Kuba: What seems to be the most obvious way to proceed is to discover how to ‘be’ naivete itself, I am having some intimations of what that is like and I can see that it is a fundamental change in how ‘I’ experience what it means to be here and doing this business called being alive. It’s not changing this or that bit of programming but something more akin to a paradigm shift for ‘me’. In fact, there isn’t really any “outer bits of the onion” that ‘I’ could be re-shuffling at this point.
I had this question to ‘myself’ earlier which was something along the lines of – “what do ‘I’ experience to be the reason for being here and doing this business called being alive”. I remember a while back I wrote about the universe – by giving birth to this body – handing out an invitation to paradise which reads “you are here to enjoy and appreciate only”.
That is to say I am here to play, to delight, to enjoy and to appreciate. That is very much the direction, the flavour of the kind of “orientation” which typifies naiveté. And I remember my little brother (not so much anymore) displaying this effortlessly every time I saw him, that is what life was for him up until recently.
If I am here to play, to delight, to enjoy and appreciate then what ‘normal’ place would ‘I’ be looking to return to? (link)
Hi Kuba,
Ha, once your experience being naiveté for a while, so much so that you take it for granted, then everything you called “’normal’ place will fade from your memory. At least that is how ‘Vineeto’ experienced it in ‘her’ out-from-control period. I like how you defined the peace-on-earth freedom’s meaning of life – “I am here to play, to delight, to enjoy and to appreciate”.
Well said.
Kuba: So what happens when I walk the wide and wondrous path is that I am going deeper and deeper into enjoyment and appreciation, until this becomes a way of living that reverberates to the very depths of ‘my’ being. This is where those last shreds of normality are cast away and there is no longer anything to return to. As Vineeto wrote a while ago one needs training for life in Terra Actualis. (…) (link)
Indeed, and the actualism method of enjoying and appreciation is the very training because the means to the end is not different to the end. Here is what Richard said in his journal –
Richard: ‘After living in the condition of virtual freedom for sufficient time to absorb all the ramifications of a blithesome life, it is highly likely that the ultimate condition can happen.
‘I’ do not make it happen, because ‘I’ cannot make it happen. What is more … ‘I’ am not required to make it happen. An actual freedom happens of itself only when one is fully ready, and not before. One has to become acclimatised to benignity, benevolence and blitheness, because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared. To precipitously apprehend the vast stillness of infinitude would be too much, too fast, too soon … one could go mad with the super-abundance of pleasure that pours forth’. [Emphasis added]. (‘Richard’s Journal’ ©1997 The Actual Freedom Trust. Page: 150).
Kuba: Lots of posts about naiveté right now haha, let’s turn the bug into a pandemic!
Hi Kuba,
Yeah, let’s. You’ll be surprised if you ever found out how many people are getting temporarily infected but the benevolence of the universe (pure intent) doesn’t provide any records when active because the ‘record-keeper’, in your case the ‘controller’ is in abeyance.
Kuba: Just a quick one as I am about to go in to do some training. I noticed this specifically before I am about to go and interact with others (like right now for example). There is this fear of remaining naive, it feels tender but to the point of being vulnerable.
It reminds me of what Richard wrote that naivete is the intimate aspect of oneself which one has locked away due to fear of ridicule – this hits the nail on the head.
It’s like I am not supposed to be this intimate around others, there is certainly a fear there. I thought I had resolved this in the past but clearly there is more there.
I remember that fear is ‘my’ hiding place, and when I consider what specifically it is that ‘I’ am hiding nothing comes to mind. It seems it is more that ‘I’ am afraid to be seen, not anything specifically about ‘me’, rather ‘I’ am afraid to be seen full stop.
Yes, that is exactly it – because when ‘you’ are seen fully ‘you’ have no leg to stand on, so to speak – you have no substance. In the meantime ‘you’ are ‘your’ hiding place.
I remember around 2000 Richard told me about an intense conversation he had with Grace and that at some point he told her “I know your secret”. I puzzled for years what he meant, now I know.
It was ‘me’ in ‘my’ hiding place, being a phantom.
Kuba: This seems to be part of the reason why I would always return to some kind of a ‘normal’ after all those extraordinary experiences. They would be precious but almost too precious to consider bringing them out into the open in my day to day living. So I would return to ‘normal’ which includes some kind of a ‘shield’, this is ‘me’ as the controller.
I notice for example it is even harder to remain naive in the company of other men, due to the conditioning which precludes men from having intimacy with each other. It is quite weird allowing such sweetness with other men, that it is somehow wrong to be this close.
There is a good reason why at first being naïve seems scary, foolish, insecure and men have a certain standard with each other just like women do. One can’t follow that standard and be naïve (on pay lip-service when needed). Surely it will be a fascinating and interesting journey to be yourself, be naked, be naïve in the company of men and intimacy does not necessarily take the form of sweetness. Here is a conversation between Richard and Devika (in italics) from Richard’s journal as an example how intimacy with anyone can unfold –
“Now what about actual intimacy? In intimacy you see the other as they actually are … ‘warts and all’ is the expression”.
“That is not only better … it is far more interesting”.
“It does not make you repulsed. One is neither attracted nor repulsed”.
“Exactly”.
“How are you with the other, then?”
“One hundred per cent. They get the all of me”.
“In actual intimacy, when you are with another person one hundred per cent – and there is neither attraction or repulsion – and you see clearly what other people would call attractive or repulsive … what does that do?”
“Oh, that’s delicious! That’s delicious because that is freedom. Then I’m free from the grip of emotions”.
“So, seeing the other for what they actually are, do you see the ‘Good’ in them? The potential?”
“There is good and bad in everybody. I am aware of what humans call good or bad. I can see them with either eye, as it were; I can see them with intimate eyes or ‘human’ eyes. I am aware of that and I don’t take much notice of the ‘human’ measurement. In actual intimacy this whole moment, everything, is magnificent”.
“In the orthodox way, people who are described as ‘Goody-goodies’, see the good in somebody and try to draw out the good and make them a better person. What do you do, in actual intimacy, when you see both good and bad?”
“I don’t feel like interfering at all. I stay in myself”.
“And you talk from that?”
“I talk from here, yes. I respond according to the circumstance, whereas my identity would react. In intimacy I can respond, taking the whole scenario, the whole situation, into consideration. Whilst the identity goes from identity to identity. In intimacy I can easily sit here …there is me as I think I am; there is me as I feel I am; there is me as I assert myself and there is me as I actually am. I am this body … I have given way for the universe to live this body and with that I go anonymous. There are ripples of pleasure going through the body”.
“So you are like that, in virtual freedom there are ripples of pleasure, and being like that, what are you doing with the other person? What do you want, for them?”
“I want the very best. I would wish this upon them”.
“What do you say, then? Seeing the attractive and the repulsive … and you do not try to draw out the good …”.
“I’ve stopped doing that … and I’ve also stopped stopping the bad. I sit with this totality of what is happening in the moment; this moment gives all this and this person is in front of me and there is this strange atmosphere between us and we both are trying – for I see that the other also wants the best – and I want for the other to be also here”.
“Ah! You want for the other to be here, where this moment is happening”.
“Oh yes, of course. What else could I want … that is the very best I can want”.
“Would you say, then, that you brush aside the potential for good or bad in the other and – simply because they are a human being they have all the qualifications necessary to be here – it does not matter where they come from? They are a physical body and you want them to be here where their body is? You invite them to partake in intimacy. You are able to do it, for everyone has the capacity to be here … they are just unaware that it exists”.
“Yes, and that is all what I could want, too. Then they can experience it for themselves”.
“Then you can talk directly”.
“Yes. Then we can all have fantastic fun. In intimacy”. (…)
(from pp. 256-259, ‘Richard’s Journal’, 2nd. Ed., in Article 36, ‘There comes a Time when one must Leave the Nest and Fly’).
Kuba: But now I am reminded of a certain game which I stopped playing – how close can we get. No reason not to play this game with other men and confirm experientially whether it is safe or not. (link)
I am pleased you remembered.
Even when you feel you are close, you can always get closer, there are no limits in (actual) intimacy.
Cheers Vineeto