Hunterad's journal

Journals
141

Thanks Vineeto!

I seem to be hijacking all journals these days!

After thinking these thoughts about “anxiety’ and fear not being in my chest, I started to contemplate that I was choosing the feeling.

I do respect your words and those of Richard. So, as to not contradict them, I do consider that these feelings have always been very fundamental. I have never not considered the feeling of my heart feeling “off” and the flood of chemical changes in me being anything other that actually happening.

My point was that I was somehow choosing this. That I as a feeling, as a being, was making whatever actual discomfort and distress my physical heart was experiencing, worse. I was making it worse by being afraid of it.

1 Like
142

I’ve been trying to up the ante with how consistently happy and harmless I can be, and it’s lead to some moments where I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself and can’t get out of feeling bad.

What if often seems like is when I’m trying to get back to feeling good (before more deeply investigating the issue) from whatever I’m feeling bad about, I have two main tactics:

  1. Focus on ‘priority’: because I want to be permanently happy and harmless and consider that my highest goal, it’s not worth feeling bad about anything.
  2. Focus on ‘control/pragmatism’: because I’ve seen that I can take effective action while feeling happy and harmless, it doesn’t help my situation to feel bad about it, I can both feel good and take action as needed.

Both of these have worked well at times, but I don’t feel like I can get either to work 100% of the time, I don’t have it down to a science. When it doesn’t work, it feels like the stress comes and goes in waves. I never fully getting back to feeling good, usually until more time passes and I’m distracted by other things in life or go to sleep. I find that for a few minutes I deeply contemplate one of these two perspectives and start feeling better and start seeing feeling bad as silly or at least unnecessary, then a new thought about the issue strikes me, and I start back down the feeling bad path.

I realize that the way I’m laying things out it seems like what I think I need is more discipline/focus to get ‘all the way’ back to feeling good, but this is probably an indicator I’m off track because I have heard many times that feeling good is not about willpower. There are times where I simply get back to feeling good by contemplating one of these perspectives, so I know it’s possible without some great effort, but I don’t really know why sometimes that doesn’t seem to do the trick.

1 Like
143

I was reading Vineeto’s “Exploring Death and Altered States of Consciousness” last night and an area in particular stands out to me because you say, “I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself.”

I thought I need to find out more about the feeling of impatience. Impatience has always been one of the driving forces in my life and kept me going, counteracting the innate inertia to get me back on the track of what I wanted to achieve. But the more I am actually here and enjoying life, the more the feeling of impatience becomes a nuisance and is, in fact, preventing me from enjoying what is happening here in this moment.

Of course, for most of the process on the path to an actual freedom I need a lot of impatience, a burning discontent and dissatisfaction with life as it is and with the second rate compromise of living that both real-world and spiritual-world solutions have on offer. But with the incremental dismantling of all the emotions that constitute my self I come to understand the role that impatience is playing now – preventing ‘me’ from disappearing.

The main fuel for this feeling of impatience comes from the notion that there is something better ‘out there’, in the future – that magic ingredient that will then make life as perfect as the ending of children’s fairytale – and then they lived happily ever after. And yet it is this very feeling of impatience, that particular bit of my ‘self’, that prevents me from the sensate-only experiencing the perfection of this moment.

Impatience is my ‘self’ telling my ‘self’ to go away in order for life to be perfect thereafter. What a furphy! Who am I trying to fool? This is what cunningness in action looks like. It is fascinating to see the self splitting itself into two yet again in order to pretend that there is change happening without really having to change anything. Seeing through the charade, I experience the thrill that accompanies the shift from a furphy to an actual experience, from ‘feeling impatient’ to actively dismantling the ‘self’, from stepping out of the ‘real’ world to arriving here. I understand that the only way to approach self-immolation is by welcoming the death of ‘me’ with free will, open arms and a full YES. It is a magic formula, that turning around 180 degrees again, a yes to immolation rather than a no to life as it is. When death is welcome with the same thrilling anticipation as a sexual playmate then I know I am on the right track.

So impatience is being replaced by an understanding of redundancy – the more I experientially understand about the human condition the more ‘I’ become redundant because life in the actual world is utterly safe and already perfect. ‘I’ am not needed to stay alive. The more I understand the chemical, psychological and psychic programming of the brain, the more I can see that this programming is outdated, faulty and redundant in every single aspect – ‘I’ am not needed at all. Virtual Freedom is the ongoing increasing experience of ‘my’ redundancy, kind of getting used to not interfering with perfection. The way I see it now is that death is simply an extension of this continuing discovery of ‘me’, the spoiler, being redundant, turning 98% redundancy to 99% and 99% to 100% … … pop.

