALAN: And all of this sitting at the kitchen table!! This is obviously the way to go. As I write this there is a knowledge, a certainty, that ‘I’ am going to ‘give up’ – whether it be hours, days or months. Ah well, that is the end of that little adventure, for the moment anyway – and all I’m left with is ... a pain in the neck. The sensation was, and is, as though there is an unused muscle there, very stiff and it hurts a bit to use it. I cannot describe the sensation I felt. You describe it as ‘something turning over’. Well it has not ‘turned over’ yet but it moved a hell of a lot. If I had stuck with it an instant longer, that would have been it – next time, no cop outs!! RICHARD: It is important to be friends with oneself ... no berating oneself for ‘chickening-out’ (because, as you said above, ‘it is, indeed, a strange state of affairs’). MARK: Richard, as I start to write this to you it feels good to be talking via e-mail. I enjoyed very much talking with you the other day – it is indeed a pleasure to have come across an actual individual. One of the things we discussed briefly was the physical stuff that I had been going through and my fears around that. As it turns out, I went for my annual check to see if the cancer I had was still in remission (which it has been for four years) but this was not so – the disease has become active again (the new tumour removed). Now the last time I found out that I had cancer I treated it mostly as a psychosomatic disease and ‘healed it’ the new age way with an eclectic mix of all sorts of blah, blah and ‘rearranged the furniture on the titanic’ (love that expression!) somewhat and some physical measures as well. I have no idea which (if any) of these measures ‘did the trick’. I realise that this doesn’t change the goalposts for me at all. All I can do is proceed, with pure intent to continue to nibble away at ‘me’. Do you have a view point about diseases such as this, ie. caused by the resentful entity or simply physiological or genetic – if you have looked into this I would like to hear your observations. RICHARD: There is such a thing as psychosomatic ailments and a ‘resentful entity’ is not going to ameliorate matters, to say the least, and can very well exacerbate any situation. Nevertheless, peoples who make money printing books and doing workshops by creating the impression that attitude – ‘negative and positive thinking’ – and diet, lifestyle and alternative and/or traditional medicines are the miraculous elixir for physical health and that Western medicine is somewhat akin to the work of the devil have a lot to answer for. Not for nothing do the wealthy Indians and Chinese and other ‘flavours of the month’ drop their culture’s medicines like a hot potato and hot-foot it First Class to London or New York for the best treatment their cash can buy when the going gets tough. I was watching one of those ‘save the rainforests’ television series some time back and the thrust of the argument was that the vanishing tribes had a treasure of oral information about the thousands and thousands of natural herbal remedies that would be lost if I and my fellow couch-potatoes somehow did not do something to save the day. This disinformation is somewhat at odds with the other ‘Golden Age’ dream so beloved by those disenchanted with the twentieth century ... those dreamy idealists who fancy that the original peoples were a healthy bunch due to simplistic life-style, diet and attitude! For sure, a stressed-out and competitive nerve-ridden executive living on junk-food and pills breathing the pollution-ridden air of a car-crammed city ringed by smoking factory chimneys can bring upon a heart attack at age forty eight ... but the average life-span in the West is more than twice what it was last century and three times that of the ‘Noble Savage’. As the genetics of the human body are slowly being mapped (some estimates are that it will be complete by 2002) a picture is emerging that increasingly points to a genetic predisposition for many ailments that beset people around the world irregardless of race, age, gender or lifestyle ... and can be found in mummified bodies from thousands of years ago. Now, while there is a tendency to overdo it and blame literally everything upon a genetic predisposition in some circles, only but the most myopic could deny the increasing body of demonstrative evidence ... but opposition to genetic engineering will continue for some time due to the common human proclivity to resist change and embrace a new discovery. Even so, the scientific approach will continue to make inroads on the previously debilitating or fatal diseases that have racked civilisations since time immemorial – and make mistakes along the way and cause problems in the process – but the overall result is astonishing, to say the least. An anecdotal report: a person I know had a tumour in the brain seventeen years ago – the entire pituitary gland was surgically removed – and along with radiation therapy is alive today. This could not have happened in traditional cultures. On the other hand, another person has had a soft tissue cancer – in remission for six years – now diagnosed as having spread to the bone ... and is sensibly declining the enervating chemotherapy which can do nothing but make their remaining days miserable. Another anecdotal report: a woman had a severe twinge in the groin some years ago and visited alternative healers ... a naturopath, for example, examined her and prescribed a mixture of various remedies and declared, among other organs, her ovaries sound via iridology. A week later an emergency operation – with the full gamut of modern western hygienic surgical procedures – removed an ovarian cyst the size of a small football. And I am currently awaiting the surgical removal of a minor skin cancer. * MARK: Did I mention conjecture anywhere? Richard, would you comment on this? In particular the instincts in a newborn human ... when, where, how? RICHARD: ‘When’? At conception. ‘Where’? At the top of the brain-stem where it joins the base of the skull. ‘How’? The evolutionary result of maybe 50,000 years (Home Sapiens) or 100,000 years (Homo Erectus) of operation of the survival mechanism. (Given that these tens of thousands of years that biologists, anthropologists, palaeontologists and their ilk toss around with aplomb are highly speculative figures). Those people, who have dedicated themselves to the particular type of research that painstakingly looks into these matters, have located at least four basic emotions in what is variously called the ‘primitive brain’ or the ‘lizard brain’ or the ‘reptilian brain’, which is located at the top of the brain-stem of all sentient creatures. This is regardless of whether the creature has a developed ‘bigger brain’ – like the human cerebral cortex – over the top of it or not. These basic instinctual passions are fear and aggression and nurture and desire ... there are more but scientists tend to disagree about matters scientific according to what school or discipline they are working in. For example: fear. I have recently been browsing the work of Mr. Joseph LeDoux, who writes: • [quote]: ‘The brain has multiple memory systems (...) explicit (conscious) memories mediated by the hippocampus and other aspects of the temporal lobe memory system [and] implicit (unconscious) memories mediated by the amygdala and its neural connections. Only by taking these systems apart in the brain have neuroscientists been able to figure out that these are different kinds of memory, rather than one memory with multiple forms of expression (...) it has been possible, through studies of experimental animals, to map out in great detail just how the fear system of the brain works. Although much of the research has involved laboratory rats, there have also been studies of a variety of other mammals. Remarkably, the results in all these species lead to the same conclusion. Learning and responding to stimuli that warn of danger involves neural pathways that send information about the outside world to the amygdala, which determines the significance of the stimulus and triggers emotional responses, like freezing or fleeing, as well changes in the inner workings of the body’s organs and glands. There is also evidence that the amygdala of reptiles and birds has similar functions. The implication of these findings is that early on (perhaps since dinosaurs ruled the earth, or even before) evolution hit upon a way of wiring the brain to produce responses that are likely to keep the organism alive in dangerous situations. The solution was so effective that it has not been messed with much, and works pretty much the same in rats and people, as well as many if not all other vertebrate animals. Evolution seems to have gone with an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ rule when it comes to the fear system of the brain (...) research into the brain mechanisms of fear help us understand why emotional conditions are so hard to control. Neuro-anatomists have shown that the pathways that connect the emotional processing system of fear, the amygdala, with the thinking brain, the neocortex, are not symmetrical – the connections from the cortex to the amygdala are considerably weaker than those from the amygdala to the cortex. This may explain why, once an emotion is aroused, it is so hard for us to turn it off at will’. (‘The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life’; Copyright © Joseph LeDoux 1996; Publisher: Touchstone Books (Reprint edition March 1998); ISBN: 0684836599). Despite dealing with people’s feelings every day, few therapists can give more than a basic explanation of what exactly instinctual passion is (what neurobiologists call ‘emotion’), and how it influences human functioning. Evolutionary biology plays a strong role in what Mr. Joseph LeDoux calls ‘the emotional brain’, those emotional drives which are inherited from humans’ prehistoric ancestors, such that conscious (explicit) emotional experience can be easily seen as higher-order forms of the sub-conscious survival instinctual (implicit) passions ... if one examines oneself moment-to moment. One critic of his book ‘The Emotional Brain’ wrote: [quote]: ‘LeDoux, a neuroscience researcher, shows that our emotions are generated by separate independent neuro systems which work unconsciously; believe it or not, we do NOT run because we are afraid, but rather we are afraid because we run. He also shows that the emotional systems have a much greater impact on our rational conscious than the rational conscious has on the emotional systems. Passion rules reason. This has tremendous implications for the current thinking in psychology/ psychiatry (although they will be slow to pick up on it). And it explains why man has so much angst, why we don’t learn from history, why man is so brutal’. [endquote]. Another critic wrote: [quote]: ‘Joseph LeDoux, a professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University, has written the most comprehensive examination to date of how systems in the brain work in response to emotions, particularly fear. Among his fascinating findings is the work of amygdala structure within the brain. The amygdala mediates fear and other responses and actually processes information more quickly than other parts of the brain, allowing a rapid response that can save our lives before other parts of the brain have had a chance to react’. [endquote]. VINEETO: Senses are operating but nobody is seeing or hearing and then there is no difference between me and the desk I am seeing, no distance, no ‘I’. Last night I experienced life beyond ‘being’, in a strange way hollow, but very alive and sensate. Now I slowly, slowly can examine the plastic between the stubbies, what it is made of, because recognised it disappears. Sometimes it is fear, sometimes a feeling, sometimes a sense of continuity, of having past and future and definition. RICHARD: When there is no difference between ‘me and the desk I am seeing’ then this is the actual world ... as distinct from the real world that ‘I’ create by ‘being’ and wherein ‘I’ reside. Once again, I am interested in your description ‘in a strange way hollow’. Do you mean ‘hollow’ as in empty of ‘being’? (‘Hollow’ can imply a negative experience but I discount that as you say ‘very alive and sensate’.) Your examination of the ‘plastic between the stubbies’ (great descriptive prose that) reveals, you say, fear (which I delineate as an instinctive passion all sentient beings are born with); feeling (by which I am assuming you mean emotion as distinct from passion); continuity (which is a feeling of ‘being’ over time); past and future (also continuity as in ‘being’ but more from thought than feeling) ... and definition. Your use of the word ‘definition’ brings me back to your ‘strangely enough no form’ description above and I relate ‘definition’ with ‘outline’ ... as I wrote in Article 9 of ‘Richard’s Journal’: ‘What one discovers, time and again, is that the personal boundaries that one feels so safely protected by, are made up of ‘my’ accrued beliefs as to who ‘I’ am. This is ‘my’ outline ... yet the outline of this construct creates an enormous distance between ‘me’ and the world ‘outside’. At those times of peak experience, the distance disappears all of a sudden as ‘I’ vanish and this actual world is right here, so close that there is no distance any more. This is closer than any affective intimacy ‘I’ have ever longed for. This is a direct experience of actuality ... and I have always been here like this ... so safely here. The outline, the boundary that created the distance, was all in ‘my’ reality. ‘I’ created a substitute security for this original safety ... a safety which has never known any threat, nor ever will. This genuine safety has no need for precautions’. It would appear that the experiential study of fear is germane to any examination of the ‘plastic between the stubbies’ so as to ensure a life beyond ‘being’. VINEETO: Yes, I agree, although often it does not appear as fear, rather a certain hesitancy to fully enjoy the moment, to lash into the sparkles and to become yet more alive – a safe place of ‘this is already enough happiness and pleasure, let’s not rock the boat!’ But since I have nothing else important to do, I might as well rock the boat and become entirely mad! RICHARD: It may not appear as fear but ‘a certain hesitancy’ and ‘a safe place’ and ‘let’s not rock the boat’ all go to indicate fear ... in this paragraph the fear of going mad. Now, some people say: ‘Richard is mad’. From the real world point of view, this observation is entirely correct. The ‘Richard’ that was so very real back in 1981 was deathly afraid of experiencing where I am now ... yet he opened the door marked ‘madness’ and walked through. Then he panicked at his daring and sought to go back ... but the door had vanished. He had no choice but to proceed. There is a thrilling aspect to fear ... and it is the source of courage. RESPONDENT: I am still often confused about feelings and sensations in my body. I can even create them, for example, when I turn lights off and it is dark in the room I feel some childhood fears still lurking inside my mind. A fear of a ‘boogie man, an alien visitor, death etc’ revisits my mind and ... makes me feel uncomfortable. It is nothing overwhelming – but these old feelings from the past are simply still there inside of me. RICHARD: All sentient beings are endowed by blind nature with instincts ... mainly fear and aggression and nurture and desire. The dominant one is fear ... at base fear is both the barrier and the gateway to the actual world. There is nothing so thrilling as a trip through fear ... and then one comes out the other side. There is no fear here, in this actual world where I live. Not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension ... let alone anxiety, angst, fear, terror, horror or dread. It is not a case of ‘facing fear’ ... one can use it to swing through to this actual world ... leaving one’s ‘self’ behind, where it belongs, in the ‘real-world’. RESPONDENT: Actually, [fear] is the reaction: ‘I was afraid and I don’t like it ...’ that creates the self. RICHARD: Okay then: why was ‘I afraid’ in the first place (before the thought ‘I don’t like it’)? Are you saying that to be fearful (purely fearful) is to be selfless? RESPONDENT: ‘I afraid’ is also a response of the memory. RICHARD: Okay then: why is there fear in the first place (before the ‘I afraid’ that is ‘also the response of memory’ which comes before ‘I don’t like it’ which you say creates the self)? Are you saying that to be fearful (purely fearful) is to be selfless? RESPONDENT: In the moment of pure fear, there is no fear. RICHARD: Are you also going to say: ‘in the moment of pure malice, there is no malice’; ‘in the moment of pure abhorrence, there is no abhorrence’; ‘in the moment of pure acerbity, there is no acerbity’; ‘in the moment of pure acrimony, there is no acrimony’; ‘in the moment of pure aggression, there is no aggression’; ‘in the moment of pure anger, there is no anger’; ‘in the moment of pure animosity, there is no animosity’; ‘in the moment of pure antagonism, there is no antagonism’; ‘in the moment of pure antipathy, there is no antipathy’; ‘in the moment of pure aversion, there is no aversion; ‘in the moment of pure bellicosity, there is no bellicosity’; ‘in the moment of pure belligerence, there is no belligerence’; ‘in the moment of pure bitchiness, there is no bitchiness’; ‘in the moment of pure cantankerousness, there is no cantankerousness’; ‘in the moment of pure bitterness, there is no