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Vineeto’s Correspondence on Mailing List C Correspondent No. 8
VINEETO: Hi, It is good fun to read your discussions on the list. Great to see one more person writing about his own experiences and investigations. I just want to clarify one point – you wrote: RESPONDENT: As Vineeto and Peter often point out, the mind is also very good at splitting a bit of itself off to become ‘the watcher’. VINEETO: I have said to No 12:
and:
and to No 4:
This is different from mind splitting a bit of itself. The psychological and psychic entity is shifting all of its ‘self’ to the ‘watcher’. RESPONDENT: I am beginning to agree that that is a nasty trick of the mind. I hear Vineeto and Peter saying that this is the last trap. VINEETO: Yes, it is a trap, but if you ask me, I would say – not the last. It is rather one of the first traps one encounters discovering and investigating the Human Condition. And again, it is not the ‘mind’ but the psychological and psychic entity inside of us, which includes emotions and instincts. On the way to an actual freedom, the first thing is to acknowledge that one has, in fact, got a spiritual identity – on the spiritual path one has consciously created the ‘watcher’ who is holier than thou, superior, more loving and far advanced to those who are ‘unaware’. As I said to No 18:
Isn’t it a wonderful thing to discover a nasty trick of this very cunning entity and by discovering it disentangle oneself of its tentacles? You move from not objecting to – to agreeing with – to beginning to investigate – to becoming thrilled and finally obsessed with the journey into your psyche – slowly freeing yourself of the stranglehold the Human Condition has on us! So, it is good to be precise with words. A clear understanding can lead you to a realisation, which can lead to a peak-experience. Then you can experience for yourself the actuality of what we are talking about – the purity, the obviousness, the fairy-tale like magic of the ‘self’ being temporarily absent.
VINEETO: I liked how you said that sometimes you put really time aside to read and to understand. But in this letter to No. 12 I came across another bit where for the life of me I can’t find any relationship with what I said and what you heard (or read). The good thing with writing is that it is very easily being sorted out, everything is still there, in black and white. RESPONDENT to No 12: I came to OSHO pretty well caught up in my mind. I found out slowly that there is a much more enjoyable place to come from. now I can come from that place, through my mind, or through my heart, as I choose. my mind does not create pain and distance for me anymore. my heart neither. I can imagine that some people are still hoping that love or meditation will get them somewhere other than where they are right now. some transcendent place. I hear Peter and Vineeto saying, there is nothing transcending the reality of you, in your body now, experiencing the universe through your senses and your ability to reflect. For anyone still living in hope that there is a way out of that actual reality, their posts are very threatening. VINEETO: Look, I don’t know what you mean by ‘nothing transcending the reality of you’. It does not make sense to me. Would you please explain to me what it is you hear that Peter or I were saying?
RESPONDENT: Now that you have initiated things I would like to go into a few things more deeply with you. We can start with the things you raise here. VINEETO: Yes, great, and I would like to start with your last sentence, to ‘find’ you again: So, it is good to be precise with words. A clear understanding can lead you to a realization, which can lead to a peak-experience. Then you can experience for yourself the actuality of what we are talking about – the purity, the obviousness, the fairy-tale like magic of the ‘self’ being temporarily absent. RESPONDENT: Ahhh, now you lose me. Clearly you are saying that there is more for me to experience. Clearly you believe I do not experience the actuality of what you are talking about. Perhaps this is the case. Truthfully, when you talk about the ‘self’ being temporarily absent, I do not know what you are talking about. Can you explain more how one knows when one’s self is absent??? VINEETO: From my own experience of the first major peak-experience I know that without the comparison of such an experience it is difficult to locate and isolate the ‘self’. Only after I experienced that the ‘self’ consists of my emotions as well as my beliefs could I get a grip on this amorphous psychic entity that is ‘me’. I come here into this moment and leave my ‘self’ behind. When you have a peak-experience and the ‘self’ is absent this fact is very obvious to you. There is no sense of separation to anything and anybody whatsoever. There is no feeling or emotion and you know that this is not your imagination, it is simply so. I have written to No 13 about Pure Consciousness Experiences (PCE) – and you may want to read a few descriptions in Peter’s Journal. It takes a bit of reading to get the gist of it, a PCE is so very different from our everyday experience of life as a ‘self’. These are the links:
If you can’t remember a peak-experience, another way to approach the subject is to determine how the ‘self’ is present – what feeling do ‘I’ have now?, what’s my objection to being here?, what longing to connect with someone?, what slight feeling of numbness or boredom?, what irritation about someone’s words or behaviour? Driving a car was always a good test for me, so many ways to get irritated, and so unnecessarily. The ‘self’, when investigated, can be very cunning in disguising itself as the imagination of having arrived – because then one stops dismantling it. ‘I’ have every investment not to be found out, not to die. And yet, ‘I’ am the only thing in the way of experiencing this blithe and perfect moment of being alive. RESPONDENT: Over the last couple of years I was experiencing great bliss and certitude by perceiving in myself an inviolable, ever present, absolutely still, centre of consciousness. Indeed, there was a longing in me to identify with that, and to somehow perceive Everything Else, as transient and thus illusory. I went with that longing into the watching space. In that way I became protected from the world and from myself. I had learnt to be in the world but not of it. <snip> VINEETO: You have already discovered quite a lot of those various imaginations that the ‘self’ throws up in order to stay in existence. You seem quite familiar with some of the tricks of this cunning entity. In my investigations I found that I was as honest with myself as could be and still find another trick lurking in the corner, another imagination that everything is alright now, that I can stop searching. For that ‘detective work’ into one’s own cunningness, the cunningness of the Human Condition, it is very helpful that you recall and remember a peak-experience. It will fuel your intent not to stop at second best. As you said so aptly: RESPONDENT: All that time there was also an awareness that still, something was missing. <snip> ‘If only people could be more aware; if only people would become conscious ... then my life would be ok.’ Somewhere I was still not completely at ease. VINEETO: Yes, how can one be at ease if it depends on somebody else changing the situation? It was one of the main attractions to Richard’s method that I saw the possibility for complete freedom without removing myself from the world and other people – the option to be independently happy regardless of how other people decide to live their lives. Removing my ‘self’ that feels insulted, that objects, that wants to control, etc made me free of malice and sorrow. For my peace, nobody else needs to change except me. Not even the man I am living with. That’s a good check up to know if your ‘self’ is still present. RESPONDENT: My wife and I were, and are, constantly examining ourselves and each other. But we don’t do it in a dry, serious way, sitting in a chair thinking about things. It is more like we act out our psychodramas with each other and then we ‘pull each other’s tails’. We find what is obvious, what is sticking out clearly to us about the behaviour of the other and we go deeply into that with each other. We agree to be willing to reveal all thoughts and feelings with each other. We actually do that to an extent I have never seen in anyone else. VINEETO: In my initial contract with Peter, which was that we would look at everything in the road between us, it was also implied that each of us had to do it for ourselves. It was one of the first things that I, and Peter as well, had to work out. I had to cut the ties of making my happiness and search for freedom dependant on him. It was also the first dent into the usually unspoken of ‘love-contract’ that causes most relationship troubles. Peter has described it very well in the ‘Living together’-chapter of his journal. It became clear that my issues are my issues, if I wanted to talk about them, fine, if not, that was solely my business. The same with Peter. If I got upset about a particular behaviour of his, then this was my issue, not his. Why should he change to make me happy? It then would not only be interfering with his life but also make myself dependant on him, I would not be free. This way we could keep the interaction between us free of blame, compromise and resentment, and did not mess in each other’s lives. Then every issue we talked about was an issue of the Human Condition and each could investigate as far as he/she wanted to. But we were both determined to not stop at second best. RESPONDENT: In revealing myself to my wife, I am of
course revealing myself to myself. <snip for space> I am involved – and loving it. RESPONDENT: What do you mean by ‘ feelings devour themselves ’? VINEETO: It is a joy, the less feelings – both good and bad feelings – and the less emotions, beliefs and instincts are in the road, the more one can see the world-as-it-is and people-as-they-are, independent of one’s personal ‘self’. And the exploration goes on and on until there is no emotion left, no feeling left, no imagination left – no ‘who’ whatsoever. Until one is only this flesh-and-blood body with senses fully alive and an awareness of what is happening. Neither the ‘little man in the head’ nor ‘the little man in the heart’ are there to give you a sense of identity. Richard describes it wonderfully as apperception takes charge:
RESPONDENT: Certainly you and Peter and Richard have been catalytic in me letting go of my attachment to defining my ‘true’ identity in a spiritual way. It clicked that I had been somehow denying my experience by the tendency to identify with the watcher. I had been splitting myself in two. The experiencer and the watcher. Somehow I was giving the watcher a higher status because it was more ‘spiritual’. Somehow your writings have triggered a fusion of the two parts of me. Letting go of my wanting to be spiritual; letting go of my desire to transcend; letting go of my desire to be safe in the watching space, I find myself in my body, enjoying my senses, the feelings that sometimes come and go, and my reflections on all that. I hope this explains in more precision my experience. I know this may not be exactly yours. I know that when I summarise what I hear you saying, without enough care on my part for precision, then I am putting one leg out of the actual reality I enjoy. what we share with each other is such a pleasing part of that actual reality. Don’t you agree? VINEETO: Richard said he had met many people who would agree that the spiritual path had not worked for them, thank him for pointing it out, go away and give up looking any more. Well, not so for me, thank you! And you too seem to be interested in finding out more about this curious business of dismantling all of the ‘self’ and ridding yourself of the cunning entity inside, made up of ego and soul. I have trouble with your expression of the ‘actual reality that you enjoy’. I don’t really know what it means for you. Does this mean that you are now not the ‘watcher’ but the ‘experiencer’ or the one who enjoys? RESPONDENT: And now something I would like to hear you speak more about: Yes, I hope you see that I agree and acknowledge the necessity of disposing of the constructed spiritual self. You do indeed seem to have recovered your intelligence and I like that in you. With intelligence and senses heightened, you are surely experiencing a state of great awareness. Does not that make you different or more advanced than ‘those who are unaware’? You have dropped the spirituality, but in this actual world do you not get some sense of pleasure – and the distancing that goes with that pleasure – when you see how far you have got? perhaps it is not your ‘watcher’ who is holier or superior or whatever... But is now the whole of you – in its own perception – better than all the people who are still completely stuck in the human condition and as well, those who are beginning to find a way out – albeit a false, spiritual one? Can you be free and aware without identifying with that advanced state? VINEETO: I can only be free without ‘feeling’ that I am in an advanced state, without ‘being’ the One in the advanced state. The moment there is a ‘feeling’ superior, a ‘feeling’ advanced, a ‘feeling’ grand, then the ‘self’ has found yet another identity to thrive on. But living in this magnificent actual world, without a ‘self’ preventing me from experiencing intimacy with every thing, event or person is, in fact, vastly superior to anything else I have ever experienced in my life. It is vastly superior to ‘being the watcher’, ‘being the disciple’, ‘being the seeker’ or ‘being the experiencer’. With ‘my’ disappearance I am able to do what is happening, at ease, every single moment in my life. And I have enjoyed our comparing of notes immensely.
