@rick I think I finally grasp what you’re getting at. It’s taken some time due to the conflation of physical and actual at the start of the thread, which proceeded to an extent on a conceptual level even after we clarified the definitions. But once it clicked in place I re-read all your posts in the thread and I think I understand your position thoroughly now. Correct me if I am wrong 
What you are saying is that as there is nothing but this physical universe, anything that is experienced must be generated by the physical universe as well, and is therefore physical – which includes consciousness and, of course, feelings and the feeling-being as well (more on this later).
What you are finding is that there is no ‘outside’ to the universe – everything that exists is within the universe or is the universe manifesting itself in some way.
This is indeed no small thing, and upon realizing this is what you were getting at I too experienced an increased intimacy in my surroundings. This means me, the feeling-being, is a physically-sourced entity – I didn’t come into being from some metaphysical plane to inhabit this body. I am generated by this body. Further there is no ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, no ‘God’, nothing ‘out there’ to ‘get at me’, nobody ultimately ‘in control’, etc… This is a big and valuable realization that will serve you well.
However here is where it gets tricky and where there is a possibility of going ‘wrong’…
Now, I don’t think anybody writing on this thread will disagree that feelings, emotions, the ‘soul’, the ‘self’, etc., are generated by a physical body. I posit that this is not controversial, despite the many conversations and discussions in the so-far most-replied-to thread in the brief history of the existence of this new forum.
It is also uncontroversial that feelings and the feeling-being are not actual, in the special-usage definition of the word. They do not actually exist. And actuality, the actual world, is the only thing that actually exists in a substantial, tangible way (in the regular-usage sense of these words).
This, then, is the apparent contradiction that must be resolved. How can something that is physically-generated not actually exist?
Now the key thing about reflective and fascinating contemplative thought is that the purpose of it, the point of it, the goal, is to elicit an experiential answer, not a thought-out (or felt-out) answer. While it is true that reflective and fascinating contemplative thought leads to apperception, it is also simultaneously true that one cannot think or feel one’s way into actuality:
and:
So how can these things both be true - that one can’t think one’s way into a PCE, but also that reflective and fascinating contemplative thought leads to a PCE? There is no contradiction here, either. The key is to ask oneself the question, hold it in one’s mind, reflect, with great fascination, upon it, and then the experiential answer - the PCE, or something towards it - will click into place, all of a sudden, out of nowhere.
Thus to aid you with taking the “closeness and intimacy felt with the surroundings” you have been experiencing to its desired culmination - apperception – I encourage you to repeat and reiterate and ruminate over these two apparently contradictory things. I ask you to go out on a limb and consider, reflect, mull over, contemplate, with great fascination, that both are accurate and factually the case… until the experiential answer hoves into view for you:
- There is nothing that exists outside of the universe. Feelings, emotions, the ‘soul’, the ‘self’, ‘me’ at ‘my’ very essence, are generated by this physical body which was formed when matter reconfigured itself into the form of a sperm and an egg, then a fertilized egg, then an embryo, etc…
- ‘Me’ and ‘my’ feelings are not actual. ‘I’ do not actually exist, nor do ‘my’ feelings actually exist.
As a hint to aid with your contemplation, although the consciousness generated by the body actually exists and ‘I’ feel and experience ‘myself’ to be that consciousness – ‘I’ the feeling-being am not that consciousness. ‘I’ am something other than the consciousness the body is generating.
I am reminded on my first trip to meet Richard and Vineeto, in one instance where we were conversing about the nature of time. Richard was explaining to me that time does not move, in actuality. And I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. It didn’t make sense… I felt that time was moving. It seemed that time must be moving for things to be able to happen. But I could maybe get a glimpse of what he was saying. And I said that it seemed impossible that time doesn’t move, yet things still happen. This was seemingly impossible – for things to happen without time moving. And as I repeated that it was impossible, an experiential intimation of the actual occurred for me, everything suddenly got much brighter, crisper, clearer, cleaner, and I could see that indeed time doesn’t move (although it wasn’t fully a PCE). In this way fascinated and reflective contemplated thought yielded an answer for me.
And just for the sake of completeness, this is not an attempt to override the thinking mind, as in to accept something that doesn’t make sense, in the way a Zen koan is meant to do. Rather it is a way to get at the experiential answer, which does make sense and is logically consistent… but requires a bit of experience to fully click.
Cheers,
Claudiu