Please note that Vineeto’s correspondence below was written by the feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ while ‘she’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom.
Selected Correspondence Vineeto Sex Actualism Homepage RESPONDENT: You wrote – Has anyone asked ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ while having sex... VINEETO: Yes. RESPONDENT: … and if yes, what happened? VINEETO: I left ‘there’ and came here where intimacy happens. RESPONDENT: I’m worried that if the psyche expires and its sustaining libido peters out, I won’t be able to experience orgasms anymore. VINEETO: No worries, No. 32, the men report that they are having fun (more than before) and so do the women. RESPONDENT: If the psyche is sustained by the psychic energy (libido) … VINEETO: It’s the other way around – the psyche is the motor that produces the psychic energy, in this case sexual desire (libido). RESPONDENT: … and as an orgasm is a discharge of this particular form of energy, … VINEETO: The physical orgasm is a discharge of electric physical energy, triggered by sensual enjoyment. Libido piggybacks on the physical event but is in no way a necessary ingredient, on the contrary, it greatly hinders and distorts. RESPONDENT: … is it not reasonable to say that if the psyche expires, so does the libido … VINEETO: With me, libido all but disappeared in the later stages of virtual freedom. RESPONDENT: and thus no more orgasms for this flesh, bones and blood conscious body. VINEETO: On the contrary – without libido and its counterpart of guilt, greed, malice, blind self-centredness, disappointment and all the other respective feelings, this flesh and blood body is free to enjoy the rise and fall … and rise and fall of sexual energy as it happens in the sexual play on its own accord. RESPONDENT: It might even be said that the absence of orgasm is the ‘final’ proof for someone living an actual freedom ;-). VINEETO: Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that you have yet to find such a person to support your theory? (see Sundry, Frequent Questions, Sex without Libido?) RESPONDENT: The raw male sex instinct is greedy, insatiable and aggressive. It is a rapist by nature – if not for the social identity checking from within and the legal institutions from without, it could be worse. It is by denial and control of the black nature one is ‘good’. As it is said somewhere: there are two reasons for any action – one is the reason that is believed and stated; other is the real reason. Raw male sex instinct treats women as objects of pleasure to be exploited. I wonder how a female sex instinct is like – is it different in some details at least? VINEETO: In my experience the raw sexual instinct is, at core, not that of pleasure as in desire/gratification (as religious and spiritual teachers try to make us believe), but that of procreation/perpetuation, and observation of the sexual instinct in action in animal species in general will easily confirm this fact. Pleasure is merely the bait to get the job done to perpetuate the species. The instinct for procreation, however, is different for the male and the female. This is how Peter described it in his journal – Peter: Nature, or more accurately blind nature, wants only reproduction – the survival of the species – and it doesn’t give a damn for my happiness. The physical enjoyment of sex and the euphoric orgasmic climax is a by-product of the reproductive process itself. As a male animal I am programmed with a sexual instinct which drives me to impregnate as many women as possible. Crudely put (for it is indeed crude): find woman, fuck woman, move on; find woman, fuck woman, move on… The sex drive, when coupled with the instinctual passion of aggression, produces the rapist. In all the wars, the soldier’s spoil at the end of battle was rape. And despite the attempt to ‘keep a lid on it’ with morals and noble ideals, this blind instinctual passion lies at the very core of man’s sexual behaviour. At last I had the bugger by the throat: the very instinctual passion that prevented my free enjoyment of sex with this woman. (Peter’s Journal, Sex). On the other hand the instinctual programming for women is to not only find a desirable man for mating but more importantly to find, and keep, one who is best suited to look after the offspring that result from mating. The consequence of this difference in instinctual sexual programming is, as we all know, a never-ending power battle between the sexes. In order to end this perpetual battle between the sexes I had to not only un-earth, understand and abandon my social conditioning as a woman but also my instinctual sexual programming which lay beneath the outer layer of one of the most fundamental aspects of social conditioning – socially appropriate sexual behaviour. It’s a fascinatingly intimate journey to make, literally close to the bone as the drive to procreate and reproduce is imprinted in the very cells of the body. * RESPONDENT: Bait for whom? If the ‘instinctual passion’ is the ‘me’ – why does it have to have a bait? For the ego perhaps? For the cognitive part? For the intelligence? VINEETO: One of most fundamental aspects of actualism is that it acknowledges the fact that human beings are animals and because of this fact, the prime motivational impulse of the human species is survival as it is with all other animal species. Whilst individual members of animal species are programmed to do anything and everything possible in order to survive, the overarching instinct is the need to procreate – the continual reoccurring sequence of procreation being the only way any animal species can survive. As such, the sexual instinct is the most powerful instinct as anyone who has passed through the pains of puberty can attest. I found it important to take on board that the instinct to procreate, manifest as an instinctual passion in individual human beings, is a pre-programmed compulsion for both the male and female of the species and that it is a ‘blind’ senseless compulsion in that it ‘cares’ not for the individual welfare or happiness of individual members of the species. * VINEETO: The instinct for procreation, however, is different for the male and the female. This is how Peter described it in his journal – <snip> On the other hand the instinctual programming for women is to not only find a desirable man for mating but more importantly to find, and keep, one who is best suited to look after the offspring that result from mating. The consequence of this difference in instinctual sexual programming is, as we all know, a never-ending power battle between the sexes. In order to end this perpetual battle between the sexes I had to not only un-earth, understand and abandon my social conditioning as a woman but also my instinctual sexual programming which lay beneath the outer layer of one of the most fundamental aspects of social conditioning – socially appropriate sexual behaviour. It’s a fascinatingly intimate journey to make, literally close to the bone as the drive to procreate and reproduce is imprinted in the very cells of the body. RESPONDENT: So, generally it is not a ‘rapist’ in women? VINEETO: According to the dictionary rape means – rape – 1 The action or an act of taking a thing by force; esp. violent seizure of property etc. (now obsolete). 2 The action or an act of carrying away a person, esp. a woman, by force. Now arch. & poet. 3 The action or an act of forcing a person, esp. a woman or girl, to have sexual intercourse against his or her will. Also, the action or an act of buggering a man or boy against his will. Oxford Dictionary Some women are certainly capable of ‘taking a thing by force’, but women generally use methods other than physical in order to get what they want. RESPONDENT: Is the man treated/viewed as an object when the instinct is at its maximum? VINEETO: Of course. It is the nature of instinctual passion to treat the object of your passion as an object. An ongoing observation of your own sexual desires in action will reveal that it is the desire that needs to be satisfied, with whom is secondary. As a side issue, you have probably heard of the seven-year itch syndrome. It appears that 7 years is about the maximum period that the human sexual instinctual drive is capable of being domesticated and it may well be more than co-incidental that a child is capable of fending for itself by about age 7. RESPONDENT: So at the instinctual level, aspects that are important for being a good father is felt (‘turn on’ based on strength of a male perhaps? But this doesn’t mean that he will stick; maybe a strong emotional connection – chemistry – is indicative of the commitment?) VINEETO: Sociological studies report that women are attracted both to strong healthy genes as well as the man’s capacity for caring for their young. Personally I used the actualism method to find out about, and then subsequently abandon, my own social conditioning in regards to sex and when this was out of the way, I could then let the instinctual passions come to the surface and observe them unobstructed by feelings of shoulds and shouldn’ts such as guilt, pride or shame. Apart from self-observation (self-observation based on experiential doing as opposed to theorizing based on intellectual supposition) I found that the best way to find out about instinctual passions, was to read what primatologists report from observing primate behaviour in the wild as sociologists who study human behaviour are stymied not only by their own morals, ethics and beliefs but by those of their studied objects as well. Mind you, in doing so you need to keep your wits about you as many primatologists are reluctant to acknowledge the dark side of chimp behaviour. As for male commitment – sexual instinctual passions provide the first passionate impetus to get together and procreate and the instinct to nurture may well provide sufficient impetus to provide for and protect any ensuing infants but self-observation reveals that these passions have a blind senseless underbelly, a dark side that makes them a liability if you are interested in living in peace and harmony with a partner. If you aspire to live with your fellow human beings in peace and harmony then an entirely different kind of commitment is necessary, a commitment that is far from senseless. RESPONDENT: I have spent a long time wading through my smorgasbord of feelings and can honestly say that that effort resulted in the dissipation of the vast majority of them. Your post has some interesting timing as just the other day my wife expressed a feeling of loss for the passion that infused the earlier days of our relationship. While that was a lot of fun, I wouldn’t for a second ask for it back, since it comes bundled with all those other miserable feelings. I woke up this morning thinking about what she had said, and felt an immense feeling of relief. This is not suppression ... the feelings are genuinely gone, for the most part. I see our relationship in a much clearer light, and I am no longer beholden to her. This puts me/us in an interesting spot, which we’ve touched on a bit: when the biological/hormonal imperative is removed, what form does the male/female relationship take? I would hope there could grow some genuine intimacy, but I guess we’ll see how that evolves. VINEETO: The process of actualism is to investigate the feelings that prevent you from being happy and harmless. In order to investigate those feelings it is vital that you not only think about them but that you experience those particular feelings as they occur – otherwise you won’t be able to experientially understand how ‘you’ tick and discover what underlies those feelings. In order to do that, I first had to backtrack from the conditioning that I picked up in my spiritual years of being detached and dis-identified as in ‘I am not my body, I am not my feelings’. An actualist does the opposite to spiritual transcendence – when I discover a feeling, I completely identify with it because ‘I’ am my feelings and each feeling is yet another aspect of ‘me’ in action – the very identity that I want to examine and explore, uncover and investigate. As for ‘when the biological/hormonal imperative is removed’ – my experience was that while my hormonal imperative may have waned over the years that only meant that I searched for other ways to express my identity. In the East it is common practice that when a man’s sexual drive disappears with old age, he turns to spirituality, becomes a monk or a sannyasin and seeks immortality. In a similar vein, women in the West desperately search for a new meaningful identity when menopause sets in, depriving them of their identity as a sexually attractive person and a mother. The need to ‘be’ does not automatically disappear with old age, as some religions have us believe, but it often shifts the focus of one’s passion from achievements in this world to achievements in the other ethereal world. When I came across actualism I began to understand that actual freedom is not about replacing one ‘me’ with another ‘higher’ or purer ‘me’ but that it is indeed a method that aims for eliminating any ‘self’ whatsoever. In order to totally remove ‘the biological/hormonal imperative’ I found it necessary to explore the full extent of my sexual conditioning that I had imbibed from both my Christian upbringing and my Eastern spiritual conditioning. After all, both my conditioning and my instinctual drive stood in the way of a free enjoyment of sex, the most sensual and sensuous interaction two human beings can share. This is what I wrote about my discoveries at the time – [Vineeto]: When Peter and I started to throw out love it had a great impact on my sexual ‘identity’. It was an intense and scary time because right behind the nice, embellishing veil of love lingered all the monsters and demons of being an animal, a whore, a slut, not human and having sex with a ‘stranger’. Enjoying sex without ‘being in love’ is still considered one of the greatest sins of Christian morality. And Eastern spirituality regards any kind of sex as the biggest obstacle to enlightenment. Not only had I to face my own personal conditioning about sex but I was also confronted with the fact of stepping out of the collective accepted behaviour and limits that every woman had been taught. Demons of atavistic fears would present me with their ferocious stories, as though I was still living in the Middle Ages, where women were burnt at the stake for leaving the fold or were expelled for not conforming. It took some effort to understand that both fears and beliefs around sex were simply inherited from other people, they don’t have any actual relevance for me. Digging deeper, stepping outside of the realm of sexual conditioning and beliefs I then discovered their underlying force – the sexual instincts. This inheritance from our animal past is simply installed to blindly ensure the continuity of the species. It has nothing to do with my happiness and inhibits any sensible behaviour. Those blind instincts cause, among other troubles, possessiveness, jealousy, rape, murder and overpopulation. Identified and seen as what they were, these instincts eventually lost their significance and their grip over me. Now I can enjoy the sensibility and pleasure of sex without being driven, free of the need and dependency that used to be the inevitable consequence. I now don’t need to reinforce my female sexual identity or practise my manipulative power over men – hence the need for flirting has disappeared. Relating to men without the restriction of sexual flirtation is indeed a freedom to meet them in a new and fresh way. (A Bit of Vineeto, #sex). As I see it, nothing ‘evolves’ unless you have the passion to find out why you are not intimate, why you are not happy and harmless 24 hrs a day. The intimacy that I experience in relating to others is not dependant on how intimate they are with me but is solely based on the fact that neither any conditioning nor any feeling interferes with me being intimately present, giving 100% attention to the other. Again, achieving intimacy is a unilateral action – I remove every obstacle that prevents me meeting the other as a fellow flesh-and-blood human being. The intimacy that has emerged after exploring all the impediments – my female role-play, my sexual repression and conditioning, my dream of love and my spiritual beliefs – is far beyond my wildest dreams. Not only do I enjoy an ongoing peaceful and harmonious living together but also a sensuous sexual play that far exceeds anything I ever experienced when I was still driven by sexual passions. Peter has described it in his journal – Peter: The results of this investigation are indeed quite interesting. We have discovered a heightened sensual pleasure in sex. We have stripped away almost all of the emotions, fears, blockages, hesitancies, guilt, and any withholding that occurs around sex. Now it is simply a matter of when to comfortably fit it in to the day; we generally prefer the morning, as the resulting sensations can last for hours. It’s that ‘Wow’ or ‘Hmmm’ that we can get at the coffee shop later on that is so good. It is usually obvious when it is a good time to jump into bed, and not being driven takes all the ‘will we – won’t we’ nonsense away. It simply happens whenever it suits us both. Without the sex drive dominating we are able to enjoy the whole of the sexual act; it is not a blind mindless rush to orgasm. We enjoy the heightened physical pleasures of touch, smell, sight and sound, the senses building and building to become purely sexual. (...) We often would lie in bed as this physical delight emerged more and more, and say that the path to freedom would be worth it just for the sex alone! (Peter’s Journal, Sex). * RESPONDENT: There’s no denying the silliness of humans (have you ever seen them make love – what a hoot!), but why that makes us smile and laugh is not clear to me. VINEETO: The most common form of laughing at the silliness of others is cynicism and the feeling of superiority that they are stupid but I am not. There might also be a dose of unadmitted embarrassment in it, knowing that we humans are all alike when it comes to being driven by instinctual passions. Personally, I found I had to step down from my lofty heights of moral and ethical superiority and admit with crumbling pride that I was just as mad and as bad as everyone else and that my years of training in spiritual detachment had only served to increase my arrogance and my blinkers. As for ‘have you ever seen them make love – what a hoot!’ – I am reminded of Mohan Rajneesh making endless jokes about the silliness of humans having sex. His teaching of free sex was aimed at reaching true celibacy when we would finally be fed up with the silly sex. The sexual drive has always been the toughest obstacle for those who aspired to the purity of divine spirituality and, going by the numerous reports about many enlightened masters and their mistresses, they have yet to succeed to overcome this obstacle. Nowadays, for me sex is not silly at all, but utterly delightful and sensuously scrumptious and it is worth all the effort of having investigated my gender indoctrination, shame, guilt, detachment, denial, greed and fear that used to spoil the fun. RESPONDENT: I seem to lose the present, and all semblance of connection with the question when I sexually fantasize, when I seem to go unconscious and have a drink, smoke pot, take a hit of ecstasy or go looking for sex. At these times things seem to go on the shelf. I’m wanting a pleasure from these experiences and then I see my folly afterwards as I see how none of my partying has resulted in bringing me peace or satisfaction. VINEETO: This very dissatisfaction with normal-world solutions is what provides you with the driving force to search for a genuine peace and an unblemished purity. The more I investigated my beliefs and emotions, the less I was inclined to look for an escape from being here in this actual physical world because the very reasons for wanting to escape – being angry, resentful or sad – were less and less occurring my life. The desire for sex is a complex issue in that it is both socially conditioned and instinctually ingrained. Instinctually the male seeks to spread his semen as far and wide as possible whereas the female looks for a strong, faithful and controllable partner to raise the offspring. Both on the social and on the instinctual level, this programming is responsible for the systemic misunderstanding, disappointment and dissatisfaction between the genders. Because the instinctual sexual drives are accompanied by powerful chemical processes in the brain, the battle between the sexes is so endemic. At first it is difficult to observe these instinctual passions while they are happening but the more you neither repress nor express your emotions and passions and simply observe and examine your feelings, you’ll slowly get the hang of it – they are, after all, feelings and can be observed, labelled and explored as such. Finding out about one’s sexual social role conditioning as well as one’s sexual instinctual drive is a fascinating business once you learn not to act on the impulse but sit with the experience and milk it for all the information about ‘you’ that you can. You might also find some useful information in Peter’s Journal, Chapters ‘Sex’ and ‘A Bit of Vineeto’ and in the (Actual Freedom Library, Sex). RESPONDENT: I don’t mean to ramble. I don’t talk about Actualism with anyone but on my postings. I’m not interested in converting people and I don’t know anyone who really wants to explore the terrain. I want the pleasure of sex and usually have that relegated to masturbation as I find relations with any potential partners seems fraught with compromise. I didn’t intend to go here but this is how I get out of the present and feel upset and desirous. I know what I want and it seems the truth of the matter is sometimes I’m unhappy without a partner. VINEETO: If you remember your pure consciousness experience, there was neither the feeling of being lonely without a partner nor a feeling of dissatisfaction for lack of sexual activity. This proves that all your feelings of need, dissatisfaction and unhappiness arise from your identity – they are but the hallmarks of your social-instinctual identity in action. RESPONDENT: The same is true with the work I’m doing. Outside of paying to put a roof over my head, and food in my belly I am just existing. My walking around identity keeps telling me that I’m kidding myself. That the truth is that I do miss sex. That I basically have a real dissatisfaction with my life that needs resolution. VINEETO: I remember your description some time ago of what you called ‘PCE1’ – [Respondent]: On (PCE1) I started off furious! I was tired of the way this guy was acting at work and fed up that my bosses weren’t doing anything about it. When I asked how I was experiencing this moment, my answer was that I was enraged! I went on with my soap opera, recycling it in my head for a few minutes, and then decided to get off the train I had been riding. I was committed to one thing! Peace! My intention was that I would sit down and not resume my commute to work until I was truly at peace! I know you and others have talked of this being possible regardless of external circumstances, or illness, whether your alone, unloved etc. Pretty much everything that society gives you the allowance to walk around being pissed at! ‘I’m going to sit on this bench till I’m fine!’ It was to be a small step towards the larger goal of a lifetime of living happily and at peace. Next I began to look around at various objects in the environment. I just looked without any labelling that something was a bench, or a woman, or a bird. Next I heard sounds without identifying what they were. I felt body sensations with the only commentary being a subtle noticing of pressures, of heat and cold. I smelled the air and felt that bench against my ‘tushy’ (just having some fun with my PCE). I left my mind and came back to my senses !!! I stopped ‘putting on [No. 39]’ and I giggled and giggled some more, and I smirked and I knew. In a most grounded delight, I realized everything was fine ! Actually everything was just dandy !! You could have called me any name in the book ! You could have thrown me in jail. You could have done anything you wanted. Everything was all right, and yet nothing was any different in the world. ‘I never arrived at work that day.’ I realized on this journey ‘I’ was never going to arrive ! Thankfully ! (Re: Identity, 22.4.2002). So you do know what to do – observe and investigate every emotion that spoils your peace, happiness and harmlessness until you can identify its source – until you find the social and/or instinctual identity underlying your emotions. It is now a matter of doing it, persistently and stubbornly, until you become free from malice and sorrow. RESPONDENT: That when you’re hungry you need food. VINEETO: Needing food and wanting sex are two different urges – the first is necessary for physical survival while the second is only necessary for the survival of the species. If you observe your hunger for food and don’t act on it, you’ll eventually die for lack of nourishment, whereas you can easily survive without sex. RESPONDENT: When you’re horny you need a partner. When I’m bored or angry at work I need to find something of interest. This is the argument that I (my current thinking/ feeling) identity makes. That the question is helpful but that I’m wanting. I’m not sure what I’m experiencing. Any comments appreciated. VINEETO: As an instinctually-programmed identity you have the continual impulse to act on your feelings of being horny, bored or annoyed. As an actualist, whenever you feel horny, bored or angry, you have something to look at and something to investigate. When you read more of the correspondence about ‘How to Become Free from the Human Condition’ in The Actual Freedom Trust Library, you will find that ‘the question’ is not merely designed to bring your attention to your senses – the main thrust at the beginning of the process is to investigate every feeling that prevents you from sensuously enjoying this moment of being alive. You dig into the beliefs behind your emotion, you discover your moral and ethical values that prevent you from finding out more about your feelings and by doing so you eventually run up against the instinctual passions, as Gary put it recently. In therapy you may well have made acquaintance with your feelings, in actualism it is a matter of accurately discriminating and identifying your feelings as and when they are happening in daily life, of tracing them back to their instinctual source and as such eliminating the associated identity step by step. Once you experience that the method works, it is a great thrill. RESPONDENT to No. 32: You may wriggle out of each relationship. But I can tell you each relationship is full of conflicts, opposing desires for commitment and freedom, and so on. For me the challenge is now to break free of my very need to relate with a woman sexually. As long as I need her, I am subject to the pain which entails such relationships in the real world. If however, I don’t need a woman, I can live with her as a friend etc. Then sex is just another way of relating. It is not a source of addictive pleasure. However, I have serious doubts as to whether even the mature actualists like Richard, Peter, Vineeto, etc. are at that stage. Richard, maybe. VINEETO: If by ‘at that stage’ you mean being free of the ‘very need to relate with a [wo]man sexually’ then I am indeed at that stage and I can say that this is a ‘stage’ that happened quite early in my practice of actualism. This is what I wrote about exploring sexuality in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’ – about 9 months after beginning to practice actualism – [Vineeto]: Some time ago, in a spiritual magazine I read an interview with a woman who, after years of failed relationships, has made celibacy and shaving her head a part of her spiritual practice. In this interview she talked about the ‘freedom’ she now has because she doesn’t have to bother with all the ‘problems’ of being a female: her attractiveness, her female sexual role-play and desire, and the problems of falling in love with their seemingly inevitable bonds and dependencies. I was shocked in disbelief! She actually thinks that by using her willpower and repressing her sexual desire she would gain freedom from her conditioning as a woman. She just cannot see where the problem is! It’s like taking a vow of silence because you stutter! Where is the freedom in this? The solution to the problems inherent in being a sexual ‘animal’ for me was not denial, because sex is simply a delicious function of my body. Nothing is wrong with it. What is wrong is the mental programming of the sexual instinct, which drives me to go out, find a man and get pregnant – and the consequent need to secure the protection of the potential father. Curiously, my decision not to have any children and to be sterilised did not change this underlying instinctual urge at all! In order to control, channel and obscure this instinct in a socially acceptable way, society instilled in me the appropriate morals, beliefs and behaviour of male-female role-play. This merely resulted in seduction, manipulation, denial, guilt and fear of sex, and the ongoing search for the right, appropriate sexual conduct – most of it passed down centuries ago. Looking back on what my idea of a sexual identity consisted of, I found that I had been either too sexual and threatening for men, risking being considered a wild and immoral woman, or on the other hand, I was not ‘open’ and pleasing enough, causing the man to fall short in his idea of the good lover he imagined himself to be. When Peter and I started to throw out love it had a great impact on my sexual ‘identity’. It was an intense and scary time because right behind the nice, embellishing veil of love lingered all the monsters and demons of being an animal, a whore, a slut, not human and having sex with a ‘stranger’. Enjoying sex without ‘being in love’ is still considered one of the greatest sins of Christian morality. And Eastern spirituality regards any kind of sex as the biggest obstacle to enlightenment. Not only had I to face my own personal conditioning about sex but I was also confronted with the fact of stepping out of the collective accepted behaviour and limits that every woman had been taught. Demons of atavistic fears would present me with their ferocious stories, as though I was still living in the Middle Ages, where women were burnt at the stake for leaving the fold or were expelled for not conforming. It took some effort to understand that both fears and beliefs around sex were simply inherited from other people, they don’t have any actual relevance for me. Digging deeper, stepping outside of the realm of sexual conditioning and beliefs I then discovered their underlying force – the sexual instincts. This inheritance from our animal past is simply installed to blindly ensure the continuity of the species. It has nothing to do with my happiness and inhibits any sensible behaviour. Those blind instincts cause, among other troubles, possessiveness, jealousy, rape, murder and overpopulation. Identified and seen as what they were, these instincts eventually lost their significance and their grip over me. Now I can enjoy the sensibility and pleasure of sex without being driven, free of the need and dependency that used to be the inevitable consequence. I now don’t need to reinforce my female sexual identity or practise my manipulative power over men – hence the need for flirting has disappeared. Relating to men without the restriction of sexual flirtation is indeed a freedom to meet them in a new and( way. A Bit of Vineeto, #sex). About two years after I wrote this, medical reasons prevented Peter and I from having sex for a couple of months and it was then that I could observe that I was no longer driven by the urge for sex – I missed it not in the least. In fact when the instinctual urge for sex disappeared I had great difficulties to adjust at first – a defining part of my identity had irretrievably disappeared, and the shift from sex as fulfilling a compulsive desire to sex as a pleasurable sensate play of intimacy was at times quite confusing and scary, to say the least. Needless to say that imagining that abstinence from sex or celibacy equates to freedom from desire makes no sense at all – like all things in life, practical learning and down-to-earth understanding only comes from doing it yourself and finding out for yourself, not from thinking about it or from believing what others tell you about it. Only by making such an investigation could I fully experience that sexual instinctual desire is a major aspect of one’s identity. Besides, it was all worth the trouble because the intimacy that has emerged after exploring all the impediments is far beyond my wildest dreams. Not only do I enjoy an ongoing peaceful and harmonious living together free of any emotional bondage whatsoever but also a sensuous sexual play that far exceeds anything I ever experienced when I was still driven by sexual passions. * RESPONDENT: Richard claims that he just prefers to have the company of a woman instead of being alone. That it is a privilege etc. But the very fact that he would consider it a privilege, that is, something which adds value to his life, belies the claim that the world is perfect as is for an actualist. I mean, can there be an icing on a cake, a cake which is infinitely big? My dialogue with Richard started with questioning about sex, but it degenerated into nit-picking over a thought experiment I proposed (which was a mere part of the discussion but which became the focus of his onslaught). VINEETO: As long as you continue to evaluate actualism by what you call the ‘highest standards’ of the Indian saints you will remain unable to understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is all about. Most misunderstandings of people who read the Actual Freedom Trust website result from the fact that they invariably try to integrate what they read into their existing spiritual/ mystical and/or philosophical real world beliefs thereby ignoring what is clearly stated on the very first page – that an actual freedom from the human condition is non-spiritual, down-to-earth and entirely new to human history. RESPONDENT: Also, if you look at Vineeto’s post about how Richard met a woman at a Satsang retreat, you will notice that Richard points out that there is a certain ‘environment’ in the air, what has happened so many times before. I don’t know how to distinguish this ‘feeling’ from how a normal person feels when he is starting to enter into courtship with a woman. VINEETO: As No. 37 has already pointed out, Richard met his second wife at a Satsang retreat when he was still enlightened. At this time his affective faculty was still present and he would have been affectively aware of ‘a certain ‘environment’’. The reason I posted this story as an example how an actualist would propose to a woman was because Richard was upfront in his intent to live together as man and woman intimately, in perfect peace and harmony. In fact if you read Richard’s Journal it becomes clear that the investigations he made into the human condition during this period were vital to his understanding of the human condition and to his eventual realization that the whole eastern tradition of self-realization aka Enlightenment is but a massive delusion of self-aggrandizement. Rather than avoid the challenges of a down-to-earth intimacy with a fellow human being as did the Eastern saints you have quoted, Richard headed the other way – yet another example that actualism is 180 degrees opposite to the spiritual path. * RESPONDENT: However, I have serious doubts as to whether even the mature actualists like Richard, Peter, Vineeto, etc. are at that stage. Richard, maybe. VINEETO: If by ‘at that stage’ you mean being free of the ‘very need to relate with a [wo]man sexually’ then I am indeed at that stage and I can say that this is a ‘stage’ that happened quite early in my practice of actualism. This is what I wrote about exploring sexuality in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’ – about 9 months after beginning to practice actualism – <snipped> About two years after I wrote this, medical reasons prevented Peter and I from having sex for a couple of months and it was then that I could observe that I was no longer driven by the urge for sex – I missed it not in the least. In fact when the instinctual urge for sex disappeared I had great difficulties to adjust at first – a defining part of my identity had irretrievably disappeared, and the shift from sex as fulfilling a compulsive desire, to sex as a pleasurable sensate play of intimacy was at times quite confusing and scary, to say the least. Needless to say that imagining that abstinence from sex or celibacy equates to freedom from desire makes no sense at all – like all things in life, practical learning and down-to-earth understanding only comes from doing it yourself and finding out for yourself, not from thinking about it or from believing what others tell you about it. Only by making such an investigation could I fully experience that sexual instinctual desire is a major aspect of one’s identity. However, it was all worth the trouble because the intimacy that has emerged after exploring all the impediments is far beyond my wildest dreams. Not only do I enjoy an ongoing peaceful and harmonious living together free of any emotional bondage whatsoever but also a sensuous sexual play that far exceeds anything I ever experienced when I was still driven by sexual passions. RESPONDENT: I have serious doubts as to whether Peter, Vineeto and Richard are free from the need for sexual congress. Vineeto claims she is free, Richard too claims the same. VINEETO: It is little wonder that you doubt what we report because it flies in the face of Eastern religious teachings and practices – the deeply ingrained belief that denial, avoidance, abstinence and transcendence (aka celibacy) equates with being actually free from the instinctual passions. If you are looking to promote the virtues of celibacy, then you are certainly on the wrong mailing list and actualism is clearly not for you. RESPONDENT: But why they choose a life of heterosexual co-existence instead of a solitary life? Simply a matter of preference? Doesn’t really sound very convincing. Of course, they don’t need to convince me. But as part of the actualist cavalcade, they certainly are open to scrutiny, especially since they make claims that they are (to varying extents) free from the ‘human condition’. VINEETO: Are you seriously proposing that human beings, once they are actually free from the human condition should all live a solitary life so as to prove to you that they are not plagued by sexual desire – in other words that when they become actually free that they should still remain shackled by the demands of puerile religious moralities and beliefs? If you investigate deeper into this traditional demand that saints should live a solitary celibate life you will find that this tradition is rooted in the fear that he or she will succumb to and be overcome by the temptations of the instinctual passions which spiritual masters and their disciples have only been able to tame but never extinguished. Dig a little further and you will find that enlightened beings also avoid a healthy, equitable, harmonious and sensual relationship with a person of the other gender in order to maintain their saintly image and nourish their feeling of holier-than-thouness. For me, there is nothing to prove to anyone else, let alone any need to kowtow to the moral demands of others because I know by daily experience that I am no longer driven by the debilitating need for sex (and the debilitating need for love for that matter) and I find the company of a mate with whom I can share the delights of being alive to be preferable to living on my own. RESPONDENT No. 71: Richard claims that he just prefers to have the company of a woman instead of being alone. That it is a privilege etc. But the very fact that he would consider it a privilege, that is, something which adds value to his life, belies the claim that the world is perfect as is for an actualist. I mean, can there be an icing on a cake, a cake which is infinitely big? My dialogue with Richard started with questioning about sex, but it degenerated into nit-picking over a thought experiment I proposed (which was a mere part of the discussion but which became the focus of his onslaught). (Re: It’s all for Sex, 24.10.2004). VINEETO: As long as you continue to evaluate actualism by what you call the ‘highest standards’ of the Indian saints you will remain unable to understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is all about. Most misunderstandings of people who read the Actual Freedom Trust website result from the fact that they invariably try to integrate what they read into their existing spiritual/ mystical and/or philosophical real world beliefs thereby ignoring what is clearly stated on the very first page – that an actual freedom from the human condition is non-spiritual, down-to-earth and entirely new to human history. RESPONDENT: This must be a new record. Misrepresenting a correspondent’s words, words from the very first line. It usually takes at least a couple of sentences. Clearly No. 71 was evaluating Richard’s claim of enlightenment (not actualism) against the ‘highest standards’ of the Indian tradition. One wonders why this continues to happen. I’m not sure which is the more depressing and hopeless prospect: it’s intentional, or ... it isn’t. VINEETO: I am well aware that the first sentence of the paragraph quoted in the footnote refers to Richard’s enlightenment yet the thread of No. 71’s conversation was sex (more specifically the need for sex/relationship). In the second sentence No. 71 gets back on the track of his topic making it clear that he considers the ‘highest standards’ to be those of the named Gurus ‘and some saints that I know personally who were/are free of any kind of romantic need or actual romantic/ heterosexual/ homosexual relationship’ – hence the comment I made … [Vineeto]: ‘As long as you continue to evaluate actualism by what you call the ‘highest standards’ of the Indian saints you will remain unable to understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is all about.’ In order to make this more clear, the following quote from the same thread is relevant – [Respondent No. 71]: I have serious doubts as to whether Peter, Vineeto and Richard are free from the need for sexual congress. Vineeto claims she is free, Richard too claims the same. But why they choose a life of heterosexual co-existence instead of a solitary life? Simply a matter of preference? Doesn’t really sound very convincing. Of course, they don’t need to convince me. But as part of the actualist cavalcade, they certainly are open to scrutiny, especially since they make claims that they are (to varying extents) free from the ‘human condition’. (Re: It’s all for Sex, 24.10.2004). It is obvious to me that No. 71 continues to evaluate not only Richard’s preferred lifestyle but actualism itself by what he calls the ‘highest standards’ of the Indian saints – i.e. that he has not yet grasped that an actual freedom from the instinctual passions cannot be evaluated by the standards of enlightenment. Far from misrepresenting his words as you claim, I see that I did no more than clearly sum up his stance concerning not only Richard’s preferred lifestyle but actualism itself. Maybe the fact that I was deeply immersed in spiritualism for many years and understand first-hand its flaws and failings means that I prick up my ears quicker than others when someone espouses spiritual values and beliefs and persists in comparing actualism with something it clearly is not. RESPONDENT: Last night I was out with the visiting relatives in a country setting. The sky was brilliant with stars, much clearer than what I can see at home with city lights, etc. I wondered what I would make of the stars if I hadn’t learned that they were similar to our sun, burning masses of unbelievably hot gases, that warmed the solar systems around them, etc. What if I had no knowledge about those heavenly bodies, what would I make of them? Probably something akin to what ‘ancient wisdom’ came up with. Similarly with the masculine/ feminine principle. Not knowing better, it would be easy to think that there was some heavenly design related to being male or female, that certain activities related to gender were prescribed and others proscribed. Where real knowledge and technology are absent for whatever reason, superstition, imagination, and intuition will prevail. Man will use his brainpower to increase his chances not only to survive but to better himself and will fantasize as readily as reason to get a handle on the situation he finds himself in. And, obviously, he will choose fantasy and intuition over cold, hard facts if fantasy affords a better possibility for him than fact, e.g. the immortality offered by spirituality. VINEETO: As a second stage, underneath the obvious socially and religiously / spiritually learnt differences between the sexes, I discovered the workings of male and female instincts. It was utterly fascinating to observe the sexual instincts in me in action, after the sexual taboos, the moral limitations and feelings of love and authority had been stripped away. It was daunting and bewildering at first, perceiving myself as nothing but a female animal wanting to become pregnant, to be filled with the male’s sperm to fulfill my instinctual destiny – the fact that I had been sterilized fifteen years earlier did not change that urge at all. Exploring these instinctual passions to their full extent, and comparing notes with Peter, I finally understood the dilemma of male-female instinctual behaviour that spoils every relationship. While males, besides fatherly care, are instinctually driven to spread their semen as far and prolific as possible for the benefit of the species, females are programmed to search for and then hold on to one reliable protector to care for them and their offspring. It is one thing to have read about those instinctual differences, amongst other theoretical, psychological and spiritual deliberations, it is quite something else to experientially explore one’s instinctual sexual core – there is nothing refined or intelligent about our core passions. Blind nature does not care a bit about anybody’s well-being, natural forces are merely concerned about the survival of the species, and this happens by the traditional recipe which has worked for other mammals for millions of years. Possessiveness, jealousy and rape are all part and parcel of this instinctual animal drive for reproduction. Love is merely a human invention to cover the embarrassment of being animal at one’s very core. RESPONDENT: Now, to move from the broader picture to the more personal picture: I was about 40 years old before it ever occurred to me that sex could simply be for sex. I don’t want to give the impression that I was dysfunctional, everything worked fine, but there was always a more primary purpose for sex than just enjoyment. As a young Catholic girl, you were told to hold out on sex for marriage. As a member of the 60’s generation, there was lots of sex, but the payoff was love, sex for love. As a married person, sex was to improve the relationship. As a person involved in spiritual discovery, sex was a tool towards enlightenment. Every cultural/spiritual influence of my life has said sex is for something else, besides yummy, delicious enjoyment. Just like life itself is the journey to heaven, or bliss, or freedom from the wheel of birth and death, etc. VINEETO: I was raised a Catholic and I know the implications. Sex was always dimmed by the dark shadow of guilt, sometimes enhancing the thrill but always keeping me within the boundaries of society’s values. In my twenties I explored emotions via primal therapy but sex was strictly excluded from the explorations. The early years in Poona in Rajneesh’s ashram were a wide field of sexual experiments for me, but as you say, I always wanted more than sexual pleasure – attention, affection, love, recognition, being part of a group, etc., etc. Only when I came across Actual Freedom, I came to understand that one has to remove one’s identity completely in order to enjoy sex for the pure sensuousness of it – ‘I’ will always feel abused and neglected when ‘I’ am not recognized with affection, love and gratitude. Sex as a ‘tool towards enlightenment’ was a theory and/or practice so full of contradictions, hypocrisy and loopholes that in the end I could not make any sense of it anymore. As I said to No. 8, investigating and enjoying sex as integral part of a journey towards purity and perfection was for me one of the first attractions of Actual Freedom. VINEETO to Alan: I followed up a few thoughts the other day, which might be useful to you or others. I started my investigation about the feeling of impatience. Impatience has always been one of the driving forces in my life and kept me going, counteracting the innate inertia to get me back on the track of what I wanted to achieve. But the more I am actually here and enjoying life, the more the feeling of impatience becomes a nuisance and is, in fact, preventing me from enjoying what is happening here in this moment. Of course, for most of the process on the path to an actual freedom I need a lot of impatience, a burning discontent and dissatisfaction with life as it is and with the second rate compromise of living that both real-world and spiritual-world solutions have on offer. But with the incremental dismantling of all the emotions that constitute my self I come to understand the role that impatience is playing now – preventing ‘me’ from disappearing. The main fuel for this feeling of impatience comes from the notion that there is something better ‘out there’, in the future – that magic ingredient that will then make life as perfect as the ending of children’s fairytale – and then they lived happily ever after. And yet it is this very feeling of impatience, that particular bit of my ‘self’, that prevents me from the sensate-only experiencing the perfection of this moment. Impatience is the ‘self’ telling the ‘self’ to go away in order for life to be perfect thereafter. What a furphy! Who am I trying to fool? This is what cunningness in action looks like. It is fascinating to see the self splitting itself into two yet again in order to pretend that there is change happening without really having to change anything. Seeing through the charade, I experience the thrill that accompanies the shift from a furphy to an actual experience, from ‘feeling impatient’ to actively dismantling the ‘self’, from stepping out of the ‘real’ world to arriving here. I understand that the only way to approach self-immolation is by welcoming the death of ‘me’ with free will, open arms and a full YES. It is a magic formula, that turning around 180 degrees again, a yes to immolation rather than a no to life as it is. When death is welcome with the same thrilling anticipation as a sexual playmate then I know I am on the right track. So impatience gets replaced by an understanding of redundancy – the more I experientially understand about the human condition the more ‘I’ become redundant because life in the actual world is utterly safe and already perfect. ‘I’ am not needed to stay alive. The more I understand the chemical, psychological and psychic programming of the brain, the more I can see that this programming is outdated, faulty and redundant in every single aspect – ‘I’ am not needed at all. Virtual Freedom is the ongoing increasing experience of ‘my’ redundancy, kind of getting used to not interfering with perfection. The way I see it now is that death is simply an extension of this continuing discovery of ‘me’, the spoiler, being redundant, turning 98% redundancy to 99% and 99% to 100% ... ... pop. The only way I can reach this 100% redundancy is by being here all the time, doing what is happening without emotionally interfering – and if there is an emotion, then investigating it, nutting it out, sitting it out, thinking it through, understanding its follies and furphies. In the end, every emotion is understood as nothing but an objection to and fear of being here – and an objection to being redundant as an entity. I am reminded of Richard’s writing: Co-Respondent: I’m not clear as to how one eliminates the instincts after one has become intimate with them and then has a 100% commitment. Does this happen on its own or is there something that I need to do? Richard: It happens on its own in that, as ‘I’ am the instinctual passions and the instinctual passions are ‘me’, there is no way that ‘I’ can end ‘me’. What ‘I’ do is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button – which is to acquiesce – which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. The acquiescing is that one thus dedicates oneself to being here as the universe’s experience of itself now ... it is the unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result of such devotion because it is already here ... it is always here now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of the always already existing perfect purity from becoming apparent by sitting back and moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all (as epitomised in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’). How can one be forever sticking one’s toe in and testing out the waters and yet expect to be able to look at oneself in the mirror each morning with dignity. The act of initiating this ‘process’ – acquiescence – is to embrace death. (Richard, List B, James, 16 November 1999). To begin to experience embracing death is exquisitely delicious like an orgasm. A death sought after, because of frustration with being here, can only lead to an Altered State of Consciousness because a strong negative feeling can only produce a strong good feeling as a chemical balancing act. A similar balancing act happened when my frustration with real life had lead me to fall in love with a spiritual master twenty years ago – I was desperate to escape the ‘real’ world, eager to seek a feel-good recipe to get out of ‘real’ life. Self-immolation is different in quality, a more and more dispassionate, yet utterly sensate and thrilling experience. In the process of experientially understanding my tender and savage instinctual passions in operation they lose their grip, fire and reality ... and finally their credibility, until I simply observe a process of chemicals rising and subsiding. What a marvel is the human brain! RESPONDENT: This is the Second Edition of the Sexuality and Tantra Update. Announcement of a Workshop – ‘An Introduction to Humaniversity Therapy – The Art of Emotional Freedom’ Reminder that Margot Anand will be here very soon. VINEETO: From your advertisement I deduct that you have misunderstood or misinterpreted the purpose of this Actual Freedom Mailing List so far. This mailing list is a non-spiritual mailing list, set up for the purpose of investigating an actual freedom from the Human Condition – the set of beliefs, conditionings and instincts that forms the habitual and neuro-biological program by which human beings currently operate and have done so, with few significant changes, ever since the first recorded civilizations. ‘Emotional Freedom’ is merely a feeling of freedom from certain moral values and social consideration that helps one to live by one’s emotions whereas actual freedom is a palpable, permanent freedom from one’s social identity and one’s instinctual passions, both from ‘who’ one thinks one is and ‘who’ one feels one is. ‘Non-’ in non-spiritual means ‘Latin for not. A negation, a prohibition’ Oxford Dictionary Whereas the workshop you are advertising offers purely spiritual principles – [Respondent]: ‘An Introduction to Humaniversity Therapy – The Art of Emotional Freedom’ Since 1978, The Humaniversity in Holland has been showing people how to live lives of authenticity, love, friendship and meaning. The workshop will include: · Communication Exercises · Hugging · Emotional Release · Flushing · Energy Work · Meditations · Dancing · Sharing · Bioenergetics · Authority Structures [endquote]. VINEETO: The Humaniversity has been set up and is run by Mr. Veeresh, a devoted and highly honoured disciple of Mr. Mohan Rajneesh, and his programs are firmly based on the spiritual and therapeutical values purported by Mr. Rajneesh. As you have quoted yourself, these values include ‘love, friendship and meaning’, which are clearly affective and spiritual values. The methods used to achieve those values are a fashionable combination of emotional release therapy and feel-good spirituality – RESPONDENT: ‘Expect clarity, emotional release, taking off the pressure, meditation, vibrating on a higher level of consciousness, lots of hugs, expressing and communicating inner thoughts and feelings. You will feel enabled to be more free to be who you are. There will be a high level of intimacy and closeness.’
| VINEETO: Tantra – spiritual sex – is nothing other than a clever combination of expressing one’s instinctual passions and giving this expression a fashionable spiritual coating. The homepage of Mr. Hellmut Wolf, the workshop leader, shows this very clearly – him, the wolf, longingly howling at a young naked goddess. ‘Expressing and communicating inner thoughts and feelings’ – obvious, ‘expect clarity’ – doubtful. What Mr. Wolf offers for the workshop is a mishmash of ‘follow your instincts and feel divine’, so common in today’s New-Dark-Age-spirituality. ‘Be who you are’, your natural self, is nothing other than one’s software package of instinctual passions stripped of certain moral and ethical conditioning.
> The spiritual idea is that we are born innocent and then spoilt by society and conditioning – in Eastern terms called ‘the mind’. Therefore the remedy offered is to get rid of ‘the mind’ and ‘find your original face’, or ‘be who you really are’. The methods to become that are slightly varied but the basic teaching is firmly based in Eastern religion – enhancing the ‘good’ emotions and sublimate and disidentify from the ‘bad’ emotions. As Mr. Wolf says, he is using ‘ meditation, vibrating on a higher level of consciousness’. A little bit of feel good and some indulging in emotions and sexual instincts for a lot of money – but it won’t free you from your social identity, let alone from any instinctual passions. So No. 12, what you are proposing is 180 degrees in the opposite direction to Actual Freedom. It is a mystery to me why you are advertising this so obviously utterly spiritual workshop on a mailing list that is questioning and debunking all spiritual beliefs and all traditional tried and failed solutions... Actualism, the game that is played on this mailing list, is iconoclastic and completely down-to-earth. Once you experience in a pure consciousness experience the superiority of being without emotions and without an alien entity in operation, be it even for a short period of time, you might understand why I abandoned the spiritual path and can never ever again settle for second best. * RESPONDENT: Thank you for expressing yourself in relation to my posting, Ms Vineeto. I read some of what you wrote, and may read some more later. If you change your mind and want to come to the workshop; I will give you a discount. VINEETO: You didn’t get it, did you? Maybe it is due to not reading the whole of the message. I will post the last paragraph for you: [Vineeto]: Actualism, the game that is played on this mailing list, is iconoclastic and completely down-to-earth. Once you experience in a pure consciousness experience the superiority of being without emotions and without an alien entity in operation, be it even for a short period of time, you might understand why I abandoned the spiritual path and can never ever again settle for second best. [endquote]. I am experiencing life right now is as perfect, with delicious sensate perfect sex whenever I want, living with Peter in perfect peace and harmony for 24 hrs, every day and with days that are an ongoing delight simply to be alive for 99% of the time. Why then, tell me, should I spend Aus$ 375 + GST to experience a workshop that offers ‘meditation, hugs, emotional release, vibrating on higher levels of consciousness’ when there is something immeasurably better on offer. Why should I choose second best? The other question I would put to you is – why do write on a mailing list which is set up to discuss how to become actually free from the Human Condition, when you don’t even have the interest, or the time, to read what is replied to you? Do you think this list is a mere bulletin board? By the way, you can call me Vineeto without the ‘Ms’. I don’t believe in a formal politeness that doesn’t even include reading to the end of my letter. And now for something completely different. You may be wondering how actualism works in daily practice – how one can, as a third alternative, deal with sexual issues so as to eliminate the problems that prevent the continuing free enjoyment of sex instead of repressing or expressing, compromising or dis-identifying from the symptoms of social taboos and the instinctual drive. I’ll post a description of what I wrote at the time when I sorted out my gender issues and sexual problems in the first three months of my relationship with Peter – [Vineeto]: When Peter and I started to throw out love it had a great impact on my sexual ‘identity’. It was an intense and scary time because right behind the nice, embellishing veil of love lingered all the monsters and demons of being an animal, a whore, a slut, not human and having sex with a ‘stranger’. Enjoying sex without ‘being in love’ is still considered one of the greatest sins of Christian morality. And Eastern spirituality regards any kind of sex as the biggest obstacle to enlightenment. Not only had I to face my own personal conditioning about sex but I was also confronted with the fact of stepping out of the collective accepted behaviour and limits that every woman had been taught. Demons of atavistic fears would present me with their ferocious stories, as though I was still living in the Middle Ages, where women were burnt at the stake for leaving the fold or were expelled for not conforming. It took some effort to understand that both fears and beliefs around sex were simply inherited from other people, they don’t have any actual relevance for me. Digging deeper, stepping outside of the realm of sexual conditioning and beliefs I then discovered their underlying force – the sexual instincts. This inheritance from our animal past is simply installed to blindly ensure the continuity of the species. It has nothing to do with my happiness and inhibits any sensible behaviour. Those blind instincts cause, among other troubles, possessiveness, jealousy, rape, murder and overpopulation. Identified and seen as what they were, these instincts eventually lost their significance and their grip over me. Now I can enjoy the sensibility and pleasure of sex without being driven, free of the need and dependency that used to be the inevitable consequence. I now don’t need to reinforce my female sexual identity or practise my manipulative power over men – hence the need for flirting has disappeared. Relating to men without the restriction of sexual flirtation is indeed a freedom to meet them in a new and fresh way. Stripping away the ideas of ‘who’ I am supposed to be, leaving behind the identity of both the virtuous girl and the sinful whore leaves the pure physical sensation of sex. This pleasure I can now easily and delightfully share with a man who also has no idea of ‘who’ he is supposed to be. I remember one evening early in our relationship when Peter suddenly stopped in the course of foreplay and said, ‘I don’t want to feel like I have to pleasure you or be giving! Something is wrong here!’ We discussed and explored his objection and looked behind the habit of sexual role-play. The man usually thinks he has to give a good performance, please and pleasure the woman, and the woman thinks she has to make the man happy, either by surrendering to his wishes or – in the modern version – to have to ‘act’ super-sexual and have multiple orgasms. We investigated the whole scenario of these strange defining roles and inhibitions, with their expectations, bank-balances and hidden resentments, and considered them silly and unnecessary. Since then giving and taking, right and wrong, pleasing and selfish is of no concern, each simply enjoys the physical pleasure of sex. Now sex is a dance with a wonderful mutual rhythm that evolves each moment, ever changing, thrilling, sensational, delicious and exquisite. Riding the waves of pleasure – each time off the scale. The freedom to leave behind the identity of being good or bad, loving or receiving and to follow and enjoy the rhythm of the bodies without any restriction of the ‘self’ whatsoever is an unsurpassed delight. No apprehension, fear or worry pales the intensity of this very tangible exquisite sensual delight. (A Bit of Vineeto). So in case you have read this far, you may understand a bit more the difference between the therapeutic / spiritual approach to sex and the actualism approach. By tracing back my sexual inhibitions, moral taboos and instinctual passion I was able to get rid of the whole package altogether. Now I am neither driven nor fearful, neither needy nor moralistic – I can simply enjoy the sensuous sensate exquisite experience that sexual play is. I can appreciate the fun to share that sensate experience with a fellow human being who himself has as much pleasure as I do. The actual intimacy that originates in enjoying each other’s company without the hindering obstacles of gender battle, moral and ethical inhibitions and social role-play is so exquisitely delicious, each time again, that it has no comparison. It surely beats the emasculation of Tantra by a country mile. RESPONDENT: Do you mean that since one’s sense of self is totally absent there is no possibility of any planning for the future in this state? (the planning entity gone)? VINEETO: Good, you are taking up the investigation of what this ‘life without self’ means. It is not that I don’t plan when I need to – for earning money, or going shopping – but the feeling of worrying is gone, planning is simply a practical and delightful activity of my brain. So most planning does not happen, it has become redundant when the fear about the future disappeared. RESPONDENT: Also, do you feel like the body is doing something and there is no entity controlling, censoring your actions? VINEETO: With the body it is curious – the difference for me becomes most obvious in sex. The pleasures of the senses lead me on to the next movement or holding still or shifting position or pace – and there is neither a controller nor an examiner in the head, supervising the event. In the beginning it was quite uncanny and I went back into control and then out from control many times, until I dared to just be the senses. When there is no sorrow or malice nor any sex-drive happening, there is no need for a controller – nothing can go wrong. Further, there is always awareness about what I am doing, so there is no danger that I could be hurting Peter or myself. * RESPONDENT: I noticed that my ‘unwillingness to enjoy being here’, doing whatever I am doing is my major problem preventing me from being happy now. It helps me if I check with myself if I am fantasizing or not. My mind is very fantasy prone and goes on different day-dreaming imaginative trips while numbing any other prevailing sensations. VINEETO: Yes, I remember a kind of teetering between the intensity of pleasurable physical sensations and the subsequent fear, shame, guilt, and insecure feelings at having a good time, sometimes accompanied by an automatic anticipation of punishment that immediately dampened the experience. Particularly in sex I had to uncover and dismantle layer upon layer of numbing conditioning, social morals and atavistic fears, anticipated hurts and imagined ‘wrath from the Almighty’. And whenever the actual sensation became too burdened by fears and morals, I escaped into a well-known fantasy world. The trouble was that in my imaginary world I was always isolated from my sex-partner, from my own body-sensations and from the world around me. Secondly, this imaginary world could be destroyed by the slightest remark, by the smallest event. Yet, knowing all those disadvantages of being in the imaginary world, it still took a conscious decision not to stay there. Whenever I found myself retreating, I had to actively remove the causes of my fears and frustrations that had initiated the withdrawal into fantasy-land in the first place. IRENE: ...like all other masters see sex as something to transcend or get rid of ... VINEETO: That shot missed the target by 180 degrees. If anyone is all for sex then it is me. Where did I ever say I see sex as something to transcend or to get rid of? It is the finest and most delicious pleasure man and woman can have, once all beliefs, instincts and emotions are eliminated. Sex is definitely not the place for fear, aggression, shame and guilt nor is it the place for love, bondage, emotional bank-balance or pleasing. The delight resulting in having eliminated the hindering emotions around sex is my every day experience, and it is beyond my wildest dreams. RESPONDENT: I was thinking about ‘spiritualism versus actualism’. I think the reason why I still can’t differentiate between these two is perhaps a lack of a PCE. To me both Satori and PCE look same. I have no experience of either. I practiced Vipassana irregularly and found that it made difference in my ordinary life. It did help to make me reasonably happy. I don’t care about what is the exact philosophy behind it. I don’t think that the spiritual practices are useless. Were I not spiritually inclined I might not be interested in the Actual Freedom web pages. VINEETO: The sole reason for drawing up the diagram of ‘Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction of spiritual beliefs’ was exactly because, as you write, the beginning of the spiritual path and the path to actual freedom look alike and seem to go in similar directions. The diagram is well worth thorough contemplation as it makes things clear in visual sense. You’ll find it on the (Actual Freedom website in the ‘Library’. When I met Peter, and a little later Richard, and heard them say that Actual Freedom was something completely different and new, I first took it to be just another spiritual approach. I could only perceive the world with spiritual or ‘normal religious’ eyes. But the more I understood where the path to an actual freedom was heading to I became utterly bewildered for quite some time. In the first few months I was desperately trying to match and marry actual freedom with my spiritual practice, ie. I wanted to stay in the sannyas belief and the community of friends as well as experiment with this thrilling new adventure. Upon an honest and extensive stock take it was impossible to say that the spiritual path had lead me any closer to realizing my initial goals of freedom, peace and happiness. I had experienced moments of bliss and peace in meditations but I had also experienced their fickleness and the necessity to have a perfectly quiet and safe surrounding. Consequently, as soon as the ‘right’ conditions changed my period of bliss changed into frustration, abandoned until the next opportunity, and this conflict resulted in an ever-increasing resignation – that’s how life’s gonna be, unless I become enlightened. The goal of enlightenment was very clearly born out of the hope of escaping from this terrible seesaw – brief and conditional experiences of peace on one side and the long and tedious struggle of ‘living in the marketplace’ on the other side. I was trying to be as ‘removed’ from my bad emotions as possible, yet ever fearful that someone would upset my safe little set-up. I knew that my life was nowhere near perfect, and the more I meditated and retreated from the world the more difficult it became to live in that very same world of people, things and events. And as for harmless ... I had ample opportunity to watch my thoughts and deeds, words and schemes to know that I was far from being without malice. This sincere acknowledgement of the sad compromise of the ambitious plans of my youth made me interested in Peter’s proposal – to commit to living together in utter peace and harmony and to look at every issue that would come up. It also gave me enough interest and intent to inquire into Richard’s personal story and the possibilities of an actual freedom from feelings, beliefs and compromises and the burdening obligations and restrictions of believing in a spurious afterlife. And, best of all, in actual freedom I found the only ‘teaching’ and method that I had ever come across which fully included sex as a perfect and innocent sensuous pleasure between man and woman, without any ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ or hints of a later necessary transcendence. Here I finally glimpsed the opportunity to combine my desire for happiness with my search for purity and perfection that had set me on the spiritual path 17 years before. VINEETO: Some events are easily predictable through a combination of circumstances and the ending of malice and sorrow with ‘my’ demise is one of these predictable events. A pure consciousness experience, which everybody has had in their lives, gives evidence to the fact that ‘I’ am all that is standing in the way of perfection to become apparent. From these ‘self’-less experiences one can gain knowledge about the ‘self’ while one experiences the actual world temporarily free of one’s ‘self’. In the process of actualism one has many PCEs and is therefore able to check up on the diminishing of one’s ‘self’ and the practical success of the method in reducing one’s instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: BTY, why is it that ‘actualists’ claim to have eliminated all the instinctual passions (or are working on reducing them) whilst they ardently continue to engage in the most instinctual passion of all – sex? How is it that this one got so conveniently overlooked? Instead of calling the trust ‘Actual Freedom’, you guys should consider renaming it ‘Actually Blind.’ VINEETO: Ah, how did you find out that actualists are having such un-spiritual unholy fun? The instinctual sex-drive is part and parcel of the survival instincts and can be eliminated. It only took about one year to get rid of my blind and relentless sex-drive. I first investigated the morals and ethics, the atavistic taboos and fears, the escapist fantasies and the crippling rules of sexual behaviour to free the sexual play from its smothering conditioning. Having removed the outer layer of social restrictions it was very easy to experience and explore the hormonal surges of the instinctual reproductive instinct and bring it to the light of awareness. At first, it was quite bewildering and disconcerting when the sex-drive, an integral part of my identity faded away to disappear entirely. What is left now is innocent sensual play whenever the opportunity arises, a physical-only sensational delight that leaves any wild fantasy for dead. Gone are the days when I was plagued by worry, fear, guilt, shame, expectation, complaint, dissatisfaction or the undignifying need for sex. I never think of sex during the day or the night, I never fantasize and I never miss it, I no longer look at men as desirable sexual objects or would-be predators – I simply see fellow human beings regardless of gender. Sex is like going out to have a gourmet meal at the best restaurant in town, and once it’s over, there are other delights to tend to. There is indeed an alternative to ‘messy sex’ but it is not the repression of practicing celibacy. * RESPONDENT: I visited the web site of Actual Freedom where I read some parts of the journals in which I discovered that Peter enjoys a juicy bloody piece of flesh, guiltlessly; that Alan indulges a lot in alcohol, guiltlessly; that you had a predilection to fall in love with everybody you slept with, and that Richard actually is better at porno writing than that other stuff he writes. I don’t see anything spectacular about that, and I suppose that you are all harmless (with the exception to animals), as you say. VINEETO: You must have visited the web site rather hastily because all your produced information is inaccurate. Peter doesn’t eat ‘juicy bloody pieces of flesh’, but eats meat fried or cooked, and so do I. I don’t see what being a vegetarian has to do with Actual Freedom except that you are condemning actualism on the basis of your particular moral viewpoint – the very same moral condemnations that cause so much conflict and mayhem between humans of varying cultural and religious groupings. For all it matters, which is bugger all, I never had a ‘predilection to fall in love with everybody [I] slept with’ but I reported in the journal about my moral and ethical conditioning when I left home at age 19 – [Vineeto]: ‘Should I be in love with the man before I went to bed with him? Was he of suitable class, race or religion? Did I need to consider a life-long relationship every time I felt attracted to someone?’ [endquote]. How you translate that into a ‘predilection to fall in love’ is an utter mystery to me. To classify Richard’s writing as ‘better at porno writing than that other stuff’ only reveals your own anti-physical, anti-sensual attitude, and that you do not know the difference between pornography and a sensuousness free of instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: However the real issue is if you were saying that sex is unholy and non-spiritual, or if you were implying that I think sex is unholy and non-spiritual. Such an implication would have to made by a ‘self,’ would it not? Where is that ‘malice free’ and ‘facts only’ blood and bones body in that insinuation? VINEETO: No spiritual and religious teachings extols the free enjoyment of sex as fun in its own right and delighting in sensual pleasures is always considered a hindrance to one’s spiritual progress. You certainly don’t seem interested in the free sensual enjoyment of sex, uninhibited by societal shame and guilt and freed of the shackles of the brutish sexual instinctive drive. Why else would you call sex ‘ messy ’. Why else would you call Richard’s writings ‘porno’? * VINEETO: The instinctual sex-drive is part and parcel of the survival instincts and can be eliminated. It only took about one year to get rid of my blind and relentless sex-drive. I first investigated the morals and ethics, the atavistic taboos and fears, the escapist fantasies and the crippling rules of sexual behaviour to free the sexual play from its smothering conditioning. Having removed the outer layer of social restrictions it was very easy to experience and explore the hormonal surges of the instinctual reproductive instinct and bring it to the light of awareness. At first, it was quite bewildering and disconcerting when the sex-drive, an integral part of my identity faded away to disappear entirely. What is left now is innocent sensual play whenever the opportunity arises, a physical-only sensational delight that leaves any wild fantasy for dead. Gone are the days when I was plagued by worry, fear, guilt, shame, expectation, complaint, dissatisfaction or the undignifying need for sex. I never think of sex during the day or the night, I never fantasize and I never miss it, I no longer look at men as desirable sexual objects or would-be predators – I simply see fellow human beings regardless of gender. Sex is like going out to have a gourmet meal at the best restaurant in town, and once it’s over, there are other delights to tend to. There is indeed an alternative to ‘messy sex’ but it is not the repression of practicing celibacy. RESPONDENT: The point I was making was that it is convenient to pick and choose which instincts will stay and which ones will go. VINEETO: Yes, it is convenient to choose which instincts will stay and which ones will go or which ones to suppress and deny and which ones to glorify and identify with, as is the case in all religious/ spiritual teachings. But I am not choosing because I know as a fact that one cannot separate instinctual passions – there is only one single instinctual survival program which is made up of various passions, the main ones being fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Either one has to put up with all of them, or eliminate all of them – which can only happen with the immolation of the instinctual self. RESPONDENT: I’m glad that you worked through your hang-ups about sex. I really don’t care to get into a conversation about sex, for the fact that sexual desire is the basest of all of the animalistic instincts is irrefutable; without it there are 6 billion plus souls who wouldn’t be here on Earth today. VINEETO: It is no small thing to work ‘through your hang-ups about sex’ because not even the enlightened ones have attempted to do so, let alone succeeded in eliminating their sexual passionate drive. All available information about the life of enlightened ones clearly indicates that the sexual drive does not disappear when one becomes enlightened; indeed sex has proved to be their Achilles heel. And the failure of celibacy is evidenced by the long sad history of catholic priests and nuns and Buddhist monks and nuns. To merely stop having sex does nothing to eliminate the sexual drive, even if one is successful in abstaining from sexual activity. Mahatma Gandhi, a celibate for decades, still had night-time dreams about sexy young women at 90 years of age. KONRAD: My loved one has had many relationships before she met me. None of them lasted long, because all of these men wanted her to be their servant in one or another form. She was even fed up with men, before she met me. She said that the principal thing she appreciates so much about me is that I do not put any claims on her without her consent, and that I do anything to help her to develop herself in the way she wants. VINEETO: Is she also helping you to develop yourself in the way you want? Or have you already arrived? How can she ever be equal to you if you are her ‘developing aid’? You would always be the superior one. The moment the other starts thinking for him/herself, peace is over. KONRAD: I have written a booklet about the sexual differences between man and woman, and this little booklet has contributed so much understanding between many men and women, that many relationships were improved by it. You will probably think that is because I pleaded for male domination of some sort. But the contrary is the case. This book was completely about how relationships could be built on total mutual respect. It was my aim to end all kinds of subtle manipulations, so that honesty can surface, resulting in total equity. VINEETO: I am interested as to what those sexual differences between man and woman are? Are you talking about physical differences, or those of sensual experience, or differences in the degree of sexual intensity? Difference in the conditioning or factual permanent differences that can supposedly never be eliminated? In my experience there are simply ‘in-bits’ and ‘out-bits’ in us human beings and they fit perfectly. But I did not find any qualitative difference in the enjoyment or intensity of sexual pleasure. To reach to that understanding and experience though, I had to dig deep into the psyche of female sexual conditioning and completely eradicate it. Repression, fear, guilt, morals, shame, fantasies, power-battle, manipulation as well as my cherished love-dreams are only a few examples of what I had to throw out in order to fully enjoy each of our sexual encounters as fresh as if it was the first time – and so did Peter. As long as there is conditioning of any kind operating there are differences, but once I reach the actual experience of the senses, there is no difference in the pleasure that simple friction can produce. Even if you should be opposed to everything else I have been saying up to now, I can tell you, it was well worth cleaning myself up, if only for the tango of sexual pleasure that I now enjoy. The depth of sensual experience deepens with every belief thrown out and there are literally no limits to what a wonderful dance man and woman can have together! It far exceeds any imagination or dream I ever had of what was possible. Should you be interested in what Peter or I have written about our exploration and findings, this is the address: (Actualism, Homepage) and it’s in the chapters ‘Sex’ and ‘A Bit of Vineeto’; who knows, you might find it of interest for you... So Konrad, I am curious if you will read this one to the end, or even feel moved to answer it. Whatever the case, I have immensely enjoyed our conversation. VINEETO: (...) And now that I have solved your puzzle, we can go back to my puzzle, which you so cheaply dismissed as rubbish. It is not rubbish at all! Since you missed the point altogether I have to explain a bit more in detail – it is about sex. Just because you don’t seem to understand these matters as I do – by experience – there is no need to snort. Life equations don’t have measurements like numbers, they are still facts: P + P = P 2 ÿ P = B – S (B – S) + (B – S) = D P = pleasure, B = body, S = Self + self, D = delight. Now the question, to be answered only by life-experience: what is ÿ? Pleasure shared between two human beings is squared. ÿ: It is ever fresh, freely available pleasure without limits, once you eliminated the self + grand Self. Two bodies without the distance and the obstruction by the psychic entity share delight. And it is a fact, proven daily by my experience of living with Peter, that once we removed every bit of ‘Self’ and ‘self’ from sexual intercourse, there is only delight. To get rid of ‘self’ and ‘Self’ means that we both eliminated every emotion – love and any occurring aspect of relating: jealousy, bargaining, need for attention or emotional support, pleasing, fear, imagination, wanting love instead of sex. Further it was necessary to separate procreation from sexual pleasure, to remove the sex-drive from the simple pleasure of the sexual play. Without the difference of the male and female sexual instinct there is no difference between a man’s and a woman’s sexual experience. Without the driven need to have sex it simply happens when it seems a good time for another pleasure in the day. It is like deciding when to have a cup of coffee – now, or in two hours’ time? In the course of this ‘clean-out’ we came across ‘ghosts’ like fear to be just an animal, to be immoral, to be selfish, to be out of control. But these ghosts can simply be recognised as fear, imprinted since centuries to keep men and women in their place. Without aggression and malice operating there is no necessity to keep anything under control as there is neither aggression nor need for defence. KONRAD: I have written a book about problems in love relationships. There is one aspect of sex that might be of interest. Have you ever wondered about why almost all rape is done by men? Have you ever wondered, why most prostitutes are women, and if there are male prostitutes, they have almost no women clients, but homosexual men? Have you ever wondered about why the law places property rights on the chastity of women? Why not the other way around? Here is a very simple biological explanation of all this, rooted in the biology of the male sexual apparatus. It is simply this: Men have all kinds of glands producing all kinds of fluids that is released in the sexual act. Of course, women, too, produce certain fluids. But there is a very big difference. The fluids that women produce are some variation of sweat, that is only produced during the sexual act, while this is not so with the male fluids. Male fluids are produced constantly, not only during intercourse. It is first produced and then stored in several reservoirs in his body. His semen is stored around his testicles. His lubrication means and other material for nurturing his semen is stored in another reservoir underneath his bladder. The problem is, that these reservoirs are slowly filling, until they are completely full. And when they are full, the least sexual stimulus makes men horny. The only way these reservoirs can be emptied is with an orgasm: in the sexual act, self-stimulated or spontaneously. The fluids are NOT taken up by the body, if the man refrains from sex, as many seem to believe. In other words, sex is a need for men, much like going to the toilet is for everybody. It is not so for women. Women may find sex, when done properly, and all conditions are right, a nice thing to do. But they do not NEED it. Men, however, do. I can put it even stronger. Because men have this biological problem, they are all potential rapists, while NO woman can be. This potential becomes actual as soon as men deny this aspect of their biology. No morality can stop this. For no morality can stop us to go to the toilet to empty our bowels, simply because it is a biological need. Not realizing this difference causes much misunderstanding between men and women. Men do not understand how women can do without sex, while women do not understand why sex is such a big thing for men. Women have no problems with refraining from sex. Men have BIG problems with this. However, traditionally speaking, women have another ‘problem’. They can have children. It is not realized enough, that having children is really a full-time job, when done properly. Added to this many women see their ability to have children as an obligation. They think, that if they do not have a child at least once, something will always be missing into their lives. This means, that women who hold this conviction are looking for a situation wherein this full time job can be made actual. So they are looking for a man who takes care of them. (Two jobs is for many people too demanding.) Not realizing all this leads to what I call ‘A deal relationship’ The woman is looking for a man to give her security, while a man is looking for a woman to give him sex. In this kind of relationship both men and women think they need each other, while in fact they both do not. It is a simple matter for a man to do something about his sexual need without bothering his woman partner. He only has to question the morality, wherein he is forbidden to act on this simple biological problem. If he frees himself of this morality, he stops demanding for his wife to be a sexual toilet whenever he is in sexual need. This frees him from his sexual dependence of her. And as a corollary, the sexual industry is recognized for what it is: namely an answer to a NEED of MEN. On the other hand, women have to free themselves from the notion, that not having children means not leading a completely fulfilling life. VINEETO: What you are stating here is the difference in sex-drive of male and female. Interestingly enough you say that men, for physical reasons, cannot change their need for orgasm – or ejaculation, to be precise – they can only act on it one way or the other – and what a poor solution you offer, masturbation – or do you tell the men to wait for nocturnal spontaneous releases? While the women should learn to refrain from their physical programming of the sexual instinct: having babies! No, both have to recognize the instinct and eliminate it – not work around it – in order to live in complete peace and harmony and to enjoy a fulfilling sex-life. You are repeating what everybody has been falsely teaching before: that instincts cannot be changed. Why not?! Human beings are equipped with both consciousness and intelligence sufficient to sort out, understand and extinguish their instincts, should they so desire. The actual survival of the species ‘humans’ is no longer threatened by lack of numbers any more but our very happiness is still ruined by the blind sexual instinct to procreate. It is now time that common sense and intelligence take over the job of the instincts and let sexual play be pleasure and delight and not the cause for unwanted children, pain, suffering, shame and guilt. Logically speaking, you need not find a solution for the problem, but simply eliminate the problem – the base sexual instincts themselves and the social conditioning and beliefs around sex and their resulting emotions. But this includes the extinction of ‘me’, my very ‘self’. Scary – Yes. Rewarding – unbelievably so!!! KONRAD: Biologically speaking BRAINS and MINDS of both men and women have exactly the same capabilities. VINEETO: Well said, and they have the same capacity for sexual pleasure too. Women just have been more repressed by religious and social morals and restricted by the fear of pregnancy. Using Richard’s method, Peter and I have proven that it is possible to actually get rid of the instinctual passions. The old fairytale of a necessary gender-battle, compromise and resentment has ceased to be an excuse. Man and woman both can rid themselves of the sexual instinctual drive, the bummer or a birthmark that keeps men and woman adversaries for life. When a woman dares to stop being a woman and a man dares to stop being a man, two human beings can meet in direct, tangible, delicious intimacy. Liberated from all the instincts of procreation, fear, desire, nurture and aggression as well as from emotions, fears, romantic love, affections, ethics, morals and beliefs, sex then becomes the all-senses-encompassing intimate dance of two human beings, fitting perfectly well in their physical plumbing. Then, and only then, can you compare their amount of sexual pleasure and you find that women enjoy sex as much as men do, once it is cleaned from restrictions of pregnancy, morals, fears or respecting men’s fears. Then neither masturbation is necessary nor the ‘deal relationship’ you describe. Then freedom is experienced in every movement of the sexual dance, independent and intimate, without need or fear, fully present in all of the involved senses. Delight is a very poor word for this serendipitous experience of being alive. RESPONDENT to No. 8: Usually when I find people uninteresting, boring or too serious (like my wife and mother) I make fun of their words or a joke. I put some ‘juice’ into them and that makes them laugh and become less serious. Do you call that ‘being vindictive’? You say that you don’t find my jokes funny where I used the names of Peter and Vineeto. Have you forgotten? Osho used to make fun of his sannyasins and everyone used to have a good laugh. Nobody was offended. No wonder you like those two dried-up old fossils, Peter and Vineeto. P.S.: I find that Vineeto still has a little humour left in her. I loved those two pictures she sent. They were funny. VINEETO: It is such a curious business writing to people on the internet. I was convinced you were a woman (I knew a woman with the same name, that’s why) – now, suddenly – for me suddenly – you have a wife. I have thought quite a bit about humour lately and about your statement that there is a little humour left in me. I might be a bit handicapped by my German upbringing – and with English being my second language I am not good with puns. But there is more to it than that. Most jokes I can’t laugh at. Most jokes are built on either the suffering of people or them being malicious. I just can’t find the joke. Also, there is neither boredom nor any other emotional tension that needs to be ‘healed’ or relieved with a joke. Living in delight, laughter is simply part of the day, as are interesting conversations, thrilling investigations, juicy sex and tasty food. Humour may not be something you find much in my writing – but then, my intent to writing something is different. When I write here on the list, my intent is to convey something of the magic I experience being free of beliefs and emotions, and to describe how I got here. And as for boredom, I found that since I eliminated boredom in me, nobody can bore me anymore – I can spend days of doing nothing, hanging out by myself or with Peter and never be bored. Being alive is thrilling, sensuous, bubbly, delicious, enjoyable, magical, sensational – and then you get to do things on top of it! But since humour is the language you seem to know best – here is a fairy story that I have found funny: [quote]: Cinderella wants to go to the ball, but her wicked stepmother won’t let her. As Cinderella sits crying in the garden, her fairy godmother appears, and promises to provide Cinderella with everything she needs to go to the ball, but only on two conditions. ‘First, you must wear a diaphragm.’ Cinderella agrees. ‘What’s the second condition?’ ‘You must be home by 2 a.m. Any later, and your diaphragm will turn into a pumpkin.’ Cinderella agrees to be home by 2 a.m. The appointed hour comes and goes, and Cinderella doesn’t show up. Finally, at 5 a.m., Cinderella shows up, looking love-struck and very, very satisfied. ‘Where have you been?’ demands the fairy godmother. ‘Your diaphragm was supposed to turn into a pumpkin three hours ago!’ ‘I met a prince, Fairy Godmother. He took care of everything.’ ‘I know of no prince with that kind of power! Tell me his name!’ ‘I can’t remember, exactly ... Peter Peter, something or other ...’ RESPONDENT to Peter: Honestly, I feel there is just too much effort to have sex. I mean to make the whole atmosphere right, to seduce the woman, to put her in a good mood, to prepare. To see the same old, same old stages of the whole game. By the time it is right and everything seems ready I feel already tired of it and I would rather not do it (which of course drives the partner crazy). VINEETO: I like your sincerity in asking. Sex is not an everyday subject to be talked about in public, is it? I thought I will give you some input from the female side of the so-called ‘mystique of sex’. Before I met Peter, I always thought of myself as not quite adequate in the imagined standard of ‘good in bed’. I felt, something was always wrong with me, and I was aware of repression lurking somewhere – I didn’t feel free in sex. I found out later that most of my peers where afflicted with the same ignorance, guilt and morals about sex. Then, on top of the difficulty I already had with my ‘normal’ Christian sexual conditioning there was the confusion about the spiritual idea of having to transcend sex in order to reach enlightenment. Part of my contract with Peter was to look into everything that was in the road between us, and that included sex. I welcomed the opportunity to explore my conditioning with someone who was not afraid to find out all about sex. So we delved into the core of the matter. Peter wrote about it in his journal in the Sex chapter: Peter: ‘The elimination of the beliefs and taboos around sexuality and their related emotions meant that each of us had to give up all that we thought was essential and set in concrete in the end. My very maleness and her very femaleness. The results of this investigation are indeed quite interesting. We have discovered a heightened sensual pleasure in sex. We have stripped away almost all of the emotions, fears, blockages, hesitancies, guilt, and any withholding that occurs around sex.
> Now it is simply a matter of when to comfortably fit it in to the day; we generally prefer the morning, as the resulting sensations can last for hours. It’s that ‘Wow’ or ‘Hmmm’ that we can get at the coffee shop later on that is so good. It is usually obvious when it is a good time to jump into bed, and not being driven takes all the ‘will we – won’t we’ nonsense away. It simply happens whenever it suits us both. Without the sex drive dominating we are able to enjoy the whole of the sexual act; it is not a blind mindless rush to orgasm. We enjoy the heightened physical pleasures of touch, smell, sight and sound, the senses building and building to become purely sexual. The point is that the whole act is so delicious, and orgasm is just a part of it, but to prolong an orgasm or ride on the edge of one is to ride a wave of pleasure ... teetering ... right on the edge ... Yes! And then another wave comes along and off we go again ... it sure beats surfing! And each time it is a totally different journey – going wherever it goes! Pure physical pleasure! And how good to find a fully sexual woman – freed of inhibitions – who equally enjoys a ‘romp’. The cells of the body afterwards tingling as though a fine electric charge is surging through – like a total cell re-charge. That feeling of toes curled up, utter relaxation in the body, and an extraordinary intimacy with this woman who has pleasured me, as I have pleasured her. Freely given and received, sensuous and physical, and any emotional ‘goo’ out of the way. We often would lie in bed as this physical delight emerged more and more, and say that the path to freedom would be worth it just for the sex alone!’ (Peter’s Journal, ‘Sex’). |
I found that there is much more to sex than having sex. It was fascinating to observe how the sexual drive works. The sex-drive that is programmed into us is not concerned about our pleasure. It is merely there to reproduce the human species and, as such, it operates differently in men and in women. As a woman I found that I am instinctually driven to try and tie down the male, to keep him as a protector and provider for potential off-spring. Even when there is no plan of having children, that drive still functions and plays its role. It is expressed in wanting attention, love, assurance, promises, security, status, maybe financial reliance and many more conditions, that have nothing to do with enjoying sex. The sex drive in operation actually inhibits the free enjoyment of sex. It was important for me to recognize and dismantle the functioning of this instinctual drive in order not to be run by it. The other challenge was the moral conditioning. All religions regard sex as either outright bad or at least as a ‘lower energy’ that needs to be refined and transcended. Then the body with its senses is not the primary focus of attention, but one is run by thoughts, concepts, feelings and resulting confusion, which all inhibit the enjoyment of sex. It took a few months of committed investigation into those morals and ethics and their fears and guilt, before I could enjoy the actual physical happening of sex rather than the dreams of never quite fulfilled hopes and expectations. The resulting intimacy in sex is every time again astounding. I admit that it takes courage to question one’s beliefs, face one’s fears and examine the general agreed opinion of how to behave in bed, but the outcome is well worth the investigation. I can highly recommend daring to eliminate one’s conditioning and sexual instinct and abandon oneself completely into the sensual experience of two bodies having fun. From my experience, I know there is no short-cut – I have tried a few before. They all left the strange taste of hypocrisy and I eventually grew bored of lifeless pretensions. Now, without any idea of what is going to happen next, sex is fresh each time, no memory of the day before whatsoever. It is indeed pure delight. * RESPONDENT: Are you attracted to having sex with different men? When there is no love or feelings between you and your partner this could happen, I guess. Also, jealousy would not be the issue. VINEETO: Oh good, a down-to-earth question. Sex without love... One of the first things that Peter and I discovered preventing actual intimacy were the feelings of love – that sweet syrup that was usually poured over the spiky, malicious, miserable ‘self’, which one is most of the time! When Peter and I questioned love and threw it out, naturally the question came up in me – ‘without the feeling of love, why would I want to be with him?’ What would be left of me when I didn’t feel love? How could I relate both to Peter and other people, if not with emotion or intuition? What would I have to offer in friendships or conversations, if not sympathy and consolation? My whole edifice of ‘who’ I was, who I believed myself to be, began to fall in a heap as I questioned and demolished the attributes of love and emotion. Now naked of all those characteristics and beliefs, as well as their resultant emotions and behaviour which have kept man and woman apart for millennia, I am experiencing for the first time in my life an actual intimacy with a man. Now there are no dreams, no expectations, no emotions or any other restrictions that could cloud the thrill of meeting another human being. Now instead of random moments of ‘sweet love’ I am able to give Peter my full attention and bare awareness each time we communicate and so does he. I just hang out with him because it is immense fun, all the time. It is as much fun sitting next to each other on our computers, watching TV, commenting on the weather, serving a cup of coffee, cooking dinner, going for a walk into town, having a chat while lying each on our couch or having a rompacious romp. As for jealousy – that disappeared along with the feeling of love. Each of us is free to do what we want to do and so each does what we enjoy most. I have written about sex without love some 12 months ago: [Vineeto]: ‘When Peter and I started to throw out love it had a great impact on my sexual ‘identity’. It was an intense and scary time because right behind the nice, embellishing veil of love lingered all the monsters and demons of being an animal, a whore, a slut, not human and having sex with a ‘stranger’. Enjoying sex without ‘being in love’ is still considered one of the greatest sins of Christian morality. And Eastern spirituality regards sex as the biggest obstacle to enlightenment. Not only had I to face my own personal conditioning about sex, but I was also confronted with the fact of stepping out of the collective accepted behaviour and limits that every woman had been taught. Demons of atavistic fears would present me with their ferocious stories, as though I was still living in the Middle Ages, where women were burnt at the stake for leaving the fold or were expelled for not conforming. It took some effort to understand that both fears and beliefs around sex were simply inherited from other people, they don’t have any actual relevance for me here and now. Digging deeper, stepping outside of the realm of sexual conditioning and beliefs I then discovered their underlying force – the sexual instincts. This inheritance from our animal past is simply installed to blindly ensure the continuity of the species. It has nothing to do with my happiness and inhibits any sensible behaviour. Those blind instincts cause, among other troubles, possessiveness, jealousy, rape, murder and overpopulation. Identified and seen as what they were, these instincts eventually lost their significance and their grip over me. Now I can enjoy the sensibility and pleasure of sex without being driven, free of the need and dependency that used to be the inevitable consequence. I now don’t need to reinforce my female sexual identity or practise my manipulative power over men – hence the need for flirting has disappeared. Relating to men without the restriction of sexual flirtation is indeed a freedom to meet them in a new and fresh way. (A Bit of Vineeto). With the sexual drive gone, I don’t have any need to flirt or hunt for other men. With the feeling of love gone, I enjoy each moment with Peter as fresh and intimate as if it was the first time. There are neither boredom nor fear, neither expectation nor disappointment, neither mysteries nor secrets, neither bickering nor interference. And what better play-mate could I find! It is ongoing delight. RESPONDENT: On the subject of sex without heart or love, how do you manage it? VINEETO: I wrote to No. 13 on that subject. He asked almost the same question. Practically speaking, without sex-drive there is only the pleasure of the senses, which I enjoy like a good cup of coffee or a rainstorm. We jump into bed, find the start buttons and wheee – it’s a different tango each time. ... shall I describe the feelings that usually happen when a man and a woman are in bed together? – Insecurity, pleasing, boredom, desire, frustration, ‘you don’t do what I like’, too much, not enough, too quick, too rough, too slow, too long, feelings about the last disagreement, ‘maybe it would be better with somebody else’, shame, guilt, sexual fantasies, complaints, and then – to make up for the resulting feeling of separation – love. But none of those feelings are actual, they are just happening in the head (or in the heart, if you like). Without any feelings in the road I am as intimate with Peter as can be, no ‘selves’ are interfering in our dance of the senses. Each one is equally enjoying him/herself and the other and there is no worry at all about how things should be. Such ease, such aliveness, such delight. I am not ‘managing it’, I am having the best time with a man that I ever had – harmonious, peaceful, intimate, fascinating, sensually sexual, never the same, 24 hours a day. I like your questions. Tell me what you make of it. VINEETO: You can go beyond the beyond the beyond, and get even further away from the actual world, your identity just further removed from life, from your body, your senses and the perfection of this moment. The actual world is 180 degrees in the opposite direction from where you are searching, not ‘being beyond it’ at all. But the point of what I am saying is that this ‘magical, fairy tale-like world of perfection and purity’ doesn’t need to be believed to exist ... unlike the ‘Greater Reality’ ... which only exists because it is believed by all. Then you are saying in the second post: [Respondent]: In your case I now believe ‘the watcher’ is a sub personality. But I must inform you that the witness that I am is not a thought form, it is simply being ness! It is not a sub-personality. I must admit that before I was aware of my nothingness. I had a lot of belief systems as to the nature of reality. After all, if you have not experienced being the universe, all you can do is believe it as a possibility. You can sell your belief in the mind as much as you like, it does not take away my personal experience of not being and being everything in the universe at once! [endquote]. And in your last post you said: [Respondent]: The taste of no mind has a different taste, like the ocean it is always salty, remind you of anything? [endquote]. And to No. 14: [Respondent]: Dear, I was talking in a sexual sense! [endquote]. How do you have salty sex? Does your ‘beingness’ and your ‘nothingness’ get intertwined with your lover’s ‘beingness’ and ‘not-beingness’? Since you are ‘everything in the universe at once’, does your lover never complain that you are ‘somewhere else’? Just to think about it, having sex with someone ‘being everything in the universe at once’, I would really get lost in space... I prefer an actual penis stimulating an actual vagina, thank you. Contrary to your assumption, I did experience ‘being the Universe’ and I gave a detailed description to No. 12.
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence
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