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Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List Correspondent No 23
RESPONDENT: Hi Peter Could you check the VINEETO: Hi No 23, I checked the link <http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/library/180-degrees.htm> directly from your post and it worked fine. Should you have any further trouble, try opening the A useful address is also Have fun
VINEETO: Good to hear from you. RESPONDENT: Hi Vineeto, (is that still your sannyas name? No offence meant I was given the name Nirav. My so-called spiritual backgrounds are roughly the teachings of Mr. Krishnamurti and BSR). We have met on a short occasion in Byron I call it the No 12 incident. VINEETO: Yes, Vineeto was my name in sannyas days and I have decided to keep it for various practical reasons, one being that my original German name is difficult to pronounce in English and I now live in an English speaking country. As you probably know, I had been following Rajneesh and his spiritual teachings for 17 years before I started to apply the method of actualism. The improvements in my life that I achieved with actualism in only one year have far exceeded the meagre results that my assiduous and persistent application of spiritual teachings, therapy and meditation had produced in all seventeen. I am curious as to why your background should be ‘so-called spiritual’ if you have followed the teachings of several spiritual teachers? Personally I have no trouble with declaring that a good part of my life was devoted to a full-on spiritual search and the only reason I could abandon it with such confidence was that I knew by extensive in-depth experience that the spiritual teachings didn’t work. RESPONDENT: Now it has been this incident that has been a continuous source for me to doubt and redoubt the position I had taken in the matter of evaluating the validity of the method of actual freedom being the continuous running of the question ‘How am I living my life this moment?’ I just only recently (couple of weeks) have been doing this with pure intent and so far I have achieved very satisfactory results. VINEETO: The question you used is different to the method of actualism – which is asking yourself each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ – I am not nitpicking here, the difference is remarkable. The actualism question will immediately focus you on to how you are experiencing this very moment, the only moment one can actually experience. The question you are asking is a spiritual question whereby you can easily create a ‘me’ who is ‘living ... life’ feeling good while ignoring or sublimating the ‘me’ who is ‘living ... life’ feeling resentful, angry, sad, etc. The actualist question, if run with sincere intent, will leave nothing unobserved, nothing hidden, nothing repressed, nothing sublimated in the interests of ‘my’ gratification and ‘my’ glory. If you ask yourself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and you are sincerely feeling happy in this moment, that’s great. When you are not feeling happy, then you start investigating what was the trigger for the particular emotion you have since you were last happy. You look at the very reasons, why you are not feeling happy in this moment. Usually you don’t need to go back very far, half an hour, a day, at the most a week. The method of actualism is not about unravelling or healing childhood hurts, but is about tracing every single emotion, feeling and belief that you find lurking inside so as to become happy again as soon as possible. You will find that you will also focus on becoming harmless as it is impossible to be happy unless one is harmless – unless one feels God-like, of course, which is where pure intent plays its part. Running the question – ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ works, immediately – and that, for many, is the scary bit. One actually diminishes and eliminates one’s very identity by removing the problems and feelings that give one’s identity credence and substance. RESPONDENT: The possibility to start of from the so-called state of Virtual freedom has appeared to be (for me that is) a great way to demolish all kind of self-deluding states where I can be present as an entity in whatsoever form except being present as this flesh blood body system apperceptive of this wondrous world where only malice and sorrow somehow can affect this basic sense of harmlessness and happiness. Hence I agree with the statement that it is essential that I eradicate this malicious habit of I. VINEETO: One doesn’t start off from virtual freedom, in actualism, you start at the beginning, where you are at in this moment. As you continue to investigate what keeps you from being happy and harmless and you eliminate more and more of the spiritual-world and real-world beliefs that trigger you to be malicious and sorrowful, you eventually begin to experience a stage of Virtual Freedom. Virtual Freedom is the stage you reach when you are harmless and happy 99% of your time. Peter has produced an extensive Actualism is so new and so radically different to anything that has been taught as wisdom up to now that it takes persistent reading, re-reading and mulling over particular topics to understand that it is in fact 180 degrees opposite to all spiritual beliefs. For instance, in actualism there is no such statement ‘that it is essential that I eradicate this malicious habit of I’ . To regard ‘I’ as a habit is spiritual-speak for it ignores the fact that ‘I’ am both a social-psychological entity and an instinctual-psychic entity and that the instinctual component of the identity is genetically encoded in each and every human being. To dismiss this genetic component as mere habit is to perpetuate the ignorance of ancient flat-earth wisdom. It is clearly not habit that causes all the wars, rapes, murders, tortures, child abuse, domestic violence, despair and suicide. It is ‘me’ in my totality, the alien entity inside this flesh and blood body, that a sincere actualist aims to eradicate, both the ‘good me’ and the ‘bad me’. In spiritualism one aspires to merely get rid of a ‘malicious habit’ by replacing it with a good habit. In actualism it is understood that all habits, both the good and the bad, and all one’s beliefs and feelings, both the good and bad, are arising out of the same instinctual entity and must be addressed in their totality – without presumption, favouritism, discrimination or prejudice. RESPONDENT: Because this will always produce the destructive attitude of ‘Fuck you me first’ and it will never allow for ‘You first me second’ which I would say is essential altruism not that I am there but I can see the light of Virtual freedom. VINEETO: ‘You first me second’ is the religious-spiritual moral of ‘Thou shalt be unselfish and thou shalt be rewarded in heaven’. The altruism we are talking about is the act of ‘self’-immolation that has no rewards for ‘me’ except – as Richard reports – the glorious satisfaction of fulfilling one’s destiny for the benefit of this body, that body and every body. Virtual Freedom, the stage where you are harmless and happy 99% of your time, is certainly the first necessary step in the process towards an Actual Freedom from the Human Condition. RESPONDENT: Security other than the body not immediately in a life-threatening situation or possibly harmful at a certain moment is an illusion we thin skinned animals are extremely vulnerable beings. So from that point of view when bungee jumping better have a good rope likewise when going out parachuting make sure you have a parachute. VINEETO: Yes, it is certainly useful to be sensible and practical when doing any investigation
into the depths of your psyche. In my letter to RESPONDENT: As the demonstration in Byron Bay has illustrated what fear does in human interaction, I have made it a point to write to No. 12 and tell him that in his words I have a different viewpoint as to how create peace in this world than he has and I have asked him to consider to apologize for his behaviour which by now I label disrespectful. It is not a judgment I know that he did what he did because he is not actual free, this was his cry for help ... or am taking this too serious? VINEETO: The method of actualism is specifically designed to focus your awareness on your own emotions, feelings and beliefs such that you can change yourself, radically and irrevocably. Intuiting or guessing what someone else is thinking or feeling and what are their motivations and beliefs, let alone trying to change someone other than oneself, is a sheer waste of your potential happy and harmless time. Given that you have said you now have ‘a different viewpoint as to how create peace in this world’, you now have the opportunity to apply the method of actualism and turn what can only be a viewpoint at this stage into a verifiable fact – as in becoming actually harmless and happy.
VINEETO: It took a while until I got round to answering your letter. Not only am I very slow with writing letters these days, I also had to reformat and reload my computer, which always puts me back to square one. I will snip out a few of your paragraphs in order that the letters don’t get too long and I will focus on two main issues you have raised. RESPONDENT: From my own experience with spirituality I know that it needs painful honesty to admit that one has not really managed to become free from their elementary social conditioning (not condition) let alone be free of the much more deeper ingrained conditioning. Ie. Gender conditioning seems to be so much deeper ingrained that many if not all seekers finally will come to the conclusion that there is a fundamental difference between the male and female psyche and that male/female interaction is basically nothing more then a variation on the theme man tries to catch female and female plays ‘hard’ to get but in the end there is some sort of ritual during which man can play is ‘natural’ dominating role and female can submit to that in order to fulfill her ‘natural’ part. This gender conditioning will therefore always either subtly or obviously be intertwining into any relationship be it male</>male, female</>male, or female</>female. Keen readers may conclude that / means the wall that is basically there in any kind of relationship, in other words there always be a sense of separation from the other. VINEETO: The male and female conditioning was the first issue Peter and I investigated when we started living together. To live in peace and harmony was at the top of my laundry list and consequently I was all set to investigate every skerrick of my own conditioning that prevented peace and harmony between us. After years of failed relationships here was a man who offered to investigate with me peace between man and woman and agreed with eager anticipation for the new adventure. The way we conducted our discoveries in each upcoming issue was to weigh what we felt and believed against what we found out to be the facts. It soon became obvious that it was the facts we could both agree on while feelings and beliefs always were prone to discrepancies. In this way I questioned one bit of my female conditioning after the other and I found more and more that the ‘fundamental difference between the male and female psyche’ was comprised of mere beliefs and my social training. I found that all this female identity I had been so proud of consisted of nothing but hot air – everything that my mother and my peers had taught me as to how I should think, feel and act as a woman and all it entailed – my need to be different, my lust for power, my fear of being controlled, my collection of hopes and disappointments and my social role in the ‘women’s club’. What also complicates the investigation is that men are taught what women are like and women are taught what men are like and these images have nothing to do with the facts. As such, one needs to investigate and understand both side of the gender equation, male and female conditioning. Then and only then one can safely observe and understand the animal instinctual gender programming in oneself. When you say ‘man tries to catch female and female plays ‘hard’ to get’, you are exactly pointing to the instinctual role between man and woman – the instinctual drive to procreate that underpins all social conditioning and behaviour, which is indeed different for man and woman. Woman as the child-bearer instinctually looks for security and permanence whereas the man is instinctually driven to spread his semen as far and wide as possible. These gender differences are inherent in everybody – this is the default programming of our instinctual animal software implanted to ensure the procreation, propagation and survival of the species. In order to get to the bottom of this instinctual programming I first needed to observe, then investigate and finally eliminate all of my moral, ethical and spiritual conditioning as to what I had been taught it means to be a woman. When stripped of those attributes of my identity I discovered that I was simply a human being, exactly as Peter was simply a human being, and our only difference is in the plumbing and not the wiring. One of the earliest and utterly delightful rewards of my diligent in-depth investigation into the gender programming was the enjoyment of free and pure sensuous sexual pleasure – unrestricted of guilt and freed from the instinctual animal drive. For that outcome alone it is be well worth practicing the method of actualism. * RESPONDENT: Now it has been this incident that has been a continuous source for me to doubt and redoubt the position I had taken in the matter of evaluating the validity of the method of actual freedom being the continuous running of the question ‘How am I living my life this moment?’ I just only recently (couple of weeks) have been doing this with pure intent and so far I have achieved very satisfactory results. VINEETO: The question you used is different to the method of actualism – which is asking yourself each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ – I am not nitpicking here, the difference is remarkable. The actualism question will immediately focus you on to how you are experiencing this very moment, the only moment one can actually experience. The question you are asking is a spiritual question whereby you can easily create a ‘me’ who is ‘living ... life’ feeling good while ignoring or sublimating the ‘me’ who is ‘living ... life’ feeling resentful, angry, sad, etc. The actualist question, if run with sincere intent, will leave nothing unobserved, nothing hidden, nothing repressed, nothing sublimated in the interests of ‘my’ gratification and ‘my’ glory. If you ask yourself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and you are sincerely feeling happy in this moment, that’s great. When you are not feeling happy, then you start investigating what was the trigger for the particular emotion you have since you were last happy. You look at the very reasons, why you are not feeling happy in this moment. Usually you don’t need to go back very far, half an hour, a day, at the most a week. The method of actualism is not about unravelling or healing childhood hurts, but is about tracing every single emotion, feeling and belief that you find lurking inside so as to become happy again as soon as possible. You will find that you will also focus on becoming harmless as it is impossible to be happy unless one is harmless – unless one feels God-like, of course, which is where pure intent plays its part. Running the question – ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ works, immediately – and that, for many, is the scary bit. One actually diminishes and eliminates one’s very identity by removing the problems and feelings that give one’s identity credence and substance. RESPONDENT: You were correct in your perception that I did not use the actual freedom method as is suggested by Richard being asking the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive<H?A(I)ETMOBA>. ‘(a sequence of 9 words). Rather I was running a variation on that namely: ‘How am I living my life this moment’ <H?A(I)LMLTM> (a sequence of 8 words). For a while I found myself indulging in linguistic nitpicking (what the fuck can the difference be here?) also there was a sense of ‘she thinks she knows better huh’. Clearly I must accredit myself for having been correct in applying the first part of the sequence H?A(I). But then I realized that merely you had corrected my false sense of being in agreement with the actualist point of view as to the suggestion to apply a method to create peace. After having overcome my initial resistance to experiment in order to check out whether I could take benefit of the mentioned difference I initially decided to experiment with both alternatively. Indeed the effect was stunningly more effective if I run the 9-word-sequence. And then I asked myself how come this difference in effect? Which you mainly pointed out as in what I now call the ‘Richard sequence’ the risks of self-aggrandizement or self-gratification are being dealt with effectively. So comparing <A>< LMLTM> (in which A stands <for how am I> to <A>< ETMOBA> It became clear that even scientifically it can be proven that indeed the pointed out dangers are present in the rest of the 8wordsequense(the mine one): <L> <*MY*> <LTM> where the left star is representing the self-aggrandizement and the right star self-gratification thus looking at the 9 word sequence one can see that these (**) risks at least are minimized to a maximum degree in this sequence. <E> <TM> O <B> <A> in other words this 9character sequence is better period^ note^: I’m not saying sequence of 11 symbols as I have left out the question mark <?> and <( )>^^ as these are merely a way to put certain emphasis on the parts of the sequence that gave rise to misinterpretation from my part. So I have no trouble at all in admitting that I did apply the method incorrectly as I know that my intent was definitely in agreement with the suggested goal/direction/purpose of actualism being ‘creating peace on earth’. Hence your feedback has not been interpreted as a rejection of the 8word sequence (the mine one) but rather been received as a free trial out of a new more effective program (free (of charge) likewise as is the AF-screensaver which I have not yet downloaded because currently I don’t run an antivirus program). As such I express my gratitude for bringing this to attention. So far so good. (Editor’s note: The screensaver is no longer available due to its incompatibility with Windows 8) VINEETO: It looks like that you are quite enamoured with playing with the letters of the sequence of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ As an actualist, I am more interested in which way applying the method has so far brought any changes in your life, how ‘indeed the effect was stunningly more effective if I run the 9-word-sequenc’ and what insights into ‘the Stygian depth of [your] own psyche’ you have gained. Actualism is, after all, about actual change in one’s life, a change that results from slowly, slowly becoming aware of one’s social and spiritual conditioning, be it Dutch or English, male or female, Baptist or Sannyasin, Krishnamurtiite or geotheistic. I am curious as to what you have discovered about yourself and what tricks of the psychological entity called No 23 you have come to know in yourself.
VINEETO: Two days ago you commented to Richard on my post to No 16 –
RESPONDENT: ... me thinks that there is fair risk that this list is moving into the bullshit zone and if that is so I think Vineeto may be credited for heading into that direction with No 16. I thought actualism at least was a non-pamper list but her emphatic response to No 16 very well ‘understandable’ fears with regards to Cultism is to me almost sickening. Jesus Vineeto how can you buy this kind of crap that No. 16 is selling you? VINEETO: Then in a response to Richard’s letter on that topic you wrote –
RESPONDENT: Maybe I better pick it up from here. As you point it out that you cannot speak for Vineeto which I agree with, I leave that up to Vineeto if she would like to respond to that because it is indeed meant for Vineeto I admit this could be come confusing but on the other hand I have decided to treat this list indeed as a public forum and as such my opinion {I think Vineeto may be credited for heading into that direction with No. 16. I thought actualism at least was a non pamper-list} can be regarded as off the mark. <snip> I do not see myself pampered in the way you respond to me I think there is a rather mature kind of interaction going on I fully respect your space I have no need to compete or argue with you. VINEETO: When you say that your ‘opinion {I think Vineeto may be credited for heading into that direction with No 16. I thought actualism at least was a non pamper-list} can be regarded as off the mark’ does that mean that your question is now answered? Or have you simply removed the question because you thought it to be inappropriate (‘off the mark’)? I do not know what you consider to be the criteria for the difference between ‘pampering’ on the one hand and for ‘a rather mature kind of interaction’ on the other. Maybe you could give me some examples.
VINEETO: I do not know what you consider to be the criteria for the difference between ‘pampering’ on the one hand and for ‘a rather mature kind of interaction’ on the other. Maybe you could give me some examples. RESPONDENT: What is the difference between pampering and a rather mature attitude? As I already stated that the opinion about you being pampering was of the mark I do not recognize the question as a vital one. Sorry Vineeto a vital question would have been: What do you mean with going to the Bullshit zone? And what kind of authority do you assume me to be? VINEETO: As you already know the vital questions I am supposed to ask you, I will leave any
further conversation to [Respondent] and [Respondent’s Sannyas name]
RESPONDENT to No 12: To me the turning point in my faith in actualism as a group of people that are really concerned about creating peace on earth came when there was no response from any of the actualist crew to No 12’s question about as to whether there had been made an improvement on the AF-method by adding to the sequence ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the sequence ‘on our (patafotk update <our> this) planet Terra’. So this remains unanswered and I have my reasons for taking this question as an honest question and as such one might expect it would have been honoured with a sincere reply however not so. So indeed this is disappointing and in my opinion reflecting an attitude which I hesitantly would label arrogance. So... ... Richard, indeed a simple yes or no would have sufficed. To me this lacking of response has been greatly undermining your credibility and almost put you in the gallery of the rest of the guru’s and non guru’s. VINEETO: As you seem to have abandoned your ‘faith in actualism as a group of people’, you indicate that actualism for you is a belief system. For those who understand that actualism is a method to be applied in order to become free from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow, faith is of no concern. Actualism is a practical do-it-yourself method devised to investigate and discern what is silly and what is sensible which then eliminates the very need to have faith, trust and belief. In order to find out the facts about ‘the improvement of the AF-method’ devised by you, you will have to apply it sincerely and diligently on yourself and then report the results. As it is your method, you are obviously the one who should try it out and you will be the arbiter as to whether this method works better than the original actualism method. I am in no position to answer your question as I use only one method and I know that it works for everyone who uses it with pure intent. Why should I experiment with a different tool, particularly as it has not even been tested? It is up to you to prove that your new method works and that it works better than the original method. Here are some hints to find out if it worked –
The original actualism method works perfectly to tackle these and many other issues of the Human Condition and if you want to know if your method works equally well then you will have to find out for yourself. In actualism you are on your own, as is everyone else.
RESPONDENT No 32: Hello, First of all I want to tell you that I hate every word that ends in -ism. Every time I pronounce such a word my body produces all kind of negative reactions such as shivering, cold and sweeting. VINEETO to No 32: Maybe you had not read Richard’s post to No 23 before you filed your complaint –
Why don’t you check out the following words for the same physical effect – actinism, algorism,
altruism, amorphism, anabolism, anatocism, asterism, Atticism, auto-eroticism, biomagnetism, biprism, bradyseism, catabolism, chemism,
chemotropism, daltonism, diachronism, diamagnetism, dichronism, Dynamism, ebullism, echoism, embolism, empiricism, endomorphism, epimorphism,
erotism, galvanism, geomagnetism, geotropism, haptotropism, heliotropism, heteromorphism, heurism, homoeomorphism, homomorphism, immediatism,
isochromism, isomerism, isomorphism, jism, journalism, magnetism, mechanism, melanism, metabolism, metachromism, metamerism, metamorphism,
metasomatism, monomorphism, monosyllabism, morphism, motorism, neologism, nephalism, nudism, optimism, organism, parallelism, paramagnetism,
pentaprism, photorealism, phototropism, pianism, pleochronism, polymerism, polymorphism, polytypism, pragmatism, prism, professionalism, putanism,
rheumatism, satellitism, seism, sensism, tourism, transformism, traumatism, trichroism, triolism, ventriloquism, vicarism, vicinism, vocalism,
volcanism, voltaism, voltinism, volunteerism, vulcanism, witticism (not to be mixed up with dimwitticism RESPONDENT: 22 out of 93 mmh not a bad score but nevertheless, Vineeto, could you please provide the meaning of the lacking ism’s so that we all can stick to dictionary meanings. I’d call this a rather inventive though kind of elaborate way of showing some sense of humour and indeed if you, No 32, have any ism-allergy (which I find quite understandable btw), this may be an antidote for it. I found the list that was supplied quite interesting hence my effort to bring some more clarity into this ism-stuff. Maybe there is little bit of overdoing in it but admittedly it has been done rather thorough (well you know this is the German way perhaps). VINEETO: 71 out of 93, you have been quite successful. I have used the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, also known as the Oxford Talking Dictionary, available only as CD or annual subscription on line. Unfortunately the available online Oxford Dictionary is not as comprehensive as my CD. A lot of ism-words are Latin or Greek in origin and if you are really interested in their meaning, you might be able to deduct it by taking them apart and look up the syllables ... or buy the Oxford CD as it comes in quite handy for all sorts of communication purposes. I am not going to provide all the meanings for the words because the topic of the post to No 32 was his personal antagonism against -isms. I subsequently provided words that ended with -ism which contained no characteristic of ‘currents’, ‘theory’, ‘belief, system, knowledge, education, future, special, great, better’ to show that the ending -ism cannot be generalized as he did. As for ‘ism-allergy (which I find quite understandable btw)’ – I found all of my psychological allergies worthy of investigation because a psychological allergy is just another word for an emotional reaction to the world as it is and any form of antagonism is bound to prevent me from being happy and harmless. * VINEETO: ... witticism (not to be mixed up with dimwitticism) RESPONDENT: ... of the journey to Actual Freedom, Virtual Freedom, PCE, ASC, ‘self’-sacrifice, dimwitticism, the thinker and the feeler, ‘I’, narcissism of Enlightened Ones ... YEP I did my homework didn’t I. VINEETO: Peter coined the word ‘dimwitticism’ and it has its roots in the Australian slang-word dimwit, which can be translated as dull-witted. He could apply for the word to be entered into the new edition of the Oxford dictionary as it is a very useful term for the foolishness that passes for wisdom and Truth and is mindlessly repeated over and over again. The world is full of dimwitticisms.
VINEETO to No 38: For example, following my extensive investigating into my emotional problems with authority, an insight revealed the root cause – my belief in a disembodied Higher Authority. Once I realized, without doubt, that the existence of a God by whatever name was nothing but a commonly held belief and not a fact, the whole range of emotional charges around authority – any authority – disappeared completely, never to return. I described the process of this realization in Peter’s Journal –
RESPONDENT: A while ago Vineeto you used the term ‘disembodied authority’. I looked into that for a while and I came to find that this might be the issue at large why with what human beings basically are struggling. What generally we do in order to avoid taking responsibility for our own ‘personal power’ ... VINEETO: I was talking about taking responsibility for every action in my life, i.e. my words and deeds, which is something completely different to ‘taking responsibility for our own ‘personal power’’. Modern self-love preachers like Oprah Winfrey espouse to love yourself, to empower yourself, to take back your power, to assert yourself, and so on, and this process only attempts to shift one’s identity from being powerless towards being powerful. In actualism I don’t attempt to gain or take responsibility for my own ‘personal power’, because power is in itself a feeling and an emotion-based concept. In actualism I became aware of my feelings and thoughts and I took responsibility in that I made it my single-pointed aim to become free from my malice and sorrow and that included the fervent need to either follow or fight authority figures, be they flesh-and-blood or disembodied. And just to head off an objection at the pass before it breaks loose – it is eminently sensible not to violate the authority of the law and police of the country you are in. ... is projecting a portion of that into an authority figure and next disembody that authority in such a way that this authority can no longer be questioned/ approached in a way that there can be dialogue between the questioner and the authority figure. VINEETO: What I meant by my belief in a disembodied Higher Authority was the notion that there is a Somebody or Something that is the supposed arbiter of the human-made values of good and bad, right and wrong. An example of a ‘Somebody’ is a God or Goddess, by whatever name, a mystical Jesus or Buddha, a dead Rajneesh or Krishnamurti, and so on. An example of ‘Something’ are material things that are often revered and deified such as Mother Earth, the Universe, the moon or the planets, Energy, Chi, Intelligence or faceless amorphous forces such as the Government, Globalization, Materialism, and such like, that are the usual fuel for conspiracy paranoia. During the time I struggled with my feelings about authority figures I did not ‘disembody that authority’ but I came to realize that I simply wanted to have the same power that the authority figure seemed to hold. The very reason I made a person into an authority figure was because they had something I wanted, either material as in riches or worldly position, or non-material as in spiritual powers, blissful altered states or a booked seat in spiritual heaven. In practicing actualism, my solution was not to have a ‘dialogue between the questioner and the authority figure’ (for instance a dialogue between Rajneesh and me) but I looked into my own psyche in order to find out why I felt compelled to make a person into an authority figure in the first place. And just to head off another objection at the pass before it breaks loose, I am not talking about a person who is an authority as in an expert in a particular field of expertise. If I find someone who is an expert in computers or accounting for example, then I am all ears because I may learn something that I did not know and can try out for myself to see if it works and is useful. RESPONDENT: With regard to this I like to let God outside of that as an example I rather look at what I see is happening through the effect i.e. the television has. VINEETO: If I may ask, why would you rather ‘let God outside of that as an example’ – or any other disembodied authority figure for that matter? Why not start with the obvious and most basic issue of authority ‘with what human beings basically are struggling’? RESPONDENT: The same process is happening watching i.e. a political leader on TV (is watching the image <which has become a symbol of an authority>). We accredit him with worldly authority (which is assigned power/ responsibility) hence creating disembodied authorities hence draining our own reasonability to be present on a political level (the powerful me as a social identity). Just a short thought that came to mind. VINEETO: A person that is alive is not suddenly disembodied because he or she appears on television. If you see the Dalai Lama on TV then that is an image of the flesh-and-blood Dalai Lama and if you see the Dutch queen on TV, that is an image of the flesh-and-blood Dutch queen. Further, it is not the image that ‘has become a symbol of an authority’ but ‘I’, the identity, project ‘my’ feelings of authority on to the actual flesh and blood person and relate to him or her with feelings of admiration, awe, devotion and/or envy, hate and resentment. You seem to be suggesting that you should go out and become an admired/resented authority figure as in becoming ‘a political leader’ yourself in order to resolve your emotional conflict with authority. Then when you become a political leader, yet another ‘powerful me as a social identity’ will come along and will want to dethrone you because they too like to rile against authority. Have you ever contemplated on the fact that the whole system of democratic government is an adversarial system consisting of competing ruling and opposition parties, forever in conflict and never in harmony? And just to head off another objection at the pass before it breaks loose, I am not saying a dictatorship is better because at least a democracy offers a watchdog against endemic outbreaks of corruption. The actualism method, however, is designed to do the opposite of blindly following or thoughtlessly riling against authority – you become aware of, investigate, understand and become free from the feelings of admiration, awe, devotion and/or envy, hate and resentment in your own psyche – then you are free to see the flesh and blood fellow human being bereft of your own emotion-based projection of authority and you are also able to see the facts as opposed to simply carrying on believing what everyone else believes underneath the ‘self’-centred feelings of power and powerlessness. Now that I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using the common and practical
intelligence of the human brain, I can see that an assigned and elected political leader is nothing more than someone doing his or her job in the
complex administration of a country just as a clerk, a farmer or scientist is doing his or her job in the running of their business. Personally I
found ‘to be present on a political level’ unnecessary because a lot of other people are doing their job in running the country as best
they can in the circumstances. I also found that, as But if you are sincerely interested in improving the lot of your fellow human beings, I have yet to hear of a better contribution that any one person can make towards the betterment of the human species than for that individual to prove that it is possible to eliminate their own feelings of malice and sorrow.
RESPONDENT: I have been with the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ for quite awhile now. Apparently the AF-method is a matter of ‘copying’ a ’program’ that has been generated by one specific brain that belongs to the flesh-blood-body Richard. So now there are some other brains that have ‘downloaded’ the self-destruction program: smoothly running the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and I just wonder: Is not the questioner the very synthesis of the both ‘I’’s being worldly or spiritual identities? – in other words – the fundamental relationship between the questioner and this question. It seems to me that in my brain the question has morphed/evolved into: what will happen when the questioner would disappear? As we are fellow beings I thought I might give notice. VINEETO: Yes, to realize the implications of applying the method of actualism is indeed thrilling. ‘I’ willingly set out to sacrifice what ‘I’ value most – my very identity. The reason why ‘I’ willingly set out on a path to ‘self’-immolation is because in a PCE it is clearly experienced that the very best ‘I’, as an identity, can do for this flesh-and-blood body and for my fellow human beings is to actively pursue ‘my’ demise so that the splendour and perfection of the actual world can become apparent. The questioner will disappear when he/she has done his/her job – when all of ‘me’ has disappeared. Asking the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is designed to awaken and continuously sharpen my awareness, to focus my attention both on how I sensuously experience this moment and what beliefs, feelings and imagination is preventing me from being happy and harmless now. The more I am happy and harmless, the less substance ‘I’ have as an identity because identity can only thrive in feelings and imagination. The longer I apply the method of asking myself the question, the more the questioner becomes redundant and is replaced by an ever increasing sensuous awareness of being alive right here in this moment. What happens when the questioner has disappeared completely you can read in Richard’s Journal, the
parts where he describes everyday life like making a cup of tea or riding his bicycle into town or going shopping in the local supermarket. Some
excerpts you can also find in
VINEETO: The feelings you describe remind me of RESPONDENT: Only this: I checked the links they seem not to work so maybe you could please fix that. VINEETO: Thank you for letting me know. The addresses for the links are all right, so I suspect that the web site was temporarily down. I checked it today and it works now. Given that you said you have downloaded the whole web site, in a similar situation you can also find
these pages off-line. The easiest way to find a link, I think, is to go to the
RESPONDENT: First of all Thanks for the hint Vineeto. Having been a ‘window user’ for many years yet the benefit of that search facility for files that contain a certain line of text had escaped my attention; it’s great fun to learn something new eh? A short flashback to the BI.: On this list I once called you Yoko Ono I understand that I may have suggested that I had pictured you and Peter as an example of a romantic couple yet, That name is now taken by my sister (just for fun) and to be honest I’m pretty glad she took it that way, as she usually is a rather serious hard labouring women. Well that was just a bit of chit-chat as a side track. VINEETO: I’m pleased to read that you have now changed your picture of Peter and I as ‘an
example of a romantic couple’ to ‘experts in the field of gender conditioning’ as you said further below. If you haven’t read
it already, in RESPONDENT: You may well have noticed (as I did) that the expression [polarizing language (as used by No 37)] and his expression of his concern as to the use of that kind of language on this list from the point of view of a citizen of the US or a citizen of Europe (as I am) I find understandable when taken at large considering the load of alone the term ‘polarizing’, let alone the use of language of that kind. Nevertheless I think the language on this list must not be watered down when it comes down to fundamental aspects of the AF process. Also I have understood that politics is not really your concern as neither it is mine; however on some levels in this game I think each one of is affected by decisions that are made by the top so to speak. VINEETO: I follow with interest many reports and stories as to how human beings live their lives, how they relate with each other, how they solve problems and face challenges. I am continuously amazed at the ingenuity of human intelligence and human practicality and how well many functions of society are organized despite the sabotaging effects of the human condition. Western societies in particular have managed an astounding amount of administrative tasks like hospitals, police, courts, emergency services, traffic control, road and rail service, electricity and water, telephone and post, social security and education. I have also come to see that there is no ‘top so to speak’ because the decisions that affect my everyday life are primarily made by public administrators in response to public demand, be they the road authority, the electricity company, the local council, the police, telephone and postal administration, and so on. Other decisions are made by industry in response to public demand, be they agriculture and trade, manufacturing, service industry and so on. Medical progress is influenced by many factors, among them public demand for better health, research funding, the ingenuity of scientific researchers, economic and practical issues as well as moral and ethical restrictions. The same holds for almost every other aspect of social administration. Politicians are only one spoke in the wheel of the organizational network, they are but the front men and women for the underlying administrative system. Despite popular opinion, politicians are not in control of everything that happens in their particular country, region or town. Far from it in fact, as most practical decisions are made at the administrative and executive level and most political decisions are made according to an ever-swaying popular opinion. Recently it occurred to me that the emotional issue with authority – either worshipping and following a chosen authority figure or rebelling against adverse authority figures – is related to an instinctual reluctance to admit that nobody is in charge of running the world – neither an almighty God nor a Mother Nature, neither a collusion of corporations nor a conspiracy of politicians. Despite common belief and social inculcation, we are all fellow human beings doing this business of being alive for the very first time. RESPONDENT: And though I’m moderately optimistic as to the possibilities of an actual global peace considering the stunning possibilities to focus our energy creatively rather than destructive, to become mutual supportive rather then taking advantage of each other and to cooperate rather then to compete. This also may very well be the last opportunity for humanity to dance not that I vote for a script like that. But the message is clear, only I can choose to move into the direction of a virtual freedom – live like a Zombie or become actual free. VINEETO: I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm but ‘an actual global peace’ is not something that is likely to happen in the next two or three generations. Although everyone can become free from the human condition, thus far only very few people are interested in exploring that possibility. Peace on earth is not a communal enterprise, not even a group event. History is littered with the failed attempts of countless groups to impose their particular social, political or religious-spiritual agenda on others or with groups who stand aloof from others by piously declaring that they are the Chosen Ones or that they are the sole Guardians of the Truth. The expression ‘peace on earth’ points to the fact that peace can be experienced for you here on earth, in this lifetime, as opposed to the spiritual pursuit of an imaginary peace in heaven, epitomized by the inscription on Christian tombstones – R.I.P., rest in peace. RESPONDENT: So... at this point I’d rather acknowledged you and Peter as experts in the field of gender conditioning for starters. As I find this issue all over the place wherever I move my ass so to speak. So with this I give a hint into the direction that I have some understanding of the urge that the so-called social female and male identity become dismantled. Being a man I have taken full responsibility to take the male part as far as it concerns this flesh-blood-body named No 23/ No 23(Sannyas name). Talking about that in previous posts you have explained the reason why you have kept your name Vineeto for practical purpose. VINEETO: Yes, gender conditioning is indeed one of the outstanding features of everyone’s identity. Broadly speaking, a woman considers herself first as a woman and then as a human being. Similarly, a man considers himself first as a man and then as a human being. So, to see and treat others as one’s fellow human beings, one needs to investigate all the beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions that form one’s gender conditioning. But what a delight it is to be free from being a woman and to be free from having to play all the silly games of the male-female role-play! You wrote some more on this topic in your letter to No 38 –
You have described very well the common belief of the post-women’s-lib-era – the belief that women are the ‘better’ gender and that ‘sensitive’ men should accommodate women by becoming SNAGs (sensitive new-age guys) in order to fit into this new world order. Quite a few men have adopted the female-generated belief that women are naturally more caring whilst men are instinctually more aggressive and that if women ran the world everything would be hunky-dory. I am presently revisiting the early writings on the Actual Freedom mailing list and in several
correspondences Richard and Peter have discussed these issues with Irene. I could recognize many of my own former gender beliefs in her points of
view. RESPONDENT: So just out of curiosity what was your German maiden name? ^note as I have made it perfectly clear in previous writings to Richard that I have no intentions nor do I have any interest to invade in private matters so if you consider this as to be an irrelevant question it will be fully respected as entirely your own business whether to disclose it or not , yet as Peter has disclosed his former sannyas name and even explained the silly poetic meaning of it, so just to poke a bit of fun of Spirituality I wonder what it is that Vineeto meant, mine was silence and I was very proud of it. ^ VINEETO: I do consider these issues as irrelevant to this list and nothing to do with the business of becoming free from the human condition and, as such, I prefer to leave it at that. Whatever meaning Rajneesh gave to the name Vineeto is of no concern to me today. I simply decided that it was easier to keep using the name by which everyone has come to know me rather than revert to a name that my parents gave me which is more difficult to pronounce in English. RESPONDENT: Btw: When searching through yahoo on Actual freedom there is another Site called Actual Freedom I have taken notice of that. Well I guess that’s it for now cheers I’m off to the Jazz Festival in Haarlem. VINEETO: I looked up the site (http://www.actualfreedomproject.com/vision.html) and it is a group of artists united under the performing name of ‘actual freedom project’ who advertise an event called ‘soul archaeology’ in the ‘at 7th Heaven Body Awareness Center’ in Berkeley, USA. I wish you fun in Haarlem.
RESPONDENT: A while ago I received some questions <snip>
Yes the way I see it now is that with any religion one holds dear essentially is a failure of the magical child to stand on his own feet and intently move into enquiry/discovery as to the real meaning of life. VINEETO: When I investigated my spiritual beliefs and ideas that I had taken on over the years, I also found that ‘the magical child’ was an invention of the spiritual teachings. What was useful, however, was to abandon my adult world-weary cynicism and intractable beliefs and get in touch with my naiveté and curiosity – qualities that are often seen as childlike – and I take it from your reference that this is what you may be indicating. * VINEETO: Did it [your version of the actualism method] enable you to become free from any aspects of your social identity – as a Dutchman, as a white man, as a son, brother, as a male, etc.? RESPONDENT: The social identity I see basically as a collective belief as to what is appropriate and/or necessary behaviour as for protection of what is agreed upon to be a private space. Basically it comes down to a more or less strict definition as to what is criminal and non-criminal behaviour implies as a Dutchman that differs from ie. a German or a Japanese and so on … depending on the country’s beliefs, as to what law and order is and how it is to be maintained. On the other hand what is funny and/or tragic is also rather much depended on how one’s conditioning in the nationalistic shell has been brought about. Clearly within this shell is a rather fundamental belief as to what part money plays in daily life and hence my way of going about this issue which is still under investigation as it only seems to become evident as a major aspect in social interaction most interesting btw. VINEETO: I have learnt to differentiate between the practical value of money as a trading tool for different goods and the emotions surrounding money such as greed, jealousy, envy, competition desire and resentment. The feelings and passions associated with money are not – as many like to believe – the fault of money per se or of the capitalist trading system itself but are caused by natural forces – the instinctual survival passions instilled in every human being. Money is an immensely useful invention that simplifies the comparison and exchange of services and goods. Only by introducing a commonly agreed upon monetary system was it possible to expand the trading from swapping goods and gossip with one’s immediate neighbour to a world-wide market of goods, services and technology. RESPONDENT: Clearly I acknowledge the trigger-aspect of seeing a different coloured man/woman other than a white. There is still a subtle thrill to the process of racial discrimination and it’s an issue that I’m slowly begin to enjoy to explore especially as in my case (possibly others as well) it is tightly interwoven with the gender conditioning aspect. VINEETO: The common panacea to racial, cultural, religious and gender discrimination is held to be tolerance of differences. And yet these differences between human beings are largely concocted of socially instilled beliefs, values, attitudes and opinions. Holding on to one’s racial, cultural, religious or gender identity means always feeling different from, and separate from, one’s fellow human beings. * VINEETO: Did it [your version of the actualism method] enable you to trace your emotions as they occur and find out exactly which of your beliefs or aspect of your identity triggered them? RESPONDENT: Yes it is a most fascinating process. The other day I was walking together with a man and a woman and somehow the question [what is friendship?] popped up. I found myself ready to jump in with actualism yet I withheld my response. And then the woman said: friendship has a different meaning for everybody? It’s how you experience the feeling of friendship. VINEETO: I found that most people associate an emotional value with friendship and I certainly had strong emotional ties with the men and women I called my friends. Within a friendship there is usually a list of unspoken rules, demands and expectations that need to be observed if one is to maintain the friendship … and loyalty is generally at the very top of this list. * VINEETO: Did it [your version of the actualism method] work in that it increasingly enables you to live with your fellow human beings in peace and harmony? RESPONDENT: Yes indeed, harmony is the keyword; more and more I find myself at ease with fellow human beings. And also they seem to be rather at ease with me. VINEETO: As I investigated my instinctually-based attitude towards people I discovered that my ‘self’-centredness caused me to relate to people either with the hope that they will satisfy my needs and desires – be my friends – or with the fear that they might take advantage of me for their own needs and desires – be my enemies. Isn’t it wonderful to increasingly discover and remove the myopic veil of hope and fear and become able to relate to people as one’s fellow human beings! Last night I watched a report about a British submarine crew – their submarine was used as a strategic training target for Canadian ships in the Second World War. The men in the submarine were under immense and ongoing stress, being the assigned practice target for several warships and it was certainly one of the toughest situations one can be in. But while I appreciated their situation with direct understanding I also realized that I am not ‘one’ with them nor am I ‘alien’ to them – I am a fellow human being. That means that while I may closely appreciate the sailors’ physical and emotional situation it does not necessarily imply imagining and feeling their affective experiencing. In that moment of pristine awareness I did not belong to the feeling-based and psychically connected human race – I was what I am, this flesh and blood body in a flat in a little Australian town. * VINEETO: Did it [your version of the actualism method] work to dissolve the issue of belonging – to a nation, a religion, a social group, a spiritual group, a cultural group, etc.? RESPONDENT: The aspect of belonging to a group in the sense that I feel associated with any belief or ideal has ceased, yet I would be in denial that I can be put or could put myself in a certain category like ie. people who live on a simple pension, or an artist, yet this is merely a matter of choosing to have a certain lifestyle. I must admit that indeed fitting in the first category I had a long-standing guilt issue. VINEETO: It is indeed a fascinating issue to investigate the moral that insists everyone has to earn their right to be here or to prove their worth to society in general or to certain people in particular. Apart from the fact that I am already here (so what’s the point of proving my right to be here?), contributing to peace on earth by changing myself radically is the most worthwhile thing I can do for myself and for my fellow human beings. * VINEETO: Did it [your version of the actualism method] work in that you are now standing on your own two feet and not relying on others for approval? RESPONDENT: Well approval is a stretch though I recognize the difference between appreciation for performance and also disapproval of it. I must say basically I prefer to be appreciated yet not non-critically I have a rather fair view as to about how my actual performance is (be it social, technical skills on whatever level). Also I always encourage people who evaluate the part I play, to be as specific as possible and I like to hear the ‘ratings’ so to speak. VINEETO: I found that if I wanted to be independent of, and unmoved by, other’s blame, I also had to disregard their praise. * VINEETO: The original actualism method works perfectly to tackle these and many other issues of the Human Condition and if you want to know if your method works equally well then you will have to find out for yourself. In actualism you are on your own, as is everyone else. RESPONDENT: Well as to [It is up to you to prove that your new method works and that it works better than the original method.] The method as I have devised it perfectly works for me; at this point I could not think of a better one. The reason why that is so for me I think is that I have given it blood and bones so to speak. A mental reminder to activate the neocortex is something yet when it can be materialized it works differently and one gets in control of one’s own brain so to speak. As I have not (yet) left the ‘belief’ in the theory of morphic resonance, my ‘aspiration’ to create peace on a global level is still alive and with that my sense of being responsible for that. VINEETO: Whilst I can relate to your ‘‘aspiration’ to create peace on a global level’ you might just have a tiny bit of a problem preventing other people from fighting each other. Personally I think that to accomplish actual peace for this flesh and blood body is enough of a challenge and is, in fact, all that I can do to contribute to an actual peace on earth. RESPONDENT: Given that I think that intelligent social interaction is the key to actual freedom, also given that the ‘alternate’ method has been devised largely as a result of my discovering and exploring of the AF-site and list-interaction, I’ll describe the applied method briefly; The alternate sequence is: How am I experiencing Myself here alive. It has been implemented in the following way but I invite anyone who is willing to experiment with it. It’s a seven-steps-sequence starting with How (while touching the tip of the left thumb with the right index finger.) I’m curious as to any comments/suggestions as to how they have experienced (especially in a social setting) the result of applying the alternate method, but then again if the old one works well, why would one experiment with a different one. VINEETO: I assume that by asking ‘How am I experiencing Myself here alive’ you want to focus on yourself rather than on what other people might think and feel. You might find, however, that focussing the attention on ‘Myself’ rather than on ‘this moment’ might eventually serve to aggrandize or at least overemphasize one’s ‘self’ instead of increasing one’s sensuous attentiveness to this moment of being alive. When I ask the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’, either verbally or as a wordless awareness, I am paying attention to what is happening this moment, which includes all sensory perception, any thinking or reflective processes that are happening and any non-felicitous feelings that need further investigation. And the outcome is less and less disturbance to the overall sensual enjoyment of being alive. RESPONDENT: Groetjes VINEETO: Groetjes to you too.
VINEETO: Some time ago you commented to No 38 about something I wrote to him –
RESPONDENT: I for one get the impression that Vineeto is underestimating the (invisible) part that money plays in human interaction. … This sounds to me like a statement made in idealist modus. Yes, it is a fact that one could say we all are in the business of surviving in anyway at any cost, however to say that this is the name of the game, is to blur the line between business and privacy which is as far as I can observe rather sharply drawn by most people when doing business, that is when push comes to shove. To explain; business for making a livelihood, is strictly speaking for most of the ‘players’ far from a game, hence those who actually ‘play’ with and/or for money are very few most call this game working. It is a fact that [money is used in the exchange of goods and services] is basically ‘an exchange’ with my fellow human beings. And also it is a fact that [human beings are instinctually occupied in a ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle for survival against each other] hence whenever money plays a part one enters either the field of this [ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle] while making deals. Or one is making compromises accepting money as a basically not fair and/or adequate (as it is now) belief-system based on reward and punishment accordingly to legal aspects and/ or ethical aspects of the local (national) situation. I question that money is actual, in fact I think that it is a collective belief-system that apart from its being a collectively upon agreed tool, it also is a very personalized belief closely related to lifestyle and that’s where the friction part in human interaction is likely to occur as in essence money is a rather spiritual concept. I think that Vineeto may overlook, that though money cannot buy love, it seems to have become in many cases a more dearly held value then the belief in love thus a tougher to deal with aspect of the social identity at large. VINEETO: When I began to examine the reasons why I was tense and serious whenever I was dealing with money and working for money, I quickly discovered that it was ‘me’, as a passionate identity, who was responsible for all of the ‘bad vibes’ around money. I discovered my anxiety of not being a success, my greed to acquire as much as possible combined with my resentment at having to work for it, my fear of being cheated, my competitiveness to get the best deal come what may and my general reluctance to relate to people in a straightforward manner and fair service-for-money contracts. The issue of money is an excellent field for investigation for an actualist because it brings a whole range of morals and ethics to the surface for close inspection, not to mention the basic survival instincts that are activated when one is dependant upon money for sustenance and shelter. As you mention, one can also have a particular spiritual slant on one’s assessment of money such as – money is dirty, it’s the work of the devil, it’s lead weight for the soul, money corrupts, money stinks, etc, etc. But money itself is neither dirty nor evil – it is only made to be so by the fervent beliefs and passionate survival instincts of human beings. Money – notes and coins – is unquestionably actual stuff and there is a common usage of money as an exchange medium for goods and services. When one begins to remove one’s rose-coloured and grey-coloured glasses – the good and evil spirits concerning money – one can experience that money is a simple straightforward tool. I also found I didn’t have to solve the problems that other people have with money in order to be able to use it sensibly rather than passionately – I only had to investigate my own emotions and beliefs in order to get rid of the aversion, tension and greed that money used to trigger. Today my dealing with money is indeed a game – an utterly non-serious play, which in no way denies the necessity of having or earning sufficient for my shelter and sustenance. I delight in my paid work of putting order in people’s financial records – which is the adult version of ‘playing shop’ that I enjoyed as a girl. Peter recently pointed out that his work is playing the adult version of his favourite childhood game called ‘builder bricks’ – drawing houses and gardens for people in order to pay for his living and his toys. As for assessing how to spend my money, I found it useful to consider the time I need to work in order to pay for my necessities and then make a judgement as to how much more time I want to work in order to buy luxury items such as technical toys. This way common sense prevails over greed because time is my most valuable asset – time to do nothing really well. I can highly recommend looking into all one’s beliefs and passions concerning money because, when they are uprooted and exposed, then dealing with money is but a trading game, utterly easy and delightful.
VINEETO: You wrote a post to me quoting Kofi Annan, the current Secretary General of the U.N. – RESPONDENT: World Peace Secr. Annan – ‘Unilateral actions challenge world peace’. Some progress seems to have been made after all. What a game huh. VINEETO: I take it from your comment that you see the fact that Mr. Annan made this comment as
being ‘progress’ towards world peace. What he is doing is nothing more than condemning a particular group of countries for taking military
action to oust a ruthless dictator who for twenty years took unilateral democidal action Whether the good guys or the bad guys – and who are the good guys and who are the bad guys is entirely dependant on the morals and ethics of the beholder – take unilateral action, or whether they join with others to take multilateral action, the end result is the same – no peace on earth. It would seem that the progress that you are referring to is that the current Secretary General of the U.N. is expressing a moral and ethical stance that accords with your own. In actualism I take unilateral action of a totally different kind, Vis –
I got tired of waiting, and fighting, for someone else to change the world according to my morals and my ideals – I decided to bring about actual peace by changing myself.
RESPONDENT: Thanks for your plaintext copy (I get still blanks when it is sent in rich text). VINEETO: I have explored every alley I could think of to have Peter’s and my posts show up in the Topica archives but no luck. I still prefer the html to plain text for easier reading, so I will post them in both formats in future. * RESPONDENT: World Peace Secr. Annan – ‘Unilateral actions challenge world peace’. Some progress seems to have been made after all. What a game huh. VINEETO: I take it from your comment that you see the fact that Mr. Annan made this comment as
being ‘progress’ towards world peace. What he is doing is nothing more than condemning a particular group of countries for taking military
action to oust a ruthless dictator who for twenty years took unilateral democidal action RESPONDENT: As to: [I take it from your comment that you see the fact that Mr. Annan made this comment as being ‘progress’ towards world peace.] If Mr. Annan would have used the expression ‘unilateral actions’ in combination with the expression ‘challenge world peace’ and these expressions would have been used with their meanings as they have on the AF-site, he could have figured as an actualist merely stating a fact. I’m pretty sure though that he meant to sound a serious warning, hence my quoting of him was meant as a tongue in cheek ponderer, but face value taken I well can understand you took it differently. When looking at the phrase ‘Unilateral actions challenge world peace’. I’m not too sure as to whether or not in this context he did intent to euphemistically refer with ‘Unilateral actions’ to ‘stupidity in matters of cooperation at large’ Hence as such: The current Secretary General of the U.N. might be expressing a stance (not moral or ethical) that accords my own provided that [‘Unilateral actions challenge world peace’] is rephrased as [independent actions by nations or collectives that are not based on UN consensus, well may be severely obstructing progress in creating possibilities for cooperation or sensible dialogue(s) ] So… by no means it is to say that I would support a stance like i.e. [multilateral actions are the only alternative to bring about world peace] I’m not even sure if it where correct to say [By Mr. Annan’s logic, multilateral actions should aid in bringing about world peace] where all he has said was that unilateral actions challenge world peace. I mean strictly speaking he did not say: [multilateral actions should aid in bringing about world peace] Perhaps as a diplomat he did not use the word multilateral as using this it might be interpreted as an invitation to come to solve ‘problems’ through multilateral action rather then intensive dialogue within the UN. But then again that is merely speculation. Thus I’m not sure whether Mr. Annan is condemning a ‘particular group of countries (the so called coalition of the willing) for taking military action. VINEETO: I since read the speech of Kofi Annan 23rd Sept. to the UN General Assembly and although he never used the phrase you quoted in that speech he did say of the recent so-called unilateral military action that deposed Saddam Hussein –
This seems to be a clear condemnation to me, especially as it was said by a diplomat. But to get back to the topic of world peace Annan also said in his speech –
Whilst he uses the term ‘the unique legitimacy’ one has to understand that the UN doesn’t function democratically. The UN has neither legislative nor executive power over any of its member nations and matters of ‘international peace and security’ are the exclusive province of the Security Council. This Security Council consists of five permanent non-elected members – mainly the victorious nations of World War II. Hence Richard’s description of –
And further any one of the five nations that make up the Security Council has the right to veto any resolution that the council passes. Hence at any one time any one single nation of the big five has it in its power to prevent the others from passing a resolution that the others deem appropriate. Or to put it into the currently fashionable jargon – any one of the big five can take unilateral action to foil multilateral action and thus prevent ‘legitimacy’. Those who set up the UN and drafted its Charter never meant the UN to be a democratic institution, particularly in matters of security where the big five rule the roost. Any one of them can foil a democratic vote and every nation in the world retains the inherent right to act in self-defence. Those who set up the UN after WW2 were war-weary realists who understood from experience that ultimately what passes for peace on earth between disparate nations, ethnic and religious groups and ideological factions can only be maintained by the threat of force and if threat fails, by the use of force. RESPONDENT: For me the crux of the matter is that this sentence [‘Unilateral actions challenge world peace’] hints at the fact that this ‘peace-operation’ was taken in disagreement with UN. VINEETO: Given that this was not a General Assembly matter but a Security Council matter, the military ousting of Saddam Hussein was only opposed by two countries of the five Council members as I recall – France and Russia. It is good to be wary of the ‘facts’ presented by either side involved in a moral or ideological dispute since those on both sides in any argument are equally prone to latch at straws in order to justify their beliefs or uphold their convictions. RESPONDENT: As I see it what happened is if for instance one would compare it with a game of football. While this game is in progress suddenly one of the players decides it is no longer football that the teams will be playing but from now on in stead it will be rugby. So… then the cheer leaders of this particular one player jump in to support him and as the arena where the game is happening now is occupied the game football is over. Now he most determinedly starts his advertisement and campaign to find support to play a different game and he gets some people ‘enthusiastic’ to play, however the majority of other players have second thoughts as to the changing of the game – would it be more fun to play rugby and of course would they benefit from it financially? So… they are not sure and all they ask is some time to consider, take counsel with their sponsors and so on. But no time is allowed, the ones in favour move out and start on a different location and the game has changed. Former players now become spectators and a few of the oldies go playing and promoting the new game as the best. That is as I see the current situation now as having become the result as a consequence of what happened, when Mr. Hans Blix was bluntly ignored in his request for more inspections in Iraq. Now what happens next? Rugby after all seems to become quickly less fun and most importantly appears not so profitable as was expected Perhaps this is a bit overly naïve way of putting it and perhaps I give not full credit to the seriousness of the matter but then again that is my opinion so far. VINEETO: Okay. If you want to run a fair play analogy, the question still remains – fair or unfair, according to whom? Many of those who live in the U.S. see it as only fair that they have the right to defend themselves after the financial, military and executive centre of the country were attacked, and not only defend themselves but actively seek out those responsible for the attack in order to stop them from doing it again. Many people around the world seem to think it was fair that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to hunt for the perpetrators of the attacks on the U.S. whilst others thought it unfair. Similarly many people think that it was fair that the U.S. and its coalition members invaded Iraq in order to depose Saddam Hussein and install a democratic system of government whilst others think it unfair. And whilst it is apparent that you think that the manner in which Saddam Hussein was deposed was unfair, a recent poll in Iraq revealed a majority in favour of his regime ending and in favour of the way it ended – military intervention by foreign troops. The only point you seem to be making and have done for some time on this list is that you personally don’t approve of what some country did. Why do you think that this is relevant information to post to a mailing list, which has as its central proposition that the only way human beings can ever bring an end to malice and sorrow is by doing it themselves? Continuing to blame others as being malevolent is but to continue to completely miss the whole point of what is on offer in actualism. * VINEETO: What he is doing is nothing more than condemning a particular group of countries for taking military action to oust a ruthless dictator who for twenty years took unilateral democidal action against his own people. By Mr. Annan’s logic, multilateral actions should aid in bringing about world peace yet it was the multilateral action of a group of countries – mainly Germany, Italy and Japan – who instigated the carnage that was World War Two and it was only ended by the multilateral actions of another group of countries. RESPONDENT: As to: [a ruthless dictator who for twenty years took unilateral democidal action against his own people.] I’m now well aware that the decision to remove Mr. Saddam Hussein from power was not taken lightly and far from an easy one. VINEETO: George Bush Snr. certainly stopped short of deposing Saddam Hussein when the U.S. and its allies cleared his troops out of Kuwait, the official line being a lack of a mandate to go further than freeing Kuwait. It seems that a combination of Hussein’s continued snubbing of the terms of the ceasefire agreement from that war over a decade or more and the fact that the U.S. itself was attacked meant that the circumstances were rife for the decision to be made to militarily depose him and his regime. RESPONDENT: Yet I’m sure that also business’ interests fairly have been intertwining with altruistic motives in coming upon the taken decision VINEETO: Before you take on the popular anti-war, anti-American, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization stance, have you inquired into your own feelings of fear and desire that could well have interfered with a clear perception? What the press and the ubiquitous political propaganda sell as facts is more often than not opinion, distortion and fiction – one needs to consider that everyone who is making the effort and taking the expense of publishing their opinion has a vested interest of their own. RESPONDENT: … (to liberate the poor oppressed inhabitants of Iraq who were suffering from a harsh regime that could be compared with i.e. a Hitlerian regime; was after all AH not applying democidal action against his own people when taken in account that some of the people he took action against where German and hence those were strictly speaking his own people.) Yet, I don’t think it makes much sense to compare this present situation with WWII though of course one will find similarities when looking for them. VINEETO: One of the comparisons that can be drawn between the former situation in Iraq and Adolf
Hitler’s Germany is that the surrounding countries knew in both cases of the extent of atrocities that were going on, yet great resistance to do
something about it was mounted by pacifist movements both in 1940 and in 2001. It is one thing to march for the ideals of peace and freedom, it is
quite another to take pragmatic action about ending one’s own antagonism and facilitating one’s own freedom. It might well be worth following
up the links on RESPONDENT: The present situation in the Middle East as is, is far more complex and the efficiency potential and impact of even ‘ordinary’ conventional weapons is far and far greater then at the time of WWII. Nevertheless no use to cry over spilt milk and if at least I want to have some understanding of what is happening in my backyard so to speak any resentment as to what has happened I had to do away with and look afresh to this new situation. And this situation is still as far as I’m concerned far from clear. To name a few things; the alleged BL /Alquida connection with SH, the assumed existence of WMD (be they nuclear or chemical based.) and of course the Israel/Palestinian case. The factors Korea, Iran, not be underestimated the situation in Africa to name a few aspects. VINEETO: As a youth I demonstrated against the oppressed, I marched against capitalism and for socialism and I instinctively took a stand for a supposedly oppressed minority, against the rich and for the poor. To back up my passionate opinion I relied solely on the propaganda given by the rally leaders, a propaganda that had nothing to do with a clear-eyed seeing of the facts but was purely intended to add fuel to the fires of righteous anger and rebellion against ‘the establishment’. It wasn’t long until I realized that those infused with righteous anger and inspired to rebellion weren’t necessarily better people in their personal lives than those they riled against and I then turned to spiritualism to find a global solution in creating the New Man via spiritual liberation. After living and working in various spiritual communes for more than a decade I discovered that the same class and power battles were fought out within the ranks of the disciples as are fought out in the real world of politics. Eventually I had to acknowledge that the drive for power and superiority – and the consequential feelings of anger and resentment if one is not powerful and superior – is something that is inherent to each individual, i.e. it is universal within the human condition regardless of the arena in which it is played out. This understanding was a major component for giving actualism a go. In short, when you understand your own inherent drive for power and superiority – and the consequential feelings of anger and resentment if you are not powerful and superior – as part and parcel of the survival instincts, you have a much better chance to understand why there can never be a political solution to bringing an end to the malice and sorrow of the human condition. * VINEETO: Whether the good guys or the bad guys – and who are the good guys and who are the bad guys is entirely dependant on the morals and ethics of the beholder – take unilateral action, or whether they join with others to take multilateral action, the end result is the same – no peace on earth. It would seem that the progress that you are referring to is that the current Secretary General of the U.N. is expressing a moral and ethical stance that accords with your own. RESPONDENT: As to: [Whether the good guys or the bad guys – and who are the good guys and who are the bad guys is entirely dependant on the morals and ethics of the beholder – take unilateral action, or whether they join with others to take multilateral action, the end result is the same – no peace on earth.] There’s no arguing about that as to that result when considering the word Peace as used in the AF-process. VINEETO: What passes as peace between countries can always only be a shifting of alliances and this so-called peace does not put a stop to domestic violence, murder, rape, child abuse or the ongoing often acrimonious disputes between people of all ages, gender, race or class with each other. Even within countries that are not overtly at war with others, peace is nowhere to be found. RESPONDENT: I remember a discussion where you stated that ‘democracy’ still is the best system we have come up with so far, thus I must take it that you consider a decision democratically taken is being more sensible then a non democratically taken one. Considering that UN was designated to be functioning as democratic body I am a bit puzzled as to how you come to say: [By Mr. Annan’s logic, multilateral actions should aid in bringing about world peace] {snip} Vineeto:
VINEETO: As I explained above, the UN is not a democratic institution but a conglomeration of representatives of states who can neither pass laws nor implement any of their resolutions. Further, the content of their resolutions is governed – or rather stifled – by the veto power of the Security Council, which is composed of non-elected permanent members. If you wait for the UN to bring peace to the world you will be waiting in vain. RESPONDENT: As it is now I (as the remains of an identity) am my opinion. And frankly speaking I do not see how I can dismantle this identity without having a fair understanding, of where I am positioned as a fleshbloodbody while exploring the Stygian depths of the human psyche for what I understand that to be entailing. VINEETO: In order to understand the bigger picture as to how nations interact with each other I had to first learn to stop taking sides. And in order to stop taking sides I had to take a clear-eyed look at the programming that is the very substance of my own social identity – where I was raised, how I was raised, what values and opinions I have acquired in the course of my life, who I liked and disliked, who I identified with or felt separate from and so on. Because I aspired to dismantle my social identity, I needed to find out why I had a passionate reaction to the events I watched on the news in order to stop my habitual reaction of taking sides as to who is right and who is wrong, who is bad and who is good. Our satellite TV program provides a history channel where I can watch detailed historical reports about many countries and many times in history. I began to learn about, and observe, the swings and roundabouts of nations over time, the shifting of alliances and the sustaining of grievances that go back over centuries, the incessant fight for military, economic and moral superiority by whatever means is available to them. Just as the instinctual survival passions operate in me as an individual, they also operate within groups of people, be they religious, cultural, tribal or national. RESPONDENT: To clarify: Each time I have a PCE it becomes obvious how perfectly I as a human being fit in this whole story of humanity. Even more so how it makes more and more sense what part(s) my fellow travellers play in that. VINEETO: ‘I’ as an identity fit exactly ‘in this whole story of humanity’ because ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’. RESPONDENT: Now the memory of that perfection is a source of nurture to my naivety and also a reason to be moderately optimistic as to the unfolding of a future where the number of people being Happy and Harmless (99%) is not limited to a just a rare few lucky ones. Nevertheless I am also aware that should I indulge in making an uhm… educated guess as to that number and the period of time that may be involved with that this easily could lead to a sort of scepticism that I rather not have intoxicated myself with. VINEETO: You are right – there is no point in intoxicating yourself with scepticism. Yet while successfully practicing actualists can give confidence and surety about the fact that it is indeed possible to become virtually free from the human condition, an actual freedom is, by definition, a freedom from the need to belong to a group, any group, particularly that fabled lot of ‘fellow travellers’ who persist in imagining that other people are somehow going somewhere together with them. By the way, becoming virtually free of malice and sorrow is not a matter of luck – it is instigated by a deliberate decision, the outcome of sincere intent to become blithe and benign and the reward for persistent endeavour. RESPONDENT: PS: The site you referred to http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/ I have scanned and came up the ring of tears well what to say…I consider it as a rather abundant supplement to the horror that has been referred to as malice and sorrow on the AF-site indeed one picture tell more then... so… There is no need for me to become too discriminative in describing the fact that human beings kill each other. Using an extended vocabulary to make distinction i.e. between terrorism, democide, genocide, aso. may be useful when it comes down for scholars when making statistics or lawyers to make a case for crimes against humanity, I for one only need these two labels malice and sorrow and that covers all of it. VINEETO: If, as you said above, you ‘want to have some understanding of what is happening in my backyard so to speak’, i.e. ‘the present situation in the Middle East as is’, you will have to make the effort to discriminate the nuances of how and why human beings and nations interact with each other the way they do. In order to do this, however, you first need to have an experiential understanding of the nuances of how and why ‘you’ tick, which is what actualism is about.
RESPONDENT: Vineeto you might consider this as a preliminary response to your latest posting to me [re: World Peace vs. Peace-on-earth]. Suffice for now to mention that, I’m quite happy with the way and the tone in which you have made your response. VINEETO: I am pleased to have been of assistance in further resolving your query. You are by no means alone in riling against the world as-it-is and people as-they-are and hoping that others will change. The political/national struggles I observe on TV are not very different in nature to the struggles I read about in the local newspaper – it is the human condition in action. Through the practice of actualism I have eventually come to understand the silliness of habitually taking sides in these struggles – particularly more so when I realized that I formed my opinions and beliefs by accepting the ideological views and biased information disseminated by those who ‘I’ agreed with whilst simultaneously turning a blind eye to any facts that didn’t fit. So much for clear thinking. Richard devoted a whole chapter in his journal to describe that ‘it is impossible to combat the wisdom of the real world’ because ‘for a person to acknowledge a fact would require that they betray their belief’ (article 21) … and that apparently is what very few people are willing to do. RESPONDENT: As simultaneously I also have been hmm… monitoring No 56’s postings and responses and have considered his objections as to how the AF-foundation is conducting its public relations. I must say that I have a different opinion as I think The AF-foundation is doing excellent the way it is doing. The embedded midi melodies, the overall make up of the pages with the cute illustrations make it really fun to access them. VINEETO: I am pleased to hear that you like the Actual Freedom Trust website. It is certainly great fun to maintain. RESPONDENT: Back to VINEETO: That No 27 is ‘not available’ is evidence that the website is still being added to. * VINEETO: And in a second post you wrote – RESPONDENT: Gruss Gott, Vineeto, VINEETO: Greet God? How did God get into your mail – did you accidentally leave the back door open? RESPONDENT: From No 45’ postings I get the impression that he thinks that there is some sort of Hierarchy in AF. Vis:
VINEETO: Incidentally, the greatest number of objections accusing actualists of being cult members, forming a hierarchy and following a guru have thus far come from followers of Jiddu Krishnamurti, closely followed by objections from followers of Mohan Rajneesh. And yet, when they come to a mailing list set up by a man who was once enlightened and managed to free himself from the delusionary state along with two others who had trod the spiritual path intensely enough and for long enough to have witnessed the duplicity of the revered God-men first-hand, they then proceed to accuse the very whistleblowers as being either gurus or disciples. But it is all quite simple – as long as I had an issue with authority, I assumed that everyone else also must have a similar problem with authorities. It was only when I, once and for all, realized that there is no God (by whatever name) in this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe – a He/She or It who pulls the strings, grants bonuses to goodie-two-shoes and punishes sinners – that my issues with God’s authority vanished into thin air, never to return. Since then I have discovered what thinking for yourself and standing on your own two feet really means – and it is delightful. RESPONDENT: So… I thought I might make that shift the sooner the better because that kind of dependency is something I find difficult to live with. VINEETO: A ‘shift to Vineeto’? What good is this going to do? I think your tongue is in your cheek, alternating from left to right. RESPONDENT: When I had this sudden flash of insight that anyone could now even from the first page decide whether they consider themself to be in favour of consideration of the third alternative. VINEETO: It is not a matter of considering ‘themself to be in favour’ – it is far more direct. People either are in favour of further investigation and exploration or they are dead set against it. As a rule of thumb it seems that those who find the real world struggles and the spiritual fairy stories to be unsatisfactory could possibly be drawn to explore further and those who are content with their life as-it-is and who feel compelled to remain loyal to their particular teacher will strongly object. RESPONDENT: The way I apply the HAIETMOBA-sequence you can consider to have resulted from a dialogue, in which you mentioned that I had not accurately represented the HAIETMOBA-sequence: quite while ago btw. Now it pleases me immensely that I can present the litmus test for sincerity in rich text as well as in plain text. VINEETO: Peter and I coined the expression ‘litmus test’ to describe the curious phenomenon that some people wholeheartedly agreed with whatever it was that Richard said whilst at the same time strongly objecting to whatever Peter or I said about becoming virtually free from the human condition. Eventually it became clear why – only those who are sincerely interested in actually becoming free of the human condition would deign to inquire about the process of applying the method of actualism from other practicing actualists. RESPONDENT: PS. Vineeto You also made clear that it was me who had to experiment with it in order to find out the difference. I think the formulae as is, works excellent … VINEETO: I am pleased to hear that your query about how to use the actualism method has now been resolved, experientially. The phrase ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is simply the attentiveness of being right here in this physical place right now at this moment, put into words. When you remember to be attentive, the words are redundant, but when you forget to be attentive, remembering to remember the words can jog you back to attentiveness. RESPONDENT: … and it is simply a matter of time that indeed the likeliness of the occurrence of a ‘chain reaction’ will increase considerably. Well one may call me a mad scientist for aspiring to such miracles, yet isn’t life grant eh? VINEETO: The first and most important ‘chain reaction’ is the one that happens in you – first you make it your aim to feel good, then to feel very good, then to feel excellent, then to feel excellent most of the time, and your growing attentiveness to this moment of being alive will insure that ‘me’, the passionate identity, will take more and more the back stage. This process of diminishing ‘self’-centredness is indeed a grand adventure, the journey of a lifetime. Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer |
