Please note that Vineeto’s correspondence below was written by the feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ while ‘she’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom.

Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List

Correspondent No.19

Topics covered

No master no disciple, expert and experienced actualists, information, Flash 5 * concepts , the practical method of actualism, TV program ‘Life After Death’, spirits and spiritual beliefs, instinctual fear of death, ‘spiritual beings having a human experience’, Buddhist teacher turning dread into worship, actual, real, here, abstract, agnosticism, the Unknown, sensate experience * abstract concepts and passionate imagination, biofeedback computer, instincts, ‘who’ I think and feel I am, PCE, abstract thinking, images of a reality, fact, mirror neurons, scientific theory, cerebral / affective / sensate, ‘I’ am not needed * our resident God-man, space-comedy ‘Red Dwarf’, the third alternative to grim Reality or Greater Unreality

 

10.11.2000

VINEETO: Hi,

RESPONDENT to No 20: My name is <...>. Who ‘I’ am, a potential disciple of course. <snip>

Perhaps I was rude to start with asking questions, especially direct to the Master, in my first post. But I thought that I should clear up the business part first.

Are you or anyone associated able to respond to my questions? The business part is normally important in all relations especially between Masters and disciples.

VINEETO: I like that you ask what is the business part in actualism, and it is very simple.

There is neither a master nor disciples, only an effective method to free oneself from the Human Condition. You do it by yourself, for yourself and on your own – or with a partner if he/she is as fascinated as yourself in discovering what it is to be a human being. Actualism is an ongoing intriguing expedition into the stygian depth of your own psyche, investigating your acquired social conditioning and your genetically-encoded instinctual passions in order to eliminate them until ‘you’ in your totality are no more. The price for this psychic and psychological ‘self’-immolation is peace on earth.

There is an expert in actualism, Richard, and a few experienced actualists, and we have put together a website with a plethora of information about applying the method to becoming free from the Human Condition. Further, there is this mailing list that can be a tool for sharing information, comparing notes and relating one’s experiences along the path.

I am Vineeto, an experienced practicing actualist for three plus years. I have stopped writing a few weeks ago because I seem to have written about and reported everything I know so far about Actual Freedom, and any further attempt so far appeared to me a mere repetition of what I have already talked about, available on the website.

Recently I have purchased the Macromedia program of Flash 5 with the intention to build a completely different type of Actual Freedom website, less static and more fluent and interactive, which might catch people’s attention in a different way. But given the complexity and the abundant possibilities of this program, this new project might well be a long-term adventure. It is certainly fun.

If you are interested in actualism, you can find information about the utterly non-spiritual nature of actualism under ‘180 opposite’ and further writings sorted by topics such as ‘the method’, ‘instinctual passions’, ‘fear’, ‘love’, ‘sex’, ‘authority’ and ‘spiritualism’. I also highly recommend Peter’s illustrated ‘Introduction into Actual Freedom’ as a way of getting a first understanding of what Actual Freedom is all about.

So, No. 19, you might be in for a big surprise if you read a bit more.

13.2.2001

VINEETO: Your questions have got me off my bum and on to the keyboard. I can understand your laziness in not bothering to read the extensive conversation between Peter and No 22, but I am having a lot of fun following the vivid demonstration of the difference between spiritual and actual. There is nothing like a live conversation between a spiritualist and an actualist to start to understand what influence spiritual beliefs have on our perception of the people, things and events of the world around us.

RESPONDENT: I have to admit I am lazy. During the past weeks, I have deleted most of the posts without even reading a line. The religious, or you might say philosophical discussion have been way above my head. I have some questions though, perhaps not so sophisticated, perhaps more actual :).

My concern is about how to understand concepts as, actual, real, spiritual and abstract. I can understand spiritual, as a concept for a false religious ‘reality’. An imaginary world created by holy masters and such.

VINEETO: First it is vital to understand that actualism is – despite No 22’s insistent misunderstanding – not a concept. Actual Freedom is the ongoing experience of living life without any identity whatsoever and actualism is putting into practice the method to become free of the Human Condition, namely ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’. Once you make a concept out of this method you will miss the gist, the fun and the success of actualism. A concept is according to Mr. Oxford:

A product of the faculty of conception; an idea of a class of objects, a general notion; a theme, a design. Oxford Dictionary

Actualism means asking oneself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and actualism is this practice of the tried and tested down-to-earth method to successively free oneself from malice and sorrow. The moment one conceptualises actualism, one turns a possible living experience of becoming free from the Human Condition into a spiritual and/or philosophical concept. The main reason for all the misunderstanding of actualism and Actual Freedom is that people prefer to conceptualize, philosophize and theorize about their idea of Actual Freedom instead of testing the method for themselves in practice. The longer I have practiced actualism the more I came to understand the meaning of the world spirit-ual and became aware of how much spiritualism pervades every human experience.

