An Actual Freedom From The Human Condition
Please note that Vineeto’s correspondence below was written by the actually free Vineeto
(List D refers to Richard’s List D and his Respondent Numbers) Vineeto’s Correspondence with Claudiu Discuss Actualism Forum June 1 2025 CLAUDIU: But I think the missing ingredient is… basically the decision to do it, to go all-in. I definitely see now that the self-centered aspect of myself still has a powerful pull that it’s easy for me to fall into. I think this is what is ‘overcome’ when going out-from-control in the way Richard, Geoffrey, & Vineeto were. And then indeed as there’s no more escape hatch it will happen on its own. VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, I am pleased that you recognized that what you (with encouragement from me at the time) had called being out-from-control, a different way of being – has turned out not to be the Out-from-Control “Richard, Geoffrey & Vineeto” described. (…) Just to have some common understanding about what you are referring to – Richard: Thus the virtual freedom being referred to in ‘Richard’s Journal’ is, of course, the full-blown experiencing of it: an out-from-being-control and, thus, different way of being nowadays known as an ongoing excellence experience (EE). (…) This penultimate out-from-control/ different-way-of-being is barely distinguishable from a pure consciousness experience. It was from this ongoing excellence experiencing that pure consciousness experiences occurred on a near-daily basis – sometimes two-three times a day – for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago. (…) Being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being implicitly requires pure intent. (Library, Virtual Freedom) Geoffrey: To me out-from-control implies being naiveté, being in an ongoing excellence experience, having allowed pure intent to be dynamically operative, being on a ride, the ride of a lifetime, the process from which there is no coming back,resulting from a once-in-a-lifetime decision…Out-from-control is grand, thrilling, is the ride to one’s destiny! It also includes being benevolence, and a general caring/ consideration for others. [an ongoing excellence experience means to be naiveté itself which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’]. Richard: ‘Vineeto, who is now fully out-from-control/ in a fully different-way-of-being, and thus on my side of that enormous wall of fear completely encircling all of humankind, ...’ (24.12.2009) This is really an excellent acknowledgement/ insight in that you now can see your way forward to in fact traverse the wall of fear, become naïve all the way to being naiveté, become harmless, considerate, caring, inclusive, likeable and liking, benevolent, benign and magnanimous – non-sudorifically, with joy and delight because it’s the best way a ‘self’ can be and appreciate this magnificent planet we all live on. CLAUDIU: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end (‘constantly accelerating’) I know there’s that next step I can take, which will be smaller than the step to self-immolating, in other words it will make it easier. VINEETO: The quicker you drop any plan and/or map and/or concept you might have in your head and start living naïvely, the easier it will be to experientially find out the next step the moment you take it. Mental maps are the opposite of being naïve and they have an inherent flaw that imagination takes over and pretends one is already where one wants to be according to the concept. CLAUDIU: But maybe the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route (yet again), due to all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion), which for both of us it seems like it does lead to something that we experience like being out-from-control, but indeed to keep doing that and ‘stabilize’ in it (in the sense of making it my baseline) and then from there it’ll be easier/more obvious how/more obviously sensible to make that irrevocable decision. VINEETO: Ha, the addiction to sudorifically finding one’s way through an imagined jungle of chores and traps is not easy to abandon, hey, but it’s really worthwhile. Make friends with not knowing what’s going to happen next, with experimenting living without plan and scheme, don’t envision you have to ‘tick off’ ‘self’-set tasks. It’s not vigilance you need, it’s a change in attitude towards life itself and towards your fellow human beings. Re-discover how to play and play together. Vineeto: I remember clearly one day sitting in a circle of 5 friends, utterly relaxed despite the fact that I had never met one of them in person, and I noticed that I had no personal agenda whatsoever, no plan to stir the conversation into a particular direction, nothing to emphasize or hide, no self-centredness or favouritism, no shame, shyness, embarrassment, no power or drive – I was just being myself as I was. I sat in this group, as one of many, and my sole interest was that everyone present (including me as one of those present) enjoyed themselves/ obtained the maximum benefit from our meeting. I experienced myself as being unreservedly at ease and utterly benign and wasn’t driven to say anything unless it contributed to the overall quality of the conversation. (Direct Route, James, 16 January 2015) Cheers Vineeto June 1 2025 VINEETO: This is really an excellent acknowledgement/ insight in that you now can see your way forward to in fact traverse the wall of fear, become naïve all the way to being naiveté, become harmless, considerate, caring, inclusive, likeable and liking, benevolent, benign and magnanimous – non-sudorifically, with joy and delight because it’s the best way a ‘self’ can be and appreciate this magnificent planet we all live on. CLAUDIU: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end (‘constantly accelerating’) I know there’s that next step I can take, which will be smaller than the step to self-immolating, in other words it will make it easier. VINEETO: The quicker you drop any plan and/or map and/or concept you might have in your head and start living naïvely, the easier it will be to experientially find out the next step the moment you take it. Mental maps are the opposite of being naïve and they have an inherent flaw that imagination takes over and pretends one is already where one wants to be according to the concept. CLAUDIU: Sure but I don’t see the difference in what you said vs what I said? I wrote I “know there’s that next step I can take” (i.e. going out-from-control genuinely) while you write that I “now can see [my] way forward to in fact traverse the wall of fear” (i.e. going out-from-control genuinely), what’s the difference such as it makes the former a mental map but the latter not? VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, I understand, they do sound similar – I was more commenting on the tendency I have observed of following the finger on an imaginary map rather than naively experiencing the next moment without a plan but unwavering intent. How do you know which is the next step – I know that ‘Vineeto’ didn’t know which was the next step to get out-from-control, even though Richard had explicitly urged ‘her’ to do just that – Richard: … although I was not advised of her [Irene’s] death until the following day, within the hour I was as if lifted forward by a cresting wave (to utilise surfing terminology), impressing upon Vineeto the necessity of being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of being (most unusual of me to do so), and have been effortlessly riding this perfect wave ever since … (Announcement 1, 5 January 2010) * CLAUDIU: But maybe the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route (yet again), due to all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion), which for both of us it seems like it does lead to something that we experience like being out-from-control, but indeed to keep doing that and ‘stabilize’ in it (in the sense of making it my baseline) and then from there it’ll be easier/ more obvious how/ more obviously sensible to make that irrevocable decision. VINEETO: Ha, the addiction to sudorifically finding one’s way through an imagined jungle of chores and traps is not easy to abandon, hey, but it’s really worthwhile. Make friends with not knowing what’s going to happen next, with experimenting living without plan and scheme, don’t envision you have to ‘tick off’ ‘self’-set tasks. It’s not vigilance you need, it’s a change in attitude towards life itself and towards your fellow human beings. Re-discover how to play and play together. CLAUDIU: Humm I don’t see how what I wrote is “an imagined jungle of chores and traps” though. VINEETO: It seems I haven’t been precise enough to be understood correctly. What I was responding to were your words “the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route (yet again), due to all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion) …” and “keep doing that and ‘stabilize’”. Richard somewhere described ‘his’ change to out-from-control similar to changing to a higher ‘gear’ – Richard: … where there would be a ‘slippage’ of the brain, somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear too soon, and the magical world where time had no workaday meaning would emerge in all its sparkling wonder, where I could wander for extensive periods in gay abandon with whatever was happening. (Richard, Personal Webpage) Unfortunately I was unable to find the exact quote where Richard used a similar description when in January/ February 1981 the change into virtual freedom occurred comparable switching into a higher gear. He said he only fell out once and it was so unpleasant he never wanted to revert back to normal after it recommenced a few moments later. This is to emphasize that the transition to being out-from-control is indeed a radically different-way-of-being, which can neither be achieved by “vigilance” nor by “keep doing that and ‘stabilize’” and arises out from being naiveté (see last tooltip in A Clay-Pit Tale). Also you are referring to “all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion)” almost as an afterthought, something you just forgot to mention – Richard: Yet without naiveté – the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ – pure intent will remain still-born. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 60g, 1 November 2005). When you said in two other messages – Claudiu: This is just crazy, forgetting about the caring aspect lol And Claudiu: Ok so now that I somewhat care again (lol) it all makes sense. – it makes me wonder what happened to pure intent, this actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity which makes it impossible not to care or being considerate and endows one with virtual magnanimity and caring and benevolent generosity towards one’s fellow human beings. How can you just “forget about the caring aspect lol” as if you had just forgotten your keys when leaving the house? CLAUDIU: If I put it differently what I would say is that being in an excellence experience is very familiar to me now, this is where caring, naiveté, fun, being likable & liking, etc., are all part of it without having to put effort into it (because the ‘beer’ is operant rather than the ‘doer’), and it’s way less self-centric. VINEETO: It may be familiar as past experiences, the memory of which is a belief right now unless it is happening now. And unless it is presently happening then your conclusions (for instance of “without having to put effort into it”) are informed by the rational, logical, reasonable identity ‘Claudiu’, who cannot, by ‘his’ very nature, know how to move from the ‘doer’/controller to the naïve near-innocent ‘beer’ experiencing overflowing pure intent (because that is not ‘his’ territory). CLAUDIU: It is very contrasted with going back to the regular self-centric way of being which is no fun at all by comparison. So what I’m saying it makes sense to do is, when being alive in the way of being like an excellence (or intimacy) experience, just decline to go back out of it back to the self-centric way of being. Like make the choice to not go back there. It seems like an obvious thing and I am not sure I need to do anything else actually lol. (ADDENDUM: I mean I think there is still actually going out-from-control from there but I think I will see where to do that/ it’ll be obvious how to do it, as a natural consequence of doing this, not going back to self-centric ways). (…) VINEETO: First you will need to abandon “the regular self-centric way of being” to contrast it with something else. That is what I mean by working along a concept, a map, rather than moving one step experientially while you are doing it. Here is something for you to ponder: Richard had neither a blue-print nor a map nor anyone’s reports of what happened to them on the way to an actual freedom. He figured it all out by himself. However, what he had in abundance was naiveté (the naïve boy from the farm, as he kept saying). One would think that those who have all these past reports, explanations and confirmation available for their own experiences would be better off now, but the cunning of the genetic/social identity can and does use any opportunity to turn a helpful tool into a stumbling block. As such pure intent is vital, essential. CLAUDIU: Does it make sense, do you still see it as a sudorific thing when I put it that way? VINEETO: The alternative of “sudorific” is not its logical opposite as in “without having to put effort into it” but a major ongoing re-experiencing of your way of being (without the ‘controller’). A bit like what you said in your next post – CLAUDIU: Yea it’s more like a not-sure-what-will-come-next, it doesn’t make sense to plan the next steps for how to self-immolate. Although all the stuff I discussed w/ Geoffrey and we discussed here is all relevant to keep in mind I suppose. Will see how it goes. VINEETO: Richard: Naiveté is so vital to freedom. This is because even the strictest application of moralistic and ethicalistic injunctions will never lead to the clean clarity of the purity of living the perfection of the infinitude of this material universe. Purity is an actual condition – intrinsic to this universe – that a human being can tap into by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with earnest attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naïve is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless ... in short: ingenuous. Naiveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naïve means to be simple and unsophisticated. Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naïve innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory decrees of the cultured sophisticates. … Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ ... they never had it in the first place. Innocence is something entirely new; it has never existed in human beings before. It is an evolutionary break-through to come upon innocence. It is a mutation of the human brain. Naiveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naïve to contemplate the profound notion that this universe is benign, friendly. One needs to be naïve to consider that this universe has an inherent imperative for well-being to flourish; that it has a built-in benevolence available to one who is artless, without guile. (Library, Topics, Naiveté) Cheers Vineeto June 2 2025 CLAUDIU: I think there’s just a disconnect here. The funny and delightful thing is that from the self centric way of being it’s a big social identity issue, wanting to show that I “know the answer” and defend myself. But writing now from the being naive way of being it just doesn’t ‘matter’ at all haha, at least this aspect of it. In any case it does seem beneficial to flesh it out in case I am missing something. So: If you read it as a normal/in-control self-centric being looking at a checkbox of stuff like “ooh gotta add some caring” and “oh yea can’t forget about the altruism!”, trying to check off boxes or add these in as ingredients to some dish, then I can see why you wrote what you did. Indeed it’s obvious that wouldn’t work, that isn’t how to proceed from being in an in control way of being. The way to proceed is rather to go from an out from control way of being which is what being naïveté is, which is also called an excellence experience. This isn’t an out from control virtual freedom, the distinction there (which I asked Richard about) is that pure intent isn’t fully and dynamically operative yet. But that’s just words describing something I haven’t experienced yet so it’s not so relevant now except as to know there’s something ‘more’ (but it is unknown to me what that is like). VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, I demure. You can only proceed from where you are at. How can you “go from an out from control way of being” when you are not in “an out from control way of being”? How can you go from “being naïveté” when you are not “being naïveté”? Being naïveté itself is to be permanently out-from-control. Richard: A rather quaint clay-pit tale which nonetheless depicts the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself⁽⁰¹⁾ to an actual innocence. ⁽⁰¹⁾To be naïveté itself (i.e., naïveté embodied as a childlike persona with adult sensibilities), which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ (innocence is where ‘self’ is not), one is both likeable and liking for herewith lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness whereupon moment-to-moment experiencing is of traipsing through the world about in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement as if a child again (guileless, artless, ingenuous, innocuous)—yet with adult sensibilities whereby the distinction betwixt being naïve and being gullible is readily separable—simply marvelling at the sheer magnificence of this oh-so-material universe’s absoluteness and unabashedly delighting in its boundless beneficence, its limitless largesse, as being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian (due to the near-absence of agency which ensues when the controlling doer is abeyant and the naïve beer is ascendant), with a blitheness and a gaiety such that the likelihood of the magical fairy-tale-like nature of this paradisaical terraqueous globe, this bounteously verdant and azure planet, becoming ever-so-sweetly apparent, as an experiential actuality, is almost always imminent. [Emphases added]. (A Clay-Pit Tale, last tooltip) Given that you recognized that you are not out-from-control, i.e. not consistently in an excellence experience or intimacy experience, with the ‘controller’ still operating, not “being the experiencing [which] is inherently cornucopian”, fully comprehending this will all of your ‘being’ experientially, this is the only point from where to start. CLAUDIU: So what I was attempting to convey, perhaps poorly, is that the way to continue from here seems to be to more consistently be naïveté, to be more and more of the time in this excellence experience way of being rather than not. I put ‘stabilize’ in squotes cause it’s not a great word, but don’t know what a good one would be. But basically to be it more consistently. VINEETO: To say it again for emphasis, the change from being in a methodological, in-control virtually freedom to a dynamic out-from-control different way of being is a paradigm shift, not “to be more and more of the time” in the way you have been – Vineeto: Unfortunately I was unable to find the exact quote where Richard used a similar description [“somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear”] when in January/ February 1981 the change into virtual freedom occurred ... (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu6, 1 June 2025a) To use a physical-world simile – there is a major difference between driving a car and flying in a rocket-ship. CLAUDIU: And the way doesn’t seem so different from establishing a baseline of feeling good, it’s a matter of noticing when I have fallen out of it and getting back to it soonest. So when you write the way to go out from control virtual freedom is by being naïveté it sounds like you’re saying the same thing — what do you think? (…) Yea I do think we are saying the same thing. Last few days have oscillated from being in control self-centric way of being and feeling or wondering if everything is horribly awry and I’m way off track, to the out-from-control naive way of being and it’s like oh ok I’m basically going in the right direction. As of now I do think I’m basically on the right track, but the doing/being of it will be the proof in the pudding of course. VINEETO: As the remainder of your reply is in a similar vein of just doing more of the same/ more consistently doing the same, and that we are talking about “the same thing”, let me use your own words of your report when your visit to Geoffrey was still more fresh in your mind – Claudiu: Two other key pieces: the major one was we figured out that I had been trying to put myself into actuality, as in I as identity, as a feeling-being, will continue somewhat beyond self-immolation. There were many ways I had justified it, like “Oh but Peter said there was a continuity of consciousness…” and he’s like “Consciousness! You’re translating that into ‘identity’! It’s not identity that continues!” or “But I remember disappearing in a PCE” and he’s like “No you don’t! You are putting yourself into the PCE and spoiling the memory. This is why you are supposed to rememorate it not remember it.” etc. (…) He also really impressed upon me just how significant this is. It’s not kid stuff. It’s not a playground ride or a roller coaster where you get on it then come back and get off and you’re back to where you were. It is a one-way ride with no return ticket. So long as the enormity of it is not grasped – to which fear and dread are a normal response – then it’s still just being on the playground ride. Only once this is grasped then can the decision be made to take the leap and continue anyway (otherwise you’re just imagining yourself to be on a cliff but you’re really on a flat ground, and you don’t see the edge to jump off of but only think you do). So you have to actually get to the edge of the cliff (seeing the enormity of the extinction) and only then you can decide to jump. (…) In any case the main take-aways for me from the trip was A) see that I really will disappear entirely, B) see the enormity and significance of this (the stakes are indeed high), C) stop kidding myself with fake hurdles that feel real, it really (for me at this point) is all avoidance tactics to avoid facing the real thing, which is the total extinction of it. In short, go up to the edge of the cliff, see if I really want it, then joyfully/gaily/cheerfully (not seriously) jump/traverse the wall of dread/whatever the metaphor, do whatever you can to do it, and then extinction will be nigh. Even though this first of “two key pieces” does not appear in your list of “main take-aways” I think it is an all-important revelation – that you “had been trying to put myself into actuality”. It might well require a certain gestation period to fully grasp the enormity of the impact on your imaginary way of “trying to put myself into actuality”. Because when fully understood, with all of your ‘being’, not just intellectually, it will have/ would have, completely taken the carpet from under your feet. Hence my reference to a gestation period – Richard: My experience with the peoples who have chosen to give felicity/ innocuity a go is, as a generalisation, that the necessary paradigm shift has usually been a gradual process of comprehension – not necessarily an instantaneous shift – and which paradigmatical change commences because of that choice ... and that choice mainly comes after a gestation period (which itself follows intelligent appraisal/ thoughtful consideration). And, by way of personal example, I need only point to the six-month incubation period already mentioned. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 30 October 2005b). It would be a pity if you missed the full import of what transpired during your visit to a fully free human being. Cheers Vineeto June 4 2025 CLAUDIU: Hi Vineeto, I see the disconnect and I can unravel it. Basically, the way forward is clear to me: it’s the way towards naïveté, being way way more naive than has been my usual way of experiencing myself the past year, to the point of being naïveté, and revelling in it, this palpable naïveté that is now such an obvious direction to go into. It’s so obvious and clear that it’s the way to go that I am not sure anyone could convince me otherwise. VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, Ha, with ramping up naiveté (liking yourself and others, being likeable and liking) you can’t go wrong. With naiveté it’s so much easier to let any self-image, social status problem, concerns about previous concepts or one’s place on the map fall by the wayside because life is then experience as the best one can be, and let active pure intent do the rest. CLAUDIU: So to allay your concerns, no it’s not that I’m gonna do the same thing I have been doing the past year. That will only lead to another year of the same. Rather it’s to go into this clear, far-far-more increased naïve way of being alive. VINEETO: My point rather was, not that you would do that intentionally but that ‘you’ the identity, having a vested interest in surviving another day, will secretly, unnoticed, step in and pervert the cause of facticity. After all you said in your report about your visit to Geoffrey – Claudiu: “But I remember disappearing in a PCE” and he’s like “No you don’t! You are putting yourself into the PCE and spoiling the memory. This is why you are supposed to rememorate it not remember it.” Sometimes it takes a while to digest, rememorate and then fully abandon one’s previous modus operandi, even a possible gestation period. This is only natural given the complexity and weirdness of the human condition. For instance, ‘Vineeto’ had a severe shock and re-orientation and re-adjustment when Richard told ‘Peter’ and ‘her’ that their virtual freedom was not the dynamic different-way-of-being, ‘Vineeto’ needed a day to emotionally and mentally digest this, including the fact ‘she’ had deceived not only ‘herself’ but also a lot of others in ‘her’ writing. So I know from personal experience how self-deception operates and how one can feel upon exposure/ revelation. At that time ‘Vineeto’ was also experiencing competition with Pamela about who would be the first female to become actually free. Richard always gently played on our competitive feelings by saying to each of us that “you could be the first”. He figured that anything which helps to overcome our inertia was beneficial. I remember the competitive feelings were particularly acute for ‘Vineeto’ when Pamela had her 5-months PCE which at first, of course, looked like ‘she’ had ‘done it’. CLAUDIU: What I was getting at (but poorly it seems) is that this palpable naïveté is something that I have experienced on occasion the past year, actually somewhat frequently, and I would say I have gotten a knack at getting back to it – but no it hasn’t been a 100% or even 99% ongoing experience. However it’s not an entirely unknown and unfamiliar direction, was what I was saying, it’s more just going to that already-somewhat-familiar direction, but more, much much more, with renewed intent and vigor, and it certainly appears to go “deeper” than I’ve gone into it before. VINEETO: It is not a matter of “poorly” conveying what you wanted to say but the very fact that you were trying to move forward, “with renewed intent and vigor”, before you really digested and fully assessed the major game-changing events which happened during your visit to Geoffrey. Claudiu: Two other key pieces: the major one was we figured out that I had been trying to put myself into actuality, as in I as identity, as a feeling-being, will continue somewhat beyond self-immolation. There were many ways I had justified it, And: Claudiu: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end …. The planning for going ahead, as in “but maybe the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route” sounded to me originating from the ‘planner’, the ‘controller’, the reasonable, rational ‘Claudiu’ who is quickly mapping the course of action before the full impact of the experience of what was learnt during your visit made itself experientially felt and comprehensively understood in a life-changing way. Whereas when you first feel good, feel great, feel excellent, and become more naïve, then everything – I mean every thing – is seen in a different light, including what to be next (and I don’t mean be vigilant). It’s promising that you say “it certainly appears to go ‘deeper’”. CLAUDIU: I can’t think of a better way to depict the sheer fun of this naïveté than the interaction with my partner when I just got home now. I’m walking in having a blast, and she gets an amused look and says I have a mischievous grin on my face (I didn’t realize I was grinning lol). So then I go up closer to her and hug her on the couch and say “Oh I have a secret”. And she’s like oh? What’s the secret? And I pause and say … … “I’m having a lot of fun”. And she just bursts out laughing, this hearty, full-on laugh. It certainly is contagious . VINEETO: This is a lovely fun story and in that experience you have indeed “a secret”. To once in a while have fun is easy to start with – to give full permission to always have fun needs some “awareness-cum-attentiveness” in order to persistently decline the directives of the ‘doer’/ ‘controller’. Kuba said it well yesterday – Kuba: In order for the controller to go into abeyance it is as if ‘I’ have to agree (at the very depths of ‘my’ being) that life is not a serious business, that it is not a vale of tears, it is not a dog eat dog world out there etc. ‘I’ say a big, resounding yes to being alive right now, with no resentment or resistance whatsoever and then the controller can go into abeyance. And when this happens it really is “bester”, that this is what ‘I’ can have as a feeling being. CLAUDIU: I ehhh wrote another 1,200 words about the various terms and terminology for all this but… I think it’s unnecessary for now lol. So I’ll just leave it here for now. VINEETO: Excellent. Cheers Vineeto June 9 2025 Kuba: So this whole out from control / not out from control saga that has been going on. What I can say is that there was a qualitative shift last year and this qualitative shift has remained throughout. What changed then, has not unchanged […] being out from control is not a leisurely club to hang out in […] what it means to be out from control is the very antithesis of having such a static plateau to hang out on […] The experience of being out from control is more to do with the lack of anything stable or static rather than chilling out on some rung on an imaginary ladder. Essentially it is to say that being out from control is not a feather in ‘my’ cap, it’s more like ‘I’ am speedily loosing all ‘my’ feathers and ‘my’ cap. […] CLAUDIU: I think we both experienced something like this and what it is like being alive has not changed for me either. And the experiential portions of the reports we have made of it are accurate reports of what it is like, at least I haven’t made anything up. However, does it attain to that which is called “out-from-control virtual freedom” in actualist lingo? There are, I think, two ways to tackle this question. The first is the mapping approach which is trying to determine whether it really is this. What happened with me is: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that. Part of that convo is where he asked me something like, do I think that how I am now will inevitably result in self-immolation, or do I think there is something more I have to do to have it happen? I said it was the latter, and he said something along the lines of that that’s good and he was wondering whether I have been “chilling” / waiting around (or something like this) as a possible reason for why I haven’t self-immolated yet. Another way to take the mapping approach is to compare experience with already-available descriptions. Is something really described as being “nigh-on unstoppable” really compatible with a state that just… stops? Frequently? Even for months at a time? Kuba: I banished myself from remaining where it is so magical for no good reason at all, and hence I entered a “parenthesis period” that lasted months! (...) VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, After giving it some deliberation, I decided to comment on the whole topic. One reason is that I encouraged both yourself and Kuba to collect messages from the forum that appeared to fit the description of being out from control for publishing it on the AFT website, when it eventually turned out that this might not be the case. The other reason is that I take the words my correspondents write at face value and therefore can only go by what they write, and not what they live day-to-day, when Claudiu’s visit to Geoffrey provided a more complete experience – Claudiu: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that. The last but not least reason is that I will have to be more careful in my writing that I better not encourage people to adopt the label of being out-from-control according to what they write, so that time (a person’s and other readers’ most valuable asset) may not be frittered away by believing that they only have to “chill” and wait for the actualism process to complete by itself when this is not yet the case. For additional help in the action of determining your own situation I have collected some unambiguous quotes from Richard and one from myself from Richard’s selected correspondence (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Dynamic Virtual Freedom) – Respondent: Can you determine whether someone is living a virtual freedom ... Richard: It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again ... if another wishes to fool me, by reporting something which is not the situation then, when all is said and done, they only end up fooling themselves (when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day and upon waking another perfect day is presenting itself). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 15 June 2003) * Respondent: However, I think, I am beginning to understand pulling back/ turning away: it is like crossing a Rubicon, an experience of it can be physically felt as an empty space/ throbbing right under the belly (the uterus contracting). But of course, the person in question may be able to corroborate on this much more. Richard: (…). But you are correct – it is indeed like crossing ‘a boundary, a limit; esp. one which once crossed betokens irrevocable commitment; a point of no return’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and it is only upon such a crossing that the actualism process, as distinct from the actualism method, can start whereupon an inevitability thus set in motion begins to gather a momentum all of its own accord. Then one is on the ride of a lifetime! [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 16 November 2009) * Richard: There is a distinct difference betwixt the actualism method and the actualism process – inasmuch the former is voluntary, or still-in-control, and the latter is involuntary, or out-from-control – to the degree that any comparison is akin to chalk and cheese in regards effect). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 10 December 2009) * Richard: An obvious out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom is an on-going excellence experience (EE) but an on-going intimacy experience (IE) may very well be the most likely state as an EE, being so close to a PCE as to be barely distinguishable ... [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, No. 12, 9 December 2009). (See Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016). * Vineeto: My period of being out-from-control started when I (metaphorically speaking) traversed the ‘wall of fear’, described by Richard as ‘a fear so vast as to best be called dread’ occurring at the ‘utter imminence’ at the gate to an actual freedom. Richard described it this way in a private email about me – Richard: ‘Vineeto, who is now fully out-from-control/ in a fully different-way-of-being, and thus on my side of that enormous wall of fear completely encircling all of humankind, ...’ (24.12.2009) During this period, which for me personally lasted about four-and-a-half weeks before it culminated in the final event on January 5, 2010, I experienced an ever-increasing pull to move forward into what I clearly and unambiguously recognized as my destiny – an irrevocable freedom from the human condition. It set in motion a process that was to undo all of my remaining bonds to humanity, my residue of inhibitions, my last hesitations and any and all lingering doubts. Having finally arrived at being out-from-control, living the ‘beer’ rather than being the ‘doer’, filled me with a previously unknown confidence and certainty that ‘my’ redemption was indeed nigh. [Emphases added]. (Direct Route, James, 16 Jan 2010). Cheers Vineeto June 10 2025 CLAUDIU: Hi Vineeto, That all makes sense, I just want to address this quote you included: Respondent: Can you determine whether someone is living a virtual freedom … Richard: It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again … if another wishes to fool me, by reporting something which is not the situation then, when all is said and done, they only end up fooling themselves (when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day and upon waking another perfect day is presenting itself). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 15 June 2003) There is an implication here (maybe unintended) that I was fooling you (and others) by “reporting something which is not the situation”, and I want to affirm that this is not what happened. (snip). VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, Before you continue with your response to your own “implication”, which you already classified as “perhaps unintended”, let me tell you there was no implication when I sent off the message. It must have crept in when you read it. The intentioned reason I included this quote was because of the first sentence – Richard: “It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again …” That means I will be refraining from labelling who is at what stage in the actualism progression, and I have already taken responsibility when I gave my reasons for providing the quotes in the message you are replying to (which you said makes sense to you) – Vineeto: After giving it some deliberation, I decided to comment on the whole topic. One reason is that I encouraged both yourself and Kuba to collect messages from the forum that appeared to fit the description of being out from control for publishing it on the AFT website, when it eventually turned out that this might not be the case. The other reason is that I take the words my correspondents write at face value and therefore can only go by what they write, and not what they live day-to-day, when Claudiu’s visit to Geoffrey provided a more complete experience – (…) The last but not least reason is that I will have to be more careful in my writing that I better not encourage people to adopt the label of being out-from-control according to what they write, so that time (a person’s and other readers’ most valuable asset) may not be frittered away by believing that they only have to “chill” and wait for the actualism process to complete by itself when this is not yet the case. [Emphases added]. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu6, 9 June 2025). The comment is my hindsight and what I will be doing different in future. We are all pioneers in this business of bringing about peace on earth. Where in that introduction did I say that you were “fooling” me? It is up to you to determine that. Let me put it in a different way – to explain why Richard wrote the second part of the above quote – the whole process of actualism includes finding out about one’s emotional/ passional habitual thinking and (at times passionate) feeling which encompasses finding out about one’s beliefs, morals and ethics inculcated from birth onwards, which prevent enjoying and appreciating being alive. Each time you are able to replace a belief/ truth with a fact you recognize you have been fooled and as such been fooling yourself. The same applies to any other social identity issue you have inadvertently swallowed hook, line and sinker, when you eventually find out that they make no sense when compared to the sincere intent of imitating the actual. Your visit to Geoffrey enabled you to find out the fact that his being out-from-control doesn’t match your own belief of being out-from-control – Claudiu: What happened with me is: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that. And – Claudiu: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end … So you were able to replace your previous belief with the newly discovered fact. Now why you want to go back discussing what happened a year ago (June 23 and 24, 2024) to justify anything that was happening then, and then have me “imply” that you were or were not “fooling” me, is anyone’s guess. For what purpose? Why not appreciate that a new fact has come to light which makes the previous belief obsolete? I am reminded of a quote from Richard (he always said it better than I ever can) – Richard: A fact is patent, obvious, apparent, evident, tangible, palpable, substantial, tactile, verifiable and indisputable. The marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action, and that action is the movement into perfection. (Richard, List A, No. 14, #No. 09) Besides, your additional message confirms what I just said – why not appreciate that a new fact has come to light, which resultant action makes the previous belief obsolete? As a guess, the qualifier “when being naïve” is the clue. CLAUDIU: Also just wanted to add that the funniest thing about this all is, when being naive, that it “doesn’t really matter” what transpired. Like there’s no moral weight or blame or “something done wrong” on any side of anyone. It was well-intentioned people doing their best with given information at the time, to navigate and attempt to label experiential ways of being, which can certainly be tricky. And there is no lasting harm or anything that has been done… ultimately it’s up to me anyway to self-immolate, I had already grown suss for a few months and recognized something more was needed, visiting Geoffrey helped me see what I think the main blocker was (trying to put myself into actuality), and now that I have been able to properly contemplate and reflect on just what my total extinction means and entails, I am having a blast and experiencing myself as having gotten to further ‘reaches’ than I ever have before. So all is, in the final analysis, going just fine really. VINEETO: Regarding your question what to do with the out-from-control reports of yourself and Kuba we can sort this out in a private email. Cheers Vineeto June 12 2025 VINEETO (to Kuba): Richard: A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering. As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 November 2002). CLAUDIU: I always found the grammar a bit odd here, can you clarify Vineeto? What I gather he is saying is that when facing profound dread, it’s better to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself rather than avoid the dread, because avoiding the dread can lead to manifesting various phantasmagoria, while using the opportunity to plumb the depths of ‘being’ will be fruitful. But the “avoidance through realisation of the portentous event” is confusing, why is “realisation of the portentous event” a form of“avoidance”? VINEETO: Perhaps I should have included the follow-up sentences in that quote (the link was also faulty but is fixed now) – Richard: As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. With pure intent one can enable a movement into the existential angst, rather than despairingly grasping at doomsday straws, which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence ... which is ‘presence’ itself. Such an active perspicacity in ‘my’ moment of reckoning will reveal that ‘presence’ itself feeds off ‘my’ fear – it is its very life-blood as it were – and this functional acuity brings an abrupt end to its nourishment. Whereupon all-of-a-sudden one finds oneself on the other side of the wall (to keep with the ‘cornered’ analogy for now) with the hitherto unseeable doorway to freedom closing behind one ... and one is walking freely in this actual world where one has already always been living anyway. All what happened was that upon ‘my’ exposure dissolution occurred and the Land of Lament sank without a trace. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 November 2002). Perhaps a comma after “avoidance” and after “portentous event” makes for an easier comprehension. CLAUDIU: Ohhhh or wait is he saying that – Rather than trying to realize or figure out what the foreboding event might be that is causing a deep feeling of dread (i.e. I am dreading something, what am I dreading?) … Instead of that (looking ‘outward’ at what the event might be) it is instead an opportune moment to look inward, at the depths of ‘my’ very ‘being’ itself, which (with pure intent) “can enable a movement into the existential angst […] which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence … which is ‘presence’ itself” – and this can then “reveal that ‘presence’ itself feeds off ‘my’ fear” which “functional acuity brings an abrupt end to its nourishment”. So it is kinda funny in that ‘realizing’ the event-that-I-am-dreading ends up being the “avoidance” of looking at the dread itself/ why dread manifests in the first place/ ‘my’ being itself. VINEETO: Excellently put. You found the description of how to proceed when a deep feeling of dread makes its appearance. At some point plumbing the depths of ‘being’ itself is most likely unavoidable on the way to self-immolation at this point in the pioneering stage. Cheers Vineeto June 16 2025 CLAUDIU (to Felix): Ah okay, maybe you meant “not hedonistic”? “Hedonistic” in a colloquial usage now means… well the Claude AI put it well: Today, these terms often carry negative connotations, suggesting: Excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures Short-sighted pursuit of immediate gratification Selfishness or disregard for consequences Lifestyle focused on partying, luxury, or physical pleasures When someone is called “hedonistic” now, it typically implies they’re irresponsible, shallow, or addicted to pleasure-seeking. It’s funny cause that’s not at all what the original Greeks who were pursuing hedonism meant by it, but anyway the point is how we’re using the words. So then we could coin a word “anhedonistic” to mean “not hedonistic” in the above sense. In that case it makes a lot of sense and certainly more sincere and naive ways of affectively enjoying being alive, would not be hedonistic. So you could be saying you’re discovering how to enjoy being alive more sincerely / naively in actualist lingo, and experiencing pleasure not in this hedonistic way but in a more salubrious way. Could indeed be great if so, I leave it for you to find out. I understand if you don’t wanna detail out the vocabulary at this point but it is something I enjoy and maybe helpful to others. VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, Just a quick comment. I appreciate your attention on precise wording. One’s choice of words describing one’s experiences, linguistic or mental, generally shapes one’s thinking and feeling. As such, just as the word “hedonistic”, according to your AI, signifies an excess of hedonic feelings and behaviour, in a similar way the (presently non-existing) word “anhedonistic” would indicate an excessive way of being anhedonic. This is confusing for those who know the word “anhedonic” as an characteristic of experiencing a PCE or an actual freedom, and for those of the psychiatric genre “anhedonia” is classified as a mental disorder. There is a perfectly good word for feeling good, calm, contented, delighted, happy in a quiet non-exuberant way for a feeling being – affective. As such one can say one is affectively feeling good, calm, contented, delighted and happy without experiencing either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feelings. There is nothing wrong with affectively feeling good, either exuberantly or quietly as an ongoing background mood – on the contrary. Richard: ‘The felicitous/ innocuous feelings are in no way docile, lack-lustre affections ... in conjunction with sensuosity they make for an extremely forceful/ potent combination as, with all of the affective energy channelled into being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible (and no longer being frittered away on love and compassion/ malice and sorrow), the full effect of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – is dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone. (...) The actualism method is not about undermining the passions ... on the contrary, it is about directing all of that affective energy into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (that is, ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself) in order to effect a deliberate imitation of the actual, as evidenced in a PCE [a pure consciousness experience], so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’. Such imitative felicity/ innocuity, in conjunction with sensuosity, readily evokes amazement, marvel, and delight – a state of wide-eyed wonder best expressed by the word naiveté (the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence whilst being a ‘self’) – and which allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude, which this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is, to operate more and more freely. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with the imitative affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest. All that was required was ‘my’ cheerful, and thus willing, concurrence’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 29 September 2005). Cheers Vineeto June 16 2025 VINEETO: As such, just as the word “hedonistic”, according to your AI, signifies an excess of hedonic feelings and behaviour […] CLAUDIU: Well not exactly – feeling good (as in “calm, contented, delighted, happy in a quiet non-exuberant way”) is also a hedonic feeling and behavior, since hedonic just means related to hedonic tone, and feeling good does have a pleasant hedonic tone (as opposed to an unpleasant one). VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, I should have said “‘hedonistic’ as compared to hedonic”. Hedonic tone is the feeling tone that accompanies every feeling – such as it feels good to feel good, it feels bad to be sad, and so on. Richard: Put succinctly: every feeling-being’s experience or state of being – including that feeling-being’s emotions, passions, moods, sentiments and, thus, affectively-tinged and/or emotionally-driven thoughts – has hedonic tone (a degree of affective pleasantness or unpleasantness/ a degree of affective pleasure or displeasure). CLAUDIU: That being said I agree that “anhedonistic” resembles “anhedonic” too much so I agree it is not a good term. One could just say “not hedonistically” which would already be better. VINEETO: Exactly, as you say “hedonic just means related to hedonic tone”, it is impossible for a feeling being to be not hedonic and by extension not hedonistic. Better to be sincere and be aware that as a feeling being affective feelings accompanied by hedonic experiencing is always happening except in a PCE and appreciable. It speaks for itself that hedonism and hedonistic pleasurable feelings are discouraged/ castigated by implicitly implying that feeling good falls into the category of hedonism and hedonistic, while aggression, for instance combative sports, games and entertainment, is not only tolerated but encouraged and promoted. * VINEETO: There is a perfectly good word for feeling good, calm, contented, delighted, happy in a quiet non-exuberant way for a feeling being – affective. CLAUDIU: Mmmm this doesn’t make the distinction I’m wanting to draw though. Cause all emotions and feelings are affective. So if one is following hedonistic pursuits, one will be feeling those hedonistic feelings affectively too, i.e. they will be affective hedonistic feelings. However I see that there already is a way to describe hedonistic pleasure in actualist lingo… it’s nothing other than the ‘good’ feelings! i.e. the desirous ones in this particular case. VINEETO: Indeed. As all the descriptions of behaviour your AI has suggested – “excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, short-sighted pursuit of immediate gratification, selfishness or disregard for consequences, lifestyle focused on partying, luxury, or physical pleasures” is not being harmless or even considerate of others and it is clear that they don’t fall into the category of ‘feeling good’ or ‘being happy and harmless’. So any accusation of a malcontent killjoy is a non-sequitur. CLAUDIU: And enough has already written on distinguishing between ‘good’ feelings and feeling good… so indeed no new term is needed to be coined here. VINEETO: I am pleased we agree. Cheers Vineeto June 17 2025 CLAUDIU: Well I’m having a good time. I figured that really it seemed only thing I was/ am lacking is ‘wanting to do it’. So I regathered my intent and set about sincerely and scrupulously examining every aspect of me and whether I actually want anything of what actualism offers. The main thing is I identified a sort of ‘gung-ho yah!!!’ aspect where I’d just feel or conclude that of course I want this/ of course it’s better… but it was not fully sincere, not really deep-down thing. So I noticed that and didn’t go there anymore and really examined all. VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, This is a fascinating insight how ‘you’ tick – that when something get too close existentially your automatic/ inadvertent response is to cover it with a “‘gung-ho yah!!!’ aspect” in order to keep the more thrilling aspect at arm’s length. Well spotted. CLAUDIU: The summary is that it is better to feel good than not, by the very facts of existence and what that entails (pleasant things are more pleasant than not). There’s combination of just seeing, simply seeing, that actual freedom is obviously superior, not a gung-ho ‘yea!’ but it’s an experiential seeing of it (see: Claudiu's Journal #452). And at one point I ask myself while watching some video of some historical battle, if I could stop all the wars currently going on, on the planet, would I? And a seeing that self-immolating actually is making a tangible, potent step towards making it happen, not as a wish or as a self-serving excuse, but as an actual fact of the matter. At some point along the way a whiff of pure intent drafted in and I got the flavor of that again, and I can see that I am not ‘making it up’. And especially reading this really brought in that flavour of that purity together with a pulling-in sensation: Richard: (Being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being is quite daunting to contemplate as an on-going EE marks the end of the beginning of the end of ‘me’ and the commencement of the actualism process – as distinct from the actualism method – wherein a momentum not of ‘my’ doing takes over and an inevitability sets in; in an on-going EE the actual world has the effect of impelling one towards it – like a moth to a candle as the overarching benignity and benevolence of the actual increasingly operates such as to render ‘my’ felicity/ innocuity increasingly redundant; this is where being the nearest a ‘self’ can be to innocence – the naiveté located betwixt the core of being and the sexual centre (where one is both likeable and liking) – is attached as if with a golden thread or clew to the purity of actual innocence; an on-going EE is, thus, where one becomes acclimatised to benignity and benevolence and the resultant blitheness because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared). (Richard, List D, No. 12, 9 December 2009). Soo anyway continuing on with that approach, I find myself eating a hamburger in a food court, (a ‘new hamburger’ as branded by the company, which is just a hamburger without a bun lol) and the sensuosity is really off the charts, a sumptuous delight for the eyes and the ones and the tongue … Then I notice a ‘something’ that I make the choice to allow, and whoooooshh it’s like a thing flipped, and then I experienced it like a I don’t really know what to call it. My experience was that actuality was striating and coruscating. I experienced the same thing petting my dog right before the May 24th 6:48pm experience here. It was hard to tell if it was a PCE or not. I had the thought during it that while having too low standards can cause problems, having too high a bar for standards won’t really, so I could just say this is an EE (nearly indistinguishable from a PCE) and if it is too ‘high’ a bar, well I can’t really go wrong anyway lol. VINEETO: I’m not sure if the “whiff of pure intent” survived because I didn’t know what to make of your description that “actuality was striating” and then I found this quote today (possibly relevant to what you said further down “it’s a relic from the DhO meditation days”) – Respondent: Also – and this question is a bit out of left field – do you experience any flickering or flashing or shimmering in the visual field while gazing at an otherwise still scene? Richard: No. Respondent: I’ve only really been noticing this since I started paying attention to impermanence. Richard: As there is no impermanence in actuality then it would be to your advantage to take a second look at whatever it is you are paying attention to. Respondent: It seems to me that this vibrational aspect of sensations comes and goes in a cyclic fashion. Sometimes I notice that everything is solid and marvellous and clear and the world seems buoyant and peaceful – and wonder if this is what my most solid memory of a PCE is based on. Richard: As a PCE – the direct (unmediated) experience of actuality – is the immediate apprehension of infinitude (infinite space; eternal time; perdurable matter) and, thus, the absolute and utter permanence of the universe then it would also be to your advantage to take a second look at whatever it is your most solid memory is based upon. Respondent: However, if I pay attention to anything for too long the flashing/ flickering appears. Is that anything you’re familiar with? Richard: Only in the months prior to the eleven years of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment (and, on occasion, during that period). Respondent: In case you’re wondering if there is a medical basis to it, I have explained it to an optometrist, had an eye exam and got the all clear. Richard: Yes ... manifestations of that nature are more a feature of the affective faculty’s epiphenomenal psychic facility than anything else For instance I had flashing lights ‘zapping’ in front of my eyes; electrical bolts of lightning dazzling on the eyeballs; rushes of energy surging up through my diaphragm; pressure-pains in the base of the neck; intense tingling sensations on the surface of my skin; liquid sounds ‘gurgling’ through my brain; convulsive twitching of limbs; surges of power travelling up the spine and up over the back and the top of the head down to the forehead; a vivid blue light, an internal blue of rapturous bliss, behind the eyebrows; singing in my ears; an all-knowing cyclopean eye in the sky watching my every move and many, many other weird things. (Richard, List D, No. 15, 12 November 2009). CLAUDIU: It was hard to tell if it was a PCE or not. I had the thought during it that while having too low standards can cause problems, having too high a bar for standards won’t really, so I could just say this is an EE (nearly indistinguishable from a PCE) and if it is too ‘high’ a bar, well I can’t really go wrong anyway lol. It definitely was not like the rock-solid PCE I had while driving some months ago, that was much more stable. This was really much more wild haha When it ended I felt myself come back in (so maybe was a PCE after all, or at least I was abeyant…???) and then I had the aftershock thing where I reacted with anxiety to it, which also makes me think PCE since at least what I been calling EEs does not have that. But another valuable insight here, I saw how this anxious reaction to it was transforming itself back into that ‘gung-ho yeah!!’ self haha. Like I was clearly scared shitless of what just happened, which I put it down to cause it is ‘my’ demise that it fore-tells – but that was turning into a feeling like I really wanna do it hahahaha. Even though it was the anxious reaction turning me away from that!!! Wowww so cunning. VINEETO: Again, it’s valuable information that your habitual “anxious reaction to it was transforming itself back into that ‘gung-ho yeah!!’ self” which causes you to oscillate between some sincere contemplation with a “whiff of pure intent” and a backing off from fear arising by the very possibility of what this will entail. Hence, regardless if the above-described experience was more of an altered state or an excellence experience or a PCE, perhaps a further exploration into these “anxious reaction”, and “scared shitless” feelings seems worth exploring because as you describe it, fear seems to stop you each time you want to proceed. CLAUDIU: I also identify now what that apparent ‘shift’ on May 24th at 6:48PM was – it is a cunning way to get ‘me’ off track, to feel like a shift happened and now I gotta wait and see what happens lol. It’s a relic from the DhO meditation days, wow everyone had so many ‘shifts’ back then lol, what a crock. Anyway it was dope, I don’t know why I experienced it like actuality striating. After that though I feel a momentum to it all, which is familiar to before, which is cool, but also a little hard to disambiguate from the gung-ho yeah thing, so anyway on it goes, but it’s certainly a fun time. VINEETO: Going by your overall description this “gung-ho yeah thing” seems to be the current fall-back position presenting itself as feeling good. Take courage, it can be overcome (not rationally or with reasoning but experientially), and daring comes from caring, as in “I could stop all the wars currently going on on the planet, would I?” – Respondent: ... but the description [of fear], it comes later. Richard: Not if one is at all aware ... in my experience all those years ago, at the moment of fear (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread), the ‘I’ that was inhabiting this body would ‘sit with it’ as it were and directly experience it as it was happening as the fear which it was (or disquietude, uneasiness, nervousness or apprehension, anxiety, terror, horror, panic and dread). This is because ‘I’ wanted to know, ‘I’ wanted to find out, once and for all, that which has paralysed human beings for millennia ... ‘I’ observed ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) with the objectivity of a scientist. Now, whilst the word ‘fear’ is not the feeling itself, the feeling is very, very real whilst it is happening (as real as any ‘I’ is). By ‘being with it’ as it was happening – without moving in any direction whatsoever with escapist thoughts, feelings or urges – ‘I’ would come to experience ‘being it’ ... and ‘I’ am this fear and this fear is ‘me’. Thus ‘I’ came to experience ‘myself’ in all ‘my’ nakedness. All ‘I’ am, is this fear ... and fear is but one of the instinctual passions that blind nature genetically encodes in all sentient beings at conception in the genes ... ‘I’ am the end-point of myriads of survivors passing on their genes. ‘I’ am the product of the ‘success story’ of blind nature’s fear and aggression and nurture and desire. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. In other words: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ (and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’; ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’; ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’). The direct experiencing of this is the ending of ‘me’ ... and I am this flesh and blood body only being here now as only this moment is. (Richard, List B, No. 33a, 8 October 1999). Cheers Vineeto June 21 2025 VINEETO: This is a fascinating insight how ‘you’ tick – that when something get too close existentially your automatic/ inadvertent response is to cover it with a “‘gung-ho yah!!!’ aspect” in order to keep the more thrilling aspect at arm’s length. Well spotted. CLAUDIU: Ah somehow only just saw this today! The striating thing isn’t something I can make happen or anything like that. It wasn’t an impermanence kind of thing from meditating. I would wanna describe it like actuality was shining through somehow… but I’m not confident in this. I don’t know what to make of it per se, but what followed afterwards was unmistakable, it was a really dynamic way of being alive that lasted up until sometime around the next day. So a little over 24 hours. VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, That is excellent, Claudiu. CLAUDIU: During that period I experienced a richness that I associated only with EEs in the past, but it was an ongoing experience without me having to do anything, a much firmer and continuous experience of that richness than I’ve had before. Everything was also just very crystal clear and remarkably un-self-centered. It was just evident, experientially, that my delight of being alive does not harm anyone else (i.e. it is not a selfish thing), and not only that, but more-over it is for everyone. In other words it is that everyone can experience this level of wondrous delight. It was just very clear and it seemed like all I had to do was smooth myself out, allow any wrinkles to be smoothed out, and I just know that “it” would happen. This wasn’t like making a plan either, it was just how my experience of being alive was. And I also saw, experientially, hitting me to the bone, how the most wonderful possible gift I could give to my partner, the best reward I can give her for the devotion she’s shown me in choosing to be with me, is to self-immolate, to give her the gift of a perfect partner. This was not a thought-out thing, I could just palpably see that it is a fact, and entirely a selfless act (I would not be doing it for ‘me’ to be praised or anything like that). VINEETO: Ah, this is music to my ears. Now you know the genuine excellence with a full measure of pure intent, which you now accustomise yourself to as in the quote from Richard you posted – Richard: … an on-going EE is, thus, where one becomes acclimatised to benignity and benevolence and the resultant blitheness because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared). (Richard, List D, No. 15, 12 November 2009). CLAUDIU: However I got ehmm overwhelmed lol, it was all a bit much, and I was able to dive out of it by diving into being driven to do various things. It took a lot of effort to direct away from it haha. Of course throughout effortfully driving away from it I had some feeling like I wasn’t driving away from it, but really I knew I was, it just seemed like too much. So yea the ‘whiff’ of pure intent flourished into far, far more, before I finally dived away from it. Indeed it was fear that stopped me. I tried the thing of plumbing the depths of my being rather than avoiding the fear, but it didn’t bear fruit. Anyway it’s like basically I know the entire wide and wondrous path, and what to do at each point, all the way from feeling bad to feeling driven to feeling good to feeling great to the dynamic excellence experience to the PCE. I reaffirm my earlier recognition that it is just a matter of wanting to do it. I don’t think there is anything else missing. I don’t really know what else to write in my journal these days lol. VINEETO: Is the “feeling driven” a close cousin to the “‘gung-ho yeah!!’ self” – a diversion from that funny feeling in the belly when anxiousness sets in? If so, I can recommend to stay with that ‘funny feeling’ as long as you dare, without fighting it or expressing it as being driven (both options give the anxiousness extra energy), and experiment a bit. This will reduce the intensity and ‘whoosh’, you are back to feeling good. CLAUDIU: It’s sort of at the point where my only refuge away from self-immolating is feeling bad haha. Cause as soon as I’m back to feeling good, off and away I go sooner rather than later towards that wondrous dynamism. A recent insight is simultaneously recognizing that the next step from there is a small one (to feeling good), not aiming for self-immolating (which would just end up being a driven manifestation of the gung-ho aspect rather than a genuine shooting for it)… but at the same time I know I will not stop at feeling good, that’s just the next step on the way to the next one, which will bring me sooner rather than later up to wherever the latest point I left off of was, which now was that remarkably rich dynamic experience. So anyway I simultaneously want to get back to that rich dynamism as soon as possible, whilst also being perilously afraid lol. I don’t know what will resolve it. As I started writing this it’s tipped over towards progressing further though so I am confident at this moment haha. VINEETO: Well there is a stage between feeling good and ‘self’-immolation, and that it feeling excellent, naïve, and making that your new default-set-point. From there you can safely acclimatise yourself to the “it just seemed like too much” until you are getting used to the “resultant blitheness”, the new wondrous frequency, so to speak. CLAUDIU: Another fun insight was seeing how there’s a certain feeling I can have that I will succeed in self-immolating, which I’ve come to see now is a de-motivator not a motivator. Cause it just has me slacken my intention/ attention rather than continue onward. Like a “oh yeah I’ll surely do it… oo let’s go and do this other thing first” lol. Fun stuff. VINEETO: Ah, you recognized the “gung-ho aspect” as a dead-end, great. Cheers Vineeto June 22 2025 Vineeto to Claudiu: Is the “feeling driven” a close cousin to the “‘gung-ho yeah!!’ self” – a diversion from that funny feeling in the belly when anxiousness sets in? If so, I can recommend to stay with that ‘funny feeling’ as long as you dare, without fighting it or expressing it as being driven (both options give the anxiousness extra energy), and experiment a bit. This will reduce the intensity and ‘whoosh’, you are back to feeling good. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu6, 21 June 2025). Kuba: Hehe this is a cool way of describing ‘my’ anxiety – “a funny feeling in the belly when anxiousness sets in”, doesn’t sound so serious when you put it this way. (...) CLAUDIU: Hehe I feel it more like something in my chest than the belly. It is interesting to stay with it and suss it out. Intrinsic to it is a desire to look away from it. I was able to see it that the effect of fear is for me to look away from the fear, and then as soon as I look away from it now it’s driving me to do this or that (being driven definitely stems from fear, I can see this clearly). So perhaps I just have to not look away VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, That’s interesting that you feel it in the chest – an anxiousness (“the knot”, which perhaps even acts on your ease/ joy of breathing). When you decline the “desire to look away” and dare to allow it, see if you can feel it sinking into the deeper region of your belly, where the more profound feelings are generally situated and from there to the core of your ‘being’. Then by not feeding the anxiousness (allowing it to happen and thus taking the fear of being anxious out of the affective mix) you can then recognize that you are the feeling, and hey presto, get back to being felicitous, and perhaps weaken/ dissolve the ‘knot’ altogether. CLAUDIU: At some point recently (before the ~24hr experience) while experiencing pure intent I also saw and was enjoying allowing pure intent into the ‘knot’ of me that I experience. It was like allowing pure intent to waft through all my nooks and crannies. It felt very nice! VINEETO: Sounds great. Here is what Richard recommended to Srid to do to access naiveté – Richard: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). Now, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre). Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté). Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what. Here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’. Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness. Here is where it is possible to be the key. (Richard, List D, Srid, 26 May 2009). Cheers Vineeto PS. The Actualism Method video excerpt is now also accessible (embedded) at the bottom of Richard’s Article of This Moment of Being Alive as well as from the homepage. June 24, 2025 CLAUDIU: (…) Interesting thoughts, that Divinity being incarnated upon the planet in the form of Christ (i.e. a fully Enlightened being) was responsible for ending the hallucinations and imaginations and illusions of the oracles (to be replaced with different ones of course). VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, An interesting find. As to your parenthesised words in the last paragraph, Richard did not even consider Christ having been fully enlightened. I could only find one written source for this, based on Christ’s supposed last words, even though I was familiar with Richard’s evaluation long before Richard wrote the extensive examen on “The Rise Of Buddhism” – Richard: … it is not even remotely fanciable as Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, the fully enlightened/ fully awakened “sammāsambuddha”, was a “fuller light” [sic] than Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene, whose famous last words – “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”; (KJV; ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’) – speak for themselves …Source: An Examen of ‘The Rise of Buddhism’ from “The Church Quarterly Review” (1882). (4th paragraph). Considering Christ’s last words I fully agree with Richard’s assessment. Given that the Christian vibes and psychic currents steeped in their morals, ethics and principles emanate from every pulpit as well as every loyal believer – just as similar vibes and psychic currents flow from followers of any other belief-system, it is a perfect time to replace them with felicitous and innocuous vibes. Cheers Vineeto November 30, 2025 VINEETO to Kuba: That’s why a mere conceptual assessment is not enough – you need the ongoing experiential confirmation that not only is an actual freedom what you want to have but that it is what you want to be. With this clarity the perspective shifts to a down-to-earth action to imitate the actual and make this the number one priority of your life, practically and pragmatically. Then your evaluation won’t be from the all-or-nothing frame of reference as in “yet in the cave ‘we’ remain” but how much better your life has already become despite not having become actually free yet. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba12, 23 November 2025). CLAUDIU: How does this work though since I can never be actually free? Since I have to disappear entirely for actual freedom to be what is, since it is the disappearance of me? VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, Welcome back. I appreciate that you interrupted your present hiatus to point out that what I wrote to Kuba could potentially misleading, especially for an actualist who is not experiencing what Kuba described. When I wrote “you need the ongoing experiential confirmation that not only is an actual freedom what you want to have but that it is what you want to be”, I was responding to Kuba’s words that “it is not Terra Actualis but it is certainly not reality anymore.” I remember ‘Vineeto’s’ condition at this point very well where, although ‘she’ was rarely in a long-lasting PCE, nevertheless frequent apperceptive moments, i.e. ‘self’-less perception, occurred, where ‘she’ could not distinguish between ‘her’ doing it and it happening. Hence her ‘being’ and what ‘she’ wanted to be were increasingly in alignment even though the decisive event had not yet happened. I also found your own writing from January this year – Richard: Therefore a mortal or transitory shape or form, comprised of immortal or perpetual stuff, can indeed ‘know that which is immortal’, or, as I have said before, as this flesh and blood body only (which means sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. And if you gaze deeply into the inky darkness betwixt the stars you will be standing naked before infinitude. (Richard, List B, No. 33g, 12 October 2001). Claudiu: I reread it and was just blown away by how immaculate and perfectly articulated Richard’s writing is. I experienced what I’ve called “Richard’s energy” while reading it – which refers to pure intent, of course. The flawlessness of what he apperceptively wrought leaves nothing but admiration and a salient desire and aim – I want to be that! (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu4, 6 January 2025). At that moment for you there was no question ‘who’ wanted to “be that” – it was obvious that ‘you’ were willing to abdicate in order for you “to be that”. You asked – Claudiu: How does this work though since I can never be actually free? Since I have to disappear entirely for actual freedom to be what is, since it is the disappearance of me? Magically. �� Now ‘you’ exist, now you don’t. The way it works, described semantically correct, “to want to be that” would be spelt out this way – Co-Respondent: I can’t say. It seems like it was the energy/ order that happened simply re-aligned. It is almost as if that is calling one, though there is fear to answer that call ... Richard: Does the fear increase if you allow yourself to consider that the words ‘it is almost as if that is calling one’ are the same-same as saying: this utter fullness is this brain’s destiny; this is what one is here for? Co-Respondent: No, the fear abates. There is order in the perspective you express. Thanks for putting it like that. Richard: Okay ... this is important, vital, pivotal: ‘I’, the thinker, know that ‘I’ cannot do it ... ‘I’ cannot disappear ‘myself’. Only the ‘utter fullness’ can, and the ‘utter fullness’ is ‘calling one’, each moment again, and it is only when ‘I’ fully comprehend – totally, completely, fundamentally – that to be living this ‘utter fullness’ is to be living ‘my’ destiny will one be able ‘to answer that call’. This full-blooded endorsement means it then becomes inevitable. <snip> * Co-Respondent: Are you being predatory? Richard: I do not have that capacity ... only you can allow yourself to be ‘taken away’. Co-Respondent: As the thinker assuming divided existence through a one-dimensional adulterating of the more than 3-D fullness of that, I doubt ‘I’ am going anywhere. Richard: On the contrary ... ‘you’ are going into oblivion for this is ‘your’ birthright. The doorway to freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is an irrevocable event, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. Thus when ‘I’ willingly self-immolate – psychologically and psychically – then ‘I’ am making the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for oneself and all humankind ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of accomplishment. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... ‘I’ go out in a blaze of glory. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List B, No. 25f, 18 June 2000). * I think it is serendipitous that you came back to the forum at this junction of the discussion because the last entry in your journal was – Kuba: Effectively it is that the experiential aspect is traded for an intellectual involvement. So the experience of actuality is it’s own verification, not sure why ‘I’ am so hellbent on making a synthetic map out of it, as if the experience itself needs additional support… Claudiu: Yes it’s something like this. You can always make a ‘story’ about whatever happened. But the story is never the thing. So describing the thing ends up being making a narrative of it and I don’t find it helpful to me or others at the moment. What Kuba eventually discovered in the meantime was that – Kuba: I think where I have gone wrong (quite severely) in the past is where it concerned blending the above into ‘my’ moment to moment experiencing. What I can see now is that there is actually no way for ‘me’ to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive if ‘I’ am not at the very least sincere. Because if ‘I’ am not sincere it means there is something to hide and there are parts of ‘me’ in opposition. (…) I wonder why the resistance to sincerity in the first place, it seems fundamentally that ‘I’ don’t want to be seen. ‘I’ go into some extraordinary efforts to hide, to split, to deceive etc. And actually the way of ‘me’ hiding is the painful and difficult way, the way of ‘my’ exposure is the way to ‘my’ dissolution and that is actually the easy way. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba11, 7 November 2025). Only ruthless honesty and sincerity can discover, recognize and disable such ancient, deep-seated patterns that you would then describe as narratives. To (inadvertently) maintain the old paradigm (‘me’) and attempt to merge it with actualism, the resulting experiences are of the “ethereal/ non-existent/ imagined target of projected perfection” as Felix so aptly called it. Because when the progress in becoming increasingly happy and harmless and more frequently able to enjoy and appreciate being here is tangible, noticeable and demonstrable, it is quite easy to describe. Since everyone has grown up and was conditioned in the ‘Tried and Failed’ paradigm, there can well be pockets of this spiritual, ‘it’s-all-in-your-mind’ perception regarding actualism practice. And the sooner one discovers any remnants of such blue-print, the sooner one can experience the down-to-earth success when applying the actualism method, which can easily be recognized and described. Cheers Vineeto
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