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Selected Correspondence Vineeto Authority and Expertise RESPONDENT: I’ve just been reading your writings about ‘How to investigate your feelings’ and am currently looking at the teacher, follower, seeker, devotee, authority identities that seem to be the underpinning of all special relationships – I don’t know whether you wrote down you’re questions and inquiry as you looked at your feelings of love and loyalty for your former teacher and all the feelings of abandonment and loss that went with it – I’d really like to read over them or perhaps talk to you a bit about this whole deconstruction process – I really need to see/understand this whole structure of identity plainly and clearly in order to see I can let it go – I used your questions today to have a look at a specific grievance VINEETO: Personally, it took two months and a lot of discussions with Peter until I began to grasp, and then understand experientially, what the term ‘spiritual’ really means. In my years of spiritual search, the term ‘spiritual’ implied a superior way of life to crass materialism, following the highest aspirations of mankind, a dedication to be good and to be part of the group of people who also aspire to the same goal. The day I finally understood the literal meaning of the word ‘spirit-ual’, a whole new world opened up. Suddenly I understood that I – like everyone else – was producing this spiritual, non-physical world in my head and heart – with my very spirit, so to speak – and this world consisted of spiritual morals, ethics, ideas, beliefs, emotions, loyalties, pride and the belief in the immortality of the soul. I also began to understand that spirituality teaches one to enhance the ‘good’ affective feelings and distance oneself from /dissociate from the ‘bad’ and unpleasant feelings. One is actively encouraged to indulge one’s intuition, trust, love, loyalty, belief, faith, hope and imagination and is encouraged to ‘feel out’ a situation. This is diametrically opposite to what one needs to do if one aspires to become actually free of the human condition whereby one explores the actuality of the situation by applying thought, common sense, contemplation, practicality, intelligence and undertakes an investigation into verifiable facts of the situation. Actualism is not really a ‘deconstruction process’ as you call it because when one begins to inquiry into one’s beliefs and discovers that they are based on hearsay, belief, trust and faith and not on facts, they disappear of their own accord, in a similar way as you stopped believing in the existence of a tooth fairy and Santa Claus once you found out the facts of the matter. ‘Deconstruction’ per se could well lead to feelings of utter meaninglessness which in turn can lead to the despairing feelings of nihilism or the angry feelings of anarchy – all of which is in marked contrast to the groundswell of happiness and harmlessness that is revealed if one taps into one’s innate naiveté and dares to run with it as it were. To get back to your question, in my own process of disentangling myself from being a disciple I discovered two components to religious belief – one was the lure of ‘immortality, Truth, Timelessness’, and my aspiration to achieve an imaginary perfection in enlightenment, and the other was love and loyalty, my affective belief in the master’s ultimate authority and in my inferiority and thus dependency on his wisdom and compassion. For me, questioning authority itself and tracing it back to my belief in God, by whatever name, was the first step out of the spiritual world, and questioning the authority of the master (either as a God-like figure or a father-like figure or as a bit of both) was the second step. When my belief in and my need for authority disappeared, my feelings of love and loyalty for the master successively disappeared as well. I was then able to watch videotapes of Rajneesh’s discourses without the blinding/ distorting veil of love and trust, and I squirmed in disbelief at the lies, inanities, half-truths, power games and outright ancient mumble jumble that was suddenly revealed. In my spiritual years I had used the discourses as a hypnotic device to be lulled into ‘silencing the mind’, feeling good and feeling love for all – however, this time, without the affective cloak the ‘great words of Wisdom’ looked shockingly inane. Of course, for some time I tried to find excuses for Rajneesh as well as the other god-men, but eventually that turned out to be an impossible task the more I allowed myself to admit to having been conned through and through by one who was a master of his trade. God-men are nothing but con men, sucking and luring admiring disciples into their scheme of self-aggrandizement, and most of the time they seem to be convinced of their own delusion. But they are bound to have times of doubt or even clarity, when the delusion is less thick – that’s why Richard says the enlightened ones have ‘feet of clay’. Nobody except Richard, particularly no enlightened master, has ever dared to ask the obvious question – why, with all this all-encompassing Love and Compassion is there no improvement upon peace on earth after 3,500 years of enlightened history? They claim to have all the knowledge and yet they are leading everyone into the land of fantasy and fervent imagination. However, when I first started to investigate the issue of my spiritual loyalty, my thoughts tended to shift from this uncomfortable subject as a way of avoiding the issue, I invented diversions and furphies not to stick to the issue at hand, I experienced hot and cold flushes, I caught myself wanting to start a fight, I suddenly became tired if confronted with the issue, etc. … you might get the picture. The whole cunning ‘me’ swung into action so as to desperately defend ‘my’ precious beliefs and feelings in exactly the same way an addict feels that he is fighting for survival when his drugs are withdrawn. Only pure intent and stubborn determination to get to the bottom of this addiction-like dependency on being a believing, belonging and feeling ‘being’ allows one to continue whittling away at whatever stands in the way of becoming unconditionally happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: I’ve been holding for which was acutely triggered 5 years ago and really it had been triggered by the same one 6 years before that – there seems to be every human issue that could arise bound up with this one and I’m a bit at a loss how to really delve into it and get my teeth into it and get some real deconstruction happening rather than just floating around on the surface – Please let me know if I could speak to you sometime or have a look at how you got into and approached these relationships. VINEETO: As an actualist I discovered that in order to get to the roots of my feelings of love and loyalty I had to have a close look at my general attitude towards authority, something that had plagued me in most of my relationships during my life. I discovered that the only way to stand on my own two feet was to tackle and dissolve the emotionally charged issue of authority. I had to look at all of my feelings towards people who I ascribed authority to, particularly those who claimed a special knowledge of what was right and wrong, true and untrue, good and bad – in short, a moral, ethical and spiritual authority. I realized their power over me was derived from and maintained by my belief that there is an ultimate absolute authority in those matters, a Supreme Ruler of moral codes, a Weigher of Souls, a Divine Intelligence, a Big Daddy, a Higher Power of some sort who instated and enforced those values. It didn’t make any difference that I had abandoned the belief in a personal God in my youth because the spiritual belief in an all-encompassing divine energy running the universe kept me obedient, dependant and fearful. The final realisation that dissolved my problems with authority forever is recorded in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’ –
For me, the end of God was at the same time the end of hope, trust, faith and postponement, the end of debilitating waiting and cowardly pondering, the end of humbling myself in the face of an almighty invisible power, the end of a stupefying fear of God’s judgement of my right and wrong deeds. The end of my belief in God also freed me of the belief/trust in and the loyalty for God’s earthly representatives such as my former master and all the righteous moral authorities that I had either dutifully followed and/or dutifully rebelled against. The end of my belief in God and my belief in an afterlife marked the beginning of standing on my own two feet with dignity and joy and for the very first time of relying on my intelligence and my common sense to find out the meaning of life for myself. Ah, what a joy.
RESPONDENT: I notice something in the conversation between Vineeto and No 66. There is a camaraderie as in between I am already there but you are trying to be me, good. VINEETO: This is what camaraderie can mean –
The only synonym for camaraderie that comes close to what is actually happening is ‘fellowship’, or better still ‘fellowship regard’. All I did in my post to No 66 was share my experiences with a fellow human being about becoming virtually free from malice and sorrow, just as I have shared my experiences with you only two days ago about investigating the feelings that prevent one from being happy and harmless. The only difference is that No 66 appreciates this sharing due to his interest in the topic whereas you seem intent on putting your own ‘spin’ on things based solely upon your own feelings. (...) * RESPONDENT: Can’t criticism be another expression of interest? VINEETO: There is a world of difference in criticism expressed by unsolicitedly putting other people down based on reading between the lines of actually written or spoken words as opposed to an interest in how to become free from malice and sorrow oneself for the benefit of this body and every body. Maybe this is an apt moment to point out that actualism is neither a (therapeutic) group-dynamical process nor a purely subjective process as to what people gathered here want to keep or change, or throw out about the process nor is it a demographic exercise about how many people within the human condition feel about the style of the reports. When I met Richard and realized after weeks of establishing a prima facie case that what Richard was talking about was a new paradigm – an actual freedom from the human condition, something no spiritual teacher had ever talked about, let alone had any experience of – I wanted to learn from him as much as I could. As such I knew and acknowledged that I was not at all equal to him in that I was an apprentice who wanted to learn something that Richard knew by his lived experience day by day. I was ignorant of the topic and was attentive to what Richard had to say because he knew what ‘he’ as an identity had done in order to become free from the human condition. I also knew myself well enough to realize that I was handicapped, stymied and bound by the human condition and driven by the instinctual passions whereas Richard clearly wasn’t. As such I knew that I was easily prone to misunderstandings in my conversations with Richard, prone to emotional misinterpretations, to instinctual knee-jerk reactions, cognitive dissonance, blind spots, cunningness, and that ultimately I was fearful to be exposed as ‘me’. But I was determined to nevertheless become free from these handicaps and from the human condition in total and therefore I knew that all these expressions of ‘me’ resisting and fighting ‘my’ diminishment and ‘my’ demise needed to be neither expressed nor repressed but clearly looked at if I were to become free of them – I also knew that any notions of wanting Richard to change in order to suit ‘my’ whims, or any notions of criticizing his style, his facial expression, his choice of words, his body-posture, his preferences and predilections was really only a distraction and a diversion from ‘me’ doing what was necessary – changing the only person I can change and needed to change – ‘me’. Given that I was frustrated with the results of 17 years of spiritual search and eager to become free from being driven by malice and sorrow, it was not at all hard to do. In short, after I satisfied myself that Richard is indeed free from the instinctual passions and their resultant feelings/ imaginations I stopped wasting my time and this opportunity in defending the human condition which is ‘me’, and got on with the business of learning from him as much as I could about the practical business of how to become free myself. And I still do. RESPONDENT: Just for an example, when No 60 mentioned a long time ago that he was questioning the canonical question to ask oneself each moment again, his criticism was born of his intense interest to be successful in his quest to be happy. VINEETO: I don’t know whether it has occurred to you or not but an interest in being happy is at best an interest in freedom from sorrow, not an interest in freedom from malice, and as such has nothing to do with an interest in becoming free from the human condition in toto. There is far, far more to actualism than feeling happy. (...)* RESPONDENT: Or from No 66’s side, hey shucks you are there, I am getting there mommy, say cheese. VINEETO: You already made your feelings unambiguously clear that you find No 66’s behaviour ‘reprehensible’ –
Repeating a feeling does not turn it into a fact – your insistence only indicates that you have not yet understood that peace on earth in this lifetime for this flesh and blood body entails changing one person and one person only – ‘me’– and as such what other people choose to do with their lives is entirely their business. RESPONDENT: I understand. VINEETO: I wonder if you do as your following query indicates that this is not the case. (...) * RESPONDENT: If every time I criticise another person on this list, the defense sounds like Mind your own business, you can only change yourself, then this list would have just become a vehicle for AF propaganda, not a genuine discussion in which all parties are open to change and criticism. VINEETO: Several points for clarification –
* RESPONDENT: It is all quite pathetic, this hierarchy business. VINEETO: If you had understood that peace on earth in this lifetime for this flesh and blood body entails changing one person and one person only – ‘me’– and that *your freedom is in your hands and your hands alone*, then you would also comprehend that a hierarchy is only possible if your freedom is constrained by or is dependant upon someone else and whilst you may feel this to be the case a little research and some clear thinking about the matter will reveal that this is not the case. RESPONDENT: You know in Vipassana (as taught by Goenka), there are stages of seekers. And everybody is trying to attain the recognition as an advanced seeker from everybody else while in the meanwhile forgetting what the whole hoopla was about in the beginning (to be free from suffering and desire). VINEETO: Ah, I see now where your notion of hierarchy in actualism comes from. RESPONDENT: No. The above is an example only. My notion of hierarchy in actualism does not ‘come from’ Vipassana. Vipassana meditators are also driven by competition to out-race each other and get a venerating label. That is just another instance of a hierarchy. VINEETO: When you say as an example ‘meditators are *also* driven’ do you mean actualists are driven like Vipassana meditators – because that’s what ‘an example’ means?
And when you say ‘*another* instance of a hierarchy’ do you mean there is hierarchy in actualism just as there is a hierarchy in Vipassana? If that is what you mean then you are imagining something to exist based solely on your previous experience of spiritualism that does not exist in fact. Actualism is a completely new paradigm and as with any new paradigm, it’s a waste of time trying to see it with old eyes/ understand it based on old preconceived ideas, previous moral and ethical values and prior social conditioning. * VINEETO: If you see similarities between the procedure of Vipassana, a Buddhist meditation technique devised to achieve an *imaginary* state of nirvana, and the method of actualism to become *actually* free from malice and sorrow … RESPONDENT: If I may interject? I am only talking of the hierarchy aspect of the Vipassana meditation (in the Goenka sect) and not of its procedure to become happy. VINEETO: You are welcome to interject but just because you see a parallel based on your past experience doesn’t mean there is a hierarchy in the way you see it operating in the spiritual dog-eat-dog world. What exists is pragmatic, varying levels of expertise – the expertise of the contributors to this mailing list based on their practical experiences with actualism as well as the expertise of those who are either virtually free or actually free of the human condition of the human condition. * VINEETO: … then it is no wonder that you see actualism in terms of hierarchy and it is no wonder that you keep ignoring the fact that actualism is about autonomy, the very antithesis of the hierarchy that is inherent in all spiritual belief. RESPONDENT: Let me tell you that even in Vipassana, each seeker is told in no uncertain terms that ‘you, and only you, can achieve your salvation, no Guru, no messiah can effect it’. Autonomy is the hallmark of most Buddhist meditation techniques where the meditation teacher is only there as a guide, not as a giver of liberation. But even there, as people start practicing, the normal competitiveness/ rat-race/ medal-gathering that we witness all about in the real world starts to evince itself. VINEETO: The autonomy you talk of in ‘most Buddhist meditation techniques’ is only established after the disciple has taken on board the goal, the direction and the method from the words of the late Mr. Buddha or one of his representatives/ interpreters, an imaginary state of nirvana, whereas you can easily verify Richard’s reports of an actual freedom *by your own experience* in a pure consciousness experience. The hierarchy you are referring to when you say – ‘it is all quite pathetic,
this hierarchy business’ – is clearly a hierarchy ‘with respect to authority or dominance’ In fact, by incrementally becoming free from my social identity and by diminishing the grip of the instinctual passions have on me I was able to stand on my own feet for the first time in my life. The second reason why in actualism there is no hierarchy ‘with respect to authority or dominance’ is because the basic prerequisite for such hierarchy is an affective power that people hold over other people. Richard, having no affective faculty, is incapable of holding power over anybody. As such all notions of an affective hierarchy are presumptions generated by the identity of those who choose to correspond with him. In short, they invent a hierarchy ‘with respect to authority or dominance’ and then proceed to rile against it. Richard’s
RESPONDENT: That way, the fear that is the reliance on external authorities, becomes redundant. VINEETO: I am curious about your expression ‘the fear that is the reliance on external authorities’. I discovered that it is vital to make a distinction between my adverse and/or loyal feelings towards authorities and a reliance on the expertise of my fellow human beings, be it my computer repair man, software experts, my accountant, the doctors I visit, my optometrist, the car mechanic … or Richard who is an expert in how become free from the human condition. Nowadays I have no fears associated with relying on the expertise of others because I have investigated, understood and dissolved my emotional issues around authority. RESPONDENT: This site has taught me (whether that was the intention or not) that underneath all the confusion and problems, we are essentially safe and that there is really nothing to be scared of apart from our own interpretations. VINEETO: The main thing that makes life on this lush and magical planet unsafe is the genetically encoded instinctual programming that relentlessly drives human beings to feel aggrieved and to feel sad and the resultant ‘confusion and problems’ are certainly not the result of ‘interpretations’ – be they mine or anybody else’s. What was in my own hands, however, was the possibility to become virtually free of my own grievances and my own grieving. For instance when I succeeded in abandoning my spiritual beliefs I subsequently lost most of my fears regarding moral and ethical rewards and punishment, and the more I diminished my social and instinctual identity (not my ‘interpretations’ but the beliefs and feelings that made up my identity), the more I am now able to act and behave sensibly and intelligibly and as such safely. In other words – only ‘I’ feel fear, fear is not an actuality. RESPONDENT: I wish you all the best VINEETO: Thank you. The best that ever happened to me was that I came across
Richard and decided to learn how to become free from the human condition. Now life is almost always a breeze and a delight.
