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 Perfection Actualism Homepage VINEETO: The trick is to remember not to take the discoveries of your emotions and beliefs as ‘leaks’ of an imperfect personality or as individual bad traits, but to understand them to be manifestations of our genetically inherited disease known as the Human Condition, i.e. common to all. The Human Condition by definition is common to all – however, each individual can instigate and facilitate their freedom only for himself and by himself. GARY: Yes. One of the things recently I was looking into was my continued striving for perfection, my fear of making mistakes, and my enormous tendency to put myself down. I have absolutely no interest in ‘loving myself’ as propounded by today’s New Age therapists and self-help gurus. But I am intensely interested in freeing myself from the shame, guilt, fear, doubt, and insecurity of the Human Folly. At times, it seems that this condition is so deeply ingrained that it must be impossible to ever be free from it, but at other times, those ‘selfless’ intervals, freedom from the debilitating instinctual and emotional package is not only possible but actually happening. VINEETO: As a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity, one of my schemes was – if ‘I’ become perfect, then maybe ‘I’ can stay in existence? Of course, this does not work because ‘I’ can never be perfect, and to try it only brings back the stress, the guilt, the shame, the doubt and the embarrassment that I had begun to eliminate by investigating ‘me’. As for making mistakes – unless you are making mistakes, how to you want to find out what doesn’t work? A good question for me also was – whom am I trying to please, and why? Or to put it in another way – what is the name of the God that is going to punish you when you are doing wrong? The perfection I am seeking it not the petty perfection of ‘me’ not making any mistakes but what I am striving for is to live the incomparable perfection of the universe experienced in a pure consciousness experience. The only goal worth pursuing is to allow that perfection to become apparent unimpeded 24h a day, everyday, and that makes my every effort and every drama on the way worthwhile. As the day-to-day problems have successively disappeared out of my life in the course of virtually eliminating my malice and sorrow, it now is becoming increasingly effortless to at least mimic the perfection experienced in a PCE and crank up my naiveté and joie de vivre – the closest that I as an entity can come to actual innocence and the perfection of the actual world. As I seem to be having a copy and paste day – here is a description of perfection from Richard that I have always liked. It is only applicable when ‘I’ have done everything that ‘I’ could do to clean myself up. And one more thought – Richard talks about ‘developing a superb confidence and an overweening optimism’, which can only be attained by confidently knowing that nothing less than ‘self’-immolation will do. It means that I have checked out all the alternatives, I have made all the mistakes I had to make in order to eliminate what does not work. Then I know with surety that it is ‘me’ that is the ‘mistake’. Without ‘me’ the actual perfection can finally become apparent for this flesh-and-blood body. The thrill of thus writing myself out of existence is enormous... Richard: ‘I’ do not make perfection happen because it is already always here. What ‘I’ do is to ‘stand still’ and unreservedly allow ‘my’ eventual demise to occur. To do this, ‘I’ cease believing, hoping, trusting and having faith ... without falling into disbelief, despair, distrust or doubt. ‘I’, having the courage of ‘my’ convictions – which is the confidence born out of the solid knowing as evidenced in the peak experience – thus developing a superb confidence and an overweening optimism. Thus nothing can stand in ‘my’ way in this, the adventure of a life-time. It is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee ... but pure intent, born out of the connection between one’s inherent naiveté and the perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe, will provide one with the necessary intestinal fortitude. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Perfection). RESPONDENT: Richard: ‘In that brief scintillating instant, that twinkling sensorium-moment of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness, one apperceives a thing as a nothing-in-particular that is being naught but what-it-is coming from nowhen and going nowhere at all. One experiences a smoothly flowing moment of clear experiencing where one is interlocked with the rest of actuality, not separate from it...’ <snip> ‘...of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness.’ (Richard’s Journal, Appendix 5). Is being conscious of being consciousness also not a goal of Vipassana? I read your post to No. 4, and I noticed that this issue is not clear to me. VINEETO: (...) Now, back to Richard’s expression: Richard: In that brief scintillating instant, that twinkling sensorium-moment of consciousness being conscious of being consciousness... (Richard’s Journal, Appendix 5). You see a flower, you become conscious that you see the flower; you become conscious of its form, colours, smell, moving in the breeze and then you become conscious of the delight of your perception, of you being able to see, smell and know about it too. You are conscious of your being conscious. That’s it. When the Human Condition is in operation, when ‘I’ interfere in the pure seeing of the flower, there is evaluation, feeling, choice, complaint, desire, hope, sadness, anger, etc. You can slowly, slowly become aware of all those emotions in operation, interfering and destroying the pure delight of living in this perfect universe. This ‘I’ is nothing but feelings, beliefs, emotions and instinctual passions, filtering everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste and think. When you dismantle the ‘I’ by examining everything that is not actual then you can be here, in this moment, in this place, eyes seeing, ears hearing and brain thinking. Everything else is but a passionate fantasy and imagination. Consciousness of being conscious is apperception. There is a lot of writing on apperception. * 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: Another side note: in the ego-less state there might be no planning and ‘control’ executed by the ‘I’ but it might nevertheless happen because of the brain’s instinct (??) of the body-preservation? Or is the instinct of the prolongation of the life also gone in the ego-less state and one is not concerned when death approaches? VINEETO: I don’t know and I don’t really care. ‘Body-preservation’ without the instincts is none of ‘my’ business because ‘I’ won’t be here anymore... Once the ‘self’ is as weakened as it is now, I am simply doing what is happening. ‘I’ am not needed to keep this body alive, on the contrary, ‘I’ had been continuously interfering with my physical well-being by worrying and fighting, dieting and indulging, being stressed or depressed, fearful or driven. My health and well being are now better than ever, I have stopped worrying about vitamins or minerals, starch or protein, vegetarianism or health-dieting, natural or homeopathic medicine long ago. Also I take it that the medical technology in this country is so advanced as to give me a good chance of staying healthy as long as possible ... and when my time is over I can surely say that I had had a perfect life, every day, 24 hrs a day, for years and years and years. With the ‘self’ the fear of death also dies. Once ‘I’ am gone there won’t be anybody left to be afraid of death. Of course I can still jump out of the way of an approaching car or an attacking dog. Intelligence and apperceptive awareness together with the physical startle-response are enough to keep this body alive as long as is possible. It is the psychological and psychic fear of death that casts shadows of fear and doubt into our lives and prevents us from experiencing the safety, magnificence and abundant perfection of the actual physical universe. So, don’t let your doubts and fears take over and stop you from investigating your psyche – there is much magic to be discovered. PS: I found a little quote from Richard that might give you further encouragement ... Co-Respondent: The strong survive and the weak die. That is the law of the jungle. Richard: Not so ... it is the fittest that survive: ‘survival of the fittest’ does not necessarily mean (as it is popularly misunderstood) that ‘the strong’ (most muscular) always survive. It means ‘the most fitted to the ever-changing environment’ (those who adapt) get to pass on their genes. If the most muscular are too dumb to twig to this very pertinent fact they will slowly disappear of the face of the planet over the countless millions of years that it is going to take via the trial and error process of blind nature. One can speed up this tedious natural process in one’s own lifetime and become free ... now. (Richard, List B, No. 21, 29 May 2000). VINEETO to Alan: Yesterday I was reading Richard’s post to No. 4 and something suddenly clicked. Richard wrote: Richard: There are three worlds altogether but only one is actual; there is nothing other than this actual, physical universe (the normal ‘reality’ as experienced by 6.0 billion human beings is an illusion and the abnormal ‘Reality’ as experienced by 0.0000001 of the population is a delusion born out of the illusion because of the self-aggrandising tendency of the narcissism born of the survival instincts). Peace-on-earth can become apparent to anyone at all regardless of gender, age or race because the perfection of the infinitude of this temporal universe is already always here ... now. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 4, 14 January 1999). I understood for the first time peace-on-earth in a 100% down-to-earth sense. Peace-on-earth opposed to an imagined peace-after-death, peace in heaven. And then I understood the un-ease I always had with that expression. Somewhere I still had a Christian ‘flavour’ to the word, a picture of paradise before Adam ate the apple, with lions and sheep lying in the grass together. It had sounded a bit mystical to me. But peace-on-earth-in-my-lifetime, for me and everyone I am in contact with is very much down-to-earth, possible right now. Yes, thank you, I’ll have that, no objections or doubts anymore. Another little brain-shift. Another thing fully understood. The word becomes an experience. And I tell you what – the brain suddenly felt like being shifted about 2 degrees to the left, and then another 2 degrees from front to top, what a relief it was, like clicked into place. I guess – another metaphor maybe – that we have to walk every single degree of those 180 degrees, some come in lumps, some in slow motion and some happen so silently that I can only be astounded in hindsight. * ALAN: I am still none too sure what ‘virtual freedom’ is – and it matters not one jot. It is all too easy, as I am prone to do, to get caught up in ‘intellectualising’ and setting ‘targets’. Peter continuously points out to us that what matters is enjoying and living this moment – a bit like the birds in ‘Island’ by Aldous Huxley, flying around, crying ‘Here and Now, Boys’. Activating one’s delight and joie de vivre at simply being here, in this moment, makes the ‘difference between ‘good’ feelings and feeling good’ and the ‘difference between virtual freedom and actual freedom’ meaningless questions – I am this moment living me – and it is so fantastic, so great – the doing of it, is what it is all about. While the enquiry and the finding are very necessary (and great fun) it is the doing which is the business. VINEETO: So, you say you don’t know what Virtual Freedom is? It looks like Peter and I are not writing clearly enough about it for you to know that you are living it? Just because I think that it does ‘matter one jot’, I’ll give you another attempt of a rave about this ‘mysterious’ state of virtual freedom. Virtual Freedom is when the largest percentage of your day 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 becoming actually free of the Human Condition. And Virtual Freedom is when you know with utter confidence that you are moving every day closer to the moment of ‘your’ final extinction. And you are right, ‘it is the doing which is the business’. Ship ahoy. * 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. 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. VINEETO: On further observation re ‘how PCEs and PCE-like times changed for me’, I can say that what I used to call a PCE in the beginning of my exploration into actual freedom is now only labelled ‘PCE-like’. This has to do with the fact that I am well aware of the thin, condom-like layer of the ‘self’ separating me from the universe and thus preventing the 100% direct experience of the magical actual perfection. Life is nevertheless pretty magical, much more than ever before are the days filled with delicate deepened sensuous experiences, an easy well-being, a delightful doing what I am doing; but the ‘self’ is hardly ever completely absent. It seems that my observation has become sharper with there being less difference between ‘normal’ and ‘magical’. The second thing is that I wasn’t quite accurate when I said: ‘I put it down to the fear of the ‘real’ thing that might just ‘accidentally happen’ while ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance’. I know that ‘it’ won’t happen ‘accidentally’ but that it might soon happen by deliberate choice – and I have been toying with, observing closely and trying to understand the feelings and instincts about this death of ‘me’. No big realisation has come out of it but a gradual deepening of understanding the term ‘in concurrence’ that Richard used in the correspondence below. I am finding subtle objections, smug and cunning excuses, impatient pushing or worry that sometime surface and need to be examined, and I have now developed a thorough knowledge about, and a familiarity with, my fears and survival mechanisms like one does with pet-dogs. I reckon that I won’t be likely to be surprised or overtaken by any of them any longer. ‘Being obsessed with the final event’ provides me with the force to disengage from the magnetic-like gravity of the survival instincts, and to venture in the opposite direction of Human Nature. This obsession consists of sincere intent, stubbornness, bloody-mindedness and a – sometimes grim – determination not to settle for second best. Of course, it can also border on worry, impatience or anxiety but, then again, investigating these feelings is part of ‘doing what is happening’ as well – finding the reasons for the emotional ripples and eliminating them. Mulling it over thoroughly, I have come to the conclusion that it does not matter if my obsession prevents a ‘real PCE’ or not, what matters is that I am charging with full speed ahead into my demise and that I enjoy each moment of it. If nothing else, the description of my obsession is good material for anybody who can make use of it in one way or the other. On second thought I may be simply obsessed with catching up with you guys... Here is a particular bit from Richard about ‘how do ‘I’ do it’, that I found significant and inspiring – Richard: To die means to die (extinct means not exist) ... to die does not mean to continue to be in existence and ‘be attent to the totality’. ‘My’ question was: How on earth am ‘I’ to do this? Co-Respondent: Elaborate this... Richard: Given that ‘I’ knew, via direct experience, that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection ... then the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. So when I asked (as an open question) ‘how do ‘I’ do it?’ the essential character of the perfection of ‘the physical infinitude’ of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. (Richard, List B, No. 34a, 7 June 1999). And in another post he described such the outcome – Richard: ... if I were to become more relaxed I would be but a smear of grease upon the floor. (Richard, List B, No. 17a, 15 September 1998). VINEETO to Alan: While contemplating upon where I could possibly stand on the brakes, I noticed a slight shift in my determination. How long am I going to play in this safe ‘sandbox’ called Virtual Freedom, and when will I finally grow up and actually do what I have been thinking and talking about for two years – to be free, irreversibly, without leaving a backdoor open to revert to ‘normal’ or slip back into having an identity should being free become too scary? It was like straightening from a hunched position of playing in the sandbox, leaving the well-known safe area behind and standing upright. Virtual Freedom has become a nursery and it is becoming too small a playground. And it seemed immensely sensible to move on, just like leaving home when I have grown up. When leaving my parent’s home there was no regret, not much fear but an immense excitement to explore the big wide world. Now the situation seems similar. Just the next sensible thing to do. Just doing it. Stop imagining it, stop desiring it, stop thinking about it, and, for heaven’s sake, stop feeling about it. Just doing it. I don’t mean repressing any upcoming thoughts or feelings, but to stop feeding the ‘engine’, whenever I have a choice. In my head the line of the American folksong was playing over and over again: ♪ ‘The night, they drove ol’ [Vini] down, and all the bells were ringing...’ ♫ I went to the couch to follow up on this hot trail of contemplation and there it was – the sudden recognition and experience that the universe was breathing me, I was part of the big rhythm of life in its infinite variety, just one of 6 billion people, one human being out of the vast and boundless immensity and magnificence of this infinite, eternal, alive, magical and perfect universe, being breathed, being lived, being here, moment by moment. And it is safe, utterly safe, because this experience also makes clear that the physical universe is benevolent. As much as there is no fear in a rock or a tree there is no malice in a rock or a tree. There may be volcanic eruptions or earthquakes as part of earthly events, but there is no malice in that the rock is directed at me to destroy me. The universe is not out to get me, on the contrary, it is supportive and benevolent; the idea of danger was simply part of my chemically-supported instinctual imaginary identity. In this moment I understood that survival instincts are indeed redundant. With no identity there is no threat and no need to fight for survival. The instinctual survival program has done a great job to facilitate evolution, species by species, to this point in time. Now sensate and reflective human beings are the peak of this development so far – and the next opportunity for evolving has come into reach – life without the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, life without identity, life without the feeling of separation from the rest of the universe. * VINEETO: One other important point: Spiritually inclined people, and that is almost everyone who is on a search for freedom, peace and happiness, usually confuse ‘what am I with some sort of spiritual higher ‘self’, Satori, god-experience, beauty, love, bliss or enlightenment. ‘What am I has clearly nothing to do with any emotion- or feeling-based experience, any Altered State of Consciousness or anything happening in the head or in the heart. ‘What am I’ is the sensate-only, sensuous and pure experience of the actual physical universe in its pure, magical, delightful and sparkling perfection. (...) * VINEETO: It is no longer necessary to interpret one’s glimpses of the perfection and purity of the actual world as some kind of god-given grace, thus degrading and distorting the experience of pure magnificence into a feeling-based self-centred interpretation of beauty, love or ‘the divine’. Out of those moments of a pure consciousness experience to dare and acknowledge ‘what I am’, a living and apperceptive organism lived by this splendid and perfect universe without separation by any sense of ‘being’ whatsoever, is to take the first step in direction of an actual freedom. * ALAN: Then tonight, catching up on reading what had been written while I was away, it suddenly got to me. This, what I am engaged on, is of far, far, too much importance to give up this easily. Can I live with the fact that every suicide, every war, every rape, every murder, every abuse, every instance of malice is unnecessary – and do nothing about it? No. Whatever is necessary must be done. VINEETO: My practical mind has always had trouble with ‘altruism’ for the simple fact that even if I become free, everybody will have to discover and achieve freedom for themselves. And, as we have seen, up to now not many people have been intrigued to investigate the proposition. So I figured, cunningly, that it wouldn’t make much difference to the world at large if I became free or not. I pursued freedom simply for my own benefit and delight, knowing that this is the very best I can do with my life. But in the last few weeks this line of pursuit has proved to be insufficient. I noticed that I kept losing my happiness and sparkle of Virtual Freedom as it was sometimes replaced by complaining about physical inconveniences like headaches or a ‘pain in the neck’, weirdness, feeling odd, fear attacks and bouts of doubt. Assessing my situation objectively, I realised that the option to stop or go back to ‘normal’ had disappeared altogether. What would I want to go back to? I had left my old life because it was unsatisfactory and that would still be the case. But something else was needed to get me through the oddness. Stubbornness, guilt for ‘being’ an intruding entity and the glittering prize of actual freedom were not enough. And I found another line of Richard’s writing – a benefit of my extensive playing with the web-site: Richard: The ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body, empowered with pure intent, deliberately, consciously and with knowledge aforethought, altruistically self-immolated so that I would be freed to be here. (Richard, List B, No. 25e, 19 October 1999). There it was again – ‘altruistically self-immolated’ – and this time I could see the word from another angle. It has nothing to do with being altruistic for other people – whether they get something directly out of my becoming free or not. It has to do with being unselfish as in my ‘self’ getting out of the way, so that the perfection can become apparent. ‘I’ won’t even get a medal for my altruistic behaviour – ‘I’ will simply not exist anymore. And thus my hang-up with the Christian – and spiritual – morality of being selfish or un-selfish has finally been resolved. Now I can see the sparkling morning, the dewdrops glittering thousand fold on the thin tea-tree leaves, moving and shining like river stones, the birds chirping their birds-sounds and the air moist and warming for another glorious spring day. Everything is perfect when I stop insisting of keeping my ‘self’. Suddenly it is all easy and I am back on the wide and wondrous path – and the pain in the neck is just a signpost for the right direction. Ah, fantastic. Since I finished this letter I had another discussion with Richard about being here now, in this moment in time, with having a past or a future, and I experienced again the eerie wonderful and odd thing of being here now without a ‘self-induced’ story that keeps the moments together like pearls on a string. From this point of view, from simply being here each moment again there is no question whatsoever that Actual Freedom is what I want, 24 hrs a day. And, being back in having a bit of a past and a bit of a future, I am still determined to make it happen, no other reason needed. The continuing oddness of not really knowing where I left the ‘meaning of life’ that had tied my life together so nicely before, can only be a good sign. Ahoy. ALAN: And to answer your question, Vineeto, bloody excellent. We move to our new house, in the seaside village, at the end of May, which I am looking forward to. Although the village where we now live is friendly enough, it is very dreech (a good Scottish word pronounced as though the ‘c’ is not present), meaning drab, grey and life is bloody serious. So, it will be good to be