PCE Discussion

With the recent discussion regarding Pure Intent and rememoration, I thought a thread sharing PCE stories might be a good exercise to do from memory. Additionally, I’ve been wondering about some of the discussion specifically revolving around different flavors of PCEs. Having only one from memory, I have no other point of comparisons.

I also wonder about the reports where one wonders about potentially being in a PCE - perhaps an EE experience so close to a PCE that it’s hard to differentiate. I think I struggle understanding this because for me the PCE was so profound that it was night-and-day difference between feeling-being mode.

Specifically it was the meaning-of-life quality that the experience had due to the perfection, purity, and stillness that I couldn’t miss. It was everywhere. The experience was worlds beyond feeling excellent and I can’t imagine how things could get better. Ultimate fulfillment.

I sometimes wonder due to the profundity of the experience if I’ve set the PCE up to be something out of reach. It seems so extreme and radically different. BUT, it is also everything I have ever wanted from life. Double-back to this later.

I believe I’ve shared details but have never written a complete report so I’ll do that now. There will be spiritual details since that was where I was at, at the time:

2017? - I’m about 2-3 years into my quest for spiritual enlightenment and have never heard of actualism. During this period, I was pretty depressed which was a big motivator for finding a radical solution for my suffering and hence my interest in spirituality and enlightenment.

One evening while home alone I decided to try some LSD and contemplate life. At the time, the weight of the world and it’s problems felt very oppressive and present. I found myself lamenting what humanity is doing, at least in my view at the time: something like collectively losing our minds while we fight amongst each other making clever jokes about the whole thing.

I felt empathetic to the plight of mankind and found myself going deeper and deeper into universal suffering. But also during this time, I was using my phone and looking at a picture. It was a picture of a lake with steam rising off of it and looking at it was so 3-dimensional it was as if the picture was alive. I found myself alternating between the contemplation and relaxing into this picture I was looking at.

The effects of the LSD had fully kicked in at this point. This included saturated visuals as well as the melting/shifting of the visual field. I think these effects were partly responsible for making the image feel alive - but the 3-dimensionality was the most fascinating quality. Usually images seemed very flat to me at the time.

Eventually the emotional movement came to an end and I sat on the couch silently - staring ahead at my desk but not looking at anything in particular and not thinking about anything. My usual running thoughts about whatever agenda I was interested in seemed like it had burned itself out for the moment. So I was just sitting there, kind of exhausted but relaxed and at peace.

I continued relaxing. It wasn’t like I was trying to relax or had an agenda on how to do it, it was more akin to unknowingly enjoying the relaxation. Like I was marinating in it instead of trying to do it. Somewhere during this period the first remarkable thing happened.

An extremely pleasant feeling arose in the solar plexus. At the time, I described it as being completely fascinated with what was happening - but also at the time, I took this feeling to be something other than myself. It seemed like it was coming from me but also something other than me. Trying to comprehend this feeling of total fascination, I concluded that this must be what pure love is.

It was the coca-cola can on my desk which first caught my attention. Something was different about it. It was like it had come to life and this fascination was embedded in its very fabric. This fascination was embedded in everything. Everything was alive somehow. Scintillating. Bright.

The next few moments I do not remember. I suppose what was going on was a mix of me experiencing what was happening and trying to comprehend it. I would have been better served just trying to get a good look at it, but wasn’t prepared. Truly, as an identity I was eager to claim it and understand it for myself - trying to make a grab at things.

Still, I was enjoying the relaxation. At some point I decided to go outside and it was on the steps of my apartment when everything stopped and was still. I said outloud, “you mean I’m already here?” Ha, ha.

Things were utterly perfect. The perfection was experiencable. I was completely fulfilled. All of my aching desires, concerns, responsibilities, were gone and replaced with this perfection that was everywhere. It was so clean and still. It was so enjoyable and invigorating.

And it had been here this whole time. That was another conclusion I came to. It was me that was missing out on it. I actually considered maybe everyone had been enjoying this perfection my whole life except me.

At the time it was occurring, I considered this experience to be the meaning of life. That is to say, the meaning of life isn’t some sort of secret explanation to be revealed, but rather a way of experiencing being alive that is perfect. A gift but also a birthright in stark contrast to the alienation I typically felt in regards to the world and others.

I can see why some describe this experience as otherworldly but clearly upon reflection I was not in another world. I was right here. I even said it out loud. While otherworldly may give some indication to how radically different it is, I think it is a confused way of describing the situation and setting the actual world up to be somewhere distant when it’s not.

This perfection didn’t last long. I didn’t even notice it diminish because I was too busy trying to make sense of what was happening. What happened next was the oceanic experience and I became everything. It’s experienced to be real, but much like the real-world or a belief is experienced to be real. It is like a belief with no doubt involved. Where as the perfection seemed to be the result of an absence of something, this was more like an exotic feeling state. A shift in one’s reality.

Devolving this state further, I thought that I may be god and decided to test out if I had any newfound power but I did not. The oceanic experience didn’t last long and I went back inside and laid down on the floor where I had a really terrible thought - that I must die to enter that dimension of perfection.

