Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections

RESPONDENT: I find it odd that you were in VF for only 6 months and P and V have been in it for 7 years.

RICHARD: Whereas I find it more than merely encouraging that they have not lost interest and dropped out of it, discarded it, turned their backs on it, spurned it, and so forth (as some others have done) ... I am pleasantly surprised, on each occasion we meet, that it is all still happening so delightfully for them.

Given it is without precedent (being entirely new to human experience/human history), and that it all hangs on just one human being’s experience so far, is it any wonder I would respond as follows to a related query?

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you find it curious that after all these years there is only a small handful of Actualists?
• [Richard]: ‘No ... I am pleasantly surprised that there be so many’.

RESPONDENT: If they don’t become AF within the next 3 years, well, something would seem amiss to me.

RICHARD: Whereas if they are still virtually free in three years that would be even more pleasantly surprising to me.

RESPONDENT: It’s a little strange even at this point.

RICHARD: One of the first things I said to my then companion, after the breakthrough into an actual freedom from the human condition in 1992, was that it was quite likely, if not more than likely, that all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides would still be happening as I lay upon my death-bed (circa 100 or so years of age) as the evidence of history is that human beings, as a generalisation, do not embrace change easily ... let alone radical change.

Quite frankly, given the startling lack of precedent, I do not find it strange at all.

RESPONDENT No. 66: Something I read made me think: virtual freedom saves one from ‘all or nothing’ (also called black and white thinking in cognitive therapy) type thinking that is in spiritualism; I asked myself if I can settle for virtual freedom – and I found some resistance; if one is really interested in being happy and harmless, virtual freedom is a great solution. So why resistance? I think the answer is that I may not be really interested in peace ... I just shoot for the impossible to block myself from progressing that is typical of all or nothing thinking; actual freedom has a curious requirement; but virtual freedom is in one’s hands I realize.

(...)

RESPONDENT: ... IMO, it is *only* the magical quality of a PCE/AF that makes an emotion-free life worth contemplating. To be caught half way, unable to participate fully and feelingly in the human drama, yet unable to go forth into the clear open spaces beyond ‘humanity’ ... that is not something to aspire to, as I see it.

RICHARD: Perhaps you might consider re-titling your next e-mail ‘Re: Virtual Cynicism’ ... for the following includes your description of being [quote] ‘caught half way’ [endquote] a scant twelve months ago:

• [Respondent]: ‘Lately I have been practising the actualist method much more effectively; that is, I can see the potential for genuine results to follow rather quickly, *if* I have the guts to press on. It would be exaggerating a bit (but not very much) to say that the ‘excellence experience’ referred to a while back is almost a matter of choice now.
• [Richard]: ‘Ahh ... then you would be understanding why I oft-times say that a virtual freedom is not to be sneezed at (and that it is way beyond normal human expectations), then? Because this is how you described it: [Respondent]: ‘There is an increase in sensory clarity, especially visual acuity. Along with this increase in clarity there is a ‘purity’ in everything one perceives. The words ‘immaculate’, ‘perfect’, ‘pure’ capture it quite well; everything is wonderful. Strangely, though, the word ‘beautiful’ does not apply. There is no (felt) affect whatsoever. The purity of perception (and the marvellousness of what is perceived) goes beyond affect, leaving only pure, calm wonder. It’s sensory delight without any emotional resonance at all. The sensory delight I’m talking about is not the usual kind of sensuousness/sensuality that one enjoys in an ordinary state. Rather than being ‘pleasurable’, it is appreciation of the perfection that seems to be inherent in what one is perceiving, which leads to enjoyment of a very different kind. This is quite extraordinary. There is a sensation of softness in the air, which has a pellucid, jelly-like quality (metaphorically speaking). I’m reminded of something you once wrote about the eyes ‘lightly caressing’, as if one is seeing from the front of the eyeball. I also remember you saying ‘nothing dirty can get in’, and that’s exactly the way it is. Objects that would seem drab, dirty, sullied, soiled in ‘reality’ are immaculate in themselves; any ‘dirtiness’ is overlaid by ‘me’. [endquote]. (Thursday 15/07/2004 10:33 AM AEST).

For what it is worth: the impression conveyed by your e-mails is that the worm began turning somewhere between 1:28 and 8:54 PM (AEST) on Wednesday 04/05/2005.

RICHARD: ... did the idea that any changes the actualism process causes can best be attributed to finding a meaningful purpose to pursue also occur to you, for example, as far back as December 2003 (and thus predating your older brother’s awareness of Richard’s existence)?

RESPONDENT: The happiness and satisfaction to be derived from committing oneself wholeheartedly to a meaningful course of action occurred to me long, long before December 2003 – long before I ever heard of you, or Peter, or Vineeto. There is nothing specific to actualism in that observation.

RICHARD: Indeed not ... Mr. Saloth Sar (for just one instance) would have derived satisfaction and, presumably, a satisfaction-based happiness, from committing himself wholeheartedly to a meaningful course of action thirty-odd years ago. To explain: impervious to the fact indigenous peoples had amply demonstrated that cultural/lifestyle change would not make any substantive dent in the human condition a school of psychology/philosophy arose last century, in the period between the two world wars, which proposed changing the culture/lifestyle so as to bring about a new human being – one of the leading proponents was Mr. Burrhus Skinner with his planned utopian society – and the genesis of such an attempt at social engineering could be seen in the then USSR where personal ownership of land had been abolished in favour of communal ownership (collectivisation versus privatisation) and control of the means of production had been transferred from the individual to the community (complete with a command-driven economy as opposed to a market-based one). Undaunted by the fact that the soviet experiment had failed to bring about a new human being Mr. Saloth Sar went much further and launched a massive cultural/lifestyle change in Cambodia in late 1975 ... not only was private property abolished but money was eradicated as well and the cities were emptied. Furthermore the borders were closed; the media was closed; the schools were closed; the hospitals were closed; the offices were closed; the shops were closed; the markets were closed; the monasteries were closed and everyone wore the same simple clothing and everyone lived directly off the land ... ‘going back to nature’ was the order of the day. Just as were blind nature’s survival passions.

RESPONDENT: By the same token, there is no reason to exclude actualism from it.

RICHARD: As you specifically referred to those changes the actualism process causes, being best attributed to finding a meaningful purpose to pursue, it would aid clarity in communication to delineate just what those changes are ... to wit: being as happy and harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’. Yet your version of such change is a satisfaction-based happiness, not a virtually sorrow-free (and therefore unconditional) happiness, and with no mention whatsoever of an inextricably-linked unconditional harmlessness (virtually malice-free).

(...) As a satisfaction-based happiness is not what the actualism process results in, each moment again, you may be inclined to reconsider your response.

RESPONDENT: How do you know?

RICHARD: Intimately ... the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body lived what has nowadays become known as a virtual freedom for six months or so in 1981 and it was most definitely *not* a satisfaction-based happiness-only experiencing.

RESPONDENT: How do you really know?

RICHARD: By virtue of the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago having *really* experienced a virtually sorrow-free (and therefore unconditional) happiness with its inextricably-linked unconditional harmlessness (virtually malice-free) for six months or so in 1981.

RESPONDENT: I don’t; I only have a few impressions, opinions, suspicions, whatever.

RICHARD: Okay ... they are your impressions, opinions, suspicions, whatever, when all is said and done, just as it is your choice to be guided by them.

RESPONDENT: Somebody like Irene, who has been ‘virtually free’ and presumably is no longer, would be best placed to give an answer to that one.

RICHARD: A possible clue as to why my previous companion’s virtual freedom was so readily set aside by Love Agapé may be found in the following passages:

• [Irene to Vineeto]: ‘When Richard used to come out with a statement that would go totally against my own sense of right, true, correct, I would always do a scientific experiment: I would ask myself to go and find out who of us was ultimately right. To be unbiased (which is the true meaning of scientific) I would allow, for a while, the possibility that I had been wrong so that I could be indeed open to Richard’s statement being right. Often I was convinced by his common sense and logical approach and decided to change my old mind, or I discovered, by giving him the benefit of the doubt, that his opinion was a result of repressed feelings. For a long while I favoured his outlook over my own, but more and more I had to admit that it was not me who was wrong but Richard’.
• [Richard]: ‘I would question that it is scientifically unbiased to allow something only ‘for a while’ ... as this sounds to me as a conditional – if not grudging – preparedness to examine one’s own borrowed truths. Also, I am surprised to find you being ‘convinced’ only by my approach ... what about seeing a fact for yourself? Then you do not have to ‘decide to change your mind’ because seeing a fact sets you free ... you then stand on your own two feet. Then you are autonomous ... whereas a changed mind can always be changed back again at will. All that you describe above is a far cry from investigating and uncovering ... exploring and discovering ... seeking and finding out for oneself. Actuality is that which is self-evident, obvious, factual ... opinion does not come into an actual freedom and never has done. Indeed, as you say that you would ‘favour his outlook over my own’, then it becomes obvious that you never saw the fact for yourself. Giving some one the benefit of the doubt is but a ploy to keep one’s pre-set feeling subtly in place underneath it all. It is a prime example of the domination that intuition has over actuality.
And just what ‘repressed feelings’ would they be that you refer to, anyway?

RESPONDENT: Is virtual freedom anything at all, once the desire to be actually free and/or the belief in the possibility of becoming actually free, ceases?

RICHARD: First of all a virtual freedom will not come about if there is a belief that it is possible to become actually free from the human condition ... such a possibility is what is seen for oneself in a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

As for the desire to become actually free from the human condition: if that dedicated pure intent ever wanes to the point of being non-existent then what one is left with is whatever one has seen through/ realised/ discovered for oneself ... my previous companion, for instance, does report that she is much better off because her involvement in actualism than she was before she ever met me.

RESPONDENT: Personally I doubt it.

RICHARD: Okay ... it is your doubt, when all is said and done, just as it is your choice to be guided by it.

RESPONDENT: My gut feeling is that virtual freedom must be constantly policed ...

RICHARD: As a ‘gut-feeling’ is another way of saying ‘intuition’ that is not at all surprising.

RESPONDENT: [My gut feeling is that virtual freedom must be constantly policed], maintained affectively and cognitively by a constant barrage of actualist ideation, and for long-term success it requires people who are expert believers.

RICHARD: Whereas in reality a virtual freedom needs none of what your gut-feeling tells you it requires.

RESPONDENT: That is what seems most likely to me at this stage.

RICHARD: Okay ... it is your most-likeliness, when all is said and done, just as it is your choice to be guided by it.

RESPONDENT: [Addendum]: May I ask? Did the once-‘virtually-free’ Irene succeed, in your estimation, in activating the ‘neurological process’ referred to in this message: [Co-Respondent]: ‘So, where do equity and parity come into the picture? [Richard]: ‘Only unilateral action will do the trick. [Co-Respondent]: ‘Action as in not of thought? Care to expound? [Richard]: ‘By ‘unilateral’ I mean that living with equity and parity is something one does entirely on one’s own ... it does not depend upon the cooperation of others. What they do is their business (as long as they comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocol, they are left alone to live their lives as wisely or as foolishly as they choose). One does not have to concern oneself about any other person’s modus operandi at all ... they can carry on being grotty if that is what turns them on. Therefore, one’s basic starting point is this: how can one live with equity and parity in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are? The purity of intent born out of the intensity of this once-in-a-lifetime ‘starting-point’ question precipitates unilateral action which is not of ‘my’ doing once set in motion ... because, at root, it is ‘me’ who is the problem. Thus thought may or may not play a part in it depending upon the circumstances, each moment again, in one’s daily life. This ‘action’ is a neurological process occurring in the skull (specifically at the top of the brain-stem) that gathers a momentum of its own accord ... ‘me’ thinking and feeling may aid or hinder this process from time-to-time but essentially, once one sets the action in motion, the neurological process does the trick itself. It is the pure intent to live in peace and harmony (equity and parity) irregardless of other’s intentions that fuels the process’. (../richard/listbcorrespondence/listb37a.htm#20Mar00).

RICHARD: No, as anyone who personally knew my previous companion at the time would attest, she had some difficulty living with equity and parity in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

RESPONDENT: And here I thought Grace had dumped your supposedly free ass ...

RICHARD: As you consider that thought to be important enough to type it out, and click ‘send’, let me see if I can comprehend how your thinking operates: Richard does not write to this mailing list (for seven weeks) therefore his companion is no longer living with him. Is that it? Have I understood your thought process correctly?

RESPONDENT: Did Grace finally come to her senses and dump you or not?

RICHARD: The problem with a loaded question is that it cannot be answered as-is ... whereas something like this can be: [example only]: ‘And here I thought, for no other reason than your seven-week hiatus from this mailing list, that your companion was no longer living with you. Did she stop living with you, during those seven weeks, or not?’ [end example]. No, the reason why I did not write to this mailing list was that I was engaged in the matters already set-out for you before you asked that question – such as (1) putting together a different version of the actualism screensaver (2) attending to a DVD burner/ reader causing the computer to freeze/ crash (3) getting the screensaver software to replay sound files (4) a matter of days then becoming weeks more than anything else (5) doing some detailed research so as to gather more background information for another project (6) interacting in-person with my fellow human being – and not because my companion was no longer living with me. (Editor’s note: The screensaver is no longer available due to its incompatibility with Windows 8)

RESPONDENT: My God you are long winded!

RICHARD: Well now ... you will ask loaded questions.

RESPONDENT: Can you not just answer a simple question?

RICHARD: Yes ... can you write one, though?

RESPONDENT: All this phrasing, rephrasing .... just answer the fucking question!

RICHARD: There is no way I am going to *just answer* a question which has a conditioner such as [quote] ‘finally come to her senses’ [endquote] in it.

RESPONDENT: And you still have not answered it ...

RICHARD: What is it about the word ‘no’ that you do not understand?

RESPONDENT: ... all you have said is [Richard]: ‘No, the reason why I did not write to this mailing list was (...) and not because my companion was no longer living with me’. [endquote]. Which tells us that her dumping your long-winded boring ass was not the reason you did not write to this list. If you don’t feel like writing , then don’t fucking write.

RICHARD: As I have no feelings any occasion of me not writing to this mailing list is a freely made choice.

RESPONDENT: But these lame excuses, like DVD this and screen saver that & global warming whatever ... are simply excuses for rather doing something else.

RICHARD: They are not excuses (let alone lame ones): the reason why I ceased writing, on Wednesday, the second of November, is exactly as already notified and the reason why I started writing, on Thursday, the twenty-second of December, is also exactly as previously advised ... and no amount of speculation on your part is going to alter that one jot.

RESPONDENT: Perhaps you are losing interest in conversing with your fellow humans who don’t buy what you are selling.

RICHARD: You may find the following to be informative, then:

• [Richard]: ‘It is the feed-back nature of the mailing list format which elicits information out of me that would not necessarily come about were I to just sit down and write an article for a book ... which elicited information also includes that which persons critical of what is presented draw forth’.

RESPONDENT: Even the best salesmen lose motivation during a sales drought.

RICHARD: No, there are more than a few people who have benefited from information elicited by those critical of what is presented – which information may not have ever seen the light of day otherwise – plus the way in which I respond provides a practical demonstration that facts knock fantasies for a six, any day of the week, no matter how they are lobbed.

*

RICHARD: May I ask? Just what is the connection you make, between not writing to a mailing list and a live-in companion no longer living with you, such as to occasion you to persist with that thought even after my provision of a relatively detailed account of what I was doing in that seven-week period?

RESPONDENT: You were busy looking for another sperm receptacle.

RICHARD: I will draw your attention to the following:

• [Richard]: ‘I had a vasectomy in my late thirties ...’.

*

RESPONDENT: ... and in return you revoked her virtually free status ... like you did to Irene.

RICHARD: As I am on record as declining to be a probity policeman both your hypothesis and your contention are without substance.

RESPONDENT: You are most certainly a probity cop when it suits your agenda.

RICHARD: No, I most certainly do not determine and/or assess how a person is experiencing each moment of being alive ... and for a patently obvious reason: such a thing is a sheer impossibility.

RESPONDENT: Your previous companion Irene, got her virtually free license revoked upon the demise of your relationship. Twasn’t that true?

RICHARD: No, my previous companion changed her determination/ assessment of how each moment of being alive was to be experienced, after she stopped living with me, into it entailing her being free of [quote] ‘the belief in the man-made mistakes in their interpretations of being human and of nature in general’ [endquote] ... rather than her living in [quote] ‘something resembling that intimate place in some familiar time that I had visited and walked around in more than once before in various peak experiences’ [endquote].

