Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘D’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘D’

with Correspondent No. 45


January 5 2014

Re: Log

RESPONDENT: This is quite a shot in the arm. I realised with this exchange more clearly than ever before the difference between enjoying the moment and conditional pleasure seeking. I was riding my bike today thinking about how someone had said something to make me sad, because it reminded me of [whatever]. I tried to cheer myself up by thinking contrary thoughts. Then I yanked my head away and looked at the trees waving about in the warm summer air. They seemed gay to a point of being ridiculous. The whole world looked ridiculously gay and merry in a baffling way. The world seemed to be turning in on itself. It was stupendous! (Jan 4, 12:35 AM; #161xx)

RICHARD: G’day No. 45,

Before commenting on your above [quote] ‘enjoying the moment’ [endquote] post, I will first draw your attention to two specific portions of your 5th email to this forum (16 days after you subscribed).

Vis.:

#151xx
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:34:44 -0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Disassociation?

• [Respondent]: [...]. In my life I experience dissociation as a ‘fog’ or sleepiness in my head when I try to resist something that is happening in the moment eg: forced to sit and listen to a boring / disagreeable person at a party for instance. [...].
I can see that in the effort to become happy and harmless in the moment the subtle and unconscious tendency to shove my problems out of sight until I’ve managed to repress a lot of stuff. [...].

Upon a closer inspection it will be seen how you have twice used the expression [quote] ‘in the moment’ [endquote].

There is another instance in your 11th email, coupled with the words [quote] ‘enjoy the moment’ [endquote], just as in your further above [quote] ‘enjoying the moment’ [endquote] current post.

Vis.:

#151xx
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 07:38:46 -0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Dealing with negative emotions.

• [Respondent]: [...]. Here is my understanding of the actualist method, please correct me if I’m wrong: Make a sincere attempt to enjoy the moment by cultivating an interest in the sensuousness of the world around you at all times. Take time to ‘smell the flowers’ in the most profound way possible. Find the perfection in the moment and realise the inherent perfection in the world. Delight and revel in it. [...].

Given you say [quote] ‘please correct me if I’m wrong’ [endquote] then I shall proceed to do just that because the expression [quote] ‘in the moment’ [endquote] also features in your later emails, as well as your earlier ones, such as the following post last month.

Vis.:

#16027
Date: 10 Dec 2013 01:53:23 –0800
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: 2 week AF challenge

• [Respondent]: [...]. I am beginning to gradually peel back the layers of the self that get in the way of my enjoyment. I was discussing this with my analyst today. We explored specifically what was getting in the way of my ability to enjoy and be in the moment. [...].

In that instance both ‘enjoy the moment’ and ‘be in the moment’ are combined, as in [quote] ‘to enjoy and be in the moment’ [endquote], thus demonstrating their congruence for you.

Indeed, in your 4th email to this forum you not only spoke of [quote] ‘present moment enjoyment’ [endquote] but referred to your sister’s children and small-town people in India throwing themselves [quote] ‘into the flow’ [endquote] of real-world time.

(It is only real-world time which moves – aka ‘flows’ from the past, into the present, and off to the future – as is demonstrated in a PCE whereby it is experientially evidenced that time does not move in actuality).

Vis.:

#151xx
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 02:19:24 -0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: Being an everyday bloke first...

• [Respondent]: [...]. I’ve also noticed I need to organise my life around sensuous noticing. I do this by minimising the time I spend watching TV, worrying about my thoughts or mindlessly surfing the Internet.
Trying to get away from the habits that take away from present moment enjoyment. I just got back from home – India – and spent time with my sisters kids. Kids in particular but also with small- town people in India you see a lot of non-neurotic folk just doing life without agonising about it too much. Not that they are all deliriously happy of course, far from it but the throwing of them- selves into the flow without over intellectualising everything was beautiful. [...].

Please note I am *not* suggesting moment-to-moment real-world enjoyment (and appreciation) is to be abjured but, rather, drawing attention to the conflation of that real-world enjoyment (and appreciation) with being ‘in the moment’ and/or ‘in the flow’ (and/or ‘in the present’ and/or ‘in the now’ and so on and so forth).

Having established this critical point: a fortnight or so before your further above 10th of December email (#160xx) was posted the expression [quote] ‘in the moment’ [endquote] again appears.

Vis.:

#159xx
Date: 23 Nov 2013 23:42:58 –0800
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: ‘[Respondent’s]’ Actual Freedom Practise Log

• [Respondent]: [...]. The cool thing about going through something horrible is that the gradient between the bad and the felicitous is much steeper – it does afford one some ‘high-contrast’ perspectives and make the lessons of feeling good, being in the moment etc. all the more poignant. [...].

As well as 3 days prior to that instance.

Vis.:

#158xx
Date: 20 Nov 2013 00:18:10 –0800
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: ‘[Respondent’s]’ Actual Freedom Practise Log

• [Respondent]: [...]. In some ways it is kind of useful seeing how this weight can be suddenly dropped from time to time, just by side-stepping the whole paradigm I’m embedded in.
Useful as an analogy for ridding myself of ‘me’ that is.
It only happens for moments at a time or perhaps for a few hours. I can’t make it happen. Sometimes it happens only in my dreams. But when it does it feels like I am living in the moment. [...].

And, again, 10 days before that.

Vis.:

#157xx
Date: 10 Nov 2013 04:00:28 –0800
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: ‘Respondent’s]’ Actual Freedom Practise Log

• [Respondent]: [...]. yeah there definitely is an element of trying to possess and own actualism as an identity and its hard to say how much of that is involved here, a fair bit I suspect. I remember encountering this in meditation.
How early progress of being in the moment would be derailed by lust for spiritual accomplishment and being too preoccupied by results. [...].

Plus 2 weeks prior to that one.

Vis.:

#156xx
Date: 27 Oct 2013 16:17:26 –0700
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: Knack at seeing silliness

• [Respondent]: [...]. I suspect that building the muscles to sweep this stuff away and just be in the moment is an integral part of actualism practise though. [...].

A month earlier as well.

Vis.:

#154xx
Date: 29 Sep 2013 03:01:01 –0700
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: Time, Space and Pure Intent

• [Respondent]: [...]. Someone to try and explain to me how time could could be infinite (some would say infinite time would incorporate all events past, present and future in it) yet static, yet only real in ‘the moment’ and still contain the movement of things within it.

As well as 2 weeks before that.

Vis.:

#154xx
Date: 14 Sep 2013 22:41:44 –0700
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: ‘[Respondent’s]’ Actual Freedom Practise Log

• [Respondent]: Much unhappiness I cause myself comes from resistance. Either ....
- A resistance to unpleasant tasks that need to be done
- Resistance to certain emotions that I am feeling
- Resistance to being happy in the moment (usually because
I’ve emotional open loops needing closure) [...].

And the day before also.

Vis.:

#154xx
Date: 13 Sep 2013 21:49:49 –0700
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: ‘[Respondent’s]’ Actual Freedom Practise Log

• [Respondent]: [...]. Its only when I’m done talking and doing stuff that I realise I’ve been tense and wired and deliberately make attempts to relax and get back in the moment. I suppose the habit needs to be more ingrained and reflexive. [...].

A fortnight before that one brings this account of those instances back to August (the month you subscribed to this forum).

Vis.:

#152xx
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 09:18:38 –0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: A bunch of questions re: AF

• [Respondent]: HAIETMOBA – what is the best way to use this?
• [Claudiu]: It’s an easy way to get me back to being aware of how ‘I’ am currently feeling.
• [Respondent]: What I’m hearing here is that this is a tool in AF. No more and no less. But it seems to be not a screw-driver so much as a swiss-army knife. Its a tool to spur attention and direct it to feeling. The ‘how’ and the ‘alive’ bits also seem to make attentiveness more about our lived experience and send us colliding into the moment rather than having it devolve into a dry insight type exercise. Right?

As well as 2 days prior to that occasion.

Vis.:

#152xx
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 22:01:20 –0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Still not very much to hold onto.

• [Respondent]: At the moment I’m still chugging on with my AF practise based on faith and appeal. I have no PCE’s except in the distant past (excluding my psychedelic PCE’s which to me seem unreal and relatively inaccessible now)
Maybe the problem is that the happiness in the moment when it is good is good. But the problems and vast ice- bergs of fear, dread, shame, guilt etc. seem to dwarf it at present. [...].

Plus there were 2 instances in the email 4 days before that one.

Vis.:

#152xx
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 07:14:14 –0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: Three types of mindfulness

• [Respondent]: [...]. Yes, tacking on an effortful focus on sensation when one is not feeling good is not the actualist method.
First feel happy and harmless in the moment. One cannot but be an identity = ‘I’ = feeling – as long as the identity is present so any attempt to suppress feeling would be ridiculous. [...].
There are frequent moments of happiness and neutrality in the middle (although these moments I predict would be more frequent were I not in the soup I am in now) I can use the actual freedom method of being affectively as happy as possible in the moment to increase the number of these happy moments. [...].

The reason why I am drawing these instances of the expression [quote] ‘in the moment’ [endquote] to your attention is because I make it quite clear, on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website, that it is not applicable to actualism.

(An online search using the search-term <‘in the moment’ site:actualfreedom.com.au> (sans the < and > symbols of course) will readily return all instances; similarly ‘in the present’ and ‘in the now’, and so on and so forth, can be substituted for that ‘in the moment’ search-term).

For example (from 2002):

• [Richard]: (...). I have oft-times said that if one allows this moment to live one (rather than trying to live in the moment) one’s journey will be over sooner rather than later. (Actual Freedom Mailing List, No. 32, 27 April 2002).

The following instance (written in 2000) is more explicit as to why trying to live [quote] ‘in the present’ [endquote] is not applicable to actualism.

Vis.:

• [Richard]: (...) the essential character of the perfection of the infinitude of this universe which born me, is living me and will die me in due course, is enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. ‘I’ give ‘myself’ permission to allow this moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present) ... and let go the controls. (List B, No. 25f, 22 June 2000).

The parenthesised [quote] ‘rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present’ [endquote] will be self-explanatory, non?

In the following example, a co-respondent endeavoured to make out that my report of something radical – so radical as to be entirely new to human knowledge/human history – was not exclusive to actualism (from the year 2004).

Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: (...) being in the moment with one’s senses/ emotions/ thought – which is a part of actualism but not exclusive to actualism (...).
• [Richard]: First of all, ‘being in the moment’ with one’s senses/ emotions/ thoughts is not part of actualism ... thus any question about exclusivity is without substance. (...). (Actual Freedom Mailing List, No. 68, 13 July 2004a).

It was obviously an insufficiently-researched anagraph – a trait all such criticasters display – because as early as 1997 (the year I first went public, online, with my discovery) I was making it quite clear I was not talking about [quote] ‘living in the moment’ [endquote].

Vis.:

• [Respondent No. 12]: (...). Your words about ‘living in the moment’ don’t do much for me, as every mindless person I meet is actively promoting the lifestyle of ‘living in the moment’. It is the fashion of the age.
• [Richard]: (...). I typed the words ‘living in the moment’ into the search function of this computer and sent it back through my posts and it could not find the phrase anywhere. Perhaps you could send me your copy where it does say that? (List A, No. 12, No.01).

Needless is it to add that Respondent No. 12 never did produce any such reference (there being no such thing, of course, for him to produce)?

Regardless, his running-mate tried the same line on me many weeks later.

Vis.:

• [Richard]: I have no ego or soul; no self or Self; no God or Truth ... simply the moment-to-moment apperception of myself as being this physical universe’s experience of itself as a sensate, reflective human being.
• [Co-Respondent]: This is commonly called ‘living in the moment’. Women and children are particularly good at this, while cows and dogs are even better.
• [Richard]: I beg to differ. This is not called ‘living in the moment’. No. 12 tried that accusation on me weeks and weeks ago. (List A, No. 4, No.08).

I have, of course, made it equally clear that the variant expression [quote] ‘live in the present’ [endquote] similarly does not apply.

Vis.:

• [Richard]: My experience showed that by allowing the PCE to happen (on a daily basis, sometimes two-three times a day) a momentum built up of its own accord which could not be stopped ... an inevitability came into action.
What ‘I’ did was to give ‘myself’ permission to let go of the controls and allow the moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present). In short: if one ceases objecting to being here – without swinging to an opposite such as gratitude – then the rest is history.
This is because this moment is where it is all at. This moment is where it is all happening – all of the universe is happening all-at-once – and it is all happening all-at-once just here and it is all happening all-at-once right now.
And it is all already always happening anyway ... irregardless of ‘me’ and ‘my’ objections. (List B, No.39a, 6 June 2001).

The following example (from 2001) goes into more detail as to why [quote] ‘living in the present’ [endquote] does not apply to actualism/ actual freedom.

Vis.:

• [Richard]: Where one lets the moment live one – rather than what is called ‘living in the present’ – it will be seen with startling clarity that this moment is eternal ... and not ‘timeless’. Anyone who succeeds in ‘living in the present’, which is experienced as being that fleeting moment sandwiched between the past and the future, is present as a self (albeit an impersonal self) in/as an oceanic feeling of oneness ... which gives the impression of being ‘timeless’.
This moment is not ‘timeless’ ... for, although the fact is that it has no duration, as ‘then’ and ‘now’ and ‘then’ (was here then, is here now, will be here then), it does not negate the fact that this moment is already always here now (eternally here).
It is never not this moment ... ‘tis not fleeting at all. (List B, No. 19f, 30 January 2001g).

I also point out (in 2003 for instance) how I have experiential knowledge of being/living in the now, in the present, in the moment – night and day for eleven years in fact – and found it wanting.

Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: Do I need any method to be in the now, the present, the moment? This is a child’s play! If you want to be in the present, your mind has to be totally silent, completely quite? Why can’t you get this? (replies to these questions are optional here because they will be considered futile anyways).
• [Richard]: As I have no interest whatsoever of being ‘in the present’ again (having done just that, night and day, for eleven years and found it wanting) I shall not be replying to those questions anyway (...). (Actual Freedom Mailing List, No. 51a, 10 October, 2003).

And that 2003 response of mine renders this an apt place to draw the following to your attention.

Vis.:

#152xx
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 09:51:44 –0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Re: A bunch of questions re: AF

• [Respondent]: [...]. I still don’t get ‘the moment’ thing. As in I can get that whole thing of ‘the moment is all we have, the past is history and the future is fantasy’ thing that I’ve heard spoken of forever in advaita with its most recent iteration in Tolle’s Power of Now.
Is this the same thing in AF?
What’s so special about the moment that I should surrender to it or savour it? Is it because its the only true way of being happy ( as Tolle implies )?

First of all, there is a ‘Selected Correspondence’ page – all the selected correspondence was personally chosen for their real-world relevance by feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ over a decade or so – where I have answered queries about Mr. Eckhart Tolle (aka Mr. Ulrich Tolle for 30+ years).

Vis.:

www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-eckharttolle.htm

(There really is no substitute for taking notice of what is freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust website).

Second, as Mr. Eckhart Tolle is an unapologetic spiritualist it simply does not make sense to even think for a moment – let alone type it out and click ‘send’ – that anything he has to say would be applicable to something entirely new to human history/human knowledge.

Yet a month later you do so again (and not only expanding on that spiritualistic theme from Ms. Oprah Winfrey’s protégé, plus providing a video link to his syrupy recitation of Chapter 4 in his 2003 best-seller as well, but chose to drag in that mathematically-modelled relativistic (i.e., subjectivistic) ignis fatuus so beloved of theoretical physicists as well).

Vis.:

#154xx
Date: 27 Sep 2013 15:00:22 –0700
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: RE: Re: Time, Space and Pure Intent

• [Respondent]: [...]. Ok so the moment is beginning-less and endless or is that just time? Or is time = the moment?
Also are time and space interlinked in AF cosmology?
Is it time-space as per the theory of relativity?
Where I’m at currently is visualising things moving in 3 dimensional space-time where the forward movement of time (as well space) is an illusion created by the movement of objects. All is a vast stillness that never changes. Any- thing that happens in the stillness cause time and space to come into being, partly because of physical laws and partly because of our own human need for apprehending the movement of objects. I seem to be experiencing time as a gigantic void now.
So if the movement of time is an illusion, then does time have any properties at all? One could just call it the great nothing and leave it at that. But clearly to me at least notionally even the idea of an unmoving, eternal time has properties. Namely that stuff seems to happen within it rather than the other way around. And that it is ever present and never past or future.
If all this is true then I can see why Richard invites us to enjoy and appreciate the moment. Because past and future are fictions. Those two vectors don’t exist in actual time.
Actual time is not a vector. It is a point. It is an eternal void.
Real time/ human times are conventions only. The product of human memory and society. The way in which we process ‘nowness’. Even this has changed over time and is acculturated. There are primitive tribes that have very few words to describe the past and future. In Asia and parts of the West time was circular or a spiral. In the modern West time is linear. A vast straight line that recedes infinitely on either end. All these are useful fictions.
Is it something like what Tolle says? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgNIJLpBEI [...].

As already mentioned, the video link you provided is an oral rendition selected from Chapter 4: The Now (pages 37-47) of the book ‘Stillness Speaks’ ©2003Eckhart Tolle; Namaste Publishing, Vancouver, Canada. (http://books.google.com.au/books?id=qcfueLfqxR8C).

In that chapter there are more than a few instances of him using the expression [quote] ‘in the Now’ [endquote].

Vis.:

• ‘When you don’t feel at home in the Now ...’. [p. 40].
• ‘To have your attention in the Now ...’. [p. 41].
• ‘That anchors you in the Now’. [p. 42].
• ‘When your attention moves into the Now ...’. [p. 44].
• ‘The moment you enter the Now ...’. [p. 44].
• ‘The more you live in the Now ...’. [p. 44].
• ‘When you step into the Now ...’. [p. 45].

Also needless is it to add I have already answered queries about [quote] ‘in the Now’ [endquote] in regards to actualism/ actual freedom?

Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: Awareness is in the Now.
• [Richard]: Everything is happening only at this moment in eternal time ... there is nowhere or nowhen else than just here right now.
• [Co-Respondent]: Try thinking you are in the Now. You can not do it.
• [Richard]: But I am not ‘in the Now’ ... this flesh and blood body is already always just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time. (List C, No. 7, 3 July 2000).

And again (also in the year 2000).

Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: Richard, according to his own articulated dialogue, has not, in this lifetime, ever been in the Now.
• [Richard]: Except that I repeatedly say that the ‘Me’ that was did live ‘in the Now’ for eleven years ... thus I have intimate knowledge of what you speak of. The exchange you are referring to went like this:

• [Respondent]: ‘Awareness is in the Now’.
• [Richard]: ‘Everything is happening only at this moment in eternal time ... there is nowhere or nowhen else than just here right now’.
• [Respondent]: ‘Try thinking you are in the Now. You can not do it’.
• [Richard]: ‘But I am not ‘in the Now’ ... this flesh and blood body is already always just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time’. [endquote].

This is because there are three I’s altogether ... but only one is actual. (List C, No. 7, 1 August 2000).

In 2004 I provided a much more detailed response to a co-respondent’s [quote] ‘in the now’ [endquote] phantasies.

Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: The example you gave about moving from here to there, etc., is exactly what dawned to me 10 years ago, and I used it to prove there is no time. Every moment I am in the now ...
• [Richard]: If I may interject? More than a few peoples have experienced being ‘in the now’ (aka being in the moment and/or being in the present and/or being in the here and now and so on) and have reported the feeling/intuition of being timeless – and that it proves there is no time (the word timeless means ‘no time’ just as deathless means ‘no death’) – yet that is not what I am reporting/ describing/ explaining at all ... let alone ‘exactly’.
• [Co-Respondent]: [Every moment I am in the now] ... and only memory says that I am passing from intermediate position in space. You are using exactly my words as in tape recorder.
• [Richard]: No, not at all. If you were to re-read what I wrote (further above), plus what I have written elsewhere on this topic on many an occasion, you would see I am saying that one is just here, at this location, right now, at this moment – and not ‘in the now’ (or ‘in’ the here and now, or ‘in’ the moment, or ‘in’ the present, and so on) – and that it is never not this moment (which by no stretch of the language can be construed as ‘there is no time’ or that it is timeless).
I even state categorically (further below in this post you are responding to) that time is actual. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘... my original impression of this thread was that the time itself doesn’t exist in actuality’.
• [Richard]: ‘Time itself (as in durationless time/ eternal time/ beginningless and endless time) does indeed exist in actuality: time as a measure of the sequence of events (as in past/ present/ future) is but a convention.
Presumably some pre-historical person/persons noticed what the shadow of a stick standing perpendicular in the ground did such as to eventually lead to the sundial – a circular measure of the movement of a cast shadow arbitrarily divided into twelve sections because of a prevailing duo-decimal counting system – and then to water-clocks/ sand-clocks and thence to pendulum-clocks/ spring-clocks and thus to electrical-clocks/ electronic-clocks and, currently, energy-clocks (aka ‘atomic-clocks’) ... with all such measurement of movement being a measure of the earth’s rotation whilst in orbit around its radiant star.
Put succinctly: it is not time itself (eternity) which moves but objects in (infinite) space’. [endquote].

In short: the identity within is forever locked-out of time (time as an actuality, that is, and not time as a convention).
• [Co-Respondent]: Why though this did not change me?
• [Richard]: Going by your description – ‘what dawned to me 10 years ago’ – it was a realisation and, unless a realisation is acted upon, it remains just that ... a realisation.
‘Tis just as well though (otherwise you would have been yet another ‘Timeless One’), eh? (Actual Freedom Mailing List, No. 44h, 15 August 2004).

All of the above leads this account back to your ‘please correct me if I’m wrong’ email – your 11th post (already quoted towards the beginning of this email) – wherein you go on to detail just whom it was that implanted this ‘in the moment’ meme which features throughout your 230+ emails to this forum.

(There is no prize for guessing who those closet-spiritualists are).

Vis.:

#151xx
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 07:38:46 -0000
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
From: [Respondent]
Subject: Dealing with negative emotions.

• [Respondent]: [...]. Here is my understanding of the actualist method, please correct me if I’m wrong: Make a sincere attempt to *enjoy the moment* by cultivating an interest in the sensuousness of the world around you at all times. Take time to ‘smell the flowers’ in the most profound way possible. Find the perfection *in the moment* and realise the inherent perfection in the world. Delight and revel in it. [emphases added]. [...].
Tarin’s algorithm had this one option where if you feel bad you find the reason why you can’t experience perfection *in the moment* and ask yourself ‘is this worth missing out on perfection *in this moment*?’ then go back to being feeling But sure I could just say ‘no its not worth missing out on perfection, life is beautiful wheeeeee!’ and how would I know that I’m not subtly deluding myself and doing a bit of positive thinking?.
Further down the algorithm he says if you can’t *enjoy the moment* to find out the reason and then ask oneself again ‘is this worth missing out on perfection?’

I guess the other way is to acknowledge the feelings are ‘mine’ and ‘own’ them but see the perfection and wholeness in this as well. I could then delve into bad feelings and see how they arise due to my attachment to identities x, y, z etc. but this seems to take away *from the moment* and become just another analytical exercise.

Daniel Ingram seemed to suggest that the latter did not work for him in achieving a PCE as much as being *in the moment* was. [emphases added].

First, I know I have said it before (in message No. 11915) but it is worth saying again: ‘tis for reasons such as the above that I advised a self-acknowledged [quote] ‘sincere practitioner’ [endquote], upon being asked for clarification, to ‘stop listening to the affers, period’ (and to ‘cease aiming to be aff, forthwith’).

Vis.:

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/conversations/messages/10915

(I am presuming, of course, that those purveyors of affism pronounce those [quote] ‘AF’ and/or ‘AFer’ [endquote] designators they use, for their mongrel state of ‘being’, in the way that the first syllable of, say, the word affectation is pronounced).

And I am again pleased to report how that ‘sincere practitioner’ not only turned their life around but has gone on and prospered, mightily, as a direct result of taking that advice.

*

Second, it should be obvious by now that the email exchange you addressed this current post of yours to was not [quote] ‘quite a shot in the arm’ [endquote] after all, inasmuch as your follow-up words – in your [quote] ‘I realised with this exchange more clearly than ever before the difference between enjoying the moment and conditional pleasure seeking’ [endquote] sentence – clearly refer to that hoary spiritual gnome of being/living ‘in the moment’ and/or ‘in the flow’ (and/or ‘in the present’ and/or ‘in the now’ and so on and so forth).

*

Lastly, and coming back to the remainder of your current email (your ‘quite a shot in the arm’ response in #161xx), here it is in an edited-for-brevity context.

Vis.:

• [Respondent No. 44]: (...). I had a lot of fun tonight with friends. All we did was sit, talk, and joke around. It was fun. But once I got back home or started driving the less festive atmosphere started to set in. (...). This particular sequence of events has happened to me before, but I usually find that the crash back into my less festive world is hard and heavy. I get lost in my cynical or glum thoughts that life isn’t always fun. But not so this time as when I realize this is happening I remember and pay attention to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive. And just the fact that this is the only moment of being alive is enough to dispel all of those thoughts as I realized at one point that to go anywhere else is to go into the world of imagination. (...). When I get lost in thoughts or feeling reality then I immediately pay attention to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive. I do find that the initial layer is the layer of ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’. I eventually get to a point where everything seems empty. I stick with it and try not to ‘move’ anywhere and eventually the fascination that it is this moment sets in and I am once more enjoying life. (...). (Dec 30, 2013; #161xx)

• [Richard]: (...). Your initial email – reproduced here as #161xx further above – almost prompted me to write a comment, when you posted it, as it clearly pinpoints the difference between a caused/ conditional enjoyment (‘I had a lot of fun tonight with friends’/ ‘all we did was sit, talk, and joke around’) and an uncaused/ unconditional enjoyment (‘the fascination that it is this moment sets in’/ ‘I am once more enjoying life’).

A caused, or conditional, enjoyment and appreciation has a beginning and an end – it is dependent upon situations and circumstances – whereas an uncaused, or unconditional, enjoyment and appreciation is perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless) and occurs solely by virtue of being vitally alive – being dynamically here at this particular place in infinite space at this very moment in eternal time as a sensuous, reflective flesh-and-blood body only – and thus dependent upon no one, no thing, and no event. (...). (Jan 2; #16153)

• [Respondent]: This is quite a shot in the arm. I realised with this exchange more clearly than ever before the difference between enjoying the moment and conditional pleasure seeking. I was riding my bike today thinking about how someone had said something to make me sad, because it reminded me of [whatever]. I tried to cheer myself up by thinking contrary thoughts. Then I yanked my head away and looked at the trees waving about in the warm summer air. They seemed gay to a point of being ridiculous. The whole world looked ridiculously gay and merry in a baffling way. The world seemed to be turning in on itself. It was stupendous! (12:35 AM; #161xx)

Do you not see, upon a closer read-through, that although I definitively say ‘dependent upon no one, no thing, and no event’ you report how you looked at [quote] ‘the trees waving about in the warm summer air’ [endquote] which are clearly both things (‘trees’ and ‘air’) and events (‘looked at’ and ‘waving about’) by any definition of those two words?

More to the point, I also definitively say ‘perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless)’ solely by virtue of being alive/being here – as in, regardless of doing anything at all/of anything at all happening – as an engaged response to my co-respondent reporting just that ... to wit: ‘eventually the fascination *that it is this moment* sets in and I am once more enjoying life’ [emphasis added].

(Doing something pleasant/beneficial – or something pleasurable/beneficent happening – is a bonus on top of the sheer delight of being alive/being here).

This is why I oft-times say ‘it is all so simple here’ (here in actuality/ this actual world/ the sensate world).

Nothing, but nothing (no matter how unpleasant/ detrimental), can ever take away this sheer delight of being alive/being here at this very moment; one could be in solitary confinement, on that infamous bread and water diet, in some insalubrious penitentiary somewhere otherwise utterly displeasureable without this peerless perfection – this ‘perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless)’ purity of life itself/ existence per se – wavering one jot.

Verily, this verdant and azure planet is a pristine paradise.

Regards,
Richard.


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