April 1 2025

ROY: I actually just found a quote from Peter that resonates a lot more with me…

That aligns much more with how I’m able to describe it.

VINEETO: Hi Roy,

Of course it would. Peter wrote what you quoted in January 2000, about 2 years after he first came in contact with Richard and actualism. Whatever understanding you and others draw from this quote, it is worthwhile keeping in mind that it is based on “a glimpse of the purity and perfection of the physical universe”, whereas what Richard writes is grounded in the 24hrs every day experience of an ongoing full appreciation of his own apperceptive sensate and reflective experience.

Hence the note written on top of this book review (and appropriate notes on each page of ‘Peter’s’ and ‘Vineeto’s’ writings and correspondences) –

Note: “Please note that Peter’s book review below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/ same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.”

ROY: I think this shows that what you and Richard describe as pure intent is something more than what Peter describes in that quote I shared.

VINEETO: Of course, Claudiu and Richard describe pure intent as something more than what Peter describes – they both had overall more experiential expertise with pure intent than Peter in January 2000.

ROY: I’m not consciously allowing anything to happen to me during my PCEs. There’s no special mode of behaving… I’m just able to consciously experience reality in a “pure way” — as in without the usual constrains that result from normally experiencing life as a “self”. Does that make sense?

VINEETO: I am not cognisant of/have not found yet any specific description of a PCE you had. Would you be so kind to publish one so I can comprehend better what you are referring to when you say you “consciously experience reality in a “pure way” — as in without the usual constrains that result from normally experiencing life as a “self””. This way it will be much easier to compare notes, so to speak.

ROY: And because of paying attention to my conscious experience, I don’t believe that the “universe” has any special force, purpose, etc… There’s nothing “extraordinary” going on… I don’t mean it’s not marvellous/ wonderful — it’s that the ordinary is marvellous/ wonderful.

VINEETO: See, when you say “I don’t believe that the “universe” has any special force” you are really saying, I am not sure but I wish this to be true (belief at root = wishing to be true). That means you are open that it could be different. This is great – you are (perhaps) open to the possibility that –

Richard: The purity of life emerges from the perfection that wells up constantly due to an immense stillness which is utterly immense in its scope and magnitude. This stillness of infinitude is that something which is precious. It is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. This stillness happens as me. This stillness is my essential disposition, for it is the principle character, the intrinsic basis of everything. It is this universe at its genesis. It is not, as it might commonly be supposed, at the centre of everything ... there is no centre here. This stillness, which is everywhere all at once, is the be all and end all of life itself. I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. (Richard’s Journal, Article Twenty-Five).

ROY: This neutral and indifferent universe contains an earth with marvellous abundance and our “self” prevents us from experiencing that.

VINEETO: Indeed, our “self” prevents us from experiencing that despite the “marvellous abundance” of this verdant and azure planet one perceives, like one’s elders did, that the universe is “neutral and indifferent” despite sometimes noticing the very “marvellous abundance”, which demonstrates that the universe is being benign and benevolent, conducive to life and growth, invigorative and dynamic – the very evidence of matter being “not merely passive”.

ROY: Once you are able to consciously experience that, it is incredible and life changing. Not sure if we are saying the same thing.

VINEETO: Yes, if by “consciously experience that” you mean “an earth with marvellous abundance”. However, I don’t know how you manage the miracle that a “neutral and indifferent” universe contains “an earth with marvellous abundance”? Is the marvellousness only a value/a perception that ‘you’ add and not intrinsic to the earth itself and therefore the universe?

The difficulty often is that the ‘self’ takes over after the PCE fades, so much so that the experience of pure consciousness is interpreted in, and overlaid with, the paradigm of ‘me’. That’s often unavoidable, and you only discover that this happened in the next PCE. But eventually you find out how to rememorate (revive in the memory) the flavour of the PCE (before reinterpretation by ‘me’) more and more and tie a connecting thread to this special flavour – this is the beginning of becoming acquainted with pure intent.

Cheers Vineeto

April 1 2025

ROY to Kuba: I think I got my point across because Shashank understood it. I’m simply commenting on that specific description of “pure intent”!

VINEETO: Hi Roy,

I looked through the first message you received from Shashank to understand in what way Shashank understood you and others did not. Here is the first one (I snipped out Richard’s quotes to clearly understand what Shashank personally is saying) –

SHASHANK: I remember having all these confusions myself too ! <snipped quotes>

ROY: I have to admit that I struggle to understand the use of the term “pure intent” to describe what is experienced during a PCE. “Intent” or “intention” are words reserved for subjects (I would even say for conscious beings) which is not the case with the universe.

SHASHANK: This was Richard’s explanation : <snipped quotes>

ROY: Lastly, the term “life force” has been and is used to describe what gives life to matter in different traditions, but it’s a term I personally wouldn’t use, for various reasons. I find it puzzling that Richard chose them.

SHASHANK: This question [regarding life-force] was raised to Richard by me hehe and thusly he clarified : <snipped quotes>

I think Roy we think alike lol as I was terribly confused about the word benevolence… benignity was easy to grasp for instance thinking of a benign tumour or reflecting on the fact that a bullet coming to kill me is benign in the sense it has no intention to kill me. Here is what he [Richard] clarified about benevolence : <snipped quotes>

VINEETO: What I get from this message from Shashank to you (apart from very helpful and clarifying quotes is that he understands your dilemma because he had all these confusions himself as well and hence concludes that you think alike.

However, when you write out your answer you seem to concur with Shashank’s understanding only in his first remark but not regarding the meaning of benevolence contained in the quotes he provided –

SHASHANK: […] benignity was easy to grasp for instance thinking of a benign tumour or reflecting on the fact that a bullet coming to kill me is benign in the sense it has no intention to kill me.

ROY: Yes, it makes sense to me if “benignity” is described as in “harmless”, but usually the term is used to indicate that something is beneficial/ positive in some way, and my experience is that the universe is simply neutral, or even, I would say, indifferent.

VINEETO: If I may interject here – Shashank had not further inquired into benignity because it made preliminary sense to him. Benignity is indeed something positive – “of being favourable, propitious, salutary”.

Respondent: I’m trying but I still don’t fully understand. Any value is of human invention, surely?

Richard: The values under discussion – the benignity (as in being favourable, propitious, salutary) and benevolence (as in being well-disposed, beneficent, bounteous) inherent to the perfection, the purity, of the infinitude and/or absoluteness that this actual universe is – are most certainly not human inventions. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110a, 25 May 2006).

ROY: So the following makes sense to me:

SHASHANK: quoting –

Richard: “I do not use the words benevolent/ benevolence and benign/ benignity as antonyms to the words malevolent/ malevolence and malign/ malignity (such as to require reconciliation) as the latter exists only in the human psyche.”

Richard: “perhaps if you were to think of it in a similar way to what is expressed in the phrase ‘a benevolent climate’, for instance, it might start to make sense.”

Richard: “Of course, I mean it in much more than a ‘conducive to life’/ ‘conducive to growth’ sense … oft-times expressed by me as ‘I am swimming in largesse’, for example, so as to convey the super-abundance of life.” (all quotes from Richard, List D, No. 32, 14 Jun 2013).

ROY: This is a great way to put it and complements the observation that the universe is indifferent/ neutral. I wasn’t able to put that into words.

VINEETO: Here again you perceive “‘a benevolent climate’” and “‘conducive to life’/ ‘conducive to growth’” as the universe being “indifferent/ neutral”. Would your classification rather read indifferent/ neutral to life, indifferent/ neutral to growth and indicate that there is no abundance but ‘just enough to survive’? Doesn’t this indifference/ neutral come close to the ubiquitous belief that life is a ‘vale of tears’, perhaps because nobody cares about ‘me’?

Here is another quote Shashank provided in this message –

Richard: (…) this actual world, the world of the senses, is indeed characterised by benevolence and benignity (there is neither cruelness nor horrors in actuality). However, in the real world, the world of the psyche, any such kindly disposition – as in being well-disposed, bountiful, liberal, bounteous, beneficent (aka benevolent) and being favourable, propitious, salutary (aka benign) – being not readily apparent, as in directly experienceable, requires naiveté for its intellectual ascertainment.

I am, of course, using the word ‘kindly’ in its Oxford Dictionary ‘acceptable, agreeable, pleasant; spec. (of climate, conditions, etc.) benign, favourable to growth’ meaning … and which I generally express by saying I am swimming in largesse. (Richard, List D, No. 32, 14 Jun 2013).

Do you seriously suggest that the words “any such kindly disposition – being well-disposed, bountiful, liberal, bounteous, beneficent (aka benevolent) and being favourable, propitious, salutary (aka benign)” in combination with the definition of the word “kindly” indicate indifference or neutrality to you?

If so, the last five words of the first paragraph might give you a clue.

SHASHANK: quoting –

Richard: “what is being conveyed by those words is the invigorative quality, or dynamic nature, of that [quote] “immaculate perfection and purity [snip] (Richard, List D, No. 32a, 10 July 2015).

VINEETO: Again, the words “invigorative quality, or dynamic nature” point to the different experience of materialism (“indifferent/neutral”) and actualism.

[Edit]: I just found your recent post, Roy, where you said –

ROY: The end matches my experience, now that I understand what people mean with “benevolent”.

VINEETO: I am very pleased you can see that.

*

So to pre-empt you experiencing me like another “wise one showing the student the way” perhaps it is pertinent to point out that you would know from your own life that because you experience something, it is not necessarily factual but tainted by your beliefs (often disguised as truths), principles, worldview, conditioning and most of all your feelings.

Besides, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ took 12 long years to work out all the various accurate meanings of the words used in Richard’s writings and often had to lay aside some puzzling questions and put them in the background as open questions, until they became experientially clear to ‘her’ during moments of apperception (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive, #apperception).

However, what ‘she’ always found encouraging was that ‘she’ more and more unravelled, discovered, de-mystified how ‘she’ ticked, how the cunning aspect of ‘me’ (the ‘self’-survival instincts in action) got in the way, and ‘she’ recognized and dismantled one by one of those tricks to keep ‘her’ in ‘her’ cage, and as a consequence life became more and more enjoyable, delightful and even exuberant.

Out of this exuberance (coupled with sincerity) slowly, hesitantly, came naiveté, that curious ingredient which first makes one feel foolish, like a simpleton, but which is the very quality which allows one to experience life with fresh eyes, to discover a new depth of meaning in Richard’s words and to naïvely explore what else it is that I have missed all my life, because nobody told me about it.

This is really the key – nobody told you about it because until recently nobody had been told themselves by their elders or the elders of the elders. Basically, the good life, you were told, was to start after death. Life on earth is/was a serious business. Children had to grow up and be serious.

All I am saying, there is more, much more to life than all these serious grown-ups taught you and are teaching you in their ‘scientific’ treatises and philosophies, and the best way to discover your hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté is to allow it to happen whenever possible – this is also where a memory of a childhood PCE can be hidden and new PCEs can and will happen.

Then a lot of puzzling question may fall in place of their own accord.

Cheers Vineeto

May 1 2025

CLAUDIU: This reminded me also of what I saw recently which is that, I am a very driven person, it is how I tick – and this energy of being driven is precisely the level of energy needed to succeed with self-immolating! In other words it is not that I have to stop being driven, it is rather that I just re-direct that same energy itself in that same driven way, towards the task of enjoying and appreciating and self-immolating. …

ROY: … So with time my motivated and ambitious attitude seemed more and more to be the result of social conditioning (stemming from my life experiences) and less and less of genetic traits. But today, upon reflecting on this, I see that in fact I remain driven – simply in different aspects of life. This pursuit of a more happy and harmless way of being, all day, every day, even in the face of adversity, continues, for example.

VINEETO: Hi Roy,

Whilst it is useful to make a distinction between one’s social identity (one’s vocational, national, racial, religio-spiritual, ideological, political, class or caste identity, familial and sex/gender identity) and one’s genetic identity of the instinctual passions, it is advantageous to keep in mind that both categories of identity can be changed and ultimately abandoned. Neither is set in stone and neither does define you in your “pursuit of a more happy and harmless way of being, all day, every day”.

And that is wonderful.

ROY: But in general I have been questioning many aspects that I believed defined me. Do I believe myself to be driven? I think so, in relation to specific aspects, when I sleep well and am not sick. But is it an innate characteristic of mine? I have no idea. (…)

So the old recurring idea from self-help coaches — “find yourself” and “be true to yourself” – it’s all about the “self”… as if it were easy to know what it means to be “me”. That is… I know exactly what I feel “I” am, but I don’t know to what extent that is different from others. What, intrinsically, differentiates me from others? As I deconstruct beliefs about myself, what remains? The answer to “what makes me tick” seems to exist only in the context of my current circumstances, which keep changing and which I change along with them. (…)

VINEETO: It seems to me that because you believe that actualism is mainly to “deconstruct beliefs” you appear to be under the misconception that what is left after deconstruction is something you can define yourself as. Neither “self-help coaches” nor scientific psychological research can reveal what you are (devoid of identity) – this can only be experienced in a pure consciousness experience where the identity is temporarily in abeyance. There is no scientific research about this for two reasons –

1. Actualism is experiential not scientifical (for instance a ‘self’ and an absence of ‘self’ cannot be detected in a brain scan or any other medical scan) and

2. Because actualism is entirely new to human history, all researchers and scientists and self-help authorities are not only afflicted with the human condition as you are but also have no clue that a third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism exists. And actualism is not materialism.

ROY: I’m happy with that but using adjectives or anything to define myself, I may quickly end up using these to feed some story about me. Is there any problem with that? It depends on what purpose they are serving, I suppose. I want to perceive the world as it is, without being clouded by imagined stories about who I am and my place in this world.

VINEETO: This is exactly where sincere intent comes in – you are the one observing and investigating your psyche wherever it gets in the way of enjoying and appreciating being alive and this very intent (to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible) will aid you in recognizing when something is an imagined story or deceptive narrative instead of a fact. It’s like playing chess with yourself – on one side the identity programmed to keep the status quo and on the other side your sincere intent to feel good, feel excellent, be more naïve, more considerate, a friend to yourself and benevolent towards your fellow human beings. It’s a fun game once you get the knack of not putting yourself down for the tricks and deceits you discover or the negative traits and feelings you uncover in yourself. It’s all par for the adventure of a life-time.

ROY: I still believe it’s possible to have a direct perception without the existence of a self, that the reports are true – even the more mysterious ones, such as pure intent. It’s a belief, but I still believe there must be a scientific explanation for everything that doesn’t involved anything more than matter and energy. But I also recognize that there are limits to what I can discover through my conscious experience. That’s why I keep reading – because what I discover through my experience is limited to my experience. I shouldn’t draw conclusions about the universe based solely on my own experience. My experience may show me that the universe is benevolent, but is it really? What scientific basis is there to support that? Could that perception not simply come from the fact that I descend from creatures that evolved to benefit from this world? Just as it turns out it’s not the sun that revolves around the earth, but the earth that revolves around the sun – could it be that the universe isn’t benevolent toward me, but rather that I evolved to benefit and prosper in it?

VINEETO: It is essential to understand that actualism is not materialism – it is experiential – and experiential of a world outside of ‘I’/ ‘me’, the actual world. Ultimately you cannot understand the actual world when applying the template of the real world – materialism.

You had some experiences which you wondered if they were PCEs or not. Now after experimenting with the actualism method for a good while you again want to know for a fact if “the reports are true – even the more mysterious ones, such as pure intent”. The only answer for this will be in a clear unequivocal PCE, where you yourself can say with certainty – ‘this is the world I have been reading about on the AFT, this is how I want to live for the rest of my life, this is indeed magical’.

Unfortunately, you have presently all but closed the door to such a confirmation when you say “what I discover through my experience is limited to my experience” – this way you pre-emptively doubt whatever you will experience.

When feeling being ‘Vineeto’ first learnt about an actual freedom – and had barely a clue what this meant, ‘she’ passionately wanted to have a PCE to find out, ‘she’ became obsessed with having one happen, ‘she’ thought about it in ‘her’ free time for several weeks – and then it suddenly happened (A Bit of Vineeto). It was shocking in its ramifications of how incomparably different the actual world was to the real world and it gave ‘her’ the necessary certainty to whole-heartedly move forward.

I can recommend to suspend both belief and disbelief for this investigation. Frequent Question No. 64a, particularly the very last paragraphs on that page is a good place to start and also Richard’s text on ‘Sensuous’ in the AFT Library. It also relates to Richard’s first sentence where he explains the actualism method –

Richard: Before applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

Actual time is entirely different to the real-world time of past-present-future.

There is more on this topic in case you are interested. I wish you success in your experiential inquiry into actuality.

Cheers Vineeto

May 3 2025

ROY: Hello Vineeto!

VINEETO: Whilst it is useful to make a distinction between one’s social identity (one’s vocational, national, racial, religio-spiritual, ideological, political, class or caste identity, familial and sex/gender identity) and one’s genetic identity of the instinctual passions, it is advantageous to keep in mind that both categories of identity can be changed and ultimately abandoned. Neither is set in stone and neither does define you […]

ROY: Curiously, I would intuitively agree with that, but something intellectually pointed me toward the knowledge that “you can’t change your genetics”. While that may be scientifically true, it’s also true that I’ve ignored an entire field – epigenetics – which studies precisely how certain factors can influence genetic expression. Reconciling that intuition with a scientific understanding helped me, given that I have this tendency to cling to a scientifically grounded basis.

VINEETO: Hello Roy,

Thank you for your feedback and reply.

I clearly specified “one’s genetic identity of the instinctual passions”. I did not say that you can or “you can’t change your genetics” or that “epigenetics” are part of the instinctual survival passions. Why make things unnecessarily more complicated?

*

VINEETO: Actualism is experiential not scientifical (for instance a ‘self’ and an absence of ‘self’ cannot be detected in a brain scan or any other medical scan) […]

ROY: Yes, I understand that. I’ve been reading about the problem of conducting scientific research necessarily from a third-person perspective on something that is experiential, in the first person.

VINEETO: Good.

ROY: As impressive as some studies are – I found the research around the Default Mode Network (DMN) particularly interesting – it’s an endeavour that, given its inherent limitations, we can’t accept its results without some caution.

VINEETO: Here is what Wikipedia has to say about DMN –

“In neuroscience, the default mode network (DMN), also known as the default network, default state network, or anatomically the medial frontoparietal network (M-FPN), is a large-scale brain network primarily composed of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and angular gyrus. It is best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. It can also be active during detailed thoughts related to external task performance.’ (…)

“Evidence has pointed to disruptions in the DMN of people with Alzheimer's disease and autism spectrum disorder. Psilocybin produces the largest changes in areas of the DMN associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.” (Wikipedia)

I don’t see any relevance at all to what actualism is about – bringing about peace on earth via the minimisation of both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and thus maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings. The fact that you found the studies impressive indicates that you are still looking for evidence and proof of the descriptions and reports of an actual freedom from the human condition – something which is entirely new to human consciousness – in real-world research.

*

VINEETO: […] all researchers and scientists and self-help authorities are not only afflicted with the human condition as you are […]

ROY: I’ve also been reading about this very topic, and I was quite amazed to discover that some people in the past dedicated much of their time to exploring the problem of the scientist starting from a point that is not neutral or objective. I was especially fascinated by Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink and their method of Phenomenological Reduction. But apparently, their method – which involves suspending all beliefs and preconceptions and associating concepts to what is experienced – was criticized by many, ignored by others, and misunderstood by the rest. It’s truly a problem in science that cannot be overlooked. Psychology seems to suffer from this especially, but certainly so do philosophers of mind and neuroscientists.

VINEETO: I am pleased you can see that. The other aspect for you to ponder is that both psychology and psychiatry are concerned with changing the psyche, not with eliminating the psychic faculty altogether via ‘self’-immolation.

*

VINEETO: […] you again want to know for a fact if “the reports are true — even the more mysterious ones, such as pure intent”. The only answer for this will be in a clear unequivocal PCE, where you yourself can say with certainty – ‘this is the world I have been reading about on the AFT, this is how I want to live for the rest of my life, this is indeed magical’.

Unfortunately, you have presently all but closed the door to such a confirmation when you say “what I discover through my experience is limited to my experience” – this way you pre-emptively doubt whatever you will experience.

ROY: I understand what you’re saying, but let me just clarify a bit. I have no doubt that what I experience during my PCEs is exactly what I want, each day, every day, forever. I’m also not closing any doors, as I’m not doubting anything I’m experiencing – I simply need to remain aware that I can’t draw conclusions about the nature of the universe, space, or time based solely on this experience. My conscious experience is entirely true within the context of my subjectivity.

VINEETO: Given that you go on to say that “my conscious experience is entirely true within the context of my subjectivity” I strongly doubt that what you experienced were clear unequivocal PCEs because then you would know, without a smidgen of a doubt, that there is no subjectivity in a PCE because the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance in a pure consciousness experience and thus allows you, the flesh-and-blood body devoid of ‘self’, to experience that the actual world is a totally different paradigm to the real world. Unless you do, it is not a PCE.

In a PCE, when the ‘self’ (‘I’ and ‘me’) is in abeyance, apperception – the mind’s perception of itself – operates unimpeded, which is unmediated perception by any subjectivity, by any emotions or feeling or passion, therefore unmediated by any belief, concept, principle, moral or ethics. It is a different paradigm from one’s normal perception distinct from the normal ‘self’-conscious way of perception (‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious).

ROY: A concrete example is pure intent, because the apparent benevolence of the universe might be true only within my subjectivity, maybe due to the fact that I’m a creature evolved to thrive in this physical world.

VINEETO: As long as you consider pure intent – “a palpable life-force; 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” – as “true only within my subjectivity” you have not experienced apperception in a PCE. In other words, as long as you search for a PCE “within my subjectivity” you will never be able to experience it. Perhaps reading (again) about the meaning of the word ‘apperception’ including examples and quotes will make it more clear to you what an experience outside of subjectivity is.

Or to put it differently, as I said in my last post to you, as long as you consider actualism as an off-shoot or addition to materialism, you cannot understand the actual world whilst applying the template of the real world – materialism. To flesh it out, here Richard introduced a quote from his correspondent espousing the virtues of materialism –

Respondent (to No. 49): ‘Someday you may open up your mind, see the wonder of science and empiricism, learn the best of what psychology has to offer (cognitive and behavioural are two good ones), learn to have neither a pushing away nor clinging to of your emotions (rather a felt sense of them, that integrates them naturally) and venture off to live life to the fullest w/o concern of a eternity anywhere.

After the initial shock you may well become calmer, more relaxed, happier, kinder, less dogmatic, more empathetic, have a better sense of humour, etc. And all of this has nothing to do with Actualism (though I do like a lot of Actualism, but I’m sceptical of some of it)’. (tool-tip in Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68, 14 July 2004)

Reading the first two pages of correspondent No. 68 (and No, 68a) on the Actual Freedom List may give you some more understanding of the difference between actualism and materialism. This correspondent was a convinced proponent of various real-world (materialistically based) concepts, morals and ethics as well as psychological researches to aid and compliment what he then understood the actualism method to be.

ROY: This matters in practice, so that I don’t drift away from the actual truth – that is, so I don’t end up like someone who, to take a religious example, believes in an anthropomorphic god and subjectively experiences the presence of that god: it may be true, for them, but that doesn’t mean it’s a truth outside of their subjective experience. Someone who has never heard of actualism might have a PCE and interpret it through a religious lens, for example. Does that make sense?

VINEETO: For starters, there is no such thing as “the actual truth”. Truth, the way it is used, often means what one fervently believes to be true, hence there is my truth and your truth and his truth and her truth.

Richard: In short: what makes a belief a truth is its affective component (as in one’s investment in holding it to be so). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68d, 10 October 2005).

Actuality only deals in facts – fact: a thing done; the quality of being actual; something that has actual existence; an actual occurrence; a piece of information presented as having objective reality. ~ (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).

As to your question “Does that make sense?” – There are examples of people describing a PCE, which then degenerated into an ASC, and in hindsight they interpreted the whole experience in terms of their religion/ creed. As such their initial PCE cannot be used as a loadstone for describing the actual world. This is the very reason why the Actual Freedom Trust website exists.

ROY: The fact that I’m receiving your comments on my posts has been an immense help (thanks Claudiu and Kuba!), because it makes me feel insecure – in a positive way – about my position, and on the other hand, it makes me question even more what is being said – a natural response when “I” am confronted.

VINEETO: I am pleased that you are open to suggestions and feedback, Roy.

I will answer the next part in a separate message.

Cheers Vineeto

May 3 2025

ROY: Today there was a realization greater than possibly any I’ve had before. At a certain point recently I started trying to refrain from attaching “concepts” to everything I was experiencing, without success. But that led me to realize that I wasn’t perfectly honest with myself and that there were, again, unexamined beliefs. That made me question one of my deepest beliefs – that I am this body being conscious. This is something I knew not only because of science but also due to actual freedom website. But I questioned if I really had an experiential basis to confirm that. I began a potentially dangerous process consisting of the question – “Am I this?” – based on the principle that I cannot be subject and object at the same time. In other words, I told myself that if I hear something, I cannot be that sound, nor the hearing, nor the ear… I started doing that consistently for everything… At some point I came to the apparent conclusion that I was just awareness… But then something unexpected happened: I saw in a very surprising way that the starting point, the subject, was the “I”. For some reason, I had been convinced I could see the “self” from the outside… that I knew exactly what the “self” was – but the “self” was exactly what was comparing itself. I was unknowingly – but completely – fully identified with the “self”.

VINEETO: Hi Roy,

The following quote might clarify what ‘self’ means in actualist understanding –

RESPONDENT: If I see a real lake and look closer and closer, there is still a lake. If however, I see a mirage of a lake, the closer I get, its lack of existence is clarified. Likewise, the existence of a real self would be clarified with close exposure. What happens, though, is that no substantial self can ever be found.

RICHARD: This is because you, as self, are the very self that is trying to see the self. Of course you will only find an ever-receding mirage. To put it into language you will be familiar with: You, the seer, are what is wished to be seen. You, the seeker, are that which is being sought.

RESPONDENT: Since there has never been a real ongoing self from the first (only action based on the assumption or belief in one) there is an appearance of something ending when in fact it is exposing and dropping of the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an ongoing self.

RICHARD: Unfortunately it is not such a simple matter as merely exposing and dropping beliefs and misconceptions. I would suggest asking who is doing the exposing and dropping. I would enquire into just who is holding the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an on-going self. ‘I’ cannot drop the belief that ‘I’ exist because ‘I’, the would-be ‘dropper’, am what is to be dropped. Like-wise, ‘I’ the would-be ‘exposer’, am what is to be exposed.

Only apperceptive awareness will do the trick. (Richard, List B, No. 22, 28 February 1998).

What you say you “fully identified with” was still the ‘self’ which the ‘self’ was able to see (except the part doing the seeing). It makes no difference if you “fully identified with the ‘self’” you can see or not because ‘you’, the totality of the instinctual passion plus the social identity, are the ‘self’, whether you identify with or not. The only way to see the ‘self’ from the outside is when ‘you’ are in abeyance, in other word when apperception is operating.

You being the ‘self’ is not a concept or a belief or an identification, it is the reality, and a deeply felt reality as such, kept in place and reinforced by the ever-changing instinctual passions and concomitant beliefs, principles, concepts, etc. It only ends with ‘self’-immolation.

The same applies to your question am I “this body being conscious”. You may believe that you are “this body being conscious” but as long as you are a ‘self’, this body is permanently hijacked by the identity (the ‘self’) within and the body and its consciousness in operation doesn’t get a word in edgeway, so to speak. The only way you can experience the fact that you are this body being conscious when apperception is operating, i.e. when the ‘self’ is in abeyance.

Maybe it’s only your terminology which confuses the issue – I just want to make sure that you understand what belief and concept and identification mean and where they are applicable, else your use of language creates a narrative that can lead you astray.

ROY: For a moment, this brought a clarity I’d never had experienced while contemplating. I realized that this is the kind of question I never ask during a PCE, for obvious reasons (I never think about any of this), but on the other hand, it’s the kind of inquiry that is made impossible outside a PCE, due to the existence of the “self” – I don’t escape it, I only fool myself into thinking that I do.

VINEETO: Even though you didn’t see the totality of the ‘self’ you seem nevertheless have experienced a big chunk of it and realised that you cannot escape it, for instance by labelling it a belief or by trying to disidentify from it (if I understood you correctly).

The actualism method of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is designed to thin out or weaken the affective influence of ‘I’/ ‘me’ by minimising the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings which keep the ‘self’ in place, and maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings which diminish the affective energy/ influence of the ‘self’.

Cheers Vineeto

May 4 2025

VINEETO: I don’t see any relevance at all to what actualism is about – bringing about peace on earth via the minimisation of both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and thus maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings. The fact that you found the studies impressive indicates that you are still looking for evidence and proof of the descriptions and reports of an actual freedom from the human condition – something which is entirely new to human consciousness – in real-world research.

ROY: Exactly, it’s the same issue. You see no relevance in this type of study about the brain, but I really do… It’s my insistence to discuss these matters here because I genuinely believe they are relevant. At least for me… That wikipedia entry you shared isn’t particularly interesting though, I agree with that.

VINEETO: Hi Roy,

Your “exactly” confirms that you are looking for ‘proof’ of actualist’s reports in the real world, either materialism or as Claudiu pointed out, spiritualism, consistently ignoring the fact that actualism is experiential and something entirely new to human history. The actual world is an entirely different world to the world feeling beings experience and the two shall never meet.

*

VINEETO: Given that you go on to say that “my conscious experience is entirely true within the context of my subjectivity” I strongly doubt that what you experienced were clear unequivocal PCEs because then you would know, without a smidgen of a doubt, that there is no subjectivity in a PCE because the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance in a pure consciousness experience and thus allows you, the flesh-and-blood body devoid of ‘self’, to experience that the actual world is a totally different paradigm to the real world. Unless you do, it is not a PCE.

ROY: During my PCEs, I don’t think at all about any of these questions… The last PCE I had was a spontaneous moment with family, in which the whole evening unfolded completely without me stopping even for a moment to think about happiness, or malice, or anything of the sort. The moments simply followed one another, and I lived those moments with all my being. Nothing went wrong during that evening – or what could be said to have gone wrong wasn’t seen that way at all – everything just happened with the greatest happiness.

For me, PCEs are useful because I know, through them, that there is a completely different reality from my normal one. And that is why I continue on this path – otherwise, I would have given up searching by now. However, my hesitation and caution lie in not taking that memory of the PCE, interpreting it in the present, and giving it a meaning.

VINEETO: I say it again for emphasis, what you call your PCEs are not unequivocal clear experiences of the actual world – you may be experiencing “a completely different reality” but it is not a magical mirificent actuality. When you experience actuality, a complete absence of ‘I’/ ‘me’, there is no doubt, everything is patently obvious. Even if you had glimpses of the actual world they are soon obscured by the fact that what just happened is unbelievable and incomprehensible, unimaginable and inconceivable.

Richard: The reason for this odd denial is fairly obvious: once the person has reverted to ‘normal’ – to being ‘human’ again – perfection here-on-earth becomes merely a concept and a belief ... and it is a notion one finds impossible to give credence to. The grip of reality is so strong that perfection simply does not exist. It is but a faded dream. The potential can lie dormant forever. (Richard’s Journal, Article 24).

What you could do is compare your own experience to all the descriptions of PCEs and of the actual world, for instance (Richard, Selected Writing, Actual Freedom) to what is reported/ described on the AFT website and find out if something correlates with your own experience. It is the only reliable repository of reports about pure consciousness because all those reports on his portion of the website stem from Richard’s lived experience 24hrs/day, 365 days/year.

ROY: What you’re saying is that a PCE is not a subjective experience, and what I’m saying is that it still is – because I’m not in a PCE 100% of the time.

VINEETO: If it was a PCE it would be not be subjective, because when ‘I’/ ‘me’ is absent there is no subject/ no identity experiencing it, only this flesh-and-blood body being apperceptively aware, having a series of sensations and sometimes thoughts. A PCE is the objective experience of what I am, of what is actual, factual. A fact does not need to be believed to be true. A fact does not have to be accepted on trust … a fact is candidly so.

*

VINEETO: […] There are examples of people describing a PCE, which then degenerated into an ASC, and in hindsight they interpreted the whole experience in terms of their religion/ creed. As such their initial PCE cannot be used as a loadstone for describing the actual world. This is the very reason why the Actual Freedom Trust website exists.

ROY: Yes, but that’s precisely what I’m talking about. That’s my fear – misinterpreting the experience…

VINEETO: Whatever you do, you will not find the answers for your fears, or succour and confirmation for your doubts in the real-world beliefs and concepts of feeling beings. As Richard says – “The grip of reality is so strong that perfection simply does not exist.”

*

VINEETO: What you say you “fully identified with” was still the ‘self’ which the ‘self’ was able to see (except the part doing the seeing). It makes no difference if you “fully identified with the ‘self’” you can see or not because ‘you’, the totality of the instinctual passion plus the social identity, are the ‘self’, whether you identify with or not. The only way to see the ‘self’ from the outside is when ‘you’ are in abeyance, in other word when apperception is operating.

ROY: Yes, it’s not very easy to explain what happened. Interestingly, it happened again today – for a significantly longer period! The most concrete way I can explain it is that there’s a clarity… It’s as if I’m “more aware” because I’m not constantly thinking about myself. I think that’s the best way I can describe it, without trying to use the concept of the self, which is clearly not a concept that I am able to grasp. I think I was so surprised that I had to come up with some sort of explanation using the terms I have available.

VINEETO: Of course, you cannot grasp “the concept of the self” because the ‘self’, the passionate identity is not a concept, it is you in reality, all of your being. That’s why spiritualism always fails, they imagine that by witnessing the ego-part of the self they can transcend it but they overlook the more powerful passionate aspect of ‘self’/ ‘being’ and thus remain trapped within the human condition. That’s why all attempts of thousands of people over centuries of earnestly trying have failed in bringing about peace of earth. It is the Tried and Failed and you seem to have been unwittingly sucked in by their promises, concepts and methods.

*

VINEETO: The actualism method of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is designed to thin out or weaken the affective influence of ‘I’/ ‘me’ by minimising the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings which keep the ‘self’ in place, and maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings which diminish the affective energy/ influence of the ‘self’.

ROY: When I started correctly applying the method during my days, there was a progressive change that made my day-to-day life much, much better than it was. However, it’s a completely different experience from a PCE. For some time now, the situation had stabilized, and I felt I wasn’t progressing. I think what’s holding me back is, on one hand, still-rooted beliefs, and on the other, not truly understanding (I mean, beyond the simple intellectual understanding) the ‘self’. And that’s why I’m interested in continuing to explore everything that might help me in that regard.

VINEETO: Everything that is written on the AFT website, especially on Richard’s portion of it, should make it clear that the whole of you, the passionate identity including the social identity is who you are. Given that who you are is comprised of emotions, feelings, passions, emotion-backed beliefs, concepts, principles etc, the quickest way to discover who you are and how you tick is via looking at any and every emotion which stands in the way of continually feeling good, being affectively happy and harmless (the condition when the ‘self’ is least dominant).

I have seen many actualists, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ included, who at first impatiently wanted to skip the exercise of becoming affectively happy and harmless and jump to the end straight away, only to get hopelessly lost in imagination, daydreaming, being side-tracked to spiritualistic dissociation methods or ‘scientific’ psychological self-help offers when they hit the first obstacle. Here is what ‘Vineeto’ discovered –

ALAN: On further investigation, I discovered a belief lurking in the depths – that it seems to be just as difficult to attain a condition of actual freedom as it is to ‘achieve’ enlightenment.

‘VINEETO’: I’d like to throw in my observation that achieving enlightenment is peanuts compared to becoming actually and permanently free from the human condition. Why do you think hundreds of people have become enlightened in the last millennia while Richard is still the only one who is actually free? And to add my own experience as evidence – some six months into my practice of actualism I arrived at an altered state of consciousness that had all the elements of enlightenment and only Richard’s strong warning not to get ground on the Rock of Enlightenment and rigorous sincerity saved me from entering permanent delusion.

I therefore agree with you that it is purely a belief – it is not ‘just as difficult’ but it requires much more sincerity and far more ploughing into the depth of one’s psyche to become actually free from the human condition in toto than it does to become enlightened. After all, in the identity-swapping fantasy of enlightenment one is merely replacing a shoddy ego with a grand soul, comparable to swapping a rusty old Morris Minor for a brand-new Rolls Royce, whereas for actual freedom ‘I’ am required to persistently and willingly whittle away at my very ‘being’ until ‘I’ arrive at a point where ‘my’ immolation is inevitable. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Alan-e, 18.2.2002).

One can’t think or philosophise one’s way into the actual world because it is actual, not philosophical or conceptual. You got to walk the walk to dismantle your ‘self’ bit by bit, thin it out at the edges with a sincere commitment to imitate the actual by becoming unconditionally happy and harmless, by enjoying and appreciating being here now, in this only moment you can actually experience being alive.

I also found that the core reason for wanting to jump the gun, so to speak, the all-or-nothing approach, is a basic resentment of being here. Why else should there be a resistance to enjoy and appreciate being here.

ROY: I believe that if I gain a better understanding of its nature, it might be easier to free myself from it. Yesterday and today, I had moments where I managed to free myself from a certain type of thought – thoughts that all revolve around me – that prevent me from being even happier and cause me some fatigue. It’s different, but it’s a huge step forward for me!

VINEETO: It is impossible to experientially understand the nature of ‘self’ as long as you are a ‘self’ – there is always a ‘self’ trying to do away with ‘self’. 

Richard: ‘I’ do not really end ‘myself’ in that ‘I’ do not do the deed itself for ‘I’ cannot end ‘myself’. (Richard, Abditorium, Altruism)

A feeling being cannot understand the nature of ‘self’ (except in an unequivocal PCE) hence you will get no answers from people in the real world or the spiritual world. Richard, even though he fully understood the nature of ‘self’ in his 4hr PCE, had to nevertheless transcend first the ego-part of ‘self’ by becoming enlightened and then for 11 years gradually penetrate into the soul-part of ‘self’ – Love Agape and Divine Compassion plus pacifism – in order to finally become free of the identity in toto, all the while using the actualism method to do that.

As such he was the first person to experientially understand the nature of ‘self’/ ‘Self’ in its entirety from the perspective of being without ‘self’/ ‘Self’. (see (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Enlightenment Résumé). Why, after studying and fully understanding the impact of Richard’s brief history you still think that the answers to an actual freedom and the nature of ‘self’, lie elsewhere is a mystery to me. But then I could have easily forgotten how long it took ‘Vineeto’ to comprehensively understand.

Also, because you believe that it’s only thoughts “that prevent me from being even happier and cause me some fatigue” – a belief you borrowed from spiritualists – you completely overlook the fact that it is feelings and passions, (accompanied by feeling-fed thoughts/ beliefs/ truths/ concepts) which comprise the identity/ the ‘self’. Therefore, when you experience a diminishment in feeling good you apply affective attentiveness, i.e. attentiveness to how you feel, in order to discover what is preventing you from feeling good right now. Of course, it is pertinent to first uncover and abandon any dissociative habits you might have acquired during your flirtation with spiritual practices, else any feelings will only surface as “fatigue” or similar negative psychosomatic symptoms (called ‘sensations’ by them), which is a very common occurrence with practitioners of Vipassana and similar dissociative practices.

ROY: PS: Lately I’ve been writing in my native language and then translating with AI, and it helps – I think I can express myself more clearly.

VINEETO: Just out of curiosity, if you don’t mind, what is your native language?

Cheers Vineeto

ROY: Hi again, I don’t know if there’s anyone silently following my journal (or my other posts), but if you are, I’d say not to do it. In my opinion, it’s not a good use of your time. This journey was full of contradictions and missteps. I say this with no hidden motives or meaning. Besides that all that’s left is for me to say thank you! (link)