RESPONDENT: Sorry bro, but she came to the conclusion that after testing out your theories for quite some time, that you were wrong.

RICHARD: As my experiential reports/ descriptions/ explanations are not [quote] ‘theories’ [endquote] your apologetic reply, to my response to your query about whether I revoked a determination/ assessment which I never made in the first place (for the patently obvious reason that such a thing is a sheer impossibility) cannot be commented on in its present form.

Sufficient is it to say for the nonce that my previous companion’s own words re-quoted just above clearly demonstrate the extent to which she changed her determination/ assessment, of how each moment of being alive was to be experienced, after she stopped living with me (she used the term ‘peak experiences’ for what the term ‘pure consciousness experiences’, or PCE’s for short, nowadays refer to).

And, as she had had a three-week PCE many years before ever meeting me – on the other side of the world where she lived prior to emigrating to the country I currently reside in – there is no way that your apologetic opinion (that she came to the conclusion, after testing out my reports/ descriptions/ explanations, that they were wrong) can even begin to come close to what actually happened.

RICHARD: Now here is a notion for you to consider: why would those words (faithfully duplicated in ‘Commonly Raised Objections’ with my carte blanche permission) from my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site – the portion only I have authorial access to and which I have total editorial control over – be publicly on display if they be so damaging (else why quote them) as to render what is on offer on the entire web site [quote] ‘wrong’ [endquote] in one short paragraph?

A trifle curious, non?

For your information: what my previous companion wrote in that quote (and elsewhere) was written whilst under the influence of the love which occasioned her to no longer live with me ... and a transcript of a conversation betwixt the two of us on that very subject, recorded only two weeks before she moved out, can be found at the following URL:

And here is how I introduce that conversation in ‘Richard’s Journal’:

• [Richard]: ‘I am sitting here talking with my companion of the last eleven years ... or I should say my former companion as we are discussing her new life in her own home. She is moving out because she can no longer live up to all that she has said and written about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being living in a virtual freedom. She understands only too well that she cannot stand beside me and personally verify all that I have to say ... and I have plenty to say. After all these delicious years of living together and exploring together, a rather salient and curiously unforeseen event has taken place. She has fallen in love ... and has spent the last six weeks endeavouring to come to terms with the shifting kaleidoscope of passions that swing her from one point of view to another. All the experiential understanding of a virtual freedom gets tossed aside in the twinkling of an eye ... only to come back solidly when she is able to come to her senses once again. We recorded one of our conversations only two weeks ago in order to have something factual – other than one’s notoriously unreliable memory – to fall back upon in the times of love’s stress’. (pages 255-56, ‘Richard’s Journal’ Second Edition ©2004 The Actual Freedom Trust).

Speaking personally, I have found it always pays to research an issue thoroughly before mounting a critique.

RESPONDENT: Now, the real question goes to Vineeto & Peter only, as Richard never claims any quality except those which RIPEETO is so naively describing.

But why don’t you, Peter and Vineeto, have to stress more than once that you are honest and of pure intent aka heart? Because only to those endowed with these qualities shalt the gates of heaven be opened? But, then again – of what concern is it to your audience that you ARE honest & pure? You will notice the results yourself, anyway, and your state of virtual freedom seems to me to be quite comparable to what a lot of other reasonable beings, on this list or not, have achieved in this lifetime. The difference is that many of those other people don’t CLAIM honesty all the time – they LIVE it – no fuss about it. OTOH, your repeated stressing of purity & honesty makes me wonder even more why, then, the process Richard is describing has not occured in you yet. But then again, patience and perseverance are of the essence, we know. In your OSHO time and before, have you done a lot of Mantra practice? Honest vs. dishonest, pure vs. dirty 6/9/2005

RESPONDENT: Peter, Vineeto, may you not find your lives completely wasted but profit in the best possible way from your ‘big leap’. I’m certain you will enjoy life with Richard. For taste’s sake, try not to be too hypocritical about honesty – and don’t, if possible to avoid, tell people you’re just being honest about honesty. Well, I guess it’s impossible to avoid. Human Comedy Goodbye List. 7/9/2005

PETER: Despite the fact that you asked a loaded question and not a real question and that your question was but a prelude to a premature evacuation the very next day, I’ll post the following as it is what I wrote immediately preceding the quote I sent to No 60 last night with regard to my honest-to-myself attentiveness of the full range and extent of my feelings –

[Peter]: ‘Malice is a bit different as it is generally not upheld as a human virtue and most people even manage to deny it in themselves. It is always someone else who is cruel, jealous, vindictive or violent and I am simply responding to their malice! It was amazing to see in my own children unprovoked and unlearned acts of aggression. The idea that children are born innocent is just an idea, not a fact. I have some memories, even as a kid, of plotting revenge against someone – but of course most of the actual malicious actions were condemned. One didn’t break things, hit people, or say certain things – I was taught to behave ‘properly’. The trouble is, all the malice was then forced into cunning, clever and subversive actions that were to persist in my life. The willingness to tell a tale on someone as a subtle revenge is a classic. We call it gossiping, to disguise the maliciousness. I remember a few times actually having to will myself to stop, biting my tongue. The worst situation, of course, is in ‘relation-ship’ (or ‘battle-ship’) with a woman.

The malice often took the form of withdrawal – an insidious revenge, but also a self-inflicted pain; a terrible price to pay in the long run. I came to see a lot of New Age-spiritual-therapy behaviour as only thinly disguised malice. ‘I have to be honest with you’ or ‘I would like to share something with you’ is usually the opening line of someone who is about to take revenge or be spiteful. Again much of what we humans regard as entertainment is but our pleasure at witnessing malice and violence inflicted upon fellow human beings. Competitive sport is another arena for malice to be played out, whether watching or participating. A few times in my life the lid would really fly off and rage would surface, quickly followed by shame.

In particular I remember a time when we were working with some Indian stonemasons in Poona. One of the workers was doing something wrong despite my having just warned him. Well, I gave him a full serve of rage, only to discover afterwards that he really was doing it right all along. I was deeply ashamed, not only that I had lost my temper, but that I had done the typical thing at the time – chosen an Indian as my victim. A few months ago I even felt the thrill of what it would be like to kill someone, after reading a newspaper article about a murder, and that really brought malice home to me. To experience it in me that intensely was shocking indeed. Peter’s Journal, ‘Intelligence’

I remember once talking to someone on our balcony about the business of taking a good clear look at my feelings and beliefs – ‘to bring them out into the open in order to shine the bright light of awareness on them’ is the way that Richard has put it. As we talked, my visitor was somewhat bewildered as to why I would want to do it. He indicated that I was somehow kidding myself by wanting to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – in fact, I got the impression that he thought me dishonest and insincere because his conviction was that to be ‘honest’ meant to cherish one’s feelings and to be ‘sincere’ meant to let them all hang out and to hell with everyone else.

Exploring and investigating the dark side of one’s own psyche while neither expression nor repressing is only one aspect of the business of examining one’s own feelings and passions – there are some very sweet aspects to be discovered as well. One exploration that is fascinating to make is to get in touch with one’s childhood naiveté. A lot of people are well acquainted with getting in touch with their childhood hurts and wounds – the times they were bullied, the times they were wrongly accused of something they didn’t do, the feelings of indigitation, the feelings of resentment, loneliness and so on … but I found that there were also wonderful memories of carefree days of leaving home in the morning and riding my bike for hours on end, either alone or with mates, simply riding for the fun of riding, exploring for the fun of exploring, being aimless for sheer exuberance of being aimless – the only restriction being that I needed to be home before dark. They were days immersed in a childhood guileless naiveté, the closet to being innocent that is possible within the human condition.

By the simple act of getting in touch with this childhood naiveté once again, I realized that it had never ever quite gone away in my later life – that despite all the trials and tribulations of later life I had never quite lost it entirely and bowed under to cynicism. On reflection, I guess this is why I was such a ‘fool’ or so ‘dishonest’ or so ‘insincere’ or so ‘hypocritical’ as to want to eliminate malice and sorrow from my life in order that I could again become as guileless and as carefree again as I was in those childhood days.

Of course, as you have rightly pointed out, this is not an actual freedom from malice and sorrow – it’s still ‘me’ being a feeling being – but for me feeling felicitous and being once-again naïve sure beats feeling miserable and being resentful.

