It appears this is what happened with the whole out from control thing, whatever the shift was, it was a result of sudorific pushing, which involved splitting. Meaning that a whole host of ‘me’ remained not yet fully on board and lurking in the corners, making the whole thing “not quite”.
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Kuba: I remember a while back on this forum Geoffrey wrote about which articles or bits of information he would recommend to those looking to succeed with the actualism method. He wrote (paraphrasing) that “This moment of being alive” was the key article and this along with some other bits of information would likely be enough for anyone to succeed.
But he also wrote (again paraphrasing) that he saw the “Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness” article as potentially problematic for various reasons. I can see how for someone like me – clearly prone to dissociation and defaulting to a meditative like focus – it has been problematic.
Hi Kuba,
Thank you for this assessment of the “Attentiveness …” article from Geoffrey and your personal comment and experience with it.
I remember once discussing the article with Richard, after 2010, when it had been online for a decade and he wondered if it better be taken off the website because many couldn’t see the difference between Buddhism and actualism when reading it. But because he had many correspondences online about the article already Richard decided it was too late.
‘Vineeto’ never took to this particular article, in contrast to all other of Richard’s writings and correspondence. But then ‘she’ also never took to Buddhistic-type meditations – ants-in-pants was the only effect it had for ‘her’. During ‘her’ years in the Rajneesh commune in Poona ‘she’ was more drawn to dancing meditations and therapy groups of the humanistic express-your-feelings variety – which was then the flavour of the decade.
Kuba: And I was always fond of that article, perhaps for that specific reason, that in my misunderstanding I would begin to apply that same meditative like focus to ‘examine the psyche’. This kind of focus can be summarised by the phrase – I am not that. ‘I’ would assume the role of attentiveness and ‘I’ would direct ‘my’ gaze on all these affective phenomena, looking at them come and go and examining them one by one.
This kind of looking it was quite addictive because it was safe for ‘me’, after all ‘I’ was only looking at these things which were not ‘me’, and ‘I’ could spend countless hours apparently exploring the depths of the psyche whilst remaining fundamentally unchanged. Essentially ‘I’ would assume the role of the watcher. Now writing this out I would wager that I am not the only one who has defaulted to such a thing.
You are certainly not the only one. It is easy to overlay one’s own real-world paradigm over Richard’s writing and look for apparent similarities rather than the vital differences. As such the very first words on the Actual Freedom Trust homepage are generally brushed aside – “new”, “non-spiritual”, “down-to-earth” and of course “actual”. You can check out the tool-tip right next to the title which details this ‘derailment’ of understanding. It’s all very amusing once one recognizes where one has gone awry.
Kuba: What I see now is that genuine attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation automatically leads to change, it is only by acting as a watcher that ‘I’ can remain unchanged. I have often used the following example when trying to describe to others how getting back to feeling good takes place – to remember perhaps a moment when say the weather was starting to shift and affect one’s plans, and there would be this shift happening into ‘being’ frustrated or upset or what have you, and all of a sudden this would be seen – in the most matter of fact way – as simply silly, and it would cease there and then. I think most people have experienced something akin to this happening in their life. But there is no watcher in such a scenario, it is ‘me’ that sees how silly it is to let X spoil this moment of being alive, and this seeing is the ending of that particular drama. The reason why it works is because in such a scenario ‘I’ see that ‘I’ am ‘being’ frustrated or upset and that it is simply silly to ‘be’ that – the end.
It seems I am untangling now just what on earth I have been doing all this time.
You might find Claudiu’s report interesting after Richard suggested, in reply to Claudiu’s first post to the mailing list –
Richard: 1. Cease aiming to be aff, forthwith.
2. Stop listening to the affers, period. (…)
3. Turn around 180 degrees from the direction you have been travelling thus far and come to your senses (both metaphorically and literally).
4. Put the actualism method – enjoying and appreciating being alive each moment again – into practice as the number one priority in your life.
5. Tap into pure intent and you will no longer be on your own in this the adventure of a lifetime! (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 7 Feb 2012).
After further understanding what the original Buddhism was about as compared to the watered-down contemporary versions, Claudiu reported how he slowly extracted himself from his long and intensive meditation practice –
Claudiu: … I had reduced everything to physical sensations – touch, sight, sound, etc., with thoughts thrown in as well (though there was debate as to whether thoughts can also just be reduced to one of the five senses).
Thus, when I felt something unpleasant in my body, or some persistent tension, the only recourse, meditatively, was to put my attention on it, and notice it as being ‘impermanent’ (that is, as according to MCTB, vibrating in real-time at a certain frequency), ‘not-self’ (that is, as according to MCTB, happening on its own without a ‘self’ involved), and ‘dukkha’ (that is, according to MCTB, unsatisfactory in some fundamental way). The affect itself is taken completely out of the picture. It is noticed, but it is noticed strictly as a physical sensation, and the solution is to do something about that physical sensation. Here is where entering altered states of consciousness helps as it made the psyche more readily able to do something with those sensations. … (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 18 Dec 2012).
I recommend the whole page of this correspondence from February to December 2012 as an example, to let it sink in that there is indeed nothing in common between Buddhistic practices and actualism, nothing at all, in fact they are 180 degrees opposite. This theoretical & practical background may help so that every temptation to fall back into the familiar grove of distancing yourself (which habitual behaviour tends to do) will start flashing a red light of alarm for you each time it happens.
After “years spent distancing myself from it” [resentment] (link) and other undesirable feelings, your realisation regarding this paradigm requires actualising it, until you uproot it one instance at a time.
Kuba: Essentially it’s slowing bringing out into the open all these feelings and states of ‘being’ which ‘I’ have pushed to the side and ignored. And of course ‘my’ ‘actualist identity’ has solidified this even further, in that I just wouldn’t accept that yes it is me that is being resentful or anxious or what have you, it couldn’t possibly be me because I am an accomplished actualist lol. But as Claudiu wrote the other day this is indeed the case – that if there is a feeling happening then it is me, no matter who I believe or assert myself to be.
Ha, I know from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience, developing an actualist identity is nearly unavoidable, and it’s beneficial you recognized and labelled it. As Richard says –
Richard: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago would do is first get back to feeling good and then, and only then, suss out where, when, how, why – and what for – feeling bad happened as experience had shown ‘him’ that it was counter-productive to do otherwise.
What ‘he’ always did however, as it was often tempting to just get on with life then, was to examine what it was all about within half-an-hour of getting back to feeling good (while the memory was still fresh) even if it meant sometimes falling back into feeling bad by doing so … else it would crop up again sooner or later.
Nothing, but nothing, can be swept under the carpet. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).
Richard: 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. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive)
Kuba: And often it is little things, silly things, that I would not allow “such an accomplished actualist” would ‘be’… For example just now there was this feeling that after I finish training BJJ today I will not have anything else to look forward too. I know this feeling because I have felt it for a long time, except that I would experience it as coming from ‘out there’ and somehow assaulting ‘me’. But no it is me after all, and now it makes sense experientially what Richard would often mention – is it not silly to let such a thing spoil this only moment of being alive? Indeed it is but I first had to see that it was me all along. (link)
There is a perfect remedy for pride when it looms to get in the way – a healthy sense of humour.
Gary: Apparently, after self-immolation has taken place, having a good laugh is not ruled out, as Richard has written else-where about nearly rolling on the floor in laughter. Is this then ‘an affective experience’?
Respondent: Sounds like it to me, Gary. Perhaps Richard could elaborate on this apparent contradiction?
Richard: It is only an ‘apparent contradiction’ if all laughter is first determined to be affective … one can laugh with the sheer delight of being alive or in moments of great pleasure. I recall that when freedom first happened there was much laughter because it was as if I had been playing a great joke upon myself by searching everywhere and everywhen for something that was already always just here right now … I am chuckling even now as I write about it (all suffering is self-caused and totally unnecessary).
Also, one can laugh where something is ludicrous, farcical, absurd, ridiculous and so on … speaking personally, I find the TV series ‘3rd Rock From The Sun’ humorous as it oft-times demonstrates many of the foibles of human nature (as in the first thirty four years of my life). Plus it is hilarious that for eleven years I lived-out the experience of being the latest saviour of humankind … there is much about life which is irrepressibly funny. (Richard, AF List, No. 2, 1 Apr 2002).
Cheers Vineeto
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Glad to see you cracking along.
The part that is most challenging for me is:
Suppose there is a feeling of sadness. Ordinary consciousness would say, ‘I am sad’. Using attentiveness, one heedfully notices the feeling as a natural feeling – ‘There is human sadness’ – thus one does not tack on that possessive personal concept of ‘I’ or ‘me’ … for one is already possessed.
I do not know how to reconcile that with “I” am my feelings and “my” feelings are “me.”
Worth noting, I am isolating that quote outside of the context that Richard presents it. In that paragraph he is talking about attentiveness and I will include it more completely:
Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention. Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries. Attentiveness does not register feelings and compare the validity of experience according to it ‘feeling right’ or ‘feeling wrong’. Attentiveness is an aesthetic alertness that takes place with minimised reference to self. With attentiveness one sees the internal world with blameless references to concepts like ‘my’ or ‘mine’. Suppose there is a feeling of sadness. Ordinary consciousness would say, ‘I am sad’. Using attentiveness, one heedfully notices the feeling as a natural feeling – ‘There is human sadness’ – thus one does not tack on that possessive personal concept of ‘I’ or ‘me’ … for one is already possessed. Attentiveness is the observance of the basic nature of each arising feeling; it is observing all the inner world – emotional, passionate and calentural – which is whatever is presently taking place in the affective faculty. Attentiveness is seeing how any feeling makes ‘me’ tick – and how ‘I’ react to it – with the perspicacity of seeing how it affects others as well. In attentiveness, there is an unbiased observing of the constant showing-up of the ‘reality’ within and is examining the feelings arising one after the other … and such attentiveness is the ending of its grip. Please note that last point: in attentiveness, there is an observance of the ‘reality’ within, and such attention is the end of its embrace … finish.
Here lies apperception.
While attentiveness may not get infatuated with good feelings or sidestep the bad, “I” certainly do.
So I haven’t got round to the above posts yet but for now a report of success 
I have been doing exactly what Vineeto suggested :
Basically I have been bringing out into the open all those parts of ‘me’ which were cast aside and made into “not ‘me’”. I have been doing this gently and patiently, ushering myself towards enjoyment and appreciation rather than forcefully pushing.
And there is alot of success showing now, success in that I am more and more tasting this very familiar (and yet always fresh) flavour, of something outside of ‘me’, of something so wonderfully magical - a faitytale-like flavour. And the connection to this flavour has been very stable since yesterday, experienced to be everywhere, to be intrinsic to the nature of the universe - how things are in actuality. The great thing is that ‘I’ seem to be very much in agreement with allowing it.
There was something which clicked the other day and this has been slowly becoming a complete seeing. Which is that death is not a serious business in actuality, this one is a big one because I know just how big of a theme death has always been for me, in fact the biggest theme of them all!
It was around the time I was reading and contemplating Richard’s words around ‘my’ illogical desire for immortality. That ‘I’ being an illusion cannot accept that which is actual, and death is actual. It is a universal phenomenon which is intrinsic to the “grand scheme of things” in this perfect universe. How could it be wrong?
Since then something has shifted, in that ‘I’ have a growing confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe, including the confidence to give permission and allow ‘myself’ to be taken away by it.
There has been more than a few very wonderful experiences since, which are very much like ‘me’ galloping towards ‘my’ destiny. What Vineeto has written has been on my mind a lot, which is to be in full agreement and to allow something to happen to ‘me’ which has never happened before.
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That pretty much sums up my days. I really enjoyed reading this. In the context of all that’s being written about “I am my feelings and my feelings are me” this swinging from how I want to be seen, and how I want to hide, vs there not actually being anything to see or hide! Haha
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It is so fascinating what is going on at the moment, I wrote a while back about “my mind being fragmented”, it’s kind of like this but no longer in any unpleasant or disorientating way. It’s more that during a day there is a number of ‘me’s’ present…
There is the ‘me’ that finds ‘himself’ off the wide and wondrous path and correcting course.
Then there is this other ‘me’ that is delighting in pure intent, and ‘he’ often can’t even see how it could be possible to do anything but enjoy and appreciate.
And then it can go even a step further, this happened alot yesterday, where it becomes difficult to draw any solid line between reality and actuality, there are these glimpses of a world of perfection and purity only but because it is so close and experienced to be all around it is like I don’t know if I am actually there or peeking at it through the tiniest of films. Intellectually I understand that it is the latter, but experientially it is so very close that it is difficult to tell the difference.
It seems it is this third place where ‘I’ can become extinct from, and from that place it is seen to be utterly safe for that to happen, as Geoffrey wrote there would be no weight to it, no drama.
And I understand now that it is only ‘me’ who can give permission (with the entirety of ‘my’ being) for it to happen. And it is this aspect of all of ‘me’ granting permission which I am currently looking at, other than that it does seem like the easiest thing in the world, if ‘I’ want it that is haha!
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So I had this phrase repeating in my mind a lot - “I don’t have to feel this way anymore”. This is not a mantra but rather a reminder to actually see this fact with each instance. It’s crazy that there are feelings which have been as if cemented in place for years and those feelings can dissolve in this seeing.
And as I wrote the other day it is all about bringing into the open all those feelings which were pushed aside, and realising that ‘I’ am ‘being’ those feelings, and with this realisation they cease. This is the simplicity of the third alternative demonstrated.
And I was thinking - why is it that no one has discovered this prior to Richard? Why is this not common knowledge, that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and as such ‘I’ can ‘be’ the felicitous and innocuous feelings… I mean for sure it makes life a whole lot easier 
I know the kind of pretzels that ‘I’ can weave ‘myself’ into whilst trying to control ‘my’ feelings, it’s really a terrible state of affairs to be caught up in.
And I thought that for sure the structure of morality plays a huge part. Because the various tenets of society are psychological means of control. In order to curb ‘my’ instinctive urges ‘I’ am taught that ‘I’ have to earn or be granted ‘my’ good feelings. The third alternative of ‘being’ the felicitous and innocuous feelings is not even considered. Now I don’t think it’s some kind of conspiracy on the side of society to prevent well-being, it’s more that this straight and narrow path was the only one known so far.
But there is the third alternative now, a viable way of living life, and it is wide and wondrous, and it is simple and effective. I just remembered that Richard often mentioned this - that the ‘he’ back then would wonder how has nobody else (including ‘him’) discovered this thing before.
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Things have been going rather well recently, for a while it seemed like I had ran out of options to try, of avenues where I haven’t looked yet. I spent some time going round in circles initially and this past week something has changed.
Geoffrey’s post has been a great help, in terms of providing direction of what to focus on :
Geoffrey: As long as you find yourself looking for the door that is tiny (the recipe, the formula, the secret sauce, the psychic gun, the pill, the trick), you’re nowhere near and should instead walk the path.
As long as you find the path narrow, arduous, vanishing, confusing, instead of wide and wondrous as it is, you’re not walking it, you are merely lost in the woods nearby - and should instead find it in yourself to take a first clear step in the right direction, such as making a commitment to happiness and harmlessness.The door is wide as the universe, just as the path is by imitation.
When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains.
It is such a great post, it makes me smile how Geoffrey has managed to make it so succinct and yet for it to offer so much helpful information.
“If the path is not wide and wondrous then I am merely lost in the woods nearby” amazing! I have spent plenty of time roaming those woods
But it seems like at the core of it for the longest of time I was simply not ready to proceed where the wide and wondrous path leads, deep down I wanted to retain ‘the known’. It looks like this time is coming to an end.
I have experienced actual perfection and purity many times over the years and yet to actually live it - that was too much to consider, in terms of what a drastic change it would be from all that I have known.
This is what has changed the past week, there is this growing readiness and willingness to actually live it. It is not pushing or anything like that, I just find that I am ready to proceed towards the end of the wide and wondrous path.
Richard wrote somewhere that the question ‘he’ would ask ‘himself’ back then was - What am ‘I’ saving ‘myself’ for? And basically it is that I have ran out of things to save ‘myself’ for.
The other side of it has been the experiences of actual perfection and purity, sometimes when I am in that just before sleep mode, when taking a nap or what have you, it is like I am being bombarded by flashes of actual perfection and purity. Every time it is the same response from ‘me’, that this actual perfection and purity is precious beyond compare, that anything of ‘mine’ is forever a second place, very very distant second. It’s actually very difficult to put into words the magnitude of the difference in value between even the briefest experience of actual perfection and purity and then anything that exists in ‘my’ world.
So it is like the scales have shifted, that gravitational pull of ‘the known’ has been outweighed by this genuine wanting and readiness to proceed towards actual perfection and purity, to once and for all actually live it, no more dipping the toes in the water and then scurrying away 
And so this is the kind of place I have found myself recently, it’s been very wonderful and all-round no longer stressful. ‘I’ cannot know what self-immolation will be like or what life will be like when ‘I’ am gone, but that doesn’t matter at all actually.
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