Nowhere in the process of actualism did I tell myself that I ‘don’t get to have anything’ – I conducted an investigation into the issues at hand that prevented me from being happy and harmless when and as they arise. When feelings of love prevented me from being unconditionally happy and harmless, then I investigated my feelings of love and their respective counterparts. When fear for my security prevented me from being unconditionally happy and harmless, I investigated the facts of the situation to find out if and where my security was actually compromised and if I was physically in danger. When desire of immortality crept into my thoughts and prevented me from being unconditionally happy and harmless, I investigated those desires and did not stop until I uncovered the source of those desires and their respective fears.

Once I investigated these issues, traced them back to ‘my’ core and understood in what way they are the building blocks of my identity, I did not have to ‘tell myself’ anything – seen in the bright light of awareness the issue stopped being an issue … it became indubitably apparent that all I had lost was one dream after another. Being able to dismiss love and immortality as dreams was a tangible freedom gained and a notable step towards an actual intimacy with others and the confidence and integrity of beginning to be able to stand on my own two feet the first time in my life.

The reason I say this is that actualism is not about adopting a set of should’s and should not’s – a set of non-spiritual moral and ethics if you like. If anyone treats the writings of actualism in this way they are in danger of ending up less happy than they were before – a sure sign that they have left the wide and wondrous path. The writings of actualism have to be confirmed as being fact by the on-going awareness of your own everyday experience in order for actualism to be a life-changing matter.

As I contemplated your post, I came across a bit of correspondence that Richard had with No 23 a while back and it seemed relevant as Richard describes the quality of the process of becoming free from fear and from all of ‘me’ –

Richard: There is neither ‘small me’ (‘I’ as ego) or ‘big Self’ (‘me’ as soul) outside of the human psyche. It is all so simple here in this actual world.

Respondent: Yes. It’s all so simple the brain needs to understand how it’s own action (on various levels) brings about this sense of an identity. YET the energy that is required for this understanding is extraordinary: that what needs to be grasped maybe utterly simple the grasping itself (as action) is incredible hard.

Richard: First, it is only ‘all so simple’ here in this actual world ...and, as it is only too easy to unduly complicate and convolute something so simple whilst living in the ‘real world’, it is vital that one knowingly imitates the actual for as far as it is humanly possible.

Second, it is a feeling of identity, at root, which is the problem ... and not just ‘a sense of an identity’ .

Third, the energy that is required to become free of the human condition is not ‘extraordinary’ (à la Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘immense energy’) as it is the genetically-inherited instinctual energy (the instinctual passions) which fuels the ‘self’-immolation.

Lastly, the ‘action’ of becoming free is not ‘incredible hard’ at all ... it is the easiest thing ‘I’/‘me’ will ever do.

Deliciously easy. Richard to No 23 (18), 20.6.2001

…

Well, it’s time for me to join ‘the coalition of the willing’ and follow Peter to the bedroom …

It is understandable that when you join a new mailing list that you would want to use the ‘right’ words. A few participants have reported a similar desire. However, actualism is not about changing one’s terminology or writing style, actualism is about changing oneself – or to put it colloquially, actualism is not about being able to talk the talk, actualism is about walking the walk. Merely adapting the words used in the writings of actualism to mean something they were not meant to mean would be comparable to adjusting your set of rules to what you imagine the actualism set of rules might be – you would simply replace the word ‘friendship’ for ‘fellowbeingness’ – a word that No 23 coined for his personal liking. What I did as an actualist was to investigate the connotations the word friendship had when I called someone a friend, my feelings of loyalty and trust, my expectations and disappointments, because I wanted to find out how ‘I’ tick as a social and instinctual identity.

My examination of the nature and integrity of my relationship to other people subsequently changed the way I now relate to people. I do not see people as either friends or non-friends because the more I investigated my social conditioning and the underlying feelings of aggression, fear, nurture and desire, the more my need for alliances and belonging has disappeared. As a consequence, I mostly perceive people as what they are – fellow human beings who go about their business of being alive just as I do. I put the horse before the cart – sincerity meant that the change of words only came hand-in-glove with a change of understanding, a change of attitude and a change of behaviour.

As for being ‘extremely explicit about the meaning of the old words’ – when you practice attentiveness to this moment of being alive with the aim of becoming unconditionally happy and unconditionally harmless, then you will inevitably want to be very precise with the words that you use to describe your experience because a precise description is a necessary precursor to obtaining precise information from your observation. After all, you want to find out exactly how ‘you’ tick. Similarly, an actualist would want to take care with the use of words when communicating with others simply because it makes sense to do so. Contrary to Mr. Wittgenstein’s philosophy, it is possible to call a spade a spade and to know that it is ‘a tool for digging or cutting the ground, now usually consisting of a sharp-edged rectangular metal blade fitted on a long handle with a grip or crossbar at the upper end.’ Oxford Dictionary. If any confusion occurs in the meaning of a word then clarification can easily be given or a dictionary reached for.

Should you, however, notice that your desire for approval gets in the way of an accurate exchange of information or an in-depth exploration of a subject, then that desire is something to be investigated. Should you notice that your own particular social conditioning causes you to misinterpret and affectively colour the words you read, then this particular emotional ‘reference’ is something to look at. My aim as an actualist is to become free from my affective interpretation of words, things, people and events, to divest them from the veneer of my personal, cultural and instinctual ‘references’ in order that the actual world becomes more and more apparent.

Actualism is a do-it-yourself-for-yourself-by-yourself job – and this is not just a throwaway line. You are indeed on your own, there is no language-test to be passed, no club to be inaugurated into, no inner circle to be part of and no gold medal to be won. What can be won, however, is peace-on-earth for the flesh-and-body called No 49 and the subsequent sensate experiencing of the splendour of living in this actual universe.

