Felix: Hey Vineeto, always appreciate your very attentive readings of our experiences. I will read it again tomorrow with fresh eyes. There are a few things I will reply on later.
One thing I wanted to convey now though. The kinds of topics that are captivating me are starting to change – today it started with fear and anxiety and existential angst as I wrote about. Later this afternoon, it turned to death and Richard’s writings on the topic.
Namely, this exchange: [Frequently Asked Questions How to End Fear?] It’s about ending fear, and death.
Reading this changed my view on what I am doing – where I typically think of the actualism method in a very stepwise, logical way, the discussion around death changed that. It’s like I could see deeper, and truly see the core of fear. The real me that is not allowing enjoyment in a deep sense. The fear that is at the basis of everything as Richard puts it.
Rather than put me into depression, this text did the opposite. It’s as if I could come close to death, come right up to it – each moment again – and much more easily sidestepping my usual way of being (which often seems hopelessly/ relentlessly/ irreversibly negative in feeling tone). It was like “oh of course I need to actually be peace-on-earth”.
Hi Felix,
Yes, this is what feeling being ‘Vineeto’ saw as well when ‘she’ wrote:
‘Vineeto’: “I wrote to Irene: ‘Fear in the face of impending death is what potatoes are for a potato-soup, its very ingredients. There is no soup without potatoes, there is no death without fear.’ […]
The final fact was: if I wanted to be free, then ‘I’ have to disappear, self-immolate. What is the point of complaining about this fact? What is the point of postponing the journey because of fear? Fear is the ‘normal’, instinctual reaction of my ‘self’, it is ‘par for the course’. I don’t have to let fear stop me from reaching my goal.” (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 6, 12.3.1999).
Felix: Some moments later I looked up to the sky. and the stars were out, but I didn’t see a pretty sky. I came to my senses and saw deeply into the universe (my nature as a feeling being was completely bypassed in this moment) … It occurred over a very brief time frame but its significance was immense, a direct experience of the universe that completely eradicated my own significance.
(Things normalised later as I met up with someone, but even then my usual angsty depressed lens was gone. Everyone looked so equal and very fresh, whereas usually I’m endlessly comparing myself and everyone. There was much less distinction between everything but everything was amazing on some level. And it was like I wasn’t holding stuff any more like I usually do, a lot of emotional weight was gone.)
I have so many hot tears in my eyes as I write this – I’m guessing that in the form of memory this experience is being filtered through ‘me’ and I’m reacting accordingly. It’s because the actual world is more than a feeling being could ever imagine, and I am experiencing huge emotions of empathy (usually by default I tend not to be a majorly empathetic or emotionally self-indulgent person) as a result of processing its significance for “me” and for humanity. That it really is as wondrous as promised. I can see that what I’ve been doing is pulling actualism into “me”, dragging it down into the human condition, rather than making my way into the actual world.
This was a wonderful pure consciousness experience. However, when you first report that “things normalised” and then experienced “hot tears” of “huge emotions of empathy”, you had not fully realized what happened. Hence you allowed what could have been an immense appreciation, disperse into “huge emotions” of ‘good feelings’ and thus wasted an opportunity to channel the outcome of the “immense, a direct experience of the universe” into felicitous feelings and immense appreciation. I am telling you so that you may be aware next time when an exceptional opportunity occurs.
Felix: I see the vague image of an unimaginable and amazing direct route, that looks somehow viable. Not sure exactly how of course; but my naïveté is busted open enough to think in bold terms.
I wanted to ask, did a time come when you realised you could take such a route? Or was being out-from-control a prerequisite for you. Sorry if it’s covered extensively already, you could also link a relevant section to me if it’s easier.
There was no realization for ‘Vineeto’ that ‘she’ “could take such a route” as it didn’t exist at the time. It was opened by Richard and Peter on December 30, 2009, a day before Peter became actually free.
To put it this way, it’s as if I’ve been studying the theory of the driving test for years but not had a car. Now it’s as if I have a car, and there is road – and I’ve realised that actually driving on this road is going to be completely different to what I imagined when I was theorising. Like an inexperienced driver, I’m both excited and perhaps a bit daunted – there is fear but there is a lot of excitement as well.
Does this resonate at all? Of course it’s weird for me to write everything I’m writing because I have no idea what the territory is in a concrete sense, and could not possibly claim any confidence that I know what’s required to self-immolate. It’s all so large and mysterious and unknowable. But nevertheless, there is this underlying intuition that I could abandon theory in favor of some sort of practical boldness.
Well, you may have (inadvertently) stumbled upon naiveté, having had to abandon all your theory of actualism by realising that “actually driving” is a different ball-game entirely.
So this is your new territory, to allow and experience and explore and delight in being here, locked in this moment as much as possible, feeling naïve and then being naïve because you don’t know what will happen next, and staying in this ‘modus being’ as much as possible.
But beware, ‘you’, the cunning feeling being, will endeavour to sabotage living this new territory with appealing to your addiction to pressure, to anxiety and achievement and whatever other trick you have already exposed.
I wish you naïve success and ongoing enjoyment and appreciation. Anything less is ‘sudorific’ 
.
Felix: By the way, when I call the actualism method “theory” – I know it’s a practical method but I’m trying to convey that the direct experience is so much further beyond what is imaginable as a feeling being when applying the method in daily life (or at least it was for me).
I’m wondering, in other words, can I leap for that beyond? Or is it better I try to clean myself up more and more first. Maybe applying the method will be easier now, and perhaps align closer to direct experience – I’ll have to see!
I understand you completely – theory and actual living it are two different things. You have not even recognized that you have already leapt “for that beyond”, your theory is lagging behind, lol.
Remember, there is only now, only this moment is actual. Live as much as possible “locked into” this moment as described by Peter, Kuba and Richard –
‘Peter’: So, I find myself sitting on a cusp – irrevocably locked into the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are, and perpetually locked into this moment with no ‘other place’ to escape to and no ‘other time’ to escape to. Experiencing that the only impediment to perfection and purity is ‘me’ – ‘who’ I think and feel I am – whatever is selfishly going on in my head and heart and that is often very weird, very strange. But, then again, this is a very weird thing to do – to re-wire one’s brain to the point of self-extinction. Something has to give in this tension and it is bound to be ‘me’. It seems to me that one can make sense of the Human Condition such that one can be virtually free of it but ‘making sense’ then has to be abandoned for direct sensate experiencing. [Emphasis added]. (Actualism, Peter, AF List, No. 13a, 31.1.1999).
Kuba: It seems the freeing aspect of actual time is the fact that this body is locked securely in it, as it is always this moment it is impossible to be anywhere but here now. As it is always this moment there is no distance at all which needs to be bridged between now and then. (link)
Richard: Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space – which awareness is combined with the fascination of contemplating that this moment is one’s only moment of being alive – and one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever one is … now … one is always here … now … even if one starts walking over to ‘there’ … now … along the way to ‘there’ … now … one is always here … now … and when one arrives ‘there’ … now … it too is here … now. (Richard’s Journal, Appendix Five).
Felix: I hope what I’ve written has some cogency. It’s weird to write about I’m surprised I was able to communicate something at all here haha. (link)
No worries, it is all very clear. Perhaps you can catch the naiveté-virus too.
Cheers Vineeto