The other night I watched a program Greg Palmer had produced about ‘Life After Death’. The producer had done an in-depth research of many of the thousands beliefs that human beings have in the spirits of their ancestors, in their ancestral wisdom and legacy, in nature-spirits and in a spirit life after death. Greg Palmer commented that he had searched for a group that did not believe in any kind of life after death and he could not find a single one. His program made me understand even more to what degree our human lives are ruled by the beliefs in dead spirits, passed away relatives, dead fellow comrades, bodiless souls and protecting or punishing gods. People constantly live with an imagined cloud of either soothing and/or menacing spirits around them. The belief in bodiless spirits, angels and devils is deeply rooted in our instinctual fear of death and perpetuated by cultural tradition and religion, shamans, priests and gurus.

Gary put it really well the other day when he said in his letter to Peter:

[Gary]: I used to believe that ‘we are spiritual beings having a human experience’. Now I see that we are human beings having very, very real human experiences. And it sucks. The only way out of this besides either getting permanently stoned out of your mind, committing suicide, or following the traditional path of spiritual Enlightenment, is to discover the actual. And as it has been said many times before, the actual is right here right under our noses 100% of the time. Given what you have said about the intertwinement of the normal Real world and the Spiritual World, it would seem that the Real world and the Spiritual World are synonymous, and that ‘normal’ people are ‘spiritual’ and do subscribe to ‘spiritual values’. I used to wonder what was meant by the phrase ‘spiritual values’, and now I see that what is meant is Faith, Trust, Hope, Belief. These are all spiritual beliefs and values and these are things that valued, from what I can tell, by every human being that I have encountered. I have yet to encounter a human being that would tell you to abandon Hope. Gary to Peter, 11.1.2001

Being spiritual is not just being religious, as in believing in the Christian or Jewish god or following one of the Eastern religions like Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism or Taoism. To live within the human condition is to be spiritual because ‘me’, the core of my being, is a spiritual, non-material and non-actual entity, given substance by the instinctual passions and given credence by our respective social conditioning.

As such, spiritualism is not merely an idea or a concept that one could discard by choice or decision, it is ingrained in each of us as our very soul, deeply felt and experienced as something ‘very very real’. When investigating my spirituality, I started to inquire into my most obvious and recent acquired loyalties and beliefs and, digging deeper, found layer upon layer of religious fears and ancient morals and ethics.

In a local spiritual magazine I came across a telling example how a Buddhist teacher ‘transforms’ the very real and horrifying experience of discovering a mass grave in Bosnia into the spiritual perception of God’s work. Using simple symbolism he invokes love, compassion and God, and his initial feeling of dread and horror is turned into worshipping the mysteriousness and grandeur of the Dharma.

[quote]: ‘I was driving back to Sarajevo one afternoon from Srebenica, the town where 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered. I was with my friend from the international Rescue Committee. After hours of driving through bombed out villages, we stopped by the side of the road to take a break. In a nearby field some men were digging. We walked over and found a mass grave – a pit of putrefying human flesh. It was heart-wrenching and frightening. We gasped from the stench. I noticed an exposed hand protruding from the ground with a ring on one of the fingers, glistening in the sunlight. There was no way of telling whether it was a man’s or woman’s, but the ring symbolized for me a marriage, a bond of love, not just to another, but to God, to a life beyond racism, prejudices, and all forms of separation. To me the ring symbolized a marriage to the world, to dharma, and to the laws that govern this terrifying and beautiful existence that is so sick, so mysterious, so large, so utterly mad and gorgeous.’ From an interview with Alan Clements about his book ‘Natural Freedom, the Dharma beyond Buddhism’

Now there is a third alternative available – to step out of both the real world of malice and sorrow and the spiritual world of good and evil and come into the already-always-existing actual world of purity and delight.

*

RESPONDENT: The difference between real and actual is however harder to grasp. My understanding is that it might have something to do with our sense of time. Actual might be ‘just now’, immediately as I see, feel and understand things. Reality as I see it, can be a more ‘timeless’ definition of the world.

VINEETO: Actual is never a feeling experience because only when ‘I’, the feeling entity steps aside am I able to sensately and apperceptively experience the actual world. The definitions from the library might throw some light on your question –

actual Existing in act or fact. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Actual is that which is palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical and material. It is that which can be experienced by the physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. That which is actual, being in action or in existence at this moment in time, is not merely passive.

In comparison, that which is deemed to be real is merely the cerebral and affective interpretation of the actual and physical by the psychological and psychic (social and instinctual) entity that dwells within the human body.

In comparison, spiritual Reality while feeling super-real and ‘other-worldly’ is merely an affective, imaginary, hoped and longed for, fairy tale – a further illusion built upon the initial illusion of reality. The myth of a spiritual Reality was created in ancient times as an escape from the very real horror, and the imagined evil spirits, evident in everyday earthly reality.

This physical universe of people, events and things are seen to be perfect and it is obvious that it is only what goes on in our heads – the disease called the Human Condition that is manifest in each of us as a separate, personal ‘self’ – that is the cause of the appalling malice and sorrow that humans exude. What has always been avoided up until now is the fact that what goes on in the heart is the real problem – the loves, loyalties, passions, ideals and beliefs that humans are willing to kill or die for. The problem lies in feelings and emotions and the PCE confirms this experientially.

That is why it is so good to write of these experiences – the ordinary everyday experiences when experienced by our senses free of emotions and feelings do indeed become extraordinary, clear, bright, gay, delightful, friendly, benign and, to use that wonderful word, ambrosial. Enlightenment lies in the opposite direction – in the world of spirits, gods, feelings and emotions. What a delight to come to my senses – what an achievement. It still seems unbelievable. I still keep pinching myself and checking out this new way of living but it is perfect, flawless, actual, and continually amazing.

Actuality is far, far bigger than mere feelings or impassioned imagination for it is actual, patently palpable, infinitely varied, observably tangible, manifestly obvious, always apparent, clearly evident, eternally existing and it is happening right here and right now, under our very noses as it were.

Every moment, there is a door available marked ‘actual world’, and it is often most accessible at exactly those moments when there seems to be nothing going on in terms of emotions or worry. The ever-present, physical-only, actual world is ever-peaceful, ever-pure and ever-perfect. There is no fear, no aggression, no good, no bad, no right and no wrong in the actual world. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

realThat is properly so called; genuine; natural, not artificial or depicted; having an absolute and necessary, not merely a contingent, existence. Aware of or in touch with real life. Corresponding to actuality; correct, true. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: As opposed to the actual world, the ‘real’ world is a world where things, events and people are seen in the light of one’s ‘self’-ish perspectives, morals, beliefs and values and the over-riding animal instinctual passions that are innate in every human being. Hence what is right for some is wrong for others, what is true for one is false for another, what is beautiful for one is ugly for another, and the primary emotional view of the world is one of fear and aggression. In this way one’s view of the physical world, is in fact illusionary, given that it is always an affective response, ie. variable according to the predilections of who is interpreting it. ‘Reality’ being illusory, no two people are ever able to see or experience anything, anyone or anything happening as a fact, let alone come to any mutual agreement about reality.

The spiritual people recognize this subjective view of the world to be illusionary, as in not actual, but then practice a further separation by pretending the actual, physical actual world is an illusion as well, thus completely losing all grip on reality. To check whether the physical world is illusionary it is recommended that one puts a peg on one’s nose, tape over the mouth and waits 10 minutes. As one rips the tape off, gasping for breath, what is actual is readily apparent.

That which can be experienced by the senses is actual – touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing – and the actual world, free of the veneer of malice and sorrow, can be sensately experienced in a Pure Consciousness Experience as perfect and pure, delightful and benevolent. There is no fear, aggression, sorrow or malice in a tree, a cloud, a table or a computer.

We do, however, see instinctual fear and aggression readily apparent in other sentient beings, and it is brutally apparent in humans in the endless wars, rapes, murder and torture, sadness and despair, even if one is incapable of seeing it in oneself or too proud to admit it. The real world is a world of feelings, emotions, beliefs, passions, morals, principles, rights, justices and truths, laid over the actual world. It may well be an illusion as the spiritual people see it, but those feelings, emotions and beliefs are real and cause actual wars, violence and suffering. Now wouldn’t it be sweet to be actually free of the real world and be able to live free of malice and sorrow in the actual world! The Actual Freedom Trust Library

Any experience of the world around us is tainted and distorted by our affective feelings and beliefs and experienced as the ‘real world’ and therefore the underlying actual experience of people, things and events can rarely happen. In a pure consciousness experience one can experience the actual without the pollution of ‘me’, ‘my’ feelings, ‘my’ opinions, ‘my’ ethics, ‘my’ standards, ‘my’ beliefs and ‘my’ fears.

The ‘real’ world is not only about ‘a more timeless definition of the world’ but it is created by the layer of feelings and beliefs that continuously act as a buffer, separating me from directly experiencing the actual physical world.

It might help you to understand that there are three worlds – the normal world, the spiritual world and the actual world. Peter described it well in the library –

HereIn this place or position. In this world; in this life; on earth. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: A reasonably explicit definition but unfortunately the dictionary writers overlooked the fact that there are three distinct versions of the word here:

  • normally here – A state wherein humans attempt to be here but are constantly prevented by the fact that who they think and feel they are is a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity inside everybody. Inside the head a little man frantically tries to control everything and in the heart one desperately tries to ‘connect’ with other lost souls. One is inside the body, looking out through the eyes, one hears with the ears from inside, one smells, touches and feels what is outside and foreign. One is both cerebrally and emotionally fearful of being here and the world is perceived as being a grim place to be. The equivalent of wearing grey-coloured glasses.

  • spiritually here – usually achieved by meditative practice, the spirit-ual people manage to live in an imaginary inner world – a state of denial and renunciation of the real world they so desperately seek to escape. Being here, as a soul in a flesh-and-blood body, on earth, is seen as a trial; one is but a temporary visitor, and the sooner you are out of here the better. Meditation and ‘going in’ is the practice and cultivation of a state of getting ‘out-of-here’. This other-world, the spiritual world, is given credence and substance by the emotional imagination of a soul seeking salvation and immortality, and by thousands of years of fear-ridden superstition and fervent belief. Thus to feel spiritually ‘here’ is 180 degrees opposite to actually being here. This is the equivalent of wearing rose-coloured glasses.

  • actually here – given the absolute dominance of the psychological and psychic entity over the body’s senses, humans usually have only rare, fleeting, glimpses of actually being here in this physical universe. Often shock or drug-induced, but certainly not always, these peak-experiences or pure consciousness experiences (PCE) are often quickly forgotten or interpreted as a spiritual altered state of consciousness, or satori, according to one’s particular beliefs. To be actually here is to be here in this moment of time, which is the only moment one can experience anyway. To be actually here is to be in this place which is no-where in particular in the infinitude of the physical universe. Coming from no-where and having no-where to go we find ourselves here in this moment in time in this place in space. To be here is to be the universe experiencing itself as a human being. To be actually here is a ‘self’-less state, either fleetingly experienced in a PCE, virtually experienced in Virtual Freedom, or permanently experienced in Actual Freedom. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

*

RESPONDENT: The concept of the abstract is not debated so much, perhaps because you all understand the concept better than I do. But anyhow, the question: In an actual perspective, where are the abstract. In the physical world, or just in our imagination? Is the abstract actual/ real or not? What do you say?

VINEETO: Abstract means: ‘Separated from matter, practice, or particular examples; not concrete; ideal’ Oxford Dictionary

Actualism is the very opposite to being ‘separated from matter’ – it is about discovering what lies underneath all our concepts, abstract ideas, passionate beliefs, affective feelings and fervent imagination that continuously separate us from experiencing the purity and perfection of the actual world.

The other night Peter and I went out for dinner and by chance met a couple we knew from our spiritual days. As we started discussing about life, the universe and what we have discovered in about being a human being, Peter talked about the difference between actualism, reality and spiritualism. The man responded that you could never really know what is actual. He touched the table we sat on and said ‘this is not a table – it is just the word ‘table’. For Australian Aborigines it would be a pile of firewood and not a table at all.’ Therefore, by his abstract thinking, he can never really know if what we call a table is really a table or in fact something completely different.

If you become totally abstract in your thinking and feeling you can even get to the stage where you really-truly believe that the table and everything else that is actual is only an illusion and only ‘you’ are real, or should I say ‘Real’.

This belief that one cannot know what is actual is only possible because he was removed from the direct sensate experience, his experience was totally coloured by his abstract thinking combined with his spiritual ideas. He didn’t acknowledge his sensate experience of the piece of furniture we were resting our elbows on. He preferred to question the actuality of the table rather than questioning his own ideas, beliefs and feelings. His stated position was that we cannot know anything as a certainty and he had made that into his prime spiritual belief. Thus he made the sensual concrete experience of a simple wooden table into a spiritual experience of ‘Not-Knowing’ – another word for connecting with the Divine Unknowable.

The conversation made it clear to me again that any belief, including the generalizing belief that you don’t know, casts a distorting veil over our senses and sensibility and thus prevents the direct experience of the actual.

*

I don’t know if these explanations make the difference between real, spiritual, abstract and actual any clearer to you.

For me, the process of understanding the difference happened by extensive reading, thinking and talking about actualism as well as finding out experientially – investigating my own emotions and questioning my spiritual beliefs. This more and more opened the door to a direct sensate experience of the people and world around me.

‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ always works to bring my attention to how I am in this moment and what feelings and beliefs are preventing me from experiencing this moment to the optimum, to becoming more happy and harmless.

24.2.2001

RESPONDENT: Thanks for the response, it was very interesting, especially the part where you discuss real and spiritual. My concern though was about abstract concepts and if they exist in the real or actual world.

VINEETO: The real world is chock-a-block full of abstract concepts and passionate imaginations, whereas by stepping into the actual world any abstract cerebral-only concepts are instantaneously supplanted by sensuous and sensual information and the sensibility of reflective thought that is stripped of social morals and ethics and freed from instinctual passions. And when it comes to understanding and experiencing the vastness of this infinite and eternal universe or the fact that we are speeding on a rotating globe in the middle of nowhere, then abstract concepts fail miserably – one can only stand in wonder at the endless delight and perfection, abundance and sparkling diversity.

RESPONDENT: Another question I have if it is possible for the human brain to operate without these concepts.

Our brain works with information, it’s a computing organ. Not at all similar with a computer in design or internal operation, but still it’s some sort of computing device. The brain is processing information and information is in some sense abstract. Even if information needs some kind of physical entity to exist it is still not physical in its nature. All our senses are detecting information from the nature surrounding us.

