Vineeto: I don’t see any relevance at all to what actualism is about – bringing about peace on earth via the minimisation of both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and thus maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings. The fact that you found the studies impressive indicates that you are still looking for evidence and proof of the descriptions and reports of an actual freedom from the human condition – something which is entirely new to human consciousness – in real-world research.
Roy: Exactly, it’s the same issue. You see no relevance in this type of study about the brain, but I really do… It’s my insistence to discuss these matters here because I genuinely believe they are relevant. At least for me… That wikipedia entry you shared isn’t particularly interesting though, I agree with that.
Hi Roy,
Your “exactly” confirms that you are looking for ‘proof’ of actualist’s reports in the real world, either materialism or as Claudiu pointed out, spiritualism, consistently ignoring the fact that actualism is experiential and something entirely new to human history. The actual world is an entirely different world to the world feeling beings experience and the two shall never meet.
Vineeto: Given that you go on to say that “my conscious experience is entirely true within the context of my subjectivity” I strongly doubt that what you experienced were clear unequivocal PCEs because then you would know, without a smidgen of a doubt, that there is no subjectivity in a PCE because the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance in a pure consciousness experience and thus allows you, the flesh-and-blood body devoid of ‘self’, to experience that the actual world is a totally different paradigm to the real world. Unless you do, it is not a PCE.
Roy: During my PCEs, I don’t think at all about any of these questions… The last PCE I had was a spontaneous moment with family, in which the whole evening unfolded completely without me stopping even for a moment to think about happiness, or malice, or anything of the sort. The moments simply followed one another, and I lived those moments with all my being. Nothing went wrong during that evening — or what could be said to have gone wrong wasn’t seen that way at all — everything just happened with the greatest happiness.
Basically, all of my PCEs are like that. And so, I don’t draw any conclusions about the nature of the universe, or time, or space during a PCE. I’m absorbed in what is happening. I have no thoughts about the “self” or about myself either. When I recall them, I admit I don’t have an immensely clear memory of what happened, but there is still enough of a recollection of what was experienced.
For me, PCEs are useful because I know, through them, that there is a completely different reality from my normal one. And that is why I continue on this path — otherwise, I would have given up searching by now. However, my hesitation and caution lie in not taking that memory of the PCE, interpreting it in the present, and giving it a meaning.
I say it again for emphasis, what you call your PCEs are not unequivocal clear experiences of the actual world – you may be experiencing “a completely different reality” but it is not a magical mirificent actuality. When you experience actuality, a complete absence of ‘I’/ ‘me’, there is no doubt, everything is patently obvious. Even if you had glimpses of the actual world they are soon obscured by the fact that what just happened is unbelievable and incomprehensible, unimaginable and inconceivable.
Richard: The reason for this odd denial is fairly obvious: once the person has reverted to ‘normal’ – to being ‘human’ again – perfection here-on-earth becomes merely a concept and a belief … and it is a notion one finds impossible to give credence to. The grip of reality is so strong that perfection simply does not exist. It is but a faded dream. The potential can lie dormant forever. (Richard’s Journal, Article 24).
What you could do is compare your own experience to all the descriptions of PCEs and of the actual world (for instance (link)) to what is reported/ described on the AFT website and find out if something correlates with your own experience. It is the only reliable repository of reports about pure consciousness because all those reports on his portion of the website stem from Richard’s lived experience 24hrs/day, 365 days/year.
Roy: What you’re saying is that a PCE is not a subjective experience, and what I’m saying is that it still is — because I’m not in a PCE 100% of the time.
If it was a PCE it would be not be subjective, because when ‘I’/ ‘me’ is absent there is no subject/ no identity experiencing it, only this flesh-and-blood body being apperceptively aware, having a series of sensations and sometimes thoughts. A PCE is the objective experience of what I am, of what is actual, factual. A fact does not need to be believed to be true. A fact does not have to be accepted on trust … a fact is candidly so.
Vineeto: […] There are examples of people describing a PCE, which then degenerated into an ASC, and in hindsight they interpreted the whole experience in terms of their religion/ creed. As such their initial PCE cannot be used as a loadstone for describing the actual world. This is the very reason why the Actual Freedom Trust website exists.
Roy: Yes, but that’s precisely what I’m talking about. That’s my fear — misinterpreting the experience… (link)
Whatever you do, you will not find the answers for your fears, or succour and confirmation for your doubts in the real-world beliefs and concepts of feeling beings. As Richard says – “The grip of reality is so strong that perfection simply does not exist.”
Vineeto: What you say you “fully identified with” was still the ‘self’ which the ‘self’ was able to see (except the part doing the seeing). It makes no difference if you “fully identified with the ‘self’” you can see or not because ‘you’, the totality of the instinctual passion plus the social identity, are the ‘self’, whether you identify with or not. The only way to see the ‘self’ from the outside is when ‘you’ are in abeyance, in other word when apperception is operating.
Roy: Yes, it’s not very easy to explain what happened. Interestingly, it happened again today — for a significantly longer period! The most concrete way I can explain it is that there’s a clarity… It’s as if I’m “more aware” because I’m not constantly thinking about myself. I think that’s the best way I can describe it, without trying to use the concept of the self, which is clearly not a concept that I am able to grasp. I think I was so surprised that I had to come up with some sort of explanation using the terms I have available.
Of course, you cannot grasp “the concept of the self” because the ‘self’, the passionate identity is not a concept, it is you in reality, all of your being. That’s why spiritualism always fails, they imagine that by witnessing the ego-part of the self they can transcend it but they overlook the more powerful passionate aspect of ‘self’/ ‘being’ and thus remain trapped within the human condition. That’s why all attempts of thousands of people over centuries of earnestly trying have failed in bringing about peace of earth. It is the Tried and Failed and you seem to have been unwittingly sucked in by their promises, concepts and methods.
Vineeto: The actualism method of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is designed to thin out or weaken the affective influence of ‘I’/ ‘me’ by minimising the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings which keep the ‘self’ in place, and maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings which diminish the affective energy/ influence of the ‘self’.
Roy: When I started correctly applying the method during my days, there was a progressive change that made my day-to-day life much, much better than it was. However, it’s a completely different experience from a PCE. For some time now, the situation had stabilized, and I felt I wasn’t progressing. I think what’s holding me back is, on one hand, still-rooted beliefs, and on the other, not truly understanding (I mean, beyond the simple intellectual understanding) the ‘self’. And that’s why I’m interested in continuing to explore everything that might help me in that regard.
Everything that is written on the AFT website, especially on Richard’s portion of it, should make it clear that the whole of you, the passionate identity including the social identity is who you are. Given that who you are is comprised of emotions, feelings, passions, emotion-backed beliefs, concepts, principles etc, the quickest way to discover who you are and how you tick is via looking at any and every emotion which stands in the way of continually feeling good, being affectively happy and harmless (the condition when the ‘self’ is least dominant).
I have seen many actualists, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ included, who at first impatiently wanted to skip the exercise of becoming affectively happy and harmless and jump to the end straight away, only to get hopelessly lost in imagination, daydreaming, being side-tracked to spiritualistic dissociation methods or ‘scientific’ psychological self-help offers when they hit the first obstacle. Here is what ‘Vineeto’ discovered –
ALAN: On further investigation, I discovered a belief lurking in the depths – that it seems to be just as difficult to attain a condition of actual freedom as it is to ‘achieve’ enlightenment.
‘VINEETO’: I’d like to throw in my observation that achieving enlightenment is peanuts compared to becoming actually and permanently free from the human condition. Why do you think hundreds of people have become enlightened in the last millennia while Richard is still the only one who is actually free? And to add my own experience as evidence – some six months into my practice of actualism I arrived at an altered state of consciousness that had all the elements of enlightenment and only Richard’s strong warning not to get ground on the Rock of Enlightenment and rigorous sincerity saved me from entering permanent delusion.
I therefore agree with you that it is purely a belief – it is not ‘just as difficult’ but it requires much more sincerity and far more ploughing into the depth of one’s psyche to become actually free from the human condition in toto than it does to become enlightened. After all, in the identity-swapping fantasy of enlightenment one is merely replacing a shoddy ego with a grand soul, comparable to swapping a rusty old Morris Minor for a brand-new Rolls Royce, whereas for actual freedom ‘I’ am required to persistently and willingly whittle away at my very ‘being’ until ‘I’ arrive at a point where ‘my’ immolation is inevitable. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, Alan-e, 18.2.2002).
One can’t think or philosophise one’s way into the actual world because it is actual, not philosophical or conceptual. You got to walk the walk to dismantle your ‘self’ bit by bit, thin it out at the edges with a sincere commitment to imitate the actual by becoming unconditionally happy and harmless, by enjoying and appreciating being here now, in this only moment you can actually experience being alive.
I also found that the core reason for wanting to jump the gun, so to speak, the all-or-nothing approach, is a basic resentment of being here. Why else should there be a resistance to enjoy and appreciate being here.
Roy: I believe that if I gain a better understanding of its nature, it might be easier to free myself from it. Yesterday and today, I had moments where I managed to free myself from a certain type of thought – thoughts that all revolve around me – that prevent me from being even happier and cause me some fatigue. It’s different, but it’s a huge step forward for me! (link)
It is impossible to experientially understand the nature of ‘self’ as long as you are a ‘self’ – there is always a ‘self’ trying to do away with ‘self’. (Richard: ‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for ‘I’ cannot end ‘myself’).
A feeling being cannot understand the nature of ‘self’ (except in an unequivocal PCE) hence you will get no answers from people in the real world or the spiritual world. Richard, even though he fully understood the nature of ‘self’ in his 4hr PCE, had to nevertheless transcend first the ego-part of ‘self’ by becoming enlightened and then for 11 years gradually penetrate into the soul-part of ‘self’ – Love Agape and Divine Compassion plus pacifism – in order to finally become free of the identity in toto, all the while using the actualism method to do that.
As such he was the first person to experientially understand the nature of ‘self’/ ‘Self’ in its entirety from the perspective of being without ‘self’/ ‘Self’. (see Enlightenment Résumé). Why, after studying and fully understanding the impact of Richard’s history you still think that the answers to an actual freedom and the nature of ‘self’, lie elsewhere is a mystery to me. But then I could have easily forgotten how long it took ‘Vineeto’ to comprehensively understand.
Also, because you believe that it’s only thoughts “that prevent me from being even happier and cause me some fatigue” – a belief you borrowed from spiritualists – you completely overlook the fact that it is feelings and passions, (accompanied by feeling-fed thoughts/ beliefs/ truths/ concepts) which comprise the identity/ the ‘self’. Therefore, when you experience a diminishment in feeling good you apply affective attentiveness, i.e. attentiveness to how you feel, in order to discover what is preventing you from feeling good right now. Of course, it is pertinent to first uncover and abandon any dissociative habits you might have acquired during your flirtation with spiritual practices, else any feelings will only surface as “fatigue” or similar negative psychosomatic symptoms (called ‘sensations’ by them), which is a very common occurrence with practitioners of vipassana and similar dissociative practices.
Roy: PS: Lately I’ve been writing in my native language and then translating with AI, and it helps – I think I can express myself more clearly. (link)
Just out of curiosity, if you don’t mind, what is your native language?
Cheers Vineeto
. It’s the only way to genuinely know that we are living in an actually existing universe and it’s not some simulation or illusion or God-created manifestation or a temporary staging ground for a metaphysical after-life or a cold, random, meaningless mostly empty place etc.
Thanks again for all the replies! I apologize if I’m sometimes stubborn, if I don’t correctly interpret what you’re trying to convey, or if I’m not clear in my phrasing — but it is what it is 
