Please note that the reports below were written by Kuba while he was living an out-from-under-control virtual freedom. ## Kuba’s Reports on living an Out-from-control Virtual Freedom Editor’s note: to properly set the stage, the first entries presented here are those shortly preceding the onset of an out-from-control virtual freedom. Editor’s note: The reports and correspondences herein were compiled and published with permission by Claudiu while living an out-from-under-control virtual freedom. Claudiu’s reports can be accessed here: claudiu: Vineeto and I were wanting to add your reports of being out-from-control to the new section on the AFT site… what do you think, do we have your permission to do it? You really do write very well about it! kuba: Yes definitely you have my permission, with delight Kuba, Message to Claudiu, 16 September 2024 July 01, 2024, 6:14 PM BST claudiu: Life is funny The main doubt I have about whether what I am experiencing can be called out-from-control virtual freedom is due to the following: [… snip quote …] That is, I wouldn’t say I am consistently feeling excellent per se, as I have been feeling much fear which is not pleasant by the nature of what fear is. [… snip details …] What is certainly true is that despite feeling often-intense fear, I would say there is indeed a background awareness of the purity of the universe, which informs me that everything is actually entirely well in the world. […] Claudiu, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 1 July 2024 kuba: This is interesting, what you describe is exactly in line with what I have been experiencing for a while now, in varying degrees. It’s like I will enter this ‘mode’ where I phase in and out of excellence for a few days, when in this mode it seems effortless to allow perfection as soon as I orient myself towards it, but then it’s not 24/7, because even when in that mode I will retreat back into normal for a few hours, when back in normal mode there is very clearly something missing, even when things are ok, that dynamic/magical aspect is not present. But then when back to excellence, I also find that the only objection I can reduce it all down to is that I am resisting perfection. It’s an interesting one, how to proceed from this place. Whether it is simply about acclimatising oneself to perfection more and more. I suppose even when squarely back to normal this might be an opportunity to review some of the last objections that ‘I’ have as an identity. The way I experienced it is like a yo-yo, with ‘me’ as the yo-yo. ‘I’ swing from one side which is squarely in the old paradigm, where ‘I’ as the ‘doer’ am in control etc, then all of a sudden ‘I’ swing to the other side where now the ‘doer’ is out of the way and the ‘beer’ exists in a completely new paradigm. This new paradigm is dynamic and perfection saturates ‘my’ experience, but still there are other ‘issues’ at hand. Namely overcoming this inherent resistance to allowing perfection more and more, and also remaining in that place indefinitely. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 1 July 2024 July 03, 2024, 12:44 PM BST kuba: So lately I have been having these relatively frequent flashes of perfection, they always serve as a reminder of what is possible and where I am now in relation to that. A few times recently it happened when I was playing Elden ring, for those who know it’s a pretty difficult game and it can get somewhat tense at times, albeit in a very fun and stimulating way. But nevertheless that undercurrent of stress or tension to whatever degree gets in the way of the possible enjoyment and appreciation. And so a few times I experienced this flip, from this fun but slightly tense ambience to one of utter perfection. Then the game is just as difficult, but there is only enjoyment and appreciation at the fact that I get to do it all in the first place. All of sudden nothing matters in the long term, “will that boss kill me and I loose all my runes?” this no longer matters because it is the magical quality of being here in the first place and doing this business called being alive which is precious beyond compare. When these flashes happen they serve exactly as reminders, it’s like the universe is going “look you have got yourself into a dead-end again, stressing over ‘what will happen’ when this perfection is all there is”. And I notice it is the same with everything else, I was just studying some BJJ material and the same procedure went on, ‘I’ got all wrapped up in this quest, still fun, still exciting, but some kind of an undercurrent of stress there. And it’s almost like I don’t realise this undercurrent is there until it is removed completely, then all of a sudden the slate is wiped clean and I am here, having a magical time learning how to choke someone with this new technique. There is no stress, no concern about ‘what will be’, no need to control anything in relation to some ‘big picture’. And I find I am just as effective at carrying out whatever quest is in front of me, but now there is only enjoyment and appreciation left at getting to do it in the first place. And it seems it is all related to no longer having a need for this ‘big picture’. This is what allows such enjoyment and appreciation, it is delighting with gay abandon, like Richard wrote – no longer saving myself for some special time or place. It seems the ‘big picture’ is the realm where ‘I’ play out ‘my’ fears and battle for ‘my’ security, and so ‘I’ can never fully enjoy and appreciate being here now. It’s interesting because as much as the experience of perfection is just as fresh and delightful every time, it has now gone from a ‘wow’ to an ‘of course’. As in of course everything is perfect, of course I know this, of course I am this body, of course ‘I’ am but a phantom. I went to the shops this morning to buy some tobacco and walking back to the car ‘my’ very core faded back for some time, again it was utterly delightful but there was this ‘of course’ more than the ‘wow’ dominating the scene. It was a very smooth and stable experience, it was the simple joy of being a body, unencumbered by any ‘being’ inside. Then from that position of being utterly unencumbered anything and everything could be delighted in, non-stop. Rather than some blissful state it is a freedom to delight, as in now that the shackles are off I am free to delight. It is such a silent contentment also, not something that I would need to shout from the rooftops, but rather this perennial contentment at being alive. Driving home I was still very much in a magical land but with ‘me’ kind of phasing in and out. I remember looking around at the colours, it has been raining here recently and the grass near the road was such a deep and lush green, it was like the whole world was an oil painting. But again there was this sense of ‘of course’, as in of course only the sensate world genuinely exists, of course all of this is actually here. It is so funny that now this seesaw is constantly going, I’m constantly zipping from ‘you gotta stress about the big picture!’ to ‘oh man there is only enjoyment and appreciation left’. It’s like an instant shift where what ultimately matters shifts from that which is ‘out there’ to that which is immediate. The funny bit is that they are both kind of fighting it out for primacy. There is this pull towards investing in something ‘out there’, some thing which promises eternity, and then there is the pull into a world where the immediate is the ultimate. It’s like a battle between instinctual security seeking on one hand and delighting with gay abandon on the other. So the question seems simple and right in front of me. Do ‘I’ allow this body to delight with gay abandon, to only enjoy and appreciate this magical world OR do ‘I’ choose to continue carrying the burden of ‘being’ and for what? What objection do ‘I’ still have which keeps ‘me’ carrying the burden? Like Claudiu wrote, where I am experiencing from right now the only objection seems that it feels dangerous to proceed into perfection, it is not a specific thing but rather the very force of ‘my’ being. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 July 03, 2024, 1:39 PM BST kuba: What seems different lately is that I seem to have a very good grasp of the nature of what I am going for. This is somewhat entailed in this ‘of course’ sense in which actuality is being glanced. It seems very obvious now, things are coming together experientially. As in I understand what being an identity is all about and I also have a clear grasp of what it means to exist as a body only. There is this sensate world which actually exists and in which this body exists and there is the world of calenture that ‘I’ exist in. The distance which needs to be bridged is so minuscule, in fact it does not actually exist at all. Actuality is all that exists and it is not so weird either, as in it could not be any other way, hence when ‘I’ fade back there is this sense of ‘of course’. Just past this thin veil of ‘me’ is this enormous stillness, like a hush that is all around, and everything exists within/is supported by this stillness. ‘I’ resist the movement into this stillness because in there there is no longer any space for ‘me’, ‘I’ no longer have agency in that place. Allowing this body to exist in actuality means ‘I’ relinquish any control/agency. I think part of the problem is that ‘I’ confuse agency for will. As in ‘I’ feel that once ‘I’ relinquish control there will be some kind of a zombie left behind. Like this body will become a leaf blowing in the wind, so ‘I’ desperately try to remain in control, to steer it towards safety it seems? It’s like once ‘I’ take ‘my’ foot off the break pedal there will be a motion that ‘I’ am no longer able to control, which is to say life will live itself. It does feel like boarding on a train that continues to speed up and cannot ever be slowed down again. Yet a lack of agency does not mean absence of will, life living itself does not mean life living itself blindly. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 July 03, 2024, 3:43 PM BST kuba: Like Claudiu wrote, where I am experiencing from right now the only objection seems that it feels dangerous to proceed into perfection, it is not a specific thing but rather the very force of ‘my’ being. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 claudiu: I’d put it like this. You don’t have to proceed any further than that point in order to stabilize being at that point. You may be doing what I was doing which is to try to go forward and self-immolate from that point, then fail or shrink back and go back to normal. The reason it doesn’t work is you aren’t yet comfortable enough to proceed past that point. But you don’t have to! You’re already comfortable enough to reach that point. So my advice to you is to go back to that point and then commit to staying there. Don’t try to go any further for now, just explore and see if it is safe to stay precisely there. I started to do this shortly before I went out-from-control and I found it very easy to do. You already have everything you need to be able to do it. Then you will have the luxury of always being at least at that point and you can more freely and easily explore things from there. Claudiu, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 kuba: Ah yes that is great advice, because this is exactly what I have been doing, as soon as I get to that point I’m screaming “ok now, you gotta do it now!” Haha. So this is something that I was considering a while ago, to get to a point where I can be in that ‘inbetween place’ more or less all the time. And by ‘inbetween place’ I mean this dynamic state where ‘I’ am no longer in stark reality and yet it is not all the way through to actuality either, it’s like I am on the cusp of actuality at all times, it’s all around and yet there is this tiniest/flimsiest bit in the way. So the goal would be to accustom myself to remain there, that seems doable. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 July 03, 2024, 3:56 PM BST kuba: And remaining in that ‘inbetween place’ is the same as saying allowing pure intent to dynamically work. Which once committed to fully becomes an out from control virtual freedom. So first accustom and then dare to commit fully. Claudiu man I’m gonna be nipping at your heels soon! Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 July 07, 2024, 8:10 AM BST claudiu: So my advice to you is to go back to that point and then commit to staying there. Don’t try to go any further for now, just explore and see if it is safe to stay precisely there. Claudiu, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 3 July 2024 kuba: So this is what I have been doing and this is what has been happening I woke up this morning and realised that I spent most of yesterday aware of this magical quality that is all around (in varying degrees) and then I was delighted to wake up this morning with this quality still all around. Last night before going to bed I briefly dipped back into ‘normal’ but upon realising it I was able to simply steer the course back towards the magical aspect. There is something that I was contemplating yesterday which has been helping me to remain in this magical place, it relates to the realisation that I am already not in control. The way I experience it is that this game of control is as if I am holding a bunch of sand and letting it slip through the hands. Now even if I knew the exact number of grains contained to begin with and the number slipping away, the very second ‘I’ go to announce how many remain, the number has already shifted. I find life is the same, as in there is this infinite number of infinitely intricate cogs which are constantly turning. And here ‘I’ am announcing a plan, ‘I’ am taking a snapshot of life and from this snapshot planning out what will happen in the next moment. And of course this never works as ‘I’ am out of time. The outcome is some desperate game of trying to make life fit ‘my’ demands, a game that is ultimately always painful. Seeing this fully ‘I’ can no longer justify remaining in control, then there is just this wondrous awareness of life as it happens now. It seems now it is about committing to remaining in this place come what may OR returning immediately the second ‘I’ go back to ‘my’ old ways. But this is getting easier and easier because why would I want to go ‘back there’, it is painful and it is mad ‘back there’, and here all is magical. Yesterday I was doing my hen party jobs all day, now those have always been notoriously difficult with regards to not going back into ‘my’ shell. It’s things like – I am technically at work, that I am going to meet strangers, that I cannot predict what the group will be like, that I am having to provide a performance, that I am naked in front of a bunch of women! ? etc. So many variables that would scream for ‘me’ to retain control. But yesterday I was able to remain in this magical place whilst doing the jobs, this is something quite new for me. And so now I have the confidence that if I could do it then, I can do it come what may. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 7 July 2024 July 08, 2024, 1:51 PM BST claudiu: On July 2nd I had quite the initially-disorienting experiential realization. I was sitting at my desk at work, allowing the purity of actuality to manifest in all its wondrous magicality, and as I got further into it, I perceived more and more the core of ‘me’, and as it went deeper, I saw that at ‘my’ very core was… a core and essential “hopelessness”! An utter hopelessness that nothing will ever truly work out, an intrinsic fatalism, a woven-in defeatism. I was shocked to find it there, and together with seeing it there *I also saw that it was simply not needed anymore* […] Claudiu, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 7 July 2024 kuba: This has also been my experience with some of the last dramas which have been tying ‘me’ together. They are still there to some degree but somehow they have lost their sting. For example this morning with it being Monday I woke up with some of that familiar feeling of resentment around work. But there was 2 important differences. One was that I have already committed to no longer going back to ‘normal’ and the second was that this drama was merely a shadow of its former self because of the perfection and purity that is accessible all around. It’s like the perfection and purity, once committed to, makes the rest ‘my’ dramas redundant. So it seems then it is a case of allowing ‘myself’ to continue being unraveled in this way. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 8 July 2024 July 08, 2024, 2:05 PM BST kuba: Actually it’s interesting to contemplate what it means to go back to ‘normal’. I can experientially tell the difference very easily, it is very clear that when back to ‘normal’ I am in some kind of a ‘cell’ of ‘my’ own making, the very structure of the ‘cell’ is what creates the unbearable feeling of separation that epitomises being a ‘self’. But when allowing perfection and purity it’s as if those boundaries of the ‘cell’ have disappeared and now ‘I’ am still here, situated still in the ‘centre’ but all around is perfection and purity. Which means that ‘I’ am being actively worked on by this perfection and purity, like ‘I’ have allowed it to peek through into ‘my’ core. When I consider this it makes sense to me what an out from control virtual freedom is about, it is the abeyance of the ‘doer’ (that very ‘cell’) and now the ‘beer’ (the remaining ‘centre’) is left freely exposed for the perfection and purity to dynamically do it’s thing. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 8 July 2024 July 14, 2024, 3:06 PM BST Torch bearer james: Vineeto, I can now say that I have no more malice toward you. I am glad that you are carrying on Richard’s torch. James, DAO: Torch bearer, 13 July 2024 vineeto: Hi James, This is excellent and it looks like I received a new title next to my name So now that you succeeded in getting rid of an old objection by seeing that it is silly, you can use this same technique to put aside any objection that interfere with you enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive as in – richard: Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is […] [Respondent]: *Richard, how long do you think will it take before it becomes automatic to have the question running?* [Richard]: About as long as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. [Respondent]: *Richard, how long do you think will it take before it becomes automatic to have the question running?* [Richard]: About as long as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. Richard, This Moment of Being Alive vineeto: For instance, where you say – james: Objections to becoming af (continued): I am too old now. Struggling with skeletal pain and low energy. My time has passed. James, DAO: James’ Journal, 28 June 2024 vineeto: In this instance, rather than continue to object to the pain, you realize that time is of the essence, hence it is even more important that you don’t waste this moment of being alive with feeling bad but recognize that this is silly. You proceed to *actualize* this insight and get back to enjoying *and* appreciating this moment and voilà you are back to feeling good. You can also acknowledge and realize the fact that pain is part of being alive, especially when getting older. You take care with what is medically possible, but even more importantly, you stop objecting to having pain simply because it is useless and therefore silly to do so. You will also be surprised how much the feeling of pain is reduced when you no longer object to it. Miguel only recently confirmed this to you. As a feeling being ‘Vineeto’ has experienced this time and time again and nowadays any pain that occurs is simply something going on in the background which does not interfere with thoroughly enjoying and appreciating being here. It will take a commitment to continue feel good each moment again, in order to break the old and familiar habit of finding things to complain about and object to – human are creatures of habit and it will need some determination and perspicacity to break such habits. As Richard was sometimes fond of saying “illegitimi non carborundum”. However, I am confident that with the awareness that time is of the essence you can succeed. Cheers Vineeto Vineeto, DAO: Torch bearer, 14 July 2024 kuba: Vineeto, I read your reply to James whilst bearing in mind that what you are describing (the Actualism method) is something completely new, as in it is not some re-arrangement of the ‘tried and true’ ways, and it clicked. It starts with the realisation that this moment which is happening now is my only moment of being alive, and it is never not this moment, furthermore it’s the realisation that this moment is actually happening, this business called being alive is actually taking place now. So bearing the above in mind it is always silly to feel bad because of X, because I am wasting a precious opportunity to enjoy and appreciate life now, and as it is never any other time than now, I am wasting this precious opportunity for nothing. Kuba, DAO: Torch bearer, 14 July 2024 July 14, 2024, 3:17 PM BST kuba: Actually considering this further there is also something to the fact that I am wasting this moment of being alive *which is of a finite supply* that highlights the silliness of feeling bad and also just how precious this moment of being alive is. This is interesting to contemplate in light of mortality, I remember Richard writing that he would not change 1 little bit about this universe. Is it that mortality (a limited supply of time that one can experience being alive) is a key component to this precious aspect? Kuba, DAO: Torch bearer, 14 July 2024 July 14, 2024, 3:41 PM BST kuba: I guess it is somewhat funny that ‘I’ can feel resentful towards this universe for the fact of mortality, for not ‘getting enough time’ and yet ‘I’ am busy wasting each moment anyways. Furthermore it is this fact of mortality which makes life precious anyways, so what is it that ‘I’ am asking for? An eternity to suffer? I find this whole thing quite fascinating, what is kind of hanging in front of me now is – is it that mortality is actually a gift and not a curse? Is it that a benevolent universe is set up exactly in this way as to provide intrinsic meaning to being alive, including this crucial component of mortality? Kuba, DAO: Torch bearer, 14 July 2024 July 15, 2024, 12:00 PM BST Torch bearer vineeto: In other words, although it may sound strange – *mortality is a precondition for something being alive* (else it would be static). It is an intrinsic part and parcel of this universe being perfect, you cannot separate it out. Vineeto, DAO: Torch bearer, 15 July 2024 kuba: Ah yes this makes complete sense! When I read this it clicked in such an obvious, in my face kind of way, as in of course it couldn’t be any other way. It is very freeing to see the full picture in this way because then it is no longer possible to have any resentment towards this universe. Then all the affective energy that was previously spent on resentment can be turned in towards enjoyment and appreciation, and then further into wonder and amazement, until all starts to become magical, and this is exactly what has been happening this morning. Kuba, DAO: Torch bearer, 15 July 2024 July 19, 2024, 10:38 AM BST This moment has no duration jonnypitt: Maybe the primary objection to self immolation is not being sure whether one wants to be by oneself in a fantastical place that isn’t real vs being among others in a place that is real. […] Jonathan, DAO: This moment has no duration, 19 July 2024 vineeto: Ha, what a brilliant cynical put-down of an actual freedom from the human condition, by someone who likes bluffing, because in reality he is afraid to leave his seemingly safe cage when the doors are wide open, and he could instead enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive. […] Vineeto, DAO: This moment has no duration, 19 July 2024 kuba: Something clicked here that I keep coming back to, that *the doors are already wide open*, with that magical wonderland right at the fingertips. It’s as