September 30 2025

VINEETO to Kuba: Self-immolation can not happen from a moment of apperception or from a PCE, or even several PCEs in a row, it is a definite job ‘I’ have to do, as an identity, when all of ‘me’ is in agreement with ‘my’ final demise. Hence my emphasis that ‘I’ need to be an all-inclusive ally in this task – the only and most important task of one’s life. Hence ‘your’ job involves channelling all your affective energy (your libido for instance) into felicitous and innocuous affective energy via naïve enjoyment and abundant appreciation. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba10, 29 September 2025a).

JAMES: This quote above by Vineeto is something I have never fully grasped. Self immolation is something ‘I’ have to do by being. happy and harmless.

VINEETO: Hi James,

Good to hear from you.

What I wrote above is sort of encapsulates why the actualism is so perfect to successfully facilitate imitating the actual and eventually clearing the way for making ‘self’-immolation possible. Now that you understand it more comprehensively perhaps you are even more motivated to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive.

You might also appreciate this quote, which I sent to Kuba yesterday, explaining why putting everything on a preference basis is an essential tip for feeling good –

Richard: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 25d, 14 January 2004)

I wish you the best success in ongoing, or ever-increasing, enjoyment and appreciation.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, James, 30 September 2025).

October 11 2025

HENRY: I can see that my attention has been split into a few domains, perhaps the trend is simply not wanting to be ‘me’ as I am currently.

Some of this has been intentional as I felt a couple years ago that I had been spiritual bypassing in the sense that my life was a bit of a mess but I was avoiding my problems and feelings and living in a false ‘actualist identity.’ I have been spending some time re-engaging with my occupation and social life, which I don’t see as a contradiction to actualism but has meant engaging with things that I had long avoided, and as such have had a lot to learn. In this, I have necessarily become quite involved in many ‘real-world’ problems.
Perhaps it could be described as a period of ‘me’ consolidating.

VINEETO: Hi Henry,

Mmh, I can’t quite make sense of what you mean by “spiritual bypassing” – is that related to how you have been “avoiding my problems and feelings and living in a false ‘actualist identity’”? Perhaps it is time to simply clear the workbench and start afresh.

HENRY: I am definitely still vitally interested in actualism and becoming free. I have found this period of consolidation productive in clearing the cobwebs out of some ‘dark corners’ of myself. I’ve also found the appearance of new problems informative.

VINEETO: You know there is a very simple way to start afresh – now that you found that “avoiding my problems and feelings” is segueing in “not wanting to be ‘me’” –

Richard to Claudiu: Pleased to read of you recollecting a childhood PCE, during a sunny carefree day in Romania, and the best way to maximise the benefit gained from this trip is, of course, none other than what has become known as the actualism method ... to wit: enjoying and appreciating being alive, each moment again, come what may.

It really is that simple: all the rest – such as feeling as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible, each moment again, by minimising both those futile malicious/ sorrowful feelings plus their antidotal loving/ compassionate feelings (and, thereby, maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings via this sensible utilisation of the potency of affective energy), for instance, and by being as naïve as is humanly possible, in order to be naiveté (and, hence, be sensitive to and receptive of the overarching pure intent), via being sincere about achieving one’s goal (in order to, thus, be sincerity in action) of peace-on-earth in this lifetime, for example, concomitant to coming to one’s senses both literally and metaphorically – are the various ways and means of effecting that very enjoyment and appreciation of being alive, each moment again, regardless of the situation and the circumstances.

Put succinctly: the means to the end – enjoying and appreciating being alive – are, therefore, no different to that end (the very enjoyment and appreciation of being alive) other than the former is, of course, affective in its nature and the latter is, quite obviously, actual by its very disposition. (Claudiu's Report, 30 October 2013)

*

VINEETO: It is rather a matter how interested you are in sincerely imitating the actual as experienced/ rememorated in a PCE. It is your sincerity of purpose which will inform you if you are closer to imitating the actual or just ‘getting by’.

HENRY: I appreciate this message. I’m experiencing it as something of a wake-up call… a reminder of pure intent.

I remember in 2017 having a PCE and having the thought that ‘I’ would colonize the experience, co-opt it for my own ends… that is exactly what has happened over the years in many different forms. But the clean and clear qualities of the PCE are not something the identity can recreate completely.

VINEETO: An excellent admission. Now is a good time as any to actualise this realisation. (Sundry, FAQ, Realisation/ Actualisation)

HENRY: I am happier and more harmless than I was 1 or 2 years ago, and I’m pleased about that. Perhaps it’s time to step on the gas regarding attention to pure intent.

VINEETO: I do find Geoffrey’s summary one of the best suggestions an actualist can adopt –

Geoffrey: As long as you find yourself looking for the door that is tiny (the recipe, the formula, the secret sauce, the psychic gun, the pill, the trick), you’re nowhere near and should instead walk the path.

As long as you find the path narrow, arduous, vanishing, confusing, instead of wide and wondrous as it is, you’re not walking it, you are merely lost in the woods nearby – and should instead find it in yourself to take a first clear step in the right direction, such as making a commitment to happiness and harmlessness.

Ruthless honesty and utter sincerity will help you to succeed. Here is a quote you might take encouragement from –

Respondent: Does responsibility and seriousness come with being carefree?

Richard: No, the utter reliability of being always happy and harmless replaces the onerous burden of being responsible ... and actuality’s blithe sincerity dispenses with the gloomy seriousness that epitomises adulthood.

It is funny – in a peculiar way – for I often gain the impression when I speak to others, that I am spoiling their game-plan. It seems as if they wish to search forever ... they consider arriving to be boring. How can unconditional peace and happiness, twenty-four-hours-a-day, possibly be boring? Is a carefree life all that difficult to comprehend? Why persist in a sick game ... and defend one’s right to do so? Why insist on suffering when blitheness is freely available here and now? Is a life of perennial gaiety something to be scorned? I have even had people say, accusingly, that I could not possibly be happy when there is so much suffering going on in the world. The logic of this defies credibility: Am I to wait until everybody else is happy before I am? If I was to wait, I would be waiting forever ... for under this twisted rationale, no one would dare to be the first to be happy. Their peculiar reasoning allows only for a mass happiness to occur globally; overnight success, as it were. Someone has to be intrepid enough to be first, to show what is possible to a benighted humanity.