It was an intuitive apprehension and considering oblivion caused a lot of dread. I noticed how much I wanted to live which betrayed the previous months of depression and wishing for death.

Nothing much happened for a while but one more remarkable even did occur. While I was laying on the floor and my thoughts were winding down I was staring at the ceiling fan. Again, not thinking about much. All of a sudden it was as-if an invisible layer was peeled away. My problems, worries, responsibilities were gone as-if they never existed. I could hear how quiet and still everything was. It was like a noise I had become used to had stopped and it’s absence is what alerted me to its former presence.

BUT, there was no meaning-of-life perfection. It was still tremendous and a wildly better way of being alive than normal. There was nothing to hide. But the perfection and purity wasn’t present.

I don’t know if it was the LSD but I truly think it was more of a case of ‘me’ coming into the picture because I believed that this lack of responsibility meant I didn’t have to go to work. I became excited that I didn’t have to go to work, in fact I didn’t have to do anything. It’s like a new belief came into formation and became reality. But it wasn’t long before I slowly put together the fact that I DO have to go to work tomorrow if I want to keep receiving an income. I couldn’t reconcile the new belief against this fact so my excitement turned to disappointment. Me and all my problems were back.

And on that note, this was a messy evening and upon reflection I can see how much I was mucking things up - almost constantly trying to fit what was happening into my own box that would suit me in whatever way. BUT, in the background of each and every moment was a sensibility operating that I always had access to. It often contradicted any wacky interpretation, conclusion, belief, or feeling I came to. It questioned the oceanic experience as it was happening. But it didn’t question the moment of perfection.

I think the moment of perfection ceased when I began wondering/believing that everyone else had been enjoying this perfection except me. I think that’s when I came back into the picture in a big way and I remember feeling confused, but still feeling amazing.

There was only one other remarkable experience that happened about a year after this event. This experience happened only a few days before being introduced to actualism. In a cafe in Barcelona I considered a terrible prospect that all of these spiritual people I have been working with could be tricking me, playing on my sense of belief. A pang of pure dread occurred at the thought but then time became still and I could sense it’s eternal quality as well as the infinitude of space. I was back to normal in no time and was amazed but found it to be eerie.

In the ensuing years much investigation has taken place, my baseline has raised significantly, and I’m a more liking and likable person. But I think what I’m missing is that connection to pure intent. I haven’t been able to develop it.

For similar reasons to @Josef, I haven’t spent significant time rememorating that night. Only recently have I started to cipher out the meaningful qualities in an attempt to hone in on them. The current discussion has been motivating and I think it could be more useful to work with what I got than try to resolve these questions and concerns that breed like rabbits and seem sillier by the day.

Regardless of how it happened, it serves as my peak experience to benchmark everything against. Perfect and effortlessly enjoyable - if only I had the muscle of appreciation and down-to-earth attitude at the time :slight_smile:

The one thing that I have been curious about in regards to recent discussion is the moments where one wonders if they’re in a PCE only to evaluate that they’re not. I have had moments of feeling still, happy and harmless, almost perfect. At times I’ve wondered if I might be near a PCE and perhaps in one.

But that perfection isn’t there, and so it’s obviously not a PCE. Is it that there are more milder forms of PCEs? Perhaps the second moment when my ‘invisible layer’ was pulled off was such. Things were “perfect” so to speak because all of my problems, sense of time, and responsibility were gone, but the experiential perfection was missing. However, even that was night-and-day different to how I normally am and unmistakable.

Finally, I think I may have set the PCE up to be unreachable due to not only how profound it was, but also due to feeling threatened by it. It seems so immense. I’ve heard it described as a down-to-earth perfection but the only part the seems down-to-earth about it is that it’s happening right here. (And would be immensely sensible to be, damnit it is down-to-earth but it’s so amazing too.)

Remembering all of this has caused me to consider the role of stillness in all of these events. It seems first one begins to become more and more still. Then the stillness becomes apparent, and palpable. And then perhaps the perfection emerges from there. So I wonder if one doesn’t have a solid memory of a PCE, or one at all, if honing-in / sensing that stillness may be better than looking for perfection or attempting to understand how things are perfect. Coming to a stop felt good.

Thanks for reading, it’s a long post. I’ve considered and attempted to start a journal so I may transfer this post there. I’d love to read about anyone’s favorite PCEs. I know there is a repository on the site but perhaps there are some we haven’t heard of or are worth revisiting.

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Edzd: With the recent discussion regarding Pure Intent and rememoration, I thought a thread sharing PCE stories might be a good exercise to do from memory. Additionally, I’ve been wondering about some of the discussion specifically revolving around different flavors of PCEs. Having only one from memory, I have no other point of comparisons.
I also wonder about the reports where one wonders about potentially being in a PCE – perhaps an EE experience so close to a PCE that it’s hard to differentiate. I think I struggle understanding this because for me the PCE was so profound that it was night-and-day difference between feeling-being mode.
Specifically it was the meaning-of-life quality that the experience had due to the perfection, purity, and stillness that I couldn’t miss. It was everywhere. The experience was worlds beyond feeling excellent and I can’t imagine how things could get better. Ultimate fulfillment.
I sometimes wonder due to the profundity of the experience if I’ve set the PCE up to be something out of reach. It seems so extreme and radically different. BUT, it is also everything I have ever wanted from life. Double-back to this later.

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your long and extensive description of your memorable PCE.

It indeed sets an excellent benchmark for you to access pure intent by comparing your experience during the height of the PCE against your real-world experience, knowing that what you are aiming for is “night-and-day difference between feeling-being mode”, the “ultimate fulfillment” and “everything I have ever wanted from life”.

Even though not every PCE is a meaning-of-life experience, this experience nevertheless represents your ultimate destiny – the meaning-of-life freedom aka full freedom.

Edzd: I believe I’ve shared details but have never written a complete report so I’ll do that now. There will be spiritual details since that was where I was at, at the time:
2017? – I’m about 2-3 years into my quest for spiritual enlightenment and have never heard of actualism. During this period, I was pretty depressed which was a big motivator for finding a radical solution for my suffering and hence my interest in spirituality and enlightenment.
One evening while home alone I decided to try some LSD and contemplate life. (…)
Eventually the emotional movement came to an end and I sat on the couch silently – staring ahead at my desk but not looking at anything in particular and not thinking about anything. My usual running thoughts about whatever agenda I was interested in seemed like it had burned itself out for the moment. So I was just sitting there, kind of exhausted but relaxed and at peace.
I continued relaxing. It wasn’t like I was trying to relax or had an agenda on how to do it, it was more akin to unknowingly enjoying the relaxation. Like I was marinating in it instead of trying to do it. Somewhere during this period the first remarkable thing happened.
An extremely pleasant feeling arose in the solar plexus. At the time, I described it as being completely fascinated with what was happening – but also at the time, I took this feeling to be something other than myself. It seemed like it was coming from me but also something other than me. Trying to comprehend this feeling of total fascination, I concluded that this must be what pure love is.

If ever you are wondering how to provide the conditions for a PCE to happen without drugs, here are some clues in your own description how it started – “I was marinating in it [the relaxation] instead of trying to do it”.“I described it as being completely fascinated with what was happening”. And you allowed the fascinated contemplation to continue even though “it seemed like it was coming from me but also something other than me”.

When you compare this to the following description you understand why I picked out those sentences of yours –

Richard: Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here … and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now … then one has arrived before one starts.
The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that can be arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord … and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity … as a sensate body only, one is automatically benevolent and benign. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

Edzd: It was the coca-cola can on my desk which first caught my attention. Something was different about it. It was like it had come to life and this fascination was embedded in its very fabric. This fascination was embedded in everything. Everything was alive somehow. Scintillating. Bright.
The next few moments I do not remember. I suppose what was going on was a mix of me experiencing what was happening and trying to comprehend it. I would have been better served just trying to get a good look at it, but wasn’t prepared. Truly, as an identity I was eager to claim it and understand it for myself – trying to make a grab at things.
Still, I was enjoying the relaxation. At some point I decided to go outside and it was on the steps of my apartment when everything stopped and was still. I said out loud, “you mean I’m already here?” Ha, ha.

You probably figured it out already – this is where the PCE proper starts.

Edzd: Things were utterly perfect. The perfection was experienceable. I was completely fulfilled. All of my aching desires, concerns, responsibilities, were gone and replaced with this perfection that was everywhere. It was so clean and still. It was so enjoyable and invigorating.
And it had been here this whole time. That was another conclusion I came to. It was me that was missing out on it. I actually considered maybe everyone had been enjoying this perfection my whole life except me.

I do appreciate your conclusion at the time, especially the first one that you had been “missing out”. In a PCE, when you are actually here, at this moment in time, you can realize that you have always been here – as flesh-and-blood body that is – and only the ‘loudmouth’ of an identity had been standing in the way of experiencing this actuality.

That you then “considered maybe everyone had been enjoying this perfection my whole life except me” looks like an assessment made by the returning identity. It is indeed a totally different perspective when you are in the actual world than when ‘you’ live in the real world.

I know, from the perspective of being actually free, that everyone is missing out, every moment again, because actuality is available right here, right now – but I also know that they don’t know this, because I remember well how it was for feeling being ‘Vineeto’.

Edzd: At the time it was occurring, I considered this experience to be the meaning of life. That is to say, the meaning of life isn’t some sort of secret explanation to be revealed, but rather a way of experiencing being alive that is perfect. A gift but also a birthright in stark contrast to the alienation I typically felt in regards to the world and others.

Well said.

Edzd: I can see why some describe this experience as otherworldly but clearly upon reflection I was not in another world. I was right here. I even said it out loud. While otherworldly may give some indication to how radically different it is, I think it is a confused way of describing the situation and setting the actual world up to be somewhere distant when it’s not.

During the experience itself the actual world is not “otherworldly” at all – during the experience one is right here in the actual world. From the real-world perspective, of course, the actual world seems to be far away – another world altogether.

Edzd: This perfection didn’t last long. I didn’t even notice it diminish because I was too busy trying to make sense of what was happening. What happened next was the oceanic experience and I became everything. It’s experienced to be real, but much like the real-world or a belief is experienced to be real. It is like a belief with no doubt involved. Where as the perfection seemed to be the result of an absence of something, this was more like an exotic feeling state. A shift in one’s reality.
Devolving this state further, I thought that I may be god and decided to test out if I had any newfound power but I did not. The oceanic experience didn’t last long and I went back inside and laid down on the floor where I had a really terrible thought – that I must die to enter that dimension of perfection.
It was an intuitive apprehension and considering oblivion caused a lot of dread. I noticed how much I wanted to live which betrayed the previous months of depression and wishing for death.

While your PCE devolved into an ASC, most likely inspired by memories of religion and your spiritual quest you nevertheless focussed on one significant insight – “that I must die to enter that dimension of perfection”. Naturally, this triggered the identity to return in full force and this insight was accompanied by the ‘appropriate’ and natural passionate emotion when ‘you’, the identity experiences a threat to ‘your’ survival.

Edzd: Nothing much happened for a while but one more remarkable event did occur. While I was laying on the floor and my thoughts were winding down I was staring at the ceiling fan. Again, not thinking about much. All of a sudden it was as-if an invisible layer was peeled away. My problems, worries, responsibilities were gone as-if they never existed. I could hear how quiet and still everything was. It was like a noise I had become used to had stopped and its absence is what alerted me to its former presence.
BUT, there was no meaning-of-life perfection. It was still tremendous and a wildly better way of being alive than normal. There was nothing to hide. But the perfection and purity wasn’t present.

It could have been a short-lived excellence experience or something similar but not quite, certainly not the lodestone experience you described before.

Edzd: (…) I think the moment of perfection ceased when I began wondering/ believing that everyone else had been enjoying this perfection except me. I think that’s when I came back into the picture in a big way and I remember feeling confused, but still feeling amazing. (…)

Yes, you are correct and “in a big way” as well, the identity returned vindictively and ‘with a vengeance’, as the saying goes, creating the perfect ‘me’ against ‘me’ scenario designed to keep one locked in under the control of ‘me’.

Edzd: In the ensuing years much investigation has taken place, my baseline has raised significantly, and I’m a more liking and likable person. But I think what I’m missing is that connection to pure intent. I haven’t been able to develop it.

As I detailed above, there is certainly much potential to forge a clew to pure intent if the re-vivified flavour of your memory of this PCE is as clear as your excellent verbal description.

Edzd: For similar reasons to Josef, I haven’t spent significant time rememorating that night. Only recently have I started to cipher out the meaningful qualities in an attempt to hone in on them. The current discussion has been motivating and I think it could be more useful to work with what I got than try to resolve these questions and concerns that breed like rabbits and seem sillier by the day.
Regardless of how it happened, it serves as my peak experience to benchmark everything against. Perfect and effortlessly enjoyable – if only I had the muscle of appreciation and down-to-earth attitude at the time.

You can still apply “the muscle of appreciation” for this memory and can choose to enjoy that you had the opportunity and remembrance (link) of such an outstanding experience.

Edzd: The one thing that I have been curious about in regards to recent discussion is the moments where one wonders if they’re in a PCE only to evaluate that they’re not. I have had moments of feeling still, happy and harmless, almost perfect. At times I’ve wondered if I might be near a PCE and perhaps in one.
But that perfection isn’t there, and so it’s obviously not a PCE. Is it that there are more milder forms of PCEs? Perhaps the second moment when my ‘invisible layer’ was pulled off was such. Things were “perfect” so to speak because all of my problems, sense of time, and responsibility were gone, but the experiential perfection was missing. However, even that was night-and-day different to how I normally am and unmistakable.

The “milder forms” you are asking about are better described as excellence experiences in order to have a clear distinction between an outstanding delectable experience of well-being and a PCE, where purity and perfection and magicality are experientially obvious (and not just in comparison to real world experiencing).

Edzd: Finally, I think I may have set the PCE up to be unreachable due to not only how profound it was, but also due to feeling threatened by it. It seems so immense. I’ve heard it described as a down-to-earth perfection but the only part the seems down-to-earth about it is that it’s happening right here. (And would be immensely sensible to be, damnit it is down-to-earth but it’s so amazing too.) (…) (link)

Why should “the PCE […] be unreachable” because it was “profound”? You have certainly described the actual world in great detail and quality and other actualists can confirm this.

And it is not necessary to allow yourself to continue feeling threatened by it – it is natural/ intrinsic for the identity to fear for ‘your’ continued survival but that is the very nature of the purity and perfection – that nothing dirty can get it. This is why purity and perfection are the “utter fulfillment” which you aspire to.

In regards to “feeling threatened” – this is where the actualism method comes in handy. By observing and acknowledging the fear when it comes up, and being the fear instead of having fear, it will substantially diminish when you stop objecting to it. This allows you to eventually recognize that the perfection you experienced is worth every sacrifice, all of ‘me’, in order to live the purity and perfection 24/7.

Watering down the standard would be equivalent to settling for second best.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Ed,

It is a wonderful description you wrote of that mirificent, meaning-of-life, rock-solid PCE! It reminded me of my recent one that similarly blew me away:

The words really don’t do it justice of what it was actually like experiencing it – I’m sure you know what I mean.

With regards to developing that connection which is known as pure intent, I thought I’d suggest something and see if it works for you.

At one point Richard resurrected and put into use the terms rememoration & presentiation. The idea is that the way pure intent can be brought about is by rememorating the PCE, which presentiates its ambiance/flavour/atmosphere, i.e. brings it to present experience – which, when you are then experiencing that purity, is what pure intent is!

What I suggest is to re-read what you wrote describing your PCE (particularly the parts Vineeto quoted out), and, with those in mind, read the following exchange I had with Richard wherein I queried him about those then-new words. Richard goes into some detail of how it worked for ‘him’ to rememorate ‘his’ PCEs – I am curious if it works for you to read the correspondence with the intent in mind that you will experientially do it, do what those words say, read it with your whole being, while keeping your PCE in mind, and see if it works!

Here is the link: Mailing List 'D' Claudiu / Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem

Let us know how it goes!

Cheers,
Claudiu

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Hi Claudiu,

The link should be: [Mailing List ‘D’ Claudiu / Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem]

Cheers Vineeto

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If I’m understanding correctly - it seems to be an intuitive felt-based remembering? Like bringing a bit of the event to the present moment.

There seems to be two things going on when I attempt to do it. Both have been like grasping for air thusfar and I’m having a hard time expressing it in words.

The first is the step of remembering / reminding / contemplation. The memory and it’s meaningful qualities reminds me of what life is actually like right now, which seems to serve as a good interruption to whatever personal interpretation I may be running. Then I have an opportunity to move a bit more in the direction of actuality - “ah yeah, that’s what I want,” or “ah yeah, I remember it was like that.”

The other step is something more like feeling out the memory. When I think of Shakespearean actors rememorating an event, it’s like their memory comes to life and effects how they feel. To them, it’s as if they’re reliving the moment of recollection so much so that they’re feeling it all over again. It’s an intuitive-emotional feeling and it effects their performance in such a way that the audience is sucked into the event as well, as if they were there. This is a bit that I’m finding more nebulous to lock into - I’m clumsily trying to re-vivify or reconnect with the qualities on an emotional level. I’m trying to become how I felt at the time.

It’s like feeling into a memory.

So far, I seem to move a bit in the direction of the memory, but only have enough energy for a small little shifts. It’s only been a few days, I figure I’ll have to keep experimenting. Happy to hear what you may have learned from your foray into it.

During my path thusfar, the PCE has actually been a REALLY threatening thing. “I” would get scared at times when my baseline would improve, or when I would feel happier. “Scared” that I could slip into a PCE or die at any moment. All irrational but felt!

A pang of fear would pop up and diminish the movement towards happy & harmless - presenting a boundary for the happiness and harmlessness. It was like I kept having to see it was safe to go a little-bit further. Or kept having to see that what was keeping me in place wasn’t what I wanted at all, providing some needed gumption to move forward.

Let me see if I understand what you’re pointing out. The nature of purity and perfection provides the security I’m looking for since nothing dirty can get into it. Since it provides security, there is no need to fear it as something that is a threat to my survival as I have been doing thusfar?

I think the unreachable element may have something to do with feeling like an imposter.

I think there’s more to talk about and respond to but I’m about to go off to work. One last thing I wanted to mention is this:

I’m constantly on the lookout for a PCE. I both want to have one, and secretly avoid it (as made clear by feeling threatened.) I can find myself attempting to evaluate how close I am - usually happens when making progress and can spoil it. Or all of a sudden becoming momentarily scared and begin wondering what’s behind the fear.

Feeling like I’m falling into a repeated trap here and like I have to let something go but I can’t because my mind is always on these things.

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Vineeto: And it is not necessary to allow yourself to continue feeling threatened by it.

Edzd: During my path thusfar, the PCE has actually been a REALLY threatening thing. “I” would get scared at times when my baseline would improve, or when I would feel happier. “Scared” that I could slip into a PCE or die at any moment. All irrational but felt!

Hi Ed,

Every feeling is irrational, no matter if common wisdom says that some fear is rational. Today I saw a clip from Elon Musk on another matter (link) and one quote of his at the 1min mark struck me – he said “when thinking about fear, look fear straight in the eye and it will disappear, (…) look at it directly and it will be gone.” I was struck by his insight because I so far have heard nobody say anything like this except in the AFT writings. ‘Vineeto’s’ experience was that when she stopped objecting to fear, running away from fear, fighting against fear, it would diminish substantially and eventually subside.

However, at the end of the post, you say –

Edzd: I’m constantly on the lookout for a PCE.

How can you be “constantly on the lookout for a PCE” and simultaneously consider “the PCE has actually been a REALLY threatening thing”? Is it any wonder that the PCE is so far unattainable – or rather that you avoid the PCE like the plague despite your constant lookout for it at the surface level.

Unless you face the fear – stop objecting to it, stop running from it, and allow to feel it as what you are, the experience you are constantly looking out for will remain elusive.

Edzd: A pang of fear would pop up and diminish the movement towards happy & harmless – presenting a boundary for the happiness and harmlessness. It was like I kept having to see it was safe to go a little-bit further. Or kept having to see that what was keeping me in place wasn’t what I wanted at all, providing some needed gumption to move forward.

Instead of inching forward towards being happy and harmless tiny step by tiny step you also have the option to take the bull by the horns, as the saying goes, and face the core of your feeling of fear –

Richard: What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not opposites … there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not. Now that I am alive, I am. After death I will not be … just like before birth. Where is the problem? (Richard, List B, No. 21, 10 Mar 1998)

And –

Richard: Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ … and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear … and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes … ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 8 Oct 1999).

I presume you read this yourself at one time or another, so I ask you, what is it that prevents you looking at the one obstacle which so obviously stands in the way of what you presently want most (a PCE) and what you want for the times in between PCEs – feeling happy and harmless?

Vineeto: it is natural/ intrinsic for the identity to fear for ‘your’ continued survival but that is the very nature of the purity and perfection – that nothing dirty can get it.

Edzd: Let me see if I understand what you’re pointing out. The nature of purity and perfection provides the security I’m looking for since nothing dirty can get into it. Since it provides security, there is no need to fear it as something that is a threat to my survival as I have been doing thusfar?

What I am confirming is that what you are looking for – “the security I’m looking for since nothing dirty can get into it” is also the reason for your greatest fear, because in order to live where nothing dirty can get in, ‘you’, the identity, will have to die in its totality.

However, ‘you’ don’t have to die to have a PCE, ‘you’ only have to go into temporary abeyance. And ‘you’ don’t have to die in order to become more happy and harmless, ‘you’ only have to give up some, or a lot, of the control ‘you’ have at present over your flesh and blood body and Ed’s life.

Vineeto: Why should “the PCE […] be unreachable” because it was “profound”? You have certainly described the actual world in great detail and quality and other actualists can confirm this.

Edzd: I think the unreachable element may have something to do with feeling like an imposter.
I think there’s more to talk about and respond to but I’m about to go off to work. One last thing I wanted to mention is this:
I’m constantly on the lookout for a PCE. I both want to have one, and secretly avoid it (as made clear by feeling threatened.) I can find myself attempting to evaluate how close I am – usually happens when making progress and can spoil it. Or all of a sudden becoming momentarily scared and begin wondering what’s behind the fear.
Feeling like I’m falling into a repeated trap here and like I have to let something go but I can’t because my mind is always on these things. (link)

How close you are is not measured in inches or feet or hundreds of feet – existentially it is a very short step –

Richard: In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’).
The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ … and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 8 Oct 1999).

If that is too scary for now, which is natural, then you can begin with, bit by bit, letting go of aspects of control and start allowing yourself to first feel the feeling (instead of merely thinking about it) and then begin to acknowledge that you are the feeling you feel instead of having the feeling. From there it is easy to choose to be a different feeling.

Cheers Vineeto

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I think there are two issues in one here. The first is that I think that this relates to what y’all talk about when you refer to getting “all of your being” on-board. It feels like I’m split here. There’s a part of me that’s fearful.

I’ve been examining this topic lately and it’s hard to find the objections. The one I keep coming back to is, “it’s weird” and the more I dig into that the more silly it seems. You may recall when I visited you a short exchange we had. I believe we were talking about an experience of sweetness that occurred to a handful of people at the same time. I said something like, “The universe is so weird,” and you corrected me saying that, “It’s the human condition that’s weird.”

I have things 180-degrees backwards here, because even a brief examination of the human condition reveals it’s perverse. It’s so easy to project oneself onto actuality and find blame where there is none.

The second issue is this “being on the lookout.” Since starting the method, I’ve been more aware of how I’m feeling, thinking, etc. I think about PCEs and immolating every day. At times as I swing more into the direction of feeling gooder and gooder, “I” can get excited and then slip into reverie.

I’ve been catching it more, and writing about it certainly helps to recall.

I remember in your video with Richard the two of you talking about the absolute end of everything. Was oblivion on your mind back then? How were you relating to it at the time?

After the PCE and when I thought that I must die, even though I knew it wasn’t to be a physical death, it felt like the absolute end of everything. But that seems like a trick - because immolation isn’t the absolute end of everything. Life continues on. The body continues on.

I guess I wonder if you ever resolved that fear of oblivion or if instead you took that leap of faith. Maybe it looks like a mix of two. I wonder if the immanence of immolation at that moment brought this resistance up.

This fear of oblivion feels like what I am at the core. I understand this echoes Richard’s language, but I can remember a few years before my PCE lamenting to an enlightened guy that all I am is fear. A fear-driven problem solving machine.

To me, it’s like resolving this fear would mean immolating altogether. But I can see that there’s more room in the meantime for naivete. There’s room to contemplate and lean into the fact that it is actually safe here. Fear seems to be why we lose touch with naivete and fear seems to birth control.

I had a chat with my girlfriend a few days ago about death/oblivion. She mentioned she wasn’t so much scared of oblivion but rather the prospect of suffering - ie. a painful death. I agreed that I felt the same way.

But reflecting on this, I can’t help but to wonder if I am tricking myself. I suspect that if I were in a painful situation, I’d still rather live than die to relieve my suffering.

To me, the issue of oblivion seems like a big deal - like if I could resolve it, there’d be nothing left to keep me around.

My experience of this thusfar is that I don’t have the ability to immediately control how I feel. In the moment, feeling the fear can dissipate it, but returning to feeling good is a more gradual movement.

Can I eventually flip it on like a switch and just choose to be whatever feeling I want? Or is it a matter of realizing, for instance, that if one can be fear/sadness/aggression than one can also be happy/harmless/joyful and choosing to figure out how to spend more time as the latter than the former?

Like with the previously mentioned reverie - I can catch myself doing that, and see that I’m back in this habit that leads nowhere. Then I’m back on track to being happy/harmless. But I can’t necessarily choose from that point to start feeling excellent. Or can I? If that’s the case, why not choose to go into a PCE or immolate?

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Ed:

Vineeto: How can you be “constantly on the lookout for a PCE” and simultaneously consider “the PCE has actually been a REALLY threatening thing”?

Ed: I think there are two issues in one here. The first is that I think that this relates to what y’all talk about when you refer to getting “all of your being” on-board. It feels like I’m split here. There’s a part of me that’s fearful.
I’ve been examining this topic lately and it’s hard to find the objections. The one I keep coming back to is, “it’s weird” and the more I dig into that the more silly it seems. You may recall when I visited you a short exchange we had. I believe we were talking about an experience of sweetness that occurred to a handful of people at the same time. I said something like, “The universe is so weird,” and you corrected me saying that, “It’s the human condition that’s weird.”
I have things 180-degrees backwards here, because even a brief examination of the human condition reveals it’s perverse. It’s so easy to project oneself onto actuality and find blame where there is none.
The second issue is this “being on the lookout.” Since starting the method, I’ve been more aware of how I’m feeling, thinking, etc. I think about PCEs and immolating every day. At times as I swing more into the direction of feeling gooder and gooder, “I” can get excited and then slip into reverie.
I’ve been catching it more, and writing about it certainly helps to recall.

Hi Ed,

You are certainly onto something here – every “reverie” takes you away from this moment where life is happening and where you can be attentive and change. The past is a memory and the future a reverie (or fearful fantasy) – only this moment is ever actual.

So, your challenge is to pay affective attention to how you experience this moment – and it is in this moment where you can experience being the feeling you feel and fully being it (without objection or endorsement) choose to be. For instance if you experience being angry (or fearful, or sad) you recognize and acknowledge that you are this feeling (that is all you are as an identity when you are ruthless honest with yourself). Experiencing that you are this feeling then you have the choice to be a felicitous feeling instead (recognizing that it is silly to be anger or fear or sadness).

Vineeto: Instead of inching forward towards being happy and harmless tiny step by tiny step you also have the option to take the bull by the horns, as the saying goes, and face the core of your feeling of fear –

Richard: What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not opposites … there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not. Now that I am alive, I am. After death I will not be … just like before birth. Where is the problem? (Richard, List B, No. 21, 10 Mar 1998)

Ed: I remember in your video with Richard the two of you talking about the absolute end of everything. Was oblivion on your mind back then? How were you relating to it at the time?

I remember that well. Oblivion was on ‘her’ mind, as you put it. ‘She’ yearned for oblivion.

However, when Richard told ‘her’ (after the end of filming) that ‘she’ had been “very close”, ‘she’ panicked and avoided intense conversations with Richard for two years. Obviously more had to happen.

Ed: After the PCE and when I thought that I must die, even though I knew it wasn’t to be a physical death, it felt like the absolute end of everything. But that seems like a trick – because immolation isn’t the absolute end of everything. Life continues on. The body continues on.

Oh, but it is “everything” because ‘you’, the identity, has such a complete hold and control over you that nothing else exists and nothing else matters but the survival of ‘me’. The only time you can experience life without identity is during the identity’s abeyance. So it is not “like a trick”, it is the deeply felt truth (albeit not a fact).

As such, the only way to deal with the fear is to take the bull by the horns in that you stop fighting the fear – it will instantly diminish because you stop feeding it (via the resistance).

Respondent: When I feel fear, fear seems to reinforce itself and stays put.
Richard: It is not all that uncommon to feel fear feeding off itself, as it were, and mounting in intensity almost exponentially – as in a panic attack for instance – yet closer inspection reveals that it is none other than ‘me’, a fearful ‘me’, who is fuelling/ refuelling the fear (‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’) with ‘my’ own affective energy.
Respondent: When I think of any belief about the fear trigger, the fear seems to reinforce the belief.
Richard: Oh, indeed so … that is a phenomenon well-known by many a draconian.
Respondent: Each fear is a self perpetuating.
Richard: The key to success lies in realising that fear does not go anywhere (meaning that nothing ever happens except more fear). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List AF, No. 79, 21 June 2005)

Ed: I guess I wonder if you ever resolved that fear of oblivion or if instead you took that leap of faith. Maybe it looks like a mix of two. I wonder if the immanence of immolation at that moment brought this resistance up.

‘Vineeto’ did not take “a leap of faith” at all but relied on and strengthened ‘her’ connection to pure intent. Without pure intent one is trapped in the human condition, but with pure intent operating there is an alternative way of experiencing life and a way out.

The problem you describe directly connected with this all-or-nothing approach, and of course such a leap is too big, impossible to achieve and hence you are stuck with fear. Whereas the actualism method offers a way to diminish the bulk of the identity you are, peeling off layer by layer of identity-enhancing feelings and replacing them with identity-diminishing felicitous feelings until ‘I’ grow so thin and feeble that at some point ‘I’ will agree to relinquish control and go out-from-under-control, the different-way-of-being virtual freedom Richard has described many times. (Library, Topics, Virtual Freedom). I particularly recommend the last tool-tip for your consideration.

Ed: This fear of oblivion feels like what I am at the core. I understand this echoes Richard’s language, but I can remember a few years before my PCE lamenting to an enlightened guy that all I am is fear. A fear-driven problem-solving machine.
To me, it’s like resolving this fear would mean immolating altogether. But I can see that there’s more room in the meantime for naiveté. There’s room to contemplate and lean into the fact that it is actually safe here. Fear seems to be why we lose touch with naiveté and fear seems to birth control.
I had a chat with my girlfriend a few days ago about death/ oblivion. She mentioned she wasn’t so much scared of oblivion but rather the prospect of suffering – i.e. a painful death. I agreed that I felt the same way.
But reflecting on this, I can’t help but to wonder if I am tricking myself. I suspect that if I were in a painful situation, I’d still rather live than die to relieve my suffering.
To me, the issue of oblivion seems like a big deal – like if I could resolve it, there’d be nothing left to keep me around.

Ha, here you demonstrate it again, this all-or-nothing approach. Has it ever occurred to you that this is exactly how ‘you’ avoid ever doing something practical, something tangible, which would bring about a change for the better in your life, which would work to diminish the control ‘you’ have over your life? By telling yourself that “all I am is fear” and imagine that this is the sign that you are close to immolation (“if I could resolve it, there’d be nothing left to keep me around”) you remain stuck in fear and imagination.

You are indeed “tricking” yourself but not by your intellectual projection into the future but by avoiding to even start the first step in actively applying the actualism method – “the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive” – and start feeling good/ looking at the obstacles to feeling good now.

Vineeto: From there it is easy to choose to be a different feeling.

Ed: My experience of this thus far is that I don’t have the ability to immediately control how I feel.

Of course you don’t, nobody asked you to “have the ability to immediately control how I feel”. What I said was –

Vineeto: “… start allowing yourself to first feel the feeling (instead of merely thinking about it) and then begin to acknowledge that you are the feeling you feel instead of having the feeling. From there it is easy to be a different feeling.”

Please read these two sentences again and tell me if you see the difference between what I suggested and what you made of it. If not, read it again until you do. Then put it into practice before dismissing it out of hand, or out of past experiences.

In case you have trouble understanding my summary suggestion with the relevant words made bold here is a more detailed description from a co-respondent when the penny had dropped for them –

Respondent: … incidentally, Richard, how can they be ‘an hereditary occurrence’ and be of my choosing at the same time?
Richard: You do comprehend that you are your feelings/ your feelings are you (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) do you not? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between having feelings and being those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.
This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something“ about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I am the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.
This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.
I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST).

And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, AF List, No. 60g, 30 Oct 2005a).

Ed: (…) But I can’t necessarily choose from that point to start feeling excellent. Or can I? If that’s the case, why not choose to go into a PCE or immolate? (link)

Here it is again – the all-or-nothing approach, or the search for a short-cut, just so you don’t have to apply yourself to do it step by step. How much longer do you want to procrastinate doing something practical and tangible that has worked for others? Why waste all this time waiting/ searching for instant gratification when you take your life into your own hands and start feeling good now, the only moment you can actually experience.

I highly recommend re-reading Richard’s Article of This Moment of Being Alive, including the very helpful tool-tips.

Cheers Vineeto

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I do enjoy reading all these discussions – it just clicked for me how this applies not only to myself (that I am ‘my’ feelings rather than having, which I already knew) – but also to every other feeling-being as well!

And just as it is fruitless to blame myself for being a particular feeling (which I already had seen) – it is equally fruitless to blame other people for being the particular feeling they are being too!!!

This is remarkable as this has really spoiled the intimacy on some recent occasions with my fellow human beings. I feel like it is a weight off and now it will be that much easier to consistently enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive :slight_smile: :naivete: :notes:

Cheers,
Claudiu

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Hehe how odd, I was reading Vineeto’s response just now but I didn’t look properly and I was under the impression that it was written by Claudiu, I thought “oh my gosh he must have become actually free and not told us yet” as I could not find an ‘I’ anywhere in that post :laughing:

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