November 28 2025

FELIX: Another thing I found instrumental was the following quote from Vineeto upon Richard’s death, which I recently reread:

Vineeto: Allow any affective energy of shock or sadness to transform and express itself as a deep and abiding appreciation – for Richard’s discovery and words, for the fact that an actual freedom is available now – and further a deep and abiding appreciation for the purity and perfection that exists everywhere around you, both in the natural world (the Four Affect-Free States of Matter) and in human beings including your own flesh-and-blood body (as a potential, apparent in your and other people’s kindness, brought to the fore by your own deep and ongoing appreciation of each person you come in contact with).

Now is the time, don’t waste the opportunity, there is immense potential in this moment, the energy of appreciation freely available in the pure web of human consciousness (called ‘action potential’) to be tapped into if you only allow it. It may be overwhelming at first but it can melt down any barriers you might still have and … set you free. (Actualvineeto, to the List at Large, 7 Jun 2024).

The above made me realise that my attempted object of appreciation was not this moment (including other people, the world around me), but rather an ethereal/ non-existent/ imagined target of projected perfection – a hope of the actual world that repeatedly never eventuated (and thus reinforced a sense of disappointment and failure which kept me perpetually locked out of feeling good).

VINEETO: Hi Felix,

Welcome back. I am pleased to hear you are much better now and seemed to have identified this “ethereal/ non-existent/ imagined target of projected perfection” which created such havoc in your life before.

I appreciate you found, and put to excellent use, my first post to this list regarding the significance of appreciation, which was powerfully obvious to me after Richard died.

FELIX: In other words, I saw after reading Vineeto’s words that what was required and POSSIBLE was a total relational change between me and “my life” via this moment – in other words a totally down-to-earth and genuine appreciation for being alive, rather than an imagined one. Like I said, now having more of a balanced life (one that would typically give a feeling being a sense of general enjoyment and stability, compared to, say, a tumultuous and chaotic one) seems to have made this step a lot easier than it was before.

VINEETO: It is wonderful to hear of your “sense of general enjoyment and stability” now – you really had to ‘work hard’ to recognize and remove this culturally-ingrained obstacle to feeling good and liking yourself.

My best wishes.

Cheers Vineeto

November 30, 2025

FELIX: Hey Vineeto, thanks for the encouragement and lovely to hear from you.

I don’t know exactly what animated me to write that post in exactly the way I did – I was in a particular state at the time (feeling good but there was something maybe a little bit… enlightenmenty with some lofty blissful feelings getting mixed in that I could detect) and it’s not my usual way of writing. It reads a bit haughty in retrospect but I had no self consciousness about writing it at the time!

VINEETO: Hi Felix,

Good to talk again.

Don’t be coy about the insight of having identified this "ethereal/ non-existent/ imagined target of projected perfection" as having been your "attempted object of appreciation". This "ethereal … target of projected perfection" is exactly what prevented you from appreciating what is right under your nose, and what enormous benefit to be rid of it. I know from other correspondences that many had similar difficulties.

Here Richard described how it was for ‘Vineeto’ –

It can be a tumultuous process at first, to clearly and fully understand that actualism is not at all like the real-world or spiritual world way. It is indeed an entirely new paradigm [prototype] to human consciousness.

FELIX: When in less lofty territory I am currently "practising" the method in the most basic way. It amazes me that it works but it’s also clear that there are a number of blockers that can stop the actualism method from being straightforward and obvious.

VINEETO: It’s good to always get back to "the most basic way" – because it is really very simple. Only when one wants to make it sophisticated one gets entangled in one’s own mind-games.

FELIX: The main thing being of course, the nature of feelings themselves. They are very strong and once a particular mood or emotion has come about, it can be (apparently to oneself at the time) very hard to shake. I notice a tendency in myself to either deny ("everything’s fine and life’s good") or to wallow (clinging harder to the emotion, indulging it, having feeling-led thoughts and fantasies about it all).

I wouldn’t say the feelings are arbitrary though (though in a global sense, yes they are). Following them and listening to them you can kind of feel out their origin, their "message" and the type of worldview that they paint. For example I’ve identified a kind of sorrow I sometimes get that causes me to separate myself from the entire world – usually triggered by major failure. It’s a childish (and fairly likely rooted-in-childhood) kind of "everyone wants to hurt me" sorrowful feeling with a scorched earth "nothing will ever be good enough" bent. I don’t feel it that often – I’m more likely to experience what I’ve identified as it’s counterpart – which is a sense of needing to achieve, needing to overcome difficult circumstances, and needing to win at something in order to fix myself in some way. It’s if/when that plan fails (which it inevitably does) that the isolating sorrow is triggered. Cue a desire to listen to emo music and analyse my life from every possible angle as to how it all went wrong haha.

VINEETO: Ha, it seems you have already extensively felt out your most common feelings and found many to be in the similar "sorrowful feeling with a scorched earth" category, so much so that you can laugh about it at times. May I ask, do you enjoy the ‘drama queen’ (‘Vineeto’ did for a while) or have a particular penchant for victim-hood? These can be quite addictive personas.

FELIX: But indeed, feeling out emotions only gets you so far and the resistance to getting back to feeling good can be strong. I’ve been finding that it really helps to think of "nipping in the bud" even if I am already deeply in a feeling. That may sound dissociative but it’s not actually, it’s more like a cue to stop expressing the feeling basically (and a reminder that it’s not all as deep as the feeling makes it seem, that feeling good is just a step or two away).

VINEETO: Well, once you see through a particular game you play with yourself, it’s not dissociative to nip it in the bud, rather sensible. After all the actualism method is enjoying and appreciating, not diving into deep emotions for the sake of it.

However, investigating the obstacles to feeling good is more looking for the reasons why you have those (sticky) negative feelings in the first place, in other words why you keep them. Is there a belief or moral/ dogma or other reason behind it? Are you defending a particular aspect of your identity?

FELIX: This can create a quick touchstone with the present moment and now in a more felicitous form, which comes as a positive surprise and then it’s easy to appreciate that one is suddenly feeling much better.

It’s amazing how this achieves the "end goal" of feeling good now and then I no longer have the urge to do all the analysing (of my life) and intellectualising (about actual freedom) that I subsequently realise I was doing.

VINEETO: So, despite your penchant for deep feelings you ultimately know where your bread is buttered, so to speak.

Cheers Vineeto

December 11 2025

FELIX: Hi Vineeto, I didn’t even realise you had replied but now I came to write something and it was amazing how apropos what you wrote was.

And it’s all happening because of investigation into one thing – safety.

VINEETO: Hi Felix,

What deliciously good news. It looks like you have had tangible success in finding to break the vicious cycle of staying trapped in fear. This is a huge step forward towards more ease and enjoyment – and more to come as you say that “all the tectonic plates are shifting in my brain”.

It reminds me of what feeling being ‘Vineeto’ reported to Richard –

Richard: … “after the first few weeks of listening to me/ reading my words.
Speaking in regards to the effects any and all attempts to fit this totally new paradigm into ‘her’ existing mindset were having, ‘she’ explained the process as being ... (1.) as if ‘her’ brain was being turned upside-down ... and how (2.) ‘she’ was having to relearn how to think all over again. (Richard, List D, Alan, 29 February 2016).

A lot of things started falling into place after that, sometimes of their own accord, once the ‘turning upside-down’ of ‘her’ brain was initiated.

And for you, one of the key elements was to question, for the first time, if ‘safety’ as you saw it was what it made out to be, and “a huge internal belief framework around threat, stress and safety” is starting to crumble as a result.

Well done.

*

FELIX: So it’s very apt that you wrote the following, which I am now answering even though I didn’t know you had asked me this:

Vineeto: However, investigating the obstacles to feeling good is more looking for the reasons why you have those (sticky) negative feelings in the first place, in other words why you keep them. Is there a belief or moral/ dogma or other reason behind it? Are you defending a particular aspect of your identity?

Indeed – I am currently seeing through a huge internal belief framework around threat, stress and safety. Usually, me and this threat detection are one and the same – my sense of identity is wrapped up in it, with all the fears and panic and emotional shutdown that comes with it. For the last few years I’ve had a distinct sense of being “emotionally shutdown” or “numb” … almost like there is a heavy grey sky over every thing that happens. Of course I was “trying to feel good”, but it seemed as if the grey sky with its threatening thunder and bolts of lightning was making it impossible. As if you and Richard were asking me to look at that grey scary sky and call it a clear, blue one.

I even wonder if some of the PCEs I had actually exacerbated all of this too. It was a hypothesis of Richard at the time (that I may have been freaked out by the PCEs). Indeed I have had a sense of being so emotionally frozen – not suffering intense emotional extremes (depression, grief, euphoria etc) – but nevertheless suffering a kind of chronic shutdown state. So I clung to all the supposed actualism “rules” I’d memorised, along with various insights and pieces of advice from Richard, yourself and others, just trying to find a way to survive in my circumstances.

VINEETO: Well, when you read this piece of writing again in a few days, when more of the changes in the background have had time to come into effect, you will see that the core ‘self’-survival mechanism, ‘me’, has turned feeling good and all the memorized “supposed actualism ‘rules’” into weapons to keep you stressed and frightened, and have as such cemented this very structure you were seeking to escape from.

It was only your determined persistence that there must be another way to live, that this cannot be all there is to life, which finally brought results, and you made a big dent into this “internal belief framework” sabotaging any success before. The success was instantly visible and tangible – “1) a release of feeling good 2) feeling “unlocked” 3) nervous system relaxation 4) shifting of perception of the way things are”.

FELIX: It’s so strange how something so loud and obvious (and obnoxious!:)) has escaped my awareness for so long. I think fear has had me totally in its grip, that I couldn’t see things clearly enough to disentangle myself from it.

VINEETO: Dear Felix, it is not strange at all, this is part and parcel of the survival program to avoid and prevent change at all cost once you learnt a technique very early in life how to survive under specific circumstances. It’s only “loud and obvious” when you are out of the tunnel, not before. You can really pat yourself on the back and then some more – it has been an enormous task to tackle and dig yourself out from.

The cute part is, once one aspect is resolved, there are no scars and barely any memories of it either.

FELIX: How can I be so cunning as to evade my own fear? 

Now I see that everything I do, I do out of fear. And I think I am seeing there is something beyond it. Wow.

VINEETO: This is well and truly wonderful and Kuba told you his own story how he was trapped by fear and found his way out.

This can give encouragement to everyone reading of both your successes.

Cheers Vineeto

December 13 2025

FELIX: Hello to you both, lovely to hear from you. Kuba , your writing has been excellent lately – I’m not sure if it is different from before or whether my capacity to appreciate it has increased (or maybe both!). I don’t feel competitive anymore.

It’s funny hey, how much fear really pushes one around internally. It fuels certain lines of thought propels particular strategies, closes certain doors of enquiry, and prevents clear thinking or seeing. It’s powerful and it acts from a place of trying to keep one safe, even though it’s actually doing the bloody opposite usually!

VINEETO: Hi Felix,

A splendid analysis, if I may say so.

FELIX: Vineeto, thanks for your encouragement and apt references and anecdotes. I’m relishing your writing and very appreciative of your contribution. My diminished fear has removed the bee out of my bonnet (and the chip off my shoulder) regarding actualism and suddenly it’s a real thrill and pleasure to be involved with others and benefit from your particular expertise and insight as well.

To what you wrote, indeed it’s amazing the degree to which this fear operated, unseen. To me it seems the strong feelings of fear protected and bolstered a very strong sense of ego – and that this ego (operating primarily as a very powerful sense of control/ doership) would not allow itself to be “captured” or discovered, so to speak.

VINEETO: Your different way of writing certainly indicates that a noisy “bee” and a large “chip” have disappeared, and now a naiveté prevails which can consider the benefit of others as well as your own. It’s a precious time when your brain is rearranging itself to the new circumstances, and the thing right now to pay special attentiveness to any subtle machinations in the background trying to create a new persona to fill this beneficial gap created by the diminished chunk of fear, which has disappeared only a few days ago. It’s a common strategy of ‘me’ to replace the old persona with a new one, hence my cautionary note. What you can do instead is to delightedly settle in and feel at home with this budding naiveté where you are not quite sure what is happening but are nevertheless thrilled and fascinated to be alive and let more and more life live you.

FELIX: As much of the actualism website is dedicated to the necessity to look at feelings/ soul rather than thought/ego, I’ll clarify that I’m not saying that feelings weren’t the culprit … just that it was my own evasive sense of ‘I’ that seemed to want to perpetuate itself. And this very pointed and inflamed sense of “I” was primarily fuelled by intense fear … mostly around things like criticism, status, perception, self in relation to others (as opposed to lions or tigers which would be more worthy of such fear!).

VINEETO: The reason for mainly using “feelings/ soul rather than thought/ego” in the writings on the website is because the equivalence of thought and ego, and therefore vilification of thought, is the way of the old, spiritual paradigm intending to lure you into the pursuit of ego-death aka enlightenment, whilst ignoring the vital part that the instinctual feelings, particularly the so-called ‘good’ feelings play in the creation of misery and mayhem. Have you ever considered that this “very strong sense of ego” is/was also responsible for your self-castigation and the self-inflicted stress you experienced? In other words, you were caught in the dichotomy of pride and humility, ego and self-castigation with no tangible resolution.

Or in Richard’s words –

Richard: In actual freedom both sorrow and malice are eliminated, along with the ego and the soul. Evil does not exist in the world, it exists only in the human psyche ... eliminate the psyche in its entirety and you have eliminated both Good and Evil. (‘Good’ is a psychic phenomenon created to combat ‘Evil’). As the Enlightened Beings have only transcended duality, they have to cling to ‘The Good’ in order to resist ‘The Bad’. Hence also their pacifism. (Richard, List A, No. 7, No. 01)

*

Richard: By the time I had worked my way through this philosophical dilemma [of pacifism] I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 Mar 2000)

In other words, all of it, both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ and the battle between the two are part of the old paradigm, while being naïve and enjoying and appreciating being alive is the new paradigm.

FELIX: In that context it makes sense now why I have been so intensely analytical – an “overthinker” who was trying to attempt a top-down, intellectual coup on my entire system (with fairly disastrous results I might add). Luckily the fact I have been aware over the years, at least as a “witness”, has also given me insight into the kinds of routes to not bother going down again … such as intense self-improvement, comparison to others, self-castigation, stress/ neuroticism, misanthropy, to name a few.

In my intense insecurity I was always attempting to gain some kind of imagined psychological dominion over others to find “safety”, often through ambition and self-judgement. Being perceived to be less than others or an object of criticism from the herd was extremely threatening stuff, like an annihilation. It wasn’t always just intense fear, often it came as a constant gnawing anxiety. And my desires were just as fuelled by fear as well – the desire to be good enough, to evade criticism, to be infallible, to achieve, to be a free spirit etc etc. Desire seems to be the flip side of fear.

VINEETO: Now that you describe it in all its painful details – what a blessed disappearance of these “feelings, belief structures and behaviours”. They have conspired in concerted effort like a tight-woven web to keep you imprisoned … until … until you were so fed up with suffering and had gathered enough courage to look straight into the core (which is far more than ego) –

Felix: Now I see that everything I do, I do out of fear. And I think I am seeing there is something beyond it.

FELIX: It’s weird how certain feelings, belief structures and behaviours can disappear. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced such a big “chunk” of my issues going at once. There is some clean up still, certain habits and automatic reactions and such, but the main engine seems to be really disengaged.

And while this is good back pressure, I’m listening when you say that “the actualism method is enjoying and appreciating, not diving into deep emotions for the sake of it.” There’s a fun and smooooth enjoyment in making contact with This Moment of Being Alive. I’m tasting it here and there, sinking in slowly to a sense of delight. I want the full shebang but I know not to force either … I enjoy as is available to me at the time, based on the (physical/ sensorial) circumstances as they are. I’m enjoying as I write this.
Indeed there is a sense of being a moth drawn to a flame. Honestly, it makes me want total death … haha – which would be alarming to most if said on the street or to “loved ones” but I say it without any depression or morbidity whatsoever. To suffer unconscious feeling cycles and to be danced around like a marionette by “life circumstances” is much closer to something morbid, surely. Whereas to be right where one is, without any fears or fantasies, and enjoying and appreciating what reveals itself to have been under one’s nose – is to be much more alive already. It makes me want to experience more and invites rememoration of the fact I have already experienced (psychological) death before, and it was not only safe but totally wondrous and perfect.

VINEETO: Indeed, when that sweetness of spontaneous appreciation pervades you (when pure intent is tangibly experienced like 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) then all you want to do is keep allowing it and keep appreciating it.

Richard: “(...). One can bring about a benediction from that perfection and purity which is the essential character of the universe by contacting and cultivating one’s original state of naiveté. Naiveté is that intimate aspect of oneself that is the nearest approximation that one can have of actual innocence – there is no innocence so long as there is a rudimentary self – and constant awareness of naive intimacy results in a continuing benediction. This blessing allows a connection to be made between oneself and the perfection and purity as is evidenced in a PCE. This connection I call pure intent. Pure intent endows one with the ability to operate and function safely in society without the incumbent social identity with its ever-vigilant conscience. Thus reliably rendered virtually innocent and relatively harmless by the benefaction of the perfection and purity, one can begin to dismantle the now-redundant social identity. The virtual magnanimity endowed by pure intent obviates the necessity for a social identity, born out of society’s values, to be extant and controlling the wayward self with a societal conscience”. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 21 July 1998).

By the way, you have not yet “experienced (psychological) death before” – in a PCE the identity is merely in temporary abeyance, ready to spring into action at any time. But you know from your PCEs what the actual world after ‘your’ demise is like.

Gary: What is it about the PCE that holds the ‘me’ in abeyance?

Richard: It is a two-way street ... it is both the perfection of the universe, as evidenced in the PCE, and the sincerity of ‘me’, as is evidenced by the PCE occurring, which does the trick. This universe has a built-in propensity for the best to emerge, so it is inevitable that the best will happen ... given ‘my’ concurrence.

We do not live in an inert universe.

Gary: Is it correct to say that ‘I’ am in abeyance during the PCE?

Richard: That was the word that occurred to me to describe the experience ... ‘suspended’, maybe (as in ‘the operation has been suspended until further notice’)?

Gary: Or is it more accurate to say that ‘I’ have vacated the scene completely and totally?

Richard: Oh, yes, there is a marked absence of ‘me’ during the experience ... perhaps it is more correct to say that it is after the experience, when ‘I’ reappear, that in hindsight it becomes obvious that ‘I’ was in abeyance?

Gary: What causes ‘me’ to return?

Richard: Because ‘I’ have a job to do: ‘I’ am going to make the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for this body and that body and every body ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 15 August 2000)

FELIX: I keep thinking of the Shakespeare quote “Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d” from Hamlet’s famous soliloquy.

I can’t help think what a pleasure awaits, To Not Be.

VINEETO: Ha, Shakespeare – whoever wrote Hamlet under this nom-de-guerre – knew nothing of an actual freedom, he could only point to an imaginary fantasy of a life after death. You, on the other hand, can consciously give permission for the actualism process to commence –

Richard: Being out-from-control/in a different-way-of-being is quite daunting to contemplate as an on-going EE marks the end of the beginning of the end of ‘me’ and the commencement of the actualism process – as distinct from the actualism method – wherein a momentum not of ‘my’ doing takes over and an inevitability sets in; in an on-going EE the actual world has the effect of impelling one towards it – like a moth to a candle as the overarching benignity and benevolence of the actual increasingly operates such as to render ‘my’ felicity/ innocuity increasingly redundant; this is where being the nearest a ‘self’ can be to innocence – the naiveté located betwixt the core of being and the sexual centre (where one is both likeable and liking) – is attached as if with a golden thread or clew to the purity of actual innocence; an on-going EE is, thus, where one becomes acclimatised to benignity and benevolence and the resultant blitheness because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared. (Richard, List D, No. 12, 9 December 2009a).

*

Richard: In effect, the actualism process is what ensues when one gets out from being under control, via having given oneself prior permission to have one’s life live itself (i.e., sans the controlling doer), and a different way of being comes about (i.e., where the beer is the operant) – whereupon a thrilling out-from-control momentum takes over and an inevitability sets in – whereafter there is no pulling back (hence the reluctance in having it set in motion) as once begun it is nigh-on unstoppable.

Then one is in for the ride of a lifetime! (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016).

Cheers Vineeto