Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections

RESPONDENT: I’ve recently had a chat at a cafe with a very close and intelligent friend of mine about actualism and the so many things it promises to offer (above all, the discovery of the cause and the means to end human psychological suffering). The main objection he had was that ‘each individual human being has to find his/her own way – that’s their freedom’, ...

PETER: If I take it that your friend was not merely philosophizing but that he has indeed found ‘his own way’ then his discovery, and therefore his opinions, would then be of no use whatsoever to anyone else. If he is still in the process of finding his own way then he obviously disparages following the lead or taking note of anyone else’s experience at all, which means he cuts himself off from the possibility that fellow human being’s experiences may have some relevance to his own search. Whilst it is obviously his freedom to do so, such an approach doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

I have not had to find my ‘own way’ in most matters in life – my very lifestyle is dependant upon the discoveries of fellow human beings who were here before me. I didn’t discover the wheel, I didn’t work out how to get water to my house, I didn’t discover how to plant crops or husband animals or invent electricity or television or computers and so on. Neither am I self-reliant in that I depend on others to grow my food, build my shelter, provide my electricity, protect my house, pave the road, collect the rubbish, drive the bus and so on. With this is mind, why should I ignore the discovery of a fellow human being who has discovered ‘… the cause and the means to end human psychological suffering’, to use your words, simply because I hold the conviction that I need to have the ‘freedom’ to find my ‘own way’.

When I met Richard I had the choice to either take on board what he was saying – see if it made sense and if it did, road test the method he used in order to become free of malice and sorrow to see if it worked – or not and then move on. Have you not got this freedom of choice as well?

But it makes no sense to me to cobble oneself with the belief that one needs to reject the discoveries of others on the basis of ‘I need to do it my way’. This is not my idea at all of being free to make a sensible choice. If I had stuck to my beliefs or listened to such advice from others, I would not have abandoned the spiritual path and chosen to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless – in other words, I would have wasted the opportunity that coming across Richard afforded me.

RESPONDENT: ... and that simply ‘copy and paste’ doesn’t work in practice.

PETER: In the time I decided to go public about the fact that I have abandoned spiritualism in favour of becoming happy and harmless I have had many people accuse me of being a clone or a disciple or whatever and of merely parroting Richard’s words. I make no apologies whatsoever in using many of Richard’s terminology and phraseology – it makes sense to do so particularly as I have no hang ups about picking the brain’s of others and following others’ leads, of tapping into and utilizing another’s expertise and attempting to emulate the success of a fellow human being who has discovered ‘… the cause and the means to end human psychological suffering’, to use your words. I understand your friend has his principles and his opinions about matters such as this – but for me the rewards of becoming carefree and benign have far outstripped the need for ‘me’ to hang on to the selfist belief that ‘I’ need to do things ‘my’ way.

RESPONDENT: He said that’s the reason why he doesn’t like all these ‘preachers’ as they eliminate all originality and authenticity in the individual practicing their teaching/ method.

PETER: As someone who has spent the last 6 years in ‘the individual practicing’ of the actualism method, I can only report that it does indeed bring about a tangible and dramatic reduction not only in my own suffering, but even more significantly, in the suffering that I had either previously either deliberately or unwittingly inflicted on my fellow human beings.

Now if your friend sees both the process of actualism, its incremental successes and its end goal as being unoriginal and unauthentic then he is in good company because most people who have come across actualism have dismissed it as being yet another spiritual teaching and continued on their merry way, apparently finding comfort in doing what everyone else does. I do wonder though when he says he wants to ‘find his own way’ – does he know what it is that he wants to find, does he have a goal or purpose in life? The reason I say this is because when I came across Richard I found that I had a similar goal to what he had in his life – to find a way to bring an end to the suffering that we human beings inflict upon ourselves and upon each other. Perhaps that was why it was relatively easy for me to swallow my spiritual pride and start to do what I wanted to do and not do what others told me I should do.

RESPONDENT: And he said about Richard that he intentionally searched for an ‘original’ way in order to prove that he is unique, that he had this goal in mind prior to finding a way of being happy and harmless.

PETER: I take it that your friend must have some special insight into Richard’s intentions and motives as this is contrary to what Richard says were his intentions in finding a way to become happy and harmless and what he says are his motives in going public with his discovery. Does your friend happen to know Richard personally or is this something he has intuited from reading Richard’s writings or did he base his judgement of Richard solely on his own past experience with spiritual teachers or is merely repeating a psittacism from a spiritual teaching that he has taken on board?

Look, I can understand people being cynical of someone who claims to have found a way to end human malice and sorrow – it is after all a huge claim to make. I can only say that being cynical did not sit well with me because I saw that my holding on to this feeling meant that I believed there could never be, and therefore would never be, an end to human suffering. If I chose to keep believing this then I was stuck with holding to spiritual beliefs, all of which say that suffering is essential and that ultimately peace is only possible after death in some other-world, and I couldn’t and wouldn’t accept that.

RESPONDENT: And that he was mainly searching for this ‘artistic’ uniqueness, ‘actualism’ being only the means to this end.

PETER: I take it by ‘‘artistic’ uniqueness’ your friend is talking about those who strive to be unique, as in standing out from the crowd. The only way to stand out from the crowd is to have some degree of fame or notoriety, which means devoting one’s life to doing whatever it takes to win the acclaim, or the condemnation, of others.

I personally saw that to devote my life to such a pursuit was not only totally ‘self’-centred but that it was the very antithesis of freedom because my feeling of being unique was dependant upon the whims of what others feel about me. And what I like about Richard is that he had the same sensible approach to what it is to be a human being as I did – being a God-man did not sit well with him exactly for the very same reasons that the prospect of becoming a God-man did not sit well with me – it is a form of bondage and most decidedly not an actual freedom.

RESPONDENT: Yes I am interested in becoming free of human condition and I cannot help but do it ‘my’ way.

PETER: Why?

Once I realized ‘I’ was in no way unique and in no way an individual it was easy for me to give up ‘my’ pride, prejudices and preconditions and follow someone else who had become free of the human condition and do it his way. There was a slight variation to Richard’s way in that I avoided becoming Enlightened on the path – as I was well forewarned by Richard – but the way or method I used was identical to Richards.

Everybody is socially conditioned and programmed and there is very little essential difference in this programming as there is little essential difference between the various human tribal cultures, their religions, beliefs, morals and ethics. The instinctual passions are also universal and common-to-all – there is no difference between German anger or Indian anger or Australian anger nor is there in any difference between French sadness, Chinese sadness or Lithuanian sadness.

Once I understood the fact that no one is unique or special in that everybody is entrapped within the same human condition, I was then able to gaily abandon doing things ‘my’ way and get on with being sensible. I gave up doing what didn’t work to make me happy or harmless and I started to become really curious about actualism and how to become free of the human condition in toto. Besides, trying to ‘be’ an individual and ‘be’ unique is such an effort that it was a tangible relief to head off down the path to becoming an anonymous ‘nobody’ – a non-identity.

RESPONDENT: This is a very useful insight Peter. I thought about it after reading your mail and found that I indeed believe that I am unique. As I contemplate further I can see that ‘my uniqueness’ is just a belief and I need to work on it. I would welcome if you have your experience to share on how you tackled it.

PETER: It took me a while to consider how to reply to your question, as my initial response was that I have already written enough about my personal experiences. The reason I wrote my journal was to relate to others my own experiences with the inherent failures of pursuing happiness via materialism and spiritualism and to document the intrinsic successes of being a practicing actualist. I have also fleshed out many of these experiences and expertise in my writings and responses to correspondents since then. Another reason for my reluctance is that I have no wish to dominate this list – contrary to the belief of some, this mailing list is not the Richard, Peter and Vineeto show. This list has been set up as an uncensored forum to discuss how to become free of the human condition and, as such, it is open to anyone and everyone to openly share their experiences with materialism, spiritualism and actualism.

I always assumed that anyone subscribing to this list would have been attracted by the fact that actualism offers an alternative to both materialism and spiritualism. However, we do seem to have attracted a few spiritual cyber-teachers looking for a flock or at least a soapbox and others who seem intent only on defending their spiritual beliefs. What I have found telling over the past four years of correspondence is the number of people who eagerly proffer and stubbornly defend their borrowed-from-others beliefs, concepts, viewpoints, theories and psittacisms but that none have been are able to offer factual evidence or lived experiences that in any way supports their stance.

Many, many people have written to Richard about altered state of consciousness experiences, blithely telling him their ideas and beliefs about something he lived as an ongoing experience for 11 years. Consequently Richard doesn’t believe Enlightenment is a massive delusion – he knows it by personal lived experience corroborated by the documented teachings of many other similarly afflicted humans believing themselves to be ‘supernatural beings’. Similarly, many people have corresponded with Vineeto and I about the merits of following the spiritual path whilst we both have lived it as an ongoing experience for 17 years. Consequently I don’t need to believe that spiritualism doesn’t work – I know it by personal lived experience corroborated by the documented evidence of a long and legendary historical record of abysmal failure.

I didn’t sit on the fence or paddle around the edges of the spiritual world – I turned my back on the real world, I renounced materialism and literally wore the orange robes of a sannyasin in the Eastern religious tradition. I have lived in spiritual communes and experienced their failures and I have met several of the God-men personally and have seen for myself their lust for power, reverence and adulation in action. I have been a paid-up passionate believer in several spiritual groups and know the feelings of exclusivity and superiority that inevitably breeds competitiveness and antagonism towards other believers in other religious groups. I know by experience that embracing any spiritual or religious belief does not bring peace and harmony – au contraire, it can only breed yet more conflict and resentment because all spiritual and religious seeking is in fact fuelled by the narcissistic drive that is inbuilt in the ‘self’-centred survival passions.

RESPONDENT: Could one still effectively engage in the process to eliminate the ‘self’ and still disagree with certain things Richard says along the way?

RICHARD: On what certain grounds would such disagreement with certain things be based?

RESPONDENT: None other than the phrase ‘the proof is in the pudding’.

RICHARD: Presuming that you are referring to the proverb, dating back to the 1300’s, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’ (literally, one does not know whether food has been cooked properly until one tries it oneself; figuratively, do not assume that something is in order or believe what one is told but, rather, judge the matter by testing it oneself) then you are not disagreeing – synonyms: ‘differing, failing to agree, dissenting, standing opposed, being in dispute/contention, being at variance/odds, diverging, being in disaccord’ (Oxford Dictionary) – with ‘certain’ things on certain grounds but are disagreeing as a matter of course.

In other words, to ask if one could still effectively engage in the process to eliminate the ‘self’ (the ‘self’ as detailed on The Actual Freedom Trust web site and not the ‘self’ as per materialism and spiritualism) and still disagree with certain things, as also detailed on The Actual Freedom Trust web site (such as just what constitutes the aforementioned ‘self’ one is supposedly going to be effectively engaged in the process of eliminating), on no other grounds than you will not know whether those ‘certain’ things be actually so until the ‘self’ in question is eliminated is to ask whether a carte blanche approach will result in an actual freedom from the human condition.

In a word: no ... and I say this because, if anything, one would become enlightened/ awakened/ illuminated/ self-realised instead.

I kid you not.

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RESPONDENT: I mean could I simply withhold judgement either way as to whether I will have absolutely no emotions/feelings, the safety of nature, and the disabling of visualization skills.

RICHARD: For an actual freedom from the human condition to occur identity in toto disappears forever (as in extinct) ... and, as identity is the affective feelings (‘I’ am the feelings and the feelings are ‘me’), the entire affective faculty – which includes the intuitive/imaginative facility – will likewise be extinct.

RESPONDENT: Ok, I was having trouble understanding the possibility of ALL feelings going bye-bye, but your answers have helped with this.

RICHARD: Are you really saying that all it took was my above sentence, containing forty-eight (48) words, to be able to do what your reading, for 2-4 hours per day from April through to September this year, of all the articles – at least as far as you can tell – on The Actual Freedom Trust web site was not able to do?

*

RICHARD: How you could contemplate being able to ‘withhold judgement’ about whether or not an actual freedom from the human condition entails the entire affective faculty (which includes the intuitive/imaginative facility) being extinct has got me beat.

RESPONDENT: I guess, I don’t yet see how the ability to ‘picture’ where this body put its keys in its house as connoting anything emotional whatsoever. That seems no more affective than the words you and I use to write right now.

RICHARD: To trivialise that which has kept humankind in thralldom for aeons – the (intuitive/imaginative) ability to be sucked into the massive delusion popularly known as spiritual/mystical illumination, enlightenment, awakening, self-realisation, and so on – by referring to it as the ability to picture where one’s house keys are makes a mockery of just what it was you were doing, for all those years that you were studying and practicing Protestant Fundamentalism (Nazarene), New Ageism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity (with the ‘Fourth Way’ as a natural complement), when you were chanting, praying, meditating and walking around with a constant feeling of a god’s presence, of love, peace, and joy, during nearly all waking hours (which, sleeping only three hours a day, means twenty-one hours a day) plus supposedly seeing Divine Light (aka Divine Energies) ... all to such an extent that the only people you met who had gone farther into the Christian Mystery were some other Eastern Orthodox monks and priests (and a few Catholic monks).

