Andrew

Journals
102

For me it was that i was always skirting around the facts. Beating myself up. Being otherwise confused, a lot of dissonance about such a simple thing.

I think it is brutal, when that area where the two overlap, (mutual attraction) isn’t always easy to find.

Though, this is the first time to be directly looking at this without “wishing it away”.

Certainly, there is so much more to let go of in this area for me. So, it’s bubbling away.

One thing, as you say, there is nothing “wrong” with the way attraction works. I notice that actually free people are still attracted to others, and this makes sense because otherwise sexual orientation would disappear with the psyche. That would be an evolutionary dead.

It means the basics of attraction are not in the psyche. Certainly there is layers of meaning constructed around attraction, i would go as far to say the most of what i have ever thought and felt about has something to do with attraction / relationship / sex.

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103

I have been enjoying @henryyyyyyyyyy writing about the “way things are” is perfect. (massively paraphrasing there).

I have never contemplated that attraction is not only the way things are, but is perfect.

It sorta hurts to type that!

When @claudiu mentioned it above as being simple, i hadn’t really seen it like that before.

My whole focus in life was that i was missing out. And, in a lot of ways, that is actually true. The pain is the belief that what i feared i was missing out on, was extremely important. That it meant everything to me, it (a great mutual sexual experience, the companionship of a like mind, as Henry mentioned “finding a Devika”) was my excuse to not see what was possible for me to NOT miss out on, enjoying this moment.

There is a lot more to go here, i can feel that.

Still enjoying exploring facts. I think what has always happened in this area of thought is the “skipping” facts i don’t like, for “truths” i prefer, which otherwise i weighted to be trump cards on the facts.

Beliefs, truths, culture, wishful thinking; none will trump facts.

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104

I was undecided whether to use this space as a proper journal, because it seems like a pretty open thing to do.

However, i think it would be more productive to have a go at putting things in here, as i tend to remember what i have written here better.

Today i came across “digust” in relation to attraction. (this is the theme at rhe moment).

It was disgust towards someone else, but i recognise towards my body too, which is really ‘humanity’ being that ‘disgust’ towards all bodies.

So the “digust” to “desire” scale, is the default. (excuse the declarative tone, i am playing with this idea).

The underlying attraction is actual, i am assuming too. So, then ‘i’ am always something over that attraction or lack of attraction. This makes sense.

As claudiu said, it’s very simple. Attraction is a simple thing. It’s when it is this ‘feeling scale’ which is ‘me’, punishes with disgust and rewards with desire that the brutality starts. Above that is the insight i saw in 2017. That the “carrot” of desire is sexual bliss, which itself is a derived feeling from the primal distress of being born.

The actual offers free peace, security, sensuous enjoyment (as both excellence experience and intimacy experience, and more). I have even read actually free people describe some moments, or many moments as better than any orgasm. I can’t remember who said that.

The “stick” is disgust. I felt it very viscerally at one moment today, as if i would loose myself in the mire if i was to have a partner who was not attractive to me in anyway. So, i am driven to stay in desirous states, because the alternative is to be cast down into the mire.

So i both am disgusted, but generally am trying to find things that i can desire to drag myself towards that promised bliss.

I saw it at the gym. Looking in the mirror, i felt disgust towards some of my physical traits, and the desire (as pride) of the attractive traits.

being punished and rewarded at the same time, in a few minutes of looking in the mirror.

Fascinating stuff actually. I’ve never been so precise about any of these feelings. Which is a shame, because they have dominated me since childhood (i have very clear memories of such moments of desperately trying to be attractive).

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105

This is what I have seen in myself as well - and in others.

This also leads us to being controlled by others, because we must do the things that generate desire and avoid the things that generate disgust in them (and in ourselves as a mirror)

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106

Wow, yes! Nice one.

To not be disgusting.

107

Wow, half of my world is under this feeling of disgust. That’s a lot of world!

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108

This is BIG.

How slippery i have been. How imprecise, obscuring the obvious with my tricks.

Whether something is attractive or not attractive, it is disgust and desire that keeps me in the real world.

109

I want to write an essay on this!

Obviously, i would rather know first hand what things are like in the actual world.

The clarity of what i am seeing in ‘my’ world is life changing.

‘i’ can strip back a whole layer of desire and disgust without any real effort. (obviously, discounting a life of accumulated experience!).

In other news, i have been looking for another and better word for “accept”. Seeing facts having them transform one’s outlook is hardly “acceptance”.

Ideas?

110

The decision can happen in an instant

The way Richard describes it, and I have experienced it is: with the seeing of the fact, there is no choice: change happens. It’s a fundamentally different mechanism than acceptance

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111

I concur on the first part. Not sure about the latter as accepting some part of reality can be transformative. I don’t see why not. Accepting that she’s not coming back can lead you to stop stalking her and start looking for someone else. Not sure why that hypothetical popped in my head. Don’t worry I’m not lovesick and have never stalked anyone. Nor am I looking for someone else. But I do agree that accepting may be too weak of a word. And if it is too weak then it’s probably because accepting has a sorrowful tint to it.

The alternative word I was gonna suggest is fascination: to be fascinated by…

EDIT: Discovery. And more accurately, it’s the sense of discovery. We as feeling-beings aren’t interested in the discovery itself. We aren’t interested in the fact itself. We’re interested in the feelings that result. It’s really the sense of discovery that has the power to excite us into action!

Up above, I agreed. Down below :upside_down_face: I’m not so sure. Richard does say this. I’ve always accepted it to be true. Yet, now that I think about it I wonder, if correct, wouldn’t we all be virtually free at a minimum? All of us have seen enough facts of the matter to make that change. We’ve all seen the fundamental fact that now is the only time we are alive: We’ve seen that fact at least once. So why a slow whittling away of the social identity? If seeing the fact of a matter results in the seer having no choice but to respond appropriately, why do we continue to feel driven to passionately pursue all those dead-end passions? And how could have Irene chosen Love and enlightenment after having been out from control? Perhaps, for us feeling-beings, it’s not the fact of the matter which inspires change. But the feeling that comes from seeing the fact of the matter.

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112

Wow, that is a great insight. Of course, the fascination has a feeling ; naivete!

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113

I just had a fascinating (@JonnyPitt) further insight into the fantasy of meeting the woman up the street (which turned into a fear of her ex confronting me - all imagination).

This follows on from something Srinath pointed out about being jealous of other men.

Men want to be big and strong not just to have the woman alone, but to be safe from other men.

Wonen want him, and men want to be him. As the saying goes.

How radically different an actually free world would be! :earth_americas:

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114

@JonnyPitt I like using this word “fascinated”, because it has momentum. When some sadness comes up from something i have had insight into, the idea of being fascinated by how much more i could see and feel good about that keeps me moving and motivated.

I think that is why i don’t like “accept”. It has an air of resignation to it.

Tonight ended up be successful. To use the analogy of the bread knife trying to cut caviar ; i was able to sharpen that sucker up!

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115

The feelings a fantasy can provide aren’t as pleasant or satisfying as the feelings of excitement and wonder at being alive. For one, fantasies can turn unpleasant like your example or start out as unpleasant. Feeling amazed at being alive never turns unpleasant. And two, fantasies are performed in a dull haze whereas discovering yourself to be alive is happening live in 3D. Once we catch on to this we become obsessed at feeling that feeling of discovery over and over again. It seems obsession works when it’s aimed at the feeling as opposed to the process one uses to get said feeling. A drug addict isn’t obsessed about his drug of choice. In reality, he’s obsessed with the dopamine fix. An athlete isn’t obsessed with his sport. In reality, he obsessed with the feelings of competition, belonging and triumph. Of course, it’s not black and white. They’re are connoisseurs but even they feel some empowerment from their hobby. And it’s that feeling which I contend is their real motivation. Amd we can use this to our advantage. We can become obsessed with getting that dopamine rush of discovering this is the moment we are actually alive.

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116

There are two levels here that I see: the seeing-the-fact forces change (as in, there is no choice) and, the decisions that the ‘being’ has to make.

For example, “doing actualism” is a choice that only ‘I’ can make, and it’s not something that ‘I’ do strictly because of facts, but more because of possibilities, because of hope, because of judgment call, and as you say because of feelings. Of course it does require a perusal of known facts, a running-through with logic (as you’ve said elsewhere, it pleases you that Actualism works with logic), but because the PCE can’t be completely 100% remembered and you can’t know for 100% that freedom even is a possibility until it happens (perhaps all the ‘free people’ are charlatans!), so as a ‘being’ there is always a bit of leap of faith happening, including the moment of ‘allowing it to happen.’

On the seeing-facts level, it is a different mechanism because it’s not something that’s being decided, or any kind of leap of faith: it’s that a fact is seen so blindingly obviously that it cannot be un-seen… even if you REALLY try to delude yourself, it will haunt you for ever after. This drives/forces/enforces/directly causes actual change.

Speaking for myself, I have spent a huge amount of time trying to do this direct-seeing type of progress via a logical thinking-out process, but about 95% of the time it’s not very effective because it is a different mechanism. It’s still worth doing up to a point I think because the ‘being’ needs/wants things to make a certain amount of logical sense, but once again we can’t logic ourselves to becoming free. Something I’ve been experiencing a lot this year especially as well as ever since visiting R+V (where they made it clear that I had to ‘do it myself’), has been like ‘going back over’ my own past logically-reached conclusions and replacing them with factual knowing.

I want to note here that this isn’t anything against thinking as a process, which I have no issues with at all and is something that spiritual folks LOVE to ‘pin the problem’ on. It has to do with what manner of ‘being’ one is in when thinking/contemplation is being done. This is a big reason why Richard emphasized to me about 8 times while I was in Ballina to get back to a good space before trying to do any ‘figuring out’ / contemplation. The conclusions reached while feeling negative will 99% of the time be negative.

The gold standard is still direct experience.

The event of a factual/actual realization/seeing happening (which becomes part of ‘my’ understanding btw - interesting mechanism happening there, too) is always extremely obvious. It often feels like being hit in the head with a shovel (in a good way lol), or is frequently followed by an EE or PCE. It’s extremely different than any conclusion that ‘I’ reach.

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117

@henryyyyyyyyyy Honestly, I’m not seeing the connection between what you wrote and what I wrote.

118

I disagree with this point and was expounding on why.

119

This is what I meant by facts. I wasn’t referring to anything thought out.

120

It seems to me that the challenge of being a being trying to become free is:

  1. PCEs happen (it would be simpler in many ways if they didn’t!)

  2. But they can’t be directly/completely remembered, so limited realizations can be ‘brought back’

  3. The being is extremely delusional & twists anything that is brought back

  4. you can put factual events directly in front of ‘Me’ and I can still twist them into confusion/belief (“it’s amazing we can all miss the actual world when it is all there is”)

So, the tricky thing is making direct experiences apparent to ‘me’ enough that actual change / actual happiness & harmlessness eventuate.

Which is really what the method is: when I am more and more ‘thinned out,’ that can happen more and more

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121

This was my hypothesis. Which I think is falsifiable btw. That we seek out the feeling of having discovered a new way of being, a new way of seeing the world, of having a near-direct experience* or having had a direct experience*. That we intentionally get hooked on that feeling of discovery. So that we can need it like a drug. Can’t live without it. Need to feel that sense of discovery.

Merely a find mind you. Something I stumbled on. And something I want to continue trying out.

*edits to include Henry's quote to connect the dialogue better