And that is extraordinary.

Quite simply... What is meant by ‘not suppressing or expressing’ emotion?

I understand that the method of actualism does not encourage to stop feeling – but to use its method of inquiring into how one is experiencing this moment. By not suppressing or expressing emotion – are you talking about ‘strong’ emotions? Are you talking of the extremes only? Love and trust and sorrow and malice?

No, in my first post to you I was talking about becoming aware of all of one’s feelings and emotions as they occur. Of course the strong emotions are usually noticed first and as such these are best to start with. If you set your sights on becoming happy and harmless then emotions such as anger, jealousy and resentment are good things to watch out for and observe as they are happening. Once you get the hang of it and begin to explore how you are experiencing this moment of being alive on a regular basis, you will become aware of your more subtle emotions like annoyance, irritation, dismissal, cynicism, touchiness, melancholy, gloominess, listlessness, boredom, disinterest, guilt, shame, withdrawal, sullenness, etc.

There is a spectrum of ‘expressing emotion’. You can look at my face and body language and determine how I am feeling. So it is impossible for me to not express emotion. Also, it seems much better for me if I am feeling stressed or upset – to exercise or do whatever I need to do to work the stress out of my body.

Yes, at the beginning of applying the method of actualism feeling an emotion and expressing it is pretty much happening at the same time. LeDoux has empirically measured the feeling response to sensorial input by the instinctual part of the brain, the amygdala, as only 12 milliseconds. However, with pure intent and a little practice you become more and more aware of your emotions right when they are happening and then, rather than expressing or suppressing the emotion, as we have been taught to do, you can observe it, be attentive to it, trace it to its source and completely understand it.

I simply began to consider the journey into my psyche a scientific investigation and as such every emotion I experience has become a vital source of information. My attitude became more and more – wow, that’s fascinating, I wonder why I feel this – rather than the seesaw of ‘damn, another bad emotion again’ or ‘whoopee, another good emotion’. Every emotion occurring is valuable material to find out more about my identity, how ‘I’ tick, what social program I have been taught to follow and what instinctual program drives me to think, feel and act – and then I get to enjoy the process of both discovery and success as I irrevocably change towards being more happy and more harmless.

As for ‘feeling stressed’ – in the beginning of my investigation my emotions sometimes ran high and, because I was determined not to express or suppress them but to be attentive to them, I sometimes felt like a tiger in a cage. What helped best in those situations was to go for a long walk, through the forest or along the beach. The first half hour I was often busy relieving the physical tension that accompanied the emotion but afterwards I was able to think about what was happening and began to make sense of it. When I got home after an hour or two, I was then able to communicate what I had experienced and what sense I had made of it and often I explored the emotional event yet a little deeper in a further discussion with Peter.

The key to success for me was my pure intent. I was determined not to let any emotion slip by unnoticed and not to stop the investigation until I had traced the particular feeling to its source, which was either a belief, a moral-ethical value or a bare instinctual passion.

Or even if I am upset with someone – to be clear with them that I am getting upset – not that I have to ‘take it out on them’, but it seems better to communicate or express feeling rather than suppressing it.

Speaking personally, I soon discovered that my wanting to express to someone that they were making me upset was simply a way of blaming the other for my feeling upset – a convenient way of avoiding investigating my own feelings and discovering why other people’s acts or words upset me. In other words, I came to realize that if I didn’t stop the cycle of blaming others then I would never experience peace on earth.

Every emotion I have is ‘my’ identity expressing itself because ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. In order to eliminate ‘me’, all of the activities of this identity, i.e. beliefs, emotions and passions, are gradually brought to the light of awareness. Therefore whatever emotion is triggered, it is always ‘me’ in action and my interest lies in finding out about and incrementally eliminating the malicious and sorrowful ‘me’. As such, I have taken full responsibility for all of my feelings in that I accepted the challenge to eliminate the cause of my feelings in me.

For example if I felt insulted because someone was calling me an idiot or blaming me for something, my normal reaction had been to either grumpily swallow it or to tell the other off, depending on who was the stronger one in the situation. In actualism I investigated why I felt insulted in the first place and examined the reasons that lay behind this feeling. Personally I found that pride, self-image and righteousness were the most apparent reasons for such an emotional reaction. Once I discovered the root of the emotion I was then able to decide that I would much rather live without those examples of my identity and the feeling of insult also disappeared. The advantage of this approach is that nowadays nobody can insult me anymore.

So – just how does this ‘third alternative’ deal with ‘low levels’ of emotion. Where do I draw the line between what is advantageous for me to express and what is not? Just what is meant by ‘not expressing’ emotion anyway?

You don’t have to draw a line – not expressing one’s emotions means not expressing. The longer you practice the method of actualism the better you become in not expressing or suppressing the emotion when it comes up. I found that even slight expressions of my emotions, say irritation or displeasure, would cause uncontrollable ripples and repercussions in my interactions with people and, because my aim is to be harmless, I don’t want to create ripples.

If I express to another person that they are upsetting me, then I am blaming them for causing my anger and a careful observation of expressing my upset will reveal that it can never be expressed harmlessly. Similarly, if one expresses one’s sorrow to another, a careful observation will reveal that this does nothing but maintain and perpetuate sorrow in the world.

I also found it immensely freeing when I realized that my emotions are solely my problem to deal with and, when I am sure that there is no malice in what I say or do, other people’s emotions are their problem. This understanding makes all interactions with people incredibly easy, particularly when living together with someone else. You get to live in peace and harmony with the other without having to even try and change the other person in the slightest way.

You wrote something to Gary the other day that seems to be a misinterpretation of what I wrote, so I couldn’t resist ‘butting in’. The misinterpretation is in the second part of this post but I am making a general comment at the start.

