VINEETO: Hi,

You wrote about fear and sorrow to Gary –

RESPONDENT: On a personal note I am looking at making additional investments in the stock market and there is fear associated with this because I know there is a risk of losing as I have lost a lot before. I know that if I do lose again there will be sorrow and grief. Hence, my fear of losing may lead to sorrow and grief if I actually do lose.

GARY:  Nothing is absolutely without risk. I myself do not invest in any stocks or what-have-you, preferring the relative security of bank deposits. If you lose, there doesn’t necessarily have to be any sorrow or grief about it, does there?

RESPONDENT: This is true. There doesn’t have to be any sorrow or grief about it but based on my past experience there could be sorrow or grief about it. That is why I am looking at the fear associated with the possible loss in order to rid myself of possible suffering that may occur.

VINEETO: Did you ever pause to question what might be the practical cause for your anticipated loss and subsequent sorrow or grief in the above-mentioned situation? Did you ever wonder what might be the driving passion behind an expectation to win in a gambling situation where reportedly about 75% of the players lose, subsequently suffering disappointment, sorrow and grief? You seem to be asking for fearlessness in a situation where the odds are heavily stacked against you.

I am only asking because when I investigated my expectations and desires that I knew by past experience would inevitably lead to disappointment and sorrow, I was then able to chuck both my expectation and disappointment, both my desire and sorrow out the window. And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared. Given that my aim was to become free of malice and sorrow, it became obvious to me that I also had to become free from the dreams, hopes, desires and greed that were the cause of my sorrow.

RESPONDENT: Basically, my understanding is that when one gets through the superficial understanding of emotions then one sees that fear is underlying all of these things. This could be wrong and this is why I am putting this out here to see if I am wrong. It looks to me like when one has uncovered these instincts that fear is what is all pervading and not sorrow. Please feel free to take all this with a grain of salt as I am just trying to look at my mind in operation.

VINEETO: My experience is that when ‘one gets through the superficial understanding of emotions’ then I started instigating an in-depth understanding of my emotions in order to eventually to be rid of them. I certainly had to question and examine the full range of my emotions, the desirable ones as well as the undesirable ones. So in order to ascertain the facts about fear and sorrow you will need to abandon any of your own preconceived notions about emotions and instinctual passions and experientially investigate the nature and the cause of each emotion as it arises within you.

Fear can only be tackled by removing the causes of why I am fearful and by questioning what it is that I want to desperately attain or avoid. If I am fearful of being sad then I find out how I can eliminate that specific sadness. If I am fearful of being lonely then I investigate the need to have someone to belong to. If I am afraid of death then I question why I want to be immortal despite the fact that every thing that is born must also die.

In practicing actualism, it has always been my sincere intent that urged me to move beyond my initial fears and get on with the business of actively and practically becoming free from malice and sorrow.

13.12.2001

VINEETO: You wrote about fear and sorrow to Gary –

RESPONDENT: On a personal note I am looking at making additional investments in the stock market and there is fear associated with this because I know there is a risk of losing as I have lost a lot before. I know that if I do lose again there will be sorrow and grief. Hence, my fear of losing may lead to sorrow and grief if I actually do lose.

GARY: Nothing is absolutely without risk. I myself do not invest in any stocks or what-have-you, preferring the relative security of bank deposits. If you lose, there doesn’t necessarily have to be any sorrow or grief about it, does there?

RESPONDENT: This is true. There doesn’t have to be any sorrow or grief about it but based on my past experience there could be sorrow or grief about it. That is why I am looking at the fear associated with the possible loss in order to rid myself of possible suffering that may occur.

VINEETO: Did you ever pause to question what might be the practical cause for your anticipated loss and subsequent sorrow or grief in the above-mentioned situation? Did you ever wonder what might be the driving passion behind an expectation to win in a gambling situation where reportedly about 75% of the players lose, subsequently suffering disappointment, sorrow and grief? You seem to be asking for fearlessness in a situation where the odds are heavily stacked against you.

RESPONDENT: I wouldn’t say the odds are heavily stacked against me. In the current scenario I would say the odds are at least 50/50 or better but I have no way of knowing for sure. The point is that there is substantial risk. It looks like confronting fear itself is the way to overcome fear and not to avoid situations that cause fear.

VINEETO: It is, of course, entirely your choice and your business how you are assessing the odds – I was simply reporting the general figures of stock market gambling which are evaluated at 75% or more losers compared to 25% or less winners.

As for ‘confronting fear’ – people have tried for centuries to tackle their fear of physical danger by confronting it and many of the early pioneers discovered remote and dangerous areas of the planet only because they confronted their fears and left home despite their fears. Nowadays, in the absence of sufficient real physical dangers and explorations, highly dangerous adventure sports are promoted for people to satisfy their need of boosting their adrenalin and their ego – activities such as car and motorbike racing, Everest climbing for tourists, wild water rafting, cave diving, meeting man-eating sharks in plain dive suits, parachute and bungee jumping, etc., etc. There are also those who seek the same rush from other less physically dangerous activities such as playing video games, gambling or watching other people performing dangerous or violent activities.

What I am saying is that the idea of confronting one’s fears is nothing new, it is part and parcel of the human condition and has not resulted in any change towards more benevolence and happiness in human behaviour. People who confront their fear are in no way less malicious or less sorrowful despite the sometimes-enormous effort and time they invest trying to get rid of their fear. In your specific case you seem to want to tackle fear with more risk-taking, i.e. with greater desire, whereas in my experience it is the desire to ‘hit a homerun’  as you say further down, that generates the fear of loss in the first place.

The way I tackled fear was firstly to be sensible in practical situations thereby reducing the risk of actual danger or loss, which served to stop fuelling the fires of passion. Then I set about enquiring into the reasons that lay behind my various fears. My aim in actualism has never been to be free from fear only, but to become free from my malicious and sorrowful feelings and behaviour – and this enterprise initially generated a lot of fear. As I questioned my dearly held beliefs, my spiritual loyalty, my friendships, my role as a worker, as a woman, as a part of a social group – in short my entire social conditioning – the fear sometimes seemed completely overwhelming.

This fear I overcame by simply doing what I had decided to do despite my fears. This is not confronting the feeling of fear itself but simply setting oneself a goal in life and getting on with doing it. This way I did something useful with the fear by turning the feeling of fear into the thrill of discovery. I also did a similar thing with desire – I used it as the desire to succeed in my newfound life’s aim. Nurture was similarly utilized in wanting to be part of the ending to human suffering, and aggression was channelled into a quiet stubbornness and determination to succeed.

To only seek to become fearless is in itself a selfish aim and only serves to enhance and embellish the ‘self’, the lost, lonely and cunning entity inside this body. Those who pursue fearlessness without also investigating their aggression, nurture and desire often succeed in attaining a self-enhancing and self-aggrandizing altered state of consciousness, known in the East as Satori, or if the state becomes permanent, spiritual enlightenment.

*

VINEETO: I am asking because when I investigated my expectations and desires that I knew by past experience would inevitably lead to disappointment and sorrow, I was then able to chuck both my expectation and disappointment, both my desire and sorrow out the window. And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared. Given that my aim was to become free of malice and sorrow, it became obvious to me that I also had to become free from the dreams, hopes, desires and greed that were the cause of my sorrow.

RESPONDENT: It doesn’t seem practical to stop doing it as that is what I do for a living. There is greed involved to a certain extent in wanting to hit a homerun. I could become more conservative at it which would involve less or no greed. What I am trying to get at is there is still fear underneath the greed. The answer doesn’t seem to be to stop what I do for a living in order to avoid the fear and subsequent sorrow. I see what you are saying in that greed is causing the fear. This may be what I am trying to get at.

VINEETO: I did not propose that you stop what you do for a living but suggested that you investigate what other emotions besides fear you have when you are doing it and to look at the role that the greed to ‘hit a homerun’ has in the fear to not ‘hit a homerun’ .

RESPONDENT: That brings up the question of: Can I do it without being greedy? I am a risk taker in a lot of ways so maybe I am addicted to the fear. The root problem still seems to be fear itself and not superficial greed or other desires, etc.

VINEETO: I do find it interesting that you call any other passion but fear ‘superficial’ as part of your theory that fear is the predominant passion. How can you scientifically examine your emotions, feelings and passions if you already dismiss everything other than fear as being superficial? Is it not time to question everything, including this unproven presumption along with your emotional investment in it?

You can easily find out for yourself that gambling without being greedy or fearful is possible when you replace ‘money’ with ‘bubblegum’ – gambling for bubblegum would certainly be without the emotional input of greed and there would be no fear to lose either – but then gambling may lose all attraction.

The question for me was what part of ‘me’ would have to disappear or die in order not to feel the greed and desire for something I desperately wanted. In my case one of the greatest desires I had to inquire into was the longing for the unconditional love of my spiritual teacher. In order for this desire to disappear, Vineeto the loyal disciple had to disappear. On another occasion it was the desire for the unconditional love of a lover, which caused me a lot of pining, anxiety and fear. In order to get rid of the anxiety that accompanied my desire I had to inquire into the romantic dream that lay behind my longing for love. The outcome of this inquiry was that the dreamer Vineeto disappeared together with ‘her’ anxieties about not achieving the dream. At the time this felt like an amputation of a vital and integral part of the woman I felt myself to be, but it sure did the trick. Both my desire and my fear around this subject disappeared miraculously. The romantic dreamer had irreplaceably disappeared.

Given that you say ‘maybe I am addicted to the fear’ then that would also mean that the No. 16 you are today would have to disappear in order for ‘his’ fear to cease.

*

VINEETO: Fear can only be tackled by removing the causes of why I am fearful and by questioning what it is that I want to desperately attain or avoid. If I am fearful of being sad then I find out how I can eliminate that specific sadness. If I am fearful of being lonely then I investigate the need to have someone to belong to. If I am afraid of death then I question why I want to be immortal despite the fact that every thing that is born must also die.

