November 16 2025

ED:

‘Vineeto’: The way I approached the task of becoming harmless was that I first sought to stop any of my harmless harmful actions or verbal expressions of harm towards other people. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 49, 16.5.2003)

Heads up – I think you used ‘harmless’ when you meant harmful. “I first sought to stop any of my harmless [edit-harmful] actions or verbal expressions of harm towards other people.”

VINEETO: Hi Ed,

I appreciate you pointing out the mistake, undiscovered for decades – I have now corrected it on the website.

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Richard: Not at all ... the word ‘harmless’ means ‘lacking intent to injure, devoid of hurtful qualities, marked by freedom from strife or disorder, innocuous free from guilt; innocent, blameless, faultless, irreproachable, lily-white; safe, non-dangerous, gentle, mild, peaceful, peaceable’. (Richard, List C, No. 4b, 7 May 2000a).

VINEETO: Are you really saying that all the above qualities are covered by the term “feeling harmless”?

ED: Yes – exactly. “Harmless” is defined by the qualities Richard listed. What is the difference between feeling and being? I don’t understand why “feeling harmless” would not include the above qualities but “being harmless” would.

I’m trying to understand how the two are being distinguished. Could you describe the qualities of being harmless vs feeling harmless, and point out where feeling harmless falls short? The following quote seems to clarify things more for me:

VINEETO: Being harmless also means to look at the practical consequences of your feelings, vibes, words and actions.

ED: I’m trying to understand the distinction between the two: being harmless vs feeling harmless. It seems what’s being pointed out is that being/ becoming harmless is a more encompassing affair than feeling harmless. That one doesn’t just consider how one feels, but also considers how those feelings effect their thoughts, actions, and other people. (And takes it beyond consideration into an actualization).

Is that it? That feeling harmless only takes into consideration how one feels?

VINEETO: Yes, “feeling harmless only takes into consideration how one feels”, not what is factually the case. If your arbiter (your feelings) consider it good enough when you merely feel harmless no matter if this is factually the case, that you are practically being harmless, then a lot of harmfulness flies under the radar, so to speak.

As Kuba said a few days ago –

Kuba: And just like one can attend to the smaller and smaller dips in enjoyment and appreciation I find in BJJ I am focused on progressively smaller things, in that an unexperienced opponent is looking at big and rudimentary motions whereas I am paying attention to whether I can feel the weight on the toes or the heels, or if the elbow is up or down etc.

So habituation is key to any skill, in that once something is habituated it takes care of itself and now the mind is able to attend to the next thing.

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VINEETO: In other words, putting the bar so high that you won’t be harmless until you are actually free, you (inadvertently?) stymie yourself from the start – or perhaps have a valid-to-you justification to be content with merely feeling harmless.

ED: The bar isn’t set by me – the PCE makes it clear what it means to be actually harmless.

Becoming more a bit more harmless is only ever a small step away from where I’m at any given moment and much more realistic than a giant leap to become a lot more harmless.

VINEETO: Yes, actualising bit-by-bit is the way it works – you change yourself slowly to a more happy and more harmless person and notice the increasingly finer nuances where there is a diminution in feeling good or when there are occasions where you felt harmless but nevertheless thoughtlessly caused ripples in people’s life.

ED: I think part of my confusion in this matter stemmed from me considering “feeling” and “being” in a different context – such as how they are used here:

RICHARD: (…) it is also to no avail to vociferously state, for example, that [quote] ‘‘I’ have NEVER been king of the show’ [endquote] because it is ‘me’, at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), who fundamentally determines behaviour/ appearance by ‘my’ very presence (‘my’ affective vibes/ psychic currents are ‘me’).

Put succinctly: there is more to identity than just the ego-self … much, much more.

RESPONDENT: Okay … then I want to find out what it is that’s more to it.

RICHARD: As simply as possible: it is who you feel yourself to be at the very core of your being (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 103a, 14 October 2005).

VINEETO: I don’t understand how this quote from Richard causes confusion about the difference between feeling harmless (as a subjective feeling) and being harmless (as an objective reality)? Even though, whilst you are a feeling ‘being’ until you are actually free, you can nevertheless aim to become increasingly harmless until you are virtually without malice. A practical example might help.

Look, if you wanted to employ a driver for your company, would you choose one who feels that they are a good and careful driver or choose the one who demonstrates that they are a good and careful driver?

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VINEETO: … or perhaps have a valid-to-you justification to be content with merely feeling harmless.

ED: Well don’t forget also feeling happy; which in conjunction means to be as free from malice and sorrow as humanely possible while remaining a ‘self.’ The innocuity and felicity that ensues is a different quality than my reactive feelings that depend on conditions.

But I think my issue is I’m failing to grasp the difference between merely feeling happy and harmless and being happy and harmless. Is merely feeling happy and harmless not enough because it’s a temporary affair, just aimed at feeling that way momentarily but not a fundamental change? Whereas becoming happy and harmless is something more involved, changing one’s very being?

VINEETO: There, you wrote it yourself “to be as free from malice and sorrow as humanely possible”, not just to feel as free from malice and sorrow as humanely possible. As I said at the beginning, feelings are not reliable arbiters of what is factual, whereas when you are being sincere, your own sincerity aims for “being aligned with factuality/ staying true to facticity”.

Cheers Vineeto

November 17 2025

ED: Thank you for the response, it’s afforded me a lot of clarification.

VINEETO: Hi Ed,

You are welcome and I am pleased a lot became clearer to you.

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VINEETO: If your arbiter (your feelings) consider it good enough when you merely feel harmless no matter if this is factually the case, that you are practically being harmless, then a lot of harmfulness flies under the radar, so to speak.

ED: Yes I agree. What tends to fly under the radar are all those minor feelings of upset-ness that can be managed and overlooked by the arbiter. Instances of honest mistakes which lead to harm are one thing, but those cases are few-and-far between (hard to remember any!). At the centre of the majority of memories of being harmful is how I felt – no matter how it was managed or rationalized, or how beautiful or righteous it may have seemed.

VINEETO: Ok, you already gave indications where you can direct your affective attention regarding being harmless – whenever you ‘manage’ or ‘rationalize’ a negative feeling, the feeling is still there (including the vibes) and the cause of the particular feeling is not addressed and therefore will surface again at the next opportunity.

The other give-away are your words “how beautiful or righteous it may have seemed”. Neither “beautiful” nor “righteous” are felicitous/ innocuous feelings. Beauty is one of the qualities of godliness, stemming from the core philosophical/ religious concept of Hinduism and via trickle-down effect all religions –

Satyam Shivam Sundaram is a Sanskrit phrase meaning “Truth, Godliness, and Beauty” and is a core philosophical concept in Hinduism. It suggests that truth is divine, and divinity is beautiful, representing ultimate values and a path to spiritual enlightenment. It is a way of describing the nature of the Supreme Being and the ideal path of human existence, emphasizing authenticity, goodness, and the appreciation of beauty. (…)

Sundaram (Beauty): This represents excellence and all that is beautiful, not just physically, but also the inner beauty of a virtuous soul and the natural world. It is the manifestation of truth and goodness in its most alluring form. (Google: satyam shivam sundaram religion).

And:

Richard: As you can see Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti specifically says [quote] ‘do not think’ [endquote] which indicates there being no thinker when the outside is the inside ... meaning that there is no thinker when the observer is the observed.

Thus the ‘observer’ being referred to is the feeler, not the thinker ... for example (also from the same e-mail):

‘It is essential to appreciate beauty. The beauty of the sky, the beauty of the sun upon the hill, the beauty of a smile, a face, a gesture, the beauty of the moonlight on the water, of the fading clouds, the song of the bird, it is essential to look at it, *to feel it*, to be with it, this is the very first requirement for a man who would seek truth. (...) So it is essential to have this sense of beauty, for *the feeling of beauty is the feeling of love*’. [emphases added]. (‘Fifth Public Talk at Poona’ by J. Krishnamurti; 21 September 1958).

(Richard, List B, No. 42c, 30 December 2002).

As such the feeling of being beautiful can be quite misleading regards being harmless, for some people it is a tag for sexual attraction. Richard’s selected correspondence on Beauty will give you an overall understanding why the feeling of beauty is not a felicitous feeling.

As to “righteous” – the terms righteous anger and righteous indignation should give you a clue. It is one’s reliance on what one considers right or wrong, according to the real-world moral and ethical codes, which then gives one the ‘right’ to feel or act in a particular way.

Whereas when your aim of being harmless is informed by the PCE then it would not be backed up by being ‘right’ but rather in line with pure intent – an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself.

ED: The method and its facilitatory practice are so effective because it puts each and every blip of malice and sorrow on the radar such that they can no longer be ignored. And calibrating oneself towards the absence of malice and sorrow is an excellent way to avoid the pitfalls of personally determining what happiness and harmlessness is (i.e. based on my pre-existing standards rooted in the instinctual passions and accompanying morals).

Cheers, it’s a wonderful journey.

VINEETO: This is excellent – when it gets to fine-tuning it is truly fun.

Cheers Vineeto