Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections

I’ve recently had a chat at a cafe with a very close and intelligent friend of mine about actualism and the so many things it promises to offer (above all, the discovery of the cause and the means to end human psychological suffering). The main objection he had was that ‘each individual human being has to find his/her own way – that’s their freedom’, and that simply ‘copy and paste’ doesn’t work in practice. He said that’s the reason why he doesn’t like all these ‘preachers’ as they eliminate all originality and authenticity in the individual practicing their teaching/ method. And he said about Richard that he intentionally searched for an ‘original’ way in order to prove that he is unique, that he had this goal in mind prior to finding a way of being happy and harmless. And that he was mainly searching for this ‘artistic’ uniqueness, ‘actualism’ being only the means to this end.

Yes I am interested in becoming free of human condition and I cannot help but do it ‘my’ way. This is a very useful insight Peter. I thought about it after reading your mail and found that I indeed believe that I am unique. As I contemplate further I can see that ‘my uniqueness’ is just a belief and I need to work on it. I would welcome if you have your experience to share on how you tackled it.

Could one still effectively engage in the process to eliminate the ‘self’ and still disagree with certain things Richard says along the way? I mean could I simply withhold judgement either way as to whether I will have absolutely no emotions/feelings, the safety of nature, and the disabling of visualization skills. Could I just rigorously practice the method (which I have been, more and more and more) and just wait for the ACTUAL results?

Another reason for this is the fact that the psyche is not a static structure, it changes with and mirrors every individual’s experience of life, so any map that might come up is obsolete the moment it hits the road. You can’t say ‘if you only do this and then do that you’ll get on street x’, I mean it’s not a logical or scientific process with definite and traceable cause and effect relationships ... we’re talking about a ghost here. Everyone can ask himself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’, but would that question generate the same results? You cannot replicate Richard’s condition by doing exactly what he has done, an individual is an individual with its own idiosyncrasies, not a borg.