In practicing actualism, it has always been my sincere intent that urged me to move beyond my initial fears and get on with the business of actively and practically becoming free from malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: There is something here that I am not sure about. You said that ‘fear can only be tackled by removing the causes of why I am fearful.’ This doesn’t make sense to me because there are certain causes of fear that one can’t remove such as death so that is why I am thinking that fear itself needs to be removed instead of the causes of fear. I don’t have much fear of death itself as I have already experienced that but there is still fear. In other words, I still have it wired up that the way to remove fear is to face it instead of removing the causes of it or avoiding the causes of it.

VINEETO: You can, of course, hold any theory or belief you like. But as long as it is not proven as a fact by demonstration that it works to free you from fear it will remain a mere proposition. In the process of questioning my beliefs I aimed to replace my beliefs with facts by finding out what is sensately experience-able, what is sensible and what repeatedly works. Everything else was doomed to the dust bin.

As for the ‘causes of fear that one can’t remove’ – in a ‘self’-less pure consciousness experience it is readily apparent that there is no fear in the actual world because fear, as well as all the other instinctual passions, disappear along with ‘me’, the emotional entity. It is not the physical body that is fearful of death, as you might have experienced in your own near-death experience you described to Gary. The cause for the fear of death is not death but ‘me’. It is ‘me’, the entity inside this body that maintains and feeds the fear of survival because the feelings of fear, anger, greed and nurture serve to keep this entity in existence. ‘I’ have no other substance than the feelings and emotions and imaginations ‘I’ generate. ‘I’ am a fake. ‘I’ am a make-believe. ‘I’ am not actual. That’s why ‘I’ make such a fuss in the first place.

By applying the method of actualism I have investigated every facet of this entity in me, every blink of an emotion, every whiff of a feeling, every superficial emotion and deep passion until I now know all ‘my’ tricks and loopholes, all ‘my’ games and sentiments, all ‘my’ workings and mechanisms – the whole programming of the social identity and the underlying instinctual passions. When I become aware and agree to fully and experientially understand a particular aspect of this programming then this aspect, this part of ‘me’, inevitably disappears.

Once you pick out and experientially examine one of your emotions closely, for instance the emotional involvement in stock market gambling – without applying your preconceived theory that only serves to stifle further investigation – then you can identify and eliminate one little part of your identity and experience the diminishing of fear for yourself.

My experience is that when you have nothing left to lose, because you have explored all the dead alleys of wrong solutions, then you really have the incentive and the courage to break with the past and change in a practical way. Then the change is irrevocable. And eventually the fear of death gives way to thrill as you realize that the death of ‘me’ is already happening.

15.12.2001

VINEETO: I am asking because when I investigated my expectations and desires that I knew by past experience would inevitably lead to disappointment and sorrow, I was then able to chuck both my expectation and disappointment, both my desire and sorrow out the window. And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared. Given that my aim was to become free of malice and sorrow, it became obvious to me that I also had to become free from the dreams, hopes, desires and greed that were the cause of my sorrow.

RESPONDENT: It doesn’t seem practical to stop doing it as that is what I do for a living. There is greed involved to a certain extent in wanting to hit a homerun. I could become more conservative at it which would involve less or no greed. What I am trying to get at is there is still fear underneath the greed. The answer doesn’t seem to be to stop what I do for a living in order to avoid the fear and subsequent sorrow. I see what you are saying in that greed is causing the fear. This may be what I am trying to get at.

VINEETO: I did not propose that you stop what you do for a living but suggested that you investigate what other emotions besides fear you have when you are doing it and to look at the role that the greed to ‘hit a homerun’ has in the fear to not ‘hit a homerun’ .

RESPONDENT: That brings up the question of: Can I do it without being greedy? I am a risk taker in a lot of ways so maybe I am addicted to the fear. The root problem still seems to be fear itself and not superficial greed or other desires, etc.

VINEETO: I do find it interesting that you call any other passion but fear ‘superficial’ as part of your theory that fear is the predominant passion. How can you scientifically examine your emotions, feelings and passions if you already dismiss everything other than fear as being superficial? Is it not time to question everything, including this unproven presumption along with your emotional investment in it? <snip>

The question for me was what part of ‘me’ would have to disappear or die in order not to feel the greed and desire for something I desperately wanted. In my case one of the greatest desires I had to inquire into was the longing for the unconditional love of my spiritual teacher. In order for this desire to disappear, Vineeto the loyal disciple had to disappear. On another occasion it was the desire for the unconditional love of a lover, which caused me a lot of pining, anxiety and fear. In order to get rid of the anxiety that accompanied my desire I had to inquire into the romantic dream that lay behind my longing for love. The outcome of this inquiry was that the dreamer Vineeto disappeared together with ‘her’ anxieties about not achieving the dream. At the time this felt like an amputation of a vital and integral part of the woman I felt myself to be, but it sure did the trick. Both my desire and my fear around this subject disappeared miraculously. The romantic dreamer had irreplaceably disappeared.

Given that you say ‘maybe I am addicted to the fear’ then that would also mean that the No 16 you are today would have to disappear in order for ‘his’ fear to cease.

RESPONDENT: I may have worded that wrong. I was referring to superficial emotions and not any other passion. Here is a quote of the first sentence under the heading ‘fear’ from your own website that corroborates my ‘theory’ that fear is the most potent and obvious emotion:

[Peter]: ‘The core instinctual based emotions of human beings are fear , aggression, nurture and desire. Of these, fear is the most potent and obvious emotion that lies at the root of the Human Condition .’ The Actual Freedom Trust Library, Fear

Richard also once said something similar to me about fear being at the bottom of it. I sent him a question about it but haven’t gotten a reply.

[Respondent]: Would you say that fear is predominant or underlying the other instincts? That is how I see it but I could be wrong.

[Richard]: Yes, at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions ... hence fear rules the world of sentient beings. Richard, List B, Respondent, 15.12.2001

Respondent: ‘Would you say that fear is predominant or underlying the other instincts? That is how I see it but I could be wrong.’

Richard: Yes, at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions ... hence fear rules the world of sentient beings. Richard, List B, Respondent, 15.12.2001

If you had asked Richard ‘does sorrow come from fear’ then there would have been a different response. For example as in this correspondence –

Co-Respondent: I agree that the suffering in the world is caused by malice and the resulting sorrow.

Richard: Good ... do you see it as clearly as you see the nose on your face? It needs to be that obvious in order to begin. Also, sorrow is not the result of malice ... it is because ‘you’ are – by ‘your’ very nature – forever cut-off from the magnificence of being here now at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space. That is, ‘you’ cannot know the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of this very material universe. This is called, in the jargon, separation. Because of this separation, ‘you’ desire union ... oneness, wholeness and so on. In a word: love. <snip>

Co-Respondent: The question is how we will overcome it?

Richard: It is not a matter of overcoming it at all ... only elimination will do the trick. Any notion of overcoming is but ‘the beast’ being tricky by getting in on the act and saying: ‘Okay, ‘I’ will do this ... how do ‘I’ overcome malice and sorrow?’ Do you see this? This is because ‘I’ am malice and sorrow ... they are not accessories that ‘I’ have. Richard, List B, No 21a, 22.11.1998

When Richard answered that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual passions’ you have somehow concluded that your theory of ‘sorrow comes from fear’ was now a fact for you and everyone else. But your theory is still a theory built upon Richard’s answer that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’.

One cannot turn a theory or presumption into a fact solely by relying on the statements of others – for to do so is to remain a believer. The words of an expert can only provide you with a prima facie case at best, at best an enticement to begin your own investigation in order to find out the facts for yourself. The way you used Richard’s knowledge was to turn your theory into a truth – a truth based on faith and belief in someone you take to be an authority. Contrary to spiritual belief, however, truth can never set you free, it only leaves you beholden to believing in a higher authority – it is facts and one’s own experiential understanding that set one free from the habit of believing.

Spiritualism uses belief and feeling to turn the theories of others into a one’s own personal truth.

Actualism uses hands-on experiential investigation to separate beliefs from facts.

*

RESPONDENT: And now you aren’t even admitting that you were wrong about it and you are still insisting that I listen to you.

VINEETO: Firstly, as I explained, it was only a theory for you, which has now turned into a truth. Secondly, I never insisted that you listen to me – it is completely up to you what you do with my words. Thirdly, we have already established three months ago that my credibility account with you is zero –

[Respondent]: K is not my teacher. I haven’t mentioned K once whereas you continually quote and talk about your teacher and your actualism. Your credibility is near zero with me at this point.

[Vineeto]: How come you still give me some credibility? Haven’t I made myself clear enough? You have declared many times that you don’t like actualism, that actualists are followers of a religious cult, that I only preach religion and that you don’t need to practice actualism to investigate yourself. According to you I represent everything that you reject – so how come my credibility is only near zero?

[Respondent]: Ok, it is now zero. Respondent to Vineeto, 10.9.2001

*

VINEETO: At root, fear may be the most basic of all passions, but one has nevertheless to work at peeling away all the outer layers in order to reveal the root and then be able to eliminate it.

RESPONDENT: I have been peeling away the outer layers for a long time. How are you saying the root is to be eliminated once it has been revealed? That is what I am trying to get at.

VINEETO: I fully go along with Richard’s experience, as it accords with my own pure consciousness experiences – ‘only elimination will do the trick’, elimination of ‘me’.

The ‘outer layers’ consist of feelings like greed, sorrow, grief, loneliness, jealousy, loyalty, love, compassion, belonging, worry, discontentment, resentment, annoyance, anger, retribution, cynicism and pride. As you investigate each of those feelings when it arises, those feelings will incrementally disappear along with the bit of ‘you’ who feels and feeds those feelings. In my case, when my love and loyalty for my spiritual teacher disappeared, Vineeto the spiritualist also disappeared, when my pining for another’s love disappeared, Vineeto the romantic dreamer disappeared as well. With every aspect of the human condition that I fully and experientially understood, a bit more of ‘me’ disappeared. This is how you can tell that your method of ‘peeling away the outer layers’ works.

