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(List D refers to Richard’s List D
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence Resentment
JAMES: Thanks for speaking frankly which is what I need. [...] I appreciate your help and I know that you can assist me in getting to where I need to go. JAMES: Objections to experiencing pure intent: Pain and pain meds interfering. Loss of love to and from ex-wife and no one left. Its been too
long. Old age. Sadness. Don’t know how. Realizing that my life is nearing the end. VINEETO: Hi James, Here is something that even with no connection to pure intent you will be able to do. Acknowledge the fact that death is inevitable, that pain and old age are part of life and especially part of your present condition. These are facts of life; you can do nothing about them. What you can do however, when you have some common sense and if you so choose, you can stop objecting to those facts and also you can recognize and give up the life-long habit of resentment to such facts of life. Resentment is what turns physical pain into suffering and realizing the nearing of death into anger and fear. You can do yourself a favour, and recognize and abandon this habitual resentment. You can also, of course, stay as you are and keep suffering. The choice is in your hands and actualism gives you that choice.
Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: Something has shifted for me recently and I am rereading messages you have written to me and seeing them anew. I just reread this message above that I am replying to and it really hit home. This part for example:
The whole message is gold which I didn’t see before. I finally got it: “Acknowledge the fact and stop objecting to those facts.” I’m still looking at what you said about resentment. I don’t really see my resentment. At least not yet. 
VINEETO: Hi James, You say you don’t really see your resentment if there is any. Richard usually refers to people’s basic resentment like this –
There is more correspondence collected here
Perhaps you don’t have that kind of resentment anymore but there could be minor resentments, possibly resentment about being in pain? I know from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience that when there was pain there was also an objection/a fear of/a disapproval of feeling this pain. Once ‘Vineeto’ discovered that (and it took her a while), ‘she’ could make the deliberate choice to decline this disapproval or resentment of this particular ongoing pain (monthly cramps for instance) and the intensity of it diminished almost instantly to at least half. I wrote about this to you before – Perhaps it is no longer an issue? Cheers Vineeto
IAN: I’m mishandling actualism. I recognise
today that a part of me wants to be successful with actualism as a way to be lovable vs as a way to be free…
applying actualism to be perfect and thereby avoid shame… to be worthy/ loved/accepted because I can’t be accused
of self centred arrogance, and/or can’t be affected by shame. Good to recognise. VINEETO: Excellent to recognize it – now you can be on the look-out should it turn up again. Does your action of publicizing this significant discovery on the forum indicate a conscious
choice to pursue actualism as your priority? IAN: Actualism has been the ultimate goal since I had a PCE before finding the actual freedom website - whether it has always been number 1 priority is kind of a two part thing. It’s always the underlying thing, every experience gets analysed whether badly or well through the lens of actualism. I haven’t had a lot of success with enjoying and appreciating consistently (aside from a few weeks here and there where for some reason it all seems easy) but that doesn’t mean it’s not the ultimate goal. Hopefully this latest realisation will help me actually make progress. […] The thing is I have been wanting to get to the bottom of why I feel so
continuously stressed for years and I have recently cottoned on to the fact that it is less about completion of tasks
(at work for example) and almost entirely about whether I feel accepted in the group. The completion of tasks is how
I maintain acceptance. It seems like such a big pervasive network of beliefs that I am not sure where exactly to
look. VINEETO: Hi Ian, It seems to me that presently the actualism method is contraindicated because as yet you do not *want* to feel good for its own sake so it won’t be very successful to practice it right now. To start with, a more practical approach would be, instead of trying to attain acceptance from everybody and their dog, for you to realize that the only person you can change is yourself. As a rational consequence you can ask why do you not accept yourself / why do you not like yourself. (It’s very difficult to make other people like you when you do not like yourself). A first and most obvious answer is (and very common answer in fact for those honest enough to admit it) – that there is resentment – resentment of being here, of having been born in the first place and resentment for the way things are in general. It goes hand-in-glove with the belief that life is inherently bad. Here is what Richard had to report about it – perhaps it works for you as well –
I also recommend other examples from the Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Resentment). Once you identified resentment and decline to nurse this futile and ineffectual feeling any longer, then *wanting* to feel good cannot be far away. Cheers Vineeto
IAN: Yes I can say although ultimately I do want to feel good, at the moment I am
currently becoming aware of what I am feeling, so I suppose I am more wanting to feel what I am feeling. What the
full spectrum of feelings encompasses and feels like, to feel what it is to be a complete feeling being. I had
developed something like a blanket suppression order on almost all of the way I feel (therefore the way I am) and am
in the careful process of uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me. I believe this is the process of
accepting myself/liking myself. VINEETO: Ok, it is certainly useful, if not ultimately imperative to become aware of the “blanket suppression” of feelings in order to feel them, get to know them, label them and then be able to
dianoetically In other words, once you identified the particular feeling as what it is (anger, sorrow, worry, spitefulness, melancholy, fear, etc.) then you have a choice to either keep feeling it or to decide to put it aside in order to feel better (i.e. get back to feeling good). Then from this more dispassionate perspective you can have a good look at what was the cause/trigger for you to feel such an insalubrious feeling. To be “uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me” you do not need to keep feeling each feeling until it subsides of its own accord (and embracing it only fuels the feeling to hang around for longer) – it is enough to recognize it and then *stop feeding* it (which may take a while to find the switch until you get the knack). I’m not sure if you succeed in liking yourself as long as you nurture, i.e. feed, malice and sorrow in your bosom. ‘Vineeto’ certainly couldn’t until she had a clear third alternative. She continued to feel bad via either suppressing or expressing her feelings as she had been taught by new-age therapists during her spiritualist years. IAN: I don’t like myself because I can be scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning. I am slowly welcoming those parts of me I have rejected, with the right mind I can recognise those parts are natural and appropriate for a feeling being to feel (putting aside the question as to the appropriateness of expressing or acting on them). Appropriate also doesn’t mean sensible - expected might be a better word. That is if I feel something, it’s not for no reason, nor is it an anomaly of experience. For example – it makes sense for an animal to feel like it is powerful and competent - why wouldn’t it. It seems fundamental that a creature should not doubt its ability to do and achieve what is required for survival. The odd thing is that a creature would feel like those feelings must be suppressed or hidden, but again this is about survival in the group so if the creature feels more safe (achieves homeostasis) by not expressing those feelings whether through training by peers or life experience then that would make sense that suppression occurs. VINEETO: All this can be summed up by acknowledging the fact that you, like everyone else, was born this way and it is not your fault that you are “scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning”. But, being equipped with intelligence you certainly don’t have to stay that way and you don’t have to *accept* the way you were born (the belief that you can’t change human nature). You can stop following the “tried and failed” template of the wisdom of the real world.
Hence instead of “welcoming” those insalubrious feelings you can decide to change them (without
suppressing nor expressing them). (see: IAN: Cognitively, I understand that I can only change myself; emotionally, I want everything else to change – so there is something missing in my understanding (did feeling-being Vineeto experience something like this?). I do feel sad and angry and scared when I think about ‘the way things are in general’. I find myself thinking/feeling things like ‘life just gets worse and worse’ or ‘it’s just one thing after another’ or ‘what’s the point, it’s just never going to change’. I think these point to a belief that I have adopted or developed over the years, that life is somehow impossible to enjoy. VINEETO: ‘Vineeto’ experienced this ‘wanting others or things to change’ but quickly put it aside as non-sensical once she started practising actualism. It’s an automatic reaction which, once recognized, need not be perpetuated. What you describe is exactly what is meant by the word resentment –
As such my previous advice to you still stands – as long as you consider feeling resentment being an appropriate response (and that includes “welcoming those parts of me”), no change can be evinced. You seem to have fallen for therapeutic humbug – now that there is a third alternative to suppressing or expressing (including “welcoming”) this real-world advice is superseded. So when you say further down – “I want to decline this resentment but in the past I have only succeeded in suppressing – is there anything I can do to bridge the gap between realising something and actualising it” – you can only decline something when you have 1) recognized it, 2) acknowledged it and 3) understood it. Hence you first need to recognize that it is operating in every complaint you have with the world you live in. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: The wheels have come off. ‘I’ am depressed. VINEETO: Alternatively you can look for the trigger which caused you to be depressed. It may just be a habitual reaction which you could easily decline to obey any longer. […] Also you can remember the 2 takeaways which got you back to feeling excellent a month ago –
JAMES: The trigger was the painful condition of my back and not seeing anyway for it to get better and that it can only get worse. The fact is the pain is tolerable with the pain meds and my new back doctor might can help me. The name of his practice is Texas Intervention Pain Care so maybe he can intervene although I can’t see it. I need to be patient and give him a chance. Patience is the key. My motivation is my memory of the actual world. I can get back to feeling good by getting a good night of sleep
and start eating better and doing what exercise I can to strengthen the core of my back like he told me to do. VINEETO: Hi James, According to the sequence of what you wrote, the trigger is not the pain itself but your emotional reaction to it. This is called resentment. You had the pain for a long time and it waxes and wanes, that is the nature of your particular condition. Of course, you do whatever is practical and possible regarding the physical condition. However, it is your resentment about having the pain in the first place, which acerbates it and feeds ‘me’, it feeds your feeling bad and angry about the pain. Or you can change being resentful and angry because you acknowledge that are your feelings. I had feedback from several other people who have given up their resentment with instant success including diminishment of pain for some, after understanding this simple mechanism that one can change one’s affective outlook on life when recognizing that ‘I’ am my feelings. Richard lived with his severe back pain for about a decade, after the pain medication stopped working. I never ever heard him complain about it nor did he stop enjoying and appreciating being alive. You do not have to be depressed, unless you choose to be. Cheers Vineeto
IAN: More on the seeing of resentment/ injustice/ unfairness/ unhappiness/ rejection/ confusion/ desperation. So a large part of my identity has been someone who has been ‘unjustly treated’ – one with that chip on their shoulder – except for me it was not so much on the shoulder as an assimilated way of being that was so old (being from primary school times) that I wasn’t fully aware of it being the lurker behind my way of living, thinking, behaving. It seems to have been becoming clearer and more recognisable over the last few weeks and now I reckon I’ve seen the way to let it atrophy. Yesterday I went for a walk and was wondering what was preventing me to enjoy more than I was. There were no adverse conditions – lovely sunny day, plenty of time, out in a lovely bush walk area. I was bumping up against a ceiling of my ability to enjoy and appreciate that wasn’t there last time, so I had to stop and pay more attention to what was going on. I came upon an old sense of sadness. It was not acute but still clouding my experience, quite a lot like a light overcast cloud actually. I realised this was what I referred to in the first paragraph. An on going feeling of sadness from a series of social rejections that shaped me, and that it was a core part of my full personality, a foundational perspective. Luckily I as of the right mind where I could see how silly it was to hold on to a broader emotional mood as a way of being, and it dissipated as if I just stopped holding it. I realised how weird it was that I could ‘hold on’ to a mood and for years! as if it was a real thing instead of just a story I kept at heart. Thinking about it now it reminds me of the description of a belief as emotion backed thought. While continuing the walk it was funny to see that all this time I could just let go of this thing of being this way, and how peculiar it was that from what I could tell, many people live this way – live according to a held belief/mood that then described their identity and motivation toward life. The feeling of injustice, the unfairness, the rejection and resentment – all achieving nothing more than self serving suffering. A reason to feel important. Very silly to live this way. To be able to see the silliness required willingness to change myself/be changed by facts
