I was wondering the same thing. What my suspicion is, is that for feeling beings preferences get inevitably mixed in with emotion. Therefore it’s very difficult to see that things are perfect even when there is pain etc. Without the emotion though there is no ‘weight’ to things not going to preference.
Another thought, and pardon my scrutiny but you know it’s coming 
So Richard and Vineeto always take great care to format things correctly. All my emails with Vineeto are very helpfully color-coded, distinguishing quotes from her words from my words etc.
I’ve noted from edit histories that Geoffrey for example types a post then makes edits after to correct spelling or rephrase etc
This is in contrast to your reply here where, though I understood you were trying to quote me, there wasn’t much effort put into formatting the message.
I’m curious about it as you wrote you “don’t care” how it’s formatted - but isn’t it sensible to format it properly? The ”not caring” here seems to be an actual lack of caring (as in consideration) as opposed to an actually free person’s lack of worry anxiety or concern yet constant and unstoppable actual caring and consideration
Cheers
Claudiu
But @claudiu isn’t this dilemma possible only because you have placed the ease of communication as the ultimate?
What if the goal/target of the actual caring is different in this case? Perhaps something along the lines of - inviting others to actually see that life is not a serious business after all?
This is how I experienced that post, it actually made me giggle a little and it got me feeling good. Isn’t that exactly what actual caring, cares about?
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I remember in the zoom chat Geoffrey commits a comparable sin of ‘not caring’ when he says - “I am actually quite poor and I don’t give a shit”, then shorty after “I am saying this specifically so that you can see this belief in yourself”.
I could try building off that initial statement into something like - “but shouldn’t you care as an actually free person that you and your family have the means to live comfortably” or something along those lines.
But that would be to insert seriousness back into the situation, then before ‘I’ know it ‘I’ am fighting tooth and nail to survive again.
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That’s a bit different though. He’s saying he is unconcerned about his financial situation, as in not caring in the worry/stress sense. And it was in particular response to someone who was worried about it. There was no aspect of consideration brought into the convo at that point. And it’s a much more complex topic.
But here it’s a rather simple thing. It certainly doesn’t make sense to worry or stress about formatting it right, but it also seems to be additionally not caring as in lack of consideration for anyone reading it. And particularly contrasting to the actually free people we know about who all take great care in how they put their words cross.
Basically it seems like a case of not being bothered by something genuinely resulting in a lack of consideration, whereas with actual caring and being in PCEs and even EEs etc., there’s a concomitant lack of being bothered by things but together with that is a far greater and effortless consideration put into everything.
Hence worthy of a question! 
Thanks so much for following up on this for us, Claudiu, and thanks to Vineeto for the clarification. I now understand it. There were two separate events. The first was the abdication of the guardian, during which the centre of reference was still extant. Then, a week later, there was the brain-scattering event, which resulted in the loss of the centre of reference and permanent apperceptive awareness of the infinitude of the universe as infinite space, eternal time, and perpetual matter. I’m so appreciative of the fact that my rushed skim-reading of that page led me to ask the initial question of this thread leading to all that has followed. I think I grasp what’s happening now. I believe that after the event of becoming actually free, the mind has a lot of reconfiguring and updating to do. I responded to Henry’s question about locating a center, and I answered no, which was the case at the time of writing those words. Only now do I realise that it was not permanent yet. There is a fluctuation between apperceptive awareness of infinitude (less frequent and unmistakable) and moments of apperceptive awareness dominated by thought (more frequent), which has been so muddied, battered, bruised, and abused by the utter impurity of the affective faculty. There is a process unfolding, where thought is becoming purified by none other than pure intent (the manifest life-force, which is genuinely occurring as a stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe). It is as if I am being held by the hand by pure intent and being taken on a guided tour of the actual world as a newcomer.
This is why isolation is anathema to an actual freedom. I’m diving into any and every situation I can to see away the boundary-creating centre of consciousness. Not because it is the right thing to do but because I cannot not do it! It is heart thumpingly thrilling to confront situation after situation that would have previously triggered emotions, see that it no longer does, and then see it (a particular boundary) dissolve.
The degree of clarity (the baseline is super crystal clear!) fluctuates and I will update as it further improves but It is 1.15am here and I’ve been awake since 3.50am so that’s all I’ve got for now haha.
Besos
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Please don’t apologise! And no I had no clue it was coming to be totally honest 
- Richard and Vineeto are Richard and Vineeto
- Have you not noticed how many edits I’ve made to my various posts (which, mind you, are initially being written in a hyper excited fashion)??
- There was HEAPS of effort put into that message. It was full of innocent excitement. And the quote thing was intentional, it is my shtick! Those who know me have always known me to be a comedian.
The ‘don’t care’ was tongue in cheek. I am incapable of not caring.
That is why I am trying to respond to what everyone is asking/saying as much as I can given my duties (and then some).
If this is going to happen every time I joke around then it will be sensible to in future make sure it doesn’t happen again so I don’t have to explain myself. But just because it is inconvenient to have to, not for anything further.
Cheers to you too amigo!
But I super care about the people reading what I write. I intentionally do things like that to get a chuckle out of you. Next time it might not be quotes it might be something else. So is great care (I still find this funny because I have reflected on this and considering all things do take great care) in how words are put across a criterion now? Isn’t it a good thing if more people with different backgrounds and different ways of communicating become actually free?
I’ll bid 5k$ for the rehash. Jokes jokes (about the 5k) not the rehash , please post it …
Well it is that everything is ultimately perfect but it is not possible to do everything. So I end up doing certain things. The certain things I tend to do (I am increasingly open to whatever) are based on what I have always done. This is subject to change of course as I age, change location, etc.
The only reason it would be sensible to avoid pain is if there is a track record of/it is discernible that the said pain would result in death or negatively impacting the body’s ability to continue functioning in the most optimal manner possible.
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This is interesting because earlier on I was doing some BJJ sparring and got caught in a pretty tight choke, eventually I escaped but there was certainly pain and pressure, those were there to bring awareness to the fact that damage could potentially happen, but there was no issue with the pain itself, certainly no suffering, the pain is just part of this game that I enjoy playing, one of the sensations that this body produces.
So there’s a couple of things.
At a high level there’s really only 3 possibilities here:
- You are newly free Milito - congrats!
- You are out-from-control ‘Milito’ or ongoing-excellence-experience ‘Milito’ - it’s great except being mistaken about the nature of your experience will be problematic
- You’re in an ASC -
abort turn around
The situation is potentially tricky. You certainly do think you’re newly free. If you are, then it’s great, we should all follow in your footsteps, take advantage of the exciting momentum, etc. If you’re not, then it’s extremely ill-advised to be following your lead now as it could be taking us into a similarly pernicious ASC!
So the stakes are potentially high. It definitely behooves all of us, including yourself, to be highly discerning and have high standards and precision in this regard!
Safest thing to do is wait it out and see what happens. But that is possibly the least fun. The potentially worst outcome is to blindly follow 
In terms of convincing anyone of anything – nearly impossible. Any particular thing anyone points out can be set aside with, well it’s idiosyncratic, actually free people aren’t all clones, why are you not partaking in all the fun of it? etc. And if you’re newly free, that is all valid. But if you’re in an ASC, then it’s highly invalid.
So I don’t think it makes sense to try to convince anyone of anything. Rather we can just continue talking about it, suss things out, see what the case may be, etc. Sincerity on all sides will be paramount!
Some level of caution is not unwarranted. Nothing personal of course! But there have been people in the past convinced they were actually free when they weren’t - Trent, Tarin, Grant, Alan for a brief period, me as well for a day or two(!) . In all cases it was pernicious to follow them (/me) to wherever they were(/I was) going. Alan particularly comes to mind because his ‘presence’ had a sort of contagious, excitable quality that sucked some people in (me as well for a time) before it became clear he wasn’t actually free. He definitely leaned on the “come on have a great time with me” type of vibe/current to get ‘his’ way. It turned out he was having somewhat of a manic episode, though, and I remember one particularly disturbing google chat I had with him when I felt the full brunt intensity of his manic psychic currents coming my way. All I could do was politely be non-committal in my responses, hoping he stops interacting with me and that I don’t trigger off some insane reaction from him.
It may also be difficult or impossible to be critical about this topic without coming across as a spoilsport. I’ll just say that the perception of being a spoilsport means there’s some “sport” to be spoiled that is not withstanding of criticism, which is a bit of a red flag. And also it is of course better for all including yourself, if there is anything suspect, to find out sooner rather than later! And if you are indeed newly free then really no harm no foul. An initial period of evaluation certainly seems warranted. Again nothing personal!
So with all that in mind:
Ok
Indeed. It’s not about like you have to act exactly like them to be considered free. That would be silly. But for an extreme example, if you were to start beating your wife or proclaimed yourself to be Jesus reincarnated, it would be clear you are not actually free at that point . Nothing egregious of the sort stands out, it’s just to make the point that all we have to go on is what you write and do and certain things you describe may be indicative of not having succeeded at what you think you have.
I actually hadn’t, the edits was just an example of what I noticed Geoffrey doing. But now that I took a look at your edits I found it even stranger - you edited in the “and I don’t care hahaha” later, but still didn’t fix the blockquote? Geoffrey’s edits were to make his post clearer, not to extoll his not-caring about how his post was written.
Well that stands out a bit to me as tilting the balance more towards ‘mania’ a la Alan, than freedom per se. Srinath did report being excited shortly after his freedom: “That night I was so excited I found it hard to sleep. I was just walking around in the dark experiencing this night-time wonderland completely unencumbered.” (Man from Sydney - Report of Becoming Free). But it was immediately after, and, nothing in any of his posts came off in any sort of “hyper excited” manner.
I remember myself feeling like I had gone towards out from control one day many years ago, my mood was super elevated, I was having a ball, and this had a noticeable effect on people around me, they smiled, engaged in convo w/ me readily, etc. But there was something not quite right about it, eventually it faded and I saw it was more in the towards “mania” aspect of experiences rather than towards actuality. In an excellence experience, by contrast, everything is sublime and near-perfect in a “exactly where it is”, sweet sort of way, which leads to remarkably intimate conversations, but there’s no giddy or “pushing-outwards” sort of ‘edge’ to it which there was in my experience. It can be difficult to tell between the ‘good’ feelings and the felicitous ones at times!
I can foresee a criticism already that I’m trying to dictate how free people “should” behave or what not. To anyone saying or thinking this, I direct you to what I already wrote above.
Well I don’t really get the joke. But it’s probably not worth explaining it to me
I would think great care in how words are put across would be automatic, just like great care in anything else! What would be preventing that from happening?
I have experienced pain anhedonically (in a PCE) and it’s really a different beast altogether. There isn’t that instinctual aversiona way from it, which is maybe what you’re describing here. That being said I would say it’s sensible a priori to avoid pain still, because pain is the body’s highly-evolved mechanism indicating something is wrong.
I highly recommend against continuing to stare at the sun
That’s all for now, curious to hear your thoughts!
Cheers,
Claudiu
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If Milito was making substantially different claims about what actual freedom is like and how it can be achieved, or if he was trying to organise events around himself to create a transmission effect, I would understand your caution about being misled or sucked into a group hysteria scenario. But none of that seems to be happening here, so I don’t really get what the risk is. If Milito has come out prematurely and still has work to do, he’ll find out and let us know, but would that change anything for anyone else? Aren’t we all in the same position we’re always in?
Claudiu:
I would think great care in how words are put across would be automatic, just like great care in anything else! What would be preventing that from happening?
Is it not happening though?
Milito:
As I lay down in bed at night after this perfect day (gosh I didn’t even mention how all the guests were opening up about themselves and making some wonderful insights about themselves and the human condition as a result), a possible response to Claudiu’s last journal post was swirling around in my head. I had a whole response typed out about these three ‘exercises’ I would do to establish what I now can call a stronger connection to pure intent but then the thought came up that, ‘nah don’t hit reply. This is a cringe rehash of what is already available on the AFT site’. So I discarded it and hit the pillow.
I took Milito’s disregard for the blockquote glitch as nothing more than a shameless prioritising of content over format after putting a lot of care and thought into what he would say to you, and it was a great post. Maybe the best Good Friday ever
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It’s the same as anything else, it ‘matters’ (if Milito is mistaken he could potentially lead people astray, thus delaying their freedom) and ‘doesn’t matter’ (one day the sun will expand exponentially, engulfing the earth).
Richard was enlightened in a world that mostly knew ‘normal’ with the only alternative being ‘enlightened,’ and he still found his way. I’m interested to see what shakes out, but it ultimately changes nothing - the goal and the standard remains the same.
Related to all this is Richard’s assertion some years back that he would not act as arbiter of who is free and who is not. We can do what we can to ascertain, but our ability is limited.
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Hmm… in an extreme scenario of a forum-goer having gone manic and exhorting all other forum-goers to follow them into their mania, masquerading as actual freedom, you think it would not change anything for anyone to know that said forum-goer is experiencing mania and not actual freedom?
That was in response to Milito asking whether “great care […] in how words are put across” is “a criterion now” for actual freedom. And my answer is that I would think it’s automatic.
I found it odd he’d take the time to edit and insert “and I don’t care hahaha” about the formatting into his post rather than fix the formatting! And I find the joke odd because the joke would be that he actually does care, but he’s just writing jokingly that he doesn’t, yet he is taking the time to make that joke rather than put the time and consideration into fixing the formatting, making it seem like indeed he doesn’t care!
But I don’t want to harp on any specific thing because the point will be lost in the details. Any one thing can be said to be idiosyncratic, a joke, etc.
I’ll just point out that sleeping far less and having abnormally larger amounts of energy are generally associated not with actual freedom but with something else.
Hmm… I took another look at it and what stands out is that, although it was purportedly prompted by an aspirant’s report of finding their way to actual freedom, after (poorly) quoting said report, the claimant’s entire post is entirely about what the claimant did the day before, what they were thinking, what they were (not) feeling, written in an excited and joke-y manner, extolling the wonders of the day the claimant had, followed by more words about the claimant’s state of mind, how the claimant thought about answering the question but then decided not do, more about what the claimant was experiencing when they decided not to, ending on the claimant needing sleep, the claimant then waking up and writing the post they did.
Meanwhile nothing about what the aspirant reported was actually talked about, instead there’s many words spent on describing why the claimant did not say anything relevant about it, but what they were considering they might have said.
Finally it ends by the claimant telling the aspirant they hope what they wrote was helpful – even though nothing relevant about the aspirant’s report was actually said!
Stepping back and looking at the broader picture of the post - which I hadn’t done before this - the claimant’s post does appear to be rather ‘self’-centric, doesn’t it??
Cheers,
Claudiu
@claudiu Hmm… in an extreme scenario of a forum-goer having gone manic and exhorting all other forum-goers to follow them into their mania, masquerading as actual freedom, you think it would not change anything for anyone to know that said forum-goer is experiencing mania and not actual freedom?
Hmmm, you might find this response a little odd, and I’m still thinking it over myself, but what I come up with is, if that forum-goer was exhorting people to follow them into their state by urging them to emulate some sort of behaviour or attitude that’s specific to mania on the basis that it’s actual freedom when in fact it’s mania, it would make a difference to know that.
I suppose the way I think about it is, nobody should be following anyone anywhere on the basis of trust, even if it IS actual freedom. Whoever’s saying something, and whatever they’re saying, the only safe and sensible thing to do is take it on its merits as best we can, by evaluating what’s actually said and whether it concurs with experience and holds up in real life. That bypasses the question of authority and trust, regardless of whether a person is recognised as actually free or not. (Because that can change too).
@claudiu Stepping back and looking at the broader picture of the post - which I hadn’t done before this - the claimant’s post does appear to be rather ‘self’-centric, doesn’t it??
I see your point that the final outcome didn’t offer you much in the way of a direct response to your issue, but when someone at the end of a long day lays awake thinking about what’s on your mind, gets up and writes a response to it, then decides it isn’t helpful enough, it doesn’t strike me as a lack of care. I don’t want to argue the point though. (Not that I think you do )
Yeah, I’m done, I can’t come up with anything better than what I’ve highlighted further above.
Cheers yourself 
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Can it really be said that something is sensible a priori? Since a priori is referring specifically to knowledge independent of experience. Are you not sneaking in an absolute here @claudiu? :
Also you wrote :
I did have a look as I found this interesting :
Nociceptors are sensory fibers that respond to stimuli that are potentially damaging to the organism . In practice this can mean a variety of stimuli, ranging from intense pressure, extremes of temperature, to inflammation.
Is it that pain should be sensibly avoided or damage? See for me pain is not the thing to be avoided but rather a form of information the body is generating. Pain lets me know if my arm is going to snap now or if I have a little bit more pressure to go when caught in a submission. When I did parkour pain would let me know that I did that landing on the wrong part of my foot and that if I keep going I will cause damage, this damage would prevent me from doing more parkour so it was sensible to alter my actions. All in all there was no a priori decision to avoid pain, in sports pain is actually a super useful tool.
At times I would purposefully go into an extreme where pain would be incrementally present in order to determine the boundaries of an action. For example in parkour I would jump off 3 metres and notice no pain, that was 1 form of information (a green light), then I would jump off 4 metres and feel some pain (amber light), I would look at that 5 metre drop now and decide I’m not ready for it yet. I was looking for information that the body produces, pain is one of those.
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Actually this is quite wonderful to contemplate, isn’t pain just another feature of a benevolent universe? I mean it gets so much shit but look at what it does! Normal life would be impossible without this super precious ability to experience pain.
And also pain does not mean suffering, like even eating spicy food can be fun and that triggers pain receptors or getting spanked if one is into that haha.
I’ve got a suggestion, pain gets so much shit because for ‘me’ it is inevitably associated with death. What is pain when death is no longer an issue?
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Exactly, or a deep tissue massage (never had one but heard descriptions that can be classified as pain). Let’s not forget that pain, when not used in the emotional sense, is a word describing unsolicited intense sensation. The parkour, my shin at soccer (these two to an extent), chilli, deep tissue massage, these are solicited. They are socially/culturally tried and tested (to not cause damage) sources of solicited/desired intense sensation.
Pain is not pain as such. It is one end of the spectrum of tactile sensation. I dunno maybe I’m deviating from actualist dogma again. Don’t want to get bogged down in any language games. I’ve tried to make a point as best I could.
Yes this is exactly what I got from reading about nociceptors, they detect extremes of pressure, temperature etc and relay this information to the brain via the formation of pain stimulus.
Whereas ‘pain’ as it is experienced in reality is this whole affective beast in it’s own right.
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