>Adam-H: Thanks Vineeto for the reminders. I did have in mind that my ‘30 minutes a day’ would be in addition to ongoing in-daily-life actualism practice, but I think this is true:
>>Vineeto: the 30 min per day easily becomes a duty, a chore, a daily ‘work-out’ like a session at the gym, and that would certainly defeat the purpose of learning the art of how to have fun and feel good.
>Adam-H: It brought up the question: if the actualism method is to enjoy and appreciate being alive, why do I need to make an effort of spending time on it? Why is it not its own reward that I would just naturally spend my free time doing?
Hi Adam,
If you read more on the Actual Freedom website you will have it confirmed that your genetic predisposition is fear, aggression, nurture and desire, which is additionally socially conditioned to somewhat control the instinctual passions. You, the identity, having formed itself from those passions and beliefs, concepts, etc. and is pre-dispositioned to remain as ‘you’ are. (See for instance Richard’s Selected Correspondence on ‘I’, ‘Identity’ ‘Self’ and ‘Formation and Persistence of the Social Identity’).
As for effort, if you want to call intent, persistence and determination effort to perhaps overcome the habitual tendency of leaving things as they are then this might be informative –
>>Richard: It does take some doing to start off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, This Moment of Being Alive).
>>Richard: However, it is never too late to begin to undo that which has been done to you. One of the marvellous aspects of entering into actualism is that it is a wide and wondrous path full of delight and discovery … with some down-turns from time-to-time as the old ways reassert themselves. I will not pretend for a moment that all is rosy when one begins to dismantle one’s belief system; one’s very identity is at stake … not to mention the self. The identity and self will put up a good fight for they want to stay in existence as they have a lot to lose. To wit: their life. As the sense of self is firmly based upon the instinct for survival, it will get up to all kinds of tricks to retain and regain its ascendancy. But it is not a hopeless case: if I can do it, anyone can. I am not special. I was born of normal parents and went to an ordinary State school. I got a job and worked for a living like anyone else. I became married and raised a family. I claim no special abilities other than a determination to succeed in my desired ambition. In 1980 I had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ wherein I experienced the perfection and purity of the universe as-it-is. I was hooked! I devoted myself to the task of setting myself free of absolutely everything that stood in the way of attaining what I had experienced. The word ‘fail’ is not in my vocabulary. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 1, 26 Jun 1997).
Syd had a similar misconception(?) when he called an instance of not feeling good “a glitch” as if the entire instinctual programming plus social identity was merely “a glitch” (link). It’s good to be aware of the ever-inventive cunning of ‘me’ and “the instinct for survival” the “sense of self” is based on.
>Adam-H: This connected with my other recent contemplations about ‘having a standoff with myself’ and the ways and which I am still trying to force myself to feel good against my will. It’s obvious my efforts still involve this to some degree, even though I thought I ‘saw through it’.
What I’m wondering is if this ‘internal split’ is always present at least in part until one is actually free?
What you call “my efforts still involve this to some degree” is the difference of a realisation and its actualisation. (See FAQ, Difference Between Realisation and Actualisation?)
The “internal split” will disappear once you recognize, at the core of your ‘being’, that you are as sad and as mad and as bad as everyone else, i.e. that you are instilled with the instinctual passions and its consequent social identity. Upon this penetrating recognition you can stop fighting to hide any occurring bad feelings and their twins of ‘good’ feelings. In other words you recognize each time that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feeling are ‘me’. Then putting the actualism method into practice as described in Richard’s article linked above should be a breeze.
>Adam-H: In the same vein, a contemplation I’ve been running lately goes along these lines: If the things I felt bad about were truly just preferences, (e.g. feeling bad because the ice cream store ran out of chocolate and I had to get vanilla) then would it not be deeply obvious that feeling bad was silly? Since this is clear enough, then what separates the things that I actually do feel bad about from being preferences, and how can I see them in the same way as those ice cream flavors?
And here continues the watering-down of the actualism method – first remove ‘effort’, i.e. determination, then postpone the disappearance of the “internal split” until you are actually free and now assuming that everything is a matter of “truly just preferences” and nothing else. I only list them like this to demonstrate how the identity “will get up to all kinds of tricks to retain and regain its ascendancy” so you can recognize further tricks as such when they occur.
>Adam-H: This is a good way right now to bring me face to face with conscious, heartfelt objections to treating things as preferences, which seems to be a prerequisite to unconditional happiness and harmlessness, which is helping me unsplit myself. (link)
Before you aim for the far horizon of “unconditional happiness and harmlessness”, why not make feeling good your first priority in life. Putting everything on a preference basis may not be sufficient to further in-depth exploration (when strong fears and desires interfere with feeling good), especially when you call them “truly just preferences”. But when you have the intent to leave no stone unturned in order to blatantly imitate the actual, you will be successful.
>> Richard: What I did was:
• To constantly have the question running: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ This kept ‘me’ on the ball for all the waking hours.
• I did whatever to induce PCE’s on a daily basis so as to gain maximum benefit from living the nearest approximation to an actual freedom that was possible … maybe two to three times a day.
• I examined all ‘my’ beliefs – cunningly disguised as ‘truths’ – as they came up in ‘my’ moment-to-moment living.
• I 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 even irritated … or even peeved.
It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure.
Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive … no longer the ‘do-er’. (Richard, List B, No. 12a, 16 Jul 1998).
Cheers Vineeto