One has to face the opprobrium of one’s ill-informed peers. (Richard, List B, No. 20a, 10 July 1998)

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Henry 2, 11 October 2025).

October 15 2025

VINEETO: Mmh, I can’t quite make sense of what you mean by “spiritual bypassing” – is that related to how you have been “avoiding my problems and feelings and living in a false ‘actualist identity’”? Perhaps it is time to simply clear the workbench and start afresh.

HENRY: Yes precisely, basically I had some real-world issues that I hadn’t settled and was avoiding. Over the last 1-2 years I’ve been gradually reducing my aversion to facing and dealing with those issues directly.

Currently I find my mental ‘to-do’ list to be a bit overwhelming, which is perhaps a sign that 1) I have succeeded in re-integrating myself into ‘normalcy’ and 2) it is time to do as you say and ‘clear the workbench.’ What is it like to get my life done from a place governed by sincerity, naivete, rather than avoidance and/or neediness? I can sense a whisper of it, which is enough to find my heading.

VINEETO: Hi Henry,

What about “from a place governed” by feeling good?

As it says on the Cabbot’s paint tins in Australia, “when all else fails read the instructions” – in this case This Moment of Being Alive.

Contrary to popular conception, it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood and pay attention to when the mood-meter goes below feeling good. Then apply whatever tool is necessary to get back to feeling good and resolve what triggered feeling less than good so that it doesn’t occur again.

When you are feeling good, your “to do list” will not so much be governed by duties, responsibilities and obligations (to which you now want to add ‘practicing actualism’ as an additional burden) but you may gain a different perspective that life is meant to be easy and enjoyable, and then you may want more of this.

It goes almost without saying that genuinely feeling good and feeling happy only works when you are also feeling harmless, i.e. considerate and friendly, (including towards yourself).

One of ‘Vineeto’s’ favourite quotes might help to get unstuck –

Richard: ‘To get out of ‘stuckness’ one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, 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 now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. 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 one is the experiencing of what is happening. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 13 December 1998).

Of course sincerity is vital to make sure you are not fooling yourself, whilst naiveté is not really something you can ‘govern’, rather allow it to come to the fore, as much as you dare.

HENRY: 

Geoffrey: As long as you find the path narrow, arduous, vanishing, confusing, instead of wide and wondrous as it is, you’re not walking it, you are merely lost in the woods nearby – and should instead find it in yourself to take a first clear step in the right direction, such as making a commitment to happiness and harmlessness.

Noted – for some reason previous attempts at this commitment have not ‘stuck,’ honestly not sure what I’m missing. Leaving that as an open question for myself for now (though if anyone has ideas or suggestions, feel free to comment).

VINEETO: When, or if, you come to a point where you find yourself looking for the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, other than fulfilling the to-do-list again and again, here is an observation about commitment –

Respondent: You say it doesn’t end itself, but pushes a button to make it happen. What is that button?

Richard: You must be referring to something like this:

• [Richard]: ‘‘I’ do not do the deed itself for an ‘I’ cannot end itself. What ‘I’ can do to bring about this ‘death’ is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously – and with knowledge aforethought (from the PCE) – set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and intentionally, is to press the button which precipitates a momentum – oft-times alarming but always thrilling – that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. What one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself. When ‘I’ freely and cheerfully sacrifice ‘myself’ – the psychological and psychic entities residing inside this body – ‘I’ am gladly making ‘my’ most supreme donation, for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is the greatest gift one can bestow upon this body and that body and every body. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 27 July 1998).

The button is, of course, dedication (‘what one does is that one dedicates oneself to the challenge of being here as the universe’s experience of itself’) and/or devotion. Here is how I put in my previous e-mail:

• [Richard]: ‘... when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly ... the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then!! (from page 261 in ‘Richard’s Journal’, Second Edition; ©2004 The Actual Freedom Trust).

And one of the best ways of ascertaining when one’s commitment has reached 100% is when the peoples one knows start calling one obsessed and slip the word ‘insanity’ into their well-meant advice every now and again.

Despite all the rhetoric 100% commitment is avoided like the plague in the real-world. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 5 October 2003).

*

Richard: It is, of course, a bold step to *forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations* and enter the actuality of life as a sensate experience. It requires a startling audacity to devote oneself to the task of causing a mutation of consciousness to occur. To have the requisite determination to apply oneself, with the diligence and perseverance born out of pure intent, to the patient dismantling of one’s accrued social identity indicates a strength of purpose unequalled in the annals of history. It is no little thing that one does ... and it has enormous consequences, not only for one’s own well-being, but for humankind as a whole. [emphases added]. (Richard, Article, A Brief Personal History).

It might take a gestation period.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Henry 2, 15 October 2025).

October 16 2025

CHRONO: I can relate to a lot of what you write. Especially the :

Henry: avoiding my problems and feelings and living in a false ‘actualist identity.

In my experience it has been that some part of me truly believed in those problems/ ideals/ dreams and persisting in feeling them. But also it’s because I am trying to ‘fix’ it while also experiencing those feelings. As an example, I would very often go into states of ‘limerence’ (a hellish state of being). During all of that time I thought that I could not apply the actualism method because of how acutely I felt the suffering, so I would have no choice but to apply real world methods. I went to counsellors and therapists and it did help but only in a ‘keeping my head above water’ kind of way. In the most intense periods of that state there would be the deep desire to end it and there was the desire to do whatever it takes, but I wasn’t sure how. Simply put, it can’t be done from there because ‘I am my feelings and my feelings are me’. It was only when I acknowledged that I had a subsequent realization that all I had to do was enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive. Right in there is the desire to be happy and harmless. I really did want to be happy and harmless. There’s no other path for me. When I realized that, I was able to enjoy life more consistently and felt more like I had autonomy. Something nothing in the real world has been able to offer. Everything in the real world is about ‘keeping my head above water’.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

It is a valuable insight that “everything in the real world is about ‘keeping my head above water’”, in line with what Sigmund Freud classified as the aim of psychiatry: to return patients “back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible (and ‘normal’ is categorised by Mr. Sigmund Freud as ‘common human unhappiness’)” (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 8, #shrinks). As such it is unreasonable to expect any more than keeping your head above water from counsellors and therapists.

However, when you say that “I thought that I could not apply the actualism method because of how acutely I felt the suffering” you seem to have forgotten, or overlooked, a vital ingredient of the actualist tools when applying the actualism method – when your mood falls below feeling good, first get back to feeling good. That, of course, includes recognizing and acknowledging the feeling which is happening (which can sometimes be made difficult by not wanting to recognize it because this might interfere with one’s self-image, or fighting the feeling, which automatically imbues it with a lot more affective energy).

Hence when you realize what feeling is happening, acknowledge it as being part of your genetic inheritance, and stop fighting it. From there it is much easier to get back to neutral and then to feeling good. Only then does it make sense to find out what triggered the feeling and draw the necessary conclusion from the event.

And once you fully take on board that “I am my feelings and my feelings are me” you have the choice of being a different feeling because it is simply silly, when you have the choice, to be something other than happy and harmless.

You might also discover that there is a certain amount of investment in keeping the suffering going (because of some good feeling you cherish, for instance) – elsewhere referred to the addiction of being a ‘being’ (Richard, List B, James3), and that is a further topic for contemplation. All this is to indicate that it’s not always straightforward to “activate delight”. Nothing can be swept under the carpet in the long run.

CHRONO: All of that to say, it’s actually pretty simple. Just as Vineeto has suggested:

Richard: ‘To get out of ‘stuckness’ one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, 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 now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. 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 one is the experiencing of what is happening. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 13 December 1998).

You do not need to wait “clearing the cobwebs out of some ‘dark corners’ of myself”. Such an activity (in my experience anyway) becomes an exercise in keeping ‘my’ problems alive. You know what it is to feel good. You know what it is like to experience pure intent. Maybe go back through your journal and read through the experience and rememorate it again. Any problems are easily solved when you are feeling good.

VINEETO: You are certainly right when feeling good, feeling better and feeling naïve any problems are more easily solved, or don’t even appear as such, but simply accepted as challenges in the game of becoming actually free.

October 25 2025

VINEETO: I’ll butt in here before you go on and insert a feeling, and a fresh identity, into this remarkable insight. I suggest to linger a bit longer in this pre-identifying gap, if you can, and allow some further fascinated reflective contemplation regarding the ramifications and consequences of having been able to shed the wrath and grace of god, and ponder how you can enjoy and appreciate this freedom, and if it is worth to do whatever necessary to maintain such enjoyment of freedom.

ANDREW: Indeed, I can heed these words quite willingly. I am very much enjoying some of the ramifications. For one, driven the freeway each morning and night is usually a huge annoyance. However, being as you say, a feeling and not a fact, (I will remember this, very useful and easy to remember). I see other drivers just doing what any person driven by the exact same blind program will do, variations on a theme, and actually amazing that we all get where we are going, the vast majority of time.

It was so much easier to see my own anger, and it all be pre-morality. All happening before morality was even a thing, in the modern sense. I felt it is a lightweight manner, as the feeling and the knowledge were immediate. I wasn’t trying to “not be angry”, I was angry, but was not exploding because I was not repressed. It was definitely the beginning of fascination. It was interesting. Feeling myself, watching others.

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

Yes, it is generally “morality” incorporated into one’s own identity and the accompanying self-image which stands in the way of acknowledging the feeling which is happening. But once “the feeling and the knowledge were immediate” and you know that this is ‘me’ in action, then it is easy to choose to be in a more pleasant and harmonious manner – voilà, you are instantly more happy and harmless. And thus there is room for fascination and contemplation. Life is amazingly fascinating when ‘I’ don’t insist of having an emotional opinion/ reaction to everything that is happening.

That’s why I ‘butted in’ before you proceeded (in the last message) to make “a fresh identity” which would consolidate whatever you feel into a substantial (seriously important) event demanding protection and defence of this freshly created identity.

Here it is explained more fully –

Richard: The actualism method – enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive – that was first put into action in 1981 is a potent method specifically aimed at experiencing a condition of uninterrupted apperception ... which means that the peace-on-earth that is already always here – now – will become apparent.

When one first becomes aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum, just before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception), and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Pure perception is at that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one hedonically subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous distinguishment ... in a word: apperceptiveness.

In that brief scintillating instant of bare awareness, that twinkling sensorium-moment of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness, one apperceives a thing as a nothing-in-particular that is being naught but what-it-is coming from nowhen and going nowhere at all. Apperceptiveness is very much like what one sees with one’s peripheral vision as opposed to the intent focus of normal or central vision. One experiences a smoothly flowing moment of clear experiencing where one is interlocked with the rest of actuality, not separate from it. This moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperceptiveness – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone ... and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ ... a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness)

Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ never paid much attention to this article, ‘she’ found it too dense, but now I can see how much information it contains for understanding and achieving apperceptiveness right from the beginning. I am reminded of Peter talking about looking from the front of one’s eyeballs.

Peter: Something Richard said that I found useful was to practice bringing my visual awareness to the very front of the eyeballs. I found this is the best ‘I’ can do to mimic ‘self’-less seeing – there is less of the feeling of ‘me’ looking through the eyes and more of the feeling of the eyes seeing. In this way you also avoid the risk of becoming ‘the observer’ watching ‘the observed’, but more closely mimic what you actually are – the universe sensately experiencing itself as a thinking and reflective corporeal human being. (Actualism, Peter, Actual Freedom List, No. 52, 22.9.2003).

ANDREW: It seems all so much easier.

VINEETO: It is indeed “much easier” and a marvellous way of living naïvely. This is wonderful.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew 2, 25 October 2025).

October 28 2025

SONYA: Hi Vineeto,

I noticed in the past I would always get stuck trying to “explain” the feeling away which always lead to me going around in circles or eventually solidifying the feeling by some sort of mental gymnastics to feel validated for feeling bad. I noticed that because I am a feeling being I will always be invested in keeping the bad feelings around. But getting myself back to feeling good first before investigating anything helped immensely, it also made me realise that if it’s that easy to get back to feeling good, is there any sensible reason to remain feeling bad? Or keeping going back to that feeling? It isn’t a nice feeling at all. From feeling good it is much easier and clearer to sort through whatever triggered me.

VINEETO: Hi Sonya,

Ah, this message is music to my ears, and would have been to Richard too. The actualism method is indeed not “more complicated” than this. Of course, you look at the trigger once you are back to feeling good to determine how to avoid falling for the same trigger next time. Sometimes it is as easy as nipping the upcoming habitual ‘feeling slightly bad’ in the bud and sometimes it needs some digging to find the underlying cause. But it is obvious that it is always your choice how you feel – no one can make you feel bad unless you allow them to.

Respondent: You have a pithy phrase of your own here, but the basic investigation which is HEAVY ...

Richard: The sincere application of the actualism method is light and airy ... in a word: fun.
Respondent: ... and not easy at all ...

Richard: The sincere application of the actualism method is indeed easy ... dead easy, in fact.

(…)

Respondent: What actually happened in the beginning?

Richard: What happened for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body on the first of January 1981 (the day ‘he’ first put the method ‘he’ devised into practice) was so amazing for ‘him’ that ‘he’ said to ‘his’ then wife that ‘he’ had discovered the secret to life ... ‘he’ would go on to say it was so easy to feel happy and harmless for 23 hours 59 minutes of the day (an arbitrary figure) that ‘he’ wondered why it had never been done before. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 92, 17 June 2005)

And when you say “is there any sensible reason to remain feeling bad?” and find that “it isn’t a nice feeling at all” so may also discover that feeling good feelings, “the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting)” are ultimately not nice feelings either because they lead to a lot of complications, disclosed contracts and obligations. The reason is that the basic survival instincts (the instinctual passions) are the source of both ‘good feelings’ and ‘bad feelings’.

Jonathan:

[Richard]: What actualism – the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom – is on about is a ‘virtual freedom’ (which is not to be confused with cyber-space’s ‘virtual reality’) 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 feel good, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. I make this very clear in my writing: [snip]. 

What I am reading here is, ‘good feelings along with bad feelings are minimized so that one is free to feel good feelings and thereby make a PCE more likely. Could you clarify?

Richard: Sure ... the [quote] ‘good’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and the [quote] ‘bad’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) whereas feeling good/ feeling happy/ feeling perfect are the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are delightful and harmonious).

Jonathan: So the meditation practices blow the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions up larger than life?

Richard: That is one way of putting it ... the spiritualisation process involved is essentially one of sublimation and transcendence.

Jonathan: What do they do with the felicitous ones?

Richard: As a generalisation: the felicitous (and innocuous) feelings are not experienced in their own right but are subsumed under the ‘good’ feelings ... felicity (and innocuity), rather than being the delightful experience of sensuosity and sensuality, then comes from feeling loving and compassionate (for instance).
A conditional happiness, in other words, dependent upon the ascendancy of the ‘good’ feelings. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Jonathan, 5 January 2006)

SONYA: It was also helpful for me to realise that I am being my feelings. Realising that means that there is something I can do about it. It isn’t like anger or sadness descends upon me with no involvement from me. I’m also getting better at sitting with whatever feeling I am experiencing, rather than expressing or repressing. Sitting with the feeling to observe it has helped me be able to easily and quickly identify it, realising it isn’t really made of anything substantial and it is much more fun to feel good. It’s not so scary now knowing that I can do something about it whenever I want to.

And yes I am noticing that I am having much more fun with digging around what’s going on. Whereas in the past it was almost like “nope I don’t want to look at it!” and trying to will it away.

VINEETO: Ha, this is great. Looking under one’s bonnet is meant to be fun. Now that you know experientially that you can do something about it – and also that when you resolved it, it is gone – you’ll be more and more enticed to increasingly find out what is occasionally preventing from feeling good and feeling excellent. That’s how you stand on your own feet, now that you realised that “it isn’t like anger or sadness descends upon me”. It indicates success with enjoying life and nothing succeeds like success.

What a grand time to be alive, isn’t it?

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Sonya, 28 October 2025).

October 31 2025

KUBA: Also what I noticed today is that the resistance ‘I’ put up is not to be pushed through, the resistance is when ‘I’ am not in agreement, it does have to be skilfully manoeuvred but I noticed that the wide and wondrous place is not so much past the resistance, it’s more adjacent to it lol. It’s when ‘I’ see the resistance for what it is ‘I’ am back on the wide and wondrous path.

VINEETO: No. The resistance can neither to be “be pushed through” (i.e. ‘me’ forcing ‘me’) nor can it “be skilfully manoeuvred” (‘me’ trying to deceive ‘me’). The result of this skilful manoeuvring is what you described in the post before this –

Kuba: “It appears that I am now in a similar if not the same place to where I was when you began writing on the forum”.

If with the wide and wondrous place you mean the “mirificent flavour of pure intent” then is not “adjacent”, it is outside of the entire real-world paradigm, where your “resistance” originates from. (see ‘fulcrum’ above)

KUBA: I was unclear here, yesterday when I went to teach BJJ I stumbled across that gloom and usually I would go into the gloom to try to resolve it or go through it, …

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

Let me interject here in mid-sentence. “Go into gloom to try to resolve it or go through it” is not doing the actualism method. Noticing the trigger, getting back to feeling good and from there acknowledge, recognize, investigate if necessary, or nipping it in the bud (“consciously and deliberatively – with knowledge aforethought – declining oh-so-sensibly to futilely go down that well-trodden path to nowhere fruitful yet again”) are the tools of the actualism method, so that you can again enjoy and appreciate this moment – the only moment you are ever alive – instead of frittering it away by going through the gloom. When you are aware that you are your feelings then you choose which feelings you rather want to be – and why would you want to waste the only moment you are ever alive by being “gloom”?

KUBA: … whereas this time around I saw that it was a dead end and I went adjacent, towards felicity and innocuity instead. So what I was describing here was not so much resistance towards ‘my’ demise / one way trip, but rather a diversion into feeling bad.

VINEETO: Indeed, you already knew “it was a dead end” because you told me only three days ago –

Kuba: I can see now, the morning resentments and the evening gloom, these feelings were there as a result of me walking down the path which I know cannot deliver the goods.

Why are you then still even considering to walk down the same fruitless path of “go into the gloom to try to resolve it or go through it”?

KUBA: But your main point I never saw before, that pure intent is outside of both ‘me’ as well as ‘my’ resistance, hence it is the fulcrum.

VINEETO: I was contemplating if I had made too much of your word “adjacent” but it is obvious now that this clarification was entirely necessary. You are still attempting to imitate the actual by merely side-stepping a little bit in the direction of enjoyment, carefully avoiding to orient yourself “outside of both ‘me’ as well as ‘my’ resistance”.

“Adjacent” means “adjoining, neighbouring (on), next door to, close to, close by, bordering (on), beside and alongside”; 
“Outside” means “exterior, external, independent, extrinsic, on the outside” (Oxford Languages).

Hence the persistence of “the morning resentments and the evening gloom” as “diversion into feeling bad”. The intention to step outside the compounds of the territory of ‘me’ is missing. So you can ditch all three aspects (“try to resolve it or go through it” and going “adjacent”) of your way of handling any emotions interfering with felicity and innocuity as avoidance and effectless and instead activate pure intent which is the fulcrum outside of ‘you’.

There is a vast difference between realisation and actualisation.

*

VINEETO: Are you ready to go for a one-way trip this time?

KUBA: I don’t think I can answer this with a sincere yes unless I am already on the one-way trip, what I am ready for is to abandon the old and proceed towards the new. Currently attending to the ebbs and flows seems to be the practical demonstration of this commitment. And what my focus has been on recently is that in order for the ebbs and flows (the conditional enjoyments and feelings) to be left behind, those outlines of ‘me’ responsible for them need to be abandoned also.

VINEETO: I appreciate your sincere reply.

Rather than trying to leave behind “the conditional enjoyments and feelings” why not change your focus to do what Richard suggested –

Richard: … consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself.

(…)

Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ ... and after that to ‘feeling excellent’.

The more one enjoys and appreciates being just here right now – to the point of excellence being the norm – the greater the likelihood of a PCE happening ... a grim and/or glum person has no chance whatsoever of allowing the magical event, which indubitably shows where everyone has being going awry, to occur. Plus any analysing and/or psychologising and/or philosophising whilst one is in the grip of debilitating feelings usually does not achieve much (other than spiralling around and around in varying degrees of despair and despondency or whatever) anyway. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

I copied a longer section for you because each re-read of the actualism method reveals where one has inadvertently added or subtracted text to make one’s own interpretation and thus missed something essential.

KUBA: So perhaps still proceeding towards advanced base camp first haha.

VINEETO: Why “perhaps”? Is this still your next aim? Feeling beings ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ have demonstrated that to live in a methodological, still-in-control virtual freedom is eminently doable and very enjoyable. Now that the Direct Route has been opened it is also an easy spring board to an out-from-control virtual freedom, if you wish.

You have some experience now with trying to do ‘shortcuts’ which revealed to be rather diversions, avoidance and delays. These attempts are more likely indicators of a basic misunderstanding about ‘shortcuts’ –

Respondent: I have (big) issues to sort out first before I will be able to make the leap.

Richard: As there is no ‘leap’ – an actual freedom is not a spiritual freedom – it would indeed appear so.

Respondent: I guess there are no shortcuts.

Richard: What I find telling – and this is a general observation – is just how much peoples object to being happy and harmless ... the vast majority of the correspondence in the archives is, in fact, a cutting indictment on the human condition itself.

Do you realise – and this is a personal observation – you have just said, in effect, that you guess you will have to become a happy ‘being’ before you can become actually free from the human condition (as if were there a way to be thus free without having to do so you would not)?

Whereas it is actually such a delight to finally be able to be happy (and harmless) ... and a relief. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 27 November 2003).

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 11, 31 October 2025).

November 6 2025

SONYA: Hi Vineeto,

It is amazing how simply noticing, coupled with the intent to be happy and harmless can lead to such change. I can say now I’ve reaped quite a few benefits from this.

VINEETO: Hi Sonya,

A large yellow-orange full moon just rose an hour ago in the north, shining its glimmering rays over the water. It is particularly stunning tonight – they say it’s the brightest moon of the year, closest to earth. All is dark and still except the moon and some town lights lending their reflections to the river, amazing and magnificent.

It’s a delight to read your message. You certainly seem to have the knack to successfully follow your sincere intent to be happy and harmless.

SONYA: I have to say, when I first heard about actualism it all seemed too complicated and intellectual for me. Of course this isn’t the case at all. I think I just wasn’t bothered to change and kind of piggy backed what Kuba was sharing with me at the time which had some benefits and some drawbacks as well – It meant that I never saw anything for myself or actual realise I could change and only I can do something about it.

I also misunderstood the method massively because of this, and remained stuck with doing intellectual theorising and mental gymnastics to logic away the feelings because I thought that was what Kuba was doing and of course because I hold him as some kind of authority, believed I should be doing that too, how silly.

VINEETO: Ha, so much better that you started to think for yourself and experientially explore for yourself. Kuba made a similar discovery when he understood where his previously adhering to Srinath ‘sandpit actualism’ (see Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba7, 7 June 2025a) had been going awry.

Richard: All that is required is that one comes to one’s senses – both literally and metaphorically – and spend the rest of one’s life without malice and sorrow. One will be blithe and benign … that is, carefree and harmless. It is, of course, a bold step to forsake lofty thoughts, profound feelings and psychic adumbrations and enter the actuality of life as a sensate experience. (Richard’s Journal, Foreword, p. 15).

Perhaps not being burdened by too many “lofty thoughts” and “psychic adumbrations” in the first place gives you an advantage so you can concentrate on the “profound feelings” whenever they get in the way of enjoyment and appreciation.

SONYA: Of course, now I am standing on my own two feet a bit more and taking accountability for the disarray and chaos I cause as an identity (whilst being kind to myself), I am quickly noticing the benefits. It’s all very refreshing and light.

VINEETO: Indeed, being kind to yourself, down-to-earth and unsophisticated you can do one step at a time and with each success you become more confident that living as happy and harmless as possible is doable and fruitful – and what is more, you keep on enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive while doing it.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Sonya, 6 November 2025).

ADAM-H: This has been a contemplation lately, and that is there is a lot of subconscious stress, we get so used to it that it’s just “how things are”, reading what you have written really brought it into focus. What I mean is, I see these deeper issues reflecting in all aspects of life, but often don’t acknowledge them. So, they do “pop up” when I am in a better mood, and I know the experience of some simple intention (being determined to feel good), just not working like it did yesterday.

