Seeing as I have a vested interest, (as a blind nature animal self morphed into an identity) to not change but rather survive at all costs, getting to the cause of many issues goes straight into areas with “police line - do not cross” and various guards patrolling one’s mind.
Investigating can become Mission Impossible 10000. Which is where Peter advised that “bloody mindedness” will be needed.
I was so amped up last night to try out my new insight (that my nature is really blind nature) that I did push. Sick, cold, and somewhat lonely, it wasn’t a “no ball” after all.
I just had to accept that I couldn’t get all the way into it.
Somethings take months, or 10 years. However, I think the quality of simply not giving up is key regardless which type of investigating or exploring or contemplating whatever is going on.
As @claudiu said, maybe 8 years ago. Actualism isn’t a slot machine where one puts moments of feeling good into hoping to get a reward someday.
There is really no prerequisite to becoming actually free. I was seeing this lately that it really can happen, not because I have ever been “close” but because of the very nature of self. One can realise in an instant something which has been obvious the entire time.
One instant of realisation can lead to instant actualisation. At least I think that is the healthy way to see all of this. Otherwise I will indeed build all sorts of prerequisites and be “slogging it out” trying to put “shiny rocks and feel good moments” into an imaginary actual freedom machine.
I was just thinking about this thread we had a while ago and realised that @Srinath actually gave some pretty interesting advice there with regards to investigation (specifically on not overdoing it) : Virtual Freedom vs. Rapid Method
specifically this bit :
Essentially when I look back at it ‘I’ dismantled social identity just enough to become happy and harmless relatively constantly and to have regular EE’s and PCE’s. It got me to a point where self-immolation presented itself as an option and ‘I’ took it. Upon actual freedom though there has been cleaning up to do of social identity - which logic would tell you should have been easier for Vineeto as she had largely eliminated this prior to AF and her journey to a full freedom relatively quickly bears this out. But it didn’t work that way for Peter or anyone else, so who knows maybe it’s not that simple.
Reflecting on all of this my advice would still be the same. To focus on being happy and harmless each moment again, gradually separate purity from ‘you’, have EE’s and PCE’s galore, get a feeling of being as a totality and don’t overdo the investigation and attempt to eliminate social identity as it is quite tricky to do when one has feelings because of the noise factor. Once you are free, social identity is all that remains so cleanup is straight-forward. By all means investigate if that’s what you are interested in and getting something out of it while keeping eyes on the prize.
I think VF is a tricky goal. Peter and Vineeto did have fairly relaxed lives it seems (some conjecture here) and round the clock access to Richard. This may be a little controversial but just my opinion.
@Srinath Could you please elaborate on this noise factor? I can see that investigating beliefs as a feeling being vs actually free is a completely different animal because as a feeling being there is this whole affective backing which makes any change away from normal difficult, like those beliefs are cemented in place with ‘my’ very being. I can see that when actually free it becomes more a case of reviewing these brain patterns which now are devoid of any affective backing so it is smooth sailing. Is this what you mean by noise factor?
Also this bit I find very interesting too and I am in agreement. I have always understood Virtual Freedom as feeing good for 23h 59min a day, every day. It is quite staggering to contemplate just how much I would have to whittle myself down to live like this.
I have whittled down a lot these past 3 years and my life is so different now but still that goal of 23h 59min every day seems out of reach by quite a bit.
The other bit about Peter and Vineeto having relaxed lives I relate to, because I have noticed that a lot of my feeling good is somewhat facilitated by ‘setting up’ my life to be relatively easy, stress free etc. I notice that whenever there are significant changes in the overall stability in my life, feeing good inevitably takes some sort of a ‘hit’. Could I really get to a point where no matter how busy or shifting my life is, I am still living up to that 23h 59min every day?
So I do see that perhaps there is some sort of ‘diminishing returns’ past a certain point with regards to investigation and whittling down of the social identity. Could there be a better way?
This is all in reference to one of the diagrams, where ‘the grey arrows’ represent ‘who I think and feel I am.’
Vineeto: In order to get closer to one’s avowed aim, the living of a PCE for 24 hours a day, one then has to get off one’s bum and dismantle the ‘grey arrows’ – who one thinks and feels one is. The change that needs to happen can only happen in the ‘grey arrows’. The only thing ‘I’ can do is actively diminish ‘me’ – examining and investigating my social and spiritual conditioning and my set of survival instincts – all my passionate beliefs and my affective imaginations. So when I get confused, or impatient, or fearful, or greedy for more PCEs or discouraged, or, or, or … this is where I have to look, this is where I can change something. This is where ‘I’ can speed up ‘my’ demise. When I am emotional, slightly off-track or very disturbed, I am the ‘grey arrows’ – and I can only do something about the ‘grey arrows’. That means, ‘I who I think and feel I am’ is the thing that needs to be taken apart, the thing that needs my full attention, intent and concentration. The ‘grey arrows’ is the only thing I can do something about, because that is ‘me’, obstructing and preventing the perfection that is already here from becoming apparent. In that sense the ‘green arrows’ don’t really get bigger, ‘what I am’ becomes more and more apparent.
As I pointed out to No. 4 in a previous post, there is no point in waiting for the ‘Grace of Existence’ to descend and deliver a PCE. When all is said and done, waiting for a PCE derives from a grim-world view where one doesn’t want to be here but wants to go somewhere else – into a PCE. There is nothing I can do about the ‘green arrows’ – ‘what I am’ is already perfect, it is already as it should be. But I can actively do something about the obstacles that prevent me from experiencing the actual world; I can remove, slowly and meticulously, the stuff that the identity consists of. I can investigate into each belief, each hope, faith and ‘truth’, examine experientially each feeling and emotion that is triggered by people or situations, until I finally uncover the bare animal instincts. By that time the ‘grey arrows’ have become rather thin and transparent so that the ‘green arrows’ of ‘what I am’ can be more and more clearly experienced.
During the first year on the path to Actual Freedom I could clearly distinguish when a PCE started and when it ended. It was like a chandelier had been switched on in a very dim room, and suddenly everything was stunningly clear and obvious, the emotional problems from minutes before suddenly disappeared and – if I wanted to – I could also determine which problem and belief to tackle next.
In Virtual Freedom the situation is a bit different. The size of the ‘grey arrows’ diminished and the ‘green arrows’ – ‘what I am’ – becomes more and more prevalent and apparent. The days are filled with delight, hardly any emotions interfere with my happiness and life itself becomes more and more obvious, there are neither problems to solve nor insights to achieve. I simply know that every belief is wrong just because it is a belief – it is only a question of ‘where’ or ‘how’ this belief is false. At this stage, the instincts can be clearly seen for what they are – chemical surges of the dying entity. When the ‘who I think and feel I am’ becomes so weak and transparent, a pure consciousness experience is not as outstanding and not as sought after as in the beginning.
But PCEs are not my main concern now. My main concern is the ending of ‘me’. My main concern is sitting it out and enjoying the final jerks of the dying identity as much as possible, with as little emotional worry or fear as possible. Life is fantastic as it is, I know my direction as clearly as I can see the moon in a cloudless sky. Now there is no question of going off-track, which had been one of my biggest worries, and now there is no question about the inevitability of success. All the ‘grey arrows’ only point in one direction and that is towards the ‘pop’.
And so everything is perfectly perfect, and utterly normal, deliciously excellent and thrillingly delightful – with sometimes the curious experience that I want to stop being here because it gets all too much – but that seems to have become impossible. So I go for a walk, jump up and down and then ‘give in’ to enjoying the thrill of it all.
Interestingly, it still took Vineeto and Peter another decade to become free after they had reached this stage. Perhaps @Srinath and @geoffrey 's way saves quite a bit of time!
Yes Vineeto’s text above is the perfect description of ‘the traditional way’ if I can call it that It is exactly what I have been doing the past 3 years. It actually highlights quite well the difference in approach to what @Srinath suggested in the thread.
What Vineeto describes is very much the meaning of in control virtual freedom, as in it is not a different way of being but rather the culmination of an impressive whittling down of ‘me’. ‘I’ am still driving the whole thing though.
It seems what @Srinath suggests relies more on progressively giving way to purity as opposed to investigation and whittling down. So the success is due to giving way to something outside of ‘me’ whereas it seems Vineetos approach is more about ‘me’ rolling up the sleeves and getting to work.
I really see this as 2 distinct directions to go. So for example something comes up… Do I roll up my sleeves and explore every last corner of this thing with the goal of eradicating the belief from my life.
OR
Do I see ‘myself’ as a totality, just ‘being’ ‘me’ again and then orient myself towards purity instead.
Option 2 seems to lead to enjoyment and appreciation via a more direct route, but does it lead to long lasting change
The other thing as well, isn’t option 2 more or less what Richard jumped to after his initial PCE? He went straight for the out from control virtual freedom with pure intent being the driving factor of it all. Although my actualism history is not that good so feel free to correct me here
Get the knack for allowing yourself to be h & h and the rest takes care of itself. The more EE’s and PCEs you have, the more trivial our problems and passions seem. This is because the universe is experienced as so much bigger. The feeling that these problems hold a lot of weight is significantly diminished when the experience of infinity is oh so close. Moreover, the less credibility you have. This is because the idea of an entity existing in the past and in the future holds much less water. Thus making it easier to stay in a cycle of h&h, EEs, PCEs. Since those states are present based (the PCE being out of time completely) You can still investigate while in any of those states, keep in mind. It’s a lot less linear in that there will be long gaps of time between investigative thoughts, since little to no urgency will be present, but when the conclusion is finally arrived it, it will be lived one.
@Kub933 I don’t know if I see that much of a difference really. I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that there are two very different direct route methods - mine or Geoffreys vs. Vineeto’s.
Re: my words above – at the time I had wanted to counter the emphasis given to investigation and dismantling of social identity – and the relative exclusion of the actualism method and PCE’s. This was a bit of an issue on the forum at the time. Many here were not experienced or experienced enough in PCE’s. Investigation in the absence of pure intent can easily deteriorate into a moral exercise. PCE’s and actualism method were also a big omission on the AFT landing page for a long time – but that has now been corrected.
That omission, as well as Vineeto’s prolonged VF period made me wonder if we had followed somewhat different direct methods. But she seemingly does not make all that much of it, and VF of greater or lesser lengths seem to have occurred with those becoming actually free.
Then finally there was my misunderstanding of what Richard meant by ‘rapid method’ which increased the apparent discrepancy.
I certainly didn’t experience myself as not investigating as a feeling being. I was investigating a lot, all the time and had to make attempts to reduce it as I suspected that there was something self-gratifying in it after a point. I never did stop investigating entirely. One needs the discernment investigation provides in order to progress.
What I would say is that it really depends on where you are. If like Vineeto, you are at a point where you have had a number of PCE’s and still find yourself back to ‘your’ old ways then there is a bit of digging and investigating to do. Only ‘you’ can finally do something about it after-all - not the body in a PCE. I found myself in a similar position towards the last couple of years prior to AF. I had to go more into figuring out why ‘I’ was still there and what bits needed to be dismantled in order to take that final step.
If your baseline mood is good and you have had no PCE’s or very few then it isn’t a bad idea to focus on the actualism method and specifically having PCE’s. Note that this will also involve some investigation. You cannot simply dive into pure intent or access purity when there are major social identity issues keeping you from being happy and harmless. And a self that is glum, sad and overly anxious is not going to want to go into abeyance.
If your baseline mood is not great with frequent dips into sorrow and anger, then its about getting your baseline up by a combination of actualism method and investigation. PCE’s can wait.
You’ll need to follow your own nose on this and not get too caught up in what this person or that person said. You’ll discover for yourself what is the right mix, what is that gets YOU closer to pure intent.
Ok right I see, so the advice was more to correct what appeared to be deficiencies in how people on this forum were at that time approaching actualism as opposed to coming up with some new approach.
It makes sense, just as it might be correct for someone to up the efforts of investigation at times, it may also be correct advice for that same person to move away from investigation at a different time.
This is something I have observed in myself, like a lab mouse that has been granted a treat every time it presses a button and now it is stuck pressing that button over and over even though no treat is being dispensed. It seems investigation can almost become ‘my’ safe space, something ‘I’ get to retreat into. As always though this is something that is to be noticed within myself as opposed to taking a moral stance against investigation.
I have been playing about with all this the past couple of days and I have got a bit more clarity now. What @JonnyPitt wrote about ‘my’ problems becoming more trivial in light of purity has been a great pointer.
How I see this playing out in myself is that at times there is not really anything much to look at and yet there is somewhat of a pull into sorrow and malice, this pull is ‘me’ as ‘being’, it cannot really be reduced any further, it is ‘me’ ‘being’ ‘me’. At those times what works is seeing ‘myself’ as a totality and moving towards purity and it has been working exactly like this! Very effectively at times.
