Investigation

[Kiman]

@solvann

how much investigating did he do to avoid feeling bad? The answer is nothing:

Yes. Afaik, he didn’t investigate the way we investigate. His success in investigation was not a condition for him to be happy. There was no element of compulsion to succeed in investigation. Not investigating was not an obstacle. His objective was to recreate PCE and everything else took a back seat.

[claudiu]

@Kiman

This seems to be true. If Richard had also minimised good feelings, why did he end up enlightened in 1981? (But then his having a strong pure intent means he would minimize good feelings, or may be he just wasn’t attracted to good feelings but was suddenly hit by massive doses of love and compassion just before he enlightened?)

At the time there was no AFT or any actually free people or other actualists to rely on

Richard explained it , that while maximizing the felicitous feelings, and being naivete, love persistently emerged. There was no precedent so no way for him to know that love was leading in a different direction. Found the quote:

CLAUDIU: Could you go into more detail as to what intimacy experiences are, how they differ from excellence experiences, and what role they play in being out-from-control/in a different-way-of-being? Did they feature in feeling-being ‘Richard’s wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom?

RICHARD: In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend.
Selected Correspondence: Actual Intimacy

And he went into more detail here:

RICHARD: [… snip long post detailing Grace’s scale of intimacy …]
MARTIN: What does that mean practically then Richard?
RICHARD: G’day Martin,

Essentially, what “that” meant practically for feeling-being ‘Grace’ was how ‘she’ needed to be fully alert, upon the emergence of (if not prior to) that third-stage ‘sweetness’, to the attractiveness of the feeling of affection/ of ‘self’-centrically being affectionate – so as to not instinctually veer off into the intimacy of love – and thereby remain steadfast with delighting in the physical proximity of the flesh-and-blood body typing these words (i.e., “the other”, in the nomenclature of the third paragraph from the top of this page, that ‘she’ conventionally referred to as “my partner”, when living what ‘she’ laconically termed “my other life”, during ‘her’ interactions on weekdays with female colleagues, friends, acquaintances, &c., in a neighbouring village).

The reason for drawing attention to this instinctual tendency/ temptation – (i.e., to become loving and, consequently, feel even closer to another ‘being’ because of its affectuous intimacy) – in the above Footnote № 1 is two-fold:

• It is the natural and normal (instinctual and default) course of action: see Message № 20312 for an extensive, fully referenced, elaboration.
• It has sufficient explanatory power on its own to account for that historic [quote] “insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months” [end quote] overshadowing of the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté, in 1981, explicitly referenced in that first paragraph of mine (re-presented at the top of this page) for its specific ‘forewarned-is-forearmed’ effect.

(By the way: this natural and normal course of action, this instinctual and default tendency and/or temptation, must surely feature majorly in any plausible hypothesis as to why an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/ human history).
Mailing List 'D' Martin

I was also surprised to learn that Beauty remained with him until he became actually free! Not only that but he didn’t even expect that Beauty would disappear along with everything else. Found a quote:

RICHARD: Last, but not least, as the main focus during ‘his’ eleven years of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment lay in questioning love and compassion, pacifism and appeasement, timelessness, spacelessness and formlessness, immortality and ‘being’ itself, it simply never occurred to ‘him’ to question beauty … ‘he’ (unknowingly) took the pristine purity of the actual, which beauty is but a pathetic imitation of, to be beauty itself.
Frequently Asked Questions – What happened at the Seminal Event?

So you don’t have to know everything to become free .

It should be clear to everyone Richard did do the “method”. The “method” is literally a report of what worked for him. He didn’t just come up with it later as something he didn’t do. The entire text of the AFT is essentially reports, descriptions, experiences – not narratives, prescriptions, or worldviews.

But, while applying the method, he veered off in the totally opposite direction, due to the reasons detailed above. Who of us can say they didn’t veer off in a wrong direction while they were successfully applying the method?

@Kiman

If that is so, how can Richard say he was in out-from-control virtual freedom in 1981 preceding his enlightenment?

Well, he was out from control… until love/enlightenment ‘kidnapped’ him haha (my words not his).

@Kiman

@solvann

how much investigating did he do to avoid feeling bad? The answer is nothing:

Yes. Afaik, he didn’t investigate the way we investigate. His success in investigation was not a condition for him to be happy. There was no element of compulsion to succeed in investigation. Not investigating was not an obstacle. His objective was to recreate PCE and everything else took a back seat.

Ya you are getting the idea now. Recreate the PCE that is the idea. The reason the method is to maximize the felicitous feelings is that they are the closest, knowing imitation of the PCE. So the method is sourced in the PCE.

Indeed it should be pretty obvious pretty early on that investigating while feeling bad doesn’t really work. The question then that is begging to be asked is, why keep doing it?

[Andrew]

So to summarise the events of 1981, there was an initial period of maximised Felicious feeling, which was “increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love…”.

Thus, to this day, no one has become actually free without investigation.

@Kiman , back to you.

Did you read my post regarding what you otherwise could be investigating?;

@Kiman

I don’t need to do the work I do, it’s boring but there is money in it. I can drop out of the work force and live comfortably for the rest of my life. I do it to not stand out like a sore thumb in the society, to have running cash(instead of liquidating assets) and it’s required for the future spouse for me to have “a job”

Obviously, the desire at work is just the tip of the iceberg on what is really going on.

From what you wrote, you are only at work because it is required “for the future spouse for me to have a job”.

[Kiman]

@Andrew

because it is required “for the future spouse for me to have a job”.

How come you ignored the rest of the sentence?!!
Besides them, there are also other reasons like to keep up the social relations, if I have children the amount of security my partner will want for the children, to have more comfortable life, to not be bothered about budget etc.

[Andrew]

@Kiman

Ah, there’s the point.

It’s not why I ignored the rest of the sentence, but rather why you ignored the rest of the issue?

It’s not up to me to investigate for you.

But hey, it’s either help you, or Netflix, and I chose you.

So, this all comes down to what another person ( who I assume isn’t in your life) may want from you.

Ok.

Now we know it has nothing to do with desire and profit. It has to do with you being a man. What is expected of a spouse.

Well, that can all be short cut. What is best for you?

Is a spouse want you want?

Is having children what you want?

I assume the fact you are doing all of this is “yes” to both questions.

Now we can really talk about desires!!

Is that the only life you can imagine for yourself?

As a father I can assure you; financial security is the least of your concerns.

Bringing people into this world is another whole world. One second you are you, the next you are a “father”.

Imagine being everything you have (or wish you had) in your father?

So, the question is, who is running your life?

Who is in control?

[cross.chrono]

I think it was probably both for Richard. Take this for example:

Richard: I did everything I could to be as happy and harmless (free of sorrow and malice) for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by first putting everything on a it-does-not-really-matter basis. That is, I would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way but, if it did not turn out like that, it did not really matter for it was only a preference. I chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make me annoyed, irritated, irked, or even peeved, if that was possible.

Maybe this allowed investigations to not be overly drawn out as there’s a clear cut goal. Plus I’d think investigations are to get at an experiential understanding (a la reflective contemplation) rather than just an intellectual one. Intellectual investigations where you’re just thinking about something in a vacuum can go on forever. My impression is that the real “getting it” or “flash of seeing” is where your ‘being’ sees it instead of just you trying to think about it.

[Kiman]

Richard: A sincere actualist is attentive to feelings all the time, day in, day out, whether active or resting; whether in association or on one’s own; whether there is thinking as well as perceiving or not. When attentiveness is actual, one will notice when one becomes stuck in one’s feeling patterns; it is that very noticing which allows one to back out of the feeling process and free oneself from it. Sensuousness returns one’s attention to its proper focus: if one is actualising a virtual freedom at that moment, then one’s focus will be the actual object of actualism. If one is not in virtual freedom, one’s focus will be just a straight-forward application of matter-of-fact attention itself, just a simple noticing of whatever comes up without getting possessively involved: ‘Ah, this feeling … what is it … where is it … where did it come from … what is it made up of … what is it connected to …?’