VINEETO: This is also part of being a friend, to not let the “deeper issues” ruin your day. When you feel good you allow yourself to acknowledge them, look at them more dispassionately, and then an understanding will emerge of what’s the source of the trouble, and action can follow. When the intention is sincere, as you described above, it will reveal the various aspects of those “deeper issues” including the connected ‘good’ feelings, and you can similarly decide to no longer let them ruin your day. Sincerity and courage.

ADAM-H: Reading what you wrote really brought this into focus just now. It reminds me that some issues are going to take time, we have to make space for ourselves, over time, to hear what it is we have buried under everyday issues.

It definitely seems like it takes time, but I have a feeling whenever we are on the other side of this we will look back like all the other people who became actually free seem to and say “oh I guess I could have done that all along”.

VINEETO: This “it takes time” can be an excuse of not yet having the courage to look, and as you say in hindsight one “could have done that all along”. But I also know there are gestation periods, when certain insights need to percolate in the background until they are ripe for action – after all, actualism is the most radical change one undertakes, bit by bit, moving outside the parameters of thousands of years of human ‘wisdom’. It certainly is a grand adventure.

ADAM-H: I was reading Vineeto’s “Exploring Death and Altered States of Consciousness” last night and an area in particular stands out to me because you say, “I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself.”

This was great to read, thanks. Who am I trying to fool indeed. It’s funny to realize that the self splitting into two is not about it “trying too hard” to make something happen as I previously thought, it’s actually about try to make sure nothing happens.

VINEETO: Ha, it was actually you who first said “I feel like I’m having a standoff with myself and can’t get out of feeling bad”. I simply took the cue from your own insight. “The ‘self’ splitting into two” is a very common and often successful trick to keep yourself engaged in battling yourself and thus avoiding any change for the better. It is well worth keeping an eye out for it every time you are getting stuck in “trying too hard” now that you have so obviously seen that it’s all “about try to make sure nothing happens”. Excellent.

This quote might be helpful –

James: ... I can see that I am addicted to being me because that’s who I am and I don’t want to let go of that. I can also see that the essential ‘me’ is suffering when it is stripped bare. However, since ‘me’ is essentially suffering ‘I’ try to escape through various highs. Once these highs evaporate I am back to being ‘me’ suffering. Makes sense?

Richard: Yes ... and even though the highs inevitably evaporate ‘I’ still keep on trying to escape from being ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am via that path. Why do ‘I’ persist in re-treading a path, over and again, that just does not deliver the goods?

James: That is a good question. What comes to mind is I keep treading the same path over and over because that is what I know. That is what is familiar.

Richard: Indeed it is ... so in order to successfully escape one needs to abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods, so that the energy one is frittering away fruitlessly is available for the unknown path, the unfamiliar path, the path that does deliver the goods. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, James3, 1 November 2002)

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Adam-H, 8 January 2026).

January 14 2026

ADAM-H: The intent to try to appear happy and harmless rather than actually be happy and harmless is a particular ‘trick’ I don’t think I’ve gotten up to in quite a while. But I do agree that experientially locating the third alternative is vital for directing ‘me’ in the right direction, and without that firmly in place there are many ways in which “I” will delay or misdirect things. I think the connection that is in place for me is to naiveté which is probably less effective than a clear memory of a PCE, but is still a unique and hard to mistake aspect of the felicitous and innocuous feelings.

It is at least in the direction of the end of ‘cunningness’ and a blessed release from the perversity of the loneliness and resentfulness of being a ‘calculating’ self.

Hi Adam,

That is good news – you discovered this particular trick and abandoned it for good as fooling yourself is obviously of no value. Finding the various ways how ‘you’ “will delay or misdirect” is something like a game once you are clear on your intent to be happy and harmless. ‘Vineeto’ enjoyed it after ‘she’ became a bit more acquainted with ‘her’ tricks and at some point called it “balloon-popping party” –

‘Vineeto’ to Irene: Having come that far in my contemplations I likened the whole path to freedom as a big balloon-popping party. Imagine a room full of balloons floating near the ceiling, in different colours, with different names of instincts, emotions, beliefs and conditioning written on them. The aim of the game is to pop every single balloon one by one by questioning, investigating and identifying the nature of the various beliefs, emotions and instincts. Once the last balloon is popped I am free. I imagine it to be light green, big, evasive, with fear written all over it. I need to keep it firmly in place, not getting distracted by doubt or other flight manoeuvres, and then – pop! That imagination changes the whole adventure from its heroic and dramatic frame into the thrilling and delightful journey it actually is. It also pulls the plug of making a big fuss about it. Mind you, I still consider it the best game to play. (Actualism, Vineeto to Irene, 4 October 1998).

It was an imagination on ‘her’ part but it captured the understanding that it’s all about feeling good and not being bogged down by finding out how ‘she’ felt and that one can discover and remove the obstacles to feeling good and bring them to the bright light of awareness.

Once you take yourself less serious and accept that you are as bad and as mad as everyone else, genetically endowed with instinctual passions, then there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by discovering how you ‘tick’.

*

SYD: You wrote the above about 4 years ago. Are you still going for PCEs (in addition to upping your baseline)?

ADAM-H: I spent some time around then really focusing on PCEs, but ultimately continued to have more success by focusing on upping my baseline. The progress has still been slow over the long term, but has sped up a bit recently. Lately I do make time to spend 30 minutes per day with my only focus being the actualism method, but it hasn’t lead to a PCE, usually just to various levels of feeling good, occasionally getting to the point of feeling myself to be the ‘beer’ and not the ‘doer’.

I still think of upping my baseline as being what actualism is fundamentally about more so than the ‘PCE practice’, and that’s partly because I still find PCEs a bit mysterious and out of reach.

A wise decision. In actualism there is no such thing as a “PCE practice” (it was the invention of some spiritualists from the DhO, together with so-called PCE-walks) – the very idea is an oxymoron because the PCE happens when you allow it to happen. You cannot control or structure yourself to have a PCE.

Also, your idea to “spend 30 min per day with my only focus being the actualism method” is not what Richard meant when introducing the actualism method. It is something to do all day, in all situations – to be affectively aware and attentive to how you experience yourself affectively (i.e. how you feel) so that you can get back to feeling good whenever your mood drops below feeling good. Once you notice that, you get back to feeling good by recognizing it is a waste of this precious moment of being alive, and then –

Richard: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago would do is first get back to feeling good and then, and only then, suss out where, when, how, why – and what for – feeling bad happened as experience had shown ‘him’ that it was counter-productive to do otherwise.

What ‘he’ always did however, as it was often tempting to just get on with life then, was to examine what it was all about within half-an-hour of getting back to feeling good (while the memory was still fresh) even if it meant sometimes falling back into feeling bad by doing so ... else it would crop up again sooner or later.

Nothing, but nothing, can be swept under the carpet. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

If you only “spend 30 min per day with my only focus being the actualism method” then you allow yourself to be inattentive for about 15.5 hours per day to be sad or angry or grumpy or feel neutral. Thus, by doing nothing about it you reinforce the habit of letting those negative moods continue governing your life with the excuse that later on you will spend 30 mins of doing something about it.

Richard: ‘The actualism method is an awareness-cum-attentiveness method – not a method of enquiry – inasmuch one is aware of/ attentive as to how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) so that the slightest deviation from the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition can be attended to forthwith ... thus enabling one to live as peacefully and harmoniously (as happily and harmlessly) as is humanly possible each moment again.

Any and all enquiry has far more chance of success when one is back on track again. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68d, 10 October 2005).

There are many informative tool-tips in the article ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ which can give you clarifying information how to apply the actualism method easily and successfully. (Make sure Java-scripting is enabled).

Whereas the 30 min per day easily becomes a duty, a chore, a daily ‘work-out’ like a session at the gym, and that would certainly defeat the purpose of learning the art of how to have fun and feel good. I also recommend Richard’s email to Claudiu in February 2016; it is very detailed and packed to capacity with information both from Claudiu and Richard.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Adam-H, 14 January 2026).

January 22 2026

VINEETO: Only by allowing to let the experience itself unfold can you learn about its intricacies, the hopes, dreams and beliefs it all entails, its unspoken assumptions on both sides, the psychic push and pull, the interactive power dynamic and the very cunning mechanism of ‘you’ to ‘get out of here as fast as possible’, or, as you say “I don’t think I want to go through this again”.

Rejection and resentment of the topic you want to experientially research interfere with a thorough and possibly enjoyable inquiry where you can be confident about the results you get. So perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why.

SYD: Hi Vineeto,

Syd: (…) The message I sent was something along the lines of asking for FWB arrangement:

Gotta be honest: while the emotional heaviness is gone, the sexual desire is very much still there. I’m not looking for strictly friendship. I enjoy our conversations, I want us to be physical too. Is that something you want too?

I really fought tooth and nail with the actualist because I was afraid of directly asking her this. In the end, I decided to just ask and see what happens – both from her standpoint and my own reaction to it.

Trigger: She basically vanished from that point – no response. This caused a surge of fear, and I was no longer feeling good. (Just feel good, bro)

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

I guess I have to spell it out fully what I mean by “perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why”. The investigation into this topic needs to go further than merely re-stating that your past experiences with women did not result in the outcome that you wanted, mainly the inclusion of having sex. “She basically vanished from that point” you say and that is the end of your explanation of you “no longer feeling good”. In short, the way you portray it that it was her fault (and all the others), end of story.

But this is not the end of story for an actualist style investigation – to start with, in actualism you acknowledge that you are the only person you can change, and if your contemplation don’t yet reveal where and how you need to change, what lies underneath this present attitude and outcome of situations like this, then you need to dig deeper in your understanding.

Simply resolving to be naïve instead, to rememorate a PCE or “by-pass” or “re-channel” your feelings and passions has not worked and will not work. As Richard put it in the excellent quote Pelagash just posted today –

Richard: Is not ‘understanding’ something the same thing as ‘analysing’ something? To understand something is to intellectually grasp a concept successfully. This may be the activity of ‘I’ thinking as clearly as ‘I’ can possibly think, yet it is not the same clarity as the clear seeing obtained in an insight … and an insight is seeing the fact.

When one sees the fact there is action … and this action is the actualising of the insight so that one’s personality is changed, irrevocably. (…) (Richard, List B, No. 12, 16 February 1998a)

You are looking for an actual change, a change in attitude, a change in the originally always ‘self’-centric perspective, a change that originates at the core of your ‘being’, where you are able to be naïve. Richard has described the process to you in detail –

Richard: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself).

Now, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre).

Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté).

Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what.

Here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’.

Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness.

Here is where it is possible to be the key. (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

In order to “go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings … into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings” you first need to stop ignoring, objecting to, pushing away, or ‘setting aside’ or by-pass any ‘inappropriate’ of those superficial and profound passions until you can recognize and fully acknowledge them as ‘you’. Only then will you be able to discover there is something further, “where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself”.

If that discovery is genuine (and not a superficial change of wording, which neither changes your underlying feeling nor the vibes you automatically emanate) then you will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company whatever form that may take. Until that change in your ‘being’ happens and can be repeated until it becomes your new way of being, your investigations into “what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why” have barely scratched the surface.

Here is Kuba’s post again for further, perhaps deeper, appreciation and understanding –

Kuba: This is nothing new, that men desire sex and women can and do exploit this… Blind-spot. The game-changing thing with actualism is that I can unilaterally step out of this power game. However it does require attending to the fundamental fact – it is my desire which is keeping me a slave.

There was something very nice though that came along with stepping out of this game, which was that I was more able to experience women as fellow human beings, and weirdly enough they also appreciate the fact that it is not possible to make me a slave. After-all that very game which women play is part of the instinctual programming, it does not care for their happiness and deep down they yearn to be free from it also.

Sooo, to cut a long story short, by attending to the fact that one is a puppet to one’s own passionate drives one can find not only greater freedom for oneself but also a greater intimacy with the person of the other gender – how neat!

SYD: I was investigating along tangential lines recently. I saw that the various feelings mentioned here all stem from the instinctual passion of desire – not just sexual desire but also the desires ‘stuck atop’ it. Instead of sidestepping or reducing this desire, I can channel[1] it towards beneficial means (…), and this makes those other feelings pretty redundant.

[1]channel: So no longer wasting the instinctual energy on the thing being desired (in the real-world) … be it sexual ‘conquest’, validation (aka. emotional/ identity conquest), possession, a prop for one’s self-worth, an other-person derived source of meaning in life, or whatever. The “energy” of that desire is now freed for other purposes.

