Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Pure Intent

This sounds about right to me. Also, I’ve been wondering why ‘practicing actualism’ hasn’t changed me fundamentally for a while now – such as, where’s virtual freedom – why do I understand so much more about the human condition, yet am not personally yet happy and harmless?

How long does it take? Well, I think this post contains the essential answer. What I now understand is that actualism is the moment-by-moment saying ‘YES’ to life regardless of what ‘I’ feel or think. Up to this point, I have been investigating, being attentive and such with less than desired results. Now, I see that putting ‘pure intent’ into practice is to opt ‘each moment again’ to be attentive and elect to be happy and harmless – as such it is not intellectual at all.

Essentially, it is the stubborn will to be as happy and harmless as humanly possibly regardless of what happens – that eventually results in an actual freedom. Previously, I often wondered whether some thought, idea, belief, etc really was ‘silly’ and how I could know that it is silly. Now, I see that judging anything that causes suffering, such as beliefs, feelings, etc. as ‘silly’ is one and the same mental disposition – aka, ‘pure intent’ that is the unqualified ‘YES’ to life and will to be happy and harmless – no matter what. So – thanks, No 60. That is the last piece of the puzzle for me. No 37 to No 60, 31.10.2005

I am not a straw grasper, but thanks for asking. Are you not grasping for straws thinking that by reading someone else’s words and practicing someone else’s method, that all that will eventuate the demise of the illusion that you intellectually understand yourself to be because someone else has told you that?

I suppose the only way to know is to try it. By trying it, I have become more aware than ever of the human condition and how generally to get around it’s tangles. It doesn’t happen all at once – but incrementally in my experience. There are tangible changes that there is no way of denying. You have heard this already, but I will repeat it – actualism is not about ‘intellectual’ understanding.

The fact that the ‘method’ originated with someone else is no argument against it. To propose that because the method started with someone else, then it cannot work for another person is like saying that someone who developed a method for reading cannot teach another person to read or another person to teach with that method. In other words, it would be an absurd proposal.

Besides, it’s not that I believe actualism or have an intellectual understanding of it – or hope that Richard and the actualists are correct. Instead, I personally have found no reasonable way of denying it. For example, the intellectual concoctions and contortions you have proposed to explain away actualism as a product of Richard’s deluded ego and so forth require belief far beyond my ability. How you are able to rationalize your conclusions about Richard is beyond me. I can only understand it as wishful thinking.

I certainly have tried plenty of ways of explaining it away, yet they have all fallen flat or quite simply been irrelevant.

And that you even really want this?

Not how you put it – but for this identity to go into oblivion is at the top of my list.

I have a ‘normal’ wife, I come from a ‘normal’ family and so forth – and I can vouch that being ‘normal’ sucks. I watch my wife emotionally berate our adopted 6-year-old son on a daily basis – even though it’s the last thing she would ever want to do – yet she cannot stop it. She is a loving person who compensates for her maliciousness with feelings of love and guilt – but it just doesn’t work. Doing nothing means remaining the same bungled psyche who cannot accomplish what you really want to accomplish. There is only one way out of this mess – that is by freeing oneself of malice and sorrow. I am not just repeating what you might see as ‘actualist dogma’ here – I actually see the ‘malice and sorrow’ for myself on a daily basis in the most common places. Look around attentively and you will see it, and you just might wonder how you have put up with it for so long? Which may lead you to wonder why you would continue to put up with it?

Or are you just trying something that seems to you, to be the best alternative you know of to date?

As far as I am aware – it is the only alternative. No 37 to 58

Richard: Anyone who asks themself, each moment again, how they are experiencing this moment of being alive – the only moment one is ever alive – whilst under the influence of ruth (compassion, pity; the feeling of sorrow for another) and/or pity (compassion, sympathy; clemency aroused by the suffering or misfortune of another) and/or mercy (disposition to forgive or show compassion) and/or relent (yield; give up a previous determination or obstinacy; become merciful/lenient, show mercy/pity; abate; slacken, relinquish, abandon) is surely just wasting their time ... frittering away the opportunity of a lifetime on but more of the ‘Tried and Failed’ in yet another guise.

‘Tis not for nothing that the alien entity is described as ‘cunning’. Richard, List AF, No 56, 10.1.2004

Recently I made sense of the term ‘pure intent’ (or should I say ‘virtual pure intent’ in my case): uncompromising intention to enjoy the moment... importantly, not to find sophisticated excuses to continue the status quo of suffering and ill will... in that light, I completely understand what is written above. I also now understand the power of the method of questioning/awareness so as to bring an end to the suffering and malice – as opposed to: dispassionate/ compassionate observation – which makes it a lifetime business for the most (at least it appears to be so to me; refer to what K said in his later years – he was convinced no one got it; and also going by the enlightened masters to followers ratio).

It is getting interesting all the time :). No 33

No 56, when I leave this list and go about my daily business, and I happen to be attentive to what I’m experiencing, I will notice that something upsets me. When that happens, I will either wait for it to go away by itself whilst I fill my time with something stimulating (food, sleep, movies) and this is foolish, or I will wonder what to do with my state of mind seeing as no one is gonna come and do it for me. I will know that it sucks, and that I would rather it be different.

At that point, I will do 1 of two things: I will either notice that before I entered this state, I was not attentively experiencing this moment of being alive, but was more like on auto-pilot, which produced a reaction to what I experienced, a reaction to an reaction if you will, I believe that is the censor that you speak of. At that point I will become interested in my experience and see that it is mine, nobody else’s and just try to see what it feels like to be that experience. This will mean looking at the thought and other thoughts that accompany the feeling, and then feeling what the feeling really is like. More of a curiosity thing, and I will have begun experiencing it in the moment. Let me call this the more or less natural reaction to the situation, although probably trying to escape through a movie is really more natural to me.

The second thing I could have done was to say, I just need to read how someone else deals with this – let me recall everything Richard has said about this thing I’m experiencing, and that will help my mind come to a realization, and then I will feel better. Or I could say, oh yeah, what did No 56 tell me? He told me that noisy mind bit, and the thing about commitment. That’s it. That’ll get me through. Really though, what’s the difference between you and Richard. Your words can never do anything else than his when I’m at a spot where it counts, where I can find out how my mind works. I can say they are particularly more confusing, as the type of analysis you presented tends to be.

Richard never addressed me telling me that the way I was living is clearly foolish, and that this is what I was doing that was foolish. You and No 58 both are keen on telling us that we are running in circles here, but when I am running in circles, I know it. When I want security from a thought or knowledge – I know it. Now usually it will take me a while to look at what is going on, usually I’ll put it off – but I can tell. When you say that knowledge is limited – damn right. And get this, when I am investigating, I find that if I can just get a solid, original explanation for what I’ve gone through, I’ll start feeling good. I want the security of knowing that I can deal with a problem, and once I’ve dealt with it I want it to be locked in my memory, another possession that I can use in the future. This is a dead process. When I do that I am not interested in what I’m feeling, I just want the security that comes with a fresh thought/solution no matter if it’s borrowed or not.

And I can stop right there. I’ll even try to take drags of the dying butt of that solution for the next few days. Anyways – it’s like either I’m ‘committed’, if I can use that word, to living in the world as it is, happily and harmlessly, and whatever catch phrases are convenient for discussion, then I will notice why I’m always waiting for this or that.

Either waiting for what Richard talks about, or waiting till I can be in a place like t fan. And then it’s up to me to figure it out. But when I’m not doing my business, finding out how I work, I can spend time at this mailing list. I admit that a lot of it is me putting stuff off even more – but nonetheless in my particular case, I enjoy the practical discussion of living on earth as it is that Peter, Vineeto and Richard offer. It is interesting to think about that, and it is also interesting to me to hear of other’s experiences. I do not know a lot of people in person who are into exploring those ‘dirty’ regions of everyday life, undercurrents of the human drama. So these discussions can be very interesting, and I even find them helpful. There is a freshness to hearing other peoples descriptions of the same thing you experience.

Maybe a new angle or whatever. I enjoy it more than talking about the Grammy’s or arguing with someone about philosophy, religion. I would even compare it to those – I like it when Peter and Vineeto describe the experience of being able to look at something with another human being where you can expose everything, seeing as you are just a copy of everyone else there is nothing to hide. An openness and casual attitude that is more interesting than anything else you could talk about it. And to finish up, I can still say that a lot of it may be wasting my time.

