Perhaps not necessarily a gradual process? When Richard says–what is it that caused drop in happiness? Identify it and get back to happiness because “Whatever it is, it is silly”. I thought his saying that is silly because people get caught up in their problems and dilemmas because it’s not silly for them. If it was so simple, there would be no problem in applying actualism. But later it became clear that it is(whatever “it”, the troubling issue) silly because it is “me” which causes the trouble and whatever that “me” does is ultimately silly. For Richard it was crystal clear. Richard didn’t have to investigate at all, isn’t that true?
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That’s very interesting I didn’t see it from that angle, also impressed with how you managed to find that quote! The AFT just keeps on giving 
So I can accept that there are those things driving my behaviour (such as desire) and I can fully explore those without any suppression or morality. But at the same time I do not need to act as if acknowledging these drives somehow makes them set in stone.
In admitting my desire for love for example, I am not admitting that I shall be chasing it forever, in fact this admitting might allow me to explore it fully.
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He definitely did loads of investigating, especially with Devika. They spent several years earnestly seeking to understand different conditionings.
With an individual trigger sometimes seeing the silliness makes the trigger go away in an instant, and it doesn’t return, but sometimes it takes a more persistent approach with more dug-in triggers to get to that point.
Additionally, we all have lots of triggers, which means seeing the silliness of lots of different things. That takes some time.
And then there is some amount of ‘acclimatizing’ to peace that the brain seems to want to do before freedom can occur
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It can only be explored fully when you acknowledge that it’s there!
I meant a blanket approach–seeing every trigger as silly, therefore no inner conflict.
If possible, could you link to the page(s) where Richard investigated?
We’d need to pull Richard out of retirement for this one 
We can club such questions and present to him at once like how Alan and Dona did.
“For many years I sought genuine exploration and discovery of what it means to live a fully human life, and in October 1992 I discovered, once and for all, what I was looking for.”
“I travelled the country – and overseas to India – meeting with people from all walks of life in an attempt to discover why Spiritual Enlightenment, which has been within the human experience for thousands of years, had not delivered the Peace On Earth it seemed to promise.”
“It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. Discovering the source of the Nile or climbing Mount Everest – or whatever physical venture – pales into insignificance when compared to the thrill of finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being. I am having so much fun … those middle-aged or elderly people who bemoan their ‘lost youth’ leave me astonished. Back then I was – basically – lost, lonely, frightened and confused. Accordingly, I set out on what was to become the most marvellous escapade possible. As soon as I understood that there was nobody stopping me but myself, I had the autonomy to inquire, to seek, to investigate and to explore. As soon as I realised nobody was standing in the way but myself, that realisation became an actualisation and I was free to encounter, to uncover, to discover and to find the ‘secret to life’ or the ‘meaning of life’ or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’ or whatever one’s quest may be called. To dare to be me – to be what-I-am as an actuality – rather than the who ‘I’ was or the who ‘I’ am or the who ‘I’ will be, calls for an audacity unparalleled in the annals of history … or one’s personal history, at least.”
Really Richard has been the ultimate investigator… how do you think he learned all the stuff that he wrote on the AFT? The guy taught himself pali to better understand Buddhism, for goodness’ sake!
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Yea this doesn’t work in my experience , except sometimes when I am in a very strong EE already (and even then it doesn’t work on whatever trigger ends the EE).
It’s intellectually dishonest basically. Cause you are saying to yourself “ya ya it’s silly cause it’s ‘me’”, but if that worked then you’d already be feeling good and having no inner conflict. The fact that it doesn’t work means you don’t actually see it as silly. So then you have to look at the actual specifics of that very situation itself.
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I think it makes sense in a nip-in-the-bud scenario, eg “I already know this trigger, I don’t need to understand it more deeply, I recognize there’s emotion happening right now,” and cutting it off.
With the understanding that if the trigger is persistent, that there’s still something in it to sort out via investigation
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I’ve always thought of all this process as consisting of two layers: immediate action (which relates to the generalities) and long run action (which relates to the particularities). So if this were an obstacle race:
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Acceleration/speed is getting back to feeling good as soon as possible by just seeing the silliness of feeling bad in principle and as a generality.
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Removing obstacles is fully seeing the silliness and the falsity of every belief as a trigger or root of such feelings as particularities.
Both make sense and play an important role for a smooth and effective race. Richard says to get back to feel good ASAP, and then going back to investigate, mostly if the trigger is chronic and recurrent, even if that means potentially taking you back to feeling bad, as it is worth doing so.
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I’m pretty sure he didn’t investigate. I’ll be delighted to be proved wrong. I suggested Kuba that we put such questions to Richard not because I’m not sure Richard didn’t investigate but because he didn’t specifically say it anywhere, afaik, in the AFT. But it is implied in many places.
For one, here Richard talks about questioning:
RICHARD: Just so that it is clear what an open question is: an open question is a seminal question. ‘I’ ask the question in such a way that ‘I’ do not just get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer and be satisfied with that. ‘I’ want an experiential result … and ‘I’ keep the question burning in the depths of ‘my’ psyche, discarding any intellectual answers (no matter how accurate) that inevitably pop-up in the course of time. And then it happens as a direct result of keeping the question open.
By investigation we don’t mean that here. That is not the kind of investigation we see here people penning in their journals.
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@henryyyyyyyyyy Here is how Richard proceeded towards his enlightenment:
“I distinctly recall the identity in residence all those years ago informing ‘his’ wife at the time that ‘he’ had been doing it the following-the-herd way for 30+ years, but to no avail, and that it was high-time ‘he’ set about doing it ‘his’ way (and when she asked what way that was ‘he’ said ‘he’ did not know but it would become progressively apparent, provided ‘he’ took the first step, with each successive step ‘he’ took).
So ‘he’ set about imitating the actual – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) in late July 1980 – on the first of January 1981 simply by each moment again being relentlessly attentive to, and scrupulously honest about, how that only moment of ever being alive was experienced so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as was humanly possible inasmuch any deviation from such felicity/ innocuity was attended to with the utmost dispatch in order to live as peacefully and as harmoniously as ‘he’ could with ‘his’ wife and children, in particular, and with anyone and everyone, in general, who came into ‘his’ presence.
And that way of living was so successful, compared to the norm, that in a very short time ‘he’ was wont to exclaim to all and sundry that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life (for that is how far beyond normal human expectations the felicitous/ innocuous state which has nowadays become known as a virtual freedom truly is) and ‘he’ was perplexed as to why, it being such a simple thing to do, no-one had ever done it before.”
And he attained enlightenment within a remarkably short time of 10 months, short of a few precious seconds for which if he behaved would have extinguished his instinctual passions.
Do you see investigation anywhere in the above description?
That would be strange if he didn’t investigate considering his advice to become free:
" The way of becoming actually free is both simple and practical. One starts by dismantling the sense of social identity that has been overlaid, from birth onward, over the innate self until one is virtually free from all the social mores and psittacisms … those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. One can be virtually free from all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions … and all the other schemes and dreams. One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to produce what one thinks and feels oneself to be … a wayward social identity careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity. However, it is never too late to start in on uncovering and discovering what one actually is."
and
“If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end that good feeling? Ah … yes: ‘He said that and …’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I …’. Or: ‘What I wanted was …’. Or: ‘I didn’t do …’. And so on and so on … one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood … usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most.”
I’m not sure how you intend to dismantle the sense of social identity, become aware of all the socialisation and programming, or ‘look at something to find out why’ if not via investigation
To me these things are the very epitome of the word investigation
Have you read Richard’s journal? If memory serves, he describes the investigations he went on with Devika in that volume.
Yes, he is explicit about that he actually investigated and how he did it:
**RICHARD: […] Speaking personally, in ‘my’ investigations all those years ago, ‘I’ first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking … then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When ‘I’ dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) ‘I’ stumbled across the instincts … and here I am today.
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I see that he does not explicitly mention investigation in that passage, but I also see that he mentions investigating, both as a recommendation and as something he did, in many other places on the AFT.
Honestly I am amazed that you have not seen it at some point
It is possible we as individuals, or me in particular are/am approaching the investigations in different ways, or in ways that don’t prove successful, in which case I’m open to any critiques.
His insights naturally came to him as he applied the method.
Do you recall that Richard talks about dishing washes with resentment and it clicked to him that he shouldn’t waste the only moment that was available to him? That was the seminal point.
And within ten months, do you really think he investigated all that was bothering him all the while raising 4 children, doing jobs, running household and all? He was applying method consistently.
“Pure contemplation is not thinking ‘about’ something … which is the usual way of thought. Pure contemplation does not take a duration of time. It is instant thought, a realisation, a flash of seeing. In pure contemplation ‘I’ do no thinking … thinking does itself. ‘I’ have no substance, therefore in pure contemplation there is thinking without a ‘thinker’. Thought operates freely … and in immaculate wonder. Pure contemplation is a state of unsullied wonderment: ‘how can this world happen?’, or ‘what is this universe doing here?’, or ‘where does this body come from?’. These questions are posed in such a way so as not to get a thought-out answer, but to simply wonder, in a pure contemplation of the actual. One stays with the notion: ‘I am this body’ and regards that magical world of the PCE. Opening up to that fairy tale-like world by seeing that it is indeed possible now makes it close … so close as to be already here. It is always already here. Regard the very best as possible for oneself … and for all human beings. There is a must in pure contemplation that something amazing can happen: all of a sudden ‘I’ am no more and the actual is already here. I am here where I always have been.
One has always been here … one has never been anywhere else.”
Do you see how he downplays the kind of investigation that we usually do?
CC: @Miguel
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This is a very interesting quote, thank you for posting it. I’m considering it right now
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Can’t it be both 
(both contemplation and investigation)