# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## What is the Answer to ‘How Am I Experiencing this Moment of Being Alive?’ RESPONDENT: What is the answer to the haietmoba? RICHARD: In short ... it is an experiential answer. To explain: the whole point of asking oneself, each moment again until it becomes a non-verbal attitude or a wordless approach to life, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) is to experientially ascertain just exactly what is the way or manner in which one is personally participating in the events which are occurring at this particular moment that one is alive ... after all, irregardless of whether one takes the back seat or not, we are all busy doing this business called being alive by the very fact of being a sentient creature known as a human being (with all that inheres in being and doing that). Thus the answer to your query – what the answer is to asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive – is dependent upon, on each occasion again, just exactly what the way or manner it is that one is personally participating in the occurrences which are currently happening. RESPONDENT: Thanks for your lucid answer ... if I find that I am not feeling good or so, I can’t always find out why it is so, and soon the picture of my feeling bad tends to get very complex ... should I: a) suppress all this complex thinking and focus on the moment and try to feel good this moment; b) find out exactly what is preventing me from feeling bad however complex it is. RICHARD: This is how I have explained it in an earlier article: • [Richard]: ‘... if ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? Ahh ... yes: ‘He said that and I ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most (‘feeling good’ is an unambiguous term – it is a general sense of well-being – and if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all). 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 – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ ... and after that to ‘feeling perfect’ ...’. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). Where you say you cannot always find out why it is so that you are not feeling good, and soon the picture of your feeling bad tends to get very complex, is the crux of the issue ... your subsequent queries (a) and (b) arise out of not tracing back to the last time you felt good (and thus pin-pointing what happened to end those felicitous feelings). Put succinctly: the aim is to feel good right now – at this very moment – and, as you felt good previously, it is but a matter of finding out how come that general sense of well-being ceased happening. RESPONDENT: Also, sometimes the ‘feeling bad’ comes in spikes ... I feel bad due to something and it is gone before I notice it ... should I poke it or leave it ...? RICHARD: This is what that earlier article goes on to say: • [Richard]: ‘ ... the more one enjoys and appreciates being just here right now – to the point of excellence being the norm – the greater the likelihood of a PCE happening ... a grim and/or glum person has no chance whatsoever of allowing the magical event, which indubitably shows where everyone has being going awry, to occur. Plus *any analysing and/or psychologising and/or philosophising whilst one is in the grip of debilitating feelings usually does not achieve much (other than spiralling around and around in varying degrees of despair and despondency or whatever) anyway*. 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 and 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). Thus as you are feeling good right now, at this very moment, and feeling bad ‘due to something’ has come and gone in a spike, then right now is the opportune moment to look at what that ‘something’ was – so as to pre-empt more of the same happening again – as feeling good is where clarity can flourish. RESPONDENT: No, on second thought, I think I just don’t get the question. That is, it doesn’t make sense to me. Quote: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ The how has got me stumped. RICHARD: Affectively, of course ... that is how you are experiencing this moment. Look, let us not unnecessarily complicate things here. The ‘how’ simply means ‘what feeling am I experiencing right now with’ ... which is: ‘Am I bored?’, ‘Am I resentful?’, ‘Am I at ease?’, ‘Am I glad?’, ‘Am I sad?’ and so on. You see, peace-on-earth is here right now – the perfection of the infinitude of this universe is happening at this moment – and you are missing out on it because you are feeling what it is like to be here instead of actually being here. Hence: ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ means ‘What feeling is preventing the on-going experiencing of peace-on-earth?’ It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. RESPONDENT: Is Actual Freedom a scientific method? RICHARD: No, an actual freedom is a condition and not a knowledge producing procedure: specifically the condition which ensues where identity in toto – both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul/spirit (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) – becomes extinct. The way in which that condition came about for this flesh and blood body – a way that has become known as ‘the actualism method’ – was by the identity in residence all those years ago (1981-1992) being totally attentive to how the moment currently being lived (the only moment one is ever alive) was being experienced, each moment again, and contemporaneously addressing any deviation from what has become known as ‘the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition’ ... wherein the word ‘wide’, as opposed to ‘straight and narrow’, refers to the dispensation from morals/ethics and values/ principles through the pure intent to be happy and harmless (free from malice and sorrow), born of the PCE, and the word ‘wondrous’ refers to a naïve state of felicitous and innocuous sensuousness. RESPONDENT: Can someone please list the laws contained within the method that enable one to minimise the social identity and the instinctual passions? RICHARD: Nope ... however, the experiential processes contained within the actualism method can be: 1. Activate the long-ago buried sincerity so as to make possible a pure intent to bring about peace and harmony sooner rather than later. 