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Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘D’ with Claudiu / Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem (please make sure “java-scripting” is enabled in order for the tool-tips to function properly; mouse-hover on the yellow rectangular image to open; left-click on the image to hold).
On Being Less Anonymous CLAUDIU: Hello everyone, I’ve decided that instead of being known only as ‘Respondent No. 26’ on the Actual Freedom Trust website, I’d like to be known by my real first name, Claudiu, instead. The reason for this is that I see how much we feeling-beings influence each other, and if having my real first name prominent would increase the impact of reading about how I had my life turned around by visiting Richard in April 2012 then I am only too happy to help. In order to further stress just how much I thought I knew what actualism was about and what an actual freedom from the human
condition was, before April 2012, and how wrong that turned out to be, I’d also like my name unambiguously linked with my Dharma Overground
screen name, ‘Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem’. A list of the posts I’ve participated in on that forum can be found here if anyone would
care to go through the archives: I would advise not taking anything I said about actualism or actual freedom before April 2012 on that forum as being too accurate. I’ve already written Vineeto and provided my request & permission for my name to be used instead of ‘Respondent No. 26’
on the Actual Freedom Trust website, and she has already done a quick job of de-anonymizing my name in the correspondences Hehe, this is pretty exciting. - Claudiu (Message 12916, 15 January 2013)
Re: Practice log CLAUDIU: Hallo good sir, JONATHAN: First off, let my clarify that my replies are mostly speculation. I haven’t experienced pure intent but a handful of times and just in the last two days, so while I was eager and zealous to learn and share in the first reply, this reply is purely speculation. Also, I think the word ‘pure intent’ is less important than the actual thing. CLAUDIU: Ok gotcha. In my experiences of pure intent it was definitely something totally not-affective, not having anything to do with ‘me’, so I was trying to make sure that point was clear. I wasn’t sure whether what you were calling ‘your own drive’ was really actual. * JONATHAN: You quote me and then you reply:
CLAUDIU: So intent of a feeling-being is affective – ‘my’ intent. JONATHAN: Is that reply a comment or a question? It seems like a comment but the word ‘So’ would indicate it’s either a question or the beginning of a conclusion. Yet if it’s the latter, the conclusion doesn’t follow the quoted statement. CLAUDIU: It was a comment. I notice Richard corrected your use of the word drive. For me though what I picked up on was ‘*your own* drive’ and I wondered, whose drive? If it’s ‘my’ drive it is not pure intent – obviously. If it’s an actual drive then how can you say it’s mine? Unless you’re in a PCE I guess when identity is in abeyance and you are apperceptive. Basically when not in a PCE pure intent is something outside of ‘me’. It seems you get this though. So there’s a palpable aspect to this actual intent which one experiences... existentially I think is the word Richard used. Since it’s not sensate per se (you don’t see it with your eyes), not thought-based, not affective.. not necessarily apperceptive, since you can notice it when not in a PCE.. I’m on shaky ground here though. * JONATHAN: After actual freedom, one’s intent is unchangeable. CLAUDIU: So after actual freedom, there’s no longer affective ‘my’ intent, there’s just the intent/will of the body. JONATHAN: Intent is not affective. It may be feeling-fed and probably is. Intent, itself, is not affective. Hopefully, Richard will step in on this one, but I think I’m on solid ground, here. The final answer may depend on whether intent has a calorific energy with or without apperception. I think it does. CLAUDIU: Ah I see we were getting to the same point? In that case it would be calorific. I’m not sure about feeling-fed, what do you mean by that? Also I might have been conflating the term intent with desire also and was drawing a distinction between that and will (which is the body’s intelligence operating I guess?) JONATHAN [quotes Peter]: ‘Pure intent is the unequivocal intention to devote one’s life to
being the best one can be – to completely and actually eradicate malice and sorrow from one’s life.’ (A précis of the method
of actualism). CLAUDIU [quotes the disclaimer at the top of the page]: ‘Please note that this précis below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.’ JONATHAN: The latter quote is your addition, taken from the disclaimer on top of all of Peter and Vineeto’s writings while they were VF. CLAUDIU: Yes. There were and still are various places that say for example ‘a pure intent to be happy and harmless’, which was a point of confusion for me before I went to Australia because i couldn’t distinguish it, via that description, from an intention that ‘i’ have – a propelling movement from behind as Richard put it. I find the actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity definition to be clearest. * JONATHAN: It is interesting that only now can feeling-beings experience pure intent but Peter and Vineeto seem to indicate that they had pure intent while feeling-beings. Perhaps, they interpreted pure intent as the willful remembrance of a PCE combined with said unequivocal intention. But maybe the energy wasn’t palpable until they ‘re-entered’ the PCE. CLAUDIU: Yea, see above. This is sure going to be a confused email on my part. Part of me thinks the term was overloaded to mean two things – intent to be happy and harmless, and the actually occurring stream of benevolence that originates in the vast stillness. It seems to me that the latter doesn’t depend on humans to exist, though it is perceived by humans of course. So the ‘intent to be happy’ aspect seems more a *result of* experiencing pure intent, rather than pure intent itself. * JONATHAN: It seems everyone agrees the term is confusing. Vineeto, herself, wasn’t completely sure about it when I asked her a pointed question on the day of my ASC. And I remember Richard being less than 100% certain that the term was the best fit but he also indicated that he thinks it hits the target or is pretty apt. (I’m going on memory.) And you quote something in your reply to that effect. CLAUDIU: Pure intent is actual. And it isn’t in and of itself intent. JONATHAN: Pure intent is actual. Purity is actual. Intent is actual. But intent can be feeling-fed. Purity is never feeling fed. Both purity and intent are actual, pure intent is the actual connection between the two. There has always been that connection. CLAUDIU: Hmmmm. So take a look at this
(Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).
So I guess it is indeed the intent that is actual. It is the intent that is the genuinely occurring stream of benevolence. But then that means there is no pure intent outside of humans. This isn’t how I understood it. However I think I get what you were saying here now: JONATHAN: I don’t know what Richard would say, but I don’t think there is a universe without humans. Not saying that humans created the universe. I’m saying 1) humans exist in the universe right now and now is the only time there actually is and 2) the nature of infinity makes it impossible to ever have a universe without human beings. CLAUDIU: 1) right 2) didn’t get this before but that means that even if this planet were to die, since the universe is truly infinite there is a 100% chance there is some other planet some unimaginably far distance away that has something like humans that also experience pure intent. right? Here’s what I wrote about earlier, which made sense at the time, let me see how they compare:
CLAUDIU: Yes, it would have something to do with the human body, which is actual.
CLAUDIU: See above.
CLAUDIU: The ‘existential awareness’ I guess is the awareness of something actual filtering through.
CLAUDIU: Funnily enough this is true, even given the difficulties I seem to be having to understand it.
CLAUDIU: This is awesome.
CLAUDIU: Yep.
CLAUDIU: Right cause my body is actually here already.
CLAUDIU: See this one doesn’t make sense if it has to do with humans. Unless because the universe is infinite there’s always humans. However it is clear that it’s something the universe can produce regardless, e.g. like the universe is capable of producing a bolt of lightning even if there isn’t a bolt of lightning happening right now in a particular spot.
CLAUDIU: So this still seems true, which means to me it can’t be intimately tied with the actual body’s calorific energy. Maybe I am conflating ‘pure intent’ with the purity in a PCE which is always there. pure intent then is an actual connection between ?? and that purity? I know for a time I liked to just use the word purity and not the word pure intent, but maybe they do refer to two different things and not the same thing? JONATHAN: When a child has a PCE, he only experiences purity or perfection. It was never his intention to experience purity, it just happened. CLAUDIU: right JONATHAN: When an actualists induces a PCE, he experiences pure intent. He has intentionally created for himself a pole to attract the eternal charge between purity and intention. CLAUDIU: if intention is actual and purity is actual then why do you need an actual connection between the two? and how would that connection be essential to eliminate ‘me’? it seems if anything the connection would be between ‘me’ and something actual, but i am not sure whether that makes any sense. JONATHAN [quotes Richard]: ‘Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest
approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and constant awareness of naive
intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity. CLAUDIU: Here he seems to be saying that pure intent is the connection between ‘oneself’ and ‘perfection and purity’. Ok so, clearly delineating it from the perfection and purity itself. Now what’s the ‘oneself’? Is it ‘me’ or this actual body? I don’t think it would be the actual body because ‘I’ can’t even see that body, so how would that ever help ‘me’? The first sentence I quoted seems to imply that the ‘oneself’ refers to the self/the feeling-being ‘i’ am. so then pure intent is the connection between ‘me’ and the purity. now where does a flesh and blood body’s actual intent fit into that? This requires more thought on my part. i am practically jabbering away. hopefully a way will become apparent to rectify this confusion. I think simply bathing in pure intent more and more so i can actually experience it, should help in figuring out what it is, in a way that can be satisfactorily and consistently explained, without any apparent contradictions, which i suppose in a sense doesn’t even matter since that sort of thing would seem to be most useful in helping others experience it for the first time, rather than having repeats after having experienced it a bunch already. JONATHAN: Without that intentionally created pole, pure intent goes unnoticed and thus isn’t experienced. (I would think perfection, which is purity, is always noticed though may be mislabeled.) There was a never first human to create that pole. Here Richard and I seem to disagree, though, I can’t reconcile how pure intent is eternal unless intentful creatures have always and will always exist.
Richard merely states that it is possible, leaving open the possibility that there may not be an infinite number of life forms. It’s hard for me to even consider that infiniti doesn’t ‘host’ an infinite number of configurations. Furthermore, he says:
Again, it’s hard to even consider that this world won’t one day exist again in the exact same configuration it exists currently or that it didn’t exist before. But I guess it is possible that there are an infinite number of configurations possible therefore this particular configuration need not be repeated. But the declarative, (nothing is ever the same twice) confounds me. CLAUDIU: Maybe it’s just that each specific configuration is so astoundingly specific that you would need... well an infinite amount of times for things to occur to have it occur that way again. Which there would be if the universe is infinite? But maybe this is a doomed-to-fail-from-the-start attempt to intellectualize or rationalize or use logic to figure out infinity, which doesn’t work. RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, Just a quick note so as to draw your attention to what I wrote nine months ago (in #13604 Viz.:
As the key explanatory word in my #13604 Please note how the Oxford Dictionary, when providing the word’s etymological roots, specifically states that its late Middle English origin is [quote]: ‘(in the sense ‘someone or *something* that produces an effect’)’. [emphasis added]. Thus, as an agent and/or an agency can be someone or *something* then, in regards ‘pure intent’ (where agency needs must be outside of the human condition), that agency-association – which association is what the word intent had, in that context, for the feeling-being in residence in this flesh-and-blood body circa January/February 1981 – definitively refers to *something* which ‘he’ described as [quote] ‘a manifest life-force, a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity, which originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe’ [endquote]. Regards, Richard. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: Immediately below are some more relevant dictionary references to agent/agency (including an 1828 definition from Mr. Noah Webster, Jr., plus an 1889-91 extract from Mr. William Whitney’s monumental ‘Century Dictionary’, for the sake of comparison with modern-day usage). Viz.:
Re: Moral cap and Authority RESPONDENT No. 00: Unscrewing the moral cap, which divides the complete set of emotions into the goods and bads, means instead of fighting the ‘bad’ or unwanted emotions i realise they are me, and therefore not scary, the whole spectrum of ‘me’ opens up, and I can look at them and there’s no barrier to understanding them then, also with out fighting myself it’s much easier (of course) to simply choose to feel good again. Also, sometimes there’s reluctance, which is just me feeling important, ie. more important than being happy and harmless. Also, there’s definitely an eerie feeling like i’m being watched when I choose to be happy, a sense of anxiety, like I’m doing something naughty by being happy, which is the belief in an authority, and the fear of punishment. JONATHAN: (...). You mention authority and the fear of punishment. This is only the flip side of feeling important. Who but an important person has the right to claim authority and to mete out punishment? Who but a person who feels quite justifiably important would even consider telling someone else what to do let alone mete out punishment? As I think this over, I think that autonomy plays a big part in dismantling these things. Richard, in particular, was so adept at getting me to begin thinking for myself. It started towards the end of the first trip when he sat down and poked a hole in my superiority complex. And it continued to the very last night of the final trip when he talked about a peasant mentality. (...). RESPONDENT No. 32: Hey Jon. really enjoyed your post. Can you elaborate a bit more on that ‘peasant mentality’ which Richard discussed with you ? CLAUDIU: Oh I found the concept of the peasant mentality really awesome actuality. I hadn’t heard anybody else put it that way before. Let me try to formulate it properly. The idea is that sometime before today, it wasn’t the case that everything was owned. Like when America was uncolonized, you could just get in a wagon, ride west for however long, then stake out a territory and start farming it. But nowadays, everything is already owned. Everything is walled-off and fenced-off. When you are born you own nothing, and everything else is already owned. Those owners want to make you work for it, like you have to earn your keep, earn your right to live. If you do, then they give you some of the stuff they already own. If you work really hard, you get more stuff. If you are really corrupt then you can become an owner too, but still only by playing their game. This is the ‘peasant mentality’ – that you have to work to earn the right to live. That because you work, you deserve something. But really in a state of nature nothing is owned, you can just go wherever and do whatever you want. So the fact that everything is owned is artificial. Maybe uncolonized America was a bad example, maybe a better example is before civilization. I think that’s what Richard meant by peasant mentality, and he said how a while back he recognized this and decided not to play into it anymore, not to play the game that the owners have set up before you were even born. I’m afraid this didn’t come off too eloquently, anyone else want to give it a shot? RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, Yes, the better example is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start as any. Viz.:
The following day another respondent queried me on my above response; in my clarification I referred to the term ‘wage-slave’ as being, perhaps more correctly, ‘modern-day serfdom’. Viz.: (Richard, Actual Freedom list, No.78b, 8 February 2005). Although, for persons taking out a house-mortgage – typically, these days, over a 30-35 year period (whereafter they find
they have paid for three-four houses, whilst only being allocated one, per favour usurious banking guilds having usurped, several centuries ago[†],
the sovereign power of a nation-state to emit [†]Footnote: Mr. Alexander Del Mar, in his engaging 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’, details how the ‘exclusive prerogative of the State’ to emit money was usurped, during the reign of Charles II (and due, in no small part, to his infatuation with a notorious married woman), with the ‘surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7’ whereby ‘the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since’. A 1983 reprint can be read online here:
If anything is a classic case of ‘read it and weep’ then this is it in spades. The role played by Ms. Barbara Villiers – a.k.a., Mrs. Barbara Palmers, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, Baroness Nonsuch – or, rather, the allure her feminine charms had for the profligate Charles II, starts properly on Page 26. Were her story better-known she may very well become celebrated as the patron-saint of banksters world-wide (if not already, albeit secretly, that is). Even more to the point: the fact that modern-day women demanded the legal right to enter into such ‘indentured servitude’ alongside the traditional male ‘bread-winner’ – most family-households these days are double-income households (hence necessitating publicly-subsidised childcare facilities) – and thus further enriching that already obscenely-rich ‘class of usurers’ amply demonstrates how the ‘peasant-mentality’ is not a male-only trait. * Also, something I wrote in 1998 will help set the scene for what else the term ‘peasant-mentality’ meant to the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-1988 (a ‘turning-point’ decade in which ‘he’ sussed-out much of what has been going down for millennia). Viz.:
The main point to get about the mechanisation/ robotisation/ computerisation of productive work (as in ‘machines, computers and robots taking over their jobs’ above) is the work which the now-made-redundant workers once carried out still gets done – indeed productivity increases many-fold due solely to such ingenious ‘labour-saving’ devices – yet the dispossessed workers are castigated just as the peasants of yore were (way back when peasants not working meant the work did not get done). The made-redundant person (or a person unable to gain paid employment in the first place) who buys into such epithets a ‘dole-bludger’ and the ilk – and dutifully self-castigates – is thus another example of a person with a ‘peasant-mentality’. The following is a paragraph from ‘Richard’s Journal’ (in Article 20) wherein I make the point that social welfare is not a moral (aka ethical) issue. Viz.:
(I will append the bulk of ‘Article 20’ below my signature/sign-off so as to make it available on-line, hereafter, for those without a copy of ‘Richard’s Journal’). * Another example lies in the area of public education – compulsory schooling that is – inasmuch parents are compelled to submit to the ‘peasant-mentality’ being inculcated into their children during their formative years. The identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-1988 (that ‘turning-point’ decade) first took ‘his’ two oldest children out of the standard Public School and enrolled them in an ‘alternate school’. Upon discovering that such schools similarly imparted said ‘peasant-mentality’, albeit in a different guise, ‘he’ embarked upon what is known as ‘home schooling’ when ‘his’ two youngest children came of school-age. Viz.:
‘Twas all in vain, of course, and these days I advise enrolling one’s children in regular schools as they are going to be inculcated (a.k.a., ‘socialised’), anyway, by all the influences of society in general. Which neatly brings me to the point of detailing these above examples: understanding the ‘whys and wherefores’ of peasant-mentality is not about effecting social change but being free of it in oneself. In the seventh paragraph of ‘Article 20’ (appended further below) I have highlighted the relevant sentence. Viz.:
In other words, one is then free to conform with the legal laws and observe the social protocols – to ‘go along with’, to ‘pay lip-service to’ – whilst no longer believing in them. ‘Tis a remarkable freedom in itself – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial *feeling* of disfranchisement (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth). Regards, ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: What follows is the bulk of ‘Article 20’ from ‘Richard’s Journal’. Incidentally, the ‘invisible social contract’ mentioned in the opening paragraph refers to the gist of Part Six of the book ‘Of The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right’ (‘Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique’; 1762) by Mr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Viz.:
Article 20; The Survival Of The Community Depends Upon Its Absolute Selfishness. • [Richard]: (...). I am passing through a crowd of people thronging the area encompassed by boutiques and cafés and the like ... and I am wondering if they are fully aware of the psychological implications of having morally ‘signed’ that invisible social contract. I think not. No one I have spoken to yet, or read about in the many articles available, has been able to profoundly understand what is implied when an individual is accused, by the community, of being selfish. The community itself is beyond reproach in regards to its own self-centredness. The survival of the community depends upon its absolute selfishness. Although professing to hold the interests of the individual to heart, when push comes to shove, the individual is unhesitatingly sacrificed without compunction ... even though there is an official wringing of hands, a lamenting of the necessity, a praising of the patriotic duty so willingly performed ... and so on. The basic premise lying behind the legality of the existence of ‘the community’ is its designated role of acting ‘for the good of the whole’. Instinctually believing one’s well-being to be assured, nobody calls the community to account. Has anyone fully realised that the community does not exist for the good of the individual? * The phrase ‘good of the whole’ seems to imply this, but closer examination reveals that ‘the whole’ exists only in bombast and blather ... it is a concept, an ideology. Only an individual person – a flesh-and-blood body – actually exists. Where people have no integrity – which is the case in order for the ‘whole’ to exist – they have no genuine individuality. They are invisible ... as if a non-person, a statistic, a number. They may complain about the ‘dehumanisation’ process, little realising that they are but a social identity ... a fictitious entity having only psychological existence. This social identity has taken up residence in the body and rules the roost in an autocratic manner. Nevertheless, it is itself subject to the commands of the community, for it is a loyal member, having been created by the community – the ‘whole’ – in the first place. This loyalty thrives on the moral investment that the social identity has made in the community; one’s very ‘well-being’ depends upon receiving a continuous supply of moral dividends. One’s psychological existence is so precarious that one needs constant endorsement, so as to feel that ‘I’ am alive, that ‘I’ still exist. When the ‘whole’ accuses one of being selfish – which it relentlessly does by extolling the virtues of duty, obligation and responsibility – one can then chastise oneself, thus maintaining one’s sense of being a social identity. With suitable remorse, one has then been coerced, cajoled and shamed into having one’s usefulness to the community restored ... and one feels needed again. Nonetheless, one is actually crazy to chastise oneself because ‘I’ am selfish by ‘my’ very created nature ... and ‘I’ will always be self-centred. Self-castigation only serves to crystallise ‘me’. It is essential to the community’s ‘well-being’ that ‘I’ remain selfish. Because the ‘whole’, having created ‘me’ so as to perpetuate its own existence – and being utterly selfish itself – desperately needs self-centred members. ‘I’ readily invest, morally, in the community for there one recognises one’s ilk ... ‘I’ am a lonely soul and it is essential that ‘I’ have a sense