VINEETO: The information that the brain processes is information that is obtained by the physical senses and, as such, the information is directly related to the physical material world – smell, touch, sound, vision and taste. The brain works like a big fast biofeedback computer, processing the sensual information about the physical world via millions of neural connections and switches. The process of clear and pure thinking, i.e. without an interfering and ‘self’-centric interpreting identity, is remarkably simple, straightforward and effective.

The reason why our sensual information is not being perceived in such a pure and clear way is because of our animal instinctual passions and the culturally imposed ethical and moral conditioning – the Human Condition. The way human beings usually process sensual information is primarily instinctual and the result is that the information is ‘abstracted’, separated from its physical sensual source, generalized, theorized, symbolized, conceptualized, intellectualized, idealized, scanned by moral/ethical evaluation and topped up with plenty of intuition and imagination. As such, the initial sensory information is, usually without noticing, removed from physical facts, edited, twisted and adjusted to the rules of our cerebral-abstract and affective-metaphysical world of belief, opinion, viewpoint and theory. To illustrate the nature of the physical process that gives rise to the emotionalising of incoming sensory input it is useful to look at the findings of empirical science –

Peter: The most significant of LeDoux’ experimentation with regard to fear is that the sensory input to the brain is split at the thalamus into two streams – one to the amygdala and one to the neo-cortex. The input stream to the amygdala is quicker – 12 milliseconds as opposed to 25 milliseconds to the neo-cortex. Less information goes to the amygdala quicker – it operates as a quick scan to check for danger. Indeed LeDoux regards the amygdala as the alarm system, for bodily safety – hence the necessity for a quick scan and an almost instantaneous instinctive (thoughtless) response. This ‘quick and dirty processing pathway’ results not only in a direct automatic bodily response to either an actual or a perceived danger, but because the amygdala also has a direct connection to the neo-cortex – it causes us to emotionally experience the feeling of fear – i.e. we feel the feeling of fear a split-second later than the bodily reaction. The Actual Freedom Trust Library, Our Instinctual Passions in the Primitive Brain

What LeDoux has investigated is valid for every sensory input – the information is already filtered and distorted at the gateway, causing us to instinctually react to our sensory experience before we are aware of what has happened. This split-second later awareness is then experienced as an emotion or feeling, leaving scant opportunity for any sensible thought-process to even begin to happen.

The actualism method of asking oneself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ is designed to dismantle the social and instinctual programming that interprets and distorts, imagines and conceptualizes, and, given diligence and perseverance, one then starts perceiving things as they are, and, even more wondrously, starts seeing people as they are. Then the sensual information is not distorted by a fearful, sorrowful and malicious program, our identity, but is very concrete, direct and intimate, ever fresh and utterly fascinating. Reflective thought, as opposed to abstract concepts, will always instil practical application and down-to-earth sensibility into the biofeedback loop of the information and thinking process and therefore integrate a constant flow of physical sensual information.

You can also look at the problem of abstracted thinking and feeling this way. ‘Who’ I think and feel I am is not a physical entity – ‘I’ experience myself as a meta-physical, psychological and psychic entity dwelling inside the flesh and blood body, looking out through the eyes, hearing through the ears, tasting with the tongue, feeling by touch, smelling through the nose. ‘Who’ I think and feel I am, as opposed to what I am, therefore always thinks and feels he or she is isolated from, and different in nature from, the physical world I actually live in. ‘I’ therefore can only gain a second-hand abstracted impression, via the physical senses of ‘my’ body, of what actually exists. ‘I’ am therefore always lost, always lonely, always frightened and always rely on cunning to get ‘my’ way.

In a pure consciousness experience there is no abstraction or disconnection between the sensorial input and what is being seen, heard, tasted, touched or smelt. In a pure consciousness experience the vibrant physicality of the universe becomes immediately apparent and the sensuous actuality of its perfection and purity is such that ‘I’ am not only made temporarily redundant but ‘I’ can be clearly seen for the spoiler ‘I’ am.

Actualism is the method and the process of coming to one’s senses, both literally and figuratively.

RESPONDENT: Information is perhaps best described as difference. Scientist is saying difference, which makes a difference. Information have a peculiar intrinsic abstract property, you cannot always pinpoint where it is in time or in the room. Consider that I am holding one red book in one hand and a blue in the other, the difference is information, and the information is in the relation between the books. But we cannot say where in the room the information is, it is in the abstract relation between the two items. Looking at something, the light carries the abstract relations of the physical world to our brain, through the eyes and mirrors it in the brain.

VINEETO: The ‘intrinsic abstract property’ that you ascribe to the sensual information itself is added by our totally ‘self’-centred thinking about the information we receive. There is nothing abstract about a tree, its green leaves or needles, its massive or slim trunk, its tall or sturdy figure.