if the belief that ‘you can’t change human nature’ has it that the cage is locked, and the key has been thrown out. Editor’s note: Viz.: But this is not so, it is just that in order to step out of the cage ‘I’ have to leave ‘myself’ behind, and ‘I’ remain in the cage (the doorless cage mind you) because of the safety that it seemingly offers. This ‘safety that it seemingly offers’ is expressed as those last remaining objections which ‘I’ have, those last few dramas that constitute ‘me’. What I am wondering is whether it is about first going after those last few dramas until they too dissolve or do ‘I’ simply proceed to step out of the cage now, with the dissolution of those last dramas coinciding with the dissolution of ‘me’, it seems it is about the latter. I am reminded of what you wrote here – vineeto: On Monday evening the fourth of January 2010, I knew I was running out of time. We expected a guest for the next day and I didn’t want to wait until we three were on our own again. I consequently sat on the toilet taking a few minutes longer than usual to gather any scattered bits of intent that were missing to make up the 100% I needed – I pulled out all the stops. When I returned to the living room a dynamic and quite frivolous interaction developed and *in that uninhibited hilarious atmosphere I blew the last remaining cobwebs of seriousness, cautiousness and social correctness out of the corners of my psyche.* {emphasis added} It was all very casual, jovial and funny, unrehearsed and spontaneous and I became confident that this is how I wanted to live my life forever. I heard myself saying to Richard that ‘We’ve got all the time in the world’ and when I contemplated on the sentence that had just slipped out, time suddenly stood still. I stopped in mid-sentence and the ensuing silence caught the attention of my two companions. It was all over, in an instant. Vineeto, Excerpts of All-Pervading Sweetness, 11 June 2012 kuba: Those ‘last remaining cobwebs’ is exactly how I would describe those remaining dramas, it seems ‘I’ am only holding onto what’s left of them in order to block the momentum that would otherwise follow. This is the tricky part, proceeding without knowing with certainty what the destination is like, it’s stepping into the unknowable. It seems ‘I’ am instead searching for 100% certainty before ‘I’ dare to step out of the cage, which is of course an impossibility as this can only be had upon actual freedom. Kuba, DAO: This moment has no duration, 19 July 2024 July 21, 2024, 9:44 AM WEST vineeto: Hi Kuba, Your post reminds me of one that you wrote only 11 days ago and Claudiu’s follow-up reply. kuba: When I consider this it makes sense to me what an out from control virtual freedom is about, it is the abeyance of the ‘doer’ (that very ‘cell’) and now the ‘beer’ (the remaining ‘centre’) is left freely exposed for the perfection and purity to dynamically do it’s thing. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 8 July 2024 claudiu: It is very freeing in a way. Before, I would need to maintain an EE to some degree, and in a sense there was sort of a restriction of just what I could look at, as the EE would fade if I rocked the boat too much. But now the boat is stable and it seems like I can freely explore anything and everything with this reliable rock-solid foundation of purity that remains unshakeable regardless. Thus I can freely explore the depths of ‘me’ without any fear or concern that the out-from-controlness will fade. Claudiu, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 8 July 2024 vineeto: It seems as if in the meantime this possible in-between step between ‘normal’ and actually free has slipped your mind? […] Vineeto, DAO: This moment has no duration, 19 July 2024 kuba: Yes thank you Vineeto it seems you stopped me right in the tracks of a habit of mine – of hanging back in the ‘normal’ and from there trying to throw some kind of a Hail Mary towards actual freedom. It never works because the distance is too great and from that ‘normal’ place ‘I’ am not advised by the perfection and purity, instead ‘I’ resort to theories. It’s like ‘I’ am hanging out in the cage (with the doors wide open) whilst coming up with the next ‘great escape plan’ . It is becoming clear to me that going out-from-control is the next step, in fact I have been hanging out on the edge of this decision for a long time. Now is a great time to do it, with Claudiu having already gone ahead and done it anyways, which I am full of admiration for. What I have been doing is setting the intent to continue allowing the perfection and purity each moment again come what may, committing to having that golden clew active at all times, with each instance of the connection being severed being treated as a flashing red light in the same way I would with a diminution into feeling bad. It is exhilarating to commit in such a way, this is going further than I would usually allow myself to, and some more, the rewards are certainly worth the effort though. Last night I was watching a random YouTube video which was showing the latest high resolution pictures of mars and comparing it with earth. Usually watching astronomy videos ‘I’ feel somewhat alien, alone, small, in danger etc. Essentially there is that backdrop of the existential angst of being a ‘self’. This time it was different, I saw that there is no outside to this universe, that I as this body am not separate from it, and then looking at the pictures of the earth I was able to fully appreciate the wonder and magic of it all. That this enormous and infinitely complex universe even exists in the first place, and further that it has arranged itself into the azure planet called earth, and further that this planet is teeming with life, and further that from all of this a thinking and reflective creature was born, and further that as this creature the universe is able to experience itself – WOW. I realise that all of the above is this body’s and every body’s birthright, and this brings a depth to the words “fellow human being” which I can’t quite put into words. Kuba, DAO: This moment has no duration, 21 July 2024 July 21, 2024, 6:51 PM WEST kuba: This time it was different, I saw that there is no outside to this universe, that I as this body am not separate from it, and then looking at the pictures of the earth I was able to fully appreciate the wonder and magic of it all. That this enormous and infinitely complex universe even exists in the first place, and further that it has arranged itself into the azure planet called earth, and further that this planet is teeming with life, and further that from all of this a thinking and reflective creature was born, and further that as this creature the universe is able to experience itself – WOW. I realise that all of the above is this body’s and every body’s birthright, and this brings a depth to the words “fellow human being” which I can’t quite put into words. Kuba, DAO: This moment has no duration, 21 July 2024 vineeto: This is so excellent to read, I had to interrupt because tears of appreciation were running down my face […] Vineeto, DAO: This moment has no duration, 19 July 2024 kuba: And this is excellent to read too because that experience (of actuality being human kind’s birthright) although temporary for me, was of something so very precious, to have confirmation that what I glimpsed is your ongoing experience and furthermore that it is the correct target, is great. Kuba, DAO: This moment has no duration, 21 July 2024 July 23, 2024, 2:13 PM BST kuba: So things are getting pretty incredible lately, I have been thinking how to summarise where I am finding myself and Peter’s description in the ‘actualist guide’ fits pretty well: peter: This latter stage of Virtual Freedom is epitomized by the increasingly free operation of common sense and the diminishing of all of the instinctual passions, both the savage and the tender. One’s awareness becomes increasingly bare of the common neurosis of ‘self’-centred thinking, and apperception is able to freely operate unimpeded by the usual input of chemicals that produce the instinctual passions and emotional reactions. One’s physical senses are freed of the instinctual burden of being constantly on-guard and more and more sensual delight becomes abundantly apparent. Having none of the instinctual drives operating and traditional values and meanings to hang on to can be quite discerning, to say the least, and a learning or accustomizing period is necessary for this new way of living. As the immensity of Actual Freedom becomes apparent it becomes obvious that what one is doing is preparing the ground for the final step – reducing the gap and ‘testing the water’, so to speak, as one lives increasingly naked of any psychic protection. Another stunning aspect of this period is that one is clearly able to see the psychic world in operation – the usual game of psychic attack and defence, blame and forgiveness, remorse and revenge, etc. that is constantly played out between all human beings. All sorts of explorations can be made into this world depending upon one’s predilections. Peter, An Actualist’s Guide for the Wide and Wondrous Path kuba: As I write this now there is this incredibly juicy sensate world all around, the past and the future are virtually gone, without the emotional backing they cannot hold sway. I find I am able to explore various aspects of the instinctual programming with a clarity that I did not have before, it’s as if the human condition is all out in the open around me, I am able to sensibly observe it and contemplate it with a fascinated attention. There is still a quality of things waxing and waning though, I find I can broadly categorise 3 states I find ‘myself’ in: Is best described by what Devika wrote in Richard’s Journal, that ‘my’ state of ‘being’ is virtually comparable to the ambience of the PCE. This is the cutting edge of things and it’s very incredible. Is when I find that there is still perfection and purity all around but I can locate ‘myself’ palpably in the centre as a ball of affect. This is not quite a flashing red light yet because pure intent is still dynamically working away. Is when I find that the emotion has infiltrated ‘my’ experience to such an extent where the ‘self’ centred-thinking is dominating, where the past and the future hold sway once more, where ‘I’ am trying to regain control – This is certainly a flashing red light and the goal has been to get out of that dead end ASAP. It is simple on one hand because all it takes is to continue allowing the perfection and purity, but at the same time this takes a certain amount of daring, over and over and then some more. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 23 July 2024 July 25, 2024, 11:10 AM BST vineeto [to James]: […] Then you check if you enjoy *and* appreciate each moment of being alive, because the latter is the key to both increasing your enjoyment and consequently your appreciation of being alive. To understand the word appreciation you can look at its opposite – depreciation = devaluation, cheapening, reduction in value, disparage. Hence appreciation means assessing of the true worth or value of persons or things and thus adding value, enriching, encouraging (the expansion of your value assessment), highly regarding, cherishing, marvelling. Appreciation is the very key to *exponentially* increase the level of your enjoyment, expand it in scope and depth, so that you are able to see more and more how the universe is happening with wondrous perfection in all the various, minute and large, details of life and matter. Encouraging naiveté is an essential ingredient to marvelling, delight and wonderment. Vineeto, DAO: James’ Journal, 24 July 2024 emp: Thank you for this timely reminder Vineeto. I probably mistranslated “appreciate” to a more anemic word in my mind and then proceeded to run with it for a good 15 years. It took me until about a month ago to realize that it’s anything but anemic. It’s funny how this understanding has leaked through lately even though I’ve been bad at actively engaging it (down to getting comments about how positive I am, which is as close to a personality transplant as you’d get) Emp, DAO: James’ Journal, 24 July 2024 Editor’s note: Emp’s correspondence with Vineeto can be accessed here: kuba: This is so great! I have also done the same thing, appreciation was seen as just a word that happened to follow enjoyment. This makes complete sense now though, and experientially I can confirm that with appreciation the level of enjoyment can increase exponentially, both in scope and depth. It’s almost like I have a new toy to play with now, and as this appreciative enjoyment increases it then morphs into marvelling and wonderment and then things get so fun. It is also handy that I can consciously set my intent towards appreciating, and from there it seems there in no cap on how wonderful things can get. The other interesting thing is that the difference between appreciation and gratitude is clear as day. Kuba, DAO: James’ Journal, 25 July 2024 July 26, 2024, 9:33 PM BST felipe: Hello, Vineeto […] I don’t remember having read such emphasis on appreciation in particular […] can you tell us some specific examples that you remember from your own past experience in which appreciation was an important factor to get you unstuck or ramped up your actualist experience in given moments, or even created breakthroughs in your journey? […] Felipe, DAO: James’ Journal, 26 July 2024 claudiu: Oo I can help here. You can immediately find out the potency and benefit of appreciation, right here and now, as you’re reading this. First, if you are not already there, get to a point of feeling good, a very solid enjoyment at the bare minimum. Are you there? Good! Now, experientially consider the quality of this feeling good, of this enjoyment, that is happening for you right now. Does it feel good to feel good? Is it enjoyable to be enjoying being alive? Do you like feeling good? It may even be fruitful to contemplate – how exactly do you know that you like it? What about it do you like? Now compare it to feeling bad – how does it compare? Is it better to feel good than to feel bad? Don’t look for a thought-out answer, just actually answer it for yourself experientially right now. Appreciation amounts to “assessment of the true worth or value of persons or things”. In other words, if you have followed the instructions, you have been assessing the quality of feeling good, as it is happening now in your experiencing of being alive. The purpose of this, which you may have already noticed happening, is that now you much more fully… appreciate, as in, “recognize the quality, significance, or magnitude of”, just how much better feeling good is, than feeling bad. This drives home the point, experientially, of the sheer wondrousness of feeling good, of enjoying being alive. This directly enables you to be sincere about your purpose of feeling good more and more of the time, because now you see it for yourself, you intimately know just how good it is, so of course obviously it makes sense to nourish and increment it. This appreciation serves to “lock in” one’s understanding and valuing of enjoying and feeling good, and once it is locked in it serves as a stable point for increasing it further. Let me know if it helped! Claudiu, DAO: James’ Journal, 26 July 2024 kuba: Claudiu, that’s interesting because I have been approaching this from a different angle altogether, it seems so at least. To summarise, the target of appreciation has been the world of people, things and events, not feeling good specifically. The focus on appreciation started when Vineeto urged us to turn any sadness surrounding Richard’s death into appreciation for his life and his words. Then further to allow this appreciation to ‘spill over’ into appreciating this wonderful universe which exists all around, including the natural world and one’s fellow human beings. And doing so is what increases both the scope and the depth of enjoyment, it’s essentially assessing the true worth of what this universe is like and what it means to be alive. Kuba, DAO: James’ Journal, 26 July 2024 Editor’s note: the following message was written shortly after an out-from-control virtual freedom began to eventuate for Kuba. July 28, 2024, 10:03 AM WEST kuba: So I wrote recently that I would be nipping at your heels soon Claudiu and it appears this is exactly what I did I’m still being careful before making definitive claims but especially noticeably in the past 2 days there is a momentum which has begun that is not of ‘my’ doing. Noticing my experience the label which fits the most precisely is exactly that of an ongoing and dynamic excellence experience. I was going to write this yesterday but I wanted to see what it would be like when I wake up, and it’s still exactly the same. There are times when some emotion comes up and I think, “ok I am still normal” but then I realise that I don’t have any breaks to put on, I don’t have a way to stop the perfection and purity permeating into the centre that is ‘me’. I noticed this yesterday driving to my hen party jobs and it was a very precious experience, noticing that the breaks no longer work was the culmination of a lifetime of dedication. ‘I’ was stuck in that cage of ‘my’ own making, carrying the burden of being an identity for so many years. And it’s a funny situation because deep down ‘I’ yearn to be free of this burden and yet it is ‘me’ who stubbornly refused to step out of the cage. Knowing that the breaks no longer work allowed ‘me’ for the first time in so long to say a resounding YES! To being alive, what ‘I’ secretly wanted all along. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 28 July 2024 July 28, 2024, 11:20 AM WEST kuba: I noticed this yesterday driving to my hen party jobs and it was a very precious experience, noticing that the breaks no longer work was the culmination of a lifetime of dedication. ‘I’ was stuck in that cage of ‘my’ own making, carrying the burden of being an identity for so many years. And it’s a funny situation because deep down ‘I’ yearn to be free of this burden and yet it is ‘me’ who stubbornly refused to step out of the cage. Knowing that the breaks no longer work allowed ‘me’ for the first time in so long to say a resounding YES! To being alive, what ‘I’ secretly wanted all along. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 28 July 2024 vineeto: My deepest appreciation for your wonderful news. “What ‘you’ secretly wanted all along”, how fitting, how marvellous. Thank you. Have a great ride and enjoy it to the max while it lasts. (I think you will understand the “while it lasts” correctly). Vineeto, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 28 July 2024 kuba: Yes thank you Vineeto It’s interesting because I have tried to put the breaks on multiple times this morning, to see if it is possible. I can go to ‘my’ most cherished themes, the ones that ‘I’ would usually get stuck in, but it’s like trying to hold sand through my hands. There is still this background expectation that something could ‘stick’ but so far no. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 28 July 2024 July 29, 2024, 4:00 PM WEST vineeto: Have a great ride and enjoy it to the max *while it lasts*. Vineeto, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 28 July 2024 kuba: So yesterday I understood this intellectually, today I had a glimpse of what this is referring to, that at the end of the ride there is no ‘me’ left, and that is a wonderful thing! It happened as I was considering my current working situation, that I am cutting down hours from my employed work and slowly moving towards making a living teaching BJJ. I can sum it up by what Geoffrey mentioned in a zoom chat a while ago – ‘you’ are trying to plan for a situation where ‘you’ will not exist, and indeed that is the case haha. Where life lives itself there is nothing of ‘me’ left, and in fact ‘I’ am not needed at all. Editor’s note: Geoffrey’s reports on becoming actually free can be accessed here: It’s so incredible as Claudiu wrote that I can explore all manner of things and still have this background of perfection and purity which it seems never goes away. Kuba, DAO: Claudiu’s Journal, 29 July 2024 July 31, 2024, 12:04 PM BST kuba: I have been having a lot of fun investigating the human condition recently… I remember the other day watching my dog poncho as he was trying to dig himself the perfect lair inside of my hoodie, of course he just ended up scratching the thing for ages without achieving much He is simply programmed by blind nature to perform certain actions, now this programming did not develop in houses with sofas and hoodies and so the behaviour misses the mark. But this is exactly how I see the human condition these days, and it’s fascinating just how much of human behaviour, of all the stuff that is going on is happing in this very same manner. The social arises directly out of the instinctual and is part of the same package. All of those ‘human dramas’ are merely refinements of the crude instinctual programming that one can observe in animals. The fascinating thing is that the entire world seems to be completely blind to this, it is as if this is secret knowledge. I can go on social media and I see post after post displaying the same core instinctual behaviours merely refined into what appears to be some ‘human wisdom’ and then argued over back and forth. I am just watching a podcast with Richard Dawkins and he is still looking for the origin of the universe, he is still sneaking in the idea of design, essentially he is still looking at the universe through the ‘human lens’, which itself is rooted in the crude instinctual programming. It is very clear that as human beings now we are still crippled by the instincts flowing from our animal heritage and the extent of this seems to be impossible to grasp unless one is able to access something outside of ‘humanity’, to look from a vantage point that is outside all of that. This is why very intelligent people still end up falling for the very same illusions, and even worse they have the brain power to refine these into much more troublesome machinations. It is quite mind blowing the extent to which all of ‘my’ behaviour, and therefore all of ‘human’ behaviour is simply blind instinctual programming in operation. Once this is seen it makes complete sense why you cannot combat the wisdom of the real world, because the one being spoken with can only bounce from one piece of programming to the other, and they are completely blind to this unless they can view from a vantage point which exists outside of the programming altogether. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 31 July 2024 July 31, 2024, 12:43 PM BST kuba: Further on this explains why it is impossible to effect any genuine change by appealing to any piece of that programming, which is to say that the only way is for individual human beings to eradicate the human condition within themselves. Otherwise it is truly the blind leading the blind and to an extent that is rather mind blowing. It’s fascinating to contemplate that who ‘I’ am as an identity *is* this very programming. There is no differentiation between ‘me’ and this programming that I am observing all around. Normally ‘I’ would fancy ‘myself’ as someone special, ‘I’ would dissociate from ‘my’ roots and become an individual ‘I’ which is separate from ‘humanity’, and thus ‘my’ cage is created. As Devika wrote ‘I’ live in ‘my’ splendid isolation. It’s interesting that lately there is a noticeable lack of self-centricity, as in ‘I’ no longer have ‘my’ splendid isolation, now ‘I’ can be seen clearly. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 31 July 2024 July 31, 2024, 12:49 PM BST kuba: Further on this explains why it is impossible to effect any genuine change by appealing to any piece of that programming […] Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 31 July 2024 kuba: Actually I may be incorrect here as there is 1 piece of that programming which will get the job done and that is ‘my’ altruistic self-immolation. Kuba, DAO: Kub933’s Journal, 31 July 2024
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