Once you have ‘revealed’ the root of a particular feeling in its totality, i.e. once you brought into the bright light of awareness, then that complete exposure and experiential understanding is at the same time the elimination of that feeling. If a feeling has not disappeared, then it has not been totally understood in all its aspects, and you then have another opportunity to look at it and examine it. Given that ‘I’ am all I think and feel myself to be, then the day I understand all of my emotions and instinctual passions in their totality, ‘I’ will disappear forever, never to return.

It’s an incredibly exhilarating adventure.

24.12.2001

VINEETO: When Richard answered that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual passions’ you have somehow concluded that your theory of ‘sorrow comes from fear’ was now a fact for you and everyone else. But your theory is still a theory built upon Richard’s answer that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’.

One cannot turn a theory or presumption into a fact solely by relying on the statements of others – for to do so is to remain a believer. The words of an expert can only provide you with a prima facie case at best, at best an enticement to begin your own investigation in order to find out the facts for yourself. The way you used Richard’s knowledge was to turn your theory into a truth – a truth based on faith and belief in someone you take to be an authority. Contrary to spiritual belief, however, truth can never set you free, it only leaves you beholden to believing in a higher authority – it is facts and one’s own experiential understanding that set one free from the habit of believing.

Spiritualism uses belief and feeling to turn the theories of others into a one’s own personal truth. Actualism uses hands-on experiential investigation to separate beliefs from facts.

*

VINEETO: At root, fear may be the most basic of all passions, but one has nevertheless to work at peeling away all the outer layers in order to reveal the root and then be able to eliminate it.

RESPONDENT: I have been peeling away the outer layers for a long time. How are you saying the root is to be eliminated once it has been revealed? That is what I am trying to get at.

VINEETO: I fully go along with Richard’s experience, as it accords with my own pure consciousness experiences – ‘only elimination will do the trick’, elimination of ‘me’.

The ‘outer layers’ consist of feelings like greed, sorrow, grief, loneliness, jealousy, loyalty, love, compassion, belonging, worry, discontentment, resentment, annoyance, anger, retribution, cynicism and pride. As you investigate each of those feelings when it arises, those feelings will incrementally disappear along with the bit of ‘you’ who feels and feeds those feelings. In my case, when my love and loyalty for my spiritual teacher disappeared, Vineeto the spiritualist also disappeared, when my pining for another’s love disappeared, Vineeto the romantic dreamer disappeared as well. With every aspect of the human condition that I fully and experientially understood, a bit more of ‘me’ disappeared. This is how you can tell that your method of ‘peeling away the outer layers’ works.

Once you have ‘revealed’ the root of a particular feeling in its totality, i.e. once you brought into the bright light of awareness, then that complete exposure and experiential understanding is at the same time the elimination of that feeling. If a feeling has not disappeared, then it has not been totally understood in all its aspects, and you then have another opportunity to look at it and examine it. Given that ‘I’ am all I think and feel myself to be, then the day I understand all of my emotions and instinctual passions in their totality, ‘I’ will disappear forever, never to return. It’s an incredibly exhilarating adventure.

RESPONDENT: Ok, it sounds like what you are saying is that once the root is revealed and understood completely then it disappears. This does make sense to me. This answers my question clearly and completely. Thank you.

VINEETO: Given that you still seem to hold to the conclusion that ‘sorrow comes from fear’ you now jump to a further conclusion that once ‘the root is revealed and understood completely’ then fear ‘disappears’ . You are therefore not concerned about eliminating what you call the ‘superficial emotions’ of malice and sorrow but that your sole aim in life is to become fearless. The aim of eliminating fear without aiming at eliminating one’s malice and sorrow is well-established in all the spiritual teachings – becoming fear-less by realizing ‘who you really are’, a process also known as Self-Realization. Thus one feels oneself to be all-powerful, i.e. fear-less, and is then no longer afraid of being malicious and sorrowful. The result of this transcendence can be observed in all the realized teachers who are known to pluck the heartstrings of sorrow in the name of feeling divine compassion and who unabashedly display their anger and displeasure from time to time, particularly when their disciples don’t ‘get it’ or fail to surrender.

The method of actualism aims at becoming aware of one’s beliefs and emotions and finding out the facts for oneself – I don’t wait for ‘the root’ to be ‘revealed’ to me by some Divine Intelligence but I actively search for the causes of malice in me and eliminate them one by one and I actively search for the causes of sorrow in me and root them out. In the course of becoming increasingly happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are, the instinctual fear of actually being here in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are, incrementally disappears on its own accord.

Maybe it will further clarify the difference between spiritualism and actualism by describing the process of examining a particular feeling – a process that, if thoroughly completed, can lead to the virtual elimination of that feeling together with that part of my identity who harboured and was nourished by this feeling. I will use sorrow as the example, given that the thread of our conversation initially started with the topic of exploring the causes of sorrow.

Whenever I experienced sorrow, the examination began right at the moment when I first became aware that I was experiencing the feeling of sorrow. Due to our social upbringing, every human being is taught to cope or deal with these undesirable feelings in very specific ways, amongst them being repressing one’s feelings, expressing them, accepting them or indulging in them in socially-acceptable ways, seeking solace and protection from some mythical God, Divine Intelligence or Divine Teacher or denying and transcending undesirable feelings by becoming a Higher Self.

Examples of this social programming are the spiritual belief that sorrow is good for me – therefore making feelings that are debilitating and devastating into something desirable, and the normal-world conviction that sorrow is part of human nature and you can’t change it – a fatalistic acceptance of all sorrowful feelings. We are taught a form of wishful thinking that by denying our feelings of sorrow they will somehow go away or at least not surface too often and men in particular are taught to believe that it is possible to think one’s way through sorrow and thereby rationalize it away. This socialization programming does have slight variations according to cultural conditioning, spiritual beliefs and gender, but all of this programming has a universal thread – it is solely designed to enable one to either cope with sorrow or, if that fails, to then dutifully follow the traditional religious/spiritual path of denial and transcendence.

The common thread of this socialization programming is to think that because fear is the most basic human emotion that one has only the two traditional choices – either make the best of being fearful in the real-world or seek to become fearless by following the spiritual path. To continue to believe this to be true means that one cuts oneself off from becoming aware of the fact that it is malice and sorrow and not fear that are the most salient emotions that characterize the human condition. This is where the discovery of actualism breaks entirely new ground because it does not pussyfoot around with denying the instinctual passions – it directly addresses those passions that prevent human beings living together in peace and harmony on this planet – malice and sorrow.

To theoretically think about and draw spurious conclusions about sorrow, i.e. ‘sorrow comes from fear’, only serves to bypass the first prerequisite of any investigation – the direct experience of the feeling itself – and one is therefore unable to become aware of what actually happens in the body and in the brain when one feels sorrow. Unless one personally observe right here, right now, the feeling while it is happening, it is not a scientific examination. The only way to find out what is fact and what is fiction, theory or speculation is to find out for oneself and conduct one’s own hands-on scientific investigation.

So when you find that what you understand to be the root of a feeling does not result in the elimination of that feeling, then you might have to go back to the ‘outer layers’ and investigate the traditional beliefs, values and conclusions that you are unwittingly taking for granted. Unless you question everything – and find a definite unambiguous factual answer to each of your questions – there is no way of ever experientially understanding the root of an emotion, let alone an instinctual passion.

27.12.2001

VINEETO: When Richard answered that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual passions’ you have somehow concluded that your theory of ‘sorrow comes from fear’ was now a fact for you and everyone else. But your theory is still a theory built upon Richard’s answer that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’. <snipped>

*

VINEETO: At root, fear may be the most basic of all passions, but one has nevertheless to work at peeling away all the outer layers in order to reveal the root and then be able to eliminate it.

RESPONDENT: I have been peeling away the outer layers for a long time. How are you saying the root is to be eliminated once it has been revealed? That is what I am trying to get at.

VINEETO: I fully go along with Richard’s experience, as it accords with my own pure consciousness experiences – ‘only elimination will do the trick’, elimination of ‘me’. <snipped>

Once you have ‘revealed’ the root of a particular feeling in its totality, i.e. once you brought into the bright light of awareness, then that complete exposure and experiential understanding is at the same time the elimination of that feeling. If a feeling has not disappeared, then it has not been totally understood in all its aspects, and you then have another opportunity to look at it and examine it. Given that ‘I’ am all I think and feel myself to be, then the day I understand all of my emotions and instinctual passions in their totality, ‘I’ will disappear forever, never to return. It’s an incredibly exhilarating adventure.

RESPONDENT: Ok, it sounds like what you are saying is that once the root is revealed and understood completely then it disappears. This does make sense to me. This answers my question clearly and completely. Thank you.

VINEETO: Given that you still seem to hold to the conclusion that ‘sorrow comes from fear’ you now jump to a further conclusion that once ‘the root is revealed and understood completely’ then fear ‘disappears’. You are therefore not concerned about eliminating what you call the ‘superficial emotions’ of malice and sorrow but that your sole aim in life is to become fearless. The aim of eliminating fear without aiming at eliminating one’s malice and sorrow is well-established in all the spiritual teachings – becoming fear-less by realizing ‘who you really are’, a process also known as Self-Realization. <snipped>

Maybe it will further clarify the difference between spiritualism and actualism by describing the process of examining a particular feeling – a process that, if thoroughly completed, can lead to the virtual elimination of that feeling together with that part of my identity who harboured and was nourished by this feeling. I will use sorrow as the example, given that the thread of our conversation initially started with the topic of exploring the causes of sorrow.

Whenever I experienced sorrow, the examination began right at the moment when I first became aware that I was experiencing the feeling of sorrow. Due to our social upbringing, every human being is taught to cope or deal with these undesirable feelings in very specific ways, amongst them being repressing one’s feelings, expressing them, accepting them or indulging in them in socially-acceptable ways, seeking solace and protection from some mythical God, Divine Intelligence or Divine Teacher or denying and transcending undesirable feelings by becoming a Higher Self. <snipped>

So when you find that what you understand to be the root of a feeling does not result in the elimination of that feeling, then you might have to go back to the ‘outer layers’ and investigate the traditional beliefs, values and conclusions that you are unwittingly taking for granted. Unless you question everything – and find a definite unambiguous factual answer to each of your questions – there is no way of ever experientially understanding the root of an emotion, let alone an instinctual passion.