living in a holiday ‘resort’, where people are generally enjoying life and living. Since moving here we have been on trips to Scotland, London and have just returned from a stay in the New Forest village, where we used to live and it has struck me how much people (with rare exceptions) want to be miserable and allow petty irrelevancies to dominate their lives. I can no longer live in the ‘land of lament’, so there is only one place left to go – and it ain’t going to be enlightenment! VINEETO: When I walked through town today – the memory of my recent outbreak of emotion still fresh – and looked into people’s faces it struck me again how much everyone’s life is centred around feeling – just as mine was three years ago. Feeling happy because I got what I wanted or someone likes me for 5 minutes while having a nice talk or not much trouble happens ... or feeling sad and listening to sad songs. The feeling being is so utterly predominant in everybody’s everyday life that to investigate its source and then, again and again, to step out of it, is really the only sensible solution to getting out of ‘dreech’ and being happy and harmless, gel? You say, ‘there is only one place left to go’ – I experience the process as coming ever more often here, and hardly ever being lost in a ‘trough’ of instinctually based feelings and emotions. This idea of going to another place might very well be a remnant of religious belief that there is some better place to go – either to heaven or to Nirvana-land. Freedom and the actual world are not another ‘place left to go’, but my job is to keep finding and removing every single obstacle that keeps me from being here, here where the magic and the perfection are already happening. It’s the discovering, understanding and removing of the obstacles, the occurrences of the ‘self’, that are the vital, fascinating and thrilling bit of the journey. Good to have you back on the list, Alan. * 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. RESPONDENT: Could this PCE that is used as the goal be just a state brought on by delusion of some spiritual teachings including Richard’s? I.e. I want it so I’ll invent it. VINEETO: Once you have experienced a PCE you don’t have to ask that question. A PCE is characterized by the – temporary – complete absence of any ‘self’ whatsoever, including your faculty of feeling and imagination. You can’t invent the actual world – it is already here. A tree is a tree, I can’t invent it. I am this flesh and blood body, and it is obvious that I can perfectly live without a ‘self’. After feeling and imagining has ceased completely, the actual world becomes apparent. A bit like taking one’s grey and rose-coloured glasses off and seeing the world for the first time. One experiences perfection and purity, no separation from the things and people around, but neither love nor bliss are felt as in the feeling-induced spiritual experiences. * RESPONDENT: Hi cyber Vineeto: Yes, what exactly are we trying to communicate here. Is it that you are trying to coach me and I am saying I know already. VINEETO: So, you think there may be a coaching contract with cyber-Vineeto. I don’t remember signing such a contract and I certainly wouldn’t want to, nor does my alter ego of cyber-Vineeto. I don’t even know what you want to achieve, how could I possibly coach you? Freedom is something everyone has to do for themselves. But you are welcome to pick my brain if you want to know about living in virtual freedom. Peter and I are certainly experts on the ongoing experience of it and the way to reach it. We have both followed the path to actual freedom for two years with overwhelming and obvious success and enjoy a continuous virtual freedom from sorrow and malice. I am certainly interested in giving information if anyone wants to be as happy and harmless as I am. As Peter has stated in his letter to Alan, and it is my experience as well, Virtual Freedom is an essential prerequisite for Actual Freedom. Actual Freedom does not happen over night. It is the result of whittling away all the layers of emotions, feelings, beliefs and instincts that one comes across in daily life until there is hardly any disturbance happening and hardly anything left of what used to be the ‘self’. Virtual Freedom can be described as perfect days, day-in, day-out, and heightened senses delivering ongoing pleasure and delight – be it a cup of coffee, the saxophone playing next door, the whistle of a chain-saw, the twitter of the birds, the soft breeze of the fan in may back. Virtual freedom is when the ‘feeling’ of time has disappeared, when the days have no names and the hours have no numbers – I am simply here living in this perfect moment each moment again. It does not matter if I go to work or stay at home, if it is day or night, rainy or hot, if I am meeting people, on my own or with Peter at home, I simply have a perfect time. If you are saying you ‘know already’, then that is just marvellous. RESPONDENT: For example in my repair work I have this fear of jobs being returned; the feeling is one of personal failure and even after carefully looking at this I realized I could not control what people thought and that much of the time what they thought was grossly misinformed. This was helping with understanding but not the fear. You see, the fear was about their actual response the expression on their faces etc, the put down at that moment. What I really objected to was their deliberate put down, but my conditioning, based on punishment, disallowed any defence of my position. Hmm, I don’t know if I have come any closer to determining what a bad habit is. Lets see... if someone uses punishment to condition you, it does not constitute on your behalf a belief. It is just that you have learned, ‘Do this or else’. VINEETO: A good example. One can never change or control what people think, so one might as well stop trying and tackle one’s own feelings about their thoughts. The practical situation is that when I sell my time, I am dependant that people like what I sell in order to make money. The other, usually bigger, part of the situation is the fear that I won’t be liked, that I will be rejected by the group, that I won’t belong – and this fear is a totally different ballgame. When I started on the path to Actual Freedom I noticed that my own value standards as to what I wanted to achieve became vastly superior to the general accepted version of ‘good’ and ‘right’ – because my standards are derived from the pure consciousness experience when the perfection and purity of the universe becomes overwhelmingly apparent. Now I don’t want to be ‘good’ or do it ‘right’ in other people’s eyes, I want to remove the obstacle, my very ‘self’, that stands in the way of the purity and perfection of the actual world. Out of this intent, I do the best I can in everything I do, I actively care about my fellow human beings and thus I become more happy and harmless. This change has given me a confidence that made it then comparatively easy to leave the world of morals and ethics behind and to regard other people’s opinions as what they are – opinions of people who are unavoidably, and through no fault of theirs, afflicted with the common disease of the Human Condition. The only difference between me and the people I meet and interact with is that I serendipitously came across someone who had managed to free himself of malice and sorrow ... and I took up the challenge. Since I know that I investigate my own malice and sorrow in order to eliminate it, other people’s put-down reveals simply their affliction by the Human Condition and is therefore not my problem. So I only take care of my own malice and sorrow and investigate why I insist on wanting other’s approval. It is a fascinating journey to explore the need to please, the need for approval, the need to belong to a group – however lose or undefined that group may be. In short, I get rid of the ‘me’ who feels offended and who needs to belong. Being in the world as it is with people as they are gives ample opportunity to examine my very instincts until the complete understanding causes them to wither away – and with it one’s very identity. What remains is superb confidence, overweening optimism, genuine caring and ever-increasing delight. It’s good fun writing to you, I like to swap notes about the sense we make of life. VINEETO: In the last week I have been lost in space, so to speak. We discovered a new screen-saver which presents photos of one’s own choice like a perpetual slide show presentation. On their website they also offer heaps of photos for downloading. If anyone wants to try it out, you can find it under (http://www.webshots.com/). I took the opportunity of making a private slideshow of the universe and went on the NASA site for space-shots. The amount and quality of what is presented there is amazing and fantastic. Photos of nebulae and galaxies, exploding suns and planets, swirling clouds of gas in all possible colours comes with detailed information about the number or name, area, size and the changing formations of this ‘universal matter’ and all the human presumptions and hypothesis. But to see and learn so much of the magnificent infinitude of the universe leaves me continuously in amazement and wonder. For instance, there is Betelgeuse, the top left star in the constellation called Orion, recognizable by the three bright stars in his ‘belt’ – the diameter of this single star is bigger than the orbit of Jupiter around the sun!! Unimaginable vastness, and that is only one star of a huge nebular galaxy, of billions that are known – and billions that are not known (yet). The infinite variety of matter leaves me gasping for breath, the magnificence and perfection are fascinating, to say the least – and I am the bit of the universe that says: ‘Wow, how phantasmagorical, how magical!’ Whoever wants to prove with silly mathematics that this universe is not infinite is just a fool. The instinctual need for a creator and the fervent belief in an immortal soul continuously mess up the clear-eyed perception of the obvious. And mathematicians and theoretical scientists are no exception. And there is no difference when I get off the computer and come ‘back’ to earth. The sky in its endlessly changing colourful design is as brilliant as distant nebulae, the sounds are a delightful background, the smells of the summer flowers are deliciously sweet, the air is soft, moist and warm... the splendour is everywhere and life is an ongoing delight. It was fun to spend most of New Year’s Day in front of the television, watching the world responding to the ‘important’ date change, and around the clock around the world we were watching a continual cascade of fireworks blowing up in one city after another. Every nation and town was displaying their exotic and exuberant celebration and the people were happy for a few hours a year – or a century? – before the misery of every-day life was catching up again. So many were disappointed that the prophesized doom and disasters did not occur, that nothing broke down and that they had to get on with their lives as usual. While in the land of freedom everything is already always well, nothing can go wrong because everything is actual. Without emotions and instinctual passions I simply respond to what is happening, choose what is sensible and enjoy every moment as it lives me. It is all so easy once the ‘self’ is not in command and the instincts are but a faint rumble sometimes before they will finally wither away completely. RESPONDENT: Makes ‘me’ seem very insignificant. VINEETO: ‘Significant’ or insignificant are only words relative to our human values. Of course, the infinitude of the universe puts every ‘self’-centred vision into perspective and belies one’s imagination as to one’s self-importance. When the actual world becomes an everyday experience, there is neither significance nor insignificance, only facts and delight. Yet, to become free from the Human Condition in order to experience the actual world has been the most significant thing in my life. Every bit that I cleaned up in myself was significant for it changed my life for the better and stopped creating ripples of malice and sorrow in other people’s lives. The only significant thing that ‘I’ can do is to get out of the road. * JAMES: I am not accepting that I cannot change but I don’t know if I can change. This leaves the possibility open. I have awareness but pure intent and courage seem clouded by doubt. VINEETO: Doubt is an interesting phenomenon. The other day I talked to a woman who confided in me that she was continuously tortured by doubt if she was doing the right thing. When I asked who it was she ultimately needed to please, she said, ‘my mother’. I was rather surprised – the woman has grown-up children herself and her mother has been dead for many, many years. When she asked what was my solution to doubt, I simply said that I follow my own – very high – standards and that doubts have disappeared out of my life. I then realized that in order to follow my own standards of silly and sensible I first had to get rid of the emotional issue of authority, I had to investigate and abolish every belief in authority that had ruled my life until then, including the Almighty, All-knowing and punishing God. At the time, that was quite an amputation by itself! The other implication of following my own standards is that I am always ruthlessly honest, so when I find some feeling lurking beneath the seemingly smooth surface, I have to ‘get off my bum’, on to the couch to contemplate and root around until I have investigated the emotion in question. My guiding light is the purity and perfection of the actual world experienced in a PCE and the way to live in the actual world permanently is to whittle away at the ‘self’ until it self-immolates. In the clarity of a pure consciousness experience I could see doubt for what it is – my ‘self’ scurrying for cover. So again, intent and courage grow and multiply by taking action and gathering confidence from the ensuing success. One simply has to start somewhere – to merely think about possible victories and failures only feeds doubt. Courage only happens in the doing of the action, not before, and intent grows out of the determination not to settle for second best. Of course, one can use the method also to do some minor adjustments to one’s social identity, clean out some bad habits, get rid of some particularly troubling problems and then stop further investigation. I know quite a few people who have done exactly that and who are now a little bit happier with their lives than before. The outcome is not Actual Freedom, but a little bit more sensibility, less gullibility and a little bit more freedom from one’s burdening social role-play. It is purely a matter of what you want to do with your life. Personally, I function differently. I can’t stop halfway down the road when I know what is possible. Whenever I have encountered fear, I also experience a stubborn bloody-mindedness that has initially surprised me. When I looked back on my life from where I drew the strength and courage to pursue I recognized that all my major turning points had to do with one desire – to be free. Freedom had different notions and definitions in the course of the years, but the desire to discover the best freedom possible always kept me going. Now that I know what I want and how to get there, any obstacle is turned into a challenge, a research and an adventure – the adventure of a lifetime. VINEETO: PS: It is definitely a good idea to get out of the spiritual world. Here are two examples that I came across the other day that made the institutionalized insanity of spiritual belief-systems ever more apparent. The first is pure Buddhism from a Buddhist mailing list. Question: In my East Asian Buddhism course a student asked why the Dalai Lamas show human imperfections if they are reincarnations of Avalokitesvara. In other words: what is the doctrinal reasoning to explain the absence of a bodhisattva’s perfections in its human incarnation? Thanks for anyone willing to step up to the plate. Response: There are several ways of responding. An obvious one from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective is that apparent imperfections are only apparent, that is, that Dalai Lamas are fully awakened beings, and so our perceptions of their flaws are simply reflections of our own limitations. This response would be related to the guru yoga system, in which students are taught to visualize their teachers as fully enlightened buddhas, even if they don’t seem to be. Students are taught that even if gurus have the flaws one sees in them, by perceiving in this way one develops the flaws oneself, but if one learns to perceive them as buddhas, one acquires the enlightened qualities of buddhas. Another perspective would be to think in terms of upaya (skill in means): from this perspective, any apparent imperfections, limitations, etc. are merely expedient devices skilfully used by Dalai Lamas for teaching purposes (even though these may be too subtle for ordinary beings to fathom). Thus, for example, the 6th Dalai Lama decided that he didn’t want to live in the Potala and be confined by monastic restrictions, so he got himself an apartment in town and had numerous affairs with women. He wrote a number of poems about his love of romance and drinking, and these are generally viewed by Tibetans as examples of very subtle skill in means. The bottom line is that if one accepts Dalai Lamas as physical manifestations of Avalokitesvara, one is committed to the proposition that any apparent limitations or imperfections are not what they appear to be. [endquote]. Isn’t it amazing to hear the opinion from an obvious expert on the subject matter. As a faithful student you are to put aside your common sense and practice denial and transcendence in order to become as much of a hypocrite as the Guru whose ‘apparent’ flaws you should not perceive. ‘Very subtle skill in means’ indeed! * VINEETO: This pure consciousness experience became my reference point for what I wanted to achieve. It was also an essential reference point to understand what Richard was saying and writing. After all, this actual world is the very world he is living in all the time, and my PCE had just demonstrated how this world is usually tucked away behind the normal/ spiritual worldview. When you wrote to Richard on Mailing List B, you related an experience of the actual – [James to Richard]: I experienced the actual today and it is so clear that it is always right here right now because it is what actually is. The closest description I can give is that it was a direct experience of everything as it was happening. Everything was perfect as it is and I was where I should be. There was perfect clarity. (James to Richard, List B, 30.10.1999). The remembrance of this ‘self’-less perfection is the starting point to the dismantling of the ‘self’, first the outer layers of one’s social identity and then the core of one’s being, the instinctual passions. From the reference point of a PCE one is able to distinguish the actual from normal or spiritual, facts from beliefs and sensuous experience from affective feelings. One starts from an experience of the actual and daringly questions every truth, belief, faith, hope, trust and feeling. The clarity of a PCE is vital to distinguish facts from ‘truths’, and the PCE reveals feelings of fear and pride as unnecessary stumbling blocks and exposes the ‘self’ in action that is spoiling the already always-existing perfection. What adventure, what delight, what serendipity. RESPONDENT: you can only do your best in this moment of being alive, now. No need for self recriminations. VINEETO: Yes, that’s right. One has to be careful, though, because there is a vast difference between the actualism practice and the spiritual teaching of ‘you are all right as you are right now, no need for change’ à la Paul Lowe and company. The question is what is this ‘your best’? By what standard is ‘your best’ measured? How do I determine what is my best? In spiritual years my best was measured according to the dream of ‘good’ and ‘bliss’, the morals and ethics of Eastern religion, and my failures were excused by the obvious ongoing failures of most human beings to achieve the goal of enlightenment. ‘That’s life’ or ‘Existence wants you to be like that’ are two of the common excuses for not being the best, for being sad, worried and malicious. As an actualist I have a different aim and a different evaluation of what is the best I can be. Having experienced the actual world in its purity, perfection, magic and benevolence in PCEs, my best is always oriented on this experience and my effort to change is always directed to eliminating the ‘self’ that is preventing me from experiencing this perfection 24 hours a day, every day. Then instead of ‘self recriminations’ I examine my errors in order to stop repeating them, investigate what caused them in the first place and aim to be as happy and harmless as I can be. RESPONDENT: your best may only mean providing temporarily distraction from her difficulties for a while. VINEETO: Personally, my best would be to learn how not to be affected by someone else’s feelings and demands such that I can make an appropriate and sensible response to the situation and enjoy the other’s company when we are together. RESPONDENT: My experience with PCEs is that they are a rather sudden, intense, seeing all the way through to the heart of the matter, cutting through all fear, all identity, all sense of ‘me’ and its associated purposefulness and with them there is a sense of completeness and belonging to the universe, just as actually I am, without any resistance whatsoever. VINEETO: PCEs are the flashlights in a basement of rubbish. One can enjoy being relieved from the misery and confusion, which is a wonderful thing to have. But when you have the PCE you can also look at the Human Condition from the clarity you have then and find out which particular bit stands out and needs to be tackled next. The clarity from the PCE always helped me to work out in which way I am obstructing perfection and that understanding then became my work-line. RESPONDENT: If ‘I’ knew of a button to push to bring it about continuously, I would push that button right now. VINEETO: There is no button, sorry. I found only heaps of rubbish obstructing this pure consciousness perception of the actual world on a permanent basis and that rubbish needed facing, questioning, abandoning, changing behaviour, losing identities, losing friends, losing the very ground I thought and felt I was standing on. Yes, wouldn’t it be nice, someone could push the button and then it’s all over? But the satisfaction from each belief I freed myself from was such a joy that it made every day of the journey fascinating and still does. RESPONDENT: And that is the problem. While there is any button pusher left, there can be no PCE. VINEETO: It is much more than just the ‘button pusher’ that is in the way. It is all that humanity has believed in up to now that needs to be investigated and eliminated – it is the very psychic and ‘self’-ish world we are living in, the way we see, feel, imagine, evaluate, reject everything we perceive. RESPONDENT: Vineeto, I would like to know something more about the happiness, benevolence and magnificence of the actual world. I can understand that it would be harmless because without ‘I’ there would be no malice. But wherefrom the happiness comes? Is it just the absence of sorrow? VINEETO: I had some lengthy correspondence on Mailing-List C about benevolence. Once you see the actual physical universe without the grey glasses of malice and sorrow and without the rose-coloured glasses of love and compassion, the magnificence becomes apparent. Take a sunset. Someone in love will see the beauty of the particular scene and be full of gratitude, love and awe. Someone who just split up with his girlfriend will see the sorrow, the transitory nature of all things, the ending of a day, a life, a period. Someone about to go to war will see the power and beauty of his God, pray for protection and feel supported in his passionate mission by the display of the glorious colours. An actualist might see this immense fireball of helium in the sky, giving warmth and light and life to its orbiting planet called earth, all seen through the layer of atmosphere, giving it the wonderful display of ever-changing colours, different each day. To lay any feelings or imagination or even a creator-God over this magnificent event is to miss the actual experience of it. To experience the world around me without the distorting filter of self-centred emotions, feelings and instincts enables me to perceive and appreciate this infinite magnificence, this purity and perfection and this magical actuality of each moment in paradise. RESPONDENT: Or is there anything positive about it? VINEETO: ‘Positive’ is too small a word, for it is only invented to counteract the original objection to being here. The Human Condition in each of us inevitably results in not wanting to be here but to be somewhere else, in imaginary heights or in a hope for a better future or life after death. When senses and awareness are freed from the shackles of emotions, feelings, beliefs and instincts one is – as Richard says – ‘the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’, nothing less. Then, one is as benevolent as the rest of the universe. I understand where your question may come from. The absence of sorrow, when one is empty of tears, can be experienced as a starkness, grey, empty and dull reality. Because this seems unbearable, one then cranks up some positive thoughts and feelings to ‘believe’ that life is not so terrible after all. This so-called happiness has nothing to do with the gay and abundant experience when there are no feelings and emotions. The wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom is to investigate and remove whatever feeling, emotion, belief or instinct surfaces until slowly, slowly the actual world becomes apparent – and its magnificent and benevolent nature. And you are then the bit of the universe that says ‘WOW, isn’t the physical universe extraordinary and amazing, wonder-full and perfect!’ * RESPONDENT: Even before knowing about actual freedom, I was reasonably happy and peaceful as I could get rid of (I would not use word ‘eliminate’ here because that would not be honest) anger, envy, malice etc. to a large extent, but now I am discovering the roots of good feelings like love, gratitude, humility etc. VINEETO: After seventeen years on the spiritual path, including lots of therapy and new-age discussions, I had still experienced myself to be in utter confusion as to how to deal with emotions. Some emotions were to be kept, some to be transformed, but then most of them would reappear without invitation and did not disappear permanently by ‘watching’. Then again, I was not only to rise above the bad thoughts and emotions but also to dis-identify from ‘being the body’ all together, which ultimately proved to be neither possible nor an option. So it was a great revelation when I first discovered that to be alive and happy I don’t need to have emotions at all – in fact, the emotions were the very thing that prevented me from being fully alive and permanently happy. Sorting my emotions into good and bad always reminded me of poor Cinderella who had to sort out peas by their size, ending up totally exhausted and bewildered. What a relief and how much easier, to start to eliminate all the peas, i.e. emotions. Of course, that proposition rocked me at the very core, but I was desperate and daring enough to give it a go. And the more I stripped away the ‘good’ feelings like love, gratitude, humility, unselfish-ness, compassion and belonging, the more I discovered the genuine article underneath the emotions and beliefs – actual intimacy and delight. See, the quality of the actual world is delight. The very actual-ness of everything is pure delight. Actualism is ‘the experiential understanding that nothing physical is merely passive; the personal experience of the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being as opposed to a cerebral or affective perception.’ For instance, listening without the layer of emotions, morals, values, beliefs and instincts, to the hum of the fridge, the sound of cars passing by, the rumbling of the computer doing its thing, is delighting in being alive and this very hearing is one function of being alive. No love is needed to layer on top of the very happening of things, it only destroys the purity and perfection, it only binds it into a man-made system of conditions, belonging, control and fear. If you love one sound, you reject another. To love silence is to despise and be upset by noisy business. Love would utterly spoil the game of being happy, here, now, each moment again, for no other reason than being alive, fully and sensately experiencing the universe around me. Without the self being sorrowful and malicious, fearful and lonely, loving and belonging, compassionate and grateful – nothing else is needed to delight in each moment again. You might remember moments of comfortably stretching out on the couch, an ease and a well-being spreading through every cell, no feeling or emotion interfering in the peaceful moment, everything is perfect for that particular period, be it a second, ten minutes or longer. This is when you come closest to experiencing the actual world – the world as it is and people as they are. This is the most intimate one can be – as a ‘self’ – when, for a moment, there is no emotional demand on how the situation should be. That’s when you are closest to a peak-experience... And then... the next disturbance is such a good opportunity to investigate... VINEETO: Richard: It is not a case of ‘facing fear’ ... one can use it to swing through to this actual world ... leaving one’s ‘self’ behind, where it belongs, in the ‘real-world’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 24 January 1999). RESPONDENT: How do I do this?? How do I swing through the fear? VINEETO: How are you doing? In the last few days I have been thinking about the workings of fear and the ways I have dealt with it and here is what I have come up with so far – Everyone is inflicted with the Human Condition – this is how we come into the world and this is how we are trained to live in the world.
| You could see it like this: everyone is walking around in a big space-suit, walking around on this planet thinking and feeling it to be a foreign and hostile place, dangerous, uncomfortable for human beings. Then Richard comes along and says, look, you only need to take your space-suit off and then you will experience the earth as the actual paradise it already is. You don’t need to wait for the ‘big spaceship’ to take you somewhere else (after death) and you don’t need those clumsy space-suit (the ‘self’) for survival. It is perfectly safe to live on this earth without the imagined protection of this clumsy suit called the Human Condition. Without this suit you can fully, for the first time, sensately experience the world without separation, not as an alien, but as a human being on ‘home-planet’ earth. You might theoretically agree with Richard’s findings, but taking off this ‘dear-held’ security of your space-suit will nevertheless produce fears and insecurities because deep down you are still convinced that it is an essential life-preserving suit. So, when setting out on this journey to actually arrive here on the planet one of the first things to tackle is fear.
Here is a report on how I have understood and tackled fear: (...) 10. Now, to come to the point of your question: When I stop resisting fear, when I stop fighting fear, when I don’t give fear the weight and importance I used to, then fear turns into thrill – and thrill is the very vehicle that transports me further into freedom. Thrill is the race-car driving me towards freedom. This wonderful exciting butterfly-feeling in the stomach, knowing that I am on the right path to my destiny, getting closer to freedom every minute – I become immensely alive, I see the world in vibrant colours, I hear it in multi-layered sounds, I forget about my previous objection to being here, fully alive – and whoosh, I am here, in the actual world-as-it-is, safe, perfect, magnificent, abundant, magical and pure. I experience my senses sensing, I am aware of being alive, apperception is happening without an attached ‘self’ to it, and I have again swung through the fear to the actual world. VINEETO: When, for the first time, I not only contemplated but also really understood that an actual physical infinite universe has no physical place for god who, by definition, resides outside of the universe, it blew my whole belief of a higher force to pieces. It then became all too obvious how many other beliefs were feeding from this one imaginary and passionate assumption that there is something ‘higher’ than human beings that is running the show. Bang, here I was, suddenly realizing that I was all by myself, alone and lonely, frightened and unprotected, but free of that imagined authority that had controlled my life. For an hour I experienced in a pure consciousness experience the delicious perfection of this purely physical, utterly un-spiritual universe. I have written about it a year ago: [Vineeto]: Finally one evening, when talking and musing about the universe, I fully comprehended that this physical universe is actually infinite. The universe being without boundaries or an edge means that it is impossible, practically, for God to exist. In order to have created the universe or to be in control of it God would have to exist outside of it – and there is no outside! This insight hit me like a thunderbolt. My fear of God and of his representatives collapsed and lost its very substance by this obvious realization. In fact, there can be no one outside of this infinite universe who is pulling the strings of punishment and reward, heaven and hell – or, according to Eastern tradition, granting enlightenment or leaving me with the eternal karma of endless lives in misery. This insight presupposes, of course, that there is no place other than the physical universe – no celestial, mystical realm where gods and ghosts exist. It also implies that there is no life before or after death and that the body simply dies when it dies. I needed quite some courage to face and accept this simple fact – to give up all beliefs in an after-life or a ‘spirit-life’. But I could easily observe that as soon as I gave up the idea of any imaginary existence other than the tangible, physical universe, everything, which had seemed so complicated and impossible to understand became graspable, evident, obvious and imminently clear. When the enormous consequence and implication of slipping out of this insidious belief in any God or Higher Being dawned on me, I was at the same time free of anybody’s authority. I was free of the fear that had been spoiling every relationship with every man in my life: father, brothers, male friends and boyfriends, employers, teachers and Master. Now I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using the common and practical intelligence of the human brain. I am responsible for every action in my life and I can acknowledge that now. However, this means that from now on I cannot blame anybody for making me jealous, miserable, grumpy, afraid, angry or frustrated over any petty issue. Now there is no more excuse, no more hiding place. They are my reactions and my behaviour, which I have to face and change in order to be free. (A Bit of Vineeto). Now I am responsible for my life and for my life only – without a belief in any bodiless existence before birth or after death. I am neither beholden to any higher authority, nor to any man-made unliveable morals or ethics. And I am free from guilt and the fear of god’s wrath – a fear that became quite apparent when I struggled to ditch the belief in god, heaven and hell. VINEETO: I have tried to find whatever I have considered the best in life and pursued it in politics, religions, therapy and spirituality – I have found that Actual Freedom delivers the goods after everything else failed. In my first substantial peak experience, which I have described at length in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’, I knew with absolute certainty that this is what I was always looking for and nothing else would do. Since then I have been driven to dismantle and eliminate the cause of human malice and suffering in me, to uncover the beliefs, emotions and instincts of which the ‘self’ is made of and to come closer and closer to be the best I can be. In the process of becoming free it is vital to remember a peak experience well enough, because this will be your landmark. In a PCE you experience the perfection and purity of the actual world and you also know that the only one standing in the road of this perfection is your ‘self’, your beliefs, emotions, feelings and instincts. This can spark off the intent to do something about this ‘self’, to change yourself radically, irreversible and ultimately – to sacrifice the ‘self’ for a life beyond one’s wildest dreams, full of magic and wonder, purity and sparkle, excellence and perfect harmony. VINEETO: I just leave you with a definition of perfection (people might call it superiority...) perfection – The condition, state, or quality of being perfect or free from all defect; flawlessness, faultlessness. RESPONDENT: Whose definition is this? VINEETO: The Oxford dictionary. Mine is that even a fault can be perfect, a perfect fault. There is nothing unperfect, only our mind judging. And as such, the judging mind is also perfect. VINEETO: Your interpretation of perfect is derived from the spiritual interpretation that the world is illusory and has to be transcended. Of course, Eastern religion preaches that you have to transcend body and mind and disappear completely into the grand state of imagination and delusion. In its affective experience this is seen as very real, seductive and engulfing, but nevertheless a product of the ‘universal’ imaginative psyche, not based on facts. As I said before, intelligence is a very good tool to judge silly and sensible. You, however, seem to use the word ‘judging’ as in ‘rejecting’, not as in ‘discriminating’. Rejecting is ineffective, useless and silly, discriminating a necessary quality to make down-to-earth decisions about one’s life. * VINEETO: ...perfection in humans is possible. RESPONDENT: Whatever is, is perfect. It cannot be any other way. But there can be more. VINEETO: One of those insidious spiritual beliefs. If you look around in the world, human beings are anything else but perfect. Murders, rapes, domestic violence, religious and tribal wars, child abuse and suicides tell enough of a story. This belief that everything is perfect is one of the reasons why people think they don’t have to change, just wait for the grace of god or the master, or the universe to miraculously remove them from this miserable realm of the body. But then you have to deny the body, all its pleasures, its intelligence, its physical senses. Then, the only place you can have peace is in some imaginary world of the psyche. Actual freedom means living in this physical world, as this physical body with its marvellous intelligence. But it also means living without a psyche, without affective qualities – human or divine, without instincts, without imagination, without any sense of self or Self, ego, soul and idea of who you are. Actual freedom is to discover what you are – a flesh-and-blood body, one of 5.8 billion on the planet – completely ordinary with only one difference: one is completely harmless and as such a non-contributor to malice, and one is completely happy and a such a non-contributor to sorrow. I have answered all your objections as clearly as possible. One thing strikes me as curious: You seem interested enough to engage in a detailed and inquiring conversation with Peter and me. Yet you have enough objections to not investigate any further into what actual freedom is all about. There is another option, though. You could put your objections – which are more than understandable – aside in order to investigate scientifically, rather than emotionally. With a more informed understanding your questions will be more to the point and have more the quality of questions instead of objections. Since I am not a missionary, I prefer the second option.
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence | Library – Topics Index
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