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 Selected Correspondence Love July 2 2025 SCOUT to Sonya: Really interesting to hear that the two of you are happily married without sharing the typical bond of “romantic love”. it’s also not an experience I’ve had fully mutually, and like you said it’s very dominant in the feminine narrative, so I was spoon-fed this notion that it’s the greatest thing I can possibly experience. I don’t know if it’s something I feel fully ready to move past because it’s not something I’ve seen and experienced clearly for myself yet, I’m still curious (though I am currently in an about-to-end relationship where I am seeing its uglier face). but it’s fascinating to hear about your experience of partnership without it. VINEETO: Hi Scout, As you so rightly said, love is “very dominant in the feminine narrative” with the emphasis on “narrative”. It’s a fairy tale, supported by the feeling of love itself (when you fall in love) that if only you find the right man happiness is guaranteed for the rest of your life. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ first had to examine this narrative in herself when she found out, yet again, that love had its downsides. ‘She’ knew that from previous relationships but this one, with Peter, was supposed to be working properly. Here is ‘her’ report how ‘she’ overcame the first major obstacle – ‘Vineeto’: My traditional response to the feeling of being trapped had been that the man should give me his love and reassurance. But the way to the intimacy that I had already experienced and wanted to have with Peter all the time, was that I had to question, examine and eliminate the notorious bunch of feelings called love. Peter’s description of our adventure into freedom and intimacy is certainly not just a male point of view. Did he love me enough or not, or did I love him enough or not, was not the question – I discovered that love was not the solution but the problem itself! The answer again lay 180 degrees in the opposite direction to what I had come to know up to now. I had expected or assumed someone was to love my ‘grotty self’, when even I could not stand those parts of me! A person who ‘loves me’ is supposed to accept all those ‘quirks of my personality’, which no intelligent human being would be able to put up with without blind nature’s intoxication known as ‘being in love’. And for years I had tried the same with the men I had ‘loved’, without success or happiness, let alone lasting intimacy. Intimacy can only happen when there is no emotion, no feeling or projection in the way between us. So, one of the first things that we discovered to be in the way of actual intimacy were the feelings of love – that sweet syrup that was usually poured over the spiky, malicious, miserable ‘self’, which I was most of the time! One thing that I particularly didn’t like about falling in love was the pining. Whenever I was not with Peter I felt I was tied to him on a long elastic cord and not able to fully enjoy whatever I was doing by myself. Digging into what could be the reason for my pining, I discovered what I call the ‘Cinderella-syndrome’ – the romantic dream that most women have about the perfect and noble man. We are not only looking for someone who takes care of us when our own strength fails us, but also for someone who gives perspective, meaning, definition and identity to our lives, be it as father of our kids, provider of social status, security or a purpose for life. According to this dream Peter should be the answer to the question which I wasn’t willing to face myself: ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ I remember a Monday evening after a weekend together, and I had been pining the whole day. I had not enjoyed work as I found myself struggling to get out of this exhausting dependency. Here I was, 44 years old and as silly as a teenager! After work I took a long walk across rolling hills into a spectacular sunset, trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life. In the end, I had to admit that, whatever it was, it had not the slightest thing to do with anything that Peter could do for me. I wanted to be perfect and I had to do it myself. I still had to clean myself up. Just having found a probable good mate had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn’t the best I could be; that I wasn’t free. I decided there and then to face the challenge, to abandon the love-dream and go for the actual experience – meeting another human being as intimately as possible instead of looking up to him and waiting for him to be the ‘hero of my dreams’. That very evening the situation changed. My pining stopped. The fog in the head cleared. My expectations disappeared. I could again stand on my own feet and equally enjoy the time when I was by myself. I had recovered my autonomy – my autonomy in the sense that I am the only one in my life who is responsible for my happiness. (Actualism, Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #love). There was more to come but perhaps this report appeals to you as a way of exploring why you at present don’t “feel fully ready to move past” love. Of course, to experience the benefits “of partnership without” love, love itself needs to move aside to make room for something superior to the ups and downs of love. You can utilise your present scepticism about love’s success to explore how those dreams you were “spoon-fed” are just that, dreams that never come true. Then an appreciation, a curiosity, a naïve fascination can emerge what else is possible between a man and a woman, and consideration and interested attention have room to come to the fore. As Sonya said – Sonya: I also had to keep in mind that we weren’t just eliminating love but replacing it with something better and care and appreciation had to be at the forefront. You can also check out Article Two of Richard’s Journal, page 24 to find out what else is possible, and how. Cheers Vineeto July 3 2025 SCOUT: I remember reading this part of your writings with great fascination, thank you for sharing it again! VINEETO: According to this dream Peter should be the answer to the question which I wasn’t willing to face myself: ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ SCOUT: This is the crux of it, perfectly distilled. I want someone else to figure out how to make me happy. I’ve tried so many different things but I always struggle and they always fail eventually and I feel dissatisfied, and I soothe this dissatisfaction with the fantasy that the right person will solve this problem for me, rather than me figuring out how to be my own fount of happiness. VINEETO: Hi Scout, You are very welcome. Ha, I can relate to that. ‘Vineeto’ in her twenties was looking for someone who had all the answers to life and would tell ‘her’ what to do – ‘she’ ended up in a spiritual commune with an enlightened master, and not until the master died, one-and-a-half decades later, did ‘she’ finally extract ‘her’ head from out-of-the-clouds, and look around if the aims and the results were really what ‘she’ wanted from life. You can solve this question much quicker, now that there is a third alternative to materialism and spiritualism available, and genuinely inquire in yourself if this is a way of life and an ultimate goal (actual, not imagined, purity and perfection) that you can whole-heartedly devote your life to. It is a wonderful, exciting and rewarding enterprise to do that. Cheers Vineeto July 4 2025 SCOUT: Honestly this discussion is very pertinent to my current experience, because my current relationship is starting to give me a sour taste in my mouth about the whole love thing. We’ve had persistent sexual issues due to a medical condition – this has always compromised the potential of our long-term partnership. I fell a little bit in love in the beginning but the physical disconnect led to me falling out of love, but I still deeply appreciate and care for the person he is so we’ve continued to try. However, he fell deeply in love. Now it’s been a year and a half, and the sexual issues are becoming untenable for me. When we talked today about the potential of breaking up though, he talks as if he would need to purge me from his life completely. This seems so silly to me because there is so much about how we interact that is pure and creative and delightful, and none of that needs to hinge on us having a sexual, monogamous dynamic. But being in love has turned this into a painful, all-or-nothing possessive relationship in his experience. VINEETO: Hi Scout, I found a wonderful and in-depth compilation from Richard about love and its detrimental implications – James: My partnership with [name deleted] is going fantastic. We met at a cabin in the Ozarks for a week and it couldn’t have been better. We planned to enjoy and appreciate and have fun and if any issues come up to speak them out and investigate them. However, no issues to speak of came up. (…) Richard: G’day James, This is quite an apt place to refer you to the last paragraph of my June 21st email to Alan on this very topic. Viz.: • [Richard]: “(...) I well recall the period when feeling-being ‘Peter’ first began putting what he was then reading in ‘The Actualism Journal’ into practice with a newly-found female companion – which ‘he’ wrote about in ‘Peter’s Journal’ – as it soon became obvious to both Grace and myself that the first flush of male-female attraction was self-evidently having ‘him’ under the impression that the sublime oneness-intimacy ‘he’ was experiencing (as in an ASC) was an actual intimacy (as in a PCE) and so we bided our time, until that (affectively-induced) ‘chemistry’ began to wear off and ‘he’ came to ‘his’ senses of ‘his’ own accord, as the heightened rush of blind-nature’s mating passions are too powerful a force to be reckoned with. (Richard, List D, Alan, 21 June 2015) Not only did feeling-being ‘Peter’ write about being in love, in ‘Peter’s Journal’, feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ did as well (in a chapter entitled “A Bit of Vineeto”). At the following URL ‘she’ quotes from both chapters: (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 23b, 13.3.2004) The relevant portions of what feeling-being ‘Peter’ wrote, in ‘Peter’s Journal’, are available online in “Peter’s Selected Writing”. Viz.: • [Peter]: “(...). Over the next few days something continued to nag me. Why was it that this relationship seemed to be going off the rails? Why, increasingly, were there misunderstandings, petty conflicts and difficulties between us? Why was I becoming more and more obsessed about what Vineeto was doing when we weren’t together, and what she was thinking about when we were together? Over the next days I contemplated on what was wrong and suddenly it dawned on me that, despite our matter-of-fact contract and investigations, we had *fallen in love!