Kub933's Journal

[Kub933]

Man there is an awesome quote somewhere by @geoffrey that sums this up but I can’t find it! It mentions that in order for ‘me’ to self immolate, nothing ‘human’ can be left unknown to ‘me’, including this very rottenness.

And this rottenness can be quite astounding to comprehend when it’s seen as part of the big picture. That the very same mechanism that will cause ‘me’ to love another and protect them from harm is the one that will cause ‘me’ to destroy them, to describe one aspect as ‘good’ and the other as ‘bad’ is ultimately arbitrary.

[Kub933]

The closest I can find is this one :

Art being the expression of an experience, if I was to make music, it would be felicitous. No other possibility.
But the human condition is not invisible to me, forgotten, or repugnant, may it be in its musical expression ripe with grandeur, tragedy, or the beauty of sorrow. It is the realm in which my fellow human beings live. The realm where ‘I’ lived. In the absence of identity, there is an un-imaginable appraisal of the feats of humanity, which is only on par with the appraisal of its flaws

That gives somewhat of a flavour to that big picture that I am referring to, the one where the hero is as guilty as the one being saved.

[Kub933]

This makes me wonder, to what extent it is required that this rottenness be incrementally brought into sharper and more comprehensive focus.

This rottenness that is ‘me’, not separated by some comfortable layer of ‘actualist identity’ but the realm in which ‘we’ are all on par in our rottenness.

It seems like proceeding into a place which without pure intent would result in madness or depression, where ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’.

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

@Kub933

Man there is an awesome quote somewhere by @geoffrey that sums this up but I can’t find it! It mentions that in order for ‘me’ to self immolate, nothing ‘human’ can be left unknown to ‘me’, including this very rottenness.

The perpetual music thread

Things going left was the idea hahaha. RICHARD:I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. Who is that ‘me’, if not humanity? ‘I’ am humanity. And as such, ‘my’ destiny can be achieved. “Pleasant and wholesome” could become a refuge, a hiding place, for an individual ‘I’, a special ‘I’, fortified in dissociation from the dark soil of humanity by its acquired ‘actualist identity’. If one is to be human…

In the music thread, of course

[Kub933]

@henryyyyyyyyyy

In the music thread, of course

Yeah, the usual ‘realm’ @geoffrey can be found in

[Kub933]

Damn that is a good quote tho! So one proceeds into that ‘dark soil of humanity’ free of any buffer, to find that it is what ‘one’ is, that is where the daring and audacity comes in and that is where ‘my’ destiny can be achieved.

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

The seeing is the ending of ‘me’

[geoffrey]

@geoffrey

If one is to be humanity, then nothing of humanity shall be foreign to one.

This was, on my part, kind of a wink at the humanities bros that might be around hahaha.
This points to a very famous quote in literature/philosophy:
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto (Terence)
… quote that from its humble beginnings in a comedic scene, was taken out of context and widely used - starting from antiquity up to the renaissance, enlightenment, and beyond - according to the varying needs, concerns and views of the time.
I’m not sure if I encountered if first in Montaigne or Rousseau, but it was in my late teens and it (my own interpretation of it) made a firm impression on me. To me it meant that there was something in me that could be called ‘humanity’ and was shared between all humans, and that this thing had within itself the whole range of what humans were capable of ; that there was in me such a potential, and if it was only the ‘circumstances’ of my particular life that were to be thanked for the depths of it not being expressed, it nevertheless had to be acknowledged, known, and taken responsibility for.
Needless to say that such a point of view didn’t need to be amended much upon discovering actualism. Only needed was the realisation that ‘I’ was humanity, instead of it being that thing over there, known by then in all its immensity, that had me in its grasp… and the ‘good news’ that the full seeing of this would be, indeed, its end.

[Kub933]

So giving TMOBA more attention as per Geoffrey’s recommendation and contemplating Richards latest writing is clarifying the method for me. Main points :

• The application of the method and investigation are 2 completely different things.

• Investigation does not automatically lead to the successful application of the method, applying the method does .

• One gets back to feeling felicitous by seeing the silliness of having those feelings usurped.

• One investigates when one realises that a boundary has been placed which prevents the continued application of the method.

• Once the boundary has been removed one still has to apply the method .

• The ‘juice’ behind the effectiveness of the method is the potent force of the felicitous and innocuous feelings.

[Kub933]

Oh and :

• ‘Neither good nor bad’ is not feeling good, it is neutral and is ultimately a dead end. Focusing on ‘feeling felicitous’ makes this click for me.

[Kub933]

Got some movement lately, finally

I can see what I have been missing is a connection to something that is outside of the human condition. ‘I’ have been trying to clean ‘myself’ up all on ‘my’ own. And ‘I’ did chip away to a point where ‘I’ as a social identity am largely reduced but ‘I’ am still here as a ‘being’.

Without pure intent the gravity of ‘being’ always returns ‘me’ back to the same point, back to stuckness. And from there where can ‘I’ go other than the same old?

So what I have been doing recently is exactly what I have been doing a couple of years back with great success, which is all about opening myself up to this other dimension of experience by rememorating the flavour of purity.
To rememorate is to allow the possibility that it is here now, and before I know it it is already being lived. The thing I realised yesterday is that this purity itself never falters, it is the connection that falters, which means that if ‘I’ so wish it is always possible to continue receiving this blessing, each moment again.

What I got yesterday was that ‘I’ have been trying to do it on ‘my’ own as some twisted aspect of pride. ‘I’ wanted to prove that ‘I’ can fix ‘myself’ up from the inside, that it is possible for the human condition to be fixed. So as a result ‘I’ have been swimming against the current, all alone, without any support from this purity, and man it is hard work!

In terms of how to open up to this other dimension of experience, the doorway is delighting, delighting at being here now, often it can take even just a smidgen of delight to begin opening up to this other world, and from there ‘I’ just sit back and enjoy the ride.

So it’s something like this for me at the moment :

• I do some work to ensure that I am at least feeling good.
• From this position of feeling good I allow myself to delight, in doing so I invite the possibility that this purity is here now.
• Once tasted I simply allow it, I allow this purity to saturate my experience to the point where I am swimming in it. Then as Richard writes I am no longer intuitively making sense of life, a whole new dimension has just opened up. It’s not a PCE but it’s a different way of ‘being’.
• Then I enjoy and appreciate it of course, and perhaps reflect back on the human condition from this superior vantage point.
• When it begins to fade, I simply play that same game over and over.

I can see here that it is possible to eventually be in a place where one is more or less in a continuous EE and going in and out of PCEs, sort of hovering on that edge of ‘reality’ where one can ‘poke through’ at any moment.

So in short it seems my problem was that ‘I’ was going only as far as ‘I’ can do on ‘my’ own. Whereas now I can see that this is but the beginning of the ride! ‘I’ do some work initially and then ‘I’ allow the purity to do it’s thing.

[Kub933]

I’m just trying to pinpoint what other reason I could have for not allowing this purity each moment again. It seems that I wanted something static, so it seemed that if ‘I’ could change ‘myself’ without outside assistance then it could be something that could be statically lived, essentially ‘I’ could remain ‘me’ but a virtually happy and harmless ‘me’ and ‘I’ could remain like this indefinitely, some kind of a cop out essentially.

Whereas pure intent is dynamic, every time ‘I’ allow it, ‘I’ am going on some kind of a ride that can fundamentally change ‘me’. And of course if ‘I’ continue allowing it and hovering on that edge of ‘reality’, then ‘reality’ cannot be sustained indefinitely.

[Kub933]

So is an in control virtual freedom essentially a cop out from proceeding towards actual freedom with the operant words being in control. I can see why Peter and Vinneto would have stayed there for quite a while as they were pioneering the direct method, it would be like another one of them ‘sandpits’ where one can safely play whilst essentially buying time.

[Kub933]

So I had this glimpse a moment ago of what it would be like if I was no longer a ‘who’. Normally there is this constant stream of identification of who I am, what I will do, how others see me etc This identification is like the ‘rules of the game’ that ‘I’ am bound by, they define each moment and create a boundary that ‘I’ have to operate within.

When I am no longer a ‘who’ then there is no longer any possibility to define myself in this way, essentially there is no way to tell what I will do or how I will respond next. Because in order to ‘know’ this in advance, ‘I’ have to identify ‘myself’ according to some overall story.

Without the ‘who’ there is this delightful sense of surprise each moment again, it’s like each moment again I am discovering what will happen, but there is no way to tell in advance, there is no ‘overall story’ dictating anything. It’s really bizarre but completely wonderful, not having the faintest clue as to ‘who I am’, instead I am delightfully discovering this moment as it happens, even with regards to what I will do!

It makes me understand what Richard refers to when he writes that his responses sometimes even surprise him. I can see that, because he is not some static entity, operating within the rules of this or that identification. He happens as this moment happens, he is fresh just like this moment is fresh and there is no way he could box himself into a ‘who’.

It’s weird because this would indeed be seen as some kind of madness within the psychiatric model, not having any way to define oneself in terms of a static entity that exists ‘within’. And yet when I had this glimpse it was not scary or dangerous or anything like that, it was just this sense of being delightfully surprised each moment again (kind of like I was discovering what I am over and over, always with delight) whilst having absolutely no clue as to ‘who’ I am, how bizarre!

[Kub933]

Ah yes and I can also relate to what Richard wrote - that there is absolutely no one to answer back to the question of ‘who am I’, this is exactly what it was like, it would be impossible to answer that question, but there was no nothingness or void either.

[Kub933]

And this doesn’t have to be some weird mystical thing either, when I look at it now it’s kind of obvious. What is actual now has never happened before so how could ‘I’ know ‘myself’ in advance? It is impossible to grasp a handful of life, separate it in some vacuum and then freeze it in time so I can say - this is ‘me’. And then to use this to predict what ‘I’ will do in the future is just deceiving myself, it’s got nothing to do with facts.

[Kub933]

OK so it has finally clicked (intellectually) what Richard means when he says that the instinctual passions are not actual.

I was thinking earlier about how certain birds will be born with the information encoded in their DNA for a particular flight pattern, one which in their evolutionary history would have led to reaching areas with food or safe havens for mating or what have you.

Now there isn’t any one part of the bird’s brain that is solely responsible for the flight pattern, there isn’t a ‘fly west for 30 days organ’ in the brain. The bird’s core brain hardware would be exactly the same in 1 bird of the same species with the flight pattern and one without. The flight pattern is encoded in the DNA as a pattern of activation, it’s like a recipe which has the brain (the hardware) firing in a particular way. Now the continued patterns of activation could over time cause the brain to change (actual), such as the brain of someone with severe anxiety being physically different to someone without, but this is beyond the point because the recipe is still merely a pattern of activation, not a tangible thing.

The way I picture this is if I had a board with a bunch of different coloured lights that can be lit up in any possible arrangement. The hardware is the board as well as the boards ability to light up, this is all actual.
Now I can have a recipe which is - light up 2 of the corner lights in green and then 3 of the middle ones in blue. The recipe itself is not a thing in the same way that the board is a thing, the recipe is merely a pattern of activation, it is encoded in the hardware (actual) and it results in the hardware firing in a particular way (actual), but the recipe itself has no substance other than it’s manifestation by the hardware.

And so the same with the instinctual passions, they are software (not actual) encoded in the DNA (actual) which leads to a particular pattern of brain and body activation (actual). In fact to be specific the pattern of activation is the very software, there is no differentiation between the 2. Part of the reason why it is so hard for this to click is that the software is a ghost (it is merely a stored pattern of activation / a recipe) and so whenever we go looking for it we come across the manifestations of this pattern of activation, the body is persuaded to act ‘as if’ by the dictates of the programme.

In the same way if I have a recipe for a meal, I can say it is written down on a piece of paper (actual), it will cause me to do things in a particular way (actual), it will ensure a certain outcome (actual) and yet the substance of the ‘recipe’ itself is not actual, it is simply a pattern of putting this and that thing together in a particular way.

So this is cool to comprehend (although not easy to put into words, as can be seen by the amount of edits on this post ) because none of the hardware has to change in order for the instinctual passions to be deleted. Now the interesting point is that without the passions the hardware will indeed fire in a different way (actual) but all that was deleted was a certain pre-coded pattern of activation (not actual). There isn’t a ‘feeling being’ brain organ that has to be physically changed, in fact there isn’t any particular organ in the body that is responsible for ‘me’ existing, ‘I’ am a ghost, ‘I’ am that very pattern of activation, hence ‘I’ am so notoriously difficult to grab by the throat haha. But the upside of this is that ‘I’ therefore must be very readily deletable.

[Kub933]

This really speaks volumes on the nature of ‘my’ existence why ‘I’ have to go around trying to substantiate ‘myself’, why ‘I’ am forever separated from all of existence, why ‘I’ am so persistently metaphysical and so pernicious to deal with, why ‘I’ cause so much confusion, why ‘I’ can only realise ‘myself’ by going into delusion. But by the same token ‘my’ demise has to be the easiest thing going, if ‘I’ want it.

[Kub933]

It has been on my mind since yesterday that life is not a serious business. I have noticed that ‘getting serious’ is usually a precursor to going off the wide and wondrous path. I see that all the real world dramas require this ‘hook’, this fundamental sense that life is a serious business, this seriousness is reinforced by all the values and beliefs and opinions that us real world denizens constantly transmit between each other, I notice this aspect seeping in if I spend any time scrolling through instagram for example.

I have been contemplating how this relates to the fact of mortality, it’s kind of like the universe has guaranteed, it has set things up in such a way that seriousness is not possible, we can act as if life is a serious business but there is this great equaliser which is the fact that no form is eternally perdurable.

What I notice is that this seriousness arises as an attempt to ensure some kind of immortality for oneself, ‘I’ am looking for some special status, something that will guarantee ‘me’ immortality, even though this body itself will perish. And in the process ‘I’ enter this game of pretending that life itself is a serious business. The fact is that none of these things matter one bit, because this body will perish regardless of what special status the identity has ascribed itself, we have been equalised whether we like it or not haha.

The thing is this universe does not require that this game be played at all, because the universe is already absolute, it’s a security that knows no threat. It’s an interesting thing because it’s 180 degrees opposite to each other, ‘I’ am forever separated from the universe so ‘I’ end up trying to generate some sense of immortality, some perverted version of this absoluteness, this is where life becomes a serious business. Whereas when I am me as this flesh and blood body I am mortal and yet there is no need to generate security, death is seen to be completely safe.

I was contemplating this ‘death is seen to be completely safe’ thing a moment ago and I can see that this is indeed the case. And it relates to the infinite and eternal nature of space and time as well as the perdurable nature of matter itself. The stuff that this body is made of cannot go anywhere else, there is no ‘outside’ that it will be banished to for eternity. In short the safety of death is to do with the absoluteness of the universe - there is no other place in existence.

I have been wondering about what Richard has alluded to in his recent writing and also what @claudiu suggested as a follow up, essentially some kind of omission of the role that the experience of infinitude plays in actualism and how this ends up being a watered down version of what actual freedom is all about. The way I experience it is like there is this ‘other level’ of wonder and magic that becomes apparent/is rooted in the experience of infinitude.
There is this absolutely stupendous quality, like how on earth could this happening called the universe actually exist!? It’s this sense of wonder that folds upon itself infinitely. It’s like the shuttling back and forth between the realisation that this infinite and eternal universe exists in the first place and then the fact that I am actually here experiencing it as a flesh and blood body, and this pings back and forth and grows without a limit it seems, to the point where it’s just baffling, but in a wonderful, magical way.

I found myself experiencing this yesterday driving home, I realised that ‘I’ don’t like being here very much, normally ‘I’ am doing all sorts of things to distract ‘myself’ from being here. And then I started wondering whether @geoffrey does the same thing like Richard, where he can be looking out the window, doing absolutely nothing at all and yet be having the time of his life, I also remembered how Srinath mentioned that doing nothing is an absolute delight.
Then the contrast became clear, that ‘I’ have to try to enjoy being here, like it’s a chore of some description, I thought how ridiculous this must seem to the guys who are actually free, that here ‘I’ am begrudgingly trying to enjoy and appreciate this moment when this absolutely stupendous quality is actually happening right now.

Then I found myself still in the car driving but I was in a magical wonderland, one that has no outside and it was this ‘having no outside’ that gave it the magical quality, it also imbibed the experience with this closeness. And then it was no longer possible to ‘try to enjoy being here’, the very fact of being here was so infinitely fascinating that there was only wonder - something like “how could this universe be?” over and over again.

I saw from that vantage point what prevents me from experiencing life in this way each moment again. I saw that it is any aspect of that which is ‘human’. It’s like any flavour of that which is ‘human’ is orthodox, it is the old way, it does not allow for this magic to be lived. The values and beliefs that ‘humanity’ holds will not allow that something so magical could be under our noses. This magical wonderland simply does not fit the orthodox ‘human’ view of life.

[Kub933]

What I am wondering now is how to keep this connection open whilst I am going about my daily business. How to allow that this magical quality is always here, it seems that naiveté is truly required because how else could I allow that I am in a magical wonderland even when I am doing my shopping.
It’s a difficult one because every aspect of being ‘human’ will seek to pull me away from this. Every interaction with another identity will draw me back to that orthodox way.

Also it seems kind of weird, like how can I be having a conversation with another person about the weather whilst I am experiencing infinitude and they are talking to me about how their plans for the weekend got ruined

It’s almost like a fear of being somewhat insane, rejecting any aspect of the ‘human’ viewpoint, no longer being able to relate to any of those things and in fact being in a place that is so vastly different to where they are speaking from. Like being an alien trying to fit into society without blowing my cover haha.

I can see some version of this fear has been active through my whole journey with Actualism. Initially it was just the fear of no longer being able to fit in as a social identity, even just for the fact that I have dedicated myself to being happy and harmless. Then it was this fear of not knowing how to function amongst others when I no longer subscribe to the same ways of relating/responding. Now it’s like this fear of being a complete alien, as in being seen as actually insane. It is a point of being completely on one’s own because no-one else will give credence to what you experience, in fact if they were to hear about it they would probably be actively opposed. At that point it is truly impossible to belong anymore, there is nothing that could be shared and related with another identity.
Damn it makes you appreciate what Richard went through upon becoming actually free, that not any other human in existence then or at any other point in history could relate to what he lived as an ongoing experience, truly like discovering a new land that no ‘human’ foot has ever set upon and being the only one there.