VINEETO (to No 66): Two things come to mind that might be relevant. One is something I wrote to Alan way back in 1999 –

‘Yes, Virtual Freedom is a daring. Once you decide and declare to yourself and others that you are living in Virtual Freedom, you can’t slip back into not having a perfect day. You have to live up to your own standards. You pull yourself up on your boot strings. What a great tool! It’s another ‘lifting of the bar ‘on the wide and wondrous path to Freedom.’ Vineeto, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, Alan 2.5.1999

RESPONDENT No 66: Yes, even merely stating that I experience good parts of my average day in a virtual freedom ‘puts me out there’ in a way. I would not declare myself virtually free until I was quite certain, and it would be after months of such certainty.

RESPONDENT: Hmmmm. I think you might be missing Vineeto’s hint here. Maybe Vineeto missed it too, somewhere along the line. The basis of that little bootstrap operation is to fake it until there’s no evidence that you’re faking it.

VINEETO: No, the point is not about faking anything, a point which is obvious from my explanation in the next part of my post to No 66 that you snipped –

‘In other words, at some stage, based on my comparison to life before actualism I made Virtual Freedom my standard and *I was then bound by my own integrity* and *supported by my intent* not to slip back into not having a perfect day.’ [emphasis added]

I have always been clear that my intent always was and still is to become free from the human condition in toto and as such it would be utterly silly to lie to either myself or to others. The reason why there is ‘no evidence that you’re faking it’ is because I am not faking it and I never have.

It is indeed possible to effortless live virtually free from malice and sorrow. Have you not thought it odd that within the human condition it is par for the course that to be happy and harmless is considered a mark of insincerity yet to feel sad about being here and to be antagonistic towards one’s fellow human beings is regarded as the hall mark of sincerity?

RESPONDENT: Let it become such a good act that it might as well be genuine, as far as anyone knows. No-one else can know what you’re experiencing. And, besides, who the fuck are ‘you’ to judge? Voila. You’re ‘virtually free from the human condition’, because you’ll be damned if you’ll let that mask slip, publicly OR privately.

VINEETO: Your derogatory opinion about becoming and/or being virtually free is well publicized –

… the reason why it’s all or nothing is because, if it doesn’t culminate in an actual freedom, actualism just bombs the soul, leaving it full of holes without destroying it. We don’t mind ‘dying’, but we don’t want to be maimed. RE: Virtual Peace Tue 24.5.2005 12:45 AM

IMO, it is *only* the magical quality of a PCE/AF that makes an emotion-free life worth contemplating. To be caught half way, unable to participate fully and feelingly in the human drama, yet unable to go forth into the clear open spaces beyond ‘humanity’ ... that is not something to aspire to, as I see it. RE: Virtual Ho-Hum Tue 24.5.2005 10:45 PM

As such it comes to no surprise that you are now inventing a ‘faked’ virtual freedom in order to cast aspersions on what others have chosen to do with their lives.

Here is how Richard answered your previous concerns regards virtual freedom –

Respondent: Is virtual freedom anything at all, once the desire to be actually free and/or the belief in the possibility of becoming actually free, ceases?

Richard: First of all a virtual freedom will not come about if there is a belief that it is possible to become actually free from the human condition ... such a possibility is what is seen for oneself in a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

As for the desire to become actually free from the human condition: if that dedicated pure intent ever wanes to the point of being non-existent then what one is left with is whatever one has seen through/ realised/ discovered for oneself ... my previous companion, for instance, does report that she is much better off because her involvement with actualism than she was before she ever met me.

Respondent: Personally I doubt it.

Richard: Okay ... it is your doubt, when all is said and done, just as it is your choice to be guided by it.

Respondent: My gut feeling is that virtual freedom must be constantly policed ...

Richard: As a ‘gut-feeling’ is another way of saying ‘intuition’ that is not at all surprising.

Respondent: [My gut feeling is that virtual freedom must be constantly policed], maintained affectively and cognitively by a constant barrage of actualist ideation, and for long-term success it requires people who are expert believers.

Richard: Whereas in reality a virtual freedom needs none of what your gut-feeling tells you it requires.

Respondent: That is what seems most likely to me at this stage.

Richard: Okay ... it is your most-likeliness, when all is said and done, just as it is your choice to be guided by it. Richard, Actual Freedom Mailing List No. 60, 30 May 2005

Your current derogatory remarks only demonstrate that you have obviously decided to take no notice of the first-hand reports from the expert on becoming actually free but that you prefer to continue to rely on your feelings and be guided by your imagination as to what the process of becoming free from the misery and mayhem of the human condition may involve.

RESPONDENT: I wonder if Richard endorses this little bit of ... ummm ... applied sincerity?

VINEETO: Ha, it should be clear by now that Richard does not take the conclusions drawn from your ‘gut feeling’ and your ‘intuition’ as being fact.

VINEETO (to No 66): Two things come to mind that might be relevant. One is something I wrote to Alan way back in 1999 –

‘Yes, Virtual Freedom is a daring. Once you decide and declare to yourself and others that you are living in Virtual Freedom, you can’t slip back into not having a perfect day. You have to live up to your own standards. You pull yourself up on your boot strings. What a great tool! It’s another ‘lifting of the bar ‘on the wide and wondrous path to Freedom.’ Vineeto, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, Alan 2.5.1999

RESPONDENT: You mean otherwise you would not be inclined to be happy and harmless, unless you set yourself up as a virtually free person who has to adhere to certain expectations. Sounds pretty contrived to me.

VINEETO: Where in the above paragraph did I say that otherwise I ‘would not be inclined to be happy and harmless, unless you set yourself up as a virtually free person’? If I had not been inclined to be happy and harmless I would not have started the actualism practice at all, nor would I have participated in The Actual Freedom Trust, nor would I have written on the Actual Freedom Mailing List.

Did you not read what I wrote further down in my post to No 66? –

‘I therefore had to forge my own path and go by my own assessment. What I had as a guide, however, was the comparison to the time before I started to apply actualism, before I made it my goal in life to clean myself up as much as humanly possible so as to facilitate an actual freedom from the human condition. (…) In other words, at some stage, based on my comparison to life before actualism I made Virtual Freedom my standard and I was then *bound by my own integrity and supported by my intent* not to slip back into not having a perfect day.’ [emphasis added]

This is what I mean by the word integrity –

integrity – unimpaired or uncorrupted condition; Freedom from moral corruption; Soundness of (…) principle; the character of uncorrupted virtue; uprightness, honesty, sincerity. Oxford Dictionary

integrity – honesty, rectitude, truthfulness, sincerity, candour; Antonym: dishonesty Oxford Thesaurus

Let me give you a real-world example what I mean when I talk about ‘lifting of the bar on the wide and wondrous path to Freedom’ –

A person watches people climbing the top of Mount Everest and is greatly inspired by their achievement. Wouldn’t this person first find out everything there is to find out in written documents and video reports about mountain climbing in general and climbing the highest mountain on earth in particular in order to establish if that is what he/she wants to do with their life? And if they then decide that they still want to do it, wouldn’t they then buy some climbing gear and go out on the weekends and practice a bit of mountain climbing in the near-by area. Then, when they find out that they still have the burning intent to climb Mount Everest, would they not eventually lift the bar and decide to devote their life to becoming a first-rate mountain climber in order to succeed in such an ambitious and challenging enterprise? And wouldn’t it make sense to then practice mountain climbing as much as possible while slowly increasing the level of difficulty upon their increasing skills? Now if this person chooses to tell others that they have developed an expertise in their chosen field of endeavour, does that suddenly turn their sincere enterprise into something contrived?

Well, the process of changing oneself to becoming increasingly free from the ingrained habits, pitfalls and insidiousness of the human condition works in a similar manner – after having managed my bad-mood-habits I found it relatively easy to be happy when I was by myself, I then stepped up the pace and focussed on becoming happy and innocuous in my living with Peter, and with the confidence of having succeeded in living with one person in peace and harmony, I proceeded by applying attentiveness to my interactions with other people, and upon managing to live peacefully in my day-to-day activities with people (also known as a virtual freedom from malice and sorrow) I then had sufficient confidence to dare to expose myself to even more challenging situations such as the often adversary climate of internet mailing lists, and so on.

I cannot possibly see how you see anything ‘contrived’ in this procedure.