# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## Can I disappear the ‘I’ and the ‘me’? JAMES: I can see that when the mind becomes aware of itself ‘I’ and ‘me’ disappears and that I am the senses. I also see that this sensuousness produces a PCE. I can also see that thru increased awareness it is possible to do this on a consistent basis. My question is: Can I permanently disappear the ‘I’ and the ‘me’? RICHARD: Speaking personally, I did not ‘permanently disappear the ‘I’ and the ‘me’’ ... it was the identity that did all the work. Who you think and feel and instinctively ‘know’ yourself to be has a job to do: When ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. There is an intrinsic trait common to all sentient beings: self-sacrifice. This trait can be observed in almost all animals – it is especially easy to see in the ‘higher-order’ animals – mainly with the parental defending of the young to the point of fatal injury leading to death. Defending the group against another group is also simple to observe ... it manifests in humans in the way that one will passionately defend oneself and one’s group to the death if it is deemed necessary. Speaking personally, as a youth this self-sacrificing trait impelled me to go to war for ‘my’ country ... to ‘willingly lay down my life for kith and kin’. It is a very powerful passion indeed ... Christianity, to give just one example, values it very highly: ‘No greater love hath he that lay down his life for another’. Also, all of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – come to the fore when psychologically and psychically threatened, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, linking ‘my’ survival with the body’s physical continuation. Nothing could be further from the truth for ‘I’ need play no part any more in perpetuating physical existence. ‘I’ am no longer necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die for a cause – and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a ‘Noble Ideal’ ... and reap ‘my’ post-mortem reward: immortality This trait is called altruism ... albeit misplaced. Thus it is ‘I’ that is responsible for an action that results in ‘my’ own demise ... without really doing the expunging itself (and I am not being tricky here). It is ‘I’ that is the cause of bringing about this sacrifice in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. (‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself). What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself ... now. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result because it is already here ... it is always now. ‘I’ was merely standing in the way of this already always existing peace-on-earth from becoming apparent. The act of initiating this ‘process’ is altruism, pure and simple. RESPONDENT: You sound like a remarkable man and I would like to ask a question. I have been reading your posts with considerable interest, most of it I had already seen and I was trying to do somewhat the same but I found this gap. The gap between knowing that all sense of identity is a construct, knowing that all joy/ pain and happy/ sad is ego driven and knowing the internal-I can and should be rid from and actual dissolution. I know that information is having effect but surely not as drastically as described by you so let me ask if something can be done, is it a question of time or simply more reasoning or more information. Also, could you affirm that all this is one happening in the now and that it is possible to experience it like that. RICHARD: Where you say ‘you sound like a remarkable man’, if you mean it sincerely I would like to congratulate you for your perspicacity, because I must emphasise that it is vital that you aspire to being a remarkable person yourself ... or else you will not succeed in ridding yourself of your sense of identity. This is very important, because people can put themselves down only too easily as being not good enough, not intelligent enough or not capable enough. I am not gifted or special ... I was born of ordinary parents, was sent to an ordinary state school – receiving an average education until I was fifteen years of age – took an ordinary job and worked for a living. I eventually got married and had four children and bought a house and ... in short, I was relatively normal and did all the expected things. Thus did I live my life for thirty two years according to the ‘tried and true’ methods as laid down by the countless millions of other humans that had lived before me. I tried my best to make their system work to produce the optimum result ... but to no avail. Only then did I make the first and most important movement of my own volition ... I discarded the ‘tried and true’ as being the ‘tried and failed’. (I did say ‘I was relatively normal’ because one thing, and one thing alone, stood out that distinguished me from whomsoever else I met: I wanted to know – as an actuality – just what it was to be a human being here on this planet, as this body, in this life-time.) Eighteen years ago I looked – actually looked for the first time – at the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the clouds ... and the stars at night ... and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. It was all too big, too enormous, too magnificent and too marvellous to be forever a ‘vale of tears’. I realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that we all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. I felt foolish that I had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the world I had inherited – the human world that I was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed me to get in touch with my dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that I had been subject to. Then when I looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow and malice of humankind I could not stop. I knew that I had just devoted myself to the task of setting myself and thus humankind free of impurity and imperfection ... I willingly dedicated my life to this most exemplary cause. It is so delicious to devote oneself whole-heartedly – the ‘boots and all’ approach I called it then – to something so eminently worthwhile as invoking and actualising purity and perfection here on earth. Purity is an actual condition, intrinsic to the perfection of the infinitude of this universe ... the only one we have. A human being can tap into this purity by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with earnest attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naive is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless – in short: ingenuous. Naiveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naive means to be simple and unsophisticated. Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naive innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory decrees of the cultured sophisticates. A sample of such decrees are: ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower’, or ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’, or ‘You’ve got to be tough to survive in the real world’, or ‘It’s dog eat dog out there’ ... and so on. Such people are said to have ‘lost their innocence’. Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ – they never had it in the first place. Innocence is something entirely new; it has never existed in human beings before. It is an evolutionary break-through to come upon innocence. It is a mutation of the human mind. Naiveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naive to contemplate the profound notion that this universe is benign, friendly. One needs to be naive to think that this universe has an inherent imperative for well-being to flourish; that it has a built-in benevolence available to one who is artless, without guile. To the realist – the ‘worldly-wise’ – this appears like utter foolishness. After all, life is a ‘vale of tears’ and one must ‘make the best of a bad situation’ because one ‘can’t change human nature’; and therefore ‘you have to fight for your rights’. This derogatory advice is endlessly forthcoming; the put-down of the universe goes on ad nauseam, wherever one travels throughout the world. This universe is so enormous in size – infinity being as enormous as it can get – and so magnificent in its scope, how on earth could anyone believe for a minute that it is all here for humans to be forever miserable in? It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be so. Surely, one can have confidence in a universe so grandly complex, so marvellously intricate, so wonderfully excellent. How could all this be some ‘ghastly mistake’? To believe it all to be some ‘sick joke’ is preposterous, for such an attitude cuts one off from the perfection of this pure moment of being alive here in this fantastic and actual universe. You write: ‘let me ask if something can be done’ about ridding oneself of the ‘internal-I’. Something can definitely be achieved in regards to the socially-imposed identity ... one can readily do something about it if one is suitably motivated to do so. You write: ‘is it a question of time or simply more reasoning or more information?’ ... to which I say yes to all three, but also something far more important than that. If you have followed what I have written so far, you will see it is a question of attitude, predilection, disposition and intent, because one can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté, as I have said, is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity of the infinitude of this physical universe. To reiterate: this connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. To unilaterally relinquish one’s esteemed identity is to go in the face of all received wisdom. Any psychiatrist would readily advise against such a foolish move – they will state that one would fall into a condition of mental and emotional ill-health. They would diagnose that one is likely to suffer from a severe mental disorder – probably ‘Depersonalisation’ and ‘Derealisation’ – with its accompanying anxiety and panic attacks, resulting in the prescribing of anti-psychotropic medication and prolonged psychological counselling. To ‘lose one’s identity’ and to ‘lose contact with reality’ is considered a very serious psychiatric illness indeed. So one must proceed carefully – with the indispensable aid of pure intent – in order to dismantle, step by step, one’s accrued identity and reality. It is important to examine all the beliefs – masquerading as ‘truths’ – that one has accumulated since birth. These beliefs support and encourage the emergence of the much-prized psychological entity inhabiting the psyche of all human beings. This apparent disembowelment is initially resisted, for not only has it never been contemplated before, it also goes against the egocentric, ethnocentric and anthropocentric mind-sets that all humans have been endowed with since time immemorial. It is a radical break with the past ... something akin to an evolutionary mutation, so personally seditious is its revolutionary opening gambit. In order to mutate from the self-centred licentiousness to a self-less sensualism, one must have confidence in the ultimate beneficence of the universe. This confidence – this surety – can be gained from a peak experience, wherein ‘I’, the psychological entity, temporarily ceases to exist and reality becomes actuality. This is called a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Life is briefly seen to be already perfect and innocent ... it is a life-changing experience. One is physically experiencing first-hand, albeit momentarily, this actual world – a spontaneously benevolent world – that antedates the ‘normal’ world. The ‘normal’ world is commonly known as ‘the real world’ or ‘reality’. Repeated peak experiences can be brought about on virtually a daily basis with constant application of pure contemplation of the actual. In pure contemplation, ‘I’, the identity, cease seeing and seeing takes place of its own accord ... this is called apperception, which is defined as ‘the mind’s perception of itself’. Then this actual world – this benign world – that the ‘real world’ was superimposed over, becomes apparent ... except that ‘I’ am not here to experience it. ‘I’ can never be here in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here. All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be confident that the actual world does exist. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the PCE in the peak experience, and is an essential ingredient to ensure success. One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religions require of one with regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes that pure intent, which will consistently guide one through the travails of daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric and soul-oriented. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore. ‘Being’ ceases – it was only a psychic apparition anyway – and malice and sorrow are gone, forever, in one human being. So yes, you are correct where you say: ‘all this is one happening in the now’ , for only this moment in time and this place in space are actual here and now. This time and place is the arena wherein the infinitude – the eternity and infinity of time and space – of this physical universe becomes apparent. Thus I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. This on-going experience is ambrosial, to say the least. Does all this go some way to explicating just what the ‘gap’ is where you wrote: ‘the gap between knowing that all sense of identity is a construct ... and actual dissolution’ ? Because yes, it is indeed possible to ‘experience it like that’ ... everyday, for the rest of your life. RESPONDENT: The basic question is can the ego be seen as a whole with all its qualities and seeing the truth of all that it ends. RICHARD: Oh yes ... indeed it can. Speaking personally, in 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. In that peak experience I saw ‘myself’ for the social identity that ‘I’ was. ‘I’ was the end product of society and nothing more. ‘I’ was a passionate construct of all of the beliefs, values, morals, ethics, mores, customs, traditions, doctrines, ideologies and so on. ‘I’ was nothing but an fabrication in the psyche ... a social identity which is its conscience. I then saw that ‘I’ was a lost, lonely, frightened – and a very, very cunning – entity ... what I later came to know as ‘ego’. Just as those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and need to be exorcised, I saw that every human being had been endowed with an identity as ego ... and it was called being normal. When ‘I’ saw that this was all ‘I’ was ... I was no longer that. I was me ... this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware ... as this revelation continued, I saw a new ‘me’ coming into existence ... a grand ‘Me’, a glorious ‘Me’ and a spiritually fulfilling ‘Me’. What was it that was observing these two other ‘me’s – the ego ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? There are three I’s altogether, but only one is actual. RESPONDENT: Oh, an actual I. Is it a varying or constant quality? RICHARD: What I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. The first person pronoun is not used here to refer to any psychological or psychic identity because in actuality there is nothing other than the physical ... this carbon-based life-form being conscious. There is a consistent quality of perfection ... an unvarying purity. Here is an on-going innocence, an ever-fresh magnanimity which ensures a nobility in character that is vitalised as an endless benevolence ... all effortlessly happening of its own accord. Thus probity is bestowed gratuitously ... dispensing forever with the effort-filled vigilance to gain and maintain righteous virtue. One is free to be me as-I-am; benign and beneficial in disposition. One is able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being beneficent, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner any ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for morality and ethicality completely. One is swimming in largesse. RICHARD: Any state hypothesised from a delusion can only be a further delusion ... or an illusion. One must psychologically and psychically ‘die’ to find out the actuality of what is. Then there is no ‘me’ inside this body to be alone or to seek unity, oneness or wholeness. With ‘my’ complete demise – ‘I’ as both ego and soul – the passionately longed-for ‘unity’, ‘oneness’ and ‘wholeness’ vanishes. Unity’, ‘Oneness’ and ‘Wholeness’ were merely concepts created by ‘I’ to perpetuate ‘my’ existence as a soul for all eternity ... a very self-centred and thus, ultimately, an extremely selfish approach to life-on-earth. No wonder that so much hatred and blood-shed follows in the wake of all Enlightened Masters’ attempts to bring a spurious peace into the world (not to mention Love and Compassion ... but that is another matter). RESPONDENT: Are you (the thinker or chooser) bringing about this psychic death? RICHARD: Yes and no ... and I am not being tricky here. Yes, in that ‘I’ bring about this ‘death’ in that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. And no, in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and intentionally sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is a welcome release into actuality. I am finally here. I discover that I have always been here ... I have never been anywhere else for there is nowhere else ... except illusion and into delusion. The ‘real world’ and the ‘Greater Reality’ had their existence only in ‘my’ fertile imagination. Only this, the actual world, genuinely exists. This exquisite surprise brings with it ecstatic relief at the moment of mutation ... life is perfect after all. But, then again, has one not suspected this to be so all along? At the moment of freedom from the Human Condition there is a clear sense of ‘I have always known this’. Doubt is banished forever ... no more verification is required. All is self-evidently pure and perfect. Everything is indeed well. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon oneself and others. RESPONDENT: Or is it the inevitable result of insight into what is, i.e.: intelligence? RICHARD: The only thing ‘what is’ is this physical universe ... the actual world of the senses. There is no ‘intelligence’ that is running this universe, that is to commit the all too common error of anthropomorphism. As a human being, the universe is able to be intelligent, but that is all. An insight into the infinite and eternal character of this universe and the implications of that in regards to one’s situation in the scheme of things can indeed set something profound in motion. Speaking personally, I have no boundaries. RESPONDENT: If there is no ‘me’ inside this body, why insist that ‘one’ must die to find out the actuality? RICHARD: It is because ‘I’ appear to be very, very real ... so real as to be true. For many years I mistakenly assumed that words carried a definitive meaning that was common to all peoples speaking the same language ... for example ‘real’ and ‘truth’. But, as different person’s told me things like: ‘That is only your truth’, or: ‘God is real’, I realised that unambiguous words are required (to a child, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are ‘real’ and ‘true’). Correspondingly I abandoned ‘real’ and ‘true’ in favour of ‘actual’ and ‘fact’, as experience has demonstrated that no one has been able to tell me that their god is actual or that something is only my fact. Therefore this monitor screen is actual (these finger-tips feeling it substantiate this) and it is a fact that these printed letters are forming words (these eyes seeing it validate this). These things are indisputable and verifiable by any body with the requisite sense-organs. Now, to a person who believes ardently in their god, then for them their god is real ... not actual, mind you, but real. Usually they tell me that their god is more real than we humans are ... that is how real their fervency makes of their belief (it is the same as the child with the Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy example I gave above). So too, is it with regards to this wretched and pernicious ‘self’. The ‘self’, whilst not being actual, is real ... sometimes very, very real. The belief in a real ‘thinker’ and ‘feeler’ is not just another passing thought. It is emotion-backed imagination at work. ‘I’ passionately believe in ‘my’ existence ... and will defend ‘myself’ to the death if it is deemed necessary. All of ‘my’ instincts – the instinctive drive for biological survival – will come to the fore then, for ‘I’ am confused about ‘my’ presence, linking ‘my’ survival with the body’s physical continuation. Nothing could be further from the truth for ‘I’ play no part in perpetuating physical existence: ‘I’ am not necessary at all. In fact, ‘I’ am a hindrance. With all of ‘my’ beliefs, values, creeds, ethics and other doctrinaire disabilities, ‘I’ am a menace to the body. ‘I’ am ready to die for a cause ... and ‘I’ will willingly sacrifice physical existence for a Noble Ideal. That is how real ‘I’ am. That is why ‘I’ must die a real death (but not physically into the grave) to find out the actuality. What does happen physically occurs in the top of the brain-stem. RESPONDENT: Are all instincts ‘software’ as implied in the quote above? RICHARD: As the altruistic ‘self’-immolation, of the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago, was simultaneously the extirpation of all instinctual impulses, drives and urges – the entire affective faculty (including its epiphenomenal imaginative and intuitive facility) in fact – then the analogy to computer software is reasonable enough for the purpose of communication. RESPONDENT: I take it that you are saying that all instincts are software. RICHARD: Another way of saying it is that the instinctual impulses, drives and urges – the entire affective faculty (including its epiphenomenal imaginative and intuitive facility) in fact – can in no way be analogised as being hard-wired. Viz.: • ‘hard-wired: (computing) using or having permanently connected circuits designed to perform a specific unchangeable function’. (Oxford Dictionary). Nobody has to take my word for it ... all it takes is to either recall or initiate a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and thus verify experientially that blind nature’s biologically-inherited rough and ready survival package is not a [quote] ‘specific unchangeable function’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: No chance that any instinctual bits might be governed by hardware at all and thus be beyond the reach of ‘extirpation’? RICHARD: As there has been nary even a smidgeon of a trace of a whiff of a hint of any such [quote] ‘instinctual bits’ [endquote] remaining extant for 13+ years now I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying with the confidence engendered by that long-term and practical-life experiencing ... no. RESPONDENT: Could some instincts be hard-wired? Closely allied to the instincts are the regulatory functions such as digestion, body temperature and heartbeat. RICHARD: As the autonomic nervous system is not an affective system – regulatory functions such as digestion, body temperature, and heartbeat, are not emotional/ passional per se – it is not [quote] ‘closely allied’ [endquote] to the instinctual impulses, drives and urges ... and the very fact that such regulatory functions operate with remarkable autonomy in a PCE (where the entire affective faculty/ the identity in toto is in abeyance) is the evidence of that. RESPONDENT: These must be hard-wired, or at least taken care of by software sub-routines that are outside of the scope of extirpation, otherwise you would have dropped bodily dead from software extirpation! RICHARD: The whole point of altruistic ‘self’-immolation, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, is the elimination of all that stands in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent – as is patently obvious in a PCE – and not the eradication of life itself. RESPONDENT: In other words, extirpation necessarily has limited effect. RICHARD: I will separate your premise into its two disparate elements for the sake of clarity in responding: 1.The regulatory functions such as digestion, body temperature and heartbeat must be hard-wired, otherwise you would have dropped bodily dead from software extirpation! In other words, (software) extirpation necessarily has limited effect. As that makes no sense at all your ‘in other words’ conclusion can only have been drawn from your alternate postulation. Viz.: 2. The regulatory functions such as digestion, body temperature and heartbeat must be at least taken care of by software sub-routines that are outside of the scope of (software) extirpation, otherwise you would have dropped bodily dead from software extirpation! In other words, (software) extirpation necessarily has limited effect. Not being a computer nerd I would have to seek professional advice, so as to make an informed comment, as I cannot comprehend why software vital to the very functioning of a computer itself would come bundled as a sub-routine of an erasable ancillary programme written in as a starter-kit for beginners. RESPONDENT: How then do you really know that you have rid yourself of all instinctual impulses, drives and urges? RICHARD: As you are surely not proposing that to [quote] ‘really know’ [endquote] that the extirpation of all the instinctual impulses, drives and urges – the entire affective faculty (including its epiphenomenal imaginative and intuitive facility) in fact – has indeed taken place one must bodily drop dead then perhaps you might be inclined to rethink both your postulation and the question it generated? Incidentally, I would hardly describe the elimination of the root cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides, and so on and so forth, as a [quote] ‘limited effect’ [endquote]. RESPONDENT: To reject the ‘I’ as opposed to encouraging it as opposed to making it unwanted? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: Then how are we supposed to get rid of the ‘I’? RICHARD: Who is this [quote] ‘we’ [endquote] which you refer to? I will rearrange your query so as to better fit the reality: • [example only]: ‘Then how am ‘I’ supposed to get rid of the ‘I’? [end example]. Or, even more to the point, I will rearrange it thisaway: • [example only]: ‘Then how am ‘I’ supposed to get rid of ‘myself’? [end example]. Simple answer: as no ‘me’ can get rid of ‘itself’ then ‘you’ cannot. Nor can ‘you’ walk away from ‘your’ pleasures and needs. Neither can ‘you’ destroy ‘yourself’. And ‘you’ cannot reject ‘yourself’ either. However, what ‘you’ can do is become exquisitely aware, each moment again, of the way in which ‘you’ experience ‘yourself’ in regards to ‘your’ situation and circumstances. To explain: the human animal has not only the capacity to be sentient (aka conscious) but the remarkable ability of simultaneously being aware of being sentient (aka aware of being conscious). Along with this self-awareness comes agency and thus intelligence (the process of observation, remembrance, comparison/ consideration and the thoughtful implementation of beneficial action). Hence it is dead easy to feel good each moment again, upon becoming aware ‘you’ are not feeling good right now, by recalling when ‘you’ previously felt good and (knowing that something happened to ‘you’ to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling) finding out what happened; ‘you’ see how silly that is (no matter what it was) and ‘you’ are once more feeling good. Actual Freedom Homepage
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