bitterness’; ‘in the moment of pure cattiness, there is no cattiness’; ‘in the moment of pure despisal, there is no despisal’; ‘in the moment of pure detestation, there is no detestation’; ‘in the moment of pure disgust, there is no ‘disgust; ‘in the moment of pure enmity, there is no enmity’; ‘in the moment of pure envy, there is no envy’; ‘in the moment of pure evil, there is no evil’; ‘in the moment of pure hate, there is no hate’; ‘in the moment of pure hostility, there is no hostility’; ‘in the moment of pure loathing, there is no loathing’; ‘in the moment of pure moodiness, there is no moodiness; ‘in the moment of pure rancour, there is no rancour’; ‘in the moment of pure repugnance, there is no repugnance; ‘in the moment of pure spitefulness, there is no spite’; ‘in the moment of pure vengefulness, there is no vengeance; ‘in the moment of pure wrath, there is no wrath’ and so on and so on? RESPONDENT: Fear as we know is but an after-thought. RICHARD: Pure fear is an affective feeling ... a passion. It has nothing to do with thought. RESPONDENT: There is just the preparedness of the body to meet with situations. RICHARD: You are way out on your own in the scientific field of biology here, because ‘the preparedness of the body to meet with situations’ is known as the ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction ... and the body is brimming with adrenaline. In other words: pure fear. This is what science looks like ... not that pseudo-science you are coming out with. * RESPONDENT: Well, ‘pure fear’ is the description – what happens in such a moment is indescribable under best of the situations, scientific or otherwise. RICHARD: It is not ‘indescribable’ at all ... it is the adrenaline coursing through your veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). Of course it can be described ... and in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. * RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti correctly points out: word fear is not the fear. RICHARD: Of course the word ‘fear’ is not fear itself ... it is a name for it so that we can communicate. Do you take me to be an idiot? Some other correspondent came out with similar twaddle (offering me the word ‘coffee’ instead of the actual substance) and this is just as silly. Look, fear is the adrenaline coursing through your veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on. Observing this, in both oneself and in others – and in animals – this is ‘observing with the objectivity of a scientist’. RESPONDENT: And I fail to see how can such a thing ever be observed in a dualistic manner. RICHARD: Where have I ever said that knowledge can only be ‘observed in a dualistic manner’ ? That is your stance ... not mine. The human brain is quite capable of not only observing what is happening in itself but observing that it is observing what is happening in itself at the same time. This remarkable ability even has a name: apperception. RESPONDENT: At the moment of pure fear (that is just a label) there is something indescribable. RICHARD: It is not ‘indescribable’ at all ... it is the adrenaline coursing through your veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). Of course it can be described ... and in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. RESPONDENT: And a moment later, the memory responds and categorizes the experience as fear. RICHARD: In my experience, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), I would ‘sit with it’ as it were and experience it as it was happening as fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because I wanted to know, I wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ... I observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti got it right: observer is the observed. RICHARD: What I have noticed, in this thread, is that you have repeatedly fallen back on Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s words whenever there is an opportunity to explore new ground RESPONDENT: Body’s instinctive responses are not fear. RICHARD: There are numerous instincts – and there is dissension among biologists as to which is what and where – but they all more or less acknowledge that (what I categorise as fear and aggression and nurture and desire for convenience and consistency) are more or less common to all sentient beings. You are way out on your own in the scientific field of biology here, because ‘the body’s instinctive response’ is known as the ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction ... and the body is brimming with adrenaline. In other words: pure fear. This is what science looks like ... not that pseudo-science you are coming out with. RESPONDENT: That is body’s own intelligence. RICHARD: Are you trying to tell me that it is intelligent to panic and lash out blindly? I was in the military for six years as a youth and young man ... I have seen the ‘body’s own intelligence’ in action ... and no way would I call that intelligent. RESPONDENT: It is the memory, the trace of that response, that is what we fear. Not body’s responses. RICHARD: At the precise moment of actual danger – at that very exact instant – memory does not function ... there is nothing but the instinctual response. And this instinctive response is known as the ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction ... and the body is brimming with adrenaline. In other words: pure fear. * RICHARD: And all sentient beings are born with this fear. RESPONDENT: All sentient bodies are born with natural intelligence to respond to situations. RICHARD: Aye ... and they are called instincts. Basically, the survival instincts are known as fear and aggression and nurture and desire (allowing for dissension among various biologist according to their school) and peoples like yourself choose to call the instinctual response the ‘natural intelligence’ of the body. As intelligence is defined as: (Oxford Dictionary): ‘The faculty of understanding; intellect; quickness or superiority of understanding, sagacity; the action or fact of understanding something; knowledge, comprehension (of something)’ I cannot see how instincts have the faculty of understanding (as in intellect) which has the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) and the capacity for the action or fact of understanding (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something). Or to put it another way: I cannot see how the instinctive adrenaline-driven ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction shows the ability to reflect, plan and implement considered activity ... which is intelligence in operation. RESPONDENT: Fear is always in the past. RICHARD: No ... thinking about fear is in the past, but at the actual moment of fear there is only fear. And at the moment, thought does not necessarily operate ... there is the instinctual ‘freeze or fight or flight’ reaction operating full blast. RESPONDENT: The observer is the fear. RICHARD: Yes ... this is ‘I’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. RESPONDENT: The after-thought, the thought: ‘it shouldn’t have happened to me’ ‘I don’t like it’ etc. ... these are the harbingers of fear. RICHARD: Yes ... thinking about fear – even if sitting safely in one’s own home when there is no immediate danger – can trigger off the full array of fear (ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread). But fear exists prior to thought ... thought does not create fear: it already exists. RESPONDENT: I don’t know. I think thinking triggers those responses. RICHARD: Yes ... that is what I am agreeing with (‘thinking about fear – even if sitting safely in one’s own home when there is no immediate danger – can trigger off the full array of fear’). But the point I am making is that thinking triggers the already existing fear that all sentient beings are born with ... and fear is an instinctual passion. It has a prior existence to thought; fear has been and can be observed in animals and in human infants ... and both animals and human infants cannot think. Why is this fact so difficult to acknowledge? * RESPONDENT: In pure fear, there is only fear. Whatever you write above is after-the-fact. RICHARD: It is not ‘after-the-fact’ at all, it is what is happening at that very moment. If there is not the feeling of fear happening, (and the Oxford Dictionary describes this feeling as ‘the instance of a painful emotion caused by the sense of impending danger’) then it is not fear but something else. And this feeling of fear has characteristics that peoples who are interested in communicating honestly with each other can relate to. Viz.: adrenaline coursing through one’s veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on (leading to ‘freeze’ or ‘fight’ or ‘flight’). And such genuinely communicating peoples can describe it in nuances ranging from disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension through to anxiety, fear, terror, horror, panic and dread. RESPONDENT: Not that those things do not take place at the time of fear ... RICHARD: Good ... this is what I have been saying all along. May I ask? Have you just been arguing for the sake of arguing? RESPONDENT: ... but the description, it comes later. RICHARD: Not if one is at all aware ... in my experience all those years ago, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body would ‘sit with it’ as it were and directly experience it as it was happening as the fear which it was (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ... ‘I’ observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist. Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ ... and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’). The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ ... and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. RESPONDENT: And for example ‘fear’? In saying so, we are caught in the dichotomy between ‘experience’ and the ‘word’, like a pendulum swinging. RICHARD: Whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (like ‘I’ am). Speaking personally, what ‘I’ would do, all those years ago, was to ‘sit with it’ as it were (being with it), whilst it was happening. By ‘being with it’ – without moving in any direction whatsoever – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ (‘I’ was fear and fear was ‘me’). Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ was, was that fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature bestows on all sentient beings at birth (at conception). Instincts are genetically encoded in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and aggression and nurture and desire). RESPONDENT: The statement pertains to the process of listening itself. In listening to that actuality of experience, sometimes there is ‘fear’. The ‘word’ is not the thing implies that the ‘word’ represents a distraction from listening. As you listen, words get thrown out in the brain. There is a constant translation of that experience in terms that we know and speak. And then we remain attached to those words, we hold on to those words for fear of losing them because then we will not be able to talk in the future. But that is not the living essence of listening. We are not concerned just with semantics of the ‘word is not the thing’. RICHARD: Honestly ... I cannot make sense of this that you write here. May I suggest, instead, that the next time fear happens that you ‘be with it’ without moving in any direction whatsoever until it becomes apparent that ‘you are fear and fear is you’? It is so much easier than all this intellectualising ... and far more rewarding. Because it will be the end of ‘you’. RESPONDENT: No. 32 and No. 12 recently spoke about dropping fear. They each claimed an insight that put an end to that particular fear they had. Now when we look at these fears, we see they are irrational, meaning the causal object is not actually a substantial danger. Having insight into the irrational nature of this sort of fear does dispel it irrevocably. And No. 32 running up and down the ladder seems to suggest that the mind was reinforcing the now rational belief that there was nothing to be afraid of. But this has to do with the nature of irrational beliefs. What would happen to a person who says they overcame the fear of heights where the danger was real and present, say in mountain climbing, is left unexplored. RICHARD: A good point ... one can be rid of ‘irrational fear’ by applying reasoned examination born out of the insight that the particular fear was irrational because the causal object was not an actual danger. So far, so good. Now, you say, what about the ‘rational belief’ that there is indeed something to be afraid of, where the danger is real and present, as in mountain climbing? What then of the insight into the nature of ‘irrational fear’, eh? You seem to be saying: What use is that insight where ‘rational fear’ is concerned? And the answer, of course, is: No use whatsoever. So, can one have an insight into the nature of a ‘rational fear’? The question therefore is: Is the term ‘rational fear’ nothing but a justification for the continued existence of fear itself? RICHARD: As ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’ – and if both one and the other are vitally interested – then something rather magical can happen if the conversation is sincerely candid. ‘Humanity’ disappears out of the one or the other or both, and then there is freedom from the Human Condition. The one or the other or both then has an sincere and candid conversation with another vitally interested person and then another similarly fascinated person ... and then they too have an sincere and candid conversation with yet another who is vitally interested ... and so on and so on. It is freedom from the Human Condition that would spread. In other words: peace-on-earth for the individual would spread person by person. Global peace can only happen when each and every person has their individual peace-on-earth. Of course, the excellence of individual autonomy means that it does not matter much whether there is global peace or not ... it would be but an added bonus. RESPONDENT No. 23: Such conversation – similar to that which is going on in this forum – is engendered by fear. We are that fear. Do you know how to end that fear? RICHARD: Yes. (Richard, List B, No. 23, 7 March 1998). RESPONDENT: How would you do that? RICHARD: It is not a question of how would I end that fear ... it is a question of how did I end that fear. Basically, it involves all that I have written about since I came onto this List ... it is the extinction of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety that results in a total and utter dissolution of fear itself. There is no fear here, in this actual world where I live. Not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, fear, terror, horror, dread or existential angst. There is no fear in a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock ... only sentient beings experience fear. Fear is affective; it is an emotion, a passion, and as such is not actual. Fear is a feeling, not a fact. All sentient beings are born with certain distinguishing instincts, the main ones being fear and aggression and nurture and desire. They are blind nature’s – rather clumsy – software package designed to give one a start in life. Contrary to popular belief, they are not hardware, but like all software, they can be deleted ... instincts are not set in concrete. These instincts form a rudimentary self – an emotional entity – situated in the reptilian brain at the top of the brain-stem, in all animals. The human animal, with the unique ability to know its impending demise – and the capacity to think and reflect – has taken this rudimentary self and blown it up all out of proportion into an identity ... no animal has an ‘I’ as an ego in the head, or a ‘me’ as a soul in the heart. All discussion about fear eventually turns around death. This is a fact that needs be faced squarely. To not be is inconceivable; it is impossible to imagine not being because all one has ever known is being. There are no terms of reference to compare against – which is the normal way of thinking – and with no comparison there is no possibility of thought dealing with the fact of death. If pursued diligently, thought gives up the attempt and stops ... it cannot proceed further. The affective rushes in to fill the gap left by the absence of thought and fear turns to dread ... contemplation of extinction invariably turns fear to dread. The instinct to survive takes over and dread flips to its opposite: awe. As it says in some revered scriptures: ‘Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. Most religious and spiritual tracts refer to awe and dread when contemplating the majesty and mystery of some transcendental being lying beyond time and space. Temporal transience is replaced by a firm conviction in a timeless and spaceless divinity that antedates birth and postdates death. Driven by the instinct for survival at any cost – blind nature is rather clumsy – one attempts to transcend the duality of Life and Death and achieve immortality. If successful, ‘I’ disappear and mysteriously reappear as ‘Me’, the eternal soul. One is then apparently without fear because one is ‘Deathless’ ... one is ‘Unborn and Undying’. One disseminates one’s findings to all and sundry, finding a multitude of gullible penitents willing to suspend reason and rationality for a chance at avoiding extinction. Such strange goings-on are the way that the denizens of the real world deal with the existential dilemma of facing the facticity of death’s oblivion. It is called being in a state of denial ... and results in avoidance and escapism. One’s native intelligence is nowhere to be found operating in all this. What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not opposites ... there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not. Now that I am alive, I am. After death I will not be ... just like before birth. Where is the problem? The problem was in the brain-stem, of course. It is the instinct to survive at any cost that was the problem ... backed up by the full gamut of the emotions born out of the four basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. The rudimentary self, transformed into an identity, must be extinguished in order for one to be here, in this actual world of the senses, bereft of this pernicious entity. ‘My’ extinction was the ending of not only fear, but of all of the affective faculties. As this flesh and blood body only, I am living in the paradisiacal garden that this planet earth is. We are all simply floating in the infinitude of this perfect and pure universe ... coming from nowhere and having nowhere to go to we find ourselves here at this moment in time and this place in space. Extinction releases one into actuality ... and this actual world is ambrosial, to say the least. RESPONDENT: By the way, have you read LeDoux’s book ‘The Emotional Brain?’ I’m thinking of buying it. RICHARD: No ... I have read all I need to know from his web-site (plus seeing him in a programme on fear on the ‘Discovery Channel’). It is his detailing of the process of what he calls the ‘quick and dirty’ passionate instinctual reaction milliseconds before the sensory data reaches the thinking cortex which I find important. His speculations (such as the instinctual passions being hard-wired and therefore irremovable) are of no interest to me. He personally acknowledges a dread fear of snakes and, despite all his practical studies, is not going to do anything about it. I have read parts of another book inspired by his discoveries (by Mr. Daniel Goleman) who wrote: • [quote]: ‘A view of human nature that ignores the power of emotions is sadly short-sighted. The very name ‘Homo Sapiens’, the thinking species, is misleading in light of the new appreciation and vision of the place of emotion in our lives that science now offers. As we all know from experience, when it comes to shaping our decisions and our actions, feeling counts every bit as much – and often more – than thought. We have gone too far in emphasising the value and import of the purely rational – of what IQ measures – in human life. Intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway’. (‘Emotional Intelligence’ Copyright © 1995 by Daniel Goleman; Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2 Soho Square, London W1V 6HB; ISBN 0 7475 2803 6). Despite his clear statement of fact: ‘intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway’, and an entire introduction describing Mr. Joseph LeDoux’s finding in detail, the remainder of the book extols the virtues of emotions ... indeed the very name of his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is the giveaway. Another correspondent on the actual freedom mailing list (Alan from the UK) wrote to Mr. Joseph LeDoux about a year ago ... but with no response at all. C’est la vie, I guess. RICHARD: You are born with aggression – and fear – and that biological fact has zilch to do with it being ‘thought that is a danger here’. Which means: How on earth can I live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are whilst I nurse malice and sorrow in my bosom? RESPONDENT No. 31: Yes. This is a fundamental question. Our enquiry starts here. But there is a BELIEF that one is nursing malice and sorrow. RICHARD: If I may point out? It is a fact. You were born with aggression and fear. RESPONDENT No. 31: Why are we not looking beyond that? We first have to look into these beliefs. RICHARD: May I ask? Why are you avoiding the fact? You were born with aggression and fear. RESPONDENT No. 31: I would suggest to keep things simple and converse innocently like a small child. RICHARD: Small children are not innocent ... they are born with aggression and fear. Understanding human nature is as simple as understanding this fact. Life is not complicated. (Richard, List B, No. 31a, 26 May 1999). RESPONDENT: Again here, Richard, you authoritatively make a statement that has no basis in fact. A child is NOT born with aggression and fear. RICHARD: This borrowed ‘Tabula Rasa’ (‘clean slate’) philosophy of yours has had a long innings in human history ... and is currently making a come-back in NDA circles as: ‘We are all born Little Buddhas’. The continued belief in this theory – in the face of the empirical evidence of the past 30 odd years demonstrating genetic inheritance – requires avoiding the biological fact. Just by putting the word ‘NOT’ in capitals does not miraculously turn a creed into a fact. RESPONDENT: Those are learned traits. RICHARD: I had a woman telling me a few weeks ago that boys are born with aggression and little girl babies are not ... and that girls learnt aggression from men (she had to explain ‘bitchiness’ somehow) and that it was men who had to change so that there would be peace on earth. Now you are telling me that fear and aggression are ‘learned traits’ and the question that immediately springs to mind is: learned from who? Because if fear and aggression are passed on non-genetically from generation to generation (parent to child) then what caused fear and aggression in the first sentient beings to emerge on this planet way back whenever. In other words: who started it all? RESPONDENT: Obviously, you were not a very observant parent or grandparent. RICHARD: I not only ‘observed’ my biological children from birth onward, I actively participated in finding out about myself, life, the universe and what it is to be a human being through intimate interaction at the grass-roots level of association ... bonding, nurturing and protecting. Indeed, I was a single parent for a formative period of my biological daughters’ upbringing ... and one cannot get closer than that. Infants and children are not as happy and harmless and benevolent and carefree as is so often made out to be the case ... and have never been so. They have malice and sorrow firmly embedded in them, for one is born with instinctual fear and aggression. Just watch a one month old baby bellowing its distress at being alone; just watch a one year old pinching its sibling in spite for taking its toy; just watch a two year old stamping its foot in a temper tantrum; just watch a three year old child fighting with its peers for supremacy. In the interests of having a sincere dialogue, I must ask: where in all this is the fabulous ‘Tabula Rasa’? The imposition of social mores – moral virtues, ethical values, honourable principles, decent scruples and the like – are essential to curb the instinct-born spiteful anger and vicious hatred that are part and parcel of the essential traits of being ‘human’. To achieve a truly ‘clean slate’, something entirely new must come into existence. All peoples must cease being ‘human’. To change ‘Human Nature’, they must give-up, voluntarily, their cherished identity ... the rudimentary animal self they were born with. JAMES: ‘I’ know that ‘I’ can survive on the known path because that is who ‘I’ am. There is fear of not surviving if I abandon the known path. RICHARD: Is this not another way of saying that, because of ‘my’ fear of death, ‘I’ will carry on suffering for the rest of ‘my’ life? JAMES: Sad, but true. RICHARD: As a matter of interest only: in recent years the practice called ‘acceptance’ (as in ‘I accept myself as I am’) has gained an ever-widening popularity ... leading to what was previously known as ‘resignation’ becoming a virtue. Although this resignation is often artfully disguised as ‘tolerance’ so as to make it palatable. * RICHARD: ... just as ‘I’ suffer because ‘I’ exist (suffering is ‘my’ very nature) ‘humanity’ suffers because it exists (suffering is very nature of ‘humanity’) and thus a virtue is made out of suffering because the survival of ‘humanity’ is at risk ... hence the taboo on escape. Yet ‘humanity’ has no existence outside of the human psyche. JAMES: I understand that ‘humanity’ has no existence outside of the human psyche but feel powerless to do anything about it. Fear has taken on a life of its own as ‘me’. RICHARD: Would it be fair to say then, given that that fear has taken on a life of its own as ‘me’, that ‘I’ create the fearful entity called ‘humanity’ (albeit ‘me’ collectively) by ‘my’ very existence? If so, then if ‘I’, who am fear having taken on a life of its own as ‘me’, were to cease to exist so too would suffering ‘humanity’ cease to exist (albeit in one flesh and blood body) would