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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 16
Hi No 16, Now we are getting into the nitty-gritty of the matter of what is spiritual and what is actual and what is the difference between the two. You wrote – I don’t know what ‘never-never land’ represents for you, but I am reminded of Peter Pan’s dreamland for children, where one is transported from the misery and dullness of the ‘real’ world into the unreal land of imagination, where one never has to become a grown-up. Never-never land was not a good description to use because you have no way of knowing exactly what I meant. It did seem like an unreal land but it is more of a void or not-knowing. Kind of a disconnected feeling which is what I meant by a feeling of abandoning humanity. ‘Abandoning humanity’ in Actual Freedom terms stands for gaily taking the pen-ultimate step before self-immolation. After one has removed one’s social identity of being a son or daughter, a man or woman, an American or Englishman, a seeker, a writer, a doctor, etc. and has become an utter non-identity, one is then able to investigate the collective psyche, the result of the instinctual passions that all human beings have in common. Applying attentiveness and awareness to the instinctual passions as they arise enables one to stop acting as per the instinctual software in the brain and thus one can slowly, slowly reduce the automated reactive and emotional impact that instincts have on our feelings, thoughts and behaviour. In doing so one not only becomes happy and harmless but also stops being part of the biggest fold of all, humanity itself. One is no longer a member of the species that ‘nourishes malice and sorrow in their bosom’ to quote Richard’s expression. Whereas ‘a disconnected feeling’ is clearly an affective feeling, arising out of the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. To have a ‘a disconnected feeling’ has nothing at all to do with ‘abandoning humanity’; it is, on the contrary, common to all human beings and arises out of the Human Condition in each of us. You see, in order to communicate about the possible advantage that Actual Freedom could have for your life, it is essential to not mix up the terms that we use with emotional or spiritual terms. For instance, ‘not-knowing’ is used by Buddhists and other Eastern religions as an expression for the highest achievable wisdom when one enters the ‘Unknowable’, synonymous for the ‘Truth’. Aspiring to or succeeding in achieving the ‘Truth’ and reaching a state of ‘not-knowing’ is well accepted in the ‘book of rules for humanity’. When achieving a state of ‘not-knowing’ one simply exchanges the illusion of the ‘self’ for the grand delusion of a higher ‘Self’. * In order to pursue the path to an ACTUAL freedom, as opposed to the imagined freedom of the spiritual world, it is essential to remember a Pure Consciousness Experience. Otherwise one won’t know what one is looking for and will only translate a few of the words and terms describing Actual Freedom into the spiritual belief-system that has been one’s familiar environment for many years. I don’t see my previous ‘teachings’ as a spiritual belief-system although they have been a familiar environment for many years. Actually I don’t see them as 180 degrees from Actual Freedom but helpful in my understanding of it. I am interested to hear what those ‘teachings’ are and in what sense they are non-spiritual i.e. actual. Could you give me examples in what way your ‘previous teachings’ are helpful in understanding Actual Freedom and how you see them in the same line as – not 180 degrees opposite to – Actual Freedom? * I’m sure they could be interpreted as spiritual but this is not my understanding of my previous teachings. For me, Actual Freedom is not a matter of interpretation, nor has my previous
spiritual practice been a matter of interpretation. I am not talking about semantics, but for me the single-most
life-changing insight of my life has been to experientially understand the difference between spiritual and actual. I
have described my first big PCE in Actual Freedom is not a new idea that can be interpreted and integrated into an existing thought-system, it is a practical, down-to-earth non-spiritual method to eventuate an actual, irrevocable change that leads to the extinction of ‘who you think and feel you are’. * I agree that spiritual is not the way to go. I don’t see myself as spiritual. How can you ‘agree that spiritual is not the way to go’? We don’t mean the same thing by the word ‘spiritual’! I am interested what the term ‘spiritual’ represents for you when you say that you don’t see your ‘previous ‘teachings’ as a spiritual belief-system’ and that you ‘don’t see [your]self as spiritual’? You stated earlier * My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. I am curious what ‘direct experience of the actual’ means for you, because all the new-age teachings of self-discovery that I know of, both spiritual and therapeutic, teach you about the experience of the ‘real me’, the ‘true self’, the ‘natural I’ and the ‘original face’. Most people don’t even make a distinction between the experience of sensual feelings like touch, temperature, hunger, sex, sleepiness on one side and affective feelings, moods, emotions and passions on the other side. Whereas the actual is – to quote the glossary – –– existing in fact as evidenced by the physical senses, in action or existence at this time, existing in act and not merely potentially or apparently. Oxford dictionary Actual is that which is palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical and material. It is that which can be experienced by the physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch only. That which is actual, being in action or in existence at this moment in time, is not merely passive. In comparison, that which is deemed to be real is merely the cerebral and affective interpretation of the actual and physical by the psychological and psychic (social and instinctual) entity that dwells within the human body. In comparison, spiritual Reality while feeling super-real and ‘other-worldly’ is merely an affective, imaginary, hoped and longed for, fairy tale – a further illusion built upon the initial illusion of reality. The myth of a spiritual Reality was created in ancient times as an escape from the very real horror, and the imagined evil spirits, evident in everyday earthly reality.  AF Glossary
I have a hunch that you might be talking about ‘Reality’. I am looking forward to hearing from you.
It took some time until the penny dropped but I have finally understood that
‘actual change’ and ‘radically new’ are obviously not on your menu. Out of this misunderstanding I have
cluttered you with heaps of irrelevant information, but never mind. In order to ensure no change you are exactly on the
right track. You might remember Peter’s equation that he introduced when reviewing ‘Denial plus Transcendence Equals No Change’ (D + A = nc) With the brilliant example of denial and applying the teachings of transcendence that you have given above you will have no trouble avoiding the dreaded actual change. I have always found it fascinating to discover in the course of my correspondence, meeting people and reading New Age publications, that the new fashion in spiritual circles is now introducing words like ‘non-spiritual’, ‘actual’ and even ‘apperception’ into their current vocabulary, because it sounds good and ‘feels right’. The New Age search that started in the ‘sixties now needs a new polishing, as it has become a bit of a well-worn path that hasn’t delivered the desired results for millions of seekers. This re-vamping process can be compared to taking one’s rotten old Ford car, giving it a new paintjob and a flashy bumper-bar and re-naming it ‘Lamborghini’. Now one can show it again, all the while it remains rotten to the core. A face-lift, à la Hollywood, is accomplished by creating a few new terms and labels – and the spiritual search can continue on for another fifty years without being considered out of date. Actualism writings are an excellent source for such face-lift words, particularly when applied in creative combinations. The postmodern Non-Spirituality that is evolving from the New Age Spirituality now reads like this (and most examples are not even invented by me) – Flesh-and-blood body mindfulness, apperceptive presence, non-spiritual reality, direct actual experience of truth, factuality of one’s ordinary self, a feeling of pure consciousness approaching, direct divine experience of the physical universe, non-spiritual self, spiritual ... oops, non-spiritual intimacy, thoughtless perfection, emotional facts, virtual commitment, physical Being, ever improving perfection, extremely free, exploring beyond appearance into ‘actual reality’, the all-consuming universe experiencing the moment, personal sensate-only experience, such sensuous no-mind image, natural non-spiritual living, factual emotional remembrance, timeless sense of actuality, watching without being a watcher, unfragmented observed actuality, virtual facts, greater actuality, beyond the realm of the apperceptive mind-entity. I am sure there are plenty more examples to describe the verbal assimilation
that will take place in the transformation from Eastern Religion to New Age Spirituality to Post-modern
Non-Spirituality. A hilarious and highly entertaining example of such effort can be found in Richard’s correspondence,
Richard sums up his experience of years of talking to people like this:
My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. I am stunned that you can call Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teaching being ‘about the actual’. If you had followed a bit of Richard’s extensive correspondence with many, many people on this very same teacher’s mailing list, you would at least have noted that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s concern is the transcendental and nothing but the transcendental. Vis:
In order to be able to say that Mr. Krishnamurti’s teachings to you are ‘about the actual’ you have to either ignore 90% of Krishnamurti’s teachings or twist the meaning of the word ‘actual’ into meaning spiritual and transcendental. ‘The key ingredient of [your] previous teachings is about having a direct experience’ of the divine, not the actual. Vis:
I have no problem with whatever name you might give to your goal and your experiences but denial and transcendence are sure methods of avoiding a Pure Consciousness Experience. For comparison I copied a description of a direct experiencing of the actual.
And just a little bit further in the correspondence files I found a perfect example to demonstrate actuality:
My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE. If Krishnamurti’s method and other methods of ‘self-discovery’ or ‘self-knowledge’ were able to produce a PCE, it would have happened by now, don’t you think? I acknowledge that to grasp even a glimpse of the actual world is very difficult because normal reality is all we know and spiritual reality is all we imagine. For that very reason it is so vital to remember or to experience a pure consciousness experience. However, changing a few words, applying your previous spiritual methods and denying even being spiritual at all is a sure recipe of cutting yourself off from ever experiencing anything outside of the Human Condition. Direct experience of the actual would be being with this monitor without having other thoughts about the past, etc. I’m not into any new age teachings. I clearly see the difference between sensual feelings and affective feelings. As you might have gleaned from Richard’s description, your ‘direct experience of the actual’ and Richard’s direct experience of the actual are two different pairs of shoes. The choice is always yours.
In order to be able to say that Mr. Krishnamurti’s teachings to you are ‘about the actual’ you have to either ignore 90% of Krishnamurti’s teachings or twist the meaning of the word ‘actual’ into meaning spiritual and transcendental. ‘The key ingredient of [your] previous teachings is about having a direct experience’ of the divine, not the actual. Vis:
I was talking about the teachings themselves such as being aware of what I am actually doing, thinking and feeling from moment to moment and you have added a quote from his early years and what he may or may not have meant by truth at that period of his life. I find it interesting that you should object to the relevance of the above quote from J. Krishnamurti by saying that it was ‘from his early years’. This is one of the several stock standard responses that were used by several faithful followers of Krishnamurti when Richard introduced quotes on the Listening-L mailing list to prove a point he was making. Only in September last year Richard had a lengthy discussion with one correspondent about that very same argument ... ‘from his early years’ . You were also writing on the list at the same time but maybe you missed the exchange. I have copied the relevant correspondence at the end of this letter. I had posted this particular quote because I know from my thorough investigation into my years of spiritual dependency that you cannot separate the teachings from the teacher and just pick out a some advice that seem worth applying in your life and ignore the rest. The above quote shows clearly, as do many others from his later years, that J. Krishnamurti was a through and through spiritual person – ‘God-intoxicated’ – and his declared purpose was to teach people how to achieve this experience for themselves. Vis.:
Therefore, following his method can, at the most, lead you to what he achieved – becoming yet another spiritual teacher immersed in ‘that which is eternal’ – and not knowing anything about a ‘direct experience with the actual’. I have been spiritual in my life but I am not spiritual now. Truth to me is what I am actually doing, thinking and feeling from moment to moment. I’m sorry if I have wasted your time. I will continue to look and see if I have any spirituality. Personally, I was never attracted to J. Krishnamurti or his teachings as I
considered them too dry and theoretical at the time of my spiritual involvement. Instead, I got sucked into the
emotional indulgence and the escalating esoteric extravagance of Mr. Mohan Rajneesh. Yet the relationship that I had to
him as my master differs not from the relationship that other followers have to their particular master – is it
invariably epitomized by unquestioning adoration, deep felt loyalty, a love that excuses and defends the master’s
every word or deed and the pride of being a disciple of such rare outstanding and powerful personality. Krishnamurti’s
claim that he did not want to be a master nor want his followers to be devotees only created an apparent intellectual
coolness but it never altered the fervent emotional ties that each of his followers had, and still has, with him. If you
take the time and read through some of Before I could learn, explore or even consider that there was any new approach to life I had to question this highly emotional relationship to the one teacher that I had considered to be the only authority and fountain of wisdom. My worldview was coloured and measured against the authority of his words and teachings. If others stated similar views and ‘wisdoms’, I considered them right, if not, they were wrong. My judgements had nothing to do with my personal investigation of facts at all; it was solely a ‘feeling right’ decision according to my preconceived convictions solely derived from the master’s viewpoint – and the fact that he had been dead for 10 years did not change my emotional dependency on his authority at all. An honest and in-depth investigation of the facts of the situation was only possible after I ‘tore Rajneesh out of my heart’, became a traitor to his message and his ‘sangha’ and thus became independent of his imagined approval or condemnation. Only then was I able to listen to his discourses and judge with my newly freed intelligence instead of ‘my heart’ and to discover his mindless twaddle and ‘compassionate lies’, his manipulation and deceit, his outright distortions and underlying ancient rotten Indian belief-system. Now I could start the long and fascinating journey of unravelling the intricate web of the psychic world – the Eastern spiritual fears of endless karma, the hope for transcendence, the reverence for intuition, love, compassion, bliss and enlightenment. Once one starts to see the psychic world and how it functions, the word ‘spiritual’ is revealed in its fuller and more comprehensive meaning. You felt moved to defend your teacher the moment I quoted him in order to prove that he is concerned only with the spiritual and the divine and not with the actual. This reaction indicates where to look when you want to ‘see if [you] have any spirituality’. So in order to ‘continue to look and see if [you] have any spirituality’, you will first and foremost have to consider and investigate your affective relationship to your ‘previous’ teacher and teachings. Otherwise any factual discussion about what Krishnamurti said or meant will be distorted by the emotions that are instigating automatic instinctual (or, as LeDoux calls them, ‘quick and dirty’) reactions rather than considered intelligent responses. I’m sorry if I have wasted your time. You did not waste my time at all. I am writing for my own pleasure. I delight in the opportunity to talk about my favourite subject – Actual Freedom – and enjoy the benefit of investigating the question of ‘how am I in relation to other people’. It is such fun to find out about myself in the process, to learn how to write, find out what I want to write and to watch the letter unfold in a matter of hours or days. Any benefit that you or someone else may get out of these letters is an extra, unexpected bonus. * Vis. Richard’s correspondence on mailing list B re Krishnamurti’s teaching of his ‘early years’ – Respondent: But my views on this statement were never made public. My reason for posting it may only be to look at the connection between it and the other statements being made by No 3, No 39 and by you. This is a way of asking others to comment, of questioning them through the presentation of these points. Actually, I do not agree with the statement in question, at least not in the unqualified form that it now has. A man that says he knows, may know or may not know. His saying that he knows is not logically connected to what he knows. But there is a particular version of this statement, that I find worthwhile exploring. And this is what I think K was saying. That a man who says he is transformed or enlightened (and in this sense knows) can know something which establishes that as factual. But all the man knows is what he was, not what he is. Richard: I am curious as to what makes you ‘think K was saying’ that ‘all the man knows is what he was, not what he is’? Obviously not his own words ... words such as what I have already posted. Vis.:
And again:
And also:
And also:
And also:
And again:
I see from the rest of your post that you have a range of ways of reading quotes that do not jell with what you think Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was saying (ways like ‘early premature writings, on mistaken expressions, on bad days’ or even ‘he probably was in some distress shortly prior to his death’). Please let me know when the writings stopped being ‘early premature writings’, which ones are not ‘mistaken expressions’, which ones were not written ‘on bad days’ and which ones were not ‘written in distress’ and then we can continue with discussing the remainder of your post. Because, in my understanding, ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘intelligence’ (not the words but the ‘thing’ that the words point to) is the ultimate authority in anybody’s book ... and an unquestionable authority at that. Vis.:
When you read that last, short sentence (‘the only authority then is intelligence’) is he clearly designating ‘intelligence’ (otherwise known as ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) as being ‘the only authority’ or not? * Richard: Yet all you explained was your lack of regard for the 1928 quote (on the grounds of ‘early premature writing’). You have not addressed any of the other ones at all ... except to say that 1980 (or is it 1960) was when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti became mature according to you. Of course it is entirely up to you as to what you find pertinent to read – or if you are to read anything at all – but I am sure that you will excuse me if I do not buy your assessment without seeing statements that would go something like: ‘For years and years I foolishly believed that I had discovered god or truth or whatever name you call it and now I realise how deluded I was’ ... or words to that effect. Until then I consider quotes that say unambiguously ‘I say such a thing [God or truth] does exist, I have realised it’ or ‘to me there is God, a living eternal reality’ or ‘you won’t find that supreme intelligence operating in a body for many hundred years’ stand as being statements of truth for the speaker irregardless of what decade they were originally made in. Perhaps the following clarification will set the matter at rest?