The only way I can reach this 100% redundancy is by being here all the time, doing what is happening without emotionally interfering – and if there is an emotion, then investigating it, nutting it out, sitting it out, thinking it through, understanding its follies and furphies. In the end, every emotion is understood as nothing but an objection to and fear of being here – and an objection to being redundant as an entity.

4 Likes
144

This has been a contemplation lately, and that is there is a lot of subconscious stress, we get so used to it that it’s just “how things are”, reading what you have written really brought it into focus. . What I mean is, I see these deeper issues reflecting in all aspects of life, but often don’t acknowledge them. So, they do “pop up” when I am in a better mood, and I know the experience of some simple intension (being determined to feel good), just not working like it did yesterday.

Reading what you wrote really brought this into focus just now. It reminds me that some issues are going to take time, we have to make space for ourselves, over time, to hear what it is we have buried under everyday issues.

3 Likes
145

Adam-H: I’ve been trying to up the ante with how consistently happy and harmless I can be, and it’s lead to some moments where I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself and can’t get out of feeling bad.
What it often seems like is when I’m trying to get back to feeling good (before more deeply investigating the issue) from whatever I’m feeling bad about, I have two main tactics:

  1. Focus on ‘priority’: because I want to be permanently happy and harmless and consider that my highest goal, it’s not worth feeling bad about anything.
  2. Focus on ‘control/pragmatism’: because I’ve seen that I can take effective action while feeling happy and harmless, it doesn’t help my situation to feel bad about it, I can both feel good and take action as needed.

Hi Adam-H,

I get the impression, and I might be wrong, that you put a certain moral pressure on yourself when “trying to get back to feeling good” as if you renamed your normal moral code to actualism. Then upping the ante simply means that ‘you’ are at loggerheads with yourself that you must feel good … or else.

The result is that for this you have to push away the unwanted uncomfortable feelings, which only gives fuel to ‘me’ and those feelings. So, the first thing is to relax, and become interested in what is going on. Someone shared that going back to before the incident which caused the dip in the good mood did help to get back to feeling good, at least sufficient enough to look into the cause of it.

Adam-H: Both of these have worked well at times, but I don’t feel like I can get either to work 100% of the time, I don’t have it down to a science. When it doesn’t work, it feels like the stress comes and goes in waves. I never fully getting back to feeling good, usually until more time passes and I’m distracted by other things in life or go to sleep. I find that for a few minutes I deeply contemplate one of these two perspectives and start feeling better and start seeing feeling bad as silly or at least unnecessary, then a new thought about the issue strikes me, and I start back down the feeling bad path.

Richard’s suggestion is to first see, really see, the silliness of feeling bad – not with control like you do it – but as a genuine insight that it is a waste of time to feel bad when you could feel ok or neutral or good. For example –

Respondent: Richard, how long do you think will it take before it becomes automatic to have the question running?
Richard: About as long as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. …
Respondent: How soon will the rewards can be reaped by the method (in getting rid of the ‘me’) so that the momentum can be acquired by the success rather than the veracity/ power of your words?
Richard: About as soon as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. (Richard, AF List, No. 71, 9 Jun 2004).

Perhaps it is not about sudorifically upping the anti or “having a standoff” with yourself but really seeing that it is not worth your while feeling bad, ever. Then you can go back to look at what caused the dip in the mood and sincerely find out, possibly to never have it happen again. Or to put it differently, the commitment to being happy and harmless is not by trying to do but by cutting the fondness/ attachment to feeling bad, no matter what the reason. I know from experience, it wasn’t always easy but that it takes a readiness to ‘sacrifice’ one’s cherished feelings of bitter-sweetness, righteous anger, pining, or perhaps virtuous impatience – whatever it is that keeps you from feeling good.

You can see that in my last sentence I added the ‘good’ feeling aspect to possible reasons for feeling bad, just to help your investigation later on into the reasons for feeling bad. There is a reason why feeling in a certain way is soo attractive, if not addictive.

Adam-H: I realize that the way I’m laying things out it seems like what I think I need is more discipline/focus to get ‘all the way’ back to feeling good, but this is probably an indicator I’m off track because I have heard many times that feeling good is not about willpower. There are times where I simply get back to feeling good by contemplating one of these perspectives, so I know it’s possible without some great effort, but I don’t really know why sometimes that doesn’t seem to do the trick. (link)

That’s your indicator that whenever it becomes sudorific you are using control and thus strengthen ‘me’. Whereas when you remember either your PCE or how good it feels to feel good, it may become simple. Perhaps remembering your long-lost childhood naiveté might help. Above all, be a friend to yourself –

Richard: You have to live with yourself twenty four hours a day; if you are talking to yourself in such a way that you are not a good friend to yourself, then what are you doing? If I were to talk like that to you, be sharp with you, you would have nothing to do with me. Are you not sharp upon yourself? (Audio-Taped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible)

