Please note that Vineeto’s correspondence below was written by the actually free Vineeto
(List D refers to Richard’s List D and his Respondent Numbers) Vineeto’s Correspondence with Andrew on Discuss Actualism Forum October 18 2025 VINEETO (to Henry): Contrary to popular conception, it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood and pay attention to when the mood-meter goes below feeling good. Then apply whatever tool is necessary to get back to feeling good and resolve what triggered feeling less than good so that it doesn’t occur again. ANDREW: Really? It take far more than “time out”. It take something that very few have ever managed. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, I see that since then you deleted the message but I still find that it had enough worthwhile points to respond to it. Here is the detailed context about my statement that “it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood” – Richard: As you referred to ‘being attentive to my feelings’ half-a-dozen times, all told, it further occurred to me to anecdotally illustrate what is conveyed by the [quote] ‘current-time awareness’ [endquote] term, in that email of mine (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 24 January 2016), so as to spell out in some detail how that awareness comes about such that it soon becomes possible, at any given moment, to ‘instantly answer the question’ you articulated as follows. Viz.: • [Claudiu]: ‘To have a current-time awareness of how I am experiencing this moment of being alive means being able to instantly answer the question, if anybody asks or if I ask myself, of ‘How am I feeling?’ ... or, in full, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Or to put it in other way... if I ask myself, ‘how am I feeling?’, and I don’t immediately know the answer, but have to do some digging... that means I am lacking that current-time awareness!’ [endquote]. As what is conveyed by that term is already provided in the ‘This Moment of Being Alive’ article – and specifically referred to elsewhere via words such as ‘diminishment’ or ‘diminution’ and ‘flashing red light’ or ‘a warning buzzer’ on more than fifty occasions on my portion of the website – then this expanded post is more about drawing attention to it, even to the extent of belabouring the point, than anything else. So, first the anecdote. Early on in my six-month visit to India in 2010 the person anonymised as Respondent № 04 on The Actual Freedom Trust list – whose first post is date-stamped 09 Jan 1999 on my portion of the web site – arranged to meet with me. Arriving after an early-hour inter-city train trip he spent around four or five hours with me and about an hour or so into the conversation he happened to mention, en passant, how he was not able to put the actualism method into practice at work as he could not be attentive to how he was experiencing this moment of being alive, each moment again, during his workaday hours as the job-description required that a large percentage of his time be spent at a computer station being attentive to the myriad manoeuvres on the computer screen virtually every moment of the day. Although somewhat taken aback by the implications and ramifications of such obvious ignorement/ ignoration of my specific responses and explanations, online, it was a simple matter to point out how the moment-to-moment monitoring of the affections is, of course, an affective monitoring – along with reminding him how the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was a family man working 12-14 hours a day for 6-7 days a week in order to feed, clothe and house everyone (mortgage commitments, hire-purchase payments, and etcetera) – and to thereafter verbalise what is freely available for perusal and edification on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 3 February 2016) As you may or may not have discovered for yourself, you can be intellectually engaging in something while simultaneous being affectively aware of how you feel. As such it does not take ‘time out’ from engaging your intellect, or digging a hole in the garden, for that matter, to be able to being affectively aware of how you feel while doing this. ANDREW: For example, if I were to give personal examples, which I will not for reasons which the internet has now ensured are sensible, becoming someone who can “feel good” in all circumstances is far more “time out” than can be imagined. Indeed, I would say that it takes a lot more than “time out”, and that “popular imagination” goes not even a fraction of the way to “ensuring it doesn’t happen again”. VINEETO: For a start, it does not take ‘time out’ to notice a change in your affective mood and this is what was conveyed in the above sentence of mine. This is eminently possible for an intelligent human being, for instance – Richard: … how the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was a family man working 12-14 hours a day for 6-7 days a week in order to feed, clothe and house everyone (mortgage commitments, hire-purchase payments, and etcetera) … Then, if one is motivated to get back to feeling good (because it feels good to feel good), one can see the silliness of feeling bad. Richard: “once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good ... but with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive …” (Richard, Articles, this Moment of Being Alive). Of course, at present for you such application has no appeal because you, never having applied it, consider it “next to useless”. ANDREW: Such advice, while most obviously is orthodox “actual freedom” advice, is next to useless. VINEETO: It is quite risible to label something entirely new to human consciousness as “orthodox”. I understand that you presently find it useless to pay affective attention to your mood. And when all is said and done it is your life you are living. It is you who either reaps the rewards or pays the consequences for any action or inaction that you may or may not do. It entirely up to you. ANDREW: What Henry meant by “spiritual bypassing” I assume is what is commonly discovered at some point; it’s really difficult to make money. Making enough money to have some level of freedom is progressively more difficult. VINEETO: Rather than speculating (“I assume”) what Henry meant here is what he actually said – Henry: Yes precisely, basically I had some real-world issues that I hadn’t settled and was avoiding. (…) Currently I find my mental ‘to-do’ list to be a bit overwhelming, As you go on to say that one needs “enough money in order to have some level of freedom” then this is clearly your approach/ your interpretation of what freedom is – the materialist understanding of freedom from physical needs. Indeed, making money or providing for the basics needs to stay alive is what all humans have to sort out for themselves. It’s a fact of life. Animals live by the same imperative – to do whatever it takes to survive. Richard: The bodily needs – there are no bodily desires – can be summarised as follows: (1) air; (2) water; (3) food; (4) shelter; (5) clothing (if the weather be inclement). Virtually anything else deemed a need is an instinctive drive (an urge, an impulse, a compulsion) and being affective anything instinctual can be readily distinguished by its emotional/ passional nature ... desire, for instance. Respondent: Is the example above the outcome of one’s instinctive urge to desire or should it be considered a ‘sensible’ bodily desire? Richard: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 14 January 2004). Of course, you can concentrate on the material necessities only and resent that you have to do all this so physically survive – what we are discussing here is how the instinctual survival passions (and the identity formed thereof) make taking care of one’s bodily needs a burden, an emotional suffering, a permanent complaint and a desperate exasperation about the fact of being alive ... and how to change one’s affective attitude and emotional inclination regarding this moment of being alive. A materialist seeks to fulfil their instinctually driven desires as victoriously as possible, whereas the aim of actualism is to enjoy and appreciate being alive (all the while providing the bodily needs) by diminishing the harmful and detrimental influence of the self-centric attitudes and instinctual survival passions. And more than a few have indeed reported that they have successfully done so. As you may, or may not, have experienced, there is an actual world right under your nose. It’s when the instinctual survival passions and identity formed thereof temporarily go in abeyance (giving you a taste of what is possible) … and there is also a way to persuade this identity, ‘you’, to diminish ‘your’ dominance, and eventually give up ‘your’ ghostly existence. One way to begin this process is to become aware of, acknowledge, intelligently contemplate and sensibly give up this basic resentment of having been born in the first place. Even if this was the only thing you do, it would already make your life eminently more enjoyable and less antagonistic as it is now. Henry gave you a clue – Henry: I am definitely still vitally interested in actualism and becoming free. I have found this period of consolidation productive in clearing the cobwebs out of some ‘dark corners’ of myself. I’ve also found the appearance of new problems informative. (…) I appreciate this message. I’m experiencing it as something of a wake-up call… a reminder of pure intent. (…) I am happier and more harmless than I was 1 or 2 years ago, and I’m pleased about that. Perhaps it’s time to step on the gas regarding attention to pure intent. Cheers Vineeto October 19 2025 VINEETO: I see that since then you deleted the message but I still find that it had enough worthwhile points to respond to it. Here is the detailed context about my statement that “it doesn’t take ‘time out’ to adopt the habit of affectively monitoring your mood” – ANDREW: Hi Vineeto, I deleted the post, as it was very childish. Basically, I was objecting to something, and demanding someone else solve the “problem” I imagined. As you saw fit to respond anyway, I will do my best to be constructive and explore what it is I wanted “solved”. I have for a while suspected that Actualism is operating on a “direct pointing” type of psychic effect. This is a reference to Zen, where the student is made, sometimes with violence, to “see” some essential truth. I experienced this myself in an online environment once. Participants are instructed repeatedly “look! There is no self!” In various ways. The participants want to achieve what is being instructed, and it does work, to a point. The instruction itself is faulty in that method, as it bypasses the obvious; I am a self. At best it “peaks” at a “no self” experience, but won’t sustain it. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, Thank you for your considered reply. It’s best to understand actualism without any preconceptions from previous involvements, if that is possible. The other suggestion I have is to start where you are at and make it easy for yourself – set your bottom line to feeling good (not getting rid of ‘self’ or something like that). Kuba has explained pretty well already to choose how to be the feeling, additionally there is Richard’s article This Moment of Being Alive . I add a post from No. 60 (List D No. 4), who had a lot of trouble with the actualism method and once he got the knack explained brilliantly how to choose which feelings to be – Richard: You do comprehend that you are your feelings/ your feelings are you (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) do you not? Viz.: • [Respondent No. 60]: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between *having* feelings and *being* those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way. This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something” about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I *am* the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too. This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop. I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST). And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 30 October 2005a). In short, when you don’t keep the feeling you experience at arm’s length but accept that this is who you are, then you can choose that you might want to be a different (enjoyable and harmless) feeling. Of course, as Kuba said, it can sometimes be that “‘I’ have a stake in ‘my’ suffering”. ANDREW: We have, over many years, in various forums discussed the “at work” environment. It is a fact that no one as yet, has become “officially” actually free working a corporate job, in an office building, surrounded by modern working relationships. I say “officially” as [Respondent No. 15(D)] did achieve that, by his report, but my understanding is that he is not regarded as actually free by yourself. Everyone so far, has been in an “alternative” scenario. Self-employed, otherwise “off the beaten track”. Quoting Richard’s experience, while also knowing that an artist on his own farm is a far cry from a corporate office, still leaves the assertion that being affectively aware, without cognitive engagement, in unproven. Unless [Respondent No. 15(D)] is Actually Free. Regards Andrew If you are curious what [Respondent No. 15(D)] is up to you can ask him personally. Here is an answer to Kuba from December last year about presently newly and fully free people I know, or know of – KUBA: And of course it goes without saying that those effects apply not just between Actualists but inevitably affect all of one’s fellow human beings. That when ‘I’ am ‘being’ felicity and innocuity and ‘I’ am ‘being’ naïveté, that ‘I’ have already affected others. As to how others are affected by the existence of actually free fellow human beings I am not too sure. Of course there is the negative aspect, and what I mean by that is that the absence of sorrow and malice will of course have a beneficial effect, essentially 1 less sorrowful and malicious entity in existence. But I wonder if there is a positive aspect, that just like when ‘I’ am happy and harmless ‘I’ inevitably bring others with ‘me’. Is there something intrinsic to the existence of actually free humans that pulls others closer to perfection and purity. This would certainly supply motivation to proceed. It would be so very worth doing. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, First the obvious reasons which everyone can understand. *You would not be writing on this list if Richard had not discovered the actual world and written about it extensively. Tangible? *The Direct Route was opened by Richard and Peter and Peter became actually free one day after. Peter thus confirmed that Richard is not a freak of nature and that no-one has to go via enlightenment to become actually free. *Vineeto benefited from the Direct Route, confirmed after Peter that it is safe and confirmed that an actual freedom is as available for females as it is for males (of course!) *Justine became actually free (later withdrew the publication of it) on another continent without having met Richard – proof that it is possible anywhere in the world. *Grace and then Pamela became free – confirmation that women are as keen to be actually free as men. *in 2011, a person of Indian birth and upbringing came for a visit and “was actually free of blind nature’s instinctual passions/the feeling-being formed thereof less than 24 hrs after landing.” Richard, List D, Rick, 31 December 2011). They demonstrated, to many people’s astonishment, that the rapid (and sudden) way is indeed possible for someone with sufficient pure intent and urgency. (Richard, List D, Rick, 3 December 2009) *2015 to 2018 three more people became actually free, and forum members reported they have benefited and drawn inspiration from their reports and correspondences (to an extent they would not have, if the persons had been not actually free). *Also Bub and Scout recently lamented (and many others before them) that actualism isn’t very successful because only so few people (sic! 10 people in 26 years of its inception and publication) have had success – and for them virtual freedom does not count as success in that it would inspire them to get more confidently involved). You can see, when you look more closely, that the whole forum only exists because so many people have dared to care and cared to dare to go all the way to self-immolation. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba3, 26 December 2024a). If that list has you still hesitate to begin to apply the actualism method in order to become more happy and harmless yourself then you might have to wait another decade or two until someone in your chosen category becomes actually free. Personally, ‘Vineeto’ applied the actualism from the moment she fully understood that an actual freedom was the solution to peace on earth and the meaning of life, which the spiritual path could never ever supply. But everyone has different criteria for being vitally interested. * ANDREW: Hi again, I can be even more exploratory in my response, especially to the quoted text of Richard about “current time awareness”. At any point of the day, I could give a detailed account of my psychological and emotional state. In fact, I don’t think this is even a rare ability, at a certain point in a person’s life, especially in this era of popular psychology being “baked into” much of our lingo and understanding. What is rare, and perhaps isn’t necessarily naturally there, is choice. Choice. Choosing one feeling over another, I don’t get. I can say the words. Perhaps, and this is me finding common ground between what I suspect the method actually is, and where I am, learning, or training, acquiring such an ability may indeed be the radical shift needed. As I have only been able to do 50% of the method. I don’t need any sort of pause to tell anyone asking what I feel. What I can’t do, and I assume it’s because it’s an acquired skill, it choose to feel otherwise. VINEETO: The actualism method is about enjoying and appreciating being here – there is your choice, your priority in general. You not only have “current time awareness” but you have a preference for the felicitous and innocuous feelings and do something (as per instructions) about those feelings which are not felicitous and innocuous. You don’t need any psychology to work that out, in fact psychology only confuses the matter with theories and concepts. The other decision that has been very helpful is to decide to put everything on a preference basis – you prefer things or people to be in a certain way but if that is not the case, it doesn’t really matter. This upfront decision removes a lot of force/ demand/ wilfulness out of your emotional reaction and reduces ‘self’-centricity (which generally causes more problems than it’s worth). Richard: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 25d, 14 January 2004) ANDREW: The obvious conclusion is that accepting that acquisition of the ability to choose IS akin the “direct pointing”, as in “just do it”, then it’s really just the abandon needed to do it, “come what may”. However, uncoupling a feeling from action is where the fear kicks in. As, come what may, for the majority of my time in work, would be, to walk away and disappear into whatever wilderness I can find. Hardly practical. VINEETO: Well, you can equally say, just allow the malicious and sorrowful feeling to fade away by recognizing how silly it is to hang onto it. The more you tune into the quality of actuality (as you would do in the “wilderness”) the more you’ll experience the benevolent and benign quality (check out FAQ 66a for instance). What I mean is that it takes energy to keep up the ego- and self-enhancing emotions, whereas being happy and harmless comes natural when you remove the mostly habitual and attitudinal obstacles. As a very general observation (without the usual caveats) just look how children have the capacity to go back to being happy once their problems such as food, cleanup, a plaster and so on are taken care of, whereas sophisticated adults get worried when there is nothing to do, nothing to prove, nothing to justify one’s existence and all the duties, obligations and expectations to be fulfilled. Your choice can be to simplify life, not just practically but emotionally, in other words in the direction of allowing more naiveté. Nice to chat again after such a long time. Cheers Vineeto October 20 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto. I was very hesitant to reply after the deleted post. As in, I really questioned why I was going to object to something without having anything alternative, as in an “answer” to offer, and then divulge the rest of the thoughts, again, with nothing to offer as far as a useful answer. Between Kuba’s replies and yours, I see there has always been an extremism about how I approach actualism, which is the same as anything I do. I either can master it, or I give up and hang around it, talking about it. There is a huge amount of various efforts that can indeed be made between those extremes. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, Indeed. And not just “various efforts” also fun experiments and valuable insights which can be actualised. ANDREW: I particularly like how you say this; Vineeto: then you can choose that you might want to be a different (enjoyable and harmless) feeling. For a fair while I had some subtle success with this “convoluted” way of dealing with choice. VINEETO: Well, well, it’s only “convoluted” when you call it so, else it’s naïvely experimenting with choices you have never made because your “extremism” didn’t allow for them so far. ANDREW: Echoing Geoffrey and others, “choosing to allow”, and “allowing myself to choose” and other variations of multi-level linguistic permission giving, and granting, and otherwise humorously talking myself into a light-hearted mood. Thanks for the conversation. It has created “space” in my mind between the extremes. Perhaps I would indeed prefer to allow myself the permission to choose feeling good, and in light of the repeated fact that external circumstances often are not to my preference, to continue feeling good, enjoying and appreciating that very feeling, anyway. Haha VINEETO: You are welcome. Now it’s up to you to keep this “space” “between the extremes” open and play with the new options. Cheers Vineeto October 20 2025 ANDREW: Richard: Although somewhat taken aback by the implications and ramifications of such obvious ignorement/ ignoration of my specific responses and explanations, online, it was a simple matter to point out how the moment-to-moment monitoring of the affections is, of course, an affective monitoring – along with reminding him how the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was a family man working 12-14 hours a day for 6-7 days a week in order to feed, clothe and house everyone (mortgage commitments, hire-purchase payments, and etcetera) – and to thereafter verbalise what is freely available for perusal and edification on The Actual Freedom Trust web site. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 3 February 2016) Well, maybe we can have a candid chat at the snack bar about this quote, and the general idea Richard has written down many times, and that is the direct reproach given in being “taken aback by the implication and ramifications of such obvious ignorement/ ignoration of my specific responses and explanations, online….” It is not at all obvious “ignorement” unless one otherwise expects that other would at all times have remembered and considered everything one has said and written to them. I barely remember what I just said, let alone someone’s entire online repository of conversations. VINEETO: It might not look like “ignorement” to you because you weren’t active on the Actual Freedom mailing list and are therefore ill-informed about the situation. What was obvious, indicated already in the portion you snipped – Richard: Early on in my six-month visit to India in 2010 the person anonymised as Respondent № 04 on The Actual Freedom Trust list – whose first post is date-stamped 09 Jan 1999 on my portion of the web site – arranged to meet with me. Arriving after an early-hour inter-city train trip he spent around four or five hours with me and about an hour or so into the conversation he happened to mention, en passant, how he was not able to put the actualism method into practice at work as he could not be attentive to how he was experiencing this moment of being alive, each moment again, during his workaday hours as the job-description required that a large percentage of his time be spent at a computer station being attentive to the myriad manoeuvres on the computer screen virtually every moment of the day. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 3 February 2016) – that this particular person was one of the first subscribers (No. 4) and was actively reading and commenting on the list until August 2005 where he admitted a lack of interest – [Respondent No. 4]: ‘... I don’t have enough motivation to go beyond this [dropping the feeling so early, upon it beginning to arise, as if it never arose], because this itself is much better than most of my peers’. (Monday 1/08/2005 5:19 PM). 5 years later he subscribed to the Direct Route mail-out for the sole purpose to arrange a meeting with Richard in India. One would at least surmise a certain interest in what Richard has had to say about actualism and how to put it into practice including the correspondences he himself had with Richard (20 all told and often long ones at that). For instance – Richard to No. 4: The name of the game is to habituate an affective imitation of the actual each moment/ each place again – to consistently feel as happy and harmless (free of both malice and sorrow and, thus, their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – so as to enable the already always existing peace-on-earth to be apparent sooner rather than later ... therefore whenever/ wherever there is the slightest diminution of that felicity/ innocuity it speaks for itself that some event, which has been constantly granted the power such as to customarily render that peace and harmony short-lived, has been permitted, via a lifetime of continuous/ routine ignoration, to wreak its havoc once again. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 4a, 31 July 2005) Hence Richard’s expression of surprise at their not knowing about the affective aspect of monitoring of his feelings. As for your taking umbrage at Richard’s term “taken aback”, here is what the dictionaries have to say what this phrase can mean – Surprise, shock, stun, stagger, astound, astonish, startle, take by surprise, nonplus, bewilder. Sample usage: The family seemed taken aback by the overwhelming generosity of their neighbours. (Merriam-Webster). Of course there are other meanings such as dumbfound, daze, shake (up), jolt, throw, unnerve, disconcert, disturb, disquiet, unsettle, discompose, knock sideways, knock out. As dictionaries are descriptive and not prescriptive it says more about the attitude of the reader’s choice to take the word as an insult or criticism rather than a simple description of astonishment. All words are formed and used by feeling beings and therefore Richard was careful to find and use words, sometimes rare ones, which have the least emotional connotation, and he also he gave extensive dictionary definitions (often in footnotes/ tooltips) to explain which meaning is indicated. But nevertheless, despite the clear overall description of an actual freedom being devoid of ‘self’ and therefore sans any instinctual passions/ the affective faculty, some people still insist that Richard expresses malice and contempt, condemnation and “intentionally insulting”. It is part of the unbelievable/ unimaginable, incomprehensible/ inconceivable nature of the pristine purity of this actual world. There were others who considered “golly”, equally an expression of surprise, as a malicious utterance. Viz.: RESPONDENT: ... [is that] peace on earth is no where to be found in your correspondence. RICHARD: Golly ... all I did was ask my co-respondent whether they have ever got angry and, as they replied in the affirmative, I further enquired as to whether they, therefore, know from first-hand experience that it is a fact they got angry. Viz.: • [Richard to Co-Respondent]: ‘I asked you whether you have ever got angry and you replied in the affirmative: therefore you know from first-hand experience, do you not, that it is a fact you got angry? How on earth you can interpret that as being steamrolling/ verbally attacking (let alone devoid of peace on earth) has got me beat ... and the same applies to my next enquiry: • [Richard to Co-Respondent]: ‘You asked that friend of yours if he was angry and he replied in the affirmative: therefore he knows from first-hand experience, does he not, that it is a fact he got angry? And my next after that: • [Richard to Co-Respondent]: ‘And the same applies to each and every one of those people getting angry: provided they too report being angry they too know, do they not, from first-hand experience it is a fact they are angry? And what I wrote after that: • [Richard to Co-Respondent]: ‘Perhaps if I were to put it this way (in case that still appears tricky to you): by the very fact of having got angry on various occasions you report first-hand experiences (you are not expounding theory or hypotheses); by the very fact of having got angry that friend of yours also reports a first-hand experience (he too is not expounding theory or hypotheses); by the very fact of getting angry each and every one of those people getting angry can report first-hand experiences as well (they too would not be expounding theory or hypotheses)? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 89e, 26 January 2006). If I might suggest? Instead of interpreting my words try taking them at face value ... as I say what I mean, and mean what I say, it will make comprehension a whole lot easier. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 87a, 26 January 2006). ANDREW: As for my statement about “orthodox” actualism; It is not at all “risible” unless you otherwise expect that I am ignoring the orthodox way that Actualism is presented in. Perhaps you thought “orthodox” means something other than it’s literal meaning, but in both Richard’s response and your own, what explanation is there for this “taken aback, and risible” framing of his and your thoughts? VINEETO: Here is what orthodox means according to the Oxford dictionary – “following or conforming to the traditional or generally accepted rules or beliefs of a religion, philosophy, or practice. Synonyms: conservative, traditional, observant, conformist”. How does that square with actualism or an actual freedom – Richard: To be seeking spiritual freedom is to be going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. From the Homepage: “Actual freedom – new, non-spiritual, down-to-earth and actual”. And this from the Respondent Richard visited in India – RESPONDENT: After I wrote my comments on the earlier 3 parts of the e-mail yesterday and saved as draft, I was thinking about the newness issue of the actual world. Then this morning suddenly I got an insight (or is it an insight ?). I saw myself made of beliefs, feelings, emotions etc. So anything which is not this ‘I’ has to be new for if it is not new it would still be part of ‘me’. RICHARD: Excellent ... nothing of ‘you’ will remain. Nothing. RESPONDENT: Whether I will get into actual world or not by your method, but whenever ‘I’ cease to exist, whatever unfolds, has to be completely new, completely fresh with no shadow of the old. RICHARD: Yes, this moment is never-to-be-repeated ... thus it is ever-fresh and has to be visited again and again (unless one lives here all the time). One cannot re-visit it in memory ... as one can in the affective world’s reverie and nostalgia. Thus it is ever-perfect and impeccable in its purity. Nothing dirty can get in ... hence it needs no guarding. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 4, 26 January 1999). Naturally, for someone who would want to make actuality fit their own paradigm, it may appear offensive, dogmatic or orthodox. Devika, when she changed into Irene, pleaded with Richard to allow love being part of actuality. The identity will use any trick in the book to remain in existence. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found this out on many occasions. But the purity of the actual world was irresistibly attractive and ‘she’ the instinctual/ emotional identity, had to finally lay down ‘her’ arms and consequently gladly agreed to ‘her’ demise. ANDREW: Is it truly such that you forget how ‘normal’ works and have to keep commenting on it? I am trying to understand this particular quirk. VINEETO: I have been for the entire time “taken aback” and found it “risible” that anyone free would be surprised at anything at all in the human condition, and it’s always seemed that Richard especially was taking “jabs” at people when saying these types of statements. Perhaps, just perhaps you confuse an actual freedom with what equanimity means to Buddhists? ANDREW: Honestly, it comes across as if Richard was “dropped in from the sky” and had no handle on what the others were experiencing. As if he had never experienced it. In plain terms, it has always come across as both an uneasy indication that Richard wasn’t able to relate, even if only from memory, or was intentionally insulting people. The “taken aback” could do with some explanation. VINEETO: If you read more of the correspondences on the Actual Freedom website you may discover the sheer volume of explanations and descriptions and personal reports Richard presents in order to meet people’s objections, explain their puzzling misunderstandings and have them comprehend the startling out-of-this-world-ness of the purity of actuality. I have never met anyone who was as much actually caring about his fellow human beings as Richard – actually caring meaning assisting them to bring their suffering to an end sooner rather than later. Your objections speak for the warrior being still very much alive and active, looking for threats and insults from everywhere, including the only place, the actual freedom website and the present discussion forum, which could assist you in getting out of this war-zone. I remember an early message of yours (somewhere in 2009) saying that “I get up each morning girding myself for battle”. This message had a deep visceral impact on ‘Vineeto’, so much so that I still remember ‘her’ being “taken aback” (as in shocked) about how not only you but presumably many other people lived their lives as a constant instinctually-driven battle, looking out and defending against enemies, and ‘Vineeto’ was determined to do something about this situation, in herself, to demonstrate that such forever adversarial attitude need not go on forever. Here is the actualism method again – in case your previous reading was stopped by the “taken aback” phrase, this time explained by two correspondents – RICHARD: Aye, it is so very simple that some find its radicality hard to understand ... for instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘(...) After all, that’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? Not just to unravel the accrued identity, but to be happy and harmless. The method is incredibly simple: I am not happy now; I was happy a minute/ hour/ year ago; Ascertain what caused me to stop being happy; Get back to being happy as quickly as possible. No wonder this is so radical – it has none of the trappings and dogma that humans seem to need to create around such an elemental concept. Of course, sometimes simple things are the hardest to understand’. (Tuesday 6/05/2003 11:22 PM AEST). Or that its utter simplicity escapes them: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I have spent a lot of the last 18 months thinking about actualism, but the utter simplicity of it has escaped me. Let me take a snapshot before it flies away again. The idea is to spend as much time as possible feeling good, great, excellent or perfect. The universe itself needs no work, it is already fine. The peak experience shows that when we are okay the universe is perfect beyond compare. Human life can be fantastic. The universe doesn’t need to be improved before people can be happy. All we have to do is eliminate our own misery and malice, which resides right here in the breast (or brain stem)’. (Sunday 1/05/2005 11:44 AM AEST). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 30 October 2005). The only person you can change, and need to change, is yourself. Cheers Vineeto October 21 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto. Indeed, I had never considered that I was/am looking for “incoming attacks” constantly. Again, I am left puzzled at how I was ever going to get anywhere with this! It reminds me of a comedian who recently talked about general anxiety, where he had thought it was perfectly normal to a certain way around people. (Video-clip) VINEETO: Hi Andrew, This is the basic instinctual programming of ‘what can I eat, what can eat me’ at its most basic. It expresses itself emotionally and in varying strength. You can observe it in animals, from the jellyfish to the most developed mammal, and of course in humans. I was quite surprised about its complete absence when I first became actually free, even though I knew it would happen. I was even wondering how I would get along without this constant instinctual compass, how to deal with other human beings. It turned out to be utterly fine and deliciously intimate to only meet flesh-and-blood bodies. Intelligence is indeed sufficient to assess each and every situation sensibly and act accordingly. Now, Richard discovered and described a process where one can not only subdue/ suppress/ repress those instinctual passions via the age-old laws of conduct, dating back millennia to some god/goddess or bodiless entity, but that one can, with pure intent, whittle away both the social identity and passions and feelings and eventually manumit the physical body from the entire instinctual-emotional identity as well. ANDREW: It’s less of a warrior, and more of a worrier. I know this because although I do remember saying what you remembered, it was I believe borrowed from someone else saying it, and when I heard them say it, I identified with it heavily. I was in my mid-twenties, in a large corporate setting talking to the drafting manager. At the same time I had been going through extreme psych/ spiritual events whilst leaving Christianity only a few years prior. The process went on for around 5 years. In that time I had even given myself a new private name, which was coupled with (in hindsight) sub-clinical hallucinations both visual and auditory. (All this is self diagnosing here) One of the things I had been contemplating in the last few weeks was the amount of terror I suppress. Specifically related to Christianity and the otherwise ghoulish nature of the doctrines of hell and sin. The medieval invention of hell, with its Dante and others horror was more real to me than I had previously thought. Wired into me, and intertwined with everyday anxiety which might be considered more “everyday” and normal. VINEETO: I appreciate your detailed feedback. You must have been particularly sensitive and impressible in that the doctrines and descriptions of hell and horror left such a lasting and persistent mark of terror on you. ANDREW: It may all well be something very normal, as there was always this sense that I was craving notoriety, that I had “no excuse” and craved something to explain my ineptitude. However, even typing that out I can see the “sin nature” doctrine speaking, That I am forever doomed except by the grace of god. VINEETO: It looks as if you haven’t left Christianity completely behind yet, at least there is still the belief of the devilish and divine interference of some supernatural being operating. Are you perhaps able to remember an early PCE where you experienced that everything is already perfect? (Check out FAQ 64a for inspiration). It was an insight from a PCE which enabled feeling being ‘Vineeto’ to finally be done with any belief in God whatsoever. But she had already loosened up the belief in the Christianity via Eastern spirituality where a human being is ‘God’ on earth and then questioned the validity of that claim via sensible contemplation. Viz.: ‘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 realisation. 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. (A Bit of Vineeto, #oneevening) ANDREW: It would seem that I have only one MO that has results, disappear then cause (in my mind) a “stir” and by someone else’s “grace” get saved. If only for a few weeks. VINEETO: Ha, that is not very a satisfying way to live, is it? ANDREW: It’s always been a huge source of guilt, that I would desire there to be something “wrong” with me. Whilst these entire time, there was indeed always something that was “off” but it was not directly those things at all. Thanks. VINEETO: Guilt is a terrible weapon of dominance, and Christianity is as responsible of wielding it as any other religion. What allowed ‘Vineeto’ to reduce and whittle down ‘her’ guilt of being alive – such as having to be useful to be allowed to take up space, apart from the guilt of being ‘bad’, sinful, disobedient, unenlightened and all the rest – was the factual understanding (confirmed by the PCE, but also via the sensible explanations from Richard who had first made sense of it) how the human condition operates. It also made it clear that ‘she’, like every other human being, is in this situation by no fault of her own. Richard: The term ‘Human Condition’ is a universally-accepted philosophical expression referring to the situation all human beings find themselves in when they emerge as babies on this verdant and azure planet which begat the human race and whereat humankind flourishes. This well-known phrase refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures down through the ages. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone; all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their affective-psychic nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged since time immemorial and it requires constant vigilance lest sorrow, with its ever-attendant malice, gains the upper hand. An admixture of social mores and cultural folkways seek to control the wayward self which lurks deep within the human breast; and some semblance of peace – an ad hoc and uneasy truce – prevails for the main. Wherever virtuous morality and principled ethicality fails to curb this ‘savage beast’ some form of law and order is maintained – albeit, ultimately at the point of a gun – by state-sanctioned policing. (Richard, Abditorium, Human Condition). Richard: As I slowly started to unravel the mess that humankind was deeply mired in by unravelling it in me, I discovered a second layer under ‘my’ acculturated ethnicity ... ‘I’ was brainwashed into being a ‘man’ and not simply a flesh and blood male body. Under the enculturated layers lies a further identity ... the genetically-inherited animal ‘self’. It took me years and years of exploration and discovery to find out that ‘I’ was a ‘me’ – a ‘being’ – and not simply a flesh and blood body. By identification as ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity was able to ‘possess’ this body. It is not unlike those Christians who are said to be possessed by an evil entity and require exorcism. Only this ‘possession’ was called being normal. Therefore, every human being is thus possessed by an ‘alien entity’ ... I discovered that a ‘walk-in’ was in control of this body and that this ‘walk-in’ was ‘me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12a, 28 January 1999). There is more as that correspondence continues but this part already explains that being normal means being possessed by “‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity”, who, because ‘I’ am not actual, naturally feels guilty and afraid to be exposed as a fake. No god of any description is even necessary to instil this guilt for being a contingent ‘being’ [non-factual, dependant], it comes with the genetically endowed package at birth. Gods/ Goddesses are invented to justify feeling the guilt in the first place. It is my guess that those fictitious deities and supernatural beings wouldn’t have the convincing power they have over human feelings if the guilt of being a ‘being’ wasn’t there in each person to begin with. When ‘Vineeto’ increasingly understood this, ‘her’ guilt of ‘being’ was gradually dislodged by recognizing that ‘she’ could do something about ‘her’ situation – ‘she’ could reduce the power of the ‘self’ by becoming more and more happy and harmless and enjoying and appreciating being here. To explain in short – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings enhance the identity while felicitous and innocuous feelings diminish the identity and thus sincerity is able to reduce/ even dissipate the guilt or unease being an impostor. Being ruthlessly honest and sincere is an essential ingredient to stop hiding and become naïve, enjoying the adventure of unravelling the mysteries of the way we tick and the conditions we are born into. So, Andrew, you can safely abandon the terror and guilt of the god of the Bible or the god of Spinoza or any other Supernatural deity now that you know where the guilt originates, coupled with the good news that you can do something about the source of your unease of being a ‘being’. I suggest you read it slowly, it is at first mind-boggling but will make sense if you allow common sense (rather than defence and terror) to operate. Cheers Vineeto October 22 2025 VINEETO: It is my guess that those fictitious deities and supernatural beings wouldn’t have the convincing power they have over human feelings if the guilt of being a ‘being’ wasn’t there in each person to begin with. ANDREW: Thank you Vineeto! I appreciate your time on this topic, as it has been so central to me, even when I didn’t know it was! This quote above, supports something that has been in my thinking lately, at least it’s a similar insight. That ‘being’ uses ‘morality’ and indeed any ‘value’ system at all, as a tool. the ‘self’ is surviving through the very tools which are “supposedly” keeping it in check! VINEETO: Yes. Now when you instead of the subtle detachment by calling it ‘being’ or ‘self’ you boldly acknowledge that ‘you’ are this very ‘being’ or ‘self’, the sentences would read like this – [example only]: ‘I’ use morality and any ‘value’ system at all, as a tool. ‘I’ am surviving through the very tools which are “supposedly” keeping ‘me’ in check! [end example]. What this does, it puts the choice right back where it belongs – ‘you’ can now choose to do something about it. You can decide to reduce the dominance of ‘me’ by diminishing malice and sorrow, by becoming more felicitous and innocuous via the actualism method as described. (This Moment of Being Alive) ANDREW: It “seems” that it is keeping us in check, but I suspect that’s only part of it, that it’s intrinsically linked to the ‘self’. Richard: A social identity is a psychological creation manufactured by society to act as a guardian over the wayward rudimentary self one was born with. All sentient beings are born with a biologically coded instinctive drive for physical survival which, when one is operating and functioning with a group of people, is potentially a danger to the survival of other group members. Hence the need for principles