RESPONDENT: When I saw the title to your post to No 18 about ‘Abandoning beliefs’ I wondered exactly what you meant by that. I wrote to ask you what you meant by that and you explained. That was all I wanted to know. VINEETO: Yet that wasn’t all you wanted to know because after I explained what I meant by abandoning beliefs you continued the conversation by asking ‘how did you investigate those feelings and link the identity to them?’ (25.11.2004) to which I responded. RESPONDENT: The conversation then deteriorated into you making a lot of assumptions about me … VINEETO: As I already explained, I did not make assumptions about you specifically but passed on some observations about the human condition in regards to how people I know try to manage their feelings. Instead of taking what I said at face value you took this observation personally, i.e. you presumed that I had made ‘a lot of assumptions’ about you and as a result you decided that you ‘find it near impossible to have a conversation’ with me. Here is the paragraph you consider to contain ‘a lot of assumptions’ about you personally –
RESPONDENT: [The conversation then deteriorated into you making a lot of assumptions about me] and now bringing up long past conversations to back up your assumptions. VINEETO: The reason why I referred to information you had given me in the past was to explain to you why I had chosen to impart this particular observation about the human condition. You had asked me about investigating feelings and knowing that both you and I had trodden the spiritual path for many years, I told you about one of the cunning tricks the identity applies in order to avoid further investigation into one’s feelings … because daring to undertake such a hands-on investigation would inevitably threaten ‘my’ very existence. Or are you now retracting your comment that you have been on ‘this path of self-discovery for 30 years now’? RESPONDENT: As always, you have assumed an authoritative teacher role which makes discussion impossible. VINEETO: Well, you did ask me a question about ‘how did you investigate those feelings and link the identity to them?’ and I gave an answer to you based on my expertise on the subject. Would you have me pretend that I don’t know what I know about the human condition and how it operates in order that you can feel equally authoritative about the subject? Whilst ‘dumbing-down’ is part and parcel of belief-based spiritualism, it has no role to play in fact-based actualism. If you don’t want to talk about abandoning beliefs and investigating feelings, then why bother to ask in the first place? If one wants to discuss the human condition and such matters in particular, one inevitably ends up triggering-off one’s own emotional reactions for the obvious reason that ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’. It takes tremendous guts to dive deep into one’s psyche and bring to light one’s familiar patterns and beliefs. That’s why I always recommend putting the topic under discussion on the table, remembering that it is the human condition that we are talking about, not some personal flaw or individual error. The human condition is common to all, genetically encoded, and in one form or another shared by each and every human being. However, there is no avoiding of sensitive topics if you really want to become free from the human condition. RESPONDENT: Anyway, thanks for answering my original question about abandoning beliefs. VINEETO: Can you now understand the qualitative difference between abandoning
one’s beliefs and questioning other people’s beliefs
RESPONDENT: As for me, I’ve managed to break-free from the spiritual dreams and schemes and now they are of zero interest. VINEETO: I remember I was immensely relieved when the full implications sank in
that there is no omnipotent omniscient God, no Divine Judge, no mysterious Power running the show and consequently no Life after
Death to plan for. It was as if I got my life back, I could finally live now instead of worrying about my mythical non-physical
life and the ‘health’ and virtue of my spirit and my soul. A huge burden fell off me and with it my fear of divine punishment
disappeared which in turn freed me from my fear of human authorities – everyone became just like me, a fellow human being,
living their life for the first and only time just like me. It’s not that I abandoned the belief in a Greater reality and fell
back into grim reality because I had set my course on becoming unconditionally happy and harmless – the best possible thing I
could do for my fellow human beings.
VINEETO: Some complaints however, such as the knee-jerk rages against authority and authority figures or feeling sad and sorry for a blighted humanity run very deep and as such take a bit more digging into in order to fully understand and undo. Such complaints are rooted deeply in the core feeling of ‘we are all in the same boat’ which gives rise to the nonsensical belief that ‘we can only become free together all at once’. It is obvious that there are no practical lifestyle changes that I can make to diminish these complaints other than cutting the cord each time these feelings arise and, each time again, step out from humanity, the sad and sorry cesspool of malice and sorrow. GARY: While I don’t often have rages against authority, I often regard myself as a moral authority to be reckoned with and am liable to fly into rages when others defy my imagined authority. This pattern, once blatant and destructive of personal and professional relationships, is progressively drying up. But it still takes quite a bit of ferreting out what underlies these difficulties and I do not mean to imply that I am free from these insidious passions. There has been progress but not perfection, as ‘I’ am still in evidence. VINEETO: Yes, having expertise in certain areas is one thing but an emotional
claim to authority certainly spells trouble. To fight for one’s place in the pecking order of rank and honour is not only an
issue of ‘my’ social identity but the fight has its roots in the instinctual need to define and defend ‘my’ territory. My
intent to abandon this pecking-order fight taught me to rely on facts instead of my opinions, which in turn diminished the urge to
defend my knowledge and/or authority.
RESPONDENT: From No 45’ postings I get the impression that he thinks that there is some sort of Hierarchy in AF. Vis:
VINEETO: Incidentally, the greatest number of objections accusing actualists of being cult members, forming a hierarchy and following a guru have thus far come from followers of Jiddu Krishnamurti, closely followed by objections from followers of Mohan Rajneesh. And yet, when they come to a mailing list set up by a man who was once enlightened and managed to free himself from the delusionary state along with two others who had trod the spiritual path intensely enough and for long enough to have witnessed the duplicity of the revered God-men first-hand, they then proceed to accuse the very whistleblowers as being either gurus or disciples. But it is all quite simple – as long as I had an issue with authority, I assumed that
everyone else also must have a similar problem with authorities. It was only when I, once and for all, realized that there is no
God (by whatever name) in this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe – a He/She or It who pulls the strings, grants bonuses
to goodie-two-shoes and punishes sinners – that my issues with God’s authority vanished into thin air, never to return. Since
then I have discovered what thinking for yourself and standing on your own two feet really means – and it is delightful. * RESPONDENT: Also I have understood that politics is not really your concern as neither it is mine; however on some levels in this game I think each one of is affected by decisions that are made by the top so to speak. VINEETO: I follow with interest many reports and stories as to how human beings live their lives, how they relate with each other, how they solve problems and face challenges. I am continuously amazed at the ingenuity of human intelligence and human practicality and how well many functions of society are organized despite the sabotaging effects of the human condition. Western societies in particular have managed an astounding amount of administrative tasks like hospitals, police, courts, emergency services, traffic control, road and rail service, electricity and water, telephone and post, social security and education. I have also come to see that there is no ‘top so to speak’ because the decisions that affect my everyday life are primarily made by public administrators in response to public demand, be they the road authority, the electricity company, the local council, the police, telephone and postal administration, and so on. Other decisions are made by industry in response to public demand, be they agriculture and trade, manufacturing, service industry and so on. Medical progress is influenced by many factors, among them public demand for better health, research funding, the ingenuity of scientific researchers, economic and practical issues as well as moral and ethical restrictions. The same holds for almost every other aspect of social administration. Politicians are only one spoke in the wheel of the organizational network, they are but the front men and women for the underlying administrative system. Despite popular opinion, politicians are not in control of everything that happens in their particular country, region or town. Far from it in fact, as most practical decisions are made at the administrative and executive level and most political decisions are made according to an ever-swaying popular opinion. Recently it occurred to me that the emotional issue with authority – either
worshipping and following a chosen authority figure or rebelling against adverse authority figures – is related to an
instinctual reluctance to admit that nobody is in charge of running the world – neither an almighty God nor a Mother Nature,
neither a collusion of corporations nor a conspiracy of politicians. Despite common belief and social inculcation, we are all
fellow human beings doing this business of being alive for the very first time.
VINEETO to No 38: For example, following my extensive investigating into my emotional problems with authority, an insight revealed the root cause – my belief in a disembodied Higher Authority. Once I realized, without doubt, that the existence of a God by whatever name was nothing but a commonly held belief and not a fact, the whole range of emotional charges around authority – any authority – disappeared completely, never to return. I described the process of this realization in Peter’s Journal –
RESPONDENT: A while ago Vineeto you used the term ‘disembodied authority’. I looked into that for a while and I came to find that this might be the issue at large why with what human beings basically are struggling. What generally we do in order to avoid taking responsibility for our own ‘personal power’ ... VINEETO: I was talking about taking responsibility for every action in my life, i.e. my words and deeds, which is something completely different to ‘taking responsibility for our own ‘personal power’’. Modern self-love preachers like Oprah Winfrey espouse to love yourself, to empower yourself, to take back your power, to assert yourself, and so on, and this process only attempts to shift one’s identity from being powerless towards being powerful. In actualism I don’t attempt to gain or take responsibility for my own ‘personal power’, because power is in itself a feeling and an emotion-based concept. In actualism I became aware of my feelings and thoughts and I took responsibility in that I made it my single-pointed aim to become free from my malice and sorrow and that included the fervent need to either follow or fight authority figures, be they flesh-and-blood or disembodied. And just to head off an objection at the pass before it breaks loose – it is eminently sensible not to violate the authority of the law and police of the country you are in. ... is projecting a portion of that into an authority figure and next disembody that authority in such a way that this authority can no longer be questioned/ approached in a way that there can be dialogue between the questioner and the authority figure. VINEETO: What I meant by my belief in a disembodied Higher Authority was the notion that there is a Somebody or Something that is the supposed arbiter of the human-made values of good and bad, right and wrong. An example of a ‘Somebody’ is a God or Goddess, by whatever name, a mystical Jesus or Buddha, a dead Rajneesh or Krishnamurti, and so on. An example of ‘Something’ are material things that are often revered and deified such as Mother Earth, the Universe, the moon or the planets, Energy, Chi, Intelligence or faceless amorphous forces such as the Government, Globalization, Materialism, and such like, that are the usual fuel for conspiracy paranoia. During the time I struggled with my feelings about authority figures I did not ‘disembody that authority’ but I came to realize that I simply wanted to have the same power that the authority figure seemed to hold. The very reason I made a person into an authority figure was because they had something I wanted, either material as in riches or worldly position, or non-material as in spiritual powers, blissful altered states or a booked seat in spiritual heaven. In practicing actualism, my solution was not to have a ‘dialogue between the questioner and the authority figure’ (for instance a dialogue between Rajneesh and me) but I looked into my own psyche in order to find out why I felt compelled to make a person into an authority figure in the first place. And just to head off another objection at the pass before it breaks loose, I am not talking about a person who is an authority as in an expert in a particular field of expertise. If I find someone who is an expert in computers or accounting for example, then I am all ears because I may learn something that I did not know and can try out for myself to see if it works and is useful. RESPONDENT: With regard to this I like to let God outside of that as an example I rather look at what I see is happening through the effect i.e. the television has. VINEETO: If I may ask, why would you rather ‘let God outside of that as an example’ – or any other disembodied authority figure for that matter? Why not start with the obvious and most basic issue of authority ‘with what human beings basically are struggling’? RESPONDENT: The same process is happening watching i.e. a political leader on TV (is watching the image <which has become a symbol of an authority>). We accredit him with worldly authority (which is assigned power/ responsibility) hence creating disembodied authorities hence draining our own reasonability to be present on a political level (the powerful me as a social identity). Just a short thought that came to mind. VINEETO: A person that is alive is not suddenly disembodied because he or she appears on television. If you see the Dalai Lama on TV then that is an image of the flesh-and-blood Dalai Lama and if you see the Dutch queen on TV, that is an image of the flesh-and-blood Dutch queen. Further, it is not the image that ‘has become a symbol of an authority’ but ‘I’, the identity, project ‘my’ feelings of authority on to the actual flesh and blood person and relate to him or her with feelings of admiration, awe, devotion and/or envy, hate and resentment. You seem to be suggesting that you should go out and become an admired/resented authority figure as in becoming ‘a political leader’ yourself in order to resolve your emotional conflict with authority. Then when you become a political leader, yet another ‘powerful me as a social identity’ will come along and will want to dethrone you because they too like to rile against authority. Have you ever contemplated on the fact that the whole system of democratic government is an adversarial system consisting of competing ruling and opposition parties, forever in conflict and never in harmony? And just to head off another objection at the pass before it breaks loose, I am not saying a dictatorship is better because at least a democracy offers a watchdog against endemic outbreaks of corruption. The actualism method, however, is designed to do the opposite of blindly following or thoughtlessly riling against authority – you become aware of, investigate, understand and become free from the feelings of admiration, awe, devotion and/or envy, hate and resentment in your own psyche – then you are free to see the flesh and blood fellow human being bereft of your own emotion-based projection of authority and you are also able to see the facts as opposed to simply carrying on believing what everyone else believes underneath the ‘self’-centred feelings of power and powerlessness. Now that I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using the common
and practical intelligence of the human brain, I can see that an assigned and elected political leader is nothing more than
someone doing his or her job in the complex administration of a country just as a clerk, a farmer or scientist is doing his or her
job in the running of their business. Personally I found ‘to be present on a political level’ unnecessary because a lot
of other people are doing their job in running the country as best they can in the circumstances. I also found that, as But if you are sincerely interested in improving the lot of your fellow human beings, I
have yet to hear of a better contribution that any one person can make towards the betterment of the human species than for that
individual to prove that it is possible to eliminate their own feelings of malice and sorrow.
VINEETO to No 1: Personally, I can understand what Richard writes, and the longer I read the easier it is for me to understand his explanations about animal instincts, the human condition and a way to peace-on-earth. I am applying the method that he has described on the list many times since two years, with great success. Therefore your argument of him being ‘the undisputed ruler and sole owner of all that he knows and understands’ is simply a silly excuse – for if you actually understand what Richard talks about, peace-on-earth in this lifetime, then that understanding calls for unilateral action, for changing oneself. And who would want to give up their comfortable concepts and theories and start actually investigating themselves and changing their behaviour in order to become actually free of malice and sorrow? It is so much easier to find fault with the one who is talking about peace-on-earth than to get off one’s bum and investigate one’s own emotions, isn’t it? RESPONDENT: Looks to me like you wanted to defend your guru, Vineeto. VINEETO: Those living in the spirit-ual world can only see spiritual relationships, epitomized by love and authority. My own ultimate authority is the pure consciousness experience where one can experience the actual world undistorted by any ‘self’ whatsoever. Given my intent to live this ‘self’-less experience 24 hrs a day I then proceeded to eliminate all that prevents this happening. I have left the self-deprecating reliance on authority as in a guru-disciple relationship behind a long time ago. It sucks. 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. There is nothing as valuable as expertise in all areas of life. 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: This is interesting. You are dead sure that I am in a spiritual world and following a guru yet you have totally denied your own words that you wrote above. Let me play your own words back to you. This is how you like to do everyone else to prove that you are right and that ‘ALL’ others are wrong.
So, the longer you read Richard’s explanations, the easier it is for you to understand his explanation of a way to peace on earth. Personally, I understood what Richard was saying the first time I read it and I was interested in learning more about the instincts. However, I was completely choked and stifled by you and the ‘ism’ you have made out of it. VINEETO: Oh yes, as I said, I am dead sure that ‘those living in the spirit-ual world can only see spiritual relationships, epitomized by love and authority’. As you have classified my drawing on Richard’s expertise as a guru-disciple relationship, I can only conclude that for you Richard’s expertise falls into the category of spiritual teaching, otherwise you would not call him a ‘guru’. Guru according to the Oxford dictionary is ‘a (Hindu) spiritual teacher’. Methinks when you call Richard a guru you have not at all ‘understood what Richard was saying the first time [you] read it’. RESPONDENT: That’s ‘ism’ as in ‘actualism’. One can’t even participate on your website unless they want to be an ‘actualist’ who wants to practice ‘actualism’. This is what all the ‘isms’ have done thru organizations, religions and cults. This is what has been ‘tried and failed’. You have taken what’s actual and turned it into a super cyber cult. Some of us might actually want to learn more about the instincts without being completely choked by your assumptions and pre-conceived notions. You aren’t going to fool anyone here by denying that this is a cult and you are not following your guru. You told me that I was either blind or in denial. This could be. However, you were also obviously talking about yourself. VINEETO: Why would you want to participate on the Actual Freedom mailing list if you are not interested in actualism? Actualism is the application of the method, and the undertaking of the process, which enables one to live the pure consciousness experience 24 hrs. a day, every day. That you don’t want to undertake the process is entirely your choice, but to rationalize your disinterest by saying that its name bears ‘i-s-m’ and you don’t like those three letters is merely confusing the word with the thing. This obfuscation surely prevents you from any further investigations as to what Actual Freedom and the process to achieve Actual Freedom (actualism) is all about. * VINEETO to No 1: I am applying the method that he has described on the list many times since two years, with great success. RESPONDENT: So, you are applying the method that he has described for two years with great success. Oh, and you just happen to live close to him also. VINEETO: Can you explain to me what ‘living close to him also’ has to do with the subject on hand, i.e. emotion-backed belief in Authority versus drawing on the expertise of a fellow human being? * VINEETO to No 1: Therefore your argument of him being ‘the undisputed ruler and sole owner of all that he knows and understands’ is simply a silly excuse – for if you actually understand what Richard talks about, peace-on-earth in this lifetime, then that understanding calls for unilateral action, for changing oneself. RESPONDENT: Here you refer to what Richard talks about and what that calls for. By my count you have referred to Richard eight times in what you have written above. Oh, and you constantly quote Richard and ‘ALL’ 6 billion others of us are wrong including K and all sages, saints and gurus throughout history. VINEETO: I was referring to ‘what Richard talks about’ because I answered No 1 who pretended not to understand what Richard is talking about. RESPONDENT: Making everyone on earth who has lived and is living wrong is not the way to get your message across even if it is right. Making everybody wrong is what has been ‘tried and failed’. VINEETO: And yes, everyone has got is 180 degrees wrong – this is not an individual blaming of people, this is just the way it is. Human beings, without exception, are genetically-encoded with instinctual passions. Everybody up until now has tried to either repress or control these passions or follow the traditional path to a transcendental spiritual freedom. Either coping with or transcending malice and sorrow has failed to bring peace on earth. Therefore everybody has got it 180 degrees wrong. If you had ‘understood what Richard was saying the first time [you] read it’, this would be all very clear to you. * VINEETO: It is so much easier to find fault with the one who is talking about peace-on-earth than to get off one’s bum and investigate one’s own emotions, isn’t it? RESPONDENT: Here again you are referring to Richard as the one who is talking about peace on earth in a way that you are obviously defending him. VINEETO: I was referring to Richard ‘talking about peace on earth’ because I answered No 1 who pretended not to understand what Richard is talking about. It is obvious from amount of objections and denigrations that Richard has had on this mailing list, that he is quite capable of defending himself and needs no help from me at all. RESPONDENT: As far as getting off one’s bum is concerned, I don’t think you know your bum from a hole in the ground. VINEETO: Can you explain to me what ‘I don’t think you know your bum from a hole in the ground’ has to do with the subject on hand, i.e. emotion-backed belief in Authority versus drawing on the expertise of a fellow human being? The expression ‘get off one’s bum’ is a colloquialism meaning ‘rolling up one’s sleeves’. I used it in reference to actually doing something about one’s own malice and sorrow instead of merely playing silly. * VINEETO: I have left the self-deprecating reliance on authority as in a guru-disciple relationship behind a long time ago. It sucks. RESPONDENT: If you think you have left the guru-disciple relationship behind you are either blind or in deep denial. That’s what you told me on ‘your’ website. VINEETO: You will have to give some evidence for your assertion that I am ‘blind or in deep denial’. I run the search function through the whole of our previous correspondence and nowhere did I find the words ‘blind’ or ‘deep denial’. * 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’?
Methinks, you are clutching at straws here. * VINEETO: 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: So, you are ‘drawing on’ the expertise of a fellow human being who has discovered something far superior to enlightenment or anything that anyone else has discovered throughout history. VINEETO: What are your objections that I draw on the expertise of a fellow human being who has discovered something far superior to Enlightenment? Whose expertise are you drawing on? RESPONDENT: Oh yes, and by the way you have your own language and terms in actualism which is what the other ‘isms’ and cults have done. VINEETO: No, we write in English and use dictionary meanings of words so as to
not confuse. I you prefer I can describe actualism equally well in German.
VINEETO: Excellent to get the difference right between expert and authority. KONRAD: An expert is somebody who is knowledgeable in a certain field, or has know/how in a certain field. For example: you can have an expert in medicine. VINEETO: We seem to agree on what the definition is for an expert : someone who has an expertise in a certain field per experience and/or knowledge of facts. It gets more complex when we talk about authority : To make someone an authority and relate to someone as an authority is an emotional behaviour. The other is not an expert – the conveyor of facts or experience, which then has to be examined thoroughly whether or not to apply to one’s life what he/she says. An authority figure is someone who you admire, taking his every word for granted truth and consider him or her superior in knowledge and character to yourself. Or it is someone who you consider superior and therefore have to fight against to defend your own position on the ladder. Rajneesh used to be such an authority figure to me. Richard is an authority figure to you – you might not have noticed, because you are so busy trying to prove him wrong. But he evokes an emotional reaction in you, which is the sure proof for your treating him as an authority. For me, Richard is simply an expert in the Human Condition and how to become free of it. I will explain the phenomenon of authority with another example: Remember, when you were 17 years old and you went to school or university and there was a teacher who taught history. At 17 most pupils regard their teachers as authority figures. This teacher then told a story about Friedrich der Grosse, an appalling story about babies been taken away from their mothers for an experiment. Considering that this teacher had been strongly influenced by his own history – Hitler did unbelievably cruel ‘experiments’ with human victims – it is possible that this teacher had not been very correct with his facts. After all, Friedrich der Grosse was a Prussian, a German emperor, representative of the hated Germans. So the facts of his story might have been emotionally loaded, exaggerated and distorted. But as a 17-year-old, believing the teacher’s emotions as well as his ‘facts’, you would not question his sources. You don’t even question or bother verifying them today. This blind belief is the outcome of an authority-based relationship. Once someone is considered an authority for whatever reason, nothing he says is seen as pure facts, questionable or verifiable, but that person is seen as someone who has a personal emotional relationship to oneself. Thus you either admire the authority figures, defend them and use them to prove your own convictions right – like Ayn Rand, or your teacher then – or you fight and compete with other authority figures to get to the top yourself – like you do with Richard. You can’t understand that, for me, Richard is not an authority figure. You yourself can only see him as an authority figure. Gratitude, admiration, revenge, resentment and competition are all faculties belonging to an authority complex, all of which are clearly noticeable in your writings. KONRAD: An AUTHORITY is somebody who is considered to be very special in the eyes of persons around him because of certain personal characteristics, ie. characteristics that make him act with total confidence in the social domain in the sense that the uncertainties that others have he does not seem to have. These personal characteristics go by many names, for example, ‘enlightenment’ ‘charisma’, but also this ‘apperception’ Richard talks about. An authority always bases his ‘proofs’ on an essentially ‘hedonistic’ base. Since a hedonistic proof of every position can be given, including that of drugs that are clearly detrimental to health, it is a false proof. Therefore hedonistic argumentation are the hallmark of an authority, and should be distrusted. In fact, if the only argumentation for the defence of a certain position is hedonistic, this alone constitutes a ground for rejection. Not that feeling good is wrong, but there HAVE to be other defences for a certain vision. As you can see in my mail I have NONE in actualism that could stand its ground without hedonism. If there was even ONE such ground, I would take it seriously. VINEETO: Goodness Konrad, your fantasy has had a ride with you. Where do you get
the idea that Richard takes a hedonistic base as a proof for actualism? See, that is what I mean by the joke with the foot nailed
to the ground. First you take a premise that is wrong, and then you go round and round in circles, proving your own false premise
as false. Unless you question your premises, you will never be able to see beyond your thus limited horizon. * KONRAD: I have the strong impression that you have (almost?) no ability to think for yourself. VINEETO: And in the next post you write:
I don’t know which of your evaluations is valid at the time you read this mail. But I agree the intelligence and courage are the only qualities one needs to discover freedom, to get rid of every bit of ‘I’, ‘self’, ‘being’ and whatever names you like to call that ‘what you think and feel you are’. Nothing else is needed. Everybody with sufficient intent can tackle their shackles that prevent us from being free. KONRAD: Yes, that pure intent part is also something I consider to be rubbish. VINEETO: Why ‘also’. I for my part find it definitely essential and imperative for becoming free. Without intent there is no way to question the very carpet one has built one’s world on. I don’t know how you can get on with your ‘process’, which must be quite scary at times, without the intent to become the best one can be? KONRAD: However, to put your mind at ease with that contradiction. Sometimes I do not express myself too clearly. VINEETO: Do you mean I have to take everything you say with the option of being not clear. I wonder how we can have a decent conversation unless each expresses himself or herself as clearly as he/she can? KONRAD: You have an ability to think for yourself. Only, there is also an UNWILLINGNESS. For there is too much at stake for you. This is what I tried to say. VINEETO: I can assure you that I indeed can think for myself, more than ever in my life. Because there is no emotion for or against an authority figure clouding my thinking I can judge for myself what is silly and sensible. As for unwillingness, I don’t know how you assume that. Unwillingness is based on emotion, usually fear, sometimes resentment against an authority figure. Since I have removed the very capacity in me to regard anybody as an authority figure (not an expert, we have been through that discussion), the only unwillingness I sometimes experience in me is based on fear. With pure intent that fear is overcome and I can move again in the direction of actual freedom. KONRAD: If being free from suffering is paid by the price of not being able to think abstractly any more, it cannot be applied on any grand scale. For our lives depend on that faculty. VINEETO: I don’t know how you assume that I cannot think abstractly. I apply the result of my thinking to sensible action. The trouble with you is that you
don’t seem to think ‘concrete’, as in practical, using common sense and applying the practical intelligence we are also
equipped with. You seem to try and figure everything out by meditation or imagination, but Actual Freedom can only be experienced,
not imagined. That’s where we don’t agree.
VINEETO: I can only be free without ‘feeling’ that I am in an advanced state, without ‘being’ the One in the advanced state. The moment there is a ‘feeling’ superior, a ‘feeling’ advanced, a ‘feeling’ grand, then the ‘self’ has found yet another identity to thrive on... RESPONDENT: So true and so obvious. VINEETO: You have cut out the second half of the quote, which answered No. 8’s question. I’ll give the full reference:
RESPONDENT: So true and so obvious. VINEETO: What is so true and obvious? Is your comment a remark that ‘feeling’ and the ‘feeler’ are the problem and that you have known it all along? The ‘feeling’ as in feeling sadness, feeling anger, feeling love, feeling bliss, feeling God, feeling Oneness? The ‘feeler’ as in ‘being in the heart’, the soul, Atman, Essence? Do you say that that is ‘so true and so obvious’ to you? Or do you mean that you think that Vineeto ‘feels’ superior to someone else? Feeling superior is but a quaint substitute to the vast superiority compared to anything else I have ever experienced in my life. It is vastly superior to ‘being the watcher’, ‘being the disciple’, ‘being the seeker’ or ‘being the experiencer’. But instead of objecting or ‘feeling about it’ you could, just as an option, check out why it is so superior and how to achieve it for yourself. Let’s say, I offer you a vacuum-cleaner called ‘a ‘self’-demolishing method’. I tell you that it works wonders, you will only need to apply it yourself. I tell you that it is far superior to the old way of cleaning with a broom and dustpan. What would be your reaction? Blame me for claiming to be superior? Or check out if the vacuum-cleaner is really superior to the broom and dustpan used up to now? It is the method and the result of the method that is superior, not ‘me’. It completely demolishes any ‘I’ that would be feeling anything, superior or inferior, angry or sad, compassionate, blissful, desperate, murderous or just annoyed. What is left is the blithesome at-easeness as a sensate and reflective human being. The only thing I say is that it works.
VINEETO: But in order to question the Master after a devotional relationship of almost two-thirds of my adult life, I first had to question several ingrained concepts in me. I found the belief in authority was a big issue and a strong need, to always have somebody to guide me, love me and to belong to. Surrender to his authority was an easy option. There was also the belief in God or Existence, the ultimate and invisible authority, some (non-physical) energy outside of me and outside of the physical universe. This energy represented the ultimate power and Wisdom. Dismantling the need and belief in authority allowed me to stand on my own feet for the
first time in my life. What a freedom not have to react to people, men in particular, out of superiority or inferiority, but to be
able to communicate with everybody as fellow human beings! Now I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using
the common and practical intelligence of the human brain. I am responsible for every action in my life and I can acknowledge that
now. However, this meant that from then on, I could not blame anybody for making me jealous, miserable, grumpy, afraid, angry or
frustrated over any issue. Now there was no more excuse, no more hiding place. These emotions were my reactions and my behaviour,
which I had to face and change in order to be free.
RESPONDENT: First of all, I’d like to thank you for your straight forward manner. It is refreshing to see that you are patient with people even though they rebel. VINEETO: Good to talk to you again. Rebelling has been a strong issue for me in my life. When I lived at home with my parents, I rebelled against my father. Later I extended that rebellion against my university professors, my employers, the government, the police and men in general. Beneath all my rebellion I was still relying on authority for comparison, orientation and approval, while rebelling against it at the same time. Interestingly, I could only get rid of authority by tracing its cause to the very root: What do I want or need authority for in my life? Why do I create authority? What do I get out of it? What was the ultimate authority behind each representative of power? Which version of good and bad, right and wrong was I to follow? Could I consider living without an external or internal authority in my life? And what would be the consequences? But I can say, I had to tackle my belief in the ultimate authority before I was able to stand upright and autonomously on my own feet. Now I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using the common and practical intelligence of the human brain. I am responsible for every action in my life and I can acknowledge that now. However, this means that from now on I cannot blame anybody for making me jealous, miserable, grumpy, afraid, angry or frustrated over any petty issue. Now there is no more excuse, no more hiding place. They are my reactions and my behaviour, which I have to face and change in order to be free. So, in my experience, it is worth rebelling, but rebelling against someone else does
not lead anywhere. For freedom, I rebelled against everything that I have been taught, every thought, every truth, every teaching,
every feeling – and it is damn worth it.
RICHARD: ... hundreds of people have been poking away at what is on offer, especially since coming onto the internet, trying to find the flaws they are convinced must be there – which is one of the reasons why all correspondence is archived – and this only goes to show how badly people have been sucked in for millennia by the many and varied snake-oil salespersons. I am not at all surprised that people be suspicious. RESPONDENT to Richard: Richard, this is well said. It’s why I am unsatisfied with your claims of being historically unique in being actually free from the human condition. That said, I’m finding your site useful and insightful. I’m grateful for the content and the attractive interface as well. Kind Regards VINEETO: Do I understand you right that when you say ‘it’s why I am unsatisfied’, you mean the reason you are unsatisfied is because you have been badly ‘sucked in’ ‘by the many and varied snake-oil salespersons’? If so, then you have arrived at the right place because actualism is an opportunity and a method to root out any and all beliefs that you have inadvertently taken on in the course of your life. But don’t expect anyone else to do it for you, only you can – by direct experience – determine the veracity of what is on offer on the Actual Freedom Trust website and only you can determine whether actualism is indeed brand new in human history. And if you did find out that actualism had nothing to do with any of the archaic spiritual traditions, the question of Richard’s discovery being unique would be satisfied. Going by my personal experience I am still surprised how people are so persistently suspicious because that is not how my own mind works. When I met Richard I was not particularly concerned that, or if, he was the first one to discover something that goes beyond enlightenment but I was more interested about the fact that he discovered something which I could confirm for myself as to whether or not it was utterly new and far better than spiritual enlightenment. I had previously been on the spiritual path for most of my adult life, looking for the meaning of life and the solution to the woes of humankind and here was someone who said he not only knows why spiritualism has failed to manifest peace on earth but also why. And not only that but the alternative he was offering was practicable, down-to-earth and worked instantly. Of course, in order to be able to take his words at face value it was necessary that I had a good look at what caused me to be doubtful and suspicious of the discovery of an alternative to spiritualism in the first place. I discovered with surprise how loyal I felt towards my previous spiritual group and master and that it was exactly this loyalty that caused me to be cautious towards anything new. I knew I could go on being suspicious forever and a day but I came to see that holding on to such an attitude was preventing me from finding out for myself how I can be happy and live with my fellow human beings in peace and harmony. As an actualist I discovered that in order to get to the roots of my feelings of
suspicion I had to have a close look at my general attitude towards authority, something that had plagued me in most of my
relationships during my life. I discovered that the only way to stand on my own two feet was to tackle and dissolve the
emotionally charged issue of authority. I had to look at all of my feelings towards people who I ascribed authority to,
particularly those who claimed a special knowledge of what was right and wrong, true and untrue, good and bad – in short a
moral, ethical and spiritual authority. I realized their power over me was derived from and maintained by my belief that there is
an ultimate authority in those matters, a Supreme Ruler of moral codes, a Weigher of Souls, a Divine Intelligence, a Higher Power
of some sort who instated and enforced those values. It didn’t make any difference that I had abandoned the belief in a personal
God because the belief in an all-encompassing divinity kept me obedient, dependant and fearful. RESPONDENT: That’s a good tip. Authority needs to be thoroughly investigated but especially my responses and reflexes. It is indeed an emotionally charged issue for me too and I realise now it could be something of a gold mine to investigate. Thankyou, Vineeto. VINEETO: You are very welcome. When I said ‘authority needs to be thoroughly investigated’ I mean my feelings about authority and that is also all that needed to be investigated. RESPONDENT: That’s the meaning I took too. VINEETO: So what did you find out when you investigated your feeling of authority towards Richard – apart from your feelings of doubt? Seemingly you have yet to start investigating. In the last post to me you said –
and yet in this post you say –
It seems that your duty to feel doubt towards ‘men of historical destiny’ overrides your need to ‘thoroughly investigate’ the emotionally charged issues you have about authority. For me as an actualist, any investigation into my feelings – and any hang-ups or issues about authority are merely feelings – is only finished when the feelings disappear, and the feelings only disappear when the part of my identity that created and maintained such feelings is firstly understood and then abandoned. * VINEETO: When my emotional issues with authority disappeared so did the ‘authorities’ themselves, which leaves me free to relate to fellow human beings as what they are, fellow human beings. RESPONDENT: Well said. VINEETO: It’s one thing to like what is said, it is a completely different matter to emulate the process another describes. * VINEETO: Then a man becomes a fellow human being with slight anatomical differences to a female, a policeman becomes a fellow human being who wears a uniform and maintains law and order, a politician becomes a fellow human being who is involved in the making of laws, a fellow human being who lives in another country is a fellow human being who lives in another country, the Pope is a fellow human being who wears funny hats, Mohan Rajneesh and Jiddu Krishnamurti were fellow human beings who became famous by teaching Eastern religion to Westerners who were disenchanted with Western Religion, and Richard is a fellow human being who happened to be the first to find a way to become actually free of the human condition. It is very simple really. RESPONDENT: Simple to believe but impossible to verify. VINEETO: Oh, and why are you adamantly convinced that it is impossible to
verify? I have verified it for myself, why can’t you? But then, I don’t subscribe to a duty to doubt or the ‘dynamism of
absolute doubt’, I go by what are the facts of the situation … and facts can be verified. * VINEETO: I realized their power over me was derived from and maintained by my belief that there is an ultimate authority in those matters, a Supreme Ruler of moral codes, a Weigher of Souls, a Divine Intelligence, a Higher Power of some sort who instated and enforced those values. It didn’t make any difference that I had abandoned the belief in a personal God because the belief in an all-encompassing divinity kept me obedient, dependant and fearful. The final realisation that finished my problems with authority forever is recorded in Peter’s Journal –
