June 1 2025

CLAUDIU: But I think the missing ingredient is… basically the decision to do it, to go all-in. I definitely see now that the self-centered aspect of myself still has a powerful pull that it’s easy for me to fall into. I think this is what is ‘overcome’ when going out-from-control in the way Richard, Geoffrey, & Vineeto were. And then indeed as there’s no more escape hatch it will happen on its own.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I am pleased that you recognized that what you (with encouragement from me at the time) had called being out-from-control, a different way of being – has turned out not to be the Out-from-Control “Richard, Geoffrey & Vineeto” described. (…)

Just to have some common understanding about what you are referring to –

Richard: Thus the virtual freedom being referred to in ‘Richard’s Journal’ is, of course, the full-blown experiencing of it: an out-from-being-control and, thus, different way of being nowadays known as an ongoing excellence experience (EE). (…) This penultimate out-from-control/ different-way-of-being is barely distinguishable from a pure consciousness experience. It was from this ongoing excellence experiencing that pure consciousness experiences occurred on a near-daily basis – sometimes two-three times a day – for the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago. (…) Being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of-being implicitly requires pure intent. (Library, Virtual Freedom)

Geoffrey: To me out-from-control implies being naiveté, being in an ongoing excellence experience, having allowed pure intent to be dynamically operative, being on a ride, the ride of a lifetime, the process from which there is no coming back,resulting from a once-in-a-lifetime decision…Out-from-control is grand, thrilling, is the ride to one’s destiny! It also includes being benevolence, and a general caring/ consideration for others.
[an ongoing excellence experience means to be naiveté itself which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’].

Richard: ‘Vineeto, who is now fully out-from-control/ in a fully different-way-of-being, and thus on my side of that enormous wall of fear completely encircling all of humankind, ...’ (24.12.2009)

This is really an excellent acknowledgement/ insight in that you now can see your way forward to in fact traverse the wall of fear, become naïve all the way to being naiveté, become harmless, considerate, caring, inclusive, likeable and liking, benevolent, benign and magnanimous – non-sudorifically, with joy and delight because it’s the best way a ‘self’ can be and appreciate this magnificent planet we all live on.

CLAUDIU: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end (‘constantly accelerating’) I know there’s that next step I can take, which will be smaller than the step to self-immolating, in other words it will make it easier.

VINEETO: The quicker you drop any plan and/or map and/or concept you might have in your head and start living naïvely, the easier it will be to experientially find out the next step the moment you take it. Mental maps are the opposite of being naïve and they have an inherent flaw that imagination takes over and pretends one is already where one wants to be according to the concept.

CLAUDIU: But maybe the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route (yet again), due to all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion), which for both of us it seems like it does lead to something that we experience like being out-from-control, but indeed to keep doing that and ‘stabilize’ in it (in the sense of making it my baseline) and then from there it’ll be easier/more obvious how/more obviously sensible to make that irrevocable decision.

VINEETO: Ha, the addiction to sudorifically finding one’s way through an imagined jungle of chores and traps is not easy to abandon, hey, but it’s really worthwhile. Make friends with not knowing what’s going to happen next, with experimenting living without plan and scheme, don’t envision you have to ‘tick off’ ‘self’-set tasks. It’s not vigilance you need, it’s a change in attitude towards life itself and towards your fellow human beings. Re-discover how to play and play together.

Vineeto: I remember clearly one day sitting in a circle of 5 friends, utterly relaxed despite the fact that I had never met one of them in person, and I noticed that I had no personal agenda whatsoever, no plan to stir the conversation into a particular direction, nothing to emphasize or hide, no self-centredness or favouritism, no shame, shyness, embarrassment, no power or drive – I was just being myself as I was. I sat in this group, as one of many, and my sole interest was that everyone present (including me as one of those present) enjoyed themselves/ obtained the maximum benefit from our meeting. I experienced myself as being unreservedly at ease and utterly benign and wasn’t driven to say anything unless it contributed to the overall quality of the conversation. (Direct Route, James, 16 January 2015)

Cheers Vineeto

June 1 2025

VINEETO: This is really an excellent acknowledgement/ insight in that you now can see your way forward to in fact traverse the wall of fear, become naïve all the way to being naiveté, become harmless, considerate, caring, inclusive, likeable and liking, benevolent, benign and magnanimous – non-sudorifically, with joy and delight because it’s the best way a ‘self’ can be and appreciate this magnificent planet we all live on.

CLAUDIU: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end (‘constantly accelerating’) I know there’s that next step I can take, which will be smaller than the step to self-immolating, in other words it will make it easier.

VINEETO: The quicker you drop any plan and/or map and/or concept you might have in your head and start living naïvely, the easier it will be to experientially find out the next step the moment you take it. Mental maps are the opposite of being naïve and they have an inherent flaw that imagination takes over and pretends one is already where one wants to be according to the concept.

CLAUDIU: Sure but I don’t see the difference in what you said vs what I said? I wrote I “know there’s that next step I can take” (i.e. going out-from-control genuinely) while you write that I “now can see [my] way forward to in fact traverse the wall of fear” (i.e. going out-from-control genuinely), what’s the difference such as it makes the former a mental map but the latter not?

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I understand, they do sound similar – I was more commenting on the tendency I have observed of following the finger on an imaginary map rather than naively experiencing the next moment without a plan but unwavering intent.

How do you know which is the next step – I know that ‘Vineeto’ didn’t know which was the next step to get out-from-control, even though Richard had explicitly urged ‘her’ to do just that –

Richard: … although I was not advised of her [Irene’s] death until the following day, within the hour I was as if lifted forward by a cresting wave (to utilise surfing terminology), impressing upon Vineeto the necessity of being out-from-control/ in a different-way-of being (most unusual of me to do so), and have been effortlessly riding this perfect wave ever since … (Announcement 1)

*

CLAUDIU: But maybe the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route (yet again), due to all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion), which for both of us it seems like it does lead to something that we experience like being out-from-control, but indeed to keep doing that and ‘stabilize’ in it (in the sense of making it my baseline) and then from there it’ll be easier/ more obvious how/ more obviously sensible to make that irrevocable decision.

VINEETO: Ha, the addiction to sudorifically finding one’s way through an imagined jungle of chores and traps is not easy to abandon, hey, but it’s really worthwhile. Make friends with not knowing what’s going to happen next, with experimenting living without plan and scheme, don’t envision you have to ‘tick off’ ‘self’-set tasks. It’s not vigilance you need, it’s a change in attitude towards life itself and towards your fellow human beings. Re-discover how to play and play together.

CLAUDIU: Humm I don’t see how what I wrote is “an imagined jungle of chores and traps” though.

VINEETO: It seems I haven’t been precise enough to be understood correctly. What I was responding to were your words “the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route (yet again), due to all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion) …” and “keep doing that and ‘stabilize’”.

Richard somewhere described ‘his’ change to out-from-control similar to changing to a higher ‘gear’ –

Richard: … where there would be a ‘slippage’ of the brain, somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear too soon, and the magical world where time had no workaday meaning would emerge in all its sparkling wonder, where I could wander for extensive periods in gay abandon with whatever was happening. (Richard, Personal Webpage)

Unfortunately I was unable to find the exact quote where Richard used a similar description when in January/ February 1981 the change into virtual freedom occurred comparable switching into a higher gear. He said he only fell out once and it was so unpleasant he never wanted to revert back to normal after it recommenced a few moments later.

This is to emphasize that the transition to being out-from-control is indeed a radically different-way-of-being, which can neither be achieved by “vigilance” nor by “keep doing that and ‘stabilize’” and arises out from being naiveté (see last tooltip in A Clay-Pit Tale). Also you are referring to “all the above (caring, altruism, blessed oblivion)” almost as an afterthought, something you just forgot to mention –

Richard: Yet without naiveté – the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ – pure intent will remain still-born. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 60g, 1 November 2005).

When you said in two other messages –

Claudiu: This is just crazy, forgetting about the caring aspect lol

And

Claudiu: Ok so now that I somewhat care again (lol) it all makes sense.

– it makes me wonder what happened to pure intent, this actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity which makes it impossible not to care or being considerate and endows one with virtual magnanimity and caring and benevolent generosity towards one’s fellow human beings. How can you just “forget about the caring aspect lol” as if you had just forgotten your keys when leaving the house?