It would appear from the exposition you give (above)
that what you ‘do believe to be the mature period’ and what you (presumably) also believe to be the ‘early
premature’ period are nothing more and nothing less than a scholarly construal you make based upon on an
acknowledged ‘considerable change in expression’ and not based on a ‘fundamental change’ after all.
I feel we have gotten totally off base. I am getting good results running the question and doing it on my own. Ah, so you say that we have ‘gotten totally off base’? My ‘base’ for our correspondence is still the same as when you started writing on the list – exploring the instincts, given that your first question was: ‘I am not clear on how one eliminates the instincts.’ My responding to you has all along been relevant to that vital question of yours. In order to eliminate the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire one has to investigate one’s social conditioning and identity and one’s beliefs, feelings and emotions. According to my understanding, that is what we have been doing in our correspondence and, in fact, that is the very purpose of this list. In case you have shifted the goal post and have now a new ‘base’, then I have missed that shift. I really don’t want an authority. If I have any questions hopefully I will be able to ask someone without them acting like an authority like they know what I said or meant and add to what I actually said and like they are an authority on what a previous teaching said or meant. I have been contemplating about the issue of authority a bit in the last few days. Apart from the discoveries I mentioned in my last post about authority I have found one basic theme that is common to all issues on authority. Whenever I have made someone an authority in my life and either sucked up to, loved or envied, it was for the simple reason that the person had something that I desired at the time. These qualities were mainly status, luck, money, fame, knowledge, power, enlightenment or freedom. Always combined with that desire was the belief that the other person could either give or withhold the desired quality, a belief that established my emotional dependency on the other. I always loathed being emotionally dependant on such an authority – which gave rise to either fight, rebellion and resentment or faith, trust, cow-towing and surrender. Yet I instinctually kept creating and maintaining such relationships while at the same time struggling to become free of them. It was only when I learnt about Actual Freedom and began investigating the underlying beliefs, emotions and instinctual passions that form my identity, did I start to understand the reason for my need of authority and was able to incrementally free myself of this very need for emotional dependency. In order to break free I had to overcome the fear of standing on my own feet, the need to belong to anyone or any group as well as my innate laziness. I had to learn to rely on facts rather than beliefs, and to use my capacity to think and investigate for myself rather than feel, trust and intuit my way in the world. It is an absolute fascinating adventure once one starts to debunk the big authorities, particularly the Gurus and God-men, and starts finding out for oneself. A whole new, factual and actual, world starts opening up. Knowing the facts for oneself gives a confidence that makes emotional authority issues utterly redundant. The second benefit of investigating the emotional part of authority was that I could finally fulfill my life-long yearning to live with a man in perfect peace and harmony, equity and intimacy. Before that, my instinctual reactions to seek and then reject authority had always spoiled the relationships with men and reduced the living together to shallow compromises, temporary ceasefires to the ongoing battle and the subsequent frustration. The third benefit was that I did not have to reject another’s expertise in a particular field for the mere fear of being dependant. I can now value expertise for what it is – a great support to discovering what I want to understand or accomplish. Richard was, and is, a perfect source of expertise because he has discovered Actual Freedom by using the method of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ He has debunked the grand delusion of enlightenment – having been there and done that – and he continues to unveil, in his correspondence, all the so-called mysteries of the spiritual and pseudo-scientific world. Without an authority-problem we can simply stand on each other’s shoulders, learn from past mistakes and failures, apply current cutting-edge knowledge and put into practice what someone else has already discovered and investigated. After all, actualism is an empirical science, a practical brain-engineering process and not a religion or a belief-system. (Selected correspondence on Krishnamurti does say accept no authority and I see this to be valid. If this makes me spiritual in your book then so be it. Right now you appear to be coming on as the ultimate authority. I’m not running with my tail between my legs just because I don’t accept your authority without seeing it for myself. If you or anyone wants to write me I will answer. Just as Richard is an expert and an authority on Actual Freedom and enlightenment, I am an expert on Virtual Freedom and on the method of how to eliminate the social identity and investigate the instinctual passions. I have ‘walked the walk’. Peter, Alan and I are pioneers on the direct path to AF without taking the torturous route through enlightenment. You can make use of our expertise, hints and information for your own journey or you can object to it, reject it and try to do it solely on your own. The great thing about Actual Freedom is that everybody has to do it for themselves and thus nobody has any power over anybody else – either actual or psychic. There is nothing but a website with plenty of information and facts about the Human Condition and a mailing list with a few people sharing their discoveries and experiences on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom. Unlike the spiritual path, there are no gurus and no psychic power except for the imaginary power-play that happens in people’s passionate hearts and recalcitrant minds. Krishnamurti seems simply to have been passing on his own authority problems to his followers due to his own torturous authoritarian upbringing. His advice also works as another version of ‘thou shalt not worship any other authorities except myself’. If you prefer to accept his authority rather than investigate the issue of authority for yourself, then that is your choice. I have learned a lot from actual freedom and I like it but I am not looking to become a part of what you say you are against. I will take what I’ve learned and go with that. You are welcome to try – but from the experience of numerous PCEs, I know that an actual freedom from the Human Condition is not possible unless one examines all of one’s beliefs, feeling and emotions. Therefore, I am intolerant towards all religious and spiritual teachings of enlightenment, including ‘that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end’ to quote Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. It is a simple fact that all spiritual beliefs are a delusionary product of feverish imagination and the instinctual fear of death. But to verify this fact for yourself you will have to step beyond your reliance on your previous teacher’s authority and enter the fascinating iconoclastic territory of investigating facts. PS: I feel my instincts have been diminished but I really won’t know until I am tested. I enjoy our correspondence; it is an ongoing test for me of ‘how am I in relation to other people’. After all, every upcoming feeling is both evidence and expression of the underlying instincts in action. * PS: It is definitely a good idea to get out of the spiritual world. Here are two examples that I came across the other day that made the institutionalized insanity of spiritual belief-systems ever more apparent. The first is pure Buddhism from a Buddhist mailing list.
Isn’t it amazing to hear the opinion from an obvious expert on the subject matter. As a faithful student you are to put aside your common sense and practice denial and transcendence in order to become as much of a hypocrite as the Guru whose ‘apparent’ flaws you should not perceive. ‘Very subtle skill in means’ indeed! And the other quote is from a NDA mailing list, following Master H.W.L. Poonja’s spiritual approach of ‘Thou Art already That and All is an Illusion Anyway’
I particularly liked the ‘different notion of illusion’ – it says it all! The simple test to ascertain if the border that separates Mexico and the US is actual, is to stuff a suitcase full of drugs and try to drive across ‘the line on the Earth’ and experience what is an illusion and what is actual. Sitting in prison, he will have all the time in the world to intellectualize about a ‘different notion of illusion’. Peter has summed it up perfectly when he wrote on mailing list C:
There is so much misunderstanding at this point that I don’t know if I want to try and continue with the discussion. I wrote to
I have lived in the world of Eastern teachings and I have disentangled myself from the intricate web of all spiritual belief systems – and therefore I know spiritual practice very well. I was not only a committed participant and faithful devotee in the spiritual world but I have now broken through the ‘sacred ceiling’ and left behind ‘that which is sacred, holy’. Because I have encountered them myself I also know the objections, doubts and the various pitfalls when questioning the spiritual world-view – a necessary and unavoidable prerequisite to start on the path to Actual Freedom. That’s why I think that this is not a matter of misunderstanding. But there is certainly disagreement, which is inevitable because Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees opposite to all spiritual beliefs. As I see it, getting to the bottom of a matter is the very point of having a discussion. If one encounters disagreement, then a discussion facilitates an investigation of all the facts involved and accord is reached on the basis of facts. Then it is not a matter of personal opinion or a matter of right and wrong or merely an acceptance or rejection of some authority figure, but the facts can then speak for themselves. Or, in Peter’s words –
Regarding the unbridgeable difference between spiritual freedom and an actual
freedom, Richard has compiled Actual Freedom: Totally new (modern) wisdom
substantiated by rigorous empirical objectivity (individualistic commonality). Actual Freedom: Suffering is eliminated (via immolation). Actual Freedom: Both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul are
extinguished. Actual Freedom: Any ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ dichotomy is not actual. Actual Freedom: Love and compassion only exist as long as malice and
sorrow exists (both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ become extinct). Actual Freedom: The facts are the key to success and are to be sensately
found in the actual. Actual Freedom: A sensate-feeling experience (sensation only) empirically
experienced as a body-mind (human consciousness). Actual Freedom: Belief, faith, trust and hope play no part. Actual freedom: Actual freedom is consistent: it is neither contradictory
nor hypocritical. Actual freedom: Autonomy and independence (through altruistic
‘self’-sacrifice) are the hallmarks of actual freedom. Actual freedom: Gratitude is a hindrance on the path to an actual
freedom. Actual freedom : Dignity is both the means to the end and the end in
actual freedom. * When I look back to see what it was that gave me the first glimpses of the actual world as opposed to my only-known world of thoughts and feelings, I can say that it was a repetitious reading of Richard’s journal, extensive discussions with Peter to find out what his words actually mean and the desire to find out exactly what it was different to the spiritual teaching that I knew. I was looking for the difference, not for any seeming similarity. I was not satisfied with the outcome of my spiritual search, I was looking for something that worked – and Richard obviously had discovered something that worked. The next vital and essential break-through in understanding was I had never met the actual Peter; I had only related to him through the curtain of my expectations and classifications, through the filter of my social identity, through the grey or rose-coloured glasses of my ‘self’. What was initially a shocking surprise quickly turned into fascination and delight to have discovered something so simple and so pure – actual intimacy with another person and the perfection of the actual world. Here we were, two human beings, meeting for the first time, without past or future. No grand feelings, in fact, no feelings at all, but the pleasure of mutual undivided attention as to what the other is going to say next... All my churning questions from the weeks before as to what was right and what was wrong had disappeared from my tortured head and heart; the experience of the moment was all that mattered. In the course of the evening and the following night, insight upon insight occurred as the edifice of my beliefs system tumbled – the actual world, the world beyond belief opened up. Unbeknown to me it had been here all the time, a world where everything was simply obvious, perfect, pure, delightful, actual, factual and ‘wysiwyg’ (what you see is what you get). No deeper meaning, no God, no soul, no philosophy – meaning and significance abounds when living this moment without the burden of the ‘self’. This pure consciousness experience became my reference point for what I wanted to achieve. It was also an essential reference point to understand what Richard was saying and writing. After all, this actual world is the very world he is living in all the time, and my PCE had just demonstrated how this world is usually tucked away behind the normal/spiritual worldview. When you wrote to Richard on mailing list B, you related an experience of the actual –
The remembrance of this ‘self’-less perfection is the starting point to the dismantling of the ‘self’, first the outer layers of one’s social identity and then the core of one’s being, the instinctual passions. From the reference point of a PCE one is able to distinguish the actual from normal or spiritual, facts from beliefs and sensuous experience from affective feelings. One starts from an experience of the actual and daringly questions every truth, belief, faith, hope, trust and feeling. The clarity of a PCE is vital to distinguish facts from ‘truths’, and the PCE reveals feelings of fear and pride as unnecessary stumbling blocks and exposes the ‘self’ in action that is spoiling the already always-existing perfection. What adventure, what delight, what serendipity. I am happy and willing to further explore, discuss and investigate the basis of disagreements and ‘so much misunderstanding’ in order to achieve the clarity so evident in a pure consciousness experience. That is, after all, the very purpose of this mailing list. If you are interested, that is.
Vineeto’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
