V – Selected Correspondence – Detachment and Dissociation

Please note that Vineeto’s correspondence below was written by the actually free Vineeto

(List D refers to Richard’s List D and his Respondent Numbers)

Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence

Detachment and Dissociation

August 25 2025

KUBA: I remember a while back on this forum Geoffrey wrote about which articles or bits of information he would recommend to those looking to succeed with the actualism method. He wrote (paraphrasing) that “This moment of being alive” was the key article and this along with some other bits of information would likely be enough for anyone to succeed.

But he also wrote (again paraphrasing) that he saw the “Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness” article as potentially problematic for various reasons. I can see how for someone like me – clearly prone to dissociation and defaulting to a meditative like focus – it has been problematic.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

Thank you for this assessment of the “Attentiveness …” article from Geoffrey and your personal comment and experience with it.

I remember once discussing the article with Richard, after 2010, when it had been online for a decade and he wondered if it better be taken off the website because many couldn’t see the difference between Buddhism and actualism when reading it. But because he had many correspondences online about the article already Richard decided it was too late.

‘Vineeto’ never took to this particular article, in contrast to all other of Richard’s writings and correspondence. But then ‘she’ also never took to Buddhistic-type meditations – ants-in-pants was the only effect it had for ‘her’. During ‘her’ years in the Rajneesh commune in Poona ‘she’ was more drawn to dancing meditations and therapy groups of the humanistic express-your-feelings variety – which was then the flavour of the decade.

KUBA: And I was always fond of that article, perhaps for that specific reason, that in my misunderstanding I would begin to apply that same meditative like focus to ‘examine the psyche’. This kind of focus can be summarised by the phrase – I am not that. ‘I’ would assume the role of attentiveness and ‘I’ would direct ‘my’ gaze on all these affective phenomena, looking at them come and go and examining them one by one.

This kind of looking it was quite addictive because it was safe for ‘me’, after all ‘I’ was only looking at these things which were not ‘me’, and ‘I’ could spend countless hours apparently exploring the depths of the psyche whilst remaining fundamentally unchanged. Essentially ‘I’ would assume the role of the watcher. Now writing this out I would wager that I am not the only one who has defaulted to such a thing.

VINEETO: You are certainly not the only one. It is easy to overlay one’s own real-world paradigm over Richard’s writing and look for apparent similarities rather than the vital differences. As such the very first words on the Actual Freedom Trust homepage are generally brushed aside – “new”, “non-spiritual”, “down-to-earth” and of course “actual”. You can check out the tool-tip right next to the title which details this ‘derailment’ of understanding. It’s all very amusing once one recognizes where one has gone awry.

KUBA: What I see now is that genuine attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and appreciation automatically leads to change, it is only by acting as a watcher that ‘I’ can remain unchanged. I have often used the following example when trying to describe to others how getting back to feeling good takes place – to remember perhaps a moment when say the weather was starting to shift and affect one’s plans, and there would be this shift happening into ‘being’ frustrated or upset or what have you, and all of a sudden this would be seen – in the most matter of fact way – as simply silly, and it would cease there and then. I think most people have experienced something akin to this happening in their life. But there is no watcher in such a scenario, it is ‘me’ that sees how silly it is to let X spoil this moment of being alive, and this seeing is the ending of that particular drama. The reason why it works is because in such a scenario ‘I’ see that ‘I’ am ‘being’ frustrated or upset and that it is simply silly to ‘be’ that – the end.

It seems I am untangling now just what on earth I have been doing all this time.

VINEETO: You might find Claudiu’s report interesting after Richard suggested, in reply to Claudiu’s first post to the mailing list –

Richard: 1. Cease aiming to be aff, forthwith.
2. Stop listening to the affers, period. (…)
3. Turn around 180 degrees from the direction you have been travelling thus far and come to your senses (both metaphorically and literally).
4. Put the actualism method – enjoying and appreciating being alive each moment again – into practice as the number one priority in your life.
5. Tap into pure intent and you will no longer be on your own in this the adventure of a lifetime! (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 7 February 2012).

After further understanding what the original Buddhism was about as compared to the watered-down contemporary versions, Claudiu reported how he slowly extracted himself from his long and intensive meditation practice –

Claudiu: … I had reduced everything to physical sensations – touch, sight, sound, etc., with thoughts thrown in as well (though there was debate as to whether thoughts can also just be reduced to one of the five senses).

Thus, when I felt something unpleasant in my body, or some persistent tension, the only recourse, meditatively, was to put my attention on it, and notice it as being ‘impermanent’ (that is, as according to MCTB, vibrating in real-time at a certain frequency), ‘not-self’ (that is, as according to MCTB, happening on its own without a ‘self’ involved), and ‘dukkha’ (that is, according to MCTB, unsatisfactory in some fundamental way). The affect itself is taken completely out of the picture. It is noticed, but it is noticed strictly as a physical sensation, and the solution is to do something about that physical sensation. Here is where entering altered states of consciousness helps as it made the psyche more readily able to do something with those sensations. … (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 18 December 2012).

I recommend the whole page of this correspondence from February to December 2012 as an example, to let it sink in that there is indeed nothing in common between Buddhistic practices and actualism, nothing at all, in fact they are 180 degrees opposite. This theoretical & practical background may help so that every temptation to fall back into the familiar grove of distancing yourself (which habitual behaviour tends to do) will start flashing a red light of alarm for you each time it happens. After “years spent distancing myself from it” [resentment] and other undesirable feelings, your realisation regarding this paradigm requires actualising it, until you uproot it one instance at a time.

KUBA: Essentially it’s slowing bringing out into the open all these feelings and states of ‘being’ which ‘I’ have pushed to the side and ignored. And of course ‘my’ ‘actualist identity’ has solidified this even further, in that I just wouldn’t accept that yes it is me that is being resentful or anxious or what have you, it couldn’t possibly be me because I am an accomplished actualist lol. But as Claudiu wrote the other day this is indeed the case – that if there is a feeling happening then it is me, no matter who I believe or assert myself to be.

VINEETO: Ha, I know from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience, developing an actualist identity is nearly unavoidable, and it’s beneficial you recognized and labelled it. As Richard says –

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. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

*

Richard: The phrase ‘nipping them in the bud’ is not to be confused with either suppression/ repression or ignoring/ avoiding ... it is to be consciously and deliberatively – with knowledge aforethought – declining oh-so-sensibly to futilely go down that well-trodden path to nowhere fruitful yet again. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive)

KUBA: And often it is little things, silly things, that I would not allow “such an accomplished actualist” would ‘be’… For example just now there was this feeling that after I finish training BJJ today I will not have anything else to look forward too. I know this feeling because I have felt it for a long time, except that I would experience it as coming from ‘out there’ and somehow assaulting ‘me’. But no it is me after all, and now it makes sense experientially what Richard would often mention – is it not silly to let such a thing spoil this only moment of being alive? Indeed it is but I first had to see that it was me all along.

VINEETO: There is a perfect remedy for pride when it looms to get in the way – a healthy sense of humour.

Gary: Apparently, after self-immolation has taken place, having a good laugh is not ruled out, as Richard has written else-where about nearly rolling on the floor in laughter. Is this then ‘an affective experience’?

Respondent: Sounds like it to me, Gary. Perhaps Richard could elaborate on this apparent contradiction?

Richard: It is only an ‘apparent contradiction’ if all laughter is first determined to be affective ... one can laugh with the sheer delight of being alive or in moments of great pleasure. I recall that when freedom first happened there was much laughter because it was as if I had been playing a great joke upon myself by searching everywhere and everywhen for something that was already always just here right now ... I am chuckling even now as I write about it (all suffering is self-caused and totally unnecessary).

Also, one can laugh where something is ludicrous, farcical, absurd, ridiculous and so on ... speaking personally, I find the TV series ‘3rd Rock From The Sun’ humorous as it oft-times demonstrates many of the foibles of human nature (as in the first thirty four years of my life). Plus it is hilarious that for eleven years I lived-out the experience of being the latest saviour of humankind ... there is much about life which is irrepressibly funny. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 2, 1 April 2002).

