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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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??
@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.
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? :
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.
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?
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.
Oh another interesting thing about pain is that the threshold for its activation can shift. Over lockdown I built a tyre punchbag in my garden which I would kick with bare shins.
Over time the same amount of pressure that would activate the pain response previously would be within ‘normal’ range of tactile sensation.
So pain is a predictor of possible damage, and these predictions can also shift.
As in, consider you become conscious, not knowing where you are, and are experiencing pain. It makes sense, without thinking about it any further, to do something to stop the pain, as a first step. Because pain has evolved to be the body’s mechanism of signaling something is potentially or actively harmful.
Right, this is no longer “a priori”, but a specific situation. Here you’re using pain in a sensible way.
I obviously don’t mean always avoid pain like the plague. Just that, without any more info, in general, pain indicates to stop doing that thing – or to start being careful about what you’re doing, etc.
Actually I’m not sure if I agree with this one haha! I think the sensible thing would be to investigate what the pain itself is signalling. I tore my knee recently and when I wake up in the morning and notice pain I don’t seek to get rid of it, I experience it as part of the healing process, it lets me know what condition the knee is in currently.
For creatures that cannot think and reflect upon their situation pain would be a on/off kind of signal, a blind response. Whereas for a human being pain becomes a piece of information, it’s like the body screaming at me “look over here”.
Another amazing perfect long (rainy) day. Got called by some family friends to do a BBQ for a few families. Spend first half of day doing that. Then went to see uncle who was emptying a rental property that needed to be emptied since my grandmother who lived there passed away two months ago.
I feel so warm and cosy and my eyelids are closing. I have had Claudiu’s response and everyone else’s responses in mind most of the day. So here we go:
I am definitely not in an ASC. I’ve been in them and remember the aching sensation of Love the endless flows of tears for humanity’s suffering. There is only joy here. Pure enjoyment, sensual delight and a constant awareness. There is no effort, striving, trying. none of that.
Tricky for who? I don’t think I have uttered the sentence ‘I think I am newly free’. There are thoughts (and there has been the thought that I am newly free) with a total absence of emotion and I have been typing them out here out for my fellow human beings here interested in becoming free from the human condition. If I am indeed free you should not be following in my footsteps at all. You should be focusing on none other than enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. That will look very different for each feeling being and it will also look very different once free. If I’m not then it is each and every one of your responsibility to do with what I say as you please. Not mine. And if anyone has an issue with this and has a way to wield their power in this forum to suppress me then I will gladly step aside. So gladly.
This forum is not the AFT! I understand the need for that to be of top notch linguistic/editing standard even though most would say it’s a shitty looking site (I actually happen to like it). I would also like to add that I am not dumb. I did an IQ test in my early 20s and got 132. Now I know that isn’t near Marilyn Vos Savant’s 228 but it ain’t anything to sniff at. But I’ve always been quirky, eccentric, off centre etc. these qualities haven’t seemed to change (apologies Claudiu). I’ve always had an affinity for the Joe Pesci in my cousin Vinny type intelligence applied. Spock ain’t my cuppa tea even though I can totally appreciate such a character. I wouldn’t be here without the AFT and it’s high, high, high standards.
I can’t sense any ‘myself’ that can follow your recommendation to be highly discerning etc.
Safe for who? Have you seen what is happening in Gaza?
I’m not out to convince anyone. I thought people here would be interested in what I can share. I am not in an ASC. There is not a trace of ‘me’ anywhere. I spend every day trying to find ‘him’. I remember what he hates and I track it down and nada!!
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I am just sharing notes, answering questions. It is impossible to be insincere. I am just writing here in what is now my journal. It is a journal now.
Didn’t I tell you not to apologise in my last post? Who is taking anything personal? Please paste a quote where I am taking something personally (since the event). This is the initial period of evaluation! Initial not because I am following a rule but because it has been 7 days since the defining moment. I have not been actually free since 1992. I have been alive since 1991 though lol.
Understood. Good. But don’t forget you have your PCEs to evaluate them by. Please do constantly highlight things that you think (your thought is still emotionally backed) may be indicative of not having succeeded at what I think I have.
You’re not by any chance on the spectrum are you? I only ask because this banging on about an attempt at humour (which was well received/understood by some at least) reminds me of some interactions I’ve had with a cousin on the spectrum and many with my father who we have always suspected is (but has never been diagnosed).
Very scholarly. I don’t blame you. I was where you are, trying to suss it all out by hyperfocusing on such details. Luckily I got sick of it and instead focused on enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, knowing that I could be dead any second, I preferred to go for a walk, tickle my kids, dance some cumbia villera in the kitchen while making my favourite pasta fagioli for dinner, going op shopping, going to the backyard to see if I can break my soccer ball juggling record (433), watching movies with my wife after a long ass day etc. etc.
Here it is! Here it bloody is! Now I can make myself clear to you once and for all. My mood is not super elevated. There is an ever greater stillness. I can describe ‘my mood’ like an office or workshop that has had lights and machinery beeping, whirring, buzzing, clanking all day long with people walking up and down, making this noise and that, then suddenly everyone leaves and the machines are switched off and hushhhhh there is this subtle, gentle, warmmmmm hummmmmmm. It is effin’ delicious man! People don’t give a crap about me anywhere I go! No one approaches me and I neither ‘love it’ nor ‘resent it’. I can approach people if I’m curious about them with no problems however, and they respond from extremely enthusiastically to very uninterested which makes me gently chuckle.
My actual caring is me taking a lot of time each day to communicate this all to you in the only way I currently know how. Perhaps I will improve with time. Give me a chance brother. I mean I don’t really care if you don’t. OH NO I mean I do but it’s okay if you don’t give me a chance. brain explodes
I also highly recommend against continuing to stare at the sun. I don’t. But I can if I want to. Don’t need the flap thing on my windscreen when driving. I’d literally have to wear sunnies to attract sexy babes but don’t because I have no libido (yep incapable of getting a boner if it isn’t being touched/rubs on something).
I’d give you a hug if we were physically near each other.
abort 
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? 
