Kub933's Journal

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1224

I’ll have a go at this in the meantime :grin:

“You have all the time in the universe” is referring specifically to one’s experience as a flesh and blood body only, one exists where time has no duration. It is impossible to ever ‘run out of time’ as time does not move in actuality.

Whereas as an identity ‘I’ am locked out of eternal time and instead ‘I’ exist precariously across the past, present and future. This is where ‘I’ am always managing, anticipating and running out of time.

As it is always this moment, this body does not move through time like the identity moves across the past, present and future. Rather this body exists securely in eternal time.
In eternal time there is no distance to be travelled between ‘then’ and ‘now’ as the immediate is the ultimate, whereas ‘I’ am forever shifting between these thin slivers of ‘real time’, desperately trying to hold, manage and anticipate each one.

I think I have just answered in part my own question - of why is it that where time has no duration there is such safety. Because all this painful psychological/psychic activity which comes from ‘managing time’ (whilst being forever locked out of actual time) ceases when one exists in eternal time. Everything is in it’s place already as one is not actually going anywhere or coming from somewhere.

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interesting, i’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as i’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it - but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence

is that the “eternity” @Vineeto and richard discuss? time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change i will experience before all experience ends

but maybe that doesn’t matter when i’m not worried about what’s not happening now. the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?

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Kuba: Wow yes I saw this just a few minutes ago, I was getting ready and looking in the mirror. I saw that where this body exists time has no duration, there is such an incredible safety to this. Whereas where ‘I’ exist, across past, present and future it is so precarious. It was so clear experientially that nothing could ever go wrong where time has no duration and yet intellectually ‘I’ cannot quite wrap ‘my’ mind around why.
This is incredible because I could never quite grasp the eternity of time, space was somehow easier to comprehend and I previously glimpsed that the space of this universe is infinite, as in having no edges and no outside.
But to comprehend that this moment is eternal, that time has no duration means finding something that exists outside of the real world time span altogether. It does not fit in with any descriptions revolving around the past, present and future because it exists outside of that construct altogether. It is in itself the actuality ascertained apperceptively and it is beyond wonderful!
It reminds me of Geoffrey writing that ‘he’ saw the ‘known way’ as the dangerous and the unknown way as safe, ‘I’ am the danger, where ‘I’ exist precariously across past, present and future. This body exists so safely where time has no duration.

Hi Kuba,

This is truly wonderful, “beyond wonderful”.

The way feeling being ‘Vineeto’ eventually understood actual time was to compare it to space – an arena, like a large football field, where events happen but the field always remains. Actual time is the arena, events happen and ‘I’, being emotional/instinctually engaged with the events, take them for time itself. Because ‘I’ do know that this body was born and will die one day, and ‘I’ desperately yearn for permanency, for immortality … ‘I’ am too important to ever not be here.

Yet once ‘I’ go in abeyance it is patently obvious that ‘I’ am not the centre around which everything revolves but that there is this wide open actuality, infinite and eternal and utterly still and real-world time has no existence. And utterly safe and still.

Kuba: This is yet another reason why actualism is experiential because all words have been invented by feeling beings and therefore on their own they cannot quite convey actuality, they will simply go around in circles and never reveal the actual nature of this universe.
Eternal will be taken to mean a very long lapse of time or infinite a very long stretch of space and yet the actual experience of infinitude is outside of those descriptions.
All of those real world descriptions still infer some ultimate movement/distance to time/space. Whereas actual time and space exist within the stillness of infinitude.
Even writing the word “within” seems to screw it up As in that stillness is the very infinite and eternal nature of this universe. (Kub933's Journal - #1221 by Kub933)

Yes, I had the same thought when I read it – the word “within” didn’t seem to be quite right and then your last sentence expressed it exactly. Only someone experiencing (or having experienced) actuality can say this with utter confidence. It is indeed experiential.

Scout: May I ask – what does this mean? It feels directly in opposition to the Richard quote you shared in Henry’s thread about moments being finite and constantly running out, which makes them infinitely precious and relays the urgency of not wasting time on suffering.

Kuba: I’ll have a go at this in the meantime
“You have all the time in the universe” is referring specifically to one’s experience as a flesh and blood body only, one exists where time has no duration. It is impossible to ever ‘run out of time’ as time does not move in actuality.
Whereas as an identity ‘I’ am locked out of eternal time and instead ‘I’ exist precariously across the past, present and future. This is where ‘I’ am always managing, anticipating and running out of time.
As it is always this moment, this body does not move through time like the identity moves across the past, present and future. Rather this body exists securely in eternal time.
In eternal time there is no distance to be travelled between ‘then’ and ‘now’ as the immediate is the ultimate, whereas ‘I’ am forever shifting between these thin slivers of ‘real time’, desperately trying to hold, manage and anticipate each one.
I think I have just answered in part my own question – of why is it that where time has no duration there is such safety. Because all this painful psychological/psychic activity which comes from ‘managing time’ (whilst being forever locked out of actual time) ceases when one exists in eternal time. Everything is in its place already as one is not actually going anywhere or coming from somewhere. Kub933's Journal - #1224 by Kub933

Yes, one can never run out of time in actuality, it is always now, and I am always here and the universe being perfect and pure everything is already perfect.

To answer Scout’s question more in detail, here is a quote from Richard’s journal –

Richard: Yet time is as intimate as this body being here now at this moment. It is so intimate that I – as a body only – am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a human ‘being’, have separated ‘myself’ from eternal time by being an entity. To be an ontological ‘being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological or psychic entity. To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally … as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of eternal time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’. All this activity is considered ‘normal’, as it is the common experience of humankind. (Richard’s Journal, Chapter Sixteen).

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi @Scout,
You cannot think your way into this, it is indeed experiential.

Have you ever experienced that when you are feeling good, time seems to fly while when you are sad or worried time seems to go on forever?

This is a perfect example of ‘personal’ time, it’s all coloured by ‘me’, how ‘I’ feel, what ‘I’ want (or don’t want).

Contemplate just this sentence: “To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally … as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence” and then, in attentive contemplation become fascinated by the very fact that ‘you’ and 8 billion other people all have their own personal experience of time. It can’t be that time is like this, can it?

There is an alternative how to think about this – apperceptiveness. You can try it out in a quiet moment.

Richard: Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination … and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur. (Library, Topics, Apperception)

Cheers Vineeto

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thank you for the thoughtful responses vineeto, i will explore

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Scout: thank you for the thoughtful responses vineeto, i will explore. (link)

Hi @Scout,

You are very welcome. Seeing you enjoyed the responses, I like to explore your original question a bit further.

Scout: interesting, i’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as i’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it – but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence.

Yes, events change but when ‘I’ am in abeyance either in a PCE or when actually free, it is evidently obvious that time does not move, no matter which events take place in the arena of time. Here is a stillness that is all around, unimaginable, inconceivable and utterly magical.

To explain, when ‘I’ am in abeyance then ‘I’ am no longer the centre around which ‘my’ perception and ‘my’ world view revolves. When ‘I’ am in abeyance, or extinguished, there is no “presence”, there is no centre, there is only here, this place in space and now, this moment in time.

I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your loadstone.

is that the “eternity” Vineeto and Richard discuss? time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change i will experience before all experience ends.

Given that you are not sure then it is better not to rely on those experiences especially as most experiences with psychedelics turn out to be ASCs. Viz.:

Richard: In regards hallucinogens: I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE) … there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List AF, No. 61, 29 Jan 2004)

but maybe that doesn’t matter when i’m not worried about what’s not happening now. the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?

It does matter a great deal. You would want a clear experience of the actual world in order to guide you, and when you rely on something that very likely was an ASC then you are getting confused at best. If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?”

The “clock ticking” means you live in real-world time of past, present, future, like every other feeling being, and have conveniently convinced yourself of the belief that you are “not worried about what’s not happening now” while the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ instinctual passions are happening unobserved.

Don’t you want to find out how you tick, how your mind really works, how you can genuinely feel felicitous and innocuous 23 hrs 59 min a day? Wouldn’t that be worthy of your fascinated attention?

Here is a short quote from Richard’s correspondence with a spiritualist regarding eternity for your amusement –

RESPONDENT: Or is it that the movement creates time (maybe even different kinds of time), whenever it’s appropriate
RICHARD: Do you allow the possibility that time always was, already is, and always will be?
RESPONDENT: Yes, but I have doubts that that’s all there is to it.
RICHARD: What on earth do you mean by ‘that’s all there is to it’ … eternity (beginningless and endless time) means that it is an all-inclusive everywhen which boggles the mind (intellectual thought) leaving one in a state of wonder and amazement at the sheer magnitude of this marvellous universe. (List B, No. 42b, 7 Dec 2001).

Cheers Vineeto

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Haha yes this exactly how I experienced it the other day :

Reading my own reply back I realise that the real world time span also only exists in that bubble :exploding_head:

Which means that when it happens it will be now, as it is always now, no time has actually passed between the ‘past’ and the ‘present’ and likewise the distance between the ‘present’ and the ‘future’ is ‘my’ concoction, all part of that illusiory world.

How absolutely mind boggling haha.

And this wonder and amazement shortly after led to a PCE :

So indeed it matters a great deal to find out for oneself, I have been amazed by this since.

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There is so much great content and exploration happening on the forum right now I almost don’t know where to start, which line of enquiry to contemplate for they are all amazing and worthwhile! :smiley:

I will just write this as I need to start work in 10 minutes. It seems since the PCE the other day the experience of time has changed somewhat. It is weird because ‘I’ cannot experience actual time and yet ‘I’ can no longer believe in ‘real time’.

I can notice a specific difference since waking up this morning in that previously ‘I’ experienced time as a thin 1 dimensional line, the past, present and future, ‘I’ existed on that continuum. Now it is as if time has opened up to become this big dome in which all events happen. Within that dome it is ultimately meaningless to distinguish between past, present, future. ‘I’ could place 2 markers within that dome and then draw a distance between them, then call it ‘present’ and ‘future’, but this is also ultimately meaningless as both happen now.

So I have been contemplating on what @Vineeto wrote about the only question being relevant at this point is when to self immolate. But since experiencing this shift it seems the only answer can be now. I could say this evening to give it more ‘solidity’ and yet this evening will also happen now.

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I can see the difference between whatever this ‘inbetween’ is and actual time. This dome that ‘I’ find myself in although being more open than the previous linear experience it still has edges, that is to say it is not eternal and so it is certainly an improvement but it still lacks that magical element which is intrinsic to the experience of infinitude.

I know this to be so because I keep peeking through the edges of this dome and tasting that magical flavour.

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I remember reading the below from the ASA article:

The clear and clean and pure awareness of apperceptiveness is a total certainty and complete absence of doubt that manifests itself primarily as a constant and unwavering fascination which never flags and never turns away.

I thought how could it be so, a fascination that never flags and never turns away!? Which means I could be sat doing absolutely nothing and be having the time of my life, and that this would/could never cease.

This never ending fascination comes from the experience of infinitude, for how could it all be so? And it is like a gift that keeps on giving, in whichever direction one could possibly look. It’s like the enjoyment and appreciation has no limit both in terms of scope and depth.

The next bit I find hard to put into words but from this ultimate perfection and purity of infinitude arose human kind, and even looking at what human kind is/has been able to achieve I cannot help but experience the same fascination and enjoyment and appreciation.

I often experienced this at little things like the complex traffic system that operates on the UK motorways. That all this concerted activity arose to keep everybody safe and living their life happily. How incredible that humans were able to do this, that this is what we are. But really one could look in any direction and experience amazement at “what has been achieved despite the human folly”.

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Thanks for elaborating further. I’ve had experiences on psychedelics that were definitely ASCs but also ones that were definitely PCEs, which stand as the goalpost I have oriented my whole life around and they’re how I was able to recognize the truth in yours and Richard’s writings.

Good catch, I was using spiritual lingo here but what I really meant was just raw, un-centered senses and the inescapable present moment - like it was impossible for there to be anything other than what was immediately physically happening because whatever imaginary centerpoint that usually mediates my conscious experience and imagines a past and a future was entirely gone.

I also may have miscommunicated here as that comment was more intended as conjecture than stating how I actually feel right now. I’m pretty ill and exhausted most of the time and I definitely still worry about it :joy: As you pointed out though, conjecture is kind of an empty mental exercise compared to aiming to actually become free.

Yes, so badly. I feel bad pretty often. I try to set my bearings and observe myself honestly and keep getting lost in the weeds. But I can see my confusion and stress make my body sicker than it already is. I want to stop torturing myself and to be well

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^ above comment was in response to this message

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Scout: Thanks for elaborating further. I’ve had experiences on psychedelics that were definitely ASCs but also ones that were definitely PCEs, which stand as the goalpost I have oriented my whole life around and they’re how I was able to recognize the truth in yours and Richard’s writings.

Vineeto: I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your loadstone.

Scout: Good catch, I was using spiritual lingo here but what I really meant was just raw, un-centered senses and the inescapable present moment - like it was impossible for there to be anything other than what was immediately physically happening because whatever imaginary centerpoint that usually mediates my conscious experience and imagines a past and a future was entirely gone.

Hi Scout,

Thank you for clarifying. It’s really good that you can clearly tell the difference and thus don’t accidentally go down the wrong alley.

Vineeto: If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?”

Scout: I also may have miscommunicated here as that comment was more intended as conjecture than stating how I actually feel right now. I’m pretty ill and exhausted most of the time and I definitely still worry about it As you pointed out though, conjecture is kind of an empty mental exercise compared to aiming to actually become free.

Thank you for clarifying this as well. It’s become more apparent what you would like to achieve.

Vineeto: Don’t you want to find out how you tick, …

Scout: Yes, so badly. I feel bad pretty often. I try to set my bearings and observe myself honestly and keep getting lost in the weeds. But I can see my confusion and stress make my body sicker than it already is. I want to stop torturing myself and to be well. (link)

Ah, now we are talking, lol.

Here is something I recently wrote to another and they reported instant success, so I wonder if it will work for you as well …

First let me tell you a fundamental fact one needs to recognize in order to successfully apply the actualism method or any other advice I can give you – you do not have feelings, you are your feelings. Without recognizing this the method won’t work. (I recommend a long piece of correspondence with No. 60 on the Actual Freedom list (link) and (link), he had big trouble getting it, if you are interested).

To explain: humans are born as feeling beings, babies cry before they can think, and before they even develop a sense of self – so feelings come first. But then thinking sets in and one starts to think that you have feelings which come and go and try to manipulate those feelings, blame yourself for the unwanted ones and chase the ones that you like feeling. That is a sort of subtle dissociation and it doesn’t allow you to choose how you feel, for instance felicitous.

So that is an understanding which needs to happen first, at a fundamental level. You are this swirling vortex created by ever-changing instinctual passions and it is not your fault (because everyone is born that way).

With this firmly in mind you can stop blaming yourself and you will find that the moment you do that, the feeling itself will diminish (not disappear) but lose some of its strength. The reason is that fighting the feeling you are feeding it.

Now when you put this in practice and notice the effect, you can pat yourself on the back that you had your first insight and success. Be a friend to yourself (the only one you are with 24hrs a day).

The other benefit of recognizing and accepting that you are your feelings is that you are not a victim, neither a victim of your own feelings nor a victim of other people’s feelings.

This quote from Richard might be helpful as well –

Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition … if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).
Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, List AF, No. 27c, 9 Sep 2002).

Cheers Vineeto

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The other thing related to this which has really clicked for me is that unless one can sort one’s priorities (thank you @Vineeto :grin:) and place enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive (and by extension the goal of becoming actually free from the human condition) as one’s number 1 priority in life, then the method will never gain any traction.

If enjoyment and appreciation is relegated down the line of priorities then it will always be a case of “I will be happy and harmless once X takes place, or once Z changes” etc.

I noticed this recently that the main difference between times when I seem stagnant vs when I am making great progress is simply where my priorities are.

If I have placed enjoyment and appreciation as the number 1 priority and if I can recognise that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings then getting back on track is rather simple! And of course the same with the goal of becoming actually free.

I noticed this yesterday that at some point I missed that the priorities got shifted, I could tell something was off because there was that stagnant aspect but I was looking for a specific trigger. What I noticed however was that I unknowingly (but habitually) put my main goal on the back burner and then went on busying myself with whatever other concerns.

At least this time I recognised it for what it is! Rather than proceeding to get lost in some ‘investigation’ (like with the messiah archetype) which would really be wasting time, I noticed that the priorities got shifted and simply got back on track :grin:.

The other thing which might benefit others in the application of the method is that it is clear that as long as one maintains loyalty to the various aspects of one’s identity then enjoyment and appreciation will continue to be relegated. For example if ‘I’ believe and trust in ‘my’ identity as a son/father, employee/boss, boyfriend/husband etc Then the various obligations and responsibilities of those identities will always take priority over enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive.

Because those roles were not designed with happiness and harmlessness in mind, perennial enjoyment and appreciation is the last thing ‘they’ are concerned with. And so trying to marry all those aspects of one’s identity with the commitment towards enjoyment and appreciation will not work.

Now the common fear here is that if one step’s out of those aspects of one’s identity and commits to enjoyment and appreciation instead, that things will crumble. That they won’t turn up to work in the morning and forget to feed the kids etc :joy: Essentially that enjoyment and appreciation will be had at the expense of all else. This one needs to be experientially seen for the mirage that it is. Because enjoyment and appreciation allows ‘me’ to live in a way where those roles, obligations and responsibilities are not required in the first place as something far better is in effect.
For example I just had a boiler service man do his thing and then tell me that a part is broken and there won’t be any heating in the house for the next 5 days (UK is pretty cold at the moment haha) yet I couldn’t help but enjoy and appreciate, and of course what needs to be done will be done.

I will just add that for me lately whenever I am not actively proceeding towards self immolation then I am stagnant, of course because I am forgetting about my number 1 goal. I know then that something is wrong because I have sold myself out for something inferior. By the same token the second I get back towards this goal things immediately get dynamic and progressively more magical.

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So driving home just now I had a very interesting experience which I wanted to put to some scrutiny because of it’s potential implications. In the experience I saw that when I am a flesh and blood body only there is no possibility of ultimately drawing a line segregating this body from the rest of the universe.

Of course the apperceptive awareness is happening in this particular flesh and blood body but this apperceptive awareness is a process, it is not a ‘thing in itself’ like the ‘self’ is, with ‘hard boundaries’ that segregate it from the rest of existence.

So in this experience it was obvious that I am this flesh and blood body but at the same time there is no difference (ultimately) between this body and that tree or that car, and all the way to infinitude.

So the implications of this seem like megalomania on steroids, I can see how a lone and desperate ‘I’ would grasp at this and use it to aggrandise ‘itself’ to become a god. Yet the god (who ultimately still has boundaries) would sit in aloneness.

But it was like “wait a second…” it is not just that I am this body that is part of the universe (this would still imply some ultimate boundaries), rather what I actually am is the infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself (as a flesh and blood body), which is to say that there is no differentiation (ultimately) between this body and the rest of infinitude!? So what I am as a flesh and blood body is infinitude looking back at itself :exploding_head:

Of course when this body dies there is no longer the process of apperceptive awareness happening so this particular flesh and blood body can no longer be aware of being that very infinitude experiencing itself. But this takes ANY sting out of death, how could death be a problem for this body when it is the very infinite and eternal universe experiencing itself.

This is a security that is greater than a god would have, for god still has a boundary, a beginning and an end. Whereas this universe is as Richard wrote “a veritable ‘perpetuum mobilis’; absolute in its infinitude”. And this absolute universe can be aware of itself as a flesh and blood body, this is what I am once ‘I/me’ as ‘self’ disappear, this is huge!

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It’s kind of like saying - every dog is an animal but not every animal is a dog. Each flesh and blood body is this very universe and yet the universe is more than just the flesh and blood bodies. So as a flesh and blood body I am this universe and yet the universe isn’t just me :grin:

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Each human being is a marvel of complexity, a shining bright light of self-awareness that is ultimately the universe being aware of itself as a human being. Being alive is intrinsically enjoyable and wondrous. One who is not directly experiencing themselves as the universe experiencing itself can nevertheless only conclude that the universe ‘likes’ to be aware of itself! It seems like this must be what pure intent is ultimately about, an actually-occurring stream of benevolence and benignity bringing about this superlative best, whether it takes millions of years of evolution or whether it happens some other way in some other place (and it will be here and now at that other place too!)

Infinitude is really staggering to contemplate in its implications!

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The other side of this experience is that I can see that the universe will not force me to be happy and harmless or to self-immolate within this lifetime, infinitude is already complete and so it is in no rush in that sense, ultimately it is completely down to me.
Furthermore I can see that the universe is not ultimately concerned with individual life, again because of it’s absoluteness as per the previous posts, so there is no guarantees for this flesh and blood body made by the universe, the universe is too grand to have to play these kind of games.

In the past I saw this as a sign of a malevolent universe, “why doesn’t it care about ‘me’?” But this line of reasoning only applies as long as ‘selves’ are in existence, because ‘we’ are separated from infinitude, we are these contingent little bubbles. The suffering caused by ‘being’ a ‘self’ is because of ‘my’ contingent nature. ‘I’ look at the infinite and eternal universe as if it is a bully, it does not care about the things that ‘I’ do, it does not play the games that ‘I’ am invested in.

But this is not due to malevolence but rather the fact that infinitude simply has no need for these games, it is far too grand for that.

It’s fascinating that all these facts of life are ‘baked into’ perfection, as in it could not be any other way. Only an infinite and eternal universe can be perfect (without compare) and the rest of the above simply flows from this. If ‘I’ was to demand the universe to change in line with ‘my’ needs then it would no longer be perfect, it would be a contingent universe, a desperate universe, it would be just like ‘me’.

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Kuba: It’s fascinating that all these facts of life are ‘baked into’ perfection, as in it could not be any other way. Only an infinite and eternal universe can be perfect (without compare) and the rest of the above simply flows from this. If ‘I’ was to demand the universe to change in line with ‘my’ needs then it would no longer be perfect, it would be a contingent universe, a desperate universe, it would be just like ‘me’.

Hi Kuba,

You are right, one can’t give the universe anthropomorphic qualities, such as caring for me or not, and your ultimate conclusion is spot on. It is brilliant reasoning – if the universe would cater to ‘me’ it would no longer be perfect. And that also beats any interfering/ obliging god by a country-mile. :blush:

This very insight/ observation is the end of any possible resentment.

Cheers Vineeto

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So sitting out in the garden having a cigarette just now it clicked that ‘I’ cannot self immolate ‘myself’, I can see this clearly that it would mean that ‘I’ remain by the end. I saw this when ‘I’ thought let ‘me’ just try really hard to self-immolate now, like ‘I’ would be the agent doing the self-immolating with great effort and of course it immediately became clear that this is a dead end. It’s like ‘I’ would be the one shifting this heavy load that is ‘myself’ but then of course ‘I’ would remain :laughing: It would literally be a case of ‘me’ trying to lift ‘myself’ up by ‘my’ bootstraps.
I can see how this kind of ‘trying hard’ (as if ‘I’ am lifting a heavy load that is ‘me’) cannot work and in fact it could lead to actuality mimicking ASCs.
In a way that is good news though! To see that ‘I’ could not possibly do it means that ‘I’ don’t have to worry about that.

I am reminded of @claudiu writing prior to stepping out from control that “allowing it is not a lacklustre approach”. So there is some kind of effort that is happening of course but it is not an effort of ‘me’ doing it, rather the effort is for ‘me’ to allow it. It’s a fascinating thing because all ‘my’ life ‘I’ learnt that effort means ‘me’ becoming progressively more passionately involved, that if ‘I’ spin ‘my’ emotional wheels more and more that something will move. And it’s like the whole time with actualism it has been the opposite, the effort has been in ‘me’ getting to a place where ‘I’ agree to get out of the way. It is still an effort though it is just in the other direction. Ha @Felix maybe this will sound familiar? :smiley:

So ‘I’ can channel all ‘my’ affective passionate energy towards agreeing to get out of the way permanently. It is not about channeling all that energy towards ‘me’ becoming as if a prime mover to self immolation happening.

‘I’ can channel all of ‘myself’ towards allowing ‘my’ own ending, the doing of it is not for ‘me’ to worry about.

Since that experience the other day things have definitely been progressing and I find myself further than I have been before, initially it staggered me a little bit to consider what actual freedom entails. I can see what is meant now that to be fully actually free is to be pure intent personified, which means that one’s character is no different than the character of the infinite and eternal universe itself.

Initially when I saw that the universe will not force ‘me’ to self-immolate as it is already complete, ‘I’ thought well then why do it? Like if things are already perfect then does it really matter? And ultimately for the universe it does not matter, which is why one does it for this body, that body and everybody. It is still quite weird though because those bodies are ultimately no different than the universe itself and yet they are capable of experiencing the meaning of life, that is what is ultimately at stake. That “invitation to paradise” which I mentioned a while back is handed out to each flesh and blood body. The universe doesn’t ultimately have anything at stake here, the gift is for the flesh and blood bodies to exist in paradise.

So then I was thinking, coming so far out from ‘humanity’, is the motivation to allow self-immolation going to come from this side (actuality) or from the other side (‘humanity’). It’s like the ‘humanity’ side is a place of utter desperation and the actuality side is a place of magical perfection and purity.
I am not sure if it can come from the ‘humanity’ side because ‘humanity’ will be left behind ‘back there’ along with ‘me’. ‘They’ will not be saved when ‘I’ self immolate, in fact ‘they’ will be left in progressively dwindling numbers, huddling in desperation.

Ha so just like the universe is seen to be an uncaring bully by those looking from within the human condition, to abandon ‘humanity’ and proceed to paradise will equally be seen as a betrayal.

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