3.2.2000

PETER: Hi Guys,

I have read a report on the back page of the local paper that in your recent satirical magazine, [quote] ‘none of the content was intended to be a piss-take of Osho’ but your ‘targets were the parasitic gurus/teachers who try to identify themselves or their teachings with him, while still playing it ‘safe’ – unlike Osho himself who spoke spontaneously and openly, regardless of the consequences.’ [endquote]. I take it that this was a gross misquote as the statement contains several obvious factual errors – In the magazine you targeted Isaac Shapiro and Antoinette Varner, to name two that come to mind, both of whom have no association or identification with Mohan Rajneesh aka Osho.

[quote] ‘While still playing it ‘safe’ – unlike Osho himself who spoke spontaneously and openly, regardless of the consequences’ [endquote] is also factually wrong. Both of the above Gurus speak spontaneously, as in not reading from notes, and openly, as in to those who pay to sit and hear their words – exactly as did Mr. Rajneesh.

It is obvious from the first point that if your intention was to target Gurus who claim a different God-man as their Master, then you are indulging in one of the most dangerous and potentially seditious forms of satire – religious persecution. Those who loudly and publicly proclaim that ‘my God is the only God and all other Gods are false Gods’ are those who actively perpetuate the tradition of religious bigotry that has caused all the religious wars, crusades, tortures, persecutions, perversions, repression, recriminations, prejudices, retributions, pogroms, etc.

I take it you were misquoted but you may well consider publicly correcting the statement lest the New Age religions all too rapidly fall into the trap of the Old Age religions. The forming of fighting schisms and sub-schisms is the inevitable result of all religious belief but you may not want to be identified with those who actively promote religious conflict.

This same religious conflict inexorably leads to religious wars, crusades, tortures, persecutions, perversions, repression, recriminations, prejudices, retributions, pogroms, etc.

As for the second point, I can only assume that ‘regardless of the consequences’ is a reference to the drastic consequences that Mr. Rajneesh’s spontaneous and open speaking bought on himself and his followers at the Ranch in Oregon. Certainly his most un-‘safe’ comments were his virulent condemnations of Christians while staying in America and his ‘waving a red flag at a bull’ resulted in him fleeing the country leaving his followers behind to face the National Guard. Rajneeshees conveniently forget that he spoke ‘openly’ in terms that would be regarded by most as blatantly derogatory of others’ religious beliefs.

You may remember Mr. Rajneesh’s raging against the Christians at the time but as a reminder I’ll quote him –

[Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘More blood has been shed by the Christians than by anybody else; more wars have been fought by Christians than by anybody else. People have been massacred, butchered, burned alive by Christians!’ Quote from the Pune-sanctioned book – ‘Hellbent for Enlightenment’. Rosemary Hamilton. White Cloud Press. Oregon. 1998.

Outrages like these, combined with poisonings, buggings, arson, vote stacking, etc. caused a situation where armed conflict became a distinct and very real possibility. There were a number of police and FBI investigations under way and the National Guard was reportedly on stand-by. Both sides were armed and ready. Rajneeshees were well armed and deliberately invited the press in to show off their weapons and training. In the end, Rajneesh flew the coup, so the situation was diffused, but it shook many people’s faith to the point that many dropped Sannyas, became disillusioned or ‘watered down’ their faith to a more ‘safe’, and less fervent level.

But I take it that you were misquoted, or I have misinterpreted what was meant by the quote. Surely you are not condoning one religion riling against another to the point where virulent feelings, or even armed conflict, are the inevitable result? The recent issue of the other Rajneeshee magazine in town contained an oblique reference to Christians in its editorial piece and, as such, it is obvious that much Rajneeshee-Christian ill-will still exists even today, many years after Rajneesh’s anti-Christian tirades.

It would also seem irresponsible to add to this intolerance a new ill-will – to promote conflict between Rajneeshees and the other New Age religious groups by giving the impression that you are deliberate ‘targeting’ those who follow different religious Masters, and promoting an ‘unsafe’ style of ‘spontaneous, open speaking’ that is derogatory of others’ spiritual belief to the point where it provokes conflict and hostility.

What tweaks my interest in your current plight is the fact that I recently wrote an article for the other Rajneeshee magazine lampooning spiritual belief, God-men and Gurus. Being an actualist and, as such, a thorough-going atheist, I was ridiculing all and every spiritual belief, not trumpeting that ‘my’ God is the only God and all other Gods are false Gods, as the Local paper quote implies you were doing with your magazine.

Perhaps, in the interest of local ‘inter-spiritual harmony and good-will’, you may consider correcting the facts and the disturbing impression that is evident in the quote of the local paper. Left uncorrected, the local paper quote leaves the impression that Rajneeshees are a self-centred, bigoted, elitist and intolerant lot, which I am sure was not your intention.

Cheers ... ... Peter.

10.2.2000

PUBLISHER No 1: I like your style of writing, very similar to mine with a good measure of sarcasm and ridicule. Well done. Haven’t had time to respond to it in full but will do so in a few days.

PETER: The Oxford Dictionary defines sarcasm as ‘a bitter or wounding expression or remark, a taunt’, and ridicule as ‘Subjection to mocking and dismissive language or behaviour; the action or practice of ridiculing a person or thing; mockery, derision.’

I have assessed my post to you and cannot see any sarcasm in it at all. Any ridicule in my writing is directed towards Eastern religious belief, which is in itself ridiculous by nature. There was no ridicule directed at you personally, rather I clearly pointed out that I understood that you had either been misquoted or, at worst, had not fully considered your response to the comments that you had obviously received about Byron Satsang.

My ridicule is always directed at those who would call themselves God-men or God-women for they are clearly suffering from extreme delusions of grandeur. The followers of the Deluded Ones are merely followers, and the reason I sometimes am moved to write to them is to point to the fact that there is now a third alternative available to either staying ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’.

In writing to you I was merely pointing to the fact that your self-professed sarcasm could easily be seen as selective vindictive religious intolerance – i.e. ‘a bitter or wounding remark’ directed at someone else’s beliefs.

As I said in my previous post, my intolerance is of all religions, both Western and Eastern, and it is the true-believers of all faiths who feel offended by my remarks.

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PUBLISHER No 1: PS. Were you a Sannyasin once? You sound a bit like all the other cynical disillusioned ex-sannyasins (which is not to say your comments are not without validity).

PETER: Yes I was a Rajneeshee for some 17 years. I have written of the incident that heralded the beginning of the end for me, in a book I wrote ...

[Peter]: ... ‘One night in discourse, suddenly the absurdity of worshipping an empty chair on a podium, with thousands of other people all dressed in white robes, struck me like a thunderbolt. As I looked around, I had a brief flash of some sort of spiritual ‘Klu Klux Klan’. ‘Has my life really come to this?’ – I remember thinking. It was never to be the same again for me, although the final parting was to take a while. It also became increasingly evident that I was actually witnessing the formation of a Religion. Rajneesh had, of course, put the organisation in place before he died, but one further incident made it crystal clear.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Spiritual Search’

As for ‘cynical disillusioned’, I have had this charge levelled at me countless times. Below is a typical exchange from the Sannyas mailing list before I was cyber-executed from the list for being too heretical and iconoclastic ...

[Peter]: When I first became a Rajneeshee, I was attracted by two things –

• The promise of what I would call peace of mind – the permanent cessation of the endless self-centred churning thoughts and emotions in me.
• The promise of peace on earth – the emergence of a ‘new man’, such as would bring an end to war, pollution, poverty, repression, violence and sorrow on this fair planet.

[List-Respondent]: Now these ‘promises’ were never made ... only made up by you, and in your dreaming you chose to believe them.

[Peter]: I think you will find books on the New Man, Rajneesh’s vision for Humanity, etc. are still available but, given that the visions have failed to materialize, the books may well they may ‘be out of print’. These promised visions are certainly not favoured topics of conversation since the collapse of Rajneeshpuram.

[List-Respondent]: Peter, this comment does not address the issue of you perceiving promises that were never made and as a result of your perception the resentment you now seem to project.

[Peter]: I have neither resentment nor gratitude towards Osho. To have been a part of such a spiritual movement around a living Enlightened One and be witness to the eventual formation of a religion on his death has been extraordinarily useful in understanding the whole meta-physical spiritual world.  Peter to Mailing List C, No 10, 25.11.1998

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[List-Respondent]: Yes I have read the books you speak of, and they are not a defence nor an explanation for your having perceived promises that were never made. ALWAYS the ranch experience was described as an ‘Experiment to provoke God’. There are never any promises or guarantees when experimenting with the unknown.

[Peter]: I can only say what it meant for me – I was looking for peace of mind for myself and for peace on the planet. And I see that the Sannyas experiment failed, not only for me, but for thousands of others. I know of many people who have yet to recover from the Ranch experience or for whom the enthusiasm for change or challenge has simply withered away. What are your goals in life and in being a Sannyasin? What is it that you are seeking in life?

[List-Respondent]: Perhaps you still could find some benefit in taking responsibility for choice of action. No one forced you to believe anything. You made choices. You looked for and found what didn’t exist.

[Peter]: Of course I was a Sannyasin willingly. It was, at the time, the best game to play in town. Along with thousands of other Westerners, I was seduced by the exotic East and it’s religions. I thought that the solution for me, and solution to the mess that is human interaction on the planet, was to be found there. But I was wrong, and it took quite an effort to admit it.

[List-Respondent]: The Mind is an awesome resource.

[Peter]: Whereas human intelligence, freed of all of the social conditioning (particularly the belief in God or some form of afterlife and immortality) and the animal instinctual passions is capable of such clarity and common sense that it has to be experienced to be appreciated. Such is the functioning of a brain so freed that I am capable of understanding the whole of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow for I am outside of it as I no longer dwell in the ‘normal’ world or in the ‘spiritual’ world. The mind, when freed of belief and affectation, is capable of immense clarity.

[List-Respondent]: As for your notion that the experiment failed, I see no possible way you could know that, as the experiment continues even if it is only with me.

[Peter]: I have written in detail of my experiences and why the spiritual path failed, not only for me, but for millions of others down the ages, but you stubbornly refuse to want to read anything of my story. What you do with your life is your business, after all, it is your life. I say that as a fact. And it is so perfect that it is that way. I am simply offering a third alternative for anyone who has doubts about the spiritual path, its workings and its results.

[List-Respondent]: Are you covering up your feelings of failing by projecting them on to everyone else? Does this help you to feel less?

[Peter]: No. I have spent some18 months ridding myself of the feelings that ensue from the instinctual passions such that the need to either repress them or express them never arises. I can’t tell you how good it is to be free of the remorseless and fickle emotional churnings and thoughts generated by the psychological and psychic ‘self’.

[List-Respondent]: For the rest of your discourse, sales pitch, what ever it is... you certainly make being a Sannyasin...no you never said Sannyasin, did you? You make being a Rajneeshee sound repulsive and I guess being one could be! (depending on the dreamer)

[Peter]: Being a follower or believer in Osho is no more or less ‘repulsive’ than believing in any other God or God-man. The major trouble with believing in Gods is that people gather in groups to strengthen their belief and then fight and feud with other groups as to whose God is speaking the Truth, whose God is Right, whose God is the Best, whose God is the Only God, and this results in all the religious wars, persecutions, repressions, retributions, cleansings, pogroms, tortures, suppressions, etc. So my comments are not personally directed at Osho or Sannyasins, but are about the whole spiritual world. It is because I spent 15 years as a devoted full-on Rajneeshee that I can write as an authority on that particular Eastern religion. Peter to Mailing List C, No 10, 3.12.1998

P.S. These exchanges with Rajneeshees make fascinating reading should you be at all interested in exploring spiritual belief.

