Hi @cross.chrono , that is a wonderful description of your experience.
How long have you been doing the Atualism method ?
and have you had PCE’s to be able to tap into this Pure intent ?
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Hi @cross.chrono . You have mentioned “reflection” several times in this most wonderful post.
Could you please explain more about this type of activity … e.g. how do you go about it, what is the
process looks like for you, etc. etc.
Hi @FrankN, thanks for your questions as I hadn’t written here for quite a while. This may be a good spot to jot down a little bit of my history. I’ve actually been “practicing” actualism since 2010. I put practicing in quotes as I hadn’t really been consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. I had also taken very long breaks away due to issues in my life that were very overwhelming. But back then, actualism was co-opted by the affers and I was following that way of practicing it and I had to slowly discover what actualism was really about. But with that said, there was a rather big set-back that I had been struggling with since which has really hampered practicing actualism as well. I really wish I had never gotten into contact with any of the affers. Nevertheless, there’s something that I recognized in Richard’s writings since day one of reading them. This was what kept me going and made me quickly abandon spirituality.
I have had PCE’s, but I wouldn’t describe them as very long. And I have a tendency to forget the details after a certain amount of time. I suspect maybe this is peculiar to ‘me’. I only remember a certain quality about it and always have the experience of “it could happen now”. Or another way of phrasing it is “this moment is happening now” and when I become aware of this then there’s also the feeling that something is imminent. But I also think I’ve always had this sort of connection. This is what I think let me immediately recognize what Richard points to in his writings.
I suppose when I say reflection, I mean an active thinking with all your being. I’m also usually in a setting (e.g. my room or walking in nature) and neutral-good mood that’s conducive to reflecting. When I reflected on how it is always this moment there’s a fascination that went along with it. “Is it really this moment? Wow, it really is this moment. It’s always happening. Only this moment is happening now”. I was fascinated with that simple fact. This full participation of my being (fascination) allows the seeing of the fact and simultaneously also has an effect on my feeling state as well. Idk if that makes it clearer lol. Reflecting in this way also allows me to more easily rememorate-presentiate the quality of a PCE in my experience.
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i just found out that you came up with this emoji Claudiu . just wanted to acknowledge it , and show the appreciation for it .
i don’t need any reply or like button or anything …even i don’t need any acknowledgement of you reading this writing , but i wish there was a key button in this Forum that would show just the acknowledgement of something that we read here , acknowledgement not that we liked the writing , but just to show that we acknowledged something …
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This has got me thinking 
. I’ve always thought about Richard saying how one can use fear to swing to the other side. The mis-understanding and mis-application of this advice has put me through a lot of turmoil. But what Srinath writes here makes a lot of sense. To focus on EE’s and PCE’s. So that’s what I’ll try!
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That’s the feeling of authority in the background. The feeling saying that what I’m experiencing is small and trivial and meaningless if not serving the “whole”. Whatever that “whole” may be, whether some person or government or ideal or principle.
Trying to become free the “right” way is what is getting in the way of freedom. To freely enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive.
I remember the experience of having no authority. It felt so freeing and everything seemed still. There was no one making up any rules that I had to live by. It was great to just be here.
I find that I’m able to more clearly see now how ‘I’ operate. I’m operating from a place of confusion and doubt. The doubt has been impressed into ‘me’ since childhood. Others know better than me on how to ‘be’. How to live life. I’m constantly questioning myself and filtering ‘my’ thoughts and feelings through what others would think. Self-image and psychological time are very common features. In particular, self-image and how I appear to others seems to matter a lot. Maybe it’s just a result of being raised by parents from an Eastern culture. Even if I had an excellence experience, ‘I’ eventually start looking through psychological time and view the ‘future’ in a bleak way. The ‘future’ is always bleak through 'Humanity’s eyes. Better cling together with Hope and Love and maybe one day salvation will come. Of course it’s always after death.
I feel a wall of fear that’s as if others aren’t letting me be free. I’m waiting for others (Humanity) to give me permission to be happy and harmless. With a lifetime conditioning of having free enjoyment squashed down through cynicism being shoved down my throat, I’m afraid to challenge Humanity. There’s all sorts of fears and how grim and lonely it will be if I don’t do what others tell me. That’s what it feels like anyways. I wonder if going through this is the only way?
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This isn’t advice, however it’s what I am aiming for.
Play. Planning enjoyable events. Colour, vibrancy.
I remember the world being different colours when I was a kid.
I was feeling that I really wanted to have some fun last night. It was cold outside, I was still coughing.
I ended up dancing to one of my favourite tunes.
Surprisingly, it worked!
I was alone and enjoying my own company. No permission needed.
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Yes I am aiming for this too. But I can’t shake off this feeling of “I can’t have fun by myself” or the feeling that I"ll be punished if I step outside of the herd or do something contrary to what I’ve been conditioned. I can barely get a look in. Sometimes I’ll have fun anyway and it’s very freeing, but the issue being it comes back. I’ve been trying to stay with the question of what the root cause of it is.
So far I’ve been able to see that what this conditioning is composed of is self-image and psychological time. It features very often in my life. So much so that a big portion of many days is consumed in some form of neuroticism over it. But this seeing of what it is lately while it is happening has been empowering. To challenge this conditioning feels like I have to prove to others and “win” in an argument that this is the correct thing to do rather than freely abandon it. There’s a nagging feeling of something will go wrong otherwise.
I had a breakthrough seeing about three months back at work where I actually experienced what it would be like to be outside of all this. It was one of the most freeing experiences ever. Basically there was no one in charge of anything. Everything was free and still. I’ve been trying to get to that ever since.
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Wow, how long did that last for?
Feel free to tell us more about self-image and psychological time. For example, as to image, I would feel an abject misery for not having a life partner and children. And for not owning a home. I felt others were judging me. Naturally, I was judging myself while sabotaging* any innocent endeavors that would have naturally led to those outcomes. And for psychological time, I experience that as a sense of urgency but it can also play out as a feeling of regret. And also, feeling the future out in such a way that mistakes are avoided and doing nothing is preferred.
*in the form of doubt and confusion. Confusion in if such and such road was the road I really wanted - this girl, that house… And doubt in whether I could get it or how I should go about getting it. Incidentally, those material desires and circumstances are natural progressions for a developed world able-bodied person. No wonder I judged myself so harshly for not progressing. Of course, the self-loathing only worsened my stagnation. Also incidentally, I had no friends or mentors to help me out. My parents are kind of duds and I as a friend back in my adolescent and early 20’s was also a dud. So support group was lacking. Is this my journal or yours?
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A whole 10-15 minutes. Although short lived, what was interesting was that it happened at work and while I was around people. It was genuinely a delight to talk to people. I had no other motives or desires when talking to them. It was just great to talk to them right there as they were. Almost all other actualism related experiences usually happen in nature or away from people. It started with the seeing that there was no one in charge of anything. My entire mind just emptied and everything just seemed still. It was just an complete delight if I had to describe it. On top of that, the whole self-image and psychological time issue just wasn’t there.
Self-image and psychological time are inter-related in that self-image operates almost always through some comparison in psychological time. ‘I’ am comparing myself to the ideal that society has told me is what I need to be or it may have also been misguidedly “picked up” on my part from somewhere (such as an actualist identity). It doesn’t seem like I can ever reach any of these ideals and I never actually have in fact. There’s always something off. In psychological time, this self-image is felt to have some real coherent existence in that it exists in both the “past” and gets projected into the future as the ideal self-image that I’m trying to be. On top of this though, psychological time itself is felt to really exist as the past and future. It may be composed of varying feelings depending on what scenario is being projected and what beliefs I’m holding. And even further to that all of my relating in society is done through some self-image.
As an example, many of my friends recently got married and some also have kids. My parents also have started pressuring me in some way that if I don’t do it then there will be no one to take care of me and all the rest which I’m sure everyone is familiar with. I became aware of the process as I was talking with them how this has been happening since I was a child and how a bleak future with all the feelings associated with it has basically been force-fed to me. The self-image associated with that is one of a lonely failure; something that I’m supposed to not become. Then that bleak future is felt out and it starts to feel very real as it’s constantly being reinforced by both myself and others. I realized that this same process has been happening with everyone and not just my parents.
Another example is also just when it gets to nighttime some days then I start thinking and feeling about tomorrow. What if I don’t effectively manage some situation at work? Then I’d be a failure. Incompetent. Unworthy. Probably not everyone goes through these issues, but it has been helpful to make sense of this in my life. Maybe these two things are related to some other things but I’m trying stay with it instead of trying to think about what is the next stop.
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My parents never enforced this particular thing of children, bleak future if not etc and it’s interesting how that particular ‘bleak future’ does not exist for me, it simply wasn’t conditioned into me and has no reality. Of course I have other ‘bleak futures’ I have been conditioned with 
but it’s interesting how the differing very ‘real’ futures can exist depending on the particular conditioning one has been exposed to.
My particular ‘bleak future’ (thanks mum 
) is to do with dying in painful disease 
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I was aiming for the specifics how the condition plays out for you rather than a technical overview. I added how it plays out for me so we could back and forth. Not surprisingly, there very similar. Only differences I can see is I don’t have any pressures from family. Now that I think about it, that is pretty nice of them. At least they weren’t hands off and judgy at the same time. That would be a malicious combo, methinks. And I don’t have projects that burden me at night. Being as I don’t work for anyone or take on personal projects until I have absolutely have to.
Charming.
You mentioned being raised in an eastern culture. It is unsurprising to read of this pressure to perform at work.
I noticed this when I was in relationship with a Taiwanese woman for 3 years. Her mother was obsessed with work. She was equally resigned to working in oppressive conditions.
However, when I would propose going into business together, leveraging my real estate contacts and her countries obsession with property, she was adamant that it would “ruin our relationship”. In fact, she was very opposed to anything outside what her culture dictated.
Was it a PCE?
Oh I see, I thought I would include that part too since that’s also how I experience it and from my observations. Sounds like you have it good in that regard haha. The thing is my parents don’t always tell me this or pressure me day in and day out. It’s just like this feeling of guilt when they do tell me as if I’ve not only failed in society if I don’t do it but that I’ve also failed them. Guilty like they’ve done so much for me and I can’t do this for them (which they do mention indirectly sometimes). Despite them saying “it’s your choice how you want to live”. This must highlight that family bond I have with them. There’s the identity that I’ve been charged with of being a “good son” that I must maintain. This guilt keeps that in place. Now I can see much of the social identity is composed in the same way. This has been nice to flesh this out more in writing!
But aside from that, my day to day on many days of the week consists of overthinking from attempting to maintain a favorable self-image in all aspects of my life. Most if not all are relationships such as with family, friends, and work. Now it really makes me think why Richard had that question of if man and woman can live together in peace and harmony for 100% of the day.
You mentioned that you feel abject misery in the example you provided. Do you still feel the same way in regards to that self-image or has it disappeared? I’d be interested to hear how you got past it if you have.
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This bleak future sounds better than mine to me hahaha But yes it is very interesting and I wonder if the tendency goes down all the way to the collective level as well.
On hindsight I’d say it was, but not for the entire duration as I think it became an excellence experience. But the particular quality that stood out to me was the “no one is in charge” or “no authority” aspect of it. This was because I was thinking about something right before that how it always feels like I’ll be punished if I don’t follow what the world is saying. A common feature in my life unfortunately. In fact, I feel that way even when I try to employ the actualism method. There’s a feeling of “something will go wrong” or that I’ll be punished for enjoying and appreciating for no reason. Like I have to earn it before I can do that by going through some hardship. But something happened at that time where it just disappeared as I was feeling that anxiety associated with it. Depending on the situation this feeling for me can be very strong.
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