RESPONDENT: It depends ... there’s one thing that I don’t understand: how is it possible that an hommo sapiens, an intelligent yet finite form of matter, be capable of experiencing the infinitude of this universe? This cannot be properly understood by thought as it’s not in the realm of intelligence, my guess. Although it is the combination of intelligence and observation that can comprehend that the Earth is round and not flat or that it orbits the Sun and not vice-versa, it is not intelligence or the bodily senses that can experience infinitude ... So what is?

There are pieces of the actualist puzzle that do not yet fit in my mind. Maybe the direct experience of infinitude is but the absence of finitude: the self-imposed barriers/ limits on consciousness due to self-preoccupation (egoism) and soul-centredness (narcissism) born out of the instinct (drive) to survive and pass on ‘my’ genes. One piece that doesn’t fit is the fact that no one who has had a PCE reported the direct experiencing of infinitude. If anyone disagrees with what I say, reports please.

VINEETO: In my experience, my first few PCEs were filled with the stunning experience that there is indeed life beyond ‘self’ (and ‘Self’) and the dazzling experience of my immediate surroundings in the new perspective of ‘self’-lessness was startling enough to explore. Once I grew more used to the nature of a pure consciousness experience I began to probe further into questions such as the infinite nature of the universe and with no ‘me’ to blinker perception and intelligence, infinitude was always obvious and easily apparent. <snipped samples>

RESPONDENT: Hmm ... I was interested in descriptions of the direct experience of infinitude, what you mentioned in those snippets seem to me like realizations, they are not direct ... maybe ‘insights’ would be a better term.

VINEETO: My response was to your claim, which you called ‘a fact’ that ‘no one who has had a PCE reported the direct experiencing of infinitude’ whereas I have many times experienced infinitude whilst in a PCE. That you now redefine the experiences I posted as ‘realizations’ which are according to your interpretation ‘not direct’ in order to maintain your notion that ‘no one who has had a PCE reported the direct experiencing of infinitude’ is your free choice – it does however not change the experience of infinitude when the ‘self’ is temporarily absent.

To put it in another way – only ‘self’-oriented, ‘self’’-centred and blinkered ‘selves’ could come up with schemes of a finite universe whit a beginning and an end and propose spurious big bang events that not only create time out of no-time but also create space out of no-space and then propose that the universe expands into some indefinable no-space that does not yet exist … until the universe expands into it, that is. It requires a strong faith to take on board all that gooble-di-gook whereas an infinite and eternal material universe that has, is and always will be here requires no faith at all.

RESPONDENT: There’s no point in not aiming for the best, especially if this is the only life we’re living, that’s something that was quite clear to me in a an ‘excellence experience’ ... plus that peace is already existing in others ... it’s not something that I need to generate. I could not generate that calmness anyway.

VINEETO: I am curious as to what precisely you mean by ‘the best’ and secondly what means you propose to us, or are using, in order to achieve your aim.

RESPONDENT: What was not there in those experiences was the experience of infinitude ... so I thought maybe there are others who can remember if this element was present.

VINEETO: An excellence experience is not a ‘self’-less experience which explains why one remains trapped within the confinements of ‘me’ – ‘I’ will always remain separate from my surroundings and cannot possibly experience the boundless expanse of matter in infinity and eternity.

To describe how I am experiencing it now, in a PCE – in infinitude ‘I’ have no existence.

*

VINEETO: To put it in another way – only ‘self’-oriented, ‘self’’-centred and blinkered ‘selves’ could come up with schemes of a finite universe whit a beginning and an end and propose spurious big bang events that not only create time out of no-time but also create space out of no-space and then propose that the universe expands into some indefinable no-space that does not yet exist … until the universe expands into it, that is. It requires a strong faith to take on board all that gooble-di-gook whereas an infinite and eternal material universe that has, is and always will be here requires no faith at all.

RESPONDENT: I agree with that.

VINEETO: Do you equally agree that there is no disembodied mysterious Something, such as capital I-Intelligence, Divinity, Higher Energy or such like permeating the physically infinite universe?

*

RESPONDENT: There’s no point in not aiming for the best, especially if this is the only life we’re living, that’s something that was quite clear to me in a an ‘excellence experience’ ...plus that peace is already existing in others ... it’s not something that I need to generate. I could not generate that calmness anyway.

VINEETO: I am curious as to what precisely you mean by ‘the best’ and secondly what means you propose to us, or are using, in order to achieve your aim.

RESPONDENT: By ‘the best’ I mean living life as it is and not as I make it to be or more to the point being lived.

VINEETO: Does ‘living life as it is’ include living the instinctual passions every human being is endowed with at birth?

RESPONDENT: Discernment.

VINEETO: Discernment to what aim?

*

RESPONDENT: What was not there in those experiences was the experience of infinitude.... so I thought maybe there are others who can remember if this element was present.

VINEETO: An excellence experience is not a ‘self’-less experience which explains why one remains trapped within the confinements of ‘me’ – ‘I’ will always remain separate from my surroundings and cannot possibly experience the boundless expanse of matter in infinity and eternity.

To describe how I am experiencing it now, in a PCE – in infinitude ‘I’ have no existence.

RESPONDENT: Why not?

VINEETO: Because ‘I’ am both the cause of separation and the resulting feeling of confinement – by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am always the centre of ‘my’ universe. As such infinitude becomes apparent *only* when ‘I’ disappear. Where there is no ‘me’ (or ‘Me’) as a centre, there is no perimeter.

For instance, when you say to No 60 – ‘This universe has an in-built property to improve locally, look what Mars has become ... there’s improvement everywhere you look on that planet’ you merely apply ‘your’ standard of improvement to ‘your’ universe.

VINEETO: When, for the first time, I not only contemplated but also really understood that an actual physical infinite universe has no physical place for god who, by definition, resides outside of the universe, it blew my whole belief of a higher force to pieces. It then became all too obvious how many other beliefs were feeding from this one imaginary and passionate assumption that there is something ‘higher’ than human beings that is running the show. Bang, here I was, suddenly realizing that I was all by myself, alone and lonely, frightened and unprotected, but free of that imagined authority that had controlled my life. For an hour I experienced in a pure consciousness experience the delicious perfection of this purely physical, utterly un-spiritual universe. I have written about it a year ago:

[Vineeto]: Finally one evening, when talking and musing about the universe, I fully comprehended that this physical universe is actually infinite. The universe being without boundaries or an edge means that it is impossible, practically, for God to exist. In order to have created the universe or to be in control of it God would have to exist outside of it – and there is no outside! This insight hit me like a thunderbolt. My fear of God and of his representatives collapsed and lost its very substance by this obvious realization. In fact, there can be no one outside of this infinite universe who is pulling the strings of punishment and reward, heaven and hell – or, according to Eastern tradition, granting enlightenment or leaving me with the eternal karma of endless lives in misery.

This insight presupposes, of course, that there is no place other than the physical universe – no celestial, mystical realm where gods and ghosts exist. It also implies that there is no life before or after death and that the body simply dies when it dies. I needed quite some courage to face and accept this simple fact – to give up all beliefs in an after-life or a ‘spirit-life’. But I could easily observe that as soon as I gave up the idea of any imaginary existence other than the tangible, physical universe, everything, which had seemed so complicated and impossible to understand became graspable, evident, obvious and imminently clear.

When the enormous consequence and implication of slipping out of this insidious belief in any God or Higher Being dawned on me, I was at the same time free of anybody’s authority. I was free of the fear that had been spoiling every relationship with every man in my life: father, brothers, male friends and boyfriends, employers, teachers and Master.

Now I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using the common and practical intelligence of the human brain. I am responsible for every action in my life and I can acknowledge that now. However, this means that from now on I cannot blame anybody for making me jealous, miserable, grumpy, afraid, angry or frustrated over any petty issue. Now there is no more excuse, no more hiding place. They are my reactions and my behaviour, which I have to face and change in order to be free. A Bit of Vineeto

RESPONDENT: I should like to add a few words to my prior email. In Greek language we have two words. Symban for universe and cosmos for the planets, earth etc.

VINEETO: The sensate experience of the infinitude of the universe only happens when ‘I’ step out of the way and thus remove the boundaries and limitations of ‘self’-induced narrow-mindedness. When this happens, all ideas, beliefs and theories that propose a creation event, an expansion or contraction and a doomsday ending of the physical universe are seen as what they are – beliefs and theories. Being here now as this flesh and blood body only – without any identity whatsoever – enables the infinitude of the universe to be apparent and this infinitude is wondrous, unparalleled, without an edge, without a centre, having no outside to it, having had no beginning nor will it have an ending.

As long as your contemplations are based on the currently-fashionable scientific theories of an expanding universe – with a Big Bang beginning, replete with all sorts of unseen, unseeable and unmeasurable phenomena and a Diabolical End – then you will remain locked into a ‘self’-centred view and you cut yourself off from experiencing directly and sensately the splendour and magnificence of the peerless and perfect physical universe.

Let me sum up what you have presented as ‘scientific facts’ so far –

[Respondent]:

• ‘if I look at a bird for example, I don’t see the actual bird’ and ‘the tree is not green, the brain is giving the colour’ Respondent, For Richard 1.6.2003

• ‘colours, sounds, smells and tastes are products of our minds … They do not exist, as such, outside our brain’. Respondent, For Richard 4.6.2003

• ‘what I know is that the 95%of the phenomena are invisible’. Respondent, No 52 re: Spiritual Beliefs, 21.6.2003

• ‘The scientific proof of God’. Respondent, The End of Actual Freedom?, 22.6.2003

These ‘scientific facts’ are all examples of spiritual belief, the belief that proposes that the physical world is merely a by-product of ‘my’ consciousness, the belief that ‘I’ am the creator of all that ‘I’ see.

If you aspire to become free from the emotional and instinctual bondage created by the psychological and psychic entity it is necessary to rigorously and sincerely question the way ‘you’ perceive the world. That means questioning your spiritual awareness and your spiritual beliefs and in that process of questioning it is vital to include the spiritual belief that ‘we must always be in the state of not-knowing’, as you said to No 21 the other day.

The way to discover a belief is to check out whether the theory or belief you hold needs you to actively believe in it in order for it to exist. A fact can stand by itself, whereas a belief always needs faith. To quote from The Actual Freedom Trust Library –

Peter: To believe means ‘fervently wish to be true’. The action of believing is to emotionally imagine, or fervently wish, something to be real that is not actual – actual, as in tangible, corporeal, material, definitive, present, obvious, evident, current, substantial, physical and palpable. A belief is an assumption, a notion, a proposition, an idea that requires faith, trust or hope to sustain in the face of doubt, uncertainty and lack of factual evidence. Whereas a fact is a fact, demonstratively evident to all that it is actual and/or that it works. <snip>

If one is to become actually free of the Human Condition, in its entirety, then it is imperative to find out for oneself the facts, rather than merely perpetuate believing, to sort out what is silly and what is sensible rather than merely accept what others say is right or wrong, good or bad. Then, and only then, can one discover and sensately experience the fact of the delight, ease, magic and perfection of the actual world. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

It does take courage to question the view that the universe is solely a product of one’s own consciousness, particularly as so many others hold to the same view that the universe is a product of their own consciousness.

But hey, the actual universe exists even after ‘I’ as the creator cease to create ‘my’ universe. Not having to be the creator of all that you see and feel is an enormous burden to be freed from and it is an exquisite and delicious freedom to be gained.

RESPONDENT: To assume can be to egotistically presume superiority.

VINEETO: The other day I had a pure consciousness experience where I understood once again that the Human Condition of malice and sorrow is indeed the particular flavour of human beings on planet Earth. I experienced a broadened awareness that gave me an overview of planet Earth floating in space, observing all that is going on and seeing its common flavour of humanity, whatever the place, race, gender or age. Human beings, by their very nature are inflicted with the genetically-encoded instincts that produce malice and sorrow. They pervade every thought and action, are the fuel for every emotion and passion and make ‘life a bitch and then you die’. The social identity and the instinctual ‘self’ are intrinsic to and a result of the evolution that took place on this fair planet, the third rock from the Sun, in the Milkyway galaxy, in the infinite universe. Yet now the evolution has reached a point where humans can free themselves from the now unnecessary ‘appendix’ of the social identity and the animal survival instincts. What serendipity!

In this PCE I could also see that even though a staggering six billion people think, believe, feel and act within these parameters of the Human Condition, the actual world is nevertheless infinite, eternal, perfect, silent and magical. The actual world is always and everywhere present underneath the doom and gloom of our ‘self’-centred perception and can be discovered any moment. In such a PCE I can see that it does not matter that right now there is only Richard who lives in the actual world 24 hours a day, every day. This blithesome, magnificent and benevolent actual world exists always and everywhere around us, it is always here, always now and immediately experienced when I leave all of humanity behind.

Out of this and similar experiences, I don’t need ‘to assume’ – I know the Human Condition in its totality, in myself and therefore in everybody, because I can see it from not being afflicted by it for a certain period of time. Such experience is the opposite of ‘egotistical’ because a PCE is only possible when the whole ‘self’ is absent – in spiritual terms, both ego and soul. And yes, such an experience, even for a short period of time is vastly superior to any experience within the Human Condition. That’s why I want to live it every day, 24 hours a day. I don’t need to ‘presume superiority’, I simply write from the memory of the superior state evident in a pure consciousness experience and from the ongoing experience of Virtual Freedom.

VINEETO: In the last week I have been lost in space, so to speak. We discovered a new screen-saver which presents photos of one’s own choice like a perpetual slide show presentation. On their website they also offer heaps of photos for downloading. If anyone wants to try it out, you can find it under http://www.webshots.com/. I took the opportunity of making a private slideshow of the universe and went on the NASA site for space-shots. The amount and quality of what is presented there is amazing and fantastic. Photos of nebulae and galaxies, exploding suns and planets, swirling clouds of gas in all possible colours comes with detailed information about the number or name, area, size and the changing formations of this ‘universal matter’ and all the human presumptions and hypothesis. But to see and learn so much of the magnificent infinitude of the universe leaves me continuously in amazement and wonder.

For instance, there is Betelgeuse, the top left star in the constellation called Orion, recognizable by the three bright stars in his ‘belt’ – the diameter of this single star is bigger than the orbit of Jupiter around the sun!! Unimaginable vastness, and that is only one star of a huge nebular galaxy, of billions that are known – and billions that are not known (yet). The infinite variety of matter leaves me gasping for breath, the magnificence and perfection are fascinating, to say the least – and I am the bit of the universe that says: ‘Wow, how phantasmagorical, how magical!’

Whoever wants to prove with silly mathematics that this universe is not infinite is just a fool. The instinctual need for a creator and the fervent belief in an immortal soul continuously mess up the clear-eyed perception of the obvious. And mathematicians and theoretical scientists are no exception.

And there is no difference when I get off the computer and come ‘back’ to earth. The sky in its endlessly changing colourful design is as brilliant as distant nebulae, the sounds are a delightful background, the smells of the summer flowers are deliciously sweet, the air is soft, moist and warm... the splendour is everywhere and life is an ongoing delight.

It was fun to spend most of New Year’s Day in front of the television, watching the world responding to the ‘important’ date change, and around the clock around the world we were watching a continual cascade of fireworks blowing up in one city after another. Every nation and town was displaying their exotic and exuberant celebration and the people were happy for a few hours a year – or a century? – before the misery of every-day life was catching up again. So many were disappointed that the prophesized doom and disasters did not occur, that nothing broke down and that they had to get on with their lives as usual.

While in the land of freedom everything is already always well, nothing can go wrong because everything is actual. Without emotions and instinctual passions I simply respond to what is happening, choose what is sensible and enjoy every moment as it lives me. It is all so easy once the ‘self’ is not in command and the instincts are but a faint rumble sometimes before they will finally wither away completely.

RESPONDENT: Makes ‘me’ seem very insignificant.

VINEETO: ‘Significant’ or insignificant are only words relative to our human values. Of course, the infinitude of the universe puts every ‘self’-centred vision into perspective and belies one’s imagination as to one’s self-importance. When the actual world becomes an everyday experience, there is neither significance nor insignificance, only facts and delight.

Yet, to become free from the Human Condition in order to experience the actual world has been the most significant thing in my life. Every bit that I cleaned up in myself was significant for it changed my life for the better and stopped creating ripples of malice and sorrow in other people’s lives. The only significant thing that ‘I’ can do is to get out of the road.

RESPONDENT: Many of his close associates seem to got him so wrong. Osho and many other eastern philosophies have stressed so many times on being happy ‘here and now’. There may be many methods how to achieve it.

VINEETO: I don’t think us disciples got him wrong there. Commitment and surrender were not only a big issue during ranch-time, but ‘totality’, as it was called later, was the main ingredient on the path to enlightenment. The story of digging only one hole and not 50 different ones to produce a well the stressing the point to not listen to other masters as to not get confused.

‘Being happy here and now’ only sounds like the same as living this moment here, now. The spiritual ‘here and now’ does not jell with the teaching of reincarnation, enlightenment being the ending of the wheel of birth and death and the teaching of meditation – closing your eyes and go somewhere else inside – to one day maybe become enlightened. Yes, when after all this effort you become enlightened, then you can laugh and say you were always ‘here and now’. But that is a different ‘here’ and ‘now’ than the here and now of normal mortals who were considered asleep and had to do dynamic meditation and other exercises to ‘wake up’.

The other obvious difference between the spiritual ‘here and now’ and the actual ‘here and now’ is how Osho and eastern philosophers regard the body and everything physical. The spiritual concept is that the world is ‘maya’, an illusion. Once you ‘get it’, you can be happy in the spiritual realm of ‘here and now’. But you have to identify as the ‘watcher’, not as the body, you have to be detached from the body and from your senses in order to rise to your ‘true nature’. That ‘true nature’ is your consciousness, so they say, best to be achieved through meditation, which is in its purest form sitting motionless with closed eyes for hours on end. Then the identity shifts to ‘being the watcher’, to being Consciousness – and one day, one realizes that one is ‘One with All’, ‘That’, ‘Universal Love’, etc. The delusion is complete. One loses one’s ego on the way, but the soul, the feeling part of the instinctual being stays not only fully intact, but is aggrandized to the extent that one considers oneself to be God or the Universe itself.

Compared to this illusory scenario, the actual ‘here and now’ is to be here in this moment of time, which is the only moment one can experience anyway. To be actually here is to be in this place which is no-where in particular in the infinitude of the physical universe. Coming from no-where and having no-where to go we find ourselves here in this moment in time in this place in space. To be here is to be the universe experiencing itself as a human being. Being here now is to ‘be doing what is happening’ with no sense of ‘I’ or feelings of ‘me’. To be fully here, now without a fearful ‘self ‘or a ‘Grand Self’ is to be innocent, perfect and pure, fully engaged in this only moment of being alive.

*

RESPONDENT: Vineeto, I would like to know something more about the happiness, benevolence and magnificence of the actual world. I can understand that it would be harmless because without ‘I’ there would be no malice. But wherefrom the happiness comes? Is it just the absence of sorrow?

VINEETO: I had some lengthy correspondence on mailing-list C about benevolence.

Once you see the actual physical universe without the grey glasses of malice and sorrow and without the rose-coloured glasses of love and compassion, the magnificence becomes apparent. Take a sunset. Someone in love will see the beauty of the particular scene and be full of gratitude, love and awe. Someone who just split up with his girlfriend will see the sorrow, the transitory nature of all things, the ending of a day, a life, a period. Someone about to go to war will see the power and beauty of his God, pray for protection and feel supported in his passionate mission by the display of the glorious colours.

An actualist might see this immense fireball of helium in the sky, giving warmth and light and life to its orbiting planet called earth, all seen through the layer of atmosphere, giving it the wonderful display of ever-changing colours, different each day. To lay any feelings or imagination or even a creator-God over this magnificent event is to miss the actual experience of it. To experience the world around me without the distorting filter of self-centred emotions, feelings and instincts enables me to perceive and appreciate this infinite magnificence, this purity and perfection and this magical actuality of each moment in paradise.

RESPONDENT: Or is there anything positive about it?

VINEETO: ‘Positive’ is too small a word, for it is only invented to counteract the original objection to being here. The Human Condition in each of us inevitably results in not wanting to be here but to be somewhere else, in imaginary heights or in a hope for a better future or life after death. When senses and awareness are freed from the shackles of emotions, feelings, beliefs and instincts one is – as Richard says – ‘the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’, nothing less. Then, one is as benevolent as the rest of the universe.

I understand where your question may come from. The absence of sorrow, when one is empty of tears, can be experienced as a starkness, grey, empty and dull reality. Because this seems unbearable, one then cranks up some positive thoughts and feelings to ‘believe’ that life is not so terrible after all. This so-called happiness has nothing to do with the gay and abundant experience when there are no feelings and emotions.

The wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom is to investigate and remove whatever feeling, emotion, belief or instinct surfaces until slowly, slowly the actual world becomes apparent – and its magnificent and benevolent nature. And you are then the bit of the universe that says ‘WOW, isn’t the physical universe extraordinary and amazing, wonder-full and perfect!’

RESPONDENT: By extension, oughtn’t there be science that makes no sense to us, but will to those of 500 years hence?

VINEETO: There is no doubt that the scientific knowledge of 500 years hence will produce technological advances that are inconceivable to us today but they will make sense to those who are alive then. This is because those future technologies will have to conform to the physical laws that govern the behaviour of the matter, phenomena and physical forces of the universe. If they don’t, they won’t make sense and they won’t work.

To get back to the topic of this discussion, the Big Bang theory, I can say with confidence that the theory is not only nonsensical, it is also wrong in fact. And as you can see from the following quote, I am not even alone in this perception. Paul Marmet, a senior researcher at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics of the National Research Council of in Ottawa, explains the Big Bang model –

[Paul Marmet]: From its birth in the 1930s, the Big Bang theory has been a subject of Controversy (Reber 1989, Cherry 1989). Indeed, our view of the universe must always be open to consideration and reconsideration.

This article will demonstrate that the big bang model is physically unacceptable, because it is incompatible with important observations. It is not even acceptable philosophically, since it implies that time began to exist at a supposed instant of creation. It is therefore impossible to speak of a cause of the Big Bang (Maddox 1989 ). Science, however, is dedicated to the discovery of the causes of observed phenomena; the Big Bang model thus leads to the rejection of the principle of causality that is fundamental in philosophy as well as in physics. It is actually a creationist theory that differs from other creationisms (for example, one that claims creation took place about 4000 B.C.) only in the number of years since creation. According to the Big Bang model, creation occurred between 10 and 20 billion years ago. http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/bigbang/index.html

This article is indeed fascinating to read because it refutes the evidence provided for the Big Bang theory and explains, in terms a layperson can understand, how blatant oversights and assumptions were made in favour of keeping the theory afloat.

RESPONDENT: This is really the only point I was trying to make – that it is presumptuous for us to suppose that we know everything about the physical universe at this juncture. It wasn’t that long ago that the world was flat.

VINEETO: As I understand it, the point you were originally making, and are still making, is that you would rather keep ‘not-knowing’ that the universe is in fact eternal and infinite – i.e. that it has no beginning and no end, no centre and no edge.

I am not supposing that I ‘know everything about the physical universe’, far, far from it. I am continuously learning more things about the universe that have put paid to previous wrong theories or have revealed what were simply unknown facts at the time I went to school. Whilst it is obvious that we humans do not know everything about the physical universe at this juncture, the ancient belief that ‘someone’ or ‘something’ created it still has legs, and strong ones at that.

The fairy tales of a Someone creating the universe has been proven to be nonsense by the geological and fossil evidence of evolutionary development of life on this planet. Rather than these facts eliminating the belief that the universe had a beginning, we now see that a whole ‘new’ creationist belief has been spawned – theoretical ‘scientists’ theorizing a creation event that relies on imaginary super-natural forces for its supposed happening. All of which only demonstrates the extraordinary lengths human beings will go in order to cling to their spirit-ual beliefs.

What I have learned since I started applying the actualism method is to distinguish between belief and fact, between faith and common sense, between hope and actuality. This ability to clearly discriminate can make me appear to be ‘presumptuous’ – or arrogant, conceited, insolent, big-headed, and haughty – to those who haven’t questioned their beliefs and their automatic habit of believing.

To give a personal example – after I had my first pure consciousness experience, I remember being in shock for the whole of the next day. I had not only seen the extent of my own spiritual beliefs but when I went to the local market I saw everyone hawking their own particular beliefs along with their merchandise. I could see that sensibleness or usefulness were not the criteria of value for the vendors – what was for sale was merchandise within a belief system. What was vitally important was being part of the ‘right’ crowd, following the ‘right’ or sacred prescriptions as to how to live life and obtaining the ‘right’ symbolic chattels that related to the ‘right’ lifestyle. These symbolic chattels consisted of food, alternative medicine and supplements, jewellery, particular style clothes, sacred objects, and other paraphernalia.

Because I had seen my own spiritual beliefs from the ‘self’-less perspective of a PCE, my perception of actuality was direct and clear. Yet not a single one of those vendors would have agreed with me – they were so totally immersed in their own particular world that they could not understand, let alone directly experience, what was actually happening. I kept my mouth shut at the time but I would have certainly been called arrogant, conceited and presumptuous if I had pointed out the nature of their beliefs.

The same is the case with the Big Bang theory. In a PCE, the universe is experienced and perceived from neither a ‘self’-centred nor an anthropocentric viewpoint. In such a clear-eyed perception, the idea that the universe started out of nothing – as if God snipped his fingers and suddenly there was light – is simply absurd. In a PCE I am able to see and experience things simply as they are because there is no ‘self’ to speculate, believe, feel or imagine otherwise. Things are as they are and I am sensately aware of how they are as well as being aware of that awareness.

I assume that you might be familiar with a kind of clear-eyed perception, – when something suddenly clicks and you know that, despite your earlier doubts or questions, that it can’t be otherwise, it has to be so. Then there is an element of ‘of course!’ in one’s perception, maybe an ‘aha!’-effect of suddenly getting it and everything falling into place.

*

VINEETO: Just think about it in a straightforward manner – if there was to be a Big Bang and the universe came suddenly into existence from some kind of super-condensed unknown material, then one needs to assume all kinds of strange circumstances outside of the empirical laws of physics in order to arrive at the current state of countless suns and galaxies. One needs theories about super-phenomena, doughnut-shaped universes, warp-space, black holes, anti-matter and so on in order to somehow explain the sudden development from nothing to something. And yet many questions remain unanswered. For instance: what was there before the Big Bang? What was outside of the super-condensed universe? What is the universe expanding into? What is beyond the edge of the expanding universe? What happened before Planck time, the time before time began?

RESPONDENT: ‘outside of the empirical laws of physics’ as we know them now! The rest is guesses, theories, fodder for the scientific method. But next week/year/millennium, we will know more, and look back at our present understanding as valid but inadequate. Assuming we don’t kill ourselves off, of course.

VINEETO: Are you saying you prefer to believe in an imagined event – the Big Bang – solely on the basis that someone in the future might find that the proposed new laws ‘outside of the empirical laws of physics’ – laws, which have been invented solely in order to substantiate the Big Bang theory – do exist as a fact? To me that is stretching credibility, relying on belief to justify belief – placing a bet on faith, hope and trust in lieu of sensate observation, sensible reflection and empirical evidence.

To quote Paul Marmet again on evidence against the Big-Bang model –

[Paul Marmet]: Nor can Einstein’s general theory of relativity be applied in a consistent manner to the Big Bang model. According to the model, when the universe was the size of an electron and was 10^-23 second old, it was clearly a black hole – a concentration of mass so great that its self-gravitation would prevent the escape of any mass or radiation. Consequently, according to Einsteinian relativity, it could not have expanded. Therefore, one would have to assume that gravity started to exist only gradually after the creation of the universe, but that amounts to changing the laws of physics arbitrarily to save the Big Bang model. In contrast, an unlimited universe as suggested here agrees with Einstein’s relativity theory, taking into account the cosmological constant⁽⁵⁾ that he proposed in 1917.

Recent astronomical discoveries pose an additional and very serious problem for the Big Bang theory. Larger and larger structures are being found to exist at greater and greater redshifts, indicating their existence in the increasingly distant past. (Whether one assumes the Big Bang or the theory presented here, the redshift is normally an indicator of distances, and because it takes time for light to travel, the image of a highly redshifted object is seen on Earth today as it was when the light began to travel.)

In 1988, Simon Lilly of the university of Hawaii reported the discovery of a mature galaxy at the enormous redshift of 3.4; that is, the amount of the redshift for any spectral line from the galaxy is 340 per cent of the line’s proper wavelength (Lilly 1988). This puts the galaxy so far in time that the Big Bang scheme does not allow sufficient time for its formation! In a news report on Lilly’s work, Sky & Telescope reports: ‘ The appearance of a mature galaxy so soon after the Big Bang poses a serious threat ...’ (Aug. 1988, p. 124).

In 1989 came the discovery of the ‘Great Wall’ of galaxies, a sheet of Galaxies 500 million light-years long, 200 million light-years wide, and approximately 15 million light-years thick, with the dimensions of the structure being limited only by the scale of the survey (Geller and Huchra 1989). It is located between 200 and 300 million light-years from Earth. In an interview with the Boston Globe (Nov. 17 1989), Margaret Geller of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics offered some frank comments on the implications of her discovery: The size of the structure indicates that in present theories of the formation of the universe ‘something is really wrong that makes a big difference’, Geller said in an interview yesterday: No known force could produce a structure this big in the time since the universe was formed’. http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/bigbang/index.html

I find it quite simple and straightforward – if nobody created the universe, and it is here now, then it has always been here.

*

VINEETO: None of those hypothetical questions needs to be answered if you acknowledge that only that which can be sensately observed and empirically measured exists as an actuality. Then theory and imagination, postulation and hypothesis collapse and one can realize that the physical universe has always been here, an endless and eternally changing magical array of gas and matter in infinite space. And the most magical of all – on one known planet, life developed to a stage of present day human intelligence and increasingly I can experience this perfect peerless universe in utter wonder and amazement.

RESPONDENT: Is there then no such thing then as an actualist scientist? I ask in seriousness as that appears to be the preposition of your statement. Is sensately observing the universe, this moment only repeated forever, incompatible with curious probing at the underlying fabric?

VINEETO: On the contrary, the actualism method is inherently scientific because, as an actualist, I am experientially examining my beliefs, hopes, fears, taboos and instinctually driven programming in order to understand the facts of what it is to be a human being. This scientific investigation has brought some very tangible and scientifically provable facts about the human condition and how one can become free from malice and sorrow and it leaves me increasingly free to directly experience the universe as it is, unimpeded by ‘self’-centred postulations.

As an actualist I am aiming to remove both the rose-coloured glasses of hope and trust and the grey-coloured glasses of malice and sorrow in order to find out what is actual and factual and to sensately experience the magnificent purity and perfection of this universe. And exactly because I have been continuously ‘probing at the underlying fabric’ of my social conditioning and my instinctual programming am I able to recognize that the supposed ‘underlying fabric’ of the universe is an entirely man-made belief, that there is neither a God nor any mystical Intelligence that is running the show.

‘This moment only repeated forever’ is not my experience of being alive at all. For me each moment is fresh, new, never been here before and never to be repeated again, let alone ‘forever’. Each moment has the same quality of freshness in that it is happening now yet what ever is happening now is continuously changing.

When I contemplated about the fact that now is the only moment I can actually experience, at some point I began feeling trapped in time because I couldn’t escape from this moment. Yet this feeling was merely an emotional reaction to my beginning to experience the fact that it is always now, no matter what I am thinking, doing or feeling. . It is only the memory of past events and the imagination about future events that create the passionate conviction that this moment stretches over time. However, it is precisely the instinctive habit of dwelling in emotional memories or indulging in passionate imagination that keeps me from fully experiencing this moment of being alive in its exuberance and wonder.

VINEETO to Alan: While contemplating upon where I could possibly stand on the brakes, I noticed a slight shift in my determination. How long am I going to play in this safe ‘sandbox’ called Virtual Freedom, and when will I finally grow up and actually do what I have been thinking and talking about for two years – to be free, irreversibly, without leaving a backdoor open to revert to ‘normal’ or slip back into having an identity should being free become too scary? It was like straightening from a hunched position of playing in the sandbox, leaving the well-known safe area behind and standing upright. Virtual Freedom has become a nursery and it is becoming too small a playground. And it seemed immensely sensible to move on, just like leaving home when I have grown up. When leaving my parent’s home there was no regret, not much fear but an immense excitement to explore the big wide world. Now the situation seems similar. Just the next sensible thing to do. Just doing it. Stop imagining it, stop desiring it, stop thinking about it, and, for heaven’s sake, stop feeling about it. Just doing it. I don’t mean repressing any upcoming thoughts or feelings, but to stop feeding the ‘engine’, whenever I have a choice.

In my head the line of the American folksong was playing over and over again: ♪ ‘The night, they drove ol’ [Vini] down, and all the bells were ringing...’ ♫ I went to the couch to follow up on this hot trail of contemplation and there it was – the sudden recognition and experience that the universe was breathing me, I was part of the big rhythm of life in its infinite variety, just one of 6 billion people, one human being out of the vast and boundless immensity and magnificence of this infinite, eternal, alive, magical and perfect universe, being breathed, being lived, being here, moment by moment. And it is safe, utterly safe, because this experience also makes clear that the physical universe is benevolent. As much as there is no fear in a rock or a tree there is no malice in a rock or a tree. There may be volcanic eruptions or earthquakes as part of earthly events, but there is no malice in that the rock is directed at me to destroy me. The universe is not out to get me, on the contrary, it is supportive and benevolent; the idea of danger was simply part of my chemically-supported instinctual imaginary identity.

In this moment I understood that survival instincts are indeed redundant. With no identity there is no threat and no need to fight for survival. The instinctual survival program has done a great job to facilitate evolution, species by species, to this point in time. Now sensate and reflective human beings are the peak of this development so far – and the next opportunity for evolving has come into reach – life without the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, life without identity, life without the feeling of separation from the rest of the universe.

While having these realizations, I had to check if there was possibly some grand ‘me’ lurking around the corner, someone wanting to claim the merit of this insight – but no, I was simply acknowledging the facts and delighting in the experience that the universe is breathing me, as it has always done. It is only throughout my life that ‘I’ had an altogether different story going in my head and heart.

RESPONDENT: I’m just bored with the underlying assumption that your belief system is somehow superior to others. All belief systems are bogus, yours included.

VINEETO: You are bored with your own assumption.

As long as you want to believe, everything that anybody presents is seen as a belief system. You could also start investigating. You could, for instance, try and remember a pure consciousness experience – and almost everybody has had at least one in their lives. Then you can experience for yourself the facts of what Peter and I are talking about. In a pure consciousness experience, where the ‘self’ is in temporary abeyance, everything is self-evident and obvious, including the fact, that it is only the ‘self’ that is in the road of experiencing the perfection of the infinite universe.

The objection that most people have is that in the actual world, verifiable by the physical senses, there is neither love nor a soul nor divine energy.

There is ‘only’ this flawless, pure, sparkling, magical and infinite universe, experienced by the touch, smell, taste, seeing and hearing. There is only this moment in time being alive.

VINEETO: Benevolence is the quality of the physical universe, it is neither love nor compassion, neither ‘feeling’ nor ‘being’. When everything of ‘me’ is eliminated, the actual world becomes apparent. Benevolence is intrinsic to the actual world.

RESPONDENT: Benevolence is a quality of the physical universe’, you say. According to my dictionary ‘universe’ means ‘the totality of all the things that exist; creation; the cosmos’. So we can assume that anything physically limited in space such as a rock, a door, a car, the moon, the sun is not benevolent. But, according to you, as soon as we take it all together, as the physical universe, suddenly there’s benevolence. How can that be? This is a mystery isn’t it? Can this magical and sudden appearance be explained or understood by your common-sense?

VINEETO: There is no malice and sorrow in the physical universe. There is no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, sadness, grief, compassion, love, or any other feeling in the physical universe. These are feelings that are in human beings only (and in a rudimentary form in some animals). Feelings and instincts are both the product and the very substance of the psychological and psychic entity within the human body. So when you rid yourself from this alien entity within the human body, when there is no malice and sorrow in this human body, the perfection and benevolence become apparent. It is the Human Condition that prevents human beings from being as pure and perfect as the physical universe and thus from experiencing the purity, perfection and benevolence of this infinite magnificence of the actual world.

*

VINEETO: I am virtually free from both personal sorrow and Universal Sorrow and am able to be considerate without the emotional and passionate involvement that comes automatically with being an identity. And it is simply common sense. Why should I not want everybody to share the same paradise? Why not have peace on earth, for everybody? We are fellow human beings. Anybody, who wants to, can do the same thing that I did and live in the same benevolent paradise that I live in. Doesn’t that make sense to you?

RESPONDENT: No it doesn’t. As an actualist, you are a body, nothing more, and are therefore limited in space. Benevolence is the quality of the physical universe which is infinite. Hence you couldn’t possibly be benevolent or considerate yourself.

VINEETO: The feeling of being limited and separate comes from the alien psychological and psychic entity inside each human being. To overcome this feeling of separation and limitedness Eastern spirituality teaches to ‘stop thought’ and to identify solely as the ‘feeler’ in the heart. The resultant oceanic feeling of ‘Oneness’, ‘Unity’ and ‘Wholeness’ gives rise to the misconception that the separate self has been eliminated. As a matter of fact, the separation has only been bridged by a ‘connection’ to the other through the feeling of Love and Compassion. But the very problem, the separate (limited) psychic entity of the ‘feeler’ is still very much alive. It is the psychological ‘I’ and the psychic ‘me’, the alien entity ‘possessing’ this body that make me feel separate and limited in the first place. Without the ‘self’ there is nobody to be separate, and I experience the actuality, benignity and benevolence that is already present in the physical universe.

You know, when I first realised that this universe is actually unlimited, vast, endless, without borders, I also knew that there is no place where gods could be – there is nothing outside this physical universe, there cannot be, by the very meaning of infinite. Have you ever gone to the NASA-site and looked at the horse-nebula, the neutron-stars, the cluster-galaxies, the earthrise seen from Apollo circling the moon? http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/

We are all made from the same stuff, physically, the stuff of the universe! Or have you ever looked at the actuality of a simple china coffee-cup? The texture, the colour, the design, and then considered the raw materials for it – they have developed on this planet for millions of years until they were discovered and manufactured into this simple coffee cup. The machines involved, the tools, the transport, ... This cup was manufactured somewhere on this planet, shipped to this country, driven to the shop where I bought it from, handled by many people... The universe is all one big happening, everything linked to something else, all happening at this very moment – nothing is merely passive. Whichever direction you look, there are physical wonders upon wonders, once the ego-centric and ‘soul-centric’ shackles are taken off one’s senses and brain.