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 9, 25 August 2025).

January 9 2026

ANDREW: Hi Vineeto,

To echo Adam’s theme of initial reaction to later appreciation, I took this as encouragement but didn’t specifically have anything to be courageous about. I was also surprised by the encouragement to be friendly with myself, it is always a great reminder for me. (…) (Actualvineeto, Adam-H, 8 January 2026).

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

Perhaps this is something to take note of – reminding yourself to be friendly with yourself until it becomes a beneficial habit. As your further post indicates, this reminder allowed you to feel some of the deeply buried fear and contemplate it.

ANDREW: The drama in the moment of writing about the fear of failing again, has revealed more of the simplicity I look for these days, rather than any “thought out” type of conclusions based on the “story of my life”.

The simplicity is the basic fear intrinsic to being a survival (and reproductive) program, at my core. It’s a feedback loop which is now focused on the fact there is a lot less potential life ahead, than there is behind, and the daily reminders from the aging process that this is not math, or theoretical.

The fear, which is me, and has always been so much that a) was ever present, b) not admitted, ever.

I distinctly remember the moment I vowed to myself I would not admit I was afraid even. It of course, didn’t stop me being afraid, but it means I denied it to myself so thoroughly that in many circumstances I didn’t even feel it.

That moment was as a child when the stove caught on fire, an oil fire on the cook-top when someone had left oil heating up. I remember “screaming like a girl” and in that was even going to douse the flames with water, though I don’t remember what happened. I remember such shame sitting on the step out the front of the house, that I vowed that I would never be afraid again.

I was about 10 years old, I think.

I have of course, felt fear many, many times, but it is surprising how few, if any will I openly admit feeling it. I probably have talked about it, in theory, but admitting, in the moment, that I am afraid, is rare.

VINEETO: This was a harsh treatment indeed for a 10-year-old, and when fear is constantly pushed away, it automatically grows – the very affective energy of pushing it away increases the affective charge of the unwanted feeling. And when it is seriously suppressed, over a long period of time, it results in all kinds of psycho-somatic side-effects. For additional general information see Richard, Dissociation and Trauma.

So it’s very beneficial that you can now allow to acknowledge and feel the feeling of fear, as much as you dare each time, being friendly and shining the bright light of awareness and contemplative attentiveness on those feelings.

Richard: Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention. Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries. Attentiveness does not register feelings and compare the validity of experience according to it ‘feeling right’ or ‘feeling wrong’. Attentiveness is an aesthetic alertness that takes place with minimised reference to self. With attentiveness one sees the internal world with blameless references to concepts like ‘my’ or ‘mine’. (…) Attentiveness is seeing how any feeling makes ‘me’ tick – and how ‘I’ react to it – with the perspicacity of seeing how it affects others as well. In attentiveness, there is an unbiased observing of the constant showing-up of the ‘reality’ within and is examining the feelings arising one after the other ... and such attentiveness is the ending of its grip. Please note that last point: in attentiveness, there is an observance of the ‘reality’ within, and such attention is the end of its embrace ... finish. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness and Sensuousness and Apperceptiveness).

When you apply this kind of contemplation, at bit at a time, and then perhaps longer, not getting side-tracked into imaginations or intuitions, then the affective charge of fear will diminish and allow you to more deeply understand how you tick. It might well diminish the restlessness you reported. Of course, you can do that with any feeling that arises.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew 3, 9 January 2026).

January 10 2026

ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto,

I had never truly contemplated the now obvious parallel to the institutional disassociation described in the link to the AFT.

Wow!

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

I am pleased this article about ‘dissociation and trauma’ was so informative for you. When you think about it, it also informs that dissociation in various forms is a common automatic reaction to stress and traumatic events alike. Hence extricating oneself from an unhappiness that seems almost impossible to shift, dissociation in whatever form would be the most likely culprit to look for and hence (slowly) lifting the dissociation the most likely approach for remedy as well.

