Vineeto: Regarding what Geoffrey called “The Direct Path” I’m not sure what he referred to, most likely to what is referred to as “The Direct Route”, bypassing spiritual enlightenment. You could ask him.
JohnE: Yes, this was a misunderstanding from my part and Kuba cleared it up for me.
Hi John,
I am pleased that this “misunderstanding” has now been cleared up. It turns out that Geoffrey never used the phrase “The direct path”. It was you who named it thataway and then asked on the forum “another question is in regards to “The direct path”” and “about jumping off the buss early” (link), as if it was a new separate technique.
Here is what Geoffrey said –
Geoffrey: I don’t remember writing this, I must have said something to that extent during one of those long video chats a few years ago.
Although I don’t think I’ve ever used, to mean “direct route”, the formulation “direct path” which is indeed confusing: it gives ideas of some secret hardcore tech for reckless actualists (kind of like the “rapid way” fantasies did in my time). As an aside, pursuing those fantasies amounts in my experience to nothing but delaying doing what works in favor of what doesn’t. Aka “how to lose time and get nowhere while thinking oneself a badass”. (link)
Vineeto: My question to you at this point is, why do you want to ‘self’-immolate?
JohnE: When I experience the world, even with just a lessened feeling of being and more towards the actual it is infinitely more enjoyable to be alive. So it makes sense to continue with that even farther as experienced in a PCE.
Yes, the actualism method is to blatantly imitate the actual as experienced in PCE –
Richard: The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that … it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry … or irritated … or even peeved, if that was possible.
It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. (Richard, AF List, No. 7, 27 Jan 1999).
And –
Richard: The application of the actualism method (which is, in essence, to effect an imitation of the actual) is a means to an end which is not within the human condition: as such it will, of necessity, ensure that the selfish instinct for individual survival (selfism) loses its dominance. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, Rick-a, 21 Jan 2006)
Vineeto: If you do not even care about the difference of experiencing being in the real world as a feeling being or experiencing the actual world when your ‘being’ is in abeyance, then your level of interest is rather lukewarm and presently not conducive to have a fruitful conversation.
JohnE: There’s a background to that statement that might make it clearer. I was never into all the maps, states stages and trying to figure out what I was experiencing while meditating and then tying that to a stage of insight etc. Instead I always found discussions like that counterproductive and was more interested in the practice than discussions about it. Similarly with actualism I know there are terms such as excellence experience etc. but I’m not sure what the definitions are for it and how many other descriptions like that there are.
As it is ultimately your own pure consciousness experience which is your lodestone and/or guiding light, and not the words written about actualism, it is vital to remember an unequivocal PCE and differentiate it from other experiences such as excellence experiences, ASCs or any other experiences within the human condition. Perhaps some selected correspondence on those various terms can give you a clearer understanding about the differences. (link)
JohnE: So for me I instead see it as a slider where on one side I’m deep in the story about me and feelings are controlling my actions. And on the other side is the PCE.
There is certainly no such a thing as a “slider” from the ‘real’ world to the actual world. There is no connection between the real world in which feeling beings live and the actual world. A feeling being, ‘I’/ ‘me’, is forever locked out of the actual world, in other words ‘I’ can never experience actuality. Maybe this quote makes it more clear –
Richard: Nothing in the real-world is genuine (as in actually authentic, true, pure, bona fide, veritable, valid, non-counterfeit, non-fake, original, unadulterated, unalloyed, the real McCoy, and so on).
Respondent: I have no idea. It all seems to give me pleasure or pain depending on what’s going on. I’d say that thinking, imagining and feeling give me less pleasure than anything sensory, but then some thoughts I find ‘interesting’ (which is pleasurable) and some feelings I find ‘nice’ (like when I’m really happy). It’s all very confusing. What needs to go?
Richard: Eventually … everything.
Respondent: What needs to stay?
Richard: Ultimately … nothing.
Respondent: If the whole lot is to go, then how is it done?
Richard: By asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) until it becomes a non-verbal attitude towards life, a wordless approach to being alive, so that the slightest deviation from the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition – a way epitomised by a felicitous and innocuous naïve sensuousness – is not only automatically noticed almost immediately but the instance whereby the deviation occurred is readily ascertained such as to enable the resumption of one’s habituated blithesome and benign way again … sooner rather than later. (Richard, AF List, No. 90, 14 Jun 2005a).
In a genuine PCE it is patently obvious that one’s experience “is out of this world”, as in “jamais vu” (never seen) experience, that ‘I’ am nowhere to be found, where everything is so perfect that one could live like this forever.
If you consider it as a “slide” or a “scale” from good to better to excellent to PCE to actual freedom, then perhaps what you thought was a PCE was something else?
JohnE: I very much care about where on that slide I am, and I am here because I feel better when I’m more towards the PCE side of that scale and want to learn how to live there. But if going into and learning the different names that would correlate to that scale would make that easier, then I’m open to trying that out and see if it helps.
In order to “live there”, ‘you’, the feeling being, will have to die. ‘You’ can never experience the actual world. That’s what Geoffrey was referring to when he said –
Geoffrey: As long as you find yourself looking for the door that is tiny (the recipe, the formula, the secret sauce, the psychic gun, the pill, the trick), you’re nowhere near and should instead walk the path.
As long as you find the path narrow, arduous, vanishing, confusing, instead of wide and wondrous as it is, you’re not walking it, you are merely lost in the woods nearby – and should instead find it in yourself to take a first clear step in the right direction, such as making a commitment to happiness and harmlessness.
The door is wide as the universe, just as the path is by imitation.
When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains. [Emphasis added]. (link)
When this has sunk in deeply then the actualism method of channelling all one’s affective energy from the ‘good’ feelings, the affectionate and desirable emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are loving and trusting) and the ‘bad’ feelings, the hostile and invidious emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are hateful and fearful) towards the felicitous/ innocuous feelings will make more sense.
The actualism method offers a way to diminish the bulk of the identity you are, peeling off layer by layer of identity-enhancing feelings and replacing them with identity-diminishing felicitous feelings until ‘I’ grow so thin and feeble that at some point ‘I’ will agree to relinquish control and go out-from-under-control, the different-way-of-being virtual freedom Richard has described many times.
Vineeto: Ah, the quick if not instant way to an actual freedom – before you experientially understand what it is where you want to go. Here is what I wrote to another a few months ago who has been similarly looking for a shortcut to become free (…)
JohnE: This is from a misunderstanding on my part. I thought there were two different methods or ways of practicing the method, one called the direct path and one the actual method. Naturally I’d be interested in hearing how the latest people to become actually free did so.
There is only one way to become actually free and Geoffrey summed it up brilliantly in the last sentence of the quote presented above –
Geoffrey: When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains. [Emphasis added]. (link)
Vineeto: Also, as a suggestion, because you said you feel “overwhelmed” by “so much text” (link) or are “not much of a reader” (link) – to read a little bit with vital interest and therefore fascinated attention can be more beneficial than ticking the box for having read a large amount with only limited interest. There are also text-to-audio applications you can research.
JohnE: Someone else also suggested this to me and it’s worked well. Listening to the recordings have been a great help as well, thank you for sharing those. (link)
You are very welcome, I am pleased it worked well for you.
Cheers Vineeto
