VINEETO: Hi,

RESPONDENT No 18: But such a glance is precisely my salvation, that is, if it is followed by acceptance, if it is followed by love. It is the only thing that can liberate me from my self-built prison walls.

VINEETO: Well, I would say, from my experience and from common sense, that love is not going to liberating. It only makes one more dependant of others and confused as to what you are or want to do.

RESPONDENT: I think maybe the interpretation you are using for ‘love’ is the somewhat limiting and most often attributed meaning of the word. Yet – if you consider that love in its purest sense refers to ‘unconditional love’ – therefore it is really a state of mind and perception which is totally independent of others – then love is really an answer. I am not dependent of others to have an attitude of love – it is irrelevant if it is reciprocated and it does not need an object to be its recipient. It is not applicable to someone or something and not to others – therefore in its purest sense, Love is totally liberating...

VINEETO: I am delighted to receive such a sincere and interested response for my letter to No 18.

Yes, you are right, in this response to her poem I used the word ‘love’ in the usual context of love between two or more people, born out of need and dependency, creating yet more suffering with its inevitable attributes of frustration, resentment, jealousy, possessiveness, disappointment and compromising. For definition’s sake I would like to call it ‘love’ with small ‘l’.

The love you describe, seemingly out of experience, I would call Divine Love or ‘Love’ with capital ‘L’. This Love has been praised since millennia in East and West as the highest and single solution to all human problems but it has one major flaw – it does not work. It has failed to transform humanity into a peaceful society, into harmonious families, into friendly countries. And nobody has ever considered that Love is not the solution, but part of the problem.

When I ask myself, ‘How am I in relation to other people?’, then this problem becomes obvious. In love, there is a recipient. You wrote:

RESPONDENT: ... and it does not need an object to be its recipient.

VINEETO: I don’t agree with you. When there is no recipient, there is no love and there is no lover. To be filled with Divine Love is a great experience and one that sets one apart from, and above, ordinary human beings who experience love as a need. With Divine Love there is no equity possible between two human beings – the Master needs disciples to be a Master, and the one experiencing Love needs people appreciating his Love. It cannot be experienced without the recipient.

When for the first time I broke through the veil of beliefs and emotions and experienced the world in its magical and magnificent actuality, I also saw the man I am living with for the first time as he is – an ordinary, actual, deliciously alive human being. The intimacy of this recognition hit me like a jackhammer. I realised that in ‘normal’ life I was walking around in a cloud of self-perpetuating emotions and imaginations, and within this cloud it is impossible to meet another human being in equity and unrestricted intimacy. After my peak-experience, where I saw the world as perfect as it is and the other without emotional bonds, investments and self-reference, I was intrigued and obsessed – I wanted this kind of relating and perfection 24 hours a day. A delightful free interaction with another human being is so fulfilling, so delicious, so innocent and free that it leaves both love and Love for dead.

RESPONDENT: Also, the word or feeling of fear cannot be used in conjunction with love because fear is actually the antithesis of love ... Therefore if I feel fear, I cannot be in a state of love – One negates the other!

VINEETO: Yes, I agree. Love is used as the antidote to fear. With sufficient love one feels no fear. I experienced fear being transformed from the tension in the stomach into a feeling of relief and warmth and then a heat rising into the heart area until it filled my whole chest, providing me with this new identity – the ‘one who feels love continuously’. Although it was a very seductive experience, I could not forget the intimacy I had during my peak-experiences. Intimacy was impossible in this state of Love. My relating then was tinted by this ‘filled to the top’-being that needed to pour her ‘wisdom’ and love into someone, embracing all of humanity in a mad state of pitying compassion. Fortunately my common sense and my intent for a pure and actual freedom helped me to overcome this delusive calenture.

Richard: Actual intimacy – being here – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is only a poor imitation of this direct experience of the actual. To be actually intimate is to be without separation ... and therefore free from the need for love with its ever un-filled promise of Peace-On-Earth. Richard’s Journal, Introduction

As humans, we are born with the instinct to survive, consisting of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. It takes deep investigation and courage to dismantle fear and its remedy ‘love’ for what it is – the instinct of the ‘self’ to survive. So, you see, out of my peak-experience my approach has been to eliminate this instinctual fear whenever it surfaced, thus digging deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of ‘self’ and ‘being’, eventually eradicating the very reasons for fear. Every time fear is recognized it loses its grip over me, becoming weaker and weaker, dissolving like a fog, leaving me unrestricted and free to experience life again as the crisp, clear, delicious and intimate adventure that it actually is. And with fear gone, who needs the ‘self’-enhancing feeling of love or Divine Love, which is yet another feeling preventing actual intimacy from happening.

Now I can give everyone I meet, and spend time with, my 100% undivided attention, being here with them for as long as the meeting lasts. There is neither an expectation nor an investment, neither a need to ‘give’ nor to ‘receive’, but simply the joy in meeting another human being. No love or Love can offer such freedom and delight.

30.11.1998

VINEETO: Good that you ask about the self. It has always been an elusive issue and everybody has their own particular version of understanding it.

RESPONDENT: It seems to me that most of your ideas were based on your own projections/expectations rather than on the ideas set forth by Osho – My understanding of his words was more along the lines of understanding that the search was for ‘where is this ‘self’?’ And given enough introspection trying to find where this ‘self’ was – one comes to the conclusion that there is no self – (have you been able to localise this self through your indoctrination into Peter/Richard’s way of looking at life? If so, where does it end and the ‘other’ begin?

VINEETO: Yes, I have been able to localize this self many times, both in experiencing times without the ‘self’ in operation and from observing the details of its components operating in me. First I will give you the dictionary definition and then tell you about my discoveries.

self – Any of various conflicting personalities conceived of as coexisting within a single person. A person’s or thing’s individuality or essence at a particular time or in a particular aspect or relation; a person’s nature, character, physical constitution or appearance, considered as different at different times. A person loved as oneself. Personal identity, ego; a person as the object of introspection or reflexive action. Oxford Dictionary

As I see it, human beings have a rudimentary sense of self (as do other primates with larger brains) which is expanded by our ability to think, reflect and communicate with others. The combination of both results in an individual self, our ‘social identity’, underpinned by our instinctually driven animal-self, the innate instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. The self is very real, especially when interacting with other people and it usually becomes apparent through our emotional reactions to people and situations. It consists both of ‘who we think we are’, usually called ‘ego’ and ‘who we feel we are’, usually called ‘soul’. (See The Actual Freedom Trust Library)

Once I understood that the ‘self’ includes beliefs, emotions and instinctual passions, it was much easier to get a handle on it. Still, in the beginning it has been very scary to investigate emotions and beliefs, and the ground under my feet seemed to disappear many times. To explain to you how I came to understand ‘self’ in its complexity I will post you the description of my first peak-experience in our journal, where I left the realm of the ‘self’ for several hours and experienced the world without its distorting layer of emotions, beliefs and instinctual passions.

[Vineeto]: ‘Finally, a minor car-accident shocked my spinning mind to a halt. It was followed by a peak-experience on the same evening that shed some light on my dilemma. Having smoked some marijuana I wandered off into the vast spaces of my imagination, exploring the ‘psychic world’, as I tried to make sense of the diametrically opposed options that had presented themselves in my life. I seemed to perceive my questions in a wider context and had intense sensations about pains and processes in different parts of my body. Watching the people around me I had a deeper understanding of their behaviour and how they related to each other. I could even see the ‘energy-lines’ between the people relating to each other. Each presented a protective shield of a particular personal image, and this ‘image’ would act and operate, relating to the others while the actual, fearful and aggressive person remained hidden.

At the same time that I was watching this I was distinctly aware of my thinking and my journeying in this magical ‘inner’ world. At one stage I even experienced what it is to be mad. I understood the temptation of staying forever in an easy, illusory world of psychedelic wonders, where the mad person is the magician in his own world enjoying the power and safety of his dream. But anybody who dares to question this dream has to be considered a deadly enemy. However, I was always aware that I had the choice to stay in this imaginary world or not.

When I tried to tell Peter about my experiences and insights his simple response gave me quite a shock. ‘But all this is just inside your mind, it is simply your own interpretation, it may appear to be real, but it is not actual.’ Yes, that was true. I could easily see that I was inside the ‘mind’, roaming about in the different chambers of my assembled beliefs-systems, trying to find the one that was ‘right’ and ‘true’ – while in fact, I was just having a little grander and unusually complex perception of this huge labyrinth of thoughts and feelings! I could see more of my ideas or concepts and other people’s ideas, but they were simply ideas. None of them had any relevance to the actuality of the physical world!

In seeing the fact, everything stood still and the whole construct of beliefs suddenly collapsed. Then, for the first time in all my years of the spiritual search, I experienced several hours outside of the ‘psychic world’. Being outside, I could see that this ‘world’ is a huge, all-encompassing construct, created and held in place by the dreams, beliefs, bonds, power-battles, emotions and different spiritual ideas of all of humanity. Everyone is part of it, weaving and reproducing bits of this ‘psychic carpet’.

The more people believe in one particular version the more that version becomes ‘real’ or ‘true’. Intuitive or ‘psychic’ people are simply a little better acquainted with the rules and occurrences of this ‘other-world’. It is never actual though, because it relies on constant re-creation through imagination and belief. The moment people cease to believe in a particular religion, idea or value, that very concept eventually disappears from the earth. Actual, on the contrary, is what is already here without anybody applying a feeling, an interpretation, a belief or any other ‘psychic effort’. It is simply here, visual, tangible, audible and tasteable.

That night I had stuck my head beyond the blanket of beliefs – including good and bad, right and wrong, love and evil. In the first moments, with the ‘psychic world’ disappearing, this new place was stark, black, scary, a big hole and a bottomless abyss. Suddenly the ground under my feet wavered as the very existence of beliefs ceased. For a while I was lost, frightened and bewildered.

After a minute or two that appeared to contain an eternity of complex understanding, Peter said to me, ‘Hello, how are you? Good that you are here!’ ‘Here’ obviously meant that there existed a place outside the belief-systems! I turned round, out of my shock and bewilderment, into the actual world, and saw that I was simply sitting on the couch with Peter. Here was someone sitting next to me, another human being, not particularly a man, lover or boyfriend. Just a human being, smiling and pleased to meet me, eager to explore with me the next event in life. He is interested. And I am interested. Who is this person? What will happen next? What will he say next? What will we do next?

It is exciting, alive, right here and a great pleasure!

The pure and immediate adventure of experiencing this moment of being alive was so utterly superior to everything I had come across in the name of meditation, bliss or ‘satori’ that it spoke for itself.

Being in the actual world, everything is simply obvious, needs no explanation or theory, and contains no emotional memories of any past struggle or fear. There is nothing that blurs or edits the experience of the world around me, which is both wondrous and delightful. Freedom is living each moment as it happens, without any objection. It is not the end-product of years of building up a structured belief-system; it is the opposite – destruction of everything that lies between me and the experience of the actual world. Freedom is simply what is left after I rid myself of every layer of the emotional and instinctual ‘self’, which is the only obstruction to my direct experience of the universe.

The next morning, when the effects of the drug had long faded, the understanding of the night before was still vividly present. I clearly remember walking around a crowded out-door market, looking at all the different stalls with people offering their products together with their particular belief-systems, as they tried to convince the customers of the reality of their particular version of ‘truth’. There were all kinds of proposals to find ‘truth’ or meaning, whether religious, spiritual or secular.

Feral feathers and karmic wheels, goddesses and herbs, ways of natural living and an impressive array of spiritual bookstalls, offering a hundred different solutions to life. Colourful Turks were selling their local hot coffee and delicious cakes; a black boy was playing romantic songs on his guitar, selling them by the hour. He was successful – people bought his dreams, his love songs! A woman in purple dyed feral clothes was selling self-made dream-catchers, talismans and other symbols of her particular conviction.

There were traders of organic vegetables, Indian farmers and food-vans with a wide variety of exotic meals – all served with the conviction of their producer: healthy or hearty, plain or spicy, Italian, Thai or Indian, home-made or magically healing. Hippies from the hills sold their produce along with their dreamy, chaotic life-style; drumming ferals with uncombed tasselled hair presented their life as the most juicy and happy of all. Ecologists proclaimed that only purely native rainforest trees should be planted to save the environment. Everyone was utterly convinced of what they were offering, complete with their corresponding outfit, make-up, special ‘language’ and music. I was quite taken aback by the enormity of what I saw. Being outside of all those beliefs made me see what they consisted of – merely ideas, thoughts, constructs, dreams and hopes; nothing was factual about any of them. A Bit of Vineeto

From then on, naturally I tried to have this pure consciousness experience more often and then I would take information ‘back’ from that realm of clarity. From such a view ‘outside’ of the ‘self’ it was relatively easy to make out what it consists of, an entity of mainly fear-based beliefs, preventing my direct experience of the world-as-it-is. I decided that I wanted to get rid of this ‘self’ in its entirety, so I would take a particular belief that I wanted to examine and view it in its complete structure. It has been a fascinating journey of one discovery after the other! Every single issue that I encountered and thoroughly examined ended up being exposed as yet another product of the ‘self’, this lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity in me that wants to stay alive and kicking, selfish, self-centred and self-related. With every dismantled belief or recognized emotion-related conviction my ‘self’ became weaker and more transparent – allowing me to experience the actual world again and again and again.

Now, stripped of most beliefs and their inherent emotions the ‘self ’is not very powerful anymore. Once in a while fear rears its head, reminding me of the last bits of ‘self’, resisting to give up their control-function. But the changes in my life are already so significantly for the better, and as I am fully in my senses most of the time, my experience of people, things and events is fresh, sparkling, actual, magical and delicious. There is no question as to the inevitable death of this alien entity. It will happen in one of these days...

The film ‘The Truman Show’ depicts the making of and living in a belief-structure blatantly obvious. The hero grows up in his surroundings, designed to film and broadcast his daily life around the clock, and he has work, friends, wife etc. Then somebody comes along and plants the first doubt into his head. He examines his situation at close hand, finds more and more strange inconsistencies, plans to escape and is finally able to leave the whole constructed ‘universe’ – he steps outside his known belief-structure and enters the unknown, a world which is neither protected nor planned nor restricted by ready-made beliefs...

RESPONDENT: Have you been able to localize this self through your indoctrination into Peter/Richard’s way of looking at life? If so, where does it end and the ‘other’ begin?

VINEETO: I don’t know what you mean by ‘the other’. Once I am outside of the self, there is no ‘other’, just this body and brain functioning perfectly well and experiencing the world around me intimately, sensuously, fully alive and in appreciation of my surroundings. While I am writing to you, Peter is clicking away on his keyboard, the computer is humming quietly, the night still and magical with the full-moon high in the sky. My fingers find their way from typing letters to making words, my body still tingling from sex.

Life is wonderfully easy without the burden of the ‘self’. It was never the body or the senses or the brain that were the culprit, it has always been the ‘self’ that corrupts both thoughts and senses. This ‘self ’is responsible for all the misery on the planet, for all the wars, tortures, murders, rapes, poverty, greed, corruption and hypocrisy. By dismantling and extinguishing it bit by bit I am able to live here, now, in this actual physical and sensually experience-able world. I don’t need to escape into a fantasy-place where I imagine that the ‘self’ does not exist. I came to see the fantasy-world of enlightenment as a big, big fairy-land and quite some people have been deluded into it, although rarely anybody succeeds in staying permanently deluded. A Buddhist pundit calculated that 0.0001% of seekers ever reach their ultimate goal. But in the end enlightenment is only an Altered State of Consciousness, a construct of passionate imagination and a delusion of grandeur.

I did experience this enlightened ‘Self’ myself – it is called having a Satori, I guess – and can observe it in detail from an outsider’s standpoint – seeing the grand belief and the overwhelming emotions of ‘wisdom’ and Divine Compassion – and I know the qualitative difference when there is no self at all in operation. All Enlightened Ones still have an identity; it is called ‘I am God’ or ‘I am one with God’. It is nevertheless an identity, very grand and ‘holy’, universal in its feeling but still with one at its core who claims to be ‘one with the Divine’. The Enlightened Ones loose their ego but safely keep their soul, their identity merely shifts from the head to the heart, leaving all the animal-instincts unquestioned.

RESPONDENT: Also, I’d like to comment that having been a Sannyasin for some 18 years – in no way have I ever stopped thinking for myself and blindly accepted ‘all’ just because Osho said it – my understanding has always been to take what’s said and then let my discernment, my inner feeling to guide me – if it resonates within – there is truth – if it doesn’t it is discard-able – and I never heard Osho tell me to do otherwise ... as a matter of fact much of what he said was often contradictory – purposefully – yet that never denied the truth contained in what was said – Could it be that maybe, just maybe ... you missed the point?

VINEETO: According to you I missed the point – I can understand that. You let yourself be guided by inner feelings – and reach to an inner world that is made out of feelings. If you look around, it is feelings and passions that cause religious wars; people kill for their god, for their Master, for their belief. We were ready to do so on the Ranch. I know what you are hinting at, I have believed and experimented with it myself with all the intent and devotion in search for enlightenment. I know now that it failed because it did not make me a better human being. I retreated into meditation, into the ‘inner’ world, but I was still as angry, sad, vindictive, jealous, depressed and fearful as before, maybe more sophisticated, maybe more controlled. Still, anybody could set me off at times, merely driving a car was often enough to be irritated, disturbed, annoyed or pissed off..

When I came across the possibility that there may be another solution I was ready to investigate it thoroughly. Actual Freedom is radical and iconoclastic, I now question everything I have ever thought and felt I was, but it has two advantages – it makes sense and it works. It is based on facts rather than feelings and fantasies, and focuses on ‘silly and sensible’ rather than depending on morals and ethics that have failed to bring peace since millennia.

RESPONDENT: Does that give you the right or the basis for claiming that a ‘way’ that wasn’t for you is not for others – and because you didn’t fit in it the shoe is not a shoe?

VINEETO: I am not claiming anything for others; it is everybody’s choice as to how they live their own lives. I am only proposing another option for anybody who might be similarly discontented with the outcome of their long and intensive search as I had been. You are free to stop investigating any time, no demands or expectations attached on my side. But I am a rather practical woman and I like things that work! I like a car that drives, a computer that functions quickly and smoothly and a job that is fun. And I appreciate immensely a method that cleans me up irrevocably and that makes me happy and harmless.

RESPONDENT: I especially refer to your mincing of words as it refers to Love and your denial of it ... just semantics – you’re obviously hung up on the word ‘love’ yet the feeling it evokes within – in the most inner being – that warmth and relationship and closeness you might feel when say, holding your newborn child for the first time – can you deny there is something there? Or are you saying that under those circumstances you have no feelings evoked? If you do feel something ... guess what ... you’re feeling love ... the fact you don’t want to call it love will not negate it ...

Peter: The three ways a person can experience the world are: 1: cerebral (thoughts); 2: sensate (senses); 3. affective (feelings). The arising of instinctually-sourced feelings within the body automatically produces a hormonal chemical response in the body, which can lead to the false assumption that they are actual. Given that the base feelings are malice and sorrow (resentment, anger, revenge, jealousy, hate, etc. and sadness, depression, melancholy, loneliness, etc.) we desperately seek relief in the ‘good’ feelings (love, trust, compassion, togetherness, friendship, etc.). When the ‘good’ feelings fade or disappear – as they inevitably do after the disappointments of life, some people resort to the imaginary world of Divine Love, Gods and Goddesses to escape from or transcend the bad feelings. To live life as a ‘feeling being’ is to be forever tossed on a raging sea, hoping for an abatement to the storm. Finally, after a particularly fierce storm, one ties up in port to sit life out in safety or putters around in the shallows, so as not to face another storm again. We are but victims of our impassioned feelings – but they can be eliminated. Feelings are most commonly expressed as emotion-backed thoughts and as such we can free ourselves of their grip upon us. Actual Freedom Trust Library

RESPONDENT: The same applies to your use of the word enlightenment (as opposed to your use of ‘beyond-enlightenment’... give me a break ... gonna tell me you’re not just getting caught up in semantical differences and your interpretation of words?)

VINEETO: It may look to you that way, as just semantical differences. I have experienced the difference between enlightenment and a pure consciousness experience and have, maybe insufficiently, tried to convey it. If it is not an offensive subject for you and you want to investigate further, you can read Richard’s introduction to his journal.

RESPONDENT: To end, my advice to you (if you are open to it) is ... don’t get so hung up on words, theories ... relax a little and take things a little more lightly and ... oh yes ... it might not hurt to be just a little less judgmental.

VINEETO: If it was only words – but, you know, Actual Freedom works. I would not bother wasting my time writing about something that does not work. But eliminating beliefs and emotions and living here in the actual world makes my life happy, peaceful, lively, fun, satisfactory and terminates the eternal search for the elusive meaning of life. I just don’t want to be miserly about this discovery, that’s all.

As for ‘judgemental’ – I am definitely making judgments about what is sensible and what is silly for me. Also I don’t subscribe to the New-Dark-Age moral of ‘not being judgmental’ – there are too many people killed for instinctual passions and beliefs. I am simply stating my point; I am not condemning you or anybody, that’s none of my business, thank you. In spiritual jargon, however, there is rarely a distinction made between the two, thinking and judging are in general considered something ‘bad’ and therefore condemned.

6.12.1998

RESPONDENT: The following words you wrote are the base assumption underlying all that you (Peter, Vineeto, Richard) are spewing – take that one basic premise away and what have you got?... NOTHING!

Peter: ‘Given that the base feelings are malice and sorrow (sadness, resentment, hate, depression, melancholy, loneliness, etc.’ The Actual Freedom Trust Library

Obviously your temperament and world view fit in quite well with the idea of ‘original sin’. THAT is your biggest error.

VINEETO: Good that we are starting to discuss malice and sorrow, because understanding this point is essential for understanding what it is to be a human being. Isn’t it great that we have the opportunity to discuss these matters with someone on the other side of the planet!

I don’t know how you regard human beings as to their primary equipment at birth. I know from myself and from watching others – TV reports are a very good source of information – that every human being comes with a software package called the Human Condition. This software is made up of nature’s survival instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. It is a fact that we are born with 2 legs and 2 arms and also, that we are born with the basic animal instincts. Early humans would not have survived without those primary instincts. Only now, with such giants development in technology and economy, there is no need to hunt and kill one another for food and survival, but human are still, like in ancient times, operating according to this instinctual software. Now the time has come that we can consider those survival-mechanism as not only redundant but understand and eliminate the very cause of malice and sorrow in each of us.

When you watch small kids you will notice their behaviour sometimes being quite angry, without a particular reason. One kid takes another’s toy, and there is screaming and hitting until an adult sorts out the situation. I have observed these primary emotions within myself, being possessed by rage, jealousy, greed, desperation or paralysed with fear. You are right, Christians call it ‘original sin’, Eastern religions call it ‘Karma’. But scientist have found and have experienced it in myself that everyone equally has this software-package and as software it is also delete-able.

In the beginning it was hard to admit all my ‘bad’ emotions, but, being honest, there was no chance to deny them, and after years of meditation and therapy I knew myself too well. I had dealt with it by blaming my ‘bad’ emotions as ‘somebody else’s fault’ who had supposedly triggered them or ‘some bad incident’ that had annoyed me.

Admitting that the problem was within me was already part of the solution. There is actually a way to investigate and eliminate beliefs, emotions and instincts, one by one. I find this method instantaneously rewarding and much more reliable than hoping for a mysterious redemption by something like ‘divine grace’.

What a freedom to be able to be un-insult-able, un-offend-able, without resentment and completely harmless. What a joy to know that I can rely upon myself 100%, that I won’t harm anybody, that I won’t kill anybody for whatever emotions or beliefs, whatever the situation may be. On the way, one loses one’s ‘self’, but then it is only going one step further than I had set out anyway when I ventured to lose my ego.

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