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(List D refers to Richard’s List D
Vineeto’s Selected Correspondence Pure Consciousness Experience
JESUSCARLOS: I had a PCE or “vision of perfection” of that actual world in which there is no drama, no need, no resistance, no defense mechanism. Only a vast stillness, a sweetness permeating everything and a great sense of humor: I recorded, with all clarity, that in the actual and free world there is no seriousness, only an absolute sincerity product of the purity inherent to this universe. With all this, it only remained for me to express “I have absolute confidence in this universe, since it has brought me to this moment.” It all happened after having ingested fungi, with the chemical component of psilocybin. The PCE occurred after several episodes of contemplation, appreciation, introspection and “fight” with an alien entity inhabiting this body, which later came to be understood as a mere human condition being denied, to finally integrate as an other dimension of ‘me’ or me in my core. After the moment of struggle-recognition-integration, a deep cry ensued, an emotional discharge that allowed me to drain myself and reduce myself to a minimum. At the end I noticed that there was only pure “love”, or rather “pure sweetness” (in principle I didn’t mind distinguishing one from the other, but I know that the first one could take me to an ASC and translate into an increase of the ‘I’, but it didn’t happen). I was in that PCE for several minutes, and later came back for a couple of hours (the effect of mushrooms was very soft at this time), in which I was contemplating nature, the trees, the birds, the rocks, the plants, and then the stars, the moon, and greatly enjoying the company of my partner, without any record of any emotional compulsion (just “sweetness, sweetness, sweetness” and an absence of separation, which generated a deep atmosphere of intimacy). Between one PCE and the other, I was trying to understand the connection with pure intent, which would allow me to keep the golden thread and access to perfection again. Even today, a few days away, I maintain that pure connection, which allows me to easily move from feeling neutral to feeling good and from time to time from feeling good to feeling excellent. I haven’t managed to go any further and I’m on it, trying to investigate what’s stopping me. I note the reactivation of a certain fear, on a subtle level, of releasing again the controls. And thanks to the previous experience, I know that this resistance is “me”, it is the human condition, it is what at that moment was fully integrated and gave its place to the actual world. Thank you Richard, Vineeto, Peter, and everyone here, because it was essential to be able to reach this experience, to have a map that would prevent my loss in other directions. That, the desire to be free and sincerity were and are the key. A final note: during the PCE I was able to ask myself a couple of times, is this what I want? And the answer was: definitely yes!   (Actualism, Others, Descriptions of PCEs).
VINEETO: Hi JesusCarlos, This is perhaps the most comprehensive and all-encompassing PCE-report I have read. It has all the ingredients a leisurely experienced PCE can have, including establishing the golden clew to access pure intent. Now, it seems, there is nothing in the way to you enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive each moment of your life. You only need to actualize what you already know and have described so well. And as now is the only moment you can experience being alive why not do it now? With appreciation Vineeto
VINEETO: Hi Kuba, hi Claudiu, hi everyone, In the last week I have been busy reformatting and publishing Dona’s and Alan’s (dead-link)
[https://actualfreedom.net/australia-questions/] web-page on the AFT website at
One of the major topics of this three-week event of answers to questions from forum members in 2017 was that there are *no
conditions to become actually free*. “Richard said there is *no connection at all* between feeling good each moment again and actual freedom. You can become actually free right now. But … In the meantime, while you’re living your life not actually free, why not feel good? As he says, this is your only moment of being alive, why waste it feeling bad?” For instance – 09 Nov 2017 Geoffrey: There is something I’ve been thinking about since:
(my remark: same as a PCE… you are either in a PCE or you are not)
I remember making a remark on Slack that ‘allowing it to happen’ we usually used in reference to having PCEs, not self-immolation. And that it was a nice ‘parallel’ between the identity going in abeyance, and in oblivion. But I was wondering if there was more to this than just a ‘parallel’.
… and there go my many ‘attempts’ lol, including yesterday’s one (when I was “contemplating on altruism”) – which interestingly ended in a PCE. This has happened lately, that when ‘trying’ to self-immolate I don’t end up in ASCs anymore, but in PCEs. This is the case since I’ve stopped ‘forcing it’, but instead trying to ‘allow it to happen’.
So the same thing that causes a PCE could result in self-immolation instead, if one is ready/ has fully committed to
becoming actually free.
Then Self-immolation is a ‘spontaneous’ occurrence – when one is ready/ fully committed. 1. Is all the above correct? Dona: you posted Alan saying, “there is no
trying” to self-immolate... And that there are no ‘rules’ and no conditions for self-immolation to happen.
