Kuba: Now looking at the recent events there is something else that is becoming apparent. Because ‘I’ have seen that ‘I’ am rotten to ‘my’ very core and of course ‘I’ could not be any kind of saviour.
But now is it that ‘I’ am still hoping to be saved or to be “made right”? It’s like what Srinath wrote a while back that the actualism method does not turn the T-rex that ‘I’ am into a plush toy. When ‘I’ apply the method ‘I’ am directing ‘my’ affective energy into the felicitous and innocuous feelings, and then later on when ‘I’ give way to pure intent ‘I’ am allowing that which is impeccable to live this life. But all the while ‘I’ remain rotten to ‘my’ very core!
Hi Kuba,
There is only one way “to be “made right”” – that you understand deeply and comprehensively ‘your’ very nature and out of that understanding agree to ‘your’ demise. Not ‘reborn’ as ‘someone’ else, as another form of ‘you’ but in ‘your’ entirety.
Richard: My personal experience says pretty well what I have been saying in all my posts since I came onto this List. Namely that to stop at dissolving the ego and becoming enlightened is to stop half-way. One needs to end the soul as well, then any identity whatsoever becomes extirpated, extinguished, eliminated, annihilated … in other words: extinct. To be as dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains. To vanish without a trace … there will be no phoenix to rise from the ashes. Finished. Kaput.
Then there is peace-on-earth. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 Mar 1998).
Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ understood this early on (and nevertheless took another 11 years to become free) –
Richard: There is no cure to be found in the ‘real world’ … only never-ending ‘band-aid’ solutions.
‘Vineeto’: The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice.
Richard: Yet it is the instinct for survival that got you and me and every other body here in the first place. We peoples living today are the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes … we are the product of the ‘success story’ of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Is one really going to abandon that which produced one … that which (apparently) keeps one alive?
Do you recall those conversations we had about loyalty (familial and group loyalty) back when you and I first met … and what was required to crack that code?
That was chicken-feed compared with this one. (Richard, AF List, Vineeto, 30 Sep 1999).
You have now reached the stage where it’s no longer “chickenfeed” to be a genuine actualist. Do you have the mettle?
Kuba: But it’s like there is this hope somewhere there for ‘me’, that by being a ‘good actualist’ ‘I’ could be saved at ‘my’ very core, that ‘I’ would be “made right”. And this hope it will have ‘me’ remain forever, somewhat walking the wide and wondrous path but never arriving at the destination.
Ha, remember Peter’s facetious quote? –
Peter: I remember when I first met Richard I joked to him that he should have a sign above the door that says – ‘Abandon hope – all who enter here’. (Actualism, Peter, No. 15, 28.6.1999)
Richard: I experience no fear whatsoever … which does away with the need for trust, faith, hope and belief. This is my on-going experience twenty four hours a day, year after year. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Hope)
There is more where that came from, it might give you some clues.
Kuba: So I guess what I am getting at is that all that I have done with regards to walking the wide and wondrous path, this has made exactly 0% change on what ‘I’ am as a ‘self’ which is – fear, aggression, nurture and desire. What ‘I’ am at core is exactly as rotten now as it was at the beginning and it will remain exactly as rotten until the day it disappears via altruistic self-immolation.
Ha, this is not you speaking, guided by the “compass of pure intent as I experience it” – “this hushed stillness that is all around, if I “go into it” or rather allow myself to stand still so that it can be experienced then there is this active beneficence which flows in all directions, it’s part and parcel of the stillness. And when this is happening or when I am in that place, then all is well.” (link)
This is your ‘self’ deprived of the now-discredited saviour persona looking for another “doomsday straw’ (link) while disparaging and belittling what you have done in the last years because ‘you’ have not yet agreed to ‘your’ demise.
I recommend, with the guidance of the “compass of pure intent” to listen, as a friend, to ‘you’, and negotiate ‘your’ way to understand that this is the only, and in fact the perfect, solution for everyone concerned. ‘You’ will get the oblivion you secretly long for and the flesh-and-blood Kuba will be set free from the burden of your instinctual/ social programming – for peace on earth. Only then your permission to ‘your’ extinction will be voluntary and magnanimously granted.
With pure intent operating you are not on your own, the universe is with you all the way.
I’ll copy in what I already presented to you because it answers all the questions, hopes and doubts you presently expressed –
Richard: It is very important to have confidence in your own ability to discriminate between current human knowledge and what you personally know from your own peak experiences. This will give you that optimism that is the ability to plough on regardless of whatever stands in your way until you evoke your destiny. It is not a matter of having faith or believing that it is possible; it is not a matter of trusting or hoping that it will happen to you; it is all to do with the solid knowing, born out of the peak experience, that it is here for you and anyone … if only you will act upon your knowing. This ‘action’ amounts to – at times – ‘talking yourself into it’, for the other alternative is to let doubt and disbelief and distrust and despair eat away at your resolve. Only you can manifest your own freedom.
However, once embarked upon the ‘wide and wondrous path’, you are not on your own: the perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe is with you all the way … but if you waver, you are indeed on your own. It is a matter of having the courage of your convictions and letting nothing stand in your way; determination and perseverance are the essential prerequisites to ensure success … coupled with application and diligence. Having the ‘courage of your convictions’ has nothing to do with believing, trusting, hoping or having faith that it be possible. I, for one, never believed, trusted, hoped or had faith that it was possible, for such an action of believing, trusting, hoping and having faith perpetuates the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful. On the contrary, I could no longer believe that it was not possible – which is a different action entirely to believing, trusting, hoping and having faith that it is possible – thus dispensing with the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful. Do you see this?
For example: Doubt is believing it not to be possible … doubt is actually an action of believing, which supports the believer. Faith is believing that it is possible … which also supports the believer … and thus, either way, the believer pushes freedom away into an ever elusive future.
All this stemmed from my peak experience in which I experienced the purity and the perfection of life itself – here and now – and thus saw that what others had perceived as being our reward after physical death already existed … at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus I ceased believing that life on earth was a grim business with only scant moments of reprieve … yet I did not start believing in perfection. To repeat: I stopped believing, period. All sorrow and malice stems from the activity of believing … which arises from the believer. ‘I’, as a psychological entity, can only believe – or disbelieve – in possibilities and impossibilities. In the peak experience ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘I’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. By believing perfection to be possible ‘I’ perpetuate ‘myself’. ‘I’, by ‘my’ very presence, inhibit that splendid perfection becoming apparent.
Perfection is already always here. Yet ‘I’, by believing in a remembered perfection, chase an ever-elusive chimera into an ever-receding future. Thus one stands still and does nothing but watch the dust settle all around … and perfection, which is only of the moment, becomes apparent. ‘I’ have ceased to be. By ‘doing nothing’ I mean neither believing nor disbelieving; neither having faith nor having doubt; neither trusting nor distrusting; neither hoping nor despairing. In short, one’s superb confidence and overweening optimism precipitates ‘my’ demise … ‘I’ do not make freedom happen … ‘I’ allow the universe to ‘disappear’ the ‘me’ that I was … and perfection has become apparent. ‘I’ did not invoke perfection, for it already is here … and it is here now, not off into the future. It may have taken some time to eventuate, as ‘I’ got whittled away, yet when that time came, it was already here … because it is always now.
To sum up: ‘I’ do not make perfection happen because it is already always here. What ‘I’ do is to ‘stand still’ and unreservedly allow ‘my’ eventual demise to occur. To do this, ‘I’ cease believing, hoping, trusting and having faith … without falling into disbelief, despair, distrust or doubt. ‘I’, having the courage of ‘my’ convictions – which is the confidence born out of the solid knowing as evidenced in the peak experience – thus developing a superb confidence and an overweening optimism. Thus nothing can stand in ‘my’ way in this, the adventure of a life-time. It is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee … but pure intent, born out of the connection between one’s inherent naiveté and the perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe, will provide one with the necessary intestinal fortitude. (Richard, Private email, March 1999)
Kuba: I remember there was the lady of Indian descent who became actually free 24 hours after visiting Richard and Vineeto. In the past there was disbelief at this as ‘I’ had felt somewhat cheated. I am not actually sure if she did much in the way of applying the actualism method before hand. But the point is that ultimately it doesn’t matter, the method is an “in the meantime” method. That “last bit” or for some maybe the “first bit” haha – it is all the same. (link)
Richard was always clear that the actualism method is what you do in the meantime. Also –
Vineeto: One of the major topics of this three-week event of answers to questions from forum members in 2017 was that there are no conditions to become actually free.
“Richard said there is no connection at all between feeling good each moment again and actual freedom. You can become actually free right now. But … In the meantime, while you’re living your life not actually free, why not feel good? As he says, this is your only moment of being alive, why waste it feeling bad?” (link, 29 Aug 2024)
I found the whole message worth a re-read.
As for the “somewhat cheated” feeling, it is entirely self-induced. In fact, when “applying the actualism method” with the aim of becoming actually free you have deceived yourself, as you now discover, that you have not yet agreed to the last step. It is all par for the course when one sets out to untangle and extract oneself from the maze of the human condition.
Cheers Vineeto