and morals and ethics to regulate the conduct of each person ... with appropriate rewards and punishments to ensure compliance. In a well-meant but ultimately short-sighted effort to prevent gaols from being filled to over-flowing, a social identity – a psychological guardian – is fabricated in an earnest endeavour to prevent the offences from happening in the first place. This ‘guardian’ is programmed with a set of values and charged with the role of acting as a conscience over the wayward self. A conscience is made up of a sure knowledge of what is Right or Wrong and Good or Bad ... as determined by each society. By and large this enterprise has proved to be effective – only a small minority of citizens fail to behave in a socially acceptable manner. (Library, Social Identity). As such the social identity is as much an aspect of ‘you’ as the instinctual passions which the social mores are attempting to curb. Richard: One can become aware of all the socialisation, of all the conditioning, of all the programming, of all the methods and techniques that were used to control what one finds oneself to be ... a wayward ego and compliant soul careering around in confusion and illusion. A ‘mature adult’ is actually a lost, lonely, frightened and cunning psychological entity overlaying a psychic ‘being’. (Library, Social Identity). However, this suggestion comes with a warning – Richard: Warning: It is an utterly fundamental proviso that pure intent be dedicatorily in place – as an overriding/ overarching life-devotional goal which takes absolute precedence over all else – before any such whittling away of the otherwise essential societal/ cultural conditioning be undertaken. [Emphases added]. (Library, Social Identity). I gave you the whole picture regarding guilt in the last message and this one in order that you can comprehend the origin of your guilt and therefore your beliefs in deities and demons may be understood as a hopeful/ terrifying diversion from the very reason why you experience an unease about being a contingent [non-factual, dependant] ‘being’. Recognizing these facts allow you take remedial action. I can also recommend Richard, Selected Correspondence, Guilt and Richard, Catalogue, Sin with links to follow for further information. ANDREW: Like you said the gods had an easy time as all the aspects of the ‘self’ where already in place, the highly social, yet immensely ‘selfish’ entity uses all of these inventions, primarily to survive as a ‘self’. It’s been highlighted recently as certain events which could be called “immoral” (in my upbringings set of rules), and whilst factually harmless, gave me a lot to think about my own “morality”. As I witnessed others live their “morality” and be fine! I will reread your posts as it is very refreshing to have these feelings linked back to the broader context of “eat or be eaten” fears and aggressions. Thanks Andrew VINEETO: It can certainly help you in being more kind to yourself. Cheers Vineeto October 24 2025 ANDREW: Turns out, ‘I’ pre-date god! The discussion with Vineeto about all the ingredients of god and religion essentially existing before any of the religions or belief systems happened, was both very freeing and fresh, but also surprisingly obviously the case! VINEETO: Hi Andrew, I am pleased it had this effect on you, and your opening line is quite correct – ‘I’ as the identity formed from the swirl of instinctual passions certainly pre-dates god. Richard: As I understand it, in the on-going study of genetics the germ cells (the spermatozoa and the ova) have been classified as being of a somewhat different nature to body cells. This has led to speculation that each and every body is nothing but a carrier for the genetic lineage ... that the species, therefore, is more important than you and me or any other body. Now, whilst that theory is just a typically ‘humble’ way of interpreting the data, it did strike me, some years ago, that this genetic memory could very well be the origin of the immortal ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ (as contrasted to ‘I’ as ego who will undergo physical death). Hence it occurred to me that the source of ‘who ‘I’ really am’ could very well be nothing more mysterious than blind nature’s survival software. I have always had a bent for the practical explanation ... and solution. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Vineeto, 30 September 1999). Richard: Speaking personally, in my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. I found ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings (which ‘original face’ is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory; being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. Hence: ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 15 October 1999). ANDREW: So, ‘I’ have had all the aspects of what later were “codified” in religious fear and guilt, love, compassion, sin, etc… long before anyone had imagined the first “handing down” of commandments or any such thing. Even before my favourite “bicameral” people theory, all the passionate energy of ‘who’ I am “really”; blind nature’s rough and ready survival and reproduction “programs”, was there! Fully intact and in full flight! VINEETO: I’ll butt in here before you go on and insert a feeling, and a fresh identity, into this remarkable insight. I suggest to linger a bit longer in this pre-identifying gap, if you can, and allow some further fascinated reflective contemplation regarding the ramifications and consequences of having been able to shed the wrath and grace of god, and ponder how you can enjoy and appreciate this freedom, and if it is worth to do whatever necessary to maintain such enjoyment of freedom. Richard: One starts to feel ‘alive’. Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur. An apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being fully alive right now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to ‘there’, along the way to ‘there’ you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). ANDREW: It’s a remarkably freeing fresh feeling to know this is a fact. I feel it! I feel it in a very direct down-to-earth-way. It’s the same “flavour” as my previous “one with god” illumination years, but without anything between the freshness and the knowing of it. When I have felt this before, it was in the context of new age, “I am god” imaginations et. al. There was that colouring of supernatural power is “around the corner”, and walking on water was inevitable. This is just feeling the fact of ‘being’ ‘myself’. ‘I’ know what I am!’. Me? I know who I am! I am a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude! Simple. VINEETO: Have you noticed, once you condensed the insight into a feeling and as such into a belief, and then collate it with those feelings of a familiar flavour, similar to previous affective experiences, that the original insight instantly loses its freshness and poignancy? You even conclude (erroneously) “just feeling the fact of ‘being’ ‘myself’. ‘I’ know what I am!’” Now, a feeling can never be a fact as a feeling cannot experience, let alone know, “what I am”. What you are is the flesh-and-blood body only, as experienced when the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance. Whereas the feeling “of ‘being’ ‘myself’” is a passionate feeling born of the instinctual passions – and it not only changes according to your fluctuating moods but, as you already discovered, can also be changed by choice for your benefit and the benefit of those around you. Now that you determined (believe) that you are “a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude” – what are you going to do with this feeling? Do you want to live like those ‘dudes’ in the video you attached (Yuri Wong “I am a Dude”), driven by passion, or perhaps be inspired by a more happy and friendly way of life? Such as – Richard: It is all so simple, in the actual world; no effort is needed to meet the requisite morality of society. I have no ‘dark nature’, no unconscious impulses to curb, to control, to restrain. It is all so easy, in the actual world; I can take no credit for my apparently virtuous behaviour because actual freedom automatically provides beneficial thoughts and deeds. It is all so spontaneous, in the actual world; I do not do it ... it does itself. Vanity, egoism, selfishness ... all self-centred activity has ceased to operate when ‘I’ and ‘me’ as ‘being’ ceased to ‘be’. And it is all so peaceful, in the actual world; it is only in actualism that human beings can have peace-on-earth without toiling fruitlessly to be ‘good’. The answer to everything that has puzzled humankind for all of human history is readily elucidated when one is actually free. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated and laid open for all those with the eyes to see. Life was meant to be easy. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Mark, #peaceful) Cheers Vineeto October 25 2025 VINEETO: I’ll butt in here before you go on and insert a feeling, and a fresh identity, into this remarkable insight. I suggest to linger a bit longer in this pre-identifying gap, if you can, and allow some further fascinated reflective contemplation regarding the ramifications and consequences of having been able to shed the wrath and grace of god, and ponder how you can enjoy and appreciate this freedom, and if it is worth to do whatever necessary to maintain such enjoyment of freedom. ANDREW: Indeed, I can heed these words quite willingly. I am very much enjoying some of the ramifications. For one, driven the freeway each morning and night is usually a huge annoyance. However, being as you say, a feeling and not a fact, (I will remember this, very useful and easy to remember). I see other drivers just doing what any person driven by the exact same blind program will do, variations on a theme, and actually amazing that we all get where we are going, the vast majority of time. It was so much easier to see my own anger, and it all be pre-morality. All happening before morality was even a thing, in the modern sense. I felt it is a lightweight manner, as the feeling and the knowledge were immediate. I wasn’t trying to “not be angry”, I was angry, but was not exploding because I was not repressed. It was definitely the beginning of fascination. It was interesting. Feeling myself, watching others. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, Yes, it is generally “morality” incorporated into one’s own identity and the accompanying self-image which stands in the way of acknowledging the feeling which is happening. But once “the feeling and the knowledge were immediate” and you know that this is ‘me’ in action, then it is easy to choose to be in a more pleasant and harmonious manner – voilà, you are instantly more happy and harmless. And thus there is room for fascination and contemplation. Life is amazingly fascinating when ‘I’ don’t insist of having an emotional opinion/ reaction to everything that is happening. That’s why I ‘butted in’ before you proceeded (in the last message) to make “a fresh identity” which would consolidate whatever you feel into a substantial (seriously important) event demanding protection and defence of this freshly created identity. Here it is explained more fully – Richard: The actualism method – enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive – that was first put into action in 1981 is a potent method specifically aimed at experiencing a condition of uninterrupted apperception ... which means that the peace-on-earth that is already always here – now – will become apparent. When one first becomes aware of something there is a fleeting instant of pure perception of sensum, just before one affectively identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia (the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and also before one cognitively recognises the percept (the mental product or result of perception), and this ‘raw sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of the actual. Pure perception is at that instant where one converges one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is the split-second just as one hedonically subjectifies it ... which is just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous distinguishment ... in a word: apperceptiveness. In that brief scintillating instant of bare awareness, 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. Apperceptiveness is very much like what one sees with one’s peripheral vision as opposed to the intent focus of normal or central vision. One experiences a smoothly flowing moment of clear experiencing where one is interlocked with the rest of actuality, not separate from it. This moment of soft, ungathered sensuosity – apperceptiveness – contains a vast understanding, an utter cognisance, that is lost as soon as one adjusts one’s mind to accommodate the feeling-tone ... and subverts the crystal-clear objectivity into an ontological ‘being’ ... a connotative ‘thing-in-itself’. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness) Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ never paid much attention to this article, ‘she’ found it too dense, but now I can see how much information it contains for understanding and achieving apperceptiveness right from the beginning. I am reminded of Peter talking about looking from the front of one’s eyeballs. Peter: Something Richard said that I found useful was to practice bringing my visual awareness to the very front of the eyeballs. I found this is the best ‘I’ can do to mimic ‘self’-less seeing – there is less of the feeling of ‘me’ looking through the eyes and more of the feeling of the eyes seeing. In this way you also avoid the risk of becoming ‘the observer’ watching ‘the observed’, but more closely mimic what you actually are – the universe sensately experiencing itself as a thinking and reflective corporeal human being. (Actualism, Peter, Actual Freedom List, No. 52, 22.9.2003). ANDREW: It seems all so much easier. VINEETO: It is indeed “much easier” and a marvellous way of living naïvely. This is wonderful. Cheers Vineeto October 28 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto, It’s been great having an experience that can indeed be related back to that article! It was a favourite article back when I first was introduced to Actualism by the Dharma Overground forum. I have had the ongoing feeling that the entire background has changed. Twice, there was an ever so slight shift in perception, just upon realising something fresh with this new knowledge of ‘I’ preceding the entire mess of religion. The sky sort of blinked a slightly different colour today when walking to get some lunch. And also, this morning whilst watching cars “cut in” front of me, there was a definite sense of choice happening and a slight shift in perception. Almost like neither happened, but the feeling was as if ‘I’ could shift altogether out into the world. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, This is excellent and I am pleased you had a different experience to the article than you had years ago when you were still reading it from the DhO-paradigm. Pay attention to that “ever so slight shift in perception” because this is the beginning to your experiential understanding of what actualism is – doing whatever you can to imitate the actual world. And having discovered the “definite sense of choice happening” is your guide to change feeling bad, for whatever reason, into feeling good and enjoying and appreciating being here in this only moment you can experience being alive. Then you can begin to also apply this “sense of choice” to minimise the ‘good feelings’ as well – Richard: “the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting), along with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful)” “so that one is free to feel the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are delightful and harmonious) and thereby make a pure consciousness experience (PCE) more likely”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Jonathan, 4 January 2006). ANDREW: The choice to feel good isn’t always obvious though. That seems that I need to sort out some logistics in my life. Practical things in my living space, as they are an ever-present excuse to feel frustrated. VINEETO: When the choice to feel good is not obvious, there may be some good feelings as well as some valued beliefs you don’t want to give up and/or, as you say, some required action in regard to “sort out some logistics in my life” which you might have so far shied away from. In any case, this new “ever so slight shift in perception” which now gives you a “definite sense of choice happening” is an opening to change your life for the better. ANDREW: I will read that Apperception article again. Thanks Andrew VINEETO: It is a pleasure to read your feedback. It bodes well for imminent beneficial changes for increasing feeling good. Cheers Vineeto November 14 2025 ANDREW: I don’t like the feeling of being better than others. I want everyone to be special, and to enjoy that. I don’t like people being left behind. I don’t enjoy being infatuated, but to be honest, I do enjoy people being infatuated with me, for a moment at least, because then it’s in my power to be nice to them. To enjoy their blind desire towards me. I am only thinking of a single person when I wrote that last part! Haha Edit: no, I just experienced really strongly once. I do get it day to day. I like being nice to people who ‘desire’ me, because usually I see them feeling they need me somehow. Musing aside, I realise that I am perpetually stuck on a single issue. It’s related to the above musings, but more towards how I can’t motivate myself anymore. I don’t have any answers for this central issue of motivation. In context, everything that motivated me was , as Vineeto touched on, a fight or flight, eat or be eaten, reproduce and survive type of life. Even my precious music! All of it. In other news, there has been far more moments of just being a human, “pre-religion” in the last few weeks. I really wanted to ask a question, but I forgot what it was I wanted to know as soon as I started typing. Asking others for help has always been a huge problem for me. I feel I should be helping everyone else, but I just don’t have anything to give anymore. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, You had a big insight – “pre-religion” – and you most likely still digest all the ramifications and consequences of that. Until this settles down, any “motivation” for action is likely to be a mental/ moral construct. So instead of looking for others “blind desire towards me” why not start with being friendly with yourself and perhaps be sincere and honest with yourself enough that you can get to the point where you genuinely and naïvely like yourself. ANDREW: I guess I can do better than that. The last few weeks, after Vineeto pointed out that all me religious fears were essentially the “eat or be eaten” fears of blind nature, I had the experience of “popping out” the other side of the bulbous growth that religious belief is in my life. Like some vine infected along its length with a parasite, all that heightened dramatic and complex Dante’s circles of hell, was seen as an inflammatory response. My question is; how does one care enough about oneself to do anything about one’s happiness? (…) VINEETO: Exactly – that’s why I suggested to do something you may not have done before – be friends with yourself. Here is a practical example – Q: And notice how often you put yourself down. R: Tell yourself off. Q(1): For thinking it! R: One discovers that the way one tells oneself off; if one were to talk to another person like that – a friend – one would not have any friends left. You have to live with yourself twenty four hours a day; if you are talking to yourself in such a way that you are not a good friend to yourself, then what are you doing? If I were to talk like that to you, be sharp with you, you would have nothing to do with me. Are you not sharp upon yourself? Q(1): I am very sharp upon myself. R: It is a good thing to become friends with yourself, to decide not to tell yourself off any more: ‘Okay, I will make mistakes from time to time, because I am still human, but if I ‘goof-up’ I will not exacerbate the situation by imposing a condemnation upon myself.’ One always has another chance, another moment in which to do better, to make it work this time. It is always a quick thought, a swift reproach: ‘Oh, you fool!’ or ‘You shouldn’t do that!’ or ‘How stupid!’ Q: Or you’re not good enough: ‘You should know better than that!’ R: It is good to cease doing that because only you live with yourself for the twenty four hours of the day. Everybody else comes and goes, but you remain, ever constant ... for the rest of your life. I can not stress enough how important it is for you to be your own best friend. For then you get to know yourself – you are no longer against yourself. You can discover things about your own make-up: ‘Oh, isn’t that interesting’ or ‘I like that one’ or ‘I didn’t know I was carrying that’ or ‘I’m glad that one is out of the way’. Sometimes, of course, something can come back, three days, three weeks or three months later: ‘Goodness me, I thought I had eliminated that one’. See how vital it is that you are your own best ‘buddy’? You say: ‘Well, I thought I had dealt with that but never mind, I have another moment here, another chance’. This way you work with yourself, instead of in opposition. It is very important. And it is such good fun! Then, everything you do in your daily life, moment to moment, is taking advantage of multiple opportunities. Every moment again is an occasion to improve your lot ... when you are interacting with someone, either face to face or on the telephone ... or a back-ache: ‘Oh god, how terrible!’ ... another opportunity. It is bad enough to feel pain, why make it worse by adding an emotional suffering like ‘I feel terrible’? To feel terrible, emotionally, on top of the physical pain is simply silly when it is possible to disentangle oneself, emotionally, and still feel good about being alive, about being here. This is being sensible, is it not? To feel good, if not happy, all the time? (…) R: Nor for anything. Please, do not use ‘silly’ and ‘sensible’ as a substitute for moralistic values ... that would defeat the purpose. It is a practical, everyday, common-sense thing: ‘How am I feeling at this moment?’ or ‘Am I feeling good?’ or ‘Am I feeling bad?’ ... ‘Oh that’s silly, I’ll do something about myself until I feel good’. Simply, it is sensible to feel good. This is my moment of being alive – I am not alive five minutes ago, nor am I alive five minutes ahead. This is my only moment of being here. How am I experiencing this moment? If I am not experiencing it well now, when will I? It will be a ‘now’ moment when I do, so why not make this ‘now’ moment ... this one that is happening right now. Why waste it by feeling rotten? Why not enjoy it? It works! I am not merely talking theory, this is what I did back in ‘81. I have not missed a moment for sixteen years ... it is always this moment. What a misspent life, to waste each moment waiting for a future happiness ... to sit around feeling rotten, berating oneself, feeling guilty, and so on. And another way to be rid of ... Do you want me to go on? Q(1): I’m digesting, I’m listening. R: On a slightly different track ... another way of operating is to put everything on a ‘it does not matter’ basis – you know, where you prefer to do something rather than have to? (Richard, Audio-Taped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible). Cheers Vineeto November 15 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto, It’s such a lovely post to read, again. Especially it stands out to me that the harshness is automatic. The belief that I really should be better than I am. Hmm. Yes, it’s a nonverbal question, an acceptance. It was only the other day, after a week of really only thinking about the single line “emotionally accepting the intellectually unacceptable” that it finally dawned on me that the acceptance was the opposite of rejection! I spend so much time emotionally rejecting everything! Including myself in whatever form I perceive myself. I am not exaggerating when I say I was, in terms of Actualism interest, thinking of just this one saying Richard liked. I was determined that something he liked should be something I understood, instead of rejecting it, or glossing past it. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, It is a good idea to start “emotionally accepting the intellectually unacceptable”. That, of course, includes accepting yourself as you are, i.e. being friends with yourself. If that is too difficult right away, you can start with something easier – the weather, for instance. And with more practice of observing and acknowledging some of the things you are “emotionally rejecting”, get back to feeling good and then think about it how it makes no sense to make yourself feel bad (that’s what rejection does) about all kinds of things, which are not in your control. What is in your control is how you feel – and you can bit by bit choose to be a different feeling, a more happy and harmless feeling. Simply because it feels good to feel good. RICHARD: Given that people are as-they-are and that the world is as-it-is there are more than a few things which are ‘unacceptable’ (child abuse, rape, murder, torture and so on). What worked for me twenty-odd years ago, as a preliminary step, was to rephrase the question so that it makes sense (rather than vainly apply any of those unliveable ‘unconditional acceptance’ type injunctions): Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable? (Richard, List B, James2, 18 August 2001). RESPONDENT: What do you mean by ‘emotionally accept?’ RICHARD: To cease emotionally objecting, resisting, rejecting (or denying) and to be emotionally welcoming, consenting, receiving (or acknowledging) ... without being emotionally aloof, indifferent, apathetic (or vacillating). RESPONDENT: Do you mean to say that you accepted (saw) that you were ‘emotional’ and reacted to persons and events in an emotional way (over 20 years ago)? RICHARD: Yes ... this is the crux of the issue: ‘I’ am a feeling ‘being’ (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’). (Richard, List B, No. 19h, 19 August 2001). * Richard: Which is why I suggest that it is advisable to emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable so that one’s native intelligence can emerge into full view of its own accord. In the jargon it is known as ‘being open’ (as in the ‘unlimited possibility of anything being possible’) ... inasmuch as one will be embracing each situation that life provides by emotionally welcoming, readily consenting to, receiving fully and unabashedly acknowledging every circumstance so as to find out, once and for all, just what is going on ... and to discover what intelligence actually is. This is because one needs to somehow enable an intellectual openness ... so as to circumvent/ break through what is known as ‘cognitive dissonance’. Intelligence will thus no longer be crippled. (Richard, List B, No. 19h, 22 August 2001). If you find that it works to emotionally accept some of the things you emotionally rejected, you can then expand the list of your resentments and give attention to them to reduce them bit by bit – you will find that the resentment against liking yourself will simultaneously diminish as well. It’s an adventure, Andrew, and with increasing success it will increasingly be fun too. Remember what you said about the Global Warming controversy, after you had discussed and investigated it for facts for a while – Andrew: “Despite whatever other dramas I am having in life, it’s lovely to look up at the sky these days without the doom and gloom of the AGW beliefs clouding my appreciation”. Cheers Vineeto November 16 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto. There has been an interesting and very strong emotional charge that I have had my whole life around creativity. My mother reported it to me being very obvious even at two years old! If I can’t immediately master something I give up! The side effect is I try extremely hard to get it right. Which, given a natural talent for music and art, and by extension anything that involves 3 dimensional mental understandings, I excel at these endeavours, without putting in “hard yards”. I started feeling it again a lot lately while trying to get back into creating musical recordings. I bought equipment which I thought would do the job, but it is far more complex and unintuitive that that old “two-year-old” reaction was there! Given your recent reminders about “fight or flight, eat or be eaten”, i.e. the blind natural basis of a feeling being, I am now wondering what this particular emotional rejection around putting effort “over time” into creativity. Still pondering this. It’s a strong reaction. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, It looks like you came across your first major obstacle to put everything on a preference basis. You say there is a “very strong emotional charge” to “immediately master something”, otherwise “I give up” and that you had this “strong charge” since you were “two years old”. Now since that time as a toddler you have most likely experienced other “very strong emotional” charges. Are you equally compelled to obey those “very strong emotional” charges or only this particular one. Why this one? Why do you allow this two-year-old toddler’s “emotional charge” to continue to dominate your life today? You could let this emotional charge subside whenever it appears, until you are back to feeling good, and then calmly think about it – does it not look silly to you? Naturally, it’s a long-standing habit, but that does not mean it cannot be changed – if you have the intent to no longer let it control your life. Wouldn’t it make sense to address this dominating emotional charge so it no longer prevents you from succeeding in mastering something, anything you want to do? ANDREW: I have been listening to a favourite band a lot lately, while letting this understandings sink in; there is a simple answer to the question, once the parade of religion has passed. (Hah, made that line up just then, but I like it). That is, this objection to putting in effort is mixed in with plenty of “after the fact” beliefs about it. Basically, my own private religion around “getting it right the first time” but also, never being better than anyone else, but craving the love of everyone. Ok, that’s still complex, but it feels ridiculous! So, it seems the correct track. (snipped video). VINEETO: Ha, you identified two beliefs from your “own private religion” which contribute to the “very strong emotional charge” to “immediately master something”, apart from that it also needs to be perfect – “getting it right the first time” “never being better than anyone else”. It indeed “feels ridiculous”. Well spotted. It’s time to proceed removing these beliefs of your “private religion” from your personal emotional database, don’t you think? As for “craving the love of everyone” – have you recently remembered to be friends with yourself, and appreciating your nous [common sense] when you discovered, and consequently dismantled, some obstacle to feeling good? Liking yourself does a lot to diminish the need for everyone else to like (love) you. Cheers Vineeto November 17 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto, Firstly, I am starting to look at the “why” would be so invested in rejecting effort over time when mastering anything? Is it simply a two year old tantrum? Without actually being originally a tantrum? I think it’s in the class of all those primordial type feelings and