Viz.:

*

The next task at hand for me, when Richard returned from India for me was to become free from what I had termed ‘the Guardian’, i.e. “conscience-cum-guardian (as portrayed by Peter who first drew attention to its indistinct wraithlike presence, in January 2010, and as confirmed by Vineeto shortly after.)” (Richard, Formation and Persistence of Social Identity).

Of course this first requires one to observe and acknowledge that the social identity is still operative after becoming free from the instinctual passions and the identity formed thereof. Viz:

VINEETO to Alan: (...); I can fully relate to No. 15’s statement that –

• [Respondent No. 15]: “I had the impression when I first became newly free that apperception was occurring all the time”. (see Richard, List D, No. 15, 15 February 2012).

This was exactly my experience just after becoming actually free (and not merely an impression), and it was so startling and so exactly as Richard had described it that I was just amazed, and revelled in this 360 degree awareness. The experience of apperception also included that everything (regarding knowledge and memory of experience) is at your fingertips but only activated when needed. There was an incredible clarity of mind, wonder and amazement, just as I described it in the first reports of the direct-route-mail-out.

However, as Richard reported on ‘List D’ quoted below, as I interacted more and more with people and everyday affairs, I started to become aware of certain behaviour patterns continuing and a diminution of the startling clarity of the first few days after becoming free. In other words, the guardian, “the shadowy remnants of the social identity”, established itself and influenced how I was behaving and experiencing myself.

• [Richard]: For example, due to this wealth of hands-on experiencing, there is now sufficient data to have established a trait common to the first wave of pioneers ... to wit: the persistence of a (pseudo) identity – the shadowy remnants of the social identity (which, being a societal construct and not instinctual in nature, lingers on as a ‘guardian’ until the transitional process is complete) – which can arrogate bodily control and dictate how an actual freedom *should* be acted out. (Richard, List D, No. 40, 20 May 2013).

This is not only understandable, given the radical change that an actual freedom from the instinctual passions is, but possibly also necessary to ensure a non-disruptive transition from feeling being to being fully actually free.

However, by the time Richard returned from India, I was ready and eager to put the ‘guardian’ to rest, and move towards a full actual freedom, and Richard and I had many intensive conversations to bring this about sooner rather than later. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Alan, April 29, 2018).

Mind you, *do not* take my report as a template, which one is obliged to follow – this is exactly what a ‘Guardian’ would do – dictate how the basically free person has to operate, in other words laying the rules for ‘an actually free social identity’. 

Because I was the first of the pioneers who had become free after the Direct Route was opened by Peter and Richard, I had no template to follow, I simply followed pure intent, common sense and Richard’s guidance to purity.

Everyone has their own set of inculcated social identity values which may or may not have been recognized and investigated before becoming basically free and as such one has to discover for oneself what remains to be done.

*

Here is the conversation I had with Geoffrey on this matter –

GEOFFREY: What about allowing the experience of infinitude before the total abdication of the guardian?

Is it impossible (the guardian, being an ‘identity’, taints the experience), or just not conducive to progress, or something else?

I thought this increasing experience of infinitude would be at least an element of this abdication of the guardian. « See, I can take it, I don’t need you ». Or maybe that the ‘light’ of this experience would ‘burn’ the guardian so to speak.

VINEETO: I am well aware that the data pool of experience is very small – in fact, I am the only person so far who proceeded from a basic actual freedom via the direct route to a full actual freedom (Richard became actually free via enlightenment and his own process was similar but slightly different). Nevertheless, it is the only process that has worked so far, so you can assess what I have to report according to your own intelligence.

The guardian is called the guardian because it guards your thoughts, words and behaviour according to the beliefs and values inculcated by the society you live in. This guardian is shadowy as it is not backed up by instinctual passions and a feeling being, but it still has the qualities of a more or less coherent identity, *dictating* how an actual freedom *should* be acted out, including how the progress to a full actual freedom should be acted out (thus ensuring the genuine full freedom will not happen). For a full actual freedom to happen you need to leave humanity well and truly behind.

As such, according to my experience, as well as from some interactions with basically free people, the guardian does not simply “burn” out – I found that it needs to agree to abdicate just as the feeling being needed to agree to its demise.

With all that in mind, of course you allow the experience of infinitude as much as you can bear but the *purity* of the perfection of this infinitude can only be permanently experienced, when the guardian is no longer extant. Until then you can have a taste of it for short periods, comparable to the PCE for a feeling being. (...)

I found that the best way to make the guardian less substantial was to find remnant beliefs and replace them with facts, and to examine if and how any of my attitudes were influenced by/based on societal morals and ethics. (ActualVineeto, Geoffrey, 21 December 2018).

Geoffrey could appreciate the information – 

December 26, 2018

GEOFFREY: Thank you very much for your detailed answer!

VINEETO: Is it possible that your guardian could be somewhat influencing the interpretation of your overwhelming experience of infinitude ?

GEOFFREY: It is not only possible, but indeed certain. That is what happened. I saw it happening. The experience was just finished that the guardian had already started a process of interpretation, maybe of ‘appropriation’ of the experience. And it went on and on. Changing the memory of the experience so that it fits with its beliefs (here: scientific and philosophical beliefs about the universe, consciousness, etc.).

It appears that I needed to hear you say this though, to accept it fully. The consequences are huge.

[Vineeto]: … including how the progress to a full actual freedom should be acted out (thus ensuring the genuine full freedom will not happen).

This makes perfect sense. And I’m quite stunned that I hadn’t grasped how important this is before.

I now see the necessity of the total abdication of the guardian. And the parallels to the situation prior to self-immolation.

I’m very grateful, your answer has given me quite the realisation.

VINEETO: Hi Geoffrey,

I am glad you can see it for yourself. The consequences are indeed huge.

For feeling beings it easily happens that when they read The Actual Freedom Trust website they inadvertently replace certain key words with words familiar to them and more fitting to their own preconceived convictions – I have seen this many times in Richard’s and my own correspondences with others. (...)

However, when the instinctual passions and the feeling being formed thereof are extinct it is, of course, much easier to diligently re-examine any false notions one may have picked up about what is actual.

I wish you fun to play the detective with yourself and detect those preconceived notions from all areas of life (‘scientific’, philosophical, political, social, medical, etc), and while doing it, you may also discover some of the various and ubiquitous scams that have been played on a gullible public.

After all, everything that has been written about any topic – absolutely everything – has been written by feeling beings. Richard wrote many times that whichever area he looked into facts were few and far between.

I had sometimes confusing and disorienting periods during this time of becoming fully free as I discovered the implications and ramifications of this infinite, eternal and perdurable universe from my original self-centric perspective, and Richard had to remind me that the human condition is weird and as such coming out of it will also be experienced as weird at times. It’s par for the course. (ActualVineeto, Geoffrey, 26 December 2018).

Five days later I wrote the following to Srinath) –

VINEETO: It is well observed – the social identity (even sans instinctual passions) not only wants to still run the show, it does. The longer you observe yourself in action the more you will see how it not only creates a ‘buffer’ for the direct experience of the actual world but endeavours to fit you back into humanity at large and your social group(s) in particular despite the ‘handicap’ of having no instinctual passions. As you can see it is back-ward oriented as it was formed while you were a feeling being to keep any excess of one’s instinctual passions in check.

Personally, when I negotiated my way towards freedom from the (overall well-meaning but now inadequate) ‘guardian’ (i.e. the social identity), the main question was – will I be able to be safe and harmless without the guardian watching over me?  So I checked myself out in interactions, in various social situations with the intent to determine if I would be safe, and harmless, without the rules and regulations (morals and ethics), preconceived notions and automated behaviour patterns and eventually determined that I will be. Now that there are no instinctual passions, and no wayward feeling being, the role of the guardian is indeed obsolete. Once the guardian was fully satisfied as to this fact, it happily abdicated (as I have described in the paragraph you quoted below).

SRINATH: From what I understood of your own process, full freedom required the abdication of ‘the guardian’ before you could fully allow infinitude and become fully free.

VINEETO: Yes.

SRINATH: I would like to ask you some questions about that process.

On the AFT you wrote:

[Vineeto]: “... By the time Richard returned from India, I was ready and eager to put the ‘guardian’ to rest, and move towards a full actual freedom, and Richard and I had many intensive conversations to bring this about sooner rather than later.”

“... About 6 weeks 9 days after Richard’s return a day came when, sitting at the dining table of his houseboat, I briefly experienced myself as two – the (shadow) identity of the guardian and the actual Vineeto. I experienced the relief of the guardian to be finally able to confidently lay down the burden of guarding over the newly-free Vineeto and then it faded with a sense of having a job well-done to the end and gladly being finally redundant. Suddenly there was only one me, the actual me, fresh and innocent, a bit like a kid alone in this wonderful playground of the actual world. I was still not fully free then, and many more things had to happen, but a decisive event had occurred to bring me closer to a full actual freedom.” (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Alan, April 29, 2018).

Q1 Would you say that this abdication was roughly analogous to self-immolation (you had no self to immolate then, so I know it could not have been the exact same process)?

VINEETO: No, I never thought of it that way. The intent to become actually free had occasionally activated the full force of the ‘self’-survival instincts and the extent of cunning an identity is capable of. The process of having the guardian agree to the sagacity of its abdication was quite a rational reasoning process.

However, should a basically free person abandon the pure intent to become fully free and thus become complacent and entrenched within the shadow identity of their social guardian they would be thinking and acting similar to their former self, but without the fierceness of the instinctual passions – like a toothless tiger. Then the very idea to have this newly established identity abdicate can produce some strong resistance. It’s a matter of one’s mettle, I suppose.

Either way, the world would be a much more peaceful place if everyone became free from the instinctual passions and the feeling being formed thereof, even if they did not venture into a full, meaning-of-life, actual freedom (which is why it is called peace-on-earth freedom).

I remember having a sort of internal dialogue with ‘me’, the guardian, and thereby discovered its desire to lay down its burden, and eventually reached a satisfactory understanding that as this body I am indeed perfectly capable of looking after myself without the guardian.

Here is how I described my experiencing right after the moment of the abdication of the guardian on September 12, 2010 –

[Vineeto]: “I was as if left on what appeared like a launching pad, and like a new-born child I slowly started to orient myself in this utterly new world. Apperception informs me of the stillness that is the very basis of the universe and that I am this very stillness. Stillness is the constant background to whatever event happens during my waking hours and all events arise and subside into this very stillness. A clarity in thinking operates effortlessly and apperception works exactly as I experienced at the moment of becoming free – all information gathered in my life from observation, thinking, learning and sensate experiencing is available as and when required while when not required my mind simply returns to neutral – and stillness becomes again apparent. Out of this stillness arises wonder, amazement and appreciation, and I am continuously marvelling at the magical perfection of this peerless universe.” (Private correspondence November 2012).

(Actualism, ActualVineeto, Srinath, 1 January 2019).

“What happen for me on the 12^th of September was what we call ‘completion’ – an event whereby I experienced with immutable surety that any shadow identity, any remnants of old habits and previous mindsets of the identity disappeared forever, leaving me at first ‘like a child’ in this actual world, naively marvelling at the magic and amazing immediacy of this fairy-tale-like wonderland. I immediately became aware of being utterly autonomous, beholden to no-one. Stillness not only became significantly apparent as the basis to everything, I was apperceptively aware that I am this stillness – the stillness that is everywhere at once, out of which all events arise and subside into. In the ensuing days, as I became more accustomed to the enormity of being here naked as it where (without being able to revert to old habits or old ways of experiencing), the perfection of this universe became a constant experience.” (Private correspondence 29 November 2012).

As a general approach, and after extensive discussions with Geoffrey, the way forward after becoming basically free is to recognize and identify the nature of you, the guardian/social identity, as setting and policing the rules and parameters for your social behaviour as an actually free person. The best way to reduce this policing influence is to allow pure intent whenever there is a window of opportunity to do so. From this vantage point of pure intent pay close attention how you, the guardian/social identity, endeavours to recapture you away from pure intent, and begin to investigate the patterns of social rules and behaviour which entrap you in the defined area of your social identity (remember: “The presence of social identity, with regards to infinitude, acts like a centre.”).

I also suggest not to let the guardian berate one aspect of itself against another aspect. All that your guardian knows and is trained for is the requirements within the human condition – it knows not of pure intent. It is counterproductive to blame or denigrate the way it operates, just as it is counterproductive to be in conflict with yourself when you aim to become actually free. What you can do is follow pure intent instead *whenever* you become aware that you have a choice. The guardian, i.e. all aspects of your social identity including peasant mentality, need to be sufficiently satisfied that it is safe to lay down its burden of guarding you and disappear – any internal conflict is a distraction and getting in the way of that (shared) objective. In other words, your investigations into the guardian are a friendly affair to not follow any backwards-oriented suggestions but to sensible demonstrate that its concerns are no longer valid or necessary. 

As for the detailed investigations into your social identity, Richard delineates how this identity formed in ‘him’ –

• [Respondent]: ‘You claim that ‘this body called Richard hosts no identity whatsoever’. I would like to understand more deeply what it is that the body called Richard does not host. What do you mean by ‘identity’?

• [Richard]: ‘I was born in Australia, of an English/Scottish Hong Kong-born father and an English/English Australia-born mother. With this British background, I was enculturated into believing that I was, literally, an Australian citizen ... but with British blood. Now, blood is blood ... there is no such ‘thing’ as an ‘Australian’, an ‘American’, a ‘German’, a ‘Japanese’ and so on. Thus the wars and the suicides – the blood shed and the tears shed – are precipitated because of the absurdity of identification ... is not all this acculturation ridiculous! However, as an infant, a child, a youth and then a man, I was so programmed as to be unable to discriminate fact from fiction. I had no terms of reference that I could use as a standard to determine which was which, as every single human being on this planet was not simply a flesh and blood body ... but similarly conditioned into being an ‘ethnic’ human being.

Thus I bought the whole package. Hook, line and sinker.

As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was deeply mired in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ acculturated ethnicity ... ‘I’ was brainwashed into being a ‘man’ and not simply a flesh and blood male body. Under the enculturated layers lies a further identity ... the genetically-inherited animal ‘self’. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. By identification as ‘me’, a psychological/psychic entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’ ... I discovered that a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body and that this ‘walk-in’ was ‘me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12a, 28 January 1999).

You can find a lot more about the social identity in the article The Formation and Persistence of Social Identity. (Richard, Formation and Persistence of Social Identity). I will only list here the 10 ways the social identity can be classified –

[Richard]: This increated socio-cultural inwit a.k.a. conscience a.k.a. guardian – colligated under the rubric “social identity” for convenience – encompasses various bodiless personae as well. Viz.:

01. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a vocational identity (identifying as an ‘employee’/ ‘employer’, ‘worker’/ ‘pensioner’, ‘junior’/ ‘senior’, ‘peasant’/ ‘squire’ a.k.a. ‘villein’/ ‘lord’, and so on).

02. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a national identity (identifying as ‘English’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’, ‘Nigerian’, ‘Korean’, and so forth).

03. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a racial identity (identifying as ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘brown’, etcetera, or whatever ethnicity nomenclature is the latest fashion).

04. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a religio-spiritual identity (identifying as a ‘Hindu’, a ‘Muslim’, a ‘Christian’, a ‘Buddhist’ ad infinitum).

05. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of an ideological identity (identifying as a ‘Capitalist’, a ‘Communist’, a ‘Monarchist’, a ‘Fascist’ and the like).

06. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a political identity (identifying as a ‘Democrat’, a ‘Tory’, a ‘Republican’, a ‘Liberal’ and all the rest).

07. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a class or caste identity (identifying as an ‘aristocrat’/ ‘commoner’ (as in, ‘the gentry’/ ‘the peasantry’), ‘patrician’/ ‘plebeian’ (Latin), ‘noblesse’/ ‘roturier’ (French), ‘ariyan’/ ‘puthujjana’ (Pāli), ad nauseam throughout the ages.

08. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a familial identity (identifying as ‘son’/ ‘daughter’, ‘brother’/ ‘sister’, ‘father’/ ‘mother’, ‘uncle’/ ‘aunt’, and the whole raft of relatives).

09. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive of a sex identity (identifying as ‘boy’/ ‘girl’, ‘man’/ ‘woman’).

10. The term ‘social identity’ is also inclusive, nowadays, of a gender identity a.k.a. sexual orientation identity (identifying as ‘asexual’/ ‘bisexual’/ ‘homosexual’/ ‘transvestite’ a.k.a. ‘cross-dresser’/ ‘transsexual’ a.k.a. ‘transgender’/ ‘gender-queer’ a.k.a. ‘queer’ / and, colloquially, an ‘alphabet-soup’ of initials.

Richard: Notwithstanding its phantasmicality, and whether sexualised or not, this aeriform socio-cultural persona can be remarkably persistent – as the shadowy remnants of a lingering conscience-cum-guardian (as portrayed by Peter, who first drew attention to its indistinct wraithlike presence, in January 2010, and as confirmed by Vineeto shortly after) – when newly free from the human condition (and even with a basic actual freedom as the weeks, months, and years roll by) due to being an inculcated entity and therefore relatively unaffected (other than abruptly rendered a ‘toothless-tiger’ as it were) by the extinction of the instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof at the pivotal moment/ definitive event whereby becoming newly free from the human condition transpires.

As this incorporeal social identity, being a socio-culturally-instilled and parentally-inculcated entity, and not instinctually-based, is not rendered completely null and void consequential to the extinction of the instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof, a period of accommodation and adjustment and acclimatisation, all throughout the normal day-to-day life, with diligent attention paid to any and all attempts on the part of those shadowy remnants to coalesce and reassert control – and dictate how an actually free person *should* think, operate and behave – ensures the habituated patterns of a life-time eventually cease. (Richard, Formation and Persistence of Social Identity, 03).