‘we’ are both ‘humanity’ and ‘we’ play this convenient game of blame. One moment this ‘self’ is high on self righteous, whilst simultaneously providing that ‘self’ with the indignation of victimhood.
I often fear going down that delluded path of rick. In a sense, quite often I’m going down that very path, since I keep falling of the horse… I read your explanatory posts @rick and the first thought that came to mind was: “What a load of nonsense”. It just doesn’t sound like actualism at all… more like some ‘affers’ secret hiding place of ‘make-belief’.
I don’t think I’ll ever be safe from my own self-decpeptions without a clean cut PCE and a connection to pure intent. But then… one can apparently even go astray having gone so far as living an virtual freedom out from control! If I’d ever come upon an experience as you describe @rick I’d not ignore posts like claudius - or as I sometimes have mixed feelings about him, as I’m sure you do too (!) judging by your history of ignoring him (Sorry claudiu, that’s just my dirty nature! 
):
I’d go straight to the actually free people for feedback (I truly hope! I don’t trust myself at all really! 
).
Deluded. Load of nonsense. Affer. Make-belief. Self-deception.
John - If you fear ending up on a deluded path like me, then stay altogether away from the facts. Don’t venture out to verify them for yourself. Don’t even ask yourself what a fact is.
Careful, these are the facts, John:
Re: feedback from the actually free people - I don’t wish nor need for them to tell me the color of the sky.
Re: Claudiu - Dare I say, I have gone around the mulberry bush with Claudiu more than anyone here. Too many times to count. Now I read what he writes, and though I enjoy a good cold-tempered dissection or argument about the finer points of contentious issues as much as the next man, I have discerned that his demeanor and temperment are coming in just a little too hot for my liking these days. Being the recipient of paternistic admonishments interspersed with barrages of disparagements upon the inevitable degeneration of conversation, has gotten a trifle old. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be up for it again in the future. But for now, I have sort of backed off. And I think I’ll stay backed off for a little while yet.
The level of self-assurance while being so wrong (the term fractally wrong comes to mind) does bother me at times, I’ll admit. That’s on me. That being said a lot of what I have written to you was written from a place of tapping into and abounding in purity and not from that place of bothersomeness. I admit it would have been a better outcome (at least not a worse one) if 100% of what I wrote came from that place, instead of any smaller percent — this is a good motivator for me to continue and adds fuel to the fire to self-immolate.
In any case it is clear I won’t be able to reach you for now, but this doesn’t mean at some point in the future I won’t see something you write and see another opportunity to say something that will maybe strike you in a particular way that will get you to question something in a fruitful vein 
BTW I was sincere (and not bothered) when I wrote Illusions - #6 by claudiu , I do think it’s likely what you are experiencing (since I entered it by contemplating what you were contemplating) – but I suppose it didn’t move anything for you!
Cheers,
Claudiu
P.S. Your admonishment to John would be better re-worded as follows:
P.P.S. Re:
For the life of me I don’t understand this. It’s like:
Step 1 - Read the AFT site
Step 2 - Form your own understanding of what’s written there
Step 3 - Don’t listen to what anybody says about that understanding, even the people that wrote the AFT site
It just doesn’t make any sense, given that your stated goal is to attain to that which is reported on the AFT site…
Thanks @claudiu this response was very helpful to me, I’ve never deepened enough before the commitment of becoming harmlesness.
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I’ve just had an interesting few days of investigation
I was talking with a friend who was repeatedly complaining about their coworker’s aggressive behavior toward them, this was something that had been going on for months
After a few times of talking with them about this person, analyzing their actions with them etc., I asked if it was possible that my friend was doing anything to contribute to the situation. They found this upsetting, thinking that I was justifying their behavior.
We haven’t talked about it further yet, but it got me thinking about the popular conception of the idea of ‘victim blaming,’ which is considered improper.
Whereas Richard has no issue at all with ‘blaming the victim,’ talking about that issue directly here:
“And it is indeed all about ‘blaming the victim’ (to use the current jargon) … you have been physically harmed already and have been offered physical harm again! What more has to happen before you will inquire into yourself?
…
RESPONDENT: Would you tell the victims of Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan to inquire into themselves?
RICHARD: Yes … if they asked me. Identifying with by relating and belonging to a group – and espousing group ideals – invites attack from the bully-boys of another group who deem themselves superior. Why identify? Why relate? Why belong?
The pertinent question to ask oneself now is: ‘Why do I have the need to identify by relating to anyone or belonging to any group at all’? This is inquiring.
He talks about the same issue here, as well:
RESPONDENT: I have a question for anyone kind enough to answer. How do I relate to someone who has physically harmed me? Who wishes to harm me again?
RICHARD: Unless it is a sociopathic stranger prowling the streets taking any victim at random, the physical harm one receives is invoked by the way one feels about one’s assailant … whether one’s feelings are acted upon in behaviour or not.
So it’s clear that Richard sees any instance of aggression, or violence, (short of a sociopathic stranger prowling the streets taking any victim at random) as implicating the so-called ‘victim,’ as well as the attacker.
This is because we are all emotionally connected, intuitively sensitive to the emotions of others. Even when one is making a concerted effort to control one’s emotions and actions, or trying to ignore the emotions of others, they are still instantly instinctively felt.
After reading all this and thinking about how it potentially applied to my friend’s situation, I went to my hockey game. Late in a close game - when emotions ran high - I went after the puck when the other goalie had covered it, a big no-no. A player on the other team, who I had previous encounters with and had a negative opinion of, rushed up on me, pushing me away. I turned to confront him, saying nothing but making it clear with my demeanor that I ‘would not be messed with,’ something I had actually started to do last fall in an interest in not being ‘walked all over.’
The other player immediately launched into a tirade of verbal abuse, clearly very angry and aggressive toward me.
I initially found this abuse troubling and hurtful, but later as I reflected on the situation, I realized it was exactly illustrative of Richard’s claims around ‘victims’ and ‘attackers.’
While I had not said anything, and thus had done ‘nothing’ (in the normal sense) to provoke, I had intuitively felt negatively toward the other player. This was clearly enough to ‘set him off,’ as he intuitively responded to my emotional tone.
This has got me thinking of many other people I have felt similarly toward and not really questioned, as I had been successful in ‘keeping the lid on’ and not allowing the emotion to be expressed. However, it is clear that not outwardly expressing is not enough in itself - if I am feeling the emotion, then so is the other.
I’ve already had an instance this morning where I was feeling subtly negatively toward someone, caught myself, and began to see them in a different light. As soon as I made that subtle shift, I saw that my interaction with them was easier, and that they visibly relaxed.
I was immediately reminded of this passage:
“I cannot receive – or transmit – any ‘vibes’ at all … hence nobody ever offers physical harm. Verbal abuse very rarely happens (in face to face interactions) and when it does it falls flat on the floor for want of a receiver. The other then stops doing it in puzzlement … to be followed by a growing delight in finding a fellow human being free of any of the nonsense that epitomises the normal human interaction called ‘relationship’.”
-Richard
This whole time I have been feeling negatively toward those who I felt to be perpetuating the aggression & harm of humanity, but by feeling that way toward them, I am as guilty as they are, and indeed doing as much as they are to continue this pattern indefinitely. This aggression does nothing of benefit, only further propping up ‘them’ and ‘me.’ ‘I’ had generated identity around not being someone who perpetuated violence, and yet I was as guilty as anyone. And I had created an entire identity around ‘being an actualist,’ ‘someone who is contributing to the solution,’ but part of that was feeling negatively toward anyone who didn’t see things my way.
This also answers a mystery I have been trying to sort out for a few years now, of why I was having trouble being relaxed talking with others about actualism issues. It’s because I have this aggression hanging in the wings waiting for anyone who I don’t approve of.
Rather than needing to ‘disapprove’ or ‘approve’ of anyone, I can just like them as they are - warts and all:
[Richard]: “(…) the difference between you and me is that I actually care about my fellow human being and will leave no stone unturned, if that be what it takes, to understand them, to comprehend why they say what they do, so as to facilitate clarity in communication … I like my fellow human being and prefer that their self-imposed suffering come to an end, forever, sooner rather than later”.
Major wake-up call.
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Side-note:
This is a place where ‘emotionally accepting the intellectually unacceptable’ is relevant as well.
This also brings in the issue of not taking offense:
Richard: When the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body in 1981 took ‘his’ first steps on what has become known as the wide and wondrous path (to an actual freedom from the human condition/ from identity in toto) ‘he’ quickly ascertained that whilst ‘he’ could not stop people giving offence and/or being offensive what ‘he’ could stop was taking offence and/or being retributively offensive as ‘he’ knew of the tit-for-tat nature of the ever-recurring wars between neighbouring tribes in the New Guinea Highlands (what they called ‘pay-back’ warfare) which stretched back millennia in the past such that the specific nature of initial offence was lost forever in the mists of time.
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