Vineeto: When I read your journal, starting in April 2022, there are many insightful realisations and reports of brief PCEs, for instance “what particularly has been standing out has been how this pure intent (to my never-ending surprise) is not contaminated by ‘me’ at all”. (link) You also know that “when I say reflection, I mean an active thinking with all your being”. (link)
Now it’s a matter to actualise those realisations, else they just sit there, forgotten and unfulfilled. (…)
Chrono: Thanks Vineeto for your reply and providing that reminder of those memories. I forgot I had those experiences and they can sometimes seem so far away. I’ve been feeling between neutral to good for the past week. Even during days of lack of sleep. The main obstacle is my own default state of being that I can only describe as an obsessive-compulsive neuroticism. Everything must be “right” before I’ll feel good. Even the actualism method I feel like I have to do it “right” or else I keep thinking it over and get stuck. It seems to be a function of the guardian or social identity. In this I am ultimately looking for a certainty. But I find now that I am able to ‘emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable’ and with this I am able to put everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. I don’t have to agree with everything that is happening in the world but I also don’t have to give in to the instinctual compulsion of suffering over it. I think it has been this emotional reservation which has impeded a moving forward in a more stable feeling good.
Hi Chrono,
Now that you have precisely identified your “default state of being” and been “able to put everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis”, has your “default state of being” changed to being more continuously feeling good? And further, are you now perhaps able to access the memories from three years ago in a way – rememorate the flavour of these experiences – to establish the golden clew to pure intent?
I am asking because this “I have to do it “right” or else …” is, or at least has been, the standard of ‘you’, the passionate entity within, whereas when you can establish/ re-establish, your connection to pure intent, the purity of the infinite and eternal universe outside of ‘you’ will be the benchmark to guide you.
Chrono: With that said, yesterday I realized that there actually is a certainty here. The certainty is in sensuousness. This quality keeps me here. It makes sense how attentiveness is a “sensuous attention”. I am usually instinctually trying to solve things in the murky areas of ‘being’ but I am here always existing reliably in a sensuous manner. This in itself invites feeling good. It stands in contrast to my default state of being. Now it’s a matter of how can I allow more of this to come to the fore more often.
The attentiveness Richard describes in “Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness” article is paying attention to both one’s psychological and psychic world and one’s senses. Viz:
Richard: To enable apperceptiveness to haply occur it is essential to allow a reflective attention – attentiveness – to one’s psychological and psychic world. It is impossible for one to intelligently observe what is going on within if one does not at the same time acknowledge the occurrence of one’s various feeling-tones with attentiveness. This is especially true with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful). In order to observe one’s own fear, for instance, one must admit to the fact that one is afraid. Nor can one examine one’s own depression, for another example, without acknowledging it fully. The same is true for irritation and agitation and frustration and all those other uncomfortable emotional and passionate moods. One cannot examine something fully if one is busy denying its existence. Whatever feeling one may be having, a fascinated attention – attentiveness – freely divulges it … it is looking with discernibleness. All affective feelings are – quite simply – an hereditary occurrence, an inborn factor to be acutely aware of. No pride, no shame, nothing personal at stake … what is there, is naturally there. There is no clinging to the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and no fleeing from the hostile and invidious, either (those that are hateful and fearful). A contemplative attention views all feelings as commensurate – nothing is suppressed and nothing is expressed – as attentiveness does not play favourites.
Only in this way attentiveness will become “sensuous attention” –
Richard: Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention.
The first habitual impulse is to dive into ‘solving’ “the murky areas of ‘being’” so it’s a matter of noticing and replacing this habitual impulse with the more felicitous habit for contemplative attention and “sensuous attention” whenever possible. This will aid you in uplevelling from feeling good to feeling felicitous.
Chrono: Something else which clicked as I was going about my day was the realization that the best that I can do for my partner is to always feel good. And in turn, this is the best that I can do for everyone. It’s like I am turning everything that I have been doing around truly 180 degrees in the opposite direction. I see the difference between intellectually unaccepting and emotionally unaccepting. I don’t agree with the Human Condition, but if I’m emotionally unaccepting of it then I have no choice but to try to solve it instinctually. It’s like there was some “rule” that one must be emotionally unaccepting and thus react in some compassionate and empathetic (suffering) manner. So my focus now has been to make feeling good the baseline.
Yes, being “emotionally unaccepting” can also express itself as complaining and resenting and then react with whatever instinctual/ emotional feelings and behaviour kick in. Hence the suggestion to always first get back to feeling good before contemplating on what triggered the diminishment in feeling good. When you allow yourself to be more and more naïve, then the real fun can unfold.
Chrono: Also I am curious what you think of this, Vineeto :
RESPONDENT: (…) How is the method best done – should I examine the feeling and find its trigger while experiencing it, in order to get back to feeling good?
RICHARD: If you have a tendency towards being an intellectual/ abstractional-type person then … yes.
RESPONDENT: Or should I get back to feeling good and then figure out why I last felt less-than-good?
RICHARD: If you have a tendency towards being an emotional/ passional-type person then … yes. [link]
Chrono: I know the advice now is to return to feeling good before investigating anything. Is the above advice recommended at any time? (link)
The reason Richard gave two different options is because when someone has a tendency to experience their mood in an intellectual/ abstract way, perhaps even a dissociated way, then they need to first viscerally feel the feeling which disrupted their feeling good in order to correctly identify the nature of the trigger rather than assessing it at arm’s length.
Whereas when you are an emotional/ passional-type then identification of the feeling happens at the moment of it occurring, perhaps even in an overwhelming way, then getting back to feeling good as soon as possible is necessary to be able to look at what was the trigger in a more clear-headed manner.
Cheers Vineeto