Subject: What happened to Peter?

ALEXANDER: Why doesn’t he write anymore? Where did he move to? […]

But still, what happened to Peter?

CLAUDIU: I emailed Vineeto to ask about Peter so I could give a full answer. She wrote this reply to you:

VINEETO: The last incident Richard reported about Peter was on 17 October 2011 –

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

However, even though Richard and Peter had many interactions in order to speed up Peter’s relinquishing of the guardian it never came to pass. Peter eventually put a halt to any further attempts when he moved away to a different part of the continent where he had family and friends. He was very touched when I informed him of Richard’s death and said that ;“Richard was and will continue to be a big influence on my life.”

I utilized this direct route, opened up by Peter and Richard, and became newly free three days later.

It’s your call now, Alexander, to do the same.

Cheers Vineeto

February 21 2025

James: I do understand this completely that I am this flesh and blood body and not a precious identity. 

Vineeto to James: You need to understand experientially and affectively ‘who’ you are in order that this passionate energy can propel you forward with sincere intent towards your goal to leave the ‘self’ behind and live as “this flesh and blood body”.

Presently you are not “this flesh and blood body” but you are the identity using your flesh and blood body as a host. Hypnotising yourself that you are already “this flesh and blood body” does not achieve anything but fooling yourself. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, James2, 19 February 2025a)

ALEXANDER: Hi Vineeto!

I assume you mean dissociating. But why assume when I can ask.

VINEETO: Hi Alexander,

There is a difference between hypnotising and dissociating. Hypnotising is a mental effort to convince yourself of something you are not – though it can involve pushing emotions under the carpet and Kuba has just explained very well what can happen with hypnotising oneself of something you are not.

Whilst dis-associate (disconnect, separate, detach) and dissociate have similar synonyms, Richard used the word dissociation in its psychiatric meaning (splitting off a component of mental activity to act as an independent part of mental life). In other words, dissociation is repressing emotions and harder to undo than dis-associating which is the result of suppressing emotions – in other words a matter of degree.

ALEXANDER: When I’m feeling good and then up it to feeling great then to excellent, I find that the senses become more pronounced and pleasurable. I feel pressure in my head and it’s like I’m on the verge of remembering a dream that was too good to be true. But I don’t want to waste my time dissociating or fooling myself.

VINEETO: The best way to not “waste my time dissociating” is to pay diligent affective attention to how you experience this moment of being alive and take note of every diminishment of feeling good. Then, once you get back to feeling good, you look at the trigger of what caused the diminishment so to avoid a repeat. It’s described in detail in Richard’s article This Moment of Being Alive.

Feeling being ’Vineeto’ used to ask herself some questions –

‘VINEETO’: In those situations when I couldn’t think my way out of my mental block, a condition which I later discovered to be cognitive dissonance, I used to ask myself what it was that was preventing me from understanding. Rather than accusing Richard of being bone-headed, stubborn, silly or wrong, I instead chose to question why I was so bone-headed that I could not understand what he had discovered and what emotional investment ‘I’ had in maintaining ‘my’ status quo by not understanding what he presented as his ongoing delectable experience of the actual world.

These were some of the questions I used to ask myself –

• What feelings prevent me from seeing this one particular fact?
• What fears do I have that prevent me from coming to a new understanding?
• What consequence will this understanding possibly have for ‘me’ and ‘my’ worldview if what Richard is saying is right?
• What consequence will it have for ‘my’ lifestyle, my friendships, my working situation if what Richard is saying is right?

To ask these questions was to sharpen my attentiveness as to how I felt, what I felt and why I felt it when I contemplated the issues that caused a mental block and this attentiveness also showed me how to move past those affective feelings that prevented a clearer understanding of those issues. In other words, attentiveness counteracts the instinctive ‘self’-centredness that is more or less happening all the time unless I become aware of it. Attentiveness combined with contemplation does wonders when one wants to penetrate ‘my’ automatically ongoing affective reactive-ness to emotionally charged topics.

Eventually my burning desire and my persistence not to settle for anything less than indisputable facts won over my fears of questioning what I believed to be absolutely right and true and, to make a long story short, one day something had to give – ‘my’ worldview collapsed in one fell swoop and I had my first pure consciousness experience which lasted for a night and the better half of the next day. I was with Peter at the time and experienced for the first time what it is to be with a fellow human being without having ‘self’-oriented expectations, fears and preconceptions. In fact I only noticed that those ‘self’-centred expectations, fears and preconceptions towards others were a constant feature of ‘me’ when they temporarily ceased. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 60c, 26.1.2004)

ALEXANDER: Bottom line, the better I feel the more sensuous my experience becomes. Is that the way forward? I feel like it’s so simple and then again like I’m juggling twenty things at once:)

VINEETO: That sound good. “Juggling twenty things at once” means that you can increase your affective attentiveness, so much so that it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Then you can catch yourself each time when feeling good/ feeling excellent diminishes and won’t have to be “juggling twenty things at once” –

Richard: ‘... once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – *one is once more feeling good* ... but *with a pin-pointed cue to watch out for next time so as to not have that trigger off yet another bout of the same-old same-old. This is called nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand* ... with application and diligence and patience and perseverance one soon gets the knack of this and more and more time is spent enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive ...’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

It is also beneficial to watch out for and renounce resentment. “Hope is an impoverished proxy for the actual, the resentment remains. Only by firmly renouncing resentment, by abandoning one’s commitment to proving that life on earth is a ‘vale of tears’, can one’s commitment be staunch only to the ultimate goal. (…) Renouncing resentment obviates the need to apply the commonly accepted antidote: gratitude. (…) When gratitude is realised as being the panacea that it is, one will gladly renounce it along with the resentment it promises to replace. To successfully dispense with the despised resentment, its companion emotion, the extolled gratitude, must also go. It is a popular misconception that one can do away with a ‘bad’ emotion whilst hanging on to the ‘good’ one. In actualism the third alternative always applies. Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Sin, Hope and Despair, Gratitude and Resentment, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity.” (Library, Topics, Hope)

ALEXANDER: Glad to see you posting here. I talked to you once or twice on the old message board, I think yahoo, maybe back in the olden days.

VINEETO: You are welcome. You remember which number you had in the correspondence?

ALEXANDER: Would be cool to hear from Peter as well.

VINEETO: As Claudiu (after conferring with me) told you before . Peter has retired from writing ca. 15 years ago.

Cheers Vineeto

February 22 2025

ALEXANDER: I have read and reread this response several times. It’s wild how the simplicity of it all is so slippery to a feeling being.
I always try to bring it back to the beginning when it seems I’m over complicating it.

VINEETO: Hi Alexander,

“To bring it back to the beginning when it seems I’m over complicating it” is an excellent idea.

ALEXANDER: And the beginning is the end, ha. HAIETMOBA.

Given that you used the acronyms – here is a more detailed explanation for “How am I experiencing this moment of being alive” –

Richard: ‘(...) It is a question, not a phrase to be memorised and repeated slogan-like (or as if chanting a mantra for instance), and it soon becomes a non-verbal attitude to life ... a wordless approach each moment again whereupon one cannot be anything else but [affectively] aware of one’s every instinctual impulse/affective feeling, and thus self-centred thought, as it is happening.

[...] ‘The words ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ simply refer the make-up of the awareness-cum-attentiveness being applied ... as distinct from, say, the buddhistic ‘mindfulness’ (which is another ball-game entirely).
In other words the focus is upon how identity in toto is standing in the way of the already always existing peace-on-earth being apparent just here right now. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

As for “the beginning is the end” you are almost correct. However –

Richard: Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive).

So you see, it is so simple that it is a real sudorific enterprise to make it complicated.

ALEXANDER: I don’t remember my ID on the old message board but I can tell you this, I started off curious and quickly became combative and argumentative. But here’s the hilarious part, I thought it was you and Richard and Peter who were combative and argumentative when really you all were just being accurate and precise. If ever I need to feel foolish I have that to reflect on. (…) Thanks Vineeto

VINEETO: You are welcome, Alexander. I am pleased to hear you have changed your previous attitude of being “combative and argumentative” to now being interested in experimenting how to become more happy and harmless and how to increase enjoying and appreciating being alive. It’s pleasing to see how, one by one, human beings start to disentangle themselves from the ancient belief that you can’t change human nature.

And instead of feeling “foolish” you can congratulate yourself that you were intelligent enough to do something about your own resentment, malice and sorrow.

Cheers Vineeto

June 11 2025

ALEXANDER: What is meant by “ascendant beer”?

VINEETO: Hi Alexander,

As a short summary – in an excellence experience (EE) or intimacy experience (IE) the sophisticated doer (controller) is abeyant and the naïve beer is ascendant. The more you dare to be naïve the more the naïve beer (with pure intent) can come forward.

Even though it is best to understand it experientially, when you feel like a child again but with adult sensibilities, I have collected a few of Richard’s quotes for you to theoretically understand more of what the “ascendant beer” refers to –

Richard: To explain further: when out-from-control – out from being under control of the ‘controller’; that self-centred/ self-centric ‘doer’ (i.e., the ‘doer’ of deeds; the ‘actor’ of acts; the ‘speaker’ of words; the ‘thinker’ of thoughts; the ‘feeler’ of feelings) – the primary impetus of agency is the benevolence and benignity of pure intent being dynamically operative via the full concurrence of the ‘beer’ of those deeds, acts, words, thoughts, feelings (i.e., being the experiencing of same, as a state-of-being, as opposed to doing them).

And the words “primary impetus of agency” (‘impetus’ as in, “being dynamically operative”, that is) are used advisedly as, with the ‘doer’ abeyant and the ‘beer’ ascendant, the modus operandi of this mutual agency is indeterminable due to an incapacity to distinguish between the one and the other.

I have written about this quite extraordinary state of affairs before (albeit expressed as “unable to distinguish between ‘me’ doing it and it happening to ‘me’” due to those words of mine being read/ heard by a ‘doer’ and not a ‘beer’).

Viz.:

• [Richard]: “... one has to want it like one has never wanted anything else before ... so much so that all the instinctual passionate energy of desire, normally frittered away on petty desires, is fuelling and impelling/ propelling one into this thing and this thing only (‘impelling’ as in a pulling from the front and ‘propelling’ as in being pushed from behind). There is a ‘must’ to it (one must do it/ it must happen) and a ‘will’ to it (one will do it/ it will happen) and one is both driven and drawn until there is an inevitability that sets in.

Now it is unstoppable and all the above ceases of its own accord ... one is unable to distinguish between ‘me’ doing it and it happening to ‘me’.

One has escaped one’s fate and achieved one’s destiny”. [emphases added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Rick, 4 January 2006).

(Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 15 August 2016).

*

Richard: Lastly, because the terms ‘doer’ and ‘beer’ are utilised in religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical literature to refer to ‘ego’ and ‘soul’, respectively, it is apposite to point out here that those terms are *not* being used thataway when referring to the doer being abeyant, and the beer ascendant, in either a near-PCE – else IE’s and EE’s would instead be ASC’s (i.e., egoless) and thus not near-PCE’s – or when in an out-from-control virtual freedom. (Richard, List D, Srinath2, #out-from-control)

RICHARD: The vital distinction is the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to infinitude – which has nothing to do with any affective felicity and innocuity – being dynamically operative due to the cheerful and thus willing concurrence of the beer.

For instance (from 2005):

• [Richard]: “The actualism method is not about undermining the passions ... on the contrary, it is about directing all of that affective energy into being the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (that is, ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself) in order to effect a deliberate imitation of the actual, as evidenced in a PCE, so as to feel as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’.
Such imitative felicity/ innocuity, in conjunction with sensuosity, readily evokes amazement, marvel, and delight – a state of wide-eyed wonder best expressed by the word naiveté (the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence whilst being a ‘self’) – and which allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude, which this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is, to operate more and more freely. This intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with the imitative affective happiness and harmlessness, will do the rest.
All that was required *was ‘my’ cheerful, and thus willing, concurrence*. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 29 September 2005).

(Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 15 August 2016).

There is plenty more information on the website, for instance Richard’s selected correspondence, Richard’s and Vineeto’s out-from-control reports, and also several pages on the Topica Mailing List, especially (Richard, List D, Srinath2, #out-from-control), (Richard, List D Martin), (List D No. 6) and (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016 forward).

Let me know if that makes it more clear to you.

The pragmatic approach is to be ruthlessly honest with yourself, utterly sincere, and thus allow your hidden-since-puberty naiveté to come to the fore.

Cheers Vineeto

June 15 2025

ALEXANDER: Thanks for all the quotes Vineeto. Yes this clarified it a lot. I must have come across it before but just didn’t remember it. Having that terminology and way of seeing what I’m doing is helpful.

Is it correct to say there is no psychological component to the beer? It’s just feeling at its core?

VINEETO: Hi Alexander,

You are welcome.

It is not correct. When Richard says the ‘doer’ is descendant whilst ‘beer’ is ascendant, it means the sophisticated controller, the one who philosophises, plans, maps, directs and interferes into what is happening of its own accord, is substantially diminished and thus the naïve ‘beer’ is able to allow dynamically life living itself (or let the universe live one) with pure intent pulling one forward to one’s destiny, i.e. an actual freedom and the demise of ‘me’.

As being out-from-control in a different-way-of-being is still within the human condition, the instinctual passions and the psychological/ psychic/ imaginative identity formed thereof is still operating. It only ceases with ‘my’ extinction.

The best way to understand this is to be naïve, even better, be an excellence experience, and from this different way of being contemplate how you are experiencing yourself when your own ‘doer’/ controller is temporarily in the background.

Cheers Vineeto