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(List D refers to Richard’s List D
Vineeto’s Correspondence with Chrono on Discuss Actualism Forum
CHRONO: I’ve been away for a while as my mood had temporarily dipped a good amount from before. I don’t want to entirely blame it on this but I had also taken a vitamin/ supplement which seemed to have affected my mood a good amount. But it has levelled out after I stopped it. There was a good period of time where I was almost overflowing with feeling good and at one point I fell into a feeling of “let me make sure that there’s nothing I’m missing out on” and I pulled back into old ways. There was a clear cut moment where it seemed like I could make a decision to feel good forever. Like there was nothing on the horizon but sweetness. This is rather embarrassing writing this but it did follow a period of frustration, falling back into previous feeling patterns of cynicism and grimness (Yet with a constant background feeling of ‘I’m playing pretend’). My aim now is to get back to that overflowing feeling good again. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, This is interesting – in all the ups and downs of feelings, as they tend to be, there was an awareness in the background that “I’m playing pretend”. This is an excellent anchoring point because you can become increasingly aware, and attentive to, that you don’t have to be those vacillating feelings, but choose to be felicitous as in the memory of “sweetness” after your (almost) “decision to feel good forever”. It’s natural that ‘I’ will put up a fight in order to remain in the “old ways” but you have experienced the alternative now and you can experience it again whenever that ‘pretend-game’ loses the emotional pull. It is always available as a choice, whenever you want it. * VINEETO: This is an excellent insight and others have reported great success with allowing the feeling to be felt closer and closer until it becomes obvious that ‘I’ am my feeling and this feeling is ‘me’. Then it is really simple. When ‘I’ am no longer divided, ‘me’ fighting against ‘me’, when I truly become a friend to myself, then naiveté is possible. CHRONO: Yes this essentially is what allowed me to get back to feeling good. When ‘I’ am not fighting ‘my’ self, that absence of conflict automatically dissolves into feeling good. It’s a matter of habituating this more. It seems conflict is also ‘my’ essential nature and I am going against what is “natural”. What I was “missing out” on is nothing but conflict. Another aspect of not fighting myself is that I also feel closer to ‘me’. And I automatically find me liking myself. VINEETO: It takes courage and determination but it is also quite delicious to follow your path of being happy and harmless, and as such go “against what is ‘natural’”. And the reward is that you become autonomous and increasingly confident in this “decision to feel good forever” being where you want to be – as the “sweetness” you described confirms. Yesterday I found this paragraph in Richard’s articles that might be helpful –
* VINEETO: It is not that there is a naïve part – when one is naïve this is all of ‘me’. When ‘I’ am resentful and embrace it, this is ‘me’ – and in that moment I have the choice to be naïvely enjoying that I am no longer fighting with myself. There is no point in cutting oneself into various pizza pieces and trying to fight/ hide certain pieces but embrace others. All your feelings are ‘you’ and all can become allies in the grand game of moving towards ‘self’-immolation. CHRONO: Ah this actually makes it much simpler. It was another way I was complicating the matter. Basically it is something like going into ‘myself’ to unite all of ‘me’. But ‘I’ am being all of ‘me’ each moment. The underlying assumption that had been still surviving in that way of operating is that there really is ‘another place’ and ‘another time’. This “assumption” perhaps is even the essence of ‘my’ being. It’s like ‘I’ spend an inordinate amount of time keeping up the edifice of ‘me’. VINEETO: What you call “‘another place’ and ‘another time’” is actuality in contrast to the real world. In a PCE you know experientially that you are in “another place”, a magical place where everything is already perfect. But when not in a PCE, these ever-changing feelings are what you naturally are – inborn and inherited as blind nature’s survival package. It’s not personal, and when you become attentive you recognize that you don’t need to reject or embrace them, or dissociate from them – it is all ‘you’. So when you are not busy fighting or defending what you feel, you can direct this affective energy towards the felicitous feelings and towards sensuousness, enjoyment and appreciation. It’s the same energy and in principle it is really very simple –
* CHRONO: I had been wondering how this flesh and blood body experiences the world. Just a
background thought that comes and goes sometimes. I was washing dishes (this seems to happen during washing dishes for some reason) and I felt the
soap foam on my hands along with the warm water and it suddenly hit me that it is this body experiencing that sensation. It is neither a thought or a
feeling. The direct experiencing of it is the flesh and blood body’s experience. It subsequently also occurred to me that this occurs right here and
right now and is perpetually happening. I’m blocking it by thinking and feeling about it. That direct experience conveyed to me more than any
thinking about it could. With ‘me’, ‘I’ am trying to outline a coherent whole ‘reality’ but when I experienced the direct sensation it was
as if there was only the experiencing of that. VINEETO: Wonderful, bingo! Your senses inform you that you are here, that you are alive and this is “neither a thought or a feeling”. Isn’t it wonderful to have confirmation by your very own experience and increasing confidence in what you are aiming for. One of my favourite quotes of a ‘peak experience’ (during Richard’s eighth year of enlightenment) –
CHRONO: I have often experienced this “another place” and “another time” as if being at the periphery or almost at the corner of my eye. Like a ‘so close yet so far’ feeling. I experience it most often in the morning and I usually attribute it to not being able to “play” as I did when I was a kid. I am being reminded of how the world was a full playground back then. There’s that melancholic feeling filled also with a loneliness because it also feels like I’m in a world filled with grim adults as well (which identities also help keep this feeling in place). It’s like I am being grim as well because they are conveying thru their feelings that that is what you’re supposed to do. So by going my own way, I’d be having fun by myself (or so the feeling conveys). I’m reminded of where Richard writes that the root cause of sorrow is due to ‘me’ being locked out of the actual world. Relatedly, I had this realization a few days ago that all communication between identities seems to be happening thru vibes and currents. It was like the words and behaviors were just accessories and didn’t ultimately matter. The whole point was to transmit ‘me’ to other ‘me’. Which transmitting is to show that ‘I’ exist. It’s like everyone is vying to show that they exist. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, Having come to this point where you, “most often in the morning”, experience “this ‘another place’ and ‘another time’ as if being at the periphery or almost at the corner of my eye”, isn’t it time to gather the courage and allow this “periphery” to come closer and closer, and to allow this “another place” to become here and this “another time” to be now, rather than circling forever around the mulberry bush with oh so familiar feelings of “loneliness”, melancholy and nostalgia. There is an actual world, right under your nose, if only you dare to step into it. You can play like a kid (with adult sensibilities now) if only you allow yourself to do so. * CHRONO: I have this desire to live it 24/7 but simultaneously when confronted with that permanence it gives me a melancholic feeling again that ‘I’ have to die for it. And perhaps that’s a way for ‘me’ to stay in existence. The objection sometimes also changes to ‘I have to protect this body’. And perhaps I feel that the most to my core. I especially feel it when confronted with aggressive vibes at work or even in the news. Now that I am thinking more as I am writing this, I think my approach may be the problem. I didn’t experience this when I was overflowing with feeling good and delight. But with all that said, I am feeling better now than I did prior. VINEETO: Can you see how you change the topic from daring to be playful and naïve now into “live it 24/7” and then “that ‘I’ have to die for it”? You divert to another set of feelings which, when you follow this lead, will prevent you to take the first step to feeling good now and to allow this playfulness and naiveté now, which in the mornings seems so close, and let it fade away back to the grim world of adults. It is your choice and you are the one who has to make that choice and then act on it. Of course, there are all these bittersweet and/or apprehensive feelings to lure you away but you explored them all well enough and know for certain that they lead to more of the same. So why not decline those affective arbiters of procrastination (it’s called nipping them in the bud) and dare to feel good, dare to play, dare to be naïve, each day again … and dare to allow a PCE? If others can do it, as the reports from the convivium
Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom
Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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