These are exciting times! @claudiu I wanted to write this as a record and as a confirmation of your recent understanding and experience of pure intent as I too am having the same experience! I also wanted to write this as a test to myself and see if I can put my money where my mouth is lol. I had been reflecting on what you wrote in your journal on pure intent and how it is always there. I particularly looked for the quality conveyed in your descriptions and along with Richard’s descriptions. In addition, I also rememorated how I had experienced it before but abandoned it due to both ‘me’ and this purity existing simultaneously. As odd as it may sound, it’s actually how it is experienced. There’s the old and there’s the new and then you have a choice. The old is ‘me’ and the entirety of the ‘Human Condition’ and the new is something that’s always there by virtue of being alive.
Three nights ago I sat on the bedroom floor contemplating and looking for this quality of pure intent. It has no feeling tone and could not be felt out but I knew how to look for it due to a recognition of it from the descriptions. There’s a certain quality to being alive as a body that conveys it. It’s an awareness of existing as a body. It can only be known by being alive. As I reflected on it, it started to become apparent. It immediately and delicately started to have an effect on my state of being. I felt happy, joyous, and delighted. And it became clear to me that this was the way forward. All I need to do is to “lock-on” to this quality of being alive. There were some responses feeling-wise such as a habitual cynicism which cropped up but this quality of pure intent being recognized as reliably always there made quick work of it and it dissolved it into optimism. Pure intent cannot be felt out but one way you can also see you are experiencing it is through the effect it has on your state of being. You may experience any feeling (good, bad, or felicitous) but there’s the awareness that everything is well. And the more you reflect on it and experience it, the more you automatically start to feel felicitous heightened sensuosity as well conincidentally. As I continued reflecting on this, more qualities of pure intent started to make themself known. It was completely safe. It’s so very safe to be here. At this point I was starting to become overjoyed but not in a jittery and coarse type of manner. My entire being was quivering in delight and there was a relief from the acknowledgement that all was well.
Then something magical happened that words fail to convey. There was some sort of feeling that disappeared from my chest and abdomen (which I only then knew was there due to its absence) and that entire area had a delightful and cool sensation. Not only that, at this point all of my worries, fears, and traumas had disappeared to the point that I didn’t even know if they ever even existed. I was alarmed but again not in a jittery and fearful way. For a brief moment I thought that I was actually free and paused my reflection and diverted attention away. Then some feelings came back. But I was still delighted at what had happened. This pure intent is always there. In the following days and even now as I am typing this, it’s there. I’m now reflecting on everything written on the AFT website and more and more things start to make sense every day. And this time it seems like a real possibility for me. What particularly has been standing out has been how this pure intent (to my never-ending surprise) is not contaminated by ‘me’ at all. ‘I’ am always expecting (perhaps due to a life-time of cynicism) it to devolve or disappear but it always exists and is in its own realm.
An added bonus to this was that all of this was happening while my roommate was in the same room. She had been in the depths of sorrow and was crying at being overwhelmed by work. I had sat with her in the room to offer some solace if she needed it. Then as I stood up and went to her, she immediately commented how I seemed happy now.
Some more things happened in the next two days. I woke up and started to feel the usual things that I feel. Then I remembered what happened the previous night and I felt delighted again. Because this pure intent is there, I am no longer afraid to feel any feeling. There were times throughout the day when I would experience the same pure intent and delight completely unprovoked and spontaneously. I remember driving home and and was on the verge of reveling in feeling sorrow, but instead to my surprise it stopped in its tracks and I spontaneously experienced the quality of pure intent. I wasn’t thinking about pure intent or actualism or even trying to do anything. This happened a few more times through the day. I cannot ignore it anymore that it is there. It also brings back memories of other times that I had experienced this quality. In fact, it has been with me my entire life but I had dismissed it due to doubt. Now I suspect maybe its because it has no feeling tone to it or any felt “reward” for it that I didn’t go along with it.
Another experience I had was yesterday. I have some traumas from the past that get triggered in certain instances. Yesterday there were some interactions which triggered a trauma of abandonment and feeling left completely alone and helpless. This was a strong trauma such that it would take me days to get back out of it. I noticed at that moment that there was a choice and I remembered the quality of pure intent. I experienced both the pure intent and the trauma simultaneously as I did the feelings prior and then the traumatic feelings stopped spiraling down and went away! I’m gaining more confidence every day and will try to see if I can do what I did before. But right now I’m just delighting in being here 