RESPONDENT: The only thing I concluded was that fear is the predominant instinct, which I had already said to Peter before I ever talked to Richard so it wasn’t based on what Richard said.

VINEETO: Your conclusion, regardless of what it is based on, is non-factual. If you look at Richard’s quote, he said that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’, which is certainly not the same thing as ‘the predominant instinct’. The basic instinctual survival passions, common to all animal-life on this planet, are determined by the principle of ‘what can I eat and what can eat me’. However, historic and present day evidence makes it glaringly obvious that the predominant passions in the human animal are those of malice and sorrow.

Though it is certainly easier to admit to experiencing fear than to admit to being as malicious and sorrowful as everyone else, a remedy can only be applied successfully if the patient firstly admits to being sick. As long as one’s every emotion is explained or excused as being the sole result of being fearful, one cannot address, examine and eliminate malice and sorrow in oneself. And unless you eliminate your instinctual malice and sorrow, you can never be actually free of fear, for they are part and parcel of a single package.

RESPONDENT: You have completely overlooked that and put your spin on it to show that you are right and that I am spiritual. The rest of your reading of me is also so erroneous that I see no use in trying to continue the conversation.

VINEETO: My letter was simply meant to give you some information so that ‘the root is revealed and understood completely’ – so that not only will it make sense to you as a proposition, but also that you might understand how to do it in practice. You may say that you are not spiritual but you give every indication of continuing to see the world with spiritual eyes. One indication for spiritual eyes is that you divide the world into terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and that you hold to the notion that it is important to be right. Ethical values as to what is right and what is wrong are implanted into us with mother’s milk, so to speak, and any additional spiritual training of adult years only adds to our relentless habit of evaluating people, things and events according to what we have learnt to be right or wrong.

For instance, as a catholic Christian I was told that only obedient Catholics could go to Heaven – they were ‘right’ – and that all non-Catholics were heathens – they were ‘wrong’. That was an awful lot of people who were supposed to go to hell – even for the gullible mind of a six-year-old. Later, when I was a Rajneeshee, I was taught that all organized religions were ‘wrong’ and only Rajneesh had the right and true spirituality that would lead to liberation. Who and what was ‘right’ and who and what was ‘wrong’ had changed as my beliefs had changed, but the imperative to categorize things and people by ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is common to all spiritual-religious teachings.

As I began to question all my beliefs and values in order to discover what is actual, I examined my loyalty to, and belief in, Rajneesh and eventually discovered what a sham Eastern mysticism was. It was, however, a much longer process to completely reveal and understand my numerous spiritual notions, beliefs and values – all that I considered ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘higher’ and ‘lower’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Every time I became aware of robotically thinking that ‘this is right’ or ‘this is wrong’ I stopped to examine the underlying value that I had been taught – either in my spiritual career or in my childhood socialization. I learned to question every single one of my ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ and began to look for what were the facts, what worked and what made sense.

Spirituality not only consists of a belief in God or a belief in an afterlife – spirituality pervades every inch of our thinking and feeling. It takes months of honest and meticulous self-investigation to find and root out all the connotation of one’s emotion-based beliefs and moral and ethical values that actively conspire to prevent a clean intelligence from emerging.

31.12.2001

RESPONDENT: The only thing I concluded was that fear is the predominant instinct, which I had already said to Peter before I ever talked to Richard so it wasn’t based on what Richard said.

VINEETO: Your conclusion, regardless of what it is based on, is non-factual. If you look at Richard’s quote, he said that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’, which is certainly not the same thing as ‘the predominant instinct’. The basic instinctual survival passions, common to all animal-life on this planet are determined by the principle of ‘what can I eat and what can eat me’ – aggression and fear. However, historic and present day evidence makes it glaringly obvious that the predominant passions in the human animal are those of malice and sorrow.

Though it is certainly easier to admit to experiencing fear than to admit to being as malicious and sorrowful as everyone else, a remedy can only be applied successfully if the patient firstly admits to being sick. As long as one’s every emotion is explained or excused as being the sole result of being fearful, one cannot address, examine and eliminate malice and sorrow in oneself. And unless you eliminate your instinctual malice and sorrow, you can never be actually free of fear, for they are part and parcel of a single package.

RESPONDENT: You have completely overlooked that and put your spin on it to show that you are right and that I am spiritual. The rest of your reading of me is also so erroneous that I see no use in trying to continue the conversation.

VINEETO: My letter was simply meant to give you some information so that ‘the root is revealed and understood completely’ – so that not only will it make sense to you as a proposition, but also that you might understand how to do it in practice. You may say that you are not spiritual but you give every indication of continuing to see the world with spiritual eyes. One indication for spiritual eyes is that you divide the world into terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and that you hold to the notion that it is important to be right. Ethical values as to what is right and what is wrong are implanted into us with mother’s milk, so to speak, and any additional spiritual training of adult years only adds to our relentless habit of evaluating people, things and events according to what we have learnt to be right or wrong. <snipped>

Spirituality not only consists of a belief in God or a belief in an afterlife – spirituality pervades every inch of our thinking and feeling. It takes months of honest and meticulous self-investigation to find and root out all the connotation of one’s emotion-based beliefs and moral and ethical values that actively conspire to prevent a clean intelligence from emerging.

RESPONDENT: Very interesting. You have made all 6 billion people on earth wrong ...

VINEETO: I said that ‘spirituality pervades every inch of our thinking and feeling’. I don’t quite understand how that translates for you into ‘you have made all 6 billion people on earth wrong’ ? It is a fact that all 6 billion people on earth are run by their animal instinctual survival passions, and it is a fact that every human being on the planet has been subjected to a social-spiritual conditioning of some form or other. I for one considered this situation to be wrong enough and decided to do something about it.

RESPONDENT: ... and now you are telling me that I have spiritual eyes because I hold the notion that it is important to be right.

VINEETO: As can be clearly seen in a pure consciousness experience, in the actual word right and wrong do not exist. The notion of right and wrong are a by-product of one’s social-spiritual conditioning.

RESPONDENT: Also, you have taken only a portion of Richard’s quote to show that you are right:

[Vineeto]: If you look at Richard’s quote, he said that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’, which is certainly not the same thing as ‘the predominant instinct’

VINEETO: The thread of the conversation started with your proposition to Gary that ‘sorrow comes from fear’. Gary, Peter and I gave our experiential reports that sorrow does not always stem from fear, which you commented with

[Respondent]: I got your view on it but I haven’t yet answered the question to my satisfaction. I will just move on and remain with the question as I am sure the others here only want to teach and indoctrinate me also into the ‘wide and wondrous path to actual freedom.’ Respondent to Gary, 13.12.2001

You then went to another mailing list in order to have Richard’s confirmation for your theory whereby changing your question from ‘sorrow comes from fear’ to fear being ‘predominant or underlying the other instincts’.

RESPONDENT: Here is the whole quote which you conveniently left out:

[Respondent]: Would you say that fear is predominant or underlying the other instincts? That is how I see it but I could be wrong.

[Richard]: Yes, at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions ... hence fear rules the world of sentient beings. Richard, List B, Respondent, 15.12.2001

VINEETO: When Richard answered that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual passions’ you have somehow concluded that your theory of ‘sorrow comes from fear’ was now a fact for you. But your theory is still a theory built upon Richard’s answer that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual survival passions’. One cannot turn a theory or presumption into a fact solely by relying on the statements of others – for to do so is to remain a believer. The way you used Richard’s knowledge was to turn your theory into a truth – a truth based on faith and belief in someone you take to be an authority.

RESPONDENT: At least Peter admits when he is wrong which gives him at least some credibility. You can now have the last say as I am not interested in any further discussion with you. As far as going back to the ‘outer layers’, yes I do that. I wish you would give up on analyzing me as you have no idea where I am at. Maybe you can find someone who is spiritual and is a beginner to teach and you can peddle your lies to them.

VINEETO: I have reported from my own experience and from extensive observation of other people that the instinctual package not only consists of all the instinctual passions – fear, aggression, nurture and desire – but also that malicious and sorrowful feelings are far more predominant in people’s everyday life than the feeling of fear. Rape, murder, domestic violence, warfare and genocides are not a predominant expression of fear but are the direct result of malice. Depression, despair and suicide are not a predominant expression of fear but are the direct result of sorrow. I also reported to you that I found that unless one eliminates one’s instinctual malice and sorrow, one can never be actually free of fear, for they are part and parcel of a single package, but all of this you blithely dismissed with the derogatory comment that we ‘only want to teach and indoctrinate’ you.

If you prefer to concentrate only on fear then that is entirely your business. It is your life you are living and you are the sole arbiter of whether you are happy and whether you are harmless. There is, however, only one method on offer on this list and that is a D.I.Y. way to irrevocably eliminate malice and sorrow from one’s life.

5.1.2002

VINEETO: I have reported from my own experience and from extensive observation of other people that the instinctual package not only consists of all the instinctual passions – fear, aggression, nurture and desire – but also that malicious and sorrowful feelings are far more predominant in people’s everyday life than the feeling of fear. Rape, murder, domestic violence, warfare and genocides are not a predominant expression of fear but are the direct result of malice. Depression, despair and suicide are not a predominant expression of fear but are the direct result of sorrow. I also reported to you that I found that unless one eliminates one’s instinctual malice and sorrow, one can never be actually free of fear, for they are part and parcel of a single package, but all of this you blithely dismissed with the derogatory comment that we ‘only want to teach and indoctrinate’ you.

If you prefer to concentrate only on fear then that is entirely your business. It is your life you are living and you are the sole arbiter of whether you are happy and whether you are harmless. There is, however, only one method on offer on this list and that is a D.I.Y. way to irrevocably eliminate malice and sorrow from one’s life.

RESPONDENT: I do understand sorrow.

VINEETO: Good. Because when you understand sorrow utterly and completely, it disappears.

RESPONDENT: I am sorry that I have ever tried to have a discussion with you. It has been a total waste of time and I feel sorrow over that.

