Allusions to Actual Freedom existing before Richard

[scout]

Background: I spent a couple months at a zen monastery for meditation practice and have spent thousands of hours reading spiritual literature from various religions and teachers. I have no religious affiliation myself but after my first PCE, the first place where I recognized pieces of the truth I had witnessed was in Buddhism.

Richard is the earliest writing I found that very directly eschews enlightenment in favor of the deepest truth of physicality. But other religions and teachers point to this truth too; it is just far more likely to be buried underneath confusing, unrelated fluff, as religions are prone to once they get co-opted and handed down by followers who are not actually free or even enlightened.

Across all religions and teachers, I saw three enlightenment “stages” emerge time and again:

• “Traditional Enlightment”, i.e. the Boddhisatva/Jesus: The awakening of the heart and deep compassion, love for all beings and for existence. Described as selflessness, natural joy, and being in touch with a core “Being” that is God-like - timeless and ultimately peaceful. This is the base insight upon which many religions were founded
• “Unmanifest Emptiness”, i.e. the Arahant: Beyond the compassion, as one moves deeper into the “Being” then it is increasingly recognized that the Being only existed in relation to the activities of an increasingly quiet “soul”. Since this Being was seen as the core of existence, identification moves to formless infinite eternal nothing; “God” is seen as empty. The perception of an experiential center is said to collapse at this point, but psychological identification still exists enough that there is something around in the psyche to claim infinite nothing (which seems to just be the psychic entity perceiving its own death) as its new “Being”. This is called “Non-Being” - Buddhism goes here but Christianity does not.
• “Return to the body”, i.e. the ultimate truth, Actual Freedom: I’ve only seen this described in certain sects of Buddhism and the rare teacher preceding Richard, and not with nearly as much clarity. Transcendence and infinity are left behind and the person returns to being a completely normal and unexceptional human being, simply enjoying life and physical pleasures. There is no reincarnation, no soul-separate-from-body - only raw, whole, inseparable life. Uncentered sensate experience, free from any identification - which is now seen to just be a dissociation of the psyche from experience - is the highest bliss.

It’ll take me time to find stuff so I’ll post it in chunks as I do, starting with the example I remember off the top of my head.

[scout]

The Ten Bulls of Zen

This is the most commonly-known example I can think of, and some of you may already recognize it. For reference: Zen Enlightenment: Ten Bulls or Ten Oxherding Pictures | Sloww

It describes the journey of the mind towards enlightenment, where the individual goes in search of the Ox, representing the mind or self, and gains control of it. They ride the Ox to a peaceful, beautiful home in the mountains. These are panels 7 (Being/enlightenment) where the Ox is abandoned and the person abides above humanity, separate from it, basking in enjoyment; and panel 8 (Non-Being/transcendence), where the all the world including the human itself are abandoned as well, and there is only infinite, heavenly bliss.

But there are still two more panels! In the 9th the return to reality begins; it is recognized that the whole “chase of the Ox”, even transcendence, just led the person away from the real truth.

In the ultimate state, the tenth panel, the person returns to the marketplace, living amongst everyone and equal to everyone. There’s no transcendence or infinity anymore. They live simply, peacefully, and joyfully and no longer fear death. In some illustrations they are drinking wine; enjoyment of the physical world and pleasure of the body is the highest truth.

My assigned teacher at the monastery found that panel distasteful which totally tracked with that whole monastic setting lol and pretty perfectly exemplified how religions lose the thread.

[Kub933]

@scout this kind of thing has been suggested before and in the end it all turns out to be the same.

What I find odd is that you have yourself written about Richards precise use of language. And anyone reading his words in general can witness the fact that he was extremely thorough all around.

Richard spent over 10 years trying to suss out why the enlightened state (which he lived) does not work. The closest he was able to find to something resembling actual freedom were allusions to a state which ensues when the soul quits the body at physical death and yet no one was able to say unequivocally that they lived this.

So what do you think happened in those years of his enquiry? If actual freedom has indeed existed before then this extremely thorough and comittment person must have been too blind to see (in over 10 years of enquiry) what you have found now. Or the only other alternative would be that he was some kind of charlatan that did find the information but chose instead to present himself as a pioneer of something entirely new instead.

This reminds me of the “cause of bias” thread where the eventual suggestion was that Richards and Vineetos opinion’s must be due to cognitive defects.

This all seems extremely back to front.

[scout]

@Kub933

So what do you think happened in those years of his enquiry? If actual freedom has indeed existed before then this extremely thorough and comittment person must have been too blind to see (in over 10 years of enquiry) what you have found now. Or the only other alternative would be that he was some kind of charlatan that did find the information but chose instead to present himself as a pioneer of something entirely new instead.

Rather than refute the quality of the content I’m providing directly, your argument is that “if Richard knew about this information and was still confused then this means no one has experienced that state before”. That logic is faulty.

Richard may have not found use in the literature - indeed, most spiritual paths provide no guidance from enlightenment back to embodiment - but that doesn’t mean no one has been absolutely free before. That’s the argument I’m making

[claudiu]

@scout

In the ultimate state, the tenth panel, the person returns to the marketplace, living amongst everyone and equal to everyone. There’s no transcendence or infinity anymore. They live simply, peacefully, and joyfully and no longer fear death. In some illustrations they are drinking wine; enjoyment of the physical world and pleasure of the body is the highest truth.

This is your interpretation of the tenth panel. I found one here which says instead:

10. Entering the Marketplace with Helping Hands. The Enlightened “person” is now the embodiment of Awakened Consciousness and returns to “mundane” life, knowing that nothing is mundane; All is Oneness at all points in time and space. Bliss, gratitude and unconditional love prevail.

Zen Ox Herding: An Overview of the 10 Stages of Enlightenment

This is very clearly still talking about an Enlightened state, not actual freedom or even a PCE.

So, whose is correct? Your own teacher eschewed the view you propose — he would know better what his religion says, no?

People can and have and will continue to try to read spirituality into actual freedom, usually maintaining that the spiritual path is still superior / more thorough. But if you actually look at the experiential reports and descriptions of those who claim to be Enlightened, you will always see that theirs is an ultimately spiritual experience of transcendence, and not one of living in actuality.

More to the point, what Zen or Buddhist or religious or spiritual teacher will say that that Transcendence and Bliss was not only an illusion but a delusion, that it’s completely the wrong direction, that it leads one further away from the goal and not towards it?

And what Zen practice or sect eschews the teachings of the Buddha? Which will say the Buddha’s words are wrong or that he wasn’t Enlightened? And the Buddha says that what he is is not the body, that the body is impermanent and dukkha, and there are various meditations on the disgust of the body to help one dissociate from it. Buddha said he is the dharma and the dharma is him. And what is the dharma?

RICHARD: In the Madhupindika Sutta (MN 18; PTS: M i 108), for instance, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan makes it abundantly clear that not only is he dhammaṃ (the Pāli dhammabhūto, in that sutta, translates as ‘has become dhamma’) but is also the eye of wisdom/ gnosis [cakkhubhūto], is knowledge/ gnosis itself [ñāṇabhūto], is brahman [brahmabhūto] and is the bringer, the giver of the deathless [ninnetā amatassa dātā], or immortality, as well.

Vis.:

• ‘bhagavā jānaṃ jānāti passaṃ passati, cakkhubhūto ñāṇabhūto dhammabhūto brahmabhūto vattā pavattā atthassa ninnetā amatassa dātā dhammassāmī tathāgato’.
(jānaṃ jānāti = knowing, he knows; passaṃ passati = seeing, he sees; vattā pavattā atthass = the guide, the elucidator of meaning; dhammassāmī = master of dhamma).

Latest Public Announcement

I recommend reading that full Addendum 7, as well as Richard’s thorough treatment of Buddhism here: Selected Correspondence: Buddhism

The point being that when you actually understand, properly, what the enlightened masters themselves say, and what enlightenment is, then you see how it is 180° opposite from actual freedom.

I think the only sensible way to proceed here would be for you to point specifically to a Buddhist or spiritual or whatnot experiential report that you think is describing actual freedom, and we can dissect and analyze it from there. But as Kuba said, it always ends the same!

It really is a stumbling block for many, considering Richard was the first to discover this new thing. But, why not? Someone has to be the first to discover anything new, by definition. So what it amounts to is seeing that actual freedom is something new — and this is what is critical to see, you can’t really try something new if you think it’s actually something else that’s already been done before!

It really will help with the global warming and other stuff as well, once you see this. Because for actual freedom to be new and superior (which it is), it means all the billions of people haven’t seen it yet, have been doing the suboptimal, and so many even when pointed directly to this new thing just completely miss the point and react sometimes violently towards it. So it means everyone else is wrong and you’re onto something that essentially the entire planet would disagree with.

Once you see this you will not feel such discomfort going against the groupthink orthodoxy that is found in other topics such as anthropogenic climate change.

Cheers,
Claudiu

[scout]

This forum is an anti-groupthink groupthink.

@claudiu

This is very clearly still talking about an Enlightened state, not actual freedom or even a PCE.

So, whose is correct? Your own teacher eschewed the view you propose — he would know better what his religion says, no?

My teacher wasn’t enlightened and most people who follow and interpret religion aren’t either which is why religions contain so much useless garbage. Which is also the danger of conveying truths allegorically rather than stating them explicitly - they are prone to misinterpretation - another advantage of Richard’s thoroughness of communication. And also the advantage of having a living free being. You can’t ask the dead for clarity, you can only interpret what they’ve already said and if there are gaps, the ignorant can fill those gaps with confused interpretations.

This seemed like a pretty direct and obvious allegory to me. It might have been theoretical; practitioners may have seen the trajectory without fully going there themselves. I think the failure was in my teacher’s understanding, not mine. But it’s a pointless argument, because whoever made it is gone now.

The same will be true of any quote I present here; we can only argue the dead words, as the predecessors who wrote them are gone. That’s why I titled this thread “allusions to actual freedom”, not proof.

For example, the vast majority of Osho’s talks are Being-focused, some Non-Being, then near the end of his life he talks about going beyond enlightenment, that mundane reality holds the ultimate truth:

“First go beyond mind. Then go
beyond enlightenment too.

Don’t get stuck anywhere until you are simply an ordinary part of the existence, with the trees, with the birds, with the animals, with
the rivers, with the mountains.

You feel a deep harmony - no
superiority, no inferiority.

“ To go beyond enlightenment is not to become greater than Gautam Buddha.

To go beyond enlightenment is to become an ordinary human being. To forget all about enlightenment and all about great spiritual aspirations and to live simply joyously, playfully… this ordinariness is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the world.”

But you will not be able to recognize him. Up to Gautam Buddha you will be able to recognize, but as a person moves beyond Gautam Buddha, he will start slipping out of your hands. Those who have recognized him as an enlightened being may remain aware of who he is, but those who come new will not be able to recognize him at all, because he will be simply a very innocent, ordinary human being — just like a child collecting seashells on the beach, running after butterflies, gathering flowers. No division of body and soul, no division of matter and spirit, no division of this life and that — all that is forgotten; one has relaxed totally.”

“Enlightenment makes you special. That means something of the ego in some subtle form still remains. Others are ignorant, you are a knower; others are going towards hell, your paradise is guaranteed. These are the last remnants of a dying ego. And when this ego also dies the buddha becomes an ordinary human being, not knowing at all that he is holier than thou, higher than thou, special in any sense — so ordinary that even a bottle of wine is acceptable. The whole of life is acceptable; the days and the nights, the flowers and the thorns, the saints and the sinners – all are acceptable, with no discrimination at all. This ordinariness is really the greatest flowering of human reality”

You could quote a ton of shit from Osho to make the point that he was enlightened rather than actually free, because the vast majority of the teachings were from that perspective. Again, he’s dead, so we can’t press him.

But these quotes sound plenty like what Richard is saying to me.

I would turn the groupthink argument back to you: why are you bent on interpreting these quotes in a way that supports Richard’s assertion that he is the first person to ever become actually free? Can you admit that the ambiguity of interpretation makes it possible that all these sources are describing the same thing he was, even though we can’t know for sure?

They certainly sound like they’re describing the same thing. It doesn’t make them a good roadmap; the roadmap Richard provided was unique. But I don’t know if he’s the only one who ever went there, even if he was the first to write about it in the ways he did and suggest a unique course to get there.

[Kub933]

@scout I’m currently abroad with only access to a mobile so it’s tricky to do a more in depth breakdown of each point. Even so I don’t think I would have the interest to do this simply because this has already been beaten to death on the AFT and the outcome is always the same.

My intention was to skip over doing more of the same and instead insert some common sense into the discussion. But it seems like this hasn’t worked.

The issue is as @claudiu pointed out, that if one is unable to see that actual freedom is different to anything that came before then one is always going to continue smuggling the ‘tried and true’ ways back into actualism.

Ultimately it seems it is down to each sincere individual to make this examination for themselves and discover that indeed there is nothing of value to be found in the ‘wisdom of the past’.

The thing is that actual freedom has already been solidly set up as the third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism. This work was done by Richard, Peter and Vineeto over many years on the AFT. This is another reason why I am not interested in doing more of the same, there is just no need for it now.

This forum is best utilised by those who have already made the prima facie case that what is on offer is sensible and thus are more interested in “getting stuck in” rather than continually debating that which has already been addressed at length, whilst remaining trapped within the human condition themselves.

Actualism is experiential and so this “getting stuck in” is far more important than any intellectual debating.

[claudiu]

@scout

My teacher wasn’t enlightened and most people who follow and interpret religion aren’t either which is why religions contain so much useless garbage. […] This seemed like a pretty direct and obvious allegory to me.

Ahh yet you are not enlightened either. So from where do you draw your conviction that you know better what enlightenment truly is than someone who actually was enlightened and lived that night and day for 11 years?

@scout

This seemed like a pretty direct and obvious allegory to me. It might have been theoretical; practitioners may have seen the trajectory without fully going there themselves. I think the failure was in my teacher’s understanding, not mine. But it’s a pointless argument, because whoever made it is gone now.

The same will be true of any quote I present here; we can only argue the dead words, as the predecessors who wrote them are gone. That’s why I titled this thread “allusions to actual freedom”, not proof.

You have set this thread up as an exercise in futility then, a way to further fuel your pre-existing conviction rather than arrive at the facts of the matter. As anything anyone says that disagrees with your interpretation, you can just say it’s a pointless argument since the quoted person is dead and we can’t talk with them.

Nevertheless I will give it a shot with the quotes you have because they very obviously show how Osho was not actually free, but rather that he was Enlightened.

Quote the first (emphases added):

That’s what I call going beyond enlightenment - the day you start forgetting that you are enlightened, the day it becomes just the natural course of your life, ordinary, nothing special. The way you breathe, the way your heart beats, the way your blood runs in the body, enlightenment also becomes part of your being. You forget all about it.

When you ask the question, I am reminded that yes, there is an experience called enlightenment.

But when I am sitting alone I never remember that I am enlightened, that would be crazy! It has become such a natural, ordinary experience.

First go beyond mind. Then go beyond enlightenment too. Don’t get stuck anywhere until you are simply an ordinary part of the existence, with the trees, with the birds, with the animals, with the rivers, with the mountains. You feel a deep harmony - no superiority, no inferiority.

As you will see, you left out vital context when you provided this quote. Osho is not saying the stage “beyond enlightenment” is one of becoming ordinary, of being the flesh and blood body only. He is saying it is when one has become so accustomed to enlightenment that it is now an ordinary experience for you. When part of your ‘being’ is now enlightenment, no separation anymore between enlightenment and not enlightenment.

So Osho is not talking about enlightenment ending entirely, it is rather a suffusing of enlightenment in one’s very being. In actualist lingo it would be when the ego is fully dissolved and one merely Is, there is no longer anything besides enlightenment.

Contrast this with Richard who was enlightened, and saw that there was an actual freedom beyond his experienced Absolute Freedom, that was the actual complete ending of Enlightenment itself, a 180° degree opposite turnaround from Enlightenment — not a continuation as Osho said.

It couldn’t be clearer from this quote that they’re talking about different things, different experiences.

From the quote the second:

No division of body and soul, no division of matter and spirit, no division of this life and that — all that is forgotten; one has relaxed totally.”

Here Osho is saying there is no longer a separation between body and soul, between matter and spirit. He is talking about a union of the two, a cohesion, they have combined into one Whole.

This is completely different from actual freedom wherein the soul and spirit disappear entirely, and were seen to have been illusory to begin with. There is not a merging with the soul, or a removal of separation with the soul — rather, the soul disappears.

If Osho experienced what Richard did, this disappearance of and seeing the soul were illusory, he would not be talking about this lack of separation here. He would have noticed the soul had disappeared, as that is what actual freedom is, total self-immolation, soul included!

About the third quote, the following precedes it by two paragraphs:

What about the tenth? That is the stage when you go beyond enlightenment; you become ordinary again. Now there is no split between this world and that, now there is no split between good and bad. Now all opposites have joined together into one single harmony; that’s what is represented by the bottle of wine, a bottle of wine in the hands of a buddha.

Here it’s the same idea as in the first quote, “beyond enlightenment” we already know what it means, it’s when enlightenment becomes so accustomed that it is experienced as ordinary. And we have the same idea of the second of no split between this world and that (ie the spiritual), and here he even explicitly says it joins into a harmony. And the second quote comes soon after this one.

@scout

But these quotes sound plenty like what Richard is saying to me.

While what they are actually describing is Enlightenment, which is completely different than what Richard is describing.

@scout

I would turn the groupthink argument back to you: why are you bent on interpreting these quotes in a way that supports Richard’s assertion that he is the first person to ever become actually free? Can you admit that the ambiguity of interpretation makes it possible that all these sources are describing the same thing he was, even though we can’t know for sure?

There is no ambiguity of interpretation here. Osho explicitly talks about Enlightenment continuing and becoming part of your being, and a merging of a body and soul. He did not self-immolate such as to become actually free. He is accurately describing his experience, and it is describing something different.

Richard’s assertion he was the first is thus supported by the facts rather than any interpretation. Osho was not actually free, hence Osho’s experience doesn’t disprove that Richard was the first.

@scout

They certainly sound like they’re describing the same thing.

And they would have sounded that way to me too, back when I thought actualism and Buddhism were the same thing presented in different ways, that actual freedom and enlightenment were the same.

Then I met people who claimed to be enlightened or on the path to it, and I met Richard and Vineeto as well. I saw with my own eyes that they were experiencing something of a different nature, a different quality than that being described by the spiritualists. I got a hint that the actual world actually exists.

Then I had a PCE and it was clear by experience that the actual world exists, that ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety is just a felt illusion, and that living life that way was what I knew I wanted to do. It is also frequently part of the experience of a PCE that to live life that way permanently is something entirely new to human experience. It is part and parcel of being aware and percipient of pure intent.

I’m further confident this is the case after having done this exercise a few times of looking at spiritualists that supposedly are living the same thing as actual freedom. It does not take much, with a critical eye and a knowledge of what you’re talking about, to see where the differences lie — very stark differences, much like the ones here. But I was only able to do this once I was able to accept the possibility that actual freedom is something new.

So, let’s see if this dissection of the very quotes you provided (using only material immediately in the vicinity of the same talk by the same person) will do anything to alter your conviction!

Cheers,
Claudiu

[Vineeto]

Vineeto: Don’t you want to find out how you tick, …

Scout: Yes, so badly. I feel bad pretty often. I try to set my bearings and observe myself honestly and keep getting lost in the weeds. But I can see my confusion and stress make my body sicker than it already is. I want to stop torturing myself and to be well. (link)

Vineeto: Ah, now we are talking, lol.
Here is something I recently wrote to another and they reported instant success, so I wonder if it will work for you as well … This quote from Richard might be helpful as well (link) –

Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition […] if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).
Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, AF List, No. 27c, 9 Sep 2002)

Scout: This forum is an anti-groupthink groupthink. […] (link)

Hello Scout,

It looks like your try at the actualism method wasn’t very successful and hence you did exactly what Richard observed in the above quote, except you are turning the blame outwards – you blame the forum members and Richard himself in order to avoid getting closer to “the end of ‘me’”).

That’s understandable.

What is less understandable is that you come up with the lamest allegation I have ever seen – “anti-groupthink groupthink”. Ha! What does that make you – anti-anti-groupthink think? Or perhaps a member of non-anti groupthink after all?

And what about the comparisons you provide, those followers of enlightened or ‘quasi-enlightened’ persons and those following the teachings of the 10-bull story – according to you their teaching is similar to what Richard is supposedly saying. Are those followers of the “groupthink” variety or also “anti-groupthink” people?
(BTW, those objections are nothing new, they have all been answered here so there is no need to clutter the forum as uninformed as you did).

Again, my question is, which side are you voting for (since to you it is a matter of numbers who is called “groupthink” – are you the lone defender of anti-anti-groupthink? Or do you perchance just want to mount a critique and stir some commotion before you slink away because you couldn’t make a success of the actualism method?

Did you know that one of the essential requirements for the actualism method to work is that one is ruthless honest with oneself?

Cheers Vineeto

[scout]

I read the CRO’s, I’m not trying to retread old territory. I didn’t see any quotes raised there for discussion indicating that others had maybe gone all the way before, which constitutes potential proof.

@claudiu

So, let’s see if this dissection of the very quotes you provided (using only material immediately in the vicinity of the same talk by the same person) will do anything to alter your conviction!

I appreciate you engaging on the level of the quotes and going so far as to explore context. Everything you said regarding your interpretation of Osho’s words against Richard’s makes sense. I still think the 10 Bulls of Zen raises reasonable doubt as to whether Richard was truly the first, but as you said, it’s a rather pointless debate. Actualism as a method was unique to him regardless.

My primary interest in exploring this was not to prove anything in particular but probe the doggedness with which people here seem to take everything Richard says as gospel. I am skeptical of any community I join and will probe for cracks and contradictions; it’s saved me from many cult-y, groupthink spiritual circles. One of the habits here I’ve noticed that’s consistent with other groups is the tendency to mimic the language of the “leader”. Some degree of that offers a helpful common language, but when everyone is saying the exact same thing over and over with little variance to indicate that they have arrived at an original thought, I am skeptical that people are parroting and paraphrasing without actually understanding experientially what they are discussing. Which is literally how religions form. So this led to some of my wariness.

@Vineeto

What is less understandable is that you come up with the lamest allegation I have ever seen – “anti-groupthink groupthink”. Ha! What does that make you – anti-anti-groupthink think? Or perhaps a member of non-anti groupthink after all?

This assumes I’m aligning with the perspective of the mainstream by doubting you guys but I doubt the mainstream too. I try to be skeptical about most things that feel pressingly important to me and explore them for myself (climate change has not been pressingly important; I recognize I hadn’t looked thoroughly into it when I commented before passing judgment and I’m looking forward to going through the exercise of developing my own informed perspective). I’m surprised you would disparage that tendency as that seems pretty core to the actualism method.

That being said, I’m here in good faith and obviously much of what Richard said resonates with me. Here is direct honesty: I am wary of manipulation, which most communities I’ve found seem rife with; I am exploring assertiveness after a lifetime of bending to other people’s beliefs; I hold identity surrounding my intelligence which adds excitement to debate, but also an agenda; and I feel hesitant to share this with all of you because of the first point, I’m still wary of the clarity of people here, and in admitting my own capacity for blindness I fear it will be used against me to discredit my perspective in future conversations.

And yes, my experience with actualism has been meh. I don’t think having a PCE as a reference point is as easy as Richard described, I think it’s really easy for the identity to forget and misinterpret the experience once it reactivates, and I think it’s very easy to misinterpret Richard’s teachings as suppression (even though he explicitly warns against it) because “returning to feeling good” is not remotely intuitive when you’ve felt like shit most of your life; suppression is a pretty common adaptation for returning to baseline. That said, I have found his instructions really helpful for ongoing self-monitoring and letting things go, both of which have produced clear results over time. It just seems a lot more difficult than everything makes it out to be.

There seem to be a lot of people not free here talking about freedom and I don’t want to be blind following the blind. I am trying to understand why it seems to click for a couple people but others like @claudiu seem to devoutly practice and study for years without becoming basically or actually free. Either there’s some context I’m missing, or the method isn’t bulletproof, or there must be some conditions (as in, the psyche must be ready in xyz way) to becoming free aren’t fully understood yet. I’ve seen some of that nuance emerge in discussions here regarding basic vs actual freedom, the guardian, etc, which Richard did not contend with when he developed actualism, but which have emerged in people like Geoffrey who have pursued freedom via his method.

I’m not done with the method and will continue applying it; it just feels excruciatingly slow, and I am hungry for change, so I am trying to ascertain as much as I can about what I am exploring to ensure I am not spinning my wheels. I probably still am, unconsciously, to some extent.

[Vineeto]

Scout: I read the CRO’s, I’m not trying to retread old territory. I didn’t see any quotes raised there for discussion indicating that others had maybe gone all the way before, which constitutes potential proof.

Exactly, no examples by those who raised the question that another had “gone all the way”. You suggest that it was “potential proof”. Even you yourself cannot confidently state that it would be.

Have you ever heard that one cannot disprove something that does not exist? For instance, can you prove with confidence that a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eater does not exist somewhere in this infinite universe?

It is comparable to Fallacy No. 10 – burden of proof fallacy. [The legal example: People accused of crimes are presumed innocent. The burden of proving that they are guilty rests on the prosecutor. The accused doesn’t have to prove anything.]

Scout: I’m not done with the method and will continue applying it; it just feels excruciatingly slow, and I am hungry for change, so I am trying to ascertain as much as I can about what I am exploring to ensure I am not spinning my wheels. I probably still am, unconsciously, to some extent. (link)

That is good to hear. The fact that it is “excruciatingly slow” perhaps has something to do with not understanding, or misunderstanding, the actualism method. Perhaps you could explain where exactly you get stuck when being affectively attentive to how you experience being alive, and after getting back to feeling good, examine the trigger for the diminishment of your enjoying this moment of being alive.

Cheers Vineeto

[scout]

@Vineeto

That is good to hear. The fact that it is “excruciatingly slow” perhaps has something to do with not understanding, or misunderstanding, the actualism method. Perhaps you could explain where exactly you get stuck when being affectively attentive to how you experience being alive, and after getting back to feeling good, examine the trigger for the diminishment of your enjoying this moment of being alive.

Being affectively attentive is very painful and exhausting. If I do not suppress or indulge sometimes it still takes literally hours for even neutrality to emerge, and it is pretty fleeting before the next wave of feelings arise. I am agitated and exhausted and in physical pain pretty often, and inviting even more pain by not dissociating when stuff comes up feels like a rough prospect. I recurrently fall back to numbing, because the effort of paying attention to the pain in the way I need to in order for it to pass and not puppet my reactions is daunting and slow to pay dividends.

Of course the numbing does not pay dividends at all, quite the opposite, but in the moment I am beyond grateful to be relieved from the pain, if only for a little.

[Vineeto]

Scout: Being affectively attentive is very painful and exhausting. If I do not suppress or indulge sometimes it still takes literally hours for even neutrality to emerge, and it is pretty fleeting before the next wave of feelings arise. I am agitated and exhausted and in physical pain pretty often, and inviting even more pain by not dissociating when stuff comes up feels like a rough prospect. I recurrently fall back to numbing, because the effort of paying attention to the pain in the way I need to in order for it to pass and not puppet my reactions is daunting and slow to pay dividends.
Of course the numbing does not pay dividends at all, quite the opposite, but in the moment I am beyond grateful to be relieved from the pain, if only for a little.

Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting”? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it?

Either way, first, stop the habitual response – stop fighting your pain and stop fighting the feelings you experience. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings and the pain by increasing the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by being afraid of it), it instantly diminished.

From there, seeing the success of stopping the battle against yourself, you might be able to get to a reasonable feeling good, a little better than neutral.

Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here. Then whenever you get a chance, explore this resentment a bit further –

• [Richard]: ‘Back in 1980 ‘I’ looked at the stars one night and temporarily came to my senses: there are galaxies exploding/ imploding (or whatever) all throughout the physical infinitude where an immeasurable quantity of matter is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time and ‘I’ – puny, pathetic ‘I’ in an ant-like-in-comparison and very vulnerable 6’2’’ flesh and blood body – disapprove of all this? That is, ‘I’ call all this a ‘sick joke’, or whatever depreciative assessment? And further: so what if ‘I’ were to do an about-face and graciously approve? What difference would that make to the universe?
Zilch. (Richard, AF List, No. 10, 25 May 2000)

Once you become fairly confident with these two aspects via experiential confirmation (the only proof which counts) you can have a look at how to change how you feel. It requires giving up dissociation, even if only temporarily, until you become more confident. Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive. Here one of Richard’s co-respondents explains this in detail –

Respondent: … incidentally, Richard, how can they be ‘an hereditary occurrence’ and be of my choosing at the same time?
Richard: You do comprehend that you are your feelings/ your feelings are you (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) do you not? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between having feelings and being those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.
This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something” about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I am the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.
This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.
I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST).

And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, AF List, No. 60g, 30 Oct 2005a).

Let me know how you go.

Cheers Vineeto

[Felix]

I don’t want to bury Vineeto’s post as I happened to post just minutes after^^^

—— —— ——

Hey @scout , I have vaguely read your posts - I say vaguely because my reading was no doubt not as scrupulous as Kuba’s and Claudiu’s!

I haven’t weighed in because personally I’m not interested in debating those topics. In fact I am somewhat of an anti-anti-group-think-group-thinker myself … I kid but it’s true that this was somewhat my archetypical identity when approaching actualism.

I came into this group a few years ago and I was “shaking up” the discussions in the same way you are now. I’m not going to debate you and I’d even say I partially agree with some of the things you’ve said to various degrees. I emphasise some.

I’m an atheist, historically somewhat of a scientific rationalist - as an aside there are others in this group including other actually free people who do not agree with Richard’s views on climate change or smoking or whatever else.

So the idea that you can kind of round us all up as having the same traits and ideas and such doesn’t quite wash. There are “basically” actually free (if you are familiar with this distinction) people who disagree vehemently with Richard on some points.

No one thinks Richard is a “God” and he did not claim to be one either. He was very black and white and prescriptive about his views on things and there probably is a bit of a desire to emulate him in other ways (mimicking his writing style, defending his views by default) in the pursuit of actual freedom. That’s quite normal feeling being behavior though no?

What Richard is putting forth is so radical, so new, that indeed you sort of do perhaps need to get in his shoes any way you can to have the same flavor of experience as he. He fully embodied the state of “naivete” and professed to experience himself of having the mental age of about a 14 year old (with the intellect/maturity of an adult of course).

As for the kind of “rationality” of this, actualism defies rationality in my opinion - at least on an experiential level…you can’t think your way to actual freedom, which is why being intellectual à la Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or (insert your intellectual idols here) doesn’t save you from the human condition. Obviously as an explanatory philosophy, it makes perfect sense - do you agree?

Anyway I’m just mentioning that stuff by the by as those were my thoughts on your posts, previously uncommented on because I wasn’t concerned to convert you in any way. No one else wants to convert you either I don’t think but I understand what you feel it’s a bit dogmatic at times.

One other thing I’ll mention is that I’ve personally met with both fully Actually Free people (Richard and Vineeto) on many occasions, as well as some of the basic actually free people (Geoffrey, Craig, Srinath). Happy to tell you a bit more about my findings in dealing them if you want - but in short, I’ve never been let down by my interactions with actually free people. It’s very quickly evident that they are intelligent, down-to-earth people who have no trace of the instinctual passions - as you’d want them to be. But better you verify this for yourself rather than hear it from me.

Overall, I’m interested in what you wrote here:

Being affectively attentive is very painful and exhausting. If I do not suppress or indulge sometimes it still takes literally hours for even neutrality to emerge, and it is pretty fleeting before the next wave of feelings arise. I am agitated and exhausted and in physical pain pretty often, and inviting even more pain by not dissociating when stuff comes up feels like a rough prospect. I recurrently fall back to numbing, because the effort of paying attention to the pain in the way I need to in order for it to pass and not puppet my reactions is daunting and slow to pay dividends.

My first thought on this is that it’s similar to what I experienced applying the method for a long time. I have absolutely struggled with it, and it made me feel way worse - I really got stuck and totally burnt myself out as my diary can attest to. I had and still have problems with some of this psychosomatic stuff, and when you say numbing I assume you mean some form of maladaptive coping mechanism which I also struggled with (for me it was sex and porn).

My second thought is, do you think you would be quite so intellectually argumentative about actualism and the trappings of this group and its followers if you were having success with it? I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t if that were the case.

So rather than worry about personal opinions of Richard and the views or the behavior of others, which is quite secondary, why not stay with your difficulties in relation to the much more important task of freeing yourself of the instinctual passions.

Because it’s either that, or it’s simply not possible to free oneself of the instinctual passions, right? (Assuming that means no feelings not even “divine anger” which the enlightenment people have).

And that’s something that could be causing some resentment for you about actualism. It’s not easy, you didn’t ask to find out about it, on some level you do kind of “believe” in it, so you’re stuck with it - but now it seems like you might not achieve it which is also potentially scary (the notion of a wasted life, not living up to Richard etc etc and of course the very real feelings which continue to plague you).
Am I getting close to the mark on any of that? That was the case for me at least.

You’d at least have to say, you aren’t happy in the human condition; which is why you are looking around at other alternatives. The feelings are indeed causing you a lot of pain and suffering, and those feelings were obviously not put there by actualism or the method. The bad feelings you are experiencing are also perhaps putting some significant pressure on you to choose “the right alternative”, which in turn is perhaps turning your (fear-fuelled) intellectualism on with laser like focus. “Is it enlightenment I need? Or actualism? Anything but this!”

I’m not going to try to sell you on actualism versus anything else, but I can share some points about what has been helping me get past this if you want.
My diary hopefully partially achieves this hopefully but I can also speak more specifically to my own and your own situation if you want.

The advice @Vineeto just gave is excellent - and far be it from me to improve upon it.

The only thing I would emphasise additionally is that actualism is about feeling good, enjoying and appreciating - and if that’s not occurring it’s usually because something (‘you’ in some psychoemotional form) is preventing it. If so, what? This exploration needs to be done naively btw, it’s more about “feeling things out” intuitively and with a desire to be innocent rather than simply tagging problems.

You may be inclined to think that whatever you are experiencing is so entrenched, so demonstrably rigid and unmoving etc that getting back to feeling good is impossible but that’s an illusion created by the feelings themselves.

There may also be metapsychological processes that are additionally scuppering your ability to get back to feeling good. For me it’s typically things like black and white thinking, perfectionism, being very judgmental of myself and not at all friendly, feeling shame at the nature of the feelings and the behaviors they lead to, going the other way (panicking, feeling oneself lost etc), escaping/numbing (in whatever form), intellectualism (trying to invent other ways to do it that wouldn’t require feeling good, resenting Richard and actualism itself etc).

Also it sounds generally like you are quite strung out and somewhat burnt out. I have the reputation of being a bit intense and that can also be exhausting if you have the same habits. Do you find you are less and less able to rest and relax as you continue with the method? And if so, what is it that is preventing you from resting and relaxing, besides feelings? Do you feel you must achieve actual freedom immediately, or that you are not good enough until you achieve X?

My advice on all that is to wait till you feel good next (if it occurs just naturally sometime and not as a “choice” in the moment that’s totally fine). Then feel into what it feels like to feel good, and from there trace back to what it was that wasn’t letting you feel good before. What was the belief that was blocking you?

Given you talk about numbing and not being able to stop suffering (which is quite normal for a feeling being like you and me), there is a great passage on the “addiction to suffering” on the website.

It won’t be the case that you apply the method and just stop suffering for ever more. That’s why it’s about creating the habit of getting back to feeling good and tracing back to seeing when felicity ended and why. It’s about incremental progress and using naïveté, friendliness with yourself, sincerity with yourself, investigation etc to facilitate that.

And you can use this forum too. I am more personal and confessional than most on here and that helps me personally, as someone who doesn’t have many people in “real life” to discuss things with.

Lastly - this is just my opinion - but are you eating enough, getting outdoors, exercising a bit, not overworking etc etc? Actualism needs enough space and time and wellness for you to be able to explore the human condition in peace, without being way too busy or sick or under pressure.

[Felix]

P.S A very instructive excerpt re feeling worse as a result of asking HAIETMOBA and other helpful points on the method itself (labelling feelings, investigating etc)

[Vineeto]

For those who can read so small a print - (Richard, AF List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

[Felix]

Good idea Vineeto. I actually had it from the Commonly Raised Objections - Actualism Is Too Difficult page which has some excellent excerpts.

One key aspect mentioned which I think I had overlooked was about HAITEMOBA not just being about the senses but also asking what is happening cognitively/emotionally.

RESPONDENT: How is your sentence different from: ‘Notice what you are experiencing with your senses now?’

RICHARD: First of all, your sentence does not indicate that it is this moment of being alive (the only moment anyone is ever alive) which you are experiencing; second, by specifying that it be your sensate experiencing it leaves out both your affective and cognitive experiencing; third, the word ‘notice’ (as in observe, heed, and so on) is passive, impersonal/ detached, and not interrogative, personal/ involved

This aspect of it being interrogative is something I had overlooked. It’s not just coming to the senses but also inquiring as to how one is feeling, and if one is not feeling good then finding out why.

[scout]

@Vineeto

Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting”? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it?

The latter, but lending it attention makes the pain feel more acute than numbing it (even though I remain low-grade agitated while numbing too). I’ve been trying to work on not fighting it, it’s just hard bc if I don’t it feels kind of overwhelming.

@Vineeto

Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here.

Yea I feel resentment a lot. I’m unable to work even a kind of chill home job right now bc I have been dealing with some weird medical symptoms that leave me constantly fatigued and slight stress provokes sometimes scary symptoms. I’m scared I won’t be able to support myself, but I’m also scared that things will get worse if I keep working since that’s been the trajectory thus far. I’m decently young too so most of my peers are out enjoying their lives and I’m in bed a lot of the time, I know comparatives aren’t helpful but I really wish I could function normally and that basic stuff like eating wasn’t a source of constant pain.

I don’t think any of these feelings are serving me in getting better. But it feels like I can’t help it; when I sit with myself long enough I cry like a scared child in pain.

@Vineeto

Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive.

I can’t see this clearly yet honestly. I see that I do have a choice as to whether to engage narratives around certain feelings with my attention, and that if I stop giving those narratives attention then the feelings lose their edge, and diminish sooner. I don’t feel in control of what emotions arise in a given moment at all, just in how I respond to them.

I’ll keep exploring. I appreciate the engagement.

Thanks for your perspective too @Felix, what you wrote in your journal recently resonated.

@Felix

Lastly - this is just my opinion - but are you eating enough, getting outdoors, exercising a bit, not overworking etc etc? Actualism needs enough space and time and wellness for you to be able to explore the human condition in peace, without being way too busy or sick or under pressure.

Might be where I’m struggling. I am on leave from work and I’m taking care of myself pretty well, but getting a handle on my health has been challenging and draining. But living more intuitively to figure out what my body needs has made it apparent that my psyche is like a cancer, sapping energy and creating stress and making it hard to heal. So I feel there are literal physical stakes to this. Maybe it’s leading me to put pressure on myself here which is getting away from the point. I do feel an urgency; I want to be well.

This morning I am feeling ok though.

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

@scout

@Vineeto

Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive.

I can’t see this clearly yet honestly. I see that I do have a choice as to whether to engage narratives around certain feelings with my attention, and that if I stop giving those narratives attention then the feelings lose their edge, and diminish sooner. I don’t feel in control of what emotions arise in a given moment at all, just in how I respond to them.

An exercise that has helped me recognize that I am my feelings (and not just ‘having’ them) was one day sitting in front of a mirror and appraising myself in the same way you might appraise someone you’re meeting for the first time.

What does this person have going on? What is this person like? Who are they?

At the time, the answer was, ‘this person is pathetic.’ It was quite a shock!

Since then I see that it’s something that changes, one day I’ll be pathetic (that is ‘me’ being pathetic, aka feeling pathetically), another day I’ll ‘be’ confident, etc.

The mirror thing was useful for seeing it very clearly for the first time, but following that time it’s gotten easier and easier to tell intuitively where I’m at, with the knowledge that the feeling really is what I am - in that moment - and that the overarching pattern of feelings is me as a whole.

This awareness has been a big motivator for me. There are always excuses for a specific feeling at a specific time, but once I see that that is me - for example, that pathetic person from earlier is me - it became something I could not accept, regardless of my circumstances. That is now my go-to motivator whenever I’m stuck on something.

[claudiu]

Hi Scout,

@scout

My primary interest in exploring this was not to prove anything in particular but probe the doggedness with which people here seem to take everything Richard says as gospel.

I appreciate you revealing your interest as it helps to tailor the response to be most helpful.

One useful thing to keep in mind when making this evaluation is, what would someone’s response look like if what they are ‘defending’ is a fact, as opposed to a belief?

For example picture the topic wasn’t whether Richard was the first, but rather that we are all in a plaza and looking at a monument that is an obelisk. And the topic is whether it is an obelisk or a statue that we are looking at.

One might say, hey how do you know it isn’t a statue? I think it’s a statue. If you look at this small part here it looks like part of a statue.

And the others would say no it is clearly an obelisk, here is why… …

This straightforward pointing out of the facts, could look like dogged defense of a belief to someone who really thinks it’s a statue there.

I just point it out because these two can look similar at the first – dogged defense and closed-mindedness and refusal to ‘see’ someone else’s point of view – vs. confidently pointing out the facts. Of course in a philosophical sense someone might be doing the former while thinking they’re doing the latter – but I bring it up for you to have something to think about.

Ultimately the only way to really get to the bottom of it is to see what the facts are for yourself. To that end, the detailed analysis and breaking-down like I did, helps with that regard. But it’s also understandable why other forum-members wouldn’t be interested in rehashing the same years-old topic again and again.

@scout

And yes, my experience with actualism has been meh. I don’t think having a PCE as a reference point is as easy as Richard described […]

My experience with actualism is that it’s all remarkably straightforward, obvious, delightful, and easy … … in hindsight . In other words, once you get it, once you do have that solid PCE as a guiding light, then it is easy to have a PCE as a reference – you just have it. But yes, it can be tricky to have or rememorate the first one. It took me some time.

It is not tricky because it is ‘hard’ though, in the sense of requiring studious effort, great physical activity, or something like this. It is only as hard as ‘I’ make it. It is hard because ‘I’ get in the way, ‘I’ hold onto my beliefs, ‘I’ nurse malice and sorrow to ‘my’ very bosom… and it’s a matter of getting out of the way, which requires ‘me’ to give up things ‘I’ hold dear. It is really about self-sacrifice for the benefit of something better, of something outside of ‘myself’.

Also in case your alarm bells are ringing here: the self-sacrifice is NOT for the benefit of some supreme entity or being called ‘Richard’ or ‘Vineeto’ or a belief system or viewpoint called ‘Actualism’ or a God called ‘Actuality’. The self-sacrifice is to allow the already-always objectively existing purity and perfection of the actual world – that objectively exists even outside the scope of any human consciousness – to become apparent. So you can be sure that you won’t become enslaved for the benefit of some malicious Thing that will manipulate you or take advantage of you.

Rather than giving up your own reasoning to follow a belief system someone else imposed — it’s about giving up all your beliefs, restoring your autonomy (which whether you realize it or not you have already given up to the tenets of the ‘real world’), seeing the facts for yourself, which Richard’s and everyone else’s words are referring to.

@scout

[…] I think it’s really easy for the identity to forget and misinterpret the experience once it reactivates […]

Yes, it’s not uncommon for a genuine PCE to devolve into an ASC, at which point the person goes off on a spiritual path instead of the actualist path. Sincerity and naivete are the keys to preventing this from happening.

@scout

[…] and I think it’s very easy to misinterpret Richard’s teachings as suppression (even though he explicitly warns against it) because “returning to feeling good” is not remotely intuitive when you’ve felt like shit most of your life […]

I would say it’s extremely difficult to misunderstand that Richard is suggesting suppression. He very clearly explicitly and often says not to do that.

But yes it is easy to go ahead and suppress anyway, because it is certainly a common coping mechanism.

It ultimately ends up being a skill issue. Through trial and error — with sincerity being a key — you start to see experientially what it’s like to suppress and what it’s like not to. And you slowly get accustomed to new habits of neither suppressing nor expressing rather than continuing to go down the well-worn paths of the old habits. What makes this easy is that the new habits are actually superior and better, so if you actually have a sincere interest in feeling better rather than worse, you will naturally gravitate towards the new habits.

But if you want to maintain feelings of justified resentment and woe is me, then you will reject the new habits, via often clever and cunning mechanisms like saying it’s too hard or doesn’t really work or only works for some people etc. This lets you continue in your old ways, which you know don’t work, but this way you can maintain a self-image that it’s out of your control and nothing you can do about it.

@scout

There seem to be a lot of people not free here talking about freedom and I don’t want to be blind following the blind.

Well of course it would be silly to follow someone’s advice for how to self-immolate when they haven’t self-immolated yet. Best to listen to the experiential advice of those who have succeeded there. But I haven’t seen any of this on the forum, certainly not recently.

However remember the method is the same, the means is the same as the end, and this is none other than enjoying and appreciating being alive. You can certainly follow the advice of your fellow feeling-beings who have succeeded in enjoying and appreciating being alive in a more consistent manner. If they succeeded with that and share how they did it, it’s certainly not the blind leading the blind — it’s those with success giving experiential advice to their fellow human beings.

@scout

I am trying to understand why it seems to click for a couple people but others like @claudiu seem to devoutly practice and study for years without becoming basically or actually free. Either there’s some context I’m missing, or the method isn’t bulletproof, or there must be some conditions (as in, the psyche must be ready in xyz way) to becoming free aren’t fully understood yet.

Well it took Richard about 12 years, same for Vineeto and Peter I think — so I’m in good company

But it’s not about the length of time, it’s about how effectively and willingly one allows oneself to feel good, and sacrifice those aspects of one’s self to enable it to happen more, until the ultimate sacrifice of me in my entirety.

Geoffrey seemed to have quite a knack for it, he said when he came across actualism he had already figured out that feeling good makes sense as a thing to do — which took me a while to grasp experientially even with years of repeatedly reading about it lol.

Anyway the point is everyone is where they’re at and it’s ultimately up to you how rapidly you proceed!

Cheers,
Claudiu