it not? In other words: is not the taboo on escape, backed-up by suffering being made virtuous, nothing other than an elaborate ploy on the part of billions of ‘me’s to stave off ‘our’ extinction? * JAMES: My current thinking is that no path will deliver the goods. Any path I take is more of ‘me’ trying to escape from ‘me’. RICHARD: Ahh ... but what about the path of no return? So far you have only ever travelled on the path that carries a return ticket. Viz.: [JAMES]: ‘However, since ‘me’ is essentially suffering ‘I’ try to escape through various highs. Once these highs evaporate I am back to being ‘me’ suffering’. [endquote]. Given that the price of the return ticket is yet more suffering – a life-time of suffering in fact – why is it that the price of a one-way ticket is considered too high a price to pay? What price the end of suffering, eh? JAMES: Because the end of suffering is the end of ‘me’. RICHARD: Is this not another way of saying that, because of ‘my’ fear of death, ‘my’ current plan is to not yet set foot upon the path of no return? * JAMES: Yes, there is only now in actuality and ‘I’ can’t do it now because I am not ready. RICHARD: As not being ready implies getting ready, in all reality, then what is your plan? JAMES: I don’t have a plan. RICHARD: Is this because your current thinking is that ‘no path will deliver the goods’ (further above)? * JAMES: The fear of ‘me’ not surviving is keeping me from doing it now. RICHARD: Which is another way of saying that ‘my’ fear of death keeps ‘me’ alive. JAMES: Yes. RICHARD: Okay ... taking it one step further: ‘my’ fear of ‘my’ death keeps ‘me’ alive. * JAMES: Fear is holding ‘me’ in place. ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’. RICHARD: Which is another way of saying that ‘I’ am holding ‘me’ in place. JAMES: Yes. ‘I’ am holding ‘me’ in place as directed by ‘me’. RICHARD: Okay ... taking it that one step further again: ‘I’ am holding ‘me’ in place as directed by ‘my’ fear of ‘my’ death. * JAMES: Fear of not surviving is making ‘me’ addicted to being ‘me’. RICHARD: Which is another way of saying that ‘my’ fear of death makes ‘me’ addicted to suffering. JAMES: Yes. ‘I’ see why ‘I’ am addicted to being ‘me’ (suffering) now. You said it well: ‘‘my’ fear of death makes ‘me’ addicted to suffering’. RICHARD: Okay ... taking it that one step further yet again: ‘my’ fear of ‘my’ death makes ‘me’ addicted to ‘my’ suffering. * RICHARD: In short: it is all in ‘my’ hands and ‘my’ hands alone. JAMES: Yes, which seems unfortunate at the moment. I feel stuck and completely controlled by ‘me’. RICHARD: Is it starting to become a little more obvious that ‘my’ survival fear and ‘my’ essential suffering is only happening in ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) and nowhere else? If so, have you ever wondered what is happening in that somewhere else whilst all this oh-so-real internal trauma is going on? Or, to put that another way, have you never wondered what life after ‘my’ death would be like? * JAMES: ... I want to do it but there is a sense of hopelessness about it. The sense of hopelessness drowns out any feeling of true caring. RICHARD: So, as the sense of hopelessness drowns out the feeling of caring, then start with where one is at now (where one is not yet at will emerge of its own accord as one proceeds): as you say ‘I want to do it’ for ‘me’ then that is where ‘I’ am at now. Do ‘I’ feel the feeling of wanting (aka desiring) to do it for ‘me’ or not? JAMES: A feeling of fear has emerged now. ‘I’ feel cornered. I don’t want to do it for ‘me’ because ‘me’ is in control now and ‘me’ is not having any of ending ‘me’. RICHARD: As the feeling of being cornered is where one is at now then that is where one starts from: as you say that ‘a feeling of fear’ has emerged this is a vital opportunity to look closely at the fear itself (while it is happening) and it will be seen that there are two aspects to fear ... the frightening aspect and the thrilling aspect. Usually the frightening aspect dominates and obscures the thrilling aspect: shifting one’s attention to the thrilling aspect (I often said jokingly that it is down at the bottom left-hand side) will increase the thrill and decrease the fright as the energy of fear shifts its focus and changes into a higher gear ... and, as courage is sourced in the thrilling part of fear, the daring to proceed will intensify of its own accord. But stay with the thrill, by being the thrill, else the fright takes over, daring dissipates, and back out of the corner you come. * JAMES: ‘I’ am telling myself that ‘I’ don’t really want to do it because that will be the end of ‘me’. RICHARD: Ahh ... now to the nub of the issue: have you ever desired oblivion? JAMES: I have desired oblivion but not now. Fear has taken over and ‘I’ want to hide from this inquiry. ‘I’ feel cornered and want to back out. ‘I’ am looking for a way out so I can stick to the known and keep surviving. ‘I’ am afraid of losing the known. RICHARD: Other than retreating back into suffering there is no way out but oblivion ... and going into oblivion is not only a blessed release from the known it is ‘my’ moment of accomplishment as well. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ life worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. RESPONDENT: What I don’t understand is how to commence another period of enjoying this moment when I am, say, feeling panicky in the presence of a spider. RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following excerpt: • [Respondent]: ‘What shall I do when I am experiencing an irrational fear such as fearing a spider? (I definitely wouldn’t be classed as having arachnophobia). Should I try to squelch the feeling, or let it be there? • [Richard]: ‘(...) If ‘I’ am not feeling good [at the very least] then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? (...) Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 79, 14 December 2004). What part of that extract is it you do not understand? RESPONDENT: I don’t think I learned to be afraid of spiders. RICHARD: Do you think you were born with a (purportedly non-phobic) fear of spiders, then? RESPONDENT: [I don’t think I learned to be afraid of spiders]. I just am. RICHARD: There are at least 531 named phobias – ranging from ablutophobia to zoophobia – and the following URL lists a brief description of them all: www.phobialist.com Quite frankly I just cannot see how someone – anyone – could possibly have genetically inherited cyberphobia (for an obvious instance). Incidentally, here is perhaps the ‘fear of/ aversion to’ which would be most applicable to a would-be actualist: • metathesiophobia: fear of changes. RESPONDENT: What do I need in order to commence another period of enjoying this moment? RICHARD: As something learnt can be readily unlearnt you could give a little thought to what the word ‘denial’ can refer to, perhaps? Viz.: • ‘denial: (psychology) an unconscious defence mechanism characterised by refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts, or feelings’. (The American Heritage® Dictionary). * RICHARD: (...) If ‘I’ am not feeling good [at the very least] then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? (...) Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. (...)’. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). RESPONDENT: From reading others’ descriptions on what to do I get the impression that I have to find out the core beliefs, the foundations, of whatever emotion I’m looking into, and then as soon as I’ve done that, poof, the emotion is magically gone and I can get back to feeling good. RICHARD: Whereas what I am saying in the above excerpt is that once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good. RESPONDENT: I don’t seem to be able to do this [what others describe] with my fear of spiders, or anything else that is difficult. RICHARD: Then why not try what the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago did (what I describe further above)? RESPONDENT: You seem to be emphasising to me that all I have to do is recall what triggered off my emotion, e.g. the presence of a spider. Then realise that the fear is ruining the experience of this moment. RICHARD: Whereas what I actually emphasise is the seeing of the silliness of having such an incident as that take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of the only moment one is ever alive alive. RESPONDENT: However, the fear doesn’t go away as long as long as the spider is present ... RICHARD: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago did was to unlearn the ‘fear of/ aversion to’ snakes which ‘he’ had learnt from ‘his’ city-born and city-raised mother – whilst growing up on a farm being carved by hand out of virgin forest – simply by (finally) addressing the issue once and for all ... and, as ‘he’ knew he had been surreptitiously avoiding that potentially life-changing paying-of-attention-to-the-issue addressing, it had the added advantage of enabling ‘him’ to be much more confident about taking control of ‘his’ own life on a whole range of other issues. To use a cliché ... nothing succeeds like success. RESPONDENT: ... [the fear doesn’t go away as long as long as the spider is present] unless I force myself through a de-sensitisation process ... RICHARD: There are those who report success through a phobia-desensitisation process ... of course, just like an alcoholic having to acknowledge their alcoholism (for example), they do have to acknowledge they have a phobic problem in the first place in order to achieve that favourable outcome. RESPONDENT: ... [the fear doesn’t go away as long as long as the spider is present] so No 25 says to remove the presence of the spider, and then get back to feeling good. RICHARD: Ha ... one would have to remove all manner of people, things and events – and for the remainder of one’s life – in order to (felicitously) feel good by that means. RESPONDENT: Is this the correct procedure? RICHARD: Did you know that the word ‘gullible’ is not to be found in any dictionary at all (in no dictionary past or present)? Just curious. * RICHARD: (...) what I actually emphasise is the seeing of the silliness of having such an incident as that [no matter what it is] take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of the only moment one is ever alive. RESPONDENT: However, the fear doesn’t go away as long as long as the spider is present ... RICHARD: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago did was to unlearn the ‘fear of/ aversion to’ snakes which ‘he’ had learnt from ‘his’ city-born and city-raised mother – whilst growing up on a farm being carved by hand out of virgin forest – simply by (finally) addressing the issue once and for all ... and, as ‘he’ knew he had been surreptitiously avoiding that potentially life-changing paying-of-attention-to-the-issue addressing, it had the added advantage of enabling ‘him’ to be much more confident about taking control of ‘his’ own life on a whole range of other issues. To use a cliché ... nothing succeeds like success. RESPONDENT: Is it possible to do the actual freedom method and gradually get to the point where the spider fear seems completely silly, or is it always now or never? RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following (an extract from the essence of the way I have previously explained how asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive – the only moment one is ever alive – until it becomes a non-verbal attitude/ a wordless approach to life, works in practice): • [Richard]: ‘It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this (...)’. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). Any getting to the point (aka the moment) where whatever incident it is – such as ‘the spider fear’ – which takes away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of the only moment one is ever alive is seen to be completely silly can be as protracted, or as swift, as one chooses it to be ... yet, as when it does (finally) happen it will be happening now anyway, one may as well make it this moment currently occurring and thus get it over and done with, once and for all, as any and all change only ever happens at this moment of being alive. Or, to put those last eleven words differently for emphasis, this moment (the only moment one is ever alive) is the one which is dynamic. RESPONDENT: Richard, I would like very much not to react with ‘arousals’ brought on by epinephrine when confronted with certain situations. RICHARD: What are the symptoms (aka characteristic signs) of those ‘arousals’ and what ‘certain situations’ are you referring to? RESPONDENT: Signs = sweaty palms, increased heart rate (unrelated to increase in activity), and shakiness in extreme cases. Situations range from could include intimate encounters with beautiful women, making the key move in a chess game, taking tests and witnessing severe injuries. Just some recent examples, but many more situations can provoke a release of epinephrine. RICHARD: Given that you say ‘shakiness in extreme cases’ would it not be appropriate to describe those situational signs as being associated with, for example (and in the order given above), apprehension/ anxiety, trepidation/ angst, nervousness/ tenseness, and horror/ dread? Please note I am asking – your own appraisal would be more apposite – and here is a (by no means exhaustive) list of affective feelings which stem from the instinctual passion of fear, in an approximate order of magnitude, to provide a starting point: disquiet, disquietude, inquietude, uneasiness, nervousness, nervous tension, apprehension, apprehensiveness, sheepishness, shyness, timidity, timidness, timorousness, butterflies in the stomach, embarrassment, anxiousness, fretfulness, funk, jitters, blue funk, quailing, quaking, quavering, heebie-jeebies, appalment, worry, worriment, insecurity, anxiety, angst, alarm, agitation, shakiness, palpitation, perturbation, trepidation, fright, affright, being scared, being frightened, being afraid, being spooked, fearfulness, awe, foreboding, panic, terror, horror, horrification, petrifaction, dread. * RESPONDENT: Getting excited in such a manner seems to sap me of energy. RICHARD: Again, other than ‘getting excited’ what symptoms are present which occasion you to attribute those arousals to be ‘brought on by epinephrine’ (and not something else)? RESPONDENT: The marked characteristic would be that the symptoms arise in the absence of the actual demand for extra caloric energy. RICHARD: And do the same, or similar, symptoms arise when there is an actual demand for extra calorific energy (as in a typical freeze-fight-flight situation)? * RESPONDENT: In review, I would say that I would be better off without reactions that unnecessarily increase metabolic rates, but I certainly would not do without reactions that necessarily increase metabolic rates, as in the example of exercise. RICHARD: Again (and so as to keep with what started this thread) would you be better off without such reactions in a typical freeze-fight-flight situation. Just so that it is clear: I was not referring to ‘the example of exercise’ ... it was my reference to (two) examples of typical freeze-fight-flight situations, and the marked absence of any adrenaline-typical/ cortisol-typical reaction, which occasioned you to join in this discussion. RESPONDENT: Richard, I noticed someone played the K-card. I know and it assumed that you know too but, correct me if I’m mistaken, that if you wanna play that way you also need to have the O-card. RICHARD: Would it not be easier to call it the spiritual-card (aka the mystical-card/ metaphysical-card) and be done with it? RESPONDENT: As it is now for me Reality means Actuality. RICHARD: Am I to take it that you are wanting to ‘play that way’ too? RESPONDENT: So if we were to share notes on our experience of the world today. To me that means how am I experiencing Reality in the year 2003. In a nutshell ‘this body has reasonably recovered from state of Shock and Awe’ and now I see there is no more else to do then to celebrate my survival, obviously I was ‘fit’ enough to survive all this. RICHARD: Here is how you previously described shock and awe: • [Respondent]: ‘... being in ‘Shock and Awe’ is for me the feeling of being terrified. One might refer to terror as being extremely scared hence the Shock aspect might be observed as the ‘freezing aspect of fear whereas the Awe reflects the exciting quality of fear’. (‘(R)Revolution’; 24 April 2003). Do you see that ‘all this’ was self-induced (with some help from the many and varied doom and gloom prophesiers of course)? RESPONDENT: It is some kind of a miracle to be here and I watch with avid interest this perfect universe unfolding; Life appears to be a cosmic joke after all. RICHARD: There was no ‘miracle’ ... all that happened was that the doomsayers had their moment of fear mongering, milking the resultant media frenzy for every last drop of hysteria it was capable of, and rode the wave of panic until it petered out on the shores of everyday reality. In other words: the end of the world never happened (again). RESPONDENT: Even this actual freedom is a way to escape from your dissatisfaction. RICHARD: My word it is ‘a way to escape’ ... and not only from ‘dissatisfaction’ but the whole sorry mess. RESPONDENT: One SSRI will make the trick. RICHARD: Ha ... the pharmacological cure, eh? However, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, sertraline, citalopram, lorazepam, imipramine, nortriptyline, to mention but a few of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can have side effects such as an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of the throat; swelling of the lips, tongue, or face; or hives); an irregular heartbeat or pulse; low blood pressure (dizziness, weakness); high blood pressure (severe headache, blurred vision); chills or fever; unusual bleeding or bruising; a rash or hives; headache, tremor, nervousness, or anxiety; difficulty concentrating; nausea, diarrhoea, dry mouth, or changes in appetite or weight; weakness; increased sweating; sleepiness or insomnia and decreased sex drive, impotence, or difficulty having an orgasm, for example. Plus malice and sorrow (and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) can, and do, still rear their ugly heads ... needless is it to say that there are no such side effects in the purity of the perfection of this actual world? The main side-effect of an actual freedom from the human condition is peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only. * RESPONDENT: When I was young (I am now 55) I suffered from paroxysmic tachycardia (I don’t know if I spell it right). When I was bending, or jumping not always but sometimes, my heart was rising up to 180 pulses. That create in me one insecurity and that insecurity create agoraphobia. Now for the last 25 years with a medicine (beta blockers) didn’t happened any more, but the agoraphobia is rooted, became a conditioned reflex. RICHARD: A conditioned reflex can be un-conditioned (as can all conditioning) and the quickest and most efficacious way to cure any phobia is to just do it. For example, back when I was a father two of my then children, aged about two and three, had an intense aversion to water (they would play around at the water’s edge but not venture over their ankles). Eventually, after trying all manner of therapeutical techniques that their mother had faith in, one sunny afternoon I picked them up and, tucking them firmly under both arms, waded out until the water was above their heads and let them go (I was but 22 years of age at the time and knew nothing of psychologising). Their mother was on the shore having hysterics, and calling all kinds of imprecations down upon my head, and the two children screamed and wailed, and spluttered and sputtered, and thrashed and flailed about with stark panic patently evident in their eyes ... but to no avail: I was relentless. They were cured of their phobia within 30-60 seconds and have thoroughly enjoyed swimming, diving, surfing, boating, and all water sports, ever since ... a couple of years ago the eldest of the siblings (now a 36 year old adult with children) reminded me of the event saying that it was the best thing ever to happen and that pandering to symptoms only reinforced and consolidated the disease. I have since read of people being cured, permanently, of all manner of phobias in a like manner. RESPONDENT: Also that created for me one anxiety, because I lost my career (I have studied economics in the university of Palermo in Italy). For this reason I am taking 10 mg of Seroxat, is a medicine belonging in the SSRI family, like Prozac, I am sure you know them. RICHARD: Nope ... I simply looked the topic up, for my last e-mail to you, and copy-pasted the names and side-effects into a paragraph of my own making. I have had to learn about all manner of things since going public with my discovery. RESPONDENT: They give more serotonin in the brain. So is actualism for me? RICHARD: First cure yourself of agoraphobia ... I have clearly stated, in the left-click disclaimer on The Actual Freedom Trust home page, that actualism is for a normal person, a sensible human being who understands what a word means, who has learned to function in society with all its the legal laws and the social protocols, and is a reasonably ‘well-adjusted’ personality seeking to find ultimate fulfilment and complete satisfaction. Actualism is of no use to one who is harbouring a neurotic or psychotic condition ... or who is an uneducated social misfit with a chip on their shoulder. Such a person is well-advised to see a counsellor, a therapist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist or an educator ... or attend classes on citizenship and cultural etiquette before even bothering to try to unravel the mess that is the human condition. I say this because when a normal person becomes neurotic or psychotic it is because they have found the pressures of life too much to handle and have chosen for neurosis or psychosis as their way out. As strange as it may sound, to normal people, they are comfortable with their modus operandi and have no interest in budging one iota from their position ... despite their pleas for help (a part of their strategy). It may initially sound like ‘hard nails’ on my account ... but counsellors and therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists are the best people for the job of managing their condition. RESPONDENT: An interesting story [about fear and trembling], Richard. I’m a bit confused, though, about a couple of things: First off, you say that your ego ‘dissolved’ in 1981, but then you go on to say that in 1985 you experienced fear and dread at the perception of the ‘Great Beyond’. Furthermore, you said that this experience revealed that you had even further to go, that you had to go on and ‘annihilate’ the ego completely. Is there a difference between ‘dissolution’ and ‘annihilation’? Surely not. If your ego had truly dissolved in 1981, then I’m afraid it would have been impossible for you to have either (a) experienced fear and dread towards anything at all, and (b) perceived that you still had yet to annihilate your ego. For correct if I’m wrong, it is impossible to annihilate something which no longer exists. RICHARD: It is indeed unfortunate that you are ‘a bit confused’ because I have already explained this matter clearly in more than several posts previous to this. But, never mind, I will re-capitulate: • [Richard]: ‘Essentially, when a person becomes enlightened they say that their ego has dissolved – this is termed ‘Death of the ego’. I concur fully in this very valid description of what has happened. However, the ego is only one half of the self ... the other half being the soul. Then there is a sense of identity overlaid on top of the self. The enlightened person switches their sense of identity from the ego (which is now non-existent) to the soul and – in their own words – realise that they are ‘The Self’ existing beyond ‘Time and Space’ and that they are ‘Immortal and Eternal’ and that they are ‘Unborn and Undying’. In other words they identify as being ‘That’ by whatever name (also ‘The Void’, ‘Emptiness’, Beyond Form’ and so on and – if they are really astute – ‘Beyond Form and No-Form’). This is the second ‘I’ of Mr. Venkataraman Aiyer (aka Ramana) fame’. (Richard, List A, No. 21, No. 03). So where I wrote: ‘psychologically, ‘I’ would cease to ‘be’ at all, I would have no ‘presence’, this was more than death of the ego, which is a major event by any definition; this was total annihilation. No ego, no soul – no ‘self’, no ‘Self’ ... this second ‘I’ is what I was referring to. I was very clearly not saying: ‘this experience revealed that you had even further to go, that you had to go on and ‘annihilate’ the ego completely’ as you attempt to make out that I was saying. As for ‘fear and trembling’ ... I deliberately and accurately used the word ‘dread’ as it was an existential experience of the end of ‘being’ entirely – not just the fear produced by the contemplation of the death of the ego (wherein ‘I’ go on under a different disguise) – but a complete and utter annihilation of everything, including ‘The Absolute’ or ‘The Void’ or ‘The Whatever’. As a youth in 1966, I served my time in the military in a war-torn foreign country, so I knew the full gamut of nervousness, apprehension, anxiety, fear, terror, horror and dread ... and they go in that order of severity. This was a dread of the likes of which I had never experienced before ... perhaps it would be handy to call it ‘pure dread’, for emphasis. Pure dread is the worst nightmarish feeling one can possibly experience ... it is utter foreboding. And as I clearly explained that: ‘I was living in a state of Divine Bliss and Love Agapé‚ which protected me from all malice, with its attendant fears and hates’, I consider that it is obvious that fear, for example, is transcended – not eliminated – with the ‘Death of the Ego’. Consequently, where you say: ‘If your ego had truly dissolved in 1981, then I’m afraid it would have been impossible for you to have ... experienced fear and dread towards anything at all’, you are simply airing your understandable ignorance of matters transcendent in public. SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON FEAR (Part Two) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity