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 180 Degrees Opposite (To be seeking spiritual freedom is to be going 180 degrees in the wrong direction) Actualism Homepage GARY: Actualism seems to be ‘game over’ time, and an extinction of the player, making way for a sheer sensual enjoyment of the actual world as-it-is. In any event, these are some reflections on what you wrote. Thanks. VINEETO: An excellent term, ‘‘game over’ time’ – once one makes up one’s mind that none of the solutions within the game work, it becomes all very simple, just delete everything. After a year or so of meticulous research and investigation, I found I did not have to even bother to continue investigating the validity of a belief or feeling, for it eventually became clear that believing itself was the problem, the believer, the feeler is the culprit. Peter called it the ‘psychic search and destroy mission’. But one needs to do it whole-heartedly, otherwise one gets nowhere and it spoils the fun of the adventure of a life-time. So, a thorough investigation into why I was dissatisfied with my life as it was, and why no traditional solution had worked, was necessary in order to take the plunge and turn away from my spiritual peer group, away from familiar ways of relating, away from complaint and resentment, malice and sorrow, away from feeling my way through life, away from the humble holy stupidity of ‘not-knowing’ and believing in the authority and wisdom of people who couldn’t live up to their own teachings. Taking the plunge was a 180-degree turn, from compassionately accepting the experience of a life of malice and sorrow as part of some perverse spiritual game-plan to actually and irrevocably changing myself such that life can be experienced without malice and sorrow. Many serendipitous events have lead to the point of making that curious decision of turning around and finding the solution to the Human Condition in the least expected direction – the elimination of ‘who I believe, feel and instinctually know I am’ takes care of every single problem there is. I don’t have to make perfection happen – this is impossible because ‘I’ can never ever be pure and perfect – I simply instigate my extinction and ‘get out of the road’ for already always existing perfection to become apparent. Life without the burden of a social identity is already beyond my wildest dreams and the glimpses that I had of actuality in pure consciousness experiences revealed something far, far bigger and so utterly pure that no ‘self’-possessed brain can ever imagine or concoct such perfect eternal and infinite magnificence. GARY: Walking along the street with the cool breezes caressing my face and hair, the bright sunshine streaming down, the veil in my perception opened and I noticed, first, with stunning detail, every minute facet, crevice, and feature in a brick wall. Here I was again in fairy-tale land, seeing the actual. Everything was wonderfully interesting and engaging. I knew and sensed that my hard work had resulted in this handsome reward, and that further there had been the pure intent to have this happen again, though not to make it happen, a crucial distinction. The experience lasted a while, though not as long as the last time. I particularly related to something Richard wrote in his journal, and could not agree more. He says, and I would like to quote him from pg. 46: [Richard]: ‘...emotions equip one with a disability. They are a hindrance, not a help. Feelings – emotions and passions – are a liability; life is infinitely cleaner and clearer upon their demise. It is not a popular view, however, for people are attached to their feelings; they believe – they think and feel – that feelings are the touchstone of actuality. Nothing could be further from the fact. They keep reality alive.’ (Richard’s Journal, Article 6, Confidence and Certainty Renders Trust and Faith Irrelevant), (Richard, Selected Writings, Affective Feelings). It has taken me a long time to come around to this view, but my experiences of late have all pointed to this one fact: that feelings and emotions obscure and cover over the actual world. When ‘I’ as feeler am not, the actual world rises to sight, and what a glorious sight it is indeed! But it is not something that people want to see because, as the passage indicates, people are amazingly attached to their feelings. It is felt that it is this that makes us feel alive, and that without them, we would be like necktop computers, devoid of ‘humanity’. Feelings are indeed where the Human Condition lives on, unchanged, in all its wretched misery and sorrow. VINEETO: Yes, it’s 180 degrees in the opposite direction to where we humans have searched for solutions. In the course of my exploration into what my ‘self’ and the Human Condition consist of I was amazed how many times I found ‘180 degrees opposite’ the appropriate expression. Just a few such opposites as an example: emotions – no emotions being self-centred and feeling unselfish – altruistic spiritual – tangible imaginary – factual believing the right belief – no belief at all belief in soul – extinction of soul love/hate – fellow human beings beauty – actuality affective feeling – extinguish emotions becoming your natural self – extinguish instinctual passions search for the meaning of life – delight in the fact that I am already here feeling of Oneness – actual intimacy thought is the culprit – the feeling entity is the problem you can’t change human nature – you step out of Humanity sex is evil – sex is pleasure striving to do the right and the good – self-immolation god, heaven, divine, Existence – this all-prevailing belief is merely a fervent imagination ... Only by looking again and again in the opposite direction did I find the actual world hidden beneath my preconceived ideas, concepts and beliefs and my ‘self’-centred attachment to being an emotional-instinctual being. RESPONDENT: As a side note, according to Richard’s understanding of the egoless state of being, there is no imagination possible in an egoless state because one is totally busy living the life as it is happening moment by moment. As a consequence, there might be no concern about the future. If there is a total dis-concern for the future and one is living – as the body – in the world inhabited by other people, will not the physical safety be in danger? Or is the very idea of ‘danger’ emotionally driven and even when a dangerous situation occurs, the body will be busy living it and hence there will be no hard feelings against the situation. VINEETO: There are a few distinctions that are vital for an actualist – 1. In Spiritualism, particularly in Eastern Spirituality, one is taught and encouraged to get rid of the ‘I’ or ‘ego’ in order to reach a permanent ‘ego-less state’ or altered state of consciousness aka enlightenment. In an ‘ego-less state’ there is no little man in the head as the controller, but one’s feelings, the soul – fuelled and maintained by the instinctual passions – are now without a controller and rampantly expand to a feeling-state of ‘I am One with Everything’, ‘I am not the body’, ‘I am That’, and ‘I am the Divine’. Actualism is firmly based on the fact that the animal instinctual passions are at the core of the Human Condition, which has an additional layer of societal conditioning, morals, ethics and beliefs that have been developed down the ages in order to control extreme outbreaks of the instinctual passions. Therefore a freedom from the Human Condition includes the elimination of both one’s social identity, which consists of the morals, ethics and societal conditioning (in Eastern spirituality called ‘the mind’ or ‘the ego’), as well as the underlying raw instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. So when I was writing – ‘The way I see it now is that death is simply an extension of this continuing discovery of ‘me’, the spoiler, being redundant ...’ ... I was talking about ‘me’ as who I think I am and who I feel I am, both ego and soul. 2. Richard lives in Actual Freedom, which is being here without any identity whatsoever. With the death of his identity the faculty of imagination disappeared along with his instinctual passions. Therefore whatever Richard writes is not a mere ‘understanding of the ego-less state’ but an accurate description of what he is living 24hrs a day, every day. Imagination for him is simply not possible because imagination cannot exist outside the feeling entity inside this flesh and blood body – it dies with the entity. And because there is no imagination interfering, he is ‘living the life as it is happening moment by moment’. * RESPONDENT to Alan: A question has just popped into my mind. I have heard Richard say on many occasions that there would be no benefit for anybody to be in his presence for he is just immensely enjoying every moment of being alive as a body and there is no energy or anything psychic in his presence. But isn’t it rare to see a person enjoying himself so much every minute of his life? I am wondering why he said that. Probably to discourage any possibility of a cult developing around himself. VINEETO: As someone who sees Richard in person from time to time, I can confirm his statement that there is indeed not a flick of psychic energy emanating from him that would help anyone to proceed faster with Actual Freedom. Nor does he have the ability to read someone’s mind or heart, manipulate another’s energy through psychic power or transmit any wordless Wisdom. This is 180 degrees opposite to any spiritual teaching, where sitting in the Presence of the Master is deemed vital for one’s progress and for the transmission of Love, Compassion and the Truth That Cannot be Talked About. An example is this description about St. John de Ruiter’s Satsangs – [quote]: John walks in and sits at the front of the room facing everyone. For about the first half-hour he sits in silence and ‘connects’ with people. People sit quietly and relax into the ‘energy’, either looking at John or with their eyes closed. ‘Connecting’ means looking into someone’s eyes and merging with them...connecting with their Being. Most people describe some sort of phenomena occurring when they merge with John. Many see his face change and see colours around him; many people describe a sensation of peace, tingling, and oneness. I have heard critics (outsiders) describe the ‘staring’ as an aggressive act by John, but it is the exact opposite. Some people in John’s group have started ‘connecting’ amongst themselves...it is a very loving act and people describe experiences similar to those experienced when connecting with John, but to a lesser degree. (Report from a local Satsang with John deRuiter). It is indeed ‘rare to see a person enjoying himself so much every minute of his life’ and rare to meet a benevolent fellow human being, relating to others intimately in utter equity and parity. Yet, as Alan will readily confirm, in order to learn how to become happy and harmless, the two million words written so far on The Actual Freedom Trust website are sufficient to convey the method and answer every possible objection to becoming free from the Human Condition. To proceed on the path to Actual Freedom Richard’s presence is not needed at all, actuality can be discovered independently of meeting him in person because it is already always here under our very noses. The Third Alternative, having been discovered by a daring pioneer, can now be pursued by anybody who wants to become actually free, exactly as nobody now needs to know Christopher Columbus in person who wants to travel from Europe to America. Any cultic activity would only serve to avoid changing the only person one can change, oneself. RESPONDENT: In the spiritual process (even if you have not achieved perfect control of the thoughts and feelings) once you’ve gotten the clue that you are not the things you are witnessing, you start looking for the witness itself or, I should say, the Witness Itself. If you are rigorous in your investigation, you will finally come to the conclusion that there is no Witness to be found. Then you are left with witnessing. The question is, will it be Witnessing or is there simply a flesh and blood body present with the capacity to be aware of its own awareness? VINEETO: This is where Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees opposite to all spiritual belief. As an actualist I am not concerned about witnessing at all but about removing any belief, emotion and feeling that prevents me from being happy and harmless in this very moment. I don’t witness the Witness in order to remove him/her, I use awareness to scrutinize my accumulated beliefs, investigate the underlying causes of my emotions each time they occur. When this investigation is undertaken with sufficient intent and depth, a realization will occur such that action inevitably follows changing my behaviour towards becoming more harmless and happy. ‘I’ am my emotions and instinctual passions and the witness/Witness is merely a by-product of these emotions and passions. Coming from spiritual practice I had to unlearn passive watching and undo the ‘dissociating from feelings and thoughts’ in order to apply sensible thought to question and eliminate beliefs and to experience and investigate emotions and feelings. Once you abandon the idea of a Witness, there is only one self, ‘me’, my identity, whatever hide-and-seek games we have been taught to play with it. It makes it all so very simple, practical and effective. VINEETO: By tracing each of the upcoming emotions to their very roots I was then able to determine that they had nothing to do with the practical facts of the situation, but were the chemically induced and socially established reactions of the instinctual survival system. JAMES: I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’m in never-never land. VINEETO: I don’t know what ‘never-never land’ represents for you, but I am reminded of Peter Pan’s dreamland for children, where one is transported from the misery and dullness of the ‘real’ world into the unreal land of imagination, where one never has to become a grown-up. In order to pursue the path to an ACTUAL freedom, as opposed to the imagined freedom of the spiritual world, it is essential to remember a Pure Consciousness Experience. Otherwise one won’t know what one is looking for and will only translate a few of the words and terms describing Actual Freedom into the spiritual belief-system that has been one’s familiar environment for many years. There is plenty written about PCEs, and I found Richard’s correspondence on the subject particularly helpful. Unless one reads and re-reads and reads again about actual freedom, there is no way of de-programming one’s brain from the all-pervading spiritual teachings, thoughts and feelings. (You can find relevant topics on the map of the Actual Freedom Website including selected writings and selected correspondence). Unless one has at least a glimpse that Actual Freedom lies, in fact, 180 in the opposite direction to all spiritual beliefs, one will always end up in a ‘never-never land’ of fantasy, guesswork, misunderstanding and imagination. Personally, it took two months and a lot of discussions with Peter until I finally understood experientially, what the term ‘spiritual’ stands for. For me, ‘spiritual’ had implied the ‘godly’ way of life, following the highest aspirations of mankind, a dedication to be good, to be part of the group of people who also aspire to the same goal. The day I finally understood the literal meaning of the word ‘spirit-ual’, a whole new world opened up. Suddenly the spiritual world was not the only alternate world to the ‘real’ world, not even the best world. Suddenly I understood that I – like everyone else – was producing this world in my head and heart – with my very spirit, so to speak – and this world consisted of spiritual morals, ethics, ideas, beliefs, emotions, loyalties, pride and the belief in the immortality of the soul. A major distinguishing factor between the spiritual approach to life and the path to an actual freedom is that spirituality teaches one to enhance the ‘good’ affective feelings. One is to indulge one’s intuition, trust, belief, faith, hope, guesswork and is encouraged to sense (as in feel out) a situation. Whereas, on the path to Actual Freedom, one explores actuality by applying thought, common sense, contemplation, practicality, intelligence and undertakes an investigation into verifiable facts of the situation. * JAMES: I need to be more careful about the terms that I use. I wasn’t talking about a higher self. Previous teaching is to be aware of what I am actually doing, thinking and feeling from moment to moment. This is helpful to me in understanding actual freedom. You stated earlier (17.12.) that you ‘have been on this path of self discovery for 30 yrs now’ I guess self-knowledge would have been a better word to use there although that doesn’t really fit either. I don’t want to discover a spiritual self. My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. Direct experience of the actual would be being with this monitor without having other thoughts about the past, etc. I’m not into any new age teachings. I clearly see the difference between sensual feelings and affective feelings. I wasn’t talking about a spiritual reality. VINEETO: It took some time until the penny dropped but I have finally understood that ‘actual change’ and ‘radically new’ are obviously not on your menu. Out of this misunderstanding I have cluttered you with heaps of irrelevant information, but never mind. In order to ensure no change you are exactly on the right track. You might remember Peter’s equation that he introduced when reviewing Paul Lowe’s spiritual book: ‘Denial plus Transcendence Equals No Change’ (D + A = nc) With the brilliant example of denial and applying the teachings of transcendence that you have given above you will have no trouble avoiding the dreaded actual change. I have always found it fascinating to discover in the course of my correspondence, meeting people and reading New Age publications, that the new fashion in spiritual circles is now introducing words like ‘non-spiritual’, ‘actual’ and even ‘apperception’ into their current vocabulary, because it sounds good and ‘feels right’. The New Age search that started in the ‘sixties now needs a new polishing, as it has become a bit of a well-worn path that hasn’t delivered the desired results for millions of seekers. This re-vamping process can be compared to taking one’s rotten old Ford car, giving it a new paintjob and a flashy bumper-bar and re-naming it ‘Lamborghini’. Now one can show it again, all the while it remains rotten to the core. A face-lift, à la Hollywood, is accomplished by creating a few new terms and labels – and the spiritual search can continue on for another fifty years without being considered out of date. Actualism writings are an excellent source for such face-lift words, particularly when applied in creative combinations. The post-modern Non-Spirituality that is evolving from the New Age Spirituality now reads like this (and most examples are not even invented by me) – Flesh-and-blood body mindfulness, apperceptive presence, non-spiritual reality, direct actual experience of truth, factuality of one’s ordinary self, a feeling of pure consciousness approaching, direct divine experience of the physical universe, non-spiritual self, spiritual ... oops, non-spiritual intimacy, thoughtless perfection, emotional facts, virtual commitment, physical Being, ever improving perfection, extremely free, exploring beyond appearance into ‘actual reality’, the all-consuming universe experiencing the moment, personal sensate-only experience, such sensuous no-mind image, natural non-spiritual living, factual emotional remembrance, timeless sense of actuality, watching without being a watcher, unfragmented observed actuality, virtual facts, greater actuality, beyond the realm of the apperceptive mind-entity. I am sure there are plenty more examples to describe the verbal assimilation that will take place in the transformation from Eastern Religion to New Age Spirituality to Post-modern Non-Spirituality. A hilarious and highly entertaining example of such effort can be found in Richard’s correspondence, List A, No. 5. No 5 took a particular liking to the word ‘apperception’. Richard sums up his experience of years of talking to people like this: Richard: People do not want to be free of the Human Condition anywhere near enough. Until one’s search becomes what others would call ‘obsessive’ it is but dabbling. Peace-on-earth is something to dedicate oneself to with the whole of one’s being ... it is what is called ‘commitment’. (Richard, List B, No. 12b, 24 October 1998). JAMES: My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. VINEETO: I am stunned that you can call Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teaching being ‘about the actual’. If you had followed a bit of Richard’s extensive correspondence with many, many people on this very same teacher’s mailing list, you would at least have noted that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s concern is the transcendental and nothing but the transcendental. Viz: [quote]: ‘If you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness ... ... therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being ... ... the discovery of truth, or God demands great intelligence, which is not assertion of belief or disbelief, but the recognition of the hindrances created by lack of intelligence. So to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco. Copyright ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). In order to be able to say that Mr. Krishnamurti’s teachings to you are ‘about the actual’ you have to either ignore 90% of Krishnamurti’s teachings or twist the meaning of the word ‘actual’ into meaning spiritual and transcendental. ‘The key ingredient of [your] previous teachings is about having a direct experience’ of the divine, not the actual. Viz: [quote]: ‘I have seen the glorious and healing Light. The fountain of Truth has been revealed to me and the darkness has been dispersed. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated’. (‘Krishnamurti: The Years Of Awakening’ Mary Lutyens; Avon Books, New York, 1991). I have no problem with whatever name you might give to your goal and your experiences but denial and transcendence are sure methods of avoiding a Pure Consciousness Experience. For comparison I copied a description of a direct experiencing of the actual. Richard: Hence my oft-repeated refrain: ‘I am the material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’ or ‘I am the experience of the infinitude of this universe as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware’. The infinite character of physical space, coupled with the eternal character of time, produces a here and now infinitude that can be understood experientially by one who is apperceptive. To grasp the character of infinitude with certainty, the reasoning mind must forsake its favoured process of intellectual understanding through logical and/or intuitive imagination and enter into the realm of a pure consciousness experience (apperception). In a PCE – which is where there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ extant – the essential characteristics of infinitude are transparently obvious, lucidly self-evident, clearly apparent and open to view. This is a direct experiencing of the actual. (Richard, List B, No. 13, 5 June 1999). And just a little bit further in the correspondence files I found a perfect example to demonstrate actuality: Richard: Empiricism does not ‘start from a premise’ at all; it starts from an obvious facticity. There is no need for thought to ‘take a leap of faith to impute an objective world’. No imputing at all is required to determine objective reality’s self-evident factuality. There is a simple experiment that will demonstrate the actuality of objective reality in a way that a thousand words would not: Place a large spring-clip upon your nose. Place a large piece of sticking plaster over your mouth. Wait two minutes. Now, as you rip the plaster from your mouth and gulp in that oh-so-sweet and actual air, I ask you: Do you still believe in Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s revered wisdom? Exit: spirituality and religiosity. Enter: facts and actuality. Seeing the fact will set you free to live in actuality. (Richard, List B, No. 15, 28 February 1998). JAMES: My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. VINEETO: If Krishnamurti’s method and other methods of ‘self-discovery’ or ‘self-knowledge’ were able to produce a PCE, it would have happened by now, don’t you think? I acknowledge that to grasp even a glimpse of the actual world is very difficult because normal reality is all we know and spiritual reality is all we imagine. For that very reason it is so vital to remember or to experience a pure consciousness experience. However, changing a few words, applying your previous spiritual methods and denying even being spiritual at all is a sure recipe of cutting yourself off from ever experiencing anything outside of the Human Condition. JAMES: Direct experience of the actual would be being with this monitor without having other thoughts about the past, etc. I’m not into any new age teachings. I clearly see the difference between sensual feelings and affective feelings. VINEETO: As you might have gleaned from Richard’s description, your ‘direct experience of the actual’ and Richard’s direct experience of the actual are two different pairs of shoes. The choice is always yours. VINEETO: I have left the self-deprecating reliance on authority as in a guru-disciple relationship behind a long time ago. It sucks. JAMES: If you think you have left the guru-disciple relationship behind you are either blind or in deep denial. That’s what you told me on ‘your’ website. VINEETO: You will have to give some evidence for your assertion that I am ‘blind or in deep denial’. JAMES: Ok, here’s my evidence:
Actual Freedom | Other names by other organizations, religions and cults
PCE | Authority, Ultimate, God, etc.
Actual Freedom | The state in which one experiences the ultimate 24 hrs a day that has only been obtained by the leader
Richard | Leader or teacher or Guru who knows ‘the way’ and is the only one who is right.
Vineeto & Peter the Great | Robot parrot disciples who teach others the method to the ultimate by constantly quoting their leader and making ‘ALL’ others wrong
Actualism | The practice to obtain the ultimate as shown by the leader.
Actualist | One who practices actualism
Actual Freedom Method | Thought, belief system, method, technique by which one can obtain the ultimate if they do it in the prescribed manner
Testaments | Testimonials given by others who have had success with the system. However, there are very few of these other than the two chief disciples.
I don’t expect you to agree with this ‘blindingly obvious’ evidence but perhaps others may see something in it. VINEETO: The image that you have made for yourself seems to be that Actual Freedom is interchangeable with any other spiritual teaching, as in ‘PCE = Authority, Ultimate, God, etc.’ If that is the case then I don’t understand why you think that you have to ‘warn others’ of what I am saying? JAMES: I’ve seen what actualism is all about and I am trying to warn others about you who may be gullible. VINEETO: I find it kinda cute that objections to actualism are split into two groups – those who denigrate it for being just another spiritual teachings and those who see it as barren heartless materialism i.e. evil. Could actualism just be that it is what it says it is – something radically new that defies and transgresses the typical categorizations of good and evil – something that points to a freedom that is indeed outside the Human Condition – and the current limitations of the impassioned human mind? * VINEETO: I run the search function through the whole of our previous correspondence and nowhere did I find the words ‘blind’ or ‘deep denial’. JAMES: It was when you bombarded me with K quotes to show that I was wrong and that you actually understand what he is saying. This was why I ended the discussion because K wasn’t even the issue for me and you were making false statements about what he actually meant anyway. This is something else that you learned from your leader. I was trying to learn about the instincts. That is what I was there for. VINEETO: OK, as you insist that I was ‘making false statements’ – this is the actual correspondence that took place on March 21, 2000 with the issue about the difference between the actual and the spiritual – [James]: My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. [Vineeto]: I am stunned that you can call Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teaching being ‘about the actual’. If you had followed a bit of Richard’s extensive correspondence with many, many people on this very same teacher’s mailing list, you would at least have noted that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s concern is the transcendental and nothing but the transcendental. [quote]: ‘If you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness ... ... therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being ... ... the discovery of truth, or God demands great intelligence, which is not assertion of belief or disbelief, but the recognition of the hindrances created by lack of intelligence. So to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco. Copyright ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). In order to be able to say that Mr. Krishnamurti’s teachings to you are ‘about the actual’ you have to either ignore 90% of Krishnamurti’s teachings or twist the meaning of the word ‘actual’ into meaning spiritual and transcendental. ‘The key ingredient of [your] previous teachings is about having a direct experience’ of the divine, not the actual. [quote]: ‘I have seen the glorious and healing Light. The fountain of Truth has been revealed to me and the darkness has been dispersed. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated’. (‘Krishnamurti: The Years Of Awakening’ Mary Lutyens; Avon Books, New York, 1991). (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, James2, 21.3.2000). Back then when you were trying to learn about the instincts you were saying that Krishnamurti’s teaching was ‘about the actual’. Today, you are saying that actualism is synonymous with ‘religions, cults’ and that pure consciousness experiences are the same as ‘Authority, Ultimate, God, etc.’ Your definitions of ‘the actual’ seem to be bending with the wind. On one list actualism is synonymous with K’s teachings and on another list the actualism is synonymous with religions and cults. In each case, you have not even started to begin to try to understand what actualism and Actual Freedom are about. VINEETO to James: One cannot turn a theory or presumption into a fact solely by relying on the statements of others – for to do so is to remain a believer. The words of an expert can only provide you with a prima facie case at best, at best an enticement to begin your own investigation in order to find out the facts for yourself. The way you used Richard’s knowledge was to turn your theory into a truth – a truth based on faith and belief in someone you take to be an authority. Contrary to spiritual belief, however, truth can never set you free, it only leaves you beholden to believing in a higher authority – it is facts and one’s own experiential understanding that set one free from the habit of believing. Spiritualism uses belief and feeling to turn the theories of others into a one’s own personal truth. Actualism uses hands-on experiential investigation to separate beliefs from facts. RESPONDENT: The pleasant surprise is on my side, when I found out that I am not alone being working to rid me from the human conditioning. In my case: I am long time aware that I am the creator of my own reality and that it is thinking itself which is the link to that reality. In time, like a detective, I figured that not only the negative feelings but also the positive feelings are my own creation and for that can be dropped. Through a very intense experience of annihilation I scratched the bottom of all belief systems concerning family, friendship, love etc... and although painful it was a most ecstatic experience, like shedding off a second skin and in the same time expanding, stretching and breathing better in a more natural way. Well, that’s how I also found your web site and I am supported by your sharing your insight’s. Cool. VINEETO: You might find, when you read more into Peter’s and Richard’s Journal and our correspondence, that Actual Freedom is not only about ridding oneself of the Human Conditioning, which I understand to be the socialisation and beliefs one accumulates in the course of one’s life, but also the elimination of feelings, emotions and instincts, the whole of the Human Condition. Only at first sight it might look similar to the spiritual approach – spirituality talks of ego and mind as the problem but it leaves the soul, being, watcher and Consciousness intact. It never questions the identity of who one ‘feels’ one is. Spirituality believes in the ‘spirit’, in an inner world of feelings, love, compassion, with an inner identity, ‘the watcher’. What is usually completely overlooked is that there is not only an ‘ego’ controlling our thoughts, but also a ‘soul’ producing our emotions. They both have to be eliminated in order to experience actual freedom. Only without the constructs of instincts, emotions and beliefs can the magnificent perfection of actuality be experienced, and then it is self-evident and obvious. No devastating truth or a mystery to be lost in – just this abundant life in this infinite universe, experienced through the physical senses. When both, the ego and the soul, the ‘self’ and the ‘Self’ (as in Love, Bliss, Consciousness, Compassion, Oneness) are eliminated, one is only this flesh and blood body, being the eyes seeing and the ears hearing, being the universe experiencing itself as a human being. * RESPONDENT: Vineeto, I agree with you that living is the challenge for the growth into the freedom, working out there with people is challenging but only if there is anything to loose, then it is a miracle of creation. Yes, really, it is creating life. If there is anything to loose, it is reacting. My own observation with it is that reaction still happens, but it is more like watching a stream flow. To give you an example: My issues are success and failure with all the emotions there are going by with it. Being employed for the first time in my life I am working in a team of therapists. It happened that I became very successful and that triggered emotions in them. Very feel-able, the vibes were all around and triggered all the programs in my own conditioning. All the habits of reacting and responding came up. Locking at them, understanding and identifying them as software programs, like pushing an icon with the responding software, it was running in the mind, many times unconscious, just as physical sensations. Looking at it closely, letting go, {there comes the letting go} of the habitual identification with the software program called conditioning and the intent not to go with it, is the most amazing thing I ever experienced, letting it peel away, not being for it, not being against it, just realizing its nature and the choice to step out of the stream. Well, for me it’s like opening my eyes. I guess, I had this experience many times before that you realize, you where blind all the way, had your eyes closed but created the image, that you see, that you know and even fight for it. Till one comes to the next step in evolution and so on. To make the story short, I am facing a lot of bullshit, not out there, no, looking in my own face. VINEETO: It looks like you are having a good time investigating and exploring your different ‘software programs called conditioning’. The technique as you describe it – ‘not being for it, not being against it, just realizing its nature and the choice to step out of the stream’ is exactly the definition for meditation, particularly for Buddhist-based Vipassana. As you are describing, it works to the extent of not getting entangled into tight ideas of how things should be and in ‘letting go’ of one’s former conditioning – it makes things look all right on the surface, but it doesn’t touch the core issue of our inherent animal instincts at all. Actual Freedom turns 180 degrees in the opposite direction from the normal and spiritual approaches to life’s problems. I am not only investigating my conditioning, which is part of the ego, but I am questioning and eliminating the soul, the core of my being, the ‘higher self’ as well. Actual freedom is to strip yourself from all of your ‘self’ – your ‘Self’ included. To understand what that means it is vitally important to remember or induce a peak experience. VINEETO: Welcome to the Actual Freedom mailing list. I am glad you are interested in joining the discussion about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. After all, that’s what we are all most busy with, in one way or the other, isn’t it? RESPONDENT: I seem to agree to some extent with No. 5, but not to the extent of being mad with Vineeto. I also do not find anything radical in Richard’s teachings. I already am aware of most of this stuff thanks mainly to Osho and other eastern philosophies. VINEETO: Could you explain a bit more in detail of the ‘stuff’ that you are aware of and that seems to you to be the same as Osho’s and Eastern Teaching? I know from my own experience that it took quite some time, a lot of hearing and reading and a lot of daring for me to question Osho’s and the Eastern teaching in order to really understand that Richard’s discovery is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of EVERYTHING that is being taught in the name of enlightenment. Wearing spiritual glasses at the time when I met Peter – and having an investment to keep them – made it at first impossible for me to actually hear what Peter or Richard had to say. Fear, pride and spiritual arrogance were the main reasons not to question the teachings that I had been wearing like a second skin. Only when I began to admit that not everything was wonderful in my life and my efforts according to Osho’s teachings had not been very successful, was I able to investigate a bit deeper into Richard’s story and I could start thinking about the possibility that something may be wrong with the spiritual teachings and not only with the thousands of disciples who all did not ‘get it’. * RESPONDENT: As I am reading yours and Richards website, I am making sense of most of what you all say and I am getting myself ready to give it a try. But I am not reconciled with the claim that all this is completely new! VINEETO: What is it then that you want to give it a try? Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to everything spiritual. Whatever you would try, it would not be Actual Freedom. So first, let’s discuss where you imagine Actual Freedom to be similar to Rajneesh’s and other Eastern Teaching. RESPONDENT: I answered this question partly in my mail to Richard. What I have understood from both Richard and Eastern wisdom is that ‘I’ is the main problem and it should be completely annihilated so that the ‘new’ takes over. You say that in the actual world there will be no ‘I’ in any form and the actual physical universe is the only thing which is left. I understand a similar thing from my earlier readings. May not be in exactly in these terms but when Upanishads say ‘neti neti’ (not this, not this) or when Tao talks of emptiness or void, I never get a feeling that they are talking of something of bigger ‘I’ of a God/Truth/Love Agapé etc. May be my study is not complete. What is important for me is that I can understand that ‘I’ has to die. What comes next...I don’t know. I am not searching for any God/Love Agapé etc. as a bigger or universal ‘I’. To me God or Love is just a poetic way of saying ‘the actual physical world’. If you are averse to this word because it has become too dirty and carries too many meanings, I have no attachment to the word either. VINEETO: It is not the ‘words’ of ‘love’ and ‘god’ that I am ‘averse’ to, it is the fact that any belief in something other than the actual and physical prevents one from experiencing the purity of the actual world. The ‘I’ that the spiritual people talk about – all spiritual people – is only half of the psychological and psychic entity, usually referred to as ‘ego’. The other – neglected – half, the ‘soul’, gets away scot-free and is praised as ‘heart’, compassion and Oneness. The gurus talk about dis-associating the ‘I’ from your ‘body-mind’, and in this way you inevitably create a separate ‘me’ that is then remote from all the troubles of living within the Human Condition. They never talk of elimination of emotions and instincts, i.e. the ‘self’, only of transcending the ‘mind’ or ‘body-mind’. This transcendence creates, enhances and aggrandizes the ‘soul’ which will live forever after your physical death, which will unite with the ‘greater reality’, the Universe with a capital U, with the ‘everpresent love-energy’ – whatever it is called in each particular belief-system. Therefore the gurus never talk about being here as this flesh-and-blood-body only, in this actual physical world only. Transcending the body-mind is removing your identification from body and mind to become feeling (heart), soul, one-with-all – spiritual teaching is never about living here as the physical senses. ‘A poetic way of saying’ implies that you have a feeling interpretation about the world as it is, and that is not the direct intimate experience an actualist has. You say ‘that I can understand that ‘I’ has to die. What comes next ... I don’t know’ – if you don’t know what this ‘I’ all consists of, you will be safely staying on the spiritual path, maybe become enlightened – and then have an even longer way to come back from the psychic labyrinth of delusion into this physical world of the senses. When you have a closer examination of the Upanishads, Tao or Zen, you will find that they all see life on earth as fleeting, their relationship to their physical senses is that of dis-identification and dis-association, and they perceive nature through the filters of feeling beauty and awe, feeling being the essence of the ‘soul’. Those belief-systems are 180 degrees in the opposite direction of an actual freedom. RESPONDENT to Peter:So Peter, I write this mail only to share my thoughts and am not looking for your or anybody’s answers. Nice sharing thoughts anyway. VINEETO: It’s good that I am not anybody, so I can reply to your sharing of thought with my ‘sharing of thoughts’. I simply find your ‘sharing’ another perfect opportunity to say something more about the ‘spiritualism versus actualism’-issue, given it seems almost impossible for someone coming from the spiritual path to acknowledge the possibility that there is something else than the imagined, intuited and feeling-based world of the spirit-ual. I find it always a challenge to try and poke a hole into that almost airtight thought-system that thousands of years of collective shared beliefs, fears and passions have created. From my own experience I know well how insidious believing is, pervading every nook and corner of one’s life. But ... one can actively create the situation where it becomes possible to stick one’s head out of the imagined beliefs and feelings, discard all that one has ever heard or learnt and ... puff, the magic dragon ... oops, I mean, the purity and perfection of the actual physical world become apparent. RESPONDENT: I was thinking about ‘spiritualism versus actualism’. I think the reason why I still can’t differentiate between these two is perhaps a lack of a PCE. To me both Satori and PCE look same. I have no experience of either. I practiced Vipassana irregularly and found that it made difference in my ordinary life. It did help to make me reasonably happy. I don’t care about what is the exact philosophy behind it. I don’t think that the spiritual practices are useless. Were I not spiritually inclined I might not be interested in the Actual Freedom web pages. VINEETO: The sole reason for drawing up the diagram of ‘Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction of spiritual beliefs’ was exactly because, as you write, the beginning of the spiritual path and the path to actual freedom look alike and seem to go in similar directions. The diagram is well worth thorough contemplation as it makes things clear in visual sense. You’ll find it in the Actual Freedom Library, 180 Degrees Opposite. When I met Peter, and a little later Richard, and heard them say that Actual Freedom was something completely different and new, I first took it to be just another spiritual approach. I could only perceive the world with spiritual or ‘normal religious’ eyes. But the more I understood where the path to an actual freedom was heading to I became utterly bewildered for quite some time. In the first few months I was desperately trying to match and marry actual freedom with my spiritual practice, i.e. I wanted to stay in the sannyas belief and the community of friends as well as experiment with this thrilling new adventure. Upon an honest and extensive stock take it was impossible to say that the spiritual path had lead me any closer to realizing my initial goals of freedom, peace and happiness. I had experienced moments of bliss and peace in meditations but I had also experienced their fickleness and the necessity to have a perfectly quiet and safe surrounding. Consequently, as soon as the ‘right’ conditions changed my period of bliss changed into frustration, abandoned until the next opportunity, and this conflict resulted in an ever-increasing resignation – that’s how life’s gonna be, unless I become enlightened. The goal of enlightenment was very clearly born out of the hope of escaping from this terrible seesaw – brief and conditional experiences of peace on one side and the long and tedious struggle of ‘living in the marketplace’ on the other side. I was trying to be as ‘removed’ from my bad emotions as possible, yet ever fearful that someone would upset my safe little set-up. I knew that my life was nowhere near perfect, and the more I meditated and retreated from the world the more difficult it became to live in that very same world of people, things and events. And as for harmless ... I had ample opportunity to watch my thoughts and deeds, words and schemes to know that I was far from being without malice. This sincere acknowledgement of the sad compromise of the ambitious plans of my youth made me interested in Peter’s proposal – to commit to living together in utter peace and harmony and to look at every issue that would come up. It also gave me enough interest and intent to inquire into Richard’s personal story and the possibilities of an actual freedom from feelings, beliefs and compromises and the burdening obligations and restrictions of believing in a spurious afterlife. And, best of all, in actual freedom I found the only ‘teaching’ and method that I had ever come across which fully included sex as a perfect and innocent sensuous pleasure between man and woman, without any ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ or hints of a later necessary transcendence. Here I finally glimpsed the opportunity to combine my desire for happiness with my search for purity and perfection that had set me on the spiritual path 17 years before. What I want to describe here is that the first few months of investigation into actual freedom were not easy-going; on the contrary, they sometimes caused quite a mental anguish. I thought and I tried and I contemplated and I meditated – but I could less and less reconcile the past with the new method and understanding about actualism. The more I learned about actual freedom, the less it fitted into my spiritual approach to life. Consequently this increased my fear of leaving the familiar lifestyle, the Sannyas fold and the security of the New Dark Age beliefs shared by many others, and it fuelled the immense fear of questioning God’s authority and protection. I experienced the terror of ‘his’ wrath threatening to punish me for eternity with either hell or eternal bad karma should I stop believing in an ultimate moral authority. On the other hand I refused to give up the increasing happiness, aliveness and the growing understanding about what it is to be a human being that I had achieved in such a comparatively short period of time. Furthermore, I was having a bloody good time with Peter, investigating what he or I believed and searching for the facts of the situation. It often started as a meeting of logger-heads with opposing beliefs and emotions and ended in a delightful intimacy that resulted from having found yet another fact to replace our confrontational beliefs. * RESPONDENT: This topic of actualism versus spiritualism is becoming more and more important for me. I remember, in the very beginning you warned me that unless I understand this difference, it will be useless to proceed. At that time I brushed aside your advice, thinking that it was not important as long as I experiment with the method. Now, I realise that it is important to settle this issue before any other thing. To be honest, I consider, actualism as another spiritual path which terms God/ Existence/ Nature/ That as ‘actual physical world’, and doesn’t use capital letters to denote it. In my opinion some other paths also point towards the same ‘actual physical world’ by different names. terms Satori as peak consciousness experience, has its Guru in form of Richard, whose words are taken as final and indisputable. claims that it is the only true path (like most other paths also claim) maintains that ‘I’ is the main problem in realizing its goal. In my opinion many other paths also maintain that. Of course, there are certain differences that it doesn’t believe in re-incarnation and maintain that the death of the body is the final end. But then there are always differences of approaches among different paths. Being brought up in a liberal Hindu culture, I deeply believe that all paths are right and all lead to the same goal. I think it is important to be honest, so that I can start from where I am. VINEETO: Yes, I think ‘it is important to be honest’ and to ‘start from where you are’ and then move on. It looks like all you have done up to now is substituting a few words from actualism into your spiritual language, and you have listed them very honestly and clearly: Anything that is actual / physical you call God by whatever name A pure consciousness experience you call a Satori Richard you call a guru Facts you call the Truth, and every path leads to the Truth The whole of one’s identity – ego and soul – you call ‘ego’. And a ‘liberal Hindu culture’ is the perfect fertile climate to simply integrate another ‘Guru’s teaching’ into the ‘vegetable soup’ of Hindu Pantheism. If you are happy with the ‘liberal Hindu culture’, and you want to spend your life ‘deeply believing that all paths are right and lead to the same goal’, then there is no reason why you should question your concept of spiritualizing everything and everybody. There is a Christian saying that ‘all paths lead to Rome’ and if you want to go to Rome, then that is great advice. All spiritual beliefs may lead to ‘Truth’, but there is only one way to experience the actual world – through the physical senses without an obstructing self, Self or Being. If you want to experience the actuality of life, the delight of the unfiltered senses and the perfection of the actual world, then simply substituting a few terms is nothing other than cheating yourself. I suggest you read what No. 8 wrote on ‘beliefs and facts’; the difference between belief and fact is worth an extensive study for a ‘deep believer’. As for your 5 points – Actualism is about facts, verifiable by the physical senses, not beliefs. There is a topic about Pure Consciousness Experience in the Library topics, you might find a mighty difference if you want to look for them. Richard is an expert as in expertise; if you want to make him a guru and then worship or rebel against that image, it is utterly your choice. Facts are 180 degrees in the opposite direction to truth, trust, faith and hope. True is what everybody believes to be true whereas a fact is a fact. Your opinion is non-factual and based on a ‘mistranslation’. Enlightenment eliminates ego and lets feelings go rampant. The ‘core of being’ of Mr. Buddha and the like is perfectly intact and feeds off the instinctual passions. I recommend to look up the terms ‘I’ and ‘identity’ in the Glossary of our website. But these are only a few point of the 180 degree difference between the actual world of the senses and the spiritual world of beliefs and passionate imaginations. Why not, for a change, look for the differences rather than the believed similarities, otherwise you will never get out of the sticky Pantheistic viewpoint ‘that all paths are right and all lead to the same goal.’ * RESPONDENT: My logical thinking is that if I understood (intellectually) this thing before reading about actualism – it must be because of spiritualism, because that is what I was exposed to till that time. There could be one more reason, however. As Richard suggested, I looked into my Hindu belief of ‘all paths lead to the same goal’. It could be because of this belief, when I read about actualism, subconsciously, I kept on correcting my previous understandings and made myself to believe that, that is what I understood so far also. I am looking into it but some of the events/understandings I can clearly recollect happening much before. VINEETO: There is a much more simple explanation. Since actualism lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to spiritual beliefs, you probably have not yet discovered what ‘actual’ is – facts existing independent from one’s ideas, feelings, interpretations and hopes. It is a great moment when one for the first time discovers a bit of the actual world. I can highly recommend concentrating on investigation of facts. One of the keywords is ‘independent’ from my own interpretation, feeling about it, imagining about it, philosophising about it. Just the simple fact of a coffee-cup being a coffee-cup, a tree being a tree – not some life-producing oxygen-machine or item of beauty – simply a tree, trunk and branches, birds and insects, smells and leaves rustling in the wind. It’s good to start with something so simple as an everyday object and investigate how many ideas and feelings we are weaving around those objects. It’s good fun and it will give you some experience about plain facts. VINEETO: But don’t expect anyone else to do it for you, only you can – by direct experience – determine the veracity of what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust website and only you can determine whether actualism is indeed brand new in human history. RESPONDENT: Very true. Have no problem with that – just Richard’s claims of uniqueness. VINEETO: If you had no problem with actualism being brand new in human history you would not object to Richard being the pioneer of this brand new discovery. What you really are saying is that you think actualism is not brand new because you compare it to the Tried and Failed spiritual methods of Byron Katie and Zen teachers, therefore to you Richard’s discovery is not unique. It is interesting that thus far only those who are well and truly disenchanted with all religious and spiritual teachings – and that includes Buddhism and Zen – have been able to discover the transparently palpable difference between practicing dissociation and the elimination of both one’s social identity and one’s instinctual ‘being’ that allows the actual world to become apparent. RESPONDENT: I am currently investigating Actualism and using the methods. VINEETO: There is only one method in actualism. If you think that actualism has any similarity to Byron Katie’s four questions or to Zen Buddhist teachings then you need to further investigate in order to discover the genuine actualism method. To give you a hint, the actualism method has an inherent non-spiritual and down-to-earth intent – to become happy and harmless in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. There is nothing other-worldly, nothing self-aggrandizing, nothing nihilistic, nothing negative, nothing dissociative and nothing self-centred about that intent. RESPONDENT: I’m also finding Byron Katie’s four questions (The Work www.thework.org) to be an excellent means of disengaging from all sorts of thoughts, stories and beliefs. Using feelings as a guide, you can investigate the stories you’ve attached to. Investigation uncouples complex intertwined stories and feelings. The mutual induction between story and feeling unlocks and they dissolve naturally. VINEETO: I read her website and the interview with Sunny Massad the first time you mentioned her. Her method is very similar to other methods of Eastern spirituality – one is to disengage, i.e. dissociate from one’s ‘stories’ or projections in order to become one’s true Self, which she calls ‘total love’ or being God. Elements of this particular method were common tools in the Personal Growth Movement (Esalem Institute) and the New Age therapy groups that subsequently blossomed and which were later to be refined by Eastern spiritual teachers to the dissociation tools that they are today – ‘you’re projecting’, ‘you are yourself what you hate in others’ and so on. I have spent years doing and assisting in the running of groups where such methods were used – at best the doing of such groups and the use of such methods offer a temporary period of dissociation from the burdens of being a self, at worst both the groups and the methods become an addictive way of dissociating from the business of being here. Whereas actualism is paying exclusive attention to the business of being here in this physical universe in this only moment I can experience. * VINEETO: Going by my personal experience I am still surprised how people are so persistently suspicious because that is not how my own mind works. When I met Richard I was not particularly concerned that, or if, he was the first one to discover something that goes beyond enlightenment but I was more interested about the fact that he discovered something which I could confirm for myself as to whether or not it was utterly new and far better than spiritual enlightenment. RESPONDENT: I am concerned by such claims because it’s a hallmark of many cults to claim their approaches are unique and the only way. VINEETO: First you assume that actualism is a cult and then you raise concerns that it claims to be unique. As long as you read The Actual Freedom Trust website with a Zen Buddhist’s eyes, you will never find out how an actual freedom is 180 degrees opposite to all spiritual pursuits. 180 degrees opposite is not just a figure of speech – it points to the diametrical opposites between actualism and spiritualism. The diagram ‘180 degrees’ in the Actual Freedom Library attempts to make this difference more clear. I admit that in the beginning the difference can appear obscure as I remember having first to grasp the full meaning of the word ‘spiritual’ as in ‘of, pertaining to, or affecting the spirit or soul, pertaining to or consisting of spirit, immaterial’ Oxford Dictionary, in order to understand the full implications of the word ‘non-spiritual’. However, a vital requisite is that one has to want to find what the differences are, instead of assuming that actualism is yet another spiritual teaching replete with a resident Guru and wanting to find fault from the start. RESPONDENT: I’ve also seen claims from other sources that are very similar to Richard’s and I will post some quotes shortly. I see no conflict in questioning Richard about his self proclaimed unique status and using the methods on offer. VINEETO: I read the sources you presented as being similar and Peter’s response might help you understand why they are 180 opposite to what actualism has to offer. As long as you continue to hold on to your suspicion of what you call Richard’s ‘self proclaimed unique status’ this difference, however, will remain obscure to you. That’s why I reported that I had to have a close look at my general attitude towards authority before I could crank up the naiveté necessary to consider that actualism might well be something new and unique in human history. RESPONDENT: I do realise that Actualism is something I can investigate and possibly confirm. VINEETO: Whatever you can ‘possibly confirm’ at this stage is definitely not actualism. VINEETO: To clarify a misconception, I am not attacking you but I am responding to your claims and your objections. Also, I am not getting ‘excited’ about scoring points, as you suggested several times further down in the part of your post that I snipped. For me this conversation is about sharing my experience and trying to help you to understand – in case you are interested – that so far you are missing the essential point that actualism is new and diametrically opposite to any teaching you have ever heard of. I do this because I assume that you would want to benefit from discovering what actualism really is. If you are not interested, just let me know. RESPONDENT: I’m interested in Actualism. I’m just objecting to a couple of assertions that seem very unlikely. You seem to be telling me that I must swallow all claims about Actualism before Actualism will work for me. This sounds dogmatic to me. VINEETO: What I am saying is that unless you begin to question your firm conviction that actualism is just another spiritual teaching and Richard is just another spiritual teacher, you will have zilch understanding of actualism. As you said below you consider actualism as ‘one approach amongst many’, i.e. many spiritual approaches, therefore whatever you consider ‘will work’ for you will be spiritually based and will have nothing to do with actualism. If stating the fact that actualism is utterly non-spiritual and that an actual freedom is a freedom from the exalted states of the venerated spiritual teachers sounds ‘dogmatic’ to you, so be it. RESPONDENT: I’d like to ask you this question directly – must I dispose of all doubt for Actualism to work for me? VINEETO: Of course – only 100% commitment to becoming happy and harmless will do the trick. Doubt will only serve to sabotage any well-meaning efforts you may have in this regard. RESPONDENT: Please tell me which doubts are non-obstructive. VINEETO: The only doubts that are useful at the start of investigating the impediments to one’s own happiness and harmlessness are doubts in regards to the cunningness of one’s own identity. As far as doubting ‘my’ beliefs and ‘my’ objections was concerned I found examining the facts a far better and a more effective tool than remaining a doubter because doubt, being only a feeling, can never give the confidence that a fact can give. * RESPONDENT: Why can’t I benefit from Actualism without a fundamental faith in Richard the First? Consider this – I HAVE already benefited from Actualism without swallowing the party line! Imagine that! I’d appreciate your comment on this point please. VINEETO: Seeing that you consider a statement of fact – that Richard has discovered a way to become free of the human condition in toto – to be the ‘the party line’, whilst busily ignoring every answer I have provided so far on this topic, not to mention Richard’s numerous posts on the same topic, clearly shows that you have an either/or emotional approach to actualism – either maintaining a duty to doubt with its accompanying impulse to denigrate, or envisage a necessity to trust with its accompanying requirement to have blind faith. RESPONDENT: I’ve realised now that your failure to understand what I’m saying is a wilful rhetorical flourish designed to detract from a serious weakness in your arguments. Nobody can absolutely say that it’s a fact that Richard has discovered a way to become free of the human condition in toto. He may be lying or deluded. We cannot verify Richard’s experience because we cannot completely share his subjective experience. All he can offer is a description and that is a far cry from his actual subjective experience. VINEETO: Your reasoning is based on the assumption that ‘we cannot completely share his subjective experience’ whereas the experience in a pure consciousness experience is universal, sensate and objective – not personal, affective and subjective as it is in an ASC. When ‘I’ temporarily leave the stage in a PCE, the actual world i.e. the world of objects, people and events, becomes sensuously apparent for the first time, ‘my’ blinkers are off, the bubble of ‘self’-centredness bursts, the fog and distortions caused by ‘my’ instinctual entity disappear and the actual universe, which has been here all along, becomes stunningly apparent. In a PCE all the words of Richard’s description suddenly make sense because in a PCE, I experience exactly the same actual, objective world in which Richard lives for 24 hours a day 365 days a year. In other words, there is only one actual world and it is the same for everyone who discovers it in a PCE. A ‘subjective experience’ is what one experiences in any altered state of consciousness – a feeling experience of freedom from ‘I’ as ego only. Because of its affective nature such an experience is always subjective. As long as the ‘self’ or the ‘Self’ struts the stage, one cannot experience what Richard experiences 24/7 – the ‘self’ is forever locked out from the actual world. RESPONDENT: If I became actually free all I could say with any certainty is that my identity in toto was deleted. As to you the only differences between spiritual awakening and being actually free are of ‘different terminology’ your sentence is a mere assembly of adapted terminology. * RESPONDENT: So far my investigations have not led me to invalidate my misgivings about the anti-guru guru Richard’s self proclaimed status of being the one and only human being to have ever achieved an actual freedom from the human condition. VINEETO: Given that you make no distinction between a spiritual freedom and an actual freedom your ‘misgivings’ are based on voluntary ignorance and as such irrelevant. You could just as well have ‘misgivings’ that Rome has no Eiffel Tower because you insist to ignore the many road signs that say that Rome is not Paris. You are driving by the wrong map. RESPONDENT: I also see that the progress is directly proportional to the intent to become happy and harmless as soon as possible. It seems to be very important to remember why one is doing this while one is doing this. And the progress was nil as long as I wasn’t able to see the way all this work is totally opposite to the methods I had come across. VINEETO: Ah, you put your finger onto the nub of the issue and exposed the very reason why a clip-on of actualism to any of the spiritual methods will always fail to bring results. It’s like using a motor vehicle but keep heading into the wrong direction – one will invariably arrive at the wrong destination. In other words, the 180 degree turnaround is essential – from one’s head in the clouds to being fully here on earth, from practicing dissociation to paying exclusive attention to how I experience this moment of being alive, from wanting to become ‘who’ I really am, an immortal soul, to wanting to become what I am – this flesh-and-blood mortal body. RESPONDENT: On a different note, I was wondering why people see the contents of the website to be similar to existing material like Zen/ Buddhism/ Eastern stuff... because I was doing the same for quite some time. Firstly, that everybody has got it wrong is something very big – and such an extreme position is unusual and considered insane. So the emotional response to that is – who does he (Richard) think himself as [as Richard himself has suggested this as the possibility of objection]; but after reading the material and seeing a lot of sense in it – the feeling becomes this is all great, but he is wrong in thinking that this is different. All the differences in the web-site are seen to be linguistic differences. As it is a common belief in the eastern spirituality that all paths/religions are the same stuff in different guise. So actualism/actualfreedom is also the same just bottled differently. VINEETO: An excellent observation, if I might say so. I remember when Peter first got hold of a loose-leaf copy of Richard’s Journal and I noticed that he didn’t just skim through it but sometimes he would spend hours trying to work out exactly what Richard was saying in one particular group of 3 or 4 sentences. It’s a good way of reading and trying to understand something new – it is useful to really concentrate on getting to the bottom of it and fully understanding one particular issue that is a key for you and then the whole of what is on offer can start to make sense. RESPONDENT: I do not have a question in this moment ... but maybe one will emerge. I have been guilty of ‘chatting at the well’ – that is, talking about methods, approaches ... but being very reluctant to dive in, or take a sip. I recognise now that so many spiritual practices I have been involved with ... I rarely honestly, rigorously dove in ... but was secretly hoping to be rescued by some ineffable god or entity outside of myself ... as soon as I was finally worthy ... as soon as my suffering was sufficient. I realize now that that approach was silly and ineffective. With the actual freedom material ... it is occurring to me more and more ... that this is an entirely self-help activity. And if I don’t do this ... someone else will never, can never ... do it for me. And that every moment is an opportunity to inquire ... with the deepest and purest of intent possible. For me ... I first need to get my intent up ... to jump start it ... and then it continues with its own momentum. And I jump start by shaking myself a bit, looking around ... being aware of my surroundings ... this helps a bit. I stay here a while until a wave of unconsciousness permeates me ... takes me into the past or the future ... until I shake myself awake into the present again. And when I arrives here again ... to dust myself off and say to myself ... What do I really want ... do I want to live the rest of my life ... lost in thought ... mindlessly ... hypnotically ... feeling my way through the remainder of my days ... or ... or do I desire to awaken to the majesty of life anew ... fresh, vibrant ... ringing and singing with clarity? That is one of my motivations for doing this work ... that there must be ... must be another way to really ... to actually live ... to refuse ... to absolutely refuse to be a victim of useless, aimless thoughts and feelings ... to rid myself of the human condition. VINEETO: Your intent to ‘jump start’ and to ‘shake myself awake into the present again’ is not what is on offer in actualism. Before you get into a car and start the motor it is useful to know where it is you want to go. Therefore before you ‘dive in’ and apply what you consider to be the method of actualism you need to find out why you are interested in actualism and what you want to achieve. Two possibilities come to mind – 1. Given that you say you ‘do not have a question in this moment’, it would appear that you consider actualism to be a nice addition to, or a slight variation from, all the other ‘spiritual practices’ that you ‘have been involved with’. In that case, you might as well close this post and save yourself the time and effort of reading any further – because actualism is new, non-spiritual, non-philosophical, down-to-earth and diametrically opposite to all spiritual pursuits, methodologies, movements, worldviews, practices and belief systems. The ‘present’ you are planning to ‘shake’ yourself into ‘again’ is clearly something you already know – it is ‘being here’ as a social and instinctual entity. Whereas actualism is offering something you have never ever come across before – an actual freedom from the human condition, being here in the actual world as a flesh-and-blood body sans any identity whatsoever. 2. However, should you be sincerely interested in finding out something entirely new, then the first requirement is to stop in your familiar tracks and apply exclusive attentiveness to the words you are reading right here in order to be able to read with fresh, non-spiritual eyes. That means that you nip in the bud any occurrence of ‘I know this, this is similar to what I have read or heard before’ each time such a thought or feeling creeps in. In order to understand what we are on about, anyone coming from the spiritual world would need to suspend disbelief and prejudice, otherwise it won’t be possible to listen to what is being said, let alone understand what is being said. Obviously, in order to learn something brand-new to human history you will have to put aside any inkling of insistence that you ‘already know’ and that ‘you are right’ and consider the possibility that you have been on the wrong track all along. This can, of course, be a devastating blow to one’s pride but, then again, the question is ... would you let pride stand in the way of learning something new about the human condition? In order to understand actualism it is vital that you are open to the possibility that all of humanity has got it 180 degrees wrong. It is vital to understand that the word ‘wrong’ has nothing to do with a moral or ethical judgement as in ‘you have been a bad person’ but that it is a simple statement of fact that none of the traditional real-world methods or spiritual beliefs and teachings has brought peace on earth, i.e. they are wrong in that they don’t work. Despite their perpetual promises, none of the religious and spiritual movements, none of the self-help-therapies and none of the revered philosophies has come up with a practical down-to-earth, workable solution to eliminate malice and sorrow in human existence. Their solutions do not work, basta. So the first requirement is to overcome the hurdle of pride so that you are able to admit that you know nothing about what actualism is on about. The next requirement of learning something new is to become aware of and reign in one’s initial automatic reaction of ‘self’-defence – an instinctual knee-jerk reaction, which sabotages any intelligent inquiry into facts before one has even started. This almost-instantaneous reaction is always thoughtless, as it is activated prior to the possibility of any thinking happening, be the thinking sensible or otherwise. This ‘quick and dirty processing pathway’ results not only in a direct automatic bodily response, but the Amygdala’s direct connection to the neo-cortex is much slower – causing us to then emotionally experience the instinctually-perceived danger – i.e. we feel the fear a split-second later than the bodily reaction. (more information in the The Actual Freedom Library on Our Instinctual Passions) This is crucial to understand in order to be able to gather some factual information as opposed to merely having an intuitive-instinctual thoughtless gut-feeling of what feels ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. In order to be able to think clearly – free from the grip of one’s own instinctual passions – one first needs to decide to let one’s initial instinctual thoughtless reactions pass by and then assess carefully the facts of what is being said. The third requirement of learning something new is to dust off and polish one’s somewhat rusty capacity to think and reflect in a less ‘self’-centred set-in-your-ways manner, to contemplate and question, to inquire and explore, in short, to develop one’s non-affective intelligence. When I first discovered actualism, I had to re-learn how to think, to contemplate and inquire in a way that produced some tangible result from the effort. For instance I learnt that it is useful to always come back to the original question or issue from where I started and not – as our usually untrained brains tend to do – get lost in different alleys and branches of speculation, imagination or irrelevant side issues. Prior to discovering actualism, I was usually very quick in inadvertently changing the subject and steering away from ‘dangerous’ areas, particularly when one of my dearly held beliefs was in question. When I started investigating the Human Condition in myself, there were lots of ‘dangerous’ areas of contemplation, beliefs to be dismantled and feelings to be unveiled, lots of issues that I felt needed to be avoided at all costs. I remember I was literally stunned by the outcome of applying straightforward thinking and I was also surprised to find out how roundabout my usual way of thinking had been, particularly as I had been so totally influenced by Eastern spiritual teachings of ‘above all, do not think’. Autonomous thinking has such a bad press in the spiritual world where one is taught that the gateway to heaven is to ‘follow your feelings’, ‘trust you intuition’ and ‘leave your mind at the door’, some of Mohan Rajneesh’s favourite admonishments. When I started on the path to Actual Freedom it was an adventure and a delight to re-instate, lubricate and develop my common sense, autonomous thinking and intelligence in order to understand the actual and factual world, to make sense of all of the beliefs that I had adopted that were the very substance of my social identity, and to study and examine the instinctual passions that are the very substance of my instinctual identity or ‘being’. It was fascinating to observe and experience my brain clicking into crystal clear functioning – at first only once in a while with what one would call a ‘striking thought’ or realization and then I soon noticed that I could actually make sense of the down-to-earth conversations about Actual Freedom I had with Richard or Peter. Eventually I was able to think straightforward autonomous thoughts, unclouded by fear or imagination and come to startlingly obvious conclusions and realizations. The outcome of such applications of common sense was often very staggering, new, fresh, shockingly different to what I had believed, ‘felt’ or ‘intuitively known’ to be true. Down-to-earth practical common sense, of course, has nothing to do with theoretical rationalisation, useless philosophizing, cerebral masturbation and conceptual imagination. For me, the crucial test always is – how can I put my sensible understanding into practice, how can I put my realization into practice, how can I act on the ‘striking thought’. I enjoy the astonishing clarity that the human brain is capable of and I have applied it to my behaviour in order to become free from malice and sorrow. The outcome is dazzling, to say the least. RESPONDENT: For this is my life ... I have the right to wake up. This does appear to help jump start ... to allow more light and fresh air in ... VINEETO: There is no such thing as ‘the right to wake up’. No fairy godmother or God Father grants the ‘right to wake up’ to any human being. The human brain, however, is capable of becoming aware of what one is thinking and feeling, and as such capable of firstly admitting to, secondly becoming aware of and thirdly questioning all of one’s spiritual beliefs and feelings, all of which are necessary in order to facilitate peace on earth.
This Topic Continued | Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence | Library – Schematics Index
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