An interest in yoga led to Meditation with a group that was associated with Satyananda. I had a kundalini experience the first mediation. I didn’t know what it was at the time but that got me hooked 30 years later.
Did 2 long-term courses (3 years and 2 1/2 years) in India on Advaita Vedanta and Sanskrit. But this turned into being 2 decades of spiritual by passing.
I took a step back and did some primal therapy that helped get my house in order (relationships, emotionally and financially).
Got back into spiritual stuff via zen for the last 6 years.
I sit each day for 30 mins to 1 1/2hr. Currently during susokukan during zazen. Sometimes some self enquiry. Other times drop it all and just sit.
I cannot remember the first time I heard about Actual Freedom, maybe over 10 years ago, but unsure how the connection was made.
Just recently I was reminded about it from ATR.
I would love to hear from people in Australia and particularly in Melbourne. I would like to connection and assistance with where I am currently am through dialogue rather than reading and studying.
thanks for having me hear. Looking forward to learning more.
What is your particular interest in actual freedom? What is drawing you to it? What about it appeals to you? What have you read so far? What have you already done in terms of going down the path of actualism? What are specific questions you have about it?
The answers to these questions will enable the forum-goers here to be more helpful.
I would suggest widening your parameters to accept assistance from any actualist in the world as opposed to just those actualists living in one of the ~10,000 cities in the world.
And I’d also suggest further widening your parameters to accept assistance in the form of text as opposed to just voice or video calls. The former has its benefits (although the latter does too), and the barrier to entry is much smaller.
Cheers,
Claudiu
P.S. Out of curiosity, what is the “ATR” that reminded you recently about Actual Freedom?
My interest is mokshah / awakening / self realization
I don’t know much about actual freedom so not able to answer the other questions. How is PCE’s different from being in a flow state? of is it the same?
I read a few things but the website isn’t that easier to navigate and the text is really small. There are some particular words Richard used that I couldn’t find definitions on.
I understand you saying about widening parameters but the times zones can get a bit tricky living in Australia and other parts of the world.
the reasons for preferring to speak with someone is that I have read so many texts and books over the decades I have found speaking to a person directly more beneficial. They are able to pinpoint from what you say, and don’t say, of exactly where you are and how to move you forward from exactly where you are. As opposed to sifting your way through 1000s of hours of reading.
from the reading of the website it was saying Richard and Veneeto are the only 2 people are fully free. Those don’t feel like great odds.
I don’t want this to come across as disrespectful, and I hope it can be taken in the right spirit. My first impressions from reading the website over the last few days aren’t really positive.
i do appreciate the time you have taken to respond to my post. thankyou
Actualism does not lead to either mokshah or awakening or self realization.
Actual freedom is a way of being conscious that is neither mokshah nor awakening nor self realization.
In other words, you won’t find what you’re looking for by pursuing the actualist path.
Actualism is about undoing both the small self/ego and the big Self/soul, whereas ‘awakening’ is about undoing just the small self/ego and becoming only a big Self/soul. The two goals are incompatible.
You might find the following of interest which distinguishes actual freedom from the Buddhist flavor of awakening in particular:
Again the two goals are incompatible – actual freedom is when one is the flesh and blood body only, whilst when the Buddhist goal is reached one is not the flesh and blood body only.
In other words if what you want is these spiritual goals then you’ll save yourself a lot of time not pursuing actualism – not only will it not further your progress towards the spiritual goals but actually it will hinder it and turn you away from it.
Damian: My interest is mokshah / awakening / self realization
I don’t know much about actual freedom so not able to answer the other questions. How is PCE’s different from being in a flow state? of is it the same?
I read a few things but the website isn’t that easier to navigate and the text is really small. There are some particular words Richard used that I couldn’t find definitions on. [quote=“damian, post:4, topic:1033”]
Claudiu: In other words if what you want is these spiritual goals then you’ll save yourself a lot of time not pursuing actualism – not only will it not further your progress towards the spiritual goals but actually it will hinder it and turn you away from it. [quote=“claudiu, post:6, topic:1033”]
Hi Claudiu,
Well said.
Hi Damian,
Alternatively you can do what Claudiu, Shashank and others here have done, is recognize that an actual freedom from the whole of the human condition is vastly superior because it offers an existential solution to the human condition whilst Buddhism/Hinduism merely offer a salvation solution. Viz:
[Richard to Shashank]: Thus I experientially know, from that ongoing lived reality, how what is nowadays called Buddhism (as well as what has come to be called Hinduism) is not an existential solution to the human condition, as is Actualism, but a salvational solution (that is, deliverance from being yoked – saṃyojana, fr. saṃyuñjati (saṃ+ yuñjati) where yuñjati = to yoke, literally means ‘yoked together’ – to sensory phenomena (aka ‘sabba’, SN 35.23; PTS: S iv 15) or, conversationally, from being yoked to/ fettered by worldly existence). (link).
The whole exchange is well-worth reading and quite explanatory.
Cheers Vineeto
Ahh yes it’s definitely worth pointing out that actual freedom is vastly superior.
Not only that put the actualism path is also superior to the spiritual path because it actually delivers the goods — an enjoyable, happy and harmless life — while the spiritual path tends to deliver sorrow and misery and a desire for deliverance rather than an actual improvement to one’s life.
Indian philosophy isn’t about salvation from samsara in all instances. The Vedic knowledge acts a means to know your true nature. A person maybe or maybe not be motivated by escaping samsara.
I use the word samara here only bc that is the word Richard had used in the link you sent. I am assuming he is referring to the suffering that results from samara. Not samara itself. Samsara means worldly entanglement. So that in itself wouldn’t be a motivate a person to escape, its more escaping suffering that can come from result of actions in samara.
Salvation is seen in Christianity, in that you need saving from descending into hell.
I have a desire to know who I am. Not searching for an experience of enjoyment, happiness and a harmless life.
Seeking out the experiences of emotions would be a never ending task. And what I see most people day. For example if I eat something I like then I am happy. Hanging out at the pub delivers enjoyment.
from the reading I have done it said only yourself and Richard are fully actualized. Would it be fair to say if there is only 2 people then their isn’t a clear method laid down?
Ahh, well that is simple. Who ‘you’ are is an illusory identity that only feels itself to exist but has no actual tangible existence. This illusory identity is rotten to the core and is the root cause of all the misery and mayhem in the world.
The only way to see this is to experience ‘yourself’ totally vanishing in what is called a Pure Consciousness Experience. This is a preview or glimpse as to what life can be like in the actually existing world, where you see that what you actually are (“what” as opposed to “who”) is a flesh and blood body only, made of the same matter as the rivers, trees, and starts, actually existing and capable of self-reflection and self-awareness. Yet the nature of this “self” in a PCE is categorically different – it is nothing but the actually existing flesh and blood body being aware of itself, as distinct from an identity that only feels itself to exist.
It is relatively straightforward to experience this for yourself – all you have to do is have a PCE, or remember you’ve already had (they are relatively common in childhood). As a starting point I would recommend reading these descriptions that others have written of PCEs: Various Descriptions of PCE's .
This identity’s origin is that it automatically forms itself out of the genetically-inherited instinctual passions that are prevalent throughout the animal world (and not just in humans). As this all is the result of Blind Nature’s evolutionary selection, it is not anybody’s fault in particular. Everyone is a victim of this, in a sense. Yet you can do something about it in that ‘you’ can agree to disappear to allow the actually existing purity and perfection of the actual world to become apparent.
What the spiritual path does it is results in an aggrandizement of this identity, from being a mundane, normal identity, to being a super-mundane, special, elevated, ‘awakened’ identity. Yet this does not eliminate the root cause, merely transcends it – and thus perpetuates the root cause of misery and sorrow.
The choice is yours to make as it is your life, but one is clearly superior to the other, both in terms of the effect on others and also the quality of the experience itself being far superior, more enjoyable, and perfect.
As this is both the ongoing experience of an actually free person, and the way to become actually free for one who isn’t yet, so long as it is not your interest then it will not make sense for you to pursue actualism.
The further one progresses on the wide and wondrous path of actualism, the more one is enjoying and appreciating one’s life. The rewards are immediate and incremental, and the result is a far better life. I speak from experience. It is certainly worth the effort. And the task does have a completion point – becoming actually free.
These are conditional pleasures, which of course there is no reason to disdain or give up on. However, with actualism one is seeking a baseline of enjoyment – a basic “being in a good mood” – that is relatively independent of any conditions in one’s life.
The impetus and feasibility of this stems from the PCE. With ‘me’ absent, one sees that the experience of being alive is intrinsically enjoyable and perfect. One does not have to “do” anything to be enjoying being alive – it is in the very nature of existence, the simple fact of being conscious. What ‘I’ as identity do is paste over ‘my’ worries and concerns onto this existing perfection, and essentially use them as excuses to not be enjoying and appreciating being alive.
Once you see it is possible to be conscious with the identity completely absent, you then will be able to start imitating that actually unconditional enjoyment and appreciation with a relatively unconditional one. The idea is not to set up one’s conditions to always be happy. The idea is to see what is allowing you to detract from your enjoyment and appreciation, and ultimately see that it is silly to let that take away from your experience of being alive. Thus the goal is not to change one’s life to be always enjoyable, nor to always enjoy everything that happens, good or bad (which is an insult to intelligence as bad things do happen), but rather to enjoy and appreciate being alive despite whatever may happen.
My experience of being alive is of essentially uninterrupted enjoyment, happiness, and harmlessness. It is far, far from fleeting – and I am not even actually free yet.
If by “fully actualized” you mean a full, meaning-of-life actual freedom, then you must be mistaken as I am not actually free. Only Richard and @Vineeto have become fully actually free, and Richard has passed away recently.
Yet there are more people who are experiencing a basic, peace-on-earth actual freedom – Peter, Tom, Pamela, @Srinath, and @geoffrey, to name a few – which is when the instinctual passions and the ‘identity’ formed thereof has vanished but various impediments still remain to fully experiencing the benevolence and benignity of the actual world on an ongoing basis… viz.:
Look, spirituality has had thousands of years to accrue writings, experiences, methods – and, particularly, aspirants. There are millions of people around the world aspiring to spiritual heights. Given how many are aspiring to succeed, the percent that actually do so is not very high, is it?
By contrast, actual freedom has only come into existence a few decades ago [3], and there have probably less than a hundred sincere, dedicated actualists over the years. Given the sample size, the rate of success is actually quite high.
It is a new thing, though – so it will be ‘riskier’ in a sense than trying something that millions have already tried. However, all you have to do is read what the people who have succeeded actually write, and you will see that even if you succeed it won’t solve the problem of the human condition, neither in yourself nor for the world.
Despite what sites like Awakening to Reality might say, actualism is not yet another variant of spirituality, nor is actual freedom another variant of awakening. ↩︎
I think I understand what you are getting at. This is the traditional view of life, the worldview of opposites, where the various ‘earthly’ desires and enjoyments are seen as - fleeting, shallow, even profane.
Then on the other side you have the ‘deeper’ desires (sourced in the spiritual viewpoint), they promise deliverance from the cycle of suffering, something seemingly lasting, in short it is the promise of eternity.
Actual freedom is the third alternative and exists outside of both those options. But don’t be mistaken in taking actualism as merely a ‘positive thinking philosophy’ or some excuse to become a hedonist. Actualism is for those interested in uncovering and discovering what it means to be a human being living in the world as it actually is.
What actualism delivers (as opposed to promising) is the experiential answer to the quest of finding the meaning of life.
This desire to find the meaning of life is what underpins your “desire to know who I am”.
It is an exciting time to be alive because the answer has been squarely located and the condition for living this answer each moment again has been replicated.
But you will very quickly notice, if you are carefully reading the words here and on the AFT that this answer cannot be found in spirituality (of any form).
And therefore you will not find any support for the practices arising from the spiritual viewpoint here, simply because they have all failed in delivering both peace on earth and the meaning of life.
Having said that you are of course very welcome to continue any and all discussion.
@Damian I had a spiritual background when I came here and what I have gotten out of Actualism which is opposite to spiritualism is that ‘who I am’ is an identity which is essentially made up.
‘What I am’ is a flesh and blood body. That is what is actual.
Iow, ‘who I am’ only exists in the psyche as opposed to ‘what I am’ which actually exists here now.
Some shared with me once that nothing has any meaning. After some initial back and forth. It started to make sense. No I think nothing has any meaning. Unless you create a meaning for something. Nothing has an inherent meaning. If something does have meaning its only because you have given it meaning.
Something can only have meaning if you allocate it meaning.
Yes, I am only the body.
If I lose a limb I would still be the same body with one less limb.
It is not ‘this is my body’. It is ‘I am my body’.
If the body changes it is still the same body which has changed.
When one realizes ‘what I am’ is a flesh and blood body then they also have realized that ‘who I am’ is not actual. Only the flesh and blood body is actual.
Damian: I would love to hear from people in Australia and particularly in Melbourne. I would like to connection and assistance with where I am currently am through dialogue rather than reading and studying.
thanks for having me hear. Looking forward to learning more. Introductory Post - Melbourne Australia
I have a desire to know who I am. Not searching for an experience of enjoyment, happiness and a harmless life.
Seeking out the experiences of emotions would be a never ending task. And what I see most people day. For example if I eat something I like then I am happy. Hanging out at the pub delivers enjoyment.
These 3 experiences are fleeting. Introductory Post - Melbourne Australia - #10 by Damian
Indian philosophy isn’t about salvation from samsara in all instances. The Vedic knowledge acts a means to know your true nature. A person maybe or maybe not be motivated by escaping samsara. […]
Salvation is seen in Christianity, in that you need saving from descending into hell. Introductory Post - Melbourne Australia - #9 by Damian
Hi Damian,
You started your introduction that you are “looking forward to learning more.”
Yet only a few posts later, you confidently declare that you are “not searching for an experience of enjoyment, happiness and a harmless life” before you have even began to understand anything of what an actual freedom is all about and proceed to defend and justify “Indian philosophy”, “Vedic knowledge” and your past decade’s or more of spiritual practice. In other words, you came to this forum because, as you say, you want to “connect” and have “assistance” but without “reading and studying”, and yet instantly start objecting to each reply without knowing anything at all about the subject matter at hand. Either you are not really looking to understand or you don’t know how to.
Well, in either case, let me give you an example of a more sincere, genuine and in-depth reading of just the first four words on The Actual Freedom Trust homepage, instead of merely skimming over the words whilst consciously or unconsciously applying your own spiritual template to what you read and hence coming up with superficial and faulty conclusions –
RESPONDENT: I discovered the actual freedom site a few days ago and find it compelling. It seems from my investigations so far to really actually and in fact offer something new.
RICHARD: Just what is it, from your investigations so far, that is new?
RESPONDENT: Good question. I suppose … er… I don’t know. I really don’t.
RICHARD: Okay … here are the very first words on The Actual Freedom Trust home page (immediately below the ‘Actual Freedom’ logo):
• ‘A New and Non-Spiritual Down-to-Earth Freedom’ [endquote].
From that very succinct heading (which is not placed in such a key position merely for decoration) three key aspects of the freedom referred to can be readily ascertained … and without inference:
It is new.
It is non-spiritual.
It is down-to-earth.
And not to forget, of course, from the logo itself:
It is actual.
RESPONDENT: I mean, it seems like perhaps I can sort it out, sort out ‘the problem’, by doing/being/not being what you say?
RICHARD: As there are many peoples other than myself saying all manner of things about doing/being/not being many different things just what is new about doing/being/not being what I have to say?
RESPONDENT: I’ve got no idea, but I’ve tried a lot and nothing comes up with the goods – me not being unhappy and trapped and lonely and frustrated and all of that.
RICHARD: Well now … it was obviously high time that somebody came up with something new, then, and yet the question remains as to just what that something new is, eh?
RESPONDENT: This site seems to be something different from other alternatives.
RICHARD: Aye … just for starters it is (a) non-spiritual … and (b) down-to-earth … and (c) actual.
RESPONDENT: I don’t know yet. I just don’t.
RICHARD: Okay … this is what a dictionary has to say about the word ‘spiritual’:
• ‘spiritual: of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit …’. (Oxford Dictionary).
The term ‘non-spiritual’, then, means not of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit – thus the freedom being referred to is not the freedom spiritualism has to offer – and by way of practical example the following is what you wrote (in part) much further below:
• [Respondent]: ‘Many spiritual teachers say in a similar (although, I don’t know, perhaps a subtly and vitally different) way to you that (…). Could it be that when they have used words that you reject, Self, God and so on, that sometimes they are referring to the same state as you?’
If (note ‘if’) the new and non-spiritual down-to-earth actual freedom was none other than the same freedom which spiritualism has to offer, only expressed in words which have not been rejected, then it would not be:
New.
Non-Spiritual.
Down-To-Earth (as in the Oxford Dictionary ‘plain-spoken, unpretentious; practical, realistic’ meaning).
Now, with the explicit meaning of those four introductory words in mind you should be able to clearly decide if you are interested any further or if you want to keep plodding on with your spiritual pursuit, which has given you the unsatisfactory results that made you look up the Actual Freedom website in the first place.
Otherwise there is no point discussing something entirely new to human history unless the person has an open mind, a deep sincerity and a genuine interest in finding out the actual meaning of life and thus can ask more informed questions than you have done so far.
What I dont understand is…that body is constantly changing. So how can you say you are the body? Which body, given that its constantly changing. What about feelings, beliefs? What about that which makes the body conscious?
referring to your last two sentences I can understand that the body is actual in that moment. At least until it changes in the following moment.
I wasn’t “confidently declaring”, I was giving an indication of where I currently am with my understanding. Hence why I would have preferred to speak with someone as, like what you have done, my intent with what I have communicated is taken out of context.
I wasn’t defending indian philosology again you have misunderstood what was being communicated. Thats your interpretation.
To say I am not sincere because I am not responding to posts in a manner that is to your liking isn’t helpful or accurate.
I agree I am applying my conscious and unconscious biases. I am giving my honest views and having to be corrected. I have to stay where I am at to then be corrected.
I am skimming yes to understand whether to put in the huge amount of time and effort to pentrate more deeply into what is being said. There are so many different people, religions and philosophies out there, I don’t have the time or energy or money to studying and to enquiry into all of them. So I need to skimm through things to find what resonances and then use that as an indicator to go deeper on something.
Your quick judgments on my intention aren’t accurate. Based on some of your replies you arent use to someone challenging what you are trying to communicate. This can easily happen when you are emersed and surrounded by those that are solely focused on the same philosophy / religion / etc and just readily agree with most things you are saying.
I agree with what you shared about with the seeker above, yes it is different.