October 17 2026

CHRONO: I’ve been away for a while as my mood had temporarily dipped a good amount from before. I don’t want to entirely blame it on this but I had also taken a vitamin/ supplement which seemed to have affected my mood a good amount. But it has levelled out after I stopped it.

There was a good period of time where I was almost overflowing with feeling good and at one point I fell into a feeling of “let me make sure that there’s nothing I’m missing out on” and I pulled back into old ways. There was a clear cut moment where it seemed like I could make a decision to feel good forever. Like there was nothing on the horizon but sweetness. This is rather embarrassing writing this but it did follow a period of frustration, falling back into previous feeling patterns of cynicism and grimness (Yet with a constant background feeling of ‘I’m playing pretend’). My aim now is to get back to that overflowing feeling good again.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

This is interesting – in all the ups and downs of feelings, as they tend to be, there was an awareness in the background that “I’m playing pretend”. This is an excellent anchoring point because you can become increasingly aware, and attentive to, that you don’t have to be those vacillating feelings, but choose to be felicitous as in the memory of “sweetness” after your (almost) “decision to feel good forever”. It’s natural that ‘I’ will put up a fight in order to remain in the “old ways” but you have experienced the alternative now and you can experience it again whenever that ‘pretend-game’ loses the emotional pull. It is always available as a choice, whenever you want it.

*

VINEETO: This is an excellent insight and others have reported great success with allowing the feeling to be felt closer and closer until it becomes obvious that ‘I’ am my feeling and this feeling is ‘me’. Then it is really simple. When ‘I’ am no longer divided, ‘me’ fighting against ‘me’, when I truly become a friend to myself, then naiveté is possible.

CHRONO: Yes this essentially is what allowed me to get back to feeling good. When ‘I’ am not fighting ‘my’ self, that absence of conflict automatically dissolves into feeling good. It’s a matter of habituating this more. It seems conflict is also ‘my’ essential nature and I am going against what is “natural”. What I was “missing out” on is nothing but conflict. Another aspect of not fighting myself is that I also feel closer to ‘me’. And I automatically find me liking myself.

VINEETO: It takes courage and determination but it is also quite delicious to follow your path of being happy and harmless, and as such go “against what is ‘natural’”. And the reward is that you become autonomous and increasingly confident in this “decision to feel good forever” being where you want to be – as the “sweetness” you described confirms.

Yesterday I found this paragraph in Richard’s articles that might be helpful –

Richard: Attentiveness reminds one to apply one’s sensuousness to the pertinent situation at the opportune time and to implement surely the appropriate amount of activity needed to do the job. When this vitality is judiciously applied, one stays constantly in a condition of virtual freedom. As long as this condition of virtual freedom is maintained, those feeling-states called ‘moods’ cannot arise for there is no anguish or animosity – virtually no malice or misery – when attentiveness is present. Nevertheless, one is still ‘human’ and to be ‘human’ is to err ... and most people are very ‘human’ and err repeatedly. Despite pure intent, the actualist lets their attentiveness slip now and then and one finds oneself stuck in some unfortunate – but normal – ‘human’ failure. It is attentiveness that notices that change ... and it is attentiveness that reminds one to apply the pure intent required to pull oneself out. Slipping into ‘normal’ happens over and over, but the frequency decreases with the assimilation of the fact that the absence of anguish and animosity in one’s moment-to-moment experience allows one’s daily life to be peaceful and harmonious way beyond normal ‘human’ expectations. Once attentiveness has exposed those affective set-backs, sensuousness provides a more considerate and carefree condition ... one is happy and harmless for ninety-nine percent of the time. It is attentiveness which notices the change from ‘normal’ into happiness and harmlessness, and which reminds the actualist to maintain the pure intent needed to keep one blithe and benign ... and which allows apperception to freely happen. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness Sensuousness Apperceptiveness).

*

VINEETO: It is not that there is a naïve part – when one is naïve this is all of ‘me’. When ‘I’ am resentful and embrace it, this is ‘me’ – and in that moment I have the choice to be naïvely enjoying that I am no longer fighting with myself. There is no point in cutting oneself into various pizza pieces and trying to fight/ hide certain pieces but embrace others. All your feelings are ‘you’ and all can become allies in the grand game of moving towards ‘self’-immolation.

CHRONO: Ah this actually makes it much simpler. It was another way I was complicating the matter. Basically it is something like going into ‘myself’ to unite all of ‘me’. But ‘I’ am being all of ‘me’ each moment. The underlying assumption that had been still surviving in that way of operating is that there really is ‘another place’ and ‘another time’. This “assumption” perhaps is even the essence of ‘my’ being. It’s like ‘I’ spend an inordinate amount of time keeping up the edifice of ‘me’.

VINEETO: What you call “‘another place’ and ‘another time’” is actuality in contrast to the real world. In a PCE you know experientially that you are in “another place”, a magical place where everything is already perfect.

But when not in a PCE, these ever-changing feelings are what you naturally are – inborn and inherited as blind nature’s survival package. It’s not personal, and when you become attentive you recognize that you don’t need to reject or embrace them, or dissociate from them – it is all ‘you’. So when you are not busy fighting or defending what you feel, you can direct this affective energy towards the felicitous feelings and towards sensuousness, enjoyment and appreciation. It’s the same energy and in principle it is really very simple –

Richard: If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre/ bonhomie, friendliness, amiability and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception). (Richard, Articles, a Précis of Actual Freedom).

*

CHRONO: I had been wondering how this flesh and blood body experiences the world. Just a background thought that comes and goes sometimes. I was washing dishes (this seems to happen during washing dishes for some reason) and I felt the soap foam on my hands along with the warm water and it suddenly hit me that it is this body experiencing that sensation. It is neither a thought or a feeling. The direct experiencing of it is the flesh and blood body’s experience. It subsequently also occurred to me that this occurs right here and right now and is perpetually happening. I’m blocking it by thinking and feeling about it. That direct experience conveyed to me more than any thinking about it could. With ‘me’, ‘I’ am trying to outline a coherent whole ‘reality’ but when I experienced the direct sensation it was as if there was only the experiencing of that.

VINEETO: Wonderful, bingo! Your senses inform you that you are here, that you are alive and this is “neither a thought or a feeling”. Isn’t it wonderful to have confirmation by your very own experience and increasing confidence in what you are aiming for.

One of my favourite quotes of a ‘peak experience’ (during Richard’s eighth year of enlightenment) –

Richard: ‘I remember the first time I experienced being the senses only during a peak experience. There was no identity as ‘I’ thinking or ‘me’ feeling ... simply this body ambling across a grassy field in the early-morning light. A million dew-drenched spider-webs danced a sparkling delight over the verdant vista and a question that had been running for some weeks became experientially answered: without the senses I would not know that I exist. And further to this: I was the senses and the senses were me. With this comes an awareness of being conscious ... apperception’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan, #pce).

Cheers Vineeto