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 ‘Self’-immolation Actualism Homepage RESPONDENT: ... How does AF deal with real-world stresses? For instance, a recent post posed soe questions dealing with the situation of raising a child. These scenarios (and the evil boss, and the noisy neighbour, ad infinitum) are the real laboratory, and painful as they may seem, are likely where the path lies. I’ve raised a child through adulthood (or a simulation thereof), and still have no clue how to do it right. The cold, elemental truth is that the genetic program is to procreate, and bring that being to reproductive viability. Several thousand years of human civilization (using the term veeeeery loosely) have added some window dressing to that process to make us feel good about it, but the basic fact is still there (sorry Norman Rockwell). OK, now what? VINEETO: Actualism is addressing the root of the problem, ‘me’, the lost, lonely and very cunning alien entity inside this flesh and blood body. I found that when I successively investigated what constituted my identity, the real-world stresses began to diminished and have now completely disappeared. There are still practical problems to solve and they are solved in the most easy and sensible way. The stress was created by ‘my’ survival fear, ‘my’ aggression, ‘my’ attachments, ‘my’ desires, ‘my’ loyalties, ‘my’ dreams and hopes – and not by being here in the physical world as Eastern spiritual teachings would have us believe. Once I examined each of these feelings and passions and traced them back to the bit of identity that produced and maintained them, I then had the choice to forsake that particular bit of my identity that produced and maintained the good and bad stress-creating feelings. RESPONDENT: Step 2 of AF ... VINEETO: Step 1 towards an actual freedom from the human condition is not, as you might think, self-observation, but a commitment to make becoming happy and harmless the most important thing in your life. Practicing self-observation without this intent only leads to the creation of ‘a watcher’ – a new dissociated identity that then feels superior to ‘normal’ people. RESPONDENT: ... is to destroy all our cultural and social conditioning. That sounds imminently reasonable to me, but does that mean we must strap ploughs on to the children and send them to the fields? Or just not have them at all? Hmmmmmm ... Is No. 38 too attached to parentheses? These must be the subroutines of flat text, which I kinda like. Well, there you are. Let’s give this a whirl and see where it goes. VINEETO: No. I did not ‘destroy’ my cultural and social conditioning because that would leave ‘the destroyer’ intact. I examine and investigate how ‘I’ tick both as a social-spiritual identity and as an instinctual identity. The full awareness and complete understanding of each bit of programming then makes it possible to cease to automatically repeat the program and in doing so ‘I’ willingly agree to this part of ‘me’ disappearing. This persistent process of ‘self’-investigation and subsequent incremental ‘self’-elimination makes the business of being alive on this planet a thrilling, delightful and magical adventure for the first time in one’s life. It’s well worth giving it a whirl, in fact, it’s the only game to play in town. VINEETO to Gary: I can very well relate to what you describe as ‘a deep and abiding terror of extinction’. The trick that often helps me turn this terror into excitement is to remember that ‘I’ have a voluntary mission which is far more dignifying that ‘my’ survival – ‘I’ am to bring about peace-on-earth by vacating the throne, permanently. And although sometimes I feel as though I am only inching my way closer to ‘my’ destiny, I do recognize that I am making progress. I only need to look back at how I used to experience life a few years back to know this is a fact. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 12.2.2003). RESPONDENT: Facing the reality of my own demise has been one of my favourite obsessions in the past. VINEETO: I am somewhat confused as to what you mean by ‘facing the reality of my own demise … in the past’ – are you referring to the demise of the ego that leaves the soul intact, as taught in each and every branch of Eastern mysticism, or are you referring to facing physical death? Or are you talking about the recent past since taking up actualism – your contemplations about your own demise of your identity in toto, both ego and soul, something that is entirely new to human history? RESPONDENT: I’ve always known that in that conundrum lies a very important bit of knowledge, but I usually got stuck in an existential quagmire. VINEETO: The most important bit of knowledge that I have gleaned from contemplating the demise of my ‘self’ has been, and still is, the purity of my intent as an actualist. Contemplating death or ‘self’-immolation is not something that in itself brings me closer to becoming actually free of malice and sorrow but it certainly gives me a gauge measure to check if I am becoming comfortably numb, settling for second best or hiding in fear. I found that the best strategy is to check out my intent and then get on with the business of being happy and harmless instead of, for instance, being frightened at the thought of ‘my’ demise. It’s useful to remember that every feeling I indulge in, for whatever ‘noble’ reason, is only going to feed my identity instead of diminishing it. I have spent many years exploring therapy groups and spiritual feeling states and it was quite a challenge to slowly wake up to the fact that feeling is not identical to actuality – in fact, feeling has nothing to do with actuality. In the past I might have felt harmless but was nevertheless quite harmful in that my ‘self’-centredness inevitably caused ripples in other peoples lives. I found that while I might have felt that I valued peace, I still instinctively acted in attack and defence mode. While I might have felt that I was willing to sacrifice my ego for a higher cause, I was actually cultivating humbleness as a means of soul-istic ‘self’-aggrandizement, and so forth. Through the rigorous and persistent process of actualism, I slowly learnt to extend my attention beyond what I thought and felt, i.e. my ideals and passions, so as to become aware of the tangible effects that my thoughts, feelings and actions had on the people around me. I discovered more and more that feeling myself to be harmless and actually being harmless were two completely different things. This process of distinguishing between feeling and actuality is the key to actually becoming happy and harmless compared to merely feeling happy and harmless. I’m saying this because contemplating my demise has been one of my favourite topics since discovering actualism and only lately have I discovered that, while such contemplations can serve to fuel my intent, they don’t bring me closer to the actuality of being free, simply because I am contemplating about a time that is not now. Which reminds me that Richard always maintained that one cannot think one’s way to freedom nor feel one’s way to freedom – something that I have persistently tried to do. It’s great that there aren’t any rights and wrongs in actualism – given the sincere intent to be free of malice and sorrow all explorations are useful explorations. RESPONDENT: Today, while showering, the subject popped into my head for the first time in some while, and I was keenly aware that it was the identity that was clinging to that fear, and that this flesh-and-blood shall simply fade away, no fuss, no muss. VINEETO: When you observe this experience a bit longer you will discover that ‘you’ as an identity are identical to that fear, they are in fact one and the same. ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’. And when fear leaves the stage for a moment, the identity is nowhere to be found and vice versa. Then there is peace. VINEETO to Alan: Here things are going very well indeed. I encounter heaps of fear. But that is not all of it. There is so much thrill to it, I can hardly believe it. I have got tired of virtual freedom, of ‘just’ scheduling pleasures throughout the day and night, I am going for the ultimate prize. I want actual freedom, not just virtual freedom, but the genuine article. The name of the game is death, oblivion, obliteration, extinction, going all the way. The name of the game is 100%. And that is the thrill, that gives everything the sparkle, the magic, the depth in terms of richness, that gives every pleasure a single purpose: to add to the extinction of Vineeto, the psychological and psychic entity . Irene’s letter came at the right time. She did me a great service. For the reply, I had to put myself under utter scrutiny because I know she would not let me get away with anything. She has scrutinized me unsparingly – but so do I. Questioning myself continuously is the essential ingredient of the journey to freedom. And the countdown started, I have left the safe plateau of the delights of virtual freedom and I am on the roller coaster. What a ride! I can recommend it absolutely, it is the crowning glory of the journey started long ago. Yes, yes, yes, yes. * VINEETO to Alan: As I see it today, there was an experience of ‘getting it’, understanding the Power and Glory of the heartfelt, chest-filling experience of Realization and I then stepped out of that drama of the ‘Self’, I abandoned this particular belief / imagination / emotion. But in the frantic and desperate attempt to survive the ‘self’ jumped to the next possible identity: ‘I’ had seen through this immense illusion, ‘I’ have greatly understood, ‘I’ am the hero again. And with the ‘I’ claiming the honour of the realization for its identity, a Pandora box of new imaginations, fears and identities is given full reign. I am currently attempting to understand the process of approaching death, the combination of self-immolation and doing what is happening. I have always been puzzled by the apparent paradox of the fact that only ‘I’ can bring about my demise and the question how the last bit of ‘me’ is going to disappear. This is how I experience it now – Sometimes, in the course of a perfect day, ‘I’ have a more substantial experience of an emotion, usually felt as fear, tension in the head or/and in the stomach area. Over the period of the last weeks I have come to understand my own journey as less of a ‘psychic and psychological search and destroy mission’ and more of as a physical affair, where the brain is sorting out the necessary neuron-links to adjust to the dismantling of ‘me’. And the only thing that ‘I’ can do now to support my self-immolation process is to get out of the road, to not stand on the brakes. The process is happening and so, for freedom’s sake, Vineeto, get off the brakes! I do that by neither dramatising the fear nor pushing it away, by seeing it more as a by-product of this strange thing I am doing. I don’t ‘support’ a panic-attack by embroidering it, and neither do I let myself be numb, bored or dull. Then, by quietly noticing what is happening, without attaching any identity to an ‘observer’, apperception happens – with some rumbling going on in the background – while I get on with the pleasures of being here, be they food, sex, a walk into town, playing with the web-site, interaction with other people, going to work or watching television. And by ‘my’ stepping out of the way I am doing what is happening, any rumbling or grinding in the background included. After all, it is simply silly to be fearful in face of death being so obviously inevitable. * VINEETO: Virtual Freedom is when 99% percent of your time is spent in perfect peace and harmony with everything and everyone around you. When you wake up in the morning and know that you are going to have a perfect day and when you go to bed at night-time and you can say that you had had a perfect day. Virtual Freedom is when you are not bothered by petty worries, jealousies, competition, arrogance, grumpiness, sadness, boredom, and when you don’t get peeved, sad, bored, tired, annoyed, frustrated, impatient, uneasy, embarrassed, disgusted, angry, depressed or malicious. Virtual Freedom is when you very rarely come across an emotion in yourself, and when that happens you simply investigate into the root cause of the emotion and get on with enjoying life. Virtual Freedom is the firm basis one is falling back on when coming out of a pure consciousness experience, or when one is getting impatient, doubtful or fearful about freedom. Virtual Freedom is the proof of the pudding, it proves that cleaning up your grotty ‘self’ does actually work in everyday life with people as they are. Virtual Freedom is as close as ‘you’ can get to being actually free of the Human Condition while remaining a self. And Virtual Freedom is when you know with utter confidence that you are moving every day closer to the moment of ‘your’ final extinction. ALAN: Now the proviso. I can say yes to all the above, except having a perfect day. I know it is not yet perfect because I have experienced what perfection is, in the PCE. So until I am living that perfection 24 hours of the day (ie actual freedom), I cannot say I have had a perfect day. And perhaps this further points to my (or is it ‘my’) ‘problem’ with Virtual Freedom. If I am worrying about whether I have had a perfect day, or am living in virtual freedom, I am never going to have a perfect day. Is this part of Zen philosophy? i.e. the change being sought can only be brought about by giving up the desire to change, or to put it more simply: And you are right, ‘it is the doing which is the business’. Ship ahoy. VINEETO: Well, I can understand your objections now. But to define a perfect day as only experienced in a PCE or when the self has finally died is to keep postponing the doing of it by another trick of the ‘self’, a koan, that by its very definition has no solution – you say that you can only live in virtual freedom when you live in actual freedom... Virtual freedom is as far as ‘I’ can go, is the best that ‘I’ can do with the ‘self’ somehow still alive. In that sense it is one step ‘below’ a PCE or actual freedom, but as perfect as can be with the ‘self’ still there. If you want to save the word ‘perfect’ only for PCE, then I am happy to use any other word that you propose that would represent ‘99% perfect with the acknowledgment of the ‘self’ being intact’. Virtual, by definition, means ‘that is so in essence or effect, although not recognized formally, actually, or by strict definition as such; almost absolute.’ Oxford Dictionary In the meantime I will call my days perfect days, be they days in front of the TV doing nothing, typing a letter all day or going to work and selling a few hours of my time to pay the bills. They are perfect in that I am here each moment with my full attention, responding to each situation uncluttered by worries and other emotions, and enjoying myself thoroughly. Any upcoming problem is simply another challenge to be met, keeping me on my toes with thrill, working things out or observing the happenings with more and more apperception. You said it in your letter to No. 14: ‘dare I say virtual freedom’. Yes, Virtual Freedom is a daring. Once you decide and declare to yourself and others that you are living in Virtual Freedom, you can’t slip back into not having a perfect day. You have to live up to your own standards. You pull yourself up on your boot strings. What a great tool! It’s another ‘lifting of the bar ‘on the wide and wondrous path to Freedom. VINEETO: Fear number two was: will I be able to physically survive? Well, I knew that Richard did, and he had described some quite dramatic experiences in his time before enlightenment. But I also had my own peak-experiences which convinced me that I am very capable of surviving without the ‘support’ of the primitive survival mechanism – on the contrary! As I had described before, when the physical symptoms of the adrenaline rush were developing towards what felt like a heart-attack, my common-sense decided that this was silly, and I could easily decide not to follow that drama any further. ALAN: Yes, this is ‘my’ greatest fear. I still think it will be necessary to accept that physical death may be the outcome when ‘stepping through the door’ (with Actual Freedom, not fear, written on it!!). As I said in my last post, for ‘me’ there is no difference between physical death and ‘self’ extinction – they are one and the same so far as ‘I’ am concerned and have the same end result for ‘me’ – ‘I’ will no longer exist in any shape or form – and ‘I’ want to remain in existence to savour the moment and receive the acclaim and, as you put it, ‘have a bloody good time’ – and ‘I’ cannot!! VINEETO: You are very welcome to be the first, Alan. After all, you are the ‘chief disciple’ and, as such, bear great responsibility, don’t you agree? Let’s see, who pops. ALAN: I resign. And, yes, I am well aware that ‘I’ want to be the first and have no hesitation at all in utilising this desire to assist in ‘my’ demise. VINEETO: If you don’t physically survive, how can you be the first? Nobody would be around to tell of ‘your’ success. That simple female logic might help you find a safe solution. (It is really just female ‘logic’ and not common sense because it is so bent.) But I know what you mean. Psychological and physical death seem so closely connected at times that one can get very easily mixed up. The amygdala certainly makes no distinction betwixt the two and pumps its chemicals through brain and organs – adrenaline, serotonin, testosterone, endorphin and whatever else it has in store. But once I knew that ‘I’ was creating those physical symptoms with my mental support, I could also stop creating them – or I go for the endorphin. Common sense helped me to understand that the two (the physical and psychological death) have, in fact, nothing to do with each other. Physical death is not happening and psychological/psychic death has been agreed upon for some time now. The fear that I am physically threatened is just an automatic reaction of the instinctual ‘self’ when close to extinction. VINEETO to Alan: It’s a fascinating business ‘to be or not to be’ and how to move from one to the other. When we watched the report on Timothy Leary that Peter wrote about, I could relate very well to the flavour of those times, the idealism, the peace movement and the ‘tune in, turn on and drop out’ scene. My ‘drop out’ was not into drugs, but into religion. I went to India to find God. My God was called Rajneesh and he claimed to have all the answers. I learned to be more sophisticated with my labelling, he was ‘an Enlightened Master’, the best, of course, something which every master claims to be. And if we did what he told us, surrendered and meditated earnestly, we would get to experience heaven on earth, i.e. become enlightened and thus reserve a place for our soul in Nirvana-land after death. Doesn’t this sound very similar to the good old Christian religion of Big Daddy in the sky who knows it all and promises you heaven after death if you are good? With the only difference being that my ‘God’ was still alive and the Christian God - man had died 2000 years ago. Therefore the transition out of normal society into a spiritual community wasn’t such a big jump as I had thought at the time. Emotionally and instinctually I was still feeling safe with the higher authority of the ‘Good’ and secure with the reassuring feeling of belonging to a religious tribe. With that understanding in mind, the report of the ‘great drop out’ of Timothy Leary, the ‘high priest of the his times’ could be seen for what it is, a ‘shifting of furniture on the deck of the Titanic’, staying safely within the parameters of the ‘self’ and of an imagined life after death for that very ‘self’. Yet I find it very serendipitous that crazy people, including myself, have experimented with all kinds of possible options of what it is to be a human being. It gives me an opportunity to study what I as well as everyone else have discovered, to investigate the uselessness of the traditionally offered solutions and to stop repeating the mistakes of the past. That brings me back to ‘not to be’, self-immolation – the door to the actual world and the only solution I find worth pursuing after my experiments with the normal and the spiritual world. Once in a while I get hit by bouts of self-doubt with questions like ‘have I fallen off the path to freedom’, ‘have I gone comfortably numb with no emotions happening’, ‘am I overlooking something essential’, ‘how come it takes so long’ and similar mental churning. Often, after a period of a really good time without feelings or emotions, this nagging doubt appears again to drag me down. Trying to think it out leads nowhere, it only spoils the enjoyment of this moment. Having explored the doubt exhaustively before, to now go deeper into the feeling of it for exploration’s sake only leads to more doubt, guilt and pointless frustration. Finally it dawned on me that this self-doubt, like other repetitive feelings before, is simply a bad habit and needs to be treated as such – not to be given any attention at all. Gee, it took some repetition to find out that one! The other story I wanted to report to you started with that familiar feeling of fear and thrill, surging through the back of my neck, pounding in the heart area and then down into the belly. The ‘self’ in action was distinctively felt and easily identifiable, yet had me fully in its grip. I was contemplating Richard’s latest correspondence with No. 3, the self-acclaimed enlightened teacher on mailing list C and thinking particularly about Richard’s description and classification of enlightenment as the mental disorder of dissociation. It is a fascinating reading to have enlightenment perfectly explained in psychiatric terms and not as a religious achievement. Richard’s scientific explanation makes perfect sense, as I have seen (and admired) this mental disorder, aka enlightenment in action for years on the spiritual path, and several times I have experienced it myself ( detailed description). I now understand that my 17 years of spiritual practice have been a training course in how to dissociate, how to develop a mental disorder, how to become insane. ‘Close your eyes and repeat after me: I am not my body, I am not my mind and the world is an illusion.’ What a hoot! The question running in my head now was how to self-immolate without dissociating – the well-known spiritual practice of ‘this is not me’. When I told Peter he laughed and thumped me on the shoulder. The hit immediately changed my perception – from thinking and feeling as all there is to experiencing the physical sensation of the thump. Right, I am this flesh-and-blood body, I forgot! The difference between these two experiences was so stunning, so obvious – and the thinking and feeling entity inside of my body, ‘me’, was once again revealed as just that, an alien entity. The fascinating question is how to facilitate this shift of attention? It doesn’t happen through thinking but it can be stimulated by contemplation. But most of all it is a memory job, experientially, sensately remembering to not believe the emotion and to step out. I had found another piece in the puzzle of how to move from ‘to be or not to be’. It just occurred to me that immolation, the final ‘stepping out’, will happen out of a situation of a distinctly felt emotion when the ‘self’ in action is clearly experienced. It won’t be a soft glide from happy to more happy but a deliberate tearing away from the grip of the instinctual entity. I will have to be experiencing at the time exactly what it is that I am stepping out of. Bloody excellent. * VINEETO to Alan: I would like to add something concerning my occasional trouble with writing that I wrote to you about last time: [Vineeto]: A few months back I had stopped writing thinking I had nothing to contribute until I was free. A bit like – I’m not going to breathe anymore until I get what I want – which won’t get me closer to my goal. Or, to use another metaphor, one is standing on the brakes and wondering why the car doesn’t move. Now I have recently discovered another hump to overcome – ‘I might as well stop writing because Peter and Richard can say it much better than I ever will be able to anyway.’ (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Alan-d, 23.4.2000). Doing some more ‘reflective contemplation’ on the issue I began to understand that comparison is almost a constant undercurrent whenever the ‘self’ is in action. Sometimes as a slight tension in the background, sometimes an obvious sadness invoked by feeling inadequate, comparison to others and my own standards seems to be almost synonymous with being a self. Getting this far in my contemplation there was the conclusion, bright and clear – I not only feel inadequate, I am inadequate, because according to my own standards I haven’t finished my job and my destiny. If I ever want to be adequate, then self-immolation is the only way to achieve my aim. Until then I can strive or resign, toss and turn – there is no solution within the Human Condition. It’s cute how every follow-up of and digging into issues always ends up at the same point, giving me more fuel to live on the edge of the imminent inevitable. In Actual Freedom, of course there is no comparison – everybody is doing what is happening and one is doing it the best one can because that’s where the fun is. It is really that easy. * VINEETO: Hi 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! VINEETO: Good to have you back writing again. I do find it fascinating to hear what has been going on for you over the last few months. The last part of your letter to the list gives me an opportunity to report about my own experiences in the process of ending ‘me’. ALAN: Or could it even be that this is the end of the road, that Richard is a ‘freak’ and that for most people an actual freedom is not achievable. The few PCEs, which have occurred in the last few months, indicate that this is not the case. They have been of a different ‘degree’, as I wrote in my last mail to Richard. Peter has also written of this experience – Peter: ‘Just to make it clear that this process has yet to come to a completion, but I am attempting to describe as accurately as possible what has happened to my past memories. I suspect I am becoming acclimatized to living without the past emotional memories and future emotional worries that give substance to ‘me’ as a psychological social identity and as a psychic instinctual being. I had a glimpse some months ago of the enormity of living in the permanent ‘self’-less state that Richard does – a glimpse of Actual Freedom. This was not a PCE which is a temporary state but a glimpse of the permanent state which is quite a different experience for there is no back door, no turning back and no phoenix new identity to arise from the ashes. There is no doubt that anyone would need sufficient preparation and the practical assurance of acclimatization to living without a social identity and being bereft of any emotional defence and attack system whatsoever.’ (Peter, Actual Freedom List, Gary-d, 3.12.2000). You may be correct Peter, and this is a period of ‘acclimatisation’. However, I am still left with the question Richard last asked of me – ‘what is preventing ‘me’ from proceeding?’ And I have got no further than the answer I gave some time ago – because ‘I’ want to remain in existence. VINEETO: The question that presses me on to proceed is this – ‘do I have the supreme confidence that ‘I’ will see my job through to the end, the irrevocable dissolution of ‘me’?’ The answer has been gradually changing – from ‘mmhh’ to ‘ah, yes, I think so’ to ‘o.k. let’s do it to get over with it’ to ‘what else is there preventing me’ to ‘ok, ok, I’m almost ready’ to ‘what am I waiting for’ to a more and more beaming, superbly confident ‘of course!’ – and the thrill of it is immensely sparkling and terrifyingly satisfying. In order to overcome my hesitation and my sometimes alarming fear I had to examine every inkling of my instinctual nurture and its resulting sympathy, compassion and atavistic universal sorrow for a suffering humanity to invoke a clean and non-affective altruism – because without also doing it for others there is no way of ‘me’ ever escaping the grip of my instinctual survival mode. I have experienced and come to see ‘face to face’ this raw animal survival instinct in action – that which drives me to silently scream or freeze in fear. This core soft-ware program of surviving at any cost is short and simple, it would fit on a floppy disk – at its most basic and primitive level it is: ‘what can I eat and what can eat me.’ Experiencing this core programming in action and understanding its purpose and consequences enabled apperceptive awareness and I became keenly conscious of adrenalin and other related chemicals racing through my system. After the chemicals subsided, all I was left with was a storm that had passed. A bit like – oops, what was all that about? It’s a great sport to live so close to the brink, Alan, as exciting as bungee jumping without a bungee. * ALAN: I’ll pass on the latter. VINEETO: Well, you might find out that the difference between a temporary PCE and a permanent actual freedom is nothing but a missing bungee cord – ‘I’ can never return again. * ALAN: A bit more on altruism. After writing the mail to Peter, I guess I got ‘off my backside’! I was sitting in the garden reflecting on something Richard had written, when suddenly I ‘got it’. The peace and perfection and purity of this actual universe is here all the time – every moment for ever and ever and ever. And, this body is experiencing that purity and perfection for every second of its existence (the body’s existence, that is). Which led to the question – if that purity and perfection is always in existence why am I not aware of it? A few bricks tumbled down – because ‘I’ can never be aware of it. ‘I’ do not actually exist. ‘I’ am all that is standing in the way of that purity and perfection evincing itself each second. For so long as ‘I’ exist the purity and perfection (which is always there) cannot manifest. So, why should ‘I’ get out of the way and allow that to occur? Why should ‘I’ cease to exist? After all, ‘I’ am all that ‘I’ am. And, the only reason for ‘me’ to self immolate is to demonstrate to others that the actual world actually exists. To demonstrate that peace on earth is not only possible but, achievable. Hence, altruism. Of course ‘I’ cannot do it for ‘me’. ‘I’ can only do it for others and for the sake of peace on earth. Facts are such deliciously wonderful things, are they not? VINEETO: I used to have a bit of trouble defining altruism myself. When I discovered actualism the first thing I wanted was to become free for myself. In the beginning I couldn’t quite relate to an altruistic motive because I first had to investigate and eradicate the moral of unselfishness and the passion of compassion. I have written about unselfishness that had run deep in my original Christian conditioning and I think this I where your observation to Peter applies – [Alan]: Surely most, if not all, altruistic acts are done to obtain recognition, praise and glory for being unselfish – LOL However, these acts are not done with an altruistic motive at all. People are merely obeying the morals of ‘thou shalt be unselfish and ye shall be rewarded in heaven.’ In order to discover my altruistic intent I first had to wipe out all traces of this particular moral in me together with the persistent feelings of guilt for doing something for myself instead of doing good in the world by trying to change others. When I first started applying the method of actualism I quite selfishly wanted to become happy and to get rid of my debilitating habits of misery, my crippling feelings of fear and my embarrassing bouts of anger and neediness. A few months into the process of investigating my emotions I noticed that I had also become less and less ‘self’-centred and less and less ‘self’-ish. This was something entirely different to the hypocritical moral of being unselfish because by taking apart my emotions and passionate beliefs I was breaking down the very content and substance of my ‘self’. In my actions I became more considerate of other people and more sensitive to others’ preferences and needs. That’s when harmlessness slid to the top of the laundry list and being happy without being harmless became simply impossible. At this point in the process compassion and universal sorrow started to come to the surface. By being less occupied with my own problems and less consumed by my own feelings – because they were simply disappearing into thin air – I started to clearly see the misery and fighting, the corruption and starvation, the injustice and torture, the rapes and murders, the child abuse and poverty, the devastating plagues and shocking wars that afflict everyone’s lives in one way or the other. There were days when I was simply soaked in helpless sorrow about the misery in the world, a misery so vast that it spread from one end of the planet to the other, an endless reservoir of sorrow stretching from the beginning of the human race until the present day. The only way to extract myself out of this overwhelming feeling of sadness for others was to apply common sense – it doesn’t help anybody that I sit in front of the television and cry my eyes out. However, it is clear that it certainly helps me and everyone else I come in contact with that I am becoming free from malice and sorrow ... and this is where the feeling-only state of compassion was turned into active altruistic intent. The feeling of compassion then became the action of altruistic intent – I am ploughing on despite my fears, against any tendency to rest in comfortable numbness in order to bring an end to malice and sorrow, to prove that actual freedom is possible – not for one person only but for anyone who wants it desperately enough. Peace on earth is not a small matter, it is enormous. Actualism is the participation in the process of making peace-on-earth a scientific, i.e. repeatable, fact ... to prove that it is possible to live free from the human condition, 24h a day, everyday. When actual freedom is proven to be repeatable then it is really an irrefutable fact. After I cleaned myself up from the moral of unselfishness and the blind passion of compassion, altruism started to become more and more apparent – not so much as a feeling but rather as a continuous striving towards my avowed aim of ‘self’-immolation. This altruistic intent results in the deliberate obsession to do whatever is necessary to turn the dream for peace into a fact and to be considerate, caring, good company, harmless and perfectly happy in the world as it is with people as they are. In order to turn my dream for peace into a fact constant application, stubborn determination and keen awareness are needed – in one word, effort. What fuels this effort is altruistic intent and this is what gets me off my butt every day. To sum it up – The process of actualism for me so far has been – to use Gary’s analogy of the Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke – to successively and deliberately dismantle and break down the ‘dyke’ of my social identity, thus allowing occasional ‘torrents’ of my raw instinctual survival passions to leak through. By this stage I was already virtually happy and harmless and as such experiencing the instinctual passions at their most basic did not result in any dangerous or malicious actions. By experiencing these passions in action I was able to examine and deeply understand their workings, giving particular scrutiny to the tender passions of nurture and desire, including any variation of love and libido, so as to safely avoid the famous trap of Enlightenment. In the course of this investigation I could more and more turn all these raw passions into fuel for one single obsession born out of my understanding of numerous PCEs – to altruistically ‘self’-immolate. This process via the state of being virtually free from malice and sorrow has worked for me so far and I personally cannot see how a simple realisation that ‘if ‘I’ accept that ‘I’ do not actually exist then ‘I’ will cease to ‘be’’ could transport me from ‘there’ to here. However, I am merely reporting my own experience of what worked for me and other actualists could possibly discover other methods to become actually free. So far there has only been one hindsight report but I am determined to add to that, and soon. VINEETO: When and how and why PCEs occur is one of the things in actualism that I cannot make sense of yet and maybe never will. I have a few guesses as to why the intensity and frequency of PCEs has changed – one reason could be that I expect my final extinction to happen at any time and this expectation causes ‘me’ to be on guard. Another speculation is that PCEs are a glitch in the brain-circuit and, as the brain becomes rewired, those glitches, born out of contrast, are less frequent. A third option is that PCEs now vanish out of memory the moment they are over. However, as there are no records about the ‘workings’ of PCEs in actualism other than reports from Peter, Alan and me, this is simply not enough information for a scientific judgement. Frequency and memory of PCEs could merely be a personal attribute. GARY: At first, I questioned your use of the word ‘expectation’, but I see that in the context in which you use the word, it is entirely fitting. Why not ‘expect’ (ie. look forward to, anticipate) this? Interesting speculation, the bit about glitches in the activity of the brain, perhaps rewiring of neuronal circuits, by-passing the cascading in the amygdala. I wonder if the technology of the MRI might reveal subtle differences in brain activity in the PCE vs. post-PCE ‘normal’ brain? – or what about EEG representations of brain wave activity? – I wonder what these would reveal. Just guessing. It is doubtful at this point that any medical researchers would become sufficiently interested in this area to undertake empirical investigations – but maybe...? VINEETO: Expectation is certainly not the full description of my attitude towards extinction, obsession is a more appropriate word to use. It is one of the widespread spiritual requirements that one should not aspire, desire, expect but wait for the grace of Existence to grant fulfillment of one’s dreams. But as actualism is about the actual and not about some spurious feeling-state granted by some even more spurious Energy, I can be straight forward with wanting Actual Freedom, desiring it, expecting it to happen and doing everything I can to achieve it, just like people in the normal world aspire tangible, non-spiritual values like riches, a car, a position or a woman. What I mean is that I am the only person who can bring about my freedom from malice and sorrow and I am the only one who can rewire my brain to facilitate self-immolation. The last bit of the undoing is, as Richard points out, not of ‘my’ doing but I will remove every obstacle I find and every objection I might still have in order to allow this to happen. Yes, I expect it, I look forward to it, I have nothing else on my mind, I am sure it will happen and I am obsessed with it. Extinction is the only item on my laundry list. RESPONDENT: As you and your partner have stated, you are at the stage of virtual freedom ... it is great that you have the opportunity to hang out with Richard who, I feel (affectively) exists (existentially and experientially) in a state of Actual Freedom that you clearly do not know as yet. You state as much yourself. I recall a few days ago you wrote about your unhappiness... VINEETO: (...) As for ‘a few days ago you wrote about your unhappiness’ – you can only be referring to my writing to Alan a month ago – [Vineeto]: Doing some more ‘reflective contemplation’ on the issue I began to understand that comparison is almost a constant undercurrent whenever the ‘self’ is in action. Sometimes as a slight tension in the background, sometimes an obvious sadness invoked by feeling inadequate, comparison to others and my own standards seems to be almost synonymous with being a self. Getting this far in my contemplation there was the conclusion, bright and clear – I not only feel inadequate, I am inadequate, because according to my own standards I haven’t finished my job and my destiny. If I ever want to be adequate, then self-immolation is the only way to achieve my aim. Until then I can strive or resign, toss and turn – there is no solution within the Human Condition. It’s cute how every follow-up of and digging into issues always ends up at the same point, giving me more fuel to live on the edge of the imminent inevitable. In Actual Freedom, of course there is no comparison – everybody is doing what is happening and one is doing it the best one can because that’s where the fun is. It is really that easy. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 10.5.2000). What I described to Alan was an accurate account of how I deal with an emotion that occurs. As long as there is some trace of an instinctual self remaining, there are occasionally emotions happening, because emotions are the very substance of the instinctual self. However, having learnt how to investigate and deal with my emotions and being no longer blinkered and fettered by the torturous restrictions of my moral, ethical and spiritual conditioning, any exploration into an emotional issue is a thrilling adventure. This is in marked contrast to my spiritual years when my fruitless inquiries into problems through therapy and meditation were never able to remove the ongoing underlying unhappiness and dissatisfaction. With the actualism method I can explore the emotion to its very root, investigate the facts and resolve the issue – like I did in the paragraph described above. This procedure is 180 degrees opposite to spiritual therapy, which I have tried and applied extensively for years. In spiritual therapy one is encouraged to express the emotion, indulge in imagination and venting and then shift from feeling the bad emotions to feeling the good emotions – moving from anger to compassion, from hate to love and from fear to bliss and Oneness. Despite years of spiritual therapy – and Mr. Rajneesh boasted of having the best therapists in his Ashram – I did not resolve my issues of relationship, jealousy, comparison, greed, lust, fear, anger, power, authority, neediness, inadequacy, pride or loneliness. All those issues have now disappeared by thorough investigation and understanding, by slowly, slowly getting rid of my precious adopted spiritual identity, my instilled social identity and by experientially understanding the makings and substance of the Human Condition. Sure, I am not actually free yet, but that is only a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. One of these days, I will experientially understand the last of the illusionary ingredients of my instinctual identity and simply be what I have always been – this flesh and blood body, brimming with sense organs, experiencing the vastness of the infinite universe as a sensate and reflective human being. And I can be so sure because numerous pure consciousness experiences have shown me the direction, have given me glimpses of the freedom that lies beyond self-immolation. VINEETO: Hi Everybody, There has been such good writing lately in both Peter’s and Richard’s latest correspondence with paragraph upon paragraph of accurate descriptions of what actualism and Actual Freedom are all about. As the self-appointed librarian I wish there were adequate ‘exhibition rooms’ in order to not have those words disappear in the vastness of the website. Yesterday I found in Richard’s latest correspondence a description of the self in action that I found so excellent and brilliant in its accuracy and preciseness that, in view of our latest discussions about emotions on the list, I will post it here. Co-Respondent: There is, for me, something very similar in both positive and negative feelings. What am I trying to say? I think there is a central figure that in one case (positive feelings – like being in love) is grasping and in the other (negative feelings – being angry, repulsed) is pushing away. There is a centre to all this feeling that tries to maintain itself by what – by nurturing itself by grasping for things, or defending itself by pushing things away? Is this the primitive self structure you are talking about? Richard: Yes. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 9, 4 May 2000). ‘Pushing away’ and ‘grasping’ – these are indeed the two opposite actions that I observe as ‘me’, the ‘self’ in action, depending on the emotion that is arising at the time. And in this very description of the ‘primitive self structure’ there also lies the solution for catching the bugger and moving closer towards self-immolation. To stop pushing away bad, fearful, angry and sorrowful feelings and to stop grasping the good, loving and blissful feelings leaves ‘me’ with nothing to hang my hat on – an absolute fascinating experience when put into practice. There is a quality of suspense when I not let feelings take me on a ride, be they ‘good’ or ‘bad’, a thrill of doing the unfamiliar, an aliveness that is experienced just before popping through into the actual world in a PCE. The other fascinating observation was that refusing to go along with any emotion in one direction – ie fear – the temptation then appears to draw me into the opposite direction – ie feeling on cloud nine. Considering that instinctual passions and chemical reactions in the brain go hand in hand the pairing of emotions makes sense because to counteract a strong fear the amygdala will pump a strong dose of chemicals producing ecstatic feeling in order to overcome the fear to ensure one’s survival. In order to permanently get rid of the bad feelings, at the same time I will have to examine and get rid of the accompanying good feeling as well. (...) Contemplating further I realized that to stop pushing away and stop grasping might at first look similar to the Buddhist practice of ‘neti-neti’, ‘neither this nor that’. The approach of Buddhists and all other meditators is to remove the self from the source of trouble which at the same time removes one from the experience of the sensuousness of being alive. Spiritualism moves away from sensate and affective feelings in order to not be here while an actualist questions and eliminates affective feelings because they prevent me from being here, being the senses-only experiencing the delight of being alive in this actual perfect abundant magical world. But Buddhists are exercising a technique to remove themselves, to dis-identify and finally to dissociate from either this or that feeling, implying that there is a true self, which they want to keep, that can remove itself from this or that feeling or thought. In actualism the emotion is experienced by neither repressing nor expressing, neither pushing nor grasping and thus one is able to examine it in reflective contemplation so as to explore the very nature of this emotion. One does not remove the self from the emotion but whittles away at the self which is the very program producing the emotion in the first place. This process, if undertaken diligently and persistently, will inevitably lead to self-immolation. Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to all religious practice and belief. VINEETO: I don’t know what ‘never-never land’ represents for you, but I am reminded of Peter Pan’s dreamland for children, where one is transported from the misery and dullness of the ‘real’ world into the unreal land of imagination, where one never has to become a grown-up. RESPONDENT: Never-never land was not a good description to use because you have no way of knowing exactly what I meant. It did seem like an unreal land but it is more of a void or not-knowing. Kind of a disconnected feeling which is what I meant by a feeling of abandoning humanity. VINEETO: ‘Abandoning humanity’ in Actual Freedom terms stands for gaily taking the pen-ultimate step before self-immolation. After one has removed one’s social identity of being a son or daughter, a man or woman, an American or Englishman, a seeker, a writer, a doctor, etc. and has become an utter non-identity, one is then able to investigate the collective psyche, the result of the instinctual passions that all human beings have in common. Applying attentiveness and awareness to the instinctual passions as they arise enables one to stop acting as per the instinctual software in the brain and thus one can slowly, slowly reduce the automated reactive and emotional impact that instincts have on our feelings, thoughts and behaviour. In doing so one not only becomes happy and harmless but also stops being part of the biggest fold of all, humanity itself. One is no longer a member of the species that ‘nourishes malice and sorrow in their bosom’ to quote Richard’s expression. MARK: So before I go ... some rather black humour... [quote]: Quasimodo has quit his job at Notre Dame cathedral and identical twins have come to apply for the position of bell ringers. They are having a lesson atop the bell tower – Quasi is demonstrating... ‘you push – then you duck (as the bell swings back toward him) you push – then you duck, ok’. So the first twin has a go – he pushes but forgets to duck, the bell hits him in the face and he plummets 160 feet to his demise below just as the head priest is showing a visitor around the place – the visitor looks at the body and says to the priest ‘who is THAT?’ The priest replies ‘I don’t know but his face rings a bell’. Meanwhile the other twin is trying his hand at the top of the tower Quasi shows him again the push and then duck method – the twin takes the bell and pushes hard but, like his brother he forgets to duck and he too plummets to earth. The visitor looks to the priest again, ‘so who is that?’ the priest replies ‘I don’t know but he’s a dead ringer for the other one’. VINEETO: For ‘death’ I found your black humour joke very apt. Typical German, it took me three days to get it, but then it was worth 30 minutes rolling on the couch laughing. See, I finally understood that I am one of these bell-ringer twins, I don’t know which one, but definitely standing there to be hit by the next ring of the bell – and I won’t duck – what a hoot! It has been very fascinating to put together the page on death – reading the respective writings and correspondence on death, afterlife, extinction, intent and demise from Richard, Peter and me. People would probably call me morbid, being obsessed with death, but I am more alive than ever, enjoying the thrill and enjoying everyday as if it was the first day – or the last – and further, being completely fascinated and absorbed in setting up the website. The plan is to set it up so that any body can find his or her way in and then get lost, if they want to, link upon link, topic after topic, definition and correspondence ... and when one comes out again one wonders what silly things everyone is still believing, after all, it is 1999! And then, the website can do the job of informing people and then they do what they want with it... VINEETO: I noticed that PCEs are different to the stunning delightful surprises in the beginning, which were full of tumbling realization, psychedelic-like experiences of my surroundings. They lately seem to be more rare and short minute-long flashes, just long enough to recognize the sparkle and the absence of ‘me’, before ‘I’ appear back on the scene. I put it down to the fear of the ‘real’ thing that might just ‘accidentally happen’ while ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance, and also to the fact that my continuous persistent obsession with the final event is keeping fear close at hand and thus prevents the ‘extra sparkle’. ALAN: Could it be that the ‘continuous persistent obsession with the final event’ is what is keeping it from happening? This has been my experience of the last few days. I have (largely) given up the attempt to get ‘there’ and by concentrating more and more intently on what is happening and activating ‘delight’, the ease and palpable perfection, which Peter speaks of, has become more and more evident. RESPONDENT: I think it is true that the anticipation, excitement about the expected ‘final event’ in one’s brain is a form of dreaming, escaping the reality. Is it a final barrier? I don’t know. VINEETO: The wording of ‘final barrier’ reminded me of a horse race, because of the similar speed we seem to move towards Actual Freedom. After carefully checking it out, I have come to the observation that I needed my ‘obsession’ to acquire the speed required in this journey into freedom and now ‘being obsessed’ is simply part of the game. Obsession or no obsession, I have gathered enough speed to jump the ‘final barrier’, and the obsession is only something that my mind is occupied with some of the time while observing instincts and feelings and trying to make sense of them in the face of extinction. The reason why I have written about my thoughts and feelings around leaving my ‘self’ behind is to give a report about the process we are involved in as accurately and extensively as possible. The idea is that you, or others, who take up Actual Freedom for themselves might profit from the description, avoid the pitfalls or find similar happenings less threatening. My obsession about not settling for second best – in my case staying in Virtual Freedom – and a certain impatience to make it happen has surely and deliciously something to do with a joyous anticipation, but nothing at all with ‘dreaming’ or ‘escaping the reality’. On the contrary, aiming for freedom is going in the opposite direction of the spiritual version of ‘freedom’– the ‘freedom from the marketplace’ into the fantasyland of an imagined peace and private bliss. From my earlier peak experiences I know the actual world and what I am aiming for very well, and my obsession has been, and is, to find out how and where I am possibly standing on the brakes. The myth that you have to give up what you want in order to get it is part of the spiritual – Christian as well as Eastern – fairy story which has perversely kept people in misery and confusion for centuries. I am not giving up my goal, the actual world, but ‘me’, the driver and controller, ‘me’, the instincts and identity, ‘me’ who is standing in the way of the perfection and magnificence of the actual world becoming apparent – irrevocably apparent. And there is no doubt that it is going to happen soon. RESPONDENT: Freedom is innate, is it? VINEETO: Freedom is innate in the sense that after you remove everything non-actual only the actual remains. The actual world has always been here and the actual me, this body, has been here since birth, but I could hardly ever get a word in edgeways. But freedom is not innate in that one can wait for it, let go into it, let it happen in due time, let Existence take over, or such NDA twaddle. Freedom is to take one’s life in one’s own hands, determine the course to extinction, assess the obstacles, gather all the intent, courage and bloody-mindedness one can muster and then ... ‘sleeves up’. And, as you say, looking at one’s conditioning is one big step towards freedom, but there is much more magic to be discovered. RESPONDENT: Anyway I am still on this topic ‘Spiritualism vs actualism’. You mentioned that I don’t differentiate between Ego and Soul. This is very true. With my experience, I really can’t differentiate the two. When I look at myself I see only one identity. What I understand from both spiritualism and actualism is that this identity has to die. VINEETO: You say, you understand that both, ego and soul, have to die. Great. Now, what is this soul? The easiest way to understand ‘soul’ for me was to see it as the sum of my emotions, feelings, beliefs and passions. Love is ‘me’, affection is ‘me’, sadness is ‘me’, anger is ‘me’, being annoyed is ‘me’, being grateful is ‘me’, being hopeful is ‘me’, being frustrated is ‘me’, being impatient is ‘me’, being fearful is ‘me’ – you can add anything you like to this list. All ‘I’ am is my feelings, all ‘I’ am is my beliefs and all ‘I’ am is my instincts. ‘I’ consist of nothing else. Although ‘I’ am not actual, as in palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical, material, ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am my feelings and the actions that result from having these feelings are real. To imagine otherwise is but a cunning trick and an act of blatant denial. ‘I’ am not merely an illusion that can be ‘realised’ away as in the spiritual teachings. As such, the death of ‘me’ will also be a real event. ‘I’ in ‘my’ totality, who is but a passionate illusion, must die a dramatic illusory death commensurate to ‘my’ pernicious existence. The drama must be played out to the end ... there are no short cuts here. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This fact of what ‘I’ consist of has to be discovered, acknowledged, investigated and experienced, over and over again. Only then is one willing to ‘get down and get dirty’, willing to experience and examine one’s feelings – not merely ‘observe’ them – and investigate into the hidden beliefs and instinctual passions that cause those feelings. By neither repressing nor expressing but by meticulously exploring each feeling I was then able to determine the underlying cause – be it a hurt pride, a bit of my social identity, a fear linked to my survival mechanism, a cherished belief disguised as ‘truth’ – there was always an issue beneath the initial emotion. And each of these feelings and emotions is ‘me’, my identity, my ‘self’, my ‘soul’. ‘I’ consist of nothing else but a great collection of passionate imaginations. VINEETO to No. 12: ‘The spiritual practice of ‘awareness’ only shifts one’s identity to the ‘watcher’, a newly created spiritual identity. When those ‘transcended’ emotions and instincts return because the watcher wasn’t watchful enough, they are raging in full force. Instincts are not being eliminated by transcendence, not even reduced, they are only put aside through dis-identification. No, not witness – eliminate, remove, extinguish. There is a big difference. Witnessing creates a new entity, the ‘watcher’. One is to identify with and become the ‘watcher’ and dismiss or transcend the rest as imaginary. Body-mind, emotion, thought and senses, as well as the physical world, are considered an illusion, while Consciousness is proclaimed to be one’s true nature.’ RESPONDENT: You’re saying eliminate, how do you apply that in practice? Please tell me more about your approach. VINEETO: Where have you been? In many of our posts Peter and I have been talking about eliminating emotions and very often described how we did it. I remember your last mail to Peter where you said: RESPONDENT: Until now your messages are not making my heart sing. Are you perhaps ‘trying’ too hard? VINEETO: I don’t think that this letter will make your heart sing, because it is the ‘heart’, the ‘feeling being’, that inhibits experiencing the perfection and purity of the actual world. It is the ‘affective being’ that interprets what is actual with a wide range of emotional responses. Eliminating emotions won’t make your heart sing, it will silence it forever. No longer will you feel sad, desperate, lonely, frightened, melancholic, compassionate (i.e. suffering together), malicious, resentful, insulted, hopeful, jealous, angry, anxious or hateful. These emotions and instinctual passions will be replaced by something else, something far superior. Pristine purity, perfection and the delight of heightened senses – a smorgasbord of tastes, a cacophony of sounds, a magic range of vivid colours and movements, an abundance of smells. Without ‘self’ you will be able to see and treat other people as your fellow human beings – benevolent and beneficent. Now to your question: ‘How do you apply that in practice?’ First of all, you have to be a seeker and an investigator and not a believer or a follower. Then, I had to acknowledge the fact that my emotions are ‘me’ and by eliminating my emotions I am eliminating the very essence of ‘me’. So this recipe for eliminating emotions and instincts is, in fact, a recipe for the self-immolation of the psychological and psychic entity inside of you. RESPONDENT: I hear you saying that you no longer need to identify yourself with anything ‘transcendent’. You are no longer identifying yourself with all-that-is, or supreme-being, or God, or the universe. You are no longer identifying yourself with something above or independent of the universe. You are no longer identifying yourself with ‘a being beyond matter, and having a continuing existence therefore outside the created world.’ Macquarie, 2nd ed., defn of transcendent VINEETO: It is not that I ‘no longer need to identify myself with anything transcendent’, on the contrary, the ‘I’ that feels, imagines or identifies does no longer exist in my body. I am this body and nothing else. ‘I’ have not gone somewhere else, dis-identifying ‘myself’ from ‘me’ – ‘I’ am disappearing rapidly and therefore there is not much ‘I’ or ‘self’ to identify or dis-identify with anything. That way you get to the root of the problem. No escape. The ‘I’ itself gets diminished to the point of being almost non-existent and only then can self-immolation occur. When the ‘I’ disappears, there is only this body, sensate, reflective, alive, here in this moment in time, fresh each moment. RESPONDENT: You know now that you in your body sensing and reflecting is all of you. You are simply a human being. The rest is the universe. And that is amazing. VINEETO: [When in a pure consciousness experience] there is no ‘I’ in this body, I am this body. Yes, I am simply a human being and as such I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being. It is not ‘I’ and the ‘rest’ – there is no separation, because there is no ‘self’ to ‘feel’ or ‘be’ separated (or to need to feel ‘connected’ through love or through ‘sharing’ sorrow). And each moment is thrilling, fascinating, fresh and amazing. RESPONDENT: I began to understand J. Krishnamurti’s words: ‘You are the world, and the world is you’. Very much thanks to Osho, I re-discovered my heart. I had discovered meditative silence years before, yet I was missing this loving component, this female side of no-mind. VINEETO: I am reminded of my ‘enlightenment’ experience a couple of months ago. [Vineeto]: One day, at dusk, I felt the fear approaching again, tensing my back muscles and increasing in intensity like the swelling sound of cicadas in the bush. This time it was warmly welcomed like a longed-for ally, announcing the approaching of my impending destiny. I have no objections whatsoever, no doubts, not even excitement of something going wrong. A delicious complete undivided yes to whatever wants to happen. This is doing what is happening, indistinguishable, without choice, clear and obvious. A wave of gratefulness sweeps over me towards everyone who knowingly and unknowingly has contributed to who I am and what I have become – parents and family, teachers and friends, masters and co-seekers, enemies and lovers. They all had part in the perfecting process of me now standing at the brink of completion. There are physical sensations of fire and tingling in stomach and back, which slowly fill up the whole chest-area with heart-warming feeling. A wave of greatness overcomes me, compassion for all humankind in general and the few people I know in particular. Fear is constantly transformed into fire that fills the heart, melting the strong tension in chest, back and neck. A feeling of perfection washes over me. I recognize that the ‘I’ is as perfect as can be and thus has fulfilled its every ambition and longing, every dream and aspiration, every hope and goal, every task and responsibility. It can go off stage now. Now in the face of death the ‘I’ is as perfect as can ever be. Immense joy and glory rush through me as it mutates into a shadowy vague substance, lingering about to record the next events to happen. A curious sensation in the top of the spine of someone snipping through wires, as if severing some information connections. As I lie and wonder what has happened besides the fairy-tale of glorious emotions I notice that my intent is now replaced by confidence and the faculty of doubt has seized to produce any kind of wobble. Intense fear is still present but accompanied by an all-encompassing confidence that everything is happening perfectly. Nothing can go wrong. But surprise there is for sure! Later on that night I went into an exploration of what enlightenment feels from the inside. In all my year of spiritual search I had been vitally interested of what exactly this enlightenment is that I found so desirable at first. I had investigated descriptions from the different ‘holy’ men and spiritual Scriptures, but could never quite grasp this mysterious ‘state of being’. Now it was obvious. The intense pulsing of the heart, the love and compassion for each and everyone, benevolence and concern mixed with the grandeur of ‘Divine Love’ or ‘Universal Love’. It is a very seductive state with this cozy warm sensation filling the whole chest- or heart-area continuously and an utter at-ease-ness, because every aspect of personal concern, ego or identity is non-existent. And there is no doubt, whatsoever. No doubt about any theory or philosophy running in my head as I try and make sense of this new state. In this cock-sure security I could write Scriptures, poems, treatises on each and every spiritual subject, make up an illusory world of heavens, hells and Divine Laws and methods how to get there. As long as I keep the ‘Love’ flowing, there is no fear involved either. I am convinced I found the Truth – if only there wasn’t this nagging concern that maybe I am cheating myself! I recognize a satisfaction and pride of finally standing equal as a woman besides all those superior men I have aspired to emulate, copy, obey, surrender to, or at least understand. Now I know exactly where they are at. I was like Gangaji swanning into a hall of disciples, all-knowing, generous, compassionate, and full of the wisdom of all the ages. Big deal! Seeing the Power and Glory in action and its impact on me I turn away. This is not the perfection I am searching for, this is not the purity that I know from peak-experiences. As I watch the sky dawn in its wonderful changing colours with life awakening all around, leaves rustling in the wind, cicadas chirping, magpies whistling, fear returns and I welcome it as a sign that I am on the road to freedom again. The delusion of Power and Glory is seen for what it is – and disappears while I lie on the couch contemplating life and death and the universe. Still, one great realization after the other are floating in and out of my head, engulfing me with their convincing web. Suddenly I become aware of what is happening. I am a ‘Truth-Producing-Machine’! I am producing the ‘Truth of Freedom’ to maintain my ‘Self’. What a bummer! Just call it the ‘Truth of Freedom’ and turn it into a spiritual belief-system! Very, very cunning indeed. Back into ‘old time religion’! This realization truly ripped the carpet from under my feet. While it crumbled I recognized the enormity of its implications. My certainty vanished while I desperately tried to maintain and understanding about freedom and death. What to do now? Where to go from here? The ground I was standing on as an identity shook considerably but didn’t disappear entirely. I was still trying to make sense of me and life. And then I reach the door marked ‘insanity’ that Richard had been talking about. Fear reaches another crescendo and turned into stark terror. Frantically I try to at least keep up the reporting, the cognitive exploring entity. But I realize that if I want to go through that door, the ‘pioneer’, the ‘scientist’ and the ‘reporter’ will have to stay behind. As I wake up after a few hours of sleep I am desolate. Frustrated and desperate that the ‘self’ is still in operation and control, that I am not able to reach my goal, I have to admit that I have failed. I had done everything I could think of, feel about and imagine – nothing has ultimately worked. All my efforts, all my so highly valued explorations and findings have not been able to set me free. No hope, no will, no passionate intent. I am lost, empty-handed in no-where-land. I said to Peter: ‘Forget about everything that I was so cock-sure about the last days. I have no idea of anything.’ Peter: ‘So, you got out of your enlightenment-stuff then? Congratulations! Isn’t it amazing what goes on just in the head and the heart?!’ I see that all of my ‘death-experiences’ up to now have been induced by willing death. It worked, to go into the world to enlightenment, to demolish the personal self. But it failed to rid myself of the psychic entity; the psychic survival-instincts are still fully operating inside, inventing one scheme after the other to keep up the illusion that I was indeed getting closer to the desired goal. Willing death was necessary but not enough, because the ‘who was willing it’ stayed untouched. The impact and the very paradox of this revelation was devastating. I cannot do anything but something still needs to be done. Squirming about in despair, I could only face the facts. And the fact was death, death of all of me, death of ego and soul and the sense of being. Nothing less than the inconceivable, it stood there. The only thing to do was to stop denying the fact of ‘my’ inevitable death. (Vineeto, Exploring Death & Altered States of Consciousness). * VINEETO: What is usually completely overlooked is that there is not only an ‘ego’ controlling our thoughts, but also a ‘soul’ producing our emotions and that both are running on the fuel of our innate animal survival instincts. Both, ego and soul, have to be eliminated in order to experience an actual freedom from the Human Condition. Only without the intricate system of instincts, emotions and beliefs can the magnificent perfection of actuality be experienced, which is then it self-evident and obvious. Actual Freedom is neither a devastating truth nor a mystery to be lost in – but the continuous experience of this abundant life in this pure and infinite universe, experienced through the physical senses. RESPONDENT: Nice try, but when you use words like eliminated, instead of awareness, you are revealing your repressing control trip. I have been speaking of awareness, in referring to 3 levels of consciousness, I refer to 3 levels of awareness. VINEETO: I think you don’t know what ‘eliminated’ means, maybe you have never experienced the elimination of an emotion or an instinct. It means, this particular emotion and issue have disappeared, they doesn’t exist anymore. Take for instance jealousy. I have neither repressed it nor transcended it, it now simply does not occur, whatever the situation, because the one who would be insulted by jealousy or feel insecure by anyone’s behaviour has been eliminated. I have dug deep inside and found the ground my jealousy was feeding from and I have removed the very cause for jealousy to occur, the sense of ‘me’ that wants attention, security, identity and the notion of belonging. If jealousy was just repressed there would still be situations when, once in a while, the lid would invariably ‘fly off’ and reveal the underlying emotion of possessiveness, because one cannot repress for 24 h a day, 365 days a year. The spiritual practice of ‘awareness’ only shifts one’s identity to the ‘watcher’, a newly created spiritual identity. When those ‘transcended’ emotions and instincts return because the watcher wasn’t watchful enough, they are raging in full force. Instincts are not being eliminated by transcendence, not even reduced, they are only put aside through dis-identification. Elimination gets rid of the cause, it severs the root of the particular belief, feeling or emotion. To eliminate an emotion, such as jealousy, I had to find the underlying cause, examine all the supporting beliefs and emotions, like love, possessiveness, fear, greed, insecurity etc. and understand them in their entirety. I have to see the instincts, the core of the ‘self’ in its operation. Only then is it possible to eliminate that particular emotion – a bit of the ‘self’ actually dies, never to return. Richard says it very aptly: Richard: In fact, with the elimination of the instincts, ‘I’ will cease to exist, period. Psychological self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ can make in order to reveal whatever is actual. And what is actual is perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when ‘I’ am no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ stand in the way of the purity of the perfection of the actual being apparent. ‘My’ presence prohibits this ever-present perfection being evident. ‘I’ prevent the very purity of life, that ‘I’ am searching for, from coming into plain view. (Richard’s Journal, Appendix No. 4).
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence | Library – Topics Index
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