Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
Vineeto: I suspect (and I could be wrong) there is a stumbling block that you seem to have never taken squarely into account – that there is just no way that the actual world is “adjacent” [“adjoining, neighbouring (on), next door to, close to, close by, bordering (on), beside and alongside”] to ‘me’, the imaginary but very passionate alien entity inside your flesh-and-blood body. Therefore there is simply no way that ‘I’/ ‘me’ can devise a strategy (“skilfully manoeuvring”) to enter the actual world whilst remaining ‘me’.
Vineeto: When you understand this basic fact, at the deepest core of you ‘being’, that the actual world, and therefore pure intent and all the wonderful experiences you had of the “mirificent flavour of pure intent”, is outside of ‘your’ domain then you won’t continue to fool yourself and end up “in a similar if not the same place to where I was when you began writing on the forum”.
Kuba: Whilst I consider the rest of your reply I do have a question. If the “mirificent flavour of pure intent” is outside of ‘my’ domain altogether then how is it that ‘I’ can experience it whilst naively enjoying and appreciating, is it that when the actual flavour is tasted ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance? Because that flavour is nothing like in the real world, it is actual. Is it that when ‘I’ am being naive the possibility of briefly going into abeyance is as if always imminent and it can appear as if ‘I’ am the one experiencing actuality?
I experience being naive as a state of near-PCE, as if I am flickering between 2 worlds. But I guess what I am getting at, is it that when that flicker does happen and for that brief and delicious micro second there is the “mirificent (and actual) flavour of pure intent” am ‘I’ then also in abeyance? In a PCE it is clear that ‘I’ am in abeyance but when in the state of near-PCE it is this constant flickering that makes it difficult to pinpoint if it was ‘me’ that tasted the actual or if ‘I’ was in abeyance.
Hi Kuba,
Thank you for your considered reply. It helps to clarify the nub of the issue.
When I look at the gist of those two paragraphs you explain why you have the impression that ‘I’ experience the actual world – which impression/ conclusion is what keeps ‘me’ firmly in existence. In other words, you interpret the experience from ‘your’ perspective. This view is what contaminates your intent because it appears to offer a comprise where ‘you’ can have it all, in other words you want to enjoy the experience of the “mirificent flavour of pure intent” but remain as ‘you’ are.
Kuba: I think this might be the unexamined misunderstanding which you are pointing to, that ‘I’ believe it was ‘me’ who tasted the actual and that ‘I’ can then re-arrange ‘myself’ to taste it again – which does not work.
Yes. When you have the experiences of “mirificent (and actual) flavour of pure intent” for “that brief and delicious micro second”, it is not enough to fully inform you of the nature of actuality and that the actual world is incompatible with ‘you’. Hence the intent to actualise, make permanent “that brief and delicious micro second” is not put into action. You have only asked me to categorize it, label it.
In comparison –
Richard: It was so blatantly obvious, when ‘I’ saw ‘myself’ for what ‘I’ was (a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning social identity), that thought and feeling had no part to play … because at the instant ‘I’ saw ‘myself’, an action that was not of ‘my’ doing occurred, and I was not that identity. It all happened of its own accord as a direct result of the ‘seeing’ … and I was this very material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. I was living in this fairy-tale-like actual world, that all carbon-based life-forms live in (and could be aware of if only they realised it), which has the quality of a magical perfection and purity; everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling … even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper … literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the actualness of everything and everyone – because we do not live in an inert universe. The infinitude that this very material universe is, is epitomised apperceptively as an immaculate consummation that has always been here, is always here and will always be here. Thus nothing is ‘going wrong’, has ever been ‘going wrong’ and will never be ‘going wrong’. This was what ‘I’ had been searching for – for 33 years – and the joke was that ‘I’ had not known that this is what ‘I’ had been searching for!
Thus, when I reverted back to normal in the ‘real world’, ‘I’ knew, with the solid and irrefutable certainty of direct experience, that ‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent … and ‘I’ had to go – become extinct – and not try to become something ‘better’. That is, ‘I’ just knew that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection. It was flagrantly evident that the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. Naturally, there was a lot of thinking and feeling about it all – and discussion with one’s peers who all said it was not possible twenty four hours a day – yet there was an awareness that predominated all the while that disregarded all this thinking and feeling and which simply and wordlessly said ‘THIS IS IT’ no matter what conclusions and decisions were reached.
When one has experienced the best … one cannot settle for second-best. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 11 Jul 1999).
I gain the impression, from how you write, that the moment ‘you’ enter the arena after these micro seconds ‘you’ are still very much in charge and willing to interpret the experience as ‘your’ achievement, hence no urgency to do whatever you can to imitate the actual as much as you can. For ‘you’ to take action, this clear understanding, this life-changing insight, that “‘I’ was standing in the way of the actual being apparent” needs to be experientially and unquestionably obvious. Realisations and “delicious micro second” experiences don’t seem to do the trick for you.
Kuba: I think the crux of what I am getting at is – is apperception only possible when ‘I’ am in abeyance, no matter how briefly? And ‘I’ only have a memory of the flavour, yet ‘I’ never taste it ‘myself’? In fact ‘I’ have never tasted the “mirificent flavour of pure intent” at all.
There are excellence experiences where ‘I’ am still present –
Richard: … the term ‘Excellence Experience’ comes from my third wife’s experience (who is meticulous in grading her experiences so as to not befool herself into thinking something is happening which is not actually the case) on Australia’s most easterly headland one bright and sunny morning where she initially described it to me, while it was happening, as being “not quite a PCE”.
Then, while gazing intently at a group of tourists on a lookout platform further below, she observed how it was such an excellent experience anyway, despite not quite being a PCE, it would henceforth be slotted into her then-scale of ‘good’, ‘very good’, ‘great’ and ‘perfect’. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 16 Nov 2009, tool-tip)
And to distinguish the difference of excellence experiences to a PCE –
Richard: The most outstanding distinction in the excellence experience is the marked absence of what I call the ‘magical’ element … in a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling … even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper … literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the actualness of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe.
Gary: In hindsight, the description of the PCE fits the bill, with the magical, fairy-tale like quality. The excellence experience may be more common to me lately that I hitherto thought. In the excellence experience, there is a commonness to it not found in the PCE.
Richard: Ahh … good, I am pleased to have feedback that shows this to be a facet of experiencing that more than just a few people have so far reported. It all helps to clarify and aided communication.
Gary: In the PCE, there is a clear sense that something of momentous importance is happening, at least it seemed that way for me.
Richard: Excellent … words conveying what ‘momentous importance’ conveys are words such as what I look for in a description, for it is no little thing what one does/ what we are doing. What is conveyed is what impelled ‘me’, all those years ago, into proceeding with the utmost dispatch so as to enable peace-on-earth sooner rather than later … so much so that when the going got rocky, from time to time, when ‘I’ put ‘my’ foot on the brake pedal in order to slow the process down the pedal went straight to the floor.
‘I’ was on the ride of a life-time.
Gary: The excellence experience, if not labelled such, might seem to be an experience of exceptional clarity and lucidity. With the PCE, words like bounteousness, bursting, pouring forth, vibrant, clear, alive, animate, come to mind.
Richard: The words ‘exceptional clarity and lucidity’ strikes me as being a very good description of the distinction when compared with ‘bounteousness, bursting, pouring forth’ and so on as I am swimming in largesse.
Gary: One of the things that was most striking about it was how uncommon everything appeared, how rich and variegated everything was.
Richard: Yes, I took particular note of your depiction of the stone in the gravel pit: sometimes peoples have looked at me in shock when I wax eloquent about actual intimacy with a stone, a brick, a glass ashtray, a polystyrene cup and so on, but I just tell them that I am officially mad and/or that I am a war veteran and they, presumably, go away content that all has been thus satisfactorily explained.
It is great that you are here for your input from all your posts is invaluable. (Richard, AF List, Gary, 15 Aug 2000).
Or this description from a correspondent, who had explicit PCEs, describing here what was happening for him at the time –
Respondent: I’ll try to give an accurate description of this, but it’s very difficult to convey the quality of it. If you have experienced this, you will probably recognise it at once; if not, I don’t think there is any way of conveying it.
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’. (This is not an intellectual realisation but a direct perception of the fact).
In many ways this is like a PCE. The mode of perception is strikingly similar to a PCE. But when I turn my attention to the writer of this message, something is different but I can’t put my finger on it. I’m not really sure whether ‘I’ am here at all, or whether ‘I’ am only a thought/ feeling that briefly intercedes between perceptions and assumes itself to be the agent of this body’s actions. This sounds awkward in words, but there is nothing at all awkward or confusing about what I’m experiencing.
I am not sure that I would call this a ‘self’-less experience because, although there is no affect (none that I recognise, none whatsoever), there is still a sense of agency that could be given the name ‘me’ for convenience. (Am I making any sense? Do you know what I’m talking about?).
Richard: Yes … you may find the following link useful in this regard: (Library, Topics, Excellence). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 60c, 22 May 2004).
Maybe you described something similar here –
Kuba: Right now I experience myself to be here where this moment is happening but there is certainly affect still happening, but it’s like there is only pure affect and then there is actuality all around. (10 Jul 2025)
Kuba: This does appear to be so, that moment when apperceptiveness is taking place it is not ‘me’ tasting the actual, there is the experience of actuality itself, when ‘I’ shortly return ‘I’ have a recent memory that the actual world exists. In the near-PCE state of naiveté this happens at a frequent rate, the actual world seems to be not far at all and yet for ‘me’ it is actually inaccessible, as it always is.
Of course, the actual world is not far away, it is right under your nose.
It also could be that it is not quite apperceptiveness, or apperception, taking place but something similar in quality but missing the magical out-of-this-world element of the PCE. I am not suggesting you never experienced PCEs but perhaps not paying meticulous attention to the difference in quality between a PCE and experiences that were akin to a PCE but not quite. This lack of scrupulousness may have made it easier for ‘me’ to step in and claim them all as ‘my’ experiences, even as something ‘I’ created not something that ‘I’ have to step out of the way in order to experience it.
Richard: Apperception, as I said, is the mind’s perception of itself – it is a bare awareness. Normally the mind perceives through the senses and sorts the data received according to its predilection; but the mind itself remains unperceived … it is taken to be unknowable. Apperception happens when the ‘who’ inside abdicates its throne and a pure awareness occurs. The PCE is as if one has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear. This is knowing by direct experience, unmediated by any ‘who’ whatsoever. One is able to see that the ‘who’ of one has been standing in the way of the perfection and purity that is the essential nature of this moment of being here becoming apparent. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List A, No. 15, No. 07).
Richard: Apperception is the clear and direct experiencing of being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time – sans identity and its feeling-fed realities – and it is a wordless appreciation of being alive and awake on this verdant and azure planet. Apperception is where one is living in the already always existing peace-on-earth and is where one is blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing: doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus on top of the never-ending perfection of the infinitude which this material universe is. Apperception is where one is the universe being stunningly aware of its own infinitude. (Richard, AF List, No. 19a, 1 Sep 2001).
Only you can figure this out.
As you said less than two weeks ago …
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)
… perhaps this is something you might contemplate doing?
Richard: I did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ 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 – the power to make ‘me’ angry … or even irritated … or even peeved. (Richard, List B, No. 12a, 16 Jul 1998).
Kuba: However via ‘being’ naiveté ‘I’ am inviting apperceptiveness to happen over and over, and each time ‘I’ am bleeping out for the duration of the apperceptive seeing, even if it is just a flash, and another flash etc.
This last paragraph explains quite well how it plays out experientially for me. (link)
Remember, you have some experience now with trying to do ‘shortcuts’ which revealed to be rather diversions, avoidance and delays –
Respondent: I have (big) issues to sort out first before I will be able to make the leap.
Richard: As there is no ‘leap’ – an actual freedom is not a spiritual freedom – it would indeed appear so.
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. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 54, 27 Nov 2003).
Richard described the range of naïveness this way –
Richard: A rather quaint clay-pit tale which nonetheless depicts the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself⁽⁰¹⁾ to an actual innocence. (A Quaint Clay-Pit Tale, last tooltip).
Why do you want “‘being’ naiveté” before comfortably and reliably “being sincere to becoming naïve”?
Cheers Vineeto
) that I would finally genuinely like to do those things, to simply enjoy and appreciate being here with all that it entails. It was a very freeing experience, I was finally free to enjoy and appreciate, without having to achieve. This had obviously left an impression on me which I still remember all these years later.
And you have also explained what can be done :
, well there is 1 bit of your response which caught my attention though :