I might be way out on a limb here but I am trying to understand a phenomena that seems to be happening to me.
I find myself starting out in a place that feels naive, sincere, intimate, nice. I can get to this place right now fairly easily through ‘rememoration’ or through reading PCE descriptions, descriptions of being actually free, or descriptions of self-immolation. I find this state to be authentic, involved, spontaneous. I find myself being more extroverted and communicative, and the communication I make seems to come from something original and unrehearsed.
What happens next often is I notice one of these spontaneous/authentic intentions surfacing, and then something comes down to suppress it, and I am kicked out of that pleasant and cordial way of being.
One example would be an intention to text someone comes up to see how they are or to try to engage in a hangout. I then have thoughts that argue with the correctness of that intention. Like for instance I wanted to text a friend who I don’t hang out with often. I then had the thought of ‘maybe they don’t want to’ or ‘maybe your motivation to hang out is wrong, because you shouldn’t be seeking comfort in other people as an actualist’.
Another example is some interesting thought coming up with the intention to speak it to a group. Then the suppression clamps down and says I shouldn’t say that because it might make me look stupid or might cause a disagreement.
Usually my next thought after these moments of suppression is ok well let’s try to just be happy here and now on my own without doing xyz. What it seems like to me though is that by putting some condition on being happy and harmless, in this case that I will not reach out or speak up, it becomes inaccessible. Once I instead start seeking happiness and harmlessness without conditions, I actually get back to a happy/harmless state, and the intentions I wanted to suppress re-emerge.
Is this how the social-identity stops happiness and harmlessness in other people’s experience? It makes sense but I have never experienced it in such a direct way before. If so it seems like I have a pretty clear path forward but it also seems to mean I can’t pre-determine my behavior at all, I have to be willing to accept new behavior patterns. Is this just actualism 101? I feel like I haven’t seen it spelled out in quite this way though it maps fairly well to other things I’ve seen.
This reminds me of something that Alan wrote in his notes about his visit to Australia. They were talking if I remember correctly about Peter touching Richards face when he was close to self immolation and Alan reached out to do something similar then commented that it was probably his identity trying to copy what Peter did. Richard commented that his actions were indeed spontaneous and that it was the identity that stopped it! So it was the other way around if that makes any sense haha.
It seems the same thing is happening with what you describe. The initial action is spontaneous and then ‘you’ come in to complicate it, then the actualist morals come in etc.
I call that part of myself ‘the critic,’ it’s pretty much the core of ‘me.’
Its job is to criticize and find fault in things, to keep me safe. It has a big long list of things to watch out for that are bad. But its list starts from the instincts, then it’s a list of things that have been acculturated into us, then it’s a list of basically ‘other things that have made us feel bad at some point or another,’ so you can imagine it can become quite long.
Because of this associative nature (if something else makes me feel bad, I’ll add it to the list / if someone in the past experienced some bad emotions then we’ll train future generations to avoid it), it’s quite brainless. Part of the job of investigation is going into all this and questioning, is it the best thing to say something or not?
It helps to not take it too seriously, sometimes you can only find out what the best thing to do is is by trying and maybe you’ll find out it’s not the best thing to say something (for example). But you can only find out experientially by trying. There are going to be mistakes. But part of what the identity does is raise the stakes to where it’s too scary to even try.
What I experience is that this critic is constantly popping up in subtle ways in my thoughts, basically saying you shouldn’t think that / you shouldn’t do that / you shouldn’t say that… it’s like an internal parent, but it’s me. And the goal is to answer those questions (what is the sensible approach?) and remove the need for the critic with its negative emotion-based approach.
I think this kinda nails it, such a weird/exciting territory! Where behaviour is no longer pre-determined by morals and beliefs, not even the actualist ones haha. Then it is pure intent that is guiding what I do each moment again as long as I remain naive, that’s where things get magical in a way that can never be planned in advance.
Yes it is! That is a good one, because ‘I’ am always scheming, why? To manufacture some sort of security, to avoid danger or tragedy or what have you. Then this weird thing happens where purity is being experienced and with it a safety that cuts all this scheming at the root, there is no need to scheme where this actual safety is experienced so palpably, what for ?
The other thing I would write @hunterad is I experience something similar all the time. Often with regards to training, like when I want to put more time into either training in the gym or martial arts (the thing that I actually wish to do), some sort of insecurity or fear will pop up and then I will cunningly turn it into an actualist matter - “I should be happy doing nothing otherwise I’m not progressing towards actual freedom” etc
So it’s a cover up actually, then I will sit around doing nothing and not feeling good either, but apparently I’m being a good actualist cos I’m not pursuing real world desires…
?