See Richard's List B Correspondence No. 37

VINEETO: Hi Gary,

Welcome to the mailing list. I enjoyed your honest introduction and with so much gas in the tank you can surely enjoy a thrilling adventure.

ALAN to No 7: ‘Exploring the basic instinct of fear is not only fascinating, it is probably an essential step on the way to an actual freedom, so I would not wish to discourage your investigation. However, it is not without its dangers. I reached a stage, not long ago, where proceeding further would, I am fairly certain, have resulted in my physical demise.’

GARY to Alan: If you would be willing to share this, I would be interested in knowing more about what happened to you of an adverse nature in your investigation into fear. My interest is also not only regarding the dangers of deeply investigating fear but also, along with it, there is the relation of physical health and virtual or actual freedom.

VINEETO: I like your question. I can tell you a bit about my experiences with my health in the process of the last three years compared to my beliefs about health in my spiritual years.

Although my general health was always good, I had a variety of discomforts mainly arising from stress, tension, anxiety and a poor and unhygienic diet in my years in India. In addition, being a strict vegetarian for ethical and spiritual reasons most likely caused some dietary imbalances that added to minor symptoms such as fatigue, general weakness of the immune system, digestion problems and food cravings.

Due to the overall superstitious atmosphere in the spiritual community and my own gullibility, I believed in and tried out many alternative healing practices such as Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Indian Aryuvedic medicine, pulse diagnosis, iridology, colour healings, kirlian photography, aura cleanings, kinesiology, chakra healing, homeopathy, energy readings, colonics, cranio-sacral massages, Aura Soma’s coloured waters, Bach-flower remedies, etc., etc. ‘Health experts’ were popping up weekly and whoever I booked a session with to check me out found a different thing wrong with me that needed fixing – blocked kidney meridian, feeble liver flow, weakened chi, overworked gall-bladder, food allergies, dirty charkas, subtly locked or twisted spine, weak intestines, black spot in the aura – you name it. As the diagnosed ailments varied with each practitioner, I became quite worried about my alleged health-problems. Most of these alternative practitioners professed to detect the potential for the ‘disease’ before it manifests as obvious physical symptoms and therefore there was no need to have any symptoms other than ‘low energy’ to be a potential patient who needed therapy and (natural!) medicine.

Well, when I came across actualism and decided to investigate my beliefs and emotions, the superstitions about alleged health deficiencies were the first to go, together with my belief in vegetarianism and being a health food freak. It was such a delight to hoe into a good piece of steak, fish, chicken or bacon, to enjoy the superb taste of fresh-brewed coffee without any guilt, to drop all the vitamin supplements that I had taken out of faith and fear, and to simply consider myself healthy unless there were demonstrable symptoms that indicated otherwise.

This story is not to be taken as a general statement against alternative medicine, which may well work for some people, it is merely a personal report about the benefits that I experienced when I replaced my beliefs and superstitions with an assessment based on what is silly and what is sensible.

The other major improvement of my well-being, both physical and emotional, was due to investigating my social identity and all the ensuing emotions, tensions and fears. Sure, sometimes while investigating a particularly fearful topic, I would have a stomach pain, a head ache or tense shoulders, but the more I got rid of ‘who I think and feel I am’, the more I also rid myself of the strain that the beliefs, feelings and emotions had on this flesh-and-blood body. With increased awareness and common sense I can now easily figure out which of the physical symptoms are psychosomatic, due to temporary emotional stress, and which symptoms need (scientifically proved) medical treatment. Further, I have learned that to be sick and then being fearful, upset, resentful or miserable about being sick would only make matters worse. Overall, I can say that the best I could do for my health was to get rid of my beliefs, superstitions, peer-pressure, societal influence, moods and feelings.

GARY: The investigation into the basic instinct of fear, which I have experienced as ‘nerve-wracking’, to say the least, must have inevitable physiological concomitants.

VINEETO: As Peter has laid out in his introduction to Actual Freedom and the actualist’s map, on the path to Actual Freedom it is vital to investigate and eliminate one’s social identity first, in order to be able to tackle the basic instincts of fear, aggressions, nurture and desire. Trying to investigate one’s basic instinct of fear without a thorough exploration and abolition of one’s moral and ethical values, one’s pride, virtue, shame, guilt and social and spiritual restrictions and superstitions is an exercise that can only lead to frustration, failure and more fear.

Further, one only needs to investigate feelings, emotions and deep-seated passions as they occur and arise in the process of running the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ If one tackles the immediate issues that arise, the topics to be investigated and the discoveries to be made naturally occur in perfect order – the outer layers first and then one dives deeper and deeper, as more of ‘me’ is revealed. The next thing to look at always comes by itself, in perfect time, when ‘I’ am ready. This way, fuelled by my sincere intent, the unfolding of the process happens by itself rather than ‘me’ trying to control the process to suit ‘me’. The path to freedom abounds with serendipitous events such that the next issue, the next situation always occurs in time, on time.

GARY: As I am not free from fear, I can only imagine what happens to the body when it is expunged of instinctual fear. If fear is greatly reduced or diminished, through a state of Virtual Freedom, I would think there would be a tremendous benefit that ensues to the physiological organism. Whilst naturally there are diseases that arise of a viral nature or due to unhealthy life-styles, or even cancer, I am wondering what happens to people when the feeling-affective faculty has been expunged. I could further imagine that this might work both ways: both positive and negative. You seem to be pointing to some negative effects and dangers to the process.

VINEETO: In the process of investigating the Human Condition in oneself, one first and above all applies one’s common sense to each and every situation. Common sense will only operate when intelligence is freed of one’s beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad and spiritual virtues and values. In practical terms, common sense meant that I made sure that my physical needs such as food, work, comfortable living circumstances, sufficient money as well as physical safety and health were taken care of. From this solid basis I then could venture into the dark areas of my psyche and rock the boat of beliefs and emotions.

On a few occasions, when encountering intense fear, I have experienced light-headedness, nausea, almost fainting, numbness in the limbs, even heart palpitations – and within a safe range that is all part of the adventure of exploring the deep seated emotions. However, whenever I was pushing too hard for quick results, due to my desire, aggression and impatience, I noticed that it was the ‘I’ producing and increasing those symptoms and I then realized that did not make any sense to endanger my physical well-being. In our correspondence, Alan and I have called these symptoms the ‘drama queen’ in action, and once one has seen through such a scenario it is actually quite hilarious. Becoming aware that ‘I’ am creating, imagining and continuing the drama is bound to spoil the plot. This does not mean that I won’t fall for it when the ‘drama queen’ appears next time, but each time it will be a little bit less convincing. Encountering and exploring one’s psychological and psychic identity can produce weird symptoms, to say the least, and it is vital and sensible to remember that Actual Freedom is about freeing the actual physical flesh-and-blood body from the software program of the psychological and psychic entity inside. Therefore indulging in anything that endangers one’s physical health is certainly to be heading in the wrong direction. Life was meant to be easy.

As a rule of thumb one could say that it is always the ‘self’ that throws up the smokescreen of such physical symptoms in order to divert from the issue of the investigation, which is ‘me’, my beliefs, my identity, my feelings, my emotions and my instinctual passions. As Richard terms it, ‘I’ am lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning, and it is a fascinating ride to uncover all the trick and ploys that ‘I’ am capable of.

GARY: Any further information that you or others could impart would be greatly appreciated. If such information exists already in the archives, I would appreciate you directing me to it.

VINEETO: There is not much information about this subject on the web site yet. You can have a look at the glossary term ‘body’ and the related correspondence to see if you find some useful information.

Once one starts questioning one’s beliefs and emotions and replacing them with facts and an assessment of what is silly and sensible, any health issues will automatically be judged by the same criteria. To be actually here in this moment in time and to remove everything that prevents one from being happy and harmless now is simply the most sensible thing to do. This body and brain is very capable of looking after itself and ‘I’, the identity and ‘me’, the survival instincts can only spoil that healthy sensibility.

It’s good talking to you, Gary.

22.7.2000

VINEETO: When I came across actualism and decided to investigate my beliefs and emotions, the superstitions about alleged health deficiencies were the first to go, together with my belief in vegetarianism and being a health food freak. It was such a delight to hoe into a good piece of steak, fish, chicken or bacon, to enjoy the superb taste of fresh-brewed coffee without any guilt, to drop all the vitamin supplements that I had taken out of faith and fear, and to simply consider myself healthy unless there were demonstrable symptoms that indicated otherwise.

GARY: How refreshing to read this! After a recent somewhat heated exchange with another individual over the supposed benefits and morality of vegetarianism, it is a delight to hear you extol the pleasures of a good steak. It is refreshing to find out that you actualism people are not promulgating dietary and moral codes of behaviour and clobbering those who do not adhere to their way of life. However, at first glimpse it appears a bit hedonistic. I seem to recall in another writing elsewhere a treatment of the differences between a hedonistic life-style and Actual Freedom. I believe this was in Richard’s explication of sensuousness. I shall have to read it again to see if I can find this point, as it is not quite clear in my mind.

VINEETO: Ah, Hedonism. The very term seems to point to immorality and shallowness. Here is what Mr. Oxford and The Actual Freedom Trust Library say:

The doctrine or theory of ethics in which pleasure is regarded as the chief good or the proper aim. Freq. now also, devotion to or pursuit of pleasure. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Malice and sorrow are so endemic and intrinsic to the Human Condition that Hedonism has a very bad press. Anyone seen to be too happy, or indulging in pleasure is quickly bought back into the fold with comments like – ‘It won’t last’, ‘you’re just avoiding’ or ‘you’re just repressing’. Another line used is that ‘you don’t care for others’ as the sacred covenant of human compassion – an agreement to common suffering – is seen to be broken. For an actualist the breaking of this covenant, together with freeing oneself from a blighted Humanity, is an essential step to becoming free of malice and sorrow. To run the gauntlet of scorn is the lot of the pioneer and the scorn heaped on Hedonism is of the ‘sour grapes’ variety. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

Becoming free from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow means to pursue becoming happy and harmless. Whereas traditional Hedonism like the Charvakas have tried to suffocate or at least balance human sorrow by indulging in pleasures and avoiding pain, actualism aims to eliminate the root cause of malice and sorrow, one’s very ‘self’ – the animal instinctual passions with one’s overlaying social identity of beliefs, morals and ethics.

Richard: The Carvakas sought to establish their materialism on an epistemological basis and in their ethics they upheld a hedonistic theory according to which enjoyment of the maximum amount of sensual pleasure here in this life and avoidance of pain that is likely to accompany such enjoyment are the only two goals that humans ought to pursue. There is no evidence that they addressed the issue of consciousness per se ... that is: what to do about the persistence of ‘self’. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 4, 26.1.1999

Incidentally, Richard, being actually free of malice and sorrow, has been certified for the psychiatric disorder of Anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure.

*

VINEETO: As a rule of thumb one could say that it is always the ‘self’ that throws up the smokescreen of such physical symptoms in order to divert from the issue of the investigation, which is ‘me’, my beliefs, my identity, my feelings, my emotions and my instinctual passions. As Richard terms it, ‘I’ am lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning, and it is a fascinating ride to uncover all the trick and ploys that ‘I’ am capable of.

GARY: I too have found physical symptoms to be the smoke-screen behind which other issues lurk, although it is hard sometimes to remember this because such symptoms often dominate the picture. Recently I dealt with an episode of choking in my sleep: waking up with my throat seized, unable to get my breath for a period of what seemed like a minute or so. Something that definitely shook me up. I didn’t see a doctor for it and it only happened once. Come to think of it, it occurred during a period when I was experiencing quite a lot of anger and anxiety, and I wonder if again it was the experience of being physically threatened, something (fear?) actually having me by the throat and choking me. Although I did not think of this at the time, your comments here are making me think of it in this light. In any event, the problem has not returned and I don’t feel the anxiety that I did previously over its recurrence.

So, thank you again for your comments. I look forward to talking to you again.

VINEETO: It is fascinating that as an actualist one gets to be one’s own detective. Behind ‘smoke-screens’ one has to investigate one’s superstitions and so-called truths, one’s blatant denial and cunning diversions, and all the while the detective activity is accompanied by an orchestra of warning bells, anxious feelings, fears, doubts and apprehensions, because you’re programmed not to change Human Nature. Yet, the very fact that I am my own investigator makes the journey the ride of a lifetime, thrilling, alive, fascinating – undertaking it at my own pace and order. Ever since I started the journey into my own psyche I have had no desire for any other form of excitement to disperse boredom.

You said in your letter to No 8 –

GARY: I have, since I was young, been concerned with personal protection. I used to be unable to sleep unless I had a loaded gun nearby. During my ‘nerve wracking’ periods of facing fear, I seem to be very concerned with keeping myself fully armed. When I am really fearful, I stockpile ammunition and it gives me a feeling of safety and protection, albeit a false sense of safety. I realize that in a shooting war there is no place of safety, that bombs and planes can wipe you out in a second.

In any event, the statement ‘You would not be in such a hypothetical situation to begin with unless violent thoughts of your own, faced or unfaced, had attracted it to you.’ This seems particularly true. I wonder if I have really faced the violence that is at the core of such an exaggerated concern with personal safety and protection. I don’t think getting rid of my guns is the solution, for the problem lies with the beliefs, values, and instinctual passions that provide the fuel for such fear and aggression. I have noticed of late that I am not interested in the guns or ammunition stockpiling. I have more of a sense of safety. Your posted material, while extensive, attracted me because this portion of it leapt out at me. Last night I awoke from a nightmare. I was howling in my sleep because something or somebody was killing me, I am sure. It takes a while to realize its’ just a dream...

VINEETO: Unlike Jane Roberts, who imagined herself to be a conduit for an ancient mythical Jewish wise-guy called Seth, I know that mere thoughts do not attract violence, but one’s actions can certainly attract violence or malice. In the course of becoming happy and harmless, my main concern was that I, for my part, do not inflict suffering on other people through my carelessness or malice. In order to become free of malice I had to examine my behaviour as well as my feelings and to find the roots of how and why I think, feel and act maliciously towards others. The first and most important thing for me was to stop acting on any impulse of violence towards others (and myself) and then, in due course, trace the cause of these impulses.

I found anger and fear inextricably interlinked – there is anger resulting out of fear and then there is fear produced by repressing anger. To be able to investigate and eliminate one’s underlying beliefs, morals and ethics it is vital to experience, examine and understand one’s ‘self’ in action as those different emotions.

Facing fear was and still is an ongoing issue, but it has become a breeze compared to the early months. The more I understood the workings of ‘me’, my ‘self’ in action, the more my intent grew to self-immolate in order to be free from fear, the core survival instinct in every human being. Many of our fears are closely related to the social identity of beliefs, morals and ethics and with investigating and removing this layer most of my social fears have disappeared. Tackling fear sometimes meant sitting out the storm of a fear-attack with stubborn determination before I could explore the triggers and causes, and sometimes, after extensive examination, a simple tasty cup of coffee could redirect my attention from a silly repetition of fearful thoughts. In the end it is the altruistic, unselfish willingness to sacrifice what ‘I’ hold most dear, that wins over the fear born out of psychic and psychological self-preservation and keeps one going on the path to a permanent freedom from fear.

I copied a piece of writing from Richard on ending fear –

Respondent No 23: Such conversation – similar to that which is going on in this forum – is engendered by fear. We are that fear. Do you know how to end that fear?

Richard: Yes.

Co-Respondent: How would you do that?

Richard: It is not a question of how would I end that fear ... it is a question of how did I end that fear. Basically, it involves all that I have written about since I came on to this List ... it is the extinction of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety that results in a total and utter dissolution of fear itself. There is no fear here, in this actual world where I live. Not even disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, let alone anxiety, fear, terror, horror, dread or existential angst. There is no fear in a flower, a tree, an ashtray, an armchair, a rock ... only sentient beings experience fear. Fear is affective; it is an emotion, a passion, and as such is not actual. Fear is a feeling, not a fact.

All sentient beings are born pre-primed with certain distinguishing instincts, the main ones being fear and aggression and nurture and desire. They are blind nature’s – rather clumsy – software package designed to give one a start in life. Contrary to popular belief, they are not hardware, but like all software, they can be deleted ... instincts are not set in concrete. These instincts form a rudimentary self – an emotional entity – situated in the reptilian brain at the top of the brain-stem, in all animals. The human animal, with the unique ability to know its impending demise – and the capacity to think and reflect – has taken this rudimentary self and blown it up all out of proportion into an identity ... no animal has an ‘I’ as an ego in the head, or a ‘me’ as a soul in the heart.

All discussion about fear eventually turns around death. This is a fact that needs be faced squarely. To not be is inconceivable; it is impossible to imagine not being because all one has ever known is being. There are no terms of reference to compare against – which is the normal way of thinking – and with no comparison there is no possibility of thought dealing with the fact of death. If pursued diligently, thought gives up the attempt and stops ... it cannot proceed further.

The affective rushes in to fill the gap left by the absence of thought and fear turns to dread ... contemplation of extinction invariably turns fear to dread. The instinct to survive takes over and dread flips to its opposite: awe. As it says in some revered scriptures: ‘Fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. Most religious and spiritual tracts refer to awe and dread when contemplating the majesty and mystery of some transcendental being lying beyond time and space. Temporal transience is replaced by a firm conviction in a timeless and spaceless divinity that antedates birth and postdates death. Driven by the instinct for survival at any cost – blind nature is rather clumsy – one attempts to transcend the duality of Life and Death and achieve immortality.

If successful, ‘I’ disappear and mysteriously reappear as ‘Me’, the eternal soul. One is then apparently without fear because one is ‘Deathless’ ... one is ‘Unborn and Undying’. One disseminates one’s findings to all and sundry, finding a multitude of gullible penitents willing to suspend reason and rationality for a chance at avoiding extinction. Such strange goings-on are the way that the denizens of the real world deal with the existential dilemma of facing the facticity of death’s oblivion. It is called being in a state of denial ... and results in avoidance and escapism. One’s native intelligence is nowhere to be found operating in all this.

What I did was face the fact of my mortality. ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ are not opposites ... there is only birth and death. Life is what happens in between. Before I was born, I was not. Now that I am alive, I am. After death I will not be ... just like before birth. Where is the problem?

The problem was in the brain-stem, of course. It is the instinct to survive at any cost that was the problem ... backed up by the full gamut of the emotions born out of the four basic instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire. The rudimentary self, transformed into an identity, must be extinguished in order for one to be here, in this actual world of the senses, bereft of this pernicious entity.

‘My’ extinction was the ending of not only fear, but of all of the affective faculties. As this flesh and blood body only, I am living in the paradisiacal garden that this planet earth is. We are all simply floating in the infinitude of this perfect and pure universe ... coming from nowhere and having nowhere to go to we find ourselves here at this moment in time and this place in space.

Extinction releases one into actuality ... and this actual world is ambrosial, to say the least. Richard, List B, No 21, 10.3.1998

26.7.2000

VINEETO: I enjoy your posts. Good to talk to you.

*

Hedonism. The very term seems to point to immorality and shallowness. <snip>

Becoming free from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow means to pursue becoming happy and harmless. Whereas traditional Hedonism like the Charvakas have tried to suffocate or at least balance human sorrow by indulging in pleasures and avoiding pain, actualism aims to eliminate the root cause of malice and sorrow, one’s very ‘self’ – the animal instinctual passions with one’s overlaying social identity of beliefs, morals and ethics.

Richard: The Carvakas sought to establish their materialism on an epistemological basis and in their ethics they upheld a hedonistic theory according to which enjoyment of the maximum amount of sensual pleasure here in this life and avoidance of pain that is likely to accompany such enjoyment are the only two goals that humans ought to pursue. There is no evidence that they addressed the issue of consciousness per se ... that is: what to do about the persistence of ‘self’. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 4, 26.1.1999

Curiously enough, Richard, being actually free of malice and sorrow, has been certified for the psychiatric disorder of Anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure.

GARY: Read your reply to my previous post. I am no advocate of hedonism.

In any event, these are some reflections on what you wrote. Thanks.

VINEETO: An excellent term, ‘‘game over’ time’ – once one makes up one’s mind that none of the solutions within the game work, it becomes all very simple, just delete everything. After a year or so of meticulous research and investigation, I found I did not have to even bother to continue investigating the validity of a belief or feeling, for it eventually became clear that believing itself was the problem, the believer, the feeler is the culprit. Peter called it the ‘psychic search and destroy mission’. But one needs to do it whole-heartedly, otherwise one gets nowhere and it spoils the fun of the adventure of a life-time.

So, a thorough investigation into why I was dissatisfied with my life as it was, and why no traditional solution had worked, was necessary in order to take the plunge and turn away from my spiritual peer group, away from familiar ways of relating, away from complaint and resentment, malice and sorrow, away from feeling my way through life, away from the humble holy stupidity of ‘not-knowing’ and believing in the authority and wisdom of people who couldn’t live up to their own teachings.

Taking the plunge was a 180-degree turn, from compassionately accepting the experience of a life of malice and sorrow as part of some perverse spiritual game-plan to actually and irrevocably changing myself such that life can be experienced without malice and sorrow.

Many serendipitous events have lead to the point of making that curious decision of turning around and finding the solution to the Human Condition in the least expected direction – the elimination of ‘who I believe, feel and instinctually know I am’ takes care of every single problem there is. I don’t have to make perfection happen – this is impossible because ‘I’ can never ever be pure and perfect – I simply instigate my extinction and ‘get out of the road’ for already always existing perfection to become apparent. Life without the burden of a social identity is already beyond my wildest dreams and the glimpses that I had of actuality in pure consciousness experiences revealed something far, far bigger and so utterly pure that no ‘self’-possessed brain can ever imagine or concoct such perfect eternal and infinite magnificence.

29.7.2000

GARY: Hi everyone...

I felt quite a bit of doubt this morning, after reading No 8’s posts and Richard’s responses. I wondered where the truth of the matter lay. I know that I have had doubts in the back of my mind about this actualism thing, and some of the things No 8 wrote triggered these things to resurface.

VINEETO: I know this kind of doubt that you describe very well and often had to wade through my own doubts of ‘am I doing the right thing’ when I entered into the totally new adventure of Actual Freedom, thus eventually leaving all of Humanity’s ineffective Wisdom behind. The other challenging factor of Actual Freedom is that, when one talks to others about the palpable success of this enterprise, it always triggers the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ in others and one can’t avoid running the gauntlet of – a usually scornful and revengeful – peer review.

GARY: Am I doing the right thing? Am I getting into some sort of cult, and how would I know if I was? Is there a ‘priesthood’?

VINEETO: Calling someone else being part of a cult or being a priest of a cult is the typical way of proceeding when attacking somebody who doesn’t agree with one’s own fervent religious beliefs. As I know from years of experience, it was Mr. Mohan Rajneesh’s favourite line of attack when attempting to discredit other religions and to ridicule his spiritual opponents. This scheme also served him well to distract his followers from the fact that he himself was busily creating his own religion, complete with the priesthood of an Inner Circle, a strict hierarchical structure, inane religious rules and useless spiritual rituals. Following their master’s example, several Sannyasins who corresponded with Peter and I have called us ‘Christians’ or ‘priests’, as No 12 is now doing – these are obviously the worst swearwords a follower of Rajneesh can throw at a non-believer.

This name-calling is all part of the game of attacking the other in order to distract from the issue so that ‘I’ don’t have to look at ‘my’ own rotten core and change ‘myself’ – a brilliant example of automatic animal survival instincts in action.

GARY: And then the business about Internet aliases and people being on [Mailing List B] and here they are on the Actual Freedom list, but who am I talking to?

VINEETO: Several people on this mailing list have been writing, or are still writing on Mailing List B, as they became interested in Actual Freedom via Richard’s writing on Mailing List B. However, the only person I am aware of who has an Internet alias is No. 8 – she signed a post as No. 40 on the Actual Freedom list (on May 27) and is on records as No. 40 on Mailing List B as saying –

[Respondent No 8 (Richard No 10]: Dear [List B], you only know me as No 40 so I will stick to that to avoid confusion, but Richard knows my family name on his Actual Freedom list. (Archives 00147, 2.7.00)

Everyone else, as far as I know, simply uses one name only. Apart from the apparent confusion such aliases can create – which seems to be the main purpose of having an alias – I noticed that the more I diminished my own social identity, the less I was concerned about, or even interested in, other people’s identities as in who they think and feel they are and who they pretend to be. As everyone can only become free by themselves, how others present themselves has no implications for my process of becoming free – unless it evokes an affective response and then I have something to look at. As such, I have learnt to take people at face value as fellow human beings when writing on this list, who one day may be interested in becoming free of the Human Condition and the next day may be changing their mind, image, name or attitude. It is everybody’s choice as to what they do with their lives – however, despite much experience in writing and talking about the Third Alternative, I am still bewildered by the fact that so many people are choosing to stay trapped in the insidious web of spiritual deceit and the fruitless and torturous task of following unliveable spiritual teachings.

GARY: On the other hand, I have been feeling incredibly good about life lately. I have had a peace of mind that is unlike anything that I have had in a long time. I have had what I think are near-PCEs, but not the main event. But I am optimistic that I will experience the real thing, perhaps sometime soon. So, in contrast to the doubts, I have been feeling that actualism as a method is really paying some handsome dividends to me, in terms of increased feelings of well-being, easier interactions with others, and moments of crystal clear sight of the physical, actual world and the things around me. I have also been reading stuff off the websites, for instance, Peter’s journal and Richard’s writings. What Richard writes has always made a great deal of sense to me, which is why I continue to read him.

So there it is. I thought that putting this confusion into words might help me to make some sense of it. Perhaps others might relate to this. Of course, I would be open to any comments anyone might want to make. Thanks.

VINEETO: The extraordinary uniqueness in Actual Freedom is that one can, and has to, check out the facts for oneself and experience the actual world oneself. Believing another’s experience simple doesn’t deliver the cake. This single fact puts Actual Freedom way above, far beyond and 180 degrees opposite to any and every puny belief system, which all have to rely on some guru’s hearsay, enthusiastic devotion to the master and his/her teachings, and unquestioning belief even in the most nonsensical fantasy stories. In Actual Freedom, the authority is not the guru or the inventor of the particular belief, as is the case with every religion, but one follows one’s own experience of investigated and verified facts, ‘moments of crystal clear sight of the physical, actual world and the things around me’ and the unmistakable authority of one’s own pure consciousness experiences.

Actualism is a great unravelling journey from feelings to facts, from beliefs to clarity, from instinctual passions to letting my guard down in order to experience the utter safety and salubriousness of the actual world.

It’s good talking to you, Gary.

3.8.2000

VINEETO: It is always a pleasure to read your posts. I find it fascinating to follow your adventure in discovering the actual underneath, beyond or behind the various layers of ‘self’ – what an amazing journey, always a surprise around the corner, wouldn’t you say? I remember you writing only two weeks ago that ‘I am being careful not to dive right in trying to take on examination of fear and aggression. I am slowing down somewhat in my approach ...’

I wonder what you call ‘not to dive right in’, or ‘slowing down’ ...to me it looks like you’re already right in the ‘pool’!

*

VINEETO: I know this kind of doubt that you describe very well and often had to wade through my own doubts of ‘am I doing the right thing’ when I entered into the totally new adventure of Actual Freedom, thus eventually leaving all of Humanity’s ineffective Wisdom behind. The other challenging factor of Actual Freedom is that, when one talks to others about the palpable success of this enterprise, it always triggers the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ in others and one can’t avoid runni

GARY: One of the things that has become clear to me recently since going into these doubts that I was having is the extent to which belief has been the problem. Somewhere in Richard’s correspondence (I could not find exactly where this morning) he talks about doubt as indicating the presence of belief, and that hit me hard.

VINEETO: I couldn’t resist looking up ‘doubt’ in Richard’s Selected Correspondence –

Richard: Having the ‘courage of your convictions’ has nothing to do with believing, trusting, hoping or having faith that it be possible. I, for one, never believed, trusted, hoped or had faith that it was possible, for such an action of believing, trusting, hoping and having faith perpetuates the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful. On the contrary, I could no longer believe that it was not possible – which is a different action entirely to believing, trusting, hoping and having faith that it is possible – thus dispensing with the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful. Do you see this?

For example: Doubt is believing it not to be possible ... doubt is actually an action of believing, which supports the believer. Faith is believing that it is possible ... which also supports the believer ... and thus, either way, the believer pushes freedom away into an ever elusive future.

All this stemmed from my peak experience in which I experienced the purity and the perfection of life itself – here and now – and thus saw that what others had perceived as being our reward after physical death already existed ... at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus I ceased believing that life on earth was a grim business with only scant moments of reprieve ... yet I did not start believing in perfection. To repeat: I stopped believing, period. All sorrow and malice stems from the activity of believing ... which arises from the believer. ‘I’, as a psychological and psychic entity , can only believe – or disbelieve – in possibilities and impossibilities. In the peak experience ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘I’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. By believing perfection to be possible ‘I’ perpetuate ‘myself’. ‘I’, by ‘my’ very presence, inhibit that splendid perfection becoming apparent. Richard, Selected Correspondence, Doubt

And this one –

Richard: Trust is but the antidote to doubt ... without doubt, where is the need for trust? And, as doubt arises out of insecurity, then your trust is based on – and fuelled by – uncertainty and lack of confidence in your ability to discern and appraise.

Co-Respondent: No, you have offered a mistaken assumption. Trust can only be based on one’s confidence in one’s ability to discern and appraise. Being doubtful of one’s ability to discern and appraise is already a lack of trust.

Richard: Unlike you, I start from a dictionary definition ... it makes life so much easier. Trust is the ‘faith or conviction in the loyalty, strength, veracity, etc., of a person or thing; reliance on the truth of a statement etc., without examination’ ...and faith is ‘belief, especially without evidence or proof’. Richard, List B, No 14e, 16.7.1999

GARY: You also said in another place in the archive about belief being the problem. It appears that I was trying to replace the old beliefs with some new ones, turning actualism into a belief system, and turning the people on this list into gurus and heroes to replace the old ones. This process is so subtle as to take one quite unawares. One’s need to believe is so seductive. This ‘I’, this lonely, frightened ‘me’ wants to turn others into protective parent figures to be believed and venerated. I think I am seeing this more clearly now.

VINEETO: Your insight into the nature of doubt triggered a process of understanding in me and I was reminded of a recent period of self-doubt where doubting myself seemed to be inexhaustible. I had left behind my doubts about the validity of Actual Freedom because actualism is clearly and undeniably working in my life, but there was always a remnant of this nagging feeling that I was too dumb or cowardly to go all the way, that I was missing some vital clue, that I was doing something wrong or not enough. No discussion about the subject could stop reproducing this doubting, again and again, in regular intervals. The other night, reading your post, something clicked – this kind of doubt is nothing but a by-product of ‘self’-belief, believing in my ‘self’. I then understood that ‘me’ doubting myself is the cover-up and, as such, a furphy, keeping the belief in ‘me’ alive, and along with the belief, ‘me’, the believer. I went to bed, not able to sensibly think about it any further, but my whole system was agitated, processing the consequences of this ‘click’ somewhat in the background while I could do nothing but lie awake and be aware of the ongoing ‘clunks’ and ‘hums’ in my brain.

Isn’t it magical how the domino effect of serendipitous events occur to support our efforts to become free of the Human Condition, once one launches oneself on the road to freedom with sincere intent? As Richard says it –

Richard: Once embarked upon the ‘wide and wondrous path’, you are not on your own: the perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe is with you all the way’ ... Richard, Selected Correspondence, Doubt

Today I had a bit of a think about this phenomenon, which I could not understand for a long time – this expression always seemed to have a mystical or spiritual connotation to it. But now I can see that it is really very simple – as everything I am and everything that surrounds me is the actual world, there is every chance that when I sincerely set myself to the task of removing whatever prevents me from experiencing the actual, the actual will rush in from anywhere, so to speak, wherever a thinning out or a ‘hole’ in the coat of beliefs and emotions is created. With sincere intent, every event will be seen serendipitous opportunity to discover more about ‘me’, the believer, the feeler, the thinker, the passionate being inside this flesh-and-blood-body.

GARY: One of the things that has come out of this is that I have chucked Krishnamurti – I finally unsubscribed from the Mailing List B. Conversations there were going around and around in endless circles, leading nowhere.

It is thrilling to be chucking these spiritual beliefs and values and teachings. I am feeling free of so much that was weighing me down. I am being watchful for what ‘I’ am going to be up to next – realizing that I can get sucked into the trap of belief as easily as the next person. ...

VINEETO: When I discovered how gullible I had been and how much I was sucked into all that Eastern spiritual gobbledygook, it seemed to me that at some time in life I had had a choice and decided to be gullible in life. Eventually I came to understand that everybody is born into this world as a helpless and already instinctually programmed creature. As such, they have to choicelessly believe whatever those who are feeding and clothing them are propagating to be the truth. Our social conditioning is a history of believing what others are telling us. We learn to believe from the very first word spoken to us and beliefs and psittacisms are a big part of our social identity. There is no way to avoid having beliefs but once I tore a hole into the thick layer of beliefs that I considered the Truth, there were no holds barred. What a relief to discover that one is able to get rid of them, isn’t it?

GARY: There is also underlying this a fear, now that I am abandoning ship, casting myself overboard, so to speak. I feel like a ship adrift without a rudder, without the controls of faith, hope, belief. There is also the conditioned fear or dread of some kind of divine punishment, as I am turning away from religion and spiritual teaching.

It’s an interesting trip!

VINEETO: It is indeed an interesting trip! This fear of abandoning ship, which I remember from my own process, is the very proof that something had actually changed and I was not simply replacing one belief with another. I didn’t understand the nature of the fear at the time, yet whenever I stopped to reconsider the sensibility of my choice for Actual Freedom I knew I was better off ‘without the rudder’ of the traditional ‘Tried and Failed’.

The dread of ‘divine punishment’ was very real to me for some time – ‘what if everyone is right after all and I end up in (Eastern) hell?’ Each time one steps away from humanity’s beliefs to stand on one’s own two feet, there is this mad feeling of ‘oh dear, what have I done?’ And yet, when discovering the actual underneath the belief, the actual is so self-evidently obvious that I always thought ‘how come I haven’t seen this before, how come nobody tells you about it, how come nobody else sees this?’

The psychic world of divine and evil, with its atavistic feelings and psychic power structures, is not to be dismissed lightly. It is not a small thing we are doing, stepping out of ancient psychic history and leaving behind at least 3,500 years of recorded superstition and belief, hope for heaven and fear of hell. I encountered fears of being burnt as a witch, expelled from the tribe or starved to death – which in not so recent history were not just psychic imagined fears. These fears all seem to be woven as an ancient memory in our brain cells and are automatically triggered the moment one dares to steps out of the tribal, religious or social group one has belonged to.

Two things always helped me to overcome those fear-attacks – one was the obvious fact that feelings are not actual. Nobody is actually persecuting me or physically threatening me. The other thing is the understanding that I am deliberately and actively dismantling my very ‘self’, all of ‘who I think and feel I am’ and of course that will rock the boat, it wouldn’t be an actual change if it didn’t! Then, the journey becomes really thrilling ...

GARY: However, I am not angry at religion or the God-men, and I am not angry at myself for believing them. I am, rather, incredulous at my own gullibility, my own susceptibility to the influence of others. The goods that they had to offer me – immortality, Truth, Timelessness – no longer tantalize.

VINEETO: I always say, spirituality was the best on offer at the time. The longer these God-men promote their wisdom and lifestyle in the West, the more they are coming under observation and scrutiny, and reports of their deeds are spreading with the help of modern communication. Soon there won’t be much left that is not known about a life of a God-man. The mystery and mystique of enlightenment, so important in maintaining reverence and faith, is more and more being examined in the light of how, or indeed if, the holy men are living their own teachings. The lies and confusion that enlightened people are promoting and acting out, in the name of God’s will, are now public knowledge, and the internet is one of the best tools to make this knowledge known to whoever wants to know.

Ramesh Balesekar’s callous fatalism, Adi Da’s extensive sexual orgies, St. John de Ruiter’s message from God to take two more wives into his existing family, Ma Anmachi’s disciplinarian cruelty, M. Rajneesh’s criminal scandals in Oregon, J. Krishnamurti’s secret love affair with his best friend’s wife, Barry Longs’ philosophy of the golden rod that transmits divine grace, Ishwara Maitreya’s mad utterings of God’s latest wisdom, the Actual Supreme Being who deeply apologizes 13 times on one single page for the mess he created in the world ... once one starts looking with the clear eyes of a non-believer, there is plenty of dirt and insanity to discover, masquerading in the name of Love and Compassion. There are no good gurus and bad gurus, as some people, who only find fault with one and not the other, are trying to point out – the very institution of enlightenment is rotten to the core.

In my process of disentangling myself from being a disciple I discovered two components to religious belief – one, as you said was the lure of ‘immortality, Truth, Timelessness’, aspiring to achieve an imaginary perfection in enlightenment, and the other was love, my affective belief in the master’s ultimate authority and my inferiority.

For me, questioning authority itself and tracing it back to my belief in God, by whatever name, was the first step out of the spiritual world, and questioning the authority of the master was the second step. When my belief in and need for authority disappeared, love and loyalty for the master successively disappeared as well. I was then able to watch video tapes of his discourses without the soothing veil of love and trust, and I squirmed in disbelief at the lies, inanities, half-truths, power games and outright ancient mumble jumble that was suddenly revealed. Before I had used the discourses as hypnotic devices to be lulled into ‘silencing the mind’, feeling good and love for all – however, this time, without the affective cloak the great words of Wisdom looked shockingly bare. Of course, for some time I tried to find excuses for Rajneesh as well as the other god-men, but eventually that turned out to be an impossible task the more I could admit to having been conned through and through by one who was a master of his trade. God-men are nothing but con-men, sucking and luring admiring disciples into their scheme of self-aggrandizement, and most of the time they seem to be convinced of their own delusion. But they are bound to have times of doubt or even clarity, when the delusion is less thick – that’s why Richard says the enlightened ones have ‘feet of clay’. Nobody except Richard, particularly no enlightened master, has dared to ask the obvious question – why, with all that all-encompassing Love and Compassion is there no improvement upon peace on earth after 3,500 years of enlightened history? They claim to have all the knowledge and yet they are leading everyone into the land of fantasy and fervent imagination.

Now that there is a Third Alternative, we can finally dare to acknowledge that there was indeed ‘something rotten in Babylon’ and ever since.

6.8.2000

VINEETO: ...but there was always a remnant of this nagging feeling that I was too dumb or cowardly to go all the way, that I was missing some vital clue, that I was doing something wrong or not enough.

GARY: Yes, I can relate to that. I think I am going through something like that right now. I don’t think of myself as dumb but I see myself as being fearful of letting go. I am also greatly reluctant to talk to anyone of these experiences save you people on this list, lest I encounter what you call the ‘tall poppy syndrome’. I generally keep things to myself. I have talked a little bit with my partner about some of these things but I think she is, for the most part, baffled by what I am telling her, so I don’t go into it too much. Also, in the past, I relate to what Peter talked about in his journal: relating his experiences to you in a forceful manner, expecting to influence you or perhaps proselytizing, and I don’t want to do this to my partner.

VINEETO: Yes, the ‘tall poppy syndrome’ is a stunning feature of the Human Condition. Because of this I wanted to gather enough experience that actualism was working in my life before I jumped on to a mailing list talking about this new non-spiritual third alternative. At first, I naively thought people would be as pleased as I was to hear about an alternative to the tedious and very questionable spiritual path – but no, everyone of my former friends that I talked to was very sceptical, to say the least, and desperately hanging on to their precious feelings, fervent beliefs and myopic loyalty.

So, only after I had several pure consciousness experiences and a stunningly obvious change in my life for the better did I dare to come out into the open on the internet with actualism. Our first playground was the Sannyas mailing list, and boy, I was astounded by the amount of open slather from the ‘oh so loving and nice’ spiritual people when we introduced a non-spiritual alternative. It was a splendid exercise for me not to get caught up in their psychic world of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and so-called non-dualism, but to write from my experience of whittling away my social identity and from my memory of my pure consciousness experiences where the actual world is so evidently apparent as pure and perfect and already always here.

GARY: But to get back to the bit about doubts and fear, I have had some stunningly happy times lately with some experiences that, although they do not probably qualify as PCEs, definitely seem to be of the peak experience variety. This morning, for instance, I was happy and, to use a word, elated, on the way to work. But I noted that this feeling of elation – and I am clearly identifying it as feeling here, and so I am dealing here with an affective experience – quickly turned to one of frustration and anger. So on the basis of what was happening, I must conclude that my feeling of elation, although exhilarating and exciting, is evidence of the incipient ‘I’, the believer, the feeler, who enjoys the adrenaline rush of exhilaration but who boils over into anger when things don’t go his way. This experience set me on my guard to be sure. I also noted tonight a tendency to overeat, over-sex, and a fear of death, a thought of ‘Oh, what if my heart stops...’ So there are fears there.

VINEETO: A common misunderstanding about Actual Freedom, which I fell for myself, is that one attempts to live with a stripped-down ‘self’ of no-feelings. Richard says is so well that I refrain from reformulating it –

Richard: Often people who read about actual freedom gain the impression that I am asking people to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire affective faculty is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software program (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the psyche itself is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings. It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Anyone who attempts this absurdity would wind up being somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly know as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ – and has repressed the others (‘repressed’ not ‘suppressed’). In a PCE the feelings play no part at all – the self is in abeyance – but can come rushing in, if one is not alert, resulting in the PCE devolving into an ASC ... complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first ... not the feelings. What actualism – the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom – is on about is a ‘virtual freedom’ (which is not to be confused with cyber-space’s ‘virtual reality’) wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimized along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to feel good, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. I make this very clear in my writing:

‘By asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the reward is immediate; by finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying this moment of being alive. It is all about being here now at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here now in this actual world. (A grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom-line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond ‘normal’ human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life ... ... It is really important to understand about the soul ... getting into feelings like this – ‘perfect’ feelings – leaves one in imminent danger of the seductive snare of Love and Beauty, and, conveniently ignoring their opposites, becoming enlightened, or at least illuminated. ‘Me’ – that intuition of ‘being’ that I call the soul – sugar coats itself with Love and Compassion and Beauty and Truth and swans along in a state of Blissful Euphoria. Thus one then goes off into some mystical State of ‘Being’ in some metaphysical world and misses out on the clean and clear perfection of this actual world. It is very, very difficult to get out of the enlightened state and go ‘beyond it’ into this actual world of the senses’. (‘Richard’s Journal’ © ‘The Actual Freedom Trust’ 1997; pages 257-258). Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 4

*

VINEETO: This kind of doubt is nothing but a by-product of ‘self’-belief, believing in my ‘self’. I then understood that ‘me’ doubting myself is the cover-up and, as such, a furphy, keeping the belief in ‘me’ alive, and along with the belief, ‘me’, the believer.’

GARY: Yes, again, this is what I am relating to. There is the fear of death, of letting go, of ‘me’ dying, pulling the plug, so to speak. ‘I’ don’t want to die. I also noted, during a period of disturbance a few days ago at work, that I read a portion of Richards’ writing on the subject of what an Actual Freedom is. And I was curiously and powerfully affected when I read a statement of his to the effect that ‘I have no identity whatsoever’. I found myself repeating this sentence over and over to myself. The words had quite a calming effect on me at that point in time. The words, seemingly, blew the wind right out of my sails. And more than just the words, the full implication of what he was saying ... to have no identity whatsoever ... settled into me quite strongly. It must be marvellous not to have an identity, and, I hesitate to say this because I don’t know if this is the correct thing to say, but this is one of the things I desire the most: to be free from any sense of identity whatsoever. But, you see, Gary is scared to death of losing this precious identity and Gary is fighting like hell to stay in the driver seat, white-knuckling the steering wheel, trying to keep the wheels on the road.

VINEETO: It is fascinating when you write about the effect of considering having no identity. Eliminating emotions to become free of the insidious grip of my instinctual passions was number one on my laundry list, and consequently it became glaringly obvious that ‘I’ had willingly agreed to ‘my’ death-warrant – self-immolation. So whenever the fear became almost unbearable, and due to the survival instincts it inevitable does so from time to time, I reminded myself that ‘this is what I want’, ‘this is the price I am willing to pay in order to become free’. It does take ‘the wind out of my sails’ quite effectively. And then you get to discover the thrilling aspect of fear and ‘the boat sails hard on the wind, with the wind’ instead of ‘me’ fighting against the storm of my emotions.

Eventually you become an expert on how to tackle fear this way, and the key is your sincere intent to live without any identity whatsoever – not only free of the ‘sense of identity’, but free from identity itself, actually free.

GARY: So, I think in this brief post, I have conveyed what I wanted to say of the fears and doubts that I am encountering. It is refreshing to hear you talk of your own doubts, and there is no doubt (no pun intended) a similarity to be seen. Having this list and these readings is very important to me right now and is occupying a significant portion of my time.

VINEETO: Oh, there is plenty of correspondence on fear if you are interested. Most of my early correspondence with Alan is about fear, about ways to investigate fear and to recognize the drama queen in action yet again.

GARY: Tonight we went out on top a hillside in the mountains. The sky was the most clear, crystal blue, with brilliant streaks of red spanning the sky as the sun was going down, turning the water of the lake a dazzling gold colour, like molten gold. The sky is these northern latitudes is so striking at this time of year. It is great to be alive, and there is nothing like it!

VINEETO: Appreciating the weather, the blue sky and the grey sky, was a useful exercise for me to start noticing the actual world. Usually, when waking up in the morning, I had automatically started to think about my feelings or duties of the day – now I am beginning my day by looking out the window and appreciating the weather, the sky, the clouds, the sun, the rain, the birds, the trees – whatever I can see and hear when looking out the window. It helped me to break the habitual preoccupation with moods, complaints, feelings and self-centred thoughts. At first it was almost an effort to shift the attention away from my self until the synapse in the brain were set to the new course – now it is a delight to watch the ever-changing sky, listen to the sound of the birds blending in with the street noise. There is so much exquisite perfection that has always been here and I have missed it because of myopic ‘self’-centredness!

Yes, it is great to be alive.

6.8.2000

VINEETO: Hi Gary,

I would like to put a proposition to you, if you are interested.

I would like to publish your posts to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list on the Actual Freedom website under ‘Correspondence ~ Gary’ because I think that what you write will be helpful for those who venture to investigate Actual Freedom for themselves (and because I like to play with the website).

I have formatted your posts to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list and put them on the net (without link) for your inspection. Any alterations or suggestions are welcome, should you agree to be a little bit more public (there are not many hits yet on the site at all).  Also, you can call back your permission any day you like.

How about it?

Editorial note: For reasons of simplicity all correspondence from Gary and other practicing actualists was taken off in February 2005.

7.8.2000

VINEETO: Thank you for your quick reply.

GARY: No, I would not mind at all.  I have nothing to hide as far as these investigations are concerned. I feel I am still quite ‘wet behind the ears’ as far as AF is concerned, and if there is anything in my writing that might be helpful to others who are approaching AF, I would be glad to help.  I was, however, unable to find the page under the URL that you referred me to.  I double-checked the URL, even trying it a couple of times, and could come up with nothing.  I don’t know if there is something you need to do on your end.  I notice that often I have difficulty coming up with the archives index page of the list, although that difficulty may not be related at all to the impossibility of my coming up with the URL you mentioned.  Of course, I would like to check the material before you post it to the Website.  I don’t know what else I can do on my end to make a go of it.  Any suggestions? 

VINEETO: I was actually too quick to send off my letter to you – Richard had not published the update that I gave to him yesterday. I made sure now that the address is on line. 

As far as ‘wet behind the ears’ is concerned – that is exactly the reason why I think your posts will be valuable to people who start to take up actualism. You mentioned that Peter’s writing seems more ‘human’ i.e. accessible to you than Richard’s – it is the process of investigating oneself that will give others hints and encouragement.

Further, I like your writing because it is clear, prolific and you dare to be honest and sincere.

PS:  I am testing myself out again in regards to the ‘tall poppy syndrome’, as I couldn’t resist replying to one of List D, No. 1’s silly comments Richard not being understandable. Several people jumped on me right away and it is all good fun to not get caught up in their confusing mental twists and emotional accusations. Bye.

Editorial note: For reasons of simplicity all correspondence from Gary and other practicing actualists was taken off in February 2005.

13.8.2000

VINEETO: Maybe you did not receive the last question, as I have not heard from you for a few days.  Maybe you have other reasons.  Have you been able to access the address, and if yes, what is your comment?

I am interested in following this issue up because what you presently write to Peter and to others on the list is actualism in process in action, while the process is happening – report from the front, so to speak.  I find it utterly fascinating to read your reports and go, click, click, oh yes, I remember this, and I remember that.  In my opinion it is a valuable information and encouragement for those pioneers who will be interested in applying the method how to become free from malice and sorrow.

Peter and I have only written several months after the we had started our, sometimes quite intense, investigations, and many of the adventures, insights, realisations, and discoveries have been lost in the time lapsed.  Further, I have been very lazy, partly due to being new to the language and to writing as such.  As such, your descriptions of what is happening are a unique contribution to add to the picture of what becoming actually free is all about.

So, if you are still interested...

*

Ahhh, I had a few days at writing on List D and experienced the full impact of being pooh-poohed by most on the playground.  It is quite daunting at times, and I am ‘adjusting’ my pace, but nevertheless it is an utterly fascinating experience compared to those who consider 100% confusion the ultimate aim.  It is a strange world indeed.

Editorial note: For reasons of simplicity all correspondence from Gary and other practicing actualists was taken off in February 2005.

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