Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List

with Alan

5.7.1999

Hi Alan,

Just a note about nothing in particular that we have been talking about. Sometimes it’s nice just to have a rave on paper, so to speak. I have the pleasure of being able to talk endlessly about the Human Condition and the path to Freedom from the Human Condition with Vineeto, but putting it into written words adds another dimension to understanding. The most significant aspect of intelligence in human beings is the ability to communicate with each other with speech and hearing, and even more significantly by writing and reading. It is this very function that has allowed me to follow the path that Richard has mapped out, to read of his experiences and his descriptions of living in the Actual World. I have got nothing from him, no energy or transmissions, other than what he has written or said. Thus I am able to stand on his shoulders as it were, hang on to his words, to make sense of a direction or path to follow to becoming free of the Human Condition that at first seemed frightening, insane and utterly incomprehensible. To gather confidence in order to venture off in a direction that is 180 degrees in the opposite direction to that laid down by all of Humanity.

When I first came across Richard’s Journal, I remember acknowledging that the Tried and True, the safe and sane, The Holy and Sacred and the comfortable and numb, all pointed to a second-rate life. For some people the ‘normal’ simply proves to be unsatisfactory, for whatever reason, and up until now there has been only one solution to remaining normal – an escape into an imaginary, well-trodden, ‘spiritual’ world steeped in ancient, primitive mysticism and ‘holier than thou’ feelings. For me, at this time, it was also important to do a bit of backtracking, a bit of stocktaking, as it were, to take the time and contemplate exactly what I wanted from life. To set my own goals as distinct from simply following what I had been taught, what was ‘expected’ of me, and what blind nature had programmed me to do and be. My life, what I thought and felt, had been decided by others and my instinctual programming. I was feted to be part of a suffering Humanity – it was unavoidable.

This acknowledgement of the facts of the situation meant there was no-one at fault, no one to blame, no ‘evil spirits’ responsible, no guilt, no shame, no ‘right’ suffering, no denial necessary. It is the way-it-is, but this simple acknowledgement meant that my happiness was in my hands. Having gathered sufficient life-experience after 49 years, I was able to strike many things off the list of what was supposed to bring peace and happiness, both in the ‘normal’ world and the ‘spiritual’ world. I have written of having what my father had worked all his life for by my mid-thirties – wife, two kids and two cars – and still I wasn’t happy. A decade later, being a dedicated follower of fashion, I found myself deep in the spiritual world, having blissful Satoris and Altered State of Consciousness experiences and still no peace and happiness. A synthetic peace and happiness were available, but only at the cost of turning away from the world, turning away from living together with a woman in peace, harmony and equity, turning away from the delights of sex, and turning away from the facts of the Human Condition. The ‘inner’ imaginary world was peaceful while the outer world was a dread-full illusion, a place for ‘right’ suffering and full of heathens and non-believers, a place one ‘passed through’ before going on to an afterlife.

This is clearly evidenced by the protective aura that it is necessary for the spiritual people to maintain when dealing with the ‘real’ world. They do indeed have their heads in the clouds and are in complete denial of the physical fact that what they are is a mortal, sexual, flesh and blood body.

To quote Mr. Mohan Rajneesh on the need for a ‘protective aura’ –

‘... I don’t see the problem is within you. The problem is coming from the outside. You don’t have a protective aura. It happens to many people, because we don’t know how to protect ourselves from other people. Others are not only there – they are broadcasting their being continuously in subtle vibrations. If a tense person passes by you, he is simply throwing arrows of tension all around – not particularly addressed to you; he is simply throwing. And he is unconscious – he is not doing it to anybody knowingly. He has to throw it because he is too burdened. He will go mad if he doesn’t throw it. It is not that he has decided to throw it. It is overflowing. It is too much and he cannot contain it; so it goes on overflowing.

Somebody passes you by and he goes on throwing something at you. If you are receptive and don’t have a protective aura ... And meditation makes one receptive, very receptive. So when you are alone it is good. When you are surrounded by meditative people, very good. But when you are in the world, the marketplace, and people are not meditative, but are very tense, anxious, have a thousand and one strains on their mind, then you just start getting them. And you are vulnerable. Meditation makes one very soft, so whatever comes, enters.

After meditation one has to create a protective aura. Sometimes it happens automatically to you, sometimes it doesn’t. It is not happening to you so you have to work for it. It will be coming within three months. Any time between three weeks and three months, you will start feeling very powerful. <snip>. It will surround you and you will be able to pass amidst a crowd and you will remain unaffected, untouched ...’ From Rajneesh – Be Realistic, Plan for a Miracle, Chap. 2

T’is fascinating to dig into the words of the Enlightened Masters and see exactly what it is they are proposing, exactly what it is they are offering. In this passage it is clear to see the denial – ‘I don’t see that the problem is within you’ – the blame on the other – ‘the problem is coming from the outside’ – and the solution – ‘after meditation one has to create a protective aura’.

Or to put it in plain English – practice sticking your head in the clouds by meditating and pretend the real world doesn’t exist – and if you happen to be unfortunate enough to have to venture into the real world then develop a ‘protective aura’ whereby you can keep your head in the clouds while dealing with other people who are ‘not meditative’.

Have you ever observed a conversation between ‘meditative’ people? There is usually constant complaint about the trials and tribulations of the real world and an unintelligible jargon exchange of clichés and ‘sharing’ of feelings that passes for conversation and communication. The classic situation is the really deep meditator who simply closes his or her eyes and zones into their inner world in the midst of everything. When the going gets tough ... the meditator simply turns ‘inward’!

Thus it is that there are two worlds – the ‘real’, as readily evidenced on T.V. or in the fights and squabbles that break out in this very block of flats where I live, and the ‘spiritual’, as evidenced by the ‘protective aura’ of half the population of the town I live in. They do indeed live in another world – an inner world of their own making. To turn away from the real world to the spiritual world is but to be twice removed from the actual world.

What an amazing thing it was to discover that there is an actual world of purity and perfection that is here, now and happening, now. It has not to be invented, imagined, propped up, contrived, trusted in, believed in, conceptualized or connected with. The physical universe is infinite and eternal and, as such, incomparable in its splendour. To live a life imagining that there is a something else or somewhere else is to miss the main event – that which is happening now, this only moment I can experience of being alive.

The need to step out of the real world and into the actual world is a vital necessity for becoming happy and harmless. As with most things in life, deciding to make the first move can be the most difficult thing, but if it is taken sincerely one soon begins finding the fears are imaginary and entirely ‘self’-imposed. A full-blooded, hearty commitment is needed to ensure success, for to fly in the face of Ancient Wisdom is no small thing to do. But as success eventuates, so does confidence grow and quite soon one passes ‘the point of no return’ when it becomes impossible to consider returning to a life of malice and sorrow. By then one is on a slippery slope whereby one often attempts to put the foot on the brake and slow things down a bit – but by then to be free is already one’s destiny and one actively acquiesces in one’s own demise.

Cute Hey, and what a journey, what a thrill.

17.7.1999

It’s one of those particularly delicious winter mornings when the air is so clear and crisp and the sun warms one through with a penetration that no other heater can. Everything has a sharpness to it, the sounds have a clarity that seems to upped the volume a bit, and the skin literally bristles. Given that a sub-tropical winter is the equivalent of your spring you will know what I am talking of. The physical universe is strutting its stuff and it’s a delight to be the bit going Ahhhh.... We have had a particularly wet wet-season this year causing the locals to bemoan their existence even more than usual – strange stuff in the light of the constantly amazing variance the elements provide. One never knows when one goes to bed what the morrow brings, such is life.

It’s a weekend morning, my business is done for the week, and I have ‘itchy fingers’ so I thought I would drop you a note. Some things come up in conversation with Vineeto or I pick up little tit-bits of information that I think might be of interest to another actualist – so it’s a good chance to trot them out.

I was watching a BBC program on ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland where a journalist who had been raised and schooled there went back for a reminisce and re-look. He talked about the history of the war that has raged for hundreds of years and noted that he had been taught at school what he termed the ‘safe’ version of history. He had been taught that the British were the enemy and the British were at fault, but no mention was made of the on-going civil war where Irish have slaughtered Irish for centuries. Fellow country-man against fellow country-man.

Another news clip mentioned the ambivalence of the Spanish people towards the bitter civil war fought only 60 years ago where country-man fought country-man in a ferocious war that left a half million people dead. The American Civil War is yet another of these civil-wars that get scant consideration in the chronicles of man’s inhumanity to man, yet 600,000 died in a fight over ‘principles’. How many Russians killed their own countrymen, how many Chinese died fighting Chinese, how many neighbours slaughtered neighbours?

Man’s ‘inhumanity’ to man is legendary and now that it is increasingly well documented as endemic on the planet, it will be increasingly difficult to deny. The Holocaust conveniently gets most of the press – it’s the classic opportunity to put the blame on one evil man as being the sole cause of the genocides.

The Oxford Dictionary defines genocide as ‘The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group’ . The words ‘deliberate and systematic’ are what distinguish human animal violence from the violence exhibited by the rest of the animals on the planet – we think and plan our violence, adding a ruthless efficiency to the business of killing our fellow human beings. So it was that during World War 2, some 300 U.S. planes incinerated 120,000 civilians in the Tokyo firestorm raid, and only months later it needed just 2 planes to obliterate 105,000 people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Within a few short years the development of the hydrogen bomb was to bring a 700-fold increase in destructive force compared to these first crude atom bombs. And since then developments is such that a man can push a button and fire an ‘arrow’ with many such bombs on board and hit multiple ‘bulls-eyes’ anywhere on the planet. A ruthless efficiency.

A few other little tit-bits gleaned recently. I was fascinated to discover that when Albert Einstein sat down in 1905 to nut out his theories about space, time and gravity, he did so thinking, like everyone else at the time, that the physical universe consisted solely of the Milky Way – the stars visible in the sky. In fact, it was only in 1927 that Hubble began to discover other galaxies than the one this planet is in. Thus, exactly as Mr. Buddha was a flat-earth mythical Guru, Mr. Einstein was a one-galaxy scientific Guru. Yet humanity still insists on giving credence to their views of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being in 1999. At least Einstein was a flesh and blood human being, which is more than can be said for Mr. Buddha who exists only in the historical ‘black-hole’ of myth and legend.

Another fascinating fact to consider is that it was only in 1670 that Reiner de Graaf, a Dutch physician, discovered the follicles of the ovary in which the individual human egg cells are formed. This was the first factual evidence that human reproduction was the result of a fertilized egg in the female. One wonders what the theories and myths abounded before this discovery – that a ‘spirit’ entered the body of the female seems the most likely from the tales of Ancient Wisdom. And nil understanding that sex had anything to do with reproduction! No idea at all of the functioning of the human body, let alone instinctual programming and its pivotal role in human behaviour. Even after Graaf’s time, many people argued that inside the sperm was a miniature human being, ready and waiting to grow to eventually emerge into the world. Why humans insist on turning back 3,000 years or more to times of ignorance and superstition, and then stubbornly declare that some profound Wisdom is to be found, continually leaves me dumbfounded.

Of all the Ancient God-men, Mr Buddha is the current the most fashionable (and not un-coincidentally, I suspect, the most mythical). Phrases such as ‘One’s Buddha nature’, ‘Buddha-like’, ‘Buddha Consciousness’, etc. all point to an almost universal un-questioning acceptance of his Kingship of the Divine realm in spiritual circles.

It is well worth re-posting an ancient Buddhist text that Richard sourced and posted recently to another list in order to see exactly what is on offer in Buddhism.

‘And what is right mindfulness? There is the case where a monk remains focused on the body in and of itself – ardent, alert, and mindful – putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in and of themselves (....) the mind in and of itself (....) mental qualities in and of themselves – ardent, alert, and mindful – putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. This is called right mindfulness. And what is right concentration? There is the case where a monk – quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskilful (mental) qualities – enters and remains in the first Jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. With the stilling of directed thought and evaluation, he enters and remains in the second Jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation – internal assurance. With the fading of rapture he remains in equanimity, mindful and alert, physically sensitive of pleasure. He enters and remains in the third Jhana, of which the Noble Ones declare, ‘Equanimous and mindful, he has a pleasurable abiding.’ With the abandoning of pleasure and pain – as with the earlier disappearance of elation and distress – he enters and remains in the fourth Jhana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain. This is called right concentration. This is called the noble truth of the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress. In this way he remains focused internally on mental qualities in and of themselves, or externally on mental qualities in and of themselves, or both internally and externally on mental qualities in and of themselves. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to mental qualities, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to mental qualities, or on the phenomenon of origination and passing away with regard to mental qualities. Or his mindfulness that ‘There are mental qualities’ is maintained to the extent of knowledge and remembrance. And he remains independent, unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on mental qualities in and of themselves with reference to the four noble truths.’ ‘Mahasatipatthana Sutta’ (The Great Frames of Reference) Digha Nikaya 22  The ‘Mahasatipatthana Sutta’ elaborates on the practice of mindfulness meditation with a more detailed exposition of ‘D. Mental Qualities 5’ in the Satipatthana Sutta.

