CHRONO: So I ended up reading this correspondence [re psychic web] first but it has been very revealing to me as I was able to connect just how I am being and affecting others and how others affect me in real time. One of the things that this highlighted for me is the nature of this feeling of doubt inside me that other people know something that I don’t. But what’s actually happening is there’s a “battle” or undercurrent in what they are saying versus what they are being. This is most apparent in my relationship as I find that there are times that my partner and I “butt heads”. I feel like I am saying something reasonable or sensible but underneath I am battling in force-feeding my point to her. I am more acutely aware now of ‘me’ in everything I say or do that gets in the way of peace and harmony.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

I am pleased to hear you were able to not only become aware of physic vibes but also to notice how most of the vibes are about “a “battle” or undercurrent in what they are saying versus what they are being”. And, as you say, the same battle is happing inside yourself. Particularly in a partnership it is easy to fall into a pattern of having to be ‘right’ rather than being sensible and interested in harmony and intimacy.

CHRONO: At work I was speaking with someone casually (while I was feeling good) and noticed intuitively how I had an automatic “tuning in” to the other person. How I was being pulled to them in a way and I instinctually pulled back. Which instinctive tug-of-war is apparent now in every interaction. Just yesterday I also saw actively while speaking with my partner how it was ‘me’ that was in the way when I was offering my thoughts to her. The moment I dropped below feeling good while speaking with her, I noted what it was. And in every instance it was my expectation or desire of how I wanted her to receive my thoughts. And that seeing was enough for me to get back to feeling good. It didn’t matter how she received it as long as I was really feeling happy and harmless. And it’s strange as I write that as it seems like I’m being accused of being uncaring. But I also note how completely different this is from the application of morality as even an action imbued with love is also an exertion of power. So much interaction is actually a subliminal power battle and it makes me wonder what exactly is the need for it.

VINEETO: Well observed. When you say “how I wanted her to receive my thoughts” you would understand that she instinctually wants the same thing – so when you, for instance, stand back a while and allow her to express her thoughts and her feelings, there is a good chance she will want to understand yours. Your fear of “being uncaring” is responsible for needing to convince her that you are not uncaring (via having your thoughts received, rather than acting in a caring way such as listening attentively, for instance).

*

VINEETO: Well, you not only identify with the ‘many’ who suffer but you also describe/ imagine a compassionate ideal how society should be organized instead, for yourself and others. As each and everyone can only change one person, themselves, the only way you can actually do something beneficial is to change yourself and become free from the human condition for everyone’s benefit.

As a suggestion – instead of only looking at the negative feelings of “resentment, indignation, obedience, etc” only, check out which ‘good’ feelings keep this resentment in place. There could be compassion, which you alleviate with virtuous high morals/ ethics, and/or the feeling of belonging to the ‘many’ who suffer. Perhaps you find some other ‘brownie points’ which presently keep you trapped.

I am reminded of the brilliant way Richard parsed compassion in two of the Audio-taped Dialogues – (snipped).

CHRONO: I’ve never looked at it in the way of seeing it as compassion before but it does make sense.

VINEETO: Before you hone into compassion as one option, did you notice that looking at the ‘good’ feelings, you might be invested in, gives a whole new perspective to your negative feelings of “resentment, indignation, obedience”? There are always two sides to one’s persistent negative feelings and mostly one’s personal investment into the hedonically pleasant side of them is overlooked.

CHRONO: There are times I do imagine being a “Saviour” and how if I could just end the suffering of others I would. All the while in the back of my head, I know it to be very insincere as I would at root be the same as everyone else. Reading that audio-taped dialogue, what I realized is how any action taken by being the love or compassion is ultimately bound to fail (in effecting peace and harmony). I can see how this fits in with the psychic web as well. I am reminded of an instance where one of my friends had been sharing her emotional turmoil in regards her relationship. The entire time she was talking I was tuned into how she was feeling and as I was suggesting my advice to her, I was simultaneously and subliminally turning her ‘bad’ feeling into a ‘good’ feeling in myself and reflecting it back at her. But I found doing this kind of thing as rather exhausting.

VINEETO: Yes, it sounds very exhausting what you were practicing, and in the long run it is ineffective because both sympathy and compassion literally means ‘suffering together’. Did you notice that both “being a ‘Saviour’” and releasing of the (imagined or real) charge of being uncaring are part of your actions? Empathetic caring is a different matter (empathy meaning ‘in-feeling’) –

Richard: Now, as the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was in an out-from-control virtual freedom for something like five months – although not named as such back then, of course, nor thought of in those terms – I can readily report how ‘he’ was more empathetic during that period than ‘he’ ever had been in all ‘his’ 34 years of existence. So much so, in fact, that I would be inclined to characterise a near-actual caring as an acutely-empathic caring. (Richard, List D, Srinath2, #near-actual-intimacy)

By the way, Richard was accused many times of not caring (FFM, Actualists Don’t Care).

CHRONO: And I can’t seem to find the correspondence so I may be off in my recall but I remember reading something Richard wrote where how the help or caring being provided when one is compassionate or empathetic is the very compassion or empathy itself and not any actual help. That has stuck with me for some reason.

VINEETO: There is a long correspondence with Srinath about compassion, empathy burn-out and near-actual caring. (Richard, List D, Srinath2)

You might also find this excerpt informative –

RICHARD: ‘I’ cannot experience the actuality of being caring ... ‘I’ can only experience the feeling of being caring. For example, the last time I visited my biological parents (1984) I was told ‘we worry about you’ ... which fretful feeling of apprehension/ anxiety is, to them, being caring. They mean well, of course, as do most people./p>

RESPONDENT: So, all affective caring stems from separation – the need to ‘solve’ isolation and loneliness.

RICHARD: Yes, it does stem from separation – from being a separative identity – and it does have the effect of ‘solving’ (not dissolving) isolation and loneliness, albeit temporarily, but further to the point affective caring verifies, endorses, and consolidates ‘me’.

Not only am ‘I’ thus authenticated, sanctioned, and substantiated ... ‘my’ presence has meaning.

*

RESPONDENT: Are you saying this [taking care of other people and things] only happens in a selfish sort of way? That all feeling caring is selfish – therefore not really caring at all?

RICHARD: I would rather say ‘self’-centred than ‘selfish’ ... when someone is touched by another’s suffering, as in being moved sufficiently to stimulate caring action, it is their own suffering which is being kindled and quickened. Thus feelings are being aroused, which motivate the activity of caring, and taking care of the other works to assuage the aroused feelings (as well as working to help the other of course). Shall I put it this way? They are missing-out on experiencing the actuality of the caring action, the helpful activity itself, which is taking place.

RESPONDENT: OK, so ‘self’-centred caring (feeling caring) actually works to eliminate one’s own suffering?

RICHARD: Not ‘eliminate’ ... mitigate, alleviate, lessen, diminish.

RESPONDENT: Even so, the other person suffering is getting cared for.

RICHARD: Aye ... the other person does get physically taken care of but both persons miss out on the direct experience of the caring action, the helpful activity itself, which is taking place.

RESPONDENT: So properly caring for the other person is a prerequisite for ‘assuaging’ one’s own aroused feelings.

RICHARD: Yes ... else there be feelings of guilt, compunction, shame, ignominy and so on.

RESPONDENT: Isn’t this actually caring about the other person?

RICHARD: The physical act of caring – the helpful activity itself – is certainly happening but actually caring (an inseparate regard) is not ... there is only feeling caring (a unifying solicitude) occurring.

RESPONDENT: Admittedly, it is caring via one’s own feeling, but one actually does care about the other, since it is only through proper care of the other that one’s own feelings are ‘assuaged’.

RICHARD: No, one does not actually care about the other – one feels that one cares about the other – which is not to deny that ‘proper care’ does occur ... it is remarkable what physical assistance is achieved despite all the hindrances.

RESPONDENT: I’m never quite sure how to take the word, ‘actually’ when you use it – whether it’s sometimes the normal usage – or whether it’s always the ‘actualism’ usage. For example, I am tempted to say that even when one is empathetic and works to resolve another’s suffering – then one actually cared about their suffering – about the other person – again admittedly, via one’s own suffering, yet there is caring taking place – but it’s not actual caring (in the ‘actualism’ usage).

RICHARD: When empathy works to resolve another’s suffering an empathetic caring occurs – this is not under dispute – but it is occurring as a feeling activity ... in the form of affective vibes and/or psychic currents. However, it is only occurring in the real world – there is no empathetic caring here in this actual world – which is a salutary point few comprehend. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 6 December 2002).

CHRONO: But back to identifying with the ‘many’ who suffer. I tune into the suffering because I feel that by tuning in I could do something about it. But now I find that the only action I can take is compassion and/or becoming a “Saviour” of some sort. Then also I must tune in (which I note that the tuning in is also being the suffering) or otherwise I am accused of being selfish. I’ve noted this before so I’m going in circles maybe. But seeing as how even the biggest action of Compassion (such as that with Buddha) has not alleviated the suffering, what other action could there be aside from compassion? What is it to be of an actual help?

VINEETO: Now that you mentioned the “Saviour” twice, and having to avoid being accused of being selfish, uncaring, callous several times – isn’t it time to investigate the root of the problem – the worry about being selfish and uncaring – rather than activate compassion which you already know does nothing to alleviate the suffering?

The traditional cure to being selfish is to put the other before oneself – in other words, only seeing the dichotomy of being ‘selfish’ and being compassionate/unselfish as a choice. Actualism is about becoming less ‘self’-centric (less ego-centric or soul-centric), with the implicit understanding that it is the ‘self’ which is the problem, both in its selfish or its unselfish expression. For instance –

MARTIN: ‘I’ can only think in terms of ‘self’ and ‘other’, where ‘I’ am either selfish or virtuously selfless (which I experience as simply being a re-direction of that narcissistic energy). I don’t think I’ve really understood what harmless means, as I can’t help but either put ‘myself’ or ‘others’ first (as a kind of denial of ‘self’) when I think of being harmless. When I think of “for that body and every body” I can’t help thinking of and instinctually feeling “for that ‘self’ and every ‘self’”! ‘Harmlessness’ feels like something you *do* to another human being – or an effect you have on them – but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?

RICHARD: The word harmless, in actualism lingo, refers to the innocuity which ensues in the absence of malice (just as the word happiness refers to the felicity which ensues in the absence of sorrow).

And it is only in either a PCE (where the feeling-being is abeyant) or upon an actual freedom (where the feeling-being is extinct) that there is a total absence of malice and sorrow.

In the meanwhile, of course, both malice and sorrow (the ‘bad’ feelings) can be deliberately minimised – along with their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion (the ‘good’ feelings) – so as to consciously maximise those happy and harmless feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) and with all of that affective energy, which was otherwise frittered away on those wasteful ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, now freed-up and channelled into felicity and innocuity a potent combination is forged when such untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity.

*

Do you see how almost all of that paragraph you wrote as a lead-up to your query about being harmless – as in “but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?” that is – stems from or revolves around that hoary religio-spiritual practice of putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’) so as to counter selfishness?

Yet the topic on the web page which Claudiu linked to (Richard, Audio-Taped Dialogues, Putting the other before Oneself). is essentially about being self-centred – with especial attention upon that term referring to each and every ‘self’ being both ego-centric and soul-centric – and not about being selfish.

As being harmless does not feature in religio-spiritual practice – peace-on-earth is not on the religio-spiritual agenda – then the sooner that nonsense about being an unselfish ‘self’ is abandoned the better.

Here is another reason why:

• [Richard]: “(...). Further to the point: what is intelligent about advocating pacifism, for example, which would not only enable the bully boys and feisty femmes to rule the world, with all which inheres in that, but would also propagate/ perpetuate their kind unto future generations per favour the dutiful martyrdom (and thus a willing removal from the human gene-pool) of those seeking instant release into the hereafter of their choice through gullible practise of same?
And just in case the latter is not clear enough: if every otherwise intelligent non-dictatorial/ non-bandit/ non-criminal/ non-rapacious/ non-pillaging type of person were to actually put into practice, as a world-wide reality, those unliveable doctrines which bodiless deities prescribe then in a remarkably short period of time all babies will be being born with bully boys and feisty femmes as parents ... and with no alternate care-giver/ role-model anywhere to be found.
So much for ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’, eh?” (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25h, 13 May 2005).

MARTIN: What is harmlessness in an unconditional sense? Obviously it can’t be dependent on others at all.

RICHARD: As to be actually harmless – which is surely what “harmlessness in an unconditional sense” means – is to be actually free of malice (as distinct from being virtually malice-free) then any listing of what it “can’t be dependent on” is irrelevant, as all what being actually harmless is dependent upon is being actually free of malice.

Incidentally, as malice can be (and often is) self-directed – feeling-beings are notorious for self-harm – then to focus solely on others for your “Obviously...” conclusion is to be ignoring half the picture. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Martin, 2 August 2016).

And because this concern of yours is so persistent, there might be an additional sticking point – the issue of belonging, perhaps?

I’ll stop here and answer the rest in a separate post.

Cheers Vineeto 

March 5 2026

VINEETO: … once you eliminate/ abandon the resentment of having to work, perhaps you start enjoying what you do for earning a living, so that enjoying and appreciating being alive is not interrupted every time you go to work.
Here is a story I found in a tool-tip on Richard’s Personal web-page – (snipped (Richard’s Personal web-page, 2^nd tool-tip after “and always would be, perfect”).

CHRONO: I must say I had to read this three times because I did not quite “get it” but I was able to apprehend something intuitively with the following two parts that stuck out to me:

Richard: “Well, there’s two ways of getting yourself outside where all the fun is”, she remarked. “you can drag it out until lunchtime and beyond the way you’ve been going about it, all while feeling really miserable, or you can get stuck into it, have it finished in five minutes flat, and be outside in a trice!”

Richard: “Come along”, she added, briskly. “Pull the plug on that cold water and start afresh; look lively, young laddie, and you’ll be finished before you know it”.

VINEETO: This story is about an older feeling being giving practical advice to child how to deal with an unwanted workload, there is nothing more mysterious about it. However, a lot of adults keep dragging out unpleasant tasks instead of ‘getting to it’.

Chrono: I will also comment that one of the reasons that I resent having to work is the unpleasantness of vibes. But previously I was “helpless” so now I do not have to be.

VINEETO: This is an excellent discovery. Being aware of unpleasant vibes helps a lot not to be drawn in to the psychic battle and you keep on feeling good without having to respond in kind. When you inadvertently get drawn in, there is most like a ‘hook’ on your side and you can ferret out your own reason for any affective involvement.

*

VINEETO: Ah well, this comic-strip video is a very crude, and inaccurate, representation of what Richard is talking about. Richard is not talking about physical violence as presented in that video. He is referring to verbal affective (and psychic) insults, which are quite consequential in the real world to start a heavy brawl or a never-ending feud or the massive sexual molestation/ harassment (…)

CHRONO: I was more likening Spongebob in that video to the figurative sponge that absorbs insults and the attacker as delivering the rudeness, insults, and slights with his punches. And further in the video, Spongebob goes about his day happily while the “punches” have no effect as he is a sponge and neither does he have to wringe it out. And in the final part, it was shown that his attacks fell flat (also found funny that this aggressor’s name was Flats). Although I am aware that it’s not saying the same thing as Richard. Or I could be off the mark even with that understanding. Either way it may be too much of a digression.

VINEETO: It is unfortunate that it being a moving image and not just text, it had far more impact on you than such an improbably fantasy deserves. You better cast this image of how insults are absorbed out of your mind. Fact is that once you have the intent of not responding automatically to insults and slights, you actually root out the cause for feeling insulted from your own psyche, such as a certain self-image, pride, ideas what a man should do and similar concepts.

CHRONO: But to come back to the topic, I do find it interesting that giving and taking offence relates directly to vibes and psychic currents. Now that I am casting more attention on this phenomenon, I am rather astonished at how much of a role it plays in the real world. Maybe respect and disrespect as it is talked about in the real world also relates to giving and taking offence. I liken this part to “keeping your hands in your pockets”:

Richard: ...absorbing all the rudeness, all the insults, all the slights (no knee-jerk reactionary rudeness; no retaliatory retorts; no keeping score, even, of past incidences) … (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 January 2016).

VINEETO: Yes, it does relate. Both respect and disrespect, fear and authority is overwhelmingly established on the psychic level. As Richard says, that’s where the real power play takes place, especially via the stronger psychic currents which are instantaneously transmitted over long distances.

But you can step out of this tug-of-war game altogether and keep your hands in your pocket, while eliminating the reason in you which may cause you to feel insulted. Then you will no longer be a target (most of the time). That is what I mean when I say one becomes more and more anonymous.

CHRONO: My question now is, if as a ‘being’, I am always involuntarily transmitting and receiving vibes and psychic currents, how can I as a ‘being’ have this affective and psychic attacking/ defending fall flat?

VINEETO: Simply by your intent to be happy and harmless and to keep feeling good. It’s a different value to the ‘battle’ of right and wrong, superior/ inferior others want to draw you into. In other words, you play a different game altogether.

CHRONO: My current understanding is that the conceiving of being a sponge is maintaining the intent to be happy and harmless in every situation or circumstance. I would still experience those vibes and have a reaction accordingly, but I would neither repress or express them if they came up. To bring it back to more of an experiential understanding, I wrote earlier that how I was able to choose feeling good. This understanding came when I realized that there are no rules or anyone standing in my way in being happy and harmless and that it is my choice alone. I can feel good come what may and it is ‘me’ that is standing in the way.

Richard: Thus the identity in situ at the beginning of 1981 went right to the heart of the matter from the get-go. The crux of the issue is that, as each and every identity is a feeling-being at root (i.e., ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’), all identities are hereditarily programmed by blind nature to emotionally-passionally react, instantaneously, to affectively-felt and/or psychically-intuited threats to their existence because, at their very core, it is ‘being’ itself at dire risk (i.e., ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself).
(It is a genetic hangover from long-ago ancestral eras already many millions of years old when sapience emerged around 100+ millennia ago – as a boy, a youth, a young man, hunting game in the wild plus interacting daily with domesticated animals, revealed to me how they relied as much, if not more, on what was known generically as a ‘sixth sense’ as upon an acute sense of smell, alert hearing and keen eyesight in order to evade predation – which has become a liability, for modern-day humankind, rather than the asset it once was).
Now, because the pure consciousness experience (PCE) – where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is in abeyance (unlike an altered state of consciousness (ASC) where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being reigns supreme as ‘Being’ itself) for the duration – experientially demonstrates how each and every identity has no existence whatsoever in actuality then any such offensiveness (previously experienced as affective/ psychic threats to ‘my’ existence/ to ‘my’ very ‘being’) loses its existential sting/ no longer has its dire effect.
Indeed, ‘all the rudeness, all the insults, all the slights’, and etcetera, soon become rather exquisite aids in ferreting-out any aspects of ‘me’ which have eluded exposure through hands-on inspection up till then (hence my parenthetical remark about the metaphorical ‘wringing it out’ ploy not being necessary, in practice, and my further above observation regarding the absorbability of offensive language/ offensive gestures being nigh-on infinite in regards quantity). (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 January 2016).

The part that I bolded sticks out to me the most and has been happening more and more.

VINEETO: You got it in one. It’s your experiential understanding you can “can feel good come what may and it is ‘me’ that is standing in the way”.

Brilliant.

Cheers Vineeto