Trying to fabricate actualism

Actualism
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Reading the topic on the different types of enlightenment, and my response to it, made me think of what factors made a difference in the years that my psyche was experiencing different states, versus the decades after when very little happened.

It is a very interesting thought.

I think, following on from @rick pondering the topic of facts, feelings and actualism, and the obvious difficulty many have had over the years of really experiencing what Richard encourages, that it’s a very worthy topic for me to ponder further.

I remember distinctly having next to zero success when turning from meditation to actualism. (i came kicking and screaming). It’s interesting to me to consider that some of the topics that i actually learned in meditation would have been good to keep.

The one that i am thinking about is the “fabrication” factor. In my case, it was never a problem in meditation because i really sucked at it, but a a snippet of common sense, i can see that it made sense in that context. It also makes me think of were it all went wrong for me, i was still trying to create an experience, regardless of not being any good at it.

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I would advise just dropping anything you learned from meditation or spirituality. Abandon all the terms, just focus on learning and using concepts with the actualist vocabulary which will have different connotations :smile:

For example “fabrications” is firstly a mistranslation and misunderstanding of the Pāli “sankhara”, which Richard figured out rather means “willfulness” (as in willfully becoming engaged with and entangling oneself with the world as it is and people as they are, which is directly against the spiritual goal of abandoning the world and residing in/becoming the Absolute). Thus the usage of this Buddhist term has essentially nothing to do with what it was initially decided to mean, therefore it’s not of benefit to use with its intended purpose which is to aid in reaching Enlightenment.

Secondly, even if it were an accurate term, as it is jargon related to becoming enlightened it is of limited use to becoming actually free from the human condition.

Much better to use simple common-sense and easy to understand language like “don’t pretend to be happy when you aren’t, as pretending to be happy is not being happy”

And of course “don’t pretend you are absent when you are still present, as pretending to not be there isn’t the same as actually not being there (PCE)”.

If this doesn’t cover the cases you were going to use the word or concept or understanding of “fabrication” then I’d be happy to supply other alternatives :D.

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@claudiu probably my fault, as I’ve been using the term quite liberally lol.

I remember posts on the DhO where people would claim they could ‘make up’ the experience of, say, eating an apple. They would be meditating, eyes closed, etc. and then would ‘summon’ the experience, to the point of the apple being visually there, the crunchy sound of the bite, the taste, the juice dripping on their lips, etc. They would then go on and claim that this experience was of similar, or superior, (or even identical) quality to the ‘real’ one. This is what I call ‘fabrication’.
I remember posts where, having read the description of a PCE, people would say “oh sure I can make that experience… Nothing that fancy really. It’s just xyz… I did it on a retreat… here, I’m making it right now!” That is what I call ‘fabrication’.
I call ‘fabrication’ what the affers did, with actual freedom misconstrued (and then ‘constructed’) as an actuality-mimicking ASC.
I call ‘fabrication’ all this ‘making up’ of experiences based on their description (or memory), which is particularly problematic with experiences like that of the PCE or Actual Freedom (and what a “dastardly act” it is to claim it, when it’s only ‘fabricated’), as in Actual Freedom the imaginative faculty is gone, and ‘fabrications’ are simply impossible.
Now I’ll be happy for you to provide a better word for that, since that one apparently has too much (spiritual) history for it to get my meaning across.

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I see what you mean and the word does make sense for that. But to pick a ‘cleaner’ word maybe we can say “scripting” instead?

So the affers were scripting their experiences of “PCE”s instead of having genuine ones.

It seems to work well in all but the first example of making up the experience of an Apple being eaten …

Also I like it cause I think it would be used in other contexts too, like someone drinking non alcoholic beer might script the experience of being drunk …

Thoughts?

EDIT: and for the first case of the Apple we can say imagination :smiley:

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Well, although I’m not exactly the best at suggesting English words :face_with_hand_over_mouth:, if I had to choose one, perhaps “forging” would apply to both apple and scripts.

If the term is considered too biased because of its connotation with lying, etc., maybe “concoction” or something similar could be used…

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It sounds a lot like New Thought manifestation techniques, like very specifically some kind of Neil Goddard-y “feeling it real” version of actual freedom. Fabricating is good since manifestation feels like it has too many positive connotations (at least to me as a non-native speaker) :blush:

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“scripting” is good, @claudiu.s, and what @geoffrey wrote was what i said thinking.

I actually had an “ah, ha” moment last night. Regarding the actualism method.

I was imagining becoming actually free, and how i would help others do it. I started imaging essentially something similar to “direct pointing” but with the questions along the lines of “are you enjoying this moment completely? What is in the way?” but not going into any depth of discussion, but just acknowledging whatever thought and feeling, and keeping the focus about maximising the enjoyment of the experience of talking together. The more this imaginative scenario went on, the more i saw it is what HAIETMOBA was, all along. And why Richard was always writing, “then one is back to feeling good”. It’s a method (specifically the question and the intention) to maximise enjoyment in the moment.

A few years ago, i was in a relationship with a Scientologist. A “free zone” one, not connected to the official church. I did some “auditing” with her mentor, and actually found it enjoyable. The process was somewhat similar, in that you can go into whatever depth you want with your answers, but the question will remain the same, a “thankyou” and acknowledgement, but a repeat of the same question.

Back in the day, “direct pointing” was one of the few things that did spark experiences for me.

The difference between these cognitive approaches, and meditation, it that one must be engaged, honest, sincere, and open (naivete).

‘i’ have to answer the question. There is a very clear intention, and that whole “being” approach seems to be effective for me.

Having fun with myself, in the moment of asking and feeling, without necessarily pondering, or ruminating, or theories, but rather exposing my self to the question deliberately.

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Andrew, this reminds me how in one of the becoming-free reports (I think @geoffrey’s) he mentions no longer “imagining how he would tell people about becoming free,” instead focusing on how to do it. What you describe above has a similar flavor to me, of fantasizing.

I think it’s socially driven, imagining how great it will be, how we will help so many people, how grateful they will be to us & on & on… you know… the predictable human narrative :slight_smile:

Whereas the actual requires exactly that: actual experience. How can you know what it will be, until you’ve done it? How can you know how others will respond? The fantasizing is actually a way for the identity to block becoming free, by telling yourself that you ‘already know how….’ Thus preventing genuine investigation which will lead to becoming free.

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Imagining what anything will be like for you ‘after’ actual freedom, or what you will do, etc… is missing the point that ‘you’ will not be there.
Missing that point means not being able to even contemplate agreeing to ‘you’ not being there (as in: allowing ‘your’ self-immolation)… which is indeed quite the obstacle on the road to actual freedom through self-immolation. :grin:

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and have been meaning to make a post - - but I suspect such imaginations are driven by desire.

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Always driven by desire! And then the drive to desire itself is from trying to escape loneliness & generalized misery.

The first thing to question is: why am I not happy, right now?

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