[9:40 PM, 3/29/2019] Soh Wei Yu: Now I’m walking.. absolutely no self /Self/agency at all.. and the pce [i.e. the vivid radiance of anatta that 'makes' everything like a wondrous paradise is now my unbroken state] is still there as before but the main characteristic that stands out now is not the radiance but the walking is just infinitude of the universe as the seamless activity.. in the absence of an agent/self/Self there is just this

[9:42 PM, 3/29/2019] Soh Wei Yu: [And also the experience comes with a] Very still mind.. except when writing this
[9:42 PM, 3/29/2019] John Tan: Yes don't focus, relax and be light. No self, no center. Don't over do. Learn a somatic technique.
[9:52 PM, 3/29/2019] Soh Wei Yu: yea this cosmic sense of centerless ness is different from focused kind of pce.. it’s like pce is already natural here and makes no sense to focus more.. the cosmic sense of Maha does not require focusing but complete opening without self/Self/agent... it created no tension in my head at all
[9:55 PM, 3/29/2019] John Tan: Yes
[9:57 PM, 3/29/2019] John Tan: Just centerless and without background, light and immense. No focus no concentration. Natural and free.
[9:57 PM, 3/29/2019] John Tan: And master a somatic technique to release ur body and any form of energy imbalance.


.........


Update, wrote to someone:



"It is good you are seeing the fabrications working together to shape a dualistic experience. That is seeing the afflictive dependent origination, seeing that selfing-activity, duality, grasping as the very activity that dependently originates. Therefore there is no self/Self/agent, but there is the afflictive sense of self, grasping and reification in action. There is no actor but there is action, be it afflictive or non-afflictive.. it is not an agent giving rise to afflictive activities but afflictive activities giving rise to selfing through dependent arising


As for total exertion and maha, that is more on the non-afflictive side of dependent origination, the general principle of dependent origination. You will see that the +A expressions are all over in Dogen's writings, whereas the Mahamudra/Tibetan tends to emphasize more on -A.


I started having mini glimpses of total exertionas early as 2011 but only had very clear experiences of it beginning in 2013 where I wrote about dharma body - https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2013/09/dharma-body_7.html -- where even the walking activity is as immense and boundless as the whole universe, a seamless activity of mind-body-universe.


John Tan used the word Maha and Total Exertion to describe this, it is about totality. Maha means great, but it is not big vs small, but great without boundaries. Immense as the universe. As he often said, be light as feather but immense as the universe.


Nowadays the infinitude of maha total exertion has become a natural, effortless state as an ongoing experience. When you are doubtless and stabilized anatta, you must mature your insight and experience in this direction.


That Maha total exertion must become a natural state, as written in https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html -


"A week ago, the clear experience of Maha dawned and became quite effortless and at the same time there is a direct realization that it is also a natural state. In Sunyata, Maha is natural and must be fully factored into the path of experiencing whatever arises. Nevertheless Maha as a ground state requires the maturing of non-dual experience; we cannot feel entirely as the interconnectedness of everything coming spontaneously into being as this moment of vivid manifestation with a divided mind.


The universe is this arising thought.

The universe is this arising sound.

Just this magnificent arising!

Is Tao.

Homage to all arising."


Even if you see the Actual Freedom teachings, there are two stages of actual freedom.


1) The basic, newly-free actual freedom is characterized by the lack of separative identity, feeling-being, magical and wonderful luminosity as actual time and form,


"On the woven table mat my attention was drawn to a dark blue plastic cigarette lighter, an empty glass, a tobacco pouch and other sundry items. All of a sudden, Richard’s phrase “the actual world of people, things and events” came to mind and I found myself acknowledging that the things on the table existed in actuality, i.e. did in fact actually exist, and this being the case, here I was waving my hand in front of “people”, in this case Richard, saying that I experienced him as if behind a veil, i.e. not actually existing. It took only a few more seconds of switching my attention from the things on the table and my waving hand for the whole illusion of a separating veil to collapse – along with my illusory self-centred identity as I was gradually becoming aware of.


The whole experience was like a seamless transition between two worlds – from being a feeling being trapped within an illusionary all-encompassing self-created and sustained bubble to being here in the actual world. There was no dramatic end for ‘me’, no death-like traumatic experience, no prior psychic events or escapades, no “wall of fear”, no “abyss” – rather there was a profound experience of sweetness, a ready acknowledgement of my destiny and a final understanding that the feeling of separateness was nothing other than an illusion of ‘my’ own making." - Peter


"There was no fear, no experience of death, no physical phenomena or changes, just the realization that I have always been here in this eternal moment in time, in this luminous magical world, more naked than I was born and utterly safe... ...The next morning was the real test – I half-expected that I had reverted back to normal but the world was just as brilliant, beneficial and wunderbar as I had experienced it the night before. I am still surprised how easy it all turned out to be in the end." - Vineeto


This is why I asked how thorough are you experiencing the 2nd stanza.. as well as the intensity of luminosity as vivid form, this is important as well in addition for the aspect of no agent. But from what you messaged me it you are already experiencing that aspect well at the moment.


2) The Fully Free actual freedom characterized by permanent experience of infinitude [not just glimpses] that comes soon after the loss of social identity (from what I understand from that website, that includes views, impinging on what actions to take and interpretations of one's pure experience including of that infinitude, sometimes subtly interpreting it wrongly or in terms of metaphysical essence based on the convo of Vineeto with a newly-free person) - to me what I see as more crucial is that the view aspect must be clear. This is also related to the example of the video by Leo on Actualized.org describes the Maha Total Exertion glimpses in 5-Meo-DMT trip, but he is still having view of inherent existence, and misinterpreting that infinitude in terms of metaphysicality in the same way that Vineeto discussed with another guy. With that social identity or 'shadow being' in place, it prevents the permanent experience of infinitude.


But that is how AF expresses or interpretes. For you, you just need to be clear on anatta and D.O., that will lead to effortless Maha/total exertion. There must not be desync of view and experience, otherwise it will be a hindrance.


But the progression is quite similar -- means anatta in two stanza stabilized, then glimpses of maha total exertion, then a shift into permanent total exertion. But AF lacks emptiness.


As John Tan wrote previously, “Richard's experience is not different from total exertion. However his actual view will be restricting him imo.”


.....


As Vineeto (who has become almost like a successor or Richard at the moment, being the first fully free person besides Richard himself, and I think is currently living with Richard) wrote:


VINEETO: Yes, the definite moment of becoming fully free happened on October 12, 2010.


And yes, "the experiences and investigation around those interactions constituted the bulk of the ‘many more things’."


To refresh my memory I checked what I wrote to Tarin in November 2010 about this period after the abdication of the guardian –


[Vineeto]: Frequent interactions with Richard quite often resulted in glimpses of a greater depth to an actual freedom and at the time I called them windows into purity. Both Richard and I had noticed that when I described how I experienced myself, words such as the ‘immaculate purity’ and ‘pristine limpidness’ where not part of my vocabulary and, except for a few occasional glimpses, neither did I mention in my description experiencing the infinitude of this spatially infinite, temporally eternal and perpetually forming and changing universe, whereas Richard has described his experience of an actual freedom in such glowing terms like in one of my favourite excerpts from his journal –


[Richard]: "There is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any "King’s ransom". It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed Blissful States Of ‘Being’ ... ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe … which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. That something precious is me as-I-am ... me as I actually am as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am. I am the universe’s experience of itself. The limpid and lucid perfection and purity of being here now, as-I-am, is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent dew-drop with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with has experienced this impeccable purity and perfection in some way or another at varying stages in their life. Is it not impossible to conceive – and just too difficult to imagine – that this is one’s essential character? One has to be daring enough to live it ... for it is both one’s audacious birth-right and adventurous destiny.


When one lives the magical perfection of this purity twenty-four-hours-a-day; when one has ceased being ‘I’ and is being genuine, one can see clearly that there is no separation between me and that something which is precious. The purity of life emerges from the perfection that wells up constantly due to an immense stillness which is utterly immense in its scope and magnitude. This stillness of infinitude is that something which is precious. It is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. This stillness happens as me. This stillness is my essential disposition, for it is the principle character, the intrinsic basis of everything. It is this universe at its genesis. It is not, as it might commonly be supposed, at the centre of everything ... there is no centre here. This stillness, which is everywhere all at once, is the be all and end all of life itself. I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being." Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Twenty-five


In the early months of this year [2010] I had plenty of opportunity to read Richard’s words describing the outstanding quality of an actual freedom while I was updating the website, replacing all footnotes with the new format of tool-tips and I became starkly aware of the vast gap of experiencing between his descriptions and my own experience of myself and the world around me."


After the abdication of the guardian I was one day ready to allow myself to fully (and permanently) experience the spatial infinitude of the universe. Here is the description of what happened –


[Vineeto]: "The next significant event happened a week after my completion [the abdication of the guardian]. It began with an eerie sensation in the head as if my brain was being operated on whilst being fully conscious. After about 15 minutes or so there was a sensation as if my brain was being scattered throughout the universe. When I recovered from the experience itself enough to find out what actually happened, I noticed that I had lost my centre of reference (a discovery that left me quite disconcerted for about 2 weeks). Richard reported that in the days before he was able to existentially sense me as being close, very close, right in front of his eyes, so to speak, but that after this event he has been no longer able to sense me existentially. The direct result of losing the boundaries of my localized reference during this ‘brain-scattering’ event is that I am permanently apperceptively aware of the infinitude of the universe as infinite space, eternal time and perpetual matter." Private letter to Tarin, November 29, 2010


I remember a similar profound disorientation (for a short period of time) after allowing to fully understand and experience the temporal infinitude of the universe.


So, lots of adventures and discoveries are still to come after becoming newly free." - Soh, 2019


“Now it’s very clear that the whole universe is the total exertion of all conditions in spatial and temporal infinitude.. each activity is the exertion of all the conditions in ten directions and three times.” - Soh, 2019


“There are few conditions to experience maha as a ground [state] (Soh: means effortlessly experienced in all situations as always already so)


1. Mature in non-dual experience

2. DO (dependent origination)

3.  Experience and understand that 'interconnectedness' is the universe itself


Then 'self' and even non dual becomes quite irrelevant. In fact now presence is not understand as non-dual to me, but as dependent origination, where non-dual is already included” - John Tan, 2009


If Maha Total Exertion (+A) has become a ground state, effortlessly so and clear, you have to ask yourself is the taste of -A present? Or as John Tan asked, “Do you know what does landing without dust mean? 落地无尘,踏雪无痕 (falling to the floor without dust [accumulating], stepping on snow without leaving trails)”


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2 Responses
  1. Anonymous Says:

    Go.Go discover immortality.When extreme suffering,illness and death strike with full force,no amt of noself and voidness will help,only by entering the immortal realm is the real solution to samsara is finally found.


  2. Soh Says:

    Just like AF Richard, I have completely ended the delusion of immortality 8+ years ago. http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/abriefpersonalhistory.htm

    Don't waste your time telling me about immortality, that delusion is irreversibly seen through.

    I wish you well on your journey, there is no point in my conversing with you any more.