2. Set the standard of experiencing, each moment again, as feeling felicitous/ innocuous come-what-may. 3. Where felicity/ innocuity is not occurring find out why not. 4. Seeing the silliness at having felicity/ innocuity be usurped, by either the negative or positive feelings, for whatever reason that might be automatically restores felicity/ innocuity. 5. Repeated occurrences of the same cause for felicity/ innocuity loss alerts pre-recognition of impending dissipation which enables pre-emption and ensures a more persistent felicity/ innocuity through habituation. 6. Habitual felicity/ innocuity, and its concomitant enjoyment and appreciation, facilitates naïve sensuosity ... a consistent state of wide-eyed wonder, amazement, marvel, and delight. 7. Naiveté, in conjunction with felicitous/ innocuous sensuosity, being the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence, allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is to operate more and more freely. 8. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest. 9. Sit back and enjoy the ride of a lifetime! RESPONDENT: And why don’t you give an example, a real salt on the tongue, eyeball account of what it was like for you applying the method for a day or even 2 minutes? RICHARD: I have located the following text: • [Richard]: ‘(...) 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, what has these days become known as 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. I am not required at all; I am a supernumerary; I am redundant; I can retire, fold in my hand, pack in the game, depart, disappear, dissolve, disintegrate, vamoose, vanish, die – whatever – and life would manage quite well, thank you, without me ... a whole lot better, in fact, as I am holding up the works from functioning smoothly. ‘I’ was not needed ... ‘my’ services were no longer required’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 71, 15 July 2004). RESPONDENT: What actually happened in the beginning? RICHARD: What happened for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body on the first of January 1981 (the day ‘he’ first put the method ‘he’ devised into practice) was so amazing for ‘him’ that ‘he’ said to ‘his’ then wife that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life ... ‘he’ would go on to say it was so easy to feel happy and harmless for 23 hours 59 minutes of the day (an arbitrary figure) that ‘he’ wondered why it had never been done before. RESPONDENT: What happened in you when you asked this question? RICHARD: What happened for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body was that ‘he’ mainly felt happy and harmless irregardless of the situation and circumstance ... the 00 hours 01 minute of the day (an arbitrary figure) that ‘he’ did not never detracted from what has nowadays become known as a virtual freedom and was often quite easily rectified. RESPONDENT: I don’t mean sparks flew and ASC’s happened ... RICHARD: Okay ... because sparks *did* fly and both PCE’s and ASC’s (altered states of consciousness) *did* happen. RESPONDENT: I mean what happened, banal or otherwise ... to help point the way ... what were the pitfalls? RICHARD: It was the numerous PCE’s which pointed the way ... the pitfalls were (due to a lack of precedence) the ASC’s which pointed the other way. RESPONDENT: Your account of the method leaves a lot to be desired. RICHARD: Oh? And just what is it, then, that you desire to be in my account which is left out? RESPONDENT: I say this with lots of experience as a trainer/ school teacher/ self-annihilator/ spiritual practiser/ seeker/ observer. RICHARD: I see ... and that qualifies you to pass judgement upon something which this discussion is clearly demonstrating you know next to nothing about? RESPONDENT: (...) As a fun challenge (I hope) hereby I present an interpretation of my understanding of AF so far as an altruistic contribution for whatever it may be worth. RICHARD: The only ‘altruistic contribution’ worthy of the name (in regards to an actual freedom) is the sacrifice of identity in toto. * RESPONDENT: It is a reinterpretation (more or less in terms of a computer program) composed out of the original 9 character sequence+4 extra characters that I thought might vitalize the sequence (it did for myself). RICHARD: I am only too happy to explain what the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ means in practice in the ‘real world’. What the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about is a virtual freedom (not to be confused with the cyber-space virtual reality) wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) – are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is freed-up to felicitously feel good, felicitously feel happy and felicitously feel excellent for 99% of the time. When one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (through running the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ until it is an attitude or approach to life) the affective energy is thus freed-up to power the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on). Then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. It is no more complicated than this: delight is what is humanly possibly given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience. From the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sense away as such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence whilst being a self), the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. 