No 33: What I understood (from Richard’s mails mainly) so far is that: a direct experience is the final arbiter and while logic/ mathematics can sharpen the directly experienced, they are subservient to the direct experience. This is in contrast to the theoretical physicist/ mathematician’s viewpoint which is: logic/ mathematics is the final arbiter – direct experience is prone to error. Please correct this appraisal if necessary.

However, the question that interests me at this stage is not so much whether empiricists or rationalists should have the final say. The question that concerns me is: where is the ‘empirical’ evidence?

No 60, there is no empirical evidence that the universe is infinite and eternal, nor can there ever be – although it is paradoxical that those cosmologists who also acknowledge this simultaneously claim that they have found empirical evidence of a supposed creationist event that took place some 12 billions years ago, thereby claiming they have proof that the universe is neither eternal nor infinite. Infinitude is by its very nature beyond the reach of empirical data because we can never build a telescope powerful enough to look into infinity. There is only one evidence for infinitude and that is the unadulterated sensate apperceptive experience.

 How can precise details concerning the origin, extent and duration of the universe be directly experienced? In the so-called ‘Big Bang’, we are talking about an event (or non-event) that happened (or didn’t happen) billions of years ago. How can one claim to have direct experience (thus empirical evidence) of what did or didn’t happen billions of years ago, on the basis of what one experiences in a lifespan of 50-odd years as a flesh and blood body with limited sense organs and limited intellect?

In a PCE – in absence of a scheming alien entity – one can clearly recognize that all theories about a beginning and an edge of the universe are mere anthropocentric fantasies (part and parcel of the human drama as you called it) and that questions about ‘the origin, extent and duration of the universe’ are utterly redundant. In a PCE I directly experience that matter is not passive, I directly experience that matter is in a continuous cycle of birth and death, generation and decay, composition and decomposition and that the belief that all this should not have been happening at some imaginary other point in time is plain silly. An intelligence freed of ‘self’-centredness can easily comprehend that there is neither ‘origin’ nor ‘extent’ nor ‘duration of the universe’ – those are man-made anthropocentric metaphysical inventions in order to get a grip on something that is, by its very nature, incomprehensible to both logic and rational thought. Infinitude cannot be thought through or reasoned out – it can only be experienced in delight.

The question is what is it that makes this so hard to understand?

It seems to me that what is being portrayed as empirical evidence is actually circular and self-validating logic:

No, what is being portrayed is neither empirical evidence nor logic – that is what you make of it. What is being portrayed are the results of apperception – ‘self’-less pure perception.

The universe is infinite and eternal because one (supposedly**) experiences it that way in a PCE. A PCE reveals the actual facts of the cosmos. A PCE happens if (and only if) the universe is infinite and eternal. PCEs do happen. Therefore the universe is infinite and eternal. If this type of logic is allowed, one might say: the universe is imperfect because one experiences it that way in depression. Depression happens if (and only if) the universe is imperfect. Depression does happen. Therefore the universe is imperfect. This is not ‘empirical evidence’ of anything. It is circular reasoning based on one absolute experiential standard and several tenuous premises.

No 33, since you’ve been following the discussions closely, I’d appreciate it if you (or anyone else) let me know if you think my reasoning is off track. I am not asking you to ‘take sides’, just to drop me a note (by email if you wish) if you think I’m not making sense, or not understanding something that is clear to you.

When I started to look into actualism as an alternative to the spiritualism that I had practiced so long with unsatisfying results, the mind-boggling radicality of the 180 degrees opposite statements often caused my mind to gridlock. From whatever angle I looked at certain issues, I simply could not understand what Richard was saying. However, I had the burning desire to find out all there is to know about this third alternative because I had already experienced for myself that something was greatly amiss in the venerated teachings and practice of spiritualism.

In those situations when I couldn’t think my way out of my mental block, a condition which I later discovered to be cognitive dissonance, I used to ask myself what it was that was preventing me from understanding. Rather than accusing Richard of being bone-headed, stubborn, silly or wrong, I instead chose to question why I was so bone-headed that I could not understand what he had discovered and what emotional investment ‘I’ had in maintaining ‘my’ status quo by not understanding what he presented as his ongoing delectable experience of the actual world.

These were some of the questions I used to ask myself –

• What feelings prevent me from seeing this one particular fact?
• What fears do I have that prevent me from coming to a new understanding?
• What consequence will this understanding possibly have for ‘me’ and ‘my’ worldview if what Richard is saying is right?
• What consequence will it have for ‘my’ lifestyle, my friendships, my working situation if what Richard is saying is right?

To ask these questions was to sharpen my attentiveness as to how I felt, what I felt and why I felt it when I contemplated the issues that caused a mental block and this attentiveness also showed me how to move past those affective feelings that prevented a clearer understanding of those issues. In other words, attentiveness counteracts the instinctive ‘self’-centredness that is more or less happening all the time unless I become aware of it. Attentiveness combined with contemplation does wonders when one wants to penetrate ‘my’ automatically ongoing affective reactive-ness to emotionally charged topics.

Eventually my burning desire and my persistence not to settle for anything less than indisputable facts won over my fears of questioning what I believed to be absolutely right and true and, to make a long story short, one day something had to give – ‘my’ worldview collapsed in one fell swoop and I had my first pure consciousness experience which lasted for a night and the better half of the next day. I was with Peter at the time and experienced for the first time what it is to be with a fellow human being without having ‘self’-oriented expectations, fears and preconceptions. In fact I only noticed that those ‘self’-centred expectations, fears and preconceptions towards others were a constant feature of ‘me’ when they temporarily ceased.

The next day Peter and I went to the local market and I experienced first hand how everyone was not only selling their goods but with those goods their beliefs and convictions, their worldviews and ethics and everyone was absolutely convinced that he or she had the right truth. In the following days the memory of this direct experience made a big dent into all of my beliefs and truths but it took many more such break-throughs to question one ‘truth’ after the other and with each crumbled belief my understanding of the human condition expanded and the nature of actuality became more and more clear.

One of those break-throughs happened when I mused about the nature of the universe and my beliefs in a mystical, metaphysical or super-natural energy permeating it. The longer I contemplated the more it became clear that both a beginning to and an edge of the universe do not make sense because this theory raises far more questions than it solves, whereas an infinite and eternal universe does away with any and all the theorizing about the how, when and by whom or by what mysterious force the universe was created and what it is that it supposedly expands into. At this point it also dawned on me that in a universe without boundaries there is no physical space for any mystical Force to be ruling the world and the very meaning of actuality – matter devoid of spirit but in constant change – became stunningly clear, not just intellectually but experientially. The very simplicity of my intellectual understanding and the resultant immediate experiencing of this very understanding made the nature of the universe self-evidently obvious.

