Appreciation, the key to enjoyment and becoming likeable and liking

[claudiu]

Hi Ed,

@edzd

@Kub933

And furthermore how could ‘you’ the amorphous being inhabiting ‘your’ host body possibly speak from lived experience when pointing this out? As ‘you’ are that very condition which ‘you’ are trying to stop others from indulging in, is that not blatant hyprocrisy?

Because I don’t believe myself to be a soul inhabiting a body.

To assist in your fully appreciating just what “soul” refers to, here is an essentially perfect relating-together of the words “psychic”, “psyche”, “soul”, and “spirit” (source), with emphases added:

RICHARD: The following is the specific sense in which I use the adjective psychic in terms such as ‘psychic network’ and ‘psychic currents’/‘psychic energies’.

Vis.:

• psychic (adj.): of or pertaining to the human mind or psyche. (Oxford Dictionary).

• psychic (adj.): of, relating to, affecting, or influenced by the human mind or psyche. (American Heritage Dictionary).

And the following is both what the word psyche refers to and its etymological derivation.

Vis.:

• psyche (n.): soul, spirit, mind, fr. Latin psyche; Greek psukhe, ‘breath, soul, life’; rel. to psukhein, ‘breathe, blow’. (Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology).

And here is what that word ‘soul’, in the above definition, is referring to:

• soul (n.): *the seat of the emotions or sentiments*; the emotional part of human nature. (Oxford Dictionary).

I chose to use the word soul when I first went public because, as *it refers to the innermost affective entity* of both those of *either a secular* or spiritual persuasion (the essential difference being the materialists maintain this emotional/ passional/ intuitive self – aka ‘spirit’[*]^[1] – dies with the body whereas the spiritualists maintain it does not), my presentation of actualism as the third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism speaks to *the self-same ‘being’, at root*, with differentiation *only a connotative matter* dependent upon each particular ‘being’s (occasionally changeable) partiality, or leaning, in that regard.

(Incidentally, the reason why the Greek word psukhe (‘breath, soul, life’), from which the Latin word psyche is derived, and the related Greek word psukhein (‘breath e, blow’) refer to breath and to breathing is because, for ancient peoples and/or primitive peoples life began when a newly-born infant drew its first breath and ended with that body’s last breath).

[*] as the word spiritual means ‘of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit or soul’, according to the Oxford Dictionary, it too is used by those of either a secular or spiritual persuasion to refer to the self-same ‘being’, at root, with differentiation again being a matter of a partiality/leaning connotation).

Now that the terminology is straightened out, it should be clear: it does not matter whether you “believe [your]self to be a soul inhabiting a body or not”. As you not only have emotions and sentiments, but actually are those very emotions and sentiments, the word “soul” simply refers to the very “seat of the emotions or sentiments” that ‘you’ (the feeling-being reading this) are, by ‘your’ very nature.

In other words, there is no way to be a feeling-being other than to be that, and the word “soul” aptly denotes this.

@edzd

And I don’t think it’s wise to indulge people in this delusion because I lived through it. Frankly, I would have rather been told the facts.

The facts are that you are continuing to live through this illusion (not delusion), because that is simply the default, normal or natural way of being conscious for human beings on this planet, at least as of this moment.

@edzd

The conversation can go in any direction and start in any way, but fundamentally - - no, there is no long lasting separate entity inhabiting the body. Full-stop.

I will take this opportunity to advise you to, while you are reading this, intuitively “feel yourself out”, look for the “center” of your emotions, intuitively reach for that feeling of knowing yourself to exist, allow yourself to feel the answer to the question “How do I know that I exist?”

Now, with that feeling firmly at the forefront, really consider and contemplate that this feeling that you are feeling of yourself is precisely that “long lasting separate entity inhabiting the body”. This is who ‘you’ are. This is ‘your’ very nature.

The only way out is to disappear entirely, to self-immolate. ‘You’ cannot end ‘yourself’ but ‘you’ can allow ‘yourself’ to go into abeyance and allow a PCE to happen. From that stand-point I would advise that you consider, now apperceptively rather than intuitively, how do you know that you exist? You will find the answer to be quite different than outside of the PCE, and this distinction will help you navigate the waters towards actuality.

If there is a quibble about the descriptor “long lasting”, it is worth noting that unless you do become actually free, you will live your entire life and die with your entire lived experience having been one of being that separative entity (whether acknowledged or not).

@edzd

I have zero experience being a soul. I’ve never personally astral projected, left my body, or gone to heaven.

Have you ever felt any feeling or experienced any emotion? These are all experiences of “being a soul”.

@edzd

The point is, I’m under no pretense that I exist as anything but a flesh-and-blood body and I do not know why anyone would wait until becoming actually free to recognize that fact. […] The more you imagine yourself to be something that you’re not, the more you’re locking yourself into the real world.

The facts are exactly the opposite. You do not exist as only “a flesh-and-blood body”. Vineeto is an example of someone who exists as a flesh-and-blood body only. ‘You’, on the other hand, exist as a feeling-being parasitically inhabiting its host body. Denying this reality only serves to strengthen ‘your’ grip and perpetuate ‘your’ existence, because how can something that already doesn’t have any existence whatsoever possibly go into abeyance or loosen the controls (which controls it can’t have because it doesn’t exist) or self-immolate?

---

As to the ‘actualist identity’ aspect, I will just point out that being mistaken about an aspect of actualism and speaking about this mistaken understanding to others with great conviction while under the impression that it is in line with and accurately reflecting of actualism, is precisely a way in which an ‘actualist identity’ would manifest and end up being deleterious to being happy and harmless and progressing towards actual freedom.

Cheers & best regards,
Claudiu

---

1. as the word spiritual means ‘of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit or soul’, according to the Oxford Dictionary, it too is used by those of either a secular or spiritual persuasion to refer to the self-same ‘being’, at root, with differentiation again being a matter of a partiality/leaning connotation). ↩︎