Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
Thank you for your reply, I had quite a day yesterday! It is all clicking into place. I will start with the weird one…
You wrote to me a while ago that upon actual freedom one sees that there has been an existential joke there all along, in that ‘I’ never existed in the first place.
I was driving yesterday and all the while intensely focused on discovering what it means to be actually intimate. There is something that Srinath wrote shortly after becoming free which I read the other day, this I had in my mind and was fascinated by it :
Srinath: I feel like my brain has been ‘uncapped’ and the magnificent universe – as oppose to ‘self’ and ‘other’ is my preoccupation.
Kuba: And it clicked then that it is as I wrote “the door to actual intimacy has a similar sign but it reads – “Leave ‘your’ self at the door”.” In that ‘I’ am those clothes which need to be shed so that this body can experience “the magnificent universe” as Srinath wrote. Thinking about it now reminds me of Geoffrey’s post too because he was referring to the same thing :
Geoffrey: For I had been exploring the unknown continent, its golden cities and living clouds, for weeks, without a word. When some letter found its way to me, its ink faded from the sea voyage, enquiring about matters so home-bound as to appear foreign: a quarrel about definitions, from the Royal Society of leathery armchairs, asking for my judgment. My ruling.
Please differentiate! they ask. Please settle our quarrel!
We wish to classify, exactly, those birds we’ve never seen!
So the golden city and the living clouds laughed and danced and sang:
“Won’t they open the windows? Won’t they bathe in the stream?
Won’t they take off their clothes, and swim through the sea?” (4 Feb 2023)
Kuba: And I can see that this is what Richard refers to by “being naked” :
Richard: By the word naked I do not necessarily mean ‘no clothes’ but, rather, much more than being merely nude; I mean having nothing to hide and everything openly on display for all to see (by those capable of having both eyes open that is) before embarking on an idyllic voyage through paradise … (Announcement1, Tooltip after “naked crew”)
Kuba: In short it is ‘my’ very self which is the “something to hide”, and this act of ‘me’ hiding in ‘my’ hiding place is what creates this uncrossable gulf which stands in the way of actual intimacy.
Hi Kuba,
So you understand from the quotes of three actually free people that ‘I’ “stand in the way of actual intimacy” – so far so good. ‘I’ am standing in the way of actuality becoming apparent. But then you immediately follow it up with a semantic (i.e. theoretical, rational) explanation why that is so, thereby avoiding the practical action of slowly enticing ‘me’ out of ‘my’ hiding place.
Kuba: And so at one moment I had 2 words in mind – “myself” and “a self”, I realised immediately that they are referring to 2 vastly different things, one refers to a fact and the other to a belief/ illusion. In that an actually free person might very well use the words “myself” when referencing the very flesh and blood body in question, whereas “a self” is what ‘I’ am as an ontological ‘being’, a ‘thing-in-itself’.
And then there was this seeing that this ‘thing-in-itself’ is completely and utterly an illusion, in that not only does it not actually exist, it never existed in the first place. This was not ‘me’ doing the seeing but rather it was happening to ‘me’.
Then you attempt to overcome the gulf between the real world and the actual world by convincing yourself that “‘thing-in-itself’ is completely and utterly an illusion”. The reason I wonder if this ‘seeing’ was anything more than a red herring is because until you become actually free ‘you’ are very real, passionately (and cunningly) so. As you contemplated yourself in your next message –
Kuba: The other thing which I saw yesterday was quite cool to put a name to, it’s something ‘I’ have done a lot, which is to “recycle” what is initially an apperceptive seeing. In that there is initially a seeing which is not of ‘my’ doing and of course this has the effect of shaking things about, in a beneficial way.
Later on when a similar issue comes up ‘I’ will look to “recycle” that same insight and force-feed it into the new situation. But at this point it is no longer an apperceptive seeing, it is more akin to a belief, of course it does not work. (link)
While in hindsight – after the event of self-immolation – this is seen as factual, such line of inquiry, theoretically taking ‘me’ for a mere illusion, when experiential ‘I’/ ‘me’ am a very passionate entity, does nothing to remove ‘my’ fear of death for instance, as your follow-up panic attack demonstrated. Please also bear in mind that many who meditated on ‘I’ being an illusion ended up becoming self-realized or even enlightened –
Richard: ‘I’ passionately believe in ‘my’ existence – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – and will defend ‘myself’ to the death (of ‘my’ body) if it is deemed necessary. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, confounding ‘my’ survival and the body’s survival. However, ‘my’ survival being paramount is not factual, for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence (which is the primal purpose of the instinctual animal ‘self’). ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am nowadays a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, morals, values, principles, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die (to allow the body to be killed) for a cause and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ … and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality.
That is how real ‘I’ am … which is why both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul must die a real death (but not physically into the grave) to find out the actuality. (Richard, AF List, No. 30, 17 Jun 2002).
As such, the powerful instinct for survival can only be overcome by the stronger instinct of altruism –
Richard: No, I am more making the point that only altruism – self-sacrificial humanitarianism – will provide the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation … the instinct for individual survival is only exceeded by the instinct for group survival.
It takes a powerful instinct to overcome a powerful instinct. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 Oct 2002)
What I am endeavouring to emphasise is that as long as you avoid your feelings and passions – who you are – you cannot discover the vital clues, which prevent you from whole-heartedly agreeing to ‘your’ demise –
Kuba: It clicked yesterday that essentially I conflated an emotional intimacy with actual intimacy and then wrongly thought that to get close to the other meant to wade into the waters of emotional intimacy. (link)
It is exactly this shying away from “emotional intimacy” which obscures the possibility for near-actual intimacy (actual intimacy only happens when there is no ‘self’). These emotions hovering in the background when getting close need to be felt in order to for you to recognize and untangle them as per the actualism method and channel them into felicitous and innocuous feelings. Only approaching intimacy when the ‘self’ is temporarily absent, or a mere rational exploration via exclusion of what is obviously still extant as a potential (else why fear and reject them) is not going to remove this obstacle to experience intimacy.
Kuba: And so for the remainder of the drive I was utterly fascinated by just how close an actual freedom is! It is so very close because the entity which needs to be extirpated does not actually exist in the first place. I understood then why (as seen by ‘me’) you have been so optimistic throughout my correspondence with you, that step towards actual freedom it is such a short step, it could happen to anyone at any time because all that happens is that an illusion is no more.
Of course somehow ‘I’ evaded the totality of this seeing because ‘I’ am writing these words. But ‘I’ have confidence in bucket-fulls now that it is for sure possible for ‘me’ to become extinct.
Later on this wonder turned into something like a mini panic attack, but I was able to ride this out rather easily this time around.
Here the panic attack confirms that there are still powerful feelings to look at – don’t push them away or avoid them. You will find once you don’t fight them but acknowledge them as who you are, they diminish and can be easily untangled. Treat ‘me’ as an ally rather than an antagonist, who can eventually be enticed to recognize/ fully comprehend the best solution for this body, that body and every body –
Richard: No, blind nature lost … the identity got precisely what ‘he’ wanted more than anything else (the blessed release into oblivion) thereby allowing intelligence to operate unimpeded. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 68d, 10 Oct 2005).
Kuba: Today things have been excellent since the morning, and now I am wondering what is it that ‘I’ am still hiding, or what is it that ‘I’ am still hanging around for. In that ‘I’ have seen that ‘I’ am not genuine and yet some part of ‘me’ wanted to stick around clearly…
When ‘I’ consider ‘my’ life, what is left of it and what ‘I’ could possibly be saving ‘myself’ for there is only 1 possibility left it seems, all other things have been resolved. It may also be the reason why ‘I’ have not been able to give all of ‘myself’ to Sonya. And it is related to the work I do as a hen party entertainer and the feelings this brings about. Those events they can get somewhat “wild” and I have always enjoyed the high of such a situation. And yet there is something not quite with all this in that ‘I’ am addicted to the high, ‘I’ prioritise the high over an actual intimacy and furthermore the whole thing it scatters ‘my’ intent to get as close as possible to the person I am closest to – Sonya.
It seems there is something here, even just typing the above out and fully admitting it to myself things have got even more wonderful, reminding me of what I experienced a while back, of the world being as if a shimmering jewel. (link)
All your passions can and need to be garnered in the process of becoming actually free, i.e. all good and bad feelings channelled into felicitous feelings and appreciation, and nothing can be swept under the carpet –
Richard: … Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive … no longer the ‘do-er’. Thus ‘my’ days were numbered … ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ … soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over … ‘my’ demise became imminent. (Richard, AF List, No. 7, 27 Jan 1999).
You still seem to be trying the all-or-nothing or the instant-transition approach. An out-from-control freedom is not to be sneezed at, in fact it is delicious. Here is the last paragraph of Geoffrey’s message you quoted above just as a reminder –
Geoffrey: Wouldn’t you rather see for yourself?
And the answer comes:
“How could we set foot on any boat before it is established, in absolute and certain terms, how many masts should a proper boat have? And what color its sails? How could we leave the Society’s walls before a map is drawn, an exact and perfect map with words attached to it like statues to temples? How are we to take even a step without having in our minds the picture of every rock, tree, bird, and wind we might encounter on the way?”
How indeed. (4 Feb 2023)
Cheers Vineeto
