September 25, 2024

JAMES: Thanks for speaking frankly which is what I need. [...]

I appreciate your help and I know that you can assist me in getting to where I need to go.

JAMES: Objections to experiencing pure intent:

Pain and pain meds interfering. Loss of love to and from ex-wife and no one left. Its been too long. Old age. Sadness. Don’t know how. Realizing that my life is nearing the end.

VINEETO: Hi James,

Here is something that even with no connection to pure intent you will be able to do. Acknowledge the fact that death is inevitable, that pain and old age are part of life and especially part of your present condition.

These are facts of life; you can do nothing about them.

What you can do however, when you have some common sense and if you so choose, you can stop objecting to those facts and also you can recognize and give up the life-long habit of resentment to such facts of life.

Resentment is what turns physical pain into suffering and realizing the nearing of death into anger and fear.

You can do yourself a favour, and recognize and abandon this habitual resentment. You can also, of course, stay as you are and keep suffering. The choice is in your hands and actualism gives you that choice.

Richard: Aye ... this is something I come across almost on a daily basis and it is amazing how many people tell me that I am being ‘optimistic’, or ‘positive’, or ‘up-beat’, or that I am ‘forever trying to talk things up’. For example, I might comment upon what a great day it is and, as sure as eggs are eggs, the plighted person will find fault (even if only ‘it won’t last’) ... or I may say how marvellous it is to be living in a technologically advanced society (take contemporary surgical procedures, for instance, or current dental practice) and a whole litany of doom and gloom comes forth.

Even sitting at a caff by myself, with snippets of nearby conversations drifting by from time-to-time, it is remarkable how much of the content of social chit-chat is, as you say, gripe, grievance, complaint, and resentment ... and the last-named is the key to it all (the basic resentment of being alive in the first place).

Until one wakes up to implications and ramifications of the factuality of already being here on this planet earth anyway, whether one wants to be or not (‘I didn’t ask to be born’), one is fated to forever seek consolation and commiseration in the arms (both metaphorically and literally) of another similarly afflicted. Yet the simple fact is that, despite the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ rhetoric, one does want to be alive (else one would have committed suicide long ago) and all that it takes is to fully acknowledge this and thus unequivocally say !YES! to being here now as this flesh and blood body ... and this affirmation is an unconditional agreement/approval of life itself as-it-is.

I did not ask to be born either (truisms can be so trite) ... but I am ever-so-glad that I was. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 24Jun03)

Cheers Vineeto

October 12 2024

JAMES: Something has shifted for me recently and I am rereading messages you have written to me and seeing them anew. I just reread this message above that I am replying to and it really hit home. This part for example:

I’m still looking at what you said about resentment. I don’t really see my resentment. At least not yet.

VINEETO: Hi James,

You say you don’t really see your resentment if there is any. Richard usually refers to people’s basic resentment like this –

[Richard]: “I located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’” (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Irene, 11 October 1998)

There is more correspondence collected here (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Resentment)

Perhaps you don’t have that kind of resentment anymore but there could be minor resentments, possibly resentment about being in pain?

I know from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience that when there was pain there was also an objection/a fear of/a disapproval of feeling this pain. Once ‘Vineeto’ discovered that (and it took her a while), ‘she’ could make the deliberate choice to decline this disapproval or resentment of this particular ongoing pain (monthly cramps for instance) and the intensity of it diminished almost instantly to at least half.

I wrote about this to you before – (14.7.2024) and (25.9.2024)

Perhaps it is no longer an issue?

Cheers Vineeto

October 28 2024

IAN: I’m mishandling actualism. I recognise today that a part of me wants to be successful with actualism as a way to be lovable vs as a way to be free… applying actualism to be perfect and thereby avoid shame… to be worthy/ loved/accepted because I can’t be accused of self centred arrogance, and/or can’t be affected by shame. Good to recognise.

VINEETO: Excellent to recognize it – now you can be on the look-out should it turn up again.

Does your action of publicizing this significant discovery on the forum indicate a conscious choice to pursue actualism as your priority?

IAN: Actualism has been the ultimate goal since I had a PCE before finding the actual freedom website - whether it has always been number 1 priority is kind of a two part thing. It’s always the underlying thing, every experience gets analysed whether badly or well through the lens of actualism. I haven’t had a lot of success with enjoying and appreciating consistently (aside from a few weeks here and there where for some reason it all seems easy) but that doesn’t mean it’s not the ultimate goal. Hopefully this latest realisation will help me actually make progress. […]

The thing is I have been wanting to get to the bottom of why I feel so continuously stressed for years and I have recently cottoned on to the fact that it is less about completion of tasks (at work for example) and almost entirely about whether I feel accepted in the group. The completion of tasks is how I maintain acceptance. It seems like such a big pervasive network of beliefs that I am not sure where exactly to look.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

It seems to me that presently the actualism method is contraindicated because as yet you do not *want* to feel good for its own sake so it won’t be very successful to practice it right now.

To start with, a more practical approach would be, instead of trying to attain acceptance from everybody and their dog, for you to realize that the only person you can change is yourself. As a rational consequence you can ask why do you not accept yourself / why do you not like yourself. (It’s very difficult to make other people like you when you do not like yourself).

A first and most obvious answer is (and very common answer in fact for those honest enough to admit it) – that there is resentment – resentment of being here, of having been born in the first place and resentment for the way things are in general. It goes hand-in-glove with the belief that life is inherently bad.

Here is what Richard had to report about it – perhaps it works for you as well –

What is at the bottom of all this disapproving business is a basic resentment at having to be here in the first place (as in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ for example) and that fundamental grievance gets taken out on the universe at large.

And for as long as ‘I’ am out to prove that life sucks (by being miserable and malicious) and that being here is the pits there is no way ‘I’ am going to be happy and harmless as to do so would be to betray ‘my’ most basic feeling about it all.

I kid you not – it was one of the first things ‘I’ realised all those years ago – yet there is a simple way to be done with such nonsense forever.

Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘In 1980, ‘I’ , the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the world – and the universe itself – was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. ‘I’ felt foolish that ‘I’ had believed for thirty two years that the ‘wisdom’ of the world ‘I’ had inherited – the real world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly ... the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! (pages 240-41, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).

You will see that this is a far cry from being ‘more neutral’ about it all. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 30 September 2003).

I also recommend other examples from the Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Resentment).

Once you identified resentment and decline to nurse this futile and ineffectual feeling any longer, then *wanting* to feel good cannot be far away.

Cheers Vineeto

November 2 2024

IAN: Yes I can say although ultimately I do want to feel good, at the moment I am currently becoming aware of what I am feeling, so I suppose I am more wanting to feel what I am feeling. What the full spectrum of feelings encompasses and feels like, to feel what it is to be a complete feeling being. I had developed something like a blanket suppression order on almost all of the way I feel (therefore the way I am) and am in the careful process of uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me. I believe this is the process of accepting myself/liking myself.

VINEETO: Ok, it is certainly useful, if not ultimately imperative to become aware of the “blanket suppression” of feelings in order to feel them, get to know them, label them and then be able to dianoetically (Richard, Abditorium, Dianoetic) and sensibly contemplate if to continue experiencing them is worthwhile.

In other words, once you identified the particular feeling as what it is (anger, sorrow, worry, spitefulness, melancholy, fear, etc.) then you have a choice to either keep feeling it or to decide to put it aside in order to feel better (i.e. get back to feeling good). Then from this more dispassionate perspective you can have a good look at what was the cause/trigger for you to feel such an insalubrious feeling.

To be “uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me” you do not need to keep feeling each feeling until it subsides of its own accord (and embracing it only fuels the feeling to hang around for longer) – it is enough to recognize it and then *stop feeding* it (which may take a while to find the switch until you get the knack).

I’m not sure if you succeed in liking yourself as long as you nurture, i.e. feed, malice and sorrow in your bosom. ‘Vineeto’ certainly couldn’t until she had a clear third alternative. She continued to feel bad via either suppressing or expressing her feelings as she had been taught by new-age therapists during her spiritualist years.

IAN: I don’t like myself because I can be scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning. I am slowly welcoming those parts of me I have rejected, with the right mind I can recognise those parts are natural and appropriate for a feeling being to feel (putting aside the question as to the appropriateness of expressing or acting on them). Appropriate also doesn’t mean sensible - expected might be a better word. That is if I feel something, it’s not for no reason, nor is it an anomaly of experience. For example – it makes sense for an animal to feel like it is powerful and competent - why wouldn’t it. It seems fundamental that a creature should not doubt its ability to do and achieve what is required for survival. The odd thing is that a creature would feel like those feelings must be suppressed or hidden, but again this is about survival in the group so if the creature feels more safe (achieves homeostasis) by not expressing those feelings whether through training by peers or life experience then that would make sense that suppression occurs.

VINEETO: All this can be summed up by acknowledging the fact that you, like everyone else, was born this way and it is not your fault that you are “scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning”. But, being equipped with intelligence you certainly don’t have to stay that way and you don’t have to *accept* the way you were born (the belief that you can’t change human nature). You can stop following the “tried and failed” template of the wisdom of the real world.

Richard: “I tried my best to make their system work to produce the optimum result ... but to no avail. Only then did I make the first and most important movement of my own volition ... I discarded the ‘tried and true’ as being the ‘tried and failed’.” (Richard, List A, No. 26)

Hence instead of “welcoming” those insalubrious feelings you can decide to change them (without suppressing nor expressing them). (see: (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression).

IAN: Cognitively, I understand that I can only change myself; emotionally, I want everything else to change – so there is something missing in my understanding (did feeling-being Vineeto experience something like this?). I do feel sad and angry and scared when I think about ‘the way things are in general’. I find myself thinking/feeling things like ‘life just gets worse and worse’ or ‘it’s just one thing after another’ or ‘what’s the point, it’s just never going to change’. I think these point to a belief that I have adopted or developed over the years, that life is somehow impossible to enjoy.

VINEETO: ‘Vineeto’ experienced this ‘wanting others or things to change’ but quickly put it aside as non-sensical once she started practising actualism. It’s an automatic reaction which, once recognized, need not be perpetuated. What you describe is exactly what is meant by the word resentment –

• Resentment: indignation or ill will stemming from a feeling of having been wronged or offended. (American Heritage Dictionary)

• Resentment: a feeling of anger or unhappiness about something that you think is unfair (Oxford Dictionary)

• Resentment: a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury (Merriam-Webster.com)

• Resentment: Opposite: appreciation, contentment, satisfaction, […] (Onelook Dictionary)

As such my previous advice to you still stands – as long as you consider feeling resentment being an appropriate response (and that includes “welcoming those parts of me”), no change can be evinced. You seem to have fallen for therapeutic humbug – now that there is a third alternative to suppressing or expressing (including “welcoming”) this real-world advice is superseded.

So when you say further down – “I want to decline this resentment but in the past I have only succeeded in suppressing – is there anything I can do to bridge the gap between realising something and actualising it” – you can only decline something when you have 1) recognized it, 2) acknowledged it and 3) understood it. Hence you first need to recognize that it is operating in every complaint you have with the world you live in.

Cheers Vineeto

December 6 2024

JAMES: The wheels have come off. ‘I’ am depressed.

VINEETO: Alternatively you can look for the trigger which caused you to be depressed. It may just be a habitual reaction which you could easily decline to obey any longer. […]

Also you can remember the 2 takeaways which got you back to feeling excellent a month ago –

James: 2) I am the experience of what is happening.

JAMES: The trigger was the painful condition of my back and not seeing anyway for it to get better and that it can only get worse.

The fact is the pain is tolerable with the pain meds and my new back doctor might can help me. The name of his practice is Texas Intervention Pain Care so maybe he can intervene although I can’t see it. I need to be patient and give him a chance. Patience is the key.

My motivation is my memory of the actual world. I can get back to feeling good by getting a good night of sleep and start eating better and doing what exercise I can to strengthen the core of my back like he told me to do.

VINEETO: Hi James,

According to the sequence of what you wrote, the trigger is not the pain itself but your emotional reaction to it. This is called resentment. You had the pain for a long time and it waxes and wanes, that is the nature of your particular condition. Of course, you do whatever is practical and possible regarding the physical condition. However, it is your resentment about having the pain in the first place, which acerbates it and feeds ‘me’, it feeds your feeling bad and angry about the pain.

Or you can change being resentful and angry because you acknowledge that are your feelings. I had feedback from several other people who have given up their resentment with instant success including diminishment of pain for some, after understanding this simple mechanism that one can change one’s affective outlook on life when recognizing that ‘I’ am my feelings.

Richard lived with his severe back pain for about a decade, after the pain medication stopped working. I never ever heard him complain about it nor did he stop enjoying and appreciating being alive.

You do not have to be depressed, unless you choose to be.

Cheers Vineeto

December 8 2024

IAN: More on the seeing of resentment/ injustice/ unfairness/ unhappiness/ rejection/ confusion/ desperation.

To be able to see the silliness required willingness to change myself/be changed by facts combined with the recognition that emotions and moods are merely habitual, that I am not necessary for anything to continue happening, that the actual world exists, and a desire to increase my enjoyment of being alive.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

You are in fine form today, including your follow-up posts. A very enjoyable read.

You have indeed laid bare the whole structure of resentment and why so many people decide to hold onto it and more so, so many people don’t even recognize it as the underlying attitude which shapes their lives and obstructs their “ability to enjoy and appreciate”. And not only have you laid it bare but described it in so much detail how to allow it to atrophy that whoever wants to can do the same.

When feeling being Richard embarked on his adventure to live the perfection of his four-hour PCE for the rest of his life, he had little difficulty in recognizing and giving up resentment, hence it is not even mentioned in the description of the actualism method, and a lot of people overlooked how vital it is to tackle resentment in order to successfully enjoy and appreciate being alive –

• Richard: Speaking personally, the first thing I did in 1981 was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then I was freed enough to live in virtual freedom. It took me about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for I located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind ... that basic resentment goes. Then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger forever. Richard, Actual Freedom List, Irene, 11 October 1998)

He did however write about how in order to renounce resentment it is also necessary to do away with gratitude, because they are two sides of the same coin –

• Richard: Renouncing resentment obviates the need to apply the commonly accepted antidote: gratitude. Gratitude is one of the many ploys designed, by those who expound on the merits of self-imposed suffering, to keep one in servile ignominy and creeping despair. As strange as it may initially seem, gratitude has the same deleterious effect upon one’s well-being as the resentment it seeks to reform. When gratitude is realised as being the panacea that it is, one will gladly renounce it along with the resentment it promises to replace. To successfully dispense with the despised resentment, its companion emotion, the extolled gratitude, must also go. It is a popular misconception that one can do away with a ‘bad’ emotion whilst hanging on to the ‘good’ one. In actualism the third alternative always applies. Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Sin, Hope and Despair, Gratitude and Resentment, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity. (Library, Topics, Hope)

IAN: And it was discovered by being purposefully attentive to the subtleties of how I was experiencing the moment of being alive – funny that. 

VINEETO: Brilliant.

Cheers Vineeto

December 15, 2024

VINEETO: To “be generous with this body” doesn’t make much sense to me – when you take care of your affective moods your body benefits automatically. What is beneficial is to be a friend to yourself and not blame yourself for what you discover about yourself.

Also, there is no such thing as “true actual reality”

JESUSCARLOS: Thank you Vineeto ! Got it.

Not only did I express my ideas wrongly, but, as you say, I wasn’t looking at the problem correctly. It makes total sense to me what you suggest I rectify. I need to go deeper into my research to detect what exactly is the cause of my stress and anxiety. I know it’s me, both as an ego and a soul. But more than knowing it intellectually I need to see it experientially. Now I can see that I lost the connection with pure intent and I am simply operating from the old habits that I already know and are useful to me to defend myself in the jungle.

VINEETO: Hi JesusCarlos,

You are right, intellectually knowing is not enough, you need to understand how your mind, i.e. your feelings and being, ticks. Again, the actualism method is of great help – paying ongoing affective attention to how you experience yourself informs you what diminished feeling good. You find what triggered this diminishment and get back to feeling good. Then you have a look at the problem.

It may just be a habitual response and will disappear when you decide to decline to go along with it. In the long run none of those “old habits” “are useful to me to defend myself in the jungle” because they only perpetuate the conflict and therefore you are feeling worried and stressful. Remember that by acknowledging that you are your feelings to are able to change how you feel.

Or you find that it is a more complex pattern, then you nut out why you consider the world a jungle, why you feel that you have to protect/ defend yourself, in other words protect /defend the feeling being inside your flesh-and-blood body, thereby harming it by stress.

For instance, you can ponder/ feel out if resentment plays a part, like Claudiu discovered. The other helpful thing to keep in mind is to be a friend to yourself and don’t blame yourself for anything you might discover in the depth of your psyche – it’s all par for the course since we all do this business of being alive for the first time.

Cheers Vineeto

December 20, 2024

JESUSCARLOS: Yesterday I had a fundamentally bad time. At times neutral. But very rarely good. Let’s not say very good. This is in stark contrast to my experience on Tuesday night, where I deeply contacted my naivety and experienced a lot of pleasure in simply being alive. Today I woke up again with physical (I think I have a flu) and emotional discomfort. But within these few hours of the morning, I was able to feel good again. And I remember again how it is essential to make the decision to feel good, to choose to feel good and not follow old inclinations. It is a habit that I must overcome and now that I feel better I can observe it more carefully: I have resentment for the simple fact of being alive and that things are not always the way “I” want them. It may help to analyze why I want what I want, but if I look closer, I recognize that what I want is recognition. I long for recognition. I won’t say more because I will be observing that need throughout the day and finding a way to free myself from it.

VINEETO: Hi JesusCarlos,

This reaction seems quite natural. I see that in your previous post you said –

JesusCarlos: But this began to happen after rereading this wonderful text: (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Ian, 16 December 2024) and Claudiu and Kuba’s last reflections, regarding how unnecessary I am now. […]

Isn’t it amazing that you were be able to so quickly “feel good again”, due to having made “the decision to feel good”.

Longing “for recognition” is not something superficial, it is an inbuilt feature of the human condition. You not only “long for recognition”, ‘you’ need it for ‘your’ very existence. ‘You’, the identity’, being a contingent ‘being’, cannot exist on ‘your’ own – ‘you’ require constant confirmation to justify and confirm ‘your’ existence, else ‘your’ non-substantial nature will become apparent. With this comes a desire to hide and a fear of being exposed as a fraud, an impostor. I remember feeling being ‘Vineeto’s’ reaction to this alarming discovery quite well.

‘Vineeto’: … this guilt of ‘being a being’ is intrinsic to every human being. The only way I became aware of this basic layer of guilt of being a ‘self’ was by repeated exposure to the perfection, purity and innocence as experienced in a ‘self’-less PCE. The more I experience purity and perfection, when this flesh and blood body is free from any identity whatsoever, the more I know, as soon as ‘I’ return, that ‘I’ am a fraud, an intruder, an alien entity, a fake – I undeniably know that ‘I’ am not the genuine article. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 38c, 28.8.2002)..

‘Vineeto’: Once I made the commitment to become free ‘I’ then agreed to be discovered and to be dismantled … and there is an inherent joy and relief in no longer having to hide that ‘I’ am in fact a fraud. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 32b, 6.3.2005)

Richard: Fear – existential angst at finding oneself to be the contingent ‘being’ one always suspected oneself to be – is both the barrier and the way to freedom. Always included in fear is a thrilling aspect, and by focussing upon this and not fear itself, an energy gathers momentum which does the trick for one (thrilling as in an exciting sensation through the body, stirring, stimulating, electrifying, rousing, moving, gripping, hair-raising, riveting, joyful, pleasing, throbbing, trembling, tremulous, quivering, shivering, fluttering, shuddering and vibrating).
‘I’ cannot set ‘myself’ free ... but ‘I’ can set in motion a process that will lead to ‘my’ eventual demise. (Richard, List B, 12a, 18 July 1998)

So you see, you discovered straight away what the solution to longing “for recognition” will ultimately be.

Cheers Vineeto

December 23 2024

SCOUT: Being affectively attentive is very painful and exhausting. If I do not suppress or indulge sometimes it still takes literally hours for even neutrality to emerge, and it is pretty fleeting before the next wave of feelings arise. I am agitated and exhausted and in physical pain pretty often, and inviting even more pain by not dissociating when stuff comes up feels like a rough prospect. I recurrently fall back to numbing, because the effort of paying attention to the pain in the way I need to in order for it to pass and not puppet my reactions is daunting and slow to pay dividends.

Of course the numbing does not pay dividends at all, quite the opposite, but in the moment I am beyond grateful to be relieved from the pain, if only for a little.

VINEETO: Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting“? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it?

Either way, first, stop the habitual response – stop fighting your pain and stop fighting the feelings you experience. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings and the [somatic] pain by increasing the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by being afraid of it), it instantly diminished.

From there, seeing the success of stopping the battle against yourself, you might be able to get to a reasonable feeling good, a little better than neutral.

Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here. Then whenever you get a chance, explore this resentment a bit further –

• [Richard]: ‘Back in 1980 ‘I’ looked at the stars one night and temporarily came to my senses: there are galaxies exploding/ imploding (or whatever) all throughout the physical infinitude where an immeasurable quantity of matter is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time and ‘I’ – puny, pathetic ‘I’ in an ant-like-in-comparison and very vulnerable 6’2’’ flesh and blood body – disapprove of all this? That is, ‘I’ call all this a ‘sick joke’, or whatever depreciative assessment? And further: so what if ‘I’ were to do an about-face and graciously approve? What difference would that make to the universe?

Zilch. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 10, 25 May 2000).

Once you become fairly confident with these two aspects via experiential confirmation (the only proof which counts) you can have a look at how to change how you feel. It requires giving up dissociation, even if only temporarily, until you become more confident. Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive. Here one of Richard’s co-respondents explains this in detail –

Respondent: ... incidentally, Richard, how can they be ‘an hereditary occurrence’ and be of my choosing at the same time?

Richard: You do comprehend that you are your feelings/ your feelings are you (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’) do you not? Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between *having* feelings and *being* those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.

This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something“ about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I *am* the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.

This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.

I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST).

And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 30 October 2005a).

Let me know how you go.

Cheers Vineeto

December 24 2024

VINEETO: Are you saying that the moment you become aware how you experience yourself, the fact of being aware makes the experience “painful and exhausting”? Or has it been like that all along, and you were refusing to/afraid to acknowledge it?

SCOUT: The latter, but lending it attention makes the pain feel more acute than numbing it (even though I remain low-grade agitated while numbing too). I’ve been trying to work on not fighting it, it’s just hard bc if I don’t it feels kind of overwhelming.

VINEETO: Hi Scout,

I understand that it is hard to get an entry into the actualism method when you have a long-habituated response to fear and pain and all other unpleasant feelings. The thing is if you want to get better, you will have to start somewhere, and your entry is to allow yourself to feel, so that you can notice how you fight this feeling … and then consciously stop resisting, fighting, complaining, rejecting it. Unless you actually do it, you can never find out if the feeling itself diminishes when you stop fighting it, or not.

*

VINEETO: Then have a look at your resentment. Perhaps you can see (to a small degree at first) how silly it is to waste energy in objecting to being here, since it is a fact that you are here.

SCOUT: Yea I feel resentment a lot. I’m unable to work even a kind of chill home job right now bc I have been dealing with some weird medical symptoms that leave me constantly fatigued and slight stress provokes sometimes scary symptoms. I’m scared I won’t be able to support myself, but I’m also scared that things will get worse if I keep working since that’s been the trajectory thus far. I’m decently young too so most of my peers are out enjoying their lives and I’m in bed a lot of the time, I know comparatives aren’t helpful but I really wish I could function normally and that basic stuff like eating wasn’t a source of constant pain.

I don’t think any of these feelings are serving me in getting better. But it feels like I can’t help it; when I sit with myself long enough I cry like a scared child in pain.

VINEETO: Ok, resentment is a form of socially accepted anger (mostly turned in on oneself), and must have been brewing for a long time … so long that, not dealing with it, you developed psycho-somatic “scary symptoms” and aren’t able to earn a living. Therefore, this too seems to be a rather urgent topic to tackle sooner rather than later.

Now that you acknowledge that resentment operates in you, you can go ahead and sincerely and dispassionately contemplate what the benefits and damages are that resentment creates. It must be fairly obvious to you that the harm outweighs the benefits by a large margin, no? A sincere and clear seeing of this fact will evince action (if/when there be sincere intent to be happy and harmless).

Claudiu made a very perspicacious observation –

Claudiu: But if you want to maintain feelings of justified resentment and woe is me, then you will reject the new habits, via often clever and cunning mechanisms like saying it’s too hard or doesn’t really work or only works for some people etc. This lets you continue in your old ways, which you know don’t work, but this way you can maintain a self-image that it’s out of your control and nothing you can do about it.

VINEETO: Once you genuinely recognize and acknowledge that ‘you’ are your feelings (including your feelings about pain) then you find that you do have a choice about how you want to experience being alive.

SCOUT: I can’t see this clearly yet honestly. I see that I do have a choice as to whether to engage narratives around certain feelings with my attention, and that if I stop giving those narratives attention then the feelings lose their edge, and diminish sooner. I don’t feel in control of what emotions arise in a given moment at all, just in how I respond to them.

I’ll keep exploring. I appreciate the engagement.

VINEETO: You are welcome.

You are indeed not “in control of what emotions arise” but you constantly try to be in control by fighting and objecting and resenting all these unwanted feelings which arise. Wanting to be in control requires a ‘controller’ and something to be ‘controlled’ (your feelings). Therefore you split yourself into two – a form of dissociation (additionally to the dissociation of suppressing the feelings themselves).

When this dissociation stops (via personal insight into this self-inflicted phenomenon) then you can experientially grasp that the whole process (controller and controlled) is ‘you’, the psychological and psychic-emotional identity trying to prevent ‘you’ from changing the status quo.

Perhaps you first need to succeed in not fighting nor suppressing unwanted feelings (and experience how they diminish when you don’t feed them by objecting) before you can grasp experientially that you don’t have feelings but that you are your feelings and that your feeling are ‘you’, the passionate instinctual identity.

Cheers Vineeto

March 4 2025

JAMES: My current objection to pure intent and self-immolation: How can I experience pure intent and self-immolation when I am hurting all the time?

VINEETO: Hi James,

Regarding your pain, you can start by ceasing to emotionally object to the pain. By fighting the pain you give it additional energy with your affective objection and thus add suffering to physical hurt.

Richard: Every moment again is an occasion to improve your lot ... when you are interacting with someone, either face to face or on the telephone ... or a back-ache: ‘Oh god, how terrible!’ ... another opportunity. It is bad enough to feel pain, why make it worse by adding an emotional suffering like ‘I feel terrible’? To feel terrible, emotionally, on top of the physical pain is simply silly when it is possible to disentangle oneself, emotionally, and still feel good about being alive, about being here. This is being sensible, is it not? To feel good, if not happy, all the time? (Richard, Audio-Taped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible).

You recently wrote in Claudiu’s Journal –

James (to Claudiu): In your day to day experience when you are not in a pce do you want self-immolation more than you want your significant other or your work and career?

I don’t recall wanting self-immolation like that? Right now I want to be healthy more than I want self-immolation. Of course I am not in a PCE.

You made it clear, that “to be healthy” is your top priority. However, if you do not consider self-immolation as your top priority you can nevertheless choose to live in virtual freedom –

Richard: What the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about is a virtual freedom 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 well, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. If one minimises the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings – happiness, delight, appreciation, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on – in conjunction with sensuousness – then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness.

If it does not ... then one is way ahead of normal human expectations anyway as the aim is to enjoy and appreciate being here now for as much as is possible.

It is a win/win situation. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 19e, 26 December 2000)

For experiencing Virtual Freedom “the first and crucial step” is to get rid of resentment. If, for instance, you prefer to complain about/ resent an obvious fact of life that one can only be as healthy as one is at this moment of being alive (with the available help of modern medicine) then that would be a sheer waste of this moment of being alive –

Richard: … the first thing ‘I’ did, in January 1981, was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then ‘I’ was freed enough to live in an ad hoc virtual freedom. It took ‘me’ about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first and crucial step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for ‘I’ located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’

This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind, that basic resentment vanishes forever, and then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger once and for all. One does this by neither expressing or repressing anger when an event happens that would previously trigger an outbreak. Anger is thus put into a bind, and the third alternative hoves into view, dispensing with the hostility that is a large part of ‘I’ the aggressive psychological entity, and gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more selflessly motivated. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric ... the humanitarian ideals of peace, kindness, caring, benevolence and humaneness become more and more evident as an actuality. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List B, No. 34b, 11 July 1999).

Does this clarify, and perhaps simplify, things for you?

