James' Journal

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409

Hmm so what I wrote wasn’t about a “second layer of affect” at all, but rather something for you to contemplate while reading it, contemplating the quality of the feeling good. It’s more about consciously becoming aware of this quality of feeling good and seeing experientially for yourself this quality.

Well I would first give a sincere attempt of the advice here to see if it works. What happened in your experience as a result of contemplating those questions I posed, and looking not for a worded thought-out answer but rather an experiential one?

That is wonderful to hear. Truly there is magic in the air :appreciation:

Cheers,
Claudiu

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Fair. It was more an attempt from me to make further sense and implement it in a more meaningful way, but maybe it’s not the most accurate way of framing it. This is what I tried to mean:

The mere awareness or even contemplation could be interpreted to be done merely intellectually, and from that interpretation one may fall in the trap of saying “well, duh, obviously: feeling good feels good, so tell me something I don’t know”.

But if we try to take it to the affective realm it can have a deeper effect, and since the action of enjoying is different than the action of appreciating, I was trying to capture that very affective distinction or flavor.

In a sense, if we were to approach this from this affective awareness (and not merely intellectual), the nature/distinction of this appreciative action may be closer to, say, marvelling than mere enjoyment of enjoying (which also may be present as enjoyment can be enjoyed, but I think there is more to just that). Does that make any sense?

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@claudiu that’s interesting because I have been approaching this from a different angle altogether, it seems so at least.

To summarise, the target of appreciation has been the world of people, things and events, not feeling good specifically.

The focus on appreciation started when Vineeto urged us to turn any sadness surrounding Richard’s death into appreciation for his life and his words. Then further to allow this appreciation to ‘spill over’ into appreciating this wonderful universe which exists all around, including the natural world and one’s fellow human beings.

And doing so is what increases both the scope and the depth of enjoyment, it’s essentially assessing the true worth of what this universe is like and what it means to be alive.

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Hmm I would say they are two different things indeed, but that aren’t mutually exclusive and are in fact complementary.

It’s parallel to enjoyment. The way of living life that has come to be known as the actualism method, is one of enjoying this moment of being alive. This does not mean you have to enjoy every thing that happens in your life, particularly unpleasant stuff (like someone throwing a tantrum), but rather that you don’t let those unpleasant things take away from enjoying this moment of being alive. On top of this, however, it is certainly sensible to, and definitely silly not to, enjoy the wonderful things and events that do happen in your life.

So too I would say with appreciating this moment of being alive. On the one hand there is appreciating that it is the only moment of being alive, and how wonderful it is to be spending it enjoying it. On the other, there is appreciating the wonderful things and events that do happen.

And yes, the potent appreciation that has begun happening spontaneously all across the world, that appeared to have started shortly before Richard’s passing, is of course something to partake in and take benefit from and nourish in one’s own life, as it will indeed move one exponentially forward.

I am particularly drawing focus on the “appreciating the enjoyment” aspect because in my experience, in past times, when I would be feeling good, I would not think much of it. And when feeling bad I would feel very bad. At some point when I was feeling good I thought to actually compare the quality of it with feeling bad, and I came to appreciate how immensely better even a basic feeling good was. This appreciation of it did marvels in helping me to cement it and increase it further, it paved the way for higher and more consistent levels of feeling great, excellent, etc.

I’m curious about your thoughts on the matter @Vineeto as it does seem there’s a few different things we’re talking about here.

Cheers,
Claudiu

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Hi Felipe,

I just snipped the pieces above to highlight how you’re approaching the topic from a place of wondering whether this or that will work, and whether to try this or that, and what might eventuate from that.

I wanted to highlight this just to bring attention to the fact that the advice I’m giving here is what experientially worked for me, as I just wrote to Kuba:

So, when I’m giving this advice, I’m not wondering about whether it works – I know that it did, at least for me. I am curious if it will work if somebody else tries it as well, but they have to try it first to see :grin: .

I write this response here in this way to further encourage you to simply try doing what is being outlined here, to see if it works. Then you won’t have to wonder – either it will, which will be wonderful, or it won’t, in which case that will be a valuable thing to report also and then we can confer further about it.

There may still be a disconnect as to what I’m suggesting though, so to go into it in a bit more detail…

I’m not sure why it would be interpreted that way – this is why I specifically highlighted the experiential and contemplative nature of it (emphases added):

So it’s simply a matter of not looking for the intellectual, or thought-out answer, but rather, the experiential and essentially wordless one (which can then be put into words later).

I am pretty sure that what I am attempting to convey here is what the word “contemplation” refers to. It is not an “intellectual” at all approach. Here is how Richard described it:

and:

Maybe I can try to give an example here. If you are looking at a red object, how do you know that it’s red? You don’t know it because you think it, you know it because you are having the experience of “red”. The purpose of this exercise is to bring that same experiential attention to the quality of feeling good, of enjoyment, so as to help the reader (that’s you reading this now!) fully appreciate just how wondrous it is, and how much better than feeling bad and even feeling neutral it is. In my experience, this paves the way to massively heightened levels of enjoyment, it clears the path, so to speak, as one sees for oneself (and not just because they read it on the internet) just how good feeling good is.

“Marvelling” certainly conveys the quality of the desired effect well. I would say it is a matter of putting one’s entire ‘being’ into it. But I wouldn’t say it’s a matter of “feeling out” the answer. It’s not an intuitive approach… it’s one of contemplation.

Maybe the tricky bit is what “contemplation” refers to? Let me know if my attempts to describe it here make sense.

As I write this I realize I am perhaps conflating appreciation with contemplation and that I may be referring to something other than what Vineeto was referring to regarding appreciation – so I invite @Vineeto to comment and elucidate on the terminology if needed :slight_smile:

But terminology aside, I will stand behind what I wrote as being that which worked for me to cement feeling good and pave the way forward towards quite unbelievable and unimaginable levels of sheer joy and mirificent wonder at being alive.

Cheers,
Claudiu

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Felipe: Thanks for the input, Claudiu. I think you’ve already made this point to me in a past instance. Basically, it is that:
Enjoyment = this feels good
Appreciation = it feels good to feel good
It has a meta function. I do wonder though how to drive appreciation even deeper in a way that it doesn’t remain an intellectual effort and rather it’s a second layer of affect that reinforces and deepens the actualization of it all in the long run. All this in the context of that exponential nature that Vineeto wrote about, that’s an intriguing part that I may be missing. How exactly does the exponential nature come into play? I guess I need to experiment more with it to have an existential answer as well. Been trying to commit more to actualism lately, so this fits great.
Any further input from you or Vineeto will be appreciated [link].

Hi @Felipe,

Your deduction that “Appreciation = it feels good to feel good” is incorrect.
“it feels good to feel good” is the act of taking notice of the hedonic tone of feeling good. Therefore appreciation is not “a meta function” of feeling good, appreciation is something additional, otherwise why even mention appreciation, let along emphasize it?

Can you recognize how you miss the points on appreciation, which my post and Claudiu’s extensive explanation made, by wanting to just quickly think about it and put it aside?

Actualism is a full-blooded approach – and it needs your whole-hearted attention and application to have some lasting effect and success.

Felipe: Update: tapped into that for a bit and I can certainly feel the snowball effect of feeling good → feeling good about feeling good → feeling even better, etc.
I do wonder if this particular activity can help me break the habit of me trying to get distracted/entertainment when feeling good becomes normalized and triggers a “now what?” response. That usually leads me back to normal, so maybe feeling good about feeling good can calm and rechannel that dissatisfaction back to actualism mode? [link].

See what I mean – “tapped into that for a bit” – and you can already “feel the snowball effect” even in this short time and even though you haven’t applied any appreciation yet? And then you stopped enjoying and in the next – intellectually thought-out – sentence you started worrying about getting “distracted/ entertainment”. Why? Is this just a (bad) habit of yours you need to become aware of, or is there more behind this not wanting to keep feeling good for too long?

Here again is a quote from my post, in case you have not read it with care –

“Hence appreciation means assessing of the true worth or value of persons or things and thus adding value, enriching, encouraging (the expansion of your value assessment), highly regarding, cherishing, marvelling”, with a link to Richard’s article how you can appreciate and what there is in this infinite universe to marvel at and delight in. Especially take note of the 3rd paragraph in the above linked article.

And here is more to read with care and leisure to contemplate its significance –

“With the ongoing increase in appreciation and the consequent appreciative enjoyment it will be easy to follow Richard’s instructions further –

[Richard]: “one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ … and after that to ‘feeling excellent’ […] to the point of excellence being the norm”.” [link].

Once you figure out experientially how appreciation exponentially increases and expands on your enjoyment, you can up-level your bottom line or your hedonic fall-back position which both Claudiu and Richard and myself have talked about. (Non-intellectualized, i.e. comprehensive) contemplation, especially apperceptive contemplation, is certainly part of appreciation and can increase it immensely.

When ‘Richard’ the identity decided to dedicate ‘his’ life to live ‘his’ PCE 24hrs a day, ‘he’ started on ‘his’ journey by imitating the actual world as experienced in the PCE, guided by the golden clew of pure intent. And when ‘he’ succeeded, Richard confirmed to all of us that living in the actual world is indeed an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of being alive –

“The means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end” (as it says in the 4th scrolling banner).

Does this tell you something? The actualism method is imitating the actual world – hence it cannot merely be an affective-only enjoyment and its meta function. It has to be something which increases your experience of being alive exponentially, to more and more imitate the actual world and the experience of a PCE and to lead you to becoming actually free.

Hence any (intellectually) watering down (i.e. depreciating) the act of enjoying and appreciating is going in the wrong direction, a red flag should appear right away, and it indicates a missing ingredient of pure intent(1). The direction to proceed is to do whatever you can to increase enjoyment of being alive, and you do that by “adding value”, “cherishing”, marvelling and living in wide-eyed wonder regarding your enjoyment of being alive, i.e. by appreciating and deeply contemplating the wondrousness and mirificence of the world around, including one’s fellow human beings.
(1) PS: When I said – “it indicates a missing ingredient of pure intent” – just to clarify, it means in the context of your writing pure intent is missing, it is not activated.

In a similar way you are attempting to depreciate, i.e. reduce, the marvellous function of awareness, which encompasses all aspects of being alive and conscious (“The mere awareness or even contemplation could be interpreted to be done merely intellectually”) – another red flag expression. Why are you so carelessly reductive ?
*
PS: @Claudiu: You have described it very well. I would say that at some point in the actualism process enjoyment and appreciation are experientially so closely linked together as to be inseparable. And isn’t that wonderful!

Cheers Vineeto

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@Felipe:
Hello, Vineeto , it’s so nice to read you here.

Hello Felipe, Thank you for your kind welcome. Sorry that I missed the first post when I answered the rest just now.

I don’t remember having read such emphasis on appreciation in particular (in the sense that it can be THE element to cause an exponential boost, as you say). It’s one of those words that I’ve misunderstood a lot. At first I took it as the sensorial part (enjoyment = more affective, appreciation = more sensorial).

Naturally feeling being ‘Vineeto’ was aware of the importance of appreciation during ‘her’ years of actualism. I remember once Pamela asking – “Now I feel good, what now”? Richard smiled and said, “appreciate it.” But ‘Vineeto” never wrote much about is – it was just part and parcel of ‘enjoying and appreciating’. Here is an early example from 2000 –

‘VINEETO’: Appreciating the weather, the blue sky and the grey sky, was a useful exercise for me to start noticing the actual world. Usually, when waking up in the morning, I had automatically started to think about my feelings or duties of the day – now I am beginning my day by looking out the window and appreciating the weather, the sky, the clouds, the sun, the rain, the birds, the trees – whatever I can see and hear when looking out the window. It helped me to break the habitual preoccupation with moods, complaints, feelings and self-centred thoughts. At first it was almost an effort to shift the attention away from my self until the synapse in the brain were set to the new course – now it is a delight to watch the ever-changing sky, listen to the sound of the birds blending in with the street noise. There is so much exquisite perfection that has always been here and I have missed it because of myopic ‘self’-centredness!
Yes, it is great to be alive. [link]

I remember that specially in the recent two years I had become increasingly aware how very important appreciation is to the actualism method and actualism process, especially when we had visitors who wanted to know about the actualism method. I could see it in action when they occasionally appreciated the fact of feeling good, of being alive – how this increased exponentially their very enjoyment. Then I of course emphasized it further. In the last weeks before his death Richard was increasingly expressing appreciation, to me, to the marvels of the actual world, large and minute, and to private correspondents. Then he wrote the article about marvelling, which really drove the point home.

During Richard’s sickness and especially after his death the significance of appreciation became overwhelmingly obvious – it was everywhere, often accompanied with a sweetness and tenderness, then also in connection with writing about Richard’s memory, appreciating people, appreciating the universe – pure intent was overwhelmingly pouring in.

As Kuba recently said –

“The focus on appreciation started when Vineeto urged us to turn any sadness surrounding Richard’s death into appreciation for his life and his words. Then further to allow this appreciation to ‘spill over’ into appreciating this wonderful universe which exists all around, including the natural world and one’s fellow human beings.”

Hence I started writing about the significance of appreciation more and more and the responses from members here confirmed how important the comprehensive understanding of appreciation really is.

The word has also been somewhat charged with hints of positive/love feelings (such as love and gratitude), at least in Spanish.

I don’t know who “somewhat charged” it, I certainly never did and neither did Richard. Appreciation is very, very different to love and gratitude.

All this context to ask: can you tell us some specific examples that you remember from your own past experience in which appreciation was an important factor to get you unstuck or ramped up your actualist experience in given moments, or even created breakthroughs in your journey?
I think such anecdotes can help appreciation fully click for some of us. Thanks so much in advance :slight_smile:

I don’t remember any specific anecdotes, I think ‘Vineeto’ often equated deep appreciation with pure intent and that certainly facilitated breakthroughs and progress in her process.

Cheers Vineeto

PS: In my last post to you I said – “it indicates a missing ingredient of pure intent”. Just to clarify, it means in the context of your writing pure intent is missing, it is not activated.

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@Vineeto Thank you for emphasizing the importance of appreciation for enjoyment and pure intent. I intend to follow thru with applying it (appreciation) in the way you have talked about. I need to reread and practice appreciation in such a way.

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“It is also handy that I can consciously set my intent towards appreciating, and from there it seems there in no cap on how wonderful things can get.”
Thanks @Kub933 It clicked for me here where you said “consciously set my intent towards appreciating”. That is what I was looking for as to how to apply appreciation.

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Thanks, Vineeto, this is very useful. And yes, my replies were rushed and reductionistic, as I got sucked in a very specific aspect of what Claudiu wrote there and hyper focused there.

And then you stopped enjoying and in the next – intellectually thought-out – sentence you started worrying about getting “distracted/ entertainment” . Why?

Part of the rush. Happens to me often when I’m excited and caffeinated: jump from idea to idea fast, lol. It can also be indicative of my distracted nature (part of why I haven’t been able to fully focus on actualist endeavors all along and rather chase all kinds of cheap dopaminergic rewards).

I will shut up now as this thinking out loud of mine in these last posts isn’t too beneficial for the conversation.

To clarify I’ve experienced the range of experiences you are describing before, I think just I’m still not tuned into it all yet as I’ve been distant from actualism, or at least I practice it on and off, for a while.

Thanks for the responses again.

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Hi Felipe,

@Felipe: Thanks, Vineeto, this is very useful. And yes, my replies were rushed and reductionistic, as I got sucked in a very specific aspect of what Claudiu wrote there and hyper focused there.

You are very welcome Felipe. Was it about contemplation and its relation to appreciation?

Vineeto: And then you stopped enjoying and in the next – intellectually thought-out – sentence you started worrying about getting “distracted/ entertainment”. Why?

Felipe: Part of the rush. Happens to me often when I’m excited and caffeinated: jump from idea to idea fast, lol. It can also be indicative of my distracted nature (part of why I haven’t been able to fully focus on actualist endeavors all along and rather chase all kinds of cheap dopaminergic rewards).

That’s understandable – so you will dig a bit deeper into this habit so to be able to focus better on what you really want to do?

Felipe: I will shut up now as this thinking out loud of mine in these last posts isn’t too beneficial for the conversation.

Ah, but that would mean running off again so as to remain as you are – and you didn’t really describe these qualities (rushed, reductionistic, distracted nature, chasing cheap dopaminergic rewards) as something you want to proudly maintain, or do you?

Why not give actualism another go, with new input and insights, and get to an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation each moment again? You will find that people here are happy to help and assist.

Felipe: To clarify I’ve experienced the range of experiences you are describing before, I think just I’m still not tuned into it all yet as I’ve been distant from actualism, or at least I practice it on and off, for a while.

Yes, I understand that – I can recommend the thread “Richard has passed away” as an introduction for why appreciation now gets such a prominent place in the actualism practice.

To clarify further what you had said yesterday –

At first I took it as the sensorial part (enjoyment = more affective, appreciation = more sensorial). The word has also been somewhat charged with hints of positive/love feelings (such as love and gratitude), at least in Spanish. (link)

A good example that translating actualism writing into other languages is fraught with misunderstandings.

Feeling good and appreciation are felicitous feelings, those who allow you to disentangle yourself from the identity-enhancing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings more and more. Whereas love and gratitude are ‘good’ feelings/ to counteract ‘bad’ feelings. Once you marvel at/appreciate how you feel, what you see and experience, there can be no mixing up of the two. As Kuba said only recently –

Kuba: The other interesting thing is that the difference between appreciation and gratitude is clear as day. (link)

Thanks for the responses again.

You are very welcome, Felipe, stick around it might be worth your while.

Here is an inspiring insight from Felix – in fact the whole post might ring a bell with you :blush: –

Felix: Feeling good becomes a value in itself from this vantage point, and is felt to be something incredibly valuable to have and to share. It creates a whole new way of looking at the world and being in the world – all because oneself has changed as the lens through which everything is experienced and perceived. I have been the block all along. Which we always knew but it’s weird to see how true it is… (link)

Cheers Vineeto

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Finally reread TMOBA after V’s suggestion and it really does say it all. Here is the last paragraph:
“Then there is nothing except the series of sensations which happen … not happening to an ‘I’ or a ‘me’ but just happening … moment by moment … one after another. To live life as these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and magic. It is all so peaceful, in this actual world; one is living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. It never goes away – nor has it ever been away – it was just that ‘I’/‘me’ was standing in the way of the meaning of life being apparent. The answer to everything that has puzzled humankind for all of human history is readily elucidated when one is actually free.”

“The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated and laid open for all those with the eyes to see.”

“Consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is.”

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I am finding that money is a good way to show/apply appreciation. My maid and my yard man both live below the poverty level and I am paying them twenty dollars per hour. This helps them out a lot and they are helping me a lot. It is a win-win situation.

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I’m thinking of changing my phone number as a step toward leaving humanity. I still have psychic connections to my ex-wife and old acquaintances and friends that are connecting me to humanity. In the end it is my feeler that is keeping me connected.
I know there are arguments saying this is not the way to go. It just seems like this could be a sensible move at this point. I keep thinking about what V said about Peter not being able to give up his guardian so he ended up going back to where he had family and friends. I’m thinking that if I don’t have any family or friends to go back to it could help me leave humanity.

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I had an experience of leaving humanity which seemed to be like fear without the feeling.

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I woke up and there was an emptiness like nowhere to turn. It seemed like fear but there was no feeling.

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James:
I had an experience of leaving humanity which seemed to be like fear without the feeling.
James:
I woke up and there was an emptiness like nowhere to turn. It seemed like fear but there was no feeling.
Hi @James,
It seems you have been pushing yourself to leaving humanity because you have ended up in an ASC/state of dissociation. “Emptiness” is the wrong direction if you want to become actually free from the human condition.
I suggest getting back to feeling good … and read the freshly-published report from Dona and Alan [[link]
(Dona and Alan - Questions to Richard & Vineeto)], which talks a lot about the difference between forcefully attempting self-immolation and giving oneself permission to allow it to happen.
Cheers Vineeto

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Thanks V, I really do get your message to not force it and allow it to happen.

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The problem I have with allowing it to happen is it never happens.

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James: The problem I have with allowing it to happen is it never happens.

Hi @James,
I think the reason is that you misunderstand/ misinterpret the words “allowing it to happen”. You seem to think it is equivalent to waiting for it to happen in a passive way.
This is not the case at all. Becoming free from the human condition needs your active intention and participation. In fact, to become free from all the ills of the human condition you need to want it like you never wanted anything in your life, and do whatever you can to be able to let it happen when the time is ripe.
Here is one answer in the already mentioned web-page [(Dona and Alan - Questions to Richard & Vineeto)], which I recommended for your reading yesterday -

Geoffrey: There is something I’ve been thinking about since:

James: Dona, I have a question for Richard: What will it take for me to go the rest of the way to af? […]
Dona: Since we cannot eliminate ourselves, by ourselves (you cannot pull yourself up with your own bootstraps) he suggests that you set this intention: “I give myself permission to allow it to happen.”

Geoffrey: I remember making a remark on Slack that ‘allowing it to happen’ we usually used in reference to having PCEs, not self-immolation. And that it was a nice ‘parallel’ between the identity going in abeyance, and in oblivion.
But I was wondering if there was more to this than just a ‘parallel’.

Alan: Richard has never suggested “trying to self-immolate”. There are no ‘rules’ and no conditions for self-immolation to happen.

Geoffrey: … and there go my many ‘attempts’ lol, including yesterday’s one (when I was “contemplating on altruism”) – which interestingly ended in a PCE. This has happened lately, that when ‘trying’ to self-immolate I don’t end up in ASCs anymore, but in PCEs. This is the case since I’ve stopped ‘forcing it’, but instead trying to ‘allow it to happen’.

As you can see, Geoffrey did not just wait for something to happen, he was contemplating - just for an example - on altruism, on the nature of a PCE and on self-immolation. He was intentioned, with pure intent, to figure out how to get ready to “allowing it”.

I guess you have not read this part thoroughly or have not sufficiently understood the implications. Here are Richard’s/ Dona’s suggestions on how you can get ready to “allowing it” to happen in an active and participatory way -

Geoffrey: 4. If so I have to ask once more the question you must be tired to hear: how do I get ready?
Dona: again, there are no conditions, you are ready when you are ready.
Then in the meantime… (Lol… You know the answer…) … Yep, the actualism method.
Though Richard and Vineeto understand that you want a “formula” (Dona sidenote: so do I!) … There is none. Everyone is different and has their own way.
There are things that Vineeto suggested that she did … But … they are NOT to be considered “conditions”.
Know yourself (Dona: I recommend using the website for ideas on that).
Find all the objections to self-immolation (goes with the first one, know yourself).
Imitate the actual world as much as humanly possible.
Make it your number one aim/ goal/ intent.
Allow it to happen (no forcing it).

When you have put all the above suggestions and more into practice and feel really excellent most of the time and have made becoming free your number one aim in life, figure out any objections you might have (and presently you have some why else did you have to force it), then perhaps you have a different result when “allowing it to happen”.

Cheers Vineeto

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