combined with the recognition that emotions and moods are merely habitual, that I am not necessary for anything to
continue happening, that the actual world exists, and a desire to increase my enjoyment of being alive. VINEETO: Hi Ian, You are in fine form today, including your follow-up posts. A very enjoyable read. You have indeed laid bare the whole structure of resentment and why so many people decide to hold onto it and more so, so many people don’t even recognize it as the underlying attitude which shapes their lives and obstructs their “ability to enjoy and appreciate”. And not only have you laid it bare but described it in so much detail how to allow it to atrophy that whoever wants to can do the same. When feeling being Richard embarked on his adventure to live the perfection of his four-hour PCE for the rest of his life, he had little difficulty in recognizing and giving up resentment, hence it is not even mentioned in the description of the actualism method, and a lot of people overlooked how vital it is to tackle resentment in order to successfully enjoy and appreciate being alive –
He did however write about how in order to renounce resentment it is also necessary to do away with gratitude, because they are two sides of the same coin –
IAN: And it was discovered by being purposefully attentive to the subtleties of how I was experiencing the moment of being alive – funny that. VINEETO: Brilliant. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: To “be generous with this body” doesn’t make much sense to me – when you take care of your affective moods your body benefits automatically. What is beneficial is to be a friend to yourself and not blame yourself for what you discover about yourself. Also, there is no such thing as “true actual reality” JESUSCARLOS: Thank you Vineeto ! Got it. Not only did I express my ideas wrongly, but, as you say, I wasn’t looking at the problem
correctly. It makes total sense to me what you suggest I rectify. I need to go deeper into my research to detect what
exactly is the cause of my stress and anxiety. I know it’s me, both as an ego and a soul. But more than knowing it
intellectually I need to see it experientially. Now I can see that I lost the connection with pure intent and I am simply operating from the old habits
that I already know and are useful to me to defend myself in the jungle. VINEETO: Hi JesusCarlos, You are right, intellectually knowing is not enough, you need to understand how your mind, i.e. your feelings and being, ticks. Again, the actualism method is of great help – paying ongoing affective attention to how you experience yourself informs you what diminished feeling good. You find what triggered this diminishment and get back to feeling good. Then you have a look at the problem. It may just be a habitual response and will disappear when you decide to decline to go along with it. In the long run none of those “old habits” “are useful to me to defend myself in the jungle” because they only perpetuate the conflict and therefore you are feeling worried and stressful. Remember that by acknowledging that you are your feelings to are able to change how you feel. Or you find that it is a more complex pattern, then you nut out why you consider the world a jungle, why you feel that you have to protect/ defend yourself, in other words protect /defend the feeling being inside your flesh-and-blood body, thereby harming it by stress. For instance, you can ponder/ feel out if resentment plays a part, like Claudiu discovered. Cheers Vineeto
JESUSCARLOS: Yesterday I had a fundamentally bad time. At times
neutral. But very rarely good. Let’s not say very good. This is in stark contrast to my experience on Tuesday
night, where I deeply contacted my naivety and experienced a lot of pleasure in simply being alive. Today I woke up
again with physical (I think I have a flu) and emotional discomfort. But within these few hours of the morning, I was
able to feel good again. And I remember again how it is essential to make the decision to feel good, to choose to
feel good and not follow old inclinations. It is a habit that I must overcome and now that I feel better I can
observe it more carefully: I have resentment for the simple fact of being alive and that things are not always the
way “I” want them. It may help to analyze why I want what I want, but if I look closer, I recognize that
what I want is recognition. I long for recognition. I won’t say more because I will be observing that need
throughout the day and finding a way to free myself from it. VINEETO: Hi JesusCarlos, This reaction seems quite natural. I see that in your previous post you said –
Isn’t it amazing that you were be able to so quickly “feel good again”, due to having made “the decision to feel good”. Longing “for recognition” is not something superficial, it is an inbuilt feature of the human condition. You not only “long for recognition”, ‘you’ need it for ‘your’ very existence. ‘You’, the identity’, being a contingent ‘being’, cannot exist on ‘your’ own – ‘you’ require constant confirmation to justify and confirm ‘your’ existence, else ‘your’ non-substantial nature will become apparent. With this comes a desire to hide and a fear of being exposed as a fraud, an impostor. I remember feeling being ‘Vineeto’s’ reaction to this alarming discovery quite well.
So you see, you discovered straight away what the solution to longing “for recognition” will ultimately be. Cheers Vineeto
SCOUT: Being affectively attentive is very painful and exhausting. If I do not suppress or indulge sometimes it still takes literally hours for even neutrality to emerge, and it is pretty fleeting before the next wave of feelings arise. I am agitated and exhausted and in physical pain pretty often, and inviting even more pain by not dissociating when stuff comes up feels like a rough prospect. I recurrently fall back to numbing, because the effort of paying attention to the pain in the way I need to in order for it to pass and not puppet my reactions is daunting and slow to pay dividends. Of course the numbing does not pay dividends at all, quite the opposite, but in the moment I am
beyond grateful to be relieved from the pain, if only for a little. VINEETO: Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting“? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it? Either way, first, stop the habitual response – stop fighting your pain and stop fighting the feelings you experience. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings and the [somatic] pain by increasing the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by being afraid of it), it instantly diminished. From there, seeing the success of stopping the battle against yourself, you might be able to get to a reasonable feeling good, a little better than neutral. Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly
it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here. Then whenever you get
a chance, explore this resentment
Once you become fairly confident with these two aspects via experiential confirmation (the only proof which counts) you can have a look at how to change how you feel. It requires giving up dissociation, even if only temporarily, until you become more confident. Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive. Here one of Richard’s co-respondents explains this in detail –
Let me know how you go. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting”? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it? SCOUT: The latter, but lending it attention makes the pain feel more acute than numbing it (even though I remain low-grade agitated while numbing too). I’ve been trying to work on not fighting it, it’s just hard bc if I don’t it feels kind of overwhelming. VINEETO: Hi Scout, I understand that it is hard to get an entry into the actualism method when you have a long-habituated response to fear and pain and all other unpleasant feelings. The thing is if you want to get better, you will have to start somewhere, and your entry is to allow yourself to feel, so that you can notice how you fight this feeling … and then consciously stop resisting, fighting, complaining, rejecting it. Unless you actually do it, you can never find out if the feeling itself diminishes when you stop fighting it, or not. * VINEETO: Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here. SCOUT: Yea I feel resentment a lot. I’m unable to work even a kind of chill home job right now bc I have been dealing with some weird medical symptoms that leave me constantly fatigued and slight stress provokes sometimes scary symptoms. I’m scared I won’t be able to support myself, but I’m also scared that things will get worse if I keep working since that’s been the trajectory thus far. I’m decently young too so most of my peers are out enjoying their lives and I’m in bed a lot of the time, I know comparatives aren’t helpful but I really wish I could function normally and that basic stuff like eating wasn’t a source of constant pain. I don’t think any of these feelings are serving me in getting better. But it feels like I can’t help it; when I sit with myself long enough I cry like a scared child in pain. VINEETO: Ok, resentment is a form of socially accepted anger (mostly turned in on oneself), and must have been brewing for a long time … so long that, not dealing with it, you developed psycho-somatic “scary symptoms” and aren’t able to earn a living. Therefore, this too seems to be a rather urgent topic to tackle sooner rather than later. Now that you acknowledge that resentment operates in you, you can go ahead and sincerely and dispassionately contemplate what the benefits and damages are that resentment creates. It must be fairly obvious to you that the harm outweighs the benefits by a large margin, no? A sincere and clear seeing of this fact will evince action (if/when there be sincere intent to be happy and harmless). Claudiu made a very perspicacious observation –
VINEETO: Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive. SCOUT: I can’t see this clearly yet honestly. I see that I do have a choice as to whether to engage narratives around certain feelings with my attention, and that if I stop giving those narratives attention then the feelings lose their edge, and diminish sooner. I don’t feel in control of what emotions arise in a given moment at all, just in how I respond to them. I’ll keep exploring. I appreciate the engagement. VINEETO: You are welcome. You are indeed not “in control of what emotions arise” but you constantly try to be in control by fighting and objecting and resenting all these unwanted feelings which arise. Wanting to be in control requires a ‘controller’ and something to be ‘controlled’ (your feelings). Therefore you split yourself into two – a form of dissociation (additionally to the dissociation of suppressing the feelings themselves). When this dissociation stops (via personal insight into this self-inflicted phenomenon) then you can experientially grasp that the whole process (controller and controlled) is ‘you’, the psychological and psychic-emotional identity trying to prevent ‘you’ from changing the status quo. Perhaps you first need to succeed in not fighting nor suppressing unwanted feelings (and experience how they diminish when you don’t feed them by objecting) before you can grasp experientially that you don’t have feelings but that you are your feelings and that your feeling are ‘you’, the passionate instinctual identity. Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: My current objection to pure intent
and self-immolation: How can I experience pure intent and self-immolation when I am hurting all the time? VINEETO: Hi James, Regarding your pain, you can start by ceasing to emotionally object to the pain. By fighting the pain you give it additional energy with your affective objection and thus add suffering to physical hurt.
You recently wrote in Claudiu’s Journal
You made it clear, that “to be healthy” is your top priority. However, if you do not consider self-immolation as your top priority you can nevertheless choose to live in virtual freedom –
For experiencing Virtual Freedom “the first and crucial step” is to get rid of resentment. If, for instance, you prefer to complain about/ resent an obvious fact of life that one can only be as healthy as one is at this moment of being alive (with the available help of modern medicine) then that would be a sheer waste of this moment of being alive –
Does this clarify, and perhaps simplify, things for you? Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: As is now the second time that you used the word “gatekeeping” I wonder if there is
perhaps an emotional issue/ investment for you such as frustration that you have trouble to experience a PCE or a
resentment against authority? So that this post doesn’t get too long, I simply refer you to a link JOSEF: Yes, I am frustrated that I haven’t been able to have a PCE after the one you linked later on in the post. This was a drug-induced PCE, so for me it doesn’t feel “solid” or “clean” and I seriously doubt its veracity. VINEETO: Hi Josef, I appreciate your reply. The feeling of frustration falls in the category of resentment, and anger, and is certainly interfering with feeling good. I perfectly understand from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience how it feels and why it is happening but it is nevertheless an emotional occurrence that is advisable to not only to look at but to do away with altogether (resentment against, or blaming anything or anyone (including yourself) for apparently standing in the way of what ‘you’ want).
You see, when you understand resentment this way, as a complaint/ blame to divert attention from ‘you’ (the only person you can change), then it may be easier to see that it is silly to maintain this automatic reaction/ habit. Focussing the attention to where it belongs, the fact of being resentment, at the time of experiencing it, the very attention allows you to be felicitous instead (it’s often not even a decision but a natural consequence, just as you stop wiggling your toes the moment you become aware of it). Then, feeling good, you can check what is behind or underneath the frustration – perhaps
impatience, or perhaps the conviction it’s your right to have a PCE now because …, or any other ‘self’-generated
belief, attitude or principle. And it could be this very resentment standing in the way of allowing a PCE to happen. (see also Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: You see, when you understand resentment this way, as a complaint/ blame to divert attention from ‘you’ (the only person you can change), then it may be easier to see that it is silly to maintain this automatic reaction/ habit. Focussing the attention to where it belongs, the fact of being resentment, at the time of experiencing it, the very attention allows you to be felicitous instead (it’s often not even a decision but a natural consequence, just as you stop wiggling your toes the moment you become aware of it). Then, feeling good, you can check what is behind or underneath the frustration – perhaps
impatience, or perhaps the conviction it’s your right to have a PCE now because …, or any other ‘self’-generated
belief, attitude or principle. And it could be this very resentment standing in the way of allowing a PCE to happen.
