Andrew: I have been reading a lot more of the AFT. Essentially, from the start! As I have been interested for so long, there is a lot that I thought I knew. Some things I never really read and I had never dealt with the feelings I would have, caused by the various expectations I had when first encountering Actualism.
There are some insights into various current feelings, specifically being able to put them in categories. Sounds basic, but for example, I had never looked at what boredom is. There is definitely aggression there.
Overall, I can see that I am gathering up some intent. Lots of it has been scattered around, over the years, but without a clear understanding of exactly how to proceed from where I am at.
There has always been a lot of aggression in my way of being. I have been feeling it all day actually. As it is not something that has been triggered by anything in particular, it’s obviously an answer to the question of what it “under the carpet “.
Hi Andrew,
I vaguely remember that “there has always been a lot of aggression in my way of being”. I particularly remember one sentence because it struck me as a summary of a gloomy modus operandi – “I gird myself each morning for battle”. I am so pleased that you are now finding your way out of this life-long paradigm, and are having fun with discovering more about the tools and aims of the actualism method, which you already had success with.
Andrew: I have been gathering up more information from the AFT, going back into all the things I never understood, or had objected to, or only half read.
Currently, reading through the accounts of the time around Peter and yourself becoming free, Richard’s last writing, his experience with being the first and what was causing that mental anguish. That last one has actually, only about 30 mins ago, sparked something in me. Being the first to realise that all the godmen were completely insane! But not just realise, to be as he put it
Richard: In psychiatric terms the neurons were agitated: energised and excited with an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors, described as being similar to the effect of amphetamines, cocaine or LSD … yet nothing could be done about it with psychiatry’s extensive arsenal of anti-psychotic drugs. Initially I had no alternative but to seek resolution in terms of either ‘the known’ (psychiatry) and/or ‘the unknown’ (mysticism) … and I knew from eleven years experience that no mystic could be of any assistance whatsoever. I was truly on my own. The mental anguish was in determining the validity of uncharted territory – 5,000 years of recorded history and perhaps 50,000 years of oral tradition made no mention of this dimension of human experience – for I was irreversibly plunked fair-square in the midst of either ‘insanity’ (the psychiatric model) or ‘the unknowable’ (the metaphysical model) … which is something else entirely. In the context of metaphysical human experience this condition is only achievable after physical death: the Buddhists call it ‘Parinirvana’ and the Hindus call it ‘Mahasamadhi’. (…). [Emphasis added]. Richard's Reports Regarding 30+ Months Severe Mental Agitation
Andrew: This account gives me courage.
I am curious in what way this account of Richard’s one-off period of mental anguish – while he was working out what this entirely new experience of human consciousness was all about – gives you courage? I say one-off because now that Richard made sense of it and expressed and described it eloquently in millions of words, nobody has to ever go through this experience again.
Courage perhaps in that becoming actually free has become so much easier?
Andrew: It is going to be a chore to get this up and going, and there is already that feeling/ thought that I am mad to be trying this at all.
You already have started “to get this up and going” and you already had success noticing some bad habits and declining them. It takes a lot worse events to be “mad” – but your life will certainly change considerably.
Andrew: However, when I consider the alternatives, …there are none! Been there, done that! (link)
You are absolutely correct – and before the discovery of an actual freedom from the human condition it was impossible to “consider the alternatives” and discard them. That is truly cause for celebration and for enjoying and appreciating being alive (and using the tools Richard gave us when there is some hick-up to this enjoyment and appreciation).
Cheers Vineeto