>>Vineeto: 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.
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.
>Adam-H: 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’.
Hi Adam,
Thank you for your clarification – it seems I unnecessarily jumped into the middle of your recording your thought-processes.
>Adam-H: 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:
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initial feeling occurs
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I look at the feeling, categorize it, and start emotionally reacting to it in a way that I pass of as part of actualism
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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.
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Sometimes the narrative goes a step further even, where I am imagining myself explaining how the method works to others.
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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.
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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.
As Kuba already said (link), this is in excellent description of how the actualism method works for you with immediate results once you hit point 6 in your inquiries. That’s when there is no splitting oneself into parts but you perceive yourself “what I am “being”.”
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>>Vineeto: 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: This is fascinating and also links up with what you said in your response to Kuba (link) 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. (link)
Indeed, most of ‘my’ protestations about any feelings occurring originate in how I want to see myself and how others see me – a good person, a clever person, a good actualist, a successful (… fill in your own aspersions). When ‘I’ genuinely admit “I am the problem” each time, then there is really only one solution – dissolution – and that can be ultimately scary at the start.
But this is where enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive come in, it is what you do in the meantime, until you cannot maintain your ‘self’ any longer. And “the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end”. (This Moment of Being Alive, 4th Banner)
>>Richard: In order to facilitate a PCE happening, one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement … which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity. ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body, including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride … and they feed of each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility … it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self centred activity, something astounding occurs. ‘I’ vanish. I am simply here where I have always been … and pride, with its companion in arms, humility, has disappeared along with all the other feelings. (Richard’s Journal, Article Seventeen, p. 127)
Cheers Vineeto
