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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 70
Welcome to the Actual Freedom mailing list. For Richard or other actualists who tend to the website... Although Richard has already responded to your question I thought to reply as well given that I take care of the other half of the Actual Freedom website. I don’t really understand what motivates you to sit at the computer constructing the website and corresponding with people like me. It can’t be out of pride that you broadcast your findings – that would be far too ironic. It can’t be out of boredom, because for the actualist the moment is too rich to allow for boredom. I don’t suppose it’s compassionate proselytizing, for compassion reeks of instinctual impulse. You are right, it’s none of those reasons. If it’s to establish a pure school of thought that won’t be watered down in a thousand directions ... well, what’s the point, really? I mean, you are going to die; that legacy doesn’t have anything to do with ‘now’; human beings will continue to be born as instinctually driven human beings; and the majority of people couldn’t care less if they reorient themselves toward an ‘actual’ experience of the ‘now’ because they’ve got more pressing matters to attend to. After I met Richard and listened and read what he had to report about a totally new non-spiritual and utterly down-to-earth way of experiencing life I was intrigued to learn more about it. It took me a few months to really understand the difference between spirituality and actualism and a few more weeks to have an experiential understanding of what he was reporting via a pure consciousness experience. Since then I have diligently applied the actualism method and was surprised at the instantaneous and lasting results which eventually allowed me to live for several years now in a virtual freedom from malice and sorrow. Peter wrote his journal in order to tell his friends and whoever was interested about
the down-to-earthness of actualism and I wrote To my surprise the response was by and large disinterest, indifference, cynicism, opposition, ostracization or ridicule, not only amongst my former friends but from most correspondents on the net as well. However, this did not deter me from wanting to tell my story and share my experience with the method of actualism because, just as I had been utterly delighted to have found what I sincerely aspired to, I have no doubt that other people will be similarly delighted to find a simple solution to their desire to be actually free of the human condition in toto. As such, playing on the website in my spare time has become a well-enjoyed hobby – I like computers and what they can provide. What better thing to do with my life than becoming happy and harmless and informing my fellow humans of the fact that actualism delivers the goods. [Aside: As a barista at Starbucks, I spend a stretch of 8 hours moving constantly, trying to make drinks as quickly as possible, and attending to customers to provide so-called Legendary Service. If, during that time, I ask myself how I’m experiencing this moment being alive, the answer is going to be something like, ‘Well, I had to wait half a second to put whipped cream on this frappuccino because John needed to reach in front of me to grab a lid for the drink he’s making, which made me impatient for the whole half second, but now I’m pleased to be finishing this drink off to hand to my customer in the drive-thru (is anyone going to be in my way as I walk toward the drive-thru window?) so that I can get started on the next 3 drinks I have to make ... and I really need to get those blenders to the dishwasher because the timer went off and we need to switch those out.’ That sounds really long, but in the blink of an eye I am aware of precisely how I’m experiencing the moment, and it has nothing to do with the human condition; it just has to do with being efficient because if I’m not then I’m not doing a good job, and I need to do a good job in order to remain gainfully employed so that I can pay for rent and bills and groceries. So I can survive. By the way, if you want to send me a fat cheque so that I can quit my shit job and escape from the human condition, then I’m all for it. While I’m waiting for that cheque, however, I’ll be obliged to conform my behavior to the expectations of a profit-seeking corporation.] Don’t get side-tracked by my rant like I did, though. Tell me, what is the point of telling people about actualism? I would think that sitting on the back porch, listening to birds, looking at the wind blow through trees, and sipping on some herbal tea would provide a much better series of moments than the ones spent haggling with so many dolts who have it 180 degrees wrong. In earnest I once worked behind the bar of a busy restaurant for about 2 years making drinks and cappuccinos, restocking the bar as well as preparing plates of salad and cakes and I know the speed needed when everyone comes in for lunch at once or returns hungry for cake and coffee after a Saturday shopping spree. I remember I enjoyed the challenge to work as smoothly as possible, to be as pleasant as I could, to not give in to feeling stressed or to feeling annoyed or wanting to be somewhere else but where I was at the time. Although most of the time I managed pretty well and actually enjoyed mastering the challenge I did not have a perfect time because it took a constant effort for me to ‘be’ a social identity with all that that involved – it was another fifteen years before I ever heard of the possibility of an actual freedom from the human condition. When I began to practice the actualism method, one of the first obstacles to being happy I had to encounter was my sullen undercurrent of objecting to being here in the first place. I could temporarily switch it off, ignore it, dismiss it but it would pop up again and again until I fully and exhaustively examined my acquired spiritual belief that ‘I am not the body’ – the precursor to dissociating from the veneer of reality that ‘I’ always superimpose over the perfection of the actual world. Underlying this currently-fashionable belief which I took on in my twenties I discovered the older Christian belief that life is but a waiting hall and a testing ground for the real life of one’s eternal soul in heaven after the death of one’s body. Now that I have permanently got rid of these alienating and utterly debilitating puerile beliefs it is a sheer pleasure to be here no matter what I do and to sensately enjoy being alive on this wonderful paradisiacal planet. Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer |
