@jamesjjoo I wouldn’t say that this is necessarily the best metaphor as a drowning man wants air desperately and reflexively. You could think of something you’d really and honestly love to have - something you’d never in a million years refuse if you can help it. It’s more something like that.
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Looking at my post now potentially I am under-emphasising the thirst or hunger for oblivion. But that can also be experienced in the desire of a sleep deprived man for sleep and in those who seek it through drink and drugs. See if you can relate to something like this - that hunger to unburden oneself from ‘me’.
The other thing is that this sincere hunger for ‘ending’ reaches its climax at the point of self-immolation itself. There’s all those other things that need to be in place, which have been spoken of before: access to pure intent, destiny, universality etc which work to increase that desire for oblivion. When you get there, you’ll know it - until then you won’t. So saying ‘I don’t want it badly enough’ is to misunderstand how the desire for oblivion ties into self-immolation.
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@Srinath Your post has helped me to focus on a clear path:
- pure intent - connect to purity of the universe by remembering a pce (working on this now).
- Ramp up a hunger for oblivion (freedom from ‘me’).
- See it as my destiny.
- Not exactly sure what you mean by universality or the other things that need to be in place. I do understand what you said about a hunger for oblivion.
I had an interesting experience the other day.
I was talking with a friend about how we experience social situations, specifically moments where we’re having a good time, and experiencing the other person or people around us as ‘cool.’ We noticed that we frequently raise that person up on a pedestal, ‘they are so cool,’ ‘when I’m around them I have such a good time,’ ‘I wish I could be as cool and light as them.’ But she pointed out something interesting: in those moments, it’s me that’s having the good light time. In other words, noticing the role that I have in having that good time - it’s not the other person (solely) creating that good time, but I am the one experiencing the lightness & enjoyment.
This was a shocking moment for me as it revealed the nature of emotion as not something ‘belonging’ to external factors, but as a veil existing in front of ME (in fact as me). This is the veil Peter describes shortly before becoming free. Part of what this revealed to me is the huge amount of control we actually have over our experience - at any moment we can choose to alter that veil, to experience the world differently, because it is my veil, because it is me.
By choosing to experience this moment of being alive as enjoyment/enjoyable/enjoying/harmless, I - the veil - am all of those qualities, which also means that the veil is the thinnest it can be and thus the actual world can shine through.
All that’s happening is that ‘I’ choose (normally) to dive into all manner of other emotions constantly, which reifies & ‘thickens’ the veil.
The way is clear (:
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@jamesjjoo You can read about it here in the last section: SIMPLE ACTUALISM - Actual Freedom
Keep in mind that it reads a bit clunky or complicated when written down. The experience itself is quite cohesive, simple and compelling. So needless to say there is really no substitute for the experience itself.
In replying to @rick that the real world is in the psyche and the actual world is not in the psyche has helped me to connect to the actual world directly thru the senses and not look at it thru the psyche.
I found this interesting, especially trying to think about time in as large of increments as large as 2.6 million years or 100,000 years. The cultural developments we live inside of are so relatively fresh!
Is everything except the actual world a belief?
Yes.
Essentially what’s happening is ‘I’ am pasting an emotional veneer (of various ‘thicknesses’) over everything that I experience. So when my senses see a cup, it very quickly devolves into a felt experience of the cup, which is my beliefs about the cup. In that way, everything that I’m experiencing is mediated by belief.
It’s even more obvious in situations that are (more) obviously emotionally heightened, but it’s happening all the time. A major realization for me awhile back was that if I’m not in a PCE, then I am in some degree of a dream. Missing the actual. That’s part of why PCEs are often experienced as shocking, almost like seeing the matrix.
The thinnest the veneer can be is in the stages of harmlessness & enjoying & appreciating. The actual world can ‘shine through,’ and the identity is more likely to drop out (PCE).
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Very well said @henryyyyyyyyyy. I agree with what you have said. When we see how our psyche is overlaid onto the actual world then we see the actual world more clearly. It is amazing to see it is all a belief. I was hesitant to say it because it seems that can’t be right but you have clearly elucidated it. I’m still afraid that someone will show me that it is not true and that I am wrong about it.
Experiential verification is the only one worthy of the name - in many ways the method is about going & verifying through experience over & over.
Richard’s claims are extremely bold. Nearly anyone you can talk to, all the ‘experts’ in every field, will disagree with him. So, what exactly is going on?
This situation is part of what makes all this the adventure of a lifetime 
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@geoffrey I agree this is the question. I don’t have an answer right now. I am looking right now for the answer. It is something that has always eluded me. Maybe it is a simple answer hiding in plain sight. Something like just do it.
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It just dawned on me that it is a belief that I can’t do it right now.
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This is a huge breakthrough that it is a belief that I can’t do it right now.
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Saw. Was just checking in and trying something different
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Showerthought:
If becoming free is self-immolation, then actualism is engaging with a process of gradually making myself more and more inflammable.
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from the above article :
Each of us can ride the waves of attachments and urges, hoping futilely that someday, somehow, we will get and keep that satisfaction we crave. Or we can take a shot at free will and self-mastery. It’s a lifelong battle against our inner caveman. Often, he wins. But with determination and practice, we can find respite from that chronic dissatisfaction and experience the joy that is true human freedom.
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