This is an example where taking an investigation heavy approach has been fruitless in the past because it seems I am trying to chip away at something that cannot be reduced much further, like ‘I’ am poking at ‘myself’ for no reason.
Other times though I can see that it isn’t just ‘me’ at the core, there is some sort of a ‘knot’, some sort of a ‘structure’, something ‘back there’ that is a bit more complex. This is where I will investigate, because unless this thing is looked at I will be back to it sooner or later. Also while that ‘structure’ is there it will be a blocker for that simple movement towards purity.
Also another thing I just realised re-reading the above posts is that the vibe and emphasis on this forum really did change! It seems it was this past year where quite a few of us began experiencing purity more and having that connection in place
I think it helps to engage with the desire. Allowing it to exist helps it to get it out of my system, and puts it right in plain view where I can learn things about it, learn what it looks and feels like
Yeah that’s a good point, I was thinking about how morality (including actualist morality) will slow down this process. It will create this back and forth between desiring and the suppression of desire but the desire itself is never clearly looked at and explored.
Yet at the same time going with the desire will stop me looking at it clearly in the same way suppressing would. If I am too busy expressing this desire then I am not involved with examining it fully
It’s an interesting one and I think this is a puzzle that is tricky for a lot of actualists. Let’s take love for example, I am driven to pursue love… Let’s say I know intellectually and from reading the AFT that something is amiss with love. I have some personal experience of the failings of love but to some extent I still ‘buy into it’, I am still driven to have it and I still believe that fantasy of ‘true love’. Maybe I find that more often than not it leads me to feel kinda shitty and confused but I still chase that high that it can sometimes provide.
So what do I do? :
If I take the actualist morality approach and simply look to avert myself away from love without experiencing it fully then this would be what Peter calls ‘snorkelling around on the surface’.
If I spend all of my time actively pursuing and expressing these loving feelings I will be darting from emotion to emotion and I will never have the attention and clarity needed to fully understand what is going on. Plus taking this approach I might only end up focusing on the good feelings (the ones I am pursuing) and never have the focus and clarity needed to see how they inevitably link with the bad, the bad will be conveniently ignored. Seeing the whole picture is necessary to be able to give up the whole package in favour for the felicitous.
So it seems the way to go is some interplay of allowing myself to have the feelings in the first place without any sort of morality interfering with the exploration but at the same time I must have the attitude of seeing this thing clearly for what it is as opposed to just blindly expressing it over and over and calling it exploration/investigation.
The identity will get up to all this nonsense on its own, that’s the starting place
The purpose of actualism is to drill down to the genuine, which is a gradual process - and even at the very end there are all kinds of identity things happening
I’m encouraged by Vineeto’s words that in investigation nothing can go wrong - no matter what, if I’m sincere & paying attention, I’m learning something. Even the periods when I was really a mess / dissociated I learned a lot about being a human
The measuring sticks are the primacy of pure intent & sincerity, time enjoying & appreciating, mood baseline, amount of triggers & their strength… and then ultimately, becoming free itself.
So it seems the way to go is some interplay of allowing myself to have the feelings in the first place without any sort of morality interfering with the exploration but at the same time I must have the attitude of seeing this thing clearly for what it is as opposed to just blindly expressing it over and over and calling it exploration/investigation.
Yeah, and this is basically addressed from the other side of the coin by Richard here:
There are two forms of ignorance about the genesis of the affective feelings: nescience and ignoration – wherein the former is to be incognisant of the root cause and the latter is to be disregardant of the root cause – and the latter has much to do with what is often expressed as ‘you can’t change human nature’ (only recently on another mailing list the sentence ‘we can’t change biological predisposition’ was pithily presented as if it were a valid reason not to discuss the genetic inheritance of aggression). Meaning that, apart from fanciful notions about genetic engineering, it is generally held that as human nature (biology) cannot be changed therefore biology cannot be the root cause of all the ills of humankind … or so the bizarre rationale goes.
Obviously part of the first step towards sincerity is the acknowledgement of blind nature’s legacy.
So, just as it is different to ignore nesciencesly than ignorationally, it is so with acceptance, for it is indeed different to fully acknowledge there is something happening, than to (implicitly or explicitly) accept it as fate (ie: not doing anything to actually change it).
It is exactly what I have been doing the past 3 years. It actually highlights quite well the difference in approach to what 
