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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Jonathan
VINEETO: I would like to check with you, if you still want your name on the
website instead of (Richard, List D) Respondent No. 39 JONATHAN: That’s fine. I’d prefer if [you] use my full first name which is Jonathan. Jonathan to Vineeto 13.8.2013 VINEETO: When you practice the actualism method, it’s important to remember to examine the feeling in question only *after* you managed to get back to feeling good which includes, of course, to stop beating yourself up for feeling the particular feeling in the first place else you will deny yourself the opportunity and the right circumstances to discover whatever is lurking underneath the feeling in question, in this case feeling contempt for other people.
JONATHAN: Vineeto could you explain what seems to me to be a contradiction in the above? Is it that getting back to feeling good and getting back to being happy and harmless are different things? How would you get back to feeling good? I have been investigating my feelings and in becoming aware of an emotion, its trigger and finally the underlying instinctual passion I am then able to get back to being happy and harmless. Set me straight here. VINEETO: When I notice that I lost the feeling of delight I also take notice what particular feeling it is that prevents me from feeling good – fear, indignance, anger, vengefulness, envy, pride, boredom, resentment, etc. Having identified and labelled the feeling I am having it is most often easy to also notice exactly what it is that I am upset, resentful, envious or fearful about. After that, and this took me a while to get used to, I abandon this feeling as quickly as possible in order to get back to feeling good. Only when I am no longer struggling with the feeling itself or being swamped by the feeling can I successfully inquire into the underlying belief/ attitude/ pattern that caused the upset in the first place. Having said that, sometimes an attitude, a belief, a passionate conviction is so persistent and permeating that it takes a few days, sometimes weeks, to uncover the root of it and thus render it impotent and although I might be feeling reasonably good, I cannot be entirely carefree until this particular topic is sorted out completely. As for the quote from Peter you queried, maybe this excerpt throws some more light on what Peter means by ‘having completed the investigation’ –
JONATHAN: [quote] Peter (I think): When I feel happy – that’s good, when I am excellent – that’s excellent, I enjoy it a much as possible. When an issue, a feeling or an emotion surfaces, then I investigate them in order to get back to being happy as quickly as possible. [endquote] VS. [quote] Vineeto: As you begin to get your attentiveness up and running you soon become aware of feelings or emotions such as worry, boredom, frustration or anger that are causing you to be unhappy and /or antagonistic towards others. When you become aware of any such feelings or emotions it is important to get back to feeling good again as soon as possible and then trace back to what caused you to stop feeling good in the first place whether it be an incident, a thought, an expectation, a memory, something someone said or didn’t say and so on. By making such an investigation you soon discover that you are in fact gaining an experiential understanding of how and why ‘I’ tick, both as a social identity and as an instinctual being. [endquote]. Editor’s note: this quote is not found in Vineeto’s writings but in the Actual Freedom Introduction written by Peter So which is it. Do I investigate in order to get back to being happy and harmless or do I get back to being happy and harmless and then investigate???? Are there two types of investigations going on here?? Vineeto, your response only seemed to confirm a contradiction. One of you seems to be saying that the investigation itself is what gets one back to feeling happy and harmless, where as you say you cannot investigate until one is feeling happy and harmless. VINEETO: I sent the quote you attributed to Peter through everything Peter has written and could not find it anywhere. If you could produce the above quote with reference of when and where then we can talk about what Peter actually wrote rather than what you think he wrote.
VINEETO to No 98: Getting back to feeling good is not ‘a result of the investigation’ but is a result of one’s intent to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – ‘happiness has to be chosen by focussing on felicity’, as No 37 wrote. The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness for the simple reason that less and less events will trigger any non-felicitous feelings. JONATHAN: Vineeto: Getting back to feeling good is not ‘a result of the investigation’ but is a result of one’s intent to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – VS Vineeto: The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness... Ok, lets break this down. The above comes from the same paragraph amazingly. First you say that getting back to feeling good is not a result of the investigation, then a couple of lines later you tell us that ‘The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness...’ VINEETO: Let me describe what I do in a different way so as to possibly ease your understanding – Merely becoming aware of and investigating how one feels is not going to result in feeling good unless there is intent and determination born out of the decision to make becoming happy and harmless one’s primary goal in life. Then, and only then, will the ongoing attentiveness as to how one experiences this moment of being alive make possible that one comes back to feeling good as soon as possible. Investigating the causes of not feeling good, as in finding the underlying originator, the beliefs, values, conditioning and other aspects of one’s identity, will inevitably result is having less and less triggers that could interrupt feeling good. To give you an example, when I fully comprehended that God by any name was a product of fervent imagination then all of the obligations and promises, worries and desires, fears and hopes arising from my belief in the imagined existence of God/a Divinity disappeared along with it. And not only that,
JONATHAN: Now I almost didn’t catch it because you very cleverly put ten words between investigating and happiness and I admittedly have a short attention span, but lets go on with the sentence there. VINEETO: Not only do you admittedly have a short attention span but you also accuse me of deliberately confusing you when you say I ‘very cleverly put ten words between investigating and happiness’, which is an entirely unfounded invention on your part. Further, your difficulty in understanding what I say is severely hampered by your obsession to find contradictions where there are none, first between Peter’s and Richard’s writings, then within Richard’s writings, then between Peter’s and my writings, then within reports from practicing actualists and now within my writing, all of which turn out to be furphies. With such belligerent/ suspicious attitude I wouldn’t be surprised if not everything written on the Actual Freedom website goes right over your head – after all, those words are all about experiencing peace on earth in this lifetime. JONATHAN: You tell us the reason this is, is ‘for the simple reason that less and less events will trigger any non-felicitous feelings.’ Which is like saying the reason the investigation will make you happy is because the investigation is doing its job, but it is not really the investigation that is making you happy and harmless mind you. VINEETO: No, this is not at all what I am saying. It is really very simple – the more you find the core causes of what prevents you from feeling good, the less those causes will prevent you from feeling good. To give you another example – if I have an attitude of complaining about the weather and my investigation reveals that this constant complaint is triggered by my basic resentment of being here I then change my basic attitude to an appreciation of being here – provided a sincere intent of becoming happy and harmless – and consequently any change in weather will no longer trigger any non-felicitous feelings. It’s really easy once you make up your mind and actually do it.
JONATHAN: [quote] Peter (I think): When I feel happy – that’s good, when I am excellent – that’s excellent, I enjoy it a much as possible. When an issue, a feeling or an emotion surfaces, then I investigate them in order to get back to being happy as quickly as possible. [endquote] VS. [quote] Vineeto: As you begin to get your attentiveness up and running you soon become aware of feelings or emotions such as worry, boredom, frustration or anger that are causing you to be unhappy and /or antagonistic towards others. When you become aware of any such feelings or emotions it is important to get back to feeling good again as soon as possible and then trace back to what caused you to stop feeling good in the first place whether it be an incident, a thought, an expectation, a memory, something someone said or didn’t say and so on. By making such an investigation you soon discover that you are in fact gaining an experiential understanding of how and why ‘I’ tick, both as a social identity and as an instinctual being. [endquote]. Editorial note: this quote is not found in Vineeto’s writings but in the Actual Freedom Introduction written by Peter So which is it. Do I investigate in order to get back to being happy and harmless or do I get back to being happy and harmless and then investigate???? Are there two types of investigations going on here?? Vineeto, your response only seemed to confirm a contradiction. One of you seems to be saying that the investigation itself is what gets one back to feeling happy and harmless, where as you say you cannot investigate until one is feeling happy and harmless. VINEETO: I sent the quote you attributed to Peter through everything Peter has written and could not find it anywhere. If you could produce the above quote with reference of when and where then we can talk about what Peter actually wrote rather than what you think he wrote. JONATHAN: Ok those words come from the Schematic – Affective vs Pure Experience page. It was my understanding that Peter draws those things up so I figured he would be doing the explaining also. VINEETO: Ah, I forgot to check the library. As I already explained in a previous post to you – when Peter says in this instance ‘when
an issue, a feeling or an emotion surfaces, then I investigate them …’ that is equivalent to him describing the process in
more detail – ‘when you have milked the event or incident for what it was worth and discovered a bit about yourself and
what makes ‘you’ tick, then you get back to feeling good’. JONATHAN: Anyhow it comes from one of you right? Why not just clear up the confusion, tell me whether or not that statement matches what you are saying or that it is not relevant. VINEETO: Yet I already explained in a post to No 98 that there is no contradiction between Peter’s and my reports about putting the actualism method into practice –
To which your only comment was –
May I ask, have you read any of Come to think of it, it could be the reason why you are having such difficulty in comprehending the simple process of actualism that I am describing. JONATHAN: Why are you so worried about getting it straight who wrote it. It is on the AF site so I figure it has some authority wouldn’t you say. VINEETO: It is not me who is ‘worried about getting it straight who wrote it’ but it is you who continues to insist that there are contradictions between what I wrote and what Peter wrote. I have no problem with either my own or Peter’s writing, after all they are both experiential reports of successfully putting the actualism into practice. And should you find Peter’s or my writing too confusing you can always fall back to the original instructions which were the basis for Peter’s and my experiential reports of putting the actualism method into practice –
JONATHAN: Exit Vineeto. VINEETO: Whatever you make the puppets in your mind do, it might be useful to remember that those imaginary figures are entirely of your own making and have nothing to do with the actual person.
VINEETO to No. 98: Getting back to feeling good is not ‘a result of the investigation’ but is a result of one’s intent to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – ‘happiness has to be chosen by focussing on felicity’, as No 37 wrote. The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness for the simple reason that less and less events will trigger any non-felicitous feelings. JONATHAN: Vineeto: Getting back to feeling good is not ‘a result of the investigation’ but is a result of one’s intent to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – VS Vineeto: The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness... Ok, lets break this down. The above comes from the same paragraph amazingly. First you say that getting back to feeling good is not a result of the investigation, then a couple of lines later you tell us that ‘The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness...’ VINEETO: Let me describe what I do in a different way so as to possibly ease your understanding – Merely becoming aware of and investigating how one feels is not going to result in feeling good unless there is intent and determination born out of the decision to make becoming happy and harmless one’s primary goal in life. Then, and only then, will the ongoing attentiveness as to how one experiences this moment of being alive make possible that one comes back to feeling good as soon as possible. Investigating the causes of not feeling good, as in finding the underlying originator, the beliefs, values, conditioning and other aspects of one’s identity, will inevitably result is having less and less triggers that could interrupt feeling good. <snipped example> JONATHAN: … … VINEETO: I just want to be clear on this. Is the reason that you did not comment on my answer to your question that you have now understood how to apply the actualism method and get back to feeling good? I ask because there is really no point in jumping to the next topic before this one is sorted out. * JONATHAN: Now I almost didn’t catch it because you very cleverly put ten words between investigating and happiness and I admittedly have a short attention span, but lets go on with the sentence there. VINEETO: Not only do you admittedly have a short attention span but you also accuse me of deliberately confusing you when you say I ‘very cleverly put ten words between investigating and happiness’, which is an entirely unfounded invention on your part. JONATHAN: I was just messing with you, I in no way believe that you intentionally put ten words there to throw me off, I just thought it was funny that I had to read it like three times because I admittedly have a short attention span. VINEETO: Taking your attention span into account, let me ask you what is the most important thing you want to find out in your encounter with Actual Freedom. I am asking because in my experience straightforward questions evince far simpler and far shorter and thus easier comprehensible answers than allegations of contradictions, insinuations and random diversions. The other way for me to get clear on the new paradigm of an actual freedom was to stick with one root question until it was resolved instead of jumping from question to question thereby avoiding clarity on the subject – a clarity that I knew well had life-changing consequences. * VINEETO: Further, your difficulty in understanding what I say is severely hampered by your obsession to find contradictions where there are none, first between Peter’s and Richard’s writings, then within Richard’s writings, then between Peter’s and my writings, then within reports from practicing actualists and now within my writing, all of which turn out to be furphies. With such belligerent/ suspicious attitude I wouldn’t be surprised if not everything written on the Actual Freedom website goes right over your head – after all, those words are all about experiencing peace on earth in this lifetime. JONATHAN: Well don’t say you weren’t warned. VINEETO: My point is that it would save a lot of to and fro and a lot of your time if you applied your (short) attention to becoming more clear on what your intention really is – are you sincerely interested in finding out for yourself about how to achieve peace on earth in this lifetime … or are you merely entertaining yourself with the so oh-so popular ‘let’s-knock-them-down-a-notch-whoever-they-are’ game? Once you become aware of what your intention really is you then have a choice either way … and also an experience that goes towards contributing an answer to your question below. * JONATHAN: You tell us the reason this is, is ‘for the simple reason that less and less events will trigger any non-felicitous feelings.’ Which is like saying the reason the investigation will make you happy is because the investigation is doing its job, but it is not really the investigation that is making you happy and harmless mind you. VINEETO: No, this is not at all what I am saying. It is really very simple – the more you find the core causes of what prevents you from feeling good, the less those causes will prevent you from feeling good. To give you another example – if I have an attitude of complaining about the weather and my investigation reveals that this constant complaint is triggered by my basic resentment of being here I then change my basic attitude to an appreciation of being here – provided a sincere intent of becoming happy and harmless – and consequently any change in weather will no longer trigger any non-felicitous feelings. It’s really easy once you make up your mind and actually do it. JONATHAN: I just want to be clear on this. Pure intent is born out of the memory of a PCE right? So how can one begin to really investigate without that memory? Richard says that you can investigate without the memory of a PCE and that such an investigation could trigger a PCE. How could it trigger a PCE if one does not have a Pure Intent to change their basic attitude to one of appreciation of being here? Your saying that one needs a sincere intent in order to pull this off. Is that the same as a Pure Intent? If so how can one begin an investigation without Pure Intent? VINEETO: I recommend
JONATHAN: [quote] Peter (I think): When I feel happy – that’s good, when I am excellent – that’s excellent, I enjoy it a much as possible. When an issue, a feeling or an emotion surfaces, then I investigate them in order to get back to being happy as quickly as possible. VS. Vineeto: As you begin to get your attentiveness up and running you soon become aware of feelings or emotions such as worry, boredom, frustration or anger that are causing you to be unhappy and /or antagonistic towards others. When you become aware of any such feelings or emotions it is important to get back to feeling good again as soon as possible and then trace back to what caused you to stop feeling good in the first place whether it be an incident, a thought, an expectation, a memory, something someone said or didn’t say and so on. By making such an investigation you soon discover that you are in fact gaining an experiential understanding of how and why ‘I’ tick, both as a social identity and as an instinctual being. [endquote]. Editor’s note: this quote is not found in Vineeto’s writings but in the Actual Freedom Introduction written by Peter So which is it. Do I investigate in order to get back to being happy and harmless or do I get back to being happy and harmless and then investigate???? Are there two types of investigations going on here?? Vineeto, your response only seemed to confirm a contradiction. One of you seems to be saying that the investigation itself is what gets one back to feeling happy and harmless, where as you say you cannot investigate until one is feeling happy and harmless. VINEETO: (...) As I already explained in a previous post to you – when Peter
says in this instance ‘when an issue, a feeling or an emotion surfaces, then I investigate them …’ that is equivalent
to him describing the process in more detail – ‘when you have milked the event or incident for what it was worth and
discovered a bit about yourself and what makes ‘you’ tick, then you get back to feeling good’. JONATHAN: WAAA? So when Peter says the exact opposite of what you are saying it is ‘equivalent to him describing the process in more detail’? Jk. But really that is not an explanation. VINEETO: Here are the two quotes under discussion –
Have you ever watched a murder mystery? If yes, then you should be familiar with the fact that gathering initial information (‘milking the event or incident for what it was worth’) is merely the very beginning of the investigation into ‘who done it and why’ – it only provides the initial clues of how to proceed further. Finding out how ‘I’ tick both as a social identity and as an instinctual being takes an ongoing attentiveness and a stubborn determination to get to the bottom of things – particular feelings will resurface until the specific aspect of the identity responsible for generating them is seen clearly and abandoned. Both Peter and I have provided ample descriptions of this process and Peter’s Journal would be an excellent start for your research into just what is entailed in investigating the human condition in oneself. JONATHAN: I am not just out to poke holes … VINEETO: Ha, don’t be so coy – you have done nothing else since you came onto this list. JONATHAN: [I am not just out to poke holes] in your theory, I mean philosophy, no I mean, er, Ism, I just really run across this stuff and say WTF. VINEETO: The problem with your approach of treating what you read on the Actual Freedom website as a ‘theory, I mean philosophy, no I mean, er, Ism’ is a sure-fire way of missing the point completely and misconstruing, distorting, misunderstanding, ignoring the experiential reports of becoming virtually and actually free from the Human Condition and is also a sure-fire way of preventing yourself from ever finding out that you too can become virtually free from malice and sorrow. * JONATHAN: Anyhow it comes from one of you right? Why not just clear up the confusion, tell me whether or not that statement matches what you are saying or that it is not relevant. VINEETO: Yet I already explained in a post to No. 98 that there is no contradiction between Peter’s and my reports about putting the actualism method into practice –
JONATHAN: So just for the record, someone else did see that as a contradiction so it is hardly fair of you to characterize me as obsessed with finding flaws in your religion, I mean cult, club, yeah club. VINEETO: The problem with your approach of treating what you read on the Actual Freedom website as a ‘religion, I mean cult, club, yeah club’ is a sure-fire way of missing the point completely and misconstruing, distorting, misunderstanding, ignoring the experiential reports of becoming virtually and actually free from the Human Condition and is also a sure-fire way of preventing yourself from ever finding out that you too can become virtually free from malice and sorrow. * VINEETO: Yet I already explained in a post to No 98 that there is no contradiction between Peter’s and my reports about putting the actualism method into practice – To which your only comment was –
May I ask, have you read any of Come to think of it, it could be the reason why you are having such difficulty in comprehending the simple process of actualism that I am describing. JONATHAN: Your method lacks a sense of humor does it not. VINEETO: I take it then that you missed the humour in my last comment on your method to ‘tune women out’ and to ‘mindlessly say stuff like ‘yeah, you are so right’ or ‘I feel the same way’’. Ah well, c’est la vie. JONATHAN: Telling her that you and Peter talk on a regular does not prove that there is no contradiction. VINEETO: Your reply is merely further proof that you haven’t got a clue of the practice of actualism which is not surprising as you keep imagining it to be a ‘theory’, ‘philosophy’, ‘ism’, ‘religion’, ‘cult’, ‘club’. If you want to live with a woman in peace and harmony then merely ‘telling her’ something, anything, won’t do – you will have to change fundamentally and radically from who you are now and that is exactly what Peter did and what he describes in his journal. In your eagerness to find contradiction in what you imagine to be a ‘theory’, ‘philosophy’, ‘ism’, ‘religion’, ‘cult’, ‘club’ you inevitably sail past everything that explains how it is actually done *in practice* while filling in the gaps with your own tried and failed practice – such as to >‘tune women out’ and to ‘mindlessly say stuff like ‘yeah, you are so right’ or ‘I feel the same way’’. * JONATHAN: Why are you so worried about getting it straight who wrote it. It is on the AF site so I figure it has some authority wouldn’t you say. VINEETO: It is not me who is ‘worried about getting it straight who wrote it’ but it is you who continues to insist that there are contradictions between what I wrote and what Peter wrote. I have no problem with either my own or Peter’s writing, after all they are both experiential reports of successfully putting the actualism into practice. And should you find Peter’s or my writing too confusing you can always fall back to the original instructions which were the basis for Peter’s and my experiential reports of putting the actualism method into practice – <snipped links> JONATHAN: … … VINEETO: May I ask, have you read any of the articles and correspondence in the links provided so as to gain at least some understanding before you answered this post? * JONATHAN: Exit Vineeto. VINEETO: After reading your last post to Richard Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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