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Selected Writings on
How to Become Actually Free

Richard
This Moment of Being Alive
Peter
Vineeto
How to Investigate Feelings
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Discussions about
How to Become Actually Free
Audio-taped Dialogues | 2 | 3 |
Richard
| 2 | 3 | 4
| 5 | 6 | 7 |
Peter | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Vineeto | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

The Wide and Wondrous Path
A précis of the method of Actualism
A Guide for Practicing Actualists
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Related Questions/Objections
What
is the Answer to
‘How Am I ...’?
Is a
PCE necessary for
practicing Actualism?
Is
Enlightenment necessary to become actually free?
Is
Actualism applicable everywhere?
Can
I disappear the ‘I’ and the ‘me’?
Difference
between
Actualism and Vipassana?
Difference
between good
Feelings and feeling good?
‘I’
Cannot Get Rid of ‘Me’
Actual
Freedom is Anti-Nature
Actualism
is not new
Actualism
not the only Method
No
Proof that the
Actualism Method works
The
Actualism Method
does not work
The
Actualism Method
Is too difficult
Freedom
has to be unique
Empty
Promises
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Please note that some text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a
pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.
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How
to Become Free from
the Human Condition
Peter: The method of becoming
free from the Human Condition is devastatingly simple but requires a few initial ingredients for success to be guaranteed.
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A recognition that what you are currently doing is not working,
an awareness of not being fully alive, an acknowledgement of living a second-rate life, the admission of failure in your
relationships or on the spiritual path, an admission of not being free or maybe a haunting memory of a peak experience of
perfection and purity.
-
A willingness or intent to make freedom from malice and sorrow
one’s main ambition in life – to become happy and harmless.
-
An acknowledgement that the only moment one can experience life
is this very moment.
The essential method is to
enjoy and appreciate each moment of being alive 
and to undertake a total investigation into anything
that is preventing me from being happy now – after all, the point is to be happy now, if I was happy ten minutes ago it is of no
consequence, nor at some time in the future. The question to ask yourself, each moment again, is ‘How am I experiencing this
moment of being alive?’
Now is, after all, the only moment I can experience
being happy. Any feeling such as anger, frustration or boredom that is preventing my happiness now, becomes of vital interest and
can be traced back to its cause – the exact incident, thought, expectation or disappointment. At the root of this emotion is
inevitably found a belief or an instinctual passion . The ruthless challenging, exposing and understanding of these beliefs and
instinctual passions actually weakens their influence on my thoughts and behaviour. The process, if followed diligently and
obsessively, will ultimately cause them to disappear completely. The idea, of course, being to eliminate the cause of my
unhappiness, so that I can experience life at the optimum, now.
The method soon presents success incrementally, as
freedom from beliefs, morals ethics and psittacisms and the feelings and emotions that arise from the instinctual passions is
indeed a palpable freedom that results in increased peace and harmony for oneself and in one’s relating with one’s fellow
human beings. The method does bring up fear and resistance, because one is dismantling one’s very ‘self’, those very beliefs
and passions one holds so dearly. Of course, the major fear is that it will work and as a consequence ‘I’ will ‘be’ no
more.
It sounds so simple, but most people when confronted
with the idea are unwilling to take even a small step along the way. Most people would seemingly like their life to be better, but
faced with the prospect of actually having to do something themselves, or having to change the way they are, they soon sneak away,
only to re-run the ‘tried and failed’ methods.
But the choice is simple. It is
either a miserable, painful, death-like life of not fully living or a quick death of what is clearly seen as the problem in the
peak experience – the ‘self’ or ‘psychological entity’ within.
This method of ‘self’-awareness
is both concise and down-to-earth in that it concentrates one’s awareness on this moment in time – this very moment, right
now, in this very place. The whole emphasis is on ‘how am I experiencing myself now’? This is not to deny that one doesn’t
have a goal and that this goal is in the future – to be happy and harmless, 24hrs. a day, every day.
It does take time to work through
each of the beliefs, morals, ethics, psittacisms and instinctual passions – to thoroughly investigate them. By bringing one’s
attention to the fact that this is the only moment I can experience being alive, and that if I was happy ten minutes ago and I am
not happy now, the fact becomes obvious: I am not happy now. If not, why not? What is the cause, the source? One then has
something to do, something to investigate. It is simply nonsense to delude oneself with the spiritual belief that one is already
perfect, ‘That’, or ‘Enlightened’ when one knows otherwise.
Always one’s immediate aim is to be
happy now, in this only moment one can experience being alive, and one’s ultimate goal is to be happy and harmless 24 hrs. a
day, every day.
The method does work – it is
possible to be free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow – and within a remarkably short time.
Richard: Before
applying the actualism method – the ongoing enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive – it is essential for
success to grasp the fact that this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it
did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness
and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow
is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All one gets by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only
happen now. The jumping in point is always here; it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if one misses it this
time around, hey presto, one has another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.
What ‘I’ did, all those years
ago, was to devise a remarkably effective way to be able to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive each moment again (I
know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It does take some doing to start
off with but, as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes progressively easier to enjoy and appreciate
being here each moment again. One begins by asking, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?
Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of
being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the
actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual
world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no
different to the end itself.
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