Actualism John de Rutier

[Guest guest]

To be seeking spiritual freedom

is to be going 180 degrees in

the wrong direction

 

Actualism

 

Feelings are indeed where the

Human Condition lives on, unchanged, in all its

wretched misery and sorrow.

Yes, it's 180 degrees in the opposite direction to where we humans have searched

for solutions.

 

In the course of my exploration into what my 'self' and the Human

Condition consist of I was

amazed how many times I found

'180 degrees opposite' the appropriate expression. Just a

few such opposites as an example:

 

emotions – no emotions

 

being self-centred and feeling

 

unselfish – altruistic

 

spiritual – tangible

 

imaginary – factual

 

believing the right belief – no

belief at all

 

belief in soul – extinction of soul

 

love/hate – fellow human beings

 

beauty – actuality

 

affective feeling – extinguish emotions becoming your natural

self – extinguish instinctual passions search for the meaning

of life – delight in the fact that

I am already here feeling of Oneness – actual intimacy thought

is the culprit – the feeling

entity is the problem you can't change human nature – you step

out of Humanity sex is evil – s

ex is pleasure striving

to do the right and the good – self-immolation god, heaven, divine, Existence –

this all-prevailing belief is merely

a fervent imagination ...

 

Only by looking again and again

in the opposite direction did I find the actual world hidden beneath my

preconceived ideas, concepts and beliefs and my

'self'-centred attachment to

being an emotional-instinctual being.

 

As a side note, according to Richard's understanding of the egoless state of

being, there is

no imagination possible in an egoless state because one is

totally busy living the life as

it is happening moment by moment.

As a consequence, there might be

no concern about the future. If there is a total dis-concern for

the future and one is living –

as the body – in the world

inhabited by other people, will

not the physical safety be in danger? Or is the very idea of 'danger'

emotionally driven and even when a dangerous situation

occurs, the body will be busy living it and hence there will be

no hard feelings against the situation.

 

There are a few distinctions that

are vital for an actualist –

1. In Spiritualism, particularly

in Eastern Spirituality, one is taught and encouraged to get rid

of the 'I' or 'ego' in order to reach a permanent 'ego-less state'

or altered state of consciousness

aka enlightenment. In an

'ego-less state' there is no

little man in the head as the controller, but one's feelings,

the soul – fuelled and maintained

by the instinctual passions –

are now without a controller and

rampantly expand to a feeling-state of 'I am One

with Everything', 'I am not the body', 'I am That', and 'I am the Divine'.

 

Actualism is firmly based on the

fact that the animal instinctual passions are at the core of the Human

Condition, which has an additional layer of societal

conditioning, morals, ethics and beliefs that have been developed down the ages

in order to control extreme outbreaks of the instinctual passions. Therefore

a freedom from the Human Condition

includes the elimination of both

one's social identity, which consists of the morals, ethics

and societal conditioning (in

Eastern spirituality called 'the

mind' or 'the ego'), as well as the underlying raw instinctual passions of

fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

 

So when I was writing –'The way

I see it now is that death is simply an extension of this continuing discovery

of 'me',

the spoiler, being redundant ...'

.... I was talking about 'me' as

who I think I am and who I feel

I am, both ego and soul.

2. Richard lives in Actual Freedom,

which is being here without any identity whatsoever. With the

death of his identity the faculty

of imagination disappeared along

with his instinctual passions.

 

Therefore whatever Richard

writes is not a mere 'understanding

of the ego-less state' but an accurate description of what he

is living 24hrs a day, every

day. Imagination for him is

simply not possible because imagination cannot exist outside the feeling entity

inside this flesh and blood body – it dies

with the entity. And because there

is no imagination interfering,

he is 'living the life as it is happening moment by moment'.

 

In the spiritual process (even if

you have not achieved perfect control of the thoughts and feelings) once you've

gotten the clue that you are not the things

you are witnessing, you start looking for the witness itself

or, I should say, the Witness Itself.

 

If you are rigorous in your investigation, you will finally

come to the conclusion that

there is no Witness to be found. Then you are left with

witnessing. The question is,

will it be Witnessing or is there

simply a flesh and blood body

present with the capacity to be aware of its own awareness?

 

This is where Actual Freedom lies

180 degrees opposite to all spiritual belief.

 

As an actualist I am not concerned

about witnessing at all but about

removing any belief, emotion

and feeling that prevents me from

being happy and harmless

in this very moment. I don't witness the Witness in order to remove him/her, I

use awareness

to scrutinize my accumulated beliefs, investigate the

underlying causes of my emotions

each time they occur. When this

investigation is

undertaken with sufficient intent

and depth, a realization will occur such that action inevitably

follows changing my behaviour towards becoming more harmless

and happy. 'I' am my emotions

and instinctual passions and the

witness/Witness is merely a by-product of these emotions

and passions.

 

Coming from spiritual practice

I had to unlearn passive watching

and undo the 'dissociating from feelings and thoughts' in order

to apply sensible thought to

question and eliminate beliefs

and to experience and investigate

emotions and feelings. Once you abandon the idea of a Witness, there is only

one self, 'me',

my identity, whatever hide-and -seek games we have been taught

to play with it.

 

It makes it all so very simple, practical and effective.

 

 

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love, Era