Let me assure you that the word Crazy in this context is a very serious state of being and the loony bin is not the place you want to go. This ‘being the first free of the human condition’ is something that a brain particularly a brain that has been exposed to mind altering substances could well have some difficulties to process appropriately.

Am I understanding you right that you say that you are attracted to actualism but find it presently too risky (too crazy) to take on board? If so, I can understand your concerns very well as I had a short period where I was genuinely afraid of going mad myself. The only thing that helped me to overcome my fear was to have straightforward to-the-point discussions with the two only actualists at the time, Peter and Richard, about the nature of the human condition, about the all-pervasiveness of the instinctual survival passions, about the cunning of my ‘self’ and about the delusion of spiritualism. It then dawned on me that what they were saying made sense – in other words that what they were saying was simple, sensible, straight-forward, matter of fact and down-to-earth. There is nothing intrinsically ‘crazy’ about actualism at all. And yet to the rest of humanity – those who are considered sane – what actualists are saying seems crazy, megalomaniacal, outrageous, heretical, iconoclastic, and even insane.

To put it in a nutshell, I realized that those who proposed that the only way to bring an actual end to human malice and sorrow was to become happy and harmless were considered to be insane by those ‘sane’ people who were content to remain malicious and sorrowful. This realization was an intellectual understanding only and I still wavered between either side about the issue of what it is to be sane – to be hundred percent certain I needed an experiential understanding.

This determination to get to the bottom of the matter finally resolved the issue of sanity and insanity when my ‘self’ temporarily disappeared and I had a pure consciousness experience. In fact it was my burning desire to know for sure who was right and who was crazy that brought my inquiry to a peak and caused the bubble of ‘me’ to temporarily burst. This particular pure consciousness experience confirmed without doubt that an actual freedom from the human condition (the extinction of both ego and soul) is the only salubrious solution to bringing an end to my malice and my sorrow.

As for ‘a brain that has been exposed to mind altering substances could well have some difficulties to process appropriately’ it may be appropriate to carefully read the disclaimer on the Actual Freedom Homepage and first take whatever action and care needed to cure yourself from any remnant side-effects of these mind-altering substances before you try to unravel the mess that is the Human Condition.

… and in light of a post today (R: Case <name deleted>) does this method throw up such risks?

The disclaimer on The Actual Freedom Trust homepage clearly states, that actualism is for a normal people, sensible human beings who understand what a word means, who have learned to function prudently in society with all its legal laws and social protocols, and who is a reasonably ‘well-adjusted’ personality who has a deep-seated interest in finding ultimate fulfilment and complete satisfaction.

As for risks – there are, of course, risks that one might loose courage on the way to becoming free and choose to remain trapped in one or the other mental-emotional states that pass for being ‘normal’ or ‘spiritual’ but by far the greatest risk in practicing actualism is what Peter has called ‘grounding on the Rock of Enlightenment’. To be seduced off the path to an actual freedom into the institutionalized delusion of a permanent altered state of consciousness is a real risk and a warning that I did not discard lightly. Whilst practicing actualism and investigating the root of the so-called ‘good’ emotions I personally experienced a few altered states of consciousness, some of which lasted for several hours and one for more than a day. After these experiences I made it a point to become acutely aware of the ‘self’-aggrandizing symptoms of this passionate trap in order to be able to recognize the warning signs and nip any onsets in the bud.

Yeah I can see the need to be vigilant. And that’s why I asked the query about risks of mental health, just as you have no intention or wish to go enlightened way! I have no intention or wish to go crazy. Some stuff pertaining to this issue (and my worries) can be read at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture5.shtml

The link you provided gives a general overview about many possible types of mental disorders. Some people have queried Richard about what is described as ‘Capgras delusion’, which is a result of the non-functioning of the amygdala, whereas Richard describes the change that made him actually free from the instinctual passions happening in the brain-stem. If you read more of Richard’s writings you can recognize for yourself that an actual freedom has nothing at all to do with this particular illness. However, you may be interested to know that an actual freedom has been classified by psychiatrists as being afflicted with a chronic and incurable psychotic mental disorder – not only depersonalisation and derealisation but anhedonia and alexithymia as well. In Richard’s selected correspondence on ‘Sanity, Insanity and the Third Alternative’ you will find the explanation for this and some further clues regrading your query.

Personally, I can understand your concerns very well as I had a short period where I was genuinely afraid of going mad myself. The only thing that helped me to overcome my fear was to have straightforward to-the-point discussions with the two only actualists at the time, Peter and Richard, about the nature of the human condition, about the all-pervasiveness of the instinctual survival passions, about the cunning of my ‘self’ and about the delusion of spiritualism. It then dawned on me that what they were saying made sense – in other words, that what they were saying was simple, sensible, straight-forward, matter of fact and down-to-earth. My determination to get to the bottom of the matter finally resolved the issue of sanity and insanity when my ‘self’ temporarily disappeared and I had a pure consciousness experience. In fact, it was my burning desire to know for sure who was right and who was crazy that brought my inquiry to a peak and caused the bubble of ‘me’ to temporarily burst. This particular pure consciousness experience confirmed, without doubt, that an actual freedom from the human condition (the extinction of both ego and soul) is the only salubrious solution to bringing an end to my malice and my sorrow. If society, in its wisdom, classifies someone who is free of malice and free of sorrow as having an acute and incurable psychotic mental disorder, then what to do – stay ‘sane’?

*

Be that as it may, the risk that most people I have spoken to or written to seem to fear most is to commit themselves wholeheartedly to something, particularly if this something will result in irrevocable change.

I will tell you what my fear is. I am quite a happy and cheerful guy, I mostly feel its stupid to be sad, mostly sorrow seems to self generated, imagined ones and by accepting the society norms and then unable to live up to it, the divide between the ‘goal, the ideal’ and where I am now, brings sorrow. Take ‘success’ for e.g. or any of the other norms that exist in values or material field. That much is clear.

There is much more to being unconditionally happy than being disillusioned with society’s goals and ideals, much, much more.

Am I harmless, definitely not, not always. Am I always happy, no. Why not? DO I have the clarity of the ways of what and how to live, No.

The question at this point would be if your realization that you are not always happy and ‘definitely not’ always harmless is motivation enough for you to want to change and change radically.

So for clarity one looks into various avenues. I want to do the right thing; In my teens I rmbr keeping a diary for sometime, and I rmbr writing what if I was first man on earth, then concept of God goes, (of course I would have imagined and created one soon enough!) the so called values materialistic and religious, of the society goes, that gave me a huge release, in a sense that even now nothing has changed, I don’t have to follow all the aims and ambitions that culture places before me and feel disappointed or sad when I don’t meet them. Richard writes ‘An Unexamined Life Is Second-Rate Living (http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/audiotapeddialogues/anunexaminedlifeissecondrateliving.htm ) and I see the point. My worry as it was in earlier attempts at this examination through other avenues (JK, Vipassana or Ramana) is what if it’s just a hallucination or wrong on part of respective teachers and in this case Richard. That’s my great worry.

I have been pondering over this recently, there doesn’t seem to be anything, any power that guides one through the journey of life, there are few individuals who seem to have got somewhere and say this is the way, this is the right thing to do, or alternatively there is nothing to do, this is your destiny, etc. I have tried moving away but I keep coming back to it again and again, An unexamined life is second rate living. But what if tomorrow somebody else comes and says with certainty that what Richard says is all wrong, it’s just a brain damage or altered state! I see the predicament of living on borrowed word, borrowed ideas, it has to be a self lived, certainty can come from that only. Why do I believe in what Richard says or anybody else of those gurus for that matter. Then of course the thought aimed at oneself pops up, that’s fine sunshine! But he is saying ‘you’ are just a idea, a bundle of beliefs, just a biochemical discharge even! And now shouldn’t you be questioning, investigating and finding out, isn’t that what you wanted to do while you were young and looking at the stars lying down on the beach and wondering what’s all this about?

Okay, it strikes you that an unexamined life is second rate living and you have a certain amount of suspicion and doubt about the traditional spiritual ‘freedom’ based on your personal experience with some of the spiritual ways. You read some of what is written on The Actual Freedom Trust website and it makes sense to you. The next step is to find out, for yourself, if what Richard and Peter and Vineeto are saying is factual and it is my experience that the only way to find out the facts for yourself is to dare to set in motion your very own process of ‘self’-investigation, a process which will inevitably result in you remembering having had a PCE or evoking one afresh.

Here in AF the starting point is a nice one, happy and harmless, what’s preventing me from that at this moment. I shall end my rambling here. Thanks for the mail

Nice to chat with you.