Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

October 30 2005

RESPONDENT: Richard, *IF* it is possible for anyone to feel excellent simply by choosing to feel excellent, why aren’t they?

RICHARD: Why ask me (and not them)?

RESPONDENT: It is not as if people through the ages have not wanted/ tried to feel good, is it?

RICHARD: No ... yet mostly when I have asked others they generally come out with some variation on the hoary ‘you can’t change human nature’ adage.

RESPONDENT: What was the difference between you and them?

RICHARD: I am none too sure there was any difference: I was a normal person; I was born of normal parents; I had normal siblings; I had a normal upbringing; I attended a normal (state) school; I obtained a normal occupation; I had a normal wife; I had normal children ... and so on and so forth.

RESPONDENT: The way you describe it, it wasn’t even that much of a struggle for you (found the secret to life inside the first three months???).

RICHARD: It was inside the first few weeks, actually, of putting into action what was startlingly evident in the four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) which had finally provided the direction my otherwise following-the-herd way of living was singularly lacking (although there was a six-month incubation period between the PCE and the application thereof).

I distinctly recall informing my then-wife at the time that I had ‘done it their way’, for 34 years and to no avail, and that it was high-time I did it my way (and when she asked what way that was I said that I did not know but that it would become progressively apparent with each step I took).

RESPONDENT: So why haven’t millions of others discovered that they can feel excellent by choosing to ...

RICHARD: Quite possibly – and I am not being facetious here – they were/ are waiting for someone else to do it/ show the way (for, despite many peoples huff-and-puff about leaders, there have always been pioneers, who have blazed the trails others follow, and always will be).

RESPONDENT: ... unless, of course, they can’t ...

RICHARD: It is not so much a case of they can not but, rather, that they will not.

RESPONDENT: ... [unless, of course, they can’t] without a radical shift in their understanding of self/ world/ reality *engendering* such change?

RICHARD: My experience with the peoples who have chosen to give felicity/ innocuity a go is, as a generalisation, that the necessary paradigm shift has usually been a gradual process of comprehension – not necessarily an instantaneous shift – and which paradigmatical change commences because of that choice ... and that choice mainly comes after a gestation period (which itself follows intelligent appraisal/ thoughtful consideration).

And, by way of personal example, I need only point to the six-month incubation period already mentioned.

Re: It is Fun to be Attentive to Feelings!

CLAUDIU: Hello folks,

Cheers,
Claudiu

RICHARD: Claudiu, as I was about to post this email I noticed that your most recent email (Message № 21920) renders it redundant. However, as I had already composed it I am posting it, anyway, as a verification your latest understanding regarding attentiveness is correct.

*

G’day Claudiu,

Whilst reading your above email online it occurred to me to post a brief note, there and then, and simply reiterate how ‘being attentive to my feelings’ only takes place, of course, on those occasions when/ where an otherwise ongoing enjoyment and appreciation diminishes.

Plus, how the very act of thus ‘being attentive to my feelings’ is initiated by that diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation.

In other words, being (cognitively) attentive to one’s (affective) feelings – instigated by the diminution in the quality of affectively enjoying and appreciating being alive/ being here, each moment again, come-what-may – happens less and less once one gets the knack of thus affectively monitoring one’s moment-to-moment (affective) mood and/or temperament via the increasingly subtle variations in one’s (affective) enjoyment and appreciation.

Essentially, ‘feeling good’ as a bottom-line each moment again for the remainder of one’s life means rarely, if ever, needing to (cognitively) be ‘attentive to my feelings’ due to that habituation of the actualism method (such as to result in a still-in-control/ same-way-of-being virtual freedom).

*

Howsoever, upon re-reading your email with the notion of just a brief note in mind, the very detail and thus expansive length of it persuaded me to expand somewhat upon the subject myself and especially so in view of your observations regarding a particular hangover from your earlier buddhistic practice.

Viz.:

• [Claudiu]: ‘Something about the matter-of-factness of it [i.e., Richard’s email] dispelled a long-held belief... And the belief – left-over from my meditative days – was that being attentive to my feelings was inherently painful! That feelings were somehow bad, and being attentive to them only made it worse, so the best approach was to try to ignore them and feel good despite not looking at anything ....’. [endquote].

As you referred to ‘being attentive to my feelings’ half-a-dozen times, all told, it further occurred to me to anecdotally illustrate what is conveyed by the [quote] ‘current-time awareness’ [endquote] term, in that email of mine, so as to spell out in some detail how that awareness comes about such that it soon becomes possible, at any given moment, to ‘instantly answer the question’ you articulated as follows.

Viz.:

• [Claudiu]: ‘To have a current-time awareness of how I am experiencing this moment of being alive means being able to instantly answer the question, if anybody asks or if I ask myself, of ‘How am I feeling?’ ... or, in full, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Or to put it in other way... if I ask myself, ‘how am I feeling?’, and I don’t immediately know the answer, but have to do some digging... that means I am lacking that current-time awareness!’ [endquote].

As what is conveyed by that term is already provided in the ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ article – and specifically referred to elsewhere via words such as ‘diminishment’ or ‘diminution’ and ‘flashing red light’ or ‘a warning buzzer’ on more than fifty occasions on my portion of the website – then this expanded post is more about drawing attention to it, even to the extent of belabouring the point, than anything else.

So, first the anecdote. Early on in my six-month visit to India in 2010 the person anonymised as Respondent № 04 on The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list – whose first post is date-stamped 09 Jan 1999 on my portion of the web site – arranged to meet with me. Arriving after an early-hour inter-city train trip he spent around four or five hours with me and about an hour or so into the conversation he happened to mention, en passant, how he was not able to put the actualism method into practice at work as he could not be attentive to how he was experiencing this moment of being alive, each moment again, during his workaday hours as the job-description required that a large percentage of his time be spent at a computer station being attentive to the myriad manoeuvres on the computer screen virtually every moment of the day.

Although somewhat taken aback by the implications and ramifications of such obvious ignorement/ ignoration of my specific responses and explanations, online, it was a simple matter to point out how the moment-to-moment monitoring of the affections is, of course, an affective monitoring – along with reminding him how the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was a family man working 12-14 hours a day for 6-7 days a week in order to feed, clothe and house everyone (mortgage commitments, hire-purchase payments, and etcetera) – and to thereafter verbalise what is freely available for perusal and edification on The Actual Freedom Trust web site.

The following excerpt – from an online exchange five years previously – should demonstrate why that en passant comment of his has remained with me to the present day.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 04]: [Okay, then why is it important to ascertain causation and the succession?] Does it help to see the silliness?

• [Richard]: What is being pointed out, in the above exchange, is seeing the silliness of having such an event – whatever that event may be – take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of being alive at this particular moment (the only moment one is ever alive) by having such an incident as that trigger off the feeling.

The name of the game is to habituate an affective imitation of the actual each moment/ each place again – to consistently feel as happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and, thus, their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to be apparent sooner rather than later ... therefore *whenever/ wherever there is the slightest diminution of that felicity/ innocuity it speaks for itself* that some event, which has been constantly granted the power such as to customarily render that peace and harmony short-lived, has been permitted, via a lifetime of continuous/ routine ignoration, to wreak its havoc once again. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 4a, 31 July 2005).

The above words ‘it speaks for itself’ quite obviously refer to how it is via (affectively) feeling the ‘felicity/ innocuity’ to be diminishing that something is amiss becomes noticeable – in regards to the quality of one’s enjoyment and appreciation – and not by being (cognitively) attentive, each moment again, to each and every aspect of such affective experiencing.

Put succinctly: as moment-to-moment monitoring of (affective) mood is, of course, an affective monitoring there is no reason why the oh-so-common requirement to be (cognitively) attentive, to whatever a job-description requires, would mean the actualism method cannot be practiced during workaday hours.

The same moment-to-moment affective monitoring of mood applies, of course, in any situation (reading, writing, chatting, listening to or watching media, driving, cycling, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and so on and so forth).

Variations on the theme highlighted above appear in more than fifty places on my portion of the website – all of which convey the same or similar observation regarding moment-to-moment affective monitoring of how one is experiencing this moment of being alive – and the following is one of 40 hits which the search-string <flashing red light> returned.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 93]: Richard, would you say that it takes quite a bit of effort and determination to follow through in asking the question to it’s conclusion?

• [Richard]: I do say it takes some doing to start off with[1] yet, with application and diligence and patience and perseverance, one soon gets the knack of it and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive – the sheer delight of being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and, as *the slightest diminishment of such felicity and innocuity is a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were)* that one has inadvertently wandered off the way, it is remarkably simple in practice[2] ... and thus easy. Furthermore, it is fun to find out what makes one ‘tick’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 93, 21 June 2005).

Again, the above highlighted words expressly refer to how it is via (affectively) feeling that ‘felicity and innocuity’ to be diminishing – and not by being (cognitively) attentive, each moment again, to each and every aspect of such felicitous and innocuous experiencing – that it becomes noticeable how one has inadvertently wandered off the way.

Furthermore, the footnotes – those two after the words ‘to start off with’ and ‘simple in practice’, above, plus one supplementary to the first – expand upon both the non-cognitive nature of this ongoing affective awareness (i.e., ‘a non-verbal attitude’ and ‘a wordless approach’) and the simplicity/ easiness (a.k.a. effortlessness) of this non-cognitive monitoring whereby, via affectively feeling any diminution of one’s ongoing affective enjoyment and appreciation, cognitive attention is automatically engendered. Viz.:

[1]to start off with:
• [Richard]: ‘It takes some doing to start off with, but as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes automatic to have this question running[†] as an on-going thing (as a non-verbal attitude towards life; a wordless approach each moment again) because it delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future’. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

[†]automatic to have this question running:
• [Richard]: ‘It is a question, not a phrase to be memorised and repeated slogan-like (or as if chanting a mantra for instance), and it soon becomes a non-verbal attitude to life; a wordless approach each moment again whereupon one cannot be anything else but [affectively] aware of one’s every instinctual impulse/ affective feeling, and thus self-centred thought, as it is happening’. [square-bracketed insertion added for emphasis]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68, 26 April 2004).

[2]simple in practice:
• [Richard]: ‘It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 71, 9 July 2004b).

I added the word ‘affectively’ in squared brackets, in the middle footnote, so as to emphasise how the words ‘non-verbal attitude’, and ‘wordless approach’, are indicative of that awareness of those instinctual impulses/ affective feelings – and thus self-centred thought – being an affective awareness.

*

As to how simple, easy and thus effortless this way of living/ this course of action is, when sincerely put into practice, it may be handy to also anecdotally reference how the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago took the first step, on what has become known as the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition, as the new year dawned in 1981 and as the grandmother of ‘his’ four children was driving them all down the driveway of ‘his’ ex-farmhouse after having heroically elected to have all of her grandchildren stay with her in the city for a three week holiday (which had left ‘him’ and ‘his’ wife on their own together for the first time since the birth of the first child around fourteen years previously) so as to give her daughter and son-in-law a break from parentage and, hopefully in her mind, to be of assistance in the resurrection of their failing marriage.

It was an opportunity ‘he’ grasped with both hands to not only regain the honeymoon intimacy, of 1966, as ‘his’ wife was spontaneously proposing while they waved them goodbye as they drove away down the driveway – specifically, a twenty-hour mutual peak experience, which both of them remembered well, wherein naïveté featured prominently – but also by so doing to thereby enable the actual intimacy each had experienced, some months prior, during their respective perfection experiences which had indubitably evidenced to both of them that peace-on-earth was already always here (a much-discussed issue over those preceding months). What they both set about doing thereafter, consciously and with knowledge aforethought, was to deliberately imitate the actual each moment again – as magically manifested in their respective perfection experiences – simply because the imitative course of action had been demonstrably successful in the area of the fine arts (as per my oft-mentioned ‘enabling the painting to paint itself’ theme).

When their children were duly returned by an exhausted grandmother, after their three-week exposure to the big-city lifestyle had run its course, ‘he’ was particularly determined not to lose what ‘he’ dubbed the ‘honeymoon atmosphere’ by reverting to type – although ‘his’ wife fared badly in this respect (as per Message № 12901 for instance) – and four weeks later as the official school year was due to commence ‘he’ was similarly set on not losing, as the minimal or bottom line of moment-to-moment experiencing, what ‘he’ dubbed the ‘holiday atmosphere’ (engendered via interacting with ‘his’ children as if a child again, albeit with adult sensibilities, due to an irrepressible re-emergence of ‘his’ hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté).

For what ‘he’ had twigged to, in the beginning stages of their joint venture (and particularly exemplified by ‘his’ wife’s predilection for venting over voicing), was how it was far, far easier and simpler to stay in a good mood come-what-may – preferably a happy mood of course – than claw ‘his’ way back up to feeling good, again and again, after having habitually reverted to type.

Hence being (affectively) aware, each moment again, of more and more subtle variations in the quality of one’s moment-to-moment enjoyment and appreciation of being alive/ of being here so as to earlier and earlier pre-empt any potential reversion to type.

Also, repeated experience had shown ‘him’ that minor dips in that quality presaged each major diminution – indeed miniscule blips soon became evident even earlier than those minor dips as ‘his’ ability to (affectively) detect subtle variations in the affective tone of mood and temperament became evermore fine-tuned – and the earlier such habituated silliness could be (affectively) discerned the sooner ‘he’ could thus nip these instinctual potentialities in the bud.

And all this while ‘he’ worked 12-14 hours a day for 6-7 days a week, as already mentioned, and yet all this while such work increasingly resembled the play it is in actuality.

*

What follows is one of the 46 hits for the <diminishment> search-term (as compared to the further above <diminution> search-term which returned 11 hits).

Viz.:

• [Richard]: All it takes is the habitual attentiveness engendered by being aware of how this moment of being alive is experienced – and that awareness is the very enjoyment and appreciation of being alive at this moment (the only moment of ever being alive) – inasmuch *any diminishment of the quality of that experiencing is patently obvious (simply by virtue of a lessening of that enjoyment and appreciation)*.

• [Respondent № 74]: Would you say such alertness is effortless?

• [Richard]: No, the alertness of being on guard implies effort ... whereas enjoyment and appreciation is a breeze. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74e, 29 December 2005).

Once again, the above highlighted words explicitly refer to how it is via being (affectively) aware of the quality of one’s enjoyment and appreciation diminishing that it becomes ‘patently obvious’ – simply by virtue of this lessening in quality – such as to bring about being (cognitively) attentive to such attenuation of one’s enjoyment and appreciation.

The search-string <warning signal> returned 36 hits and a search for <warning buzzer> resulted in the following exchange.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 27]: Richard, could you tell me in your own words just exactly what you mean by not ‘expressing emotion’?

• [Richard]: Sure ... an emotion arises because of a situation or circumstance (which can include merely thinking about something whilst on one’s own) and it wants to express, communicate or convey itself either verbally (which may be merely tone of voice), physically (which may be merely facial expression or bodily stance) or as a ‘vibe’ – to use a ‘60’s term – which can be picked-up psychically (and is arguably the most pernicious of all expression).
[...].
[Respondent № 27]: Also specifically which emotions are advantageous to ‘not express’?

• [Richard]: All and any emotion ... what I would oft-times say to people twenty one years ago, when I first put this into practice, was that *emotions are life’s way of reminding oneself that one has gone astray* (that one has wandered off the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition).

An emotion is like a warning buzzer ... or a flashing red light. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27a, 24 January 2002).

This particular quote is included because it depicts the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago uncritically declaring how it was via the emotions (i.e., per favour the affections generally) – and not cognition (i.e., not per favour being cognitively attentive) – that it became noticeable ‘he’ had gone astray.

*

As an aside, it is worth mentioning that ‘feeling good’ each moment again over extended periods is thus not an emotion per se but, rather, an affective mood – as in, ‘I’m in a good mood today’ (and, conversely, ‘I’m in a bad mood today’) – just as ‘feeling happy’ moment-to-moment, for the remainder of one’s life, is also an affective mood (e.g., ‘I’m in a happy mood today’) as it would be simply impossible to sustain an emotional happiness day-after-day week-after-week, let alone being passionately happy, due to such being both emotionally draining and, usually, a conditional happiness anyway.

It is correspondingly worth noting that mood is to temperament as weather is to climate inasmuch a person who is predominantly in a good mood is generally described as having an agreeable temperament (a.k.a. as being of a generally cheerful disposition) – as contrasted to those usually depicted as bad-tempered by nature (a.k.a. as being a generally unpleasant character) – such that a prolonged ‘feeling good’ mood becomes a matter of temperament and disposition and, thereby, ultimately of character.

*

All of which brings me to the ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ article.

Viz.:

• [9th Paragraph]: The wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is marked by enjoyment and appreciation – the sheer delight of being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and *the slightest diminishment of such felicity/ innocuity is a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were) that one has inadvertently wandered off the way*.

One is thus soon back on track ... and all because of everyday events. [emphasis added]. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

This paragraph has been sitting there in plain view for 18+ years, now, as well as having been copy-pasted into many, many emails through my detailing of how the actualism method works in practice to all those different persons asking me to explain the method to them via email forums (in lieu of reading it for themselves on the website).

Some time after returning from my six-month visit to India I tweaked the first half-a-dozen or so paragraphs of the ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ article in an endeavour to pre-empt ever more peoples becoming affers – as was exemplified at the time by the title [quote] ‘a nice way of framing haietmoba’ [endquote] to Message № 11700 which contained a link to web page where a pre-eminent pretermitter had hijacked that string of letters (by which means quite a few persons refer to the actualism method) via insisting it points to a watered-down and westernised ‘nibbāna’ (i.e., phenomenolically-derived) – and added-in the following paragraphs.

Viz.:

• [4th Paragraph]: ‘... enjoyment and appreciation is facilitated by feeling as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible. And this (affective) felicity/ innocuity is potently enabled via minimisation of both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings. An *affective awareness* is the key to maximising felicity and innocuity over all those alternate feelings inasmuch the slightest diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation *automatically activates attentiveness*. [emphases added]. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

This paragraph is specifically worded to make it clear how it is an affective awareness (i.e., that moment-to-moment affective monitoring of mood already referred to much further above) which both maximises felicity/ innocuity and automatically activates conscious attention (as in, engendering cognitive attentiveness) whenever something is amiss in regards to enjoyment and appreciation.

• [12th Paragraph]: It is important to comprehend [...] how that (affective) enjoyment and appreciation *is* the very actualist awareness in action (as distinct from the buddhistic mindfulness, for instance, which requires cognitive engagement). What this means in effect is that, because one cannot help but be aware, each moment again, of even the slightest diminution of that experiential awareness (of that very enjoyment and appreciation of *feeling* as felicitous/ innocuous as is humanly possible) via *feeling* it diminish, cognitive attentiveness can be freely applied to whatever one is engaged in doing, in one’s moment-to-moment daily life, be it earning a living, reading/ watching various media, studying for examinations, and so on, and so forth.

Put simply: for a feeling being, actualism’s awareness (in regards to how one is experiencing this moment of being alive) is an affective awareness. [emphases in original]. Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

The first sentence of this 12th paragraph includes, parenthetically, a specific reference to buddhistic practice because more than a few peoples – and not only those of a buddhistic inclination but those practising a secularised version thereof as well – perversely insist on making out that the actualism method entails the same or similar practice as that (misnamed) ‘mindfulness’ regimen, which has gained traction in large swathes of many and various societies and cultures around the world, despite my words unambiguously stating on several occasions how buddhistic ‘mindfulness’ is [quote] ‘another ball-game entirely’ [endquote].

Viz.:

• [Richard]: (...) the words ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ simply refer to the make-up of the attentiveness being applied ... as distinct from, say, *the buddhistic ‘mindfulness’ (which is another ball-game entirely)*. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

And I say ‘perversely insist’ deliberatively because it is simply impossible for those [quote] ‘another ball-game entirely’ [endquote] words to be misread/ misheard, mistaken, misapprehended, misunderstood, misconstrued, miscomprehended, misinterpreted, misjudged – as in, get the wrong idea about and/or get an incorrect impression of, that is – or, to use a colloquialism, to get the wrong end of the stick regarding what those words mean.

*

‘Tis amazing the number of peoples who deceive themselves into believing they know better than me what my reports/ descriptions/ explanations refer to – via illuding themselves their book-learnt understanding over x-number of years trumps my experiential understanding over the last 35+ years – as if the words issuing forth from this keyboard come from somebody too dumb to know just what his moment-to-moment experiencing actually is (despite their tacit acknowledgement thereby of him having nevertheless been somehow smart enough to accomplish what they are yet to do).

Were it not for the predictably dire consequences – the relentless continuance of all the misery and mayhem which epitomises the human condition – such self-serving antics would be highly risible.

*

The second sentence of this 12th paragraph has the word *feeling* made bold twice so as to emphasise how the ongoing awareness of all affective feelings, moods and states of being is, of course, affective in nature and thus leaving cognitive awareness free to be applied to whatever one is engaged in doing, in one’s moment-to-moment daily life, be it earning a living, reading/ watching various media, studying for examinations, and so on, and so forth.

And the follow-up sentence to this 12th paragraph simply summarises the above observation – how the awareness (in regards to how one is experiencing this moment of being alive) is an affective awareness – so that no-one can ever again say to me, even in passing, that they cannot practise the actualism method because they are fully occupied with being attentive to the myriad manoeuvres on a computer screen virtually every moment of the day!

Regards,
Richard.

ANDREW: I remember reading on the AFT, Richard mentions the general mood of the 1960’s and has good things to say about it. The focus on peace, adventure, challenging social order, an optimistic view that change was possible.

RICHARD: Yet what you remember reading on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is actually what feeling-being ‘Peter’ wrote – feeling-being ‘Richard’s focus in the 1960’s was, instead, on warfare, misadventure, upholding social order, an unenterprising view that change was impossible – which is neatly encapsulated in ‘Peter’s Journal’ via descriptions of then being a typically radicalised university student (per favour the subversive ‘Nouvelle Gauche’ socialistic-communistic propaganda, of Mr. Herbert Marcuse (a.k.a. ‘Father of the New Left’) and the ilk, which gripped the largely proto-revolutionary imagination of those socio-politically impressionable youths of the time).

Viz.:

• [Peter]: “University days were filled with a wonderful optimism and naivety as the sixties’ youth revolution gathered momentum. We were going to change the world! Socialism, peace, love, sexual freedom, environmentalism – anything was possible to have or to change. I marched to stop the Vietnam war, I poster-pasted to save the forests, I grooved to the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park in London, I hung around in Amsterdam, I travelled to the East, I became politically and socially concerned and involved.
I’ve thought about these times during the last twelve months – what happened to the dreams, the enthusiasm of those times? Remember John Lennon singing ‘Imagine’ or ‘Give Peace a Chance’, or watching Woodstock? We were going to change the world! And then it all started to fade a bit – I got rather lost in the daily business of wife, two kids and two cars. And then, when that crashed, I was off to the East with thousands of others, seduced and fired up by the promise of a New Man, Peace, Love, Utopia and an end to my personal suffering. In fact, the whole of the revolution of the sixties was simply sucked into the mystery, confusion and ‘mindlessness’ of the Eastern religions.
Of course spiritualism failed – there was nothing new in it at all, now that I look back (...)”. ~ (from Chapter Nine, ‘Peace’, ‘Peter’s Journal’; © The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).

Incidentally, your comment on the 17th of Feb, 2016, about not sharing the opinion that there was anything special about that era – viz.:

• [Andrew]: “For the record, I don’t share the opinion that there was anything special about that era. The hippies went on to run the corporations and fuck over the world in exactly the same way as the generations before and after them. Lennon and the Beatles not least of them” ~ (Message № 221xx)

– could perhaps be said to typify a wholesale ignorement of just how successful that ‘Nouvelle Gauche’ propaganda against the then still-prevailing dextral individualism has been, as evidenced by the stranglehold sinistral statism has increasingly had on the ‘International Community’ in the decades since, insofar as the way in which politico-economic governance nowadays operates in developed nations is more or less in accord with what the sixties ‘student revolution’ was practicably on about.

Put the other way around: as what those gullible university students protested about so vociferously, and marched en-masse in the streets for, has largely come to pass in the technologically advanced nation-states, then your usage of ‘exactly’ – in the above “in exactly the same way” characterisation – may very well stem more from a blanket ignoration of how deprived the bulk of the populace comprising those laissez faire states were, before the resultant expansion of the corporative ‘Welfare State’ (which ever-expanding bureaucratisation of governance, were it not largely funded by its correspondingly ever-expanding indebtedness, would ultimately become all-encompassing), than from an even-handed appraisal of the outcome those ‘New Left’ propagandists were agitating for.

Ha ... it could even be a classic case of hoary adage “Be careful what is wished for [whilst the peasant-mentality prevails] lest it come true”, eh?

ANDREW: Is it possible that [No. 49] indeed did practice a proto-version of “actualism” before Richard discovered just how far it can go, and as such, is non-plussed about labels and terminology for that reason?

RICHARD: In a word: no.

In a couple of hundred words: as he has evidentially never practised what he recently dismissed as the “glibly produced” and thus “quite unhelpful” way, manner or means on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site – namely: the actualism method (as in, consciously and with knowledge aforethought imitating the actual by enjoying and appreciating being alive/ being here each moment again, for as much as is humanly possible, until the actualism process, per favour the ‘golden clew’ pure intent, invokes an out-from-control different-way-of-being momentum conducive to going blessedly into oblivion prior to physical death, that is) – then the 1986 vintage “proto-version” of his post-1999 ‘on-going mindful action’ (as per the half-dozen quotes in Footnote № 3, of Message № 21923, from the ‘ListBot’ archives of The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list) would surely be just as it is depicted therein ... to wit: a 1986 vintage ‘on-going mindful action’, promoted as working due to it having been in use for a full thirteen years prior to finding the actualism/ actual freedom writings in late 1999, and which he gradually came to refer to over the years with the same [quote] “haietmoba” [endquote] string of letters which quite a few persons were using back then to refer to the actualism method.

*

To summarise: as there is no textual evidence with which to substantially differentiate that 1986 vintage ‘on-going mindful action’ from any other regular mindful-of-the-moment practice – as per that (misnamed) ‘mindfulness’ regimen of buddhistic mispractice which has gained traction in large swathes of many and various societies and cultures around the world (with many and various secularised off-shoots) – this further “Is it possible...” speculation of yours is self-evidently demonstrative of the proliferative nature of speculation unrestrained by the anchored-in-fact effect all valid premises have.

ANDREW: Richard makes the point of how much research he did to find a precedent of “an actual freedom from the human condition”, but not so much the actualism method itself ...

RICHARD: As there is no such “precedent” (an actual freedom from the human condition is indeed entirely new to human experience/ human history) then it follows that the way, manner or means of having that unprecedented condition come about – consciously and with knowledge aforethought imitating the actual by enjoying and appreciating being alive/ being here each moment again, for as much as is humanly possible, until the actualism process, per favour the ‘golden clew’ pure intent, invokes an out-from-control different-way-of-being momentum conducive to going blessedly into oblivion prior to physical death – is equally unprecedented.

Otherwise – and given there are untold millions upon millions of malpractitioners of the many and various ways in which that mindful-of-the-moment buddhistic mispractice is practiced (plus equally innumerable practitioners practising a secularised version thereof as well) – how come none of them ever discovered Terra Actualis?

What was it, about that naïve boy from the farm, which enabled ‘him’ to find what untold billions upon billions of peoples of any description and persuasion, in any culture and every age, never ever found (including the person you are defending through the invocation and proliferation of abstract possibilities)?

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 68]: “I think I have found perhaps why some struggle with this method. 1) unless like Vineeto and Peter you have a history of training of the attention (i.e. meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation) your control over your attention will likely not be stable enough to usefully examine feelings and beliefs”.
• [Richard]: “There is, of course, a major flaw in your thought ... to wit: the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body, back in 1981, had no history whatsoever of attention-training (as in meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation)”.

• [Respondent № 68]: “Yes, I knew that, which is why I referred to Peter and Vineeto instead. To be objective, it has not been determined that you are not a freak of nature yet. [...elision...]. I’m sure you’re aware that certain folks have highly developed aptitudes that others don’t?”
• [Richard]: “The identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body, back in 1981, had no highly developed aptitude for awareness-cum-attentiveness ... let alone to a degree that others do not.
Look, ‘he’ was just a simple boy from the farm (not at all sophisticated) and what ‘he’ set about doing, consciously and with knowledge aforethought, was to deliberately imitate the actual – as experienced six months prior in a four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) – each moment again for as far as was humanly possible ... and there is nothing freakish about that, quite prosaic, action of consciously channelling all ‘his’ affective energy into the felicitous/ innocuous feelings whilst simultaneously being conscious of the slightest diminution of such felicity/ innocuity. Indeed, as success begets success it becomes so laughably easy, to be happy and harmless, one does wonder what all the fuss is about”.

• [Respondent № 68]: “Oh I don’t doubt others can do this your way, but it seems others undoubtingly need something else”.
• [Richard]: “I can say this much: the something else which those others you refer to *do not need* is a history of attention-training (as in meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation) ... if anything *they need to unlearn/ discard* all of those tried and failed disciplines.
And unless/ until that much is crystal-clear there is no point in discussing just what the something else was, which the identity in residence circa the ‘eighties decade had in abundance, which those others you refer to may very well be in need of”. [emphases added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68d, 30 October 2005).

Have you never wondered, for instance, why the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté does not feature in dictionary listings of various forms of intimacy/ ways of being intimate?

ANDREW: ...[the actualism method itself...] which when you separate it out, has many parallels with the types of naive optimism that spawned such phrases as “if it feels good, do it”, “make love, not war”, “give peace a chance”.

RICHARD: And therein lies the rub: more than a few otherwise intelligent peoples do indeed “separate it out” (from an actual freedom itself) such as to instead practice some already extant method or modification thereof – being either too stupid to realise that doing what untold millions upon millions of practitioners have already done, without even a single success, is a totally unproductive enterprise, or being so arrogant as to think they can succeed despite untold millions upon millions of practitioners, without exception, having abjectly failed thereby – despite the way, manner or means of having such an unprecedented condition come about indubitably needing to be as unprecedented as it is.

Is it just a case of that apocryphal ‘definition’ of insanity (i.e., doing the same thing over and again, ad infinitum, yet expecting a different result) or is it something else entirely?

A primary reason to “separate it out” (from an actual freedom itself) is, of course, the arrant failure to appreciate how ground-breaking the millions of actualism/ actual freedom words actually are – as evidenced, for instance, by that egotistically-fuelled you-cannot-know-you’re-the-first fixation, which afflicted more than a few peoples upon coming across the website or, for another example, the inordinate lengths the ‘Pragmatic Dumber’ participants went to/ go to in order to incorporate gross distortions of them into their massively watered-down and westernised version of the already watered-down traditional buddhistic mispractice – as well as likewise failing to appreciate how truly epoch-changing a female replication of the ground-breaking male break-through into Terra Actualis actually is inasmuch that, for the first time in human history/ human experience, it is now possible, and demonstrably so, for man and woman to live together in peace and harmony with gladness and delight.

And here is why that replication is truly epoch-changing:

• [Richard]: “(...) man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus *the very core of civilisation itself* ...”. [emphasis added]. ~ (Message № 20095 & Message № 14341 & Message № 11502 & Message № 8630 & Message № 8137 & Message № 7578 & Message № 7531).

As the implications and ramifications of this epoch-changing replication not only directly relate back to your “make love, not war” and “give peace a chance” allusions to the idealistic 1960’s generational shake-up of the prevailing cultural ethos, of the post-World War II era, but directly impinge upon your failure to “share the opinion that there was anything special about that era” then this is an apt moment to spell-out just what the “naïve optimism” of the sixties generation (disparagingly referred to as ‘the boomers’ and the suchlike, by succeeding generations, when not latterly being called ‘old farts’) has managed to spawn.

(In case it has escaped your notice: the first settlers to take up residence in Terra Actualis are all a product of that naïvely optimistic sixties generation, as contrasted to the cynically pessimistic generations who disenchantedly succeeded them, and it remains to be seen whether the latter can successfully retrieve their long-lost naïveté or not).

To spell-it-out then: All through the ages, and throughout all cultures, one basic predicament exemplified the problem of human relationship and, thus, civilisation itself: man and woman had never been able to live together in peace and harmony – let alone with mutual gladness and delight – for the twenty-four hours of every day for the duration of their respective lives.

Each and every person currently alive, and ever alive, on this otherwise verdant and azure paradise has or had entered this world of minera, flora and fauna via the only possible way – any and all peoples both alive and now dead are or were the progeny of man and woman – and the quality of the start of life is, to a considerable degree, dependent upon the quality of the relationship between each and every person’s progenitor and progenitrix.

Any and all children can and could but blindly follow the examples – and the precepts – bequeathed, at best, with the all-too-human love and compassion of their parental providers and carers (not to mention their extended families).

Obviously, what was required was an in-depth investigation and exploration, an existential uncovering and discovering, a salutary seeking and finding, of the pitfalls and problems which have beset and tormented both genders – difficulties which were, so had it been ordained, set in concrete and indisputable – as per the hoary “you can’t change human nature” maxim.

That appalling status-quo was simply not acceptable to a handful of persons of a sufficiently naïve sensitivity.

Thus the basic premise was, and is, as simplistic as this: if man and woman cannot or could not live together with nary a bicker or a squabble – let alone a quarrel or a wrangle – then forget about street-marches, assorted ‘love-ins’ and other public-demonstrations calling for world peace because man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself.

*

Is it not high time ‘grown-ups’ began living-up to the title “mature adults” else the next generation, and those thereafter ever anon, also settle for a best which is less than the superlative best?

ANDREW: This is only a possibility, [No. 49] though, seems to have implied such in the posts quoted by Richard.

RICHARD: Not only is it not even “only a possibility” there is also no way he “seems to have implied such” (i.e., that he practiced a “proto-version” of the actualism method) in those quoted snippets, either, as that [quote] ‘on-going mindful action’ [endquote], which he promoted in that post on Saturday the 25th of November, 2000, as working because he had been using it [quote] ‘since 1986’ [endquote] cannot possibly be him implying that he practiced a proto-version of the actualism method “before Richard discovered just how far it can go” as [No. 49] not only *did not recognise* the actualism method – when critiquing Claudiu’s ‘scrolling banners’ post to Srid (albeit the Wiki version) – but he also methought-it-was-therefore-it-was quite unhelpful to glibly produce, or pronounce, what is printed on those banners as a method and, further, that in his opinion those banner words were *not describing a method at all*.

Viz.:

• [Claudiu to Srid]: Take a look at the ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ article. One banner says: “Consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is the actualism method”. The writers of that page felt it was important enough that they repeated it again, almost verbatim, in another banner: “Consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is”.
• [Respondent No. 49 to Claudiu]: “(...). To glibly produce, or pronounce, these banners as ‘a method’ is quite unhelpful, methinks because (...). IMO then, your banner words are not describing a method at all”. ~ (Message № 217xx).

Having now read those quotes – readily available for all forum subscribers to access in the ‘Yahoo Groups’ archives – do you still consider [No. 49] “seems to have implied” in those quoted snippets from Saturday the 25th of November, 2000, that he practiced a “proto-version” of the actualism method since 1986?

*

Yet there is more: due, no doubt, to [No. 49] having called them “your banner words”, in the above post, Claudiu informed him, in a follow-up email, that the words on the banners were not written by him but, presumably, by Richard because of the copyright notice to that effect. What is of interest in [No. 49]’s response is what he has to say about those words on the banners, which unambiguously spell-out what the actualism method is, now that he undeniably knows who wrote them.

As he opines how Richard wanted to emphasise that [quote] “the method” [endquote] – whatever that might be in [No. 49]’s mind – when properly applied should be enjoyable it is obvious that he still does not know what the actualism method is *despite* the scrolling banner words clearly and unambiguously stating that “consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive *is what the actualism method is*” sitting right there in front of his eyes, on his computer screen, as he types out his reply.

Viz.:

• [Claudiu to No. 49]: “It wasn’t me pronouncing these banners as a ‘method’... it says it right in the banners themselves - which, I presume, were written by Richard (the bottom of the page says ‘Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust’), but in any case were certainly not written by me. If you think it is unhelpful to pronounce ‘consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive’ as ‘a method’, then that criticism is best directed towards Richard”.
[...elided...].
• [Respondent No. 49 to Claudiu]: “[...your banner words] are not describing a method at all”.
• [Claudiu to No. 49]: “Why, then, does the banner say ‘Consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism *method* is’?” [emphasis added in original].
• [Respondent No. 49 to Claudiu]: “IMO Richard wanted to emphasise that the method properly applied should be enjoyable”.
[...elided...].
• [Claudiu to No. 49]: “This is all quite new to human history, is it not?”
• [Respondent No. 49 to Claudiu]: “Yes, ‘consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive’ is indeed all quite new. Take care!” ~ (Message № 217xx).

That last response of [No. 49]’s – agreeing that the phrase from the banners that he re-quotes right there as he types, and which clearly and unambiguously delineates just what the actualism method is, *“is indeed all quite new”* – is quite remarkable, in and of itself, given that he has purportedly been practicing precisely that for the last 30 years (since 1986).

How could you have possibly considered for even a moment – let alone typed it out and posted it online – that [No. 49] “seems to have implied” in those quoted snippets from Saturday the 25th of November, 2000, that he practiced a “proto-version” of the actualism method since 1986?

Moreover, do you see how not only is no third-party on-the-spot participant or witness needed – in order to attend to “a few possibilities that could do with the time and space to be answered” – but how no discussion between “those who were there” is required, either?

*

Whilst on the subject of those quoted snippets, in Footnote № 3, of Message № 21923 (and which came from the ‘ListBot’ archives of The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list), here are some more from those archives which will be of related interest.

First, these two extracts from my keyboard in the year 2000:

From: Richard <richard@...>
To: Actual Freedom <actualfreedom@...>
Date: Mon 14/08/2000 8:20 AM
Subject: Re: PCE’s

• [Richard] [...]. I stress that it is the pure consciousness experience (PCE) that is *one’s guiding light – one’s authority or one’s teacher* – and not me or my description of a PCE.
[...]. It is one’s destiny to be living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is.
Regards,
Richard. [emphasis added].

*

From: From: Richard <richard@...>
To: Actual Freedom <actualfreedom@...>
Date: Tue 15/08/2000 8:30 AM
Subject: Re: PCE’s

• [Richard]: (...) I stress that it is the pure consciousness experience (PCE) that is *one’s guiding light – one’s authority or one’s teacher* – and not me or my description of a PCE.
• [Gary]: Yes, with the PCE as one’s teacher, one has the very finest there is, an experience in which nothing is lacking and nothing can be added. It is already always here, awaiting discovery by those rudely bold enough to leave the Tried and True teachings of religion, ethicality, and morality behind.
• [Richard]: And, what is more, it is one’s own experience wherein believing or taking on faith the words of another plays no part whatsoever. One’s own PCE demonstrably shows what is possible. It is both *lode-stone and benchmark* … a point of reference upon which all terms of reference can be reliably and confidently sourced.
[...]. [emphases added].

And then the following post, a mere 15 emails and 23 days later, containing several references to reading, and absorbing, what is on both the website and the mailing list (with the latter freely acknowledged as being a valuable source of clarification) such as to convey the impression that the import of the highlighted portions of the above two posts would not have been overlooked.

(Also, as there was so very little traffic on the mailing list, in these early days, it is hardly likely those two posts above would not be read through, anyway, as there was so very little else to read).

Viz.:

From: [Respondent No. 49]
To: Actual Freedom <actualfreedom@...>
Date: Sat 9/09/2000 2:38 PM
Subject: [No. 49]’s anniversary rave

• [Respondent No. 49]: Hi all,
Yes I’m still reading most of what is on offer...it is now 12 months since I discovered AF. [...].
[...] I have been absorbing the reading and living my life as only “I” can while still an identity inhabiting this flesh and blood. [...].
The list still however provides a valuable source of clarification... [...]
When ‘my’ aim is to be actually free I don’t want to be dependent on a mailing list, person or anything else ... [...].
Altogether a thrilling and stimulating year with more twists and turns than an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Thanks again for the mailing list.
Cheers [No. 49]

Yet a little over four weeks later there is the following oddity (an oddity inasmuch it disregards the guiding light/ authority/ teacher/ lodestone/ benchmark attributes of the PCE and, in lieu of that impeccably-sourced certainty, ascribes a judge-and-jury rôle to the rotten-to-the-core identity vis-à-vis assessment of *the words* of those with expertise in the area of felicity and innocuity).

Viz.:

From: [Respondent No. 49]
To: Actual Freedom <actualfreedom@...>
Date: Sat 14/10/2000 3:01 PM
Subject: Sherlock Holmes methods...

• [Respondent No. 49]: [...]. ‘I’ view afresh everything that is stopping me from breaking through to a happier and more harmless moment each moment again. Certainly ‘I’ listen to the experts but *‘I’ remain the judge and jury* till the end. [...]. [emphasis added].

And, less than two weeks later, the following email (already quoted twice before on this forum) encapsulates this self-ascribed ‘ultimate-fount’ rôle with unequivocal directness.

Viz.:

From: [Respondent No. 49]
To: Actual Freedom <actualfreedom@...>
Date: Fri 27/10/2000 9:55 PM
Subject: Mindfulness not spiritual

• [Respondent No. 49]: [...]. You obviously object to the term “mindfulness”, Peter? Please...do not mistake the word for some ethical “right mind” controlled by some external authority...I am *my own highest authority* until I am actually free not enlightened. If you prefer I will use a word with which you are more comfortable?
Bye for now,
[No. 49] [emphasis added]. (see )

So, here are the two pertinent lines of text juxtaposed for ease of comparison:

• [Richard]: “...it is the PCE that is one’s guiding light – *one’s authority* or one’s teacher – and not me or my description of a PCE”.
• [Respondent No. 49]: “...I am *my own highest authority* until I am actually free not enlightened”.

And so it came to pass that it was still the case 14 years later as the following snippet evidences (with a superiority-aspiration feature highlighted as well).

Viz.:

#175xx
From: [Respondent No. 49]
To: <actualfreedom@...>
Date: 14 Aug 2014 00:30:02 -0700
Subject: Re: Justine’s recent Mails to Richard
[...].
• [Respondent No. 49]: Please remember that Richard never needed anothers words to forge his understanding of that which he identified as actual. ‘we’ must sort it all out on our own methinks....ever questioning *and possibly surpassing the master himself*. [...].
I am always indebted to all those teachers that have impacted my life in a myriad of different ways but *I was always the final arbiter and author* of my life. It was always in my hands as to what I sensibly accepted or rejected. [...]. [emphases added].

Also, a curious coincidence becomes evident, per favour all these snippets, inasmuch it just so happens that the inclusion of *benchmark* in that much further above Tue 15/08/2000 post of mine was a singular event – never repeated nor copy-pasted anywhere in any of my consequent emails [until now] – yet that very word features in more than just one of [No. 49]’s posts.

For instance:

From: [Respondent No. 49]
To: <actualfreedom@... >
Date: 23 Aug 2014 01:09:28 -0700
Subject: Re: Justine’s recent Mails to Richard
[...].
• [Claudiu [!sic! - No. 40]]: Besides, I would be a fool, if I merely believed Richard’s or anyone words.
• [Respondent No. 49]: OK...I know your no fool...this is a whole new paradigm... we pursue to experimentally discard and find ... *using haietmoba upping the bench mark as we go*.
All the very best. [emphasis and square-bracketed insertion added].

*

From: [Respondent No. 49]
To: actualfreedom@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2016 22:41:52 +1100
Subject: Re: What is the difference?

• [Respondent No. 49]: [...]. It should be remembered too, that the AF lingo, or narrative, (however well crafted), serves only to point one in the right direction, until one becomes ‘free’ (out from control) and lives expertly well. It can do no more. [...].
This can be dangerous territory, *if haietmoba is not reflectively benchmarked against ones life experiences*, in the market-place, to ascertain contemplatively and experientially what mutually works best. [...]. [emphasis added].

Thus, rather than the PCE being lodestone and benchmark – delineated as being a point of reference upon which all terms of reference can be reliably and confidently sourced (as per that singular Tue 15/08/2000 post of mine much further above) – it is his (renamed) ‘on-going mindful action’ of 1986 vintage which either ups the benchmark (whatever that means) or reflectively benchmarks against life experiences (however that mayhap) for ascertaining mutual benefit.

*

ANDREW: Here’s the thing, until the discussion happens, between those who where there, the facts are unclear.
Addendum (Message № 22134): Hi Alan, when I said “those who were there”, I wasn’t referring to the 1960’s, but rather to [No. 49] and Richard’s interactions at art college and later when Richard was enlightened.

RICHARD: Okay, for what it is worth then, my interactions with him at art-college (which, although a university in its own right, nowadays, was then but the lowly country college of a city university) were minimal at best – even though starting the three-year ‘Fine Arts’ course in the same year we majored in different subjects and thus our paths rarely crossed – as I was what was called a ‘mature-age student’ (in my mid-to-late twenties) and [No. 49] was either in his late-teens or early-twenties. Furthermore, I was a married man with a family and living in a family-household type setting whereas he was single and either living in the student’s quarters (at some stage) or rent-sharing regular accommodation with other students and the ilk. Moreover, my memory of the times is of him being a rather quiet, mild-mannered and/or reserved sort of youngster insofar as, on the few or scattered occasions of having a brief chat about matters relating to art, it was via him seeking me out rather than vice versa (as far as I recall).

Although we both graduated at the same ceremonial event – only 7 or so of the original 70+ first-year students successfully graduated at the end of the three-year full-time course – [No. 49] went on to a further year or so of ‘State School Teacher Training’ (so as to qualify to teach in Government Schools) whereas I became a practising artist, and took to living way out in the rural countryside (about an 80 kilometre or so round-trip from the Art College).

As for the enlightened years – not that I am about to provide extensive detail though – the main item of note was [No. 49] similarly illuding himself as having ‘arrived’ (i.e., to be enlightened when clearly not), circa 1990, such that I actually ceased speaking to him, literally, as yet more of my words, pointing out the incongruities, had only served to feed the illuding process as those words, too, were adjusted accordingly so as to be accommodated into the existing mind-set. Yet even such a drastic course of action as that was to no avail, either, and the wording of that further above ‘Fri 27/10/2000’ quote of his – viz.: [Respondent No. 49]: “I am my own highest authority until I am actually free *not enlightened*” [emphasis added] – is suggestive of still being illuded a decade later.

*

ANDREW: (Message № 22102). As far as I know/ remember this is the first time Richard has pointed out his concerns with [No. 49]’s way of going about actualism.

RICHARD: Well now, that is because it was the first time [No. 49] was openly dismissive of the actualism method – as depicted on the third and last scrolling banners in the ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ article – inasmuch he methought-it-was-therefore-it-was quite unhelpful to glibly produce, or pronounce, what is printed on those banners as being a method and, further, that in his opinion those banner words were not describing a method at all.

’Twas the step too far – which left me with no choice but to ‘head it off at the pass’, so to speak, lest it gather momentum through finding favour with any other entities instinctually more cunning than the norm running with it – but true to form he doubled-down, and then doubled-down again and then again, until finally being hoist with his own petard (e.g., his self-appointed ‘cult-buster’ rôle).

Just consider this for a moment: if (note ‘if’) his self-elevated “I am my own highest authority” status had not prevented him from backing-off, on that unsupportable methinks-it-is-therefore-it-is “glibly produced” & “quite unhelpful” reaction to the words on those “nifty banners scrolling across the screen” you reminded Srid of (vide: Message № 210xx), upon that reaction of his being queried by Claudiu, this particular Q&A email exchange would never have been written.

*

In finishing up, here is the salient point of this email: why did more than a few persons, upon reading the word ‘attentiveness’ and mentally substituting the word ‘mindfulness’ (as per the popular yet mistaken rendering of the Pāli ‘sati’/ the Vedic ‘smṛti’ as ‘mindful’ that is, not as in dictionaries, and thusly perpetuated throughout the secularised versions thereof), nevertheless still take that *tool for facilitating the actualism method* to be the actualism method in and of itself?

For instance (from a 2004 email exchange):

• [Respondent № 71]: “...[I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad...] feeling bad seems to be the driving force for doing various things like laundry, which I am not interested in – and the only way feeling bad goes away is by doing it ... not by seeing the silliness of it ... am I missing something here?”
• [Richard]: “Maybe an example will provide the clue: back in 1981, in the early days of starting on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition, I was standing in the kitchen of my ex-farmhouse, situated on a couple of acres of land in a remote countryside location, washing the breakfast dishes; I was not interested in washing the dishes/ I had never been interested in washing the dishes; I did not like washing the dishes/ I had never liked washing the dishes; washing the dishes was an uninteresting chore, an unlikeable task, that just had to be done (otherwise I would not be doing it/ would never had done it/ would never do it) ... and all the while the early-morning sun was streaming in through the large glass windows, in the eastern wall to my front, beckoning me, enticing me to hurry-up and get the uninteresting and unlikeable job over and done with so that I could scamper outside and get stuck into doing the interesting things I really liked doing/ wanted to do.
Howsoever, *the tool for facilitating the actualism method* – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) – had by now become a non-verbal approach to life, a wordless attitude towards being alive, and all-of-a-sudden, whilst standing there with my hands in the sink being anywhere but here, at anytime but now, *it was a delight and a joy to be doing exactly what it was I was already doing anyway* ... standing in the golden sunlight with hands immersed in delicious, tingling-to-the-touch, hot soapy water.
I find myself looking at what the hands are feeling (the hot soapy water) and become aware I have never seen hot soapy water before – have never really seen hot soapy water before – and become fascinated with *the actuality of what is happening*: it is as if the hands know what to do without any input from me; they are reaching for a plate, they are applying the scourer appropriately, they are turning the plate over, they are applying the scourer appropriately, they are lifting the cleaned plate out of the washing sink; they are dipping it into the rinsing sink; they are placing it in the rack to drip ... and all this while they are *feeling the delicious tingling sensation of hot soapy water* as it strips-away the grease and other detritus ...”. [emphases added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 71, 15 July 2004).

The reason for my ‘salient point’ query is because whether one is attentive to the fact, each moment again, that this moment of being alive/ of being here is the only moment of ever being alive/ of ever being here (and taking action accordingly), or mindful of the fact, each moment again, that this moment of being alive/ of being here is the only moment of ever being alive/ of ever being here (and taking action thereby) is largely irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is not taking that *tool for facilitating the actualism method* to be the actualism method in and of itself.

In my pre-internet days, due to it being largely irrelevant, I utilised either word – plus ‘conscious of the fact’ and ‘aware of the fact’ and ‘tuned-in to the fact’ and, maybe, even ‘awake to the fact’ and ‘alert to the fact’ as well – when explaining what helped in facilitating the way, manner or means (this is in the years before such formally became a method) whereby the resident identity enabled a paradisaical dimension to become apparent (nowadays known as the actual world). However during my early internet days (as explained in some detail, albeit in a different context, in Message № 20095), I gradually ceased using the word ‘mindful’ altogether as the all-pervasive nature of that (misnamed) buddhistic method became more and more apparent to me.

And thus was it that ‘attentiveness’ became actualism’s designator for a particular *tool for facilitating the actualism method* – as distinct from and contrasted to ‘mindfulness’ being the buddhistic method, in and of itself, even unto secularised versions – so as to further distinguish the fact of the actualism method being so totally different to anything else (or, put another way, that the buddhistic ‘mindfulness’ method is another ball-game entirely).

(Please note: once it becomes second-nature – a non-verbal attitude to life; a wordless approach to living – an intuitive awareness, as in an affective monitoring of mood and temperament, dispenses with that initial diligence and perseverance).

*

Now, and relating to the salient point of this Q&A exchange, there could be a possibility (as clearly distinct from a probability, let alone the likelihood, as the obverse is equally possible) that [No. 49] might have heard both me and my second wife interchangeably using either word circa 1986, when he first met Devika whilst a guest for a few weeks or so in the spare bedroom of our rented solid-brick apartment – or, more fittingly perhaps, circa 1990, when rent-sharing an old wooden house with the two of us, for more than a few months, along with <name withheld> (an occasional poster to this forum) and on the verandah of which he snapped that large colour photograph mentioned in Message № 21923 – and thus unthinkingly assumed, just as more than a few others have also mindlessly presumed, that this particular *tool for facilitating the actualism method* was, essentially, no different to his ‘on-going mindful action’ method of 1986 vintage, in and of itself, and thus adapted that particular *tool for facilitating the actualism method* into being that ‘on-going mindful action’ method, in and of itself, circa late-1999, which he gradually came to refer to thereafter by that [quote] “haietmoba” [endquote] string of letters.

Hence, then, that reactionary “glibly produced” & “quite unhelpful” declaration upon taking issue with the scrolling banner words which, thereby, evidenced that what he had mindlessly assumed to be the actualism method since, ostensively, late-1999 was in fact not the actualism method which has been sitting there in plain view, on The Actual Freedom Trust web site, all the while.

*

Lastly, the ‘Summary of the Entire Path’ which Claudiu posted on the 31st of October, 2013, in Message № 15710 is well worth reading (or re-reading if applicable) as it lays out how he came to realise just what the actualism method actually is – as distinct from the tools (i.e., ‘techniques’ a.k.a. ‘technics’ or ‘techs’) for facilitating the actualism method – in a fresh, newly-discovered kind of way.

Regards,
Richard.