Vineeto: It’s strange, I only wrote the sequence of the actualism method the way I did in order to give you confirmation that you are definitely on the spot by choosing sensuousness to concentrate on, whereas for you it “puts a dent in me thinking I am somehow ‘good’ at this.”
A well, never mind. (link)
Claudiu: Well there is more to it.
I was thrilled to see that I was on the right track – which is indeed indicative of having a good grasp of what I’m doing. But what was injured was my… intellectual pride!! […]
In other words my intellectual pride was injured, that it took me so long to see something that was so plainly written and so simple. Of course, thinking about it sensibly, it is understandable. The human condition is very weird and tricky and cunning indeed. But the reaction was valuable to really get this bugger by the throat! […] I’m actually having trouble thinking why I was holding on to this pride now.
I eventually just saw that it was just a choice of if I want to continue being that way or not! And I decided that no, I don’t want to be. And that appears to have been the end of it haha. It really felt a lot more dramatic at the time but writing it now it sounds so simple. […]
Hi Claudiu,
Thank you for explaining the “dent” in detail, and I am pleased you found those features of your psyche to explore satisfactorily and also recognized how they were stacked on top of each other so that you had to discover/ resolve them in sequence.
First, a dent in your intellectual pride … wondering why it took you so long to discover the significance of sensuosity.
Maybe you noticed when clicking on the link that Richard’s being-the-senses-only-PCE happened during his enlightenment period and was introduced with “If I had not been taken in by delusions of grandeur I would have paid particular notice of experiences like this one”. Hence his comment that “a question that had been running for some weeks became experientially answered: without the senses I would not know that I exist.” [emphasis added]
From this you can see the enlightened ‘Richard’ was similarly hamstrung by dominant passions to give sufficient attention to sensuousness at the time. Maybe this goes some way to at least restore your confidence, rather than pride, in your capacity for sagacity.
Claudiu: But I was continuing to get frustrated and spinning out, and suddenly I realize that… I was resenting being alive! I dug into it more and I labelled what I was experiencing as that “basic resentment” that Richard talked about identifying way early on, on his path. I was able to compare that feeling of resentment with the superlatively mirificent recent PCE, and … was able to basically just totally reject and get rid of that resentment! […]
I contemplated a lot about resentment, it’s not like I ignored the topic. But I really get the sense that I only got rid of this basic resentment now. […]
And suddenly it clicked, I would not admitted that so readily and smoothly if that intellectual pride was still in place! I would be trying to defend my pride instead. So perhaps this explains why I was never really able to get rid of that basic resentment before – because I’d have to admit I didn’t, and I would feel foolish (lol). […] There is a simplicity and peace that is the default now. In the past I always felt like I had to ‘work’ to some degree to stave off spiralling towards feeling bad. But that seems to have ended now. It’s really a lot simpler! […]
Underneath this intellectual pride you found a feeling of so far undetected basic resentment, which could not have been discovered without getting rid of this intellectual pride first. And both of them were instrumental for not having discovered the significance of sensuosity earlier. Ha, someone recently compared the actualism method to peeling an onion.
This in turn will increase your ability to being naïve because there is no more reputation to lose, or is there?
Claudiu: Putting it together with today it is that being free would be a guarantee that I will only do what is sensible – which is wonderful. (link)
Ha, I think that your appreciation of infinitude (“being free”) is too limited. The universe is much more than sensible … and so is an actually free person, being ultimately the universe’s experience of itself as an apperceptive human being (sans identity). Here are a few descriptions of what one is when actually free from Richard’s Journal (edited for brevity) –
Actual perfection and excellence is free. It is the freely available bonus of daring to be me. Unadorned I stand on my own; more free than a bird on the wing and cleaner than a sea-breeze on a sweltering summer’s day. To be me is to be fresh, each moment again. Owing nothing to no one I am free from corruption … perversity has vanished forever. Unpolluted as I am by any alien entity, my thoughts and my deeds are automatically graceful. Goodwill, freed of social morality, comes effortlessly to me for all internal conflict is over. I am gentle and peaceful in character. […] One’s native intelligence […] is free to operate with an actual sagacity … sensible, rational thought enables one to live freely in this world of people, things and events.
This is a tremendous universe in all its workings … this physical world we humans live in is magnificent, to say the least. […] … it is a sensual delight to walk freely in this, the actual world. This actual – this sensate and organic – experience of being here now, living my life so happily and harmlessly, remains unsurpassed in the annals of the history of humankind […]
With peace comes benignity and benevolence. I simply have no desire, no urge, no compulsion – and no need – to hurt the other, or anyone else. I have discovered that it is possible to be free. I have found the joy of being me. Freed by pure intent from the very necessary social constraints – designed to control a wayward ego and a compliant soul – I can have generosity of character without striving. Pleasingly, I can take no credit for being kind, for it comes automatically. (Richard’s Journal, Article Twelve)
Pure contemplation is not thinking ‘about’ something … which is the usual way of thought. Pure contemplation does not take a duration of time. It is instant thought, a realisation, a flash of seeing. In pure contemplation ‘I’ do no thinking … thinking does itself. ‘I’ have no substance, therefore in pure contemplation there is thinking without a ‘thinker’. Thought operates freely … and in immaculate wonder. Pure contemplation is a state of unsullied wonderment: “how can this world happen?”, or “what is this universe doing here?”, or “where does this body come from?” […]
All is self-generating … and so exquisitely intricate. This is actual intimacy. To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity. I am not apart from the universe … I am the universe experiencing itself. […] It is inevitable that this pure intimacy prevails in the actual for in actual freedom lies benignity; which literally means to be kindly, gentle, harmless, propitious. (Richard’s Journal, Article Fourteen)
As you can see there is much, much more to being actually free than “a guarantee that I will only do what is sensible”.
Cheers Vineeto