I acknowledge that it requires great daring, intent and stubborn determination to leave one’s safe haven of being an agnostic about the nature of the universe in order to recognize and experientially discover the facts about the nature of the universe as opposed to remaining ‘open’ to any and all theories about the universe. To leave the non-committal position of not-knowing behind and commit oneself to finding out the facts, whatever the cost, is a truly life-changing process as one’s whole personal worldview will fall apart and disappear. Naturally in the face of this threat, the survival instincts kick in, causing ‘me’ to opt for the safety of the status quo.

The first thing to counteract this automatic instinctual reaction is to become aware of it so that one can then make an informed decision in which direction one wants to proceed. But then again, you have apparently experienced the strength of theses passions –

I started out with the intention of picking up the pace, using HAIETMOBA to awaken felicitous feelings and sensuous delight, hoping to bring on a PCE. For a while everything was going fine – untroubled, happy, buoyant, delighting in sun and sky and sea, etc. Then, seemingly out of the blue I was seized with a deep remorse. <…> I felt as if I’d betrayed everything I ever held dear; everything that was ever innocent, pure, honest and true in myself had turned into this wretched bag of scum walking along the beach trying to blithely exterminate all the goodness that had ever existed in this body. I couldn’t continue, and didn’t want to. I felt I’d rather be permanently sad yet true to my roots than give up my humanity in exchange for the absence of pain. Ruthless-Pitiless-Merciless-Relentless, 10.1.2004

The actualism method itself is very simple – the consequences of applying it are enormous.

Inevitably every sincere discussion on this list will uncover many beliefs, viewpoints and truths one holds, will question ethics and values one might have, will disperse images one might have of oneself or trigger feelings one doesn’t like or didn’t know one had. The reason is because what is being discussed is the human psyche, how it is programmed to operate and what is the result of that programming, and therefore ‘I’ will feel inevitably exposed because ‘I’ am the human psyche. For this very reason I always stress that it is important to establish one’s intent first – which essentially is ‘my’ agreement to ‘my’ demise – before attempting to start with the nitty-gritty of dismantling one’s identity, otherwise one ends up going round in circles and blaming others for one’s own feelings of frustration and despair.

Well ... I’m not at all sure that I’ve agreed to ‘my’ demise. I can’t agree to that until I have satisfied myself that Richard is what he thinks he is, and what you and Peter think he is. As I’ve mentioned, I find his diagnosis of the human condition very lucid, penetrating and convincing. But I need to be more satisfied that he has the solution he thinks he does before I can commit to such a radical thing. Experiencing a certain lack of trust and fellowship makes it all the more difficult, but that is not Richard’s fault. He is what he is, and I’ll make of it what I make of it. Undecided so far.

You say you ‘find his diagnosis of the human condition very lucid, penetrating and convincing’ – but you don’t find his solution to the human condition ‘lucid, penetrating and convincing’. Have you ever wondered if this is so because you don’t want to agree ‘to ‘my’ demise’ and you therefore prefer to question Richard’s solution rather than conduct your own hands-on investigation of the instinctual passions that are the very cause of the human condition?

Personally, when I met Richard I had exhaustively explored the traditional ways on offer to deal with or dissociate from the human condition both in the normal world and in the spiritual world and I knew that despite sincere efforts and the efforts of billions of my fellow human beings before me none of the traditional eons-old methods had worked to free human beings from malice and sorrow. I had satisfied myself that the solutions on offer were at best half-baked and misguided, plus I was utterly fed up being ‘me’ – in short, I was ready to do whatever it takes to become free from ‘me’. Richard’s experience that both ego and soul are the culprit made imminent sense to me and his cheerful and considerate manner made it clear that he lived what he said. Once I had worked this out for myself I knew that all of ‘my’ objections were part of the problem and not part of the solution.

As for missing ‘a certain lack of trust and fellowship’ – you are bound to be disappointed when you expect trust, empathy, emotional understanding, condolences and belonging on a non-spiritual mailing list but if you want practical help how to minimize your antagonistic, sorrowful and anxious feelings and how to maximize the felicitous feelings, there is a smorgasbord of hints on the AF website, all of which is freely and frankly offered by a few of your fellow human beings. Fellowship with fellow human beings is yours for the choosing.

So I guess when I say I am practising actualism precisely as prescribed, it’s a bit of an overstatement. I’m been giving it a run by trying to awaken the felicitous feelings and minimise the emotions, but I don’t have enough confidence in actualism to go all the way yet. In fact, instead of gaining confidence in this, I’m becoming more disillusioned.

You need to put the horse before the cart. When you are fed up enough being ‘me’ and know with confidence that none of the other solutions work then you will be well equipped to use the actualism method to inquire into what your expectations and hopes are – because they are what prevent you from clearly understanding what an actual freedom is all about.

I have talked to many people in the past years who wanted to take on a bit of actualism in order to ‘awaken the felicitous feelings’ but who didn’t want to bother about inquiring into, let alone were prepared to give up, their precious hopes and expectations, their dearly-held beliefs and cherished feelings and many ended up accusing Richard and actualism for not catering to their particular foibles.

Actual freedom is not a business deal where you haggle for a compromise – actual freedom only happens when ‘I’ and all ‘my’ selfish demands disappear in toto.

*

The trick is to remember that the human condition applies to everyone and that nobody is to blame for it. And, as Richard emphasises again and again, it is important to be one’s own best friend in the enterprise of taking the identity apart –

None of this mess is ‘my’ fault ... ‘I’ was born like this. Now that ‘I’ realise this ‘I’ can willingly, cheerfully be in concordance. (...) ‘I’ can never, ever become perfect or be perfection. The only thing ‘I’ can do – the only thing ‘I’ need to do – is to say !YES! so that the already always existing perfection can become apparent. Richard, List B, 25g, 22.6.2000

(And not just me, evidently).

Oh, the human condition – as the name suggests – is common to all. It’s a majority – an estimated 6 billion people.

All fundamentally driven by the same basic genetic code – fear, aggression, desire and nurture. That is the one aspect of actualism that I am absolutely sure about. The evidence is everywhere, within and without.

If you know that for sure then all it takes is to make a decision to become free from being driven – whatever it takes. Then it is only a matter of developing a persistent and dedicated practice of attentiveness to find out how these instinctual passions express themselves in your every neurotic or frantic thought, in your every feeling, in your every action.