* We were both exhibiting the classic symptoms, emotions and feelings associated with *being in love*. I was battling her and trying to force my opinions on her. I realized that I had been *jealous, possessive, pushy, demanding and obsessive* with her. And, most appallingly, I saw how when *the impossible demands of love* are not fulfilled then it can all so quickly turn to *disappointment, resentment, withdrawal, spite and eventually hate*. It had got to the stage where it was obvious to me that, unless something changed, this relationship was heading exactly the same way as all my previous ones – doomed to failure ...”. [emphases added]. (Peter, Selected Writings. Love, #4). And again: • [Peter]: “(...). What happened in the ensuing week was quite remarkable. I found that the strength of my intention for peace and harmony made me able to completely drop *this destructive behaviour*. Somehow I knew this was the only course of action I could take to make this relationship work and I knew it was my last chance. The *realizing and facing of the facts, coupled with a clear intent, left ‘me’ with no choice. It wasn’t that ‘I’ made a decision – there was actually no decision to make. Action happened by itself, exactly as it would in swerving to avoid hitting another car while driving*. (...).A week later, we both realized the full extent of the dramatic change that had occurred. *A certain excitement seemed to be missing, a passion and a bond in our lives. It was quite tangible, and a sense of loss overwhelmed us*. It was apparent I had fallen in love about three weeks after we met and had been in love for about six weeks until I had called a halt to the battle. I hadn’t recognized at the time that this behaviour of mine was really *love in operation*; I only saw it in the end as an emotional turmoil that *was destroying my enjoyment of being with Vineeto*. So, what we had seen was love in operation – *a practical demonstration in our lives, not just a theoretical concept*. As we sat down to talk about what had happened *we both had tears in our eyes* ...”. [emphases added]. (Peter, Selected Writings. Love, #5) The relevant portions of what feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ wrote, in the chapter entitled “A Bit of Vineeto”, are also available online. Viz.: • [Vineeto]: “(...). One thing that I particularly didn’t like about falling in love was the pining. Whenever I was not with Peter I felt *I was tied to him on a long elastic cord and not able to fully enjoy whatever I was doing by myself*. Digging into what could be the reason for my pining, I discovered what I call the ‘Cinderella-syndrome’ – *the romantic dream that most women have* about the perfect and noble man. We are not only looking for someone who takes care of us when our own strength fails us, but also for someone who gives perspective, meaning, definition and identity to our lives, be it as father of our kids, provider of social status, security or a purpose for life. According to this dream Peter should be the answer to the question which I wasn’t willing to face myself: ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ I remember a Monday evening after a weekend together, and I had been pining the whole day. I had not enjoyed work as I found myself struggling to get out of this exhausting dependency. Here I was, *44 years old and as silly as a teenager!* After work I took a long walk across rolling hills into a spectacular sunset, trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life. (...). That very evening the situation changed. My pining stopped. The fog in the head cleared. *My expectations disappeared. I could again stand on my own feet and equally enjoy the time when I was by myself.* I had *recovered my autonomy* – my autonomy in the sense that I am the only one in my life who is responsible for my happiness”. [emphases added]. (Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #Love). And again: • [Vineeto]: “(...). Even after dismissing love as a concept or an option of relating, I still had to be watchful of my ‘love-attacks’, as I called them. They would *come through the backdoor, seduce me with a rose-colored mood and appear so nice and cosy* – such a temptation to surrender back into loving Peter instead of meeting him directly. However, I had understood and experienced often enough that any feeling for the other, howsoever sweet and soothing, would only make him *a projected imaginary figure on my own screen of emotions, which can so easily change at the slightest whim. It had nothing to do with the actual person* or situation. Being vigilant and persistently nibbling away at my habit of falling back into love proved to be a long process. After all, love and empathy are praised as woman’s greatest virtues! Later, *love changed into the subtler version* of feeling ‘connected’ to Peter, of having, through him, some kind of identity in my life. I caught myself wanting to use him as an outline for my own existence, as an anchor to define me as ‘person-in-relation’, a ‘self’. Examining it closer I discovered that this need for an anchor derives from the female instinct for protection. (...). I remember in the past whenever I had talked with girlfriends about the qualities of the future ‘perfect’ man, the worst and most terrible vision was to live with a man who was without feelings and emotions! The only option I could think of then was that he would repress his emotions and eventually explode, or that he would be a robot, a walking computer! At that time it was simply unimaginable that I would be able to relate to, let alone delight in living with such a man. And because *my only identity and power had been to feel and express emotions, it was also inconceivable for me to be without them myself*. Now living together is so simple, each of us minding our own business, down to details like money, car, sewing on a button or taking care of one’s health. And each of us is free to do it the way each prefers. Of course I enjoy making Peter a cup of coffee or he delights in cooking a meal for us. (...). Applying Richard’s method has forced me to examine and eliminate the very issues and beliefs that are triggering those emotions. It revealed to me that *emotions are the crucial part of the ‘self’ – the very cause of my being unhappy and malicious*. It has enabled me to question the beliefs that *both defined and confined me as a woman*. Chiselling away my psychological and psychic entity has *made emotions and feelings redundant* and has left me increasingly free to enjoy every person I meet, every situation that happens and everything that this abundant universe offers. In my ‘role-play’ I am neither a ‘woman’ nor a ‘man’, but simply a human being ... a female, of course! [emphases added]. (Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #Love2). It is, of course, advisable to re-read the above sections in their context at those online URLs. * ‘Tis unfortunate the wealth of experience obtained by Someone Uniquely Recognisable By Her Inglish is not available for the elucidation of all feeling-beings – I am reluctant to make public knowledge of the details of an experiment unique in human experience/ human history, wherein a rather daring feeling-being deliberately and with knowledge aforethought fell deeply in love with a resident of the actual world (a process she publicly declared to be “a viable course” in becoming actually free via the ‘fusion’ aspect of love), due to the entire five-month experience having afterwards left her hurt, hurting and hurtful; e.g.: vindictive and vengeful [1] – as considerable light was thrown, for instance, on the fundamental necessity of possessiveness (a non-negotiable insistence on exclusivity) being an integral part of love’s maintenance. Howsoever, despite this unfortunate lack of detail the outcome of that rather daring experiment has already been made public in the most melodramatic manner possible (i.e., via that seditious attempt to stop the global spread of peace-on-earth dead in its tracks – via the dissemination of all manner of made-up stuff about “Richard & Associates” until the outright ridiculousness those salacious fabulations brought about its ignominious melt-down – recently referred to in Message № 20220 Richard, List D, No. 48a, #Richard&Associates). Nevertheless, back in 1997 when Devika was in the process of transmogrifying into being Irene, where she would flip back-and-forth betwixt the two personae, I recorded a conversation we had about love’s possessive nature one delightful morning in early winter (the weather at this latitude is such that winter-time is the dry season wherein the days are warm and sunny, mostly with brilliant blue skies and a clear atmosphere, and the nights are crisp to cold) as a feeling-being’s memory of apperceptive awareness is notoriously unreliable when it comes to the allure of love. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, James, 8 August 2015). As this is already far too long a quote, I highly recommend reading the rest of the correspondence at leisure, perhaps in its original from the beginning for the helpful tool-tips, especially the footnote[1] at the very end. It really is a comprehensive summary of several practicing actualists, and their experiences all point towards the same direction – that love by its very nature is doomed to fail. SCOUT: It makes me sad to think I might lose the company of someone I get along with so well because of this. The alleged intimacy of romantic love seems to be highly conditional. It’s funny because I was always worried that he "loved" me more because he was so doting towards me due to being in love with me, while I remained pretty independent. But now that the security of the relationship is compromised, it almost seems like the more grounded, less attached affection I’ve felt for him is actually purer and deeper than what he has been feeling for me, because it’s not conditional and doesn’t demand that he be anything to maintain it. VINEETO: Perhaps the above listed experiential reports help you to find out for yourself, by recounting your own experiences, that the alternative – a naïve intimacy – is worthwhile aiming for, with the full commitment of your own conviction. Who knows, in the process your companion might be inspired by your persistent exploration and living of the alternative and your success with it. He might eventually find your demonstrably being more happy and harmless (considerate) more attractive than the possessiveness and sufferings associated with an all-or-nothing love-affair. If not, at least you will benefit from naively being more able to be happy and harmless. Cheers Vineeto ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Footnote: [1]leaving her hurt, hurting and hurtful; e.g.: vindictive and vengeful: Viz.: • [Richard to No. 15]: [...] Indeed, that is the very reason for my ‘just a quick note’ to [No. 3] (#14174) wherein I made it abundantly clear that it was indeed a real-life drama (aka melodrama) and provided textual evidence which demonstrates the primary reasons as to why it is all taking place before our eyes as we all type out our respective words ... namely: love and its failure to deliver the goods (with its resultant blaming of the ‘love-object’, in lieu of facing the fact that love itself failed, along with its attendant resentment/ hatred and/or jealousy/ envy and/or bitterness/ vindictiveness and so on and so forth). [...]. (Richard, List D, No. 15, 24 June 2013) [return] July 31 2024 CHRONO: My feeling bad stemmed from how I become in relationships. I’m not sure if it’s trauma or if it is how I am but I always become very insecure and afraid my partner will abandon me. It’s an all pervasive feeling and I can only describe it as hell. The worst feeling in the world. I’m currently in a relationship and it’s at that point despite my partner not having done anything for me to feel this way. My main objection then is that I will lose my partner if I feel good all the time. It’s like I have to be ever-vigilant. How will I have a relationship? The only thing that doesn’t send me spiralling into it is that I have this sense that I can feel good anytime I want to that’s stayed with me. All of this sounds insane as I write it actually. I’ll have to think on it more. VINEETO: What you are describing here is love. Naming the issue is the first step to be able to successfully contemplate it. Being in love invariable comes with both pining and possessiveness, to name but two, resulting in “an all pervasive feeling and I can only describe it as hell”. [Richard re Devika/Irene]: “[…] the power of love surging through the bloodstream is too strong to deny ... the body can be persuaded to produce quite an array of chemicals; a veritable cocktail is available to the insidious entity that has a psychological and psychic residence within ...”. (from pp. 235-239, ‘Richard’s Journal’, 1st. Ed. (pp. 256-259, 2nd. Ed.), in Article 36, ‘There comes a Time when one must Leave the Nest and Fly’). Here he also describes how love inevitably fails – [Richard re S.U.R.B.H.I.]: “[…] namely: love and its failure to deliver the goods (with its resultant blaming of the ‘love-object’, in lieu of facing the fact that love itself failed, along with its attendant resentment/ hatred and/or jealousy/ envy and/or bitterness/ vindictiveness and so on and so forth). [...].” (Richard, List D, No. 15, 24 June 2013) And here is Richard’s collected description about both ‘Peter’s’ and ‘Vineeto’s’ experiences and investigative realisations during their time of being in love, which can give you some ideas how to contemplate and investigate your own situation – (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Love). Of course, you don’t have to talk it through with your partner unless she is willing, you can have the necessary realisations and actualizations unilaterally. After all, you said that “despite my partner not having done anything for me to feel this way”. The important thing is that you recognize that the sweet feeling of love and the “all pervasive feeling” of hell are not two different issues, they are the two sides of the same coin. When love is gone (which it inevitably will once you stop feeding it) the way is clear for recognizing your partner as a fellow human being and allow the resultant naivete and an exquisite intimacy to flourish. Cheers Vineeto August 1 2024 Hi Chrono, I appreciate your thoughtful response. VINEETO: It is that from this vantage point of experiencing this moment that you can look in a dispassionate way at whatever objection is at the forefront of your mind preventing you to continue the feeling the sweetness. CHRONO: Perhaps that may be the issue. I keep trying to look at it from a vantage point of being in the feeling. But when I’m out of it I ‘check’ if it’s there and it can come back. But this ‘checking’ that I am doing may really be a perverse way of being these loving/hellish feelings over and over again. It really drives home the ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ fact. Because when I’m feeling the sweetness, there are really no issues at all. It’s like I’ve been playing pretend. VINEETO: You probably know from experience how different it is when you look at some issue from the vantage point of feeling good, even of feeling excellent. Then you can examine the trigger and look at your previous feelings not only dispassionately but an also contemplate dianoetically rather than affectively of what was happening then. Richard: “[...] reflective contemplation rapidly becomes more and more fascinating [...] When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness ... and then apperception happens of itself” (Richard, List D, No. 17, 11 July 2015) * VINEETO: What you are describing here is love. Naming the issue is the first step to be able to successfully contemplate it. CHRONO: It’s funny that you call it that because I have been approaching looking at it as anything but that. Now that I think about it, perhaps there is a ‘truth’ that has been blocking the seeing of this. Basically it goes something like ‘love is not like that’ or ‘real love is not like that’ or ‘healthy love is not like that’. It’s further cemented when I read forums where everyone describes healthy ways of being in love and how it seems to be great and what not. Maybe there is, but I don’t know how anyone can describe it as so amazing to be honest. The one thing I can’t get past is how anyone can be in love without being possessive or being exclusive. So I keep thinking perhaps there is something wrong with me. VINEETO: Ha, there is nothing is wrong with *you* – as Claudiu already explained below. It’s the human condition. Love has forever been sacrosanct and for many people love is what makes a grim and dour life worthwhile. Devika, who was by temperament a pessimist, said she lived for love, and she deliberately fell in love in such a way that it would remain unrequited so she could maintain it longer. Hence love itself (the ideal of love) has never been questioned (until Richard). It was always considered to be the individual’s fault that it never delivered what it promised. The intrinsic promise of love is that it will dissolve the separation, which two identities automatically experience, yet by the very nature of love being within the human condition and arising of the instinctual passions, this promise can never be fulfilled. Richard: “‘Man’ and ‘woman’ are in two separate camps; it is as if they are two different races. So they start from separation ... and love seems to promise to bring them together, to provide the intimacy they all long for. But my question is: why are humans separate to start off with? Is it an actual separation – apart from the physical differences – or have humans been trained into an artificial separation? Is one not conditioned to think – and feel – as a ‘man’ and as a ‘woman’? Has one not taken on a gender identity and think and feel it to be ‘me’? So is there not an artificial entity, an ‘I’, that one takes to be me as I actually am? One’s most intimate ‘being’ is a fiction anyway, so any gender identity overlaid is equally false. If ‘I’ am false, artificial, then any connection – a bridge – between two psychological entities can only be as artificial as the separation itself. Love is this bridge. Love is artificial. Being artificial it needs constant stimulus to keep it ‘alive’. Therefore, the moment it starts to sag, the cycle automatically swings into action; frustration, niggles, fights, hurt, resentment, remorse, repentance, forgiveness, promises ... then back to love and trust again. Although everybody promises each time, in contrition, to forgive and forget, they never do. The promise to forgive and forget is never carried out. The hurt, frustration and anger is unconsciously stored away, adding to the already existing resentment that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ feel toward each other for being separative in the first place. This entire process has no chance of producing anything other than an artificial intimacy.” (Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Three) Richard gave the breakdown of “The Chemistry of Love” in his “Examen of the Invention of Heterosexuality”, which you might find interesting – “Love can be distilled into three categories: lust, attraction, and attachment; though there are overlaps and subtleties to each, each type is characterised by its own set of hormones; testosterone and oestrogen drive *lust*; dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin create *attraction*; and oxytocin and vasopressin mediate *attachment* (...); the testes and ovaries secrete the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen, driving *sexual desire*; dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin are all made in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain which controls many vital functions as well as *emotion*; lust and attraction *shut off* the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which includes *rational behaviour* ...”. (https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/love-actually-science-behind-lust-attraction-companionship/). The alternative is to “increasing naive intimacy, enjoyment and delight” as Claudiu explained it so well below. Naïve intimacy can reveal the other to you as a fellow human being rather than an extension of your own fears and desires. It is when you can see and experience the other person as a flesh-and-blood human being existing in their own right. It can be quite an astounding surprise when you experience this for the first time. Feeling being ‘Grace’ had a gradation of five stages of intimacy – Richard: “The gradations of ‘her’ scale were, basically, good, very good, great, excellent, and perfect – whereby, in regards to intimacy, ‘good’ related to togetherness (which pertains to being and acting in concert with another); ‘very good’ related to closeness (where personal boundaries expand to include the other); ‘great’ related to sweetness (delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other); ‘excellent’ related to richness (a near-absence of agency; with the doer abeyant, and the beer ascendant, being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian); and ‘perfect’ related to magicality (neither beer nor doer extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails) – all of which correlate to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence.” (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, gradation) Remember to have fun when you are inclined to explore it. Cheers Vineeto January 23 2025 CHRONO: It has been a while since I wrote as I’ve gone thru a roller coaster of feelings and have come to a more calm and stable place. Of course it had to do with love but it gave me the impetus to move forward. Seeing and experiencing constantly that it does not work in bringing about a personal and interpersonal peace. I’ve also been hesitant in writing as I don’t like to write when I’m feeling not so great but maybe that might help in getting out of it too. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, Welcome back. What an excellent and rich report about your discoveries and insights! CHRONO: After I wrote my previous response I had begun engaging in ‘nipping it in the bud’ of all the loving and related feelings that I came across. I started doing it as it seemed that was the only course of action. I had already seen and experienced that it brought much suffering. Due to this I started experiencing feelings of meaninglessness, desolation, and bleakness as far as the ‘eye’ can see. What it revealed was that love was a way to cover up my loneliness. ‘I’ created an imaginary version of another person based on a dream and how ‘I’ intuited them to be and then essentially pretended that ‘I’ could be in union with this imaginary ‘other’. An instinctual movement towards assuaging the essential loneliness. When I become vulnerable thru trust in love, I am hoping that this other person will reciprocate this state of vulnerability. But in the process, I am revealing my fundamental loneliness and aloneness. If this other does not match the dream of love, then I feel it more deeply than I have ever felt before. The whole process is illusionary. The other person that ‘I’ am dreaming of does not exist. They can never match the dream. And vice versa as well. A sad state of affairs. This is further compounded for me because it has occurred to me that many people actually ignore or pretend that the ‘bad’ side of love does not exist. People will tell me that ‘I’ am too focused on it. But I cannot ignore it because it’s always there. Something is off with the whole business of relating with other people. And it is from this, my genuine desire for peace springs forth. My desire so far has been to uncover everything I can so that it can be in plain view. I also feel a fear behind this of ‘who do I think I am’. Like an authority telling me to sit down and shut up. VINEETO: In order to successfully ‘nip in the bud’ it’s essential to have understood the underlying patterns of the occurring feelings you want to ‘nip’. Obviously there is still some remnant investment in love, which is not surprising, as it is considered the highly-prized cure-all for loneliness and the mess of the human condition in general. You have made some significant inroads into understanding love, especially knowing that it has a ‘bad’ side. The key ingredient for feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ was, when ‘she’ investigated the pining aspect of love, ‘her’ childhood-inspired romantic dream of belonging to a man and therefrom having an iron-clad identity as a woman (A Bit of Vineeto, #love). Seeing this fact, thus abandoning the romantic dream, and reclaiming ‘her’ autonomy, was only the beginning of a longer process of weening ‘herself’ off the whole maze of female identity and man-woman relating in general. You say “The other person that ‘I’ am dreaming of does not exist. They can never match the dream.” It goes further than that, love itself can never fulfil the dream it inherently promises – it’s an empty chimera and will never bridge the separation so longed for by the lonely isolated identities who fall for love’s glamorous promise. If this fact, that love will not solve your problem of aloneness and loneliness, is allowed to sink in, as an irrefutable fact, love will lose its appeal and you can regain your autonomy and dignity as a person in your own right – and simultaneous recognize your partner’s own autonomy and dignity. It also dispenses with pining and jealousy in one fell swoop. With autonomy and dignity restored you can then naively relate to your fellow human beings in an increasingly intimate way, unilaterally. I know from experience how much a woman can appreciate intimacy, even though she may not know that this is really what she is looking for when she says she wants love. You will find out yourself when you proceed interacting with your partner in an intimate rather than loving way. (Richard, Abditorium, Intimacy, #intimacy) CHRONO: Anyways, I continued this process and due to this desolation I thought my partner would also start feeling the same way. They did not as far as I know and I actually kind of preferred this way of being over being in love. But nonetheless something else triggered possessiveness when my partner was talking with another man. I started feeling jealous and it put me in a state of muddled thinking. I nipped that in the bud. But then my partner brought up wanting to hang out with this other man and their partner. This again triggered the same feelings. This time it caused much suffering and it took some time to claw my way back out. Talking with my partner helped and they confirmed that it had been my own reaction which was making things seem the way they were. So I asked myself if I am repressing something. I genuinely wanted to know if I was but I kept going over and over thru the same old feelings. Then it became clear there was a missing ingredient: intent. I realized that I would always run thru the same old feelings unless I consistently maintained the intent to be happy and harmless. I realized that it had to be an overreaching intent that had to be weaved thru my entire life for it to work and for me to not fall back thru the same ways of being. Some things I read on here and AFT website gave me clues. I had to do my part in ‘reaching’ as much as I could towards the actual. There were some clues in my everyday life as well. I would feel good when I had the genuine intent for it. The times that I did not feel good was when doubt came thru and I was not being sincere. There was some reason or belief that was in the way that prevented it from happening. I could not pretend to feel good because it intellectually made sense, I have to genuinely want it. Otherwise the instinctual ways of being will easily override any endeavour. VINEETO: To have sincere intent is vital. I noticed an aspect in your report is about control, ‘me’ controlling ‘me’ to move into the direction ‘I’ think is right – and that approach is sudorific, at best. Even though the ingredient may be right, the outcome is still a serious enterprise of ‘you’ forcing yourself to be in a particular way. Sincerity will allow you to unlock your hidden-away-during-puberty naiveté (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Naiveté), to allow yourself to become more and more guileless, artless, ingenuous, unsophisticated, open, aboveboard, direct, frank, straightforward, child-like but with adult sensibilities. With that sincere and naïve intent you will see that suddenly life becomes easier, more fun, more allowing things to happen rather than vigilantly directing them to happen. More in the next section. Cheers Vineeto January 25 2025 VINEETO: In order to successfully ‘nip in the bud’ it’s essential to have understood the underlying patterns of the occurring feelings you want to ‘nip’. Obviously there is still some remnant investment in love, which is not surprising, as it is considered the highly-prized cure-all for loneliness and the mess of the human condition in general. CHRONO: Yes this was my understanding as well but I had not been making any further headway in clearing it up completely so that it’s just second nature to not go in that direction. I thought maybe I just had to actively nip it in the bud and that perhaps it was a habitual action in going towards love. I’ve seen the underlying patterns too many times so I thought maybe I was just being crazy to keep “investigating” it. But this in particular caught my eye: Vineeto: Seeing this fact, thus abandoning the romantic dream, and reclaiming ‘her’ autonomy, was only the beginning of a longer process of weening ‘herself’ off the whole maze of female identity and man-woman relating in general. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Chrono, 23 January 2025). Perhaps I need to go further and ween myself as well. I had noticed that love and my relation to it plays into the male identity too. When I think about it, it feels like that to be successful in love also means being successful in society in general. Those who can outwardly show that they are successful in their relationships are seen as exemplars of knowing the secret to living a happy life. And I think that coupled with the psychological authority set in place and built upon since childhood serves to create a persistent doubt that “they” know something that I don’t. VINEETO: Hi Chrono, You are very welcome. I see you already discovered more to understand love and man-woman relating from an additional aspect – the identity of being a ‘man’ in society’s eyes. This “persistent doubt” is nothing other than your social conditioning you have been subject to from an early age – of course you feel “that “they” know something that I don’t”. However, if you look more closely at the individuals who make up ‘society’, it will become obvious to you that the ‘happy’ and “successful in their relationships” façade is just that. Just study women’s magazines, watch the news, observe your neighbours and workmates, and you find that what is presented in Hollywood movies is not the whole picture. Here, for instance, are ‘Peter’s’ observation from his Journal – Peter: At this stage it may be useful to state my motives for writing. As I watch television, read newspapers, listen to people and observe the relationships of men and women around me, I see sorrow – sadness, melancholy, despair, resignation and the bitter-sweetness of love; and malice – vindictiveness, sarcasm, revenge, innuendo, gossip, jealousy, violence and hate. Nowhere do I see delight, contentment, satisfaction, benevolence, consensus and co-operation. Nor do I see any men and women living together in peace and harmony. So I thought my story could be useful to anyone who, like me, hadn’t given up yet, but who could see they had ‘nothing left to lose’ in trying something new. (Peter’s Journal, ‘Foreword’) You can find more on this topic in Peter’s Selected Writings on Living Together. (Actualism, Peter, Selected Writings, Living Together). There are also some observations at this link. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, Basic to Full Actual Freedom, #Man-Woman-Identity). The best way to explore this topic is by approaching it in a naïve way, by putting aside preconceived sophisticated ideas of what you should be like as a man or as a partner, and start exploring afresh what it is like to interact with a fellow human being who happens to be a female. You might even discover what you have in common and also what the “battle of the sexes”, the notion of a woman’s camp and a man’s camp, prevents you from finding out. With the sincere, and unilateral, intent to be happy and harmless a lot can be explored in a friendly fashion (which includes being friendly with yourself). CHRONO: I also find interesting that in one of the articles posted by Richard that lust is also described as love (lust, attraction, attachment). But most often, it is the attraction and attachment parts that are described as love. Perhaps an attempt to separate out the ‘bad’ from the ‘good’. I feel lust and attraction more often than attachment. At one point I sat with lust and attraction and it became so strong that it seemed like an overpowering desire. In the middle it felt like it was more about sexual conquest than anything to do with caring for another person. I’ve had many occasions before when I am out at a social setting with a woman I liked that I was actually in a competition in the jungle with other men trying to “win” and be better so that I may prove myself worthy of being with this woman. Even further than that it seems like it’s about vying for status everywhere I go. And behind it all then must be this instinctual desire for power. When I felt it, it also made me a little embarrassed that I had these feelings. VINEETO: Ha, it’s not easy to admit that sexual desire is happening, neither socially nor privately, so it is more coyly labelled ‘attraction’ or ‘beauty’ or ‘appeal’. It is exactly as you describe it, the law of the “jungle” where the raw instinctual passions are dictating one’s feelings and behaviour. It is advantageous that you felt “a little embarrassed” – this is the very feeling which can open the door to naiveté. Try it out, it is delicious once you overcome your first hesitation to feeling a bit foolish. CHRONO: Another aspect that may be further compounding the suffering of love for me is perhaps related to all of this. It’s tied to the male identity. Basically, if I fail at love then it means I’m a failure of society in general. Putting all of this together then it seems like it’s about “winning” and conquest rather than about any sort of peace or intimacy. Then my partner also has her own identity of what it is to be a woman. Both of this male and female identity seem to be at odds with one another. It feels like then to abandon this male identity means to abandon how I relate with women as well. This leaves that feeling of loneliness and aloneness again. […] VINEETO: Don’t give up so easily. It’s a fascinating adventure when one is involved in discovering the details of what makes up a man’s identity, and the more you discover the more it will fall away applying fascinated attention to those details. What remains is being more what you are, a fellow human being, and as I said to you before, I know from personal experience how much a woman can appreciate intimacy just as much as men do, even though she may not know that this is really what she is looking for when she says she wants love. * VINEETO: To have sincere intent is vital. I noticed an aspect in your report is about control, ‘me’ controlling ‘me’ to move into the direction ‘I’ think is right – and that approach is sudorific, at best. Even though the ingredient may be right, the outcome is still a serious enterprise of ‘you’ forcing yourself to be in a particular way. CHRONO: It’s interesting that you do notice that control aspect in the report as it’s a problem that I know I have struggled with for a long time. I have a tendency to break myself into two with one “working on” the other. It feels like it’s the only way I can “do” anything. In the beginning, even looking at feelings created a split. ‘I’ would try to make myself feel something else and it would create really great discomfort that I could feel in my body. It also highlights a fundamental confusion within ‘me’. VINEETO: Indeed, forcing or manipulating yourself to feel something you don’t feel is bound to fail. Recognize that ‘I’ am my feelings, in contrast to I have feelings which I want to control/ manoeuvre. Recognizing and acknowledging that you are your feelings you discover that you do have a choice to be felicitous and innocuous feelings (and naiveté). Also, do not attempt to investigate any problems or issues unless you are at least feeling good, if not better. Unless the actualism method is fun and easy, fascinating and adventurous, you are missing one or more of the above-mentioned vital ingredients, which can easily be corrected. Cheers Vineeto July 2 2025 SONYA: So I’ve constantly been having a few thoughts in the back of my mind that keep popping up so I thought Ill try write them down and try to figure out what’s going on with love for me. I would say largely that love is out of the picture for me. I see to an extent that love is a double edged sword and doesn’t deliver the goods. To me, it’s a heavy, serious, sickly and always made me feel icky. I would say I’ve never fallen balls deep in that kind of “romantic” love. It would “give me the ick” when someone would fall in love with me. So, when I met Kuba and he said he wasn’t interested in love that was ideal. Fast forward into our relationship, loving feelings of course began to develop for the first time. Being 19/20 and still figuring out a lot about life, this new whirl wind of feelings hit like a tonne of bricks. Kuba and I never really fed into the loving feels but they were still somewhat there for me. Of course from it arose insecurities, expectations, control etc. I found that I was losing myself to some extent, I would do things out of love and if it wasn’t reciprocated I got upset. Each time that conflict or bad feelings would come up because of love I dismissed it and brushed it under the rug. I think cause we never really talked about it and I didn’t see the sense of it to a certain extent, it never grew past a certain point but it was still there. VINEETO: Hi Sonya, You really describe well how all the feelings under the umbrella of love are actually being in the way of feeling happy and harmless, of enjoying and appreciating being alive. And then how you looked at them, and more and more discovered that it makes simply no sense to keep having the same expectations resulting in the same disappointment, because of the ‘narrative’ of love. SONYA: I did eventually manage to eliminate most of it when I realised that I was getting upset and keeping love around by relating to Kuba as my ‘boyfriend’ and being in a ‘relationship’ with him. That came with all the expectations of those roles that I put on him and myself and that included the loving feelings. I think after realising that and freeing myself from those expectations and Kuba from my expectations from him I was able to stand on my two feet a bit more and interact Kuba in a fresher way. Less expectations, more fun, light, playful. I thought the job was done. Nope I was reading “A Bit of Vineeto” today when the below clicked for me. ‘Vineeto’: … love changed into the subtler version of feeling ‘connected’ … (Actualism, Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto). VINEETO: This “feeling ‘connected’” can have different flavours, and only what prevents you from enjoying and appreciating at this moment needs to be looked at this moment. If relying on Kuba makes you insecure then you already know how you can do something about it. It’s a matter of actualising your insight. When you sharpen your affective awareness and tend to each obstacle, each interference preventing you from being gay and naïve, then you will see how the strong “feeling ‘connected’” eventually weakens and disappears altogether. It’s often only a habitual way of being which you can change once you notice it. SONYA: The main crux of love was largely diminished but I am still feeling connected to him. My feelings are still influenced by how he’s feeling. For a while I could say that I wasn’t in love with Kuba but there was something still there that was in the way of experiencing him directly without tinted glasses and I think it’s the feeling of being connected. I am not yet standing on my own two feet and still looking to Kuba to hold my hand. VINEETO: You also said – Sonya: I kinda realised that it was always like this, that ‘I’ haven’t really been making any decisions this whole time and things were just happening. It was almost like the most obvious thing ever. (20 May 2025) You can follow the lead of your “ah ha!” moment (11 June 2025) and others which came after, easing the control bit by bit, and then things start falling in place of their own, in line with your intent/ commitment “to live life with you in the most fun, exciting, wholesome, fulfilling way” (16 April 2025). SONYA: I’d like to say that I also feel like such a fraud being in very feminine spaces and not believing in love, it does feel a little lonely at times but I also know I can’t go back to believing in it after seeing it for what it is. VINEETO: That’s excellent that you know you can’t go back, and the original unfamiliarity will soon pass because you are discovering something better than “believing in love”. You can explore more and more being vitally interested, appreciate, enjoy the other’s company, be fascinated of what he or you are saying next, doing next … and explore more and more intimacy free from the burden of love. And have fun (love is really a very serious business). SONYA: For me it was seeing what someone was like when they were in love, and how someone who cared for me but wasn’t in love with me behaved. For the latter, we were both still living our own lives but didn’t fall into the typical ‘roles’ which meant less expectations and less resentment. In fact, there was just more caring and less control, manipulation. I think originally there was still some scepticism into exploring what a partnership will be like without love but I can say experientially it’s the way to go. I also had to keep in mind that we weren’t just eliminating love but replacing it with something better and care and appreciation had to be at the forefront. VINEETO: For someone who says she feels “a little lonely” for “not believing in love” you are quite eloquent in how many benefits the alternative way of relating has. Who knows, you might even infect others with stories of making a success of your partnership. Cheers Vineeto July 2 2025 SCOUT to Sonya: Really interesting to hear that the two of you are happily married without sharing the typical bond of “romantic love”. it’s also not an experience I’ve had fully mutually, and like you said it’s very dominant in the feminine narrative, so I was spoon-fed this notion that it’s the greatest thing I can possibly experience. I don’t know if it’s something I feel fully ready to move past because it’s not something I’ve seen and experienced clearly for myself yet, I’m still curious (though I am currently in an about-to-end relationship where I am seeing its uglier face). but it’s fascinating to hear about your experience of partnership without it. VINEETO: Hi Scout, As you so rightly said, love is “very dominant in the feminine narrative” with the emphasis on “narrative”. It’s a fairy tale, supported by the feeling of love itself (when you fall in love) that if only you find the right man happiness is guaranteed for the rest of your life. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ first had to examine this narrative in herself when she found out, yet again, that love had its downsides. ‘She’ knew that from previous relationships but this one, with Peter, was supposed to be working properly. Here is ‘her’ report how ‘she’ overcame the first major obstacle – ‘Vineeto’: My traditional response to the feeling of being trapped had been that the man should give me his love and reassurance. But the way to the intimacy that I had already experienced and wanted to have with Peter all the time, was that I had to question, examine and eliminate the notorious bunch of feelings called love. Peter’s description of our adventure into freedom and intimacy is certainly not just a male point of view. Did he love me enough or not, or did I love him enough or not, was not the question – I discovered that love was not the solution but the problem itself! The answer again lay 180 degrees in the opposite direction to what I had come to know up to now. I had expected or assumed someone was to love my ‘grotty self’, when even I could not stand those parts of me! A person who ‘loves me’ is supposed to accept all those ‘quirks of my personality’, which no intelligent human being would be able to put up with without blind nature’s intoxication known as ‘being in love’. And for years I had tried the same with the men I had ‘loved’, without success or happiness, let alone lasting intimacy. Intimacy can only happen when there is no emotion, no feeling or projection in the way between us. So, one of the first things that we discovered to be in the way of actual intimacy were the feelings of love – that sweet syrup that was usually poured over the spiky, malicious, miserable ‘self’, which I was most of the time! One thing that I particularly didn’t like about falling in love was the pining. Whenever I was not with Peter I felt I was tied to him on a long elastic cord and not able to fully enjoy whatever I was doing by myself. Digging into what could be the reason for my pining, I discovered what I call the ‘Cinderella-syndrome’ – the romantic dream that most women have about the perfect and noble man. We are not only looking for someone who takes care of us when our own strength fails us, but also for someone who gives perspective, meaning, definition and identity to our lives, be it as father of our kids, provider of social status, security or a purpose for life. According to this dream Peter should be the answer to the question which I wasn’t willing to face myself: ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ I remember a Monday evening after a weekend together, and I had been pining the whole day. I had not enjoyed work as I found myself struggling to get out of this exhausting dependency. Here I was, 44 years old and as silly as a teenager! After work I took a long walk across rolling hills into a spectacular sunset, trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life. In the end, I had to admit that, whatever it was, it had not the slightest thing to do with anything that Peter could do for me. I wanted to be perfect and I had to do it myself. I still had to clean myself up. Just having found a probable good mate had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn’t the best I could be; that I wasn’t free. I decided there and then to face the challenge, to abandon the love-dream and go for the actual experience – meeting another human being as intimately as possible instead of looking up to him and waiting for him to be the ‘hero of my dreams’. That very evening the situation changed. My pining stopped. The fog in the head cleared. My expectations disappeared. I could again stand on my own feet and equally enjoy the time when I was by myself. I had recovered my autonomy – my autonomy in the sense that I am the only one in my life who is responsible for my happiness. (Actualism, Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #love). There was more to come but perhaps this report appeals to you as a way of exploring why you at present don’t “feel fully ready to move past” love. Of course, to experience the benefits “of partnership without” love, love itself needs to move aside to make room for something superior to the ups and downs of love. You can utilise your present scepticism about love’s success to explore how those dreams you were “spoon-fed” are just that, dreams that never come true. Then an appreciation, a curiosity, a naïve fascination can emerge what else is possible between a man and a woman, and consideration and interested attention have room to come to the fore. As Sonya said – Sonya: I also had to keep in mind that we weren’t just eliminating love but replacing it with something better and care and appreciation had to be at the forefront. You can also check out Article Two of Richard’s Journal, page 24 to find out what else is possible, and how. Cheers Vineeto July 14 2025 JAMES: I think it’s the attachment of love that stops most from going all the way to actual freedom. I just experienced love trying to return and I faced it down again. VINEETO: Hi James, Love is indeed a strong and very seductive feeling with its inherent false guarantee to solve all problems of separation and its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. Facing “it down again” will only temporarily suppress it. If that technique had been successful the first time, the temptation to experience it again would not have returned. What you can do is to fully understand love, recognize at an experiential level (or from previous examples in your life) that the deeply felt promises always failed and recognize that at the deepest core ‘pure love’ also encapsulates ‘pure evil’, such as jealousy, possessiveness, exclusivity and revenge. Viz.: Richard: ‘(...) love is usually considered sacrosanct ... yet just as sorrow is essential for its antidotal compassion to flourish love is the antitoxin for malice: without malice, love has no raison d’être. I started to empirically encounter this, whilst sailing my yacht around tropical islands off the north-east coast of Australia with a choice companion, towards the end of 1987 and by about mid 1988 the unfolding of experience came to its inevitable realisation. Strangely enough it was the disclosure of the intrinsically manipulative nature of love – and ‘unconditional love’ at that – in 1987 which triggered the expansion of comprehension and experiential understanding of the composition of the affective faculty ... with the concomitant growth of awareness’. It was with Love Agapé being such a ‘sacred cow’ that there had initially been considerable uneasiness about a direct investigation – my initial enquiry had begun in India in 1984, whilst single and celibate, upon becoming suss about the Buddhist ‘karuna’ (pity-compassion) and ‘metta’ (loving-kindness) – hence there was a three year-long gestation period before the fact could be addressed squarely. Eventually what happened was that at anchor one velvety night with an ebbing tide chuckling its way past the hull what I then called ‘The Absolute’ presented itself as being feminine – a Radiant Being initially seen to be Pure Love – which femininity I would nowadays consider to be a product of me being of masculine gender. Due to an intensity of purpose there was the capacity to penetrate into the nature of this ‘Radiant Being’ and I was able to see ‘Her’ other face: It was Pure Evil – the Diabolical underpins the Divine – and upon such exposure ‘She’ (aka Love Agapé) disappeared forever ... nevertheless it was not until 1992 that it all came to fruition. There is a vast difference between ‘realisation’ and ‘actualisation’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 10 February 2003). JAMES: I saw what’s on the other side of freedom from love and I am in the clear. It’s freedom from the feeling of love that one has to be free from. VINEETO: If that is the case then this is magnificent – though I wonder if what you described having “faced it down again” did the trick. Perhaps this is only a short form of you telling it and not the whole story? To put is differently, now that you “faced (…) down” “the attachment of love/ “the feeling of love” has this given you the green light to “going all the way to actual freedom”? The following quote from Richard is just a reminder that “to stop feeling” is not “the way to actual freedom” – Richard: ‘Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. … (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 26 December 2000) I also recommend watching the Actualism Method Excerpt video for refreshing your memory. Cheers Vineeto October 28 2025 JAMES: I still love her. I’m never going to be free if I don’t get past that. This was a 50yr love affair. It’s been off and on for years at a time. It’s all feeling/ memory now which still lingers. I told her not to call or write anymore and that hasn’t ended the feeling/ memory. I need to see the futility of it. VINEETO: Hi James, To simply avoid the person you feel love for is not going to eliminate the feeling you have for her – on the contrary, the image you have of her can grow more rosy in absence. The first thing to figure out for you if you “need to see the futility” or if you want to do that and why. ‘You’, your ‘self’, can provide many soothing reasons to keep having sweet memories of love. Hence letting go requires the conviction of your experience of the enjoyment and appreciation of being alive now, and for instance the rememoration of your long-lasting PCE last year (James, 6 November 2024) to have something far more valuable to replace those affective memories with. Kuba said it well in his recent messages – Kuba: With the immediate reward being the wonder and amazement itself rather than any intellectual answer. I am amazed each time this flavour is tasted because it is just as wondrous every time. This flavour, what it is and where it leads is the direction I want to go in, and not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. It is what I want to do with my life. And there is a golden clew in place now back to this flavour, and it is so very worth it every time. And – Kuba: Having experienced pure intent ‘I’ can never fully forget the experience, the wheels are in motion and ‘I’ can either kid ‘myself’ or press on. So you see, “I need to” is not going to eliminate/ dissolve your feeling/ memory of love, as powerful as the feeling of love can be, you can only find the reason why love is not good enough, in fact “mere baubles”, in comparison with the rememorated or direct experience of the actual world. Richard: When one walks naked (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) in the infinitude of this actual universe there is the direct experiencing that there is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful and rapturous ‘States Of Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious that makes the ‘sacred’ a mere bauble. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe – which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent – as a physical actuality. The limpid and lucid purity and perfection of actually being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent bead of moisture with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with at length has experienced this impeccable integrity and excellence in some way or another at varying stages in their life. This preciosity is what one is as-one-is – me as I am in actuality as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ am in reality – for one is the universe’s experience of itself. Is it not impossible to conceive – and just too difficult to imagine – that this is one’s essential character? One has to be daring enough to live it – for it is both one’s audacious birth-right and one’s adventurous destiny – thus the pure consciousness experience (PCE) is but the harbinger of the potential made actual. (Richard, List B, No. 21g, 26 October 2001a). The insight you are looking for is experiential, not cognitive. Cheers Vineeto October 28 2025 ANDREW: Thanks Vineeto, It’s been great having an experience that can indeed be related back to that article! It was a favourite article back when I first was introduced to Actualism by the Dharma Overground forum. I have had the ongoing feeling that the entire background has changed. Twice, there was an ever so slight shift in perception, just upon realising something fresh with this new knowledge of ‘I’ preceding the entire mess of religion. The sky sort of blinked a slightly different colour today when walking to get some lunch. And also, this morning whilst watching cars “cut in” front of me, there was a definite sense of choice happening and a slight shift in perception. Almost like neither happened, but the feeling was as if ‘I’ could shift altogether out into the world. VINEETO: Hi Andrew, This is excellent and I am pleased you had a different experience to the article than you had years ago when you were still reading it from the DhO-paradigm. Pay attention to that “ever so slight shift in perception” because this is the beginning to your experiential understanding of what actualism is – doing whatever you can to imitate the actual world. And having discovered the “definite sense of choice happening” is your guide to change feeling bad, for whatever reason, into feeling good and enjoying and appreciating being here in this only moment you can experience being alive. Then you can begin to also apply this “sense of choice” to minimise the ‘good feelings’ as well – Richard: “the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting), along with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful)” “so that one is free to feel the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are delightful and harmonious) and thereby make a pure consciousness experience (PCE) more likely”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Jonathan, 4 January 2006). ANDREW: The choice to feel good isn’t always obvious though. That seems that I need to sort out some logistics in my life. Practical things in my living space, as they are an ever-present excuse to feel frustrated. VINEETO: When the choice to feel good is not obvious, there may be some good feelings as well as some valued beliefs you don’t want to give up and/or, as you say, some required action in regard to “sort out some logistics in my life” which you might have so far shied away from. In any case, this new “ever so slight shift in perception” which now gives you a “definite sense of choice happening” is an opening to change your life for the better. ANDREW: I will read that Apperception article again. Thanks Andrew VINEETO: It is a pleasure to read your feedback. It bodes well for imminent beneficial changes for increasing feeling good. Cheers Vineeto October 28 2025 SONYA: Hi Vineeto, I think I’m starting to realise how simple actualism is. Getting back to feeling good after noticing a trigger and enjoying/ appreciating this moment. It really isn’t much more complicated. I noticed in the past I would always get stuck trying to “explain” the feeling away which always lead to me going around in circles or eventually solidifying the feeling by some sort of mental gymnastics to feel validated for feeling bad. I noticed that because I am a feeling being I will always be invested in keeping the bad feelings around. But getting myself back to feeling good first before investigating anything helped immensely, it also made me realise that if it’s that easy to get back to feeling good, is there any sensible reason to remain feeling bad? Or keeping going back to that feeling? It isn’t a nice feeling at all. From feeling good it is much easier and clearer to sort through whatever triggered me. VINEETO: Hi Sonya, (...) And when you say “is there any sensible reason to remain feeling bad?” and find that “it isn’t a nice feeling at all” so may also discover that feeling good feelings, “the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting)” are ultimately not nice feelings either because they lead to a lot of complications, disclosed contracts and obligations. The reason is that the basic survival instincts (the instinctual passions) are the source of both ‘good feelings’ and ‘bad feelings’. Jonathan: [Richard]: What actualism – the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom – is on about is a ‘virtual freedom’ (which is not to be confused with cyber-space’s ‘virtual reality’) wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to feel good, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. I make this very clear in my writing: [snip]. What I am reading here is, ‘good feelings along with bad feelings are minimized so that one is free to feel good feelings and thereby make a PCE more likely. Could you clarify? Richard: Sure ... the [quote] ‘good’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and the [quote] ‘bad’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) whereas feeling good/ feeling happy/ feeling perfect are the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are delightful and harmonious). Jonathan: So the meditation practices blow the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions up larger than life? Richard: That is one way of putting it ... the spiritualisation process involved is essentially one of sublimation and transcendence. Jonathan: What do they do with the felicitous ones? Richard: As a generalisation: the felicitous (and innocuous) feelings are not experienced in their own right but are subsumed under the ‘good’ feelings ... felicity (and innocuity), rather than being the delightful experience of sensuosity and sensuality, then comes from feeling loving and compassionate (for instance). A conditional happiness, in other words, dependent upon the ascendancy of the ‘good’ feelings. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Jonathan, 5 January 2006) (...) What a grand time to be alive, isn’t it? Cheers Vineeto October 29 2025 VINEETO: The insight you are looking for is experiential, not cognitive. JAMES: Yes, the experience of the PCE which brings forth pure intent is what is missing. This is why love must go so as not to interfere with this experience. VINEETO: Hi James, You saying “this is why love must go” shows that you better re-read what I said in my last message – Vineeto: So you see, “I need to” is not going to eliminate/ dissolve your feeling/ memory of love, as powerful as the feeling of love can be, you can only find the reason why love is not good enough, in fact “mere baubles”, in comparison with the rememorated or direct experience of the actual world. ‘You’ cannot command your ‘self’ to do something or not do something – you would only split yourself in two and have a fight with yourself. I understand that it can be difficult to recall the memory of a PCE or to connect to pure intent when in the grip of a strong emotion. Can you get back to feeling good? If so, once feeling good, find out what is so attractive about love/ the memory of love, in a friendly not forceful way, i.e. without antagonism or blame. In a relaxed inquiry the answer will eventually come forth. Having found out the reason for love being so attractive to you, and acknowledged that ‘you’ are your feelings and your feeling are ‘you’, you can then experientially experiment with neither expressing (imagining) or repressing (“must go”) this strong feeling and contemplate, with sincere, genuine fascinated attention, about the way ‘you’ (the instinctual passions) operate. Sincerity being the key to naiveté, a third alternative might hove into view. Cheers Vineeto October 30 2025 VINEETO: Can you get back to feeling good? If so, once feeling good, find out what is so attractive about love/ the memory of love, in a friendly not forceful way, i.e. without antagonism or blame. In a relaxed inquiry the answer will eventually come forth. Having found out the reason for love being so attractive to you, and acknowledged that ‘you’ are your feelings and your feeling are ‘you’, you can then experientially experiment with neither expressing (imagining) or repressing (“must go”) this strong feeling and contemplate, with sincere, genuine fascinated attention, about the way ‘you’ (the instinctual passions) operate. Sincerity being the key to naiveté, a third alternative might hove into view. JAMES: The fact is that love is not better than the actual world. Never has been and never will be. Love is a distraction from the actual world. VINEETO: Hi James, As you said yourself in your last message “the experience of the PCE which brings forth pure intent is what is missing”, the “fact” which you state above is not experiential, hence presently ineffectual. When you are ready to investigate further why love still has a hold on you, perhaps what Chrono said today might give you some clue how to look deeper – Chrono: Why do I want this dream (of love and limerence) to be true? What is this dream composed of? I realized this past week that for the unknown path to become apparent that the belief in ALL of ‘my’ dreams would have to go. All of ‘my’ dreams were somewhere and somewhen else. They would never actually manifest here. This brought a strange sense of relief. I know at some level that I am only fooling myself with some deception. Then while leaving work and heading home I experienced a sensuousness I quite often experience at the end of the day and had a spontaneous realization that the end of ‘my’ dreams was also the end of all of ‘my’ nightmares. As Richard found out while he investigated the various components constituting his state of enlightenment – Richard: By the time I had worked my way through this philosophical dilemma [of pacificism] I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out. [Emphasis added].(Richard, Selected Correspondence, Enlightenment Resumé, #ahimsa). Cheers Vineeto October 31 2025 JAMES: Love still has a hold on ‘me’ because it is the memory of the feeling of love. As we know this feeling doesn’t last and we are back to the bad side of love with hate and all the rest of it sooner or later. VINEETO: Hi James, Who is “we”? JAMES: Nevertheless I have been thru that many times before yet the feeling persists and continues to return along with the memory. I’m thinking that if I stay with the feeling I can burn it out. I’ve never really stayed with the feeling long enuf to extinguish it. VINEETO: Whereas the actualism method is – Richard: … consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself. (…) The more one enjoys and appreciates being just here right now – to the point of excellence being the norm – the greater the likelihood of a PCE happening ... a grim and/or glum person has no chance whatsoever of allowing the magical event, which indubitably shows where everyone has being going awry, to occur. Plus any analysing and/or psychologising and/or philosophising whilst one is in the grip of debilitating feelings usually does not achieve much (other than spiralling around and around in varying degrees of despair and despondency or whatever) anyway. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive). I am reminded of the conversation you had with Richard about addiction – James: ... Would you say that an addiction is the ‘me’ trying to cling to or recreate a ‘good’ feeling? Richard: Indeed ... but there possibly is more to it than that (I was involved in a verbal discussion about this only a couple of days ago) as what may become obvious, upon closer investigation, is that ‘I’ can be as much addicted to the suffering, which ensues as the eventual result of the high evaporating, as ‘I’ am addicted to the high in the first place. Arguably more so, perhaps, despite how perverse the notion may sound at first hearing. (Richard, List B, James3, 22 October 2002 * James: Upon looking at it further it appears that I am addicted to ‘me’ (suffering) but that I am also addicted to the escapes from the ‘me’. Richard: Okay ... is the addiction to being ‘me’ stronger than the addiction to escaping from being ‘me’? I only ask because if the addiction to being ‘me’ is the more powerful addiction then successful escape is the last thing ‘I’ am looking for (and thus ‘I’ will keep on re-treading the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods). Whereas if the addiction to escaping is the more powerful addiction then successful escape can (and will) happen. (Richard, List B, James3, 1 November 2002) In other words, when you say “love still has a hold on ‘me’” is it because you hold onto love and its bitter-sweet memories? After all, ‘you’ are your feeling and your feeling are ‘you’. Cheers Vineeto November 1 2025 JAMES: As ‘we’ know was referring to you and I when I said “As we know this feeling doesn’t last”. VINEETO: Hi James, The reason the ‘we’ is not applicable because the person who knew that “this feeling doesn’t last” was feeling being ‘Vineeto’ who became extinct in January 2010. Also, that the feeling “doesn’t last” was not ‘Vineeto’s’ experience, she had to actively look into ‘her’ dreams and hopes regarding love and relationship in order to uproot love in herself – love certainly did not just disappear of its own accord. ‘She’ wrote about ‘her’ successful investigations – ‘Vineeto’: My traditional response to the feeling of being trapped had been that the man should give me his love and reassurance. But the way to the intimacy that I had already experienced and wanted to have with Peter all the time, was that I had to question, examine and eliminate the notorious bunch of feelings called love. Peter’s description of our adventure into freedom and intimacy is certainly not just a male point of view. Did he love me enough or not, or did I love him enough or not, was not the question – I discovered that love was not the solution but the problem itself! The answer again lay 180 degrees in the opposite direction to what I had come to know up to now. I had expected or assumed someone was to love my ‘grotty self’, when even I could not stand those parts of me! A person who ‘loves me’ is supposed to accept all those ‘quirks of my personality’, which no intelligent human being would be able to put up with without blind nature’s intoxication known as ‘being in love’. And for years I had tried the same with the men I had ‘loved’, without success or happiness, let alone lasting intimacy. Intimacy can only happen when there is no emotion, no feeling or projection in the way between us. So, one of the first things that we discovered to be in the way of actual intimacy were the feelings of love – that sweet syrup that was usually poured over the spiky, malicious, miserable ‘self’, which I was most of the time! One thing that I particularly didn’t like about falling in love was the pining. Whenever I was not with Peter I felt I was tied to him on a long elastic cord and not able to fully enjoy whatever I was doing by myself. Digging into what could be the reason for my pining, I discovered what I call the ‘Cinderella-syndrome’ – the romantic dream that most women have about the perfect and noble man. We are not only looking for someone who takes care of us when our own strength fails us, but also for someone who gives perspective, meaning, definition and identity to our lives, be it as father of our kids, provider of social status, security or a purpose for life. According to this dream Peter should be the answer to the question which I wasn’t willing to face myself: ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ I remember a Monday evening after a weekend together, and I had been pining the whole day. I had not enjoyed work as I found myself struggling to get out of this exhausting dependency. Here I was, 44 years old and as silly as a teenager! After work I took a long walk across rolling hills into a spectacular sunset, trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life. In the end, I had to admit that, whatever it was, it had not the slightest thing to do with anything that Peter could do for me. I wanted to be perfect and I had to do it myself. I still had to clean myself up. Just having found a probable good mate had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn’t the best I could be; that I wasn’t free. I decided there and then to face the challenge, to abandon the love-dream and go for the actual experience – meeting another human being as intimately as possible instead of looking up to him and waiting for him to be the ‘hero of my dreams’. That very evening the situation changed. My pining stopped. The fog in the head cleared. My expectations disappeared. I could again stand on my own feet and equally enjoy the time when I was by myself. I had recovered my autonomy – my autonomy in the sense that I am the only one in my life who is responsible for my happiness. (Actualism, Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #love) There is a second part to ‘Vineeto’s’ story about love, you can read it here – (Actualism, Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #love2) JAMES: Thanks for the reminder about the method. I woke up feeling good this morn with no pain and I am enjoying and appreciating. I am having fun and enjoying writing to you and I really do appreciate you. VINEETO: Great to hear you are having fun and enjoying and appreciating being alive and corresponding with me. I have reminded you about the actualism method because what you said you were doing. “Burn it out”, stayed with the feeling long enuf to extinguish it“ are your own inventions and not how Richard described the actualism method. JAMES: Yes, the quote about addiction is spot on. Toward the end of that discussion with Richard he said that what we (humanity) are addicted to is ‘me’ which is suffering so I am looking to see exactly how this works. I think this feeling of love keeps me addicted to ‘me’ or maybe ‘me’ keeps ‘me’ addicted to love. Iow: I am ‘my’ feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. VINEETO: There certainly seems to be an addictive quality to the love you experience, and the suffering that accompanies it. Remember, it’s not love’s doing (like another entity or power) but your doing. That means you can stop doing it when you find out why you keep it around by discovering which hopes and dreams are the reason for you to hold onto it. Enjoy playing Sherlock Holmes with your own mind. Cheers Vineeto
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