Kub933's Journal

[Vineeto]

Kuba: Hi Vineeto
Thank you for sharing this, it’s both an encouraging read in that ‘Vineeto’ did in fact succeed and also a reminder of the fact that I do not have forever as Alan did not succeed.

Hi Kuba,

Indeed it is always sobering when someone who had once aspired to become actually free dies, because death is the end. It was Richard’s first comment when we heard the news: “he died without becoming actually free”.

‘Vineeto’ kept persistently following pure intent and the journey became easier and much clearer, as you can see in ‘her’ later correspondences and ‘her’ final manumission.

Kuba: The map making and the approval seeking (in fact I was making maps and then seeking for you to approve them) was likely a way to find some kind of an anchor in this at times weird adventure. But the salient point here is that you cannot approve of ‘me’ or ‘my’ machinations. And even if you did it would lead ‘me’ exactly round in circles anyways.

It took me indeed a while until I understood that you were merely making maps with insufficient intent to put them into action, most likely, as you said, a hangover from your spiritual practices and equivalent template. So I finally stopped contributing to you going in circles and ceased writing. You have to find your own way in your own time.

Kuba: Things are different now, cleaner and calmer, like a storm has passed. The genuine anchor which is pure intent is becoming available, not at all times yet but I do come back to it, and it is never too far away it seems.

That’s good to hear.

I wish you enjoyment and appreciation in the doing of it.

For some light-hearted pause, here is an excellent report I found in ‘Vineeto’s’ correspondence, what happens when one applies physics to metaphysics –

‘Vineeto’: The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term:

[quote]: ‘Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof.’
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
   So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year ‘that it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account that fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then: (2) cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic.
   The student got the only A. (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, 17.11.1998)

And another amusing find –

Potshot’s rule No. 2248: What makes things so difficult is that I’ve never been at this point in my life before. Ashleigh Brilliant, Potshots … unless Potshot’s rule No. 2276 applies: I’m not desperate enough to do anything about the conditions which are driving me to desperation. Ashleigh Brilliant, Potshots

Cheers Vineeto

[Kub933]

Hi Vineeto,

@Vineeto

I wish you enjoyment and appreciation in the doing of it.

Yes it’s been quite interesting to focus on the actual doing of the method. I notice just how much time I was spending not even fully aware of how I was feeling or attending to it. For example those times spent steeple chasing and armchair philosophising, if I had just asked the question - How am I experiencing this moment of being alive, then it would be clear that in that moment I am not feeling good.

The past couple of days this is what I have focused on, establishing an ongoing affective awareness coupled with rectification of those various dips in mood. It looks like all this still needs to be habituated however there are times when I experience results.

The “results” is like what Richard wrote “One starts to feel ‘alive’. Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space”. I remember in a zoom Geoffrey mentioned that when genuinely feeling good (felicitous and innocuous) it is a very “tasty experience” in the sense that one could sit on a chair doing nothing and be having the time of ‘my’ life, there is of course more in that direction but just that feeling good in itself is sufficient. It’s a bit like that when those results are experienced, the fog clears and I am genuinely happy to be here now.

But then I also find just how persistently ‘I’ am habituated (or programmed?) to drift back into those various good/bad feelings. When there is an ongoing affective awareness in place, which notices even the little dips, then I notice just how often this happens.

Richard: The human habit of getting stuck in feelings dates back to the dawn of human history – thus the habit will hang on in the most tenacious manner – and the only way through it all is to be equally persistent and diligent in the activation of constant attentiveness

So the above is what I have been focusing on, perhaps I would just change the word attentiveness to awareness-cum-attentiveness in that I have been focusing on firstly being aware in just what manner I am currently experiencing this moment of being alive and then rectifying when needed via attentiveness.

[Kub933]

I still find it very cool to compare all this to my skill in BJJ, because I have spent over 10 years in countless hours of the actual doing of it, which has developed all these habituated skills which are layered over each other and work seamlessly in concert, without conscious thought. It’s actually a wonder to observe in motion, that the legs are doing one thing, the arms another and yet there is still the overall awareness of what is going on (the mind) which allows further considered action.

And just like one can attend to the smaller and smaller dips in enjoyment and appreciation I find in BJJ I am focused on progressively smaller things, in that an unexperienced opponent is looking at big and rudimentary motions whereas I am paying attention to whether I can feel the weight on the toes or the heels, or if the elbow is up or down etc

So habituation is key to any skill, in that once something is habituated it takes care of itself and now the mind is able to attend to the next thing.

[Kub933]

Well I’ll be damned but this thing is working!

The first few days it was a little like I opened Pandoras box, because I finally began to firstly become aware of and then seek to rectify those feelings I have been avoiding, so there was quite a lot to deal with initially, there is still.

But there is already some solid results from this “persistent initialisation”, in that during those times where usually there would be the “ebbs and flows” instead there is the beginnings of a consistent (unconditional) enjoyment and appreciation. The enjoyment and appreciation is not to do with any particular things but it is the simple and down to earth joy of being here. I experience it as if I find myself “home again”, it is soft, calm and delightful, and the magical aspect is available too, just at the fingertips.

It’s weird because when the good/bad feelings are in place there is initially this sense that the place where “I am home” is nothing but a figment of my imagination. So it takes the courage of my convictions, to know that it is here for my taking and to find it over and over again.

Also it is so very clear that this place is not just for me but for everybody, it has dissolved those arguments I had a while back about saving ‘humanity’.

[Kub933]

So the ongoing awareness and persistent attentiveness has now highlighted some specific areas, the various ways in which ‘I’ tick. The one which I have become aware of since yesterday is just how much of ‘my’ general modus operandi is to be engaged in various degrees of worry. I remember Peter had a good name for this in his journal - the “what if syndrome”. I see now just how much of my affective energy is directed towards that activity. Sometimes it would go unnoticed, dressed up as “thinking about something”, or being “concerned with something” and yet if I pay attention to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive it is clear that felicity and innocuity is not live during those times.

I can see where I would go wrong in the past with regards to resolving this, I would go into each worry and try to intellectually prove to myself that there is nothing to worry about - this is actually the ‘normal’ way of dealing with it, some kind of intellectualising / psychologising / philosophising. And yet the affective energy driving the habit would never get looked at, it would actually escape unnoticed. So I notice that it is the activity of worrying itself which is the problem, soothing it via any of the tried and true methods does nothing to eliminate worry itself.

When I look back to any of the wonderful times I have experienced, for example what I wrote about when driving back from London recently, there was no worry at all. It’s not that ‘my’ worries have been soothed but there is no worry to begin with, that word - “worry” would not be in my vocabulary during those times.

Back to my day to day life it’s quite outstanding to consider that, to live virtually free of worry. It seems at first that ‘I’ would be a sitting duck for some danger to pounce on ‘me’. And yet I can see that ‘I’ actually manufacture the ‘danger’ and then ‘I’ seek to soothe it. But that is ‘my’ normal modus operandi, as it is for ‘humanity’, there is that intuited sense of ‘danger’ lurking always just around the corner, and of course ‘I’ get up to various schemes in order to tackle it, to find ‘security’. But it is all for nothing in the end, because it is an endless game, no matter how much ‘security’ ‘I’ manage to generate there is always the next ‘danger’ around the corner. I remember raising this with Geoffrey via a zoom chat and he said (to the effect) that yes and the end result of this is one would have to end up living in a bunker and still the ‘danger’ would persist.

This aspect is actually a very substantial part of the persona that ‘I’ am. My mum (who I was very close with when young) was a worrier extraordinaire, indeed there was always the next object that the affective energy of ‘her’ worry could be directed against, and of course the vibe itself ‘I’ felt and made part of ‘me’ and ‘my’ reality.

So it’s exciting to begin to chip away at this, to know that it can become a thing of the past.

[Kub933]

So yesterday I had another little success, it was precisely the point at which I would usually turn back around. So things have been going quite well and then I experienced this “rudely raw” territory, it’s that experience like the ground beneath me is disappearing and all hangs upon nothing. I notice usually this comes when I remove a “layer of the onion” and proceed towards new territory.

And I have experienced this many times and this was always the thing that defeated me, in that eventually I just could not bear that “rudely raw” feeling and would go back to the safety of the old and familiar.

So I knew that I cannot just push through this feeling, I have tried that before and it would only intensify, and I knew that I could not walk around it either. And then the option presented itself, an obvious option, which was that to the best of my ability I would get back to felicity and innocuity. So not much of a story here I did get back to felicity and innocuity and I had a nice training session in the evening, then since yesterday things have been clear and calm.

This is encouraging because it is exactly that thing which would usually stop me in my tracks and have me go back. It seems like with each step forward there is that period of re-orientation and this can initially stir up some intense instinctual passionate responses from ‘me’. And the main point is that in order to re-orient in the new territory ‘I’ can no longer rely on the old and familiar. The compass of pure intent is what ‘I’ orient to in the new terrority.

[Kub933]

@Kub933

The compass of pure intent is what ‘I’ orient to in the new terrority.

Ah ok so there is another layer of the onion just waiting to be peeled here, thank you Vineeto for standing back so I could suss this out. I can see now that the compass I was operating by was the words written by Vineeto, whereas this is not enough. The genuine compass, the one that can take ‘me’ all the way to ‘my’ self-immolation is pure intent. There is ‘me’ and there is pure intent on this adventure.

And I can see that by turning Vineeto into an authority I at the same time omitted to pay full attention to the compass of pure intent, or I did not have the willingness to proceed towards the direction it points to, as a sole orientation.

This is quite wonderful, that pure intent is all that is left when “the old” is abandoned, and there is no authority in the actual world, there is only the perfection and purity of infinitude, how incredible!

[Kub933]

Since yesterday I have gone into some periods of naive enjoyment and appreciation, of delighting in gay abandon, it’s such an enchanted way of ‘being’ to experience life in that manner, it seems for ‘me’ this is as good as it gets.
There is a sparkle all around, there is no burden for ‘me’ to carry, and the whole world is as if enchanted, being here is fascinating in and of itself, it is as if I am in a fairytale.
In terms of ‘my’ benchmarks this is right up there, it is what ‘I’ want each moment again, exactly that.

Living in gay abandon is exactly the opposite direction to ‘my’ normal modus operandi, which is to be trapped in the cage of ‘my’ self-imposed worries, anxieties, dreams, schemes etc. And yet the option is available, at any moment, to go into gay abandon. I am intent on figuring out experientially how to take that option each moment again now. It’s not stepping out of the cave yet but it is dancing and smelling the flowers right by the exit .

[Kub933]

What gay abandon is, what naiveté is, is the antithesis to control and insecurity, those are literally 2 opposite directions to travel. The need for control is borne of ‘my’ fundamental insecurity, all of ‘my’ best schemes are backed by anxiety, the very need to have those schemes is fear in motion, it is ‘me’ building ‘my’ glass houses from the ‘safety’ of ‘my’ hiding place.

Whereas naiveté and gay abandon is the undoing of the need for control in the first place. That fundamental insecurity is somehow nowhere to be found when naive, like ‘I’ have just willingly kicked down the walls of ‘my’ hiding place and ‘I’ find delight and freedom as opposed to danger.

That game of ‘danger’ and ‘safety’ that ‘I’ was playing is then seen to be over nothing, an instinctual passionate drama. Meanwhile there is now wonder all around and no danger in sight.

Ha I am reminded of what Richard wrote (paraphrasing) that whilst everyone was huddling around the fire ‘he’ had gone out into the darkness of the night - where apparently monsters were to be found - and ‘he’ discovered it to be a delight!

[Vineeto]

see Andrew - #1349 by Vineeto

[Kub933]

Hi Vineeto,

@Vineeto

What is the point in bewailing “the addiction to ‘being’ i.e. suffering” when you can do something practical to diminish this addiction? You already know how ‘to get down to brass tacks’, as they say

Hehe yes I do know how to “get down to brass tacks” in fact I have used this practical knowledge recently to push into new territory, which is fabulous!

I will use Geoffrey’s below quote to explain what I have done :

RICHARD:I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity.

Geoffrey: Who is that ‘me’, if not humanity?
‘I’ am humanity. And as such, ‘my’ destiny can be achieved.
“Pleasant and wholesome” could become a refuge, a hiding place, for an individual ‘I’, a special ‘I’, fortified in dissociation from the dark soil of humanity by its acquired ‘actualist identity’.
> If one is to be humanity, then nothing of humanity shall be foreign to one.
> “The psyche is a frightful place” indeed.
> What is it that Richard admires about ‘me’? Daring, and audacity.

A few days ago I realised that although I did a good job of exploring, investigating and diminishing the “human constitution” I nevertheless stopped each time right when the “lid was off” and ‘I’ was experienced where ‘I’ am forever threatened, where the core of ‘me’ as an instinctual ‘being’ is seen.

In fact what I see clearly now is that all the armchair philosophising and steeple chasing (anything but doing) was exactly that, a way to avoid seeing ‘myself’ were ‘I’ am forever threatened. And it’s actually quite impressive what efforts ‘I’ went to in order to prevent the bright light of awareness from being cast on the innermost recesses of ‘my’ being.

Well this clicked the other day, that I could not say “nothing of humanity is foreign to me” because I have not dared to look into ‘my’ very ‘being’. And of course how could I ever look to give up that which I have not even intimately experienced, and this is ‘me’ after-all.

So I proceeded into the “frightful place” of the psyche haha, not as a “one and done” situation but with the intent on maintaining a fascinated attention, to explore every nook and cranny of the very depths of ‘my’ being. I thought to myself that I have been tasked with the job of painting the most realistic image of the depths of ‘my’ psyche.

I can certainly see why nerves of steel and daring are needed, at first it was as if I would go mad or collapse into an incoherent mess and yet once the storm calmed down somewhat I realised that 1 - These are passions and calentures not facts. 2 - These affective storms leave no emotional scars. In fact I found that after these deep explorations it would be as if someone just wiped a grimy window and now more freedom and more perfection and purity was shining through.

So I have succeeded where I failed time and time again in the past, I have stepped forward exactly where I would usually turn around. And I know from direct experience now that it is safe to proceed.

Since daring to experience the “frightful place of the psyche” I have found myself more and more in this wondrous “no man’s land”, it is not Terra Actualis but it is certainly not reality anymore. And I find myself in this wondrous place without the affective storms getting in the way, or when they do come up they become just another opportunity for ‘me’ to be seen even clearer.

[Vineeto]

Kuba: Hi Vineeto,

Vineeto: What is the point in bewailing “the addiction to ‘being’ i.e. suffering” when you can do something practical to diminish this addiction? You already know how ‘to get down to brass tacks’, as they say (link)

Kuba: Hehe yes I do know how to “get down to brass tacks” in fact I have used this practical knowledge recently to push into new territory, which is fabulous!
I will use Geoffrey’s below quote to explain what I have done:

RICHARD: I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. (Richard’s Journal, Appendix 3, p. 282).
Geoffrey: Who is that ‘me’, if not humanity?
‘I’ am humanity. And as such, ‘my’ destiny can be achieved.
“Pleasant and wholesome” could become a refuge, a hiding place, for an individual ‘I’, a special ‘I’, fortified in dissociation from the dark soil of humanity by its acquired ‘actualist identity’.
> If one is to be humanity, then nothing of humanity shall be foreign to one.
> “The psyche is a frightful place” indeed.
> What is it that Richard admires about ‘me’? Daring, and audacity. (link)

Kuba: A few days ago I realised that although I did a good job of exploring, investigating and diminishing the “human constitution” I nevertheless stopped each time right when the “lid was off” and ‘I’ was experienced where ‘I’ am forever threatened, where the core of ‘me’ as an instinctual ‘being’ is seen.
In fact what I see clearly now is that all the armchair philosophising and steeple chasing (anything but doing) was exactly that, a way to avoid seeing ‘myself’ were ‘I’ am forever threatened. And it’s actually quite impressive what efforts ‘I’ went to in order to prevent the bright light of awareness from being cast on the innermost recesses of ‘my’ being.
Well this clicked the other day, that I could not say “nothing of humanity is foreign to me” because I have not dared to look into ‘my’ very ‘being’. And of course how could I ever look to give up that which I have not even intimately experienced, and this is ‘me’ after-all.

Hi Kuba,

What a marvellous report. I find it fascinating that you were only able to venture into the further, frightful regions of the psyche after you had irrevocably abandoned “armchair philosophising and steeple chasing” as viable alternatives. Imagination can provide this “ethereal/ non-existent/ imagined target of projected perfection” as Felix so aptly called it (link), but in the long run genuinely and experientially being here and enjoying /appreciating this moment of being alive remains forever outside the territory of one’s imagination.

A genuine transition from the old spiritually-instilled ‘it’s-all-in-your-mind’ paradigm needs to be consciously abandoned to “get down to brass tacks”, in other words, to enter the down-to-earth wide and wonderous path. (I just thought I put in a plug for the first four words on the Actual Freedom homepage (link) – actual, new, non-spiritual and down-to-earth. The tool tip next to the title gives more details).

Kuba: So I proceeded into the “frightful place” of the psyche haha, not as a “one and done” situation but with the intent on maintaining a fascinated attention, to explore every nook and cranny of the very depths of ‘my’ being. I thought to myself that I have been tasked with the job of painting the most realistic image of the depths of ‘my’ psyche.
I can certainly see why nerves of steel and daring are needed, at first it was as if I would go mad or collapse into an incoherent mess and yet once the storm calmed down somewhat I realised that 1 – These are passions and calentures not facts. 2 – These affective storms leave no emotional scars. In fact I found that after these deep explorations it would be as if someone just wiped a grimy window and now more freedom and more perfection and purity was shining through.

This is a very worthwhile observation for any daring pioneer – “1 – These are passions and calentures not facts. 2 – These affective storms leave no emotional scars”. One could call your present enterprise “grime-cide”, and when it gets out, there will be plenty of activists who will mount a fervent protest campaign. If you find this unlikely here is something Peter reported in 2000 –

Peter: … a recent television documentary provided me with yet another twist.
A pioneering medical development has meant that it is possible to implant a simple hearing amplifier in infants who are born deaf such that they can hear and speak normally without needing to learn sign language. This implant has to be done before the age of about two in order for effective communication skills to develop normally. This medical procedure has been opposed by many in the deaf community with some even stridently accusing the doctors of genocide. The ‘genocide’ they see is the deliberate wiping out of the deaf community – as in eventual extinction. Their counter argument, offered as a concession, is that the procedure should not be done without the child’s consent. The problem with this is that the procedure needs to be done at an early age, prior to the development stage of communication skills in order for the child to develop without a handicap in speech and comprehension. This is not a moral or ethical objection but the deep-seated fear of a community or group feeling as though it is facing extinction.
After the documentary, I was left befuddled at how deep the instinctual passions survival run. (Peter, AF List, Gary-e, 12.12.2000).

Joking aside, keep in mind that you are not fighting or coercing your psyche but bringing about a cheerful and willing concurrence to ‘your’ long-yearned-for oblivion.

Kuba: So I have succeeded where I failed time and time again in the past, I have stepped forward exactly where I would usually turn around. And I know from direct experience now that it is safe to proceed.
Since daring to experience the “frightful place of the psyche” I have found myself more and more in this wondrous “no man’s land”, it is not Terra Actualis but it is certainly not reality anymore. And I find myself in this wondrous place without the affective storms getting in the way, or when they do come up they become just another opportunity for ‘me’ to be seen even clearer. (link)

This is simply amazing, wonderful, mirificent – I am grinning from ear to ear with delight at your success.

I remember Pamela describing this period as being better than her 5-months PCE –

Vineeto: In fact, in her period of being out-from-control Pamela commented on how much better this experience (of being out-from-control) was than her 5-months PCE and she explained that her PCE was a static experience while being out-from-control was exemplified by the progress of coming closer and closer to the actual world.
I could not agree more. (Direct Route, Vineeto to James, 14 Jan 2010)

Cheers Vineeto

[Felix]

Really enjoying these recent posts.

Kub: What gay abandon is, what naiveté is, is the antithesis to control and insecurity, those are literally 2 opposite directions to travel. The need for control is borne of ‘my’ fundamental insecurity, all of ‘my’ best schemes are backed by anxiety, the very need to have those schemes is fear in motion, it is ‘me’ building ‘my’ glass houses from the ‘safety’ of ‘my’ hiding place.

Kub: Ha I am reminded of what Richard wrote (paraphrasing) that whilst everyone was huddling around the fire ‘he’ had gone out into the darkness of the night - where apparently monsters were to be found - and ‘he’ discovered it to be a delight!

Kub: Well this clicked the other day, that I could not say “nothing of humanity is foreign to me” because I have not dared to look into ‘my’ very ‘being’. And of course how could I ever look to give up that which I have not even intimately experienced, and this is ‘me’ after-all.

Kub: I can certainly see why nerves of steel and daring are needed, at first it was as if I would go mad or collapse into an incoherent mess and yet once the storm calmed down somewhat I realised that 1 - These are passions and calentures not facts. 2 - These affective storms leave no emotional scars.

Vineeto: A genuine transition from the old spiritually-instilled ‘it’s-all-in-your-mind’ paradigm needs to be consciously abandoned to “get down to brass tacks”…

Vineeto: Joking aside, keep in mind that you are not fighting or coercing your psyche but bringing about a cheerful and willing concurrence to ‘your’ long-yearned-for oblivion

[Kub933]

Driving to London again so I thought I would do a little report whilst Sonya is behind the wheel. There has been so much going on recently that I don’t think I could chronicle everything but I will note the main things.

A few days ago I saw that the next step in the direction I was proceeding was to abandon hope. It took daring for sure, it meant no more “redemptive straws”, only extinction ahead. I found though that without hope, despair also took its leave. Without hope and despair to maintain ‘me’ I have found myself pulled ever closer to my destiny, which is more and more experienced to be right under my nose.

This is what is different now, that before the “no man’s land” was experienced almost wifh a hint of eerie, an alien land where nothing familiar to ‘me’ existed. Whereas now it is more along the lines of what Srinath wrote - that this magical (actual) world is our rock solid inheritance. So there has been a lot of wondrous contemplation along these lines as well as experientially coming closer and closer to the destination.

It’s funny that in the past I was so hell bent on trying to reduce actuality into a bite sized intellectual package, one that I could copy and paste here and there. But this is missing out on the main event, which is the actual living of it, and how could I possibly place all this wonder into a neat little package anyways.

There has been some choppy waters and ‘I’ have come in to spoil things here and there, but it seems I have been able to take all this into my stride and carry on proceeding, and things have only been getting more and more wondrous. In fact this what I am living now is so worth all that I did in order to arrive here, and not even as a step along some map but as a wondrous adventure in itself.

It looks like all the “rehearsing” I did over the past year was not a time wasted either, as I have been able to successfully orient myself in this new territory. But back then I did not want to be on the ride, the resistance was completely unpalatable. Whereas this what is happening now, I would not have it any other way. And it’s something that has to be lived, the wonder and the enjoyment and appreciation possible. As a side note I notice that this wondrous enjoyment and appreciation is anhedonic, which means that it can be completely off the scales and yet it can never be too much.

It looks like all the various things which could possibly be in place, are in place. I find no compulsion for the doer to come in and to try to force it to happen. As Richard said only the utter fullness can do it. What ‘I’ have left to do is to give permission (joyfully and wholeheartedly), to allow it to happen.

[Vineeto]

Kuba: Driving to London again so I thought I would do a little report whilst Sonya is behind the wheel. There has been so much going on recently that I don’t think I could chronicle everything but I will note the main things.
A few days ago I saw that the next step in the direction I was proceeding was to abandon hope. It took daring for sure, it meant no more “redemptive straws”, only extinction ahead. I found though that without hope, despair also took its leave. Without hope and despair to maintain ‘me’ I have found myself pulled ever closer to my destiny, which is more and more experienced to be right under my nose.
This is what is different now, that before the “no man’s land” was experienced almost with a hint of eerie, an alien land where nothing familiar to ‘me’ existed. Whereas now it is more along the lines of what Srinath wrote – that this magical (actual) world is our rock solid inheritance. So there has been a lot of wondrous contemplation along these lines as well as experientially coming closer and closer to the destination.
It’s funny that in the past I was so hell bent on trying to reduce actuality into a bite sized intellectual package, one that I could copy and paste here and there. But this is missing out on the main event, which is the actual living of it, and how could I possibly place all this wonder into a neat little package anyways.
There has been some choppy waters and ‘I’ have come in to spoil things here and there, but it seems I have been able to take all this into my stride and carry on proceeding, and things have only been getting more and more wondrous. In fact this what I am living now is so worth all that I did in order to arrive here, and not even as a step along some map but as a wondrous adventure in itself.
It looks like all the “rehearsing” I did over the past year was not a time wasted either, as I have been able to successfully orient myself in this new territory. But back then I did not want to be on the ride, the resistance was completely unpalatable. Whereas this what is happening now, I would not have it any other way. And it’s something that has to be lived, the wonder and the enjoyment and appreciation possible. As a side note I notice that this wondrous enjoyment and appreciation is anhedonic, which means that it can be completely off the scales and yet it can never be too much.
It looks like all the various things which could possibly be in place, are in place. I find no compulsion for the doer to come in and to try to force it to happen. As Richard said only the utter fullness can do it. What ‘I’ have left to do is to give permission (joyfully and wholeheartedly), to allow it to happen. (link)

Hi Kuba,

Great to hear from you. You seem to be having a grand time.

I am reminded of Peter saying quite fittingly in the Actual Freedom Library, Hope –

Peter: “Above the door of the Actual Freedom Trust offices (if there ever is such a thing) will be a sign that reads ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’.”

Of course, there are no ‘Actual Freedom Trust offices’ but the call to “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” is applicable for every actualist at a certain stage in their process, and what a benefit has it been to you!

I am also reminded of another quote which I had already sent you before, but perhaps you can now obtain some additional experiential benefit from it –

Richard: Having the “courage of your convictions” has nothing to do with believing, trusting, hoping or having faith that it be possible. I, for one, never believed, trusted, hoped or had faith that it was possible, for such an action of believing, trusting, hoping and having faith perpetuates the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful. On the contrary, I could no longer believe that it was not possible – which is a different action entirely to believing, trusting, hoping and having faith that it is possible – thus dispensing with the believer, the truster, the hoper and the faithful. Do you see this?
For example: Doubt is believing it not to be possible … doubt is actually an action of believing, which supports the believer. Faith is believing that it is possible … which also supports the believer … and thus, either way, the believer pushes freedom away into an ever elusive future.
All this stemmed from my peak experience in which I experienced the purity and the perfection of life itself – here and now – and thus saw that what others had perceived as being our reward after physical death already existed … at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus I ceased believing that life on earth was a grim business with only scant moments of reprieve … yet I did not start believing in perfection. To repeat: I stopped believing, period. All sorrow and malice stems from the activity of believing … which arises from the believer. ‘I’, as a psychological entity, can only believe – or disbelieve – in possibilities and impossibilities. In the peak experience ‘I’ temporarily abdicated the throne and I knew, by direct experience, that freedom was already actual. It was ‘I’ that was the problem, not the absence of perfection. When ‘I’ ceased to be, perfection became, as always, apparent. By believing perfection to be possible ‘I’ perpetuate ‘myself’. ‘I’, by ‘my’ very presence, inhibit that splendid perfection becoming apparent.
Perfection is already always here. Yet ‘I’, by believing in a remembered perfection, chase an ever-elusive chimera into an ever-receding future. Thus one stands still and does nothing but watch the dust settle all around … and perfection, which is only of the moment, becomes apparent. ‘I’ have ceased to be. By “doing nothing” I mean neither believing nor disbelieving; neither having faith nor having doubt; neither trusting nor distrusting; neither hoping nor despairing. In short, one’s superb confidence and over-weening optimism precipitates ‘my’ demise … ‘I’ do not make freedom happen … ‘I’ allow the universe to “disappear” the ‘me’ that I was … and perfection has become apparent. ‘I’ did not invoke perfection, for it already is here … and it is here now, not off into the future. It may have taken some time to eventuate, as ‘I’ got whittled away, yet when that time came, it was already here … because it is always now.
To sum up: ‘I’ do not make perfection happen because it is already always here. What ‘I’ do is to “stand still” and unreservedly allow ‘my’ eventual demise to occur. To do this, ‘I’ cease believing, hoping, trusting and having faith … without falling into disbelief, despair, distrust or doubt. ‘I’, having the courage of ‘my’ convictions – which is the confidence born out of the solid knowing as evidenced in the peak experience – thus developing a superb confidence and an over-weening optimism. Thus nothing can stand in ‘my’ way in this, the adventure of a life-time. (Richard, Private email, March 1999)

Cheers Vineeto

[Kub933]

Hi Vineeto,

Yes thank you the quote from Richard is very apt, actually it has shown me that the destination is not just right under my nose (here) but also no further than instantaneously now, it’s that close!

[Kub933]

Replying to this post here :

Hi Vineeto,

It is nice to hear from you :

@Vineeto

Hi Kuba,

An excellent post (as well as your two follow-up ones (link)), which really describes experientially to what extent the human condition and ‘me’ are usually completely dominating one’s perception, feeling and behaviour. It is so refreshing to read when someone can experientially confirm that “both ‘inside’ and outside’” worlds disappear in a PCE and upon an actual freedom.

Yes that PCE has turned out to be quite pivotal, it has shown me - without a shadow of a doubt - that the target is completely outside of ‘me’, a different dimension in a sense, to where ‘I’ exist. I think up until now I didn’t see this clearly enough, so there was room to kid myself with imagined targets.

That seeing is solidly lodged in my memory and it’s undeniable - there is not a shred of ‘me’ in the actual world. And I have been re-memorating this experience, coming close to it again. Although the doing of it it is actually out of my hands, in the sense that I find myself spontaneously pulled into the actual world.
Today it happened when I ran a bath and just as I got in this shift occurred, and magically I found myself in the world where “nothing dirty can get in”, the perfection and purity was undeniable, and in that experience I as this body am just as clean as the rest of the world. This aspect in particular is so delightful, that there is nothing ‘dirty’ anywhere to be found, not in the world and not in the body. And the shift, when it happens ‘I’ don’t do it, in an instant all is wiped clean, somehow magically ‘I’ disappear and there is this other world which becomes immediately apparent (there is no lag at all), this world is discovered (yet again) to be right here where it has been the whole time.

Interestingly enough none of those intense fears which I experienced in the past have returned at all, and actually seeing that actuality is completely outside of ‘me’ has diminished any fears further if anything, ‘I’ don’t have to worry about that which is “on the other side” so to speak, it is nothing to do with ‘me’, the danger exists where ‘I’ remain, that is the risk.

[Vineeto]

Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
It is nice to hear from you :

Hi Kuba,

Nice to hear from you too.

Vineeto: An excellent post (as well as your two follow-up ones (link)), which really describes experientially to what extent the human condition and ‘me’ are usually completely dominating one’s perception, feeling and behaviour. It is so refreshing to read when someone can experientially confirm that “both ‘inside’ and outside’” worlds disappear in a PCE and upon an actual freedom. (link)

Kuba: Yes that PCE has turned out to be quite pivotal, it has shown me – without a shadow of a doubt – that the target is completely outside of ‘me’, a different dimension in a sense, to where ‘I’ exist. I think up until now I didn’t see this clearly enough, so there was room to kid myself with imagined targets.
That seeing is solidly lodged in my memory and it’s undeniable – there is not a shred of ‘me’ in the actual world. And I have been rememorating this experience, coming close to it again. Although the doing of it is actually out of my hands, in the sense that I find myself spontaneously pulled into the actual world.

This is indeed a pivotal experience which, when rememorated, will prevent you from ever again building an imaginary world with ‘you’ as the surviving actor. It literally pulls the carpet from underneath ‘your’ feet – and what a great confidence-boosting and direction-confirming experience that is.

Kuba: Today it happened when I ran a bath and just as I got in this shift occurred, and magically I found myself in the world where “nothing dirty can get in”, the perfection and purity was undeniable, and in that experience I as this body am just as clean as the rest of the world. This aspect in particular is so delightful, that there is nothing ‘dirty’ anywhere to be found, not in the world and not in the body.

This is amusing in the way you described it – and it is indeed so that utter purity prevails here, of which the feeling of beauty is only a paltry imitation (plus it requires ugliness for comparison). And yet beauty is considered the highest value in the real world, equivalent to truth (Truth) – in spirituality – and in mathematics.

Kuba: And the shift, when it happens ‘I’ don’t do it, in an instant all is wiped clean, somehow magically ‘I’ disappear and there is this other world which becomes immediately apparent (there is no lag at all), this world is discovered (yet again) to be right here where it has been the whole time.

Yes, it is magic the way it happens in an instant, a demonstration that when ‘you’ disappear the always already existing actuality becomes instantly apparent.

Kuba: Interestingly enough none of those intense fears which I experienced in the past have returned at all, and actually seeing that actuality is completely outside of ‘me’ has diminished any fears further if anything, ‘I’ don’t have to worry about that which is “on the other side” so to speak, it is nothing to do with ‘me’, the danger exists where ‘I’ remain, that is the risk. (link)

It reminds me that I was writing to you on similar lines back in November last year when it was obviously too early to sink in –

Richard: The doorway to an actual freedom has the word ‘extinction’ written on it. This extinction is irrevocable, which eliminates the psyche itself. When this is all over there will be no ‘being’ at all. (Richard, List B, No. 13, 26 May 1999)

Vineeto: When you understand this basic fact, at the deepest core of your ‘being’, that the actual world, and therefore pure intent and all the wonderful experiences you had of the “mirificent flavour of pure intent”, is outside of ‘your’ domain then you won’t continue to fool yourself … (1 Nov 2025)

A very significant experiential observation that you are now, what Richard described in a private email, on his side of the wall of fear surrounding all of humanity.

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

Or as Geoffrey put it –

Geoffrey: I was thinking about the unknown path lying before me (the path that deliver the goods – as I knew from the PCE), and realised in a flash that the unknown path is the safe path. That the known is the unsafe. That ‘I’ am the unsafe. (Geoffrey, becoming free report)

A wonderful place to be … and more to come.

Cheers Vineeto

[Kub933]

Hi Vineeto,

@Vineeto

Kuba: Today it happened when I ran a bath and just as I got in this shift occurred, and magically I found myself in the world where “nothing dirty can get in”, the perfection and purity was undeniable, and in that experience I as this body am just as clean as the rest of the world. This aspect in particular is so delightful, that there is nothing ‘dirty’ anywhere to be found, not in the world and not in the body.

Vineeto: This is amusing in the way you described it…

Lol I did not notice that at all, but it is quite amusing

@Vineeto

…and it is indeed so that utter purity prevails here, of which the feeling of beauty is only a paltry imitation (plus it requires ugliness for comparison). And yet beauty is considered the highest value in the real world, equivalent to truth (Truth) – in spirituality – and in mathematics.

So this is the other thing that I can see now, the role that the good feelings played in maintaining the dramas.

You wrote to me a while back :

@Vineeto

Ah you recognized what caused “the morning resentments and the evening gloom” – according to Geoffrey’s metaphor “being lost in the woods nearby”. Naturally that also means you were not “spending the day-time in paradise”, they were feelings of a conditional happiness or perhaps good feelings. This paradise was a real-world paradise, not actuality or near-actuality. I can say this with confidence because if you had spent the day in actual “paradise” you would not have experienced “the evening gloom” and “morning resentments” day after day. The meaning you were looking for was not in the day-time “paradise”, those feelings ended when the conditions/ activities causing your happiness ended. As you said yourself – “it’s selling out”.

I remember back then I took note of what you said but at the time I just couldn’t quite see how there could be any good feelings in there. But that is the thing with good feelings, they are seductive and as such they can be difficult to see for what they are. I see it clear as day now though, that the bad is indeed kept in place by the good. In fact this is a useful clue in general, that if one’s suspected ‘felicitous and innocuous’ feelings have one swinging from one side to the other then they are good feelings in disguise. Experiencing the utter purity of actuality I now have a solid reference to check whether there are indeed any good feelings going on.

But those good feelings they can be very slippery indeed! I am reminded of the below :

Richard: What did not get included in those second and third paragraphs, regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’ and her rigorous gradations, was ‘her’ oft-repeated observation – regarding the onset of the third stage, on that range of naïveness, where ‘her’ gradation of ‘great’ related to sweetness – about a bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy (due to a self-centric attractiveness towards feeling affectionate) as contrasted to a conscious choice being required so as to somehow have that sweetness then segue into a naïve intimacy via what ‘she’ described as ‘richness’ and graded as ‘excellent’.

The good feelings in question were not specifically “love and its affectuous intimacy” in my case but they “slipped in” unnoticed nevertheless. I know now that I am on the right track when I am no longer swinging from one side to the other (from the good to the bad, from hope to despair, from security to insecurity etc) which is exactly what is going on recently.

But this is a good warning for others, that one has to be rigorous with regards to the content and quality of one’s affective experience, I mean in my case those good feelings went completely unnoticed, it took quite some time before I was able to pinpoint what was going on.

To summarise the game ‘I’ was playing - ‘I’ was addicted to being saved, and round and round in circles ‘I’ went.

[syd]

@Kub933

The good feelings in question were not specifically “love and its affectuous intimacy” in my case but they “slipped in” unnoticed nevertheless.

I had an opportunity to put Grace’s scale in practice back in November but (contrary to my confident expectations at start) I failed miserably at it, because I was so oblivious to my ‘bifurcation points’.

Although I wasn’t particularly attracted to her in the beginning … over time, several brief ‘physical sparks’ (which is just raw sexual arousal) would happen and I developed a seeking^[1] to make them permanent … which then, over weeks, segued into latching onto the euphoria associated with love (and this is what I think Richard refers to by “love and its affectuous intimacy”; also see his correspondence with Tarin). So yea, I think there are micro-bifurcations/ miniscule-bifurcatios (libido) happening well before the euphoria of love comes into picture.

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Not that one can “decline” libido as a feeling-being (not possible). So, I wonder how one would “handle” it? How does naiveté come into picture here? How does this all translate to actual experience between a man and a woman?

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1. cf. Jaak Panksepp’s “SEEKING” system - which is but an elaborate way of referring to what Richard calls the instinctual passion of desire. ↩︎