In your example of the blue and red book, the subject of your sensorial information is clearly in your right hand and in your left hand – demonstrably in space, in your hands, and in time, now. I cannot see anything abstract about the information of the objects being books or the fact that one is red and the other is blue. If you think the book in your hand is abstract, you only need hit your head with it to confirm that it physically exists in fact – that despite whatever metaphysical theories your mind may conjure up, the books do physically exist. Abstract conceptualizing means separating the information from its sensual context – the observable physical object. Our psychological and psychic entity is inevitably prone to feel it is a mirror, reflecting, distorting and tainting the actuality of the world around us.

To discover what is actual, one needs to question one’s psychological and psychic entity – the distorter, separator, spoiler. To maintain an abstract concept or meta-physical belief of people, things and events that make up the physical world will only serve to prevent you from experiencing the perfection and purity of the actual world we live in.

*

VINEETO: The other night Peter and I went out for dinner and by chance met a couple we knew from our spiritual days. As we started discussing about life, the universe and what we have discovered in about being a human being, Peter talked about the difference between actualism, reality and spiritualism. The man responded that you could never really know what is actual. He touched the table we sat on and said ‘this is not a table – it is just the word ‘table’. For Australian Aborigines it would be a pile of firewood and not a table at all.’ Therefore, by his abstract thinking, he can never really know if what we call a table is really a table or in fact something completely different. <snip>

His stated position was that we cannot know anything as a certainty and he had made that into his prime spiritual belief. Thus he made the sensual concrete experience of a simple wooden table into a spiritual experience of ‘Not-Knowing’ – another word for connecting with the Divine Unknowable.

RESPONDENT: I also understand your friend’s statement at the dinner, that the table is, in some sense, a table because we compare it with an abstract concept in our brain. Without this comparison, and recognition, the table would have no meaning for us at all. Most scientists also believe that most of the processing in the brain is pure pattern recognition. But instead of storing all patterns and then try to compare all new ones with all previous stored, the brain works with abstracts and ideal ideas. We have a concept of the table stored, the concept is not necessarily associated with a certain physical table.

VINEETO: By accident Peter and I met the same couple a few days later in another restaurant. They had finished their meal and, as the restaurant was full, they insisted that we should take over their table when they left. We had a short amicable chat and then they left. The man, who had previously said that he did not know if a table existed in fact or not, was now, by his very actions, neither questioning the function nor the existence of this table – he rested his elbows on it, he confidently placed his wine and meal on the table, he also without questioning communicated to us and the waitress about passing the table on to us for our use.

His theories of ‘not-knowing’ were merely philosophical, conceptual and disconnected from his daily actions. His stated position of ‘Not Knowing’, derived from Eastern Spiritualism, turns the world upside down – everything physical is a mere concept and the only real thing is ‘Me’, the one who makes those concepts. No 22’s philosophy reflects this Eastern spiritual concept, he is an expert in this field of [No 22]: ‘I create what is by becoming what is’.

By asking ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ you can, one by one, discover and strip away your abstract and spiritual concepts in order to free your senses so you can directly and intimately perceive the world and people around you.

RESPONDENT: To understand new things, for example in physics, we can learn from books and create images of a reality, which we cannot see, smell and touch. These abstract concepts or models are absolutely essential for us to be able to grasp scientific ideas about nature.

We are learning about the world by experience, which includes the creation of abstract concepts and ideal ideas. This is true when we learn to understand the nature of the physical world, but also true when we learn about ourselves and about our fellow man.

VINEETO: ‘Creating images of a reality’ happens via the affective faculty in our brain. An example might help you to experience this fact rather than thinking it out theoretically –

When someone talks about cars and you create a particular image of a car in your mind, upon closer examination you will find that this particular image of a car, the brand, its colour, size, speed, etc. is directly linked to a feeling. In this case it would most likely be a desire, a liking, or a favourable memory. If there is no particular liking of this or that car, you won’t produce an image when hearing the word ‘car’ but nevertheless you will know what the generic term ‘car’ stands for.

As for ‘scientific ideas about nature’ – scientific ideas are but working models or theories for exploration purposes that will have to be proven to be verifiable, objective actuality in order to be considered scientific facts. And a fact is –

‘What has really happened or is the case; truth; reality: in fact rather than theory, the fact of the matter is; something known to have happened; a truth known by actual experience or observation: scientists work with facts.’ Oxford Dictionary

RESPONDENT: Just recently, scientists discovered something they call mirror neurons. These mirror neurons are used when we learn by copy or mimic someone we are observing. Another peculiar thing is that the mirror neurons make it possible for us to understand the feeling or mood of another just by looking. A similar pattern of neurons firing, representing a mood or feeling, in the brain of the person we observes fires in our own brain. You know the saying, smile and the world smiles with you, it is some neurological explanation for this.

