Chrono's Journal

[cross.chrono]

I’ve been seeing ‘me’ operating with such a clarity that I’ve never had before. By being attentive to where I’ve been chasing the good feelings (and subsequently falling back into the bad) and seeing that this is the only moment I’m ever alive, I’ve been able to maintain more of feeling good. I experience the seeing of the silliness of good and bad feelings (and thus feel good) and the seeing of this moment of being alive as inseparable. I genuinely enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive. I also have this criteria for success that Richard had:

I could be in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary living on bread and water and still be happy and harmless (free from malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) as that is the target which the identity within all those years ago set as a criterion of success

Previously this was unimaginable, but there are times now that I genuinely think this is possible.

@Vineeto

There is only one ‘me’, who is a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity, doing whatever ‘you’ can to prevent your escape. Because you say “I could just enjoy and appreciate this all the time” I understand this “sweetness” as an excellence experience or as pure intent being dynamically active, when you poke a hole into the commonly accepted reality and get a glimpse outside of the human condition – let me know if I understand this correctly.

Now it looks like when the fear of the “barren and stark reality” is not sufficient to discourage you from exploring the “sweetness” of pure intent, then reinforcement (for ‘me’) is summoned via reminding you of your relation to “others”, i.e. ‘humanity’.

Yes I would say this is correct. And the seeing of this moment of being alive is experienced as a ‘feeling good’ pouring forth. The word “benediction” comes to mind.

@Vineeto

Chrono: So when I think about not ‘being’, does ‘my’ absence have any effect on this psychic web?

Yes, it has wide-spread ramifications (as Kuba already spelt out: “puncturing some more holes in ‘reality’” link). Just think, The Actual Freedom Trust website exists due to one person daring to becoming actually free. This forum exists because enough people are interested and fascinated by the possibility of an actual freedom being possible and replicable, and everyone’s reported success in becoming more happy and harmless is encouraging others to dare to do the same. But should you be seduced by the “power to influence” as in “the esteemed goal within each group is to reach for the leadership” then it will back-fire and only strengthen ‘me’ and my ‘self’-centredness.

Chrono: I find this reservation quite funny because chasing the “Good” has never worked in my life and only has served as a source of self-aggrandizement. First when I reflect on my relationship with my partner via the bond of love. Relationships themselves everywhere seem to have behind them the deep desire to be affirmed, acknowledged, admired, and/or adulated. It is there in all interactions. It’s the “carrot” to assuage the foundational reality. Not chasing after this “carrot” is backed by accusations of being selfish.
Hmm actually I think if I can be happy and harmless with everyone that I come into contact with, that will be the “proof” I need.

Indeed, that temptation to be chasing the ‘good’ is two-fold – both for your own “source of self-aggrandizement” and assuaging the fear of being marked as a traitor to humanity. And yet your factual experience is that it is a dead-end street and nothing happy and harmless at all. When you pay close attention to how you feel in this moment of being alive and see the slightest beginning of another round of doubt or of “chasing the ‘Good’”, you can sensible decline.

Here Richard puts in a plug for being selfish –

Richard: Good … because unless ‘you’ are so ‘selfish’ as to want peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body, then nothing will happen to even begin to bring to an end all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child and suicides. And in case you think I am just being funny … I was told last year on this Mailing List that I was selfish to want to save my ‘six-foot flesh and blood body’!
If only each and every person was so ‘selfish’ there would be a global peace-on-earth. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 11 Oct 1999).

All of this started to make me think again how peace on earth is already always existing. It made me pause and think how ‘I’ could never create peace on earth. Thus peace on earth is also not for ‘me’. ‘I’ am the corruption preventing it. What ‘I’ had been doing is to try to bring it about through Good feelings. This is hard for ‘me’ to face viscerally as it means ‘I’ am not needed in any way at all. The experience is like getting very close to the center of the whirlpool of ‘being’. Everything is pulled to revolve around ‘me’. It’s incredible just how deep self-centricity runs. The instinct is that ‘I’ will do anything as long as ‘I’ survive.
I was also again thinking on what being harmless means. And the arrows of ‘being selfish’ fall flat when I realize that to be empathetically and compassionately helping any ‘other’ is only to be helping ‘me’. This feeling caring is for ‘me’ only. So that ‘I’ am affirmed and survive.

