VINEETO: Hi,

I will just stick my nose into your conversation with No 23 because you raised some interesting points –

RESPONDENT No 23: So if I tell somebody I love him/her or ‘nickname’ that person and that brings about pleasure, ie. I say honey sweetheart I love you and that person likes to hear that, why would I not say it? To purposely please a person is kind of different ballgame than to purposely upset or confuse a person. Now ie. my mother has a cat. I find it a cute animal so I say hello pookie when I visit her and I give him a few strokes. I find this a fun ritual and the cat enjoys it in its simple animal-like way. What’s the big deal?

RESPONDENT: This is approximately the point I was getting at. I had been musing on an (admittedly poor) analogy in tipping a waitperson in a restaurant. While using money as a medium for judgement is mildly abhorrent to me, it does make the server have a momentary good feeling. I do exist in a world of imperfect beings and I can choose to either follow my principles and piss off the waiter, or get off my high horse and do something that greases the skids for the immediate micro-culture. I guess that example constitutes a reasonable compromise.

VINEETO: I wonder why you say that ‘using money as a medium for judgement is mildly abhorrent to me’ when thinking about tipping a waiter or waitress? I have been working as a waitress myself and, although I enjoyed a good chit-chat with amicable guests, I much appreciated their tip because it helped paying for my bills. Today I am on the other side of the service contract and when I enjoy friendly service in a restaurant I am happy to contribute to the waiter-customer deal with a tip. I can’t see anything ‘abhorrent’ about this deal – after all, most of us sell our time, skills and services in exchange for money that pays for livelihood, toys and pleasures.

Whilst it is sensible to abide by the legal laws of the society you live in, whether or not you follow the social mores is a matter of choice. To make that choice a matter of principle on the basis of right or wrong, good or bad, can only lead to a surrender in the form of a begrudging acceptance or a victory in terms of a defiant belligerence. It’s my experience that ‘my’ principles stood in the way of me being happy and harmless which is why, whenever ‘my’ principles arose, I always binned them and looked for the sensible approach.

What you term ‘the immediate micro-culture’ I would call the fact that humans exchange goods and services with each other in order to earn a living. If I may say so, I would think your ‘high horse’ in this case is to consider yourself to be outside of this common-to-all necessity of earning a living, from which position you then ‘grease the skids for the immediate micro-culture’. In actuality I am part of the exchange game whenever I am in business with my fellow human beings and, given we humans all play the same game in order to earn a living I aim for a win-win situation for all involved in the situation.

It is not the fact that money is used in the exchange of goods and services that is ‘abhorrent’ but the fact that human beings are instinctually occupied in a ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle for survival against each other. This is the basis of the deeply ingrained and instinctually-fuelled automatic reaction of judging the other as friend or foe, higher or lower in rank, useful or useless to my desires, and this is what I needed to address in me because this ‘self’-centred habit was continuously interfering with having a peaceful and equitable interaction with people.

RESPONDENT: When I up the ante to saying ‘I love you’ because the partner gets a momentary tingle, knowing it feeds the whole neurotic beast, then I have to wonder if I’ve crossed a line. In these sorts of real world situations, I often have trouble determining where that line is. Of course, it’s not really a line, but more like a few hundred yards/metres of grey sloppy stuff. That’s why for the most part I’ve given up even trying to analyze/judge the ‘situation’, and just go with HAIETMOBA/ruthless ferreting. More and more often this results in a surprisingly appropriate response to the ‘situation’.

VINEETO: Back in the years when I valued love, when my partner said to me ‘I love you’ without conveying the feeling of love, I felt cheated and superficially dismissed. As part of my yearning for the highly valued ‘lolly-pop’ of love I developed very sensitive antennas to determine if what I received from a partner was the true feeling. Therefore I wonder if your buying peace by merely saying ‘I love you’ is of any practical use, even as a temporary measure.

Because I had always been unsatisfied with the troubles, dependency and driven-ness of love, when I came across actualism I was ready to investigate love in order to sort it out. Rather than unconditionally demanding the other’s love and conditionally offering mine, I began to examine and ferret out my endless and insatiable need for someone else’s gooey feeling in order to prop up my self-esteem and appease my feelings of emptiness and loneliness.

To do so I explored my feelings of love and my need for love, as they were happening, in order to discover what was the driving force behind those feelings. In order to get to the root of love it was important not to push away or repress my feelings of love and it was equally important not to express, enhance or feed them in any way. So when you ask ‘I wonder if I’ve crossed a line’ then the answer is determined not by a ‘new moral code of actualism’ but by the practical value of exploring your own feelings and beliefs in order that you become more happy and harmless.

When I examined my feelings of love and compassion – the antidotal feelings to malice and sorrow – I discovered something that is far superior to love and compassion. Once I began to observe what it was that made me enjoy the time with Peter, when I did not feel love, I discovered that I enjoyed and valued the mutual undivided attention and the sincerity in talking to each other. And one evening, click, suddenly I ‘saw Peter for the first time’ – meaning, I saw him as a human being, a man sitting across from me, and I had no good or bad feelings towards him whatsoever. And exactly that fact made the being together utterly intimate, there was nothing in the road between us, two actual human beings meeting each other – no expectation, no hope, no fear, no investment, no pulling of invisible strings. It was pure magic.

That experience encouraged me to investigate love, whenever it popped up, no matter what my dreams or fears were that accompanied the investigation. This moment of pure intimacy had been so delicious, so pure, so direct – it surely beats love by many country miles. This is how I have described the quality of intimacy –

This full attention and bare awareness is the genuine article – it is what love always promises but never delivers. So, instead of feeding ‘the whole neurotic beast’ by offering empty words you have the alternative of giving your partner your undivided attention and awareness, and regard and meet her as the fellow human being she is.

It’s a great challenge … and it is utterly rewarding.

25.10.2002

RESPONDENT: I knew I shouldn’t have stepped into this ;-)

VINEETO: Why not step into this? I know for me it was only by discussing the sticky points and murky waters over and over that eventually something in my thinking pattern clicked and then I could see the topic in question in a new light.

RESPONDENT: I’ve digested your response and have snipped the bulk of it to get at my salient point. Pls forgive any glaring omissions. I understand what you’re driving at, don’t quite ‘get it’, but am inclined to let it lie for the mean time, with the exception of the question in my final comment.

VINEETO: What I am attempting to point out is the blatant reciprocity between modern theoretical physics and religious-spiritual belief, in this case apparent in the commonly accepted belief of the Big Bang. Unless one conducts a meticulous investigation into the instinctually driven beliefs that underpin commonly accepted postulations, theories and factoids, a clear seeing of what is factual is not possible. And nowhere is this investigation more vital than in being able to discern the difference between the beliefs and theories that are masqueraded as scientific facts on one side and the down-to-earth methodology and ingenuity of empirical science that have produced the remarkable technological advances in safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure on the other.

The more I read about modern theoretical physics, particularly cosmology and quantum physics, the more I see how observable empirical facts and common sense have been abandoned for something that intuitively fits with magical fairy-tales from childhood – an imaginary all-powerful Creator-God or a belief in Supernatural Forces and unexplainable and mysterious miracles.

*

VINEETO: A current myth, for instance, is the ‘big bang’ theory that most physicists nowadays accept as ‘Truth’ and it is interesting to watch how they tie themselves in ever complicated knots in trying to reconcile this myth with the empirical laws of physics as they apply in the actual physical universe.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. Arthur C. Clarke

VINEETO: Technology, however advanced, is by its very nature pragmatic and factual, i.e. it is based on cause and effect, it can be observed, experienced and reproduced by any number of people and it works. In short, it is neither trick nor supernatural and as such is easily distinguishable from magic as defined in definitions [Mr. Oxford’s] 1 & 2 above. Most people make no distinction between magic as in ‘inexplicable’ and ‘surprising results’ and magic as in ‘invocation’ of either ‘good’ or ‘evil spirits’ and this lack of intellectual vigour helps explain why non-Newtonian Western theoretical physicists are now eagerly shaking hands with Eastern mystics and vice versa. <snipped>

RESPONDENT: Sufficiently advanced technology cannot be ‘observed, experienced and reproduced’, at least by us, now. That’s what makes it advanced, otherwise it would be the norm.

 VINEETO: Just to establish whose opinion you are agreeing with – Arthur C Clarke is a renowned science-fiction writer and has, apart from his novels, become famous for collaborating with motion-picture director Stanley Kubrick in making the innovative and highly praised science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which was based on Clarke’s short story ‘The Sentinel’. Therefore I would say that Mr. Clarke has a personal interest in keeping the distinction blurred between technology (applied science based on cause and effect) and imaginative magic (inexplicable phenomena). Contrary to popular belief, humans cannot think up or imagine ‘advanced technologies’ and simply make them happen if these ‘technologies’ turn out to not conform to the physical laws that govern the behaviour of the matter, phenomena and physical forces of the universe – i.e. if these technologies do not work in practice then they were, are and always will be, science fiction.

RESPONDENT: The internet could not have been ‘observed, experienced and reproduced’ by Newton, for instance. It would be like ‘magic’ to him, yet it is completely mundane to us.

VINEETO: If Newton was intelligent, and there is every indication that he had a keen intellect, the ‘magic’ of the internet could easily be explained to him if he were alive today. The magic of the internet is a working down-to-earth magic, conforming to the physical laws that govern the behaviour of the matter, phenomena and physical forces of the universe – not the super-natural ‘magic’ of science fiction.

RESPONDENT: By extension, oughtn’t there be science that makes no sense to us, but will to those of 500 years hence?

VINEETO: There is no doubt that the scientific knowledge of 500 years hence will produce technological advances that are inconceivable to us today but they will make sense to those who are alive then. This is because those future technologies will have to conform to the physical laws that govern the behaviour of the matter, phenomena and physical forces of the universe. If they don’t, they won’t make sense and they won’t work.

To get back to the topic of this discussion, the Big Bang theory, I can say with confidence that the theory is not only nonsensical, it is also wrong in fact. And as you can see from the following quote, I am not even alone in this perception. Paul Marmet, a senior researcher at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics of the National Research Council of in Ottawa, explains the Big Bang model –

[Paul Marmet]: From its birth in the 1930s, the Big Bang theory has been a subject of Controversy (Reber 1989, Cherry 1989). Indeed, our view of the universe must always be open to consideration and reconsideration.

This article will demonstrate that the big bang model is physically unacceptable, because it is incompatible with important observations. It is not even acceptable philosophically, since it implies that time began to exist at a supposed instant of creation. It is therefore impossible to speak of a cause of the Big Bang (Maddox 1989 ). Science, however, is dedicated to the discovery of the causes of observed phenomena; the Big Bang model thus leads to the rejection of the principle of causality that is fundamental in philosophy as well as in physics. It is actually a creationist theory that differs from other creationisms (for example, one that claims creation took place about 4000 B.C.) only in the number of years since creation. According to the Big Bang model, creation occurred between 10 and 20 billion years ago. http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/bigbang/index.html

This article is indeed fascinating to read because it refutes the evidence provided for the Big Bang theory and explains, in terms a layperson can understand, how blatant oversights and assumptions were made in favour of keeping the theory afloat.

RESPONDENT: This is really the only point I was trying to make – that it is presumptuous for us to suppose that we know everything about the physical universe at this juncture. It wasn’t that long ago that the world was flat.

VINEETO: As I understand it, the point you were originally making, and are still making, is that you would rather keep ‘not-knowing’ that the universe is in fact eternal and infinite – i.e. that it has no beginning and no end, no centre and no edge.

I am not supposing that I ‘know everything about the physical universe’, far, far from it. I am continuously learning more things about the universe that have put paid to previous wrong theories or have revealed what were simply unknown facts at the time I went to school. Whilst it is obvious that we humans do not know everything about the physical universe at this juncture, the ancient belief that ‘someone’ or ‘something’ created it still has legs, and strong ones at that.

The fairy tales of a Someone creating the universe has been proven to be nonsense by the geological and fossil evidence of evolutionary development of life on this planet. Rather than these facts eliminating the belief that the universe had a beginning, we now see that a whole ‘new’ creationist belief has been spawned – theoretical ‘scientists’ theorizing a creation event that relies on imaginary super-natural forces for its supposed happening. All of which only demonstrates the extraordinary lengths human beings will go in order to cling to their spirit-ual beliefs.

What I have learned since I started applying the actualism method is to distinguish between belief and fact, between faith and common sense, between hope and actuality. This ability to clearly discriminate can make me appear to be ‘presumptuous’ – or arrogant, conceited, insolent, big-headed, and haughty – to those who haven’t questioned their beliefs and their automatic habit of believing.

To give a personal example – after I had my first pure consciousness experience, I remember being in shock for the whole of the next day. I had not only seen the extent of my own spiritual beliefs but when I went to the local market I saw everyone hawking their own particular beliefs along with their merchandise. I could see that sensibleness or usefulness were not the criteria of value for the vendors – what was for sale was merchandise within a belief system. What was vitally important was being part of the ‘right’ crowd, following the ‘right’ or sacred prescriptions as to how to live life and obtaining the ‘right’ symbolic chattels that related to the ‘right’ lifestyle. These symbolic chattels consisted of food, alternative medicine and supplements, jewellery, particular style clothes, sacred objects, and other paraphernalia.

Because I had seen my own spiritual beliefs from the ‘self’-less perspective of a PCE, my perception of actuality was direct and clear. Yet not a single one of those vendors would have agreed with me – they were so totally immersed in their own particular world that they could not understand, let alone directly experience, what was actually happening. I kept my mouth shut at the time but I would have certainly been called arrogant, conceited and presumptuous if I had pointed out the nature of their beliefs.

The same is the case with the Big Bang theory. In a PCE, the universe is experienced and perceived from neither a ‘self’-centred nor an anthropocentric viewpoint. In such a clear-eyed perception, the idea that the universe started out of nothing – as if God snipped his fingers and suddenly there was light – is simply absurd. In a PCE I am able to see and experience things simply as they are because there is no ‘self’ to speculate, believe, feel or imagine otherwise. Things are as they are and I am sensately aware of how they are as well as being aware of that awareness.

I assume that you might be familiar with a kind of clear-eyed perception, – when something suddenly clicks and you know that, despite your earlier doubts or questions, that it can’t be otherwise, it has to be so. Then there is an element of ‘of course!’ in one’s perception, maybe an ‘aha!’-effect of suddenly getting it and everything falling into place.

*

VINEETO: Just think about it in a straightforward manner – if there was to be a Big Bang and the universe came suddenly into existence from some kind of super-condensed unknown material, then one needs to assume all kinds of strange circumstances outside of the empirical laws of physics in order to arrive at the current state of countless suns and galaxies. One needs theories about super-phenomena, doughnut-shaped universes, warp-space, black holes, anti-matter and so on in order to somehow explain the sudden development from nothing to something. And yet many questions remain unanswered. For instance: what was there before the Big Bang? What was outside of the super-condensed universe? What is the universe expanding into? What is beyond the edge of the expanding universe? What happened before Planck time, the time before time began?

RESPONDENT: ‘outside of the empirical laws of physics’ as we know them now! The rest is guesses, theories, fodder for the scientific method. But next week/year/millennium, we will know more, and look back at our present understanding as valid but inadequate. Assuming we don’t kill ourselves off, of course.

VINEETO: Are you saying you prefer to believe in an imagined event – the Big Bang – solely on the basis that someone in the future might find that the proposed new laws ‘outside of the empirical laws of physics’ – laws, which have been invented solely in order to substantiate the Big Bang theory – do exist as a fact? To me that is stretching credibility, relying on belief to justify belief – placing a bet on faith, hope and trust in lieu of sensate observation, sensible reflection and empirical evidence.

To quote Paul Marmet again on evidence against the Big-Bang model –

[Paul Marmet]: Nor can Einstein’s general theory of relativity be applied in a consistent manner to the Big Bang model. According to the model, when the universe was the size of an electron and was 10^-23 second old, it was clearly a black hole – a concentration of mass so great that its self-gravitation would prevent the escape of any mass or radiation. Consequently, according to Einsteinian relativity, it could not have expanded. Therefore, one would have to assume that gravity started to exist only gradually after the creation of the universe, but that amounts to changing the laws of physics arbitrarily to save the Big Bang model. In contrast, an unlimited universe as suggested here agrees with Einstein’s relativity theory, taking into account the cosmological constant⁽⁵⁾ that he proposed in 1917.

Recent astronomical discoveries pose an additional and very serious problem for the Big Bang theory. Larger and larger structures are being found to exist at greater and greater redshifts, indicating their existence in the increasingly distant past. (Whether one assumes the Big Bang or the theory presented here, the redshift is normally an indicator of distances, and because it takes time for light to travel, the image of a highly redshifted object is seen on Earth today as it was when the light began to travel.)

In 1988, Simon Lilly of the university of Hawaii reported the discovery of a mature galaxy at the enormous redshift of 3.4; that is, the amount of the redshift for any spectral line from the galaxy is 340 per cent of the line’s proper wavelength (Lilly 1988). This puts the galaxy so far in time that the Big Bang scheme does not allow sufficient time for its formation! In a news report on Lilly’s work, Sky & Telescope reports: ‘The appearance of a mature galaxy so soon after the Big Bang poses a serious threat ...’ (Aug. 1988, p. 124).

In 1989 came the discovery of the ‘Great Wall’ of galaxies, a sheet of Galaxies 500 million light-years long, 200 million light-years wide, and approximately 15 million light-years thick, with the dimensions of the structure being limited only by the scale of the survey (Geller and Huchra 1989). It is located between 200 and 300 million light-years from Earth. In an interview with the Boston Globe (Nov. 17 1989), Margaret Geller of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics offered some frank comments on the implications of her discovery: The size of the structure indicates that in present theories of the formation of the universe ‘something is really wrong that makes a big difference’, Geller said in an interview yesterday: No known force could produce a structure this big in the time since the universe was formed’. http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/bigbang/index.html

I find it quite simple and straightforward – if nobody created the universe, and it is here now, then it has always been here.

*

VINEETO: None of those hypothetical questions needs to be answered if you acknowledge that only that which can be sensately observed and empirically measured exists as an actuality. Then theory and imagination, postulation and hypothesis collapse and one can realize that the physical universe has always been here, an endless and eternally changing magical array of gas and matter in infinite space. And the most magical of all – on one known planet, life developed to a stage of present day human intelligence and increasingly I can experience this perfect peerless universe in utter wonder and amazement.

RESPONDENT: Is there then no such thing then as an actualist scientist? I ask in seriousness as that appears to be the preposition of your statement. Is sensately observing the universe, this moment only repeated forever, incompatible with curious probing at the underlying fabric?

VINEETO: On the contrary, the actualism method is inherently scientific because, as an actualist, I am experientially examining my beliefs, hopes, fears, taboos and instinctually driven programming in order to understand the facts of what it is to be a human being. This scientific investigation has brought some very tangible and scientifically provable facts about the human condition and how one can become free from malice and sorrow and it leaves me increasingly free to directly experience the universe as it is, unimpeded by ‘self’-centred postulations.

As an actualist I am aiming to remove both the rose-coloured glasses of hope and trust and the grey-coloured glasses of malice and sorrow in order to find out what is actual and factual and to sensately experience the magnificent purity and perfection of this universe. And exactly because I have been continuously ‘probing at the underlying fabric’ of my social conditioning and my instinctual programming am I able to recognize that the supposed ‘underlying fabric’ of the universe is an entirely man-made belief, that there is neither a God nor any mystical Intelligence that is running the show.

‘This moment only repeated forever’ is not my experience of being alive at all. For me each moment is fresh, new, never been here before and never to be repeated again, let alone ‘forever’. Each moment has the same quality of freshness in that it is happening now yet what ever is happening now is continuously changing.

When I contemplated about the fact that now is the only moment I can actually experience, at some point I began feeling trapped in time because I couldn’t escape from this moment. Yet this feeling was merely an emotional reaction to my beginning to experience the fact that it is always now, no matter what I am thinking, doing or feeling. . It is only the memory of past events and the imagination about future events that create the passionate conviction that this moment stretches over time. However, it is precisely the instinctive habit of dwelling in emotional memories or indulging in passionate imagination that keeps me from fully experiencing this moment of being alive in its exuberance and wonder.

11.11.2002

RESPONDENT: Gary, No 23, Peter, Richard, Vineeto:

I’m a bit delinquent in replying to all your posts (busy work, travel, nasty cold), so this is an attempt to grandly unify the themes, rather than respond to each separately.

VINEETO: I had been quite busy with work lately myself and then I spent about two weeks reformatting my hard disk over and over until I discovered that the disk was faulty. Making it perfect was a great learning process and it took my attention away from everything else that is going on in the world – or on the list. But now I am up and running again, ready to continue where I left off.

RESPONDENT: The topics have taken on a certain similarity to me – I seem to be asking the same questions from multiple POVs. This is evidenced from your responses, which have been consistent and sensible. In fact, if I was more inclined to argumentation, I would be getting quite frustrated at this point, as you don’t leave many gaps in the defence (term used in the context of a debate).

VINEETO: No, the whole point of the actualism practice is to poke holes in the human condition of malice and sorrow in order to become free of it – to actively dismantle your own ‘self’-defence. One of the essential aspects of the process is dismantling and dismissing beliefs in favour of discovering and distinguishing the facts of the matter at hand. Given this understanding, I found that the points where I didn’t agree with, or objected to, the facts were the most interesting and fruitful for my inquiry. I wanted to know exactly where and why I disagreed with, or objected to, what were obviously facts, because this is the only way to detect and root out my beliefs, my dreams and my emotions, the very things that prevent me from more directly and freely experiencing this moment right here where I am.

RESPONDENT: So, after a lot of mulling, I’ve determined that I’m using these various contexts as red herrings to dance around the fundamental issue of happiness and harmlessness. I’ve discovered that a lot of these intellectual exercises are contrived by my identity in a futile attempt to exercise a form of control in order to assuage an underlying anxiety. It’s clear that this anxiety is firmly rooted in the instinctual fear mechanism, with the horror of my inevitable demise looming on the distant horizon.

VINEETO: Richard is having an interesting conversation regarding the topic of this ‘instinctual fear mechanism’ with Respondent No 39 on another mailing list. You will find the thread in his latest correspondence starting October 22.

For me, I began to put the method into practice bit-by-bit and step-by-step, because in practice I neither would, nor could, bite off bigger pieces than I could chew. It’s the jumping in and doing of it that actually creates the courage and the incentive to keep going.

RESPONDENT: It’s also clear that this state has been created by my identity, an entity that has an increasingly alien character.

VINEETO: From my experience, it does not matter if ‘me’ as an identity – who I think and feel I am – has an alien character or a non-alien character – all of it is ‘me’, no matter into how many parts I preferred to split myself. In my days of therapy and spiritual practice I used to divide my ‘self’ into an ‘inner male’ and an ‘outer female’, the feeler and the watcher, the intuitive and the rational self, the lower ‘self’ and the higher ‘self’, the passionate old ‘me’ and the aware new ‘me’. Part of the job of backtracking out of the spiritual-psychological nonsense I had been conditioned with was to stop dividing me into various identities and recognize, acknowledge and affectively experience that ‘who I am’ is an instinctually driven, culturally tainted and spiritually conditioned identity.

This shocking and unflattering acknowledgement prepared the ground for an actual change.

RESPONDENT: Without going into the gory details, recently I’ve had another example of how insidious and entrenched the identity is, and how determined it is to protect its existence, at all costs.

Thanks all

VINEETO: Your recent correspondences with Richard and me set me off thinking about the first few months when I started exploring actualism, and what it was that preceded and initiated my first major PCE. With the benefit of hindsight it was clear that my way of taking ‘the elevator down to the next floor’ was to decide to close the back door on a lot of aspects of my former life. Meditation and being the ‘watcher’ did not work because it did not make me happy, let alone make me harmless. Being a follower of Rajneesh and belonging to the Sannyas community did not work because it did not peace or happiness. There was still no peace in the world, neither within the Sannyasin community nor in any other spiritual or religious belief-system.

So, although I did not quite know where I was going when I closed the back door, I nevertheless knew by experience where I would not find the solution – neither in the real world nor in the spiritual world. In closing the door on my past life, I abandoned my dreams and entered new territory with no option to turn back.

I am convinced that it was this common sense commitment to say ‘no’ to the well-tried, and always-failed, methods and my daring to say ‘never again’ to holding on to my past hopes, dreams and beliefs that inevitably catapulted me into a PCE – the experience of being right here, right now, bare of any belief, truth, hope or preconceived idea. This pure consciousness experience radically changed my understanding of actualism because for the first time I understood, in my own experience, what Richard was talking about and what he is living 24 hours a day … and it’s paradise on earth.

RESPONDENT: P.S. ... still think the ferret should be the official AF animal/mascot.

VINEETO: Ferreting is certainly an activity characteristic for an actualist, although I would never consider having an Actual Freedom animal/mascot. After all, my aim is to instigate ‘self’-immolation in order to become free from all animal passions. The ferret is driven to ferret for its survival whereas I am using the intelligence intrinsic to the human animal to ferret out the instinctually driven ‘being’ that prevents me from experiencing the sparkling perfection and consummate peace of the actual world.

30.11.2002

VINEETO: You wrote responding to Peter’s post –

PETER: ... and on the topic of discernment – ...

RESPONDENT to Peter: ‘Excellence experience’ is a succinct definition for a set of common experiences that we’ve been bandying about with varying nomenclature. As it seems to be an important aspect of the neophyte’s path, I would suggest that the definition be formalized in the glossary, and given more stature by abbreviation (EE). We can type less, and communicate more!

VINEETO: Yep, following your suggestion I’ve just put together a new topic in the library called ‘Excellence Experience’ with related correspondence from Richard, Peter, Vineeto and Gary. It will be available on the website in a few days.

I think the reason why I haven’t given an excellence experience a ‘proper’ place in the library is because feeling excellent becomes an everyday experience after a few years of practicing actualism. We have called that state of almost constantly feeling excellent Virtual Freedom.

Nevertheless, I do remember the beginning of the actualism practice when an excellence experience was an outstanding event, all my senses were heightened compared to normal day experience and the usual background generator of anxiety and resentment was switched off as if by magic. Then a feeling of wellbeing begins to relax muscles I didn’t even know were tense and a sweet delight of being alive begins to spread through all of the body. And then, with an increasing attentiveness to the sensuousness of everything around me the paradise that is this actual world becomes increasingly apparent.

While the complete absence of ‘me’, as in a PCE, is still somewhat rare, an excellence experience is an everyday occurrence after one has investigated the main part of one’s social identity.

You also wrote in another post –

RESPONDENT to Peter: This link had some very useful information, mainly the definition of the term ‘excellence experience’, and your descriptive map of the general AF process. I suggest that both of these elements be given some prominence on the AF site. While there is merit in not organizing the 2,000,000+ words too much, these two items struck me as being notable enough to be more visible.

VINEETO: I also considered Peter’s ‘descriptive map of the general AF process’ to be a valuable piece of information for those who are practicing actualists. At the time I had made a separate document of it, called ‘An Actualist’s Guide for the Wide and Wondrous Path’, with links to it from the ‘Map’ of the web-site and it is also on the Actualism Homepage entitled ‘Advanced Guide for the Wide and Wondrous Path’.

Both on the ‘Map’ and on the Actualism Homepage there is also a link called ‘The Wide and Wondrous Path’ which consists of a précised version of the ‘Introduction into Actual Freedom’ with links down the left side to relevant correspondence.

‘Organizing the 2,000,000+ words’ certainly has its limits but I would suggest that enough of a trail has been laid for anyone sufficiently interested to follow. The rest is up to each individual, verifying what is written by doing the actualism method step by step. The longer you do it, the more you can taste the tangible freedom it produces.

4.2.2003

VINEETO: There was one passage in your post about relationships from a few days ago that I’d like to respond to –

RESPONDENT: Over the past year on this list, the subject of relationships resurfaces periodically, and there has been a flurry of postings on that subject lately, so clearly it is presently in the forefront of other’s processing. There has been a great deal of churn in my primary relationship lately, not due in small part to my pursuing this actualism business. For me, the man/woman relationship is one of the hardest areas to understand, hence a cornucopia of opportunities for investigation of the subtle emotions.

In some ways, it’s the most difficult of relationships as there is the element of choice... we have some measure of responsibility for our children that is not negotiable (IMO), but life with our partners damn well better be pleasurable as there is no biological necessity. Without going into gory details, recently we arrived at a place that seemed to me to be an irreconcilable impasse. In the past, I’ve been able to wriggle out of these types of situations by ‘logicking’ my way out. I could patch things up crudely by coming up with a plan: If I do this or that, or say this or that, I can escape the painful situation and come out only limping, with my beliefs still held relatively intact.

VINEETO: I like how you describe the traditional male role in the man-woman relationship – ‘‘logicking’ my way out’. Usually when I wanted to talk about ‘the relationship’ with my partner, it meant I wanted to talk about my feelings, the unhappy, unsatisfied feelings and expectations that were not being met by the man. Generally, the conflicts were not about particular practical situations that needed solutions but they were about a range of diffuse disgruntled feelings I had that I thought were his responsibility to fix. Apart from the proverbial exceptions to the rule, it is usually the women who play the role of indulging in their feelings in a man-woman relationship, while the men tend to repress their feelings and look for a rational approach to the unpredictable and confusing world of emotions.

When I started to practice actualism I broke with that tradition. One after the other I acknowledged my responsibility both for the outspoken charges and, equally important, for my silent accusations. Every wish to find fault with the other was a red flag indicating that I automatically considered my partner responsible for my happiness and my sadness, which in turn meant that I either consciously or unconsciously blamed him for my aggressive vibes and fearful moods. As an actualist I came to realize that it is solely up to me to be happy and harmless and that blaming anyone else for causing my own unhappiness is me being anything but harmless. The one-to-one relationship has been the largest field of inquiry into my beliefs and my passions in order to become free from their miserable grip.

RESPONDENT: With this recent episode however, my tools let me down – the situation was so dire that I knew that I was just fooling myself (and her) with this chicanery. So, apparently there was this vast gap between her and I, and no way to bridge it. I spend about a week in this excruciating place, trying to figure out how to engineer my way out, always to come up against the same wall. While my guts were churning away, I couldn’t help but think that somewhere in this impossible struggle lay a very important bit of information, and I was determined to fish it out. Eventually, the clouds parted, and the veils of that third entity, the ‘relationship’ and all its attendant accrued characteristics, dropped away, leaving simply two discrete beings, completely separate. Everything stood out clearly, all the emotional interactions, the unmet needs, the resentment, the control issues. Particularly, I saw in myself an element that Peter captured nicely.

I had been ‘holding back’ in an effort to maintain some sort of sanity in this chaotic relationship. It is obvious that it takes as much of an iron grip to hold someone at arm’s length as it does to clutch them tightly to one’s breast. Each is rigid and controlling.

VINEETO: Personally, I found ‘holding someone at arm’s length’ particularly tedious as I not only had to fend against the other’s attempts to come closer but also against my own yearning to have a more intimate relationship. I knew that by trying to hold back I was impairing myself as much as the other, depriving myself of the opportunity to find out and to learn something new about how to live in peace with a fellow human being. So when I met Peter and he introduced me to actualism, I jumped in with both feet – I wanted to get to the bottom of why I had never been able to achieve the peace and harmony in a relationship I so yearned for. This meant not only experiencing all the feelings that the relationship brought up but also tracing them deep to their instinctual core – the good feelings as well as the bad feelings, the desired feelings as well as the one’s I used to deny – the whole lot.

RESPONDENT: Peter continues with (once again) a very pithy and practical conclusion from this aspect: < Peter to Gary, 7.1.2003b>

Vineeto’s post arrived and really hit home:

21.2.2003

RESPONDENT: Here I go butting in again (pardons pls Gary). A couple of observations and a query...

VINEETO: Please ‘butt in’ at any time – after all this mailing list is a virtual discussion table.

*

VINEETO to Gary: Recently Peter and I were talking about this very quality of virtual freedom – after sufficient explorations into the human condition I am now able to ‘nip these reactions in the bud’ shortly after they appear and many events that usually would have triggered an angry or sad response in the past now fail to do so.

At my stage of the process the job now is to remember to stop the once essential but now redundant habit of rummaging around in my psyche in order to regurgitate issues that I have already explored, resolved and understood so as to get on with being happy and harmless as soon and as uninterruptedly as possible. Strangely enough that leaves ‘me’ increasingly with nothing to do, which in itself sometimes stirs the uncomfortable feeling of being redundant – a sure sign that my efforts of actively diminishing ‘me’ have had tangible effect. Vineeto to Gary, 12.2.2003

RESPONDENT: This is akin to taking the training wheels off the bicycle.

VINEETO: I don’t quite relate to your metaphor. What I described was my acquired habit of searching for trouble-spots in my psyche that I could investigate when there is really nothing going on.

In the process of practicing actualism over the past years I have uncovered and explored many parts of my identity with the aim of eliminating my social identity and experientially understanding the instinctual passions as much as humanly possible. The part of my identity that for obvious reasons has remained as the tail end of my enterprise in ‘self’-immolation is ‘Vineeto the researcher’ or Vineeto the ‘‘self’-investigator’. Lately I began to realize with occasional trepidation that even this part of my identity will eventually have to come to an end if ‘I’, in my totality, am to come to an end – i.e. one day the search is definitely going to be over.

However, given that for actualism to work ‘I’, the identity, willingly and consciously agree to take myself apart, I would not advise anyone to attempt a shortcut and start to question the ‘‘self’-investigator’ at an earlier stage of the process. That would be mere self-deceit, akin to the Advaita slogan that ‘if only I stop my desire to be free then I am ok as I am’ and bingo, ‘Thou Art That’!

RESPONDENT: I’ve found that while some issues have been explored thoroughly, they do continue to pop up. I too can nip them in the bud, but I’m careful to ascertain that the instance is one of the ‘old ones’ and doesn’t bear too much more investigation. It’s important to ensure that it is fully understood as the identity is a slippery devil. This is too serious a business to let down the guard too far. On the other hand, too much ‘analysis is paralysis’. Is this roughly what you’re getting at?

I noticed that in your correspondence with Gary you changed your expression of ‘letting down the guard too far’ for ‘monitoring’. I like the expression of monitoring because it describes well the process of being attentive to everything that is happening in one’s head and one’s heart with the sole aim of becoming happy and harmless. Once this aim was clear, my persistent and sincere monitoring has resulted in increasingly detecting my automatic ‘self’-sustaining reactions, such as my ‘self’-perpetuating indulgence in feelings or my ‘self’-preserving denial of unwanted feelings.

As for ‘too much ‘analysis is paralysis’’ I’d like to take the opportunity to discriminate between ‘self’-investigation and ‘self’-analysis as it is used in psychoanalysis. Psychological ‘self’-analysis prescribes a process of ‘self’-validation via dreams and memories in order to strengthen one’s identity so as to better cope within the human condition. Psychology, psychoanalysis and new-age therapy have no intention of diminishing the ‘self’, let alone eliminating the identity altogether.

In actualism, ‘self’-investigation is a process that not only has the opposite intent but it also goes far deeper – it is not rearranging bits of one’s identity but it is a tangible weakening of the ‘self’ via eliminating beliefs and moral and ethical values. Each time when I hit a major issue and proceeded to examine it, I came to a point where I understood the issue so clearly that I had no choice but to take action and drop that part of my identity in question if I was at all sincere. There were several loud ‘clunks’ that I distinctly remember, some of which I have described in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’, and very often the letting go of the investigated part of identity resulted in a pure consciousness experience where the actual world became stunningly apparent.

*

VINEETO to Gary: As I don’t know much about what chemical reactions happen in the brain, I looked up the Encyclopaedia Britannica –

‘Adrenalin has effects upon the nervous system, which are recognizable subjectively in man by feelings of anxiety and of increased mental alertness’. Encyclopaedia Britannica

From the word ‘effects’ I conclude that an increased output of adrenalin and other chemical neuro-transmitters does not necessarily require feelings of anxiety for ‘increased mental alertness’ to occur. In other words, the effects can be two separate effects and it is quite apparent that in a dangerous situation one functions better if the affective reaction can be eliminated.  Richard’s report about his response to an emergency situation – ‘necessity provides all the calorific energy required’ – seems to confirm my hypothesis. Vineeto to Gary, 12.2.2003

RESPONDENT: I’ve said it before, but it’s one of my favourites, so ... The number one drug of abuse in the world today is adrenaline. It’s a natural food of the human condition.

VINEETO: The number one ‘abuse’ is the animal survival programming, the very source of the production of adrenalin. Therefore the salient point for an actualist is not about abuse of adrenalin, but tackling the drug-factory – one’s very ‘being’ rooted in the instinctual survival passions.

Richard’s recently related story makes it very clear that the hypothesis I was offering above was wrong and that the instinctual passions and the production of adrenalin are inextricably intertwined – no passions, no production of adrenalin.

Richard: A classic example of this occurred whilst strolling along a country lane one fine morning with the sunlight dancing its magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; these eyes are delighting in the profusion of colour and texture and form as the panorama unfolds; these ears are revelling in the cadence of tones as their resonance and timbre fills the air; these nostrils are rejoicing in the abundance of aromas and scents drifting fragrantly all about; this skin is savouring the touch, the caress, of the early springtime ambience; this mind, other than the sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive as this flesh and blood body, is ambling along in neutral – there is no thought at all and conscious alertness is null and void – when all-of-a-sudden the easy gait has ceased happening.

These eyes instantly shift from admiring the dun-coloured cows in a field nearby and are looking downward to the front and see the green and black snake, coiling up on the road in readiness to act, which had not only occasioned the abrupt halt but, it is discovered, had initiated a rapid step backwards ... an instinctive response which, had the instinctual passions that are the identity been in situ, could very well have triggered off freeze-fight-flee chemicals.

There is no perturbation whatsoever (no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness, and so on) as with the complete absence of the rudimentary animal ‘self’ in the primordial brain the limbic system in general, and the amygdala in particular, have been free to do their job – the oh-so-vital startle response – both efficaciously and cleanly. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 32 25, 16.2.2003

*

VINEETO to Gary: I can very well relate to what you describe as ‘a deep and abiding terror of extinction’. The trick that often helps me turn this terror into excitement is to remember that ‘I’ have a voluntary mission which is far more dignifying that ‘my’ survival – ‘I’ am to bring about peace-on-earth by vacating the throne, permanently. And although sometimes I feel as though I am only inching my way closer to ‘my’ destiny, I do recognize that I am making progress. I only need to look back at how I used to experience life a few years back to know this is a fact. Vineeto to Gary, 12.2.2003

RESPONDENT: Facing the reality of my own demise has been one of my favourite obsessions in the past.

VINEETO: I am somewhat confused as to what you mean by ‘facing the reality of my own demise … in the past’ – are you referring to the demise of the ego that leaves the soul intact, as taught in each and every branch of Eastern mysticism, or are you referring to facing physical death?

Or are you talking about the recent past since taking up actualism – your contemplations about your own demise of your identity in toto, both ego and soul, something that is entirely new to human history?

RESPONDENT: I’ve always known that in that conundrum lies a very important bit of knowledge, but I usually got stuck in an existential quagmire.

VINEETO: The most important bit of knowledge that I have gleaned from contemplating the demise of my ‘self’ has been, and still is, the purity of my intent as an actualist. Contemplating death or ‘self’-immolation is not something that in itself brings me closer to becoming actually free of malice and sorrow but it certainly gives me a gauge measure to check if I am becoming comfortably numb, settling for second best or hiding in fear.

I found that the best strategy is to check out my intent and then get on with the business of being happy and harmless instead of, for instance, being frightened at the thought of ‘my’ demise. It’s useful to remember that every feeling I indulge in, for whatever ‘noble’ reason, is only going to feed my identity instead of diminishing it.

I have spent many years exploring therapy groups and spiritual feeling states and it was quite a challenge to slowly wake up to the fact that feeling is not identical to actuality – in fact, feeling has nothing to do with actuality. In the past I might have felt harmless but was nevertheless quite harmful in that my ‘self’-centredness inevitably caused ripples in other peoples lives. I found that while I might have felt that I valued peace, I still instinctively acted in attack and defence mode. While I might have felt that I was willing to sacrifice my ego for a higher cause, I was actually cultivating humbleness as a means of soul-istic ‘self’-aggrandizement, and so forth.

Through the rigorous and persistent process of actualism, I slowly learnt to extend my attention beyond what I thought and felt, i.e. my ideals and passions, so as to become aware of the tangible effects that my thoughts, feelings and actions had on the people around me. I discovered more and more that feeling myself to be harmless and actually being harmless were two completely different things. This process of distinguishing between feeling and actuality is the key to actually becoming happy and harmless compared to merely feeling happy and harmless.

I’m saying this because contemplating my demise has been one of my favourite topics since discovering actualism and only lately have I discovered that, while such contemplations can serve to fuel my intent, they don’t bring me closer to the actuality of being free, simply because I am contemplating about a time that is not now.

Which reminds me that Richard always maintained that one cannot think one’s way to freedom nor feel one’s way to freedom – something that I have persistently tried to do. It’s great that there aren’t any rights and wrongs in actualism – given the sincere intent to be free of malice and sorrow, all explorations are useful explorations.

RESPONDENT: Today, while showering, the subject popped into my head for the first time in some while, and I was keenly aware that it was the identity that was clinging to that fear, and that this flesh-and-blood shall simply fade away, no fuss, no muss.

VINEETO: When you observe this experience a bit longer you will discover that ‘you’ as an identity are identical to that fear, they are in fact one and the same. ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’. And when fear leaves the stage for a moment, the identity is nowhere to be found and vice versa.

Then there is peace.

11.3.2003

VINEETO: You wrote something to Gary the other day that seems to be a misinterpretation of what I wrote, so I couldn’t resist ‘butting in’. The misinterpretation is in the second part of this post but I am making a general comment at the start.

[Gary]: Within the Human Condition, the best one can ever do is to keep a check on oneself, lest one run amok due to unrestrained passions and instincts. However, I think when one is practicing an alert attentiveness that something entirely different than this monitoring process is occurring. We have spoken before on this list about ‘nipping it in the bud’. I believe I have heard you use this expression as well. When I have nipped a feeling in the bud, so to speak, the feeling or emotion does not even get off the runway, to use an aeronautical analogy. If, for instance, anger arises in regard to some interaction I have had with another person, I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy. Rather, one’s native intelligence can go to work investigating this feeling, if investigation is needed. The mere presence of the feeling means I have something to look into. If anger continues to cruise down the runway, so to speak, gathering a full head of steam, then I really have my work cut out for me. If not, then voilá! ... there is nothing further that I need do. Gary to No 38, 21.2.2003

RESPONDENT: I realize that ‘nipping it in the bud’ could be interpreted as either suppression, or as you say

[Gary]: ‘I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy’. Gary to No 38, 21.2.2003

The latter is what I intended, and your description jibes with that. As an example, the other day I had an angry moment, and I popped off at someone in an inappropriate (aka violate common consideration for others) manner. The moment swept me along, so there was little I could do to ‘nip it in the bud’, but the following feelings of embarrassment and shame I was able to ‘nip in the bud’. They arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H.

VINEETO: In the process of becoming happy and harmless, my main focus was on becoming harmless, i.e. ceasing being aggressive or angry towards others. In this case investigating my feelings means that I examine what triggered my eruption of anger, what caused me to up my defences, what is it that I am being defensive about and what part of my identity felt threatened and therefore caused me to react aggressively.

Once I am able to isolate the issue in question, then the next step is to clearly look at all aspects of this particular area of identity, be it an authority issue, a gender identification, professional pride, a certain belief or worldview or any other cause that made me react in an aggressive or inconsiderate manner. The difference between maintaining a social or spiritual moral code in order to keep a lid on outbursts of anger and the process of actualism is that in actualism I am changing my behaviour by incrementally removing the very triggers for feeling irritated, annoyed, resentful, threatened or aggressive.

To achieve this, I not only have to ‘recognize’ the arising feeling as a feeling, but I have to search for and identify the part of my identity associated with the feeling – ‘me’ as a woman, ‘me’ as a national identity, ‘me’ in my professional or work role, ‘me’ as a partner or family member, ‘me’ as a social identity with a particular philosophy, culture, religion or worldview, etc, etc. Unless I recognize, examine and finally incapacitate the part of my identity who feels offended and therefore responds offensively either covertly or overtly, there will inevitably be a similar harmful response in the next similar situation.

As for ‘feelings of embarrassment and shame’ – those feelings quickly became redundant as I incrementally succeeded in ridding myself of malice and sorrow. As an actualist, I set my sights higher than merely keeping the lid on my instinctual aggression by living by the rights and wrongs of some moral or ethical code. Actualism is about becoming free of malice and sorrow via a process aimed at ‘self-immolation – it is not about controlling one’s malice and sorrow via a process aimed at ‘self’-perpetuation.

The process you seem to be describing as ‘they arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H’ has a striking resemblance to the method of Vipassana. This Buddhist ‘watching practice’ is based on the understanding that ‘who’ you really are is your ‘consciousness’, ie. a disembodied, desensitized ‘watcher’, dissociated from unwanted emotions and thoughts

In Vipassana, ‘watched’ anger eventually passes away, not because you understand its underlying reason and origin but because you become the watcher and distance yourself from your anger and merely watch it run its course. In the same way you can distance yourself from any feeling or emotion without ever having to investigate the substance of your ‘self’ – it’s instinctual core. To really face the fact that anger is ‘you’ in action, and that ‘you’ are the only cause and reason of anger arising, is the first and essential step to doing something practical about bringing an end to this emotion instead of merely witnessing it and waiting for it to pass away.

Actualism is not a method of passively monitoring, watching or observing one’s feelings – actualism is a method of actively investigating the origin of those feelings and thus rocking the very core of one’s identity.

RESPONDENT: So, ‘nip it in the bud’ doesn’t imply suppression, just an acquired skill in processing the emotions as they arise. As Vineeto discussed in another thread, it’s not necessary, or even useful to pump this through the grist mill every time, just recognize it as another manifestation of a fairly well understood response. Of course, there needs to be a check on this process to ensure that this categorization is not self-deception, a red herring.

VINEETO: I take it that the thread you are referring to is from my recent post to Gary –

[Vineeto to Gary]: Recently Peter and I were talking about this very quality of virtual freedom – after sufficient explorations into the human condition I am now able to ‘nip these reactions in the bud’ shortly after they appear and many events that usually would have triggered an angry or sad response in the past now fail to do so.

At my stage of the process the job now is to remember to stop the once essential but now redundant habit of rummaging around in my psyche in order to regurgitate issues that I have already explored, resolved and understood so as to get on with being happy and harmless as soon and as uninterruptedly as possible. Strangely enough that leaves ‘me’ increasingly with nothing to do, which in itself sometimes stirs the uncomfortable feeling of being redundant – a sure sign that my efforts of actively diminishing ‘me’ have had tangible effect. Vineeto to Gary, 12.2.2003

When I said ‘after sufficient exploration into the human condition’ I was referring to several years of actively dismantling and intensely exploring all aspects of my identity – an identity that was clearly seen and recognized in numerous ‘self’-less pure consciousness experiences as being an all-pervading yet non-actual ‘presence’. Such pure consciousness experiences are vital to the intent to investigate one’s identity because only in a PCE can I see, by the very comparison of ‘my’ absence, what havoc ‘I’ am continuously causing by ‘my’ very presence and what confusion, diversion and cunning ploys ‘I’ am inventing in order to stay in existence. The comparison of a PCE to ‘my’ normal life as an identity within the human condition also gives me the confidence that when I am ‘nipping feelings in the bud’ I am not repressing, ignoring or side-lining a ‘precious’ part of my identity.

I remember you said that you no longer subscribe to spiritual practices but given that spiritual values and practices pervade human society like odourless vapour, an investigation of potential hangovers might still be of use. In case you are interested, some years ago there were several discussions on The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list about the topic of Vipassana in distinction to actualism – Vineeto to No 4, 5.4.1999 and 16.4.1999, and No 7, 24.4.1999, 2nd question, Richard to No 4, 10.9.1999 and No 7, 23.8.1999

14.3.2003

RESPONDENT: This is akin to taking the training wheels off the bicycle.

VINEETO: I don’t quite relate to your metaphor. What I described was my acquired habit of searching for trouble-spots in my psyche that I could investigate when there is really nothing going on. <snip>

However, given that for actualism to work ‘I’, the identity, willingly and consciously agree to take myself apart, I would not advise anyone to attempt a shortcut and start to question the ‘‘self’-investigator’ at an earlier stage of the process. That would be mere self-deceit, akin to the Advaita slogan that ‘if only I stop my desire to be free then I am ok as I am’ and bingo, ‘Thou Art That’!

RESPONDENT: Well, maybe my metaphor doesn’t quite fit your point. I was referring to a step in the process after the mechanics of practice become more automatic. It’s not necessary to always mentally say the words HAIETMOBA as it becomes a continually running operation. So, ‘HAIETMOBA’ is kind of like training wheels, as is the deliberate sequence of detecting feelings, experiencing them, determining their root, investigating their cause in some or other belief system, etc. The beginning piano player is thinking ‘this finger here is C’, whereas for the more learned player, this is no longer a conscious operation.

One person’s metaphor is another person’s fish.

VINEETO: I understand from my own experience that the words ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’, when applied with the sincere intent to become happy and harmless, eventually turn into a wordless ongoing ‘self’-investigation. However, taking your words at face value, when you refer to ‘the process after the mechanics of practice become more automatic’ you seem only to be continuing your previously learned practices and have yet to take on board the fact that the actualism method is radically different to what you have previously been taught.

*

RESPONDENT: Facing the reality of my own demise has been one of my favourite obsessions in the past.

VINEETO: I am somewhat confused as to what you mean by ‘facing the reality of my own demise … in the past’ – are you referring to the demise of the ego that leaves the soul intact, as taught in each and every branch of Eastern mysticism, or are you referring to facing physical death?

RESPONDENT: I was referring to the death of the body, and by implication my identity, the traditional existential angst. I have never quite ‘got’ the soul. It always seemed a fabrication purely to assuage the visceral fear of one’s physical death. If you’re good, your soul gets to go to heaven, and in the meantime, here’s the tithing basket. The whole soul/ afterlife/ eternal energy scenario just never added up, when I applied common sense. So, the interesting characteristic of AF is this dismantling of the identity, the very thing that has the dread. Having abandoned any notion of an afterlife, it seems the only game in town.

VINEETO: The ‘soul’ is not dissolved by dismissing ‘any notion of an afterlife’ nor by maintaining an agnostic view about a life after death. The soul – ‘who’ I feel ‘I’ am deep down inside – is apparent in every belief, every mood, every emotion and every affective reaction that one experiences. To find one’s soul in action is the essential task for an actualist because the very action of recognizing my soul in action is paramount to dismantling it. The soul is the deepest core of my being, the seat of the instinctual passions, the very substance of ‘me’ – that which you once called ‘the actual being’. Vis:

[Respondent]: For me, the identity became almost a separate entity, one palpably distinct from the actual being. Thus, it ceases to be personal... I am not the identity, it is simply but a parasite that can be dealt with. No 38 to No 48, 26.1.2003

This perception that ‘who I really am’ is a non-personal ‘actual being’ who is ‘palpably distinct from’ my personal identity is pure Zen. The ‘self’ plays hide and seek by dividing itself into two apparently separate identities – a personal identity, or ego, and a non-personal actual being, or soul – with the aim of humbling the first identity in order to glorify the second identity. Actualism is not to be confused with Zen because both the method and the aim are radically different – diametrically so in fact. The aim of actualism is the extinction of both identities, as becomes stunningly apparent in a pure consciousness experience where both parts of ‘me’ – the personal ‘I’ and the non-personal ‘being’ – are temporarily absent.

*

VINEETO: Or are you talking about the recent past since taking up actualism – your contemplations about your own demise of your identity in toto, both ego and soul, something that is entirely new to human history?

RESPONDENT: One curious difference between that form of demise and the one I was referring to is that slaying one’s identity is a deliberately undertaken process, rather than just waiting around to get bonked on the head by some meteorite.

VINEETO: The ‘curious difference’ is that in actualism I am recognizing that all ‘I’ think and all ‘I’ feel myself to be – both ‘the watcher’ and the ‘watched’ in the traditional spiritual pursuit – is the sum total of ‘me’ as an identity. Therefore there is nobody else who can do the job of dismantling ‘me’ but ‘me’. In actualism ‘I’ as the watcher or ‘actual being’ am not slaying ‘me’ as the personal identity or ego – ‘I’ have deliberately and with aforethought agreed to facilitate ‘my’ demise for the benefit of this body, that body and every body. There is no ‘slayer’ that will win the war between the opposing identities – as in a battle betwixt good and evil – ‘I’ am taking myself apart all of ‘my’ own accord.

RESPONDENT: Initially, the AF goal is disturbing, with visions of a zombie like existence. Clearly that is nonsense, based on the distinct personalities found on this list. I still do not understand some of the more subtle distinctions between ‘personal predilections’ (re. recent posts with Richard), and learned behaviour. I figure that will all become clear when I get there

The ‘visions of a zombie like existence’ is a well-documented objection to actualism and is rooted in the fact that human beings consider their emotional-instinctual heritage as their greatest virtue and most-prized treasure. The fears of a ‘self’-less experience being a ‘zombie like existence’ are readily dispersed by a pure consciousness experience when you experience for yourself what life is like when your affective faculty temporarily ceases to broadcast and the actual world we flesh and blood bodies called human beings live in reveals itself as the sensate wonderland and squeaky clean paradise that it has always been.

As for ‘personal predilections’ – they are the sensual preferences of every body, due to genetic quirks, experience, familiarity, custom and comfort. What Chinese Opera is for one, classic guitar is for another. ‘Learned behaviour’ on the other hand are the morals, ethics and values that society teaches every newborn child in order to keep the animal survival passions in check and to make the child a ‘fit’ member of society. This learned behaviour becomes redundant when the survival passions no longer rule the roost – virtually so in a virtual freedom from the human condition and actually so in an actual freedom from the human condition.

15.3.2003

VINEETO: You wrote something to Gary the other day that seems to be a misinterpretation of what I wrote, so I couldn’t resist ‘butting in’. The misinterpretation is in the second part of this post but I am making a general comment at the start.

RESPONDENT: Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that.

VINEETO: I remember at the start I misinterpreted most of what Richard said. It is not an easy thing to throw out all of the revered wisdom of the past and all of one’s past efforts and start afresh. But then again, what serendipity that there is something radically new on offer because the old has certainly not worked.

*

RESPONDENT to Gary: I realize that ‘nipping it in the bud’ could be interpreted as either suppression, or as you say

[Gary]: ‘I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy’. Gary to No 38, 21.2.2003

The latter is what I intended, and your description jibes with that. As an example, the other day I had an angry moment, and I popped off at someone in an inappropriate (aka violate common consideration for others) manner. The moment swept me along, so there was little I could do to ‘nip it in the bud’, but the following feelings of embarrassment and shame I was able to ‘nip in the bud’. They arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H.

VINEETO: In the process of becoming happy and harmless, my main focus was on becoming harmless, i.e. ceasing being aggressive or angry towards others. In this case investigating my feelings means that I examine what triggered my eruption of anger, what caused me to up my defences, what is it that I am being defensive about and what part of my identity felt threatened and therefore caused me to react aggressively.

Once I am able to isolate the issue in question, then the next step is to clearly look at all aspects of this particular area of identity, be it an authority issue, a gender identification, professional pride, a certain belief or worldview or any other cause that made me react in an aggressive or inconsiderate manner.

The difference between maintaining a social or spiritual moral code in order to keep a lid on outbursts of anger and the process of actualism is that in actualism I am changing my behaviour by incrementally removing the very triggers for feeling irritated, annoyed, resentful, threatened or aggressive.

To achieve this, I not only have to ‘recognize’ the arising feeling as a feeling, but I have to search for and identify the part of my identity associated with the feeling – ‘me’ as a woman, ‘me’ as a national identity, ‘me’ in my professional or work role, ‘me’ as a partner or family member, ‘me’ as a social identity with a particular philosophy, culture, religion or worldview, etc, etc. Unless I recognize, examine and finally incapacitate the part of my identity who feels offended and therefore responds offensively either covertly or overtly, there will inevitably be a similar harmful response in the next similar situation.

As for ‘feelings of embarrassment and shame’ – those feelings quickly became redundant as I incrementally succeeded in ridding myself of malice and sorrow. As an actualist, I set my sights higher than merely keeping the lid on my instinctual aggression by living by the rights and wrongs of some moral or ethical code. Actualism is about becoming free of malice and sorrow via a process aimed at ‘self-immolation – it is not about controlling one’s malice and sorrow via a process aimed at ‘self’-perpetuation.

