Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RICHARD: The first and most important step is to remember a PCE (everybody that I have spoken to at length over the last nineteen years – everybody – has had at least one PCE) and thus start thinking for oneself (although most people cannot initially remember a PCE and may need a lot of prompting to retrieve it from their memory). Then each next step becomes obvious of its own accord in one’s daily life as one goes about one’s normal business in the market place. The pure intent born out of the PCE actively works on eliminating the animal ‘self’ bestowed by blind nature each moment again. It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is one’s only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this time around, hey presto ... one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.

There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? This can give rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here just now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself.

Which means that attentiveness and sensuousness will facilitate what the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about: a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to be feeling good, feeling happy and harmless and feeling excellent/ perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).

Thus, delight is what is humanly possibly, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the PCE, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer just intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sensing away. Such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and I am the experiencing of what is happening.

But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared.

RESPONDENT: How many have you taught successfully?

RICHARD: First, I do not teach anyone ... the PCE does that. I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’). As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’ can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. All I have ever wished for is for the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition to exist in the world so that they are available for anyone who comes across it, in any indeterminate future, to draw affirmation and confirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is an affirmation that their experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way.

I just happened to discover the already always existing peace-on-earth, the purity of which is so perfect that I am reporting my experience to my fellow human beings. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nobody else living an actual freedom from the human condition ... for nineteen years I have scoured the books to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. As I measure success by quality and not quantity it has exceeded my expectations already ... since going public but three years or so ago a handful of pioneers, with the requisite daring to abandon the ‘Tried and True’ in favour of a sensible, down-to-earth, non-spiritual path to an actual freedom, have had the audacity to achieve varying degrees of incrementally freeing themselves from malice and sorrow.

If one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (as explained above) and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings in conjunction with sensuousness then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being just here right now for as much as is possible.

It is a win/win situation.

A précis of what an actual freedom from the human condition is on about is available for access.

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RESPONDENT: How did you ascertain that?

RICHARD: The same way that I ascertain anything about anybody and everybody ... I ask and I listen. Plus I read about other people’s experiences in books, journals, magazines, newspapers and on the internet. I watch TV, videos, films ... whatever media is available. I have been scouring the books and talking with many and varied peoples from all walks of life for nineteen years now for information on an actual freedom from the human condition ... but to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun. As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’ can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead. All I have ever wished for is for the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition to exist in the world so that they are available for anyone who comes across it, in any indeterminate future, to draw affirmation and confirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is an affirmation that their experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. I just happened to discover the already always existing peace-on-earth, the purity of which is so perfect that I am reporting my experience to my fellow human beings.

The ‘flow-on’ effect from reading actual freedom writings is that if one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (as explained further above) and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings in conjunction with sensuousness then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being just here right now for as much as is possible.

It is a win/win situation.

RESPONDENT: You’re going to have to send more information or draw a clearer map to paradise.

RICHARD: Okay. It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness does not mean a thing if one is miserable now ... and a hoped-for happiness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting.

Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now.

What ‘I’ did, eighteen years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’. (Now I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?

It was a bit of a chore to start with, but as success after success started to multiply exponentially, it became automatic to have this question running as an on-going thing ... because it delivered the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes were repeatable – almost on demand – and satisfied the ‘scientific method’.

As ‘I’ knew, from the PCE that started ‘me’ off into ridding this body of ‘me’, that it was possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set a minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. (‘Feeling good’ is an unambiguous term ... if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all.) If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end that good feeling? Ah ... yes ... ‘he said that and ...’, or ‘she didn’t do this and I ...’, or ‘what I wanted was ... and I didn’t get it ...’, and so on. One does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most.

This way, the reward is immediate; by finding out what triggered off this loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying this moment of being alive. You may remember what I wrote to you some days ago about attention, fascination, reflection, contemplation and apperception?

Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being alive now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to there, along the way to there you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity.

Okay, it is all about being here at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here. A grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place. If you do not want to be here, then forget it.

Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, you will notice, this is not perfection personified yet ... but, then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond normal human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once.

But one has to want to be here on this planet ... most people resent being here and wish to escape. This method will bring one into being more fully here than anyone has ever been before.

It is really important to understand the point I have been pushing about the soul ... getting into feelings like this – ‘perfect’ feelings – leaves one in imminent danger of the seductive snare of Love and Beauty, and, conveniently ignoring their opposites, becoming enlightened, or at least illuminated. ‘Me’ – that intuition of ‘being’ that I call the soul – sugar coats itself with Love and Compassion and Beauty and Truth and swans along in a state of Blissful Euphoria. Thus one then goes off into some mystical State of Being in some metaphysical world and misses out on the clean and clear perfection of this actual world. It is very, very difficult to get out of the enlightened state and go ‘beyond it’ into this actual world of the senses.

So: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? It beats any pathetic mantra by a country mile ... because it is useful.

RICHARD: I am not required for the process of understanding (as in a ‘personality cult’ that can grow around a ‘charismatic leader’). As facts and actuality can be commonsensically conveyed by the written word, this means that the third alternative can be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead.

RESPONDENT: This is heroic but perhaps difficult to achieve.

RICHARD: As fear is non-existent in this flesh and blood body there is no way I can be either a hero or ‘heroic’. And it is not at all ‘difficult to achieve’ due to the ease of mass-communication outside of the traditional publishers (who self-censor books). Desk-top publishing and the rapid copying capacity of computers in combination with world-wide distribution via the Internet means that copies of the words on the ‘Actual Freedom Web Page’ are already tucked away on computers in different parts of the globe already. It will only increase and cannot be stopped.

It will indeed be accessed by anyone discriminating enough long after I am physically dead.

RESPONDENT: How do you measure your success so far?

RICHARD: All I have ever wished for is for the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition to exist in the world so that they are available long after I am dead. This is so that a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’ is available for anyone who comes across it, in any indeterminate future, to draw affirmation and confirmation from ... for anyone to avail themselves of if it be in accord with their own experience and/or aspirations. That is, it is an affirmation that their experience is not only valid but a confirmation in that a fellow human being has traversed this territory in an eminently satisfactory way. For nineteen years I have scoured the books ... to no avail. Now the information exists – and has taken on a life of its own – and I am well content and having so much fun.

And as I measure success by quality and not quantity it has exceeded my expectations already.

RESPONDENT: I guess I realise at some level that the crux of the issue is the above (as in points 1 and 2) and that if I had to pick out the two most important things in a ‘teaching’ it would have to be those. As your teaching ...

RICHARD: If I may interject? I do not have a ‘teaching’ ... what I do is offer a do-it-yourself method with a proven track-record, plus an unambiguous report of my experience, clear descriptions of life here in this actual world, lucid explanations of how and why, and clarifications of misunderstandings.

RESPONDENT: So what would you describe a teaching as then?

RICHARD: That ‘teaching’ which you were referring to where you said ‘if I had to pick out the two most important things in a ‘teaching’ it would have to be those’ of course.

Which I why I say I am a fellow human being (albeit sans identity/ affections in toto) providing a report of what I have discovered and not some latter-day bodiless teacher (aka sage or seer, god-man or guru, master or messiah, saviour or saint, and so on) with yet another unliveable teaching.

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RESPONDENT: I noticed you weren’t very interested in my body/ universe points.

RICHARD: No, it was not that I was not interested in your ‘body/ universe points’ ... what I was not interested in was writing something – anything – which is going be read as yet another unliveable teaching from yet another bodiless teacher.

Hence I did not respond to anything at all after your ‘as your teaching ...’ introduction to what you had to say about the unambiguous report of my experience, the clear descriptions of life here in this actual world, the lucid explanations of how and why, the clarifications of misunderstandings, and the do-it-yourself method with a proven track-record I share with my fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: Any comments?

RICHARD: Nope.

