JOHN.E: Another question is in regards to “The direct path”.

Reading about it, it seems like it’s the same technique but that there is a jump-off point somewhere on the bus line where you can jump off, even though the buss hasn’t reached the end station yet. If so, what is the difference in how one approaches Actualism and how would one go about jumping off the buss early?

VINEETO: Claudiu’s Journal – #218 by Vineeto  (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu2, 29 August 2024) and Kub933’s Journal – #1141 by Kub933

Cheers Vineeto

JOHN.E: Thank you for the links Vineeto.

VINEETO: Hi John,

Regarding what Geoffrey called “The Direct Path” I’m not sure what he referred to, most likely to what is referred to as “The Direct Route”, bypassing spiritual enlightenment. You could ask him.

JOHN.E: I’ve read through the posts and quite a few below as well to try to understand. I sometimes get a feeling of ahhh, yes ofc. And then that changes into, well what am I supposed to do then?!

The argument for trying to self immolate being that if you can allow a PCE to happen then you should be able to allow self-immolation to happen.

VINEETO: First, a PCE is a spontaneous, always temporary event where ‘I’ and ‘me’ is in abeyance. You cannot become actually free from a PCE.

Second, there is indeed something you do in the meantime – the actualism method.

Third, regarding “trying to self-immolate” –

Alan: Richard has never suggested “trying to self-immolate”. There are no ‘rules’ and no conditions for self-immolation to happen. (Actualism, Others, Dona & Alan Report, 8 Nov 2017).

My question to you at this point is, why do you want to ‘self’-immolate?

I ask because first you would need to know what it is and why it is that you would want to give up what you hold most dear – ‘me’ – and because you wrote only four days ago –

JohnE: I’ve seen people use terms as excellent which kind of makes sense but to me it’s more of a scale of being here as a feeling being and being here in the actual world and it doesn’t matter so much what we call it.

If you do not even care about the difference of experiencing being in the real world as a feeling being or experiencing the actual world when your ‘being’ is in abeyance, then your level of interest is rather lukewarm and presently not conducive to have a fruitful conversation.

Richard: What I usually say is that there is sufficient information available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site to establish a prima-facie case worthy of further investigation – rather than capricious dismissal as having all been said before – and thus (intellectually) find out what actualism is on about ... and then see what happens.

In other words: what one can do is make a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about, then the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written.

Then it is the PCE that is one’s lodestone or guiding light [a.k.a. ‘highest authority’] ... not me or my words. My words then offer confirmation ... and affirmation in that a fellow human being has safely walked this wide and wondrous path. [Emphases added]. (Richard, Abditorium, Prima Facie Case).

Remembering a PCE, and rememorating it, you might also understand experientially what pure intent is referring to, for which Henry had given you the links a week ago.

Richard: Nothing in the real-world is genuine (as in actually authentic, true, pure, bona fide, veritable, valid, non-counterfeit, non-fake, original, unadulterated, unalloyed, the real McCoy, and so on).

Respondent: I have no idea. It all seems to give me pleasure or pain depending on what’s going on. I’d say that thinking, imagining and feeling give me less pleasure than anything sensory, but then some thoughts I find ‘interesting’ (which is pleasurable) and some feelings I find ‘nice’ (like when I’m really happy). It’s all very confusing. What needs to go?

Richard: Eventually ... everything.

Respondent: What needs to stay?

Richard: Ultimately ... nothing.

Respondent: If the whole lot is to go, then how is it done?

Richard: By 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 towards life, a wordless approach to being alive, so that the slightest deviation from the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition – a way epitomised by a felicitous and innocuous naïve sensuousness – is not only automatically noticed almost immediately but the instance whereby the deviation occurred is readily ascertained such as to enable the resumption of one’s habituated blithesome and benign way again ... sooner rather than later. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 90, 14 June 2005a).

In a genuine PCE it is patently obvious that one’s experience “is out of this world”, as in “jamais vu” (never seen) experience, that ‘I’ am nowhere to be found, where everything is so perfect that one could live like this forever.

If you consider it as a “slide” or a “scale” from good to better to excellent to PCE to actual freedom, then perhaps what you thought was a PCE was something else?

JOHN.E: I very much care about where on that slide I am, and I am here because I feel better when I’m more towards the PCE side of that scale and want to learn how to live there. But if going into and learning the different names that would correlate to that scale would make that easier, then I’m open to trying that out and see if it helps.

VINEETO: In order to “live there”, ‘you’, the feeling being, will have to die. ‘You’ can never experience the actual world. That’s what Geoffrey was referring to when he said –

Geoffrey: As long as you find yourself looking for the door that is tiny (the recipe, the formula, the secret sauce, the psychic gun, the pill, the trick), you’re nowhere near and should instead walk the path.

As long as you find the path narrow, arduous, vanishing, confusing, instead of wide and wondrous as it is, you’re not walking it, you are merely lost in the woods nearby – and should instead find it in yourself to take a first clear step in the right direction, such as making a commitment to happiness and harmlessness.
The door is wide as the universe, just as the path is by imitation.
When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains. [Emphasis added].

When this has sunk in deeply then the actualism method of channelling all one’s affective energy from the ‘good’ feelings, the affectionate and desirable emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are loving and trusting) and the ‘bad’ feelings, the hostile and invidious emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are hateful and fearful) towards the felicitous/ innocuous feelings will make more sense.

The actualism method offers a way to diminish the bulk of the identity you are, peeling off layer by layer of identity-enhancing feelings and replacing them with identity-diminishing felicitous feelings until ‘I’ grow so thin and feeble that at some point ‘I’ will agree to relinquish control and go out-from-under-control, the different-way-of-being virtual freedom Richard has described many times.

*

VINEETO: Ah, the quick if not instant way to an actual freedom – before you experientially understand what it is where you want to go. Here is what I wrote to another a few months ago who has been similarly looking for a shortcut to become free (…)

JOHN.E: This is from a misunderstanding on my part. I thought there were two different methods or ways of practicing the method, one called the direct path and one the actual method. Naturally I’d be interested in hearing how the latest people to become actually free did so.

VINEETO: There is one sure way to become actually free and Geoffrey summed it up brilliantly in the last sentence of the quote presented above –

Geoffrey: When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains. [Emphasis added].

*

VINEETO: Also, as a suggestion, because you said you feel “overwhelmed” by “so much text” or are “not much of a reader” – to read a little bit with vital interest and therefore fascinated attention can be more beneficial than ticking the box for having read a large amount with only limited interest. There are also text-to-audio applications you can research.

JOHN.E: Someone else also suggested this to me and it’s worked well. Listening to the recordings have been a great help as well, thank you for sharing those.

VINEETO: You are very welcome, I am pleased it worked well for you.

Cheers Vineeto