So, that same answer still applies to all your questions above. Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: And yet any stalling only prolongs ‘my’ existence, ‘I’ am programmed to do
anything to survive and yet this nature ensures ‘my’ continued suffering. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, When it happens it will be now. Viz:
Cheers Vineeto KUBA: Wow and it is so incomparable, this flavour that is
ultimately precious, that pure intent shows, that can be tasted in enjoying and appreciating this moment of being
alive, which is the flavour of the final destination. Indeed nothing but nothing is worth getting in the way of this,
but this understanding cannot be thought out, it can only be lived now. How incredible that what can be tasted now
can undo whatever importance ‘I’ concocted in ‘my’ entire lifetime. VINEETO: Hi Kuba, It is indeed “incomparable“, and this “flavour“ “that can be tasted“ is not of the senses, it is an apperceptive experience – it is not of this [‘real’] world. This “flavour” is the sweetness, the tenderness, the utter appreciation of pure intent,
the very pure intent which is “an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in
the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself“. KUBA: It’s weird, to experience this ultimate preciousness and
how it is available now, it is so profound for ‘me’ that ‘I’ cannot help but feel some kind of sorrow, with
tears coming up. I remember this would happen over and over before I had my first PCE, that sorrow would block ‘me’
from going into abeyance just as ‘I’ was on the verge of it happening. Eventually ‘I’ got done with this
pattern and the PCE happened. It’s like ‘I’ finally decided / developed the confidence to allow only
perfection, whereas this sorrow (which could easily flip into beauty) although seeming very meaningful, it was like
‘my’ last line of defence. VINEETO: I suspect that what you call sorrow here might well have been the same “flavour“ you described above and it was so overwhelming that it brought tears (of appreciation) to your eyes. Because it was new and unknown then ‘you’ interpreted it as sorrow. It’s only a guess because it has been my experience, especially for a period after Richard’s death, that pure intent flowed so over-abundantly that I was often overwhelmed to tears, which on closer inspection turned out to be tears of an overwhelming appreciation and also an unprecedented experience of intimacy with the people I came in contact with. It’s just mirificent to see what it happening at present. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: Hi Jesus.Carlos, It is a pleasure to read your excellent progress report. JESUSCARLOS: Although dismantling the political and activist identity is bringing enormous
benefits, it has above all been the exploration of love that has brought the most. What I can say for now is that I
have been replacing a way of relating to my partner based on compulsive attraction with a way based on sweetness and
care (and this substitution has not been a forced decision, rather I would say that it has been the product of
experience and sincere observation). I can recognize that this care has above all to do with not imposing my agenda
on her and fully understanding that she is a human being with her own autonomy, desires and needs. It has helped me
to remember Richard’s commitment to giving himself completely to someone else with the firm intention of managing
to live in an absolutely peaceful, harmonious and beneficial way for both. I feel less and less compulsive, in fact
there are already days or maybe weeks in which I do not experience again the level of anxiety that I felt before the
PCE. From time to time it is reactivated for a short period, and by simply attending to it, observing it, without
expressing it or repressing it, it allows its prompt disappearance. VINEETO: Now that you recognize your partner as a fellow human being in her own right rather
then as extension of your “compulsive attraction” which had automatically made you perceive her as
your ‘possession’ being responsible, amongst other feelings, for all that anxiety you report. You are now able to
experience more and more the delicious benefits of intimacy, which is vastly superior to the feelings of love it
replaces. This intimacy can be deliberately increased with sincerity and naiveté and with sensuous attentiveness
(see Grace’s scale of intimacy JESUSCARLOS: To remember all the suffering and pain that I have experienced, or in which I have been a participant, even the cause, and the sincerity with which today I can say that I do not want even one millimeter more of all of it. On the contrary. That clarity that arises from that sincerity reestablishes the connection. And also naivety. VINEETO: Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ had similar sympathy and compassion for the hardships and, sometimes overwhelming, suffering of human beings she observed in the news and could relate to from some of ‘her’ own emotional struggles. Towards the end this vital interest developed into “a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” (nowadays paraphrased as ‘near-actual-caring’) which facilitated ‘her’ self-immolation. Here is part of Richard’s summary of it:
JESUSCARLOS: Finally: since this weekend I have begun to understand more clearly what it means to decide how to feel, moment by moment (or when it is necessary to make a decision, since the consistency of feeling good, or excellent, etc. has been broken). I confess with all sincerity that until recently it seemed very difficult for me to understand or even accept this possibility. My tendency was rather that of a victim of circumstances. Feeling without agency at certain moments and in a negative sense (“the beer” is, in a positive sense, the disappearance of the “dooer’s” agency). This has begun to change significantly. Now I see and recognize that I do have that power, that decision is in my hands. Why not always decide to feel good, and beyond? It seems more and more absurd to me. And wonderful. VINEETO: This is really wonderful that you have recognized, and are actualizing, that how you feel is in your hands (and not due to some favourable or unfavourable event) and this enables you to feel good again each time after feeling/ good/feeling excellent slips below the line. Such a delight to read, thank you. Cheers Vineeto
KUBA: This is yet another reason why actualism is experiential because all words have been invented by feeling beings and therefore on their own they cannot quite convey actuality, they will simply go around in circles and never reveal the actual nature of this universe. Eternal will be taken to mean a very long lapse of time or infinite a very long stretch of space and yet the actual experience of infinitude is outside of those descriptions. All of those real world descriptions still infer some ultimate movement/distance to time/ space. Whereas actual time and space exist within the stillness of infinitude. Even writing the word “within” seems to screw it up As in that stillness is the very infinite
and eternal nature of this universe. VINEETO: Yes, I had the same thought when I read it – the word “within” didn’t seem to be quite right and then your last sentence expressed it exactly. Only someone experiencing (or having experienced) actuality can say this with utter confidence. It is indeed experiential. SCOUT: May I ask – what does this mean? It feels directly in opposition to the Richard
quote you shared in Henry’s thread KUBA (to Scout): I’ll have a go at this in the meantime “You have all the time in the universe” is referring specifically to one’s experience as a flesh and blood body only, one exists where time has no duration. It is impossible to ever ‘run out of time’ as time does not move in actuality. Whereas as an identity ‘I’ am locked out of eternal time and instead ‘I’ exist precariously across the past, present and future. This is where ‘I’ am always managing, anticipating and running out of time. As it is always this moment, this body does not move through time like the identity moves across the past, present and future. Rather this body exists securely in eternal time. In eternal time there is no distance to be travelled between ‘then’ and ‘now’ as the immediate is the ultimate, whereas ‘I’ am forever shifting between these thin slivers of ‘real time’, desperately trying to hold, manage and anticipate each one. I think I have just answered in part my own question – of why is it that where time has no
duration there is such safety. Because all this painful psychological/psychic activity which comes from ‘managing
time’ (whilst being forever locked out of actual time) ceases when one exists in eternal time. Everything is in its
place already as one is not actually going anywhere or coming from somewhere. VINEETO: Yes, one can never run out of time in actuality, it is always now, and I am always here and the universe being perfect and pure everything is already perfect. To answer Scout’s question more in detail, here is a quote from Richard’s journal –
SCOUT: Interesting, I’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as I’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it – but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence. Is that the “eternity” Vineeto and Richard discuss? time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change I will experience before all experience ends. But maybe that doesn’t matter when I’m not worried about what’s not happening now. the
sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah? VINEETO: Hi Scout, You cannot think your way into this, it is indeed experiential. Have you ever experienced that when you are feeling good, time seems to fly while when you are sad or worried time seems to go on forever? This is a perfect example of ‘personal’ time, it’s all coloured by ‘me’, how ‘I’ feel, what ‘I’ want (or don’t want). Contemplate just this sentence: “To ‘be’ is to take this moment of being alive personally … as being proof of ‘my’ subjective existence” and then, in attentive contemplation become fascinated by the very fact that ‘you’ and 8 billion other people all have their own personal experience of time. It can’t be that time is like this, can it? There is an alternative how to think about this – apperceptiveness. You can try it out in a quiet moment.
