‘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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I was reading the bulk of the initial posts on this topic yesterday, after replying to Vineeto.
I can relate to what Kiman was saying, but today I realized that there’s a nuance to the word ‘harmlessness’ (I recently briefly felt angry at my father, and got to look at it all in action).
First, yes, I’d also say that almost all malice stems from sorrow, as Kiman wrote. Shashank points to the ‘taking offense’ phenomenon as a good example. But even so, when that malice[1] is being experienced, at its core is the instinctual passion of aggression itself (expressed in one of the ways[1:1] at surface). The instinctual passion of aggression is ‘activated’ from the get go, which is important to bear in mind.
So, I did not like what I was feeling (with my father) – it was making me miserable, but moreover (and this is what I realized today) I also felt motivated not to hurt other people. Putting my father in a miserable mood (via my angry expressions / vibes) is not only unnecessary, but also that I’d of course rather that he (anyone in fact) be in a good mood. The best I can do here (in regards to being benevolent) is to not experience malice (aggression) in the first place. Obviously, I cannot ‘change’ him; but I can certainly not be malicious, which would be beneficial for him (and everyone) indirectly. I find this harmlessness (not be malicious) to be a greatly motivating factor on top of the existing[2] motivating factor of happiness (not be miserable)
So, yes, in that sense ‘harmlessness’ can be seen as being a little more than a mere ‘absence of malice’. It is this (active!) ‘motivation’ or ‘intent’ (beneficial one at that) to not cause harm, both for others and oneself. And it is the latter – ‘for oneself’ – where all of this dovetails back to the motivation to be happy. Hence, ‘inseparable’. Ain’t life grand! (hehehe)
Richard: As a broad generalised categorisation, ‘malice’ (the desire to hurt another person; active ill will, spite or hatred; a deep resentment) is used here as a ‘catch-all’ word for what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on through all the variations such as abhorrence; acerbity; acrimony; aggression; anger; animosity; antagonism; antipathy; aversion; bad blood; temper; bellicosity; belligerence; bile; bitchiness; bitterness; cantankerousness; cattiness; crabbiness; crossness; defamation; despisal; detestation; disgust; dislike; dissatisfaction; enmity; envy; evil; execration; grievance; grudge; grudgingness; hard feelings; harm; hate; hatred; hostility; ill feeling; ill will; ill-nature; ill-temper; inimicalness; irascibility; irritability; loathing; malevolence; malignance; malignity; militancy; moodiness; murder; opposition; peevishness; petulance; pique; querulousness; rancour; repulsion; repugnance; resentment; snideness; spite; spitefulness; spleen; spoiling; stifling; sullenness; testiness; touchiness; umbrage; unfriendliness; unkindness; vengefulness; venom; vindictiveness; warlikeness; wrath). Topics Malice ↩︎ ↩︎
See the two ‘Bonus’ quotes here as well as the “danger to other people” one here, which are reinterated here. ↩︎
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To this, I’ll add that ‘harmlessness’ can only seem like morality (at least, it has been to me)—and Kiman also brought this up above—only if considered from a position of not having already established happiness as no. 1 priority. Without happiness, considerations of harmlessless can easily devolve into moral forcing (at least, it has always for me).
When I’m happy (i.e., not miserable), there is now an “of course” to “yea, I’d want the same for others too” … and here both happiness and harmlessness (two different aspects of the same thing) ‘reinforce’ one another.
Thanks for resurrecting this thread!
There was a few posts where I almost made sense!
What I see is a perfect example of my cunning to keep myself ‘going’.
I was rejecting the entire notion that I am malice. Thus there was no possibility of a radical change.
For a single post or two, I did state that “the nature of self is malice” but that statement is disassociating that “self” with the person writing the statement!
The statement also adds the word “nature”, or something like it, to attribute the characteristic of malice, but not go as far to say “ I am malice and sorrow “, thus it’s me who has to radically change, not the outcome alone. The outcome (not yelling at people while driving) is synonymous with radical change.
To echo @hunterad , there are other “modes of failure “; ignoring, forgetting.
I experienced the “can’t “ mode of failure yesterday, then, immediately it turned into the “won’t “ mode, I can’t be harmless preceded i won’t be harmless.
Preceding both was ignoring being harmless (for over a decade), then forgetting I had seen the power of harmlessness.
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I want to add to what Vineeto wrote, which is that you’re even though you say that happiness and harmlessness are two different elements of the same thing, you’re nevertheless establishing a sequence of happiness first, then harmlessness second.
In practice, as they are both different ways to describe the same “motion”, there is no intrinsic sequence like you say here.
The way you describe that “of course” as the wishing well for the other indicates to me that you have indeed started to experientially touch on what the harmlessness aspect of happiness and harmlessness refers to.
So here’s the key: as actualism is experiential, the entire point of reading the words and learning the jargon, as it were, is to establish proper referents for all of the words (referent=that which is referred to by a word). The only possible way to do this is, of course, by experiencing that thing being described, genuinely experiencing it, and then connecting the word to that experience. And, of course, being sincere about, from then on, using that word only to refer to that and only when it actually is being experienced.
Now that you know what “harmlessness” refers to, consider that, if one is being sorrowful and sad then, by putting harmlessness, by considering the harmlessness aspect and committing to harmlessness as in that particular part of the equation, that also will lead to that person recognizing that them being sorrowful is harmful (in how it affects others) and thus minimizing that sorrow to get back to feeling good.
As a general rule of thumb I find that if what’s taking away from enjoying and appreciating is a malicious type of feeling or passion, then appealing to the happiness aspect of it functions to get me back to enjoying and appreciating. This is because I can see that me being malicious is not enjoying and appreciating.
Conversely if what’s taking away from feeling good is a sorrowful self-defeating self-abusing type of thing, then what works to get me out of it is to focus on the harmlessness aspect. I see that I’m not the only person in the world and that this not only negatively affects me,
it also negatively affects others as well as how I interact with them and the best I can do in the world, etc. That then makes the insight more receivable that it’s silly to feel sorrowful and sensible to get back to enjoying and appreciating.
The reason I go into all this detail is to explain that the entry point is not asymmetrical, of happiness first and harmlessness as an add-on. It is symmetrical. You can also start with harmlessness first and then happiness as the “free bonus”, as it were. Practically they’re both entry points into the same thing, which is that it is to describe two aspects of what is the closest to affective imitation to pure intent. Pure intent is just one thing, and it has the qualities of an intrinsic joy and appreciation of being alive, together with the benevolence that is a quality of this actually existing universe.
To further remove the “moralizing” aspect of tripping up what harmlessness is, consider the passage where Richard talks about happily harmlessly punching somebody when the situation calls for it (Selected Correspondence: Harmless).
Finally I’ll just add that, from personal experience, feeling harmless, in the way of using the word to properly refer to what it means in the context of actualism, feels really really good and is just wonderfully delightful. As such there’s no doubt as to exactly why now it promotes a more salubrious, ongoing and continuous enjoyment and appreciation of being alive.
Cheers
Claudiu
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