Vineeto: Mmh, I can’t quite make sense of what you mean by “spiritual bypassing” – is that related to how you have been “avoiding my problems and feelings and living in a false ‘actualist identity’”? Perhaps it is time to simply clear the workbench and start afresh.
Henry: Yes precisely, basically I had some real-world issues that I hadn’t settled and was avoiding. Over the last 1-2 years I’ve been gradually reducing my aversion to facing and dealing with those issues directly.
Currently I find my mental ‘to-do’ list to be a bit overwhelming, which is perhaps a sign that 1) I have succeeded in re-integrating myself into ‘normalcy’ and 2) it is time to do as you say and ‘clear the workbench.’ What is it like to get my life done from a place governed by sincerity, naivete, rather than avoidance and/or neediness? I can sense a whisper of it, which is enough to find my heading.
Hi Henry,
What about “from a place governed” by feeling good?
As it says on the Cabbot’s paint tins in Australia, “when all else fails read the instructions” – in this case This Moment of Being Alive.
Contrary to popular conception, it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood and pay attention to when the mood-meter goes below feeling good. Then apply whatever tool is necessary to get back to feeling good and resolve what triggered feeling less than good so that it doesn’t occur again.
When you are feeling good, your “to do list” will not so much be governed by duties, responsibilities and obligations (to which you now want to add ‘practicing actualism’ as an additional burden) but you may gain a different perspective that life is meant to be easy and enjoyable, and then you may want more of this.
It goes almost without saying that genuinely feeling good and feeling happy only works when you are also feeling harmless, i.e. considerate and friendly, (including towards yourself).
One of ‘Vineeto’s’ favourite quotes might help to get unstuck –
Richard: ‘To get out of ‘stuckness’ one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all … and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life … the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is … and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own … or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, AF List, Alan, 13 Dec 1998).
Of course sincerity is vital to make sure you are not fooling yourself, whilst naiveté is not really something you can ‘govern’, rather allow it to come to the fore, as much as you dare.
Henry:
Geoffrey: As long as you find the path narrow, arduous, vanishing, confusing, instead of wide and wondrous as it is, you’re not walking it, you are merely lost in the woods nearby – and should instead find it in yourself to take a first clear step in the right direction, such as making a commitment to happiness and harmlessness.
Henry: Noted – for some reason previous attempts at this commitment have not ‘stuck,’ honestly not sure what I’m missing. Leaving that as an open question for myself for now (though if anyone has ideas or suggestions, feel free to comment). (link)
When, or if, you come to a point where you find yourself looking for the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, other than fulfilling the to-do-list again and again, here is an observation about commitment –
Respondent: You say it doesn’t end itself, but pushes a button to make it happen. What is that button?
Richard: You must be referring to something like this:
• [Richard]: ‘‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself. What ‘I’ can do to bring about this ‘death’ is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously – and with knowledge aforethought (from the PCE) – set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally, is to press the button which precipitates a momentum – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and cheerfully sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon this body and that body and every body. (Richard, AF List, Alan, 27 Jul 1998).
The button is, of course, dedication (‘what one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself’) and/or devotion. Here is how I put in my previous e-mail:
• [Richard]: ‘… when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free … ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly … the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then!! (page 261 in ‘Richard’s Journal’).
And one of the best ways of ascertaining when one’s commitment has reached 100% is when the peoples one knows start calling one obsessed and slip the word ‘insanity’ into their well-meant advice every now and again.
Despite all the rhetoric 100% commitment is avoided like the plague in the real-world. (Richard, AF List, No. 50, 5 Oct 2003).
Richard: It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter the actuality of life as a sensate experience. It requires a startling audacity to devote oneself to the task of causing a mutation of consciousness to occur. To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. It is no little thing that one does … and it has enormous consequences, not only for one’s own well-being, but for humankind as a whole. [emphases added]. (Richard, Article, A Brief Personal History).
It might take a gestation period.
Cheers Vineeto