ANDREW: Indeed, I went for a walk this morning and that was the theme, being completely ok with feeling whatever I am actually feeling! If I am afraid, nervous, and otherwise stressed, then so be it! I need to acknowledge fully that this is all me! As Geoffrey said in his report of becoming free, that it was him, not some ‘self’ with enough quotation marks as not to really be him, but him! The one thinking and feeling right now! (Paraphrased from memory).

VINEETO: Indeed, acknowledging the feeling fully, i.e. affectively, is how you find out how you are, and from there you can make a choice how you want to experience this moment of being alive – given that you do have this choice. Here is the quote you are paraphrasing –

Geoffrey: I saw without a shadow of a doubt that ‘I’ am the cause of every evil, corruption, dirt… just because ‘I’ am ‘so precious’. How ‘I’ mess everything up for myself and everybody just because ‘I’ am. And not some dissociated ‘I’ with enough quotes not to be me, but me right now thinking this. (Geoffrey, Report of Becoming Free).

This is the sincerity to the core where you can genuinely experience how you tick and also make the choice for action, guided by the sincere intent (willingness/ readiness) to be felicitous and innocuous, happy and harmless.

ANDREW: Another little phrase I came up with “it doesn’t matter that I will most probably feel horrible or bad in the future, most probably a lot, and most probably for a long while, that doesn’t mean I have to feel bad in this moment”.

This feels freeing from the ‘intellectual’ habit of giving up because it’s “all going to be taken away anyway”.

Which segues into the encouragement to have courage!

Anticipating pain usually means seeking to avoid it, however this imaginary pain, of ‘losing’ whatever joy or happiness I have now, shoots the baby, and tips out the bath water “just in case” I will be disappointed.

VINEETO: Of course, pessimism or even cynicism are no recipe to avoid the pain of disappointment, and if I am not mistaken you have tried that for years and know it doesn’t work. What Richard suggests is something that cuts through all anticipation and disappointment –

Richard: Before applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here; it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this time around, hey presto, one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive)

And the tool tip next to it explains it further –

Rick: Richard, in regards to the actualist method, is ‘... the only moment I’m ever alive’ phrase helpful after asking the ‘how am I experiencing ...’ question? Are there benefits to saying that statement along with the question? Or is ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ sufficient enough to become actually free?

Richard: The reason why I draw attention to the fact that this moment is the only moment one is ever alive when responding to queries about the actualism method – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) until it becomes a non-verbal attitude/ a wordless approach to life – is so as to provide for an undivided attention or exclusive focus upon what is currently occurring ... this moment being the very place, so to speak, where not only everything happens but where radical change can, and does, occur.

If there be not this salient comprehension (that this moment is the only moment one is ever alive) then tacking that phrase onto the actualism question – until it too becomes a non-verbal attitude/ a wordless approach to life – would, presumably, be helpful in gaining that understanding. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Rick, 14 December 2004).

You almost said something like this yourself –

Andrew: “Anticipating pain usually means seeking to avoid it, however this imaginary pain, of ‘losing’ whatever joy or happiness I have now, shoots the baby, and tips out the bath water”.

Your ““just in case” I will be disappointed” is the well-known safe-guarding against an already anticipated future from experiences in the (remembered) past, whereas when you recognize that only now is actual genuine change can and will happen. It is both simple and radical.

ANDREW: I have resolved that it’s ok to feel bad, for as long as it takes in any moment, to otherwise a) completely stop fighting myself b) take on board the simplicity of the method; that is, it is only me who can chose what I am feeling, and I won’t be able to do that if I am busy fighting myself.

VINEETO: I do understand that you want to start where you are at and first get used to not pushing uncomfortable feelings away, to replace this habit by stopping fighting those feelings and let yourself be as you presently are – and be a friend to yourself. One step at a time.

I liked how Adam-H understood what it means to “being my own best friend” –

Adam-H: 1. don’t be hard on yourself for your mistakes;
2. actually want what’s best for yourself, meaning you won’t let yourself ruin your own day. (Actualvineeto, Adam-H, 8 January 2026)

Which means that eventually you discover that letting yourself be as you presently are, as a friend, segues into not letting yourself ruin your own day.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew 3, 10 January 2026).

June 17, 2026

VINEETO: You are very welcome. When you pay affective awareness to any diminishment of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive and detect a ‘good’ feeling, or a ‘bad’ feelings in reaction to some ‘good’ expectation not fulfilled, you will soon be able to identify those ‘good’ feelings which are the most cherished.

I am also reminded of Geoffrey’s words again –

Geoffrey: For a split second I saw like a veil in front of me. I saw how I could be on the other side of the ‘mirror’, on the safe side, the magical side, how I could… But there was a last second resistance: My precious! I will not give away my precious! (Geoffrey, Becoming Free Report)

KUBA: I have had these words on my mind constantly – that it is the ‘good’ which keeps the ‘bad’ in place. I think this is something very crucial and I don’t think I have ever seen the full extent of what this means. Firstly it is the biggest taboo within ‘humanity’ to consider abandoning the ‘good’ (along with the ‘bad’) this is being a traitor and then some, it means to abandon everything that ‘humanity’ holds as precious.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

Whenever I read Geoffrey’s report, I understood “my precious” to be what Richard frequently describes as “what ‘I’ hold most dear”, ‘me’ the identity. However, ultimately it does not matter because Richard makes it clear in the quote I sent you 8 days ago –

Richard: As ‘I’ am suffering and suffering is ‘me’ then ‘my’ path is the path of suffering ... which is humanity’s path is it not? And, as humanity is suffering and suffering is humanity, is it not equally true that humanity is also addicted to suffering? And further to that point ... have you ever noticed that humanity reveres its addiction so much that escape is taboo?

James: Interesting. It does make sense that humanity is addicted to suffering but I am still not sure if it is addiction to suffering or if it is fear of not surviving. The fear of ‘me’ not surviving could be causing the addiction to ‘me’ suffering.

Richard: I should have put scare quotes around the word humanity as the word itself can refer to two different things: in its all-humankind meaning it is a more comprehensive word for what the word group refers to (which ranges through family, band, clan, tribe, race, nation and species) and, just as the group’s survival traditionally takes precedence over an individual’s survival, the group’s fears of not surviving have priority over an individual’s fears of not surviving. When fear comes into the picture, however, the word humanity no longer refers to all people collectively but takes on a life of its own, as it were, and becomes an entity in its own right in the same way ‘I’ am an entity inside the flesh and blood body.

And just as ‘I’ suffer because ‘I’ exist (suffering is ‘my’ very nature) ‘humanity’ suffers because it exists (suffering is very nature of ‘humanity’) and thus a virtue is made out of suffering because the survival of ‘humanity’ is at risk ... hence the taboo on escape.

Yet ‘humanity’ has no existence outside of the human psyche. [Emphasis added by me]. (Richard, List B, James 3, 7 November 2002).

It is those who were here before you, who instruct and viscerally pass on to every ‘newcomer to this planet’ on what is to be held ‘precious’ but it has its foundation in your, and everyone’s, genetically encoded instinctual passions. Hence it is your very nature to be living, supporting and maintaining that ultimate value.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba14, 17 June 2026).

June 17, 2026

KUBA: Hi Vineeto,

Thank you, reading and contemplating these recent posts is getting right to the nitty gritty of ‘me’, it’s like I am looking under this and that piece of rubble with this sense that the next thing I lift to look under might well result in the whole thing collapsing. And there is like a stillness that has descended all over whilst contemplating all this. Reading your recent reply has shifted my attention to the fact that it is ‘me’ in ‘my’ totality which is the “precious thing”, ‘I’ am the thing ‘I’ hold most dear, ‘I’ agree to give up ‘my’ very ‘self’ for an actual freedom to eventuate. It is certainly exhilarating and destinal to know that this is precisely what is to happen next.

JAMES: This has helped me to understand what is meant by ‘my precious’. It is the ‘I/me’ itself which we make so precious and it is nothing but a figment which is all made up of feelings and beliefs.

KUBA to James: The thing is that this “figment” is all that ‘I’ have ever known and all that ‘I’ have ever ‘been’, it is the entirety of ‘me’ and of ‘my’ life.

Your assessment reduces the enormity of what is at stake for ‘me’ into something between hopeful intellectualisation and dissociation. As in let ‘me’ first create some distance from ‘myself’ and then reduce this ‘self’ placed ‘over there’ into a collection of feelings and beliefs, kept alive only because “we make it so precious”. The end result of this exercise is that ‘I’ will then try to end this mere “figment” by some kind of ‘seeing through’ etc. I know this because I have done this countless times!

But the key question here is just how on earth could the above ever trigger altruism? A self-sacrificial instinct.

JAMES to Kuba: Good points, I see what you mean. I have taken something with enormous consequences and made it sound like nothing.

To make it trigger altruism I would have to put my all into it which I obviously haven’t done. Thank you for confronting me with that. I now want to dismiss it which is what I have always done but you have inspired me to look deeper. By looking deeper I see why it is called ‘my precious’ which makes it untouchable. It would indeed take altruism to undo it as you said. It is the very thing ‘I am’.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba, Hi James,

This has been a very enjoyable conversation to read.

This very intimacy (“I want to do it for you”) combined with the active experiencing of pure intent – the infinitely magnificent purity and perfection of the universe – can indeed lead to and invoke ‘your’ sacrificial acquiescence for the benefit of this body, that body and every body. (...)

I wish you both profound enjoyment in the “exhilarating and destinal” adventure you have embarked on.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba14, 17 June 2026a).

June 19 2026

VINEETO: These words are music to my ears. Ever since I came to this forum and had correspondence with you, I have noticed the glimmering of a spark of activated pure intent but it never quite lit up like now. This alive activated connection to pure intent when it is alive and activated needs encouraging and maintaining against a habit of a life-time sitting back and bowing out. Now you know that you need to want an actual freedom with all your ‘being’, …

JAMES: Great to hear from you Vineeto. You are spot on in your assessment. There was something that Kuba said that made a difference this time. It made me also want to do it for him and for others and now I also want to do it for you. It is not just for me. It is for everybody.

You are right that I have a life-time habit of sitting back and bowing out. That is what I am doing now. You are also right that pure intent needs encouraging and maintaining. You have always encouraged me as you are doing now and that is very helpful. That is why I really want to do it for you.

I know that establishing and maintaining a connection to pure intent is key which is what I have never done. This is what I need to do now.

This is where altruism needs to come in which is what Kuba spoke of and what made me want to do it for others. This is also what Richard said in the quote you posted above which is very timely for me.

VINEETO: Hi James,

I am pleased you understand this vital point of altruism “what Kuba spoke of”.

However before you focus solely onto this point while putting aside everything else, let me remind you how this “life-time habit of sitting back and bowing out” which I mentioned in my last post, comes about and is enabled to continue. Kuba explained it very well, having discovered and understood this trick ‘he’ had played on ‘himself’ –

Kuba: The thing is that this “figment” is all that ‘I’ have ever known and all that ‘I’ have ever ‘been’, it is the entirety of ‘me’ and of ‘my’ life.
Your assessment reduces the enormity of what is at stake for ‘me’ into something between hopeful intellectualisation and dissociation. As in let ‘me’ first create some distance from ‘myself’ and then reduce this ‘self’ placed ‘over there’ into a collection of feelings and beliefs, kept alive only because “we make it so precious”. The end result of this exercise is that ‘I’ will then try to end this mere “figment” by some kind of ‘seeing through’ etc. I know this because I have done this countless times!

But the key question here is just how on earth could the above ever trigger altruism? A self-sacrificial instinct.

James: Good points, I see what you mean. I have taken something with enormous consequences and made it sound like nothing.

To make it trigger altruism I would have to put my all into it which I obviously haven’t done. Thank you for confronting me with that. I now want to dismiss it which is what I have always done but you have inspired me to look deeper. By looking deeper I see why it is called ‘my precious’ which makes it untouchable. It would indeed take altruism to undo it as you said. It is the very thing ‘I am’. [Emphasis added].

You understood when you had read it but this ingrained habit of reduction as described (which most people have) is still operating. Now you have a new term – “altruism” – which you say will “undo” it all. Keep in mind that you are not repeating the same mistake as Kuba described –

Kuba: The end result of this exercise is that ‘I’ will then try to end this mere “figment” by some kind of ‘seeing through’ etc. I know this because I have done this countless times! [Emphasis mine].

Here are more details about altruism for your contemplation –

Rick: Maybe I need to fix my own personal problems first before I can worry about others’?

RICHARD: First of all, the word altruism can be used in two distinctly different ways – in a virtuous sense (as in being an unselfish/ selfless self) or in a zoological/ biological sense (as in being diametrically opposite to selfism) – and it is the latter which is of particular interest to a person wanting to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth into being apparent, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, as it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) ... blind nature endows each and every human being with both the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group).

By and large the instinct for survival of the group is the more powerful – as is epitomised in the honey-bee (when it stings to protect/ defend the hive it dies) – and it is the utilisation of this once-in-a-lifetime gregarian action which is referred to when I speak of an altruistic ‘self’-immolation or ‘self’-sacrifice, in toto, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.

It has nothing to do with becoming [quote] ‘less selfish and more concerned about others’ [endquote] as human beings are all in the same boat in regards the human condition – no one is better off than another, at the core of their being, or worse off than someone else – and everything to do with wanting, with all of one’s being, to bring to an end, once and for all, the inherent suffering which epitomises human nature. Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘... one has to want to be free from the human condition like one has never wanted anything before. Because unless one is vitally interested in peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written here about genetic inheritance can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. For it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort ... ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’. In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’.
Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’.
An actual freedom from the human condition then unfolds its inevitable destiny’. (Richard, List B, No. 45, 14 November 1999).

And:

• [Richard]: ‘... one has to want it like one has never wanted anything else before ... so much so that all the instinctual passionate energy of desire, normally frittered away on petty desires, is fuelling and impelling/ propelling one into this thing and this thing only (‘impelling’ as in a pulling from the front and ‘propelling’ as in being pushed from behind). There is a ‘must’ to it (one must do it/ it must happen) and a ‘will’ to it (one will do it/ it will happen) and one is both driven and drawn until there is an inevitability that sets in. Now it is unstoppable and all the above ceases of its own accord ... one is unable to distinguish between ‘me’ doing it and it happening to ‘me’.

One has escaped one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny’. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 3 April 2000).

You say you really are only concerned about yourself and your issues ... have you ever desired oblivion? (Richard, AF List, Rick, 4 January 2006).

This might be encouraging as well for what you are aiming for –

Richard: ‘(...) by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am defiled; by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am corrupt through and through; by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am perversity itself. No matter how sincerely and earnestly one tries to purify oneself, one can never succeed completely. The last little bit always eludes perfecting. By ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am rotten at the innermost core’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 22 August 1999).

JAMES: Thanks to Kuba and you I now see what I have been missing which is altruism pure and simple as Richard said.

By maintaining a connection to pure intent with the help of altruism my path is clear.

VINEETO: Remember that it is an active dynamic connection to pure intent, where you experience “a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe”. It is so delicious to experience it that you will be drawn to experience it again and again. Besides, nothing less will do the trick.

You can peruse Richard’s Selected Correspondence, whichever topic fascinates you – reading his words always used to inspire ‘Vineeto’ in ‘her’ intent.

JAMES: Thank you Vineeto for the help you have given me all these years.

VINEETO: You are very welcome, James.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, James3, 19 June 2026a).

Selected Correspondence Index	Actual Vineeto’s Correspondence Index
Actualism Homepage	Actual Freedom Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity