The Nondual Cafe: Actualism or Actual Freedom - deep dive 1 - notes approach links issues discussions

Actualism or Actual Freedom - deep dive 1 - notes

I've decided to take a bit of a deep dive into a niche set of teachings and approaches called "Actualism" or "Actual Freedom". This originated around 12 years back, again from Australia (which is unusual in terms of being anywhere on the spiritual map). Originally, the approach was posted by a "Richard", and later included some other names "Peter", "Veneeto", and over the last decade has grown slightly to include others who claim to be 'free' and 'actualised' (but avoid common terms such as enlightenment, due to wanting to stand out as something different, a new teaching, or 'third alternative' to the current spiritual offerings out there).

If I had to sum up this teaching or approach, taking into account there's hundreds of lines of text on the source website attempting to explain what it is and isn't, then I would say it is pretty much:

- The consistent (or permanent when the habit self-ing/self-reference has ceased after a long while) state of present moment awareness with hightened clarity of external sensory perception and focus. This naturally leads to what AF is attempting to do, which is enjoy oneself and sense experience in the present moment (becaue the nervous system is calm, focused, clear and chilled). Of course, this isn't anything new, despite AF claiming it's a new thing, and this approach has been around for thousands of years via certain schools in yoga, Buddhism, Zen, etc. I won't say ALL schools, but certain niche schools that took this approach to clarity and awakening. IMO there are better ways of approaching this instead of using an enquiry only, and forsaking other aids such as a regular meditation practice, having some stability and ethics in life etc.. and this is why there seems to be a relatively few people who have stuck it out with AF and gained the promised end result.

I originally encountered this teaching and site (also) about a decade ago, but due to the lack of coherent content on the site, and a lack of structured approach, decided to leave it. There was some commentary on DharmaOverground and in a few other places such as Soh's ATR blog site, but commentary and understanding seemed to be limited to the main actualfreedom.com.au site.

Since then, an excellent, coherent and simplified site has popped up explaining Actualism in simple, easy to understand terms. This can be found at https://www.simpleactualism.com/intro and I would highly recommend this over the original 'Gold Standard' website http://actualfreedom.com.au/ in terms of beginning to study the approach. However, the original website does have a massive amount of background information and Q&A, which makes it worth browsing over time.

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As an initial reading or overview today, after having fully gone through the SimpleActualism site, some points I'll note here:

The aims seem to be similar to certain approaches in early Buddhism, being insight into anatta, and the loss of a 'self'/'I'/'being' or referential entity or individual. This is for the overall aim of being "happy and harmless", and living a sort of 'natural', 'common' state of existence without psychological suffering. Key differences between other common spiritual paths include the treatment of sensuality (encouraged in AF, not encouraged in Early Buddhism for instance), a lack of philosophy (supposedly, although there's quite a lot of philosophical conjecture on the AFT site), and of course a much simpler structure and approach with AF, excluding all rules, conduct, cultivation of concentration, insight, maps, etc.--- NOTE however, there is some talk about cultivating a harmless, happy state of being and investigation into feelings, emotions and negative states with the intent of move out of these and back to the natural, actual state of affairs.
This also resembles some nondual approaches, particularly certain contemporary nondual teachings such as Tony Parsons and Jim Newman, where there is just experience or life happening in a fresh way right now, minus any person or individual present.
There are however, some ideas present when one probes deeper into the AF approach, and some of these ideas remind me of Barry Long's approach to the human being and body, a removal of all spiritual concepts, theories, and spirituality in general, coupled with the idea of the present moment or NOW being all there is (cf Eckhart Tolle, Barry Long), which is a sort of gateway into experiencing this moment as being a living body.
The process for this, or practice if it can be considered one, is to use an enquiry to return one's awareness to the present moment and experience 'being alive' via the senses and apparent (actual) world, minus any reference to an internal entity. In terms of likening this practice to other practices, it would be what Shinzen Young calls "See-Hear-Feel Out" or favouring the attention on external phenomena appearing at the 5 sense doors- excluding internal images, sounds and feeling sensations, and a noticing of how this brings about a cooling of the mind and feelings and generalised happiness and wellbeing. Internal feeling sensations and emotions are used differently and in an investigative way to dig up what's happening in one's experience that triggered a loss of the 'happy, harmless' state, with the aim to bring up these emotional causes or triggers into conscious awareness and drop them in favour of returning to a moment by moment experience of being alive (and happy and harmless).
The enquiry itself is "How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?". There is also some enquiry and investigation into moments when one is not feeling 'good', or ruminating on thoughts and feelings outside of the present moment, which are the cause of negative emotions in general.
A main goal of the Actual Freedom approach is to be "happy and harmless". Triggers that detract one's experience from this are investigated as to when and how these arose, with the idea being to return to one's experience at this moment as a living body-mind, happily and harmlessly.
Fundamental to the AF approach is also the notion of a PCE or Pure Consciousness Experience, which is basically a hightened sensory experience (since it seems described mostly as a temporary, but attainable state), whereby one experiences the perfection of sensory phenomena (the actual world) and one's natural being, minus any referential self/I/me. These "PCE" episodes are encouraged and used in the approach as well, though there's discussion about how and when to use these episodes with the aim of permanent 'actual freedom'.

As I go through the approach over the next week or two, and edit this blog post as needed.

Main themes or points in the AF approach:

Time - This moment here and now is the only time there actually is.. past and future are imaginary. Experiencing happens now and this needs to be repeatedly understood and experienced
The self, "I", "me" is the root cause of all misery and problems with the human condition, and is an instinctual, animal self built up over time and evolution. This is the part that is 'immolated' or removed to enable simple, natural living as the actual
The means to do this are- the enquiry 'How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?", or similar. Investigation and uncovering triggers that have removed one's state from being happy, harmless and then a return to that state. Abidance in the present moment and foregoing past/future concerns. Sensory experience and refinement leading to PCEs and unmediated experiencing of phenomena (without a mediating 'I' or inner self).
"Virtual freedom" is a partial arrival point where 99% in this process where the problematic "I" has been eliminated. Over time, the remaining 1% is eliminated, culminating in actual freedom
Repetition of the above and having the above as an overarching goal for one's life situation until change takes place and is embedded as an ongoing experience\

Daniel Ingram has summarised the practice very well here and some relevant conclusions:

https://www.integrateddaniel.info/my-experiments-in-actualism/

Some discussion material is available on the internet, and the bulk of it was done around 2010-2015 when this method seemed to be capturing the attention of a few people in spiritual circles: