So I wrote recently that I would be nipping at your heels soon @claudiu and it appears this is exactly what I did
I’m still being careful before making definitive claims but especially noticeably in the past 2 days there is a momentum which has begun that is not of ‘my’ doing.
Noticing my experience the label which fits the most precisely is exactly that of an ongoing and dynamic excellence experience. I was going to write this yesterday but I wanted to see what it would be like when I wake up, and it’s still exactly the same.
There are times when some emotion comes up and I think, “ok I am still normal” but then I realise that I don’t have any breaks to put on, I don’t have a way to stop the perfection and purity permeating into the centre that is ‘me’.
I noticed this yesterday driving to my hen party jobs and it was a very precious experience, noticing that the breaks no longer work was the culmination of a lifetime of dedication. ‘I’ was stuck in that cage of ‘my’ own making, carrying the burden of being an identity for so many years. And it’s a funny situation because deep down ‘I’ yearn to be free of this burden and yet it is ‘me’ who stubbornly refused to step out of the cage. Knowing that the breaks no longer work allowed ‘me’ for the first time in so long to say a resounding YES! To being alive, what ‘I’ secretly wanted all along.
Dear Kuba,
My deepest appreciation for your wonderful news. “What ‘you’ secretly wanted all along”, how fitting, how marvellous. Thank you.
Have a great ride and enjoy it to the max while it lasts.
(I think you will understand the “while it lasts” correctly).
Cheers Vineeto
Yes thank you Vineeto It’s interesting because I have tried to put the breaks on multiple times this morning, to see if it is possible. I can go to ‘my’ most cherished themes, the ones that ‘I’ would usually get stuck in, but it’s like trying to hold sand through my hands. There is still this background expectation that something could ‘stick’ but so far no.
@Emp: Hmm, I really need to get going, don’t I? Don’t wanna be stuck in the bathroom while the rest of you go for destiny. (If you know, you know).
Hi Emp,
That is a very good insight and well worth putting into action.
Women can become as easily actually free as men, and given that I am a female myself, who has gone all the way, perhaps Richard’s record of how ‘Vineeto’ went about this may strike a chord with you.
[Richard]: […] As Vineeto’s reports/ descriptions/ explanations of a near-actual caring are scattered throughout her ‘Direct Route Mail-Out’ emails [link] some background details presented numerically will aid clarity in communication.
When feeling-being ‘Vineeto’s everyday feeling of caring first shifted into what has since become known as a near-actual caring the qualitative difference was so marked in its effect ‘she’ initially mistook it to be an actual caring (as per ‘her’ memories of PCE’s).
This shift occurred when ‘she’ transitioned from ‘her’ pragmatic, methodological virtual freedom into being out-from-control – a dynamic, destinal virtual freedom – for the remaining four-and-a-half weeks of ‘her’ life (albeit with a melodramatic three-day out-of-control interlude towards the end).
Due to ‘her’ naïve intent to be as intimate and without prejudice as possible – which, in conjunction with the absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity that is part-and-parcel of being out-from-control had resulted in the actualism method segueing into the actualism process – ‘her’ cheerful and thus willing concurrence allowed pure intent to dynamically pull ‘her’ evermore unto ‘her’ destiny. (Hence the “dynamic, destinal virtual freedom” nomenclature).
This moment-to-moment experiencing of a caring which is not self-centred/ self-centric provided ‘her’ with the experiential convincement that actualising such caring, via ‘self’-immolation, was the only solution to the human condition; this ‘hands-on’ understanding as a dynamically present feeling-being – an impressively distinct contrast to having been abeyant during PCE’s – left ‘her’ with absolutely no choice (lest ‘she’ be forever “rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic”).
Since a near-actual caring is, of course, epitomised by a vital interest in the suffering of all human beings coming to an end, forever, as a number one priority, then ‘her’ single-minded focus was essentially centred upon the most immediate way of ensuring this long-awaited global event could begin to take effect the soonest … to wit: bringing ‘her’ own inevitable demise, at physical death, forward into a liminal imminence.
Because the means ‘she’ elected to utilise towards these ends was the near-actual intimacy which goes hand-in-hand with a near-actual caring (per favour that afore-mentioned absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity which typifies being out-from-control) it is apposite to defer to what Vineeto herself wrote on the 20th of January 2010, only fifteen days after her pivotal moment/ definitive event, as its refreshingly simple directness speaks for itself.
Viz.:
• [Vineeto]: “(…). Further it was obvious for me that it would be Richard who would facilitate and trigger my transition into an actual freedom because he was the most obvious person with whom a near-actual intimacy would change into an actual intimacy – simply because Richard had been my guide and mentor for the last 13 years and particularly so for the period since I stepped out-from-control.
As I have written to No. 5 recently –
‘The final clue was again about caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster. Only when I cared enough to give all of ‘me’ to another person, to give them what they want most, was I then ready to give it to the one I cared for most, the one I was closest to, and then I was able to leave all remnant concerns and inhibitions of my identity behind.
And that’s what happened”. (Direct Route, No.20, 20 Jan 10).
(Incidentally, her words “to give them what they want most” refers to my oft-expressed emphasis on the necessity of a female replicating my condition – for those oh-so-vital ‘core of civilisation itself’ reasons spelled-out elsewhere on my portion of the web site – and it speaks volumes, to those males having reservations about going all the way due to the popular wisdom that what women want is loving relationships, that in the handful of daring pioneers women out-numbered men by a 4-to-1 ratio). (Richard, List D, No. 45a)
The last paragraph has two tooltips which are well-worth reading.
Well, this 4-to-1 ratio has so far not been repeated since then, which makes your realisation especially valuable and well-worth actualising.
The deep experience of pure intent, which you expressed on June 8 –
Emp: While reading Vineeto’s response, I remember starting out thinking “how’s this going to work out without Richard” and during reading my whole world seemed to shift to “of course it’s like this, it’s always been supposed to be like this”. It’s very difficult to explain how my entire thought process changed, but it seemed fundamental at the time. There’s been a remarkable stillness for the past few days. [link]
– will guide you to feeling excellent as your default hedonic state and from there it’s only a skip and a jump to give yourself permission to giving up control and letting the universe live you, like Claudiu and Kuba have recently done. You’ll be catching up with them in no time .
After all, we are aiming for nothing less than peace on earth.
So yesterday I understood this intellectually, today I had a glimpse of what this is referring to, that at the end of the ride there is no ‘me’ left, and that is a wonderful thing!
It happened as I was considering my current working situation, that I am cutting down hours from my employed work and slowly moving towards making a living teaching BJJ.
I can sum it up by what @geoffrey mentioned in a zoom chat a while ago - ‘you’ are trying to plan for a situation where ‘you’ will not exist, and indeed that is the case haha. Where life lives itself there is nothing of ‘me’ left, and in fact ‘I’ am not needed at all.
It’s so incredible as @claudiu wrote that I can explore all manner of things and still have this background of perfection and purity which it seems never goes away.
For me realizing this I hit a bit of a speed bump. It was two nights ago. As I wrote in #187, the momentum was increasing and it was all scintillating and wonderful. It seemed like I had been riding this wondrous wave and sufficiently paving the way, so I set my sights on what will come next – the actual ending of ‘me’.
Faced with this as the obvious next step, I hit upon a distinct patch of hesitation and “well hold on a sec”. This is something that I will actually have to do, which will mean the actual end of me – no longer a theoretical step at some point in the future, but something that actually will happen, or rather has to happen for me to attain my destiny.
So the wondrous scintillation has dimmed since then, although out-from-control is still what I am. And I very distinctly do not want to fall out of this different-way-of-being. In other words, I firmly am not going back to normal. So it is a matter of staying where I am, in a sense, and actually checking out this latest objection.
Very interestingly, when this would happen in the past I would experience it as being ‘stuck’. But I do not experience it as stuckness at all right now. It is just the next thing that is happening, and my experiencing still has that dynamic nature to it.
Yesterday I spent a good amount of time on X (formerly Twitter) which is a surefire way to be exposed to horrible and terrible things happening in the world. I am particularly bothered by the egregious and willfully dishonest clipping of and taking quotes out of context to paint people as saying something very obviously different than what they are saying if one watches it in context. I put a lot of time and effort into trying to correct people, add the context, post a Community Note about it. The results were dismal – people that already saw it, saw it, and every person that engaged with me pushing back and maintaining the dishonesty, none of them change their opinions about it at all, even when presented with the clear, unmistakable facts.
And so I came to see that what I was doing was trying to exert control over the world, to change other people to see what the facts are. And I saw it really just simply does not work at all. It reaffirmed that I actually don’t have control over this – meaning that my attempts to exert control in this manner, were a waste of energy.
It made it starkly clear that this is not an alternative to actual freedom. Going out and spending energy essentially being an activist – it just doesn’t work. It is a tiny drop in the bucket, one feeling-beings contribution to a site with hundreds of millions of feeling-beings all fervently participating on it. Even if I had millions of followers – there are posters who do have millions of followers, and their replies are filled by people that vehemently disagree with them. One simply cannot control other people, it doesn’t work.
It seems to mostly be out of my system now as I redirect my energy back to going further towards actuality. This is clearly the best way to actually make an impact on the world – by being that, and writing from that place, and then what I write may attract people which may go viral (perhaps), but that part is not up to me, all I can do is put it out into the world – and very obviously, the most impactful way to spend that energy is firstly to become free myself, and secondly to put that energy into the current active participants here, to help in whatever way that might help (which will be greatly aided by the most-impactful thing).
On a separate track, yesterday I saw Inside Out 2 and I was moved to tears several times during the movie.
The premise is to show a snippet of events in the life of a 13-year old girl Riley, where her inside world is represented by animated figures each representing different emotions - Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger are the main ones, which are soon joined by Anxiety, Jealousy, Shame and Ennui as she matures. These figures exist in her mind and exert influence on Riley via a literal control panel in her brain.
It is utterly hectic and chaotic and I was moved by how well it epitomized the human condition, where everyone for the most part is trying to do their best, and is constantly upset by their own emotions and neuroses, which they have through no fault of their own. Riley for the most part has Joy at the control panel, but as she goes through a period of changes, Anxiety takes the reigns. It increasingly exerts more and more control, at one point banishing Joy to a distant region of the mind, as Anxiety thinks the stakes are too high and it is too important to leave things to chance.
Anxiety becomes increasingly frantic, pressing more and more buttons, pushing more and more nerve-wracking possible futures to Riley’s consciousness, which cause her to spiral. Anxiety sees that the tactics are not working but can’t stop itself, eventually it forms a tornado around the control panel, mashing all the buttons and knocking out any other possible influence – a perfect metaphorical depiction of an out-of-control panic attack.
At this point Joy manages to re-emerge from the recesses of her mind and step into the center of the cyclone, where Anxiety stands, perfectly paralyzed, unable to let go of the controls. As Joy stands near Anxiety, tears start willing up in Anxiety’s eyes – which moved me to tears myself. Anxiety, too, is just trying to do the best it can, it came from a well-meaning place, and it just isn’t working.
Eventually Joy manages to encourage Anxiety to un-grasp the control panel, which begins the process of allowing Riley to calm down. The figurative emotions realize among themselves that it’s ultimately up to Riley to choose how to live her life. At that point in reality Riley stands up and sees the Sun shining in, and there’s a wonderful moment where a trail of yellow particles start flowing between Joy and the control panel – Riley decided to choose Joy as the way she wanted to live her life at that moment.
And so Joy resumed their place at the control panel and the remaining scene finished out with Riley having a delectably wonderful time, filled with sensuosity and delight.
All this was really very moving for me. The metaphors are not perfect but I thought it was a wonderful way to depict inner emotional turmoil, and I particularly liked the part about Riley being able to choose Joy – a very actualist message in fact!
I was moved because it epitomized the human condition, how it affects everyone, how people generally mean well – and how vital it is for me to continue on the path I am continuing on, to be able to help others to free themselves from it as well!
“And so I came to see that what I was doing was trying to exert control over the world, to change other people to see what the facts are. And I saw it really just simply does not work at all. It reaffirmed that I actually don’t have control over this – meaning that my attempts to exert control in this manner, were a waste of energy.”
This was a very observant experiment – “it is impossible to combat the wisdom of the real world”. It is a great insight to aid you in leaving humanity itself.
Richard: […] Then one takes the penultimate step … one abandons ‘humanity’. An actual freedom from the human condition then unfolds its inevitable destiny’. (link)
This meme always reminds me of a very old discussion I had with Claudiu…In some discussion I said SIWOTI to mean Someone Is Wrong on the Internet and I think he wasn’t aware of that and asked if it means Social Identity Without The Instincts ?
The “speed bump” has turned out to be more of a derailment, which I am starting to get back on track now. I am glad to see others on the forum have continued with their successes, especially @Kub933 – so it doesn’t entirely rely on me .
The interesting thing about this derailment, during which I have certainly gotten to the low levels of feeling bad and terrible and upset, is that there is no longer an element present of feeling stuck or resentful about it or that it ‘has to be this way’ or ‘woe is me’. In other words, consistently throughout is the constant experiential understanding that I am feeling the way I am feeling because of my choices, and nothing imposed externally whatsoever. This is very different than before.
And basically at any point throughout the familiar experience of there being no brakes available could start happening. So although it took a long time to go out-from-control the first time[1], now it appears to be readily available at any moment. How wonderful!
The salient question then is why the train has been derailed for so long? Actually I’m realizing a “train on the tracks” analogy is not so apt as that implies a one way to do it, narrow approach, whereas it is more a wide & wondrous path… but the analogy can suffice for now.
I can only draw it back to that seeing how continuing down this path will genuinely be the end of me. And when I thought of just getting back to feeling good and staying there as a first step (and not committing to the end per se), it didn’t work because I saw how that was just the first step in a series of steps that I would then follow that would then actually be the end of me. So I did not even want to go there – I can’t fool myself!
What has happened to get me back on track (to the trackless wide&wondrous path), is seeing that nothing that occurred over the past 10 days has been anything of any value whatsoever. It’s like, ok, I “get to” avoid self-immolating, I “get to” continue (illusorily) ‘existing’ … and what is my reward? Feeling bad! Haha. It’s like playing a stupid game and getting a stupid prize.
Combining that with the fact that it feels bad to feel bad, it’s just not a pleasant experience to feel bad, and there really is no reason to continue avoiding the wide & wondrous path, that is so readily accessible now. In other words, the only way to continue is forward, facing whatever resistance and objection full on, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be. In other words, avoidance is no longer an option.
Then a key third piece to the puzzle was seeing that the reluctance to change comes directly from the loyalty to humanity and the fear of abandoning humanity. Besides being rotten to the core, there are rotten parts to me – as to all feeling-beings – aggressive and malicious parts. They will not actually disappear until self-immolation. Until then, they will remain latent – able to be activated and channeled and expressed on a whim.
Now I am faced with the choice, to minimize those parts of me. And when faced with that choice, a voice comes on, a super cynical thought/feeling along the lines of “oh you can’t really change. you would just be fooling yourself, lying to yourself. you aren’t so foolish as to think you can really change, are you?” And somehow that thought was enough to browbeat me (me browbeating myself!) into allowing myself to continue expressing that malice rather than minimizing it.
But now I see the reason for that – because by doing so I stay within humanity, I stay within the tribe. But if I actually change… I prove the entire mass of ‘humanity’ wrong! I break away from the tribe – which then is felt as immediately exposing me to danger, if that tribe were to then turn on me.
The answer is a practical one of course: it is trivially easy to blend in and not expose oneself to this actual danger. The amusing thing is that everybody is so self-centered that they just assume everybody else basically thinks and feels like them. When presented with someone whose vibes either don’t exist, or exist but are not sorrowful or malicious, it intuitively registers as a “neutral” or “friend” rather than a threat – so they assume you are like them and there’s no problems.
Finally the fourth piece was seeing how me being in this worse mood negatively impacts my partner and the other people around me. Even if I am not doing anything to express the mood. I will say something neutral in response without intending any malice towards that person, and people will understand from the vibes that I am upset, and then understand my neutral response in the framework of “upset person” and then assume what I said has to do with why I am upset and then try to react accordingly. It is terrible not just for me but for everyone.
So here I am, now propitiously directed back towards the purity of the actual universe, which lies all around, abundant and evident.
(I found a post of mine from 2011 on the DhO about affer-ism (which I thought was actualism), so at least 13 years from first exposure to actualism) ↩︎
I have a drive. I feel like I do not want to abandon that drive, because if I do it would mean I have no purpose. The fact is seen: ‘I’ actually do not have a purpose, just a biologically-inherited instinctual passion to perpetuate this body’s genes and ultimately the species.
The above makes it seem like I want to have a purpose, because there is a reluctance to let go of the drive. However this neatly segues into realizing that there are sensible things I can be doing at work. There are tangible benefits where I am actually needed that would help the company accomplish its goals and lead to financial rewards for me. Yet then I react with this with not wanting to bear the burden of that responsibility of “having” to do those things! But was I not just one minute ago complaining about how I want to have a purpose? Yet when a purpose presents itself, I don’t want it because I don’t want the responsibility!
It is just all silly. Bereft of care and consideration. It’s all sort of a sham, essentially. The path forward is obvious – accept that I am not needed, and appeal to that part of me that actually doesn’t want the responsibility. That part of me will benefit from not “having” to do anything! Then I can allow sensible things to get done, which is the natural state of affairs when I do not get in the way .
Then it is win-win: there is no burden of responsibility, and the sensible things get done while I am free to enjoy what is happening. The things ‘I’ want to do will not necessarily get done, but those instinctually-driven desires do not necessarily make sense. They might – but if they do then it no longer needs to be instinctually-driven but will rather move up into sensible sensate consciousness where they will be evaluated to get done just like any other sensible thing. How delightful and easy
I have been contemplating this very same thing lately. There is the drive which is ‘me’ and this is usually spent on various dramas which are available within ‘humanity’. It can be turned into various aspects of one’s identity such as career, parenthood, hobbies etc and then this gives one a sense of purpose, what this ‘sense of purpose’ really is about though is escaping from being ‘me’, it is a distraction from what ‘my’ ground of ‘being’ is all about, which is being forever separated from the actual.
So even though ‘I’ resent having to play this game of being a social identity, ‘I’ still choose it over the unbearable alternative.
What I am considering though is the benefit of committing wholly to being an Actualist. As in to channel all of that drive into the 1 aspect of ‘my’ identity which can deliver the goods. ‘I’ will be an identity until ‘I’ am no more, and usually ‘I’ split myself between all these various identities, all pointing in different directions.
It’s like ‘I’ am a part time Actualist, part time boyfriend, part time employee etc. and ‘I’ am trying somehow to make all of those aspects work together, to tick all boxes at once.
What happens though is that all those other aspects of ‘me’ are straining to pull ‘me’ back towards ‘humanity’, to remain an identity at all costs. Furthermore ‘I’ end up fragmented between different goals, one’s pointing in completely different directions.
It seems to me that there is only 1 way to make it work, which is to commit all of ‘oneself’ to being an Actualist. That is to say that last piece of pizza is an actualist through and through, until ‘he’ disappears in ‘his’ entirety.
I completely understand what you are pointing out. But perhaps the phrasing is problematic. Is it not rather that the commitment to actual freedom must be integrated into each of the different identities? Let’s say that rather than pitting one identity against the others, what it would be about is incubating pure intent in each part. “I have an identity as a boyfriend/partner, etc…” am I 100% committed to living that condition in actual terms? To not leave anything under the rug in that identity process? I have a job, with a certain position, responsibility, corporate identity, etc. Do I live every moment while performing that function in the happiest and most innocuous way possible? I am the son of parents, the brother of brothers…do I live every moment with them in the purest and most pristine way? Do I give them 100% of my attention when I am with them, enjoying them as autonomous human beings?
What I mean is that it could be confusing to adopt the actualist identity, as if that were also truly possible, because it is a commitment, a practice, a mode of attention and affective (until it is done) experience (with appreciation and enjoyment) that must traverse all possible existences or identities that I can have. That is to say, it is not something that can be pigeonholed into a series of principles that, when fulfilled, are checked. There is or there is no conection with pure intent. There is or there is no commitment. I feel good, excellent, or bad, whoever I am and whatever role I am playing, etc. In other words: I cannot be an actualist for part time, I can only always be in this only moment of being alive, whatever part of the identity is operating…let’s play it, but towards actual freedom. Don’t know if it helps!
So I have been considering this since yesterday and I still find myself disagreeing with this one. I have been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is, so here it goes.
So the difference seems that what I am suggesting is to take all that commitment which I usually invest in the various roles and identities and instead turn it towards the commitment towards actual freedom as a priority. Which means enjoyment and appreciation comes first, everything else falls on a ‘it doesn’t ultimately matter’ basis.
Your suggestion is to incubate each aspect of one’s identity with pure intent and then take this all the way through to an actual freedom.
The problem as I see it is that the second approach will inevitably hit a wall, because I am trying to make the purity and perfection fit a mould which exists only in ‘reality’. In a sense I am working back to front, I am asking actuality to fit ‘my’ various roles and identities, and inevitably the whole endeavour is crippled.
This is because those various roles and identities have goals and agendas which are ultimately at odds with actuality. What happens is those things which are ‘human’ end up blocking the experience of that which is outside of ‘humanity’.
When one’s connection to pure intent is active it is not that those roles and identities have been fixed from the inside by the perfection and purity, it is rather that pure intent makes those roles and identities redundant, when advised by the perfection and purity ‘I’ am able to operate outside of that mould.
It seems that in trying to go ‘through’ those identities one makes the same category of error that we saw in the ‘rift’ thread, where one tries to smuggle some ‘humanity’ into actuality. Whenever I experience a PCE I am always blown away by how magical it is, as in the actual world has not a trace of anything that is ‘human’ left, hence why it is experienced to be a fairytale like world. What I have observed in myself is that any trace of that which is ‘human’ is what stands in the way of experiencing the magical world that is the actual world.
By the same token any investment into those roles and identities which exist only in ‘reality’ will be inevitably at odds with the commitment towards ending ‘humanity’ as a whole, because those roles and identities will be annihilated by such a step. It reminds me of Devika asking Richard to allow love into actual freedom, she wanted to save 1 aspect of ‘humanity’ and in doing so she saved the whole sorry lot.
So what I am interested in is whether this attempt to incubate pure intent into the different identities and then go through them all the way into actual freedom is really just a clever way for ‘me’ to keep them alive, to save them, and in doing so the entire package is ultimately retained.
Furthermore even in terms of the application of the method, of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, this in itself is already at odds with the goals and agendas of those roles and identities. For example if ‘I’ attempt the goal of being the best employee am ‘I’ not at the same time honouring the commitment towards all those values which the company holds, and perennial enjoyment and appreciation will not be in their top 3 list . Or when ‘I’ attempt to be the best boyfriend/husband am I not at the same time honouring the commitment to sorrow when the relationship is threatened. Of course I could try to purify those roles and identities, to fix them from the inside, but why? @Felix wrote the other day how eventually feeling good is seen for a value in itself, this is what would squarely fall under the commitment to being an actualist. Whereas those roles and identities which exist in ‘reality’ have no interest in feeling good as a value in itself, this is the last on their line of priorities. So taking this crippling effect into account why would I want to go through them other than as a cunning attempt to save them?
Also I wonder if this is to do with where one is at in general, I remember that at a certain point when I began having some success with the method and I switched from being a stressed and miserable individual to all of a sudden being able to function in the marketplace with relative ease, that I almost had this ‘second wind’ of trying to win at being ‘normal’. Because ‘I’ was no longer crippled by emotion ‘I’ was able to accomplish all those things which ‘I’ never could before. This was very much like what you are describing, that those roles and identities were now super charged. But where I find myself lately is that as I wrote above, this eventually hits a wall.
I think @Kub933 is on the right track with this one.
Being ‘me’ is really a burden – and what ‘I’ am is a combination of all those various identities and personas (it is a myth that ‘I’ am ‘one’ persona, ‘I’ actually chimerically shift between different personas without even realizing it, and this seems to be common to everyone though perhaps some to a larger degree than others. I have a distinct memory of my usually very stoic, commanding, and consistently-persona’d business partner, watching him interact with his wife on and be flushed with a very obvious love and affection that suffused his whole demeanor.).
The startling freedom that makes joy readily available is from no longer having to maintain or ‘be’ any of those identities. When it all disappears as in a PCE, the difference is so palpable and tangible.
When a feeling-being, I can “see” that on the “other side”, once I am no longer having to maintain those identities, will be that palpable freedom and joy.
So why not “just do it”? What obviously stops ‘me’ is fear – fear of what will happen when ‘I’ am not around to control things.
So it seems the prudent approach is to accept the goal (self-immolation) and commit to doing the very best next sensible step I possibly can, which depending on where I am will either be: get back to neutral, get to feeling good, enjoy & appreciate feeling good, get to feeling great/excellent, increasingly allow the purity to operate, allow myself to let the controls be let go of, … and that’s as far as I have gotten so far
I did not want to propose, for any reason, that we bring these various identities to their best realization, quite the opposite. Rather, by incorporating appreciation and enjoyment into the dynamic of each of them, we begin to dismantle them. Until they are no longer necessary. Exactly this as a result:
Is in that same sense that it made me noise to think of an actualist identity, that competes or supersedes the others, when rather we are in the process of weakening all of them. I suppose that the only truly substantial thing, when pointing an “actualist identity”, is the commitment to go to the end, whatever happens, with absolute sincerity and allowing pure intent to operate as much as possible. So that commitment have to be stronger than any other identity goal. Without a doubt, fear is the final barrier to completely disappear.
What I am noticing here lately is that this commitment is ultimately a commitment to enjoyment and appreciation, it makes sense now why the method is enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, the end and the means to the end are the same thing.
This enjoyment and appreciation starts with feeling good (an affective enjoyment and appreciation), and it becomes progressively cleaner as one allows more of the perfection and purity of the actual to shine through, eventually this becomes a pure consciousness experience, where there is direct experience of the perfection and purity, and of course there is enjoyment and appreciation, only enjoyment and appreciation at that point.
So it starts with an imitative enjoyment and appreciation and goes all the way through to an actual enjoyment and appreciation, but all the way through it is enjoyment and appreciation.
I am finding lately that those other ‘identity commitments’ are indeed falling away, it can be a little disorientating initially, this sense of “what now then?” And of course the answer is - enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive, that is the thing to be done until that is the only thing left. If I allow this I find myself drawn into experiences of exquisite purity, it’s like the entire world is a shining jewel and there is nothing else to be done but to enjoy and appreciate, and of course from that vantage point the method makes a lot of sense.
It is quite a big thing to allow though, that without ‘me’ there is only that shining jewel left, there is only enjoyment and appreciation, there is only perfection and purity, and one could not possibly get away from it as one is always here and it is already now, in a sense for ‘me’ to be considering this is like madness by delight
Maybe I am starting to see what Richard’s writings were pointing to, that if one were to proceed without some acclimatisation one could go mad with the amount of delight pouring forth.
It’s interesting because I have tried to put the breaks on multiple times this morning, to see if it is possible. I can go to ‘my’ most cherished themes, the ones that ‘I’ would usually get stuck in, but it’s like trying to hold sand through my hands. There is still this background expectation that something could ‘stick’ but so far no.
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