JesusCarlos: I remember the last Vipassana retreat I did (2019), 10 days, in which a guy sitting next to me shared his experience after 25 years of practice: “each time I sit, for several hours, the most I can, I see myself as a soldier with a flamethrower, burning all the impurities, of my being that have punished this body for many lives.” I was terrified and that was when I finally realized that that was not my path.
Now I realize that at least he had a point: the body is not to blame, it is “I” who has subjected and punished it all this time.
Hi @JesusCarlos,
This is a great story and a valuable insight you took away with you when you gave up Vipassana for good.
JesusCarlos: It is “I” who must disappear, abandon the throne, set it free. But the method was not correct, you cannot free the body by subjecting yourself to intense days, leaving it physically immobile, something not natural for this body made by this universe, to move and enjoy being aware of itself and everything that surrounds and stimulates it.
Yes, it is ‘I’ who stands in the way of becoming actually free but it is also ‘me’ which stands in the way.
What the Vipassana doctrine means by ‘I’ is only one part, the ego, that “must disappear”, they leave the soul or capital-S ‘Self’ (‘me’, the instinctual passions) intact to continue to create its havoc. Therefore it’s no use to further extract or keep any ‘wisdom’ of what you may have osmotically (inadvertently) absorbed, rather make sure there is nothing of that nature lurking to confuse and lead astray. @Claudiu and @Kuba have a lot more experience with this topic and can warn you of its pitfalls.
The way to becoming actually free is to consciously and knowingly imitate the actual, which you have experienced in your PCEs. To do that ‘you’ set the minimum standard of experience for yourself: feeling good. If ‘you’ are not feeling good then ‘you’ have something to look at to find out why. This way attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores felicity and innocuity. In other words, you are being affectively attentive to those ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, which prevent you from enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive. Acknowledging that you are your feelings you can channel the affective energy into the felicitous feelings of delight, wonder, marvelling, enjoyment and appreciation to the point of activating naiveté where you like yourself and your fellow human beings and discover the fun of being alive.
Sometimes you might have to do a closer inspection to one or the other of your ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings when they prove to be more than habitual but rather sticky because of a passionate belief or a persistent adherence.
JesusCarlos: So I make peace with myself and establish the commitment to be generous with this body, support of everything “I” am and true actual reality.
Just for clarification – the above description of the actualism method is not to “support of everything “I” am” because that would mean you want to support your ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, which only strengthen your ‘self’ and keep it in existence.
To “be generous with this body” doesn’t make much sense to me – when you take care of your affective moods your body benefits automatically. What is beneficial is to be a friend to yourself and not blame yourself for what you discover about yourself.
Also, there is no such thing as *“*true actual reality ” –
RICHARD: […] I get to comprehend what you mean by ‘actual reality’ each time you write … it is a good description and I may borrow it, if I may, when writing to others about settling for second-best. [emphasis added].
Editorial note: there can be no such thing as ‘actual reality’ in the actual world]. (AF List, No. 12a, 1 Feb 1999).
RESPONDENT: 2. Actual reality (second best as you call it). We are identified as a witness to the world of thoughts, emotions, feelings, instincts, etc. We can be ruthless and loving without feeling identified with either action. We experience bliss whenever we become a witness. Everything is happening to us. We are being pulled and pushed around by our heart.
RICHARD: Yes, well said. The term ‘actual reality’ is No. 12’s phrase by which I understand was meant what is really going on ‘within’ as compared with the facade or image one socially presents to others … and fools oneself into believing. Such observation is useful as a preliminary step in one’s journey into one’s psyche – which is the human psyche – but to remain ‘being authentic’ is to remain a ‘sannyasin’ forever. Unless this inner reality is expunged, all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide will continue for ever and a day.
To become the spiritual ‘witness’ is to have arbitrarily selected a certain bundle of tender feelings, chopped them off from the rest of the surging flow of savage feelings and – by calling this bundle ‘Intelligence’ – to eventually realise oneself to be the unitive and centreless ontological entity (called ‘God’ by any other name) swimming in the ‘Ocean Of Oneness’ … unborn and undying; birthless and deathless; timeless and spaceless; formless and ceaseless; immortal and immutable. Yet, unbeknown to those who perform this prestidigitation, to be divinity is to be cacodemonic … diabolical in the sense that the savage feelings are kept subliminally alive. [emphasis added]. (AF List, No. 7, 18 Feb 1999).
See, how your own term “true actual reality” fits in with Respondent No. 12’s spiritual adherence in the above conversations?
‘Reality’ is an actualist term for the real world, the world where ‘I’ and ‘me’ reign supreme, and there is nothing actual about the real world of feelings and beliefs. Those two worlds never meet because no identity can ever experience the actual world. You only get to experience the actual world when the identity is in abeyance.
JesusCarlos: I no longer need to relax my body, I need to relax the one who tenses it because he believes he has difficult missions to accomplish in this real world.
I suggest you not only “relax the one who tenses it” but find out exactly is the cause for the tension, which is an affective cause. Be curious, be investigative, be persistent, until you discover the emotional cause of the tension, and from there you have a choice to decline being upset, tense, anxious, worried or sad. It is eminently possible to decline each and every ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emotion but there is more to it than “relax the one who tenses it”. Sitting back and relaxing happens after you have done the homework.
Cheers Vineeto