Richard’s thoroughness is mind-boggling.
It’s a fascinating thought; will this writing result in a … result?
Obviously, I think not. However, I am more than happy to be wrong.
Richard went against established wisdom from the start, and so far, the results speak for themselves.
I wonder if the abject narcissism displayed by Chaz, (whoever that is), on being penetrated by such thorough dismantling of each and every display of the same, will indeed dismantle the convoluted delusional structure.
One would think, using conventional wisdom, that it is a fool’s errand. I am neither confident, or pessimistic. Something way beyond the norm has already happened. Multiple times.
^ As an aparitif for the consumption of Richard’s voluminous Examen, which, in signature fashion, has been generously doused in divers and delectable digressions, one might prefer to prime their appetite by first reading in full the 19th century article which Richard’s Examen is in response to.
New correspondence: Richard replies to Rick's "Burnt Toast" Posts
New story (excerpted from above): A Clay-Pit Tale
A possibly final set of updates to Richard’s most recent anthropogenic global warming post: Global Warming
Scroll up to the first addendum to see all the updates.
Hmm interesting stuff, the below bit stood out for me :
Please note it is not the first time—nor is it likely to be the last—that a watering-down of the practice and aims of actualism be attempted (the ‘affers’ and their ‘aff’, along with their aff trademark technique, their ‘sweet-spot’ bastardisation of the mirificence of being naïveté, immediately spring to mind, as does the actuality-mimicking manic state, of recent reportage prior to the kitchen being vacated, tout-de-suite, as any temperature gradient on the calid side of tepid is not withstandable by fractious entities) and it is handy to know that “Simple Actualism” = ‘Sandpit Actualism’ (to coin a catchphrase) as to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
So without mincing words the advice presented by Srinath with regards to the application of the method including the simple actualism website may have been leading us astray.
It’s interesting because in the same way I was drawn to the ‘new school actually free’ because they seemed to connect with some ‘human’ aspect within ‘me’, I was also drawn to the simple actualism page for the same reason.
What I am wondering now is whether it may be best to disregard the advice presented by Srinath on this forum, for example the below thread springs to mind for me :
This whole thing makes me appreciate 1 - just how much human beings influence each other. 2 - just how important it is that a full actual freedom (the genuine thing / the correct target) is continually lived and demonstrated by Richard and Vinneto and by their writings on the AFT.
In fact it is all a little similar to why Richard decided to commit to actual freedom in the first place. When the woman asked him to be his disciple. What was ‘he’ still putting out that was clearly having an effect on his fellow human beings, leading them astray.
What is the newly free individual (who has retreated to the ‘social identity sandpit’) putting out to his fellow human beings interested in applying the actualism method?
Because there is no way around it, when one claims actual freedom there is a big spotlight placed on them (sorry Srinath and Geoffrey 
) So then ‘what they are putting out’ can have a big influence on others. For example that thread I posted above has been the framework I have been using since, but what if it is leading me astray?
I guess the question would be: if that framework were the same as what’s presented on the AFT site, then there would be no difference to follow one or the other.
So, what are the differences? Can you explicitly list them or describe them?
Then you will know what things you have to change to revert back to following what’s presented on the AFT site.
As a high-level idea only, I think simple actualism removes or avoids talking about a lot of what Srinath called Actualism and the Weird.
Yet that so-called “weird” is inseparable from the rest, and directly follows from what a full actual freedom is, entails, and means.
By avoiding that perhaps one is avoiding going precisely towards where Richard & Vineeto are, and thus making the journey harder for themselves than it already is (as it is obviously a tricky thing to extricate oneself from the human condition).
Srinath wrote to Vineeto:
My MO is to investigate this remnant ‘me’ and get to know how it operates, seeing how much of it can be set aside gradually – keeping my new lodestone in mind i.e. that ambrosial, super-fresh, vast, still, openness of the infinitude of the universe that is the source of all that is. Right now the process seems to be a dance between allowing infinitude and exploring the ‘brake’ that is ‘the guardian’ or something similar to that. [emphasis added]
V Man from Sydney re towards Full Freedom
I posit that, just at a surface level (without having re-read the Simple Actualism site) that which is bolded there, is what is missing or absent from “Simple/Sandpit Actualism”.
Yet that is the core and source of it all!
Ha and my guess is on the right track, the whole site contains just one instance of the word “infinitude”, and in a quote from Richard:
Simple Actualism may thus be a reflection of Srinath’s braking/turning away from that infinitude.
So what I am referring to specifically is the below advice by Srinath :
I don’t know if escaping into some idealised utopia of decision making in the actual world is necessarily helpful. I think it’s better to see your ‘back and forth’ as resulting from emotional conflict that can be investigated. Then once that’s done, and you’ve done your homework you can plunge ahead. Sometimes in life processes are more akin to a ball in a pin-ball machine than a linear move from A to B!
But I agree that there is definitely this ‘que sera, sera’ aspect to the big decisions now after AF. But I still do think about the big decisions. As to whether this will become a smooth and choiceless movement where all decisions seem inevitable and utterly natural in the future, remains to be seen.
This in in comparison to Richards writing here Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 14
One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgement. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action’.
So essentially the ‘rift’ is as follows :
Srinath although having this ‘que sera, sera’ quality is still personally involved in decision making, there is some kind of space left there for a ‘me’ of whatever remnant description to be doing the weighing up this way or that way (even though there is no longer an affective component to this).
Richard on the other hand points out that once a fact is seen there is no decision to be made, no personal involvement possible.
These are 2 different direction one can travel in no? Srinath’s advice has the flavour of retaining a more ‘human’ way of decision making, whereas Richard’s advice points to something entirely new.
When I look at the below quotes by Srinath it is quite interesting :
followed by :
So essentially Srinath is stating that he does not experience decision making in the same way that Richard does and then advises against aiming in that direction by calling it “escaping into some idealised utopia”.
So I guess this is the kind of thing that is making me wonder about being led astray.
For what it is worth this whole ‘rift’ business is clarifying itself to me. The main point being that anything that is ‘human’ is an impediment to actual freedom. Indeed this is stated very explicitly on the AFT, that actual freedom is 180 degrees opposite to all ‘human wisdom’ and that it is something entirely new, these are good pointers for the direction to move in.
Actual freedom is an extreme goal when viewed through the ‘human lens’, therefore any subtle retaining of that which is ‘human’ is likely to have one stagnant, as I have been for a while.
This subtle retaining of that which is ‘human’ is specifically a problem when it is incorporated into the advice presented by those who are newly free.
So for now 2 things make sense :
1 - If a target is utilised, aim for Richard and Vinneto.
2 - More importantly, pure intent is the guide and pure intent exists outside of ‘humanity’ altogether.
The interesting thing is that I have been unable to experientially sense pure intent for a while now, the connection was blocked. I can see that any subtle retaining of that which is ‘human’ is an obstruction to experiencing pure intent. I cannot move towards pure intent and ‘humanity’ at the same time, as pure intent exists completely outside of ‘humanity’, it is 180 degrees opposite.
The more I look into this the more imperative it becomes to commit fully to that which pure intent demonstrates, any remnant of ‘humanity’ can be such an insidious influence.
For how will ‘I’ ever agree to vacate the scene permanently if ‘I’ am unwilling to allow the perfection and purity inherent to infinitude. It makes me think to what Srinath wrote here V Man from Sydney re towards Full Freedom :
Periodically going into these states of heightened purity, where I am this body and the universes experience of itself – I realise that ‘I’ as social identity want to still run the show. The universe, the body – these are things that are quite alien to me, so I want to take the reins and be the micro-manager. The infinite, formless, genderless, shapeless universe that I am part of is too weird! It is safer this way. The socius is my buffer – a nice little cushion which I can use to shield myself from raw actuality. I am quite keen on still playing the pretend game of being ‘me’ in whatever form remains. It is the last hiding place. But of course it is not completely voluntary. It is a habitual thing also. It seems like socialising and thinking about people seems to have pronounced effect on weaving myself into being. A slight whiff of that social thing is enough to recreate the appearance of ‘[Respondent]’ once again.
And indeed how will ‘I’ ever allow something so ‘weird’ if ‘I’ am subtly retaining parts of ‘humanity’.
What happens if you right now while reading this, rememorate the most purest and mind blowing PCE you’ve had, while contemplating and reflecting on the pure and pristine nature of the universe, how benevolence and benignity is “baked in” as it were, how did to be percipient and aware of that is to start swimming towards the direction of largesse, of bounty and abundance, how the meaning of life is so far beyond normal that all what is normal is mere table scraps by comparison to an overflowing feast, how wondrous and pure it all is and how even “wondrous” seems to not do it justice when it advances past a certain level!
So I wasn’t completely clear in the previous post, the connection was blocked but is no longer 
(since yesterday). Additionally since writing the above posts it’s like this cap was removed which was previously blocking this ‘weird and wondrous’ nature of infinitude, where nothing ‘human’ remains or as you write where ‘normal’ is merely table scraps.
Now I am happily allowing this wondrous quality of the universe whereas before I was actively blocking it, I was not even willing to admit that it exists.
And a few moments ago I got right up to this point and then retreated, it does get mind boggling. But this is precisely why any remnant of ‘normal’ can be such an obstruction, for the target is so beyond normal…
A particularly fantastic piece!
Marvelling At How Well-Equipped
Human Beings Are
I particularly liked the bit about how, as each person alive was generated by one particular sperm outcompeting millions of others, such as to beget that particular person and not any other, it thusly means each person alive is the creme-de-la-creme and thus indeed has as their birthright and destiny to become actually free from the human condition!
Nice! I found this bit especially interesting :
Nevertheless, it is handy to know—and to be well aware—that the tendency in the early days of actualism practice to revert to ‘feeling neutral’, rather than ‘feeling good’, is because of it being blind-nature’s default set-point).
This is something I have observed in myself for a long time but never realised that it is a feature of how the affective faculty is ‘set up’. It makes sense that the organism should return more or less to neutral so that from there the various passions can do their job in motivating behaviour this way or that way.
It almost goes without saying, of course, that when feeling-being ‘Richard’ first devised and put into practice the eminently successful way of enjoying and appreciating being alive, via first being as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible by setting a baseline experiencing of ‘feeling good’ each moment again, come what may, for the remainder of ‘his’ life—a way nowadays known as ‘The Actualism Method’ as the result of a tongue-in-cheek jesting on a (purportedly) no-method spiritualist forum—‘he’ was totally unaware of any such “adaptation set-point” by whatever name, which has feeling neutral as its baseline experiencing, and just blithely went ahead and gladsomely established ‘feeling good’ as the minimal set-point as it felt good (hedonically) to feel good (affectively) for the rest of ‘his’ life.
So essentially Richard is saying that although the default set up is return to neutral, it is not set in stone. ‘Richard’ the identity was never aware of such a default set point and instead naively went ahead and committed to feeling good as his baseline anyways. This is like another example of not falling for the belief that ‘you can’t change human nature’.
So to summarise blind nature has as it’s default set up that an organism returns to neutral, this is presumably so that from this neutral position various emotions can do their job of motivating behaviour depending on the situation at hand.
This actually makes a lot of sense to me, for example if an organism was to be in a prolonged state of intense fear, this would dis-regulate the affective mechanism in such a way that the organism cannot respond appropriately to its environment.
But in relation to Actualism, unless one actively sets up and commits to having feeling good as one’s baseline then one will forever return to feeling neutral (as has certainly been the case for me), as this is the natural/default tendency of the affective faculty. The good news is that this default set point can be changed just as well as the rest of ‘human nature’.
So furthermore is it that all those people in the studies of the ‘set point’ remained around the same baseline for most of their lives simply because they never committed to having feeling good as their baseline instead? They did the ‘normal’ thing of living the ‘ups and downs of life’ whilst remaining around their neutral set point.
OR is it this way instead 
Is it that as long as ‘I’ am in existence, ‘my’ default draw will be to return to neutral (and from there to engage in various dramas). And this is precisely why one has to actively commit to feeling good each moment again and why it is attentiveness which maintains virtual freedom.
So essentially ‘I’ as an instinctual being will blindly gravitate back to this set point unless attentiveness consistently returns ‘me’ to the object of actualism.
The second one makes more complete sense, it can explain why Devika was able to regress from an out from control virtual freedom. Even at that point without the commitment to feeling good each moment again it is possible to relapse back to normal and from there to getting caught up in the good and bad feelings instead.
“…they will inevitably return to the same neutral set-point after a significantly emotional life event.”
That’s basically what happened for me during/after my breakup.