VINEETO: Ah, but that is not an understanding of sorrow but passing the blame for your own sorrow on to someone else. I understand now why you said to Peter –

[Respondent to Peter]: I will just continue on my own as I can’t seem to get past first base with anyone here. Respondent to Peter 31.12.2001

The ‘first base’ for comprehending and becoming free of sorrow is to understand that sorrow, just like any other feeling, has its source in one’s own instinctual programming – regardless of whoever or whatever is the trigger for one’s feeling. To make someone else responsible for one’s own feelings only serves to multiply and perpetuate sorrow and adds feelings of malice such as frustration, condemnation and accusation to the equation, which in its wake brings one even more sorrow.

Given that the topic of our discussion has been your theory that ‘sorrow comes from fear’ and the fact that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual passions’ I might add something that is essential to understand fear. Fear in human beings is the direct result of ‘me’ wanting to survive – ‘I’, the passionate alien entity inside this flesh and blood body, will do anything in order to stay in existence. Thus the only way fear can be diminished is to diminish the ‘self’ – the weaker the ‘self’ becomes, the less fear there is. There is simply no other way to permanently decrease and eventually eliminate fear because ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’.

The magic ingredient for diminishing the ‘self’ is altruism. Obviously, when my intent is focussed on a goal greater than ‘me’, ‘self’-interest and ‘self’-centredness then play a minor role in the game – that’s why actualists refer to ‘pure intent’. Contrary to the traditional idea of battling and transcending fear via ‘self’-enhancement, the fact is that only an altruistic pursuit can reliably reduce and eventually eradicate fear because only altruism can break the instinctual ‘self’-centredness that is the very root of fear.

The traditional honourable goals have been to battle malice and sorrow in other people through political, religious or therapeutical pursuits – thus everyone meddles in everyone else’s life and is busy trying to solve everyone else’s problems. For an actualist the altruistic pursuit translates into actively eradicating malice and sorrow from his or her life in order not to burden anyone with his or her sorrow and not to hurt anyone with his or her malice. Fear then disappears on its own accord because the more faint the ‘self’ becomes, as the ‘self’-serving emotions are progressively investigated and eliminated, the less there is for ‘me’ to control, deny or defend.

And as the shackles of malice and sorrow and its accompanying fear disappear, a whole magical and sensuous actual universe becomes readily apparent.

7.1.2002

RESPONDENT: I do understand sorrow.

VINEETO: Good. Because when you understand sorrow utterly and completely, it disappears.

RESPONDENT: I am sorry that I have ever tried to have a discussion with you. It has been a total waste of time and I feel sorrow over that.

VINEETO: Ah, but that is not an understanding of sorrow but passing the blame for your own sorrow on to someone else. I understand now why you said to Peter –

[Respondent to Peter]: I will just continue on my own as I can’t seem to get past first base with anyone here. Right and Wong, 31.12.2001

The ‘first base’ for comprehending and becoming free of sorrow is to understand that sorrow, just like any other feeling, has its source in one’s own instinctual programming – regardless of whoever or whatever is the trigger for one’s feeling. To make someone else responsible for one’s own feelings only serves to multiply and perpetuate sorrow and adds feelings of malice such as frustration, condemnation and accusation to the equation, which in its wake brings one even more sorrow.

Given that the topic of our discussion has been your theory that ‘sorrow comes from fear’ and the fact that ‘at root fear is the most basic of all the instinctual passions’ I might add something that is essential to understand fear. Fear in human beings is the direct result of ‘me’ wanting to survive – ‘I’, the passionate alien entity inside this flesh and blood body, will do anything in order to stay in existence. Thus the only way fear can be diminished is to diminish the ‘self’ – the weaker the ‘self’ becomes, the less fear there is. There is simply no other way to permanently decrease and eventually eliminate fear because ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’. The magic ingredient for diminishing the ‘self’ is altruism. Obviously, when my intent is focussed on a goal greater than ‘me’, ‘self’-interest and ‘self’-centredness then play a minor role in the game. Contrary to the traditional idea of battling and transcending fear via ‘self’-enhancement, the fact is that only an altruistic pursuit can reliably reduce and eventually eradicate fear because only altruism can break the instinctual ‘self’-centredness that is the very root of fear.

The traditional honourable goals have been to battle malice and sorrow in other people through political, religious or therapeutical pursuits – thus everyone meddles in everyone else’s life and is busy trying to solve everyone else’s problems. For an actualist the altruistic pursuit translates into actively eradicating malice and sorrow from his or her life in order not to burden anyone with his or her sorrow and not to hurt anyone with his or her malice. Fear then disappears on its own accord because the more faint the ‘self’ becomes, as the ‘self’-serving emotions are progressively investigated and eliminated, the less there is for ‘me’ to control, deny or defend. And as the shackles of malice and sorrow and its accompanying fear disappear, a whole magical and sensuous actual universe becomes readily apparent.

RESPONDENT: This is more of your useless bs.

VINEETO: Given that your aim in life is completely different to my aim – you want to become free from fear while I am becoming free from malice and sorrow – it is no wonder that you consider the sharing of my discoveries and experiences as ‘useless bull shit’.

RESPONDENT: No where did I say that anyone else is responsible for my sorrow. This just shows the utter futileness of trying to have a discussion with you or Peter.

VINEETO: If you don’t feel that I am responsible for your sorrow, then what was the purpose and significance of complaining to me that you feel sorrow about our correspondence?

RESPONDENT: I only have one question left: Is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter?

VINEETO: This question shows just how an un-investigated belief can easily tie one up into knots and bounds. Despite a long discussion with Richard on this particular subject in July last year you stubbornly stick to your concept that actualism is a restricting cult and a religion.

Respondent: ... I speak with personal experience because I have been in two cults in the past. One of them was very similar to this one which is why I think I initially identified with this one so well. I have extreme reservations about sending this to this list because I am sure it will be denied ....

Richard: Yes, as I understand it, from the information provided to this Mailing List by several concerned people, I cannot know that it is a cult because I am in denial ... so, given that you too see that I am in denial (‘I am sure it will be denied’ ), perhaps you can throw a little light on the matter for me if I share with you something from my personal life that I am currently involved in up to my neck (some would say obsessed with). <snip>

Respondent: I am not free to come here and do it in my own way.

Richard: Au contraire ... anyone can come here on this Mailing List and write whatever they wish to (including not writing at all). <snip>

Respondent: I am mainly interested in learning about the instincts by observing them in action. This is one valuable thing that I have learned here.

Richard: Okay. <snip>

Respondent: I don’t belong here because I don’t want to be a died in the wool actualist who practices actualism. I am not into religion.

Richard: Is it at all becoming obvious that this ‘religion’ you speak of has no existence outside of your mind? Richard to Respondent, Actual Freedom Mailing List, 14.7.2001

You further maintain that this list consists of a bunch of ‘religious devotees’ and now you even imagine that it is ‘the Peter and Vineeto show’ –

[Respondent to Gary]: I also find it interesting that religious devotees here such as yourself accuse me of being spiritual. To Gary, Post to a Dead Man, 13.12.2001,

[Respondent to Peter]: I will no longer attempt to talk to either you or Vineeto as I clearly see the futility of that. I came here to attempt a conversation with Gary and have had to wade through the Peter and Vineeto show. I will not do that again. If it is not alright to come here without talking to you or Vineeto let me know and I will not come back at all. To Peter, Right and Wrong, 5.1.2002

Now, according to this fantasy you conclude that you have to ask Peter and Vineeto for permission to talk to other actualists. It has always been made clear that this mailing list is un-moderated, free for all and set up to explore and share how to become free from the Human Condition. Everyone who is interested can write or read as he or she pleases.

However, you had the confirmation from Richard that this is an un-moderated list more than a year ago –

Richard: The archives of the Mailing List in question are in the public domain ... anyone can subscribe; anyone can access them; it is all computer automated; no human vets subscription and/or access; it is an un-moderated list.

Respondent: For what it’s worth, I didn’t find this ‘Mailing List in question’ to be un-moderated at all.

Richard: It is definitely an un-moderated list ... all E-Mails posted are automatically duplicated and copies are sent out to all subscribers via a fully computerised process. No posts are viewed, let alone vetted, by a human before release for mass publication. Richard to Respondent, List B, 7.12.2000

Therefore I can only read your question ‘is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter’ as a request that Peter and I should keep our mouth shut whenever you write to someone on the list. I do find it quite amazing that on one hand you suggest that actualism is a cult and that the Actual Freedom mailing list is controlled by ‘religious goons’, while it is you who now requests that this list be moderated according to your conditions – that certain people should not have the right of comments to your posts that you write on this list.

You posted your correspondence on another list describing how you are being ‘bullied’ here –

[Respondent to Peter]: Here is something I posted to the spiritual list yesterday:

‘I just ended a discussion on another list in which I was bullied to see things their way. Even if I agreed with them I was still made wrong and then they lecture me on right and wrong. Only thing I know to do is not go to another list or talk to someone else that bullies me. What I was saying was what they had already said and I was still made wrong. They didn’t even listen to what I said. All they know is to teach that their way is the only way that is right and everyone else is wrong. When I go to another list or talk to someone that only wants to teach, I know I am in the wrong place. What I like about this list is that it is un-moderated and there are no authoritative religious goons running the show.’ To Peter, Right and Wrong, 5.1.2002

Just for the records, it was you who began this line of communication by asking Peter and Gary a question as to whether ‘sorrow comes from fear’. Vis –

[Respondent to Gary]: Maybe I have it wrong but it looks to me like sorrow comes from fear. For example, if there is a fear of not surviving then there will be sorrow. In other words, isn’t fear underlying the sorrow? Can either one of you comment on that? To Gary, Sorrow, 7.12.2001

As this is an open mailing list, I joined the conversation. You very quickly discovered that neither of the observations and experiential reports from Peter, Gary or me supported your opinion, but you continued to write to us anyway. I still fail to see in which way a report of personal experiences and facts can be interpreted as ‘I was bullied to see things their way’. How can someone on the other side of the planet bully you into doing something you don’t want to do simply by stating facts and reporting his or her personal experiences? Is it not rather that the facts and experiential discoveries don’t comply with your theory that ‘sorrow comes from fear’ and now you are asking that Peter and I should stop presenting you with inconvenient facts? If you don’t like what is being written, why do you continue to talk to us, whilst requesting that we don’t talk to you?