RESPONDENT: <snipped a bunch of stuff I understand>

VINEETO: The reason I described the investigation process in detail is that nipping feelings of embarrassment and shame in the bud only serves to stifle the investigative process. To get rid of embarrassment I had to find the cause of my embarrassment – in the case you described the outburst of anger – and then in the same way follow up the reasons for my outburst of anger as I have described above. Embarrassment and shame are only the tip of the iceberg and nipping these first indicators of ‘me’ in action in the bud puts a full stop to further investigations and does nothing to eliminate the underlying causes for feeling shame and embarrassment.

*

VINEETO: The process you seem to be describing as ‘they arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H’ has a striking resemblance to the method of Vipassana. This Buddhist ‘watching practice’ is based on the understanding that ‘who’ you really are is your ‘consciousness’, ie. a disembodied, desensitized ‘watcher’, dissociated from unwanted emotions and thoughts.

In Vipassana, ‘watched’ anger eventually passes away, not because you understand its underlying reason and origin but because you become the watcher and distance yourself from your anger and merely watch it run its course. In the same way you can distance yourself from any feeling or emotion without ever having to investigate the substance of your ‘self’ – it’s instinctual core. To really face the fact that anger is ‘you’ in action, and that ‘you’ are the only cause and reason of anger arising, is the first and essential step to doing something practical about bringing an end to this emotion instead of merely witnessing it and waiting for it to pass away.

Actualism is not a method of passively monitoring, watching or observing one’s feelings – actualism is a method of actively investigating the origin of those feelings and thus rocking the very core of one’s identity.

RESPONDENT: Actually, my experience to date is kind of opposite of that. The ‘watcher’ is a useful component of the actual No 38, whereas the ‘dissociated’ entity is the identity, that which has the emotions and learned responses. I am being careful with that word ‘dissociated’ as it could imply suppression, sweeping it under the carpet. The whole point of this work is to keep it in clear view so that it can be taken apart, piece by piece, and that can’t be done if it’s hidden away.

VINEETO: This is the nub of the misinterpretation I was trying to explain. The ‘watcher’ is not ‘a useful component of the actual No 38’ – there is no way to experience the actual No 38 except in a pure consciousness experience. In a PCE the whole identity – both the ‘watcher’ and the ‘watched’ – temporarily go into abeyance.

The ‘watcher’ and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity – the ‘self’ split into two for the purpose of ‘self’-improvement.

I remember well the trouble I had in wrapping my mind around the fact that all my good intentions in being a good person were but my ‘self’ playing ‘self’-sustaining tricks. The diagram ‘180 degrees opposite’ in The Actual Freedom Trust Library is intended to clarify the difference between the traditional approach and actual freedom. Understanding the exclusive nature of the two approaches is paramount to comprehending the difference between actual freedom and spiritual freedom and how one needs to make a clear break from any form of spiritual ‘self’-improvement in order for actualism to work.

To really let this understanding sink in may serendipitously and fundamentally rock your world and, as a result, may bring about a ‘self’-less, ‘watcher’-less, pure consciousness experience.

RESPONDENT: It’s difficult for me to clearly convey this stuff into words and I would appreciate the feedback on the above. I take pains to be aware of any self-delusional tacks, but I think we are talking about the same thing here. I’ll wander through your provided links as a check.

VINEETO: My feedback is that you and I are talking about two different methods, each designed to give two quite different outcomes. The practice of ‘watching’ is designed to create a split personality where one part of your personality – the good No 38 – watches the other part of your personality – the bad No 38 – in an effort to dissociate yourself from the unwanted parts of your identity. The identity of the watcher is based on the understanding that ‘who’ you really are is your ‘consciousness’ and this ‘consciousness’ or ‘actual being’, to use your words, then dispassionately watches the unwanted emotions and ‘learned responses’ of the ‘other’ identity. Both identities are one and the same, two sides of one coin.

Actualism is the method specifically designed to bring both identities to an irrevocable end.

Peter has written a great deal about the identity of the watcher and the practice of ‘choiceless awareness’, if you like to ‘wander’ through a bit more information.

*

RESPONDENT: So, ‘nip it in the bud’ doesn’t imply suppression, just an acquired skill in processing the emotions as they arise. As Vineeto discussed in another thread, it’s not necessary, or even useful to pump this through the grist mill every time, just recognize it as another manifestation of a fairly well understood response. Of course, there needs to be a check on this process to ensure that this categorization is not self-deception, a red herring.

VINEETO: I take it that the thread you are referring to is from my recent post to Gary –

[Vineeto to Gary]: Recently Peter and I were talking about this very quality of virtual freedom – after sufficient explorations into the human condition I am now able to ‘nip these reactions in the bud’ shortly after they appear and many events that usually would have triggered an angry or sad response in the past now fail to do so.

At my stage of the process the job now is to remember to stop the once essential but now redundant habit of rummaging around in my psyche in order to regurgitate issues that I have already explored, resolved and understood so as to get on with being happy and harmless as soon and as uninterruptedly as possible. Strangely enough that leaves ‘me’ increasingly with nothing to do, which in itself sometimes stirs the uncomfortable feeling of being redundant – a sure sign that my efforts of actively diminishing ‘me’ have had tangible effect. Vineeto to Gary, 12.2.2003

When I said ‘after sufficient exploration into the human condition’ I was referring to several years of actively dismantling and intensely exploring all aspects of my identity – an identity that was clearly seen and recognized in numerous ‘self’-less pure consciousness experiences as being an all-pervading yet non-actual ‘presence’. Such pure consciousness experiences are vital to the intent to investigate one’s identity because only in a PCE can I see, by the very comparison of ‘my’ absence, what havoc ‘I’ am continuously causing by ‘my’ very presence and what confusion, diversion and cunning ploys ‘I’ am inventing in order to stay in existence. The comparison of a PCE to ‘my’ normal life as an identity within the human condition also gives me the confidence that when I am ‘nipping feelings in the bud’ I am not repressing, ignoring or sidelining a ‘precious’ part of my identity.

RESPONDENT: I’m not sure I see where the misrepresentation lies, presumably where I used your name...

[Respondent]: Vineeto discussed in another thread, it’s not necessary, or even useful to pump this through the grist mill every time, just recognize it as another manifestation of a fairly well understood response [endquote].

which referred to your statement...

[Vineeto]: At my stage of the process the job now is to remember to stop the once essential but now redundant habit of rummaging around in my psyche in order to regurgitate issues that I have already explored, resolved and understood so as to get on with being happy and harmless as soon and as uninterruptedly as possible. [endquote].

I am fuzzy on the misunderstanding, would you please clarify?

VINEETO: The misunderstanding is about practicing ‘nipping feelings in the bud’ before the nature of what it is you are experiencing is fully understood. The practice of ‘watching’ does not lead to fully understanding how ‘you’ as an identity manifest yourself – how you have been programmed to operate both socially and instinctually – because the ‘watcher’ is part and parcel of ‘you’ as an identity. With the ‘watcher’ in place any nipping of feelings in the bud can only be repressing, ignoring or sidelining a ‘precious’ part of your identity. I cannot say it more clearly than that.

24.3.2003

RESPONDENT: This is akin to taking the training wheels off the bicycle.

VINEETO: I don’t quite relate to your metaphor. What I described was my acquired habit of searching for trouble-spots in my psyche that I could investigate when there is really nothing going on. <snip>

RESPONDENT: Well, maybe my metaphor doesn’t quite fit your point. I was referring to a step in the process after the mechanics of practice become more automatic. It’s not necessary to always mentally say the words HAIETMOBA as it becomes a continually running operation. So, ‘HAIETMOBA’ is kind of like training wheels, as is the deliberate sequence of detecting feelings, experiencing them, determining their root, investigating their cause in some or other belief system, etc. The beginning piano player is thinking ‘this finger here is C’, whereas for the more learned player, this is no longer a conscious operation. One person’s metaphor is another person’s fish.

VINEETO: I understand from my own experience that the words ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’, when applied with the sincere intent to become happy and harmless, eventually turn into a wordless ongoing ‘self’-investigation. However, taking your words at face value, when you refer to ‘the process after the mechanics of practice become more automatic’ you seem only to be continuing your previously learned practices and have yet to take on board the fact that the actualism method is radically different to what you have previously been taught.

RESPONDENT: My words were intended to convey exactly the same point you made. So, ‘the process after...’ is indeed a learned practice, specifically the practice (including HAIETMOBA) of becoming free of the human condition. I imagine this practice is present in some capacity until one reaches a state of actual freedom, when it is shut off forever. Until then, we’re all using an essentially artificial or contrived mechanism, the ‘training wheels’. This is how humans learn or unlearn and has nothing to do with the fact that actualism is novel or not.

VINEETO: Has it ever occurred to you that actualism is indeed novel to human history, i.e. 180 opposite to all spiritual belief and philosophy? Therefore when you write about ‘the more learned player’ and ‘taking the training wheels off the bicycle’, what you are writing about is equivalent to riding an old bicycle in the wrong direction.

Despite your belief to the contrary, actualism is not an improvement on your previous self-monitoring practice. To continue doing what ‘you’ have been doing in the past merely keeps ‘you’ in existence and prevents any opportunity of radical change taking place. The first step for an actualist is to stop whatever practice he or she was doing thus far and investigate what exactly are the ideas, ideals and beliefs one is holding dear because these are the very obstacles to understanding what actualism is about.

*

RESPONDENT: Facing the reality of my own demise has been one of my favourite obsessions in the past.

VINEETO: I am somewhat confused as to what you mean by ‘facing the reality of my own demise … in the past’ – are you referring to the demise of the ego that leaves the soul intact, as taught in each and every branch of Eastern mysticism, or are you referring to facing physical death?

RESPONDENT: I was referring to the death of the body, and by implication my identity, the traditional existential angst. I have never quite ‘got’ the soul. It always seemed a fabrication purely to assuage the visceral fear of one’s physical death. If you’re good, your soul gets to go to heaven, and in the meantime, here’s the tithing basket. The whole soul/ afterlife/ eternal energy scenario just never added up, when I applied common sense. So, the interesting characteristic of AF is this dismantling of the identity, the very thing that has the dread. Having abandoned any notion of an afterlife, it seems the only game in town.

VINEETO: The ‘soul’ is not dissolved by dismissing ‘any notion of an afterlife’ nor by maintaining an agnostic view about a life after death. The soul – ‘who’ I feel ‘I’ am deep down inside – is apparent in every belief, every mood, every emotion and every affective reaction that one experiences. To find one’s soul in action is the essential task for an actualist because the very action of recognizing my soul in action is paramount to dismantling it. The soul is the deepest core of my being, the seat of the instinctual passions, the very substance of ‘me’ – that which you once called ‘the actual being’. Vis:

[Respondent]: For me, the identity became almost a separate entity, one palpably distinct from the actual being. Thus, it ceases to be personal... I am not the identity, it is simply but a parasite that can be dealt with. Respondent to No 48, 26.1.2003

This perception that ‘who I really am’ is a non-personal ‘actual being’ who is ‘palpably distinct from’ my personal identity is pure Zen. The ‘self’ plays hide and seek by dividing itself into two apparently separate identities – a personal identity, or ego, and a non-personal actual being, or soul – with the aim of humbling the first identity in order to glorify the second identity. Actualism is not to be confused with Zen because both the method and the aim are radically different – diametrically so in fact. The aim of actualism is the extinction of both identities, as becomes stunningly apparent in a pure consciousness experience where both parts of ‘me’ – the personal ‘I’ and the non-personal ‘being’ – are temporarily absent.

RESPONDENT: I used the term ‘actual being’, referring to the flesh-and-blood, and you linked it with the term ‘soul’. So maybe I’m using the wrong terminology? What is the official AF term for the body that sensately goes about its daily business? Whatever you want to call it, that’s what I was referring to, not the soul.

VINEETO: You are attempting to redefine your philosophy by using actualism ‘terminology’ and completely overlook that what you are doing is neither the method nor the practice to become actually free from the human condition. You explain it clearly in your next sentence –

RESPONDENT: I don’t know where the identity/ego ends and the soul begins, and I’m not sure it matters much, as it’s all learned behaviours and I lump them in the same category. And there is certainly no humbling or glorification going on, just a recognition of the existence of this identity/ego/soul.

VINEETO: Your understanding of the human condition is that ‘it’s all learned behaviours and I lump them in the same category’. This is the traditional spiritual stance that if one only succeeds in ridding oneself of one’s socialisation, the learned behaviours from one’s childhood, then one is free to be one’s natural being.

This ancient spiritual teaching is not improved by translating it into actualism ‘terminology’ – in fact nothing can improve this one-eyed thought-inhibiting intuition-enhancing philosophy of iron-age Eastern mysticism. If you want to become actually free from malice and sorrow then any and all previously acquired philosophies, teachings and techniques need to be thrown out – rooted out from deep within the soul you think you ‘never quite ‘got’’.

The day you clearly remember or clearly experience a pure consciousness experience will be the day you understand what your soul really is by the very remarkable difference of ‘your’ absence.

24.3.2003

RESPONDENT: I realize that ‘nipping it in the bud’ could be interpreted as either suppression, or as you say

[Gary]: ‘I can nip this feeling in the bud by noticing the feelings and thoughts that are arising, but there is no need to monitor by keeping in check or controlling the particular feeling, as the feeling does not gain momentum and energy’. Gary to No 38, 21.2.2003

The latter is what I intended, and your description jibes with that. As an example, the other day I had an angry moment, and I popped off at someone in an inappropriate (aka violate common consideration for others) manner. The moment swept me along, so there was little I could do to ‘nip it in the bud’, but the following feelings of embarrassment and shame I was able to ‘nip in the bud’. They arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H.

<snipped a bunch of stuff I understand>

VINEETO: The reason I described the investigation process in detail is that nipping feelings of embarrassment and shame in the bud only serves to stifle the investigative process. To get rid of embarrassment I had to find the cause of my embarrassment – in the case you described the outburst of anger – and then in the same way follow up the reasons for my outburst of anger as I have described above. Embarrassment and shame are only the tip of the iceberg and nipping these first indicators of ‘me’ in action in the bud puts a full stop to further investigations and does nothing to eliminate the underlying causes for feeling shame and embarrassment.

RESPONDENT: Maybe I’m not making myself clear, or perhaps I’m using the wrong terminology again. When I talk about nipping the feelings in the bud, I don’t mean suppressing them. I’ve certainly learned how well that doesn’t work. The nipping means detecting them as they arise so that I can fully explore them. A secondary purpose of nipping is to stop the external manifestation, as you said a while back, to ‘keep my hands in my pockets’.

VINEETO: Mr. Oxford explains the figurative expression in question –

‘nip in the bud – fig. destroy at an early stage of development’ Oxford Dictionary,

which is the opposite to the meaning you attribute to the expression – ‘detecting them as they arise so that I can fully explore them’. Your terminology seems to get more confused the more you try to clarify it.

As for the ‘secondary purpose of nipping’ – from your description of the incident you provided as an example it appears that you expressed your anger and did not ‘keep your hands in your pockets’. Then, when ‘feelings of embarrassment and shame’ arose as a consequence of having expressed your anger, you ‘nipped them in the bud’, as in ‘destroyed at an early stage of development’.

In actualism – with its intrinsic aim of being happy and harmless – to keep my hands in my pocket means that I don’t express my anger in any form whatsoever towards others. This is eminently sensible behaviour. However, only by being aware that you are feeling angry as the feeling is happening, can you be aware of the sensibility of not expressing it. T’is best to put the cart before the horse – awareness before action leads to considered and considerate action. Being aware of feelings of shame and embarrassment at having expressed your anger to others are but signs that the horse has already bolted before you became aware of it.

There is much, much more to the phrase ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ than is apparent from a cursory glance, particularly for those who prize themselves as being already aware.

*

VINEETO: The process you seem to be describing as ‘they arose, I recognized them, then got back to being H&H’ has a striking resemblance to the method of Vipassana. This Buddhist ‘watching practice’ is based on the understanding that ‘who’ you really are is your ‘consciousness’, i.e. a disembodied, desensitized ‘watcher’, dissociated from unwanted emotions and thoughts.

In Vipassana, ‘watched’ anger eventually passes away, not because you understand its underlying reason and origin but because you become the watcher and distance yourself from your anger and merely watch it run its course. In the same way you can distance yourself from any feeling or emotion without ever having to investigate the substance of your ‘self’ – it’s instinctual core. To really face the fact that anger is ‘you’ in action, and that ‘you’ are the only cause and reason of anger arising, is the first and essential step to doing something practical about bringing an end to this emotion instead of merely witnessing it and waiting for it to pass away.

Actualism is not a method of passively monitoring, watching or observing one’s feelings – actualism is a method of actively investigating the origin of those feelings and thus rocking the very core of one’s identity.

RESPONDENT: Actually, my experience to date is kind of opposite of that. The ‘watcher’ is a useful component of the actual No 38, whereas the ‘dissociated’ entity is the identity, that which has the emotions and learned responses. I am being careful with that word ‘dissociated’ as it could imply suppression, sweeping it under the carpet. The whole point of this work is to keep it in clear view so that it can be taken apart, piece by piece, and that can’t be done if it’s hidden away.

VINEETO: This is the nub of the misinterpretation I was trying to explain. The ‘watcher’ is not ‘a useful component of the actual No 38’ – there is no way to experience the actual No 38 except in a pure consciousness experience. In a PCE the whole identity – both the ‘watcher’ and the ‘watched’ – temporarily go into abeyance.

The ‘watcher’ and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity – the ‘self’ split into two for the purpose of ‘self’-improvement.

RESPONDENT: Granted.

VINEETO: Are you saying you grant that –

‘the ‘watcher’ is not ‘a useful component of the actual No 38’’

and that

‘there is no way to experience the actual No 38 except in a pure consciousness experience’

and that

‘The ‘watcher’ and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity – the ‘self’ split into two for the purpose of ‘self’-improvement’?

The consequence of this agreement becomes apparent in your next paragraph.

RESPONDENT: But until my identity is eliminated (if that ever happens), I need to use some tools from my present perceptive context. That includes such artificial mechanisms as a ‘watcher’ or ‘monitor’, or forcing myself to remember to HAIETMOBA. By their nature, they are contrived, and certainly not for the long term. One day I would hope to abandon them when the need for them has passed, much as a child removes the training wheels from the bike, and experiences riding fully unencumbered.

VINEETO: If I understand you correctly you say that

• ‘until your identity is eliminated’ you need to use ‘such artificial mechanisms as a ‘watcher’ or ‘monitor’.

Above you ‘granted’ my statement that

• the watcher and ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’ are part of the same identity.

Putting the two together you are then saying that

• ‘until your identity is eliminated’ you need to use ‘such artificial mechanisms as’ ‘the ‘dissociated’ entity’.

Whatever bicycle it is you are riding, this tautological cycling will certainly keep your identity safely in place … for as long as you choose.

10.5.2003

RICHARD: ‘As all this was happening, a passing thought occurred to me, which was briefly contemplated ... then banished: Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s ... the social ‘me’ and the grand ‘Me’? This trifling question was to be of immense benefit years later when I realised that I was living in a delusion and that there was an actual freedom lying beyond ... but I jump ahead of myself’. (page 245, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997 The Actual Freedom Trust).

RESPONDENT: This really bonked me – ‘Who or what was it that was observing these two ‘me’s’.

I’ve spent a lot of time in self-observation without asking this seemingly simple question. I’ve been putting off trudging down to the bank to get some Ozbucks to order your journal... in the meantime, would you mind posting a few snippets on this subject, pls?

VINEETO: As the self-appointed The Actual Freedom Trust librarian I can suggest a few links that might be of use for your query –

../richard/selectedwriting/sw-actualfreedom.htm

../richard/selectedwriting/sw-awareness.htm

../richard/selectedwriting/sw-asc.htm

The amount for Richard’s Journal including postage is AU$ 47.00.

20.7.2003

VINEETO: The other day you wrote to No 37 making an assumption about me that I want to clarify –

RESPONDENT to No 37: Richard appears to have rewired his brain internally (and on the evidence I think that is true), so how do we know that it wasn’t simply rewired to experience the universe as timeless and infinite? Peter, Vineeto and others are attempting the same physical rewiring (not achieved yet... virtual freedom vs. actual freedom) by emulation of that programming... whether they or anyone else can ever accomplish the hard-wiring remains to be seen.

VINEETO: I am certainly not attempting an ‘emulation of that programming’. Actual Freedom is not about emulating a programming – it is about becoming free from one’s social programming and from the invidious effects of blind nature’s instinctual programming. With the actualism method I remove my default setting, the normal and spiritual programming of the human condition – I do not replace it with another programming. When the identity is removed – as experienced in a pure consciousness experience – the actual becomes apparent only because there is no programming interfering with experiencing what is already here.

Therefore I do not need to ‘ever accomplish the hard-wiring’ as you suggest – what I do in the continuous process of increasing attentiveness is to become aware of and remove the redundant software programming. Then the hard-wiring, human intelligence, can function undisturbed and undistorted and the senses perceive unfiltered delight.

Once you begin to practice actualism and begin to de-program your belief in the supposedly unknowable nature of the universe, then the nature of actualism becomes easily apparent.

25.7.2003

VINEETO: The other day you wrote to No 37 making an assumption about me that I want to clarify –

RESPONDENT to No 37: Richard appears to have rewired his brain internally (and on the evidence I think that is true), so how do we know that it wasn’t simply rewired to experience the universe as timeless and infinite? Peter, Vineeto and others are attempting the same physical rewiring (not achieved yet... virtual freedom vs. actual freedom) by emulation of that programming... whether they or anyone else can ever accomplish the hard-wiring remains to be seen.

VINEETO: I am certainly not attempting an ‘emulation of that programming’. Actual Freedom is not about emulating a programming – it is about becoming free from one’s social programming and from the invidious effects of blind nature’s instinctual programming. With the actualism method I remove my default setting, the normal and spiritual programming of the human condition – I do not replace it with another programming. When the identity is removed – as experienced in a pure consciousness experience – the actual becomes apparent only because there is no programming interfering with experiencing what is already here.

RESPONDENT: Understood. My example was yet another on a long list of attempts to rationalize AF in terms that make sense to ‘I’. Clearly that can never happen as ‘I’ have a vested interest in making sure that the fundamental experience of the actual never happens.

VINEETO: Yes, you said it very well. As long as ‘you’ ‘have a vested interest’ in preventing ‘the fundamental experience of the actual’, all you can do is ‘rationalize’ actualism – to mean what it doesn’t mean ... because what actualism really means is the end of ‘me’.

When I discovered actualism and satisfied myself that it was genuine article, there came a point when I had to make a clear-cut decision. Either I would live the rest of my life settling for second best … or I would make a commitment, knowing well that this commitment would be the end of ‘me’. I don’t know why, but second best was never an option.

Once I had made this commitment something quite delicious happened – I discovered ‘I’ had something worthwhile to do – ‘I’ had a purpose, a goal worth dying for – and this commitment alone made ‘me’ immensely happy. Committing myself to actual freedom ended my search and began my process of discovery, I had found the effective method to achieve the freedom I had always longed for – the only thing left to do was to do it.

*

VINEETO: Therefore I do not need to ‘ever accomplish the hard-wiring’ as you suggest – what I do in the continuous process of increasing attentiveness is to become aware of and remove the redundant software programming. Then the hard-wiring, human intelligence, can function undisturbed and undistorted and the senses perceive unfiltered delight.

RESPONDENT: Regarding your last sentence above... the implication is that the underlying human intelligence (including the unique personality components) by its very nature is ‘happy and harmless’, sensately revelling in the universe. Is that a general case or could there be instances of specific human intelligences that do not have that nature, but revel in e.g. causing misery to others? Animals appear to thoroughly enjoy life, unless they’ve been damaged psychologically. Is being happy our birthright, which we typically squander?

VINEETO: Human intelligence is indeed an ‘underlying’ function of the human brain, underlying in that intelligence is subordinate to, and hence crippled by, the instinctual survival passions emanating from the now-redundant primitive or archaic brain. This is the ‘general case’ in that survival instincts are genetically encoded in each and every human brain. The experience of the actualism practice is that intelligence, when freed from the instinctual passions, is by its nature benevolent, sensible and intelligent.

I don’t know which kind of animals you have in mind, but animals on farms or in the wild do not enjoy life – they are driven by the survival instinct of ‘what can I eat, what can eat me’. In the wild animals are constantly on the alert, vigilant for predators and scanning for attack on prey. Animals that are provided with shelter, food and security become domesticated such that the survival instincts are not as pre-eminent but when push comes to shove the wild animal instantly re-surfaces – exactly as it does in the domesticated human animal when push comes to shove.

Animals are not aware that they are cruel, in panic, pining or bored but some are nevertheless are run by feelings and all of them are driven by instinctive imperatives. The idea that animals are innocent or happy is a myth.

Spiritual teachings have always maintained that one only needs to dissociate from one’s social conditioning in order to be ‘who you really are’ – the feeling ‘self’ which is none other than the animal instinctual passions. In contrast, actualism recognizes that the root cause of human malice and sorrow lays in the animal instinctual survival passions and not, as ancient wisdom has it, in conditioned thought and cultural socialization. A freedom from the human condition can only be achieved via ‘self’-immolation, which is both, the death of one’s ego (the social identity) and the extinction of one’s ‘being’ (the instinctual identity).

As for ‘is being happy our birthright’ – it does not make sense to call happiness our ‘birthright’ because there is no court where you could claim your ‘right’. I would rather describe it that the animal survival passions, universally manifest in humans as malice and sorrow, are our biological heritage – ‘me’ being as old as the first human – but a path to freedom from this software programming is now laid out. You can jump right on with both feet and complete the next step in human evolution.

*

VINEETO: Once you begin to practice actualism and begin to de-program your belief in the supposedly unknowable nature of the universe, then the nature of actualism becomes easily apparent.

RESPONDENT: Practicing actualism has two key elements: unravelling the accrued conditioning, and experiencing the actual universe directly. I’ve been diligently doing the former for some time, with great results, but have certainly been tripping over my own feet with the latter.

VINEETO: No wonder, you’ve ‘been tripping over my own feet with the latter’ – you have omitted the most significant part in your first ‘key element’ – the instinctual survival passions, which are a layer deeper than ‘accrued conditioning’. The ‘accrued conditioning’ is always first impediment to freedom, peace and happiness to be tackled and once there is a sufficient dent in the armour of one’s social identity, then it is possible to become more and more aware of the underlying crude instinctual passions. To believe that ‘I’ am a product of an accrued conditioning only is to remain ensnared in one’s spiritual-philosophical conditioning – the very first thing that has to go if one is to even begin to become a practicing actualist.

You may remember the piece from Peter’s ‘Practical Guide for Actualists’ –

Peter: It is vitally important to understand that two stages happen with every investigation of a particular deep seated emotion over a period of time, such as aggression, sex, love, sorrow, authority, desire, etc. – first the social identity is dismantled, only then are the raw instinctual passions underneath are exposed. I know, I keep flogging this point but it is the only way to go deep sea diving into one’s own psyche. The initial tendency is to go straight into trying to look at the instinctual passions, but this is a disingenuous short-cut that can only lead to snorkelling around on the surface. This two-stage investigation is the crucial difference between the spiritual version of denial, selective awareness and remaining a passive watcher of life and the Actualist’s application of sincerity, all-encompassing awareness and becoming an active participant in this moment of being alive. A Practical Guide for Actualists

I always found that my attempts at ‘experiencing the actual universe directly’ were putting the cart before the horse. Whenever I ask the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and I am not happy, then I explore and remove the cause of not being happy – only when I am happy, can sensate experiencing have a chance of happening on its own accord. And whenever in the process of letting go of my spiritual beliefs I eradicated a cornerstone of my identity – a core belief, a deep-seated feeling, a bit of ‘me’ – then the crack in the door bought about a pure consciousness experience.

RESPONDENT: No 37’s recent missives have been very helpful in addressing my skepticism and understanding the crucial necessity of that facet.

VINEETO: It is amazing how much can be achieved by a good dose of naiveté combined with the determination to change radically and irrevocably.

2.8.2003

VINEETO: I have the trimmed your post a bit so as to focus on the main points you made –

RESPONDENT: Animals appear to thoroughly enjoy life, unless they’ve been damaged psychologically. Is being happy our birthright, which we typically squander?

VINEETO: As for ‘is being happy our birthright’ – it does not make sense to call happiness our ‘birthright’ because there is no court where you could claim your ‘right’. I would rather describe it that the animal survival passions, universally manifest in humans as malice and sorrow, are our biological heritage – ‘me’ being as old as the first human – but a path to freedom from this software programming is now laid out. You can jump right on with both feet and complete the next step in human evolution.

RESPONDENT: Wouldn’t the social conditioning be the software programming, and the instinctual passions be the hardware programming? I’m mincing words here, but I am an engineer after all and tend to go a bit overboard on deconstructing things. Or maybe you hadn’t noticed ;-)

VINEETO: The idea that ‘the social conditioning be the software programming, and the instinctual passions be the hardware programming’ is instilled by spiritual teachings and psychological theories that lay the blame of all the ills of mankind on social conditioning.

The uniqueness of Richard’s discovery is that he proved by example that one’s instinctual passions are permanently deleteable and therefore as much software as one’s social conditioning. One need not trust Richard that this is so because everyone has had a PCE at some time in their life when both ‘I’ as ego – one’s social identity – and ‘me’ a being – one’s instinctual identity – are temporarily in abeyance. In a PCE both ‘software programs’ crash simultaneously, leaving this body free of any identity whatsoever – as such, a PCE is experiential evidence that the instinctual passions are not hardwired.

*

VINEETO: The issue of the instinctual passions also relates to your question in the second post –

[Vineeto]: Human intelligence is indeed an ‘underlying’ function of the human brain, underlying in that intelligence is subordinate to, and hence crippled by, the instinctual survival passions emanating from the now-redundant primitive or archaic brain. This is the ‘general case’ in that survival instincts are genetically encoded in each and every human brain. The experience of the actualism practice is that intelligence, when freed from the instinctual passions, is by its nature benevolent, sensible and intelligent. [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Isn’t self-preservation one of the instinctual survival passions? I recall reading Richard (who has lost those passions) stating that it would not be a problem to defend himself from bodily harm. Why did that not go with the other instincts? Does it simply resolve to choosing to live... I can die, or I can live and enjoy the universe. Simply a matter of preference?

VINEETO: Your question appears to be induced by instinctual ‘self’-preservation which cannot conceive that this body would be able to survive, or maybe not even choose to survive, without ‘my’ instinctive survival program.

I as this flesh-and-blood body do not ‘resolve to choosing to live’ – I am already alive. The ‘preference’ to not be alive for a body sans identity would presumably only ever arise if one was incapable of enjoying being alive as in the case of a debilitating incurable disease that caused chronic pain. To defend oneself from bodily harm is pure common sense – you cannot ‘enjoy the universe’ when you are dead.

Here is an excerpt of Richard’s response to a similar question –

Co-Respondent: Once these instinctual survival passions are eliminated what then is the response to danger such as overwhelming physical attack?

Richard: An intelligent response.

Co-Respondent: Without the fight or flight response how does one deal with this type of situation?

Richard: Fearlessly. The instinctual passion of fear triggers any one of three reactions: freeze, flight or fight ... none of which are necessarily appropriate when dealing with the most common aggressor (human beings) in today’s world. In this day and age negotiation is by far the most efficacious response to a threatening situation. And fear – adrenaline coursing through the veins; the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face blanched white; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on and so on – cripples effective negotiation and is hardly conducive to a healthy outcome. Of course one still has the option to freeze or flee or fight if that is what the situation calls for ... with the added advantage of such action not being fear-driven (or courage-driven). Foolish courage – an impulse sourced in fear – can cause one to take needless risks.

There was a fanciful movie released circa 1995-6 called ‘Fearless’ by Mr. Peter Weir which gives the wrong impression of what being without fear is like ... ‘Foolhardy’ would be a better title. Richard, List B, No 39, 13.11.2000

*

RESPONDENT: Practicing actualism has two key elements: unravelling the accrued conditioning, and experiencing the actual universe directly. I’ve been diligently doing the former for some time, with great results, but have certainly been tripping over my own feet with the latter. No 37’s recent missives have been very helpful in addressing my scepticism and understanding the crucial necessity of that facet.

VINEETO: It is amazing how much can be achieved by a good dose of naiveté combined with the determination to change radically and irrevocably.

RESPONDENT: I’ve mulled a bit recently on the notion of naiveté. I’ve read and understood the definition, but I must admit there is a lingering association in my mind with ‘foolishness’. I do see how elemental it is to this whole process. I think it would be interesting to explore this in the context of the universe thread.

VINEETO: Yes, that’s it. In actualism, the first thing that takes a bashing is one’s pride because the pursuit of becoming happy and harmless means to set off in the opposite direction to what society regards as being intelligent and wise. From the real-world point of view scepticism, cynicism, criticism and denigration are considered intelligent behaviour, while from the spiritual point of view dissociation, detachment and not-knowing are deemed the peak of wisdom.

Consequently the pursuit of becoming unconditionally happy and unconditionally harmless, i.e. giving up battling it out in either the real world or the spiritual world, is seen as a sign of foolishness … and the fear to appear foolish is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to beginning the journey to an actual innocence.

As you say, naiveté is ‘elemental’ to the actualism practice – without naiveté you cannot even consider that human beings can possibly live in peace and harmony, let alone that one can free oneself from one’s genetically encoded instinctual programming. To allow naiveté to replace scepticism and cynicism is a big step towards leaving the safe haven of resignation and never-ending uncertainty and dropping out of the day-to-day combat in the grim battle of survival.

Naiveté has two purposes in actualism – firstly, moving on from the initial analytical process of making a prima facie case as to the sensibility of actualism to beginning the experiential hands-on exploration of one’s psyche – the process that leads to irrevocable change. And equally importantly – awakening one’s dormant naiveté is vital to be able to remember, or induce, a pure consciousness experience.

As Richard’s sum it up –

Richard: In a nutshell it is where one is walking through the world in a state of wide-eyed wonder ... simply marvelling at it all. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that one usually keeps hidden away for fear of seeming foolish ... it is like being a child again, but with adult sensibilities, which means that one can separate out the distinction between being naïve and being gullible. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 4, 4.4.2002

It’s a pleasure to chat with you.

Actualism Homepage

Vineeto’s Writings and Correspondence

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust

Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity