Kub933's Journal

[Kub933]

The other thing worth mentioning is that in the past I did not allow myself to explore this side of things because I was too afraid that I would end up verging into repression/supression or ASC territory.

Playing around with this now there seems to be that safety net of knowing that if I do come off the wide and wondrous path and into some weird territory, that I will be able to sniff it out rather quick and get back on track.

Back then I didn’t really know my ass from my elbow so trying to focus on allowing more and more sensuosity seemed likely to end up getting derailed into a dead end.

It is clear that there is a relationship between felicity/innocuity and sensuosity. I could demonstrate it as 2 separate (but somewhat connected) ‘health bars’.
If the felicity/innocuity health bar is running very low the sensuosity health bar cannot increase too much, 1 is capped by the other to an extent.

Now the fun part is balancing all this out so that both health bars are increasing, and then when 1 begins to dip I need to attend to what is happening in the correct way, this seems to come with practice.

[carpe_vitae]

@Kub933

It is clear that there is a relationship between felicity/innocuity and sensuosity. I could demonstrate it as 2 separate (but somewhat connected) ‘health bars’.
If the felicity/innocuity health bar is running very low the sensuosity health bar cannot increase too much, 1 is capped by the other to an extent.

Really like the health bar analogy! I was just thinking about this yesterday and came to the same conclusion, an ASC happens when there’s too much sensuosity and too little felicity.

[Kub933]

Yes agreed although I think it may be good to clarify the terms a bit. I would say the weird experiences arise from a forced focus on sensate experience whilst still experiencing the good and bad feeling.

Whereas sensuosity is the marvel of being alive right now as experienced by the senses, this is facilitated by felicity/innocuity and one can’t really have too much of it.

So I guess it could be expressed as felicity/innocuity + being drawn to the sensate world = sensuosity.

Whereas good/bad feelings + focus on sensate experience = dead end/weird experiences.

So it seems when one is experiencing the good/bad feelings and tries to bulldoze through this with a forced focus on sensate experience that is where things go wrong.

This is my current understanding of the differences so any input is welcome

[Kub933]

Also the more I experience it the best way I can explain sensuosity is like taking MDMA for the first time (not that this is advocated ). It is that experience of everything being so soft, safe and yet one is so involved, the world around welcoming one with the various textures, colours, sounds etc and one is completely enveloped by it all.

[Kub933]

It’s really interesting that as I have continued applying the Actualism method I have been unlocking more and more childhood memories, the cool thing is that those memories are being rememorated, as in I am experiencing their flavour now.

This current memory that just flashed across me was when I was probably about 8-10, I went away on a school holiday in Poland to this wonderfull seaside destination in summer. I remember our class all going on walks near the beach, we’d walk near the sand dunes and through these amazing forests with pine tress all around. I would get so excited buying various giant shells and starfish from the market stalls, without a care in the world.

It seems as if these experiences happened in a different life-time and to a different person, and maybe so haha if ‘I’ was temporarily in abeyance.

It’s kind of shocking to rememorate these experiences because they were so wonderful, how did I loose that utter delight at being alive, could it be that it has been here all along while I have been busy moaning and groaning?! Or more importantly while I have been busy ‘being’.

[Kub933]

Freedom is the absence of choice vs autonomy

There is a lot of territory to cover between a simple and sensible decision (which toothbrush should I choose?) where the consequences are small potatoes and something as monumental as buying a house, having a child, moving to another country or ending a marriage. With the second category the pros and cons are harder to weigh up and the consequences far-reaching. The reason buying a house is so hard is that most people (barring seasoned developers) only do it a couple of times in their lives max…

I have been having a lot of success with the pointers mentioned in the above thread, they can be summarised by the below :

By feeling into all the beliefs, fantasies and emotions around it, you will free up energy to focus on it more factually.

What I noticed for me is that often there is a pull to escape into various Actual freedom fantasies whilst trapped within a feeling pattern. I try to act as if I am already actually free in order to escape the burden of my emotional structures. This whole thing is as Srinath mentions a form of emotional avoidance and it is a dead end, I have spent so many hours doing just that though! What also happens is that by attempting to escape away from these emotional structures I am reinforcing their reality. By feeling, investigating and resolving these structures they disappear out of my life. Then I am genuinely free of that particular issue, I no longer need to pretend.

Since yesterday the advice has kept me grounded in the simple stuff, catching my feeling good being usurped then bringing attention to those underlying emotional structures with the intent of investigating and resolving them, and it has been working out exactly in this way.

It takes a certain amount of obsessiveness and reminding myself to get off my backside over and over. Sometimes I want to just ignore this little niggle and pretend that all is still well (that I am still surfing this perpetual crest of feeling good), I don’t want to admit that my felicity has been usurped (to whatever degree). What I notice though is that in most cases it takes just a little bit of attentiveness to the issue at hand and it melts away, and then I am actually feeling good again as opposed to having to escape into fantasy. For me personally it seems that physically writing notes does the trick, so I will often go into my phone and jot down what is going on. This act of applying awareness-cum-attentiveness more often than not has the effect of dissolving the issue. All very simple stuff but hey it works

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

This reminds me of Vineeto having to undo her Buddhist conditioning & ‘become attached’ again before she could properly get to the bottom of different parts of herself

[Kub933]

Do you have a link to that bit of writing @henryyyyyyyyyy ?

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

I found it!

"VINEETO: Personally, the word attachment came to my attention through the spiritual teachings where I learned I should not be attached. Attachment as such was a bad thing, the concept was to become unattached to one’s body, one’s emotions, one’s relationships, one’s desires, one’s actions, until only the completely unattached higher self, the real ‘ME’ would remain.

In actualism, I deliberately went in the other direction – a full commitment to being ‘attached’ and then exploring the ramifications of it. I found that I am not merely attached to my emotions but ‘I’ am my emotions, I am not merely attached to objects of my desire but ‘I’ am my desire. Wanting to get rid of my attachments I had to get rid of ‘me’. And in the course of discovering what ‘me’ consists of I found ‘me’ in each and every state of love and hate, in every attachment and repulsion, in every dependency and need for independence, in each fear and every instance of pride. That’s what makes investigating one’s attachments really thrilling.

I found it was vitally important to fully commit myself to my relationship – 110% – in order to overcome my spiritual conditioning of being non-attached or aloof so I could then explore all of the emotions I had been avoiding experiencing. To commit oneself totally to something is utterly delicious and is the only way to get at the roots of whatever I have been avoiding by being half-hearted, aloof or detached.

Not only was it great adventure and liberation to root out my dependencies with Peter, for instance, but the reward came almost instantly, making way for a sparkling intimacy, obvious parity and uninterrupted harmony. Love and affection pale into insignificance compared to the delight of enjoying the direct intimate company of another actual human being each moment again."

While I was looking for the above, I found these which address attachment as well:

"The idea that one is merely ‘attached’ to one’s emotions is an invention of Eastern spiritualism and a particularly persistent and popular one at that. This theory is integral to the notion that the way to become ‘free’ is to become detached from one’s unwanted feelings (as well as from the corporeal body and the physical world). Becoming detached from one’s unwanted or undesirable feelings inevitably leads to dissociation – the prerequisite to delusionary states such as enlightenment.

This is not what actualism is about – it is impossible to be attentive to the operation of feelings emotions and passions that one is busily being detached from or feeling dissociated from.

Actualism clearly recognizes that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, which is ‘me’ at the core of my ‘being’ and one’s own attentiveness will reveal that this is so. Whenever I am feeling annoyed, it is ‘me’ that is feeling annoyed – ‘I’ am the feeling of annoyance and the feeling of annoyance is ‘me’ in operation as it were. Whenever I am feeling sad, it is ‘me’ that is feeling sad – ‘I’ am the feeling of sadness and the feeling of sadness is ‘me’ in operation as it were … and so on.

If one is detached in any way from any of the feelings that are ‘me’ then it is impossible to understand, let alone actively investigate, how ‘I’ am operating at this moment.

-Vineeto

And:

"Vipassana has to be seen within the whole context of Buddhism to understand its intentions and implications. Vipassana is the particular method to reach to the Buddhist’s highest goal – Nirvana. The idea in Vipassana is to become conscious of the sensations in the body, of the ‘stress’ of the sensations, feelings, desires, attachments etc. in order to extract one’s self from those stressful feelings. You are supposed to learn consciousness in order to become the Consciousness, thus removing your ‘self’ from the content of what you sense, feel and think.

…

Essentially, they say, that you are not the body, not the mind, not the sensations, not the feelings. They say you are the ‘soul’, you are Consciousness. This is 180 degrees opposite to Actual Freedom. In Actual Freedom you are the flesh and blood sensate and reflective body only, no ego, no soul.

But, if you get lost with their many words of going round and round and round then you know that the method is just to hypnotize oneself out of one’s normal way of thinking and feeling to end up in a pleasant drug-like state of no-mind, somewhere else, numbing one’s intelligence as well as one’s feelings and sensations. Spiritual practice is to numb your feelings and emotions while for actual freedom you need to dig into them, feel them, explore them, investigate them and trace them back to the root instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

In the above article the expression of ‘not clinging to anything in the world’ is the give-away. The whole meditation consists of turning away from something considered ‘unwanted’ to something considered ‘wanted’ – which is a moral evaluation of good and bad. The whole Buddhist religion is a very moral code of ethics.

Here is a bit more of Mr. Buddha’s teachings of how to get out of their physical senses and retreat into an imagined reality or fabricated peace and tranquillity. Of course, practicing Vipassana is like being drugged by an overdose of pain killers – when you don’t feel anything, see anything, hear anything, it is kind of peaceful – I would rather call it numb and dull! And then, removed from the world of physical senses there are no limitations to the full range of imagination – one imagines being peace, light, love, compassion – take anything from the ‘feeling-shop’ whatever you want, nothing is actual anyway."

-Vineeto

[Kub933]

Thanks @henryyyyyyyyyy that’s a good reminder. It is weird that even when Spirituality as a belief system is rejected, that underlying habit of escaping into some concept/fantasy still remains and can be habitually transferred over to ones involvement with Actualism, the good old Actualist identity haha.

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

Identity is sneaky! Usually it comes under the guise of “Here, let me help with that…”

[Kub933]

Pretty excited this morning at something that has finally clicked. For a long time I have been stuck in this fear of no longer being able to relate to others if I give up being a group member.

There was this sense that if I continue down the wide and wondrous path that I am somehow separating myself from ‘them’, like I am leaving ‘them’ behind. Almost as if I am going deeper into separation, there was this sense that somehow this is ‘wrong’.

This morning this whole issue did a flip! And all of a sudden I saw clear as ever that ‘I’ as a group member am already forever separated from my fellow human beings. And that the only way for me to ever get truly close to them is to give up being an identity, and I could see that it is totally safe and very desirable, it’s what I have always wanted.

It’s hard to explain the irony of this seeing over text but it’s like the thing that I was most afraid of happening is actually continually caused by ‘me’ and yet I projected it onto becoming free.

[FrankN]

@Kub933

The method is enjoying and appreciating, the tools are there so I can see that it is silly for X to take away my enjoyment and appreciation and thus get back on track. That is the meat and potatoes of it all, the funny thing is looking back and seeing that I always resisted this simplicity. I wanted it to be some difficult, obscure challenge, maybe as a way to prolong myself, to remain unchanged.

I hope I can come to this conclusion, this type of seeing soon!

[Kub933]

There is something that Srinath mentioned to me a few days ago that - seeing something as silly can sometimes take considerable emotional work,
I think this might be useful to keep in mind for you @FrankN

[FrankN]

@Kub933

The past few days it seems I have been peeling away more and more layers of the belief system which has it that ‘life is a vale of tears’, actually it’s more like the layers have been falling away as something better is being discovered each moment over, something perfect.

What I am starting to find lately is that whichever way I look, whichever line of inquiry I take, I am left at the seeing that this universe is already perfect.
It is this weird and perverse agreement to remain ‘human’ (with all the beliefs and fantasies this entails) which distorts this perfection into a place of suffering.

Very touching Kuba

[FrankN]

@Kub933

The way I experience it is that since I have been able to lock onto pure intent sufficiently the way I go about applying the method is primarily through allowing a movement into felicity/innocuity. This movement results in ‘my’ boundaries weakening until a purity that is outside of ‘me’ is experienced. This process happens in a spiral motion as I have mentioned previously, it is a back and forth from the depths of being with its sorrow and malice and then back into the purity.
The cool thing I am observing is that the spiral is still getting smaller and smaller. I can actually very well remember how much time was spent in the depths of ‘being’ a few months ago and how strong ‘my’ outlines were then vs now.
Actually thinking about this now it has gone past the tipping point, as in the purity is beginning to dominate and ‘being’ is now on the back foot.

This is very helpful, Kuba.

[FrankN]

@Kub933

For a while now it seems like that fundamental sorrow which is part and parcel of ‘being’, has been wearing thinner and thinner.

This morning I woke up to the clear seeing that sorrow only exists in ‘me’. I always saw this to an extent but deep down ‘I’ always felt that life itself is tragic in some way.

This morning this was flipped on its head, I saw clearly that outride of ‘me’ there is no sorrow, ‘I’ had projected ‘myself’ onto the world and turned existence into tragedy. But sorrow only exists in ‘me’ and more importantly as ‘me’. Once again the utter senselessness of feeling sorrowful was highlighted.

You done it again Kuba, nice work

[FrankN]

@Kub933

The problem I have with that statement is that I see how difficult it can be to apply the method at times. Even for those of us who have decided to devote ourselves to the goal completely it took a long time and plenty of perseverance to get anywhere with it.

I don’t know if I was doing it all wrong but there were times during the past 2 years when it was extremely difficult, whenever I look back I see just how much I had to question and overcome. And it is not that I am somehow more capable than others but what I always had was plenty of intent to get it done no matter what.

Thank you for actually saying this Kuba

[Kub933]

Frank Otto

That is a great point @Miguel, I remember us having a similar discussion a while ago with regards to love and coming to the conclusion that the ‘good’ feelings are really the worst because they can be so hard to see for what they are, as Richard says about love, it is the eternal seducer! That seems to be the thrust of the good feelings, be it feelings of power and authority within the group, or feelings of love and bliss. They lure one with the promise of something that in the end never deliv…

[Kub933]

So as inspired by @Elgin’s recent post I decided to write more about the process of sorting through various things.
There is 1 thing that came up yesterday that has been an ongoing theme for a very long time now, it has been getting better but this whole thing is still far from resolved.

I was coaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class yesterday at one of the gyms I teach at, I am relatively new to that gym so not everyone knows me so well yet, I have this feeling that I need to prove myself to them, prove that I know my stuff.

There is potential for bullshit to pass off as effective technique in the martial arts world so the instructor needs to be able to demonstrate that what he is showing actually works agains a fully resisting opponent and is not what is jokingly called ‘bullshido’.

Brazilian jiu jitsu is the martial art that demonstrated that the smaller, less athletic individual can beat a much bigger, stronger and athletic individual by using technique and leverage. By being a BJJ instructor I feel that I am obligated to carry this ideal forward, and that I need to be able to demonstrate it impeccably at all times.

So this pretty much sets the scene for this theme that has been going on for a long time. There is this responsibility/obligation I feel, to live up to that ideal of being able to use perfect BJJ technique to defeat anyone and everyone, and that as the instructor I need to demonstrate this in training at all times, phew that sounds stressful just writing it!

I want to live up to that ideal so that I can inspire the other guys to develop that same sort of skillset, by failing to live up to the ideal I feel that I am failing them. Because I am showing them that maybe this shared fantasy of being an invincible martial arts master is just that, a fantasy. Living up to the ideal is what I offer in exchange for love and adoration from them, because they want that power too so they will forever need me. (It’s funny how similar all of this is to the enlightenment drama that Richard writes about, the underlying mechanisms of trust, surrender, the master/disciple hierarchy, its all there!)

Now I know I am good, not world class but definitely high level enough to be able to develop guys to a pretty high standard. I do not compete as I never had the desire for it but in sparring I can hang with guys that are competing at high levels. So I know I am not teaching ‘bullshido’, I know that what I am showing works. There is however this underlying anxiety that I will be exposed for a fraud.

Yesterday when it came to sparring I was rolling with one of the guys who is relatively new to grapping, he has been training for a year or two, so I thought “I should be able to pretty much toy with him”. This would be where I would look to demonstrate the power of BJJ to my students and feeling great about myself carrying this beacon of power.

Now as much as technique ultimately beats strength, the thing that one finds very quick in doing martial arts is that strength and athleticism still matters, and there is a lot of variability as to peoples levels of strength and athleticism. You will every now and then come across those ‘freaks of nature’, people that do not look it but when engaged, feel like a wild animal, this guy was one of them

For his frame, unbelievably strong and scrappy, and having some grappling experience too which made him extremely hard to control and submit. Now of course I did control and submit him but it was not as easy as I would like to demonstrate. Because I am the ‘sensei’, I am the guy that is meant to tap him 10 times without even breaking a sweat, and here I was really having to work!

There was an instant fear about what my students will think when they see us sparring. Will they feel let down because they no longer believe in ‘technique conquering all’, will they doubt me now when I demonstrate technique to them and think “why should I listen to you, you couldn’t do this on a white belt”.

Now the fact is that technique works, and I can show technique that works, but this ideal of technique easily neutralising ANY sort of athleticism with minimal effort is just an ideal.
The fact is that there are people that will always be a handful, and as a martial arts instructor would I not rather help my students see this fact clearly instead of perpetuating a fantasy? Afterall all what if they were to take this fantasy into the street if they ever found themselves in a situation, they would be shocked when they realise that the 100kg rugby player is actually not so easy to control, even though he might have no technique. Am I not doing them a better service by demonstrating what is factual, what works, even if it does not live up to some fantasy of being all powerful.

So this is a pretty in depth description of this theme, I can see there is an investment into all these values and ideals that underpin my identity as a martial arts coach, yet the reason this theme still continues is because I am still invested in them. At the core of it all seems the desire to be all-powerful and invincible. By being ‘that’ I will receive unlimited love and adoration from the martial arts ‘group’.