morals which form into religion, as you were writing about. This is such a powerful paradigm to see all of the elaborate stories I tell myself about who I am! VINEETO: Hi Andrew, Ok, you found “all those primordial type feelings and morals which form into religion” – firm beliefs that look like the unviable truth. Yet when you say “I think”, which is not the same as saying ‘I know’, you show that your contemplative exploration can go further until you reach the point when you can say “it clicked” – possibly even when such a “clicked” realisation can lead to the disappearance of the hold that these firm beliefs have on your life. ANDREW: It seems to me that it’s in the class of feelings which are very egalitarian, giving rise to the injunctions of humility etc. Being excellent at something naturally can’t be helped, but trying and practicing and putting in effort seems to be cheating. It sounds ridiculous, because it is ridiculous! VINEETO: Perhaps you are not sure (“it seems”). Keep exploring until you get to the bottom of it. Regarding those so-called “egalitarian” feelings such as “humility” – these words describe virtuous feelings, part of the ‘good’ desirable feelings, those that are loving and trusting and virtue-signalling. As you have probably been finding out during your life so far, those are just as detrimental to your (and others’) wellbeing as those more easily detectable hostile and fearful feelings. Here is Richard’s comment on humility, which is merely pride standing on its head – RESPONDENT: ‘I’ took all my glasses off years ago. Concern and hope may push or pull ‘me’ towards an AF ‘belief system’ and it binds while ‘I’, (and others), persist in being superior, inferior, unequal instinct-ridden or problem-ridden. RICHARD: What ‘glasses’ did you ‘take off years ago’? I only ask because what part does ‘hope’ have to play in one who has no glasses? Also, what is an ‘AF ‘belief system’’ when it is at home? Is it that bogus ‘belief system’ which ‘binds’ or is it the ‘hope’ that ties? Lastly, as an actual freedom from the human condition is so superior to anything any other human being has ever lived, it leaves any ‘being superior, inferior, unequal’ posturing in the litigious ‘Land Of Lament’ for dead. It has always amused me, whenever some spiritual aspirant takes me to task for being superior, that they praise the humility of their current hero ... all the whilst apparently not noticing that their ‘humble saviour’ is swanning about busily being ‘God On Earth’ or a ‘Supreme Being’ by any other name! (Richard, Aactual Freedom List, No. 2, #superior). ANDREW: However, there is the aspect that excellence of skill for the purpose of feeling better than others, or seeking love, fame, recognition, also goes against some primordial “levelling” morality. An ancient “tall poppy syndrome”. Perhaps it’s just the modern version. I am Australian after all. VINEETO: Ah, I understand now the uncommon directive that “putting in effort seems to be cheating” and that only natural excellence is permitted. It is there to prevent pride – of course, if you never achieve anything by not putting in effect, you have never anything to be proud of! What you can do instead of repressing your pride by being ineffective in your actions is to gain some dignity and autonomy by choosing a different path to the Tried and Failed altogether with the intention to become happy and harmless. Then remember to pat yourself on the back whenever you succeed in finding and dismantling an obstacle to feeling good and discovering how you tick – JONATHAN: ... but it his [Richard’s] point about patting yourself on the back which is most pertinent here. RICHARD: The following is a quote which will serve to illustrate just what it is you are referring to. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: I can’t thank you enough for reiterating how to use HAIETMOBA?. I have read it fifty times, but this time it clicked. There is something to watch out for, which is the feeling of upset. I am just used to living with my upsetting feelings by ignoring them or repressing them, because I shouldn’t get upset ... you know? ... it’s not right to be upset, etc. So to go looking for the incident like you suggest wasn’t working because ... I’m always upset! due to repressing or analysing why I shouldn’t have the bad feeling. I mean, where would I start? When I saw this about myself I was happy and from there I was able to locate an upsetting incident that day. • [Richard]: Good ... and once one gets the knack of it (it does take diligence and application and patience and perseverance in the beginning) it all becomes such fun to find out, each moment again, how one ticks. One thing I did, way back when I started doing that method, was to make sure I would never, ever, tell myself off for slipping back into the old ways – after all ‘I am only human’ and it is bound to happen from time-to-time – and instead I would pat myself on the back for being astute enough to notice that I had slipped back and thus get on with the business of being happy and harmless again ... and feeling good about myself for being able to do so. It is important to be friends with oneself – only I get to live with myself twenty four hours of the day (other people can and do move away) – and if I am at war with myself, disciplining myself, telling myself off, I am alienating the only person who can truly help me in all this. In short: be nice to yourself, not nasty ... there are already enough people doing that anyway. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 11 October 2003). (…) JONATHAN: So it is a very good idea to pat yourself on the back whenever it will promote felicity or get you feeling excellent so you can move on to wide eyed wonder. RICHARD: No, what is a very good idea (to use your phrasing) is to pat yourself on the back whenever you succeed in finding out just what it is which is preventing this moment of being alive – the only moment you are ever actually alive – from being lived at its optimum. In doing so you get to find out how you operate and function (just what it is that makes you ‘tick’ as it were) each moment again. JONATHAN: So if you are a salesman and just made a big sale, pat yourself on the back with the aim of increasing your current happiness so you can on move to feeling excellent and then to wide eyed wonder. RICHARD: No, I neither said that nor anything of that nature (I am clearly talking of success, no matter how slight it may be, regarding consciousness and not in regards to materialistic success). [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 4 August 2013). The beginning of this correspondence also clarifies the issue of pride and humility. By the way, there is no such thing as a “primordial “levelling” morality” – the “primordial morality” is the law of the jungle. Morals and ethics were put in place to curb the worst excesses of the instinctual passions. I highly recommend reading both “the Formation and Persistence of the Social Identity” and Richard’s selected correspondence on “Peasant Mentality” and follow-up, because this might help you understand how this peasant mentality operates in feeling beings, what you erroneously label the “primordial “levelling” morality”. It might be a similar eye-opening understanding as the previous one regarding guilt It can help you to take another look at your “class of feelings which are very egalitarian” including their impractical “injunctions” and possibly replace them with more sensible options. While equity and parity prevail in Terra Actualis, these clearly don’t happen via repressing pride or stifling sensible action, but by enjoying and appreciating being alive and being naiveté (liking yourself and liking one’s fellow human beings). Please remember, only when pure intent is dedicatorily in place – as an overriding/ overarching life-devotional goal which takes absolute precedence over all else – can you begin whittling away of the otherwise essential general societal/ cultural conditioning. Else it would be both harmful to you and others to haphazardly switch around your morals/ethics from one “ridiculous” lot, as you called them, to another. Richard: It is an utterly fundamental proviso that pure intent be dedicatorily in place – as an overriding/ overarching life-devotional goal which takes absolute precedence over all else – before any such whittling away of the otherwise essential societal/ cultural conditioning be undertaken. (Richard in Library, Social Identity, #warning). ANDREW: Thanks for the encouragement. It is really giving me the space to look at this from a new perspective. VINEETO: You are welcome, Andrew. There is so much more to discover about the wide and wondrous path, and you seem now to be ready to clear the workbench and start afresh … and already have some success. Cheers Vineeto November 19 2025 ANDREW: One of the many threads that are sprawling out around this question of a life long aversion to putting in effort to self improvement/ talent, is this: fear. Nothing more, nothing less. Afraid of not being able to measure up to the example given My days are strange. I am interested in these questions. Actually interested. I am not making any effort to feel good, I just remind myself to “accept” things as they are, emotionally. That alone is quite a paradigm shift. The outcome is I feel generally better. That something gentle is happening There was always desperation in all my efforts. I wonder sometimes about something Kuba mused at one point, that this is all an “old persons” game. That Actualism was something that happened to older people, 40 plus. There is something in that, but not necessarily because of age itself, but rather having exhausted so many desires. It does become obvious as one’s hair greys, and one doesn’t move like one used to (my weekly basketball sessions with guys half my age prove that!) which slows the blind ambition down. Since Vineeto recently endorsed again the Indian woman who became actually free within 48 hours of landing and meeting with the pioneers of this endeavour, and exactly how crucial this event is in the assessment that there are no pre-conditions to actual freedom, at least not in the ways we normally think of (“X” amount of effort over “Y” amount of time, in “z” specific ways); I have to ask the obvious! … What happened to her and has she ever communicated with anyone after the event? I remind myself often of this “no preconditions” assertion, for obvious reasons. It would be a decisive blow to all doubts if the mystery woman of the subcontinent had anything to say about her experience. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, This is the information on the Actual Freedom website about the person of Indian birth you are talking about – Richard to No. 6: Given that you say ‘I want to be free and will like to set up a meeting’ I am going to make it clear up-front that there is no guarantee being made here – be it either expressed or implied – other than to say that, when the conditions are ripe, magic happens. For instance, a couple of months ago a person of Indian birth and upbringing flew into Coolangatta Airport late one night on a prearranged agreement to meet in person so as to talk about her life and to gain clarity in her life-style/ her livelihood situation. Less than 24 hours after landing she was actually free of blind nature’s instinctual passions/the feeling-being formed thereof. In other words, the person who landed at the airport (that feeling being who needed to gain clarity in her life-style/ her livelihood situation) vanished without a trace, in a matter of seconds, the following afternoon. She is now living the ‘peace-on-earth’ actual freedom (as per the reports on The Actual Freedom Trust website) which will, after a suitable transitional period of acclimatisation and accommodation and accustomisation (which period took 30+ months for me all those years ago), presumably also segue into the ‘meaning-of-life’ actual freedom (as per the reports on The Actual Freedom Trust website), and which is known colloquially as the ‘magical wonderland’ (a fairy tale-like pristine paradise where peerless purity abounds), given the requisite pure intent, of course. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 19 December 2011). That is all the information available. Here is the occasion where I wrote what you called “Vineeto recently endorsed again” – Kuba: OK so the only solution worth entertaining is that which comes from a deeply passionate and caring involvement? Vineeto: Yes, this is what your naïve inquiry into a cause worth sacrificing your ‘self’ for has produced. I keep thinking of Richard’s quote – Richard: No, I am more making the point that only altruism – self-sacrificial humanitarianism – will provide the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation ... the instinct for individual survival is only exceeded by the instinct for group survival. It takes a powerful instinct to overcome a powerful instinct. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 October 2002a) In case you discover a passionate doubt or fear or any other deeply felt obstacle to your desired aim, then you can harness the passionate energy by staying with the thrill whilst allowing pure intent to bring you closer and closer to your aim – “to offer (and demonstrate) a solid alternative to the hypocrisy, the lack of equity, the ignorant irresponsibility and the harm that was being done by all”. The solution, as I can only surmise at this point, is accumulating and fostering this “enormous energy” required, which is a passionate energy (without frittering it away by doubt and confusion). I have seen it happen with the woman of Indian birth. (Richard, List D, Rick, 23 December 2011) During the intense interaction which preceded her moment of becoming actually free she first talked about her deeply felt universal sorrow for all feeling beings including animals and her urgent question why that was so, and after Richard and I explained the nature of universal sorrow, her feelings turned to doubt, which was then followed by fear. As the conversation went on, she arrived back at her question of ‘why’ there is universal sorrow, only to be followed again by doubt and then fear once more, followed then by cycling back to her question of ‘why’. This pattern went on several times until I was able to point out how she was going round and round in a circle with the same question and the same feelings. She went another round, and was able to recognize the pattern herself … and her mind became very quiet. Richard was then able to talk to her about actual time – that it is always now and that the person who arrived at the airport no longer existed, even the person who walked through the door a couple of hours ago no longer existed. She agreed and as she agreed she experienced time standing still … and the rest is history. I am not sure if that made things clearer for you. [Emphases added]. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba5, 14 March 2025a). What you call ‘endorsement’ was me highlighting the situation “when the conditions are ripe, magic happens” – an enormous energy, in this case sourced in the “deeply felt universal sorrow for all feeling beings” and, amongst other unknown factors, of course, a full agreement to have it happen now. Richard made it clear, in the interactions reported by Dona and Alan during their visit that “there are no conditions to become actually free”. Here is a forum discussion about this – KUBA: I remember there was the lady of Indian descent who became actually free 24 hours after visiting Richard and Vineeto. In the past there was disbelief at this as ‘I’ had felt somewhat cheated. I am not actually sure if she did much in the way of applying the actualism method before hand. But the point is that ultimately it doesn’t matter, the method is an “in the meantime” method. That “last bit” or for some maybe the “first bit” haha – it is all the same. VINEETO: Richard was always clear that the actualism method is what you do in the meantime. Also – Vineeto: One of the major topics of this three-week event of answers to questions from forum members in 2017 was that there are *no conditions to become actually free*. “Richard said there is *no connection at all* between feeling good each moment again and actual freedom. You can become actually free right now. But … In the meantime, while you’re living your life not actually free, why not feel good? As he says, this is your only moment of being alive, why waste it feeling bad?” (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu2, 29 August 2024) I found the whole message worth a re-read. As for the “somewhat cheated” feeling, it is entirely self-induced. In fact, when “applying the actualism method” with the aim of becoming actually free you have deceived yourself, as you now discover, that you have not yet agreed to the last step. It is all par for the course when one sets out to untangle and extract oneself from the maze of the human condition. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba9, 29 July 2025a) You can probably work out how all the above applies to your personal situation – Now that you discovered your fear of moving one step further because of being “afraid of not being able to measure up to the example given” – you muse how despite (or because?) this obstacle you can become actually free right away? There are no conditions from the actual world, it is right here, happening right now. The question is, are the conditions right from ‘your’ side? Do you, without reservation, joyfully agree to ‘your’ demise? Or is this only a fantasy built from another’s experience as a way of avoiding your fear of not fulfilling ‘your’ standards, examples, conditions, should you decide to take the practical step of changing your ‘being’ to being more happy and more harmless? You can also look at it thisaway – you want to be actually free because you don’t like being here – Respondent: I think I’ve been trying to do it without really becoming a happy ‘being’ first. Richard: As the general thrust of your e-mails has been that the ‘self’-immolation in toto, as described on The Actual Freedom Trust web site, is not [quote] ‘a new concept’ [endquote] it would appear that whatever it is you have been trying to do it has had nothing to do with what actualism is on about. Respondent: I have (big) issues to sort out first before I will be able to make the leap. Richard: As there is no ‘leap’ – an actual freedom is not a spiritual freedom – it would indeed appear so. Respondent: I guess there are no shortcuts. Richard: What I find telling – and this is a general observation – is just how much peoples object to being happy and harmless ... the vast majority of the correspondence in the archives is, in fact, a cutting indictment on the human condition itself. Do you realise – and this is a personal observation – you have just said, in effect, that you guess you will have to become a happy ‘being’ before you can become actually free from the human condition (as if were there a way to be thus free without having to do so you would not)? Whereas it is actually such a delight to finally be able to be happy (and harmless) ... and a relief. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 27 November 2003). Cheers Vineeto November 20 2025 ANDREW: I remind myself often of this “no preconditions” assertion, for obvious reasons. It would be a decisive blow to all doubts if the mystery woman of the subcontinent had anything to say about her experience. VINEETO to Andrew: You can also look at it thisaway – you want to be actually free because you don’t like being here – (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 27 November 2003). KUBA: Ah this makes sense now, if ‘I’ am treating actual freedom as a desperate escape plan for ‘me’ then it is merely a self-centred involvement borne of ‘my’ resentment to being here, its selfism driving the attempt and so it is bound to go round in circles. As Richard wrote – “Only altruism – self-sacrificial humanitarianism – will provide the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation”. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 October 2002a). When gloomy and grumpy ‘I’ am certainly not concerned with much else other than ‘me’. I find that ongoing felicity and innocuity does naturally engage dedication to peace on earth, it broadens the scope of ‘my’ caring and it demonstrates/ reminds ‘me’ just how precious the end of suffering – for all – is. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, hi Kuba, I like to expand on this topic of Richard saying “when the conditions are ripe, magic happens” (Richard, List D, No. 6, 19 December 2011) and when he said to Dona and Alan “there are no conditions to become actually free”. (Dona and Alan Report, 30 October 2017). Richard expanded on the “no condition” elsewhere – Richard: The words and writings promulgated and promoted by The Actual Freedom Trust explicate the workings of an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice in the market place. There is no meditating in silence or living in a monastery shut away from the world. There are no celibacy or obedience requirements. There are no dietary demands or daily regimes of exercise. No one is excluded by age or racial or gender origins. There are no prescribed books to study ... upwards of maybe two million words are available [in the year 2000] for free on The Actual Freedom Web Page. There are no courses to follow or therapies to undergo or workshops to endure. There are no fees to pay or any clique to join ... there are no rules at all’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12d, 23 November 2000). So why does not everyone become actually free instantly as has apparently happened for “the mystery woman of the subcontinent”? It is simple – the actual world is already here, has always been and will always be. It becomes apparent when ‘I’/ ‘me’ go temporarily in abeyance. Ergo – ‘I’/ ‘me’, the passionate, imaginary identity needs to disappear/ voluntarily go extinct for the Terra Actualis to become apparent permanently. However, when you wonder why it ‘you’ don’t disappear/ voluntarily go extinct tomorrow or the day after because it is such a good *idea*, consider what, of your own free will, you are intending to leave behind – all your hopes and doubts and fears, your hostile feelings as well as your loving and trusting feelings, all of your beliefs and trusted concepts, your grand castles made of imagination, your (borrowed) standards of right and wrong, good and bad and your sense of ‘being’ someone. Recognizing the scope, be friendly and kind towards yourself, and enjoy and appreciate every instant when your intelligence and your intent to be more felicitous and more innocuous gives you a greater range of freedom to do so and be so. And be aware that you are not alone in this grandest of adventures in your life – Richard: ‘I’ am not alone in this endeavour because ‘I’ can tap into the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe with a pure intent born out of the PCE that one has during a peak experience. Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself. Once set in motion, it is no longer a matter of choice: it is an irresistible pull. It is the adventure of a lifetime to embark upon a voyage of exploration and discovery; to not only seek but to find. And once found, it is here for the term of one’s natural life ... it is an irreversible mutation in consciousness. Once launched it is impossible to turn back and resume one’s normal life ... one has to be absolutely sure that this is what one truly wants. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive, #peakexperience). The “the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation”, provided by altruism “when the conditions are ripe” is required because of the powerful passionate energy of the self-survival instinct. Richard: … the instinct for individual survival is only exceeded by the instinct for group survival. It takes a powerful instinct to overcome a powerful instinct. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 October 2002a). There are no conditions how to bring this about, how slowly or instantly, it is entirely in ‘your’ hands. Everyone is a pioneer in this exhilarating, sometimes thrilling adventure of engendering this new epoch in human consciousness. Richard also commented during Dona and Alan’s visit – Richard: “there’s nothing you can do to become actually free, and there’s nothing you can’t do”. (Dona and Alan Report, 9 November 2017). And here is what you can do in the meantime, because – Richard: The way to an actual freedom from the human condition is the same as an actual freedom from the human condition – the means to the end are not different from the end – inasmuch that where one is happy and harmless as an on-going modus operandi benevolence operates of its own accord. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 6 December 2002). Cheers Vineeto November 25 2025 ANDREW: I am going to write about this because it’s so relevant to everything, and I have no answers to it. I spoke earlier about the resistance to making any effort, as in there was always this feeling that if it is not instantly perfect, I have already failed. It is clearly fear based. I am experiencing it a lot as I try to get back into music. While noticing I was never really into music in the way I fantasised I would be. The “instant masterpiece syndrome” seems an appropriate name for this. Clearly a fear. But also lots of rejection of…trying? That’s the bit I can’t work out. I have an immense pressure in my chest, life long feelings of immense rejection of …something. Which is the weird bit. I am naturally (as in the actual I is, I am clearly in the way) very talented. I have literally no problem immediately producing art, but never masterpieces or anything that takes more than a few minutes. Beyond an initial inspiration and burst of creativity, I completely give up. I have always hid behind this. But I want to “come out”. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, It’s a good name – “instant masterpiece syndrome” to start the exploration. So far you can see it is based in fear. ANDREW: It is an emotional perfectionism. I reject anything which is less than perfect, in the instant. I am of course, squarely in the crosshairs of my own instantaneous rejection. I have been, for my whole life criticised and praised simultaneously for being immensely talented and immensely lazy. I know enough, especially from my last relationship, that this is symptomatic of the type of circumstances that breed personality disorders. I can’t really say enough how crippling it is. I also feel guilty that I would make such an excuse ! Stop being so lazy, reach your potential! The flip side is also there, which is the nihilism of efforts making any difference to the final outcome of anything; pain, fear and death. It is possible that as I am so immediately familiar with death, having buried my own daughter, my father , my brother and lost another who was never found to be buried, that there is the overwhelming impression that all efforts are “pissing into the wind”. That doesn’t explain why I felt it at two years old. However, my father had one of those horrible lives you read about, so it’s entirely possible I have psychically been living out his drama my whole life. VINEETO: You are discovering the various traps of this “emotional perfectionism” – and notice that almost everything is a feeling reaction to this original demand to be instantly perfect. ANDREW: Creativity and my ineptitude seem interwoven. The instant reward of creativity, seems very fleeting. Like sugar vs ketones. It’s a very brief rush, which crashes. I noticed this when I was in a drawing phase in 2017. I had to push myself, if I couldn’t finish a portrait in 30 mins it wasn’t going to get finished. Music has less to show for it, though I made many more slight efforts, and spent more money on it. It’s slightly more forgiving as an art form. More sustainable. I also think that there is some recognition of art being divorced from its ancient roots. I can’t tell if I am romanticising about this, but I held this to be the case when I first found out about my childhood aversion to copying my mother. That there was something about the competition, rather than the pure instant creation, that repulsed me. Indeed, the 20th century commercial exploitation of music and art in general would be another example of our ancestral birthright being sold from under our feet. Music and art were far more communal and free range before the advent of recording devices. VINEETO: And because feelings by their very nature go round in circles between fear and guilt, frustration and despair, as they always do, you try some relief in blaming society – not that it works to make you feel better, it only adds to the apparent hopelessness of how you feel. ANDREW: In all of this is my ultimate justification for ‘my’ existence, as in the specific way ‘I’ sustain myself. There’s a thought I haven’t heard before; there is a specific way an individual sustains ‘itself’. VINEETO: However, you now put your finger on the nub of the issue – ‘I’/ ‘me’ want to sustain ‘myself’. It highlights what thoroughly destructive ways ‘I’ have in order to “sustain” myself. ANDREW: In art, pain is a commodity. As my entire adult life was dominated artistically by “grunge” specifically Nirvana, and my musical journey started with buddy guy and the blues, I can see the far simpler answer to at least some of this drama; pain is fashionable! VINEETO: Not sure what you mean by “grunge” – I found synonyms such as these – “squalor, uncleanliness, scruffiness, sleaziness, muckiness, poverty, dilapidation, dirt, grime, muck” (wordhippo.com). None of them sound like something you would, when looking at it sensibly, want to perpetuate. But apparently this has been the “specific way” for you to “sustain” your ‘self’? And because you have been doing it to yourself you can also change it all by yourself. Now that you have a label – “instant masterpiece syndrome”/ “emotional perfectionism” and started exploring a lot of the impassioned ramifications of your emotion-backed thoughts, i.e. your beliefs and personal ‘truths’, you can try out something new – get back to feeling good and then apply some method to your thinking to make it more productive and sensible. This is what ‘Vineeto’ reported – Respondent: While I can see how your meticulous replies can be tiring to others, I more and more see it as a welcome sign of thoroughness. ‘Vineeto’: Good, because thoroughness is all it is. I found that if I wanted to get to the bottom of my problems, I had to be thorough, much more thorough than I had been in my spiritual explorations and much more thorough than I had been in all of the therapy groups I had done. In order to do so, I had to dust off my capacity to think and reflect, something which I had left with my shoes outside the gate [of the Rajneesh Commune]. I then had to learn how to think something through from beginning to end and, when distracted, pick up the thread again, get back to the point and continue on, until I eventually unearthed the facts of the matter in question. I became aware of the many tactics I employed in order to avoid a thorough investigation particularly when the topic was scary or uncomfortable – feeling tired, wanting to blame, getting confused, feeling numb, playing dumb, forgetting the subject, confusing the issue, seeking a distraction, becoming emotional, and so on. It needs a good deal of persistence and intent to bypass all those ‘self’-created obstacles … but then again I was thoroughly fed up with suffering and thoroughly fed up with being angry. It was clearly time to change. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 66b, 6.2.2005). And here is Richard’s advice ‘she’ put into practice – Q(1): I have a lot of trouble with thinking – with my thoughts – and what is the work in it, or the effort in it, is that they always have tracks that want to be followed and they are hard to catch ... to catch me ... R: Going off on a stray thought? Q(1): They are keeping me so busy ... that I ... R: Yes, but you can actually have fun with this. Have you ever followed a thought right through to its very end? Q(1): I’m not very good at that. R: Would you like to? It is fun! You start off with an original thought – you may be silent for a while and a thought pops into your head – and you take particular notice of what that thought is. Put a mental circle around it, or some stars or something, to lock that original thought securely. Then just let your thought wander ... you wander with your thoughts ... following them through to wherever they go. You will go off into a side branch ... and that will branch off into another side branch ... and into another and another ... and so on. Then you are completely lost. This is the normal way of thinking. Q(1): Yes, right. R: Your thoughts meander. Learn to catch yourself meandering; let the meandering go on and after a period of time – three or four minutes – take note. Think to yourself: ‘Wow, where am I at? Where did I start in all this?’ Then you come back to that original thought that you marked and locked in securely. You start with that thought again. Once more, let your thought proceed ... this time you will meander off in another direction ... and off along another branch ... and another ... and so on. Once again catch yourself after a while; you may say: ‘Oh, that is interesting, I went off into a side-track there!’ Come back to your original thought that you put a circle around and you will find that it has progressed a little – before you started to meander for the second time you proceeded a short way. So you put a ring around that and – it is so lovely to do this – and then eventually you will be able to follow a thought right through to its very end. And when you do get to the end, some magic can happen. It is so wonderful to do this! You can spend an hour or two doing this; following a thought, meandering, coming back, wandering again, coming back ... and so forth. We can do this in a talk, a discussion. We start this particular conversation that we are having now, and what I do is I mentally note how it started. Everybody can have an input and we can talk and talk and explore and discover – we meander. After a while you will find me saying something like: ‘To get back to what we were talking about at the beginning ...’ and that brings everybody back to the original topic. Then off we go again, to wander and ramble again – and I take note of where we progressed to before we digressed for the second time ... Q(1): But the interesting part is that I ... not the meandering, but the earlier I catch the meandering and go back to the original ... but ... oh, I see; the important thing is that I follow the trunk. R: Right to the very end. It is a lovely thing to do – it is delicious – because you get to know the workings of your own mind. This is your brain in action. Q(1): You learn to know yourself. But one of the first things I do is remember the things I need to do in the day. R: Simple. Write them down on a piece of paper and get them out of your head. Q(1): But what I do works; I make a note of it in my head. R: However, do you find yourself going back over it again and again? That you work through the list ... you wander off ... you come back to the beginning of the list and you work through it again. Especially when you first wake up in the morning. Do you find this? That you re-evaluate the list? Q(1): That’s true. R: Do you see that you do not need to? Catch yourself doing it: ‘Why am I going through it again. I already know this.’ This is also fun. To watch how your thought process works. (Audio-Taped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible). Discover the fun in getting to know the workings of your own mind. Cheers Vineeto November 26 2025 ANDREW: I appreciate your time and replies Vineeto! I have read the “circle a thought” and then meander discussion before. It is lovely to be living it somewhat. Last night it was important to get out of bed and make more notes, as it’s the usual way to forget everything soon enough, and no amount of “circling or stars” will cause me to remember. FYI, “grunge” was a style of punk rock music which rose to global popularity in the early 1990s, led by a band called Nirvana. It was iconoclastic, as far as the popular music scene was concerned, and defined the generation which was beginning to be called “gen X”, the children of the post war “baby boomers”. I don’t know if previous generations had names for each other. It’s pretty eye opening to see the generations changing so rapidly with the advent of technology! VINEETO: Hi Andrew, You are very welcome. The generations before the baby boomers were ‘the great war generation’, the ‘between the wars generation’ and the ‘2nd world war generation’, followed by a generation instinctive-naturally replenishing the enormous population which was killed in the 2nd world war. (Actualism, Peter, Selected Correspondence, Peace, #bloodiest). Thank you for explaining what “grunge” stands for. In combination with the music video you posted (GoGo Penguin) I am forming the impression that “gen X” was widely influenced by modern and post-modern buddhistic teachings and practices (such as taught at DhO), and the video you said was “one of my favourites over the last decade” had a somewhat soothing trance-like quality – a single short theme branching out in slight variations and returning to the original theme. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Gotama the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths where ‘Nirvana’ is the name of the Promised Land. It’s worth repeating the core of what seems to have helped shape a whole generation including its art-forms, as a result of the search of the previous generation (especially the first ‘Noble Truth’) – Life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering; suffering is a result of one’s desires for pleasure, power, and continued existence; in order to stop disappointment and suffering one must stop desiring; and the way to stop desiring and thus suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path – right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration. (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Whatever preference you pick to keep or throw out, it’s certainly time to recognize that this wide-spread religious ‘solution’ has not worked, don’t you think? ANDREW: Which, ironically is what my mind is consumed with these days. Which piece of technology will I purchase to make music! Haha, so very not musical! There is decades of this drama in me. This “instant masterpiece conundrum” playing out. I feel myself passionately in ‘here’ somewhere. Each time I start to think through the objective of what it is I want to musically achieve, the more money that is going to cost! Time to get some sticks and an animal skin drum. The modern world is determined I go back to being broke, just to make ‘music’. It is very much a “put your money where your mouth is” scenario! Whilst the music itself costs nothing and it’s my own belonging to society which causes me to crave the expensive and unnecessary trappings of modern music production. I have guitars sitting in front of me. Why do I crave recording myself? Well, some of it isn’t egotistical and vainglorious, but rather missing the feeling of creating music with others. I used to be in bands, and had quite a few experiences of transcending myself when playing music. Once in front of around 3000 people! Other times in church, a few times in pubs. VINEETO: Personally I think you can do a lot better than your favourite band – some fun, some liveliness, an expression of the exuberance and splendour, of the magnificence of the universe and this moment of being alive. For this exuberance and joie de vivre to be set free, however, requires remembering your recent realisation regarding the nub of the issue – “‘I’/ ‘me’ want to sustain ‘myself’” and to translate it into practice. The more you act on this realisation, i.e. actively diminish yourself and are consequently more able to enjoy and appreciate being here, the more the quality of your creativity will increasingly express how you experience life. Diminishing your bank account alone by buying equipment won’t be enough. ANDREW: Hmm. I am enjoying this exploration. VINEETO: Excellent, keep going. There is so much more to come. ANDREW: The idea occurred to me that this fear, the “immediate perfection complex” has to be something that a 2 year old would feel. None of the elaborate stories about art, or anything else can be the source. If indeed it has anything to do with getting things “perfect” at all! It could be anything, but it has to be something formed at and before 2 years old. Potentially some sort of early false self imagination. That in the environment I was, all was scary? It’s encouraging to simplify it all like this. VINEETO: I understand that you are curious to find out when it was and what it was which stifled you, but Richard describing his own dealing with ‘his’ childhood hurts may give you some immediate release from it all – if “‘I’/ ‘me’” who wants “to sustain ‘myself’” can give permission to have them released, that is – Richard: Speaking personally, the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago instantaneously rid ‘himself’ of the bulk of those school-age hurts and slights—whilst sitting out in the sunshine one fine morning, putting pencil to paper in order to finally record those dastardly events for posterity, as per a long-held and cherished ambition to do so at length—via seeing-in-a-flash that, *as it was simply not possible to ever physically be a child again* (and thus juvenilely susceptible to not only those bully-boys and feisty-femmes but any enabling teachers and principals as well), there was absolutely no need whatsoever to continue nursing them as a carryover grudge. It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. Also, with the dissolution of those childhood hurts the (deeply felt) need for any aggressive tit-for-tat modus vivendi also vanishes—leaving one free to treat all others as fellow human beings rather than as adversaries to gain dominion over. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression, 21 January 2016). Cheers Vineeto November 27 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto. Your insights are truly remarkable. I enjoy re-reading the writing of Richard, especially as I have read it before but not had any connection with them; having them stand out to me like this is lovely. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, That’s good to hear. There is a plethora of information how to feel good, feel better and feel excellent on the Actual Freedom website – I won’t be around forever to present you with appropriate quotes. But I am pleased to read they are of use to you. ANDREW: Your links between “my” generation and Buddhism, repetitive musical motifs, focusing on suffering, are remarkable. They are like “water to a fish” to me; I was tangentially aware, but having it pointed out? Wow. VINEETO: Indeed you have expressed the theme of “life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering” often enough to see the connection but when you introduced the video as “one of my favourites over the last decade” I became obvious. Now that you know that it’s religion, albeit Eastern religion, you have inadvertently practiced, are you ready to wipe the slate clean like you did with guilt a couple of weeks ago? ANDREW: I have been wondering how my mother remained so insulated from self-reflection. Christianity is a hell of a drug, it would seem. I am tempted to see something of the overall “tone” of rebellion in my feelings towards the moments I remember. In all of this, it’s very obvious I don’t “know” as you pointed out a few posts back. These ideas are all interesting, I “think” some are close. VINEETO: Did you fully understand when Richard said – Richard: It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression, 21 January 2016). Now, that you described what you remember your mother did to instil this ‘instant perfectionism’ in you – did that make any difference in your attitude and behaviour towards succeeding? Or was it just a realisation to be filed away for telling a good story some time? You said – ANDREW: The particular thing my mother was drawing when I was two years old, was a stylised “dog” character with a bow tie. A cartoon that many would memorise and replicate. When I could not replicate it, (obviously I am two years old!) I refused to even pick up a pencil for a long time. My mother recounts she deliberately did not draw at all for months before I would touch a pencil again. VINEETO: To paint a cartoon might not need much skill. Do you still believe that this is the standard of quality you have to/ want to follow, with the prerogative to do it instantly? Trusting authority can be a crippling belief/ attitude but you are no longer two years old. Unless you deliberately and joyfully let go of your childhood hurts, and with it the parent-child authority, nothing will change in your life. Here is how Richard approached producing art – Richard: For what it is worth: whenever I came across somebody who had already accomplished what I wanted to achieve I unabashedly set out emulate them – avidly reading every word they wrote/listening intently to what they had to say (colloquially known as ‘picking their brains’) plus being generally appreciative that they be willing to pass on experience and information – inasmuch at the beginning of the path which led to me becoming a practising artist in my own right, for instance, in the area of the fine arts I slavishly copied, imitated meticulously, acquiring the necessary skills along the way, until the moment came where everything pertaining to that aspiration had became second-nature to me. Then I let go of the controls ... and it all happened of its own accord. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 30, 7 July 2005). That means unless you learn the skill of the craft first, meticulously and patiently, you cannot have “it all happened of its own accord” and art will never eventuate. No amount of expensive equipment can make up for lack in skill and patient training. ANDREW: One of the obvious things from this whole interest in buying musical equipment is how I desire it, but reject it at the same time! I would have no such qualms about buying a car. There is something socially acceptable about even going into a lot of debt to own a car, but even say, $6000 spent of a few high quality musical goods is bringing out all sorts of feelings towards the world and myself. (…) VINEETO: I can only suggest to keep it simple – start with your own objections to feeling good. ANDREW: I feel both proud and embarrassed about this whole thing. So utterly “bourgeoisie” to be even discussing some “slight” from an otherwise first world upbringing. Still, I am glad that at least something is happening which is of a different type to the past decade plus, which was marked with lots of thinking and posting, and plenty of drama. I suppose what you said once holds true; once we start on this path we are going to have the drama we have to have! VINEETO: Well, the emotional drama only diminishes when you get tired of being a willing participant/ instigator. Underneath all the attraction to drama and victim hood there is something called common sense – when you give it room to operate … Cheers Vineeto
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