KUBA: This is yet another reason why actualism is experiential because all words have been invented by feeling beings and therefore on their own they cannot quite convey actuality, they will simply go around in circles and never reveal the actual nature of this universe.

Eternal will be taken to mean a very long lapse of time or infinite a very long stretch of space and yet the actual experience of infinitude is outside of those descriptions.

All of those real world descriptions still infer some ultimate movement/distance to time/space. Whereas actual time and space exist within the stillness of infinitude.

Even writing the word “within” seems to screw it up As in that stillness is the very infinite and eternal nature of this universe.

VINEETO: Yes, I had the same thought when I read it – the word “within” didn’t seem to be quite right and then your last sentence expressed it exactly. Only someone experiencing (or having experienced) actuality can say this with utter confidence. It is indeed experiential.

SCOUT: May I ask – what does this mean? It feels directly in opposition to the Richard quote you shared in Henry’s thread about moments being finite and constantly running out, which makes them infinitely precious and relays the urgency of not wasting time on suffering.

KUBA (to Scout): I’ll have a go at this in the meantime

“You have all the time in the universe” is referring specifically to one’s experience as a flesh and blood body only, one exists where time has no duration. It is impossible to ever ‘run out of time’ as time does not move in actuality.

Whereas as an identity ‘I’ am locked out of eternal time and instead ‘I’ exist precariously across the past, present and future. This is where ‘I’ am always managing, anticipating and running out of time.

As it is always this moment, this body does not move through time like the identity moves across the past, present and future. Rather this body exists securely in eternal time.

In eternal time there is no distance to be travelled between ‘then’ and ‘now’ as the immediate is the ultimate, whereas ‘I’ am forever shifting between these thin slivers of ‘real time’, desperately trying to hold, manage and anticipate each one.

I think I have just answered in part my own question – of why is it that where time has no duration there is such safety. Because all this painful psychological/psychic activity which comes from ‘managing time’ (whilst being forever locked out of actual time) ceases when one exists in eternal time. Everything is in its place already as one is not actually going anywhere or coming from somewhere.

VINEETO: Yes, one can never run out of time in actuality, it is always now, and I am always here and the universe being perfect and pure everything is already perfect.

To answer Scout’s question more in detail, here is a quote from Richard’s journal –

Richard: Yet time is as intimate as this body being here now at this moment. It is so intimate that I – as a body only – am not separate from it. Whereas ‘I’, as a human ‘being’, have separated ‘myself’ from eternal time by being an entity. To be an ontological ‘being’ is to mistakenly take this body being here as containing an ‘I’, a psychological or psychic entity. To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally … as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence. ‘I’ am an illusion; if ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ do exist, then ‘I’ am outside of eternal time. ‘I’ am forever complaining that there is ‘not enough hours in the day’, or ‘I am always running out of time’, or ‘I am always catching up with time’, or ‘I am always behind time’. All this activity is considered ‘normal’, as it is the common experience of humankind. (Richard’s Journal, Chapter Sixteen).

SCOUT: Interesting, I’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as I’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it – but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence.

Is that the “eternity” Vineeto and Richard discuss? time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change I will experience before all experience ends.

But maybe that doesn’t matter when I’m not worried about what’s not happening now. the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

You cannot think your way into this, it is indeed experiential.

Have you ever experienced that when you are feeling good, time seems to fly while when you are sad or worried time seems to go on forever?

This is a perfect example of ‘personal’ time, it’s all coloured by ‘me’, how ‘I’ feel, what ‘I’ want (or don’t want).

Contemplate just this sentence: “To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally … as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence” and then, in attentive contemplation become fascinated by the very fact that ‘you’ and 8 billion other people all have their own personal experience of time. It can’t be that time is like this, can it?

There is an alternative how to think about this – apperceptiveness. You can try it out in a quiet moment.

Cheers Vineeto

December 1 2024

SCOUT: Thank you for the thoughtful responses Vineeto, I will explore.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

You are very welcome. Seeing you enjoyed the responses, I like to explore your original question a bit further.

SCOUT: Interesting, I’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as I’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it – but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence.

VINEETO: Yes, events change but when ‘I’ am in abeyance either in a PCE or when actually free, it is evidently obvious that time does not move, no matter which events take place in the arena of time. Here is a stillness that is all around, unimaginable, inconceivable and utterly magical.

To explain, when ‘I’ am in abeyance then ‘I’ am no longer the centre around which ‘my’ perception and ‘my’ world view revolves. When ‘I’ am in abeyance, or extinguished, there is no “presence”, there is no centre, there is only here, this place in space and now, this moment in time.

I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your lodestone.

SCOUT: Is that the “eternity” Vineeto and Richard discuss? Time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change I will experience before all experience ends.

VINEETO: Given that you are not sure then it is better not to rely on those experiences, especially as most experiences with psychedelics turn out to be ASCs. Viz.:

Richard: In regards hallucinogens: I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 61, 29 Jan 2004)

SCOUT: But maybe that doesn’t matter when I’m not worried about what’s not happening now. The sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?

VINEETO: It does matter a great deal. You would want a clear experience of the actual world in order to guide you, and when you rely on something that very likely was an ASC then you are getting confused at best. If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the ”clock ticking“ is mostly just fear yeah?

The “clock ticking” means you live in real-world time of past, present, future, like every other feeling being, and have conveniently convinced yourself of the belief that you are “not worried about what’s not happening now” while the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ instinctual passions are happening unobserved.

Don’t you want to find out how you tick, how your mind really works, how you can genuinely feel felicitous and innocuous 23 hrs 59 min a day? Wouldn’t that be worthy of your fascinated attention?

