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(List D refers to Richard’s List D
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence Actualism Method
ADAM-H: Thanks Vineeto for the reminders. I did have in mind that my ‘30 minutes a day’ would be in addition to ongoing in-daily-life actualism practice, but I think this is true:
It brought up the question: if the actualism method is to enjoy and appreciate being alive, why do I need to make an effort of spending time on it? Why is it not its own reward that I would just naturally spend my free time doing? VINEETO: Hi Adam, If you read more on the Actual Freedom website you will have it confirmed that your genetic
predisposition is fear, aggression, nurture and desire, which is additionally socially conditioned to somewhat
control the instinctual passions. You, the identity, having formed itself from those passions and beliefs, concepts,
etc. and is pre-dispositioned to remain as ‘you’ are. (See for instance Richard’s Selected Correspondence on
‘I’ As for effort, if you want to call intent, persistence and determination effort to perhaps overcome the habitual tendency of leaving things as they are then this might be informative – [Emphasis added].  (Richard, This Moment of Being Alive).
* Richard: However, it is never too late to begin to undo that which
has been done to you. One of the marvellous aspects of entering into actualism is that it is a wide and wondrous path
full of delight and discovery ... with some down-turns from time-to-time as the old ways reassert themselves. I will
not pretend for a moment that all is rosy when one begins to dismantle one’s belief system; one’s very identity
is at stake ... not to mention the self. The identity and self will put up a good fight for they want to stay in
existence as they have a lot to lose. To wit: their life. As the sense of self is firmly based upon the
instinct for survival, it will get up to all kinds of tricks to retain and regain its ascendancy. But it is not a
hopeless case: if I can do it, anyone can. I am not special. I was born of normal parents and went to an ordinary
State school. I got a job and worked for a living like anyone else. I became married and raised a family. I claim no
special abilities other than a determination to succeed in my desired ambition. In 1980 I had what is known as a ‘Peak
Experience’ wherein I experienced the perfection and purity of the universe as-it-is. I was hooked! I devoted
myself to the task of setting myself free of absolutely everything that stood in the way of attaining what I had
experienced. The word ‘fail’ is not in my vocabulary. [Emphasis added]. Syd had a similar misconception(?) when he called an instance of not feeling good “a
glitch” as if the entire instinctual programming plus social identity was merely “a glitch” ADAM-H: This connected with my other recent contemplations about ‘having a standoff with myself’ and the ways and which I am still trying to force myself to feel good against my will. It’s obvious my efforts still involve this to some degree, even though I thought I ‘saw through it’. What I’m wondering is if this ‘internal split’ is always present at least in part until one is actually free? What you call “my efforts still involve this to some degree” is the difference
of a realisation and its actualisation. (See FAQ, Difference Between Realisation and Actualisation? The “internal split” will disappear once you recognize, at the core of your ‘being’, that you are as sad and as mad and as bad as everyone else, i.e. that you are instilled with the instinctual passions and its consequent social identity. Upon this penetrating recognition you can stop fighting to hide any occurring bad feelings and their twins of ‘good’ feelings. In other words you recognize each time that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feeling are ‘me’. Then putting the actualism method into practice as described in Richard’s article linked above should be a breeze. ADAM-H: In the same vein, a contemplation I’ve been running lately goes along these lines: If the things I felt bad about were truly just preferences, (e.g. feeling bad because the ice cream store ran out of chocolate and I had to get vanilla) then would it not be deeply obvious that feeling bad was silly? Since this is clear enough, then what separates the things that I actually do feel bad about from being preferences, and how can I see them in the same way as those ice cream flavours? VINEETO: And here continues the watering-down of the actualism method – first remove ‘effort’, i.e. determination, then postpone the disappearance of the “internal split” until you are actually free and now assuming that everything is a matter of “truly just preferences” and nothing else. I only list them like this to demonstrate how the identity “will get up to all kinds of tricks to retain and regain its ascendancy” so you can recognize further tricks as such when they occur. ADAM-H: This is a good way right now to bring me face to face
with conscious, heartfelt objections to treating things as preferences, which seems to be a prerequisite to
unconditional happiness and harmlessness, which is helping me unsplit myself. VINEETO: Before you aim for the far horizon of “unconditional happiness and harmlessness”, why not make feeling good your first priority in life. Putting everything on a preference basis may not be sufficient to further in-depth exploration (when strong fears and desires interfere with feeling good), especially when you call them “truly just preferences”. But when you have the intent to leave no stone unturned in order to blatantly imitate the actual, you will be successful.
Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: Hi Vineeto, I really enjoyed this post, it hits on something that I have been observing for a long time and I understand even clearer now. It’s this tendency to want to reduce actualism to a system/recipe precisely so that ‘I’ don’t have to do anything! It’s putting it all back to front, it’s like if I read of some things that Richard did and then construct a system out of them, and then sit back and wait for change to happen… But the primary thing that Richard did was that he devoted himself completely and obsessively to evincing that which the PCE demonstrated. So the specific things that he did were secondary in that sense, the primary thing was the commitment and the intent. Actually this is also a thing I observed back when I was rock climbing. That there were guys like myself that were just busy with doing the rock climbing, and chipping away at building the skills and eventually reaching a competent level. Then there were the guys that would purchase all the cool climbing gear, they would walk and
talk like advanced climbers, they did all the things that good climbers did, and yet they were never competent
climbers. They invested all their attention into looking like one but never had the commitment and intent to actually
become one. Actually I find this fascinating because (without boring anyone with too many details) this is the current discussion which is happening in the BJJ world. Which is the question of whether the sport has evolved primarily because of the systems in place (better technique etc) or because of individuals demonstrating what is possible. It seems that the most important thing is for somebody to demonstrate what is possible, then others will try to make systems out of what they did to get there. But those systems they are created after the fact, they are not what led to the success in the first place. Sooo … Walking the walk is the most important, the specifics are secondary. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, Your post makes me grin from ear to ear – you put your finger on a crucial aspect of the human condition – ‘faking it’ and avoid change, and you described it quite well. First an anecdote from real life. A few years ago when following current affairs, the US state of California was in a big political and economic crisis – bankrupt, the governor in major political scandals, illegal immigrants streaming into the state and public unrest looming. What happened? They made a law to ban plastic straws. It’s actually quite humorous though in the black humour way. At the time I thought it was a perfect example of the worst, but quite common, way of ‘solving’ problems – all show and no substance, divert attention and gain popularity without having to fix anything. The British comedy series “Yes Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” from the Sixties was a true comedic representation of the struggle between power and popularity, and very educational of the human condition in action. When you think about it, it is also quite natural. ‘Me’, the non-substantial identity, want
affirmation from other, equally non-substantial entities, and pretence is the quickest and cheapest way to get this
affirmation. Given the instinctual survival passions combined with the theory of mind (“Interestingly enough, it
is this last point (deceit) which most of all signals the ‘Theory of Mind’ Actualists experience the same struggle between the potent cunning and deceitful ‘me’ engaged in the survival of the contingent ‘being’ on one side and the honesty of sincere intent and a willingness to do whatever it takes to imitate the actual. To be aware of the stakes may make it easier to whole-heartedly dedicate one’s life to peace on earth in this life-time and act on it. You said it well – “Walking the walk is the most important, the specifics are secondary”. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: And here continues the watering-down of the actualism method – first remove
‘effort’, i.e. determination, then postpone the disappearance of the “internal split” until
you are actually free and now assuming that everything is a matter of “truly just preferences” and
nothing else. I only list them like this to demonstrate how the identity “will get up to all kinds of tricks to
retain and regain its ascendancy” so you can recognize further tricks as such when they occur. ADAM-H: I want to clarify what I was saying here a bit. It was more like a thought experiment where I was trying to show myself how the things I cared about were not just preferences. I was basically pointing out to myself that “if the things I cared about were just preferences” then it would be deeply obvious that feeling bad was silly… which is not currently the case. The purpose of this contemplation was to try to bring myself closer to my feelings and heal that ‘internal split’. VINEETO: Hi Adam, Thank you for your clarification – it seems I unnecessarily jumped into the middle of your recording your thought-processes. ADAM-H: I did end up having success again healing that internal split this morning however, and I want to note down how it happened again for future reference. Also it was again so interesting how the instant that internal split went away I was instantly back to feeling good in a really deep and wholehearted way that continued throughout the entire day and improved how I related to everyone. The way the split resolved was by noticing that I was again in a similar trap as my recent ‘virtuous impatience’. Essentially what is happening is this:
Of course, calling it ‘catching a glimpse’ is maybe a bit misleading. It’s ‘me’ after all who is playing tricks on ‘me’, so it’s more about sincerity than skill or agility of some sort. VINEETO: As Kuba already said
* VINEETO: The “internal split” will disappear once you recognize, at the core of your ‘being’, that you are as sad and as mad and as bad as everyone else, i.e. that you are instilled with the instinctual passions and its consequent social identity. Upon this penetrating recognition you can stop fighting to hide any occurring bad feelings and their twins of ‘good’ feelings. In other words you recognize each time that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feeling are ‘me’. Then putting the actualism method into practice as described in Richard’s article linked above should be a breeze. ADAM-H: This is fascinating and also links up with what you said
in your response to Kuba VINEETO: Indeed, most of ‘my’ protestations about any feelings occurring originate in how I want to see myself and how others see me – a good person, a clever person, a good actualist, a successful (… fill in your own aspersions). When ‘I’ genuinely admit “I am the problem” each time, then there is really only one solution – dissolution – and that can be ultimately scary at the start. But this is where enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive come in, it is what you
do in the meantime, until you cannot maintain your ‘self’ any longer. And “the means to the end – an
ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end”.
Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: In the words of my favourite YouTube content creator – “who let me have this much fun?!” . It’s so great to proceed now as a bona fide actualist, patiently dismantling whatever stands in the way of ongoing enjoyment and appreciation, it is indeed the “best game in town”. It is not about the investigation as an end in itself, it is that with each belief dismantled, with each habitual pattern left behind etc there is a palpable increase in happiness and harmlessness. Any genuine change ‘I’ get for keeps, the dividends are paid each moment again. I was thinking this when I was walking to the shops the other day, that it’s cool to develop a new skill in BJJ however the dividends are only paid when I go to practice BJJ, actualism is even better than that, any genuine change I benefit from each moment again for the rest of my life. Yesterday after uncovering resentment I had big cry in the car when driving to train, it was
like the dam broke. It was something like “what the hell have I been doing (‘being’) all this time”.
This resentment was like a blanket of bitterness that covered all of ‘me’ and yet somehow “from the
inside” it remained unseen. Then the blanket was removed and ‘I’ came face to face with the consequences of
it, just what it had been doing all this time. How it got in the way of peace and intimacy between me and my fellow
human beings. And there was this “call for action” in that experience, this intense yearning to set things
right, which it was clear that this ultimately requires for ‘me’ to sacrifice ‘myself’. It was very clear
that altruistic self-immolation is nothing at all like ‘me’ uncovering a belief or acknowledging something
intellectually etc. What it takes for ‘me’ to altruistically sacrifice ‘myself’ is an even more powerful
energy than ‘my’ selfism and it is sourced in an enormous caring and daring, it’s the entirety of ‘my’
being willing to go into extinction now, to set things right once and for all. I saw that this is the only way to
ultimately “make those tears count”. Of course in the meantime I do exactly what I am doing, which is to
proceed down the wide and wondrous path, both for the immediate benefit and eventually the ultimate benefit. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, What a marvellous experience and description of discovering a basic resentment underneath it all and how it “got in the way of peace and intimacy between me and my fellow human beings”, so much so that it made you realise that only ‘self’-sacrifice can resolve this significant obstacle. And even more wonderful that this insight, this “intense yearning to set things right” unleashed the powerful energy of “an enormous caring and daring” which you had walled up in your “precious independence and its resultant splendid isolation” – as Devika so eloquently called it. (Richard’s Journal, p. 218). This powerful energy has been lying dormant for all those years and your yearning for ongoing enjoyment and appreciation has finally set it free. What a wondrous outcome and eminent proof that the actualism method of enjoying and appreciating this moment being alive, each moment again, works miraculously. Life is truly wonderful. I am full of admiration for your daring and caring. Cheers Vineeto
SYD: In hindsight, I’ll say that I don’t know what the fuck I was writing about. (1) kinda makes sense, but I couldn’t even bother to re-read my own (2) and (3). VINEETO: Hi Syd, I went back to your “attempt at verbalizing my understanding” of sincerity to find out what “kinda makes sense” to you and why in hindsight the latter part does not make sense –
The question is, now understanding the fact of being in a state of mild dissociation, have you intently changed this state by remembering whenever feelings arise, that I am my feelings and my feelings are me? I ask because that would increase being more genuinely sincere than continuing the ‘mild dissociation’.
What you were doing here, was to equate (via link) a Seinfeld episode to Richard’s report in the Audio-taped dialogue about “put the emotion into a bind”, by a slight of hand calling it “do the opposite”. ‘Putting the emotion in a bind’ is not the opposite to dissociating from one’s feelings. It is the third alternative. Neither expressing nor repressing means not to feed them by either endorsing them (express) or rejecting them (repress) – and when a feeling gets no support it withers. Having equated ‘putting in a bind’ with “doing the opposite”, and linking it to a satirical farcical show, ‘you’, the cunning identity, successfully pushed aside the impact Richard’s report could have had. I am breaking it down in detail because one can learn as much about sincerity by recognizing and understanding insincerity in action (in hindsight) and thereby adjusting one’s course. Your follow-up summary in point (2) was fairly accurate but the slight-of-hand-action most likely prevented it to be a sincere successful process. Hence your point (3) never eventuated in practice.
* VINEETO: There is also a page in Richard’s Catalogue SYD: I found this: VINEETO: Claudiu responded lucidly to your quote and questions from this link. Did you also follow up the other 10 references in that catalogue page
I can also recommend Adam-H’s post from today
SYD: My current understanding is that, for a feeling-being – the application of ‘sincerity’ (at least initially when practicing the actualism method) is a matter of being genuine (authentic, guileless, etc.) in regards to what is happening (especially affectively) such that we see clearly (without nescience or ignoration) as to how both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings (and the instinctual passions that sustain them) stand in the way of feeling good, which understanding is to automatically result in action (in getting back to feeling good). VINEETO: I don’t know if this is only a shortened way to describing the actualism method or if you are not aware that “getting back to feeling good” is not the whole story? There is a sequence to ‘feeling good’ –
And here is the text of the tool-tip right next to “feeling happy and harmless” – given that you mention “being naiveté” –
SYD: Beyond that I don’t yet understand what ‘being sincerity’ means (never mind ‘being the
key’ to ‘being naiveté’) – except it is interesting to note that Richard says that “being sincere [..] is to have the pure intent” — or
what being ‘true to facts and actuality’ means. VINEETO: In order to move from feeling good to feeling happy and harmless to feeling excellent one needs to keep this in mind –
This can only be done with sincerity because one’s instinctual reaction would be to bury the disturbing incident, whatever it was. * There is another reason why I emphasise there is more than ‘feeling good’ to the process of
becoming actually free. It is because you only yesterday (17 Feb 2026) presented a 1000+ word excerpt from Geoffrey
answering questions after he became actually free I say deceivingly deliberately because just a day before (16 Feb 2026) you were not aware that
‘good’ feelings such as lust (which are as harmful and ‘self’-enhancing as ‘bad’ feelings) are not part of ‘feeling good’, and Claudiu explained it
to you in a brilliant post Perhaps you are personally content to only get back to feeling good, but please do not promote it as the entire actualism method. What’s the word? Reductionism? Cheers Vineeto
JON: What did Richard say about shit like this? Something to the effect of accepting an unacceptable world as it is… VINEETO:
JON: How is that not close to what I said? It is better though.
It would be beneficial to go and search what he exactly said. thank you. VINEETO: Hi Jon, Yes, that would be far more beneficial, particularly for yourself. When you read your own quote at the top, you can see the difference yourself. You are basically suggesting one should accept “shit like this”, “an unacceptable world as it is …” Much more beneficial to apply it as it was intended. Richard clearly makes a difference between emotionally accepting (not getting angry or sad or upset) about what is happening, while a lot of happenings are still “intellectually unacceptable”. Human beings are still run by instinctual animal passions … even though now there is a way to change that in oneself. * VINEETO: - Are you talking about yourself or more people than you? JON: I was talking about me and Andrew. VINEETO: Ok. Just remember that finding out how you ‘tick’ in order to better enjoy and appreciate being alive is something only you can do. Sharing notes can certainly add to the enjoyment of doing it. Also, there is something I remember from ‘Vineeto’ – “if he can do it, so can I”. * VINEETO: - What is the original feeling from where you want to “cultivate a sense of needing to do something”? JON: I think it comes from wanting to feel good and be happy and harmless. I think giving myself a life’s purpose and happy and harmlessness being that purpose would be great for me. VINEETO: Mmh, when you say “I think”, it indicates you are not sure if it was this or something else. When you set out to improve the art of paying increasing attention to how you feel (affectively), while you go about your business of living, then you can more easily pinpoint what it is exactly that in this instant caused your mood to drop from feeling good (if it did) – and then get back to feeling good.
It’s best to read the article in the original to get the benefit of all the informative tool-tips, especially in those quoted paragraphs. As you can see, when you read the description, you can do all this unilaterally, you don’t need anyone or anything to change for you to start improving your own enjoyment and appreciation of being alive. * VINEETO: When you say “fix the madness and the callousness” – are you talking about yourself or other people’s madness and the callousness? JON: My madness and callousness, I think, is not being focused on being happy and harmless. Like that’s both crazy and callous. And the madness of the world and it’s callousness stems from other people prioritizing things other than happiness and harmlessness. So if I can cultivate a sense of being behooved to be happy and harmless for myself and to show to others that it’s possible then I think that’s a good life goal. VINEETO: Why make it so complicated as if it were a duty to “cultivate a sense of being behooved to be happy and harmless for myself”? The straightforward question is – do you want to feel good? You know that is feels good to feel good, so where is the problem? And that in itself is worth contemplating. When you find out more about the art of enjoying and appreciating you start to realise that being genuinely happy, i.e. unconditionally happy, includes being harmless as well. Being harmful, malicious, gleeful, selfish, self-centred doesn’t feel really good, it leaves at least a bad taste in your mouth, so to speak. It is far more enjoyable to experience the felicitous and innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability, consideration and so on) – hence it wouldn’t need a ‘cultivation’ to wanting to do it. But maybe there is a belief, a conditioning, that states ‘thou shalt not be happy else you’ll
be punished, or something similar? Something such as a guilt for being alive or taking up space? Check out the
conversation I had with Andrew on this topic of guilt, he said it helped him drop a big burden. JON: I appreciate your time. VINEETO: You are very welcome, Jon. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: I do think I have found the knack to connect to pure intent by seeing it as something outside of ‘me’ which is my destiny. I need to remember that pure intent will take me to my destiny. VINEETO: Hi James, You are aware, are you not, that Richard called it pure *intent* “because of the
agency-association it had, in ‘his’ mind, with the word ‘destiny’ ... as in, ‘escape one’s fate and achieve one’s destiny’”. That means ‘you’ need to actively take ‘yourself’ to your destiny or – to put it differently, do whatever you can to allow yourself to be taken to your destiny. Pure intent is not the equivalent to the spiritual/religious ‘Grace of God’ which will do it for you.
Richard added: “there’s nothing you can do to become actually free, and there’s
nothing you can’t do”. As you well know, Geoffrey took this advice to heart and became actually free less than a year later. JAMES: Obviously, the ‘me’ is stopping me right now as it always has. VINEETO: It would be helpful for yourself to pay specific attention to what form ‘me’
takes each time ‘you’ prevent becoming free from happening, in order that you can look at, disarm and remove the
specific objection. Objections might vary, and when you disarm one another will pop up. But there is only a limited
number of objections as all those who have become free can attest to, and as Kuba is describing right now JAMES: As Richard said in the quote you provided above there is no actual ‘me’. It is a ghost in the machine. It is a feeling that makes it seem real. I see this right now but the feeling still exists. VINEETO: Yes, and this is only something you will know with certainty in hindsight. Right now, as long as you are a feeling being, this ‘ghost’ is very, very real, hence the feelings of hesitation, apprehension and fear that you might experience. Also, of course, you cannot hypnotise yourself into believing that you are a ghost. JAMES: The feeling (‘me’) is inner and not real. It is not my destiny which is outer and which pure intent will guide me to. In summary: The ‘me’ is not real and is only a ghost (feeling) In the machine. VINEETO: Sometimes when you experience pure intent or have a PCE, and realise that ‘you’ have no substance, then it is much easier to be naïvely enjoying and appreciating being alive and not take whichever feeling occurs serious. Then life is fun. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: I can only see anything I do now as a repeat of many
times over many years. I am not quite sure of what I can do that will not be a repeat. Still looking. VINEETO: Hi James, You could have a look at which moment your enjoyment and appreciation flat-lined, in that nothing new came up but the same problem stubbornly appeared again and again. This is an indicator that something essential was overlooked, something that perhaps was too dear to be questioned. JAMES: Earlier when I said ‘I can’t’ you said that maybe it’s really because ‘I don’t want to’ and not because I can’t. I don’t yet know why but this has stuck with me. Maybe I don’t want to even though I don’t know why. It could be that I can’t because I don’t want to. This could be fear lurking which makes me feel like I can’t. Not sure exactly what it is. Still looking. Actually, ‘I can’t’ because ‘I don’t want to’ does make sense because if I really wanted to then I could do it. I need to pinpoint why ‘I don’t want to.’ Fear is the most likely culprit. 
VINEETO: When I said to you in my last post that “This process is experiential, not intellectual” I meant that you inquire into what is your emotional objection to being / becoming “a happy ‘being’” as Richard explained in this quote, and many others, regarding the actualism method (emphasis for your convenience) –
“A happy ‘being’” means eventually being unconditionally happy and harmless for 23 hrs 59 min a day. Then, when you become curious and fascinated and look for the trigger of what caused the last incident of not feeling good, it won’t be a theoretical guess (“most likely”) but a valid reason for sincerely exploring why a particular emotional obstacle is preventing you from feeling good. Otherwise you would be only doing armchair philosophy. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: Thank you for this wonderful reply Vineeto. I read it while having breakfast and then I realized what went wrong. I have been worrying about what little time I have left instead of enjoying and appreciating what time I do have. Suddenly, my coffee tasted better and I enjoyed my breakfast instead of just going through the
motions. VINEETO: Hi James, Ha, this is great success – and it was because you paid fascinated attention to how you felt – and then “realized what went wrong”. Which means fascinated attention to how you are, enables you to adjust course (if you are “lost in the woods”) and get back on the wide and wondrous path. It also proved wrong your previous belief that –
Your success in this matter can give you encouragement for applying this affective attentiveness more and more continuously. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: The change happens on a deep feeling level, verbalisations follow the feeling change. ANDREW: I have yet to experience this, on any topic. For me, I take it on advice that this is possible, as it would be no use trying if it was not possible, but I will continue to do what occurs to me as useful. Exactly how can a change happen “on a deep feeling level”? VINEETO: Hi Andrew, Taking fully on board that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ you enables a decision that you no longer want to be the feeling of being ashamed for ‘taking up space’, for instance, because you sensibly and intelligently see that it is silly to do so. Fact is you are here and obviously take up space by being here, and hence it is silly (if not outright absurd) to apologize/feel ashamed for being here on this amazing planet. You also understand that nobody forces you to be this feeling but yourself. So it is in your hands, and your hands alone, to be a felicitous and appreciative feeling instead of a shameful and sorrowful feeling. What complicates or compounds this apologetic feeling of being here is that ‘I’, the alien identity, having usurped control over the flesh-and-blood body from birth onwards knows deep down that it is a contingent ‘being’, exerting dominance via the instinctual passions whilst wholly dependent on your compliance. The more you diminish this dominance via minimising the ‘good’ and bad feelings and maximise the felicitous and innocuous feelings, the more your native intelligence can operate – as you put it so well the other day –
ANDREW: It’s very much a starting where I am scenario. I respond to people who speak nicely. I enjoy them, so I am setting out to imitate this type of self talk. My understanding is that habits are shaped through repetition, rather than any moment of instant change. I am indeed aiming at change at a “deep feeling level” but I see no option than to
continue to change habits and verbal self talk. If there is an “instant” way, then I am all
“eyes”. VINEETO: Of course, it makes sense to be attentive to any left-over habitual behaviour and adjust it as soon as you become aware of it but the recognition that it is unnecessary and silly to continue being ashamed makes the adjustment a breeze. ANDREW: Looking around at the river, feeling my skin
occasionally itch, seeing a mosquito or a fly. Considering the vast variety of life all around me, on me, and in me,
gave me something to both appreciate, and also dispel some of the “special” I feel I should be. VINEETO: This is a potent discovery which you mentioned here en passant – as part of the whole emotional topic of feeling shame and blame there is hidden a ‘good’ feeling, which needs to be recognized and acknowledged in order to dismantle the whole pattern – in this case, feeling to be “special”. You cannot abandon the bad side of this particular feeling-complex without also abandoning the ‘good’ feeling which enables you to keep it in place.
Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: What splendid descriptions of “experiencing being not of ‘me’”. You had plenty of leisure to look around, so to speak, and draw some valuable conclusions, especially the observation that you have been looking for the source of feeling good – “experiencing being not of ‘me’” – somewhere other than here on earth and now, in this very moment. CHRONO: Hi Vineeto, Yes, I had suspected it and this experiencing showed clearly that there is a benevolence already occurring right here. It also subsequently highlighted many things. That in ‘my’ most fundamental drive to survive, ‘I’ can only imagine that this source of feeling good be somewhere else (among other things). I can see the significance and the wonderful occurrence of being alive right now. It makes me wonder what exactly is at stake here. And I had been letting that question simmer. But because of this it makes perfect sense to commit to feeling good come what may. I have been able to do it in a very easy way now. And every time I do not feel good, it slowly highlights what is at stake. And every time I do not feel good, it’s a simple asking of “would I really rather feel this than feel good?”. The quality of it is much better than ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, Even though it looks as if you are inching your way forward in answering your question “what is at stake” you gather the experiential answer each time you pose this question. And because you have followed your common sense that committing “to feeling good come what may” makes perfect sense, to abandon everything that stands in the way of feeling good also makes perfect sense. * VINEETO: And you also reported that when “some closeness starts to happen”, often a ‘good’ feeling, in this case “nostalgia” swoops in and diverts you from further exploring this “closeness”. It is exactly this fine-tuned attentiveness which allows you to detect such diversions sooner rather than later, before they gather solidity, and then get back to your original exploration. CHRONO: I’ve noticed it more and more in action and have been easily able to get back on track. In committing to feeling good right now, I am also willing to give up all of ‘my’ dreams. And any occurrence of nostalgia or some such bittersweet feelings is a hope for that feeling good somewhere and somewhen else. I can see the seductive nature of this chimera. VINEETO: It’s a pleasure to read of your success – and all because your promise to yourself borne of common sense “to feeling good come what may”. Then everything else is of less importance and willingly given up. * VINEETO: Lastly, when you say “sustained by the feeling of being trapped” you are probably aware that you are trapping yourself and ‘I’ am playing a trick on ‘me’ pretending the trapping is happening by someone else. CHRONO: The feeling of being trapped seems to be from not actively endorsing to being alive right now. It’s a sort of “holding back”. And the moment I actively endorse to being alive, the feeling good becomes more dynamic and more sensuous. VINEETO: Exactly. Feeling being trapped is the passive approach, stemming from convinced that things in life happen to you as the hapless non-involved victim, mostly borne of the resentment of being here, as in “life is the pits and then you die”. Once you “actively endorse” being alive you are deliberately and joyously participate being alive and able to evoke your destiny. As it turns out you contemplated that very subject in your next paragraph. CHRONO: It also showed why I do feel trapped. I secretly believe that I can escape death. It sounds odd to say but from ‘my’ perspective it feels like that to unreservedly say yes to being alive right now is also to embrace death. This way I am enjoying AND appreciating being alive. VINEETO: Do I understand you correctly – that you feel trapped because, even though you “secretly believe” you can escape death, you also know “that to unreservedly say yes to being alive right now” you need to abandon this secret belief and instead embrace the fact that you are mortal? Above you wrote “I am willing to give up all of ‘my’ dreams” – is one of the dreams being able to “escape death”? The spiritual dream of immortality via an Altered State of Consciousness? If that is what you are saying you have certainly hit the nail of the head – coming down to earth from lofty heights, embracing the very physicality of being alive, and as such also your mortality, is how you are able “to unreservedly say yes to being alive right now”. Cheers Vineeto
CHRONO: I’ve been back and forth and for the most part have been feeling neutral to good. There was one day where I was more in the feeling bad zone but that also didn’t hit the lows that it would have. I have been wondering about this committing to feeling good and its ramifications. With committing to feeling good, it means feeling good no matter the situation or circumstances. My life looked like it’s going in a different trajectory. I would be “giving up” a big part of who I currently thought and felt I was. I was wondering this for most of the day. At one point the feeling came back again that I would be punished. The thought of what my dad said of ‘I would be found out and tortured’ or ‘I wouldn’t be feeling good when they torture me’. And I had this realization that I would only be tortured because of ‘me’. All of the ‘me’ in every body. This was the nature of Humanity. To pull everyone down to its miserable depths. And this feeling went away right after. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, What you can also include in your considerations is that when you are feeling good, your intelligence and common sense works much, much better than when you are overwhelmed by feelings. As such, when feeling good, you are much more likely to act intelligently and give others no reason at all for “‘I would be found out and tortured’” or any such atavistic scares passed down the ages to keep people in line. CHRONO: Then the next day I was thinking about how self-immolation only happens when I’m ready. Why make it a hard effort? I started thinking about the irrevocability of it. I got some strange discomfort in my head and chest that I’ve gotten before. It’s like ‘I’ have a locality, like I’m hidden somewhere inside the body, but not actually there either. Why do I hide and what am I hiding from? What is it to be here fully? I can’t seem to remember the exact details but I had this realization that what I’ve been trying to do is change ‘me’ (as in purify ‘me’ to be un-corrupt) and that ‘I’ cannot change ‘me’. ‘I’ am all of the feelings waiting to happen. ‘I’ am the very corruption. As long as this ‘me’ is in place, ‘I’ could become anything. Then the discomfort stopped and this was like great news because it meant that ‘I’ did not have to try to change ‘me’. And that is so effortful. I didn’t need to “solve” ‘me’. I just need to feel good. VINEETO: This is an excellent insight and worth remembering whenever you are about to fall back into making “a hard effort” to purify ‘you’, the identity, instead of connecting to pure intent and feeling good. The “strange discomfort in my head and chest” is the psychosomatic reaction to the chemicals triggered by the feelings about ‘my’ survival being under threat. CHRONO: What followed was an another bout of overflowing feeling good. I was talking with my co-workers and to customers. There was almost no self-consciousness and the conversation was effortlessly fun. I spoke completely unrehearsed. There were no favorites and there was heightened sensuousness. I noticed how I was feeling good and felt even more good. I experienced the dynamic and energizing nature of this moment. I experienced this dynamicness as me. I saw the universe as it occurs right now is always in motion. Always dynamic. Always new. Always interesting. Almost like always being at the edge of my seat. I occur only right here in this moment of being alive. Inseparable from being this flesh and blood body. I saw other people and they too were living this actuality but completely not noticing it. Or rather those flesh and blood bodies were living this actuality perhaps. This experiencing was again other to ‘me’. ‘I’ could never be like this. It is actually occurring. There could be no doubt or comparison. There were ripples of delight flowing throughout my body. It continued from work til I got home. And each moment I am missing out on this. VINEETO: What a wonderful description of an excellence experience or PCE. * VINEETO: Even though it looks as if you are inching your way forward in answering your question “what is at stake” you gather the experiential answer each time you pose this question. And because you have followed your common sense that committing “to feeling good come what may” makes perfect sense, to abandon everything that stands in the way of feeling good also makes perfect sense. It’s a pleasure to read of your success – and all because your promise to yourself borne of common sense “to feeling good come what may”. Then everything else is of less importance and willingly given up. CHRONO: Hi Vineeto, Yes it makes everything easier if I’ve made committing to feeling good right now the number 1 priority. It makes sense now why I’d be more stuck in certain bad feelings in the past for a long time. It’s because that commitment had not been made. Now that it has, it’s just a matter of returning to that commitment if I notice I’m not feeling good and also figuring out why. VINEETO: It is indeed a very helpful commitment to make – when ‘it just makes sense to feel good’ is not enough to counter the swings of emotion which do occur from time to time, which then put common sense is in hibernation. * VINEETO: Do I understand you correctly – that you feel trapped because, even though you “secretly
believe” you can escape death, you also know “that to unreservedly say yes to being alive
right now” you need to abandon this secret belief and instead embrace the fact that you are mortal? If that is what you are saying you have certainly hit the nail of the head – coming down to earth from lofty heights, embracing the very physicality of being alive, and as such also your mortality, is how you are able “to unreservedly say yes to being alive right now”. CHRONO: Yes that is exactly correct. My original start to the “search for peace” was when I encountered Buddhism. At the time, it looked sensible to me as it seemed to offer a solution to the Human Condition. But I did not understand that its peace was otherworldly and “somewhere else”. It seemed attractive to ‘me’ because it also offered escaping death. Which I see was the main highlight for ‘me’. ‘I’ could be “somewhere else” where ‘I’ won’t die. And the entirety of it hinged on this belief. But by actively endorsing being alive here in this moment, I know that I am mortal and will die. To actively endorse being alive right now is to give up any otherworldly otherness. The ASC of being immortal is indeed one of the dreams that I am willing to give up. VINEETO: Spiritual immortality being a very popular belief and you having held it for some time, it might take some contemplating and being aware of any reoccurrence of that dream of immortality. But the more you contemplate it sensibly the less it makes sense, being only supported by the passionate desire of ‘my’ survival. * VINEETO:
If there were a connection, then ‘I’ would not have to die. To put it differently – ‘my’ logical thinking to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ (or rather from ‘there’ to here) cannot conceive “that ‘I’ cannot do it” and that ‘I’ have to disappear for the actual world to become apparent. In fact it is impossible for ‘me’, by ‘my’ very nature, to conceive that ‘I’ will ever disappear. It can only be understood experientially in a PCE or moments of apperception – and then it is perfectly obvious. CHRONO: I think I understand and I wonder if there is a reluctance to see that this ‘utter fullness’ as my destiny has to do with death. But also maybe I am doing all this also because I have a simultaneous desire for death/ oblivion. Why is ‘my’ being so precious I wonder? What exactly is it that I am waiting for? What would make ‘me’ forsake ‘being’? VINEETO: What Richard is referring to is a temporary experience this particular respondent reported. You said yourself in the second paragraph above that “I was thinking about how self-immolation only happens when I’m ready”. Obviously you are not ready for the ultimate step and need to find out more about “why is ‘my’ being so precious”. Don’t let your feeling good be spoiled with a ‘self’-created conflict of being impatient. It is just another trick of ‘me’ trying to stay in the picture. (…) * VINEETO: Above you said “I am stunned at how long it has been” – to thoroughly and experientially understand how the human psyche works is a gradual process, and you are daily reaping the rewards. CHRONO: I am most definitely reaping the rewards more now and
it is fascinating seeing all the workings of ‘me’.
VINEETO: Ha, every word you write confirms that. It is a pleasure to follow your process to more and more feel good. Cheers Vineeto
ADAM-Cl: I am now following your recommendations. As regards starting where I am at, I realised there were beliefs around being exceptional too. Some imagined narrative that I would excel in the application of the method and achieve success quicker this time around. VINEETO: Ah, that is fascinating. For someone with this narrative it is not easy to start where you are at or recognize and admit where you have gone wrong. Knowing this about yourself makes recognizing ‘wrong turns’ easier – in fact, whenever you are stuck in feeling bad, you can deduce that you need to get back on the right track including questioning this particular narrative. This quote might also be helpful – victim mentality often comes in combination with “beliefs around being exceptional”.
ADAM-Cl: Pure intent is that agency and will to get back to feeling happy and harmless from remembering the PCE, I can see how diametrically opposed it is to passivity and resentment and how it can help me to get back to being sincere and trying to be happy and harmless. It has clicked in a way that it hasn’t before. I have read those descriptions on pure intent so many times as well. My brain really dismissed the agency aspect, as though pure intent can only happen spontaneously too not from actively remembering/ rememoration of my own PCE’s and willingly trying to do the method. VINEETO: A clarification – to “actively remembering/ rememoration of my own PCE’s” is done by ‘you’, the agency, pure intent is not an agency but exists outside of ‘you’ and an identity can never be pure intent. Apart from that, to actively remember/ rememorate your PCE’s with the sincere intent to imitate the actual as much and as often as possible is important because nothing will change unless you want to change. Imitating the actual was how Richard first developed and applied the actualism method –
 (Richard, List D,
Claudiu4, 3 February 2016).
In fact, this whole post to Claudiu gives an extensive description of the actualism method. ADAM-Cl: I had a realisation today of how I had imagined these successes and gains would be “mine”. Imaginary future outcomes are my specialty it seems. At least I am becoming aware of the pattern. VINEETO: Indeed, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ was surprised, once ‘she’ began paying fascinated attention to how ‘she’ experienced life each moment again, how much of what ‘she’ considered thinking was actually imagination and day-dreaming. This rapidly diminished the more ‘she’ discovered about ‘herself’. ADAM-Cl: I have been back to a very felicitous baseline today, thanks again. VINEETO: This is good to hear. Remember, the actualism method is to be enjoying and appreciating being alive. Cheers Vineeto
HENRY: I have had a bit of a breakthrough in my actualism process. I found myself remembering to get back to feeling good a few days ago, and then began a process of ‘watching’ my current (bad) mood with the assumption that upon doing that for a little while, I would have an ‘aha’ moment and be feeling good. After a few moments though, I found myself questioning the convoluted nature of doing this. Why not simply choose to feel good, rather than believing that I had to first ‘watch’? I quickly found myself feeling good, having bypassed the need to somehow prove the feeling-good through that method. I now see that I always have that option, and that in the past I needlessly complicated it for myself. This also explains why one of the most crucial steps is the commitment to feeling happy & harmless each moment again, as the choice is always available to feel good. Once I am feeling happy & harmless I am back on the path, and the next step is to go back & pick apart what happened to waylay me. Any comments or concerns are welcome! VINEETO: Hi Henry, This is great – discovering how you had complicated returning to feeling good in the past and seeing that there is no need to “watch” the bad feeling. A simple attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation restores feeling happy & harmless. Regarding the next step – apart from the “commitment to feeling happy & harmless each moment again” – is indeed finding out “what happened to waylay” you so that does not need to waylay you again. Just curious, on 30 November 2024
Also, when you grow more and more accustomed as a habit to initiating an affective awareness to how you experience this moment of being alive each moment again, you will become aware of ever-finer nuances where feeling good diminishes, and then you can correct course before your enjoyment and appreciation changes to feeling listless or bad. As such, maintaining feeling happy and harmless becomes easier and more continuous.
Lastly, here is a reminder that it’s important to recognize the ‘good’ feelings as being as much of a hindrance to feeling happy and harmless as the bad feelings –
Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: Hi Vineeto, This is all very much spot on, thank you! Indeed so far it has been ‘me’ sprinting to the edges of the human condition but then without the ongoing connection to pure intent the ‘controller’ would resurface every time, and then in the absence of that which is outside of ‘me’, ‘me’, ‘me’, ‘I’ would resort to narratives and diversions instead, that is how ‘I’ made the goal of eradicating the human condition into a narcissistic endeavour. So it is pure intent which is so crucial here. I remember Richard’s words to one of the DHO guys basically clarifying that there is no other actual freedom than via pure intent, as in to be actually free is to be that very pure intent personified. This just popped into my mind as an illustration of how critical pure intent is to becoming actually free, as in there is no other way! VINEETO: Hi Kuba, It was Tarin who Richard clarified it to and it’s in the Latest Announcement, Addendum 7
Can you see the very first point “to make possible a pure intent” and the emphasis of “Point No. 8” “that no rotten-to-the-core feeling being can ever infiltrate (bona fide) pure intent”? I am genuinely amazed how you could obscure/ forget/ ignore this crucial point all these month? * VINEETO: This is a great start. Now this “glimpse” needs to grow until pure intent becomes the number one priority in your life, until it becomes the vital factor to counterbalance the inborn, automatically operating ‘self’-centricity/ ‘self’-importance. This, and only this, can give you the vital daring, and caring, required to “proceed into the new/ abandon the old”. KUBA: Yes, for a start now I can see the vital importance of pure intent, that without it, it can only ever remain about ‘me’, ‘me’, ‘me’. Something that is solidly outside of ‘me’ is required to form an ongoing connection to, otherwise ‘I’ am fated to forever spin around in circles, which that is exactly what has been happening so far. VINEETO: Good. I will take advantage of this window of opportunity to point to a detailed
description Richard wrote to Claudiu on 15 July 2015 You may understand that a “glimpse” of pure intent needs kindling and supporting – via naïve enjoyment and wondrous, marvelling appreciation each moment again – in order for it to become the constant ‘addictive’ pull, which will guide you to your, the flesh-and-blood-body’s, destiny. * VINEETO:
KUBA: Yes I remember a similar quote of Richard’s answering to
a correspondent as to why one would continue proceeding when no longer motivated by feeling bad (i.e. out of
desperation). That is precisely how I find myself these days – that I don’t have moods anymore, I don’t go
around feeling resentful or glum about life, the various aspects of ‘human wisdom’ have been explored and
decimated (to borrow Devika’s word), it is second nature to have a good time being alive, as an ongoing modus
operandi. And yet I know that there is something far far better, that this is a very distant second best, and even
just a brief glimpse of that which exists outside of the human condition reminds me immediately of this. So it is the
utter preciosity of that which is glimpsed, which is outside of ‘me’, which is the motivation to continue, even
when no longer out of desperation. VINEETO: Are you saying that up to now you practised actualism “out of desperation” and that only now that you have glimpsed “something far far better” you have the interest and “motivation to continue”? If that is so, I can understand why you don’t remember the vital importance of pure intent and forgotten the above given quotes regarding the ‘doer’ (controller) and the ‘beer’. In fact, I am pleased that you now say that “the utter preciosity of that which is glimpsed, which is outside of ‘me’, which is the motivation to continue”. Here is an excerpt from Richard’s Personal Webpage as to how enjoyment and appreciation evoke and strengthen pure intent and to be able to imitate the actual as much as possible –
Best to read this excerpt in its original to have the benefit of the various tooltips. I wish you lots of fun in your contemplations and explorations of this new territory. Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: Hi Vineeto, Thank you for your reply, actually I was going to take some time off from all things actualist but this just ended up with me getting stressed over a phone transfer that refused to go smoothly… VINEETO: Hi Kuba, It’s quite informative that when you are “going to take some time off from all things
actualist” – perhaps because you remembered Geoffrey’s “So I decided I needed a holiday from ‘doing’,
from ‘trying’” That event might well be an indicator that you are not at the point where taking “a holiday
from ‘doing’” is a path to take but rather that your imaginary map to actual freedom is giving you the wrong
coordinates. This “getting stressed over” such a minor occurrence like a slow phone transfer is
clearly a “warning buzzer”, a “flashing red light” that one has gone astray and that it’s time
to take out the instruction manual (Richard, This Moment of Being Alive
As you said you have practiced/ dabbled in buddhistic practice yourself, a similar reassessment to any “hangover” might be needed to get the most benefit and lasting success from practicing the actualism method “as to result in a still-in-control/ same-way-of-being virtual freedom”. Now Richard goes into great detail in this particular post to Claudiu to highlight again that simply being attentive to one’s thoughts and feelings (à la buddhistic attentiveness) is not the actualism method –
Here is another example from the above email –
It’s too long to quote more, even though I can highly recommend to read it in full including the tooltips for anyone who is not clear about any aspects of the actualism method. * I appreciate your assessment of experiencing a “safe haven” – it also facilitates to be honest and sincere in our communications. Now we come to what you perhaps consider “ascertain causation and the succession” – KUBA: You know experientially it seems that ‘I’ as the ‘controller’ have ‘my’ claws dug in quite strong, ‘I’ can deceive ‘myself’ that everything is going smoothly but all it takes is for a phone transfer to go south and ‘I’ start grasping and arrogating and fighting etc. We talked in the past about my “inner mother”, and this is not to apply any blame to my mother at all, but I am pretty certain this is a still unresolved aspect of it. I remember my mother from my youngest years to similarly have life tightly grasped in the claws of the ‘controller’, far beyond what ‘normal’ would be. It was like this mix of fierce attempts to control life with this constant underlying anxiety, expressed as an ongoing state of stress with angry outbursts. It seems that ‘I’ absorbed like a sponge the same kind of basic MO for life. And then the narcissism and the self-importance only cemented all this further. Of course ‘I’ do not want to ‘be’ this any more, and not even just for ‘my’ sake but
for everyone’s benefit. So this seems like a pretty big and obvious obstacle that is staring me right in the face,
and I am not sure how it is to be addressed yet, I can see cracks in it but I cannot yet sincerely contemplate
dissolving the whole thing. VINEETO: If what you describe is what counts for looking at the causation of getting upset about “a phone transfer to go south” then this clearly has not worked and will not work to prevent it from happening again and again. Your explanation is attributing causation of this event onto your mother, your childhood experience and habituation since having been a toddler, and this does more to justify and cement your reaction rather than uproot it. Also, “dissolving the whole thing” in one go is a typical all-or-nothing approach and certainly not the only option. Whereas when you look at the event itself it is very simple – there was an expectation and a strong desire to have it happen quickly and smoothly (because you had probably already planned out the follow-up events) – and when things didn’t go your way you got “stressed”, perhaps even angry, and, as you say, you had this MO since forever. Seeing the fact very clearly how destructive this MO is not only to your mood but for everyone else around you, there is no sensible reason at all to react in the same way again, ever. All it needs is seeing this fact and the sincere intent to be felicitous and innocuous and then put some such events which are not in your control genuinely on the preference basis. KUBA: Actually I think I have some idea as to how to proceed
with this obstacle, which is for now to allow that underlying anxiety/ fear which feeds the ‘controller’ to come
to the surface and see what it is all about. VINEETO: Can you see that the deciding factor between analysing your past and seeing the fact now is that you have the choice, right now, to actually change – not because you are forced to for moralistic reasons but because you are intelligent and have a benign and benevolent aim in life? This intelligence with benign and benevolent intent means (according to the actualism method) you proceed by getting into the habit of affectively monitoring your mood and therefore detect finer and finer diminution and therefore catch the habitual “stressing” before it has time to grow into a large event. From the same above quoted email –
To summarize –
Cheers Vineeto
Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual
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