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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 100
RESPONDENT: When I removed the top layers of my censor, the self-image which covered up my inner ‘being’ and formed a layer of denial of my ‘negative’ feelings, I found some fascinating stuff. ‘I’ had learnt from childhood how to cover them up and sometimes express the opposite: if ‘me’ hated somebody, ‘I’ would express ‘friendliness’ so that the inner hate goes undetected; this cover-up job gave a great strength of not revealing my weaknesses and reprehensive feelings and ‘I’ was considered a very good person. However ‘I’ forgot that ‘me’ exists in the process and started believing that ‘I’ portrayed the ‘me’: whereas ‘I’ was mostly false and totally opposite of the true ‘me’. And the structure of ‘I’ was so contradictory because of denial on the top of denial – because circumstances, group loyalties kept changing and ‘I’ totally lost track of my ‘true’ feelings if there was any such consistent whole. When ‘I’ dared to go deeper, ‘I’ saw that ‘me’ had never been felt totally – though it was breaking the stranglehold of ‘I’ a lot – which was contributing to the hypocrisy and corruption. VINEETO: One of the most fascinating discoveries in actualism for me was to look under the carpet, so to speak, of the social identity – and find the pure instinctual being in its raw passions underneath. In spiritual practice I had learnt to suppress, disregard, deny and discard some of my previous social identity and replace it with an ‘enhance-the-good-instincts-dissociate-from-the-bad-instincts’ spiritual identity – a cunning ploy which slightly shifted the goalpost but did not reveal the core of ‘me’ – the raw instinctual passions that form themselves into my ‘being’. One’s social identity has a vital role to play to curb the instinctual passions from running rampant so as to prevent unrestricted violence amongst humans. However, guided by pure intent to become as happy and harmless as human possible, an actualist can dare to lift the lid of the social straightjacket of morals and ethics and begin to experientially discover the instinctual animal passions that are inherent to all sentient beings. Isn’t it fascinating how the very act of bringing those passions to the light of awareness, coupled with sincere intent, can actually diminish their power, intensity and frequency of occurrence and by doing so reduce their influence on one’s life? – that’s at least my experience from my explorations into my psyche. RESPONDENT: One of the interesting feeling was some kind of dislike (fear? hate?) towards Richard and Peter and Vineeto though I was doing a good cover-up job – ‘I’ was impressed by their clarity, expertise, achievement though ‘me’ was generating a negative reaction. Questioning deeper revealed that the factors that contributed to the feeling was their stubbornness and authority (though they were not desiring power over ‘me’): they were incorruptible by ‘my’ tricks that ‘I’ had known all along: become a ‘friend’ and then corrupt using ‘my’ inner agenda: ... VINEETO: I can well understand the fear of being naked but I also know the relief and joy of having nothing to hide. One outcome of digging beneath the layer of the social identity with the intent to becoming happy and harmless and seeing ‘me’ as I am – an instinctually driven ‘being’ – was that self-honesty and integrity came to the surface because I was exposing myself. This has now made hypocrisy, obscuration and pretence along with the fear of being found out a thing of the past. RESPONDENT: ... they were critical of my very ‘being’ and it looks like nothing will impress them: except being ‘genuine’. And isn’t it being naked to be ‘genuine’? VINEETO: To be precise, I am not ‘critical of [your] very ‘being’’ – I am only interested in my own freedom from my ‘being’ – and I share my experiences along the way for those who want to try it out for themselves. Personally, when I met Richard and felt uneasy because it soon became obvious that it made no sense to hide anything, I turned these feelings into a ‘bugger-it-if-he-could-do-it-so-can-I’ resolution, which in turn helped me a lot to ease and resolve the internal battle I was fighting with myself. As for ‘nothing will impress them except being ‘genuine’’ – it is useful to remember that everyone who is sincerely doing the process of actualism does so not only for their own benefit but also for the benefit of all human beings hence the aim to be both happy and harmless. As such, when you are on the journey to your own genuineness and ‘self’-immolation then any kudos from some imagined ‘self’-created authority will quickly fade into insignificance.
RESPONDENT: Richard and those who have experienced PCE: Are you sure that this is the solution to the ‘meaning of life’ ‘destiny of mankind’ and it is capable of producing unquestionable perpetual satisfaction? Thanks. VINEETO: Yes. Undoubtedly. Unquestionably. Absolutely.
RESPONDENT: Thanks for answering with a big ‘yes’ for the question as to whether PCE shows the meaning of life. VINEETO: You are welcome. RESPONDENT: Question to you and Peter: do you ever get bored? And what do you do with it? VINEETO: No, never. When I investigated why I was feeling bored I discovered the underlying resentment of being here which I could see was a pretty silly resentment to maintain after I had become aware of it. I am already here, so what is the point resenting something that is an unchangeable fact. Besides, when I gave up my resentment of being here it eventually opened the door to a veritable cornucopia of pleasures and enjoyment of being alive. RESPONDENT: And what feelings do you experience these days? VINEETO: Predominantly happiness and delight. RESPONDENT: Are there instinctual passions? Recurring themes? Deep seated fears etc.? VINEETO: Yes, sometimes there is an instinctual reaction such as fear – and its subsequent feeling of worry – about some imagined threat to my survival. RESPONDENT: Are you not bothered about old age, diseases that come with old age, ageing in general, death etc? ? VINEETO: Not in general, as I am neither old nor sick nor dying right now. However, when I happen to have a minor health problem, particularly when I don’t know its cause yet, I sometimes habitually worry until I catch myself and see the silliness of doing so. Seeing the silliness I get straight back to enjoying this moment of being alive. RESPONDENT: What are the questions you ask now? VINEETO: How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? What is preventing me from becoming actually free? RESPONDENT: What kinds of reflections you find yourself into these days? VINEETO: Not much comes to mind – I am rather busy enjoying what I am doing and enjoying doing nothing as well.
RESPONDENT: Feelings are portrayed as sacred in the human condition... they are portrayed as burden in actualism. VINEETO: Feelings are not ‘portrayed as burden’ – apperceptive observation reveals that they are a ‘burden’ in that they prevent each and every human being from experiencing the actual world as it is – sparkling and perfect. RESPONDENT: Intellectual assessment and awareness are indeed great when forming judgments, assessments about the world of events, people, things around us; but feelings offer some innate mechanisms to do the same (error prone?): suspiciousness (smelling a rat), feeling rejected/lonely (assesses one’s importance in the friend circles/society) etc. offer means of understanding/assessing complex things that maybe very laborious to calculate if one uses intellectual computation. VINEETO: You said it yourself – ‘error prone’ – so much so that people are fighting and killing each other, and themselves, on the basis of their feeling-based assessments. RESPONDENT: If one forgoes the feelings, one might simply lose track of such information... become unaware of various things that feelings give feedback (what others think of me? VINEETO: It is the identity that needs information about what others think of me and what they feel about me – I as this flesh-and-blood body can take what people say and do at face value and act accordingly. RESPONDENT: What are the qualitative differences between A and B?)... VINEETO: The qualitative difference is that relying on one’s feelings is not only a fickle and unreliable affair but also guided by worry, greed, loyalty, malice and sorrow because one’s feelings arise from the instinctual survival passions. Whereas minimizing both the good and bad feelings in favour of the felicitous/ innocuous feelings gives me a gay and delightful experience of being alive – every day. RESPONDENT: … moreover the feelings are automatic and we don’t switch it on or off and they keep doing their job. The downside seems to be that the feelings when doing their job are also suffering/malice (as ‘feelings are me’) whereas intellectual assessment does not induce taking the attribute of the external to the internal (when you assess intellectually that something is negative, you don’t suffer; when you feel that something is negative, you feel the feeling and hence suffer because of the negativity outside). VINEETO: There is a big difference between intellectual assessment (whilst suppressing one’s feelings) and apperceptive assessment when intelligence can function unimpeded by feelings and instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: So actualism sacrifices the error-prone, suffering/malice inducing measurement device called feelings for happiness/ harmlessness and a possibly less aware state? VINEETO: First, feelings are not a ‘measurement device’, they are directly arising from the instinctual survival passions which every human being is endowed with by blind nature for the sake of survival at any cost of the individual and/or the species. Second, when you have a pure consciousness experience it is no sacrifice at all to replace malice and sorrow with being happy and harmless – it is obviously the best option to choose for an intelligent human being. Third, one is much, much more aware
RESPONDENT: Intellectual assessment and awareness are indeed great when forming judgments, assessments about the world of events, people, things around us; but feelings offer some innate mechanisms to do the same (error prone?): suspiciousness (smelling a rat), feeling rejected/ lonely (assesses one’s importance in the friend circles/society) etc. offer means of understanding/assessing complex things that maybe very laborious to calculate if one uses intellectual computation. VINEETO: You said it yourself – ‘error prone’ – so much so that people are fighting and killing each other, and themselves, on the basis of their feeling-based assessments. RESPONDENT: Can one not keep the assessment and not fight for it? Knowing that it is only an assessment? VINEETO: Haven’t you noticed in yourself that when your assessment of a situation is based on and guided by instinctual passions such as fear or desire or aggression or nurture, then it is not ‘only’ an assessment but an overwhelming imperative to defend one’s assessment and act on it? * RESPONDENT: If one forgoes the feelings, one might simply lose track of such information... become unaware of various things that feelings give feedback (what others think of me? VINEETO: It is the identity that needs information about what others think of me and what they feel about me – I as this flesh-and-blood body can take what people say and do at face value and act accordingly. RESPONDENT: By taking the words at face value only, aren’t we blinding ourselves to the ‘feeling being’ behind the scene? VINEETO: No, it’s the other way around – by letting yourself be guided by your feelings and instinctual passions you are blinding yourself to what is actually the case. However much intuition about other’s feelings you think you may have activated, when all is said and done, what you are feeling are your own feelings and your assessments are according to your own feeling-based values, ideals and interests. RESPONDENT: Aren’t we losing the sensitivity to the feelings of others? Won’t we make light of other’s words if we have no idea of the intensity of the suffering behind it? Aren’t we depending a lot on the ability of the other to articulate in explicit language instead of reading the information that is there in various forms? VINEETO: According to you, what is the value of intuitively feeling another’s suffering without being able to offer a solution to end this suffering permanently? * RESPONDENT: What are the qualitative differences between A and B?)... VINEETO: The qualitative difference is that relying on one’s feelings is not only a fickle and unreliable affair but also guided by worry, greed, loyalty, malice and sorrow because one’s feelings arise from the instinctual survival passions. Whereas minimizing both the good and bad feelings in favour of the felicitous/ innocuous feelings gives me a gay and delightful experience of being alive – every day. RESPONDENT: Can we not get rid of the deleterious effects of the feelings and use feelings as assessment device only? VINEETO: Apparently not. Apart from all the domestic squabbles and violence, the child abuse, urban unrest and civil turmoil that is going on permanently and ubiquitously, there are presently 24 ‘major’ wars (wars with more than 1,000 casualties) currently occurring and 22 ‘minor’ wars (wars with less than 1,000 casualties) currently occurring ... and 22 recently concluded or suspended wars. (see www.historyguy.com/new_and_recent_conflicts.html) * RESPONDENT: … moreover the feelings are automatic and we don’t switch it on or off and they keep doing their job. The downside seems to be that the feelings when doing their job are also suffering/malice (as ‘feelings are me’) whereas intellectual assessment does not induce taking the attribute of the external to the internal (when you assess intellectually that something is negative, you don’t suffer; when you feel that something is negative, you feel the feeling and hence suffer because of the negativity outside). VINEETO: There is a big difference between intellectual assessment (whilst suppressing one’s feelings) and apperceptive assessment when intelligence can function unimpeded by feelings and instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: Is the apperceptive assessment sensitive to other’s feelings? VINEETO: Why should being sensitive to other’s feelings be something desirable when I can instead be joyful, benevolent and caring about another’s actual situation? RESPONDENT: Or does it deny that feelings exist and ‘puzzled’ why people suffer? If the apperceptive assessment is ‘puzzled’ at why people suffer, it then lacks the understanding about suffering... VINEETO: Before you go on theorizing and making assessments about ‘apperceptive assessment’, wouldn’t it be more fruitful to gain an experiential understanding of what apperceptive awareness actually is? Besides, the problem is not that there is no understanding about suffering – people have understood each other’s suffering for millennia – the problem is how to bring an end to suffering, permanently. * RESPONDENT: So actualism sacrifices the error-prone, suffering/malice inducing measurement device called feelings for happiness/ harmlessness and a possibly less aware state? VINEETO: First, feelings are not a ‘measurement device’, they are directly arising from the instinctual survival passions which every human being is endowed with by blind nature for the sake of survival at any cost of the individual and/or the species. RESPONDENT: Aren’t they ‘sixth sense’ (albeit error prone) that senses the external world (hence a measurement device)? VINEETO: Intelligence unimpeded by instinctual passions beats your ‘error prone’ ‘sixth sense’ by a country mile. I know because I’ve been doing the switch for years now and it works like a charm. * VINEETO: Second, when you have a pure consciousness experience it is no sacrifice at all to replace malice and sorrow with being happy and harmless – it is obviously the best option to choose for an intelligent human being. RESPONDENT: It is clear that in terms of happiness (and even harmlessness) it might be the best option... in terms of understanding the plight of the human being? In terms of understanding the suffering of the fellow human being? VINEETO: VINEETO: The way you phrased it seems to indicate that you value co-suffering above becoming free from suffering and what causes it. Looking at the main thrust of your replies I wonder why you defend the alleged values of being able to suffer and co-suffer when there is a solution available to actually *end* malice and sorrow? Are you of the conviction that as long as one human being still suffers I am not allowed to be happy? Do you maybe suggest that all human beings can only become free from sorrow and malice all at once … or never? Do you consider compassion and empathy more desirable than freeing your fellow human beings from your own sorrow and your own malice? * VINEETO: Third, one is much, much more aware RESPONDENT: Are you much more aware (than before you started with actualism) about why a fellow human suffers by a mere look at him? VINEETO: I know in general why human beings suffer because I know how I suffered and why, and the reasons for human suffering are very much alike because we humans are all endowed with the same instinctual survival passions. Besides, I don’t see any sense in knowing another’s suffering ‘by a mere look at him’ … or her. What is the point in wasting time by indulging in suffering together when one can instead become free from suffering … and maybe even share the trick as to how it’s done.
RESPONDENT: Aren’t we losing the sensitivity to the feelings of others? Won’t we make light of other’s words if we have no idea of the intensity of the suffering behind it? Aren’t we depending a lot on the ability of the other to articulate in explicit language instead of reading the information that is there in various forms? VINEETO: What is according to you the value of intuitively feeling another’s suffering without being able to offer a solution to end this suffering permanently? RESPONDENT: By intuitively feeling other’s suffering, I’ll be better off in guiding the other person out of that suffering than in a position to give only a general advice. VINEETO: When you ‘guide the other person out of that suffering’, will they then be able to be permanently free from that suffering? * RESPONDENT: What are the qualitative differences between A and B?)... VINEETO: The qualitative difference is that relying on one’s feelings is not only a fickle and unreliable affair but also guided by worry, greed, loyalty, malice and sorrow because one’s feelings arise from the instinctual survival passions. Whereas minimizing both the good and bad feelings in favour of the felicitous/ innocuous feelings gives me a gay and delightful experience of being alive – every day. RESPONDENT: Can we not get rid of the deleterious effects of the feelings and use feelings as assessment device only? VINEETO: Apparently not. Apart from all the domestic squabbles and violence, the child abuse, urban unrest and civil turmoil that is going on permanently and ubiquitously, there are presently 24 ‘major’ wars (wars with more than 1,000 casualties) currently occurring and 22 ‘minor’ wars (wars with less than 1,000 casualties) currently occurring ... and 22 recently concluded or suspended wars. (see www.historyguy.com/new_and_recent_conflicts.html) RESPONDENT: Going by all this statistics doesn’t tell me what I can do and what I cannot. VINEETO: What you can do is acknowledge the fact that it is real flesh-and-blood people, not statistics, who are doing the killing and who are being killed, maimed, wounded and displaced in those wars and maybe, just maybe, this acknowledgement allows you to realize that despite best intentions human beings have failed to ‘get rid of the deleterious effects of the feelings and use feelings as assessment device only’ for as long as humans have been on this planet. * RESPONDENT: Is the apperceptive assessment sensitive to other’s feelings? VINEETO: Why should being sensitive to other’s feelings be something desirable when I can instead be joyful, benevolent and caring about another’s actual situation? RESPONDENT: Because the situation alone doesn’t give all the clues to be able to help. VINEETO: Doesn’t it require that you have to have solved the problem for yourself, once and for all if you want to be able to help others? How can you guide others out of suffering so that they have to never suffer again when you yourself not only experience sorrow yourself but cherish such feelings because they enable you to feel another’s suffering? RESPONDENT: Has your actual caring directly helped others? VINEETO: All I can do is explain the facts of the human condition and what I have done to incrementally become free from it, the other has to do the understanding for themselves. Or, to quote an old saying – you can lead the horses to water but you cannot make them drink. * VINEETO: Besides, the problem is not that there is no understanding about suffering – people have understood each other’s suffering for millennia – the problem is how to bring an end to suffering, permanently. RESPONDENT: Good point. I am not saying that understanding the suffering alone is enough. understanding suffering *and* knowing how to bringing it to an end. VINEETO: Do you know how to bring an end to suffering, permanently? RESPONDENT: Only knowing how to bring it to an end without the understanding of suffering maybe like shouting Here! Here! from a mountain top to those caught in the valley... VINEETO: But I already said that I understand the suffering – as well as the malice – of the human condition because I know how I suffered and why – and I know how I was malicious and why. Besides, nobody needs to be ‘caught in the valley’, everybody is capable of using their intelligence instead of following their feelings and instinctual passions. Everyone can start doing something about the situation they are finding themselves in if they are so inclined. * RESPONDENT: So actualism sacrifices the error-prone, suffering/malice inducing measurement device called feelings for happiness/ harmlessness and a possibly less aware state? VINEETO: First, feelings are not a ‘measurement device’, they are directly arising from the instinctual survival passions which every human being is endowed with by blind nature for the sake of survival at any cost of the individual and/or the species. RESPONDENT: Aren’t they ‘sixth sense’ (albeit error prone) that senses the external world (hence a measurement device)? VINEETO: Intelligence unimpeded by instinctual passions beats your ‘error prone’ ‘sixth sense’ by a country mile. I know because I’ve been doing the switch for years now and it works like a charm. RESPONDENT: Has this intelligence unimpeded by instinctual passions been able to ‘actually’ help another person come out of his/her suffering? How many? VINEETO: For a start, my becoming free from malice and sorrow has freed the people I live with, work with, socialize with and casually interact with from the capriciousness and trouble of my fickle moods, my graceless demands, my ‘self’-centred behaviour, my avarice, competitiveness, melancholy, jealousy, guilt, shame, fear and so on. I am no longer an emotional burden to anybody in any way and neither do I need or expect anybody to do something to help me alleviate my suffering. If everyone became virtually free from the human condition there would be no need for anyone to help anybody and all the millions of missionaries, social workers, therapists, psychologist, psychoanalysts and do-gooders would be out of a job. Apart from that I have no idea, nor do I want to know, how many people have gained an understanding from reading about my experiences with the actualism method, thus helping them to become more free from the human condition themselves. Sharing my experience about the success I have is a pleasure to do but not the main event. Now that an actual freedom has been discovered and the experience of how to achieve it is being reported on the Actual Freedom Website, anybody is free to do with the information what they want. * VINEETO: Second, when you have a pure consciousness experience it is no sacrifice at all to replace malice and sorrow with being happy and harmless – it is obviously the best option to choose for an intelligent human being. RESPONDENT: It is clear that in terms of happiness (and even harmlessness) it might be the best option... in terms of understanding the plight of the human being? In terms of understanding the suffering of the fellow human being? VINEETO: The way you phrased it seems to indicate that you value co-suffering above becoming free from suffering and what causes it. RESPONDENT: I am not sure that being able to feel/intuit another’s suffering is ‘co-suffering’... VINEETO: Keep looking. Unless you feel another’s suffering in yourself you are only theorizing about their feelings and have not felt/ intuited anything. * VINEETO: Looking at the main thrust of your replies I wonder why you defend the alleged values of being able to suffer and co-suffer when there is a solution available to actually *end* malice and sorrow? RESPONDENT: Do you think: ask the question How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? Once feeling bad, find out the trigger and get back to feeling good. Is the answer to the suffering humanity? VINEETO: I don’t think so, I know it is. RESPONDENT: No scope for improvement? VINEETO: Nope. 5000 year of recorded history of attempted improvement to curb the instinctual passions is long enough. Remember that the human condition consists not only of suffering, but of aggression, desire and nurture as well. * VINEETO: Are you of the conviction that as long as one human being still suffers I am not allowed to be happy? RESPONDENT: No. Do you think the Vineeto now if she had met the Vineeto in the Osho commune would have helped her? VINEETO: The ‘Vineeto in the Osho commune’ would have had no interest in actualism. * VINEETO: Do you maybe suggest that all human beings can only become free from sorrow and malice all at once … or never? Do you consider compassion and empathy more desirable than freeing your fellow human beings from your own sorrow and your own malice? RESPONDENT: What does it mean to free my fellow human being from my own sorrow? VINEETO: For a start, if you were free from sorrow you will have freed anybody from the need of helping you ‘guiding [you] out of that suffering’. When you become free from sorrow you simultaneously free the people around you from your moods and behaviour affected by sorrow, and even more importantly you free them from the implications of the psychic vibes and currents that sorrowful feelings automatically create. RESPONDENT: In what way my malice is affecting another? I may not be beneficial, but I am not malicious in action? VINEETO: Every human being is genetically encoded with the instinctual survival passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire and as such every sentient being is capable of the whole range of feelings arising from these survival passions. Have you never felt the desire to hurt another person, felt angry, jealous, envious, enraged, irritated, insulted, aggressive, cynical, sarcastic, spiteful, resentful, revengeful, antagonistic, belligerent, bitchy, bitter, hostile, vindictive or sullen? Even when the feelings are not expressed in one’s actions they nevertheless ‘ooze’ out as a mood,
a psychic vibe or a psychic current – in fact the more suppressed the feeling, the stronger the invisible but nevertheless perceptible effect on
other feeling beings. (For more information on vibes see – * VINEETO: Third, one is much, much more aware [snipped link to explanation of apperception], not ‘possibly less’, without the interference and self-centred blinkers of the automatic instinctual animal survival passions. RESPONDENT: Are you much more aware (than before you started with actualism) about why a fellow human suffers by a mere look at him? VINEETO: I know in general why human beings suffer because I know how I suffered and why, and the reasons for human suffering are very much alike because we humans are all endowed with the same instinctual survival passions. Besides, I don’t ascribe any value to knowing another’s suffering ‘by a mere look at him’ … or her. RESPONDENT: Knowing another’s suffering is it equal to suffering with another? VINEETO: Yes, ‘intuitively feeling other’s suffering’ which you find so important is equal to co-suffering, otherwise it’s not intuitive. RESPONDENT: Is knowing the general cause the same as knowing the particular situation? (specifically in terms of being able to be helpful)? Don’t you think the human situation is much more complex than to be simply stated thus? VINEETO: The Human Condition is that set of beliefs, conditionings and instincts that forms the habitual and neuro-biological program by which human beings currently operate and have done so, with few significant changes, ever since the first recorded civilizations. It can be likened to the ‘rules of the game’, defining the parameters and limits of what it is to be a human being that have been established and embellished, over tens of thousands of years. These rules ‘set in concrete’ both our instinct-based behaviour and the overlaying beliefs that form our gender, tribal, spirit-ual and world concepts. As such the human situation is pretty much the same for everyone as far as malice and sorrow are concerned and accordingly the solution to eliminating malice and sorrow from one’s life is equally applicable to everyone. * VINEETO: What is the point in wasting time by indulging in suffering together when one can instead become free from suffering … and maybe even share the trick how it’s done. RESPONDENT: I would be really interested in knowing how many people your sharing has helped... VINEETO: Why? Isn’t it enough for you to know that so far you are not amongst them?
RESPONDENT: Firstly, thanks for your patient reply. As I was playing the advocate for ‘keeping the capacity to feel other’s suffering so that I can be of help to another’ and wrote out a response to you, I came to the realization that:
So it seems that either you feel the suffering and not know the ending of it (because the ending of it means the realization that no need to suffer, and left with a strange feeling: why do people suffer? why did i suffer in the first place?) or end it and reach a position where suffering together is silly. VINEETO: For clarification let me say that playing advocate games holds no interest for me as by playing a certain role/game such as being an advocate of some ideal or philosophy correspondents generally keep one step removed from what they really feel and consequently prevent the conversation to be sincere and fruitful for them. For this reason I have snipped your responses to my post as you might want to think them over again in the light of your recent realization. RESPONDENT: What would you do to your associate who refuses to take the bitter pill? VINEETO: Why do you think I should do something *to* my partner at all let alone force him/her to take what you call a bitter pill. In actualism I first and foremost take on board that there is only one person I can change and that is me. What my partner chooses to do is entirely his/her freedom. To repeat for emphasis, actualism is not about learning how to help, change or manipulate other people, how to interfere with and meddle in their lives, actualism is about changing myself and myself only – which incidentally includes changing my attitude towards the world as it is and people as they are. RESPONDENT: Will you be angered, indifferent or feel sad for them? VINEETO: Neither. That would be inviting malice and sorrow again through the back door. RESPONDENT: Don’t you feel sad that all the people who come to this mailing list go away without taking the solution? (this is possibly Buddha type conditioning) VINEETO: Once I realized that I am the only person who I need to change and who I can indeed change, things became very simple. I stopped trying to change the world and began to focus my attention and effort into freeing myself from my own malice and my own sorrow. I then reported the process of doing so on the Actualism website for anyone to make use of in whatever way they want to. What anyone does with this information is entirely their business. And no, I don’t feel sad when ‘people who come to this mailing list go away without taking the solution’. By now I know the insidiousness of human condition well enough from seeing it in action both in myself and in others to understand that every ‘self’ has an incredibly strong in-built survival mechanism. And because of its radical and iconoclastic nature actualism is not a process that appeals to everyone – one requires a certain pioneering spirit to feel attracted to doing it.
RESPONDENT: Can you emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable? – is a question Richard asked in one of the mailing lists. Applying this to the object ‘negative emotions’, Can you emotionally accept ‘negative emotions’? … (though on intellectual grounds, after reading AF website, you may not be able accept it) VINEETO: The question I asked myself first when I came across actualism was what I wanted to achieve in my life ... and the possibility of becoming entirely free from not only negative emotions but all emotions was irresistible. Secondly, to accept my negative emotions does not mean that I want to keep them, or indulge in them, or express them. As an actualist, accepting my negative emotions simply means that I notice them when they occur without trying to either repress or express them, that I endeavour to understand what causes them and why, recognize that it is silly to nourish them any longer and then get on with enjoying life. Thirdly, to be able to enjoy life unconditionally I need to be able to accept other people’s negative emotions, otherwise I would be forever busy trying to do something about them, which is in itself a miserable, harmful and ultimately impossible task. RESPONDENT: Or, to all the emotions, Can you emotionally accept ‘emotions’? (though on intellectual grounds, after reading AF website, you may not be able accept it) VINEETO: You must be misunderstanding something you read on the Actual Freedom Trust website as
nowhere is it said that you should refuse, reject or deny
RESPONDENT: Have you ever felt aggression, hatred, condescension or any
other negative feelings at all when you read correspondences of VINEETO: As I am not free from the human condition I do have feelings from time to time, although ‘aggression, hatred, condescension’ are not amongst them. That said, I do find some posts from correspondents rather silly when they waste their time concentrating on red herrings or fighting against imaginary windmills instead of talking about the issues at hand, namely how to become free from the human condition. On many occasions I understand the reasons for this behaviour as I too had to struggle in the early days with similar resistance to looking at my own feelings and beliefs rather than blaming others for my feelings and instinctively defending my beliefs. RESPONDENT: If not, do you have a ‘feeling’ when you read/reply? What is the ‘feeling’? VINEETO: No, not when I reply. Even when I occasionally have one or the other feeling when reading a post, I never write, let alone click ‘send’, when I am in any way emotional. Very early on in actualism I understood that the way to deal with one’s emotions is to neither suppress nor express them and since then I have always made it a point to keep my hands in my pocket, so to speak, until I have investigated/abandoned any emotional issues that may have arisen. RESPONDENT: Is it that of caring, friendliness? VINEETO: The reason I reply to correspondence on this mailing list and share my experience with the actualism practice, which often involves correcting misunderstandings and misrepresentations, is that of fellow-ship regard which is different to the feeling of ‘caring, friendliness’ in that it is actual rather than affective.
VINEETO: So from Richard’s statement that his experiences with sleep and dreams are possibly idiosyncratic (which is still to be determined when a second person becomes actually free) you automatically assumed that the quality of how Richard experiences life 24hrs a day is just that – merely idiosyncratic to the specific body of Richard and has nothing to do with the fact that his ‘self’ in toto has become extinct? RESPONDENT No 107: OK, is it possible, just as Richard admitted that he did not know if his experiences in sleep and dreams were typical of AF and did not assert that his personal experiences in sleep and dreams are the rule in AF, that other of Richard’s experiences in AF are personal and not ‘the rule’? VINEETO: A PCE, which everybody whom Richard has spoken to at length has been able to remember having had in their lives, easily confirms that the actual world as described by Richard exists as a fact and is neither ‘personal’ nor idiosyncratic. RESPONDENT: (…) Going by the topica list responses, some talk about PCE – I am not sure if the experience is same as you actualists talk about – because even those who agree had a PCE don’t subscribe to the mind boggling conclusion actualists are able to suss from such an experience – of the direct experience of infinity, godlessness, and so on; and a lot of the people don’t remember having; so why is this mailing list community sample so different from ‘everybody Richard has spoken to’? VINEETO: I said ‘everybody whom Richard has spoken to *at length*’. As for what you call ‘mind boggling conclusion’ – my first PCEs were mind-boggling in that I saw the world for the first time in my life not from the usual ‘self’-centred perspective a ‘self’ is bound to always see it – something which in itself is quite mind-boggling indeed. As I had more frequent PCEs and became more used to the new territory, so to speak, I was able to look around and use the clarity of a ‘self’-less experience to get answers on some burning questions I had. Maybe the most mind-boggling conclusion that I drew from one of my first pure consciousness experiences is that everybody, I mean everybody, including me, had got it 180 degrees wrong – we have all been suckered into believing in and following the wrong solutions, big time. Once I came to grips with this insight everything Richard had to report fell into place much more easily. * RESPONDENT No 107: If you wish I can stop asking you questions and sharing my understandings or you can ignore them. VINEETO: Nowhere did I say that you should stop asking questions. What I am saying is that it makes no sense to me to answer your questions when all you do with it is invalidating my understandings regarding my experiences as mere beliefs. Vis –
Can you raise the bar a bit? RESPONDENT: Do you believe that Richard is actually free from human condition? VINEETO: In a pure consciousness experience where my own ‘self’ is temporarily absent it is blatantly obvious that Richard’s ‘self’ is also absent and that the report he gives about his experiences of the actual world is consistent with my own experiences of the actual world. As I had more PCEs over a period of time I was able to confirm that Richard was always already in the actual world whenever I happen to step into it which is consistent with his report that he always lives in the actual world. No belief required at all. Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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