Please note that Vineeto’s correspondence below was written by the feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ while ‘she’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom.
Selected Correspondence Vineeto Evil Actualism Homepage RESPONDENT: ... but what of influences from more faceless powers? If there was a certain job you wanted, and you lost it because of your gender, how would you react? VINEETO: When I was in my twenties, I also believed in ‘faceless powers’, and I passionately believed that one needs to fight against those ‘faceless powers’ whether it be capitalism, male chauvinism, consumerism or whatever else was the fashionable faceless evil. I went to the streets with others who shared my anger and frustration and there I saw that the demonstrators were as equally stricken with malice and sorrow as the people of the establishment they were demonstrating against. I saw people beating each other up; I saw rocks thrown into windows and, because everyone was busy fighting for their cause, none of the demonstrators, including me, was able to consider the policemen as fellow human beings who were doing their job – just as the policemen could not consider the demonstrators as their fellow human beings. There are no ‘faceless powers’ in the world – the political concept of evil, by whatever name, is as much a passionate fairytale as the belief in an almighty god. The belief in ‘faceless powers’ is born of an innate resentment of being here and is expressed as anger for those who supposedly made the world one finds oneself in. The feeling that one is but a hapless victim of circumstances is just that – a feeling – and once I admit that it is ‘my’ feeling and not a fact, then it can be investigated and eradicated in me. Just to repeat something that is often skipped over and not fully taken on board – actualism is the method devised to become happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is with people-as they are. If I apply for a job and the employer declines to employ me because I am female, or 48 years old, or white, or raised in Germany or black-haired or not pretty enough, then that is a fact, i.e. that is the world-as-it-is. When I took up actualism, I made it my single-pointed mission to be happy and harmless regardless of any given situation. The more I explored the human condition in me and in others, the more it became glaringly obvious that there is no solution to be had within the human condition, nor is there any way to change the human condition – the only solution is to get out, to cut the ties, to leave the fold – and this can only be done by individuals. I do understand that in the beginning it is a scary decision to strike out on your own and to change yourself while everyone keeps blaming someone else or something else for their misery. But I came to consider each moment that I am not happy a moment wasted and I decided to reduce that waste to nil. It is possible. * VINEETO to No 38: My observation during the process of actualism was that it was my emotions that were responsible for my brain rambling on when there was nothing practical to think about – the worries, fears, desires and hopes that kept the constant flow of neurotic thought going. Consequently, when I began to investigate my beliefs, feelings and emotions, and dismantled the affective identity that feeds and maintains those beliefs, feelings and emotions, my rambling thoughts slowly began to disappear into thin air. The spiritual concept of blaming thought for all the evils of mankind – and the solution of trying to stop thought – does not work because ‘the cacophony of voices in [the] head’ is caused by the feelings and instinctual passions that occur prior to thought. Feelings and instinctual passions trigger off a lot of thoughts but for peace of mind one has to dig deeper into one’s feelings and emotions. The solution lies in questioning and examining not only the little person in the head, the ‘I’, but simultaneously the little person in the heart – ‘me’, the core of my being. * VINEETO: Good to hear that you had an enjoyable holiday. Funny that you should say you were ‘avoiding ‘certain’ parts of Oregon’ – these ‘certain’ parts of Oregon are the only landscape of the US I have ever seen in person apart from the bus ride to and from Portland airport. <snip> RESPONDENT: It’s too bad you didn’t experience more of the region... it is truly beautiful geography. Amazing that you were insulated from the majesty of nature en route to such an ‘important’ place. The forests/mountains/water make a far grander ‘church’ than any guru’s ashram. I found I was quite drawn to the environment of the NW, and shortly after I returned I was approached about an interesting job opportunity in the area. Clearly divine forces at work, huh? ;-) So, a move may be in the offing. VINEETO: Oh, on my journeys to the Oregon Ranch – four altogether – I was entirely focussed on seeing Rajneesh and our new commune. In my years of spiritual search I was geared to finding the ‘inner beauty’ that was represented by Rajneesh and ‘his people’, nothing ‘outer’ mattered much to me. My disregard for the magnificence around me is yet another proof of how much spiritual belief and religious devotion were clouding, distorting and restricting my perception and making me oblivious to the splendour of the actual physical universe. Many spiritualists claim to see and experience this magnificence and splendour but what they feel is beauty, which means they also see and experience ugliness. As such, they can only sustain the feeling of beauty by denying or turning away from their feeling of ugliness. This is also evident in the religion of animism that underpins much of Environmental belief – whilst they see beauty and goodness in Mother Nature they also see ugliness and evil in materialism and technological progress. GARY: My addiction is something that I now regard as being almost totally instinct driven. How could it be otherwise? Why would a person such as myself, with basically a decent upbringing and many social and educational advantages, be driven to nearly drink and drug themselves to death, not to mention the crushing despair, suicidal depressions, and nearly constant homicidal tendencies? There are things about AA that I appreciate, however, one of them being that the founders of AA, in my opinion, correctly recognized the role of the instinctual passions driving the alcoholic’s life and relationships. They correctly discerned and set up a practical method of investigating the instinctual passions, at least in part. But the continual infusion of the spiritual approach into AA has set the whole methodology of inquiring into the instincts through a searching and fearless inventory on its head, and thus I am beginning to see that the entire thing is rotten to the core, to use an expression I have heard on this list. The method of turning oneself in abject surrender over to God or a Higher Power almost certainly dooms the method, and the resulting investigation of the instincts becomes only a surface skimming around, not going to the required depths needed to eliminate them at their root. I still intend to attend AA but I feel I have parted ways with many of the things, which I used to give head-nodding approval to, mainly the ‘spiritual’ part of the program. I also do not seem to have as much of a desire for affiliation, the need to ‘rub elbows’ with people, as I used to have. All of this amounts to either a kind of self-imposed exile or an ostracization from something that I used to consider as essential to continued life and happiness as food and air. I am not sure any more. When I do attend meetings, I enjoy hearing people talk about how their lives have changed for the better with continued sobriety, as has mine. And I also like to hear what people are finding out about living in this world in peace and harmony with others and themselves, but I chafe when they start talking about so-called spiritual things, what Richard has dubbed ‘passionate fantasies and imaginative hallucinations’. The founders of AA, like many human beings, held all kinds of fanciful ideas about things spiritual, attending séances, revivals, etc, etc. I can certainly relate to that kind of delusion. At one time, I was firmly convinced that I could communicate with dead spirits myself! VINEETO: Yes, our decent upbringing and instilled conditioning is only skin-deep when it comes to keeping the lid on the instinctual passions that we are all born with. When I first started to come face to face with the deeper instinctual passions in me that were lurking underneath my initial emotional reactions, I realised why no one has dared to fully acknowledge this instinctual animal heritage both in themselves and in every human being. The power and rawness of my bare instincts was so overwhelming at first, that had I not known that it is actually possible to eliminate these instincts, I would not have dared to let them come to the surface in their full repellence. Only because I know that I can, and want to, get rid