It seems that for me, The reason for resentment to be here is that I am expected to be in a certain way, I’m expected to disregard the way I want to be, I’m not free and thus I rebel.
In short it’s a resentment of the oppression that the social identity imposes upon me.
What’s your experience? Do you detect a more fundamental resentment, something inherent to being itself?
Mmm… This is kind of confusing, because the social identitiy is part of me…
Yes… I detect a more fundamental resentment, as described in these fragments:
Richard:
Even sitting at a caff by myself, with snippets of nearby conversations drifting by from time-to-time, it is remarkable how much of the content of social chit-chat is, as you say, gripe, grievance, complaint, and resentment … and the last-named is the key to it all (the basic resentment of being alive in the first place).
Until one wakes up to implications and ramifications of the factuality of already being here on this planet earth anyway, whether one wants to be or not (‘I didn’t ask to be born’), one is fated to forever seek consolation and commiseration in the arms (both metaphorically and literally) of another similarly afflicted. Yet the simple fact is that, despite the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ rhetoric, one does want to be alive (else one would have committed suicide long ago) and all that it takes is to fully acknowledge this and thus unequivocally say !YES! to being here now as this flesh and blood body … and this affirmation is an unconditional agreement/approval of life itself as-it-is.
I did not ask to be born either (truisms can be so trite) … but I am ever-so-glad that I was.
Selected Correspondence: People
also
[…] What is at the bottom of all this disapproving business is a basic resentment at having to be here in the first place (as in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ for example) and that fundamental grievance gets taken out on the universe at large.
[…] that basic resentment is what hampers sincere investigation and hinders genuine progress …the source of sorrow itself, and thus depression and all the rest, is not being what one actually is.
[…] Sorrow is not the result of malice … it is because ‘you’ are – by ‘your’ very nature – forever cut-off from the magnificence of being here now at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. That is, ‘you’ cannot know the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of this very material universe. This is called, in the jargon, separation.
[…] Remembering the pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) I had experienced was vitally important for success because they showed me, first hand, that an actual freedom from the human condition is already always just here … right now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind that basic resentment went, of course, never to return again.
Selected Correspondence: Sorrow
and
Vineeto: […] Within the human condition there is a basic resentment of not wanting to be here, wanting to be somewhere else, waiting for something else to happen than what is happening now, as a basic attitude to life, which is then reinforced by the various religious and spiritual conditioning that life on earth is essentially suffering and that the real life will only happen for the spirit after you die.
This resentment to being here, as this body, in the world-as-it-is with people-as-they-are, was what was responsible for my dull feelings, no-feelings, my listlessness, my boredom, my waiting for something else to happen, in short, it had permeated almost all experience of life in that it had cast a dulling shade over everything I experienced.
The way to deal with resentment in the actualism method is the same way you deal with all other feelings that interfere with you being happy and harmless – when paying attention to how you experience this moment of being alive, you notice it, then label it which helps you realise that it would be silly to carry on with it when you can instead enjoy being alive. With a steady increase in attentiveness the shift of resenting being here to appreciating being here becomes progressively easier until you finally kick the insidious habit of resentment altogether and delight in being alive for the simple reason that you are alive.
Vineeto SC Affective Feelings Emotions and Passions 4
Great summary Miguel
Vineeto sums it up fantastically.
Yes, I got to that conondrum myself, after posting.
The crux of the issue is that I feel the social identity is not as deep, there’s a deeper part of me. I’d say that as hard as it can be for me now, feeling good feels natural when I do feel good, it feels like a default state that was somehow usurped by repetition of circumstances. Being felicitous feels like a return to the natural order of things.
When in an EE, resentment far away, does it seem like a basic feature of being? It doesn’t to me.
The resentment is for not being able to experience purity. And it seems to me that I can’t “go there” because I’m not allowed to(I have to be all the things that I am as identity), because why wouldn’t I otherwise 
.
Of course being in any way is different than not being. But being very close to purity lacks resentment and feels natural, so I find it hard to call this resentment fundamental to being.
@proporcrutch It might be useful to contemplate why in an EE the resentment is no longer there. My experience is that in an EE ‘I’ am becoming more and more ‘washed out’, which means purity can shine through more and more. It seems that it is the experience of purity in various degrees which decreases/eliminates resentment. When being is in full force it locks itself away from this purity and then resentment is rampant. So it does seem like resentment is fundamental to being. It then decreases in magnitude as the being progressively takes a back step.
The being can never be this purity but it can allow it via pure intent.
Just some quick thoughts btw, not anything concrete.
I got some clarity reading the Vineeto quote.
I’d say that this resentment is a natural consequence of not enjoying and appreciating.
It’s ordinary and common, but I wouldn’t say inherent, in the sense that given the experience of purity there is something in us that chooses to go towards enjoyment and appreciation, away from resentment.
But would you say that in an EE you are(being) less. Isn’t it that your whole emotional energy is directed into felicitous feelings, into being as pure as possible, whilst still being. I have little experience with these states, but remember @geoffrey talking to that effect in the last video chat.
My conception is that the transition from EE to PCE happens precisely because your whole being agrees that here and now is safe and there’s basically nothing to do(and nothing to resent). Thus I agree the resentment diminishes as one tends towards purity, but I’d say one gets to zero resentment before the switch to a PCE and in some sense that’s the cause of the transition - the acknowledgement of perfection - that there’s nothing worthy of resentment right now.
I guess another good question would be - Without something outside of ‘me’ would it be possible to remove resentment? I think not. It is the experience of purity which offers a way out of separation and thus out of resentment. Without it, if left to it’s own devices, how could the being eliminate resentment?
My experience when in an EE is that the usually rigid and bold lines that are ‘my’ outlines, become somewhat washed out which allows more and more purity to be shining through. Perhaps this is to do with the fact that the felicitous is an imitation of the actual. When in an EE I am being the felicitous feelings which seems to create a situation where the outline between ‘me’ and the purity is becoming more and more washed out.
Exactly:
Pure intent for ya 
@Kub933 I guess another good question would be - Without something outside of ‘me’ would it be possible to remove resentment? I think not. It is the experience of purity which offers a way out of separation and thus out of resentment. Without it, if left to it’s own devices, how could the being eliminate resentment.
I think you’d probably agree with what I’m about to say, but it’s me, myself and I who has to do the bulk of the work to budge the resentment for being alive, and only then is there the opportunity for something to come from “outside” and ramp up experience beyond my wildest expectations.
Just saying that so people don’t start waiting for something outside of themselves to happen in order for them to feel happy and harmless. I have to want to be here and address my good and bad feelings for anything to happen.
When you wrote the phrases I bolded above, I assume you were talking about either peak experience or self-immolation, and thus completely removing/eliminating resentment? Because otherwise, what is the actualism method about if not t about me working to remove and eliminate my own resentment?
With respect to EE and the self, this excerpt is clarifying:
Richard: […] As for this term ‘excellence experience’, it is being suggested to represent the penultimate … the best of what can be experienced, in what is termed ‘virtual freedom’, wherein ‘I’ am so thinly in existence ‘I’ am virtually not there.
I use the word ‘virtual’ deliberately (it has nothing to do with the virtual reality of cyber-space) as ‘virtual’ means ‘almost as good as’ or ‘nearly the same as’ or ‘in effect comparable to’ and so on. This is because it is humanly possible to thoroughly improve one’s lot in life, before the ultimate happens, wherein one lives in a well-earned happy and harmless way 99% of the time … and which is streets ahead of normal human expectations.
Selected Correspondence: Pure Consciousness Experience
And I think the following is one of the best to clarify the differences and similarities between EE, IE and PCE:
Richard: […] regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon naïveté has come to the fore, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope.
In other words, with an EE the ‘aesthetic experience’ feature, for instance, or its ‘nature experience’ aspect, for example, tends to be more prominent, whilst with an IE the ‘fellowship experience’ characteristic, for instance, or its ‘convivial experience’ quality, for example, comes to the fore. In either type of near-PCE – wherein the experiencing is of ‘my’ life living itself, with a surprising sumptuosity, rather than ‘me’ living ‘my’ life, quite frugally by comparison, and where this moment is living ‘me’ (instead of ‘me’ trying to live ‘in the moment’) – the diminishment of separation is so astonishing as to be as-if incomprehensible/ unbelievable yet it is the imminence of a fellow human’s immanence which, in and of itself, emphasises the distinction the most.
Mailing List 'D' Claudiu / Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem
Hmm @Felix I think something is getting muddled up here either on my part or yours 
It seems maybe you are interpreting what I wrote in a kind of either or approach? As in either I sit and do nothing whilst waiting for ‘something outside’ to do it for me OR I must ‘do the work’ and clean myself up all of my own accord.
What I am referring to though is what Richard points to when he says “One is not alone in this endeavour”. As in yes ‘I’ must do something, but ultimately ‘I’ can never do it on ‘my’ own as it is the purity that offers a way out.
So all the work is done so that ‘I’ can get out of the way and allow purity. So I guess both of the approaches are correct - ‘I’ must do the work AND ‘I’ can’t do it on my own.
And this happens not just at self immolation or a peak experience but is a description of the general application of the method.
Those are great quotes @Miguel, there is 1 EE that I remember the most because it went on for more or less the entire day and reading those quotes is like I was re-living the experience, exact to the T. I like the term ‘near-PCE’ as well because it seems like when in an EE the actual world is so close that almost anything could push me over to ‘there’.
I’ve pondered over this origin of resentment too and my understanding was that perhaps once the mating instinct kicks big time at puberty, then thats where it all starts, but I think puberty creates more of angst about existence and resentment develops even before that…so when does it ? My current take is that perhaps its when a kid comes to understand that everyone dies…as in the resentment could be sourced in the knowledge of eventual death which can’t be avoided and out of ‘my’ control.
In my experiance one starts to stagnate by putting the one over the other, though there are periods when one needs to focus on only one part - the one that is lacking. Speaking personally I always tended to focus on the outer, the impelling movement, which may be a hangover from my spiritual days.
In the last two years or so I discovered that I had neglected my “inner qualities” which was very important for me. I just couldn’t progress at some point without acknowledging that these qualities play a major role in the process. Without my innate capacities of naivity, curiosity and felicity I would have no chance whatsoever of ever becoming actually free. Pure intent is what guides, but it can’t do jackshit without my allowence. For others it could be exactly the opposite experiance of course. The may focus on inner qualities without the impelling “help”, the purity and innocens of the actual world, which will not deliver the goods either.
Hey @Kub933, yeah I was pretty sure you meant both - just reading it I thought it might sound to others like putting a lot of onus on something outside oneself.
To my mind, that outside help only comes along at a certain level - where one is already enjoying and delighting, or where pure intent is active, or where an EE is in progress, or where there is a transition into a PCE .
At levels “below” that, to my mind, the onus is completely on the feeling being, even if you could say that the universe is helping (which technically you can say about everything, given the feeling being is illusory).
I like to think: “It’s all in my hands and my hands alone.” I’ll let the universe worry about it’s part, while I focus on mine haha.
After all, the purity you reference is already extant, including under the noses of the 6 billion other people on this planet - and it’s certainly not doing the work for them. It’s ‘me’ blocking it, so only ‘I’ can undo that.
@Felix I should say as well that the reason I wrote that post which you quoted was to use it as a thought experiment to demonstrate that resentment is fundamental to being. I was essentially using that post to make a point, it wasn’t meant as any sort of prescriptive advice, I think this is where the initial confusion began.
So I guess a good follow-up question would be, in your experience at those ‘lower levels’ where the feeling being is on one’s own, is it possible to virtually eliminate resentment?
My experience is that at the lower levels, without a connection to purity, ‘I’ am somewhat stuck (in terms of eliminating that fundamental resentment) because ‘I’ am rotten to the very core. And of course I do everything I can to improve ‘myself’ and this will change things for sure. But to go further into eliminating resentment I need a way out of that fundamental stuckness of being. And it seems it is the experience of purity which diminishes that fundamental resentment because it offers a way out of separation. And this can be accessed via pure intent so I don’t have to wait for a PCE or self immolation to taste this ‘way out’.
@Kub933 I agree to an extent that in absolute sense, resentment and being are linked - hence why the method of “enjoying this moment of being alive” is eventually enough to ELIMINATE the feeling being, which is kinda hilarious. Enjoying this moment is a killer!
However, I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful to think of resentment as being “fundamental” to being. Maybe we are at cross purposes because I’m talking about the basic resentment for being here, whilst you seem to be talking about a more absolute form of resentment, which only the absence of being can nullify?
I find I can still enjoy this moment as a feeling being. I can still say YES to being here. What’s the method about if not that? And that will of course open the door to peak experiences, rather than keeping the door firmly shut based on a limiting belief that only outside “purity” can do it.
@Kub933 My experience is that at the lower levels, without a connection to purity, ‘I’ am somewhat stuck (in terms of eliminating that fundamental resentment) because ‘I’ am rotten to the very core.
I am curious about this part though. Is it really the case that when feeling bad (which is what I meant by “lower levels”), you would be stuck without a “connection to purity”? Wouldn’t that just be doubling down on the basic resentment (ie “yes life really does suck, there’s no way to enjoy it unless Im connected to purity”).
@Kub933 I guess a good follow-up question would be, in your experience at those ‘lower levels’ where the feeling being is on one’s own, is it possible to virtually eliminate resentment?
Are you asking this to me or the group? If you are asking me, I would say of course it’s possible to virtually eliminate the basic resentment - what is the actualism method initially for if not that? If you are talking about a more fundamental resentment which only disappears in the absence of being, then I could maybe agree with that (“the burden of being” or something like that).
It’s hard over text to compare our experiences though unless we were to write back and forth for the next three days lol.
Personally I would struggle in a mental framework where I am either experiencing a “connection to to purity” or fated to resent being here. I prefer to think of every moment of resentment as an opportunity to feel good instead (which may or may not allow an outside purity or delight to manifest).
Just my thoughts @Kub933 I’m not trying to shout you down here 
.
Maybe you have a strong and more active connection to pure intent happening for you, which is making the process of experiencing purity relatively easy. Are you finding it easy to achieve?