Srinath Report on Becoming Actually Free On August 10 2024 the “Man from Sydney” aka “Respondent No. 45 (D)” agreed in a meeting with Geoffrey and Vineeto, for the sake of unifying convenience, to be henceforth referred to as “Srinath” . 1/12/18 Report of an Actual Freedom: Folks, I’m pleased to announce that at about AEST 1100PM 3/11/2018, I became actually free. There’s no doubt in my mind that all of you can become actually free too, if you so choose. And that is because the target is so enormous (literally the universe), that it is hard to miss! In fact humans work over-time to miss it. In the end for me the way out was illuminated by the PCE – and having it show me that an actual freedom was a universal possibility for everybody. While it was easy in the end and over in seconds, there was a build up to those final seconds, that I wanted to write about in detail, in case it is of use to anyone else. My reading about Geoffrey becoming actually free was the final spark that started the process that would eventually lead to ‘my’ happy demise. I was in the USA for work at the time, having a browse on Slack [actualism discussion forum] in the evening to see if there was anything interesting, which I still did from time to time since I stopped posting. I sat bolt upright in bed and read his report again and again. I felt an acute pang of envy. Slowly this turned into a giddy excitement, when I had a powerful realisation that actual freedom is a real possibility and I might be able to do it too! There was so much more information on the subject of self-immolation than ever before with the reports of Geoffrey and No. 15(D) adding to the ones previously written by the original pioneers. They were making it easier for me. All their writings seemed to be converging. I thought ‘C’mon if those jokers No. 15 (D) and Geoffrey could do it surely I can!’ :) I read how Vineeto had used her instincts to get to the end. I used my competitiveness, drive and whatever else I had at my disposal to get closer to the finish line. Later on I realised these were a liability and would need to be jettisoned like the boosters of the space shuttle so that ‘escape velocity’ could be attained for the end journey. But initially back-pressure worked a treat. I also decided I would need a short runway. Go straight for freedom ‘vertical ascent’ fashion. A prolonged period of virtual freedom might be appropriate for some, but in my busy life it may increase the risk of my losing momentum or getting out of it – or so I thought at the time. I made an attempt to self-immolate in a garden near my hotel, but ended up going into a PCE instead. It was like ‘I’ was going ‘not yet... not yet... let me just make sure this is what I really want!’. It was a dazzling and spectacular PCE however, which made me realise how rubbish my normal life was in comparison. I decided from that point onwards to act as if self-immolation would happen. To expect it rather than discount it as a fable. No. 15 (D)’s words “make it happen” and Richard’s words “it can and will happen now” were constantly on my mind. I put my affairs in order and prepped for the big one. Mind you I was not 100% sure if this would work but I wanted to give myself the best chance. “Nothing you can do and nothing you can’t” after all as Richard said. I was on the verge of signing a contract of 5 years with a therapy practise but wasn’t sure whether I could be an effective therapist in the psychodynamic paradigm once I was actually free. I contemplated whether I was talking myself out of a job, cognisant that fears of not being able to earn a living could be holding me back from pulling out all the stops. I arrived at the conclusion that the individuals I was seeing were on the most severe side of the spectrum for the human condition and may still require therapy to come to terms with their feelings at minimum. Perhaps I could be useful here. If not I could go into a non-therapeutic sub-specialty where not being able to emote was less of an issue. I shortened my contract to 2 years bargaining hard, so that I would at least be able to get out in the near future if need be. My art practise was also a concern, that needed thinking about. I decided that if ultimately I no longer wanted to make art after becoming free, it would be fine. Making art could be painful at times and full of anxiety and pretence. However, I anticipated that if anything actual freedom would make art making easier with ‘me’ out of the way. So these were two big potential objections that I put to rest. Back in Sydney 2 weeks later, I was trying experientially to work out how to self-immolate. Initially I tried too much to force myself via the format that Vineeto, No. 15 (D) and Geoffrey used in their reports. Even though those early efforts failed, doing so made me realise what was lacking. I realised that I would have to do it my own way. Others maps were all well and good but I had to blaze my own trail and it would have to come authentically from my own experience. I decided I would gather everything together experientially while focussing on the end: taking my time, rather than forcing it. In hindsight I was inching closer, but it was really hard to know this back then. I was getting more and more obsessed with my ending. I was like an excited kid with a new video game! Self-immolation was the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing at night. I began to feel ever more strongly that I was on the brink of something. I was revving up my desire and then revving it up some more to paraphrase Richard. On the 29/10/18 I had a spectacular and very vivid dream that I had become actually free. I woke up in bed at 3am right after and felt clear and wondrous, with no trace of ‘me’ that I could discern. In retrospect this was obviously a PCE but I wanted to be free so badly I ended up twisting it into an ASC. I thought maybe this could be the first ever case of someone self-immolating in a dream... I mean who’s to say! Lol. I had been here before though and smelled a rat. I was able to get myself out of it quickly. Rather than dissuade me, I took the dream as a good omen. It seemed that my entire psyche was in alignment with the goal. It fuelled my determination even more. I resolved to bust through any number of false doors if need be, until I found the genuine one-way door marked self-immolation. I spend the days prior to the event, wondering about self-immolation constantly and this preoccupation brought about a change to the atmosphere around me. I was constantly in a state of excellence, but there was also this sense of imminence of what was about to happen and that was very thrilling. I really want to keep ‘me’ in my sights at all times. I didn’t need any more PCE’s. I had more than enough of these. No wriggling out and trying to buy time. Richard had said that I needed to want it like nothing before. I pondered on what I had wanted before and recalled a simple childhood memory of being excited about going to the swimming pool when I was about 10 years old. There was this completely sincere and thrilling ‘jumping out of my skin’ desire to get in the pool. I was beginning to feel a similarly sincere thirst for oblivion. That delicious intimacy with people that was occurring now and again during this time, was what I wanted as a member of the human species. I knew all of me had to be on board and this brought up more objections to examine thoroughly. I thought about all the arguments that I had with the actually free pioneers in the past, all the arguments with other actualists and realised that conflict is my very nature. The main reason I was arguing about various things was for myself. I gave not a hoot about the issues themselves. I was locked in the paradigm of belief, because I needed to be reassured and backed up. Both belief and disbelief had to be discarded. In the cool, crisp light of pure intent and sensuosity all the objections were melting away. I saw that myself and every human were exactly the same. The same core ‘dirty’ selves rubbing up against each other, triggering each other. It appeared to me at the time, that ‘I’ and ‘everyone’ on the planet were like these putrid crystalline things that looked practically alike structurally with minor differences that were minuscule. I felt intuitively and viscerally how my personal malice and sorrow scaled all the way up to the point of the global wars raging around the planet, in a way I could not before. I was going on long walks with the dog contemplating all of this. My girlfriend was very pleasantly surprised by how much I wanted to walk the dog! I was driving my car once and the actual world around me seemed so deliciously magical that I wanted to shout out with joy. It was almost more than I could bear. I realised in a flash that I and all of humanity had it back to front. The actual was real and the ‘real’ was but a dream. The actual was not an ‘experience’ as I had often thought in PCE’s. This wondrous world was our rock solid inheritance. It was under our very noses and we were totally oblivious to it. Why would I want to go back to a real world that didn’t exist? How could I go back now? I thought that it could happen at anytime now. About 24 hours to the event I think that I seemed to be in an out-from-control Virtual Freedom, but can’t say for sure. This wasn’t something I aimed for, but it seemed to be where ‘I’ wanted to be before ‘take-off’ as a consequence of welcoming my destiny. I seemed to be staring out at the vastness of actuality with oblivion very imminent. From time to time I felt a strong, sudden thrill of being pulled into actual world. This was accompanied by a ‘shudder’ in the visual field. On those occasions I couldn’t differentiate whether it was me doing it or it was being done to me by something outside myself. I felt alarmed and instinctively pulled back every time though. I didn’t know what to do to not pull back. On the morning of the event I spent a delicious few hours in the balcony of our apartment, under the canopy of the fig tree outside. It was a spectacular, electrifying experience that I have no words for really. I realised that everyone could enjoy this actual world. Everyone on the planet should enjoy this. How could they not when this is all there is? This wasn’t about me winning a gold medal. It was gold medals for all! Furthermore I realised that what was coming was going to replace me. This new consciousness – of a piece with the body, would do the job of looking after this body and of caring for all, in a way that I could never manage because I was just too self-involved. I experienced for the first time that I was at cross-purposes to this body and was doing it no favours. I had to graciously bow out like a clumsy, incompetent old fool who had bumbled through life just about holding on to his job out of dumb luck. He realised that he had to hand over the reins to super-smart and infinitely better qualified young man. Every caring act I ever undertook in my life was a way to stroke my own back. There was sadness in this realisation. The triumphal tone of an impending self-immolation was replaced then by a deep sincerity at the import of what had to happen. I thought of the old biblical tale of Moses being forbidden entry into the promised land and being able to gaze at it only from a distance. I went shopping with a friend later that morning. I was much minimised and in a magical world, but could clearly feel my presence there. I was clearly blocking intimacy with my friend and everyone else just by being there, I tried to get rid of ‘me’ somehow but could not do it. It seemed that something would happen and I had to now lie in wait and stay focussed on the ending in rapt attention. How that ‘last piece of pizza’ would go I didn’t know. I thought of that scene in the film Hellboy where the creature with the wings heals Hellboy and tells his girlfriend ‘I have done what I can... now give him a reason to live’. (Hehe what is with all these sci-fi movie references with this new bunch of actually free people!) I thought that I needed a reason to die. Not a fake or artificial reason. I needed something authentic that felt true to the core of my being. It would have to come from left-field. That night I stood in the balcony knowing that something was required to convince me to let go of the controls. I kept thinking about that last piece of pizza that was me and what the reason could there be to ‘die’? It seemed like I was hanging on by a very thin thread that stayed firmly in place. At that point I saw my girlfriend lying on the couch and once again I could see that what was separating us was ‘me’. I went out to the balcony and looked down and saw some people walking. I could see that even though everything was nearly perfect that last little bit of ‘me’ was there separating myself from everyone else on this planet and spoiling perfection. The spoonful that weighed a tonne. ‘I’ would roar back into full existence creating havoc for this body and every body, given half a chance. I had to ‘die’ so that this body and every other body could live peacefully. I would need to truly die. The enormity of this dawned on me suddenly like it never had before. The enormity of what I had to give up. It took my breath away. Suddenly I felt a twinge of sadness that emerged from me like a thin pungent streak. But it cut-off abruptly as if in mid-air, still-born. Nothing else happened. It was all over in about 2 seconds. I experienced an utter stillness in my mind and all around me right afterwards. The stillness was so strong it was virtually palpable. There was an ease and effortlessness in the body and mind, which was different from the somewhat keyed up quality of a PCE. ‘I’ was not there anywhere remotely. I felt like a newborn baby, so fresh and exquisitely sensitive to the universe around me. It was odd having my thoughts not linked to any being in the centre. They seemed like they were disconnected and just floating around me. All of this smoothed out in the next few days and became increasingly coherent and natural, as I adjusted to the newly free state. That night I was so excited I found it hard to sleep. I was just walking around in the dark experiencing this night-time wonderland completely unencumbered. I knew I couldn’t be 100% sure I was actually free. But this was nothing like anything else I had ever experience before. I had to sleep on it and give it time. I woke up the next day, expecting that it may be gone but that stillness and lack of being was still remarkably evident. My chest felt clean – like a breezy hollow. The usual morning flood of turbulent emotions on waking were gone. A number of times, I tried to trigger myself with all manner of things as I didn’t want to fool myself, but there was not a trace of being anywhere in sight and I knew it. And things have just got better and better since then. I cannot tell you just how amazing and incredible it is to be here in this actual world. (Srinath, 1 December 2018). See also Vineeto’s correspondence with Srinath

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