Be careful using Alan as a data point. What he claimed was self reported and when pressed in conversation was displaying many traits of bi-polar mania and basically “aping” actualism.
Not that he wasn’t having a ball of a time. It was certainly “a” freedom. But it was Alan’s description that it was virtual freedom which has thrown many off course.
He was a great guy, generous, fun, and adventurous, but be careful using using his report as a guide. Indeed, be careful of using anyone’s report as a guide.
The only guide is the pure intent derived from your experience the perfection and purity of the actual.
The still in control VF is a dicey territory in the sense that one is essentially the same but with perhaps more propensity towards happiness n harmlessness…If one is thinking they’re in the still in control VF, they should go stand at some crowded queues or some kinda chaotic place with lotsa people or something, then see what happens to their happiness n harmlessness…
Plenty of these possibilities in India
OFC VF has an amazing flavor…as if finally going to reach the destination…feels different than the regular doer being…
and I agree with Andrew - one’s own experience guided by PI is key
Nonetheless even still in control VF is worth achieving in itself…
I’d be interested to hear what makes you say this specifically. I guess I was only on the forum for a bit whilst he was alive, when I met with him I didn’t really pick up on much of what you mention, what he described seemed genuine. But then again it was only for a day and I didn’t have that much experiential understanding of what’s what back then.
I do remember a correspondence with Vineeto where she wrote that in her opinion his inability to become free was actually due to him having too much success with the method, which sort of goes directly opposite to what you mention.
Haha, well it seems to me that if this is the strength of one’s virtual freedom then it couldn’t be called such. If a busy place knocks one out of feeling good. Although it seems like in control virtual freedom is so last year now, no one aiming for that now it seems lol.
There’s a publicly archived correspondence where Richard sort of obliquely hints that Alan is more cunning than the norm. This is my assessment of why he didn’t make it - besides an untimely physical demise of course …
I remember taking with Alan and he said he almost never experienced feelings. I said was it a PCE ? He said no. Then I said there must be feelings. But he repeated he didn’t experience any. It took me a long time to be able to convey the point that outside a PCE everything is experienced via feelings , then he finally seemed to get it. He seemed to not recognize felicitous feelings or felicitous moods as feelings / as affective. But this was already when he claimed to be in control virtually free. It seemed like quite a lack of self reflection and understanding at the time …
I had been conversing with him since 2015, in arrangements for the 2015 trip, in the “ambiance” experiments, and a few video calls, including one not long ago with Geoffrey in which he claimed to “miss love”.
His website is testimony to the fact he without blinking turned his previous spiritual experiences in actualism experience and simply renamed them.
And of course, it was Richard that pointed out the Bi-polar traits.
All I am really saying is don’t take anyone’s word for what they report.
As for Vineeto’s assessment? Maybe so! But so what?
Richard has pointed out that the method and psychic self-immolation are two entirely different things.
On the topic of people enjoying themselves, I know a few fun loving people, who have zero interest in actualism.
Just because someone is naturally hedonistic and isn’t harming anyone per se, doesn’t mean they are any sort of “virtually” free.
They are skilled in having a lot of fun. I have no issues with that, obviously.
However, if they came on here and said “I am virtually free” I would not believe that at all.
I don’t honestly see much use for the term anyway.
Well this would lump eg an abusive wife/husband together with a generally cheery and considerate partner. Although they are both much closer together than they are to an actually free person … there is still a difference.
Hmm not really. Maybe if you answered this question: would you prefer a partner that verbally and physically abuses you, or one that is kind to you and fun to be around?
OK @Andrew but bearing in mind that the very method which this entire forum is all about is enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. So you’re saying there is no sense in applying this very method, just do whatever in the meantime and then somehow end the cause? Because there’s already other nice people in the world? That is missing the entirety of what actualism is about and trying to skip to the end. Which I guess there is no reason that it couldn’t work this way but it certainly does not appear to be the most sensible way to approach it haha.
Like Peter said it amounts to waiting for Godot. Besides it is sensible to be harmless and it feels good to feel good so why not spend one’s remaining days as an identity doing exactly that? What if you are struck by a meteorite right before this cause is eliminated, have you not wasted all those moments which could have been spent enjoying and appreciating?
That’s why you will see that I said the abusive and the kind person are far far closer together than the nice person is to the actually free person.
I am just pointing out that just because both are rotten to the core feeling beings nursing malice and sorrow in their bosoms — even the ‘kind’ person — there is still a difference between the two. It’s still nicer to be around one vs the other. It does matter in relative terms. It does make the world a better place to be happier and harmless even without being actually free.
And indeed as Kuba points out it’s all you can do in the meantime
Well it’s about enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive … which is facilitated by being happy and harmless. Not being ‘nice’ per se. But it’s still nicer to be around nice people … it’s even nicer to be around happy and harmless people tho
I kind of understand where both sides are here…this might sum up a bit of both sides
Richard: [snip] although a life of virtual freedom, being epitomised by an absence of malice and sorrow (and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion), is a life of virtual peace and harmony there is no guarantee that recidivism cannot occur.
Even so, a virtual freedom is way ahead of normal human expectations, and is not to be sneezed at.
But then Richard could be talking about OFC VF and not SIC VF
I mean it’s silly to even attempt to discount it to such a degree. Let’s propose a world where the entire population is living an in-control virtual freedom vs it remains as it is now.
Is the virtual absence of all the horrible shit that is going on not worth it? I know for a fact it is worth every penny from my personal experience.
This ‘thing in the meantime’ is also the commitment to doing something now as opposed to waiting to be fixed one day because I am a sinner.
As Vineeto said to me in an email a decade ago " would Richard have done any of this if he wasn’t a good person?" (Paraphrasing from memory).
My simple point is, you can be as nice as you like, because you already were indeed conditioned that way, and it will make zero difference to self-immolation as if you had never heard of actualism.
It’s a radically different thing to know you are what needs to end.
I am, of course, echoing what you Claudiu have been telling me for a decade!
I won’t pause for a second for whatever hierarchy you imagine exist to self-immolate.
I am not Alan 2.0. Or anyone’s father. I am simply pointing out that if you are waiting for enough “feel good” moments, as you yourself Claudiu said many years ago this is not about, then so be it.
There is a meteor coming, and a bus, and it ultimately doesn’t matter in the slightest.
It’s really just whether you want the ultimate or you are happy with a half-lived life.
Ah sure. As Vineeto and Richard said a few times , the method doesn’t lead to self-immolation - it’s just what you do in the meantime
I was just pointing out that the “in the meantime” can be better or worse.
So I don’t think there is any disagreement here, we just talking about different things. You’re saying the elephant has a trunk and I’m saying it has thick legs.
I am really trying to understand where you are coming from but I think I also lost track of what we’re talking about
So it was the question of Alan - why is it that his virtual freedom did not culminate in actual freedom.
So as I see it you are saying that potentially Alan was not living in virtual freedom to begin with and even if he was it does not matter as virtual freedom has no link to self immolation?
What I am pondering about is why is it that someone who let’s say from what I could gather had dedicated his life to the pursuit of actual freedom, was living in virtual freedom for an extended period of time, had the intent to go all the way and yet something was missing.
Because to even get thus far is to demonstrate one’s commitment to going all the way. What is it that is humanly possible for ‘me’ that needs to be done. What is the ‘extra’ thing, this is what I am preoccupied with.
I realise there is not a link between the method and between self immolation but I am not interested in simply remaining the same whilst waiting for Godot either.
If it is seeing that it is me who needs to disappear for good, what is it that is humanly and practically possible to do to facilitate this. It seems to me that hanging out in the status quo is the worst possible way to proceed haha although I see that even virtual freedom and PCEs do not guarantee anything.
There is just a big question mark hanging in that space at the moment
