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 Belonging Actualism Homepage RESPONDENT: It seems to me that at the root of almost all of my sorrow and malice is the fear of not belonging. The herd mentality seems to be ironically the very structure of the so called individual. Before investigating actualism, I use to wonder what possessed me to fantasize about various self aggrandizing situations. To indulge in imaginary self presentations. I feel 99% of it is based on the desire to belong. Amazing that I spend so much time worrying in one way or another about belonging and not even realizing that that is what is happening. VINEETO: Yes, it is quite amazing how many of one’s thoughts are really feelings. Before I began practicing actualism I wasn’t even aware that I was worrying almost all the time about how I fitted or not fitted in with other people. Yet, when I finally decided that what I want to do with my life is to totally commit myself to becoming free from the human condition and when I made this the most important thing in my life, my worry about other people’s opinions and thoughts and the way I fitted or not fitted in with the chosen group of people gradually became less important to the point of not being a worry at all today. The more I was pursuing my own goal – becoming free – the more I enjoyed and appreciated this moment of being alive and consequently the less I needed other people’s approval and support to the point that I am now totally autonomous, standing on my own two feet, utterly untroubled by anyone’s opinion about what I am, what I am doing, or how I live my life (with the qualifier that I obey the social protocols and legal laws of the country I live in because it makes imminent sense to do so). RESPONDENT: One thing that makes me certain that actualism is different from spiritual practices is that I don’t feel superior, set apart or deluded into believing I am something I am not. I am simply a human being investigating myself in an attempt to become happy and harmless. As long as I can look at my problems I don’t feel overwhelmed by them, because after all I can look at it, and if I can look at it clearly it will no longer be a problem. VINEETO: Yes, that describes well the utterly down-to-earthness of the actualism method in contrast to spiritual practice where I was busy building and nurturing a make-believe superior identity in the hope that one day it might take over completely. In actualism I do the very opposite, I actively dismantle and diminish ‘who’ I think and feel I am in order that ‘what I am’ can become more and more apparent. TARIN: I’m finding myself pretty resentful of having to deal with people who keep being affective, like being in their company or sometimes even imagining them makes me feel contempt, impatient and frustrated which isn’t being at ease and living with people-as-they-are. I’m not sure why I feel so much contempt for them, but I do. I feel like I’m better than them but I’m stuck with them. But when I see people who I feel are better than me, I’m jealous of them, and resent that too. Trying to think of a circumstance to illustrate my point. All right, say I’m with someone who is trying to get me to commiserate with them about something, I don’t want to, not even as a social lubricant which is probably what they’re looking at it as. And I think they might find me removed and aloof or rude and maybe sense some kind of contempt coming from me, the latter of which is probably right, as I would prefer it if they stopped talking such nonsense. Also, I feel pressured to provide the ‘correct response’. I’ve only recently become aware of how much this has been a part of my interacting with people. Since paying attention to this, I’ve looked into it a bit, but so far it hasn’t been very clear what’s fuelling it. Would people here who might understand what is happening please chime in? A friend who is also an actualist said its me liking to feel superior to people, and so its my holier-than-thou identity. I suppose I could look at it that way, as that might intellectually make sense, but I don’t really see it. VINEETO: It seems you have already pointed the finger to the source of the problem. You say – ‘I feel like I’m better than them but I’m stuck with them’. I remember from my spiritual years how superior I used to feel to everyone else who was not following my master, who portrayed himself as the Best of the Best (and so did all his followers, of course) and how full of compassion, pity and/or contempt I felt for everyone who was not on the same ‘level’, and even more so for those who didn’t even consider joining the club of the chosen few. Consequently I didn’t feel to be well meaning towards ‘the outsiders’ or to treat them as my fellow human beings. When I came across actualism I had already lost some of my feeling of superiority as I couldn’t help but admit that belonging to this ‘superior’ club did not make me more happy, let alone harmless and in the course of investigating further into my feelings of loyalty to the master and the group I found that the feeling of superiority was a big part of the reason to remain belonging to this particular spiritual group and to follow this particular teaching in the first place. Later I discovered that wanting to feel superior by belonging to a special group was not only a personal trait but that it is common to all human beings – people feel special for belonging to the ‘chosen people’, the ‘superior race’, following certain political, social or ethical movements, for having an honourable family tree, for being a member of the Lion’s club, a football club, an exclusive circle of friends, for belonging to or being allied with a powerful country, a powerful God, and so on. However, when practicing actualism, I soon discovered experientially that despite my wanting to feel better than others I was just as bad and as mad as everyone else because just like everyone else I was capable of being madly jealous, viciously enraged, terribly sad, frightened out of my wits, depressed, revengeful, insatiably desirous of certain things and miserably dependant on affection. The admittance that deep down I was driven by the same instinctual passions as everyone else paved the way to my finally deciding to do something about my predicament (the Human Condition) where it really worked – at the very core. The other comment that I would make is that an investigation of whatever non-felicitous feelings that are causing you to be neither happy nor harmless right now is a matter of feeling the feeling, labelling the feeling and being aware of the particular circumstances that triggered the feeling so as to not have such feelings habitually occur again in the same circumstances. As such this investigation of feelings is experiential – it is not about psychologising your feelings, it is not about laying the blame on particular circumstances or on particular people – the customary automatic knee-jerk reaction which completely misses the point that the only person you can change, and indeed need to change in order for the already, always existing peace on earth to become apparent, is ‘me’. TARIN: It’s not clicking. the contempt is a gut reaction that happens when I have to interact with someone who’s trying to ‘feel me out’ and I’m not sure it’s a matter of identity but of instinct. a couple times today, examining it, I’ve felt in over my head. VINEETO: When you practice the actualism method, it’s important to remember to examine the feeling in question only *after* you managed to get back to feeling good which includes, of course, to stop beating yourself up for feeling the particular feeling in the first place else you will deny yourself the opportunity and the right circumstances to discover whatever is lurking underneath the feeling in question, in this case feeling contempt for other people. From my own experience I can say that however difficult it sometimes seems to penetrate some aspects of my identity or to let go of some precious aspects of my identity, the outcome is always that of relief, lightness and an exuberant joy of being alive – in other words, it’s always well worth the effort. RESPONDENT: My self investigation has at times revealed things that have benefited my family and friends. I’m a kinder, less angry person these days as a result. VINEETO: You will find many people who agree with your goal to be kinder towards you and those you consider your kin – a goal which tends to exclude those who are not. Actualism is not about playing favourites as to whom you want to treat kindly and whom you do not. Whenever I have a ‘self’-less pure consciousness experience I only see fellow human beings, not friends and strangers, family and outsiders. Nowadays I experience myself as a human being amongst other fellow human beings, not belonging to any kith or kin. RESPONDENT: Do you still think, believe, know that one day you will be actually free, like Richard? VINEETO: Yes, I know I will, because I’ve burnt all the bridges and there is no turning back to be whoever I was. I’ve literally painted myself into a corner and the pressure to keep proceeding is on at all times. RESPONDENT: And what about the only other people that seemed to be near a virtual freedom? Where the heck is Alan, Mark, Gary? Dead, insane? VINEETO: You will have to ask them yourself. I only know of what they have written to the list. Whilst it is understandable to look for allies on the way, particularly when one takes on the task of questioning *all* of the so-called wisdom of humanity, actualism remains a do-it-yourself-by-yourself business and the desire for allies, friends, collaborators and such like is yet another of the ‘self’-perpetuating instinctual passion to be recognized, understood and disempowered. Personally, I have found the need to belong to some group, any group, one of the most persistent instinctual forces that time and again caused me to procrastinate from stepping out of humanity. I am reminded of something Richard said to me once when I asked him about the topic of belonging to humanity – Richard: Do you recall those conversations we had about loyalty (familial and group loyalty) back when you and I first met ... and what was required to crack that code? That was chicken-feed compared with this one. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Vineeto, 30 September 1999). * VINEETO: Whilst it is understandable to look for allies on the way, RESPONDENT: It’s not that I’m looking for ‘allies’, but more that I’m looking for some basic statistics of the af method working for someone besides the members of the AF Trust. I don’t think that is unreasonable at all. VINEETO: It’s not a matter of being reasonable or not, it’s a matter of common sense. You’ve got to work with what you got. And, as I said before, the best way of verifying with 100% certainty that the method of actualism works is to either remember a PCE or to evoke a PCE by the intensity of your enquiries into the human condition. When you have the clear goal of becoming free from malice and sorrow, it is you who assesses your own success, initially by the benchmark of others who have trod the path if necessary and by comparison with your life before you started on the path, but ultimately by your own pure consciousness experience of the already existing, and always existing, peace on earth. * VINEETO: … particularly when one takes on the task of questioning *all* of the so-called wisdom of humanity, actualism remains a do-it-yourself-by-yourself business and the desire for allies, friends, collaborators and such like is yet another of the ‘self’-perpetuating instinctual passion to be recognized, understood and disempowered. RESPONDENT: Nonetheless, you make an excellent point here and I will look out for this. VINEETO: Now, that I tasted life without the need for allies, friends, collaborators and such like I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is such joy, freedom and dignity to be able to stand on one’s own feet, to say or not to say what I know to be actual and factual, even if most people in the world disagree – and they do. RESPONDENT: Basically, while so far my experience of actualism mirrors your own, I am holding onto a bit of skepticism/ agnosticism (for many reasons perhaps: for sure one is that it is a ‘non-offensive’ view, and seems ‘respectful’ to others of different views). VINEETO: To remain ‘respectful’ to others’ views is to want to remain a respected member of society/ humanity. RESPONDENT: Indeed, and it’s based in fear of losing ‘security’. Me leaving humanity. I’m all alone. No. 32 is right – this is daunting stuff. Even terrifying at times. VINEETO: And yet despite the sometimes terrifying moments and daunting prospects you also report that you have already changed to such a degree that your own mother made comment on it. The process of leaving humanity is quite apparently already in full swing. * VINEETO: Being an atheist yet tolerant of all religions (as one ethicist explained his fence-sitting stance in a recent TV program) is bound to interfere with one’s being happy and harmless because remaining open to the probability of there being a God (and God begets a Satan) is remaining open (as in susceptible) to the fear of divine punishment should one do something that any of the Gods has supposedly deemed to be wrong – after all, underpinning the belief in God by whatever name lies the fear of His/Her/Its wrath if one dares to irrevocably cease being a believer. RESPONDENT: I see – it is leaving yourself ‘open’ to that, even if that is not happening right now. VINEETO: What one leaves oneself open to are the myriad psychic tentacles of others in the form of imaginary scenarios and probabilities, not to mention ridicule and threats, to pull one back into the fold … that is until a clear-cut decision is made that I will let go, once and for all, of whatever nonsense I am toying with at the time. JAMES to Gary: Hi Gary, Long time no talk. In one of your recent posts you stated that you had looked into it and that this is not a cult. Everything you said above could have Richard’s, Peter’s, Vineeto’s or Alan’s name on it and I could not tell the difference. VINEETO: Your comment is a timely reminder that anybody who has tasted the actual world most usually can report about it in the same unambiguous and factual way, so there is no need or reason for me to write – I can simply follow my whim, telling my story or playing elsewhere. I do find it amazing though that you could not tell the difference between the various writings as I experience quite a difference in style from Richard, Peter, Gary and Alan. However, that is perhaps more considering the details rather than the first raw impression. Similarly, black people or Chinese people look all alike to a white man until one has closer contact with some individuals and can determine the particular features and nuances in their faces. JAMES to Gary: This is a sure sign of a cult to me. VINEETO: Your conclusion you draw from your initial observation seems rather curious to me. Are you saying that when five people state the same fact, they automatically belong to a cult? Outside my window grows a lovely thick six-metre high palm tree, at least 100 years old. Now if a group of ten people gathered around that palm tree and nine of them would say ‘this is a palm tree’ and one of them would say, ‘this is a goddess’ – are the nine people then members of a palmism cult and the one who sees a goddess is the true individual? Unfortunately this example is no mere invention. In fact, most people I have talked to believe in some kind of spirit or disembodied divinity that manifests in trees, rocks, mountains and in some special human beings. Curiously enough there are only very few people who are ready to investigate this notion of divinity as being a belief arising out of their own instinctual programming. And even more curious – exactly those few daring individuals are then accused of belonging to a cult. Not that I mind that you see me belonging to be cult – I have belonged to a notorious cult for 17 years – and now I am considered belonging to the cult of the happy and harmless. I am simply suggesting broadening your perspective so as to facilitate having a glimpse of how I am experiencing this marvellous universe. Isn’t listening seeing with another’s eyes? Upon closer inspection you may be shocked to discover that an actualist is completely and utterly on his or her own – for the first time in one’s life. JAMES to Gary: Here is one example: ‘And the pioneering discovery of Actual Freedom is that the sense of being can be eliminated, extirpated in toto.’ VINEETO: Your example of Gary saying that ‘that the sense of being can be eliminated, extirpated in toto’ is simply him stating a fact, just as Richard or Peter do. Everyone who has had a self-less pure consciousness experience can verify by their own temporary experience the fact that it is indeed not only possible but utterly delicious to live without a self. I admit, it’s a scary fact that such self-less existence is a permanent possibility, but it nevertheless has been proven to be a fact. JAMES to Gary: 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. VINEETO: I wonder if you would like to share where you see the similarities and significant qualities of the two cults, and how they compare with actualism. And one more question, if I may – do you consider Krishnamurtiism to be a cult? I am asking because I have been a very committed member of a cult myself and in that period I completely ignored and denied that I should belong to a cult. As a sannyasin I believed that only jealous old-time religious people considered us to be a cult and that I was part of a movement that was to change the world and bring about the New Man. After Rajneesh had died, I began more and more to blame the obvious flaws of Rajneeshism on my fellow followers and the organization for diluting and blemishing His Message until it finally dawned on me that it is the Message itself that was to blame for the failure and not the followers. Actualism is not a message for me but a method, a recipe, if you will – and it works. By experiencing the success of my own effort in applying the simple recipe I am at the same time autonomous – not dependent upon the discoverer of the recipe but guided by my own pure consciousness experiences. My own experience of ongoing happiness and harmlessness confirms the fact that the recipe incrementally delivers what it promises – peace on earth. JAMES: Hi Vineeto, I feel like I totally don’t belong here and don’t want to be here and that I am not welcome here as I have no intention of being a bonafide actualist. However, I am curious about this belonging issue. Can you shed some light on belonging such as which instinct that it is associated with, etc.? VINEETO: Since asking me about instinctual passions, you have posted the following to the list. Viz: [Respondent No. 23]: Hi James, is it true that you only want to talk to the head of the cult? [Respondent]: I wouldn’t say I only want to talk to the head of the cult. I thought I would try and talk to Vineeto until I read her reply to Gary just now and she sounded like a complete robot. It made me realize why I don’t feel like I belong here. [endquote]. I do find it intriguing that, first asking me about instinctual passions, you now consider me ‘a complete robot’, as a real robot, being just a machine, does not know about feelings, emotions and passions. However, as you have asked, I will give you my two cents on my experience with ‘this belonging issue’. All my life I wanted and needed to belong – to a family, a country, a group of mates, a boyfriend, a political movement, a therapy group and, most dedicated of all, a spiritual movement. When I had a strong sense of belonging to one particular spiritual group – Rajneeshees – I began to question other groups, religions and tribes I had belonged to before, thinking I was doing great liberating investigation. However only when I questioned the act of believing itself, which is the cornerstone of belonging to any spiritual movement, did I come to realise that all my questioning of belonging so far had not even scratched the surface of my identity. Investigating the act of believing itself, of course, brought up all kinds of fears, the strongest of which was that then I would not belong to anyone or any group – I would be on my own. As I said to Gary, when I was questioning my spiritual belief of being a Sannyasin there was great concern that I did not replace one belief with another – I wanted something tangible, stable, permanent, something that I would never ever have to question again, something that did not depend on me believing in it to be true. Therefore I had to investigate my emotional reactions to stepping out of that protective group as I was leaving behind all my friends, my spiritual identity as a Rajneeshee and the security of feeling as though I belonged to a close-knit community. Those emotional reactions were not only my fear of being lonely and unprotected, but I was also haunted by my own adopted spiritual morals and ethics – was I doing the ‘right’ thing?, would I be punished if there was a God or an afterlife?, what if I was wrong and Rajneesh was right?, who am I to decide the ‘right’ path? ... and so on. It was just as well that I did not blame Richard or Peter – or actualism per se – for these fears and distressing emotions that arose from my own questioning, otherwise I would have never been able to investigate my own spiritual values and my need to belong to a protective spiritual tribe. Now I belong to no group and to no one and by investigating not only my social identity of beliefs, morals and ethics but also my instinctual survival passions, I am leaving behind ‘who’ I thought and felt I was. For me, the notion that practicing actualism is the equivalent of belonging to a cult is complete and utter nonsense because by taking apart my social identity I am free from the debilitating need to belong to any group, family, nation, race and gender, and by investigating my instinctual passions I am free from the biggest club of all – humanity itself. Actualism is about becoming autonomous for the first time in one’s life. * VINEETO: Those emotional reactions were not only my fear of being lonely and unprotected, but I was also haunted by my own adopted spiritual morals and ethics – was I doing the ‘right’ thing?, would I be punished if there was a God or an afterlife?, what if I was wrong and Rajneesh was right?, who am I to decide the ‘right’ path? ... and so on. It was just as well that I did not blame Richard or Peter – or actualism per se – for these fears and distressing emotions that arose from my own questioning, otherwise I would have never been able to investigate my own spiritual values and my need to belong to a protective spiritual tribe. Now I belong to no group and to no one and by investigating not only my social identity of beliefs, morals and ethics but also my instinctual survival passions, I am leaving behind ‘who’ I thought and felt I was. For me, the notion that practicing actualism is the equivalent of belonging to a cult is complete and utter nonsense because by taking apart my social identity I am free from the debilitating need to belong to any group, family, nation, race and gender, and by investigating my instinctual passions I am free from the biggest club of all – humanity itself. Actualism is about becoming autonomous for the first time in one’s life. JAMES: I am not sure if belonging is my issue. I don’t have I need to belong. It is more of a feeling of I don’t belong and I really seriously feel like I don’t belong here. I am sure that fear is at the base of it but it becomes confusing from there. I am now reminded that I have had a feeling of I don’t belong through my entire life. I don’t have a fear of not belonging. It is more like I don’t belong and I don’t want to belong especially to this group that you are calling not a group. VINEETO: It is completely up to you if you want to explore why through your entire life you ‘have had a feeling of I don’t belong’ . It is of little use when I tell you the outcome of my own explorations about the topic because that only leaves you with the option of believing me or not believing me whereas an experiential understanding of your own beliefs and emotions about belonging will give you the confidence to assess if what others are saying is factual or not. When I wanted to explore a particular issue, in this case belonging, I asked myself very specific questions in order to experience and explore the feeling around this issue and the particular reasons why I was feeling what I was feeling about the issue . Some of those questions were – why did I feel lonely, why did I need someone or some people to believe what I believed and confirm what I believed, why did I want to belong to a group of people who believed what I believed , why was I afraid of being mixed up with the ‘wrong’ crowd? Why was I afraid of finding out facts, particularly those that went against what everyone believes? Why did I feel the need to conform to one group and take distance from another? Why was it so important to have like-believing friends? The issue of belonging would inevitably bring me to the question why my beliefs, all beliefs, could not stand by themselves. I seemed to always need others to confirm my beliefs, I needed the help of a group to defend my beliefs, I was touchy about my beliefs, they were something holy and too close to the bone to be polluted by other’s opinion and questioning. When I applied the method of actualism I found out that exploring facts and knowing something for a fact is a completely different matter. When I know something for a fact, the fact speaks for itself, I don’t need support from anyone for ‘believing’ a fact because a fact does not require belief or faith. With every fact that I discovered and that I acknowledged as a fact, the fear of being exposed by others for my whimsical beliefs was incrementally diminished. You say ‘I am sure that fear is at the base of it but it becomes confusing from there’ – fear stands at the threshold of every new discovery and the trick is to rise to the challenge and keep inquiring despite the fears. What helped me to face my fears was to look at each fear separately as it occurred – at one time it was my fear to investigate a touchy belief, another time it was my fear to be rejected, at yet another time it was my fear to be sucked in, or to be wrong, or to be punished for wrong beliefs or unfaithful behaviour, or to end up in the gutter if I don’t follow what others follow. These are only some of the fears that occurred during my investigations into my social identity and my instinctual passions and each of these fears I examined carefully for factual dangers. However, if I found no practical reason to be careful or afraid, I then was emboldened to move into even deeper waters of my psyche despite my fears. Of course, you can forever ask others about their findings and experiences and learn about what others have explored but that will always keep you in the realm of thought and feeling as in ‘that this sounds right’ or ‘I don’t believe you’. Until you verify or falsify what another says is a fact or not by your own experience and by repeatable, tangible, visible evidence, any such theoretical or feeling appraisal is as limp as a dishcloth. JAMES: Vineeto, I woke up this morning and there is something here I can’t get off my mind so I thought I would write a follow-up. In your last post to me you said: ‘Now I belong to no group.’ I don’t know how you could possibly expect me to somehow believe that actualism is not a group. You can’t even show me one of your dictionary definitions that this is not a group. I have serious doubts about anything you say if you could be this blind. VINEETO: And to Richard you said – If there is nothing to belong to here then why do I feel like I don’t belong? Vineeto is even saying this is not a group and I am for sure not buying that one. You had said ‘I am not sure if belonging is my issue’ but now your issue has become that ‘I feel like I don’t belong’ and Vineeto must be blind saying that ‘I belong to no group and to no one’. Isn’t it you who insists that actualism is a cult and a group because the word has ‘-ism’ at the end of it and because a handful of people want to be free of the human condition? Isn’t it you who is then saying that you don’t want to belong to this cult and claim that actualists somehow insist that you should, despite clear statements to the contrary? If you consider the people writing on this mailing list to be a group that somehow belong together, then maybe you could take the time to look at some facts. Everyone very obviously does his and her own thing with Richard’s discovery and with the method of actualism – some apply the actualism method, some chose to feel offended, some blow with the wind, some create their own path to actual reality or mystic Reality and some desperately want to stay as they are. The thirty odd people who are subscribed to this list are living all over the planet, most have never met each other and supporters may turn into objectors any day of the week. How can you somehow believe that actualism is a group, even a cult? What is this cultic thing that people of this supposed group do here? Why do you invent a cult that you then declare you don’t want to belong to? This thread started with the issue of belonging, and belonging is about feeling part of a group for emotional support, for security of one’s beliefs and for company in loneliness and misery. I have experienced and examined my beliefs, emotions, instinctual passions, urges, needs and fears around this issue in me and they no longer have any impact on me. I don’t belong to any group and I have dared to acknowledge the fact that I am on my own – in fact, I as this flesh-and-blood body have been on my own all my life despite my feelings of belonging or not belonging. For the path to an actual freedom I rely on my own pure consciousness experiences to know what I want to achieve and I found that the method of actualism works to make me happy and harmless. There is neither belief nor devotion nor gratitude nor security nor following an authority figure – none of these emotional needs and bondages exist anymore. The issue here is not if you believe me or if you don’t believe me but if you are interested to use a method that is designed for exploring exactly the topics you say you are interested in. You are perfectly free to do this in any way you like, quietly by yourself or sharing with others who are also exploring their own issues of the Human Condition. As my experience of being autonomous and standing on my own two feet is seemingly inconceivable to you, you will simply need to experience this autonomy for yourself in order to find out if what I say is factual or not. * VINEETO: I presume you might not have got Richard’s message that we changed the list because Listbot has some technical errors. The new list address is actualfreedom@topica.com (now closed) – it is very easy to subscribe and the message about belonging for you is on the new list. Looking forward to further conversations with you. JAMES: I read your message about belonging, Vineeto and I am stunned into silence by your claim that actualism is not a group. I have decided not to subscribe to the new list and continue the conversation at this time. Thanks for the invitation. Good luck with your new list. VINEETO: I have never denied that actualism may look like a group to you – and in particular, one that you don’t want to belong to. Is your issue of not-belonging now resolved by not subscribing to the new list and continuing your conversations on the old Actual Freedom Mailing list? However, as you have inquired about the issue of belonging and the related instinctual passions I was trying to convey that neither belonging nor not-belonging is an issue for me any longer – I have examined and resolved my feelings, beliefs and instinctual passions related to belonging, per se. Actualism for me is what it has always been from the very beginning – a sensible and practical recipe to become happy and harmless. You could say that for you the cooks using the recipe are forming a group that you don’t want to belong to and you prefer to talk to the originator of the recipe only on another list. Fair enough. But as you continue to refuse to take my words at face value you are thus closing the door on the possibility of using the recipe for your own happiness and harmlessness because the only thing I am repeatedly saying is that I used Richard’s recipe and it works. The real question behind belonging for me has been ‘am I ready to stand on my own two feet and instigate irrevocable change, despite my own fears and beliefs and despite everyone else’s obstinate objections and impassioned accusations.’ The trouble is that once I have seen and experienced a fact as a fact, there is no way of going back to believing what everyone else believes, despite my fears of leaving the comfort zone of ‘my’ identity. VINEETO to No. 47: Taking people’s word’s at face value has nothing to do with trust or mistrust, but is a matter of a simple and straight-forward way to communicate. A ‘hidden double meaning’ is almost always an emotionally charged meaning and trying to second-guess what this is in any situation does nothing to enhance sensible communication. Nowadays I always assume that if people find it important that I take notice of any ‘hidden’ meaning then they will tell me – it is not my responsibility to discern what another is trying to convey through unmentioned hints and allusions. As for being ‘distrustful of the words of some’ – the good news for me was that by examining and understanding my own social and instinctual identity I had less and less reason to fear that people would emotionally hurt me with insinuations or outright sarcasm – identity-slashing intimations from others now rarely reach a target. RESPONDENT No. 47: Understood. My problem is that I sometimes forget to focus on the content because of distractions of how it is conveyed. VINEETO: Of course, that is the very purpose of people conveying a message in an emotional way. Those ‘distractions’ are the very stuff to explore in order to determine how you are in relation to other people. Other than the words themselves there is usually a whole layer of invisible and inaudible interaction happening and this is how Richard explained it – Richard: All sentient beings, to a greater or lesser extent, are connected via a psychic web ... a network of energies or currents that range from ‘good’ to ‘bad’. Feeling threatened or intimidated can result from the obvious cues – the offering of physical violence and/or verbal violence – or from the less obvious ... ‘vibe’ violence (to use a ‘60’s term) and/or psychic violence. Similarly, feeling accepted can occur via the same signals or intimations. Power trips – coercion or manipulation of any kind – whether for ‘good’ or ‘bad’ purposes, are all psychic at root ... the psychic currents are the most effective power plays for they are the most insidious (charisma, for example). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27, 6 November 2002). (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 47, 4.11.2003) JAMES: This could explain why I have a sense of not belonging here or anywhere else for that matter because there is no psychic connection. I am an actualist in the sense that I have seen that matter is animate thru a pce although I am not positive of this because it could be a physiological process in my own body that makes matter look that way. Also, I don’t practice Actualism per se because it seems that would connect me to the group I see here. I also don’t feel I belong on any spiritual list or group. Not having any psychic connection could explain why I don’t belong and don’t want to belong as opposed to the usual use of belonging which means one wants to belong. Makes sense? VINEETO: I didn’t want to tell you, but since you have been so persistent I will let you in on the secret. There are regular out-of-body group meetings with members of the Actual Freedom mailing list each week where we come together in a sacred hall, worship Richard, chant hymns such as ‘Freedom, Freedom, from the Human Condition’ and ‘Happy, Happy, Happy and Harmless’ and at the end of the gathering slaughter a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eater which symbolizes the instinctual passions in everybody. The holy smoke of the burning of this wild animal is then spread onto everyone as a blessing to be protected for the rest of the week until the next disembodied ritual meeting. We have never invited you to those gathering for all subscribed members of the mailing list because you were so insistent that you don’t want to belong but you must have picked it up via the psychic web anyway. Makes sense? JAMES: No, it doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t have anything to do with what I said but I like your humour anyway. :) VINEETO: Okay. The connection between this joke and what you wrote is that your belief that actualists are a group or a cult to which you don’t want to belong has persisted despite continuous explanations that this is not the case. So in reply to your latest protestation, rather than yet again explaining that there is nothing to belong to in actualism, I followed your lead and jokingly volunteered that actualists are cult-members performing dark spiritual rituals in out-of-body meetings. If you can see the humour in the above description maybe you can also see the humour in your belief that actualists are members of a cult and understand that your belief has no existence outside of your own head and heart. JAMES: I was looking to see if the psychic web or lack thereof may or may not have anything to do with my sense of not belonging. VINEETO: The psychic web is a network of emotional currents or vibes that connects impassioned human beings and every impassioned human being is embedded within this net via their own emotions. Thus like-minded people feel they have a connection with other like-minded people (and as a consequence feel antipathy towards those who are not-like minded), people of the same cultural conditioning feel that they are connected with those of the same cultural conditioning (and as a consequence feel alien towards those who are not of the same cultural conditioning), people of the same religious or spiritual belief feel that they are connected with those of the same religious or spiritual belief (and as a consequence feel separate from those who are not of the same religious or spiritual belief) and so on. By investigating these feelings and emotions – both the ‘good’ feelings of belonging and the bad’ feelings of not-belonging – and by examining how they formed part of my social identity I incrementally unhooked myself from the psychic net. That means that psychic vibes have almost no effect on me and the psychic barbs cast by others don’t find a responding hook in me and thus miss their target or go unnoticed. When I started to investigate the emotional makeup of my social identity I discovered that the issue of belonging is solely an issue of ‘I’, as a social identity, belonging to a group of people with a similar social identity – ‘Vineeto the German’ belonged to the German people, ‘Vineeto the daughter’ belonged to my biological family, ‘Vineeto the sannyasin’ belonged to followers of Rajneesh, ‘Vineeto the woman’ belonged to the sisterhood of like-minded women, ‘Vineeto the lover’ belonged to the man I loved, and so on. And just to head off a popular objection before it gets resurrected yet again – ‘Vineeto the actualist’ has no chance of ever being an identity because the only thing that happens when I am using the actualism method is that all aspects of my identity are investigated and eventually dissolved to the point of ‘self’-immolation. In other words, anyone sincerely practicing actualism does not belong to any group, let alone a cult, because an actualist’s sole aim is to take one’s own identity apart in order to become unconditionally happy and unconditionally harmless and ... autonomous. As such I am now un-afflicted by a need to belong or not to belong, I relish in standing on my own two feet and I enjoy being autonomous. VINEETO: What was it that fuelled your intent to move on beyond the common aversion to cults that most human beings have and investigate into the content of what was being said rather than the framework it seemed to be presented in? GARY: ’Tis hard to remember, but I think I just took what was being said at ‘face value’ and evaluated it for myself so as to see whether it made sense or not. It seems to me looking back at it that there were plenty of assurances that whoever was writing to me was not telling me what to think or what to do. For instance, in early correspondence with Peter I remember explicitly his assurances that he was not telling me what to do or what to think but rather that I would have to find these things out for myself. I found this also with you and with Richard. That is not to say that I have not had plenty of objections to actualism myself. No, wait a minute, ‘objections’ is too strong a word. I have had ... questions. I have had confusions. That might be a better way of putting it. How can one object to being happy and harmless? I suppose one always can, but to what point? VINEETO: It is curious – such a simple aim – happy and harmless – and yet, I am again and again surprised how little attraction it holds for most people. It seems to be that some people, like you, are able to take the words ‘at face value’ while others have too much investment at finding fault with the option to even consider that becoming happy and harmless is the most significant thing they can do with their lives. Whenever I try to understand why anyone would want to stay trapped within the Human Condition I come to see the futility of my attempts. Trying to understand the inexplicable keeps me trapped in guesses and feelings, whereas the acknowledgement of the fact that ‘this is the way people are’ puts me right outside of the Human Condition itself – utterly on my own. GARY: One of the things that fuelled my intent to move on ‘beyond the common aversion to cults that most human beings have’, as you put it, was the frank recognition that I had myself fallen into the trap of cultism with Krishnamurtiism. In fact, I think I had recognized this well in advance of my break from Krishnamurti. I had been taken in, suckered as it were, into a deep adoration for the man that I finally recognized to be a sign of religious devotion. I was to a large extent blind to the obvious faults of Krishnamurti the man and I was quite oblivious to the charge of Krishnamurti being a spiritualist to the core levelled by Richard. But I did see a kind of devotional fervour on my part towards Krishnamurti, even though he is dead, and it is a fortunate thing that I could see this as it hastened my departure from [Mailing List B]. I also saw the same thing with Quakerism. My involvement with the Quakers predated my involvement with Krishnamurti. I jumped ship from the Quakers with the conviction that their way was not ‘the Truth’ and found Krishnamurti, whom I believed had found the Truth. Eventually and predictably, I