Yes exactly! replacing the blind and crude with the sensible. But in order to actually see this, it requires that deep dive and a full understanding. It can’t be merely some intellectual decision.
1 Like
It’s starting to make sense, the moment of frustration mentioned above.
I was extremely frustrated a week ago, really wanting time to stop because I will have experiences which are really good (a sunset, a moment in a relationship, a feeling on the bike etc) that I know will pass and I can’t keep it.
What instinctual passion is that frustration?
I was begging the sky actually for time to stop!
I remembered that apparently in actuality it was never moving to begin with.
So, I want experiences which don’t move to last over a time I perceive as moving , which is imaginary.
‘time’ sucks!
But the experiences are moving, it is time that does not move. The experience of life is one that is always changing.
So it’s not so much that frustration is an instinctual passion. But if you follow this frustration all the way down you might get a glimpse of the instinctual ‘you’.
Then usually when you experience ‘yourself’ so naked and raw there will be an immediate reaction to turn away, perhaps fall back to where you can comfortably weave some story or turn it all into ‘wisdom’, or think about self immolation etc.
I always liken it to a cornered animal because this is how I experience it, when ‘I’ am seen in such a raw way. I think ALOT of diversion happens to basically ensure ‘I’ am not seen in such a way. Yet I think secretly this is exactly what ‘I’ want, it is ‘my’ way out of remaining ‘me’.
1 Like
What I am finding in myself is that once I whittle an issue down to this raw passionate ‘me’ then instead of continuing to apply fascinated attention there is this habitual response to look for a ‘solve’.
It’s like I peel things away and then I touch this next layer and it’s so hot I immediately pull away. It’s like that ‘do not enter’ sign that Peter was mentioning in the virtual freedom video. So all sorts of subtle redirections of attention happen.
Basically what I am seeing is that a lot of time this is as far as I would go, then I would plant a flag right there and camp, and then I would be doing all sorts of theorising and fantasising as a way to distract myself from what the obvious next step is.
This is where the cunning aspect comes in, I will play all sorts of tricks even with myself, in order to hide myself from being seen like this.
But if I find a way to look, actually look without redirecting or distracting, at this raw ‘me’ there is a very good chance that whatever is in the way will melt away.
2 Likes
I think this is why it’s common to be stuck in some drama for so long, and then eventually you come to a point where you can no longer turn away, and then this huge thing can dissappear just like that. I’ve had many instances of these things in the past. It’s really like Geoffrey said in the zoom video, the method is ‘hard’ because ‘you’ make it so difficult 
It’s like when you talk to someone who is hell bent on persisting with some truth, you could point them to all the facts till the cows come home and it’s as if they are blind or deaf. OR at the very most they will have to concede some point and then engulf it right back into the same drama.
1 Like
The obvious next step?
That sounds pretty cool.
Is being seen as vulnerable and triggered, not in control, otherwise in that much maligned primal state the issue?
We spend our whole waking lives (90% of us) trying to be civilised, in control, wise, attractive, funny and otherwise someone. Is that what you mean? To be seen?
I think it goes way beyond not wanting to be seen as uncivilised etc.
Each ‘self’ is desperately trying to avoid facing its own fundamental nature, in order to do this it becomes an identity, a ‘who’. If ‘I’ am seen naked and raw then ‘I’ can no longer escape in that way (via distraction) funny though because that is also the doorway to genuine release.
1 Like
The experience.
Had a really lovely day. Didn’t really try to have one, just something happened in the way I process desire.
I wanted to do this or that. I did it. Simple things. Empty the trash. Ride my bike. Go for a swim.
In Richards journal, he describes pure intent as what motivated him to plant and tend the garden he had created whilst employed as a caretaker for a place.
I like this OG description.
1 Like
So a few more observations I wanted to mention which are in line with what I have been writing lately. I am seeing a little clearer the difference between actualism and self-therapy.
What I observe in myself is that when there is some kind of turbulent emotion in place I will often be inclined to apply something akin to cognitive behavioural therapy.
What this looks like is I will place a slight distance between myself and the emotion, from there ‘I’ as the ‘thinker’ will then look to comment upon it, turn it into a certain narrative (maybe a more positive one than before), essentially I am trying to make it more palatable by ‘re-writing the story’. Which is all well and good and I guess at certain times this may be useful but it is not actualism. This ‘re-writing’ also includes turning the narrative inline with various ‘actualist beliefs’, it will usually lead to some kind of neutrality.
Then there is the other approach which is 180 degrees opposite, it is going straight for the jugular. Interestingly enough I often have to first catch myself slyly avoiding this direct engagement and instead turning to self-therapy.
The other approach is not the ‘thinker’ looking at the ‘feeler’, rather it is attentiveness itself which is being turned inwards. Which means I am looking directly at what is happening in the affective faculty now, this is not an intellectual looking or ruminating ‘about something’.
The thing is that this direct looking has the opposite effect of the self-therapy approach. It will not smooth over the rough edges to gain neutrality, it will go the other way, it’s a magnifying glass that will expose the thing for what it is, in all of it’s intensity. So I think this is what is subtly avoided a lot of the time and one instead runs into narrative, to make things more palatable. To start putting this magnifying glass to all these rotten parts of ‘myself’ which ‘I’ have been running from for a long time can be quite intense at times.
At the moment I can see that it is me who is getting in the way, as in each moment again I have the opportunity to apply this kind of attention and it is whether I decide to engage or to step back. It’s funny because at times I will go off into la la land for a good part of the day, spinning so many different stories, and all because I am simply not willing to stop and look at the thing that is burning underneath, and indeed all it takes to dissolve the issue is to apply this kind of attention.
5 Likes
So a very useful clue for me now is that whenever I find myself engaging in any kind of day dreaming or narrative spinning then I know I am avoiding something. Then it’s a case of stopping this habit by doing the above instead, each moment again.
It’s like the ‘thinker’ is just a big distraction from the ‘feeler’.
3 Likes
This sentence lept off the screen; I wonder if such violent turns of phrases are of any benefit.
I suspect not.
Reminds me of Peter’s “grab the bugger by the throat”.
If we are talking about any kind of friendship within oneself, if that is actually the best starting place, then one could ask “who is going for whose jugular?”
Srinath wrote something years ago on a now deleted list (or lost); “Any rancour against the real world only perpetuates it”.
Considering that Peter used this phrase, and was in close proximity with Richard, and yet took over a decade to become free, doesn’t seem that it was helpful.
I am not sure that what I am saying is valid, maybe a level of internal combativeness is useful. I can’t believe it is, except to say that it’s pretty much how I approached this from the start, and my results are no secret.
Your post reminds me of the saying - ‘If all I have is a hammer, every problem is a nail’. Except ‘being your own best friend’ (as an axiom) is the hammer and my description is the nail haha.
It’s like you are wanting to interpret my post in light of this ‘being your own best friend’ taken to a point of being a moral. So then you have set up the scene to see my description as apparently pointing to rancour against the real world or internal combativeness towards myself.
Peeling away the nonsense and seeing yourself bare is nothing to do with those things. The ‘going straight for the jugular’ just seemed an apt metaphor for doing exactly that.
You think someone’s advice wasn’t helpful when that very person then went on to succeed and become actually free?
What metric are you using for ‘helpful’ then?
That’s like the single most definitive evidence or proof that someone was on the right path… that they actually succeeded!
This is the way.
Though what’s likely to happen isn’t that the issue gets dissolved, but transforms into the next issue. And the joy is in the journey not the destination.
I read the four hour work week, and did the long term holiday thing which counterintuitively was hell. Won’t do that again! I’m now happy to work for the rest of my life.
Got better with women than my wildest dreams - it was empty and meaningless. I remember having a chat with my therapist years ago. And she asked why was it empty and meaningless, and my response was ‘what else could it have been?’.
Similar lessons with drugs, money (just numbers on a screen), enlightenment (there’s still post enlightenment work to be done) etc.
Do update us on if the issue does dissolve, because with my mindset, I feel the issue will evolve into the next lesson we have to learn.
I guess I feel I might want the issues to go away, and have them stick to our plan for them to feck right off. But maybe just maybe the issues and emotions are going hand in hand to teach us valuable lessons to move us along in life.
If the issue just gets completely dissolved by just looking at it, then more than happy to be disabused of my above notions.
So there isn’t 1 particular issue I am referring to here but rather a general trend. If I look at myself now vs when I started with actualism there is certainly less junk in the way as a totality. Actually I always forget to do this, what Peter recommended, to consistently pat oneself on the back by seeing just how much one has changed. Even recently I have been feeling as if I am no longer progressing in any way but then I look back and I realise that moment to moment I have the kind of stability that I have never had before in my life. There are certain things that used to trouble me day by day and they no longer exist in any significant capacity to cause trouble.
So it seems there is some kind of movement towards virtually eliminating dramas from my life. There is these various affective structures, these bundles of emotion and thought which are being looked at and are being slowly worn away like a sand castle, to the point where they now look nothing like what they were at the beginning.
‘I’ as a feeling being remain unchanged at core, always ready to ‘roar back into full existence’ as Srinath wrote, but at the same time there is just less and less reasons for that to happen.
I am certainly not content with accepting this kind of fate though, that the dramas will simply change into another one and I will continue to have endless lessons to learn. At the very least I am aiming for a virtual freedom where the various dramas are eliminated 99.99%.
4 Likes
Thanks for that clarification, Kub. It’s appreciated, and clears things up for me.
I am certainly not content with accepting this kind of fate though, that the dramas will simply change into another one and I will continue to have endless lessons to learn. At the very least I am aiming for a virtual freedom where the various dramas are eliminated 99.99%.
Exactly how I feel. Not content with the various dramas. My current approach (will change over time doubtless) is that there are 3-4 dramas that keep repeating (and my somatic experiencing shows they are all connected) and if I get to the root of it, then hopefully eradicate them 99.9%. 
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. One thing I’m confident of it WILL NOT go how I expect it to. 
But excited to see how the journey progresses.
1 Like