Cheers Vineeto

1 Like
146

Adam-H: then a new thought about the issue strikes me, and I start back down the feeling bad path. (link)

Andrew: This has been a contemplation lately, and that is there is a lot of subconscious stress, we get so used to it that it’s just “how things are”, reading what you have written really brought it into focus. What I mean is, I see these deeper issues reflecting in all aspects of life, but often don’t acknowledge them. So, they do “pop up” when I am in a better mood, and I know the experience of some simple intension (being determined to feel good), just not working like it did yesterday.
Reading what you wrote really brought this into focus just now. It reminds me that some issues are going to take time, we have to make space for ourselves, over time, to hear what it is we have buried under everyday issues. (link)

Hi Andrew,

The good news is that not feeling good when it happens has “brought this into focus” – and not only that but now you have more of an inkling that, and how, you can do something about it.

I suggest, start with being a friend to yourself – to notice the habitual put-down of yourself (inculcated and trained for decades) and stop doing it whenever you notice. There is no need for putting yourself down at all as you already want to change for the better. So you are way ahead of your habitual ‘self’ in that you are determined to actively become more happy and harmless and have some effective tools to do it. It’s just a habit when you put yourself, so no reason to continue a bad habit. If you need more tools or understanding, it is amply explained on the Actual Freedom website, whatever topic you choose to go deeper into.

You say “some issues are going to take time” – yes time, but more so courage. Courage to admit that those feelings are there despite one’s best intention and that they need to be acknowledged and sensibly looked at. Some, when discovered, you can discard right away, some are part of a larger pattern, perhaps intricately interwoven with some desire, or pride, or other cherished feelings. That takes courage to investigate. But then you will find that those cherished feelings (the ‘good’ feelings which spawn the bad ones) are not worth keeping either. Once you start it becomes either each time you have success.

Cheers Vineeto

147

This post initially triggered some understanding but also some frustration that I saw later came out of my own cunningness. I think I want to leave in my initial reaction and then show the moment where I connected the dots for myself as a reminder for future me how that transition can occur :laughing::

---------- Initial reaction -----------

I think you’re right, and I can see how the moral pressure leads to pushing away those feelings rather than genuinely seeing that they are silly and moving into feeling good. Reflecting on this more, I think I move back and forth between the ‘genuine’ practice and the disingenuous practice fairly often. There’s something difficult for me though about how to make the genuine practice happen.

I guess there is a difference between a genuine insight and ‘trying to see’. I think where I struggle is that ‘having’ a genuine insight as a method feels difficult, it almost feels like you just have to wait until the genuine insight comes if the effort to have it is not going in the right direction.

I see again that the key is the genuine willingness/readiness, it makes total sense to me and fits with my past intermittent experiences. When that willingness/readiness is there, the practice is hardly even a practice, it’s effortless. But again it feels like this is just saying “here is what it is like when it works.” How does one make an identity…

---------- end of initial reaction -----------

While writing that phrase out I had this thought “wait, I am that identity, I don’t have to ‘make’ it do anything I can just do it.” I can see how I reacted to bad feelings - by becoming a virtuously impatient identity whose narrative is a story about being special for wanting to feel good. As soon as I saw that, there was a feeling of having my ‘split’ self fuse back together with my relatively more naive but stressed self. This consolidated ‘me’ was able to then instantly go back to feeling good because it saw that it was silly to feel bad when it was entirely up to me how to feel. I think this is the clearest I’ve ever been on the point that sincerity can unlock naivety. It’s also clear to me how being my own best friend was missing.

It’s interesting that being your own best friend sort of has two meanings:

  1. don’t be hard on yourself for your mistakes
  2. actually want what’s best for yourself, meaning you won’t let yourself ruin your own day

It definitely seems like it takes time, but I have a feeling whenever we are on the other side of this we will look back like all the other people who became actually free seem to and say “oh I guess I could have done that all along” :joy:

This was great to read, thanks. Who am I trying to fool indeed. It’s funny to realize that the self splitting into two is not about it “trying too hard” to make something happen as I previously thought, it’s actually about try to make sure nothing happens :grin:

2 Likes
Andrew
148

Hi Vineeto,

To echo Adam’s theme of initial reaction to later appreciation , I took this as encouragement but didn’t specifically have anything to be courageous about. I was also surprised by the encouragement to be friendly with myself, it is always a great reminder for me.

My later appreciation came after a morning walk by the river, where I determined that it would be a good idea to start a YouTube channel. A somewhat “pie in the sky” idea, but something creative with at a glimmer of earning potential in the long run. Anyway, regardless of the soundness of the idea, a whole heap of fear arose and I was genuinely afraid.

The fear goes something like;
“Here I go again! Another failed scheme, another waste of time and money, another way you will fail. Another proof that you are useless and a fraud. A pretender, how many times will you dream this useless crap?”.

My eyes are full of tears now. I didn’t really want to write anything, but it was significant that the endorsement of courage came before I realised I needed it. I wrote because I have been progressively seeing how afraid I am, all the time. How I have pushed beyond it over my lifetime, but as age has tempered bravado, there is not the time to fail like I used to. The “hope” has less potential time to work with.

Having said all of that, there is a benefit to this particular idea. Something that may well benefit my sons, and give them some encouragement in like to push into the unknown.

For context, I am sitting in a corner surrounded by all my musical equipment. Last night I decided to just enjoy myself. To not care at all about recording anything. To forget about any end goal, or product. I had an enjoyable time studying the key of “D” and going through chord inversions without any goals except to explore them.

Cheers Andrew

PS, thinking a post will be quick, then realising I should have posted in my own journal.

2 Likes
Andrew
Andrew
149

Adam-H: (…) I see again that the key is the genuine willingness/ readiness, it makes total sense to me and fits with my past intermittent experiences. When that willingness/ readiness is there, the practice is hardly even a practice, it’s effortless. But again it feels like this is just saying “here is what it is like when it works.” How does one make an identity… (end of initial reaction)

Hi Adam,

This is a very insightful post and well worth keeping for future references. When the readiness is there then there is no conflict, not one side trying and the other side resisting.

Adam-H: While writing that phrase out I had this thought “wait, I am that identity, I don’t have to ‘make’ it do anything I can just do it.” I can see how I reacted to bad feelings – by becoming a virtuously impatient identity whose narrative is a story about being special for wanting to feel good. As soon as I saw that, there was a feeling of having my ‘split’ self fuse back together with my relatively more naive but stressed self. This consolidated ‘me’ was able to then instantly go back to feeling good because it saw that it was silly to feel good when it was entirely up to me how to feel. I think this is the clearest I’ve ever been on the point that sincerity can unlock naivety.

Excellent – when you had the realisation that “wait, I am that identity” that is the same as realising that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ – no conflict, simply the choice to be whatever feeling you prefer to be. It’s great, isn’t it, when you discover some of the tricks ‘I’ get up to – and once you see it, the trick no longer works and you do feel good. And this is the key to sincerity.

So should you ever struggle to get out of feeling bad, look for this sincerity, the “willingness/ readiness” and see what happens.

Adam-H: It’s also clear to me how being my own best friend was missing.
It’s interesting that being your own best friend sort of has two meanings:

  1. don’t be hard on yourself for your mistakes
  2. actually want what’s best for yourself, meaning you won’t let yourself ruin your own day

I like that break-down, it makes it very clear. A friend doesn’t just say “there, there” and try to console you, a friend “won’t let yourself ruin your own day”.

Adam-H: This has been a contemplation lately, and that is there is a lot of subconscious stress, we get so used to it that it’s just “how things are”, reading what you have written really brought it into focus. What I mean is, I see these deeper issues reflecting in all aspects of life, but often don’t acknowledge them. So, they do “pop up” when I am in a better mood, and I know the experience of some simple intention (being determined to feel good), just not working like it did yesterday.

This is also part of being a friend, to not let the “deeper issues” ruin your day. When you feel good you allow yourself to acknowledge them, look at them more dispassionately, and then an understanding will emerge of what’s the source of the trouble, and action can follow. When the intention is sincere, as you described above, it will reveal the various aspects of those “deeper issues” including the connected ‘good’ feelings, and you can similarly decide to no longer let them ruin your day. Sincerity and courage.

Adam-H: Reading what you wrote really brought this into focus just now. It reminds me that some issues are going to take time, we have to make space for ourselves, over time, to hear what it is we have buried under everyday issues.
It definitely seems like it takes time, but I have a feeling whenever we are on the other side of this we will look back like all the other people who became actually free seem to and say “oh I guess I could have done that all along”.

This “it takes time” can be an excuse of not yet having the courage to look, and as you say in hindsight one “could have done that all along”. But I also know there are gestation periods, when certain insights need to percolate in the background until they are ripe for action – after all, actualism is the most radical change one undertakes, bit by bit, moving outside the parameters of thousands of years of human ‘wisdom’. It certainly is a grand adventure.

Adam-H: I was reading Vineeto’s “Exploring Death and Altered States of Consciousness” last night and an area in particular stands out to me because you say, “I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself.”
This was great to read, thanks. Who am I trying to fool indeed. It’s funny to realize that the self splitting into two is not about it “trying too hard” to make something happen as I previously thought, it’s actually about try to make sure nothing happens. (link)

Ha, it was actually you who first said “I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself and can’t get out of feeling bad” (link). I simply took the cue from your own insight. “The ‘self’ splitting into two” is a very common and often successful trick to keep yourself engaged in battling yourself and thus avoiding any change for the better. It is well worth keeping an eye out for it every time you are getting stuck in “trying too hard” now that you have so obviously seen that it’s all “about try to make sure nothing happens”. Excellent.

This quote might be helpful –

James: … I can see that I am addicted to being me because that’s who I am and I don’t want to let go of that. I can also see that the essential ‘me’ is suffering when it is stripped bare. However, since ‘me’ is essentially suffering ‘I’ try to escape through various highs. Once these highs evaporate I am back to being ‘me’ suffering. Makes sense?
Richard: Yes … and even though the highs inevitably evaporate ‘I’ still keep on trying to escape from being ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am via that path. Why do ‘I’ persist in re-treading a path, over and again, that just does not deliver the goods?
James: That is a good question. What comes to mind is I keep treading the same path over and over because that is what I know. That is what is familiar.
Richard: Indeed it is … so in order to successfully escape one needs to abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods, so that the energy one is frittering away fruitlessly is available for the unknown path, the unfamiliar path, the path that does deliver the goods. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, James3, 1 Nov 2002)

Cheers Vineeto

1 Like
150

Heya - looking at your journal, it seems to me that somehow experientially locating or discovering a third alternative to these ‘good feelings’ would be most beneficial.

Your ‘dirty’ intent of “really trying to appear happy and harmless” was also what I was doing for most part in the name of actualism. I talked about it here:

In your “really trying to appear happy and harmless” I recognized my own “did it even with “happy and harmless””.

Speaking personally, both an affective awareness of current feelings (esp. good feelings) as well as the memory of a perfection experience seems to play a vital role in this.

You wrote the above about 4 years ago. Are you still going for PCEs (in addition to upping your baseline)?

151

The intent to try to appear happy and harmless rather than actually be happy and harmless is a particular ‘trick’ I don’t think I’ve gotten up to in quite a while. But I do agree that experientially locating the third alternative is vital for directing ‘me’ in the right direction, and without that firmly in place there are many ways in which “I” will delay or misdirect things. I think the connection that is in place for me is to naivete which is probably less effective than a clear memory of a PCE, but is still a unique and hard to mistake aspect of the felicitous and innocuous feelings.

It is at least in the direction of the end of ‘cunningness’ and a blessed release from the perversity of the loneliness and resentfulness of being a ‘calculating’ self.

I spent some time around then really focusing on PCEs, but ultimately continued to have more success by focusing on upping my baseline. The progress has still been slow over the long term, but has sped up a bit recently. Lately I do make time to spend 30 minutes per day with my only focus being the actualism method, but it hasn’t lead to a PCE, usually just to various levels of feeling good, occasionally getting to the point of feeling myself to be the ‘beer’ and not the ‘doer’.

I still think of upping my baseline as being what actualism is fundamentally about moreso than the ‘PCE practice’, and that’s partly because I still find PCEs a bit mysterious and out of reach.

1 Like
152

Adam-H: The intent to try to appear happy and harmless rather than actually be happy and harmless is a particular ‘trick’ I don’t think I’ve gotten up to in quite a while. But I do agree that experientially locating the third alternative is vital for directing ‘me’ in the right direction, and without that firmly in place there are many ways in which “I” will delay or misdirect things. I think the connection that is in place for me is to naivete which is probably less effective than a clear memory of a PCE, but is still a unique and hard to mistake aspect of the felicitous and innocuous feelings.
It is at least in the direction of the end of ‘cunningness’ and a blessed release from the perversity of the loneliness and resentfulness of being a ‘calculating’ self.

Hi Adam,

That is good news – you discovered this particular trick and abandoned it for good as fooling yourself is obviously of no value. Finding the various ways how ‘you’ “will delay or misdirect” is something like a game once you are clear on your intent to be happy and harmless. ‘Vineeto’ enjoyed it after ‘she’ became a bit more acquainted with ‘her’ tricks and at some point called it “balloon-popping party” –

‘Vineeto’ to Irene: Having come that far in my contemplations I likened the whole path to freedom as a big balloon-popping party. Imagine a room full of balloons floating near the ceiling, in different colours, with different names of instincts, emotions, beliefs and conditioning written on them. The aim of the game is to pop every single balloon one by one by questioning, investigating and identifying the nature of the various beliefs, emotions and instincts. Once the last balloon is popped I am free. I imagine it to be light green, big, evasive, with fear written all over it. I need to keep it firmly in place, not getting distracted by doubt or other flight manoeuvres, and then – pop! That imagination changes the whole adventure from its heroic and dramatic frame into the thrilling and delightful journey it actually is. It also pulls the plug of making a big fuss about it. Mind you, I still consider it the best game to play (Vineeto to Irene, 4 Oct 1998).

It was an imagination on ‘her’ part but it captured the understanding that it’s all about feeling good and not being bogged down by finding out how ‘she’ felt and that one can discover and remove the obstacles to feeling good and bring them to the bright light of awareness.

Once you take yourself less serious and accept that you are as bad and as mad as everyone else, genetically endowed with instinctual passions, then there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by discovering how you ‘tick’.

Syd: You wrote the above about 4 years ago. Are you still going for PCEs (in addition to upping your baseline)?

Adam-H: I spent some time around then really focusing on PCEs, but ultimately continued to have more success by focusing on upping my baseline. The progress has still been slow over the long term, but has sped up a bit recently. Lately I do make time to spend 30 minutes per day with my only focus being the actualism method, but it hasn’t lead to a PCE, usually just to various levels of feeling good, occasionally getting to the point of feeling myself to be the ‘beer’ and not the ‘doer’.
I still think of upping my baseline as being what actualism is fundamentally about more so than the ‘PCE practice’, and that’s partly because I still find PCEs a bit mysterious and out of reach. (link)

A wise decision. In actualism there is no such thing as a “PCE practice” (it was the invention of some spiritualists from the DhO, together with so-called PCE-walks) – the very idea is an oxymoron because the PCE happens when you allow it to happen. You cannot control or structure yourself to have a PCE.

Also, your idea to “spend 30 min per day with my only focus being the actualism method” is not what Richard meant when introducing the actualism method. It is something to do all day, in all situations – to be affectively aware and attentive to how you experience yourself affectively (i.e. how you feel) so that you can get back to feeling good whenever your mood drops below feeling good. Once you notice that, you get back to feeling good by recognizing it is a waste of this precious moment of being alive, and then –

Richard: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago would do is first get back to feeling good and then, and only then, suss out where, when, how, why – and what for – feeling bad happened as experience had shown ‘him’ that it was counter-productive to do otherwise.
What ‘he’ always did however, as it was often tempting to just get on with life then, was to examine what it was all about within half-an-hour of getting back to feeling good (while the memory was still fresh) even if it meant sometimes falling back into feeling bad by doing so … else it would crop up again sooner or later.
Nothing, but nothing, can be swept under the carpet. (Richard, AF List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

If you only “spend 30 min per day with my only focus being the actualism method” then you allow yourself to be inattentive for about 15.5 hours per day to be sad or angry or grumpy or feel neutral. Thus, by doing nothing about it you reinforce the habit of letting those negative moods continue governing your life with the excuse that later on you will spend 30 mins of doing something about it.

Richard: ‘The actualism method is an awareness-cum-attentiveness method – not a method of enquiry – inasmuch one is aware of/ attentive as to how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) so that the slightest deviation from the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition can be attended to forthwith … thus enabling one to live as peacefully and harmoniously (as happily and harmlessly) as is humanly possible each moment again.
Any and all enquiry has far more chance of success when one is back on track again. (Richard, AF List, No. 68d, 10 Oct 2005).

There are many informative tool-tips in the article ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ which can give you clarifying information how to apply the actualism method easily and successfully. (Make sure Java-scripting is enabled).

Whereas 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. I also recommend Richard’s email to Claudiu in February 2016; it is very detailed and packed to capacity with information both from Claudiu and Richard.

Cheers Vineeto

1 Like
153

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:

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?

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?

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?

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.

154

This ‘internal split’ (having a standoff with yourself) can be resolved through sincerity, which in practice translates to (intuitively) feeling the feelings as “you”. Not sure how to describe it better; this is what Richard meant by “I” am “my” feelings and “my” feelings are “me”.

Commonly Raised Objections – The Actualism Method Is Too Difficult

RICHARD: You do comprehend that you are your feelings/ your feelings are you (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) do you not? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between *having* feelings and *being* those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.
This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something” about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I *am* the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.
This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.
I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST).

And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is

So, normal perception is like “I” feel “my” feelings as if they are at arms length, and then try to ‘control’ them like chess pieces on the board, as Vineeto once said.

From here, you enable sincere attentiveness, where you feel your feelings as if “you” are it (genuinely finding out, not faking it). Intuitively, internally … not cognitively.

Does this work? Give it a try. Then you may find that this all becomes “its own reward”.

Edited to add: The first thing to do is to stop fighting or fleeing from “my” feelings (“I don’t like this” is a good sign of fighting/fleeing). And then, yes, see them as “myself” in action, genuinely. Then, it should work.

155

It does make sense that deeply comprehending that I am my feelings would solve this, and I definitely have an intellectual understanding of this and have had moments where it was a clear intuitive understanding. The last ‘standoff with myself’ was solved by just such a moment 21 days ago:

I am struggling to ‘representiate’ that as anything other than an intellectual understanding right now though.

I did start to have a half-formed thought that I need to spend more time with, that the reason I am struggling to see how I am my feelings is that I was looking at something, calling it a feeling, and then trying to ‘see it as me’… instead of looking at myself and seeing what feeling I am “being”, which might have been something else entirely.

156

>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

1 Like
157

Hi Vineeto,

I really enjoyed this post, it hits on something that I have been observing for a long time and I understand even clearer now. It’s this tendency to want to reduce actualism to a system/recipe precisely so that ‘I’ don’t have to do anything! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

It’s putting it all back to front, it’s like if I read of some things that Richard did and then construct a system out of them, and then sit back and wait for change to happen… But the primary thing that Richard did was that he devoted himself completely and obsessively to evincing that which the PCE demonstrated. So the specific things that he did were secondary in that sense, the primary thing was the commitment and the intent.

Actually this is also a thing I observed back when I was rock climbing. That there were guys like myself that were just busy with doing the rock climbing, and chipping away at building the skills and eventually reaching a competent level.

Then there were the guys that would purchase all the cool climbing gear, they would walk and talk like advanced climbers, they did all the things that good climbers did, and yet they were never competent climbers. They invested all their attention into looking like one but never had the commitment and intent to actually become one.

It’s a tendency I have observed alot, I don’t have a name for it but this is what I see described in your post.

Actually I find this fascinating because (without boring anyone with too many details) this is the current discussion which is happening in the BJJ world. Which is the question of whether the sport has evolved primarily because of the systems in place (better technique etc) or because of individuals demonstrating what is possible.

It seems that the most important thing is for somebody to demonstrate what is possible, then others will try to make systems out of what they did to get there. But those systems they are created after the fact, they are not what led to the success in the first place.

Sooo…Walking the walk is the most important, the specifics are secondary.

3 Likes
158

This cannot be overstated.

RICHARD: What the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ – which ‘he’ formulated back in early 1981 – meant to ‘him’ was ‘Why is that experience[1] not happening at this very moment?’ or ‘What is preventing that way of being[1:1] here occurring right now?’ or ‘How come that wondrous world[1:2] is not currently apparent?’ (and so on and so forth). Selected Correspondence: Pure Consciousness Experience

  1. [Richard]: Maybe an example will provide the clue: back in 1981, in the early days of starting on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition, I was standing in the kitchen of my ex-farmhouse, situated on a couple of acres of land in a remote countryside location, washing the breakfast dishes; I was not interested in washing the dishes/I had never been interested in washing the dishes; I did not like washing the dishes/I had never liked washing the dishes; washing the dishes was an uninteresting chore, an unlikeable task, that just had to be done (otherwise I would not be doing it/would never had done it/would never do it) … and all the while the early-morning sun was streaming in through the large glass windows, in the eastern wall to my front, beckoning me, enticing me to hurry-up and get the uninteresting and unlikeable job over and done with so that I could scamper outside and get stuck into doing the interesting things I really liked doing/wanted to do.
    Howsoever, the tool for facilitating the actualism method – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) – had by now become a non-verbal approach to life, a wordless attitude towards being alive, and all-of-a-sudden, whilst standing there with my hands in the sink being anywhere but here, at anytime but now, it was a delight and a joy to be doing exactly what it was I was already doing anyway … standing in the golden sunlight with hands immersed in delicious, tingling-to-the-touch, hot soapy water.
    I find myself looking at what the hands are feeling (the hot soapy water) and become aware I have never seen hot soapy water before – have never really seen hot soapy water before – and become fascinated with the actuality of what is happening: it is as if the hands know what to do without any input from me; they are reaching for a plate, they are applying the scourer appropriately, they are turning the plate over, they are applying the scourer appropriately, they are lifting the cleaned plate out of the washing sink; they are dipping it into the rinsing sink; they are placing it in the rack to drip … and all this while they are feeling the delicious tingling sensation of hot soapy water as it strips-away the grease and other detritus.
    I am not required at all; I am a supernumerary; I am redundant; I can retire, fold in my hand, pack in the game, depart, disappear, dissolve, disintegrate, vamoose, vanish, die – whatever – and life would manage quite well, thank you, without me … a whole lot better, in fact, as I am holding up the works from functioning smoothly.
    ‘I’ was not needed … ‘my’ services were no longer required. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 71, 15 July 2004). (opens in new window). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

159

>Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
I really enjoyed this post, it hits on something that I have been observing for a long time and I understand even clearer now.
It’s this tendency to want to reduce actualism to a system/recipe precisely so that ‘I’ don’t have to do anything! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
It’s putting it all back to front, it’s like if I read of some things that Richard did and then construct a system out of them, and then sit back and wait for change to happen… But the primary thing that Richard did was that he devoted himself completely and obsessively to evincing that which the PCE demonstrated. So the specific things that he did were secondary in that sense, the primary thing was the commitment and the intent.
Actually this is also a thing I observed back when I was rock climbing. That there were guys like myself that were just busy with doing the rock climbing, and chipping away at building the skills and eventually reaching a competent level.
Then there were the guys that would purchase all the cool climbing gear, they would walk and talk like advanced climbers, they did all the things that good climbers did, and yet they were never competent climbers. They invested all their attention into looking like one but never had the commitment and intent to actually become one.
It’s a tendency I have observed a lot, I don’t have a name for it but this is what I see described in your post.
Actually I find this fascinating because (without boring anyone with too many details) this is the current discussion which is happening in the BJJ world. Which is the question of whether the sport has evolved primarily because of the systems in place (better technique etc) or because of individuals demonstrating what is possible.
It seems that the most important thing is for somebody to demonstrate what is possible, then others will try to make systems out of what they did to get there. But those systems they are created after the fact, they are not what led to the success in the first place.
Sooo … Walking the walk is the most important, the specifics are secondary. (link)

Hi Kuba,

Your post makes me grin from ear to ear – you put your finger on a crucial aspect of the human condition – ‘faking it’ and avoid change, and you described it quite well.

First an anecdote from real life. A few years ago when following current affairs, the US state of California was in a big political and economic crisis – bankrupt, the governor in major political scandals, illegal immigrants streaming into the state and public unrest looming. What happened? They made a law to ban plastic straws.

It’s actually quite humorous though in the black humour way. At the time I thought it was a perfect example of the worst, but quite common, way of ‘solving’ problems – all show and no substance, divert attention and gain popularity without having to fix anything. The British comedy series “Yes Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” from the Sixties was a true comedic representation of the struggle between power and popularity, and very educational of the human condition in action.

When you think about it, it is also quite natural. ‘Me’, the non-substantial identity, want affirmation from other, equally non-substantial entities, and pretence is the quickest and cheapest way to get this affirmation. Given the instinctual survival passions combined with the theory of mind (“Interestingly enough, it is this last point (deceit) which most of all signals the ‘theory of mind’”), it is rather astounding that words like honesty and sincerity and integrity exist and appeal to quite a few people in the world.

Actualists experience the same struggle between the potent cunning and deceitful ‘me’ engaged in the survival of the contingent ‘being’ on one side and the honesty of sincere intent and a willingness to do whatever it takes to imitate the actual. To be aware of the stakes may make it easier to whole-heartedly dedicate one’s life to peace on earth in this life-time and act on it.

You said it well – “Walking the walk is the most important, the specifics are secondary”.

Cheers Vineeto

160

I want to clarify what I was saying here a bit. It was more like a thought experiment where I was trying to show myself how the things I cared about were not just preferences. I was basically pointing out to myself that “if the things I cared about were just preferences” then it would be deeply obvious that feeling bad was silly… which is not currently the case. The purpose of this contemplation was to try to bring myself closer to my feelings and heal that ‘internal split’.

I did end up having success again healing that internal split this morning however, and I want to note down how it happened again for future reference. Also it was again so interesting how the instant that internal split went away I was instantly back to feeling good in a really deep and wholehearted way that continued throughout the entire day and improved how I related to everyone.

The way the split resolved was by noticing that I was again in a similar trap as my recent ‘virtuous impatience’. Essentially what is happening is this:

  1. initial feeling occurs
  2. I look at the feeling, categorize it, and start emotionally reacting to it in a way that I pass of as part of actualism
  3. I begin an internal narrative about how actualism works including telling myself to feel the feeling and comprehend that “I am my feelings and my feelings are me”. Also telling myself to not fight the feeling etc.
  4. Sometimes the narrative goes a step further even, where I am imagining myself explaining how the method works to others.
  5. At this point I often am paying attention to the feeling in the body, and continuing to call it ‘work stress’ or whatever it was to start with, even though in fact now I am “being” anything from ‘virtuous impatience’ to ‘frustrated despair’ which all stem from actualistic identity.
  6. What happens to end it all is when I truly turn attention back around to look squarely at myself and what I am “being.” When I manage to catch a glimpse of the ‘man behind the curtain’ it’s all over in an instant. I am left feeling foolish and naive at how I was carrying on and fueling that malice and sorrow, feeling good pervades my entire body and mind in a way that leaves no doubt.

Of course, calling it ‘catching a glimpse’ is maybe a bit misleading. It’s ‘me’ after all who is playing tricks on ‘me’, so it’s more about sincerity than skill or agility of some sort.

This is fascinating and also links up with what you said in your response to Kuba about solutions in the real world typically being all show and no substance. The internal split is all a big diversion I put on to avoid admitting that I am the problem. As soon as the sincerity to admit it is there the solution is indeed a breeze.

2 Likes