RESPONDENT: I’d also be interested to hear your own philosophy and how you suggest we go about ridding the world of evil.

RICHARD: First and foremost: nothing I say is a ‘philosophy’ (or a metaphysics or a thesis and so on) as all that I write is a description which comes out of my direct and spontaneous experiencing at this moment in time ... my words are an ‘after the event’ report, as it were.

For starters: one needs to fully acknowledge the biological imperative (the instinctual passions) which are the root cause of all the ills of humankind. The genetically inherited passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) give rise to malice and sorrow. Malice and sorrow are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’. The term ‘Human Condition’ is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. The ending of malice and sorrow involves getting one’s head out of the clouds – and beyond – and coming down-to-earth where the flesh and blood bodies called human beings actually live. Obviously, the solution to all the ills of humankind can only be found here in space and now in time as this body. Then the question is: is it possible to be free of the human condition, here on earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body?

Which means: How on earth can one live happily and harmlessly in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are whilst one nurses malice and sorrow in one’s bosom?

RESPONDENT: Do you feel we can will our way into this transformation you hint at, or do we get it by grace?

RICHARD: Not by ‘grace’ no ... that requires belief in an imaginary god. This is all one’s own doing ... nobody can set you free but yourself.

RESPONDENT: To what do you attribute your finding this transformation? Can it be cultivated?

RICHARD: In 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours. In that four hours I lived the peace-on-earth that is already always here now ... and I saw that ‘I’ (an emotional-mental construct) was standing in the way of this actual freedom being apparent twenty four hours of the day. I knew that I would revert to normal ... and that ‘I’ would do whatever to live this perfection in this life-time. Once experienced – and remembered – it is impossible to settle for second-best. With a pure intent – born out of the PCE – patience and perseverance and diligence and application were ‘my’ forte. ‘I’ set out to undo this emotional-mental construct.

This separative ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ – a psychological and psychic identity – is forever alienated from one’s body and from the world of people, things and events. To end the separative social identity, ‘I’ whittled away at all the social mores and psittacisms ... those mechanical repetitions of previously received ideas or images, reflecting neither apperception nor autonomous reasoning. ‘I’ examined all the beliefs, ideas, values, theories, truths, customs, traditions, ideals, superstitions ... and all the other schemes and dreams. ‘I’ become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what ‘I’ found myself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. As ‘mature adult’, ‘I’ was actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological ‘ego’ overlaying a psychic ‘being’.

Then what ‘I’ did, voluntarily and willingly, was to press the button which precipitated an – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – momentum that resulted in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What ‘I’ did was that ‘I’ dedicated myself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and intentionally sacrificed ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entity residing inside this body – ‘I’ was gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ was what ‘I’ held most dear. The extinction of identity – both an ego death and a soul death – is a welcome release into actuality. I am finally here.

I discover that I have always been here ... I have never been anywhere else for there is nowhere else ... except illusion and into delusion. The ‘everyday reality’ and the ‘Greater Reality’ had their existence only in ‘my’ fertile imagination. Only this, the actual world, genuinely exists. This exquisite surprise brings with it delightful relief at the moment of mutation ... life is perfect after all. But, then again, has one not suspected this to be so all along? At the moment of freedom from the Human Condition there is a clear sense of ‘I have always known this’. Doubt is banished forever ... no more verification is required. All is self-evidently pure and perfect. Everything is indeed well.

It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon oneself and others.

RESPONDENT: What I am asking is what do you say caused your transformation/PCE experience to occur? Was it the result of delving deeply into a problem and then staying with it?

RICHARD: My questioning of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being had all started in a war-torn country in June 1966 at age nineteen – when there was an identity inhabiting this body complete with a full suite of feelings – and a Buddhist monk killed himself in a most gruesome way. There was I, a callow youth dressed in a jungle-green uniform and with a loaded rifle in my hand, representing the secular way to peace. There was a fellow human being, dressed in religious robes dowsed with petrol and with a cigarette lighter in hand, representing the spiritual way to peace.

I was aghast at what we were both doing ... and I sought to find a third alternative to being either ‘human’ or ‘divine’.

This was to be the turning point of my life, for up until then, I was a typical western youth, raised to believe in God, Queen and Country. Humanity’s inhumanity to humankind – society’s treatment of its subject citizens – was driven home to me, there and then, in a way that left me appalled, horrified, terrified and repulsed to the core of my being with a sick revulsion. I saw that no one knew what was going on and – most importantly – that no one was ‘in charge’ of the world. There was nobody to ‘save’ the human race ... all gods were but a figment of a feverish imagination. Out of a despairing desperation, that was collectively shared by my fellow humans, I saw and understood that I was as ‘guilty’ as any one else. For in this body – as is in everyone – was both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ... it was that some people were better than others at controlling their ‘dark side’. However, in a war, there is no way anyone can consistently control any longer ... ‘evil’ ran rampant. I saw that animal instincts – what I now know to be fear and aggression and nurture and desire – ruled the world ... and that these were instincts one was born with.

Thus started my search for freedom from the Human Condition ... and my attitude, all those years ago was this: I was only interested in changing myself fundamentally, radically, completely and utterly. Twenty six years later I found the third alternative ... but only when ‘I’ ceased to exist in ‘my’ entirety. There was no change or transformation big enough or grandiose enough to cure ‘me’ ... only extirpation – annihilation, expunction, extinction – ensures peace-on-earth.

RESPONDENT: Was it sought?

RICHARD: Yes. ... with all of ‘my’ being.

RESPONDENT: Was it uninvited (which is what I meant by ‘grace’)?

RICHARD: Then why not say ‘uninvited’ ... because the word ‘grace’ means unmerited divine assistance given to a human being for their regeneration or sanctification ... it is a virtue coming from God resulting in a state of sanctification. It is the spontaneous gift of the divine favour in the salvation of sinners, and the divine influence operating in humans for their regeneration. The English word ‘grace’ is the usual translation for the Greek ‘charis’ which occurs in the New Testament about 150 times. Although the word must sometimes be translated in other ways, the fundamental meaning in the New Testament and in subsequent theological usage is that contained in the Letter of Paul to Titus: ‘For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men’ (2:11). From the time of the early church, Christian theologians have developed and clarified the biblical concept of grace.

The word grace is the central subject of three great theological controversies: (1) that of the nature of human depravity and regeneration, (2) that of the relation between grace and free will and, (3) that of the ‘means of grace’ ... whether the efficacy of the sacraments as channels of the divine grace is dependent on good works performed or dependent on the faith of the recipient. Christian orthodoxy has taught that the initiative in the relationship of grace between God and man is always on the side of God. Once God has granted this ‘first grace’, however, man does have a response to give and a responsibility for the continuance of the relationship. Although the ideas of grace and of merit are mutually exclusive, neither Augustine nor the Protestant defenders of the principle of justification by ‘grace alone’ could avoid the question of reward of merit in the relationship of grace. In fact, some passages of the New Testament seem to use charis for ‘reward’. The Roman Catholic theology of grace stresses the habitual character of the life created by the gift of grace and therefore ascribes merit to obedience to the law of God; classical Protestantism spoke of a cooperating grace after conversion as a way of including man’s activity in the life of grace, but it avoided language that would suggest that man earns something by his obedience in grace.

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Protestants agree that grace is conferred through the sacraments, ‘the means of grace’. Reformed and Free Church Protestantism, however, has not bound grace as closely to the sacraments as have Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans. Baptists speak of ordinances rather than of sacraments and – as do evangelical Christians and those in the Reformed and Free Church traditions generally – insist that participation in grace occurs on the occasion of personal faith and not at all by sacramental observance. Therefore ‘grace’ requires belief in an imaginary god.

An actual freedom is all one’s own doing ... nobody can set you free but yourself.

RESPONDENT: I discovered the actual freedom site a few days ago and find it compelling. It seems from my investigations so far to really actually and in fact offer something new.

RICHARD: Just what is it, from your investigations so far, that is new?

RESPONDENT: Good question. I suppose ... er... I don’t know. I really don’t.

RICHARD: Okay ... here are the very first words on The Actual Freedom Trust home page (immediately below the ‘Actual Freedom’ logo):

• ‘A New and Non-Spiritual Down-to-Earth Freedom’ [endquote].

From that very succinct heading (which is not placed in such a key position merely for decoration) three key aspects of the freedom referred to can be readily ascertained ... and without inference:

1. It is new.
2. It is non-spiritual.
3. It is down-to-earth.

And not to forget, of course, from the logo itself:

4. It is actual.

RESPONDENT: I mean, it seems like perhaps I can sort it out, sort out ‘the problem’, by doing/being/not being what you say?

RICHARD: As there are many peoples other than myself saying all manner of things about doing/being/not being many different things just what is new about doing/being/not being what I have to say?

RESPONDENT: I’ve got no idea, but I’ve tried a lot and nothing comes up with the goods – me not being unhappy and trapped and lonely and frustrated and all of that.

RICHARD: Well now ... it was obviously high time that somebody came up with something new, then, and yet the question remains as to just what that something new is, eh?

RESPONDENT: This site seems to be something different from other alternatives.

RICHARD: Aye ... just for starters it is (a) non-spiritual ... and (b) down-to-earth ... and (c) actual.

RESPONDENT: I don’t know yet. I just don’t.

RICHARD: Okay ... this is what a dictionary has to say about the word ‘spiritual’:

• ‘spiritual: of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit ...’. (Oxford Dictionary).

The term ‘non-spiritual’, then, means not of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit – thus the freedom being referred to is not the freedom spiritualism has to offer – and by way of practical example the following is what you wrote (in part) much further below:

• [Respondent]: ‘Many spiritual teachers say in a similar (although, I don’t know, perhaps a subtly and vitally different) way to you that (...). Could it be that when they have used words that you reject, Self, God and so on, that sometimes they are referring to the same state as you? [endquote].

If (note ‘if’) the new and non-spiritual down-to-earth actual freedom was none other than the same freedom which spiritualism has to offer, only expressed in words which have not been rejected, then it would not be:

1. New.
2. Non-Spiritual.
3. Down-To-Earth (as in the Oxford Dictionary ‘plain-spoken, unpretentious; practical, realistic’ meaning).
4. Actual.

Instead it would be:

1. Old.
2. Spiritual.
3. Cryptic/Pretentious/Impractical/Idealistic.
4. Delusory.

RESPONDENT: Okay ... is there any short-cut here? Instead of going through each one of them and labelling (– greedy me)?

VINEETO: In my experience with using spiritual methodology for 17 years and using the method of actualism for the past four years, I can verify that actualism is the short-cut. My life has already become unrecognisably better than it was four years ago – I am living in perfect peace and harmony with a man and I am happy and harmless 99% of the time.

And why would I not choose to be happy and harmless? Why would I not do whatever it takes to experience this freedom from malice and sorrow, twenty-four hours a day? By always making a deliberate choice to be both happy and harmless in this moment, I am instantly improving my life. And the action of examining, investigating and understanding whatever prevents me from being happy and harmless in this moment incrementally deletes the social and instinctual programming of malice and sorrow in me, until, one day, as a consequence of this stubborn effort, the whole entity will collapse like a house of cards.

This kind of inquisitive investigation is exactly the opposite to the traditional method of Vipassana, whereby one is simply advised ‘going through ... and labelling’ and then dismissing one’s unwanted feelings in order to get on with the business of being somewhere else but here.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding as for how to apply the method of actualism. In the library there is a section with related correspondence on ‘How to become free from the Human Condition’ where the method is explained from all possible angles.

It is not enough to simply label an affective feeling when it occurs for at this very point the fun of your investigation begins. Whenever I noticed a feeling of greed, as in your example, I explored and uncovered while experiencing the feeling what exactly I was feeling – what was I missing, why did I feel I needed this object or person, what were my moral and ethical judgements about feeling greedy, what lay behind my impatience and urge, what would have happened if I didn’t get what I felt I needed, what other feelings were connected with feeling greedy, for instance loneliness, anger, competition, resentment, inadequacy, survival fear, lethargy, wanting something for free, etc.?

In short, I conducted an extensive exploration so as to map the territory of that feeling as exactly as possible and I used each opportunity of an occurring feeling in order to find out as much as possible about ‘who’ I am and what passions I am driven by. Once you get the hang off it, it’s great fun.

RESPONDENT: Okay ... is there any short-cut here? Instead of going through each one of them and labelling (– greedy me)? Something like J. Krishnamurti stuff (sorry!) by realizing that the whole thing of ‘ME’ has come about because of a misunderstanding that ‘observer’ is different from the ‘observed’?

VINEETO: No need to apologize, questions are the very stuff of investigation and discovery.

Jiddu Krishnamurti never realized ‘the whole thing of ‘ME’ – like all other Eastern teachers he only taught that thought is responsible for human suffering and he made no mention of the instinctual passions being the root cause of all the mayhem and misery of humankind.

As for his method of realizing the ‘misunderstanding that ‘observer’ is different from the ‘observed’, as you put it – according to his own words none of his non-disciples and non-followers has ‘got it’. If you think his method was a short-cut, it lead no-where because it did not work. He stated at the end of his life –

‘You won’t find another body like this, or that supreme intelligence, operating in a body for many hundred years. You won’t see it again. When he goes, it goes. There is no consciousness left behind of that consciousness, of that state. They’ll all pretend or try to imagine they can get in touch with that. Perhaps they will somewhat if they live the teachings. But nobody has done it. Nobody. And so that’s that’. (pages 148-149: ‘The Open Door’; Mary Lutyens. London: John Murray 1998).

The longer I practiced the method of actualism – a wordless investigation as to how am I experiencing this moment of being alive and an examination of whatever it is that is keeping me from being happy and harmless in this very moment – the more I came to understand that actualism is actively changing one’s programming in the brain by examining and successively eradicating the roots of malice and sorrow deep in my own psyche.

Actualism aims at eliminating the very cause of one’s unhappiness, fear, greed and aggression. It is essential to experientially understand the grip that your moral and ethical values, your spiritual conditioning and, last but not least, your instinctual passions have on ‘who’ you experience yourself to be – your thinking, your feeling, your behaviour and your actions. ‘I’ and ‘me’ pervade every cell of this body, ‘I’ and ‘me’ control the functioning of its chemical-hormonal balance or imbalance, ‘I’ and ‘me’ are running the full show.

By applying the method of actualism one begins to insert increasing amounts of attentiveness, ‘self’-awareness and intelligence into the automatic instinctual and moral-ethical-spiritual programming and this process then evinces an actual and irrevocable change in one’s everyday life – one becomes ever more happy and harmless, no matter what the circumstances.

RESPONDENT: Knowing that at the end all has to go, is there a method different from the step by step approach, or this is the only way?

VINEETO: I found that first I had to get acquainted with ‘all’ that ‘has to go’. The way I did that was that I investigated every affective feeling and emotion as they occurred. Thus I became acquainted with ‘me’ in action. First, I examined my morals and ethics as to whether they were silly or sensible and they stopped having a grip on me. When I was getting acquainted with my spiritual conditioning it became obvious how silly it was and it eventually became impossible to hold on to it. Similarly, as I was able to come face to face with my raw instinctual passions they are now wearing thin and becoming increasingly rare.

Personally, I only know the ‘step by step approach’ and I like its incremental and certain success in improving my life way beyond my wildest dreams. I can appreciate its success particularly after 17 years of applying the spiritual method of mindless doing nothing, which brought no improvement in becoming either happy or harmless.

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