Have you ever felt aggression, hatred, condescension or any other negative feelings at all when you read correspondences of No 16, No 65, No 58, No 60, No 23, No 71 or anybody else? None of the above mails triggered any negative feelings at all?

As I am not free from the human condition I do have feelings from time to time, although ‘aggression, hatred, condescension’ are not amongst them. That said, I do find some posts from correspondents rather silly when they waste their time concentrating on red herrings or fighting against imaginary windmills instead of talking about the issues at hand, namely how to become free from the human condition. On many occasions I understand the reasons for this behaviour as I too had to struggle in the early days with similar resistance to looking at my own feelings and beliefs rather than blaming others for my feelings and instinctively defending my beliefs.

If not, do you have a ‘feeling’ when you read/reply? What is the ‘feeling’?

No, not when I reply. Even when I occasionally have one or the other feeling when reading a post, I never write, let alone click ‘send’, when I am in any way emotional. Very early on in actualism I understood that the way to deal with one’s emotions is to neither suppress nor express them and since then I have always made it a point to keep my hands in my pocket, so to speak, until I have investigated/abandoned any emotional issues that may have arisen.

Is it that of caring, friendliness?

The reason I reply to correspondence on this mailing list and share my experience with the actualism process, which often involves correcting misunderstandings and misrepresentations, is that of fellow-ship regard which is different to the feeling of ‘caring, friendliness’ in that it is actual rather than affective.

I found some correspondences where I have described how I experienced life in the last few years and dated them for your convenience. <snipped>

Two things come to mind that might be relevant. One is something I wrote to Alan way back in 1999 –

‘Yes, Virtual Freedom is a daring. Once you decide and declare to yourself and others that you are living in Virtual Freedom, you can’t slip back into not having a perfect day. You have to live up to your own standards. You pull yourself up on your boot strings. What a great tool! It’s another ‘lifting of the bar ‘on the wide and wondrous path to Freedom.’ Vineeto, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, Alan 2.5.1999

When I took up actualism there was no one to compare my own progress with on the wide and wondrous path because Irene had already made her turn-around and Richard’s path to an actual freedom led through enlightenment and I therefore had to forge my own path and go by my own assessment. What I had as a guide, however, was the comparison to the time before I started to apply actualism, before I made it my goal in life to clean myself up as much as humanly possible so as to facilitate an actual freedom from the human condition. And this comparison became more and more startling as the months went by until the time came when I could no longer even imagine how people manage to insist on perpetuating the emotional and actual turmoil that is called ‘normal life’ when there is such an easy-to-follow alternative on offer. Nowadays I often think I am normal while everyone else is busy being mad.

In other words, at some stage, based on my comparison to life before actualism I made Virtual Freedom my standard and I was then bound by my own integrity and supported by my intent not to slip back into not having a perfect day. Or, to use one of my mixed metaphors Peter finds so confusing – once you lift the bar you have something to hang your hat on.

The other thing that comes to mind is that after cottoning onto my bad-mood-habits I found it relatively easy to be happy when I was by myself, at home, or in nature. What was not so easy was to maintain this happiness when I was interacting with other people, be it sorting out male-female issues and/or spiritual beliefs with Peter, being stuck in traffic, being challenged at work or feeling confronted/ lost/ bored on social occasions. Interactions with people brought up a plethora of real challenges to my beliefs, my convictions, my habits, my gregarian/ territorial/ aggressive/ defensive instincts, my prejudices, my pride, my worries and fears, my taboos and emotional hurts and so on. Sometimes an irritation over a small thing, such as a high-pitched voice, a screaming child or a driver cutting in on me proved to be but the tip of the iceberg of deep-seated emotions that were there for the investigating. I found that nothing is too small to investigate, particularly when it happens repeatedly – being emotionally upset, no matter how trivial it might seem is always an indication that ‘I’ am throwing the spanner in the works.

Writing to the mailing list was a particular challenge to ‘not let the buggers get me down’ given that putting me down was often their sole intent in communicating. But my aim was to become un-irritable, to become aware of all the things that caused me to become angry, peeved, sad, down on myself, iffy, doubting or outright hopeless. I found discovering how I tick and keeping my innocuity in an often adversary climate more exciting than climbing Mount Everest or bungee-jumping … to make peace-on-earth one’s number one priority is not only the best meaning ‘I’ can give to my life, it is also highly challenging and extremely rewarding.

So why then create the AF website, eh?

In what way is the creation of the Actual Freedom website for the purpose of passing on information about how to become actually free of both malice and sorrow to anyone regardless of their age, gender or cultural upbringing, regardless of where they are currently living on the planet, free of charge and free of any duty or obligation whatsoever, a contradiction to the statement that ‘what other people choose to do with their lives is entirely their business’?

You are happy, so why not keep quiet?

The reason why I have put time, effort and money into co-creating and maintaining the Actual Freedom website is because of fellowship regard. I like to share my experiences about becoming virtually free from the human condition, something that has not been written about anywhere in the world other than on the Actual Freedom website. In short, I do not take lightly the fortuitous opportunity of not only being able to actualize peace on earth but also of being able to share it free of charge with any of my fellow human beings who may also be as interested as I am in becoming free from the human condition in toto.

RESPONDENT: When in a relationship with a non actualist, what are you supposed to do when they are angry at you? Restore the perceived imbalance, say sorry, accept punishment, say it won’t happen again, and that you got nothing from it, or whatever the ‘best’ strategy is? Or Say you just did what needed to be done? Or If you did something ‘wrong’, say why you did it, end of story?

VINEETO: When I interact with a non-actualist, which is pretty much everyone, and they get angry at me, the first thing I do is stop adding fuel to the fire. Very often this is as simple as making it clear to the other person that I have no intention of upsetting them. I find this works on most occasions but sometimes the only solution is to bow out of the situation as gracefully as possible. Of course actualism is not about adopting a new set of social mores so how you handle each of the interactions you have with other people will be dependant upon your own success in eliminating the impediments you have to being as happy and harmless as possible. The more successful you are in this endeavour the more you will find that you are spontaneously happy and effortlessly harmless, in which case you will inevitably find that more and more of your interactions with other people will be harmonious.

Once the adversarial situation is ended and I am on my own I then explore whether there was anything in my behaviour that was in any way harmful or sorrowful, in other words, did I have expectations of the other person or did I feel disappointed by their behaviour, was I demanding or angry, smug or sad, arrogant or blaming, hypocritical or critical, and so on. If the other person’s behaviour evoked an emotional response in me then I explore the reasons why so as to be able to prevent having such a reaction the next time round.

The fact that one might live with someone in an intimate relationship does not change this basic intent to be harmless, in fact it requires even more attentiveness so as to be able to recognize the other as a person in their own right with their own aspirations and ideals, feelings and thoughts, behaviour and idiosyncrasies in order that one doesn’t fall into the habitual trap of wanting to change them.

My intent in every interaction is that I am, as much I can possibly be, without malice or sorrow and without expectation or hidden agendas whilst still being an identity. Whenever I find a malicious or sorrowful feeling in me, then I’ve got something to look at. Whether or not other people have malicious or sorrowful feelings is simply their business.

It’s all quite simple, really.

When I began the hands-on process of doing something practical to become actually free from the human condition I noticed that I not only stopped indulging in my own malicious and sorrowful feelings but also found it impossible to support my former friends and allies in their passionate fights against what we had previously conceived as ‘our common enemies’ – within the sisterhood: ‘chauvinist men’, within the Sannyas community: ‘all non-Rajneeshees’, within the lefty’s network: ‘all capitalists’, within the purist community: ‘all non-vegetarians’, and so on.

Correspondingly I also ceased to actively support and encourage people in their sorrow and resentment of being here because I could more and more see the silliness and harm of doing so.

When I stopped supporting both my own feelings of sorrow and those of others I became increasingly aware of the extent to which my relationships were built upon mutual support for common grievances and loyal allegiances against what we perceived as difficult to deal with people, upsetting things and worrying events – in other words, when I sorted my own feelings out for myself I lost interest in other people’s sad stories and subsequently we had less in common to share. Friendships in the real world are by and large emotional allegiances against an adversarial world – where there is neither sorrow nor enemies, there is also no need for loyal and emotionally supportive friends.

Each day is a fresh day, I don’t know what surprises it will bring, but I know that I will enjoy it, for the grumpy, soppy, fearful ‘me’ that used to interfere with my enjoyment is greatly diminished. Every day is holiday-like regardless of whether I am going to work or whether I am staying at home because each moment I enjoy doing what is happening. Sometimes I work 5 days a week, sometimes only two or three, sometimes I spend all day updating the website and sometimes I work for hours in the garden. Writing on this mailing list is also one of my favourite hobbies – because actualism works so well for me I am pleased to let other in on the secret in case they are interested.

I am living in peace with the people I work for, I have no grudges against the system or the country I live in, the neighbours, other drivers, the community, the government or whomever else I used to begrudge or complain about. I am able to see and meet people as they actually are without the need to categorize them in moral and ethical terms. By using a combination of attentiveness and intent I have incrementally dissolved my emotional affiliations – both alliances and animosities – with people and am therefore able to meet and treat people as fellow human beings. Now with no identity to defend, I relate to people as they are, respond to what they are actually saying instead of feeling, intuiting, assuming or imagining what they might mean and thus interactions with people have become an intimate, refreshing, utterly simple and enjoyable affair.

For five years now I live with my companion in utter peace and harmony night and day without bicker or quarrel, crisis or boredom without disagreement or compromise, nagging or sulking, role-play or restriction. Because I dared to examine and abandon my female conditioning I am now able to live in peace and harmony, ease and equity with another human being 24 hrs a day. Because I investigated and abandoned the ever-promising but never-delivering dream of love, an actual intimacy and a genuine benevolence are happening of their own accord. Peter is my best mate, a companion with whom I share the delights of everyday living, such as shopping, cooking, watching TV, having a cup of freshly brewed coffee, walking on the beach, playing in the garden, going down-town, comparing notes, working or playing on our computers, chatting about whatever seems worth sharing or simply being quiet while each goes about their business.

Some observations on the topic ‘how am I in relation to other people’ –

To Richard: One of the most striking things to happen to me since I started practising Actualism is the diminishment of emotional connections to other human beings. I cannot say that there are absolutely no connections to others, as it is obvious to me in my relationship with my partner that a sense of connectedness comes up from time to time in various ways. And no doubt this happens with other people as well. However, I have noticed for a long period that when people want to be ‘friends’ with me, for instance, and make certain friendly overtures, these are generally not at all reciprocated on my part. In other words, the offer to ‘make a friend’ or ‘be a friend’ or such similar things as happen in the social world usually fall completely flat on my part. I have sometimes gotten the impression, gleaned from body language and other cues, that this irritates people. Overtures of this type just do not seem to ‘take’ with me. It is difficult to describe but I am sure that the other practiced Actualists on this list know what I am talking about.

You are right; ‘the ‘need’ to affiliate’ is a sticky business. I remember clearly when I saw Peter for the first time not as an affiliate of any kind but as a separate-from-me fellow human being. In an instant of clear perception, all ‘my’ sticky psychic tentacles that automatically reach out both to objects and to people around me had fallen away. From this particular insight I gained an understanding about what usually happens in interaction with others. I began to see, and unravel, the connections that ‘I’ spun with others, the deals ‘I’ struck, the bargains ‘I’ committed to and the mutual obligations ‘I’ engaged in during my daily interactions with people, particularly those I considered ‘my friends’.

Throughout the process of actualism I have become aware of, and incrementally dissolved, my ‘connections’ to things in my close environment and I investigated my affiliations and friendships with people. As you pointed out, most sharing between people consists of commiseration, but as the actualism process continued I had less and less to complain about my own life, which meant I had less and less common misery with people. The wonderful outcome of this ‘unconnectedness’ is that I am more and more able to meet and treat people as fellow human beings – that means I recognize and treat them as what they are instead of relating to them as bit players in ‘my’ game, subjects of ‘my’ moral judgements and demands, projections of ‘my’ fears and desires.

What you describe as being ‘aghast at my lack of emotional, social connection to others’ I would describe in my experience as the natural reaction, sometimes fearful, sometimes merely surprised, at seeing how radically I have changed as I am extracting myself more and more from my social and instinctual connection with humanity. During the recent years of living in virtual freedom I could verify again and again that I am not only capable of physically surviving without those ‘emotional, social connections’ but I am far, far better off than I was ever before – I am virtually free from any mood swings, I am feeling excellent almost all the time and I genuinely enjoy the company of anybody with whom I interact, whatever the occasion.

Now that I don’t have a ‘social connection’ with a few specifically chosen friends it becomes apparent that my daily life is full of social interactions – I have pleasant and friendly interactions with my various clients, agreeable chats when I answer the phone, a little gossip with the checkout person in the supermarket, with the waitress in the coffee shop, with a neighbour, and so on. These are all social interactions that I used to dismiss as unwanted time-consuming distractions as opposed to the ‘real’ interactions with my chosen friends.

And then there are interactions on the Actual Freedom Mailing list – talking about my favourite topic with other practicing actualists and people interested in, or objecting to, becoming happy and harmless.

I think you have summed it up very neatly. It is ‘me’, the identity, who needs emotional so-called meaningful interactions with people in order for ‘me’ to exist. Without the constant confirmation from others of my identity ‘I’ feel rather weak, insecure and become increasingly feeble. The other night I had a very clear perception that ‘who I am’ is almost entirely made up of my affective instinctual connection with other people – both with those whom I meet face-to-face and with humanity at large. In that particular moment of understanding ‘my’ affective extensions that reach out to the world around me were once again temporarily disengaged and I was here, as what I am, this physical flesh and blood body, not obligated to anybody and free to leave the herd.

It didn’t last – but it confirmed the direction.

GARY: One of the most striking things to happen to me since I started practising Actualism is the diminishment of emotional connections to other human beings.

VINEETO: You are right; ‘the ‘need’ to affiliate’ is a sticky business. I remember clearly when I saw Peter for the first time not as an affiliate of any kind but as a separate-from-me fellow human being. In an instant of clear perception, all ‘my’ sticky psychic tentacles that automatically reach out both to objects and to people around me had fallen away. From this particular insight I gained an understanding about what usually happens in interaction with others. I began to see, and unravel, the connections that ‘I’ spun with others, the deals ‘I’ struck, the bargains ‘I’ committed to and the mutual obligations ‘I’ engaged in during my daily interactions with people, particularly those I considered ‘my friends’.

GARY: A great deal of what happens in day-to-day life consists of instinctual behaviour, which stems from the more primitive areas of the brain. The longer I have been at Actualism, the more pervasive the primitive survival program of the human species, located in the mid-brain regions, appears to be. This holds true I think for all kinds of emotional connections with others, whether they be mutual obligations, hierarchical types of interactions with others such as dominant and subservient behaviour, ingratiating, cow-towing, gossiping, worshipping, etc. – the list goes on and on ... all these types of social behaviour have their root in ‘my’ need to survive as an instinctual entity, find a suitable mate to disseminate my seed, fight off rivals, etc.

Perhaps I am too reductionist in seeing the hand of the instincts in all these myriad forms of behaviour and feelings. I have questioned whether I was getting tunnel vision in that respect. However, be that as it may, in Actualism one applies attentiveness as a discipline to one’s own inner world – the world of the feelings, passions, and calentures – and by extension, with the Human Condition as it exists in each and every human being currently alive. And the conventional wisdom, endlessly repeated ad nauseam, is that human beings ‘need’ one another – that ‘no man is an island’ – and other such sentiments.

VINEETO: You are certainly right when you say you are ‘seeing the hand of the instincts in all these myriad forms of behaviour and feelings’. The first layer of my feelings and behaviour towards other people was mainly due to social role-play, defined and governed by the social identity ‘I’ thought and felt ‘I’ was. As a social identity, I was a member of a spiritual belief system and mostly intermingled with other believers, I was a sister to women friends, I was flirting with men I felt attracted to and suspicious towards every other man. The more I unravelled my social identity – the spiritual part being the most tenacious to take apart and leave behind – the more the underlying instinctual feelings that were the source of my emotions and attitudes towards other people became apparent.

GARY: To begin to unravel the ‘sticky business’ of one’s affiliation and social needs is to undertake a hazardous enterprise – hazardous chiefly because it spells the beginning of the end of ‘me’, as I am largely a social creature – raised from my inception to have a place in a social hierarchy, be a member of a particular racial, ethnic, and tribal identity, have ‘my’ loves and hates, ‘my’ attractions and repulsions, all of which serve to fix me in a particular niche in society, make me useful to that society as well as expendable .

VINEETO: Yes, and the good part is that when you make yourself ‘expendable’ to society you then become able to enjoy the freedom from the straightjacket of the social patterns as well as the reciprocal expectations and demands that go along with belonging to a certain group in particular, and to society at large. It used to be essential to ‘me’ to be useful to society because this usefulness provided ‘me’ with meaning, with a moral right to be here, the right to take up space so to speak. As I investigated whatever I felt was preventing me from being happy and harmless, I quickly came to question and explore my need to derive meaning from belonging to a group and being useful to society. Again and again I found this need to be sourced in the need to justify ‘my’ existence, ‘my’ very survival.

Nowadays the idea of needing to earn my ‘right to be here’ is patently silly because, as this physical body, I am already here. It is exquisitely enjoyable to be ‘expendable’ to society because the meaning of life is not to be found in attaining a particular place or status in society’s ranks but is to be found in ‘self’-less experiencing and delighting in the purity and splendour of the actual world.

GARY: While we are on the subject, I would like to touch on the whole business of being an outcast. I used to feel the greatest anxiety about being labelled or branded an outcast. It is something that I once strenuously resisted and actively feared. I felt that without my emotional entanglements and without the affection and approval of others, I would quickly go right off the rails and be annihilated. Now, at the present time, it is abundantly clear to me that I am, by any definition of the word, an outcast. But I no longer feel the level of dread and angst that I used to. I suppose another meaning to the word ‘expendable’ is ‘not needed’. No longer do I as this flesh-and-blood body need ‘me’, but I am freed from the senseless and endless crazy-making of the Human Condition. To me, a major part of this crazy-making is the futile attempt to make other people responsible for my own happiness. The longer I have practiced Actualism, the more clearly I have seen the deeply imbedded nature of this tendency to hold others responsible for my moods, feelings, and actions. Naturally, the reason for this is that the affective feelings in and of themselves are essentially ‘self’-centred in this way.

VINEETO: I found that this tendency to make others responsible for my happiness or my misery has a flipside – I also used to feel responsible for the happiness, and guilty for the misery, of the people close to me. Nowadays I don’t consider myself to be an outcast of society at all, rather a lucky escapee. Apart from a few rare occasions I no longer buy into the affective web of people’s weelings and dealings, which allows me the pleasure to interact with fellow human beings instead of phantoms of ‘my’ own making.

*

GARY: However, in my own ‘self’-investigations perhaps most revealing of all, once I began to unravel my emotional connections with others, was the seemingly bottomless malice and contempt that I discovered buried under layers of appropriate social conduct. This instinctual malice presented itself irregardless of whom I was with and I could well appreciate, given the depth and force of this instinct, the so-called ‘crimes of passion’ that occur when people go ballistic, run amok, and kill or maim their lovers or close, intimate associates, not to speak their own children. The thing about Actualism that differs radically from other approaches, spiritual included, is that one gets a first-hand, up front, down and dirty taste of the inveterate malice at the heart of my existence as an instinctual entity, as well as really doing something about it in a hands-on way.

VINEETO: It strikes me that there must be a ‘seemingly bottomless’ wellspring of altruism that has caused you to doing something hands-on in order to free your fellow human beings from the consequences of your feelings of malice and contempt. Personally, since I started actualism I only remember a few instances of intense malice and aggression surfacing but I discovered ample feelings of resentment at being here accompanied by feelings of contempt, annoyance, irritation and indignation towards others.

GARY: I have not usually thought about it this way – a bottomless well of altruism. Given the experience of malice is usually quite self-centred and extremely aversive, it is easy I suppose to overlook one’s deeper reasons.

VINEETO: When I said ‘bottomless wellspring of altruism’ I used altruism in the sense of benevolence in action, the action of becoming happy and harmless in order to free one’s fellow human beings from one’s own malice and sorrow. The final altruistic act in the literal, more accurate, sense of the word will happen when ‘I’ irrevocably disappear, never ever to return.

Peter: The path to Actual Freedom is not at all attractive for there is nothing in it for ‘me’ – no phoenix arises from the ashes to claim the glory, no acclaim of adoring disciples, no wonderful overwhelming feelings, no fame, no recognition, no power – neither overt nor covert. Extinction is extinction. It is for this very reason that one needs a goodly dose of altruism. The Actual Freedom Trust Library, Altruism

GARY: One that really got my attention recently was an increased sensitivity to my partner’s moods and behaviour and how ‘my’ mood affect her. There was a recent frank discussion of this without the usual mumbled apologies and misgivings that was quite satisfying. ‘My’ feelings always make waves with those around me.

VINEETO: What I found amazing is that the more I examined my feelings so that they could no longer make ‘waves with those around me’, the less I was affected by the waves of other people’s moods. Whilst feeling connections work both ways, it is entirely in my hands to sever those emotional ties – for the sake of my happiness and for the sake of the happiness of those with whom I come in contact with … or as Richard puts it, ‘for the sake of this body and that body and every body’. Not only do I now not feel responsible for other people’s moods – because I know that ‘I’ had nothing to do with other’s moods – I am also increasingly unaware of subtle vibes and emotional moods unless people tell me about them or are overtly emotional.

A recent event springs to mind that illustrates this change quite well. At a social occasion I met a man who I knew and we began chatting. After a while I found it odd that he stood physically close to me and moved even closer in the course of our conversation. I noticed this because I couldn’t wave my arms while talking. I didn’t think more of the event until Peter and I returned home that evening and I was telling him of my odd observation. Only then did it occur to me that maybe the man was ‘coming onto me’ as he was known as a ‘philanderer’. I had not felt any vibes or detected any emotional messages at all and the meaning of his ‘body-language’ had passed me by completely. That I had no desire whatsoever for sexual hunting, or for being hunted, made me insensitive to his feelings such that I was able to have a pleasant chat with him about life and being alive.

*

VINEETO: I am reminded of another insight about ‘connectedness’ from my early days of actualism. As I walked into town one day, I noticed a tree at a street corner and with surprise I also noticed that in that moment I did not feel connected with that tree in any way. I was surprised because, by the very absence of connectedness, I became aware of ‘my’ psychic tentacles and how they normally engulfed everything as belonging to ‘my’ milieu – not only this particular tree but most things in my close environment. ‘I’ considered everything as being related to me, either giving reassurance or posing a threat – I either liked it or disliked it, it was part of ‘my’ territory, or it was part of, as No 45 lately called it, ‘my universe’. This meant that whenever anything in ‘my’ territory changed alarm bells rang – I became confused, if not upset, disturbed, hurt, annoyed, resentful, angry or sad.

GARY: In the moment of pure sensuousness, when a fascinated attentiveness basks in the wonder of being here in this moment in time, there is no latching onto the feelings of relatedness or belonging. Attentiveness is a clear slate of sensory datum and pure, immediate perception, devoid of affective feeling, as well as the incipient attractions and repulsions to or against others as are operative in one’s ordinary sense of social being. In attentiveness, I am as apt to be without a feeling of connectedness in dealing with my fellow human beings as I am in not feeling connected to the tree, as were you.

Attentiveness however also notices the psychic tentacles with the same fascination that it notices the exquisite patterns of light and shadow falling across the bark of the tree, and I nevertheless ‘keep hands in pockets’ when examining and noticing these feelings of connectedness without giving into the feelings or being impelled to action by them.

VINEETO: Yes, it is absolutely astounding that this one methods works to progressively dismantle all my problems. Whenever I notice an affective reaction to whatever someone says or does – I inquire why that is so – I discover a certain expectation or fear – I inquire why that is so – I notice the nature of my ‘psychic tentacles’ that automatically weave their web – I inquire what is the underlying purpose in having that particular bond – and bingo, brought to the light of awareness, my ‘psychic tentacles’ can no longer hold their grip.

*

VINEETO: Throughout the process of actualism I have become aware of, and incrementally dissolved, my ‘connections’ to things in my close environment and I investigated my affiliations and friendships with people. As you pointed out, most sharing between people consists of commiseration, but as the actualism process continued I had less and less to complain about my own life, which meant I had less and less common misery with people. The wonderful outcome of this ‘unconnectedness’ is that I am more and more able to meet and treat people as fellow human beings – that means I recognize and treat them as what they are instead of relating to them as bit players in ‘my’ game, subjects of ‘my’ moral judgements and demands, projections of ‘my’ fears and desires.

GARY: I certainly agree with the part where you say that you have less and less to complain about with your own life. I hardly feel it is a service to my fellow human to gripe about commonplace goings-on, although it is an all-too-human characteristic. I am less inclined to gripe or complain since I investigated into the basis of such commonly held complaints as the Monday morning blues, upsets about the weather, complaints about one’s political leaders, as well as many other commonplace ills too numerous to mention.

VINEETO: With attentiveness operating almost seamlessly, I am able to clearly see any complaints and worries I have about the world as-it-is and people as-they-are for they are expressions of either malice or sorrow. Attentiveness also enabled me to be sensible enough to sort out the practical circumstances of my life such that I stopped doing many of the silly, stressful and time-consuming things I used to do solely in order to be ‘someone’ in the world and to be recognized as such. Once I made these practical changes the only task then left was to wear out and finally stop the habit of complaining that every human being engages in.

GARY: One of the things I used to do was compulsively take care of or try to control the people around me. Many years ago, I once underwent a period of unemployment, which literally put me into a panic because I had nobody to ‘help’. With the increasing ease that has been ushered in by the dismantlement of my personal, social, and professional roles and identities, I am less and less invested in trying to ‘help’ and change others, less inclined to feel morally superior to others, and more and more satisfied with being where I am and living my life freed from the interference of busy-bodies and missionaries.

VINEETO: I know the ‘social worker syndrome’ well from my own years as a social worker. After I recognized that I had no solutions to offer for the problems of others I went off to the East to change the world by following the dream of Rajneesh’s ‘New Man’. His vision had to literally fall to pieces before I could even consider questioning, let alone abandoning, the spiritual world-saving better-than-thou power trip I was on.

What serendipity that I finally found the real McCoy way of changing myself – a down-to-earth process which everyone can do for themselves and by themselves.

*

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.

*

GARY: A welcome change is that since practising Actualism I have a much keener appreciation of the marvel and wonder of human beings – that most intelligent creature in the world, that fabulously sensitive and finely attuned pinnacle of evolutionary creation.

VINEETO: By getting rid of my own complaints, boredom, annoyance and irritation I succeeded in enjoying my own company and I increasingly became aware that I like my fellow human beings. With this liking comes hand-in-glove an appreciation of my fellow human beings and an admiration of the astounding human ingenuity and caring in many fields of science, engineering, health and safety.

One thing that played a major part in my increasingly liking people-as-they-are was the acknowledgement of my own malice and sorrow, that I recognized it as being due to the human condition and that I understood that everybody, through no fault of their own, is born into the same human condition. I then put this intellectual understanding into daily practice whenever I interacted directly with people, read or heard of other people or read or heard of other people’s views of other people.

Nevertheless, I am often left bewildered at the fact that most people prefer to remain in the situation they find themselves in. But then again, most people I know choose to spend their lives as they do – my aim is to live in peace and harmony with people-as-they-are, without exception.

GARY: Do you find that you always ‘liked’ people, even in your spiritual days?

VINEETO: I had to think about this a bit. ‘Liking’ people meant something completely different in my pre-actualist days. In those days I liked people if I felt that they were members of ‘my’ club, i.e. that we were ‘like-feeling’ beings. I needed people to define and reinforce ‘me’ as a social identity, or as a fellow social outsider, and ‘I’ was dependant on their approval and emotional support, or disapproval and emotional rejection.

Maybe my liking people could be described in that my ‘basic fear of people’ was often overruled by my basic need of people. Generally I could have been described as more of a social type, more afraid of loneliness than of being with people – after all, I chose to live in a spiritual commune for years and my days were filled with communal activity.

Nowadays I am neither afraid of being alone nor afraid of meeting people. I am more often ‘what I am’ rather than ‘who I am’ – I as this flesh-and-blood body neither need to be defended nor validated – I am here because I am here.

GARY: I am not a social person, and I am not ordinarily very sociable. As a child growing up, I was downright under-socialized. The matter of individual disposition has not always been exactly clear to me, but I feel there is a component to this that is my identity in action and a part that is my individual disposition. So, teasing out those factors is something that I think will take me a bit more time.

VINEETO: I was wondering if your ‘basic fear of people’ could have something to do with the need to ‘compulsively take care of or try to control the people around me’ that you mentioned above? I am asking because I often found that there were some particular fears I could not tackle directly by abandoning a habit or by stopping doing some silly action but that I had to explore and dismantle the components that maintained or were related to that particular fear.

As for ‘teasing out’ one’s individual disposition – I found that as both my own and society’s demands of ‘who I should be’ disappeared with the dismantling of my social identity, what remained was my individual disposition as to how I want to spend my time. My only guideline is that I want to be happy and harmless … or, if life is not fun then there is something to look at.

GARY: Having ‘no social identity to maintain’ is really a most delightful situation to be in. I was thinking one morning recently, when I was sitting quietly before leaving for work, that all the battles have already been fought, all the strivings have been stroven for ... it really was a sublime sense of being ‘retired’ from all of that, and in no immediate need of changing anything about myself or my life. It was a wonderful sense of completion and coming full-circle to the place where I find myself, with nothing that I would want to improve or anything that I would like to change.

VINEETO: Well said. It is superb to have these periods of feeling retired from the struggles of my humanity and being able to revel in the delights of being alive – the opposite to what I practiced for so many years, sitting crossed-legged with my eyes closed trying to be ‘here’ as ‘me’.

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VINEETO: What you describe as being ‘aghast at my lack of emotional, social connection to others’ I would describe in my experience as the natural reaction, sometimes fearful, sometimes merely surprised, at seeing how radically I have changed as I am extracting myself more and more from my social and instinctual connection with humanity. During the recent years of living in virtual freedom I could verify again and again that I am not only capable of physically surviving without those ‘emotional, social connections’ but I am far, far better off than I was ever before – I am virtually free from any mood swings, I am feeling excellent almost all the time and I genuinely enjoy the company of anybody with whom I interact, whatever the occasion.

GARY: I cannot honestly say that I truly enjoy the company of interacting with people, often feeling disinclined to interact socially. You may notice that I said feeling disinclined, which should be enough of a tip-off that I am dealing with ‘me’ again here.

VINEETO: ‘Feeling disinclined’ may simply be a preference of your individual disposition and not necessarily an expression of your identity in action. In other words, apart from the wants and needs of ‘me’, the social-instinctual identity, there are also individual inclinations, temperament and foibles of this me, the flesh-and-blood body, which determine how I prefer to spend my time.

GARY: I know what it is like from PCEs that I have had that social interaction is free, easy, a delight, and involves no effort at all, nor anything but delight in simply being in another person’s company. But ordinarily I do not take much pleasure in interacting socially with others. Your own pleasure is, however, quite clear. By temperament and disposition, I am usually quite happy to be a loner and a hermit. However, these solitary tendencies do not serve one well in the marketplace where there is a premium on acquired social ‘skills’.

VINEETO: Just to clarify – when I said that ‘I genuinely enjoy the company of anybody with whom I interact’ I did not mean to indicate that my day is filled with social interactions. I have far less interactions than I used to have in my days of needing to belong to social groups. I take pleasure in being at home where I enjoy my own company as well as Peter’s.

The terms ‘loner’ or ‘hermit’ usually carry an implication of social values that I no longer subscribe to – values that apply ‘in the marketplace where there is a premium on acquired social ‘skills’’, as you say. I may be a ‘hermit’ in other people’s eyes because I don’t frequent the pub or go to social gatherings but I am not ‘hermit’ who retreats from the world despising the company of others.

With no social identity to maintain and no social ladder to climb I am now free to set my own pace as to how I like to spend my time – except for the time that I sell for a living, in which case the pace is set by those who employ me.

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VINEETO: Now that I don’t have a ‘social connection’ with a few specifically chosen friends it becomes apparent that my daily life is full of social interactions – I have pleasant and friendly interactions with my various clients, agreeable chats when I answer the phone, a little gossip with the checkout person in the supermarket, with the waitress in the coffee shop, with a neighbour, and so on. These are all social interactions that I used to dismiss as unwanted time-consuming distractions as opposed to the ‘real’ interactions with my chosen friends.

GARY: I have been taking a renewed pleasure in these simple interactions with others since I have been thinking alot about my ‘connections’ or lack of connections (I might better say) with others. I had a damn good laugh with the man in the store when I stopped for coffee on the way to work this morning. The unrestrained mirth was a tonic to my system.

VINEETO: Yes, when ‘I’ am out of the equation, then ‘the man in the store’, or the taxi driver, or a waiter, or an employer is a fellow human being, not a suspicious stranger, a business opportunity or a non-believer as they were for ‘me’. Then being with others, whatever the occasion, is usually good fun, particularly so if the other is not stricken by feelings of malice or sorrow at the time.

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VINEETO: And then there are interactions on the Actual Freedom Mailing list – talking about my favourite topic with other practicing actualists and people interested in, or objecting to, becoming happy and harmless.

GARY: Your writings are always as clear as a bell. I have appreciated our acquaintanceship during the time I have participated in this list. Your commitment to the list and to Actualism has not gone unnoticed. I think it is commendable the consistency with which you and Peter have written to the various and sundry people who have frequented the list, both as regulars and ‘drop ins’.

VINEETO: Thanks for the feedback. I also enjoy your refreshing and sensible posts on the list. Additionally, it is a delight to see the simple method of actualism so successfully working for someone on the other side of the planet who has been able to glean the essence of the actualism method via the written word only. As you once said of the actualism business, one ingredient is essential – the recognition that …

[Gary]: It is of the most urgent necessity. Unequivocally. Gary to Peter, 6.8.2000

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VINEETO: The other night I had a very clear perception that ‘who I am’ is almost entirely made up of my affective instinctual connection with other people – both with those whom I meet face-to-face and with humanity at large. In that particular moment of understanding ‘my’ affective extensions that reach out to the world around me were once again temporarily disengaged and I was here, as what I am, this physical flesh and blood body, not obligated to anybody and free to leave the herd.

It didn’t last – but it confirmed the direction.

GARY: Since being involved in Actualism, I have found going back and visiting old friends and family members has led to very clear perceptions of the depth of change that has taken place. What were once troubled and painful relationships filled with bittersweet memories from the past have taken on a new ease and a surprising conviviality. With the drastic ‘self’-reduction plan I entered into since becoming involved in Actualism, affective extensions have largely dried up, replaced by a common sense, down-to-earth approach. This is not to say that there is no on-going investigation into ‘my’ relationships with others, but as I continue to do so, I notice an increasing confidence with being, as you say... ‘here, as what I am...’.

VINEETO: Being here as what I am leaves me as this physical body and its senses, free to delight in this perfect infinite universe as a sensate human being. It is a glorious morning on this, the south-side, of the planet. The leaves are slightly moving in the breeze and glitter and shine in the early winter morning sun and fine silvery trails of spider web are dangling in mid air. Rainbow lorikeets perform precarious aerobics on the grevillea flowers to extract sweet nectar and the dew is still dazzling on the grass blades. It is marvellous to be alive.

It’s a pleasure to chat with you, Gary.

It is understandable that when you join a new mailing list that you would want to use the ‘right’ words. A few participants have reported a similar desire. However, actualism is not about changing one’s terminology or writing style, actualism is about changing oneself – or to put it colloquially, actualism is not about being able to talk the talk, actualism is about walking the walk. Merely adapting the words used in the writings of actualism to mean something they were not meant to mean would be comparable to adjusting your set of rules to what you imagine the actualism set of rules might be – you would simply replace the word ‘friendship’ for ‘fellowbeingness’ – a word that No 23 coined for his personal liking. What I did as an actualist was to investigate the connotations the word friendship had when I called someone a friend, my feelings of loyalty and trust, my expectations and disappointments, because I wanted to find out how ‘I’ tick as a social and instinctual identity.

My examination of the nature and integrity of my relationship to other people subsequently changed the way I now relate to people. I do not see people as either friends or non-friends because the more I investigated my social conditioning and the underlying feelings of aggression, fear, nurture and desire, the more my need for alliances and belonging has disappeared. As a consequence, I mostly perceive people as what they are – fellow human beings who go about their business of being alive just as I do. I put the horse before the cart – sincerity meant that the change of words only came hand-in-glove with a change of understanding, a change of attitude and a change of behaviour.

As for being ‘extremely explicit about the meaning of the old words’ – when you practice attentiveness to this moment of being alive with the aim of becoming unconditionally happy and unconditionally harmless, then you will inevitably want to be very precise with the words that you use to describe your experience because a precise description is a necessary precursor to obtaining precise information from your observation. After all, you want to find out exactly how ‘you’ tick. Similarly, an actualist would want to take care with the use of words when communicating with others simply because it makes sense to do so. Contrary to Mr. Wittgenstein’s philosophy, it is possible to call a spade a spade and to know that it is

‘a tool for digging or cutting the ground, now usually consisting of a sharp-edged rectangular metal blade fitted on a long handle with a grip or crossbar at the upper end.’ Oxford Dictionary.

If any confusion occurs in the meaning of a word then clarification can easily be given or a dictionary reached for.

Should you, however, notice that your desire for approval gets in the way of an accurate exchange of information or an in-depth exploration of a subject, then that desire is something to be investigated. Should you notice that your own particular social conditioning causes you to misinterpret and affectively colour the words you read, then this particular emotional ‘reference’ is something to look at. My aim as an actualist is to become free from my affective interpretation of words, things, people and events, to divest them from the veneer of my personal, cultural and instinctual ‘references’ in order that the actual world becomes more and more apparent.

Actualism is a do-it-yourself-for-yourself-by-yourself job – and this is not just a throwaway line. You are indeed on your own, there is no language-test to be passed, no club to be inaugurated into, no inner circle to be part of and no gold medal to be won. What can be won, however, is peace-on-earth for the flesh-and-body called No 49 and the subsequent sensate experiencing of the splendour of living in this actual universe.

And that is extraordinary.

I wonder why you say that ‘using money as a medium for judgement is mildly abhorrent to me’ when thinking about tipping a waiter or waitress? I have been working as a waitress myself and, although I enjoyed a good chit-chat with amicable guests, I much appreciated their tip because it helped paying for my bills. Today I am on the other side of the service contract and when I enjoy friendly service in a restaurant I am happy to contribute to the waiter-customer deal with a tip. I can’t see anything ‘abhorrent’ about this deal – after all, most of us sell our time, skills and services in exchange for money that pays for livelihood, toys and pleasures.

Whilst it is sensible to abide by the legal laws of the society you live in, whether or not you follow the social mores is a matter of choice. To make that choice a matter of principle on the basis of right or wrong, good or bad, can only lead to a surrender in the form of a begrudging acceptance or a victory in terms of a defiant belligerence. It’s my experience that ‘my’ principles stood in the way of me being happy and harmless which is why, whenever ‘my’ principles arose, I always binned them and looked for the sensible approach.

What you term ‘the immediate micro-culture’ I would call the fact that humans exchange goods and services with each other in order to earn a living. If I may say so, I would think your ‘high horse’ in this case is to consider yourself to be outside of this common-to-all necessity of earning a living, from which position you then ‘grease the skids for the immediate micro-culture’. In actuality I am part of the exchange game whenever I am in business with my fellow human beings and, given we humans all play the same game in order to earn a living I aim for a win-win situation for all involved in the situation.

It is not the fact that money is used in the exchange of goods and services that is ‘abhorrent’ but the fact that human beings are instinctually occupied in a ruthlessly-competitive impassioned battle for survival against each other. This is the basis of the deeply ingrained and instinctually-fuelled automatic reaction of judging the other as friend or foe, higher or lower in rank, useful or useless to my desires, and this is what I needed to address in me because this ‘self’-centred habit was continuously interfering with having a peaceful and equitable interaction with people.

The longer I observe how I am in relation to other people, the more I find that whenever another person evokes an affective reaction in me then there is some kind of invisible thread or emotional hook also present on my side. I remember a visit from a close relative and how at first I felt guilty for not returning the love, affection and excitement that was offered to me. It was as if a web of invisible, yet sticky vibes was cast out to catch me into feeling loyal to and connected with her. These bonding strings might well be presented as a generous offer of love or friendship, yet – often unbeknownst to the person himself or herself – this offer always contains a request for returned feelings, a demand for support and an obligation for further loyalty. In other words, love is never unconditional, it is always given with conditions and it is only received subject to conditions.

In the situation with my relative I was able after a while to understand the nature and source of my guilt by observation and investigation and then, by being free of my feelings of guilt I was able to give her my full attention and care. While we spent time together we were able to talk as fellow human beings, swap stories about how each experiences life and what each had found out so far about the business of being a human being.

As for a one-to-one man-woman relationship, I found that the sorrow that you described as being associated with love is due to the inevitable expectation of returned favours and feelings. Love by its very nature cannot stand by itself. Love always needs a giver and a receiver, someone who loves and someone who is eager to be loved. In my ‘past-life’ love-relationships, my dreams of how I wanted to live life were automatically intertwined with the man I loved – as a woman I gave him the responsibility for my happiness and I expected him to do the same. (Then I am also jealously guarding that he is not happy without me!)

Soon after I met Peter I found it vital to investigate this dream because it caused me to be miserable whenever we were apart and made my life difficult whenever we were together. When I looked into the love-dream that I had cherished all my life, I was faced with a rather shocking choice – either keep my dream and my identity as a woman and a lover and remain struggling, frustrated and unhappy, or drop all my high-flying ideas and ideals, grow up and take responsibility for my own life. This also meant that I had to put my becoming free from the human condition as number one on my laundry list – above my relationship. That very choice made me not only autonomous for the first time in my life, it also released Peter from the burden of ‘my’ unfulfillable expectations and emotional needs. Nobody else is responsible for my becoming free and nobody is standing in the way of my becoming free.

Did it [your version of the actualism method] enable you to trace your emotions as they occur and find out exactly which of your beliefs or aspect of your identity triggered them?

I found that most people associate an emotional value with friendship and I certainly had strong emotional ties with the men and women I called my friends. Within a friendship there is usually a list of unspoken rules, demands and expectations that need to be observed if one is to maintain the friendship … and loyalty is generally at the very top of this list.

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Did it [your version of the actualism method] work in that it increasingly enables you to live with your fellow human beings in peace and harmony?

As I investigated my instinctually-based attitude towards people I discovered that my ‘self’-centredness caused me to relate to people either with the hope that they will satisfy my needs and desires – be my friends – or with the fear that they might take advantage of me for their own needs and desires – be my enemies.

Isn’t it wonderful to increasingly discover and remove the myopic veil of hope and fear and become able to relate to people as one’s fellow human beings!

Last night I watched a report about a British submarine crew – their submarine was used as a strategic training target for Canadian ships in the Second World War. The men in the submarine were under immense and ongoing stress, being the assigned practice target for several warships and it was certainly one of the toughest situations one can be in. But while I appreciated their situation with direct understanding I also realized that I am not ‘one’ with them nor am I ‘alien’ to them – I am a fellow human being. That means that while I may closely appreciate the sailors’ physical and emotional situation it does not necessarily imply imagining and feeling their affective experiencing. In that moment of pristine awareness I did not belong to the feeling-based and psychically connected human race – I was what I am, this flesh and blood body in a flat in a little Australian town.

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Did it [your version of the actualism method] work to dissolve the issue of belonging – to a nation, a religion, a social group, a spiritual group, a cultural group, etc.?

It is indeed a fascinating issue to investigate the moral that insists everyone has to earn their right to be here or to prove their worth to society in general or to certain people in particular. Apart from the fact that I am already here (so what’s the point of proving my right to be here?), contributing to peace on earth by changing myself radically is the most worthwhile thing I can do for myself and for my fellow human beings.

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Did it [your version of the actualism method] work in that you are now standing on your own two feet and not relying on others for approval?

I found that if I wanted to be independent of, and unmoved by, other’s blame, I also had to disregard their praise.

RESPONDENT: My sister-in-law (who has a visceral revulsion to religion) stayed up to until 2am yakking about these matters. Her mother has been diagnosed with ALS and will need a lot of care for the remaining year of her life. This of course is a difficult matter to deal with as it brings up all sorts of issues, those of her mother, and those of the other family members. She wondered how to deal with the specific issues and I was at a loss to offer much concrete help. The next day it dawned on me that these sorts of predicaments don’t have ‘answers’, and all we can do is attend to the moment. Humans (including myself) by and large have a need to ‘fix’ pain and suffering as it comes up, and this is an impossible task.

VINEETO: When I ask myself how am I experiencing this moment of being alive and get the answer that I suffer or empathize with someone else’s physical or emotional pain, then the next question for me was why. From whence comes this, seemingly automatic, connectedness with someone in distress that makes me want to fix him or her up in order to ease my own co-suffering. Consequently I searched for the hook in me that ties me to other people’s feelings.

One significant reason for my empathy I found in the deeply ingrained belief that life is essentially suffering – and that the best one can do is alleviate the suffering. Every single religion and spiritual pursuit is built upon the basic premise that ‘life is a bitch and then you die’. I had to find this deep-seated conviction in me and deliberately root it out, discovering that I had indeed a choice to change and become incrementally free from the human condition of malice and sorrow. And if I can become free then anybody has that choice as well – human beings are not inextricably trapped in misery, as they so fervently believe.

RESPONDENT: Hence we ask ‘how am I...’ and things turn out the way they turn out.

VINEETO: How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? is not to be confused with a mantra that bridges bad moments until luck changes – this question is designed to be a piercing tool, an excavator, a well-digger and I apply it to uncover deeper and deeper layers of my unhappiness and my unfriendliness until I reach to the core of my identity. My suffering with the poor and downtrodden, the victims of war and violence, starvation and corruption was a longstanding issue – whenever I saw a contemporary report on television I would either be angry or sad and I had to look closely into my feeling connection with humanity in order to become gradually free from ‘my’ empathy and compassion, ‘my’ righteousness and idealism.

I experienced my psychic connection with people as emotional strings consisting of thousands of single strands – beliefs, values and instinctual passions – which I had to unhook one by one. Sometimes a whole bunch of them were loosened at once, and what a realization, but often it was a matter of tracing one feeling to its core and finding all the little ties and knots that connected me with the feelings and beliefs of other people. Often I was shocked when such a tie broke, particularly when I ‘unhooked’ my affective connection to a person close to me such as a family member or formerly close friends.

To become free from being connected with people is not a matter of cool detachment – as in ‘it doesn’t concern me’. What I discovered as I questioned my spiritual beliefs was that many suppressed feelings came to the surface, and I particularly became aware of the suffering of others as I no longer hid behind my feeling of righteous detachment. I began to understand that another’s feeling, when it resonates in me, is my social-instinctual identity in action. ‘I’ am humanity and humanity is ‘me’ and there is no way of escaping the fact as long as I am an identity. To step out of humanity is to leave ‘me’ behind.

Now – on to ‘relationships’. I think I can ask this one pretty simply.

It’s easy to think that caring for your child is only based on the nurturing instinct. Does the ability to raise a child necessarily disappear along with the nurturing instinct – or is the benevolence of virtual or actual freedom enough to maintain ‘parenthood’? Does the fact of raising a child necessarily indicate the continuing presence of ‘nurture’?

It is a common fear that if one abolished one’s spiritual beliefs, morals and ethics one would become a dangerous sociopath and if one removed all of one’s emotions – good and bad – one would become a careless zombie. However, when you apply the method of actualism with the pure intent to become free from malice and sorrow, then you successively remove what prevents you from being what you are – a flesh and blood body. And just as there is neither malice nor sorrow in a tree, in an ocean and in the air we breathe, there is also no malice and sorrow in a flesh and blood body when social-instinctual identity is deleted.

I have never raised any children but I can confirm that, in the process of practicing actualism, care and consideration for other people, together with a general benevolence and common sense have incrementally emerged as my ‘self’-centredness, egoism and the affective-neurotic relationships that I used to have with people, animals or things have diminished. It is far easier to make sensible decisions when you are not run by social conditioning and driven by instinctual passions.

Also, the question arises as how to respond to others exhibiting extreme emotions. My 3 year old son instinctually cries out for me to hold him tight or rock him and give him his blankee when he’s hurting and insecure. Which is more appropriate – giving him the comfort he so desperately wants/needs – or dismiss his request for empathy as unhealthy for him – or finding some way to comfort him without allowing him to indulge himself? I suppose another way of asking this is that I find myself ‘feeling empathy’ and then feeling the horror of not being ‘empathetic’ toward my child (the opposite) – Is there is a happy and harmless medium there somewhere – which I’m still trying to find?

The intent of an actualist is to become free from malice and sorrow because the only person you can help and change is you. Apart from finding out how ‘you’ tick there are no rules in actualism as to how to behave or not to behave – every situation is yet another opportunity for you to discover how you are socially and instinctually programmed. The more I discovered about ‘me’, the more I was able to make sensible choices based on facts instead of beliefs and feelings. The more I investigated and became free from my own good and bad feelings and emotions, the less effect other people’s emotions had on me. Now I am able to respond with care and common sense to whatever situation arises.

When you practice actualism it is also important to remember that this is not about stopping feeling, for that is impossible while still being a ‘self’.

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.

The second event that shed some light on how I relate to other people happened when I met a former acquaintance from my spiritual era. In the course of our conversation she asked what I have been doing with my life and, knowing she was a fervent spiritual believer, I first attempted to warn her by saying that because I have become a heretic and a traitor I am very cautious nowadays about telling my story so as to not disturb other people’s dearly held beliefs. Nevertheless she insisted, so I told a bit of my story of how I got involved with actualism. As I began to describe my first major PCE, the woman quickly said she knew what I am talking about – this was enlightenment. When I tried to explain the difference between a spiritual experience and a pure consciousness experience I was soon at a loss for words because whatever words I used to describe the quality of a PCE, she insisted that this was exactly how she experienced the world in her outstanding moments of being at one with the Whole, filled with Emptiness and experiencing the Consciousness that connects everything.

As I was familiar with this spiritual ‘take over’ from other conversations, her claiming my descriptions of the actual world as being the same as her spiritual experience came as no surprise to me. What somehow surprised me, however, was that I was completely unruffled by this closing of the door to the possibility of something new as I had sometimes been in the past. In fact I enjoyed our discussion immensely. Not only did I know it was not my choice of words that caused her ‘misunderstanding’ but I was also certain about the fact that, despite all her assertions that our differences were only a matter of semantics, we were talking about two diametrically opposite worlds. I was talking about the experience of being what I am, this flesh-and-blood body devoid of ‘me’ as experienced in a PCE, while she was talking about who she felt herself to truly be – a passionate Being, feeling blissful Unity and Oneness.

As you have experienced yourself in a PCE, once one knows the actual world by direct experience, the lovey-dovey bliss of spiritual Unity with an imaginary Source holds no attraction at all. This conversation also confirmed that unless someone is sufficiently discontent with their life as it is, their interpretation of what is on offer in actualism will always be inhibited by the framework of their familiar spiritual teachings.

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Lastly I recently made an observation that relates to the last part of your letter –

One of the most important aspects of ‘membership in certain self-protective groupings’ is the social insistence and instinctual craving to belong to a particular group, tribe or nation. The other day I watched a made-for-TV documentary about the siege of Stalingrad by the Germans in WW II, when the Germans almost conquered the city and then got knocked back and enclosed in a surprising counterattack. Both Russian and German survivors of the siege were interviewed and they gave first-hand accounts of tremendous hardship and destitution, of fighting in freezing conditions with meagre supplies, of human beings desperately fighting other human beings in the bombed out rubble of the city. What was new to me from the previous times when I had watched similar reports was that this time I was neither taking sides for ‘my countrymen’ against the enemy nor did I form moral judgements for the poor Russians fighting against the bad Nazis. I was also neither upset nor sad about the enormous suffering inflicted by senseless fighting. I simply listened to this report of the human condition in action and followed with interest the sense that some of the men, fellow human beings, had made of the experiences they went through.

I was neither dissociated from the violence as I had tried to be in my spiritual days nor did I associate with the suffering of the people stuck in the desolation and cruelty of war as I had done so many times before. I could watch the report and know for a fact that it is possible to stop being a member of a squabbling and fighting humanity – I can escape my programmed fate, for moments at first and soon forever.