Learning More About Actualism

I've mentioned the practice of actualism to some friends and so put together this list of links for them to discover more about the practice. The website can be a bit confusing, and often off-putting to people at first.

Here is the practice in a nutshell:
http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/method.htm

I think this quote sums up the intention of the practice pretty well, and it is from perhaps the most detailed and technical explanation of the technique - presented in the article, "Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness". This article gives a more detailed explanation of how to practice the method outlined in the previous link.
http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/attentivenesssensuousnessapperceptiveness.htm

"The intent is you will become happy and harmless. The intent is you will be free of sorrow and malice. The intent is you will become blithesome and benign. The intent is you will be free of fear and aggression. The intent is you will become carefree and considerate. The intent is you will be free from nurture and desire. The intent is you will become gay and benevolent. The intent is you will be free of anguish and animosity. The intent is that, by being free of the Human Condition you will experience peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this body..." - Richard

Also, I recommend the Library for searching general topics of interest, and it also provides a link to the FAQ page:
http://actualfreedom.com.au/library

For someone who may be less interested in the technical details but would enjoy a fun introductory tour, this link could be useful:
http://actualfreedom.com.au/introduction/universe.htm

Enjoy, and be happy.

Going Beyond Beauty

I woke up this morning, feeling fresh, well rested. I looked across the room to the blue curtain hanging by the brown wooden window frame. The contrast of bright blue on woody brown was stunning and I decided to linger with my attention there for a minute. As I continued to enjoy this vivid display of color, a sense of beauty arose in me.

"That's beautiful," I thought to myself, while looking at this vivid blue on brown arrangement of light.

"Ah, beauty!" I thought to myself next. I had been eagerly awaiting a chance to explore this beauty thing in greater depth. What is this thing we call beautiful? I investigated inwardly with an attentive curiousity. Ah, yes... beauty is a feeling, an emotion!

It sounds strange even writing it now, but in the moment it's so clear. Beauty is my enjoyment of my concept about the show of light I was watching. It's a sorta inward vibing with myself and my own thought "this is beautiful." Because I have concieved that I'm observing a "beautiful thing," I can experience a sorta inward pleasure with myself. Because "I" am witnessing the beauty, and because "I" am a part of this beauty - I get a warm pleasure inside. In essence, the beauty wouldn't even exist if not for "me!" and what a wonderful boost this is for "me."

"Ah, yes... this is what I've been calling "beauty." What a waste! Let me throw that out," I thought next. The absurdity of it required no further investigation. "Now, let me see what this experience actually is," I continued with the inquiry. What is this blue and brown? What is this seeing? What are these sensations in my eyeballs which are percieving color - vibrant, active, radiating.

I continued to look at the colors with the directness of my actual eyes. Abandoning the safe space behind the eyes where I could sit and observe - the safe space where "I" still exist. I lept forward, into the colors themselves, into my eyeballs, into the sensations. The colors were the sensations, the curtains were the colors, my eyes were the sensing. The sensing was active. These colors were not dead, lifeless, inert. These colors were now! These colors, the actual experience, was actually happening. Light entering eyeballs, a selection of wavelengths percieved by the sensitive apparatus of the visual organ. Each wavelength unique and distinct by it's very factual existence. The sensing was the most intimate and direct contact with these already existant colors.

Delight would be a small understatement. Pleasure fits well. What a joy these colors were. The joy was the sensing - there was no gap. No sensing first and then enjoying. The sensing was the enjoying. Sensuosness. The pure pleasure of unadulterated sensing. Actual color, actual light.

It was clear that I had left the territory known as the beautiful and was now traveling in a new landscape. This landscape was completely unknown as it's existence was only in the present moment. There was no way to have been there before, thus no way to have known it previously.

What was "beauty" had now opened up into a new world of sight and seeing. Beauty had fallen by the wayside. Things still held some resemblence to that old image of beauty. The experience was still fascinating, scintillating, vibrant, stunning, wondrous, active and dynamic. The pleasure of it had only increased if anything. But, beautiful? A far cry. Such a personal and self-referential adjective couldn't possibly describe this experience which was so much more than "I" could ever be.

Ah... time passed and I sat down thinking, "maybe I should write about that experience." I began to reflect on it (as I'm also reflecting on it now while typing.)

Reflecting thus, "going beyond beauty. What a wonderful experience," I began again to tune into my experience. This time I sat at my computer, music playing, soft light coming in through the blinds.

"Ah, yes. It's still here." *IT* being the actual universe as experienced through the sense organs. It is still here indeed! Ha!

I hear the music and once again take the leap. The leap into the sensations themselves, free from my self. The music surrounds me, it approaches from every angle, as I sit in the music itself - In the hearing, at the exact point of dynamic contact. The colors blend with sound, as it all becomes just raw sensation. This time the pleasure nears overwhelm, and literally knocks the breath out of me. I recoil to catch my breath. Physical waves of pleasure move through the entirety of my body.

This is new.

I've never ventured this far out before - this far beyond "the beautiful."

Habitual reactions come up. Mostly fear. "Oh, this is too much," and "oh, I can't take this," and "I can't handle this," and "this isn't good," etc.

I pause and consider the facts: Well, certainly I wouldn't live very long if I'm not breathing, so catching my breath is a sound idea. But, having the breath knocked out of me is just a startle response to the rather surprising stimuli of such intense pleasure. There's nothing about the pleasure itself that is overwhelming. Ok, excuse diverted.

I continued the inquiry. "Could I live there forever?" And the next fear became clear: "Ah... but it will consume all of me. Like a black hole, it will absorb me completely." And for some reason this seems "scary"? The scariness of it evades me at this moment. A flurry of other reactions and resistance shows it's head - all of it unfounded in any sort of sensibility.

It's like a tin can called "beauty" was sitting on my shelf and I naively decided to open it. "Experience" popped out, and now there's no getting it back in. In fact, I'm not sure I can even find the can anymore.

I sit, continuing to type. Yes, there is still work to do. This isn't, at all, the end of the journey, but the end of this little tale. A tale which continues on as this moment, "this only moment of being alive."

Happy and Harmless

"We are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence – we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition – and we want to know why. We all report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it."

"It is the most stimulating adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage into one’s own psyche. Discovering the source of the Nile or climbing Mount Everest – or whatever physical venture – pales into insignificance when compared to the thrill of finding out about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are."

- Richard

I woke up this morning thinking about harmlessness, and a wish for you out there to simply feel good about life.

I sometimes don't know what this blog is all about, but I think one hope was for it to be honest and sincere.

There are trees here, and trees very often bring me a sense of well-being. Trees tend also to be rather harmless for the most part as well.

So, I step out of my house into the cold morning air and sit, typing under the trees and the birdsongs. I look, and I am in a jungle, a green paradise teeming with life. To my left, I look through layers of leaves. Through the leaves of one tree, I see the trunk of the next. Beyond the oaks, I see the orange Madrone trunk reaching up for the sky. Beyond that, more green leaves which fade into a darker backdrop of shaded leaves in the far background - a good 50 yards away. One leave falls from the brighter layer and the contrast of bright green on dark is stunning. What amazes me is that I can't see the soil, and neither can I see sky. Beyond the farthest leaf I can see, lies only more branches trunks and leaves. It is not thick and crowded, but it's not vacant either.

I look in front of me and see a different view. Redwood trees, with their darker needles, and dark wood trunks. In this direction I can see to the ground, the soil in front of me - again about 50 yards away - is covered in decaying leaves from what seems to be a endless California season of regenerative leaf growth. Some branches cross horizontally creating a matrix of intersecting lines.

The oak tree right in front of me looks sad. It's struggling with it's health and looks stunted in it's growth. Short branches peel off of a spindly trunk. The leaves are a rich green color, and they seem to be saying "I'm not done yet."

It's cold and I wonder about the marvelous existence of temperature. To be born not only into three dimensions of space, and also time, with all it's movement, shape, form and colors, but also to have this extra thing we call temperature. Each moment reaches fullness only with it's complimentary temperature. Feeling cold, I feel alive. Feeling warm, I feel alive. In this moment, I am alive.

What would it be to live a day of life without greed, hatred, and delusion? What would it be to live a day of life without the struggle of Good vs. Evil?

What is this strange world?