Actualism has a ready-made explanation for why that might be the case – everything Richard writes is a potentially fatal poison to the identities that lurk inside us all. I know that Richard does not pander to identities, and so be it – I was writing about ‘my’ reaction to ‘my’ perception of him, and part of that reaction was the idea that ‘he’ is alive and well, albeit unconscious of himself. (Notice that I said: it makes me wonder ... And please notice that it isn’t the same as saying: I’m convinced that Richard is ... this or that.)

I wonder in what way publishing what you wondering about but are not convinced about can add to a sensible discussion about the topics at hand. As you would know by experience, expressing your feelings to others only adds fuel to the fire and to other people’s fire – investigating your own feelings by yourself in your own time is quite a different matter.

Simple answer: In addition to my own feelings / impressions there was the actual / factual issue of whether No 59 was being fobbed off and ‘verballed’ by Richard. The way I saw it, he was.

In German we have an expression that goes something like – ‘the way you call into the forest, the way it will shout back at you’. No 59 made his agenda clear very clear – he wants to ‘expose’ Richard as a fraud and has no interest at all in having an amicable discussion about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being.

When I began to inquire into my feelings and emotions I found it to be a waste of time to take sides with another because they felt the same as I did. I found taking sides only served to justify my own animosity or my own unhappiness and it did not lead me to look at the source of my feelings, which is ‘me’.

More complete answer: Cognitive dissonance works two ways. There is a possibility that some of you see Richard as something he is not, and will desperately resist ‘seeing’ aspects of his behaviour that are not exactly consistent with someone who is ‘actually free from the human condition’. If No 59 sees something, No 58 sees something, I see something, no-one speaks about it – it’s all too easily swept under the carpet, because there is a vested interest in not seeing it. Everyone knows what kind of scenarios that can lead to.

First, cognitive dissonance is a mechanism that ‘I’, the entity, use in order to keep things as they are, to maintain ‘my’ status quo as it were, whereas ‘being open’ to understanding actualism requires a 180 degree turnabout in how one has been unwittingly taught to viscerally think about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being.

My own cognitive dissonance stopped when I had my first major pure consciousness experience. I had desperately wanted to know if actual freedom was indeed actual, as in universally applicable to all human experience, independent of anyone’s personal viewpoint and the PCE undeniably proved that it is – when ‘I’ temporarily disappeared the actual world of the senses became apparent. Then I also knew that the actual world Richard describes is the very same actuality that I briefly experienced in my own PCE.

Second, when you say ‘not exactly consistent with someone who is ‘actually free from the human condition’’ – you do not actually know what is consistent with someone who is free from the human condition because you have yet to meet anyone who is actually free from the human condition. All you can do is project your idea of being actually free onto Richard and then demand he should behave according to your imaginary scenario.

Third, No 59 and No 58 have both clearly stated that they are not interested if Richard is actually free from malice and sorrow and they both repeatedly state their belief that it is useless to deliberately want to change human nature. Whatever they ‘see’ is a pre-conditioned ‘seeing’, in other words a feeling. Far from ‘no-one speaks about it – it’s all too easily swept under the carpet’, by far the majority of correspondents on this list passionately object to actualism and dispute the accounts of actualists – albeit for an assortment of reasons. As an example, the 65 posts that were posted to the list yesterday were almost all from objectors – rather than ‘all too easily swept under the carpet’ this is all upfront for everyone to see and for everyone to evaluate ‘what kind of scenarios that can lead to’.

The instinctual pull to remain within the fold is enormous – I have always compared it to gravity because of its automatic and permanent pull – and to even begin to recognize this instinctual pull requires the pure intent to become free from it, whatever the cost. Without this intent you cannot help but side with the majority.

When I first started reading the Actual Freedom web site, I thought the core ideas sounded really interesting. Then when I started to look into the correspondence, I saw that Richard seems to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the minutiae, quibbling and quarrelling over trivialities, and seeming to be more interested in defending himself than helping the other. It almost deterred me from the start. I thought, how the hell can this guy have the goods he claims to have when all he does is bicker like the million and one pedantic geezers that hang out in newsgroups and mailing lists. It didn’t fit my impression of what a person who is actually free, beyond enlightenment, living a life of such quality that is unparalleled in human history, ought to be.

Of course, the ‘core idea’ can sound ‘really interesting’ in theory. People only begin to quibble and quarrel when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of actually doing the work of looking at their own beliefs and preconceptions, their feelings and passions. A little clear-eyed look at the website will reveal that the journals and articles are forthright, down-to-earth and to the point, whereas the majority of correspondence consists of answers to correspondents who raised objections to what was said. In short it is the correspondents themselves who set the agenda by the content and intent of their criticism.

I wonder why you feel Richard is ‘defending himself’ – aren’t his correspondents attacking him, often ad hominem? Do you think it is ‘not exactly consistent with someone who is ‘actually free from the human condition’’ to take the time and make the effort to put the facts straight and explain his experience in detail, over and over again? Do you think Richard should instead be a ‘lie-down-and-let-people- trample-all-over-him-pacifist? Do you think Richard should recant his discovery as Galileo was forced to do simply because the majority of correspondents think and feel he should not be challenging the status quo?

Is your idea that Richard should be ‘helping people’ by agreeing with them or pampering to everyone’s individual worldview and personal beliefs or that he should not respond to their concerns and attacks? By ‘helping people’ do you mean refraining from ‘discussing the minutiae, quibbling and quarrelling over trivialities’ that many people find important enough to raise as an issue?

*

I always found that I first had to sort out my feelings for myself before I could read with both eyes open, ask sensible questions of Richard or have a fruitful discussion that was helpful to me in furthering my inquiry into the human condition.

May I ask: does the kind of bickering I’ve witnessed here happen a lot in ‘real life’ too, or is it a text-only thing?

Ha! Never. I never talk to people about their personal beliefs let alone about the possibility of becoming free from all emotions and passions that constitute the human condition unless they invite me to do so, and even then the conversation soon turns to less threatening topics. If the ‘text-only’ comments on this mailing list were face-to-face group encounters then we actualists may well have been taken out and shot in front of the grateful mob who would have no doubt been glad to see justice done, such is human nature. T’is not for nothing that we choose to discuss these matters with our fellow human beings via the internet.

As a hint in case you are interested in less ‘bickering’ conversations – whenever I was in any way emotionally effected by what my correspondents wrote it has always helped me to look at my own feelings in the issue and then sleep over my response before I sent it so as to have some time to have a clear-eyed look at what was being said.

The practical investigation involved in the actualist method, from what I understand, depends on common sense and discerning facts from beliefs, as well as pure intent from the a PCE, and the PCE itself. Can someone get rid of their conditioning while not having seen that the self is a hallucination, as experienced in a PCE?

One can certainly begin to dismantle one’s conditioning without remembering having experienced a PCE.

One of the first parts of my social identity I examined thoroughly was my female role in the man-woman relationship, which I have described in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’ in Peters Journal. In my investigation I started with my problem of pining, examining why I did not feel happy and whole without the man I loved, dug into my gender conditioning of feeling and believing that I was not complete as a human being in my own right without having partner in life, and eventually discovered the Cinderella-like dream programmed into me since childhood. I did not stop my inquiry until I got to the very root of the problem, my identity as a woman in relationship to a man. I was then faced with the decision of hanging onto my dream or making a conscious decision to abandon the dream and with it a chunk of my female identity and then be able to relate to the flesh-and-blood person I was living with instead of seeing him as the man of my archetypal dream.

This particular investigation happened before I had a complete understanding of the full scope of actualism and a couple of months before I had my first PCE. However, it is my experience that the more one successfully inquires into one’s social conditioning and the more one abandons one’s beliefs, morals, ethics, social roles and cultural taboos, the more likely it becomes that a tear will occur in the fabric of one’s identity, which then can enable a pure consciousness experience to take place.

Are facts concerning the self exclusive knowledge to actualists who believe or know that the self is not real?

I think No 60 had a good point in his answer to you – the belief that the ‘self’ is not real can turn into an obstacle if one maintains it as a belief. Having said that I also remember that, whenever fears or objections loomed which threatened to prevent me from investigating further, it was helpful to remind myself that it was my identity in action – and not actuality.

Can you blame spiritualists for believing nonsense if they have not had or recall a PCE?

I don’t blame spiritualist for believing nonsense – I was a nonsense-believing spiritualist myself for most of my adult life. But now that I am free of these beliefs I simply call a spade a spade and nonsense I call nonsense. To do anything less would be to do a disservice to any of my fellow human beings who are also interested in becoming free of their spiritual beliefs.

In general I find it makes sense that the self does not have any actuality, but that doesn’t mean that I am any more sure of it than theologians convictions and arguments about the existence of God.

The non-existence of ‘me’ as an actuality makes sense because it is an experience that everybody has had at some stage in their life albeit one that most people only have a very vague whiff of a memory tucked away in the mist of early childhood.

The existence of God, however, does not make sense – god is a product of fervent imagination and even devout theologians cannot answer all the questions that arise from the mysteriousness of God’s supposed nonsensical qualities. But the belief in God has a certain emotional appeal for most people – for ‘me’ as an identity it might be comforting to believe in a creator and protector god because ‘I’, by ‘my’ very nature, am lost, lonely and frightened and very cunning.

So are matters of investigating conditioning dependent on being able to say ‘I have seen that the self is not real’ and getting a clearer perspective on the issue from there? I find that if I didn’t know that the self was not real, I would not be able to think clearly when I investigate various topics.

In a way this question is now irrelevant because you have already said that

‘I find it makes sense that the self does not have any actuality’.

As such you can use this intellectual understanding to practically question the actuality of ‘you’ in action whenever ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings prevent you from being happy and harmless. In the moment of my decision to let go of the Cinderella dream ‘I’, the ‘self’, felt to be very real and what helped me to become free from this part of my identity was not the knowledge that the ‘self’ is not an actuality but my intent and determination to get rid of my feelings of pining and dependency whatever the cost.

After the decision of course I knew that what had felt so very real was not actual because it had disappeared without a trace. In other words, when I found that I could do without a part of my self that was causing me to be unhappy and in doing so I felt more happy and more free, it became more obvious to me that whilst ‘I’ don’t exist as a physical actuality, ‘I’ am real in that ‘I’ manifest myself as malicious and sorrowful feelings. If you are interested in having an experiential understanding of how ‘you’ operate then there is only one way to do it and that is to do it – thinking about it is not the same as doing it.

However, earlier in my investigative process I did not recall a PCE, but saw that Richard’s written experiences made sense, and that upon looking for the self the oft-repeated bit ‘you are your feelings and your feelings are you’ rang true. But still at that point, and I’m not 100% sure at this point, could I say ‘I have seen that the self is not real’.

I found that it was useful to have a good intellectual grasp, as in making sense, of the actualism process and the information involved before I began to translate the theory into practice. However, I was never a great fan of theories and particularly in the case of actualism I was eager to apply what I had understood in order to become more happy and less antagonistic towards others as soon as possible … and the more I practically applied myself to the investigation the more I theoretically understood what Richard was talking about.

This is no different than learning anything new – read up a bit on the theory, read through the instruction manual, try it out, learn by trial and error, check back with the manual if needed, if you get stuck then ask questions of someone with more expertise, keep at it until you develop a certain level of competence and then all of a sudden it all makes sense and you find yourself doing it effortlessly. Learning anything new requires an initial interest, then the intent to do it and the rest is application, diligence, patience and perseverance.

As such you could say ‘I have seen that the self is not real’ as an intellectual understanding which will then give you the confidence and the courage to go ahead and confirm this understanding as an actuality – first by questioning certain aspects of your ‘self’ and not being distracted by the smoke-screen ‘you’ will inevitably produce, and then by the happening of a ‘self’-less pure consciousness experience.

I know from my own experience with actualism that feedback from other people’s experience can only go so far – I gained both reassurance and warning from Richard’s reports of his experiences but in the end I had to sort out my experiences for myself … and my benchmark for that was always my first major PCE. It was the experience of which I had the clearest memory simply because the difference to my normal day experience was so incredibly stunning and at the same time so unquestionably obvious.

Did this first PCE come from practising HAIETMOBA, or was it something you remembered from earlier in life?

This first major PCE happened about three months after I had learnt that there is an actual freedom that is beyond enlightenment and began examining my feelings of loyalty in regards to the spiritual master I had been following. After several weeks of intense questioning of what I had believed to be right and true this breakthrough into a PCE eventuated and it settled my burning questions about right and wrong beliefs – I experienced the unquestionable facticity of actuality that is far superior to any belief or any imagination ‘I’ could ever conjure.

You may be interested to read about the lead-up and the description of this PCE in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’.

After this PCE I knew the flavour of a pure experience and eventually remembered PCEs from earlier in my life, some in my childhood and some in my twenties and thirties.

So to answer your question, yes it did. It occurred after an intense period of being aware of the intensity of my feelings and beliefs and of being attentive to how ‘my’ wanting to hold on to these feelings and beliefs stood in the way of me becoming happy and harmless.

*

The reason why I am so persistent about keeping a clear distinction between the quality of a ‘self’-less experience as compared to the quality of an altered state with ‘a psyche present’ is because if anyone decides to want to become free from the Human Condition in toto then he or she needs to have an indubitable benchmark and therefore make a clear distinction between the two experiences. Otherwise one would waste one’s time chasing an Altered States of Consciousness instead of an actual freedom from the human condition.

I do understand your intent here, and FWIW I do appreciate it. As far as indubitable benchmarks are concerned, it is the ASC (not the PCE) that has started to reveal itself through HAIETMOBA,

The way you described your using the method it appears that you have created your own adapted version of the actualism method–

It was a perfect opportunity to go deeply into the HAIETMOBA exercise. <…> So I deliberately stepped out of ‘actualist mode’, and allowed myself to experience the world in my own way. Interesting experience, 11.12.2003

You also said –

I let my consciousness do whatever the hell it wanted to do. Gave it free reign, and paid full attention to it as something that is valid and authentic in its own right… Interesting experience, 11.12.2003

This is not the method of actualism as described on the AF website.

When I pay undivided attention to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive I do not consider my thoughts, beliefs and feelings ‘as something that is valid and authentic in its own right’ because from the benchmark of a PCE I know that ‘my’ perception is distorted by my beliefs, my feelings and my instinctual passions. When I pay undivided attentiveness I do this with the aim of uncovering any beliefs and disempowering any feelings which are standing in the way of experiencing the already existing perfection of the actual world.

Whereas to allow oneself ‘to experience the world in my own way’ and to give ‘free reign’ to one’s consciousness is a ‘self’-oriented and ‘self’-aggrandizing enterprise – a recipe for producing an Altered State of Consciousness.

… and as far as I can tell at this stage (early days, obviously), there is not a single disadvantage or danger to be found in the presence of ‘psyche’ as I’ve been experiencing it.

This obviously depends on what is your aim is in life. The main difference between what you are doing and the process of actualism is that in a PCE one’s ‘self’ is in abeyance, which allows the always already existing actuality to become apparent, whereas in an ASC you ‘experience the world in my own way’. By doing so you are indulging in personal imagination and there are as many personal visualizations of perfection as there are people in this world. If however you have the aim of living in peace and harmony with your fellow human beings, then using one’s personal visualizations as one’s benchmark is certainly a ‘disadvantage or danger’ to this aim.

I am still a very emotional being, maybe even more so now, as I feel everything with much more intensity then I used to…yet I don’t give it credence most of the time, but even if I inadvertently do, then I have an excellent fall back cushion. And this has made all the difference.

When I disentangled myself from the spiritual practice of dissociation I began to allow myself once again to become sensitive to my own undesired feelings as well as to the perversities and horrors of the human condition. In short I allowed myself to feel the full range of my emotions in order to examine them and trace them back to ‘me’, the affective identity inside this flesh-and-blood body. When a reaction to a certain situation kept creeping up again and again, avoiding giving it ‘credence’ was not enough. I had to feel the feeling, label it, sort it out, understand it in the context of my social identity and figure out which part of ‘me’ was responsible for my emotional reaction in order to become free from it. Then I could go back to feeling excellent again and, as a result of this rooting around, was less prone to be disturbed by a similar situation.

I also bumped into some of your older writings recently which really helped, ../actualism/vineeto/list-af/corr.htm, where you translate – or better said clear up – the NDA language into readable straight talk.

It was more meant as a joke at the time and the joke is on me, because I was exactly such a hypocritical goodie-two-shoe as displayed in the example. When I had an image to defend, a soul to nourish or a belief to maintain, there was not much room to be honest with myself, let alone laugh at myself. But once I began to question my loyalty to the guru, the teachings and the group of disciples, I could be much more straight with myself.

To No 47: When I disentangled myself from the spiritual practice of dissociation I began to allow myself once again to become sensitive to my own undesired feelings as well as to the perversities and horrors of the human condition. In short I allowed myself to feel the full range of my emotions in order to examine them and trace them back to ‘me’, the affective identity inside this flesh-and-blood body. When a reaction to a certain situation kept creeping up again and again, avoiding giving it ‘credence’ was not enough. I had to feel the feeling, label it, sort it out, understand it in the context of my social identity and figure out which part of ‘me’ was responsible for my emotional reaction in order to become free from it. Then I could go back to feeling excellent again and, as a result of this rooting around, was less prone to be disturbed by a similar situation. Vineeto, List AF, No 47, 4.11.2003

I think a) is extremely important. If not done diligently, it leads to denial of the feeling and also distortion of steps b) and c). If I don’t fully feel and acknowledge the feeling/ emotional reaction, it means that I have not fully come to terms with the whole of the feeling; I still have some vested interests in continuing to feel that way and I would trick myself to lie in the surface if I don’t take a good look at the whole of the feeling. It seems to be so difficult to stay with the feeling.

It’s usually difficult to acknowledge and feel a feeling when the particular feeling is either socially unacceptable or personally undesired, i.e. when to feel this way does not concur with one’s morals and ethics and/or one’s image of oneself. You described it well in your recent letter to No 4 when you said –

… funnily the ‘self-image’ I had of myself, say 18 months ago when I came to the list, was totally wrong as it was a product of so many denials and only after digging deep I could see all the stuff I was denying. 7.11.2003

That’s why the questioning of one’s spiritual beliefs and one’s moral and ethical values is crucial for successfully investigating one’s feelings – I had to dare to go past the ‘guardians at the gate’ and take apart my social identity.

This identity consists of the morals and ethics that have been drilled into us from the time when we were first rewarded for ‘good’ and ‘right’ behaviour and punished for ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour. We are thus taught to emphasize and highly value the ‘good’ instinctual passions and to repress and control the ‘savage’ passions. Our social identity is in fact made up of the morals, ethics and values that are programmed into us by our parents, teachers and others to ensure that we will become a fit, useful and loyal member of the particular society into which we were born. Introduction, Normal Solutions

One thing that I found useful in this process of dismantling my social identity was when I became aware of a feeling that interrupted my feeling good and I had given it a name, I then identified this feeling with a specific aspect of my social identity. In my case when I felt annoyed with something that Peter said or didn’t say or did or didn’t do I would acknowledge that I was annoyed and then recognize that it was ‘Vineeto the woman’ and ‘Vineeto the lover’ who was annoyed and this made it clear that if I wanted to stop reacting in that way then ‘Vineeto the woman’ and ‘Vineeto the lover’ would have to go.

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c) brings back the focus on enjoying the moment and the purpose of the investigation is to find and remove the obstacle that took away from feeling good/ excellent/ perfect. The real test for correctness of the above steps is simply that it becomes once again possible to get back to feeling good/ excellent/perfect. At least the current problem has been understood and eradicated.

Yes and when the problem reoccurs I examine it again, I shine the bright light of awareness onto it, maybe explore it on a deeper level and come to understand how ‘I’ tick more deeply and comprehensively.

In every investigation a crunch point eventually comes when ‘I’ realize that the only way I am going to raise the bar of actually becoming more harmless and consequently feeling more happy is to let go of, or drop, a significant part of my social identity – in my case I was no longer a German, no longer a spiritualist, no longer a socialist, no longer a member of the sisterhood, and so on.

Change does mean change and change does have consequences. For an actualist the over-arching intent to become more happy and more harmless outweighs any consequences that the stripping away of one’s social identity may have.

Has it not occurred to you that the reason you had such limited success with actualism – ‘this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular’ – is that you are not using the actualism method as it has been described to you?

I wonder why you are wondering about the degree of success you are having using the actualism method when you say –

‘I am reasonably happy when I am content and peaceful. In other words I have no serious complain with life, I have no need to change anything and I do not carry any acrimonious feeling towards others’.

If you are happy being ‘reasonably happy’ and if, when you are feeling ‘reasonably happy’, you feel you ‘have no need to change anything’, then actualism is clearly not your cup of tea.

However, if you are inspired by ‘people describing their PCEs’ and you would like to live a ‘self’-less PCE 24 hours a day, everyday, then you will need to change. You will need to make being harmless and happy priority number one in your life – the very top of your laundry list.

Being ‘reasonably happy’ can generally be achieved either by repressing one’s unwanted feelings, obeying the social-religious morals and ethics, or by detaching from one’s unwanted feelings, following the spiritual practice of dissociation. If you are interested in experiencing the dazzling splendour and peerless pristine excellence of the actual world then you would have to investigate why you would settle for feeling ‘reasonably happy’ – reasonably as in ‘moderately, modestly, cheaply, within one’s means, tolerably, passably, acceptable, average’. Oxford Thesaurus

In order to lift the bar to feeling excellent you would have to ask yourself the question – why do I not feel perfect, which feelings interfere with my feeling perfect and reduce my experience of life to merely feeling ‘reasonable happy’, which, as you said yourself, isn’t ‘anything spectacular’?

Before I go into the nitty-gritty of degrees of being harmless and happy, the unresolved question is whether being harmless and happy is priority numero uno in your life. If it is, then settling for second best will be out of the question for you. If it is, then you will automatically lift your game from being ‘reasonably happy’ to feeling happy to feeling perfect to sensual delighting in being here and you will know for yourself what feeling perfect means without needing to compare it with anyone else’s feeling perfect. Perfect means the best and needs no comparison.

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Cultivating the attentiveness required for the actualism method to be successful is not akin to some sort of meditation that you do ‘while going to sleep or when [you] have nothing else to do’. If you want to change your life from feeling ‘reasonably happy’ to feeling good to feeling happy to feeling perfect, then attentiveness needs to be applied each moment again, regardless of what it is you are doing at this moment and regardless of where you are at this moment.

To use the example you related to No 3, when ‘preparing for a presentation’ you focus your attentiveness on how you are experiencing this moment of being alive whilst doing the research and activities for the presentation and in doing so you become aware of what causes you to have sad, anxious or irritated feelings during this activity. When cooking dinner, you ask yourself to how you are experiencing this moment cooking dinner, when driving a car you pay exclusive attention as to how you are experiencing this moment while diving along the road, and so on.

Actualism, being non-spiritual, non-philosophical and down-to-earth, is like any other pursuit in life. For example, if your aim is to win the Olympic gold medal in the 5000m marathon, then you will spend your days training and exercising until you are confident of reaching your goal – you will stream-line your whole life, putting all other desires aside, to make sure you reach your goal and you won’t let off until you have perfected your skills. But if you only want to do a little bit of jogging to see if you like it or not, then you won’t need to practice, you won’t need to change your life, you won’t need to perfect your running style.

As for ‘how you can have exclusive attention to two attentiveness oriented tasks at the same time’ – if your attention is exclusively focused on the task at hand, then you can become attentive to the fact that you are absorbed in the doing of the task. Very often when the doing of the task is totally enjoyable you have no time for feeling sad, dull, resentful, irritated or apprehensive and then you become aware that you are feeling perfect accomplishing your task. If, however you become attentive to the fact that your attention is not exclusively focused on the task, then you can become attentive as to why not. If you become aware of feeling annoyed or frustrated whilst doing the task then it is obvious that you are not feeling happy and then you can become attentive as to why this is so.

Of course, attentiveness is acquired like any other skill in life – you begin with the easy and graduate to the more difficult. First you begin being attentive as to how you experience this moment of being alive when brushing your teeth, getting dressed, having breakfast, waiting for the bus, driving a car, standing in the elevator, cooking a meal, watching television, and so on. When your attentiveness increases through practice, you advance to the more involved and more emotionally charged occupations of your day. Again, it all depends on your intent – no interest, no effort, no result.

I am certainly not attempting an ‘emulation of that programming’. Actual Freedom is not about emulating a programming – it is about becoming freed from one’s social programming and from the invidious effects of blind nature’s instinctual programming. With the actualism method I remove my default setting, the normal and spiritual programming of the human condition – I do not replace it with another programming. When the identity is removed – as experienced in a pure consciousness experience – the actual becomes apparent only because there is no programming interfering with experiencing what is already here.

Therefore I do not need to ‘ever accomplish the hard-wiring’ as you suggest – what I do in the continuous process of increasing attentiveness is to become aware of and remove the redundant software programming. Then the hard-wiring, human intelligence, can function undisturbed and undistorted and the senses perceive unfiltered delight.

Once you begin to practice actualism and begin to de-program your belief in the supposedly unknowable nature of the universe, then the nature of the actualism process becomes easily apparent.

Yes, it is absolutely astounding that this one methods works to progressively dismantle all my problems. Whenever I notice an affective reaction to whatever someone says or does – I inquire why that is so – I discover a certain expectation or fear – I inquire why that is so – I notice the nature of my ‘psychic tentacles’ that automatically weave their web – I inquire what is the underlying purpose in having that particular bond – and bingo, brought to the light of awareness, my ‘psychic tentacles’ can no longer hold their grip.

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Throughout the process of actualism I have become aware of, and incrementally dissolved, my ‘connections’ to things in my close environment and I investigated my affiliations and friendships with people. As you pointed out, most sharing between people consists of commiseration, but as the actualism process continued I had less and less to complain about my own life, which meant I had less and less common misery with people. The wonderful outcome of this ‘unconnectedness’ is that I am more and more able to meet and treat people as fellow human beings – that means I recognize and treat them as what they are instead of relating to them as bit players in ‘my’ game, subjects of ‘my’ moral judgements and demands, projections of ‘my’ fears and desires.

With attentiveness operating almost seamlessly, I am able to clearly see any complaints and worries I have about the world as-it-is and people as-they-are for they are expressions of either malice or sorrow. Attentiveness also enabled me to be sensible enough to sort out the practical circumstances of my life such that I stopped doing many of the silly, stressful and time-consuming things I used to do solely in order to be ‘someone’ in the world and to be recognized as such. Once I made these practical changes the only task then left was to wear out and finally stop the habit of complaining that every human being engages in.

Some complaints however, such as the knee-jerk rages against authority and authority figures or feeling sad and sorry for a blighted humanity run very deep and as such take a bit more digging into in order to fully understand and undo. Such complaints are rooted deeply in the core feeling of ‘we are all in the same boat’ which gives rise to the nonsensical belief that ‘we can only become free together all at once’. It is obvious that there are no practical lifestyle changes that I can make to diminish these complaints other than cutting the cord each time these feelings arise and, each time again, step out from humanity, the sad and sorry cesspool of malice and sorrow.

By getting rid of my own complaints, boredom, annoyance and irritation I succeeded in enjoying my own company and I increasingly became aware that I like my fellow human beings. With this liking comes hand-in-glove an appreciation of my fellow human beings and an admiration of the astounding human ingenuity and caring in many fields of science, engineering, health and safety.

One thing that played a major part in my increasingly liking people-as-they-are was the acknowledgement of my own malice and sorrow, that I recognized it as being due to the human condition and that I understood that everybody, through no fault of their own, is born into the same human condition. I then put this intellectual understanding into daily practice whenever I interacted directly with people, read or heard of other people or read or heard of other people’s views of other people.

Nevertheless, I am often left bewildered at the fact that most people prefer to remain in the situation they find themselves in. But then again, most people I know choose to spend their lives as they do – my aim is to live in peace and harmony with people-as-they-are, without exception.

I’d like to add a comment to your conversation with No 38 on the thread of how to become happy. You wrote –

Now in this state, when I use actualism method, I look for any feelings which drive me out of the ‘reasonably happy’ state and I come back to my ‘reasonably happy’ state in a reasonably short time on most occasions. I am not too sure if other people who report success with actualism method are in the same state because for me this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular or fundamentally different than normal life one could live. This is very well within human condition.

No 38: Again, if ‘reasonable’ is adequate, so be it. Apparently, it’s not, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering with this discourse, right?

Right. But what is doubtful is the level of my intent (for example compared to yours) in going all the way. The reason for this is perhaps because I don’t have a direct experience of what is on offer. So my take on this discussion is that you should have a PCE before you try out actualist method because otherwise you will not have full and pure intent and therefore can not succeed or at most can reach only ‘reasonably happy’ state.

When I first came across actualism, and its implicit challenge to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless, it was the harmless part that grabbed my attention – i.e. I could see that to be ‘reasonably happy’ was relatively easy but to become actually harmless was the real challenge that actualism offered to me.

Because of the way human beings are socially and instinctually programmed, the time-honoured pursuits of happiness – be it via the accumulation of material possessions or the acquisition of spiritual brownie-points – is inadvertently and inevitably a ‘self’-centred enterprise. When ‘I’ pursue ‘my’ happiness in either of these worlds I am necessarily putting ‘me’ and ‘my’ insatiable wants and needs first. This means that ‘my’ happiness is always conditional upon ‘my’ position in the real-world pecking order, or if one is so inclined, ‘my’ position in the spiritual world pecking order. Either way, happiness such as this is dependant upon doing battle with one’s fellow human beings in some way or other.

There is a way out of this apparent dilemma and this is the third alternative to the traditional choices – being ‘reasonably happy’ in the real world or being blissfully dissociated in an imaginary spiritual world. The solution is to change the focus of your attention and effort and aim to become happy by becoming unconditionally harmless towards each and every fellow human being that you come in contact with. Such an aim will automatically make you consider the benefit of your fellow human beings as being equal and equitable to your own – which in turn will lead you to seek outcomes that are of mutual benefit to both parties as distinct from the pursuit of ‘self’-centred profits and ‘self-indulgent feelings.

Similarly, in interactions with your fellow human beings the aim to be harmless will ensure that you rate other people’s happiness as much as your own, simply because if you harbour acrimonious feelings towards another, neither they nor you can be happy in such a situation. The more you actively pursue harmlessness and investigate the social and instinctual mechanisms that cause you to have aggressive, resentful, insulting, blaming, sorrowful and anxious feelings, the less ‘self’-centred, more considerate and more benevolent you are towards all of your fellow human beings.

Of course, you will very quickly experience, if you are scrupulously sincere in your pursuit, that one invariably feels happy whenever one notices that one is spontaneously harmless. Such a happiness only needs enough intent to make the first commitment – to become unconditionally harmless and do whatever is necessarily to attain and maintain such harmlessness. Then the more harmless you are towards your fellow human beings, the more happy you become and this results in even more harmlessness and even more happiness – i.e. success breeds more success.

The recent discovery of actualism now makes it clear that the best contribution one can make to peace-on-earth is to free oneself and others from the burden of one’s animal instinctual passions – and the obvious place to start such a process is to focus on the elimination of invidious passions that cause harm to one’s fellow human beings.

I would like to state my practical problem. I am reasonably happy most of the time. I think I am also reasonably innocent and content, most of the time, though I am not sure what it means to be ‘pure’. You would notice the word ‘reasonably’. This is because it is compared to my peers. I don’t have any recollection of any PCE as described by many on this list. Now in this state, when I use actualism method, I look for any feelings which drive me out of the ‘reasonably happy’ state and I come back to my ‘reasonably happy’ state in a reasonably short time on most occasions. I am not too sure if other people who report success with actualism method are in the same state because for me this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular or fundamentally different than normal life one could live. This is very well within human condition. I am not able to figure out how to take a leap from here into PCE.

When I first came across actualism, and its implicit challenge to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless, it was the harmless part that grabbed my attention – i.e. I could see that to be ‘reasonably happy’ was relatively easy but to become actually harmless was the real challenge that actualism offered to me.

Because of the way human beings are socially and instinctually programmed, the time-honoured pursuits of happiness – be it via the accumulation of material possessions or the acquisition of spiritual brownie-points – is inadvertently and inevitably a ‘self’-centred enterprise. When ‘I’ pursue ‘my’ happiness in either of these worlds I am necessarily putting ‘me’ and ‘my’ insatiable wants and needs first. This means that ‘my’ happiness is always conditional upon ‘my’ position in the real-world pecking order, or if one is so inclined, ‘my’ position in the spiritual world pecking order. Either way, happiness such as this is dependant upon doing battle with one’s fellow human beings in some way or other.

There is a way out of this apparent dilemma and this is the third alternative to the traditional choices – being ‘reasonably happy’ in the real world or being blissfully dissociated in an imaginary spiritual world. The solution is to change the focus of your attention and effort and aim to become happy by becoming unconditionally harmless towards each and every fellow human being that you come in contact with. Such an aim will automatically make you consider the benefit of your fellow human beings as being equal and equitable to your own – which in turn will lead you to seek outcomes that are of mutual benefit to both parties as distinct from the pursuit of ‘self’-centred profits and ‘self-indulgent feelings.

It appears that you have not fully understood my suggestion to change the focus of your attention from settling for being ‘reasonably happy’ to focussing on becoming actually and unconditionally harmless. Let me return to your initial query –

I am not too sure if other people who report success with actualism method are in the same state because for me this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular or fundamentally different than normal life one could live. This is very well within human condition.

First let me say that your current description of your daily life – ‘I am reasonably happy most of the time. I think I am also reasonably innocent and content, most of the time’ – strikes me as qualitatively different to the description you have reported in your last post to me –

For me, while it is easy (comparatively) to label and handle obvious feelings like anger, malice, compassion, hope, I find it more difficult to label not-so-apparent feelings. These feelings create a neither-happy-nor-sad kind of state. I remember you talked of dullness in one of your mails. But I find that this dullness or boredom is not the same every time it happens and it happens very frequently. No 4 to Vineeto 13.6.2002

From the way you describe how you are currently experiencing life you seem to be somewhat more happy, less bored, less dull than you were last year. Therefore when you now say that ‘this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular or fundamentally different than normal life’ you seem to have not taken into account how you previously experienced normal life. Taking your words at face value, you seem to be belittling whatever success you may have had, seem stuck at being reasonably happy and reasonably harmless and are now saying ‘this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular’ as though the actualism method itself is somehow lacking.

However, if you want to further investigate why ‘this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular’ it might be appropriate to look at the post that you have written on the same day to John, in which you describe how and when you apply the method of actualism –

On priority, I completely agree with you. Unless being happy and harmless is priority number 1, I am busy in other things and many hours are lost. But as Richard says, life is so good in giving opportunities that you get another fresh moment again whenever you remember what is your priority number 1.

However the question is why does ‘I’ forget what is priority number 1. Sometimes, what I get a reason for this is that what I am doing right now (for example preparing for a presentation in my office) is urgent and can not be done at any other time, whereas the awareness of feelings can be done at any time later, so let me focus now on my current job. And I end up focussing on awareness only while going to sleep or when I have nothing else to do. No 4 to No 3, 13.6.2002 (emphasis by me)

This is clearly not the actualism method as Richard has explained it to you –

There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This gives rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Richard to No 4, 14.1.1999 (emphasis by me)

And again a month later –

By asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the reward is immediate; by finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying this moment of being alive. It is all about being here now at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here now in this actual world. (A grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom-line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life. Richard to No 4, 19.2.1999 (emphasis by me)

Has it not occurred to you that the reason you had such limited success with actualism – ‘this doesn’t look to be anything spectacular’ – is that you are not using the actualism method as it has been described to you?

Cultivating the attentiveness required for the actualism method to be successful is not akin to some sort of meditation that you do ‘while going to sleep or when [you] have nothing else to do’. If you want to change your life from feeling ‘reasonably happy’ to feeling good to feeling happy to feeling perfect, then attentiveness needs to be applied each moment again, regardless of what it is you are doing at this moment and regardless of where you are at this moment.

To use the example you related to No 3, when ‘preparing for a presentation’ you focus your attentiveness on how you are experiencing this moment of being alive whilst doing the research and activities for the presentation and in doing so you become aware of what causes you to have sad, anxious or irritated feelings during this activity. When cooking dinner, you ask yourself how you are experiencing this moment cooking dinner, when driving a car you pay exclusive attention as to how you are experiencing this moment while diving along the road, and so on.

And if you forget to be attentive as to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive at some time during your daily activities then not to worry, for the very action of becoming aware that you forgot to be attentive brings you right back to being attentive again.

If you cultivate the habit of paying more and more exclusive attention to this moment, each moment again, you will begin to be able to recognize and experience feelings such as sorrow or resentment the very moment they arise before they have a chance to fester into long periods of grumpiness, boredom, Grübelsucht or misery. Should such sorrowful or resentful feelings persist then it is obvious that you need to examine their cause, investigate the underlying persistent belief and initiate the necessary changes.

And this brings me to the last sentence of your initial query – ‘I am not able to figure out how to take a leap from here into PCE’. Actualism does not require great leaps of imagination – what is needed is simple step-by-step application. The more you pay exclusive attention to this moment of being alive, the more you will be able to incrementally minimise the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and the more you will be able to activate the felicitous feelings and cultivate sensuousness. Then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness – which is a pure, i.e. non-affective, ‘self’-less experience of this moment of being alive. This is not something you have to figure out for yourself as Richard has already figured it out.

As for ‘to take a leap’ – you need to make the bold decision to ‘take a leap’ from merely settling for being ‘reasonably happy’ – with ‘reasonably harmless’ thrown in as an afterthought – to making the necessary effort required to pay exclusive attention to how you are experiencing each moment of being alive. Making this effort will not only enable you to become more happy and more considerate of others but this exclusive attentiveness will also enable you to become more and more aware of your sensate experiencing – and this awareness is the necessary ingredient to be able to delight in the sheer sensuousness of being alive on this verdant planet.

To expect to leap from being ‘reasonably happy’ to a PCE is to remain stuck in wishful thinking but ‘tis only a small step from sensual delighting in being here in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are to having a PCE.

Yes, nice to talk again. Did you have a pleasant hiatus caused by summertime outdoor activities or was it something else?

Writing on the list has been a great pleasure and an excellent tool for me from the very start. I enjoy the fellowship of sharing with others who are interested in my personal discoveries of the workings of the human condition and how to become free from it. The process of putting my experiences into words adds an additional degree of clarity to each issue at hand.

To write about a topic or to answer questions requires me to reflect and contemplate about an issue, to question if I am harbouring a belief or a feeling about the issue, to sometimes do some research in order to talk about the issue at hand more comprehensively, to sum up and to summarize my experience and understanding – in all, it aids the process of self-exploration and understanding immensely.

The latest discussions on the infinite nature of the universe gave me many opportunities to not only contemplate but to experience again and again the peerless infinity of the universe and to put my experiential understanding in words such that others could also make sense of the nature of this physical universe. Therefore, even when a post takes a week or more to be completed, I always assume that others on the list will benefit from the writing.

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