Kub933's Journal

[Andrew]

One of the memories that stuck in my head of spending those 10 days with Richard and Vineeto is this;

I was putting together some carpentry with Richard on the floor of the houseboat, and he said “there is only one person on this boat trying to survive”.

Indeed, that is all I am obviously ever trying to do.

@Kub933

There is nothing obvious that comes to mind, however it is not just about an overall understanding but about this specific thing now (whatever it is), this drama that is currently in the way, where there is drama it means there is no clarity. With clarity the drama cannot exist.

That’s sorta what I am looking at. There isn’t anything in particular I don’t know about this drama. I know my life extremely well actually. I don’t have to look very far to see who I am, how I became this, and where it is going.

That all happened recently though. When I stopped applying all these “super ego” types of thoughts, it was extremely easy to go “oh, yeah! I do this, because of that!”

@Kub933

Yes agreed, the thing though is that these experiences of purity can’t be bottled up, so it kind of got to a dead end for me.

Yep.

A dead end for you.

It’s right there.

I remember saying that it’s ultimately pointless for young guys to analyse all the ins and outs of life in some effort to free themselves. It will all be taken from you in due course.

Your value will fade. Everything you hold dear will be taken by the march of time.

Nothing will remain of everything you are valued for. New values will be assigned to you, and it will be yet another set of things with which your survival will be foremost in the same feelings that currently drive your survival now.

To use the word program, or passion?

Are they really interchangeable?

Did a thing called “blind nature” program you?

I like what you said above about there not being a clear line between the core “instinctual” self and a “social identity”.

It’s all feeling.

I found over the last decade that what I thought was a social identity thing, was a fundamentally different beast. I was trying to pick apart my core.

I think that is impossible.

“The last slice of pizza”. Such a crude analogy, but lovely in it’s simple absurdity.

The pizza never ate the other slices, so it’s hardly going to eat itself.

What can eat pizza? Not pizza!

There is no “top down” approach that has worked so far. Every report I have read were from the inside out. From being the very thing which is willing going into oblivion.

[Andrew]

@Kub933

this is the goal I have now, to dare to deeply experience and fully understand the instinctual programming that is ‘me’ at ‘my’ core, ‘my’ very soul. The cool thing is that I see that the way of exploration is no different to exploring the social conditioning.

Ok, now I see why It wasn’t just an impression I got, rather you explicitly said it.

You are these feelings. Apparently. I am told.

So, I read this to be you are going to categorise and analyse yourself “no different from exploring the social conditioning” as if such “fully understanding” would change something.

Which is why I asked what don’t you understand?

I am on a journey these days beyond gathering any understanding. I already understood, I just persisted in lying to myself.

I already knew at 17 that relationships are unfulfilling.

I already knew at 32 that money and houses, children, and prestige, admiration and power left me empty.

I just kept lying to myself. Every day, the same lie. I was someone and something special. Someone to whom the ultimate good would come, because I was ultimately good.

That ultimate good? That is the instinctual self. The immortal ground of being. The perpetual persuasion of one’s divine right to survive and reproduce

[claudiu]

@Kub933

Man I hate to be a typical pick it apart actualist but you did literally write the below :

Haha why hate? Such attention to detail is really very useful

[Kub933]

Yeah for sure useful but I know where it goes half the time, evasion, further clarification, more tricky evasion and eventually devolution info the kind of convos we see on the AFT lol.

[Kub933]

Ok but here are you not conflating self immolation with the Actualism method.

The whole point is that the method is what you do in the meantime so that you can be happy and harmless now.

All the pizza business is referring specifically to self immolation, not the application of the method.

[Kub933]

The point is what is stopping you from being happy and harmless now, not what will send the last slice of pizza into oblivion.

And if you ask the question and find that it is whatever instinctually sourced and culturally reinforced drama then clearly this is the thing which needs to be addressed. No good fantasising about what the pizza will do or building complex stories of ‘who I am’.

[Kub933]

In fact I have a proposition I think in the majority of the cases if one is drawn to any kind of theorising, intellectualising, philosophising etc about self immolation it is because one is not being happy and harmless now.

It’s almost like bailing out because you aren’t feeling good now, so let’s escape into fantasy whilst doing nothing. Let’s pretend like something practical is being done whilst another moment is wasted in sorrow and malice.

And if one is genuinely enjoying and appreciating being here, then one is too busy doing just that to be entertaining fantasy or theory.

[claudiu]

@Andrew

So, I read this to be you are going to categorise and analyse yourself “no different from exploring the social conditioning” as if such “fully understanding” would change something.

Which is why I asked what don’t you understand?

[…]

I already knew at 17 that […]

I already knew at 32 that […]

I just kept lying to myself. Every day, the same lie.

Well that’s the point, you didn’t really understand those things or you wouldn’t be able to keep lying to yourself about it. You still felt compelled to go in those directions because you felt there was some pay-off.

Actually fully understanding it is simultaneous to ceasing to do it. Once you really see it, the motivation to go there simply dissipates.

If you find yourself stuck in the same ol’ same ol’, it does you no benefit to just say you already know it’s bad and then keep doing it. You gotta really dig in to see exactly and precisely what about that particular and specific instance is leading you to keep going in that same direction.

Then do this for everything that comes up in life.

This is one of the most effective tools by which you can facilitate the actualism method!

[Kub933]

Awesome! I think you hit the nail on the head with this post. It’s clarified this whole thing for me even further.

[Andrew]

@claudiu

Actually fully understanding it is simultaneous to ceasing to do it.

This is what I was pointing to when first challenging the utility of

@Kub933

this is the goal I have now, to dare to deeply experience and fully understand the instinctual programming

Really?

This doesn’t seem to have any precedent at all in being effective.

Or even ever done.

Has anyone ever written on these forums of ours,

“I fully understood my instinctual programming, and I ceased doing it!”

Just a question.

I would be more than happy (like it would have me balling tears of joy) to read that on this forum.

“I fully understood myself at my core and ceased doing it.”

[Andrew]

@Kub933

Yes agreed, the thing though is that these experiences of purity can’t be bottled up, so it kind of got to a dead end for me

I think this is still the key point.

What about this purity don’t you like?

You have written previously that you want to bring it back into ‘your’ world.

Knowing that it isn’t generated in ‘your’ world.

Like trying to capture some exotic animal and cage it. Or worse, bottle it up in ether and keep it preserved on a shelf in your mind.

I have been asked a couple of times why I would be interested in actualism without having a definitive PCE.

What boggles my mind is those who have claimed PCEs are not otherwise stepping out of the ‘real’ .

Why stay?

[claudiu]

@Andrew

@Kub933

this is the goal I have now, to dare to deeply experience and fully understand the instinctual programming

Really?

This doesn’t seem to have any precedent at all in being effective.

Or even ever done.

Well then you haven’t been paying attention

Here’s something feeling-being Vineeto wrote, and we all know how how effective it was for ‘her’. BTW this was the first link I clicked after searching instinctual passions on the AFT site via Google, and it’s in the first quote on the page. Emphasis added.

VINEETO: The interesting part of the adventure of life begins when I begin to apply attentiveness and become apperceptively aware of how ‘I’ function, socially and instinctually, because then I can make sensible choices based on both my intent (my goal) and the depth of my insight into the human condition itself. In other words when I clearly see the pattern of the outer layer of ‘my’ social programming, I can stop this pattern and replace it with sensible choices. When I am able to clearly understand the pattern of the innermost layer of ‘my’ instinctual programming, which is buried deep in the basement of my psyche, I have the opportunity to stop the pattern and make sensible choices.

This continuous action of becoming aware of and successively stopping the automatic patterns eventually weakens both the social identity and the instinctual ‘me’ to the point where stepping out of one’s ‘self’ into the actual world won’t be a giant leap that appears impossible, but a small step that is simply the next sensible thing to do.

Vineeto – SC Instinctual Passions

And indeed that is what happened for her.

Cheers,
Claudiu

[Kub933]

@Andrew

Really?

This doesn’t seem to have any precedent at all in being effective.

@Andrew

I would be more than happy (like it would have me balling tears of joy) to read that on this forum.

“I fully understood myself at my core and ceased doing it.”

OK but there is also this from the man himself which essentially spells out what you are asking for (Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness) :

The ‘reality’ within has an enormous fund of information containing the reflection of the human condition and an examination of this material leads to an actual freedom

But still I think you are confounding self immolation with the application of the method in your replies. My point wasn’t that examining the instinctual programming will lead to the end of ‘me’ (although Richard’s words seem to indicate this also) but rather that examining and fully understanding the instinctual programming helps to remove obstacles to feeling happy and harmless now.

@Andrew

Has anyone ever written on these forums of ours,

“I fully understood my instinctual programming, and I ceased doing it!”

Also this is specifically what I described earlier in this thread :

@Kub933

So one that comes to mind is last year whenever I would have to drive to a different city to teach a class (especially in the colder and darker months) there would be this feeling of fear/despair.
It seemed so crazy but when I followed it through right to the very core I could see this entire instinctually sourced drama playing out.
It was this archaic fear of having to leave the safety and warmth of ‘my lair’ and go into the dark and cold ‘outside’ where ‘danger’ lurked. I had to leave behind ‘my’ loved ones and risk everything being ripped away from me.
I would allow myself to fully experience and explore this drama until eventually it was seen as silly, the end.

Now that doesn’t mean that I eliminated fear itself, however what I did was apply attentiveness to a drama which flows from the instinctual package. And the drama itself was seen to be silly and as such is no longer entertained.

[Kub933]

@Andrew

What boggles my mind is those who have claimed PCEs are not otherwise stepping out of the ‘real’ .

Why stay?

What Srinath wrote on the Simple actualism page is more or less the kind of resistance I have :

While PCE’s are absolutely glorious they are temporary. You will either crash land or gently transition back to stark everyday reality every single time. Its frustrating to realise that the PCE or even an EE cannot be bottled or possessed by you. It becomes apparent that the only thing that will work is for ‘you’ to leave the scene. As a feeling being I wrestled with this idea of whether I really truly wanted to live the PCE. I knew it was permanent and irrevocable. I had many glorious PCE’s. But could I really live without a self? Could I really live without emotions? While a PCE was terrific it seemed almost too perfect, too pristine. I liked my ‘dirty’ self and didn’t want to get rid of it completely. That is until one day, I stopped liking it. As I acclimated to the PCE more and more, feeling being increasingly felt like an irritant. A blight on an otherwise sublime and sweet existence. Even as a relatively happy chap, going about the world, the difference between the magical sweeetness of the PCE and my ordinary life was like night and day.

[Kub933]

Also I think the key thing in this approach working is bearing in mind that the purpose of applying attentiveness to the instinctual programming is to ascertain what is silly and what is sensible. Not in a logical reasoning kind of way but actually seeing this. These kind of experiences can be super freeing in my experience, where I actually see first hand that I have been blindly acting out some drama which has no basis in fact whatsoever. Sometimes it can be experienced like I am this cornered animal, screaming and yelping on the inside, then all of a sudden it dawns on me that all is well, and has been well this whole time, it was all over nothing.

However I think the tendency can be to try to turn this matter of fact seeing of silly vs sensible into an attempt at establishing truths. So whatever is observed on the inside is then flipped back into the language of ‘humanity’, basically translated back into the varioius values and beliefs. At that point yet another story is being weaved. I think this might be somewhat in line with the issues you have described @Andrew ? (with regards to the investigations not going anywhere and not seeing how one could examine without becoming a watcher)

[Andrew]

@Kub933

So whatever is observed on the inside is then flipped back into the language of ‘humanity’, basically translated back into the varioius values and beliefs. At that point yet another story is being weaved.

@Kub933

While a PCE was terrific it seemed almost too perfect, too pristine. I liked my ‘dirty’ self and didn’t want to get rid of it completely. That is until one day, I stopped liking it. As I acclimated to the PCE more and more, feeling being increasingly felt like an irritant.

@Kub933

Its frustrating to realise that the PCE or even an EE cannot be bottled or possessed by you.

So, then the pressure relief valve which stops one going into seeing the feeling being reality as “an irritant” is holding onto one’s frustration of not being able to “bottle it”.

One’s “centre” move over to a

@Kub933

sublime and sweet existence

rather than;

@Kub933

I liked my ‘dirty’ self and didn’t want to get rid of it completely.

Who gets;

@Kub933

frustrating to realise that the PCE or even an EE cannot be bottled or possessed by you

[Andrew]

I was thinking today about what stuck out to me in what you wrote; and it occurred to me it sounds like something I would write!

I am going to look at instinctual programming.

Whilst that results in another layer of “wisdom” rather than any progress in actualism.

Why not stick with the actual trigger??

The trigger being, frustration that you can’t bottle the experience of PCE?

The experience that you like the “dirty self”.

[Andrew]

Actually, typing that, I realised that is exactly what I did 20 years ago!

I held onto the frustration of not being able to bring a peak experience back into my normal reality!

It was probably a jhana, or formless realm type experience, but I got angry and frustrated!

[Kub933]

@Andrew

I was thinking today about what stuck out to me in what you wrote; and it occurred to me it sounds like something I would write!

I am going to look at instinctual programming.

Whilst that results in another layer of “wisdom” rather than any progress in actualism.

OK but to say it results in another layer of ‘wisdom’ is missing the point of what I wrote earlier. That it is about actually seeing what is silly vs sensible now, this has the effect of removing obstacles to feeling happy and harmless now. So it has all to do with progress in actualism.

[Andrew]

I did read the “silly or sensible” line, however it seems out of place in context of instinctual passion/programming.

So you mean for example, replacing a instinctual reaction (somehow) with a sensible one?