Claudiu: I think there’s just a disconnect here. The funny and delightful thing is that from the self centric way of being it’s a big social identity issue, wanting to show that I “know the answer” and defend myself. But writing now from the being naive way of being it just doesn’t ‘matter’ at all haha, at least this aspect of it.
In any case it does seem beneficial to flesh it out in case I am missing something. So: If you read it as a normal/in-control self-centric being looking at a checkbox of stuff like “ooh gotta add some caring” and “oh yea can’t forget about the altruism!”, trying to check off boxes or add these in as ingredients to some dish, then I can see why you wrote what you did. Indeed it’s obvious that wouldn’t work, that isn’t how to proceed from being in an in control way of being.
The way to proceed is rather to go from an out from control way of being which is what being naïveté is, which is also called an excellence experience. This isn’t an out from control virtual freedom, the distinction there (which I asked Richard about) is that pure intent isn’t fully and dynamically operative yet. But that’s just words describing something I haven’t experienced yet so it’s not so relevant now except as to know there’s something ‘more’ (but it is unknown to me what that is like).
Hi Claudiu,
I demure. You can only proceed from where you are at. How can you “go from an out from control way of being” when you are not in “an out from control way of being”? How can you go from “being naïveté” when you are not “being naïveté”? Being naïveté itself is to be permanently out-from-control.
Richard: A rather quaint clay-pit tale which nonetheless depicts the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself⁽⁰¹⁾ to an actual innocence.
⁽⁰¹⁾To be naïveté itself (i.e., naïveté embodied as a childlike persona with adult sensibilities), which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ (innocence is where ‘self’ is not), one is both likeable and liking for herewith lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness whereupon moment-to-moment experiencing is of traipsing through the world about in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement as if a child again (guileless, artless, ingenuous, innocuous)—yet with adult sensibilities whereby the distinction betwixt being naïve and being gullible is readily separable—simply marvelling at the sheer magnificence of this oh-so-material universe’s absoluteness and unabashedly delighting in its boundless beneficence, its limitless largesse, as being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian (due to the near-absence of agency which ensues when the controlling doer is abeyant and the naïve beer is ascendant), with a blitheness and a gaiety such that the likelihood of the magical fairy-tale-like nature of this paradisaical terraqueous globe, this bounteously verdant and azure planet, becoming ever-so-sweetly apparent, as an experiential actuality, is almost always imminent. (A Clay-Pit Tale, last tooltip)
Given that you recognized (link) that you are not out-from-control, i.e. not consistently in an excellence experience or intimacy experience, with the ‘controller’ still operating, not “being the experiencing [which] is inherently cornucopian”, fully comprehending this with all of your ‘being’ experientially, this can the only point from where to start.
Claudiu: So what I was attempting to convey, perhaps poorly, is that the way to continue from here seems to be to more consistently be naïveté, to be more and more of the time in this excellence experience way of being rather than not. I put ‘stabilize’ in squotes cause it’s not a great word, but don’t know what a good one would be. But basically to be it more consistently.
To say it again for emphasis, the change from being in a methodological, in-control virtually freedom to a dynamic out-from-control different way of being is a paradigm shift, not “to be more and more of the time” in the way you have been –
Vineeto: Unfortunately I was unable to find the exact quote where Richard used a similar description [“somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear”] when in January/ February 1981 the change into virtual freedom occurred … (link)
To use a physical-world simile – there is a major difference between driving a car and flying in a rocket-ship.
Claudiu: And the way doesn’t seem so different from establishing a baseline of feeling good, it’s a matter of noticing when I have fallen out of it and getting back to it soonest.
So when you write the way to go out from control virtual freedom is by being naïveté it sounds like you’re saying the same thing — what do you think? (…)
Yea I do think we are saying the same thing. Last few days have oscillated from being in control self-centric way of being and feeling or wondering if everything is horribly awry and I’m way off track, to the out-from-control naive way of being and it’s like oh ok I’m basically going in the right direction. As of now I do think I’m basically on the right track, but the doing/being of it will be the proof in the pudding of course. (link)
As the remainder of your reply is in a similar vein of just doing more of the same/ more consistently doing the same, and that we are talking about “the same thing”, let me use your own words of your report when your visit to Geoffrey was still more fresh in your mind –
Claudiu: Two other key pieces: the major one was we figured out that I had been trying to put myself into actuality, as in I as identity, as a feeling-being, will continue somewhat beyond self-immolation. There were many ways I had justified it, like “Oh but Peter said there was a continuity of consciousness…” and he’s like “Consciousness! You’re translating that into ‘identity’! It’s not identity that continues!” or “But I remember disappearing in a PCE” and he’s like “No you don’t! You are putting yourself into the PCE and spoiling the memory. This is why you are supposed to rememorate it not remember it.” etc. (…)
He also really impressed upon me just how significant this is. It’s not kid stuff. It’s not a playground ride or a roller coaster where you get on it then come back and get off and you’re back to where you were. It is a one-way ride with no return ticket. So long as the enormity of it is not grasped – to which fear and dread are a normal response – then it’s still just being on the playground ride.
Only once this is grasped then can the decision be made to take the leap and continue anyway (otherwise you’re just imagining yourself to be on a cliff but you’re really on a flat ground, and you don’t see the edge to jump off of but only think you do). So you have to actually get to the edge of the cliff (seeing the enormity of the extinction) and only then you can decide to jump. (…)
In any case the main take-aways for me from the trip was A) see that I really will disappear entirely, B) see the enormity and significance of this (the stakes are indeed high), C) stop kidding myself with fake hurdles that feel real, it really (for me at this point) is all avoidance tactics to avoid facing the real thing, which is the total extinction of it. In short, go up to the edge of the cliff, see if I really want it, then joyfully/gaily/cheerfully (not seriously) jump/traverse the wall of dread/whatever the metaphor, do whatever you can to do it, and then extinction will be nigh. (link)
Even though this first of “two key pieces” does not appear in your list of “main take-aways” I think it is an all-important revelation – that you “had been trying to put myself into actuality”. It might well require a certain gestation period to fully grasp the enormity of the impact on your imaginary way of “trying to put myself into actuality”. Because when fully understood, with all of your ‘being’, not just intellectually, it will have/ would have, completely taken the carpet from under your feet. Hence my reference to a gestation period –
Richard: My experience with the peoples who have chosen to give felicity/ innocuity a go is, as a generalisation, that the necessary paradigm shift has usually been a gradual process of comprehension – not necessarily an instantaneous shift – and which paradigmatical change commences because of that choice … and that choice mainly comes after a gestation period (which itself follows intelligent appraisal/ thoughtful consideration).
And, by way of personal example, I need only point to the six-month incubation period already mentioned. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 60g, 30 Oct 2005b)
It would be a pity if you missed the full import of what transpired during your visit to a fully free human being.
Cheers Vineeto