Kub933's Journal

So to continue on from this post, this is a fun little game I have been playing with myself, with some interesting results!

When an unwanted and especially persistent feeling comes up, instead of trying to change it or make it go away I have actually been going the other way - let’s have it all the time since I am so hellbent on ‘being’ it, let’s suppose this feeling was to be an ongoing way of living for ‘me’ from now. And very quickly I see those 2 things, which is that it sucks and it does not go anywhere.

For example there is this resentment which I typically experience for the 30min-1hour after waking up, a very persistent and habitual thing, and I have not been able to resolve it completely so far. But this morning I was like - sure let’s ‘be’ that resentment to ‘my’ hearts content… let’s have as much of it as ‘I’ want, in fact let’s only have resentment as an ongoing MO from now on. And then I get to actually see that this feeling is rotten, that ‘I’ don’t want to ‘be’ it anymore.

I don’t think this is to be a long term approach but perhaps a nice way to stop holding certain feelings at arms length, it has been very interesting to see how some very persistent feelings can now be resolved and replaced with the felicitous and innocuous feelings.

Essentially the experiential question I have been holding up to myself is - Do ‘I’ want to ‘be’ that feeling for the rest of ‘my’ life?

Interesting that asking that same question when ‘being’ felicity and innocuity get’s a different answer - yes it is what ‘I’ want for the rest of ‘my’ life.

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Hi Vineeto,

So yes I actually experienced this answer the evening after writing the post to you. That evening I did find myself in a more wide and wondrous place and from that place I actually did look back at the argument I made and it had no substance, it was irrelevant when considering from the wide and wondrous place. So I can actually see this point, that with increasing felicity and innocuity there is a solution which becomes obvious, a solution for everybody.

But your other point is relevant too :

Vineeto: Good, you have come to appreciate the limitations of taking special excursions from the “base camp” – what I had called “your steeple chasing modus operandi” in an earlier message

Those daring excursions form “base camp” are too brief, unstable and desperate to allow ‘me’ to contemplate actually doing something about the human condition. So I completely understand your suggestion to proceed towards a pragmatic in-control virtual freedom. Also those excursions from “base camp” they are done by ‘me’ as ‘I’ am now, too mired in the human condition, looking with the eyes of ‘humanity’ rather than felicitous and innocuous eyes. Then ‘I’ can only try to as you said proceed towards some escape fantasy whilst keeping ‘myself’ intact.

So it is eminently sensible to do something practical and down to earth now, which is to establish feeling good (general sense of well-being) as a bottom line of experiencing in all circumstances and at all times - and it is this bit specifically which I have omitted because I was too busy with the steeple chasing modus operandi. Just as an aside when I first read that phrase I had to google it just to make sure I get you and as soon as I saw the below image I thought “yup that is spot on” :laughing:

And the interesting thing is that I already know how to get back to feeling good, it’s that I have got distracted over and over again by going on the special excursions instead, and in that steeple chasing modus operandi I would forget about affectively monitoring my mood, in fact even feeling good would become irrelevant from that place.

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And the other thing worth adding is that perhaps arriving at a in-control virtual freedom I might decide this is what I want for the rest of my life, and that would be already incredible. But the thing is that steeple chasing modus operandi would not have this. That if it is not ultimate then it is not even worth considering, and yet it is my life I am living. So this is nice to see now also.

And the other thing is that I don’t experience the fear of being a fraud, or a failure etc like I did in the past, and I am no longer afraid of writing to you, and it seems it is because I am slowly stopping the “fake it till you make it”. So this is all beneficial already.

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So what I can see already is that all this what I am focusing on now is about increasing my affective set point, and I can see that I have been approaching this the wrong way around in the past.

Effectively I can see that there is no pushing required, hence the advice has always been to return to feeling good. It is when feeling good takes care of itself due to habituation that “something more” hoves into view. But if that “something more” is not in view, it’s probably because feeling good is not even habituated yet. And this is where the various excursions would normally begin to take place.

So actually it’s very simple, in that all I have to concern myself with is getting back to feeling good when feeling good has ceased, and that is very doable for sure and also very rewarding. And then when that “something more” naturally hoves into view, great, but it happens without any pushing or desperation at all, and it makes it that much sweeter when it does happen. It’s like “I have all that I need already and look there is even a little bit more here”.

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Hmm and I wonder if this is why especially for someone with a ‘high achiever’ persona, it can be so tricky to get the simplicity of the method.

Because for the high achiever, the hard worker, the dragon slayer etc when things go awry that is apparently a signal to do more, to go forward at all cost, to do the new thing etc. Whereas what is required is actually just to return to where ‘I’ was 5min ago before that thing happened :laughing:.
But it’s this sense of “taking a step back” which is so counterintuitive to such a persona. As in things were evidently going well 5min ago and something happened to cause them to go awry, it seems like ‘I’ need to push forward and yet what ‘I’ actually need to do is simply go back to where ‘I’ was them 5 minutes ago lol.

And of course it is the habituation of feeling good in this manner which will actually lead to a movement forward, in terms of doing something productive. As well as taking a look at what that thing was that caused the issues, but only from the position of having already returned to feeling good.

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Vineeto: It’s ok, it is a natural reaction when you try to break through before you are ready – though it means that your arguments don’t make sense. It’s too early to even contemplate it, you could go to the “advanced base camp” first, then “camp 3”. (Uphill Mountaineering) Plenty of time to worry later. There is still an in-control virtual freedom available even if you never want to take the ultimate step.

Vineeto: Upgrading your present situation to pragmatic virtual freedom will give you a new confidence that being increasingly felicitous and innocuous (happy and harmless) is possible to live every day, in every situation – provided you sincerely and honestly leave no stone untouched. It means trying it out in real life what you often may have only rationally or conceptually understood but not yet applied in everyday living.

Kuba: So yes I actually experienced this answer the evening after writing the post to you. That evening I did find myself in a more wide and wondrous place and from that place I actually did look back at the argument I made and it had no substance, it was irrelevant when considering from the wide and wondrous place. So I can actually see this point, that with increasing felicity and innocuity there is a solution which becomes obvious, a solution for everybody.

Hi Kuba,

I am very pleased this is settled for you for now. It is indeed a good recognition that when “increasing felicity and innocuity” is possible for you, not as a high achiever, but a normal human being, then it is also possible for others.

Kuba: But your other point is relevant too :

Vineeto: Good, you have come to appreciate the limitations of taking special excursions from the “base camp” – what I had called “your steeple chasing modus operandi” in an earlier message.

Kuba: Those daring excursions form “base camp” are too brief, unstable and desperate to allow ‘me’ to contemplate actually doing something about the human condition. So I completely understand your suggestion to proceed towards a pragmatic in-control virtual freedom. Also those excursions from “base camp” they are done by ‘me’ as ‘I’ am now, too mired in the human condition, looking with the eyes of ‘humanity’ rather than felicitous and innocuous eyes. Then ‘I’ can only try to, as you said, proceed towards some escape fantasy whilst keeping ‘myself’ intact.
So it is eminently sensible to do something practical and down to earth now, which is to establish feeling good (general sense of well-being) as a bottom line of experiencing in all circumstances and at all times – and it is this bit specifically which I have omitted because I was too busy with the steeple chasing modus operandi. Just as an aside, when I first read that phrase I had to google it just to make sure I get you and as soon as I saw the below image I thought “yup that is spot on”.

Now you begin to understand why the term “down to earth” is right under the title on the homepage. It is very significant to take note that an actual freedom from the human condition is no high-flying spiritual escapade. As such your experiencing will eventually be genuinely “in all circumstances and at all times”.

It’s great you looked up “steeple casing” – I picked up the term from a reference in an English movie where they alluded to a particular form of obstacle horse racing but church steeples are far more apt as a metaphor, reminiscent also of the art of parkour.

Kuba: And the interesting thing is that I already know how to get back to feeling good, it’s that I have got distracted over and over again by going on the special excursions instead, and in that steeple chasing modus operandi I would forget about affectively monitoring my mood, in fact even feeling good would become irrelevant from that place. (link)

In due course you will discover that the actualism method is not merely to get back to feeling good, but that by sincerely and thoroughly (if necessary) investigating the triggers you can remove/ dissolve those triggers – be they habits, social identity issues, unhelpful attitude or what not – which are all components of what ‘I’ and ‘me’ consist of and what keeps ‘me’ in place. Doing this ‘I’ get thinner and thinner and less and less substantial, and thus feeling excellent and naiveté start to flourish in a consistent way.

Kuba: And the other thing worth adding is that perhaps arriving at an in-control virtual freedom I might decide this is what I want for the rest of my life, and that would be already incredible. But the thing is that steeple chasing modus operandi would not have this. That if it is not ultimate then it is not even worth considering, and yet it is my life I am living. So this is nice to see now also.

Richard: Ahh … then you would be understanding why I oft-times say that a virtual freedom is not to be sneezed at (and that it is way beyond normal human expectations), then? Because this is how you described it:
• [Respondent]: ‘There is an increase in sensory clarity, especially visual acuity. Along with this increase in clarity there is a ‘purity’ in everything one perceives. The words ‘immaculate’, ‘perfect’, ‘pure’ capture it quite well; everything is wonderful. Strangely, though, the word ‘beautiful’ does not apply. There is no (felt) affect whatsoever. The purity of perception (and the marvellousness of what is perceived) goes beyond affect, leaving only pure, calm wonder. It’s sensory delight without any emotional resonance at all. The sensory delight I’m talking about is not the usual kind of sensuousness/ sensuality that one enjoys in an ordinary state. Rather than being ‘pleasurable’, it is appreciation of the perfection that seems to be inherent in what one is perceiving, which leads to enjoyment of a very different kind.
This is quite extraordinary. There is a sensation of softness in the air, which has a pellucid, jelly-like quality (metaphorically speaking). I’m reminded of something you once wrote about the eyes ‘lightly caressing’, as if one is seeing from the front of the eyeball. I also remember you saying ‘nothing dirty can get in’, and that’s exactly the way it is. Objects that would seem drab, dirty, sullied, soiled in ‘reality’ are immaculate in themselves; any ‘dirtiness’ is overlaid by ‘me’. (‘Richard, are you familiar with this?’; May 20, 2004 17:34 PDT). (Richard, AF List, No. 60c, 15 Jul 2004)

Kuba: And the other thing is that I don’t experience the fear of being a fraud, or a failure etc like I did in the past, and I am no longer afraid of writing to you, and it seems it is because I am slowly stopping the “fake it till you make it”. So this is all beneficial already. (link)

Ha, the instant reward of honesty and sincerity. The more “you make it” the less you need to fear exposure – and all this because you gave up chasing steeples and are coming down to earth. Life is so much simpler and eminently enjoyable this way.

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: So what I can see already is that all this what I am focusing on now is about increasing my affective set point, and I can see that I have been approaching this the wrong way around in the past.
Effectively I can see that there is no pushing required, hence the advice has always been to return to feeling good. It is when feeling good takes care of itself due to habituation that “something more” hoves into view. But if that “something more” is not in view, it’s probably because feeling good is not even habituated yet. And this is where the various excursions would normally begin to take place.

Hi Kuba,

When you say feeling good is not habituated yet that may well be that there is something brewing in the background which you haven’t acknowledged/ identified yet. For instance –

Respondent: Now coming to the method. I tried asking ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’. Most of the time I get the answer ‘happy’, or when I stress upon ‘this moment’, I get blank with no answer, because in this moment there is no feeling. The feeling is only in the moment just passed by. But still ‘I’ do not have that experience all the time. Because ‘I’ is the heap of all the passed moments!
‘Vineeto’: I found that the interesting thing started when I got the answer ‘not happy’ or ‘no feeling’. I knew then I had something to look at. Upon closer look I always found a lurking feeling or fear disguised as ‘no feeling’ – the cunning entity inventing whatever trick to keep me from exposing it. It takes a lot of persistence, bloody-mindedness and ruthless honesty with oneself to dismantle one trick after the other. Sometimes I would sit days with that ‘no-feeling’ of numbness until I gathered courage and determination to examine it deeper. This process may take months until you are free of one particular emotion. But with the pure consciousness experience in mind you always have a comparison that keeps you going. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 4, 23.1.1999)
Alan: Vineeto, I am interested to hear more of what you call ‘no feeling’ in your mail to No 4. Is this the same as ‘stuckness’ or something different?
‘Vineeto’: With ‘no feeling’ I mean a kind of neutral-dull, non-responsive outlook on life. It may start with having ‘no feeling’ but then I quickly get bored with it not being quite alive and annoyed about wasting my time. It is usually fear in its first stage when I try to push it away. Digging deeper I usually find feeling, emotion, fear and holding on to dear ‘self’.
It is very different to ‘no feelings and emotions’ where there is simply the delight to be alive.
Does that make sense to you? (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, Alan-b, 2.2.1999)

Kuba: So actually it’s very simple, in that all I have to concern myself with is getting back to feeling good when feeling good has ceased, and that is very doable for sure and also very rewarding. And then when that “something more” naturally hoves into view, great, but it happens without any pushing or desperation at all, and it makes it that much sweeter when it does happen. It’s like “I have all that I need already and look there is even a little bit more here”. (link)

As for enjoying and appreciating feeling good being a backward-oriented approach here is something to think about –

Richard: By virtue of the fact you now have the beginnings of at least some degree of influence, over how you feel each moment again, your own interest in how you experience yourself can start to quicken (there being nothing which succeeds like success) and the more your own interest is piqued the more your awareness will increase of its own accord; eventually you can become almost eager to see what else will show up under the bright light of awareness.
So, starting where you are at (always the best place to start from), you can become aware of the less obvious irregularities in your daily feeling of regularity/ the majority experience of being a regular person, such as feeling slightly better than before until you start to recognise and acknowledge each moment of feeling somewhat better; those moments provide a base for you to build upon until you can say to yourself (and anyone who may be listening) that you are feeling good. (Feeling good is a generic term for a general feeling of well-being).
And this is where the fun begins: the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being alive each moment again; when you are feeling good then enjoy and appreciate feeling good; such enjoyment and appreciation is the way in which you consolidate what you have established (feeling good) and sets up an automatic signalling device (a flashing red light as it were) to let you know of the slightest diminishment of feeling good; as it is easier to remain feeling good than having to claw your way back out of feeling bad (a general feeling of ill-being) you have a vested interest in remaining attentive all the while you are feeling good.
The more you feel good the more feeling good happens; the more feeling good happens the better you feel; the better you feel the more feeling better gets … and so on and so on … gradually increasing ever-incrementally until one day you can get to the stage the identity in residence all those years ago got to where ‘he’ would say how ‘he’ had to invent a new word (‘bester’) because how on earth could best keep on getting better.
(Be warned: the sky is not the limit). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 11, 25 Nov 2009).

Kuba: Hmm and I wonder if this is why especially for someone with a ‘high achiever’ persona, it can be so tricky to get the simplicity of the method.
Because for the high achiever, the hard worker, the dragon slayer etc when things go awry that is apparently a signal to do more, to go forward at all cost, to do the new thing etc. Whereas what is required is actually just to return to where ‘I’ was 5min ago before that thing happened.
But it’s this sense of “taking a step back” which is so counterintuitive to such a persona. As in things were evidently going well 5min ago and something happened to cause them to go awry, it seems like ‘I’ need to push forward and yet what ‘I’ actually need to do is simply go back to where ‘I’ was them 5 minutes ago lol.

Yes, and for a “high achiever” any other way than ‘his’ way is classified as going backward.

Ha, if it wasn’t counterintuitive to ‘you’, the persona, you would have already used the actualism method the way it was intended. Think again – when you pay attention to the aggression inherent in the urge to “push forward” you can see why this cannot be conducive to an ongoing state of feeling good, let alone feeling excellent. The urge to “push forward” means something essential is missing according to ‘you’, is not good enough according to ‘your’ concept of life and you are at loggerheads with yourself and with actuality.

Also, it is generally not helpful to create a concept of what virtual freedom means by merely making a carbon copy of what you are doing now, then adding new wall-paper, before you take some practical down-to-earth steps in the new direction. It spoils and distorts the whole adventure of naïvely exploring new territory.

Kuba: And of course it is the habituation of feeling good in this manner which will actually lead to a movement forward, in terms of doing something productive. As well as taking a look at what that thing was that caused the issues, but only from the position of having already returned to feeling good. (link)

You might find this amusing and instructive – there is far more to explore than what you can ascertain by just thinking about it –

Respondent: I guess there are no shortcuts.
Richard: What I find telling – and this is a general observation – is just how much peoples object to being happy and harmless … the vast majority of the correspondence in the archives is, in fact, a cutting indictment on the human condition itself.
Do you realise – and this is a personal observation – you have just said, in effect, that you guess you will have to become a happy ‘being’ before you can become actually free from the human condition (as if were there a way to be thus free without having to do so you would not)?
Whereas it is actually such a delight to finally be able to be happy (and harmless) … and a relief. (Richard, AF List, No. 54, 27 Nov 2003).

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for your replies, this is all clear.

You know the kind of involvement you described above this is what I did relish in the first few years of my involvement in actualism. There was a lot of low hanging fruit at that point, where I would genuinely be excited when some new area presented itself which was interfering with my happiness and harmlessness because I knew that an exploration of that area would lead to further freedom. And indeed this is what happened and I arrived at where I am now which is I think is quite accurately described by - on the periphery of normalcy.

I think what happened was that when those low hanging fruits dried up I found a few core and severely persistent aspects of ‘me’, I did try to do something about those but eventually I concluded that these would be there until ‘my’ self-immolation. So I believed that this must be virtual freedom as I just could not see how anything else could be removed anymore.

In short what worked those first few years no longer worked, after that I had a bit of a dry spell in general and some time after that you began to write and I began to push when not quite ready yet.

So it seems that I was able to remove those initial obstacles to some enjoyment and appreciation, these were perhaps themes that were not so deeply entrenched in ‘me’, like peeling the more outer layers of the onion. The other thing is that I was sort of happy to arrive at the “edge of normalcy”, in that I cold give up those outer layers of the onion and of course reap the rewards but it was like I still had 1 foot in the ‘normal’ to retreat back to when ‘I’ wish. Kind of like playing for both teams.

And so proceeding towards “advanced base camp” that is no longer normal at all, feeling good for 23h 59m a day is not normal by any means, and surely what it takes to live that means that what remained of ‘normal’ in ‘me’ would also have to be gone by then. So yes that would be a new adventure altogether, new uncharted territory and this is scary.

But I also get your point where Richard says :

Do you realise – and this is a personal observation – you have just said, in effect, that you guess you will have to become a happy ‘being’ before you can become actually free from the human condition (as if were there a way to be thus free without having to do so you would not)?
Whereas it is actually such a delight to finally be able to be happy (and harmless) … and a relief.

That is quite funny, that if I object to the happiness and harmlessness en route to actual freedom then would I therefore prefer sorrow and malice en route instead? :laughing: Perhaps!

So I am happy to be where I am now actually, in that there is more to go in the meantime - and not in a sense of “I have to do it” as if it is a chore, but rather that there is far more consistent happiness and harmlessness available still.

What I do not see yet, is quite how to make away with those persistently entrenched themes still. And I am not sure if it is that they are actually difficult to remove or more because I simply cannot and will not contemplate a life of ongoing and consistent happiness and harmlessness. It’s like I have planted a flag in a 60/40 arrangement and the 23h 59m a day arrangement seems too much to consider.

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As an example of this, and I was looking at this yesterday. There is this particular ebb and flow to my daily happiness and harmlessness and it is a consistent one. In that when I first wake up there is a little bit of uneasy feelings, after that there is quite a bit of consistent enjoyment and appreciation during the day, then towards the evening there is a gloomy dip and then late evening there is some more enjoyment and appreciation again. And this happens with some variation essentially every day.

And so whilst in the gloomy bit last night I thought why don’t I just keep feeling good like I was before, and it seemed like that was wrong and I couldn’t quite do it, it was more like I managed to be in neutral.

But actually typing this out I see that this ebb and flow is essentially related to my daily activities. So perhaps it is just a case of looking at the particular triggers to that daily ebb and flow. Like for example there is a chunk between say 5pm and 7pm where I finished work and working out and I am just hanging about waiting for the evening BJJ class and there is some kind of boredom / emptyness, and I can see this is related to the fact that I enjoy progressing with things, and having things to do (you know this well :laughing:). But then I have attempted to look in those directions before but unsuccessfully so far, although I also take note of what it might take :

‘Vineeto’: I found that the interesting thing started when I got the answer ‘not happy’ or ‘no feeling’. I knew then I had something to look at. Upon closer look I always found a lurking feeling or fear disguised as ‘no feeling’ – the cunning entity inventing whatever trick to keep me from exposing it. It takes a lot of persistence, bloody-mindedness and ruthless honesty with oneself to dismantle one trick after the other. Sometimes I would sit days with that ‘no-feeling’ of numbness until I gathered courage and determination to examine it deeper. This process may take months until you are free of one particular emotion. But with the pure consciousness experience in mind you always have a comparison that keeps you going.

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Also to keep in line with this conversation would it be correct to say that Richard was able to apply the method in quite a remarkable way, in that he immediately entered an out from control virtual freedom and from what I understand he remained there consistently until the diversion into enlightenment.

Whereas for the majority of people it seems to take a route more similar to ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ in that there is this whole bit that Richard never even went through. Which is the progression from ‘normal’ and towards a pragmatic in control virtual freedom.

The bit that Richard skipped over (somehow :laughing:) is what ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ pioneered and it seems this is the bit that will be relevant for the majority of people - well certainly me.

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Hmm ok I see the bottom line of this is that I am not willing to change myself. This makes a lot of sense, why I would rather go on excursions, because then I get to remain intact as I am now and fool myself into an escape fantasy.

But to feel good each moment again for the rest of my life I have to change myself. Which is also why only returning to feeling good is insufficient. Am I understanding correctly?

In that me as I am now (if I was to remain like so) will forever experience those same ebbs and flows, I will remain in the 60/40 arrangement because this is what I am willing to allow.

So in order to move from the 60/40 arrangement to feeling good in all circumstances and at all times, I do have to change myself, in terms of ‘my’ beliefs, attitudes, habits, values, dreams, fantasies etc?

All of those things cannot remain as they are if I expect things to be different. Which is to say the Kuba who feels good for 23h 59m a day would be a vastly different person to the who that I am now.

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This is pretty interesting. Thinking about this in myself it seems like a sort of compartmentalization, where I compartmentalize my feeling bad away into certain times of day or certain settings. It does seem like it’s fundamentally about avoiding the need to change, if I can change the location/timing of my bad feelings, I don’t need to fundamentally change (that’s the trick I play on myself).

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Hi Vineeto,

A question if I could please :slightly_smiling_face: because this is the exact place where I have hit a wall in the past without any clear way how to proceed :

Basically looking at those ebbs and flows yesterday and today… it is a weird situation because I cannot find any particular beliefs, values, fantasies etc which are attached to the feelings, in fact I don’t think there are any. They seem to be purely habitual at this point.

Perhaps there were some beliefs around these feelings in the past but it seems that they have kind of become automated at this point, in that even in the absence of the belief the habitual feeling persists. So looking at the gloomy feelings yesterday evening there was a few which were connected to each other but they were not related to any beliefs or values. It was varying feelings of despair, panic and insecurity. They would be triggered periodically like a case of chronic back pain and would bounce from one to the other. But they have no rhyme of reason to them, there is the habitual feeling triggered by association and that is it.

So how does one go about tackling these kinds of habituated feeling patterns? They are quite sticky in that when they come they have this ability to compel and yet at the same time I can see they are over nothing substantial. It’s like ‘I’ am not done with ‘being’ that feeling yet although ‘I’ have no ‘good reason’ for it other than habit. I could trace them to an event or thought, but other than that there was nothing more in terms of any social identity aspects which were behind it, just habitual feelings. It’s like someone flinching at the sight of a stick if they have been hit with one enough times.

What it seems like to me, is that the best way to approach these is to continue to experience them fully without moving in either direction, and when I do this usually within some short time the feeling is indeed exposed as just a habituated affective pattern. Then some time down the line it repeats again, just by sheer force of habit, but it does seem like that habit is being chipped away at each time I experience the feeling fully, see it for what it is and get back to feeling good.

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Kuba: Also to keep in line with this conversation would it be correct to say that Richard was able to apply the method in quite a remarkable way, in that he immediately entered an out from control virtual freedom and from what I understand he remained there consistently until the diversion into enlightenment.

Hi Kuba,

Yes, Richard was able to get to an out-from-control virtual freedom very quickly, getting in touch with his buried-since-childhood naiveté by retaining the ‘holiday atmosphere’ after his three-weeks honeymoon holiday –

Richard: In 1981, as the new year dawned, I took the first step on what I would later choose to call the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition. I was a married man, then, with a wife and four children to support and their grandmother had offered to have all of her grandchildren stay with her in the city for a three-week holiday (which left my then wife and myself together, on our own, for the first time since the birth of the first child) (link). I grasped the opportunity with both hands to, not only regain the honeymoon intimacy of 1966, but to enable the actual intimacy experienced six months prior during the four-hour perfection experience which had indubitably evidenced that peace-on-earth was already always here. What I set about doing, consciously and with knowledge aforethought, was to deliberately imitate the actual—as so mirifically manifested in those experiences of pristine purity—each moment again.
I did everything I could to be as happy and harmless (as free of sorrow and malice) for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by first putting everything on a does-not-really-matter-in-the-long-run basis. That is, I would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but, if it did not turn out like that, it did not really matter for it was only a preference. I chose to no longer give other people—or the weather even—the power to have me annoyed, irritated, irked, or even peeved (link), if this was possible.
Then, as it was patently obvious in those experiences of pristine purity how this very moment of being alive is the only moment of ever actually being alive, I began to treat each moment again as precious. After all, it is not as if we have an unlimited amount of moments and—unlike a bank account which can be replenished—our supply of such moments is our most valuable (albeit dwindling) asset. In practical terms this meant being aware of how each precious moment was being experienced; if feeling good (felicity and innocuity) was the prevailing experience then this attentiveness ensured enjoyment and appreciation, of the sheer fact of being alive, each moment again; if feeling bad (unhappy and harmful) was the prevailing experience then whatever had displaced feeling good became readily apparent, upon such attention, with so much at stake. (Richard’s Personal Web-page)

As you can see, if you read carefully and further on, ‘his’ pure intent to imitate the actual was not only continuously active but also the willingness to make all the changes to ‘his’ attitudes, feelings and consequent behaviours, necessary to make the actual world apparent sooner rather than later.

This aspect significant is worth keeping in mind –

Richard: In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016).

According to Rick’s careful time-line analysis (link) the overshadowing “by the insistent emergence of love” already started in April 1981. Rick’s verifying tooltips: (link).

Kuba: Whereas for the majority of people it seems to take a route more similar to ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ in that there is this whole bit that Richard never even went through. Which is the progression from ‘normal’ and towards a pragmatic in control virtual freedom.

What Richard had to go through instead, “due to a marked lack of precedence”, was the pioneering task of extracting himself bit by bit from the institutionalised state of insanity known as spiritual/ mystical enlightenment. It took altogether 11 years. Here I have collected a history of this mammoth enterprise from Richard’s various reports (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Enlightenment Resumé).

The aftermath of Richard’s historical breakthrough to an actual freedom is collected here (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Severe Mental Agitation).

You can watch ‘Peter’s’ video on Virtual Freedom, recording as to what were ‘Peter’s’ own initial obstacles to being happy and harmless. (Video Index)

Kuba: The bit that Richard skipped over (somehow :laughing:) is what ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ pioneered and it seems this is the bit that will be relevant for the majority of people – well certainly me. (link)

The “somehow” (which you carelessly brush aside with a laughing face as if it was not worth sincere investigation) is explained in the paragraphs quoted above –

Richard: I did everything I could to be as happy and harmless (as free of sorrow and malice) for as much as is humanly possible.

What Peter and Vineeto did is not as relevant for you as you think – they were paving the way to become actually free via not following in Richard’s footsteps, avoiding enlightenment. The looming rock of enlightenment certainly had a great impact on ‘Vineeto’ as well as on ‘Peter’. Whereas you now have no excuse to dither since the Direct Route by-passing enlightenment (which Richard rightly called the “epoch changing opening in human consciousness”) has been made accessible and proved to be successful and easy.

The directors of The Actual Freedom Trust take great pleasure in making public knowledge of a direct route at the end of the wide and wondrous path (now both gentrified and rendered secure) to an actual freedom from the human condition – a down-to-earth manumission hitherto only available dangerously via spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment – which has been pioneered by Peter, on the 30th of December 2009, thus making him the first person to become actually free of the instinctual passions/ the identity formed thereof after Richard’s paradigm-shattering breakthrough in 1992.
The directors are also as equally pleased in making public knowledge of how Vineeto experientially confirmed the accessibility, safety and utter simplicity of this direct route, on the 4th of January 2010, thus making her the first woman to be actually free of the instinctual passions/ the identity formed thereof. (It is now readily apparent that, where the menfolk went, there too did a woman go … and sooner rather than eventually)!
As such, these two once-in-a-lifetime altruistic actions have ushered in a brand new era in human experience/ human history. (A Long-Awaited Announcement)

Perhaps you have not read it?

It is unfortunate that most of the next generation and the one after is apparently lacking the naïve enthusiasm and yearning for peace-on-earth, which inspired the first pioneers (you can read more here if you are interested: Richard, List D, Andrew, 28 Feb 2016, including tool-tips).

The person of Indian birth and upbringing mentioned below certainly took advantage of the newly opened Direct Route tout-de-suite and became free from the instinctual passions and the identity formed thereof without analysis what chances she might have compared to the way the other pioneers achieved an actual freedom. She just went ahead and did it –

Richard: For instance, a couple of months ago a person of Indian birth and upbringing flew into Coolangatta Airport late one night on a prearranged agreement to meet in person so as to talk about her life and to gain clarity in her life-style/ her livelihood situation.
Less than 24 hours after landing she was actually free of blind nature’s instinctual passions/the feeling-being formed thereof.
In other words, the person who landed at the airport (that feeling being who needed to gain clarity in her life-style/ her livelihood situation) vanished without a trace, in a matter of seconds, the following afternoon.
She is now living the ‘peace-on-earth’ actual freedom (as per the reports on The Actual Freedom Trust website) … (Richard, List D, No. 6, 19 Dec 2011)

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: What I do not see yet, is quite how to make away with those persistently entrenched themes still. And I am not sure if it is that they are actually difficult to remove or more because I simply cannot and will not contemplate a life of ongoing and consistent happiness and harmlessness. It’s like I have planted a flag in a 60/40 arrangement and the 23h 59m a day arrangement seems too much to consider. (link)

Kuba: Hmm ok I see the bottom line of this is that I am not willing to change myself. This makes a lot of sense, why I would rather go on excursions, because then I get to remain intact as I am now and fool myself into an escape fantasy. (link)

Hi Kuba,

As recent experience has shown that after a rash comment you tend to amend or even retract you instant reaction, so I’ll wait for a more considered response.

Here is what Richard wrote to a correspondent who had been persistently unwilling to change himself –

Respondent: You assert it will bring ‘an end to all ills’ – have you done an experiment: have you cleared up the problems outside your own doorstep?
Richard: Yes … by neither creating nor perpetuating ‘the problems’ there are no ‘the problems’ either inside or outside my own doorstep. Other than a handful of people, of course all the others still stubbornly insist on doing life the hard way … but that is their business. In actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is here on earth. One knows that one is living in a beneficent and benevolent universe – and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities, that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and benignity of one who lives in the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Human beings, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘tried and true’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious [stubbornly perverse; of a disease: resistant to treatment. (Oxford Dictionary).] as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live as revealed in their ancient and revered scriptures … or in their much-prized secular philosophies and psychologies.
So be it. (Richard, List C, No. 4b, #choice)

Cheers Vineeto

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Aha well I can tell you what it is now Vineeto, with a high degree of confidence.

It is that enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is not my number 1 priority, but there is more… The reason it is not my number 1 priority is because I would rather pay into the piggy bank of being a group member, a someone in relation to others.

The “in relation to others” being especially important as ‘I’ wish to claim a favourable place.

And those 2 goals are mutually exclusive, enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive and ‘earning my place’ within the group.

As such I have never put everything on a “it doesn’t ultimately matter” basis, one of the key things Richard did when first stepping onto the wide and wondrous path.

So yes this does already explain the different results for ‘Kuba’ and ‘Richard’.

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So seeing yesterday the outline of ‘me’ as a group member I was fascinated, what I could see is that ‘me’ as a group member is not a new invention at all, it is actually a very ancient part of ‘me’. It looked that it flows directly from the instinctual programming, as can be seen in some animals eg monkeys, but furthermore it was the predominant MO for the longest chunk of time that the human animal has been in existence, namely as hunter gatherer tribes. The story of ‘me’ as a group member is the story of ‘humanity’ itself.

I could see that all of ‘my’ boundaries and frames of reference have been all part of that game, of who ‘I’ am in relation to others, that ‘I’ have never known ‘myself’ as anything but a group member, which means that ‘my’ dreams, fantasies, insecurities, anxieties etc they are all part of that.

And it was specifically seeing the above that did something, it was like the horizon had opened up and I can see that there is in fact an alternative way of living now, outside of being a group member. This I am in particular happy about.

But looking now at my various obstacles, dramas, involvements etc I see them now in a different light, this seeing that they are all merely part of the drama of ‘me’ as a group member, it took the legs out from underneath them, they do not compel like they did before.

How I experience it since this morning is that the gateway to pure intent has been opened up, of course as it is something entirely new to human experience and ‘the old’ has to get out of the way in order to allow it. My experiencing is that of a pristine purity which is just at the fingertips, and something has changed in ‘me’ in that there is less in the way of it, there is like a tingling excitement at the experience of it and the fact that ‘I’ can now allow it, what a blast! :grin:

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Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
A question if I could please, because this is the exact place where I have hit a wall in the past without any clear way how to proceed:
Basically looking at those ebbs and flows yesterday and today… it is a weird situation because I cannot find any particular beliefs, values, fantasies etc which are attached to the feelings, in fact I don’t think there are any. They seem to be purely habitual at this point.
Perhaps there were some beliefs around these feelings in the past but it seems that they have kind of become automated at this point, in that even in the absence of the belief the habitual feeling persists. So looking at the gloomy feelings yesterday evening there was a few which were connected to each other but they were not related to any beliefs or values. It was varying feelings of despair, panic and insecurity. They would be triggered periodically like a case of chronic back pain and would bounce from one to the other. But they have no rhyme of reason to them, there is the habitual feeling triggered by association and that is it.

Hi Kuba,

I think you answered this in your next post – those feeling may well have to do with your new discovery that your “number 1 priority” is to have “a favourable place”, being “a someone in relation to others”. Therefore your “varying feelings of despair, panic and insecurity” are most likely be related to this newly revealed priority.

Kuba: So how does one go about tackling these kinds of habituated feeling patterns? They are quite sticky in that when they come they have this ability to compel and yet at the same time I can see they are over nothing substantial. It’s like ‘I’ am not done with ‘being’ that feeling yet although ‘I’ have no ‘good reason’ for it other than habit. I could trace them to an event or thought, but other than that there was nothing more in terms of any social identity aspects which were behind it, just habitual feelings. It’s like someone flinching at the sight of a stick if they have been hit with one enough times.
What it seems like to me, is that the best way to approach these is to continue to experience them fully without moving in either direction, and when I do this usually within some short time the feeling is indeed exposed as just a habituated affective pattern. Then some time down the line it repeats again, just by sheer force of habit, but it does seem like that habit is being chipped away at each time I experience the feeling fully, see it for what it is and get back to feeling good. (link)

Before you proceed to “tackling these kinds of habituated feeling patterns” you may have to first find out which direction you want to proceed given that in your next post you said that “those 2 goals are mutually exclusive”.

Kuba: Aha well I can tell you what it is now Vineeto, with a high degree of confidence.
It is that enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is not my number 1 priority, but there is more… The reason it is not my number 1 priority is because I would rather pay into the piggy bank of being a group member, a someone in relation to others.
The “in relation to others” being especially important as ‘I’ wish to claim a favourable place.
And those 2 goals are mutually exclusive, enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive and ‘earning my place’ within the group.

I appreciate your sincerity.

This is a significant discovery. You presently give priority to your “wish to claim a favourable place” to be “a someone in relation to others” as “especially important”. This is indeed contra to wanting to diminish ‘me’ via becoming increasingly happy and harmless. It looks like you will have to find out if this priority is of lasting importance by proceeding in the direction of your desire (“wish”) for “a favourable place” (perhaps the top?) in a particular group.

Kuba: As such I have never put everything on a “it doesn’t ultimately matter” basis, one of the key things Richard did when first stepping onto the wide and wondrous path.
So yes this does already explain the different results for ‘Kuba’ and ‘Richard’. (link)

Indeed it goes some way to explain the different results. Your discovery also explains your recent objections to leaving humanity, to exploring naiveté and exquisite intimacy, and to moving from conditionally feeling good to feeling good unconditionally. It could also explain those “*habituated feeling patterns” or “any particular beliefs, values, fantasies” concerning this desire (“wish”*) which you mentioned in the previous message. Your “high achiever”, as you called him, apparently wants to achieve something more in a previously unexplored arena.

Richard: Put succinctly: the actualism method will not work as advertised when treated as being a materialism method. (Richard, AF List, Rick-a, 6 Mar 2006).

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: Hmm ok I see the bottom line of this is that I am not willing to change myself. This makes a lot of sense, why I would rather go on excursions, because then I get to remain intact as I am now and fool myself into an escape fantasy.
But to feel good each moment again for the rest of my life I have to change myself. Which is also why only returning to feeling good is insufficient. Am I understanding correctly?
In that me as I am now (if I was to remain like so) will forever experience those same ebbs and flows, I will remain in the 60/40 arrangement because this is what I am willing to allow.
So in order to move from the 60/40 arrangement to feeling good in all circumstances and at all times, I do have to change myself, in terms of ‘my’ beliefs, attitudes, habits, values, dreams, fantasies etc?
All of those things cannot remain as they are if I expect things to be different. Which is to say the Kuba who feels good for 23h 59m a day would be a vastly different person to the who that I am now. (link)

Adam H: This is pretty interesting. Thinking about this in myself it seems like a sort of compartmentalization, where I compartmentalize my feeling bad away into certain times of day or certain settings. It does seem like it’s fundamentally about avoiding the need to change, if I can change the location/ timing of my bad feelings, I don’t need to fundamentally change (that’s the trick I play on myself). (link)

Hi Adam,

There is a term for this “compartmentalization” when it happens in a more extreme form – “the Cognitive Dissonance Theory”. Yet every feeling being is prone to it to some extent.

Richard (based on several web sources): The ‘cognitive dissonance theory’ suggests that when experiences or information contradicts existing knowledge, attitudes, beliefs or feelings, differing degrees of mental-emotional distress is the habitual result. The distressed personality is predisposed to alleviate this discord by reinterpreting (distorting) the offending information. Concurrent with this falsification, core beliefs tend to be vigorously defended by warping discernment and memory … such people are prone to misinterpret cues and ‘remember’ things to be as they wish they had happened instead of how they actually happened. They may be selective in what they recall, overestimating their apparent successes, while ignoring, downplaying, or explaining away their failures.
However it is more than merely a foolish head-in-the-sand psychological aberration, because the new, the fresh, the novel is oft-times met with determined resistance, disagreement, opposition and hostility. Indeed, the record of history shows many an occasion where someone who dared to question conventional beliefs was tortured, stoned, rent asunder, burnt at the stake, or otherwise horrifically put to death.
It is difficult to comprehend the extent and depth of the brutal ignorance and downright stupidity required of the great mass of people who, unable to grasp innovative things that were to their own advantage, fought to retain the existing mind-set which was inimical to their welfare. It is the strangest of incongruities in regards to human pertinacity that peoples will invent reasons and struggle to maintain a state of affairs that is detrimental to their own advancement … even those conditions which enslave them.
The scientific method has evolved, in a large part, to reduce the impact of this human penchant for jumping to such self-justifying yet erroneous conclusions. (Richard, Abditorium, Cognitive Dissonance)

Richard: … the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ would be better described as a ‘feeling-fed cognitive dissonance’ as it is not just a mental blockage which causes people to be unable to grasp innovative things that are to their own advantage and to fight so hard to retain the existing belief systems which are inimical to their welfare.
It is the strangest of incongruities in regards to human pertinacity that peoples will invent reasons and struggle to maintain a state of affairs that is detrimental to their own advancement … even those conditions which enslave them. (Richard, AF List, No. 30, 22 Oct 2003).

As such it is great when you discover one or several of your own “compartmentalization” and are able to make sense of what is going on. So, whenever you dare, you can look closer at a sticky aspect of why you are feeling bad and in what way you dare to change in order to resolve the issue. And when you take a step back and look at your problem from a broader perspective then you’ll find that nothing really matters in the long run.

Richard: ‘(…) the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so … it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/ carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed … nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all … nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously … sincerely, yes, but seriously?
No way … life is much too much fun to be serious! (Richard, AF List, No. 25g, 22 Dec 2004).

From ‘Vineeto’s’ own experience, it helped to know about ‘cognitive dissonance’ and the sometimes atavistic fear associated with certain changes, yet ‘she’ also discovered that the change was never as scary (let alone dangerous) as imagined once addressed. The sincere/ pure intent to become more happy and harmless provided the impetus to eventually move forward. And with every reason/ trigger for feeling bad which is resolved/ dissolved there comes a relief that this ‘threat’ for change and the feeling stuck/ feeling bad is no longer present, and life becomes more enjoyable with the additional opportunity to appreciate being alive.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

By all means it looks like this is no longer required (although time will tell), once that drama of being a group member was seen for what it is then the fantasy of claiming a favourable place was also exposed as a furphy. In fact it goes further, because what I always wanted was to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive and yet there was something that I couldn’t put my finger on which simply would not permit it, in that something else was apparently more important.

When I saw the whole charade it was akin to finding out that something else had been living my life all this time. ‘I’ lived as a group member with all that it entails only because ‘I’ never experienced that an alternative is available. Now that I have glimpsed the third alternative it is that pristine purity which is far more appealing than anything which being a group member could offer.

The enjoyment and appreciation possible when no longer shackled to the group identity is so free and delightful! I cannot tell you just how happy I am to have found this, now to actualise it :slightly_smiling_face:

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