I was beginning to see it this way from the above quotes
I can see that I’ve been trying to decide to be happy & harmless, decide to see things as silly, but that’s a bypass similar to the one I had been doing with trying to ‘train myself’.
This casts an entirely fresh light on investigation for me, very interesting!
RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good.
…
RESPONDENT No 23: What about when I find out what happened to end feeling good and I see that it is silly to keep worrying about it yet that doesn’t stop the worrying and I am not back to feeling good?
RICHARD: Two things immediately leap to mind … (1) you value feeling worry (a feeling of anxious concern) over feeling good (a general sense of well-being) … and (2) you have not really seen it is silly to feel bad (a general sense of ill-being). What I would suggest, at this point, is to feel the silliness of feeling bad (in this case feeling anxiety) … then the seeing (as in a realisation) might very well have the desired effect (as in an actualisation) of once more feeling good.
Cross-posting:
RESPONDENT: As I know nobody has become actual free by using this method?
RICHARD: The reason why this flesh and blood body is actually free from the human condition is because of the identity in residence all those years ago (1981-1992) utilising the approach ‘he’ devised – a course of action which has become known as the actualism method – to full effect.
RESPONDENT: Not even the inventor used the method of examining and questioning.
RICHARD: I would suggest obtaining your information from a reputable source – www.actualfreedom.com.au – and not from what some malcontent daubed on a lavatory wall.
RESPONDENT: To me it seems contradicting to use (and believe) thought to stop believing in thoughts.
RICHARD: Put simplistically (for maximum effect): the actualism method is about using thought to examine feelings.
From the same link:
VINEETO: When I started to look into actualism as an alternative to the spiritualism that I had practiced so long with unsatisfying results, the mind-boggling radicality of the 180 degrees opposite statements often caused my mind to gridlock. From whatever angle I looked at certain issues, I simply could not understand what Richard was saying. However, I had the burning desire to find out all there is to know about this third alternative because I had already experienced for myself that something was greatly amiss in the venerated teachings and practice of spiritualism.
In those situations when I couldn’t think my way out of my mental block, a condition which I later discovered to be cognitive dissonance, I used to ask myself what it was that was preventing me from understanding. Rather than accusing Richard of being bone-headed, stubborn, silly or wrong, I instead chose to question why I was so bone-headed that I could not understand what he had discovered and what emotional investment ‘I’ had in maintaining ‘my’ status quo by not understanding what he presented as his ongoing delectable experience of the actual world.
These were some of the questions I used to ask myself –
To ask these questions was to sharpen my attentiveness as to how I felt, what I felt and why I felt it when I contemplated the issues that caused a mental block and this attentiveness also showed me how to move past those affective feelings that prevented a clearer understanding of those issues. In other words, attentiveness counteracts the instinctive ‘self’-centredness that is more or less happening all the time unless I become aware of it. Attentiveness combined with contemplation does wonders when one wants to penetrate ‘my’ automatically ongoing affective reactive-ness to emotionally charged topics.
Eventually my burning desire and my persistence not to settle for anything less than indisputable facts won over my fears of questioning what I believed to be absolutely right and true and, to make a long story short, one day something had to give – ‘my’ worldview collapsed in one fell swoop and I had my first pure consciousness experience which lasted for a night and the better half of the next day. I was with Peter at the time and experienced for the first time what it is to be with a fellow human being without having ‘self’-oriented expectations, fears and preconceptions. In fact I only noticed that those ‘self’-centred expectations, fears and preconceptions towards others were a constant feature of ‘me’ when they temporarily ceased.
The next day Peter and I went to the local market and I experienced first hand how everyone was not only selling their goods but with those goods their beliefs and convictions, their worldviews and ethics and everyone was absolutely convinced that he or she had the right truth. In the following days the memory of this direct experience made a big dent into all of my beliefs and truths but it took many more such break-throughs to question one ‘truth’ after the other and with each crumbled belief my understanding of the human condition expanded and the nature of actuality became more and more clear.
One of those break-throughs happened when I mused about the nature of the universe and my beliefs in a mystical, metaphysical or super-natural energy permeating it. The longer I contemplated the more it became clear that both a beginning to and an edge of the universe do not make sense because this theory raises far more questions than it solves, whereas an infinite and eternal universe does away with any and all the theorizing about the how, when and by whom or by what mysterious force the universe was created and what it is that it supposedly expands into. At this point it also dawned on me that in a universe without boundaries there is no physical space for any mystical Force to be ruling the world and the very meaning of actuality – matter devoid of spirit but in constant change – became stunningly clear, not just intellectually but experientially. The very simplicity of my intellectual understanding and the resultant immediate experiencing of this very understanding made the nature of the universe self-evidently obvious.
I acknowledge that it requires great daring, intent and stubborn determination to leave one’s safe haven of being an agnostic about the nature of the universe in order to recognize and experientially discover the facts about the nature of the universe as opposed to remaining ‘open’ to any and all theories about the universe. To leave the non-committal position of not-knowing behind and commit oneself to finding out the facts, whatever the cost, is a truly life-changing process as one’s whole personal worldview will fall apart and disappear. Naturally in the face of this threat, the survival instincts kick in, causing ‘me’ to opt for the safety of the status quo.
The first thing to counteract this automatic instinctual reaction is to become aware of it so that one can then make an informed decision in which direction one wants to proceed. The actualism method itself is very simple – the consequences of applying it are enormous.
Only because of this…
Investigation without prolonged periods of happy and harmlessness is just an intellectual exercise. The happy and harmlessness is essential. Happy and harmlessness is the more important skill.
Now, re-reading it I see she said:
As I successively became aware of and understood one feeling after the other, I first…
I guess there she is indicating that investigation leads to happy and harmlessness. My guess she is misstating this or not emphasizing the choice to be h & h. But she wrote what she wrote. So my point has been defeated by the actual text. Oh well. I lose. I just want people to allow the discoveries to come to them while in a state of happy and harmlessness.
I’d say that investigation often is a useless subject. Investigation happens by itself as one goes deeper into feeling and gets comfortable feeling (being one’s feelings). Sometimes the thoughts just wanders of to things of importance.
When an great appreciation has been achieved of experiencing even the worst kind of feelings - then one is ready to question deeper aspects of oneself. Before that I think that one has a tendency to dig into nonsense like not ‘enjoying watching the television’ which only touches upon the surface of oneself.
This how I have come to look upon the subject of investigation after my own adventures.
An actually free person might know better @geoffrey @srinath
I agree @John . The difference between intellectualization and contemplation is that the latter happens by itself whereas the former is self-driven. When investigation is synonymous with reflective contemplation then it’s golden. When it’s driven by the self it’s copper at best.
What’s wrong with investigating the surface of oneself? You have to start somewhere, don’t you? If anything that matches up with the advice to only investigate the deeper parts of oneself once a certain degree of freedom from social conditioning has been achieved.
I think (ideally) investigation is a feedback loop… intellectual investigation is best undertaken from a place of feeling good, and successful investigation results in more and more periods of feeling good.
I agree with what you are saying @John and @JonnyPitt that the best investigations are not too forced and have a naturalness to them, but I don’t think that means we should never go ‘try’ and investigate something on purpose. It’s not always a waste of time.
As with all this stuff, it takes a lot of experimenting, trial and error, and learned skillfulness to figure out what helps and what doesn’t.
Yes.
But the greatest realization is allowing yourself to become happy and harmless is quite a simple thing. Everything else is insignificant or worthless even. And no investigation is needed to get there. And while there no investigation is forced.
Do you not think there’s any place for purposeful investigation? It can just be skipped over entirely?
I almost wonder if we’re talking about two different things here… investigation can be very fun, fascinating, unforced. A lot of what we discussed back and forth when you and Nick visited would be, in my mind, investigation.
One way to distill down investigation is Richard’s “where happiness and harmlessness is not happening, find out why not”
This can take any form.
The decision for it to not matter can take any form too, though some forms seem to have more ‘staying power’ than others.
I can’t see how it would be beneficial to dispense with “find out why not” and “determine why/that it doesn’t matter”
In my mind, there’s a time and place for everything. If you think you may need to feel out an emotion then you’ll need to do that then and there. Not after you become happy. At other times you need to pause and allow conflicting desires to express themselves internally so you can get all of yourself on board. In such times, you won’t be happy. More confident yes. And that feels a lot better than jumping from desire to desire or stridently going with one desire at the expense of the others. But there’s still doubt while sussing it out. Either way strident investigation is to be avoided. And long periods of happy and harmlessness are to be accepted. PCEs come from them. And from PCEs come more happy and harmless periods.
That’s another example. Just let the intent be to become happy and harmless rather than to discover something cool. And you allow the investigation to occur i.e. contemplation. You are pausing your life to allow time for reflective contemplation because happy and harmlessness isn’t happening.
I completely agree that nothing needs be done in a strident manner (Strident: loud and harsh; grating.; presenting a point of view, especially a controversial one, in an excessively and unpleasantly forceful way.)
I think I’m just a bit less of a purist on this, I see it as “use whatever energy you have, to go where’s interesting to you, and let that energy take you as far as it can.”
Eventually any “approach” (defined by the identity), with sincerity present, will show its flaws. Vineeto talks about having to abandon the scientist, the philosopher, the seeker, etc. These are all ‘approaches.’
But they are useful as starting points because they’re things that ‘I’ know how to do.
Once we’re a bit further along, it makes more sense to drop them, and get to things like what I understand you’re discussing here, which is a ‘non-investigative’ ‘que cera, cera’ *(que sera, sera) approach where enjoying & appreciating is the (only?) emphasis.
It seems in line with the question of ‘effort,’ where it seems that early in the process especially there’s quite a bit of effort, ‘doing,’ involved to get everything started, and as things really get going - late in the process - there isn’t any need to add effort, everything is going along automatically.
This subject is actually a bit funny for me, because if anything investigation seems to happen automatically for me, whenever I’m not having success in something it just starts , I don’t have to talk myself into doing it
Sexy!
I checked it and see it’s supposed to be ‘que sera, sera’
apparently ‘que cera, cera’ means ‘what wax, wax’
Oh. I figured it means What’s this? What that?
I want to know which of the girls I met you find yourself intuitively leaning towards.
