Richard: ‘It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.

One is thus soon back on track ... and all because of everyday events’. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive

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

Many people have confused the method of actualism with the spiritual method of ‘self’-observation or ‘self’-awareness as it is used in Eastern Mysticism. ‘Self-observation is, in short, ‘self’ observing ‘self’, which can only lead to detachment and dissociation. In ‘self’-observation ‘I’ am making an assessment of how ‘I’ should Really be; one’s normal cultural values are only replaced by so-called higher values and these so-called higher values are by no means sensible as can be determined by observing that enlightenment and ‘self’-realization is anything but sensible.

When one acknowledges that it is the human condition in toto which is the culprit then ‘self’ observing and ‘self’-realization can be recognized as a merely rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic – the intransigent problem, ‘me’ as an instinctive passionate entity, remains the same.

In order to help make a clear distinction between ‘self’-observation and an undivided attentiveness to this moment of being alive, an attentiveness that is non-moral, non-ethical, non-spiritual, I recommend Richard’s article entitled Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness.

Sitting by a quiet creek the other day, enjoying the play of light and shadow in the ever-moving water I thought about how to describe the method of actualism in different words. It was pleasing to the eye to observe the movement of the water, the colours reflected in the creek, the light twinkling on the ripples and it was very easy to do so without applying any emotional evaluation or indulging in imagination – this is then a purely sensate experience. During this sensate experience I can simultaneously be aware of the input stream of sensual data, and this is the brain’s awareness of the eyes’, ears’, skin’s sensate perception. It’s like saying – I am aware of the eyes seeing, the ears hearing and the skin sensing the warmth of the soft breeze.

The same non-evaluative, non-imagining awareness can also be applied to whatever goes on inside my head (as neurosis), my heart (as feelings) or my guts (as instinctual passions) at all times in daily life although it takes a good deal more practice and determination to get this type of attentiveness up and running.

Normally when a thought or an emotion kicks in there is an immediate reflex evaluation that the thought or feeling is good or bad, wanted or unwanted, right or wrong, suitable or unsuitable, appropriate to be expressed or needed to be repressed and so on. This almost constant evaluation – one’s conscience in action if you like – usually happens so quickly and automatically that one is not aware that it is happening or one only becomes aware after it has already happened or only after the resultant action has already happened.

In other words, the moment you become aware that you have thoughts and feelings there is an immediate evaluation that all of these thoughts and feelings are ‘irritating’, you don’t like it, this is bad, this is wrong, it should not be so. The result is that one is then either busy expressing, repressing, denying or dissociating from them or one is busy thinking about how to get rid of the thoughts and feelings.

I found that when I paid close attention to the thoughts that were running in my head most of the time, I eventually became aware that it was only the feeling-based thoughts that are causing the problem, as in causing me to feel malicious and feel sorrowful. I had been indoctrinated for many years with Eastern Mysticism and because of this I believed that thinking was the problem and I had to abandon this ‘truth’ in order to discover for myself, experientially, that it is in fact feelings that come first and it is feelings that cause the subsequent onslaught of neurotic, frantic, irritating thoughts.

The next stage was to make sense of my thoughts and feelings as I became aware of them. This meant I had to start to discern what was going on – not in the usual terms of right and wrong, good and bad, wanted and unwanted, but in more pragmatic down-to-earth terms of what exactly was the feeling I was feeling – am I feeling sad, am I feeling angry, am I feeling bored, am I feeling scared and so on. You might find that this is not an easy thing to do at first but persistence combined with intent will eventually enable you to acknowledge and label the feeling you are having while the feeling is running.

You have probably already noticed that whenever you are overwhelmed or consumed by feelings you cannot clearly think about them. Therefore in order to make any sense out of why you are having the feeling, you need to get back to feeling at least reasonably good again. To do that you recognize that what you are feeling or doing is silly for a very simply reason – one realizes that now is the only moment I can experience of being alive – and then it becomes obvious that it is silly to waste this moment of being alive by feeling grumpy, sad, fearful, frustrated, angry, irritated, bored, pining, stuck up and so on.

To reiterate, knowing that what one is doing is silly – wasting this moment – and realizing that at this moment you are being either unhappy or malevolent then helps you to stop indulging in any of those feelings, which in turn enables you to get back to feeling at least reasonably good again as quickly as possible. Sometimes I found that I had to do something physical such as go for a walk or work in the garden in order to break free of being consumed by a particular intensive feeling.

Then when I am back to being able to think clearly, the real job begins, which is finding out what got me into this particular mess in the first place and how I can avoid falling into the same trap next time around.

Here are examples of the type of questions I used to ask myself when I got back to being able to think clearly about what had happened and why it happened –

• What triggered the onslaught of neurotic thoughts? What is the dominant feeling behind these thoughts?

It is vital to make the distinction between thinking and feeling, lest you fall back into the usual trap of thinking that thinking is the problem and avoiding making the observation that it is feeling that is the problem. As a clue, whenever I am worried about something or irritated about something or annoyed at someone, these are feelings not thoughts and it is important to be able to recognize and label them as such. This can take a bit of doing because we have been trained as children to deny having bad feelings and we find out by trial and error that it is best to blame someone else or something else for causing bad thoughts/ feelings rather than acknowledge to myself that ‘I am angry’ or ‘I am pissed off’ or ‘I am feeling scared’.

• What feeling was feeding the neurotic thoughts? Was it something he/she said or did or didn’t say or do? Did something trigger a memory of a recent event?

• Why do I want to stop this inquiry as soon as I started it? What am I afraid to uncover if I pursue?

• I find the feeling, and I name the feeling.

The non-felicitous feelings in question are both the ‘good’ feelings such as love, compassion, sympathy, belonging and the ‘bad’ feelings such as anger, fear, sadness, boredom, hate, loneliness etc. I found by experience that it is far easier to focus on dis-empowering the bad feelings first but soon it also became apparent that the so-called good feelings were in fact often the reason for my feeling bad. For instance love caused me to pine and feel lonely and feel dependant, compassion caused me to feel helpless and feel sad for others’ sake, belonging to a group caused me to worry if I did the ‘right’ thing according to the group-ethics, desire caused me to feel frustrated, competitive and anxious, and so on.

• Why did I feel the way I did? Was what someone said going against one of my beliefs, one of my principles, or did I have an expectation that wasn’t met. Did something or someone knock one of my hopes or dreams? Did someone threaten the image I have of myself?

• Why do I want to hold on to the feeling of upset, fear, worry, sadness, etc. although there is obviously no physical danger and physical pain for this body? What happens if I let go of my worry, fear, etc.?

• What is the moral, ethical, spiritual value that I automatically apply to any of my thoughts and feelings? Why do I feel good when I do some things and bad when I do other things or when I don’t do some things? What is the particular belief, moral, ethics that I am defending? Why do I feel that some things are right and others are wrong? Why do I get upset about other people’s beliefs, morals and ethics? Why do other people have different moral, ethical and spiritual values than I do? Why is this the source of such conflict and confusion? Why do I consider certain thoughts and feelings as good, wanted, right or true and others as bad, unwanted, wrong or untrue? Where and when did I learn this or that particular rule? Does it still make sense to follow it?

Of course it only makes sense to let go of the moral and ethical rules I learnt if I am committed to be harmless.

• Is there a dream, a hope, an ideal that lies at the bottom of my upset such as being perfect, being loved for who I am, finding Mr. or Ms. Right, being a perfect family member in the eyes of others or maybe the eyes of God, belonging to a certain group, becoming rich or famous, and so on. Why don’t I want to give up this dream, hope or ideal? What would happen if I did?

• What is the particular reason why I don’t want to give up being unhappy and why do I want to continue being malevolent towards myself and others?

As I got better and better at this I was then able to do my investigations while the feeling was happening, which is even more revealing as one gets to feel the feeling as it is happening and I can get to know the physical sensations that accompany the feeling which is very useful in recognizing the onset of feelings and emotions the next time they occur.

This attentiveness of becoming aware of what I am feeling and the intent to investigate why I feel what I feel is very similar to the one I applied when watching the movement in the river – neither detached or dissociated (after all this is ‘me’ in action) nor applying one or other moral/ethical judgements. Such a discerning attentiveness is akin to conducting an empirical scientific inquiry into my own psyche in action – I am being attentive as to how ‘I’ tick and by doing so I experientially know what the human condition consists of and how it operates which in turn enables me to incrementally become free from it.

As I find out how ‘I’ tick, I am then able to make any choices I need to make according to what is silly and sensible and by doing so I no longer rely on the judgements of right and wrong according to my social identity, such as a code of honour, racial values, my upbringing as a woman, my belonging to a group or a family, and so on. An assessment of what is silly and what is sensible also bypasses the instinctual passions in that common sense is far better capable of making a decision.

The advantage of making choices on the basis of what is silly and what is sensible is that such an assessment is not based on what ‘I’ want, what ‘I’ need, what ‘I’ have to have happen, what ‘I’ need to do at all costs – it is not ‘self’-centred, ‘self’-oriented, ‘self’-ish. Such an uncommon common sense takes into consideration the benefit of all people involved in each particular situation and genuine harmony only happens when I am harmless.

Peter wrote a guide for practicing actualists in which he described the various stages that one can encounter on the way to a virtual freedom. Thinning of the ‘self’ happens only when you notice that you have become less ‘self’-centred, more considerate of others, more harmless, less aggressive and less defensive. Putting ‘on the brakes’ can happen at any time in the process of actualism whenever you encounter a particularly dear belief or a cherished dream, something you hold as an inviolable truth or a sacrosanct moral, or when you suddenly realize the enormity of the enterprise of leaving both your ‘self’ and humanity behind. However, I found I could never leave my foot on the brakes for long when I contemplated the benefit of an actual freedom not only for this body but for the peace on earth that is available to everyone.

This is how I use the method of actualism (as prescribed) with excellent outcome –

In order to investigate a feeling when it is occurring, the first thing I have to do is to stop trying to make it go away or stop trying to hang on to it as we have been socially or spiritually conditioned to do. As long as I object to having the (bad) feeling or desperately want to cling to the (good) feeling, I cannot examine what exactly is going on. The first thing to become aware of and understand was my automatic reaction of suppression or expression in order to be able to experience the feeling fully that I am then able to label and examine.

I began to notice that when I stopped fighting having the feeling or stopped feeding the feeling, its intensity was immediately reduced significantly and then I was be able to take a closer look of what has caused this particular feeling to appear in the first place. When feelings are really intense such that they have taken me over, any investigation at such a time is useless. I had to get back to at least feeling good, if not happy, again in order to be able to sensibly delve deeper into the reasons that got me upset or enraptured in the first place.

Then I could go about examining the feeling that I had just experienced – when did the feeling first start, what was the event or situation that caused the affective reaction, why did I feel insulted, self-righteous, misunderstood, rejected, sad, angry, worried, pissed off, etc., which of my cherished beliefs, truth, views, values, etc. is being questioned, in what way is this linked to my identity, is there a fear underneath the initial feeling, what is this fear about, and so on ...?

In this way I am conducting an empirical systematic inquiry into my own affective experience and I am in fact examining my own psyche in action – I don’t make the feeling go away, on the contrary, I allow it to come entirely to the surface so that I can feel the feeling so that I can conduct an extensive experiential examination into all its aspects. Once I overcame the initial moral and ethical objection to having undesirable and unpleasant feelings in the first place, a keen interest and fascination developed that came from being able to be aware of my own feelings and emotions while they were happening as well as being able to understand why they operate, how they operate and what is their root cause. I was becoming keenly interested in each detail and every opportunity that might give me a clue to the way I tick – and everyday life is rich with such opportunities.

The investigation into one’s feelings has to be experiential if it is to bring any tangible results – thinking about feelings and emotions removed from down-to-earth personal experience will only keep one at a surface level and will prevent one from penetrating into the very nature of one’s psyche. So the first thing for me to learn was to stop fighting my feelings and to stop feeding my feelings and allow myself to experience my feelings … all the while making sure that I kept my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets, in order that I wouldn’t do or say something I’d have to regret or feel remorseful about later on.

As long as I continue to have silent accusations, grudges, irritation, suspicions, defensiveness, anger, fear, etc. against someone, I always know that there is an unresolved belief, a hidden truth, a firm conviction, a dearly-held principle, a personal moral or value at stake that the other – usually inadvertently – has uncovered or questioned or opposed. In order to get back to being happy and, more importantly harmless, I then need to take this belief apart, as I call it. That means I look where and when I acquired it, why I believe it to be so, why I react emotionally when it is opposed and by doing so inevitably I discover the aspect of my identity associated with this belief – in other words, it is ‘my’ belief and to give it up will mean I have to give up some part of ‘me’. Only my intent to be happy and harmless will cause ‘me’ to give up something ‘I’ hold so dear.

This is the very reason why actualism is a do-it-yourself method because nobody can expose your own beliefs and truths but you.

For me, abandoning my beliefs was the conscious and deliberate determination to peel away all the conditioning I had taken on board in my life that prevents me from experiencing the magic and perfection that I had experienced in my first major pure consciousness experience.

In order to peel away the layers of ‘me’, the social and instinctual identity I had clearly seen as standing in the way of experiencing the magic of this actual physical universe, I found that it wasn’t enough merely to question my beliefs (or the beliefs of others) for questioning sake, as I had done before. Also, it wasn’t sufficient to question what I considered to be beliefs, mine or other’s – I had to dig into what I felt to be unquestionably true and what I was sure to be right in order to determine whether they were fact and whether they worked in practice.

In other words, I made a deliberate decision to uncover my beliefs in order to abandon them, beliefs that were disguised as truths, held by me as well as my peer group to be valid and right, good and fair. What made them appear to be right and true were not only my own passionate feelings but the fact that others around me also felt them to be true.

Given that beliefs are nothing other than emotion-backed thoughts the task to uncover my beliefs was fairly easy in principle – whenever I got upset about what someone said I could then reasonably assume that one of my dearly held beliefs or values was challenged. In practice, however, it was often not so easy because each belief I uncovered in fact challenged the very person I felt myself to be.

So, the answer to your question ‘what’s left when all beliefs and ideas including the spiritual is abandoned?’ in my experience was that what is left is the feeler. Consequently I then began to investigate the feelings that do not necessarily have beliefs attached to them but that nevertheless stand in the way of me being unconditionally happy and harmless – the necessary prerequisite to becoming free from one’s ‘self’ altogether.

How did you investigate those feelings and link the identity to them?

How to link the identity to my feelings? That’s easy – the pure consciousness experience makes it undeniably clear that ‘I’, the social and instinctual identity, am a feeling identity … therefore any affective feeling is always an articulation of one’s identity in action. Even if one does not have a clear memory of having had a PCE, the simple act of being attentive experientially reveals that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’.

When I began to pay exclusive attention to this moment of being alive I soon became aware that my social and instinctual identity thrives on gloomy and antagonistic feelings as well as loving and compassionate feelings whereas feeling happy and delighted deprives the identity of its nourishment. Hence Richard’s method to minimize both the good and the bad feelings while activating and enhancing the felicitous feelings made imminent sense.

This method is not to be confused with the spiritual method of not identifying or not associating with one’s feelings and thoughts – as in the Buddhist practice of detachment – as this practice only serves to create a new pseudo identity, an identity who actively dis-identifies from unwanted aspects of one’s old identity. In actualism I readily acknowledge that ‘I’ in toto am the problem and then proceed to facilitate ‘my’ demise.

As for ‘how did you investigate those feelings’, i.e. those feelings that don’t necessarily have beliefs attached to them – I found that there was no need to make a distinction between feelings with beliefs and feelings without beliefs. Given that my aim is to eliminate ‘me’ the identity in toto, any feeling that prevents me from being happy and harmless is acknowledged, felt and labelled as it arises, neither expressed nor suppressed but attentively observed, in order that I can then either nip it in the bud or, if need be, explore and understand it fully so as to then be able to abandon them.

Feelings connected with beliefs inevitably surfaced whenever the particular belief was challenged. The only way to completely disempower the feelings is to abandon the belief – no belief, no need to feel defensive, feel aggrieved, feel the need to attack and so on. Even when I thought I had eliminated my major beliefs, such as my religious and spiritual beliefs, I would nevertheless discover yet more beliefs that I had inadvertently taken on board and these beliefs made themselves apparent by the fact that I got upset or sad or irritated about what someone said or did.

Undertaking an exploration of one’s own feelings when and as they are occurring – becoming fascinated with the business of being alive – is the means to developing apperceptive awareness, a prerequisite to becoming free of the human condition itself.

When an emotion has been fully investigated and there is nothing new to be learned from it, what can be done about it? I don’t think I really understand the difference between nipping it in the bud and repressing it. Many emotions recur automatically unless I take action to either dismiss them or redirect my attention elsewhere. I am not comfortable with this because it seems akin to repression, but I don’t know any other way to dispense with the feelings. Any tips would be appreciated.

In my experience with the actualism method, I didn’t nip many emotions in the bud until I was certain that the whole issue that brought on the emotion had been examined and clearly understood.

By neither repressing nor expressing an emotion I have opportunity to ask some investigative questions, either in the situation, if I am not too upset, or some time afterwards when the worst of the storm has passed. My questions go something like this – what brought on the emotional reaction, what is the underlying cause, what is the reoccurring theme, what is the belief behind it, what is it I particularly hold dear that caused my getting upset, what part of my identity feels insulted, threatened, annoyed, etc., what action do I possibly need to take in order to prevent a reoccurring of my upset, and finally, what part of ‘me’ do I need to let go of in order to permanently become free from this particular emotional reaction?

Some emotional reactions I could easily dismiss as being plain silly such as complaints about the weather, about obstacles in the traffic, about people being late, and so on. These situations merely needed a change of attitude, some attentiveness to stop the old habit and then the emotion would not occur again by my sheer determination not to let such trivia bug me. For those issues that needed no further inquiry, nipping any upcoming emotional reaction in the bud was the perfect and only sensible solution.

Other issues took more inquisitiveness, attentiveness, guts and intent to look at the uncomfortable dark side of ‘me’ in order to get to the bottom of reoccurring emotional reactions. For instance, when I first met Peter I had a lot of male-female issues that caused me to get upset which could only be resolved by me finding out the facts of the matter and then letting go of my various idea, opinions, beliefs and feelings around being a woman, i.e. my social identity of being a woman.

Another area that needed extensive exploration had to do with my feelings of love and loyalty for my former spiritual teacher. I began to inch my way into slowly questioning the sensibility of being loyal in the face of blatant contradictions between his teachings and his behaviour and his promises and the actual outcome of practicing his teachings, but for a while each time someone else said something against him I flared up, so much so that for the first 3 months Peter and I agreed to not talk about ‘the war’. It was clear for me that this could only be a temporary measure and I steadily proceeded with finding out the facts of the matter despite my reoccurring feelings of fear, doubt, suspicion, defensiveness, treachery and abandonment that this course of action could sometimes create. Those feelings only permanently disappeared when I managed to irrevocably let go of my identity of being a follower, a member of the clan, a worshipper and lover of a Godman, a New-Age goody-two-shoes and a spiritual seeker and believer.

From those two examples you can see that the actualism method is not a superficial tool to make bad feeling go away – it is, when used correctly, a powerful instrument for radical, i.e. eradicating, change. It’s my identity I willingly let go of when I apply attentiveness and understanding and as a consequence the feelings that were produced and maintained by the respective parts of my identity also disappear.

As an analogy, you could say that the good and bad feelings are only the tip of the iceberg, the tangible aspect of one’s identity. As such, when I pay increasing attention as to how I experience this moment of being alive, increasing parts of the iceberg, ‘me’, come to the surface – and this is a necessary process if one is to bring one’s ‘self’ to the light for progressive dissolution.