Chrono's Journal

Journals
181

Chrono: Hi Vineeto,

Vineeto: What you really mean by “being a ‘man’” is what you consider the role of a man, the social identity aspects that you swallowed hook, line and sinker (like everyone else). And it is well worth looking at these expectations/ obligations enshrined in the human condition what put so much pressure on you.

Chrono: Yes I have seen these expectations/ obligations featured in many aspects of my life. In relation to male friends (primarily), it could be that I must maintain some outward appearance of confidence, being nonplussed, being “skilled”, being of high status, etc. With my partner, it feels like that I must be a place of safety and comfort for her (backed by the feeling of responsibility and seriousness) and that if I don’t then I have failed or am a failure. At work, it feels like I must always be excelling and must always know the answer. It could all come under some guise of being an ‘authority’. If I had to go a little further, I could say that all of that is about projecting power.

Hi Chrono,

Well said. Having recognized this you can now decline “projecting power” and experiment with allowing the naiveté which you talked about in your last message (quoted further below) – (link).

Vineeto: While you are doing that you can also pop your head around the corner, so to speak, and recognize that in actuality you are already a man, a male human being, and in actuality this is already perfect. So when ‘I’, the identity, comes back in with all ‘my’ demands how ‘I’ should be, there is a salubrious actual perspective which allows you to look at those ‘problems’ in more naïve way and makes it all much less serious.

Chrono: When I think on this, I can understand it intellectually. But in society it doesn’t seem enough. I think it’s about showing ‘my’ usefulness to society. Otherwise I could be discarded. Which means being ostracized, lonely, punished in some way. Everything that I am being perhaps in this entire journal is being kept in place by this fear of retribution from society and humanity. Perhaps another dare.

The dare is to become autonomous, less and less dependant on other people’s opinions and demands. It happens when you gradually find out that there is something better than having the fickle approval and praise from your contemporaries. There is an actual world right here, right now, and right under your nose. You may enjoy this story from Richard (wonder-land-tale).

Vineeto: Indeed … you may even discover that behind the idea of a “being a man” needing “‘sexual prowess’” is hidden a yearning for intimacy. After all, a near-actual intimacy is something so new, it has to be lived to be discovered.

Chrono: Yes, this hidden yearning is what I’m currently trying to locate. Which perhaps may only come about if I abandon the sexual drive as well. I am wondering if that drive has any role to play at all in any of this. I sometimes struggle to see how it could not arise at all unless one is already actually free.

Not so fast. You cannot abandon the sexual drive – it is an instinctual passion. It will only completely disappear when the whole identity becomes extinct. Any attempt to abandon the sexual drive will necessarily lead to suppression and repression. This is the old way which both Western and Eastern religions promoted for thousands of years, and if you only know a little bit of history you already know where it leads to.

What you can do is sincerely examine each of the various aspects of your acquired identity as a man, and if it interferes with being happy and harmless aim for as much naiveté as you dare, which already had such fortuitous outcome.

Here is a short excerpt from feeling being ‘Peter’ regarding male identity –

‘Peter’: What we found in our investigations has been quite shocking – a blow to that insidious feeling of pride that inevitably causes human beings to refuse to admit that their behaviour is just plain stupid and that ultimately prevents any possibility of radical, effective change. How could I have been so stupid? But the facts spoke for themselves. How could I have believed that simply because ‘everybody behaves that way’, I should also behave that way? How could I believe that everybody else was ‘getting it wrong’, and not me? Was I going to endlessly try and change every woman I was with or somehow try and find the ‘right one’ amongst the billions? How could I not see that the only one who l could possibly change was me? (Peter’s Journal, Living Together)

This correspondence may be useful as well –

Gary: However, regarding my ‘social life’, I find that I no longer feel the need to affiliate with other human beings the way I once used to.
In days gone by, I used to think that having ‘friends’ was very important, yet now I cannot really say that I have any ‘friends’ nor do I want any. Because the word ‘friendship’ implies an obligation to stick with another person through thick and thin, and I find that I am not prepared to do that. I would much prefer to go my own way and allow someone else the freedom to do the same, so I cannot say that anyone is my ‘friend’ in that sense. I feel much the same about family relationships (and I am talking about family of origin here, not family of procreation). I keep in touch with members of my family. But compared to other people who I see around me, my sense of a family identity is very weak indeed.
‘Peter’: (…) Then there are other aspects of one’s social identity that demand attention if one is to ever get to the stage where one can see and treat one’s fellow human beings as fellow human beings and not continue to think and feel them to be separate ‘beings’. A man never meets a woman and sees her or treats her as a fellow human being because men and women have been instilled with opposing gender identities – identities that are mandated by each side in the battle of the sexes and are rife with mutual feelings of suspicion, fear, ignorance and superstition. Similarly, a father never meets a son and a mother never meets a daughter for each has a socially-imposed identity relative to each other – a complex set of social obligations, emotional demands and needs, expectations and resentments that serve to prevent each from either seeing or treating each other as fellow human beings. Similarly, an American never meets an Australian, a Lithuanian never meets a Nigerian and so on, for each believe they belong to a different culture and each call a particular piece of the planet ‘home’. The list goes on, but I won’t, for you will have got the gist by now.
What normally happens in relationships when things start to go wrong, as they inevitably do, is that the each party blames the other for failing to meet their needs, fulfill their expectations, nurture them sufficiently, respect their feelings, and such like. Often a begrudging compromise is reached in relationships or failure is allowed to run its natural course. As you well know from your experience with actualism, the only way out of this mess is to demolish one’s own social identity, piece-by-piece, element-by-element.
And the proof that this process works is that you begin to not only see but to treat the fellow human beings you come in contact with as exactly that – fellow human beings, regardless of their age, gender, kin, race, religion, culture, nationality, and so on. (Actualism, Peter, Selected Correspondence, Social Identity).

As you might see, loyalty plays a big part in keeping the social identity in place.

Chrono: This scan of course is composed of anxiety/ fear and exemplifies the societal conscience. I’m always on alert of what they are thinking of me and if ‘I’ am playing ‘my’ role properly. Seeing this, I then also allowed myself on the same day to meet them right where they are and I am always delighted at how easy interactions are. People enjoy associating with me when I am enjoying my own association. When this happens, there’s a background feeling of ‘this can’t be’ or ‘something will go wrong’. But I find that even when people may become upset, my remaining in this delighting has a rather conciliatory effect. This time the background feeling is that ‘I will be physically harmed and so I must take a step back again’. It’s a rather strange conditioning but feels very real. (link)

Vineeto: This naïve approach is well worth keeping in mind. It helps you to overcome the initial apprehension of “holding back”, feeling foolish or ignorant or whatever, because you already know it has a beneficial outcome for all concerned.
Did you notice that when you have overcome the fear of being psychologically harmed you stepped up the danger to being “physically harmed”, just to keep yourself in line?

Chrono: Thanks I actually did not notice that haha. Now that I am looking back at it, that seems to happen any time I get ‘close’. Some sort of fear of retribution, but proceed anyway.

That’s how it the instinctual passions work – any time you get ‘close’, i.e. more intimate to another fellow human being, there is an apprehension of what might happen, that you might lose yourself. And yet when you pay attention, there is no actual danger, not even real danger. So you can increase the daring just a little bit, and then a little bit more, and be more confident in discovering and enjoying being naïve. It is such fun.

Chrono: As an aside, I have been wondering why it is said that actual freedom has no conditions to happen and that the actualism method is something that you do in the meanwhile. Yet at other times, I gain the impression that there technically are conditions for it to happen.

There are no condition from the actual world, as the PCE confirms when it happens. It is ‘I’ and ‘me’ who create the boundaries and set the rules under which conditions ‘I’ will agree to ‘my’ demise, and ‘I’ will place plenty of (genetically endowed) passionate and cunning objections to obstruct such voluntary agreement. Hence pure intent is paramount.

Chrono: The following is from Henry’s Journal but I did not want to divert it into a different topic:

Vineeto: (…) And once you fully take on board that “I am my feelings and my feelings are me” you have the choice of being a different feeling because it is simply silly, when you have the choice, to be something other than happy and harmless.
You might also discover that there is a certain amount of investment in keeping the suffering going (because of some good feeling you cherish, for instance) – elsewhere referred to the addiction of being a ‘being’ (link), and that is a further topic for contemplation. All this is to indicate that it’s not always straightforward to “activate delight”. Nothing can be swept under the carpet in the long run. (link)

Chrono: Yes it was only after I saw that I had to return to feeling good first that any sort of beneficial changes were noticed and maintained.

This is a valuable experience and a good to keep in.

Chrono: Though overall there is still the addiction to being ‘me’. I have been re-reading the linked correspondence on addiction and some parts stood out to me (also appreciated James’ questions and pondering):

Richard: I was not referring to whatever suffering may be caused by losing in gambling … but to the suffering which ensues as the eventual result of the high evaporating (no matter what particular addiction it is). Therefore I presume that the ‘action’ you refer to is what provides the high … and if so then I further presume that when this action-induced high evaporates then suffering ensues.
If this is the case then it is this suffering which is well worth investigating for its addictive properties. (List B, James3, 24 Oct 2002)

Richard: Is not the reason why ‘I’ do not know if the unknown path delivers the goods – or why ‘I’ do not know what the unknown path is – none other than because ‘I’ will not abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods? (List B, James3, 5 Nov 2002)

James: Ok, it might be possible by seeing that I am doing it for this body and everybody but I am really doing it for ‘I’/ ‘me’ at least in the beginning.
Richard: When ‘I’ see that ‘I’ am as mad and as bad and as sad as anyone else instinctually driven it is actually impossible to say that ‘I’ am doing it for ‘me’ alone … the repercussions of such an event are vast beyond belief. (List B, James3, 28 Oct 2002a)

James: I hear what you are saying but I am not tuned in to the altruistic instinct.
Richard: As it is instinctive it arises as the need arises … just as its concomitant courage does. (List B, James3, 1 Nov 2002)

Chrono: If I compared to my experience with suffering (deep feelings of complete desolation) as described above in experiences of limerence (where I feel anything very deeply), in the midst of the most intense suffering is where I also felt the most “alive”. Within it, there’s a simultaneous desire to end the suffering (because it is intense anguish) but also addicted to being it. This suffering also had a ‘good’ side where I felt fulfilled, but only if certain conditions were met. I’d go in circles no matter how much I noted it did not make sense. Deep down I felt this suffering as my soul itself and sometimes a ‘dream’ would present itself as being the only way out. This was the dream of ‘love’. Which dream is gone now. But I would naturally go back to this place of intense suffering if no attentiveness or anything was applied. I can see that as ‘my’ path.

You have identified the nub of the old paradigm which applies both to the spiritual as well as the materialistic aspect – your ‘being’ searching for the fulfilment that only an actual freedom can provide. Instead, for millennia people have been settling for second best – either spiritual enlightenment or material fulfilment, as in addictions to ‘highs’, ranging from drugs, success, group-highs, winning competitions, admiration or similar ‘self’-enhancing activities.

It is an excellent realisation to have identified this as “‘my’ path”, in contrast to the wide and wondrous path. It is a dead-end road unless you want to settle for second best.

This “limerence” only reifies the ‘self’ and the ‘self’s’ yearning for grandeur in the dream of the ‘good’ side – ‘self’-aggrandisement. The sooner you recognize, and consequently decline, the nature of the “dream” the sooner the attraction to the “most intense suffering” will also abate. Perhaps a thorough investigation of what is left of “the dream of ‘love’” might be useful – (FAQ Why is love (Love) no Solution?)

Richard: Also, intrinsic to the nature of love is its – always unfulfilled – promise of eternity. Our life here on earth has a time-span, so what use is a spurious Eternal Bliss in some conjectured After-Life? Love has produced wars, murders, rapes and violence since time immemorial … it staggers me that it still retains its credibility. To kill for ‘Love of Country’ or ‘Love of God’ is surely proof enough for any discerning person. Then there are those ‘Crimes of Passion’ that are brought about by love’s constant companions: possessiveness, jealousy and envy. If these examples are too extreme then what about the heartache, the longing, the pining and the yearning that all peoples report as accompanying love’s bliss? This leads to the search for ‘True Love’ which, supposedly, does not induce these unpleasant characteristics so common to everybody’s experience of love. ‘True Love’ is simply a fiction … it is impossible to manifest it here on earth, hence the notion of an After-Life to encompass it. To repeat: Love never delivers on its implied promise. It never has done nor ever will. Its days are numbered, as more and more people are beginning to notice that love itself – not the human being – is failing to live up to its reputation again and again. (FAQ 47a)

Chrono: But I do have this desire within to also end the suffering, which I equate with:

James: ‘I’ am telling myself that ‘I’ don’t really want to do it because that will be the end of ‘me’.
Richard: Ahh … now to the nub of the issue: have you ever desired oblivion? (List B, James3, 5 Nov 2002a)

My natural instinct then was to end it while being it, but I would go in circles. Maybe I wasn’t doing this:

James: ‘I’ am stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) now. ‘I’ can’t see how to get past that.
Richard: As there has been a, perhaps predictable, retreat back into suffering (predictable as foreshadowed in ‘‘I’ want to hide from this inquiry’ and ‘‘I’ want to back out’ for example), then one starts with where one is presently at (where one is not yet at will emerge of its own accord as one proceeds): as you say ‘‘I’ am stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) now’ then for ‘me’ that is where ‘I’ am currently at.
Therefore, do ‘I’ feel the feeling of being stuck with ‘me’ (suffering) or not? If yes, then through staying with the feeling, by being the feeling (instead of trying to see how to get past that), one will find out, experientially, what it is really like to not have a path and/or not have a plan … other than the one of ‘looking for a way out’ so that one can stick with the known that is. (List B, James3, 21 Nov 2002a)

My suggestion is that as long as the ‘good’ side of your suffering is still active as a promise and therefore desire, you will continue to go round in circles. ‘Vineeto’ knows from personal experience that the (at first often hidden) ‘good’ feelings such as desire, love and compassion kept the bad feelings in place.

Here Richards reports from his own experience of dismantling enlightenment –

Richard: In my tenth year … I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out.
The Altered State of Consciousness – in particular, spiritual enlightenment – needs to be talked about and exposed for what it is so that nobody need venture up that blind alley ever again. There is another way and another goal. The main trouble with the enlightenment is that whilst the ego dissolves, the identity as a soul remains intact. No longer identifying as a personal ego-bound identity, one then identifies as an impersonal soul-bound identity – ‘I am That’, ‘I am God’, ‘I am The Supreme’, ‘I am The Absolute’ and so on. This is the delusion, the mirage, the deception … and it is extremely difficult to see it for oneself, for one is in an august state. [Emphasis added] (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 Mar 2000)

Chrono: Also I am curious why Richard suggests in this correspondence not to return to feeling good first but to proceed with the contemplation despite James saying he experiences fear and the suchlike. In what context is this happening? (link)

The conversation was less of a contemplation but rather an affective exploration into the nature of fear and the addiction of suffering and being ‘me’ and it revealed the feeling James had regarding the ending of ‘me’. Viz.:

James: My current thinking is that no path will deliver the goods. Any path I take is more of ‘me’ trying to escape from ‘me’.
Richard: Ahh … but what about the path of no return? So far you have only ever travelled on the path that carries a return ticket. Viz.: [James]: ‘However, since ‘me’ is essentially suffering ‘I’ try to escape through various highs. Once these highs evaporate I am back to being ‘me’ suffering’. [endquote]. Given that the price of the return ticket is yet more suffering – a life-time of suffering in fact – why is it that the price of a one-way ticket is considered too high a price to pay? What price the end of suffering, eh?
James: Because the end of suffering is the end of ‘me’.
Richard: Is this not another way of saying that, because of ‘my’ fear of death, ‘my’ current plan is to not yet set foot upon the path of no return?

When an intense feeling such as the fear of extinction is encountered for the first time, it sometimes requires an affective exploration to identify what it is really about before one can see the silliness of this existential fear and be able to return to feeling good for further contemplation. Besides, this example of the affective exploration into stuckness, fear and the addiction of being ‘me’ could result in the courage to proceed for James or other readers via garnering sufficient pure intent.

Similarly, your own affective experiences of “limerence” revealed that you are “addicted to being it”, that there was “a ‘good’ side where I felt fulfilled …” and “the dream of ‘love’”.

However, there is no point in going into these limerences once you know what they are about or into the feelings of the fear of ending ‘me’ again and again unless ‘I’ am prepared, via discovering and dissolving the last bastions of ‘me’ objecting to ‘my’ demise, especially when you already found out that you “would go in circles”.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

So this is how I am experiencing this, and in fact this is precisely what happened yesterday. That ‘I’ have set up a base camp somewhere on the periphery of normalcy, periodically ‘I’ will take a daring outing away from the base camp and “up the mountain” let’s say. And what I found yesterday is that there is a tether that connects ‘me’ back to base camp, that deep down ‘I’ know ‘I’ am only going to go so far, scout out the territory from what ‘I’ can see and then return to what appears as the warmth of the known.

I experienced this yesterday as the variations of the fear of extinction, or perhaps of abandoning humanity, something like leaving behind all that is known and familiar and setting off into exile, into an unknown land. But the thing is I have experienced these feelings before, it’s not like any of this was new to me, which means I have travelled this 2 way journey before.

So then since yesterday I thought that it is this “tether back to base camp” which needs to be examined, because it will never allow me to set off on the genuine one way journey to ‘my’ extinction. So this is what pricked my ears when you wrote :

Richard summarised the experience of that “tether back to base camp” in his journal (article 9) :

It requires great fortitude and finesse to fly in the face of the social commandment: to remain a member of society at all costs. There is a pull of loyalties; old allegiances to relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances will tug at the heart, pulling one back, urging one to remain where one is. Loyalty, however, is a two-edged sword for it can cut two ways; there is the new allegiance to the purity of the peak experience, pulling one forward relentlessly, for herein lies release … and genuine peace-on-earth. The pull in two directions can be excruciating. On the one side is the sense of belonging, the warmth of relationship and the being acknowledged by the peoples one has always known. There is the loss of all that, with its ensuing grief – and guilt – at leaving them all behind. On the other side there is the knowledge that one will have reached one’s destiny, that one will have that perennial cheerful contentment with life as-it-is subtly buzzing inside one, and that the actuality of peace-on-earth and prosperity for all humankind is now possible. All this one knows, with a crystal-clear certainty, from the perfection of one’s PCE.

Actually this feeling I experienced yesterday it reminded me of experiences in the past where a relationship would break down, and there would be this deeply sorrowful feeling, that this person with whom I have been so close for all those years would now disappear never to be met again - this is the flavour of that ‘tether’.

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The additional aspect of this is something like this :

That as ‘humanity’ ‘we’ are all huddled around that fire and suffering, and within that intrinsic suffering ‘we’ have made various bonds which would soothe (but never eliminate) the suffering - that is the bond of ‘humanity’, the relationships of the various identities to each other. And from within that bond, it is experienced as a selfish act, to proceed towards this new land and to leave all those ‘others’ still huddling together in the land of lament.

I understand intellectually that this is the exact mistake made by buddha, that ‘he’ would not proceed towards extinction until all ‘others’ were saved and as a result ‘humanity’ has persisted and suffering has persisted.

But it is this unilateral and extreme action which is required which ‘I’ cannot quite accept, that this is the only way out, the way to end the ‘land of lament’ is for the next and then next identity to become extinct.

But it is that final and irreversible abandoning of ‘others’ that ‘I’ am not willing to contemplate. It still seems selfish to ‘me’, how could ‘I’ leave ‘them’ ‘back there’ suffering.

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The other thing I notice, and it’s been like this with any particular drama or objection or whatever that ‘I’ had. That once ‘I’ saw unequivocally that this ‘thing’ (whatever ‘it’ was) was not doing anybody any favours and in fact that it was actively preventing happiness and harmlessness for all, then the thing would be abandoned, end of.

So I am confident it is no different with abandoning ‘humanity’ and proceeding towards ‘my’ extinction. But experientially ‘I’ cannot see yet that this is the best course of action to take, for everybody concerned.

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Kuba: Hi Vineeto,

Vineeto: When an intense feeling such as the fear of extinction is encountered for the first time, it sometimes requires an affective exploration to identify what it is really about before one can see the silliness of this existential fear and be able to return to feeling good for further contemplation. Besides, this example of the affective exploration into stuckness, fear and the addiction of being ‘me’ could result in the courage to proceed for James or other readers via garnering sufficient pure intent.
Similarly, your own affective experiences of “limerence” revealed that you are “addicted to being it”, that there was “a ‘good’ side where I felt fulfilled …” and “the dream of ‘love’”.
However, there is no point in going into these limerences once you know what they are about or into the feelings of the fear of ending ‘me’ again and again unless ‘I’ am prepared, via discovering and dissolving the last bastions of ‘me’ objecting to ‘my’ demise, especially when you already found out that you “would go in circles”. (Vineeto to Chrono, 18 Oct 2025)

Kuba: So this is how I am experiencing this, and in fact this is precisely what happened yesterday. That ‘I’ have set up a base camp somewhere on the periphery of normalcy, periodically ‘I’ will take a daring outing away from the base camp and “up the mountain” let’s say. And what I found yesterday is that there is a tether that connects ‘me’ back to base camp, that deep down ‘I’ know ‘I’ am only going to go so far, scout out the territory from what ‘I’ can see and then return to what appears as the warmth of the known.

Hi Kuba,

Good, you have come to appreciate the limitations of taking special excursions from the “base camp” – what I had called “your steeple chasing modus operandi” in an earlier message –

Vineeto: What happened to that experience “that everything is already in its rightful place now” and all the other experiences you reported which inform you of the same perfect actuality. It seems that in your steeple-chasing modus operandi for extra-ordinary experiences you omitted to establish a golden clew to pure intent, which could inform and aid you when you are affectively feeling, and justifying, indignation about other people’s wrongs and thus forgetting about your commitment to being happy and harmless, if it was ever there in the first place. (Kuba10, 3 Oct 2025a)

Perhaps you could consider as your next practical step upgrading to camp 2, the “Advanced Base Camp” in Everest-climbing lingo. Their final summit push is from Camp 4, being in the “death zone” where bottled oxygen is essential (Uphill Mountaineering). :wink:

For actualists the next step from ‘base camp’ is the “pragmatic, methodological, still-in-control/ same-way-of-being virtual freedom” –

Peter: This process, if undertaken with a sincere intent, will inevitably lead to a state of a pragmatic virtual freedom. One then goes to bed in the evening knowing that one has had a virtually perfect day, and knowing that tomorrow, without doubt, will also be a virtually perfect day. Unless one is willing to contemplate being happy and harmless, free of malice and sorrow, 99% of the time – then forget the whole business. One is then merely aiming for some ‘pie in the sky’, some miracle event to ‘make it all better’. (…) A pragmatic virtual freedom is available for everyone and anyone who has the sincere intent to be happy and harmless. (Library, Virtual Freedom).

Kuba: I experienced this yesterday as the variations of the fear of extinction, or perhaps of abandoning humanity, something like leaving behind all that is known and familiar and setting off into exile, into an unknown land. But the thing is I have experienced these feelings before, it’s not like any of this was new to me, which means I have travelled this 2 way journey before.
So then since yesterday I thought that it is this “tether back to base camp” which needs to be examined, because it will never allow me to set off on the genuine one way journey to ‘my’ extinction. So this is what pricked my ears when you wrote :

Vineeto: However, there is no point in going into these limerences once you know what they are about or into the feelings of the fear of ending ‘me’ again and again unless ‘I’ am prepared, via discovering and dissolving the last bastions of ‘me’ objecting to ‘my’ demise, especially when you already found out that you “would go in circles”.

Sometimes one needs to go round in circles a few times to realize what is happening, and perhaps this time your realisation is sufficiently firm for taking action and do something practical and down-to-earth about it.

Upgrading your present situation to pragmatic virtual freedom will give you a new confidence that being increasingly felicitous and innocuous (happy and harmless) is possible to live every day, in every situation – provided you sincerely and honestly leave no stone untouched. It means trying it out in real life what you often may have only rationally or conceptually understood but not yet applied in everyday living.

To add another plug for Virtual Freedom, which ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ lived and documented until the epoch-changing events in 2009/2010, here is how Richard summed it up –

Richard: What Peter has been doing, in conjunction with Vineeto, is what he characterised as beating down all the long, dry grass (and every single bit of persistent regrowth) leading up to and obscuring the gate in the fence separating it from the greener pastures on the other side.
As such they have both done a sterling service for their fellow human beings – having written prolifically about it all whilst they were doing it (rather than after the fact from memory) – in ensuring an in-control virtual freedom is now possible for any normal person/normal couple simply by applying the actualism method – as distinct from the actualism process – in their everyday life (both at work and at leisure).
In other words, they have both shown and documented the way how a virtual freedom which does not require being out-from-control – let alone something peculiar happening in the nape of the neck – can spread exponentially around the globe without disrupting civilisation (as a bloody revolution would, for example, in a futile attempt to change society).
I will refer you to a previous exchange of ours. Viz.:
• [Richard]: ‘The only way societies will radically alter is by radical change on an individual level as it is individuals collectively who make society what it is.
And this is where actualism is pivotal as it must be borne in mind that the way children are raised is in accord with the prevailing wisdom of the time (currently in the form of values/ principles and morals/ ethics per favour the trickle-down effect of spiritual enlightenment/ mystical awakenment).
Thus it is the flow-on effect of the words and writings of an actual freedom from the human condition – as in practically anyone now being able to be as happy and as harmless (virtually free of both malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion) as is humanly possible – which is the most probable and realistic prospect, in the foreseeable future, for all of humankind … and which is why I stress the importance of a virtual freedom.
Although that is, of course, according to the current situation; the moment another becomes actually free from the human condition (especially if it be a female) that scenario may very well undergo a profound reappraisal. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 12, 27 Nov 2009).
[…] They both have my highest regard for establishing not just a wide path for their fellow human beings to travel, if they so choose, but a wide and wondrous one with all the otherwise rank undergrowth on either side gentrified as well. (Richard, List D, No. 12, 12 Dec 2009).

Should you actually decide to do take the path to a pragmatic virtual freedom you might find out, experientially and over time, that your present assessment of “experientially ‘I’ cannot see yet that this is the best course of action to take, for everybody concerned” (link) is incorrect. Besides, if Richard and myself had made the assessment you made we wouldn’t have this conversation right now.

Kuba: Richard summarised the experience of that “tether back to base camp” in his journal (article 9) :

Richard: It requires great fortitude and finesse to fly in the face of the social commandment: to remain a member of society at all costs. There is a pull of loyalties; old allegiances to relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances will tug at the heart, pulling one back, urging one to remain where one is. Loyalty, however, is a two-edged sword for it can cut two ways; there is the new allegiance to the purity of the peak experience, pulling one forward relentlessly, for herein lies release … and genuine peace-on-earth. The pull in two directions can be excruciating. On the one side is the sense of belonging, the warmth of relationship and the being acknowledged by the peoples one has always known. There is the loss of all that, with its ensuing grief – and guilt – at leaving them all behind. On the other side there is the knowledge that one will have reached one’s destiny, that one will have that perennial cheerful contentment with life as-it-is subtly buzzing inside one, and that the actuality of peace-on-earth and prosperity for all humankind is now possible. All this one knows, with a crystal-clear certainty, from the perfection of one’s PCE. (Richard’s Journal, Article Nine)

Kuba: Actually this feeling I experienced yesterday it reminded me of experiences in the past where a relationship would break down, and there would be this deeply sorrowful feeling, that this person with whom I have been so close for all those years would now disappear never to be met again – this is the flavour of that ‘tether’. (link)

When you look closely and sincerely, “that ‘tether’” is not just one ‘tether’, it is a whole bundle of tethers, and you cannot cut this bundle in one swoop (else you would have done that by now). This is where the pragmatic virtual freedom comes into play, you examine each tether (whenever it interferes with your being happy and harmless every moment of the day), perhaps multiple times until it dissolves for good, by finding it to be another facet of being ‘self’-centric, ‘me’-enhancing. (Please note, being less ‘self’-centric is not putting the other before oneself but having a preference to imitate actuality rather than ‘me’ being the centre of all thoughts and actions.) In this way ‘I’ become thinner and thinner, more felicitous and more gentle, magnanimous, benevolent, kind, tender and naive until ‘self’-centricity disappears altogether.

You might find a whole range of aspects of life where you automatically still follow the old paradigm of principles and concepts which now need re-examining, aspects of your social identity and of dreams of sudden redemption. Remember, actual freedom is new, down-to-earth, non-spiritual and actual. If any your many insights have not changed your day-to-day behaviour, towards yourself and others, they still need to be actualised. And there is not even the excuse that ‘self’-immolation is too much of a tall order because this is not required for living a pragmatic still-in-control virtual freedom.

Richard: Human beings eat corporeal food, drink physical water and breathe molecular air, in order to be here, to be alive at all. Humans are here only because of sexual intercourse: the joining of the spermatozoa and the ova … there is no other way of becoming a human being and living in this world. All this living is necessary in order to discuss these very matters. One has to just try putting a spring clip upon one’s nose and a large piece of sticking plaster over one’s mouth for a few minutes to discover what actuality is. As one rips the plaster from one’s mouth and gulps in that sweet and actual air, one knows that one is certainly here on earth, living this life. And this earth, this life, is already perfect … if only one will start living it instead of waiting in vain – and sorrow – for some Supernatural miracle to occur. (Richard’s Journal, Article Nine)

And –

Richard: What I have is a complete confidence in is the purity and perfection of the infinitude of this universe which, to my never-ending delight, brings about serendipity.
What one discovers, time and again, is that the personal boundaries that one feels so safely protected by, are made up of ‘my’ accrued beliefs as to who ‘I’ am. This is ‘my’ outline, as it were, shaped by other people’s description of ‘me’ … a construct which gives ‘me’ asylum in each different group into which ‘I’ wish to enter. Yet the outline of this construct creates, simultaneously, an enormous distance between ‘me’ and the world outside. [Emphasis added]. (Richard’s Journal, Article Nine)

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: Richard summarised the experience of that “tether back to base camp” in his journal (article 9) :

Richard: It requires great fortitude and finesse to fly in the face of the social commandment: to remain a member of society at all costs. There is a pull of loyalties; old allegiances to relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances will tug at the heart, pulling one back, urging one to remain where one is. Loyalty, however, is a two-edged sword for it can cut two ways; there is the new allegiance to the purity of the peak experience, pulling one forward relentlessly, for herein lies release … and genuine peace-on-earth. The pull in two directions can be excruciating. On the one side is the sense of belonging, the warmth of relationship and the being acknowledged by the peoples one has always known. There is the loss of all that, with its ensuing grief – and guilt – at leaving them all behind. On the other side there is the knowledge that one will have reached one’s destiny, that one will have that perennial cheerful contentment with life as-it-is subtly buzzing inside one, and that the actuality of peace-on-earth and prosperity for all humankind is now possible. All this one knows, with a crystal-clear certainty, from the perfection of one’s PCE. (Richard’s Journal, Article Nine)

Kuba: The additional aspect of this is something like this :
That as ‘humanity’ ‘we’ are all huddled around that fire and suffering, and within that intrinsic suffering ‘we’ have made various bonds which would soothe (but never eliminate) the suffering – that is the bond of ‘humanity’, the relationships of the various identities to each other. And from within that bond, it is experienced as a selfish act, to proceed towards this new land and to leave all those ‘others’ still huddling together in the land of lament.
I understand intellectually that this is the exact mistake made by buddha, that ‘he’ would not proceed towards extinction until all ‘others’ were saved and as a result ‘humanity’ has persisted and suffering has persisted.

Hi Kuba,

What you overlooked in your analysis of ‘humanity’ –

Abandoning ‘humanity’ means ‘you’ abandon ‘your’ own humanity, which is ‘you’, the identity, who you have previously recognized as being rotten to the core. It means abandoning ‘your’ social identity, which ties you to everyone else’s appraisal, everyone’s praise and criticism, ‘your’ loyalty to kin, country and class, ‘your’ identity as a man, son, husband, employer, member of class, race, club, religio-spiritual and political identity and all the other groups you feel loyalty, connection and/or obligation to. For instance –

Kuba: I can’t believe I’ve never seen this, that the very action of asserting myself is rotten.
Vineeto: It was obviously the perfect time to see it, now that you are ready to put it into action.
Kuba: It makes sense now, there is a seriousness and a forcefulness to it, it has aggression at its root.
Vineeto: Indeed and a ‘man’ has to be aggressive or so you are taught. You discovered the way to channel the affective energy of aggression into affective felicitous and innocuous action. (2 Oct 2025)

Do you now prefer to retain your aggression, your desire (for the sake of the ‘highs’), your fear and nurture, your territoriality, your sense of belonging and, above all, your social identity? You experience, as a member of ‘humanity’, it being selfish to abandon humanity but you don’t even consider looking at it with pure intent, where the purity and perfection of the actual world is plain to see and yours for the taking – for the benefit of your body, that body and everybody.

This is what fear does to you – it defends mischief and misery and clouds your mind.

Kuba: But it is this unilateral and extreme action which is required which ‘I’ cannot quite accept, that this is the only way out, the way to end the ‘land of lament’ is for the next and then next identity to become extinct.

Are you looking for a new “way out” which leaves the identity intact?

Kuba: But it is that final and irreversible abandoning of ‘others’ that ‘I’ am not willing to contemplate. It still seems selfish to ‘me’, how could ‘I’ leave ‘them’ ‘back there’ suffering. (link)

What you are really saying is that you rather remain an identity, rotten to the core, than demonstrating by action that it is possible to live totally free from malice and sorrow, blithe and benign for 24hr a day, every day for the rest of your life, for everyone’s encouragement and confirmation that this is possible.

What you are also suggesting is to do nothing about all the wars and murders and child abuse, the lies and hypocrisy and treachery arising from the human condition (which is humanity in action) because it is supposedly “selfish to ‘me’”. “Back there” they are suffering already and there is nothing ‘you’ can do about it because you are, as ‘you’ are, still contributing to their suffering.

This is what fear does to you, the fear to do something unchartered, unmapped, unprecedented for ‘you’. You forget what you then “deeply and passionately care about” back in March –

Kuba: In short what ‘I’ deeply and passionately care about is to be innocence personified. To live that which the PCE demonstrated and in doing so to offer (and demonstrate) a solid alternative to the “hypocrisy, the lack of equity, the ignorant irresponsibility and the harm that was being done by all”. This innocence is what I (and I am sure others on this forum) detect from you and if I had not experienced it first hand I would probably have believed it to be impossible. (8 Mar 2025)

It’s ok, it is a natural reaction when you try to break through before you are ready – though it means that your arguments don’t make sense. It’s too early to even contemplate it, you could go to the “advanced base camp” first, then “camp 3”. (Uphill Mountaineering) Plenty of time to worry later. :wink: There is still an in-control virtual freedom available even if you never want to take the ultimate step.

Here is a reminder that ‘your’ morality what is ‘selfish’ is hopelessly skewed (being unselfish is not the same as ‘self’-lessness or non-‘self-centric) –

R: Most Religions and Spiritual Paths advocate putting the other before oneself … it is their way of preventing selfishness – which they assume to be identical with self-centredness. Yet it is self-centred to want to be a ‘good’ person and therefore gain one’s post-mortem reward in some after-life. Immortality for the self has to be classified as being the ultimate self-centredness. Self-centredness is translated as egotism … is there such a word as ‘soultism’? There should be!
Let us have a look at the practice of putting the other before oneself: Take us four sitting here – and presume we are all ‘good’ people – and I am not going to be ‘selfish’ at all. Therefore I am going to totally look after (Q) … I will put her before me in all circumstances. Now, (Q) is also a ‘good’ person and she is not going to be ‘selfish’ either … so she is going to put Q(1) before herself. However, you have also been brought up with this religious and humanitarian concept of putting the other before oneself … therefore you will put Q(2) before yourself … and Q(2) will be putting me before himself. We have come a full circle; do you see the nonsense that is going on? Because the end result of putting the other first is that eventually you get looked after anyway. If we all just stop this charade and start looking after ourselves then we will be a lot better off. It makes much more sense.
Q: Then nobody owes anybody anything …
R: There is no investment.
Q: … and nobody owes me anything, either.
Q(2): There is no relationship.
R: No relationship … right! It is a free association.
Q(2): The other way that happens is with love. It is like you are always relating … well one of the ways of relating is mainly through love. If you love another you put your love on them and they put their love on you.
R: And it intrinsic to the nature of love to put the other before yourself – it is part of love itself. However, if one digs deeply into love, one finds that love is so selfish that it is almost unbelievable that one could have been deceived by the apparent altruism displayed. It is utterly selfish; if you dig down under the layers of the ‘selflessness’ of love … it is so very selfish.
Q(2): Because there is this ‘I’ll love you if you’ll love me’ thing going on. It is a bargain. And if one stops the bargain you get the hatred … if the love is cut … or …
Q: Or just the absence of love.
Q(2): With the absence you get the cold … the cold treatment.
R: Dig another layer deeper and one finds that love supports the very sense of identity it purports to transcend. And with love, the self survives … to live another day. Everything that comes out of the self is designed to keep that self in existence … all the morality, all the humanitarian ideals … they all keep the self alive. The whole structure of society …
(…)
R: Years ago I had some religious people bail me up and attempt to convert me to their belief – it would often happen in those days – and they were saying that I should always help people; that that is what we are all here for is to help other people; to put the other person before oneself. I said to them: ‘Who are these people to be helped? Who are these ‘others’? What is going to happen to them?’ I would ask this because if one does do all this – only help others and never oneself – then one goes into an After-Life of some description. I said: ‘What about those people who are being helped? Where are they going to go to?’
Q: (Laughing) Oh! I like that question!
Q(1): Good question!
R: Well, if one wants to be a helper – a ‘good’ person – one needs a ready supply of victims, of helpless people. And where are those helpless people going to go to after they die? They are not going to go into some glorious After-Life because they have not been helping people … in fact, they have been sucking upon the helpers. So ‘do-gooders’ need a steady supply of victims in order to reach their After-Life of Rapturous Bliss.
And then I would say to them … because they would tell me I was being selfish … I would say to them: ‘But you want to go to your heaven when you die?’ And they would say: ‘Yes’. And I would say: ‘You are only helping other people in order for yourself to attain your After-Life of Heavenly Bliss. And is this not selfish?’ They would not like that one. The whole structure of morality hangs upon stuff like this … that is why there is something really going wrong within society. The whole morality is back-to-front. (Audiotaped Dialogues, Putting the Other before Oneself).

You can also watch the Out-from-Control video (link) where Richard very clearly says to ‘Vineeto’ “it is selfish to stay”. ‘Vineeto’ had tears in her eyes because the sweetness ‘she’ experienced was extraordinary –

Vineeto: I had known this sweetness from previous occasions – one such experience happened during the video-shoot of the ‘Out-from-Control’ DVD we present on the website. This sweetness always accompanied an experience of closeness, barely any separation to the other person (usually Richard), but also an experience that I was close to my destiny and an awareness that what I am doing/ longing for is not merely for my ‘peace of mind’, but that it is for everybody, for every single man, woman and child on the planet – for peace on earth.
This sweet longing has always propelled me forward to go all the way, to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and fears and now I had the privilege to experience this sweet intimacy day after day, morning to night.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

Haha I will just say for now that I greatly enjoy and appreciate you playing along with my metaphors, this one made me smile, and you do such a great job of it too! :grinning:

Thank you for the rest of the suggestions too, it looks like I have something to focus on in the meantime now, that is not a bad thing at all.

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Now I have a string of days off to enjoy, reflect, and compose. I think I also operate to a similar extent in the “steeple chasing” and taking “excursions” mentioned in the replies prior :face_with_peeking_eye:. It does make sense to aim for the in-control virtual freedom as the means to the end and end are no different.

Yes I am reaching the “exhaustion” point of all options and seeing that perhaps naivete is the only way to proceed.

I can see in this dare how important it is to have a genuine intent to be happy and harmless. As one of the main fears that pops up is how I will be uncaring and callous if I were to be less and less dependent on other people’s opinions and demands. I know that I’ve mentioned this quite a few times in this journal so it’s definitely something central to ‘me’. The callousness may very well be the case if I did not have that intent. Caring in the real world is synonymous with being ‘Good’ and all the ‘good’ feelings.

I enjoyed reading Richard’s wonder-land-tale and it’s a wonderful reminder of how society’s standards can never meet or match the perfection of the actual world.

I think in these past days I have realized that one of the reasons I am having some trouble with it is because I also have a feeling of guilt and shame at feeling this sexual drive in the first place. It seems locked in place because there are some simultaneously conflicting beliefs that go with it as well and creating cognitive dissonance. The first is the one that I have already mentioned about needing it and indulging in it to some extent for the male “sexual prowess”. But also there’s a feeling of guilt at having it because then you are disregarding your partner. I noted above how this drive is the opposite of appreciation and it is conflicting because society both feels that it is a “need” while also saying that it is ‘Bad’. I remember this quote from Richard standing out and highlighting this confusion:

Richard: To put it simply – and in a way that might just convey it to you – this what I speak of is somewhat indicated by what is possibly the only passage in the Christian’s Holy Scriptures worthy of note. Viz.:
• ‘He and/or she that looketh upon a woman and/or man with lust in their heart has already committed adultery’. [link]

But further to that, probably the main reason for this is that I have never had ‘magical sex’. I’ll admit that that’s probably because all of these beliefs are standing in the way. Thus it ends up not being playful, appreciative, and fun, but instead an act that must be performed “properly”. The physical delight gets stunted to some degree. I wasn’t aware of all of this before though. Just that my experience stood in stark contrast to anything in the gradations of intimacy. Consequently, the rest follows what Peter writes about blaming the other. Blaming them for not allowing me the proper “space” for this intimacy that I desire to eventuate (it’s funny that I am realizing that that is actually what I am looking for as I am writing this).

I can see what Peter writes here about the demands of the social identity. I can feel the separation from others and experienced it in an epitomized way when I was going in to work last week. As I was walking from the parking lot into the building, I saw that all the people’s walking about were a ‘they’ and a ‘them’. And ‘I’ was a ‘me’. It was like the social identity program had just booted up and I saw the beginnings of it. It’s clear now that everyone (including me) is engaged in the correcting of the issues coming much later from this through various means but not willing to acknowledge the start of it.

Yes I can see that this is the next course of action.

It’s something that I have been thinking about since reading the correspondence thus far. Why do I want this dream (of love and limerence) to be true? What is this dream composed of? I realized this past week that for the unknown path to become apparent that the belief in ALL of ‘my’ dreams would have to go. All of ‘my’ dreams were somewhere and somewhen else. They would never actually manifest here. This brought a strange sense of relief. I know at some level that I am only fooling myself with some deception. Then while leaving work and heading home I experienced a sensuousness I quite often experience at the end of the day and had a spontaneous realization that the end of ‘my’ dreams was also the end of all of ‘my’ nightmares.

The next day while I mulled this over, I got a “peek” behind this. All of this was due to the essential pain of being ‘me’. And I felt deep down what ‘my’ essential task was despite this pain. ‘My’ task is to survive at all costs. Every single moment that ‘I’ am ‘being’ is another moment that ‘I’ am buying “time” to survive. At literally any moment ‘I’ can die. There’s a realm of fear here that’s raw and untouched. Very immediate and urgent. I backed away from it. But then I started again thinking about time. I realize that a very big bulk of ‘me’ is this feeling of existing over time. But it’s always any other time than this moment. Much of my modus operandi has been to change ‘me’ while also remaining ‘me’. Now it’s clear that ‘I’ cannot end ‘me’. My thinking was something like ‘I’ trying to expose ‘me’ and this would dissolve ‘me’. But ‘I’ have to ‘be’ naivete. I’ve been cunningly trying to take a “shortcut”.

While all of the above was being “churned” at the back of my mind, I was reading this correspondence and this suddenly made sense:

RICHARD: As simply as possible: human consciousness – as in, flesh-and-blood bodies being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition), or sentient – is common to all human beings.

This flesh and blood body has its own consciousness independent of ‘me’. This was so interesting and so fascinating. I started experiencing a pain at the back of my neck. Then it was like a heavy blanket was removed from over my body slowly and I was here. This body was as if moving on its own. No reference to ‘me’. I went to help someone at work and I expected a near pull back to think about what ‘I’ am supposed to do but I was already doing it. To be friendly and helpful was no longer something that I had to attain to. I am now thinking of Richard’s wonder-land-tale and understand it much more.

But it passed and ‘I’ started to wonder how can ‘I’ get from ‘me’ to “there”. Not long after ‘I’ was quickly met with another challenge at work. Someone came up and demanded with a small level of aggression that I give them their money or they will not leave. I started feeling that fear of being faced with the potential of another’s verbal assault (which seems backed by the fear of being physically assaulted). I ended up being able to help them and get them what they need and had a subsequent realization.

Even though I felt fear, I simultaneously experienced everything to be well due to the “after-effect” of the prior experience. What I saw during it though was that ‘I’ felt slighted by the way they approached me for help. Thus I also became aware of an anger building in myself. Towards the end of it I became aware of how ‘I’ was standing in the way of beneficence operating again. I also became aware of how much “respect” plays a role in society. Respect is backed by the fear of violence. Every identity demands respect. And this respect is to acknowledge their identity in the first place.

Yes I need to bring being happy and harmless each moment again in every aspect of my life while still remaining ‘me’. It makes a lot of sense.

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Chrono: Now I have a string of days off to enjoy, reflect, and compose. I think I also operate to a similar extent in the “steeple chasing” and taking “excursions” mentioned in the replies prior (19 Oct). It does make sense to aim for the in-control virtual freedom as the means to the end and end are no different.

Chrono: Yes I have seen these expectations/ obligations featured in many aspects of my life. In relation to male friends (primarily), it could be that I must maintain some outward appearance of confidence, being nonplussed, being “skilled”, being of high status, etc. (…) If I had to go a little further, I could say that all of that is about projecting power.
Vineeto: Well said. Having recognized this you can now decline “projecting power” and experiment with allowing the naiveté which you talked about in your last message (quoted further below) – (link).

Chrono: Yes I am reaching the “exhaustion” point of all options and seeing that perhaps naiveté is the only way to proceed.

Hi Chrono,

Thank you for your extensive reflections. The way you phrased the last sentence it looks as if naiveté, though being the least attractive option for ‘me’, is nevertheless the only way to achieve a more continuous feeling good?

Vineeto: The dare is to become autonomous, less and less dependant on other people’s opinions and demands. It happens when you gradually find out that there is something better than having the fickle approval and praise from your contemporaries. There is an actual world right here, right now, and right under your nose. You may enjoy this story from Richard (wonder-land-tale ).

Chrono: I can see in this dare how important it is to have a genuine intent to be happy and harmless. As one of the main fears that pops up is how I will be uncaring and callous if I were to be less and less dependent on other people’s opinions and demands. I know that I’ve mentioned this quite a few times in this journal so it’s definitely something central to ‘me’. The callousness may very well be the case if I did not have that intent. Caring in the real world is synonymous with being ‘Good’ and all the ‘good’ feelings.
I enjoyed reading Richard’s wonder-land-tale and it’s a wonderful reminder of how society’s standards can never meet or match the perfection of the actual world.

Yes, there is a tangible dare “to have a genuine intent to be happy and harmless”. Hence unless you genuinely enjoy being happy and harmless for its own sake you won’t care to dare leaving the ties behind that so (comfortably and uncomfortably) bind you. When pure intent is active, there are no worries of being “callous” or “uncaring”.

Chrono: Yes, this hidden yearning is what I’m currently trying to locate. Which perhaps may only come about if I abandon the sexual drive as well. I am wondering if that drive has any role to play at all in any of this. I sometimes struggle to see how it could not arise at all unless one is already actually free.
Vineeto: Not so fast. You cannot abandon the sexual drive – it is an instinctual passion. It will only completely disappear when the whole identity becomes extinct. Any attempt to abandon the sexual drive will necessarily lead to suppression and repression. This is the old way which both Western and Eastern religions promoted for thousands of years, and if you only know a little bit of history you already know where it leads to.
What you can do is sincerely examine each of the various aspects of your acquired identity as a man, and whenever it interferes with being happy and harmless aim for as much naiveté as you dare, which already had such fortuitous outcome.

‘Peter’: (…) How could I not see that the only one who l could possibly change was me? (Peter’s Journal, Living Together)

Chrono: I think in these past days I have realized that one of the reasons I am having some trouble with it is because I also have a feeling of guilt and shame at feeling this sexual drive in the first place. It seems locked in place because there are some simultaneously conflicting beliefs that go with it as well and creating cognitive dissonance. The first is the one that I have already mentioned about needing it and indulging in it to some extent for the male “sexual prowess”. But also there’s a feeling of guilt at having it because then you are disregarding your partner. I noted above how this drive is the opposite of appreciation and it is conflicting because society both feels that it is a “need” while also saying that it is ‘Bad’.

I talked to Andrew about guilt recently (link), perhaps you have read it. Additionally to the original guilt of being an instinctual ‘being’ there is the social conditioning regarding sexuality in almost all societies, because man-woman sexuality is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself and therefore strictly regulated almost everywhere, not only via laws but also “guilt and shame”. It is possible to unravel this social conditioning when pure intent is firmly in place.

As for the second aspect of the “feeling of guilt” because “you are disregarding your partner” – when you deliberate shift your focus of interest from personal sexual satisfaction only to intimacy, the whole nature of sexual congress will change in the direction of including your partner, as a fellow play-mate, in the direct (bodily) intimacy of sexual congress.

Richard: (…) exploring sex and sexuality is enormously beneficial: there is no better way, in my experience, for a man and a woman to approach such intimacy than sexual congress. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 10 Nov 2009)

Respondent: Thank you Richard for this elaboration, it’s both fascinating and helpful. I would like to clarify a certain point, when you mention sexuality, do you refer to the sex drive ?
Richard: Yes, otherwise known as libido – a Latin word meaning ‘lust’ (which is an Old English word for ‘sensuous appetite’ according to the Oxford Dictionary) – or sexual energy … as distinct from (bodily) sexual arousal.
To explain: that sexual energy (as in feeling lusty) is an affective energy – libido, as distinct from sexual arousal, is an instinctual passion otherwise known as desire – whereas bodily arousal (as in genital engorgement, erectile tissue, lubricious fluids and so on) is only sensuous (as in sensate) or, more properly, purely sensual. (Richard, List D, No. 20, 11 Dec 2009)

Chrono: I remember this quote from Richard standing out and highlighting this confusion:

Richard: {Sure … it is this simple: you are into altering behavioural patterns (rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic) whereas what I speak of is the elimination of that which causes the aberrant behaviour in the first place. As pacifists and their ilk (those who live the doctrine of non-violence) do not eliminate the source of aberrant behaviour … then they have to imitate the actual ease of an actual freedom from the human condition by making a big splash about their ‘goodie-goodie’ behaviour.}
To put it simply – and in a way that might just convey it to you – this what I speak of is somewhat indicated by what is possibly the only passage in the Christian’s Holy Scriptures worthy of note. Viz.:
• ‘He and/or she that looketh upon a woman and/or man with lust in their heart has already committed adultery’.
{Whilst obviously not a direct quote, this applies to all anti-social behaviour … not just a minor thing like sex outside of marriage. Things like all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, to give but a small yet very representative example.
Which means: clean up your act on the ‘inside’ and the ‘outer’ actions are free to be appropriate to the circumstances.} [link]

Of course it is confusing because you snipped the beginning and end of the quote (added in curly brackets here). Richard is talking about rules made by pacifists and religious moralists to restrain instinctual behaviour instead of aiming to eliminate the very source of the offending behaviour – the instinctual passions. Here Richard points out that the Bible-quote at least considers the instinctual feelings as well as the instinctually-driven behaviour as something reprehensible (but offering nothing but repression for remedy).

Chrono: But further to that, probably the main reason for this is that I have never had ‘magical sex’. I’ll admit that that’s probably because all of these beliefs are standing in the way. Thus it ends up not being playful, appreciative, and fun, but instead an act that must be performed “properly”. The physical delight gets stunted to some degree. I wasn’t aware of all of this before though. Just that my experience stood in stark contrast to anything in the gradations of intimacy. Consequently, the rest follows what Peter writes about blaming the other. Blaming them for not allowing me the proper “space” for this intimacy that I desire to eventuate (it’s funny that I am realizing that that is actually what I am looking for as I am writing this).

Well, of course if you start with the top-most grade, so to speak, and want ‘magical sex’ right away without exploring and getting accustomed to the preceding stages of Grace’s gradation scale (link) first, you have a good excuse for being resentful and not even start. Besides –

Richard: Put succinctly, this intimity, this most intimate of intimacies, has been beyond the ken of humankind since forever! [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 Feb 2016).

Which means it is never talked about and hence entirely new to human history. It’s time someone puts it into practice and brings delicious intimacy into “the ken of humankind”. The more you allow yourself to be naïve the easier you have access to the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté.

Vineeto: This correspondence may be useful as well – (Actualism, Peter, Selected Correspondence, Social Identity).

Chrono: I can see what Peter writes here about the demands of the social identity. I can feel the separation from others and experienced it in an epitomized way when I was going in to work last week. As I was walking from the parking lot into the building, I saw that all the people’s walking about were a ‘they’ and a ‘them’. And ‘I’ was a ‘me’. It was like the social identity program had just booted up and I saw the beginnings of it. It’s clear now that everyone (including me) is engaged in the correcting of the issues coming much later from this through various means but not willing to acknowledge the start of it.

It is indeed the instinctual programming that automatically places ‘me’ in the centre of all ‘my’ feelings and actions, thus creating a ‘me’ and ‘them’, whereas increasing naiveté allows you to recognize that everyone is inflicted with the same instinctual passions as you, and you can more easily (unilaterally) recognize them as fellow human beings.

Vineeto: You have identified the nub of the old paradigm which applies both to the spiritual as well as the materialistic aspect – your ‘being’ searching for the fulfilment that only an actual freedom can provide. Instead, for millennia people have been settling for second best – either spiritual enlightenment or material fulfilment, as in addictions to ‘highs’, ranging from drugs, success, group-highs, winning competitions, admiration or similar ‘self’-enhancing activities.
It is an excellent realisation to have identified this as “‘my’ path”, in contrast to the wide and wondrous path. It is a dead-end road unless you want to settle for second best.
This “limerence” only reifies the ‘self’ and the ‘self’s’ yearning for grandeur in the dream of the ‘good’ side – ‘self’-aggrandisement. The sooner you recognize, and consequently decline, the nature of the “dream” the sooner the attraction to the “most intense suffering” will also abate. Perhaps a thorough investigation of what is left of “the dream of ‘love’” might be useful – (FAQ Why is love (Love) no Solution? )

Chrono: It’s something that I have been thinking about since reading the correspondence thus far. Why do I want this dream (of love and limerence) to be true? What is this dream composed of? I realized this past week that for the unknown path to become apparent that the belief in ALL of ‘my’ dreams would have to go. All of ‘my’ dreams were somewhere and somewhen else. They would never actually manifest here. This brought a strange sense of relief. I know at some level that I am only fooling myself with some deception. Then while leaving work and heading home I experienced a sensuousness I quite often experience at the end of the day and had a spontaneous realization that the end of ‘my’ dreams was also the end of all of ‘my’ nightmares.

This is an excellent realisation – “the end of ‘my’ dreams was also the end of all of ‘my’ nightmares”. The good feelings keep the bad feelings in place. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ often found when there was a stubborn emotional problem that it was a certain dream or other cherished attachment which needed to be looked at before ‘she’ could resolve/ dissolve the problem.

Chrono: The next day while I mulled this over, I got a “peek” behind this. All of this was due to the essential pain of being ‘me’. And I felt deep down what ‘my’ essential task was despite this pain. ‘My’ task is to survive at all costs. Every single moment that ‘I’ am ‘being’ is another moment that ‘I’ am buying “time” to survive. At literally any moment ‘I’ can die. There’s a realm of fear here that’s raw and untouched. Very immediate and urgent. I backed away from it. But then I started again thinking about time. I realize that a very big bulk of ‘me’ is this feeling of existing over time. But it’s always any other time than this moment. Much of my modus operandi has been to change ‘me’ while also remaining ‘me’. Now it’s clear that ‘I’ cannot end ‘me’. My thinking was something like ‘I’ trying to expose ‘me’ and this would dissolve ‘me’. But ‘I’ have to ‘be’ naivete. I’ve been cunningly trying to take a “shortcut”.

Excellent contemplations and discoveries, Chrono. Every identity is trying to “take a “shortcut”” – it’s the very nature of being an imaginary yet passionate identity. You can pat yourself on the back for each time you discover another one of ‘my’ strategies and enjoy and appreciate your insights and success.

Chrono: While all of the above was being “churned” at the back of my mind, I was reading this correspondence and this suddenly made sense:

RICHARD: As simply as possible: human consciousness – as in, flesh-and-blood bodies being conscious (the suffix ‘-ness’ forms a noun expressing a state or condition), or sentient – is common to all human beings. (Richard, List D, Rick, 28 May 2013)

Chrono: This flesh and blood body has its own consciousness independent of ‘me’. This was so interesting and so fascinating.

Yes, there is a consciousness, the sentience of this flesh-and-blood body, naturally. It is not “its own consciousness” because you are this flesh-and-blood body, it is your own consciousness. The identity only hijacks this marvellous capacity and blights it with passions and emotions, distortions and problems. Hence the suggestion to get back to feeling good before you begin to sort out any triggers to your diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation. A flesh and blood body entirely “independent of ‘me’” operates apperceptively and is capable of great clarity.

Chrono: I started experiencing a pain at the back of my neck. Then it was like a heavy blanket was removed from over my body slowly and I was here. This body was as if moving on its own. No reference to ‘me’. I went to help someone at work and I expected a near pull back to think about what ‘I’ am supposed to do but I was already doing it. To be friendly and helpful was no longer something that I had to attain to. I am now thinking of Richard’s wonder-land-tale and understand it much more.

A great description of a PCE. How easy to be right here, once you realised that a flesh and blood body can perfectly function without any help from ‘me’.

Chrono: But it passed and ‘I’ started to wonder how can ‘I’ get from ‘me’ to “there”. Not long after ‘I’ was quickly met with another challenge at work. Someone came up and demanded with a small level of aggression that I give them their money or they will not leave. I started feeling that fear of being faced with the potential of another’s verbal assault (which seems backed by the fear of being physically assaulted). I ended up being able to help them and get them what they need and had a subsequent realization.
Even though I felt fear, I simultaneously experienced everything to be well due to the “after-effect” of the prior experience. What I saw during it though was that ‘I’ felt slighted by the way they approached me for help. Thus I also became aware of an anger building in myself. Towards the end of it I became aware of how ‘I’ was standing in the way of beneficence operating again. I also became aware of how much “respect” plays a role in society. Respect is backed by the fear of violence. Every identity demands respect. And this respect is to acknowledge their identity in the first place.

You can give them respect as fellow human beings just as you can give this respect to yourself. With increased awareness how you feel each moment the upcoming problems are easily dealt with, without you having to act out any of the emotions which arise. A perfect example of the actualism in practice.

Vineeto: However, there is no point in going into these limerences once you know what they are about or into the feelings of the fear of ending ‘me’ again and again unless ‘I’ am prepared, via discovering and dissolving the last bastions of ‘me’ objecting to ‘my’ demise, especially when you already found out that you “would go in circles”.

Chrono: Yes I need to bring being happy and harmless each moment again in every aspect of my life while still remaining ‘me’. It makes a lot of sense. (link)

It is also a lot of fun, and even more fun when you get into the habit of appreciating your successes.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

As always, I greatly appreciate your responses and participation :appreciation:.

I phrased it that way because I unknowingly had the emotional investment in the other options such as love as a way to achieve fulfillment or continuous feeling good. It’s only through seeing its limitations through seeing the light and dark sides of it that only one path remains open so to speak. Also because I have not gone deep enough into naivete for it to become ‘my’ path. I can see how this path even to being naivete is different to what everyone in the world does.

So I am now trying to rememorate all of the times and experiences of being naivete in my life.
I particularly enjoyed reading “A Rather Quaint Clay-Pit Tale” and the description and experience of being naivete. I am wondering what are your thoughts on this:

Richard: And as ‘he’ stood there, delightedly extolling the virtues of being naiveté itself, ‘he’ enthusiastically encouraged ‘his’ rapt audience to reach down inside of themselves intuitively (a.k.a. feeling it out) going past the rather superficial emotions and/or feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions and/or feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until they came to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where they intuitively feel they elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’, at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself), and, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above and/or just before and almost touching on the sex centre) where they would find themselves both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity and/or naiveté) and here is where they can, finally, like themself (very important) no matter what, for here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’, and, moreover, here lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness because here is where it is possible to be the key which unlocks the potency of naiveté.

What was your experience of this as an identity? Is it something that you can just do anytime or only at a certain point?

I am getting a flavor of naivete now as I’m typing and reflecting. Similar to my previous experience in the journal of allowing myself to meet people where they are [link]. And this particular part in the above clay-pit tale quote very much sticks out and serves as a direction for me:

…both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity and/or naiveté) and here is where they can, finally, like themself (very important) no matter what…

I can see in that direction that there are no worries of being callous or uncaring as both others and myself are easily in consideration and regard. As I’m thinking on this I find that another one of my worries is something like “how can I like others when they are being ‘bad’?” And I found a ready answer as I feel myself likeable then others can also be likeable irregardless of the antics they get up to. I find then a subsequent objection that reads like “I can be more easily hurt the more naive that I am” but here in this place where I am already likeable, I don’t think it could be possible to be hurt. But it does highlight the belief in me of how that to be naive is to be “unknowing” or “unaware”.

As a follow up to that, I am realizing that its a very viable alternative to love. I am allowing this to “soak in”. It relates to caring in which I can only sum up currently as love is dishonest in that it does not truly regard the other (because it’s mainly about ‘me’), while naivete does.

Yes I hadn’t considered that the root of the feeling of guilt came instinctually. I will have to make this deliberate shift and start from there.

I think as far as sex goes the best I’ve had from the gradations of intimacy is “good sex”, but now I can make a deliberate aim towards experiencing the full gradations.

And that someone will be me! :partying_face:

I have been wondering, is it possible for this awareness of being a flesh and blood body to also be there as a feeling being? Could it be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual? The reason I ask is because I do always have this inkling that I’m here this whole time all the time.

The word “respect” for me has always had a connotation of some authority involvement backed by punishment and reward. It seems to translate into “stay in line”. Could “regard” perhaps be a synonym instead for it in this context of seeing them as a fellow human being?

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Chrono: Hi Vineeto,
As always, I greatly appreciate your responses and participation .

Vineeto: Thank you for your extensive reflections. The way you phrased the last sentence it looks as if naiveté, though being the least attractive option for ‘me’, is nevertheless the only way to achieve a more continuous feeling good?

Chrono: I phrased it that way because I unknowingly had the emotional investment in the other options such as love as a way to achieve fulfillment or continuous feeling good. It’s only through seeing its limitations through seeing the light and dark sides of it that only one path remains open so to speak. Also because I have not gone deep enough into naiveté for it to become ‘my’ path. I can see how this path even to being naiveté is different to what everyone in the world does.

Hi Chrono,

You are very welcome.

I’m pleased to hear you recognized the dark side of love and no longer consider it an option “to achieve fulfillment”.

Of course “this path even to being naiveté is different to what everyone in the world does” – the actual world is outside of ‘me’ and everyone in the world is busy being ‘me’.

Before you contemplate ‘being naiveté’ or going “deep”, or “planning of naiveté being ‘your’ “path”, it is not. It is the path of self-less inclination, hence ‘you’ won’t have much of a role to play apart from objecting. :blush:

Why not start being naïve, in little steps. First it feels a bit uncomfortable, foolish or insecure (like a teenager first talking to a girl for instance). Then you dare extending this modus operandi a bit longer, expand into other areas of life – and you find it feels good, light, different, felicitous. You do it at your own pace, of course, don’t even think of pushing yourself, perhaps remember how you were as a kid (but now with adult sensibilities) and … enjoy it. You might find other people respond, like it, even become more friendly (naiveté is infectious).

Allowing yourself to be naive is indeed different to what serious sophisticated people in the world do – but who cares. Being naïve, you like yourself and simultaneously like others. It feels good, it is harmless and it’s infectious. Appreciate your small steps, then bigger steps, in this new way of living. It gives you confidence. It is intimate and invites naïve intimacy with fellow human beings. Being naïve includes not knowing what you are going to do next, or say next, being spontaneously happy and harmless. The less you pay attention to any self-image or pride, the easier it becomes. Putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t matter’ basis allows you to be less ‘self’-oriented and more open to the adventure of what being here actually is.

It’s fun.

Chrono: So I am now trying to rememorate all of the times and experiences of being naiveté in my life.
I particularly enjoyed reading “A Rather Quaint Clay-Pit Tale” and the description and experience of being naiveté.

Don’t “try”, don’t ‘work’ on it – just allow the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté to bubble up.

Richard: And as ‘he’ stood there, delightedly extolling the virtues of being naiveté itself, ‘he’ enthusiastically encouraged ‘his’ rapt audience to reach down inside of themselves intuitively (a.k.a. feeling it out) going past the rather superficial emotions and/or feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions and/or feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until they came to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where they intuitively feel they elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’, at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself), and, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above and/or just before and almost touching on the sex centre) where they would find themselves both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity and/or naiveté) and here is where they can, finally, like themself (very important) no matter what, for here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’, and, moreover, here lies tenderness and/or sweetness and togetherness and/or closeness because here is where it is possible to be the key which unlocks the potency of naiveté.

Chrono: I am wondering what are your thoughts on this:

It’s a wonderful and inspiring story; perhaps if you not use it as a serious sophisticated script but start by being sincere and naïve you’ll have more fun than trying to be naiveté right away.

Chrono: What was your experience of this as an identity? Is it something that you can just do anytime or only at a certain point?

It only requires lots of enjoyment and appreciation, so much so that letting go of the controls is inevitable.

It was a great time – naiveté fully bloomed when I was out-from-control (being naiveté and being out-from-control is in fact one and the same thing). There was no fear after I decided to pull out all the stops.

There are several descriptions of this time of my life on the website, here is one –

Vineeto: It happened around end of November/ beginning of December 2009. Richard showed me and Peter a short video where a young woman was filming herself having pleasuring herself with unabashed delight. It was obvious that she was entirely unselfconscious, not acting, not pretending, but simply having a great time. Hers was a genuinely naïve enjoyment and celebration of her sexuality, an unbridled and uninhibited sensuality and sensuosity. ‘Vineeto’ was impressed, and at the end of the video ‘she’ said “if she can do it I can do it”.
You’ll have to remember that two weeks before Richard had impressed up ‘her’ to come out-from-control. (Richard, List D, No. 25, 6 Feb 2012). So ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ went to the bedroom, and with such naïve demonstration it was indeed easy to imitate and replicate the naïve unbridled enjoyment of sexuality and sensuality. That’s how ‘Vineeto’ lost ‘her’ own inhibitions.
When Respondent No. 4(D) met us [Peter, Pamela, Tom, Richard and myself] on 5th December 2009, ‘Vineeto’ finally noticed the change in ‘herself’ and happily whispered to Richard “psst, I am out-from-control” –

‘Vineeto’: The other observation from this period of being out-from-control worth sharing, I was able to make when ‘No. 4(D)’ came for a visit. 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 Jan 2010).

Funnily enough, I completely forgot the event which had set it all in motion and allowed me to traverse the ‘wall of fear’ without noticing what ‘I’ had done, so to speak. Obviously, my social-conditioned mind still had come to terms with the newly discovered reality. It was months later when Richard reminded me of the ‘fear-shattering’ event. It’s quite a laugh! (Actualvineeto, Ian, 9 Jun 2025)

Vineeto: Yes, there is a tangible dare “to have a genuine intent to be happy and harmless”. Hence unless you genuinely enjoy being happy and harmless for its own sake you won’t care to dare leaving the ties behind that so (comfortably and uncomfortably) bind you. When pure intent is active, there are no worries of being “callous” or “uncaring”.

Chrono: I am getting a flavor of naiveté now as I’m typing and reflecting. Similar to my previous experience in the journal of allowing myself to meet people where they are [13 Oct 25]. And this particular part in the above clay-pit tale quote very much sticks out and serves as a direction for me:

Richard: …both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity and/or naiveté) and here is where they can, finally, like themself (very important) no matter what…

Indeed, when you are genuine, sincere in your aim to imitate the actual as much as possible, being naïve comes easy and with it fall away the self-deprecating feelings that have dominated your daily life. It is such a relief to finally be able to like yourself no matter what, and hence like others.

Chrono: I can see in that direction that there are no worries of being callous or uncaring as both others and myself are easily in consideration and regard. As I’m thinking on this I find that another one of my worries is something like “how can I like others when they are being ‘bad’?” And I found a ready answer as I feel myself likeable then others can also be likeable irregardless of the antics they get up to.

Exactly.

Chrono: I find then a subsequent objection that reads like “I can be more easily hurt the more naïve that I am” but here in this place where I am already likeable, I don’t think it could be possible to be hurt. But it does highlight the belief in me of how that to be naïve is to be “unknowing” or “unaware”.

Well, it is still possible to be hurt because you might still have unexamined issues, but that is the challenge and opportunity to clean yourself up. The main fear, as you said, is that you don’t know what will be happening – being naïve you would more likely welcome the adventure rather than fear it.

Chrono: As a follow up to that, I am realizing that it’s a very viable alternative to love. I am allowing this to “soak in”. It relates to caring in which I can only sum up currently as love is dishonest in that it does not truly regard the other (because it’s mainly about ‘me’), while naiveté does.

Are you making a spreadsheet for all the pros and cons before you start living it? And who is in charge of making the assessment? ‘Me’ and ‘my’ desires and fears or pure intent? Armchair planning gets you nowhere – dare, and care to dare, and just do it.

Vineeto: I talked to Andrew about guilt recently (link), perhaps you have read it. Additionally to the original guilt of being an instinctual ‘being’ there is the social conditioning regarding sexuality in almost all societies, because man-woman sexuality is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself and therefore strictly regulated almost everywhere, not only via laws but also “guilt and shame”. It is possible to unravel this social conditioning when pure intent is firmly in place.
As for the second aspect of the “feeling of guilt” because “you are disregarding your partner” – when you deliberate shift your focus of interest from personal sexual satisfaction only to intimacy, the whole nature of sexual congress will change in the direction of including your partner, as a fellow play-mate, in the direct (bodily) intimacy of sexual congress.

Chrono: Yes I hadn’t considered that the root of the feeling of guilt came instinctually. I will have to make this deliberate shift and start from there.

Ah, another “I will have to”. But you can voluntarily make a shift because intimacy is such a delicious happening to explore. Actualism is not like learning or training for an exam like in the real world – if it’s not fun and being friendly with yourself, don’t even consider it.

Vineeto: Well, of course if you start with the top-most grade, so to speak, and want ‘magical sex’ right away without exploring and getting accustomed to the preceding stages of Grace’s gradation scale (link) first, you have a good excuse for being resentful and not even start. Besides –
Richard: Put succinctly, this intimity, this most intimate of intimacies, has been beyond the ken of humankind since forever! [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 Feb 2016).

Chrono: I think as far as sex goes the best I’ve had from the gradations of intimacy is “good sex”, but now I can make a deliberate aim towards experiencing the full gradations.

You can probe and experiment and enjoy the whole way. Again, there is no exam to pass at the end and no medals to collect.

Vineeto: Which means it [intimity] is never talked about and hence entirely new to human history. It’s time someone puts it into practice and brings delicious intimacy into “the ken of humankind”. The more you allow yourself to be naïve the easier you have access to the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté.

Chrono: And that someone will be me!

Marvellous.

Vineeto: Yes, there is a consciousness, the sentience of this flesh-and-blood body, naturally. It is not “its own consciousness” because you are this flesh-and-blood body, it is your own consciousness. The identity only hijacks this marvellous capacity and blights it with passions and emotions, distortions and problems. Hence the suggestion to get back to feeling good before you begin to sort out any triggers to your diminishment of enjoyment and appreciation. A flesh and blood body entirely “independent of ‘me’” operates apperceptively and is capable of great clarity.

Chrono: I have been wondering, is it possible for this awareness of being a flesh and blood body to also be there as a feeling being? Could it be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual? The reason I ask is because I do always have this inkling that I’m here this whole time all the time.

Yes, it is possible, mainly from lingering memories of your various PCEs and moments of apperceptiveness. The “awareness of being a flesh and blood body” can peek through, especially when no good or bad feelings interfere with your enjoyment and appreciation of being here. But this does not mean that there is a “connection between ‘me’ and the actual”.

Vineeto: You can give them respect as fellow human beings just as you can give this respect to yourself. With increased awareness how you feel each moment the upcoming problems are easily dealt with, without you having to act out any of the emotions which arise. A perfect example of the actualism in practice.

Chrono: The word “respect” for me has always had a connotation of some authority involvement backed by punishment and reward. It seems to translate into “stay in line”. Could “regard” perhaps be a synonym instead for it in this context of seeing them as a fellow human being? (link)

The word “respect” comes from the Latin respectus, meaning “a looking at” or “regard”, and the verb respicere, “to look back at”. (Respect - Etymology, Origin & Meaning).
Development of meaning: From this original sense, the meaning evolved to include “regard”, “esteem”, and “consideration”. (Merriam Webster)

As you can see the word has a perfectly neutral origin, it’s time that the meaning again expands from having “a connotation of some authority” only. I like both words.

As for authority, that is a different issue for another conversation. For now, if you are interested, I recommend the selected correspondences found on the library page regarding authority and the section on authority in the Basic to Full Freedom article.

Cheers Vineeto

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I have been thinking on what you say here. And it struck me that the peace-on-earth of actual freedom is already always existing. Peace-on-earth exists already but only when ‘I’ in my entirety am no more. Thus the path is of a self-less inclination. Perhaps I’ve undiscerningly glossed over it. I also took note of what you wrote at the end that “It’s fun”. Well am I having fun consistently? Am I enjoying and appreciating consistently? What’s in the way? What is it I really want?

Thus in an overall manner to having more fun consistently the thing that sticks out to me the most is what I can only describe as a persona that’s bent on being sophisticated. A sophisticate. Making things complicated. Setting up an “image” of myself. Being serious. Even the visceral maneuvering in my thinking and feeling. I found immediate relief in this noticing because only in this way I finally don’t have to be a “someone”. Interestingly, it was one of my major qualms with work that I noticed a while back. It’s not that work itself is majorly difficult, it’s that I have to be a “someone” at work. But it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t. Being a “someone” is a serious business. And this extends to pretty much every aspect of my life.

Yes I’ve set my benchmark that if there’s a feeling of effort or “work” involved then something may be amiss. I was thinking that maybe I’m just being lazy, but then the opposite of this is to be getting to “work” on it.

Yes it’s much more enjoyable to welcome the adventure rather than fear it.

One of the things that I noticed in the PCE described prior was that I did not “know” what would happen next or even what I would say or do. It happened of its own accord and I acted in a beneficial and friendly way. And I noticed after some time that ‘my’ main way of being is to be control itself. I am always projecting into a past, present, and future. This is a way to ensure that ‘I’ exist and remain in control. This aspect of there not being control is scary to me because it feels this is the way that I can protect this body.

Ha, weirdly a mental spreadsheet sounds like something that I am “supposed” to do. But if I keep it simple, I just enjoy feeling good. This unraveling of what I have been doing this whole time is helping push the envelope further.

Yes I’ve set a cue for if a “I will have to” comes up to see if I am trying to jump the gun.

Is this because only being naivete can make this connection? Or that there cannot actually be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual?

I think the reason that the word respect has the connotations of some authority (as opposed to authoritative) is because my parents would always say that I need to respect them (and anyone else who holds a particular position). Thus I have been differentiating that word when used usually in a real world setting from regard. But perhaps this takes a further looking into as I noticed in one of my previous posts way back that I had a habit of being a ‘victim’. I’ve taken on board that I need to ‘respect’ people but this means in a sort of psychic submission type of way. And also backed (originally from my parents) that if I don’t then I do not “care” and I will be physically punished. This way of operating demonstrates a complete lack of equity. And equally would not be a way to bring it about. At the core of this is the belief that I need to psychically submit or else people will get angry (sounds very silly and feels embarrassing when I write it out).

I noticed in the From Basic Actual Freedom to Full Actual Freedom Part 1 correspondence that you wrote:

Remember that ‘you’, the guardian, have a general backward outlook who one regards automatically, as in habitually, as a (non-expertise-related) authority, when, in fact, they don’t have any more authority than one is willing to give them. And ‘your’ choice to give certain people an unearned aura of authority has a lot to do with expected social rewards and punishment. One can then decide in each situation if this is worth one’s voluntary submission. The more one simplify/ reduces one’s need/ attraction for the perceived social rewards and thus anticipated ‘punishment’ of withheld ‘reward’, the less one wills find getting drawn into power conflicts with supposed (guardian-created) authority figures.

Would you say this course of action only applies if you are basically free?

I also noticed in the same correspondence Richard writes:

Richard: … this ‘battle of the sexes’ need no longer hold sway if the need for power is seen at its source

I have been wondering if what I experience is an example of a “need for power” or if that need is something else.

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Vineeto: Before you contemplate ‘being naiveté’ or going “deep”, or “planning of naiveté being ‘your’ “path”, it is not. It is the path of self-less inclination, hence ‘you’ won’t have much of a role to play apart from objecting.
Why not start being naïve, in little steps. First it feels a bit uncomfortable, foolish or insecure (like a teenager first talking to a girl for instance). Then you dare extending this modus operandi a bit longer, expand into other areas of life – and you find it feels good, light, different, felicitous. You do it at your own pace, of course, don’t even think of pushing yourself, perhaps remember how you were as a kid (but now with adult sensibilities) and … enjoy it. You might find other people respond, like it, even become more friendly (naiveté is infectious).
Allowing yourself to be naive is indeed different to what serious sophisticated people in the world do – but who cares. Being naïve, you like yourself and simultaneously like others. It feels good, it is harmless and it’s infectious. Appreciate your small steps, then bigger steps, in this new way of living. It gives you confidence. It is intimate and invites naïve intimacy with fellow human beings. Being naïve includes not knowing what you are going to do next, or say next, being spontaneously happy and harmless. The less you pay attention to any self-image or pride, the easier it becomes. Putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t matter’ basis allows you to be less ‘self’-oriented and more open to the adventure of what being here actually is.
It’s fun.

Chrono: I have been thinking on what you say here. And it struck me that the peace-on-earth of actual freedom is already always existing. Peace-on-earth exists already but only when ‘I’ in my entirety am no more. Thus the path is of a self-less inclination. Perhaps I’ve undiscerningly glossed over it. I also took note of what you wrote at the end that “It’s fun”. Well, am I having fun consistently? Am I enjoying and appreciating consistently? What’s in the way? What is it I really want?

Indeed, this is the very way the actualism method works in a nutshell. By following a self-less inclination you are having fun and vice versa, felicitous and innocuous feelings don’t provide fodder for ‘me’.

Chrono: Thus in an overall manner to having more fun consistently the thing that sticks out to me the most is what I can only describe as a persona that’s bent on being sophisticated. A sophisticate. Making things complicated. Setting up an “image” of myself. Being serious. Even the visceral manoeuvring in my thinking and feeling. I found immediate relief in this noticing because only in this way I finally don’t have to be a “someone”. Interestingly, it was one of my major qualms with work that I noticed a while back. It’s not that work itself is majorly difficult, it’s that I have to be a “someone” at work. But it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t. Being a “someone” is a serious business. And this extends to pretty much every aspect of my life.

It’s wonderful, isn’t it. To be ‘someone’ is the modus operandi for which you have been conditioned since childhood, backed up by the instinctual imperative of survival – but is this really still necessary? As you say “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”. It is also possible because you can be naïve with all your adult sensibility intact.

Vineeto: Don’t “try”, don’t ‘work’ on it – just allow the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté to bubble up.

Chrono: Yes I’ve set my benchmark that if there’s a feeling of effort or “work” involved then something may be amiss. I was thinking that maybe I’m just being lazy, but then the opposite of this is to be getting to “work” on it.

Yes, the real-world rules, morals and dogmas operate in opposites and have only two alternatives. There is a third alternative.

Vineeto: Well, it is still possible to be hurt because you might still have unexamined issues, but that is the challenge and opportunity to clean yourself up. The main fear, as you said, is that you don’t know what will be happening – being naïve you would more likely welcome the adventure rather than fear it.

Chrono: Yes it’s much more enjoyable to welcome the adventure rather than fear it.
One of the things that I noticed in the PCE described prior was that I did not “know” what would happen next or even what I would say or do. It happened of its own accord and I acted in a beneficial and friendly way. And I noticed after some time that ‘my’ main way of being is to be control itself. I am always projecting into a past, present, and future. This is a way to ensure that ‘I’ exist and remain in control. This aspect of there not being control is scary to me because it feels this is the way that I can protect this body.

Indeed, being in control is the sole function of this contingent ‘being’, ‘me’, the entity which does not exist in its own right and needs to control to prevent being exposed as such. ‘You’ need to keep working hard to justify ‘your’ existence, whereas “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”, when you can allow yourself to be what you are. You lessen control by progressively allowing the obstacles to enjoyment and appreciation to disappear via attentiveness and (if necessary) investigation – and thus by imitating the actual.

Vineeto: Are you making a spreadsheet for all the pros and cons before you start living it? And who is in charge of making the assessment? ‘Me’ and ‘my’ desires and fears or pure intent? Armchair planning gets you nowhere – dare, and care to dare, and just do it.

Chrono: Ha, weirdly a mental spreadsheet sounds like something that I am “supposed” to do. But if I keep it simple, I just enjoy feeling good. This unraveling of what I have been doing this whole time is helping push the envelope further.

It makes it so much simpler, doesn’t it?

Chrono: I have been wondering, is it possible for this awareness of being a flesh and blood body to also be there as a feeling being? Could it be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual? The reason I ask is because I do always have this inkling that I’m here this whole time all the time.
Vineeto: Yes, it is possible, mainly from lingering memories of your various PCEs and moments of apperceptiveness. The “awareness of being a flesh and blood body” can peek through, especially when no good or bad feelings interfere with your enjoyment and appreciation of being here. But this does not mean that there is a “connection between ‘me’ and the actual”.

Chrono: Is this because only being naiveté can make this connection? Or that there cannot actually be a connection between ‘me’ and the actual?

‘I’ can never enter the actual world, hence no connection whatsoever. When ‘I’ disappear, the actual world becomes apparent, when ‘I’ reappear, the actual world is no longer apparent.

But you, the flesh-and-blood body can have shorter or longer moments of apperception where you are aware that you are the flesh-and-blood body – this is the very definition of apperception, the mind’s experience of itself, unmediated by the identity. Of course, once ‘I’ re-enter the arena, ‘I’ claim the experience for myself, hence your impression that there is a connection.

Richard: 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) … (A Quaint Clay-Pit Tale, Last Tooltip).

Naiveté facilitates ‘my’ diminishment and ‘my’ intermittent disappearance, yet the word ‘connection’ does not apply.

Vineeto: The word “respect” comes from the Latin respectus, meaning “a looking at” or “regard”, and the verb respicere, “to look back at”. (Respect - Etymology, Origin & Meaning). Development of meaning: From this original sense, the meaning evolved to include “regard”, “esteem”, and “consideration”. (Merriam Webster)
As you can see the word has a perfectly neutral origin, it’s time that the meaning again expands from having “a connotation of some authority” only. I like both words.
As for authority, that is a different issue for another conversation. For now, if you are interested, I recommend the selected correspondences found on the library page regarding authority and the section on authority in the Basic to Full Freedom article.

Chrono: I think the reason that the word respect has the connotations of some authority (as opposed to authoritative) is because my parents would always say that I need to respect them (and anyone else who holds a particular position). Thus I have been differentiating that word when used usually in a real world setting from regard. But perhaps this takes a further looking into as I noticed in one of my previous posts way back that I had a habit of being a ‘victim’. I’ve taken on board that I need to ‘respect’ people but this means in a sort of psychic submission type of way. And also backed (originally from my parents) that if I don’t then I do not “care” and I will be physically punished. This way of operating demonstrates a complete lack of equity. And equally would not be a way to bring it about. At the core of this is the belief that I need to psychically submit or else people will get angry (sounds very silly and feels embarrassing when I write it out).

I don’t know what holds authority, anyone’s authority, in place for you. For ‘Vineeto’ the very justification for any authority disappeared in one fell swoop with the startling apperceptive discovery –

‘Vineeto’: Usually, when I succeeded freeing myself of one authority figure, I soon found that I had only replaced them with a supposedly better one – but it never solved the problem. Slowly I started to understand that in order to be free from authority I had to eliminate the need for, and support of, those very beliefs and values underlying the authority.
Finally one evening, when talking and musing about the universe, I fully comprehended that this physical universe is actually infinite. The universe being without boundaries or an edge means that it is impossible, practically, for God to exist. In order to have created the universe or to be in control of it God would have to exist outside of it – and there is no outside! This insight hit me like a thunderbolt. My fear of God and of his representatives collapsed and lost its very substance by this obvious realisation. In fact, there can be no one outside of this infinite universe who is pulling the strings of punishment and reward, heaven and hell – or, according to Eastern tradition, granting enlightenment or leaving me with the eternal karma of endless lives in misery.
This insight presupposes, of course, that there is no place other than the physical universe, no celestial, mystical realm where gods and ghosts exist. It also implies that there is no life before or after death and that the body simply dies when it dies. I needed quite some courage to face and accept this simple fact – to give up all beliefs in an after-life or a ‘spirit-life’.
But I could easily observe that as soon as I gave up the idea of any imaginary existence other than the tangible, physical universe, everything, which had seemed so complicated and impossible to understand became graspable, evident, obvious and imminently clear.
When the enormous consequence and implication of slipping out of this insidious belief in any God or Higher Being dawned on me, I was at the same time free of anybody’s authority. I was free of the fear that had been spoiling every relationship with every man in my life: father, brothers, male friends and boyfriends, employers, teachers and Master.
Now I am my own authority, deciding what is silly and sensible, using the common and practical intelligence of the human brain. I am responsible for every action in my life and I can acknowledge that now. However, this means that from now on I cannot blame anybody for making me jealous, miserable, grumpy, afraid, angry or frustrated over any petty issue. Now there is no more excuse, no more hiding place. They are my reactions and my behaviour, which I have to face and change in order to be free. (A Bit of Vineeto, #oneevening)

It had been quite a startling and consequential PCE.

Chrono: I noticed in the From Basic Actual Freedom to Full Actual Freedom Part 1 correspondence that you wrote:

Vineeto: Remember that ‘you’, the guardian, have a general backward outlook who one regards automatically, as in habitually, as a (non-expertise-related) authority, when, in fact, they don’t have any more authority than one is willing to give them. And ‘your’ choice to give certain people an unearned aura of authority has a lot to do with expected social rewards and punishment. One can then decide in each situation if this is worth one’s voluntary submission. The more one simplify/ reduces one’s need/ attraction for the perceived social rewards and thus anticipated ‘punishment’ of withheld ‘reward’, the less one will[s] find [getting] oneself being drawn into power conflicts with supposed (guardian-created) authority figures.

Chrono: Would you say this course of action only applies if you are basically free?

It was written with the social identity in mind who remains in part or entirely in situ when one becomes basically free. When your aim is to become actually free then obviously the outlook of the feeling being identity is equally backward oriented. As such everything I wrote in that paragraph also applies to feeling beings. You can dismantle your psychic and conditioning ties to authority at any time.

Chrono: I also noticed in the same correspondence Richard writes:

Richard: … this ‘battle of the sexes’ need no longer hold sway if the need for power is seen at its source. (Richard, List B, No. 10d, 20 March 2000).

Chrono: I have been wondering if what I experience is an example of a “need for power” or if that need is something else. (link)

Are you asking if the habit of being a ‘victim’ is related to a “need for power”? It certainly is, it is the flip-side of the same power structure, which, being sourced in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression, is operating ubiquitously.

By choosing to be naïvely happy and harmless you voluntarily withdraw from the battlefield (not as a pacifist or virtue-hunter) but as someone who prefers (i.e. values more) getting along in a beneficial way with your fellow human beings.

You are playing a different game, so to speak. Or, as Richard called it – playing for fun, not for keeps.

Cheers Vineeto

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Much simpler when it’s actually applied as written haha. I have been reflecting more on what it means to be sincere and the part that sticks out more now is that it is to be in accord with the fact. What is the fact? The fact is the actuality ascertained in a PCE. How can I align with this fact? By enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. In a PCE, it is seen that only this moment genuinely exists and all is already perfectly happening. And my struggle seems to be in seeing that I can never match this effortless perfection. Highlighting the belief that ‘I’ can be perfect. ‘I’ can only allow it through imitating it. ‘I’ can never be it. I feel viscerally conflicted or torn. There must be another belief why I do not simply incline each moment towards it. Perhaps I am jumping the gun again.

I’m not able to even think of any reason why it’s necessary aside from the usual provisions of the feelings of warmth and belonging. I find it more enjoyable to be happy and harmless.

Weirdly has taken me a longer time to figure that out experientially. I just had this realization about sexual desire and why I have “trouble” with it. It occurs in every human being to some extent, so why am I making a big deal out of its occurrence? And I finally realized it, it’s because of repression. There’s a guilt surrounding it as I mentioned previously. But what if there was no guilt? Then I am somehow morally reprehensible. As I previously saw that ‘I’ cannot end ‘me’ and ‘I’ am already born this way, then there’s no taking blame for my feeling this desire. I understand better now where you say:

And also this section from Article 2 in Richard’s Journal I am able to see in operation:

Richard: Yet I discover that this actual world – in which this body is living – easily fulfils all the longings and desires that are commonly channelled into the Spiritual Realms

Richard: Why then would people rather be Sacred, Spiritual, Holy … not actual? Because their only alternative is to be vulgar, worldly, pagan … which they associate with the Diabolical, the Demonic, the Sinister . Enmeshed in a world-view wherein everything is divided into opposites, nobody is able to consider a third alternative: to be actual. In the divided world-view, the actual is never seen, and the physical is perceived to be uncivilised, anarchical, and hedonistic … and categorised by them as being profane. My intent is to find a way to continue to live in this undivided and indivisible actual world as ascertained sensately, instead of the ambivalent world-view of opposites with its necessarily discriminating groups, its opposing camps.

I am understanding now that the shift to intimacy is a different game altogether from the one that gives sexual desire a central role. That is, my focus on getting rid of it won’t work.

Yes I recently noticed as it was happening how much that insults and compliments make up this being a someone. If ‘my’ whole point is to survive, then I’m only taking these on personally to survive. And now I have some more cues to look out for.

Actually the only authority I can think of is the authority of Humanity through morals, ethics, and judgements. But it all hinges on the idea of caring. I have been reflecting again on what it means to be caring in the real world vs being carefree and considerate. Can I be carefree AND considerate? I am reading the chapter titled “It is possible to be sensitive without being vulnerable”. And being ‘vulnerable’ in the real world is perhaps the gateway into what real world caring is. But what does it mean to actually care?

I was having an afternoon at work when there was a bout of increased delight. And I remembered that one of the objections that I feel is that ‘I’ need to be here to protect this physical body. When all of a sudden I realized that ‘I’ do not exist to protect this physical body. ‘I’ exist to protect ‘me’. The physical body is secondary to ‘me’. All of ‘my’ caring is self-centered. And I became aware of this most fundamental confusion. This just hit me in a very visceral way and I felt a shiver at the bottom of my spine. And I’ve just been aware since of all of ‘my’ caring since and the inherent self-centeredness of it.

Recently a different issue has cropped up and has taken the place of previous issues. I am seeing indignation and slights featuring more. I for some reason am feeling more keenly aware of iniquities in every day interactions. I am more aware of ‘injustice’ and ‘unfairness’. I feel it really deeply. Both in daily interactions and in an overall rule of the world way. Perhaps these are issues I have not looked at in-depth enough.

  • I’m writing at work so I’ll have to re-visit my response
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EDIT: Yes I was thinking they’re related. I can see it being a flip side of the same power structure but am trying to see the third alternative in it. I keep thinking then I’ll be taken advantage of. Actually I think my current issue is related to this being a ‘victim’ and is related to the need for power. Will have to reflect and write more on it soon.

This does make sense and I am thinking on it further so that I’m not repressing or expressing indignation in some cunning way.

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Vineeto: Indeed, this is the very way the actualism method works in a nutshell. By following a self-less inclination you are having fun and vice versa, felicitous and innocuous feelings don’t provide fodder for ‘me’.

Chrono: Much simpler when it’s actually applied as written haha. I have been reflecting more on what it means to be sincere and the part that sticks out more now is that it is to be in accord with the fact. What is the fact? The fact is the actuality ascertained in a PCE. How can I align with this fact? By enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. In a PCE, it is seen that only this moment genuinely exists and all is already perfectly happening.

Hi Chrono,

Let me stop you right there. Where you are going with this is that you can never “be in accord with the fact” until you are actually free. This is called a red herring and stops you from even starting. To be sincere, i.e. “in accord with the fact”, means you don’t deceive yourself when a good or bad feeling interferes with enjoyment and appreciation. Therefore you are as honest as you can regarding the feeling which is happening at this very moment of writing this – for example something like “ahh, I can never be sincere, it’s too difficult, I rather stay as I am”. Sincerely acknowledging what is happening you’ll eventually sort it out with the intent to being happy and harmless – and you have demonstrated many times before that you can do that excellently. If you notice imagination happening like creating future scenarios, you sincerely acknowledge that knowing something imagined is not a fact.

Chrono: And my struggle seems to be in seeing that I can never match this effortless perfection. Highlighting the belief that ‘I’ can be perfect. ‘I’ can only allow it through imitating it. ‘I’ can never be it. I feel viscerally conflicted or torn. There must be another belief why I do not simply incline each moment towards it. Perhaps I am jumping the gun again.

Of course, if you want to arrive before you start it’s a clear indication you are “jumping the gun” … and sincerely inquiring why you are going on this side-track will inevitably provide the answer and then you sort out what it right in front of you. Remember to get back to feeling good first.

Vineeto: It’s wonderful, isn’t it. To be ‘someone’ is the modus operandi for which you have been conditioned since childhood, backed up by the instinctual imperative of survival – but is this really still necessary? As you say “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”. It is also possible because you can be naïve with all your adult sensibility intact.

Chrono: I’m not able to even think of any reason why it’s necessary aside from the usual provisions of the feelings of warmth and belonging. I find it more enjoyable to be happy and harmless.

Excellent. What about the “feelings of warmth and belonging” – are you game to boldly go where you haven’t gone before and naïvely explore intimacy between fellow human beings in lieu of “warmth and belonging”?

Vineeto: Yes, the real-world rules, morals and dogmas operate in opposites and have only two alternatives. There is a third alternative.

Chrono: Weirdly has taken me a longer time to figure that out experientially. I just had this realization about sexual desire and why I have “trouble” with it. It occurs in every human being to some extent, so why am I making a big deal out of its occurrence? And I finally realized it, it’s because of repression. There’s a guilt surrounding it as I mentioned previously. But what if there was no guilt? Then I am somehow morally reprehensible. As I previously saw that ‘I’ cannot end ‘me’ and ‘I’ am already born this way, then there’s no taking blame for my feeling this desire. I understand better now where you say:

Vineeto: As for the second aspect of the “feeling of guilt” because “you are disregarding your partner” – when you deliberate shift your focus of interest from personal sexual satisfaction only to intimacy, the whole nature of sexual congress will change in the direction of including your partner, as a fellow play-mate, in the direct (bodily) intimacy of sexual congress.

To ease the pressure of what was originally repressed may take some persistence because repression happened not only because of the “feeling of guilt” but also because it is something unfamiliar to be explored/ experienced as to what happens when you lift the lid, so to speak. It helps to be a friend to yourself and be gentle and consciously enjoy the adventure, without back-pressure from yourself. Richard’s second part of the quote explains why it has never really been allowed to be explored naïvely.

Chrono: And also this section from Article 2 in Richard’s Journal I am able to see in operation:

Richard: Yet I discover that this actual world – in which this body is living – easily fulfils all the longings and desires that are commonly channelled into the Spiritual Realms. (…)
Why then would people rather be Sacred, Spiritual, Holy … not actual? Because their only alternative is to be vulgar, worldly, pagan … which they associate with the Diabolical, the Demonic, the Sinister. Enmeshed in a world-view wherein everything is divided into opposites, nobody is able to consider a third alternative: to be actual. In the divided world-view, the actual is never seen, and the physical is perceived to be uncivilised, anarchical, and hedonistic … and categorised by them as being profane. My intent is to find a way to continue to live in this undivided and indivisible actual world as ascertained sensately, instead of the ambivalent world-view of opposites with its necessarily discriminating groups, its opposing camps. (Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Two).

Chrono: I am understanding now that the shift to intimacy is a different game altogether from the one that gives sexual desire a central role. That is, my focus on getting rid of it won’t work.

Indeed, half the job is to sort out what doesn’t work. The process of getting accustomed/ familiar with naïvely and gently shifting to intimacy in practice, might sometimes appear a balancing act between “holy” and “vulgar”. Don’t fall for either, keep looking for the fun and benevolent way (to yourself and your partner) – the third alternative.

Vineeto: Indeed, being in control is the sole function of this contingent ‘being’, ‘me’, the entity which does not exist in its own right and needs to control to prevent being exposed as such. ‘You’ need to keep working hard to justify ‘your’ existence, whereas “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”, when you can allow yourself to be what you are. You lessen control by progressively allowing the obstacles to enjoyment and appreciation to disappear via attentiveness and (if necessary) investigation – and thus by imitating the actual.

Chrono: Yes I recently noticed as it was happening how much that insults and compliments make up this being a someone. If ‘my’ whole point is to survive, then I’m only taking these on personally to survive. And now I have some more cues to look out for.

Ha, it is indeed so, when you look at the content of what your “belonging” really consists of – “insults and compliments” – punishment and reward – made valid by the feeling of power or loss thereof. Another confirmation that you were right when you said “being a “someone” is a serious business … and “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”.

Vineeto: I don’t know what holds authority, anyone’s authority, in place for you. For ‘Vineeto’ the very justification for any authority disappeared in one fell swoop with the startling apperceptive discovery – (A Bit of Vineeto, #oneevening)

Chrono: Actually the only authority I can think of is the authority of Humanity through morals, ethics, and judgements. But it all hinges on the idea of caring. I have been reflecting again on what it means to be caring in the real world vs being carefree and considerate. Can I be carefree AND considerate? I am reading the chapter titled “It is possible to be sensitive without being vulnerable”. And being ‘vulnerable’ in the real world is perhaps the gateway into what real world caring is.

The reason the described PCE (now snipped) was such a consequential event for ‘Vineeto’ because ‘she’ realised that every and all authority people assume stem’s from some god’s authority – god is the ultimate source for what is right and wrong, bad and good (=heaven and hell). All the values by which humans are socialised originate from the ‘Tried and Failed’ legacy of enlightened beings, gods and goddesses. Hence to realise that there is no room for god in an actual infinite, and perfect, universe, and the justification and ultimate origin of right and wrong disappears.

The same applies to your “authority of Humanity” and “the idea of caring”. While being caring and considerate are aspects of being harmless, the word “caring” in the real world is generally synonymous with feeling caring, i.e. giving out affective vibes of caring, sympathy and compassion, together with or even instead of practical caring. This is because humanity’s idea of caring is tightly linked to “putting the other before oneself”, being compassionate and self-less.

Hence the aim of being harmless together, including the considering the consequences of your words and actions might have, will a clearer guidance for what you want to be –

Martin: Does harmlessness have nothing to do with ‘others’?
Richard: (…)
• [Richard]: “(…) it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy and harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard AF List, No. 62, 26 Mar 2004).
Thus to be harmless as per actualism lingo (being free of malice) is beneficial both to oneself – plus it feels unpleasant (hedonically) to feel malicious (affectively) anyway – as well to others due to being unable to induce suffering either in oneself or another, via affective vibes and psychic currents, and vice versa. (…)
Martin: (…) 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. (…) ‘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: 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? (…)
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. (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 Aug 2016).

Chrono: But what does it mean to actually care?

Richard: … near-actual caring is, of course, epitomised by a vital interest in the suffering of all human beings coming to an end, forever … (Richard, List D, Srinath2, #near-actual-caring)

Richard: Hence it came to pass one fine evening that feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ realised, with a profound visceral impact, how ‘she’ had never actually cared – although ‘she’ certainly felt caring (in fact ‘she’ had a deeply – ingrained and ongoing feeling of caring about all the misery and mayhem) – and upon that realisation transforming itself into an actualisation (as per the intimacy-yearning process detailed in the ‘Direct Route Mail-Out № 05 email part-quoted at the top of this page) it activated “a caring which is as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” and there was indeed action which was not of ‘her’ doing … to wit: the ending of ‘her’ and all ‘her’ subterfuge and trickery (just to stay in keeping with the above wording purely for effect). (Richard, List D, Srinath2, 6 Aug 2016).

You can find some more on intimacy and caring in Vineeto, Selected Correspondence, Intimacy. I also found ‘Vineeto’s’ correspondence with Tarin on being harmless instead of merely feeling harmless useful. (link).

Chrono: I was having an afternoon at work when there was a bout of increased delight. And I remembered that one of the objections that I feel is that ‘I’ need to be here to protect this physical body. When all of a sudden I realized that ‘I’ do not exist to protect this physical body. ‘I’ exist to protect ‘me’. The physical body is secondary to ‘me’. All of ‘my’ caring is self-centred. And I became aware of this most fundamental confusion. This just hit me in a very visceral way and I felt a shiver at the bottom of my spine. And I’ve just been aware since of all of ‘my’ caring since and the inherent self-centeredness of it.

Well spotted – “‘I’ exist to protect ‘me’”. Once you are aware of this fact it is much simpler to discover the identity’s tricks and diversions. As always, there is a way of interacting being less self-centred, i.e. being naïvely harmless and considerate and preferring/ valuing intimacy over sexual prowess.

Chrono: Recently a different issue has cropped up and has taken the place of previous issues. I am seeing indignation and slights featuring more. I for some reason am feeling more keenly aware of iniquities in every day interactions. I am more aware of ‘injustice’ and ‘unfairness’. I feel it really deeply. Both in daily interactions and in an overall rule of the world way. Perhaps these are issues I have not looked at in-depth enough. (I’m writing at work so I’ll have to re-visit my response). (link)

Can it be that you notice indignation more because you discovered how much ‘‘my’ whole point is to survive” ? You may find this familiar –

Richard: Speaking personally, the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago instantaneously rid ‘himself’ of the bulk of those school-age hurts and slights—whilst sitting out in the sunshine one fine morning, putting pencil to paper in order to finally record those dastardly events for posterity, as per a long-held and cherished ambition to do so at length—via seeing-in-a-flash that, as it was simply not possible to ever physically be a child again (and thus juvenilely susceptible to not only those bully-boys and feisty-femmes but any enabling teachers and principals as well), there was absolutely no need whatsoever to continue nursing them as a carryover grudge. It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression, 21 Jan 2016).

Vineeto: Are you asking if the habit of being a ‘victim’ is related to a “need for power”? It certainly is, it is the flip-side of the same power structure, which, being sourced in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression, is operating ubiquitously.

Chrono: EDIT: Yes I was thinking they’re related. I can see it being a flip side of the same power structure but am trying to see the third alternative in it. I keep thinking then I’ll be taken advantage of. Actually I think my current issue is related to this being a ‘victim’ and is related to the need for power. Will have to reflect and write more on it soon.

Ha, the role of being a ‘victim’ at first appears more virtuous but it is only the other side of aggression inherent to the instinctual passions in each and every feeling being. If you can recognize this and affectively acknowledge it, then neither repressing nor expressing the feeling might allow the third alternative to hove into view.

Also the question ‘why do I need power’ may be interesting to contemplate. Personally, I have no power whatsoever.

Vineeto: By choosing to be naïvely happy and harmless you voluntarily withdraw from the battlefield (not as a pacifist or virtue-hunter) but as someone who prefers (i.e. values more) getting along in a beneficial way with your fellow human beings.

Chrono: This does make sense and I am thinking on it further so that I’m not repressing or expressing indignation in some cunning way. (link)

A reminder before you are getting too deep into thinking about the serious problems of life –

Richard: You need to have a keen sense of humour. This business of becoming free is not – contrary to popular opinion – a serious business at all. Be totally sincere … most definitely utterly sincere, as genuineness is essential. But serious … no way. Humour is essential – it is inevitable in an actual freedom – and one has a lot of fun along the way. An actual freedom is all about having fun; about enjoying being here; about delighting in being alive. All that ‘being serious’ stuff actively works against peace-on-earth. One has to want to be here on this planet … most people resent being here and wish to escape. This method will bring one into being more fully here than anyone has ever been before. If you do not want to be here, then forget it. (Library, Topics, Humour)

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto, I was wondering if you could help me understand this a bit better as I don’t see a difference between feeling harmless and being harmless.

I think it’s because I equate feeling harmless with both the absence of malice and sorrow, as well as the absence of their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion. Therefor I equate feeling harmless and being harmless as one in the same - the absence of any self-centered instinctual passion.

VINEETO: The reason I said that there is a remarkable difference between feeling harmless and actually being harmless is because it is easy to assess one’s happiness by checking if I am feeling happy whereas many people may feel themselves to be harmless when they are not experiencing feelings of aggression or anger against somebody. Yet they are nevertheless causing harm via their thoughtless ‘self’-oriented instinctual feelings and actions, something that all human beings are prone to do unless they become fully aware of their instinctual passions before these translate into vibes and/or actions.

Feeling-being Vineeto is pointing out that some people consider the absence of aggression and anger to be adequate enough to classify themselves as feeling harmless - while overlooking other thoughtless ‘self’-oriented instinctual feelings and actions.

Where as being harmless would mean the absence of not only the anger and aggression, but also any other instinctually-driven feelings that often fly under the radar or even appear as “good” such as love.

Am I following correctly?

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Vineeto: I also found ‘Vineeto’s’ correspondence with Tarin on being harmless instead of merely feeling harmless useful. (link).

Ed: Hi Vineeto, I was wondering if you could help me understand this a bit better as I don’t see a difference between feeling harmless and being harmless.
I think it’s because I equate feeling harmless with both the absence of malice and sorrow, as well as the absence of their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion. Therefor I equate feeling harmless and being harmless as one in the same – the absence of any self-centred instinctual passion.

Hi Ed,

The trouble with taking one’s feelings as arbiter of what is going on is that feelings are not only entirely self-centric by nature, and as such biased, but also utterly unreliable as to the facts of the matter.

That’s why Richard keeps emphasising that one needs to be ruthlessly honest with oneself – ‘I’, the identity, is not only lost, lonely and frightened but also very, very cunning. ‘I’, the identity, do not want to change the status quo. ‘You’ may be feeling harmless (because that is what ‘you’ want to be) but overlooking all the instances where your feelings, words and action are not harmless. If you are honest and sincere (in accord with the fact), then you check your feeling of being harmless if you are in fact being harmless. ‘Vineeto’ explained some of it in the paragraph you quoted –

‘Vineeto’: The reason I said that there is a remarkable difference between feeling harmless and actually being harmless is because it is easy to assess one’s happiness by checking if I am feeling happy whereas many people may feel themselves to be harmless when they are not experiencing feelings of aggression or anger against somebody. Yet they are nevertheless causing harm via their thoughtless ‘self’-oriented instinctual feelings and actions, something that all human beings are prone to do unless they become fully aware of their instinctual passions before these translate into vibes and/or actions. (link).

This recorded incident demonstrates how ‘Vineeto’ discovered the difference in practice –

‘Vineeto’: I remember the last time when I tried to influence others by ‘sharing’ what I felt. I did some work for an old acquaintance who lived in a town about 25 km away. As a favour she asked me if someone could drop off a parcel at my house so that I could then deliver it to her.
However, when this person rang very early in the morning to ask when it would be convenient to drop off the parcel, I became a little upset. I thought how dare he be so inconsiderate as to wake me up so early for something that wasn’t even urgent. When I later delivered the parcel to my colleague, I mentioned that her friend had rung me up very early in the morning. She profusely apologized to me and then became really upset herself. She said she had instructed him not to ring before 9am and that she would immediately ring her friend to tell him off. At this point I realized that my seemingly calm mentioning of my emotional reaction to receiving an early morning phone call had created palpable ripples in two other people’s lives and that it was now out of my control and irreversible in its consequences.
This incident demonstrated very clearly that sharing my emotions, even in a calm way, inevitably caused ripples in other people’s lives and that I could never be harmless as long as I involved other people in my problems by sharing my emotional reactions. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 37b, 15.2.2002)

Here is more from ‘her’ exploration into being harmless –

‘Vineeto’: It was about a year into my process of actualism when I became aware of how much my outlook on the world and on people had changed in that my cloak of myopic ‘self’-centredness began to lift and I no longer saw the world only ‘my’ way and my judgments and actions no longer revolved around ‘my’ interests, ‘my’ beliefs, ‘my’ ideas, ‘my’ ideals, ‘my’ fears, ‘my’ desires and ‘my’ aversions.
Consequently I have learnt to judge harmlessness by the amount of parity and consideration I apply to others whom I come in contact with, both at work and at play, and not by merely feeling myself to be harmless. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 71b, 9.8.2006)

‘Vineeto’: When I made it my goal to become harmless, in the early days I sometimes felt toothless, castrated and helpless, particularly in situations where I felt I was being ‘wronged’ or I was being treated ‘unjustly’. But once these feeling subsided and I looked at the situation as it really was, I could see how silly it would have been to waste my time passionately fighting other people or riling against the beliefs, morals or ethics of other people in order for ‘me’ to be right or for ‘me’ to feel justly treated. The simple act of becoming aware of having antagonistic and/or indignant feelings inevitably caused me to look at my own ideas and ideals of what I thought and felt was ‘right’ and ‘just’ and ‘fair’– after all the only person I need to change, and can change, is me.
And this process of discovery is still in action as I am still finding sly remnants of the ‘good’ variety of humanistic ethics extant which sometimes cause distress or indignation – clear indications of how ‘I’ tick. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 75, 23.4.2005)

Here is what Richard had to say about being harmless –

Martin: ‘I’ am fundamentally selfish and unless I temper this to some extent there’s no chance of being close to someone or liked as ‘my’ resentful urges are unrestrained (and affect my mood / disposition even if I don’t act out on them). Is becoming actually free a combination of becoming unselfish in a normal sense, and being harmless in an unconditional sense?
Richard: First of all, each and every identity is “fundamentally selfish” by nature – which is why it takes a powerful instinctive impulse (altruism) to overcome a powerful instinctive impulse (selfism) – insofar as blind nature endows each and every human being with the selfish instinct for individual survival and the clannish instinct for group survival (be it the familial group, the tribal group, or the national group).
(Hence the religio-spiritual practice of countering selfishness – as per the unliveable ideal of each and every ‘self’ being an unselfish ‘self’ via the nonsensical edict of each and every ‘self’ putting each and every ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ – is basically an institutionalised elaboration of the most primal of blind nature’s instinctual drives, urges, and impulses and, as such, is not at all intelligent).
Second, as “being harmless in an unconditional sense” is to be actually free it makes no sense to ask if becoming actually free is a combination of being that and becoming an unselfish ‘self’.
Third, rather than having to restrain your “resentful urges” forever and a day – so as to have a chance of “being close to someone or liked” as exemplified by intimacy experiences (IE’s) – why not find out why there is resentment in the first place?
Speaking personally, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago first located the root source of all ‘his’ anger – the basic resentment at being alive (as expressed in the “I didn’t ask to be born” type of plaint) – and was thus able to rid ‘himself’ of (full-blown) anger within three weeks. (Richard, List D, Martin, 2 Aug 2016).

There is more in that same correspondence further down if you are interested.

Richard: … the word ‘harmless’ means ‘lacking intent to injure, devoid of hurtful qualities, marked by freedom from strife or disorder, innocuous free from guilt; innocent, blameless, faultless, irreproachable, lily-white; safe, non-dangerous, gentle, mild, peaceful, peaceable’

Are you really saying that all the above qualities are covered by the term “feeling harmless”?

Ed: Feeling-being Vineeto is pointing out that some people consider the absence of aggression and anger to be adequate enough to classify themselves as feeling harmless – while overlooking other thoughtless ‘self’-oriented instinctual feelings and actions.

Yes, here is what else ‘she’ said about how she approached ‘her’ aim of being more and more harmless –

‘Vineeto’: The way I approached the task of becoming harmless was that I first sought to stop any of my harmless actions or verbal expressions of harm towards other people. When I got to the stage when I could rely on my attentiveness such that I could detect my aggressive mood before I verbally expressed it to those around me, I then raised the bar to detecting any aggressive moods or vibes as soon as they arose. It became readily apparent that a bottled up aggression or resentment towards others only served to make me unhappy and did not count as being really harmless because any such feelings are detectible by others and have an influence on others.
This meant that I increased my attentiveness such that I became able to recognize sullen or resentful thoughts, quiet complaints, silent accusations, automatic suspicions, unfounded misgivings, subtle revenges, sneaky deceptions, surly withdrawals, petty one-upmanships, deft sabotages, malicious gossip and the like. Of course, applying this fine toothcomb of attentiveness to my thoughts, feelings, moods and vibes brought to light many hidden patterns of belief and sources of malice in my relating to people, all of which had to be investigated. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 49, 16.5.2003)

Ed: Whereas being harmless would mean the absence of not only the anger and aggression, but also any other instinctually-driven feelings that often fly under the radar or even appear as “good” such as love.

‘Vineeto’: The process of actualism is not one big heroic jump into oblivion, not at the start anyway, but about practically doing something about all the little things in daily life that prevent me from being harmless and considerate. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, No. 60g, 6.8.2006)

In other words, putting the bar so high that you won’t be harmless until you are actually free, you (inadvertently?) stymie yourself from the start – or perhaps have a valid-to-you justification to be content with merely feeling harmless.

Ed: Am I following correctly? (link)

Being harmless also means to look at the practical consequences of your feelings, vibes, words and actions. I am not writing about theoretical philosophy but about changing oneself radically, experientially to become virtually harmless.

Cheers Vineeto