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Others ~ Selected Correspondence Pure Consciousness Experience
How does a body/brain even know of such an event? Because the body/brain doesn’t not function when the affective identity is functioning.. Thought, cognitive memory, locomotion, etc, all that stuff that bodies and brains do. I still don’t understand how the body/brain experiences or knows when the ‘affective identity’ is functioning or how the body/brain is effected by the ‘affective identity’ since the body/brain only experiences ‘actual’ things/events. I don’t really know how that works I guess, or how to explain it. I can just report that in a PCE, I was fully cognizant of how previously ‘I’ (the passional instincts) had been running the show and simultaneously how the body/brain had been there all along, and how ‘I’ previously running the show hadn’t stop the body/brain from being there (and being cognizant), and how the body/brain being there and being cognizant hadn’t stopped ‘I’ from previously running the show. No 101 to No 107, 30.8.2006
Last week, I had my first PCE after starting to read this website. I had been playing with a friend’s niece and nephew all afternoon and evening, when all of a sudden, while sitting in the sitting room with them at night, something ‘popped’ and I could hear and see and feel and just generally perceive with amazing clarity. My friend’s nephew was speaking to me, and mid-sentence, I wasn’t only listening to just the words he was saying, but could hear the tones and timbres in his voice and the slight echo it had from all around the room. I saw the shadows on the wall cast by the lighting, and the colours and shades were so vibrant and bright, not bright in a ‘more lighting’ way, but in a ‘more clear’ way. My skin felt so ‘close’ and immediate, and I noticed the way it felt (rather than just feeling it as a weight). And where before I was feeling happy and light-hearted, I no longer felt that – I didn’t feel whatsoever! ‘Empty-hearted’ might be the best way to put it. There was no separation between a ‘me’ that could feel and anything else, and in this was such a purity, for lack of better word. Being alive felt so real. I was also aware of this happening and recognised what it was, and it was funny. I described the experience as it was happening to the kids (‘wow I can really hear you, before I wasn’t really listening somehow’ and ‘wow everything looks so amazing, its all right here’) and they thought it was pretty funny too but that I was being awful weird. I’d had PCE’s in the past, spontaneous ones brought about by drug use, meditation, sometimes just everyday circumstances, but there were also too many ASC’s that blocked a clear recollection. Every time I tried to think about a PCE, I would just have too many affective responses and it wouldn’t get anywhere. This was the first out and out clear PCE. I really understand now why the felicitous feelings are to be maximised. In the past, before reading the actual freedom site, I had felt frustrated because I thought anything within the realm of a self would just be a lame imitation of the pure experience and that wouldn’t help anything. And even after reading the site I had doubts but thought it was worth doing anyway because it did sound right, and I had nothing to lose. But now I really know that the felicitous feelings are worthwhile in and of themselves, and now I also see how, while only being an imitation, they are related to and really do lead to the PCE. No 108 (R), 30.1.2006
Richard on a past post told someone he had been wrong about PCE’s being necessary. Richard: You are, presumably, referring to this:
Given that the correspondent was me, and seeing what I have achieved since that correspondence: I would like to say that without PCE it might be very well difficult... as I have not particularly succeeded. Naiveté, commitment to the goal of being happy and harmless was not there in me... this maybe even required for a simple understanding of what is being talked about... and to actually try to remember a PCE or induce one... without all this, without the touchstone of PCE, without the innumerable clues from Richard’s (and Peter’s and Vineeto’s and other actualist’s) writings... I wonder if anything substantial can be achieved. I would like to commit myself to actualism... to the goal of being happy and harmless, through sincerely applying moment to moment awareness to my experience, by being simple and naive. I have had a few experiences off late... which enable me to see that what Richard talks about might be indeed possible. No 33 to No 87, 25.8.2005
I finally did remember a few PCEs, the first one being the day I came into contact with the AF website, I went to the roof of my house, there was an amazing lightness in my body, I was almost bursting with joy and the world was a joy to behold, every bird every tree and even people walking on the street were perfection. It was after four years of studiously trying to achieve the state of samadhi (I had glimpses of peace and bliss after hours of meditation) and it was as if a sudden freedom had dawned. Another one was when I was on a spiritual retreat with John de Ruiter in Edmonton, Canada. I went to the rail track near the retreat camp and I can remember the same quality of joy and perfection and carefree-ness without there being even a whiff of love and compassion for others. I was benevolence in action, and even if I tried my very best, I could not have nursed malice towards anyone at that moment. All was forgiven and all was past. The moment was startling in its tangibility and aliveness. No 71, 2.8.2005
