January 5 2026

CLAUDIU: In terms of when this segues into naiveté, I’m not sure I can draw a clear demarcation. Everything I describe above really is a naïve approach. Maybe the naïve part really shines when I see that “oh it is just me!” with no moral judgement (‘good’ or ‘bad’), and then “oh I can make the choice!”, in that simple way.

I should clarify a bit here – being naïveté is clearly a distinct thing (an EE really), while being naive has a distinctive flavor as well. It is a feeling and a way of being that is certainly its own thing, distinct from just a general sense of well being. But I don’t know if I can say clearly ‘when’ it starts to happen while doing the above. I’d certainly say taking the sincere approach outlined here engenders naïveté, but not sure if that is so satisfying a way to put it.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

It’s a great topic and I would add that being naïve (eventually) includes an affective felicity and appreciation such as a gay abandon into marvel and wonderment of being alive, allowing a growing magnanimity and increasing self-lessness to flourish. Remember, it is the affective energy of the ‘good’ and bad feelings which is channelled into the affective felicitous and innocuous feelings. Or as Richard described appreciation more eloquently –

Richard: Upon reading or hearing Richard’s oft-repeated “enjoying and appreciating being alive” catchphrase (as in, ‘being here at this propitious place in space at this dynamic moment in time’, for instance) it can, on mirificent occasion, serve as a prompt for marvelling at how well-equipped human beings are – when emerging as suckling babes on this verdant and azure planet which begat the human race and whereat humankind flourishes – inasmuch there is not only an innate awareness of being sentient (which awareness of being conscious no other creatures come equipped with) there is also an inbuilt affective monitor, in the form of hedonic-tone, of the pleasurable-displeasureable status of any and all of the affections which arise out of the rough-n-ready survival package of genetically-inherited instinctual passions. (…). (Richard, Marvelling At How Well-Equipped Human Beings Are)

Richard: To be naive is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless, ingenuous, simple and unsophisticated ... and pure intent manifests in the connection between the intimate aspect of oneself (that one usually keeps hidden away for fear of seeming foolish) and the purity of the perfection of the peak experience. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-a, 16 September 1999).

Perhaps this is also an appropriate opportunity for everyone’s benefit to re-introduce Richard’s suggestion how to be the key to being naiveté – from the “distinctive flavor” of being naïve to the “distinct thing (an EE really)” of being naiveté –

Richard: Given that it is, plainly and simply, always ‘my’ choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment then the optimum manner in which to do so is, of course, sincerely/ naïvely.

Thus the part-sentence in that previous post of mine [quote] ‘and to be sincere is to be the key which unlocks naiveté’ [endquote] is worth expanding upon.

The operative words in that part-sentence are [quote] ‘... to be the key ...’ [endquote] and with particular emphasis on the word ‘be’ (rather than ‘have’ for instance).

In other words, to be sincerity (not only have sincerity) is to be the key (not merely have the key) to be naiveté (not just have naiveté).

(Bear in mind that, at root, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ and it will all become clear).

As there is something I have oft-times encouraged a fellow human being to try, in face-to-face interactions, which usually has the desired effect it is well worth detailing here:

Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself).

Now, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre).

Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté).

Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what.

Here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’.

Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness.

Here is where it is possible to be the key. (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

Cheers Vineeto

January 7 2026

CLAUDIU to Syd: The top-level dichotomy isn’t between ‘affectional’ and ‘actual’ – the “near-innocent intimacy of naïveté” doesn’t fit in either one (it’s not an affectional, as in loving, intimacy, and it’s not actual either)

Also I think that thinking of actual intimacy as a “sensate immediacy” (‘just’ or not) is rather underselling it. It’s not just that you sense the other person, as in visually, ocularly, tactilely etc. There is also the immanence of being with another flesh and blood body, another human being. It is way, way more than just a sensate thing. There’s a delicious aspect to it that comes from being with someone else in and of itself, that is more than the sum of the parts of the senses. Maybe it relates to how one experiences pure intent not sensately, but, with one can say an “existential” sense – perhaps it is that same sense that senses the other’s presence? (Vineeto what you think?)

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

That is a brilliant way of rephrasing it, I could not have done it better myself. The word ‘affective’ includes a lot more than ‘affectional’.

Regarding the word ‘existential’ – I did a search for how the word was used and came across what you wrote referring to pure intent –

Claudiu to Jonathan: One does not experience it via thoughts, feelings, the psyche, *or the senses*, but rather, an existential awareness. (Richard, Claudiu3, 19 February 2014).

As such your use of the word is spot on – there is not really another word for experiencing pure intent. As a cautionary note – for a feeling being there is generally too much going on affectively (psychically) and sensately that, even though possible, the existential sensing almost never gets noticed except for pure intent – it can happen of course, if not confused with psychic sensing. Perhaps the term ‘immanence’ for perceiving the existence in intimacy is perfectly applicable. A watered-down general use of the word ‘existential’ would not benefit clarity in communication. For instance, when you visited Geoffrey and could sense his pure intent personified, that was certainly existential sensing.

As for sensing “the other’s presence” – I usually don’t sense anyone else’s presence outside of a sensate perception, except when there is an extraordinary event happening, for instance when I picked up a sweetness in the near-by town when Richard and Peter were interacting intensively. That would certainly be called an existential sensing event. Similarly, when at your first visit in Ballina I could sense you coming to the edge of the actual world.

Richard: ‘(...) This morning whilst interacting with Peter it [‘the quickening’] was happening for about an hour and a half, between 10:45 AM and 12:15 PM, to quite a marked degree ... to such a marked degree, in fact, that at its peak Vineeto happened to experience it, at 11:28 AM, as she was getting into her parked car in a town about 35 kilometres away. She described it as a ‘sweetness’ (and thus took note of the time)’. (Monday the 17 October, 2011 8:31 PM).
(Richard, List D, Rick, 11 February 2012).

Just for fun I collected a few of Richard’s quotes where he used the word ‘existential’ on List D –

Richard: Indeed she has been interacting with me intensively with that very intention; an existential event of some considerable significance in regard to this intent took place between 3:30 and 4:00 AM on the 28th of August 2011, for instance. (…)

On this occasion, however, it was able to flow freely – it was as if a circuit had been formed betwixt the two of us – and a second, equally potent, surge of that existential immanence followed the first (again in an upwardly direction in and around my head and shoulders region) a short while later. (…)

… those potent surges were of such a magnitude that a rather remarkable man on another continent experienced what he had earlier reported as being a ‘gentle energy’ (which he had further described, then, as being ‘totally harmless’) pouring into him, transfixing him in a sort of immobility (not of the body) and overwhelming him to such an extent that he communicated with me four days later, via email, and we were able to establish, with all due care taken in respect to time-zone differences, that the two events were congruent. (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 9 February 2012).

*

Richard: … the next three months were a period I refer to as being ‘existentially exhausted’ (the epoch-changing events having taken an enormous toll on my resources) wherein I was nursed back to health by a very caring woman (…) and, existentially, I was firing on all sixteen cylinders; the period from then through to the significant existential event of the 28th of August, 2011, already referred in my email you responded to (much further above) was taken-up almost entirely by having the then-current situation move itself forward; it was in the 10-day period between that event and the 7th of October that the finer, crystalline ‘quickening’ had its genesis;

(…)

The second manifestation, starting 10-days after Vineeto became essentially the same as me (how I have been, on my own, all these years) did not come as a surprise – nor that significant existential event itself – as some-such outcome as that was our intent. I was very pleased, however, to no longer have to contain that immensity, that energetic immanence, which is of such a potency, of such a strength, as would previously (on some occasion) render me utterly passive, completely immobile and scarcely able to bear with it. (Richard, List D, Rick, 11 February 2012).

*

Richard: (The feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago – prior to late October/ early November 1992 – could only be existentially aware of pure intent via the direct/ immediate/ unmediated experiencing of the immaculate purity of the vast stillness of this actual universe’s physical infinitude (the ‘everywhere all at once’ source of everything apparent) because there had not previously been someone of sufficient naïveté to have enabled that pristine perfection into becoming purity personified). (Richard, List D, Rick, 28 May 2012).

*

Richard: Now, because the pure consciousness experience (PCE) – where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is in abeyance (unlike an altered state of consciousness (ASC) where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being reigns supreme as ‘Being’ itself) for the duration – experientially demonstrates how each and every identity has no existence whatsoever in actuality then any such offensiveness (previously experienced as affective/ psychic threats to ‘my’ existence/ to ‘my’ very ‘being’) loses its existential sting/ no longer has its dire effect. (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 January 2016).

*

Richard: Obviously, what was required was an in-depth investigation and exploration, an existential uncovering and discovering, a salutary seeking and finding, of the pitfalls and problems which have beset and tormented both genders. (Richard, List D, Andrew, 28 February 2016).

*

Richard: Thus I experientially know, from that ongoing lived reality, how what is nowadays called Buddhism (as well as what has come to be called Hinduism) is not an existential solution to the human condition, as is Actualism, but a salvational solution. (Richard, List D, No. 32, 23 December 2012).

*

Richard: Foreboding: this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 November 2002)

CLAUDIU: Also I really like that post I wrote! I would second (or third, as it were) what I said there (Sweetness in the arms of the other - #10 by claudiu)

VINEETO: It was an outstanding post, I especially liked your description of “jealousy-possession-love bundle”. It certainly comes as a package and everyone smitten with love experiences the rest of the bundle sooner or later. It is impossible to cultivate love without the other unless one wants to become enlightened. The vice-versa is true as well, when you give up jealousy or possession, love disappears – and with attentiveness and awareness can give room to intimacy. This ‘bundle’ is also at the heart of most power battles between the genders.

When Henry said “dissolving into closeness with the other is freedom.” I was reminded of Byron Katie (a woman claiming to be enlightened) saying in an interview –

Sunny Massad: And how was your relationship with your husband’s body?

Byron Katie: Uhhhh. [Sighs.] First time we made love it was just amaaazing. It was radical! Cuz it was God with God. And it was the receiving of it and the giving ah, it was just amazing! (https://realization.org/p/byron-katie/massad.byron-katie-interview/massad.byron-katie-interview.html).

That’s the best one can get within the human condition.

Also your explaining the actual experience of sweetness and the sticky sweetness of affection is excellent. “Naive intimacy and affectionate intimacy are impossible to combine.”

CLAUDIU: Lastly I would say the near-innocent intimacy of naiveté applies not just to people, but to places and things too – there is an immediacy to the surroundings. Richard has oft talked about intimacy with an ashtray, for example, which often amuses people. So this is not something restricted only to being around other people – however, the more you go up the animate scale, the more of that other delicious quality comes into play – e.g. more with a dog than with an ashtray, and more with a human than with a dog.

VINEETO: From your description it seems you know more about it experientially than you let on ��.

Cheers Vineeto

February 14 2026

VINEETO to Syd: Now this may not be the situation in your case but your recent reposting of a quote from Claudiu seems to be an example of a misunderstanding I like to straighten out – (snipped quotes) (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 13 February 2026).

CLAUDIU: Mmm that’s interesting, Vineeto. I did think sensuousness referred to something ‘I’ do, a way of ‘me’ experiencing the world, which leads to apperception – at which point, while apperceptive, there is an actual sensuousness that is intrinsic, but the ‘me’ being sensuous is what allows ‘me’ to allow that PCE to happen.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I have no problem with your writing, and of course for a feeling being there is always in identity operating so the scare quotes are often purely academic. But when Syd singled out this single paragraph for reposting I wanted to avoid a misunderstanding in his mind so as to not emphasise ‘my’ action in the experiencing of a general sensuousness, as in ‘look at me I am being sensuous here’ because that would be counterproductive.

It turned out that he needed this nudge in order to recognize that being sensuous is not “dry” at all, like in the spiritual/buddhistic practice, but can be full of joie de vivre and delight –

Richard: If one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings – happiness, delight, appreciation, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on – in conjunction with sensuousness – then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 26 December 2000)

CLAUDIU: Reading the whole article I can see now how it could be referring to just something that occurs in apperception.

VINEETO: The article is about how attentiveness and sensuousness can lead to apperceptiveness.

CLAUDIU: Can you clarify for the record which it is? You did write (emphasis added):

Vineeto to Syd: It is expanding one’s awareness and wondrous attention beyond one’s favourite “visually appealing things” from which self-less awareness – apperceptiveness – can occur. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 13 February 2026).

The specific point is this: If sensuousness is something from which apperception / apperceptiveness can occur, then it is something which occurs before apperception, i.e. outside of a PCE.

If sensuousness only occurs inside a PCE, then it does not make sense that it is something from which a PCE can occur, since it already would be occurring.

VINEETO: I was simply going by what Richard wrote, for instance here –

Richard: To enable apperceptiveness to haply occur it is essential to allow a reflective attention – attentiveness – to one’s psychological and psychic world. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).

If you analytically take apart the words and try to fit them into a logical concept you will always get into trouble with actualism – it is experiential and the words are describing the experiential event. For instance, when Richard wrote in the 1^st paragraph of the 2^nd section “When one first becomes aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum” apperceptiveness occurs a split second “before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories (…) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept”. So you might say there is a logical contradiction because sequentially it more often occurs when one has allowed attentiveness first.

What is your own recollection when you experience sensuousness? Does it only occur in a PCE? Or can you delight in sensual and sensuous experiencing when feeling happy or feeling excellent?

CLAUDIU: What I was attempting to convey in the initial quote is it’s something ‘I’ do, but not for the purpose of furthering ‘myself’ (i.e. tilting away from actuality), but rather something ‘I’ do for the purpose of tilting towards actuality, i.e. of allowing pure intent, allowing ‘myself’ to marvel at this wonder of being alive, which naive felicity readily lends itself to an EE (if one is not already occurring) and thence to a PCE.

VINEETO: As I said at the beginning, I have no problem with your writing to Adam-B. Of course for a feeling being there is always an identity operating so the scare quotes are often purely academic. I wanted to alert Syd not to emphasize ‘me’ unnecessarily in the experience of being aware, and delighting in, senses operating as they do.

CLAUDIU: Let me know if that clarifies anything. As I write this now it seems to make sense to think of sensuousness as more analogous to pure intent, i.e. something ‘I’ allow to happen but not something ‘I’ do – and when a PCE is happening it is automatic. That does seem to track much better with my experience.

Cheers Claudiu

VINEETO: It’s curious that you now say you “think of sensuousness as more analogous to pure intent” whereas in the beginning of this post you wrote “I did think sensuousness referred to something ‘I’ do”. In either case, pure intent is not something ‘you’ do.

You may find my post to Syd of today informative –

Vineeto to Syd: Whilst you only focus on the words “allow to” I also saw the word “analogous”, (i.e. not exactly, comparable, similar, related) – and so the watering-down process happens. Your analytical, singling-out process does not do you any service when it comes to understanding pure intent, which is always outside of ‘me’. Nothing an identity can experience is in any way comparable to the actual world. It is a different paradigm. A feeling being can only ever lean into the direction of imitating actuality, being well aware that, except in a PCE, it is never the same to the feeling being’s experience. Hence my suggestion below to start by living the sincere intent to become harmless (and thus genuinely happy). (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 14 February 2026).

Sensuousness can be analogous to pure intent but you would know that it is not pure intent per se. Otherwise I fully agree and it is delightful how easy fully enjoyed and appreciated sensual and sensuous experiencing can lead to excellence experience and PCE.

Cheers Vineeto

February 15 2026

CLAUDIU: Hi Vineeto,

VINEETO: I have no problem with your writing, and of course for a feeling being there is always in identity operating so the scare quotes are often purely academic. But when Syd singled out this single paragraph for reposting I wanted to avoid a misunderstanding in his mind so as to not emphasise ‘my’ action in the experiencing of a general sensuousness, as in ‘look at me I am being sensuous here’ because that would be counterproductive.

CLAUDIU: Ok, that makes sense now. The point of confusion is if you were saying that sensuousness is something only occurring in a PCE. And then I found this quote (emphasis added):

RESPONDENT: Richard, in reading your recent contributions to this list, such as the example above, I am beginning to question whether you and I use certain words, such as ‘emotions’ in the same way. For it seems that perhaps I use that word in a more inclusive sense of which your use is a subset. Perhaps your use is more restrictive / precise. For example when you express that communicating via the internet is great ‘fun’ – I equate fun to have an emotional component. If joy and fun are non-emotional, they also are not machine like nor dead. What do you call that vivifying facet of each breathtaking moment if not emotional?

RICHARD: I appreciate that what you want to discuss is the ‘vivifying facet’ … for it cuts straight to the nub of the issue. Put simply: sensuousness and its in-built apperceptive awareness is the vivifying facet. It is the ability to fully enjoy and appreciate being just here – right now – at this moment in eternal time and at this place in infinite space as this flesh and blood body. In this full enjoyment and appreciation is an amazement that all this wondrous event called life is actually happening … and a marvelling at the perfection of it all. (Richard, List B, No. 25g, 8 December 2000).

i.e. that “sensuousness” has an “in-built apperceptive awareness”, and thus I thought it may be actual only.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I am delighted that it makes sense to you now. When you say “actual only” – being actually free automatically includes “apperceptive awareness” as the “vivifying facet”. That also means that the more the identity is in the background, the more one experiences the utterly delightful enjoyment and appreciation of sensuousness. I remember Kuba recently saying –

Kuba: And this experience of literally coming to my senses has been happening since yesterday and today in a way which I haven’t experienced before. It was particularly “vibrant” just before I wrote my post to you yesterday, like the entire world was shimmering with aliveness. And then there is the seeing that in the world of the senses ‘I’ have no existence at all, and where ‘I’ am not, all is pristine.

Fascinating times indeed. (10 February 2026)

CLAUDIU: However I see now that you were just drawing an emphasis away from ‘me’ and towards the object/ point of sensuousness, rather than saying it can’t happen outside of a PCE – and of course, Richard was in that quote describing sensuousness as it occurs whilst apperceptive (PCE or actually free), not excluding that there is a feeling-being sensuousness that a feeling-being can make use of in order to lead towards apperception (much like enjoyment and appreciation itself being actual during a PCE/when actually free, and affective when outside of a PCE!)

VINEETO: Yes, I am pleased you can see that.

*

CLAUDIU: Reading the whole article I can see now how it could be referring to just something that occurs in apperception.

VINEETO: The article is about how attentiveness and sensuousness can lead to apperceptiveness.

CLAUDIU: Yes, that is what I had thought before!

VINEETO: I think the first sentence of the article specifies it most precisely –

Richard: Apperceptiveness is a word describing a condition which happens of its own accord and attentiveness depicts an activity that one vitalises with remarkable verve and vivacity which activates the quality that the word sensuousness specifies. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).

Btw, I read in this thread, in a conversation you had with Kuba earlier, that you “never did like” the article (link). I understand you well because ‘Vineeto’ also did not particularly like the article, it was too confusing for ‘her’. However now, especially when I read only a few sentences here and there, I am impressed at the detail and precision of Richard’s observations and descriptions of how human consciousness operates. Now that there is no identity that might obscure what I read with previous concepts or ideas so as to confuse the content of Richard’s writing, it is treat to read it.

*

VINEETO: If you analytically take apart the words and try to fit them into a logical concept you will always get into trouble with actualism – it is experiential and the words are describing the experiential event.

CLAUDIU: Yes, in this case it made sense though, the from which is logical (and aligns with experience) that it’s something that leads to a PCE as well, not only something in a PCE.

VINEETO: What is your own recollection when you experience sensuousness? Does it only occur in a PCE? Or can you delight in sensual and sensuous experiencing when feeling happy or feeling excellent?

CLAUDIU: It was a matter of what the words refer to – there is something that I was experiencing outside of a PCE that I was calling “sensuousness”, and then I became unsure that that was what to call it. Now I am sure again that it had been the correct word all along.

Sensuousness really beings to shine during an excellence experience, where it takes on an aspect of that magical quality that is intrinsic to PCEs. At that level it really is a wide-eyed wonder at just how amazingly, thoroughly delightful and enjoyable being alive really is! It continues to knock my socks off.

VINEETO: Yes, sensuousness can operate at any time, and the quality of it varies the less ‘you’ the identity interferes with feelings and classifications, and the more magical it can be.

*

VINEETO: It’s curious that you now say you “think of sensuousness as more analogous to pure intent” whereas in the beginning of this post you wrote “I did think sensuousness referred to something ‘I’ do”. In either case, pure intent is not something ‘you’ do.

CLAUDIU: Haha oops. The ‘analogy’ was in the sense of sensuousness being something ‘I’ allow rather than something ‘I’ do. Sensuousness is more like an “allowing” rather than a “I can do it like I can move my hand” kind of thing. It does seem to really take on a life of its own once pure intent is in the picture, which imbues it all with that ‘magical quality’.

VINEETO: Ah, that’s wonderful, especially when it takes on “a life of its own once pure intent is in the picture, which imbues it all with that ‘magical quality’”. That’s what is drawing you irresistible closer and closer to your destiny.

*

Syd: Per Miguel’s paraphrasing, Geoffrey defines [the connection to] Pure Intent as the very “revival” (rememoration) of one’s PCE in this moment right now.

Vineeto [to Syd]: Whereas Miguel correctly said – “That “revival” would be the connection with pure intent, the ‘golden thread’ mentioned by Richard.”

Vineeto [to Syd]: Be careful not to water down the meaning of pure intent for yourself – from revival (rememoration) being “the connection” to pure intent, by putting “[the connection to]” in square brackets. From there it is easy (for the cunningness that one’s identity is) to forget the words in square brackets and equate “the connection” with pure intent itself. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 14 February 2026).

CLAUDIU: Incidentally and for similar avoiding-watering-down purposes, I don’t like that phrasing of “rememoration is the connection with pure intent” (as I wrote here)… because pure intent already (besides being “a manifest life-force; a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe”) is also “an intimate connection betwixt the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté and the pristine-purity of that actual innocence which is inherent to living life as a flesh-and-blood body only”.

I think a better phrasing would be that rememoration is the key to allowing pure intent (my only hesitation is that I’m not sure if it is the only key, so perhaps “one of the keys” is better).

VINEETO: Yes, “one of the keys is better”. You certainly have a gift with words.

CLAUDIU: In any case then we would have that “rememoration is the key to allowing that intimate connection betwixt the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté and the pristine-purity of that actual innocence which is inherent to living life as a flesh-and-blood body only”, as well as “rememoration is the key to allowing the experience of that manifest life-force; that genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe”.

VINEETO: And once the connection is firmly established, pure intent (the universe, so to speak) can run one’s life, as in letting go of the controls, and interruptions or interference by dominant feelings happen less and less.

CLAUDIU: Although it is true all this is experiential and the words can only describe it, it is so much nicer when we can have our cake and eat it too, such that the words used are also more resilient and robust in the face of an analytical taking-them-apart. It won’t matter much for those already with a firm experiential basis (whether actually free or still a feeling being), nor for those feeling-beings who are more intuitive in nature [e.g. the ~90% of the population that is not an “NT” type on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator], but it can perhaps benefit the more analytically-inclined among us [e.g. the ~10% of the population that is an “NT” type, i.e. those of type INTJ/INTP/ENTJ/ENTP].

VINEETO: Ha, I didn’t even look up all those acronyms. But I remember when studying social sciences and psychology at university in my twenties, and after, I jumped at every possibility to figure out how to classify myself according to body-type, emotional or psychological make-up, even in the astrological category and many others. While discovering patters is what the human brain enjoys and is good at, to make certain patterns into ‘self’-classifications/ categorizations (make them a designated feature of one’s identity, like hanging a certificate on the wall) is not very practical when whittling away one’s identity. The human brain is, after all, malleable, else one would not be able to change human nature.

Cheers Vineeto

February 24 2026

VINEETO to Syd: I will stop you right here. When you say you have been “putting personal happiness over harmlessness” you are under the erroneous impression that you have done half of what the actualism of becoming happy and harmless represents by simply following your drives and urges. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd 2, 24 February 2026).

CLAUDIU: Did you read the next part of Syd’s post where he wrote that he recognized that what that phrase you italicized here doesn’t refer to the actualist way of doing things? Emphasis added:

Syd: What I was referring to above in my “established happiness as no. 1 priority” was not this “personal happiness”, but rather genuinely enjoying being alive and going about life however it unfolds, instead of say seeking or fretting emotional validation from others (including Ms. Morel). If I had established this priority, I would not have felt nervous during the dates in the first place, would not have demanded that she feel certain way to me, and certainly would have caught myself falling in love sooner than later.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I appreciate you trying to clarify.

I read the paragraph from Syd several times and after your post came in I read it at least five more times and I still cannot make sense of it.

He says he is “referring to above in my ”established happiness as no. 1 priority“” – but there is not [quote] “established happiness as no. 1 priority” [endquote] that I can find. So what is that “established happiness” referring to? And then he talks about a “personal happiness” which was in the first paragraph I responded, which is a different thing to the “established happiness as no. 1 priority”?

It gives me knots in the brain. Perhaps you have more success in following all this – I lost interest for now.

Cheers Vineeto

May 7 2026

CLAUDIU: The motivation to post is not very high. The main thing that is clear: it is actually relatively easy to temporarily go into those excellence experiences. Then, experiencing and appreciating how superior this is to being more ‘normal’, I ask myself what would it take to just be like this all the time? And the answer is immediate: I would have to give myself up. This isn’t a thought-out answer or conclusion, but what comes unbidden as the clear answer. So there’s a direct connection between those words and what it means, hence the import of it, just glibly saying “ok I’ll give myself up then!” doesn’t work.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I concur with and appreciate James’ comment on this –

James: This does make sense. Of course it is a feeling. What else could it be?

And what prevents you from acting along the lines of the “glibly” throw-away response “ok I’ll give myself up then!” is that it’s not just a feeling, it’s ‘your’ very existence, your instinctual-emotional make-up which is at stake, the very whirlpool of instinctual passions swirling like in a whirlpool – and ‘I’ cannot give myself up in my totality.

• [Richard]: ‘Primarily the identity within is the affections (the affective feelings) – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – as *the instinctual passions form themselves into* a ‘presence’, a ‘spirit’, a ‘being’ ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself. MRI scans, and all the rest, cannot detect a phantom being, the ghost in the machine. (...) Put expressively the affective feelings swirl around forming a whirlpool or an eddy (which vortex is the ‘presence’, the ‘spirit’, the ‘being’): mostly peoples experience ‘self’ as being a centre, around which the affective feelings form a barrier, which centre could be graphically likened to a dot in a circle (the circle being the affective feelings) which is what gives rise to the admonitions to break down the walls, the barriers, with which the centre protects itself.

Those people who are self-realised have realised that there is no ‘dot’ in the centre of the circle ... hence the word ‘void’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 10 June 2003).

Richard: I put it in that expressive way because it is not possible to separate out the feeler from the feelings it is ... just as it is impossible to separate the whirlpool or the eddy – the vortex – from the swirling stuff which is the cause of it (a whirlpool or an eddy – a vortex – of water or air, for example, is the very swirling water or air as the one is not distinct from the other) ... hence ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44e, 9 October 2003).

In other words, it is not just a feeling, it is ‘me’ being all my feelings (‘me’ the identity), which are the crux of the matter … hence your follow-up insightful, very perspicacious suspicion/ discovery.

CLAUDIU: I also am beginning to suspect that the only ‘reason’ I don’t give myself up, is actually not a reason at all, but a feeling! In other words, there’s not some carefully constructed cognitive artifice which lays out all the well-founded reasons to continue being ‘me’. Rather, it’s a feeling, a feeling that I must survive, must continue, which, immediately underneath that feeling, is primordial fear.

VINEETO: Yes. This is what Geoffrey was getting at, which you so well described in the report I quoted to Kuba yesterday –

Claudiu: Only once this is grasped then can the decision be made to take the leap and continue anyway (otherwise you’re just imagining yourself to be on a cliff but you’re really on a flat ground, and you don’t see the edge to jump off of but only think you do). So you have to actually get to the edge of the cliff (seeing the enormity of the extinction) and only then you can decide to jump. [Emphasis in original]. (Actualism, Others, Claudiu-Geoffrey Report, 30 May 2025).

What you are now “beginning to suspect” means that you are getting close “to the edge of the cliff (seeing the enormity of the extinction)”, not as an imagination but as a feeling reality.

CLAUDIU: So the answer then won’t be any thought-out thing (since the problem is not a thought-out thing in the first place), but a, hmm, perhaps me as the feeling really seeing deep down it is nothing other than a feeling? It must not be just that though since then it would already have happened.

VINEETO: Exactly. There is no thought-out answer. The question is, will you be able to dare to get closer to the edge of the cliff, to look at this “primordial fear”, acknowledge it, this instinctual “feeling that I must survive”? Will you dare to feel it out, without pushing it away, without reasoning it away, and explore the very core of what constitutes ‘you’, your ‘being’?

As you said in your report – “then can the decision be made to take the leap and continue anyway”.

CLAUDIU: And so life goes on.

VINEETO: I am reminded of one of Richard’s favourite phrases “to dare to care is to care to dare”.

Seeing the necessity to dare to care comes from observing how in everyday life both one’s words and actions affect those around, and also becoming more and more aware how one’s affective feelings (both expressed and unexpressed) are constantly and inadvertently transmitted and received; realising that one can never be totally harmless, let alone 100% benign and benevolent as a feeling being.

Richard: However, I will take this opportunity to stress just how vital this matter of affective vibes is, in regards to successful actualism practice, as it is central to the ‘feeling harmless’ aspect of such practice (as in the phrase ‘happy and harmless’ that is) inasmuch the whole point is the minimisation – and the ultimate cessation via extirpation of ‘being’ itself – of any malicious feelings and, thus, their resultant transmission as affective vibes throughout the human psyche.

I have, of course, written of this before ... for instance:

• [Co-Respondent]: What was the most harmful action you did to other human beings when being a ‘Richard’? What was the most harmful action you did to other human beings when being a Self? I’m referring to an actual harm and not to a potential for harmful action (be it psychological or physical).

• [Richard]: The most harmful action in both cases (both being ‘human’ and being ‘divine’) operated twenty-four hours of the day: involuntarily radiating affective vibes and transmitting psychic currents ... and the divine vibes and currents, being so powerful, are the most insalubrious and reprehensible. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 24 June 2003).

(…)

And speaking of ‘reception’: all feeling-beings are operating and functioning in a virtual sea of affective vibes (not to mention the far-deeper, longer-ranging and more-powerful ‘psychic currents’/ ‘psychic energies’), swirling around and coming at them from all directions, influencing them affectively/ psychically, pushing and pulling them into involuntarily making all manner of decisions which they might otherwise not make (and later regret).

Claudiu recently referred to theses vibes as [quote] ‘completely permeating the space around us’ [endquote], in a post to this forum, and how [quote] ‘each person was like a little dot in that vibespace, somehow picking it up & affecting it’ [endquote]. (Actualism, Others, Claudiu’s Report, 24 October 2013)

(Richard, List D, No. 15, 28 October 2013)

What a thrilling suspicion/ discovery!

Cheers Vineeto

May 22 2026

CLAUDIU: Actualism is quite a wonderful thing

What a contrast to what it would otherwise be, for them to be smart or to accomplish this or that or be financially or romantically successful or have kids of their own or … this way it really simplifies and avoids any and all of those pitfalls of wishes or desires I’d have for him.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

Congratulations for having become a father of a “1-month old son” now. It is not only exciting but also a significant change in your life, as you already indicated that you are now thinking about his future and what would be best for him.

Setting your priorities for him to “enjoy and appreciate being alive” can be much fun for you and your partner as well.

*

In regards to “I’d rather put it that sorrow is the flip-side of malice” in another thread is correct in that both malice and sorrow are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’.

Richard: Malice and sorrow are intrinsically connected and constitute what is known as ‘The Human Condition’. (…)

Respondent: The ending of sorrow is love.

Richard: If I may point out? The ending of sorrow is not love ... sorrow is essential for compassion to flourish; without compassion, love has no genesis. Therefore, the ending of sorrow would result in love being stillborn ... and love is the antidote for malice.

Without malice, love has no raison d’être. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74c, 27 April 2005).