EMP: Thank you for this timely reminder Vineeto. I probably mistranslated “appreciate” to a more anaemic word in my mind and then proceeded to run with it for a good 15 years.

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

You very likely did – something like ‘noticing in a positive way’. Never mind you used the anaemic meaning for 15 years – it’s always great to start afresh with a new insight and enjoy that it works.

To emphasize how significant the word "appreciate”/ "appreciation” is, to everyone who had similar misconceptions about it, let me start by saying that it appears five times in the running banners of "This Moment of Being Alive” – the very article that has the succinct instructions how to become free from the human condition –

[Richard]: –

“Consistently enjoying and *appreciating* this moment of being alive is the actualism method.”

“The means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and *appreciation* – are no different to the end.”

“Enjoyment and *appreciation* are facilitated by feeling as happy and as harmless as possible.”

“A slightest diminishment of enjoyment and *appreciation* automatically activates attentiveness.”

“Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and *appreciation* restores felicity/innocuity.”

“Consistently enjoying and *appreciating* this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is.”

Appreciation is the most potent aspect of the actualism method because as I said before – it "is the very key to *exponentially* increase the level of your enjoyment, expand it in scope and depth" […] to the point of excellence being the norm. It is the key to upgrade your "hedonic adaptation set-point" from feeling grumpy, to feeling neutral, to feeling good and to feeling excellent as the new set-point to fall back upon, so that even when ‘you’ come back from a PCE you no longer fall back to feeling neutral, but you ‘fall back’ to feeling excellent. Consistently appreciating the world and people and events around you can and will enable you to reset your genetically/socially inherited hedonic set-point.

EMP: It took me until about a month ago to realize that it’s anything but anaemic. It’s funny how this understanding has leaked through lately even though I’ve been bad at actively engaging it (down to getting comments about how positive I am, which is as close to a personality transplant as you’d get).

VINEETO: It seems to have already worked marvellous for you, Emp – “a personality transplant” is no small thing to bring about. Now when you do it more actively and consciously, perhaps even as a deliberate decision and commitment to feel good/excellent for the rest of your life, it will be even more of a palpable “personality transplant” beyond recognition of the old Emp.

And it is such fun!

Cheers Vineeto

July 29 2024

EMP: Hmm, I really need to get going, don’t I? Don’t wanna be stuck in the bathroom while the rest of you go for destiny. ;-)(If you know, you know). 

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

That is a very good insight and well worth putting into action.

Women can become as easily actually free as men, and given that I am a female myself, who has gone all the way, perhaps Richard’s record of how ‘Vineeto’ went about this may strike a chord with you.

[Richard]: […] As Vineeto’s reports/ descriptions/ explanations of a near-actual caring are scattered throughout her ‘Direct Route Mail-Out’ emails some background details presented numerically will aid clarity in communication.

1. When feeling-being ‘Vineeto’s everyday feeling of caring first shifted into what has since become known as a near-actual caring the qualitative difference was so marked in its effect ‘she’ initially mistook it to be an actual caring (as per ‘her’ memories of PCE’s).

2. This shift occurred when ‘she’ transitioned from ‘her’ pragmatic, methodological virtual freedom into being out-from-control – a dynamic, destinal virtual freedom – for the remaining four-and-a-half weeks of ‘her’ life (albeit with a melodramatic three-day out-of-control interlude towards the end).

3. Due to ‘her’ naïve intent to be as intimate and without prejudice as possible – which, in conjunction with the absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity that is part-and-parcel of being out-from-control had resulted in the actualism method segueing into the actualism process – ‘her’ cheerful and thus willing concurrence allowed pure intent to dynamically pull ‘her’ evermore unto ‘her’ destiny. (Hence the “dynamic, destinal virtual freedom” nomenclature).

4. This moment-to-moment experiencing of a caring which is not self-centred/ self-centric provided ‘her’ with the experiential convincement that actualising such caring, via ‘self’-immolation, was the only solution to the human condition; this ‘hands-on’ understanding as a dynamically present feeling-being – an impressively distinct contrast to having been abeyant during PCE’s – left ‘her’ with absolutely no choice (lest ‘she’ be forever “rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic”).

5. Since a near-actual caring is, of course, epitomised by a vital interest in the suffering of all human beings coming to an end, forever, as a number one priority, then ‘her’ single-minded focus was essentially centred upon the most immediate way of ensuring this long-awaited global event could begin to take effect the soonest ... to wit: bringing ‘her’ own inevitable demise, at physical death, forward into a liminal imminence.

6. Because the means ‘she’ elected to utilise towards these ends was the near-actual intimacy which goes hand-in-hand with a near-actual caring (per favour that afore-mentioned absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity which typifies being out-from-control) it is apposite to defer to what Vineeto herself wrote on the 20th of January 2010, only fifteen days after her pivotal moment/ definitive event, as its refreshingly simple directness speaks for itself.

Viz.:

• [Vineeto]: “(...). Further it was obvious for me that it would be Richard who would facilitate and trigger my transition into an actual freedom because he was the most obvious person with whom a near-actual intimacy would change into an actual intimacy – simply because Richard had been my guide and mentor for the last 13 years and particularly so for the period since I stepped out-from-control.

As I have written to No. 5 recently –

‘The final clue was again about caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster. Only when I cared enough to give all of ‘me’ to another person, to give them what they want most, was I then ready to give it to the one I cared for most, the one I was closest to, and then I was able to leave all remnant concerns and inhibitions of my identity behind.

And that’s what happened”. (Direct Route, James, 17 January 2010).

(Direct Route, No. 20, 20 January 2010).

(Incidentally, her words “to give them what they want most” refers to my oft-expressed emphasis on the necessity of a female replicating my condition – for those oh-so-vital ‘core of civilisation itself’ reasons spelled-out elsewhere on my portion of the web site – and it speaks volumes, to those males having reservations about going all the way due to the popular wisdom that what women want is loving relationships, that in the handful of daring pioneers women out-numbered men by a 4-to-1 ratio). (Richard, List D, No. Srinath2, #near-actual-caring).

Well, this 4-to-1 ratio has so far not been repeated since then, which makes your realisation especially valuable and well-worth actualising.

The deep experience of pure intent, which you expressed on June 8 –

[Emp]: While reading Vineeto’s response, I remember starting out thinking “how’s this going to work out without Richard” and during reading my whole world seemed to shift to “of course it’s like this, it’s always been supposed to be like this”. It’s very difficult to explain how my entire thought process changed, but it seemed fundamental at the time. There’s been a remarkable stillness for the past few days. 

– will guide you to feeling excellent as your default hedonic state and from there it’s only a skip and a jump to give yourself permission to giving up control and letting the universe live you, like Claudiu and Kuba have recently done. You’ll be catching up with them in no time.

After all, we are aiming for nothing less than peace on earth.

Cheers Vineeto 

August 29, 2024

EMP: It’s fascinating reading your reports Kuba and Claudiu. I’m not where you are but it’s interesting how easily available intent and appreciation is these days - I read your reports and it’s like it’s all on tap, available to all. Massively fascinating. I didn’t sense much of the last wave but this wave seems to be almost ubiquitous, for lack of a better word.

Also thank you Vineeto for being here and adding some interesting back pressure at times (it really isn’t pressure, it’s more like the fascination over the new/revised materials keep piquing my interest over and over again, making it impossible to slack off).

VINEETO: Hi Emp,
You are very welcome. I much appreciate and enjoy your feedback and your participation. It’s wonderful to see that so many share the fascination in this new and pioneering way of being alive and allowing pure intent to influence their lives

It’s a great time to be alive

Cheers Vineeto

December 27, 2024

EMP: Although the more I look at this the more I see that really this is just a self-centred motivation, fuelled by a fear of being a complete outcast, and furthermore fuelled by the fear of no longer ‘being’ at all.

I’ve been having this back and forth quite a bit lately.

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

Welcome back. I always read your words with interest.

I remember this bartering – researches on people close to death found five stages happening for most people – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance/Resignation.

Here is a bit of ‘Vineeto’s’ writing on the topic from ‘her’ early days of actualism (1998) you might enjoy –

’Vineeto’: “Having decided to go into the face of death, fear arose, big fear. The dormant instinct of survival – now challenged – awoke from sleep and spread fear and doubt all over my body and brain. Everything went on alert to protect what I knew as me. One of those protecting methods was to create doubts, ghosts upon ghosts of doubt. Am I doing the right thing? No one has ever done it before, without going through enlightenment, and won’t I get lost? What if I end up accidentally enlightened? I was dead sure by now that this was a calamity I definitely wanted to avoid. Maybe I am not capable for such an unnatural task? Maybe I am not cleaned up enough and pushing too early? How will I know what is the right direction? And on and on they went in hours of chasing my tail, round in circles without any sensible outcome.

I spent a lot of time in the day to contemplate dying, trying to figure out of what it will consist of, how I will experience it, how it was for Richard. I would call that whole process ‘gathering intent’, adjusting direction, becoming clear that now I was going for the final price. Along with sorting out relationships came hours of deep sorrow, a seemingly endless personal farewell to everything and everyone who I had cherished, held dear, appreciated and felt close to. Well aware that the days of the leisurely ease of virtual freedom lay way behind, with the bridges burnt and no return, now an all-engulfing sadness pervaded me, a bitter-sweet drama that was played out worthy of the supposedly last days of my self. Denial and rejection went hand in hand with ‘pushing the vehicle up the hill’ i.e. contemplating on the extinction of the self. What I found was a repetitive circle of fear – frustration – doubt – fear and the only way out is intent, intent to not stop at second best, whatever happens.

One day, imagining death again, I encountered a rush of glory going all through my belly, filling the chest area and filling my eyes with tears of joy and anticipation. I could see the ‘self’ enjoying the dignity of a willing death, agreeing to the undeniable fact that only the ‘self’ was in the road of experiencing the perfection of the universe. As close as the ‘self’ is able to I stood at the brink of actual freedom. By sheer obvious comparison I had to admit that I would never be able to accomplish or compete with the purity and crystal clear magic of this perfect universe. This glimpse alone was a thousand-fold greater and more magical than any ‘self’ would ever be able to produce, no matter how much I would clean myself up and make myself perfect. This very realization was to be the {temporary} defeat of the ‘self’. But at the same time there was the utter joy and celebration of having seen and experienced what I would be dying for and that it was worth all of ‘me’.” [Emphasis and curly-bracketed insert added]. (Actualism, Vineeto, Exploring Death and ASCs)

Now I know – because it actually happened that way – that apart from overcoming fear and doubt something far more delicious is required – the sweetness of intimacy and a genuine caring to initiate the instinctual passion for group survival and ‘self’-sacrifice. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Articles, Sweetness)

Richard: I am more making the point that only altruism – self-sacrificial humanitarianism – will provide the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation ... the instinct for individual survival is only exceeded by the instinct for group survival.

It takes a powerful instinct to overcome a powerful instinct. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 October 2002a)

Cheers Vineeto 

(If you like to have a private conversation about any issues, you are welcome to message me. I know it is often easier to nut out something when you put it in words.)

October 16, 2024

VINEETO: Hello Emp,

I’d like to start our conversation with something you said in your convivium report –

EMP: Secondly, what I was saying to Geoffrey on the first day, that gave rise to sincerity, all started with mentioning how I’d messaged Vineeto privately two years ago and she’d challenged me back and like the coward I am I ran for the hills. Saying this untied a knot of fairly large proportions and then the rest of that house of cards came down. I know Vineeto doesn’t need an apology but still… I’m a massive coward.

VINEETO: There is indeed no apology needed – I realized I had been bombarding you with probing questions before we were even properly acquainted, and this was certainly not the most gentle approach. And sometimes it’s just not the right time, but perhaps now it is?

If you allow me, I would like to comment on some of what you reported after you went back home –

EMP: On Monday I was getting a bit antsy though. I needed to be able to get somewhere at home. The weather felt oppressive (rainy and cold, and nature seemed to be dead and barren compared to Algarve). I told my colleagues I’d work from home and with my hours a bit skewed, and went out for a walk. I did think that maybe I was being a bit insane about the whole thing, and perhaps also a bit avoidant (I do tend to have this problem) but it seemed to me that proving to myself that I could do it at home had to be my priority above all else, and I had the margins at work to be flexible.

As I was walking around I started noticing that plants that had seemed dead to me started popping out when I took the time to relax and let things happen. I eventually found myself at a cliffside (with proper fencing!) looking out over the sea and the ships coming in and noticing that sweetness coming in from all sides. I could do it, even when it was raining! I played around with Gemini and plants again but had to keep an eye on other people wondering why the heck I was jumping around the cliffs looking at moss. There’s a lot of social identity there still and I need to whittle that part down.

VINEETO: What I notice you seem to be a very sensuous, vivacious and passionate person but with a strong habit to put yourself down for everything you observe going on in yourself, even when it’s towards freeing yourself (“a bit insane”, “a lot of social identity”). I can understand it well because ‘Vineeto’ oft-times had similar sentiments but it is very counterproductive – ‘you’ can only be “the solution” (as well as the problem) when you are a friend to yourself, when ‘I’ become an ally in this adventure of a lifetime to undo ‘myself’. So when you talk about harmlessness, that needs to include yourself, being harmless with yourself. When you have a feeling attack – and they are bound to happen – sitting on your hands includes not beating yourself up.

It’s this very beating up which feeds negative affective energy and increases the problem, whatever it is – those are the simple mechanics of how feelings (i.e. how ‘you’) operate. Not feeding them, not going in any direction while they rage is the quickest way to calm down.

EMP: I started feeling my motivation ramping up. I really wanted this. I wanted what I’d experienced in Algarve like I’d never wanted anything before. I did start noticing how I was throwing myself indiscriminately at it like a rabid pit bull though. Whenever I thought of slowing down I could just hear myself going “turn down for WHAT!” and then I kept at it. (…) I’ve spent so many years being more or less entirely dissociated that getting out of it so cleanly, and then spending close to a week so close to the actual, was bound to give me some kind of whiplash getting back.

VINEETO: It’s wonderful, isn’t it, to know exactly what you want. But then ‘I’ take charge and use this very wonderful aim to prove that it’s not possible by “throwing myself indiscriminately at it like a rabid pit bull”. It’s one of ‘my’, the identity’s strategies to psychologically/ psychically survive – and when you see that, really see that, you will stop doing that to yourself, become calm (realizing you have “all the time in the universe”) and experientially move towards what you want like you “never wanted anything before”.

There will be backlashes and fear attacks, an actual freedom is against the instinctually-programmed nature of your being. But there is also, deep down, a secret yearning for oblivion, for an end to this constant fighting defending the status quo, to be the ever-alert guardian of the secret that you are being “a fraud and a parasite”. There is nothing to attain, to create, the very end of the conflict allows ‘me’ to grow thinner and thinner (as you found out in the quote below) –

EMP: I looked at the forum and saw Adam-H’s response in the convivium thread and something clicked in me. I went and got my heated blanket and snuggled up underneath it, softened my approach entirely and suddenly everything that had been bothering me just melted away. I could once again feel that undercurrent of sweetness that had suffused the entire convivium week, and this time without working myself into a pretzel just to get a whiff of it. I just lay in my bed, listening to the wind blowing things around outside and feeling calm for the first time in days. 

VINEETO: The very confirmation that you don’t have to fight to experience actuality, the “undercurrent of sweetness” – it is already always existing.

EMP: And finally, I need to soften my approach. I’ve had a couple of really rocky days when I’ve tried to force things while pretending I wasn’t forcing things. (…) There’s a large part of me that wants to fail, because this is scary. It went so fast that I knew I could do it, and I could do it right away. I’ve tried to channel that part of me that wants to sabotage this as some kind of reckless abandon but I’m not sure it works. I even wrote, as one of my first notes to myself, that ‘I’ grow and stay alive in the friction, in the desperation and in the phugoid oscillations I keep creating for myself. If I succeed I’m gone and no longer needed, and that still frightens me. I can see, whenever I get closer to the sweetness and actuality, that I’m not needed, but I need to do this with more situations and also not working so hard for it, almost driving myself silly in the process.

VINEETO: This is very perspicacious and you have a wonderful way of expressing it (I had to look up what you are creating for yourself). “Working so hard for it” is certainly counterproductive and a tricky way of ‘you’, the identity taking and maintaining control –

EMP: PS. I also had a bit of a chuckle at myself; I’ve had some kind of experience every day now, of the sweetness, seeing glimpses of the actual, finding my way back to the golden clew. Everything has taken on a glittering quality even in my day-to-day living and here I am, still beating myself up over Not Doing Enough.

VINEETO: Ah, that is great when you can see the humour and silliness of “beating myself up over Not Doing Enough”. It’s only a matter of the bad habit of beating yourself up but that can be fixed with friendly patience and perseverance.

All the best with lots of enjoyment and appreciation, and the sweetness of pure intent.

Cheers Vineeto

October 17, 2024

EMP: Hi Vineeto,

thank you for your response! I won’t leave you on read this time. I did however have a very eventful day so I’ll keep it brief for now until everything has settled.

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

Thank you for your prompt reply despite your eventful day.

EMP: I was pondering today what you said about beating myself up, while also trying to feel out rumination (I’ve come to realise that rumination is a lot more than just the anxiety-ridden thought marathons I’d get up to regularly). At the same time I was quite upset and torn about a loyalty and empathy question in my personal life which I just couldn’t seem to solve without ending up in a bind. After a lot of back and forthing, the only way out seemed to be to just cut myself more slack than I’ve ever cut myself in my whole life, the longest leash I’ve ever given myself and no more self-recrimination. That was the only way I could get down deep enough into myself to get at the rift. At the same time, I’m scared I’ll just get a reply back that “well, how will you conduct yourself now that you’ve let yourself off the hook? How will you learn if there’s no 15 minutes of hate after you’ve done something bad(1)?” It feels like somehow the Thought Police will know there’s a woman walking around in Sweden not lambasting herself for her mistakes while being friends with her grotty self (quelle horreur!). Maybe it’s ridiculous but that’s the base of the emotion right now.

(1) 99% of the time, not something bad at all, but my moralistic framing makes it so in my rumination cave.

VINEETO: Questioning your loyalty and sense of belonging, or the demand for empathy, are both values deeply rooted in the human condition and you cannot come to a sensible clean solution balancing one against the other. Here is something ‘Vineeto’ wrote regarding ‘her’ fears abandoning the ship … perhaps you can relate –

Gary: There is also underlying this a fear, now that I am abandoning ship, casting myself overboard, so to speak. I feel like a ship adrift without a rudder, without the controls of faith, hope, belief. There is also the conditioned fear or dread of some kind of divine punishment, as I am turning away from religion and spiritual teaching.

It’s an interesting trip!

Vineeto: It is indeed an interesting trip! This fear of abandoning ship, which I remember from my own process, is the very proof that something had actually changed and I was not simply replacing one belief with another. I didn’t understand the nature of the fear at the time, yet whenever I stopped to reconsider the sensibility of my choice for Actual Freedom I knew I was better off ‘without the rudder’ of the traditional ‘Tried and Failed’.

The dread of ‘divine punishment’ was very real to me for some time – ‘what if everyone is right after all and I end up in (Eastern) hell?’ Each time one steps away from humanity’s beliefs to stand on one’s own two feet, there is this mad feeling of ‘oh dear, what have I done?’ And yet, when discovering the actual underneath the belief, the actual is so self-evidently obvious that I always thought ‘how come I haven’t seen this before, how come nobody tells you about it, how come nobody else sees this?’

The psychic world of divine and evil, with its atavistic feelings and psychic power structures, is not to be dismissed lightly. It is not a small thing we are doing, stepping out of ancient psychic history and leaving behind at least 3,500 years of recorded superstition and belief, hope for heaven and fear of hell. I encountered fears of being burnt as a witch, expelled from the tribe or starved to death – which in not so recent history were not just psychic imagined fears. These fears all seem to be woven as an ancient memory in our brain cells and are automatically triggered the moment one dares to steps out of the tribal, religious or social group one has belonged to.
Two things always helped me to overcome those fear-attacks – one was the obvious fact that feelings are not actual. Nobody is actually persecuting me or physically threatening me. The other thing is the understanding that I am deliberately and actively dismantling my very ‘self’, all of ‘who I think and feel I am’ and of course that will rock the boat, it wouldn’t be an actual change if it didn’t! Then, the journey becomes really thrilling ... [Emphasis added]. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 3.8.2000).

Therefore, “to just cut myself more slack” might work in the short term but, as you describe, with more fears of reprisal for being amoral – because you remain within the (unliveable) moral/ ethical parameters of the human condition in your evaluation of what will happen.

It’s important to recognize that actualism is a totally different ballgame altogether; then you can slowly step out of those parameters and follow your intent and commitment to be happy and harmless. When you are felicitous and naïve and like yourself, you are simultaneously harmless (they are one and the same thing) and then, with pure intent operating, you now longer require the straight-jacket of the real-world morals and ethics because you are already more friendly, amiable, considerate and courteous than any rule-obeying feeling being can ever be.

It takes a while to work this out experientially but the longer you do it the more you see that it makes sense.

When you are not in the grip of fervent emotions, you might try out attentiveness (instead of rumination), the way Richard described it here –

Richard: To enable apperceptiveness to haply occur it is essential to allow a reflective attention – attentiveness – to one’s psychological and psychic world. It is impossible for one to intelligently observe what is going on within if one does not at the same time acknowledge the occurrence of one’s various feeling-tones with attentiveness. This is especially true with the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful). In order to observe one’s own fear, for instance, one must admit to the fact that one is afraid. Nor can one examine one’s own depression, for another example, without acknowledging it fully. The same is true for irritation and agitation and frustration and all those other uncomfortable emotional and passionate moods. One cannot examine something fully if one is busy denying its existence. Whatever feeling one may be having, a fascinated attention – attentiveness – freely divulges it ... it is looking with discernibleness. All affective feelings are – quite simply – an hereditary occurrence, an inborn factor to be acutely aware of. No pride, no shame, nothing personal at stake ... what is there, is naturally there. There is no clinging to the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and no fleeing from the hostile and invidious, either (those that are hateful and fearful). A contemplative attention views all feelings as commensurate – nothing is suppressed and nothing is expressed – as attentiveness does not play favourites. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness Sensuousness Apperceptiveness).

I always liked the last sentence – “attentiveness does not play favourites”. Normally as a feeling being everything experienced is valued either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or somewhere in-between, hence embraced or rejected. When deliberately nothing is at stake but a fascination for non-passionate reflective exploration, it is much easier to discover a pattern, a belief, a system and find out how the mind works and how ‘I’ tick.

EMP: I also took it upon myself to ponder why “we have all the time in the universe” doesn’t quite click for me and while it was just a brief glimpse. I think I might have started to understand what it actually means… and I tried ramping up my intent afterwards and I no longer felt squeezed between a rock and a hard place. I’ll need longer glimpses before I consider this properly experienced though.

VINEETO: Having “all the time in the universe” only applies in actuality – in the real world time is ‘self’-centric, limited and boxed in by what you feel you need/ want to achieve before the sun sets or ‘time is up’, and the more achievements, whatever they are, you can squeeze into the hours of the day the ‘better’ a person you, and others, consider you to be. The mistake many actualists make is that they deem this schedule of achievements and boxes to tick to also apply to the actualism method – it does not.

It’s really the contrary – you allow actuality to become apparent (actuality being already actually existing and perfect) via sensuosity, enjoyment and appreciation of being here in this moment of being alive.

Cheers Vineeto