VINEETO: Thank you for your mails. I have enjoyed your detailed descriptions of your life. * VINEETO: Look, I don’t know what you mean by ‘nothing transcending the reality of you’. It does not make sense to me. Would you please explain to me what it is you hear that Peter or I were saying? RESPONDENT: I see that I have left a couple of words out of my expression, and perhaps put a comma in the wrong place. I can see now that my expression could be taken by you to indicate I was saying the exact opposite of what I was intending to. <SNIP> ... and then lets completely reformulate the sentence: ‘If you imagine there is anything of you that is beyond the actuality of you in your body now experiencing the universe through your senses and your ability to reflect, then Peter and Vineeto are challenging that imagining.’ VINEETO: The trouble with quoting others is that the re-quoting needs your imagination unless the experience of the other is your own experience. With imagination it is very hard to hit the exact spot. But when you talk about your own experience it is easy to compare notes, which of our experiences are the same and which differ. Now back to your sentence that you were reformulating: RESPONDENT: I hear you saying that you no longer need to identify yourself with anything ‘transcendent’. You are no longer identifying yourself with all-that-is, or supreme-being, or God, or the universe. You are no longer identifying yourself with something above or independent of the universe. You are no longer identifying yourself with ‘a being beyond matter, and having a continuing existence therefore outside the created world.’ Macquarie, 2nd ed., defn of transcendent VINEETO: It is not that I ‘no longer need to identify myself with anything transcendent’, on the contrary, the ‘I’ that feels, imagines or identifies does no longer exist in my body. I am this body and nothing else. ‘I’ have not gone somewhere else, dis-identifying ‘myself’ from ‘me’ – ‘I’ am disappearing rapidly and therefore there is not much ‘I’ or ‘self’ to identify or dis-identify with anything. That way you get to the root of the problem. No escape. The ‘I’ itself gets diminished to the point of being almost non-existent and only then can self-immolation occur. When the ‘I’ disappears, there is only this body, sensate, reflective, alive, here in this moment in time, fresh each moment. RESPONDENT: You know now that you in your body sensing and reflecting is all of you. You are simply a human being. The rest is the universe. And that is amazing. VINEETO: [When in a pure consciousness experience] there is no ‘I’ in this body, I am this body. Yes, I am simply a human being and as such I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. It is not ‘I’ and the ‘rest’ – there is no separation, because there is no ‘self’ to ‘feel’ or ‘be’ separated (or to need to feel ‘connected’ through love or through ‘sharing’ sorrow). And each moment is thrilling, fascinating, fresh and amazing. RESPONDENT: I hear you saying that you are a human being, and ‘a human being is a flesh and blood body with physical senses and awareness.’ VINEETO: That’s right. RESPONDENT: I just went through your recent posts to see if my understanding of what you were saying is close to what you actually said. well, I found a lot of your words that seem to be saying what I said, above. Perhaps you disagree. If that is the case let me know. Let me know anyway! VINEETO: It does take bit of digging in to understand what Richard, Peter and I are saying, simply because it is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of the Ancient Wisdom that we have been taught throughout our lives. But it is well worth the investigation to understand the words that describe the actual world and that describe the method to get there. Then you get to experience the perfection and purity of the actual world, 24 hours a day, for the rest of your life.
RESPONDENT: I haven’t forgotten that I have two posts of yours to me to respond to (have you forgotten?) VINEETO: No. RESPONDENT: I’ll get to that sometime. Because I want to. You and your partner in Terrible-ness are so welcome here on this list – you know that don’t you! VINEETO: I simply respond to those who write to me. RESPONDENT: Just that some people are shy about showing it! VINEETO: Not so shy. I received some very clear messages, and some oblique ones. RESPONDENT: I am so glad that you are still here. VINEETO: I am looking forward to your considered response. PS: Here is an outcome of logical imagination, called ‘thinking’, for your entertainment:
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