Hi Vineeto,
This is very simple and yet so important, I am certainly taking note of this for myself. Of course the words happy and harmless as presented on the AFT website do not refer to separate items, it is one package of felicity and innocuity. However it is so easy (I have done it myself) to turn actualism into a pursuit of ‘my’ happiness, which in practice means cunningly pursuing and reinforcing the good feelings and conveniently ignoring their opposite bad feelings. In fact I can observe this bias in myself, that the word harmless can almost become like an addition that comes after happy, an after-thought let’s say. And of course when approaching it that way ‘I’ only spin round and round in self-centred circles. Also I notice in myself that often it took exactly that commitment to harmlessness in order to give up some long held and dear aspect of ‘me’, otherwise if it is just for ‘me’ then ‘I’ might as well remain the same! It is the recognition of what ‘I’ am doing by remaining as ‘I’ am which can break the cycle and this requires that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’.
So it is useful to turn this around and ask myself am ‘I’ first of all being harmless? And interestingly enough happiness comes rather easily when ‘I’ am being harmless to begin with, harmlessness provides a stable platform for ongoing happiness. But the most important part of this, I think, is that the commitment to harmlessness requires that ‘my’ self-centredness progressively diminishes, which means that ‘I’ am then ready to radically change.
This reminds me of something you wrote a while back (paraphrasing) that it is a shame that the recent generation of actualists does not share the same sincere commitment for peace on earth. I remember I took that as a bit of an insult, like “what do you mean!? I am an actualist after all”. And yet it is true that harmlessness has been an afterthought!