Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘D’ Correspondence

Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘D’

with Martin

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Re: Permission to use my first Name on the Actual Freedom Trust website.

ANDREW: Hello, Directors of the Actual Freedom Trust!

As much as I like the designation “No. 42”, (being a fan of Douglas Adam's choice of this ‘ordinary and inconspicuous’ number as his answer to the “meaning of life”),

I am happy to retire it and be called by my first name on the Actual Freedom Trust website.

Cheers Andrew

MARTIN: No. 47 here, on mailing list D.

I’m also happy to be known by my first name. It’s more ingenuous somehow.

Thanks Martin (Message 22398, Mar 25 2016)


Jul 6 2015

Re: [No. 4]’s Notes 1 – Part Two

RICHARD: (...). Yet innocence as a liveable actuality – an actual innocence (not the pseudo-innocence of those ‘State of Grace’ and ‘Blank Slate’ fabulations) in other words – is entirely new to human experience/ human history. [...]. Not surprisingly, the word innocent (as in, ‘harmless’, ‘innoxious’; ‘sinless’, ‘guiltless’; ‘artless’, ‘naive’; ‘simple’, &c.) stems from the same root as the word nocent (as in, ‘harmful’, ‘hurtful’, ‘injurious’; ‘guilty’, ‘criminal’, &c.) does ... namely: the Latin nocēns, nocent-, pres. part. of nocēre, ‘to harm’, ‘hurt’, ‘injure’, with the privative ‘in-’ affixed as a prefix (i.e., in- + nocent). Viz.:

• innocent (in′ȱ-sënt), a. and n. [‹ ME. innocent, innosent, ‹ OF. (also F.) innocent = It. innocente, ‹ L. innocen(t-)s, harmless, blameless, upright, disinterested, ‹ in- priv. + nocen(t-)s, ppr. of nocere, harm, hurt: see nocent]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).
• nocent (nō′sënt), a. and n. [‹ L. nocen(t-)s, ppr. of nocere, harm, hurt, injure]. I. a. 1. hurtful; mischievous; injurious; doing hurt: as, ‘nocent qualities’. 2. guilty; criminal; nocently (adv.): in a nocent manner; hurtfully; injuriously [rare]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

RESPONDENT № 4: I actually do have an active connection to pure intent ...

RICHARD: A rule-of-the-thumb check as to whether an ‘active connection’ currently manifesting is of the quality of the consummate nature inherent to pure intent, as reported/ described/ explained on The Actual Freedom Trust web site, is by having the capacity at-that-moment to experientially ascertain, thereby, the verity of (for example) the following postscriptum.

Viz.:

• [Richard]: (...). P.S.: Also, briefly, in regards to your ‘armed rebellion’ observations: please be assured that not only will there be a ‘bloodless revolution’ (i.e., non-destructive) but it will be a non-disruptive transition as well – e.g., no food-shortages or fuel-shortages; trains, coaches, planes, ships, and so on, still operating, no loss of creature-comforts, &c., &c. – when the global spread of actual freedom/ actualism eventually takes place’. ~ (Message № 19801).

In other words, it is the consummate nature (i.e., the impeccable quality) of the overarching benevolence and benignity inherent to the utter purity of the pristine perfection welling ever-fresh as the vast and utter stillness of this universe’s spatial, temporal and material infinitude which informs, experientially, that a global spread of this completely original consciousness (a totally new way of being conscious) would, ipso facto, be both a non-destructive and non-disruptive transition.

Furthermore, there would also be the capacity at-that-moment to similarly apprehend, experientially, how it can now be said – as I happened to mention on a couple of occasions during the pre-arranged foregathering here, earlier this year, of half-a-dozen subscribers to this forum – that due to the overarching benevolence and benignity being demonstrably available immanently in human consciousness, nowadays both masculinely and femininely, and thus potentially accessible per favour naïveté regardless of spatial extension, there is no longer any reason why there cannot be a global spread of the already always existing peace-on-earth in our lifetimes. (More on this in those Footnotes № 5 and № 6).

In general, however, the usual way of verifying whether an ‘active connection’ currently manifesting is indeed pure intent as reported/ described/ explained is to find oneself being sincerely naïve, at the very least, if not to be naïveté itself (i.e., naïveté embodied as ‘me’) – and to be naïveté itself is to be the closest one can come to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ (innocence is where ‘self’ is not) whereby one is both likeable and liking for herewith lies tenderness, sweetness and togetherness, closeness – whereupon one is walking through the world in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement, simply marvelling at the magnificence of this physical universe’s absoluteness and delighting in its beneficence, its largesse, as if a child again (guileless, artless, ingenuous, innocuous), with a blitheness and a gaiety yet with adult sensibilities (whereby the distinction betwixt being naïve and being gullible is readily separable), such that the likelihood of the magical fairy-tale-like paradise, which this verdant and azure planet actually is, becoming ever-so-sweetly apparent is almost always imminent.

[...remainder of email elided...].

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[4]the pure intent reported/ described/ explained on The Actual Freedom Trust web site: Viz.:

[... ...].

• [Richard]: “(...). One can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a rudimentary self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity as is evidenced in a PCE. This connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. The virtual magnanimity endowed by pure intent obviates the necessity for a social identity, born out of society’s values, to be extant and controlling the wayward self with a societal conscience”. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 21 July 1998)

[... ...].

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[5]being demonstrably available immanently in human consciousness, nowadays both masculinely and femininely. Viz.:

May 25 2013

RESPONDENT № 25: I find it particularly interesting that with more recent experiences of becoming free, for example Peter, Vineeto, and others you’ve related – there was no wall of fear or dread. The process was ‘matter of fact,’ ‘simple,’ ‘easy.’

RICHARD: That is because they all became (newly) free via the well-publicised *epoch-changing opening in human consciousness* designated as the ‘direct route’ on the “A Long-Awaited Public Announcement” web page on The Actual Freedom Trust website. [emphasis added].

Here are the very first words on that web page:

• “The directors of The Actual Freedom Trust take great pleasure in making public knowledge of a direct route at the end of the wide and wondrous path (now both gentrified and rendered secure) to an actual freedom from the human condition – a down-to-earth manumission [from Latin manumittere, lit. ‘send out from one’s hand’, and meaning release from slavery; release from bondage or servitude; set free] hitherto only available dangerously via spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment ...”. (Announcement 1).

RESPONDENT № 25: How can current actualists bypass such acute experiences of dread [as the awakened/ enlightened ‘Richard’ had] on the ‘path’ to freedom?

RICHARD: By tapping into pure intent – nowadays also personified in its feminine aspect (its masculine aspect became personified 30+ months after 1992) – hitherto only accessible via a PCE. (Richard, List D, No. 25a, 25 May 2013).

*

February 06 2012

RESPONDENT № 17: Does the experiencing of the vastness and stillness of the universe bring on the ‘over-arching benevolence and benignity’ which then brings on the ‘sweetness’? Iow, does ‘experiencing the vastness and stillness’ of the universe come first?

RICHARD: (...) that ‘over-arching benevolence and benignity’, which the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago experienced and named ‘pure intent’, *became immanently accessible* to some select associates during a specific situational setting called ‘The Second Convivium Gathering’, in late 2009/ early 2010, and was variously experienced by them as a “palpable sweetness” , for instance, and an “infinite tenderness” , for example, and has been more generally described as “being bathed in intimacy”. [...].

Thus to answer your first question: the direct (as in, immediate or unmediated) experiencing of the vast stillness of this physical universe’s infinitude – where the word stillness refers to there being no movement of time whatsoever (as in ‘this moment has no duration’) – is the way in which the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago became consciously aware of pure intent because, back in those days, there had not yet been someone of sufficient naïveté to enable that immaculate perfection to become purity personified. (Richard, List D, No. 17, 6 February 2012).

Which means that, these days, when that “palpable sweetness” (for instance) is experienced it is that ‘over-arching benevolence and benignity’ being experienced, by virtue of that immaculate perfection having *become manifest in the everyday world* as a flesh-and-blood body only, as they are both one and the same thing in essence. [emphases added].

MARTIN: Hi Richard, from what I understand, pure intent is the over-arching benevolence and benignity which can be experienced temporarily in a PCE, and is still experienced by an actually free person but now on an ongoing basis (and that benevolence and benignity inheres to the purity and perfection of the vast stillness of the infinitude of the universe - that vast stillness being the stillness / non-movement of time). Naivete can result in a benediction (which acts as a connection with the purity and perfection mentioned above), but which can result in an immanent manifestation / variation of this pure intent as a “palpable sweetness” an “infinite tenderness” or “being bathed in intimacy”.

RICHARD: G’day Martin,

The first half of your second sentence obviously refers to the 1998 extract in Footnote № 4 further above – in regards to bringing about a benediction from the perfection and purity as experienced during a PCE – and the latter part is referring to the 2012 extract, in Footnote № 5 just above, about nowadays being able to experience that same benedictive/ liberative perfection and purity (which prior to late 2009/ early 2010 was available/ accessible only during a PCE) by virtue of it having become personified/ having become manifest in the everyday world and, thus, having become available immanently/ having become accessible in human consciousness.

Inadvertently running the two differing experiences together, with your “but which...” second half, is what has confused the issue somewhat.

MARTIN: I’m curious what made you equate these two experiences (the two forms of pure intent) as being “both one and the same thing in essence”?

RICHARD: The short answer: as that which each particular *then-existent identity* was experiencing (i.e., that immaculate perfection and purity personified) via those differing ways each feeling-being has of experiencing it, whilst interacting intensively in late 2009/ early 2010, is identical (as in, “one and the same thing in essence”, that is) to that very-same immaculate perfection and purity which was previously experienceable only in a PCE – albeit then directly experienceable as-it-is due to *identity being in abeyance* – then no such equating is needed.

Also, it is inherent to the benedictive/ liberative nature itself, of that immaculate perfection and purity personified which they were having those differing experiences of, that it be the one and the same thing, in essence, as that immaculate perfection and purity which was previously experienceable, albeit directly, only in a PCE.

It is, of course, primarily by virtue of this apperceptive flesh-and-blood body typing these words being the personification, the manifestation in the everyday world, of that immaculate perfection and purity which they were experiencing in those differing ways, that it is intimately knowable/ intrinsically ascertainable that it be identical, in essence, to that immaculate perfection and purity which the identity in residence all those years ago formed an active connection with, per favour numerous PCE’s, and which ‘he’ named pure intent.

(I have couched my central involvement in those events in that long-winded way – as in, “this apperceptive flesh-and-blood body typing these words”, that is – so as to pre-empt an involuntary automorphism operating due to my words and writings unavoidably being heard or read in a self-centric manner).

*

I will take this opportunity to clarify some ambiguity which may have accrued to this most important term due to varying ways I have referred to it, over the years, in different contexts and in response to different co-respondent’s world-views.

(I notice, during a computer-search of every word of mine publicly available, how my usage developed a certain looseness, over the years, due to my being too accommodating in differing contexts and/or to another’s ability to comprehend).

In regards to understanding the term’s agency aspect – the word intent (from Latin intendere: lit. to stretch (out); extend; direct toward) implies an agent with both the capacity to form an objective and the means to effect same as well – it will be helpful to first draw to notice an earlier section, in this email you are responding to, where I referred to pure intent thisaway:

• [Respondent No. 4]: “The other aspect [...elided 50 words...] and without an active connection to pure intent”.

• [Richard]: “This other aspect [...elide 148 words...] be it with or without an intimate connection betwixt the pristine-purity of an actual innocence and the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté (i.e., pure intent)”. (Message № 19928).

And because an actual innocence is entirely new to human experience/ human history, as reported at the top of this page, then the following text (wherein I also liken that “intimate connection” to a metaphorical ‘golden thread’ or ‘clew’) from 2009 is worth reviewing for some background information.

Viz.:

• [Richard]: “(...). The ultimate source of an actualist’s pure intent is, of course, the pristine purity of the innocence which prevails in the pure consciousness experience (PCE). For those who are unable to recall/ unable to trigger a PCE there is the near-purity of the sincerity which inheres in naiveté – the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ – which naiveté is an aspect of oneself locked away in childhood through ridicule, derision, and so on, that one has dared not to resurrect for fear of appearing foolish, a simpleton, in both others’ eyes and, thus, one’s own. (Because ‘naïve’ and ‘gullible’ are so closely linked – via the trusting nature of a child in concert with the lack of knowledge inherent to childhood – in the now-adult mind, most peoples initially have difficulty separating the one from another).
Now, as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, then seeing the fact that it is plainly and simply ‘my’ choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment – the only moment one is actually alive – is a first step leading to its discovery. [...elide 938 words detailing step-by-step how to develop a vital interest/ a vested interest and, thus, a sincere/ naïve intent and, thereby, how to be allowing apperception to freely happen...]. As to be apperceptive is to be having a PCE then the ultimate source of pure intent – the pristine purity of the innocence which prevails there – is now freely available.

!Open Sesame!

Incidentally, just before/ just as the PCE starts to wear off, if one unravels (metaphorically) a ‘golden thread’ or ‘clew’, as one is slipping back into the real-world, *an intimate connection is thus established betwixt the pristine-purity of an actual innocence and the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté*.

At least, that is the way it worked for the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, all those years ago, inasmuch ‘his’ recall of PCE’s was a naïve remembrance [i.e., rememoration & presentiation; see Message № 19775 for context], rather than a cognitive memory, and ‘he’ thus experienced a constant pull, each moment again, into the immaculate perfection of the actual world ... and thus away from the contaminated imperfection of the real-world.

Being a ‘fatal attraction’, so to speak, it rendered the entire process virtually effortless”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 13, 21 May 2009)

In this context, then, as the term ‘pure intent’ refers to an intimate connection betwixt the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté and the pristine-purity of that actual innocence which is inherent to living life as a flesh-and-blood body only (i.e., sans identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty) then the benedictive/ liberative impetus, or agency as such, stems from and/or flows from that which is totally other than ‘me’/ completely outside of ‘me’ (this factor is very important as it is vital that such impetus, such agency, be not of ‘me’ or ‘my’ doings) and literally invisible to ‘me’ ... namely: that flesh-and-blood body only being thus apperceptively conscious (i.e., apperceptively sentient).

Now, as a flesh-and-blood body is the same-same stuff as the very stuff of the universe itself – inasmuch each and every one of its constituent elements, all of which are as old as the universe is as matter itself is neither created nor destroyed, come out of the ground in the form of the carrots and lettuce and milk and cheese, and whatever else is digested, in conjunction with the air inhaled and the water swallowed and the sunlight absorbed – then what one is, as an apperceptive flesh-and-blood body, is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such this ‘perpetuus mobilis’ universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

And this is truly wonderful.

This intimate experiencing of an immaculate perfection and purity welling ever-fresh as the vast and utter stillness of this universe’s spatial, temporal and material infinitude is of a distinctive quality in that an impeccable benevolence and benignity (intrinsic to those properties as in pertaining to the very nature of absoluteness as qualitative‌ values) is all-pervading.

Around a decade ago I laid-out the properties, qualities and values inherent to the universe in a vaguely technical manner.

Viz.:

September 30 2005
RICK:
Richard, could you list as many characteristics as possible that you would ascribe to the universe, please. Such as benign, infinite, wonderful, marvellous, eternal, a veritable perpetuus mobilis etc. As many as possible would be neat to look see. I’m just curious to read what the universe is and therefore what it isn’t from a pure consciousness experiencer.

RICHARD: The fundamental characteristic, or nature, of the universe is its infinitude – specifically having the properties of being spatially infinite and temporally eternal and materially perdurable – or, to put that another way, its absoluteness; as such it is a veritable perpetuus mobilis (as in being self-existent/ non-dependent and/or self-reliant/ non-contingent and/or self-sufficient/ unconditional and/or self-generating/ unsupported).

Having no other/ no opposite this infinitude and/or absoluteness has the property of being without compare/ incomparable, as in peerless/ matchless, and is thus perfect (complete-in-itself, consummate, ultimate).

And this is truly wonderful to behold.

Being perfect this infinitude and/or absoluteness has the qualities (qualia are intrinsic to properties) of being flawless/ faultless, as in impeccable/ immaculate, and is thus pure/ pristine.

And which is indubitably a marvellous state of affairs.

Inherent to such perfection, such purity, are the values (properties plus qualities equals values) of benignity – as in, ‘of a thing: favourable, propitious, salutary’ – and benevolence (as in, ‘being well-disposed, beneficent, bounteous’, and so on) and which are values in the sense of ‘the quality of a thing considered in respect of its ability to serve a specified purpose or cause an effect’ ~ (definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary).

And that, to say the least, is quite amazing. Richard, Actual Freedom Mailing List, Rick, 30 September 2005

Hence my short answer, rearranged and enhanced somewhat, should now make more sense: being the personification, or the manifestation in the everyday world, of this universe’s absoluteness/ of its infinitude itself, it is intimately knowable/ intrinsically ascertainable that it is implicit to the benedictive/ liberative nature, of what my fellow human beings experienced whilst interacting intensively in late 2009/ early 2010, that those differing experiences be of the one and the same thing, in essence, as was previously experienceable only in a PCE.

MARTIN: Do other actually free people experience benevolence and benignity on an ongoing basis?

RICHARD: Upon a full actual freedom from the human condition, where one is that very benevolence and benignity personified, it is part-and-parcel of being aware/ of being conscious; with a basic actual freedom – such as my first 30+ months and Vineeto’s first 9+ months – there is that awareness/ that consciousness, of literally being benevolence and benignity, on occasion. One of the handful of daring pioneers living the basic actual freedom, for instance, has expressively referred to such occasions as being “the universe on steroids” (if that conveys something of its magical quality).

MARTIN: Has that replaced the experiences of palpable sweetness?

RICHARD: Upon a full actual freedom ... yes (essentially); living a basic actual freedom ... no.

I say “essentially” as there are occasions, when interacting intensively with fellow residents of Terra Actualis, where a particularly exquisite form of that ambrosial intimacy (sweetness, tenderness, togetherness, gentleness, softness, and so on) – with the nature of being utterly precious and first referred to by Grace as a ‘preciousness’ beyond compare – is most wondrously dynamic. These particularly marvellous occasions, being situational and not developmental, are part-and-parcel of life here in the fairytale-like magical paradise this verdant and azure planet actually is.

MARTIN: Or do temporary experiences of a palpable sweetness still arise (and if so is this in the absence of an ongoing experience of benevolence and benignity)?

RICHARD: This is where inadvertently running those two differing experiences together (with that “but which...” latter half of your second sentence much further above) has confused the issue; these “temporary experiences of a palpable sweetness”, in those Footnote № 5 emails, are specifically about the experiences which those particular feeling-beings had of personified purity and perfection – (i.e., an active pure intent was established per favour the (masculine) personification of that which was previously available/ accessible only in a PCE when identity is in abeyance) – all the while still remaining existent as resident identities.

Hence them having the “palpable sweetness”, the “infinite tenderness” the “being bathed in intimacy” type of experiences – rather than the “over-arching benevolence and benignity” experience of a PCE – as identity is in abeyance, during a PCE, whereas to be naïveté itself is when naïveté is embodied as ‘me’.

It is quite a remarkable state of affairs ... and totally unexpected.

Viz.:

February 11 2012
RESPONDENT № 10:
Were you, are you surprised at all by ‘the quickening’ and by the circuit connection formed between yourself and Vineeto when her freedom came to its ultimate consummation?

RICHARD: The first manifestation of ‘the quickening’ (on the 16th of November 2009) took me completely by surprise – totally and absolutely – as there had been no indications, no intimations whatsoever, that anything of that nature would happen; what you read on The Actual Freedom Trust website prior to that (about me being a normal person living a normal life, apart from being sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto that is, and having no interest in ‘guru-circuit’ peoples trooping through my front door [in hopeful expectation of an uplifting affective/ psychic ‘energy-field’ of some sorts], and so on and so forth) is precisely in accord with my, then, ongoing experiencing over all those years.

The second manifestation, starting 10-days after Vineeto became essentially the same as me (how I have been, on my own, all these years) did not come as a surprise – nor that significant existential event itself – as some-such outcome as that was our intent. I was very pleased, however, to no longer have to contain that immensity, that energetic immanence, which is of such a potency, of such a strength, as would previously (on some occasion) render me utterly passive, completely immobile and scarcely able to bear with it. (Richard, List D, Rick, 11 February 2012).

MARTIN: Also, is there any relation in your opinion between these forms of pure intent and what you call “the quickening”?[1]. Thanks. [1][Richard]: “...it is of a quality of such fineness that a fine-champagne-bubbles type of word my second wife (de jure) made up all those years ago – ‘tintling’ – seems to be most apt”. [endquote].

RICHARD: Indeed so ... thus far that calorific energy/ electrochemical potency, which feeling-being ‘Grace’ dubbed “the quickening” when ‘she’ arrived back from New Zealand in late 2009 and similarly initiated its activation, to full effect whilst intensively interacting, has been a feature peculiar to me, in its active operation, although there is no reason why a similar activation would not occur with regards Vineeto were a similarly motivated fellow human being to interact in a like manner.

In fact it would be odd if it did not (I am no fan of ‘freak of nature’ hypotheses).

Although the data-pool is way too small (a handful of cases), to reliably draw information from, there are enough indications already to suggest that the suitably motivated feeling-being – having become so vitally interested in and oriented solely towards the sensate world/ the actual world as to be naïveté itself (essentially, being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being, with all of that embodied ‘being’ on board) and thus having a 100% exclusive focus on that one thing (i.e., their destiny) and that one thing alone – will thereby be psychosomatically exciting the ‘action potentials’, of virtually every excitable cell constituting the physical body unwittingly embodying that ‘being’, which excited cells generate an electrical field such as to innervate its activation in the corresponding excitable cells of this flesh-and-blood body, by that or as that very intensity of interacting.

I have declined to speculate any more than this quite spare skeleton of an hypothesis – my knowledge of electromotive force, for instance, is too meagre to proceed further anyway – but after nigh-on 23 years of being sans identity in toto/ sans the entire affective faculty (which includes, of course, its epiphenomenal psychic facility) I can categorically rule out any operant affective vibe and/or psychic current whatsoever.

‘Tis all quite magical in its effect, though.

Regards,
Richard.

March 6 2016

Re: What Near-Actual Intimacy Means Practically

RICHARD to Claudiu: In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend.

Just as the term ‘excellence experience’ came from feeling-being ‘Grace’ – who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’ so as to not illude herself that ‘she’ was more progressive than was really the case – so too did the expression ‘different-way-of-being’. What gradually became more and more apparent was that a prevailing feature of ‘her’ differing ways of being was the degree of intimacy involved.

The gradations of ‘her’ scale were, basically, good, very good, great, excellent, and magical perfect – whereby, in regards to intimacy, ‘good’ related to togetherness (which pertains to being and acting in concert with another); ‘very good’ related to closeness (where personal boundaries expand to include the other); ‘great’ related to sweetness (delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other); ‘excellent’ related to richness (a near-absence of agency; with the doer abeyant, and the beer ascendant, being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian); and ‘magical’ ‘perfect’ related to actuality magicality (neither beer nor doer extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails) – all of which correlate to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence. [naming errors stemming from the original 10th of November 2009 post corrected].

The term ‘intimacy experience’ became part of the actualism lingo after a particularly instructive event in late spring, 2007, when at anchor upriver whilst exhorting feeling-being ‘Grace’ to no longer reserve that specific ‘way-of-being’ for those memorable occasions when ‘she’ was alone with me and to extend such intimacy to also include ‘her’ potential shipmates in order to dynamically enable the then-tentative plans for a floating convivium – which were on an indefinite hold at that time – to move ahead expeditiously (this was in the heady context of feeling-being ‘Pamela’ having already entered into an on-going PCE a scant five days beforehand due to ‘her’ specifically expressed concerns to me over the lack of intimacy between actualists).

At some stage during this intensive interaction feeling-being ‘Vineeto’, who had been intently following every nuance, every twist and turn of the interplay, had what ‘she’ described as a “shift” taking place in ‘her’ whereupon the very intimacy being thus exigently importuned came about for ‘her’ instead.

To say ‘she’ was astounded with the degree of intimacy having ensued is to put it mildly as ‘her’ first descriptive words were about how ‘she’ would never have considered it possible to be as intimate as this particular way of being – an intimacy of such near-innocence as to have previously only ever been possible privately with ‘her’ sexual partner in very special moments – when in a social setting as one of a number of persons partaking of coffee and snacks in a sitting room situation.

Intuitively seizing the vital opportunity such intimate experiencing offered ‘she’ took over from me and commenced interacting intensively in my stead – notably now a one-on-one feeling-being interchange – and within a relatively short while feeling-being ‘Grace’ was experiencing life in the same, or very similar, manner as feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ (hence that 4th of December 2009 report of mine about how these intimacy experiences are potentially contagious, so to speak, for other sincere actualists as the atmosphere generated affectively-psychically can propagate a flow-on effect).

As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon naïveté has come to the fore, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope.

In other words, with an EE the ‘aesthetic experience’ feature, for instance, or its ‘nature experience’ aspect, for example, tends to be more prominent, whilst with an IE the ‘fellowship experience’ characteristic, for instance, or its ‘convivial experience’ quality, for example, comes to the fore. In either type of near-PCE – wherein the experiencing is of ‘my’ life living itself, with a surprising sumptuosity, rather than ‘me’ living ‘my’ life, quite frugally by comparison, and where this moment is living ‘me’ (instead of ‘me’ trying to live ‘in the moment’) – the diminishment of separation is so astonishing as to be as-if incomprehensible/ unbelievable yet it is the imminence of a fellow human’s immanence which, in and of itself, emphasises the distinction the most.

For instance, the degree of intimacy experienced with minera, flora and fauna upon strolling through some botanical gardens with either near-PCE occurring – as in, with rocks, trees and birds, for example – is to the same gradation as when in a social setting such as a typical sitting room situation (as in, with ashtrays, flowers and humans, for instance) yet it is the ‘fellow human being’ element which exemplifies the already astounding diminishment of separation which ensues upon the blessed onset of this near-innocent intimacy of naïveté.

And that latter point – the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy – is another way the IE differs from the EE inasmuch if a near-PCE is initiated via intensive interaction with a fellow human being/ with fellow human beings it takes on the properties of an intimacy experience (IE) whereas if the near-PCE is triggered via interacting intensively with the world at large (as in, an aesthetic experience, a nature experience, a contemplative experience, for example) it takes on the properties of an excellence experience (EE).

The role they play in an out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom (entitled ‘The Dynamic, Destinal Virtual Freedom’ on that web page to distinguish it from the still-in-control/ same-way-of-being virtual freedom entitled ‘The Pragmatic, Methodological Virtual Freedom’) is, essentially, in enabling the actualism process to take over.

In effect, the actualism process is what ensues when one gets out from being under control, via having given oneself prior permission to have one’s life live itself (i.e., sans the controlling doer), and a different way of being comes about (i.e., where the beer is the operant) – whereupon a thrilling out-from-control momentum takes over and an inevitability sets in – whereafter there is no pulling back (hence the reluctance in having it set in motion) as once begun it is nigh-on unstoppable.

Then one is in for the ride of a lifetime! (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016).

*

RICHARD to № 46: [...eight paragraphs elided...]. As the word ‘intimacy’ refers to the state or condition of being intimate – a word which comes from Latin intimātus, past participle of intimāre, ‘to make familiar with’ from Latin intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost, deepest’; from intus, ‘within’ – perhaps a more extensive dictionary entry than those quick ones will throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to know about intimacy per se and the intimacy of love. Viz.: [...elided...]. What is immediately noticeable is how the listings in the various dictionaries do not feature the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. This is because there is a marked lack of information on the distinction between the intimacy of love and that naïve intimacy (as pointed out in the latter part of the first paragraph of my Message № 21835). Viz.:.

• [Richard]: “(...) so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to *a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications* (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016).

I also detailed how feeling-being ‘Grace’, who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’, had gradations of scale in regards to intimacy (togetherness: → closeness: → sweetness: → richness: → actuality magicality) – all of which correlated to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence – in the second and third paragraphs[1] following on from the above. [naming error stemming from the original 10th of November 2009 post corrected].

(Incidentally, and purely as a matter of historical note, I first detailed the above gradations publicly on Tue Nov 10, 2009, in Message № 7476 which – along with 30+ other posts of mine – was deliberately censored via being deleted from this forum’s archives and thus potentially stricken from view forever, as part of a concerted effort to stop the global spread of peace-on-earth dead in its tracks, along with several proposals to prevent me from publishing copies of my ‘Yahoo Groups’ correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust web site).
[...thirteen paragraphs elided...]. (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 February 2016).

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[1]What did not get included in those second and third paragraphs, regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’ and her rigorous gradations, was ‘her’ oft-repeated observation – regarding the onset of the third stage, on that range of naïveness, where ‘her’ gradation of ‘great’ related to sweetness – about a bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy (due to a self-centric attractiveness towards feeling affectionate) as contrasted to a conscious choice being required so as to somehow have that sweetness then segue into a naïve intimacy via what ‘she’ described as ‘richness’ and graded as ‘excellent’.

MARTIN:> What does that mean practically then Richard?

RICHARD: G’day Martin,

Essentially, what “that” meant practically for feeling-being ‘Grace’ was how ‘she’ needed to be fully alert, upon the emergence of (if not prior to) that third-stage ‘sweetness’, to the attractiveness of the feeling of affection/ of ‘self’-centrically being affectionate – so as to not instinctually veer off into the intimacy of love – and thereby remain steadfast with delighting in the physical proximity of the flesh-and-blood body typing these words (i.e., “the other”, in the nomenclature of the third paragraph from the top of this page, that ‘she’ conventionally referred to as “my partner”, when living what ‘she’ laconically termed “my other life”, during ‘her’ interactions on weekdays with female colleagues, friends, acquaintances, &c., in a neighbouring village).

The reason for drawing attention to this instinctual tendency/ temptation – (i.e., to become loving and, consequently, feel even closer to another ‘being’ because of its affectuous intimacy) – in the above Footnote № 1 is two-fold:

• It is the natural and normal (instinctual and default) course of action: see Message № 20312 for an extensive, fully referenced, elaboration.
• It has sufficient explanatory power on its own to account for that historic [quote] “insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months” [end quote] overshadowing of the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté, in 1981, explicitly referenced in that first paragraph of mine (re-presented at the top of this page) for its specific ‘forewarned-is-forearmed’ effect.

(By the way: this natural and normal course of action, this instinctual and default tendency and/or temptation, must surely feature majorly in any plausible hypothesis as to why an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience/ human history).

MARTIN: Obviously I have to start with an affective intimacy rather than the actual intimacy you describe (as I’m currently a feeling being). If I’m with a women should I let myself like them rather than love them, so there’s an experience of closeness / intimacy based on liking rather than affection?

RICHARD: Because “an experience of closeness / intimacy” is already happening before the onset of the third stage depicted in that footnote, as per feeling-being ‘Grace’s gradations of scale regarding intimacy (good:→ very good:→ great:→ excellent:→ perfect), which correlates to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence (togetherness:→ closeness:→ sweetness:→ richness:→ magicality), your query has prompted me to pull together my scattered references to those gradations, bring them up-to-date (upon spotting a misnamed term in the original 10th of November 2009 post), and lay them out sequentially as an aide-mémoire.

Viz.:

• Togetherness (‘good’) is the companionship of being and doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, dining, communicating, copulating, sharing, travelling, and so on – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another in the regular connubial/ conjugal way of feeling intimate.
• Closeness (‘very good’) comes about due to feeling sufficiently safe/ feeling secure enough, emotionally, to intuitively enable an inclusive-of-the-other expansion of viscerally-determined personal boundaries; this is a normal type of intimacy wherein the regular way of feeling intimate is intensified and/or deepened.
• Sweetness (‘great’) is when closeness entrées a joyous delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other (it is at the onset of this stage that a bifurcation manifests whereby the instinctual tendency/ temptation is to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy due to the ‘self’-centric attractiveness of feeling affectionate).
• Richness (‘excellent’) happens upon sweetness segueing into a near-absence of agency; with the controlling doer abeyant, and a naïve beer ascendant, being the experiencing of what is happening is inherently cornucopian (a.k.a. an excellence experience).
• Magicality (‘perfect’) is whence neither beer nor doer be extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails (a.k.a. a pure consciousness experience).

So, bearing in mind the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend, as clearly demarcated in the two preceding email exchanges, plus the footnoted account regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’s oft-repeated observation (about a bifurcation manifesting upon the onset of the third stage), then ... yes, steadfastly being as true to an imitation of the actual as is feasible (i.e., staying as faithful as is imitatively doable to actuality) and thus unwaveringly liking one’s fellow human creature/ one’s fellow human creatures – despite that instinctual urge, drive, impulse, or any other similarly blind appetitive craving/ longing/ desiring for an affective-psychic coupling or bonding form of consummation (i.e., merging, blending, fusing, uniting, or any other state of integration, unification, oneness, nonduality, and etcetera) – is a significant feature in the enabling of the IE’s delineated in the first of the two preceding email exchanges.

MARTIN: Is it as simple as that?

RICHARD: As your nominative pronoun “it” draws its referencing function from the way in which intimacy experiences (IE’s) come about as per feeling-being ‘Grace’s gradations of scale regarding the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence – (this syntactically precise exegesis of the referent whence your query derives relevance is purely for the sake of clarity in communication) – then ... no, “it” is not “as simple as that” (in your case liking women rather than loving them; in ‘her’ case liking men rather than loving them) as some considerable finesse of focus is called for in order to discern this which is as entirely new to human experience/ human history as an actual freedom from the human condition is.

Perhaps if I were to put it this way:  untold billions of peoples down through the ages and across cultures have liked, rather than loved, another and/or others relationally, familially and societally – and yet even so the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté does not appear in the dictionary listings – to the point that it speaks volumes regarding the all-dominating puissance of blind nature’s rough-and-ready instinctual survival passions which, whilst self-evidently successful in its proliferative perpetuation of the species, nevertheless blindly dictate that no other course of action, vis-à-vis being intimate, than love’s affectuous intimacy will ever instinctually come about.

Put succinctly: as all what blind nature is concerned about (so to speak) is the survival of the species – and even then any species will do as far as blind nature is concerned – then it is patent that blind nature cares not a whit about any such finesse of focus being articulated here.

MARTIN: Also, I have a tendency to hide away / shut down my feelings, do you have any advice on overcoming that?

RICHARD: My stock-standard response to advice-seeking reports of some personal or idiosyncratic tendency/ propensity/ predilection/ etcetera which only the person concerned is properly equipped to deal with – I cannot possibly know another person’s every thought, every feeling, every instinctual impulse; nor the nuances of their ethnic background, the intimate details of their familial upbringing, the subtleties of their peer-group coercions, and so on – is to suggest watching/ reading news bulletins ... for example:

• [Respondent № 01]: “War is the most horrid thing ... if I say that I am just repeating what Krishnamurti said. I can’t grasp it at all. ... I don’t understand. In fact a lot of your book has got me ... what to do indeed”.
• [Richard]: “War is indeed a most horrid thing ... along with all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides. It is all related: a war between two nations is not different in kind to an argument between two people ... it is only a difference in degree. When you throw a barbed insult at your wife – and vice versa – it is essentially no different to the USA throwing a ‘Cruise Missile’ into Bagdad and Iraq throwing a ‘Scud Missile’ in retaliation. It all stems from the genetically-inherited instinctual passions that all sentient beings are born with ... fear and aggression and nurture and desire are not your fault. No one is to blame ... you are born like this.
In 1992 these instinctual passions – which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ itself – were extinguished: ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul became extinct. Kaput. Finished. As dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains ... there is no phoenix here to arise from the ashes”.
• [Respondent № 01]: “I want to do something – you always said to me that if I didn’t know what to do ... don’t do any thing”.
• [Richard]: “Yes ... except that I said that in the context that is epitomised by that joke: ‘when in doubt ... panic!’. If you do not know what to do in a particular situation it is better to do nothing if doing something only makes it worse. I never meant it as a ‘Life-Time Philosophy’”.
• [Respondent № 01]: “Mmm ... as the last 10 years (all my life) have shown me that, when I am by myself, I don’t do anything”.
• [Richard]: “Try watching/ reading the news bulletins with whatever media you have access to and use your affective feelings – emotions and passions and calenture – to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of TV screens daily. And try watching/ reading the ‘animals in the wild’ programmes so as to see where the human animal shares this common ancestry of fear and aggression and nurture and desire.
Your ‘do nothing’ inclination will soon turn into a ‘do something’ longing because unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature ...”. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 05, 1 October 1999).

MARTIN: One way you describe sincerity is ingenuousness, are you referring to not hiding away?

RICHARD: A computerised search of all my publicly available words for <ingenuousness> returns only one hit – where it is utilised in relation to being pure innocence personified in actuality – and wherever the word ingenuous is used to “describe sincerity” it generally appears linked to and/or synonymous with ‘straightforward’ as follows:

• [Richard]: “The word ‘sincere’ can be traced back to the Latin sincerus, meaning ‘whole’ or ‘pure’ or ‘sound’, and which is arguably derived from the roots ‘sin-’ (one) and ‘crescere’ (to grow) in that the Latin ‘sincerus’ originally referred to a plant which was of pure stock – not a mixture or hybrid – and thus came to mean anything which was genuine (as in ‘true’ or ‘correct’) and not falsified, adulterated, contaminated. Thus sincerity is to be in accord with the fact/ being aligned with factuality/ staying true to facticity (as in being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous)”. (Richard, Abditorium, Sincere).

Other than that, the word ingenuous usually appears in a list of synonyms for either naïve or naïveté – as in my recent ‘brief note’ Message № 22277 as per my [quote] “...‘the visceral wiliness of the wild’...is the direct opposite of naïveté (naïve = guileless, artless, ingenuous, unsophisticated, open, aboveboard, direct, frank, straightforward, child-like, simple &c.)” [end quote] wording for example – which, in that context, reads as being representative of ‘nothing to hide’ rather than your “not hiding away” suggestion.

*

As a matter of related interest, most dictionaries have ‘ingenuous’ as generally referring to being free from reserve, restraint, dissimulation, and so forth, such as to be lacking in cunning, guile, sophistication, worldliness, and etcetera, although ‘Princeton’s WordNet 3.0’, curiously enough, has [quote] “characterised by an inability to mask your feelings” [endquote] as its primary definition of the word.

MARTIN: I have to make a conscious effort to not pull back, and to allow myself to have a feeling of liking for others and show this feeling (as opposed to introverting), but is this the same as expressing the feeling which you warn against?

RICHARD: Hmm ... I write of the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago neither suppressing nor expressing either the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’ feelings – and provide a personal example of (full-blown) anger being thusly put into a bind, such as to occasion the third alternative to magically hove into view, whereafter (full-blown) anger played no active part in ‘his’ life ever again – and more than a few take this to be a general ‘rule of thumb’ applicable to all the affective feelings inclusive of the felicitous and innocuous affections (an unendorsed/ unsanctioned unilateral pursuit I have previously referred to, when talking face-to-face with some of those so inclined, as a suave-and-sophisticated “faux-actualism practice” being studiously observed, for its urbane effect, by its resultant “buttoned-down pseudo-actualist” practician).

Look, the whole point of minimising both the malicious/ sorrowful feelings (the ‘bad’ feelings) and their antidotal loving/ compassionate feelings (the ‘good’ feelings) whilst maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) is to make for a potent combination when this untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity – whereby one is both likeable and liking – such that the benevolence and benignity of pure intent may increasingly become dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone ... to wit: for the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent, in this lifetime, as this flesh-and-blood body.

As your proposed making of a conscious effort to not pull back – and to allow yourself “to have a feeling of liking for others and show this feeling” (which is indeed “the same as expressing the feeling” of course) – is on track with “maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings)” then here is an example of what that untrammelled conviviality could look like when translated into action.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 17]: “What would it take [to have a global spread, in our life-time, of this totally new way of being conscious (a completely original consciousness)]?”
• [Richard]: “Ha ... enjoying *and* appreciating being alive/ being here, each moment again come what may, by being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible via minimising both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings and maximising both the felicitous *and* the innocuous feelings.
Put simplistically (for maximum effect): the way to bring about global peace and harmony, in our lifetimes, is by having fun.
(I am having such a ball here at the keyboard)”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, List D, No. 17, 2 July 2013)

*

MARTIN: I sometimes feel exposed though and this can prevent a relaxed intimacy.

RICHARD: First of all, the raison d’être of being intimate – and the word itself, coming as it does from the Latin intimātus, past participle of intimāre, ‘to make familiar with’ from Latin intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost, deepest’; from intus, ‘within’, clearly reflects this – is to be fully exposed, with nothing hidden, and thus able to be yourself, as-you-are, with no pretence.

Obviously, for any such intimacy to be “a relaxed intimacy” then any and all pretence at being anyone other than who you really are – as-you-are in reality, that is, and not a societal entity, in ideality, as per acculturation and acclimation – will be given short shrift/ will fall by the wayside.

As pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) unequivocally evidence who you really are (as-you-are in reality), as distinct from what you actually are (as-you-are in actuality), as being nothing but the instinctual survival passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof – just like all the other 7.0+ billion pretenders busily pretending to be anyone other than who they really are, as-they-are, in reality – then the concomitant realisation that it is not your fault and how, like all the other 7.0+ billion feeling-beings, you were born thataway (per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival passions), releases you from any shame/ embarrassment, and etcetera, for being who you really are, as-you-are, in reality.

Furthermore, as who you really are (as-you-are in reality) has no existence whatsoever or howsoever either anywhere or anywhen in actuality – has no actual substance wheresoever or whensoever (i.e., is not only not actually extant but never was nor ever will be) – it is a lot of fun to be sincerely playing the game of finding out just what makes you tick (i.e., how you operate and function both in public and in private).

MARTIN: Is the idea that if I’m sincere (as an guileless) that I have nothing to hide, and I can give up my hiding place?

RICHARD: No ... “the idea” (as you put it) about being sincere – and the root meaning of sincerity is to be in accord with the fact/ to be aligned with factuality/ to stay true to facticity (i.e., being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous) – regarding aspirations for actuality is to be in accord with/ be aligned with the actual, per favour the PCE, as in, staying true to (a.k.a. remaining faithful to) actuality as experientially evidenced.

The realisation that you are, essentially, the same as all the other 7.0+ billion feeling-beings parasitically inhabiting their host bodies – inasmuch you were all born thataway per favour blind nature’s rough and ready survival passions – means there is nothing unique about you, at the core of your being, which necessitates having “to hide” anything.

Put differently, as your “hiding place” is the same-same “hiding place” as each and every other feeling-being’s “hiding place” (all 7.0+ billion of them) just who do you reckon you are really fooling, other than yourself, by remaining hidden not only from others but from yourself as well?

In other words, how will you get to know yourself, intimately, unless you reveal yourself as-you-are in reality?

Speaking personally, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1980-1981 first began finding out just who ‘he’ was, as-he-was in reality, via the guise of being ‘an eccentric artist’ (a socially-acceptable way of being a bit of an oddball) due to the total lack of any precedent and, therefore, of any praxeological publications.

(The first of the subsequent millions of words nowadays freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site had no public existence prior to 1997).

It was such fun! And the more eccentric ‘he’ became – as more and more oddball facets of who ‘he’ really was, as-he-was in reality, emerged into play – the more ‘the others’ lapped it up! Talk about being encouraged by one’s peers to “just be yourself”, eh?

Ha! What a hoot it all was – and quite the ‘Drama Queen’ on occasion as well – especially that ‘Latest and Greatest Saviour of Humankind’ part ... it would take some doing to top that (in the ‘oddball’ stakes) no matter what else you have hidden away there.

MARTIN: And then I can be liking / naive?

RICHARD: The way to be both likeable and liking – to be as near to innocence as is possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – is to retrieve and resurrect your long-lost naïveté (locked away in childhood, per favour the scorn, ridicule and derision poured forth upon it by the worldly-wise cynics and sophisticates, due to an infantile/ juvenile inability to separate out being naïve from being gullible), nowadays made readily possible by virtue of your adult sensibilities, and operate and function in the world at large by being naïveté itself (thus by-passing/ over-riding that instinctually/ viscerally felt core-of-being centre of ‘self’).

MARTIN: Also, relevant to this is how as a body only (or when you were liking rather than loving as a feeling being) do you form an association with a woman?

RICHARD: The following should be self-explanatory inasmuch it demonstrates, via a well-known instance being melodramatically played-out a couple of years afterwards on this very forum, how more than just a few women (who generally tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men and who, despite their much-talked about fear of intimacy, have difficulty overlooking the man with precisely that on offer) find the opportunity to be intimate well-nigh irresistible.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 14]: “My female partner said after some months of practice: ‘Your libido are too much to me!’. But we still married and happy together. So, if you permit one correlated impertinence: Why are you single now?”
• [Richard]: “As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else.
Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord.
Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self.
And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on).
As peculiar as it may sound, on a purely intellectual level, the very thing peoples most want is the very thing they most fear. When their very survival (as an identity) is at stake all manner of weird behaviour can take place – to the point of utter bizarrerie – as is readily evidenced in the archived correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust website.
I have said before, and will say it again, how actualism is not for the faint of heart or the weak at knee as it requires nerves of steel to delve the stygian depths of the human psyche.
Put briefly: unless or until such a woman comes into my purview being single, in this respect, will remain my ongoing status”. (Richard, list D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009).

Incidentally, and lest an erroneous impression again be obtained from both the above and its well-known melodramatic aftermath, it is vital to comprehension that it be read in conjunction with the following understanding:

• [Richard to Respondent № 04]: “(...) it is pertinent to note that libido (Latin, meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’, and referring to the instinctual sex drive, urge or impulse to procreate and perpetuate the species) is not, and never has been nor ever will be, the driver of the longing for intimacy, the yearning for an end to separation, the vital interest in loss of self ... nor even the means whereby altruism trumps selfism”. (Richard, List D, No. 4a, 23 June 2013).

For instance:

• [Respondent № 18]: “As to [an actual intimacy with every body and every thing and every event] I wonder if you could give any description as to this hmm experience of ‘intimacy with every body and every thing and every event”.
• [Richard]: ‘Perhaps the words my current companion used, when experiencing an actual intimacy upon serendipitously meeting me in the street one day in 1996 (which experience prompted her to move in with me and my then companion), would convey it in a way you may be able to relate to ... she described it as a closeness which was more intimate than she had ever experienced with her own self.
Or, for another description, my previous companion likened it to being closer than her own heartbeat was to her”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18e, 20 April 2004).

MARTIN: You have to demonstrate interest or nothing will develop (I assume), but how does this come about without affectionately touching her on the arm for example?

RICHARD: To cut to the chase: as I have been gratuitously informed by more than just one female that my physical touch – even a caressive stroking of their bared back for example – is tangibly a non-possessive and actually caring touch (i.e., a literally selfless touching) please be assured that nothing of value will be lost upon the extinction of the masculinist capacity to be “affectionately touching” the female of the species.

MARTIN: In other words how does intimacy develop without an affectionate connection?

RICHARD: The short answer is: it develops quite magically, of course, sans any such “affectionate connection” as you depict.

Howsoever, here is a sample of how feeling-being ‘Peter’ went about putting into practice ‘his’ version of what ‘he’ had been reading/ hearing when ‘he’ first came into contact with actualism/ actual freedom words and writings.

Viz.:

• [Peter]: “(...). What was on offer [in ‘Richard’s Journal’] was clearly radically different to both the ‘normal’ and ‘spiritual’ approaches to men and women living together but, as I had always wanted a companion to happily share life’s pleasures with, I decided to ‘give it a go’. Having made the decision, the major problem then was to find a woman.
I had been out of circulation in the social scene for quite a while so I sat down and came up with a short list of three women to whom I was physically attracted. Two of the women I had a few doubts about and that left a woman whose name I didn’t know and who I had never even spoken to. Still, if I was going to do this I needed a woman to do it with and, as I was in a hurry, this method of choosing seemed as good as any other. I finally hunted down her name and phone number, and after a few days of dithering, I couldn’t stand my lack of courage any longer. I rang, had to explain who I was, and asked her if she would like to go out for a meal. Surprisingly she said yes, and we arranged a time. After introductions and a bit of hesitant small talk, we sensibly ordered champagne, and I launched into it!
I briefly told her what I was into and said, ‘I want to be able to live with a woman in peace and harmony. I realise that I have been equally responsible for the failures in the past, and I recognise that I will have to clean myself up to do this. But I’m willing to give it one hundred percent. Do you want to give it a try with me?’ When I look back it was quite audacious, but it proved an effective line to get her interested. She explained later that she had previously come to the resolution that she was not going to try and change the other, or resort to blame in any future relationship – so my proposition was very tempting. But it was the ‘one hundred percent’ bit that really got her!
So together we entered into a simple pact or agreement. We established that the sole reason for being together was to live in perfect peace, harmony and equity and that we would each investigate and eliminate all that was in the way of that being possible. This was to not to be an aimless, listless liaison but, from the very start, a purposeful, challenging companionship ...”.
(Peter, Selected Writings, Living Together).

MARTIN: Also, there is a (perhaps absurd) fear that if I’m sincere / intimate with everyone as a feeling being (and if that naturally develops to further intimacy), that I may be put in awkward situations where I have to turn down women sexually that I am not personally attracted to.

RICHARD: Well now ... welcome to the ‘world of womankind’, then, for whom turning-down unwanted advances, politely or otherwise, is part-and-parcel of the ‘job-description’ (so to speak) of being the female of the species.

MARTIN: There is a fear that I will send out the wrong signals, or not be able to make choices if I don’t hold / hide some part of me back.

RICHARD: Again, variations on this “send out the wrong signals” theme are par-for-the-course for the female of the species.

MARTIN: Bearing in mind I’m not in a relationship and so can’t give that as a reason, can I be fully sincere / intimate and still say ‘no’?

RICHARD: The approach which spontaneously came about during my itinerant and homeless years – which turned out to also be my single and celibate years – was to never say ‘no’ but, rather, to embrace the proposals enthusiastically (there were 20+ propositions of that nature with several being of the ménage à trois variety) with the fundamental proviso that the proposer be 100% committed to going all the way, inclusive of the then-current lifestyle and livelihood, unto the superlative best.

MARTIN: What would you recommend saying in these situations, as the usual reasons like ‘I don’t have romantic feelings for you’ are somewhat disingenuous / insincere as I am not looking for romantic feelings with anyone! Thanks.

RICHARD: You could, of course, try telling them just what it is you are looking for (in explicit detail).

Going by the experience of the egoless feeling-being already mentioned, the last ‘he’ would ever hear from those egoistical proposers in respect to their ill-thought-out proposal – those whose spiritualised ‘self’-centeredness could see but a glamorous and glorious sex-object to use for their ‘self’-justifying delectation and scorecard enhancement – was the rapidly fading sound of their pitter-pattering footsteps as they scampered for the hills.

’Tis quite amazing the effect sincerity had – the genuine article, that is, and not the feeling of earnestness more than a few mistake as being such – on those 20+ par-for-the-course occasions.

Regards,
Richard.

August 02 2016

Re: Near Actual Caring

RICHARD: (...) the topic is essentially about being self-centred – with especial attention upon that term referring to each and every ‘self’ being both ego-centric and soul-centric – in respect to the religio-spiritual practice of countering selfishness, which religio-spiritualists generally equate to self-centredness, via putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’).

Now, the incident to which Claudiu responded thusly was when feeling-being ‘Alan’ placed the affective happiness of feeling-being ‘Joan’ before the actual happiness of flesh-and-blood Alan (otherwise depicted as “giving myself 100% to another” in Message № 23179) being apparent 24/7 by forgoing ‘his’ second attempt at ‘self’-immolation, there-and-then, due in the main to feeling-being ‘Alan’ already being about an hour late for their prearranged rendezvous.

In other words, feeling-being ‘Alan’ prioritised the (potential) affective happiness of feeling-being ‘Joan’ – a conditioned happiness, dependent upon the situation and circumstances, and of a temporary nature – over the (potential) actual happiness of flesh-and-blood Alan – an unconditioned happiness, due solely to being alive/ being here as a flesh-and-blood body only, and of a permanent nature – which happiness also has the priceless advantage of having no trace of any malice whatsoever to later supplant it. (Richard, List D, No. 45, 28 July 2016)

MARTIN: Hello Richard. Isn’t there a combination of conditional / caused happiness and unconditional / non-contingent happiness?

G’day Martin,

As a caused, or conditional, happiness has a beginning and an end – it is dependent upon situations and circumstances – and an uncaused, or unconditional, happiness is perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless) it is self-evident they are categorically distinct; as such, there obviously cannot be “a combination” of the two.

Here is what a dictionary has to say:

• combination (n.): 1. the act of combining or the state of being combined [= brought into or joined in close union or whole; united; integrated]; 2. a number of things combined; mixture; [e.g.]: “a combination of ideas”; 3. something formed by combining; [e.g.]: “a chord is a combination of notes”. [1375-1425; late Middle English (from Middle French combiner) from Late Latin combīnāre from Latin com-, ‘together’ + bīnī, ‘by twos’ [i.e., ‘two by two’]. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary).

Put simply: doing something pleasant and/or beneficial – or something pleasurable and/or beneficent happening – is a bonus on top of the sheer delight of being alive/ being here as a flesh-and-blood body only.

MARTIN: For example, even when one’s enjoyment and appreciation is solely to being alive / being here, that may involve enjoyable activities that have a beginning and an end, for example eating something tasty. Shouldn’t one enjoy those activities?

RICHARD: Where enjoyment and appreciation are due solely to being alive/ being here as a flesh-and-blood body only (neither ego-centric nor soul-centric; i.e., no self-centredness whatsoever) – which is what ensues either in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) or upon an actual freedom from the human condition – there is the added bonus of pleasurable activities and events to enjoy and appreciate (along with the distinct advantage that unpleasant activities and events do not detract one whit from that sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive/ being here as a flesh-and-blood body only).

For instance (in regards to that latter, parenthesised, observation):

• [Richard]: “(...) the apperceptive experiencing of an actual happiness/ felicity is not dependent upon a flesh and blood body only (sans the entire affective faculty/ identity in toto) experiencing sensual (anhedonic) pleasure ... indeed that apperceptive experiencing of an actual happiness/ felicity occurs all the while sensual (anhedonic) pain is happening”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 87b, 29 May 2006a).

In other words, an apperceptive awareness of an actual happiness/ felicity is not dependent upon experiencing sensate (bodily) pleasure; an apperceptive awareness of an actual happiness/ felicity occurs all the while sensate (bodily) pain is happening as well.

MARTIN: But what exactly is the perspective in doing so that maintains an unconditional happiness as being paramount?

RICHARD: The very fact of being alive/ being here as a flesh-and-blood body only – sans both identity in toto/the entire affective faculty – is what maintains (to use your terminology) the paramountcy of an unconditional/ uncaused happiness.

Put differently: a non-contingent happiness – a felicity not dependent upon either the situation or the circumstances – is the default condition of the very fact of being alive/ being here as a flesh-and-blood body only (i.e., sans both the instinctual passions and the feeling-being formed thereof).

There is a lengthy email exchange on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site, starting on May 11 2006, which goes into this ‘happiness is the default condition’ topic in extensive detail. It all began when I reported that happiness is inherent to perfection.

Viz.:

May 11 2006
(...)
• [Respondent № 110]:  The universe is not predisposed to good or bad ...
• [Richard]: Indeed not ... what the universe is predisposed to (to use your phraseology) is perfection.
• [Respondent № 110]: ... there’s no reason to expect life to be happy.
• [Richard]:  Happiness is not a product of good or bad ... it is inherent to perfection. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110, 11 May 2006).

As the resultant email exchange extends over 16-17 posts, all told, it will take a while to follow it all the way through.

MARTIN: Doesn’t one have to almost focus on the unconditional happiness to the exclusion – or rather not giving much weight to – the various experiences, which may be good or bad?

RICHARD: As an unconditional/ uncaused happiness automatically ensues where no self-centredness prevails – either in a PCE (where both ego and soul are abeyant) or upon an actual freedom (where both ego and soul are extinct) – no focus whatsoever is required.

Even the relatively unconditional happiness of a virtual freedom – remaining virtually sorrow-free despite the normal vicissitudes of life – requires no such focus as pure intent is what keeps one on track with regards to both the immediate and the ultimate goal.

(As a virtual freedom involves remaining as happy and as harmless (as free from sorrow and malice) as is humanly possible, come-what-may, it is thus not dependent upon the situation and the circumstances. In that sense, then, the virtually sorrow-free felicity of a virtual freedom can also qualify as an unconditional happiness but as it is neither permanent nor totally sorrow-free it is relatively, and not absolutely, unconditional).

MARTIN: Are they two separate things which co-exist, or does an unconditional happiness encapsulate the caused happiness – I’m asking because you gave the example of delighting in eating a hamburger on the website which is a conditional happiness:

[Richard]: “The taste buds on the tongue are relishing the explosion of sensation; the nasal receptors are satisfying their ability to smell the delicious aromas that waft endlessly past; the eyes are delighting in the colours and the form of whatever is in view; the ears are pleasing themselves in being able to hear the sounds of this moment’s happenings; the fingertips are enjoying the touch of the texture of this hamburger; the skin is gratifying itself with the feel of the air all about ... all this and more – the awareness of all this happening – is me at-this-moment”. [endquote].

It’s almost as though it doesn’t matter that you’re eating the delicious hamburger (which is a conditional happiness with a beginning and an end), and yet you’re completely delighting in it – this is what I’m struggling to wrap my head around – the way that what is conditional is experienced unconditionally if you like. Sorry if this sounds stupid you’ve probably explained it in that link with the eternal time stuff, but can you put it any more simply?

RICHARD: First of all, that part-quote you provided there is an ‘as requested’ response to my co-respondent (№ 15 on Mailing List ‘A’) asking me “How do I do this while eating a hamburger?” by way of a rejoinder to my previous explanation of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of apperception (‘the mind’s perception of itself’) as being what happens when the ‘self’ ceases to function as a perceiver and perception happens of itself.

So I took him step-by-step through the “nuts and bolts”, as asked, of having perception happen of itself whilst he was eating his hamburger (couched in the first person active voice, rather than the second or third person, so he could read it as if it were himself actively engaged in doing it) via advising him to appreciate how this moment – this moment he is biting into his hamburger – is the only moment he is actually alive and to also be aware that, out of all the hamburgers he has ever eaten or will ever eat, only this one he is currently eating actually exists.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 15]: “(...). Okay, so much for the theory. Give me some nuts and bolts. How do I do this while eating a hamburger?”
• [Richard]: “By appreciating the fact that, at this moment of biting into this hamburger, this is the only moment that I am actually alive. All past ‘me’s and all future ‘me’s have no actuality at all. I am only ever here, now. Likewise, all past hamburgers and all future hamburgers do not exist at this moment ... they are either memory or expectation and have no substantial existence. Of all the hamburgers I have ever eaten or will ever eat, only this one actually exists. This hamburger and I – and all that is around and about me at this moment – are it what we are living for. To experience this moment in time and this place in space fully is the whole point of existence. I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being ... and I am biting into a hamburger. The taste buds on the tongue are relishing the explosion of sensation; the nasal receptors are satisfying their ability to smell the delicious aromas that waft endlessly past; the eyes are delighting in the colours and the form of whatever is in view; the ears are pleasing themselves in being able to hear the sounds of this moment’s happenings; the fingertips are enjoying the touch of the texture of this hamburger; the skin is gratifying itself with the feel of the air all about ... all this and more – the awareness of all this happening – is me at-this-moment. I do not exist over time or from place to place. I am only ever here now [...next ten paragraphs elided...]. I am completely happy to be here, securely inside time and space, eating this hamburger”. (Richard, List A, No. 15, No.09).

Of course, were he to have actually put into action those “nuts and bolts” he asked for – the “nuts and bolts” of having perception happen of itself while eating his hamburger – he would have then experientially known what the word ‘apperception’ refers to as per the actualism lingo.

Howsoever, his follow-up email readily demonstrated that he was not really interested in the “nuts and bolts”, of having perception happen of itself while eating his hamburger, after all.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 15]: “I like what you are saying. I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but this concept of apperception is nothing new to my experiences, as I have been at this place on many a perennial moment. (...). Can we say that the greatest of apperceives[sic], he who has mastered it perfectly, will be a totally selfless being? How will this one keep a check on the inevitable violence of our natural world? And what to do with those perennial moments? Must thinking be entirely eliminated? Or is it contained to only the present moment? (i.e. Should I buy that life insurance?) And what if one, preceding the consumption of the hamburger, chooses to give thanks for it to the sustaining universe or God as he understands it ...”. (Richard, List A, No. 15, No.10).

I have gone into some detail regarding the reason why this passage you part-quoted from was written, and why it was written in that particularised manner, because your immediately following words – [quote] “It’s almost as though it doesn’t matter that you’re eating the delicious hamburger...” [endquote] – convey an impression that those “nuts and bolts” of having perception happen of itself, whilst eating something delicious, were somehow overlooked when you selected that particular section to quote.

In other words, were you to receive a report from me about how the unconditional/ uncaused felicity of being alive/ being here does not “encapsulate” the conditional/ caused felicity which gratuitously occurs as a bonus on top of that sheer delight (upon engaging in activities and events of a pleasant and/or beneficial nature) it would probably add very little to your comprehension.

What I can do, however, in regards to your [quote] “the way that what is conditional is experienced unconditionally if you like” [endquote] words, is to draw your attention to the following exchange:

• [Co-Respondent]: “... do you have the discriminative ability still intact, the ability to see something as being of greater value then some other similar object/person (a value scale of some sort)?”
• [Richard]: “Perhaps if I were to put it this way: if, upon ordering buttered toast at a café the waiter/ waitress brings hot, golden-brown toast covered with butter just beginning to melt and drip, in contrast to bringing cold, charred-black toast covered with butter long-ago melted and now congealed, I would rate the former as being 10, on a scale of 1-10 and the latter as being 1 on the same scale ... howsoever *that is a relative scale* as the very stuff of both the former and the latter, being the very stuff of infinitude itself, is incomparable (peerless).
Thus, *in the ultimate sense*, everything is perfect here in this actual world”. [emphases added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25d, 19 January 2004).

I have emphasised the vital parts of that exchange as more than a few persons have seized on the “scale of 1-10” portion as being meaningful in itself – and thus miss the true import of what is being reported there – as I am none too sure how I can [quote] “put it any more simply” [endquote] than that.

(Here is the key to comprehension: by virtue of being this flesh-and-blood body only every last little bit of me is the very stuff of infinitude itself).

MARTIN: Do you experience life as a combination of caused and uncaused happinesses, and so still head towards pleasurable activities and experiences?

RICHARD: As I would have to be pretty silly to head towards displeasurable activities and experiences – especially when pleasurable activities and experiences are available by the bucket-load (as a bonus on top of the utter delight of simply being this flesh and blood body only) – then drawing your attention to the following passages should be self-explanatory.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 07]: “And because there is no ‘I’ in you, there is nobody to worry about anything or correct, improve anything?”
• [Richard]: “There is no worry, no, but I am not too sure that this is because there is no ‘I’ ... it is simply silly to worry as worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed. I correct – and thus improve – what can be corrected ... according to a preference for creature comforts and ease of life-style. For example: if I can sit upon a cushion instead of the brick pavers of the patio I will ... that is a preference. But if a cushion is not available it does not matter ... I thoroughly enjoy being alive at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space irregardless of what is happening. I could be just as happy and harmless on bread and water in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary ... but I would be pretty silly to act or behave in such a way as to occasion that outcome!”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 07, 27 January 1999).

• [Respondent № 74]: “Why is it not enough to just sit still? If you are happy sitting still, what makes you go out and have coffee?”
• [Richard]: “(...) it is indeed enough to just sit still ... doing something is a bonus on top of the utter delight of simply being this flesh and blood body only”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74, 2 September 2004).

• [Richard]: “Speaking personally, I have pleasure by the bucket load – and take for granted that there is an endless supply – and thus enjoy and appreciate the world of people, things and events each moment again”. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 11 October 1999).

• [Richard]: “Apperception is the clear and direct experiencing of being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time – sans identity and its feeling-fed realities – and it is a wordless appreciation of being alive and awake on this verdant and azure planet. Apperception is where one is living in the already always existing peace-on-earth and is where one is blithe and carefree, even if one is doing nothing: doing something – and that includes thinking – is a bonus on top of the never-ending perfection of the infinitude which this material universe is. Apperception is where one is the universe being stunningly aware of its own infinitude”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 19a, 1 September 2001).

• [Richard]: “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. (...). Doing something pleasant/ beneficial – or something pleasurable/ beneficent happening – is a bonus on top of the sheer delight of being alive/ being here”. (Richard, List D, No. 45, 5 January 2014).

MARTIN: Does harmlessness have nothing to do with ‘others’?

RICHARD: The etymology of the word harmless (harm + less) is rather instructive as it comes, via Middle English, from the Anglo-Saxon word hearm, meaning ‘grief’, from the Old Norse harmr, meaning ‘grief, sorrow’ (plus there is the German Harm, also meaning ‘grief’; the Swedish harm, meaning ‘grief, anger’; and the Danish harme, meaning ‘wrath’).

Thus, although the word harm nowadays refers to physical injury/ damage as well – the American Heritage Dictionary lists it as meaning “physical or psychological injury or damage” and the Collins English Dictionary has it meaning “physical or mental injury or damage” – its affective-only origins are also attested by the legal term “grievous bodily harm” (rather than just the words ‘grievous harm’).

I have touched upon this before ... for instance (in 2004):

• [Richard]: “(...) it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy *and* harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 62, 26 March 2004).

Thus to be harmless as per actualism lingo (being free of malice) is beneficial both to oneself – plus it feels unpleasant (hedonically) to feel malicious (affectively) anyway – as well to others due to being unable to induce suffering either in oneself or another, via affective vibes and psychic currents, and vice versa.

MARTIN: ‘I’ can only think in terms of ‘self’ and ‘other’, where ‘I’ am either selfish or virtuously selfless (which I experience as simply being a re-direction of that narcissistic energy). I don’t think I’ve really understood what harmless means, as I can’t help but either put ‘myself’ or ‘others’ first (as a kind of denial of ‘self’) when I think of being harmless. When I think of “for that body and every body” I can’t help thinking of and instinctually feeling “for that ‘self’ and every ‘self’”! ‘Harmlessness’ feels like something you *do* to another human being – or an effect you have on them – but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?

RICHARD: The word harmless, in actualism lingo, refers to the innocuity which ensues in the absence of malice (just as the word happiness refers to the felicity which ensues in the absence of sorrow).

And it is only in either a PCE (where the feeling-being is abeyant) or upon an actual freedom (where the feeling-being is extinct) that there is a total absence of malice and sorrow.

In the meanwhile, of course, both malice and sorrow (the ‘bad’ feelings) can be deliberately minimised – along with their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion (the ‘good’ feelings) – so as to consciously maximise those happy and harmless feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) and with all of that affective energy, which was otherwise frittered away on those wasteful ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, now freed-up and channelled into felicity and innocuity a potent combination is forged when such untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity.

*

Do you see how almost all of that paragraph you wrote as a lead-up to your query about being harmless – as in “but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?” that is – stems from or revolves around that hoary religio-spiritual practice of putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’) so as to counter selfishness?

Yet the topic on the web page which Claudiu linked to is essentially about being self-centred – with especial attention upon that term referring to each and every ‘self’ being both ego-centric and soul-centric – and not about being selfish.

As being harmless does not feature in religio-spiritual practice – peace-on-earth is not on the religio-spiritual agenda – then the sooner that nonsense about being an unselfish ‘self’ is abandoned the better.

Here is another reason why:

• [Richard]: “(...). Further to the point: what is intelligent about advocating pacifism, for example, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/ perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same?
And just in case the latter is not clear enough: if every otherwise intelligent non-dictatorial/ non-bandit/ non-criminal/ non-rapacious/ non-pillaging type of person were to actually put into practice, as a world-wide reality, those unliveable doctrines which bodiless deities prescribe then in a remarkably short period of time all babies will be being born with bully boys and feisty femmes as parents ... and with no alternate care-giver/ role-model anywhere to be found.
So much for ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’, eh?” (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25h, 13 May 2005).

MARTIN: What is harmlessness in an unconditional sense? Obviously it can’t be dependent on others at all.

RICHARD: As to be actually harmless – which is surely what “harmlessness in an unconditional sense” means – is to be actually free of malice (as distinct from being virtually malice-free) then any listing of what it “can’t be dependent on” is irrelevant, as all what being actually harmless is dependent upon is being actually free of malice.

Incidentally, as malice can be (and often is) self-directed – feeling-beings are notorious for self-harm – then to focus solely on others for your “Obviously...” conclusion is to be ignoring half the picture.

MARTIN: How does intimacy come about without putting the “(potential) affective happiness of [a] feeling-being” to some extent before ‘oneself’?

RICHARD: Have you never heard of mutual happiness?

MARTIN: ‘I’ am fundamentally selfish and unless I temper this to some extent there’s no chance of being close to someone or liked as ‘my’ resentful urges are unrestrained (and affect my mood / disposition even if I don’t act out on them). Is becoming actually free a combination of becoming unselfish in a normal sense, and being harmless in an unconditional sense?

RICHARD: First of all, each and every identity is “fundamentally selfish” by nature – which is why it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) – insofar as blind nature endows each and every human being with the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group).

(Hence the religio-spiritual practice of countering selfishness – as per the unliveable ideal of each and every ‘self’ being an unselfish ‘self’ via the nonsensical edict of each and every ‘self’ putting each and every ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ – is basically an institutionalised elaboration of the most primal of blind nature’s instinctual drives, urges, and impulses and, as such, is not at all intelligent).

Second, as “being harmless in an unconditional sense” is to be actually free it makes no sense to ask if becoming actually free is a combination of being that and becoming an unselfish ‘self’.

Third, rather than having to restrain your “resentful urges” forever and a day – so as to have a chance of “being close to someone or liked” as exemplified by intimacy experiences (IE’s) – why not find out why there is resentment in the first place?

Speaking personally, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago first located the root source of all ‘his’ anger – the basic resentment at being alive (as expressed in the “I didn’t ask to be born” type of plaint) – and was thus able to rid ‘himself’ of (full-blown) anger within three weeks.

MARTIN: Where is the line between the two?

RICHARD: There is no line between the two: being an unselfish ‘self’ is a religio-spiritual practice and becoming actually free is unique to actualism.

The former is instinctually-based and the latter is the product of intelligence.

MARTIN: If I try to be happy at simply being alive, I feel as though others potentially threaten that ‘unconditional’ happiness and I get a fear response (any happiness I generate is unstable and thus not unconditional). It’s as though I can only enjoy just being alive if I’m undisturbed, or if there’s nothing in the environment that will kick-start the instinctual passions back into action. I can’t see how to separate out the conditional from the unconditional, as events change and have various degrees of good/ bad, pleasant/ unpleasant, peaceful/ potential-to-disturb. The fact that this is the only moment I’m ever alive doesn’t change the fact that events change with varying degrees of good/bad etc. – I am not immune to this just because it’s the same moment (maybe I’m only seeing this intellectually or not getting what you mean by eternal moment). And yes, this particular moment is the only moment I’m actually alive, but that doesn’t change the fact that there will be a next moment (unless I die of course).

RICHARD: First, as nowhere on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is it suggested that you “try to be happy at simply being alive” you would be well-advised to set feeling good (a general feeling of well-being) as a bottom-line of experiencing until it becomes ‘second-nature’ to feel good each moment again come-what-may.

Second, as there is no “unconditional” for a feeling-being to separate out the “conditional” from it is no wonder you cannot see how to do so.

Third, seeing the fact that this is the only moment you are ever actually alive is not meant to change the fact that events change – here in this actual world events are forever changing (it is the way in which life is always fresh, novel, ever-new, never boring) – as the whole point of the exercise is to realise you are wasting the only moment you are ever actually alive by feeling bad (a general feeling of ill-being) when you can be feeling good instead.

Fourth, these ever-changing events are not the issue – the issue is how one (affectively) reacts or responds to them – as one cannot change the weather to ensure a sunny day in the park or on the beach (for instance).

Lastly, to blame events for how you feel is to make yourself a victim of your own feelings (as if of forces beyond your control) when it is your choice, and your choice alone, as to how you feel, each moment again, as the events change.

MARTIN: What about the issue of self-protection? When someone cuts in front of me in line I feel slightly humiliated / embarassed / annoyed.

RICHARD: Why do you choose to feel “slightly humiliated / embarrassed / annoyed” when someone cuts in front of you in line when you could choose to feel good (a general feeling of well-being) instead?

Put differently: why waste this only moment you are ever actually alive by choosing to not feel good?

Moreover, and given that certain persons are prone to cutting in front of others in line, why set yourself up to feel “slightly humiliated / embarrassed / annoyed” for the rest of your life each time that happens?

Even more to the point: do you have a vested interest in making yourself a victim?

MARTIN: Another example: Perhaps a manager makes a decision at work of how I should do things that will lead to a lot of unecessary extra work. Or perhaps I am expected to work longer hours at work thus potentially losing free time. Or I no longer have the same level of access to pleasant activities / conditions / experiences.

RICHARD: Again, given that certain managers are prone to making such decisions/ expecting you to work longer hours/ preventing you from have the same level of access/ and so on and so forth, why set yourself up to no longer feel good (a general feeling of well-being) as such events occur when it is your choice, and your choice alone, as to how you feel, each moment again, while these events are happening.

MARTIN: An unconditional happiness has to encompass all of these issues / ups and downs that would affect my wellbeing in a conventional sense... with no defensiveness or self-pity at losing out. I know a non-contingent happiness would have to work whether one is in a nice environment or in solitary confinement, but I personally can’t help be at least somewhat affected by the viscittudes.

RICHARD: Aye, an unconditional happiness does indeed encompass all those events – including events which have an effect on physical well-being (senescence alone, in my case, has increasingly engendered such effects of late) – yet experience shows that certain feeling-beings have, personally, indeed been able to help themselves to not be at least somewhat affected by the vicissitudes.

MARTIN: I can see how the human condition is geared towards seeking conditional happinesses, and that actualism is about making a radical shift – almost like moving to a different dimension – to a non-contingent happiness, and I’m trying to figure out how to do this (bearing in mind billions of people have not been able to discover what you did Richard).

RICHARD: Good ... in the meanwhile, until you do figure out how, why not set feeling good (a general feeling of well-being) as a bottom-line of experiencing so it can become ‘second-nature’ to feel good, each moment again come-what-may, sooner rather than later?

MARTIN: If I try to be happy now, my instinctual energy wants some stimulation as it operates with a sense of going somewhere. I sort of think ‘well I could be happy now, but what then – just sit here like a lemon?’ (that ‘wanting something more’ or ‘there must be more to life than this’ comes into play even in regards to the actualism method itself!).

RICHARD: Well, of course ... after all, the ultimate aim of the actualism method is to uncover, for oneself, the ‘secret to life’, or the ‘riddle of existence’, or the ‘purpose of the universe’, or the ‘meaning of life’, or whatever one’s quest may be called.

Regards,
Richard.


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Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.

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