But I do it. And I don’t do it to be ‘shaken up’ by someone screaming things are this way or another. When Peter or Richard talk of things like cosmology, they seem pretty sure of themselves. But they make it clear that they are describing something experiential, or Richard does at least. I do not feel that they are trying to wake me up from ignorant slumber. Am I defending myself? Maybe too much. I suppose I am trying to answer sincerely, as opposed to just waving what you wrote off as I can do with the times you have said the same stuff. Numerous times. Also, pardon for this taking so many words. You could call it a maze like you do the AF website. I have noticed that it takes me more than the necessary amount of words to get a thought across. No 55 to No 56

Thanks for your mail... I have read your earlier posts... I think they confirmed that we are dealing with similar things.

I have had the exact experience... the massively complex never ending one thing leads to another cyclic structure that is ‘me’ creates hopelessness and despair. It is quite unclear and extremely confusing and so unbelievable that this structure can be ever understood and changed or ended.

I once asked Vineeto about this cyclic-ness... her tip was to find out why it is important for one to feel this way... I think this can be an indication that one has hit some core of the identity and one is fearful of losing it. Part of the fear is to confuse and doubt and prevent clear thinking. The key again is to identify as much as possible the underlying feelings rather than riding along the feelings-fed thoughts while feelings go unrecognized.

Another key I have found helpful is to ‘incrementally build pure intent’. As you might have found it in the writings, a PCE can provide one with a big bank account of an intent to bring about such a condition, to be happy and harmless: the memory is good enough to tell you that this is it! However for me, since I don’t have such a big bank account, I need to incrementally build it. So when I am struck with such feelings, I have noticed that the bank account goes to negative. When I ask myself: do I want to end this unhappiness, many times the answer is that of reluctance and fear. Such a response from my being obviously shackles my common sense and the resultant action on my part. So I say at such moments: Why don’t I have the intent? Does it not make sense to be happy?

This appealing to one’s sense I have found useful in building up the intent incrementally. Because if I don’t do this, how am I going to succeed? The ‘being’ wants to go the other way! It will surely result in obfuscation, despair and self-preserving tactics.  No 33 to No 55

Being sensible has turned out to be a very dangerous enterprise for ‘me’, and contrary to what I believed when I first started practicing actualism -that because I am young it would be easier to arrive at a Virtual or Actual Freedom- I have struggled seemingly more than others because of an apparent lack of experience in the ‘real world’ and just a shocking dose of the cynicism in it. Before I came upon actualism I was like a mess swept under the carpet, next few months after that the carpet had been lifted and I was just a mess, now I have a handle on the broom*.

*The mess, the carpet and the broom (including the handle) are actual; this thought occurred to me today while I was sweeping. I have yet to mop.

I have heeded to one of Richard’s recommendation: since I am the only one who can do it, since I have to be living with myself: I have to be friends with myself. Though ‘I’ am built with sorrow and malice: it is only with ‘my’ co-operation this can be accomplished. I think that’s why a pure intellectual exercise of trying to understand is sabotaged by ‘me’: because a clear understanding of how all fits may be the end of ‘me’, obfuscation is the result of an exercise that does not seek ‘my’ consent with intent. Once ‘I’ willingly jump in though knowing that might be the end of ‘me’ (this is self-sacrifice indeed), it becomes more thrilling, fruitful and enjoyable.

On another note, I had my first – without a doubt – PCE last week; but I became so overwhelmed by the experience that it turned into an ASC seconds after. I hesitate to give a practical description, since it lasted but a few short moments and was quickly replaced by something terribly impractical, although I can say it was a life-changing event. I also no longer have to rely on the memory of long time passed PCEs – which also became clearer.

It is said that PCEs generate the necessary intent. Hope you are able to tap that stuff in your PCE! Since I don’t seem to remember such an experience with certainty, I run into ‘intent problems’. I found that when I don’t feel good, applying the method to find out why and trying to get back to feeling good itself requires an intent (otherwise why would one do it?). Now I understand the importance of a strong intent to alter the natural course of the evolution of the ‘me’ – which doesn’t seem to be towards peace and clarity at all. No 33 to No 47

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