Your statement – ‘which is not to say your comments are not without validity’ makes little sense to me. Judging something as valid or invalid is a subjective evaluation that is most often applied in the form ‘what you are saying has some validity, but I believe ...’ What about examining and evaluating a comment on the basis of whether it is factual and sensible. Is it a statement of fact and does it make sense, or is it silly?

Most people live their lives on the basis of feelings, imagination, hope and belief and stubbornly ignore facts and sensibility. My exchanges on the Sannyas Mailing List offer ample evidence of the stubborn hold that fervent belief and impassioned feelings have on human beings. Hiding behind, and wallowing in, spiritual belief makes any sensible consideration and discussion of facts an impossibility, and forestalls any consideration of the third alternative that is now available to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’.

One of the reasons I was moved to write to you was that your magazine seemed to indicate a willingness on your part to question spiritual belief, but it is now evident to me that it was simply written in sarcastic style and was aimed at deriding the beliefs of others who are not part of your religion.

It is an impossibility to engage in a discussion about facts – what works and what doesn’t work and why – with those who fervently believe something to be true and desperately uphold it to be the Truth. But if someone is sufficiently motivated and willing to take stock of their lives and examine what has worked and what hasn’t, then a sensible and dispassionate investigation of facts of spiritual belief is possible.

12.2.2000

PETER: The Oxford Dictionary defines sarcasm as ‘a bitter or wounding expression or remark, a taunt’, and ridicule as ‘Subjection to mocking and dismissive language or behaviour; the action or practice of ridiculing a person or thing; mockery, derision’.

PUBLISHER No 1: The Oxford dictionary is one thing, what I mean is another. Probably my loose use of the language in using the word ‘sarcasm’ when to be accurate ‘ridicule’ is probably closer. As I see it, it is easy to ridicule the ridiculous.

PETER: I always try to be precise with the words I use and consequently I use the dictionary meaning. Words are the only accurate method of communication we human beings have. Trying to intuit or feel what the other is feeling, thinking or meaning is a hopeless system fraught with conflict, confusion and ambiguity.

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PETER: Yes I was a Rajneeshee for some 17 years. I have written of the incident that heralded the beginning of the end for me, in a book I wrote ... ‘One night in discourse, suddenly the absurdity of worshipping an empty chair on a podium, with thousands of other people all dressed in white robes, struck me like a thunderbolt.’ <Snip>

PUBLISHER No 1: Sorry, but I don’t relate to this at all, yes I’ve spent over a year in Pune over the last three years but never go to White Robe Brotherhood. It just seems bizarre to me. But to be totally accurate I do go the White Robe when I play guitar as I enjoy playing music for such an appreciative audience. A lot of it seems bizarre to me so all I have to measure it with is my own experience and my life is happier, less serious, more fun and deeper. All subjective terms but then it seems as though life is somewhere in the middle.

PETER: Do you mean to say you ‘walk the middle path’ – as in between the bizarre and serious and more fun and deeper? Or is life somewhere between bizarre religion and irreverence? I have got no idea what you mean at all. Do you find certain aspects of the religious group you belong to bizarre and, if so, why, or are you not concerned? I am interested as to why you don’t care? You asked me at the end of the post as to why I care? I am curious as to how you cannot care?

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PETER: ‘As I looked around, I had a brief flash of some sort of spiritual ‘Klu Klux Klan’. ‘Has my life really come to this?’ – I remember thinking. It was never to be the same again for me, although the final parting was to take a while. It also became increasingly evident that I was actually witnessing the formation of a Religion. Rajneesh had, of course, put the organization in place before he died, but one further incident made it crystal clear...’

PUBLISHER No 1: Yes, I also see the foundations of a ‘new’ religion but so what? I do what I can but it is not so for me – this is the choice I have. This is where the ridicule of the inner circle comes from.

PETER: When I was a teenager I figured out that the idea of a of a white-bearded God sitting on a cloud and overseeing all this was pretty silly to me. And as for sending his Son down so he could do a few miracles, start a Religion, be nailed to a cross, and after a few days go back up to sit alongside Dad and see how it works out...!! I remember as a child clearly thinking, if there was a God, how come he made the mess in the first place, and if he was responsible for this mess, why the hell didn’t he just come down and sort it out! Later, of course, it became clear – someone would probably crucify him again for creating this much suffering and then letting it go on for so long! When I saw in Pune that I had simply swapped Western religion for Eastern religion I was appalled, and this was particularly obvious after Rajneesh died. I found that I could no longer live a lie and I eventually came to see the photos of Rajneesh on the walls of my friends’ houses as no different than the statuettes of Jesus nailed to a cross that I had seen on the walls of Catholic friends’ houses as a youth.

When you say ‘ridicule of the inner circle’, I did not notice any in your magazine but there was some ridicule of Rajneesh’s words, and as such, of Rajneesh Himself.

*

PETER: As for ‘cynical disillusioned’, I have had this charge levelled at me countless times. Below is a typical exchange from the Sannyas mailing list before I was cyber-executed from the list for being too heretical and iconoclastic ... <Snip>

PUBLISHER No 1: Look Peter I’m not sure about the stuff you wrote. It all seems pretty right to me except that I see it’s not His responsibility to create this, for me a ‘new man’ of some sort has emerged in me but he didn’t do it, I did. I never saw any of these things as promises, maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but for me they were statements of possibilities. This is possible, but I never thought for one second that he or Sannyas would create this – I realized I had to do anything that needed doing or stop doing things that don’t need doing.

PETER: That’s a pretty clear statement. You never thought for one second that the New Man was going to happen and you never thought for one second that peace on earth would ever happen. And you don’t want to talk about or debate about peace on earth. It keeps up the 100% record of Sannyasins who are either in denial or don’t care.

What I find fascinating is a movement that was supposedly altruistic and caring has degenerated into a self-centred social club totally lacking in any direction or motive apart from self-fulfillment – both as a group and as individuals. No wonder peace on earth forever remains an unfulfilled dream. Peace on earth is literally sacrificed at the altar of dead God-men.

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PETER: Your statement – ‘which is not to say your comments are not without validity’ makes little sense to me. Judging something as valid or invalid is a subjective evaluation that is most often applied in the form ‘what you are saying has some validity, but I believe ...’ What about examining and evaluating a comment on the basis of whether it is factual and sensible. Is it a statement of fact and does it make sense, or is it silly?

PUBLISHER No 1: I think you’re being overly pedantic here and also ascribing your experiences of others to me. Others may say ‘but I believe etc...’ please don’t ascribe this to me, it’s not factual and it’s not true.

PETER: My general observation, as in ‘most often’, has proved a touch inaccurate in your case. What you seem to do is, whenever you begrudgingly acknowledge the validity of something I have written, you then say ‘So what, it doesn’t mean anything to me, or it doesn’t apply to me’. You are obviously not a firm believer otherwise you would defend your belief against what you would perceive as attacks on it. You appear to be following the currently fashionable ‘ordinary spirituality’ school that preaches that one should be unconcerned about, and therefore disconnected from, everything.

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PETER: Most people live their lives on the basis of feelings, imagination, hope and belief and stubbornly ignore facts and sensibility. My exchanges on the Sannyas Mailing List offer ample evidence of the stubborn hold that fervent belief and impassioned feelings have on human beings. Hiding behind, and wallowing in, spiritual belief makes any sensible consideration and discussion of facts an impossibility, and forestalls any consideration of the third alternative that is now available to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’.

PUBLISHER No 1: Are you doing the same again? What’s the difference between a ‘spiritual belief’ and a ‘factual belief’?

PETER: Are you for real? A ‘factual belief’ is a contradiction in terms – a gross distortion of words, an insane inanity.

fact – What has really happened or is the case; truth; reality: in fact rather than theory, the fact of the matter is; something known to have happened; a truth known by actual experience or observation: scientists work with facts. Oxford Dictionary

Richard: A discerning eye and ear is needed in order to ascertain what is fact and what is merely theory, postulation, concept, commonly agreed, belief, assumption, speculation, imagination, myth, wisdom, real or true. It is easy to see when one knows how to look. Without having to interpret through one’s own belief system – an otherwise intelligent person is thus blind to the obvious – all facts are self-evidently clear. Start with a fact – a verifiable, objective actuality – as the base. Use it as a touch-stone to test the actuality of whatever ‘truth’ one suspects to be a belief. Separate out facts from fiction; find out which part is demonstrably a fact. Anything else is fiction, an illusion.

Any belief is nonsensical. By its very nature a belief is not factually true ... otherwise it would not need to be believed to be true. A fact is obvious; it is out in the open, freely available for all to see as being true. To believe something to be true is to accept on trust that it is so. A fact does not have to be accepted on trust – a fact is candidly so. A fact is patently true, manifestly clear. A fact is what is ascertained sensately and thus demonstrably true. A fact has actual verity, whereas a belief requires synthetic credence. It is a fact that I, as this body, am mortal. I will die in due course ... this heart will stop beating, these lungs will cease breathing, this brain will quit thinking.

Herein lies the clue to ascertain why this fancy has persisted: a feeling is not a fact. Feelings have led humankind astray for millennia, without ever being questioned as to whether they are the correct tool for determining the truth of a matter. Feelings are held to be sacrosanct; they are given a credibility they do not deserve. They are seen to be the final arbiter in a contentious issue: ‘It’s a gut-feeling’, or ‘My intuition is never wrong’, or ‘It feels right’, and so on. Thought, shackled by emotion and passion, can not operate with the clarity it is capable of. Surely, to experience what is factual is of far greater import than any conclusion arrived at by thought or feeling – no matter how highly refined the thought or fanatically felt the feeling.

To experience the factuality of the ending of ‘being’ whilst this body is still breathing is of the utmost importance, if one is to penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’ and discover the ultimate fulfilment ... here on earth. To come upon a fact, all that is fiction must be stripped away. All Sacred Cows must be mercilessly exposed to the most extreme scrutiny, nothing or no-one being exempt from critical examination. Common usage has blurred the distinction betwixt fact and belief so much so that anyone using sufficient sophistry can get away with anything at all and still be considered wise these days.

Religious teaching brainwashes people into believing nonsense instead of observing facts and actuality. For most people seeing a fact means betraying their belief ... thus they are rendered incapable of seeing it. One of the ways of ascertaining whether a ‘truth’ is a belief or a fact is that a belief demands loyalty; you give allegiance to it and to the group that espouses it. If you have more than one belief it causes difficulty, as your loyalties can be torn apart. You can feel chaotic, not knowing which belief is ‘true’. It makes you very insecure ... at moments like that you wish that there were one person who could tell you what to do and what not to do ... what to believe and what not to believe. You desire some Big Daddy or Big Mummy to tell you what is ‘Right’ and what is ‘Wrong’.

Most people try to resolve their different beliefs through compromise. Two people, holding on to their own beliefs, will get into an argument, a fight. They are separate. One is always trying to get the other to believe in their own belief through manipulation and persuasion ... and by giving or withholding love. The one who is stronger, the most adept in this, wins the other over. As neither can stand separation, they will grab any means to come together – even if this means mutual concessions, or the swapping of one’s belief for the other’s. Seeing that both beliefs are irrelevant, by virtue of the fact that they are beliefs anyway, they can dissolve completely. Then there is nothing to resolve, the problem itself is eliminated. Hence a permanent lack of conflict. With the absence of belief there is no more power battles over whose belief is ‘Right’. Separation is no more ... equity prevails. The result is actual intimacy between autonomous individuals.

Just because something is an experience in common, it is not necessarily factual. If something is communally experienced it is said to be objective and it is automatically implied to be true. If one is said to be objective it is taken as an accolade; whereas by being subjective, one is said to be prone to bias, to error. If no-one was bold enough to say that the accepted ‘truth’ is a mistake, then the sun would still be revolving around the earth! In the face of public opinion, one needs to be bold to question the collective wisdom and find out for oneself the fact of the matter. One of the best ways of doing this is to see that something held to be true is not working. Instead of vainly trying to make it work through intellectual dishonesty, one takes stock and applies lateral thinking. One needs to be audacious to proceed where no-one has gone before – and trail-blazers are often castigated for their effrontery. Fancy being ridiculed or ostracized for ascertaining the facticity of something ... for establishing a fact.

