5.1.2007

Thank you for being so generous with your time. There is enough here to keep me busy for some time as you said Actualism is not something to skim over.

Oh, I have plenty of time because that is my choice of lifestyle and now that the mailing list is closed, I am writing less than ever. Furthermore, I thoroughly enjoy passing on my experience with the actualism method and enjoy swapping notes with those interested in how to be more happy and harmless.

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I had intended to reply sooner, because your insights into Actualism really inspire me, and your replies, always seem to be serendipitous. However, I fell ill (Ahh) ... again! And have been a touch lazy. If one wants to be aware of the less attractive aspects of the human condition in action, although not recommend, being ill is one way.

As you have mentioned ill-health a few times, is it too personal to ask what it is you are afflicted with?

I think I have mentioned it twice in our exchanges. No, it is not a problem to ask. About twelve years ago I developed lung cancer (a life time of smoking cigs, they told me). I had to have my lung removed, which was not a completely disabling procedure as I was back at work, and the gym, within three months. What came next was the problem. I contacted an infection in the cavity where the lung was, which eventually (long complicated story) developed into a chronic infection, which although not fatal, is more of a headache than the original cancer. This is where I am at the moment.

It is certainly not a pleasant condition to live with but I am always amazed how much modern medicine is able to accomplish in dealing with such potentially life-threatening situations. Your father in your situation, for instance, would not have had half the chance you are having today.

This is the one thing about Richard and Peter I cannot understand, that is, why they smoke tobacco. I have put this query on the back-burner as there are so many more things to think about, as far as AF is concerned, which I am finding fascinating, and tough going sometimes, and what they do with their health is none of my business.

The dangers of smoking are, due to the human condition, greatly exaggerated and in fact very often imaginary, similar to many other health-scares such as the supposed danger of high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes II, HIV, not to mention the all-pervasive alleged dangers of global warming.

I am not saying that smoking is good for you, and neither does Richard or Peter, but the diseases attributed to smoking have simply never been proven to have a direct cause-effect relationship. As far as I know, four types of cancer have been traced to be caused by bacteria/viruses and already cures/vaccines are being applied and tested. This indicates that other forms of cancer may have similar causes (viruses/bacteria) and are not, as is generally believed, caused by one’s environment, life-style or even a particular state of mind.

Human history shows that whenever people do not know the cause of a disease, such as typhoid until the 19^th century, a plethora of superstition arose, quite understandably, as to what supposedly caused this life threatening affliction and more often than not unknown and/or untreatable diseases were considered punishment from one’s God for bad behaviour. Today is not much different. Fear produces the most fantastical deductions and correlations, not to mention the profit that can be made from channelling people’s fears into a certain direction.

If you are interested in finding out more about the facts of smoke, Richard has answered a few questions*) In question No. 8 Richard also gives some URLs that may provide some food for thought on this issue and may even make you question the way statistics are gathered and interpreted as proof for certain pet beliefs and hypotheses.

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I watched a film on the box last night, it was called Equilibrium. Set in a future were all emotions are outlawed, ever see it?

You do know, do you, that actualism is not about not having emotions, let alone outlawing them?

Yes, I do now, but for a time I was misinterpreting this concept.

So did I at first.

There is one thing I definitely know, and that is I have a lot to learn about AF, and how to communicate that clearer.

I noticed that the more I tried to be clear and precise in communication, the more clear I became in thinking it out for myself as well.

I thought the film was interesting in its concept, that is, how the workings of the human condition can be misunderstood and manipulated.

At a certain point all the films and soaps I watched became lessons in the workings of the human condition and I must say I have learnt a lot from them. Nowadays I also notice thanks to the wide variety of information and research available on the internet that the so-called documentaries and ‘factual’ reports are often not much more than an imaginary drama full of fears and lies, due to the distorting effects of the human condition in action.

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As for old fears and insecurities, there were plenty of them. Some of them were so old they dated back centuries and more – the archaic fear of being burnt as a witch, for instance, for daring to question the existence of god, heaven and afterlife and the archaic fear of expelled from society or of being executed for daring to lift the taboos of sexuality and begin to enjoy it for its own sake.

Whoa! this sounds almost like reincarnation. I assume you are referring to genetics, passing the memory on from one gene-ration (never noticed before how this word broke down- love words!) to another.

I was not referring to genetics, the hardware, so to speak but to the collective software of the human condition, something that in spiritual circles is known as the Akashic Records or etheric knowledge. When a child is conditioned, parents, teachers and peers not only pass on their personal knowledge, their morals, ethics, beliefs and experiences but also impart, on a non-verbal emotional-instinctual level, the taboos, fears and rules of survival that they themselves have imbibed, going back to the beginning of humankind. Additionally, in an altered state of consciousness one can consciously access those records of various cultures and explore the ancientness of human ‘wisdom’ and experience and its instinctually-based fibre.

Am I misinterpreting what you are saying? I came to this from one of your links...

RICHARD: Okay ... let us pursue this to see where it takes us. Being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen hundreds of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. Richard, List AF, Alan, 208.1999

Going by Richard’s explanation could the fears and insecurities not then be carried forward in the genes?

Yes, the propensity for the basic human fears and insecurities is carried forward in the genes just as the propensity for the basic human aggression, nurture and desire and that’s exactly why human beings find it so unbelievable that human nature can, or should, ever be changed. But this propensity can be mitigated to the point where one is virtually free from these passions and this propensity can even be permanently eradicated.

From recent gene-studies I understand that it is not only the genes, which determine what we are and ‘who’ we are but the way genes are activated. The ‘Human Epigenome Project’ is just at the beginning of mapping out this fascinating story. ‘Genes are silent unless activated. To have them is not necessarily to be under their influence’ says Jill Neilmark in her article about this topic. (http://edge.org/q2007/q07_14.html)

I admit that I am an absolute layman on the topic of genes but what I understand is that whilst instinctual passions are genetically inherited in animals, the ‘self’ that they form themselves into in human animals, including all feelings and emotions, can be deleted using the human brain’s ability for intelligence and apperceptive awareness. Richard has done just that and I am determined to prove that this process is repeatable. What is deleted in this case is software, not hardware. Here is how Peter described the process from a scientific viewpoint –

Peter: ‘Changing only you is eminently achievable – and scientifically verified as possible. It is possible to re-program one’s own brain from all the social programming and it is possible to evince a mutational adaptation to eliminate the instinctual passions. A bit I wrote recently explains this very point –

‘The modern scientific empirical discoveries of neuro-biology and genetics, with regard to the human brain and how it functions, have revealed two very fascinating aspects –

1. That the brain is programmable in the same way a computer is programmable. The program is formed by physical connections or pathways between neurons, and this program is mostly formed after birth. These pathways (synapse) are also capable of being changed at any time. The old connection simply ‘dies’ for lack of use and a new one is formed.

2. That the human brain is also pre-programmed, via a genetic code, with a set of base or instinctual operating functions, located in the primitive brain system which causes automatic thoughtless passionate reactions, primarily those of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, to be transmitted via chemical messages to various parts of the body including the neo-cortex. Physiological alterations that could eliminate this crude programming, as a biological adaptation to changed circumstances, are well documented within the animal species.

• The first discovery accords with the practical experience of being able to radically change one’s social identity – the program instilled since birth that consists of the morals, ethics, values and psittacisms that make up our social identity. It stands to reason that a psychological identity that is malleable to radical change is also susceptible to total elimination.

• The second discovery accords with the practical possibility of eliminating one’s very ‘being’ – the emotive source of the instinctual survival passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. This blind and senseless survival program is now well and truly redundant for many human beings and can now be safely deleted, for the human species has not only survived … it is now beginning to flourish.’ Introduction to Actual Freedom, Actual Freedom 1’ Peter, List AF, 13, 2310.1999

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I’ve been busy following the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. Yesterday at lunch they started from Sydney Harbour and it was a great spectacle – helicopter footage of 78 yachts with their sails set, sunny weather, and a huge spectator fleet of little motor boats giving them a send off. Later I follow their trails on Google Earth and the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race website. It’s one of my annual favourites, showing human beings at their best, having fun with the latest technology in boat-building, playing in wind and weather and with each other.

What a wonderful picture you paint of how humans can enjoy themselves living to their true nature (just glad is wasn’t cricket LOL).

Why?

Hopefully this will be true for most in the coming years.

With increasing wealth and leisure human beings will have to learn how to enjoy themselves doing nothing and how to live in peace and harmony with each other.

Addendum: … was thinking about your descriptive comments about the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. I was trying to figure if you were describing something that was happening in the Real World or the Actual World, and were the people experiencing actualism, as in not being aware of them-‘selves’, or were they being unconsciously actual? Or were you the only one experiencing actualism? If you know what I mean. Could you describe it the way you were experiencing it? I got they were playing in the Actual World without being aware of it, and therefore creating a reality for themselves, but that would be the Real World, would it not? Sorry for the rant but it makes it clearer for me... I think /:

Nothing so complicated. I was just enjoying watching them having fun.

Every body is actual, as such everybody is unconsciously actual. However, only in a pure consciousness experience is this body conscious of actuality because only in a PCE ‘I’ am not interfering with actuality, i.e. overlaying ‘my’ reality over the actual world.

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Thanks for the links. As I say I have a lot to be getting on with, as far as AF is concerned.

What about the lot you already got on with? It’s good to count the successes sometimes, particularly as in this business nobody else will do that for you. Don’t you notice any changes from a month ago, two months ago, from before you encountered actualism?

Not being able to have a job it is what is keeping my interests engaged, because what I miss is not creating values while I reorientate myself.

Could you rephrase the last part of the sentence for me, I don’t quite understand the double negative.

7.1.2007

I am a little confused ... I came something you wrote about emotions, this morning, which seems to contradict what you wrote earlier. Putting it into context it is like this...

You do know, do you, that actualism is not about not having emotions, let alone outlawing them? Vineeto, General Correspondence, No 11, 27.12.2006

But then this from: http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/vineeto/selected-correspondence/corr-180.htm...

Feelings are indeed where the Human Condition lives on, unchanged, in all its wretched misery and sorrow.

Yes, it’s 180 degrees in the opposite direction to where we humans have searched for solutions. In the course of my exploration into what my ‘self’ and the Human Condition consist of I was amazed how many times I found ‘180 degrees opposite’ the appropriate expression.

Just a few such opposites as an example: emotions – no emotions... Vineeto, List AF, Gary, 19.8.2000

?

Ok, to put all of this in context –

• ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ – instinctual passions and the resultant emotions and feelings are the very substance of ‘me’. In other words, instinctual passions in humans form themselves into an identity, a ‘self’ and only when the ‘self’ disappears, emotions and passions also disappear. You can experience this in a pure consciousness experience where the ‘self’ is temporarily absent with the consequence that all emotions and passions are also absent.

• It is not possible to simply reject emotions, to outlaw them, as some fiction writers suggest. History shows that to try and be a stripped-down ‘self’ has resulted in a split between one’s cognitive and one’s affective faculties (with the later pushed into the unconscious) and the continuous effort of suppressing and repressing one’s existent emotions is both useless in the long run and harmful to both oneself and others. In extreme cases such suppression can result in alexithymia and/or a psychopathic condition.

• Instead of rejecting, suppressing and repressing one’s emotions the actualism method invites you to become aware of your emotions (including the presently unconscious ones) as and when they are happening, particularly when they are interfering with you being happy and harmless. Bringing your feelings and their embedded beliefs and patterns into the light of awareness then enables you to make a conscious choice.

• 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 deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre, bonhomie and so on) then with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).’ Richard, Articles, A Précis of Actual Freedom

• The consequence of choosing the felicitous feelings is that, whilst both good and bad feelings nourish and maintain the ‘self’ (you might have noticed in yourself and others how for instance suffering and/or virtue puff up the ‘self’), the felicitous feelings leave ‘me’ unemployed. When everything is all right and a delight to behold, there is nothing for ‘me’ to do or fuss about and ‘I’ incrementally wither away to the point where I am able to live virtually free from malice and sorrow.

• The final step comes when ‘I’ expire and with ‘me’ all instinctual passions, emotions and feelings disappear forever.

13.1.2007

… I am always amazed how much modern medicine is able to accomplish in dealing with such potentially life-threatening situations. Your father in your situation, for instance, would not have had half the chance you are having today.

Very true. Without antibiotics, for instance, I would be dead, really. Although not pleasant there have been some good happenings. I wrote my book – a life long goal – which sold very well, and in fact could be a best seller with a little effort on my part, which I don’t feel like giving at the moment. I also meet a very special lady, and I kid you not, had the best sex of my life. All this after becoming ill, and after passing 50.

Personally I think that the time after passing 50 (I’m 53) is the very best time of life – one has made most of one’s mistakes, can rely on lots of life-experience and start doing things the right way up. That is to say that life wouldn’t be so perfect hadn’t I come across Richard, Actual Freedom and the Actualism method.

Of course AF has helped considerably.

Helped having the best sex of your life? J

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This is the one thing about Richard and Peter I cannot understand, that is, why they smoke tobacco. I have put this query on the back-burner as there are so many more things to think about, as far as AF is concerned, which I am finding fascinating, and tough going sometimes, and what they do with their health is none of my business.

The dangers of smoking are, due to the human condition, greatly exaggerated and in fact very often imaginary, similar to many other health-scares such as the supposed danger of high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes II, HIV, not to mention the all-pervasive alleged dangers of global warming. (…)

I agree all of the above are manipulated, for whatever reason. I thought the research on smoking was more honest, but then again why should it be? I found your, and Richards, take on it compelling and the links very informative, I passed them on to a friend who smokes and has always insisted the fears were overrated and has no intention of stopping. I will have to give it more thought because I still think it constitutes irrational behaviour.

I thought that finding out about the facts of smoking and what effects it has or better doesn’t have, could relieve you from the burden of supposedly having caused your physical condition by bad (irrational) behaviour (as the doctors certainly wanted you to believe). Ascertaining some particular facts for myself (and not just taking someone’s word for it) has done wonders to my confidence. In many cases replacing my beliefs with factual evidence has eliminated the quiet underground worry that was part and parcel of theories and beliefs that I had taken on in good faith.

I would never smoke again as I feel so much more hygienic and healthy having quit.

Interesting you should say ‘I *feel* so much more hygienic and healthy’ – a give-away that within the human condition one’s feelings are generally the arbiter for what is right and wrong, pure and impure, good and bad. Even the judgement of what is healthy and what is unhealthy is based on what we affectively feel, which in turn is based on what we are taught by our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, teachers and the whole superstitious profession of traditional (the so-called alternative) medicine. In this new dark age medicine which relies less on scientific processes and bows to public pressure parroting unproven hypotheses and Eastern spiritual beliefs and raises ancient quackery life psychic healing, Acupuncture, homeopathy and the like to proper medical practice.

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Thanks for the links. As I say I have a lot to be getting on with, as far as AF is concerned.

What about the lot you already got on with? It’s good to count the successes sometimes, particularly as in this business nobody else will do that for you.

LOL. That is typical of ‘me’ always beavering away without looking at the gains. I just felt I was misinterpreting some of the basic and was getting a bit frustrated, when this happens I usually work harder.

Don’t you worry, in actualism the ‘basic’ is all there is. I’m still getting some of it wrong out of a personal life-long habits combined with the general thrust of humanity’s beliefs and actions. And before the frustration leads you off the wide and wondrous path it may be time to scrutinize this particular reaction to making a mistake – a reaction which I can understand very well, by the way, as I still sometimes fall under its spell.

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Not being able to have a job it is what is keeping my interests engaged, because what I miss is not creating values while I reorientate myself.

Could you rephrase the last part of the sentence for me, I don’t quite understand the double negative.

I think what I was trying to say was, I have not got used to lazing around, without feeling I should be doing something ... creating values as I put it. In previous studies this was seen as an aspect of the true nature of ‘man’.

Ah but you forget that in learning how to do nothing really well (not being driven by the instinct6ual survival passions) and in incrementally becoming happy and harmless you are ‘trampling the grass’ (as Peter calls it) on the path to an actual freedom for others to follow you suit – if they wish. What better legacy could you create both for others and for yourself?

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I’ve been busy following the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. <snip>

What a wonderful picture you paint of how humans can enjoy themselves living to their true nature (just glad is wasn’t cricket LOL).

Why?

I think cricket is the most boring game ever invented, and at the moment we are getting wall to wall coverage of the test matches. But basically I was joking because of the whitewashing England are talking.

Are you loyally British?

15.1.2007

I am a little confused ... <snip>

Ok, to put all of this in context – <snip>

I contemplated on the motivation for asking the last couple of questions and I came to the conclusion that ‘I’ was kicking back – at one point ‘I’ felt quite irritated.

I did not notice, either in words or vibes – but I appreciate your candidness.

It felt like instead of being on the wide and wonderful path ‘I’ was by the wayside amongst the weeds looking for faults. However, I am, after receiving your last reply, glad I asked, again much food for thought.

From here on in I think I will ease back on the questions; as they are largely answered somewhere on the site, and try to enter into more of a discussion, and [hopefully] report on any progress. Talking about that ... a couple of weeks ago while walking through a shopping centre I had an experience of being a body only. It only lasted a minute or so, but it was startling.

Diving into one’s ‘self’ with the method of actualism can result in all sorts of strange and wonderful experiences. Just the other night Peter and I were discussing experiences of two friends, which by their own judgement were not pure consciousness experiences, but nevertheless a very sensuous, appreciative experiencing of the splendour of their surrounding with the senses heightened and the ‘self’ diminished. What can also happen is that ‘I’ start identifying as ‘this body’, which at the start can easily be confused with a ‘self’-less experience but when examined turns out as just another trick of cunning ‘me’ to remain in charge. I’m talking of my own uncovered tricks here and I am merely reporting all this in order that you can possibly more easily distinguish between your various experiences and eventually make sense of them.

One outstanding quality of a pure consciousness experience is that when you have it then you have no doubt about it – you know that ‘this is it’, ‘this is how I want to experience the rest of my life’. You also might find a PCE strangely familiar like a faint memory of some magic land visited before – PCEs occur more easily and more often in childhood before the incrustation of socialization and its accompanying seriousness of life have fully set in.

Here is one I have been sitting on for a while ... after reading what Peter said about living in the skin of the eyes, something like that, …

This is presumably the quote you are referring to –

Peter: I used a technique that Richard suggested which was invaluable, and that was to pretend or try to mimic the peak experience of being in the actual world when back in ‘everyday’ moments. I described it at the time as pushing myself as far as possible to the surface of the eyes – to be purely my senses. This means definitely not creating a watcher or Self’ with a different set of morals and beliefs – usually vastly superior to that which is being watched – but simply practising to establish a direct connection between the senses and the actual world. Peter’s Journal, Intelligence, p.104

I remembered doing a similar exercise when I was very young, can’t remember the context, what I do remember is repeating to myself, ‘there is nothing inside, it is all outside’. I am not putting any interpretation on it, just thought it was a nice coincidence.

As I said above, as children we seem to know a little more about the actual world than as adults and my own remembrances of such early PCEs confirm this – after I had a few PCEs I knew where to look and these memories popped up again.

Looking forward to more progress reports and discussions.

27.1.2007

Don’t you worry, in actualism the ‘basic’ is all there is. I’m still getting some of it wrong out of a personal life-long habits combined with the general thrust of humanity’s beliefs and actions. And before the frustration leads you off the wide and wondrous path it may be time to scrutinize this particular reaction to making a mistake – a reaction which I can understand very well, by the way, as I still sometimes fall under its spell.

Well, thank goodness for that. (: I was beginning to think I just wasn’t ‘getting it’. Why is it encouraging to know someone else is stumbling now and then ... the human condition?

I can really relate to this ...

Yes, it is one way to get a hint that your ‘stumbling’ is not a personal fault but part and parcel of the disease called the human condition. Once you get your mind around the fact that everyone is afflicted with the same instinctual passions and their ensuing emotions and beliefs you can stop looking for faults in other people, and you can also stop blaming yourself – you then simply get on with the business of disempowering the human condition in you.

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It is easy to concentrate on the mistakes one makes (most time now I just shake my head and smile when the old habits kick in) but there is so much in AF to be excited about, which I sometimes lose sight of when dealing with the more difficult aspects of the human condition.

Vineeto – Ah but you forget that in learning how to do nothing really well (not being driven by the instinctual survival passions) and in incrementally becoming happy and harmless you are ‘trampling the grass’ (as Peter calls it) on the path to an actual freedom for others to follow you suit – if they wish. What better legacy could you create both for others and for yourself?

I don’t think it is a matter of me forgetting I think I am still learning how to turn the ‘tried and tested’ (tanker) around 180%.

O.K. I noticed that when I stopped blaming myself for not being perfect (how can ‘I’ ever be perfect?!) then ‘the tanker’ started to turn around almost by itself. But I admit that I found it a bloody hard habit to root out.

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I think cricket is the most boring game ever invented, and at the moment we are getting wall to wall coverage of the test matches. But basically I was joking because of the whitewashing England are talking.

Vineeto – Are you loyally British?

LOL. I was at one time, I even fought for them, but then I did the research for my book and everything changed.

I asked because I found that whenever I felt the urge to defend my countrymen against any kind of blame, embarrassment, accusation, discouragement or dislike in any field of life, there was my social identity as a German at work. The same was true when I took sides of one spiritual group against another, one social class against another, one political group against another, and so on.

It may be interesting for you to dip into my book now and then; there are some interesting concepts (about how the human condition has always been the same, or how the sixteenth century set the societal foundations for our modern form of governance, for instance) in it. I think the research I did prepared me for AF, possibly the reason I took to it so readily. I researched philosophies/ ontology/ psychologies/ like Rosicrucianism, Neo-Tech, The Bicameral Mind, The Matrix (the film) and Zen Buddhism. Nothing like AF of course, but they did get me thinking ‘outside the box’.

27.1.2007

If you get a chance I would like your opinion on this unusual audio programme by my good friend Fintan Dunne. http://breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1647

Your good friend Fintan Dunne has a nice sonorous voice but the content of his dissertation is deeply steeped in mysticism and metaphysics. Here are a few things I wrote down from what I heard –

• ‘We are the God collectively …’
• ‘Sleep is a mini-death’ (and we will wake up after physical death just like after sleep)
• ‘The personal identity is preserved (after death)’
• ‘The natural projector that produces the holographic image that we experience as the world around us …’
• ‘We are part of the supermind …’

His belief in life after death is based on his belief in something that is non-physical, non-tangible, ephemeral and non-actual (like God, super mind, an immortal non-physical personal identity).

In a ‘self’-less pure consciousness experience you come to understand that anything supernatural and metaphysical is solely born of the feverish imagination of human beings only, based on our fear of death and our desire for immortality in some form or other – it has no existence outside of the human mind. To use Fintan’s words – in a PCE ‘the natural projector that produces the holographic image that we experience as the world around us’ temporarily stops functioning and stops producing those affective images of the world around us, stops interpreting, imagining and repressing. Then these eyes can directly experience the world around me, these ears can hear the unmitigated sounds around me, this nose experiences the smells in the air without interference from ‘my’ objections or desires, the skin directly enjoys the sensation of warmth or cold, wind or touch and so on. The ‘projector’ is turned off and with it any ‘holographic image’, psychic perception or affective interpretation … in a PCE ‘I’ don’t interfere at all with the direct experiencing of the actual world. It is a wonder-ful, amazing, delightful and utterly fearless way of experiencing the world we live in.

13.2.2007

Why is it encouraging to know someone else is stumbling now and then ... the human condition? I can really relate to this ...

Yes, it is one way to get a hint that your ‘stumbling’ is not a personal fault but part and parcel of the disease called the human condition. Once you get your mind around the fact that everyone is afflicted with the same instinctual passions and their ensuing emotions and beliefs you can stop looking for faults in other people, and you can also stop blaming yourself – you then simply get on with the business of disempowering the human condition in you.

This is the first time I have seen the human condition referred to as an actual disease, which makes sense, because if everyone has it (the disease) then how would anyone know about it, or they had it? I notice this when talking to people about AF. I mean; they get confused (so do I sometimes).

AF has given me a much deeper understanding of people, I love listening as they talk about self. Most of the people I have talked to so far have been interested, as long as I don’t go too far too soon. I made that mistake early on and found people, friends I have had for a long time, getting irritated and wanting to change the subject.

The human condition is indeed a disease shared by everyone and once you make a start in moving out of it you become a threat to everyone’s status quo.

Of course I was enthusiastic of having finally found the solution to the human dilemma and in the beginning I wanted to tell everyone, specially my fellow seekers, but I soon learnt that they were not interested, in fact they felt threatened by my discovery. Their very worldview was at stake by what I told them and quite naturally they chose to stick to their worldview.

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I noticed that when I stopped blaming myself for not being perfect (how can ‘I’ ever be perfect?!) then ‘the tanker’ started to turn around almost by itself. But I found it a bloody hard habit to root out.

It must have been great for you to be in personal contact with Richard and Peter.

Yes, it was very exciting and a great help to be introduced to actualism by Peter and Richard. It was also great to be able to discuss in person with Peter and Richard all the questions I had and discoveries I made. Additionally, interacting with Richard in person allowed me to cut out all the usual suspicions you find in the 101 commonly raised objections (48 have been categorized) as I could plainly see that he was indeed walking the talk. For this very reason we made the DVDs in order to allow people to experience Richard as personally as possible short of meeting him. And who knows, one day you might find yourself in Australia having a cup of coffee with a few actualists.

I recognise of course you have to do it yourself ... still. After thirty years of mysticism I have a lot of bad habits to jettison I am finding some of them harder to get rid of than others, and although tough sometimes and I have not yet had a PCE, I have received a lot of benefits through the study of actualism.

From my own experience remembering a PCE, or inducing a fresh one, should be at the top of your laundry list.

You could take a day off normal life to spend in nature and maybe read some of the introductory descriptions at each chapter in Richard’s Journal while you are all by yourself with no one around to reinforce the old ‘you’. With as much an open mind as possible you may be able to experience the world the way Richard experiences it. Be your eyes, your ears, your skin, and your other senses instead of looking out (as me) through the eyes, listening through the ears and sensing via the skin. The more you experience your surroundings as a physical body only the closer you come to experiencing the delight and sensual abundance of being here and from there it is but a short jump to slip out of ‘your’ skin and experience everything unmediated, directly, without separation.

For some more hints I recommend .

Just the other day I was talking with a very close friend and realised I was trying, very subtly, to change her (pointing out a perceived fault) ... soon stopped that. This particular girlfriend and I are very close but to begin with she didn’t want anything to do with AF, she was concerned about me, thought I was ‘losing it’ LOL, but the more she hears about it she is, gradually, becomes more accepting. What was your experience of other people, especially friends, at the beginning. I know you have mentioned it before but not specifically.

Let me warn you before it is too late that actualism is a most risky business to get involved in. I lost *all* my friends on the way as I ended up having nothing left in common with any of them – no common beliefs, no common sorrows, no complaints about life, people and the world at large, and no common enemies either.

What I gained was the most reliable friend, myself, as I learnt to stop blaming and beating up myself and started to like myself. It was not only a bad habit I had to get rid of but also the natural consequence of cleaning up my grotty self into a person delighted being alive.

*

Are you loyally British?

LOL. I was at one time, I even fought for them, but then I did the research for my book and everything changed.

I asked because I found that whenever I felt the urge to defend my countrymen against any kind of blame, embarrassment, accusation, discouragement or dislike in any field of life, there was my social identity as a German at work. The same was true when I took sides of one spiritual group against another, one social class against another, one political group against another, and so on.

Yes I still ‘feel’ this, although intellectually I see how silly it is. However, it is becoming thinner.

I found that some ‘habits’ of my conditioning were so deeply ingrained that mere intellectual understanding did not change me. I had to look at the feelings that were connected with some particular conditioning, become aware of the generally accepted morals and ethics surrounding it and the fear imbedded in it, become aware of the perceived danger of stepping outside of society’s norms and then, when I’ve seen and experientially understood it all, take one bold step out of it. This is of course true for many different conditioned behaviours, opinions, beliefs and feelings.

*

Just a hint – you may quicker succeed in fully understanding the paradigm of actualism if you focus on finding the differences to what you have taken to be truth before, rather than looking for any similarities … because there aren’t any. In other words, the spirit-world people are living in is always only *inside their minds* whereas the actual world is out here, always here, tangible and corporeal, reliable and safe.

I notice this is another thing I do, compare and look for similarities. Ahh! Some bad habits are hard to break.

Recognition is half the job, hence ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

13.2.2007

If you get a chance I would like your opinion on this unusual audio programme by my good friend Fintan Dunne. http://breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1647

Your good friend Fintan Dunne has a nice sonorous voice but the content of his dissertation is deeply steeped in mysticism and metaphysics. (…)

Yea, I know, what I meant to write was ‘my good, but quirky, friend’, Fintan Dunne. Great character all the same, he reminds me of the famous film star, Groucho Marks. LOL.

If you knew he was deeply steeped in mysticism and metaphysics why did you ask my ‘opinion on this unusual audio programme’? Don’t you know that an actual freedom is utterly non-spiritual?

I was thinking about your last e-mail. I cannot see how Neo-tech is ‘spiritual’. It may well be within the human condition, but spiritual? I don’t think so. As for The Matrix, I use that to remind me of some of the concepts Richard, and yourself, propounds without comparing if that is possible. For instance, an early scene in the film, which I told you about, shows, metaphorically, the ‘reptilian’ brain being programmed. I don’t see it as a science fiction film, as Richard does, but as a metaphor, and a commentary on the nature of reality. We must really have a telephone chat some time. (:

I only have a mobile phone – it would be very expensive!

Addendum – I just remembered that Neo-tech talks about an inner world. If I had the inclination I would look at it again to check the context, may do in future.

If you don’t have ‘the inclination to look at it again’, why did you asked *me* to listen to Fintan’s metaphysics oif immortality in order to give you my comment?

In other words, a thorough understanding just where, how and why your own favourite worldview is spiritual and metaphysical is paramount for removing the impediments to your direct experience of actuality.

For some of the context of Fintan’s philosophy – a few things I wrote down from what I heard –

• ‘We are the God collectively …’

• ‘Sleep is a mini-death’ (and we will wake up after physical death just like after sleep)

• ‘The personal identity is preserved (after death)’

• ‘The natural projector that produces the holographic image that we experience as the world around us …’

• ‘We are part of the supemind …’

His belief in life after death is based on his belief in something that is non-physical, non-tangible, ephemeral and non-actual (like God, super mind, an immortal non-physical personal identity).

And from the Neo-Tech website (founder Frank R. Wallace) –

‘Sensuous is associated with the pleasurable *gratification* of one or more of those physical senses. Neo-Tech expands the meaning of sensuous to capture the essence of pleasure by including and integrating the most potent dimension: the pleasurable gratification of the human mind. That gratification includes the harmonious agreement of a person’s *love* life with that person’s material, intellectual, and *emotional well-being*…’ [emphases added]

‘Who’ is gratified by the senses? Good emotions are not even questioned, let alone understood as being part and parcel of the instinctual passions.

‘Conscious life is the only entity in the universe that can control nature and future events. That control is possible to the extent that mysticism is absent and Neo-Tech is present.’

It is obvious that Neo-Tech is a preferred mind-set that supposedly allows you to exert control – separation is taken as a given whereas in a PCE you are aware that you *are* the universe experiencing itself as a human being, there is no separation, no control, not even gratification.

‘Romantic love integrates the mind and body of a man and a woman. That integration includes the *emotional*/ intellectual development of values between that man and woman. Such a complex relationship requires *planned, rational* thought by each partner…’ [emphases added]

Whereas actualism recognizes that emotions and instinctual passions of any kind are the problem, not part of a solution. In virtual freedom, with one’s instinctual passions disempowered, one’s doesn’t need to plan nor use rational thought to live in harmony – being sensible is eminently sufficient.

‘Nonmystics are *innocent* and *moral*. They accept the discipline and responsibility to think and act with integrated consistency. They support themselves by producing *competitive values for others*’.[emphases added]

Nobody is innocent as all human beings are born with the instinctual survival passions, however much they might repress them and that’s the very reason morals and ethics have been put in place. A person without instinctual passions (Richard) has no use for either morals or ethics as he/she is never driven by their passions.

Why should anyone produce values for others to follow? Those ‘Nonmystics’ are merely replacing one world-order with another and in this process are executing immense power over their fellow human being by claiming to know right and wrong, good and evil.

‘That choice between laziness and effort determines if one becomes an unhappy destroyer of values or a happy producer of values.’

Whereas in actualism I become a happy destroyer of values and ethics and a happy and harmless diminisher of my instinctual passions. I also stop interfering in other people’s lives as one is prone to within the human condition because I know by experience that everyone can experience the actual world for themselves in a pure consciousness experience.

‘Integrated thinking means knowledge and power’ All quotes from http://www.neo-tech.com/orientation/

Whereas in actualism it is understood that the desire for power arises out the instinctual survival passions.

The Neo-Tech philosophy tripod (http://attitudeadjustment.tripod.com/Images/neo-tech.jpg) illustrates the fundamental difference between this (unliveable) philosophy and actualism so conspicuous, unconcealed, overt, pronounced, transparent, prominent, unmistakable and indisputable that I wonder how you can find any similarities at all –

Their 13-word philosophy: ‘What is is. Perceive it. Integrate it honestly. Act on it. *Idealize* it.’

One obviously needs a preconceived ideal and imagination to idealize ‘what is’. One also needs the arrogance and blindness of ‘self’ to want to improve the perfection of the physical universe.

‘The conscious control of existence:

Metaphysics: Man’s relationship with the universe is business!’

When ‘I’ disappear there is no relationship at all, let alone business. The only business I do is trading some of my time in exchange for some token to pay for food, clothes, shelter and toys.

‘Epistemology: Man’s relationship with his mind is Neothink!’

‘Relationship’ clearly indicates a separation between man and his mind. Inside man there is a ‘who’ imagining this relationship with his own mind. In actuality thoughts are the functioning of the physical human brain usually interfered with the emotions and instinctual passions.

‘Ethics: Man’s relationship with himself is value production!’

Neo-Techs purport a production of values whilst actualism suggests stepping out of my ‘self’ in order to recognize and experience that this infinite and eternal universe is already perfect and has no need, let alone use, for man’s petty produced values.

‘Politics: Man’s relationship among each other is free competition!’

Ha, is this the best interaction they can come up with, free competition? It’s still a dog eat dog world, one human being competing against all other human beings. Whereas in virtual freedom and of course in actual freedom I can actually live in peace and harmony with my fellow human beings because I am no longer driven by fear, aggression, avarice and nurture.

‘Aesthetics: Man’s relationship with beauty is value reflection!’

In a PCE one recognizes that beauty is a man-made, a ‘self’-produced value just like ugliness is, produced by the instinctual reaction of attraction and repulsion, whereas the physical universe in its infinitude is perfect, flawless, incomparable, pristine, abundant and benevolent.

Your turn!

13.2.2007

This e-mail refers to a question I asked you a while ago about how Zen compared with Actual Freedom. Quite rightly you replied there was no comparison, however I had trouble actually understanding this. After, some contemplation I came up with an explanation that I understand better, unless you know better (: It is this...

How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? Answer: (example) I am experiencing feeling sadness, or whatever, explore the source and return to experiencing felicity as soon as possible.

Yes. Exploring the source means the bright light of awareness is shone onto the ‘self’ /an aspect of the ‘self’ and ‘I’ cannot maintain my existence when brought to the light of awareness – ‘I’ have to give way to sensibleness / felicity.

Zen:

How am ‘I’ feeling in this moment? Answer: (example) ‘I’ acknowledge ‘I’ am feeling sadness, or whatever, keep repeating (acknowledging) until feeling (usually a different, ‘deeper’, feeling than the one first acknowledged) disappears and self is comfortable again within the body.

The feeling doesn’t really disappear with practicing Zen (if you do it right and quite a lot of Westerners misunderstand the true meaning of ‘chan’ (Zen) and get it wrong as a consequence). In Zen the feeling is transformed into a function of the Higher Self; sadness into Compassion, fear into Love, desperation into Awe and so on. And yes, ‘self is comfortable again within the body’.

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