VINEETO: Your tool-tip explanation of what you mean by “channel” is typical buddhistic detachment – reject all worldly desires and desire something else instead. It merely changes the name of the goalpost, not your being. It has nothing to do with what can actually happen, with tangible results, when sincerely being attentive, fully investigating and comprehending the issue at hand. You might want to check out feeling-being ‘Vineeto’s’ detailed writing on (Actualism, Vineeto, Selected Writings, Investigate Feelings.

*

VINEETO: Plenty to explore – don’t forget to enjoy and deeply appreciate solving the puzzle that is one of the top mysteries of the human condition.

SYD: Speaking of which, right after sending that last message, I discovered the value of feeling good as baseline (feeling good feels so good compared to what happened before!). I decided to maintain the baseline of feeling good (and everything else – PCEs/ rememoration/ contemplation/… – can happen on the bedrock of feeling good). I’ll write about it after I get to play with it sufficiently over the next few days.

VINEETO: It’s good to have a sound feeling-good base when planning to exchange your face-mask and snorkel for deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. Full text on Richard’s Homepage.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 22 January 2026).

January 23 2026

SYD: Thank you for the “change in your ‘being’” explanation; I hadn’t seen that way. This is something to keep in mind, certainly.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

Here is the relevant part of the quote from Richard I posted –

Richard: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

Instead of “change in your ‘being’” I should have more precisely said change in the perception of your ‘being’ as I laid it out in the beginning of the sentence – “you will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company whatever form that may take”. As you have reported yourself on occasion, when naiveté operates there is an immense tangible change in how you are.

SYD: Regarding your reiteration of Kuba’s posts, what I’ve always found odd is that nobody has so far given a detailed report of this ‘desire’ and the various forms it takes.

VINEETO: Why do you need others’ “detailed report” to know how to proceed? Richard, Peter, Vineeto, Geoffrey and others proceeded to dive into their psyche without such reports, guided by pure intent, the intent to leave no stone unturned with the overriding aim to actualise what the PCE revealed to be possible. Actualism is something you do by yourself, a unilateral change for the benefit of you and every body.

Here is a useful insight from Adam –

ADAM-H: (…) I see again that the key is the genuine willingness/ readiness, it makes total sense to me and fits with my past intermittent experiences. When that willingness/ readiness is there, the practice is hardly even a practice, it’s effortless. But again it feels like this is just saying “here is what it is like when it works.” How does one make an identity… (end of initial reaction)

VINEETO: Hi Adam,

This is a very insightful post and well worth keeping for future references. When the readiness is there then there is no conflict, not one side trying and the other side resisting.

ADAM-H: While writing that phrase out I had this thought “wait, I am that identity, I don’t have to ‘make’ it do anything I can just do it.” I can see how I reacted to bad feelings – by becoming a virtuously impatient identity whose narrative is a story about being special for wanting to feel good. As soon as I saw that, there was a feeling of having my ‘split’ self fuse back together with my relatively more naive but stressed self. This consolidated ‘me’ was able to then instantly go back to feeling good because it saw that it was silly to feel good when it was entirely up to me how to feel. I think this is the clearest I’ve ever been on the point that sincerity can unlock naivety.

VINEETO: Excellent – when you had the realisation that “wait, I am that identity” that is the same as realising that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ – no conflict, simply the choice to be whatever feeling you prefer to be. It’s great, isn’t it, when you discover some of the tricks ‘I’ get up to – and once you see it, the trick no longer works and you do feel good. And this is the key to sincerity.

So should you ever struggle to get out of feeling bad, look for this sincerity, the “willingness/ readiness” and see what happens.

(…)

Richard: Indeed it is ... so in order to successfully escape one needs to abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods, so that the energy one is frittering away fruitlessly is available for the unknown path, the unfamiliar path, the path that does deliver the goods. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, James3, 1 November 2002)

(Actualvineeto, Adam-H, 8 January 2026).

If you can clearly see the point Kuba is making that “that it was my desire which was keeping me a slave” and when you have the readiness to no longer follow the demands of this passion, this cause of your slavery, then it can happen in an instant – if “that willingness/ readiness is there”. If it is not there (yet), then one is often easily diverted in to all sorts of ‘trying’ by asking more questions, analysing one’s ever-changing kaleidoscope of feelings, finding fault with others and similar tricks of ‘me’ to keep the standard quo.

This early description from Peter might also be relevant, if only to recognize any emotional patterns –

Peter to Alan: Thus it was that I actively practiced denial and transcendence – new tricks to add to the denial and repression of ‘bothersome’ feelings and emotions that I had been taught as a child. Transcendence is such a wonderfully seductive option, for one gets to swan along, literally with one’s head in the clouds, literally above it all. The real world problems of money, relationship, corruption and greed, and the feelings of anger, sorrow and melancholy were still around but ‘I’ was not part of it. The ‘real’ world became a tolerable nuisance – I was not going to let it bother me – the new spiritual ‘me’. (Peter, Actual Freedom List, Alan-d, 19.3.2000).

It describes how the mechanism of the old paradigm operated, nowadays further disguised by cloaking those “clouds” in new words gleaned from reports of fully free people such as “common consciousness”, “immanence-in-consciousness”, “being genderless, formless, ageless and vast”, “sense of fixed physicality falling apart” (see ) and ‘transcendence’ renamed as “channelling into”, “by-passing” or simply ignoring uncomfortable feelings.

I am not suggesting you are still doing all this but the old paradigm has been operating for thousands of years and hence appears to be the first measure to take when in an emotional crisis. Actualism is not about controlling the feelings but by recognizing and looking at them you eventually get an insight into the pattern of the workings of your identity and see how silly it is to keep doing what you have been programmed to do. And if you first don’t succeed, keep looking (after getting back to feeling good, of course).

From another thread –

SYD: (…) I simply decided to give up those post-arousal mechanisms; they are just not worth holding on to. Simple as!

I now see what Vineeto means by “[enjoying] their company whatever form that may take”. And more importantly, I rediscovered my autonomy.

VINEETO: This is an excellent practical example of what I was describing above – “when you have the readiness to no longer follow the demands of this passion, this cause of your slavery, then it can happen in an instant”.