I’ve been reflecting on what you wrote here in Kuba’s Journal:

@Vineeto

Here is a short summary, written three weeks after ‘Vineeto’s’ transition into the actual world, which can perhaps serve as inspiration what to do in the meantime (the longer description is in Richard’s correspondence to Srinath) –

Vineeto to No. 13 … As I said elsewhere, becoming harmless (and therefore happy) was the beginning of being caring and in the end it was a near-actual caring that made me dare to give everything of ‘me’ without further reservation. This willingness to give everything of what ‘I’ hold most dear, to abandon ‘me’ at the core of my ‘being’ for the benefit of this body, that body and every body is the inevitable end of ‘me’.
Subscriber No. 13: If this is true, people on the path can pay exclusive attention to this ‘caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster’ and use it as the driving force behind the whole process of becoming harmless and happy
Vineeto: Well said.
This caring (becoming as harmless as possible and moving towards a near-actual caring) is of course not to be confused with the feeling caring that is taught as part of the (religious) morals and ethics of society. One is taught to be un-selfish, to put the other before oneself (which never ever happens in practice), in order to reap a feeling-better-than-thou superiority and/or a reward in a mythical life after physical death.
Provided you understand that the moral/ feeling caring is only keeping you locked within the human condition and that near-actual caring includes you as much as everyone else, then you can indeed use it as the driving force for the whole process of becoming free. (Direct Route, Vineeto to No. 13, 25 Jan 2010).

In empathy, the benchmark for my feeling good (which is ultimately a Good feeling) has been if I’ve successfully pulled the other out of their misery (by going thru it myself). ‘I’ will only feel good if the ‘other’ feels good. Maybe compassion is the better word. Richard says here [added bold]:

@Vineeto

Richard: … the whole point of activating the third alternative to either feeling powerless or feeling powerful – i.e., feeling harmless/ innocuous (as distinct from turn-the-other-cheek pacifistic behaviour) – is to dynamically defuse that entire power-structure/ power-battle way of life, which is so endemic in the animal realm, and thereby actively enable intimacy.
(After all, as ‘I’ am the ‘other’ – for each and every ‘me’ who is ‘other’ to ‘me’ – ‘I’ thus intimately know what it feels like, for those who are ‘other’ to ‘me’, to be such an ‘other’ upon each and every interaction). (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 14 Jan 2016).

This scales all the way up to ‘I’ will only be free when Humanity is free. With this feeling logic, it would only ever be up to a Someone or Something for anyone to be free. The daunting aspect of it is that to unilaterally be happy and harmless means to leave Humanity itself behind.

It also occurs to me how much “power” plays a role in all interactions. There is a constant push and pull. It’s impossible to escape as long as I remain a feeling being. I am influencing and being influenced. I can see how being happy and harmless would be the better way of being but nonetheless it is this power (of being) which is the problem. What is the need for power? It’s like I’m always attacking and defending.

Just a week ago my partner was telling me about how she was not feeling good in regards work and having to work plus also feeling tired. First there was the feeling upset that she is feeling upset. Then there was the antidotal compassion because that is the ‘Good’ action. Then catching this in action and returning to feeling good. I spoke with her and shared my thoughts on the matter and tried to get her to rememorate feeling good but she seemed stuck on feeling bad with a simultaneous resistance against my suggestion. I do have an understanding of how she feels (feeling of being trapped) but also know where those feelings lead over and over again. So I realized what she wanted at the time was to be affirmed in her feeling bad. Commiseration is venerated as wisdom. Even as I write this I cannot help but feel that it is taboo that I do not feel bad along with her. But it is not as strong as before.

But within all that there was the seeing of where that paradigm leads. That compassionate action also would not have helped her (Good keeps the Bad in place), it would have inevitably brought her back to the same place. The compassion is the very “help” that ‘I’ can ever provide. Yes it is even more clear that any action within the Human Condition is bound to fail. It is ‘me’ caring for ‘me’. To be harmless (and happy) is an entirely new paradigm. An entirely new way of living. There’s still some contemplation going on here.

I am further reminded of this bit from Richard’s Journal:

It is possible to be sensitive without being vulnerable. People mistakenly take the word ‘sensitive’ to mean being
“emotionally open” … with unfortunate consequences. When I use the word ‘sensitive’ I mean being keenly aware of the other and oneself. Consideration, of both oneself and others, does not have to be an emotional involvement. The actually sensitive person has freed themselves from the loyalty to pathos, with all its ensuing pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion, by renouncing one’s own stake in personal sorrow.

Anyways she has since returned to feeling better and in fact I now notice that she can return quicker if I myself am feeling good. Felicitous feelings also can influence the other.

Aside from that I also noticed that there had been some resentments that I had held on with my partner. It seemed to be the nature of relationships. How could I not fall into the “forgive and forget” cycle? It’s clearly on my end anyway. And I had my answer this past weekend. While I was with her I noticed a stand out “togetherness” that I experienced that put all of these resentments out as if they never existed. It was rather unexpected as I had been reflecting on these resentments. There was no past or future. Again there was nothing to solve. Only in the normal way of relationships is there something to work on. This is simply an allowing of that which is already always existing. I meet her ever fresh. Enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive includes myself and the other. I notice now how it is a stark contrast to love.

Also more often I wake up even on a work day that it does not feel like a work day. On a work day the same places can feel different. As if it is a chore and a drag. I feel out the entire day and all the things that I must do. But it doesn’t feel like that at all. The “periphery” was as if I was going out to play.

@Kub933

Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed the post.

@cross.chrono

But the stark reality persists only where there is no seeing that it is this moment. There’s a disbelief behind it. Like it can’t be true. Why? Because then everything I have ever known is false. And I wonder what are the ramifications of that?

That is a very fascinating thought! It reminds me of a quote from Geoffrey which Leila posted recently :

@leila

Geoffrey (I think): Rather, I would use that situation to have a good look at ‘yourself’, which it looks like you’re trying to do, but rather than lament about the human condition you’re seeing, its ‘vale of tears’ nature, and the sick joke the gods have played on you, in order to pump up yourself with perceived ‘courage’ in the face of tragedy and doom (which is a validation of the said condition), why not use that situation to finally see ‘yourself’ and your imaginary nature?

That’s quite a thing to contemplate… In the final analysis is that all it will come to be? “A dream which in fact never was” to borrow Geoffrey’s words from another private correspondence.

It’s interesting how ‘I’ can be a dream that never was in the end, yet ‘I’ have a decision to make to end ‘me’. Can I really just see myself as imaginary? Because I have tried to do this in the past before and nothing happens. There would still be that last bit of ‘me’. With the core of ‘me’ being the instinct to survive, a huge portion of ‘me’ is backed by psychological time. It is like ‘I’ possess the memory of this body to give credence to ‘me’. As if ‘I’ existed, am existing, and will exist. But no matter how much I see this, I can’t seem to get to the center. Just over a week ago I had an intimation of what it would entail if that center was ever revealed. The fear of which “perked” me up in that very moment and I drew back. Basically it seemed that the “final step” is to allow this moment to live me. ‘I’ cannot do it. Only this universe can. But I have been wondering what would make ‘me’ come out of hiding.

@Kub933

Which this brings me to another point you made :

@cross.chrono

This made me think that if a large portion of people were virtually free or actually free then maybe there won’t be any rocky or churny waters. But someone has to pave the way (me) haha.

I was thinking this the other day when reading some of the correspondence on the forum, how beneficial it is to see other fellow human beings walking the path. Each person proceeding is puncturing some more holes in ‘reality’, that ‘psychic landscape’ is changed with every person slowly abandoning that “dream which in fact never was”. It is a pioneering business and it is a unilateral business and yet the ramifications go way past just the individual.

Just to add to the above, I was thinking about this with regards to me and Sonya, that it is simply “how things are” now when we are together that there is a lack of conflict and a mutual liking. That it would be ‘weird’ to operate in the way which would be classed as ‘normal’. As in those felicitous and innocuous vibes are the norm, to relate in sorrow and malice would now be the outlier.

I am seeing this more myself as well. I have this reflection every time I feel particularly excellent and am delighting in being alive how peace on earth is described as already always existing. It’s free for everyone alive and it does not need to come from some God or Guru or any ‘being’. I am more and more appreciating how we can all be here and also be able to live in this new way. Sometimes the simplicity of it is astounding. It is wonderful to hear that you have been living happily and harmlessly as been the norm. There could be no better way. And even more so with that it is with your partner Sonya.