Chrono's Journal

[cross.chrono]

@Vineeto

This is interesting – in all the ups and downs of feelings, as they tend to be, there was an awareness in the background that “I’m playing pretend”. This is an excellent anchoring point because you can become increasingly aware, and attentive to, that you don’t have to be those vacillating feelings, but choose to be felicitous as in the memory of “sweetness” after your (almost) “decision to feel good forever”. It’s natural that ‘I’ will put up a fight in order to remain in the “old ways” but you have experienced the alternative now and you can experience it again whenever that ‘pretend-game’ loses the emotional pull. It is always available as a choice, whenever you want it.

Hi Vineeto,

Yes and this may go hand-in-hand with that anchoring point in that I had a belief that I must go through a period of slogging through the negative feelings (for allowing myself to “fall” in the first place) before getting back to feeling good. But I see now I can skip past all that and just feel good. There doesn’t need to be a journey of going from negative feelings to felicitous feelings once I can see I am being these feelings. And I have sometimes instantly felt good simply by noticing that I am feeling bad.

Another thing that is helping me in not getting “stuck” in negative feelings is setting myself the standard of ‘I will only think or do something once I feel good first’. There’s actually never a problem when feeling good.

@Vineeto

It takes courage and determination but it is also quite delicious to follow your path of being happy and harmless, and as such go “against what is ‘natural’”. And the reward is that you become autonomous and increasingly confident in this “decision to feel good forever” being where you want to be – as the “sweetness” you described confirms.

Yesterday I found this paragraph in Richard’s articles that might be helpful –

Richard: Attentiveness reminds one to apply one’s sensuousness to the pertinent situation at the opportune time and to implement surely the appropriate amount of activity needed to do the job. When this vitality is judiciously applied, one stays constantly in a condition of virtual freedom. As long as this condition of virtual freedom is maintained, those feeling-states called ‘moods’ cannot arise for there is no anguish or animosity – virtually no malice or misery – when attentiveness is present. Nevertheless, one is still ‘human’ and to be ‘human’ is to err … and most people are very ‘human’ and err repeatedly. Despite pure intent, the actualist lets their attentiveness slip now and then and one finds oneself stuck in some unfortunate – but normal – ‘human’ failure. It is attentiveness that notices that change … and it is attentiveness that reminds one to apply the pure intent required to pull oneself out. Slipping into ‘normal’ happens over and over, but the frequency decreases with the assimilation of the fact that the absence of anguish and animosity in one’s moment-to-moment experience allows one’s daily life to be peaceful and harmonious way beyond normal ‘human’ expectations. Once attentiveness has exposed those affective set-backs, sensuousness provides a more considerate and carefree condition … one is happy and harmless for ninety-nine percent of the time. It is attentiveness which notices the change from ‘normal’ into happiness and harmlessness, and which reminds the actualist to maintain the pure intent needed to keep one blithe and benign … and which allows apperception to freely happen. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness Sensuousness Apperceptiveness).

That is a timely quote to counter beating myself up for feeling bad. Yes it is all more fun when approached as following my path of being happy and harmless and more of a “battle” when it’s all being approached as going “against what is natural”.
I also find that sensuousness (as the “wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space”) comes to the fore all on its own when feeling good. It is like when feeling good, I readily allow this to happen.

I particularly liked this quote you posted in emp’s journal:

@Vineeto

Indeed, there is neither a “pedigree” nor any “admittance fee” in actualism, and it is enormously liberating to have this really sunk in. Your description of “a giant wave is cresting below me” reminds me of Richard’s own description –

Richard: I remember describing it as ‘living at the cutting-edge of reality’. (Richard, AF List, Alan-b, #etheric).

Or more explicit –

Richard: I would say to myself: ‘This is my only moment of being alive … I am actually here doing this reading of these words now’. The past – although it was actual whilst it was happening – is not happening now … and never will again. A past peak experience can never be repeated … it is useful inasmuch as it bestows the requisite confidence that it is possible to experience the purity of the perfection of life here and now … but that is it, finish. One slips into this moment in time and this place in space by being aware that all this that is happening is happening for the very first time and that I have never been here before doing this. In fact: I have never been here before. In everyday terminology this moment in time is the ‘cutting-edge of reality’. Who knows what will happen next as ‘the future’ does not exist until this moment happens.
If this realisation is not thrilling I would like to know what is! (Richard, AF List, Vineeto, 5 Aug 1998).

It’s like a “yes of course” this moment has never happened before and I was marveling at the perpetual “newness”. It’s like ‘why do I do anything else?’. But perhaps that ties in with the following too:

@Vineeto

What you call “‘another place’ and ‘another time’” is actuality in contrast to the real world. In a PCE you know experientially that you are in “another place”, a magical place where everything is already perfect.

But when not in a PCE, these ever-changing feelings are what you naturally are – inborn and inherited as blind nature’s survival package. It’s not personal, and when you become attentive you recognize that you don’t need to reject or embrace them, or dissociate from them – it is all ‘you’. So when you are not busy fighting or defending what you feel, you can direct this affective energy towards the felicitous feelings and towards sensuousness, enjoyment and appreciation. It’s the same energy and in principle it is really very simple –

Richard: If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). (Richard, Articles, a Précis of Actual Freedom).

I have often experienced this “another place” and “another time” as if being at the periphery or almost at the corner of my eye. Like a ‘so close yet so far’ feeling. I experience it most often in the morning and I usually attribute it to not being able to “play” as I did when I was a kid. I am being reminded of how the world was a full playground back then. There’s that melancholic feeling filled also with a loneliness because it also feels like I’m in a world filled with grim adults as well (which identities also help keep this feeling in place). It’s like I am being grim as well because they are conveying thru their feelings that that is what you’re supposed to do. So by going my own way, I’d be having fun by myself (or so the feeling conveys). I’m reminded of where Richard writes that the root cause of sorrow is due to ‘me’ being locked out of the actual world.

Relatedly, I had this realization a few days ago that all communication between identities seems to be happening thru vibes and currents. It was like the words and behaviors were just accessories and didn’t ultimately matter. The whole point was to transmit ‘me’ to other ‘me’. Which transmitting is to show that ‘I’ exist. It’s like everyone is vying to show that they exist.

@Vineeto

Chrono: I had been wondering how this flesh and blood body experiences the world. Just a background thought that comes and goes sometimes. I was washing dishes (this seems to happen during washing dishes for some reason) and I felt the soap foam on my hands along with the warm water and it suddenly hit me that it is this body experiencing that sensation. It is neither a thought or a feeling. The direct experiencing of it is the flesh and blood body’s experience. It subsequently also occurred to me that this occurs right here and right now and is perpetually happening. I’m blocking it by thinking and feeling about it. That direct experience conveyed to me more than any thinking about it could. With ‘me’, ‘I’ am trying to outline a coherent whole ‘reality’ but when I experienced the direct sensation it was as if there was only the experiencing of that. (link)

Wonderful, bingo! Your senses inform you that you are here, that you are alive and this is “neither a thought or a feeling”. Isn’t it wonderful to have confirmation by your very own experience and increasing confidence in what you are aiming for.

One of my favourite quotes of a ‘peak experience’ (during Richard’s eighth year of enlightenment) –

Richard: ‘I remember the first time I experienced being the senses only during a peak experience. There was no identity as ‘I’ thinking or ‘me’ feeling … simply this body ambling across a grassy field in the early-morning light. A million dew-drenched spider-webs danced a sparkling delight over the verdant vista and a question that had been running for some weeks became experientially answered: without the senses I would not know that I exist. And further to this: I was the senses and the senses were me. With this comes an awareness of being conscious … apperception’. (Richard, AF List, Alan, #pce).

Yes it is indeed wonderful to have that confirmation. It also has the effect of invigorating me out of my normal way of being. It must have been quite interesting for Richard to experience that when he was enlightened as it would have been an even more stark contrast to the grand ‘Me’.

I have this desire to live it 24/7 but simultaneously when confronted with that permanence it gives me a melancholic feeling again that ‘I’ have to die for it. And perhaps that’s a way for ‘me’ to stay in existence. The objection sometimes also changes to ‘I have to protect this body’. And perhaps I feel that the most to my core. I especially feel it when confronted with aggressive vibes at work or even in the news.
Now that I am thinking more as I am writing this, I think my approach may be the problem. I didn’t experience this when I was overflowing with feeling good and delight.

But with all that said, I am feeling better now than I did prior .