Claudiu's Journal

[claudiu]

@Kub933

This is interesting, what you describe is exactly in line with what I have been experiencing for a while now, in varying degrees.

It’s like I will enter this ‘mode’ where I phase in and out of excellence for a few days, when in this mode it seems effortless to allow perfection as soon as I orient myself towards it, but then it’s not 24/7, because even when in that mode I will retreat back into normal for a few hours, when back in normal mode there is very clearly something missing, even when things are ok, that dynamic/magical aspect is not present.

Interesting! Reading what you write here helps to clarify things for me actually. I would say I can relate to what you write here as how I had been experiencing things before the June 23rd plane ride, but the difference now is that the dynamical/magical aspect is never absent any more.

Also before there would be a certain amount of striving or reaching for that and some effort (in hindsight) needed to be experiencing the magical aspect, but now it’s not like that anymore, it’s like there is a backdrop of purity that is actually at the root of everything.

@Kub933

It’s an interesting one, how to proceed from this place. Whether it is simply about acclimatising oneself to perfection more and more. I suppose even when squarely back to normal this might be an opportunity to review some of the last objections that ‘I’ have as an identity.

Vineeto’s advice to me on June 15th, which she published on the AFT by now, was:

CLAUDIU: Today was an odd day – the level of appreciation and purity I experienced has been less than other days and my experience has been at times more like how ‘I’ would normally be. However this came with the sincerity of seeing that ‘I’ really do have to actually give ‘myself’ up for this to happen. Ceasing to be me is exactly what self-immolation is. As I write this now I can say I have no doubts that this is sincerely what I want to do.

VINEETO: I can understand that the level of appreciation and purity waxes and wanes, as if ‘you’ want to return to the default position of feeling neutral as described in Richard’s copied article from Sonja Lyubomirsky [link]. I do appreciate your sincerity, it makes it so much easier.

The only way to counteract this falling back will be if you make the deliberate decision, when feeling excellent and experiencing pure intent comes along, to commit to living out-from-under-control from then onwards. When ‘Vineeto’ got out-from-under-control after many ‘ums and ahs’ it was delicious but a few days later ‘she’ fell out of it and accepted this as a matter of course. But Richard didn’t. When ‘she’ told him about it, he said jokingly something to the effect of “stand in the corner until you are back into out-from-under-control”!

So post-haste ‘Vineeto’ invited Peter into the bedroom and after some delicious intimacy soon was back where ‘she’ had been, and then was more watchful and determined to in fact stay out-from-under-control. It worked. It does need your active and decisive input – until an actual freedom happens, then you can’t fall back. [source]

What I had realized at the time is that more effort was needed – allowing it to happen is not a lackluster approach.

What seems to have really done the trick in terms of shifting to this new way of being, the most immediate cause, was seeing that I wasn’t in control in the first place anyway. It is tempting to say this latter realization is what did the trick but it is more likely that all of the above contributed to it.

It really has been a bigger shift and adjustment than I thought it would be. I thought it would just be an EE but more easy or smooth in a way. But the implications and ramifications of what it means are bigger than I realized and it seems like it takes some getting used to.

What a wonderful discussion for us to be having here! It is truly a wonderful time to be alive. I wouldn’t trade being alive now for any other time.

Cheers,
Claudiu