Cheers Vineeto
SCOUT: Thank you for the thoughtful responses Vineeto, I will explore. VINEETO: Hi Scout, You are very welcome. Seeing you enjoyed the responses, I like to explore your original question a bit further. SCOUT: Interesting, I’ve had experiences on psychedelics where psychological time ceased to exist as I’d previously known it, as well as the anxiety around it – but there was still change and a direction to change. there was no longer anticipation or anxiety surrounding where that change was leading, just presence. VINEETO: Yes, events change but when ‘I’ am in abeyance either in a PCE or when actually free, it is evidently obvious that time does not move, no matter which events take place in the arena of time. Here is a stillness that is all around, unimaginable, inconceivable and utterly magical. To explain, when ‘I’ am in abeyance then ‘I’ am no longer the centre around which ‘my’ perception and ‘my’ world view revolves. When ‘I’ am in abeyance, or extinguished, there is no “presence”, there is no centre, there is only here, this place in space and now, this moment in time. I am not sure what you mean when you say “just presence”? Could it be that this “presence” was ‘Being’ or ‘Me’? It would be good to explore so you do not take a possible ASC as your lodestone. SCOUT: Is that the “eternity” Vineeto and Richard discuss? Time is not a concern or even really felt because the mind stops creating a past or future. but there is still always the change and there is only so much change I will experience before all experience ends. VINEETO: Given that you are not sure then it is better not to rely on those experiences, especially as most experiences with psychedelics turn out to be ASCs. Viz.:
SCOUT: But maybe that doesn’t matter when I’m not worried about what’s not happening
now. The sense of the “clock ticking” is mostly just fear yeah? VINEETO: It does matter a great deal. You would want a clear experience of the actual world in order to guide you, and when you rely on something that very likely was an ASC then you are getting confused at best. If you were really “not worried about what’s not happening now” then you would be enjoying and appreciating each moment of being alive to the point of continuously feeling excellent – but that is not the case, is it? And you wouldn’t have to ask if “the sense of the ”clock ticking“ is mostly just fear yeah? The “clock ticking” means you live in real-world time of past, present, future, like every other feeling being, and have conveniently convinced yourself of the belief that you are “not worried about what’s not happening now” while the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ instinctual passions are happening unobserved. Don’t you want to find out how you tick, how your mind really works, how you can genuinely feel felicitous and innocuous 23 hrs 59 min a day? Wouldn’t that be worthy of your fascinated attention? Here is a short quote from Richard’s correspondence with a spiritualist regarding eternity for your amusement –
Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: As you are not “this flesh & blood body experiencing life here and
now” unless you are in a PCE, this question cannot be answered as is. In a PCE you may experience to be
“nowhere in particular” and get a glimpse of what it is to “be anywhere at all, for infinity is everywhere all at once”. It is marvellous, albeit it
can be somewhat disorienting at first. SCOUT: This struck a chord with me. But namely because the
consciousness experiences I’ve had that mostly closely align with the state you and Richard describe – where the
psychological self/centre is completely gone, there are only senses and a direct awareness of infinity – were
actually pretty overwhelming. A lot of agitation/ remnants of fear were still present and were experienced very
acutely without the buffer of the psychological self, kind of reminiscent of the adjustment period Richard described,
and I definitely felt disoriented too. It makes those experiences feel like a little less of a compass for me because
they actually didn’t feel super desirable. Did you have an adjustment period too, once you arrived at full freedom?
Is this overwhelm/ transitional agitation just part of the experience? VINEETO: Hi Scout, As Claudiu already pointed out This should be good news for you because an actual freedom definitely has no “agitation/ remnants of fear” and is much, much better than you can imagine. Personally I did have a short adjustment period when I lost my centre of spatial reference permanently I wish you eminent success with your adventure of being alive. Cheers Vineeto
SCOUT: I’ve found some quotes from the website, specifically from Geoffrey and Vineeto, which capture the delineation I’m trying to describe in my post. Here is a description from Geoffrey after reaching basic freedom:
And a little later, as he was working on “abdicating the guardian”:
This second description aligns with my experiences of purity that felt, at the time, “perfect” – there was no “me” narrating or colouring experience with emotions, and the sensory world was the most rich, splendid, fascinating thing in and of itself. My fear of aging and death disappeared entirely with “me”. Each moment was so enjoyable that it was so blatantly obvious that the meaning of life was purely in the living of it. There was no bubble for me then, nothing to hold onto and no need to hold onto anything; it certainly felt like being “no one” compared to my normal waking reality. And yet, as Geoffrey described, traces of the past walls must have still existed, as I cannot say I had full apprehension of infinity in those moments, and even though I did not perceive a psychological self, my senses still seemed to orient themselves around some central point. VINEETO: Hi Scout, Thank you for the quotes that you say align with your experiences, particular the one from Geoffrey. This description refers to a time when Geoffrey had been basically free for about 5 years (1 July 2024), and describes the course of events when he became free from the ‘guardian’, the social identity in toto. From that vantage point of being free from the instinctual passions and the identity formed thereof plus being free from the tethers of the social identity (“no more dome over me ”) except “something like the trace of past walls”, Geoffrey accurately describes the progressing events as an ongoing actuality. However, what you report are temporary exceptional experiences which appear to align with Geoffrey’s descriptions apart from being ‘overwhelming’ and ‘scary’ and from which you returned “to my normal waking reality” which you further down describe as “‘I’ am nothing but pain”. Hence my suggestion in my previous post to you that these may well be experiences, possibly originating from a PCE but then flipping into those of the nature of an ‘actuality mimicking ASC’. In this type of ASC there is neither God nor any religious or spiritual connotations but imaginary features assembled from reports of people describing their experience of an actual freedom. The term “actuality mimicking” should give you at least pause to consider, given that you originally described them as “agitating” and “very, very overwhelming and disorienting” which is clearly an emotional reaction. SCOUT: The moments where I did feel in direct contact with infinity reminded me of Vineeto ‘s experience of transitioning from basic to actual freedom:
As opposed to the events where my experience more aligned with what Geoffrey described, my experiences that have been similar to what Vineeto describes here have been honestly too overwhelming to be enjoyable for the most part. In those moments, I recognized the normal waking “me” (and even the “traces of walls” from previous events that felt like PCEs) as a buffer shielding me from the full intensity of infinitude. In these events, there was no possibility for any trace of walls. There were only the senses of my body; whole, complete, entirely alone and yet inseparable from all of existence. There was no central organizing element to these senses, no spatiality whatsoever – each sense’s signals arose purely known unto themselves from nowhere to no one. Direct experience of the infinitude of all existence (though my body as a conduit of knowing this is entirely finite) came along with this. VINEETO: It is no surprise that you describe those experiences as “too overwhelming
to be enjoyable” because your introductory sentence says – “the moments where I did feel in
direct contact with infinity”, which again points to it not being a PCE, and hence you not actually being “in
direct contact with infinity”. Hence what you experienced as “the full intensity of infinitude”
would have most likely been the affective veneer the identity is pasting over actuality. (see SCOUT: I don’t think this was an ASC because God is an anthropomorphic notion and there felt like there was literally nothing in me that could project its sense of being onto the universe. The universe is the infinity of existence of which this body is just a tiny experiential prong, and there was no delineation between “my experience” and the sensations of this body being known to itself, so though I am a piece of infinity, for all intents and purposes this finite body is the entirety of what “I” as this life am and thus death will necessarily be absolute, because there was nothing in me to survive beyond the death of the senses. VINEETO: As I said above, in this type of ASC, ‘actuality mimicking ASC’, there is neither God nor any religious or spiritual connotations and your statement that “I don’t think this was an ASC because God is an anthropomorphic notion” looks like an after-the-event-thinking and logical deduction. Even your report that “I am a piece of infinity” is not a description of actuality. If you think the word ‘actuality mimicking ASC’ doesn’t fit, let me know which word works better for you – it is certainly not a PCE. ‘Vineeto’ had several altered states in ‘her’ early years of practicing actualism, and
they were quite powerful and convincing when they happened Look, I am not writing this to denigrate or belittle your experiences but to make you aware that the lost, lonely, frightened, and very cunning entity is capable of elaborate deceit which, if undetected, can successfully deter you from recognizing genuine pure intent vs. imagination-fuelled passionate experiences, and lead you on a path to nowhere with “immense agitation and disorientation”. I wish you to succeed to a genuine actual freedom and not be diverted to a state of make-belief, passionate, imaginary experience. Even if the content of such state is informed by actualist writings, it can still be corrupted and adulterated by the identity.
It is also important to keep in mind that you cannot become free from being in a PCE, nor by the ‘self’ “evaporating” in PCEs, but by naively enjoying and appreciating being alive, so much so that you become naiveté itself and give up the controls. Then one is able to make a once-in-a-lifetime deliberate and conscious decision to willingly and irremunerably ‘self’-immolate in toto. The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it, which can only happen while ‘I’ and ‘me’ are not in abeyance. SCOUT: These experiences have always come with immense agitation and disorientation. Traces of the emotional self must have not evaporated immediately with the spatial centre because there was raw, unadulterated panic (made significantly more intense by the absolute lack of buffer) that something had happened that I wouldn’t be able to undo and the body would be stuck in this energetically-overwhelming and orientation-less state, unable to navigate the world. Only in one such experience did the agitation start to calm down enough for the senses to start to recognize that things were okay and actually very complete, and the body was still capable of functioning, but usually the experiences have never lasted long enough that this level of resolution is reached. Interestingly though, every time “I” booted back up again obscuring that raw perception, it felt abundantly clear to me that “I” am nothing but pain, an uncomfortable fogging of the lens of reality. But it also made ample sense to me why most people distract themselves their entire lives in avoidance of that raw reality, because dropping into that suddenly was the most incomparably overwhelming experience of my life. If I’m being entirely honest, it hasn’t been super tempting to return there, it really scared me. But what set me on this journey was the prospect of returning to the states of Geoffrey’s description, where the centre is almost entirely gone and the splendour and lightness is so apparent. Maybe once I’m there, the step into complete centerlessness would be a far easier leap than the massive jump there from my current waking consciousness; I wonder if the size of this jump is the source of the panic. But I am travelling largely blind here, I might be misinterpreting these events as being closer
to actuality than they are. I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts Vineeto , whenever you get the
chance to read this behemoth of a description (and thank you very much for doing so if you do!) VINEETO: I am pleased to read that you have hesitation to return to those
“states”, and also that you are wondering if you “might be misinterpreting these events as being
closer to actuality than they are”. From my vantage point they are not close to actuality, made apparent by
the various feeling-words you used in your honest descriptions. What you called “raw reality” which
causes you “raw, unadulterated panic” is not at all what the actual world is like, as Claudiu
already demonstrated to you in the descriptions of his PCEs. You wrote in your previous post –
Here you first say it’s a PCE (how Vineeto and Richard describe it), then there is description of feelings (overwhelming, agitation, fear), then you say there is no psychological self (despite feelings being present), then you felt disoriented. I would say if you recognize that the first statement (it’s a PCE) is incorrect, then point 2 and 4 make sense and point 3 might have been a felt assumption drawn from the first statement. Hence the way forward is to pay diligent attention to how you feel, so that you can sort out the grain from the chaff. Perhaps a desire to escape from “‘I’ am nothing but pain” is contributing to a hasty classification of the experience? Only you can know how your mind ticks and the closer you pay diligent attention to the details of what is happening the easier it will be to recognize a genuine PCE when it’s happening. Then you can make an intimate connection and tie a golden thread or clew to that genuine PCE whereby one is sensitive to and receptive of the over-arching benignity and benevolence of the world of the PCE. This way you establish your connection to pure intent, which is essential to distinguish more easily your experience – if it’s a genuine PCEs or an imaginary feeling-fed experience only resembling (not actually being) whatever you have read in actualist literature. Cheers Vineeto
CLAUDIU: Brief update: I found that what really works to cut through any possible complications or hurdles or obstacles or whatnot, is seeing that I actually deep down do want this, to self-immolate, more than anything else! In other words it isn’t a desire I have to conjure up or manufacture or get myself on board or whatnot. At the root, underneath it all – I do actually want this. This immediately orients me towards enabling just that to happen. All my passions line up for this purpose – aggressively pursuing it, desiring it above all, thrillingly going into it, for the benefit of this body and every body. It feels like endless layers of ‘me’ just slough off in a sense in the face of this unified sincerity. This really appears to be key, placing it as the absolute highest priority above anything else, nothing else even coming a remote second. VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, I like this – “this unified sincerity”, “placing it as the absolute highest priority above anything else, nothing else even coming a remote second.” This is exactly what is meant by –
CLAUDIU: Going for intimacy has been really beneficial as well as it automatically orients me to something outside of myself (other people) and makes the target much clearer. Today this led to whilst walking across a rock face, finding that the experience was now a PCE, an experience of actual Claudiu expertly clambering over the rocks. I was nowhere in particular as evidenced by the experience that the rock face, a sea cliff with the water undulating at the base, could be on Mars or anywhere in the universe at all as the experience would be the same whether it is there or on ‘Earth’. There was no past or future or even a present per se, there was just this moment. This was arrived at as a smooth transition, no ‘gap’ was discernible in hindsight during the transition from feeling-being to apperceptive consciousness. I clearly existed. Was I the universe? Well, I noticed that I am not this rock in front of me… but I am the experience of this rock. The immediate is the ultimate – I experienced this directly. There is no other way for experience to be. This what I experience as a flesh and blood body is the ultimate of what can be experienced. Here and now is all there ever is or was or will be. I am not a “part” of the universe, separated out… I am the universe, experiencing itself as this particular flesh and blood body! How simple and perfect! And then I thought to contrast this with regular feeling-being experience, and now suddenly ‘I’ was ‘me’, experiencing the rock through ‘my’ senses – an immediately recognized shift, although again no discernible gap (very interesting!) VINEETO: Fascinating how it works! And yet, only when you are in the “regular feeling-being experience” can you actively and actually move towards this “unified” goal, “the absolute highest priority above anything else”. Isn’t that cause for celebrating, savouring, enjoying your “regular feeling-being experience”, interspersed with bona-fide PCEs to confirm that this is what you actually want? CLAUDIU: Following it was a common after-effect I’ve had after PCEs in the past sometimes, a feeling of… I don’t know exactly how to put it, but a negative feeling for sure. It had something to do with the comparing of ‘me’ the feeling-being vs how actual Claudiu was experiencing himself. I realized this was a ripe avenue of contemplation – what indeed, is this feeling about? VINEETO: Isn’t it obvious, even without deep contemplation, that second best is not as good as best? CLAUDIU: I saw that it has to do with ‘me’ viscerally knowing that ‘I’ was indeed completely absent, and, everything was far better off without ‘me’. In other words, not only am ‘I’ completely unneeded and superfluous, but ‘I’ actually make everything worse… and through much pain and striving (as ‘I’ experience it) and burden, too! In other words ‘I’ put in all this effort and it is seen to actually be for nothing at all. Then I realized just how very strange it was for this to be a negative feeling! I saw there’s really two components to it, one is the above, and the other is seeing that ‘I’ have to really go away, go extinct, ‘die’, in order for that to be the permanent experience. But all of this actually readily coincides with that deep-down desire, for extinction! The fact that ‘I’ am superfluous and it is better without ‘me’ is wonderful news because it means nothing will be lost. And that ‘I’ have to die for it to happen – well that is the whole point haha. VINEETO: Having read yours and Kuba’s posts ‘I’ am real, very real, as long as ‘I’ am a passionate entity hijacking and controlling
the actual flesh body. Thinking that ‘I’ am an illusion while ‘I’ am in existence is to transfer information
gained from apperceptive seeing during a PCE into the passionate realm of ‘me’ – what Richard calls from “3D-stunning” to “one-dimensional thought” in his
correspondence about “utter fullness”.
CLAUDIU: I would say it seems I have not fully come to terms with it yet as if I did it would all be wondrous fuel for the fire, but, something about seeing it so distinctly still has hit ‘me’ in a way… VINEETO: You will get used to it, and then you will be able to embrace it and welcome it. CLAUDIU: The other overall thing I’ve noticed is that my experience
is basically the same since going out-from-control, there is no shift into or out of it, and I distinctly experience it
as different from ‘normal’. There is never any decision to make whether to self-immolate, it has already always
been made. I would say it seems that when some issue comes up, I can feel like I am experiencing myself like I would in
the past, but this is always seen to be a chimera, sort of a ‘pretend’ forming myself back into that way of
experiencing. I have wondered if it’s just always been like this my whole life and I never noticed haha, but there
was a distinct difference after going out-from-control so I would have to say it wasn’t. In other words it’s not
just an intellectual re-framing of experience or whatnot, the experience is actually different. VINEETO: There is something different now, as you just reported, from when you first went out-from-control – there is “this unified sincerity”, “placing it as the absolute highest priority above anything else, nothing else even coming a remote second.” Cheers Vineeto
CLAUDIU: It has really struck me and dawned on me experientially that I am nothing but feelings. For past few days while working I’ve noticed feeling of being driven, of pushing, this has felt different from working in the past where I would just be working and not noticing this feeling per se. Now I wonder if it’s not that anything has changed in terms of what I am feeling, but my perception of it has changed, as a result of the latest PCE on the rock face. IOW that which had been more subconscious is now conscious. I would certainly know I’m driven in the past too but it felt different now. And as I sat and contemplated about it yesterday I realized that this is literally who I am, I am these feelings, in this case the driven feelings. I am just one feeling after another, this is it, there’s no me that is separate or different from the feelings, no me at the center. In other words it is only an illusion that there is a me different from the feelings – I know you wrote, Vineeto, that this is confusing me but I’m not sure entirely how it is the case? VINEETO: Hi Claudiu, “That I am nothing but feelings” is a useful experiential insight – usually people experience themselves as one feeling or the other and when the feeling is strong and persistent they say there is ‘nothing but sadness’ or ‘nothing but love’, yet without the full recognition that ‘I’ am indeed nothing but my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’. It’s also the very recognition that allows the choice from being sadness, for instance, to being felicity. CLAUDIU: It’s different than in the PCE of course, in the PCE there just never was a ‘me’ in the first place. I do feel myself to exist now, but I am seeing that I’m just the feelings one after the other, nothing besides this. It is taking a bit of time for it to sink in but I can already see the benefit, there is nothing really at stake if I am nothing other than these feelings. Another way to put it is everything is at stake, these feelings is all that I am haha… but what I mean is it seems it will become more clear that nothing of value will disappear when I disappear, no one will die, it will only be an illusory death, so there is more confidence to proceed (have to go with where I am at even though in the PCE it was all perfectly clear to actual Claudiu lol). VINEETO: It was only a suggestion of mine to watch out to not inadvertently “transfer
information gained from apperceptive seeing during a PCE into the passionate realm of ‘me’ – what Richard calls from “3D-stunning” to “one-dimensional thought” in his
correspondence about “utter fullness””. Even though you say that “there is nothing really at stake”, “nothing of value will disappear”, “no one will die” and “it will only be an illusory death”, this evaluation is not sufficient for self-immolation to eventuate. These passions are nevertheless your very survival passions –
Only altruism (survival of the species) is the more powerful instinct to overcome selfism (survival of self) – and even a “nothing of value” self passionately wants to survive –
CLAUDIU: The upshot is I can fuel all this powerful and passionate
affective energy into the propitious direction towards felicity and naiveté. Instead of trying to stop or calm down
this drive, it’s more about redirecting this same energy with equal (or even more) potency into being felicitous and
naive, this is clear now. VINEETO: Yes, and this is wonderful. Now the only (open) question remains – who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to? Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: Unfortunately I cannot remember a PCE. VINEETO: In a quiet moment you can search in your memory, not the emotional or intellectual memory but either an intuitive or sensory memory, and see if you find an outstanding experience, where everything was all right, was just as it should be and was so magnificent and extraordinary, as if not from this world, so peaceful and gay, that you experienced it as always wanting to live this way. Most likely they happened in childhood – perhaps you can unearth a memory. They are not stored in the normal emotional memory hence a bit difficult to rediscover. I do suspect you have a very vague memory of one or more PCEs because you said that you “feel there is something fundamentally wrong with me”, and in the next paragraph below you say that “I like the use of the word ‘persona’. This is exactly how I feel. Like I am keeping up a persona.” To feel there is something “wrong with me” there must be a benchmark to what would be right with you in comparison, something actual.
SONYA: So from the quotes you provided of Richard’s writings I
understand it is the reason why I feel there is something fundamentally wrong with me is because who ‘I’ am as an
identity isn’t actual, I exist as a mix of instinctual passions, roles, rank, etc. I like the use of the word ‘persona’.