The criterion of a fact is that it works, it produces results. An insight is seeing the fact. When one sees the fact there is action ... and this action is the actualizing of the insight so that one’s personality is changed, irrevocably. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

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PUBLISHER No 1: Our paradigm of reality allows us to ‘believe’ something is ‘fact’ How do I ‘know’? I don’t. I believe that I’m typing this on my computer and any number of people will support this belief. For all I know this could be the projection of some alien thought form directly into my brain – I don’t ‘believe’ for one minute this is so but it COULD be possible.

PETER: Are you on some strong medication or something?

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PETER: One of the reasons I was moved to write to you was that your magazine seemed to indicate a willingness on your part to question spiritual belief, but it is now evident to me that it was simply written in sarcastic style and was aimed at deriding the beliefs of others who are not part of your religion.

PUBLISHER No 1: Is this fact or belief? I ‘think’ if you examine it again you’ll see that those of ‘my’ religion (do I own this religion?) copped as big a serve as the rest including me.

PETER: And yet you were reported in the local paper as saying, that

[quote]: ‘none of the content was intended to be a piss-take of Osho’ [endquote].

but that your

[quote]: ‘targets were the parasitic gurus/teachers who try to identify themselves or their teachings with him, while still playing it ‘safe’ – unlike Osho himself who spoke spontaneously and openly, regardless of the consequences’. [endquote].

And yet now you say you served it up to both sides. It is you who keeps shifting position on what you believe you wrote. When I read your magazine originally I thought you were serving it to both sides which is why I was surprised to see your retraction and denial in the local paper. It is precisely because you clearly stated that you were targeting ‘the other Guru/teachers’ that I was moved to write to say in doing so you were in danger of coming across as a religiously-intolerant bigot which was clearly not your intention. These are the facts as I see them unless you change the goal posts tomorrow.

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PETER: It is an impossibility to engage in a discussion about facts – what works and what doesn’t work and why – with those who fervently believe something to be true and desperately uphold it to be the Truth. But if someone is sufficiently motivated and willing to take stock of their lives and examine what has worked and what hasn’t, then a sensible and dispassionate investigation of facts of spiritual belief is possible.

PUBLISHER No 1: You certainly know how to project your ‘beliefs’ on to others eh! Maybe things are not possible for you. I’m not motivated by anything and as for raking over the coals of the past, for me this is as futile as planning for my 100th birthday when in all ‘probability’ I’ll be lucky to be here in ten years when the effects of the indulgences of the past (drugs, sex, alcohol, rock and roll, nicotine, junk food, etc.) kick in and destroy this body.

PETER: That’s a fairly clear statement. If you’re not motivated by anything why do you go to all the effort of producing your magazine in order to write sarcastically about your spiritual beliefs and the spiritual beliefs of others? What is your motivation? In my spiritual years I was often suspicious of spiritual beliefs but I was always careful not to indulge in cynicism. I always thought if I got cynical about what I was doing in life I was definitely on the wrong track. But I did play a few tricks and indulged in some harmless rebellion from time to time when the opportunity arose.

[Peter]: ‘I remember after the Ranch I was living in a seaside town that had a small Rajneesh centre. Rooms were available providing various people a chance to offer sessions in past lives, tarot, astrology, psychic readings and other divinations. A friend and I would often look at the notice board, fascinated at the ever-increasing variety on offer. One day we decided, as a prank, to place a fictitious advertisement in the community newsletter offering ‘Capology – the Ancient Tibetan Art of Knee-cap Reading’. It went on to describe that the knees are a critical junction point for the flow of ‘Quong energy’. We also offered half price to pensioners and amputees! We gave the telephone number of the local Concerned Christians, a cult-busting group, which had occasionally given Rajneeshees a hard time. We thought nothing more of it until the editor of the newsletter bailed us up one day to tell us that the Concerned Christians had rung up to complain that they had had so many phone calls, and how come? Which made me think, even then, that people will believe anything. It just took me a while to admit to the fact that I was as gullible as everyone else.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Fear’

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PUBLISHER No 1: Finally – why do you care? What difference does it make what others believe? I’m really curious about this. Why do you care as it is my opinion that you really do care quite passionately.

PETER: Three pieces of writing may answer your curiosity as to why I write, and why I care –

[Peter]: ‘University days were filled with a wonderful optimism and naivety as the sixties’ youth revolution gathered momentum. We were going to change the world! Socialism, peace, love, sexual freedom, environmentalism – anything was possible to have or to change.

I marched to stop the Vietnam war, I poster-pasted to save the forests, I grooved to the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park in London, I hung around in Amsterdam, I travelled to the East, I became politically and socially concerned and involved. I’ve thought about these times during the last twelve months – what happened to the dreams, the enthusiasm of those times?

Remember John Lennon singing ‘Imagine’ or ‘Give Peace a Chance’, or watching Woodstock? We were going to change the world! And then it all started to fade a bit – I got rather lost in the daily business of wife, two kids and two cars. And then, when that crashed, I was off to the East with thousands of others, seduced and fired up by the promise of a New Man, Peace, Love, Utopia and an end to my personal suffering. In fact, the whole of the revolution of the sixties was simply sucked into the mystery, confusion and ‘mindlessness’ of the Eastern religions. Of course spiritualism failed – there was nothing new in it at all, now that I look back. How could the solution lie in the past? There would have been peace and happiness in the world by now if it worked – it has had at least 3000 years to prove itself.

So when the social revolution and the promised spiritual solution failed, I was back in ‘comfortably numb’ normal, but I couldn’t rest there – that naivety was still burning within me, that refusal to accept that this was all there was to life. I am amazed to see that so many people of my generation have reverted to ‘comfortably numb’ – have lost their naivety. Surely the purpose in life is to be the best I can – to be the best possible.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Peace’

*

[Peter]: ‘At this stage it may be useful to state my motives for writing. As I watch television, read newspapers, listen to people and observe the relationships of men and women around me, I see sorrow – sadness, melancholy, despair, resignation and the bitter-sweetness of love; and malice – vindictiveness, sarcasm, revenge, innuendo, gossip, jealousy, violence and hate. Nowhere do I see delight, contentment, satisfaction, benevolence, consensus and co-operation. Nor do I see any men and women living together in peace and harmony. So I thought my story could be useful to anyone who, like me, hadn’t given up yet, but who could see they had ‘nothing left to lose’ in trying something new.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Foreword’

*

[Peter]: ‘I’m not driven to proselytise or save the planet – it’s just that somewhere there may be another Peter or Vineeto who would risk trying something new. I was, after all, lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning – the only difference is that I chose to admit it. I accepted responsibility for actively contributing to the endemic violence and suffering. And I wanted to change. I knew, as everybody else does, that something was wrong. Why when I had everything I wanted, wasn’t I happy? And why, despite my best efforts, did I hurt other people? And why did the tried and true methods to find happiness – religion and spirituality – fail again and again? So in the end it simply meant going off down a new track – trying something new. I literally had ‘nothing left to lose’ except more and more of the same second rate life – and then I’d die.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Evolution’

As I copied the above it struck me yet again that the Eastern philosophy and religion makes ‘not caring’ and ‘being disconnected’ into a sacred virtue, for they preach that this actual, physical world is an illusion – so why should any spiritual believer care about peace on earth?

Methinks we are a world apart – you are into the traditional Eastern religious morals and ethics and I am into the third alternative – actualism.

*

PUBLISHER No 1: Well I lied about the last paragraph – it wasn’t final, this one is. If you’d like to write something that was a bit more iconoclastic than your previous stuff and a bit more lively we’d love to publish it.

PETER: Thanks, but I’ll pass. The editorial policy of your magazine seems a little too confused and changeable for my taste.

14.2.2000

PUBLISHER No 1: It seems your belief system has a way to go before it can be of any practical use but if you could drop the ideology and dogma then quite possibly it could be interesting.

PETER: Well, it seems that this conversation has come to an end. I can see that you are a firm believer in, and practitioner of, Eastern religion and philosophy and, as such, are not interested in exploring an alternative. Fair enough. It is good to be full-on into something that makes you ‘happier, less serious, more fun and deeper’, as you said.

For me, my doubts simply accumulated to the point that it felt like I was living a lie and I had to get out. As I said, we are a world apart, which is why any further communication is pointless.

Cheers ... ... Peter.

As a farewell, I’ll leave you with a piece I wrote about my experiences with the ‘Inner Circle’ that you might find interesting –

[Peter]: ... ‘I was doing a bit of casual ‘worship’ in the architect’s office one day towards the end of my stay when we were all asked to come up with some ideas for a new bedroom for Rajneesh. Within a week I found myself working in the inner compound where he lived, converting the original open meeting hall into a huge glass and Italian marble circular bedroom. What an opportunity! So when my visa expired, I went back home, sold a house I had purchased with others, and returned within three months. The project took almost two years, and I worked daily in his house, gaining many insights into the inner workings around Rajneesh himself. I met him twice, very briefly, which was quite a rare event as, apart from discourse, he spent his whole time isolated in his room. My impression of him was that he was on ‘another planet’, but that was what I expected anyway. The last time I saw him was when we had finished his room, and he looked very fragile and weak. The room was completed and he moved in for a week, and then went back to his old bedroom.

Image from http://sannyas-spanish-noticias.blogspot.com.au/

I was then offered a job overseeing the building developments in the ashram, with the lure of becoming a Resident – free food, rent paid and other appropriate privileges of rank. I worked closely with the leaders of the ashram, sometimes travelling to Bombay on business, but I became increasingly uncomfortable with the level of politicking and scheming – to put it plainly, power-tripping and ingratiating behaviour. I guess I thought things just ‘happened’ around Rajneesh, but to see this cesspool of power, plotting and intrigue below the surface reminded me of the failure of the Ranch. It came to a head at one particular meeting when suddenly I could see the whole hidden agenda operating beneath the surface. It became glaringly obvious: here was power and corruption again, but this time done by highly skilled ‘operators’, not amateurs. Whether the motive was Good or Evil, Right or Wrong, I simply saw power as power over someone else. And, of course, it had the authority of Rajneesh behind it, which was curious given that he had denied being the power and authority behind the goings-on at the Ranch.

So I did the only thing I could to maintain my integrity: I quit.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Spiritual Search’

15.2.2000

PETER: Well, it seems that this conversation has come to an end. I can see that you are a firm believer in, and practitioner of, Eastern religion and philosophy and, as such, are not interested in exploring an alternative. Fair enough. It is good to be full-on into something that makes you ‘happier, less serious, more fun and deeper’, as you said.

PUBLISHER No 1: It’s funny isn’t it, members of my religion accuse me of not being focused on eastern religion and at odds with it and you say the opposite.

PETER: Which must make you a rebel without a cause, or a rebel for rebellion’s sake, or a fighter for ... Which is perhaps where your taunt of ‘chicken’ comes from. It reeks of schoolboy playground fights. Personally I have given up fighting. I decided long ago that there are enough fights and wars in the world without me contributing more malice. This is peace on earth in action.

PUBLISHER No 1: It’s certainly a good job that I don’t take other people’s opinions seriously.

PETER: Personally, I always used to check them out and see if there was any factual basis in what they were saying. If there was, I would assess my actions and make any necessary adjustments so as to not cause offence to others, or take offence from what others did or said. This is peace on earth in action.

PUBLISHER No 1: It seems you do and as such have not responded to any of the comments that were made about your philosophy.

PETER: Not at all. I’ve simply heard all these comments before. Vineeto and I spent about 4 months corresponding to the Sannyas Mailing List before we were cyber-executed and all of the correspondence is on the Actual Freedom Web-site. I find it a waste of my time and yours to respond to comments that I have answered before many, many times. Your comments were based on no knowledge, or reading, of what I am on about and, as such, your comments are purely thoughtless knee-jerk reactions. If you’re not interested enough to read, then I’m not interested enough to reply to you. If you’re interested, then I’m interested. Otherwise any conversation becomes a pointless battle and I long ago gave up battling others.

PUBLISHER No 1: Why do you keep going on about your book?

PETER: I thought you might be interested in an alternative to Eastern religion and philosophy, but I was wrong.

PUBLISHER No 1: Is this a reference point in your life?

PETER: Indeed it is. I wrote it for others who may be sufficiently dissatisfied and disgruntled with Eastern religion to be interested in something that was down-to-earth and non-spiritual. I also wrote it for myself in order to make sense of life. Any writing is a process of clarification for oneself as well as a means of communication to others. That’s why I enjoy writing.

PUBLISHER No 1: Can’t you just get on with your life?

PETER: No. In fact I didn’t like myself the way I was, nor my life the way it was. This burning dissatisfaction with ‘who’ I was proved to be the very reason I inquired about Actual Freedom in the first place. ‘Getting on with life’ was always a poor, second-rate choice for me. My life was always searched for genuine freedom, peace and happiness and I was never content until I found it.

*

PETER: For me, my doubts simply accumulated to the point that it felt like I was living a lie and I had to get out. As I said, we are a world apart, which is why any further communication is pointless.

PUBLISHER No 1: Does everyone have to have the same belief system as you for you to be able to have pointed communication?

PETER: No. But I have a very good working knowledge of Eastern religions and Eastern philosophy, whereas you know nothing of Actual Freedom, therefore any communication is pointless. You simply see me as attacking your beliefs – and therefore attacking you – and you get defensive, therefore for you this is a battle. Personally, as an actualist, I find all belief silly, which is why I rely on facts, therefore any communication about your belief system is pointless. If you want to be stubbornly recalcitrant about your religion that’s your business but then to expect me to continue writing smacks of belligerence.

Having no beliefs to defend, I have no reason, or desire, to attack.

PUBLISHER No 1: If you are sincere you would have responded to my remarks about your philosophy but instead when confronted with a few questions, like all Reductionists, you chicken out.

PETER: As I said above, this is a playground taunt from one who wants to fight to one who doesn’t want to fight. I lost all interest – and instinctual urge – to fight a good while ago. I have found genuine freedom, peace and happiness.

PUBLISHER No 1: Oh well never mind – and I thought it was getting interesting even though your only response recently has been to stereotype judge and label. I can understand how you dropped Sannyas with such a mechanistic mind and a lack of courage and imagination.

PETER: I take it when you say I have a ‘mechanistic mind’, and I ‘lack courage and imagination’, that this is not a judgement on your part. Personally I find judgement very useful and necessary – how else does one determine what is silly and what is sensible. Spiritual people do it all the time by judging things as good or bad, right or wrong. They simply use Eastern religious and New Dark Age morals and ethics which are but a variation on the Christian one’s that many of them rejected or rebelled against in their youth.

As for your judgement, I have a mind freed of impassioned emotion – instinctual fear, aggression, nurture and desire. As such, I have no passion for fighting, which you see as lack of courage, and I don’t suffer from fanciful dreaming or fervent belief, which you see as lack of imagination. We live in different worlds – I live in the actual world, you live in the spiritual world.

PUBLISHER No 1: My relationship, as absurd as it might seem to you, is with Osho not the inner circle or other sannyasins.

PETER: Fair enough. This loyal faith is exactly why the inner circle has the power it does.

The loyal faithful personal relationship that Catholics have with Christ is exactly why the Pope is given the power he has over the faithful. The Pope (and Rome) only has power because Catholics give Him the power.

Realizing this fact is why I quit from the power structure in Pune. I had too much integrity to actually give someone else power over me. To willingly give someone else power over me and then to spend my life riling against it seemed to me to be the height of stupidity.

PUBLISHER No 1: Why is your opinion so important to you that you have to write a book? Is this your catharsis?

PETER: So, now you object to the fact that I have written a book! Thou art clasping at straws to denigrate me. Would you have me silenced if you were ‘the controller of those who wrote books’. There are literally thousands of Eastern religious New Dark Age books and there are only two written by actualists and you ask ‘why is your opinion so important to you that you have to write a book?’ Not so long ago we would have been more than cyber executed for our iconoclastic, heretical stance against all religion but thanks to the Net we now have an outlet which is thus far free of, and secure from, those who would silence us.

As for ‘catharsis’ – I’ve already posted quite a bit about my motives for writing but you either don’t read what I have written, or chose to ignore it for whatever reason.

Once again, this is the reason I wrote a book, and why it was so vitally important to write. It’s from the introduction –

[Peter]: ‘As I sit on the balcony of our small flat contemplating life, I am moved to start writing my story. The urge has been welling in me over the last few months, so I’m now making a start. There is now ample time, given that I have all but retired, to reflect on the sense I have made of life.

Indeed, that has been the innate drive in my life: to make sense of this mad world that I found myself living in. The insanity of endless wars, conflict, arguments, sadness, despair, failed hopes and dreams seems endemic. And worse still, as I gradually forced myself to admit, I was as mad, and as bad, as everyone else. I had tried all of the solutions that Humanity offered in order to be happy, but in the end they made no sense and haven’t worked to sort out the mess. But I have now done it, and the results are stunning, to say the least, and this is my story. It is a story not only of an adventurous journey, but of an arrival at a virtual freedom.

I find myself, these days, both happy and harmless in that sorrow and malice have virtually disappeared from my life. Gone now is the continuous neurosis of the relentless self-concerned thoughts spinning in my head and the accompanying churning emotions and feelings. A calm stillness pervades within and without – it is now a delight to be alive. And I have also achieved what was a driving ambition since ‘adulthood’: I am now experiencing living with a woman in complete peace, harmony and equity with its accompanying sexual delight – the icing on the cake, if you like. I can now look back on a life well lived, complete in itself, and free of any emotional scars as I troll through my memories.

So I’m writing to tell the story of how it is possible for any man and woman to live in peace and harmony, for indeed my companion and I are anybody – very ordinary, mortal human beings. Of course, it has only been possible because I have almost rid myself of malice and sorrow. By following a simple process, alluded to in this book, it is now possible for any human being to do so, should they so desire. Therefore, it is possible for any man and woman to live in peace, harmony and equity. It is then obvious that all humans can live in peace and harmony on this lush, verdant planet. Should they so desire.

However, nobody but me could rid myself of malice and sorrow to the extent I have – it involved none of the usual spiritual, social or political ideals, no energy or karma, no trust, faith or hope, and no belief in, or surrender to, some Guru or God. I had to do it for myself, by myself, and I had to make it the most important thing in my life. But I do acknowledge serendipity, and it was surely serendipitous to meet Richard and Devika on a warm, summer evening in January 1997.

It started off as a slightly awkward social evening but as it continued it proved to be profound for me. I do not remember a great deal of the post-dinner conversation, but a few things stick in my memory.

‘Everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong,’ Richard said at one stage. I was starting to have some doubts about Enlightenment, and that ‘crack in the door’ was enough for me to reply, ‘Really? – I’ll think about that for a bit’.

‘The only danger is you might become Enlightened,’ said Richard about the experimental method he had devised to eliminate the identity in toto – that psychological and psychic entity that is the root of sorrow and malice and that dwells within all human beings.

‘It is possible for a man and a woman to live together, twenty-four hours a day, in utter peace, harmony and equity, totally enjoying each other’s company, and the sex is great,’ said Devika. Now I was really interested!

‘I was Enlightened for eleven years before I managed to break free from the delusion that I was God’, said Richard. My brain went into gridlock, but this sounded like an interesting path to investigate, particularly considering what Devika had said about man and woman living together. Little did I know that the first statement was to lead to nearly a year of examining almost every belief I had taken on as to what it is to be a human being on this planet, and to reject every one of them as silly! And little did I know that I was soon to prove Devika’s statement as a fact in my life.

And needless to say, I have managed to avoid becoming Enlightened, or indeed any form of Guru-ship.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Introduction’

As I said, we are worlds apart and, as such, any attempt at a meaningful communication is pointless.

15.2.2000

PUBLISHER No 2: To clarify a few points...

PETER: I presume these teachers are at the Osho Centres with the agreement of the those running the Centres, and as a Rajneeshee, it would seem that your beef should be with your fellow Sannyasins, who welcome them into the centres and not those using the facilities. It’s like inviting someone into your lounge room and then other members of the family berating them for intruding.

PUBLISHER No 2: We have very often heard it said that there is ‘no difference’ between THEIR teachings and what Osho was about.

PETER: I always find it interesting that Rajneesh spoke glowingly of many other Masters, including Ramana Maharshi, and said he was of the same ilk and spoke the same message, yet if anyone speaks of Rajneesh in the same inclusive terms the cries of foul are heard loud and clear. In other words, when it suited him, Rajneesh included himself in the Eastern religious tradition, yet your words and actions seek to exclude others who would associate with, include, or speak glowingly of Him. No matter how loudly you protest, this could appear to others to be a version of ‘My God is the Only God and all other Gods are false Gods’ – or false Gurus, in this case.

If you re-read what I said, you will see that I never questioned your motives but only pointed to the dangerous impression you may very well be creating.

PUBLISHER No 2: We questioned THIS in our magazine, and NOT their right to teach whatever they want in their own groups or organizations.

PETER: Again a policy such as this can create the impression in the larger spiritual community of this area that Sannyasins are exclusive, elitist, isolationist and more superior than others. I realize that the exclusion of other teachers from Sannyas facilities is the official policy of the Inner Circle in Pune and I am also aware that it is a policy of some controversy among the Rajneeshees community, but to publicly blame the guest-Gurus is surely to aim one’s barbs at the wrong target.

PUBLISHER No 2: The magazine was intended mainly for the Sannyasin community. We make no claims in it of any spiritual ascendancy or supremacy and the only people in danger of suffering religious persecution or hatred because of it were ourselves.

PETER: Ninety percent of the first edition that I read was aimed at lampooning the Gurus and teachings of non-Sannyasins. If the magazine was ‘intended mainly for the Sannyasin community’ then surely it should have been better passed from hand to hand amongst Rajneeshees only so that the followers of these Gurus and teachers did not feel singled out and selectively targeted. After all, you were reported on the back page of the local paper as saying that in your recent satirical magazine,

[Publisher No 2]: ‘none of the content was intended to be a piss-take of Osho’ but your ‘targets were the parasitic gurus/teachers who try to identify themselves or their teachings with him, while still playing it ‘safe’ – unlike Osho himself who spoke spontaneously and openly, regardless of the consequences.’ [endquote].

Can you not see that those people so ‘targeted’ may well feel persecuted?

PUBLISHER No 2: For me, I did the magazine for many reasons, but mostly for fun. I also think that if anyone wants to associate with the ‘Sannyas’ network, they’re fair game.

PETER: Words such as ‘target’ and ‘fair game’ imply a hunt – chase, give chase, pursue, stalk, track, trail, follow, shadow, hunt down, hound; Oxford Dictionary. Could it not be that those people ‘targeted’ as ‘fair game’ feel hunted?

PUBLISHER No 2: As for your questions about ‘speaking spontaneously’, all I can say is that what appeared in the local paper was of necessity written telegraphically. Of course it can be interpreted in many ways. It was in relation to an item in the magazine.

PETER: Precisely the point that I have been trying to make. What you say can be interpreted in many ways. Since my initial post you have qualified your statement by saying ‘they’re fair game’ which does narrow the range of interpretation quite significantly.

PUBLISHER No 2: I can’t comment on your opinions about Osho’s words & actions. I won’t pretend to understand anything of what he was up to.

PETER: I find this astounding as the man has hundreds of books, tapes and videos detailing his teachings, dreams, vision, philosophy and religion. As a follower of Rajneesh surely you would make it your business to find out what and who you are following.

PUBLISHER No 2: But I don’t support anyone who uses Osho’s statements to claim authority to denigrate Christianity or any other religion.

PETER: In the first edition of your magazine there was an Osho statement deriding Mother Theresa, a Catholic soon-to-be saint. To publish this particular quote in a magazine targeted at those not of the Rajneeshee faith could well be seen as offensive by many Christians – or did it not occur to you? The comments in the body of the magazine appear to denigrate the teachers and followers of the Ramana Maharshi religion and are made by those claiming to be Sannyasins. Like it or not, the Rajneesh religion – and therefore Rajneesh himself – is implicated by association to these apparently derogatory comments in your magazine.

PUBLISHER No 2: I actually have more respect for some mainstream religious groups than I ever have had – after watching the way many around me have acted during & after Sannyas.

PETER: It always appeared to me that the ‘Inner Circle’ was doing its best to rope in the loose cannons and instil discipline, loyalty, and faith into Sannyasins, in order to make Rajneeshism more mainstream and respectable.

PUBLISHER No 2: A couple of other things ... I’m not sure what you think my ‘current plight’ is, or what connection this may have with your magazine articles, and I certainly don’t know why you think lampooning ‘all and every spiritual belief’ is somehow OK and what I’m doing isn’t.

PETER: I’ve got no idea whether you have a ‘plight’ or not.

I would assume you believe Mr. Rajneesh was a God-man, not a mortal flesh and blood human being – someone who declared he was ‘Never born, Never died, Only visited this planet’, as is chiselled on his tomb. You ‘also think that if anyone wants to associate with the ‘Sannyas’ network, they’re fair game’, which, as I have repeatedly said, can be interpreted by others as a targeted attack on their religion. Nowhere have I said what you are doing is not okay, I was merely pointing out the inherent feeling of persecution that could well be perceived by those so targeted. I am not making a moral or ethical judgement, I am simply stating the facts of the situation.

As I have said, I am an actualist and, as such, a thorough-going atheist. I have no spiritual / religious belief of any kind. To me all metaphysical belief is puerile nonsense – ancient drivel, twaddle and all religion, be it Western or Eastern, is but institutionalized insanity. Because I have no spiritual belief, I ridicule all spiritual belief and don’t selectively target any particular religion – I am intolerant of all religions.

The reason I am concerned about religious tolerance and conflict is that I see that all the so-called New Age religions are rapidly and inevitably going the way of the mainstream religions. The forming of fighting schisms and sub-schisms is the inevitable result of all religious belief and leads to religious conflict. This same religious conflict inexorably leads to religious wars, crusades, tortures, persecutions, perversions, repression, recriminations, prejudices, retributions, pogroms, etc.

You may have also noticed that the only reason the principle and ideal of religious tolerance exists is because of the inevitable and on-going conflict and strife between various spiritual/religious groups and even within individual groups themselves.

PUBLISHER No 2: The magazine was only aimed at the (perceived) gullibility of sannyasins, and at the credibility of the large number of spiritual teachers attempting to connect with the network that Osho developed. No one else.

PETER: Curiously, your stated aim can be seen to be in direct support of the Inner Circle’s policy of excluding ‘other’ spiritual teachers from Rajneesh Centres. This tacit support of the Inner Circle’s policies does seem to be in contradiction of ‘the ridicule of the Inner Circle’ that [Publisher No. 1] mentions was included in the second edition of the magazine. I have not seen the second edition but I take it that your ridicule of the Inner Circle does not include this particular ruling.

As for your aims in producing your magazine you said above –

[Publisher No 2]: ‘I did the magazine for many reasons, but mostly for fun. I also think that if anyone wants to associate with the ‘Sannyas’ network, they’re fair game’ [endquote].

and in your statement in the local paper you said that your

[Publisher No 2]: ‘targets were the parasitic gurus/teachers who try to identify themselves or their teachings with him’. [endquote].

Now, all of a sudden, we have a new and primary target that the magazine was aimed at –

[Publisher No 2]: ‘the (perceived) gullibility of sannyasins’. [endquote].

As I said to [Publisher No 1] when he asked if I’d like to write something for your magazine – ‘The editorial policy of your magazine seems a little too confused and changeable for my taste.’

PUBLISHER No 2: Finally, I was not trying to give the impression that Rajneeshees are self-centred, bigoted and intolerant etc. But reading your letter it seems that you think as much, not just of sannyasins, but also of Osho.

PETER: What I said was

[Peter]: ‘the local paper quote leaves the impression that Rajneeshees are a self-centred, bigoted, elitist and intolerant lot, which I am sure was not your intention’. [endquote].

From where I stand, in the actual world, anyone who believes in God is plainly silly and does so for ultimately self-centred reasons and anyone who believes themselves to be God-on-Earth is suffering from extreme Delusions of Grandeur. The master-disciple system is rotten to the very core. It is not that I think this is so, it is a fact, and one does not have to delve back into history to see the inevitable results of the master-disciple system in action. All of the religious wars, crusades, tortures, persecutions, perversions, repression, recriminations, prejudices, retributions, pogroms, etc. that have been, and are still on-going, are the direct legacy of the master-disciple system. This appalling carnage will not cease unless human beings wean themselves off the ancient fairy-tale belief in Gods, God-men and life-after death.

PUBLISHER No 2: I am left wondering why you are so concerned about the image of Sannyasins.

PETER: At one time I had many friends who were Sannyasins, as I was, and most were very sincere and totally dedicated in their search for freedom, peace and happiness. As I have said before, at the time Sannyas was the best game to play. I now see a watering down of this search amongst many Sannyasins to the point were many are ‘happy and content’ exactly as they are, with no desire for change. I think this is evidenced by the fact that many are attracted by the teachings that ‘you are already That – all you have to do is realize It’.

To me this is a sorry and lamentable demise of a movement that began in the fervour of 60’s and that was going to change the world and bring peace to this fair planet. This passionate search for freedom, peace and happiness has degenerated into an utterly self-centred fashionable New Dark Age spiritualism that cares not a fig about peace on earth. The current image of Sannyasins in the wider community is that they are at the forefront of this self-centredness and are deliberately turning away from the original spirit that was around in the ‘early days’.

Perhaps this just makes me an old fogie but I, for one, still remain vitally interested in actual peace on earth.

A bit I wrote for the Introduction to Actual Freedom may be relevant –

[Peter]: The human search for freedom, peace and happiness has been a search for freedom from the rigid shackles of one’s instilled social identity and an end to the personal and global malice and sorrow that arise from the instinctual passions – a freedom from the Human Condition.

The shamans, priests and God-men have commandeered this innate search with the promise of peace and happiness in a mythical ‘life-after-death’. This seductive promise of immortality for one’s ‘self’ or soul is a powerful lure that is passionately fuelled by the basic fear that underlies the innate survival instinct – the fear of death. The Eastern religions further add the possibility of becoming a God-man – a position of ultimate power and authority over others that is irresistibly appealing for many. The resulting enslavery of the master-disciple system is the very antithesis of freedom and is but to forfeit any possibility of an actual personal peace on earth for the promise of an imaginary and ‘eternal’ peace, after physical death.

The search for a ‘spiritual’ freedom, peace and happiness, based on ancient superstition and metaphysical ‘other-worldly’ beliefs, has been on-going for thousands of years and has now had its day. It’s time for a modern scientific, practical approach to finding a genuine and actual freedom from the Human Condition in total. A freedom from ancient belief and spiritual superstition. A freedom from the necessity of forever attempting to obey pious morals and follow unliveable ethics in order to keep one’s instinctual passions under control. And, finally, a freedom from the instinctual animal passions themselves – fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

It’s time to get to the very root of the problem – that ancient, hoary belief that ‘you can’t change human nature. Introduction to Actual Freedom, ‘Actual Freedom’

Sannyas has become yet another ‘old time religion’ and peace on earth is sacrificed yet again. As you can see, I am more concerned about the content and consequences of the Sannyas message than the image of Sannyasins. That’s why I write – purely and simply to say to anyone who is discontent with the spiritual path that there is a now a third alternative available to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual.

The reason I wrote to you guys was to warn you of the apparent perception of intolerance towards other religions in your magazine. But you don’t seem to see what I see, so I see no point in continuing to flog a dead horse.

16.2.2000

PETER: Well, it seems that this conversation has come to an end. I can see that you are a firm believer in, and practitioner of, Eastern religion and philosophy and, as such, are not interested in exploring an alternative. Fair enough. It is good to be full-on into something that makes you ‘happier, less serious, more fun and deeper’, as you said.

PUBLISHER No 1: For someone who has discovered freedom you don’t seem to be able to separate your own presuppositions, prejudices and inane judgments from the actual. Do you work it out with a slide rule or what? You seem to be very good at speaking for me and telling me about myself based on my disagreements with your elementary philosophical system. In your mechanical world if one disagrees are they automatically chucked in the ‘firm believer in, and practitioner of, Eastern religion and philosophy and, as such, are not interested in exploring an alternative’ basket.

PETER: Okay. The statement that you are a firm believer in, and practitioner of, Eastern Religion and philosophy is based on the fact that you are a Sannyasin of Chandra Mohan aka Bhagwan aka Rajneesh aka Osho, and even have taken a Sannyasin name.

Sannyas is a traditional Hindi word and

[quote]: ‘a sannyasin is one who has renounced the world in search of God Realisation and has been formally initiated by a guru who is himself a sannyasin. In Sanskrit the word ‘sannyasa’ literally means ‘to throw down’ or ‘to abandon.’ Thus, sannyasa is the giving up or abandonment of the world, and the sannyasin is one who has so renounced. True sannyasa is not a denial of life but life’s highest fulfilment. It is the relinquishment of the transient and illusory in favour of a permanent Reality, the eschewing of a worldly life that one may, by gradual stages of purification, draw inward toward God as Parasiva, Truth Absolute. It is a break with the mundane and a binding unto the Divine.’ Encyclopedia Britannica

You also said –

[Publisher No 1]: ‘My relationship, as absurd as it might seem to you, is with Osho, not the inner circle or other sannyasins.’ [endquote].

Someone who is a Sannyasin, has a declared relationship with a dead Guru is plainly of a spiritual ilk, despite how loudly he might deny the fact.

A firm believer is one who is loyal despite whatever disagreements and misgivings he might have about the goings on that he perceives to be separate from his faith in the Master. You reaffirmed this single-pointed loyalty well when you said –

[Publisher No 1]: ‘The religion was unmercifully attacked. Osho was not.’ [endquote].

As for Eastern religious philosophy, your comment on what motivated you to write your magazine –

[Publisher No 1]: ‘It is just action. I’m also not motivated to breathe, to love, to sleep. Yet these things happen quite uneventfully and without difficulty’ [endquote].

– is but Eastern fatalism, a version of ‘it is all God’s will’.

Your comment in a post entitled ‘Reality’ –

[Publisher No 1]: ‘Our paradigm of reality allows us to ‘believe’ something is ‘fact’. How do I ‘know’? I don’t. I believe that I’m typing this on my computer and any number of people will support this belief. For all I know this could be the projection of some alien thought form directly into my brain – I don’t ‘believe’ for one minute this is so but it COULD be possible’ [endquote].

– is nothing other than Eastern philosophy whereby what is physical, tangible, palpable and actual is seen as illusionary. Another example of this philosophy is –

[Publisher No 1]: ‘A fact is an attempt at describing some facet of reality and as such the description is never the thing – it remains abstract’. [endquote].

Your statements –

[Publisher No 1]: ‘Can a fact be disassociated from the whole and remain a fact? Can we take a Picasso painting and cut it up into may smaller pieces and then say we have many smaller Picassos or do we just have bits of canvas with paint on them that once were part of a painting?’ [endquote].

– represents pure Buddhist philosophy.

These are all puerile psittacisms that have been bandied around the East for millennia, in one form or another. It is stretching the language a bit to call it philosophy for the highest accolade in the East is to ‘really know that you do not know’, or to ‘truly know the Truth which cannot be spoken’.

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PUBLISHER No 1: This is the same stereotyping that lead to Belsen. Your talk of ‘peace’ is the same doublespeak of communism while talking peace they build Gulags. The new age belief system which you profess says ‘accept any old bullshit and don’t question, don’t use the mind, don’t think, think positive’. Disbelievers are branded as ‘heretics’ or worse, ‘negative’. I find your arrogant use of this new age belief system to be extraordinary.

PETER: Here are the facts of what lead to Belsen –

[Peter]: ‘At one point in my investigation of the Human Condition I was studying what the psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and the like had discovered about human behaviour. I came across an experiment the results of which rocked me to my very core. A series of experiments were conducted at Yale University in the early sixties to test people’s obedience to authority. The most famous was the ‘Milgram experiment’. Stanley Milgram advertised for participants to undertake a ‘memory study’, and subsequently pairs of volunteers would turn up at the laboratory at the appointed time. One was designated as ‘teacher’, the other as ‘learner’, and it was explained to them that the study was concerned with the effects of punishment on learning. The ‘learner’ was then conducted into a room, seated in a chair, his arms strapped to prevent excessive movement, and an electrode attached to each wrist.

The real focus of the experiment was the ‘teacher’. After watching the ‘learner’ being strapped into place, he was taken into the main room and seated before an impressive shock generator. It had a row of thirty switches ranging from 15 volts – ‘Slight Shock’, to 450 volts – ‘DANGER, Severe Shock’. The ‘teacher’ was then told to administer the learning test to the man in the other room. When the ‘learner’ responded correctly, the ‘teacher’ moved on to the next item; when the other man gave an incorrect answer, the ‘teacher’ was told to give him an electric shock. He was to start at the lowest level and increase the level each time the ‘learner’ made an error.

The ‘teacher’ was a genuine ordinary participant, but he did not know that the ‘learner’ was actually an actor who received no shock at all, but was faking a response. The real aim of the experiment was to see how far a person would proceed in a situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.

The actor-learner’s ‘response’ at about 150 volts was a demand for release, at 300 volts an agonizing scream; at 450 volts he was writhing in tortured agony. In the test EVERY participant went on to administer 300 volts to the learner, with sixty-five percent going to the full 450 volts! Most participants obeyed the instructor, no matter how vehement the pleading of the person being shocked, no matter how painful the shocks seemed to be, and no matter how much the victim pleaded and screamed to be let out. This experiment has since been repeated thousands of times at different universities, with identical results. And those participants were just the ‘you and me’ of this world! Ordinary, average, typical human beings!

Reading about this experiment had an earth-shattering effect on me. I had already had glimpses of this behaviour in myself. The willingness to kill for a cause in Rajneeshpuram, the thrill of killing that I had felt, the joy of revenge – and this is ‘me’ at my core! What more incentive did I need than this to rid myself of this lust for violence? This instinctual passion of aggression that blind nature has programmed in us all. I also read books and watched programs on TV about that horrendous outbreak of genocide – the Holocaust; the systematic starving, gassing and burning of millions of people. The camp guards were ordinary 50-year-old men and women – ordinary people like those in Milgram’s experiments, the ‘you and me’ of this world. When push comes to shove, human beings become monsters, and it does not take much pushing – we even seem to enjoy it!

Another TV program I watched reported on the fire bombing of Dresden and other German cities during the war. Vast areas of these cities were turned into raging firestorms of such intensity that people were sucked off their feet into the inferno, and babies were ripped from their mothers’ arms. This was a deliberate policy of revenge for the German bombing of English cities. Civilians were deliberately targeted. The Americans similarly incinerated Tokyo, causing more deaths than both atomic bombs combined. Of some 50 million killed in the Second World War, 30 million were women and children. When the Allies saw the German concentration camps after the Second World War, they put hundreds of thousands of German soldiers in open fields – in winter – and surrounded them with barbed wire. They then fed them below minimum survival rations and slowly starved or froze thousands of them to death over the winter. To increase the torture they backed open truckloads of food up to the perimeter fence and left them there to rot.

They were the ‘good guys’ and the other side had to be punished for their wrongs! What we call justice is, after all, nothing more than revenge and retribution. An eye for an eye! Such is the appalling extent of malice and sorrow in this world.

The way I learned to cope was to stick my head in the sand, not watch TV or not want to know anything about it – a denial of the facts and that perverse human attitude that it was others who acted this way, not me. Becoming spiritual was a further denial in that I regarded the ‘outer’ world as an illusion and the ‘inner’ spiritual world as real. To get ‘out of it’ in any way possible was the aim, be it drugs, alcohol, Prozac or bliss, meditation, becoming a ‘watcher’ or, if you hit the ‘million to one jackpot’, Enlightenment. Anything was welcome to avoid feeling and acknowledging the malice and suffering intrinsic to the Human Condition. What I eventually found was that by looking it squarely in the face and not avoiding it I was forced to do something about it in myself.

‘No more turning away’ as Pink Floyd sang. Peter’s Journal, ‘Peace’

As for ‘accept any old bullshit and don’t question, don’t use the mind, don’t think, think positive’ – it is in fact Sannyasins who are extolled to leave their mind at the door, surrender their will, and trust their feelings.

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PUBLISHER No 1: It’s funny, isn’t it, members of my religion accuse me of not being focused on eastern religion and at odds with it and you say the opposite.

PETER: Which must make you a rebel without a cause, or a rebel for rebellion’s sake, or a fighter for ... Which is perhaps where your taunt of ‘chicken’ comes from. It reeks of schoolboy playground fights.

PUBLISHER No 1: Why does what I said ‘make you a rebel without a cause, or a rebel for rebellion’s sake, or a fighter for ...’ Where is your reasoning? Where is your logic? Again ‘reason’ and ‘logic’ are new age heresies.

PETER: You indicated you were not interested in exploring an alternative to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’, acknowledged that ‘of course I don’t understand actualism’ and then proceeded to tell me what you think it is, based on a thoughtless knee jerk reaction to my ridiculing of all spiritual belief. This is a clear sign of someone being against something without knowing what it is he is against, or why. This is the definition of ‘a rebel without a cause, or a rebel for rebellion’s sake, or a fighter for ...’ You also will never understand actualism, or spirituality for that matter, for as you said – ‘as far as books go I never read them, (including Osho’s)’. You may feel you have a cause but you don’t understand your cause for you refuse to understand what it is you are defending or attacking.

*

PETER: Personally I have given up fighting. I decided long ago that there are enough fights and wars in the world without me contributing more malice. This is peace on earth in action.

PUBLISHER No 1: I’m sorry but I don’t accept this, it’s typical new age stuff – ‘oh these are nice ideals so that’s how I will be from now on, I’ll just close my eyes and make my affirmations and everything will be OK’ (subtext I’ll just close my eyes and pull a bit harder and maybe masturbation will be as good as making love). The fact you respond to this, the fact you write a book, the fact you use every opportunity to find a platform, the fact you say there is nothing more to say and then you defend yourself and try to stereotype me after a little taunt from me? I’m sorry but it just doesn’t ring true that you have given up fighting and are no longer ‘contributing more malice’. Is it not malicious to throw anyone who disagrees with you into a stupid stereotypical basket?

PETER: No, typical New Age ideals are to express one’s anger, be true to oneself, be authentic, etc. A lot of New Age-spiritual-therapy behaviour is only thinly disguised malice. ‘I have to be honest with you’ or ‘I would like to share something with you’ is usually the opening line of someone who is about to take revenge or be spiteful. As for closing one’s eyes – I presume you are referring to meditation which is but hiding from the real world and going ‘in’ to an imaginary inner world of impassioned feelings and rampant imagination.

As for me wanking by writing to you, it is definitely in the ‘flogging a dead horse category’ but I’ll post it anonymously on The Actual Freedom Trust website and someone else may get something out of this conversation. Does he who publishes a magazine not wank per se, whereas he who publishes a book does? For me, I do like to take the opportunity to write, for very, very few are willing at this stage to challenge all spiritual beliefs.

I have never said there is nothing more to say – there are about a million words on The Actual Freedom Trust website and hundreds and hundreds of posts from people who object to being happy and harmless. As for stereo-typing – your obscurations, avoidances, blusterings, furphies, evasions and thoughtless knee jerk reactions fall neatly into the very well-documented, stereo-type objections to investigating the third alternative. The way to avoid being stereo-typed is to stop being a stereo-type.

*

PUBLISHER No 1: It’s certainly a good job that I don’t take other people’s opinions seriously.

PETER: Personally, I always used to check them out and see if there was any factual basis in what they were saying. If there was, I would assess my actions and make any necessary adjustments so as to not cause offence to others, or take offence from what others did or said. This is peace on earth in action.

PUBLISHER No 1: I think maybe it’s time for you to assess your actions now. This is arrogance.

PETER: No. This is commonsense. If one wants peace on earth then one cannot expect it to happen unless one is willing to do it oneself. This fact scares almost everyone away from actualism for they know, deep down inside, that to actively pursue an actual freedom from malice and sorrow will be the death of ‘me’, that lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity that dwells within the flesh and blood body. For me, I just figured I had nothing left to lose ... except more of the same and then I’d die without having lived as I knew it was possible in the Pure Consciousness Experience.

What is, in fact, the absolute pinnacle of arrogance within the Human Condition is to call oneself God-on-Earth.

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PUBLISHER No 1: It’s certainly a good job that I don’t take other people’s opinions seriously. It seems you do and as such have not responded to any of the comments that were made about your philosophy.

PETER: Not at all. I’ve simply heard all these comments before. Vineeto and I spent about 4 months corresponding to the Sannyas Mailing List before we were cyber-executed and all of the correspondence is on the Actual Freedom Web-site. I find it a waste of my time and yours to respond to comments that I have answered before many, many times. Your comments were based on no knowledge, or reading, of what I am on about and, as such, your comments are purely thoughtless knee-jerk reactions.

PUBLISHER No 1: My comments are considered and thoughtful and based on what you ACTUALLY said without having to defer to some external authority or explanation. They were based on ACTUALITY (although I consider myself a virtualist).

PETER: And yet you constantly refer to ancient Eastern religion and philosophy in your comments as some set-in-concrete paradigm as to how we human beings should regard existence on earth. Just because everybody believes this ancient, archaic view to be the Truth doesn’t make it a fact. The question I ran with for a good while was ‘what if everyone has got it wrong?’ What if God doesn’t exist and what if the revered God-men are simply shamans parroting a mythical fairy-tale of a non-existing life after death? It sure explained what was wrong and why it wasn’t working.

As you have said – ‘Of course I don’t understand actualism’ this makes your last statement about Actuality utterly nonsensical – either virtually or actually.

As a self-considered ‘virtualist’, are you virtually here, or is everything else virtually here to you, or are we all part of God’s, or some alien’s, virtual reality game? It’s a new one on me.

*

PETER: If you’re not interested enough to read, then I’m not interested enough to reply to you. If you’re interested, then I’m interested. Otherwise any conversation becomes a pointless battle and I long ago gave up battling others.

PUBLISHER No 1: So your conversation cannot stand on its own two feet and constantly has to be referenced and explained. My words to you are exactly that and I do not constantly refer to articles I have written or my work at university. My words stand or fall on their actuality. I’m sorry but I do not believe you when you say you have heard it all before.

PETER: Here is a brief selection of objections, and there are hundreds of others. You may notice a familiarity to your obscurations, avoidances, blusterings, furphies, evasions and thoughtless knee jerk reactions –

[Publisher No 1]:

• These comments do not feel like they are coming from a content man that is no longer malicious. (Which is a interesting catch phrase common to your and Vineeto’s posts. Does its use become dogmatic?).
• This just seems to be a personal belittling insult, and I could (if I wanted) be additionally insulted by your thinking I lack the intelligence to see your comments as malicious veiled in insincerity.
• For my taste, you guys write way too long posts, so I have not read any post completely.
• Putting words in others mouths to make your points is malicious, shame on you, Peter, your mind will stop at nothing to prove yourself right. You are ridiculous! hahahahaha?
• You make being a Rajneeshee sound repulsive and I guess being one could be! (depending on the dreamer) Now had you tried sannyas perhaps you’d be having a different story.
• I think your dictionary definitions and your trying to be deep about a fairly non-complex issue, such as being in H&N is a little above my head... (thankfully).
• Think about it for a change. Think about YOUR motives.
• Your Ego is 100 tons weight and you have very, very strong neck in order to carry this monster.
• That Osho gave me a lot is also true, opened me to much. But that is a personal transmission, a teaching for me, and with myself to carry on – not a religion, not a religion or a way in stone, but a kick start for me, to now carry on.
• The idea that I might be something else more or less in the future is not real to me except to say sure okay fine, but what I am NOW is terrific. I have life and awareness and it’s an amazing ride. Life. Life itself.
• For me it’s not even about being harmless – as in not hurting another. It’s about being as honest as possible with myself, and that in fact may mean not hurting another – but it may mean that someone is ‘hurt’ also.
• I hope you might become a little bit more sensitive about what is worth sharing and what is only mind-fucking.
• It is your own spiritual arrogance that sees the rest of the world (outside of you, Vineeto and a few others) as needing to escape from malice and sorrow.
• Why the fuck are you so fucking boring, could you get a life off the net and stop boring the fuck out of me with your absolute crap!
• How can you possibly know from your own experience that there are no others who are happy and harmless? Have you in fact encountered every other single human being alive on this planet in order to be able to judge the absolute state of humanity?
• Is name calling and snide remarks part of leaving malice and sorrow behind and becoming happy and harmless? Perhaps some introspection here will allow you to see that your own words (and evidently emotions) belie the fact that you are now happy and harmless.
• I’m sorry that your spiritual search hasn’t ‘delivered’ the good yet, but don’t give up. It is so easy to join the ranks of the embittered and claim that to be the TRUTH even to try to be their standard bearer. And as everybody knows, misery loves company. Maybe you should take a weekend off and read ‘Mein Kampf’ or some other inspirational literature.
• There are already a ton of books by disgruntled former disciples who interpreted their own failure of understanding to mean that the Guru was false.
• This person is quite obviously a mind dweller and mind dwellers love to mind fuck, it is their expertise, just watch these experts disappear up their own arises if you just give them enough rope.
• Dear who ever thinks they have credibility... You are truly fucked because you think your someone.
• Perhaps your freedom is merely wishful thinking. It has been said, ‘The drowning man yells the loudest.’
• ‘Those who have not had the mystical experience would still think it can be described and discussed, for they are still in their heads, still proud of their cleverness’.
• ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’
• All sensation will be the reconstruction of objects in space and time from apparent or virtual images of those objects recorded in the cortex. All that we sense as ‘out there’ is projected from our ‘witness’ of the recorded virtual images.’ Fred Alan Wolf, Parallel Universes.
• So far, (I think people can change) here in this list you have been just playing the phoney, telling me how the human condition is so clear to you and how you have become foreign to it... But you have not showed me the fruits of what you have stated to be fact..
• The impression I get from these words is they come from a Mind enjoying its delusion.
• Your perception of whole Eastern spiritual world is of no value to me. After all it’s just a limited / edited / interpreted / coloured / perception. And we all know how flawed ones perception can be.
• The words come from so far away, they don’t come even close to relating to you relating to me. It looks as through you are continuing to avoid being in touch with what is real in your life. And I do not perceive much real in what you have said.
• Here I am attempting another response to the ‘words’. (I’ll call them just words, as I can’t find any useful and productive words to describe them that would not be overly mean & ugly...). I find that I start reading Vineeto’s and your posts... and you both start out actually addressing the person you are writing to...making a connection... but after a few lines you fall back into your robot rap... I-me-Richard-alternative-we-great-experiencers-here-save-world-bla,bla...
• You seem to build your whole rap on speculations and projections. Then from there spin off into the clouds with your new found way to be. But if you start with building on delusions where can you end but with anything but delusions??
• Again more speculation and projections. What the fuck do you know about what people have or have not questioned.
• This is the same type of situation I wrote to you before, with your ‘promises’ that you perceived, and then were never delivered. There for you created opportunity for you to be offended. This offence is projected as the failure of Osho and All Gurus throughout time, and then you can offer your solution...
• I am content with knowing only my own experience. Since I can know only my self, I know you can only know your self. I do not question your experience. But I do disregard your discussions and conclusions of others’ lives as delusional gibberish. Only because you are unable to accept that you also have only opinions and you speculate on situations and you draw conclusions..
• The issue I have with your speculations and projections does not have to do with history but with the judgement that you recolor and edit the history in order to create support for your opinions – that you like to call facts.
• A fact is: a piece of information presented as having objective reality. (Objective reality would be undistorted-actual reality).
• Unless you are in competition with Osho ... perhaps your ego was wounded by something he said, and this is your attempt to prove your worth to yourself.
• But so what? What’s your problem with the world AS IT IS?
• Trying to change the world. This arrogance is actually hurtful as it is not accepting.
• Enlightenment has nothing to do with being spiritual. Enlightenment just means living in awareness and consciousness. It has nothing to do with spirituality.
• By meditation or ‘going in’ it is not something metaphysical or even spiritual. It is simply seeing. You keep on talking about things like ‘God, soul going to heaven, the spirit going home’ etc. etc. This is not what a Sannyasin’s world is all about.
• Atheism is also a belief ... you also believe that there is no god just as theist believe that there is a god.
• judging the failure or success of a master, guru or teacher by the lack of improvement in the condition of humanity as a whole is questionable. Questionable because it is not a fact.
• If it were truly the only answer, then surely Richard would actually, factually be the only real saviour, the only messiah, whether he likes it or not. He would be, if not the only Son of God, very close to God’s image.
• Sweeping all teachers except Richard on one heap makes reasoning about them easy. As I said before you and Vineeto oversimplify enabling you to make sweeping statements. Finding God is not the issue with Krishnamurti or Osho or other masters.
• In my view you make only two mistakes: firstly you generalize too much, which enables you to state too many would-be facts. Secondly you don’t take responsibility for what happened to you personally in Sannyas.
• Teachings of long gone days may be obsolete for men and women living today. For myself the limit is that masters shouldn’t be dead for more than 50 years, but this is personal. So Osho, Ramana Maharshi, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti. But then there are exceptions of course, such as Zen haiku’s which are ageless. Personally also I don’t need a living master, one in the body that is, as Osho is alive today.
• You talk about people as if they are machines. You seem to be a machine. Can a machine like you know itself?
• don’t get so hung up on words, theories ..... relax a little and take things a little more lightly and....oh yes....it might not hurt to be just a little less judgemental.
• You can’t prove at all that there’s no life after death. To fully accept a fact which isn’t a fact is bound to lead to illusion. The life after death wished for by the psychological entity is not what Osho meant. Osho was all for death of this entity not it’s survival.
• They claim to see clearly, but they miss totally that humanity exists of individuals. Hence they speak of their own experiences as if it was the truth of mankind – which it isn’t!
• You are very energetic and mechanical. It’s for me fucking unbelievable. Energetic and Mechanicallllll???????
• And so we use different words. But they seem to understand only dictionary words, which tells me of lack of flexibility and intelligence.
• What makes it impossible to talk together is the total lack of flexibility exposed by you to understand the meaning implied in other’s words. It seems to me you are only able to understand your own terminology.
• ‘Certainty and surety comes from facts and common sense’ doesn’t fit my experience. My exp. of certainty and surety comes from knowing who I am, knowing my own truth. And my truth is for me what your facts are for you. This you shouldn’t argue on, ...
• I don’t talk according to your journals and definitions. I talk according to my experiences.
• There exists nothing such as facts.
• You address us individually but you are not able to talk to us individually. You talk to me as if I was a group. Don’t I give a shit about the group! And I am certainly no groupie of yours.:-)
• So stop telling me what I have experienced or not, because you cannot know. You can only guess, and that doesn’t fit to your terminology of talking facts. Deal?
• If you know truth why all these words and so many discussion?
• But why don’t you ‘FUCK OFF’ and die somewhere else!  Responses to Peter’s Correspondence on List C

If you want more examples, I can provide more.

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PUBLISHER No 1: I hear your words and I look at them sincerely as they are. You look at my words and analyze them through your belief system of what a so-called ‘eastern religion’ is. You have the answer before you ask the question.

PETER: If you look at my words ‘sincerely as they are’ then why do you write such comments as – ‘If you are sincere you would have responded to my remarks ...’, ‘I just don’t believe you Peter’, ‘I’m sorry but it just doesn’t ring true’. I certainly don’t expect you to believe me for that would be nonsensical as is all belief, but you do seem to doubt my sincerity, despite what you say.

This whole conversation started as my comment on a magazine that you co-authored and published and distributed for public consumption. Given that you were putting your comments out in public it seemed to me appropriate to make a comment. So, if you don’t like my comments and ‘sincerely’ find them to be ‘violent and malicious’ then I see no point in continuing the communication, as I have said before.

As for asking questions about the spiritual belief-system, I have none – I only have answers for I have ascertained the facts. Spiritual people do not want to know any answers for they make a virtue out of not knowing, and of not thinking for themselves.

PUBLISHER No 1: Of course I don’t understand actualism, I would rather meet you with a clean plate each time and let your words and beliefs stand or fall on what you actually say. It is so easy for people who have ‘the answer’ to just dump everything they hear into their own little belief system compartments and in doing so negate their own and the others’ individuality.

PETER: Personally, when I was in an Eastern religion, I was far from being an individual. I was trapped in a belief-system, was ‘in love’ with a Guru, and passion, loyalty and pride combined to ensnare me. I was en-meshed in a social group, reliant upon it for friendship, employment, meaning and identity. I was trapped into living my life by moral and ethical values which, although Eastern, were disquietingly similar to Western values of what is good, bad, right and wrong.

Only when one is freed of all social identity and the genetically-encoded instinctual animal ‘self’ is one actually free of the Human Condition. If one has any identity whatsoever, be it social or instinctual-animal, then it is impossible for one to be an individual.

*

PETER: Having no beliefs to defend, I have no reason, nor desire, to attack.

PUBLISHER No 1: If you are sincere you would have responded to my remarks about your philosophy but instead when confronted with a few questions, like all Reductionists, you chicken out.

PETER: My chickening out is that I see it pointless to continue this communication when you feel that I am being ‘violent and malicious’. The only question you seem to confront me with is why I wrote a book and I have responded at length, and sincerely, as to my reasons.

*

PETER: As I said above, this is a playground taunt from one who wants to fight to one who doesn’t want to fight. I lost all interest – and instinctual urge – to fight a good while ago. I have found genuine freedom, peace and happiness.

PUBLISHER No 1: Yes it is a taunt but it doesn’t negate the actual fact that you reduce all criticism and those who criticize into stereotypes. I just don’t believe you Peter. It also seems as if you play the person rather than the fact.

PETER: If you stubbornly persist with offering stereo-type criticisms and objections, then you are being stereo-typical, if I can coin a phrase. But for you to offer something original, based on a knowledge of what it is that I am saying means that you would have to progress beyond the stage of ‘of course I don’t understand actualism’. You are indeed in a bind, a sort of a rebel without any knowledge of what it is you are fighting against and why.

*

PUBLISHER No 1: Oh well, never mind – and I thought it was getting interesting even though your only response recently has been to stereotype judge and label. I can understand how you dropped Sannyas with such a mechanistic mind and a lack of courage and imagination.

PETER: I take it when you say I have a ‘mechanistic mind’, and I ‘lack of courage and imagination’, that this is not a judgement on your part.

PUBLISHER No 1: ‘Mechanistic mind’ is based on what you actually said so that is not judgement, the ‘courage’ bit is certainly judgemental and was said rhetorically and ironically to see if you would bite, and you did. I was doing exactly what I perceived you to be doing.

PETER: I have looked back through our correspondence and I have never said ‘mechanistic mind’, neither actually ... nor virtually. Since I haven’t said those words, ‘mechanistic mind’ must be an interpretation, a judgement of yours. As I have said I have no problem at all with judgement based on facts, experience, direct knowledge, discernment and a sensible considered assessment. Your judgments fail all categories.

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PETER: Personally I find judgement very useful and necessary – how else does one determine what is silly and what is sensible. Spiritual people do it all the time by judging things as good or bad, right or wrong. They simply use Eastern religious and New Dark Age morals and ethics which are but a variation on the Christian ones that many of them rejected or rebelled against in their youth.

PUBLISHER No 1: Yes, I agree totally, you may have noticed the glossary in our magazine, the pity is that you also judge in the same way, Peter, as you have demonstrated in your responses to me, they are seldom based on the facts of what I said but on what you believe I mean.

PETER: If you agree with me totally then what is the pity about? Do you mean it is okay for you to judge me and not okay for me to do the same. Is it not because I make judgments based on different criteria to you?

Your judgments of me are based on the criteria of Eastern religious belief and philosophy whereas I make my judgments made from the criteria of the actual world. The actual world is what is always here, pure and perfect, and happening in this moment. It is a world stripped of the veneer of everyday gloomy reality and stripped of a meta-physical Greater Reality. It is a world that is evident only when the ‘self’, the illusionary entity inside the flesh and blood body is non-existent, extinct. The actual world is, however, briefly glimpsed in Pure Consciousness Experiences when the ‘self’ is temporarily absent. The aim of an actualist is to live that PCE, 24 hrs. a day, every day.

The PCE offers a glimpse or window out from the ‘real’ world everyone is born into (and therefore assumes to be all there is), and one suddenly finds oneself in the unimaginable, magical, fairytale-like actual world.

The PCE is a sensuous, sensate-only ‘self’-less experience of the perfection and purity of the actual universe. There is no ‘self’ as an interpreter, censor or spoiler. All is directly evidenced by the physical senses to be pure, perfect, delightful. One’s intelligence is freed of any emotions and affective feelings – thinking becomes benign, clear and concise – free of malice and sorrow. The already-existing innate purity and perfection that becomes stunningly apparent in this ‘self’-less state instantly renders redundant the need for any morals, ethics or any kind of ‘self’-control. With awareness and intelligence operating totally freed from the Human Condition, ‘I’ can then be clearly seen for what ‘I’ am – the very source of ‘my’ suffering and malice, given credence only by the chemical surges sourced from the primitive animal brain.

This physical universe is then seen to be already perfect and it is obvious that it is only what goes on in human heads and hearts – the dis-ease called the Human Condition, manifest in each of us as a separate, personal ‘self’ – that is the cause of the appalling human malice and sorrow. What has always been avoided up until now is the fact that the affective instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow – the loves and loyalties, impulses and urges, ideals and beliefs that human beings are willing and eager to fight and kill for, or to suffer and die for. One’s own ‘self’-inflicted problems lie in the feelings and emotions that arise from the animal instinctual passions – and the PCE experientially confirms this fact.

PUBLISHER No 1: I can understand how you dropped Sannyas with such a mechanistic mind and a lack of courage and imagination.

PETER: As for your judgement, I have a mind freed of impassioned emotion – instinctual fear, aggression, nurture and desire. As such, I have no passion for fighting, which you see as lack of courage, and I don’t suffer from fanciful dreaming or fervent belief, which you see as lack of imagination. We live in different worlds – I live in the actual world, you live in the spiritual world.

PUBLISHER No 1: Again you are telling me what world I live in?? It would seem the violence inherent in your presumption and arrogance negates most of what you say. I just live.

PETER: I have already addressed the fact that you are in the spiritual world. Just because you feel offended by what I say does not negate the facts of what I say. The Catholic Church was offended when Galileo said the earth revolves around the sun in contradiction to what the ancients believed but all the fuss about Galileo’s assumptions and perceived arrogance did not alter the fact one iota.

You just live in a world that has an added Greater Reality layered over normal everyday reality and, as such, you are twice removed from the actual world. This is plainly evidenced by your statement that your computer

[Publisher No 1]: ‘could be the projection of some alien thought form directly into my brain – I don’t ‘believe’ for one minute this is so but it COULD be possible.’ [endquote].

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PUBLISHER No 1: My relationship, as absurd as it might seem to you, is with Osho not the inner circle or other sannyasins.

PETER: Fair enough. This loyal faith is exactly why the Inner Circle has the power it does.

PUBLISHER No 1: ‘Loyal faith’ just where do you get this from. I find your judgments most violent and not based on ‘fact’. Could you please explain how you arrived at this from the above statement? Fact, the above statement contains no reference to the type or quality of the relationship I have. Fact, without knowing what sort of relationship I have you then go on to pontificate about the ‘The loyal faithful personal relationship that Catholics have with Christ is exactly why the Pope is given the power he has over the faithful’.

For someone who bases their lives on fact perhaps you could explain how your judgement and stereotyping of another person becomes a ‘fact’ and then it becomes actual?

PETER: I have already explained the crucial role that loyalty plays in both the Gurus maintaining their power over others and in ensuring their followers remain in their spiritual/ religious group, even long after the Gurus are dead. One can also be a loyal rebel – if a rebel was not loyal he would not be moved to rebel in defence of the Guru, he would simply leave and find something better and something that works.

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PETER: The loyal faithful personal relationship that Catholics have with Christ is exactly why the Pope is given the power he has over the faithful. The Pope (and Rome) only has power because Catholics give Him the power. Realizing this fact is why I quit from the power structure in Pune. I had too much integrity to actually give someone else power over me. To willingly give someone else power over me and then to spend my life riling against it seemed to me to be the height of stupidity.

PUBLISHER No 1: Yes it was pretty stupid of you to give them this power in the first place, I’m glad you had the common sense to break away from it.

PETER: Yes. This is why Actual Freedom is an actual freedom. One incrementally breaks free of the belief-systems and groups that make up the Human Condition. One does not simply change identities or beliefs – one abandons the lot with glee once one makes a common sense evaluation and once one acknowledges the glimpse of Actual Freedom that the PCE offers.

PUBLISHER No 1: Why is your opinion so important to you that you have to write a book? Is this your catharsis?

PETER: So, now you object to the fact that I have written a book! Thou art clasping at straws to denigrate me. Would you have me silenced if you were ‘the controller of those who wrote books’. There are literally thousands of Eastern religious New Dark Age books and there are only two written by actualists and you ask ‘why is your opinion so important to you that you have to write a book?

PUBLISHER No 1: This is a very emotional answer to a simple and sincere question, are you a bit worried about book burnings and the like? Could you please tell me where in the above sentence states or implies ‘So, now you object to the fact that I have written a book!’ I don’t read anything at all about ‘objection’ in the quote. Do you maybe suffer a little paranoia?

PETER: We have travelled this road many a time. Is what you object to that I have an opinion about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being that is so radically different to your own viewpoint? And further, that I deem it important enough to write about it?

PUBLISHER No 1: I think nothing would silence you – as far as books go I never read them, (including Osho’s). They’re just full of other people’s ideas about how life should be and encourage people to live vicariously or adopt new belief systems which it seems is what most of you New Agers are on about.

PETER: Personally the term I like to use is New Dark Age rather than New Age.

All things metaphysical are fashionable at present as we are in the New Dark Age that is dominated by ancient, sacred, spiritual and other-worldly concepts. Ancient healings and esoteric medicines, divinations and prophecies, energies and auras, folk tales and legends, gurus and shamans, fairies and goddesses, sacred sites and cosmic planes, chakras and levels of consciousness, telepathy and spiritualism, visions and entities, ESP and UFO’s, somas and souls, mysticism and meditation, rituals and rites, reincarnations and past lives, karmas and dharmas, devils and demons ... they all testify to the vast extent of metaphysical beliefs. When one really investigates one finds that everyone believes in the metaphysical – without the hope of a ‘something else’, ‘someone else’ or ‘somewhere else’ the suffering of humanity would be unbearable.

PUBLISHER No 1: As far as I’m concerned people can do what they want and usually they do one way or another, but it still doesn’t answer my question of why you wrote the book. You tell how it came about and that writing makes things clear for you but that process is one or two steps away from publishing. I often write music because it expresses things for me but I don’t go off and record it and try to foist it on others. I did in the past and had moderate success but for me the creative bit was it in itself.

PETER: A minor correction here. You did co-author, publish and distribute a magazine for public consumption that did present your opinions to others. Personally, I think any public discussion, beyond the usual meek and mild, about religion is very useful indeed. And to dare to question some of the commonly held beliefs, power-structures, psittacisms and loyalties of others in one’s own religion is a good start.

My motive in writing to you was to point out that your targeting of those in other religions could be seen as intolerant and therefore cast you and your religion in a less than glowing light.

PUBLISHER No 1: So once more my question still stands – why did you write the book? You’d already reached clarity, you had found peace and happiness and yet you still had to tell the world. I sincerely don’t understand. I also find your alluding to ‘the controller of those who wrote books’ a violent and malicious statement.

PETER: We have travelled this road many, many a time. Maybe you could use your imagination and imagine someone who found that the spiritual path hadn’t bought them freedom, peace and happiness but didn’t give up the search and the came across someone who offered a method to become actually free of the Human Condition in total. A freedom from both reality and Reality. He tried it out, found it worked and was moved to write a book about it to tell his fellow human beings of his experiences in the process of becoming free. So maybe you can imagine why he wrote the book and why those who are still happy on the spiritual path think he is spoiling their game.

There are literally thousands of Eastern religious New Dark Age books and there are only two written by actualists and you ask ‘why is your opinion so important to you that you have to write a book? Not so long ago we would have been more than cyber executed for our iconoclastic, heretical stance against all religion but thanks to the Net we now have an outlet which is thus far free of, and secure from, those who would silence us.

PUBLISHER No 1: Are you serious?

PETER: Do you doubt my sincerity?

*

PUBLISHER No 1: Why is your opinion so important to you that you have to write a book? Is this your catharsis?

PETER: As for catharsis – I’ve already posted quite a bit about my motives for writing but you either don’t read what I have written, or chose to ignore it for whatever reason.

PUBLISHER No 1: I’ve read what I’ve snipped below and see no answer to the question. It’s a how story, not a why.

PETER: If you think what I have posted is a ‘how story’ then I must have mixed up why and how, but as you said – ‘the Oxford dictionary is one thing, what I mean is another.’ So therefore ‘how’ I wrote my book becomes – on a computer, in MS Word, self-published and printed at SCU, Lismore. And ‘why’ I wrote it was put succinctly above –

[Peter]: ‘I wrote it for others who may be sufficiently dissatisfied and disgruntled with Eastern religion to be interested in something that was down-to-earth and non-spiritual. I also wrote it for myself in order to make sense of life. Any writing is a process of clarification for oneself as well as a means of communication to others.’ (15.2.2000)