omg @claudiu, think faster and be pretentious with me
I think itās more like, Iām talking about something I havenāt fully actualized myself, so who am I to be writing about it? And it feels like anything I say, it will come off as if Iām certain, even if Iām writing that Iām not certain (itās a common ploy for people to be like I dont really know, butā¦ and then write as if they know). So instead of all thatā¦ it seems better to just contemplate it more!
Is there a paradox here of some sort? Iām not an expert in logic or the such. But technically, if things are going well then you should feel good.
Itās using āshouldā in a different way. Here youāre using it as āit naturally followsā or āit makes sense toā or āitās sensibleā etc. But I was using it in the sense of āought toā or ābe obliged toā or āhave an obligation or responsibility toā.
Thereās no obligations in actualism. Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again but when I wrote this post here it just seemed to sink in in a newly deeper way than before. At least it is spirals, not circles .
I have experienced a strong pull at times, though not as intensely as you describe here. Or maybe it was and I forgot lol. I experienced it like a āsweet spotā (as in a Goldilocks zone) of pushing/pulling. If Iām out of the zone and I push too much then I donāt get anywhere, itās me pushing me and I fall in on myself ā I finally realized this wonāt really work about 2 years ago but I did it a lot leading up to that. If I donāt push enough then nothing happens of course. But when Iām in the zā¦
Things seem simple. My experience of pure intent is that itās always constantly there in great abundance, underlying everything. I experience it much more closely than before. Before it was like a sort of far-way yellowish tinge that maybe I could peek at. Now itās like an abundant field of cool colorless blue and breath of fresh air that is always evident.
But even so itās not always active! I stress about the house buying and work. But I donāt feel bad about being stressed. I donāt feel good about it either - itās just what I am experiencing. Iām allowing myself to feel things more fully than ever before. And I feel a lot of things! But itās not a regression. I always was this way itās just before I would kick myself for feeling things. Now I donāt so Iām free to feel them. And feel them I do! And overwhelming they can be haha. But this lets me see myself in action more clearly.
Itās clear that waiting for the purity to do anything wonāt work. I have to activate it. But I see it doesnāt make sense to force it. I canāt pretend like I want it in order to get closer to it. That would just be fooling myself. So I donāt pretend anymore.
Instead itās about sincerely wanting it. And contemplation does wonders in that regard. Everything really seems so simple once you have a bedrock of benevolence and benignity āsupportingā you, and you remove morality from the equation. The simplicity is immensely pleasurable and very drawing. I donāt have to worry! How amazing is that?
Geoffrey: I would indeed gladly die right now, gladly give away all I am, all I ever was, all Iāve done and felt since I was born
This is really doing it for me. Not only the ādoneā part but then especially the felt part. Give up all Iāve ever felt, really ??? That struck home in a way that made me recognize just how much all I essentially am is feeling. I am the act of feeling, nothing more or less than thatā¦ I am nothing else (not the body, not thinking, not sensations, not the figuring-out of things, not physical matter like the birds & the trees). Thatās all I am! Itās not even that I am āfeelingsāā¦ rather I am the act of feeling. A feeling is itself the motion of the feeling. No such thing as a static āemotionā. So I can never be still because I am this motion of feeling
Latest is experientially asking āHow immaculate can a mind be?ā The answer so far is āamazingly soā with no end in sight yet ! !
Itās strange but I want to say that the experience of experiencing perfection and purity , is a fact. It doesnāt make sense for me to think of an experience as being a fact, but thatās the word I wanna use. Itās a fact, it stands on its own - thatās the way things are.
And itās also just obvious itās not worth it to be missing out on that fact !
How often do you have PCEs now?
I donāt keep track per se. Not daily. But the way I wanna answer is to say āwhenever I want to have oneā. But I guess that has always been true
I have found many ways to get there. Like I can ask āis actuality still there?ā and that will reliably get me very close to actuality. The flip into a PCE doesnāt always happen. It is easier to firmly keep in mind the facticity of the PCE tho even when not in a PCE. So that is cool
Oh that does sound nice. When you say āwhenever you want to have oneā is that like a passive happening or an active choosing? If active, then why not always have one?
When you say āwhenever you want to have oneā is that like a passive happening or an active choosing?
active
If active, then why not always have one?
Because i donāt always sincerely want one so the process is about getting myself to choose more and more, felicity and happiness and harmlessness and PCE, vs anxiety or stress or worry or desire etc
That sounds awesome @claudiu. I have had the same realisation recently but for me being felictious rather than a full blown PCE.
One thing thatās become increasingly clear to me is that I canāt be feeling something without me āreallyā feeling something, if that makes sense. For example in the past I would feel annoyed at a person. But I would say Iām not āreallyā annoyed at them, I just feel annoyance but I āknowā itās a silly reaction so I donāt āintentā the annoyance even if I experience the feeling of it. Or with desire, likeā¦ I feel a desire for this person or that thing, but I donāt āreallyā want that, I donāt purā¦
I wrote this ~9 days ago:
Currently I am finding that desire is a big one for me. Iāve come to realize I like the feeling of desire, of chasing after something. I am realizing that this is because it gives āmeā a shape, it validates my existence. But as I donāt substantially exist itās very tenuous. Meeting the object of desire provides a feeling that this accomplished feeling could be infinite and eternal, even though I simultaneously know that it absolutely is not.
Itās actually pretty silly because there is the actually infinite and eternal right under my very nose. I think the reason Enlightenment is so appealing is because people actually are looking for the absolute ā whether in philosophy or religion (God) or eastern religion (Enlightenment) or finding the ācorrectā code of laws or moral behavior etc. What people donāt realize is the actually existing absolute - the universe itself - is right here already!!
I realize it but I still find myself chasing my desires. At the same time I am seeing how I donāt feel good when Iām doing this. And contrary to what I thought and experienced before, itās actually ridiculously easy to get āback on trackā. It just takes me wanting to do it, to getting back to that feeling good (which for me is suffused with pure intent now), and then within a few moments itās happening again. But there is this strange pull back that I continue to feel in the background, to follow the desire again - and I realize the pull is me / is not āoutside ofā me - but there it is regardless.
So this pull then , is the next (maybe last??) obstacle.
And this ~5 days ago:
I was able to see that what I was trying to do was stop desiring ā while what works better is to continue desiring, but desire something else (namely actually freedom instead of the usual ultimately-fruitless pursuits). After all, I am a feeling being, the way that I want things is by desiring them! Somewhere along the way I picked up that desiring is ābadā (not only Buddhism but from how I was raised too) and so then I thought I couldnāt āuseā desire to become actually free, despite it being explicitly said in many places that it certainly can be/must be.
After this I could no longer use this excuse of chasing desires. Itās clear itās a matter of choice ā choosing what to desire. I choose either way, whether I am aware of it or not.
After choosing to go further further in the actual freedom direction Iām finding things are a little strange. Itās like Iāve become a different person. Or more like there are two 'Claudiuās (both feeling-beings), one is the senseless-desire-chasing Claudiu, the other is the sincere-naive Claudiu, who is writing this, and I feel like Iām on the āother sideā of that senseless-desiring, I can look at it and itās like somebody else was doing it (though I know it was me), and I can easily see how simply silly it is!!
So Iām not sure what to call it. It would sound like Iām describing a dissociative thing, but I know it was āmeā in the past too. The interesting thing is that even though āmeā as ābeingā is very different there is still a consistency of consciousness. I know Iām not actually a different human being, it is just āmeā shaping āmyselfā differently. [ā¦]
Anyway, it is much more enjoyable to be the sincere-naive Claudiu . But I am not out of the woods yet. Anything I could say about what I will do or wonāt do though, I canāt see how I would say in a way that would hold water. Itās all up to me, thereās no outside force at play here. So itās just a matter of continuing in this direction! Whether I will or not ā I donāt know! I know 100% I donāt want to give up ā this much is certain. Which means I either stay in limbo or go forward. Although my ālimboā keeps inching forward anyway haha. At a certain point itās just a matter of going forward to what was previously unknown, come what may ā¦ ā¦
Now Iām not that sincere-naive Claudiu, I havenāt been consistently, though I find my way back from time to time. It seems like I can just agree to be a different person haha, and leave the rest behind. It is a scary prospect ā what will happen to me socially? ā but I canāt stay in limbo forever.
Iām curious @Srinath @geoffrey if you experienced any such thing and/or the strangeness of this ? ?
I was only just thinking about this very point, the place of desire, and specifically āwhat do I want?ā
It sheds a different light on desire. Normally, itās seemingly a ābadā thing, like you said about being brought up like that. Itās also a clouded thing, being the main focus of morality and social adjustment.
Then what is desire really? Considering that itās essential for success in actualism!
It gets a bad rep.
This is really cool to read I have had similar experiences lately, itās always odd how these things synch up.
I have been observing this limbo too, itās like there is not much more do to, no other direction I can travel anymore because they are all directions within myself.
Then at times (one happened yesterday) there is a genuine/sincere me that gets very close (it seems) to going all the way. In this case it eventually faded and now itās back to the limbo. But I also observe that each time I am back to the limbo I build up even closer to the next āattemptā so I am no longer dissuaded by this happening.
Yesterday when it happened I was driving my car and it became very clear what I need to do, there was very little drama around it, there was sincerity in the face of that which needs to happen. A seeing that setting myself free is to break that bond/agreement which keeps us all bound and in doing so it is demonstrating to others that we no longer need to remain within the human condition. This was clearer than I ever saw before. I could see that this is what all the actually free guys are doing all this time, that is their contribution, demonstrating by living example that this bond can be safely broken, no need to remain a being anymore.
is to break that bond/agreement which keeps us all bound
Interesting. I am experiencing this talking with a woman. There is an expectation, a ābond/agreementā which I keep having to politely push through. Perhaps itās the same with everyone; politely breaking this bond.
But as Claudiu ponders; where will that leave me socially?
But as Claudiu ponders; where will that leave me socially?
I guess those fears of what will happen socially need to be fully explored and eventually put aside because where it will leave me is far superior, to turn this into a problem of how others will see me means there is more to look at first.
So Iām not sure what to call it. It would sound like Iām describing a dissociative thing, but I know it was āmeā in the past too. The interesting thing is that even though āmeā as ābeingā is very different there is still a consistency of consciousness. I know Iām not actually a different human being, it is just āmeā shaping āmyselfā differently
I was just thinking about this same concept yesterday
Itās about āwhoā youāre ābeingā
So for me Iām used to ābeingā a ālonely guyā (with everything that comes with that). I realized I could ābeā something else. There are lots of ābeingsā I could be, but as an actualist what I want to be is happy & harmless, aka a ānaive guyā (in the sense of ingenuous & delighted).
So itās still Henry, but itās naive-sincere Henry now
Weāve had hints of what that looks like in the past in EEs and IEs, itās just about making the commitment to be that all the time
edit:
It occurs to me that another crucial element is that itās always now, so the confusing situation you describe of there being a āsensibleā and āsenselessā Claudiu that seem to inhabit the same body is quite simple: when certain structures within the brain/self are triggered, the āsenselessā is occurring, and when they are not, the āsensibleā is able to operate. There is no contradiction in āyou,ā itās just that different āprogramsā are operating at different times. During a PCE, āIā am not really operating at all.
Lol I feel foolish. This whole time , the sole point of it all is WANTING to enjoy and appreciate!! Thatās the āmissing elementā. Thatās the piece that canāt be gotten by following a list of instructions. Itās just that you have to want to do it lol. And if you do then the rest falls into place aided by the reports and descriptions etc.