For me it is along the lines of… there’s really no ‘case’ to be made anymore. It is obviously silly to feel bad and sensible to feel good. It just does not make any sense to live this life and feel bad, why? Like there is really no reason lol. And yet I do still find myself treading well-worn paths, the tried & failed, so, there is something more to it.
But, it’s not clear exactly what… it did sink in somewhat deeply recently that ‘I’ will have to abandon everything I hold dear, all that I value, all my work, my relationships, my understanding of the world… everything will go, everything must go. But yet holding onto all of these things is precisely what the source of resentment is, of ‘having to’ hold onto and thus it being a burden too. So it’s like there’s something I value and don’t want to let go of, yet these things I value are at the same time a burden.
I suppose once I know exactly what it is then that may very well be it for ‘me’ haha. Perhaps more a matter of gently continuing to probe this rather than getting worked up about it. It is a puzzling state of affairs though …
Yes and this “something more to it” is to do with the irrevocability. In that ‘I’ know there is no sense at all in continuing to walk the failed path (this case has been made), and yet ‘I’ still do because it is the path which comes with a return ticket.
The “case” then is to do with agreeing to step onto a path of no return, this case has not been made yet.
Hehe if ‘I’ knew then ‘I’ wouldn’t be around to answer I could probably find some relevant text on the AFT but the more important thing is to experientially find out the answer, which is where I am at.
Woww writing on this forum does do magic sometimes. I uncovered a huge one for me – a belief that this actualizing of and living of an actually perfect life is just “not for me”.
As soon as the contemplation yielded this thought it is like it knocked something loose, and the excitement and naivete and joy resumbed.
And then I was able to think it through in words to explain: it was a belief that it’s not something that is ‘meant’ for me, not my destiny – it will be what is meant for some other lucky people but not for me. All I can do is somberly suffer whilst others get to have this reward.
And I saw how it is utterly silly because everyone feels this way. So I feel it’s for some other people… those other people will feel it’s for someone else… maybe someone far more wealthy or something… then that wealthy person will be weary of having to manage all their resources and think it’s for simpler and carefree people that are not as well off… meanwhile for them they will think it’s for someone without the resources issues they have… lol, something like this
But this is really silly because we can all just partake in this together! I’m very happy now to lead the way and set the example for this someone has to go next after all…
There is one more thing I’ve found in this regard - If I were to get some pill to take and get actually free in 3 seconds, will I take it ?
My answer is yes…which tells me that I won’t be thinking about irrevocability or maybe a bit perhaps…so the desire to be free is present but I’m not sure how to become free too…or the fact that l’m thinking of getting a pill to be free just indicates that I want freedom to easily fall into my lap instead of making that effort hehe
Yes I think this kind of thought experiment is a little problematic because the image of taking a pill and becoming actually free is not quite the same as experientially discovering that nothing of ‘me’ will remain if ‘I’ proceed forward.
Better to get close enough that ‘you’ can contemplate it as an actuality and then see if ‘you’ would think about irrevocability or not
But I will say that if it was as luke-warm as a thought experiment then it would not require the powerful force of altruism to accomplish.
I wonder was it contemplating on the irrevocability aspect that did it? It would be a nice way for ‘me’ to avoid actually doing it (deep down knowing that it is irrevocable) if ‘I’ decide that “it is not for ‘me’, some other lucky souls can do it” etc.
Hmm I wasn’t particularly contemplating on that no. It isn’t currently a feature of what I’m looking at — although the having to give up everything is related to it of course (it will have to be given up for good/forever)
Yes and when I mention irrevocability it is of course to do with not being able to go back but there is also the other aspect of just how huge of a shift it would be, like Richard said in the out from control DVD, it would be the end of everything. And I specifically didn’t put scare quotes because for the identity, for the me, it would be the end of everything I know.
Claudiu: For me it is along the lines of … there’s really no ‘case’ to be made anymore. It is obviously silly to feel bad and sensible to feel good. It just does not make any sense to live this life and feel bad, why? Like there is really no reason lol. And yet I do still find myself treading well-worn paths, the tried & failed, so, there is something more to it.
But, it’s not clear exactly what … it did sink in somewhat deeply recently that ‘I’ will have to abandon everything I hold dear, all that I value, all my work, my relationships, my understanding of the world … everything will go, everything must go. But yet holding onto all of these things is precisely what the source of resentment is, of ‘having to’ hold onto and thus it being a burden too. So it’s like there’s something I value and don’t want to let go of, yet these things I value are at the same time a burden.
I suppose once I know exactly what it is then that may very well be it for ‘me’ haha. Perhaps more a matter of gently continuing to probe this rather than getting worked up about it. It is a puzzling state of affairs though … (link)
Hi Claudiu,
I suppose you know the solution to your puzzle already and Kuba (link) posted the quote with the answer only three days ago –
Geoffrey: I stood there, the sun in my back, full of sensuousness, delighting in Pure Intent, amazed at how the actual is so safe. I was thinking about the unknown path lying before me (the path that deliver the goods – as I knew from the PCE), and realised in a flash that the unknown path is the safe path. That the known is the unsafe. That ‘I’ am the unsafe.
For a split second I saw like a veil in front of me. I saw how I could be on the other side of the ‘mirror’, on the safe side, the magical side, how I could … But there was a last second resistance: My precious! I will not give away my precious! (Geoffrey - Report of Becoming Free)
You are perfectly right – “there’s really no ‘case’ to be made anymore”.
The only time when you are possibly able to make a case is when naiveté stops operating, and pure intent is thus side-lined – then it becomes again “a puzzling state of affairs”.
Shashank: There is one more thing I’ve found in this regard – If I were to get some pill to take and get actually free in 3 seconds, will I take it?
My answer is yes … which tells me that I won’t be thinking about irrevocability or maybe a bit perhaps … so the desire to be free is present but I’m not sure how to become free too … or the fact that l’m thinking of getting a pill to be free just indicates that I want freedom to easily fall into my lap instead of making that effort hehe (link)
Hi Shashank,
It seems that you are fooling yourself. If such a pill did exist and other people’s report would have given the guarantee that it results in your ‘being’ going extinct, instantly, upon you taking it, you would not even propose or contemplate to take it. It’s a safe fantasy because you know for a fact you will never be called upon to make your promise an actuality.
In fact, such a ‘pill’ does exist. You can right now, in this instant, with sincere intent “voluntarily and intentionally (cheerfully and blessedly), [is] press the button which precipitates a, oft-times alarming but always thrilling, momentum which will result in ‘my’ irrevocable ‘self’-immolation in toto. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being just here, right now, as the universe’s experience of itself … peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already always existing (‘I’ was merely standing in the way of it being apparent). The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple.” (Richard, Abditorium, Altruism)
It is as simple as that. No effort required. In fact it is not effort (sudorific undertaking) which is required but the sincere intent to become blithe and benign, to enjoy and appreciate (and remove the obstacles which stand in the way).
Ok so this habit/mechanism is becoming pretty clear now, as it should after so many times it has resurfaced - Naiveté stops → connection to pure intent is cut → Now ‘I’ am once more doing sudorific things, solving puzzles etc.
The answer is of course to resume naiveté rather than continuing down the dead ends.
And I know when I am being naiveté because it is all so easy, there is this uncapped optimism, I am doing it / it is happening, there is no space for solving puzzles, that would require hanging back. And as for sudorific challenges, it is way too fun to become involved in this manner.
Geoffrey: For a split second I saw like a veil in front of me. I saw how I could be on the other side of the ‘mirror’, on the safe side, the magical side, how I could… But there was a last second resistance: My precious! I will not give away my precious!
Later on the way back, I was thinking about this ‘precious’ thing, how only here on this tiny planet right now there are 7 billion people just as ‘unique’ and ‘precious’ as my self, when it clicked… and I burst into laughter. This was simply hilarious. Everybody is so precious. I must then be SO precious hahaha.
Every little ‘me’ waging wars against other little ‘me’ because they are so precious. Whereas they are just the same product of evolution and animal passions, with the same hiding place, the same hunger, the same dirtiness. You can’t be serious!
I saw without a shadow of a doubt that ‘I’ am the cause of every evil, corruption, dirt… just because ‘I’ am ‘so precious’. How ‘I’ mess everything up for myself and everybody just because ‘I’ am. And not some dissociated ‘I’ with enough quotes not to be me, but me right now thinking this.
There was the actual world just right there in front of me, obviously existing, pure and perfect, and then there was ‘me’, ‘humanity’. The contrast was simply hilarious. I can’t describe how hilarious this contrast was. What we’ve all been doing forever and ever, on a ridiculous parade of malice and sorrow, with the greatest seriousness. (Geoffrey, Report of Becoming Free)
James: @Geoffrey. Exactly what are you calling ‘my precious’ in the above quote and why would you not give it away? (link)
Hi James,
Here is what Kuba wrote today –
Kuba: The seeing was almost like this entire game of being an identity is a misunderstanding. ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’… Furthermore ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ are ‘me’… There are only the passions and the drama which erupts due to these passions operating in human beings is called “the human condition”. Yet there are no ‘entities’ actually in existence, it is only that the passions have usurped human intelligence and created an illusory real world along with the various ‘who’s’ that live there.
It was the glimpse that ‘my’ very ‘being’ has no substance at all – that if ‘I’ am seen to be merely a feeling then ‘I’ cease to exist in the entirety of ‘my’ being. This seeing was that it would be almost too easy for ‘me’ to cease existing because ‘I’ don’t actually exist in the first place.
It would be all this over absolutely nothing… that this whole time you have been conversing with a flesh and blood human being and ‘my’ whole existence was as if a huge misunderstanding.
That would be something to laugh about à la Geoffrey
And this is that “special preciousness” of ‘being’, in that the passions have become a ‘who’, this ‘who’ feels precious beyond compare and yet ‘he’ has no actual existence, ‘he’ is merely a feeling. (link)
Did Kuba’s last post answer your question?
In order to understand this on an existential level, like Kuba obviously did, you might need to allow yourself to affectively feel and experience what it being said. Then you can sincerely and naively contemplate Richard’s words (by accessing the link after Kuba’s quote) and Kuba’s words of understanding and also my reply to him (link).
This contemplation, becoming fascinated contemplation will give you the insight you are looking for … how to end ‘me’. The actualisation of this insight will be the end of ‘you’.
Yes thanks Vineeto, the way you put this whole post together answered my question perfectly. As Kuba said, it is the ‘who’ (identity) that feels precious which is all made up and what Geofrey found hysterical.
Humanity is still killing itself over a made up Identity. The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ … and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is
I do understand this completely that I am this flesh and blood body and not a precious identity.
James: Yes thanks Vineeto, the way you put this whole post together answered my question perfectly. As Kuba said, it is the ‘who’ (identity) that feels precious which is all made up and what Geoffrey found hysterical.
Humanity is still killing itself over a made up Identity.
Richard: “The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ … and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is.” [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 8 Oct 1999).
I do understand this completely that I am this flesh and blood body and not a precious identity. (link)
Hi James,
You say you “understand this completely” but you only understand it intellectually and therefore it does nothing to change you.
Also, humanity is not “killing itself over a made up Identity” – the identity is not “made up”, it is very very real, made real by the instinctual passions, genetically endowed with by birth, surging in every feeling being. You should know this from experiencing your own instinctual passions from time to time (unless you have dis-associated yourself from your emotions).
You need to understand experientially and affectively ‘who’ you are in order that this passionate energy can propel you forward with sincere intent towards your goal to leave the ‘self’ behind and live as “this flesh and blood body”.
Presently you are not “this flesh and blood body” but you are the identity using your flesh and blood body as a host. Hypnotising yourself that you are already “this flesh and blood body” does not achieve anything but fooling yourself.
It’s funny that ‘I’ could believe that the universe is incapable of ending ‘me’, that ‘I’ would be required to do it. This is so back to front lol! The universe ‘grew’ the earth which ‘grew’ this body and yet ‘I’ believe it couldn’t do something as simple as ending ‘me’, and ‘I’ am not even actual.
In fact this is a guarantee that the universe will end ‘me’ along with any other ‘beings’ anyways, it is not even a matter of choice in that regard. ‘I’ could stave off ‘my’ self-immolation until this particular body dies but the universe will manifest at its optimum sooner or later anyways, so truly there is no sense delaying it.
@claudiu I realised I posted this in your journal but at the same time I can no longer find the “delete post” button, was it removed?
I could probably find some relevant text on the AFT but the more important thing is to experientially find out the answer, which is where I am at.
someone has to go next after all…
- Naiveté stops → connection to pure intent is cut → Now ‘I’ am once more doing sudorific things, solving puzzles etc.