Gary – Within the Human Condition, the best one can ever do is to keep a check on oneself, lest one run amok due to unrestrained passions and instincts. However, I think when one is practicing an alert attentiveness that something entirely different than this monitoring process is occurring. We have spoken before on this list about ‘nipping it in the bud’. I believe I have heard you use this expression as well. When I have nipped a feeling in the bud, so to speak, the feeling or emotion does not even get off the runway, to use an aeronautical analogy. If, for instance, anger arises in regard to some interaction I have had with another person, I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy. Rather, one’s native intelligence can go to work investigating this feeling, if investigation is needed. The mere presence of the feeling means I have something to look into. If anger continues to cruise down the runway, so to speak, gathering a full head of steam, then I really have my work cut out for me. If not, then voilá! ... there is nothing further that I need do. Gary to No 38, 21.2.2003

‘I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy’. Gary to No 38, 21.2.2003

In the process of becoming happy and harmless, my main focus was on becoming harmless, i.e. ceasing being aggressive or angry towards others. In this case investigating my feelings means that I examine what triggered my eruption of anger, what caused me to up my defences, what is it that I am being defensive about and what part of my identity felt threatened and therefore caused me to react aggressively.

Once I am able to isolate the issue in question, then the next step is to clearly look at all aspects of this particular area of identity, be it an authority issue, a gender identification, professional pride, a certain belief or worldview or any other cause that made me react in an aggressive or inconsiderate manner. The difference between maintaining a social or spiritual moral code in order to keep a lid on outbursts of anger and the process of actualism is that in actualism I am changing my behaviour by incrementally removing the very triggers for feeling irritated, annoyed, resentful, threatened or aggressive.

To achieve this, I not only have to ‘recognize’ the arising feeling as a feeling, but I have to search for and identify the part of my identity associated with the feeling – ‘me’ as a woman, ‘me’ as a national identity, ‘me’ in my professional or work role, ‘me’ as a partner or family member, ‘me’ as a social identity with a particular philosophy, culture, religion or worldview, etc, etc. Unless I recognize, examine and finally incapacitate the part of my identity who feels offended and therefore responds offensively either covertly or overtly, there will inevitably be a similar harmful response in the next similar situation.

As for ‘feelings of embarrassment and shame’ – those feelings quickly became redundant as I incrementally succeeded in ridding myself of malice and sorrow. As an actualist, I set my sights higher than merely keeping the lid on my instinctual aggression by living by the rights and wrongs of some moral or ethical code. Actualism is about becoming free of malice and sorrow via a process aimed at ‘self-immolation – it is not about controlling one’s malice and sorrow via a process aimed at ‘self’-perpetuation.

<snipped a bunch of stuff I understand>

The reason I described the investigation process in detail is that nipping feelings of embarrassment and shame in the bud only serves to stifle the investigative process. To get rid of embarrassment I had to find the cause of my embarrassment – in the case you described the outburst of anger – and then in the same way follow up the reasons for my outburst of anger as I have described above. Embarrassment and shame are only the tip of the iceberg and nipping these first indicators of ‘me’ in action in the bud puts a full stop to further investigations and does nothing to eliminate the underlying causes for feeling shame and embarrassment.

Mr. Oxford explains the figurative expression in question –

‘nip in the bud – fig. destroy at an early stage of development’ Oxford Dictionary,

which is the opposite to the meaning you attribute to the expression – ‘detecting them as they arise so that I can fully explore them’. Your terminology seems to get more confused the more you try to clarify it.

As for the ‘secondary purpose of nipping’ – from your description of the incident you provided as an example it appears that you expressed your anger and did not ‘keep your hands in your pockets’. Then, when ‘feelings of embarrassment and shame’ arose as a consequence of having expressed your anger, you ‘nipped them in the bud’, as in ‘destroyed at an early stage of development’.

In actualism – with its intrinsic aim of being happy and harmless – to keep my hands in my pocket means that I don’t express my anger in any form whatsoever towards others. This is eminently sensible behaviour. However, only by being aware that you are feeling angry as the feeling is happening, can you be aware of the sensibility of not expressing it. T’is best to put the cart before the horse – awareness before action leads to considered and considerate action. Being aware of feelings of shame and embarrassment at having expressed your anger to others are but signs that the horse has already bolted before you became aware of it.

There is much, much more to the phrase ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ than is apparent from a cursory glance, particularly for those who prize themselves as being already aware.

*

The process you seem to be describing as ‘they arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H’ has a striking resemblance to the method of Vipassana. This Buddhist ‘watching practice’ is based on the understanding that ‘who’ you really are is your ‘consciousness’, ie. a disembodied, desensitized ‘watcher’, dissociated from unwanted emotions and thoughts

In Vipassana, ‘watched’ anger eventually passes away, not because you understand its underlying reason and origin but because you become the watcher and distance yourself from your anger and merely watch it run its course. In the same way you can distance yourself from any feeling or emotion without ever having to investigate the substance of your ‘self’ – it’s instinctual core. To really face the fact that anger is ‘you’ in action, and that ‘you’ are the only cause and reason of anger arising, is the first and essential step to doing something practical about bringing an end to this emotion instead of merely witnessing it and waiting for it to pass away.

Actualism is not a method of passively monitoring, watching or observing one’s feelings – actualism is a method of actively investigating the origin of those feelings and thus rocking the very core of one’s identity.

I take it that the thread you are referring to is from my recent post to Gary –

To Gary: Recently Peter and I were talking about this very quality of virtual freedom – after sufficient explorations into the human condition I am now able to ‘nip these reactions in the bud’ shortly after they appear and many events that usually would have triggered an angry or sad response in the past now fail to do so.

At my stage of the process the job now is to remember to stop the once essential but now redundant habit of rummaging around in my psyche in order to regurgitate issues that I have already explored, resolved and understood so as to get on with being happy and harmless as soon and as uninterruptedly as possible. Strangely enough that leaves ‘me’ increasingly with nothing to do, which in itself sometimes stirs the uncomfortable feeling of being redundant – a sure sign that my efforts of actively diminishing ‘me’ have had tangible effect. Vineeto to Gary, 12.2.2003

When I said ‘after sufficient exploration into the human condition’ I was referring to several years of actively dismantling and intensely exploring all aspects of my identity – an identity that was clearly seen and recognized in numerous ‘self’-less pure consciousness experiences as being an all-pervading yet non-actual ‘presence’. Such pure consciousness experiences are vital to the intent to investigate one’s identity because only in a PCE can I see, by the very comparison of ‘my’ absence, what havoc ‘I’ am continuously causing by ‘my’ very presence and what confusion, diversion and cunning ploys ‘I’ am inventing in order to stay in existence. The comparison of a PCE to ‘my’ normal life as an identity within the human condition also gives me the confidence that when I am ‘nipping feelings in the bud’ I am not repressing, ignoring or side-lining a ‘precious’ part of my identity.

I remember you said that you no longer subscribe to spiritual practices but given that spiritual values and practices pervade human society like odourless vapour, an investigation of potential hangovers might still be of use. In case you are interested, some years ago there were several discussions on the AF mailing list about the topic of Vipassana in distinction to actualism – Vineeto to No 4, 5.4.1999 and 16.4.1999, and No 7, 24.4.1999, 2nd question, Richard to No 4, 10.9.1999 and No 7, 23.8.1999

*

Actually, my experience to date is kind of opposite of that. The ‘watcher’ is a useful component of the actual No 38, whereas the ‘dissociated’ entity is the identity, that which has the emotions and learned responses. I am being careful with that word ‘dissociated’ as it could imply suppression, sweeping it under the carpet. The whole point of this work is to keep it in clear view so that it can be taken apart, piece by piece, and that can’t be done if it’s hidden away.

This is the nub of the misinterpretation I was trying to explain. The ‘watcher’ is not ‘a useful component of the actual No 38’ – there is no way to experience the actual No 38 except in a pure consciousness experience. In a PCE the whole identity – both the ‘watcher’ and the ‘watched’ – temporarily go into abeyance.

The ‘watcher’ and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity – the ‘self’ split into two for the purpose of ‘self’-improvement.

Are you saying you grant that –

‘the ‘watcher’ is not ‘a useful component of the actual No 38’ ’

and that

‘there is no way to experience the actual No 38 except in a pure consciousness experience’

and that

‘The ‘watcher’ and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity – the ‘self’ split into two for the purpose of ‘self’-improvement’?

The consequence of this agreement becomes apparent in your next paragraph.

If I understand you correctly you say that

• ‘until your identity is eliminated’ you need to use ‘such artificial mechanisms as a ‘watcher’ or ‘monitor’.

Above you ‘granted’ my statement that

• the watcher and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity.

Putting the two together you are then saying that

• ‘until your identity is eliminated’ you need to use ‘such artificial mechanisms as’ ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’.

Whatever bicycle it is you are riding, this tautological circling will certainly keep your identity safely in place … for as long as you choose.

To Gary: I can very well relate to what you describe as ‘a deep and abiding terror of extinction’. The trick that often helps me turn this terror into excitement is to remember that ‘I’ have a voluntary mission which is far more dignifying that ‘my’ survival – ‘I’ am to bring about peace-on-earth by vacating the throne, permanently. And although sometimes I feel as though I am only inching my way closer to ‘my’ destiny, I do recognize that I am making progress. I only need to look back at how I used to experience life a few years back to know this is a fact.

I am somewhat confused as to what you mean by ‘facing the reality of my own demise … in the past’ – are you referring to the demise of the ego that leaves the soul intact, as taught in each and every branch of Eastern mysticism, or are you referring to facing physical death?

Or are you talking about the recent past since taking up actualism – your contemplations about your own demise of your identity in toto, both ego and soul, something that is entirely new to human history?

The most important bit of knowledge that I have gleaned from contemplating the demise of my ‘self’ has been, and still is, the purity of my intent as an actualist. Contemplating death or ‘self’-immolation is not something that in itself brings me closer to becoming actually free of malice and sorrow but it certainly gives me a gauge measure to check if I am becoming comfortably numb, settling for second best or hiding in fear.

I found that the best strategy is to check out my intent and then get on with the business of being happy and harmless instead of, for instance, being frightened at the thought of ‘my’ demise. It’s useful to remember that every feeling I indulge in, for whatever ‘noble’ reason, is only going to feed my identity instead of diminishing it.

I have spent many years exploring therapy groups and spiritual feeling states and it was quite a challenge to slowly wake up to the fact that feeling is not identical to actuality – in fact, feeling has nothing to do with actuality. In the past I might have felt harmless but was nevertheless quite harmful in that my ‘self’-centredness inevitably caused ripples in other peoples lives. I found that while I might have felt that I valued peace, I still instinctively acted in attack and defence mode. While I might have felt that I was willing to sacrifice my ego for a higher cause, I was actually cultivating humbleness as a means of soul-istic ‘self’-aggrandizement, and so forth.

Through the rigorous and persistent process of actualism, I slowly learnt to extend my attention beyond what I thought and felt, i.e. my ideals and passions, so as to become aware of the tangible effects that my thoughts, feelings and actions had on the people around me. I discovered more and more that feeling myself to be harmless and actually being harmless were two completely different things. This process of distinguishing between feeling and actuality is the key to actually becoming happy and harmless compared to merely feeling happy and harmless.

I’m saying this because contemplating my demise has been one of my favourite topics since discovering actualism and only lately have I discovered that, while such contemplations can serve to fuel my intent, they don’t bring me closer to the actuality of being free, simply because I am contemplating about a time that is not now.

Which reminds me that Richard always maintained that one cannot think one’s way to freedom nor feel one’s way to freedom – something that I have persistently tried to do. It’s great that there aren’t any rights and wrongs in actualism – given the pure intent to be free of malice and sorrow all explorations are useful explorations.

When you observe this experience a bit longer you will discover that ‘you’ as an identity are identical to that fear, they are in fact one and the same. ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’. And when fear leaves the stage for a moment, the identity is nowhere to be found and vice versa.

Then there is peace.

Personally, I found ‘holding someone at arm’s length’ particularly tedious as I not only had to fend against the other’s attempts to come closer but also against my own yearning to have a more intimate relationship. I knew that by trying to hold back I was impairing myself as much as the other, depriving myself of the opportunity to find out and to learn something new about how to live in peace with a fellow human being. So when I met Peter and he introduced me to actualism, I jumped in with both feet – I wanted to get to the bottom of why I had never been able to achieve the peace and harmony in a relationship I so yearned for. This meant not only experiencing all the feelings that the relationship brought up but also tracing them deep to their instinctual core – the good feelings as well as the bad feelings, the desired feelings as well as the one’s I used to deny – the whole lot.

... I recently found an emotional ‘hook’ in my living together with Peter. I was contemplating about what exactly is standing in the way of ‘self’-immolation and found a bit of an affective identity in action – the ‘me’ who cherished the cozy corner I had in living together peacefully and delightfully. ‘I’ as an identity feel noticed and understood with Peter, he knows the happy ‘me’, the quizzing ‘me’, the puzzled ‘me’, the impatient ‘me’, he knows about ‘my’ aims and fears, ‘my’ quirks and wonderings. And this cozy relationship will certainly cease to be when I become free because then ‘I’ who is doing the relating will cease to be.

... with astounding clarity I experienced myself as completely separate from Peter, two flesh-and-blood human beings not at all affectively or psychically connected in any way.

It was utterly amazing and magical that two complete strangers – as in not psychically connected – get to interact with each other in utter intimacy. In such intimacy there is no ‘me’ trying to pull the strings, no ‘me’ thinking or feeling about ‘me’ in relationship to the other, and a fresh, unmediated and direct experiencing happens on its own accord.

Just to reiterate something that is essential for an actualist to keep in mind during his or her explorations – the aim and process of actualism is not to suppress feelings and emotions but to become aware of them in order to explore them deeply and exhaustively. The automatic reaction is to wheedle one’s way out of feeling the bad feelings – those that are considered bad and immoral or wrong and unethical – and consequently the essential first step is to be aware of one’s habit of suppressing, avoiding, withdrawing or denying them in order to feel superior, stay cool, be strong, rational or logical.

In order for the actualism process to work it is crucial to first get in touch with one’s feelings because if I want to find out about ‘me’ I can’t afford to only investigate the ‘better’ half of my surfacing emotions and ignore, repress or deny the dark side. To allow oneself to experience whatever feeling is happening often needs some investigation into what Peter recently termed the ‘Guardians at the Gate’ – the moral judgements and ethical evaluations that trigger feelings such as guilt, shame, defiance or righteousness whenever one starts to become aware of one’s dark side and feel one’s dark feelings.

And of course neither is there the need to express your feelings or wallow in them in order to become aware of them – after all the most important thing for an actualist is to be happy and harmless. As soon as possible get back to feeling good about being here or feeling excellent about being alive. Then you can put your feet up and spend some time contemplating on what it was that triggered you to stop feeling happy or being harmless. You will then find that it is vital to drop that part of your social identity that is causing you to be unhappy, sad, resentful, annoyed, frustrated, jealous, and so on, if you want to really want to be happy and harmless.

When you say ‘too quick’ I am reminded of the ‘quick and dirty processing pathway’ from the thalamus to the Amygdala that LeDoux and his team discovered (see Library Topics – Instinctual Passions). The emotional-instinctual response by its very nature is ‘too quick’, while a deliberate sensible answer requires thinking and contemplation.

I found this bit to be a fascinating bit of science when I first read about it, and consistent with my own discoveries. It just takes that split-second of deferring my responses to take the wind out of their sails. This helped enormously with the external aspects of my relationships with others. This is an example of the appeal (to me) of AF... its sound footing in the concrete/actual... no need for spirits/gods/planetary influences/etc.

As you say, ‘the external aspects of my relationships with others’ were the first to take care of. For me that meant I became determined to stop expressing any of my angry, sad, resentful, irritated, etc. feelings to the people I interacted with. The more ‘split-seconds’ I learnt to put between experiencing those feeling and expressing a thoughtful response, the less I transmitted these feelings to others.

Whilst the first aspect is to stop expressing such feelings to others, it is equally important not to repress them. It is only by not repressing my feelings of anger, sadness or resentment that I am able to experience them and then inquire into the nature of my beliefs and the bits of my identity that triggered those feelings in the first place. Whenever I became aware that I was feeling upset about a comment someone made, I took the opportunity to look for the reason why his or her comment had upset me.

As an example – did his or her comment in a conversation question a dearly held belief or opinion of mine? In that case I questioned why it was so important for me to maintain my belief and I looked deeper into the particular belief or opinion that had been disturbed. Slowly, slowly, with effort and diligence, those – touchy – beliefs were replaced by sound facts and simple sensibility which, in turn, enabled a joie de vivre to supplant the former ambience of doom and gloom.

When I use the question I had made reference to the fastest most complete awareness happens when I have a sensate based energetic awareness. I described having to ‘slow down’ to have an emotive backed identity that reflects and goes ‘I’ am upset, afraid, etc. etc. I have detailed the process of ‘putting on Mark’ or emotive backed identity awareness seems to occur when this Identity – (who I think I am) – lets me know I’m bothered by something. I can see as I’m writing this with a certain detachment.

When you say ‘this Identity … lets me know I’m bothered by something’ you seem to indicate that you are someone other than ‘this Identity’. However, your only chance to dismantling ‘this Identity’ is to recognize and admit that ‘this Identity’ is you, all of the time, the only exception being pure consciousness experiences where ‘I’, ‘this Identity’, is temporarily in abeyance.

‘A certain detachment’ does not alter this situation because this is merely the identity ‘playing detached’. The whole movement of spiritualism, where one aims via detachment to slip out of ‘this Identity’ into the ‘Real Me’ or ‘Higher Self’, blithely ignores the fact that a spiritual being is still an Identity, only wearing a different name.

The process of actualism consists of identifying, discovering and examining ‘me’, my social and instinctual identity. As I become aware of and fully comprehend one part of ‘me’, then this part of ‘me’ is exposed to the bright light of awareness and withers away. ‘I’ cannot survive for long in the bright light of awareness.

The truth is being bothered, is being bothered. I don’t mean to ramble. I am endeavouring to give the most accurate description I can. It seems I have an option on what I can pay attention to at any moment. I can pay attention to sights, sounds, kinaesthetic sensations, tastes and smells. When that is the case there is never any problem. Emotions are not a continual second by second experience like a sensation is. They demand reflections, interpretations and are discontinuous. I was modelling myself on the way you guys exist which is devoid of emotions, and identity. So I’ve focused on sensation based experience, which is always neutral (factual). I was letting the emotional stuff just flow through and I think I was not dealing with things, trusting they would pass just like a sensation. I’ve kind of thought the PCE experience analogous to a ‘drug or energetic experience’, also comes and goes.

While it gives you a goal it allows you to ignore issues and problems that are extant. I was doing the same with the question. I could just focus on sensations and a lot of pernicious beliefs would just go by like clouds passing in the sky. I would appreciate any comments on the above. Vineeto has been especially helpful in the past.

The method of actualism is to use the question of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ in order to develop a non-discriminatory attentiveness of what goes on in your head and your heart each moment again. The significant word is ‘non-discriminatory’ in that I pay attention to everything that is going on, not just to the pleasant or trouble-free physical sensations, but also, and particularly, to the emotions and feelings that prevent me from being happy and harmless.

The point is not to avoid emotions and feelings or ‘trust… they would pass’ but to examine and explore those emotions and feelings, otherwise one will always live in apprehension of them returning and spoiling the sensate experiencing. Personally, I wanted to know why I kept getting angry, irritated, sad or depressed, why these feelings and emotions had continued to spoil both my interactions with others and my time on my own.

Richard’s article on Attentiveness is a very good description of this process of becoming attentive to both one’s feelings and sensations.

In addition when I’ve uncovered certain beliefs I’ve said to myself that I still believe this to be true even though they detract from my happiness and wellbeing. How would you advise dealing with this without lying or deluding myself?

You would be ‘lying or deluding’ yourself if you pretended not to have those ‘certain beliefs’ that you uncovered. However, if you have the pure intent to become happy and harmless, you set about to question, examine and investigate why you have those beliefs and what are their underlying causes.

What makes encountering and examining ‘certain beliefs’ such a challenging business is one’s emotional investment that my beliefs are ‘truths’. To fervently believe something ‘to be true’, however, does not make it a fact. With the method of actualism you begin to probe into which underlying emotions uphold your beliefs and this enables you to become aware of the workings of your identity.

Let me give you an example that I could really use help with. I saw that I have a great deal of hostility toward woman. I thought, ‘gee it must be great to think that you are such a prize, that a guy ought to thank his lucky stars that he can get the opportunity to support you. To be a woman is to have the ‘divine right of Queens simply because you have tits and a vagina.’ I wasn’t thrilled that I have this belief but it is true for me. I would be lying to say I have vanquished it or am neutral. I know it doesn’t serve me and is unfair yet it is still the truth. So what is the best course of action in terms of dissolution of beliefs?

You say ‘this belief […] is true for me’ which is another way of saying that this is how you feel towards women. In contrast to the spiritual search for the ‘Truth’, i.e. what feels true for you, in actualism what feels true is not the end of the search but rather the beginning of your investigation.

While experiencing these feelings towards women – neither expressing or repressing them – you can at the same time observe them and probe deeper into the structure of your identity. As you experientially observe those feelings and accompanying thoughts, incrementally you are likely to uncover their underlying causes – first the various aspects of your social conditioning as a man and beneath that your instinctual passions as a male.

It is utterly exciting and rewarding to get to the root of the gender-battle in oneself because for the first time in your life it opens up the possibility of seeing, and relating to, all women as fellow human beings – an essential prerequisite for living in peace and harmony with the other gender.

In dismantling the ‘feeler’, I found that ‘Feeling is not a fact’ to be useful; i.e. when the feeling is rampant, to realize that ‘what one feels to be true’ requires the ‘feeling’ to be true – i.e. when I question – ‘will what is felt be true if the feeling were not there to support it?’ I found this working for me rather than going through the whole structure of what caused this feeling etc. as it seems to become circular in my case.

When feelings seem ‘to become circular’ I found it helpful to find out the reason why particular feelings were so ‘sticky’, why it was important for me to feel this way, why I was afraid to question the particular part of my identity that was related to these feelings.

When I apply the method of actualism I do so because I want to become happy and harmless – that is my first and only priority. Then the investigation into how I am experiencing this moment of being alive has a clear direction – what worry, feeling, desire, belief, etc. preventing me from being happy and harmless and if so, why do I hold on to it?

Actualists have written a great deal about how to apply the actualism method and have shared their experiences as to how to make investigations into beliefs and feelings. You will find it under the links to selected correspondences on the library page of ‘How to Become Free from the Human Condition?’ and also under ‘Affective Feelings – Emotions, Passions and Calentures’.

Yes, the test is always if the hold that feelings have on you in a particular situation is weakened or if the feelings return exactly the same way at the next similar occasion. If they do, you simply root around a bit more and probe a little deeper each time.

In psycho-therapy there is often great emphasis placed on remembering past harms and hurts, yet there is never a resolution of the associated feelings of sorrow and malice. Psychotherapy encourages you to remember childhood events in order to ‘heal’ the ‘wounded child’ but this only serves to enhance the social identity that is in part made of those memories. Whereas in actualism it is only necessary to go back to the event that triggered your current feeling in order to build up an experiential understanding of how your social and instinctual identity is programmed to work. Eventually past memories are not needed at all in order to recognize one’s identity in action – with sufficient practice you become aware of ‘me’ in action on the spot and nip it in the bud before feelings go rampant.

I am delighted you understood the pun.

In the beginning I found ‘of being alive’ particularly useful given that spiritual practice focuses so much on how not to be here on this planet – typified by such sayings as ‘going inside’ or ‘finding an inner peace’ – and is only concerned with increasing your moral bank balance for life after death.

However, once I had understood the gist of the actualism method of investigating what is going on each moment again, the question became a wordless attentiveness to being alive now. Physical sensations, thoughtful reflections and affective feelings are equally noticed. The increased awareness of being alive makes the sensual experiencing more delightful, contemplations more effective and enjoyable and it allows me to detect affective feelings as they begin to arise before they fester into raging emotions.

Whenever feelings were ‘rampant’ I was busy investigating the feelings rather than repeating the initial question because I already knew how I was experiencing this moment of being alive – I was being either angry or sad or frightened or euphoric. Then I would ask myself questions that lead to an in-depth exploration of the feeling in question – what triggered it, when did it first occur, why am I so emotional about the particular situation, what part of my identity does this relate to, etc. I would poke around, question and reflect until I had a sufficient experiential understanding of the issue at hand. Most often this process needed to be repeated time and again as I reacted in a similar way to a particular issue and I only concluded the investigation when there was the satisfying insight that allowed me to drop and dissolve the issue once and for all.

Personally I enjoy and prefer the current medium of the mailing list, where everyone receives everything that is been talked about and can then comment or not in his or her own time, pace and manner. With the mailing list as it is, writing about actualism does not interfere with living my life as I find appropriate.

I assume that by asking ‘How am I experiencing Myself here alive’ you want to focus on yourself rather than on what other people might think and feel. You might find, however, that focussing the attention on ‘Myself’ rather than on ‘this moment’ might eventually serve to aggrandize or at least overemphasize one’s ‘self’ instead of increasing one’s sensuous attentiveness to this moment of being alive.

When I ask the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’, either verbally or as a wordless awareness, I am paying attention to what is happening this moment, which includes all sensory perception, any thinking or reflective processes that are happening and any non-felicitous feelings that need further investigation. And the outcome is less and less disturbance to the overall sensual enjoyment of being alive.

I have tried to summarise what I have so far understood from the Actualfreedom website and through interaction with you.

Please correct/comment if appropriate ...

I will keep to the same style and add a few points to your summary –

• Each and every human being is born with a programming of instinctual animal survival passions, roughly classified as fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

• Each and every human being is then endowed with a particular cultural-social conditioning which includes spiritual and secular beliefs and a strict code of moral and ethical rules.

• Both these layers of programming constitute one’s ‘self’, a psychological and psychic parasitical entity that takes up residence within each and every human body. It is this ‘self’, both as ego and as soul, that actively prevents the flesh and blood body from having any direct experience of the actual world, the peace and purity and the magic and magnificence that is already always here.

• A direct experience of the actual is only possible when both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul completely disappear, either temporarily in a pure consciousness experience or permanent through the altruistic act of the voluntary ‘self’-sacrifice of all identity – a ‘self’-immolation – such that all which remains is the flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware.

• In order to initiate this ‘self’-immolation and be able to enjoy a ‘self’-less sensate and sensuous life I have actively questioned everything that constitutes my ‘self’. The first step was to examine the outer layer of my social programming, my moral and ethical code of rules and beliefs as well as my social and spiritual convictions. As I discovered that all of these beliefs, ideals and principles are invariably emotion-backed, I therefore became very interested in, and paid specific attention to, my emotional investments in maintaining and defending these rules, beliefs and convictions. Once I experientially understood the extent of the programming I had been subjected to I could then break free from the automatic repetition of this social conditioning.

• Once the shackles of my spiritual beliefs and my set of morals and ethics were loosened, the deeper layers of the bare instinctual passions have come more and more to the surface. This made it possible to become aware of, i.e. to observe, examine and understand, the instinctive substance of ‘me’, this passionate alien entity that inhabits this flesh and blood body, and as such it has become more and more impotent.

• As the power of my social conditioning and the instinctual survival passions diminished, sensible thought, intelligent observation and un-emotive reflection have begun to operate freely and I have come literally and figuratively to my senses. I am now free to be more and more sensately aware of the magical abundance of life all around and living has become a sensual and sensate delight.

• ‘Beliefs and emotions go’, as you say, only when ‘I’ and ‘me’ go and then this flesh and blood body is freed from the intruder of the social-instinctual entity, both ego and soul.

• In the meantime, I explore everything that prevents me from living a happy and harmless life. It is the practice of the simple method of actualism that ultimately gives the confidence that your theoretical and intellectual understanding is right and that it is indeed possible to change human nature. It is this practical application that makes the act of believing redundant and the need to follow an authority superfluous. Plus, you get to reap the benefits of this actual change – you become incrementally happy and harmless.

Okay ... is there any short-cut here? Instead of going through each one of them and labelling (– greedy me)?

In my experience with using spiritual methodology for 17 years and using the method of actualism for the past four years, I can verify that actualism is the short-cut. My life has already become unrecognisably better than it was four years ago – I am living in perfect peace and harmony with a man and I am happy and harmless 99% of the time.

And why would I not choose to be happy and harmless? Why would I not do whatever it takes to experience this freedom from malice and sorrow, twenty-four hours a day? By always making a deliberate choice to be both happy and harmless in this moment, I am instantly improving my life. And the action of examining, investigating and understanding whatever prevents me from being happy and harmless in this moment incrementally deletes the social and instinctual programming of malice and sorrow in me, until, one day, as a consequence of this stubborn effort, the whole entity will collapse like a house of cards.

This kind of inquisitive investigation is exactly the opposite to the traditional method of Vipassana, whereby one is simply advised ‘going through ... and labelling’ and then dismissing one’s unwanted feelings in order to get on with the business of being somewhere else but here.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding as for how to apply the method of actualism. In the library there is a section with related correspondence on ‘How to become free from the Human Condition’ where the method is explained from all possible angles.

It is not enough to simply label an affective feeling when it occurs for at this very point the fun of your investigation begins. Whenever I noticed a feeling of greed, as in your example, I explored and uncovered while experiencing the feeling what exactly I was feeling – what was I missing, why did I feel I needed this object or person, what were my moral and ethical judgements about feeling greedy, what lay behind my impatience and urge, what would have happened if I didn’t get what I felt I needed, what other feelings were connected with feeling greedy, for instance loneliness, anger, competition, resentment, inadequacy, survival fear, lethargy, wanting something for free, etc.?

In short, I conducted an extensive exploration so as to map the territory of that feeling as exactly as possible and I used each opportunity of an occurring feeling in order to find out as much as possible about ‘who’ I am and what passions I am driven by. Once you get the hang off it, it’s great fun.

Okay ... is there any short-cut here? Instead of going through each one of them and labelling (– greedy me)? Something like J. Krishnamurti stuff (sorry!) by realizing that the whole thing of ‘ME’ has come about because of a misunderstanding that ‘observer’ is different from the ‘observed’?

No need to apologize, questions are the very stuff of investigation and discovery.

Jiddu Krishnamurti never realized ‘the whole thing of ‘ME’ – like all other Eastern teachers he only taught that thought is responsible for human suffering and he made no mention of the instinctual passions being the root cause of all the mayhem and misery of humankind.

As for his method of realizing the ‘misunderstanding that ‘observer’ is different from the ‘observed’, as you put it – according to his own words none of his non-disciples and non-followers has ‘got it’. If you think his method was a short-cut, it lead no-where because it did not work. He stated at the end of his life –

‘You won’t find another body like this, or that supreme intelligence, operating in a body for many hundred years. You won’t see it again. When he goes, it goes. There is no consciousness left behind of that consciousness, of that state. They’ll all pretend or try to imagine they can get in touch with that. Perhaps they will somewhat if they live the teachings. But nobody has done it. Nobody. And so that’s that’. (pages 148-149: ‘The Open Door’; Mary Lutyens. London: John Murray 1998).

The longer I practiced the method of actualism – a wordless investigation as to how am I experiencing this moment of being alive and an examination of whatever it is that is keeping me from being happy and harmless in this very moment – the more I came to understand that actualism is actively changing one’s programming in the brain by examining and successively eradicating the roots of malice and sorrow deep in my own psyche.

Actualism aims at eliminating the very cause of one’s unhappiness, fear, greed and aggression. It is essential to experientially understand the grip that your moral and ethical values, your spiritual conditioning and, last but not least, your instinctual passions have on ‘who’ you experience yourself to be – your thinking, your feeling, your behaviour and your actions. ‘I’ and ‘me’ pervade every cell of this body, ‘I’ and ‘me’ control the functioning of its chemical-hormonal balance or imbalance, ‘I’ and ‘me’ are running the full show.

By applying the method of actualism one begins to insert increasing amounts of attentiveness, ‘self’-awareness and intelligence into the automatic instinctual and moral-ethical-spiritual programming and this process then evinces an actual and irrevocable change in one’s everyday life – one becomes ever more happy and harmless, no matter what the circumstances.

Knowing that at the end all has to go, is there a method different from the step by step approach, or this is the only way?

I found that first I had to get acquainted with ‘all’ that ‘has to go’. The way I did that was that I investigated every affective feeling and emotion as they occurred. Thus I became acquainted with ‘me’ in action. First, I examined my morals and ethics as to whether they were silly or sensible and they stopped having a grip on me. When I was getting acquainted with my spiritual conditioning it became obvious how silly it was and it eventually became impossible to hold on to it. Similarly, as I was able to come face to face with my raw instinctual passions they are now wearing thin and becoming increasingly rare.

Personally, I only know the ‘step by step approach’ and I like its incremental and certain success in improving my life way beyond my wildest dreams. I can appreciate its success particularly after 17 years of applying the spiritual method of mindless doing nothing, which brought no improvement in becoming either happy or harmless.

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