(see also JOSEF: Yes, I am starting to focus on this resentment and tackle it. It’s not just about this PCE, but I can see that my general approach to life is also filled with resentment. I’m mired in a world of “shoulds”; things that I have to do rather want to do. I view work like this, as well as most things besides anything that has quick gratification (e.g. playing video games, eating delicious food). VINEETO: Hi Josef, This is a great description of resentment if there ever was. However, you cannot ‘get rid’ of resentment by rejection of having one emotion and choose having another like changing black chess-pieces with white ones. Now that you acknowledged that you experience resentment, the first thing is to stop fighting
it and stop blaming yourself as well. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings by increasing
the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she
stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by objecting to it), it instantly diminished. Then you can more easily get back to
feeling good and from this vantage point contemplate for instance what Claudiu wrote to you
JOSEF: Seems like I’m being dragged around by my life rather directing it. I desire the opposite. I want to be here, to enjoy living in this moment. But it’s clear to me that that is not what I am being at all. Even the specifics of my life don’t seem to matter much, as this attitude is all encompassing and will use anything undesirable as an excuse to fuel the resentment of being alive. VINEETO: You say you are being “dragged around by my life” when in fact you are dragged around by your feelings (like most people are). The difference to most people is that you have the opportunity to pay diligent attention to whichever feelings prevent you from feeling good, from being happy and harmless, and this very attention and awareness of being the feeling allows you to choose to being a different affective experience. It is important not to keep your undesired feelings at arms length but to acknowledge that this is who you are as a feeling being. This very awareness that you are your feelings allows you to choose to be the felicitous feelings instead. When you say I don’t want to be resentful – “I desire the opposite. I want to be here, to enjoy living in this moment” you are misunderstanding what being happy and enjoying living means. Being (unconditionally) happy is what happens when there are no obstacles in the way for being happy. Just watch young children. They are happy and full of energy – unless something is amiss. As soon as parents fix/ provide what is amiss (change diapers, provide food, plaster on the scratched knee, etc.) their good mood returns. You can do the same – pay attention to what you experience affectively and then decline/ dissolve the obstacles to feeling good and feeling good returns. Then you take note of the trigger which brought up the obstacle in the first place and sort it out, so it won’t interfere with your feeling good at the next occasion. * VINEETO: It could be that when you say today, almost three years after the PCE, that “it doesn’t feel ”solid“ or ”clean“ and I seriously doubt its veracity”, this interpretation may well be from ‘me’ having taken over full control again over your memory of the PCE. JOSEF: I was thinking about this, and there may be some truth
to it. When I rememorate the EE, there’s something to latch onto, namely those felicitous and innocuous feelings
which are still affective. But when I think of the PCE, there’s nothing because I was so minimized. I don’t even
know how to remember it, so I guess in my cynicism I resolved that it’s best to not even try. VINEETO: This cynicism seems to permeate many areas of your life – it will be a big change for the better when you pay close attention to it. It may have been the single-most deciding factor that no PCEs have happened for a while. Cynicism is the very antithesis of naiveté. I wish you best of success in rediscovering your naiveté. Cheers Vineeto
ALEXANDER: Yes. Resentment is something I look at a lot because I have a lot of it. I don’t feel it towards religious people anymore for the reasons you laid out, namely that we are all in the grip of instinctual passions. VINEETO: Hi Alexander, So now that you know how to drop resentment for one issue, by the same means it is easy to drop any other resentment each time you become aware of one. It is immensely liberating to take charge of your life in that you don’t blame other people and outside events to how you feel. ALEXANDER: I even think Christianity keeps some people in line to a degree. And I have fond memories of church as well. The communal feelings I shared with people doing their best to live a ‘good’ life. VINEETO: It is the widespread "truth" that good can conquer evil if one only tries hard enough. This has been tried (and failed) for centuries, millennia in fact, and yet the prevalence of misery and mayhem is still the same. The reason is that good and evil are two sides of the same coin and both arise out of the instinctual animal passions – fear and aggression, nurture and desire. ALEXANDER: One thing I’m not sure I understand from the above quote where Richard asks "Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?" Is he recommending emotional acceptance? What does that look like? To be happy and harmless come what may? VINEETO: Only yesterday I wrote to Chrono about this question –
You see, you are already on the right track with giving up resentment in one area. Now apply the same tool the moment you become affectively aware that you blame someone/ something else for feeling bad and see how silly that is to spoil your only moment of being alive by feeling bad. Some people even blame the weather for feeling bad! While it is silly to tolerate war, rape, murder, child abuse and domestic violence, for instance – it would be an insult to your own intelligence – it makes no sense to emotionally suffer that such events are happening due to the human condition. It would only add more suffering and anger with no beneficial outcome. Whereas when you are able to emotionally accept the intellectually unacceptable and succeed in feeling good, or even enjoy and appreciate being alive, you add enjoyment and appreciation for yourself and others (which is far more felicitous and beneficial than resentment). ALEXANDER: I think you are right about my resentment needing a target to blame. And maybe God is just a way of personifying a universe that I don’t emotionally accept. I once heard someone say "I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him". The instinctual self really is like a frightened animal. VINEETO: When you become affectively aware of this fear again, instead of blaming it on a fictitious entity, stop rejecting/ fighting the fear and thus stop fuelling the affective energy. See if you can loosen the control a bit, allowing the fear to just be there and you will notice how it diminishes simply by not objecting to it. From there is only a hop and a jump to feeling ok/ feeling good, and then you can explore more closely what it is made of. It’s the automatic habit of rejection which makes it appear so big.
ALEXANDER: For the most part I don’t think about my negative experiences with religion but I get emotionally triggered when people bring it up. But I’m not combative with people the way I once was. The people who indoctrinated me were themselves indoctrinated. It seems even though you generally don’t like resenting religion, hearing about still triggers a negative habitual reaction. It takes diligent attentiveness with the sincere intent to become free from that habitual reaction (in order to be more happy and harmless), to recognize it happening and then replace it instead with delighting in being alive in this only moment you can actually experience. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: So now that you know how to drop resentment for one issue, by the same means it is easy to drop any other resentment each time you become aware of one. It is immensely liberating to take charge of your life in that you don’t blame other people and outside events to how you feel. ALEXANDER: Yes. And it’s getting easier to nip it in the bud. Hearing Richard talk about that in one of the videos was really nice. VINEETO: Hi Alexander, Yes, Richard summed it up really succinctly and expertly. It is quite easy to nip the minor resentments in the bud. Nevertheless, some of them may be persistent – and you know which ones they are because they keep reoccurring – and then you will do some further investigation about the issue – it could be a belief or a principle or an ideal or even a truth taken for a fact.
Also, it is good to not confuse ‘nipping in the bud’ with suppressing the feeling.
* VINEETO: The reason is that good and evil are two sides of the same coin and both arise out of the instinctual animal passions – fear and aggression, nurture and desire. ALEXANDER: I’m seeing more clearly all the time that there are no solutions to be found in the human condition. People enjoy fighting and justifying it with self righteousness. Self righteousness gives you a high, and a confidence that being aggressive is a good thing. I can’t count the times I’ve felt bad and had to apologize because I acted out of that sense of rightness. VINEETO: I remember feeling being ‘Vineeto’ had a few topics ‘she’ repeatedly became self-righteous about. ‘This is not fair’ was the most persistent, not only when it was in regards to ‘herself’ but even more so when it happened to others. Therefore I know that such emotional reactions cannot be simply ‘nipped in the bud’, it takes a closer look, and sometimes a quite comprehensive look at what makes you ‘tick’ in regards to self-righteousness. Here Richard talks about his personal experience with righteousness –
The next quote is also quite revealing in that as long as you believe in the truth of what is considered right and what is wrong, you will potentially react with righteous anger when coming across injustice, unfairness, or ‘this is just wrong’ and the likes – and there is plenty of it in the world as it is with people as they are. Also, emotionally accepting what is intellectually unacceptable helps a lot with restoring feeling good. It is important that pure intent needs to be firmly in place before any whittling away of the otherwise essential societal/ cultural conditioning be undertaken.
Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO (to Henry): Contrary to popular conception, it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to
adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood and pay attention to when the mood-meter goes
below feeling good. Then apply whatever tool is necessary to get back to feeling good and resolve what triggered
feeling less than good so that it doesn’t occur again. ANDREW: Really? It take far more than “time out”. It take something that very few have ever managed. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, I see that since then you deleted the message but I still find that it had enough worthwhile points to respond to it. Here is the detailed context about my statement that “it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood” –
 (Richard,
List D, Claudiu4, 3 February 2016)
As you may or may not have discovered for yourself, you can be intellectually engaging in something while simultaneous being affectively aware of how you feel. As such it does not take ‘time out’ from engaging your intellect, or digging a hole in the garden, for that matter, to be able to being affectively aware of how you feel while doing this. ANDREW: For example, if I were to give personal examples, which I will not for reasons which the internet has now ensured are sensible, becoming someone who can “feel good” in all circumstances is far more “time out” than can be imagined. Indeed, I would say that it takes a lot more than “time out”, and that “popular imagination” goes not even a fraction of the way to “ensuring it doesn’t happen again”. VINEETO: For a start, it does not take ‘time out’ to notice a change in your affective mood and this is what was conveyed in the above sentence of mine. This is eminently possible for an intelligent human being, for instance –
Then, if one is motivated to get back to feeling good (because it feels good to feel good), one can see the silliness of feeling bad.
Of course, at present for you such application has no appeal because you, never having applied it, consider it “next to useless”. ANDREW: Such advice, while most obviously is orthodox “actual freedom” advice, is next to useless. VINEETO: It is quite risible to label something entirely new to human consciousness as “orthodox”. I understand that you presently find it useless to pay affective attention to your mood. And when all is said and done it is your life you are living. It is you who either reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction that you may or may not do. It entirely up to you. ANDREW: What Henry meant by “spiritual bypassing” I
assume is what is commonly discovered at some point; it’s really difficult to make money. Making enough money to
have some level of freedom is progressively more difficult. VINEETO: Rather than speculating (“I assume”) what Henry meant here is what he actually said –
As you go on to say that one needs “enough money in order to have some level of freedom” then this is clearly your approach/ your interpretation of what freedom is – the materialist understanding of freedom from physical needs. Indeed, making money or providing for the basics needs to stay alive is what all humans have to sort out for themselves. It’s a fact of life. Animals live by the same imperative – to do whatever it takes to survive.
Of course, you can concentrate on the material necessities only and resent that you have to do all this so physically survive – what we are discussing here is how the instinctual survival passions (and the identity formed thereof) make taking care of one’s bodily needs a burden, an emotional suffering, a permanent complaint and a desperate exasperation about the fact of being alive ... and how to change one’s affective attitude and emotional inclination regarding this moment of being alive. A materialist seeks to fulfil their instinctually driven desires as victoriously as possible, whereas the aim of actualism is to enjoy and appreciate being alive (all the while providing the bodily needs) by diminishing the harmful and detrimental influence of the self-centric attitudes and instinctual survival passions. And more than a few have indeed reported that they have successfully done so. As you may, or may not, have experienced, there is an actual world right under your nose. It’s when the instinctual survival passions and identity formed thereof temporarily go in abeyance (giving you a taste of what is possible) … and there is also a way to persuade this identity, ‘you’, to diminish ‘your’ dominance, and eventually give up ‘your’ ghostly existence. One way to begin this process is to become aware of, acknowledge, intelligently contemplate and sensibly give up this basic resentment of having been born in the first place. Even if this was the only thing you do, it would already make your life eminently more enjoyable and less antagonistic as it is now. Henry gave you a clue –
Cheers Vineeto
ANDREW: The idea occurred to me that this fear, the “immediate perfection complex” has to be something that a 2 year old would feel. None of the elaborate stories about art, or anything else can be the source. If indeed it has anything to do with getting things “perfect” at all! It could be anything, but it has to be something formed at and before 2 years old. Potentially some sort of early false self imagination. That in the environment I was, all was scary? It’s encouraging to simplify it all like this. VINEETO: I understand that you are curious to find out when it was and what it was which stifled you, but Richard describing his own dealing with ‘his’ childhood hurts may give you some immediate release from it all – if “‘I’/ ‘me’” who wants “to sustain ‘myself’” can give permission to have them released, that is –
Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: I have this memory from childhood, I was probably 8 or so, and I was getting up for school. I remember it very clearly as the earliest memory of or perhaps even the very formation of ‘my’ resentment. I remember the heaviness that I experienced, to be expected to get up at a time I did not want to and to go to spend a day somewhere I didn’t want to be, doing things I did not want to, with people I did not want to be around, and yet get up I had to! It was a very specific feeling which I know well, this sense of having to forcefully overcome this sense of inertia, fighting against something so heavy, with the entirety of ‘my’ being resisting and yet having to comply. As far as I can see this is the very birth of ‘me’ as the ‘do-er’ of deeds, an entity under the control of a social identity. I could no longer be a kid but rather I was now forced to comply to the various tenets of society, indiscriminately. And I have lived as this ‘do-er’ since, heaving that load each day, in resentment. I write this specifically because this morning it was like the bright light of awareness was penetrating into the very roots of this ‘do-er’ to see what ‘he’ consists of. And as the ‘do-er’ this resentment is ‘my’ primary flavour, the resentment is what keeps ‘me’ as the ‘do-er’ going, and what a tangled web ‘I’ have weaved for ‘myself’ since. And as that bright light of awareness was penetrating to the very root of the ‘do-er’ there was something underneath, but first the ‘do-er’ had to become “untangled”. This sense of the ‘do-er’ being “untangled” was fascinating to observe, because it means that this “inertia” ‘I’ have been painfully overcoming was actually of ‘my’ own making! Essentially as the ‘do-er’ ‘I’ have been forcefully overcoming ‘my’ own resentment - that is what the ‘doing’ is all about. And so seeing that all this activity of the ‘do-er’ was not only painful but unnecessary there was a glimpse of what is underneath that, or perhaps what existed before that, which is naivete – where there is no “heavy lifting”, it is before all the “heavy lifting” of the ‘do-er’ - a different way of ‘being’. What really stood out is just how different of a way of ‘being’ it is, it is not just a
surface level change, this is dissolving something that ‘I’ have lived for perhaps 24 years and re-discovering
something that was underneath it / before it. It really stood out to me that there is such radical change that can
happen even before self-immolation. It makes the point for what has been discussed on this forum recently, that
actualism is not merely a fanciful change in appearance, it is willingly exposing ‘my’ very hiding place and
dissolving all which stands in the way of enjoyment and appreciation. This leads to actual change, not merely a new
set of beliefs whilst ‘I’ remain statically the same.
* KUBA: In the words of my favourite YouTube content creator – “who let me have this much fun?!”. It’s so great to proceed now as a bona fide actualist, patiently dismantling whatever stands in the way of ongoing enjoyment and appreciation, it is indeed the “best game in town”. It is not about the investigation as an end in itself, it is that with each belief dismantled, with each habitual pattern left behind etc there is a palpable increase in happiness and harmlessness. Any genuine change ‘I’ get for keeps, the dividends are paid each moment again. I was thinking this when I was walking to the shops the other day, that it’s cool to develop a new skill in BJJ however the dividends are only paid when I go to practice BJJ, actualism is even better than that, any genuine change I benefit from each moment again for the rest of my life. Yesterday after uncovering resentment I had big cry in the car when driving to train, it was
like the dam broke. It was something like “what the hell have I been doing (‘being’) all this time”.
This resentment was like a blanket of bitterness that covered all of ‘me’ and yet somehow “from the
inside” it remained unseen. Then the blanket was removed and ‘I’ came face to face with the consequences of
it, just what it had been doing al this time. How it got in the way of peace and intimacy between me and my fellow
human beings. And there was this “call for action” in that experience, this intense yearning to set things
right, which it was clear that this ultimately requires for ‘me’ to sacrifice ‘myself’. It was very clear
that altruistic self-immolation is nothing at all like ‘me’ uncovering a belief or acknowledging something
intellectually etc. What it takes for ‘me’ to altruistically sacrifice ‘myself’ is an even more powerful
energy than ‘my’ selfism and it is sourced in an enormous caring and daring, it’s the entirety of ‘my’
being willing to go into extinction now, to set things right once and for all. I saw that this is the only way to
ultimately “make those tears count”. Of course in the meantime I do exactly what I am doing, which is to
proceed down the wide and wondrous path, both for the immediate benefit and eventually the ultimate benefit. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, What a marvellous experience and description of discovering a basic resentment underneath it all and how it “got in the way of peace and intimacy between me and my fellow human beings”, so much so that it made you realise that only ‘self’-sacrifice can resolve this significant obstacle. And even more wonderful that this insight, this “intense yearning to set things right” unleashed the powerful energy of “an enormous caring and daring” which you had walled up in your “precious independence and its resultant splendid isolation” – as Devika so eloquently called it. (Richard’s Journal, p. 218). This powerful energy has been lying dormant for all those years and your yearning for ongoing enjoyment and appreciation has finally set it free. What a wondrous outcome and eminent proof that the actualism method of enjoying and appreciating this moment being alive, each moment again, works miraculously. Life is truly wonderful. I am full of admiration for your daring and caring. Cheers Vineeto
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:
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
KUBA: Hi Vineeto, Thank you for sharing the quote, this resentment that I carry though it has a slightly different flavour, or that’s what it looks like to me anyways… It’s like – “meh, everything is stupid”. To give an example, the other day I was excitedly telling Sonya how the cool art pieces she made with her friend look great on the wall, and as I sat back on the sofa to do so I knocked a cup of tea that was on the arm rest, an accident. But I do not leave it as just an accident, rather it was a result of a “stupid system”, and off I went to create a more “efficient system” for the cups to rest on the sofa. Now the sofa has 2 wooden trays fixed to the arm-rest… Although writing this now it’s something like this – I am uncomfortable with the feelings
which arise when an accident happens or a mistake is made and in an attempt to escape those feelings I desperately
try to create these “perfect systems”, it’s like a coping mechanism. Of course this is far from living
naively, and I am not like this all the time but rather when something happens to trigger anxious feelings. Not to
turn this into a therapy session but my mum was indeed severely punishing of mistakes made when we were young. Hmm, I do recall exactly that feeling when the cup fell, it’s the anticipation of punishment and very quickly I flip this around into finding the fault with the set up, and then I can desperately design a system where no fault will ever be made. And after a lifetime of doing this I have now projected that drama onto the world, now “everything is stupid”. But it does all seem to be a rather elaborate scheme to avoid the feeling of blame from another, it’s why I emotionally reacted to Sonya’s post the other day too. It’s like I am allergic to being blamed! That feeling of being blamed carries a promise with it… that something bad is to happen. Aah and now I understand why I have always appreciated talking with you so much Vineeto, it’s
like I said a while back that I know you will never ever ‘bite’. This 'bite’ is terrifying to me it seems. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, You are right – men in general tend to want to fix problems often before assessing all the causes, including the feelings which might have caused the problem.
Once you are aware which feeling is causing your feeling bad when ‘accidents’ happen (label it), the next thing is to look for the pattern. The way you describe your symptoms it sounds like it’s time to abandon your internal ‘mother’, in other words, the moral and ethical rules, dogmas and concepts, which she has both inherited and passed onto you. It would also explain what you called being a ‘high achiever’ and perhaps why you have difficulty to both be a friend to yourself and to put everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. The resentment is the result of the fact of never, ever being able to be perfect. But wherefrom comes the demand of having to be perfect. And why do you still value this rule/ concept when it keeps making you miserable? Again, it’s to look at both sides of the equation – the bad feelings you don’t like and ‘good’ feelings you want to hang onto. Cheers Vineeto
CHRONO: I don’t resent that I can’t have the one without the other but I do feel a sense of being inconsiderate. But I had some insight into that this past week as well. I had a big argument with my partner regarding my usage of the term ‘introvert’ with her. I had told my friend that she is an ‘introvert’. I did not realize that this was something that bothered her a lot and that she had some insecurities around it. It seemed like not a big deal at all but to her it was. During the argument I was quite taken aback and I insisted that perhaps she is looking at it or approaching it in an improper way. This was basically the whole argument of ‘it’s not what you said but how you said it’. And it was when I was going to sleep I realized that it’s not a matter of if something made sense or not. It’s because I held onto this ideal of being ‘logical’ that I insisted and defended my way of seeing it. It was self-centered of me to disregard her feelings regarding this issue whether it made sense or not. I realize that being ‘logical’ is some big part of being a ‘man’. A ‘man’ is logical and a ‘woman’ is illogical (or so it goes). But being logical or illogical does not bring about peace and harmony. I could only be considerate by dropping more of these parts of ‘me’. She is free to be however she wants to be or feel. VINEETO: I remember ‘Vineeto’ at first being surprised to learn that Richard said he
was not a fan of logic CHRONO: I also noticed another ideal of being ‘open’ in the relationship that I held onto. It seemed nice on the surface, however it seemed to be a license to be ‘myself’ and ultimately disregard the other. I am left wondering what is there in relationship without all this? There’s a strange feeling of blandness remaining. And again I see that thinking itself is circumscribed by it being either ‘good’ or bad’. If it’s not ‘good’ then I automatically I assume that it’s ‘bad’. Perhaps the question is, what is the third alternative? VINEETO: Indeed, some people call “being ‘open’” being honest and, as you discovered, use it as a license to rudely tell people how the feel – which unchecked is certainly not harmless. As I said to Sonya the other day –
Have you noticed that whenever you consider some attitude or ‘truth’ or belief no longer worthwhile holding onto, you instantly present yourself with the opposite as negative as possible to prevent ‘you’ from straying off the ‘straight and narrow’ traditional path. There is of course nothing bland at all about having less and less ‘good’ and bad feelings – being happy and harmless are feelings of the, at times exuberant and vibrant, felicitous variety.
* 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. (…) 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 CHRONO: I am just now reading it in full and I can relate to
it. However what stands in my way at the moment I think is this indignation at what people are doing. Like they are
crazy and I am not haha. It’s strange that I still have this belief. Rather embarrassing almost. I am seeing as I
am writing this, it’s the same thing that I was doing with my partner but now projected onto the rest of the world.
It’s ‘illogical’. ‘If only they would do this, if only they would think like this’. It’s rather funny
because sometimes I feel myself “well-adjusted” and other times feel that I am more crazy than the norm.
And I see a core again that it’s self-centered. At the core is the feeling of being special somehow. This must be
the identity that everyone feels themself to be as well. I feel a reluctance and resistance to seeing this entirely
for some reason. That it means that I have to face the Human Condition directly. It feels like I am stepping into the
“slums”. I’m not sure how to describe it. VINEETO: Ha, Kuba arrived at a similar indignation, describing it in his last post This attitude is indeed born of ‘self’-centredness and ‘me’ defending ‘my’ very existence, as you might feel yourself to be the only one doing something about the mess ‘you’ are and yet know yourself to operate outside the norm of the human condition in many areas. That’s the pioneer’s role and you can rather be appreciative to have the opportunity and the courage to do so. I also recommend reading Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Peasant Mentality Cheers Vineeto
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