A major thing is seeing a deeply ingrained and conditioned habit of avoidance I have. I came to see its habitual, a fear of anything unfamiliar or not already unknown. But then I ask myself (hoving closer to actuality) is anything actually wrong happening? And I see that no, although it’s unfamiliar and I am afraid, nothing is actually wrong. So then I allow it to continue as I see it is safe.
This does wonders in that I think this is also the key mechanism underlying procrastination. Now instead of procrastinating I just do something, even if I may not know exact outcome. And it just makes all so much easier and so far working out brilliantly.
The other thing is after a short while of doing this with regard to self-immolating via allowing it to happen, the unfamiliar feeling goes away! Because what I am experiencing becomes increasingly familiar haha. Because now it’s been experienced for a while. So now I can be as close as I was before while feeling a fear of unfamiliarity, but now it’s increasingly familiar and experienced as safe!
The other thing is I think I figured out a really key part of how to successfully self-immolate
If I approach it as ‘me’ ending, then there comes a point where it just feels impossible to proceed because I have myself firmly in mind and I can’t see what would happen next. So it is a dead end
But if I approach it more as me going “into the universe” or “more in the direction of the universe” (ie the one that actually exists) then the path is clear, especially when being receptive and aware of pure intent, the purity comes into perception and there’s a clear experience of getting closer to the actual world — and no limit in sight, just a matter of going further, getting used to it (as in the previous post), then further etc., and seems to be just a matter of doing this until it happens.
Delightful questions also start to pop up like “wait actuality is already always here (experienced as such) so how can I be going ‘into’ that which is already there? Where am I coming from such as to go ‘into’ that? This place I’m coming from cannot actually exist can it…”, delicious to contemplate and certainly a good sign in my book!
Hmm this is interesting because I have also been contemplating on those 2 modes. One is to set ‘my’ sights on allowing perfection and purity more and more until ‘I’ dissappear.
Second one is to make a decision, whilst still being firmly ‘me’, that ‘I’ will give ‘myself’ up in order to allow the perfection and purity irrevocably.
I have been leaning towards the second one and it seems you are leaning towards the first one.
Probably a case of finding the third alternative here haha. It seems ‘I’ can allow perfection and purity more and more but unless ‘I’ make that once in a life time decision to allow self-immolation then it will be a case of “what comes up must come down”.
So in the same way as one cannot self immolate in a PCE, going further and further into perfection and purity seems to have the same limitation. As in ‘I’ still have a job to do at some point, and this the universe cannot do for ‘me’, it is ‘me’ that must make the decision to allow ‘my’ self immolation.
Funnily enough I had this exact thought happen when I had that PCE today. I saw that this body exists where time has no duration and there was this utter safety to this. I thought well why can’t I just remain here when this is all that genuinely exists.
And yet this is the point that I am trying to make, that unless ‘I’ make the decision to dissappear completely then there will always be ‘something’ to come back to.
Since the PCE today though things have been supercharged somehow, like it is becoming inevitable that it will happen.
I guess the question is where do ‘I’ self immolate from. It cannot be in a PCE because ‘I’ am in abeyance. So ‘I’ am the necessary ingredient to it happening, otherwise there is nothing to self immolate haha.
Equally though it is impossible to proceed all the way into actuality as long as ‘I’ am around.
There will always be some distance between ‘me’ (existing still in reality) and actuality. That distance can never be fully bridged, temporarily in a PCE but for it to happen irrevocably ‘I’ have to do it from reality.
That is to say there will be an aspect of the unknown, of not being able to possibly go any further. That last bit to be bridged can only be done by ‘my’ extinction.
It reminds me of Srinath’s report of becoming free. That he was as if Moses looking at the promised land and yet being forbidden from entry.
This is exactly how I find it, that no matter how closely ‘I’ creep up to actuality, ‘I’ am still forbidden entry and this will never change.
However it seems there is benefit of creeping up so close and staying there instead of turning around even though ‘I’ cannot proceed any further. It seems this is the place ‘I’ do something I have never done before.
I see it as like how does a PCE actually happen? ‘I’ don’t hold ‘myself’ in the forefront and focus on temporarily disappearing. Rather ‘I’ allow the PCE to happen by going in the direction of actuality (which ends up with actual me becoming temporarily apparent).
So too similarly with self-immolation — I go towards actuality with the intent of ending ‘me’, that it will be ‘my’ demise, a permanent ending of ‘me’ instead of temporarily. But practically it is a seamless transition between two worlds — brought about by being willing to go into that sweetness / giving myself up for that sweetness (to combine from a few reports of people succeeding).
