Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Here

I have found more success in running the question in a wordless approach towards each moment, experiencing it without trying to distort it observing how I try to push certain thoughts and feelings away or reel others in. If one spends too much time verbalizing, thinking, analyzing, etc. – then what is there is often distorted, or one becomes distracted.

Ok. I have not as I said yet started actualism, just being attentive for a short period of time etc., just trying to get a hang of this process, but let me tell you, I am never ‘here’! Some talk in the head, internal dialogue/wandering is going on, has it slowed down for you by now?

In my experience, actualism is not about ‘being here’. You are already here, and there is no other place or time to be but here and now. It’s not so much that being ‘normal’ means to ‘not be here’ – rather, it is to not be paying complete attention – it is to let much of what is happening in awareness slip under the rug, between the gaps, etc.

I’m not sure that the inner chatter you refer to has ‘slowed down’ for me sometimes it does, though there always seems to be something running in the background. Much of it has lost its force though.

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So – when the question is running for me, it’s more like an immediate recognition of a feeling, sensation, thought or whatever is up for my attention – with an immediate awareness that works to gently dismantle any cause of suffering or unhappiness.

Do provide some live life eg! And you are saying you just turn the Attention, i.e. are attentive to the feeling running and that attention stops that and hence u get back out of that wandering, that habitual reactionary process and back to feeling good? or you try to catch it back to the belief, emotion, say to yourself oh ho there we go again, this is that instinctual thing in action and plus coupled with the attention it then stops?

There are at least 2 modes that I distinguish.

1) There are beliefs, emotions, passions, etc that barely intrude on awareness (possibly because they are not very strong or convincing, or possibly because they have been dealt with before) – those normally require only an immediate recognition, with the judgement of ‘silly’ or ‘I really don’t want that in my life any more.’

2) There are beliefs, emotion, passions, etc that more forcefully intrude on awareness and need more unravelling. These are virtually impossible to unravel immediately by instant recognition – one has to take the time to investigate those feelings to see what they are made of – it takes time to get to the bottom of these as there are many nooks and crannies to explore. Once these are all explored, then they turn into examples categorized under #1.

As an example of what I am referring to, let’s take fantasizing during sex. Fantasizing about other women while having sex with my partner used to occur quite frequently for me, as I’ve heard it does for other men as well. I carried out an investigation about sex and emotional intimacy that comprised much of my first year or so of actualism. After those issues have been dealt with and seen clearly, then the desire to fantasize might only visit me in an attenuated fashion, then I can look into it and easily dispense with it.

What dispenses with it? Overriding pure intent – which is the relentless, unyielding intent to unravel the human condition and live at peace with myself and others. Also, the realization that the experience is SO much better without the fantasizing. It’s not that I made fantasizing a moral issue – rather it was a mal-adaptation, like an addiction.

Which brings me to the following point. The human condition and its components can be likened to an addiction. Just like an addicted person may have a difficult time ridding themselves of the addiction at first – their intent to be free is the overriding factor for success, with success happening gradually, incrementally, not all or nothing. Eventually, addictions lessen their strength until one is either virtually free of it or actually free – the same goes for the human condition.

Respondent No 37, (R, Peter, Vineeto, any other actualist can also answer) this belief thing, I can understand, meaning, if I am sad or in any other state other than feeling or for that even feeling good and if I notice that and see that its due to some belief, that very seeing of that belief is the release. I mean I see that it’s just a belief I have been holding, social conditioning and I drop it. That sadness or that feeling goes.

But lets say it’s a state due to instinctual passion, then how does it work? My attention notices the instinct in operation, say I am irritated or angry or lusty and leave it at that. Here I can’t see the falseness of a belief or social conditioning like above, right? I just attend to the human condition and recognise it as that and leave it and move on?

I used to get caught up in the very same questions. Possibly what I provided above will provide hints, but to actually find out for yourself, you will need to do it for yourself. What I discovered is that won’t happen until you fully commit yourself to peace-on-earth. One cannot merely dabble with actualism or test the waters first – in order to reap benefits, you must commit yourself with your whole ‘being.’ Nothing less will do the trick. No 37 to No 72, 2.10.2004

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