July 1 2025

VINEETO: Appreciate this “stillness all around” as much as you can and then some more, it’s the most wonderful, mirificent and magically sweet way of experiencing being alive.

KUBA: I remember in one of Richard’s quotes he wrote that perfection is only of the moment, which means that it can only be a lived experience, it happens now at this moment in time and this place in space. When I appreciate this “stillness all around”, there is exactly this mirificent and magically sweet aspect which is experienced, but it cannot be grasped by ‘me’ at all, it is only of the moment – it happens here and now. Nevertheless it is utterly wonderful and I can see that what is called “the meaning of life” is contained right in that experience.

At times this mirificent and magically sweet flavour is brief, it’s like “blink and you’ll miss it”, other times like now it is rather stable, experienced to be all around. How amazing is that? To experience that the very meaning of life is all around, somehow contained within that stillness / intrinsically part and parcel of it.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

Indeed this stillness “is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent”. Something which is already always here for the taking.

*

VINEETO: Ha, it’s always the hardest thing to acknowledge that ‘I’ am redundant, even though you experientially and apperceptively know that ‘you’ are. ‘You’ have done your job and have done it well, ‘you’ can contentedly retire having earned ‘your’ longed-for oblivion.

KUBA: So I remember a while ago we talked about the “utter fullness”, this is what ‘I’ am now experiencing to be already always here now. And indeed this “utter fullness” is calling each moment again. The “utter fullness” is what informs ‘me’ that ‘I’ am redundant. This is equally wonderful because it means that ‘I’ can lay down ‘my’ burden, and that not a single thing will be missing.

VINEETO: Yes.

To expand on this “utter fullness” I’ll first reiterate how Richard reported Vineeto becoming essentially the same as him in an event on 28^th of August 2011, in other words pure intent personified –

• [Claudiu]: [...] What prevents it [‘the quickening’] from happening to Vineeto, for example?

• [Richard]: Given that she is the first female to become actually free from the human condition there is, of course, nothing to prevent it from happening to Vineeto.

Indeed she has been interacting with me intensively with that very intention; an existential event of some considerable significance in regard to this intent took place between 3:30 and 4:00 AM on the 28th of August 2011, for instance.

For about three weeks prior to this she had been experiencing a near-constant pressure-pain in the nape of the neck, so she knew that something was imminent, as well as experiencing what she referred to as ‘an ambrosial immanence’ filling her up, inasmuch from time-to-time she could bear no more of it (such as to cause her to refrain from interacting intensively for two-three days until it dissipated) due to it being ‘too much’ or ‘too overwhelming’ for her.

Then, at the moment she became essentially the same as me (how I have been, on my own, all these years) there was a tremendous upwards surge of that energetic immanence, in and around my head and shoulders region, of such a potency, of such a strength, as would previously (on some occasion) render me utterly passive, completely immobile, and scarcely able to bear with it, to contain its immensity.

On this occasion, however, it was able to flow freely – it was as if a circuit had been formed betwixt the two of us – and a second, equally potent, surge of that existential immanence followed the first (again in an upwardly direction in and around my head and shoulders region) a short while later.

Regarding that reference to a circuit having been formed, I am reminded of first being shown, as a child in High School, how a magnet produces a magnetic field by holding a sheet of paper over it and sprinkling iron-filings upon its surface; as there is a potent field now operating it is as if the two of us, a male and a female, are the ‘north’ and ‘south’ poles of a magnet; alternatively, the effect could perhaps be likened to the ‘anode’ and ‘cathode’ of a battery generating an electric current (and thus producing an electric field) when a circuit is completed. [...]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 9 February 2012).

Richard: Interestingly enough, nerve impulses, more technically called ‘action potentials’, occur in several types of animal cells, called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscles cells and endocrine cells. In neurons they play a central role in cell-to-cell communication. Nearly all these cells function as batteries in the sense that they maintain a voltage difference between the interior and the exterior of the cell, with the interior being the negative pole of the battery. The voltage of a cell is measured in thousands of a volt (milli-volts). A typical voltage is approximately 1/15th of a volt (70 mV). Because cells are so small, voltages of this magnitude give rise to very strong electric forces within the cell membrane. (based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential).

(Richard, List D, Claudiu2, 28 May 2013).

As a result of this remarkable event Richard had this to say –

Richard: … what I am indicating is that pure intent is no longer only accessible outside of the human condition (via a PCE) but nowadays also from within it (i.e., as a feeling ‘being’). (Richard, List D, Rick, 28 May 2013).

*

Richard to James: [...] that ‘over-arching benevolence and benignity’, which the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago experienced and named ‘pure intent’, became [immanently] accessible to some select associates during a specific situational setting called ‘The Second Convivium Gathering’, in late 2009/early 2010, and was variously experienced by them as a ‘palpable sweetness’, for instance, and an ‘infinite tenderness’, for example, and has been more generally described as ‘being bathed in intimacy.

It was also accessible at-a-distance [...]. (Richard, List D, James, 6 February 2012).

When Richard died he left me with the floodgates wide open of an immense, often overwhelming appreciation, yet I could clearly experience that the previously established circuit of energetic immanence no longer existed, as it had been when Richard was alive. Now an event has happened for Geoffrey on May 7 this year which restored this circuit of existential immanence of human consciousness, and as such it is again directly, more fully/ more easily available as an ‘infinite sweetness’ or “utter fullness” for example –

Geoffrey: “So it happens last week that I suddenly became aware of the energetic evolution that had been taking place. For the anecdote it was Wednesday (May 7th) (…)
Later in the car on my way to martial arts practice I started to identify some very soft and gentle energy circulating in my neck region. I decided to somehow go into it fully, and the results during that martial arts practice were impressive. People interacting with me would smile to their ears, be utterly light and playful themselves, and I’d see usually self-conscious or depressed people strikingly act as if all weight had suddenly disappeared from their shoulders. This overblown effect progressively decreased over the next day to finally reach the ‘equilibrium’ it sits at now.

I can identify an ‘energy’ that wasn’t here before, prominently floating in my shoulders and neck region, soft, gentle, very fine, and imbued of benevolence, like it has a smile.

It very clearly physical, in the sense that it’s bodily, like the body has become more ‘conductive’, … (Private email, 16 May 2025)

As I wrote to Geoffrey, personally “I experienced the very fact that there is “an equal in the actual world” in the similar way as when Richard was alive – which is the first time I experienced this since he died. It’s ambrosial/ beneficent, the quality of personified pure intent, the intimacy of a fellow human being experiencing being the universe experiencing itself as a conscious human being, very pronounced, joyous, almost jubilant, just wonderful.”

I have recounted this all to you, and all the forum members, so that you can choose to tap into this personified immanence , now that it is again both masculinely and femininely available, and thus potentially accessible per favour naïveté regardless of spatial extension, and there is no reason at all that you cannot slide into the actual world right now.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 8, 1 July 2025).

July 2 2025

KUBA: Wow I am having a blast lately. Things are constantly happening, and these are not just realisations, this is more akin to actuality “coming at me” without a break, not that I would want a break anyways! And this sense of actuality constantly “knocking on my door” is nothing to do with ‘me’, the momentum is not of ‘my’ doing. Oopsie… Looks like I am now solidly out from control .

Ah, the genuine article.

KUBA: There was one thing that happened about 30min ago which was especially precious. I was chilling on the sofa with Sonya and poncho (my dog). I went to cuddle poncho and all of a sudden it was like that veil of reality was pulled back and I saw both Sonya and poncho as actually existing. It’s hard to convey the importance of those words – “actually existing”. But it goes some way to consider that not a single one of the ‘events’ which ever happened in ‘my’ reality were genuine. That the entirety of ‘my’ life was never genuine.

And now that curtain got pulled back and an actually existing world was revealed, so precious to discover it!

I fully understand the importance of those words as I remember ‘Vineeto’s’ first experience of this happening, it was quite world-view-shattering for ‘her’ –

‘Vineeto’: The next vital and essential break-through in understanding was my first major peak experience (PCE). What had started off one evening as ‘a roaming in the vast chambers of my mind’, psychic experiences and an expanded state of consciousness suddenly took a turn from ‘inner reality’ to actuality. It happened when Peter looked at me and said ‘hello, how are you doing?’ {Perhaps vaguely similar to Richard asking Pamela, “how is it as you sit here now”? (13.53 min)}.

I popped out of my inner world of feelings and imagination and, questioning the very validity of all I felt and thought, entered the world beyond beliefs and feelings – the actual world. Here was another human being, a flesh-and-blood person without any particular identity {for me} and he wanted to talk to me. And here I was, also a flesh-and-blood person without a particular identity, sitting on an old couch and curious to talk to this man that I was meeting for the first time.

I had never met the actual Peter; I had only related to him through the curtain of my expectations and classifications, through the filter of my social identity, through the grey or rose-coloured glasses of my ‘self’. What was initially a shocking surprise quickly turned into fascination and delight to have discovered something so simple and so pure – actual intimacy with another person and the perfection of the actual world. Here we were, two human beings, meeting for the first time, without past or future. No grand feelings, in fact, no feelings at all, but the pleasure of mutual undivided attention as to what the other is going to say next... [square-bracketed inserts added]. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, James2, 7.4.2000)

PS: At the time I didn’t actually know if Peter was in a PCE as well (he wasn’t), so the “two human beings (…) without past or future” is an incorrect description from ‘my’ memory. The “without past or future” experience was nevertheless the case for myself. (Interesting how the identity subtly colours the perception/ description in hindsight).

There was another experience, even more intimate than the above described one, which Richard reported –

Richard: The term ‘intimacy experience’ became part of the actualism lingo after a particularly instructive event in late spring, 2007, when at anchor upriver whilst exhorting feeling-being ‘Grace’ to no longer reserve that specific ‘way-of-being’ for those memorable occasions when ‘she’ was alone with me and to extend such intimacy to also include ‘her’ potential shipmates in order to dynamically enable the then-tentative plans for a floating convivium – which were on an indefinite hold at that time – to move ahead expeditiously (this was in the heady context of feeling-being ‘Pamela’ having already entered into an on-going PCE a scant five days beforehand due to ‘her’ specifically expressed concerns to me over the lack of intimacy between actualists). At some stage during this intensive interaction feeling-being ‘Vineeto’, who had been intently following every nuance, every twist and turn of the interplay, had what ‘she’ described as a ‘shift’ taking place in ‘her’ whereupon the very intimacy being thus exigently importuned came about for ‘her’ instead.

To say ‘she’ was astounded with the degree of intimacy having ensued is to put it mildly as ‘her’ first descriptive words were about how ‘she’ would never have considered it possible to be as intimate as this particular way of being – an intimacy of such near-innocence as to have previously only ever been possible privately with ‘her’ sexual partner in very special moments – when in a social setting as one of a number of persons partaking of coffee and snacks in a sitting room situation. Intuitively seizing the vital opportunity such intimate experiencing offered ‘she’ took over from me and commenced interacting intensively in my stead – notably now a one-on-one feeling-being interchange – and within a relatively short while feeling-being ‘Grace’ was experiencing life in the same, or very similar, manner as feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ (hence that 4th of December 2009 report of mine about how these intimacy experiences are potentially contagious, so to speak, for other sincere actualists as the atmosphere generated affectively-psychically can propagate a flow-on effect). (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016).

The last one I remember happened during the ‘Second convivium meeting’ when ‘Vineeto’ was out-from-control. Richard had entered the room, holding a cup with a drink in each hand and I exclaimed “Richard, I have never seen you like this!” He was naturally puzzled, looked up and down his body and couldn’t see anything special or different. In the ensuing conversation it became clear that I was suddenly seeing the actual Richard, and was surprised and delighted by the imminence and intimacy to see him without the veil of ‘my’ outer world perspective.

KUBA: And since that event I keep getting that same experience but milder, that the veil of reality is so thin and this actually existing world keeps coming through. It’s almost slightly disorientating at times, not in an unpleasant way at all but rather it’s that things are shifting around at a very fundamental level, that I don’t know which way to place myself, but actually I’m not too concerned with that anymore anyways – I am having a blast on the one way ride.

This is wonderful to read. Now that you know that an actual intimacy is possible (and potentially contagious) you have the additional opportunity to explore the territory of Intimacy Experiences and/or actual intimacy as well.

Richard: Actual intimacy – being here now – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is but a meagre imitation of this direct experience of the actual. In the actual world, ‘I’ as ego, the personality, and ‘me’ as soul, the ‘being’ – both subjectively experienced as one’s identity – have ceased to exist; whereas love accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other similarly afflicted persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials … to verify ‘my’ very existence.

To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity … and therefore free from the need for love with its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. There is an actual intimacy between me and my companion. Actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other. I am having a superb time … and it is a well-earned superb time, too. (Library, Topics, Intimacy)

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 9, 2 July 2025).

July 24, 2025

VINEETO to Pelagash: As I said above, a cognitive, rational decision to “simply do what’s sensible in a given situation” is not enough as your intelligence is manipulated and stifled by your affective faculty. Unless you acknowledge and recognize which feeling and what belief/ principle/ moral code is causing you to be “self-punishing”, this harmful attitude towards yourself will assert its dominance again and again. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Pelagash, 7 July 2025)

JESUSCARLOS: I wanted to move this here as a reminder. Especially this statement “your intelligence is manipulated and stifled by your affective faculty.” Because it is becoming increasingly clear to me that this is totally the case, and that making decisions dominated by any disturbed emotional state only produces bad results.

And I’d like to take this opportunity to share an update on my progress with the method. If it can be defined as progress, because in my experience it’s kind of a discontinuous progress. When it seems like I’ve already taken ten steps, I take six backwards, so in reality I’ve only taken four. But keep going.

VINEETO: Hi JesusCarlos,

Thank you for your progress report and excellent description how you go about it.

While it may look like “ten steps” forward and “six backwards”, from memory of my own experience it seems more likely that actualising one’s insights can sometimes be a gradual process because one is weening oneself off detrimental habits and attitudes by replacing it with propitious ones (for instance either to high expectations and habitually putting oneself down when you instead can enjoy observing yourself slowly but irrevocably changing and appreciate the sincerity, growing naiveté and increasing fun and confidence you gain.

After all, being naïve means liking yourself and liking others.

JESUSCARLOS: Something I’ve noticed has been essential to this progress is paying special attention to my way of being with my partner. I began to put special emphasis on this after reading the feedback Vineeto gave both Kuba and Claudiu regarding their definition of the primary motive that could drive their total commitment to peace on earth and trigger the process of their irrevocable psychic extinction.

VINEETO: I remember asking both Claudiu and Kuba the same question: “who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to?” Was this what you were referring to?

JESUSCARLOS: In both cases, it coincided with being able to give the closest person what they most longed for: a partner who is truly 100% considerate, attentive, and sincere. And I continue to find much fruit in channelling my emotional energies toward the most complete experience of intimacy possible with my partner. Knowing that if I achieve it there, I can achieve it with any other human being.

VINEETO: Whatever the case may be, you chose an excellent and delightful way “channeling my emotional energies toward the most complete experience of intimacy possible with my partner”. And because aiming for actual intimacy is an unendorsed, unsanctioned and unilateral pursuit, there is no demand or pressure on your partner to change in any way, even though an increased ability to be intimate may well entice and encourage her to similarly come out of hiding. It’s a win-win situation.

Richard: Look, the whole point of minimising both the malicious/ sorrowful feelings (the ‘bad’ feelings) and their antidotal loving/ compassionate feelings (the ‘good’ feelings) whilst maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) is to make for a potent combination when this untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity – whereby one is both likeable and liking – such that the benevolence and benignity of pure intent may increasingly become dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone ... to wit: for the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent, in this lifetime, as this flesh-and-blood body.

As your proposed making of a conscious effort to not pull back – and to allow yourself “to have a feeling of liking for others and show this feeling” (which is indeed “the same as expressing the feeling” of course) – is on track with “maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings)” then here is an example of what that untrammelled conviviality could look like when translated into action. (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 March 2016).

JESUSCARLOS: And I recognize that this is something my psyche resists, as I face an old pattern that consists on the one hand of activating fear in the face of the possibility of rejection (this is where I have made the most progress, this fear is 99% eradicated) and on the other hand of activating boredom or disinterest to encourage a change of direction. In short, a cowardly escape plan to avoid committing 100%. What has happened in these months has been a slow progress in becoming aware of the resistances (often stagnant for several days) and thus, thanks to investigation (always trying to do it while feeling good), I have been able to deactivate them, gradually advancing toward that experience of ever-more fulfilling intimacy.

VINEETO: It great to hear you have greatly overcome the fear of rejection – naiveté, i.e. liking yourself and therefore liking others, is the best antidote for that. As for the occurrences of “resistances” along the way, this is only natural because intimacy is about having less and less to hide. And all ‘I’ ultimately want to hide is ‘me’, all ‘I’ want to avoid and distract from, is being exposed. Yet the wonderful, naïve, playful and fun experiences of an “ever-more fulfilling intimacy” when ‘I’ dare to be exposed provides the encouragement to dare a little more each time. You could call it catching two ‘carrots’ in one – the intimacy you long for and the vital interest in loss of ‘self’ – and with pure intent operating they are one and the same: the less dominant the ‘self’ the greater the intimacy.

JESUSCARLOS: In short, the carrot that’s getting me to lower my defenses, release my controls, and activate my naiveté is the commitment to getting as close and intimate as possible to my partner. An important aspect I’ve been working on lately is eliminating all emotional dependence on her. Becoming immune, so to speak, to her emotional ups and downs. But with care that this doesn’t translate into a lack of empathy or emotional repression. The only way I detect to achieve this and avoid detours down other paths is to maintain a fine emotional attention (HAIETMOBA) moment by moment, trying to channel my varying states toward a sweet, peaceful, harmless, calm, joyful, and, last but not least, fun state. Because if this becomes serious, my old cowardly pattern of flight and seeking new distractions is reactivated.

VINEETO: You probably noticed that the way to become more immune to “emotional ups and downs” – both yours and hers – is to be paying particular attention to the seductive lure of affectuous intimacy –

Richard: What did not get included in those second and third paragraphs, regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’ and her rigorous gradations, was ‘her’ oft-repeated observation – regarding the onset of the third stage, on that range of naïveness, where ‘her’ gradation of ‘great’ related to sweetness – about a bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy (due to a self-centric attractiveness towards feeling affectionate) as contrasted to a conscious choice being required so as to somehow have that sweetness then segue into a naïve intimacy via what ‘she’ described as ‘richness’ and graded as ‘excellent’. (Richard, Abditorium, Intimacy, #Intimacyscale)

Just for fun, regarding your “because if this becomes serious …” here is a list of tools Richard employed to get ‘himself’ out of spiritual enlightenment, a far more serious predicament that nobody ever will need to get into –

Richard: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: what really worked, when the identity was that ‘Altered State Of Being’, was

(1) a continuation of the totally dedicated and/or devoted pure intent to evince what the PCE’s evidenced ... and

(2) a furtherance of the irreversible momentum, or inevitability, already set in place on day one as the process is, essentially, that of escaping from one’s fate and attaining to one’s destiny ... and

(3) a prolongation of the attentiveness as to how the only moment of being alive was experienced ... and

(4) an utter lack of dignity in being so far up oneself (narcissistic) as to render the term ‘egotistical’ a mere bagatelle in comparison ... and

(5) a sense of humour which, if nothing else, made possible 

(6) a delightful resurgence of the earlier felicity/ innocuity which again brought about, in combination with sensuousness, an outstandingly ingenuous sense of amazement, marvel and wonder.

And it was that last-named – the wide-eyed wonder of naiveté – which resulted in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 29 September 2005).

JESUSCARLOS: I detect a second carrot: given the current global situation, the ongoing wars, the growing violence in Mexico, the possibility of the creation of military artificial intelligences that threaten our lives, and the growing awareness of the thousands of atrocities we humans have inflicted on one another, there is a growing urgency within me, a pressing need to do something radically significant as soon as possible that will contribute to true peace on earth. And I try to channel this kind of emotional pressure toward the only solution I currently detect as effective.

VINEETO: Isn’t it wonderful that when you dare to care to be naïvely open and intimate with one fellow human being (your partner) you can’t help but be also more caring about the plight of others and “the global situation”. As you said in your second paragraph – “knowing that if I achieve it there [with my partner], I can achieve it with any other human being.”

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Jesus Carlos, 24 July 2025).

August 18 2025

KUBA: Thank you for your reply Claudiu, I do appreciate your 2 cents. I think I do see your point, in that an active going for it is needed as opposed to a passive waiting for something to happen.

“A door as big as the universe” seems to be a good target though!

Hi Kuba,

The following quote might give you a hint “what “it” looks like” –

Richard: On the contrary, what is promoted and/or promulgated on the web site is enjoying and appreciating being alive/ being here each moment again – that is, despite the normal vicissitudes of life – by establishing a general feeling of well-being (a.k.a. ‘feeling good’), as a bottom line of experiencing and, thereby, all the while agreeably complying with the legal laws and observing the social protocols (i.e., the many and various customs, traditions, conventions, values, principles, morals, ethics, codes, observances, etiquettes, niceties, formalities, ceremonies, rituals, and so on, as observed in many and various ways in the many and various countries around the world).

Moreover, as a central aim in all the above is the fellowship regard of an actual intimacy[1] whereby it is impossible to not like one’s fellow human being – and given that the means to the end are no different than that end (other than affectively for the one, in the meanwhile, and actually for the other, upon the end) – then any phantasy talk about having to minimise ‘the impact on others’ is patently preposterous, as well, as to maximise ‘the impact on others’ is to facilitate a global spread of peace and harmony. [emphasis and underlining in original]. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Hedonism).

Footnote[1]: The fellowship regard of an actual intimacy:

• [Richard]: ‘Furthermore, by being actually selfless [i.e., sans any identity whatsoever] – which means a total absence of both selfishness and its antidotal unselfishness – an actual intimacy prevails (due to an utter absence of any separative identity whatsoever); with no separation whatsoever fellowship regard is automatically the default condition (whereby it is impossible to not like one’s fellow human being); with that involuntary fellowship regard of an actual intimacy operating, come-what-may, acting in a mutually beneficial way is the status-in-quo (the complete absence of any self-centricity whichsoever ensures equity and parity be paramount)’. (Richard, List D, Jonathan2, 1 July 2015)

To clarify: this fellowship regard relates to both the flesh-and-blood bodies of one’s fellow human beings as well as the identity inside those feeling beings, which is generating the very suffering that an actual caring operates to bring to an end sooner rather than later. The word “suffering” is the give-away. Viz:

Richard: “I like my fellow human being and prefer that their self-imposed suffering come to an end, forever, sooner rather than later”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74f, 2 February 2006).

I write this specifically in response to a previous post of yours on 9 August 2025 –

Kuba: So indeed it will take an immense daring sourced in a deep and abiding caring. But what I see now (and I already dipped into this a while back) is that I have been aiming at the wrong target, not a genuine target.

To cut it short I have been aiming my caring towards other identities, towards ‘humanity’. And of course this can only have the effect of keeping ‘me’ chained to ‘humanity’. ‘I’ cannot sacrifice ‘myself’ for other identities or for ‘humanity’. The target and the beneficiaries of ‘my’ supreme sacrifice are the actually existing flesh and blood bodies.

And just as well because I have always struggled to care of other identities, after-all I know how rotten ‘I’ am and how rotten ‘we’ are, how could I have this deep and abiding caring for such entities? [Emphasis added].

For a start, not caring for the “rotten” identity inside your body prevents you from winning ‘him’ as an ally to agree to your voluntary and cheerful demise. Why would ‘he’ – condemned and cast aside as not worthy considering, let alone caring about – want to sacrifice himself, and joyfully recognize that ‘you’, this very ‘rotten’ identity, have a vital job to do?

The misconception in your argument, bordering on dissociation, is that caring for your fellow human beings would keep you “chained to ‘humanity’” while ignoring what ‘being naiveté’ means. One doesn’t become actually free by chopping off bits that one deems unworthy.

Only when I genuinely like myself (all of ‘me’), and therefore my fellow human beings, can I allow myself to being less and less self-centric/self-centred via being naiveté, and in the absence of self-centredness caring becomes more and more intimate to the point of near-actual-caring. Two examples from the Selected Correspondence on Near-Actual-Caring –

Richard: As a PCE provides an experiential understanding of what an actual caring is – and that direct experiencing is streets ahead of any of my descriptions and explanations – it is the benchmark par excellence.

As such it is the quintessential point of reference upon which all terms of reference – and especially, for example, a near-actual caring – can be reliably and confidently sourced.

In the meanwhile, I will leave you with what I wrote, much further above, about the first time feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ experienced a near-actual caring as it very effectively conveys just how extraordinary a near-actual caring is.

• [Richard]: “1. When feeling-being ‘Vineeto’s everyday feeling of caring first shifted into what has since become known as a near-actual caring the qualitative difference was so marked in its effect ‘she’ initially mistook it to be an actual caring (as per ‘her’ memories of PCE’s)”.

(Richard, List D, Srinath2, 13 August 2016)

And –

Richard: Now, as the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was in an out-from-control virtual freedom for something like five months – although not named as such back then, of course, nor thought of in those terms – I can readily report how ‘he’ was more empathetic during that period than ‘he’ ever had been in all ‘his’ 34 years of existence. So much so, in fact, that I would be inclined to characterise a near-actual caring as an acutely-empathic caring.

This acutely-empathic characteristic of the near-actual caring which prevails in the out-from-control way of being is, by virtue of not being self-centred/ self-centric, universal in its scope. As such there is no way the (self-centred/ self-centric) professional caring depicted in that article [quote] “aligns with” [endquote] a near-actual caring as that universality itself is the very potency required to effect the universal solution to the human condition – the ‘self’-sacrificial extirpation of blind nature’s instinctual passions by the feeling-being formed thereof cheerfully and thus willingly ‘self’-immolating for the benefit of this body and that body and every body ... [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Srinath2, 13 August 2016)

Does this perhaps help to allow you to see “a door as big as the universe”?

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 9, 18 August 2025).

September 29 2025

KUBA: Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for your reply, I agree with the main thrust of your message however just with regards to the below:

*

KUBA: And so at one moment I had 2 words in mind – “myself” and “a self”, I realised immediately that they are referring to 2 vastly different things, one refers to a fact and the other to a belief/ illusion. In that an actually free person might very well use the words “myself” when referencing the very flesh and blood body in question, whereas “a self” is what ‘I’ am as an ontological ‘being’, a ‘thing-in-itself’.

And then there was this seeing that this ‘thing-in-itself’ is completely and utterly an illusion, in that not only does it not actually exist, it never existed in the first place. This was not ‘me’ doing the seeing but rather it was happening to ‘me’.

VINEETO: Then you attempt to overcome the gulf between the real world and the actual world by convincing yourself that “‘thing-in-itself’ is completely and utterly an illusion”. The reason I wonder if this ‘seeing’ was anything more than a red herring is because until you become actually free ‘you’ are very real, passionately (and cunningly) so. As you contemplated yourself in your next message …

KUBA: There was no convincing myself, those 2 words came to mind and then the seeing happened as a result of a fascinated attention – this is the most accurate way I can describe what happened. Perhaps it appears that way as I wrote about what happened after the fact and was trying to make sense of it.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

I much appreciate your clarification. I now understand better what happened. I will rephrase my cautionary note then.

Self-immolation can not happen from a moment of apperception or from a PCE, or even several PCEs in a row, it is a definite job ‘I’ have to do, as an identity, when all of ‘me’ is in agreement with ‘my’ final demise. Hence my emphasis that ‘I’ need to be an all-inclusive ally in this task – the only and most important task of one’s life. Hence ‘your’ job involves channelling all your affective energy (your libido for instance) into felicitous and innocuous affective energy via naïve enjoyment and abundant appreciation.

KUBA: But the main thrust of what you wrote I can see – in that I have been side-stepping those uneasy feelings around intimacy. And an imagined flight into ‘actual intimacy’ is how I can kid myself that something productive is being done, whilst those feelings remain unresolved.

So it is more that I need to go “through” rather than “around”.

VINEETO: I am very pleased you can see that. It’s also useful to keep in mind to differentiate between the felicitous feelings and the ‘good’ feelings, which you called “addicted to the high”. It helps to put everything that happens on a preference basis –

Richard: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 25d, 14 January 2004)

KUBA: I am seeing where the thing with the sex drive is coming into the picture, it’s because I am unable to be intimate (due to those uneasy feelings that I have been avoiding) that I go for the high provided by the sex drive instead.

VINEETO: It’s fortuitous that you can see that “those uneasy feelings” make you “go for the high” because you already know what prevents you from being naïvely intimate. Via actualistic awareness and attentiveness you can choose, each moment, between pursuing the high, or enjoying and appreciating the sexual intimacy with the fellow human being you are closest to. With a bit of practice and courage you will find it increasingly easy to choose the latter – it is way, way more delightful, enjoyable, and naively and exquisitely intimate. When adding the appreciation of being physically intimate, with the person who chooses to spend her life with you, there is simply no comparison. Perhaps you can refresh your memory from Richard’s description (Richard, List D, 20, 9 December 2009) how supreme sexual enjoyment needs no drive or libido to be utterly exquisite, once you dare to care.

Richard: Put succinctly, this intimity, this most intimate of intimacies, has been beyond the ken of humankind since forever! (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 February 2016)

It’s yours for the taking.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 10, 29 September 2025a).

October 2 2025

KUBA: 

Richard: As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitatively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon *naïveté has come to the fore *, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope. (…)

For instance, the degree of intimacy experienced with minera, flora and fauna upon strolling through some botanical gardens with either near-PCE occurring – as in, with rocks, trees and birds, for example – is to the same gradation as when in a social setting such as a typical sitting room situation (as in, with ashtrays, flowers and humans, for instance) yet it is the ‘fellow human being’ element which exemplifies the already astounding diminishment of separation which ensues upon the blessed onset of this *near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. [Emphasis by Kuba]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016)

It’s interesting because I remember a while back Claudiu wrote something which I related to experientially, it was essentially that he is able to go across that whole range of the wide and wondrous path from good, great, excellent and that perhaps something else was needed.

And it is interesting because I personally have plenty of experience in what Claudiu wrote, however to tie in Richard’s above quote – I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

It’s interesting that you should say that “I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience”. It seems that your focus has primarily been chasing extraordinary experiences, wonderful in themselves, but have not contemplating to up-level your default state of happiness to the next level as Richard explained –

Richard: And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ ... and after that to ‘feeling excellent’. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

And he explains it in detail in the last article he wrote –

Richard: Furthermore, blind nature has provided what the Positive Psychology Network, and the ilk, refer to variously as an “affective adaptation set-point”, or a “hedonic adaptation set-point”, or a “treadmill adaptation set-point” to designate the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of well-being despite major positive or negative events or life changes. The process of affective adaptation is often conceived as a treadmill since no matter how hard a person tries, in their life-long pursuit of happiness, they will inevitably return to the same neutral set-point after a significantly emotional life event. (Richard, Personal Webpage, Various, Marvelling How Well-Equipped Human Beings Are).

Thus when you start with feeling good as your starting default set-point, already better than the more common feeling-neutral state of most people, you can still up-level it to a default set-point of feeling great, feeling excellent and then, with allowing the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté, you can make being out-from-control your default feeling state.

KUBA: And in fact that was always my primary focus, of course intimacy with others was explored here and there but never as a sole focus. So that when I present this same thing to myself as a question of “do I have plenty of experience travelling the gradations of intimacy all the way to an intimacy experience”? Then the answer is a big fat no.

So it seems there is plenty to discover here still. And the benefit of the focus on the “fellow human being” element is that ‘I’ am not doing it merely for ‘myself’.

VINEETO: Well, what exciting and delicious adventure you are embarking upon now that intimacy has come into focus. Here again you can explore the levelling up in grades of intimacy as detailed elsewhere. (Richard, Abditorium, Intimacy Scale).

There is a whole new ‘world’ of sensuousness and naïve intimacy to discover. Here is my favourite of Richard’s stories to give you a taste of what is possible. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Intimacy).

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 11, 2 October 2025).

October 2 2025

KUBA: Hi Vineeto,

I will go in bits because there is a lot in your message which clicks.

I really like how you wrote this – “intimacy is not assertive but inclusive, enticing, friendly, benevolent”. And with authority ‘I’ am doing exactly that – asserting ‘myself’. Asserting ‘myself’ immediately cuts the possibility of intimacy at the root, this is exactly the ‘edge’ I was talking about.

Richard: Unless one can live with just one other person, in peace and harmony twenty four hours of the day, nothing is ever going to work on any other scale’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003).

This clicked in such an obvious way, I think it’s because of what you wrote about intimacy not being assertive. In that when I allow intimacy with another then I cannot help but take them into consideration, whereas when I assert myself there is an absence of caring and consideration. But I never saw this before, that by asserting myself I am getting in the way of intimacy and therefore peace and harmony. It can be such a small step too that I missed it in the past, where I assert myself and turn the situation into my way vs their way, now it’s a battle and peace and harmony is nowhere to be found.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

It’s cute because you yourself gave me the clue –

Kuba: In that there is the ‘me’ that ‘I’ assert ‘myself’ to be in relation to ‘others’ – this I can see is an immediate obstacle in the way of intimacy.
I can see that in my life I invested into becoming a ‘someone in relation to others’, this is ‘my’ apparent individuality. So initially when allowing intimacy it seems as if I am giving up my very individuality, yet when I look at just what this ‘individuality’ consists of, it is based in separation.

Remember, whenever you are confronted with two (affective) non-reconcilable alternatives – in this case being assertive or powerless as a male identity – there is always a third alternative which you usually only discover when you are back to feeling good. This particular third alternative now allows you to discover more of imitating actuality – consideration, caring, closeness, naiveté (first experienced as vulnerability) and, of course, sensuousness.

As such it is not “my way vs their way” but the way which enables intimacy for both of you.

KUBA: I never thought to question assertiveness, in fact I even remember as a kid in school being taught how it is so very important…

Also to tie it into Richard’s quote about preference, if I am asserting myself it means that I have already made it serious, which means it is no longer a self-less inclination, it is now a self-centred urge. This is exactly how I have observed conversations turn into arguments too.

VINEETO: Yes, you will be surprised how much effect it has on your whole outlook in life when you deliberately and consistently replace any self-centred urge which occurs with what is to happen as just being a preference. This quote from Richard might give you encouragement –

Richard: An anecdote might best illustrate what I mean: many years ago my then-companion Devika would oft-times say to me that I should stand up for myself and not let peoples (such as you describe) push me around ... indeed, it was one of the reasons she created a psychic force-field in her psyche (which is, of course, the human psyche) so as to protect what she saw, experientially, back then as innocence personified.

(She was wont to exclaim, on occasion, how ‘Richard brings something marvellous – something absolutely wonderful – into the world and yet everyone deposits ordure on it’ ... albeit not expressed quite so politely as that).

What she did not realise – except during a PCE of course – is that innocence itself (the genuine article and not the so-called innocence of children) requires no affective vibe/ psychic current protection whatsoever and, therefore, in vain would I explain to her that, in everyday situations such as you report (where the whole point of the exercise is to walk out the door with the goodies which those in a position of power and control can either dispense or withhold), I had no interest whatsoever in futilely striving to win a puny ego-battle with some officious power-tripper but, instead, walk away with the said goodies each time. (Richard, List D, No. 32, 7 July 2013).

Richard: … the counsel I consistently offered to Devika – vis-à-vis her insistence on ‘standing up for oneself’ to all and sundry – came from feeling-being ‘Richard’ (i.e., from ‘his’ success) and not from this flesh-and-blood body typing these words. (Richard, List D, Syd2, 14 January 2016).

KUBA: I can’t believe I’ve never seen this, that the very action of asserting myself is rotten.

VINEETO: It was obviously the perfect time to see it, now that you are ready to put it into action.

KUBA: It makes sense now, there is a seriousness and a forcefulness to it, it has aggression at its root.

VINEETO: Indeed and a ‘man’ has to be aggressive or so you are taught. You discovered the way to channel the affective energy of aggression into affective felicitous and innocuous action.

It’s all so marvellous.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 11, 2 October 2025a).

October 2 2025

KUBA: I can see that in my life I invested into becoming a ‘someone in relation to others’, this is ‘my’ apparent individuality. So initially when allowing intimacy it seems as if I am giving up my very individuality, yet when I look at just what this ‘individuality’ consists of, it is based in separation.