RESPONDENT: I get the emotional part now (I think I do – I’m sure I’ll be called on my ignorance many more times).

RICHARD: Hmm ... becoming all-of-sudden humble despite having read, for 2-4 hours per day from April through to September this year, all the articles – at least as far as you can tell – on The Actual Freedom Trust web site just does not wash with me.

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RESPONDENT: Could I just rigorously practice the method (which I have been, more and more and more) and just wait for the ACTUAL results?

RICHARD: And just what ‘ACTUAL results’ might those be (such as to motivate you to rigorously practise the method in the first place)?

RESPONDENT: The elimination of all suffering ...

RICHARD: Given that the elimination of all suffering requires the elimination of the cause of all that suffering then how is that elimination going to come about unless one knows both what the cause is and what it is made up of?

Or, to put that another way, how is one going to practice the method rigorously – synonyms: exactly, precisely, accurately, meticulously, punctiliously, painstakingly, thoroughly, scrupulously, conscientiously – if one does not know the the why and the whereof and the wherefore of that very method.

RESPONDENT: ... and delighting to be hear in this actual world.

RICHARD: As the pronoun ‘this’ refers to the thing or person present at the time of speaking or writing (as in now) – specifically the place where the speaker or writer is (as in here) – you have to be kidding yourself.

RESPONDENT: Virtual Freedom itself seems more than worthy to work for (and it seems more understandable and conceivable too).

RICHARD: This may be an apt moment to point out that the identity inhabiting this body all those years ago lived in the state of excellence, nowadays known as a virtual freedom, for the six months or so which immediately preceded becoming (because of the lack of a precedent) spiritually enlightened/mystically awakened for the next eleven years ... instead of there and then (which is where and when the opportunity arose) enabling an actual freedom from the human condition.

It is this simple: I would be doing my fellow human being no favour were I to stand idly by, saying nothing, as they proceed to corrupt the purity of the direct experience of actuality into being nothing but another variation on the oh-so-slippery ‘his’ truth and ‘her’ truth and ‘my’ truth (as in ‘his’ experience of actual freedom and ‘her’ experience of actual freedom and ‘my’ experience of actual freedom).

RESPONDENT: Another reason for this is the fact that the psyche is not a static structure, it changes with and mirrors every individual’s experience of life, so any map that might come up is obsolete the moment it hits the road. You can’t say ‘if you only do this and then do that you’ll get on street x’, I mean it’s not a logical or scientific process with definite and traceable cause and effect relationships ... we’re talking about a ghost here.

VINEETO: I am reminded of a scene in Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’ where Brian says to the crowd ‘You are all individuals’ and one small voice cries out ‘No, I am not’. Are you by any chance reviving the old objection of ‘everyone has to find their own way to freedom’? If that is the case, then you will find some valid answers on The Actual Freedom Trust website.

Unlike spiritual freedom, which is a product of a person’s individual psyche and their individual path to achieve this psychic state, an actual freedom is actual, as in actuality is occurring in this very moment regardless of a feeling being’s perception and interpretation of it. Given that the human condition is common to everyone, surely it makes sense that the method to become free from the human condition is equally applicable to everyone? ’T’would be silly to reinvent the wheel over and over for every single person who wants to become free from the human condition.

RESPONDENT: Applicable yes, no doubt about this, everyone can ask himself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’, but would that question generate the same results?

VINEETO: Yes. It is obvious that sometimes human beings feel sad, sometimes they feel angry, often they feel fearful, sometimes they feel superior, sometimes they feel inferior and so on. And yet these feelings are the same feelings for each and every human being – there is no difference between Chinese anger, American anger and Indian anger, nor male sadness and female sadness for that matter.

And yet despite this human beings tend to personalize their feelings to an extent that it is common to hear people say that no-one can know how much this feeling hurts, which is not the case at all. It is a fact that no-one can feel the feeling that another is feeling – empathy is the closest possible one can get to feeling another’s feelings feeling – and this fact serves to heighten the inevitable feeling of separation from other feeling beings.

RESPONDENT: What I wanted to say is that the scientific method can be successfully applied to the physical world, an objective world, a world that can be touched and measured, but not to the meta-physical, the world of the psyche, which by its very nature is subjective, elusive and illusory. One cannot observe/measure subjectivity with objectivity, it is subjectivity that measures its own subjectivity. The first world is governed by cause and effect relationships, whereas the psychic world is not governed by this law. One can ask himself ‘Haietmoba?’ till the cows come home, if the other ingredients necessary for success are not present, it’s a futile masturbation/ self-preoccupation, resulting in that person becoming a member of the wankactasaurus family.

VINEETO: I wonder if your comment that the world of the psyche cannot be observed objectively is based on personal experience because I have found that this is not the case. I spent many years subjectively exploring the psychic world in my spiritual years, so I know that it is a very limited world, varied only by cultural conditioning, and given an apparent veracity by the fervent beliefs and heartfelt feelings of billions upon billions of humans over thousands upon thousands of years. It was only when I began to extract myself from this world was I then able to clearly – as in objectively – see that the psychic world is nothing but a collective illusion: rooted in instinctual fear, hindered by unawareness and mired in superstition.

Your conjecture of repeating senselessly a certain sequence of words ‘till the cows come home’ is not an accurate description of the actualism method – you left out some vital ingredients. It is sincerity that reawakens one’s dormant naiveté, which then gives rise to sincere intent, which in turn is essential in the process of allowing the PCE to happen. With the clear memory of a PCE and the sincere intent to have the already always existing peace-on-earth become apparent one cannot go wrong.

RESPONDENT: You cannot replicate Richard’s condition by doing exactly what he has done, …

VINEETO: Ah, but I don’t intend to do ‘exactly what he has done’ – Richard has clearly advised against following in his footsteps as he had become enlightened only to discover that this was not the actual world as experienced in his 4-hour PCE. Here it is in his own words –

Respondent: ... or did the fact that you had been in an altered state for the preceding 11 years make it more macabre and gruesome than it would be for a ‘normal’ person?

Richard: Definitely ... which is why I advise that nobody should attempt to follow ‘my’ footsteps – to go through enlightenment/ awakening and beyond – but to be a pioneer instead:

• [Richard]: ‘... all the Gurus and the God-Men, the Masters and the Messiahs, the Avatars and the Saviours, and the Saints and the Sages and the Seers did not have peace-on-earth on their agenda. Obviously someone had to be the first ... and this fact was thrilling to the nth degree. It meant that an actual freedom from the human condition, here on earth in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body had been discovered and could be demonstrated and described ... no one else need ever take that route again (and I would not wish upon anyone to have to follow in my footsteps and run that full gamut of existential angst to break through to what lay beyond). I always liken it to the physical adventure that Mr. James Cook undertook to journey to Australia two hundred plus years ago. It took him over a year in a leaky wooden boat with hard tack for food and immense dangers along the way. Nowadays, one can fly to Australia in twenty-seven hours in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain.

No one has to go the path of the trail-blazer and forge along in another leaky wooden boat’.

And (further on in the same e-mail) the modified version/addendum:

• [Richard]: ‘... put succinctly the replication of my condition presently calls for pioneers, people with the necessary derring-do to pilot a one-seater aeroplane by the seat of their pants to this pristine wonderland, and not for those who will follow in their wake in air-conditioned comfort, eating hygienically prepared food and watching an in-flight movie into the bargain. And nobody knows who that pioneer aviator is until that person actually lands here ... not even me’. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 60, 6.2.2005

RESPONDENT: … an individual is an individual with its own idiosyncrasies, …

VINEETO: I have found that I became much more of an individual (and retained my idiosyncrasies) as I proceeded to become virtually free from the human condition because I am now far less driven by the common-to-all instinctual passions and common-to-particular societal groups fashions, and in doing so I have also abandoned the ubiquitous feeling that I am special. In other words, fairly early into the process of becoming more attentive I had to admit that I am as sad, as bad and as mad as everyone else – an admission that was instrumental in my becoming virtually free of the common-to-all human condition.

The actualism method gives clear instructions how to leave ‘the world of the psyche’ in order for actuality to become apparent. You can open the door to freedom with one hand or both hands, with your foot, your nose or your behind, or decide never to open it at all, but it will always be the same door, the one that has ‘EXIT’ written across. The actualism method is specifically designed to lead you to this exit door and make life easier while you proceed.

RESPONDENT: ... [an individual is an individual]… not a borg.

VINEETO: As the characteristics of a ‘Borg’ have sprung from the imagination of Gene Rodenberry you may well be talking about a feeling that resembles his imagination. Here is what Richard had to say when someone compared him to ‘Borg’.

I can only suggest that the way to manifest your individuality is to decline to run with the herd.

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