became disenchanted with Krishnamurti. VINEETO: What had attracted me to Eastern spiritualism was the situation that there was a living guru to admire and adore, whereas in my Christian upbringing, Jesus had been dead for presumably two thousands years. Therefore following a live divine teacher was for me one of the important factors in belonging to an Eastern religion as I had found the Christian religion too impersonal. At the time I had no qualms about adoring a man I considered the latest divine incarnation. It was only years after his death when none of his promises came true that I began questioning if I was really on the right path. My own life, and observably that of other devotees, was as miserable and as self-centred as that of non-Rajneeshees. However, it took another leap in awareness to seriously investigate and discover that it was not the fault of my spiritual practice and not even the fault of a particular divine messenger, but that the message itself was wrong – there is no God apart from passionate imagination. And it is the belief in God by whatever name that backs up the authority of every spiritual guru from A-Z (http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/Ratings.htm). GARY: One might well ask how do I know I didn’t just jump from the frying pan right into the fire, so to speak – in other words, since I had fallen for cultic behaviour myself, first with the Quakers and then on the [Mailing List B], how do I know that I am just not repeating that pattern on the Actual Freedom list? The answer to that lies, I think, in my awareness of the issue of cultism. Since I had been aware of the feelings and passions involved in my own cultic behaviour (albeit a mild example of cultism), I was the more prepared to inquire and investigate into this issue when I first approached the Actual Freedom mailing list. I didn’t and still don’t want to end up in a cult. And I don’t think this is a cult. Uniformity of language, terms, and definitions concerning actualism. Yes, that does occur. But I do not think that is prima facie evidence of cultism. Were uniformity or similarity of linguistic expression a sign of a cult, you might just as well say that social work is a cult, or that teachers are a cult. VINEETO: What I find cute about the whole cult-discussion is that for a cult one needs a belief in a divine message and someone divine who personifies that belief. First, it is impossible to worship a thorough-going atheist as a divine messenger. Second, actualism is the process of questioning and investigating every single one of my beliefs and their underlying feelings, emotions and passions, and it can therefore, by its do-it-yourself methodology, never be a cult. Everyone who considers actualism to be a cult has not yet applied the method of actualism to the point of examining his or her own beliefs. There is great investment in keeping one’s own beliefs alive and dismissing actualism as being a cult is as good an excuse as any other. As for uniformity of language, terms and definitions – when I met Richard I was amazed how much I had to re-learn normal people’s language as defined in the dictionary because Sannyas and Eastern spirituality had very much its own terms and meanings specifically used by cult-members. Spiritual language was repeatedly redefined, poeticized and full of allusions and unspoken meaning, all in the interest of keeping things metaphysical and emotional, vague and open to multiple interpretation. When I write about actualism, pure consciousness experiences and glimpses of the actual world, I have learnt to be as precise as possible in order to maybe convey something of the magic and magnificence that one is able to experience when temporarily free from one’s beliefs, feelings and passions. GARY: Another thing that fuelled my intent to move ahead with the study of actualism was that here was something new and fresh. To begin with, something about Richard’s writing struck me as being entirely original and able to stand completely on its own. In Richard’s writings to others, there appears to be a complete absence of guile, deception, and rascality. VINEETO: Yes, after two of my religious pursuits had obviously failed to make my life more happy and had not enabled me to live with others in peace and harmony, I was stunned that Richard declared this to be possible, here on earth, in this lifetime. I agree with you about the absence of guile and deception in Richard’s writings and I have observed the genuineness and utter sincerity in all his interactions with people, but he surely is a rascal as in ‘a mischievous person’ and a master word-smith to boot. How else could one deal humorously with literally hundreds of objections from dyed-in-the-wool recalcitrant egos and faithful contumacious souls? GARY: For some reason, the framework in which actualism is presented has never bothered me. If someone has found something and wants to share it with others and wants to have a website detailing these discoveries, what the heck – then go for it. If I don’t agree with the information on the website or it doesn’t suit me, I don’t have to stick around. I can take it or leave it as I so choose. VINEETO: I stuck around because there was something on offer that was utterly fresh, sensible, sincere and, contrary to spiritual belief, appealed to my intelligence. Besides, I had nothing to lose but my weakening spiritual dreams and my devotion for an already dead master. Practicing the method of actualism for only a few months brought stunning results in my living together with Peter, and the actual intimacy I experienced by stepping outside of my beliefs and emotions was far, far superior to any feeling of love that I had ever had with any man, woman, group or master. By the time I realised that actualism was 180 degrees opposite to not only what I believed but also to what everyone else believed, it was too late. I have tasted the magic and splendour and innocence of being what I am as opposed to ‘who I feel and believe myself to be’ and that taste is utterly addictive. It has become impossible to ever turn back.
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence
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