Claudiu: Well I’m having a good time
I figured that really it seemed only thing I was/ am lacking is ‘wanting to do it’. So I regathered my intent and set about sincerely and scrupulously examining every aspect of me and whether I actually want anything of what actualism offers.
The main thing is I identified a sort of ‘gung-ho yah!!!’ aspect where I’d just feel or conclude that of course I want this/ of course it’s better… but it was not fully sincere, not really deep-down thing. So I noticed that and didn’t go there anymore and really examined all.
Hi Claudiu,
This is a fascinating insight how ‘you’ tick – that when something get too close existentially your automatic/ inadvertent response is to cover it with a “‘gung-ho yah!!!’ aspect” in order to keep the more thrilling aspect at arm’s length.
Well spotted.
Claudiu: The summary is that it is better to feel good than not, by the very facts of existence and what that entails (pleasant things are more pleasant than not). There’s combination of just seeing, simply seeing, that actual freedom is obviously superior, not a gung-ho ‘yea!’ but it’s an experiential seeing of it (see: Claudiu’s Journal - #452 by claudiu). And at one point I ask myself while watching some video of some historical battle, if I could stop all the wars currently going on on the planet, would I? And a seeing that self-immolating actually is making a tangible, potent step towards making it happen, not as a wish or as a self-serving excuse, but as an actual fact of the matter.
At some point along the way a whiff of pure intent drafted in and I got the flavor of that again, and I can see that I am not ‘making it up’ . And especially reading this really brought in that flavour of that purity together with a pulling-in sensation:Richard: (Being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being is quite daunting to contemplate as an on-going EE marks the end of the beginning of the end of ‘me’ and the commencement of the actualism process – as distinct from the actualism method – wherein a momentum not of ‘my’ doing takes over and an inevitability sets in; in an on-going EE the actual world has the effect of impelling one towards it – like a moth to a candle as the overarching benignity and benevolence of the actual increasingly operates such as to render ‘my’ felicity/ innocuity increasingly redundant; this is where being the nearest a ‘self’ can be to innocence – the naiveté located betwixt the core of being and the sexual centre (where one is both likeable and liking) – is attached as if with a golden thread or clew to the purity of actual innocence; an on-going EE is, thus, where one becomes acclimatised to benignity and benevolence and the resultant blitheness because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared). (Richard, List D, No. 12, 9 Dec 2009).
Claudiu: Soo anyway continuing on with that approach, I find myself eating a hamburger in a food court, (a ‘new hamburger’ as branded by the company, which is just a hamburger without a bun lol) and the sensuosity is really off the charts, a sumptuous delight for the eyes and the ones and the tongue…
Then I notice a ‘something’ that I make the choice to allow, and whoooooshh it’s like a thing flipped, and then I experienced it like a I don’t really know what to call it. My experience was that actuality was striating and coruscating. I experienced the same thing petting my dog right before the May 24th 6:48pm experience here in #444.
It was hard to tell if it was a PCE or not. I had the thought during it that while having too low standards can cause problems, having too high a bar for standards won’t really, so I could just say this is an EE (nearly indistinguishable from a PCE) and if it is too ‘high’ a bar, well I can’t really go wrong anyway lol.
I’m not sure if the “whiff of pure intent” survived because I didn’t know what to make of your description that “actuality was striating” and then I found this quote today (possibly relevant to what you said further down “it’s a relic from the DhO meditation days”) –
Respondent: Also – and this question is a bit out of left field – do you experience any flickering or flashing or shimmering in the visual field while gazing at an otherwise still scene?
Richard: No.
Respondent: I’ve only really been noticing this since I started paying attention to impermanence.
Richard: As there is no impermanence in actuality then it would be to your advantage to take a second look at whatever it is you are paying attention to.
Respondent: It seems to me that this vibrational aspect of sensations comes and goes in a cyclic fashion. Sometimes I notice that everything is solid and marvellous and clear and the world seems buoyant and peaceful – and wonder if this is what my most solid memory of a PCE is based on.
Richard: As a PCE – the direct (unmediated) experience of actuality – is the immediate apprehension of infinitude (infinite space; eternal time; perdurable matter) and, thus, the absolute and utter permanence of the universe then it would also be to your advantage to take a second look at whatever it is your most solid memory is based upon.
Respondent: However, if I pay attention to anything for too long the flashing/ flickering appears. Is that anything you’re familiar with?
Richard: Only in the months prior to the eleven years of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment (and, on occasion, during that period).
Respondent: In case you’re wondering if there is a medical basis to it, I have explained it to an optometrist, had an eye exam and got the all clear.
Richard: Yes … manifestations of that nature are more a feature of the affective faculty’s epiphenomenal psychic facility than anything else.
For instance I had flashing lights ‘zapping’ in front of my eyes; electrical bolts of lightning dazzling on the eyeballs; rushes of energy surging up through my diaphragm; pressure-pains in the base of the neck; intense tingling sensations on the surface of my skin; liquid sounds ‘gurgling’ through my brain; convulsive twitching of limbs; surges of power travelling up the spine and up over the back and the top of the head down to the forehead; a vivid blue light, an internal blue of rapturous bliss, behind the eyebrows; singing in my ears; an all-knowing cyclopean eye in the sky watching my every move and many, many other weird things. (Richard, List D, No. 15, 12 Nov 2009).
Claudiu: It was hard to tell if it was a PCE or not. I had the thought during it that while having too low standards can cause problems, having too high a bar for standards won’t really, so I could just say this is an EE (nearly indistinguishable from a PCE) and if it is too ‘high’ a bar, well I can’t really go wrong anyway lol.
It definitely was not like the rock-solid PCE I had while driving some months ago, that was much more stable. This was really much more wild haha
When it ended I felt myself come back in (so maybe was a PCE after all, or at least I was abeyant…???) and then I had the aftershock thing where I reacted with anxiety to it, which also makes me think PCE since at least what I been calling EEs does not have that.
But another valuable insight here, I saw how this anxious reaction to it was transforming itself back into that ‘gung-ho yeah!!’ self haha. Like I was clearly scared shitless of what just happened, which I put it down to cause it is ‘my’ demise that it fore-tells – but that was turning into a feeling like I really wanna do it hahahaha. Even though it was the anxious reaction turning me away from that!!! Wowww so cunning.
Again, it’s valuable information that your habitual “anxious reaction to it was transforming itself back into that ‘gung-ho yeah!!’ self” which causes you to oscillate between some sincere contemplation with a “whiff of pure intent” and a backing off from fear arising by the very possibility of what this will entail.
Hence, regardless if the above-described experience was more of an altered state or an excellence experience or a PCE, perhaps a further exploration into these “anxious reaction”, and *“*scared shitless” feelings seems worth exploring because as you describe it, fear seems to stop you each time you want to proceed.
Claudiu: I also identify now what that apparent ‘shift’ on May 24th at 6:48PM was – it is a cunning way to get ‘me’ off track, to feel like a shift happened and now I gotta wait and see what happens lol. It’s a relic from the DhO meditation days, wow everyone had so many ‘shifts’ back then lol, what a crock.
Anyway it was dope, I don’t know why I experienced it like actuality striating.
After that though I feel a momentum to it all, which is familiar to before, which is cool, but also a little hard to disambiguate from the gung-ho yeah thing, so anyway on it goes, but it’s certainly a fun time (link)
Going by your overall description this “gung-ho yeah thing” seems to be the current fall-back position presenting itself as feeling good.
Take courage, it can be overcome (not rationally or with reasoning but experientially), and daring comes from caring, as in “I could stop all the wars currently going on on the planet, would I?” –
Respondent: … but the description [of fear], it comes later.
Richard: Not if one is at all aware … in my experience all those years ago, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body would ‘sit with it’ as it were and directly experience it as it was happening as the fear which it was (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia … ‘I’ observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist.
Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ … and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear … and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes … ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire.
Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old … ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed … carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’).
The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ … and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 8 Oct 1999).
Cheers Vineeto