Kub933's Journal

Journals
2276

Yesterday I took a risk of allowing my BJJ session to run itself, this has been another theme which has been problematic for a while, this thing of planning and controlling a future. The thing I noticed over the years was that no matter how stringently I planned the session in the end I would always have to go by who turns up, how the things progress as they go etc.

So to plan was always to invite disappointment at things turning out another way anyways, it just never worked in any degree. So just like I allowed my kitchen to magically clean itself a while back when I took the risk of “living in squalor” lol, I voluntarily entered the session without any idea of “what I would do / how it would go”. Of course the fear was that I would just stand and stare blankly at the class whilst they ask me “what are we doing today coach”. But of course that is not what happened, and instead somehow magically the session ran itself, all the aspects of a useful practice happened but without any aspects of me having to plan and scheme and control and be disappointed etc.

I am reminded of a conversation between Vineeto and Richard in the out from control DVD, where Vineeto mentions about all the little decisions which had to be made to arrive at where she is now, which was the brain responding to opportunity, to which Richard replies that “brains are very good at that”.

And I was thinking how this thing of controlling a future is to try to solve a problem which does not exist yet, there are no solid frames of reference (facts) and so ‘I’ can only rely on imagination, hope, trust etc. So of course it is always a stressful process, it’s wrestling with things that don’t exist. Because I remember the second I stepped foot in the gym I had exactly that, frames of reference, as in I am here now and now I can actually run the session. The brain can now do what a brain does best.

And since then I have been becoming aware of how ‘my’ life is all that stuff which is not here and now ie facts. And there is this experience of being torn apart somewhat, that to proceed where life lives itself magically is to abandon all of that which is not actual, which is ‘my’ life. It reminded me of the below from Richards Journal, Article 9 :

Richard: It requires great fortitude and finesse to fly in the face of the social commandment: to remain a member of society at all costs. There is a pull of loyalties; old allegiances to relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances will tug at the heart, pulling one back, urging one to remain where one is. Loyalty, however, is a two-edged sword for it can cut two ways; there is the new allegiance to the purity of the peak experience, pulling one forward relentlessly, for herein lies release … and genuine peace-on-earth. The pull in two directions can be excruciating. On the one side is the sense of belonging, the warmth of relationship and the being acknowledged by the peoples one has always known. There is the loss of all that, with its ensuing grief – and guilt – at leaving them all behind. On the other side there is the knowledge that one will have reached one’s destiny, that one will have that perennial cheerful contentment with life as-it-is subtly buzzing inside one, and that the actuality of peace-on-earth and prosperity for all humankind is now possible. All this one knows, with a crystal-clear certainty, from the perfection of one’s PCE.

Also in terms of the words “magically” I now fully understand the distinction which Richard was making here :

[Richard]: ‘(…) the reason why the word ‘magic’ is utilised (magic as in prestidigitation and not as in a sorcerer’s magic) is because no other word currently exists to adequately convey how a lifetime of cares and woes – all the misery and mayhem which epitomises the human condition – can vanish in an instant (and vanish so completely as to have never been in the first place).

Of course the session was not run by anything like sorcerers magic haha, it’s just there is no other way to explain how ‘I’ could step back and yet everything happens perfectly, somehow.

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2277

Kuba: There was 2 more things that came of all this. Firstly it does look like something clicked, because later on when I read back that post, and I read the part where I still believed it was some noble “inspiring through excellence” I had very much this sense of “how could I have been such a fool to believe this”.
But then there has been this other feeling pop up, this one Andrew knows well. That sometime after, like an attack out of nowhere, this feeling of “what on earth have I just written, what if I am completely wrong, off by a mile. Have I just made an utter fool of myself, have I just demonstrated my complete lack of understanding of the actualism method” etc.
I know this feeling well because I have experienced it many times writing so much, and I guess so far I have kind of accepted it as par for the course of looking to expose ‘myself’. But really I would much rather be without it. Of course I will be wrong about many things yet to come but why does it have to be such a drama every time? This one has dogged me for a while now and would certainly like to get to the bottom of it. (link)

Hi Kuba,

Well, fact is that you have “just demonstrated my complete lack of understanding of the actualism method” and it hurts your pride of being an ‘accomplished actualist’. If it was sincerity, which moved you to reveal that fact (and not just an accidental ‘blunder’) then you can use this opportunity to clear the workbench and start afresh. You can also take note that this kind of pride-knocking sincerity puts you on the right track towards naiveté because being naïve is often accompanied by feeling foolish at the start – especially when pride holds a cherished and dominant position in one’s modus operandi –

Richard: The Human Condition is weird, so any dissolution of it is correspondingly weird. Also, your pride can begin to take a hammering, so watch out for the tendency to becoming humble to ameliorate your condition whilst you go through this process … else you may become enlightened.
You will not have an ounce of pride – or humility – left in you by the time it is all over. (Richard, List AF, Alan, 27 July 1998)

First a quote to clarify the terms associated with pride and its opposites –

JONATHAN: We had a useful theological and semantic discussion …
RICHARD: The semantic part of the discussion pertained to you saying the opposite of pride was embarrassment (see [Upload failed]Syd’s Report) – whereupon I pointed out that being humble (aka humility) is the more usual antonym – but given that humiliation and embarrassment are more or less synonymous it required what you characterise as a theological discussion to tease out differing connotations … to wit: the difference betwixt shame and guilt.
As a broad generalisation the feeling of shame (as in ignominy, disgrace, mortification, &c.) is more a public affair than private – whereas the feeling of guilt is more a private matter than public – and features mostly in eastern cultures (quite prominently, for instance, in China and Japan) rather than in western cultures where the feeling of guilt, being private, is conducive to the west’s emphasis on individuality over familiality (i.e., ‘the quality of being familial’ where familial means ‘of or relating to family’) … which is particularly obvious in Christian-based societies such as inhabit what is known as the Anglosphere. (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 4 Aug 2013).

Here Richard explains at length why pride and humility play such an important role in the human condition – and upon experiential investigation you eventually discover that they are both superfluous and silly to maintain –

Richard: All humility is nothing but the ego being very, very clever … it is but a product of a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity called ego. One of the chief attributes of a freedom from a ‘self’ or a ‘Self’ and from believing in a ‘God’ and a ‘Greater Reality’, is a completeness … an absence of the need to control a wayward ‘I’ with moralistic injunctions. Personally I have no humility whatsoever and, of course, neither am I proud. In order to be free of the Human Condition one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement – which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity – and ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body … including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride … and they feed off each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility … it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. The opposites vanish. I am simply here where I have always been … and pride, with its companion in arms, humility, has disappeared along with all the other feelings. I am free to be here now in the world as-it-is. Unadorned and unencumbered, I can stand on my own two feet, owing allegiance to no-one. (Richard, AF List, No. 4, 9 Jan 1999).

As such, in this situation, don’t just focus on the bad feeling – embarrassment, shame or humiliation – but use it as an indicator for the ‘good’ feeling of pride operating and recognize that it is pride, which stands in the way of you being more and more naïve, unsophisticated and ingenuous.

*

Kuba: It looks like this is all beginning to outline the aspect of ‘me’ which is the culprit. I have written about ‘my’ narcissism before, but this is not quite it, maybe something like a vanity, the fact that ‘I’ derive ‘my’ good feelings from sitting atop some elevated position, which of course means there is always the fear of falling from the prideful place, the shame of not living up to a standard etc. There has always been a yearning to be free from this, to simply be a fellow human being, without the need to prove anything or to fear loosing some ‘position’.
What I see now is that this desire for excellence is actually underpinned by self-centricity, it’s like what Srinath wrote, that ‘I’ don’t care about the issues themselves, rather it is ‘I’ who needs to be verified and affirmed.
I see what Richard meant now when he wrote that “pride and humility are standing in the way of ceasing all self-centred activity”.
And the way I see it now is that it is for nothing ultimately, that ‘I’ make everything about ‘me’ for no justifiable reason at all, only to affirm ‘myself’. As Richard said ‘I’ have arrogated responsibility with demonstrably disastrous consequences.
And of course this is what ‘I’ do, as ‘I’ am a scared, lost, lonely and cunning psychic entity, that is why ‘I’ self-centrically turn everything into a tool to re-affirm ‘myself’, to gain some ‘security’ about ‘my’ existence. (link)

I wrote at the end of my last post to you –

Vineeto: Regarding “inspiring through excellence” – it is imitating the perfection of the universe when one aspires excellence, and beneficial when others are inspired to imitate this excellence, however, the moment ‘I’ take the credit and make it my own, it becomes dirty, it has power added to one’s expertise and excellence, and power over others is always ‘self’-serving and ‘self’-enhancing. (link)

Please don’t make the mistake of regarding the striving for excellence solely as a ‘self’-centric activity and decide to shun aspiring for excellence altogether (like “more than a few take this to be a general ‘rule of thumb’ applicable to all the affective feelings inclusive of the felicitous and innocuous affections” (see Richard, List D, Martin, #text: unendorsed). Rather remove with ruthless sincerity your ‘self’-enhancing feelings, such as pride, hubris, smugness, power and conceit from the pursuit of excellence. You can instead recognize that you have the ability, talent and motivation to achieve excellence in this field, thereby imitating the perfection and purity of the universe with its inherent benignity and benevolence as this flesh-and-blood body and thus inspire others to do the same if they are so inclined.

Why do you think Richard aspired to and succeeded in being a master of words, which can touch the sensitive reader to experience for themselves what he writes about, looking for new words, more precise descriptions for his reports and explanations, perfecting his writing style, responding to feed-back and making his writing public so prolifically?

Cheers Vineeto

2278

Hi Vineeto,

Yes I do see the point you are making, in fact to proceed in that way (of shifting the blame to the striving for excellence itself) would be exactly the action of applying humility rather than looking to the root cause, which is ‘my’ pride specifically and ‘my’ self-centricity in general.

Also I notice that when I am feeling good, great, excellent I am naturally inclined towards excellence, so I know this is not what is at fault. Even the words I am writing to you now, of course I take the best care so that they make sense, convey what is needed etc - that is the very inclination towards excellence itself, it would be silly to be inclined towards anything but the best in each situation.

Lately it seems like there is a theme that keeps coming back over and over for me, which is that it is the ‘good’ feelings which are really at the core of what is going wrong. And mostly they are under the umbrella of the narcissistic/vain feelings.

This was also the most common objection from me with regards to getting out of the way and allowing life to live itself, essentially that ‘I’ can no longer be in control in order to either take credit or maintain a certain image of ‘myself’ to others.

So it seems like this whole construct of pride, vanity, self-worth, self-image etc that whole thing needs to go, without covering it with humility of course.

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2279

Also I can tell you just how badly I want to be free from this thing, it really is a poison, and it has been alive for far too many years now!

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2280

I have some more clarity on another “blind spot”, which is to do with what the actualism method is all about - enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. I can see now why in the past it all ended up with narcissism, that ‘I’ made actualism all about ‘me’, ‘me’, ‘me’, rather than about diminishing ‘me’.

What I did in the past is that I tried to sift enjoyment and appreciation through the outlines of ‘me’, so it wasn’t enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive which was the focus. Rather ‘I’ was trying to infuse ‘my’ life with enjoyment and appreciation, which means that with any success ‘I’ only grew stronger whilst those outlines of ‘me’ remained unexamined.

Furthermore it explains why the ‘good’ feelings had such a strong grip, because ‘I’ am those ‘good’ and bad feelings and all this time ‘I’ was paying into the piggy-bank of ‘me’, rather than focusing on enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, which has the effect of diminishing ‘me’.

It also explains why despite many experiences of the perfection and purity of actuality ‘I’ would only end up exerting more fierce control by the end, like this whole time ‘I’ was digging ‘myself’ in even deeper rather than becoming less and less important.

There is a post which I was reminded of this morning (which spawned a bit of a debate after) which demonstrates this "blind spot” I am describing :

So the problem is that to “integrate the commitment towards actual freedom” into the different parts of ‘my’ identity is actually a disaster waiting to happen… The ‘good’ feelings will never be far away and cunningly ‘I’/’we’ will only become more important.

Also if all this time ‘I’ am integrating things through ‘me’ - of course ‘I’ will claim credit, but more importantly, by the end of this process, how on earth am ‘I’ going to give ‘myself’ up? When ‘I’ have only been aggrandising ‘myself’ all this time, making ‘myself’ even more precious, more important etc.

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2281

What stands out to me is that it would be much simpler if the identity(“me”) behind all those identities/parts became naive, instead of seeking to integrate naivety into its various additional identities/parts. Or instead of trying to accomplish its commitment to actual freedom via fulfilling its various roles in a happy and harmless manner, it could instead simply become authentically happy and harmless in each and every moment.

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2282

Hi Edzd,

Yes so the ‘onion’ that is the ‘who’ that ‘I’ am needs to be actively peeled :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: in order for naivete to flourish. For ‘me’ to keep the various layers of the ‘onion’ and then filter happiness and harmlessness through them does not work.

I think I got this years back when I first decided I was going to walk down the wide and wondrous path, the radical nature of the goal ahead, that from the very beginning ‘I’ would not remain as ‘I’ am, that the very components of the ‘who’ that ‘I’ am would be left behind, and with nothing else to replace them, as Peter wrote :

Peter: One realizes that the path is essentially a demolition job – the very aim is to demolish, piece by piece, ‘who’ you have been taught to be and ‘who’ blind nature has programmed you to be

I remember the excitement at contemplating this course of action, that nothing would remain the same. But then somewhere I lost it and it is like I decided deep down that those certain layers of the onion ‘I’ would keep, that any further progress would only happen ‘through them’, they became sacrosanct in that sense, that this piece here ‘I’ will not allow to be touched, it is set in stone, that is ‘who’ ‘I’ am.

Now I am rekindling that flavour again, that yes it is radical, it is what makes it exciting, that the ‘who’ that ‘I’ am is to be thoroughly demolished.

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2283

OK so definitely got some movement on all this :grin: I did get it right yesterday that - “the ‘onion’ that is the ‘who’ that ‘I’ am needs to be actively peeled in order for naivete to flourish”.

What I have been seeing is that ‘me’ as a (social?) identity is this very construct of the ‘story of my life’, it is ‘who’ ‘I’ was in the past, ‘who’ ‘I’ am in the present and ‘who’ ‘I’ will be in the future. The thing is that this construct is a prison cell, it consists of others descriptions of ‘me’, it is seeing ‘myself’ through that ‘mirror of others’. I can actually see where the narcissism sits in this, that ‘I’ am somehow inherently addicted to looking into that mirror, because it gives ‘me’ coherence, it makes ‘me’ real.

I remember some days ago driving to go train BJJ and thinking how I could not possibly enter that scenario without this ‘ID card’ which is the ‘who’ that ‘I’ am, it seemed it was absolutely demanded that I bring this with me. But yesterday I allowed exactly that… I left the ID card at home haha.

What happens when this ‘ID card’ is left behind is that there is a sense of experiencing life as for the very first time, that this moment which is happening now has never happened before and I am experiencing it unrestricted by any outline - this is naivete.

So to experientially answer Andrew’s statement - “Narcissism is not the opposite of actual freedom. Eliminating vanity? Good luck”. Narcissism and vanity may not be extinguished when naive but they are virtually gone, it is being able to experience life without constantly peeking into that ‘mirror of others’ to see if ‘my’ ‘ID card’ is still intact, it is living outside of that altogether. I was observing this aspect yesterday as I was training (once again with the new training partner and the regular training partner), that I was experiencing that moment without those outlines, without the narcissism etc And it was so delightful to live that way.

Furthermore I can see why Richard wrote that naivete is a necessary precursor to the condition of actual innocence, it is all in the same direction, it is living life with progressively less of ‘me’ as an enduring ‘entity’ existing across the past, present and future, and when naive actuality is never far away, to be naive is to invite actuality to be revealed.

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