Actual Freedom - Wiki
Actual Freedom
The actualism method
The practice of actualism is intended to orient one towards a condition that is increasingly happy and harmless and incrementally free of malice and sorrow. The recommended way to conduct this practice is to ask oneself, each moment again, 'how am i experiencing this moment of being alive?' with the utmost sincerity and dedication, as a vital interest in the 'how' of experience (in addition to the 'what') is what allows one to take charge of one's life to the extent that one, by virtue of choice moment and moment again, can cease being harmful and unhappy entirely, delight in one's own existence and in one's surroundings continuously, and sometimes pop through to a condition in which one's being ceases (or is in abeyance) completely, and malice and sorrow, far from having no foothold, simply cannot arise.
Knowing this condition, called a pure consciousness experience (or PCE, for short), is important because not only does it reveal the end goal, but its memory also orients one very automatically, as well as reveals something relevant to one's endeavour in the here and now. Keeping at the brink of this condition of purity, as closely as one can while still remaining a feeling being, is (1) considered to be the most likely way to induce it permanently, and (2) a really cool way to live life and experience this moment of it. [1]
A How-to
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.
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’?
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 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.