VINEETO: ‘Mirror neurons’ discovered by G. Rizzollati, M.A. Arbib and others in the ventral premotor area were first studied in macaque monkeys and from these findings deductions were made for human beings and their possible evolutionary development of mimicry and language. Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran says in his essay about mirror neurons:

[quote]: Giaccamo Rizzollati recorded from the ventral premotor area of the frontal lobes of monkeys and found that certain cells will fire when a monkey performs a single, highly specific action with its hand: pulling, pushing, tugging, grasping, picking up and putting a peanut in the mouth etc. different neurons fire in response to different actions. One might be tempted to think that these are motor ‘command’ neurons, making muscles do certain things; however, the astonishing truth is that any given mirror neuron will also fire when the monkey in question observes another monkey (or even the experimenter) performing the same action, e.g. tasting a peanut!

With knowledge of these neurons, you have the basis for understanding a host of very enigmatic aspects of the human mind: ‘mind reading’ empathy, imitation learning, and even the evolution of language. Anytime you watch someone else doing something (or even starting to do something), the corresponding mirror neuron might fire in your brain, thereby allowing you to ‘read’ and understand another’s intentions, and thus to develop a sophisticated ‘theory of other minds.’ http://www.feedmag.com/brain/parts/ramachandran.html

His deduction in the second paragraph is purely conceptual guesswork (as in ‘might fire’) and has not yet any factual scientific evidence. His theory is still hotly debated in university circles. Marc D. Hauser from the Reality Club discussion group comments on it –

[quote]: Although mirror neurons were first discovered in macaques, and have been implicated as crucial in imitation and theory of mind, there is not a shred of evidence for imitation or theory of mind in macaques.

In my own experience, the recognition of feelings in other people not only transmits via ‘looking’, as you say, but via an invisible psychic net of vibes that emotionally connects all human beings together. Anybody with strong enough feelings can trigger those feelings in others and some people are particularly receptive to those ever-present psychic transmissions.

One is affected by other people’s vibes and feelings because of one’s own psychic entity, an entity that both creates and receives those vibes and feelings, be they sorrow, aggression, fear, nurture or desire. In my spiritual years I had learned to suss out other people via my psychic antennas and I used this knowledge to guard myself, as well as to manipulate others.

However, when I came across Actual Freedom and learnt that one can become actually unaffected by any psychic influence whatsoever, it seemed a much more sensible solution rather than continuing the psychic power game. Whatever the pattern of neurons firing in our brains may be, I now know by experience that it is possible to investigate and successively eliminate the psychic entity and thus to be genuinely free from receiving and sending psychic vibes, moods and feelings.

RESPONDENT: So my concern really is, if our brain works with abstract ideal ideas or concepts, represented by neurons working with different patterns when firing. And if these abstract concept represents knowledge of the physical world intermingled with concepts representing experiences and knowledge about feelings, both our own and our fellow man, and also about accepted social behaviour. Is it then possible to separate or remove all of this or even parts of it and still have an operational brain?

VINEETO: Neurons do fire when emotions are triggered in the brain, this is something you can experience yourself quite easily the very next time you are emotional. However, just because there is more and more detailed physical evidence that maps some of our emotional and instinctual behaviour does not mean that this behaviour is unchangeable. Human beings can in fact learn to stop being a malicious and sorrowful entity by starting to investigate the entity in action. Eliminating the entity, and with it the automatic instinctual reactions, frees the brain for sensible and intelligent functioning when needed.

There are three ways we experience the world –

  • Cerebral – mental, conceptual, theoretical, philosophical, ideal, intellectual
  • Affective – emotional, passionate, intuitive, compassionate, fiery, zealous
  • Sensate – sensuous, visual, auditive, tasting, smelling, vivid, directly experiencing

Cerebral interpretation and affective reaction are the only ways ‘I’, the psychological and psychic entity, can respond to the sensory information of the world around me. In order to directly experience the world around me, unimpeded by ‘my’ meta-physical concepts and emotional interpretations, it was vital that I inquired into the underlying emotions that were producing those elaborate concepts and beliefs in the first place. In order to make sense of the world around me, I developed a keen awareness towards my then permanently triggered emotional reactions and my uninterrupted flow of beliefs and imaginations. Slowly, slowly I was able to poke holes into this intricate web of emotions, affections, imagination, intuition, spiritual beliefs, truths, rights and wrongs and get glimpses of the astounding perfect actual world that lies beneath the human-made world of suffering, malice, fear and love.

The adventure is to find out that ‘I’ am not needed for the brain to think, and that the brain is perfectly equipped for the job it does – the sophisticated biofeedback process of thinking, reflecting, planning, communicating and also of being aware of itself in operation. ‘I’ am not needed to process information through eyes, ears, skin and nose – the senses and the brain are perfectly equipped to collect, process and make sense of that information, if required. The human body and brain is, as far as we know, the pinnacle of the development of animate life in the universe and everything operates wondrously and perfectly without ‘me’, the instinctually driven entity that is continuously interfering in the ongoing perfection with ‘my’ fears and desires, aggression and nurture, morals and ethics, concepts and imagination.

Yes, the more you remove parts of this ‘abstract ideal ideas or concepts, represented by neurons working with different patterns when firing’, the better the brain can operate and the more sensible you become. When you remember a Pure Consciousness Experience, as everyone had at least once in their lives, you will know, by direct experience, what clarity a non-cerebral, non-affective brain in operation is capable of. Freed from the crippling effect of instinctual passions and their resultant spiritual beliefs and meta-physical concepts one is able to be aware of the delightful process of the brain in operation ... ... or at rest, which I will do now.

Actualism is the method and the process of coming to one’s senses, both literally and figuratively.

12.4.2002

RESPONDENT to No 22: I am subscribing and reading some of the posts here. Most of the ideas expressed here are in my opinion worth reading and remembering. Other posts and also some of the basic ideas with actualism are for me impossible to grasp, or at least agree about.

Now, reading your response to No 16 makes me feel that some ‘low water’ level is reached. My first objection with actualism is on a scientific ground. Humans and human condition is not an easy thing to understand. With your post you are back, not to the middle ages but back to worms and insects, primitive living things.

Only humans have an ancestor such as Newton. He couldn’t grasp everything but he set the frontier for human thinking a little bit further. With your thinking you are totally refusing all knowledge and also the idea that humans even have a brain. Perhaps you may admit that humans have a brain, but then you are still not able to admit that this brain is useful in any aspect.

VINEETO: To head off confusion before it sprouts further misunderstandings – No 22 is not an actualist. On the contrary, he made it clear in many earlier posts that he considers himself to be GOD, omnipotent and infinitely responsible. Vis:

[Respondent No 22]:

  • ‘I can do nothing, but I do everything. Omnipotence not only comes with the package, it is the package. I am infinitely responsible for I am responsible for each I that I create. I am responsible for being the action that are you, and I am responsible for the action that is I.’ No 22 to Richard, May 1999
  • ‘I is not inside anything – it is everything. I create what is by becoming what is. I am the intelligence that rearranges itself endlessly. This body, that body, the entire cosmos is but the evidence of I.’ No 22 to Richard Nov 1998
  • ‘This is GOD, not a god, nor the god, nor some god, nor another god.’ No 22 to Richard, May 2001

No 22 is our resident Godman on the actual freedom list. No 22 could well be on the actualist payroll, so well does he demonstrate the fact that spiritualism is diametrically opposite to actualism and portray the blatant nonsense that results from practicing dissociation. Just in case someone is tempted to return to practicing old time religion and spiritual ‘self’-inquiry with the aim of becoming ‘the Truth’, No 22 has devised a method of how to deceive yourself and achieve a pure solipsistic state –

[Respondent No 22]:

Recipe for bringing an end to sexual abuse, rape, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, depression, corruption, despair and suicide...’

  1. Recognize and acknowledge that One (you) is absolutely, unquestionably and infinitely responsible for every aspect of the behaviour called ‘insert ‘your’ name here’.
  2. If the above does not feel correct and honest, do not stop until it does
  3. Remove from your thoughts, vocabulary, action, library, computer hard drive, floppy disk, daily routine, social interaction and behaviour in general, ANY information that promotes, assures, attests, re-enforces, claims, or otherwise communicates in any form that 1. is not true.

There, it is done. No 22 to Peter 19.7.2001

In other words, No 22 has not reached ‘some ‘low water’ level’ in actualism – he lives with his head in the clouds and his views and beliefs are the very antithesis to what is actual.

I am reminded of an episode in the space-comedy ‘Red Dwarf’. The crew, Lister, Kryton and the Cat, encounter some difficult times travelling through ‘illusion bubbles’ and are experiencing one strange Unreality after another, when they suddenly find themselves in front of a huge video-game machine and their time of playing ‘Red Dwarf’ is up. Because they had played the space-game for several years, they all have great difficulty in remembering their former identities. They finally work out who they were before starting the game and each is shocked to find himself living in a grim, violent, corrupt and desperate Reality, which was the very reason why they had started playing the space-game in the first place. They all decide that it is better to shoot themselves and while attempting to make efficient use of the last bullet Lister has left in his pistol, they hear a faint female voice, the spaceship’s computer, trying to ‘make contact’ – ‘Hello, hello, can anyone hear me? You are in an illusion. Come back to the ship.’

So far there have been two options on offer to deal with life – stay in a societal illusion of a grim Reality or escape into the fantasy of a Greater Unreality. With the discovery of an actual freedom there is now a third alternative available – dismantling the internal software program that constitutes grim Reality without replacing it with the fantasy of a Greater Unreality. By diligently dismantling this software program that makes up your social identity and your instinctual identity you can evince a deletion of this redundant programming and ‘what’ you are will emerge – a flesh and blood human being, free of malice and sorrow and free of any metaphysical delusions whatsoever.

It made so much sense to me that I couldn’t resist trying it out and a pure consciousness experience soon confirmed that it is indeed possible to live without any social-instinctual identity whatsoever.


Actual Freedom List Index

Vineeto’s Writings and Correspondence

Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity