Vineeto: Hi Andrew,
You just took the wrong turn-off – here is the sign, just like at all wrong entries on Australian high-ways: “Wrong Way, TURN BACK”.
Without the pure intent to be happy and harmless there is no way you can give yourself a categorically overarching permission for “forsaking all other directives, missives, constitutions, allotments, franchises, contracts, agreements, treaties, implied or otherwise.” This is not “audacity”, this is plainly your “subversive tendency” taking back command.
Please, first find out experientially about pure intent before being guided by “audacity” and other fool-hardy actions.
Josef: Hi Vineeto,
I have to admit this reply surprised me quite a bit. It seems to me like you are trying to “gate keep” feeling good somehow. I thought Andrew was spot on here as it’s the approach I have also been following recently with decent success. Too often in the real world we are so prone to feeling bad for even the smallest reason. This audacity he mentions seems like exactly what is needed to feel good “come what may”.
Hi Josef,
The reason I answered Andrew in such categorical terms is because he expressed his intent in categorical terms –
Andrew: The audacity to feel good all the time, come what may!!!
Nice. Very nice indeed. Now that’s something I can channel my subversive tendency towards! (link)
Andrew: So I hereby give myself permission to feel good, happy & harmless, in all circumstances, come what may.
Over-riding all socially prescribed appropriate moods, reactions, and expectations.
An executive order, unilaterally executed, with no power of veto granted to any party, circumstance, or condition.
Rain, hail or shine, in sickness and in health, forsaking all other directives, missives, constitutions, allotments, franchises, contracts, agreements, treaties, implied or otherwise. [Emphases added]. (link)
I emphasized the categorical aspects in Andrew’s permission to himself, so you might better understand my reply. As Claudiu pointed out already (link), the social conditioning (conscience) is largely in place to curb the excesses of the genetically endowed instinctual passions from running amok. One does indeed need at least the intent to be both happy and harmless, i.e. feeling good and being considerate towards one’s fellow human beings to make the actualism method work and to whittle away any and all emotion, belief, principle, worldview and so on, which stand in the way of being happy and harmless.
Josef: I think (correct me if I’m wrong) you’re trying to highlight the harmless part of the equation. That being happy without being harmless can come with causing harm to others for the sake of your own happiness?
Yes, you are correct. In the beginning one’s attempt to feel good and be happy can be misconstrued as licentiousness and self-indulgence. If one only has the aim to just feel a little better whilst staying firmly ensconced in the human condition, the large variety of self-help books and consultants would be sufficient.
Josef: Even if pure intent was not present, the prescription of feeling good come what may could lift the majority of the population out of the seriousness and despair that plagues the real world. (link)
“The prescription of feeling good come what may” is an invitation to utterly disregard everyone else but ‘me’, the passionate identity, to follow their instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. How does this “prescription” “lift the majority of the population out of the seriousness and despair”? “The prescription of feeling good come what may” is more accurately described as the law of the jungle where not no socialisation is curbing the basic instinctual survival passions.
I am not saying that this is what you had in mind when you wrote what you did, but it is nevertheless vital to carefully think through your prescription and consider the consequences of what you are proposing for “the majority of the population”.
Here is the third alternative to being selfishly following feeling good regardless and living in “seriousness and despair” as you put it –
Richard: The actualism method (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’) is a method specifically designed to bring about a direct experience of the actual … the question is asked, each moment again, until it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Initially it will be seen that how one is experiencing this moment is usually via a feeling or a belief (sometimes cunningly disguised as a ‘truth’) – and a belief is an emotion-backed thought anyway – thus effectively blocking the ‘direct sense experience’. And for as long as one is experiencing this moment through a feeling – no matter how deep or profound the feeling may be – one is cutting oneself off from the splendour of the actual.
There is an unimaginable and inconceivable purity right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time which far exceeds the most deepest, the most profound feeling of beauty (or love) – the actual is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams and schemes – and this moment and this place is an ever-present ‘jumping-in’ point, as it were … however it does mean the end of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself).
This is because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings’ are ‘me’. [Emphases added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 27a, 15 Jan 2002)
And –
Richard: When one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (through running the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’) the affective energy is thus freed-up to power the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) which, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), can ensue as a sense of amazement, marvel and wonder … which can, in turn, result in apperceptiveness. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 27a, 18 May 2002)
As you can see, Richard starts with the intent “to bring about a direct experience of the actual” by imitating the actual. The overarching intent is to experience life free from the dominance of the ‘I’/ ‘me’ as much and as often as possible. This is achieved by applying the actualism method: “one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings”.
If one only has the aim to just feel a little better whilst staying firmly ensconced in the human condition, the large variety of self-help books and consultants would be sufficient.
And this explained what to do in detail –
Respondent: Are you talking about not ‘taking out’ our emotions on others?
Richard: Yes, but not only on ‘others’ … taking it out upon oneself happens all too often (children are taught to castigate and/or commiserate themselves so as to inculcate a conscience).
Respondent: Not releasing emotion through the body somehow?
Richard: Yes … not having it pump chemicals through the body irregardless whether someone else is present or not.
Respondent: Also specifically which emotions are advantageous to ‘not express’?
Richard: All and any emotion … I oft-times would say to people twenty one years ago when I first put this into practice was that emotions are life’s way of reminding oneself that one has gone astray (that one has wandered off the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition).
An emotion is like a warning buzzer … or a flashing red light.
Respondent: Can this be done in one fell swoop – or would it be done by ‘whittling’ away emotion?
Richard: Whittling. It took me about six weeks, as far as I can remember, to whittle away the obvious or major emotions … the less obvious or minor ones took far longer. (Richard, AF List, No. 27a, 24 Jan 2002)
Does this make it more clear for you?
Cheers Vineeto