Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 61
VINEETO: Hi, Your letter intrigued me such that I decided to disregard your suggestion and write a reply. RESPONDENT: Firstly, may I thank you for an excellent site, which I have found extremely useful, especially the information on PCEs and the method set forth – HAIETMOBA. However, there has been something bothering me about your position which I haven’t been able to put my finger on until now. There seems to be a war going on here between Spiritualists and Actualists. There’s never smoke without fire. VINEETO: Ha, this is quite an astounding picture you are creating here. There are almost 6 billion people who believe in some spiritual being, in some God or Goddess or in a whole range of gods and goddesses, in good and evil spirits, in some Divine Force … and here is the actualism mailing list explicitly stating right-up-front that it is not only non-spiritual but that it is dedicated to discussing matters that are down-to-earth, i.e. non-spiritual. And do you know what happens? Spiritualists come here, sometimes in twos, threes and fours, to challenge and attack, question and complain that how can actualists be so preposterous as to suggest that you can get rid of all your spiritual beliefs and become utterly happy and harmless. For you to propose that a small group of practicing actualists are somehow conducting a war against spiritualists when all that is on offer here is a third alternative to being normal or being spiritual does seem to be somewhat missing the point. RESPONDENT: In this actual Actual world, in its wondrous, and infinite subtlety, there is no need whatsoever to destroy/eradicate anything at all, including, may I add, the Evil Spiritualism. VINEETO: What ‘actual Actual world’ are you talking about? The actual world described on the Actual Freedom Trust website is invisible to anyone harbouring spiritual beliefs because beliefs are feeling-fed thoughts which are a substantive part of ‘my’ identity. ‘I’ can only experience ‘my’ affectively tainted ‘self’-centred world and ‘I’ am forever locked out of the pure and magical actuality. Spiritualism is not ‘Evil’, as you try to make it out – there is no Good and Evil in actuality. But for those interested in becoming unconditionally happy and unconditionally harmless, spiritualism is the first of the blindfolds that needs to be questioned and removed in order to experience the splendour of the paradisiacal actuality that is right here under our very noses. RESPONDENT: Everything, and I do mean everything, is seen to be perfect just as it is, including the Human Condition you so desperately want to be free of. VINEETO: Well, if everything is as ‘perfect just as it is, including the Human Condition’, then why are you subscribed to a mailing list that offers a way of becoming free of the human condition? Why do you even bother to write to this list complaining that there is ‘a war going on here between Spiritualists and Actualists’? For me, the human condition is not perfect at all, for me there is something utterly wrong with the way human beings have been arguing and fighting, killing and torturing, suffering and agonizing for millennia – that’s why I took up the offer to radically (at root) change the only person I can change. And the first thing I had to change was my being a loyal spiritual believer. RESPONDENT: Before you rush to your computer, itchy mouse fingers at the ready to cut and paste me into oblivion, I suggest you take an even closer look at your intentions behind the destruction of Spiritualism from this wonderful, multi-facetted, infinitely subtle world we live in. ‘tis only a suggestion mind. VINEETO: I don’t need to ‘take an even closer look at [my] intentions behind the destruction of Spiritualism’ because I abandoned my spiritual beliefs one by one, never to have them return. Actualism is not about destroying spiritualism, actualism is an alternative to spiritualism, which is quite a different matter. As for ‘this wonderful, multi-facetted, infinitely subtle world we live in’ I can only suggest you sit down and take a clear-eyed look at this ‘multi-facetted’ world by watching some evening news, some real-life stories, some historical contemporary reports of tribes and nations in order to gain a clearer picture of the fact that nowhere do human beings of different gender, family, race, tribe, nation, religion and political conviction live together in peace and harmony. Rather human beings are continually arguing and bickering with each other and many are even killing, maiming, torturing and persecuting other human beings for being a different ‘facet’ than themselves. Take a candid look at how human beings are relentlessly driven to ensure their survival through fearing and attacking, bonding and accumulating. The passionate world of human interaction is quite horrendous and not ‘infinitely subtle’ at all. Human beings are neither happy most of the time nor are they harmless most of the time and most people don’t even like to be here. ‘This wonderful, multi-facetted, infinitely subtle world we live in’ is a world up in the clouds, a dream world to where spiritualists retreat in order not to be confronted with the pain and suffering and misery and mayhem of the dreadful, impassioned world of instinctual ‘self’-survival. I know because I had escaped into this dream world for many, many years – but in the end I had to admit that it didn’t work, that I could never shut out reality completely – it kept creeping in, be it through a fight with the boyfriend, a death in the family, a picture of a starving African tribe or the need to go back into the ‘marketplace’ to earn a living. Now I don’t have to escape, now I can live with a companion in utter peace and harmony, I can be in the world-as-it-is and live in peace with my fellow human beings, I can earn a living and be happy while I am doing it, I can do nothing and be happy doing nothing, now I enjoy being here – and it all started when I began to investigate my spiritual beliefs, all of them. ‘Tis only a suggestion that you can do so yourself … but to many fervent believers it is quite obviously a great threat. RESPONDENT: Firstly, may I thank you for an excellent site, which I have found extremely useful, especially the information on PCEs and the method set forth – HAIETMOBA. However, there has been something bothering me about your position which I haven’t been able to put my finger on until now. There seems to be a war going on here between Spiritualists and Actualists. There’s never smoke without fire. VINEETO: For you to propose that a small group of practicing actualists are somehow conducting a war against spiritualists when all that is on offer here is a third alternative to being normal or being spiritual does seem to be somewhat missing the point. RESPONDENT: This is a time when I wish there was a delete button on the message board. It was a silly post of mine, and I regret it. VINEETO: I appreciate that you can see the silliness of your perception that ‘there seems to be a war going on here between Spiritualists and Actualists’. However, an emotional issue is not resolved by regretting having expressed it. The question I always asked myself in such situations is why am I bothered and upset or what is it that I am bothered and upset about by what others are doing or are not doing? I say this because I know from experience that unless you find the source of your being bothered, which is most probably an affective reaction to something actualists say, the cycle of feeling upset, expressing it and then regretting it is likely to continue. * RESPONDENT: In this actual Actual world, in its wondrous, and infinite subtlety, there is no need whatsoever to destroy/eradicate anything at all, including, may I add, the Evil Spiritualism. Everything, and I do mean everything, is seen to be perfect just as it is, including the Human Condition you so desperately want to be free of. VINEETO: Well, if everything is as ‘perfect just as it is, including the Human Condition’, then why are you subscribed to a mailing list that offers a way of becoming free of the human condition? Why do you even bother to write to this list complaining that there is ‘a war going on here between Spiritualists and Actualists’? For me, the human condition is not perfect at all, for me there is something utterly wrong with the way human beings have been arguing and fighting, killing and torturing, suffering and agonizing for millennia – that’s why I took up the offer to radically (at root) change the only person I can change. And the first thing I had to change was my being a loyal spiritual believer. RESPONDENT: Of course I don’t see things as being perfect as they are or I wouldn’t have subscribed to the list. VINEETO: You were very explicit when you said ‘everything, and I do mean everything, is seen to be perfect just as it is’ – and yet now you say ‘of course’ when you state that you ‘don’t see things as being perfect as they are’. I can relate to both your statements because in my spiritual years I was led to believe that the world is perfect as it is – ‘me’ included – but this belief was hard to sustain in the hurly burly of the market place. I have since come to appreciate that living according to one’s beliefs and being in the grip of one’s feelings is a fickle business – one is happy one day and sad the next, annoyed one minute and dissociated the next. What this see-sawing taught me was that whilst beliefs and feelings rule the roost sensible thoughts and considered actions rarely have a chance to surface. RESPONDENT: I realise the only place to look at is my own reaction/ interpretation of things/events – the world. VINEETO: If when you say ‘the only place to look at is my own reaction/interpretation of things/events’ means that you are examining your affective/ emotional/ instinctive responses then I can agree with you. I found that to effectively explore emotions to the point of (virtually) eliminating them I had to experience them fully. Only by neither repressing, nor expressing, nor in any way rationally twisting the emotional experience could I meticulously observe, become fully aware of and sensibly contemplate on what is happening in my head, heart and guts and thus investigate the root cause of that particular emotion. Knowing that every emotion is part of the Human Condition relieved me from blaming myself or being resentful for having an emotion in the first place. In order to eliminate the particular emotion such that it would not return again and again, it was essential to explore it deeply at its core and to understand experientially how each emotion originated in my social identity and/or in my very sense of ‘being’. Once having seen the emotion in operation and understood its ramifications to their full extent there was no way I could feel the same way about a particular issue or situation – by having understood this specific piece of my identity it had been extinguished. Needless to say, this method has not the slightest thing to do with plain rationalization or spiritual dis-identification – proven by the very fact that it works, that it gets rid of the emotion permanently while increasingly allowing the sensual sensuousness and the pure delight of being alive. I know well the occasional reluctance to explore, yet the frustration of obviously going round in silly circles has always given me courage to stop wasting my time, to face the fear and reluctance and do whatever was necessary to return to being happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: I don’t agree with all that is said on the site, I stand by my right to question things, but I do agree that the only barometer to measure your experience is your own level of happiness/ unhappiness, VINEETO: Whereas my barometer as to whether I am on the right track to becoming actually free is my level of harmlessness, both in external actions and in internal feelings and thoughts – happiness then happens mostly on its own accord. RESPONDENT: [the only barometer to measure your experience is your own level of happiness /unhappiness] and ultimately the PCE experience. VINEETO: To me the memory of PCEs is the touchstone for the work that ‘I’ need to do and the guiding light on the wide and wondrous path. As long as I am an instinctual identity, a PCE happens serendipitously, once in a while and is not, as the word ‘barometer’ seems to suggest, an indicator and a reward for ‘good’ and ‘right’ behaviour. My first major pure consciousness experience (PCE) was the turning point in which I began to understand that all spiritual beliefs are only happening within one’s mind and heart and that therefore all content of all beliefs is non-actual. This PCE was brought about by a naive investigation of something new coupled with increasing doubts about my spiritualist methods as well as my beginning to question my feeling of loyalty to the master and his group of believers. RESPONDENT: That way, the fear that is the reliance on external authorities, becomes redundant. VINEETO: I am curious about your expression ‘the fear that is the reliance on external authorities’. I discovered that it is vital to make a distinction between my adverse and/or loyal feelings towards authorities and a reliance on the expertise of my fellow human beings, be it my computer repair man, software experts, my accountant, the doctors I visit, my optometrist, the car mechanic … or Richard who is an expert in how become free from the human condition. Nowadays I have no fears associated with relying on the expertise of others because I have investigated, understood and dissolved my emotional issues around authority. RESPONDENT: This site has taught me (whether that was the intention or not) that underneath all the confusion and problems, we are essentially safe and that there is really nothing to be scared of apart from our own interpretations. VINEETO: The main thing that makes life on this lush and magical planet unsafe is the genetically encoded instinctual programming that relentlessly drives human beings to feel aggrieved and to feel sad and the resultant ‘confusion and problems’ are certainly not the result of ‘interpretations’ – be they mine or anybody else’s. What was in my own hands, however, was the possibility to become virtually free of my own grievances and my own grieving. For instance when I succeeded in abandoning my spiritual beliefs I subsequently lost most of my fears regarding moral and ethical rewards and punishment, and the more I diminished my social and instinctual identity (not my ‘interpretations’ but the beliefs and feelings that made up my identity), the more I am now able to act and behave sensibly and intelligibly and as such safely. In other words – only ‘I’ feel fear, fear is not an actuality. RESPONDENT: I wish you all the best VINEETO: Thank you. The best that ever happened to me was that I came across Richard and decided to learn how to become free from the human condition. Now life is almost always a breeze and a delight. Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity |