Kuba: Now it is a long journey back to the UK, 3 planes and about 25 hours of flying in total, plenty of time for ‘me’ to experience this complete dread at what is apparently going to happen any second. Before setting my foot on the plane I had already set the intention to do the below no matter what :
• [Richard]: ‘A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering. As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) …
This “feedback loop” seems to be what keeps ‘me’ in place as a self.
Hi Kuba,
What an incredible long journey and what an adventure to “plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself”.
It revealed for you the ‘presence’ which feeds of fear, and yet something was missing which kept you nevertheless “in place as a self”, which only your impeccable sincerity allowed you to recognize as “something like an actuality mimicking ASC” and not the genuine article. (link).
Two things I noticed – one is where Richard recommends finding the thrilling aspect of fear and stay with –
Richard: Usually the frightening aspect dominates and obscures the thrilling aspect: shifting one’s attention to the thrilling aspect (I often said jokingly that it is down at the bottom left-hand side) will increase the thrill and decrease the fright as the energy of fear shifts its focus and changes into a higher gear … and, as courage is sourced in the thrilling part of fear, the daring to proceed will intensify of its own accord. (link)
The second aspect which was missing, and they are closely related, is altruism, which will make the exploration into fear both thrilling and exhilarating –
Richard: Now, it is ‘me’ who is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise – without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here) – as it is ‘me’ who is the initiator of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously, and with knowledge aforethought from a pure consciousness experience (PCE), set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for ‘I’ cannot end ‘myself’). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally (cheerfully and blessedly), is press the button which precipitates a, oft-times alarming but always thrilling, momentum which will result in ‘my’ irrevocable ‘self’-immolation in toto. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being just here, right now, as the universe’s experience of itself … peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already always existing (‘I’ was merely standing in the way of it being apparent).
The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple: it is a rather curious decision – a decision the likes of which has never been made before nor will ever be made again – that it is imperative it be ‘me’ who will evince the final and complete condition which will deliver the goods so longed for by humanity for millennia … whereupon that thrilling momentum takes over and one realises one has embarked already (and once that impetus gets going one cannot ‘un-set’ the pace).
There is no pulling back – which is why most people do not want to set it in motion – because once one has started one cannot stop. It is a one-way trip – that is the thrilling part of it – […] [emphases added]. (link)
Only you can know how to find the missing ingredient, and I know from your reports so far that you will leave no stone unturned to find it.
There is a quote from Richard that reminds me of this but I cannot for the life of me find it! He explains that he meets the same people, things and events that others do, as if nothing has happened and yet something has changed irrevocably, in that there is an immaculate perfection and purity permeating all of existence.
Is this the quote you are looking for? –
Richard: With apperception operating more or less continuously in ‘my’ day-to-day life, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness - apperception casts no shadows - ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief. ‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer. -
The day finally dawns when something irrevocable happens inside the brain. In an ecstatic moment of being present, ‘I’ expire. ‘I’ am extirpated, rubbed out. ‘I’ cease to exist, permanently. […] Something irrevocable happens and everything is different, somehow, although everything stays the same physically … with the outstanding exception of a perfection and purity permeating all and everything. Something has changed, although it is as if nothing has happened … except that the entire world is transformed into a magical fairy-tale-like playground full of incredible joy and delight that is never-ending. ‘My’ demise was as fictitious as ‘my’ apparent ‘presence’. I have always been here, I realise, and that ‘I’ only imagined that ‘I’ existed. (Richard’s Journal, Article Eighteen, also: here)
Cheers Vineeto