Hi Sonya,
I think what you wrote yourself some time ago might give you a clue –
Sonya: It’s the times when I let go of this ‘life line’ and ‘I’ get in the way again to try to plan/ scheme/ take more control Is when I notice I’m not living in this moment but in an imaginary future and everything dulls. Whereas when I’m just enjoying and appreciating this moment it’s like the world is in HD and so vibrant. (link)
And Kuba was most likely hinting at his own experience last month (2 July) when he said he “he has an idea” –
Kuba: There was one thing that happened about 30min ago which was especially precious. I was chilling on the sofa with Sonya and poncho (my dog). I went to cuddle poncho and all of a sudden it was like that veil of reality was pulled back and I saw both Sonya and poncho as actually existing. It’s hard to convey the importance of those words – “actually existing”. But it goes some way to consider that not a single one of the ‘events’ which ever happened in ‘my’ reality were genuine. That the entirety of ‘my’ life was never genuine.
And now that curtain got pulled back and an actually existing world was revealed, so precious to discover it!
Vineeto: I fully understand the importance of those words as I remember ‘Vineeto’s’ first experience of this happening, it was quite world-view-shattering for ‘her’ –
‘Vineeto’: The next vital and essential break-through in understanding was my first major peak experience (PCE). What had started off one evening as ‘a roaming in the vast chambers of my mind’, psychic experiences and an expanded state of consciousness suddenly took a turn from ‘inner reality’ to actuality. It happened when Peter looked at me and said ‘hello, how are you doing?’ [Perhaps vaguely similar to Richard asking Pamela, “how is it as you sit here now”? (@13.53 min)].
I popped out of my inner world of feelings and imagination and, questioning the very validity of all I felt and thought, entered the world beyond beliefs and feelings – the actual world. Here was another human being, a flesh-and-blood person without any particular identity [for me] and he wanted to talk to me. And here I was, also a flesh-and-blood person without a particular identity, sitting on an old couch and curious to talk to this man that I was meeting for the first time.
I had never met the actual Peter; I had only related to him through the curtain of my expectations and classifications, through the filter of my social identity, through the grey or rose-coloured glasses of my ‘self’. What was initially a shocking surprise quickly turned into fascination and delight to have discovered something so simple and so pure – actual intimacy with another person and the perfection of the actual world. Here we were, two human beings, meeting for the first time, without past or future. No grand feelings, in fact, no feelings at all, but the pleasure of mutual undivided attention as to what the other is going to say next… [square-bracketed inserts added]. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, James2, 7.4.2000). (link)
Sonya: I remember that delight and happiness was amping up, growing and growing. I was just having a great time! (link)
Isn’t it amazing what can happen when “delight and happiness” is “amping up, growing and growing”!
So when you wonder what best to do, it is to be happy and harmless, and when it’s not only based on special events but just bubbling up because it’s such a joy to simply be alive, even better.
Here is Richard talking about being harmless – and it’s not at all anything to do with being ‘unselfish’ –
Martin: Does harmlessness have nothing to do with ‘others’?
• [Richard]: “(…) it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy and harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, AF List, No. 62, 26 Mar 2004).
Richard: Thus to be harmless as per actualism lingo (being free of malice) is beneficial both to oneself – plus it feels unpleasant (hedonically) to feel malicious (affectively) anyway – as well to others due to being unable to induce suffering either in oneself or another, via affective vibes and psychic currents, and vice versa. (…)
Martin: (…) I don’t think I’ve really understood what harmless means, as I can’t help but either put ‘myself’ or ‘others’ first (as a kind of denial of ‘self’) when I think of being harmless. (…) ‘Harmlessness’ feels like something you do to another human being – or an effect you have on them – but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?
Richard: Do you see how almost all of that paragraph you wrote as a lead-up to your query about being harmless – as in “but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?” that is – stems from or revolves around that hoary religio-spiritual practice of putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’) so as to counter selfishness? (…)
As being harmless does not feature in religio-spiritual practice – peace-on-earth is not on the religio-spiritual agenda – then the sooner that nonsense about being an unselfish ‘self’ is abandoned the better. (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 Aug 2016).
There is more practical information in this correspondence if you want to read it to the end.
So, enjoy, and give your enjoyment the tick of approval (appreciate).
Cheers Vineeto