Glad to hear that @milito.paz . Maestro is a title that I have assigned ( humorously ) to Geoffrey, for his influence on me, vis a vi his video. You should watch it several times( I did twice) and take notes and “memorize” those notes. I have also commented about his video on here, under Geoffrey’s Video section.
Dear @Andrew. Thanks for the wonderful and kind words, really heart warming( I don’t know if that is allowed in AF! 
). I am very tired now, but I will try to respond ( with my 2 cents only, and that is all that I can afford for now lol )to some of the topics that you touched upon. BTW most of you guys are lucky to be Australians, as I feel like R’s English is very indigestible ( at least at first), and then slowly becomes delicious and even “prophetic” ( showing us The Way and The Goal, and them also being one and the same ). I tell my wife that Richard is like the Einstein ( for lack of better choice) of Consciousness, his finding and results are not only Revolutionary but more importantly Evolutionary! , in my opinion.
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I gathered that 
Look forward to continued correspondence.
Btw for those telegram links require an app to be downloaded right? Is there something browser based I can access those Farsi materials in?
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If you just want to get a preview without interacting, you can use the “Preview channel” button, I assume that with any browser (I’ve just entered with Chrome):
Otherwise you have to download the app.
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Hi @FrankN ,
Great to see you posting here! Welcome to the Land of the Posters 
I just wanted to chip in here and say that it looks like you are overcomplicating what it means to ask yourself “How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?”
You have probably already seen the latest version of @Kub933 's flow-chart, but I will re-post it here:
As you can see, there are two possibilities after asking oneself “How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?” (i.e. HAIETMOBA):
- feeling good (felicitous + innocuous)
- bad feelings (sorrow + malice) / good feelings (antidotal pacifiers)
That is, the answer to the question “How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?” is essentially one of the following, for a “newbie” [1]:
A. I am feeling good – i.e. I am in a generally good mood
B. I am feeling bad – i.e. I am feeling angry, upset, peeved, annoyed, anxious, fearful, sad, sorrowful, etc…
C. I am feeling a ‘good’ feeling – i.e. I am feeling love, compassion, bliss, ecstasy, driven, etc.
D. (Not on the flowchart:) I am feeling ok/meh – i.e. neither feeling good nor bad, neither here nor there. Boredom might fit into here.
This does not require sophistication to answer, nor an advanced degree, nor even any degree of any sort, nor any philosophical knowledge or practice or experience, etc. It essentially comes down to, “How am I feeling?”
And the answer is gotten at by just using your normal regular human ability to feel your own emotions, i.e. just a regular, normal, plain, intuitive, ‘what am I feeling right now?’ Even a child can do this, it is really nothing very advanced whatsoever.
Then, as the flowchart says, what you do next depends on the answer:
1 - if you are feeling good – then, great! fantastic! Enjoy and appreciate it – and you are now employing the actualism method . Ask yourself the question again regularly until it becomes a non-verbal approach to life etc…
2 - if you are feeling bad/‘good’ feelings/neutral – then, no worries, it is a normal human thing – follow the flowchart to get back to feeling good.
And that is about it!
What you are going for by doing this is as continuous and consistent a sense of general well-being as possible. There is nothing specialized or particular to actualism about being in a good mood – except for it being the focus to life as opposed to anything else. But, at first anyway, it is just basically being in a good mood all the time.
All that happens ‘later’ is you see that a good mood can increase essentially exponentially 
. But you can cross that bridge when you get to it.
Also I realize I may pose an image on here as being someone who is ‘advanced’… and though I have a lot of knowledge about actualism, I’m by no means virtually free even, I still experience feeling bad on a regular basis – though I’ve had periods of multiple days where it was all feeling great or better – but I am still on the path .
Cheers and hope this helps,
Claudiu
[1] The only difference for a non-newbie will be that EEs and PCEs occur more frequently, or one may be feeling better than ‘good’, and so the answer to the question may be that – but I left it out of the post here for simplicity sake.
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Apropos the same post alluded by @claudiu, I was just writing to @FrankN the warning that has already been made several times in the forum: although I do not know your background, those of us who have practiced various forms of Buddhism, mindfulness, mind control, etc., should be especially careful when applying (as I also frequently apply) the use of the senses as an entry point to feel good again, because it has been common for us to use that same technique for different purposes, such as to stop feeling bad feelings keeping the good ones, to isolate ourselves emotionally, to seek happiness based on physical hedonism, to generate peace by focusing on a certain sense or object, and others.
As long as your purpose is to use the technique as a bridge or means to ultimately enjoy and appreciate with felicitous feelings, you will be fine. And getting to enjoying and appreciating with felicitous feelings will be the way to check that you are doing it right.
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Wow, @claudiu , such a detailed, generous and helpful post. I really appreciate it! This will help me in my applying the Method of AF. Your humility and caring attitude is also a sign of your advancement on this path. BTW, I have read and learned from many of your post in the past, as I have mentioned before.
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Thank you @Miguel for your warning, I do not have much history with spiritual practices, i.e. no ASC or anything like that. As you mentioned, I have used the senses for bringing my attention to this moment and restart to feel good, and to notice my surroundings. Obrigado !
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You can also see these materials in Farsi
on the above link !
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Today “I” was feeling miserable, anxious and full of fear, my lower belly churning from a feeling of dread, and a sense of gloom. “I” was fighting and trying to get away from these feelings. I got to feeling so bad, that I came to find refuge in Richard’s article that got me to feel good a few days ago.
… I came across [ " Suppose there is a feeling of sadness. Ordinary consciousness would say, ‘I am sad’. Using attentiveness, one heedfully notices the feeling as a natural feeling – ‘There is human sadness’ – thus one does not tack on that possessive personal concept of ‘I’ or ‘me’ … for one is already possessed. " ],
… So “I” changed the “I” am feeling miserable, etc. etc. to : there is natural human miserable, anxious and full of fear, lower belly churning from a feeling of dread, and a sense of gloom, is being experienced. And just switching the subject from “I” to “human”, made it much more tolerable and gave me the courage to “own” these natural human feelings.
… Then in the same article Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness I read *Thus attentiveness – is an attraction – to the fact that one is *always here
– and it is already (always) now – *
and as one is already here and it is always now then one has arrived before one starts.
*This delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence) the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur.
*The potent combination of attentiveness – fascinated reflective contemplation – and sensuousness produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. *
- One is intimately aware that this physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal … thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either.* ,
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////And what seems to make sense to me from the above, is for me to pay attention to this place as a human ( vs an “I”) , so I can have the courage and the tools of noticing HAETMOBA and then hopefully EATMOBA.
… Because it is always here, this place is available, it is easier(than this moment) for this human, to pay attention to it, and be aware of it’s happenings ( sensorial, affective, cerebral ) and not only acknowledge, tolerate, but even enjoy having the ability to be aware of and at the same time feel (just feel) even those bad feelings.
… Now this human feels maybe this post was too long,( and sloppy, sorry, I did try to fix it), but I am aware of this space once again, and reminded of the benevolence of this Universe.
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@FrankN and @leila welcome! Leila, utterly impressed and delighted by your work in translating actualism for a Farsi speaking audience. Also nice to see the Spanish language section here spearheaded by @Miguel and @milito.paz Its about time that actualism moved beyond the English speaking world.
I was a big fan of ‘I am that’ at one time.
What convinced both of you to switch from Nisargatta/Advaita to Actualism?
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Thank You so much @Srinath ! I 'm gonna let Frank to answer your wonderful question … 
It has been such a delight to translate actual freedom material . I also translated some of your PCE experience . Thank you for sharing so generously !
Yes. Many years ago I was going to share excerpts from Richard translated into Spanish on my personal site, but I stopped when I read about the incident between AFT and that Portuguese language site accused of plagiarism, etc.
What I kept doing, then, was to try to find the best translations only for certain words and expressions that would allow me to explain better or eventually write about AF in Spanish.
I don’t know what would be AFT’s current position on reproducing long excerpts/articles in another language.
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Thank you @Miguel ,you bring up such a good point about “copy write” like concerns about AFT. This material is such a Gem, and at the same time so obscure in the Internet( hard to come across ) and “un-digestible”( unlikely to be comprehended, let alone applied by many), that we did not even consider such concerns. I think we all are hoping for more people to be exposed to this material in whatever form or language. Miguel, your effort in translating these material, if fully appreciated, as I have seen Leila spend hundreds of hours working on this difficult subject, and I have helped her with editing and making the ideas clear for a Farsi speaking reader. Leila gets very obsessed and worked up about this work and we have to remind ourselves that Enjoying and Appreciating This Moment is the most important and useful thing that we can do and think about.
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Thank you @Srinath for you kind remarks. We were never die hard followers of Nisargadata, we just liked what he said. When we came across Richard’s ( and Vineeto, Peter) writing, it made a “whole lot more sense”; and luckily for us, we were “sensible” enough to see the “genuine article”. But as you well know, it’s been hard to point a flash light and magnifying glass, on our human condition and not be disturbed and jolted over and over again; but we keep trying with sincere intent ( partially because I know there is no other way). Of course, Slack and this forum have been crucial to keep our motivation and stickt-to-it-vness alive. Thank you again Srinath, for your generous and “gentle” sharing and involvement in these discussions!
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Thank you Claudiu and Miguel. I want to talk about my feelings for the past 2 days, which may belong under Journal section, but I will post it here also for I think it is relevant to this topic.
I have been feeling bad ( fear, unhappiness and a sense of dread at the bottom of the stomach) on and off for the last 2 days. When I go for the pce walks ( 2 times a day, morning and afternoon ,1+ hour each time - and mostly enjoy seeing the beautiful reflection of trees and the sky against the bottom of the pond rocks) , I can bring myself to feel happy and even maybe experience EE. But other times when I do HAIETMOBA, I came up with not feeling good, So this morning in bed between 4-7 a.m. I tried feeling it out, and told myself that I need to be able to face this [ fear, anxiety, unhappiness, dread] completely, so I am not running from it. In the mix of all this, I came across envy, for Geoffrey having gone snow boarding and having fun ( Freed and I am not). Then I told myself maybe, instead of concentrating on my feelings, I should “see that the whole problem is because of “me” my being” so I should concentrate on getting rid of “me”, instead of trying to get rid of my feelings – and I said maybe I am fooling myself and trying to get away from applying the method correctly ( judging myself ?) .
Leila is translating Richard’s article on man/woman relationship and states how one should shine a light on feelings and be exposed to them, I guess? I came up with the analogy of Us Humans having been exposed to hidden ( like Wifi ) feelings that we can not stand nor understand, we try to avoid them, hide them and run away from them. They scare us, make us uncomfortable and reactionary. Maybe only by staying in the hidden “Wifi Field” of were these feelings are generated and being able to tolerate the discomfort ( dread, hello Hennrrrrrry ), we might be able to discover or develop tolerance or eliminate the source of these Hidden Fields.
The reason I am writing all of these is that fear, unhappiness and dread has been a common theme in my life ( and I have such a rush of bad feelings in all my body writing this now). But maybe I need to face this.
I try to feel good by breathing exercise of { breathing in “feeling happy” , breathing out “feeling good” – this maybe a suggestion for @Andrew ? when he is feeling overwhelmed ), but maybe I am trying to paste feeling good on not feeling good?
To summarize, I am having a hard time feeling good ( ordinary feeling good). I feel so vulnerable and weak, that everything has to be good and no problems, no discomfort, no pain, no worries that then I can be relaxed. I am feeling some shame that I relate these feelings, but I can not control them, so I have decided to expose them and share them.
I feel a little better now, trying to Enjoy and Appreciate Experiencing the Universe ( my body and things around me), at this moment. And I think I do have sincere intent, otherwise I would not be thinking about this stuff all day, and wouldn’t be worried about not feeling good. Thanks for allowing this space for me.
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For all of us, the key is how “non-descript” the entry point is.
I have always wanted that cathartic release!
The idea of feeling good whilst emptying the trash or doing my taxes, of otherwise living a normal down to earth existence of no particular significance… Well, a neurotic like me ain’t having any of that!!!
Feeling good, is firstly, very, extremely, natural. It is happening all the time.
It’s non-glorious, unremarkable, nothing to write home about, normal well being that happens in between the obsession to continue to suffer.
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