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(List D refers to Richard’s List D
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence Love
CHRONO: It has been a while since I wrote as I’ve gone thru a roller coaster of feelings and have come to a more calm and stable place. Of course it had to do with love but it gave me the impetus to move forward. Seeing and experiencing constantly that it does not work in bringing about a personal and interpersonal peace. I’ve also been hesitant in writing as I don’t like to write when I’m feeling not so great but maybe that might help in getting out of it too. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, Welcome back. What an excellent and rich report about your discoveries and insights! CHRONO: After I wrote my previous response I had begun engaging in ‘nipping it in the bud’ of all the loving and related feelings that I came across. I started doing it as it seemed that was the only course of action. I had already seen and experienced that it brought much suffering. Due to this I started experiencing feelings of meaninglessness, desolation, and bleakness as far as the ‘eye’ can see. What it revealed was that love was a way to cover up my loneliness. ‘I’ created an imaginary version of another person based on a dream and how ‘I’ intuited them to be and then essentially pretended that ‘I’ could be in union with this imaginary ‘other’. An instinctual movement towards assuaging the essential loneliness. When I become vulnerable thru trust in love, I am hoping that this other person will reciprocate this state of vulnerability. But in the process, I am revealing my fundamental loneliness and aloneness. If this other does not match the dream of love, then I feel it more deeply than I have ever felt before. The whole process is illusionary. The other person that ‘I’ am dreaming of does not exist. They can never match the dream. And vice versa as well. A sad state of affairs. This is further compounded for me because it has occurred to me that many people actually ignore or pretend that the ‘bad’ side of love does not exist. People will tell me that ‘I’ am too focused on it. But I cannot ignore it because it’s always there. Something is off with the whole business of relating with other people. And it is from this, my genuine desire for peace springs forth. My desire so far has been to uncover everything I can so that it can be in plain view. I also feel a fear behind this of ‘who do I think I am’. Like an authority telling me to sit down and shut up. VINEETO: In order to successfully ‘nip in the bud’ it’s essential to have understood the underlying patterns of the occurring feelings you want to ‘nip’. Obviously there is still some remnant investment in love, which is not surprising, as it is considered the highly-prized cure-all for loneliness and the mess of the human condition in general. You have made some significant inroads into understanding love, especially knowing that it has a ‘bad’ side. The key ingredient for feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ was, when ‘she’ investigated the pining
aspect of love, ‘her’ childhood-inspired romantic dream of belonging to a man and therefrom having an iron-clad
identity as a woman You say “The other person that ‘I’ am dreaming of does not exist. They can never match the dream.” It goes further than that, love itself can never fulfil the dream it inherently promises – it’s an empty chimera and will never bridge the separation so longed for by the lonely isolated identities who fall for love’s glamorous promise. If this fact, that love will not solve your problem of aloneness and loneliness, is allowed to sink in, as an irrefutable fact, love will lose its appeal and you can regain your autonomy and dignity as a person in your own right – and simultaneous recognize your partner’s own autonomy and dignity. It also dispenses with pining and jealousy in one fell swoop. With autonomy and dignity restored you can then naively relate to your fellow human beings in an
increasingly intimate way, unilaterally. I know from experience how much a woman can appreciate intimacy, even though
she may not know that this is really what she is looking for when she says she wants love. You will find out yourself
when you proceed interacting with your partner in an intimate rather than loving way. CHRONO: Anyways, I continued this process and due to this desolation I thought my partner would also start feeling the same way. They did not as far as I know and I actually kind of preferred this way of being over being in love. But nonetheless something else triggered possessiveness when my partner was talking with another man. I started feeling jealous and it put me in a state of muddled thinking. I nipped that in the bud. But then my partner brought up wanting to hang out with this other man and their partner. This again triggered the same feelings. This time it caused much suffering and it took some time to claw my way back out. Talking with my partner helped and they confirmed that it had been my own reaction which was making things seem the way they were. So I asked myself if I am repressing something. I genuinely wanted to know if I was but I kept going over and over thru the same old feelings. Then it became clear there was a missing ingredient: intent. I realized that I would always run thru the same old feelings unless I consistently maintained the intent to be happy and harmless. I realized that it had to be an overreaching intent that had to be weaved thru my entire life for it to work and for me to not fall back thru the same ways of being. Some things I read on here and AFT website gave me clues. I had to do my part in ‘reaching’ as much as I could towards the actual. There were some clues in my everyday life as well. I would feel good when I had the genuine intent for it. The times that I did not feel good was when doubt came thru and I was not being sincere. There was some reason or belief that was in the way that prevented it from happening. I could not pretend to feel good because it intellectually made sense, I have to genuinely want it. Otherwise the instinctual ways of being will easily override any endeavour. 
VINEETO: To have sincere intent is vital. I noticed an aspect in your report is about control, ‘me’ controlling ‘me’ to move into the direction ‘I’ think is right – and that approach is sudorific, at best. Even though the ingredient may be right, the outcome is still a serious enterprise of ‘you’ forcing yourself to be in a particular way. Sincerity will allow you to unlock your hidden-away-during-puberty naiveté More in the next section. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: In order to successfully ‘nip in the bud’ it’s essential to have understood the underlying patterns of the occurring feelings you want to ‘nip’. Obviously there is still some remnant investment in love, which is not surprising, as it is considered the highly-prized cure-all for loneliness and the mess of the human condition in general. CHRONO: Yes this was my understanding as well but I had not
been making any further headway in clearing it up completely so that it’s just second nature to not go in that
direction. I thought maybe I just had to actively nip it in the bud and that perhaps it was a habitual action in
going towards love. I’ve seen the underlying patterns too many times so I thought maybe I was just being crazy to
keep “investigating” it.
