RESPONDENT: I do have some questions regarding my current activities. I know you once worked two years with drug addicts and saw that you couldn’t help them. Would you go back to working with them now – if you had the chance?

VINEETO: When I left social work because I realized that had nothing to offer, I went to the East and immersed myself in spiritual therapy groups in order to find some answers. I then worked for about three years as a helper and administrator with group leaders and came to observe that therapists didn’t have an answer to their own problems in life, let alone for others. As an instance, the person who lead the most popular relationship groups had more trouble with his personal relationships than most other people I knew.

I also learnt a lot about power, reverence, subserviency and dependency, both front stage and back stage, as it operates in the therapist-client business. When I came across actualism, this was invaluable experience as it made immediate sense that anybody who wants to change themselves can only do so out of their own intent, by themselves and for themselves. Only when I change myself out of my own intent can I be autonomous.

RESPONDENT: I ask this because I am teaching people who are bordering on poverty and some basically see life as something terrible, even the young ones, and this fuels their malice and so consequently there are victims … well you know how it goes.

VINEETO: You put your finger on the nub of the issue. The strange thing is that most people who have enough money to live comfortably also ‘see life as something terrible’. The feeling of resentment as in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ and ‘I don’t want to be here’ is something that is common to the human condition – whatever class, race or nation people are coming from and whatever age-group they are in. The persistent stranglehold that religious and spiritual pursuits and teachings have over humankind – all of which are predicated on the promise of some kind of an afterlife – is potent evidence of the basic resentment that human beings feel at having to be here.

RESPONDENT: All this is really helping me to understand the human condition, and wanting to be completely free from it, but I see no solution I can offer to ameliorate their present condition … one thing I have noticed though is that they are taken aback at my refusal to get angry and blame them when they become mischievous.

RESPONDENT: They don’t yet know what to make of me ... but I do wish I could teach them something more than just English.

VINEETO: Yes, I can understand your wish very well. When I meet clients for bookkeeping I sometimes drop a few sentences of common sense into the conversation when they tell me about the big and little problems of their lives, but irregardless of whether they agree with the common sense or not, there is little sign of them wanting to actually change to ameliorate their situation.

You are already offering them the best there is – an ongoing genuine demonstration that one can be happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is with people-as-they-are and live in peace and harmony with one’s fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: Well that’s it for now. Feeling happy and harmless,

VINEETO: It is a pleasure to hear from you. I thoroughly enjoy your posts and your humour, namely when you said – ‘Ha! Try bonding with an Actualist.’ Isn’t it so much more gratifying to stand on one’s own two feet?

RESPONDENT: Why does mankind, we, continue to look to others, i.e. LeDoux, Richard, or anybody who expounds theories as to what is there and why it is there? Why do we say that there is no ‘authority’ and then turn to others to quote them, look for answers, or substantiate our desire to find the answers?

VINEETO: Authority according to Mr. Oxford means –

I Power to enforce obedience. 1 Power or right to enforce obedience; moral or legal supremacy; right to command or give a final decision. 2 Derived or delegated power; authorization. 3 Those in power or control; the governing body; a body exercising power in a particular sphere.

II Power to influence action, opinion, belief, etc. 4 The book, quotation, etc., acknowledged or alleged to settle a question or give conclusive testimony. 5 Power to inspire belief; right to be believed; testimony, statement. 6 Power over the opinions of others; authoritative opinion, intellectual influence. 7 Power to influence the conduct and actions of others; personal or practical influence, commanding manner etc. 8 A person whose opinion or testimony is to be accepted; an expert in any subject. Oxford Dictionary

Quite obviously neither Joseph LeDoux nor Richard have the ‘power to enforce obedience’, but they both are in the category of ‘experts in a subject’ field and can therefore ‘influence action, opinion, belief’, provided the person who learns about their scientific research is willing to experiment with such findings. Verifying scientific research for oneself is called utilizing the expertise of others as in definition (8) and is the opposite of ‘following an authority’, which is epitomized by affectively following, fervently believing, devotedly relying upon and unquestioningly and faithfully trusting one’s beloved authority. However, it is part and parcel of the Human Condition that everyone judges people according to their power – in what way they can assist me achieving what I desire – and, as such, charismatic powerful leaders are revered as an authority and abetted to wield their power.

As I explored my issues about authority, I came to understand that authority has been inextricably intertwined with my desire to pass on the job of living my life to others who then became the admired or feared authority figures. It was my hope for shortcuts, for help of the powerful ones that had fuelled and maintained my debilitating reliance upon, or mindless rebellion against, authority. I desired my father’s money, my boyfriend’s promise of love and security, my girlfriend’s sympathy and support, my Master’s psychic Power, Compassion and Grace, God’s miracles and protection, Mother Nature’s Intelligence, the Supreme Power of the Eternal Unknown, etc.

First I had to acknowledge that I was utterly on my own – nobody, but nobody could do anything for me, change me, give me happiness, redeem me from my fear, malice and sorrow or fulfil my desires. It is all up to me. Now I can learn from whomever I find worthy of emulating or learning from, whilst remaining perfectly autonomous.

RESPONDENT: Why do we say that there is no ‘authority’ and then turn to others to quote them, look for answers, or substantiate our desire to find the answers?

VINEETO: Using another’s expertise and knowledge of facts has nothing to do with the emotional issue of relying on authority – you couldn’t write a letter on the computer without relying on the ‘authority’ of millions of other people over generations who have contributed to the research, the inventions and the superb technology we take for granted. A sensible way of looking for practical answers will always include what my contemporaries or other people before me have discovered, otherwise we would all still be sitting in caves gnawing on sable tiger bones. The obsession to denigrate and to dismiss someone you disagree with as being ‘an authority’ such that you stubbornly deny and mindlessly refuse to use his or her expertise is plainly silly.

Merely following one authority’s advice to not follow any other authority is still following an authority and only prevents one from questioning one’s own emotional-instinctual need to be dependent and need to belong. Resolving the issue of authority does not lie in choosing and following one authority and rejecting and fighting against all other authorities.

The moment I acknowledged that I am on my own and that I have to instigate the desired changes in my life myself, I could use anyone’s expertise without losing one iota of my autonomy, dignity and freedom.

RESPONDENT: Why don’t we just look at fear; see fear; follow fear; and find out where it comes from? Can anybody do that?

VINEETO: Even with the research of Joseph LeDoux and Richard one will still have to ‘look at fear’ and ‘find out where it comes from’ for oneself. It is something anyone can do – provided they are sufficiently motivated and willing to eliminate their emotional dependency on higher authorities, by whatever name.

Both LeDoux’s research and Richard’s discoveries have been of immense help to me in disentangling myself from ancient beliefs and superstitions and have, for the first time, thrown light on the physical observable facts of instinctual passions. Ancient superstition has it that bad emotions are caused by bad spirits, and ancient belief teaches us to disidentify and dissociate from bad emotions and smother them with Love and Compassion. Neither peace-on-earth nor the elimination of suffering and malice has ever been on the agenda of any of the religious/spiritual teachings.

I have looked at fear, I have explored fear and I have found out where fear comes from. But when I tell you what I have found out, I am merely dismissed or disparaged as an authority or a follower of an authority.

Funny, if someone tells you how to make really good chocolate chip cookies, you don’t call them an authority and insist on inventing the recipe all over again, or do you? Why then the immense effort to keep the Human Condition as an ancient metaphysical mystery and thus prevent a practical approach to eliminating malice and sorrow in the world?

Well, c’est la vie. People like their emotions, they like to invent doomsday prophesies in order to perpetuate their fears, they like to aggressively defend their rights and beliefs, they like to demean and blame others in order to feel powerful and they like to wallow in the bitter-sweetness of sorrow – it is all part and parcel of the ‘self’-defence mechanism of ‘me’ wanting desperately to stay in existence.

GARY: I identify a lot with your writings, Vineeto, about struggles with authority. The whole issue of mentorship that I brought up in a post with Peter triggered off for me investigation into this issue of authority. I have been reading what the website says about authority. For me, the issue of authority has been a big one, a stumbling block to freedom that has to be thoroughly investigated. I was trained and raised to be obedient and not to think for myself. At a certain age, I rebelled totally against this authoritarianism in my upbringing and suffered dire consequences as a young person as a result. For me, there has always been a resentment of the authority of others, which leads me to experience fear and the desire to attack or dig my heels in and stubbornly resist their authority. Usually it is the latter quality, which is evident, but ‘I’ will attack if I feel cornered.

VINEETO: I had always thought that my issue with authority resolved when I finally realized that there was no God and in a way God’s authority was the final piece of the puzzle for me. Thinking about authority, however, I now understand that any issue of authority is inextricably intertwined with the desire to pass on the job of living my life to others who then became the authority figures. It was my hope for shortcuts, help of the powerful ones, the father’s money, the boyfriend’s promise of sympathy and security, the girlfriend’s support, the Masters Grace, God’s miracles, etc., that have fuelled and maintained my reliance upon, and fighting against, authority. Now I can learn from whomever I find worth emulating or learning from, whilst remaining perfectly autonomous. First I had to acknowledge that I am utterly on my own – nobody, but nobody can do anything for me, can change me, can give me happiness, redeem me from fear or fulfil my desires. It is all up to me.

RESPONDENT: I really don’t want an authority. If I have any questions hopefully I will be able to ask someone without them acting like an authority like they know what I said or meant and add to what I actually said and like they are an authority on what a previous teaching said or meant.

VINEETO: I have been contemplating about the issue of authority a bit in the last few days. Apart from the discoveries I mentioned in my last post about authority I have found one basic theme that is common to all issues on authority. Whenever I have made someone an authority in my life and either sucked up to, loved or envied, it was for the simple reason that the person had something that I desired at the time. These qualities were mainly status, luck, money, fame, knowledge, power, enlightenment or freedom. Always combined with that desire was the belief that the other person could either give or withhold the desired quality, a belief that established my emotional dependency on the other. I always loathed being emotionally dependant on such an authority – which gave rise to either fight, rebellion and resentment or faith, trust, cow-towing and surrender. Yet I instinctually kept creating and maintaining such relationships while at the same time struggling to become free of them.

It was only when I learnt about Actual Freedom and began investigating the underlying beliefs, emotions and instinctual passions that form my identity, did I start to understand the reason for my need of authority and was able to incrementally free myself of this very need for emotional dependency. In order to break free I had to overcome the fear of standing on my own feet, the need to belong to anyone or any group as well as my innate laziness. I had to learn to rely on facts rather than beliefs, and to use my capacity to think and investigate for myself rather than feel, trust and intuit my way in the world. It is an absolute fascinating adventure once one starts to debunk the big authorities, particularly the Gurus and God-men, and starts finding out for oneself. A whole new, factual and actual, world starts opening up. Knowing the facts for oneself gives a confidence that makes emotional authority issues utterly redundant.

The second benefit of investigating the emotional part of authority was that I could finally fulfill my life-long yearning to live with a man in perfect peace and harmony, equity and intimacy. Before that, my instinctual reactions to seek and then reject authority had always spoiled the relationships with men and reduced the living together to shallow compromises, temporary ceasefires to the ongoing battle and the subsequent frustration.

The third benefit was that I did not have to reject another’s expertise in a particular field for the mere fear of being dependant. I can now value expertise for what it is – a great support to discovering what I want to understand or accomplish. Richard was, and is, a perfect source of expertise because he has discovered Actual Freedom by using the method of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ He has debunked the grand delusion of enlightenment – having been there and done that – and he continues to unveil, in his correspondence, all the so-called mysteries of the spiritual and pseudo-scientific world.

Without an authority-problem we can simply stand on each other’s shoulders, learn from past mistakes and failures, apply current cutting-edge knowledge and put into practice what someone else has already discovered and investigated. After all, actualism is an empirical science, a practical brain-engineering process and not a religion or a belief-system. (see Selected correspondence on authority)

RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti does say accept no authority and I see this to be valid. If this makes me spiritual in your book then so be it. Right now you appear to be coming on as the ultimate authority.

VINEETO: Just as Richard is an expert and an authority on Actual Freedom and enlightenment, I am an expert on Virtual Freedom and on the method of how to eliminate the social identity and investigate the instinctual passions. I have ‘walked the walk’. Peter, Alan and I are pioneers on the direct path to an actual freedom from the human condition without taking the torturous route through enlightenment. You can make use of our expertise, hints and information for your own journey or you can object to it, reject it and try to do it solely on your own.

The great thing about Actual Freedom is that everybody has to do it for themselves and thus nobody has any power over anybody else – either actual or psychic. There is nothing but a website with plenty of information and facts about the Human Condition and a mailing list with a few people sharing their discoveries and experiences on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom. Unlike the spiritual path, there are no gurus and no psychic power except for the imaginary power-play that happens in people’s passionate hearts and recalcitrant minds.

Krishnamurti seems simply to have been passing on his own authority problems to his followers due to his own torturous authoritarian upbringing. His advice also works as another version of ‘thou shalt not worship any other authorities except myself’. If you prefer to accept his authority rather than investigate the issue of authority for yourself, then that is your choice.

VINEETO to No 2: Yet most people are not able to differentiate between an emotion-backed belief in Authority and drawing on the obvious expertise of a fellow human being who has discovered something far superior to Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Your reliance upon your own authority by applying a method to living an ‘enlightened’ life is predicated upon the authority of Richard’s discovery which you do emotionally defend as the ‘obvious expertise of a fellow human being.’ What is obvious to me is that Richard claims authority and then tries to ‘razzle-dazzle’ everybody into believing there is no more than what is known or can be known, and that is why Richard hoards so much knowledge about all the world and the events thereof. That way he can be ‘the undisputed ruler and sole owner of all that he knows and understands.’ Ah, another ‘ism’ ... actualism.

[Jiddu Krishnamurti]: The important thing is to discover, and after discovering, to keep going. It is detrimental to stay with what you have discovered, for then your mind is closed, finished. But if you die to what you have discovered the moment you have discovered it, then you can flow like the stream, like a river that has an abundance of water. J Krishnamurti, Saanen, 10th Public Talk, August 1, 1965 The Collected Works Vol. XV, p.245

VINEETO: I see you are backing up your opinion of actualism with a quote from the authority of Krishnamurti. But doing that is not an ‘ism’ because Krishnamurti is only confirming what you already have decided to hold true ... or is it the other way round?

The quote you offer says the important thing is firstly to discover and realize that ‘you’ don’t know, and then ‘you’ die to that discovery – i.e. the thinker dies, so ‘you’ as feeler can flow with the unknown or be at one with the unknown. The problem with the thinker dying is that all sensible thinking and common sense goes with him or her and yet another impassioned soul is let loose on the world. This ‘self’-perpetuating belief system is aimed at keeping ‘Me’, the feeler, in existence but it also perpetuates the ancient mythical belief in Gods, spirits and other-worlds.

Spiritual teachings always point to the ‘unknown’, the ‘unlimited possibility’ or the ultimate authority of God by whatever name and by that very ‘knowledge’ of the unknown the master stays in power and remains the authority on what he ‘knows’.

Actualism is a very simple method and utterly down-to-earth, because its application involves neither energy nor god nor devotion nor faith in any unknown mystery. Contrary to spiritual practice where I had to solely rely on the words of the master, I can now rely on my own ‘self’-less experiences to know where I am heading and appraise my success by the diminishing of the instinctual drives and the disappearance of my social identity. It is so simply that hardly anyone can understand its simplicity.

I am applying many methods in my life that I have learned from other people – how to boil eggs, for instance, or how to speak and write English. In fact, nothing that I apply in life is my own invention because babies, when they are born, don’t know anything except how to suck milk. But the moment I apply a practical, down-to-earth method and find out that it works for me then the experiences of its success make me my own authority. The one who taught me how to drive a car is not an authority anymore because he taught me all I needed to know about driving a car – the same is the case with Richard and the method of actualism. Actualism is something you do for yourself, by yourself, in order to become happy and harmless, and I do it for the benefit of my fellow human beings because I cease to inflict ‘my’ malice and sorrow upon them. With ‘my’ demise will come the ending of malice and sorrow in this flesh and blood body.

VINEETO: Of course, Richard’s discovery of Actual Freedom enabled me to stop believing that you can’t change Human Nature. You can change human nature, radically and irrevocably

RESPONDENT: So, Richard’s discovery of Actual Freedom ‘enabled’ you. Enabled is a word used by addicts in recovery.

VINEETO: Oh, do addicts now own the word ‘enable’? According to Mr. Oxford’s dictionary –

enable – a Give power to; strengthen; make adequate or competent. b Make able, give the means, to be or to do something. 2. Become able, gain strength or power. 3. Make (an action) possible or effective; make (a device) operational, turn on. Oxford Dictionary

Methinks, you are clutching at straws here.

RESPONDENT: Oh really, then let’s use your dictionary definition. You are then saying that Richard enabled you by ‘Giving power to, give the means, become able, gain strength or power, make an action possible’.

VINEETO: A guru’s authority relies on his divine energy – which is directly transmitted via the feeling of love as long as he is alive and by mystical communion after his death – and of his ‘knowledge’ of the Unknowable, the timeless, the unfathomable Truth. By that very ‘knowledge’ of the Unknown the master stays in power and remains the authority of what he ‘knows’. Should anyone realize the Unknowable himself, he then becomes an authority for others eager and willing to be a dependant follower. Many gurus do not leave others in their wake, thus their authority is irrefutable after death, while other gurus anoint successors who then become part of a lineage à la H.W.L. Poonja. Whichever way, the authority and the disciple’s dependency on the master’s teachings are perpetuated.

Whereas Richard’s discovery and method ‘made an action possible’, the action to free myself from the grip of the instinctual passions. With this action and the experience of the ongoing success I have become my own authority because I know by tangible, repeatable experience that and how the method works. Now I am neither run by my emotions nor driven by instinctual passions but free to sensately and sensibly enjoy a happy and harmless life.

By the way, the only power that someone has over you is when you willingly surrender to someone, which is such a demeaning thing to do.

*

VINEETO: So it looks as though now you want to continue our discussion that ended so abruptly on the Actual Freedom mailing list about exactly the same issue – emotion-backed belief in the spiritual teachings of an Authority versus drawing on the obvious expertise of a fellow human being who was Enlightened, emerged from the delusion to discover something far superior to Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: I guess the main point you are trying to make is the difference in belief in the spiritual teachings of an Authority and drawing on the expertise of a fellow human being who was Enlightened, emerged from the delusion to discover something far superior to Enlightenment.

However, there are some major flaws in this statement:

1. Someone who claims to be the only one who has ever lived to have achieved the state of actual freedom and is the only one who is right can hardly be considered just another fellow human being.
2. You have assumed that I am a believer in the spiritual teachings of an Authority and that I am seeking Enlightenment. This is not true.

VINEETO:

1. I would be interested to learn about someone else who is permanently living in the state of actual freedom. As for being a fellow human being – so far I have only met people who are busy assessing others as friend or foe, follower or heretic. Only someone without identity can meet other people simply as fellow human beings, as is evidenced by the fact that you consider Richard as something other than a fellow human being.
2. If you say that you are not a believer and not seeking enlightenment, then that must be true for you. However, I will make my own judgements based upon what you write.

* (...)

RESPONDENT: Actually I do understand it and I have experienced it. The main problem I have with it is you have made it into an ‘ism’ which makes you the authority and essentially has shut almost everyone off from benefiting from it.

VINEETO: The outstanding feature of actualism, which sets it apart from every spiritual/ religious/ mystical teaching, is that there is only one ultimate guide and authority and that is one’s own pure consciousness experience of the actual world. A PCE is the glimpse one gets into the purity of the actual world, and PCEs have given me the insights, realizations and knowledge about my ‘self’ and about the way to explore and eliminate my ‘self’. Reporting about my own process may look like a belief and an ‘ism’ to you, unless you can verify my statements with your own pure consciousness experiences.

The moment somebody has expertise, new knowledge or makes a unique breakthrough in any field, there is a predictable emotional reaction – a propensity to follow or fight, appreciate or denigrate that is common to all human interaction and a major contributing factor to the ongoing battles and disputes. It is the emotional reaction to expertise that creates the problem, not the expertise itself.

Without emotional reaction I can assess and ascertain the facts presented and draw on the expertise of a fellow human being without losing my dignity or surrendering my independence. Then it is always me who decides what is useful information for my aim – the total eradication of my malice and sorrow – and what may, or may not, be applicable for this process.

Personally, I had to dig deep into my psyche in order to explore the root cause of the reoccurring problems that I had with authority figures in my life, which spoiled my relationship with every person I met, particularly with men. For me it was a stunning surprise to find that my belief in a higher Authority – God by any other name – was underpinning my emotional reliance and sticky dependency on authority, which inevitably resulted in feelings of gratitude and resentment. I had thought that my belief in the god of the religions had been left behind long ago for I had been involved in a spiritual search and not a formal religion, but I was surprised to find that the belief in a higher force had survived. This belief was that the Universe will take care of me but will also judge me one day if I don’t live according to the ‘universal laws’.

Acknowledging, then questioning and ultimately eradicating this passionate imagination or ‘instinctual knowing’ left me with the shocking realization that I am entirely on my own, without guard or guide. It also gave me the freedom to decide for myself what is silly and what is sensible, to walk upright in the world and be beholden to no one. Since then, the feeling of needing a higher authority has ceased to be an issue in my life.

From my experience, tackling one’s dependency on and resentment against authority is one of the major obstacles to be removed when one wants to relate to other people as fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: The main problem I have with it is you have made [actualism] into an ‘ism’ which makes you the authority and essentially has shut almost everyone off from benefiting from it. How many years and how many people will it take before you realize it is not working under the authoritarian system you have set up?

VINEETO: I am simply reporting the results of applying a practical down-to-earth method. It is you who is making this report into a belief, who has a reaction to ‘ism’ and who considers me a supposedly stifling authority. You are making me far too important, for I have no power over anyone whatsoever.

The essential prerequisite for starting on the path to freedom is the understanding that it is useless to blame anybody else for my feelings, emotions, my behaviour or my situation. I am the one who wants to get rid of my identity and therefore I am my own detective setting out to find whatever causes me to react in a certain way. This approach has two obvious benefits – first, I can fix myself up and do whatever is needed to become happy and harmless, and second, I am free of being responsible for somebody else’s feelings if I have acted without malice or sorrow.

In short, I cease to blame anyone else for my feelings and emotions and I cease to impose my feelings and emotions on anybody else. This way, relating to people is imminently easy, benevolent and straightforward.

RESPONDENT: I am essentially telling you what No 12 and No 13 told you. [on The Actual Freedom Trust list]

VINEETO: I prefer to discuss their views on the Actual Freedom list where they have the option to join the discussion.

RESPONDENT: You have choked me with assumptions and preconceived notions. You have assumed that I am living in a spiritual world, which I am not. I don’t have any beliefs in life after death and such as that.

VINEETO: I have not assumed anything, you have told me about your spiritual view yourself. You said that PCE equals God and actualism equals religion. Further you said that Krishnamurti’s teachings were for you about ‘the actual’. Someone who describes himself as ‘God-intoxicated’ and teaches people how to reach this state simply does not live in the actual world and does not know the actual, which becomes only apparent when the affective entity inside the body has ceased to exist. The actual world is impossible to experience as long as there is a belief in God, Truth, Intelligence, etc. or if one is intoxicated by affective feelings.

RESPONDENT: Actually, I like Richard and I agree with most of what he says. I just don’t want to be labelled and bottled up by an ‘ism’ which to me represents a belief.

VINEETO: In the course of the last two years there has been quite a number of people who liked what Richard had to say and were eager to learn more about Actual Freedom. However, what to them first appeared to be an interesting new philosophy quickly faded the moment Peter and I joined the conversation, and their interest in Actual Freedom turned into finding fault with those who have actually applied the method in their daily life.

I take it that you are not one of those people – for to replace one philosophy or belief with another is of no use at all.

ALAN: Your mail has prompted me to investigate further the ‘zombie state’. I discovered that I was waiting until I had more ‘time’ to actually be ‘here’ – what a joke – this moment is all I have and here I am waiting – and what a lovely excuse for not being ‘here’. I discovered doubt – doubt that you, Richard and Peter are living a delusion, doubt that you and Peter are blind followers of Richard – and what a lovely excuse for not being ‘here’.

VINEETO: Yes, I do understand the doubts you are talking about. After all, we are just a handful of pioneers compared to the whole world of believers. I had these doubts again and again, they usually took the form of doubting my effort, ‘Am I really on the right track’?, ‘Am I doing all that is needed’? or ‘What if I end up enlightened?’ Peter and I found emotions going round and round in a circle: fear – frustration – doubt – fear and the only way out was to muster our intent and investigate the facts of the situation. I take it that when you are ‘here’ there is no doubt that you are not following a delusion?... or following the only sanity there is?

As for being a blind follower of Richard – Konrad’s favourite objection – yes, I did and do watch Richard very closely, taking him as a mentor and teacher to find out as much as possible about living in freedom for 24 h a day. And compared to Osho and other authority figures which I had tried to emulate in my life, Richard is the most candid, the most approachable and ‘ordinary’ teacher I ever had. On the other hand I notice again and again with delight that there is no authority issue neither from my side nor from his, our discussions are lively, equal and open, and never before have I been able to ask so many questions, investigate all my objections and pursue my own trail of thoughts without restriction. By now, the ‘madness of 180 degrees in the opposite direction to normal and spiritual beliefs’ has reached such a degree that there is no way back – so I might as well ignore upcoming doubts and pursue what I have experienced so often as an actual experience of delight.

IRENE: You are not yet aware of it, you are displaying the classical symptoms of disciplehood – although I must commend you on your sincere devotion to Richard’s method! – like your zeal in defending Richard (as the originator of your newly adopted practical life philosophy) and yourself plus attacking anybody who still questions it or has pointed out the flaws in it. The typical ‘us and them’ scenario that you would remember from following your other masters.

VINEETO: Richard has, like Pythagoras for geometry and Galileo for astronomy and physics, found out the facts about the Human Condition, which nobody has ever discovered before. Applying those facts is a scientific process. Does it work or not? I found that Richard’s method works. I found that it makes me incrementally free from the Human Condition. So I use it. By telling other people about it I refer to Richard as the discoverer.

Moments and hours of pure consciousness experiences give me enough proof of the efficiency of Richard’s method that I am confident to use it and to talk about it. I am experimenting with Richard’s findings and find that they work.

Nevertheless, I know very well that Richard is completely free of the Human Condition, while I am still in the process, living in Virtual Freedom, a state which, as you know well from your own experience, is not irreversible. This discovery about the Human Condition is neither male nor female, it is not another belief, but a way of looking at my life. When I examine my failures of being happy and harmless up to now and the failures of Humanity and its Ancient Wisdom to live in peace and harmony, everything makes sense, ‘falls into place’.

In times long past the observations of Galileo resulted in that all astronomical data could fall into place and in that a new science was born and, despite much objection, his discoveries eventually replaced the previous Aristotelian Wisdom of the false geo-centric system. Newton stood on Galileo’s shoulder and so does the whole of modern practical physics. Notwithstanding the facticity of his discoveries did the church prosecute him and tried to suppress his findings because it was so radically different to what everybody believed up till then and it was flying in the face of the current religious beliefs.

So the difference between believing in a Guru or an authority and applying an experimental method is the same as the difference between believing someone and finding out facts for oneself. I don’t need to believe a fact, it is obvious. If you don’t find it obvious in your experience, then you may have your reasons. But why is it so important to prove me wrong? Why not just get on with what works for you in your life?

*

IRENE: It lies all in the mistake of man believing himself to be the authority over woman, as was decreed by their ancestors who were to be believed to be in direct contact with a creator-god.

VINEETO: According to my own experience, once I freed myself from the belief in an authority – which you say rules my life and which you suggest that I fight against in any man or woman I meet – I was then able to use my intelligence cleared from resentment and doubt, revenge and righteousness. It was the emotional belief in the reality of this authority that held me in the bondage of having to either follow or fight. Now authority is of no concern. This in turn freed me to find out for myself what life is all about. I am autonomous to weigh the facts and decide accordingly.

VINEETO: You mentioned ‘approval of your achievements’, so I use it as an example. I found that wanting approval – or pretending to reject it – was based on the belief in authority. I believed that I was not authority enough to judge my doings and leavings, to approve of me or judge certain behaviour silly. As a woman I had it especially with men and thus had spoiled all my relationships with men. It took quite a bit of digging into the causes of why I believed everybody else more competent to judge me, to judge right and wrong, than me. One thing is, it is a strong part of every upbringing. But underneath the conditioning I found an immense fear to stand on my own feet, alone, by myself – the survival instinct of belonging to a group or a person. I was continuously looking for an authority to protect me, guide me, love me, and for a gathering around those authority figures. Now it looks silly to me but at the time it produced immense fear-attacks, days of wanting to hide, to run away, a nightmare to decide between Richard/Peter as the supposed authority figures or Rajneesh and his disciples as the guiding principle.

To dissolve the nightmare I decided to not stop until I had found the root cause. And the root cause was, strangely enough, a belief in God. I had thought I had dismissed God years ago, when I went to Poona and left Christianity behind. But the Christian God was just replaced by Rajneesh then. Questioning and understanding my fear as the fear of a judging, punishing and very powerful suddenly made it all very clear – finally I could step out of the circle of creating and then fighting human authorities (God’s representatives) and simply decide for myself, with my own intelligence and common sense, what I wanted to do with my life, in each particular moment, in each situation.

It has been a fascinating and liberating discovery. To sort out and eliminate authority was essential for living with Peter in peace, harmony, equity and intimacy. And it was necessary for avoiding the trap of believing anybody – and that includes Richard – and now I am happy to find it out for myself, in my own autonomous experience. Of course, Richard is still the expert on actual freedom, but not an authority figure to be believed and followed.

If you are interested, I have written more about it in ‘a bit of Vineeto’ on our website. (Just type ‘the next major issue’ into the find-function, if you don’t want to read the whole chapter.)

RESPONDENT: Yes, authority has been one of my main blockages, this dependency on someone to tell you how it is, how it should be, what to do and so on. Being used to someone telling you what to do and then not having it can induce fear which helps to maintain that dependency. Of course a grownup has there own internal authority which when falters causes one to rush to find a better authority.

VINEETO: Isn’t it incredibly complex how much this authority issues spoils the quality of relating to people? But simple mental understanding has not been able to eliminate the problem. I had to dig deep into the underlying emotions and dearly held beliefs and fears behind the apparent issue. But what a freedom to have no one as an authority over me now! It needed a lot of questions like ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and ‘Why am I doing this, why am I upset now?’ to discover the roots of any emotion or feeling.

RESPONDENT: What surprised me, however, was that you and Peter went in so much lengths to trash Osho in particular and eastern religions in general. And for what, a simple technique which perhaps everyone knows, at least, I believe, everyone on the sannyas list does.

VINEETO: Doing the ‘technique’ has helped me to get rid of my issues with ‘authority’ – wanting and needing someone, for instance Mr. Rajneesh, to tell me what is right and wrong – or rebelling against a supposed authority. I am free now and fully capable to judge silly and sensible for myself.

Questioning and eliminating the emotion and the belief in love and Love was another consequence of applying this method sincerely and diligently. This grand and to much praised emotion could no longer hold its credibility in the light of honest investigation and awareness, it is, after all, just the cover-up and band-aid for the instincts and ‘bad’ emotions that trouble everyone so much.

But in order to ‘trash’ a master of 17 years, one needs to be ready to look afresh, to question every dearly-held belief and dare to stand alone on one’s own feet, without a group or a master. Without the ‘support’ of my belief in authority and my need for love and the hope for Divine Love I was then able to really check out what Osho what proposing, offering and delivering. And I found it very wanting and intentionally confusing, to say the least.

As Richard said to you, when you start ‘seeing without sannyas eyes’ you will discover the full benefit and life-changing consequence of this question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and you will find out that what you and supposedly everyone on the sannyas list does is something completely different.

It is not just noticing or ‘watching’ feelings and thus creating a new identity – the watcher. With the ‘watcher’ you transcend feelings, usually for the time being. They are not eliminated, they return. With a ‘watcher’ you can pretend this body installed with the Human Condition is not really ‘it’, but you are ‘Consciousness, eternal and pure’. You detach yourself from the body and its imminent emotions, feelings and thought and live as this new identity, the ‘watcher’ or ‘Consciousness’. If successfully applied one ends in the delusion or an Altered State of Consciousness aka enlightenment.

Richard’s method, on the other hand, is designed to question and eliminate every single emotion, belief and instinct in order to be completely free of ego and soul, ‘self’ and ‘Self’. Then one can live in this actual physical world and delight in its infinitude, magnificence, perfection and purity. Then one can be ‘the universe experiencing itself as a sensate human being’ – not a small outcome.

*

RESPONDENT: It is an individual’s responsibility to do the work and individual’s fault if one does not remain alert to look into oneself. It can happen anywhere. I could do the same on this list and be greedy for ‘Actual Freedom’ without working for it.

In addition, my interest at present is: to see what love does to me.

VINEETO: Sure, it is the individual’s responsibility to look into themselves. But you can only effectively look into yourself without the guidelines of those gurus, teachers, Enlightened Beings, ‘Mr. Wise Guys’ and Masters who tell you to look into yourself according to their particular ‘Truth’ or belief-system. As long as you are lead astray on a path of fairy-tale and fantasy, glory and immortality, good feelings and bliss, how can you clearly and honestly look into your ‘self’? You will only be moving deck-chairs on the Titanic again, rearranging feelings – good ones to the right and bad ones to the left – and then end up with a polished, but same old identity of No 5.

To investigate thoroughly and sincerely into your ‘self’ you will need to investigate into those who have programmed you – parents and peers, teachers and Masters, and you will have to question all of their passed-down values. For Actual Freedom you will have to investigate into your spiritual identity as much as into your moral or ethical identity – the whole lot. There is no other way to clean up the Human Condition in oneself other than to first question those whose authority one holds in high esteem. Otherwise you will simply remain a believer.

This is not a small thing we are doing.

RESPONDENT: Well I’ve spent enough time reading the site to know that my letter will be blocked by Richard’s ego as No. 4’s was or replied to ‘predictably’ with Richard’s usual over excited egotistical arrogance, feigned harmlessness, cut and paste laziness and of course those impressive ‘big words’ that make him look like an inconsiderate idiot. Then one of his parrots will come to their guru’s defence using his cloned vocabulary and corrupted aggro attitude. Yet after all this ridiculous ‘get out’ my question is; why do none of you have the intelligence to work out why the list only gets 2 letters a day! Why does it not dawn on your thick skulls how alienating your exaggerated attitudes are and why on earth is Richard trotting out a May [Mailing List B] post? To keep something already dead, alive and wanking???

VINEETO: I am one of Richard’s parrots, called Vineeto. He feeds me weekly with bits of actualism, and I have grown very tall and tame from that, and in return I am willing to proselytize about His method and message on His Actual Freedom list. This time, as you have already so well predicted, you are to be the receiver of my ‘cloned defence’ of the guru. It is so much fun writing about actual freedom that it far exceeds everything I have ever done in my life, including 17 years of worship and meditation with the Indian self-proclaimed God-man Rajneesh and heaps of New Dark Age therapies that teach you how to be more surrendered and more loving with your inner man and inner woman, with the suffering souls of humanity and in tune the Higher Self of Existence. Now at least I am having the fun of doing something so unpopular that there are only 2 mails a day because nobody is actually interested in changing, in becoming happy and harmless themselves – let alone willing to make any effort in this direction. Are they so busy in needing to being loved or are they trying to lovingly save the rest of the planet, including endangered species of tigers, elephants, sharks and blue-dotted beetles?

I am happy that you started writing because I had opportunity to read your writings on the Mailing List B and enjoyed them very much. At last, I thought, a woman who is standing on her own two feet and interested in finding out about herself and about the actual world. Why you chose to empty a drawer of dirty socks on this list is a bit of a mystery to me – Richard must have stepped on a sore toe or a whole sore foot of yours. Isn’t it strange how easy it is to accuse someone of not being harmless because one is feeling hurt, and to fire off a whole volcano of hurt feelings to everybody on the list who are actually doing something about their own malice? It has always amazed me how sincerely hypocritical spiritual seekers can be without even blinking an eyelid. In America they call it ‘venting’ nowadays and consider it to be of great therapeutic value. Not that I don’t know this attitude from my own spiritual years, but I can claim that I have seen the uselessness and stupidity of it and have turned around, stopped blaming the whole world and started to actually investigate my own root-causes for emotional eruptions. What I found was very fascinating indeed. It has brought the inner volcano to a halt, and for the first time in my life I am reliably free of emotions.

KONRAD: Superiority? If you cannot judge a certain method to be superior, and therefore you applying this method as making you being somebody superior, you will never defend this method to others as really being superior. In this way you will never try to make things better.

VINEETO: I have talked about superiority before. I judge a method as being superior if it works. That is simply applying my brain as to what is sensible and what is stupid. There is no need to feel superior because I can see the obvious, if a method works, has results in daily life or not. And if it is obvious then anybody can check it out. It does not need an extra authority applied to it to make it more True. Why believe an authority if I can find out for myself? I can tell from my life that Richard’s method works, there is no need for feeling superior. Whoever objects is simply silly, blinded by beliefs that have been repeated for centuries.

*

VINEETO: By the way, you have quoted me saying: ‘Richard is an absolute expert in the matter’ and deducted from this that I am a blind follower. You don’t even seem to know the difference between expertise and belief in authority. I can understand that you, trying to be an authority in your own right, only can see other people being supposedly inflicted with the same disease (believing in authority and not thinking for themselves). I have never had a conversation with someone who quoted and relied on so many authorities for his conviction as you do. Still, you go to a doctor in the hospital to get yourself fixed up and don’t consider yourself a blind follower of this doctor. He is simply an expert to you.

And then you claim you have found the explanation for what emotions are in human life, jumping proudly and condescendingly up and down in your living room, happy as Larry but not telling anyone what it is. This is the behaviour of a five-year-old. You are not even aware what emotions you exude writing this, how can you claim you found the answer to what emotions are as the very first in human history if you can’t identify them in yourself?

Don’t bother to prove me wrong, Konrad, by quoting old and failed philosophies and gurus. I am very happy and content with the way I live. But I am interested if you set your goal a bit higher and come up with experiences that are not based on the premises of failed authorities, philosopher and gurus of the past. I’ll be interested when you are willing to take the ‘nail’ out of your foot that makes you go round in circles and walk the first steps, freely, on your own, with your own common sense, into the unknown.

Konrad, it is such a magnificent, sparkling, thrilling adventure, it is well worth to overcome the first lump of fear and consider it at least possible. Just try it.

RESPONDENT: My previous teachings to me are about the actual. For example, a key ingredient of my previous teachings is about having a direct experience of the actual which I feel is necessary to having a PCE.

VINEETO: I am stunned that you can call Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teaching being ‘about the actual’. If you had followed a bit of Richard’s extensive correspondence with many, many people on this very same teacher’s mailing list, you would at least have noted that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s concern is the transcendental and nothing but the transcendental. Vis:

[quote]: ‘If you have come this far in meditation, you will find there is silence, a total emptiness ... ... therefore there is a possibility for that which is timeless, eternal, to come into being ... ... the discovery of truth, or God demands great intelligence, which is not assertion of belief or disbelief, but the recognition of the hindrances created by lack of intelligence. So to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco. Copyright ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America).

In order to be able to say that Mr. Krishnamurti’s teachings to you are ‘about the actual’ you have to either ignore 90% of Krishnamurti’s teachings or twist the meaning of the word ‘actual’ into meaning spiritual and transcendental. ‘The key ingredient of [your] previous teachings is about having a direct experience’ of the divine, not the actual. Vis:

[quote]: I have seen the glorious and healing Light. The fountain of Truth has been revealed to me and the darkness has been dispersed. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated. (‘Krishnamurti: The Years Of Awakening’ Mary Lutyens; Avon Books, New York, 1991).

* (...)

RESPONDENT: I was talking about the teachings themselves such as being aware of what I am actually doing, thinking and feeling from moment to moment and you have added a quote from his early years and what he may or may not have meant by truth at that period of his life.

VINEETO: I find it interesting that you should object to the relevance of the above quote from J. Krishnamurti by saying that it was ‘from his early years’. This is one of the several stock standard responses that were used by several faithful followers of Krishnamurti when Richard introduced quotes on Mailing List B to prove a point he was making. Only in September last year Richard had a lengthy discussion with one correspondent about that very same argument ... ‘from his early years’ . You were also writing on the list at the same time but maybe you missed the exchange. I have copied the relevant correspondence at the end of this letter.

I had posted this particular quote because I know from my thorough investigation into my years of spiritual dependency that you cannot separate the teachings from the teacher and just pick out a some advice that seem worth applying in your life and ignore the rest. The above quote shows clearly, as do many others from his later years, that J. Krishnamurti was a through and through spiritual person – ‘God-intoxicated’ – and his declared purpose was to teach people how to achieve this experience for themselves. Vis.:

[quote]: ‘Those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end ... ... will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose’. J. Krishnamurti, 1929

Therefore, following his method can, at the most, lead you to what he achieved – becoming yet another spiritual teacher immersed in ‘that which is eternal’ – and not knowing anything about a ‘direct experience with the actual’.

RESPONDENT: I have been spiritual in my life but I am not spiritual now. Truth to me is what I am actually doing, thinking and feeling from moment to moment. I’m sorry if I have wasted your time. I will continue to look and see if I have any spirituality.

VINEETO: Personally, I was never attracted to J. Krishnamurti or his teachings as I considered them too dry and theoretical at the time of my spiritual involvement. Instead, I got sucked into the emotional indulgence and the escalating esoteric extravagance of Mr. Mohan Rajneesh. Yet the relationship that I had to him as my master differs not from the relationship that other followers have to their particular master – is it invariably epitomized by unquestioning adoration, deep felt loyalty, a love that excuses and defends the master’s every word or deed and the pride of being a disciple of such rare outstanding and powerful personality. Krishnamurti’s claim that he did not want to be a master nor want his followers to be devotees only created an apparent intellectual coolness but it never altered the fervent emotional ties that each of his followers had, and still has, with him. If you take the time and read through some of Richard’s correspondence with mailing list B you will quickly understand what I mean.

Before I could learn, explore or even consider that there was any new approach to life I had to question this highly emotional relationship to the one teacher that I had considered to be the only authority and fountain of wisdom. My worldview was coloured and measured against the authority of his words and teachings. If others stated similar views and ‘wisdoms’, I considered them right, if not, they were wrong. My judgements had nothing to do with my personal investigation of facts at all; it was solely a ‘feeling right’ decision according to my preconceived convictions solely derived from the master’s viewpoint – and the fact that he had been dead for 10 years did not change my emotional dependency on his authority at all.

An honest and in-depth investigation of the facts of the situation was only possible after I ‘tore Rajneesh out of my heart’, became a traitor to his message and his ‘sangha’ and thus became independent of his imagined approval or condemnation. Only then was I able to listen to his discourses and judge with my newly freed intelligence instead of ‘my heart’ and to discover his mindless twaddle and ‘compassionate lies’, his manipulation and deceit, his outright distortions and underlying ancient rotten Indian belief-system. Now I could start the long and fascinating journey of unravelling the intricate web of the psychic world – the Eastern spiritual fears of endless karma, the hope for transcendence, the reverence for intuition, love, compassion, bliss and enlightenment. Once one starts to see the psychic world and how it functions, the word ‘spiritual’ is revealed in its fuller and more comprehensive meaning.

You felt moved to defend your teacher the moment I quoted him in order to prove that he is concerned only with the spiritual and the divine and not with the actual. This reaction indicates where to look when you want to ‘see if [you] have any spirituality’. So in order to ‘continue to look and see if [you] have any spirituality’, you will first and foremost have to consider and investigate your affective relationship to your ‘previous’ teacher and teachings. Otherwise any factual discussion about what Krishnamurti said or meant will be distorted by the emotions that are instigating automatic instinctual (or, as LeDoux calls them, ‘quick and dirty’) reactions rather than considered intelligent responses.

Now we have a third alternative – to live here in this actual physical world and eliminate the sorrow and malice brought on by the Human Condition. One of the first issues on this path to freedom has been to examine and eliminate by ‘authority complex’. I have written about it in our journal (search: dependence on male authority). What a delight now to stand on my own feet, unafraid to examine the Ancient Wisdom of hundreds of revered authorities, and discovering that they all did not have the solution to being happy and harmless here on this planet.

Facts are superior to beliefs and the extinction of the ‘self’ is superior to remaining a puny ‘self’ or flesh-and-blood-body ‘self’ or Actually Fucking Free ‘self’, who can only perceive the world by feelings, beliefs and imagination – that’s simply the way it is. No right or wrong about it at all. The only sure and permanent way to actual superiority is to become ‘self’-less, extinct.

Such is the perversity of the human condition.