Peter: The method of becoming free from the
Human Condition is devastatingly simple but requires a few initial ingredients for success to be guaranteed.
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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.
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A willingness or intent to make freedom from malice and sorrow one’s main
ambition in life – to become happy and harmless.
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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.