Perhaps I need to go further and ween myself as well. I had noticed that love and my relation to it plays into the male identity too. When I think about it, it feels like that to be successful in love also means being successful in society in general. Those who can outwardly show that they are successful in their relationships are seen as exemplars of knowing the secret to living a happy life. And I think that coupled with the psychological authority set in place and built upon since childhood serves to create a persistent doubt that “they” know something that I don’t. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, You are very welcome. I see you already discovered more to understand love and man-woman relating from an additional aspect – the identity of being a ‘man’ in society’s eyes. This “persistent doubt” is nothing other than your social conditioning you have been subject to from an early age – of course you feel “that “they” know something that I don’t”. However, if you look more closely at the individuals who make up ‘society’, it will become obvious to you that the ‘happy’ and “successful in their relationships” façade is just that. Just study women’s magazines, watch the news, observe your neighbours and workmates, and you find that what is presented in Hollywood movies is not the whole picture. Here, for instance, are ‘Peter’s’ observation from his Journal –
You can find more on this topic in Peter’s Selected Writings on Living Together. The best way to explore this topic is by approaching it in a naïve way, by putting aside preconceived sophisticated ideas of what you should be like as a man or as a partner, and start exploring afresh what it is like to interact with a fellow human being who happens to be a female. You might even discover what you have in common and also what the “battle of the sexes”, the notion of a woman’s camp and a man’s camp, prevents you from finding out. With the sincere, and unilateral, intent to be happy and harmless a lot can be explored in a friendly fashion (which includes being friendly with yourself). CHRONO: I also find interesting that in one of the articles posted by Richard that lust is also described as love (lust, attraction, attachment). But most often, it is the attraction and attachment parts that are described as love. Perhaps an attempt to separate out the ‘bad’ from the ‘good’. I feel lust and attraction more often than attachment. At one point I sat with lust and attraction and it became so strong that it seemed like an overpowering desire. In the middle it felt like it was more about sexual conquest than anything to do with caring for another person. I’ve had many occasions before when I am out at a social setting with a woman I liked that I was actually in a competition in the jungle with other men trying to “win” and be better so that I may prove myself worthy of being with this woman. Even further than that it seems like it’s about vying for status everywhere I go. And behind it all then must be this instinctual desire for power. When I felt it, it also made me a little embarrassed that I had these feelings. VINEETO: Ha, it’s not easy to admit that sexual desire is happening, neither socially nor privately, so it is more coyly labelled ‘attraction’ or ‘beauty’ or ‘appeal’. It is exactly as you describe it, the law of the “jungle” where the raw instinctual passions are dictating one’s feelings and behaviour. It is advantageous that you felt “a little embarrassed” – this is the very feeling which can open the door to naiveté. Try it out, it is delicious once you overcome your first hesitation to feeling a bit foolish. CHRONO: Another aspect that may be further compounding the suffering of love for me is perhaps related to all of this. It’s tied to the male identity. Basically, if I fail at love then it means I’m a failure of society in general. Putting all of this together then it seems like it’s about “winning” and conquest rather than about any sort of peace or intimacy. Then my partner also has her own identity of what it is to be a woman. Both of this male and female identity seem to be at odds with one another. It feels like then to abandon this male identity means to abandon how I relate with women as well. This leaves that feeling of loneliness and aloneness again. […] VINEETO: Don’t give up so easily. It’s a fascinating adventure when one is involved in discovering the details of what makes up a man’s identity, and the more you discover the more it will fall away applying fascinated attention to those details. What remains is being more what you are, a fellow human being, and as I said to you before, I know from personal experience how much a woman can appreciate intimacy just as much as men do, even though she may not know that this is really what she is looking for when she says she wants love. * VINEETO: To have sincere intent is vital. I noticed an aspect in your report is about control, ‘me’ controlling ‘me’ to move into the direction ‘I’ think is right – and that approach is sudorific, at best. Even though the ingredient may be right, the outcome is still a serious enterprise of ‘you’ forcing yourself to be in a particular way. CHRONO: It’s interesting that you do notice that control
aspect in the report as it’s a problem that I know I have struggled with for a long time. I have a tendency to
break myself into two with one “working on” the other. It feels like it’s the only way I can
“do” anything. In the beginning, even looking at feelings created a split. ‘I’ would try to make myself
feel something else and it would create really great discomfort that I could feel in my body. It also highlights a
fundamental confusion within ‘me’. VINEETO: Indeed, forcing or manipulating yourself to feel something you don’t feel is bound to fail. Recognize that ‘I’ am my feelings, in contrast to I have feelings which I want to control/ manoeuvre. Recognizing and acknowledging that you are your feelings you discover that you do have a choice to be felicitous and innocuous feelings (and naiveté). Also, do not attempt to investigate any problems or issues unless you are at least feeling good, if not better. Unless the actualism method is fun and easy, fascinating and adventurous, you are missing one or more of the above-mentioned vital ingredients, which can easily be corrected. Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: So I’ve constantly been having a few thoughts in the back of my mind that keep popping up so I thought Ill try write them down and try to figure out what’s going on with love for me. I would say largely that love is out of the picture for me. I see to an extent that love is a double edged sword and doesn’t deliver the goods. To me, it’s a heavy, serious, sickly and always made me feel icky. I would say I’ve never fallen balls deep in that kind of “romantic” love. It would “give me the ick” when someone would fall in love with me. So, when I met Kuba and he said he wasn’t interested in love that was ideal. Fast forward into our relationship, loving feelings of course began to develop for the first time. Being 19/20 and still figuring out a lot about life, this new whirl wind of feelings hit like a tonne of bricks. Kuba and I never really fed into the loving feels but they were still somewhat there for me. Of course from it arose insecurities, expectations, control etc. I found that I was losing myself to some extent, I would do things out of love and if it wasn’t reciprocated I got upset. Each time that conflict or bad feelings would come up because of love I dismissed it and brushed it under the rug. I think cause we never really talked about it and I didn’t see the sense of it to a certain extent, it never grew past a certain point but it was still there. VINEETO: Hi Sonya, You really describe well how all the feelings under the umbrella of love are actually being in the way of feeling happy and harmless, of enjoying and appreciating being alive. And then how you looked at them, and more and more discovered that it makes simply no sense to keep having the same expectations resulting in the same disappointment, because of the ‘narrative’ of love. SONYA: I did eventually manage to eliminate most of it when I realised that I was getting upset and keeping love around by relating to Kuba as my ‘boyfriend’ and being in a ‘relationship’ with him. That came with all the expectations of those roles that I put on him and myself and that included the loving feelings. I think after realising that and freeing myself from those expectations and Kuba from my expectations from him I was able to stand on my two feet a bit more and interact Kuba in a fresher way. Less expectations, more fun, light, playful. I thought the job was done. Nope I was reading “A Bit of Vineeto” today when the below clicked for me.
VINEETO: This “feeling ‘connected’” can have different flavours, and only what prevents you from enjoying and appreciating at this moment needs to be looked at this moment. If relying on Kuba makes you insecure then you already know how you can do something about it. It’s a matter of actualising your insight. When you sharpen your affective awareness and tend to each obstacle, each interference preventing you from being gay and naïve, then you will see how the strong “feeling ‘connected’” eventually weakens and disappears altogether. It’s often only a habitual way of being which you can change once you notice it. SONYA: The main crux of love was largely diminished but I am still feeling connected to him.
My feelings are still influenced by how he’s feeling. For a while I could say that I wasn’t in love with Kuba but
there was something still there that was in the way of experiencing him directly without tinted glasses and I think it’s
the feeling of being connected. I am not yet standing on my own two feet and still looking to Kuba to hold my hand. VINEETO: You also said –
You can follow the lead of your “ah ha!” moment SONYA: I’d like to say that I also feel like such a fraud being in very feminine spaces and
not believing in love, it does feel a little lonely at times but I also know I can’t go back to believing in it
after seeing it for what it is. VINEETO: That’s excellent that you know you can’t go back, and the original unfamiliarity will soon pass because you are discovering something better than “believing in love”. You can explore more and more being vitally interested, appreciate, enjoy the other’s company, be fascinated of what he or you are saying next, doing next … and explore more and more intimacy free from the burden of love. And have fun (love is really a very serious business). SONYA: For me it was seeing what someone was like when they were in love, and how someone who
cared for me but wasn’t in love with me behaved. For the latter, we were both still living our own lives but didn’t
fall into the typical ‘roles’ which meant less expectations and less resentment. In fact, there was just more
caring and less control, manipulation. I think originally there was still some scepticism into exploring what a
partnership will be like without love but I can say experientially it’s the way to go. I also had to keep in mind
that we weren’t just eliminating love but replacing it with something better and care and appreciation had to be at
the forefront. VINEETO: For someone who says she feels “a little lonely” for “not believing in love” you are quite eloquent in how many benefits the alternative way of relating has. Who knows, you might even infect others with stories of making a success of your partnership. Cheers Vineeto
SCOUT to Sonya: Really interesting to hear that the two of you
are happily married without sharing the typical bond of “romantic love”. it’s also not an experience I’ve
had fully mutually, and like you said it’s very dominant in the feminine narrative, so I was spoon-fed this notion
that it’s the greatest thing I can possibly experience. I don’t know if it’s something I feel fully ready to
move past because it’s not something I’ve seen and experienced clearly for myself yet, I’m still curious
(though I am currently in an about-to-end relationship where I am seeing its uglier face). but it’s fascinating to
hear about your experience of partnership without it.
VINEETO: Hi Scout, As you so rightly said, love is “very dominant in the feminine narrative” with the emphasis on “narrative”. It’s a fairy tale, supported by the feeling of love itself (when you fall in love) that if only you find the right man happiness is guaranteed for the rest of your life. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ first had to examine this narrative in herself when she found out, yet again, that love had its downsides. ‘She’ knew that from previous relationships but this one, with Peter, was supposed to be working properly. Here is ‘her’ report how ‘she’ overcame the first major obstacle –
There was more to come but perhaps this report appeals to you as a way of exploring why you at present don’t “feel fully ready to move past” love. Of course, to experience the benefits “of partnership without” love, love itself needs to move aside to make room for something superior to the ups and downs of love. You can utilise your present scepticism about love’s success to explore how those dreams you were “spoon-fed” are just that, dreams that never come true. Then an appreciation, a curiosity, a naïve fascination can emerge what else is possible between a man and a woman, and consideration and interested attention have room to come to the fore. As Sonya said –
You can also check out Article Two of Richard’s Journal, page 24 to find out what else is possible, and how. Cheers Vineeto
SCOUT: I remember reading this part of your writings with great fascination, thank you for sharing it again! VINEETO: According to this dream Peter should be the answer to the question which I wasn’t willing to face myself: ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ SCOUT: This is the crux of it, perfectly distilled. I want
someone else to figure out how to make me happy. I’ve tried so many different things but I always struggle and they
always fail eventually and I feel dissatisfied, and I soothe this dissatisfaction with the fantasy that the right
person will solve this problem for me, rather than me figuring out how to be my own fount of happiness. VINEETO: Hi Scout, You are very welcome. Ha, I can relate to that. ‘Vineeto’ in her twenties was looking for someone who had all the answers to life and would tell ‘her’ what to do – ‘she’ ended up in a spiritual commune with an enlightened master, and not until the master died, one-and-a-half decades later, did ‘she’ finally extract ‘her’ head from out-of-the-clouds, and look around if the aims and the results were really what ‘she’ wanted from life. You can solve this question much quicker, now that there is a third alternative to materialism and spiritualism available, and genuinely inquire in yourself if this is a way of life and an ultimate goal (actual, not imagined, purity and perfection) that you can whole-heartedly devote your life to. It is a wonderful, exciting and rewarding enterprise to do that. Cheers Vineeto
SCOUT: Honestly this discussion is very pertinent to my current experience, because my current relationship is starting to give me a sour taste in my mouth about the whole love thing. We’ve had persistent sexual issues due to a medical condition – this has always compromised the potential of our long-term partnership. I fell a little bit in love in the beginning but the physical disconnect led to me falling out of love, but I still deeply appreciate and care for the person he is so we’ve continued to try. However, he fell deeply in love. Now it’s been a year and a half, and the sexual issues are becoming untenable for me. When we talked today about the potential of breaking up though, he talks as if he would need to purge me from his life completely. This seems so silly to me because there is so much about how we interact that is pure and creative and delightful, and none of that needs to hinge on us having a sexual, monogamous dynamic. But being in love has turned this into a painful, all-or-nothing possessive relationship in his experience. VINEETO: Hi Scout, I found a wonderful and in-depth compilation from Richard about love and its detrimental implications –
As this is already far too long a quote, I highly recommend reading the rest of the correspondence at leisure, perhaps in its original from the beginning for the helpful tool-tips, especially the footnote[1] at the very end. It really is a comprehensive summary of several practicing actualists, and their experiences all point towards the same direction – that love by its very nature is doomed to fail. SCOUT: It makes me sad to think I might lose the company of
someone I get along with so well because of this. The alleged intimacy of romantic love seems to be highly
conditional. It’s funny because I was always worried that he "loved" me more because he was so doting
towards me due to being in love with me, while I remained pretty independent. But now that the security of the
relationship is compromised, it almost seems like the more grounded, less attached affection I’ve felt for him is
actually purer and deeper than what he has been feeling for me, because it’s not conditional and doesn’t demand
that he be anything to maintain it. VINEETO: Perhaps the above listed experiential reports help you to find out for yourself, by recounting your own experiences, that the alternative – a naïve intimacy – is worthwhile aiming for, with the full commitment of your own conviction. Who knows, in the process your companion might be inspired by your persistent exploration and living of the alternative and your success with it. He might eventually find your demonstrably being more happy and harmless (considerate) more attractive than the possessiveness and sufferings associated with an all-or-nothing love-affair. If not, at least you will benefit from naively being more able to be happy and harmless. Cheers Vineeto ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Footnote: [1]leaving her hurt, hurting and hurtful; e.g.: vindictive and vengeful: Viz.:
JAMES: I think it’s the attachment of love that stops most from going all the way to actual freedom. I just experienced love trying to return and I faced it down again. VINEETO: Hi James, Love is indeed a strong and very seductive feeling with its inherent false guarantee to solve all problems of separation and its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. Facing “it down again” will only temporarily suppress it. If that technique had been successful the first time, the temptation to experience it again would not have returned. What you can do is to fully understand love, recognize at an experiential level (or from previous examples in your life) that the deeply felt promises always failed and recognize that at the deepest core ‘pure love’ also encapsulates ‘pure evil’, such as jealousy, possessiveness, exclusivity and revenge. Viz.:
JAMES: I saw what’s on the other side of freedom from
love and I am in the clear. It’s freedom from the feeling of love that one has to be free from. VINEETO: If that is the case then this is magnificent – though I wonder if what you described having “faced it down again” did the trick. Perhaps this is only a short form of you telling it and not the whole story? To put is differently, now that you “faced (…) down” “the attachment of love/ “the feeling of love” has this given you the green light to “going all the way to actual freedom”? The following quote from Richard is just a reminder that “to stop feeling” is not “the way to actual freedom” –
I also recommend watching the Actualism Method Excerpt video Cheers Vineeto
CHRONO: My feeling bad stemmed from how I become in relationships. I’m not sure if it’s trauma or if it is how I am but I always become very insecure and afraid my partner will abandon me. It’s an all pervasive feeling and I can only describe it as hell. The worst feeling in the world. I’m currently in a relationship and it’s at that point despite my partner not having done anything for me to feel this way. My main objection then is that I will lose my partner if I feel good all the time. It’s like I have to be ever-vigilant. How will I have a relationship? The only thing that doesn’t send me spiralling into it is that I have this sense that I can feel good anytime I want to that’s stayed with me. All of this sounds insane as I write it actually. I’ll have to think on it more. VINEETO: What you are describing here is love. Naming the issue is the first step to be able to successfully contemplate it. Being in love invariable comes with both pining and possessiveness, to name but two, resulting in “an all pervasive feeling and I can only describe it as hell”.
Here he also describes how love inevitably fails –
And here is Richard’s collected description about both ‘Peter’s’ and ‘Vineeto’s’
experiences and investigative realisations during their time of being in love, which can give you some ideas how to
contemplate and investigate your own situation – Of course, you don’t have to talk it through with your partner unless she is willing, you can have the necessary realisations and actualizations unilaterally. After all, you said that “despite my partner not having done anything for me to feel this way”. The important thing is that you recognize that the sweet feeling of love and the “all pervasive feeling” of hell are not two different issues, they are the two sides of the same coin. When love is gone (which it inevitably will once you stop feeding it) the way is clear for recognizing your partner as a fellow human being and allow the resultant naivete and an exquisite intimacy to flourish. Cheers Vineeto
Hi Chrono, I appreciate your thoughtful response. VINEETO: It is that from this vantage point of experiencing this moment that you can look in a dispassionate way at whatever objection is at the forefront of your mind preventing you to continue the feeling the sweetness. CHRONO: Perhaps that may be the issue. I keep trying to
look at it from a vantage point of being in the feeling. But when I’m out of it I ‘check’ if it’s there and
it can come back. But this ‘checking’ that I am doing may really be a perverse way of being these loving/hellish
feelings over and over again. It really drives home the ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’
fact. Because when I’m feeling the sweetness, there are really no issues at all. It’s like I’ve been playing
pretend. VINEETO: You probably know from experience how different it is when you look at some
issue from the vantage point of feeling good, even of feeling excellent. Then you can examine the trigger and look at
your previous feelings not only dispassionately but an also contemplate dianoetically
* VINEETO: What you are describing here is love. Naming the issue is the first step to be able to successfully contemplate it. CHRONO: It’s funny that you call it that because I have been approaching looking at it as anything but that. Now that I think about it, perhaps there is a ‘truth’ that has been blocking the seeing of this. Basically it goes something like ‘love is not like that’ or ‘real love is not like that’ or ‘healthy love is not like that’. It’s further cemented when I read forums where everyone describes healthy ways of being in love and how it seems to be great and what not. Maybe there is, but I don’t know how anyone can describe it as so amazing to be honest. The one thing I can’t get past is how anyone can be in love without being possessive or being exclusive. So I keep thinking perhaps there is something wrong with me. VINEETO: Ha, there is nothing is wrong with *you* – as Claudiu already explained
below Hence love itself (the ideal of love) has never been questioned (until Richard). It was always considered to be the individual’s fault that it never delivered what it promised. The intrinsic promise of love is that it will dissolve the separation, which two identities automatically experience, yet by the very nature of love being within the human condition and arising of the instinctual passions, this promise can never be fulfilled.
Richard gave the breakdown of “The Chemistry of Love”
in his “Examen of the Invention of Heterosexuality”
The alternative is to “increasing naive intimacy, enjoyment and delight” as Claudiu
explained it so well here Feeling being ‘Grace’ had a gradation of five stages of intimacy –
Remember to have fun when you are inclined to explore it. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: I still love her. I’m never going to be free if I don’t get past that. This was a 50yr love affair. It’s been off and on for years at a time. It’s all feeling/ memory now which still lingers. I told her not to call or write anymore and that hasn’t ended the feeling/ memory. I need to see the futility of it. VINEETO: Hi James, To simply avoid the person you feel love for is not going to eliminate the feeling you have for her – on the contrary, the image you have of her can grow more rosy in absence. The first thing to figure out for you if you “need to see the futility” or if
you want to do that and why. ‘You’, your ‘self’, can provide many soothing reasons to keep having
sweet memories of love. Hence letting go requires the conviction of your experience of the enjoyment and appreciation
of being alive now, and for instance the rememoration of your long-lasting PCE last year
And –
So you see, “I need to” is not going to eliminate/ dissolve your feeling/ memory of love, as powerful as the feeling of love can be, you can only find the reason why love is not good enough, in fact “mere baubles”, in comparison with the rememorated or direct experience of the actual world.
The insight you are looking for is experiential, not cognitive. Cheers Vineeto
ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto, It’s been great having an experience that can indeed be related back to that article! It was a favourite article back when I first was introduced to Actualism by the Dharma Overground forum. I have had the ongoing feeling that the entire background has changed. Twice, there was an ever so slight shift in perception, just upon realising something fresh with this new knowledge of ‘I’ preceding the entire mess of religion. The sky sort of blinked a slightly different colour today when walking to get some lunch. And also, this morning whilst watching cars “cut in” front of me, there was a definite sense of choice happening and a slight shift in perception. Almost like neither happened, but the feeling was as if ‘I’ could shift altogether out into the world. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, This is excellent and I am pleased you had a different experience to the article than you had years ago when you were still reading it from the DhO-paradigm. Pay attention to that “ever so slight shift in perception” because this is the beginning to your experiential understanding of what actualism is – doing whatever you can to imitate the actual world. And having discovered the “definite sense of choice happening” is your guide to change feeling bad, for whatever reason, into feeling good and enjoying and appreciating being here in this only moment you can experience being alive. Then you can begin to also apply this “sense of choice” to minimise the ‘good feelings’ as well –
ANDREW: The choice to feel good isn’t always obvious though. That seems that I need to sort out some logistics in my life. Practical things in my living space, as they are an ever-present excuse to feel frustrated. VINEETO: When the choice to feel good is not obvious, there may be some good feelings as well as some valued beliefs you don’t want to give up and/or, as you say, some required action in regard to “sort out some logistics in my life” which you might have so far shied away from. In any case, this new “ever so slight shift in perception” which now gives you a “definite sense of choice happening” is an opening to change your life for the better. ANDREW: I will read that Apperception article again. Thanks VINEETO: It is a pleasure to read your feedback. It bodes well for imminent beneficial changes for increasing feeling good. Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: Hi Vineeto, I think I’m starting to realise how simple actualism is. Getting back to feeling good after noticing a trigger and enjoying/ appreciating this moment. It really isn’t much more complicated. I noticed in the past I would always get stuck trying to “explain” the feeling away which always lead to me going around in circles or eventually solidifying the feeling by some sort of mental gymnastics to feel validated for feeling bad. I noticed that because I am a feeling being I will always be invested in keeping the bad feelings around. But getting myself back to feeling good first before investigating anything helped immensely, it also made me realise that if it’s that easy to get back to feeling good, is there any sensible reason to remain feeling bad? Or keeping going back to that feeling? It isn’t a nice feeling at all. From feeling good it is much easier and clearer to sort through whatever triggered me. VINEETO: Hi Sonya, (...) And when you say “is there any sensible reason to remain feeling bad?” and find that “it isn’t a nice feeling at all” so may also discover that feeling good feelings, “the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting)” are ultimately not nice feelings either because they lead to a lot of complications, disclosed contracts and obligations. The reason is that the basic survival instincts (the instinctual passions) are the source of both ‘good feelings’ and ‘bad feelings’.
(...) What a grand time to be alive, isn’t it? Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: The insight you are looking for is experiential, not cognitive. JAMES: Yes, the experience of the PCE which brings forth pure
intent is what is missing. This is why love must go so as not to interfere with this experience. VINEETO: Hi James, You saying “this is why love must go” shows that you better re-read what I said in my last message –
‘You’ cannot command your ‘self’ to do something or not do something – you would only split yourself in two and have a fight with yourself. I understand that it can be difficult to recall the memory of a PCE or to connect to pure intent when in the grip of a strong emotion. Can you get back to feeling good? If so, once feeling good, find out what is so attractive about love/ the memory of love, in a friendly not forceful way, i.e. without antagonism or blame. In a relaxed inquiry the answer will eventually come forth. Having found out the reason for love being so attractive to you, and acknowledged that ‘you’ are your feelings and your feeling are ‘you’, you can then experientially experiment with neither expressing (imagining) or repressing (“must go”) this strong feeling and contemplate, with sincere, genuine fascinated attention, about the way ‘you’ (the instinctual passions) operate. Sincerity being the key to naiveté, a third alternative might hove into view. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: Can you get back to feeling good? If so, once feeling good, find out what is so attractive about love/ the memory of love, in a friendly not forceful way, i.e. without antagonism or blame. In a relaxed inquiry the answer will eventually come forth. Having found out the reason for love being so attractive to you, and acknowledged that ‘you’ are your feelings and your feeling are ‘you’, you can then experientially experiment with neither expressing (imagining) or repressing (“must go”) this strong feeling and contemplate, with sincere, genuine fascinated attention, about the way ‘you’ (the instinctual passions) operate. Sincerity being the key to naiveté, a third alternative might hove into view. JAMES: The fact is that love is not better than the actual
world. Never has been and never will be. Love is a distraction from the actual world. VINEETO: Hi James, As you said yourself in your last message “the experience of the PCE which brings forth
pure intent is what is missing” When you are ready to investigate further why love still has a hold on you, perhaps what Chrono said today might give you some clue how to look deeper –
As Richard found out while he investigated the various components constituting his state of enlightenment –
Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: Love still has a hold on ‘me’ because it is the memory of the feeling of love. As we know this feeling doesn’t last and we are back to the bad side of love with hate and all the rest of it sooner or later. VINEETO: Hi James, Who is “we”? JAMES: Nevertheless I have been thru that many times before yet the feeling persists and continues to return along with the memory. I’m thinking that if I stay with the feeling I can burn it out. I’ve never really stayed with the feeling long enuf to extinguish it.
VINEETO: Whereas the actualism method is –
I am reminded of the conversation you had with Richard about addiction –
In other words, when you say “love still has a hold on ‘me’” is it because you hold onto love and its bitter-sweet memories? After all, ‘you’ are your feeling and your feeling are ‘you’. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: As ‘we’ know was referring to you and I when I said “As we know this feeling doesn’t last”. VINEETO: Hi James, The reason the ‘we’ is not applicable because the person who knew that “this feeling doesn’t last” was feeling being ‘Vineeto’ who became extinct in January 2010. Also, that the feeling “doesn’t last” was not ‘Vineeto’s’ experience, she had to actively look into ‘her’ dreams and hopes regarding love and relationship in order to uproot love in herself – love certainly did not just disappear of its own accord. ‘She’ wrote about ‘her’ successful investigations –
There is a second part to ‘Vineeto’s’ story about love, you can read it here – JAMES: Thanks for the reminder about the method. I woke up feeling good this morn with no pain and I am enjoying and appreciating. I am having fun and enjoying writing to you and I really do appreciate you. VINEETO: Great to hear you are having fun and enjoying and appreciating being alive and corresponding with me. I have reminded you about the actualism method because what you said you were doing. “Burn it out”, stayed with the feeling long enuf to extinguish it“ are your own inventions and not how Richard described the actualism method. JAMES: Yes, the quote about addiction is spot on. Toward the
end of that discussion with Richard he said that what we (humanity) are addicted to is ‘me’ which is suffering so
I am looking to see exactly how this works. I think this feeling of love keeps me addicted to ‘me’ or maybe ‘me’
keeps ‘me’ addicted to love. Iow: I am ‘my’ feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. VINEETO: There certainly seems to be an addictive quality to the love you experience, and the suffering that accompanies it. Remember, it’s not love’s doing (like another entity or power) but your doing. That means you can stop doing it when you find out why you keep it around by discovering which hopes and dreams are the reason for you to hold onto it. Enjoy playing Sherlock Holmes with your own mind. Cheers Vineeto
SYD: Thank you, Vineeto. I’ve been reading what other actualists have written
of love VINEETO: Hi Syd, So you had your first encounter with the beginnings of falling in love as an adult – and conclude that reading what other actualists say about love gives you enough theoretical knowledge to “be watchful of the ‘bi-furcation’”. With such high expectations don’t let yourself be discouraged when romantic feelings mixed with sexual desire strike again. As ‘Vineeto’ reported, ‘she’ had to become “aware of and understood one feeling after the other” until eventually, after many investigations, “neither tender nor savage emotions would interfere”. One experience, by your reports, mixed with some detachment, rejection and suppression of your
‘tender’ feelings, lots of hope and high-flying intentions, is most likely not enough to overall, experientially
and affectively, understand how you operate. Hence I suggest to be more realistic, down-to-earth, and patient in
order that you can be naïvely interested and genuinely attentive (possibly as in “attentiveness does not
play favourites” Only by allowing to let the experience itself unfold can you learn about its intricacies, the hopes, dreams and beliefs it all entails, its unspoken assumptions on both sides, the psychic push and pull, the interactive power dynamic and the very cunning mechanism of ‘you’ to ‘get out of here as fast as possible’, or, as you say “I don’t think I want to go through this again”. Rejection and resentment of the topic you want to experientially research interfere with a thorough and possibly enjoyable inquiry where you can be confident about the results you get. So perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why. Kuba gave you an insightful and excellent suggestion how to proceed from there –
Plenty to explore – don’t forget to enjoy and deeply appreciate solving the puzzle that is one of the top mysteries of the human condition. Cheers Vineeto
SYD: Hi Vineeto, VINEETO: So perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why. SYD: I think I can respond to this now. In the other
topic, I already talked about the various feelings regarding women in general and how, upon meeting her back in
November, all those feelings “coalesced and focused themselves unilaterally on her and her alone” I remember the specific moment when the panic started. During the evening of date 3 (earlier
this day I remember first developing the ‘bond’ with her after her EFT tapping), in my couch, I awkwardly attempt
physical escalation (back and forth casual touching), with no enthusiastic reciprocation from her, and at some point
she decides to leave. Right after this, there was a huge surge of panic (accompanied by heavy breath), and the fear
was about ‘losing her forever’ (‘she’ had began already merged with ‘me’; see below). And since I had put
all eggs on the same basket, so to speak, this meant … well the end of everything. Hence, the panic. The next day,
I fell in love (it is possible that the evening before’s physical touch was a precipitating factor, going by
my “lead me to fall in love with her sooner than latter because the sexual desire had no other
acceptable outlet” comment in
(…) Rejection meant that separation is validated, highlighted and brought to fore, and because ‘I’ coalesced all of ‘myself’ onto ‘her’ … her rejection meant … well … death. VINEETO: Hi Syd, You say that your “desire had no other acceptable outlet” but falling in
love to the point where “her rejection meant … well … death”. It’s good to know, and remember,
that your love-feelings disappeared I am also highlighting this because love is not always described or experienced in the same way. Viz.:
The very intensity of your feelings, both euphoria (hope) and deathly panic (despair) are well
worth your decision to change your perspective and keep practicing autonomy as you described further down * VINEETO: Instead of “change in your ‘being’” I should have more precisely
said change in the perception of your ‘being’ as I laid it out in the beginning of the sentence – “you
will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no
longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company
whatever form that may take” SYD: Is there a significant difference between saying “change in your ‘being’” and “change in the perception of your ‘being’”? Once I so-willingly decline all these desire-expressions (I’m still exploring some subtle ones), seriousness basically goes out of the window, and the near-innocence of naiveté becomes accessible. Being coy, for one example, instead of being nervous. And there is a general lightness and cheerfulness regardless of other people’s modus operandi. I quite like it, already. VINEETO: I have noticed a tendency when having one experiential success, to swing into overconfidence and exaggerated hope, only to then fall back into the previous pattern. Given that you only quoted “change in your ‘being’” and overlooked the first explanatory part of that same sentence of mine, I found it important to emphasize that one’s ‘being’ does not change when you occasionally “reach down inside of yourself intuitively” to the core of your ‘being’.
In other words, it helps to be realistic and honest with oneself in order that imagination is not fuelling further escalation of hope and despair. * VINEETO: Why do you need others’ “detailed report” to know how to proceed? SYD: I guess I was looking for a ‘template’ to follow, but you are right, it is actually way more fun (and authentic) to find out for myself. Besides, only I get know all of my idiosyncrasies and intricacies; the same goes for others. Autonomy is operating at levels higher than before. VINEETO: I am pleased you can see that. * VINEETO: It [practicing denial and transcendence] describes how the mechanism of the old paradigm operated,
nowadays further disguised by cloaking those “clouds” in new words gleaned from reports of fully free people such as “common
consciousness”, “immanence-in-consciousness”, “being genderless, formless, ageless and vast”, “sense of fixed
physicality falling apart” (see SYD: Ha, good ol’ bag of tricks I now thankfully no longer needed. VINEETO: See what I mean by swinging into overconfidence and exaggerated hope, as if those mechanisms have disappeared forever without a trace from one instance of recognition. But denial and transcendence are part of ‘your’ “tricks” of ‘being’ and often habitual, appearing as the twins of despair and hope, rejection and euphoria. It takes ongoing attentiveness in various situations to suss out how you affectively experience yourself, recognizing them in action, again and again, and decline as quickly as you can. Sometimes I get the impression that for some people actualism is like an exam where one needs to
know the right answers, tick the right boxes, follow the right concepts, in order to ‘level up’ – akin to a
religious concept like the Buddha’s “eightfold path” of “right view, right resolve, right speech,
right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration”.
(see Mahasatipatthana Sutta (d), Actualism is none of this. There are no levels, no badges of honour, no marks to be earned, no
conditions
* SYD: (…) I simply decided to give up those post-arousal mechanisms; they are just not worth holding on to. Simple as! I now see what Vineeto means by “[enjoying] their company whatever form that may take”. And more
importantly, I rediscovered my autonomy.
VINEETO: This is an excellent practical example of what I was describing above – “when you have the readiness to no longer follow the demands of this passion, this cause of your slavery, then it can happen in an instant”. SYD: Yes, this was my first practical demonstration of it. Not only did it begin to free me up from lifetime of misery, but it also laid the initial confidence to tackle other issues similarly. What you said above (as quoted here VINEETO: Good. Perhaps you understand now experientially why it is important to keep your feet on the ground, stay down to earth, and avoid feeding one or both of the emotional twins of dramatic high and low feelings but instead get back to feeling good as soon as possible. From there, aim to evince a clear decision to decline “post-arousal mechanisms” or any other harmful mechanisms you encounter/ discover, and thus slowly become more and more autonomous. Again, for emphasis, facing the particular feelings means you deprive them of additional emotional-psychic energy by neither reacting with fight or flight. You can then see them for what they are – “not worth holding on to”. Now that you know that it works, and how it works, you might want more of it. Cheers Vineeto
CHRONO: It has been a while since I’ve written here and it’s mainly because I had fallen back to feeling bad. Or more specifically it’s because I’ve had a lot of trouble sleeping/ have been sleep deprived and have, in the last couple of weeks, got back to getting all my rest and feeling good. Right now it feels like so long ago that I can’t even remember all the details, but I will comment that it relates to my “OCD” way of being (I am only calling it that because I don’t have another word). It morphs and latches onto various things in order to gain certainty. Maybe the instinctual urgency way of being as mentioned above. I’m inclined to even say that it is bordering on an altered state of consciousness. I can say though that it started with the whole stonewalling issue with my partner. And the primary feeling it engendered in me was feeling “trapped”. I felt that I had to solve the issue or else we won’t be able to enjoy our time together. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, First up, I would suggest that instead of using the psychiatric definition “OCD” (which only categorizes/ defines you as having a mental disorder), naming what you experience ‘symptoms of extreme stress’. This usually happens when the underlying feeling of stress and anxiety is not allowed to be experienced as is (as in ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’). If you do that you can instantly tell what is missing and do something about it via addressing the issue directly – when you are back to feeling good. You clearly identified the source of your stress and anxiety – love. Perhaps revisiting our
previous conversations on this topic might be informative, which you can find (together with other correspondence
here
CHRONO: Except as time went by and I didn’t do anything, it was as if the issue solved itself. There was no real issue and I found that it again had to do with the Good/ Bad dichotomy. There had been a dream (self-centric) functioning that only if my partner behaved or acted a certain way then there could be peace and harmony between us (something along those lines). Now any time I note that I am bothered in this way then I know that I have a “good” belief functioning in the background. The question then was, was it worth holding onto that (good) dream if it meant feeling miserable and simultaneously disregarding my partner as a full person on her own (being but an accessory to ‘my’ dream)? I could not have the one without the other. And I got my genuine answer of ‘no the good is not worth the bad’. Only then did that state of being release its grip. VINEETO: You were hot on the trail and have also identified the issue further, originally wanting to keep the cake and eat it too, i.e. keeping love/ possession without the detrimental side-effects (“the Good/ Bad dichotomy”). Perhaps this has finally been fully recognized and has expired? Either way it is a really excellent outcome and your persistent probing showed results. When you examine your resentment, make sure that not a smidgen of wanting to hold onto the bitter-sweet feeling love remains, otherwise your resentment is sourced in the fact (which you have already seen) that you can’t have one without the other. CHRONO: Another thing which seems to be at the heart of that instinctual urgency is disregarding the fact of ‘I am my feelings and my feelings are me’. One thing that’s very clear to me is how important being genuine and honest is. Otherwise nothing happens. If I’m going in circles, it’s because I’m not being genuine and honest. I can only get to being my feelings with full honesty. Only then I’m not fighting against myself. But I had seen these things before so why do I keep falling back? Maybe attentiveness had become lax. How can feeling good become a solid foundation? Or rather how can I genuinely commit to feeling good forever? All of this does come under one header and I can’t believe how often this theme comes up, but it’s resentment. I was reading this interesting correspondence: ‘Now it seems important to identify the more subtle feelings, moods and affections that indicate ‘me’ coming to the foreground. And they are more the ‘good’ feelings and the ‘no-feelings’ – as I called them once – that I need to be aware of.’  (Actualism, Vineeto,
Actual Freedom List, Alan-d, 7.5.2000).
Respondent: It seems that I rarely get strong obvious feelings such as anger, most of my time is spent with subtle lacklustre feelings. The actualism method seems to be much harder to get working during such times. By ‘harder’ I mean I’m left feeling happy and harmless far less often. With the obvious feelings, it seems like it is so easy: this person did this/that and I reacted like this... But with these subtle dull feelings, the cause is often a thought or sequence of thoughts, which I think are harder to trace-back in memory, especially when in the grip of these feelings. The ‘no-feelings’ that Vineeto talks about in that quote seem to be the predominant ones for me. Do you think it is practically harder to identify, ‘lock-on’ and be attentive to the neutral feelings? By the way, as I write this I noticed – as you did previously – a hilarious subtle background feeling/ attitude of ‘tell me how to get this to work because it doesn’t work for me at all ever and never can or will’. Silly ‘me’. I bet the days of that attitude are numbered. Vineeto: The phrase I would use now, in hindsight, for those ‘no-feelings’ of lack-lustre and listlessness is resentment of being here. Within the human condition there is a basic resentment of not wanting to be here, wanting to be somewhere else, waiting for something else to happen than what is happening now, as a basic attitude to life, which is then reinforced by the various religious and spiritual conditioning that life on earth is essentially suffering and that the real life will only happen for the spirit after you die. This resentment to being here, as this body, in the world-as-it-is with people-as-they-are, was what was responsible for my dull feelings, no-feelings, my listlessness, my boredom, my waiting for something else to happen, in short, it had permeated almost all experience of life in that it had cast a dulling shade over everything I experienced. The way to deal with resentment in the actualism method is the same way you
deal with all other feelings that interfere with you being happy and harmless – when paying attention to how you
experience this moment of being alive, you notice it, then label it which helps you realise that it would be silly to
carry on with it when you can instead enjoy being alive. With a steady increase in attentiveness the shift of resenting
being here to appreciating being here becomes progressively easier until you finally kick the insidious habit of
resentment altogether and delight in being alive for the simple reason that you are alive. CHRONO: As I walked along with those words, I experienced it in
myself. Any dreaming or desiring to being away in some other place and some other time is an expression of the
resentment of being alive. The reason that the good/ bad feelings are being supported is because those dreams sit
atop this foundation of resentment. I can see it very clearly now. I have noted it before but I did not realize how
deep it goes. It is reinforced by everyone. Now I can see it more easily in its occurrence. With the declining of
this resentment and saying that yes to being alive at this moment, my only interest is in experiencing things as they
actually are. I know that this has been the issue because the moment I noticed it and decided to want to be here, the
other issues were as if they didn’t exist and I felt good.
VINEETO: This is excellent. You will see how radically your life changes as you incrementally recognize each dream and dismantle the underlying resentment that things are not as ‘I’ want them to be. I guess you already read Kuba’s report on his experiential discovery of the all-encompassing resentment (link). When one sets one’s priority to imitate the actual, resentment has no place to hide in the shadows. And what a marvellous trade is that – the result is way beyond your wildest dreams. Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: Just been slowly reading this over and over again as each time something clicks but it’s interesting how it’s all slowly revealing itself. VINEETO: Don’t be discouraged by the slowness of things becoming more clear. Actual freedom is radical, it’s neither taught in school are at home, it entirely new. And it is very helpful to read over a piece of writing several times, so that your consciousness (your brain in action) can digest the various ramifications of what is being written. SONYA: For the past 5 or so years I have been ignoring that I have in fact been in love, not to the “normal” extent as it hasn’t been nurtured but I have nevertheless allowed myself to fall in love. I’ve always known that of course there was loving feelings there but I was never able to admit to myself that I have fallen in love and dismissing it as “loving feelings” which didn’t need to be looked at. I’ve fully become entangled in it. The aim was never to fall in love but I seem to have ended up here anyways. I can begin to see it now, the authority, dependency, nurturing. It’s all because I have fallen in love. VINEETO: This is an excellent discovery and good news – to finally have the appropriate label for the conglomerate of feelings (good and bad feelings) that you experienced “for the past 5 or so years”. It is easy, especially when familiar with actualism writings to kid oneself that one is forewarned and forearmed. And yet love itself is a strong instinctual and social conditioning that because of being forewarned love can easily go unnoticed. In that case only rigorous sincerity will bring it out in the open. Usually the negative side-effects of love such as possessiveness and jealousy, wanting to change the other according to one’s own image and similar domineering feelings and behaviour finally give it away. SONYA: I mean, of course merely saying I don’t want to be in
love or logical not seeing the sense in it is not enough and actually experiencing it myself, looking at it,
exploring it and actually knowing fully to my bones that I don’t want it never happened. I never found out
experientially that this is not the path I want to go down. It feels like a weight lifting off my shoulders finally
realising and admitting this, it explains the intense bad feelings (the other side of love) whenever the good
feelings of love weren’t reciprocated. I’ve been repressing, ignoring, brushing it under the rug all this time. VINEETO: This is a great description of what being in love entails and already knowing this much about yourself will help you to extricate yourself from the trap of love. I guess you won’t get much support from your girlfriends in this endeavour! You are to entirely rely on your own determination and experiential expertise in this exciting adventure. However, you are not on your own –
I wish you all the success and fun for this great adventure. Cheers Vineeto
Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual
Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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