VINEETO: You wrote in response to my letter to No 4 –

Cultivating the attentiveness required for the actualism method to be successful is not akin to some sort of meditation that you do ‘while going to sleep or when [you] have nothing else to do’. If you want to change your life from feeling ‘reasonably happy’ to feeling good to feeling happy to feeling perfect, then attentiveness needs to be applied each moment again, regardless of what it is you are doing at this moment and regardless of where you are at this moment. <snip>

And if you forget to be attentive as to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive at some time during your daily activities then not to worry, for the very action of becoming aware that you forgot to be attentive brings you right back to being attentive again. <snip>

As for ‘to take a leap’ – you need to make the bold decision to ‘take a leap’ from merely settling for being ‘reasonably happy’ – with ‘reasonably harmless’ thrown in as an afterthought – to making the necessary effort required to pay exclusive attention to how you are experiencing each moment of being alive. Making this effort will not only enable you to become more happy and more considerate of others but this exclusive attentiveness will also enable you to become more and more aware of your sensate experiencing – and this awareness is the necessary ingredient to be able to delight in the sheer sensuousness of being alive on this verdant planet. To expect to leap from being ‘reasonably happy’ to a PCE is to remain stuck in wishful thinking but ‘tis only a small step from sensual delighting in being here in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are to having a PCE. Vineeto to No 4, 20.5.2003

RESPONDENT: I do not have a question in this moment ... but maybe one will emerge. I have been guilty of ‘chatting at the well’ – that is, talking about methods, approaches ... but being very reluctant to dive in, or take a sip. I recognise now that so many spiritual practices I have been involved with ... I rarely honestly, rigorously dove in ... but was secretly hoping to be rescued by some ineffable god or entity outside of myself ... as soon as I was finally worthy ... as soon as my suffering was sufficient. I realize now that that approach was silly and ineffective. With the actual freedom material ... it is occurring to me more and more ... that this is an entirely self-help activity. And if I don’t do this ... someone else will never, can never ... do it for me. And that every moment is an opportunity to inquire ... with the deepest and purest of intent possible. For me ... I first need to get my intent up ... to jump start it ... and then it continues with its own momentum. And I jump start by shaking myself a bit, looking around ... being aware of my surroundings ... this helps a bit. I stay here a while until a wave of unconsciousness permeates me ... takes me into the past or the future ... until I shake myself awake into the present again. And when I arrives here again ... to dust myself off and say to myself ... What do I really want ... do I want to live the rest of my life ... lost in thought ... mindlessly ... hypnotically ... feeling my way through the remainder of my days ... or ... or do I desire to awaken to the majesty of life anew ... fresh, vibrant ... ringing and singing with clarity? That is one of my motivations for doing this work ... that there must be ... must be another way to really ... to actually live ... to refuse ... to absolutely refuse to be a victim of useless, aimless thoughts and feelings ... to rid myself of the human condition.

VINEETO: Your intent to ‘jump start’ and to ‘shake myself awake into the present again’ is not what is on offer in actualism. Before you get into a car and start the motor it is useful to know where it is you want to go. Therefore before you ‘dive in’ and apply what you consider to be the method of actualism you need to find out why you are interested in actualism and what you want to achieve. Two possibilities come to mind –

1. Given that you say you ‘do not have a question in this moment’, it would appear that you consider actualism to be a nice addition to, or a slight variation from, all the other ‘spiritual practices’ that you ‘have been involved with’.

In that case, you might as well close this post and save yourself the time and effort of reading any further – because actualism is

new, non-spiritual, non-philosophical, down-to-earth and diametrically opposite to all spiritual pursuits, methodologies, movements, worldviews, practices and belief systems.

The ‘present’ you are planning to ‘shake’ yourself into ‘again’ is clearly something you already know – it is ‘being here’ as a social and instinctual entity. Whereas actualism is offering something you have never ever come across before – an actual freedom from the human condition, being here in the actual world as a flesh-and-blood body sans any identity whatsoever.

2. However, should you be sincerely interested in finding out something entirely new, then the first requirement is to stop in your familiar tracks and apply exclusive attentiveness to the words you are reading right here in order to be able to read with fresh, non-spiritual eyes. That means that you nip in the bud any occurrence of ‘I know this, this is similar to what I have read or heard before’ each time such a thought or feeling creeps in. In order to understand what we are on about, anyone coming from the spiritual world would need to suspend disbelief and prejudice, otherwise it won’t be possible to listen to what is being said, let alone understand what is being said.

Obviously, in order to learn something brand-new to human history you will have to put aside any inkling of insistence that you ‘already know’ and that ‘you are right’ and consider the possibility that you have been on the wrong track all along. This can, of course, be a devastating blow to one’s pride but, then again, the question is ... would you let pride stand in the way of learning something new about the human condition? In order to understand actualism it is vital that you are open to the possibility that all of humanity has got it 180 degrees wrong.

It is vital to understand that the word ‘wrong’ has nothing to do with a moral or ethical judgement as in ‘you have been a bad person’ but that it is a simple statement of fact that none of the traditional real-world methods or spiritual beliefs and teachings has brought peace on earth, i.e. they are wrong in that they don’t work. Despite their perpetual promises, none of the religious and spiritual movements, none of the self-help-therapies and none of the revered philosophies has come up with a practical down-to-earth, workable solution to eliminate malice and sorrow in human existence. Their solutions do not work, basta. So the first requirement is to overcome the hurdle of pride so that you are able to admit that you know nothing about what actualism is on about.

The next requirement of learning something new is to become aware of and reign in one’s initial automatic reaction of ‘self’-defence – an instinctual knee-jerk reaction, which sabotages any intelligent inquiry into facts before one has even started. This almost-instantaneous reaction is always thoughtless, as it is activated prior to the possibility of any thinking happening, be the thinking sensible or otherwise. This ‘quick and dirty processing pathway’ results not only in a direct automatic bodily response, but the Amygdala’s direct connection to the neo-cortex is much slower – causing us to then emotionally experience the instinctually-perceived danger – i.e. we feel the fear a split-second later than the bodily reaction. (more information in the The Actual Freedom Trust Library on Our Instinctual Passions)

This is crucial to understand in order to be able to gather some factual information as opposed to merely having an intuitive-instinctual thoughtless gut-feeling of what feels ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. In order to be able to think clearly – free from the grip of one’s own instinctual passions – one first needs to decide to let one’s initial instinctual thoughtless reactions pass by and then assess carefully the facts of what is being said.

The third requirement of learning something new is to dust off and polish one’s somewhat rusty capacity to think and reflect in a less ‘self’-centred set-in-your-ways manner, to contemplate and question, to inquire and explore, in short, to develop one’s non-affective intelligence. When I first discovered actualism, I had to re-learn how to think, to contemplate and inquire in a way that produced some tangible result from the effort. For instance I learnt that it is useful to always come back to the original question or issue from where I started and not – as our usually untrained brains tend to do – get lost in different alleys and branches of speculation, imagination or irrelevant side issues. Prior to discovering actualism, I was usually very quick in inadvertently changing the subject and steering away from ‘dangerous’ areas, particularly when one of my dearly held beliefs was in question.

When I started investigating the Human Condition in myself, there were lots of ‘dangerous’ areas of contemplation, beliefs to be dismantled and feelings to be unveiled, lots of issues that I felt needed to be avoided at all costs. I remember I was literally stunned by the outcome of applying straightforward thinking and I was also surprised to find out how roundabout my usual way of thinking had been, particularly as I had been so totally influenced by Eastern spiritual teachings of ‘above all, do not think’. Autonomous thinking has such a bad press in the spiritual world where one is taught that the gateway to heaven is to ‘follow your feelings’, ‘trust you intuition’ and ‘leave your mind at the door’, some of Mohan Rajneesh’s favourite admonishments.

When I started on the path to Actual Freedom it was an adventure and a delight to re-instate, lubricate and develop my common sense, autonomous thinking and intelligence in order to understand the actual and factual world, to make sense of all of the beliefs that I had adopted that were the very substance of my social identity, and to study and examine the instinctual passions that are the very substance of my instinctual identity or ‘being’.