of belonging to the like-minded ‘whole’. It is an illusion of togetherness designed to assuage the feeling of aloneness that both oneself and the community experiences ... ‘I’ and ‘humanity’ feel lost and lonely in what is perceived to be the vast reaches of space and time that make up an empty universe. The search for extra-terrestrial life is but one outcome of this feeling of separation. This desolate coping-mechanism also has the unfortunate result of creating resentful citizens. The ‘whole’, being bigger and more selfish than ‘me’, has its own – perceived to be serious – communal needs that take precedence over ‘my’ – perceived to be insignificant – personal needs. Because of a continuous supply of citizens, the ‘whole’ does not need ‘me’ as much as ‘I’ need it. Thus the community always has the upper hand and can do with ‘me’, virtually, whatever it wants. There is a constant power-battle going on between ‘me’ and the ‘whole’ ... which one must invariably lose, in order to cultivate and nurture one’s invisible Spirit. The community dangerously wants one to have a Spirit, for it requires a consistent reserve of supplicating selves prepared to sacrifice themselves in the name of the ‘Good of the whole’. The community coopts the word ‘we’ and turns it back into the ‘whole’ to serve its own nefarious purposes. * Not surprisingly none of these shenanigans, deemed necessary by everyone, are essential when ‘I’ realise who ‘we’ actually are ... and then see what I am. I am this body only; bereft of any identity as Spirit ... of any entity at all. There is no-one inside of this body to be lost, lonely, frightened or cunning. There is an innate purity in being me as-I-am, for this universe is already always perfect. There is a magnanimity and a beneficence everywhere all at once and I find that I am benign in character. It therefore follows that all my thoughts and deeds are automatically benevolent and beneficial – I do not do it, it happens of itself – and communal service is no longer a duty, an obligation, a responsibility. I can readily enjoy a free association with other – flesh and blood – individuals to form a loose-knit affiliation that acts for the good of each individual ... for when ‘I’ expire, the ‘whole’ also ceases to exist. The ‘whole’, which created ‘me’, was being re-affirmed and perpetuated by one’s very ‘being’. All human beings are born into an already existing community which takes itself as being real, as being a ‘whole’. Each baby is born with a biological ‘instinct for survival’ which the ‘whole’ transforms into a psychological ‘will to survive’ ... to survive as a social identity. This newest recruit to ‘humanity’ at large submits, rather unwillingly, to the demands of the ‘whole’, for it is mesmerised into thinking and feeling that its own needs will be best met by subsuming itself into the ‘whole’. Since one is selfish by one’s created nature, ‘I’ will sustain the community – the ‘whole’ – which is more selfish than ‘me’, in conjunction with all the other similarly afflicted bodies. This process is inevitable so long as ‘I’ exist. Consequently, the conundrum which all citizens are faced with is dissolved with ‘my’ demise. Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. I do not subscribe to that ridiculous hyperbole that the community acts ‘for the good of the whole’ for I see directly and with clarity. I know that there is no ‘whole’ outside of passionate ‘human’ imagination. The community actually exists for the good of me – and for the good of all other individuals – without ever realising it. [emphasis added]. A good example of this is the social welfare system. Because of the Agrarian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Technological Revolution, people can no longer pursue a subsistence life-style as hunter-gatherers. The land is no longer free-range; it is all either publicly or privately owned. As this situation prevailed when one was born, it is incumbent upon the community at large to provide one with the means to obtain the necessities of life. The predominating system has been the provision of money – acquired by working – with which to buy food, clothing, shelter, etcetera. If the community cannot sustain full employment, it must provide an alternate means for one to purchase one’s goods. A social welfare system is not a luxury supplied by an affluent society; it is an essential requisite that the community must readily furnish. This is not a moral issue – as the ‘whole’ smugly feels it to be – for welfare is not charity. Because, regardless of the ‘whole’s self-endowed compassionate nature, the disenfranchised must be fed and housed. If the community did not do this, there would be a rebellion from the hungry and homeless millions. The preservation of the orderly fabric of society is the guiding principle at play here, not moral duty, obligation and responsibility on the part of the community. * Accordingly, in the actual world the community is never selfish. It acts for the good of the individual – which is why it exists – and in doing so it preserves itself in order to serve the individual. Only in the real world is it self-centred, acting ‘for the good of the whole’ and preserving itself – at the expense of the individual – for the sake of preserving itself. A person who sees all this clearly and completely, who understands all this deeply and comprehensively, who knows all this actually and absolutely, will never make the mistake of thinking and feeling that one must ‘die for one’s country’ as a moral duty, obligation and responsibility. The choice to risk one’s life – or not – to repel an invasion is a freely made decision; it is not the result of coercion, cajolery or shame. The same applies for conscription – that abominable forced induction into military service – for one will not succumb to a situation where one is compelled to kill or be killed. One realises that conscription is a ‘crime against humanity’ and that a country will decide whether to allow itself to be invaded or not by ‘voting with its feet’. If voluntary enlistment is not sufficient to counter the attack, then the country has democratically voted for surrender. The same pure rationale applies to having babies; one is not coerced, cajoled or shamed into ‘doing one’s bit for society’ by risking one’s life in child-birth in order to populate and perpetuate the country. One makes a freely considered decision whether to conceive or not; the country thus ‘votes with its feet’ on the issue of continuing the species or letting it die out. One will never commit the error of thinking and feeling that society owns one’s body; it is not one’s duty, obligation and responsibility to procreate. Contraception and abortion are not moral issues; they are the means to sustain one’s salubrity. One does not ‘owe a debt to society’, for society exists only for the good of the individual. And this has been the case all along. ‘I’ blamed society for ‘my’ woes ... with ‘me’ extirpated there are no woes. There is nothing and no-one to need any blame, for nothing is going wrong. It was all a play in emotive imaginative thought ... an errant and vainglorious brain-pattern. Nothing more needs to be done now, except to freely assist another person to actualise this vital break-through for themselves. When that person is also free they can similarly facilitate the freedom of another person ... and another ... and another ... and so on. By operating in this manner, on a one-to-one basis, freedom from being an identity could spread throughout the entire population of this planet. A truly evolutionary change will have taken place; a mutation of human consciousness. The much longed-for golden age will have finally been ushered in ... and by the peoples concerned. There was no need for a Supernatural Agency all along. The ‘Human Condition’ is such that it can readily respond to the do-it-yourself method; the ability is within the human character to fix things up for itself. The intervention of some Supernatural Outsider is never going to happen anyway, for there is no such creature. Human beings are on their own, free to manage their own affairs as they see fit. Whenever one thinks about it, would one have it any other way? If that fictitious Almighty Creature were to come sweeping in on a cloud, waving a magic wand and putting everything to rights, would not one feel cheated? Would not one question why human beings had to wait so long upon the capricious whim of some self-righteous God who could have acted long ago? It is all nonsense, upon sober reflection! * With freedom spread like a chain-letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of ‘humanity’.
It would be a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of
the world But none of this matters much when one is already living in the actual world. In actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is. One knows that one is living in a beneficent universe ... and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and gaiety of one who lives the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Humans, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘Tried and True’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live ... as revealed in their ancient and revered moralistic scriptures or ethicalistic secular philosophies. So be it. This universe has arranged itself so that the one who dares to go all the way is instantly living in universal peace ... irrespective of what other peoples are believing and doing. One is free to act in a way beneficial to all. This is a measure of how perfect life is in the actual. I have not signed any social contract. (pp. 141-146, ‘Richard’s Journal’, 2nd Ed. ©The Actual Freedom Trust 2004). ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ Just for the record, here is the quote in full from Page 7 of that 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’ (with emphases added). Viz.:
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Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD: (...) the better example is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. CLAUDIU: Hi Richard, thanks for that in-depth reply and for setting the record straight! I definitely didn’t have the salient points down of what you meant by peasant mentality. RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, That would be because I did not fully flesh-out what it meant, on that last-night riverside foregathering earlier this year, as the conversation moved onto other matters. CLAUDIU: It’s going to take me some time to process your reply, as per usual. I think this may always be the case when one comes in contact with original thinking. RICHARD: My current aim is to continue with my explication of this topic here on this forum, responding in chronological order to the replies to my initial post, until it is fully comprehensible – it being such an integral part of life in the ‘real-world’ – so that a connected record of it exists on The Actual Freedom Trust website for both present and future reference. CLAUDIU: The main take-away for me for now is this:
That is, the best way to benefit from the concept of peasant-mentality is to locate this feeling of disfranchisement in myself. I am unable to do so, currently. I wonder if it is in the direction of a feeling I’ve had in the past which can be expressed with phrases like ‘Wouldn’t it be so nice to not have to work’, or ‘Wouldn’t it be great to just make millions of dollars in a start-up and then be able to retire forever’ or ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I got a salary but didn’t have to actually go to work for it’. And then that could naturally lead to being jealous of people who already have those millions and don’t have to work, although I don’t think I have strongly felt that jealousy myself. I am not sure if that’s quite the feeling of disfranchisement you’re referring to, though. Again, it will take some time for this to filter through. RICHARD: Going by those ways of expressing it then that feeling you have had, in the past, may very well be in the direction of that deep and primordial feeling referred to, further above, of being somehow disfranchised from just helping yourself to whatever was available (per favour the ‘free-range’ life-style of a hunter-gatherer) and, thereby, being subject to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’ (via enforced-employment under the ‘property-rights’ way of life). The question which engaged the attention of the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago went something like this: ‘Where is it carved in stone that the very earth beneath our feet – the source and nourishment of life itself – is to be alienated, from the vast majority of the peoples it engenders and sustains, by a minority of those persons for the maximum enrichment of that commandeering minority’? (For that is the essence of the famed ‘rule of law’ which lies at the heart of many National Constitutions world-wide). It is nowhere ‘carved in stone’ (of course) as the famed ‘rule of law’ is nothing other than an invention of the various warlords desirous of establishing an ideological system with which to continuously enrich themselves, and their idle off-spring, at the expense of the disfranchised majority. Furthermore: ‘How come that vast majority of peoples supplicate themselves at the feet of this commandeering minority, for the sake of ‘a few crumbs from their table’ (laden with the suppliants’ produce), and defend those alienators unto death, even, when attacked in force by another alienator’s suppliants bent upon enlarging their commandeering minority’s alienated territory for the sake of those very-same crumbs’? (Please bear in mind that the identity within had directed this flesh-and-blood body to go to war as a gilded youth – thereby risking ‘life and limb’ for the perpetuation of privately-owned capitalistic economic enterprise, as exemplified in the near-defunct USA system, over publicly-owned capitalistic economic enterprise, as exemplified in the now-defunct USSR system – in order to comprehend the context in which such questions arose). Moreover: ‘Who suffers the most – as in, who faces the greater loss – when the commandeering minority’s dominion, over a land they alienated from the common weal, is threatened via an invasion from without ... the suppliants or the dominators’? It is the strangest of incongruities that peasant will fight peasant en masse – for the further enrichment of their respective dominators – when the end result no matter the outcome either way is but ‘a few crumbs’ from their dominator’s table (laden with the peasants’ produce) just as before. Hence the term ‘peasant-mentality’. To add insult to injury, as it were, the peasants are told that, by partaking of those ‘few crumbs’, they have thereby ‘signed’
an invisible ‘social contract’ wherein – to paraphrase the words of Mr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – each person and all their power has been
put in common under the supreme direction of the general will where, at once and in place of the individual personality of each contractor, this
very act of association has created a moral and collective body The end result of all this is the current situation where the vast majority – upwards of at least 98% or more – of the peoples alive today have to give of their physical or mental labour and time (to that commandeering minority) so as to be grudgingly granted in return (by that commandeering minority) a portion of the total ascribed value of what they produced (for that commandeering minority) so as to be able to purchase (from that commandeering minority) sufficient liquids, comestibles, shelter, raiment, medicaments, and any other such essential matériel, for everyday survival purposes. ‘Tis truly a rigged system ... rigged to ever-enrich an already obscenely rich elite. In effect it is a system of disguised slavery – a lugubrious legacy which everyone alive today has unwittingly inherited from long-dead peoples of long-ago eras – wherein the only way to escape subservient compliance (inasmuch all the ‘free-range’ was long-ago commandeered by ‘privateers’, so to speak, or otherwise alienated from the common weal) is to try to become one of the elite few and similarly exploit one’s fellow human beings. In this country where I currently reside a minor version of such a pursuit is called ‘The Great Australian Dream’. I have written about it, earlier, in another context. Viz.:
Fortunately, for yours truly and any body whose resident identity is taking notice of these words, ‘he’ had absorbed the hard-won revelations of one of the peasants who, having sought fame and fortune to escape a working-class childhood, had achieved a considerable degree of success in that enterprise (becoming a member of the world’s pecuniary super-elite, those 200,000-odd persons known to be of $30 million net-worth and above, who constitute something like 0.003% of the population by some accounts). Viz.:
The peculiar aspect of this ‘disguised slavery’ system is, then, the vacuity of the peasant-mentality which dumbly perpetuates it. In a nutshell: what the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-79 began calling a ‘peasant mentality’ was exemplified by that vast majority of peoples not only just dumbly accepting and perpetuating this undeniably-rigged socio-economic system (known to hipsters as ‘The Establishment’) as being ‘just the way it is’ but being fiercely loyal to it, into the bargain, and defensive of it amongst themselves (to the point of defending it unto death, even, in shooting wars against other peasants similarly defending their elite few). I kid you not; on many an occasion back then, when that identity would share ‘his’ insights with ‘his’ fellow-peasants, they would object most strenuously – especially the salaried peasants (those ‘white-collar workers’ who fondly imagined themselves to be a cut above peasant-hood) – and would vigorously defend the status-quo in a manner not all that dissimilar to what is known in psychological/ psychiatric terms as ‘capture-bonding’ (popularly known as ‘The Stockholm Syndrome’, when localised, and ‘The Oslo Syndrome’, when communalised). Interestingly enough, some symptoms of ‘capture-bonding’ have been identified, in regards to criminal hostage situations, prisoners of war/ concentration camp internees, controlling/ intimidating relationships (battered wives/ hen-pecked husbands/ abused children), cult members, incest victims, and the like, as follows:
The hallmark of ‘peasant-mentality’ is, in a word, loyalty. CLAUDIU: The secondary take-away for me now is this:
That is, freedom from peasant-mentality and from that feeling of disfranchisement requires no social change in order to be enjoyed, which is truly wonderful. RICHARD: Indeed so. All what is required is to see-through the whole sick-and-sorry system and, thus, cease believing in it. CLAUDIU: That certainly makes it much easier! I definitely find myself shedding my previously-held (and strongly at that) notions as to what capitalism is and how an ideal society would function. RICHARD: Good ... of course, any such ‘ideal society’ has no chance of functioning as idealised whilst the human condition prevails (the 7.0+ billion versions of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – presently in control of 7.0+ billion bodies would corrupt it tout de suite, were they ever to even concur in having it be established in the first place, that is). Needless is it to add that, once there is a global spread of individual peace-on-earth then that which can currently only ever be an ‘ideal society’ will function even better than idealised (given that any such idealisation is self-centric by its very nature)? CLAUDIU: I actually find it much easier to converse with my friends about things such as economics and politics now as I am much more able both to allow for the possibility that I am wrong, and also to take a different approach to the conversation where it’s more about sharing our ideas than one of us ‘winning’. Actually, that ability that you and Vineeto and Peter have to converse with people with contrary opinions without getting emotionally involved (obviously) or without you guys trying to ‘win’ or you trying to be ‘right’ and prove the others ‘wrong’ (as Peter in particular mentioned on a few occasions) was really something to witness, and really appealing to me as well. RICHARD: Hmm ... it would appear that what you are referring to is the complete absence of any engagement in either winning or losing an ego-battle (which is what most trying-to-be-right-and-prove-the-other-wrong exchanges devolve into) as participating in the elucidation of the factual rights and wrongs of contrary opinions, in and of themselves, is a major feature of my words and writings. (Of course, there is more to it than not being ego-centric – as in, not being soul-centric, either – but there is no term, corresponding to ‘ego-battle’, which conveys the inability to engage in those deeper-level type of ‘battles’ that various awakened/ enlightened ones are on record as engaging in). It is this total lack of any self-centricity at all – of whichever type, kind, or nature whatsoever – which makes it all so easy here. Regards,
Re Moral cap and Authority RICHARD: I am resurrecting and introducing several obscure and/or obsolete words so as to facilitate communication as
it is more explanatorily helpful to bring back to life antiquated terms (the Shakespearean-Era “rememoration” CLAUDIU: Hi Richard, I am intrigued by your resurrection and introduction of old words for their use in actualism. I’d like to make sure I understand them correctly. RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, I resurrected them several years ago, actually, for use in my Pāli studies as the modern-day English words ‘remember’ and ‘remembrance’ (plus ‘recollect’ and ‘recollection’) were inadequate for translating certain key words. They also assist in accurately conveying what has been sitting there in plain view in the buddhavacana for over two millennia (and thus why there have been no arahants for more than two thousand years). * First of all, then, here is a curious thing: removing the prefix ‘re-’ from the word ‘remember’ leaves ‘member’ (a word derived from the Latin membrum, meaning ‘limb’ or ‘part’). And, as the word ‘remembrance’ comes into usage by affixing the suffix ‘-ance’ (which forms nouns expressing an action, state, condition or quality) to the word ‘remember’ it amounts to the same thing. Whereas removing the prefix ‘re-’ from the word ‘rememoration’ leaves the word ‘memoration’; thus to be rememorative, then, is to be reviving, in the memorative faculty, an item previously memorated there. ‘Tis but one of the trifling oddities of human history how those words – which signify that mental act, of bringing memories anew to conscious attention, in a syntactically literal sense – would be the ones to fall out of favour. And especially so as the word ‘commemoration’, formed by affixing the prefix ‘com-’ (intensive) to ‘memoration’, still retains that otherwise lost word (‘memoration’ is from the Latin memorāre, ‘to remind’, hence also the words ‘memorial’ and ‘memorialise’). Howsoever, because these words long ago lapsed into disuse an opportunity exists to not only infuse them with that special-usage meaning (distinct from the primarily cognitive or intellectual activity, which ‘remember’ and ‘remembrance’ generally refer to, via thereby referring instead to a primarily affective or intuitional activity) but to also knowingly utilise that ‘re-’ function, which represents ‘anew’ or ‘again’, as well. Hence, by dint of a viscerally-felt instinctually-intuitive rememoration (‘re-’ + ‘memoration’) of memorable
experiencing already memorialised in the memorative facility – revivified feelingly therein and thereby infused presentially Thus, in conjunction with those ‘making present’ words, I now have the linguistic means to vividly communicate how
feeling-being ‘Richard’ not only accessed ancestral memories and apotheosised wisdom/ gnostic knowledge of yore (Although, due to the total lack of precedence, ‘he’ increasingly infused it with the grandeur/ the glory / the allure of the ASC as well). Previous to this I had recourse to varying terms, such as “sincere attention”, “exclusive attention” and “naïve
remembrance” for instance, to depict that process. In my pre-internet and early internet days I had also referred to that process as “diligent
mindfulness” but gradually ceased doing so as it became more and more apparent that those ‘choiceless awareness’, ‘bare attention’ and
‘lucid awareness’ type mistranslations By way of illustration I recently drew attention to my usage of the latter two of those terms, via square-bracketed insertions
specifically referencing these resurrected words, in Message № 19982 Viz.:
In the first of the above extracts (Message № 19982)
In the second extract (Message № 20023)
Or, alternatively, even like this:
Not only are those examples more informative than ‘naïve remembrance’ is – and streets ahead of any term which has the word ‘mindfulness’ in it nowadays – they also carry with them inklings and/or intimations of that magical milieu where richness abounds. * RICHARD (to Claudiu; 18 May 2015): Yes, the better example [of where nothing was owned and where one could help oneself to whatever was available] is indeed “before civilisation” as to “stake out a territory and start farming it” marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such “helping oneself” transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., “The Garden of Eden”), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the “haves and have-nots”) down through the ages. Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being *viscerally felt*, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. [latter emphasis added; first three emphases in original]. [...remainder of Message № 19435 Although the term itself (‘peasant-mentality’) was not something new to the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body,
all those years ago, the situation and circumstances whence that most peculiar mindset arose in the human psyche (and, thus atavistically, in ‘his’
psyche) was indeed something so novel that ‘he’ found dianoetic CLAUDIU: About “dianoetic” – I currently don’t see any benefit of using that term vs., say, “intellectual” or “rational”. That is, I am not sure what meaning that term gives, over and above, or different from, “intellectual” or “rational”. I see it as pointing to the thinking/ intellectual/ rational aspect of ‘me’ (‘I’ as thinker) as opposed to the affective/ intuitive/ psychic aspect (‘me’ as soul), but I think “intellectual” and “rational” already serve that purpose well. Is it perhaps that “dianoetic” is even more in the direction of intellectual? That is, something dianoetic is further away from something intuitive than something intellectual is. As in, strictly in the realm of thought only. I get the connotation of greek philosophers philosophizing, something extremely dry and detached. RICHARD: My usage of the word dianoetic – from ‘dia-’ (through) + noetic (of or relating to, originating in, or apprehended by the rational and intellectual faculties of the mind) via ‘noesis’ (the cognitive process; understanding solely with the mind, the intellect) and stemming from ‘nous’ (the mind, the intellect; the faculty of reason and knowledge) – is quite prosaic. Over many, many years of wide-ranging reading it became more and more apparent that, quite broadly speaking of course, for many and various peoples a major grouping of the topic ‘thought, thoughts and thinking’ had self-organised under the aegis of “discursive thought” and “intuitive thought”. However, a peculiarity of the word ‘discursive’ (from Latin discursīvus, discursus, ‘running about’) is that – although it has connotations of “proceeding to a conclusion through reason rather than intuition”; and/or “of or relating to knowledge obtained by reason and argument rather than intuition” – what it primarily denotes, as its Latin root indicates, is “passing from one topic to another, usually in an unmethodical way”; and/or “covering a wide field of subjects, rambling”; and/or “moving aimlessly from one subject to another; digressive” or, in a word of similar ilk, “excursive”. Ha ... hardly the stuff of rational, sensible, sound, judicious, prudent, practical, matter-of-fact reasoning, eh? Viz.:
Thus the word dianoetic, by virtue of being specifically exclusive of anything intuitional, subliminal, instinctual and visceral readily encompasses all the other types of intellection, mentation, cerebration, excogitation, ideation, ratiocination, illation, contemplation, meditation, rumination and reflection such as you allude to with your “rational” and “intellectual” examples. It had alway seemed rather strange to me how an excursive-rambling-digressive denoting term, such as ‘discursive thought’ is, could be so popular (and especially so with the academics) as a counterfoil to the instinctual-subliminal-visceral denoting term that ‘intuitive thought’ is. Hence a more robust term, such as ‘dianoetic thought’ is, with its nous-noesis-noetic ...um... pedigree. CLAUDIU: About “rememoration”: as with “dianoetic”, I am not sure what nuances this word brings over and above “remembrance”. I currently associate “rememoration” with affective/ psychic/ instinctual/ intuitive remembrance in particular, but that’s because of the context you used it in, whereas the word “rememoration” itself seems to just mean “remembrance”. So couldn’t you have said “an instinctual-intuitive remembrance”, since the qualifying words “instinctual-intuitive” were there, anyway? Or did you indeed intend to ascribe the particular meaning of “affective/ psychic/ instinctual/ intuitive remembrance” to the word “rememoration”? Another shot at it: perhaps “rememoration” is something like a much more intense form of “remembrance” - not just remembering, but also reviving in the memory - and the term could either mean affective intense-remembrance or dianoetic intense-remembrance (using it already!), depending on the qualifiers it’s used with? RICHARD: As I generally covered all of your above queries, in the first section of this email, via explaining and
demonstrating, with example quotes, its explanatory power – in regards to vividly presenting how feeling-being ‘Richard’ not only accessed
ancestral memories/ apotheosised wisdom/ gnostic knowledge of yore Regarding your first query: I could have indeed said “an instinctual-intuitive remembrance” per favour those qualifiers. It strikes me as being on a par with the original text. Viz.:
In regards to your second query: yes, the ascription of the instinctual-subliminal-visceral-intuitive characteristics to those special-purpose memorative & rememorative type words was the main reason for resurrecting them. As for your third query: what you depict there applies more to those ‘making-present’ type words – (e.g., a “much more intense form of remembrance” and, especially, “reviving in the memory” does not, given your dual-use proposal, require special-purpose words resurrected from antiquity) – such as ‘presentiation’ & ‘presentification’, as in, ‘Vergegenwärtigung’, for instance, per favour Mr. Edmund Husserl. * RICHARD: Put differently: its elucidation [about whence that most peculiar ‘peasant-mentality’ mindset arose in the
human psyche] is indeed so novel that, back in the late 1970’s, it was ‘me’ as soul/ spirit – as in (according to the Oxford Dictionary),
the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of the emotions, or sentiments, and character – who revivified viscerally, with a markedly
luminous vibrancy, an atavistic memorative facility CLAUDIU: As for “presentiated” - I like this one and I see the appeal. As in the Husserl quote, instead of visualization, as in me calling something to mind, or me reaching out for something and thus seeing it that way, or me visualizing it that way, it’s more like the entire thing to be presented appears as a whole to me, much more vividly. RICHARD: Indeed so ... and when revivified viscerally, with a markedly luminous vibrancy, in an atavistic memorative facility it can become so (affectively-psychically) intimate it is as if ‘you’ are virtually experiencing it first-hand. (Speaking from vainglorious-to-the-max personal experience, one does have to be exceptionally alert to any and all illusionary/ delusionary aspects, though). CLAUDIU: Also, out of curiosity: given how you haven’t experienced anything affective for many, many years now, and I remember you telling me you had no idea what fear was like anymore, it having been so long since you experienced it, how is it you are still able to speak effectively about such affective/ psychic matters to the point where you can even repurpose old words with new meanings relating to the affective/ psychic faculties? RICHARD: The simple answer: being totally free from it all – epitomised by a definitive absence of any ‘self’-centricity of whichever type, kind, or nature whatsoever (and thus no ‘self’-interest whencesoever either) – provides for a truly remarkable overview. Basically, it comes with the territory. A more detailed response would have to include having lived-that/ been-that, night and day, for the first thirty-four years, as a sane person, and having sublimated-that/ transcended-that, night and day, for the next eleven years, as an insane person (albeit an institutionalised insanity highly revered/ greatly venerated by the vast majority of sane peoples), plus having a myriad of deep and meaningful and wide-ranging and profound conversations and discussions, inclusive of many an intense interaction thereby, with my fellow humans, since January the 1st, 1981, on one topic and one topic alone ... namely: the human condition in all its implications and ramifications. Because of not being able to intuitively ‘tune-in’ and thus feel-out how my many interlocutors are feeling, for nigh on 23 years now, has meant paying close attention to what they are actually saying – listening carefully, asking for clarification, questioning the whys and wherefores thereof, and so on – with the inevitable result you are curious about (above) ... to wit: that is how I am able to speak effectively about such affective/ psychic matters (to the point where I can even repurpose old words with new meanings relating to the affective/ psychic faculties). Essentially, I am listening to what my fellow human being is saying, taking notice of whatever difficulties they may be having comprehending, and tailoring my responses accordingly. In the process of doing so I am constantly reminded of what it is like to be a feeling-being – living in an affective/ psychic ‘inner-world’ and, thus, experiencing an ‘outer-world’ *through* their host-body’s senses (which physical world that host-body, of course, sensately experiences *as* this actual world) known as the real world – and how mind-bogglingly difficult it would have been for feeling-being ‘Richard’ to make sense of the words issuing forth from this keyboard. Also, I not only have the unique advantage of having lived life in three majorly different ways I have also interacted at close quarters with three different women, each spanning more than a decade, in various combinations of those three different ways. Viz.:
Thus knowing this particular topic (viz.: “such affective/ psychic matters” and “the affective/ psychic faculties”) in those various combinations of those three majorly different ways contributes immensely to being able to speak effectively about theses matters even after all these years. Plus, of course, writing so extensively about it has made it into a ‘second nature’ so to speak. * All in all, it is not all that dissimilar to what happens when craft becomes art: the wannabe artist spends years honing their skills as a craftsman/ craftswoman – acquiring and mastering all the requisite technical skills via fully-immersed hands-on experiencing (mistakes and all) – and it is only when the day finally dawns, whereupon the craft-persona (the craftsman/ the craftswoman as an accomplished entity) all-of-a-sudden involuntarily vacates the throne, that craft becomes art. Essentially, all these words just stream forth from these two fingertips taking on a life all of their own in the process. ‘Tis always a pleasant surprise when I re-read them online for the very first time. Regards,
Re: Goodbye SRID (to Claudiu): [...] one has to wonder why are some folks here consistently opposed to Srid being engaged in this demonstrably successful route? RESPONDENT No. 00: Speaking for myself, it just looks like a long detour. Why not start with figuring out harmlessness – the real deal, not as a moralistic injunction – right away? Wouldn’t that be fun to figure out? SRID: As saying ‘not cool,’ while looking piercingly into his or her eyes, in response to a racist cop, living not in a country with less than lawful police-force and with no prior/ current crime committed on my part, who had just made a racist snide remark is not even remotely similar to ‘pursuing power [*with* people]’ (thus harming the said other) – rather it is all to do with both ceasing to wallow in social-identity reactions thereby buttressing the already existant victim-bully power-relations/ psychic-network (via standing up for oneself by ceasing to be a victim), thus ceasing to harm oneself (via ceasing to be a victim) and ceasing to indirectly harm the other (via facilitating the bully) and thereby getting back to feeling pleasant sooner than later – does it not make you wonder why you and some other folks get into the habit of immediately grasping onto the notion of harmlessness (as written in AFT) whenever reading what I have to report lately? Over at Gitter chat, I’ve had people to whom notions of ‘rebellion’ came to picture ... all from those two words ‘not cool’. RICHARD: Just a quick note, whilst reading-through the latest posts in ‘Yahoo Groups’ online, so as to point out how those responses from your co-respondents are not necessarily [quote] ‘all’ [endquote] from those two words as the [quote] ‘power’ [endquote] you are self-evidently channelling – as per your ‘while looking piercingly into his or her eyes’ wording – is that of a police-force calibre (i.e., just one step below that of a military-force calibre). Viz.:
Furthermore, you want to [quote] ‘grow and retain this power’ [endquote]. Viz.:
* Lastly, that [quote] ‘racist cop’ [endquote] scenario you have been liberally posting in various venues is purely hypothetical (i.e., an untested speculation). Viz.:
That last sentence of yours is a doozie ... do you really think, upon a sober reassessment, that your unbacked-by-lethal-force
affective vibes/psychic currents will gain dominion SRID: The affective vibes/ psychic currents I would give off, in that hypothetical scenario, would be different in nature to that of the racist/ aggressive police officer (backed by lethal force or not) ... RICHARD: First of all, it is rather telling that out of the entirety of my previous note – written online whilst reading-through the latest posts on the ‘Yahoo Groups’ web-page solely to point out how the ‘power’ you are self-evidently channelling is that of a police-force calibre/ just one step below that of a military-force calibre – the portion you chose to address above (with further similarly untested speculations) is the hypothetical section. Rather than wander down ‘Speculation Lane’ with you here again is your own account of whence the affective vibes/ psychic currents are derived which you have, consequentially, been channelling for nigh-on three weeks now. Viz.:
Those [quote] ‘pretty solid vibes’ [endquote] you felt when given forth by [quote] ‘a bunch of local police guys’ [endquote] whom you met at that breakfast place – specifically noted by you at the time as being [quote] ‘the power to remain unfazed’ [endquote] as you then [quote] ‘began getting some ‘power’’ [endquote] yourself along with its evidentially confirmative hedonic-tone (‘evidentially’ as per your ‘best of all power’ wording – cannot be markedly [quote] ‘different in nature’ [endquote] unless you did not [quote] ‘learn a lot from them’ [endquote] after all. (And if you did not then why even mention it or refer to them – let alone in such complimentary and/or affirmative detail – in the first place). This is the advantage of the written and date-stamped word over a (potentially) faulty memory and/or a (potentially) selective recall. CLAUDIU: Ha, leave it to you to always extract and point out the most salient point! RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, Well, even though it has been 23+ years since I was the unwitting host of a (rather sensitive) feeling-’being’, I can still recall how ‘he’ affectively felt and psychically intuited the affective vibes and psychic currents involuntarily emanating from and/or purposely projected forth by various members of state-trained and state-sanctioned police forces (including a brief encounter in 1966 with those of the ‘Việt Nam Cộng Hòa’, a.k.a. ‘Republic of South Vietnam’ – who were known colloquially as ‘White Mice’, due to their all-white uniforms, and most definitely not to be trifled with – plus those of ‘Bhārat Gaṇarājya’, a.k.a. ‘Republic of India’, in 1985, who each carried a metre-long ‘lathi’, a stout bamboo cane bound with iron, as standard equipment). For example, just sitting at a table in a café somewhere – relaxing in its typical convivial atmosphere (characteristically correlated with an appetising aroma of multifarious foodstuffs and a hubbub of voices along with a distinctive clatter of eating utensils) – whenever a uniformed police officer would enter and approach the serving counter there would invariably be a resultant marked change to that convivial café atmosphere. Indeed, even if sitting with ‘his’ back to the service-section the very nature of that atmospheric change (characteristically correlated with a diminishment in the hubbub of voices whereby the clatter of utensils loomed louder) was sufficient for ‘him’ to momentarily swing ‘his’ head around to locate whence that which inhibited/ intimidated ‘his’ fellow patrons originated. This was because repeated occurrences of same had established an intuitive recognition of that peculiar ‘police-force’ affective vibe and/or psychic current (although ‘he’ would use the term ‘aura’, back then, just as the word ‘power’ is utilised, instead, further above). Thus, were a regular citizen ever to successfully [quote] ‘grow and retain this power (not unlike growing muscles)’ [endquote] – specifically in order to obtain a muscular-like affective-psychic dominion over the [quote] ‘other’ [endquote] – they would surely find themself becoming more and more a pariah, rather than an intimate, with each and every adversarial episode they were thus aggressively escalating (affectively-psychically) due to being but a regular citizen and not a duly-licensed police-force officer. * Just as a matter of interest, and especially as Alan recently used the word ‘trepidation’ (Message № 21507) in relation to interactions with police-force officers, what feeling-being ‘Richard’ was able to detect – due in no small part to an uncle of ‘his’ (his father’s older brother) having served as acting Police Commissioner, just prior to his retirement from the Western Australian Police Force, and thus having been raised to view the police as the saviours of law-abiding citizens – was the state-trained/ state-sanctioned lethal-force source of that aforementioned ‘police-force aura’ a.k.a. that ‘police-force power’. In other words, that intuitively-recognisable psychic current spread an (affective-psychic) aura of safety and security for ‘him’ – albeit stemming from the (physical-bodily) safety and security obtained at the point of a gun (i.e., that properly-sanctioned ‘lethal-force’ licence) – which automatically demanded its due respect. (Incidentally, ‘he’ raised ‘his’ then-children to likewise view the police as their allies which, by all accounts, has stood them in good stead throughout their adult lives). * Lastly, the whole point of activating the third alternative to either feeling powerless or feeling powerful – i.e., feeling harmless/ innocuous (as distinct from turn-the-other-cheek pacifistic behaviour) – is to dynamically defuse that entire power-structure/ power-battle way of life, which is so endemic in the animal realm, and thereby actively enable intimacy. (After all, as ‘I’ am the ‘other’ – for each and every ‘me’ who is ‘other’ to ‘me’ – ‘I’ thus intimately know what it feels like, for those who are ‘other’ to ‘me’, to be such an ‘other’ upon each and every interaction). * CLAUDIU: Just a quick note (and to Vineeto as well for the AFT site archive): the links you provided under the quotes are all the same, to wit:
You see that link points to Srid’s ‘How does your diaphragm area feel like?’ message in the middle of an unrelated conversation between me and Srid. RICHARD: Yes, I obtained the above URL from his first post to Alan (Message № 21299) regarding how the time-stamp of the ‘Gitter Chat’ extract Alan had posted – in reference to a posited intimate ambience correlation – looked to him in Pacific Time (as contrasted to Greenwich Mean Time). CLAUDIU: What I suspect happened is that you scrolled your browser from there to the relevant part of the chat, and copied the address from the address bar at that point. Yet, scrolling the browser doesn’t update the address bar, so you got the same link for all three portions of the conversation. What Gitter does is provide a link on each message timestamp. So, for example, if from the link above I click on ‘Dec 07 22:24’ (this is how it displays in my timezone; this is the message one before Srid’s) the address changes to:
This is different than the one above (though the first 46 characters are identical) and highlights the message right before Srid’s (my ‘Hmm alright, sounds good! [...]’). So for the three quotes you provided, the links you should have used were:
(‘Met a bunch of local police guys [...]’)
(‘The ‘other’ would want ‘me’ [...]’)
(‘Alright a specific example [...]’) RICHARD: Ah ... thank you for that clarification (and Vineeto has made the necessary changes). CLAUDIU: Note how all three links, in their entirety, are different. In general, changing the state of the browser by navigating around a webpage does not *necessarily* change the address at the address bar, and so to link to a particular webpage state (as in, to what you are seeing right now) often requires you to do something else (like, in this case, to click on a message’s timestamp). RICHARD: I appreciate the degree of detail you put into your explication. It had never occurred to me that left-clicking the time-stamp changed the URL in the browser’s address box. I had tried right-clicking it because on web-logs doing so typically pops-up a ‘Reply’ box complete with that page’s URL (plus the particular comment number being replied to). I have never accessed a chat-log before this (nor any ‘social media’ for that matter) so the entire set-up is all alien to me. Regards,
RETURN TO MAILING LIST ‘D’ INDEX CLAUDIU’S REPORT OF VISITING RICHARD AND VINEETO 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.
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