Cheers Vineeto

April 4 2025

VINEETO: As is now the second time that you used the word “gatekeeping” I wonder if there is perhaps an emotional issue/ investment for you such as frustration that you have trouble to experience a PCE or a resentment against authority? So that this post doesn’t get too long, I simply refer you to a link, if you discover that this is the case. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Basic to Full Freedom, #Authority).

JOSEF: Yes, I am frustrated that I haven’t been able to have a PCE after the one you linked later on in the post. This was a drug-induced PCE, so for me it doesn’t feel “solid” or “clean” and I seriously doubt its veracity.

VINEETO: Hi Josef,

I appreciate your reply.

The feeling of frustration falls in the category of resentment, and anger, and is certainly interfering with feeling good. I perfectly understand from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience how it feels and why it is happening but it is nevertheless an emotional occurrence that is advisable to not only to look at but to do away with altogether (resentment against, or blaming anything or anyone (including yourself) for apparently standing in the way of what ‘you’ want).

Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition ... if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).

Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27c, 9 September 2002).

You see, when you understand resentment this way, as a complaint/ blame to divert attention from ‘you’ (the only person you can change), then it may be easier to see that it is silly to maintain this automatic reaction/ habit. Focussing the attention to where it belongs, the fact of being resentment, at the time of experiencing it, the very attention allows you to be felicitous instead (it’s often not even a decision but a natural consequence, just as you stop wiggling your toes the moment you become aware of it).

Then, feeling good, you can check what is behind or underneath the frustration – perhaps impatience, or perhaps the conviction it’s your right to have a PCE now because …, or any other ‘self’-generated belief, attitude or principle. And it could be this very resentment standing in the way of allowing a PCE to happen. (see also How do I Induce a PCE and Delightment).

Cheers Vineeto

April 5 2025

VINEETO: You see, when you understand resentment this way, as a complaint/ blame to divert attention from ‘you’ (the only person you can change), then it may be easier to see that it is silly to maintain this automatic reaction/ habit. Focussing the attention to where it belongs, the fact of being resentment, at the time of experiencing it, the very attention allows you to be felicitous instead (it’s often not even a decision but a natural consequence, just as you stop wiggling your toes the moment you become aware of it).

Then, feeling good, you can check what is behind or underneath the frustration – perhaps impatience, or perhaps the conviction it’s your right to have a PCE now because …, or any other ‘self’-generated belief, attitude or principle. And it could be this very resentment standing in the way of allowing a PCE to happen. (see also How do I Induce a PCE and Delightment).

JOSEF: Yes, I am starting to focus on this resentment and tackle it. It’s not just about this PCE, but I can see that my general approach to life is also filled with resentment. I’m mired in a world of “shoulds”; things that I have to do rather want to do. I view work like this, as well as most things besides anything that has quick gratification (e.g. playing video games, eating delicious food).

VINEETO: Hi Josef,

This is a great description of resentment if there ever was. However, you cannot ‘get rid’ of resentment by rejection of having one emotion and choose having another like changing black chess-pieces with white ones.

Now that you acknowledged that you experience resentment, the first thing is to stop fighting it and stop blaming yourself as well. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings by increasing the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by objecting to it), it instantly diminished. Then you can more easily get back to feeling good and from this vantage point contemplate for instance what Claudiu wrote to you and what other habitual attitudes will be worth paying attention to, so that this resentment is no longer dominating your mood/ your life. Doing this, each time you notice resentment creeping in, you have a much better chance of enjoying what you are doing (yes, even working for sustaining yourself) and appreciating this moment of being alive. It also helps to put everything on a preference basis –

Richard: I did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that ... it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry ... or even irritated ... or even peeved. (Richard, List B, No. 12a, 16 July 1998)

JOSEF: Seems like I’m being dragged around by my life rather directing it. I desire the opposite. I want to be here, to enjoy living in this moment. But it’s clear to me that that is not what I am being at all. Even the specifics of my life don’t seem to matter much, as this attitude is all encompassing and will use anything undesirable as an excuse to fuel the resentment of being alive.

VINEETO: You say you are being “dragged around by my life” when in fact you are dragged around by your feelings (like most people are). The difference to most people is that you have the opportunity to pay diligent attention to whichever feelings prevent you from feeling good, from being happy and harmless, and this very attention and awareness of being the feeling allows you to choose to being a different affective experience. It is important not to keep your undesired feelings at arms length but to acknowledge that this is who you are as a feeling being. This very awareness that you are your feelings allows you to choose to be the felicitous feelings instead.

When you say I don’t want to be resentful – “I desire the opposite. I want to be here, to enjoy living in this moment” you are misunderstanding what being happy and enjoying living means. Being (unconditionally) happy is what happens when there are no obstacles in the way for being happy. Just watch young children. They are happy and full of energy – unless something is amiss. As soon as parents fix/ provide what is amiss (change diapers, provide food, plaster on the scratched knee, etc.) their good mood returns. You can do the same – pay attention to what you experience affectively and then decline/ dissolve the obstacles to feeling good and feeling good returns. Then you take note of the trigger which brought up the obstacle in the first place and sort it out, so it won’t interfere with your feeling good at the next occasion.

*

VINEETO: It could be that when you say today, almost three years after the PCE, that “it doesn’t feel ”solid“ or ”clean“ and I seriously doubt its veracity”, this interpretation may well be from ‘me’ having taken over full control again over your memory of the PCE.

JOSEF: I was thinking about this, and there may be some truth to it. When I rememorate the EE, there’s something to latch onto, namely those felicitous and innocuous feelings which are still affective. But when I think of the PCE, there’s nothing because I was so minimized. I don’t even know how to remember it, so I guess in my cynicism I resolved that it’s best to not even try.
I will try and rememorate the PCE.

VINEETO: This cynicism seems to permeate many areas of your life – it will be a big change for the better when you pay close attention to it. It may have been the single-most deciding factor that no PCEs have happened for a while. Cynicism is the very antithesis of naiveté.

I wish you best of success in rediscovering your naiveté.

Cheers Vineeto

July 11 2025

ALEXANDER: Yes. Resentment is something I look at a lot because I have a lot of it. I don’t feel it towards religious people anymore for the reasons you laid out, namely that we are all in the grip of instinctual passions.

VINEETO: Hi Alexander,

So now that you know how to drop resentment for one issue, by the same means it is easy to drop any other resentment each time you become aware of one. It is immensely liberating to take charge of your life in that you don’t blame other people and outside events to how you feel.

ALEXANDER: I even think Christianity keeps some people in line to a degree. And I have fond memories of church as well. The communal feelings I shared with people doing their best to live a ‘good’ life.

VINEETO: It is the widespread "truth" that good can conquer evil if one only tries hard enough. This has been tried (and failed) for centuries, millennia in fact, and yet the prevalence of misery and mayhem is still the same. The reason is that good and evil are two sides of the same coin and both arise out of the instinctual animal passions – fear and aggression, nurture and desire.

ALEXANDER: One thing I’m not sure I understand from the above quote where Richard asks "Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?" Is he recommending emotional acceptance? What does that look like? To be happy and harmless come what may?

VINEETO: Only yesterday I wrote to Chrono about this question –

Chrono: Or also to put another way, how can I emotionally accept the suffering of humanity (I am assuming this is what is meant in the ‘how can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?’)?

Vineeto: Emotionally accepting means to give up resenting that it’s happening or blaming others for it happening when/ if you can acknowledge that everyone (of no fault of their own) is inflicted with the same instinctual passions as you are. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Chrono, 10 Jul 2025)

You see, you are already on the right track with giving up resentment in one area. Now apply the same tool the moment you become affectively aware that you blame someone/ something else for feeling bad and see how silly that is to spoil your only moment of being alive by feeling bad. Some people even blame the weather for feeling bad!

While it is silly to tolerate war, rape, murder, child abuse and domestic violence, for instance – it would be an insult to your own intelligence – it makes no sense to emotionally suffer that such events are happening due to the human condition. It would only add more suffering and anger with no beneficial outcome. Whereas when you are able to emotionally accept the intellectually unacceptable and succeed in feeling good, or even enjoy and appreciate being alive, you add enjoyment and appreciation for yourself and others (which is far more felicitous and beneficial than resentment).

ALEXANDER: I think you are right about my resentment needing a target to blame. And maybe God is just a way of personifying a universe that I don’t emotionally accept. I once heard someone say "I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him". The instinctual self really is like a frightened animal.

VINEETO: When you become affectively aware of this fear again, instead of blaming it on a fictitious entity, stop rejecting/ fighting the fear and thus stop fuelling the affective energy. See if you can loosen the control a bit, allowing the fear to just be there and you will notice how it diminishes simply by not objecting to it. From there is only a hop and a jump to feeling ok/ feeling good, and then you can explore more closely what it is made of. It’s the automatic habit of rejection which makes it appear so big.

Richard: Usually the frightening aspect dominates and obscures the thrilling aspect: shifting one’s attention to the thrilling aspect (I often said jokingly that it is down at the bottom left-hand side) will increase the thrill and decrease the fright as the energy of fear shifts its focus and changes into a higher gear ... and, as courage is sourced in the thrilling part of fear, the daring to proceed will intensify of its own accord.

But stay with the thrill, by being the thrill, else the fright takes over, daring dissipates, and back out of the corner you come. (Richard, List B, James3, 7 November 2002).

ALEXANDER: For the most part I don’t think about my negative experiences with religion but I get emotionally triggered when people bring it up. But I’m not combative with people the way I once was. The people who indoctrinated me were themselves indoctrinated.

It seems even though you generally don’t like resenting religion, hearing about still triggers a negative habitual reaction. It takes diligent attentiveness with the sincere intent to become free from that habitual reaction (in order to be more happy and harmless), to recognize it happening and then replace it instead with delighting in being alive in this only moment you can actually experience.

Cheers Vineeto