It was fascinating to observe and experience my brain clicking into crystal clear functioning – at first only once in a while with what one would call a ‘striking thought’ or realization and then I soon noticed that I could actually make sense of the down-to-earth conversations about Actual Freedom I had with Richard or Peter. Eventually I was able to think straightforward autonomous thoughts, unclouded by fear or imagination and come to startlingly obvious conclusions and realizations. The outcome of such applications of common sense was often very staggering, new, fresh, shockingly different to what I had believed, ‘felt’ or ‘intuitively known’ to be true.

Down-to-earth practical common sense, of course, has nothing to do with theoretical rationalisation, useless philosophizing, cerebral masturbation and conceptual imagination. For me, the crucial test always is – how can I put my sensible understanding into practice, how can I put my realization into practice, how can I act on the ‘striking thought’. I enjoy the astonishing clarity that the human brain is capable of and I have applied it to my behaviour in order to become free from malice and sorrow. The outcome is dazzling, to say the least.

RESPONDENT: For this is my life ... I have the right to wake up. This does appear to help jump start ... to allow more light and fresh air in ...

VINEETO: There is no such thing as ‘the right to wake up’. No fairy godmother or God Father grants the ‘right to wake up’ to any human being. The human brain, however, is capable of becoming aware of what one is thinking and feeling, and as such capable of firstly admitting to, secondly becoming aware of and thirdly questioning all of one’s spiritual beliefs and feelings, all of which are necessary in order to facilitate peace on earth.

21.6.2003

RESPONDENT: Well ... I’ve delved into the material at the actual freedom website, read a great deal, and have begun the process. This material is not what I thought it would be at first glance. I am used to, and comfortable with a certain approach to something new ... understand it ... and apply it if I feel like it. The key word being ‘comfortable’ and ‘feel’. This material makes me very uncomfortable. I am used to being the guy with the wisdom and the insight and the person who has had all of these spiritual experiences ... etc. And I was even comfortable with admitting that I know nothing after all of these years of searching.

VINEETO: I like it that your delving into the Actual Freedom Website has twigged some fresh discoveries about how you tick and why. Isn’t it fascinating to notice how much one’s thoughts and actions are governed by one’s feelings and passions and isn’t it intriguing to find out how much there is to learn about what it is to be a human being? The refusal to settle for second best solutions and time-worn convictions has inspired the great explorers and inventors throughout history, and there is no challenge more pressing than to learn how to live in peace and harmony with one’s fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: My first thought, after reading some of the material, was that I had come to terms with my current spiritual beliefs ... fundamentally that I had none. Was I ever wrong ... first, after reading I think Peter’s journal, and Peter coming to the conclusion that after death there was nothing ... this was a shocker ... and continues to be one (and I thought I had come to terms with death). This one hit me hard ... because in all my ‘spiritual’ wanderings ... I thought I had accepted the finality of death ... finally. But I discovered that even my initial interest in Western and Eastern mysticism was fuelled by my hope ... that something followed ... that I would be able to continue in some way ... some fashion. But I somehow, after reading other more enlightened material, thought I had come to terms with death being a kind of finish ... after all ... in these circles one needs to come to terms with this somehow.

VINEETO: The materialist’s motto is ‘life is a bitch and then you die’ while spiritual and religious people’s motto is ‘life’s a bitch but if you are a good enough person on earth you will be rewarded in heaven after death’. I always felt cheated by the Christian proposition that I should suffer life on earth for seventy-odd years for some spurious afterlife reward solely based on hearsay, make-believe and nonsensical fairy-tales. When I learnt that in Eastern mysticism you could experience paradise on earth by becoming enlightened, I gladly dropped my Christian belief in an after-death-reward in exchange for the promise of a here-on-earth reward.

However, the longer I pursued enlightenment the more unlikely it became that this could ever be the solution to all of my problems, let alone all the ills of humankind. Even the Enlightened Ones admitted that one’s real and true liberation will only be obtained in Parinirvana, i.e. after death. And the inner peace that I was supposed to gain from practicing meditation invariably waned when I opened my eyes and re-joined ‘the world’. None of the results of my persistent spiritual practice was good enough – I wanted a better deal for my efforts.

When I met Richard it soon became clear that he had discovered the unblemished valid-for-all solution to all the problems of humankind and he had a road-tested method whereby I could come to experience peace here-on-earth, in this moment, and 24 hours a day. I was inexorably drawn to investigate further – it was too good to refuse.

And I found that he is right – there is not a single flaw in actuality. There cannot be. This actual universe is perfect, pure and it is already always here – and I can experience it when ‘I’, in my totality, step out of the way.

RESPONDENT: But, after reading Peter, I was shocked that this had the effect that it did. One question that comes up: How does Richard or Vineeto or Peter know that death is the end. How do they actually know for sure?

VINEETO: How do I know for sure? First I acknowledged that a belief in an afterlife is only a belief – and as long as I have to believe in something in order for it to exist, it does not exist in its own right, it cannot be actual. I wanted more than a belief that depended on my passion in order for it to be true – I wanted to be absolutely sure. This intent to be absolutely sure led me to deliberately suspend believing wherever I discovered a belief and take a good long look at the facts of the matter. This intentional practice of questioning and investigating in due course caused sufficient disruption to my belief system and to my identity such that one day my beliefs imploded and my identity temporarily collapsed with the result that I had a pure consciousness experience.

In a PCE, when the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance, it becomes stunningly and undeniably apparent that the whole notion of God, any god, and consequently the existence of an afterlife is ‘self’-created and ‘self’-sustained. It is ‘me’, the instinctual-spiritual parasite-like entity inhabiting this physical body who craves for a body-less immortality. In a PCE when ‘I’ am in abeyance it is blatantly obvious that ‘I’ am nothing more than an impassioned being, a spirit-like phantasma. A PCE is the proof that there is nobody inside this physical body who survives its death for ‘I’ am but an illusion desperately searching for a meaning in ancient fairy tales in order to justify ‘my’ pathetic existence and assuage my instinctually fuelled fear of death.

RESPONDENT: I’ve concluded that I have buried some of my beliefs about death: I still hope that something continues ... and hopefully me ... through ascension or reincarnation or what ever ... that, even if the odds are against it ... that I will be one of the lucky ones ... one of the chosen few. This topic caused me to reflect on what other spiritual beliefs I still have ... (and again ... I thought they were all gone). One that comes to mind is ... that there is some kind of God and that eventually I will be rescued. That maybe with enough application, insight ... that I would somehow be chosen. So to entertain the idea ... that there is no big brother out there or in here to help me ... is somewhat shocking as well ... this is not something that is comfortable to deal with. I thought I had done away with this belief ... but it is still hanging around ... subtle but still present. Anyway ... that’s it for now.

VINEETO: Yes, I remember, questioning my spiritual beliefs was shocking at first, then thrilling and then incredibly liberating. One day I realized that for God to rule over an infinite and eternal universe he would have to be outside of it, which is a physical impossibility, and with this realization my whole supernatural ‘universe’ came crashing down.

When my belief in a controlling, punishing and rewarding God disappeared and the notion of God’s power to grant ‘me’ an my afterlife, also disappeared, all my worries about my bank account in heaven and all my hopes for a better life somewhere-else vanished. With no ‘Scottie’ to ‘beam me up’ out of here I was free to abandon the waiting game for heaven and focus my attention from wanting to be ‘there’ to being interested in being here, from waiting for ‘then’ to being fascinated with what is happening now.

The other thing that happened when I realized that there is neither a God and a Divine Power nor an afterlife, was that the absolute values of right and wrong, good and bad that are part and parcel of all religious and spiritual belief were all questionable and subject to scrutiny. This meant I was then free to make my own choice of what is silly and what is sensible instead of following the supposed rules of some all-powerful supernatural Force.

There is an enormous freedom to be gained by questioning one’s spiritual beliefs.

Good to chat with you.

PS: By the way, have you discovered that you can download a light version of the Actual Freedom Trust website onto your computer for leisurely reading?

Actualism Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

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