Actual Freedom Library

Video: Actualism Method and Virtual Freedom Excerpt

Selected Writings on
How to Become Actually Free

Richard

This Moment of Being Alive

Peter

Vineeto

How to Investigate Feelings

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Discussions about
How to Become Actually Free

Audio-taped Dialogues | 2 | 3 |

Richard  | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Peter | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

Vineeto | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

The Wide and Wondrous Path

A précis of the method of Actualism

A Guide for Practicing Actualists

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Related Questions/Objections

What is the Answer to
‘How Am I ...’?

Is a PCE necessary for
practicing Actualism?

Is Enlightenment necessary to become actually free?

Is Actualism applicable everywhere?

Can I disappear the ‘I’ and the ‘me’?

Difference between
Actualism and Vipassana?

Difference between good
Feelings and feeling good?

‘I’ Cannot Get Rid of ‘Me’

Actual Freedom is Anti-Nature

Actualism is not new

Actualism not the only Method

No Proof that the
Actualism Method works

The Actualism Method
does not work

The Actualism Method
Is too difficult

Freedom has to be unique

Empty Promises

Please note that some text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.

How to Become Free from
the Human Condition

Peter: The method of becoming free from the Human Condition is devastatingly simple but requires a few initial ingredients for success to be guaranteed.

  • A recognition that what you are currently doing is not working, an awareness of not being fully alive, an acknowledgement of living a second-rate life, the admission of failure in your relationships or on the spiritual path, an admission of not being free or maybe a haunting memory of a peak experience of perfection and purity.

  • A willingness or intent to make freedom from malice and sorrow one’s main ambition in life – to become happy and harmless.

  • An acknowledgement that the only moment one can experience life is this very moment.

The essential method is to

enjoy and appreciate each moment of being alive

and to undertake a total investigation into anything that is preventing me from being happy now – after all, the point is to be happy now, if I was happy ten minutes ago it is of no consequence, nor at some time in the future. The question to ask yourself, each moment again, is ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

Now is, after all, the only moment I can experience being happy. Any feeling such as anger, frustration or boredom that is preventing my happiness now, becomes of vital interest and can be traced back to its cause – the exact incident, thought, expectation or disappointment. At the root of this emotion is inevitably found a belief or an instinctual passion . The ruthless challenging, exposing and understanding of these beliefs and instinctual passions actually weakens their influence on my thoughts and behaviour. The process, if followed diligently and obsessively, will ultimately cause them to disappear completely. The idea, of course, being to eliminate the cause of my unhappiness, so that I can experience life at the optimum, now.

The method soon presents success incrementally, as freedom from beliefs, morals ethics and psittacisms and the feelings and emotions that arise from the instinctual passions is indeed a palpable freedom that results in increased peace and harmony for oneself and in one’s relating with one’s fellow human beings. The method does bring up fear and resistance, because one is dismantling one’s very ‘self’, those very beliefs and passions one holds so dearly. Of course, the major fear is that it will work and as a consequence ‘I’ will ‘be’ no more.

It sounds so simple, but most people when confronted with the idea are unwilling to take even a small step along the way. Most people would seemingly like their life to be better, but faced with the prospect of actually having to do something themselves, or having to change the way they are, they soon sneak away, only to re-run the ‘tried and failed’ methods.

But the choice is simple. It is either a miserable, painful, death-like life of not fully living or a quick death of what is clearly seen as the problem in the peak experience – the ‘self’ or ‘psychological entity’ within.

This method of ‘self’-awareness is both concise and down-to-earth in that it concentrates one’s awareness on this moment in time – this very moment, right now, in this very place. The whole emphasis is on ‘how am I experiencing myself now’? This is not to deny that one doesn’t have a goal and that this goal is in the future – to be happy and harmless, 24hrs. a day, every day.

It does take time to work through each of the beliefs, morals, ethics, psittacisms and instinctual passions – to thoroughly investigate them. By bringing one’s attention to the fact that this is the only moment I can experience being alive, and that if I was happy ten minutes ago and I am not happy now, the fact becomes obvious: I am not happy now. If not, why not? What is the cause, the source? One then has something to do, something to investigate. It is simply nonsense to delude oneself with the spiritual belief that one is already perfect, ‘That’, or ‘Enlightened’ when one knows otherwise.

Always one’s immediate aim is to be happy now, in this only moment one can experience being alive, and one’s ultimate goal is to be happy and harmless 24 hrs. a day, every day.

The method does work – it is possible to be free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow – and within a remarkably short time.

Richard: Before applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now 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 one gets 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 one misses it this time around, hey presto, one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.

What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective way to be able to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive each moment again (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It does take some doing to start off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. One begins by asking, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?

Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself.


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