CLAUDIU: If I put it differently what I would say is that being in an excellence experience is very familiar to me now, this is where caring, naiveté, fun, being likable & liking, etc., are all part of it without having to put effort into it (because the ‘beer’ is operant rather than the ‘doer’), and it’s way less self-centric.

VINEETO: It may be familiar as past experiences, the memory of which is a belief right now unless it is happening now. And unless it is presently happening then your conclusions (for instance of “without having to put effort into it”) are informed by the rational, logical, reasonable identity ‘Claudiu’, who cannot, by ‘his’ very nature, know how to move from the ‘doer’/controller to the naïve near-innocent ‘beer’ experiencing overflowing pure intent (because that is not ‘his’ territory).

CLAUDIU: It is very contrasted with going back to the regular self-centric way of being which is no fun at all by comparison. So what I’m saying it makes sense to do is, when being alive in the way of being like an excellence (or intimacy) experience, just decline to go back out of it back to the self-centric way of being. Like make the choice to not go back there. It seems like an obvious thing and I am not sure I need to do anything else actually lol. (ADDENDUM: I mean I think there is still actually going out-from-control from there but I think I will see where to do that/ it’ll be obvious how to do it, as a natural consequence of doing this, not going back to self-centric ways). (…)

VINEETO: First you will need to abandon “the regular self-centric way of being” to contrast it with something else.

That is what I mean by working along a concept, a map, rather than moving one step experientially while you are doing it.

Here is something for you to ponder: Richard had neither a blue-print nor a map nor anyone’s reports of what happened to them on the way to an actual freedom. He figured it all out by himself. However, what he had in abundance was naiveté (the naïve boy from the farm, as he kept saying).

One would think that those who have all these past reports, explanations and confirmation available for their own experiences would be better off now, but the cunning of the genetic/social identity can and does use any opportunity to turn a helpful tool into a stumbling block. As such pure intent is vital, essential.

CLAUDIU: Does it make sense, do you still see it as a sudorific thing when I put it that way?

VINEETO: The alternative of “sudorific” is not its logical opposite as in “without having to put effort into it” but a major ongoing re-experiencing of your way of being (without the ‘controller’).

A bit like what you said in your next post –

CLAUDIU: Yea it’s more like a not-sure-what-will-come-next, it doesn’t make sense to plan the next steps for how to self-immolate. Although all the stuff I discussed w/ Geoffrey and we discussed here is all relevant to keep in mind I suppose. Will see how it goes.

VINEETO:

Richard: Naiveté is so vital to freedom. This is because even the strictest application of moralistic and ethicalistic injunctions will never lead to the clean clarity of the purity of living the perfection of the infinitude of this material universe. Purity is an actual condition – intrinsic to this universe – that a human being can tap into by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with earnest attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naïve is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless ... in short: ingenuous. Naiveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naïve means to be simple and unsophisticated.

Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naïve innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory decrees of the cultured sophisticates. … Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ ... they never had it in the first place.

Innocence is something entirely new; it has never existed in human beings before. It is an evolutionary break-through to come upon innocence. It is a mutation of the human brain. Naiveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naïve to contemplate the profound notion that this universe is benign, friendly. One needs to be naïve to consider that this universe has an inherent imperative for well-being to flourish; that it has a built-in benevolence available to one who is artless, without guile. (Library, Topics, Naiveté)

Cheers Vineeto

June 2 2025

CLAUDIU: I think there’s just a disconnect here. The funny and delightful thing is that from the self centric way of being it’s a big social identity issue, wanting to show that I “know the answer” and defend myself. But writing now from the being naive way of being it just doesn’t ‘matter’ at all haha, at least this aspect of it.

The way to proceed is rather to go from an out from control way of being which is what being naïveté is, which is also called an excellence experience. This isn’t an out from control virtual freedom, the distinction there (which I asked Richard about) is that pure intent isn’t fully and dynamically operative yet. But that’s just words describing something I haven’t experienced yet so it’s not so relevant now except as to know there’s something ‘more’ (but it is unknown to me what that is like).

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

I demure. You can only proceed from where you are at. How can you “go from an out from control way of being” when you are not in “an out from control way of being”? How can you go from “being naïveté” when you are not “being naïveté”? Being naïveté itself is to be permanently out-from-control.

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

⁽⁰¹⁾To be naïveté itself (i.e., naïveté embodied as a childlike persona with adult sensibilities), which is to be the closest one can to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ (innocence is where ‘self’ is not), one is both likeable and liking for herewith lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness whereupon moment-to-moment experiencing is of traipsing through the world about in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement as if a child again (guileless, artless, ingenuous, innocuous)—yet with adult sensibilities whereby the distinction betwixt being naïve and being gullible is readily separable—simply marvelling at the sheer magnificence of this oh-so-material universe’s absoluteness and unabashedly delighting in its boundless beneficence, its limitless largesse, as being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian (due to the near-absence of agency which ensues when the controlling doer is abeyant and the naïve beer is ascendant), with a blitheness and a gaiety such that the likelihood of the magical fairy-tale-like nature of this paradisaical terraqueous globe, this bounteously verdant and azure planet, becoming ever-so-sweetly apparent, as an experiential actuality, is almost always imminent. [Emphases added]. (A Clay-Pit Tale, last tooltip)

Given that you recognized that you are not out-from-control, i.e. not consistently in an excellence experience or intimacy experience, with the ‘controller’ still operating, not “being the experiencing [which] is inherently cornucopian”, fully comprehending this will all of your ‘being’ experientially, this is the only point from where to start.

CLAUDIU: So what I was attempting to convey, perhaps poorly, is that the way to continue from here seems to be to more consistently be naïveté, to be more and more of the time in this excellence experience way of being rather than not. I put ‘stabilize’ in squotes cause it’s not a great word, but don’t know what a good one would be. But basically to be it more consistently.

VINEETO: To say it again for emphasis, the change from being in a methodological, in-control virtually freedom to a dynamic out-from-control different way of being is a paradigm shift, not “to be more and more of the time” in the way you have been –

Vineeto: Unfortunately I was unable to find the exact quote where Richard used a similar description [“somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear”] when in January/ February 1981 the change into virtual freedom occurred ... (Actualism, Actualvineeto, 1 June 2025a)

To use a physical-world simile – there is a major difference between driving a car and flying in a rocket-ship.

CLAUDIU: And the way doesn’t seem so different from establishing a baseline of feeling good, it’s a matter of noticing when I have fallen out of it and getting back to it soonest.

Yea I do think we are saying the same thing. Last few days have oscillated from being in control self-centric way of being and feeling or wondering if everything is horribly awry and I’m way off track, to the out-from-control naive way of being and it’s like oh ok I’m basically going in the right direction. As of now I do think I’m basically on the right track, but the doing/being of it will be the proof in the pudding of course.

VINEETO: As the remainder of your reply is in a similar vein of just doing more of the same/ more consistently doing the same, and that we are talking about “the same thing”, let me use your own words of your report when your visit to Geoffrey was still more fresh in your mind –

Claudiu: Two other key pieces: the major one was we figured out that I had been trying to put myself into actuality, as in I as identity, as a feeling-being, will continue somewhat beyond self-immolation. There were many ways I had justified it, like “Oh but Peter said there was a continuity of consciousness…” and he’s like “Consciousness! You’re translating that into ‘identity’! It’s not identity that continues!” or “But I remember disappearing in a PCE” and he’s like “No you don’t! You are putting yourself into the PCE and spoiling the memory. This is why you are supposed to rememorate it not remember it.” etc. (…)

He also really impressed upon me just how significant this is. It’s not kid stuff. It’s not a playground ride or a roller coaster where you get on it then come back and get off and you’re back to where you were. It is a one-way ride with no return ticket. So long as the enormity of it is not grasped – to which fear and dread are a normal response – then it’s still just being on the playground ride.

Only once this is grasped then can the decision be made to take the leap and continue anyway (otherwise you’re just imagining yourself to be on a cliff but you’re really on a flat ground, and you don’t see the edge to jump off of but only think you do). So you have to actually get to the edge of the cliff (seeing the enormity of the extinction) and only then you can decide to jump. (…)

In any case the main take-aways for me from the trip was A) see that I really will disappear entirely, B) see the enormity and significance of this (the stakes are indeed high), C) stop kidding myself with fake hurdles that feel real, it really (for me at this point) is all avoidance tactics to avoid facing the real thing, which is the total extinction of it. In short, go up to the edge of the cliff, see if I really want it, then joyfully/gaily/cheerfully (not seriously) jump/traverse the wall of dread/whatever the metaphor, do whatever you can to do it, and then extinction will be nigh.

Even though this first of “two key pieces” does not appear in your list of “main take-aways” I think it is an all-important revelation – that you “had been trying to put myself into actuality”. It might well require a certain gestation period to fully grasp the enormity of the impact on your imaginary way of “trying to put myself into actuality”. Because when fully understood, with all of your ‘being’, not just intellectually, it will have/ would have, completely taken the carpet from under your feet. Hence my reference to a gestation period –

Richard: My experience with the peoples who have chosen to give felicity/ innocuity a go is, as a generalisation, that the necessary paradigm shift has usually been a gradual process of comprehension – not necessarily an instantaneous shift – and which paradigmatical change commences because of that choice ... and that choice mainly comes after a gestation period (which itself follows intelligent appraisal/ thoughtful consideration).

And, by way of personal example, I need only point to the six-month incubation period already mentioned. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 60g, 30 October 2005b).

It would be a pity if you missed the full import of what transpired during your visit to a fully free human being.

Cheers Vineeto

June 4 2025

CLAUDIU: Hi Vineeto,

I see the disconnect and I can unravel it. Basically, the way forward is clear to me: it’s the way towards naïveté, being way way more naive than has been my usual way of experiencing myself the past year, to the point of being naïveté, and revelling in it, this palpable naïveté that is now such an obvious direction to go into. It’s so obvious and clear that it’s the way to go that I am not sure anyone could convince me otherwise.

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

Ha, with ramping up naiveté (liking yourself and others, being likeable and liking) you can’t go wrong. With naiveté it’s so much easier to let any self-image, social status problem, concerns about previous concepts or one’s place on the map fall by the wayside because life is then experience as the best one can be, and let active pure intent do the rest.

CLAUDIU: So to allay your concerns, no it’s not that I’m gonna do the same thing I have been doing the past year. That will only lead to another year of the same. Rather it’s to go into this clear, far-far-more increased naïve way of being alive.

VINEETO: My point rather was, not that you would do that intentionally but that ‘you’ the identity, having a vested interest in surviving another day, will secretly, unnoticed, step in and pervert the cause of facticity. After all you said in your report about your visit to Geoffrey –

Claudiu: “But I remember disappearing in a PCE” and he’s like “No you don’t! You are putting yourself into the PCE and spoiling the memory. This is why you are supposed to rememorate it not remember it.”

Sometimes it takes a while to digest, rememorate and then fully abandon one’s previous modus operandi, even a possible gestation period. This is only natural given the complexity and weirdness of the human condition.

For instance, ‘Vineeto’ had a severe shock and re-orientation and re-adjustment when Richard told ‘Peter’ and ‘her’ that their virtual freedom was not the dynamic different-way-of-being, ‘Vineeto’ needed a day to emotionally and mentally digest this, including the fact ‘she’ had deceived not only ‘herself’ but also a lot of others in ‘her’ writing. So I know from personal experience how self-deception operates and how one can feel upon exposure/ revelation.

At that time ‘Vineeto’ was also experiencing competition with Pamela about who would be the first female to become actually free. Richard always gently played on our competitive feelings by saying to each of us that “you could be the first”. He figured that anything which helps to overcome our inertia was beneficial. I remember the competitive feelings were particularly acute for ‘Vineeto’ when Pamela had her 5-months PCE which at first, of course, looked like ‘she’ had ‘done it’.

CLAUDIU: What I was getting at (but poorly it seems) is that this palpable naïveté is something that I have experienced on occasion the past year, actually somewhat frequently, and I would say I have gotten a knack at getting back to it – but no it hasn’t been a 100% or even 99% ongoing experience. However it’s not an entirely unknown and unfamiliar direction, was what I was saying, it’s more just going to that already-somewhat-familiar direction, but more, much much more, with renewed intent and vigor, and it certainly appears to go “deeper” than I’ve gone into it before.

VINEETO: It is not a matter of “poorly” conveying what you wanted to say but the very fact that you were trying to move forward, “with renewed intent and vigor”, before you really digested and fully assessed the major game-changing events which happened during your visit to Geoffrey.

Claudiu: Two other key pieces: the major one was we figured out that I had been trying to put myself into actuality, as in I as identity, as a feeling-being, will continue somewhat beyond self-immolation. There were many ways I had justified it,

And:

Claudiu: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end ….

The planning for going ahead, as in “but maybe the way to do it is just to be vigilant and purposefully choose not to go down the self-centric route” sounded to me originating from the ‘planner’, the ‘controller’, the reasonable, rational ‘Claudiu’ who is quickly mapping the course of action before the full impact of the experience of what was learnt during your visit made itself experientially felt and comprehensively understood in a life-changing way.

Whereas when you first feel good, feel great, feel excellent, and become more naïve, then everything – I mean every thing – is seen in a different light, including what to be next (and I don’t mean be vigilant). It’s promising that you say “it certainly appears to go ‘deeper’”.

CLAUDIU: I can’t think of a better way to depict the sheer fun of this naïveté than the interaction with my partner when I just got home now. I’m walking in having a blast, and she gets an amused look and says I have a mischievous grin on my face (I didn’t realize I was grinning lol). So then I go up closer to her and hug her on the couch and say “Oh I have a secret”. And she’s like oh? What’s the secret? And I pause and say … … “I’m having a lot of fun”. And she just bursts out laughing, this hearty, full-on laugh. It certainly is contagious .

VINEETO: This is a lovely fun story and in that experience you have indeed “a secret”.

To once in a while have fun is easy to start with – to give full permission to always have fun needs some “awareness-cum-attentiveness” in order to persistently decline the directives of the ‘doer’/ ‘controller’. Kuba said it well yesterday –

Kuba: In order for the controller to go into abeyance it is as if ‘I’ have to agree (at the very depths of ‘my’ being) that life is not a serious business, that it is not a vale of tears, it is not a dog eat dog world out there etc. ‘I’ say a big, resounding yes to being alive right now, with no resentment or resistance whatsoever and then the controller can go into abeyance. And when this happens it really is “bester”, that this is what ‘I’ can have as a feeling being.

CLAUDIU: I ehhh wrote another 1,200 words about the various terms and terminology for all this but… I think it’s unnecessary for now lol. So I’ll just leave it here for now.

VINEETO: Excellent.

Cheers Vineeto

June 9 2025

Kuba: So this whole out from control / not out from control saga that has been going on. What I can say is that there was a qualitative shift last year and this qualitative shift has remained throughout. What changed then, has not unchanged […] being out from control is not a leisurely club to hang out in […] what it means to be out from control is the very antithesis of having such a static plateau to hang out on […] The experience of being out from control is more to do with the lack of anything stable or static rather than chilling out on some rung on an imaginary ladder. Essentially it is to say that being out from control is not a feather in ‘my’ cap, it’s more like ‘I’ am speedily loosing all ‘my’ feathers and ‘my’ cap. […]

CLAUDIU: I think we both experienced something like this and what it is like being alive has not changed for me either. And the experiential portions of the reports we have made of it are accurate reports of what it is like, at least I haven’t made anything up.

Kuba: I banished myself from remaining where it is so magical for no good reason at all, and hence I entered a “parenthesis period” that lasted months!

(...)

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

After giving it some deliberation, I decided to comment on the whole topic.

One reason is that I encouraged both yourself and Kuba to collect messages from the forum that appeared to fit the description of being out from control for publishing it on the AFT website, when it eventually turned out that this might not be the case.

The other reason is that I take the words my correspondents write at face value and therefore can only go by what they write, and not what they live day-to-day, when Claudiu’s visit to Geoffrey provided a more complete experience –

Claudiu: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that.

The last but not least reason is that I will have to be more careful in my writing that I better not encourage people to adopt the label of being out-from-control according to what they write, so that time (a person’s and other readers’ most valuable asset) may not be frittered away by believing that they only have to “chill” and wait for the actualism process to complete by itself when this is not yet the case.

For additional help in the action of determining your own situation I have collected some unambiguous quotes from Richard and one from myself from Richard’s selected correspondence (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Dynamic Virtual Freedom) –

Respondent: Can you determine whether someone is living a virtual freedom ...

Richard: It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again ... if another wishes to fool me, by reporting something which is not the situation then, when all is said and done, they only end up fooling themselves (when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day and upon waking another perfect day is presenting itself). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 15 June 2003)

*

Respondent: However, I think, I am beginning to understand pulling back/ turning away: it is like crossing a Rubicon, an experience of it can be physically felt as an empty space/ throbbing right under the belly (the uterus contracting). But of course, the person in question may be able to corroborate on this much more.

Richard: (…). But you are correct – it is indeed like crossing ‘a boundary, a limit; esp. one which once crossed betokens irrevocable commitment; a point of no return’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and it is only upon such a crossing that the actualism process, as distinct from the actualism method, can start whereupon an inevitability thus set in motion begins to gather a momentum all of its own accord.

Then one is on the ride of a lifetime!  [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 16 November 2009)

*

Richard: There is a distinct difference betwixt the actualism method and the actualism process – inasmuch the former is voluntary, or still-in-control, and the latter is involuntary, or out-from-control – to the degree that any comparison is akin to chalk and cheese in regards effect). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 10 December 2009)

*

Richard: An obvious out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom is an on-going excellence experience (EE) but an on-going intimacy experience (IE) may very well be the most likely state as an EE, being so close to a PCE as to be barely distinguishable ... [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, No. 12, 9 December 2009). (See Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016).

*

Vineeto: My period of being out-from-control started when I (metaphorically speaking) traversed the ‘wall of fear’, described by Richard as ‘a fear so vast as to best be called dread’ occurring at the ‘utter imminence’ at the gate to an actual freedom. Richard described it this way in a private email about me –

Richard: ‘Vineeto, who is now fully out-from-control/ in a fully different-way-of-being, and thus on my side of that enormous wall of fear completely encircling all of humankind, ...’ (24.12.2009)

During this period, which for me personally lasted about four-and-a-half weeks before it culminated in the final event on January 5, 2010, I experienced an ever-increasing pull to move forward into what I clearly and unambiguously recognized as my destiny – an irrevocable freedom from the human condition. It set in motion a process that was to undo all of my remaining bonds to humanity, my residue of inhibitions, my last hesitations and any and all lingering doubts. Having finally arrived at being out-from-control, living the ‘beer’ rather than being the ‘doer’, filled me with a previously unknown confidence and certainty that ‘my’ redemption was indeed nigh. [Emphases added]. (Direct Route, James, 16 Jan 2010).

Cheers Vineeto

June 10 2025

CLAUDIU: Hi Vineeto,

That all makes sense, I just want to address this quote you included:

Respondent: Can you determine whether someone is living a virtual freedom …

Richard: It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again … if another wishes to fool me, by reporting something which is not the situation then, when all is said and done, they only end up fooling themselves (when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day and upon waking another perfect day is presenting itself). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 15 June 2003)

There is an implication here (maybe unintended) that I was fooling you (and others) by “reporting something which is not the situation”, and I want to affirm that this is not what happened. (snip).

VINEETO: Hi Claudiu,

Before you continue with your response to your own “implication”, which you already classified as “perhaps unintended”, let me tell you there was no implication when I sent off the message. It must have crept in when you read it.

The intentioned reason I included this quote was because of the first sentence –

Richard: “It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again …”

That means I will be refraining from labelling who is at what stage in the actualism progression, and I have already taken responsibility when I gave my reasons for providing the quotes in the message you are replying to (which you said makes sense to you) –

Vineeto: After giving it some deliberation, I decided to comment on the whole topic.

One reason is that I encouraged both yourself and Kuba to collect messages from the forum that appeared to fit the description of being out from control for publishing it on the AFT website, when it eventually turned out that this might not be the case.

The other reason is that I take the words my correspondents write at face value and therefore can only go by what they write, and not what they live day-to-day, when Claudiu’s visit to Geoffrey provided a more complete experience – (…)

The last but not least reason is that I will have to be more careful in my writing that I better not encourage people to adopt the label of being out-from-control according to what they write, so that time (a person’s and other readers’ most valuable asset) may not be frittered away by believing that they only have to “chill” and wait for the actualism process to complete by itself when this is not yet the case. [Emphases added]. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Claudiu6, 9 June 2025).

The comment is my hindsight and what I will be doing different in future. We are all pioneers in this business of bringing about peace on earth.

Where in that introduction did I say that you were “fooling” me? It is up to you to determine that.

Let me put it in a different way – to explain why Richard wrote the second part of the above quote – the whole process of actualism includes finding out about one’s emotional/ passional habitual thinking and (at times passionate) feeling which encompasses finding out about one’s beliefs, morals and ethics inculcated from birth onwards, which prevent enjoying and appreciating being alive.

Each time you are able to replace a belief/ truth with a fact you recognize you have been fooled and as such been fooling yourself. The same applies to any other social identity issue you have inadvertently swallowed hook, line and sinker, when you eventually find out that they make no sense when compared to the sincere intent of imitating the actual.

Your visit to Geoffrey enabled you to find out the fact that his being out-from-control doesn’t match your own belief of being out-from-control –

Claudiu: What happened with me is: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that.

And –

Claudiu: But this has got me all looking around, now that I’m confident I am not out-from-control in the way Geoffrey was at the end …

So you were able to replace your previous belief with the newly discovered fact.

Now why you want to go back discussing what happened a year ago (June 23 and 24, 2024) to justify anything that was happening then, and then have me “imply” that you were or were not “fooling” me, is anyone’s guess. For what purpose? Why not appreciate that a new fact has come to light which makes the previous belief obsolete?

I am reminded of a quote from Richard (he always said it better than I ever can) –

Richard: A fact is patent, obvious, apparent, evident, tangible, palpable, substantial, tactile, verifiable and indisputable. The marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action, and that action is the movement into perfection. (Richard, List A, No. 14, #No. 09)

Besides, your additional message confirms what I just said – why not appreciate that a new fact has come to light, which resultant action makes the previous belief obsolete? As a guess, the qualifier “when being naïve” is the clue.

CLAUDIU: Also just wanted to add that the funniest thing about this all is, when being naive, that it “doesn’t really matter” what transpired. Like there’s no moral weight or blame or “something done wrong” on any side of anyone. It was well-intentioned people doing their best with given information at the time, to navigate and attempt to label experiential ways of being, which can certainly be tricky. And there is no lasting harm or anything that has been done… ultimately it’s up to me anyway to self-immolate, I had already grown suss for a few months and recognized something more was needed, visiting Geoffrey helped me see what I think the main blocker was (trying to put myself into actuality), and now that I have been able to properly contemplate and reflect on just what my total extinction means and entails, I am having a blast and experiencing myself as having gotten to further ‘reaches’ than I ever have before. So all is, in the final analysis, going just fine really.

VINEETO: Regarding your question what to do with the out-from-control reports of yourself and Kuba we can sort this out in a private email.

Cheers Vineeto

June 12 2025

VINEETO (to Kuba):

Richard: A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering.

As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 Nov 2002).

CLAUDIU: I always found the grammar a bit odd here, can you clarify Vineeto?

But the “avoidance through realisation of the portentous event” is confusing, why is “realisation of the portentous event” a form of “avoidance”?

VINEETO: Perhaps I should have included the follow-up sentences in that quote (the link was also faulty but is fixed now) –

Richard: As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion. With pure intent one can enable a movement into the existential angst, rather than despairingly grasping at doomsday straws, which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence ... which is ‘presence’ itself.

Such an active perspicacity in ‘my’ moment of reckoning will reveal that ‘presence’ itself feeds off ‘my’ fear – it is its very life-blood as it were – and this functional acuity brings an abrupt end to its nourishment. Whereupon all-of-a-sudden one finds oneself on the other side of the wall (to keep with the ‘cornered’ analogy for now) with the hitherto unseeable doorway to freedom closing behind one ... and one is walking freely in this actual world where one has already always been living anyway.

All what happened was that upon ‘my’ exposure dissolution occurred and the Land of Lament sank without a trace. (Richard, List B, James3, 21 Nov 2002).

Perhaps a comma after “avoidance” and after “portentous event” makes for an easier comprehension.

CLAUDIU: Ohhhh or wait is he saying that –

So it is kinda funny in that ‘realizing’ the event-that-I-am-dreading ends up being the “avoidance” of looking at the dread itself/ why dread manifests in the first place/ ‘my’ being itself.

VINEETO: Excellently put. You found the description of how to proceed when a deep feeling of dread makes its appearance.

At some point plumbing the depths of ‘being’ itself is most likely unavoidable on the way to self-immolation at this point in the pioneering stage.