Ah yes I thought it might be exactly this! Ok cool yes if you could move the post to my journal instead please, this one - Claudiu's Journal - #401
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The other thing I can see now is that any “combination” of the passionate energy of ‘me’ can be used as a spring-board into actual freedom. ‘I’ am the passions and the passions are ‘me’ and as such they all contain the possibility for that seeing which is the ending of ‘me’. So the specifics of how this plays out for each identity can be different. The key to the door marked “oblivion” is contained within each of ‘my’ passions, the very energy of ‘my’ being has the seed for it’s own undoing.
I can observe this in ‘myself’ that no matter what flavour of the passions, that seeing and that possibility is always there.
So this excuse of “I’m not good enough” etc is simply untenable, ‘I’ don’t have to be special in any way at all in order to self-immolate. In fact it is the other way around, that in order for ‘me’ to become special ‘I’ dissociate from ‘my’ roots and entrench ‘myself’ even deeper, further away from the possibility for ‘my’ undoing.
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You are correct. I am an identity using my flesh and blood body as a host. I don’t believe that I am already a flesh and blood body. I have had experiences of being a flesh and blood body, which were temporary, so I do understand what it means to be flesh and blood w/o a ‘precious identity’.
I can see that I need to be more specific so as not to be misunderstood.
I will now be more aware of being flesh and blood w/o this ‘precious identity’.
These discussions here are helping me to get back to the core. I remember in the past that reading TMOBA helped me to become aware of being the flesh and blood body and now I see that it is ‘my precious’ identity that needs to be given up.
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James: You are correct. I am an identity using my flesh and blood body as a host. I don’t believe that I am already a flesh and blood body. I have had experiences of being a flesh and blood body, which were temporary, so I do understand what it means to be flesh and blood w/o a ‘precious identity’.
I can see that I need to be more specific so as not to be misunderstood.
I will now be more aware of being flesh and blood w/o this ‘precious identity’.
These discussions here are helping me to get back to the core. I remember in the past that reading TMOBA helped me to become aware of being the flesh and blood body and now I see that it is ‘my precious’ identity that needs to be given up. (link)
Hi James,
Good. Being accurate in your self-observation and reporting is essential.
When you say “I see that it is ‘my precious’ identity that needs to be given up” it is a very generalized statement, because that means the same as “all of ‘me’”. Now that you know the bigger picture you can zoom in on detailed observation and fascinated attention how this “precious identity” plays out in real life in yourself in detail. For instance, when you get annoyed, irritated, confused, moody, apprehensive, and so on you allow this feeling long enough to recognized what it is, feel it, be it, and only then make the conscious choice to be feeling good instead. Don’t push anything under the rug. This way you get to know more and more in detail what your “precious identity” consists of.
It’s important to remember that actualism is not about not having feelings –
Richard: Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people to stop feeling … which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings … as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. However, in a PCE the feelings – passion and calenture – can come rushing in, if one is not alert, resulting in the PCE devolving into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) … complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first … not the feelings.
It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Anyone who attempts this absurdity would wind up being somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ – and has repressed the others. (Richard, List B, No. 19c, 26 June 1999)
Kuba’s last post, just above yours, can give you some further clues about how to harness “the passionate energy of ‘me’” –
Kuba: The other thing I can see now is that any “combination” of the passionate energy of ‘me’ can be used as a spring-board into actual freedom. ‘I’ am the passions and the passions are ‘me’ and as such they all contain the possibility for that seeing which is the ending of ‘me’. So the specifics of how this plays out for each identity can be different. The key to the door marked “oblivion” is contained within each of ‘my’ passions, the very energy of ‘my’ being has the seed for its own undoing.
I can observe this in ‘myself’ that no matter what flavour of the passions, that seeing and that possibility is always there. (link)
Cheers Vineeto
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This makes sense now why that fundamental grimy passionate energy of ‘me’ cannot be chipped away at, this is ‘me’ as ‘being’. ‘I’ gave ‘myself’ some stick for ‘being’ this at times lol but now I can see that this was exactly the point of all that ‘I’ did before, which was to whittle ‘me’ down to a point where it can be seen so clearly that ‘I’ am ‘my’ passions and ‘my’ passions are ‘me’. It didn’t click for a long time that once ‘I’ arrived at this place that the next step was to end ‘me’. Because there is simply no more improvement that can be done, this energy is ‘me’ and cannot be removed as long as ‘I’ remain.
‘I’ am an amorphous ‘presence’ which is those very swirling passions. This energy of ‘me’ is a very grimy energy though and as long as it is in place there cannot be an actual happiness and harmlessness. I realised yesterday that up until now I was still running from acknowledging this to some extent, that this grimy energy is what ‘I’ am, that ‘I’ have no way out of this at all, that it cannot be ‘fixed’.
Yesterday driving to training I allowed this energy of ‘being’ to be completely bare, to bring it to full experience - this is the very core of ‘me’ as a passionate entity. There was an automatic courage which matched ‘my’ exposure, I had Geoffreys quote repeating in my head -
“The psyche is a frightful place” indeed.
What is it that Richard admires about ‘me’? Daring, and audacity.
And I could see that there is no other way, the reason why ‘I’ have not allowed ‘my’ ending yet is not because ‘I’ have not followed some procedure in the correct manner, not because the stars have not aligned correctly for ‘me’. As I already discovered, any of the passionate energy of ‘me’ will do, again it is not about any “golden combination”.
How could the ending of a passionate entity not be a passionate business…‘I’ am looking at it right now, that full force of ‘my’ being that cannot be side-stepped. ‘I’ cannot go around ‘myself’, then ‘I’ remain. And the actual expunging of ‘me’ is the easiest thing going, this I have no doubt about, it is rather that step just before, the one that ‘I’ take with daring and audacity.
So it is interesting because I have already seen that the actual dissolution of ‘me’ is the easiest thing in the world. From that vantage point there was never anything of substance to begin with, it’s like how Srinath described it somewhere on the forum, like one of those pictures where you look first and it’s a witch and then all of a sudden you only see a rabbit, now the witch is nowhere to be found. But in order for this to happen there is this intensely passionate involvement that is required from ‘me’. So it is exactly how Richard described it to Vineeto in the Out from control DVD - “it is the easiest thing in the world and the hardest thing in the world”.
What a fascinating state of affairs, there are the actually free individuals inviting others to join where it is so safe, and it is so very safe and yet others are as if locked behind a wall of fear. This wall of fear is no joke, it is the entire force of ‘my’ being.
Traversing the wall of fear is like this pup being “thrown out of a plane” 
It is clear that ‘I’ cannot traverse this wall of fear for ‘me’, there has to be something outside of ‘me’ that is providing the motivation, that it must happen not just for me but for everybody.
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Slightly unrelated but I had an interesting conversation with @Sonyaxx yesterday, she reckons that my sincerity and naiveté is actually some kind of “on the spectrum” condition, that she observes me not to pick up on social cues and that I am a little special (not the kind of ‘special’ that ‘I’ was after in the past 
). I found this funny, it reminded me of a forum member deciding that Richard and Vineeto must have some cognitive defects.
So indeed there will be no prize to be delivered from any inhabitant of the real world. At first there was a slight indignation, because I have applied myself like never before in order to arrive where I have. And still to others I will likely be the “special boy”, like forest gump - “oh look he is so happy because he is so simple” (apparently gullible).
But so be it… I remembered Richard’s grandson briefly posting on the forum and describing how Richard’s family essentially took him to be the “weird cult leader on a broken down boat”.
Yet that same sincerity and naiveté has me simply proceeding forward.
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Kuba: It didn’t click for a long time that once ‘I’ arrived at this place that the next step was to end ‘me’. Because there is simply no more improvement that can be done, this energy is ‘me’ and cannot be removed as long as ‘I’ remain.
‘I’ am an amorphous ‘presence’ which is those very swirling passions. This energy of ‘me’ is a very grimy energy though and as long as it is in place there cannot be an actual happiness and harmlessness. I realised yesterday that up until now I was still running from acknowledging this to some extent, that this grimy energy is what ‘I’ am, that ‘I’ have no way out of this at all, that it cannot be ‘fixed’.
Yesterday driving to training I allowed this energy of ‘being’ to be completely bare, to bring it to full experience - this is the very core of ‘me’ as a passionate entity. There was an automatic courage which matched ‘my’ exposure, I had Geoffrey’s quote repeating in my head –“The psyche is a frightful place” indeed.
What is it that Richard admires about ‘me’? Daring, and audacity.
How could the ending of a passionate entity not be a passionate business… (link)
Hi Kuba,
The first thing I noticed when reading your post was that it seemed very serious, almost grim. You talk about “this grimy energy is what ‘I’ am” .
You may remember that I said to Claudiu “the passionate ‘me’ as well as the sensible ‘me’ need to take part in the final decision as a passionately felt decision.” (link) But just because it is a “passionately felt decision” it doesn’t mean it has to be serious!
You see, ‘I’ won’t agree to sacrifice ‘myself’ because you are disgusted with ‘me’ – ‘I’ want to be joyfully embraced, warts and all, because ‘I’ hold the key to your freedom with ‘my’ willing concurrence.
You may have had only the main instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire in mind or perhaps only malice and sorrow to be making up “this grimy energy is what ‘I’ am”, but as you said yourself “any of the passionate energy of ‘me’ will do”. Now remember, “the felicitous/ innocuous feelings are in no way docile, lack-lustre affections” –
RICHARD: Appended further below is the e-mail I was referring to, during our discussion yesterday afternoon, in regards to directing all of the affective energy into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings. Also, here is the quote which is particularly relevant:
• [Richard]: ‘The felicitous/ innocuous feelings are in no way docile, lack-lustre affections … in conjunction with sensuosity they make for an extremely forceful/ potent combination as, with all of the affective energy channelled into being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible (and no longer being frittered away on love and compassion/ malice and sorrow), the full effect of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – is dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone. (Richard, AF List, No. 60f, 29 Sep 2005).
Plus, I have summarised the way in which the actualism method works in practice as follows (the points numbered 6 and 7 are the ones which are pertinent to what was being discussed):
• [Richard]: ‘Perhaps the following summary of the way the actualism method works in practice may be of assistance:
- Activate sincerity so as to make possible a pure intent to bring about peace and harmony sooner rather than later.
- Set the standard of experiencing, each moment again, as feeling felicitous/innocuous to whatever degree humanly possible come-what-may. (snip 3-5)
- Habitual felicity/ innocuity, and its concomitant enjoyment and appreciation, facilitates naïve sensuosity … a consistent state of wide-eyed wonder, amazement, marvel, and delight.
- That naiveté, in conjunction with felicitous/ innocuous sensuosity, being the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence, allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is to operate more and more freely.
- With this intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with ‘me’ and ‘my’ doings, freely operating one is the experiencing of what is happening … and the magical fairy-tale-like paradise, which this verdant and azure earth actually is, is sweetly apparent in all its scintillating brilliance.
- But refrain from possessing it and making it your own … or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, AF List, No. 118, 16 June 2006).
You only need to figure out whatever works to activate your altruism for enabling the final step. Who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to?
Cheers Vineeto
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Hi Vineeto!
I was wondering if you could explain exactly what you meant by this:
“Hypnotising yourself that you are already “this flesh and blood body” does not achieve anything but fooling yourself.”
I assume you mean dissociating. But why assume when I can ask.
When I’m feeling good and then up it to feeling great then to excellent I find that the senses become more pronounced and pleasurable. I feel pressure in my head and it’s like I’m on the verge of remembering a dream that was too good to be true. But I don’t want to waste my time dissociating or fooling myself.
Bottom line, the better I feel the more sensuous my experience becomes. Is that the way forward? I feel like it’s so simple and then again like I’m juggling twenty things at once:)
Glad to see you posting here. I talked to you once or twice on the old message board, I think yahoo maybe back in the olden days. Would be cool to hear from Peter as well.
@Alexander33 ramping up feeling good all the way to feeling excellent along with sensuous enjoyment is still an experience had by the ‘me’, ‘I’ am feeling felicitous/innocuous and ‘I’ can allow more sensuous enjoyment to come to the fore… but all the way it is still ‘me’ that is having these experiences.
If ‘I’ adopt the belief that ‘I’ am already this flesh and blood body (which can never be the case) then ‘I’ lock ‘myself’ in place, it would be like that spiritual practice of deceiving oneself that “I am already perfect”.
Interestingly enough this can also be observed with atheists but in a slightly different way. I remember speaking to my mum and she said that she is not a self/soul, that she is only a brain which has emotions etc. Even though this appears intelligent at first it is actually a very problematic thing, because how could one eliminate something that is apparently not there.
The third alternative is experiential, even though only this flesh and blood body actually exists it is understood that this can only be experienced directly in a PCE or in actual freedom. For all other times there is a real entity which exists inside this flesh and blood body, and this entity is ‘me’, there is no sense for ‘me’ to pretend otherwise.
This distinction is especially important for self-immolation, because if ‘I’ was already this flesh and blood body then there is nothing to self-immolate. So ‘I’ have all these experiences (as you have described) whilst walking the wide and wondrous path until ‘I’ decide to disappear for good in order to allow the perfection and purity which ‘I’ am standing in the way of.
For sure this is the way forward as long as ‘you’ are aware that there is still a ‘you’ in those experiences, that ‘you’ only disappear in a PCE (temporarily) or actual freedom (irrevocably).
Edit : I will just add that this does get very weird at times, that ‘I’ could see that ‘I’ am merely a feeling and therefore ‘my’ very ‘being’ has no substance whatsoever and yet ‘I’ am still really here.
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Thank you for this advice Vineeto, indeed the energy of those deliberations was serious and even grim. I read this bit with a smile on my face, what a wonderful question to sincerely and naively ask ‘myself’! It automatically came with a felicitous/innocuous energy fuelling the wondering.
‘I’ do not have an answer to this question yet, and this is exactly correct! ‘I’ locate the answer to ‘be’ undone by it at the same time. Any other answer with ‘me’ still in place is obviously not it.
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James: I do understand this completely that I am this flesh and blood body and not a precious identity. (link)
Vineeto to James: 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. (link)
Alexander: Hi Vineeto!
I was wondering if you could explain exactly what you meant by this:
“Hypnotising yourself that you are already “this flesh and blood body” does not achieve anything but fooling yourself.”
I assume you mean dissociating. But why assume when I can ask.
Hi Alexander,
There is a difference between hypnotising and dissociating. Hypnotising is a mental effort to convince yourself of something you are not – though it can involve pushing emotions under the carpet and Kuba has just explained very well what can happen with hypnotising oneself of something you are not.
Whilst dis-associate (disconnect, separate, detach) and dissociate have similar synonyms, Richard used the word dissociation in its psychiatric meaning (splitting off a component of mental activity to act as an independent part of mental life). In other words, dissociation is repressing emotions and harder to undo than dis-associating which is the result of suppressing emotions – in other words a matter of degree.
Alexander: When I’m feeling good and then up it to feeling great then to excellent, I find that the senses become more pronounced and pleasurable. I feel pressure in my head and it’s like I’m on the verge of remembering a dream that was too good to be true. But I don’t want to waste my time dissociating or fooling myself.
The best way to not “waste my time dissociating” is to pay diligent affective attention to how you experience this moment of being alive and take note of every diminishment of feeling good. Then, once you get back to feeling good, you look at the trigger of what caused the diminishment so to avoid a repeat. It’s described in detail in Richard’s article This Moment of Being Alive.
Feeling being ’Vineeto’ used to ask herself some questions –
’Vineeto’: In those situations when I couldn’t think my way out of my mental block, a condition which I later discovered to be cognitive dissonance, I used to ask myself what it was that was preventing me from understanding. Rather than accusing Richard of being bone-headed, stubborn, silly or wrong, I instead chose to question why I was so bone-headed that I could not understand what he had discovered and what emotional investment ‘I’ had in maintaining ‘my’ status quo by not understanding what he presented as his ongoing delectable experience of the actual world.
These were some of the questions I used to ask myself –
-What feelings prevent me from seeing this one particular fact?
-What fears do I have that prevent me from coming to a new understanding?
-What consequence will this understanding possibly have for ‘me’ and ‘my’ worldview if what Richard is saying is right?
-What consequence will it have for ‘my’ lifestyle, my friendships, my working situation if what Richard is saying is right?
To ask these questions was to sharpen my attentiveness as to how I felt, what I felt and why I felt it when I contemplated the issues that caused a mental block and this attentiveness also showed me how to move past those affective feelings that prevented a clearer understanding of those issues. In other words, attentiveness counteracts the instinctive ‘self’-centredness that is more or less happening all the time unless I become aware of it. Attentiveness combined with contemplation does wonders when one wants to penetrate ‘my’ automatically ongoing affective reactive-ness to emotionally charged topics.
Eventually my burning desire and my persistence not to settle for anything less than indisputable facts won over my fears of questioning what I believed to be absolutely right and true and, to make a long story short, one day something had to give – ‘my’ worldview collapsed in one fell swoop and I had my first pure consciousness experience which lasted for a night and the better half of the next day. I was with Peter at the time and experienced for the first time what it is to be with a fellow human being without having ‘self’-oriented expectations, fears and preconceptions. In fact I only noticed that those ‘self’-centred expectations, fears and preconceptions towards others were a constant feature of ‘me’ when they temporarily ceased. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 60c, 26.1.2004)
Alexander: Bottom line, the better I feel the more sensuous my experience becomes. Is that the way forward? I feel like it’s so simple and then again like I’m juggling twenty things at once:)
That sound good. “Juggling twenty things at once” means that you can increase your affective attentiveness, so much so that it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Then you can catch yourself each time when feeling good/ feeling excellent diminishes and won’t have to be “juggling twenty things at once” –
• [Richard]: ‘… once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good … but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud() before it gets out of hand* … with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive …’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).
(*)Footnote: The phrase ‘nipping them in the bud’ is not to be confused with either suppression/ repression or ignoring/ avoiding … it is to be consciously and deliberatively – with knowledge aforethought – declining oh-so-sensibly to futilely go down that well-trodden path to nowhere fruitful yet again.
It is also beneficial to watch out for and renounce resentment. “Hope is an impoverished proxy for the actual, the resentment remains. Only by firmly renouncing resentment, by abandoning one’s commitment to proving that life on earth is a ‘vale of tears’, can one’s commitment be staunch only to the ultimate goal. (…) Renouncing resentment obviates the need to apply the commonly accepted antidote: gratitude. (…) When gratitude is realised as being the panacea that it is, one will gladly renounce it along with the resentment it promises to replace. To successfully dispense with the despised resentment, its companion emotion, the extolled gratitude, must also go. It is a popular misconception that one can do away with a ‘bad’ emotion whilst hanging on to the ‘good’ one. In actualism the third alternative always applies. Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Sin, Hope and Despair, Gratitude and Resentment, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity.” (Library, Topics, Hope)
Alexander: Glad to see you posting here. I talked to you once or twice on the old message board, I think yahoo, maybe back in the olden days.
You are welcome. (Do you remember which number you had in the correspondence?)
Alexander: Would be cool to hear from Peter as well. (link)
As Claudiu (after conferring with me) told you before (link), Peter has retired from writing ca. 15 years ago.
Cheers Vineeto
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Vineeto: You only need to figure out whatever works to activate your altruism for enabling the final step. Who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to?
Kuba: Thank you for this advice Vineeto, indeed the energy of those deliberations was serious and even grim. I read this bit with a smile on my face, what a wonderful question to sincerely and naively ask ‘myself’! It automatically came with a felicitous/ innocuous energy fuelling the wondering.
‘I’ do not have an answer to this question yet, and this is exactly correct! ‘I’ locate the answer to ‘be’ undone by it at the same time. Any other answer with ‘me’ still in place is obviously not it. (link)
Hi Kuba,
It is wonderful to hear.
Richard reports having had a few open questions with significant results. This was his seminal question –
Respondent: What was it exactly that brought about the death which lead to the ability to live in a veritable garden of eden?
Richard: … I asked myself what turned out to be a seminal question:
‘What am I in relation to other people?’
I asked the question in such a way so that I would not get a carefully thought-out and reasoned answer. I wanted an experiential result … and I kept the question burning in the depths of my psyche, discarding any intellectual answers that inevitably popped-up in the course of the next five or six weeks. And then it happened as a direct result of keeping the question open – which is another story – thus these days I empirically know what I am in relation to other people: I am not an ‘Enlightened Master’ sitting in an exalted position … and what a relief that is. I am a fellow human being, who happens to live in a condition of perfection and purity, offering my experience to whomsoever is interested. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 3 April 2000).
Cheers Vineeto
PS: I don’t think you need to be concerned of what Sonya told you (link) – some of the most intelligent people in the world are considered/ diagnosed to be “on the spectrum”.
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I have read and reread this response several times. It’s wild how the simplicity of it all is so slippery to a feeling being.
I always try to bring it back to the beginning when it seems I’m over complicating it. And the beginning is the end, ha. HAIETMOBA.
I don’t remember my ID on the old message board but I can tell you this, I started off curious and quickly became combative and argumentative. But here’s the hilarious part, I thought it was you and Richard and Peter who were combative and argumentative when really you all were just being accurate and precise. If ever I need to feel foolish I have that to reflect on.
Yeah I know Peter isn’t writing any more. I guess I’m being sentimental. Something else to look at.
Thanks Vineeto
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Alexander: I have read and reread this response several times. It’s wild how the simplicity of it all is so slippery to a feeling being.
I always try to bring it back to the beginning when it seems I’m over complicating it.
Hi Alexander,
“To bring it back to the beginning when it seems I’m over complicating it” is an excellent idea.
Alexander: And the beginning is the end, ha. HAIETMOBA.
Given that you used the acronyms – here is a more detailed explanation for “How am I experiencing this moment of being alive” –
Richard: ‘(…) It is a question, not a phrase to be memorised and repeated slogan-like (or as if chanting a mantra for instance), and it soon becomes a non-verbal attitude to life … a wordless approach each moment again whereupon one cannot be anything else but [affectively] aware of one’s every instinctual impulse/affective feeling, and thus self-centred thought, as it is happening.
[…] ‘The words ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ simply refer the make-up of the awareness-cum-attentiveness being applied … as distinct from, say, the buddhistic ‘mindfulness’ (which is another ball-game entirely).
In other words the focus is upon how the identity in toto is standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent just here right now. (Richard, AF List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).
As for “the beginning is the end” you are almost correct. However –
Richard: Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself. (This Moment of Being Alive)
So you see, it is so simple that it is a real sudorific enterprise to make it complicated.
Alexander: I don’t remember my ID on the old message board but I can tell you this, I started off curious and quickly became combative and argumentative. But here’s the hilarious part, I thought it was you and Richard and Peter who were combative and argumentative when really you all were just being accurate and precise. If ever I need to feel foolish I have that to reflect on. (…) Thanks Vineeto (link)
You are welcome, Alexander. I am pleased to hear you have changed your previous attitude of being “combative and argumentative” to now being interested in experimenting how to become more happy and harmless and how to increase enjoying and appreciating being alive. It’s pleasing to see how, one by one, human beings start to disentangle themselves from the ancient belief that you can’t change human nature.
And instead of feeling “foolish” you can congratulate yourself that you were intelligent enough to do something about your own resentment, malice and sorrow.
Cheers Vineeto
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So things are still going well, I have managed to evade getting stuck in the same places that I did in the past. That question of who or what am ‘I’ willing to give all of ‘myself’ to is still open, it is a thread that runs through ‘my’ moment to moment experience.
What clicked today is that altruistic self-sacrifice will end both the good and the bad. What is called ‘selflessness’ in reality will disappear along with selfishness. There was this brief thought this morning that ‘I’ am not ‘clean’ enough to give all of ‘myself’ to something, essentially that ‘I’ was to become more ‘selfless’ before self-immolation could happen. But very quickly I realised that this is a dead end, because self-immolation will put an end to all of ‘me’, the ‘clean’ as well as the dirty parts.
In fact anything good of ‘me’ was what ‘I’ had to manufacture in order to counteract the evil in ‘me’ and they will both be kept in place as long as ‘I’ remain. When ‘I’ willingly sacrifice all of ‘myself’ then the slate is wiped clean. There will be no need for the good to counteract the bad.
So ‘I’ can completely lay down ‘my’ arms, this is what you mentioned @Vineeto, that ‘I’ have to be happy to be exposed warts and all. It’s like ‘I’ can happily agree that this is the end of the road for ‘me’, which means ‘I’ no longer have to be vigilant in order to keep ‘myself’ in check. It’s the end of a lifetime struggle, the battle between good and evil.
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Kuba: So things are still going well, I have managed to evade getting stuck in the same places that I did in the past. That question of who or what am ‘I’ willing to give all of ‘myself’ to is still open, it is a thread that runs through ‘my’ moment to moment experience. (…)
So ‘I’ can completely lay down ‘my’ arms, this is what you mentioned, Vineeto, that ‘I’ have to be happy to be exposed warts and all. It’s like ‘I’ can happily agree that this is the end of the road for ‘me’, which means ‘I’ no longer have to be vigilant in order to keep ‘myself’ in check. It’s the end of a lifetime struggle, the battle between good and evil. (link)
Hi Kuba,
This is exactly it. Here Richard summed it up to a correspondent who was living “in this small island in the southern Atlantic Ocean by the Brazilian cost, very few books are available. My friends talk of fishing … mainly” –
RICHARD: In 1980, at the beginning of what was to be a four-hour PCE that was the turning-point in my life, ‘I’ saw ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ was (a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning social identity) and the instant ‘I’ saw ‘myself’ … I was not that. Thus (when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’) ‘I’ knew, by direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent … and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. The only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate).
‘My’ question was: How on earth am ‘I’ to do this? (Richard, List B, 34a, 2 June 1999).
RESPONDENT: Elaborate this …
RICHARD: Given that ‘I’ knew, via direct experience, that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection … then the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. So when I asked (as an open question) ‘how do ‘I’ do it?’ the essential character of the perfection of the physical infinitude of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. (Richard, List B, 34a, 7 June 1999).
All is going well.
Cheers Vineeto
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I got wiped out by some stomach bug the past couple of days so only just getting round to replying now.
It is so fascinating that this is exactly what I saw when I was 18 and a PCE happened as I was walking home from school.
I remember the surprise back then when it was seen that ‘I’ was a phantom. At the time I experienced it as if this entity, the who that ‘I’ was ‘my’ whole life, was merely an ‘echo’, it was the conditioning itself blindly playing on repeat, this was ‘me’. But this was impossible to see for what it is unless a vantage point outside of ‘me’ was utilised. I saw ‘myself’ clearly just as ‘I’ was going into abeyance and it was seen that ‘I’ was never genuine. Furthermore it was seen that this entity, this ‘echo’ was standing in the way of the perfection and purity that was already always here.
So even this 18 year old boy who had no clue about actualism could see it! Unfortunately the PCE devolved into an ASC as I was already dabbling in some spiritually inspired self-help stuff by then. Having no other alternatives to turn to I went for Vipassana meditation to try to replicate the experience…
Somehow though I managed to come full circle and now I understand exactly what I saw back then, furthermore I have the means to actualise it.
It is all crystal clear nowadays, and because of that I find that ‘I’ have nothing else left to do but to find that something which will trigger ‘my’ altruism. @jamesjjoo I was contemplating what you wrote in your post :
And it is clear that this has all to do with altruism, as in ‘I’ can accept the facticity of death’s oblivion and yet this is not altruism. Accepting the facticity of death can undo resentment however altruistic self sacrifice is more than this. It is a gift that ‘I’ gift to humankind, willingly and cheerfully. It is not merely accepting that death will happen (this is somewhat passive) but rather ‘I’ actively ensure ‘my’ death now, for the benefit of others. It is something that ‘I’ must want to do with the entirety of ‘my’ being, this is not merely acceptance.
So the question is what will seduce ‘me’ to want to gift this gift, it will have to be big! 
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I got wiped out by some stomach bug the past couple of days so only just getting round to replying now.
It’s fascinating being ill like this, it reminds me of what Richard wrote :
Human beings eat corporeal food, drink physical water and breathe molecular air, in order to be here, to be alive at all. Humans are here only because of sexual intercourse: the joining of the spermatozoa and the ova … there is no other way of becoming a human being and living in this world. All this living is necessary in order to discuss these very matters. One has to just try putting a spring clip upon one’s nose and a large piece of sticking plaster over one’s mouth for a few minutes to discover what actuality is. As one rips the plaster from one’s mouth and gulps in that sweet and actual air, one knows that one is certainly here on earth, living this life
When the body is under assault from a virus and all capacity including thinking is affected it is so clear that any of this business called being alive is dependent on this body being alive and breathing. ‘I’ might feel and believe ‘myself’ to be in some ivory tower but deep down ‘I’ know ‘I’ am contingent on this body, to continue using it as a host, and that this body will one day cease being alive.
But experiencing all this naively is fascinating, it reminds me of what Richard wrote :
This universe was miraculously able to give birth to me, it is marvellously capable of bearing me and will, eventually, wondrously manage to end me.
I always found it the most peculiar thing to consider, how could even an actually free person approach physical death without any sorrow, but I can get a flavour of this now. That it is so wondrous in the first place that all this is happening, one could not possibly resent any of it, there is only wonder and appreciation, including at the fact that the universe will “wondrously manage to end me”.
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Hi Kuba,
Is it really so difficult to find a gift that will seduce ‘you’? It may only be difficult because what you are looking for has “to be big” in ‘your’ limited estimation – so big that you can’t find anything big enough equalling the ‘big’ value of your ‘being’?
In fact, it doesn’t have to be “big” at all but something you passionately care about.
What about giving Sonya what she always wanted, deep down – all of you, the actual you?
What about enabling peace-on-earth for one more human being with the untold and unforeseen consequences for a further spreading of peace?
What about being able to be of service to those who want to become actually free?
RESPONDENT: Thank you for the response Richard. I appreciate what you have written, and I have just one question about something you have said: of what possible service can you be, given that the PCE itself is my guide – and not you? (I ask this since it occurs as a human question timelessly worthy of clarification and not to subject you to undue resistance).
RICHARD: […] As for service: the reward for going to the very end of illusion and delusion is to emerge, unscathed, as the actual. The benefits of doing so are beyond price; to remove oneself from the invidious position of being betwixt sycophants and traducers, being one among many. The immediate bestowal of universal peace upon oneself is the benefit worthiest of acknowledgment. Yet, rewards and benefits notwithstanding, to have reached one’s destiny is to be of the ultimate service possible … the universe has been able to fulfil itself in a human being. Finally there is an intelligence operating unimpeded … blind nature has been superseded.
To live this is what service is. (Richard, List B, No. 25d, 29 Sep 1999).
I’m sure you will eventually find something …
Cheers Vineeto
P.S. Just imagine what problem the last unfree person on earth will have when there is nobody left who they can altruistically self-immolate for! You are still exceedingly lucky.
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Yes that would be like a self-fulfilling prophecy for ‘me’ to remain forever. ‘I’ tip the scales in such a way that nothing ever measures up, and then ‘I’ wait forever for that something that will be “powerful enough” to convince ‘me’. It’s like ‘I’ was waiting for some utopian dream to descend upon ‘me’, meanwhile ‘I’ am skipping over those things that actually matter.
This one especially got me and I have had these kinds of glimpses recently. That all my life I have been looking anywhere but here for the answer, and this includes those fellow human beings that are close to me in my life. Somehow I have depreciated them and yet they have been so intimately involved in my life, they have been here all this time and somehow they have been as if invisible to ‘me’. I looked at a picture of me and Sonya that we have in our bedroom and I realise that she is invisible to ‘me’, that even when that “happy picture” was taken, there was a rift of impassable proportions between ‘me’ and her.
It was easier to deceive myself by playing with far out ideals rather than looking right under my nose. ‘I’ would play with utopian dreams meanwhile ‘I’ cannot give Sonya what she wants, which is actual intimacy. And ‘I’ realise that in this regard ‘I’ am a complete failure, truly ‘I’ cannot give her what she wants, instead ‘I’ settled for a comfortable distance and then toyed around with things that would never actually come to fruition. Partly because ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ would screw things up if ‘I’ tried to get close. And I can see this in her, that she wants all of me, the actual me.
This is a very core aspect of ‘me’ that you have pointed to @Vineeto, it has been written before that men in particular struggle with intimacy and indeed this is like trying to mix oil and water for ‘me’, and ‘I’ have done what ‘I’ can to get close safely.
The struggles that ‘I’ have left in ‘my’ life relate specifically to this fear of intimacy. Richard wrote somewhere that to be actually intimate is life’s great challenge and it seems for ‘me’ this aspect of actual intimacy specifically as it relates to other human beings is somewhere that ‘I’ am still afraid of venturing towards, it seems this is the only place where there is still a sign that says “do not proceed here”.
Yeah I have thought about this one before haha, for their sake let’s hope that Richard’s theory of the critical mass is correct 
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