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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 16
VINEETO to No 23: The years of spiritual search preceded my coming across actualism but there is no causal connection between my having been on a spiritual search and being virtually free from the human condition. On the contrary, being virtually free from the human condition is the result of abandoning all of the spiritual beliefs I had taken on my spiritual years. Becoming free of spiritual belief was only the start because being virtually free of the human condition is also the result of abandoning my beliefs about humanistic psychology and social education that I had acquired in my years at university. Further it is the result of abandoning my social conditioning as a women’s lib promoter and a female member of society, of abandoning my cultural conditioning as a middle-class German, of abandoning my professional conditioning as a social worker in a drug addiction clinic, of abandoning my religious conditioning as a Roman Catholic, and so on. None of the above-described conditioning (which includes my conditioning as a Rajneesh disciple) was ‘a
preparation of becoming virtual free’ as you propose – it was all baggage that I had to leave behind. To say that you ‘find no
difference in pre-virtualfree-stage and my spiritual years’ only points to your persistence in ignoring the fact that becoming free from the
human condition is about abandoning one’s beliefs, as opposed to redefining them, reshuffling them, refurbishing them and relishing them.
RESPONDENT: I am wondering exactly what you mean by ‘abandoning’ one’s beliefs. It seems more to me that I didn’t consciously abandon my beliefs. It was more like I kept questioning my beliefs and they just disappeared. VINEETO: Could you provide a practical example of ‘I kept questioning my beliefs and they just disappeared’ in order that we can discuss the topic more specifically?
VINEETO to No 23: The years of spiritual search preceded my coming across actualism but there is no causal connection between my having been on a spiritual search and being virtually free from the human condition. On the contrary, being virtually free from the human condition is the result of abandoning all of the spiritual beliefs I had taken on my spiritual years. Becoming free of spiritual belief was only the start because being virtually free of the human condition is also the result of abandoning my beliefs about humanistic psychology and social education that I had acquired in my years at university. Further it is the result of abandoning my social conditioning as a women’s lib promoter and a female member of society, of abandoning my cultural conditioning as a middle-class German, of abandoning my professional conditioning as a social worker in a drug addiction clinic, of abandoning my religious conditioning as a Roman Catholic, and so on. None of the above-described conditioning (which includes my conditioning as a Rajneesh disciple) was ‘a
preparation of becoming virtual free’ as you propose – it was all baggage that I had to leave behind. To say that you ‘find no
difference in pre-virtualfree-stage and my spiritual years’ only points to your persistence in ignoring the fact that becoming free from the
human condition is about abandoning one’s beliefs, as opposed to redefining them, reshuffling them, refurbishing them and relishing them.
RESPONDENT: I am wondering exactly what you mean by ‘abandoning’ one’s beliefs. It seems more to me that I didn’t consciously abandon my beliefs. It was more like I kept questioning my beliefs and they just disappeared. VINEETO: Could you provide a practical example of ‘I kept questioning my beliefs and they just disappeared’ in order that we could discuss the topic more specifically? RESPONDENT: I think it was more like confronting others’ beliefs on a spiritual list. For example, when someone would say something about ‘otherness’ I would tell them that I don’t believe in any otherness. There would then be a discussion about otherness and I could see what an obvious belief it is. Through this process any beliefs I had seem to have disappeared. It wasn’t as if I decided to ‘abandon’ any beliefs I still had. VINEETO: I did some research on this spiritual list so as to find out more about what you mean by ‘confronting others’ beliefs’ given that you liken this to ‘questioning my beliefs’ – I see these as opposite processes, not at all alike. Curiously this is what I found, amongst other posts –
Considering that on the same day you said to me ‘it seems more to me that I didn’t consciously abandon my beliefs’ I am somewhat confused as to what difference you make between ‘abandoned’ and ‘consciously abandoned’. For me, abandoning my beliefs was the conscious and deliberate determination to peel away all the conditioning I had taken on board in my life that prevents me from experiencing the magic and perfection that I had experienced in my first major pure consciousness experience. In order to peel away the layers of ‘me’, the social and instinctual identity I had clearly seen as standing in the way of experiencing the magic of this actual physical universe, I found that it wasn’t enough merely to question my beliefs (or the beliefs of others) for questioning sake, as I had done before. Also, it wasn’t sufficient to question what I considered to be beliefs, mine or other’s – I had to dig into what I felt to be unquestionably true and what I was sure to be right in order to determine whether they were fact and whether they worked in practice. In other words, I made a deliberate decision to uncover my beliefs in order to abandon them, beliefs that were disguised as truths, held by me as well as my peer group to be valid and right, good and fair. What made them appear to be right and true were not only my own passionate feelings but the fact that others around me also felt them to be true. Given that beliefs are nothing other than emotion-backed thoughts the task to uncover my beliefs was fairly easy in principle – whenever I got upset about what someone said I could then reasonably assume that one of my dearly held beliefs or values was challenged. In practice, however, it was often not so easy because each belief I uncovered in fact challenged the very person I felt myself to be. So, the answer to your question ‘what’s left when all beliefs and ideas including the spiritual is abandoned?’ in my experience was that what is left is the feeler. Consequently I then began to investigate the feelings that do not necessarily have beliefs attached to them but that nevertheless stand in the way of me being unconditionally happy and harmless – the necessary prerequisite to becoming free from one’s ‘self’ altogether.
VINEETO: In other words, I made a deliberate decision to uncover my beliefs in order to abandon them, beliefs that were disguised as truths, held by me as well as my peer group to be valid and right, good and fair. What made them appear to be right and true were not only my own passionate feelings but the fact that others around me also felt them to be true. Given that beliefs are nothing other than emotion-backed thoughts the task to uncover my beliefs was fairly easy in principle – whenever I got upset about what someone said I could then reasonably assume that one of my dearly held beliefs or values was challenged. In practice, however, it was often not so easy because each belief I uncovered in fact challenged the very person I felt myself to be. So, the answer to your question ‘what’s left when all beliefs and ideas including the spiritual is abandoned?’ in my experience was that what is left is the feeler. Consequently I then began to investigate the feelings that do not necessarily have beliefs attached to them but that nevertheless stand in the way of me being unconditionally happy and harmless – the necessary prerequisite to becoming free from one’s ‘self’ altogether. RESPONDENT: How did you investigate those feelings and link the identity to them? VINEETO: How to link the identity to my feelings? That’s easy – the pure consciousness experience makes it undeniably clear that ‘I’, the social and instinctual identity, am a feeling identity … therefore any affective feeling is always an articulation of one’s identity in action. Even if one does not have a clear memory of having had a PCE, the simple act of being attentive experientially reveals that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. When I began to pay exclusive attention to this moment of being alive I soon became aware that my social and instinctual identity thrives on gloomy and antagonistic feelings as well as loving and compassionate feelings whereas feeling happy and delighted deprives the identity of its nourishment. Hence Richard’s method to minimize both the good and the bad feelings while activating and enhancing the felicitous/ innocuous feelings made imminent sense. This method is not to be confused with the spiritual method of not identifying or not associating with one’s feelings and thoughts – as in the Buddhist practice of detachment – as this practice only serves to create a new pseudo identity, an identity who actively dis-identifies from unwanted aspects of one’s old identity. In actualism I readily acknowledge that ‘I’ in toto am the problem and then proceed to facilitate ‘my’ demise. As for ‘how did you investigate those feelings’, i.e. those feelings that don’t necessarily have beliefs attached to them – I found that there was no need to make a distinction between feelings with beliefs and feelings without beliefs. Given that my aim is to eliminate ‘me’, the identity, in toto, any feeling that prevents me from being happy and harmless is acknowledged, felt and labelled as it arises, neither expressed nor suppressed but attentively observed, in order that I can then either nip it in the bud or, if need be, explore and understand it fully so as to then be able to abandon it. Feelings connected with beliefs inevitably surfaced whenever the particular belief was challenged. The only way to completely disempower the feelings is to abandon the belief – no belief, no need to feel defensive, feel aggrieved, feel the need to attack and so on. Even when I thought I had eliminated my major beliefs, such as my religious and spiritual beliefs, I would nevertheless discover yet more beliefs that I had inadvertently taken on board and these beliefs made themselves apparent by the fact that I got upset or sad or irritated about what someone said or did. Undertaking an exploration of one’s own feelings when and as they are occurring – becoming fascinated with the business of being alive – is the means to developing apperceptive awareness, a prerequisite to becoming free of the human condition itself. PS: The
VINEETO: As for ‘how did you investigate those feelings’, i.e. those feelings that don’t necessarily have beliefs attached to them – I found that there was no need to make a distinction between feelings with beliefs and feelings without beliefs. Given that my aim is to eliminate ‘me’ the identity in toto, any feeling that prevents me from being happy and harmless is acknowledged, felt and labelled as it arises, neither expressed nor suppressed but attentively observed, in order that I can then either nip it in the bud or, if need be, explore and understand it fully so as to then be able to abandon them. Feelings connected with beliefs inevitably surfaced whenever the particular belief was challenged. The only way to completely disempower the feelings is to abandon the belief – no belief, no need to feel defensive, feel aggrieved, feel the need to attack and so on. Even when I thought I had eliminated my major beliefs, such as my religious and spiritual beliefs, I would nevertheless discover yet more beliefs that I had inadvertently taken on board and these beliefs made themselves apparent by the fact that I got upset or sad or irritated about what someone said or did. Undertaking an exploration of one’s own feelings when and as they are occurring – becoming fascinated with the business of being alive – is the means to developing apperceptive awareness, a prerequisite to becoming free of the human condition itself. RESPONDENT: What’s left for me is the feeler. My life is good almost all the time these days but there is still a feeler lurking and waiting to gum up the works. Right now, it seems that good is as good as it gets for me while living with this feeler. VINEETO: If that is what you choose to be content with, then so be it. I know of quite a few people who manage to feel good most of the time as a consequence of practicing dis-identification, detachment and emotionally retreating from the world-as-it-is but in the end they are all unable to raise the bar to thoroughly enjoying life and delighting in being here by practicing this technique. This stands to reason because it’s impossible to unequivocally and unconditionally delight in being here whilst simultaneously practicing aloofness to one’s fellow human beings and indifference to the human condition that afflicts all human beings while cutting oneself off from the purity and perfection of the actual world. Personally, feeling good almost all the time wasn’t good enough for me – I wanted to live the perfection I had experienced in my PCEs as much as possible. So when I had managed to feel good most of the time I raised the bar to feeling great, then to feeling excellent to the point where I wake up in the morning and take it for granted that I will have an excellent day. After I had experienced the best that is possible, settling for second best was no longer an option.
VINEETO: As for ‘how did you investigate those feelings’, i.e. those feelings that don’t necessarily have beliefs attached to them – I found that there was no need to make a distinction between feelings with beliefs and feelings without beliefs. Given that my aim is to eliminate ‘me’ the identity in toto, any feeling that prevents me from being happy and harmless is acknowledged, felt and labelled as it arises, neither expressed nor suppressed but attentively observed, in order that I can then either nip it in the bud or, if need be, explore and understand it fully so as to then be able to abandon them. Feelings connected with beliefs inevitably surfaced whenever the particular belief was challenged. The only way to completely disempower the feelings is to abandon the belief – no belief, no need to feel defensive, feel aggrieved, feel the need to attack and so on. Even when I thought I had eliminated my major beliefs, such as my religious and spiritual beliefs, I would nevertheless discover yet more beliefs that I had inadvertently taken on board and these beliefs made themselves apparent by the fact that I got upset or sad or irritated about what someone said or did. Undertaking an exploration of one’s own feelings when and as they are occurring – becoming fascinated with the business of being alive – is the means to developing apperceptive awareness, a prerequisite to becoming free of the human condition itself. RESPONDENT: What’s left for me is the feeler. My life is good almost all the time these days but there is still a feeler lurking and waiting to gum up the works. Right now, it seems that good is as good as it gets for me while living with this feeler. VINEETO: If that is what you choose to be content with, then so be it. I know of quite a few people who manage to feel good most of the time as a consequence of practicing dis-identification, and detachment and emotionally retreating from the world-as-it-is but in the end they are all unable to raise the bar to thoroughly enjoying life and delighting in being here by practicing this technique. This stands to reason because it’s impossible to unequivocally and unconditionally delight in being here whilst simultaneously practicing aloofness to one’s fellow human beings and indifference to the human condition that afflicts all human beings while cutting oneself off from the purity and perfection of the actual world. RESPONDENT: I didn’t say anything about practicing dis-identification, detachment and emotionally retreating from the world as it is. I also didn’t say anything about practicing aloofness and indifference to the human condition. I am enjoying life. VINEETO: If you re-read what I wrote you will notice that I did not say that you personally are ‘practicing dis-identification, detachment and emotionally retreating from the world as it is’. I reported that ‘I know of quite a few people’ who do that. Neither did I say that you practice ‘aloofness and indifference to the human condition’. I reported that ‘I know of quite a few people’ who do that. However, given that you once told me that, although you didn’t consider your ‘previous ‘teachings’
as a spiritual belief-system All I was doing was sharing my observations of how the human condition operates and the type of feelings that inevitably arise and the behaviour patterns one establishes when following any one of the variations of spiritual teachings – it is up to you to determine if this information is useful to whatever it is you want to achieve in life. After all, you did say that you are ‘living with this feeler’ who is ‘lurking and waiting to gum up the works’. RESPONDENT: Actually, you seem aloof to me in that I find it near impossible to have a conversation with you. VINEETO: I wonder what kind of conversation you are looking for that you ‘find it near impossible to have a conversation’ with me? In case you are seeking an ‘I-don’t-know, you-don’t-know, what-do-you-think’ type of conversation as is so common on spiritual mailing lists then surely you are talking to the wrong person. If you are looking for sympathy, empathy, commiseration, love or compassion, then again you won’t find it here. What I am doing is having a conversation with you about the workings of the human condition – the very nature of the topic makes such a conversation the most candid and frank kind of discussion one can have with another person. To liken this to being ‘aloof’ is to misunderstand both the nature of aloofness/ detachment/ disidentification and the degree of intimacy and sincerity required in order to undertake an honest inquiry into the human condition. * RESPONDENT: [Right now, it seems that good is as good as it gets for me while living with this feeler.] VINEETO: Personally, feeling good almost all the time wasn’t good enough for me – I wanted to live the perfection I had experienced in my PCEs as much as possible. So when I had managed to feel good most of the time I raised the bar to feeling great, then to feeling excellent to the point where I wake up in the morning and take it for granted that I will have an excellent day. After I had experienced the best that is possible, settling for second best was no longer an option. RESPONDENT: I didn’t say I had ‘settled’ for second best. I simply stated what’s so for me. VINEETO: I am left wondering why you bother to converse with me at all. You write to me asking questions and when I respond saying that, as a consequence of having actively explored the human condition, I have found a way to become free of the particular problem that bothers you, you appear to take offence at my responses and subsequently the conversation dawdles to an end … yet again. If you don’t like what I say or how I say it … why bother writing to me?
VINEETO: I am left wondering why you bother to converse with me at all. You write to me asking questions and when I respond saying that, as a consequence of having actively explored the human condition, I have found a way to become free of the particular problem that bothers you, you appear to take offence at my responses and subsequently the conversation dawdles to an end … yet again. If you don’t like what I say or how I say it … why bother writing to me? RESPONDENT: When I saw the title to your post to No 18 about ‘Abandoning beliefs’ I wondered exactly what you meant by that. I wrote to ask you what you meant by that and you explained. That was all I wanted to know. VINEETO: Yet that wasn’t all you wanted to know because after I explained what I meant by abandoning beliefs you continued the conversation by asking ‘how did you investigate those feelings and link the identity to them?’ (25.11.2004) to which I responded. RESPONDENT: The conversation then deteriorated into you making a lot of assumptions about me … VINEETO: As I already explained, I did not make assumptions about you specifically but passed on some observations about the human condition in regards to how people I know try to manage their feelings. Instead of taking what I said at face value you took this observation personally, i.e. you presumed that I had made ‘a lot of assumptions’ about you and as a result you decided that you ‘find it near impossible to have a conversation’ with me. Here is the paragraph you consider to contain ‘a lot of assumptions’ about you personally –
RESPONDENT: [The conversation then deteriorated into you making a lot of assumptions about me] and now bringing up long past conversations to back up your assumptions. VINEETO: The reason why I referred to information you had given me in the past was to explain to you why I had chosen to impart this particular observation about the human condition. You had asked me about investigating feelings and knowing that both you and I had trodden the spiritual path for many years, I told you about one of the cunning tricks the identity applies in order to avoid further investigation into one’s feelings … because daring to undertake such a hands-on investigation would inevitably threaten ‘my’ very existence. Or are you now retracting your comment that you have been on ‘this path of self-discovery for 30 years now’? RESPONDENT: As always, you have assumed an authoritative teacher role which makes discussion impossible. VINEETO: Well, you did ask me a question about ‘how did you investigate those feelings and link the identity to them?’ and I gave an answer to you based on my expertise on the subject. Would you have me pretend that I don’t know what I know about the human condition and how it operates in order that you can feel equally authoritative about the subject? Whilst ‘dumbing-down’ is part and parcel of belief-based spiritualism, it has no role to play in fact-based actualism. If you don’t want to talk about abandoning beliefs and investigating feelings, then why bother to ask in the first place? If one wants to discuss the human condition and such matters in particular, one inevitably ends up triggering-off one’s own emotional reactions for the obvious reason that ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’. It takes tremendous guts to dive deep into one’s psyche and bring to light one’s familiar patterns and beliefs. That’s why I always recommend putting the topic under discussion on the table, remembering that it is the human condition that we are talking about, not some personal flaw or individual error. The human condition is common to all, genetically encoded, and in one form or another shared by each and every human being. However, there is no avoiding of sensitive topics if you really want to become free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: Anyway, thanks for answering my original question about abandoning beliefs. VINEETO: Can you now understand the qualitative difference between abandoning one’s beliefs
and questioning other people’s beliefs
RESPONDENT No 71: [Vineeto]: … a pure consciousness experience is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want, which direction I am heading and what I need to do to achieve my goal. A PCE is the one and only experience that makes me aware of and allows me to experience the actual world that lies hidden beneath the elaborate, confusing and ever-changing chimera created by the identity inside this body and a PCE is the one and only experience that can clearly guide me towards an actual freedom from the human condition. [endquote]. (Note: Am I the only one who recognizes in the above passage traits bordering on altar worship?) RESPONDENT: No, you’re not the only one. Just replace PCE in the above passage with God. As I already pointed out to No 71 you conveniently omitted my qualifier in the first part of my post in order to mount your objection –
This mailing list is about elucidating just what is entailed in becoming free of the human condition and I made a simple clarifying practical statement of cause and effect (‘if – then’) about the importance of accurately labelling an experience as a PCE or non-PCE under certain circumstances. The reverse is of course equally applicable – *if* becoming free from the human condition is not one’s desired aim, *then* one may find it irrelevant to label the kind of experiences one is having. Given that this is not the first time you have raised the exact same religious objection
If you compare the definitions of 1 (a PCE) and 2 (Actual Freedom), isn’t it obvious that a PCE per definition is the temporary experience of the actual world whilst Actual Freedom per definition is the permanent experiencing of the actual world – the permanent absence of ‘me’? And to take this understanding a small step further – can you see that a precisely labelled temporary experience of the actual world (a PCE) is necessary in order to come to accurately know the actual world that is usually hidden by the all-pervasive blinding dominance of ‘me’ – so much so that ‘I’ can be calling an experience of the absence of ‘me’ ‘God’? If, note ‘if’, one should be so intrigued by the temporary absence of ‘me’ and the brief experience of the actual world that one decides to make it one’s aim in life to live in this actual world 24/7, then is not the specific experience that had revealed the identity-free actual world essential for taking aim and action towards a permanent freedom from ‘me’?
RESPONDENT No 71: [Vineeto]: … a pure consciousness experience is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want, which direction I am heading and what I need to do to achieve my goal. A PCE is the one and only experience that makes me aware of and allows me to experience the actual world that lies hidden beneath the elaborate, confusing and ever-changing chimera created by the identity inside this body and a PCE is the one and only experience that can clearly guide me towards an actual freedom from the human condition. [endquote]. (Note: Am I the only one who recognizes in the above passage traits bordering on altar worship?) RESPONDENT: No, you’re not the only one. Just replace PCE in the above passage with God. VINEETO: As I already pointed out to No 71 you conveniently omitted my qualifier in the first part of my post in order to mount your objection – <snipped rest of explanation> RESPONDENT: Any religious worshiper could have written that. This phrase is especially telling: ‘because ‘God’ is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want and which direction I am heading.’ ‘touchstone’ and ‘guiding light’ are three words that any religious worshiper can identify with. VINEETO: Ha, by the same logic I could call the lamb-chops from my dinner table ‘tofu-burgers’ and call myself a vegetarian. Just because some people use ‘God’ as their touchstone that is no reason to adopt their habit for yourself even to the point of replacing the word PCE, specially coined for describing a ‘self’-less experience, with your more familiar word ‘God’. If you look up the word touchstone in the web’s dictionaries, you will find that there is not even a reference to religious practice –
The same goes for the word ‘guiding light’ –
Further search with the Copernic search engine pointed to entries about German shepherd dogs, astronomy and interior design magazines, eye doctors and others and not even a hint of a religious meaning. Methinks you need to broaden your horizon a little bit.
RESPONDENT No 71: [Vineeto]: … a pure consciousness experience is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want, which direction I am heading and what I need to do to achieve my goal. A PCE is the one and only experience that makes me aware of and allows me to experience the actual world that lies hidden beneath the elaborate, confusing and ever-changing chimera created by the identity inside this body and a PCE is the one and only experience that can clearly guide me towards an actual freedom from the human condition. [endquote]. (Note: Am I the only one who recognizes in the above passage traits bordering on altar worship?) RESPONDENT: No, you’re not the only one. Just replace PCE in the above passage with God. VINEETO: As I already pointed out to No 71 you conveniently omitted my qualifier in the first part of my post in order to mount your objection – <snipped rest of explanation> RESPONDENT: Any religious worshiper could have written that. This phrase is especially telling: ‘because ‘God’ is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want and which direction I am heading.’ ‘touchstone’ and ‘guiding light’ are three words that any religious worshiper can identify with. RESPONDENT No 65: Yeah but ... then one could also replace it with:
Which reminds me. I think it was Timothy Leary who wrote ‘Simulations of God’ showing how it can be applied to what ever is one’s latest obsession. RESPONDENT: This seems to speak to my point. What is the difference in being obsessed with a PCE or with God? An obsession is an obsession, no? It sounds exactly the same in the passage that V wrote. VINEETO: During my process of actualism there was a time when I watched the biography of many people who made it to being famous enough to have a biography report made about them. I wanted to find out what exactly it is that made people successful in what they wanted to achieve in life, be it a gold medal in an Olympic sport or the winner of the Tour de France, be it a successful business entrepreneur or a famous dancer or painter, be it a well-known architect or a renowned author or inventor or, in the spiritual realm of achievements, become an enlightened master. What all these people had in common was a burning passion to be successful at their chosen field of interest and an unwavering determination to do whatever it takes to reach their goal. The same requirements I found to be necessary in actualism – it only works because I made becoming free from the human condition the single-most important issue in my life which rendered everything else to secondary importance. This may be the reason why you think my dedication to actualism to be an obsession – I would rather call it single-pointed commitment to becoming free. The idea that one should be ‘cool’ about things, stifle one’s desires and strive to be mentally and emotionally removed from life in all circumstances is something that spiritual teachers have been preaching since Buddha’s time – in fact, it is the basic premise of Buddhism that desire is the sole cause of human suffering and that ‘in order to stop disappointment and suffering one must stop desiring’. I for one have done that long enough – now it’s time to go full sails ahoy.
VINEETO to No 71: I disagree. If you want to become actually free from the human condition then it is vital to accurately ‘label the experiences as PCE or not’ because a pure consciousness experience is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, to know what I want and which direction I am heading. A PCE is the one and only experience that makes me aware of and allows me to experience the actual world that lies hidden beneath the elaborate, confusing and ever-changing chimera created by the identity inside this body and a PCE is the one and only experience that can clearly guide me towards an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: (…) Any religious worshiper could have written that. This phrase is especially telling: ‘because ‘God’ is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want and which direction I am heading.’ ‘touchstone’ and ‘guiding light’ are three words that any religious worshiper can identify with. VINEETO: Ha, by the same logic I could call the lamb-chops from my dinner table ‘tofu-burgers’ and call myself a vegetarian. Just because some people use ‘God’ as their touchstone that is no reason to adopt their habit for yourself even to the point of replacing the word PCE, specially coined for describing a ‘self’-less experience, with your more familiar word ‘God’. If you look up the word touchstone in the web’s dictionaries, you will find that there is not even a reference to religious practice – <snipped> The same goes for the word ‘guiding light’ – <snipped> Further search with the Copernic search engine pointed to entries about German shepherd dogs, astronomy and interior design magazines, eye doctors and others and not even a hint of a religious meaning. Methinks you need to broaden your horizon a little bit. RESPONDENT: guiding light: Main Entry: guru Part of Speech: noun Definition: mentor Synonyms: authority, guide, guiding light*, leader, maharishi, master, sage, swami, teacher, tutor Antonyms: disciple Source: Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.2.1) Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. * = informal or slang VINEETO: Now why would one search under ‘guru’ in order to find out the meaning for ‘guiding light’ unless one was already obsessed about gurudom /anti-gurudom? There is the second entry on ‘guiding light’ in the same Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus that you have not quoted, which is entirely non-religious –
In short, the spiritual/religious meaning of my words you are trying so hard to imply only exists in your own head and heart.
VINEETO to No 71: I disagree. If you want to become actually free from the human condition then it is vital to accurately ‘label the experiences as PCE or not’ because a pure consciousness experience is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, to know what I want and which direction I am heading. A PCE is the one and only experience that makes me aware of and allows me to experience the actual world that lies hidden beneath the elaborate, confusing and ever-changing chimera created by the identity inside this body and a PCE is the one and only experience that can clearly guide me towards an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: (…) Any religious worshiper could have written that. This phrase is especially telling: ‘because ‘God’ is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want and which direction I am heading.’ ‘touchstone’ and ‘guiding light’ are three words that any religious worshiper can identify with. VINEETO: Ha, by the same logic I could call the lamb-chops from my dinner table ‘tofu-burgers’ and call myself a vegetarian. Just because some people use ‘God’ as their touchstone that is no reason to adopt their habit for yourself even to the point of replacing the word PCE, specially coined for describing a ‘self’-less experience, with your more familiar word ‘God’. <snip> In short, the spiritual/religious meaning of my words you are trying so hard to imply only exists in your own head and heart. RESPONDENT: If there is no merit to my agreement with No 71 that your passage sounds like worship and ‘only exists in my own head and heart’ then why would you need to defend it? VINEETO: Now there is a new way of using logic – because I responded to clarify your misunderstanding you interpret it as confirmation that your misunderstanding was correct. Is the opposite true as well, that if I had not said anything to No 71’s and your inference of religiosity then you would have automatically assumed that you had it wrong? Or is this a case of your imagination being right no matter what I do? RESPONDENT: Only an ego needs to defend its words. VINEETO: I got news for you – I am not enlightened and only enlightened beings are without ego. By the way, this is the second time in this short post that you are using the word ‘defend’ to classify my correction of your misapprehension – was your comment actually meant to be an attack? If so then it is no wonder that whatever I say to inform you that I have no religious feelings whatsoever keeps falling on deaf ears.
RESPONDENT: What is the difference in being obsessed with a PCE or with God? An obsession is an obsession, no? It sounds exactly the same in the passage that V wrote. VINEETO: During my process of actualism there was a time when I watched the biography of many people who made it to being famous enough to have a biography report made about them. I wanted to find out what exactly it is that made people successful in what they wanted to achieve in life, be it a gold medal in an Olympic sport or the winner of the Tour de France, be it a successful business entrepreneur or a famous dancer or painter, be it a well-known architect or a renowned author or inventor or, in the spiritual realm of achievements, become an enlightened master. What all these people had in common was a burning passion to be successful at their chosen field of interest and an unwavering determination to do whatever it takes to reach their goal. The same requirements I found to be necessary in actualism – it only works because I made becoming free from the human condition the single-most important issue in my life which rendered everything else to secondary importance. This may be the reason why you think my dedication to actualism to be an obsession – I would rather call it single-pointed commitment to becoming free. The idea that one should be ‘cool’ about things, stifle one’s desires and strive to be mentally and emotionally removed from life in all circumstances is something that spiritual teachers have been preaching since Buddha’s time – in fact, it is the basic premise of Buddhism that desire is the sole cause of human suffering and that ‘in order to stop disappointment and suffering one must stop desiring’. I for one have done that long enough – now it’s time to go full sails ahoy. RESPONDENT: There is a difference between passion and worship and it was worship that was recognized by No 71 and I. VINEETO: There is also a difference between worship and the process of actualism – the first is praying to some imagined authority and the latter is acting single-pointedly on the insight and inspiration gained from one or more ‘self’-less experiences. Personally I know the difference and I know what it is I am doing in my life, the question is, do you? RESPONDENT: I didn’t expect you to agree and I was not replying to you. I was replying to No 71. As I asked in the other post: Why have you rushed in to defend your words? VINEETO: The reason I responded to yours and No 71’s misapprehension is to give you both some clarification about the process of actualism, which you for one have chosen to misinterpret as a religious act for almost as long as you’ve been writing to this list. But don’t you worry, I am under no illusion that anything I say will change your mind on this matter as you seem to take what could be a sincere discussion merely as an attack-defence game in which finding out the facts is irrelevant – why else ignore the content of the discussion by assuming that I ‘rushed in to defend’ my words? And not only that, you also attempted to stifle the conversation by inventing the rule that Besides, this rule wouldn’t even hold water in spiritual circles as I know of several ego-less aka enlightened people who were quite explicit about wanting people to understand their words properly – Jiddu Krishnamurti for instance made a big deal out of people ‘listening’ to him with all their being in order to ‘get’ what he is saying and Mohan Rajneesh once walked out of a discourse and threatened to never speak again because people weren’t listening properly.
RESPONDENT: What is the difference in being obsessed with a PCE or with God? An obsession is an obsession, no? It sounds exactly the same in the passage that V wrote. VINEETO: <snipped> RESPONDENT: There is a difference between passion and worship and it was worship that was recognized by No 71 and I. VINEETO: <snipped> RESPONDENT: I didn’t expect you to agree and I was not replying to you. I was replying to No 71. As I asked in the other post: Why have you rushed in to defend your words? VINEETO: <snipped> RESPONDENT: I’m not saying that the process of actualism is a religious act. Richard said that actualism is the experience that matter is not merely passive and I’ve never seen any religiousness in his writings. It is only in the writings of you and your mate that I recognize religiousness. VINEETO: <snipped> RESPONDENT: I still agree with No 71 about the passage you wrote which is all I ever did in the first place. VINEETO: And yet No 71 has gone silent on this issue whilst you are still here flogging the point. RESPONDENT: At least I know that there is one other person here who is not blind. VINEETO: I have snipped all my previous replies because it is obvious that a blind person’s words are of no consequence to you at all. To bring this issue to an end, give me some guiding light, thou who art the only person (apart from one other person) here who is not blind – what do you suggest? Here is the situation – you read some of the words I write and make an assessment that I am a religious worshipper. I am living with myself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I have diligently applied the actualism practice for many years now in order to free myself from all spiritual beliefs and religious practices and can see in my daily life that it works. Should I buy myself a white stick and a German shepherd dog?
VINEETO to No 71: I disagree. If you want to become actually free from the human condition then it is vital to accurately ‘label the experiences as PCE or not’ because a pure consciousness experience is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, to know what I want and which direction I am heading. A PCE is the one and only experience that makes me aware of and allows me to experience the actual world that lies hidden beneath the elaborate, confusing and ever-changing chimera created by the identity inside this body and a PCE is the one and only experience that can clearly guide me towards an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: (…) Any religious worshiper could have written that. This phrase is especially telling: ‘because ‘God’ is my touch stone and my guiding light, so to speak, so as to know what I want and which direction I am heading.’ ‘touchstone’ and ‘guiding light’ are three words that any religious worshiper can identify with. VINEETO: Ha, by the same logic I could call the lamb-chops from my dinner table ‘tofu-burgers’ and call myself a vegetarian. Just because some people use ‘God’ as their touchstone that is no reason to adopt their habit for yourself even to the point of replacing the word PCE, specially coined for describing a ‘self’-less experience, with your more familiar word ‘God’. <snip> In short, the spiritual/ religious meaning of my words you are trying so hard to imply only exists in your own head and heart. RESPONDENT: If there is no merit to my agreement with No 71 that your passage sounds like worship and ‘only exists in my own head and heart’ then why would you need to defend it? VINEETO: Now there is a new way of using logic – because I responded to clarify your misunderstanding you interpret it as confirmation that your misunderstanding was correct. Is the opposite true as well, that if I had not said anything to No 71’s and your inference of religiosity then you would have automatically assumed that you had it wrong? Or is this a case of no matter what I do is proving your imagination to be right? RESPONDENT: Only an ego needs to defend its words. VINEETO: I got news for you – I am not enlightened and only enlightened being are without ego. (…) RESPONDENT: This is simply not true because Richard says he is without an ‘I’ (ego) or a ‘me’ and he certainly does not claim to be enlightened. VINEETO: After all these years being subscribed to two mailing lists Richard has been writing to, do you really still not know the difference between the extinction of the soul – an actual freedom – and the death of the ego – enlightenment? The difference between the two is the fundamental difference between actualism and spiritualism and not being cognisant of it would easily explain why for you God and a PCE are so easily interchangeable. RESPONDENT: If you want to become actually free why would you say that ‘only enlightened beings are without ego’? VINEETO: Death of the ego is not on the agenda for an actualist, as it would only lead to ‘self’-aggrandizement. Enlightenment only happened to Richard, the first actualist, because there was nobody who could have warned him of its dire consequences. You know, you are a funny fellow. When I look at the sequence of this threat then it is plain to see that it is you who keeps flogging spiritual beliefs and platitudes in order to prove your case that I am a religious worshipper –
Wouldn’t this be a good time to stop and think, as in reflect, before you dig yourself further into the quagmire of even more spiritual platitudes?
RESPONDENT: Only an ego needs to defend its words. VINEETO: I got news for you – I am not enlightened and only enlightened being are without ego. (…) RESPONDENT: This is simply not true because Richard says he is without an ‘I’ (ego) or a ‘me’ and he certainly does not claim to be enlightened. VINEETO: After all these years of being subscribed to two mailing lists Richard has been writing to, do you really still not know the difference between the extinction of the soul – an actual freedom – and the death of the ego – enlightenment? The difference between the two is the fundamental difference between actualism and spiritualism and not being cognisant of it would easily explain why for you God and a PCE are so easily interchangeable. RESPONDENT: If you want to become actually free why would you say that ‘only enlightened beings are without ego’? VINEETO: Death of the ego is not on the agenda for an actualist, as it would only lead to ‘self’-aggrandizement. Enlightenment only happened to Richard, the first actualist, because there was nobody who could have warned him of its dire consequences. You know, you are a funny fellow. When I look at the sequence of this thread then it is plain to see that it is you who keeps flogging spiritual beliefs and platitudes in order to prove your case that I am a religious worshipper –
Wouldn’t this be a good time to stop and think, as in reflect, before you dig yourself even deeper into the quagmire of even more spiritual platitudes? RESPONDENT: Wow, this is a shocking revelation that you don’t even know that actualism is about the extinction of the ‘I’ (ego) and the ‘me’ (soul). Here is what Richard says on the first page of ‘The Third Alternative’ : ‘The day finally dawns when something irrevocable happens inside the skull. In an ecstatic moment of being present, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul expire. ‘I’ the personality and ‘me’ the being ceases to exist, permanently.’
VINEETO: So if you know that an actual freedom is about the extinction of *both* ego and soul then why did you trot out the spiritual platitude of ‘only an ego needs to defend its words’ in the first place? Extinction of the ego only results in enlightenment and Richard made this clear on the same page from which you quoted yourself –
And Richard often said in hindsight that if he had known in 1981 what he knows today, he could have been able to avoid becoming enlightened and he wouldn’t recommend anyone following his footsteps in this regard. Vis – Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 60d, 6.2.2005 By the way, given that you have apparently no problem presenting Richard’s words as something you accept as fact, let me remind you that this thread started by you saying that the words I use for a PCE (‘touchstone’ and ‘guiding light’) are those of a religious worshipper –
Here is how Richard describes the role of a PCE is for someone aspiring to becoming free from the human condition –
Can we put this topic to rest now?
RESPONDENT: Only an ego needs to defend its words. VINEETO: I got news for you – I am not enlightened and only enlightened being are without ego. (…) RESPONDENT: This is simply not true because Richard says he is without an ‘I’ (ego) or a ‘me’ and he certainly does not claim to be enlightened. VINEETO: After all these years of being subscribed to two mailing lists Richard has been writing to, do you really still not know the difference between the extinction of the soul – an actual freedom – and the death of the ego – enlightenment? The difference between the two is the fundamental difference between actualism and spiritualism and not being cognisant of it would easily explain why for you God and a PCE are so easily interchangeable. RESPONDENT: If you want to become actually free why would you say that ‘only enlightened beings are without ego’? VINEETO: Death of the ego is not on the agenda for an actualist, as it would only lead to ‘self’-aggrandizement. Enlightenment only happened to Richard, the first actualist, because there was nobody who could have warned him of its dire consequences. (...) RESPONDENT: It only leads to self-aggrandizement if one does not go all the way and extinguish the soul also. Since you don’t believe Richard’s words about it here is something in your own words from your selected correspondence:
I am stunned that you claim to be an actualist and don’t even understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is even though you have said it in your own words. VINEETO: What makes you say that I ‘don’t even understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is’? – particularly after saying that –
RESPONDENT: Only an ego needs to defend its words. VINEETO: I got news for you – I am not enlightened and only enlightened being are without ego. (…) RESPONDENT: This is simply not true because Richard says he is without an ‘I’ (ego) or a ‘me’ and he certainly does not claim to be enlightened. VINEETO: After all these years of being subscribed to two mailing lists Richard has been writing to, do you really still not know the difference between the extinction of the soul – an actual freedom – and the death of the ego – enlightenment? The difference between the two is the fundamental difference between actualism and spiritualism and not being cognisant of it would easily explain why for you God and a PCE are so easily interchangeable. RESPONDENT: If you want to become actually free why would you say that ‘only enlightened beings are without ego’? VINEETO: Death of the ego is not on the agenda for an actualist, as it would only lead to ‘self’-aggrandizement. Enlightenment only happened to Richard, the first actualist, because there was nobody who could have warned him of its dire consequences. (...) RESPONDENT: It only leads to self-aggrandizement if one does not go all the way and extinguish the soul also. Since you don’t believe Richard’s words about it here is something in your own words from your selected correspondence:
I am stunned that you claim to be an actualist and don’t even understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is even though you have said it in your own words. VINEETO: What makes you say that I ‘don’t even understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is’? – particularly after saying that –
RESPONDENT: I said that because my understanding of an actual freedom from the human condition is the extinction of both ego and soul just as you said in the quote above from your selected correspondence:
Yet further above from earlier in our discussion you said:
My understanding of Richard’s enlightenment was because at the time he had not yet discovered that he needed to go all the way and extinguish the soul also along with the ego. Also above you said:
Here it seems very clear that you are saying that an actual freedom is only the extinction of the soul and not the extinction of the ego also. That is why I said you don’t understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is. VINEETO: Thank you for your guidance – blind as you consider me to be I would have blithely gone ahead and immolated my soul without immolating my ego as well and who knows what strange experience would have resulted from doing that. On further consideration however I can’t shake off the impression that this correspondence guided by your inspiration is going round in never-ending circles. I think I will go back doing what I was doing before and use my pure consciousness experience as my guiding light and my load stone in order to know what I got to do to become actually free. Which is what you objected to as being religiously obsessed and which started this whole line of an argument in the first place. Joking aside – there is just no way that an ego can remain intact when the soul ‘self’-immolates – the soul being the instinctual survival passions that give rise to /maintain the ego (the little man/woman in one’s head).
VINEETO: On further consideration however I can’t shake off the impression that this correspondence guided by your inspiration is going round in never-ending circles. I think I will go back doing what I was doing before and use my pure consciousness experience as my guiding light and my load stone in order to know what I got to do to become actually free. Which is what you objected to and which started this whole line of an argument in the first place. Joking aside – there is just no way that an ego can remain intact when the soul ‘self’-immolates – the soul being the instinctual survival passions that give rise to /maintain the ego (the little man/woman in one’s head) in the first place. RESPONDENT: Very interesting that you originally said ‘I got news for you – I am not enlightened and only enlightened being are without ego’ and now you are saying this: ‘Joking aside – there is just no way that an ego can remain intact when the soul ‘self’-immolates – the soul being the instinctual survival passions that give rise to /maintain the ego (the little man/woman in one’s head) in the first place.’ VINEETO: When you look at how the conversation started it becomes very obvious why I said what I said. To put it back into sequence –
As such you started the discussion with the allegation that using a PCE as one’s touch stone and one’s guiding light was equivalent to ‘altar worship’ and that a PCE was interchangeable with God. You were making the point that actualism is in fact a religion based on my choice of two words – guiding light and touch stone. However, when after several emails I pointed out to you that Richard uses an almost identical description you dropped this line of argument. All that now remained to your argument that I am wrong was my response to your ‘only an ego need to defend its words’ that ‘I am not enlightened and only enlightened being are without ego’. To put this response into context let me show you again how your whole line of argument was based on spiritualist beliefs and platitudes –
You seemingly did not take any notice as you did not reply to this but only insisted on focussing on one of my statements taken out of context. Yet it is precisely because the context of your line of argument was entirely spiritual and because you denied that a pure consciousness experience is something entirely different to a god-experience that I responded the way I did –
Nowhere in the conversation did you demonstrate that you considered actualism as different to the pursuit of enlightenment and therefore I responded both in context and in kind. Had you said ‘only an identity needs to defend its words’ or ‘only an ego and soul needs to defend its words’ then my response would also have been in kind. Now it has been clear from the start that the discussion was about making Vineeto wrong – to you she is a religious worshipper obsessed with PCE (which in your definition is the equivalent to God) and blinded by her passion for an actual freedom (which in your book is equivalent to enlightenment or salvation) – and when this line of argument fell apart you picked the next one. You never responded when I pointed out that for a ‘need to defend’ there needs to be an attack. You also did not respond when I pointed out that this rule wouldn’t even hold water in spiritual circles as I know of several ego-less aka enlightened people who were quite explicit about wanting people to understand their words properly – Jiddu Krishnamurti for instance made a big deal out of people ‘listening’ to him with all their being in order to ‘get’ what he is saying and Mohan Rajneesh once walked out of a discourse and threatened to never speak again because people weren’t listening properly. To say it again for emphasis – if you had said
I would have responded –
In short, if you talk in spiritual terms then this is what I respond to. * VINEETO: On the same topic you recently wrote to No 60 saying that ‘I hate it when she does this and the hate is making me sick’–
If it is of assistance to you, here is what I have observed in myself in regards to facts and feelings –
I am not saying that anything of the above should apply to you – only you can know yourself. I just thought I’d share my own experience with facts and associated feelings as you were contemplating about your own feelings in this situation.
RESPONDENT: What I’m looking at now is should I even talk to you at all? That doesn’t seem like a good alternative to me because the world is full of people who are not honest including me sometimes. I know that I can just not read what you write and not talk to you and I can go on feeling good and everything will be alright. However, this seems like avoidance to me. Every time I have tried discussing anything with you it has turned into a nightmare with me being made wrong just as you have done this time. Should I just talk to you and treat it as a joke or should I even talk to you at all? Neither one of those alternatives seem right either. Just thinking about sending this is stirring up my feeler so why should I? I guess because I want to eliminate this feeler and looking at it seems better than avoiding it. I’ve tried to pinpoint what it is and hate seems as close as I can get although I’m thinking that there is fear underneath it. What am I afraid of? Authority comes to mind. You obviously wield authority here and you obviously have Richard and Peter on your side so what kind of fair shake can I get going up against the Actual Freedom Trust? Also, you assume a teacher role and you aren’t even honest and don’t know what you are talking about so we can’t just talk as equals because you pretend that you are above me and know more than me when deep down I really think that you are no more than a lying idiot. VINEETO: I must admit I was puzzled as to why you would inform me of the above as these are your feelings and only you can deal with them. The only tentative sense I could make of it is that, given that this is the actual freedom mailing list, set up to talk about how to become free from the human condition, you may want some help as to what to do with these feelings that seem to occur in regular intervals. If you could put aside your notion that I am ‘no more than a lying idiot’ for a few minutes then I can tell you what I did – and what worked for me. At the start of actualism I had to get off my spiritually-fed moral high horse and stop pointing the finger(s) at everyone else and blaming everyone else for my feelings and for what I thought was wrong in the world in order to single-pointedly focus my attention on the human condition *in me*. I had to rethink my notions of ‘right’ and ‘good’ and ‘fair’ because life if neither right nor good nor fair and ‘right’ and ‘good’ and ‘fair’ are simply human-made morals and ethics varying according to culture, religion, and oscillating according to fashion and circumstances. I also had to rigorously question what I considered to be ‘true’ and ‘correct’ because my ‘truths’ were almost all based on borrowed knowledge and the rest was based on instinctive intuition and affective memories. I had to acknowledge that my anger was my anger, no matter who or what had caused it, that my sadness was my sadness no matter which sympathy or compassion for whom might have caused it or who/what had disappointed my expectations, that my desire was my desire no matter what situation or person had caused it to arise, that my fear was my fear regardless of who or what had triggered it. Needless to say that this focussing on ‘me’ also helped me to be rid of any feelings regarding authority as the insights gained from my PCEs allowed me to stand on my own two feet for the first time in my life so much so that I could easily learn from those I wanted to learn from and reject revered knowledge from others without being bothered by feelings of inferiority or pride – after all, feelings regarding authority are all but an ego-soul struggle for power and struggling for power is irrelevant when freedom from my own ‘self’ is at stake. PS: What you call ‘you obviously wield authority here’ is simply me reporting what I found to be the case from my experience and what you call ‘you obviously have Richard and Peter on your side’ is simply that their experiences of actuality and their recognition of facts matches mine (mostly). Life is very, very simple when it is not stuffed up by one’s feelings.
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