Chrono: Hi Vineeto,
I’ve given another read to (Richard, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness) and it’s incredible that despite the amount of times that I’ve read it that each time I gain a new understanding from it and appreciate it much more. Perhaps it will be the case due to how circumscribed thinking itself is due to ‘me’. Something that sticks out for me is how:Richard: Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space. (link)
I’ve noticed that this occurs to a greater degree when I am able to see that this moment is the only moment of being alive. It is ‘me’ which seems to give the feeling of existing over time. Good and bad feelings block this awareness while felicitous feelings allow it to a greater degree.
Hi Chrono
Indeed, even though it is natural and often unavoidable that feelings are blocking this kind of awareness most of the time, it is very perspicacious to notice it – one needs to experience it enough when it’s not happening in order to see the pattern.
Chrono: Another thing that I had been doing unwittingly at times is confusing attentiveness with intuition. That is, there will be a feeling that wants to be expressed and I experience it as a visceral squirming and end up giving in. But:
Richard: Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention. Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries. (…) (link)
An excellent observation – intuition is a feeling commentary, whereas attentiveness is much more observant, even when observing one’s feelings in action. The above quote from Richard is one of my favourite passages but I’ll cut it short – this post is getting far too long already.
Chrono: I notice that there’s actually a belief with this way of being in that, to be sincere in the real world is to be “true to one’s feelings” or “being honest” as mentioned already. Which in turn means to be expressing that feeling and so one is said to be being honest with oneself. Which then goes hand in hand with accepting that is “who you are”. And again in turn that acceptance is due to the belief that “you can’t change human nature”. Thus insincerity is being consistently fortified by everyone. I have in the past beat myself up for getting angry in some way because that is “bad”. But now I see more that this being angry and the subsequent judgement (along with many other feelings) is actually what it means to be sane and normal.
Ha, you said it well. I had several conversations with Syd about this. “Being true to one’s feelings” mostly implies to value and express those feelings, whilst “being honest” often involves, and justifies, expressing malice. Don’t you find it more and more fortuitous that you are not as “sane and normal” anymore as when you started out on the actualist adventure?
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Vineeto: It takes a while to become aware that both ‘good’ and bad feelings are two sides of the same coin. With practice, your attentiveness gets finer and more precise, and one becomes aware of one belief after another. It’s fun, isn’t it.
Chrono: It is indeed fun when I forgo all real world methods!
Indeed – they would only corrupt and confuse the process of thinning out the identity while having fun and appreciating.
Vineeto: I remember ‘Vineeto’ at first being surprised to learn that Richard said he was not a fan of logic or being logical. ‘Vineeto’ had considered logic to be ‘her’ thinking process (when ‘she’ wasn’t being emotional) – if this, then that. However, the more ‘she’ paid attention when applying common sense, ‘she’ came to see that common sense is much more than following the fixed rules of logic but rather choosing what is sensible. ‘I’, the identity, can easily play tricks with logic, it being a rigid system, but with attentiveness one becomes aware of the underlying feelings and thus comes to one’s senses (common sense – down-to-earth facts and actuality – included).
Chono: Yes I notice that much of logic is ultimately based on beliefs. It “makes sense” in the world of imagination.
Well, I wouldn’t call it “based on beliefs” as such, even though some of it is. Logic has various meanings, and the definitions are rather confusing or even contradicting –
1. reasoning [the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way], conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. (whereby: “experience is a better guide to this than deductive logic”)
2. a system or set of principles underlying the arrangements of elements in a computer or electronic device so as to perform a specified task.
Synonym: Rationale: The underlying reason or logical basis for a belief or action. (Oxford Languages).
Hence I prefer to stay on side of common sense because the principles of logic can easily be misappropriated or deliberately perverted for ‘my’ purpose. They work for computers though (2nd meaning).
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Vineeto: Have you noticed that whenever you consider some attitude or ‘truth’ or belief no longer worthwhile holding onto, you instantly present yourself with the opposite as negative as possible to prevent ‘you’ from straying off the ‘straight and narrow’ traditional path.
There is of course nothing bland at all about having less and less ‘good’ and bad feelings – being happy and harmless are feelings of the, at times exuberant and vibrant, felicitous variety.
Chrono: I’ve noticed it on many occasions now and I can see how it is due to my drive to survive.
‘Good’ feelings and felicitous feelings both have pleasant hedonic tone. But one of the qualities of ‘good’ feelings that I recently noticed is that they feel more “heavy” and take over the mind unlike the felicitous feelings which are more light and carefree. Good feelings convey some imaginary ideal that may one day happen but felicitous feelings create a sparkling atmosphere of being here.
Writing all of this out definitely brings more clarity and seems to help feeling good.
Again, isn’t it amazing that pointing your attention (attentiveness) to one specific aspect of the human condition, with pure intent operating) reveals the very nature of the underlying feeling and structure and you gradually cease believing in the repeated expressions of ‘your’ “drive to survive”.
