Richards PCE was obviously a very impactful PCE. A PCE can vary in intensity, duration, etc, though they have all the same main factor in common: the absence of a self/identity/whatever.
In one PCE I was aware of infinitude, in one PCE I was aware of time not moving etc. They have certainly different flavors in my experiance.
Now what about doubt? Doubt was a very tricky topic for me as well, maybe for all of us.
One cannot help but begin with some amount of trust. It sounds reasonable, it sounds practical, it makes sense, ok. But later on this trust must be replaced by something better, something solid.
The only things which were a guidance for me before my first PCE were certain ASC’s (something was possible!) and the simpel, rational approach: Does it work, or does it not? If it works and it’s repeatable then it’s a fact. Otherwise I have to change my approach or read and understand more stuff.
I have had only 7 of them, the last one was just over 5 mins maybe and the rest were all in the range of 45 seconds to a couple of minutes. What do you mean by the intensity of them? Could you elaborate please.
So you had sufficient time to notice particular properties?
@son_of_bob What’s the problem with doubt? Doesn’t one just have to enquire and note what is causing unhappiness and get back to being happy, where the suffering characterized by unease, burdens of expectations and comparisons, bothering about trivial things, conditional happiness(which is merely about chasing dopamine hits), unpleasant past, and daydreaming about future to escape present etc., is diminished? Isn’t that a better state to live? Is that not a better and pertinent question?
Doubt is a characteristic of a questioning or inquiring mind. It can never be a problem. The problem might be the anxiety it creates that you are going after something that you are not sure of. But isn’t that a false doubt given that all your search, like everybody else, is for happiness aka freedom? Because by getting back to happiness you are fulfilling your deepest desire to not suffer.
(I’m yet to read other responses. My apologies if somebody else replied in a similar vein)
Doubt has had the power to derail my practice and turn me away from actualism. Or when making progress slow down the momentum.
Though I can see parallels in my career. I doubted at first that I could work in tech, then piece by piece built the confidence that I can get on with things and sort it out. Now I am doing relatively well in my job. Doubt derailed my career and made me take longer to get to this point.
As the doubts give way to experiential confidence I am starting to see where and how this doubt operates in me. In all spheres of my life. The excuses that I make, the procrastination, self-deprecation…the fear of the potential.
In fact @Kiman this line of realisation stemmed from your post regarding the persistent causes of unhappiness. More so as a curiosity and like a scientific experiment have been keeping track of the different types of emotions/triggers/events that stop felicity or an EE.
Trying to notice the regular issues and themes that end felicity or EE’s.
I think deep down, doubt is another excuse not to have to change or do anything…to just maintain the status quo.
There is this desire to want to know everything before trying to experience something. An utterly risk free existence. There is no such thing. But I can see there is an anxiety at play at times and maybe it ties into that hypervigilance. Otherwise, indeed I am exploring that freedom and happiness.
I think the important distinction is between doubt as a feeling , vs as a sensible ascertainment that one isn’t sure about something. The latter is extremely important and very valuable as a tool in life and in general to be able to think about things sensibly. The former is just a hindrance which has no ultimate value at all (given you have the latter).
Wasting my life, choosing the wrong path, being wrong, causing myself more harm psychologically, etc, etc.
I think at first, I lacked the self awareness to know the boundaries of these two, because even a sensible ascertainment of the facts would trigger my emotions, because both doubt as a feeling and a sensible ascertainment was followed up with a base anxiety for me.
The whole reason I wrote this post, is on reflection I can see the impact doubt has had on my simple act of carrying out the method (as well as most areas of my life; career, relationships, parenthood). It really is as simple as trying to be as happy and harmless as possible in this moment. Trying to think of the end goal, a PCE or being totally free would again just be more projecting into the future, much like trying to force myself to rememorate a PCE was me projecting into the past. Whereas the starting point of progress is to always be doing something now.
I want to know the end result of something before I commit to it. If I never used to progress on something quick enough like when I tried drawing or music or martial arts…I would just give up…quit.
Thinking of doubt made me curious as to whether Richard had doubt as to whether he could experience a PCE again when first had one again as a more self aware adult. Which led me to read stuff I had forgotten about. Seeing for him there was this absence of doubt and an absence of a choice to be made which freed him from the doubt. For me, I didn’t make that realisation from my PCE’s. Thinking there was something I had to choose to do to make the PCE happen.
‘Wasting my life’ as in you’ll lose the desire to move up the social hierarchy? Otherwise, how can you waste your life when you are happy?
‘Wasting’ in comparison to what?
What is the other way of life you have in mind?
This simple question surprisingly stumped me lol. Not being a success, not being exceptional or not being actually free. It is like being happy isn’t enough lol. There has to be some main win, prize…success…that is weird…like being happy isn’t enough unless I reach a PCE or being free…hmm…something to think about there.
This one is very relatable to me @son_of_bob and it’s also been a big obstacle for me. It seems to be quite a core aspect of being a social identity, the need to be recognised as special (it is what offers ‘me’ authority/love and thus security within the group). At core this whole thing is driven by ‘my’ desperate need for security, it is the survival mechanism in operation, so a lot of layers to the onion!
What I have noticed is that this need to be special is the complete opposite of naiveté. This need to be special has seeped all the fun out of my life since I was a kid! Because now everything I do has to be thought about twice and weighed up carefully so that ‘I’ can decide how it will impact ‘my’ status within the hierarchy. Everything becomes a means to the end, with the end being to continue climbing up the ladder, or be super careful not to slip down towards a lower rung. Which means nothing is done for the simple enjoyment of it. It also means that all actions are pre-planned and then acted out - as Richard wrote somewhere ‘I’ become predictably shallow. This whole thing screams seriousness and is 180 degrees opposite to words like, fun, delight, sincere, genuine, naive.
I don’t really belong to any group, unless one counts this forum and then maybe my family lol. I have already been the outsider/the reject etc. I don’t really care for groups.
I can see that it is already a part of me to prove that I was correct to be separate from them, because look at how well I have done. It is my own vainglorious need to be successful and exceptional. A part of me wants to show off to other people and have proof why I never needed to belong.
Maybe a part of me hopes to attract people to me, esp the opposite sex. As though success would finally break that alienation, separation from other people.
Yes, the same, it ruined my writing and creativity too. I stopped doing it for the sheer enjoyment for myself but some need to be exceptional. For me though I am out of the hierarchy, it is more like a big fuck you to the hierarchy. Like the kid who “nur, nur, nee, nur, nur!”
Yes, I have started to see these shallow parts of me. Which then contradicts the elements of my social identity that was so concerned with projecting an image of integrity and validity.
OK this is a good one, I wonder if I can put it across well enough and if you will agree
‘You’ do belong to a group - ‘humanity’. ‘Your’ current role within the ‘group’ is that of an ‘outsider/reject’. This whole schtick of ‘not needing a group’ is a reactionary response to the pressures of being a group member. It gives the impression that you are no longer part of it, but the very resentment you have towards the group maintains your existence as a group member.
After all if you did not belong to a group then ‘who’ are you riling up against? ‘who’ are you trying to prove wrong? Who is ‘them’?
I have spoken to @Sonyaxx about something very similar lots and I find this really fascinating, its another example of the cunning that the identity gets up to.
What I usually mentioned to Sonya is that example of the ‘independent woman’ who ‘does not need a man’ and yet her entire persona is structured around demonstrating to men that she does not need them, it is a coping mechanism, a reactionary response, it appears as freedom but it is keeping one chained. Because in this example the woman has not actually freed herself from the conditioning, she is just riling up against it so much that she believes herself to be free, ultimately this does not deliver the goods.
And this is easily seen by how the ‘independent women’ will join together to create a sub-group or how the ‘outsiders/rejects’ will do the same. Ultimately they all share the same beliefs and they still belong so the drama continues, belonging remains and is now hidden under the rebellion against it, the good overlaying the bad.
I rejected humanity too. In the depths of my depression a part of me wanted all life to die. I could see that feeling kicking in when I slightly relapsed during Covid. Like I was happy the numbers were going up because we all deserve to die.
It is a weird place to find oneself in psychologically. I can see in coming out of depression, I am in a way reconnected emotionally to that “humanity” again. So, yes I can see what you are saying.
I would say before depression this was the case, once depressed it was like I switched against all life. I felt deep disgust for it all, this internal rage to want to see the Earth burnt to a crisp and all life extinguished.
I had a super close group that I belonged to for most of my life. My tribe so to speak. But mental health, alcoholism, death and geography conspired to bring that group apart…in a way I never believed possible. Thinking it was some untouchable, unchangeable bond between us. The collapse of that group showed me the conditionality of all emotional based relationships, be they friendships or with a spouse or partner.
Yes, I can see this resistance is against all humanity too and that depression period rejection of humanity has added an additional emphasis to the need to prove them wrong too.
Yes, exactly this is what me and my friends had done, we were the outsiders/rejects and had become friends during high school then into adult hood. We didn’t grow out of that outsider mindset. My smart friend had become aware of this too, and he too then introduced me to AF, and that was some of the first revelations once on board with AF, seeing those group identities and individual identities (the atheist/the writer etc).
Maybe I missunderstand you, but that’s not what Kub933 is refering too.
It really doesn’t matter if you reject humanity, reconnect with humanity, love humanity or hate humanity.
That is merely an mental abstraction of humanity or symbolism.
You, I, the self is humanity and humanity is you, I, the self.
This is not a “phrase” or a “metaphorical discription” of something.
Humanity is the deeper or collective part of the self, a psychic reality and therefore happening in the psychic realm. In no way can both be seperated.
That is interesting, I don’t see my “self” as humanity…though of course I am human lol. I am just a self, an agent that feels, thinks, perceives, I don’t really know what you mean if I am honest.
I have feelings towards the ideas of humanity, as a species and a collective, this is what I am thinking/describing in relation to here, but emotional reactions to the concepts/abstractions of humanity, i.e. my responses to @Kub933.
If you guys are alluding to something else, than I must admit I don’t really get what you mean.
Like some ultimate identity…the humanity identity?
There is no experiential connection with what you are saying. I read it, I get what you are trying to explain but it doesn’t seem like a fact to me.
How did you reach this conclusion?
Interestingly, this made me feel bad. That I am somehow unaware of this in operation in me, that I lack insight. Or are you describing emotional reactions and just grouping them as “humanity”. I don’t like not knowing something or misunderstanding something, really just killed my felicity lol.
I have emotions and emotional reactions to things but what deeper or collective part of the self do you mean? I don’t mean to be dense either, I am just trying to understand.
You mean the self and humanity can’t be separated?
I guess in death…if committing suicide one destroys both then, if you can’t separate them.
Most of that stuff comes from my spiritual years, long before actualism, where I could, on some occasions, somewhat connect with the network or highway, as I used to call it.
It is a psychological-psychic superstructure accessed intuitively, by feeling in or feeling yourself out. The psychological part is more of an informational layer and consists of cultural conditioning. The psychological realm is, of course, influential, but not of primary concern. It is the psychic network underlying it all that gives it power, so to speak.
One begins with a random emotion/feeling (my sarrow) which appears as an individual “string” (think guitar). Then you follow that feeling/string further/deeper, which then exposes a different layer or stronger quality of it. The further/deeper you go, the more potent these feelings/strings become.
At one point, you realize that these feelings/strings are in no way individual anymore, but are collective feelings swirling all around, creating different little and greater swirls, and then finally merging into one enormous swirl-humanity. This is not a gradual transition anymore, but more like a river suddenly flowing into or becoming a huge ocean. It is a shift in perception.
In this collective area, you see that all feelings/beings are interconnected and form this enormous psychic construct.
An intuitively accessible structure is, of course, beyond the normal perceptible threshold.
It cannot be sensed with the “normal” senses, but its affective surges are felt throughout the body.
These deeper/collective surges can be enormously potent and easily overwhelm an individual if careless or ill-prepared.
This structure has a hierachy to it. It’s not just the fantasy/feelings of one mind. It’s the fantasies/feelings of countless minds/beings, compressed into some form of structure. I have no clue what that structure consists of, how it came into being, or where it is located, but it’s most definitely there.
Of particular interest is the way the psychic energies/currents move/behave and how they influence you on a much deeper level. How it draws you in, how it connects you to groups, ideas, and ideologies. How it repels you from other groups, ideas, and ideologies. How it keeps you in place while always appearing fresh and new. It’s really just the surface that changes, but the underlying movement and dynamics are always the same. Its whole “purpose” is to hold everything together, within humanity, within its domain. The self is merely the individual expression of the collective.
The self that “ends itself”, ends humanity, ends all psychic phenomena within one body.
Humanity goes on as long as human beings are alive.
I don’t think that all this stuff is important to know, but to be aware that the self has roots that lead very deep into the collective. A self can never distance itself from the collective, because it is the collective at its deepest level. It’s the same thing.
It really unsettles me that there is a domain of knowledge/experience that I can’t seem to touch or know. Your post really triggered me, in a way I am not sure you would have expected. My mind keeps ruminating on it, trying to understand it…find some common ground. An inability to accept being wrong and not knowledgeable about something.
Ok, fascinating. I mean I get the aspect regarding cultural conditioning and the strange feelings intuitions about this. I guess I have reached this level of intuition and awareness. The emotional vibes and rules at play in this realm. Where even location and age/generation provide different parameters and rules.
I guess I have never delved so deep into the intuitions/vibes within me. I explored a lot the vibes and feeling states that were conducive to creativity and learning but nothing that connects with what you talk about here.
I guess, maybe the feelings as regards what people find taboo (I never found anything taboo much to the annoyance of people it seems) I would sense this structure/intuitive reaction and begin to build an intuitive picture of who I can say what to as well. If I really explore that, is a weird mish mash of remembering emotional reactions.
I have seen this vibing at play, especially in my close group of friends. What would psych us up or what would repel or make us angry.
I never delved so deep as to realise such a thing.
Ok, and yet the self feels alienated, alone, disconnected. It is like the self is a bag of contradictions.
Ah yes, should have been more careful with my words sorry. Yes, ones expression of humanity in themselves I meant, not humanity as a whole lol. That would be funny, if there was a species that if one member committed suicide the whole collective would die.
Thanks for explaining so well. For some reason this was making me thinking of spiritual people when they tell me I am closed off. As though I am closed off to the spiritual feelings. Thus I started to think, am I doing something that closed me off to reach such a conclusion, not that it is absolutely relevant to what I am doing here, more so as a curiosity.
So all distancing is a superficial expression of individuality?
That’s the funny and extremely bizarre thing. It’s definitely there … … and yet it doesn’t actually exist lol. Like at all. It all disappears in the PCE and it’s then clear it doesn’t actually exist. How something that doesn’t actually exist, can have such extensive “coordinated” effects on other things that don’t actually exist (ie feeling-beings), I really don’t know. That is the most puzzling part about it.
Oh one funny thing while delving in these waters after leaving Buddhism. I ‘saw’ Buddhism as this sort of brownish, very infinitely deep “well” in the psychic realm, that was sort of pristine, perfect, indomitable, all-encompassing, etc. And then I ‘saw’ actualism as this light and playful, maybe purplish, apparently far “smaller” thing … yet it would dance over and around the Buddhism currents and basically take the roots out from under it and completely crumble it haha. All in a playful naive manner. Not so indomitable after all!
Exactly. You distance yourself from an image, a symbol, a replacement, while still standing on the same ground - humanity.
You can see how all political camps, all racial differences, all gender differences vanish within seconds when a “new enemy” is introduced. Then it instantly merges back to humanity versus “other”. When the danger settles all the little whirls go back to their old places to fight it out between each other again.
Culture, parties, camps change, but never the underlying power dynamics.