Here is a short quote from Richard’s correspondence with a spiritualist regarding eternity for your amusement –

RESPONDENT: Or is it that the movement creates time (maybe even different kinds of time), whenever it’s appropriate?

RICHARD: Do you allow the possibility that time always was, already is, and always will be?

RESPONDENT: Yes, but I have doubts that that’s all there is to it.

RICHARD: What on earth do you mean by ‘that’s all there is to it’ ... eternity (beginningless and endless time) means that it is an all-inclusive everywhen which boggles the mind (intellectual thought) leaving one in a state of wonder and amazement at the sheer magnitude of this marvellous universe. (Richard, List B, No. 42b, 7 Dec 2001).

Cheers Vineeto

December 3 2024

SCOUT: Thanks for elaborating further. I’ve had experiences on psychedelics that were definitely ASCs but also ones that were definitely PCEs, which stand as the goalpost I have oriented my whole life around and they’re how I was able to recognize the truth in yours and Richard’s writings.

VINEETO: I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your lodestone.

SCOUT: Good catch, I was using spiritual lingo here but what I really meant was just raw, un-centered senses and the inescapable present moment – like it was impossible for there to be anything other than what was immediately physically happening because whatever imaginary centerpoint that usually mediates my conscious experience and imagines a past and a future was entirely gone.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

Thank you for clarifying. It’s really good that you can clearly tell the difference and thus don’t accidentally go down the wrong alley.

*

VINEETO: If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah?”

SCOUT: I also may have miscommunicated here as that comment was more intended as conjecture than stating how I actually feel right now. I’m pretty ill and exhausted most of the time and I definitely still worry about it. As you pointed out though, conjecture is kind of an empty mental exercise compared to aiming to actually become free.

Thank you for clarifying this as well. It’s become more apparent what you would like to achieve.

*

VINEETO: Don’t you want to find out how you tick, …

SCOUT: Yes, so badly. I feel bad pretty often. I try to set my bearings and observe myself honestly and keep getting lost in the weeds. But I can see my confusion and stress make my body sicker than it already is. I want to stop torturing myself and to be well.

Ah, now we are talking, lol.

Here is something I recently wrote to another and they reported instant success, so I wonder if it will work for you as well …

First let me tell you a fundamental fact one needs to recognize in order to successfully apply the actualism method or any other advice I can give you – you do not have feelings, you are your feelings. Without recognizing this the method won’t work. (I recommend a long piece of correspondence with No. 60 on the Actual Freedom list (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 30 October 2005a) and (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 1 November 2005), he had big trouble getting it, if you are interested).

To explain: humans are born as feeling beings, babies cry before they can think, and before they even develop a sense of self – so feelings come first. But then thinking sets in and one starts to think that you have feelings which come and go and try to manipulate those feelings, blame yourself for the unwanted ones and chase the ones that you like feeling. That is a sort of subtle dissociation and it doesn’t allow you to choose how you feel, for instance felicitous.

So that is an understanding which needs to happen first, at a fundamental level. You are this swirling vortex created by ever-changing instinctual passions and it is not your fault (because everyone is born that way).

With this firmly in mind you can stop blaming yourself and you will find that the moment you do that, the feeling itself will diminish (not disappear) but lose some of its strength. The reason is that fighting the feeling you are feeding it.

Now when you put this in practice and notice the effect, you can pat yourself on the back that you had your first insight and success. Be a friend to yourself (the only one you are with 24hrs a day).

The other benefit of recognizing and accepting that you are your feelings is that you are not a victim, neither a victim of your own feelings nor a victim of other people’s feelings.

This quote from Richard might be helpful as well –

Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition … if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).
Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27c, 9 September 2002)

Cheers Vineeto

December 23 2024

VINEETO: Don’t you want to find out how you tick, …

SCOUT: Yes, so badly. I feel bad pretty often. I try to set my bearings and observe myself honestly and keep getting lost in the weeds. But I can see my confusion and stress make my body sicker than it already is. I want to stop torturing myself and to be well.

VINEETO: Ah, now we are talking, lol.

Here is something I recently wrote to another and they reported instant success, so I wonder if it will work for you as well […]

This quote from Richard might be helpful as well –

Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition … if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).
Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27c, 9 September 2002).

SCOUT: This forum is an anti-groupthink groupthink. […]

VINEETO: Hello Scout,

It looks like your try at the actualism method wasn’t very successful and hence you did exactly what Richard observed in the above quote, except you are turning the blame outwards – you blame the forum members and Richard himself in order to avoid getting closer to “the end of ‘me’“).

That’s understandable.

What is less understandable is that you come up with the lamest allegation I have ever seen – “anti-groupthink groupthink“. Ha! What does that make you – anti-anti-groupthink think? Or perhaps a member of non-anti groupthink after all?

And what about the comparisons you provide, those followers of enlightened or ‘quasi-enlightened’ persons and those following the teachings of the 10-bull story – according to you their teaching is similar to what Richard is supposedly saying. Are those followers of the “groupthink“ variety or also “anti-groupthink“ people?
(BTW, those objections are nothing new, they have all been answered here so there is no need to clutter the forum as uninformed as you did).

Again, my question is, which side are you voting for (since to you it is a matter of numbers who is called “groupthink“ – are you the lone defender of anti-anti-groupthink? Or do you perchance just want to mount a critique and stir some commotion before you slink away because you couldn’t make a success of the actualism method?

Did you know that one of the essential requirements for the actualism method to work is that one is ruthless honest with oneself?

Cheers Vineeto

December 23 2024

SCOUT: I read the CRO’s, I’m not trying to retread old territory. I didn’t see any quotes raised there for discussion indicating that others had maybe gone all the way before, which constitutes potential proof.

