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 James on Discuss Actualism Forum October 25 2024 VINEETO: And to leave no doubt about the exact nature of pure intent – [Richard]: Also, here is a hint for future reading: the word pure, in the phrase pure intent, indicates to a puzzling-it-out-reader that whatever it is which the word intent refers to one thing is for sure: it cannot be affective (else it be not pure). (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 16 February 2014). JAMES: This quote from Richard posted by Vineeto above about pure intent really stuck with me. Especially this part: “it cannot be affective (else it would not be pure).” The only thing I know to do to tap in to pure intent is remember the purity of it from my last PCE. So far this is not working. Like Kuba told me I am missing intent. It does make sense that I need to crank up intent to experience pure intent and it cannot be affective. Which begs the question: Can I have intent w/o it being affective? JAMES: To sum it all up pure intent is the intent to experience the purity. VINEETO: Hi James, There are several ways for you to “crank up pure intent”. For one, you can read and contemplate all of Richard’s descriptions of his various pure consciousness experiences in his selected writings, (Richard, Selected Writing, Pure Consciousness Experiences) to which I recently added those from the tooltips of his Personal Webpage (Richard’s Personal Webpage), where you also find even more descriptions of this kind. When you read them, slowly, with the intention to grasp and experience the flavour conveyed in those descriptions, you can get enticed to want to experience life in this perfect and delightful way as one experiences it in a PCE. The memory of your own PCE will become more vivid and, as I understand you, this is how you want to live for the rest of your life. [Richard]: Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, reflective contemplation rapidly becomes more and more fascinating. When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness … and then apperception happens of itself. (Richard, List B, No. 11, 22 March 1998). Your habit of summing up to a singular sentence of what Richard or I am saying is not enough now – it is the minimum approach. You want to understand it not just cognitively but experientially. In order to “crank up pure intent” to reach your destiny – something you have been on and off busy with for at least 25 years – it is now time to expand and extend yourself like never before. Viz.: [Richard]: I have the greatest admiration for ‘Richard the identity’: He was willing to self-immolate so that I could be here. He never knew me, but was utterly confident that the universe knew what it was doing. He was happy to disappear so that all this could eventuate. He was prepared to go all the way without reservation ... the ‘boots and all’ approach, he called it. What are you saving yourself for? Reach out. Extend yourself. All one gets by waiting is yet more waiting. Patience may be a virtue, but procrastination is an abomination. Be wary of virtues ... they are designed to perpetuate the self. (Richard, Audiotaped Dialogues, Compassion Perpetuates Sorrow). Notice the habit to contract or withdraw and nip it in the bud when you notice it. Expand into cognitively and then experientially understanding, contemplating and imitating the actual world which is right under your nose and all around, the exquisiteness and perfection of it. Enjoy it and then appreciate the enjoyment and thus extend and increase the marvelling and appreciating in this moment the very fact of being alive. The sights, the sounds, the sensate experiences, the very fact that the universe exists, that you exist as a flesh-and-blood body, that you are alive this very moment, the only moment you can actually experience. Instead of contracting, become interested, fascinated and finally obsessed by this one single aim you have in life. * As for “Which begs the question: Can I have intent w/o it being affective?” – of course you can! You quoted the answer yourself recently – James: Finally reread TMOBA after Vineeto’s suggestion and it really does say it all. Here is the last paragraph: Richard]: “Then there is nothing except the series of sensations which happen … not happening to an ‘I’ or a ‘me’ but just happening … moment by moment … one after another. To live life as these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and magic. It is all so peaceful, in this actual world; one is living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. It never goes away – nor has it ever been away – it was just that ‘I’/‘me’ was standing in the way of the meaning of life being apparent. 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.” (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). As a final guide to how you can experience being alive non-affectively, apperceptively, here is how Richard describes “mind in neutral” – [Richard]: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Are you conscious now? • [Richard]: ‘Yes. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Conscious of what? • [Richard]: ‘Primarily, of the infinitude this physical universe actually is ... as this flesh and blood body only (sans identity in toto) I am proprioceptively conscious of being just here, right now and, as such, the other somatic perceptions currently in operation – tactile, olfactive, visual, audile – are direct: this skin is savouring the touch, the caress, of the mid-winter [seasonal] ambience; these nostrils are rejoicing in the abundance of aromas and scents drifting fragrantly all about; these retinas are delighting in the profusion of colour and texture and form; these eardrums are revelling in the cadence of tones as their resonance and timbre fills the air. Further to that this mind, other than the sheer enjoyment and appreciation of being alive as this flesh and blood body, is ambling along in neutral as all the while there is the apperceptive wonder that this marvellous paradise actually exists in all its vast array’. (Richard, Abditorium, Mind in Neutral). Cheers Vineeto October 31 2024 JAMES: When I focus on increasing my awareness of the senses and remember the purity of my last PCE I go right to the edge of pure intent w/o crossing over. I don’t know what stops me. Why can’t I crossover into pure intent when I am on the edge of it? VINEETO: Hi James, You-the-identity cannot “crossover” – you-the-identity will never experience the actual world. So when you are “on the edge of it”, it means you are about to disappear. This prospect is what presently stops you. But you-the-identity can come to the point of acquiescence when you can see that you-the-identity is altogether redundant – no longer required to rule your life in the clear rememoration of your PCE. In the meantime, you increase enjoyment and increase appreciation of being alive and mimic the actual to the point where there is barely any difference between what you are experiencing and what you tangibly rememorate the actual world to be like. Then you-the-identity can gladly agree to disappear. Cheers Vineeto November 2 2024 JAMES: Feeling good, enjoying, appreciating and experiencing perfection even more. Still no pure intent. I think Kuba nailed it that I am lacking intent to experience pure intent. I need to make pure intent first and foremost. That is what I am not doing. It seems like I am putting enjoying and appreciating first which could be right but I am not following thru with pure intent. I am missing the over-arching importance of pure intent. VINEETO: Hi James, You say “I am missing the over-arching importance of pure intent” – the next question I would ask is, why? What is missing to experience “the over-arching importance of pure intent”? What is holding you back from wanting to be actually free as the number one priority in your life? Is there a feeling, an apprehension, an apparently valid reason, which stops you going further. Some sincere and attentive contemplation may provide an answer. If not, keep probing, until you experience the fascination, the obsession with discovering the very meaning … and then the direct experience of pure intent – “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”. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). Once experienced you cannot help but making this direct experience of pure intent, as Kuba described it in his message yesterday and which he called “the flavour of the final destination” (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba2, 1 November 2024a), the “first and foremost” aim in your life. Cheers Vineeto November 3 2024 VINEETO: Hi James, When I wrote – Vineeto: You say “I am missing the over-arching importance of pure intent” – the next question I would ask is, why? What is missing to experience “the over-arching importance of pure intent”? What is holding you back from wanting to be actually free as the number one priority in your life? Is there a feeling, an apprehension, an apparently valid reason, which stops you going further. *Some sincere and attentive contemplation* may provide an answer. If not, *keep probing, until you experience the fascination, the obsession with discovering the very meaning … and then the direct experience of pure intent* – “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”. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). Once experienced you cannot help but making this direct experience of pure intent, as Kuba described it in his message yesterday and which he called *“the flavour of the final destination”* (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba2, 1 November 2024a), the “first and foremost” aim in your life. [emphases added]. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, James2, 2 November 2024). … and you answered scant 5 minutes later was – JAMES: I don’t know why. There is no feeling, apprehension, valid reason, nothing to stop me from going further. Evidently, there is a belief that I can’t. I have no reason why I can’t. It seems like I still don’t want it. Maybe has to do with I’m doing good as I am so there is no need to go further. It has to be a belief. Could be a belief that I can’t or I don’t need it or some other belief that I am not seeing. It could just be a belief period. I need to keep looking at belief. This could be the guardian. Will keep looking for a hidden belief. VINEETO: and JAMES: The guardian itself is a belief. It is part of the whole make-up of ‘I/me’ which is all a belief. VINEETO: … then I cannot help but notice that in those 5 minutes you could not possibly have had any “sincere and attentive contemplation” nor kept “keep probing, until you experience the fascination, the obsession with discovering the very meaning … and then the direct experience of pure intent” nor have carefully re-read Richard’s article about the method to see if you were missing some vital element nor have read the link to Kuba’s message describing “the flavour of the final destination”. Instead you proffer some familiar sentences from your previous repertoire such as “It has to be a belief. Could be a belief […] or some other belief that I am not seeing” and “the guardian itself is a belief” which bring you not an inch closer to experiencing pure intent. Here is a quote of the day for you – Richard: It is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee ... but pure intent, born out of the connection between one’s inherent naiveté and the perfection of the infinitude of this physical universe, will provide one with the necessary intestinal fortitude. (Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Seven). And: Richard: it takes