‘Vineeto’ (to Richard): Last night serendipity provided the answer to my question to you, which had been going on in my head since I wrote to you. The experiential answer to ‘I am many and many is me’ presented itself in the form a TV program on International Humanitarian Aid Organizations and their role and accountability. For one and a half hours there was ample footage presented on human suffering and devastation in war, famine, genocide and racial ‘cleansing’ on one side and the helpless, well-intentioned, yet almost useless effort of people in the aid organizations on the other side.

The presentation was enough to make it utterly and unquestionably clear to me that there is no difference between me and the hundreds of thousands who have suffered and died and those who have, without success or effective change, tried to help – for ‘umpteen hundreds of thousands of years’. On an overwhelming instinctual level ‘I’ am ‘them’ and ‘I’ have had no solution and never will have a solution.

The devastation is enormous and the only way ‘out’ is ‘self’-sacrifice. [Emphasis added] (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Richard, 28.9.1999).

It is nevertheless excellent that you can allow yourself to be “more naïve” which “sometimes has come with sadness”. Remember to also be appreciative of both your courage and sensitivity to humanity’s plight.

SCOUT: I don’t really know how to move back to feeling good other than feeling these things when they hit me. If I try to redirect my attention I feel the ignored feelings buzzing in the background, where they can remain as agitation for days to weeks if I insist on not facing them. So I give the feelings my attention and they swallow me for a little and I sob harder than I’ve sobbed in memory. And then after that they start to recede.

I don’t know if this goes against the method, it’s just kind of naturally started happening as I’ve started paying more direct attention to what’s going on in my mind and body. I know crying doesn’t change anything but it really demands to be felt, I can’t get around it. It has been making me kinder and more patient with people. But I also notice the desire to help people emerging, out of compassion. I’ve been noticing this without entertaining the fantasies too much because it seems silly to have someone who is not fully free of pain wanting to guide others out of pain. Towards what? I don’t know where I’m going, But I feel more raw than I’ve felt since childhood.

VINEETO: I remember from ‘Vineeto’s’ experiences that it can take a while to feel out those intensive feelings. It also gives you a bit more information how ‘you’ tick (and by extent how every feeling being ticks at the core of their being). Henry is correct that when indulging in too much sorrow, you can be swallowed up and seduced by the bitter-sweetness of sorrow – but with fascinated attention you are bound to discover the right balance.

Feeling “more raw than I’ve felt since childhood” is a good indicator that you have allowed naiveté to peek through your numbness, and years of hiding from behind those walls certainly needs getting used to. Be aware, i.e. be attentive, when this sorrow flips into compassion (=is suffering with others) because that might initially feel better but will only extend the sorrow. You can be helping others by feeling good yourself and instead be practically patient, considerate and friendly.

R: One can give unconditional love to another for twenty four hours a day – I have done this myself, years ago – and the other is still not satisfied. Initially thrilled, yes, but eventually it is not enough. Total acceptance, total appreciation, total love ... that is what I provided for another, once upon a time ... and it was not what she needed. She only felt that that would satisfy, that that was what would settle the gnawing ache, the gaping wound, the longing void. It was not.

Q(2): Oh yes, I know that from myself. It turns it back onto me, doesn’t it?

R: Not only does another person not have to provide you with fulfilment, the fact is they can not. Once one realises this, one is free from the other. And not only are you free from them, but you free them from your demands, your expectations that you put upon them – like your parents do.

It is a two-way thing. If, as you say, you go around the world to visit your parents to ‘pacify them’ – to fulfil their expectations – you, too, are looking for fulfilment. Which is why I asked you: ‘What is your investment?’ (Audio-taped Dialogues, Compassion Gained through Forgiveness Binds)

You observed it well – you would not know where to lead others, other than providing a living example how to live without resentment of being here, by enjoying and appreciating being alive, and thus prove wrong the ancient belief that ‘life is a vale of tears’.

What also helps is to emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable –

RICHARD: Given that people are as-they-are and that the world is as-it-is there are more than a few things which are ‘unacceptable’ (child abuse, rape, murder, torture and so on). What worked for me twenty-odd years ago, as a preliminary step, was to rephrase the question so that it makes sense (rather than vainly apply any of those unliveable ‘unconditional acceptance’ type injunctions):

• Can I emotionally accept that which is intellectually unacceptable?

This way intelligence need not be compromised ... intelligence will no longer be crippled. (Richard, List B, James2, 18 August 2001).

SCOUT: Maybe this is part of the compulsion of self-immolation, because it feels like I as an emotional entity have to choose between being numb or feeling intense and destabilizing emotional pain in response to the misery of humanity. Humanity loves its weeping martyrs but honestly from an experiential perspective, being the martyr seems like kind of a raw deal. Sure it’s pretty blissful to feel loving and compassionate and connected but it seems inextricable: if feeling connected with other people supplies the druggy good feelings, then feeling disconnected from them or rejected by them produces bad feelings. If their happiness brings good feelings, then their misery brings bad ones.

I don’t like living this way.

VINEETO: Well said. You are discovering more and more about the human condition and why the old ways don’t work and never have. And now you have an alternative which works. Being naïve you can experiment with being both sensitive and sensible and appreciate the successes you have to enjoy life more than before.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Jesus Carlos, 21 February 2025).

June 23 2025

KUBA: However I do agree with what you wrote here:

Vineeto: Even though one can become actually free without having dismantled the whole of one’s social identity – if aspects of it bother you now then now is the time to examine those and may remove a lot of your present ‘jitters’. It will also remove various obstacles/ concerns which you may come across exploring the full range of naiveté and being as close to innocence as a ‘self’ can be. [Emphasis by Kuba].

Those last 2 points are relevant and related, in that there is clearly something blocking naiveté from flourishing fully. And I very much find this prospect attractive, to find a way for naiveté to flourish fully – both because of the immediate reward and because it is the best thing ‘I’ can presently do to get closer to reaching ‘my’ destiny.

What I can locate in myself which is possibly blocking naiveté from flourishing is this deep feeling that I am disliked by others. This feeling goes against all my day to day experience so clearly there is something there. As an example with my hen party work, I have done at least a thousand of these events now and in 99% of the cases they are all having a great time and clearly they very much enjoy having me there. And yet almost every time as I am on my way to meet a new group there is this deep feeling/ expectation/ belief that they will dislike me. Now this feeling will usually disappear within a couple of minutes of me meeting the group as I find out yet again that they are enjoying my company. And yet the next time around the expectation is still there, against this overwhelming amount of data pointing in the other direction. So clearly there is this aspect of – fervently wishing something to be true.

VINEETO: So the original issue of “keep it together” revealed a general anxiety – “this deep feeling that I am disliked by others”.

KUBA: It seems this may be related to the fact that I was never able to quite relate like others did. That there were all these rules and double meanings and hidden messages that perhaps I could not pick up and inadvertently I would sooner or latter accidentally transgress some expectation or boundary. I always found people to be very volatile in this manner, that niceness would very quickly turn to malice when I did not “play ball”.

Now again this really seems like a “phantom problem” because I can’t remember the last time someone was less than nice towards me.

VINEETO: The way you describe this it looks like a habitual expectation, held in place for many years.

Before I reply in detail, let me ask you if you wrote this post while feeling good, feeling excellent, or did you write it while in the grip of being anxious? I ask because contemplation about any emotional issue works best when feeling good and further below you list all the reasons justifying having this feeling, which in the actual situation “will usually disappear within a couple of minutes”.

KUBA: But perhaps the belief is that the only reason I am able to maintain niceness with others is because I am “playing ball” with them and so if the controller was to disappear and then ‘I’ was ‘being’ naiveté as an ongoing modus operandi then ‘my’ very presence would be an irritant to others.

VINEETO: The way you described how you experience life appears way past “playing ball” and being nice. To believe that you would be an “irritant to others” you would have to ignore/ overlooked what I said only two days ago –

Vineeto: Now these very same psychic currents can have a powerful beneficial effect when they are felicitous and innocuous i.e. happy and harmless feelings –

05 January 2010:
• [Co-Respondent]: ... the way is open for the consciousness mutation to be implemented on a global level.

• [Richard]: Indeed so ... via happy and harmless (affective) ‘vibes’ and felicitous and innocuous (psychic) ‘currents’. (I have oft-times said that is where the real power-play occurs). (Long Awaited Announcement).

(Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba7, 21 June 2025).

These felicitous and innocuous vibes/ currents are also highly contagious.

KUBA: There was something that was written in one of the links you included: That the society we exist in is a fun and sex depreciating society, it’s a bit like that. It’s not just a case of the fear of being different but I am worried about people attacking me when I no longer give credence to all this seriousness. That by living naively and in gay abandon I will sooner or later accidentally transgress some boundary. Will I laugh when I was supposed to be serious? Will I forget to reciprocate some unspoken rule? Will I not realise that they other expects me to respond in this particular way etc.

And I am scared of this, because I have seen just how quickly the so-called goodness flips into malice, that I am a friend as long as I “play ball” and then very quickly I become foe.

VINEETO: This is not to make light of your reasons for feeling scared – and it could well be an atavistic [archaic, primal, primitive] fear passed on for generations that it is dangerous to leave the herd – but it is nevertheless a feeling and no longer a fact in the society you live in, that as long as you use your adult sensibilities being naïve will not get you killed.

At the start of actualism feeling being ‘Vineeto’ had similar atavistic fears that if ‘she’ stepped out of line ‘she’ could be burned at the stake, as had happened in the middle ages – and this fear was no picnic at first –

‘Vineeto’: The psychic world of divine and evil, with its atavistic feelings and psychic power structures, is not to be dismissed lightly. It is not a small thing we are doing, stepping out of ancient psychic history and leaving behind at least 3,500 years of recorded superstition and belief, hope for heaven and fear of hell. I encountered fears of being burnt as a witch, expelled from the tribe or starved to death – which in not so recent history were not just psychic imagined fears. These fears all seem to be woven as an ancient memory in our brain cells and are automatically triggered the moment one dares to steps out of the tribal, religious or social group one has belonged to.

Two things always helped me to overcome those fear-attacks – one was the obvious fact that feelings are not actual. Nobody is actually persecuting me or physically threatening me. The other thing is the understanding that I am deliberately and actively dismantling my very ‘self’, all of ‘who I think and feel I am’ and of course that will rock the boat, it wouldn’t be an actual change if it didn’t! Then, the journey becomes really thrilling ... (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 3.8.2000).

Objectively “this really seems like a ‘phantom problem’”, except that you believe it to be possibly true, based on very old memories and habituation.

KUBA: Actually, the correspondence Richard had on the AFT when he first went public is a perfect demonstration of this, and the same for ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’. What incredible push back against well-meaning fellow human beings demonstrating a different way of doing things.

Addendum: I guess Richard never experienced a single ‘bite’ though and was obviously physically safe throughout all this discussion. So I wonder is it the same with ‘being’ naiveté, that of course there is a world of identities that would demand one to be serious and yet it doesn’t have to count for anything at all.

VINEETO: Indeed, Richard met plenty of doubt and opposition when he first wrote on the spiritual mailing lists (List A, a supposedly atheistic list) and List B (followers of J. Krishnamurti) but the most extensive and outright vicious witch-hunt started after the Direct Route was successfully opened, and the people in the real world felt a threatening wind that actualism would disrupt in their accustomed (malicious/ sorrowful and highly valued) way of life. This was never spelt out, or even recognized, but their actions of pulling out all the stops of civilized decency revealed their actions as an attempt to stop peace on earth in its tracks.

It went for over two years and Richard not only “never experienced a single ‘bite’” but also had a lot of fun and skill exposing the three main instigators (No. 6, No. 4 and No. 2 including their multiple sock-puppets) plus the two list-trolls with their multiple sock-puppets (No. 5 and No. 37) as the poltroons, liars and persecutors they were by demonstrating their own internal contradictions – hanging them by their own rope, so to speak. You can read the correspondence No. 29 on List D (from 11 January 2013 onwards), including the tool tips, to give you a good summary of the end of the affair. At some point Claudiu was almost the only sensible active participant.

I know from experience that “‘being’ naiveté” takes courage to start with, once you leave the safety of your familiar surrounding – it also takes daring and caring – then you focus on the thrilling aspect and soon the jitters will wither away. Then you start getting into the grove of being naïve, experience the joy and remember to appreciative the adventure, and allow the universe to live you more and more, and the confidence of the palpable benignity and benevolence of pure intent is your guide, and carries you all the way.

Richard: And once embarked upon the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom, you are not on your own: this perfection is with you all the way ... but if you waver, you are indeed doing it on your own ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 13 December 1999).

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba7, 23 June 2025).

August 14, 2025

CHRONO: I have been able to much more easily and consistently feel good since my last post. There is this intertwining of closeness and sweetness. It’s always readily here and sometimes it’s like ‘I’ am close to this quality and “bathing” in its rays with varying degrees from feeling good to excellent. I have an increased confidence that I did not have before. Although I experience it as a choice that I have to consistently make. But what is more clear is that it is ‘I’ that is away from this. Everything that ‘I’ do takes me away from this. It’s so very clear that ‘I’ can never be here. ‘My’ very nature is that of being away from this moment.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

What an excellent report that you are able to see it so clearly – and from there to know exactly what to do.

CHRONO: Now when I look at a feeling I try to see if I really want to feel that feeling. I ask myself if it feels good and the feeling may morph and shift into a different feeling to avoid facing it. ‘I’ am being seen each moment. The more I’ve done this, I see that every feeling other than feeling good sucks. And even further to that, I only genuinely like myself when I am feeling good.

VINEETO: Ha, when you see – and know with certainty – “that every feeling other than feeling good sucks” then you know you have dedicated your life to being happy and harmless. And further to that you may well have opened the door to being naïve because this is what happens when you genuinely like yourself – and like your fellow human beings as a natural corollary –

Richard: To be naïveté itself (i.e., naïveté embodied as a childlike persona with adult sensibilities), which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ (innocence is where ‘self’ is not), one is both likeable and liking for herewith lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness whereupon moment-to-moment experiencing is of traipsing through the world about in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement as if a child again (guileless, artless, ingenuous, innocuous) – yet with adult sensibilities whereby the distinction betwixt being naïve and being gullible is readily separable – simply marvelling at the sheer magnificence of this oh-so-material universe’s absoluteness and unabashedly delighting in its boundless beneficence, its limitless largesse, as being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian (due to the near-absence of agency which ensues when the controlling doer is abeyant and the naïve beer is ascendant), with a blitheness and a gaiety such that the likelihood of the magical fairy-tale-like nature of this paradisaical terraqueous globe, this bounteously verdant and azure planet, becoming ever-so-sweetly apparent, as an experiential actuality, is almost always imminent. (Richard, Abditorium, Innocence, #Naïveté).

CHRONO: Relatedly, I was wondering today what it means to actually care for someone. After reading thru some articles on the AFT website it’s clear that I have never actually cared ever before.

VINEETO: I can relate very well to that realisation of yours as ‘Vineeto’ had a similar experience –

Richard: Hence it came to pass one fine evening that feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ realised, with a profound visceral impact, how ‘she’ had never actually cared – although ‘she’ certainly felt caring (in fact ‘she’ had a deeply - ingrained and ongoing feeling of caring about all the misery and mayhem) – and upon that realisation transforming itself into an actualisation (as per the intimacy-yearning process detailed in the ‘Direct Route Mail-Out № 05 email part-quoted at the top of this page) it activated “a caring which is as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” and there was indeed action which was not of ‘her’ doing ... to wit: the ending of ‘her’ and all ‘her’ subterfuge and trickery (just to stay in keeping with the above wording purely for effect). (Richard, List D, Srinath2, 6 August 2016).

CHRONO: To put someone before oneself or to experience compassion for them is what it has meant in the ‘real world’ to care for another. But to actually care for someone else, it’s to actually free them from the burden of ‘me’. Thus to free this body of ‘me’ is the best that I can do for them.

VINEETO: It is very helpful to rule out putting “someone before oneself or to experience compassion” so as not to fall into the trap of compassion or trying to be ‘selfless’, whereas a deep near-actual-caring, which is not self-centric, is what will facilitate the powerful instinct of altruism to overcome the powerful instinct of self-survival. Richard reports about ‘his’ experience during ‘his’ virtual freedom –

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

CHRONO: I can see now that to truly care even for myself that I have to first genuinely like myself (and others). Let’s see how far this aim will go!

VINEETO: Yes, when you genuinely like yourself and therefore care for yourself (this body), and by extension for that body and every body with all your ‘being’, “this aim” can carry you all the way.

Cheers Vineeto

PS: Unless you already found it, the selected correspondence on Near-actual Caring is quite comprehensive. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Chrono 2, 14 August 2025).

October 31 2025

CHRONO: Hi Vineeto,

As always, I greatly appreciate your responses and participation.

VINEETO: Thank you for your extensive reflections. The way you phrased the last sentence it looks as if naiveté, though being the least attractive option for ‘me’, is nevertheless the only way to achieve a more continuous feeling good?

CHRONO: I phrased it that way because I unknowingly had the emotional investment in the other options such as love as a way to achieve fulfillment or continuous feeling good. It’s only through seeing its limitations through seeing the light and dark sides of it that only one path remains open so to speak. Also because I have not gone deep enough into naiveté for it to become ‘my’ path. I can see how this path even to being naiveté is different to what everyone in the world does.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

You are very welcome.

I’m pleased to hear you recognized the dark side of love and no longer consider it an option “to achieve fulfillment”.

Of course “this path even to being naiveté is different to what everyone in the world does” – the actual world is outside of ‘me’ and everyone in the world is busy being ‘me’.

Before you contemplate ‘being naiveté’ or going “deep”, or “planning of naiveté being ‘your’ path”, it is not. It is the path of self-less inclination, hence ‘you’ won’t have much of a role to play apart from objecting. ��

Why not start being naïve, in little steps. First it feels a bit uncomfortable, foolish or insecure (like a teenager first talking to a girl for instance). Then you dare extending this modus operandi a bit longer, expand into other areas of life – and you find it feels good, light, different, felicitous. You do it at your own pace, of course, don’t even think of pushing yourself, perhaps remember how you were as a kid (but now with adult sensibilities) and … enjoy it. You might find other people respond, like it, even become more friendly (naiveté is infectious).

Allowing yourself to be naive is indeed different to what serious sophisticated people in the world do – but who cares. Being naïve, you like yourself and simultaneously like others. It feels good, it is harmless and it’s infectious. Appreciate your small steps, then bigger steps, in this new way of living. It gives you confidence. It is intimate and invites naïve intimacy with fellow human beings. Being naïve includes not knowing what you are going to do next, or say next, being spontaneously happy and harmless. The less you pay attention to any self-image or pride, the easier it becomes. Putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t matter’ basis allows you to be less ‘self’-oriented and more open to the adventure of what being here actually is.

It’s fun.

CHRONO: So I am now trying to rememorate all of the times and experiences of being naiveté in my life.

I particularly enjoyed reading “A Rather Quaint Clay-Pit Tale” and the description and experience of being naiveté.

VINEETO: Don’t “try”, don’t ‘work’ on it – just allow the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté to bubble up.