VINEETO: Exactly, no examples by those who raised the question that another had “gone all the way“. You suggest that it was “potential proof“. Even you yourself cannot confidently state that it would be.

Ha. Have you ever heard that one cannot disprove something that does not exist? For instance, can you prove with confidence that a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eater does not exist somewhere in this infinite universe?

It is comparable to Fallacy No. 10 – burden of proof fallacy. [The legal example: People accused of crimes are presumed innocent. The burden of proving that they are guilty rests on the prosecutor. The accused doesn't have to prove anything.]

SCOUT: I’m not done with the method and will continue applying it; it just feels excruciatingly slow, and I am hungry for change, so I am trying to ascertain as much as I can about what I am exploring to ensure I am not spinning my wheels. I probably still am, unconsciously, to some extent.

VINEETO: That is good to hear. The fact that it is “excruciatingly slow“ perhaps has something do with not understanding, or misunderstanding, the actualism method. Perhaps you could explain where exactly you get stuck when being affectively attentive to how you experience being alive, and after getting back to feeling good, examine the trigger for the diminishment of your enjoying this moment of being alive.

Cheers Vineeto

December 23 2024

SCOUT: Being affectively attentive is very painful and exhausting. If I do not suppress or indulge sometimes it still takes literally hours for even neutrality to emerge, and it is pretty fleeting before the next wave of feelings arise. I am agitated and exhausted and in physical pain pretty often, and inviting even more pain by not dissociating when stuff comes up feels like a rough prospect. I recurrently fall back to numbing, because the effort of paying attention to the pain in the way I need to in order for it to pass and not puppet my reactions is daunting and slow to pay dividends.

Of course the numbing does not pay dividends at all, quite the opposite, but in the moment I am beyond grateful to be relieved from the pain, if only for a little.

VINEETO: Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting“? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it?

Either way, first, stop the habitual response – stop fighting your pain and stop fighting the feelings you experience. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings and the pain by increasing the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by being afraid of it), it instantly diminished.

From there, seeing the success of stopping the battle against yourself, you might be able to get to a reasonable feeling good, a little better than neutral.

Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here. Then whenever you get a chance, explore this resentment a bit further –

• [Richard]: ‘Back in 1980 ‘I’ looked at the stars one night and temporarily came to my senses: there are galaxies exploding/ imploding (or whatever) all throughout the physical infinitude where an immeasurable quantity of matter is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time and ‘I’ – puny, pathetic ‘I’ in an ant-like-in-comparison and very vulnerable 6’2’’ flesh and blood body – disapprove of all this? That is, ‘I’ call all this a ‘sick joke’, or whatever depreciative assessment? And further: so what if ‘I’ were to do an about-face and graciously approve? What difference would that make to the universe?

Zilch. (Richard, AF List, No. 10, 25 May 2000).

Once you become fairly confident with these two aspects via experiential confirmation (the only proof which counts) you can have a look at how to change how you feel. It requires giving up dissociation, even if only temporarily, until you become more confident. Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive. Here one of Richard’s co-respondents explains this in detail –

Respondent: ... incidentally, Richard, how can they be ‘an hereditary occurrence’ and be of my choosing at the same time?

Richard: You do comprehend that you are your feelings/ your feelings are you (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) do you not? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between *having* feelings and *being* those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.

This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something“ about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I *am* the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.

This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.

I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST).

And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, AF List, No. 60g, 30 Oct 2005a).

Let me know how you go.

Cheers Vineeto

December 24 2024

VINEETO: Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting”? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it?

SCOUT: The latter, but lending it attention makes the pain feel more acute than numbing it (even though I remain low-grade agitated while numbing too). I’ve been trying to work on not fighting it, it’s just hard bc if I don’t it feels kind of overwhelming.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

I understand that it is hard to get an entry into the actualism method when you have a long-habituated response to fear and pain and all other unpleasant feelings. The thing is if you want to get better, you will have to start somewhere, and your entry is to allow yourself to feel, so that you can notice how you fight this feeling … and then consciously stop resisting, fighting, complaining, rejecting it. Unless you actually do it, you can never find out if the feeling itself diminishes when you stop fighting it, or not.

*

VINEETO: Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here.

SCOUT: Yea I feel resentment a lot. I’m unable to work even a kind of chill home job right now bc I have been dealing with some weird medical symptoms that leave me constantly fatigued and slight stress provokes sometimes scary symptoms. I’m scared I won’t be able to support myself, but I’m also scared that things will get worse if I keep working since that’s been the trajectory thus far. I’m decently young too so most of my peers are out enjoying their lives and I’m in bed a lot of the time, I know comparatives aren’t helpful but I really wish I could function normally and that basic stuff like eating wasn’t a source of constant pain.

I don’t think any of these feelings are serving me in getting better. But it feels like I can’t help it; when I sit with myself long enough I cry like a scared child in pain.

VINEETO: Ok, resentment is a form of socially accepted anger (mostly turned in on oneself), and must have been brewing for a long time … so long that, not dealing with it, you developed psycho-somatic “scary symptoms” and aren’t able to earn a living. Therefore, this too seems to be a rather urgent topic to tackle sooner rather than later.

Now that you acknowledge that resentment operates in you, you can go ahead and sincerely and dispassionately contemplate what the benefits and damages are that resentment creates. It must be fairly obvious to you that the harm outweighs the benefits by a large margin, no? A sincere and clear seeing of this fact will evince action (if/when there be sincere intent to be happy and harmless).

Claudiu made a very perspicacious observation –

Claudiu: But if you want to maintain feelings of justified resentment and woe is me, then you will reject the new habits, via often clever and cunning mechanisms like saying it’s too hard or doesn’t really work or only works for some people etc. This lets you continue in your old ways, which you know don’t work, but this way you can maintain a self-image that it’s out of your control and nothing you can do about it.

VINEETO: Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive.

SCOUT: I can’t see this clearly yet honestly. I see that I do have a choice as to whether to engage narratives around certain feelings with my attention, and that if I stop giving those narratives attention then the feelings lose their edge, and diminish sooner. I don’t feel in control of what emotions arise in a given moment at all, just in how I respond to them.
I’ll keep exploring. I appreciate the engagement.

VINEETO: You are welcome.

You are indeed not “in control of what emotions arise” but you constantly try to be in control by fighting and objecting and resenting all these unwanted feelings which arise. Wanting to be in control requires a ‘controller’ and something to be ‘controlled’ (your feelings). Therefore you split yourself into two – a form of dissociation (additionally to the dissociation of suppressing the feelings themselves).

When this dissociation stops (via personal insight into this self-inflicted phenomenon) then you can experientially grasp that the whole process (controller and controlled) is ‘you’, the psychological and psychic-emotional identity trying to prevent ‘you’ from changing the status quo.

Perhaps you first need to succeed in not fighting nor suppressing unwanted feelings (and experience how they diminish when you don’t feed them by objecting) before you can grasp experientially that you don’t have feelings but that you are your feelings and that your feeling are ‘you’, the passionate instinctual identity.

Cheers Vineeto

January 17 2025

SCOUT: I’ve been applying the method pretty diligently these past few weeks.

I will keep applying the method. I feel like I love my life again. I feel so curious to know myself deeper. And grateful that I can return to a grounded appreciation within myself again and again if I keep reminding myself to.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

This is an excellent report. Now that you had some success for your persistence with the actualism method you have the motivation and curiosity to “know myself deeper”.

This quote from Richard regarding physical pain yet absence of suffering can give you further encouragement to decline when you notice an emotional objection to physical pain –

RESPONDENT: Does not the body suffer? Feel pain?

RICHARD: No, there is no suffering at all. There is physical pain, but no suffering. Physical pain is essential ... if it did not exist, one could be sitting on a hot stove and not know that one’s bum was burning until one noticed the smoke rising!
Suffering is psychological ... only the entities suffer. Thus they forever seek consolation, commiseration and solace. Hence the neediness for the whole gamut of pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love. When one is actually free, none of these products of pathos are necessary ... in fact, with the ego and soul’s demise, they cease to exist. They, too, are bogus. (Richard, List B, No. 20, 15 February 1998).

Additionally, the more you discover the triggers for stress, “fear and sadness and mania” and learn to decline to go down that path again and again, you are also reducing stress hormones like adrenaline, which can only have a beneficiary effect on your health and well-being.

The more you appreciate your enjoyment of being alive (feeling good) the more both enjoyment and appreciation grow – it is quite magical.

Cheers Vineeto

February 7 2025

VINEETO: As you are not “this flesh & blood body experiencing life here and now” unless you are in a PCE, this question cannot be answered as is. In a PCE you may experience to be “nowhere in particular” and get a glimpse of what it is to “be anywhere at all, for infinity is everywhere all at once”. It is marvellous, albeit it can be somewhat disorienting at first. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Henry, 7 February 2025).

SCOUT: This struck a chord with me. But namely because the consciousness experiences I’ve had that mostly closely align with the state you and Richard describe – where the psychological self/centre is completely gone, there are only senses and a direct awareness of infinity – were actually pretty overwhelming. A lot of agitation/ remnants of fear were still present and were experienced very acutely without the buffer of the psychological self, kind of reminiscent of the adjustment period Richard described, and I definitely felt disoriented too. It makes those experiences feel like a little less of a compass for me because they actually didn’t feel super desirable. Did you have an adjustment period too, once you arrived at full freedom? Is this overwhelm/ transitional agitation just part of the experience?

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

As Claudiu already pointed out when there is “a lot of agitation/ remnants of fear were still present” at least that part of the experience was not a PCE. In a PCE the identity is in abeyance and so are all your feelings, passions and imagination. It could have been an after-effect of a PCE when ‘I’ get a shock that ‘I’ was not in control, or a mild excellence experience with a shock-effect, but as you say “closely align with the state you and Richard describe”, it again points to an excellence experience at the most.

This should be good news for you because an actual freedom definitely has no “agitation/ remnants of fear” and is much, much better than you can imagine.

I wish you eminent success with your adventure of being alive.

Cheers Vineeto

February 8 2025

SCOUT: … because the consciousness experiences I’ve had that mostly closely align with the state you and Richard describe – where the psychological self/centre is completely gone, there are only senses and a direct awareness of infinity – were actually pretty overwhelming. A lot of agitation/ remnants of fear were still present and were experienced very acutely without the buffer of the psychological self, kind of reminiscent of the adjustment period Richard described, and I definitely felt disoriented too. It makes those experiences feel like a little less of a compass for me because they actually didn’t feel super desirable. Did you have an adjustment period too, once you arrived at full freedom? Is this overwhelm/ transitional agitation just part of the experience?

VINEETO: <snip>

SCOUT: However there are other parts of Richard/ Vineeto’s description like centerlessness and contact with infinity which I did not directly experience in those incredible moments (even though there felt like there was no “me”, and I had an understanding of infinity, there must have been some sense of centre and slight separation from it). The moments where the centre died and raw infinity coursed through me had a different flavour because they were so fundamentally different, it was very, very overwhelming and disorienting. But I guess as Vineeto said, it probably means there were still remnants of me left to feel this overwhelm.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

As you have mentioned again “Richard/Vineeto’s description like centerlessness and contact with infinity” I am wondering if you can point me to the specific reports you are referring to in order that I can respond in a meaningful way. If you could also describe your own experiences in more detail so I can understand why you are comparing them to Richard’s and my descriptions.

You say – “The moments where the centre died” – when one is actually free, there is no “centre” which can die, so I am puzzled in what way your experience was similar to the descriptions you read.

SCOUT: So I guess I’ve never experienced it all at once – total complete centerlessness and contact with infinity, at the same time that everything seems magical and fun and perfect. The centerlessness actually quite surprised me when I first experienced it because I couldn’t fathom until then how total the obliteration would be, and it had seemed to me that perfect happiness was possible with the far more shallow disappearance of “me” that had revealed the meaning of life prior. I wonder if this is the difference between basic and actual freedom.

VINEETO: Can you say something more about the experience of how the “disappearance of ‘me’” appeared to you “far less shallow” in comparison to “total complete centerlessness”.

While you are wondering “if this is the difference between basic and actual freedom” – I am in fact wondering, in light of your descriptions so far, if your experiences of “total complete centerlessness” were altered states of consciousness of the nature of an ‘actuality mimicking ASC’. (Richard, Abditorium, Hypomania).

It is not uncommon that the identity comes up with this cunning way to lead you away from, and disorient you, on your adventure to become actually free. This is all par for the course of dismantling the human condition. So I definitely suggest that you do not use these experiences as a compass or even indication of progress. You may find Kuba’s posts informative as well as my reply to him (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Kuba4) on January 8 this year.

Cheers Vineeto

February 9 2025

SCOUT: I’ve found some quotes from the website, specifically from Geoffrey and Vineeto, which capture the delineation I’m trying to describe in my post. Here is a description from Geoffrey after reaching basic freedom:

This second description aligns with my experiences of purity that felt, at the time, “perfect” – there was no “me” narrating or colouring experience with emotions, and the sensory world was the most rich, splendid, fascinating thing in and of itself. My fear of aging and death disappeared entirely with “me”. Each moment was so enjoyable that it was so blatantly obvious that the meaning of life was purely in the living of it. There was no bubble for me then, nothing to hold onto and no need to hold onto anything; it certainly felt like being “no one” compared to my normal waking reality. And yet, as Geoffrey described, traces of the past walls must have still existed, as I cannot say I had full apprehension of infinity in those moments, and even though I did not perceive a psychological self, my senses still seemed to orient themselves around some central point.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

Thank you for the quotes that you say align with your experiences, particular the one from Geoffrey. This description refers to a time when Geoffrey had been basically free for about 5 years (1 July 2024), and describes the course of events when he became free from the ‘guardian’, the social identity in toto.

From that vantage point of being free from the instinctual passions and the identity formed thereof plus being free from the tethers of the social identity (“no more dome over me ”) except “something like the trace of past walls”, Geoffrey accurately describes the progressing events as an ongoing actuality.

However, what you report are temporary exceptional experiences which appear to align with Geoffrey’s descriptions apart from being ‘overwhelming’ and ‘scary’ and from which you returned “to my normal waking reality” which you further down describe as “‘I’ am nothing but pain”.

Hence my suggestion in my previous post to you that these may well be experiences, possibly originating from a PCE but then flipping into those of the nature of an ‘actuality mimicking ASC’. In this type of ASC there is neither God nor any religious or spiritual connotations but imaginary features assembled from reports of people describing their experience of an actual freedom. The term “actuality mimicking” should give you at least pause to consider, given that you originally described them as “agitating” and “very, very overwhelming and disorienting” which is clearly an emotional reaction.

SCOUT: The moments where I did feel in direct contact with infinity reminded me of Vineeto ‘s experience of transitioning from basic to actual freedom:

Vineeto: “The next significant event happened a week after my completion [the abdication of the guardian]. It began with an eerie sensation in the head as if my brain was being operated on whilst being fully conscious. After about 15 minutes or so there was a sensation as if my brain was being scattered throughout the universe. When I recovered from the experience itself enough to find out what actually happened, I noticed that I had lost my centre of reference (a discovery that left me quite disconcerted for about 2 weeks a week) … The direct result of losing the boundaries of my localized reference during this ‘brain-scattering’ event is that I am permanently apperceptively aware of the infinitude of the universe as infinite space, eternal time and perpetual matter.” (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Srinath, #spatial)

As opposed to the events where my experience more aligned with what Geoffrey described, my experiences that have been similar to what Vineeto describes here have been honestly too overwhelming to be enjoyable for the most part. In those moments, I recognized the normal waking “me” (and even the “traces of walls” from previous events that felt like PCEs) as a buffer shielding me from the full intensity of infinitude. In these events, there was no possibility for any trace of walls. There were only the senses of my body; whole, complete, entirely alone and yet inseparable from all of existence. There was no central organizing element to these senses, no spatiality whatsoever – each sense’s signals arose purely known unto themselves from nowhere to no one. Direct experience of the infinitude of all existence (though my body as a conduit of knowing this is entirely finite) came along with this.

VINEETO: It is no surprise that you describe those experiences as “too overwhelming to be enjoyable” because your introductory sentence says – “the moments where I did feel in direct contact with infinity”, which again points to it not being a PCE, and hence you not actually being “in direct contact with infinity”. Hence what you experienced as “the full intensity of infinitude” would have most likely been the affective veneer the identity is pasting over actuality. (see Actualism, ActualVineeto, Henry, 8 February 2025)

SCOUT: I don’t think this was an ASC because God is an anthropomorphic notion and there felt like there was literally nothing in me that could project its sense of being onto the universe. The universe is the infinity of existence of which this body is just a tiny experiential prong, and there was no delineation between “my experience” and the sensations of this body being known to itself, so though I am a piece of infinity, for all intents and purposes this finite body is the entirety of what “I” as this life am and thus death will necessarily be absolute, because there was nothing in me to survive beyond the death of the senses.

VINEETO: As I said above, in this type of ASC, ‘actuality mimicking ASC’, there is neither God nor any religious or spiritual connotations and your statement that “I don’t think this was an ASC because God is an anthropomorphic notion” looks like an after-the-event-thinking and logical deduction. Even your report that “I am a piece of infinity” is not a description of actuality. If you think the word ‘actuality mimicking ASC’ doesn’t fit, let me know which word works better for you – it is certainly not a PCE.

Look, I am not writing this to denigrate or belittle your experiences but to make you aware that the lost, lonely, frightened, and very cunning entity is capable of elaborate deceit which, if undetected, can successfully deter you from recognizing genuine pure intent vs. imagination-fuelled passionate experiences, and lead you on a path to nowhere with “immense agitation and disorientation”. I wish you to succeed to a genuine actual freedom and not be diverted to a state of make-belief, passionate, imaginary experience. Even if the content of such state is informed by actualist writings, it can still be corrupted and adulterated by the identity.

Richard: Wherever there be no underestimating the extent to which a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning feeling-being will go in order to remain affectively-psychically in existence – millions upon millions of years of blind nature’s successful perpetuation of the species via its rough-and-ready instinctual survival passions blindly dictates no other course of action can ever instinctually come about – is where there be far less likelihood of ascribing to nescience that which quite properly has its roots in the visceral wiliness of the wild which has so successfully proliferated the species thus far. (Richard, List D, Alan, Footnote)

It is also important to keep in mind that you cannot become free from being in a PCE, nor by the ‘self’ “evaporating” in PCEs, but by naively enjoying and appreciating being alive, so much so that you become naiveté itself and give up the controls. Then one is able to make a once-in-a-lifetime deliberate and conscious decision to willingly and irremunerably ‘self’-immolate in toto. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it, which can only happen while ‘I’ and ‘me’ are not in abeyance.

SCOUT: These experiences have always come with immense agitation and disorientation. Traces of the emotional self must have not evaporated immediately with the spatial centre because there was raw, unadulterated panic (made significantly more intense by the absolute lack of buffer) that something had happened that I wouldn’t be able to undo and the body would be stuck in this energetically-overwhelming and orientation-less state, unable to navigate the world. Only in one such experience did the agitation start to calm down enough for the senses to start to recognize that things were okay and actually very complete, and the body was still capable of functioning, but usually the experiences have never lasted long enough that this level of resolution is reached.

But I am travelling largely blind here, I might be misinterpreting these events as being closer to actuality than they are. I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts Vineeto , whenever you get the chance to read this behemoth of a description (and thank you very much for doing so if you do!)

VINEETO: I am pleased to read that you have hesitation to return to those “states”, and also that you are wondering if you “might be misinterpreting these events as being closer to actuality than they are”. From my vantage point they are not close to actuality, made apparent by the various feeling-words you used in your honest descriptions. What you called “raw reality” which causes you “raw, unadulterated panic” is not at all what the actual world is like, as Claudiu already demonstrated to you in the descriptions of his PCEs.

You wrote in your previous post –

Scout: because the consciousness experiences I’ve had that mostly closely align with the state you and Richard describe – where the psychological self/centre is completely gone, there are only senses and a direct awareness of infinity – were actually pretty overwhelming. A lot of agitation/ remnants of fear were still present and were experienced very acutely without the buffer of the psychological self, kind of reminiscent of the adjustment period Richard described, and I definitely felt disoriented too.

Here you first say it’s a PCE (how Vineeto and Richard describe it), then there is description of feelings (overwhelming, agitation, fear), then you say there is no psychological self (despite feelings being present), then you felt disoriented. I would say if you recognize that the first statement (it’s a PCE) is incorrect, then point 2 and 4 make sense and point 3 might have been a felt assumption drawn from the first statement.

Hence the way forward is to pay diligent attention to how you feel, so that you can sort out the grain from the chaff. Perhaps a desire to escape from “‘I’ am nothing but pain” is contributing to a hasty classification of the experience? Only you can know how your mind ticks and the closer you pay diligent attention to the details of what is happening the easier it will be to recognize a genuine PCE when it’s happening.

Then you can make an intimate connection and tie a golden thread or clew to that genuine PCE whereby one is sensitive to and receptive of the over-arching benignity and benevolence of the world of the PCE. This way you establish your connection to pure intent, which is essential to distinguish more easily your experience – if it’s a genuine PCEs or an imaginary feeling-fed experience only resembling (not actually being) whatever you have read in actualist literature.

Cheers Vineeto

February 11 2025

SCOUT: Thank you both very much for you thoughtful responses Vineeto and Claudiu, these are really helpful. I don’t feel denigrated at all; I came to actualism after I started having lots of experiences like these because amidst all the chaotic overlays that existed in both the positive and negative experiences, I recognized the core truth in the writings as aligning with key parts of the experiences. But almost none (maybe none honestly) of my experiences have been fully “clean”, so it’s helpful to talk with people who are deeper into this and help tease apart what is real and what is my psyche resisting reality.

I think part of the reason I ask about this in the first place is because I have felt things going further recently, becoming more and more aware of this quiet on the constant periphery of my experience which, if I start to surrender to it, I find in any given moment that all is good, and my senses take the forefront and become sharper and more enjoyable. But then my mind often snaps back and looks for something “wrong” or distracts me with some other pursuit.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

You might still be influenced by your previous meditative training in that you blame ‘wrong thoughts’ on the way you feel, when you say – “then my mind often snaps back and looks for something ”wrong“”. What most likely alerts you to something being “wrong” is that feeling good has diminished or disappeared. Then you look for the trigger, get back to feeling good (just the basic feeling good) and then you can work out what this “something wrong” is all about be it a habit, a pattern or something else. This is exactly the way, which has worked for many here, how to diminish the psychological pain you so urgently want to escape from.

SCOUT: So I think my mind clings to these past horrifying experiences as warnings that scary things might await if I go too far and go off the deep end.

VINEETO: These past experience should indeed be a warning, especially if you are contemplating taking DMT to rush into the next out-of-the-ordinary experience. The point is that there is already a groove, a mental-emotional highway, so to speak, which your mind presently gravitates to – possibly originating from previous meditation/ dissociation training or the fact that you are trying “have contact with infinity” (link) in order to escape “‘I’ as pain”. This is most likely ‘you’ trying to have contact with infinity, which is an impossibility. ‘I’ can never “have contact with infinity”. ‘I’ would have to go into abeyance for this to happen and it cannot be forced. It will only make you susceptible to imaginary passionate altered states.

The more reliable and enjoyable way is to activate delight (link) from which to progress into feeling excellent and from a state of enjoyment and appreciation you can invite /allow a PCE to happen.

Ian had some excellent suggestions in his post to you suggesting “Start with being kind to yourself”.

SCOUT: But Vineeto you are right in your assessment that I want to escape “‘I’ as pain” and my hyper-analysis and fixation on these experiences is part of it. I am scared of going from my current amount of psychological pain towards more pain too. Your responses are very encouraging that these depths of pain, fear and disorientation are not related to becoming actually free and aren’t necessary parts of getting in touch with reality.

VINEETO: These experiences you described are certainly not part of becoming actually free – on the contrary. The reason we label them ‘actuality mimicking ASCs’ is because the identity tricks you into believing that this is actuality in order to scare you and convince you that you need to stay as ‘you’ are and then the passionate ‘I’/ ‘me’ can stay in control of your life. Attentiveness can help you to recognize these very tricks and decline.

Hence the actualism method starts from where you are at, being attentive to how you feel in this very moment of being alive, and seeing how silly it is to waste this precious moment, now, the only moment you are actually experiencing by being scared, angry, sad, resentful, or fighting the feeling you feel.

You know it is possible, you have already done and reported it on January 17 –

Scout: My previous focus had been on just giving attention to every moment regardless of what was coming up. But no emphasis on appreciation. this resulted in me feeling like coming to the present moment was a painful experience a lot of the time, and avoiding it.

Now I emphasize savouring it. Even in the presence of pain, I find aspects of whatever is happening to cherish. It makes the pain much more manageable. And it’s led to me taking better care of myself which has reduced the bodily discomfort I’ve been experiencing. (…)

Amidst upwellings of fear and sadness and mania, my baseline has become pretty much good. I think I can be ok even if I’m sick. But working on retraining my brain to appreciate whatever’s going on seems like it might actually physically help my illness too.

I will keep applying the method. I feel like I love my life again. I feel so curious to know myself deeper. And grateful that I can return to a grounded appreciation within myself again and again if I keep reminding myself to..

It’s certainly worth continuing on this path to feeling good with patience and perseverance – and also continuing to appreciate what you have already achieved.

Cheers Vineeto

February 13 2025

SCOUT: Thanks Vineeto.

Vineeto: Ian had some excellent suggestions in his post to you suggesting “Start with being kind to yourself”.

I have actually been taking Ian ’s advice deeply to heart and it has initiated a chapter of deep dismantling of a lot of habits of self-rejection and self-punishment, which I used to keep myself on the straight and narrow within society (I had a hard time keeping up and fitting in, so I moulded myself to conform through self-hatred).

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

You are very welcome. I am pleased to read you made good progress in dismantling “self-rejection and self-punishment”. Now it will be easier to also notice instances when you don’t like being here (resentment) and rid yourself of this debilitating habitual attitude to feeling good.

*

VINEETO: The reason we label them ‘actuality mimicking ASCs’ is because the identity tricks you into believing that this is actuality in order to scare you and convince you that you need to stay as ‘you’ are and then the passionate ‘I’/ ‘me’ can stay in control of your life. Attentiveness can help you to recognize these very tricks and decline.

SCOUT: I will very much keep this pointer in mind. I noticed my mind trying to panic me last night and remembered that reality is not bad at all, quite the opposite, and the panic no longer had anything to grab onto and passed through.

VINEETO: The more you succeed in paying attention to how you feel and how much it helps not to fight /feed the feeling, the more you are encouraged to keep going. Success breeds success. And pat yourself on the back for each success – it’s part of appreciating.

BTW, it is not your “mind trying to panic” you but rather the feeling of fear/ panic happening first (by 12 milliseconds Library, Topics, Instincts) and then your mind’s reaction compounding the feeling. Close attention will confirm this to you experientially. Hence Richard’s advice to first get back to feeling good before contemplating about what happened to trigger the feeling.

Cheers Vineeto

February 21 2025

SCOUT: Becoming more naive sometimes has come with sadness.

When I strip away my cynicism and numbness I just see a lot of hurt and scared people. I see how the people I love struggle and are in pain. I also see that they are finite and going to die. I remember being little and the enormity of all of those things was overwhelming and it devastated me and eventually I numbed out but now I see it again and I feel it deeply.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

You describe very well why it is initially difficult to allow naiveté into one’s life. All the emotional pain and sorrow you feel when opening up can be quite overwhelming and devastating. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ could only allow feeling the full extent of this sorrow when ‘she’ knew with the certainty gained from the PCE that there was an actual solution to the millennia-old ubiquitous sorrow of the human condition.

You may recall what I wrote to Kuba recently  (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Kuba4, 18 February 2025)–

‘Vineeto’ (to Richard): Last night serendipity provided the answer to my question to you, which had been going on in my head since I wrote to you. The experiential answer to ‘I am many and many is me’ presented itself in the form a TV program on International Humanitarian Aid Organizations and their role and accountability. For one and a half hours there was ample footage presented on human suffering and devastation in war, famine, genocide and racial ‘cleansing’ on one side and the helpless, well-intentioned, yet almost useless effort of people in the aid organizations on the other side.

The presentation was enough to make it utterly and unquestionably clear to me that there is no difference between me and the hundreds of thousands who have suffered and died and those who have, without success or effective change, tried to help – for ‘umpteen hundreds of thousands of years’. On an overwhelming instinctual level ‘I’ am ‘them’ and ‘I’ have had no solution and never will have a solution.

The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice. [Emphasis added] (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Richard, 28.9.1999).

It is nevertheless excellent that you can allow yourself to be “more naïve” which “sometimes has come with sadness”. Remember to also be appreciative of both your courage and sensitivity to humanity’s plight.

SCOUT: I don’t really know how to move back to feeling good other than feeling these things when they hit me. If I try to redirect my attention I feel the ignored feelings buzzing in the background, where they can remain as agitation for days to weeks if I insist on not facing them. So I give the feelings my attention and they swallow me for a little and I sob harder than I’ve sobbed in memory. And then after that they start to recede.

I don’t know if this goes against the method, it’s just kind of naturally started happening as I’ve started paying more direct attention to what’s going on in my mind and body. I know crying doesn’t change anything but it really demands to be felt, I can’t get around it. It has been making me kinder and more patient with people. But I also notice the desire to help people emerging, out of compassion. I’ve been noticing this without entertaining the fantasies too much because it seems silly to have someone who is not fully free of pain wanting to guide others out of pain. Towards what? I don’t know where I’m going, But I feel more raw than I’ve felt since childhood.

VINEETO: I remember from ‘Vineeto’s’ experiences that it can take a while to feel out those intensive feelings. It also gives you a bit more information how ‘you’ tick (and by extent how every feeling being ticks at the core of their being). Henry is correct that when indulging in too much sorrow, you can be swallowed up and seduced by the bitter-sweetness of sorrow – but with fascinated attention you are bound to discover the right balance.

Feeling “more raw than I’ve felt since childhood” is a good indicator that you have allowed naiveté to peek through your numbness, and years of hiding from behind those walls certainly needs getting used to. Be aware, i.e. be attentive, when this sorrow flips into compassion (=is suffering with others) because that might initially feel better but will only extend the sorrow. You can be helping others by feeling good yourself and instead be practically patient, considerate and friendly.

R: One can give unconditional love to another for twenty four hours a day – I have done this myself, years ago – and the other is still not satisfied. Initially thrilled, yes, but eventually it is not enough. Total acceptance, total appreciation, total love ... that is what I provided for another, once upon a time ... and it was not what she needed. She only felt that that would satisfy, that that was what would settle the gnawing ache, the gaping wound, the longing void. It was not.

Q(2): Oh yes, I know that from myself. It turns it back onto me, doesn’t it?

R: Not only does another person not have to provide you with fulfilment, the fact is they can not. Once one realises this, one is free from the other. And not only are you free from them, but you free them from your demands, your expectations that you put upon them – like your parents do.

It is a two-way thing. If, as you say, you go around the world to visit your parents to ‘pacify them’ – to fulfil their expectations – you, too, are looking for fulfilment. Which is why I asked you: ‘What is your investment?’ (Audio-taped Dialogues, Compassion Gained through Forgiveness Binds)

You observed it well – you would not know where to lead others, other than providing a living example how to live without resentment of being here, by enjoying and appreciating being alive, and thus prove wrong the ancient belief that ‘life is a vale of tears’.

What also helps is to emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable –

RICHARD: Given that people are as-they-are and that the world is as-it-is there are more than a few things which are ‘unacceptable’ (child abuse, rape, murder, torture and so on). What worked for me twenty-odd years ago, as a preliminary step, was to rephrase the question so that it makes sense (rather than vainly apply any of those unliveable ‘unconditional acceptance’ type injunctions):

• Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?

This way intelligence need not be compromised ... intelligence will no longer be crippled. (Richard, List B, James2, 18 Aug 2001).

SCOUT: Maybe this is part of the compulsion of self-immolation, because it feels like I as an emotional entity have to choose between being numb or feeling intense and destabilizing emotional pain in response to the misery of humanity. Humanity loves its weeping martyrs but honestly from an experiential perspective, being the martyr seems like kind of a raw deal. Sure it’s pretty blissful to feel loving and compassionate and connected but it seems inextricable: if feeling connected with other people supplies the druggy good feelings, then feeling disconnected from them or rejected by them produces bad feelings. If their happiness brings good feelings, then their misery brings bad ones.

I don’t like living this way.

VINEETO: Well said. You are discovering more and more about the human condition and why the old ways don’t work and never have. And now you have an alternative which works. Being naïve you can experiment with being both sensitive and sensible and appreciate the successes you have to enjoy life more than before.

Cheers Vineeto