nerves of steel to don such an aqua-lung and plunge deep in the stygian depths of the human psyche ... it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. This is because past the human conditioning is the human condition itself ... that which caused the conditioning in the first place. To end this condition, the deletion of blind nature’s software package which gave rise to the rudimentary animal ‘self’ is required. This is the elimination of ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’. The complete and utter extinction of ‘being’ is the end to all the ills of humankind. (Richard, Homepage) I cannot be more interested in your freedom than you are. Cheers Vineeto November 5 2024 JAMES: I saw what I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve been trying to make an inner connection to pure intent and pure intent is not inner. It is outer. As soon as I saw that my senses perked up. The wind became stronger and the sounds became louder. The waves on the water started shimmering. Everything became brighter. I am confident that I can make a connection to pure intent now. VINEETO: Hi James, This is great news, James! Just a slight correction which might be helpful – pure intent is neither “inner” nor “outer”. The outer world is the projection of the “inner” world of the identity onto the material world and as such pure intent is outside of both worlds. That’s how pure intent facilitates you to aim for that which is entirely outside of ‘you’, outside of ‘your’ inner world *and* outside of ‘your’ outer world, just as the PCE from which you derive pure intent is outside or ‘your identity’s’ perception. You may have already experientially understood this because you say that “Everything became brighter. I am confident that I can make a connection to pure intent now”. Cheers Vineeto November 5 2024 JAMES: Thanks for the correction. I’m still not sure that I totally understand this. I am seeing it right now as in actuality there is no inner and outer world. There is only the actual world. VINEETO: Correct. November 8 2024 JAMES: It’s so wonderful here in the actual world. (6.11.2024) JAMES: Erased. VINEETO: Hi James, Wow. This is momentous! What a mirificent happening! Can you tell us some details, for the delight of everyone, who wants to be actually free, how you now experience yourself now that the instinctual passions and the identity formed thereof have ceased to exist? Please tell us about the magic of the actual world. What is your experience of time? Do you remember the sequence of events just before the pivotal moment? I am still speechless. Cheers Vineeto November 8 2024 JAMES: I am still waiting for the dust to settle. My experience of being in the actual world lasted for about 24 hrs. I am not actually free. My faded memory of it is it came on slowly and then faded after 24 hrs. I still have a lot of work to do. I am now looking to get back on track and not fall completely back into the real world. I was wondering what I need to do next instead of just enjoying and appreciating although I did e & a. My experience of it was I was having a lot of fun in everything I did whether it was eating a cheeseburger or going to the doctor. I enjoyed interacting with everyone. My pain was gone or not relevant. ps: My catalyst was seeing there is no inner and outer world. There is only the actual world. VINEETO: Thank you for keeping us informed. This is a great development and you found the perfect catalyst to keep the connection with pure intent. JAMES: This catalyst worked again. Right after I remembered it and wrote it on the ps I made a quick drug store run and felt great again. This was more like an ee although it did seem like I had a connection to pure intent. VINEETO: What you describe looks like an EE, and during an Excellence Experience you do have a constant connection to pure intent. You can now deliberately agree to make this connection permanent by allowing to go out-from-control, which means to allow the ‘doer’ to recede into the background and let the ‘beer’ come to the fore and thus let the universe live your life. This will automatically enable the actualism process to take over. Richard: What sets the ongoing near-PCE known as “a dynamic, destinal virtual freedom” apart from ever other way of life/ manner of living is, as is expressed in that paragraph, by being in full allowance of the benignity and benevolence inherent to pure intent being dynamically operative – whereby the actualism method segues into the actualism process – such as to be pulling one evermore unto one’s destiny. (Out-from-Control Reports, Richard, 15 August 2016) JAMES: Another thing I noticed during this experience was that I was the experience of what was happening. I didn’t stop to analyze what was happening. I don’t think this experience is gone although I am talking about it in past tense. I was still the experience of what was happening on my drug store run and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have two takeaways: 1) There is no inner world and outer world. There is only the actual world. 2) I am the experience of what is happening. VINEETO: These are valuable observations. Both inner and outer world are created by the identity. Being aware of both those catalysts you have the perfect tools to instantly get back to feeling excellent should any triggers cause you to slightly dip from experiencing an ongoing EE. Cheers Vineeto November 12 2024 JAMES: I don’t have a connection to pure intent. It seems like I have abandoned that pursuit. Will try and read TMOBA again. VINEETO: Hi James, Can you pinpoint the trigger which caused you to “abandoned that pursuit”? Cheers Vineeto November 12 2024 VINEETO: Hi James, I just found a quote that might be useful – • [Alan]: ‘... the only question which remains – do ‘I’ have the necessary intestinal fortitude to proceed? • [Richard]: ‘No ... because no one has ‘the necessary intestinal fortitude to proceed’ before they proceed: it comes in sufficient quality, and only as required by the circumstances, as one proceeds. The question is: what is preventing ‘me’ from proceeding? (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 28 January 2001). Cheers Vineeto November 13 2024 JAMES: Back to enjoying, appreciating and having fun. Still no pure intent. I think what is stopping me is the belief that ‘I can’t.’ VINEETO: Hi James, I thought so. This is a habitual belief adopted by you from your dead father, you can recognize it as being unproductive and decline to believe in it any longer. Because it has become a habit it requires your attentiveness to decline it as soon as it makes its appearance and replace it with a habitual confidence that you can, and have already done so a few times. Changing yourself does involve a bit of effort but it is well worth it. Cheers Vineeto December 6 2024 JAMES: The wheels have come off. ‘I’ am depressed. I need to keep my hands in my pockets and ride this out. VINEETO: Hi James, Alternatively you can look for the trigger which caused you to be depressed. It may just be a habitual reaction which you could easily decline to obey any longer. Additionally you can do whatever works for you to get back to feeling good and then look closer at the trigger so that it won’t entrap you again. You are your feelings, hence those feelings are not able to dictate how you experience this moment unless you allow it. Also you can remember the 2 takeaways which got you back to feeling excellent a month ago – James: Another thing I noticed during this experience was that I was the experience of what was happening. I didn’t stop to analyze what was happening. I don’t think this experience is gone although I am talking about it in past tense. I was still the experience of what was happening on my drug store run and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have two takeaways: 1) There is no inner world and outer world. There is only the actual world. 2) I am the experience of what is happening. Cheers Vineeto December 6 2024 JAMES: The wheels have come off. ‘I’ am depressed. VINEETO: Alternatively you can look for the trigger which caused you to be depressed. It may just be a habitual reaction which you could easily decline to obey any longer. […] Also you can remember the 2 takeaways which got you back to feeling excellent a month ago – James: 2) I am the experience of what is happening. JAMES: The trigger was the painful condition of my back and not seeing anyway for it to get better and that it can only get worse. The fact is the pain is tolerable with the pain meds and my new back doctor might can help me. The name of his practice is Texas Intervention Pain Care so maybe he can intervene although I can’t see it. I need to be patient and give him a chance. Patience is the key. My motivation is my memory of the actual world. I can get back to feeling good by getting a good night of sleep and start eating better and doing what exercise I can to strengthen the core of my back like he told me to do. VINEETO: Hi James, According to the sequence of what you wrote, the trigger is not the pain itself but your emotional reaction to it. This is called resentment. You had the pain for a long time and it waxes and wanes, that is the nature of your particular condition. Of course, you do whatever is practical and possible regarding the physical condition. However, it is your resentment about having the pain in the first place, which acerbates it and feeds ‘me’, it feeds your feeling bad and angry about the pain. Or you can change being resentful and angry because you acknowledge that are your feelings. I had feedback from several other people who have given up their resentment with instant success including diminishment of pain for some, after understanding this simple mechanism that one can change one’s affective outlook on life when recognizing that ‘I’ am my feelings. Richard lived with his severe back pain for about a decade, after the pain medication stopped working. I never ever heard him complain about it nor did he stop enjoying and appreciating being alive. You do not have to be depressed, unless you choose to be. Cheers Vineeto December 15 2024 JAMES: I haven’t had a PCE in 2 or 3 yrs. It is helping me to apply sensuousness as suggested by you and Claudiu. I just thoroughly enjoyed a salad and a taco. I intend to keep being sensuous which could help me to experience my back condition hedonically as you suggested. Thru being sensuous a pce might happen. Thanks, I am feeling better already. VINEETO: Hi James, Let me correct you with your own quotes, your last PCE was far more recent than “2 or 3 yrs” – JAMES: 7 Nov It’s so wonderful here in the actual world. VINEETO: And a few minutes later – JAMES: 7 Nov Erased. VINEETO: Followed by a post the next day – JAMES: 8 Nov I am still waiting for the dust to settle. My experience of being in the actual world lasted for about 24 hrs. I am not actually free. My faded memory of it is it came on slowly and then faded after 24 hrs. I still have a lot of work to do. I am now looking to get back on track and not fall completely back into the real world. I was wondering what I need to do next instead of just enjoying and appreciating although I did e & a. My experience of it was I was having a lot of fun in everything I did whether it was eating a cheeseburger or going to the doctor. I enjoyed interacting with everyone. My pain was gone or not relevant. ps: My catalyst was seeing there is no inner and outer world. There is only the actual world. VINEETO: Reawakening the memory of this astounding PCE can give you a reliable connection to pure intent. As Claudiu demonstrated in his recent posts and you might also have to attend to possible objections to feeling excellent and/or becoming actually free that might be still lurking unseen in the background. Enjoy the discoveries and process. Cheers Vineeto December 17 2024 JAMES: I went to see the spinal surgeon about my back today. He showed me on my MRI that I have a collapsed section of my lower back and my only option is to have spinal fusion which is major surgery and that there is only a 50% chance of it succeeding. I am going to try and see the surgeon who would do that and see what he says. The good news is that if it succeeds my back will be fixed. I am ready to face the fact of it at this point no matter what happens. The fact right now is the pain is tolerable with pain meds and I still have limited mobility. In the meantime I am enjoying and appreciating the fact that I feel good and am still able to function. If Richard can do it I can do it. VINEETO: Hi James, Richard was offered the same fusion operation with the 50% chance. He did research of what people said for whom it had failed. Perhaps you want to do a similar research before you decide? Cheers Vineeto December 17 2024 JAMES: Thanks, I will. I take it that he didn’t get the fusion because of what people who had it said. VINEETO: Hi James, I rather not say – you need to make your own decision based on what you find out and how you assess the circumstances. It is different for everyone. Cheers Vineeto January 10 2025 JAMES: I’ve got sensuousness and perfection. I’m still lacking pure intent and I really don’t understand why. I could be letting the pain interfere with it. JAMES: I added naiveté today to go along with e&a (enjoying and appreciating), sensuousness and perfection. I am quite confident that pure intent is coming soon. VINEETO: Hi James, Just to spell it out more fully what you are intending to do – Richard: 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. 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. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord ... and ‘me’ disappears along with all the feelings. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity ... as a sensate body only, one is automatically benevolent and benign. […] You need to have a keen sense of humour. This business of becoming free is not – contrary to popular opinion – a serious business at all. Be totally sincere ... most definitely utterly sincere, as genuineness is essential. But serious ... no way. An actual freedom is all about having fun; about enjoying being here; about delighting in being alive. All that ‘being serious’ stuff actively works against peace-on-earth. One has to want to be here on this planet ... most people resent being here and wish to escape. This method will bring one into being more fully here than anyone has ever been before. If you do not want to be here, then forget it. One will never become free by sitting in a deck-chair on the patio waiting for the ‘Grace Of God’ to descend. One has to reach out – extend oneself – like one has never done before. One has to want peace-on-earth as the number one priority in one’s life. One has to desire freedom from the Human Condition to the point of obsession and beyond ... it is that urgent and essential. Treat unhappiness and harmfulness as if it were a terminal illness that one has to rid the body of. And one does it for a two-fold purpose: for the good of oneself in particular and for one’s fellow humans in general. After all, a happy and harmless person is a pleasure to be with ... if you are not good company for yourself, then what are you for others? [emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 17, 9 July 1998). With all this in mind, James, pure intent is bound to be “coming soon”. Cheers Vineeto January 21 2025 JAMES: I’m seeing pain and death as a fact so there is no problem. I’m leaving the door unlocked so they can come in and get the body. VINEETO: Hi James, It is excellent that you have no longer any objections to either pain or death. They are simply facts of life. It reminds me of Richard how he, close to his death, automatically increased his appreciation for everything he perceived and experienced, so much so that it brought tears to my eyes for how much he could experience the perfection and magicality of every little detail and the immensity of infinitude streaming in as pure intent. I wish you the same, life is so precious while it lasts. You recently said that you could live quite a few more years, and that it’s ‘only’ your back which gives you trouble. Has anything happened recently which changed your situation? You have been involved in correspondences with Richard and actualists for more than quarter of a century and learnt a lot about life and what it is to be a human being. You have learnt to enjoy and appreciate life and this moment to be alive. You have done very well. I have always enjoyed my communication with you. I wish you the very best for your remaining time. Cheers Vineeto PS: Would you agree to use your first name on the correspondences on the various mailing lists instead of ‘Respondent No. 39, No. 23, etc.? January 23 2025 JAMES: Thanks for the tip Vineeto. No, my situation hasn’t changed. I didn’t mean to imply that I was dying now. Thanks again, your participation in this forum has helped me immensely. Yes, you can use my name freely on my correspondences. Looking forward to many more discussions with you. JAMES: I can see the fact of physical death. I have no control over it. I can’t stop it so there is no problem. However, I don’t see the fact of self-immolation in the same way. What is seeing the fact of self-immolation that brings it about? Richard said: “In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.” What is the fact? VINEETO: Hi James, Only you can find out what are the facts which stand in the way of your self-immolation. However, you recently wrote – James: Thanks Vineeto, I am having fun. I am still lacking in the part where I have always been lacking: Richard: “One has to want peace-on-earth as the number one priority in one’s life. One has to desire freedom from the Human Condition to the point of obsession and beyond … it is that urgent and essential.” [emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 17, 9 July 1998). I understand this intellectually but not experientially. It seems like there is a key ingredient that I don’t get about it. After rereading your post I need to start with paying attention to this moment and allow apperception to happen and not just talk about it. You “can see the fact of physical death” and you have taken great care that everything is prepared. But you do not see the fact that ‘self’-immolation, if it is to happen, is “urgent and essential” because, if it is to happen at all, it will have to happen before your physical death. You have not taken the same care to prepare for that. The best place to look for you is to find out why – in the face of approaching physical death – you do not “want peace-on-earth as the number one priority in one’s life”. What is it that you, ‘you’ the identity, want to save? What is so precious that you have not taken the opportunity to sincerely contemplate how to become free from the human condition, how to allow it to happen. Why is it not important to you, why is it not essential, why is it not urgent? Why do you give up so easily? These are a few questions for you to sincerely contemplate, to pay fascinated attention to, to naively inquire into and to genuinely look for an experiential answer … in order to discover “what is the fact” for allowing the ending of ‘me’ to happen. Cheers Vineeto January 24 2025 JAMES: What ‘I’ want to save is the identity (‘I/me’) itself because that is who I am. That is what is precious. Correct? VINEETO: Hi James, If your answer is not merely a thought-out answer but a deeply felt and experienced realisation, then you surely do not have to ask me if this is correct? What is it that you passionately feel is in the way of ‘me’ agreeing to abandon the throne? Cheers Vineeto January 25 2025 JAMES: It is ‘me’ that is in the way. I see the fact of this. VINEETO: Hi James, Who is ‘me’? What does ‘he’ do to prevent you from reaching your destiny? What are the objections, reasoning, justifications of ‘me’ to making peace-on-earth the number one priority in your life? Explore the details of these objections, honestly, sincerely, and with all the intent you can muster. And avoid the temptation of feeling embarrassed to allow yourself to discover, it is of vital importance. Cheers Vineeto January 30 2025 JAMES: I saw the fact of self-immolation is that the ‘me’ is in the way and that I was headed down the known path to try and unseat it and the known path hasn’t worked and so I just stopped. I’ve been told I need to connect to pure intent to proceed and I am not connected so I assumed that I can’t proceed without it. I don’t know what to do that is not the known path and, as I said, the known path hasn’t worked. VINEETO: Hi James, No, the known path hasn’t worked – it did not enable you “to connect to pure intent”. Perhaps this quote from Richard can help you to be interested enough, vitally interested, in order to start changing in a direction which it not “the known path”? RESPONDENT: You are not listening, Richard. I said that your fairy-tale-like ambience doesn’t touch me. […] It doesn’t touch the miserable human hordes and this God-forsaken planet either. RICHARD: I am well aware that it does not touch people ... whilst people stay as they are, that is. You want to be free without having to change yourself ... and change yourself radically, fundamentally. Reach out ... extend yourself ... dare to do it. As for not touching this planet ... this planet is swimming in it. RESPONDENT: Your infinite, borderless universe is therefore real unto yourself. RICHARD: It is my actual, on-going experience twenty four hours a day ... and has been for the last five years. Would you want it to be real unto you too? By which I mean: are you vitally interested in peace-on-earth? And ‘vitally interested’ means that it is the number one priority in your life inasmuch that it amounts to a fascinated obsession with your very being. Is your intention to become free of the Human Condition, in this life-time and as this body, the over-riding factor in all of your day-to-day dealings? If this is not the case, then what are you doing with your life? Why settle for second best when all this while the perfect purity of being alive at this moment in time and this place in space is just sitting here – right under your nose – freely available for anyone with the gumption to proceed on into their destiny. RESPONDENT: What daring does it need to exist as the body only? RICHARD: It needs the most startling daring and audacity possible, coupled with nerves of steel ... it is most definitely for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. You see, ‘you’, as an identity – any identity whatsoever – will be become extirpated, extinguished, eliminated, annihilated ... in other words: extinct. Speaking personally, there is no ‘being’ ... no ‘presence’ at all. There is simply this flesh and blood body bereft of any identity whatsoever. (Richard, List B, No. 23, 7 March 1998). Richard emphasizes again and again, that unless you are interested, vitally interested, nothing will happen. The question is what is it that will spark your interest in peace-on-earth in your life-time, so much so that you are willing to “change yourself radically, fundamentally”, to “reach out ... extend yourself ... dare to do it”? Perhaps reaching down inside of you to uncover your long-lost naiveté can do the trick – being like a child again but with adult sensibilities? Cheers Vineeto February 9 2025 JAMES: The key for me is seeing that the fact of self-immolation is that the feeler is in the way. This helps me to focus on what needs to be removed. Just seeing that fact has an effect on it. Richard said: “The seeing of the fact creates the action.” VINEETO: Hi James, Ha, yes the “feeler” is in the way. When you (in vain) try to remove “the feeler”, remember that you are the feeler, just as you are your feelings and your feelings are you. Does “seeing that fact” have “an effect” on ‘you’? Do you recognize that ‘you’ need to whole-heartedly agree to ‘your’ demise because ‘you’ are “in the way”? Cheers Vineeto February 9 2025 JAMES: The key for me is seeing that the fact of self-immolation is that the feeler is in the way. VINEETO: When you (in vain) try to remove “the feeler”, remember that you are the feeler, just as you are your feelings and your feelings are you. Does “seeing that fact” have “an effect” on ‘you’? Do you recognize that ‘you’ need to whole-heartedly agree to ‘your’ demise because ‘you’ are “in the way”? JAMES: No, I don’t recognize that I need to whole-heartedly agree to my demise. I was talking about a preliminary stage. Sorry for making it sound like a false alarm. VINEETO: Let me say it in Richard’s words, because in October 2002 you understood the process, at least intellectually. Perhaps it can click now experientially as well, when, as Richard says, you read with both eyes open, i.e. with all your being. Richard to James: It is this feeling of ‘self’ (and of ‘other’ of course) which is the illusion ... and it is this feeling ‘self’, the feeler (‘me’ as soul), the ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), who gives rise to the thinking ‘self’, the thinker (‘I’ as ego), which is where cognitive self-consciousness has become cognitive ‘self’-consciousness. (List B, James2, 17 Oct 2002). * James: Are you saying then that in order to eliminate the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ that the instinctual passions themselves have to be eliminated ... Richard: No ... and the reason why not is this simple: who would be doing the eliminating of the instinctual passions? As ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ it is an impossibility because the result of trying to do so would be a stripped-down rudimentary animal ‘self’ (seemingly) divested of feelings ... somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). [emphasis added]. * Richard: In the end, only altruistic ‘self’-immolation, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, will release the flesh and blood body from its parasitical resident and, as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, the end of ‘me’ is the end of ‘my’ feelings (aka the instinctual passions and all their cultivated derivations). James: Isn’t it the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ investigating itself which brings one to the point of self-immolation and isn’t it the ‘I’/‘me’ that makes the decision to self-immolate? Richard: Yes ... only ‘I’ can do it as it is all in ‘my’ hands and nobody else’s hands (nor is it in the hands of any god or goddess either, of course, despite some popular postulations to the contrary). James: You said above that the ‘I’/‘me’ cannot eliminate the instinctual passions but then you next said that the body is released from them by self-immolation. I am just trying to get a clear picture of it. Richard: Okay ... I was just making the point that, although it is hypothetically correct that the elimination of the instinctual passions would be the elimination of ‘I’/‘me’, it does not work that way in practice (for reasons such as already explained further above). Not only is it dangerous it is an impossibility ... only altruistic ‘self’-immolation will do the trick. (List B, James2, 19 Oct 2002). Cheers Vineeto February 10 2025 VINEETO: Perhaps it can click now experientially as well, when, as Richard says, you read with both eyes open, i.e. with all your being. Richard: In the end, only altruistic ‘self’-immolation, for the benefit of this body and that body and every body, will release the flesh and blood body from its parasitical resident and, as ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, the end of ‘me’ is the end of ‘my’ feelings (aka the instinctual passions and all their cultivated derivations). (List B, James2, 19 Oct 2002). SHASHANK: I also found this below convo very instructive (and it was with you James hehe) … James: Are you saying that when the time is right I simply abandon the instincts? Richard: One abandons ‘humanity’. And one knows ‘when the time is ripe’ because one finds out these things as they are happening or after they have happened and the realisation that this abandon is actually happening is stimulating, to say the least (there are weird feelings such as ‘a rat deserting a sinking ship’ to feel for example). One will no longer belong anymore to the largest group there is … ‘humanity’ (which is way, way past all gender groups, racial groups, age groups and other social groups). (Richard, List B, James, 16 Nov 1999). JAMES: Thanks for this. I do understand what you and Richard are saying that only altruism can lead to self-immolation. Let me try and clarify what I meant. In looking at what I see as the fact of self-immolation I noticed that the ‘me’ is what is in the way. In seeing this as a fact I noticed that the ‘me’ seemed to lose its grip. This is all that I am saying. SHASHANK: What’s interesting is that as a feeling being it may appear that abandoning humanity isn’t altruism so it’s the wrong approach lol JAMES: That is interesting. Are you saying then that abandoning humanity is altruism? I never saw that before but I can see the connection. Things are getting ‘thin on the ground’ for me as Richard called it. VINEETO: Hi James, It is good news that “the ‘me’ seemed to lose its grip”, as long as this occurrence is not based on dis-association. Abandoning humanity is not altruism per se because the ‘self’ is still present. Richard called abandoning humanity the pen-ultimate step, the second-to-last step to ‘self-immolation, so it is certainly the right direction. Richard: Then curiosity becomes fascination ... and then the fun begins to gain a momentum of its own. One is drawn inexorably further and further towards one’s destiny ... fascination leads to commitment and one can know when one’s commitment is approaching a 100% commitment because others around one will classify one as ‘obsessed’ (in spite of all their rhetoric a 100% commitment to evoking peace-on-earth is actively discouraged by one’s peers). Eventually one realises that one is on one’s own in this, the adventure of a life-time, and a peculiar tenacity that enables one to proceed against all odds ensues. Then one takes the penultimate step ... one abandons ‘humanity’. An actual freedom from the human condition then unfolds its inevitable destiny’. (Richard, List B, No. 45, 14 November 1999). The answer to James’ question prior to the above presented correspondence explains in detail how to move towards your aim – James: I’m not clear as to how one eliminates the instincts after one has become intimate with them and then has a 100% commitment. Does this happen on its own or is there something that I need to do? Richard: It happens on its own in that, as ‘I’ am the instinctual passions and the instinctual passions are ‘me’, there is no way that ‘I’ can end ‘me’. What ‘I’ do is that ‘I’ deliberately and consciously and with knowledge aforethought set in motion a ‘process’ that will ensure ‘my’ demise. What ‘I’ do, voluntarily and willingly, is to press the button – which is to acquiesce – which precipitates an oft-times alarming but always thrilling momentum that will result in ‘my’ inevitable self-immolation. The acquiescing is that one thus dedicates oneself to being here as the universe’s experience of itself now ... it is the unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body. Peace-on-earth is the inevitable result of such devotion because it is already here ... it is always here now. ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ was merely standing in the way of the already always existing perfect purity from becoming apparent by sitting back and moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all (as epitomised in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’). How can one be forever sticking one’s toe in and testing out the waters and yet expect to be able to look at oneself in the mirror each morning with dignity. The act of initiating this ‘process’ – acquiescence – is to embrace death. The 100% commitment happens of its own accord too; unlike the commitment one normally makes as a vow or a resolution (which can be broken after a lot of ‘soul-searching’ and heart-ache) the 100% commitment cannot be undone. This means one is already committed to finding out and there is no pulling back – which is why most people do not want to start – because once one has started, one cannot stop ... it is a one-way trip. (Richard, List B, James, 16 November 1999). You say that “‘things are getting thin on the ground’ for me” and as such it is vitally important that you are giving your “unreserved !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body”. This “unreserved !YES!” activates a joyful naiveté, an exuberant anticipation, resulting in experiencing the pure intent, which will safely guide you in the direction you want to proceed – an actual freedom outside of the human condition. Cheers Vineeto February 19 2025 Geoffrey: For a split second I saw like a veil in front of me. I saw how I could be on the other side of the ‘mirror’, on the safe side, the magical side, how I could… But there was a last second resistance: My precious! I will not give away my precious! Later on the way back, I was thinking about this ‘precious’ thing, how only here on this tiny planet right now there are 7 billion people just as ‘unique’ and ‘precious’ as my self, when it clicked… and I burst into laughter. This was simply hilarious. Everybody is so precious. I must then be SO precious hahaha. Every little ‘me’ waging wars against other little ‘me’ because they are so precious. Whereas they are just the same product of evolution and animal passions, with the same hiding place, the same hunger, the same dirtiness. You can’t be serious! I saw without a shadow of a doubt that ‘I’ am the cause of every evil, corruption, dirt… just because ‘I’ am ‘so precious’. How ‘I’ mess everything up for myself and everybody just because ‘I’ am. And not some dissociated ‘I’ with enough quotes not to be me, but me right now thinking this. There was the actual world just right there in front of me, obviously existing, pure and perfect, and then there was ‘me’, ‘humanity’. The contrast was simply hilarious. I can’t describe how hilarious this contrast was. What we’ve all been doing forever and ever, on a ridiculous parade of malice and sorrow, with the greatest seriousness. (Geoffrey Report of Becoming Free). JAMES: To Geoffrey. Exactly what are you calling ‘my precious’ in the above quote and why would you not give it away? VINEETO: Hi James, Here is what Kuba wrote today – Kuba: The seeing was almost like this entire game of being an identity is a misunderstanding. ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’… Furthermore ‘I’ am the ‘many’ and the ‘many’ are ‘me’… There are only the passions and the drama which erupts due to these passions operating in human beings is called “the human condition”. Yet there are no ‘entities’ actually in existence, it is only that the passions have usurped human intelligence and created an illusory real world along with the various ‘who’s’ that live there. It was the glimpse that ‘my’ very ‘being’ has no substance at all – that if ‘I’ am seen to be merely a feeling then ‘I’ cease to exist in the entirety of ‘my’ being. This seeing was that it would be almost too easy for ‘me’ to cease existing because ‘I’ don’t actually exist in the first place. It would be all this over absolutely nothing… that this whole time you have been conversing with a flesh and blood human being and ‘my’ whole existence was as if a huge misunderstanding. That would be something to laugh about à la Geoffrey. And this is that “special preciousness” of ‘being’, in that the passions have become a ‘who’, this ‘who’ feels precious beyond compare and yet ‘he’ has no actual existence, ‘he’ is merely a feeling. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Kuba4, 19 February 2025). Did Kuba’s last post answer your question? In order to understand this on an existential level, like Kuba obviously did, you might need to allow yourself to affectively feel and experience what it being said. Then you can sincerely and naively contemplate Richard’s words (by accessing the link after Kuba’s quote) and Kuba’s words of understanding and also my reply to him. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Kuba4, 19 February 2025). This contemplation, becoming fascinated contemplation, will give you the insight you are looking for … how to end ‘me’. The actualisation of this insight will be the end of ‘you’. Cheers Vineeto February 19 2025 JAMES: Yes thanks Vineeto, the way you put this whole post together answered my question perfectly. As Kuba said, it is the ‘who’ (identity) that feels precious which is all made up and what Geoffrey found hysterical. Humanity is still killing itself over a made up Identity. Richard: “The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ … and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is.” [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 8 October 1999). I do understand this completely that I am this flesh and blood body and not a precious identity. VINEETO: Hi James, You say you “understand this completely” but you only understand it intellectually and therefore it does nothing to change you. Also, humanity is not “killing itself over a made up Identity” – the identity is not “made up”, it is very very real, made real by the instinctual passions, genetically endowed with by birth, surging in every feeling being. You should know this from experiencing your own instinctual passions from time to time (unless you have dis-associated yourself from your emotions). You need to understand experientially and affectively ‘who’ you are in order that this passionate energy can propel you forward with sincere intent towards your goal to leave the ‘self’ behind and live as “this flesh and blood body”. Presently you are not “this flesh and blood body” but you are the identity using your flesh and blood body as a host. Hypnotising yourself that you are already “this flesh and blood body” does not achieve anything but fooling yourself. Cheers Vineeto February 20 2025 JAMES: You are correct. I am an identity using my flesh and blood body as a host. I don’t believe that I am already a flesh and blood body. I have had experiences of being a flesh and blood body, which were temporary, so I do understand what it means to be flesh and blood w/o a ‘precious identity’. I can see that I need to be more specific so as not to be misunderstood. I will now be more aware of being flesh and blood w/o this ‘precious identity’. These discussions here are helping me to get back to the core. I remember in the past that reading TMOBA (This Moment of Being Alive) helped me to become aware of being the flesh and blood body and now I see that it is ‘my precious’ identity that needs to be given up. VINEETO: Hi James, Good. Being accurate in your self-observation and reporting is essential. When you say “I see that it is ‘my precious’ identity that needs to be given up” it is a very generalized statement, because that means the same as “all of ‘me’”. Now that you know the bigger picture you can zoom in on detailed observation and fascinated attention how this “precious identity” plays out in real life in yourself in detail. For instance, when you get annoyed, irritated, confused, moody, apprehensive, and so on you allow this feeling long enough to recognized what it is, feel it, be it, and only then make the conscious choice to be feeling good instead. Don’t push anything under the rug. This way you get to know more and more in detail what your “precious identity” consists of. It’s important to remember that actualism is not about not having feelings – Richard: Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. However, in a PCE the feelings – passion and calenture – can come rushing in, if one is not alert, resulting in the PCE devolving into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first ... not the feelings. It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Anyone who attempts this absurdity would wind up being somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly known as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ – and has repressed the others. (Richard, List B, No. 19c, 26 June 1999) Kuba’s last post, just above yours, can give you some further clues about how to harness “the passionate energy of ‘me’” – Kuba: The other thing I can see now is that any “combination” of the passionate energy of ‘me’ can be used as a spring-board into actual freedom. ‘I’ am the passions and the passions are ‘me’ and as such they all contain the possibility for that seeing which is the ending of ‘me’. So the specifics of how this plays out for each identity can be different. The key to the door marked “oblivion” is contained within each of ‘my’ passions, the very energy of ‘my’ being has the seed for its own undoing. I can observe this in ‘myself’ that no matter what flavour of the passions, that seeing and that possibility is always there. Cheers Vineeto February 26 2025 JAMES: I have faced the fact of physical death and I am not afraid of dying. The fact of physical death is that it is the end – kaput. It is approaching and will be here sooner or later. I can’t stop it. Since I have faced the fear of physical death I surely should be able to face psychological and psychic death of the ‘I/me’. Actually, it should be easy in comparison. Why is it not? What is stopping me? What is stopping me is the ‘me’ itself. It is programmed to survive no matter what. What is the fact of ‘me’? I think the fact of ‘me’ is that it is a belief. In fact it is the ultimate belief. We have been programmed since birth to believe that it is real. In fact, we are even programmed to believe that it will live forever even after the death of my body. This puts me in touch with the feeling of ‘me’. A feeler is what it is. I need the right open question to live with this feeler and expose it for what it is. It is a chimera as Richard would say. The body is flesh and blood and that is what dies. The ‘me’ is a feeling. It is not flesh and blood. It is not actual. This brings me to the fact of ‘me’: It is real but not actual. Possible open questions that seems right to me is: Can I do it? (Extinguish the {'I/me.), Why can’t I do it?, How can I do it? How can I do it?, seems the most relevant now. VINEETO: Hi James, I remember you having asked that question before – “Can I do it? (Extinguish the {‘I’/ ‘me’}”. JAMES: Isn’t it the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ investigating itself which brings one to the point of self-immolation and isn’t it the ‘I’/‘me’ that makes the decision to self-immolate? RICHARD: Yes ... only ‘I’ can do it as it is all in ‘my’ hands and nobody else’s hands (nor is it in the hands of any god or goddess either, of course, despite some popular postulations to the contrary). JAMES: You said above that the ‘I’/‘me’ cannot eliminate the instinctual passions but then you next said that the body is released from them by self- immolation. I am just trying to get a clear picture of it. RICHARD: Okay ... I was just making the point that, although it is hypothetically correct that the elimination of the instinctual passions would be the elimination of ‘I’/‘me’, it does not work that way in practice (for reasons such as already explained further above). Not only is it dangerous it is an impossibility ... only altruistic ‘self’-immolation will do the trick. Which is why I advise minimising both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ feelings and maximising the felicitous feelings – as far as humanly possible – as a salubrious modus operandi in the meanwhile rather than trying to eliminate them. Not only does this approach have the immediate benefit of feeling happy and harmless as one goes about one’s normal everyday life but it has the ultimate benefit of assisting in the rewiring of the brain’s habitual circuitry before the once-in-a-lifetime event happens which wipes out the identity in toto. (Richard, List B, James2, 22 October 2002) * JAMES: That is a good question. What comes to mind is I keep treading the same path over and over because that is what I know. That is what is familiar. RICHARD: Indeed it is ... so in order to successfully escape one needs to abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods, so that the energy one is frittering away fruitlessly is available for the unknown path, the unfamiliar path, the path that does deliver the goods. JAMES: Upon looking at it further it appears that I am addicted to ‘me’ (suffering) but that I am also addicted to the escapes from the ‘me’. RICHARD: Okay ... is the addiction to being ‘me’ stronger than the addiction to escaping from being ‘me’? I only ask because if the addiction to being ‘me’ is the more powerful addiction then successful escape is the last thing ‘I’ am looking for (and thus ‘I’ will keep on re-treading the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods). Whereas if the addiction to escaping is the more powerful addiction then successful escape can (and will) happen. (Richard, List B, James3, 1 November 2002) * RICHARD: I only ask because if the addiction to being ‘me’ is the more powerful addiction then successful escape is the last thing ‘I’ am looking for (and thus ‘I’ will keep on re-treading the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods). JAMES: Actually, the known is ‘me’. That is what I know. I don’t know how to not tread the same path. RICHARD: Is the reason why ‘I’ do not know how to not tread the same path none other than because successful escape is the last thing ‘I’ am looking for (and thus ‘I’ will keep on re-treading the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods)? In other words: do ‘I’ not continue to temporarily escape from being ‘me’ because permanent escape from being ‘me’ is the last thing ‘I’ am looking for? * RICHARD: Whereas if the addiction to escaping is the more powerful addiction then successful escape can (and will) happen. JAMES: The same escapes are also ‘me’. They are the known. RICHARD: Perhaps if I were to put it like this: somehow, somewhere deep in the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), ‘I’ already know, as ‘I’ always have known and ‘I’ always will know, just what it is that is to happen. In fact, all ‘I’ have been able to do, and all ‘I’ am able to do, and all ‘I’ will be able to do, is to keep on putting it off for another time ... any other time will do, in all reality, provided that it not be now. Yet when the time comes it will be now ... because there is only now in all actuality. (Richard, List B, James3, 5 November 2002) Perhaps the time has come now because you know with certainty that you can’t put it off much longer. Are you willing, with utter sincerity, to give up the addiction of being ‘me’ and venture into the unknown? Perhaps you can read this whole page now with new eyes and get a vital clue. Geoffrey said this whole page of correspondence was one of his three favourite sources to study how to bring about self-immolation – he succeeded spectacularly. Cheers Vineeto February 27 2025 JAMES: Yes, in rereading all of this things are shaping up. What I have gathered so far: By accepting the fact of my impending physical death I have opened the door to self-immolation. Richard said above that only altruistic self-immolation will do it and that in the meanwhile minimizing both the ‘bad’ and ‘good’ feelings and maximising the felicitous feelings is better than trying to eliminate them because this will have immediate benefit of feeling happy and harmless while rewiring the brain before the once-in-a-lifetime event happens which wipes out the identity in toto. In summary: By accepting the fact of my impending physical death I can now be happy and harmless while readying myself for an altruistic self-immolation. I will keep re-reading the whole page in the discussion with Richard as you suggested. By accepting the fact of my impending death I have given up the addiction to being ‘me’ and am ready to venture into the unknown as you suggested. It is noted that you suggested ‘with utter sincerity’. I have always been sincere but not utterly sincere. Thanks for posting this discussion with Richard. I have finally gotten what he said all those years ago that it is the addiction to being ‘me’ that has to be given up and I have finally done that. VINEETO: Hi James, This is a good exegesis and it is significant that you recognized the difference between sincerity and ‘utter sincerity’, between being sincere and being utterly sincere. It has already shown some results. Now you have something inspiring to live for, and a dedicatory aim which makes your remaining days thoroughly fascinating in your utterly sincere exploration of whatever is preventing you from feeling excellent, naïve, daring and caring, and appreciative of living on this wonderful planet earth. There is nothing tepid or lacklustre in the felicitous feelings of benignity and benevolence, exuberance and passionate caring. Whilst you can investigate the operation of the instinctual passions, you cannot eliminate them until self-immolation. Instead, you channel all those passions into exciting, thrilling determination to keep exploring the deepest corners of your psyche whenever you find anything impeding your feeling wonderful, buoyant and on top of the world. You desire finding ‘the meaning of life’ like you never desired anything before. Richard: Speaking personally from experience, eventually – and ultimately – all the instincts are undone instantly via psychological and psychic ‘self’-sacrifice. This is, purely and simply, altruism at its very best ... and altruism’s energy is an instinctual passion (this is indeed hoisting oneself by one’s bootstraps ... writ large). However, until the initiation of the process that leads to ‘self’-immolation is consciously triggered – whereupon the ending of ‘me’ happens of its own accord – one can become acutely aware of the operation of the instinctual passions as they are experienced moment-to-moment. It is but the same ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ investigation of beliefs and feelings ... only extended deeper into one’s psyche. Strangely enough, it does mean an exploration into the psychic realm ... which is why it is essential that one first establishes a firm base – called virtual freedom – to fall back upon when the going gets tough. A journey into one’s psyche – which is the human psyche – is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee ... one must have nerves of steel to go all the way. The rewards for doing so are immense, however, and the ramifications far-reaching. It means peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body. [Emphases added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Mark, 18 May 1999). Richard: It is such a monumental thing to have happen: this event is the pivotal point wherein all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides and the such-like in one human being come to an end permanently. In a word: innocence. (Richard, List B, No. 33c, 23 June 2000) Your explorations and dedication to peace-on-earth may well be an inspiration for others too. Cheers Vineeto March 4 2025 JAMES: My current objection to pure intent and self-immolation: How can I experience pure intent and self-immolation when I am hurting all the time? VINEETO: Hi James, Regarding your pain, you can start by ceasing to emotionally object to the pain. By fighting the pain you give it additional energy with your affective objection and thus add suffering to physical hurt. Richard: 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? (Richard, Audio-Taped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible). You recently wrote in Claudiu’s Journal – James (to Claudiu): In your day to day experience when you are not in a pce do you want self-immolation more than you want your significant other or your work and career? I don’t recall wanting self-immolation like that? Right now I want to be healthy more than I want self-immolation. Of course I am not in a PCE. You made it clear, that “to be healthy” is your top priority. However, if you do not consider self-immolation as your top priority you can nevertheless choose to live in virtual freedom – Richard: What the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about is a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to feel well, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. If one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings – happiness, delight, appreciation, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on – in conjunction with sensuousness – then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness. If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being here now for as much as is possible. It is a win/win situation. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 26 December 2000) For experiencing Virtual Freedom “the first and crucial step” is to get rid of resentment. If, for instance, you prefer to complain about/ resent an obvious fact of life that one can only be as healthy as one is at this moment of being alive (with the available help of modern medicine) then that would be a sheer waste of this moment of being alive – Richard: … the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 11 July 1999). Does this clarify, and perhaps simplify, things for you? Cheers Vineeto March 5 2025 JAMES: Yes thanks Vineeto, actually it does clarify and simplify things for me. I am still living independently at home and its not that bad. I have plenty of help from my doctor prescribing some relative mild to moderate pain meds which help w/o being addictive w/o bad side effects, my maid who cleaned my house today, and my neighbour who put in my new air conditioner yesterday. I am still able to enjoy and appreciate while getting my shopping done and eating. Your reminder of a virtual freedom was timely because that sounds doable even if I am unable to go all the way and there is nothing wrong with being 99.9 % free. Also, I haven’t given up on improvement of my condition. While scrolling on Facebook I ran across an add for Texas Back Relief and clicked on it from which they got my phone # and persistently called me about getting a second opinion. I have agreed for an appt with their Neurosurgeon who is an Indian Dr with 37 yrs experience so maybe he can help me. A virtual freedom with mild to moderate pain sounds doable, Thanks for the guidance, The appt is Thurs so will let you know how it goes. This just my be the right path for me at this point. It is 20 miles away with a nice freeway all the way and the person I talked to on the phone sounded friendly and courteous. I expect everything to go good, VINEETO: Hi James, Thank you for your reply. I noticed that you only commented on outward physical changes which improve(d) your condition but not about the experimental option which might well bring a permanent change to feeling more felicitous and appreciative being alive – Vineeto: … you can start by ceasing to emotionally object to the pain. By fighting the pain you give it additional energy with your affective objection and thus add suffering to physical hurt. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, James2, 4 March 2025) You understand that as long as you nurse any kind objection/ resentment, you are not yet “99.9 % free” and there is still room for improvement. Cheers Vineeto March 6 2025 JAMES: Thanks again Vineeto for another timely reminder. I really got it this time. Actually, I really got both of your salient points: 1) It’s the experiential option that can bring about a permanent change along with the physical changes, 2) Don’t harbor objection/ resentment to the pain or anything else. I cannot be 99.9% free as long as I do. I have really noticed this time that as long as I have any objection or resentment to the pain or any thing else then I will not be virtually free. It has made a huge difference to me to focus on virtual freedom before I try for actual freedom. I recall Geoffrey saying this was important also. I really appreciate your detailed attention in guiding me. I can now better cope with my pain whether the new doctor can help me or if it gets worse. This has helped me to make a huge breakthrough in pain management and virtual freedom simultaneously. VINEETO: Hi James, You are welcome. This is really a great report of success. As you say “I really got it this time.” I particularly like that you say you “can now better cope with my pain whether the new doctor can help me or if it gets worse”. Each time the habit to reject pain wants to return you replace it with an emotional acceptance as being all part and parcel of being alive. So it will no longer be a hindrance to you enjoying and appreciating being alive. This is wonderful. Vineeto March 13 2025 JAMES: I have some objections and resentments arising that are interfering with my quest for virtual freedom which seem to be related to authority. The private messages on this forum aren’t really private if some people have access to them. I don’t even know who these people are or why they have the authority to do that. Also still have an issue with my health care. I have resentment to them stopping me from using thc even though this could be helping me. It is the authority I resent. I think this is related to my father asserting his authority over me and the way he did it. VINEETO: Hi James, Having a complaint that live isn’t fair? And yet you are presenting the same topics of problems I have answered for you several times – resentment and objection to authority, which both means you are really resenting that the world is as it is and people are as they are. For instance – Vineeto: According to the sequence of what you wrote, the trigger is not the pain itself but your emotional reaction to it. This is called resentment. You had the pain for a long time and it waxes and wanes, that is the nature of your particular condition. Of course, you do whatever is practical and possible regarding the physical condition. However, it is your resentment about having the pain in the first place, which acerbates it and feeds ‘me’, it feeds your feeling bad and angry about the pain. Or you can change being resentful and angry because you acknowledge that are your feelings. I had feedback from several other people who have given up their resentment with instant success including diminishment of pain for some, after understanding this simple mechanism that one can change one’s affective outlook on life when recognizing that ‘I’ am my feelings. Richard lived with his severe back pain for about a decade, after the pain medication stopped working. I never ever heard him complain about it nor did he stop enjoying and appreciating being alive. You do not have to be depressed, unless you choose to be. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, James2, 6 December 2024a) * Vineeto: For experiencing Virtual Freedom “the first and crucial step” is to get rid of resentment. If, for instance, you prefer to complain about/ resent an obvious fact of life that one can only be as healthy as one is at this moment of being alive (with the available help of modern medicine) then that would be a sheer waste of this moment of being alive – Richard: … the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 11 July 1999). (Actualism, ActualVineeto, James2, 4 March 2025) On March 6 you reported that you “really got it”. James: I really got it this time. Actually, I really got both of your salient points: 1) It’s the experiential option that can bring about a permanent change along with the physical changes, 2) Don’t harbour objection/ resentment to the pain or anything else. I cannot be 99.9% free as long as I do. And yet you here you are today wondering what to do about being resentful. First, read what has been written before and what Richard said about getting rid of resentment (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Resentment) – reflect, contemplate and become fascinated how the human condition works in you. Then feel it, allow the feeling of resentment, to the point or experiencing that you are this feeling, long enough to experientially recognize how silly it is to be this way. From there you can choose to be something different, for instance instead be felicitous and appreciative of being alive on this wonderful planet earth. Once this works, take note how you did it in order to use it next time – until you really get it, that any resentment is utterly silly, a waste of time, and doesn’t change anything at all except spoil this moment of being alive. The same with the issue of authority – which is really emotionally saying, “I want it my way”, and then blame your father that you have this problem. Your father is long dead, you now have to deal with your feelings yourself, and you do it the same way as I laid out above. Accept emotionally what you may not be able to accept intellectually – James: ... My question is: Can I accept the unacceptable? (…) Richard: Given that people are as-they-are and that the world is as-it-is there are more than a few things which are ‘unacceptable’ (child abuse, rape, murder, torture and so on). What worked for me twenty-odd years ago, as a preliminary step, was to rephrase the question so that it makes sense (rather than vainly apply any of those unliveable ‘unconditional acceptance’ type injunctions): • Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable? This way intelligence need not be compromised ... intelligence will no longer be crippled. (Richard, List B, James2, 18 August 2001). Again, take note how it works, so you don’t forget what to do when it occurs next time. High time to play now rather than resenting something you cannot change, such as healthcare systems. When you have a problem with list privacy, ask a moderator to explain it to you. There is really nothing, nothing at all, that is worth giving the power to and spoil this very moment, the only moment you can actually experience being alive. Cheers Vineeto April 13 2025 JAMES: I’m in a hospital rehab now trying to piece my life back together after a fall at home caused by pain medication. I’ve been in three hospitals which were a lot of suffering with various operations and treatment. I have felt suicidal a lot and would rather die than go thru it again. I may still have some kind of good life left. It’s just unknown now what my brain and body will be able to do. VINEETO: Hi James, Welcome back and good to hear you are much better after your fall at home, and that you say that you “may still have some kind of good life left”. While you are recovering and mainly inactive, here is a way of experiencing being here via being aware of the variety of your sensate experiencing – Richard: ‘... if one were to close the eyes one will find there is a sensing, or perception, of being oriented in space (of space all around including behind the body) ... and this has as much to do with balance, acceleration and/or rotation in space, orientation in a gravity field (if there be one) as it has to do with the proprioceptive senses proper in the muscles, tendons, and joints. The proprioceptive senses are part of the somatic sensory system (somaesthesis/ somaesthesia) which is the faculty of bodily perception (sensory systems associated with the body) and includes skin senses (cutaneous receptors for hot/cold, pressure, physical pleasure/pain, for example) and the internal organs sensors (cardiovascular or circulatory receptors for blood pressure, heart rate, and carbon dioxide and digestive tract receptors for hunger and thirst, for instance) as well as the equilibrium sense, or sense of balance, already mentioned. Thus proprioception is the ability to sense the position and location and orientation and movement of the body, and its parts, because of the proprioceptors in the muscles, tendons, and joint capsules (in combination with the sense of balance, acceleration and/or rotation in space, and orientation in a gravitational field, of the inner ear or vestibular organ). In other words: the sense of being here, in space, as a body is not just because of sight (visual perception), sound (auditory perception), touch (cutaneous perception), smell (olfactory perception), and taste (gustatory perception). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 10 July 2003). The definition in the Abditorium about proprioceptive sensing gives even more details. I wish you success in getting back to feeling good. Cheers Vineeto May 2 2025 JAMES: What worries me is the uncertainty of my various health conditions and not knowing what I will have to do. The hospitals and doctors have left me hanging as to the various conditions I am facing. This has left me with good training to take things as they come w/o any expectations. So far the hospitals, doctors and nurses haven’t met any of my expectations. It seems as if they really don’t care. Basically, I know very little to nothing about what’s ahead for me. I have learned to be patient and wait. I could be lucky and die in my sleep or I could recover somewhat and lead a happy life. VINEETO: Hi James, Good to hear from you. Being worried is an understandable reaction to your present circumstances but, once you get back to feeling good and have a clear-eyed look at the overall situation, you will, perhaps bit by bit, discover that almost all that is happening is not in your control and as such ‘I’, the controller, really can’t do anything about it but to worry, i.e. make you feel bad, which is not only an unpleasant pastime but unhealthy as well. The actual situation is not in your control because, as you say, you don’t know what you “will have to do”. You are in the system of care of hospital and doctors and they will eventually tell you what your choices are, if there are any choices which are not already obvious. So really, it cannot cause any harm to stop worrying and start feeling good instead. It’s a much more pleasant way to spend your time whilst being “patient and wait”. You are alive and able to appreciate each precious moment of being alive. Cheers Vineeto May 27 2025 JAMES: Been pulling myself up by my bootstraps and the results are paying off. I have been experiencing enjoyment and appreciation slowly but surely. How sweet it is! VINEETO: Hi James, Good to hear from you and I am glad you “been experiencing enjoyment and appreciation” despite “the uncertainty of my various health conditions”. I looked up the term ‘pulling oneself up by the bootstraps’ which ‘Peter’ introduced and ‘he’ and ‘Vineeto’ made use of on several occasions. They both used it in a similar sense of ‘getting back to feeling good’ as quickly as possible but with a hint that it sometimes was an effort to extract oneself from the glue of the ubiquitous human condition. ‘Vineeto’: There is something else that helps me and that is to remember to be friends with myself and rather than being down on myself for being irritated or fearful to instead give myself a pat on the back for noticing that I was. This way it’s much easier to pull myself up by my bootstraps and to get back to being happy again in no time. It’s a persistent habit to break, this telling myself off for not being perfectly happy for 24hrs a day, but I do notice it much quicker these days than I used to. Then it is not so much a matter of weening myself off the ‘trough of the Human Condition’, as you call it, but more a slipping out of ‘my’ skin and sensately – and sensuously – enjoying being here. I also had to realize that after I’ve been through certain intense feelings and passions there is nothing further to be learned from staying in the feeling. I used to be suspicious of Richard’s expression of ‘nipping the feeling in the bud’, ostensibly for the reason that it could be confused with repressing the feeling. But now I realized that I was also avoiding the technique itself because ‘I’ wanted to hang onto being ‘the explorer’ of deep passions whenever they occurred and I can see now that there is neither meaning nor value in ceaselessly examining an instinctual passion over and over and over again. In other words I have come to understand that no valuable insight is to be gained from deeply and repeatedly feeling fear – the most prominent of the passions for me – and this understanding has greatly helped to simply notice and label the feeling, in this case my fear of oblivion, and then get on with enjoying this moment of being alive, which is after all the point of actualism. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Gary-g, 29.2.2004) Richard used the expression only once (“writ large”) in this quote – Richard: Speaking personally from experience, eventually – and ultimately – all the instincts are undone instantly via psychological and psychic ‘self’-sacrifice. This is, purely and simply, altruism at its very best ... and altruism’s energy is an instinctual passion (this is indeed hoisting oneself by one’s bootstraps ... writ large). However, until the initiation of the process that leads to ‘self’-immolation is consciously triggered – whereupon the ending of ‘me’ happens of its own accord – one can become acutely aware of the operation of the instinctual passions as they are experienced moment-to-moment. It is but the same ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ investigation of beliefs and feelings ... only extended deeper into one’s psyche. Strangely enough, it does mean an exploration into the psychic realm ... which is why it is essential that one first establishes a firm base – called virtual freedom – to fall back upon when the going gets tough. A journey into one’s psyche – which is the human psyche – is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee ... one must have nerves of steel to go all the way. The rewards for doing so are immense, however, and the ramifications far-reaching. It means peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body. (Richard, AF List, Mark, 18 May 1999) And here is one just for fun – James: ... I speak with personal experience because I have been in two cults in the past. One of them was very similar to this one which is why I think I initially identified with this one so well. I have extreme reservations about sending this to this list because I am sure it will be denied .... Richard: Yes, as I understand it, from the information provided to this Mailing List by several concerned people, I cannot know that it is a cult because I am in denial ... so, given that you too see that I am in denial (‘I am sure it will be denied’), perhaps you can throw a little light on the matter for me if I share with you something from my personal life that I am currently involved in up to my neck (some would say obsessed with). Four-five years ago I purchased a computer for the first time: at the time I considered it a major achievement if I could manage to get cash out of an ATM and I was incapable of tuning my TV and VCR (I arranged to get them tuned from the shop I purchased them from as part of the deal) so I searched around for someone who demonstrably knew about computing and who was willing to share their expertise with me. So as to ensure anonymity I will call the person I found ‘Rachael’ and the name of the small company she was a director of ‘Bootstrap Computers’: I came to look upon Rachael as my mentor as she was only too happy to take the time to coach me through, not only the early stages of learning about the computer’s software programmes, but even through the more advanced stages wherein, thanks to her guidance and tutelage, I was coming into direct contact with the deeper aspects of the (to me at least) arcane world of computer hardware. For the sake of convenience she called the system she had devised to assist people like me ‘bootstrapism’ and digitally provided brochures, pamphlets, articles and books (there are even two that are for sale in paper-back form). However, I have since found out – the more I became drawn into the intricacies of the computer condition – that not only was there a coterie that had formed around Rachael and the Bootstrap Computers organisation – but that I was starting to use the same-same lingo as all these other bootstrapists that she had sucked into her ... dare I say it ... her cult. And to think that all this was because I was ignorant enough to take advice from another – to follow another’s advice – instead of starting off from scratch (painting symbols on cave walls with various iron oxides and subsequently inventing pencils, pens, paper, typewriters and thence computers) in isolation from my fellow human beings. Now, here is my problem: I have confronted her again and again – I have even hurled gutter invective against her and/or her followers using all the satirical criticism I can muster – but she steadfastly maintains that bootstrapism is not a cult and that she is not a cult-leader ... and not even unknowingly a cult-leader being deviously used by her followers at that. Obviously, seeing that she denies all the charges levelled against her, she is in denial too. What should I do ... especially as I still want to learn about computers? (Richard, AF List, James, 12 July 2001). You have come a long way since then, James – and now you can really enjoy and appreciate the tangible practical results of “bootstrapism” – “how sweet it is!” It is truly marvellous. Cheers Vineeto June 2 2025 JAMES: There has been a noticeable breakthrough this morning. There is a discernible enjoyment and an upgrade in feeling good. Back to being glad to being alive. Things are looking up. I need to stay on track. One thing I thought of is to enjoy and appreciate w/o thinking of how it should be. VINEETO: Hello James, Congratulations, you cracked the code – “One thing I thought of is to enjoy and appreciate w/o thinking of how it should be”. That’s being naïve and it makes everything so much easier. Cheers Vineeto June 24 2025 JAMES: As I approach the end of my life I decided to look at my regrets and then I realized that I don’t have any. I consider this a good thing and due to actualism. VINEETO: Hi James, Good to hear from you. To have no regrets is indeed a good thing and I am very pleased that actualism contributed substantially to you having a peaceful and harmonious remainder of your life. I wish you the very best. Cheers Vineeto July 14 2025 JAMES: I think it’s the attachment of love that stops most from going all the way to actual freedom. I just experienced love trying to return and I faced it down again. VINEETO: Hi James, Love is indeed a strong and very seductive feeling with its inherent false guarantee to solve all problems of separation and its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. Facing “it down again” will only temporarily suppress it. If that technique had been successful the first time, the temptation to experience it again would not have returned. What you can do is to fully understand love, recognize at an experiential level (or from previous examples in your life) that the deeply felt promises always failed and recognize that at the deepest core ‘pure love’ also encapsulates ‘pure evil’, such as jealousy, possessiveness, exclusivity and revenge. Viz.: Richard: ‘(...) love is usually considered sacrosanct ... yet just as sorrow is essential for its antidotal compassion to flourish love is the antitoxin for malice: without malice, love has no raison d’être. I started to empirically encounter this, whilst sailing my yacht around tropical islands off the north-east coast of Australia with a choice companion, towards the end of 1987 and by about mid 1988 the unfolding of experience came to its inevitable realisation. Strangely enough it was the disclosure of the intrinsically manipulative nature of love – and ‘unconditional love’ at that – in 1987 which triggered the expansion of comprehension and experiential understanding of the composition of the affective faculty ... with the concomitant growth of awareness’. It was with Love Agapé being such a ‘sacred cow’ that there had initially been considerable uneasiness about a direct investigation – my initial enquiry had begun in India in 1984, whilst single and celibate, upon becoming suss about the Buddhist ‘karuna’ (pity-compassion) and ‘metta’ (loving-kindness) – hence there was a three year-long gestation period before the fact could be addressed squarely. Eventually what happened was that at anchor one velvety night with an ebbing tide chuckling its way past the hull what I then called ‘The Absolute’ presented itself as being feminine – a Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love – which femininity I would nowadays consider to be a product of me being of masculine gender. Due to an intensity of purpose there was the capacity to penetrate into the nature of this ‘Radiant Being’ and I was able to see ‘Her’ other face: It was Pure Evil – the Diabolical underpins the Divine – and upon such exposure ‘She’ (aka Love Agapé) disappeared forever ... nevertheless it was not until 1992 that it all came to fruition. There is a vast difference between ‘realisation’ and ‘actualisation’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 10 February 2003). JAMES: I saw what’s on the other side of freedom from love and I am in the clear. It’s freedom from the feeling of love that one has to be free from. VINEETO: If that is the case then this is magnificent – though I wonder if what you described having “faced it down again” did the trick. Perhaps this is only a short form of you telling it and not the whole story? To put is differently, now that you “faced (…) down” “the attachment of love/ “the feeling of love” has this given you the green light to “going all the way to actual freedom”? The following quote from Richard is just a reminder that “to stop feeling” is not “the way to actual freedom” – Richard: ‘Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. … (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 26 December 2000). I also recommend watching the Actualism Method Excerpt video for refreshing your memory. Cheers Vineeto July 15 2025 JAMES: Yes, I can see that I used the wrong terminology for describing the return of love. When I felt the love arising I experienced it w/o acting on it and let it pass away. VINEETO: Hi James, Thank you for the clarification – that’s sounds like what Richard would call ‘nipping it in the bud’. Now you maybe able to enjoy a naïve intimacy with a fellow human being without succumbing to the attractiveness of the feeling of affection – Martin: What does that mean practically then Richard? Richard: G’day Martin, Essentially, what “that” meant practically for feeling-being ‘Grace’ was how ‘she’ needed to be fully alert, upon the emergence of (if not prior to) that third-stage ‘sweetness’, to the attractiveness of the feeling of affection/ of ‘self’-centrically being affectionate – so as to not instinctually veer off into the intimacy of love – and thereby remain steadfast with delighting in the physical proximity of the flesh-and-blood body typing these words (i.e., “the other”, in the nomenclature of the third paragraph from the top of this page, that ‘she’ conventionally referred to as “my partner”, when living what ‘she’ laconically termed “my other life”, during ‘her’ interactions on weekdays with female colleagues, friends, acquaintances, &c., in a neighbouring village). (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 March 2016). Cheers Vineeto July 26 2025 JAMES: Yes, I think I see what you mean about making a distinction between ‘naive intimacy’ and love. What I felt was definitely love which was brought on from memory. I’m not sure that I have a memory of naive intimacy which Richard refers to as third stage ‘sweetness’. I need to be on alert to distinguish ‘naive sweetness’ from love so as not to eliminate ‘sweetness’ when nipping love in the bud. VINEETO: Hi James, The way to “not to eliminate ‘sweetness’ when nipping love in the bud” is to channel the affective energy of loving feelings into felicitous feelings. Nipping in the bud is not repressing or pushing away the feeling but rather with exquisite awareness to ‘redirect’ the affective energy into being the feeling of your choice – naïve sweetness. As a reminder, here is how Richard suggested to access/ re-access naiveté – Richard: Given that it is, plainly and simply, always ‘my’ choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment then the optimum manner in which to do so is, of course, sincerely/ naïvely. Thus the part-sentence in that previous post of mine [quote] ‘and to be sincere is to be the key which unlocks naiveté’ [endquote] is worth expanding upon. The operative words in that part-sentence are [quote] ‘... to be the key ...’ [endquote] and with particular emphasis on the word ‘be’ (rather than ‘have’ for instance). In other words, to be sincerity (not only have sincerity) is to be the key (not merely have the key) to be naiveté (not just have naiveté). (Bear in mind that, at root, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ and it will all become clear). As there is something I have oft-times encouraged a fellow human being to try, in face-to-face interactions, which usually has the desired effect it is well worth detailing here: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). Now, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre). Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté). Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what. Here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’. Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness. Here is where it is possible to be the key. (Richard, List D, Srid, 26 May 2009). Cheers Vineeto
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