of ‘me’, the root of these survival instincts, has it been possible to face this atavistic evil force. With the knowledge that there is life beyond instincts I was able to sit out the turbulent storms of fear without scurrying for safety, acknowledge my instinctual lust to kill without denying it and experience the dread and sorrow of humankind without wallowing in it or grasping for the ‘redemption’ of enlightenment. It is all very real when it happens, but once the storm abates, which it inevitably does, there is not a trace of it left in the delightful clarity that follows. GARY: There is also underlying this a fear, now that I am abandoning ship, casting myself overboard, so to speak. I feel like a ship adrift without a rudder, without the controls of faith, hope, belief. There is also the conditioned fear or dread of some kind of divine punishment, as I am turning away from religion and spiritual teaching. It’s an interesting trip! VINEETO: It is indeed an interesting trip! This fear of abandoning ship, which I remember from my own process, is the very proof that something had actually changed and I was not simply replacing one belief with another. I didn’t understand the nature of the fear at the time, yet whenever I stopped to reconsider the sensibility of my choice for Actual Freedom I knew I was better off ‘without the rudder’ of the traditional ‘Tried and Failed’. The dread of ‘divine punishment’ was very real to me for some time – ‘what if everyone is right after all and I end up in (Eastern) hell?’ Each time one steps away from humanity’s beliefs to stand on one’s own two feet, there is this mad feeling of ‘oh dear, what have I done?’ And yet, when discovering the actual underneath the belief, the actual is so self-evidently obvious that I always thought ‘how come I haven’t seen this before, how come nobody tells you about it, how come nobody else sees this?’ The psychic world of divine and evil, with its atavistic feelings and psychic power structures, is not to be dismissed lightly. It is not a small thing we are doing, stepping out of ancient psychic history and leaving behind at least 3,500 years of recorded superstition and belief, hope for heaven and fear of hell. I encountered fears of being burnt as a witch, expelled from the tribe or starved to death – which in not so recent history were not just psychic imagined fears. These fears all seem to be woven as an ancient memory in our brain cells and are automatically triggered the moment one dares to steps out of the tribal, religious or social group one has belonged to. Two things always helped me to overcome those fear-attacks – one was the obvious fact that feelings are not actual. Nobody is actually persecuting me or physically threatening me. The other thing is the understanding that I am deliberately and actively dismantling my very ‘self’, all of ‘who I think and feel I am’ and of course that will rock the boat, it wouldn’t be an actual change if it didn’t! Then, the journey becomes really thrilling ... GARY: However, I am not angry at religion or the God-men, and I am not angry at myself for believing them. I am, rather, incredulous at my own gullibility, my own susceptibility to the influence of others. The goods that they had to offer me – immortality, Truth, Timelessness – no longer tantalize. VINEETO: I always say, spirituality was the best on offer at the time. The longer these God-men promote their wisdom and lifestyle in the West, the more they are coming under observation and scrutiny, and reports of their deeds are spreading with the help of modern communication. Soon there won’t be much left that is not known about a life of a God-man. The mystery and mystique of enlightenment, so important in maintaining reverence and faith, is more and more being examined in the light of how, or indeed if, the holy men are living their own teachings. The lies and confusion that enlightened people are promoting and acting out, in the name of God’s will, are now public knowledge, and the internet is one of the best tools to make this knowledge known to whoever wants to know. Ramesh Balesekar’s callous fatalism, Adi Da’s extensive sexual orgies, St. John de Ruiter’s message from God to take two more wives into his existing family, Ma Anmachi’s disciplinarian cruelty, M. Rajneesh’s criminal scandals in Oregon, J. Krishnamurti’s secret love affair with his best friend’s wife, Barry Longs’ philosophy of the golden rod that transmits divine grace, Ishwara Maitreya’s mad utterings of God’s latest wisdom, the Actual Supreme Being who deeply apologizes 13 times on one single page for the mess he created in the world ... once one starts looking with the clear eyes of a non-believer, there is plenty of dirt and insanity to discover, masquerading in the name of Love and Compassion. There are no good gurus and bad gurus, as some people, who only find fault with one and not the other, are trying to point out – the very institution of enlightenment is rotten to the core. VINEETO to Gary: Last week I sent a letter to a German correspondent commenting on two newspaper articles that he had sent me analysing the latest events in the US. As I thought the topic might be of interest to you or others, I am posting the English translation on the list. For you, here is the link for the German version. [Vineeto]: You sent me an article from Peter Lock, ‘Researcher for Peace and Conflict’, on the topic of ‘A Replaceable Figure’, ‘Politics Must Do More Than Hunt For Single Perpetrators’, which I found to be idealistic-ideological rather than pragmatic-practical. The author presents a number of well-known fashionable beliefs and ideas that have little to do with facts or common sense. For instance, he says – [Web-Respondent No 3]: The causes of terrorism disappear from sight because investigating them would destroy the seeming clarity of one’s political and most probably also military reactions. Even more, one doesn’t ask what the social conditions had been that supported efficient terrorism on a multinational scale ... [endquote]. I consider people who indiscriminately, and at any cost including their own life, set out to harm and deliberately destroy another group of people as a dangerous assembly, even more so in the latest case as they seem to have not only a strong following but also the avowed aim and the means to wage a war of terror. The behaviour and action of such a group, wielding such weapons as hijacked aircrafts laden with jet fuel, cannot be excused by anything, whatever may be the political situation in their country, the tenets of their religion, the ideals of their particular social/political philosophy or whatever injustices they claim to have suffered or how righteous they consider their cause. In other words, if someone decides to hate me and attack me, I don’t have to understand the particular justification for his or her aggression in order to stop him or her. When someone threatens me I will call the police, whatever the aggressor’s reason or justification for his or her attack may be. It may be pertinent to note that throughout history the only thing that ultimately stops violence is more violence – which is why we have armed police and armies to maintain law and order. The system may not be fair on some but whilst human beings continue to nurse malice and sorrow in their bosoms, what passes for peace will be ultimately maintained at the point of a gun. Peter Lock continues – [Web-Respondent No 3]: Further down I will examine the possible topics of the failed dialogue that is now being continued with brutal force. These are in direct connection with the global and economic development, which are apparently the operating basis for terrorism. First one has to understand that the present form of economic globalisation is bypassing the interests of the majority of the world population. Sure indications are the unrelenting polarisation of private income, the structural inability to overcome the hunger in the world and finally the erosion of statehood and the growing importance of violence to regulate economic operations that often escalate into warring activities. [endquote]. I don’t know what kind of economic development the author has in mind, but in contrast to popular opinion, my impression from the countless television reports that I have seen is that globalisation and world trade are enormously beneficial to economic improvement, particularly in developing countries. Economic globalisation often creates work and income in poor areas, brings information and technology into remote regions, supports productivity and innovation, improves communication and trade and gives a lot of people the possibility to earn more money and lead a more comfortable, healthy, pleasurable and safe life than their parents could have ever dreamt of. In the developing countries, health and education can only improve with increased economic living conditions, and the tackling of the problem of overpopulation – one of the major reasons for hunger and poverty – is only possible through improved education, medical advancement and economic growth. Don’t expect any support from the religions in reducing overpopulation, as pure self-interest drives all religions to increase their numbers by all means. Religions are unison against any kind of birth control – one of the few points of agreement between the various religious beliefs. However, apart from the ever-growing overpopulation in vast parts of the world, ‘the structural inability to overcome the hunger in the world’ is due to the fact that human beings are continuously and instinctually fighting each other for territorial, religious and tribal-political reasons. This grim battle for survival has gone on unabated for thousands of years – the only difference being it is now fought with much more sophisticated weapons and even more convoluted and pious moral arguments. And yet despite this continual vitriol and maiming and blaming of others it is amazing that at least one third of the world’s population lives in considerable wealth, relative security and enjoys the highly advanced technology that we are using today. It is pertinent to observe that all of the advances in civilizing the human species have come from the practical application of intelligence whilst all of the suffering of the human species has come from a senseless clinging to archaic beliefs, unliveable morals and ethics and a lauding of our instinctual animal passions. Right now the same people that a little while ago were morally outraged about violations of human rights in Afghanistan are now morally outraged that the Americans are bombing the strongholds of the Taliban, the very regime they originally saw as suppressing the Afghani people. A little reading of history tells us that the Afghani people have been at almost constant war with each other and against their neighbours for centuries. Warfare, with its inevitable suffering and impoverishment is inherent to Afghan history in this barren mountain-desert region. As far as this country is concerned, the unvanquished ‘hunger in the world’ has nothing at all to do with a so-called ‘economic globalisation’ – for decades this country has never known anything but tribal wars and war and conflict causes more suffering and hunger than any other cause. According to a Red Cross estimate some one billion people were effected by warfare in the last half of the twentieth century alone. As far as ‘the growing importance of violence to regulate economic operations’ is concerned, I don’t see that violence per se has increased but that information and media coverage about violence has improved. Peter Lock does not say relative to which time ‘violence to regulate economic operations’ has increased. Is he comparing today to the times of the brutish Viking invasions, the time when the Romans violently expanded into northern territories, when the Huns overran Europe, the time of the Hundred Year’s War or the time before World War Two? Since which time does the author think the violence between human beings has increased, which is what he seems to be implying? Human history is but a history of territorial warfare, violent conquest and asset raiding. Regulating of economic operations were almost always done at the point of a spear or sword whereas so much is done nowadays by negotiation and exchange of tokens. T’is often no less hard-nosed and ruthless but at least it is less physically violent. It is fairly easy, one could say even hypocritical, to live in the comfort of a rich democratic, capitalistic nation and attack capitalism, world trade and ‘economic globalisation’ and make them responsible for all the evil of humankind. If, however, one puts aside one’s personal anti-capitalist beliefs and takes a closer look, then the facts of the situation are quite obvious. Money itself is not the problem. In a wealthy country most people’s life expectancy, comfort, health and physical security are usually superior to those in poorer countries. And yet even in wealthy countries the emotions of corruption, greed, righteousness, aggression, fear and competition – that most people consider synonymous with and can’t separate from money and wealth – invariably turn one’s own life and that of others into a living hell. To deny others the benefit of economic and social development via economic globalisation – the opportunity and ability to trade information and goods with others worldwide – due to this emotional misconception is a truly myopic and self-centred opinion. In short Peter Lock, like countless others of his ilk, has got it 180 degrees wrong in his attempts to lay the blame for violence and suffering at someone else’s door. Wouldn’t it be much easier, far more realistic and pertinent, to abandon the moral confusion and ethical pros and cons of assorting blame and apportioning guilt and conduct ‘research for peace’ on oneself instead of endlessly pointing fingers at others? Any sincere ‘researcher for peace and conflict’ worthy of his or her name could begin to investigate how it is possible to live with their fellow human beings in complete peace and harmony, be it at home or at work, no matter where they live or who they live with. A ‘researcher for conflict’ could begin to learn about and meticulously investigate the causes of conflict in himself or herself because the causes for conflict are exactly the same in all human beings – our inherent instinctual passions, our animal heritage. Unless this instinctual animal heritage is acknowledged, recognized, investigated and finally eliminated, what passes for peace on earth between human beings can only ever be maintained at the point of a gun – with police, army and a strong justice system. It is not, as is commonly believed, the social, political or economic environment that makes people aggressive but it is our inherent animal-instinctual aggressive nature that can, when push comes to shove, explode at any time. Everyone knows such out-of-control impulsive moments from one’s own experience. Therefore it is completely useless to blame society – not to mention being practically impossible to change society – because the very people who would form the ‘new’ society would still be inevitably driven by their instinctually passions. Peter Lock, Researcher for Peace and Conflict. An Exchangeable Figure. Politics Must Do More Than Hunt For Single Perpetrators. Frankfurter Rundschau 13.9.2001 VINEETO: However, here is a piece of information whose black humour really tickled me, considering the general fashion to believe that life in ‘the good old days’ was far better than the safety and comfort of today and that the materialism of technological progress per se is the cause of all evil – [quote]: We often tend to think that prehistoric societies were gentle and non-violent. Of course, we have little or no records left, but comparing with the anthropological record, we now suspect this to be a gross idealization – for most band or tribal societies studied in the 20th century, murder actually turned out to be a leading cause of death. Bjørn Lomborg, ‘The Sceptical Environmentalist’, Chapter 6 So much for the ‘good old days’. GARY: Prehistoric societies were intensely violent, from what I can determine through my reading of articles and watching of TV programs. It is interesting to see that many of the mummified remains of people from long ago were victims of violence. Like Ötzi, the man discovered in the ice on the Italian side of the Alps, he was found to have an arrow point embedded in his back that they had previously overlooked in their autopsy of him after he was first discovered. Then too, many mummies were victims of ritual, religious sacrifices. The long, dreary history of sieges warfare, religious wars, persecutions, pogroms, revolutions, etc, etc, I should think would be enough to point to the terror and fright of living in a long-ago societies, notwithstanding the lack of proper medical facilities, the incidence of disease and pestilence, etc. VINEETO: We do indeed have a lifestyle today that far exceeds the so-called luxury of the old kings and queens, not to mention our vastly increased life-expectancy, overall health and safety. Nevertheless, most human beings turn for salvation to ancient wisdom and seek solace from times gone by, when they imagine ‘life was so much better than the evil and stressful times today’. It is indeed quite hilarious that those who complain about the stressful times of today, including the nature-guru David Suzuki, would often not have survived to their thirties to be able to complain about the loss of the ‘good old days’. GARY: I have not read Lomborg’s book and I doubt that I will. My perusal of the criticisms offered on the list made me a bit sceptical of his position, I must say. VINEETO: When I watched nature programs in the past I always found it quite difficult to distinguish fact from fiction and sensible observations from scare-mongering, particularly when almost every nature program ends with a doomsday Litany about how much damage humans have done to ‘Mother Nature’. I began to understand that environmentalism has become the new modern-day religion, reviving old matriarchal Mother-Earth beliefs and integrating ancient tribal beliefs of worshipping Earth spirits and sacred animals. Environmentalism also blends well with the myth of the Christian-Jewish paradise before the original sin – before human beings polluted the earth by being here – as well as with the Buddhist and Hindu belief that as long as I am ‘in a body’ I am essentially impure. Because of these twisted religious beliefs many now consider the welfare of animals and trees more important than that of human beings and believe that they should faithfully serve the Earth-Goddess who is suffering from the presence of ‘evil’ human beings. Because of the widespread prevalence of Environmentalist propaganda, I find it immensely refreshing to be presented with accountable statistics and global-wide well-researched facts in Lomborg’s book. As for the ‘criticisms offered’ – it may be relevant to consider that if you had judged actualism by the unrelenting criticism Richard’s writings received on the Mailing List B, you would not be where you are today. At least 95% of the writings on the Actual Freedom Trust website consists of actualists’ replies to ‘criticisms offered’. In other words, when someone presents facts that question people’s cherished beliefs, criticism is always ready at hand – yet the strength and ardour of the criticism usually indicates the depth of people’s beliefs and not necessarily that the statements are false. I have come across so much criticism myself for stating that it is possible to live happy and harmless that I am not surprised that Lomborg is so heavily criticised for presenting facts that verify that the world is in a far, far better shape than what the environmentalist doomsayers make us believe. Rather than being surprised he is so criticized, I am more surprised that he had the guts to challenge the fashionable spiritual beliefs of the Environmentalists with reliable verified facts. RESPONDENT: That’s why actualism, like any other system, turns out to be just another dualism proscribing its own methodology. It never really satisfies, does it? It divides, in fact, through words – love is a dirty word, an impurity, spiritualism is an abomination, etc., all your doing is creating more contradiction, intolerance. Words are nothing but symbols, and when we believe in the symbols rather than in the objects they represent, we kill the spirit (use your own acceptable word here – no, I don’t mean our base savage/nurture instincts) and rape the mind of its freedom to think. VINEETO: First, words are not symbols to me, they describe precisely what I sensately experience and reflectively understand. Second, actualism, despite your first impression, is not ‘just another dualism’, it is a method to eliminate the debilitating ancient imagination-fuelled beliefs of dualism, be they inner and outer, physical and meta-physical, good spirits and bad spirits, Gods and devils, earthly life and life after death, heaven and hell, love and hate, etc. Actualism is a process whereby one can incrementally remove all impediments that prevent me from experiencing the actual physical world in its utter perfection and purity. It is the ‘self’, the human ego and soul, underpinned by the animal instinctual passions, that cause us to see ghosts and goblins, God and devil, good and evil, love and beauty, friends and enemies – distorting the already-always existing physical perfection by imposing our human beliefs, emotions and values on what would otherwise be pure and direct sensate experiencing of the astounding abundant coruscating infinite and eternal physical universe. VINEETO: What you call the ‘gobbledy gook’ that everyone is ‘taken in by’ is, in fact, the foundation of all spiritual belief – the battle of good against evil, God against the Devil, the Higher against the Lower – and this battle is represented in hundreds of imagined, deeply felt and variously symbolized dualities. Within the Human Condition, nobody has a chance to escape that ‘gobbledy gook’, it comes with the mother’s milk. For instance, I had believed that my mind was divided into male and female, with an ‘inner and outer’ male and an ‘inner and outer’ female as well! Every childhood fairy tale has a bad guy and a hero (who marries the princess) and, as we grow up, this atavistic battle of ‘good’ against ‘evil’ is instilled into each person as a life-long struggle against their inner evil. It is the basic premise of human logic that everything must have its opposite and the best one can do – up until now – was to hope to ‘transcend’ the opposites. Duality is the very foundation of the ‘self’. In order to backtrack out of the myriad notions of duality I deliberately stopped the spiritual practice of selectively watching and prejudicially labelling my thoughts and feelings. The so-called choiceless awareness is not choiceless at all. Instead, I put my whole emphasis on consciously experiencing and actively investigating the emotions that were underlying each upcoming feeling or belief in order to identify ‘me’, this singular alien entity inside this flesh-and-blood body. Given that this entity is lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning, my investigation needed stubborn bloody-mindedness and sincere intent so that I would not end up fooling myself. RESPONDENT: Also, I appreciate the simplicity and commonsense of this approach. The spiritual universe is sooooooo convoluted. VINEETO: Yes, in the actual world there is no duality whatsoever because when the ‘self’ disappears, the feeling of separation and any notions of duality also disappear. So now, instead of enhancing the ‘Good’ and fighting the ‘Evil’, I trace down both good and bad feelings and instinctual passions and aim for immolating the very ‘self’ that maintains the feeling of separation and the notion of duality in the first place. I am reminded of poor Cinderella who had the job to sort out peas into large ones and small ones – now I am simply throwing out the whole lot, all of me. That’s what makes actualism so simple – for the ones who are daring enough. * RESPONDENT: My husband recently returned from a weeklong retreat given by an American, who is an Eastern type spiritual teacher. One of the main premises of this man’s teaching is that he ‘transmits’ Being-force that then ‘templates’ on those who receive the transmission and catalyzes the recipient’s own realization of Being. My husband said that after a week in that environment of transmission by the head teacher and other teachers that he felt an amplified ‘spaciousness’ that was conducive in bringing a lot of stuff up for him. We have talked quite extensively about the discoveries I am making re: actual freedom. At breakfast the other morning he asked me how my ‘transmission’ is different from the teacher’s he spent the week with. I said that I don’t transmit anything. He was pretty critical of that, asking how I could deny transmission, that even a tree transmits a kind of ‘presence’. I said, why can’t I just see the tree for what it is, a material entity. I can say it’s a big tree, a healthy tree, a sick tree, whatever, but why do I have to feel it has some underlying presence? I told him I certainly understood what he meant by experiencing the effects of so-called transmission. I’ve experienced all kinds of spiritual phenomena, but the way I look at it now, it was all a dissociative strategy to shield myself from my own very real mortality. I was, in fact, looking for some eternal me that would defy death, and that desire enabled me to experience all kinds of ‘real’ experiences to validate my need to be immortal in some fashion or another. So, he asked me what I thought the phenomenon of experiencing ‘transmission’ really was. I said, I honestly don’t know for sure, possibly a form of hypnosis, group hypnosis, self-hypnosis. I wasn’t sure. Anyone have any ideas of the how we humans actually produce the astoundingly real when you have them spiritual phenomena? VINEETO: The idea of the psychic world had captivated me for years and the mystical-psychic playground was a big attraction on the spiritual path at the time. Consequently, when I took up actualism, I was immensely curious to really find out as much as there is to know about psychic phenomena, psychic powers and the ‘rules’ of the psychic world. I was fascinated to learn that Richard not only said he lived without feelings and emotions but also admitted to not having any psychic powers like telepathy, ‘energy’, psychic influence or mystical secret knowledge. One area of my investigation was how I was influenced by, and connected with, other people’s vibes and feelings. I remember one incident with the woman I had lived and worked with for several years. One day in the office she received a phone call and, being the secretary, I took it, recognized her partner’s voice and transferred it to her into the next room, saying nothing but hello to the man. I didn’t hear the conversation as my door was closed, and just kept working on the daily accounts. From the moment of the call I had fierce pain in my stomach and thoughts of intense fear racing through my head that had nothing to do with my personal situation. After two hours it finally clicked – I went over to ask her if she had a fight with her partner on the phone. She said they did. My pain disappeared immediately. After this incident I investigated what made me so receptive to her vibes and feelings and I came to understand that my feelings of love for her were enough for me to be psychically connected to her fears and pain. I see the psychic world as an invisible spider’s web that connects people together via their fervent beliefs, feelings and passions. The key to understanding and breaking out of the psychic web was questioning love and, in the spiritual world, my love for and the authority of those ‘who know’, the revered and adored masters. I began to understand that the feeling of love based on the instinctual passions of nurture and desire is just as much part of ‘my’ identity as the opposite passions of fear and aggression. Slowly, I started to see the psychic power battle that goes on between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, higher powers and lower powers, master and disciple, between teachers and between disciples of various ranks. Just as normal reality is a dog-eat-dog world, spiritual reality is a God-eat-God world and the fight is fuelled by the same merciless survival instincts. Seeing that the psychic web is about transmitting or exchanging vibes, feelings and emotions in order to gain power and influence over others, I was then only interested how to disentangle myself from this insidious web that tied me to authorities, groups and friends, engulfing me in invisible power struggles and everyone else’s beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions. When I experienced my first full-blown Altered State of Consciousness replete with feeling Love for all, with Truth continuously streaming into my head and the bliss of unlimited psychic power and knowledge, I came to understand even more how this whole psychic world works. In such a state one can tap into the pond of all of humanity’s so-called wisdom – the collection of ancient religions, beliefs, superstitions, atavistic feelings and passions. That ‘pond’ provides the ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’ for spiritual teachers – the very reason why their teachings seem to be so true and familiar. Having risen to the top of the psychic ladder, God-men can choose to swan along in the ‘good’ feelings and push the ‘evil’ passions to the bottom – or blame their disciples for causing their anxiety and divine anger. The transmission of Energy – a feature of all master-disciple relationships – can only work because the disciples are looking for a short-cut to happiness and love by receiving seemingly ‘free gifts’ from the master and thus get trapped into the addictive bargain of giving love and gratitude in return for dependency on his or her authority. In actuality there is no such thing as psychic transmission of energy because to become free of the Human Condition is to become free of the psychic web itself. Such perfect freedom. VINEETO: Some time ago you commented to No 38 about something I wrote to him – [Vineeto to No 38]: I wonder why you say that ‘using money as a medium for judgement is mildly abhorrent to me’ when thinking about tipping a waiter or waitress? <snip> What you term ‘the immediate micro-culture’ I would call the fact that humans exchange goods and services with each other in order to earn a living. If I may say so, I would think your ‘high horse’ in this case is to consider yourself to be outside of this common-to-all necessity of earning a living, from which position you then ‘grease the skids for the immediate micro-culture’. In actuality I am part of the exchange game whenever I am in business with my fellow human beings and, given we humans all play the same game in order to earn a living I aim for a win-win situation for all involved in the situation. It is not the fact that money is used in the exchange of goods and services that is ‘abhorrent’ but the fact that human beings are instinctually occupied in a ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle for survival against each other. This is the basis of the deeply ingrained and instinctually-fuelled automatic reaction of judging the other as friend or foe, higher or lower in rank, useful or useless to my desires, and this is what I needed to address in me because this ‘self’-centred habit was continuously interfering with having a peaceful and equitable interaction with people. Vineeto, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 38, 21.10.2002 RESPONDENT: I for one get the impression that Vineeto is underestimating the (invisible) part that money plays in human interaction. … This sounds to me like a statement made in idealist modus. Yes, it is a fact that one could say we all are in the business of surviving in anyway at any cost, however to say that this is the name of the game, is to blur the line between business and privacy which is as far as I can observe rather sharply drawn by most people when doing business, that is when push comes to shove. To explain; business for making a livelihood, is strictly speaking for most of the ‘players’ far from a game, hence those who actually ‘play’ with and/or for money are very few most call this game working. It is a fact that [money is used in the exchange of goods and services] is basically ‘an exchange’ with my fellow human beings. And also it is a fact that [human beings are instinctually occupied in a ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle for survival against each other] hence whenever money plays a part one enters either the field of this [ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle] while making deals. Or one is making compromises accepting money as a basically not fair and/or adequate (as it is now) belief-system based on reward and punishment accordingly to legal aspects and/ or ethical aspects of the local (national) situation. I question that money is actual, in fact I think that it is a collective belief-system that apart from its being a collectively upon agreed tool, it also is a very personalized belief closely related to lifestyle and that’s where the friction part in human interaction is likely to occur as in essence money is a rather spiritual concept. I think that Vineeto may overlook, that though money cannot buy love, it seems to have become in many cases a more dearly held value then the belief in love thus a tougher to deal with aspect of the social identity at large. VINEETO: When I began to examine the reasons why I was tense and serious whenever I was dealing with money and working for money, I quickly discovered that it was ‘me’, as a passionate identity, who was responsible for all of the ‘bad vibes’ around money. I discovered my anxiety of not being a success, my greed to acquire as much as possible combined with my resentment at having to work for it, my fear of being cheated, my competitiveness to get the best deal come what may and my general reluctance to relate to people in a straightforward manner and fair service-for-money contracts. The issue of money is an excellent field for investigation for an actualist because it brings a whole range of morals and ethics to the surface for close inspection, not to mention the basic survival instincts that are activated when one is dependant upon money for sustenance and shelter. As you mention, one can also have a particular spiritual slant on one’s assessment of money such as – money is dirty, it’s the work of the devil, it’s lead weight for the soul, money corrupts, money stinks, etc, etc. But money itself is neither dirty nor evil – it is only made to be so by the fervent beliefs and passionate survival instincts of human beings. Money – notes and coins – is unquestionably actual stuff and there is a common usage of money as an exchange medium for goods and services. When one begins to remove one’s rose-coloured and grey-coloured glasses – the good and evil spirits concerning money – one can experience that money is a simple straightforward tool. I also found I didn’t have to solve the problems that other people have with money in order to be able to use it sensibly rather than passionately – I only had to investigate my own emotions and beliefs in order to get rid of the aversion, tension and greed that money used to trigger. Today my dealing with money is indeed a game – an utterly non-serious play, which in no way denies the necessity of having or earning sufficient for my shelter and sustenance. I delight in my paid work of putting order in people’s financial records – which is the adult version of ‘playing shop’ that I enjoyed as a girl. Peter recently pointed out that his work is playing the adult version of his favourite childhood game called ‘builder bricks’ – drawing houses and gardens for people in order to pay for his living and his toys. As for assessing how to spend my money, I found it useful to consider the time I need to work in order to pay for my necessities and then make a judgement as to how much more time I want to work in order to buy luxury items such as technical toys. This way common sense prevails over greed because time is my most valuable asset – time to do nothing really well. I can highly recommend looking into all one’s beliefs and passions concerning money because, when they are uprooted and exposed, then dealing with money is but a trading game, utterly easy and delightful. RESPONDENT: [Vineeto]: ‘The retribution from the ‘good’ guys that took place at the end of World War II was as cruel, uncontrolled and devastatingly disastrous as the actions of the ‘bad’ guys before.’ Vineeto, Selected Correspondence, Feelings Evidence please. VINEETO: Peter: Another TV program I watched reported on the fire bombing of Dresden and other German cities during the war. Vast areas of these cities were turned into raging firestorms of such intensity that people were sucked off their feet into the inferno, and babies were ripped from their mothers’ arms. This was a deliberate policy of revenge for the German bombing of English cities. Civilians were deliberately targeted. The Americans similarly incinerated Tokyo, causing more deaths than both atomic bombs combined. Of some 50 million killed in the Second World War, 30 million were women and children. When the Americans saw the German concentration camps after the Second World War, they put hundreds of thousands of German soldiers in open fields – in winter – and surrounded them with barbed wire. They then fed them below minimum survival rations and slowly starved or froze thousands of them to death over the winter. To increase the torture they backed open truckloads of food up to the perimeter fence and left them there to rot. They were the ‘good guys’ and the other side had to be punished for their wrongs! What we call justice is, after all, nothing more than revenge and retribution. An eye for an eye! Such is the appalling extent of malice and sorrow in this world. Peter’s Journal, Peace I have watched various TV programs since the one that Peter described that have confirmed his report in the journal. Unfortunately the atrocities of Germans before and during WW II were by no means a unique incident in history and nor have people stopped committing similar atrocities to others since Hitler’s death. Are you really of the opinion that in the Second World War only one nation has committed atrocities while the other nations in the war were all humane and gentile and reasonable? Maybe you are familiar with what goes on in the world today? Because if you are, you might for instance recognize an eerie similarity of what is happening between the Jews and the Palestinians today and what happened between the Germans and the Jews sixty years ago. The human condition is common to all and nationalistic aggressive and retributive behaviour is not confined to some particular tribes, nations or races – like all instinctual passions, the territorial instincts lie dormant in every human being and can surface whenever the circumstances are fertile. It is all so easy to find a culprit, a scapegoat and the one and only responsible person to blame for the ills and evils of humanity and then one does not have to look any further for the causes of all the wars, murders, tortures, rapes and genocides. I am vitally interested in irrevocably ending in me the instinctual and social programming that is cause of all the wars, murders, tortures, rapes and genocides. I set out to find, and eradicate, the cause, ‘me’ – the alien entity inside this flesh and blood body, my feelings, emotions and instinctual passions, my very ‘being’. Despite everyone’s firm belief that you can’t change human nature it is now possible to investigate and subsequently eliminate one’s social conditioning and examine and observe one’s instinctual passions to such a degree that they no longer have any power and eventually atrophy. However, this investigation is not undertaken by joining a popular mass-movement or a fashionable spiritual belief system – it is a journey that everyone does for himself, by himself. Once you decide to do it, it’s a grand adventure, unrivalled by anything I have done so far in my life. IRENE: The Wide and Wondrous Path ...??? As I have originated the bleeding phrase myself some years ago, I feel rightfully justified in reminding you that I never had in mind that the ‘trodders’ on this path (including me) would regularly need to retreat into the magical long grass along the side of this path and beat themselves up first with all kind of ridiculous self-admonishments and then sink into the bare-pit of fear, dread, malice, evil and plain yukkiness, in order to ‘exterminate this self forever’ and then having to vomit out the nausea of hell itself, literally. VINEETO: I don’t know where you got the picture of the ‘the magical long grass along the side of this path’ – I have never heard anybody talk about the grass along the side of the path – where presumably people ‘beat themselves up first with all kind of ridiculous self-admonishments and then sink into the bare-pit of fear, dread, malice, evil and plain yukkiness, in order to ‘exterminate this self forever’?’ Is that a description of what you did on your wide and wondrous path when living with Richard or is it an invention as to what the so-called ‘chief-disciples’ all do ‘regularly’ – some kind of ‘actual-freedom-dynamic meditation à la Rajneesh’? I simply scrutinize myself for remainders of the Human Condition in me whenever they occur, because I want to be free from conditioning and instincts. I did discover dread on this journey once and I am glad it did not last very long. Experiencing dread, however, gave me the useful understanding of the back-side of enlightenment and a warning which route not to take. It is definitely nothing I would ‘sink into’ ‘regularly’. To be free from the ‘self’ in peak-experiences has been such an exquisite experience each time, vastly superior to any emotion I ever knew, however sweet, that I want to live in that state 24 hours a day. But it involves none of the above-described procedures, they are simply your phantasies and invented horror-stories as far a I am concerned. Please don’t assume and invent things that are going on for me, which are not the case. ALAN: I think I have also been examining the (for me) final unexplored instinct of nurture. I think I previously wrote that I had been having emotional reactions to certain scenes on television – tears running freely, without there being any obvious feeling extant. It seemed to occur when people were doing things which ‘brought out the best’ in humanity. At one stage, I even considered whether it could be some manifestation of Divine Love trying to sneak in by the back door, so to speak. But, I could detect little in common with my previous experiences of Divine Love – other perhaps than pathos and the fact that I would also then have wept at the same scenes. VINEETO: I found that the instinct of nurture shows up in many, slightly varying, expressions once one gets past the more obvious feelings of love, friendship, relationship, compassion and Divine Love. Watching human beings in all sorts of enterprises and mischief on the planet via television is and has been a great source of exploring my subtle and not so subtle ‘good’ instinctual feelings that all serve only one purpose – to keep me tied and connected to humanity as a suffering and malicious species. Having an opinion and affective response about what is supposedly ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ gets me going round in circles, while looking for the facts of a situation makes it obvious what is silly and what is sensible. And then, in most cases, my opinion and assessment is not required at all and taking sides only serves that ‘I’ stay in existence – emotionally engaged and connected to Humanity. Whenever I was moved by watching heroic acts of compassion or sentimental stories of hope and love for all, I made it a point to investigate the facts of the situation that are so rosily presented. I always found the loopholes, the unmentioned malice, the hidden selfishness, the suffering necessary for good deeds to happen and the inherent sickness of the genetically encoded program we call the Human Condition. There is no good without evil – or, as No 22 likes to call evil ‘the tortured good’. If one digs really deep one finds that both doing good and doing evil are nothing other than malice and sorrow in action. The instinct of nurture has the sole function of keeping the species thoughtlessly producing yet more of the same, just as aggression, fear and desire have the function to keep the human species fighting against extinction. There is neither intelligence nor any other inherent value in our blind instinctual drive to nurture, it is the same drive that makes us attack others, defend our territory, fear the stronger ones and grab all one can grab in blind desire. I found Accidental Hero, the movie you mentioned, an excellent example of what can develop out of a sensible response to an emergency situation when the hero’s instincts and ‘self’-preservation catch up with him and everyone else’s ‘self’-centred passions make a confusing emotional drama out of a simple humane response. Lately we had here on the news 3 small children declared as national heroes for dragging their drowning grandfather out of the family swimming pool, whereas they just did the obvious thing in that particular moment. RESPONDENT: Today I finished reading the whole of Richard’s correspondence with No 12 and it cracks me up how No 12 gets all confused and tangled up in his own words. Although I did identify with No 12 in relation to his famous ‘points of view’, for example, what you said about vegetarianism and animals at first upset me, but it was ‘me’ that was reacting to what I thought was incorrect, which was my point of view in conflict with the one I regarded as your own … no wonder this ‘me’ thing is so dangerous. And it is true that my vegetarianism is a belief, a belief I am still not very eager to rub out yet; but in contrast to abruptly spitting out soup straight onto my girl friend’s face upon finding out it had pieces of chicken in it, she was/is testing me, I could now calmly walk over to the sink and ask myself before I spit it out what exactly tastes wrong, the chicken or the belief? It wasn’t the chicken. VINEETO: As for your investigation into ‘what exactly tastes wrong, the chicken or the belief’ – When you apply the method of actualism and inquire into the exact nature of why you are angry, grumpy, fearful or sad, then you will soon find out that it is never other people, evil things or adverse events that prevent you from being happy and harmless. You will find that it is always your own beliefs, points of view, opinions and principles together with their underlying emotions and instinctual passions that prevent you from being happy and harmless. At first a particular belief you are looking at might seem too precious to abandon. However, if you continue to actively question what you have been taught to be true and right, you soon will come to experience the relief, freedom and sensual delight that is to be had once these adopted beliefs are investigated and up-rooted, one by one. RESPONDENT: I should like to draw your attention to the Superstition section of this site. You have taken from the ‘guru gossip’ web site a quote about a new book which is being released. ‘The healing of alien abduction through shamanistic healing.’ I should like to point out that this book has never been published and doesn’t even exist in manuscript form. VINEETO: I take it that you refer to this particular correspondence – [Vineeto to No. 7]: ... I send you this snippet of information from the ‘guru gossip’ web site – There is a new book being released called [quote]: ‘THE HEALING OF ALIEN ABDUCTION THROUGH SHAMANISTIC HEALING by Dr. Francesca Rossetti D.D. Through ‘psycho-regression therapy’ and the use of her ceremonial rattle, Dr. Rossetti aims to heal the trauma caused by ‘alien abduction’, to clear blockages connected with ‘negative extraterrestial interference’, and to release psychic implants: such as ‘metal discs in the body or aura, Microchips, wires in the brain, metallic dust, miniature radio receivers and green rays of light, as well as live ET entities, which may have their source in Andromeda, Ancient Egyptian, Atlantean, Lemurian, Martian, Grey and Reptilian energies, to name but a few...’ Cost of therapy is £130 for 3 hours.’ Apply to The Rosetti Foundation, B/M Spiritos, London WC1N 3XX or phone 0171 792 2957. This new form of psychic help beats any old-fashioned attempts to heal oneself through traditional therapy and meditation. The new mode is – get raped by a Martian and then pay £130 for 3 hours to make it look real. to No 7c, 30.7.2000 The announcement of the supposed new release which I quoted was a parody on New Age practices from the ‘guru gossip’ web site. However, when I went to Dr. Rossetti’s web site to look for the origin of the above parody I found the following: [quote]: Francesca Rossetti D.D. ... is a world traveller and she has met several ethnic tribal leaders and healers. During the course of her travels she has personally been linked to a number of ancient traditions. These include being consecrated as a healer in the Philippines, and by the Kahunas in Hawaii, being accepted into the healing side of a Shinto school of the Martial arts in Japan and being adopted by the Iroquois Indians during one of her visits to America. <snip> Part of Francesca’s work is to open up psychic windows within, thus helping you to live your life in greater depth with more abundance on all levels. One of Francesca’s aims is to spread her knowledge through teaching the natural laws which govern nature and giving people an inner understanding of birth, marriage and death and the psychic causes of disease. Francesca has psychic abilities and is able to go into altered states of consciousness enabling her to tune into other levels of reality. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/wholeness/rossbiog.htm [quote]: Dr Francesca Rossetti DD has been practising as a past life therapist for over 20 years. She is a researcher into the paranormal aspects of the human psyche and a spiritual teacher. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/wholeness/rossbook.htm Mrs. Rossetti further details some of the ‘ancient traditions’ and ‘paranormal aspects of the human psyche’ and the nature of her healings – she offers equally paranormal methods for healing psychic ailments. [quote]: ‘Shamanistic Healing ... covers many different aspects including the releasing of ‘negative karma and emotions’, and thereby cleansing and healing different organs in the body. It is also possible to release ‘curses on love, money and health, as well as spells and black magic influences’ that may be causing perhaps subtle restrictions within this lifetime. Treatment includes the ‘healing of psychic injuries from past lives, and the integrating and the healing of past personalities. As well as releasing old religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and also healing ‘crying wombs’ and ‘broken hearts’. Shamanistic methods of healing include the use of sacred sounds, ceremonial rattles, evocation of the divine forces, and ancestral energies’. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/wholeness/rossther.htm Therefore Mrs. Rossetti’s work clearly falls into the category of superstition as defined by the Oxford Dictionary: Superstition 1 – Irrational awe or fear of the unknown etc.; belief in a religion considered false or pagan; religious belief or practice founded on fear or ignorance; credulity regarding religion or the supernatural; an instance of this, a practice, belief, etc., based on such fear or ignorance. 2 An irrational religious system; a religion regarded as false or pagan; a ceremony or observance of such a religion. 3 Widely held but irrational or unfounded belief; a common but unjustifiable idea of the effects or nature of a thing etc. Oxford Dictionary RESPONDENT: Dr. Rossetti has written a book under the title of ‘Psycho Regression’ which has been translated into a number of languages and which is published by Piatkus books. It adds that the cost of therapy is £130 for three hours. I happen to have benefited from this therapy and know that it is not anywhere in the realms of superstition, nor is it expensive in comparison with any other alternative therapy, bearing in mind that each session is about two hours long. Dr Rossetti is extremely dedicated and not a flake nor an air-head. Many people have been enormously helped by this therapy. Perhaps someone on your site should check it out, put the information in a more appropriate section and thereby help a whole lot more people to benefit. VINEETO: Only four years ago I was deeply entrenched in spiritual belief and devotion and, as a fully paid-up member of the whole spiritual New Age movement, believed in all kinds of ancient traditions, superstitions, shamanistic healing, alternative medicine, karma, past lives, parallel lives and life-after-death. Not only was it fashionable, it also suited me well in that I never had to feel responsible for my feelings, moods and actions – it was always someone else’s influence, some karma from some other life, some psychic vibe in the air, some deep wound from my childhood or simply the particular astrological predisposition or the specific constellation of the day. Needless to say, believing that some paranormal forces or other-wordly energies were the cause of my roller coaster moods did nothing to eliminate my misery and my malice towards others ... and believing they were the cause only served to remove me further from the possibility of doing something about it. When I came across actualism a whole new world opened up. By reading about Richard’s experiences I learnt – and soon confirmed it by my own experiences – that it is possible to change myself (all by myself) in order to become increasingly free from malice and sorrow and to experience peace-on-earth. This change towards becoming happy and harmless does not happen through shamanistic healing or the psychic help of a powerful Master or through devoted meditation – this change happens by methodically and radically investigating all spiritual beliefs and emotions that cause me to act maliciously or to feel miserable. By asking ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and then investigating the down-to-earth practical causes of why I am not feeling good right now, I have succeeded in removing 99% of my beliefs and emotion-backed thoughts that used to make me feel sad and angry, grumpy and fearful, greedy and needy, anxious and pining, inferior and arrogant, silly and gullible. In short, the method that Richard devised is not only simple, it also works. The method works for those who are ready to look behind the curtains of religious and spiritual belief to find out what really causes human beings to fight and kill each other, what really is the underlying cause of corruption and starvation, depression and domestic violence, rape and murder, suicide and genocide. When I dug deep into my own psyche to find the causes for my own destructive emotions and passionate actions, the superficial explanatory beliefs of past-life karma, childhood hurts, astrological predispositions and mythical spiritual forces were simply unsatisfactory. I wanted to know the origin of fear, the source of aggression, the underlying reason for the continuous need for love, the root cause for my desire for power and control. I found that the source for all this misery and mayhem lies much, much deeper than the commonly accepted reasons – social conditioning, ‘wrong’ beliefs, psychic wounds or good and evil forces. The source of all my misery and mayhem is ‘me’, ‘who I think and feel I am’ at the very core of my being. The core of my ‘being’, this alien entity inhabiting my flesh-and-blood body, is relentlessly driven by the instinctual animal survival passions, programmed to survive at any cost. You might by now begin to understand that Actual Freedom is freedom from all beliefs, be they ancient or modern, Western or Eastern, tribal or universal. An actualist does not replace a ‘bad’ belief with a ‘good’ and soothing belief à la Oprah Winfrey – an actualist investigates and incrementally eliminates all beliefs and relies solely on facts and sensibility. Initiating such a change may be a bit scary, particularly at the start, but as you read on in the extensive correspondence of our website you might find that the benefits of both Virtual Freedom and Actual Freedom far exceed the temporary relief gained by following the fashionable fantasies of the spiritual way of life. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’ – until you discover the actual world that lies beyond any fervent belief and passionate imagination. This actual world is magical, delightful, easy, sensuous, wondrous, scintillating, sparkling, pure and perfect. All of our writing is but an invitation to find out for yourself. RESPONDENT: I was wondering if you’d like to make a comment on these articles on the 16 basic desires. www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/research/archive/whoami.htm, www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s150712.htm, www.mindpub.com/art387.htm, www.mtsu.edu/~socwork/frost/crazy/happinesstest.htm Do you desire any of these desires? That last question should be ‘Do you think it OK to have any of the 16 desires?’ VINEETO: Here is an excerpt from the website listing the proposed 16 basic desires for reference – [quote]: Reiss, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Ohio State University, has spent five years developing and testing a new theory of human motivation. The result of his research is published in the new book Who Am I? The 16 Basic Desires That Motivate Our Action and Define Our Personalities (Tarcher/Putnam, 2000). After conducting studies involving more than 6,000 people, Reiss has found that 16 basic desires guide nearly all meaningful behavior. The desires are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical exercise, and tranquility. ‘These desires are what drive our everyday actions and make us who we are,’ Reiss said. ‘What makes individuals unique is the combination and ranking of these desires.’ Reiss said at least 14 of the 16 basic desires seem to have a genetic basis. Only the desires for idealism and acceptance don’t appear to have a genetic component. ‘Most of these desires are similar to those seen in animals, and seem to have some survival value,’ Reiss said. ‘This indicates they are genetic in origin.’ http://www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/research/archive/whoami.htm In his list of desires Professor Reiss missed the biggest of them all – the desire to believe in an afterlife, to believe in a God, or, if you follow Eastern religion, to become that God and be all-powerful and immortal. To seek to become God, aka Spiritual Enlightenment, is desire run amok into gigantic and megalomaniacal proportions. Desire is but one aspect of the instinctual survival passions that every human being is genetically programmed with, the others being fear, nurture and aggression. To pick out some manifestations of the instinctual passion of desire as being desirable whilst trying to avoid other forms of desire – those that are socially or culturally undesirable – only indicates that human beings have been socially programmed to repress some cravings and passionate ambitions and indulge in others. The current first tentative moves by sociologists, psychiatrists, behaviourists and the like to acknowledge that human behaviour may have a genetic basis simply follows the traditional social-spiritual ethical-moral divide – separating human emotions into good and bad emotions, and human behaviour into good and bad behaviour. Instead of good and bad behaviour being the result of Good and Evil forces, they would have us believe that the battle betwixt good and evil is caused by good genes and bad genes. What Professor Reiss is not aware of, neither intellectually nor experientially, is that the instinctual passions come as an integrated and indivisible package. The human history of interminable warfare and unmitigated sorrow is testament that the idea of picking and choosing between instinctual passions or suppressing the good and enhancing the bad does not work … and can never work. In actualism the question is not which desires to throw away and which desire to keep. As an actualist I have recognized, experienced and understood that all of the genetically encoded instinctual passions that constitute my ‘self’ prevent me from experiencing the purity and perfection of this physical universe. Therefore my aim is to whittle away at my social-instinctual identity so as to facilitate ‘my’ extinction, permanently. Then, without being driven by the instinctual passions that constitute the ‘self’, one is free to enjoy the abundance of sensate pleasures and cognitive delights that being a human being on this verdant planet has to offer. Given that each and every actualist starts off with his or her instinctual passions completely intact and totally unexplored, there is an obvious use to be made of the instinctual passion of desire. Personally I asked myself what I wanted to do with my life and the desire at the top of my list was to live in perfect peace and harmony with a man. My commitment of living with a man in peace and harmony very soon grew into an intent to be free from malice and sorrow entirely because I understood that peace and harmony cannot end at the front door if this peace is to be genuine. And thus I ended up in a far bigger adventure than I had originally anticipated. My desire for peace and harmony eventually led me to investigate not only all of my other desires, but also the other instinctual passions – my fear, my aggression and my instinct of nurture. KONRAD: Take anger. If you never feel anger, you cannot feel revolted by the fact that Nazi Germany has slaughtered 5 million Jews. So the elimination of this emotion can make you stop investigating the causes of this, and thus make it possible that it will happen again. Therefore the question is not how to eliminate anger, but to investigate when anger is at its place, and when not. VINEETO: Anger is in its very nature destructive. How can anger about Nazis in Germany eliminate suffering. The retribution from the ‘good’ guys that took place at the end of World War II was as cruel, uncontrolled and devastatingly disastrous as the actions of the ‘bad’ guys before. To investigate the causes of violence and eliminate them, I don’t need to be angry, I only need to apply understanding and intelligence. Anger will always be blind.
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence
| Library – Topics Index

Actualism Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-
. All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity