| | I put it to anyone reading this that Nagualism, (or MesoAmerican Shamanism) is a superior practice to Buddhism and AF. In fact I believe AF is a re-hash of Nagualism.
My main objection to Buddhism is that it doesn't deal with "stuff", as it's called here. "Stuff" meaning uncomfortable emotions caused by (re-)activation of painful memories in the ego. The fact that you can be an arahat and still blow up in an emotional rage when critisized or cut off in traffic, says something. When I've asked what you actually do with the emotions, I'm normally told 'psychotherapy'. So Buddhism has no way of tackling the emotions? Fear and desire are the cornerstones of the ego, and yet we have no way of treating them directly? These same emotions are whats stopping us from experiencing the moment, living in the moment. They are whats driving our internal dialogues, yes? What about dealing with them directly instead of forcing the mind onto a distraction such as the breath? "What we resist, persists" - as the saying goes. No wonder the Dark Night creates havoc. Resist the ego for long enough and it's sure to come back and bite you....hard. Unnecessary, in my view.
While I generally agree with the content on the AF website, Richard seems like a verbose pedant, who revels in making things far more difficult than they need be. His website is like some horrific labyrinth. If you haven't yet tried to navigate it, prepare yourself for asking: "didn't I just read that 2 minutes ago on a different page?" over and over and over. But more likely you will ask yourself "why is Richard continually trying to impress me with fancy words? Does he not feel adequate as he is?" I've never seen a website with so many pages devoted to Commonly Raised Objections. In my view, the questioners have quite valid objections which only sometimes are answered in plain, easy-to-understand language. See here: http://actualfreedom.com.au/sundry/commonobjections/croindex.htm
Asked recently to explain why I thought AF was a re-hash of Nagualism I came up with a list of references, which you'll see further down the page. While it's not important *who came first*, it becomes important when you consider Richard considers himself *the first in the World*. That's a real problem right there, and it makes me very uncomfortable to hear anyone talk like that, because it suggests a basic lack of insight, or research or both. That's unfortunate because he has some good ideas amongst it all, IMO.
Here's some topics common to both AF and Nagualism.
Regarding self-immolation,
nagualism: "Seers who deliberately attain total awareness are a sight to behold. That is the moment when they burn from within. The fire from within consumes them. And in full awareness they fuse themselves to the emanations at large, and glide into eternity".
Regarding sentimental emotions and pity...
nagualism: "He taught me that to feel pity for others is inappropriate for a warrior, because pity for others always stems from concern for the self. He used to ask me, pointing at people we met on our way: 'Perhaps you believe yourself better than them?' He helped me to understand that the solidarity of sorcerers towards the people around them comes from a supreme command, not from human sentiment".
Regarding self-observation of one's emotions as a path to freedom:
nagualism: "Mercilessly stalking my emotional reactions, he led me by the hand to the source of my preoccupations, and I was able to realize that my concern for people was a fraud. I was trying to escape from myself, by transferring my problems to others. He showed me how compassion, in the sense we use the word, is a mental illness - a psychosis that will just make us more and more powerfully entangled in our ego."
Regarding joy/happiness/felicity..
nagualism: "He maintained that the exercise [of examining emotions] has two main effects. "The immediate effect is that it stops our internal dialogue. When a warrior is able to stop his dialogue, he tightens the relationship with his energy. It liberates him from the obligation of memory, and from the burden of feelings, and leaves a residual energy that he can invest in enlarging the frontiers of his perception. A warrior begins to appreciate the real thing, not the interpretation of it. For the first time, he comes into contact with the consensus of sorcerers, which is the description of a reality inconceivably integrated.
It's normal that a warrior at this stage begins to laugh at anything, because energy provides happiness. Thanks to his recapitulation, he is happy, overflowing, jumps like a child. On the other hand, he begins to become a fearsome person, since, having his luminosity intact and his life clean, decisions will no longer be an obstacle for him. He will decide what is necessary the moment he wants to, and that, to other people, is scary".
(many of these passages are from Carlos Castaneda's work, also Armando Torres 'Encounters with the Nagual'). |