So the tag-team days of nurture and desire are quickly ending. Yay! I thought I would write these things here so that others might benefit from them; I’m sure others who come on here have had similar experiences to mine. My focus is shifting more to dealing with death and my persistent belief that something endures after physical death. Obviously, the root is fear, and what a fear it is! Oh, just on another note concerning PCEs, I was wondering if someone might describe the identity and the affective faculties as also being the separative faculty. What I mean by this is that the few very brief PCEs I’ve had (they usually last only a few seconds, perhaps 5 or 10 at the most), I feel like a fog clears up and I can seriously SEE for the first time (the visual acuity is what improves the most). The point is that it seems as though the barrier between ‘me’ and everything else is removed, at least in terms of this ‘fog’ that I keep experiencing. The second time it happened, I seriously felt like I was seeing everything in my house for the first time. All I could say was, ‘Woah.’ Then the self bubbled back into action because intensity of the experience frightened me. At least I know that experience is there and that we’re not all delusional. On to peace, happiness, and harmlessness, baby! No 76, 12.5.2005
There’s not much practical actualism action going on this list right now, hmm? well, I’ve had a few experiences I’ll put out there. I recently remembered a PCE, which was helpful because before this I could only go on how much practical sense actualism made, and take other’s word for it that this grand experience was possible. Thus I was unable to connect with ‘pure intent’ and unable to have a marker to compare various other experiences by. The distinct quality in the experience for me was not having to look into my surroundings – no piercing awareness of it was necessary, because, as I have heard described before, there was absolutely no distance between what I saw and my eyes. The experience occurred during a boring lecture, in a bland, almost empty lecture-hall, and it all made no difference because all I saw was fascinating. I have no recollection of other sensory experiences, hearing, feeling, and such though, and I do not have a distinct memory of what type of thoughts were occurring, or whether ‘I’ was there. But nevertheless, it was good enough for me. An item I noticed in practicing the method was how long it’s taken me to get a hold of how the method actually works. I recently heard someone on the list describe the method as incredibly simple, and I do agree the more I find out how it works. My experience is that I interpreted the words and descriptions of the method in as many possible ways as I could without comprehending the simplicity of the method. I came up with all these explanations and method ‘add-ons’ that would help me- it seems all they did was postpone discoveries. For example I would try to tackle entire instincts at a time- either aggression, nurture, desire, or fear. or I would try to tack-on other psychology bits and pieces and such. and try to uproot the conditioning that way. A lot of it was me thinking the method was too simple, and not enough, and that I needed to find my own way through it all. I recently noticed that sometimes, I have even turned actualism into another layer of my identity – all it did in these cases was keep me from investigating. I would notice a particular problem and before I could go into it I would say ‘I’ve gone over this before, I’m an actualist, and thus it should be gone’ and go on feeling bad about failure, or ignore the feeling, or whatever traditional escape I came up with. However, I don’t that if I had just stuck to the words in the presentation of the method from the very beginning if it would have helped. The words apparently just did not click with practicality as they do now- but I needed the experiences of taking the method the wrong way, and the ensuing frustration, to understand bit by bit what the method was about. It requires that I be able to experientially know what the words are talking about, and as they made sense at the first read, I didn’t ‘understand’ them in this necessary sense. Just recently I have been able to identify what was going on in with my identity and then I saw the particular bit of social conditioning around the issue and was able to say ‘that is ridiculous’. before I could examine the whole thing, but was unable to let go of it, for whatever reason. It all ends up being remarkably similar to how it is described on the website
on
I remember when the bubble burst and a few seconds before the full-blown ASC, that there was no distance between an ‘educated’, ‘rich’, ‘young’, ‘athletic’ and ‘interesting’ me and a ‘humble’, ‘poor’, ‘aged’, ‘fat’ and ‘boring’ countryside neighbour... the people and things suddenly were perfect as they were and very interesting and life a very engaging experience to live no matter who/what. As there was no distance and everything was perfect as it was, consequently there was no place for God to fit in the scheme. It’s called an experience of intimacy as the usual distance and background fear we always experience in regards to the world suddenly vanish. If Richard is living this experience 24 h/day, well, he lives on another planet altogether. This experience is in contrast to the ASC where there’s seemingly no distance between the observer and the observed, but in the sense that ‘I’ am the observed, the subject and the object of experience become one. This happens when ‘I’ pollute the experience of consciousness with my residual presence and thus ‘I’ wrongly experience myself as being consciousness, resulting in the inability to differentiate between myself and what I am conscious of: ‘I am the world and the World is Me’ (aka God). Because of that, spirituality invariably leads one towards solipsism. In order to bypass this, the self needs to disintegrate in its totality.... any remnants, and the possibility remains open for the contamination of consciousness (I equate the freed consciousness with ‘my’ presence). There can never be a ‘pure’ experience of consciousness while any fragments of ‘me’ are still in existence. No 32, 10.5.2005
Just a general report of interest. After my last post about a few issues I was ‘agonizing’ over – especially ‘family ties’ and the issue of ‘aloneness,’ I had a great sense of relief after investigating my beliefs about belonging to my family of origin – multiple issues arose along with fears of isolation, alienation, etc. After experiencing some insight as to the emotions involved, deciding to drop identification with them, I began to feel a lightness. That lightness continued to swell until early evening, until while driving home after dinner, I began to really ‘get into’ ‘this present moment.’ As I drove, I watched the trees sway in the wind, until all of a sudden it did actually seem like the ‘trees were swaying in me.’ The most defining part of the experience was that time seemed to slow down – I began to notice each and every detail – virtually effortlessly. There was virtually perfect calm. I did notice some ‘issues’ that I normally ‘struggle’ with, but they didn’t have their normal strength. The ‘strongest’ part of the experience probably lasted only about 15 seconds – it seemed like I had been taken into another world, though it was obviously the same world, but yet it was in sharp detail that I hadn’t completely noticed before. And it did have a benevolence about it. I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by the wonder of it all, which may be what brought the most intense part to an end – but the calm and ‘presentness’ lasted the rest of the evening and a bit into the morning. Right now, I’m somewhere in between, as there is obviously more self left to whittle away at. But it is so wonderful to finally get a taste of what a virtual freedom can be – it’s wonder, it’s ‘certainty’ which needs no prop of certainty. It’s obvious to me now that there is no other way for me to live. In the PCE – fulfillment is in every moment. Your description of your PCE certainly resonates for me. And it also makes a lot of sense. It all occurs so effortlessly. And, like you, having a PCE has often followed an intense period of investigation and digging into some thorny issues. But it has also been otherwise: when there has been a sudden realization of the amazing wonder of just being here, being alive, and living in the present moment. I remember one PCE experience when I was in the wintry woods hunting and nothing in particular was being investigated. But suddenly there was this magical quality to everything – the snowflakes were doing a little dance on the wind and everything was swaying so lightly. Yes, that ‘magical quality’ was definitely part of it – and I think that is what makes it stand out as so different than one’s normal experience. Not only are the senses heightened, but there is this additional ‘magical quality’ which seems like it would provide never-ending fascination. Another thing that always attracts my attention to these experiences is the pervading deep sense of calm and stillness. It is a stillness so deep it literally stops ‘me’ dead in ‘my’ tracks. You describe it as a ‘virtual perfect calm’. In my period of meditating and yoga I experienced nothing quite like this. It is not a calm brought about artificially through deep breathing, physical isolation, going within, etc. It can come about quite suddenly, but all of a sudden – there it is. It just happens. And it is so complete and in such sharp contrast to the ordinary chatter going on in the head, the usual cares and woes of the self. It really is quite remarkable. Yes, the stillness seemed to partially fizzle the self. It’s like the stillness is the antidote for the self – or as Richard says ‘sensuousness’ is the antitoxin for indulgences. Also, I find it interesting that you used the descriptive word ‘lightly’ in the above paragraph, and the phrase ‘pervading deep sense of calm and stillness’ in the latter. It is interesting because if I had to pick just a few descriptive words or phrases for my ‘mini-PCE’ or whatever it actually was, I would start with words like ‘soft,’ ‘gentle,’ ‘caressing,’ ‘tender’, etc. These are all words describing an intimacy, yet there was no love present. It seems as if there is not much room for, and certainly no need for ‘indulgences’ when each moment is magical. No 37 to Gary
In the ASC I could only gape in (psychological) wordless wonder at vast, empty (psychological) space. Asleep, there was only vast empty (psychological) space – no dreams. Awake, my attention was riveted to the vast empty (psychological) space in my head. I could think and function but I was awestruck (very impressed with – hint, hint) by the vast empty space. But a vast empty psychological space is still psychological space (a self) and still creates a feeling/distance barrier. In the PCEs this emotion/feeling distance barrier (the self) dissolved and affected the way I (physically) experienced time, space and objects. In the PCEs the security or confidence instilled by (physical) location in eternal time and infinite space is unmistakable. Everything exists in an absolute stillness and deep purity. Visually, the contrast of light and dark is heightened, colours are richer. Hearing is unrestricted, sounds are welcome. I could feel the nubbly fabric of the chair on my skin and I remember thinking I was in forbidden territory, that I was breaking a big taboo because everything was so easy and o.k. So those are the differences as I experienced them. * As for the kind of impression left by a PCE – yes it is enormous. When the invisible boundary drops away, everything looks bigger and closer and the world is deeply pure in all infinite directions and the unshakeable stillness of it always having been, always being, and always going to be here and now makes me immediately, wonderfully and finally (as in for all time), Home Free. * You asked me to elaborate on the ambience of ‘Home Free’ in a PCE. Well, even though it reads sequentially this is not in any order. I notice the disappearance of some invisible barrier, which makes everything seamless, no dirty distance between me and everything else. I notice that load off the nervous system we talked about which has to do with feeling pressured for time somehow, as being the weight and force of believing I am responsible, of being charged with knowing how it is supposed to happen and making it happen. But with that gone I feel so here, so relaxed and aware. Time is one big, long eternal moment of stillness. All the time in the universe is available for me to operate in. There is a purity penetrating everything and the very air in the room looks clearer and purer. And without me knowing what is supposed to happen, I do not know what is going to happen so in about two seconds life has turned into such a gas! All of a sudden life is physical ease in a huge, magic, endless wonderland that is, pure, still and miraculously my home. And I am off the hook. I don’t ‘have’ to do anything so my activity, or just sitting there, is playful. Whatever I do and wherever I go is or would be agreeable. I don’t have to ‘work’. No 50 to Richard
Opinions are beliefs in disguise. Beliefs are intensely held. Beliefs are not the basis of salubrious action. In most political discussions, the participants are driven by their beliefs. Good point. I’ve spent some time since you pointed this out thinking about what it is that I actually know to be fact as opposed to what I believe to be true. Well, about the only thing I am sure about is that this universe exists, that it is beneficent and eternal, and that there is some sort of awareness of it residing at this place at this moment in this body that is also a piece of the universe. Residing in this body is knowledge about how to function in its given environment, obtaining food, clothing shelter etc. What the body does not have is the ability to gain all the facts concerning most situations. This inability stems from either lack of time, lack of mental capacity, or limited available information. It is a delight to be able to differentiate what is factual from what is speculation, belief, opinion, or surmisal. I know personally from PCEs that I have had in the past that there is nothing affective or emotional running during the PCE at all. The PCE only occurs when ‘I’ am in abeyance, albeit temporarily. As ‘I’ as an affective entity am temporarily in abeyance during apperception, only the unmediated, direct experience of actuality is occurring at the time. The only reason I mention this here is that what you refer to as ‘the ability to gain all the facts concerning most situations’ is usually not necessary at all. When one’s primitive animal instincts are temporarily in abeyance, as in the PCE, one is not concerned with one’s survival as an on-going entity. That is not to say that one takes heedless, foolhardy, or irresponsible actions, just that the instinctual fear that ‘rules the world’ is not calling the shots, so to speak. One is then free to enjoy and delight in the experience of actuality: the delightful and exquisite sensations as offered up by the senses – seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting. Not only do I not need to gain all the facts concerning most situations, but I make a pleasing discovery about something else: I am not really needed at all. I begin to be redundant for the first time in my life – not needed at all in order to function in the world, not to mention taking intelligent, considered action. With ‘me’ no longer needed, life is simple and easy – there is nothing complicated about it at all. Gary to No 49
For you and Peter and Richard, is the PCE related to the global mode of perceiving? Or is this distinction definitely no important at all to achieve the goal of AF to be happy and harmless? While others may disagree with me, I think either type of perception (global or focused attention) may occur in a PCE. The crucial distinction between a PCE and ordinary sensate experience is that the PCE is characterized by a complete absence of the instinctually driven ‘self’, that rudimentary passionate and emotional sense of being sourced in the amygdala. The PCE is not a matter of either global perception or focused perception, as both may occur as is required by the situation. But perception and experiencing during the PCE is unmediated by the ‘self’ and so is ‘selfless’, a pure, unmediated experience of direct perception. When I have had PCEs, there is a discernible shift in perception when the PCE occurs and everything after that takes on an incredible lustre, vibrancy, and aliveness. What spoils the PCE and causes it to degenerate is when ‘I’ take centre stage again, return to scene as it were and take over the reigns – ‘I’ with my usual cares and woes take over things again and claim the experience as my own. The instinctually driven, care-worn entity has once again returned, causing the pure, unmediated perception of actuality to vanish. I am once again looking at the world around me through ‘my’ eyes, and perception is mediated at once and at all times by my emotional reactions. Focused attention may occur in a PCE – I seem to distinctly recall studying objects during these periods, and so bringing to bear a focused kind of attention, without it dissipating or diluting the experience. Gary to No 46
I was stimulated to write because of an experience I had yesterday. I was thinking particularly of what you said in a previous post on Virtual Freedom. I snipped the portion below from that post: * Also, from what you say, it appears that there is still a controller (‘you’) when the experience kicks in. Just how does one ‘slip out from control’? I seem to recall Richard writing about ‘letting go of the wheel’ at all costs. Can you do it? I don’t see that I have any choice in the matter. To be a bit poetic, the door to Actual freedom has big red letters on the top flashing out ‘Do Not Enter’ and this warning sign is genetically encoded by the ‘self’-survival passions constantly reiterating ‘do not die, survive at all costs’. By a process of weakening these survival passions you get closer and closer to the door and there you find the word ‘Insanity’ written in the middle of it. By a process of understanding and experiencing the insanity of both the spiritual world and the real world, the door marked ‘Insanity’ becomes more inviting and more alluring by the moment. Then it only becomes a matter of abandoning control and stopping resisting this pull – the innate drive to betterment – and a thrilling inevitability sets in. It is exciting to be experiencing this ‘thrilling inevitability’. It is an experience of being pulled by the process rather than propelling oneself. I seem to remember someone else on the list, I think Alan, talking about being pulled rather than using ‘self’-propulsion, which in this case would be the desire to be happy and harmless. Yesterday I felt extremely disconnected from the people around me. It was a curious experience, and I have experienced it before. I just wasn’t ‘open for business’. I had, going back a month or two, been experiencing a lot of fears and some malice and aggression. My feelings of ‘compassion’ and ‘love’ have been kicking in too during this time. I have been investigating these feelings in an ongoing way, and now they seem to have subsided a great deal. I have been having some pretty excellent days and I have been extremely engaged with my life. But yesterday I think I was experiencing this thing that the psychiatrists call ‘derealization’ and I thought of what you said about ‘the door marked ‘Insanity’ becomes more inviting and more alluring by the moment’. I really had the sense, for just a short time, that ‘I’ do not exist – that there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’. Ordinarily, this experience would be quite disturbing and I would rush to do something to stop it and return to ‘reality’ but I have learned from actualism that this experience is really like hitting pay dirt. I had been thinking about that old Rolling Stone’s tune where they sing ‘You’re a hundred light years from home...’ I remember taking LSD at the time this song was a hit, completely blowing my mind and getting very freaked out when I would have this kind of experience, which was an extremely lonely feeling. It was similar to that...only I didn’t feel lonely. The big difference is that I felt ‘at home’. I felt like this is really where I belong. I noted something else too – when the experience of ‘derealization’ came on board was when it was like a film was removed from my eyes and I could see the actual world. You write about this in your Journal. I experience this most strongly with my visual sense – I had a PCE one day and wrote about it while it was happening – what was most prominent was the deep, pulsating, vibrant colours- for instance, I really was grooving on the colours of my blue jeans, but the feel of them too – the texture and the feel of the fabric was most exquisite. Also the sense of touch – I could feel my heart beating, my breath rhythmically pulling in and out, just happening, with no ‘me’ to control it – all of these fantastic things are happening of their own accord in this perfect physical world with no ‘me’ pulling the strings, controlling what is happening. When there is no ‘I’ as soul or ‘me’ as ego, the actual world rises to my sight, but then this is ‘Insane’, isn’t it? So, anyway, I just thought I would muse a bit ... maybe you will find this interesting. It’s all great fun. Gary to Peter
Although I have had numerous PCEs during my years of being a practicing actualist, I always maintain my first PCE as my lodestone or my goal. This PCE still stands out as being the most outstanding and I think this is because its onset was totally unexpected and therefore the contrast between the actual world and the normal human-experienced world of grim reality was startlingly obvious. During this first experience I was not aware that the experience was temporary – it was as if I had been magically transported to another world, one of unbelievable purity, perfection and physical vitality. Although I was very much aware that ‘I’ and all my worries and passions had also magically disappeared, I was also unconcerned, and unaware, that the experience would eventually fade and ‘I’ would inevitably reappear. My first PCE was certainly a life-changing event. It came after a period of deliberate and unremitting practice of the Actualism method, none of which would have been possible had it not been for my abandonment of all things spiritual, metaphysical, supernatural, religious, and philosophical. This was such a sharp break from the past for me that it led inexorably to the triggering of the PCE. And this first PCE most definitely stands out in my mind as sudden, intense, and long-lasting. While prior to this I had read the written descriptions of PCEs and had remembered having these experiences at times in my life, including during childhood, I was looking for something to happen...and it certainly did. When it did happen, the experience constituted evidentiary proof that Actualism method worked and pointed to the possibility that it could lead directly to not only more of these experiences but even eventual extinction of the psyche. I found it interesting recently that a List participant, No 41 (correspondence Richard), likened a PCE to being on LSD. And I had thought the same thing myself. But it is only a similarity, and there are some differences as far as I am concerned. A PCE to me is sometimes like being on a very light dose of LSD – the senses are magnified to an incredible degree, and also the sharpness and clarity remind me of the psychedelic experience. And it is most satisfying to realize that one can have this experience with none of the undesirable side effects of drug taking. The only side effect, if you can call it that, of a PCE that I can see is that it spells the end of ‘me’. And each repeated PCE whets my appetite for more of the same. For me, this first time experience is still outstanding because, unlike all of the subsequent experiences, I was naively unaware that the experience was temporary – unaware that it would end. Nowadays the contrast between a PCE and my normal state – being virtually free of malice and sorrow – is nowhere near as great as it was during my first PCE and I have tended to spend a good deal of my PCE times taking the opportunity of exploring the human condition from the outside as it were. This almost casual wandering in and out of PCEs, combined with a far less substantial ‘self’ has sometimes meant that the distinction between my normal experiencing and a pure consciousness experiencing becomes so blurred as to be almost indistinct. What always alerts me to the distinction, however, is that when ‘I’ am present it is as though there is a thin veil between ‘me’ and the purity, perfection and physical vitality of the actual world – usually a slightly grey veil given that sorrow is the predominant human affliction. Because of this, I always maintain my first substantive PCE as my loadstone – because that experience was so unexpected, and therefore so unique, that there was neither reason nor opportunity for ‘me’ and my guile to claim it as ‘mine’. It’s just my way of avoiding straying off the path – of maintaining a pure intent and avoiding the trap of falling into delusion. I have no doubt that because I had been warned in advance of the lure of self-aggrandizing ASCs following in the wake of a PCE, I did not experience such myself. I could easily see how PCEs could lead to ASCs, and because I had had many ASCs, I could experientially discern the difference between these two states. And the difference is huge. But, perhaps unlike yourself, I had the idea in the back of my mind that a PCE would be temporary, and that at some point there would be a return to the usual care-worn, ‘real world’ state. So you might say that this was rather expected, although I can see that it might be better if one places no expectations whatever on the experience. The reason I say I take being virtually free from malice and sorrow for granted these days is that it is extremely rare that I am not happy and it is extremely rare that I am of harm to others. Again I use a PCE as my benchmark. I know from these experiences that when a human body has no social/instinctual identity whatsoever ‘inside’ it – no ‘I’ or ‘me’ to rule the roost – then a human body has neither sorrow nor malice, exactly as a tree or cloud is neither sad or angry. Having now done sufficient work and expended sufficient effort to reduce the substance of ‘me’ to a point where any of the myriad feelings of malice and sorrow almost never occur ‘I’ now take virtual freedom for granted. ‘I’ have become redundant as it were, ‘I’ have done my job, ‘I’ have swept the cupboard as clean as I can of the morals, ethics, values, beliefs, psittacisms and passions that make up ‘me’. It’s high time for ‘me’ to finally let go of the controls as it were and exit stage left. Well, I think I can see better now why you say ‘taken for granted’. I had wondered before in the past why the first PCE had been so sudden and so ... well, portentous is a word that occurs here. Subsequent experiences, although dazzling, have not been so intense as that first one. And I think you provided the clue in what you wrote this time ... it becomes more and more natural to live without malice and sorrow, and one’s investigations and demolition work usher in a period of increasing ease and comfort in just being alive and being here. Being here is so incredibly simple that it buggers description. The ease in one’s life that results from doing the demolition work can be ‘taken for granted’ in the sense that you use that phrase because the absence of this state becomes more and more rare and unusual than it’s presence. In a PCE it is patently obvious that there is neither malice nor sorrow in the actual world – that the actual world is already-always peaceful and perfect, always has been, always will be, is right now. As the actualism process begins to gather its own momentum, one edges closer and closer to living this peacefulness and perfection – not as an ‘I’ feeling sanctimoniously peaceful, but as an on-going understanding that only ‘I’ stand in the way of the ‘self’-less sensual experiencing of the peacefulness and perfection of the actual world. This is why I take being virtually free from malice and sorrow for granted these days. Having said that I realize that there are those who will read these words and who will want to experience such peacefulness before they have done all they can to become happy and harmless in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. Those who do so will risk following the traditional path of denial and fantasy and, instead of becoming actually free of the human condition, will opt for the traditional ‘self’-aggrandizing escape from grim reality – the delusion of Enlightenment. As Richard says, the only risk in using the actualism method is that one might well become Enlightened – and avoiding this is where the pure intent arising out of one’s own pure consciousness experience of the perfection and purity of the actual world comes to the fore. In my case, it was well to heed the risk before embarking on the course that would lead to PCEs. Now I find that there are many such periods in the course of a day, and it has become difficult to discern where they start and where they end off. I simply delight in being alive and being here more than ever before, and it is so incredibly simple. It staggers me to reflect how complicated ‘I’ made my life those many years ago. Gary to Peter
There is an increase in sensory clarity, especially visual acuity. Along with this increase in clarity there is a ‘purity’ in everything one perceives. The words ‘immaculate’, ‘perfect’, ‘pure’ capture it quite well; everything is wonderful. Strangely, though, the word ‘beautiful’ does not apply. There is no (felt) affect whatsoever. The purity of perception (and the marvellousness of what is perceived) goes beyond affect, leaving only pure, calm wonder. It’s sensory delight without any emotional resonance at all. The sensory delight I’m talking about is not the usual kind of sensuousness/sensuality that one enjoys in an ordinary state. Rather than being ‘pleasurable’, it is appreciation of the perfection that seems to be inherent in what one is perceiving, which leads to enjoyment of a very different kind. This is quite extraordinary. There is a sensation of softness in the air, which has a pellucid, jelly-like quality (metaphorically speaking). I’m reminded of something you once wrote about the eyes ‘lightly caressing’, as if one is seeing from the front of the eyeball. I also remember you saying ‘nothing dirty can get in’, and that’s exactly the way it is. Objects that would seem drab, dirty, sullied, soiled in ‘reality’ are immaculate in themselves; any ‘dirtiness’ is overlaid by ‘me’. No 60, 15.7.2004 Design ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. |