This is exactly how I feel. Like I am keeping up a persona. VINEETO: This is an excellent observation, and whatever you are trying to do to make it ‘right’ on the emotional level or even the intellectual level will have no lasting effect. As I said yesterday, what you can do with the help of the actualism method is to diminish the strength and influence of ‘me’, the persona, in your daily life by enjoying and appreciating being here and thus reduce the identity-enhancing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and increase the identity-diminishing felicitous feelings, i.e. enjoyment and appreciation. By being honest with yourself and sincere in your endeavour you can re-awaken your dormant naiveté (being like a child but with adult sensibilities) and keep ‘thinning’ your identity to the point that it becomes more and more insubstantial. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: You can read Richard’s article on This Moment of Being Alive
SONYA: I’m going to give it a go. Thanks for offering to
clarify! VINEETO: Here is an interesting correspondence you may relate to –
KUBA: It seems to me that you are right at that point where –
“one can stay quiescent no longer”. You just need to locate what it is exactly that you are aiming for
(where you have been proceeding anyways). SONYA to Kuba: I had to google what quiescent meant but yes, that’s
exactly how I feel. It just really hit me when doing our wedding stuff yesterday that what I want most in this world
is to be happy and harmless with you 24 hours a day 7 days a week. That’s a really really big motivator for me. We
are legally making a commitment to ‘join’ our lives together so why am I not making the commitment to live life
with you in the most fun, exciting, wholesome, fulfilling way? I can really see now that that is what I want, more
than anything. For now, without the memory of a PCE that desire is what I’m holding on to. VINEETO: Ah, Sonya, this is wonderful to read. It so reminds me how, when feeling being
‘Vineeto’ met ‘Peter’ the first time, ‘he’ proposed to want to live together in peace and harmony and with
honesty look at everything which got in the way of this aim. ‘Vineeto’ thought ‘she’ never heard a more
attractive proposal and agreed. ‘We’ had great fun together, to put it mildly. Peter described it in his journal
Besides, with a commitment to be “happy and harmless with you [Kuba] 24 hours a day 7 days a week” you cannot fail having a PCE sooner or later. Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: Hi Vineeto, Thank you for your time in helping me. I’m currently reading the links you’ve provided. I’m struggling to get a grasp on the meaning of ‘affective awareness’ – Is it essentially awareness of your feelings? Could you clarify for me please? Google doesn’t seem to be helping either. VINEETO: Hi Sonya, you are welcome and it is a pleasure to do so. The reason I emphasized “affective” awareness is because several people misunderstood the actualism method and only paid attention to their thoughts instead of including their feelings which lay behind their troublesome thoughts. The other reason is that, with the large prevalence of Buddhistic practices, dissociation from one’s feelings is very common and then those suppressed feelings make themselves felt somatically, i.e. in bodily discomfort, physical tensions and pain and they never discover the cause of their discomfort by missing out on affective awareness. Kuba explained it very well in his most recent message to you * VINEETO: Perhaps it’s a good idea (…) to look for a resistance or hesitation regarding a PCE because the implications can seem too much. SONYA: Logically, I can’t pinpoint any resistance or hesitation regarding remember a PCE. Of course there is a possibility there is something I am doing sub-consciously. When I think about why I may not want to remember a PCE nothing really comes up. Why would I not want to remember perfection? More digging may be required here. VINEETO: Ah well, perhaps there is no resistance, it was just a guess. However, I noticed you said “logically”, so there is the possibility of looking emotionally? Besides, the more you enjoy and appreciate being here, the more you are in the perfect position to allow a PCE to happen by naïvely “going boldly where angels fear to tread”, as the saying goes – with adult sensibility of course. Incidentally, sexual intimacy coupled with naiveté is an ideal opportunity as well to allow a
PCE to happen. Richard talks about this in detail here. Cheers Vineeto
JESUSCARLOS: And something I keep in mind and try to achieve is
the ability to experience a PCE without the need for certain conditions (the two PCEs I have recorded as such have
been after taking psychotropic substances). For this I notice that I have a particularly difficulty going from
feeling good to feeling excellent. And where I find right now the most effective way to get close to this is through
the naiveté that gets activated after the more intimacy is allowed with my partner. In those moments, several EIs or
even EEs have emerged, but not yet PCEs.
VINEETO: The answer in Frequent Questions
Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: It’s wonderful how simple it is. I think where I was going wrong before was trying to figure out why I was feeling bad whenever I was feeling bad, and of course trying to do that whilst in that state means that any investigation led me to justifying and solidifying my “right” to feel bad. So, being okay with not trying to intellectualise my feelings meant that I was freed to see that I am being the feeling and fully experience it without repressing or expressing – then any time it came up again I would refer back to the last time that bad feeling came up and see that there was no point to feeling that way, it didn’t help the situation, it wasn’t “protecting” me from anything. In fact being that way would just spoil whatever experience was going on. The next time the feeling came up it would get easier and easier to nip it in the bud and go back to enjoying and appreciating. After the above happened it seems to be getting easier to come close to the direct experience again. I
keep getting fleeting glimpses of being close to that direct experience which is cool! It’s like I’ve found a road
leading straight to that direct experience that is so easy to get back on, it seems all I have to do is just angle
myself towards enjoying/appreciating and I’m back on it again. I guess that’s why it’s called the wide and
wondrous path. VINEETO: Hi Sonya, You have mapped it all out and it’s great you found a way to go back to enjoying and appreciating more easily and it easy that way “to come close to the direct experience”. There is one hitch though you need to take into account – when you had the direct experience you described ‘you’ were in abeyance. Hence ‘you’ cannot make it happen, ‘you’ can only give permission to get out of the way and allow it to happen.
Cheers Vineeto
SONYA: Hi Vineeto, Thanks for your reply, it was very helpful to remember this:
VINEETO: Hi Sonya, Here is where feeling being ‘Vineeto’ learnt this first –
SONYA: I think I had another direct experience again this weekend when I went to visit friends in London. I was in the tube of all places haha, it’s not a very “nice” place and can often feel quite soul crushing. I remember I was just sat reading my book, just enjoying sitting and reading despite the loud noises/ harsh lights/ etc which would usually bother me. I suddenly felt like I was on the edge of something more than my usual experience of feeling good. After a bit of back and forth within myself trying to take that step into the “something more” I remembered that “I” can’t make it happen and the only thing “I” can do is get out the way. As soon as I realised that and took a step back to allow it, it was like the same experience as last time, but I had perfect timing as our train was coming out of the dark tunnel onto overground tracks. All of a sudden everything was bathed in the evening sun, all golden, warm and lovely. Everything was so interesting to look at, nothing was “out of place” and it was missing that chaotic buzz the tube usually has. As I got off the train I was dipping in and out of this. I noticed that as soon as “I” would pop up again to try control it/make it my own it would fade away. “I” could never grasp it. Only when I got out of the way was when I was experiencing this directness again. VINEETO: With such meticulous observation skill you begin to learn how to bring about these direct experiences almost voluntarily, or recognize the atmosphere when they are most likely to happen. Not only are they delightful and wonderfully sensuous, they can inform you, a bit each time, about the qualities of the actual world when ‘I’ am in abeyance. SONYA: It was definitely less overwhelming then last time and it
still took my breathe away but I was having a great time. It went away when I got to my destination and “sonya”
had to come back to greet her friends. VINEETO: Indeed, the territory is a bit more familiar and “less overwhelming” so you can thoroughly enjoy it and explore what else there is to discover when ‘I’ am temporarily absent. It bodes well for more sensate and sensuous experiences. Cheers Vineeto
ANDREW: It may all well be something very normal, as there was always this sense that I was craving notoriety, that I had “no excuse” and craved something to explain my ineptitude. However, even typing that out I can see the “sin nature” doctrine speaking, That I am forever doomed except by the grace of god. VINEETO: It looks as if you haven’t left Christianity completely behind yet, at least
there is still the belief of the devilish and divine interference of some supernatural being operating. Are you perhaps
able to remember an early PCE where you experienced that everything is already perfect? (Check out FAQ 64a It was an insight from a PCE which enabled feeling being ‘Vineeto’ to finally be done with any belief in God whatsoever. But she had already loosened up the belief in the Christianity via Eastern spirituality where a human being is ‘God’ on earth and then questioned the validity of that claim via sensible contemplation. Viz.:
Cheers Vineeto
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.
Naiveté facilitates ‘my’ diminishment and ‘my’ intermittent disappearance, yet the word ‘connection’ does not apply. Cheers Vineeto
FELIX: ... And while this is good back pressure, I’m listening when you say that “the actualism
method is enjoying and appreciating, not diving into deep emotions for the sake of it.” There’s a fun and
smooooth enjoyment in making contact with This Moment of Being Alive. I’m tasting it here and there, sinking in
slowly to a sense of delight. I want the full shebang but I know not to force either … I enjoy as is available to
me at the time, based on the (physical/ sensorial) circumstances as they are. I’m enjoying as I write this. VINEETO: ... By the way, you have not yet “experienced (psychological) death before” – in a PCE the identity is merely in temporary abeyance, ready to spring into action at any time. But you know from your PCEs what the actual world after ‘your’ demise is like.
Cheers Vineeto
SYD: PCE (sensate reality) When this started happening, I was actually playing a game on my laptop (semi-focused; because points 3-5 were percolating in the background of the mind) seated on the couch in my dimly lit living room. I remarked to myself, “Whoa, this looks like it is in 4k [resolution]” … referring to the indubitably immediate visual perception of the entire living room being experienced in “higher resolution”. Crisp, and everything’s here, with no ‘outside’ to it, and self-sufficient … thus automatically obviating the despair of ‘going about it on my own’ or the fear of ‘facing rejection’ or the hope of a permanently percolating aura of affections. The answer to my wondering in (5) became experientially answered in this mini-PCE, and it blew my mind. No affections, really? “Just” a sensate immediacy—and, the same immediacy with the objects in my room, albeit with the difference being the other is a living and conscious fellow human (a female one at that)? In the PCE, it became so obvious to me that this moment is perennially happening (it is how it is all the time), so it is not a matter of ‘boxing’ myself in it from ‘there’ to ‘here’; it is just a matter of staying in it, leaving “me” behind in the process. This is the sacrifice involved. A strong golden clew has been established. VINEETO: This short experience appears to have more the elements of a genuine PCE than
the one you described before. You headed the last experience as “EE (center-less)” and said “even
though I couldn’t tell if it was PCE” Your follow-up ruminations, which obviously happened after the PCE had ended, thinking “it is just a matter of staying in it, leaving “me” behind in the process” need some clarifications.
In short, there is no way to proceed from a PCE into an actual freedom because the very process of “leaving “me” behind” requires ‘my’ action and ultimately ‘my’ full acquiescence, which cannot happen whilst ‘I’ am in abeyance or suspense. Again, it is worthwhile noticing the many and various cunning tricks ‘I’ employ to stay in existence. It is quite amusing once you discover them. Cheers Vineeto
VINEETO: Hi Adam, (...) The “internal split” will disappear once you recognize, at the core of your ‘being’, that you are as sad and as mad and as bad as everyone else, i.e. that you are instilled with the instinctual passions and its consequent social identity. Upon this penetrating recognition you can stop fighting to hide any occurring bad feelings and their twins of ‘good’ feelings. In other words you recognize each time that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feeling are ‘me’. Then putting the actualism method into practice as described in Richard’s article linked above should be a breeze. ADAM-H: This is fascinating and also links up with what you said
in your response to Kuba VINEETO: Indeed, most of ‘my’ protestations about any feelings occurring originate in how I want to see myself and how others see me – a good person, a clever person, a good actualist, a successful (… fill in your own aspersions). When ‘I’ genuinely admit “I am the problem” each time, then there is really only one solution – dissolution – and that can be ultimately scary at the start. But this is where enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive come in, it is what you
do in the meantime, until you cannot maintain your ‘self’ any longer. And “the means to the end – an
ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end”.
Cheers Vineeto
JAMES: Vineeto, This above quote has helped me to
understand why I have only experienced pure intent while in a PCE. It’s because as you said above: “because
that “genuinely occurring stream” is always outside of ‘you’.” VINEETO: Hi James, Here is the quote in context –
Remember, when you were reporting –
And two days after this discovery you had a PCE You also said –
In the context of “that genuinely occurring stream is always outside of ‘you’” it means, when you direct your attentiveness, and sensuousness, away from the inner world together with its contingent outer world and direct it outside of ‘you’, towards the already always existing actual world, apperceptiveness (a PCE) can happen at any time. Cheers Vineeto
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