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Vineeto: Ha, Kuba arrived at a similar indignation, describing it in his last post (link). I understand it well from ‘Vineeto’s experience about the injustice and unfairness happening in the world. However, ‘she’ never found it unjust that ‘she’ had unilaterally decided to rectify this in ‘herself’, after all ‘she’ was one of the fortunate few who knew about the solution which demonstrably worked.
This attitude is indeed born of ‘self’-centredness and ‘me’ defending ‘my’ very existence, as you might feel yourself to be the only one doing something about the mess ‘you’ are and yet know yourself to operate outside the norm of the human condition in many areas. That’s the pioneer’s role and you can rather be appreciative to have the opportunity and the courage to do so.
I also recommend reading Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Peasant Mentality (2) as you might find a few clues about how you feel and why. And when you think you are “more crazy than the norm” remember that the human condition itself is weird, and getting out of it does at times feel weird and crazy.
Chrono: That feeling features a lot more nowadays. I can relate to the post and to the feeling of:
Kuba: “meh, everything is stupid” (link)
I’ve mentioned before how at times I imagine some scenario where those who are in power get punished severely due to the “rigged system” that they create and perpetuate. I gave the Peasant Mentality (2) correspondence another read (and even read ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’", and I am able to get a little closer to the heart of the matter:
Richard: Unless this rudimentary feeling of disfranchisement – of feeling somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. (link)
You are aware that there are two sides to a power structure – those who take power and those who give it willingly in order to benefit from their obedience and loyalty. While I understand your imagination of punishing those in power, it is important to acknowledge that you are as much part creating and perpetuating “the rigged system”, as long as the peasant mentality operates in you. Not that the ‘system’ will disappear when you step out of it but you will no longer be plagued by the lack of justice and fairness.
Especially loyalty, the hallmark of ‘peasant mentality’, is worth looking at (See Basic to Full Freedom 2)
Chrono: But I have been becoming more aware of where I feel a resentment of having to work at all. Then as I am reflecting on it now, I feel that the resentment is due to the feeling of “being prisoned”. Maybe this impression of a place where I do not feel prisoned (and thus free from the horrors of what I feel the world as) is the fundamental franchise. But I’m not entirely sure. The furthest back this feeling goes is from living with my family as a child. At that time I felt the feeling of being prisoned most acutely as physical and emotional abuse featured a lot both from parental figures, teachers, and other children. It was then that I started imagining that maybe I could be somewhere else. It was the whole reason for my incursion into spirituality. The idea that I could actually be somewhere else appealed to me a lot because that meant the end of those horrors. It was by serendipity that I encountered actualism. I am giving more thought to what it means to enable the ‘already always existing peace on earth’. Anyways as I read further on that correspondence:
Richard: ‘Tis truly a rigged system … rigged to ever-enrich an already obscenely rich elite. (link)
As this is something that many have seen and noted already, there must be something further. I feel an anger towards those people and almost feel that they are the ones perpetuating the wars, murders, etc. It is at this point where I feel that indignation more deeply. I feel myself to be not in support of the system due to this and can see my indignant reaction is a form of rebelling (a case of reaching for the opposite). What I’m coming closer towards though is perhaps seeing that there is no solution (as in even rebelling is pointless in regards to solving the system ultimately).
For a start, to expect to be fed and housed without working is setting yourself up for certain disappointment. It would mean someone else would have to provide for you. So, the “resentment of having to work at all” is possibly a leftover from when you were a child, as well as “the feeling of being prisoned”. I am reminded of this snippet from Richard’s personal web-page regarding childhood hurts, which you might find informative –
Richard: Speaking personally, the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago instantaneously rid ‘himself’ of the bulk of those school-age hurts and slights – whilst sitting out in the sunshine one fine morning, putting pencil to paper in order to finally record those dastardly events for posterity, as per a long-held and cherished ambition to do so at length – via seeing-in-a-flash that, as it was simply not possible to ever physically be a child again (and thus juvenilely susceptible to not only those bully-boys and feisty-femmes but any enabling teachers and principals as well), there was absolutely no need whatsoever to continue nursing them as a carryover grudge. It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. (Richard’s Personal Web-page, Tit-for-Tat Tool-tip).
You see, all the childhood hurts can disappear within the blink of an eye, allowing the penetrating insight that you can never ever be a child again to let all the resent go at once. Then adult sensibility can work out the best solution.
Regarding the “rigged system”, when you comprehensively understand how the peasant mentality is operating in you, then you’ll find it impossible to apportion blame because you can see that everybody is trapped by either loyalty and obedience, fuelled by their wanting to get ahead, or by excessive avarice, driven to accumulate regardless of the consequences. Yes, the system is rigged, but within the human condition every system would be equally rigged by whoever gets to the top because everyone is endowed with the same instinctual passions. There is truly no solution within the human condition.
The key is to unilaterally become happy and harmless, enjoying and appreciating, and as Richard says –
Richard: Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. (Richard’s Journal, Article 20).
Chrono: Still reading this and will have to reflect on it:
Vineeto: The other correspondence I can recommend is one about not taking offence, explained in detail (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 Jan 2016). Mastering this technique will hold you in good stead in any situation in life you described above.
(link)
Let me know if/when it works for you.
Cheers Vineeto