However, your question ‘is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter’ sheds some light on your first statement ‘no where did I say that anyone else is responsible for my sorrow’. If you don’t reckon that I am responsible for your sorrow about a discussion you consider futile, then why ask that I shut up whenever you write? You seek to stop your sorrow by attempting to change someone else’s action – asking me to shut up – instead of finding and resolving the cause of your sorrow in you.

The sensible solution for me was to discover and sufficiently investigate the source of sorrow in me – my beliefs, values and instinctual passions – which then enabled me to live happily and harmlessly in the world-as-it-is with people-as-they-are. It is an eminently sensible and enjoyable way to live.

9.1.2002

RESPONDENT: This is more of your useless bs.

VINEETO: Given that your aim in life is completely different to my aim – you want to become free from fear while I am becoming free from malice and sorrow – it is no wonder that you consider the sharing of my discoveries and experiences as ‘useless bull shit’.

RESPONDENT: Nowhere did I say that anyone else is responsible for my sorrow. This just shows the utter futileness of trying to have a discussion with you or Peter.

VINEETO: If you don’t feel that I am responsible for your sorrow, then what was the purpose and significance of complaining to me that you feel sorrow about our correspondence?

RESPONDENT: I wasn’t blaming or complaining. I made a simple statement about my own sorrow: ‘I do understand sorrow. I am sorry that I have ever tried to have a discussion with you. It has been a total waste of time and I feel sorrow over that.’

VINEETO: When I investigated my sorrow, the initial trigger of sorrow was only the entry into the deeper realms of my psyche to find the underlying causes of my sorrow – my expectations, my beliefs, my values, my ways of relating to people, etc. – until I found the original source of sorrow in the instinctual passions all humans are endowed with. People, things and events are always only the initial spark for the sorrow that is part of everyone’s social and instinctual programming. Provided you find the core of your sorrow that was triggered by some event, then that sorrow disappears.

*

RESPONDENT: I only have one question left: Is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter?

VINEETO: This question shows just how an un-investigated belief can easily tie one up into knots and bounds. Despite a long discussion with Richard on this particular subject in July last year you stubbornly stick to your concept that actualism is a restricting cult and a religion. <snip>

You further maintain that this list consists of a bunch of ‘religious devotees’ and now you even imagine that it is ‘the Peter and Vineeto show’ – <snip> Now, according to this fantasy you conclude that you have to ask Peter and Vineeto for permission to talk to other actualists. It has always been made clear that this mailing list is un-moderated, free for all and set up to explore and share how to become free from the Human Condition. Everyone who is interested can write or read as he or she pleases. <snip>

However, your question ‘is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter’ sheds some light on your first statement no where did I say that anyone else is responsible for my sorrow. If you don’t reckon that I am responsible for your sorrow about a discussion you consider futile, then why ask that I shut up whenever you write? You seek to stop your sorrow by attempting to change someone else’s action – asking me to shut up – instead of finding and resolving the cause of your sorrow in you. The sensible solution for me was to discover and sufficiently investigate the source of sorrow in me – my beliefs, values and instinctual passions – which then enabled me to live happily and harmlessly in the world-as-it-is with people-as-they-are. It is an eminently sensible and enjoyable way to live.

RESPONDENT: I said I feel sorrow over that. I didn’t say that you caused my sorrow. I don’t have time to waste addressing all the other things you said in your last post. Hopefully, you can understand this one simple fact. Please don’t write to me anymore.

VINEETO: No, I don’t understand ‘this simple fact’. You say I am not responsible for your sorrow – then why do you seek the solution in telling me to shut up?

As I said in the bit that you didn’t ‘have time to waste addressing’ – ‘everyone who is interested can write or read as he or she pleases’ and I might add that the word ‘un-moderated mailing list’ also means that there is no authority who can stifle anyone else’s communication. It is impossible to have an in-depth discussion about facets of the human condition that are usually considered too heretical or too close to the bone unless the conversation is unfettered by cultural moral and ethical restrictions and unless it moves beyond the limitations of personal sensitivities.

Is it really so hard to comprehend that the key to your happiness lies in your hands and your hands only? If you are not happy with the conversation, you are free to stop conversing at any time. The key to understanding the method of actual freedom is that everyone is solely and unilaterally responsible for cleaning up their own malice and sorrow in themselves. As such, applying the method of actualism enables me to live happily and peacefully without having to request that anybody change their behaviour and/or their actions to suit my particular emotional demands, needs or whims, whatever they may be at the time. If peace in the world is conditional on other’s changing it is worth remembering that there are reportedly over 6 billion people in the world and that’s a lot of people to change if ever there is going to be peace and harmony in ‘my’ world.

12.1.2002

RESPONDENT: I only have one question left: Is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter?

VINEETO: This question shows just how an un-investigated belief can easily tie one up into knots and bounds. Despite a long discussion with Richard on this particular subject in July last year you stubbornly stick to your concept that actualism is a restricting cult and a religion. <snip> You further maintain that this list consists of a bunch of ‘religious devotees’ and now you even imagine that it is ‘the Peter and Vineeto show’ – <snip> Now, according to this fantasy you conclude that you have to ask Peter and Vineeto for permission to talk to other actualists. It has always been made clear that this mailing list is un-moderated, free for all and set up to explore and share how to become free from the Human Condition. Everyone who is interested can write or read as he or she pleases. <snip>

However, your question ‘is it ok to come here without talking to you or Peter’ sheds some light on your first statement ‘no where did I say that anyone else is responsible for my sorrow’. If you don’t reckon that I am responsible for your sorrow about a discussion you consider futile, then why ask that I shut up whenever you write? You seek to stop your sorrow by attempting to change someone else’s action – asking me to shut up – instead of finding and resolving the cause of your sorrow in you. The sensible solution for me was to discover and sufficiently investigate the source of sorrow in me – my beliefs, values and instinctual passions – which then enabled me to live happily and harmlessly in the world-as-it-is with people-as-they-are. It is an eminently sensible and enjoyable way to live.

RESPONDENT: I said I feel sorrow over that. I didn’t say that you caused my sorrow. I don’t have time to waste addressing all the other things you said in your last post. Hopefully, you can understand this one simple fact. Please don’t write to me anymore.

VINEETO: No, I don’t understand ‘this simple fact’. You say I am not responsible for your sorrow – then why do you seek the solution in telling me to shut up?

As I said in the bit that you didn’t ‘have time to waste addressing’ – ‘everyone who is interested can write or read as he or she pleases’ and I might add that the word ‘un-moderated mailing list’ also means that there is no authority who can stifle anyone else’s communication. It is impossible to have an in-depth discussion about facets of the human condition that are usually considered too heretical or too close to the bone unless the conversation is unfettered by cultural moral and ethical restrictions and unless it moves beyond the restrictions of personal sensitivities.

RESPONDENT: I didn’t tell you to shut up. I made a simple request. I said: ‘Please don’t write to me anymore.’ You then lied once again about what I said.

VINEETO: If you say I lied then that is so for you. For me, if you ask me to stop writing to you then I understand that as the equivalent of asking me to stop talking to you, i.e. to shut up.

But I am all too happy to rephrase my question in less loose terms –

You say I am not responsible for your sorrow – then why do you seek the solution in asking me to stop writing to you?

In principle, the question stays the same. Is attempting to remove the trigger – my writing – the solution for ending your feeling of sorrow? What I have found is that asking someone else to change their behaviour to suit me was certainly the first move that came to mind when sorrow was triggered, and yet I found that this reaction only increased the problem for me. As long as I attempted to change other people to fit my needs, I was then busy with trying to convince them in one way or another to do so and was continually worried and frustrated by the fact that I often failed.

*

VINEETO: Is it really so hard to comprehend that the key to your happiness lies in your hands and your hands only? If you are not happy with the conversation, you are free to stop conversing at any time. The key to understanding the method of actual freedom is that everyone is solely and unilaterally responsible for cleaning up their own malice and sorrow in themselves. As such, applying the method of actualism enables me to live happily and peacefully without having to request that anybody change their behaviour and/or their actions to suit my particular emotional demands, needs or whims, whatever they may be at the time. If peace in the world is conditional on other’s changing it is worth remembering that there are reportedly over 6 billion people in the world and that’s a lot of people to change if ever there is going to be peace and harmony in ‘my’ world.

RESPONDENT: You are right here. You are free to lie all you want about what I said and I don’t have to answer.

VINEETO: I remember the time when I felt the need to be in control of what other people thought or said about me and it was certainly disquieting, in fact this need or desire consumed a great amount of my thoughts and feelings. That is the very reason why I keep reporting that I’ve used Richard’s method to become free of exactly those concerns – the habitual yet futile propensity to change others. I stopped searching for the solution in that direction, turned round 180 degrees, and began to fix up myself. It is a decidedly liberating experience to say the least.

16.1.2002

RESPONDENT: I can’t see any use in putting any energy into even thinking about trying to have any further discussion with you.

VINEETO: Understood.

20.7.2003

VINEETO: Welcome back to the Actual Freedom mailing list.

RESPONDENT: I have been wondering what’s missing for me? I completely understand how all this works yet there is some missing ingredient. For example, I am involved in a situation that is causing constant fear and worry in my life. I see what is causing the fear right to the core but it still doesn’t go away. I am working on the cause by seeing what my options are and taking appropriate steps. The only way the fear would stop is if I extricate myself completely from the situation but that is not something I want to do.

VINEETO: You might recall that you had a conversation with both Gary and me about this same topic on this list some 18 months ago –

[Respondent to Gary]: On a personal note I am looking at making additional investments in the stock market and there is fear associated with this because I know there is a risk of losing as I have lost a lot before. I know that if I do lose again there will be sorrow and grief. Hence, my fear of losing may lead to sorrow and grief if I actually do lose.

[Gary]: Nothing is absolutely without risk. I myself do not invest in any stocks or what-have-you, preferring the relative security of bank deposits. If you lose, there doesn’t necessarily have to be any sorrow or grief about it, does there?

[Respondent to Gary]: This is true. There doesn’t have to be any sorrow or grief about it but based on my past experience there could be sorrow or grief about it. That is why I am looking at the fear associated with the possible loss in order to rid myself of possible suffering that may occur.

[Vineeto]: Did you ever pause to question what might be the practical cause for your anticipated loss and subsequent sorrow or grief in the above-mentioned situation? Did you ever wonder what might be the driving passion behind an expectation to win in a gambling situation where reportedly about 75% of the players lose, subsequently suffering disappointment, sorrow and grief? You seem to be asking for fearlessness in a situation where the odds are heavily stacked against you.

I am only asking because when I investigated my expectations and desires that I knew by past experience would inevitably lead to disappointment and sorrow, I was then able to chuck both my expectation and disappointment, both my desire and sorrow out the window. And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared. Given that my aim was to become free of malice and sorrow, it became obvious to me that I also had to become free from the dreams, hopes, desires and greed that were the cause of my sorrow. to Respondent, 10.12.2001

If you already know that the most sensible thing would be to stop doing what you are doing –

[Respondent]: ‘obviously I don’t want to do the most sensible thing because of greed which is tied to the fear (‘me’). If I see that it is greed which keeps me in this situation and is causing the fear then it would be prudent to stop.’

– then why do you ask what to do? To stop being silly is a DIY project – doing what is sensible is in your hands and in your hands alone.

27.7.2003

VINEETO: [...] If you already know that the most sensible thing would be to stop doing what you are doing –

[Respondent]: ‘obviously I don’t want to do the most sensible thing because of greed which is tied to the fear (‘me’). If I see that it is greed which keeps me in this situation and is causing the fear then it would be prudent to stop.’

– then why do you ask what to do? To stop being silly is a DIY project – doing what is sensible is in your hands and in your hands alone.

RESPONDENT: I was asking myself and also looking for any helpful feedback. There is no need for anyone to answer.

VINEETO: Was the feedback helpful?

RESPONDENT: If I run from every sticky situation or jam that I get myself in then I don’t see how I am going to make progress toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing the fear. As you said above I was in a similar situation some 18 months ago and it has come up again although the current situation is much more dangerous and could have much more dire consequences.

VINEETO: If you examine the situation you find yourself in then you might notice that it was greed that brought you into this situation in the first place and it is greed that keeps you in a situation that ‘is much more dangerous and could have much more dire consequences’. Vis –

[Respondent]: ‘obviously I don’t want to do the most sensible thing because of greed which is tied to the fear (‘me’). If I see that it is greed which keeps me in this situation and is causing the fear then it would be prudent to stop.’

If you want to ‘make progress toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing the fear’ you will have to take into account that greed is as much an instinctual passion that constitutes ‘me’ as fear is. If you want to ‘make progress’ then you need to make the same progress ‘toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing’ the greed.

The way I made ‘progress toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing the fear’ was that I stopped trying to suppress, sublimate or eliminate my unwanted feelings, and hoping for a world as-I-wanted-it-to-be as I had in my spiritual years, and set my goal in life at being happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are. I made the effort to become aware of my beliefs and my good and bad feelings when and as they were happening and I emphasized my felicitous feelings to the point that I could actually begin to enjoy be here for the first time in my life. With resentment gone from my life I found that I stopped blaming others for my moods and stopped using them as an excuse for my malice, which meant that I also found myself becoming more benign.

Becoming aware of what I feel and believe each moment again gives me the option of making a choice each moment again – away from automatically opting for actions determined by my instinctual programming (fear, aggression, nurture and desire) towards a sensible and intelligent decision as to how to avoid dangerous or stressful situations, and how to be at ease and enjoy life so as to be more happy and to be more harmonious with other people.

RESPONDENT: You said above ‘And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared.’ I am not sure about this because stopping what causes fear in a given situation is not going to eliminate the fear from reoccurring. It will stop the current fear in the current situation but it won’t end fear (‘me’). This sounds more like an avoidance of fear (‘me’).

VINEETO: We’ve been at this point before. If I may remind you of the discussion in question –

[Respondent]: The point is that there is substantial risk. It looks like confronting fear itself is the way to overcome fear and not to avoid situations that cause fear.

[Vineeto]: It is, of course, entirely your choice and your business how you are assessing the odds – I was simply reporting the general figures of stock market gambling which are evaluated at 75% or more losers compared to 25% or less winners.

As for ‘confronting fear’ – people have tried for centuries to tackle their fear of physical danger by confronting it and many of the early pioneers discovered remote and dangerous areas of the planet only because they confronted their fears and left home despite their fears. Nowadays, in the absence of sufficient real physical dangers and explorations, highly dangerous adventure sports are promoted for people to satisfy their need of boosting their adrenalin and their ego – activities such as car and motorbike racing, Everest climbing for tourists, wild water rafting, cave diving, meeting man-eating sharks in plain dive suits, parachute and bungee jumping, etc., etc. There are also those who seek the same rush from other less physically dangerous activities such as playing video games, gambling or watching other people performing dangerous or violent activities.

What I am saying is that the idea of confronting one’s fears is nothing new, it is part and parcel of the human condition and has not resulted in any change towards more benevolence and happiness in human behaviour. People who confront their fear are in no way less malicious or less sorrowful despite the sometimes-enormous effort and time they invest trying to get rid of their fear. In your specific case you seem to want to tackle fear with more risk-taking, i.e. with greater desire, whereas in my experience it is the desire to ‘hit a homerun’ as you say further down, that generates the fear of loss in the first place.

The way I tackled fear was firstly to be sensible in practical situations thereby reducing the risk of actual danger or loss, which served to stop fuelling the fires of passion. Then I set about enquiring into the reasons that lay behind my various fears. My aim in actualism has never been to be free from fear only, but to become free from my malicious and sorrowful feelings and behaviour – and this enterprise initially generated a lot of fear. As I questioned my dearly held beliefs, my spiritual loyalty, my friendships, my role as a worker, as a woman, as a part of a social group – in short my entire social conditioning – the fear sometimes seemed completely overwhelming.

This fear I overcame by simply doing what I had decided to do despite my fears. This is not confronting the feeling of fear itself but simply setting oneself a goal in life and getting on with doing it. This way I did something useful with the fear by turning the feeling of fear into the thrill of discovery. I also did a similar thing with desire – I used it as the desire to succeed in my newfound life’s aim. Nurture was similarly utilized in wanting to be part of the ending to human suffering, and aggression was channelled into a quiet stubbornness and determination to succeed.

To only seek to become fearless is in itself a selfish aim and only serves to enhance and embellish the ‘self’, the lost, lonely and cunning entity inside this body. Those who pursue fearlessness without also investigating their aggression, nurture and desire often succeed in attaining a self-enhancing and self-aggrandizing altered state of consciousness, known in the East as Satori, or if the state becomes permanent, spiritual enlightenment. Vineeto to Respondent, 13.12.2001

The actualism method is about becoming happy and harmless – this means sensibly avoiding causing sorrow and harm to oneself as well as to others. This would make sense to anyone but a compulsive masochist.

RESPONDENT: PS: As I said above, what’s keeping me from stopping is ‘I’ don’t want to stop. ‘I’ want to keep doing what I am doing without the fear and worry. Iow, I want to have my cake and eat it too.

VINEETO: Yes, you are making it very clear that you’re not aiming for eliminating ‘me’ but you want remain an identity without the inconvenient painful side effects, namely worry and fear – in other words, you do not want to change.

Given that even enlightened people do not manage to eliminate anger and anguish – they merely sublimate it and designate it as being ‘Divine Anger’ and ‘Divine Sorrow’ – I do wonder what plans you have and what method you want to use in order to accomplish your aim of having ‘the cake and eat it too’?

Personally I can report that it is absolutely marvellous whenever I am not being a feeling being – pristine and pringling – something that can never be experienced when being a ‘me’.

3.8.2003

RESPONDENT: For some reason my replies to you don’t get posted when I send them from my outlook express so I am sending this one from the web. I am wondering if this is because it is addressed to Actual Freedom and also has a cc to Freedom List or if it is because it is in html? Also, your other messages may show up blank on the list because they are in html and this list may not take html.

VINEETO: Yes, I noticed that my posts show up blank in the archives over the last month or so. I haven’t quite worked out the reason – maybe Topica have tightened their security or there is a glitch in my Outlook. Some posts arrive ok but many don’t. If you do not get the posts into your mailbox you can always find the actualist’s writings in the archives of the Actual Freedom Trust website.

*

RESPONDENT: I have been wondering what’s missing for me? I completely understand how all this works yet there is some missing ingredient. For example, I am involved in a situation that is causing constant fear and worry in my life. I see what is causing the fear right to the core but it still doesn’t go away. I am working on the cause by seeing what my options are and taking appropriate steps. The only way the fear would stop is if I extricate myself completely from the situation but that is not something I want to do. What I am trying to get at is: Is something missing because the fear won’t stop unless I stop what I am doing or in a situation like this is it better to just stop even though I don’t want to stop? Iow, if I see the cause of the fear and the fear doesn’t stop is it better to stop the cause altogether?

VINEETO: You might recall that you had a conversation with both Gary and me about this same topic on this list some 18 months ago –

[Respondent to Gary]: On a personal note I am looking at making additional investments in the stock market and there is fear associated with this because I know there is a risk of losing as I have lost a lot before. I know that if I do lose again there will be sorrow and grief. Hence, my fear of losing may lead to sorrow and grief if I actually do lose. <snip>

[Vineeto]: Did you ever pause to question what might be the practical cause for your anticipated loss and subsequent sorrow or grief in the above-mentioned situation? Did you ever wonder what might be the driving passion behind an expectation to win in a gambling situation where reportedly about 75% of the players lose, subsequently suffering disappointment, sorrow and grief? You seem to be asking for fearlessness in a situation where the odds are heavily stacked against you. Vineeto to Respondent, 10.12.2001

RESPONDENT: This is not correct but I get your point anyway. I have lightened up on the investing and am not experiencing fear in relation to that anymore. However, as you pointed out fear has come up in a similar situation so it didn’t end fear altogether. In the current situation, I don’t think it started out because of greed. It involved another person who pulled a switch on me and so the situation changed and I lost control of the situation and no longer could keep it small as I had done. I think greed is involved now because I don’t simply want to pull up stakes because of what someone else has done.

VINEETO: As long as you lay the blame for your feelings on someone else, your happiness will always be conditional upon what others say and do. If you want to become free from feelings such as fear, resentment, anger, sadness and uncertainty you have to recognize and acknowledge that the source of all of your feelings is in you and as such it is in your hands to change.

*

[Vineeto]: I am only asking because when I investigated my expectations and desires that I knew by past experience would inevitably lead to disappointment and sorrow, I was then able to chuck both my expectation and disappointment, both my desire and sorrow out the window. And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared. Given that my aim was to become free of malice and sorrow, it became obvious to me that I also had to become free from the dreams, hopes, desires and greed that were the cause of my sorrow. Vineeto to Respondent, 10.12.2001

RESPONDENT: When others are involved we can’t always know it will inevitably lead to disappointment and sorrow because our decisions could be based on a lie that they are telling us for example.

VINEETO: Unless you live on an uninhabited island, ‘others’ will always be involved in your life. As an actualist I never ever blame anybody else for being the cause of my feelings. This enables me to focus my exploration on the real cause of my malice and sorrow – the social-instinctual programming that is inherent to every human being on the planet.

If you decide to set your sights on becoming happy and harmless, as opposed to hoping to become fearless, you will then have the intent to do something about freeing yourself of debilitating recurring feelings such as ‘disappointment and sorrow’. By doing so you will experientially realize when, how and why such feelings impede your enjoyment of this, the only moment you can experience being alive. Unless you make this life-changing decision, feelings of disappointment and sorrow will inevitably continue.

*

VINEETO: If you already know that the most sensible thing would be to stop doing what you are doing –

[Respondent]: ‘obviously I don’t want to do the most sensible thing because of greed which is tied to the fear (‘me’). If I see that it is greed which keeps me in this situation and is causing the fear then it would be prudent to stop.’

– then why do you ask what to do? To stop being silly is a DIY project – doing what is sensible is in your hands and in your hands alone.

RESPONDENT: I was asking myself and also looking for any helpful feedback. There is no need for anyone to answer.

VINEETO: Was the feedback helpful?

RESPONDENT: Yes, it has been helpful in that it has helped me to look at it and also to get debunked. Also, it is helpful to hear of your experiences and see what you did.

VINEETO: I’d be interested to hear what you mean by ‘debunked’.

*

RESPONDENT: If I run from every sticky situation or jam that I get myself in then I don’t see how I am going to make progress toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing the fear. As you said above I was in a similar situation some 18 months ago and it has come up again although the current situation is much more dangerous and could have much more dire consequences.

VINEETO: If you examine the situation you find yourself in then you might notice that it was greed that brought you into this situation in the first place and it is greed that keeps you in a situation that ‘is much more dangerous and could have much more dire consequences’.

RESPONDENT: As I explained above it wasn’t greed that brought me into it but another person who basically conned me and now the situation is out of my control. However, I think it is greed that keeps me from pulling out altogether.

VINEETO: The ‘person who basically conned’ you only activated your social-instinctual programming, which is continuously operating in you. Anybody and anything can trigger this programming to flare up at anytime, but it is up to you to become aware of it and do something about it.

To expect others to change to suit ‘you’, or to require that events be always advantageous to ‘you’ in order that ‘you’ should not feel the feelings you don’t want to feel is to waste your life waiting for a miracle.

*

VINEETO: If you examine the situation you find yourself in then you might notice that it was greed that brought you into this situation in the first place and it is greed that keeps you in a situation that ‘is much more dangerous and could have much more dire consequences’. Vis –

[Respondent]: ‘obviously I don’t want to do the most sensible thing because of greed which is tied to the fear (‘me’). If I see that it is greed which keeps me in this situation and is causing the fear then it would be prudent to stop.’

If you want to ‘make progress toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing the fear’ you will have to take into account that greed is as much an instinctual passion that constitutes ‘me’ as fear is.

RESPONDENT: I’m not sure about greed being ‘as much an instinctual passion that constitutes ‘me’ as fear is.’ I haven’t heard about greed being an instinctual passion before. It seems to me that greed arises out of fear and also that greed causes fear.

VINEETO: The instinctual passions are one single operating program whose basic function is to ensure the survival of the species and this single program has various salient aspects to it – the main ones being fear, aggression, nurture and desire (aka greed). This instinctual programming can only be understood – and eliminated – as a whole, it cannot be eliminated in part. Any attempt to single out one passion while ignoring the rest can only lead to selective denial and dissociation – you will find many descriptions of, and teachings for, such practice in esoteric bookshops all over the world.

*

VINEETO: If you want to ‘make progress’ then you need to make the same progress ‘toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing’ the greed.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I see that greed needs to be eliminated also.

VINEETO: If I have got it right, thus far you see the need to eliminate the instinctual passions of fear and desire from your life in order to more enjoy being here. Should you also come to see, by observation, that it would be good to get rid of the instinctual passions of nurture and aggression as well, you may well find that you will become interested in becoming happy and harmless.

*

VINEETO: The way I made ‘progress toward eliminating the ‘me’ that is causing the fear’ was that I stopped trying to suppress, sublimate or eliminate my unwanted feelings, and hoping for a world as-I-wanted-it-to-be as I had in my spiritual years, and set my goal in life at being happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are. I made the effort to become aware of my beliefs and my good and bad feelings when and as they were happening and I emphasized my felicitous feelings to the point that I could actually begin to enjoy be here for the first time in my life. With resentment gone from my life I found that I stopped blaming others for my moods and stopped using them as an excuse for my malice, which meant that I also found myself becoming more benign.

Becoming aware of what I feel and believe each moment again gives me the option of making a choice each moment again – away from automatically opting for actions determined by my instinctual programming (fear, aggression, nurture and desire) towards a sensible and intelligent decision as to how to avoid dangerous or stressful situations, and how to be at ease and enjoy life so as to be more happy and to be more harmonious with other people.

RESPONDENT: Yes, this makes sense but as I pointed out above sometimes when we are involved with other people we get into situations that are out of our control and sometimes unforeseen things happen.

VINEETO: The challenge for an actualist is to be unconditionally happy and harmless and that includes all involvements with other people and all ‘unforeseen things’ that happen.

*

RESPONDENT: You said above ‘And once I stopped doing what caused me to feel sorrowful, then the fear of this sorrow re-occurring also disappeared.’ I am not sure about this because stopping what causes fear in a given situation is not going to eliminate the fear from reoccurring. It will stop the current fear in the current situation but it won’t end fear (‘me’). This sounds more like an avoidance of fear (‘me’).

VINEETO: We’ve been at this point before. If I may remind you of the discussion in question –

[Respondent]: The point is that there is substantial risk. It looks like confronting fear itself is the way to overcome fear and not to avoid situations that cause fear.

[Vineeto]: It is, of course, entirely your choice and your business how you are assessing the odds – I was simply reporting the general figures of stock market gambling which are evaluated at 75% or more losers compared to 25% or less winners.

As for ‘confronting fear’ – people have tried for centuries to tackle their fear of physical danger by confronting it <snip> What I am saying is that the idea of confronting one’s fears is nothing new, it is part and parcel of the human condition and has not resulted in any change towards more benevolence and happiness in human behaviour. People who confront their fear are in no way less malicious or less sorrowful despite the sometimes-enormous effort and time they invest trying to get rid of their fear. In your specific case you seem to want to tackle fear with more risk-taking, i.e. with greater desire, whereas in my experience it is the desire to ‘hit a homerun’ as you say further down, that generates the fear of loss in the first place.

The way I tackled fear was firstly to be sensible in practical situations thereby reducing the risk of actual danger or loss, which served to stop fuelling the fires of passion. Then I set about enquiring into the reasons that lay behind my various fears. Vineeto to Respondent, 13.12.2001

RESPONDENT: Ok, this makes some sense and I have started doing this since I talked to you last. I have used the fear to start reducing the risk of actual danger or loss. I still don’t see how this is going to permanently eliminate fear from re-occuring but I will keep looking at it.

VINEETO: You cannot eliminate fearful feelings just because it seems like a good idea. In order to free yourself from the genetically encoded survival program you will need an altruistic goal – an aim in life that gives you the non-‘self’-oriented perspective you need in order to dare to radically change. Without an altruistic goal you will go round in circles, trying this method and that teaching, this technique and that medicine without ever evincing any change at the core of your ‘being’.

As an actualist I want to become unconditionally happy and harmless, knowing full well that achieving this goal will be the end of ‘me’. Because I have a clear direction I can apply the actualism method with success – whenever I am not happy, as in feeling fearful, worried, anxious or sad, I immediately explore what prevents me from being happy and do whatever it takes to return to feeling happy as soon as possible. Similarly, whenever I am not harmless, as in feeling annoyed, angry, resentful or unkind, I immediately explore what prevents me from being harmless and do whatever it takes to return to being harmless as soon as possible.

*

[Vineeto]: My aim in actualism has never been to be free from fear only, but to become free from my malicious and sorrowful feelings and behaviour – and this enterprise initially generated a lot of fear. As I questioned my dearly held beliefs, my spiritual loyalty, my friendships, my role as a worker, as a woman, as a part of a social group – in short my entire social conditioning – the fear sometimes seemed completely overwhelming.

This fear I overcame by simply doing what I had decided to do despite my fears. This is not confronting the feeling of fear itself but simply setting oneself a goal in life and getting on with doing it. Vineeto to Respondent, 13.12.2001

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