CHRONO: I can very much relate to this. In fact, recently when I tried to allow the unfolding of intimacy that Richard described, there was an immediate block. The block first took the form of (yet again) resentment. But this time the resentment was that I had to be a someone in relation to my partner at all. I am angry that I have to be a man in order to relate with her as a woman. The feeling is that ‘I’ am bound to be this way. When I ask myself what if I wasn’t a man, then I feel the anger rise up a little more. It feels like then I cannot be intimate at all, because my partner is expressing herself through her conditioning as a woman. If I don’t meet her this way, then I am being callous (such is the feeling). So the way that I experience it right now isn’t that I would lose power and authority, but rather that I will be alone. Which aloneness seems to be the condition deep within. But I have on occasion also experienced the fear of this loss of power/ authority. If I were not to maintain this identity (man), then I would become inept, impotent, and be a pushover. Notwithstanding all of this, what I really want is to be genuine, open, and straightforward. Perhaps there is a dare here. That despite what those feelings are, I proceed with my intent to be naive.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

It’s fascinating how you describe the emotional process – first a block, then resentment, then anger to have to be a man, then angry about being trapped, then a sort of resignation, then fear of being alone (=loneliness). It is well observed and described but it leads nowhere until you contemplate what you “really want” – to be “genuine, open, and straightforward”. I remember feeling being ‘Vineeto’ having this meme running in the background – Illegitimi non carborandum (don’t let the buggers get you down). There is indeed a “dare here”, the dare to care, and the growing confidence that it is possible.

CHRONO:  Of course underneath the cognitive acrobatics of being a man is the power source itself (the libido). One of the characteristics that sticks out about this is the disregard of the other. A complete opposite of appreciation. It’s expression is a fuelling of fantasy and illusion. It promises an instinctual fulfillment that will never come. It can be readily discernible as the epitome of ‘Blind Nature’. This about sums it up:

Peter: Nature, or more accurately blind nature, wants only reproduction – the survival of the species – and it doesn’t give a damn for my happiness. The physical enjoyment of sex and the euphoric orgasmic climax is a by-product of the reproductive process itself. As a male animal I am programmed with a sexual instinct which drives me to impregnate as many women as possible. Crudely put (for it is indeed crude): find woman, fuck woman, move on; find woman, fuck woman, move on… (Actualism, Peter, Selected Writings, Sex)

I’ve been wondering if libido itself is perhaps possessing the ‘arousal’ that this physical body is capable of and thus giving the impression that one would not be able to have sex without its drive.

VINEETO: You classified blind nature’s libido well – “a complete opposite of appreciation”. It confirms what I wrote to Kuba yesterday –

Richard (to № 04): “(...) it is pertinent to note that libido (Latin, meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’, and referring to the instinctual sex drive, urge or impulse to procreate and perpetuate the species) is not, and never has been nor ever will be, the driver of the longing for intimacy, the yearning for an end to separation, the vital interest in loss of self ... nor even the means whereby altruism trumps selfism”. (Richard, List D, No. 4a, 23 June 2013).

You can experiment yourself experientially when you, with awareness, start backing off the instinctual urge of libido and replace it with a preference to sexual intimacy, thereby diminishing the self-centredness of the libidinous impulse with a more self-less inclination for closeness and sensuousness. Then you might get to a point where “sex takes care of itself and full attention can be paid to intimacy”. (see Richard, List D, No. 20, 9 Dec 2009).

CHRONO:  Just yesterday I had an inkling that despite what this conditioning may say or what the libido drives one towards, that my partner also desires the same intimacy that I am also desiring. She recalls being able to be at ease as a child and expressing fun in an uninhibited way that she is no longer able to do. Which ease she wants to be able to express with me. And I became aware of the gulf created between us with the conditioning of man and woman. So if she also desires this, then what really do I have to be afraid of? Despite that though, I am seeing once again the unilateral nature of this endeavour. Again there is a daring aspect. And that is exciting!

VINEETO: What a wonderful opportunity that your partner “also desires the same intimacy”. ‘Vineeto’ experienced the same desire, ‘she’ just didn’t know how to bring it about until ‘she’ discovered naiveté. And Richard reports that women in general are more interested in intimacy than men –

Richard: As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else.

Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord.

Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self. And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on). (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 November 2009)

You are correct “seeing once again the unilateral nature of this endeavour” and yet there is opportunity of exploring it together as well. Either way, a more and more self-less and less self-centric way of being sensuous is not to be missed –

Richard: To cut to the chase: as I have been gratuitously informed by more than just one female that my physical touch – even a caressive stroking of their bared back for example – is tangibly a non-possessive and actually caring touch (i.e., a literally selfless touching) please be assured that nothing of value will be lost upon the extinction of the masculinist capacity to be “affectionately touching” the female of the species. (Richard, List D, Martin, #2).

Richard described his own experience this way –

Richard: … just then, as he [Peter] remembered how to find me, his hand came through that flimsiest of films (which completely enclosed and isolated his bubble of actuality from the real-world reality) and actually stroked the left-side of my face with the most perfect touch; it was a caress of absolute perfection such as could only occur when this particular feeling ‘being’, tenderly feeling the utmost caring possible per favour being the near-innocence of naiveté personified, was thus granted privileged access to slip part of their host body through a compliantly temporaneous rent in their veil. (Announcement1, Tooltip after #magic).

He described the caress of absolute perfection further on in the same tooltip –

Richard: As this had been my experience twice before – once on the previous night, when another feeling ‘being’ had inadvertently slipped bodily through[1] a similarly compliant temporaneous rent in their bubble of actuality, and on a first occasion many years previously when my second wife (de jure) briefly had this privileged access …
[1] … being complete, as it was, with the most perfect bodily touching (a physical caressing of absolute perfection) … (Announcement1, Tooltip after #magic).

*

VINEETO to Kuba: Whereas you could nourish and foster a naïve excitement of a beneficial discovery operating – think of how young children are eager to learn about the world they find themselves in (until their enthusiasm gets more and more stifled and oppressed. This is the kind of naiveté albeit with adult sensibilities which is the next exploration, and don’t be discouraged when you feel a bit shy or foolish – it’s part of the package … (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba10, 1 October 2025).

CHRONO:  Ha this is very funny as I was talking with my partner about exactly this yesterday. Time to put my money where my mouth is.

VINEETO: I wish you exquisite enjoyment and success in your new exciting adventure.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Chrono 2, 2 October 2025).

January 6 2026

VINEETO: The way “naiveté come[s] into picture” is that with sincerity and naiveté you apply no moral or ethical or ‘actualistic’ judgements as to what feeling is occurring and therefore can apply unrestricted attentiveness – (…) (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 5 January 2005).

SYD [Log]:  

1. A few hours after having emailed her, I began despairing ‘She would not respond at all’ (rejection).
2. This lead me to consider the likely possibility of going about it on my own.
3. Which had me wonder about the actual meaning of Vineeto’s word “closeness” in that post linked above
4. Then, I checked out my honest motivations behind wanting to getting back with her

5. Finally, I wondered what this actual ‘closeness’ would be like with her (if I were to get back), concomitant to wondering how it will be for Vineeto if she were to interact with a man. It hit me right there: there would be no affections at all (I felt a tiny sense of sadness at loss, here). How can that be! Seems like a freaking huge sacrifice! It would instead be a … umm … sensate closeness. In other words, an immediacy with her. Physical and sensate immediacy. No affectionate experiencing.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

To answer your question regarding “the actual meaning of Vineeto’s word “closeness”” – it is the same meaning as in Richard’s description of Grace’s scale, which has been recently mentioned by you and others several times –

Richard: A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy. (Richard, Abditorium, Intimacy, #Intimacy)

By putting your own interpretation on it (perhaps because you regard yourself not like “normal” people) makes communication rather difficult and is, of course, misleading yourself. Here is where I perceived that you may regard yourself not like “normal” people –

Syd: I recognize this to be a common ‘cycle’ I tend to go through – swinging between two extremes (hope & despair) much more than a normal person would. (inserted comment to point 1. in Syd’s PCE log 7)

Syd: Once I stayed with despair, I was able to pinpoint the exact beliefs involved. I located two of them: a) woman is attracted to man => woman ‘values’ man => man feels ‘valued’. This intuited ‘value’ was the source of my ‘self-worth’ (incidentally, this is a common experience for normal men too). [Emphases added]. (Syd’s PCE Log 5, inserted comment)

I only mention this because if you to consider yourself better or worse than “normal people” (btw, from what I observed, most people class themselves on a hierarchy scale) – the fact remains that you are endowed with the same instinctual passions as everyone else. To feel yourself other than “normal people” only creates/ maintains yet another layer of a superior/ inferior identity.

Just out of curiosity, do you know how a “normal” person would be “swinging between two extremes” so as to be able to say you are doing it “much more”?

You said in another inserted comment –

Syd: While I can’t speak for others, I consider words like ‘intimacy’ to be counterproductive to me as I tend to immediately (no pun intended) associate affectionate factors with it. (third insert in Syd’s PCE Log 7)

Just to clarify, the word intimacy means affective/ affectionate intimacy unless otherwise specified. Below Richard goes into great detail what the word ‘intimacy’ means – no different to the normal dictionary meaning –

Richard: Therefore, what you are effectively asking – via your “is ‘real intimacy’ the same as ‘the affective intimacy of love’ mentioned below?” wording – is whether or not intimacy, for feeling-beings, is the same as the intimacy of love.

Yet, because intimacy can be referred in several ways (i.e., via its denotation, its connotations, and its consuetude) by feeling-beings – as indicated by those quick dictionary definitions you provided – then your query makes about as much sense as its obverse would (i.e., whether or not the intimacy of love is the same as intimacy).

As the word ‘intimacy’ refers to the state or condition of being intimate – a word which comes from Latin intimātus, ‘to make familiar with’, past participle of intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost’, ‘deepest’; from intus, ‘within’ – perhaps some more extensive dictionary entries than those quick ones will throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to know about intimacy per se and the intimacy of love. Viz:

(extensive dictionary definitions and more details in (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 February 2016).

Hence there is no need to create your own vocabulary. It only interferes with clarity in communication. When Richard is referring to non-affective intimacy, he specifies it as actual intimacy.

There is more information both on affective intimacy as well as actual intimacy in Richard’s Selected Correspondence (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Intimacy).

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 6 January 2026).

January 7 2026

CLAUDIU to Syd: The top-level dichotomy isn’t between ‘affectional’ and ‘actual’ – the “near-innocent intimacy of naïveté” doesn’t fit in either one (it’s not an affectional, as in loving, intimacy, and it’s not actual either)

Also I think that thinking of actual intimacy as a “sensate immediacy” (‘just’ or not) is rather underselling it. It’s not just that you sense the other person, as in visually, ocularly, tactilely etc. There is also the immanence of being with another flesh and blood body, another human being. It is way, way more than just a sensate thing. There’s a delicious aspect to it that comes from being with someone else in and of itself, that is more than the sum of the parts of the senses. Maybe it relates to how one experiences pure intent not sensately, but, with one can say an “existential” sense – perhaps it is that same sense that senses the other’s presence? (Vineeto what you think?)

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

That is a brilliant way of rephrasing it, I could not have done it better myself. The word ‘affective’ includes a lot more than ‘affectional’.

Regarding the word ‘existential’ – I did a search for how the word was used and came across what you wrote referring to pure intent –

Claudiu to Jonathan: One does not experience it via thoughts, feelings, the psyche, *or the senses*, but rather, an existential awareness. (Richard, Claudiu3, 19 February 2014).

As such your use of the word is spot on – there is not really another word for experiencing pure intent. As a cautionary note – for a feeling being there is generally too much going on affectively (psychically) and sensately that, even though possible, the existential sensing almost never gets noticed except for pure intent – it can happen of course, if not confused with psychic sensing. Perhaps the term ‘immanence’ for perceiving the existence in intimacy is perfectly applicable. A watered-down general use of the word ‘existential’ would not benefit clarity in communication. For instance, when you visited Geoffrey and could sense his pure intent personified, that was certainly existential sensing.

As for sensing “the other’s presence” – I usually don’t sense anyone else’s presence outside of a sensate perception, except when there is an extraordinary event happening, for instance when I picked up a sweetness in the near-by town when Richard and Peter were interacting intensively. That would certainly be called an existential sensing event. Similarly, when at your first visit in Ballina I could sense you coming to the edge of the actual world.

Richard: ‘(...) This morning whilst interacting with Peter it [‘the quickening’] was happening for about an hour and a half, between 10:45 AM and 12:15 PM, to quite a marked degree ... to such a marked degree, in fact, that at its peak Vineeto happened to experience it, at 11:28 AM, as she was getting into her parked car in a town about 35 kilometres away. She described it as a ‘sweetness’ (and thus took note of the time)’. (Monday the 17 October, 2011 8:31 PM).
(Richard, List D, Rick, 11 February 2012).

(...)

CLAUDIU: Also I really like that post I wrote! I would second (or third, as it were) what I said there (Sweetness in the arms of the other - #10 by claudiu)

VINEETO: It was an outstanding post, I especially liked your description of “jealousy-possession-love bundle”. It certainly comes as a package and everyone smitten with love experiences the rest of the bundle sooner or later. It is impossible to cultivate love without the other unless one wants to become enlightened. The vice-versa is true as well, when you give up jealousy or possession, love disappears – and with attentiveness and awareness can give room to intimacy. This ‘bundle’ is also at the heart of most power battles between the genders.

When Henry said “dissolving into closeness with the other is freedom.” I was reminded of Byron Katie (a woman claiming to be enlightened) saying in an interview –

Sunny Massad: And how was your relationship with your husband’s body?

Byron Katie: Uhhhh. [Sighs.] First time we made love it was just amaaazing. It was radical! Cuz it was God with God. And it was the receiving of it and the giving ah, it was just amazing! (https://realization.org/p/byron-katie/massad.byron-katie-interview/massad.byron-katie-interview.html).

That’s the best one can get within the human condition.

Also your explaining the actual experience of sweetness and the sticky sweetness of affection is excellent. “Naive intimacy and affectionate intimacy are impossible to combine.”

CLAUDIU: Lastly I would say the near-innocent intimacy of naiveté applies not just to people, but to places and things too – there is an immediacy to the surroundings. Richard has oft talked about intimacy with an ashtray, for example, which often amuses people. So this is not something restricted only to being around other people – however, the more you go up the animate scale, the more of that other delicious quality comes into play – e.g. more with a dog than with an ashtray, and more with a human than with a dog.

VINEETO: From your description it seems you know more about it experientially than you let on ��.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu 7, 7 January 2026).

January 13 2026

SYD: Well, that was just a misunderstanding (I truly seem to be oblivious to the social signals in this context), and we will indeed be getting together in about 3 days time (I’ll be occupied during the next two days, and she wants to see me before going on vacation for the weekend).

Have said all that (and I’m being as sincerely aware of this affectionality as I can), I’m also ‘brushing up’ on my understanding of what near-actual intimacy means when put into practice. I wish to put into words what I understand so far, mainly so others can point to any errors or anything I’ve overlooked, which would indeed be beneficial for me such that I don’t go astray on Thursday night. There seems to be two components to near-actual intimacy:

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

While you say yourself that you don’t know what “this ”near-innocent intimacy of naïveté“ with a person of opposite sex yet, I nevertheless I experienced something of how actual intimacy is described”, you are nevertheless theoretical planning your upcoming meeting with ‘her’ in terms of “near-actual intimacy” even though you haven’t yet mentioned having experiences with the preceding scales of intimacy with a person of the other gender, with varying degrees of affections “sexual desire, fear, etc.” or love –

Richard: She has a scale of quality in regards sexual experience: good, very good, great, excellent and magical. (…)

To explain: togetherness is the companionship of doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, having sex, whatever – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another.

A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy.

A sweetness is when closeness entrées a lovely delight at the proximity of the other (although it can veer off into affection, ardency, love, oneness).

A richness (aka an excellence experience) is where sweetness segues into a near-absence of agency via letting-go of control and one is the sex and sexuality (the beer and not the doer).

Magical sex is where sex and sexuality are happening of their own accord – neither beer nor doer extant – and pristine purity abounds (an immaculate perfection). (Richard, List D, No. 6, 10 November 2009).

It is the third stage where Grace reported the “bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy”. So your anticipation of what you are describing below is merely based on what you have read on the Actual Freedom website, particular from Richard and Vineeto describing their own experience in the actual world and how it may (or may not) eventuate when you meet up with ‘her’.

SYD: There seems to be two components to near-actual intimacy:

Even sexual desire (as distinct from the sensuality of sexual arousal) would have naturally given way to the current-time awareness with increased sensuosity / closeness.

VINEETO: At this stage this is mere wishful thinking because in your “honest description of my emotional state” you said “it brought back the old set of feelings albeit not at the same intensity. Stemming from the ‘being-to-being passions’ I wrote of above, there was also sexual desire, possessiveness, fear, etc. as part of it. I explored it all by staying with the feelings wherever those day-dreams took me.”

How do you envision these “‘being-to-being passions’” suddenly transforming into “not-affectional” “near-actual intimacy”?

SYD: 2. In lieu of such affectionality, and in conjunction with the supplanted sensuosity, the experience/ awareness is (will be) such that there is an immanence-in-consciousness of the other.

“Immanence” refers to “the physical presence of a fellow human creature/ of fellow human creatures, proximately pervading each other’s field of consciousness/ each other’s sentiency field such as to be, in effect, part-and-parcel of a consciousness-in-common (a.k.a. ‘common consciousness’)”.

This mutual physicality of immanence-in-consciousness overrides/ supplants the usual affectionality/ union between separative ‘selves’ (which the being-to-being passion seeks to enable), such that in consciousness there is mainly an ongoing sensuous perception and increasing awareness of ‘common consciousness’ (and thus more of a self-less/ less self-centric experience).

Thus, naturally, in consciousness, there is less consideration of me as, say, a ‘man’, a ‘neurodivergent’ or any of the other social identities. I came across actually-free Vineeto’s “Source Experience” and strangely I’m able to connect the dots to what she’s saying there, in regards to this ‘common consciousness’ being “genderless, formless, ageless and vast” (thus, less consideration of me as those social identities, and more experiential awareness of me as this genderless, formless, ageless ‘consciousness’ in action) with one’s “sense of fixed physicality falling apart (including the experience of two bodies, Richard and [herself])”.

Reading all of this twigged something in me, and I ‘stepped back’ and acknowledged how this ‘common consciousness’ can happen on its own with me letting go of the usual ‘control’ (over events, situations, people).

So, that’s where I’m. This letting myself go into ‘common consciousness’, while seems to be a delightful way of being to the nth degree, is also a bit … disconcerting at times, mainly because of unfamiliarity, and also because of the temptations of affectionality.

VINEETO: In high-flying word-formations such as “mutual physicality of immanence-in-consciousness” and the arrogation and appropriation of descriptions such as “‘common consciousness’ being ‘genderless, formless, ageless and vast’” and “fixed physicality falling apart” – as if this will miraculous happen to you because you read about fully actually free people reporting it – you may have forgotten that you are still a passionate feeling being, experiencing “‘being-to-being passions’”, which when ignored for what they are, easily give rise to such unrealistic anticipation cloaked in ‘actualistic’ phrases.

Richard: Thus I do know it is possible to slip into a hypomanic state whilst illuding oneself that it fits the criterion for ‘out-from-control’ as per actualism lingo – and I especially know this via gradually talking a person so afflicted back out of it over time – and one of the hallmarks is the initial difficulty in ‘reaching’ such a person (they are ‘out of reach’ of normal discourse) due to the certitude such a state imbues. (Richard, Abditorium, Hypomania).

Perhaps this excerpt is also informative as a cautionary note so as to assist in providing yourself with an “honest description of my emotional state” –

Richard:

• [Respondent № 27]: “I have similar questions about the distinction between ‘feeling intimacy’ and ‘actual intimacy’. Could you define exactly what you mean by those terms – as well as just exactly what you would say is going on when there is a ‘feeling intimacy’?”

• [Richard]: “So as to circumvent coining new words I chose to make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not: thus when I talk of the actual world, as contrasted to the real world, whilst both words refer to the physical world I am making an experiential distinction (a distinction in experience).

I usually put it this way: what one is (what not who) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) inside the body means no separation whatsoever – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose.

*This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual – from the world as-it-is – because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world, and experiences an affective intimacy (oneness, union, unity, wholeness) wherein the separation is bridged by love and compassion ... instead of an actual intimacy (direct, instant, immediate, absolute) where there is no separation whatsoever*.

In other words, no separative identity in the first place means no division exists to be transcended”.

• [Respondent № 27]: “Is there no intimacy in feeling intimacy?”

• [Richard]: “Yes, there is the feeling of being intimate”.

• [Respondent № 27]: “If that’s the case, why do you call it feeling ‘intimacy’?”

• [Richard]: “Because that is what it is ... the feeling of being intimate”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 18 November 2002).

(…)

Perhaps if I were to put it this way: a feeling-being, residing as they do in their ‘self’-created ‘inner world’, feels separated from other feeling-beings as a matter of course (who, whilst similarly residing in their own ‘self’-created ‘inner worlds’, nevertheless manifest as residing in that feeling-being’s ‘self’-created ‘outer world’) and seeks to bridge that ‘self’-generated separation in the only way a feeling-being can – affectively and psychically – such as to experience a feeling of being intimate (i.e., a feeling intimacy a.k.a. an affective intimacy), when successful, and even unto an affective-psychic union, a ‘oneness’ experience, when that feeling of being intimate, through having become a loving intimacy, then transforms itself, via what is known as “falling in love”, into a state of being called “being in love” (i.e., being love itself as “a state of ‘being’”). (Richard, List D, No. 46, #intimacy2)

In other words, as long as strong passions, waxing and waning in intensity, as described by you, are operating, a near-actual intimacy is not yet possible. Your description of “great sense of control” indicates rather the beginning stage of falling in love. A near-actual intimacy can only be experienced in an ongoing excellence experience, also known as the state of being out-from-under-control.

For a collection of experiential descriptions of the feelings and results of being in love see (Richard, List D, James, 8 August 2015).

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 13 January 2026).