In the final analysis it is only you who can dare to put aside your world-weary suspicions in order to sufficiently to be able to practically and experientially determine whether what is on offer on the Actual Freedom Trust website is indeed as it says it is – new, non-spiritual and down-to-earth. As you said to Richard in your latest post – ‘it’s a shame that such doubts can detract from what’s on offer’ – it is a shame indeed to let your feelings of doubt and suspicion prevent you from putting into practice what is on offer. RESPONDENT: Mine was dissolved over longer periods of time, intellectually at first, on an emotional/reflex level more slowly. Churches know how to condition their followers. VINEETO: When the belief in the God of the Churches is dissolved, then one can begin to question the God by any other name, such as the autotheism of the Enlightened beings, the pantheism of Advaita and Jiddu Krishnamurti, the geotheism of modern environmentalism, the belief in an amorphous existence of an eternal all-pervading divinity, the belief in the wheel of Karma, the belief n Nirvana, Samadhi, Mahaparinirvana, etc., etc. Most Westerners believe that by abandoning Christianity and taking on Eastern spirituality they have eliminated their belief in God whereas they have but moved from the frying pan into the fire, from a clear-cut belief into beliefs and teachings that are so amorphous and chameleon-like that any Tom, Dick or Martha can hang up a shingle and gather a crowd. Abandoning Christianity is merely scratching the surface of the over-arching human belief that Someone or Something has created and/or is running this physical universe. God not only exists in people’s passionate imagination because of the conditioning of the priests – the belief in some kind of a protective and guiding higher power arises from a deep instinctual need in every human being for a Big Daddy or a Big Mummy to look after them. Some choose to be aloofly agnostic about the existence of god, but in order to root out from one’s guts this ultimate need to rely upon, or rebel against, a higher authority one also has to eradicate the archaic passionate belief that there is a soul, or non-physical life force, within each and every human body – a soul or spirit that desperately craves union and unity, meaning and purpose in a mythical spirit-ual world populated by spirits and Higher Beings. This might give you a hint as to what a down-to-earth non-spiritual freedom implies. * VINEETO: In the final analysis it is only you who can dare to put aside your world-weary suspicions in order to sufficiently to be able to practically and experientially determine whether what is on offer on the Actual Freedom Trust website is indeed as it says it is – new, non-spiritual and down-to-earth. As you said to Richard in your latest post – ‘it’s a shame that such doubts can detract from what’s on offer’ – it is a shame indeed to let your feelings of doubt and suspicion prevent you from putting into practice what is on offer. RESPONDENT: Thanks for your concern but I am putting things into practice. For me, questioning is part of the process and not just questioning myself. VINEETO: Personally I found that questioning anyone but myself is a total waste of time. In fact I found it detrimental to my own happiness and harmlessness to question other
people – it is none of my business. I found it entirely sufficient to focus on questioning my own beliefs, my own resentments,
my suspicions and superstitions whenever they stood in the way of my being happy and harmless. The outcome is a virtual freedom
from the human condition and there is only one thing better that this – an actual, permanent freedom from the lost, lonely,
frightened and very cunning alien entity inside this flesh-and-blood body. RESPONDENT: So you don’t question your doctor when they prescribe medicine to you? VINEETO: No, I don’t feel compelled to question my doctor, he is the expert in his field and knows far more about medicine than I do, so I tend to take on board what he says. I only know my symptoms, he might know the cause, and more importantly, he may well know the remedy. I then observe what his prescribed medicine does to me and if it helps I keep taking it. If it has side effects I weigh the pros and cons and maybe have another consultation or get another opinion. If the medicine does not work within a reasonable time, I abandon it. RESPONDENT: If someone claims to be an authority then I question them to learn. VINEETO: Richard claims to be an authority with regards to an actual freedom from the human condition and yet you clearly haven’t questioned him to learn about actual freedom, you have thus far done nothing else but question his authority. In other words, you are not doing what you say you do. If someone is as obviously an expert in his field as Richard is about the human condition and how to become free from it, then I try and gain as much information as possible in order that I can also become free from the human condition. It’s all very simple, really. RESPONDENT: My questioning is for my own benefit and I question all sources, especially myself. VINEETO: It appears that you have had a change of motive in your questioning because previously you said that the reason for questioning Richard was for the benefit of others, ‘to inspire some doubt in other minds’ as you put it –
Methinks your claim that ‘I question … especially myself’ is still a long way from being put into practice. As for ‘questioning’ for your ‘own benefit’ – I still can’t see how questioning others is for your ‘own benefit’ – extracting information yes, but I found that objecting and questioning others only fed my malice and sorrow, so I gave it up. Also, when I question myself I do so with the sole intent to become happy and harmless, for no other purpose. I don’t question myself without rhyme or reason because I found that this leads me nowhere fast. When I am not happy now I question when I stopped being happy and inquire into what prevents me from being happy now. Then I investigate the causes for having stopped being happy. Very often I found that it had to do with not having been harmless, so becoming happy and becoming harmless are really one and the same thing. Once I made my goal in life to be unconditionally happy and harmless, everything else
fell into place – I had an anchor point, a touchstone, a measure by which I needed to change. And then I changed, step by step. * RESPONDENT: Why can’t I benefit from Actualism without a fundamental faith in Richard the First? Consider this – I HAVE already benefited from Actualism without swallowing the party line! Imagine that! I’d appreciate your comment on this point please. VINEETO: Seeing that you consider a statement of fact – that Richard has discovered a way to become free of the human condition in toto – to be the ‘the party line’, whilst busily ignoring every answer I have provided so far on this topic, not to mention Richard’s numerous posts on the same topic, clearly shows that you have an either/or emotional approach to actualism – either maintaining a duty to doubt with its accompanying impulse to denigrate, or envisage a necessity to trust with its accompanying requirement to have blind faith. This was the very reason I told you the story about how I discovered that I needed to investigate my emotional issues with authority before I could take someone’s words at face value, i.e. with naiveté, common sense, sensibility and intelligence. Reasonable-ness only comes into play when the emotions are out of the way. As for ‘I HAVE already benefited from Actualism without swallowing the party line!
Imagine that!’ – I can’t imagine how you have benefited because I am not a mind reader. But you are welcome to provide
more detailed information as to how you ‘already benefited from actualism’.
RESPONDENT: I guess I am anti-authority which comes up when I talk to you. Thanks for pushing my buttons. VINEETO: I am not at all interested in pushing your buttons, because sorting out the sore spots of your identity is entirely your business. When you write to an actualist mailing list and feel your buttons pushed when you are presented with facts and expertise in how to become free from malice and sorrow then this is indeed a reaction of one’s anti-authoritarian social identity. Before I came across actualism I had plenty of trouble with my rebellious anti-authority attitude – apart from being attracted to the words of anti-authority worshipping snake oil sellers this highly emotional attitude also prevented me from living in peace and harmony with my fellow human beings. As I explored my issues about authority, I came to understand that the whole issue 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 and approval, 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, Mother Nature’s Intelligence, the Supreme Power of the Eternal Unknown, etc. In order to break free of all of these issues about authority I first had to acknowledge and then experience 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 am free to learn from whomever I find worthy of emulating or learning from, whilst remaining perfectly autonomous. * RESPONDENT: I think I have fully investigated emotions and passions but am still wondering what’s missing if anything. VINEETO: Given that you said to me ‘I am anti-authority’ which is an emotion arising from one’s social identity, there may be the possibility that other emotions and beliefs are still waiting to be investigated. You also said ‘thanks for pushing my buttons’ and ‘buttons’ usually stand for one’s beliefs and feelings that are being challenged. It is only a guess but one of these may be the belief that you already have ‘fully investigated emotions and passions’. Richard puts it this way on the opening page of his website –
Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. |