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: Would it be correct to say that the method is essentially same as increasing the present-time awareness? RICHARD: No. RESPONDENT: How soon will the rewards can be reaped by the method (in getting rid of the ‘me’) so that the momentum can be acquired by the success rather than the veracity/power of your words? RICHARD: About as soon as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks ... and sucks big-time at that. JAMES: [I am asking about your judgement in these cases ... also if possible to mention how quick it was in your case]. RICHARD: I have located the following text: • [Richard]: ‘The first thing I did when I first stepped upon the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in a virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. And all this while I asked ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive? ... and the essential character of the perfection of the physical infinitude of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. This enabling is experienced as a ‘pure intent’ running as a ‘golden thread’, as it were, from the purity and perfection of the PCE to that little-used faculty: naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence). (Richard, List B, James, 17 October 1999a). RESPONDENT: As a proponent in actual freedom, can you hazard any guess why the final event has not happened for Peter/Vineeto in spite of their understanding/ sincerity? RICHARD: For the same reason why it is not happened for anybody else ... in the end all ‘I’ can do is procrastinate. RESPONDENT: Richard, is it possible to be typing this mail and parallely running the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? RICHARD: It is more than just possible ... it is vital that it be run. RESPONDENT: At least in the beginning days when I practice, won’t it interfere? RICHARD: The article I referred to in a previous e-mail has this to say: • [Richard]: ‘... it [the method] 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) RESPONDENT: Also, if I forget to run the question for half hour because I became involved in the mail, will the method cease to give its results? RICHARD: It would appear you have answered this question already (immediately below). RESPONDENT: I keep day-dreaming/thinking and get into fears and anxieties ... my mind slips away from a simple state (awareness of the moment) to some complex state (memories, feelings, thoughts, recollections) and I get confused. 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 feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good. RESPONDENT: As to how to go about resuming to apply actualism method ... I forget the purpose and I have to go through the rote of repeating myself why I am doing the whole stuff again to bring back to the ground state ... can you provide any help in my case? RICHARD: Just listen to/watch a news bulletin and you will soon remember the purpose ... to wit: peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: I’ve been asking the HAIETMOBA throughout my day. I have a hard time seeing how this will eventually lead to self immolation, but I’m giving it a go anyways. RICHARD: Perhaps this may be of assistance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You say be aware of what you are experiencing. • [Richard]: ‘What I say is nothing other than a report of what worked for the parasitical identity ... who asked, until it became a non-verbal attitude to life, a wordless approach each moment again, the following question: how am I experiencing this moment of being alive? After all, this moment is the only moment one is ever alive, and such exquisite awareness-cum-attentiveness as this attitude/approach engenders makes short-shrift of anything not conducive to peace and harmony. So much so that an inevitability sets in. (Richard, List B, No. 12q, 5 January 2003). RESPONDENT: I was wondering if the question could ever be shortened to ‘how am I experiencing’ or ‘what am I experiencing’ sometimes. RICHARD: As the ‘how’ refers to the way or manner this moment of being alive is being experienced the word ‘what’ does not equate ... and to only ask oneself how one is experiencing, without nominating what it is that is being experienced, makes the question so amorphous as to be ineffective. And I say this because the main reason for asking oneself how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is to be aware of/ attentive to the way or manner in which one is experiencing the only moment one is ever alive ... although the past was actual when it was happening, it is not actual now; although the future will be actual when it happens, it is not actual now; only this moment is actual. RESPONDENT: The whole phrase seems like a lot when I’m doing something at times. 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. RESPONDENT: Also, you claim that there is no self ... RICHARD: I report that there is no self (or Self) here in this actual world ... but that is not the experience of perhaps 6.0 billion peoples world-wide. RESPONDENT: ... so would it not be more on target to say ‘what is this body experiencing’ or ‘how is this body experiencing this moment of being alive’ (HITBETMOBA)? RICHARD: Where there is no self (or Self) extant then apperception – unmediated awareness – occurs automatically irregardless of whether thought is operating or not ... which apperception is what the exquisite awareness-cum-attentiveness engendered by asking oneself how one is experiencing this moment of being alive, each moment again, serves to imitate. Incidentally, there is nothing strange, mysterious, or profound, about the question itself ... it is a simple, straight-forward query. RESPONDENT: ... you are the only one I know of who claims to be totally without any feelings. RICHARD: You keep missing the point I oft-times made in previous posts to this list ... the whole aim is to rid the body completely of any trace whatsoever of an ‘I’ and a ‘me’ (the absence of feelings is a side-effect and not the main event at all). RESPONDENT: And you say that is to be done by repeating the phrase, ‘how am I experiencing my life at this moment?’ RICHARD: The question to ask oneself, each moment again, is ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ This is because this moment is the only moment that one is ever alive ... only this moment is actual (the past, which was actual when it was happening, is no longer actual and the future, which will be actual when it is happening, is not actual yet). It has a remarkable way of bringing one’s attention to this very moment wherein everything is happening. RESPONDENT: Could you please, in detail, explain how that phrase is supposed to free the entity who is asking it from ‘being’? RICHARD: Certainly ... so as to save space I will refer you to the following link: (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). Suffice is it to say for now, to enable the process to work its magic, is that it is vital to remember a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where one finds oneself walking through a world of veritable delight – the actual world of the senses – whereupon this ambrosial paradise called planet earth, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, comes alive in a truly wondrous way. Everything and everybody has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, scintillating vitality that makes everything vivid and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everybody. We do not live in an inert universe. RESPONDENT: How long are you supposed to ask it? RICHARD: Until it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Initially it will be seen that how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is usually via a feeling or a belief (sometimes cunningly disguised as a ‘truth’) – and a belief is an emotion-backed thought anyway – thus effectively blocking the direct sense experience. And for as long as one is experiencing this moment through a feeling – no matter how deep or profound the feeling may be – one is cutting oneself off from the splendour of the actual. There is an unimaginable and inconceivable purity right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time which far exceeds the most deepest, the most profound feeling of beauty or love – the actual is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams and schemes – and this moment and this place is an ever-present ‘jumping-in’ point, as it were ... however it does mean the end of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself). This is because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings’ are ‘me’. RESPONDENT: Do you ever get an answer? RICHARD: You get an experiential answer (the PCE) ... which is the only answer worth getting. RESPONDENT: When you tire of asking that question do you die? RICHARD: No ... altruistic ‘self’-immolation happens when a rather curious decision is made – a once-in-a-lifetime decision – to psychologically and psychically die for the benefit of this body and that body and every body. All your childhood hurts and fears – in fact all your hurts and fears – die forever right along with the death of ‘I’/‘me’. RESPONDENT: Do you still have to ask yourself that question? RICHARD: No, only the entity asked that question ... it may help in your understanding to mention that I did nothing at all in order to be just here right now as it was the identity inhabiting this body that did the necessary work all those years ago. I have been here all along, for 55 years, having a ball. RESPONDENT: Do both the asker and the askee die? RICHARD: Both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct – as dead as the dodo but with no skeletal remains – which means that reality also vanishes ... and the actual world becomes apparent. It too has been here all along. RESPONDENT: As far as the method, why is it necessary to ask ‘of being alive’? RICHARD: Because this moment is the only moment one is ever alive ... the past, although it was actual whilst it was happening, is not actual now and the future, although it will be actual when it happens, is not actual now. RESPONDENT: Isn’t it obvious that ‘How am I experiencing this moment?’ can only be asked by me if I’m alive? RICHARD: The past me, whilst being alive then, is not alive now and the future me, although being alive then, is not alive now ... one is only ever alive now. RESPONDENT: So, let’s say I feel lonely. I ask, then respond ‘I experience loneliness’, then I try to search for the cause of loneliness, which I think is conditioning of previous experiences of companionship, imprinted in me expectations of the moment. These don’t seem to be one specific point in time, but rather a vague overall experience with a past relationship. So, is that the correct procedure? RICHARD: This is the essential part of how I have previously described the way the identity who used to inhabit this flesh and blood body enabled the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent: • [Richard]: ‘Before applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here; it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this time around, hey presto, one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective way to be able to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive each moment again (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It does take some doing to start off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. One begins by asking, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is *not* the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself. This perpetual 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. Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores felicity and innocuity. The habituation of actualistic awareness and attentiveness requires a persistent initialisation; persistent initialisation segues into a wordless approach, a non-verbal attitude towards life. It delivers the goods just here, right now, and not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – virtually on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’. So, ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? As one knows from the pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), which are moments of perfection everybody has at some stage in their life, that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? Ahh ... yes: ‘He said that and I ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most (‘feeling good’ is an unambiguous term – it is a general sense of well-being – and if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all). 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 – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ ... and after that to ‘feeling perfect’. The more one enjoys and appreciates being just here right now – to the point of excellence being the norm – the greater the likelihood of a PCE happening ... a grim and/or glum person has no chance whatsoever of allowing the magical event, which indubitably shows where everyone has being going awry, to occur. Plus any analysing and/or psychologising and/or philosophising whilst one is in the grip of debilitating feelings usually does not achieve much (other than spiralling around and around in varying degrees of despair and despondency or whatever) anyway. 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). RESPONDENT: Find the cause to whatever unhappiness, then look at it? RICHARD: Find the cause of, at the very least, feeling good ceasing to happen ... then one is back to feeling good (at the very least) again. RESPONDENT: Then find the belief/more that causes it, and kill it? RICHARD: Find the belief/more/whatever and, seeing 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, one is once more feeling good (at the very least) ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. RESPONDENT: What about when I feel neither too happy nor unhappy? RICHARD: Then that is what is preventing one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive ... and it is rather silly, is it not, to waste this only moment one is ever alive by feeling neither too happy nor unhappy? RESPONDENT: What cause is there for those neutral moments? RICHARD: Once one realises that those very ‘neutral moments’ are standing in the way of enjoying and appreciating this, the only moment one is ever alive, one will have the motivation to soon find the cause so as to not have them happen ... preferably ever again. RESPONDENT: Like, brushing my teeth, for example, it’s not the most happy, but no pain either. RICHARD: Yet the moment in which the teeth-brushing happens is the most happy (and harmless) moment ... which felicity could be experienced if it be not for the feeling of neutrality standing in the way of such exquisite existence being experienced, that is. RESPONDENT: Last question, is going surfing everyday an escape from actuality? RICHARD: Not necessarily ... in fact the search for the perfect wave is actually born out of experiencing perfection when riding same previously (although it was not so much the perfect wave, so to speak, of course but the perfection experience). RESPONDENT: Or can it be an expression of happiness and harmlessness. RICHARD: As whatever one does can be, in actuality, an expression of happiness and harmlessness – or, rather, the benignity and benevolence of this material universe – it is somewhat moot to single out surfing (as opposed to, for instance, cleaning one’s teeth) as being that. RESPONDENT: I think it’s pretty harmless and produces happiness, but the only problem is when the waves aren’t good or when it’s crowded. RICHARD: Aye ... surf rage (at another dropping in for example) is hardly harmless and unsuitable-for-surfing waves are hardly the stuff of surfing happiness. Yet, and harking back to the topic at hand, asking oneself, each moment again (such as a moment of surf rage/wave disappointment), how one is experiencing this moment (this surfing rage/wave disappointment moment) of being alive – the only moment one is ever alive – will quickly disabuse oneself of the justification for wasting this only moment one can ever be happy and harmless in by choosing for maliciousness and/or sorrowfulness instead. Ain’t life grand! •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: Just by-the-by: another way of wasting this moment of being alive is by choosing to be impatient. RESPONDENT: I’m 18 and trying to become free of the human condition. I spend pretty much every conscious moment applying your method to feel good, become a better person, appreciate more of life, and to ultimately be free and live in actuality. Right now, I’m trying to face these emotions and feelings that occur in me while applying your method. I ask myself ‘the question’ over and over again while playing a fancy trick with myself ... if I’m feeling a bad feeling of some kind (which is a lot of the time), I don’t try and change it or avoid it or nothing, I let it come in and do its thing and try and enjoy it somehow. Like if I’m in a state of fear, I take your cue and focus on the thrilling part of being in dread. It’s some ride. I do this with all these bad feelings. If I’m bored or feeling some other unpleasantness, I look at the feeling and focus on the real rush in experiencing these ‘annoying and tickling feelings’ and somehow enjoy the fact that it’s bothering but somehow thrilling because it’s causing me to think and feel all these bizarre things and its amazing in someway. Quite hard to explain but it’s having some success in that it’s helping me cope. Am I on the right track here, or should I be approaching emotional issues differently? RICHARD: Here is the essence of the way I have previously explained how asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive), until it becomes a non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life, works in practice: • [Richard]: ‘Before applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here; it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this time around, hey presto, one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective way to be able to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive each moment again (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It does take some doing to start off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate being here each moment again. One begins by asking, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is *not* the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’ (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). 