Indeed ‘me’ going into actuality doesn’t make sense. But “going into the direction of actuality” seems to experientially work
Claudiu: A major thing is seeing a deeply ingrained and conditioned habit of avoidance I have. I came to see its habitual, a fear of anything unfamiliar or not already unknown. But then I ask myself (hoving closer to actuality) is anything actually wrong happening? And I see that no, although it’s unfamiliar and I am afraid, nothing is actually wrong. So then I allow it to continue as I see it is safe.
This does wonders in that I think this is also the key mechanism underlying procrastination. Now instead of procrastinating I just do something, even if I may not know exact outcome. And it just makes all so much easier and so far working out brilliantly.
The other thing is after a short while of doing this with regard to self-immolating via allowing it to happen, the unfamiliar feeling goes away! Because what I am experiencing becomes increasingly familiar haha. Because now it’s been experienced for a while. So now I can be as close as I was before while feeling a fear of unfamiliarity, but now it’s increasingly familiar and experienced as safe! (Claudiu's Journal - #263 by jamesjjoo )
Ah, the mystery is solved now. I was always wondering what this habit of yours might be that you hover on the edge but then prevent yourself from proceeding only to come back again and again to the same point. Of course it’s the all too common “fear of anything unfamiliar”, ‘Vineeto’ had it in spades. And it is a habit, hence, once pinpointed, it can be discarded – there is nothing further to investigate. It is indeed “the key mechanism underlying procrastination” .
Kuba ‘solved’ this by dreaming about it, three times(!) for good measure and you are getting “increasingly familiar”, well done.
Firmly locked into the utter safety of being the experience of this infinite and eternal universe as a flesh-and-blood body is indeed the safest you can be. Or as Richard put it, better than I can ever express it –
Richard: So I am sitting here, bathing in the perfection of this purity, knowing by direct experience this stillness that is precious … (Richard’s Journal, Chapter Twenty-five)
Claudiu: The other thing is I think I figured out a really key part of how to successfully self-immolate.
If I approach it as ‘me’ ending, then there comes a point where it just feels impossible to proceed because I have myself firmly in mind and I can’t see what would happen next. So it is a dead end.
But if I approach it more as me going “into the universe” or “more in the direction of the universe” (i.e. the one that actually exists) then the path is clear, especially when being receptive and aware of pure intent, the purity comes into perception and there’s a clear experience of getting closer to the actual world — and no limit in sight, just a matter of going further, getting used to it (as in the previous post), then further etc., and seems to be just a matter of doing this until it happens.
Delightful questions also start to pop up like “wait actuality is already always here (experienced as such) so how can I be going ‘into’ that which is already there? Where am I coming from such as to go ‘into’ that? This place I’m coming from cannot actually exist can it…”, delicious to contemplate and certainly a good sign in my book! (Claudiu's Journal - #264 by claudiu )
Kuba: Hmm this is interesting because I have also been contemplating on those 2 modes. One is to set ‘my’ sights on allowing perfection and purity more and more until ‘I’ disappear.
Second one is to make a decision, whilst still being firmly ‘me’, that ‘I’ will give ‘myself’ up in order to allow the perfection and purity irrevocably.
I have been leaning towards the second one and it seems you are leaning towards the first one. (Claudiu's Journal - #266 by Kub933)
Kuba: Funnily enough I had this exact thought happen when I had that PCE today. I saw that this body exists where time has no duration and there was this utter safety to this. I thought well why can’t I just remain here when this is all that genuinely exists.
And yet this is the point that I am trying to make, that unless ‘I’ make the decision to disappear completely then there will always be ‘something’ to come back to.
Since the PCE today though things have been supercharged somehow, like it is becoming inevitable that it will happen. (Claudiu's Journal - #267 by Kub933 )
Kuba: That is to say there will be an aspect of the unknown, of not being able to possibly go any further. That last bit to be bridged can only be done by ‘my’ extinction.
It reminds me of Srinath’s report of becoming free. That he was as if Moses looking at the promised land and yet being forbidden from entry.
This is exactly how I find it, that no matter how closely ‘I’ creep up to actuality, ‘I’ am still forbidden entry and this will never change. (Claudiu's Journal - #268 by Kub933 )
Claudiu: So too similarly with self-immolation — I go towards actuality with the intent of ending ‘me’, that it will be ‘my’ demise, a permanent ending of ‘me’ instead of temporarily. But practically it is a seamless transition between two worlds — brought about by being willing to go into that sweetness / giving myself up for that sweetness (to combine from a few reports of people succeeding).
Indeed ‘me’ going into actuality doesn’t make sense. But “going into the direction of actuality” seems to experientially work (Claudiu's Journal - #269 by claudiu )
What a delightful interaction to read this morning.
The way I see it from the observer’s perspective, you both have made the decision to ‘self’-immolate a long time ago, when you both went out from under control. The only decision left, if you have any say in the matter given to have allowed the universe to live you, is when. Asking ‘how’ is inviting the ‘doer’ back into the picture and the ‘doer’ has no answers but to whole-heartedly and joyfully acquiesce to the long-awaited blessed oblivion.
As Kuba stated, PCEs happen when ‘I’ am naïve enough to allow them to happen, and the same is the case for ‘self’-immolation. ‘Vineeto’s’ experience was that when ‘she’ determined that now, this very evening, was the best time because of the circumstances, all that was left ‘to do’ was a gay abandon to have the time of ‘her’ life in utterly enjoying being here, with fun and frivolity and, of course, the very appreciation of it all.(*)
To explain, you both have already decided that it is going to happen, and once you determined when, then there is nothing else to do but to party.
Cheers Vineeto
(*) On Monday evening the fourth of January 2010, I knew I was running out of time. We expected a guest for the next day and I didn’t want to wait until we three [Richard, Peter and myself] were on our own again. I consequently sat on the toilet taking a few minutes longer than usual to gather any scattered bits of intent that were missing to make up the 100% I needed – I pulled out all the stops. When I returned to the living room a dynamic and quite frivolous interaction developed and in that uninhibited hilarious atmosphere I blew the last remaining cobwebs of seriousness, cautiousness and social correctness out of the corners of my psyche. It was all very casual, jovial and funny, unrehearsed and spontaneous and I became confident that this is how I wanted to live my life forever.
I heard myself saying to Richard that ‘We’ve got all the time in the world’ and when I contemplated on the sentence that had just slipped out, time suddenly stood still.
I stopped in mid-sentence and the ensuing silence caught the attention of my two companions.
Well, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to follow Vineeto’s advice here as actual advice being given So I thought today would be a perfect day to self-immolate, during an outing riding bikes. I did not succeed, but I did clear a lot of the way forward.
Firstly when I made the decision to do it, came a now-familiar feeling of fear, which indicated to me I was going further into little-explored territory, so it was sincere, which is why it was effective.
One huge thing that happened, basically of worldview-shattering proportions, was that I was able to see how actually rotten not only the ideal of ‘fairness’ is, but any ideal at all! It happened that I was feeling upset about how a conversation earlier in the day went. I thought it was unfair that when I act a certain way, the other person gets upset at me, but then they act that exact same way towards me. It was basically ‘unfair’, in that they wanted me to act a certain way without doing it themselves!
For the ideal of fairness, this is an injustice, and justice might be served, which would be served by some appropriately-chosen retributive punishment. But I did not want to serve this retribution because I knew it would just hurt the other person, and then they may very well hurt me back, and on a terrible cycle would go. But that then fed back into the unfairness because the other person would very much serve the retribution in the same situation!
I thought back to the insight about how I will actually just die one day, forever, and I saw it really didn’t matter what a person said or did on this day in the grand scheme. It hit deeper than this though, I saw that the very person ‘I’ am that has this ability to be affected this way, there is something wrong with this, this ‘identity’ that ‘I’ am being is what is at fault (and not the emotional reaction per se).
I saw that it would be silly to serve the retribution, and it is actually sensible to enjoy and appreciate being alive despite what the person says or does. And if they choose to get upset themselves or serve this retribution or what not, it is again silly to engage and ‘payback’ and sensible to not perpetuate that cycle. But wouldn’t this be ‘unfair’, they ‘get to’ serve retribution and ‘I’ don’t? And the answer is… yes, it is “unfair”, but fairness is the problem here!
In other words the sensible thing here is to discard this ideal of ‘fairness’. And instead behave sensibly in the situation, and not mindlessly perpetuate this cycle, which is actually rather childish in hindsight, despite how seriously it can be dressed up.
And then of course I saw that ideals in and of themselves are part of the problem! I at first thought they were the problem they were trying to solve, but then I saw this isn’t quite accurate. The human condition is the problem, ideals are a mechanism by which to attempt to control and restrain the human condition, and they work to a degree – better a civilization than a kill-or-be-killed wild state of constant tribal warfare – but ultimately they fail, and just lead to conflict on a world scale when ideals in different nations conflict.
And then I saw how ideals are confusing because there are so many, and they conflict, and it’s actually not possible to live cleanly and purely and in alignment with all the ideals. But doing away with ideals entirely, you can live sensibly and with full sincerity and alignment with what is actual, because actuality is a rock-solid firm foundation of benevolent existence, there are no contradictions to be had (t)here.
Ok that was one thing – the next is I saw that I was very insecure! I was afraid of doing it wrong, of being shown to not be competent.
And then I saw the temptation to flip from insecurity to overconfidence – to going from assuming I am “doing it wrong” to assuming I am doing everything ‘right’, a blanket statement about ‘me’ (‘me’ inferior → ‘me’ superior).
But both of these are utterly silly. It is sensible, rather, to take it on a case by case basis. For example I know a lot about programming and very little about embroidery. It would be silly to be confident about my embroidery skills, but sensible to be so about programming. And with succeeding with self-immolation, I’m clearly very much on the right track!
The third thing then was to see that I was feeling a feeling of ‘dread’ around what will come, about the outcome of self-immolation. This has been in the background, but only labeled as such today. And I just stopped to look at it as I realized it was so weird. All my experiences of what actuality is actually like, none of them have anything occurring in them whatsoever as for it to be sensible to react with ‘dread’ to it! It is all wonderful, pristine, pure, etc. So this feeling of dread is simply not sensible. My emotional reactions are misaligned with what is actual. Actually what it makes sense to dread is continuing to be the human condition with all its mayhem and misery!
This led to a fourth thing which is seeing that I still had a habitual habit from my days of doing vipassana meditation, which is essentially to withdraw away from what is happening and focus on internal faux-physical[1] sensations, particularly ones in my head area. This instantly is a downer and saps away enjoying being alive.
I took a nap after the bike ride and had a nightmare scenario recurring wherein the physical sensations in my head grew and grew in intensity until there was nothing but a madness cacophony of them, and I did all I could in that dream-state to back away from it and not go there!
And now I wonder if the ‘dread’ I was feeling is from intuitively mistaking the goal of self-immolation with the old long-abandoned goal of Vipassana meditation, which would indeed be going towards the direction where the dream was pointing.
And it just struck me how much of an utter lie the flavor of meditation I was doing, is! It did indeed encourage me down the path of dissociating into these faux-physical[1:1] sensations. And it is all based on the utter lie that anything in all of experience is impermanent and transitory and instantly fading (not true, actuality is not impermanent, and not everything instantly fades), that there is not really any ‘self’ that exists (not true, the identity is very real and it is madness to pretend it isn’t), and that everything is unsatisfactory and filled with and laced with suffering (not true, so much of being alive is a delight!)
And you train yourself to focus and see everything this way, which of course is a huge downer, and then is a self-fulfilling prophecy as your life will quickly start to suck after that… at which point they re-offer that same poison as being the solution to your new problem, which they say has always been a problem but you just didn’t know it before!
Utter insane crazy madness that nobody should ever even step in that direction at all.
The delightful thing of course is that now I’m percipient and aware of this and it is obvious it is all based on a lie, and I simply don’t have to do that anymore – and of course actuality does not lie in that direction at all, it has nothing to do with it!!!
Ok thus ends my day, which was certainly full and worthwhile even if my decision to self-immolate today didn’t come to fruition!
Cheers,
Claudiu
(I saw faux-physical because they feel physical but they go away when feeling good and in a PCE, so it cannot be anything actually physical-caused) ↩︎↩︎
Oh and I forgot to mention the utter delight and immanence of the actual world as I experienced at various points during the bike ride. It’s a by now familiar occurrence where it’s like I forgot how amazing and wonderful it can really get, even more so than I last remembered, yet even so that level of wondrousness is familiar.
With that as the goal post it’s clear that is what I want. It didn’t happen for good on the bike ride but signs certainly point to it being imminent !
Vineeto: To explain, you both have already decided that it is going to happen, and once you determined when, then there is nothing else to do but to party. (link)
Claudiu: Well, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to follow Vineeto’s advice here as actual advice being given So I thought today would be a perfect day to self-immolate, during an outing riding bikes. I did not succeed, but I did clear a lot of the way forward.
Firstly when I made the decision to do it, came a now-familiar feeling of fear, which indicated to me I was going further into little-explored territory, so it was sincere, which is why it was effective.
One huge thing that happened, basically of worldview-shattering proportions, was that I was able to see how actually rotten not only the ideal of ‘fairness’ is, but any ideal at all! It happened that I was feeling upset about how a conversation earlier in the day went. I thought it was unfair that when I act a certain way, the other person gets upset at me, but then they act that exact same way towards me. It was basically ‘unfair’, in that they wanted me to act a certain way without doing it themselves!
For the ideal of fairness, this is an injustice, and justice might be served, which would be served by some appropriately-chosen retributive punishment. But I did not want to serve this retribution because I knew it would just hurt the other person, and then they may very well hurt me back, and on a terrible cycle would go. But that then fed back into the unfairness because the other person would very much serve the retribution in the same situation!
I thought back to the insight about how I will actually just die one day, forever, and I saw it really didn’t matter what a person said or did on this day in the grand scheme. It hit deeper than this though, I saw that the very person ‘I’ am that has this ability to be affected this way, there is something wrong with this, this ‘identity’ that ‘I’ am being is what is at fault (and not the emotional reaction per se).
I saw that it would be silly to serve the retribution, and it is actually sensible to enjoy and appreciate being alive despite what the person says or does. And if they choose to get upset themselves or serve this retribution or what not, it is again silly to engage and ‘payback’ and sensible to not perpetuate that cycle. But wouldn’t this be ‘unfair’, they ‘get to’ serve retribution and ‘I’ don’t? And the answer is… yes, it is “unfair”, but fairness is the problem here! […]
What a great descriptive and identity-shattering post, it is truly amazing what you uncover about the human condition at its core.
Fairness is one of the few ideals which appeals to almost everyone (mainly in that they want to be treated fairly). It wasn’t easy for ‘Vineeto’ to abandon it, because at first sight it seems so sensible. Soon, however ‘she’ could understand that righteous anger was just as much part of the feeling/ideal of fairness as was the wish to treat everyone/be treated fairly and justly.
Here Richard talks about the humanitarian ideals and principles, deeply imbedded in Western culture –
Richard: I was staggered as to how deep the Judaic/ Christian environment I was raised in was embedded … to the point that I then realised that humanism was the secular religion, so to speak, that British/European Colonialism had foisted onto the world at large (via countries like the USA for instance) as it underpins the UN Charter and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Breaking free from the tenacious grip of their humanitarian principles was difficult to say the least. (Richard, AF List, No. 60b, 16 April 2004)
And yet humanitarian ideals also have an aspect as an actuality, perhaps this is why their principles have such a tenacious grip –
Richard: … gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric … the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 11 Jul 1999).
Claudiu: Ok that was one thing – the next is I saw that I was very insecure! I was afraid of doing it wrong, of being shown to not be competent.
And then I saw the temptation to flip from insecurity to overconfidence – to going from assuming I am “doing it wrong” to assuming I am doing everything ‘right’, a blanket statement about ‘me’ (‘me’ inferior → ‘me’ superior).
But both of these are utterly silly. It is sensible, rather, to take it on a case by case basis. For example I know a lot about programming and very little about embroidery. It would be silly to be confident about my embroidery skills, but sensible to be so about programming. And with succeeding with self-immolation, I’m clearly very much on the right track!
‘I’ can only exist in a dichotomy, swinging from ‘right’ to ‘wrong’ and from superior to inferior and none of these have any basis in actuality. ‘Right’ according to what? Superior compared to whom? What and who is the ultimate arbiter? And yet this is the hold humanity’s morals and ethics have on how each one assesses themselves, isn’t it remarkable? There is only one solution –
Respondent:What is the basis of ‘right action’? Richard: Twenty four hour a day happiness and harmlessness … which condition is the result of the total eradication of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul (the entire identity who is the product of the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire). (Richard, List B, No. 36, 1 Oct 1999).
Claudiu: The third thing then was to see that I was feeling a feeling of ‘dread’ around what will come, about the outcome of self-immolation. This has been in the background, but only labelled as such today. And I just stopped to look at it as I realized it was so weird. All my experiences of what actuality is actually like, none of them have anything occurring in them whatsoever as for it to be sensible to react with ‘dread’ to it! It is all wonderful, pristine, pure, etc. So this feeling of dread is simply not sensible. My emotional reactions are misaligned with what is actual. Actually what it makes sense to dread is continuing to be the human condition with all its mayhem and misery! […]
Yep, you are getting really close and it’s no wonder that ‘dread’ will make its appearance because ‘I’ perceive ‘my’ extinction the same as the death of the body (‘I’ have usurped the flesh-and-blood body so totally that one cannot feel a distinction between one and the other).
A wondrous tale and very informative for all who endeavour to go all the way.
It is indeed “the key mechanism underlying procrastination” .
So I thought today would be a perfect day to self-immolate, during an outing riding bikes. I did not succeed, but I did clear a lot of the way forward.