Vineeto’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List

Correspondent No 66

Topics covered

The idea that one is merely ‘attached’ to one’s emotions is an invention of Eastern spiritualism, I recommend ‘wiping the slate clean’ of what others have told you to be ‘the truth’ and discovering the facts of the matter for yourself * actual freedom an anomaly? * the idea that one is merely ‘attached’ to one’s emotions is an invention of Eastern spiritualism, one day I dared to contemplate about the issue of a possible life after death right through to its obvious conclusion * the only way that I could succeed in cracking and changing this self-centred perspective was to be attentive to the fact of whether or not I was really being harmless, agnostics generally remain smug in their indifference * acknowledging one’s feelings * what I was being attentive to was the human condition in action * I found it useful to remember that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ * the only inflexibility of an actual freedom is that it is a *non*-spiritual down-to-earth freedom * AF site changes? * actualism is not about getting rid of one’s feelings * atheism and actualism * the feeling of non-emotion in an ASC * it’s all about the strength of one’s intent and commitment to the task at hand

 

17.9.2004

[Actualists appear to have some feelings …]…or how could you use words like delight, benign, beneficent, happy, etc.

None of those words necessarily describes a feeling – delight is a sensate experience, benignity a kindness of disposition, beneficence the outcome of such disposition and being happy can either be a felicitous feeling or a descriptive word that expresses the joyous, blithesome, carefree, untroubled experience of being alive.

ok. I have seen about all of those listed as emotions or feelings in scientific studies of the emotions and yet I can see your distinctions.

You have to bear in mind that scientists are as much inflicted with the human condition as everyone else, which means that the interpretations of scientific studies of the effective faculty are based on the presumptive reality of there being a feeling entity that resides ‘within’ the flesh and blood body – a passionate ‘me’ who sits at the controls, ever needing to be vigilant. What is on offer here is a report from someone who has lived free from the affective faculty for 12 years. – a breakthrough that is completely new to humankinds history.

*

An actualist who has got to the stage of being virtually free of malice and sorrow experiences felicitous feelings almost constantly such that feeling happy becomes the norm, so much so that he/she is invariably spontaneously considerate of others which means that they are almost always harmless to others.

So actualists in VIRTUAL freedom have FELICITOUS FEELINGS. I guess I would assume felicitous feelings are ‘good’ feelings but you say ‘not so’. I’m not rejecting your distinction, just having trouble seeing the difference (and yet I do see some difference).

The AF Library is designed to clarify and differentiate the various terms used on the AF website. Peter has written about affective feelings –

‘Usually we divide emotions into groupings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and try either to repress or deny the bad ones – fear and aggression – while giving full vent and validity to the good ones – nurture and desire. Unfortunately this attempt to curb fear and aggression has had no success as is evidenced by the all the wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, corruption, suicide, despair and loneliness that is still endemic on the planet. Love and hate, compassion and selfishness, etc. come inseparably in pairs as is testified by the continual failure of humans to live together in anything remotely resembling peace and harmony.

The root core of human emotion is the instinctual program of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, instilled by blind nature to ensure the survival of the species. Fear hobbles us with a desperate need to belong to a group, to cling to the past, to hang on to whatever we hold dear to ourselves, to resist change and desperately seek immortality. Aggression causes us to fight for our territory, our possessions, our ‘rights’, our family and our treasured beliefs – seeking power over others. Nurture causes us to care, comfort and protect but also leads to dependency, empathy, sacrifice and needless heroism. Desire drives us to sexual reproduction, avarice and greed.’ AF Library, Affective Feelings

And this is how Peter describes being virtually free from malice and sorrow in the Introduction to Actual Freedom –

‘Serendipity abounds and a fascination with life activates delight and sensuousness as one does all one can to mimic the perfection and purity that becomes increasingly apparent all around in the physical actual world. One has a resounding and unequivocal YES to being here in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. One’s mind, more and more freed of imagination and the chemical influence of instinctual passions, is capable of great clarity and, as apperceptive awareness replaces self-centred neurosis, one knows one’s days are numbered.

One is literally and figuratively coming to one’s senses and is less as less affected by feelings and emotions arising from the animal instinctual passions. A total and sincere dedication to what is actual, pure and perfect, allows one the confidence to let go of control, so to speak, whereby the very process of ‘self’-immolation is set in motion – then it is not a process that one has any control over, it is happening by itself.’ Introducing Actual Freedom, Actual Freedom 4

*

The actualism method is all about disempowering one’s cynical, acrimonious and sorrowful feelings via the potent combination of attentiveness, pure intent, integrity and common sense, whilst simultaneously encouraging activating one’s naiveté and fostering felicitous feelings – happiness, delight, joie de vivre, bonhomie, joyfulness, and so on. In this process it’s important to understand that one cannot deactivate only one’s bad feelings (‘violent emotions’) – you have to investigate and deactivate the antidotal ‘good’ feelings (the tender passions) as well if you genuinely aspire to become free of the human condition, in toto.

Ok, this help a lot. I’m ‘getting it’. For one I see there is ATTACHMENT in the ‘tender passions’ and there is none in the FELICITOUS FEELINGS. Attachment leads to or even is suffering. This is great fun.

No. The idea that one is merely ‘attached’ to one’s emotions is an invention of Eastern spiritualism and a particularly persistent and popular one at that. This theory is integral to the notion that the way to become ‘free’ is to become detached from one’s unwanted feelings (as well as from the corporeal body and the physical world). Becoming detached from one’s unwanted or undesirable feelings inevitably leads to dissociation – the prerequisite to delusionary states such as enlightenment.

This is not what actualism is about – it is impossible to be attentive to the operation of feelings emotions and passions that one is busily being detached from or feeling dissociated from.

Actualism clearly recognizes that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, which is ‘me’ at the core of my ‘being’ and one’s own attentiveness will reveal that this is so. Whenever I am feeling annoyed, it is ‘me’ that is feeling annoyed – ‘I’ am the feeling of annoyance and the feeling of annoyance is ‘me’ in operation as it were. Whenever I am feeling sad, it is ‘me’ that is feeling sad – ‘I’ am the feeling of sadness and the feeling of sadness is ‘me’ in operation as it were … and so on.

If one is detached in any way from any of the feelings that are ‘me’ then it is impossible to understand, let alone actively investigate, how ‘I’ am operating at this moment.

*

…but it seems that even in what seemed to be PCE (or mini ones) some sort of a well-being sense – which in scientific categories of emotion is still considered an emotion or feeling.

‘Some sort of wellbeing sense’ need not be an affective feeling, in the same way as being healthy is not necessarily an affective feeling. Having said that, unless I am having a pure consciousness experience, ‘I’ am an emotional being which means that inevitably ‘I’ have feelings – however as an actualist my on-going attentiveness combined with my ever-present intent to be as happy and harmless as is humanly possible means that I always have the choice that these feelings be felicitous feelings rather than the good or bad moods, vibes, emotions and passions ‘I’ have been socially and genetically programmed to feel.

Good point. Sounds like a state that would be great to be in (and I know that ‘state’ ‘to be’ and ‘attachment’ are all ‘off the mark’ but I’m doing my best with the English language.

The biggest obstacle to understanding actualism is that sincere seekers who come to this site will have all been unavoidably conditioned, trained and indoctrinated with some form of spiritual/philosophical concepts. These concepts form an integral part of their identity – they are the very parameters for each person’s understanding not only of ‘who’ they think and feel they are but of ‘the way things are’. This socially-conditioned viewpoint – a software programme based on the presumption that ‘you can’t change human nature’ means that anyone coming across the words of actualism will invariably read them at first as being yet another version of the familiar spiritual /philosophical concepts that form humankind’s revered wisdoms.

I had the same difficulty when I first encountered actualism. In hindsight, it was only because I had sufficient discontent, disappointment and doubt about the spiritualism process I had practiced for almost 2 decades that I was keenly interested in finding out if there was something fundamentally new in what Richard was saying … even if that did mean abandoning all I believed to be true and right. I can highly recommend ‘wiping the slate clean’ of what others have told you to be ‘the truth’ and discovering the facts of the matter for yourself.

18.9.2004

Would being in Virtual Freedom (until one other person achieves actual freedom, I will have to consider the possibility that it is an anomaly – i.e. it may not happen to another. This is no real concern for me because Virtual Freedom sounds 99% perfect and even what I have experienced since May 04 has empirically proven the value of apperception, investigation of one’s experience, PCE’s, happy/harmless, sensible/silly) destroy one’s enjoyment of the Arts, music, Shakespeare, literature, etc ...? It seems that the Arts, Humanities, literature, music, etc ... expands and enriches our time on this planet (and this is it as far as I can tell/know) and life.

One’s emotional enjoyment – yes. In my experience, the decline in emotional enjoyment makes room for an unfettered sensual appreciation of all of the human endeavours that are not tainted by malevolence and sadness and their antidotes love and compassion.

As for having to consider an actual freedom from the human condition to be an anomaly, that is certainly your prerogative but not a necessity. Everybody Richard has spoken to at length has remembered having had a pure consciousness experience – which is a temporary condition when the ‘self’ is entirely absent. So if a PCE is not an anomaly then is it reasonable to assume that a permanent state of ‘self’-lessness need not remain an anomaly confined to one person.

You can bet your bottom dollar that now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, more people will dare to apply their common sense and initiate an actual freedom for themselves. The process is already in progress.

19.9.2004

So actualists in VIRTUAL freedom have FELICITOUS FEELINGS. I guess I would assume felicitous feelings are ‘good’ feelings but you say ‘not so’. I’m not rejecting your distinction, just having trouble seeing the difference (and yet I do see some difference).

The AF Library is designed to clarify and differentiate the various terms used on the AF website. Peter has written about affective feelings –

‘Usually we divide emotions into groupings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and try either to repress or deny the bad ones – fear and aggression – while giving full vent and validity to the good ones – nurture and desire. Unfortunately this attempt to curb fear and aggression has had no success as is evidenced by the all the wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, corruption, suicide, despair and loneliness that is still endemic on the planet. Love and hate, compassion and selfishness, etc. come inseparably in pairs as is testified by the continual failure of humans to live together in anything remotely resembling peace and harmony.’ AF Library, Affective Feelings

This was hard to admit – but it seems sensible now.

It is good to understand the theory of what ‘seems sensible’ because this will help you in your experiential observation of the good emotions and their consequences in action in yourself.

*

The actualism method is all about disempowering one’s cynical, acrimonious and sorrowful feelings via the potent combination of attentiveness, pure intent, integrity and common sense, whilst simultaneously encouraging activating one’s naiveté and fostering felicitous feelings – happiness, delight, joie de vivre, bonhomie, joyfulness, and so on. In this process it’s important to understand that one cannot deactivate only one’s bad feelings (‘violent emotions’) – you have to investigate and deactivate the antidotal ‘good’ feelings (the tender passions) as well if you genuinely aspire to become free of the human condition, in toto.

Ok, this help a lot. I’m ‘getting it’. For one I see there is ATTACHMENT in the ‘tender passions’ and there is none in the FELICITOUS FEELINGS. Attachment leads to or even is suffering. This is great fun.

No. The idea that one is merely ‘attached’ to one’s emotions is an invention of Eastern spiritualism and a particularly persistent and popular one at that. This theory is integral to the notion that the way to become ‘free’ is to become detached from one’s unwanted feelings (as well as from the corporeal body and the physical world). Becoming detached from one’s unwanted or undesirable feelings inevitably leads to dissociation – the prerequisite to delusionary states such as enlightenment.

I knew I had not only the wrong word, but concept and I expected a correction. I’m just at a loss to verbally distinguish the ‘felicitous’ feelings from the ‘good’ feelings.

As a suggestion, it might be best to try to distinguish them experientially first, then putting this distinction into words will be no problem.

To name the main ones, ‘good’ feelings are all those arising from the tender passions of nurture and desire, such as love, gratitude, loyalty, belonging, compassion, empathy, longing, beauty, greed, hope, trust and faith. The easiest way to recognize that you are dealing with a ‘good’ emotion is when it is preventing you from being unconditionally happy and harmless. For example the feeling of love invariably includes possessiveness, jealousy, yearning and dependency; feeling loyalty to one person or a group prevents one from experiencing all people as one’s fellow human beings; feelings of compassion and empathy contain sorrow; hope invites disappointment, and so on.

*

This is not what actualism is about – it is impossible to be attentive to the operation of feelings emotions and passions that one is busily being detached from or feeling dissociated from.

Agreed, but my past conditioning (spiritual) leads me in the wrong direction.

This is where attentiveness comes in. Much of the work of an actualist is to de-condition oneself from the values, morals and ethics that one has taken on in life which causes one to unthinkingly categorize people things and events as being good, right and true (and being evil, bad and wrong) and to take the time and make the effort to establish the facts in order to make a clear choice based on what is silly and what is sensible.

*

In hindsight, it was only because I had sufficient discontent, disappointment and doubt about the spiritualism process I had practiced for almost 2 decades that I was keenly interested in finding out if there was something fundamentally new in what Richard was saying … even if that did mean abandoning all I believed to be true and right. I can highly recommend ‘wiping the slate clean’ of what others have told you to be ‘the truth’ and discovering the facts of the matter for yourself.

This is true for me too. Though improvement was made in my practice of spirituality – I ALWAYS sensed that it would never deliver totally until after death. Eventually, I decided that I’m not waiting for after death because I figured there may be no after life.

When I encountered actualism, I tried at first to maintain the agnostic stance that there may or may not be an afterlife and I thought it did not really concern my life right now because I would find out in due time (at death). However, as I became more and more attentive to how I experienced this moment of being alive, I had to put many of my beliefs under scrutiny and I began to realize that my non-committal agnostic stance towards the possibility of life after death was preventing me from fully being here.

One day I dared to contemplate about the issue of a possible life after death right through to its obvious conclusion and the lingering agnostic option disappeared to be replaced by a confidence that when I die then that will be final – and the issue disappeared forever. I realized that holding onto the option of ‘me’ being a spiritual ‘being’ had locked me out of experiencing the sheer and wonderful actuality of this physical body being alive right now in this pure and perfect physical universe. In short, it is impossible to be vitally interested in being here whilst holding on to any spiritual or agnostic beliefs.

This is what is meant by actualism being ‘non-spiritual’.

23.9.2004

The AF Library is designed to clarify and differentiate the various terms used on the AF website. Peter has written about affective feelings –

‘Usually we divide emotions into groupings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and try either to repress or deny the bad ones – fear and aggression – while giving full vent and validity to the good ones – nurture and desire. Unfortunately this attempt to curb fear and aggression has had no success as is evidenced by the all the wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, corruption, suicide, despair and loneliness that is still endemic on the planet. Love and hate, compassion and selfishness, etc. come inseparably in pairs as is testified by the continual failure of humans to live together in anything remotely resembling peace and harmony.’ AF Library, Affective Feelings

I have read this, yet to see it again in this context does help me to ‘get it.’ they do come in pairs – they both go or both stay – it’s that simple

It is ‘that simple’ in theory … however as I proceeded to put this insight into practice in my daily life I encountered a lot of obstacles such as cognitive dissonance, feelings of fear, indecision and confusion and repeatedly a stubborn holding on to my old and familiar ways. I discovered the truly tenacious and very cunning nature of ‘me’ that could only be overcome by determination, diligence and persistence.

*

This was hard to admit – but it seems sensible now.

It is good to understand the theory of what ‘seems sensible’ because this will help you in your experiential observation of the good emotions and their consequences in action in yourself.

This sensible exercise is really shedding lite on how I tick. I figured before that most emotions were sensible for they evolved to protect us – now I see that so far every emotion I have investigated has been UNNECESSARY at BEST.

The very passions that were necessary in the early stages of human evolution to ensure the survival of the species have now not only become redundant but their continuance does nothing but endanger the survival and well-being of human beings. You only need to switch on the daily news in order to see, over and over, how emotions and passions drive people to bicker, quarrel, fight, rape, murder and wage war as well as scoff, lament, despair and commit suicide and prevent people from living in peace with their fellow human beings anywhere on this verdant planet.

As for ‘this sensible exercise’ – what is sensible was not all that obvious when I began to practice actualism. Not only was I influenced by the opinions of my peers and the cultural values of society but even more was I driven by my ‘self’-centred survival instincts that by their very nature position ‘me’ at the centre of ‘my’ universe. Often what seemed to ‘me’ to be sensible at first glance turned out to be, (with the benefit of clear-eyed investigation, aided and abetted of course by reading the words someone who is actually free of the human condition) tainted by my ‘my’ moral, ethical and spiritual views, one-eyed, myopic and ultimately ‘self’-serving – in other words silly.

In my experience, the only way that I was able to eventually succeed in cracking and changing this centrifugal perspective was to be attentive to the fact of whether or not I was really being harmless, i.e. if I considered other people’s wellbeing equal to my own. This ‘am I being harmless’ aspect of attentiveness expands one’s field of attentiveness from being ‘self’-centredly exclusive to overarchingly inclusive and this widening of attentiveness is the precursor to having an experiential understanding of what you actually are, as opposed to perpetuating the illusion of being a psychological and psychic ‘being’ parasitically residing in a physical body.

*

To name the main ones, ‘good’ feelings are all those arising from the tender passions of nurture and desire, such as love, gratitude, loyalty, belonging, compassion, empathy, longing, beauty, greed, hope, trust and faith. The easiest way to recognize that you are dealing with a ‘good’ emotion is when it is preventing you from being unconditionally happy and harmless. For example the feeling of love invariably includes possessiveness, jealousy, yearning and dependency; feeling loyalty to one person or a group prevents one from experiencing all people as one’s fellow human beings; feelings of compassion and empathy contain sorrow; hope invites disappointment, and so on.

Hot digity damn! The above was an excellent verbal description of how the ‘good’ emotions prevent happy/harmlessness. Very ‘enlightening’.

Yes, but don’t just take my word for it – it’s up to you to verify the above for yourself experientially. As you would know, there is a vast difference between believing something to be true (even if it does make sense) and knowing something to be a fact because one’s own investigations have confirmed that it is so.

*

This is not what actualism is about – it is impossible to be attentive to the operation of feelings emotions and passions that one is busily being detached from or feeling dissociated from.

Agreed, but my past conditioning (spiritual) leads me in the wrong direction.

This is where attentiveness comes in. Much of the work of an actualist is to de-condition oneself from the values, morals and ethics that one has taken on in life which causes one to unthinkingly categorize people things and events as being good, right and true (and being evil, bad and wrong) and to take the time and make the effort to establish the facts in order to make a clear choice based on what is silly and what is sensible.

OK. I easily now see the silliness of moral and ethics.

Ahh, but the practical test comes whenever you discover that you are feeling sad or being annoyed because of a particular moral or an ethic that you cherish dearly – such moments test one’s intent.

Now a ‘value’ to me is simply something that I find worthwhile. For example I find being happy and harmless valuable but they are not ethics or morals. I ‘value’ clear communication; i.e. I find it helpful, useful, etc ... This seems straightforward and helpful. Are you using the word value to mean ethics/morals or something different than how I am using it?

I know what you mean but in the above context I meant value as one’s value-orientation – the direction given to a person’s attitudes and thinking by his or her beliefs or standards (Oxford Dictionary). Within the human condition, there are many things that people hold to be of value – many people value possessions, some value status, some value power over others, some value fame, some value moral forthrightness, some value ethical correctness and so on. In my life time I had found many of these values to be silly, others I had to thoroughly road test in order to experience their banality first-hand. When I became an actualist I simply rekindled the dormant value that above all I wanted to be able to live with my fellow human beings in peace and harmony.

*

In hindsight, it was only because I had sufficient discontent, disappointment and doubt about the spiritualism process I had practiced for almost 2 decades that I was keenly interested in finding out if there was something fundamentally new in what Richard was saying … even if that did mean abandoning all I believed to be true and right. I can highly recommend ‘wiping the slate clean’ of what others have told you to be ‘the truth’ and discovering the facts of the matter for yourself.

This is true for me too. Though improvement was made in my practice of spirituality – I ALWAYS sensed that it would never deliver totally until after death. Eventually, I decided that I’m not waiting for after death because I figured there may be no after life.

When I encountered actualism, I tried at first to maintain the agnostic stance that there may or may not be an afterlife and I thought it did not really concern my life right now because I would find out in due time (at death). However, as I became more and more attentive to how I experienced this moment of being alive, I had to put many of my beliefs under scrutiny and I began to realize that my non-committal agnostic stance towards the possibility of life after death was preventing me from fully being here.

Yes, I see your point. I now am an atheist rather than an agnostic, but I did not make that clear.

Does this now also include the spiritual teachings of U.G. Krishnamurti?

Yet, sometimes my mind does slip into an agnostic ‘mode’. That is very interesting – I will look into that.

Yes, I can relate to that. Some issues I had to put aside for a while until I it became really obvious how this issue was preventing me from being carefree and considerate. In other words, it was only when I discovered that the issue was the burning issue in my daily life and that it stood in the way of my goal in life was I emboldened to tackle it such that it disappeared from my life.

*

One day I dared to contemplate about the issue of a possible life after death right through to its obvious conclusion and the lingering agnostic option disappeared to be replaced by a confidence that when I die then that will be final – and the issue disappeared forever. I realized that holding onto the option of ‘me’ being a spiritual ‘being’ had locked me out of experiencing the sheer and wonderful actuality of this physical body being alive right now in this pure and perfect physical universe. In short, it is impossible to be vitally interested in being here whilst holding on to any spiritual or agnostic beliefs.

This is never brought up in the atheist/agnostic debate.

Of course not, taking this into account would expose atheism and agnosticism as being silly. As a rough rule of thumb, atheists generally believe that grim reality is all there is, spiritualists believe in a Greater Reality of some sort and desperately try to be ‘there’ whereas agnostics, lacking the vitality to find out the facts of the matter for themselves, generally remain smug in their indifference.

However, what you have written shows very explicitly that being an agnostic will hold one back from vf/af.

It holds one back from even being interested in experiencing the only moment one can ever actually experience.

*

This is what is meant by actualism being ‘non-spiritual’.

Got ya – totally non-spiritual to the flesh and blood bone. Right on.

Mind you, the most favourite beliefs are hiding in the cupboard and lash out when you least expect them to.

3.10.2004

Richard, at http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/attentivenesssensuousnessapperceptiveness.htm you say

‘With attentiveness one sees the internal world with blameless references to concepts like ‘my’ or ‘mine’. Suppose there is a feeling of sadness. Ordinary consciousness would say, ‘I am sad’. Using attentiveness, one heedfully notices the feeling as a natural feeling – ‘There is human sadness’ – thus one does not tack on that possessive personal concept of ‘I’ or ‘me’ ... for one is already possessed.’

at: http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/vineeto/selected-writings/investigatefeelings.htm Vineeto says:

…acknowledge to myself that ‘I am angry’ or ‘I am pissed off’ or ‘I am feeling scared’.

The quote from Vineeto here was not the one I was looking for but it will have to do for now.

Basically, it seems your saying think: ‘there is sadness’ and Vineeto is saying ‘I am sad’ or ‘I am feeling sad.’ I know there is no ‘right or wrong’ here but these two ways of thinking seem different enough to leave open the possibility that one would be more useful or sensible than the other. Somewhere I could swear Vineeto says that saying: ‘There is sadness arising’ is a Buddhist disassociative technique. This seems very close to ‘there is human sadness’ or ‘there is sadness.’ I just want to make sure I’m not practicing Buddhism rather then actualism. It makes since to eliminate answering with ‘I’ in the sentence, but would that not also apply to the ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ question two?

Looking forward to some clarification.

Although you have addressed this question to Richard you followed up by saying –

‘Lets see – to take the ‘I’ would one could say: ‘sadness is being experienced’ Hmmm ... I’m wondering what Richard, Peter, Vineeto and others who practice actualism think about this.’

So I’ll endeavour to answer your question.

If you read Richard’s article in full you will find that it is impossible to confuse the method described with ‘a Buddhist disassociative technique’, as you suggest. The paragraph immediately above the one you quoted is explicit in itself –

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

And only three paragraphs down Richard again emphasizes the importance of acknowledging one’s feelings –

Richard – The actualist who is allowing attentiveness is concerned with the habitual superimposition of the inner ‘reality’ onto the world of people, things and events. It is there in all peoples, but in actualism, one’s field of study is one’s own feelings, one’s own perceptions, one’s own thoughts and one’s own experience. In actualism, one is one’s own guinea-pig because attentiveness is participatory observation ... the actualist is both participant and experimenter at one and the same time. If one examines one’s emotions attentively one is feeling them at that very same moment – attentiveness is not just an intellectual awareness – for it is an existential experiencing. Richard, Articles, Attentiveness Sensuousness Apperceptiveness

Isn’t it obvious that I am saying nothing different to what Richard is saying?

8.10.2004

If you read Richard’s article in full you will find that it is impossible to confuse the method described with ‘a Buddhist disassociative technique’, as you suggest. The paragraph above the one you quoted is explicit in itself – <snipped for length>

Actually, I have printed out Richard’s article and have read it ‘in full’ 3 times. I’m not saying the method is a Buddhist disassociative tech, rather I’m concerned that my mind might use the words ‘there is sadness arising’ to twist the purity of the awareness.

I personally found it very useful to remember that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. This simple acknowledgement of fact dispensed with any tendency whatsoever to dissociate, be it head-in-clouds variety or head-in-sand variety. The other thing I always kept in mind was that what I was being attentive to was the human condition in action – that ‘I’ am not unique, that ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’.

I found that whenever I kept theses two facets in mind, I was able to make a clear-eyed study of the human condition in action as ‘me’.

*

Isn’t it obvious that I am saying nothing different to what Richard is saying?

Yes, in substance it is obvious, but I’m being nit picky with words here – VERY nitpicky. And I notice that you did not directly attempt to answer my question about the most useful phrase to mentally say to oneself. And that was the only question I asked.

I have already written about the way I investigate my emotions in the article you quoted. Vis –

at: http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/vineeto/selected-writings/investigatefeelings.htm Vineeto says: …acknowledge to myself that ‘I am angry’ or ‘I am pissed off’ or ‘I am feeling scared’. [endquote]

Personally I found ‘the most useful phrase to mentally say to oneself’ is the one described as the actualism method – How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? – what you do with the answer you get is entirely up to you. This is after all a do-it-yourself, by-yourself business – the basic method is utterly simple and straightforward, so much so that it easily accommodates any personal preferences, inclinations and idiosyncrasies of the person who applies it with pure intent to do whatever is required to be both happy and harmless in this moment.

Could it be that your being ‘VERY nitpicky’ is but an attempt to make something that is utterly straightforward somewhat confusing, for whatever reason?

If answering a minute question of detail is not worth your time, I understand, for I don’t respond to everything on this list either. My experience so far is that this method works, regardless of my provicility of ‘anal’ obsessiveness to perhaps meaningless details (though they don’t seem meaningless to me or I would not even ask them).

It is not a matter if answering your question is ‘worth’ my time or not – I simply have nothing more useful to add to the above description. I can only explain what worked for me.

10.10.2004

Actually, I have printed out Richard’s article and have read it ‘in full’ 3 times. I’m not saying the method is a Buddhist disassociative tech, rather I’m concerned that my mind might use the words ‘there is sadness arising’ to twist the purity of the awareness.

I personally found it very useful to remember that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. This simple acknowledgement of fact dispensed with any tendency whatsoever to dissociate, be it head-in-clouds variety or head-in-sand variety. The other thing I always kept in mind was that what I was being attentive to was the human condition in action – that ‘I’ am not unique, that ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’.

ok, I guess I wonder if this will get me too ‘identified’ with the emotions-but I do see your point.

How can you get ‘too ‘identified’ with the emotions’ – you *are* your emotions. In other words, ‘you’ and your emotions are one and the same – the recognition of this fact puts paid to any notions of identification or dis-identification, association or dissociation.

*

Personally I found ‘the most useful phrase to mentally say to oneself’ is the one described as the actualism method – How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? – what you do with the answer you get is entirely up to you. This is after all a do-it-yourself, by-yourself business – the basic method is utterly simple and straightforward, so much so that it easily accommodates any personal preferences, inclinations and idiosyncrasies of the person who applies it with pure intent to do whatever is required to be both happy and harmless in this moment.

Yes, I can see that. There is more flexibility in all this than some think.

Ha, the only inflexibility of an actual freedom is that it is a *non*-spiritual down-to-earth freedom – yet people bend over backwards in order to remove the ‘non’ in a vain attempt to fit actualism into the quagmire of spiritual teachings and philosophical musings that have straight-jacketed human thinking and shrouded human experiencing since time immemorial.

11.10.2004

To No 71: I would have recommended sample article number three of Richard’s Journal in this respect which is freely available on the website – ../sundry/journalsamples.htm – but our ISP is currently experiencing difficulties which means that the website is currently ‘down’. This has provided the Actual Freedom Trust with an opportunity to review the hosting of the website which means that it may well be ‘off-air’ for some time.

Ha! Maybe it was a good idea to print out the articles! LOL. Anyways, Vineeto, when the site ‘comes back’ will it be different? Restructed? New material? Less material?

Not at this stage although we have had some thoughts on the matter which may well eventuate when the whim takes us.

And, I read somewhere that Richard had planned on moving and working on a book somewhere before 2007 and I was wondering if there are still plans for that.

I am not aware that his plans have changed.

That would be real cool – I’d enjoy having a book on this stuff.

Whilst you may well enjoy reading a future book it is pertinent to point out that the AF Trust has already published two books on this stuff and currently Richard’s Journal is in a Second Edition reprint.

Also, how would I purchase Richard’s Journal now that the site is down?

Print this order form, fill in the relevant details and send it together with your payment.

(Editors note: the journals can now also be paid on line)

22.10.2004

Actually, I have printed out Richard’s article and have read it ‘in full’ 3 times. I’m not saying the method is a Buddhist disassociative tech, rather I’m concerned that my mind might use the words ‘there is sadness arising’ to twist the purity of the awareness.

I personally found it very useful to remember that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. This simple acknowledgement of fact dispensed with any tendency whatsoever to dissociate, be it head-in-clouds variety or head-in-sand variety. The other thing I always kept in mind was that what I was being attentive to was the human condition in action – that ‘I’ am not unique, that ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’.

Ok, I guess I wonder if this will get me too ‘identified’ with the emotions – but I do see your point.

How can you get ‘too ‘identified’ with the emotions’ – you *are* your emotions. In other words, ‘you’ and your emotions are one and the same – the recognition of this fact puts paid to any notions of identification or dis-identification, association or dissociation.

The fact that I still trip on this shows resistance to this insight.

It seems, I wonder if I recognize that I am my feelings then I won’t be able to be free of them. Though I don’t really believe that – perhaps a ‘part’ of me does.

Unless I am able to recognize, experience and observe on a daily basis that all ‘I’ am are indeed my feelings and my instinctual passions (as well as the beliefs, morals, ethics, values and opinions that serve as fodder for my feelings and passions) I will neither see the need to, nor will I have the capacity and intent, to rid myself of acrimony and anguish.

This is not a matter of what one believes, in ‘part’ or otherwise … it is a matter of observing that it is a fact, repeatedly, unambiguously and irrefutably.

This may be an apt moment to reiterate that actualism is not about getting rid of one’s feelings. To quote Richard on this matter –

Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ‘being’ – psychologically and psychically self-immolate – which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated. That is, the biological instinctual package handed out by blind nature is deleted like a computer software programme (but with no ‘Recycle Bin’ to retrieve it from) so that the affective faculty is no more. Then – and only then – are there no feelings ... as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) where, with the self in abeyance, the feelings play no part at all. However, in a PCE the feelings – passion and calenture – can come rushing in, if one is not alert, resulting in the PCE devolving into an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... complete with a super-self. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is impossible for there to be no feelings whilst there is a self – in this case a Self – thus it is the ‘being’ that has to go first ... not the feelings.

It is impossible to be a ‘stripped-down’ self – divested of feelings – for ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Anyone who attempts this absurdity would wind up being somewhat like what is known in psychiatric terminology as a ‘sociopathic personality’ (popularly know as ‘psychopath’). Such a person still has feelings – ‘cold’, ‘callous’, ‘indifferent’ – and has repressed the others. What the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about is a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to feel well, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre, bonhomie and so on) then with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).

Delight is what is humanly possibly, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away.

Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening.

But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. Richard’s Journal, Appendix 5, A Précis of Actual Freedom

30.10.2004

Atheist’s have no beliefs concerning god. They do not disbelieve in good. That is absurd (an absurdity perpetuated by agnostics and theists)

A useful way for an Atheist to respond to the question ‘Do you believe in God? would be: ‘I do not assent to that belief.’ Than: ‘so you disbelieve in god?’ ‘I do not assent to any state about God.’ ‘There is no empirical evidence that there is a god and I do not assent to theory’s without solid evidence. Of course, strictly speaking one could never 100% ‘disprove’ god. I would say that the probability of their being a god is very low, though. But the best we could do is have a probability of 99% or even 99.99%. However. A scientific thinking person will be quite content with a 80-85% of their not being a god. That’s a relatively gracious probability as within the next 20-30 years the prop of no god will be in the 90%.

Your comment makes clear the difference between an atheist and an actualist.

An actualist will not rest until he or she will know with 100% surety that God does not exist.

I know – by direct experience – that God does not exists outside the hearts and minds of human beings because of the many pure consciousness experiences I have had of the purity and perfection of the actual world. I know that God is a product of passionate imagination because in a ‘self’-less experience, where affective imagination does not exist, God has no existence at all. This is so because a pure consciousness experience reveals that the sought-after paradise that people imagine to exist in a metaphysical reality waiting for them in a mythical afterlife, does in fact exist as an ongoing actuality on this abundant and verdant planet we flesh and blood humans live on.

There lies an enormous freedom in the irreversible certainty that no metaphysical entity is ruling one’s life.

3.1.2005

To Peter: Instead of assuming that he [Barry Long] is being ‘tricky’ I thought what if to him ‘love’ really is not an emotion-perhaps he is misusing ‘love’ for actual benevolence, eh? I wonder the same about JK too. But BL is more clear on ‘all emotions must go’ so how could love be an emotion for him (I understand that likely IT IS, and he is not clear that Love for him is still emotional, but I don’t KNOW that for a fact).

Your response to Peter reminded me of something I wrote after one of my altered states of consciousness experiences. It may be of assistance in sorting out the difference between the self-deceptive feeling of non-emotion in an altered state of consciousness and the purity and perfection one experiences when ‘I’ in toto am in abeyance –

We found a book by Bernadette Roberts, a Christian mystic, called ‘What is Self?’ where she talks about no-ego and the no-self, only to describe that after enlightenment she gets even further lost into the fantasy of being one with Christ. And recently, when somebody asked me about Akashic Records, I experienced that bliss-state for about an hour, the state Mrs. Roberts seems to describe in her book. I finally got a grip on it – I could experience it and describe from the ‘outside’ what was happening. This blissful state seems unemotional, no love or compassion is felt in the heart, everything is a cool ‘oneness’. One feels all-pervading, ‘I am everything and everything is me and everything is divine’.

The experience can easily be mistaken as intimacy because the sense of ‘me’ is so expanded across the universe and spread so thin, so to speak, that ‘me’ is hardly noticeable. As ‘I am every thing’, one is of course ‘feeling’ intimate with the TV set or is able to intuit into someone else’s, in this case Mrs. Roberts, religious imaginations. (I had read Bernadette Roberts, a Christian Mystic’s book, ‘What is Self?’ prior to this experience). Fascinating and seductive and very eerie. I think this could be a bit like the parallel universe scientists fantasize about. One then lives in a universe where everything is a virtual replica of the actual, with the glow of divinity, unity and timeless-ness to it – and as it is virtual, it is controlled by the imagination of the one who makes it up. This ‘parallel’ universe ‘feels’ and is ‘imagined’ as intimate or not-separate, and yet it is twice removed from the physical body, the senses, this actual world. This ‘insanity’ of ‘feeling one with everything’ is the barrier that prevents one from experiencing the world as a flesh and blood body, with the senses. Boy, I really understand why these guys are so far out there, lost and locked in an imaginary space that has almost no return-ticket.

But then, you only have to pinch yourself and where it hurts, that’s actual. Vineeto to Alan, 6.2.1999

23.1.2005

How long was it for you to dispense with the haietmoba for a ‘wordless’ approach? And do you think a haietm or even ‘how am I feeling?’ could work as well?

The moment I fully committed myself to the aim of actualism – the extinction of my ‘self’ in toto, ego and soul – the method became an ongoing wordless approach.

Sometimes (like No 60) I find the whole haietmoba tiring. No 37 claims to be using a wordless approach but he has not given us any details so I don’t know what exactly he is doing. I am determined to dig, but sometimes I wonder if my shovel is just too heavy for me to wield. I just can’t comprehend how you and Peter became virtually free in a scant 2 years doing this.

Yep, it’s all about the strength of one’s intent and commitment to the task at hand. Once I comprehended what was at stake it was all systems go. To merely try the actualism method on for size for a year or two in order to see if anything happened was never an option for me.

I also wonder about the fact that you and Peter were virtually free around 1999 and seemed close to actual freedom. Yet 5 years later and no dice.

My explanation is – and there is really no precedent to this direct route of becoming actually free via avoiding enlightenment – that it was relatively easy to get rid of my negative feelings such as anger, resentment and sadness, the freedom from which resulted in a virtual freedom, while the good emotions such as compassion, sympathy, empathy, loyalty and belonging to humanity at large are far tougher nuts to crack and as such take far longer to identify, understand and become free of.

Plus, to take the final plunge into oblivion is, when all is said and done, is a very scary thing for ‘me’.

Are you more VF now?

Definitely.

Have the last 5 years been a stalemate? No changes?

A stalemate? Not at all, although sometimes, when I grow impatient, it may feel that way. In hindsight, not only my understanding of the human condition has steadily increased but also the implementation and living of this understanding has increased … and along with it my appreciation and enjoyment of being alive.

Do you still think, believe, know that one day you will be actually free, like Richard?

Yes, I know I will, because I’ve burnt all the bridges and there is no turning back to be whoever I was. I’ve literally painted myself into a corner and the pressure to keep proceeding is on at all times.

And what about the only other people that seemed to be near a virtual freedom? Where the heck is Alan, Mark, Gary? Dead, insane?

You will have to ask them yourself. I only know of what they have written to the list.

Whilst it is understandable to look for allies on the way, particularly when one takes on the task of questioning *all* of the so-called wisdom of humanity, actualism remains a do-it-yourself-by-yourself business and the desire for allies, friends, collaborators and such like is yet another of the ‘self’-perpetuating instinctual passion to be recognized, understood and disempowered.

Personally, I have found the need to belong to some group, any group, one of the most persistent instinctual forces that time and again caused me to procrastinate from stepping out of humanity.

I am reminded of something Richard said to me once when I asked him about the topic of belonging to humanity –

Richard: Do you recall those conversations we had about loyalty (familial and group loyalty) back when you and I first met ... and what was required to crack that code?

That was chicken-feed compared with this one. Richard, List Af, Vineeto, 30.9.1999

Vineeto’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust