A more detailed description of 1981

Actualism
27

Writing all this though I realise something quite fun! That this seems the only unexplained bit now haha.

As in I remember first taking a swing at actualism and none of it making sense experientially, at this point everything else is clear, it’s like all these other riddles have been solved with a solid experiential answer, this one for now remains a muddled mess. And meanwhile the golden cities remain unexplored :smile:.

Oh and the last line of enquiry which I forgot :

  • As an identity ‘I’ am blind to flesh and blood bodies, ‘I’ interact with other identities. So is this near actual caring directed to other identities (that which ‘I’ can experience) or is it directed to flesh and blood bodies, genuinely existing human beings (it seems it must be this one). How can ‘I’ care for something that ‘I’ cannot experience?
28

Maybe this is the missing bit – you can indeed do it for you! I mean, you wouldn’t do it if ‘you’ dont want to do it. It is to ‘your’ benefit too - ‘you’ get to relieve ‘yourself’ of the burden of feeling like ‘you’ exist and all the mayhem and misery that that entails and having to defend ‘yourself’ etc… it is candy for everyone :grin:

1 Like
29

Hmm that’s interesting, the actualist in me is screaming with - “but you are not allowed to do it for ‘you’ that is not altruism” haha. It’s like there is a moral here that says ‘I’ cannot do something which ‘I’ desire because that is selfish.

30

Yea I sense a bit of that age-old morality dilemma of “how can I be pure if I strive to do good for my own benefit?” as in it’s “tainted” if it helps “me” too. But I think this is just silly … this is just a moralistic attempt to counteract selfishness, but the result is still self-centered (just unselfishly so). The key is to not be self-centered , it’s ok to be “selfish” (as in doing something that is good for yourself too)

Otherwise you really have to flagellate yourself for all the enjoying and appreciating you’ve been doing! Bad Kuba, doing something that is nice for you!

2 Likes
31

Yes that is certainly there as you describe - how can I want all these wonderful things for myself and it really is wonderful, it seems to me like the heights of selfishness and narcissism to desire such things for myself. I am denying myself freedom because that is what a good person would do :joy::joy:

1 Like
32

@Kub933 for me the caring thing was the very last piece of the puzzle. ‘I’ wanted to self-immolate, I could feel that there was this momentum, this sense of destiny, this tingle in the air. The PCE had shown me what the destination was, but there seemed to be no way to get there - to untie this knot that was ‘me’. Caring for another was the escape hatch to get me out of the circularity of my pursuit. I started thinking just about caring for others, both specific persons - such as my partner and people more generally. Eventually it ramped up into a caring for all and an appreciation of the plight of humankind, which was the same as my plight. In that brief out-from-control phase of mine, the level of universal compassion and empathy reached a real pitch, all backgrounded by having dazzling actuality within a whisker of me. Craigs words about ‘bridging the separation’ between me and others I found useful too. I saw what I would need to give up. It dawned on me what needed to be sacrificed. And then it was all over.

3 Likes
33

Hard to say how much you should go into caring and when. But if you’re ready to do this and you find yourself stuck, this might be the thing that is missing.

1 Like
34

Yes it does seem like the missing bit and it’s also quite interesting how I’ve built up this nice little fort of moral dilemmas around it.

Which I know from past experience that it’s usually there to keep me where I am, to keep me from seeing the simplicity of something and thus moving forward.

Why do I have such a problem with allowing myself to care… It seems because I know where that caring leads to.

35

I appreciate your contributions here Srinath. You get to say things that I feel compelled to dance around and hint at.

Your inclusion of “universal compassion” into your out-from-control experience is relevant.

Richard et al’s (relatively recent) turnabout as to the importance and intensity of empathy in the actualism process is also telling. For the longest time, empathy was a four-letter word in actualism. Along with love, compassion, sympathy, humility, etc.

I am beginning to suspect that Richard has bitten the hand that used to feed him. That is, not only did empathy, love, compassion, oneness, humility, beauty, and so on, diminish his malice and sorrow and make him happy and harmless, and not only did it ultimately succeed in getting him to an out-from-control virtual freedom (aka an ongoing excellence experience), but that the out-from-control experience was in fact epitomized by all these things.

That to imitate the actual is to ramp up all these actualist no-no feelings. Indeed, love, forgiveness, compassion, beauty, empathy, are described as being imitations of the actual world. Pale or pathetic or meagre imitations by comparison perhaps, but imitations none the less.

Richard (1999): The essence of success in actualism – the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom – is to fully acknowledge that one is ‘human’ and to imitate the actual as far as is humanly possible.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 12

So, imitate the actual? Got it …

Richard (1997): The illusion of intimacy that love and compassion produces is but a meagre imitation of the direct experience of the actual.
Richard's Selected Writing on Actual Freedom

Richard (1997): Forgiveness is a meagre imitation of magnanimity, which is one of the many charming characteristics of actual freedom.
Richard's Selected Writing on Actual Freedom

Richard (2000): This is because an imitation innocence was produced by the transformed identity now being humble … it never was and never will be the genuine article.
Mailing List 'C' Respondent No. 4

Richard (2004): The affective intimacy of love – the delusion that separation has ended via a glorious feeling of oneness – is but a pathetic imitation of an actual intimacy.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 108

Richard (2005): I was to discover that beauty is but a pale imitation of the purity of the actual.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 106

Richard (2005): ‘He’ (unknowingly) took the pristine purity of the actual, which beauty is but a pathetic imitation of, to be beauty itself.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 106

36

The method has to work though and if the method was essentially about maximising the loving and compassionate feelings how would this be any different from what humans have been doing to no avail all this time?

What I observe in myself is that the initial period involves somewhat ‘shelving’ these things ‘over there’ so that a way out via pure intent can be locked onto.

Once the way out is clear it might then be possible to involve all of that passionate energy towards the goal, ‘I’ am all of those feelings and so to commit all of ‘myself’ involves that entire rainbow that is ‘me’ being channelled towards self-immolation.

The other thing as well is that there is a difference between the actualism method (which is all about the felicitous and innocuous) and the actualism process which does seem to be about getting all of ‘my’ passionate energy onboard towards self-immolation.

As discussed in the Q and A from Australia, those 2 things are not linked.

37

That’s a good question, Kuba.

The method. Yes. How did Richard practice the method that landed him in an ongoing excellence experience?

38

The other thing as well is that although Richard was the first it doesn’t mean that the way he went about it is the best haha that is precisely why there was the direct method.

It was an attempt to pave a better way after Richard, who obviously being the first had no way to know better.

So why try to copy him step by step?

2 Likes
39

Why not? His method for achieving an ongoing excellence experience took a mere 90 days. Seems pretty potent.

40

But it led to enlightenment not actual freedom …

If we were to exactly imitate Richard then we should all get enlightened first

Why not imitate Geoffrey instead? He had shortest time I’ve witnessed of coming to contact with actualism and then becoming free

41

I see haha, it’s like Richard had some secret juice because he got to where he was the quickest so we must copy him step by step even when he is specifically advising not to.

Perhaps it was the millions of other variables that made Richard - Richard that were responsible for his ability to plough on so quick.

I mean there would be 1 way to test this theory @rick and that is to commit yourself towards this ‘original route’ and see what happens.

Though it makes sense to heed the warnings of someone who has been there and done that, quickest of all as well! To avoid his advice whilst trying to emulate what he did step by step seems like an insult to Richard’s integrity.

Is he knowingly dishing out half baked advice? Has he kept the best ingredients to himself? Is he just too old and forgetful now? :laughing:

42

I second the “Rick trying it” experiment :grin:

43

Just saying to keep an open mind about these four-letter actualist words. Yesterday the AFT regarded empathy as contraindicative. Today it’s being prescribed. Who knows - maybe tomorrow, forgiveness?

44

Since you say you know a better way or understanding than us , then show us the way by doing it !

1 Like
45

Whoever get there first wins the prize :grin:

46

You laugh, but …

“Knowingly” suggests malice. Perhaps unknowingly.