Richard: And as ‘he’ stood there, delightedly extolling the virtues of being naiveté itself, ‘he’ enthusiastically encouraged ‘his’ rapt audience to reach down inside of themselves intuitively (a.k.a. feeling it out) going past the rather superficial emotions and/or feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions and/or feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until they came to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where they intuitively feel they elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’, at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself), and, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above and/or just before and almost touching on the sex centre) where they would find themselves both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity and/or naiveté) and here is where they can, finally, like themself (very important) no matter what, for here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’, and, moreover, here lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness because here is where it is possible to be the key which unlocks the potency of naiveté. (Richard, A Rather Quaint Clay-Pit Tale)

CHRONO: I am wondering what are your thoughts on this:

VINEETO: It’s a wonderful and inspiring story; perhaps if you not use it as a serious sophisticated script but start by being sincere and naïve you’ll have more fun than trying to be naiveté right away.

CHRONO: What was your experience of this as an identity? Is it something that you can just do anytime or only at a certain point?

VINEETO: It only requires lots of enjoyment and appreciation, so much so that letting go of the controls is inevitable.

It was a great time – naiveté fully bloomed when I was out-from-control (being naiveté and being out-from-control is in fact one and the same thing). There was no fear after I decided to pull out all the stops.

There are several descriptions of this time of my life on the website, here is one –

Vineeto: It happened around end of November/ beginning of December 2009. Richard showed me and Peter a short video where a young woman was filming herself having pleasuring herself with unabashed delight. It was obvious that she was entirely unselfconscious, not acting, not pretending, but simply having a great time. Hers was a genuinely naïve enjoyment and celebration of her sexuality, an unbridled and uninhibited sensuality and sensuosity. ‘Vineeto’ was impressed, and at the end of the video ‘she’ said “if she can do it I can do it”.

You’ll have to remember that two weeks before Richard had impressed up ‘her’ to come out-from-control. (Richard, List D, No. 25, 6 February 2012). So ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ went to the bedroom, and with such naïve demonstration it was indeed easy to imitate and replicate the naïve unbridled enjoyment of sexuality and sensuality. That’s how ‘Vineeto’ lost ‘her’ own inhibitions.
When Respondent No. 4(D) met us [Peter, Pamela, Tom, Richard and myself] on 5^th December 2009, ‘Vineeto’ finally noticed the change in ‘herself’ and happily whispered to Richard “psst, I am out-from-control” –

‘Vineeto’: The other observation from this period of being out-from-control worth sharing, I was able to make when ‘No. 4(D)’ came for a visit. I remember clearly one day sitting in a circle of 5 friends, utterly relaxed despite the fact that I had never met one of them in person, and I noticed that I had no personal agenda whatsoever, no plan to stir the conversation into a particular direction, nothing to emphasize or hide, no self-centredness or favouritism, no shame, shyness, embarrassment, no power or drive – I was just being myself as I was. I sat in this group, as one of many, and my sole interest was that everyone present (including me as one of those present) enjoyed themselves/ obtained the maximum benefit from our meeting. I experienced myself as being unreservedly at ease and utterly benign and wasn’t driven to say anything unless it contributed to the overall quality of the conversation. (Direct Route, James, 16 January 2010).

Funnily enough, I completely forgot the event which had set it all in motion and allowed me to traverse the ‘wall of fear’ without noticing what ‘I’ had done, so to speak. Obviously, my social-conditioned mind still had come to terms with the newly discovered reality. It was months later when Richard reminded me of the ‘fear-shattering’ event. It’s quite a laugh! (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Ian, 9 June 2025)

*

VINEETO: Yes, there is a tangible dare “to have a genuine intent to be happy and harmless”. Hence unless you genuinely enjoy being happy and harmless for its own sake you won’t care to dare leaving the ties behind that so (comfortably and uncomfortably) bind you. When pure intent is active, there are no worries of being “callous” or “uncaring”.

CHRONO: I am getting a flavour of naiveté now as I’m typing and reflecting. Similar to my previous experience in the journal of allowing myself to meet people where they are (13 Oct 25). And this particular part in the above clay-pit tale quote very much sticks out and serves as a direction for me:

Richard: …both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity and/or naiveté) and here is where they can, finally, like themself (very important) no matter what… (Richard, A Rather Quaint Clay-Pit Tale)

VINEETO: Indeed, when you are genuine, sincere in your aim to imitate the actual as much as possible, being naïve comes easy and with it fall away the self-deprecating feelings that have dominated your daily life. It is such a relief to finally be able to like yourself no matter what, and hence like others.

CHRONO: I can see in that direction that there are no worries of being callous or uncaring as both others and myself are easily in consideration and regard. As I’m thinking on this I find that another one of my worries is something like “how can I like others when they are being ‘bad’?” And I found a ready answer as I feel myself likeable then others can also be likeable irregardless of the antics they get up to.

VINEETO: Exactly.

CHRONO: I find then a subsequent objection that reads like “I can be more easily hurt the more naïve that I am” but here in this place where I am already likeable, I don’t think it could be possible to be hurt. But it does highlight the belief in me of how that to be naïve is to be “unknowing” or “unaware”.

VINEETO: Well, it is still possible to be hurt because you might still have unexamined issues, but that is the challenge and opportunity to clean yourself up. The main fear, as you said, is that you don’t know what will be happening – being naïve you would more likely welcome the adventure rather than fear it.

CHRONO: As a follow up to that, I am realizing that it’s a very viable alternative to love. I am allowing this to “soak in”. It relates to caring in which I can only sum up currently as love is dishonest in that it does not truly regard the other (because it’s mainly about ‘me’), while naiveté does.

Are you making a spreadsheet for all the pros and cons before you start living it? And who is in charge of making the assessment? ‘Me’ and ‘my’ desires and fears or pure intent? Armchair planning gets you nowhere – dare, and care to dare, and just do it.

*

VINEETO: I talked to Andrew about guilt recently (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew2, 24 October 2025), perhaps you have read it. Additionally to the original guilt of being an instinctual ‘being’ there is the social conditioning regarding sexuality in almost all societies, because man-woman sexuality is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself and therefore strictly regulated almost everywhere, not only via laws but also “guilt and shame”. It is possible to unravel this social conditioning when pure intent is firmly in place.
As for the second aspect of the “feeling of guilt” because “you are disregarding your partner” – when you deliberate shift your focus of interest from personal sexual satisfaction only to intimacy, the whole nature of sexual congress will change in the direction of including your partner, as a fellow play-mate, in the direct (bodily) intimacy of sexual congress.

CHRONO: Yes I hadn’t considered that the root of the feeling of guilt came instinctually. I will have to make this deliberate shift and start from there.

VINEETO: Ah, another “I will have to”. But you can voluntarily make a shift because intimacy is such a delicious happening to explore. Actualism is not like learning or training for an exam like in the real world – if it’s not fun and being friendly with yourself, don’t even consider it.

*

VINEETO: Well, of course if you start with the top-most grade, so to speak, and want ‘magical sex’ right away without exploring and getting accustomed to the preceding stages of Grace’s gradation scale first, you have a good excuse for being resentful and not even start. Besides –

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

CHRONO: I think as far as sex goes the best I’ve had from the gradations of intimacy is “good sex”, but now I can make a deliberate aim towards experiencing the full gradations.

You can probe and experiment and enjoy the whole way. Again, there is no exam to pass at the end and no medals to collect.

*

VINEETO: Which means it [intimity] is never talked about and hence entirely new to human history. It’s time someone puts it into practice and brings delicious intimacy into “the ken of humankind”. The more you allow yourself to be naïve the easier you have access to the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté.

CHRONO: And that someone will be me! 

VINEETO: Marvellous.

*

VINEETO: Yes, there is a consciousness, the sentience of this flesh-and-blood body, naturally. It is not “its own consciousness” because you are this flesh-and-blood body, it is your own consciousness. The identity only hijacks this marvellous capacity and blights it with passions and emotions, distortions and problems. Hence the suggestion to get back to feeling good before you begin to sort out any triggers to your diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation. A flesh and blood body entirely “independent of ‘me’” operates apperceptively and is capable of great clarity.

CHRONO: I have been wondering, is it possible for this awareness of being a flesh and blood body to also be there as a feeling being? Could it be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual? The reason I ask is because I do always have this inkling that I’m here this whole time all the time.

VINEETO: Yes, it is possible, mainly from lingering memories of your various PCEs and moments of apperceptiveness. The “awareness of being a flesh and blood body” can peek through, especially when no good or bad feelings interfere with your enjoyment and appreciation of being here. But this does not mean that there is a “connection between ‘me’ and the actual”.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Chrono 2, 31 October 2025).

November 2 2025

KUBA: However via ‘being’ naiveté ‘I’ am inviting apperceptiveness to happen over and over, and each time ‘I’ am bleeping out for the duration of the apperceptive seeing, even if it is just a flash, and another flash etc.

This last paragraph explains quite well how it plays out experientially for me.

Remember, you have some experience now with trying to do ‘shortcuts’ which revealed to be rather diversions, avoidance and delays –

Respondent: I have (big) issues to sort out first before I will be able to make the leap.

Richard: As there is no ‘leap’ – an actual freedom is not a spiritual freedom – it would indeed appear so.

Respondent: I guess there are no shortcuts.

Richard: What I find telling – and this is a general observation – is just how much peoples object to being happy and harmless ... the vast majority of the correspondence in the archives is, in fact, a cutting indictment on the human condition itself.

Do you realise – and this is a personal observation – you have just said, in effect, that you guess you will have to become a happy ‘being’ before you can become actually free from the human condition (as if were there a way to be thus free without having to do so you would not)?

Whereas it is actually such a delight to finally be able to be happy (and harmless) ... and a relief. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 27 November 2003).

Richard described the range of naïveness this way –

Richard: A rather quaint clay-pit tale which nonetheless depicts the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself⁽⁰¹⁾ to an actual innocence. (Richard, A Quaint Clay-Pit Tale, last tooltip).

Why do you want “‘being’ naiveté” before comfortably and reliably “being sincere to becoming naïve”?

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

November 5 2025

VINEETO: Indeed. This altering of behaviour is what makes you feel “I’ve sold myself out”. ‘Vineeto’ remembers this feeling well but gaining more autonomy and confidence by doing the actualism method eventually resulted in ‘her’ liking herself, and therefore the need to change how ‘she’ presented ‘herself’ slowly disappeared. Here is what ‘she’ wrote at the time –

SONYA: I had a Halloween party this weekend and without making a conscious effort noticed when I started altering behaviour to fit in with the girls. I picked up on it immediately! It was easy to realise I didn’t need to and in fact made more sense and was more fun to interact with them as genuinely as I can. It’s fascinating to notice what I get up to when I’m aware of my tricks. The interactions were cleaner, I didn’t have an agenda to fit in.

VINEETO: Hi Sonya,

Isn’t it amazing, by simply noticing it you can change in the direction of being more genuine and more happy both with yourself and also with others. It’s only a habit after all and has lost its purpose – if it ever had any. And, you know a bit more about yourself.

SONYA: It was a little scary initially but I remembered to still remain caring and considerate, so I don’t go the other way and turn into a bitter “unique” individual that resent and shun the ‘main’ group but of course still remain as part of another group in a “us vs them”.

VINEETO: This is a delight to read – it’s normal to be a little bit scared when deliberately shedding some of your familiar persona but then you had another priority how you wanted to be – considerate and caring and … interacting with fellow human beings.

That’s what I would call using your native intelligence coupled with the intent to be happy and harmless.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Sonya, 5 November 2025).

November 6 2025

VINEETO: Before you contemplate ‘being naiveté’ or going “deep”, or “planning of naiveté being ‘your’ “path”, it is not. It is the path of self-less inclination, hence ‘you’ won’t have much of a role to play apart from objecting.

Why not start being naïve, in little steps. First it feels a bit uncomfortable, foolish or insecure (like a teenager first talking to a girl for instance). Then you dare extending this modus operandi a bit longer, expand into other areas of life – and you find it feels good, light, different, felicitous. You do it at your own pace, of course, don’t even think of pushing yourself, perhaps remember how you were as a kid (but now with adult sensibilities) and … enjoy it. You might find other people respond, like it, even become more friendly (naiveté is infectious).

Allowing yourself to be naive is indeed different to what serious sophisticated people in the world do – but who cares. Being naïve, you like yourself and simultaneously like others. It feels good, it is harmless and it’s infectious. Appreciate your small steps, then bigger steps, in this new way of living. It gives you confidence. It is intimate and invites naïve intimacy with fellow human beings. Being naïve includes not knowing what you are going to do next, or say next, being spontaneously happy and harmless. The less you pay attention to any self-image or pride, the easier it becomes. Putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t matter’ basis allows you to be less ‘self’-oriented and more open to the adventure of what being here actually is.

It’s fun.

CHRONO: I have been thinking on what you say here. And it struck me that the peace-on-earth of actual freedom is already always existing. Peace-on-earth exists already but only when ‘I’ in my entirety am no more. Thus the path is of a self-less inclination. Perhaps I’ve undiscerningly glossed over it. I also took note of what you wrote at the end that “It’s fun”. Well, am I having fun consistently? Am I enjoying and appreciating consistently? What’s in the way? What is it I really want?

VINEETO: Indeed, this is the very way the actualism method works in a nutshell. By following a self-less inclination you are having fun and vice versa, felicitous and innocuous feelings don’t provide fodder for ‘me’.

CHRONO: Thus in an overall manner to having more fun consistently the thing that sticks out to me the most is what I can only describe as a persona that’s bent on being sophisticated. A sophisticate. Making things complicated. Setting up an “image” of myself. Being serious. Even the visceral manoeuvring in my thinking and feeling. I found immediate relief in this noticing because only in this way I finally don’t have to be a “someone”. Interestingly, it was one of my major qualms with work that I noticed a while back. It’s not that work itself is majorly difficult, it’s that I have to be a “someone” at work. But it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t. Being a “someone” is a serious business. And this extends to pretty much every aspect of my life.

VINEETO: It’s wonderful, isn’t it. To be ‘someone’ is the modus operandi for which you have been conditioned since childhood, backed up by the instinctual imperative of survival – but is this really still necessary? As you say “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”. It is also possible because you can be naïve with all your adult sensibility intact.

*

VINEETO: Don’t “try”, don’t ‘work’ on it – just allow the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté to bubble up.

CHRONO: Yes I’ve set my benchmark that if there’s a feeling of effort or “work” involved then something may be amiss. I was thinking that maybe I’m just being lazy, but then the opposite of this is to be getting to “work” on it.

VINEETO: Yes, the real-world rules, morals and dogmas operate in opposites and have only two alternatives. There is a third alternative.

*

VINEETO: Well, it is still possible to be hurt because you might still have unexamined issues, but that is the challenge and opportunity to clean yourself up. The main fear, as you said, is that you don’t know what will be happening – being naïve you would more likely welcome the adventure rather than fear it.

CHRONO: Yes it’s much more enjoyable to welcome the adventure rather than fear it.
One of the things that I noticed in the PCE described prior was that I did not “know” what would happen next or even what I would say or do. It happened of its own accord and I acted in a beneficial and friendly way. And I noticed after some time that ‘my’ main way of being is to be control itself. I am always projecting into a past, present, and future. This is a way to ensure that ‘I’ exist and remain in control. This aspect of there not being control is scary to me because it feels this is the way that I can protect this body.

VINEETO: Indeed, being in control is the sole function of this contingent ‘being’, ‘me’, the entity which does not exist in its own right and needs to control to prevent being exposed as such. ‘You’ need to keep working hard to justify ‘your’ existence, whereas “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”, when you can allow yourself to be what you are. You lessen control by progressively allowing the obstacles to enjoyment and appreciation to disappear via attentiveness and (if necessary) investigation – and thus by imitating the actual.

*

VINEETO: Are you making a spreadsheet for all the pros and cons before you start living it? And who is in charge of making the assessment? ‘Me’ and ‘my’ desires and fears or pure intent? Armchair planning gets you nowhere – dare, and care to dare, and just do it.

CHRONO: Ha, weirdly a mental spreadsheet sounds like something that I am “supposed” to do. But if I keep it simple, I just enjoy feeling good. This unravelling of what I have been doing this whole time is helping push the envelope further.

VINEETO: It makes it so much simpler, doesn’t it?

*

CHRONO: I have been wondering, is it possible for this awareness of being a flesh and blood body to also be there as a feeling being? Could it be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual? The reason I ask is because I do always have this inkling that I’m here this whole time all the time.

VINEETO: Yes, it is possible, mainly from lingering memories of your various PCEs and moments of apperceptiveness. The “awareness of being a flesh and blood body” can peek through, especially when no good or bad feelings interfere with your enjoyment and appreciation of being here. But this does not mean that there is a “connection between ‘me’ and the actual”.

CHRONO: Is this because only being naiveté can make this connection? Or that there cannot actually be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual?

VINEETO: ‘I’ can never enter the actual world, hence no connection whatsoever. When ‘I’ disappear, the actual world becomes apparent, when ‘I’ reappear, the actual world is no longer apparent.

But you, the flesh-and-blood body can have shorter or longer moments of apperception where you are aware that you are the flesh-and-blood body – this is the very definition of apperception, the mind’s experience of itself, unmediated by the identity. Of course, once ‘I’ re-enter the arena, ‘I’ claim the experience for myself, hence your impression that there is a connection.

Richard: To be naïveté itself (i.e., naïveté embodied as a childlike persona with adult sensibilities), which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ (innocence is where ‘self’ is not) … (Richard, A Quaint Clay-Pit Tale, Last Tooltip).

Naiveté facilitates ‘my’ diminishment and ‘my’ intermittent disappearance, yet the word ‘connection’ does not apply.

To put it directly, a naive intimacy is affective – incredibly so, to an nth degree, to a larger degree than ‘I’ usually feel feelings. It’s an ebullience – however, a felicitous one (rather than a loving or affectional one).

As such to be looking for a “sensate” type of intimacy will be missing the point, and probably preclude one from finding a naive intimacy… the key is it is a feeling, you won’t get to experience it by trying to avoid feeling feelings (which you aren’t necessarily explicitly saying here or thinking about doing in those terms, but, it sounds like it goes in that direction).

Or if I can put it this way: from a far-away perspective, such a naive intimacy resembles a powerful feeling far more than it resembles an imagined “sense-only” experience as one might have been going for w/ for example vipassana or samatha training.

However because it is naive it will have a through-line of pure intent/purity laced through it, which makes it magical, and the experience of which shows where all the affectional-type approaches go wrong, and you will find a natural/innate caring arise/come out of nowhere/ having had been there all along (of course I care and want the best for everyone!). Following whatever through-line of purity you currently have running, will lead you there, too

I say this just so you don’t inadvertently shut yourself off from it by trying to avoid feeling strong feelings, remember, as a feeling being, fun is a feeling, so is naiveté!

You wrote something to me a while ago, that the changes which happen naively, on the level of the ‘be-er’ go unnoticed to the ‘do-er’/ ‘controller’ – this is how I experienced those naive ripples to operate. In that I could interact with someone and they might not be aware of what happened and yet they had a good time. As Richard wrote (paraphrasing) it is on the level of vibes and currents where the real power-play happens. Which comprehending all this it is so clear that as long as ‘I’ am still in existence, the absolute best thing that ‘I’ can do (‘be’) is naiveté. That by ‘being’ naiveté ‘I’ am already accomplishing more for peace on earth than any moralistic endeavour that ‘I’ could engage in as the ‘do-er’/ ‘controller’. And I have observed this myself, how an unselfconsciously artless person can wipe away in an instant the seriousness and severity that is plaguing another, simply because of what they are ‘being’.