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. Plus the successes are repeatable – almost on demand – and thus satisfies the ‘scientific method’. ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This perpetual 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. Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores felicity and innocuity. The habituation of actualistic awareness and attentiveness requires a persistent initialisation; persistent initialisation segues into a wordless approach, a non-verbal attitude towards life. It delivers the goods just here, right now, and not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – virtually on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’. So, ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? As one knows from the pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), which are moments of perfection everybody has at some stage in their life, that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? Ahh ... yes: ‘He said that and I ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most (‘feeling good’ is an unambiguous term – it is a general sense of well-being – and if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all). 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 – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ ... and after that to ‘feeling perfect’. The more one enjoys and appreciates being just here right now – to the point of excellence being the norm – the greater the likelihood of a PCE happening ... a grim and/or glum person has no chance whatsoever of allowing the magical event, which indubitably shows where everyone has being going awry, to occur. Plus any analysing and/or psychologising and/or philosophising whilst one is in the grip of debilitating feelings usually does not achieve much (other than spiralling around and around in varying degrees of despair and despondency or whatever) anyway. 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). RESPONDENT: I don’t want to walk down the wrong path here. RICHARD: Okay ... then there is no need to keep on feeling the same feelings over and over again: if you are old enough to read and comprehend these words then you are old enough to have felt all those feelings umpteen times already ... enough is enough. The aim, therefore, is to minimise both the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) – and the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – by nipping them in the bud as soon as, if not before, they start to occur via the further above explanatory article. This enables one to (initially) feel good, to (then) feel happy and harmless, to (eventually) feel perfect for 99% of the time (a virtual freedom) ... and by thus deactivating both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings, and therefore activating the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on), then with this freed-up affective energy maximised, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). In short: it is the on-going felicitous/ innocuous sensuousness which ensures a win-win situation. RESPONDENT: I want to live in actuality and not head down anywhere else like enlightenment or depression. For a few years I was trying to become spiritually enlightened and ended up severely depressed. I don’t want to go near that road again. RICHARD: Well then ... you would know quite well, by your own experience, that once a feeling (or a mood) gets a grip it is incredibly difficult to claw one’s way out: hence it is far better to nip it in the bud before it gets to that stage. Incidentally, ‘nipping it in the bud’ is not to be confused with either suppression/repression or ignoring/avoiding ... it is to be consciously and deliberatively – with knowledge aforethought – declining oh-so-sensibly to futilely go down that well-trodden path to nowhere fruitful yet again. RESPONDENT: Appreciate your input. RICHARD: You are welcome ... and, just by-the-by, the cue to focus on the thrilling aspect of fear, rather than the fearsome aspect, applies to when fear has got a tenacious grip (through not having nipped it in the bud before it got up and running). It is a technique, in other words, to deal with full-blown fear ... and not the method per se. RESPONDENT: Whether it is a contradiction or not, I need this issue [getting back to feeling good] clarified for the practical application. RICHARD: Oh? What was not clarifying about my response when you first introduced this topic, then? Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘There is also confusion as to what should be done as soon as I find myself feeling less than good. Sometimes I read that I should get back to feeling good quickly before investigating the feeling, other times I read that I should track back and investigate first in order to feel good. • [Richard]: ‘The latter advice relates to consciously experiencing whatever it is which is preventing happiness and harmlessness (less it all be but a detached/ disassociated intellectual exercise) ... for example: [Richard]: ‘It is impossible for one to intelligently observe what is going on within if one does not at the same time acknowledge the occurrence of one’s various feeling-tones with attentiveness. This is especially true with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful). In order to observe one’s own fear, for instance, one must admit to the fact that one is afraid. Nor can one examine one’s own depression, for another example, without acknowledging it fully. The same is true for irritation and agitation and frustration and all those other uncomfortable emotional and passionate moods. One cannot examine something fully if one is busy denying its existence’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110, 28 March 2006). And the reason why I ask is because this is the reply I received to that e-mail: • [Respondent]: ‘Thank you Richard, that clears up what I have been doing wrong. I agree with all that you said and am now back to having some success feeling happy and harmless when I remember to. (...) Reading over the interpretations of other correspondents on the site has been very helpful in clarifying the method’. (Tuesday, 4/04/2006 10:42 AM AEST). RESPONDENT: (...) How is the method best done – should I examine the feeling and find its trigger while experiencing it, in order to get back to feeling good? RICHARD: If you have a tendency towards being an intellectual/ abstractional-type person then ... yes. RESPONDENT: Or should I get back to feeling good and then figure out why I last felt less-than-good? RICHARD: If you have a tendency towards being an emotional/ passional-type person then ... yes. RESPONDENT: What if we feel empty inside? RICHARD: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): you felt good previously; you are feeling empty inside now; something happened to you to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; you find out what happened; you see how silly that is (no matter what it was); you are once more feeling good. RESPONDENT: What if nothing happened to you to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling ... RICHARD: Speaking for the identity in residence all those years ago: there never was an occasion where nothing happened to ‘him’ to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling – there always was a trigger for the loss – and this has been amply corroborated by everyone I have ever spoken with who has put the actualism method into practice. RESPONDENT: Suppose I feel bad for some reason. Isn’t the traditional way to fix the situation as opposed to seeing how silly it is? RICHARD: The traditional way may take many forms (such as philosophising, psychologising, analysing, for instance) but never something so simple as seeing how silly it is, as opposed to sensible, to spend the only moment of ever actually being alive – this moment – feeling miserable or malicious (or antidotally loving and compassionate) when it is so easy to be happy and harmless. The past, although it was actual whilst it was happening, is not actual now; the future, although it will be actual when it is happening, is not actual now; only this moment is actual. The exquisite attention engendered, by the exclusive focus upon how this moment is being experienced, will reveal via felicitous/ innocuous and thus naïve sensuosity that this moment has no duration in actuality – it is never not this moment – which means that time, being thus eternal, does not move. There is a vast stillness here in this actual world (the sensate world). RESPONDENT: How does the mere seeing how silly it is make us happy once again? RICHARD: Because nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth getting malicious or miserable about (let alone compensatingly loving and compassionate) when the realisation that this moment is the only one there ever is becomes the actuality it already always is. To explain: just as space is an arena for objects to exist in so too is time an arena (so to speak) for events to occur; just as the arena called space does not move neither does the arena (so too speak) called time move, either. A clock (originally a primitive sundial) measures the rate of rotation of planet earth on its axis; a calendar measures the rate of its orbit around its star (the sun); neither is a measure of time as time eternally stands still. Is it not silly to be malicious/ miserable (or counteractively loving/ compassionate) where felicity/ innocuity is eternally available? Is it not sensible to be felicitous/ innocuous instead? RESPONDENT: ... but that something must happen in order to trigger that feeling? RICHARD: The only thing which must happen to trigger that felicitous/ innocuous feeling is to find out what happened to occasion its loss; upon seeing how silly that is (no matter what it was) feeling good is once more the way in which this moment of being alive is experienced. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that thought must be applied in order to feel good again? RICHARD: No, or at least not necessarily, as the very awareness that the only moment of ever being alive is being frittered away in a malicious and/ or miserable way (or in a remedially loving and/or compassionate way) will usually, and soon does, do the trick. RESPONDENT: Isn’t the usual path to fix it by taking action then be gone our merry way? RICHARD: If you are really capable of being gone your [quote] ‘merry way’ [endquote], each moment again, by fixing it through taking action as per the usual path then why on earth are you writing to me, asking question after question, instead of just going away and doing that? RESPONDENT: If we don’t have the proper tools to fix the situation by taking action then no amount of thought can be applied to remedy the feeling. RICHARD: Whereas the very seeing of how silly it is (no matter what it may be) can absent the feeling in the very instant of that seeing. RESPONDENT: Aren’t feelings determined by the circumstances and not the thoughts? RICHARD: All feelings are determined by the identity (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). Put simply: your freedom, or lack thereof, is in your hands ... and in your hands alone. Actual Freedom Homepage
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