Claudiu: You will really have to uncover the naiveté you have buried under all this cynicism and recognize just what a wonderous, unique, and fleeting opportunity we are all presented with. The universe in no way will guarantee that the world will become actually free – we are among the most well-positioned humans on the planet to be able to do everything we can to have it happen. (link)
Vineeto: Possibly fleeting, depending on how many daring pioneers take up the challenge and pass on reports of their success.
Kuba: It is a weird one because experiencing that “utter fullness” of infinitude the other day it was like a 100% guarantee, there is actually no other way to travel other than into illusion/ delusion. It is more a case of sooner rather than later – just like those enlightened masters ensured a continuation of suffering for 3000-5000 years because they did not dare proceed all the way – if no further pioneers take action now it could be another thousands of years before the human condition comes to an end.
Hi Kuba,
I just want to check that I don’t misunderstand – when you say “there is actually no other way to travel other than into illusion/ delusion” do you mean “no other way to travel” unless one wants to fall “into illusion/ delusion”?
I think your prediction of “another thousands of years” is rather glum to say the least – don’t you, for one, consider to “take action”?
Kuba: So it’s like the universe ultimately does not care, that utter fullness of infinitude is already always here, it doesn’t have to do anything extra because it’s already complete. Indeed it has all the time in the universe, it is human beings that are only alive for a limited time, so indeed it is doing it for this body, that body and everybody, as in why allow suffering to continue for even another day.
To propose that the universe cares or “does not care” is to make the error of anthropomorphism/ anthropocentrism. It is animal nature, the software of the instinctual passions, which does not care two hoots about which species thrives and which one perishes. The universe is beneficent, friendly (link), benevolent – it provides the conditions for human life to evolve and, being infinite and eternal and thus perfect, provides for humans to fulfil their destiny. Viz:
Respondent: … It’s just plain silly to tie Actualism up to a particular world view.
Richard: … And the same applies in regards to the ‘Big Bang’ theory – first proposed, in 1927, by the French Abbé Mr. Georges Lemaitre at the behest of the then pope Mr. Pius XI in a Conference on Cosmology, which was held in the Vatican, in the Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma – and the ‘expanding universe’ theory you also mention … if this other person informed me their direct experience was that the universe is indeed finite, temporary, and transitory (and not infinite, eternal, and perpetual) you do not actually care about that as it would not render actualism irrelevant, it would not make pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) no longer valuable, it would not take away the possibility of freedom from the human condition, it would not prevent the possibility of delighting in being here (and doing nothing to prevent another’s delight in being here)? (Richard, AF List, No. 60a, 22 Jan 2004)
In short, in a finite ‘expanding universe’ an actual freedom would not be possible.
The conditions are given, and have always been existent – the action of freeing oneself from human nature is up to each human being, using their initiative and native intelligence to be perfection personified, which is both one’s birthright and one’s destiny.
Kuba: Yesterday something changed in how ‘I’ see ‘myself’, because those experiences a while ago where ‘I’ was seen to be merely a feeling were useful and yet as Richard wrote one does not go about eliminating feelings in order to eliminate the ‘self’, this is the wrong order of operations. Yesterday I was contemplating all this business with enlightenment and I could see that what ‘I’ am as ‘self’ is like an ancient imprint, this sense of ‘self’ is merely a feeling and yet it takes something away to treat it as a feeling only. ‘I’ am this imprint that feelings swirl around to form, a ‘structure’ that has absolutely no substance, an intuited ‘presence’.
This is an excellent description, that “what ‘I’ am as ‘self’ is like an ancient imprint”, “‘I’ am this imprint that feelings swirl around to form, a ‘structure’ that has absolutely no substance, an intuited ‘presence’”.
It reminds me of René Descartes, who started this philosophical theory with the axiom “I think therefore I am” but then went further stating “I know intuitively that I am”. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, René Descartes). You went one step further, you know experientially that ‘you’ exist as “an intuited ‘presence’”.
Kuba: The thing is that no matter how much ‘I’ try to get rid of ‘my’ feelings this ‘intuited structure’ remains, this is ‘me’ as ‘self’.
It is the ‘self’ that has to disappear, then there will be no passions, it cannot work the other way around, so indeed it has to be self-immolation. I could see yesterday that this ‘intuited presence’ will forever get in the way between me and others, there is no other way to ensure peace on earth other than by eliminating ‘me’ as ‘self’. (link)
You are spot on “it cannot work the other way around” and also that ‘me’ “will forever get in the way between me and others”.
Hence Richard’s repeated reminder that actualism is not to stop feeling, but to cease ‘being’. (See Richard’s Journal, Appendix Five, A Précis of Actual Freedom).
Cheers Vineeto