‘And thus it is written that a monk shall sit in the corner with his eyes closed, withdraw from the world of sensual, sensate pleasure, stick his head in the clouds and dream of nirvana – anywhere but here and anyplace but now’ – a simplified stripped down version of Buddhism for the intellectually challenged. Ah! Nothing like a bit of Guru-bashing, and none better to take on than the undisputed King of Denial and Withdrawal. Is there nothing sacred to an actualist? No. Both the good feelings that arise from the supposed good instincts and the spiritual search for immortality that arises from the core survival instinct have to be questioned, examined, dissected and scrutinized in order to weaken their insidious influence on our lives. It took Richard ten times as long to rid himself of these good feelings as it took him to eliminate the bad ones. It is essential to tackle the whole of the instinctual programming – no half measures will work.

Another musing I had the other day concerned the common view of the word freedom as used in spiritual circles. Freedom is seen as an event, usually termed Enlightenment, whereby one miraculously escapes from the illusion of the real world, its problems, concerns and worries and is magically re-united with one’s Source from whence one came from originally. Thus ‘I’ am no longer lost, lonely and frightened for I have come Home and am overwhelmed by feelings of Divine Love. Thus one leaves the ‘real’ world and emerges into the ‘divine’ world – an illusion based on an illusion. The process usually undertaken is to devote oneself to living the ‘divine’ life, in preparation for a final ‘crossing’ over whereby one becomes Divine. This is, of course, all played out in the fantasy world of passionate feelings and has not a fig to do with the actual. Enlightenment is but a shift of identity from normal, afraid of death to Divine and believing one’s Self to be immortal.

The path to an Actual Freedom is to devote one’s life to being the universe experiencing itself as a flesh and blood human being, and if undertaken with scrupulous integrity, will inevitably and inexorably lead to one’s self-immolation. This final act will be one of self-sacrifice for it is evident from the Pure Consciousness experience that only ‘I’ stand in the way of the perfection and purity of the universe being experienced as this flesh and blood body called Peter. This full-blooded devotion, as in ... “An end to which someone or something is devoted; a purpose, an intent”, or “earnest application; zealous or exclusive attachment”... has recently resulted in heady glimpses and experiences of the infinitude of the physical universe. These experiences of vastness and limitless freedom offer tantalizing previews of an inevitable destiny after ‘my’ extinction and have had the unmistakable ring of the authenticity of my first ‘self’-less PCE. The other clue as to their genuineness is the recognition of the seductive parallel of the Altered State of Consciousness whereby ‘I’ am tempted to instinctually grab to become the experience. Thus, ‘I’ become infinite and eternal, whereas in the PCE it is startlingly clear that it is the universe that is infinite and eternal, and what I am is this mortal flesh and blood body, well able and equipped to think and reflect and go oooh and ahhh at the perfection and purity that is obviously apparent when ‘I’ cease to rule the roost. But that won’t happen to me – it’s but a cheap cop-out once you have tasted the actual.

These glimpses are the direct result of this boots and all approach and send a thrill up one’s spine, a tingling in the skull, or an involuntary wobble of the head. It’s fascinating to see that the fear that was there in the days of thinking about the end of ‘me’, or trying to imagine the end of ‘me’, is now replaced by a physical thrill as in – this is what I am doing, or this is what is happening. This is no esoteric explanation and has parallels in the prosaic activities that involve fear or danger whereby, when you get to the stage of actually doing something rather than thinking or worrying about it, one is then too busy with the doing of it that one has no time for fears or worries. And it’s not as though the experience is frantic, or too much – I am at present doing normal things like doing a job, earning a living and reporting, as accurately as I can, on what is going on inside with ‘me’ as it happens. Utterly down-to-earth, normal and anonymous.

Cute, Hey.... And what a hoot it is at the cutting edge.

Well it’s time to put my feet up, and I’ve run out of news.

29.8.1999

Thought I would drop you a line and enclose another schematic diagram we finalized last night. It’s literally hot off the press. We have been toying for some time with the idea of a schematic that defined the difference between what we are on about and what the spiritual path is on about. It stemmed from when I first met Richard and he said ‘everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong’ – or words to that effect – and in a flash I remember thinking ‘Of course – that’s why the spiritual world is as fucked up as the real world.’ Since then I have had a good many postings and discussions with many people who blithely insist that the path to Actual Freedom is no different to the spiritual path. Hundreds of thousands of words later there still seems much sincere confusion, as well as blatantly stubborn refusal to acknowledge facts – so we now have the ‘Actual freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to spiritual beliefs’ diagram –

The diagram deliberately points out what initially is the similarity between the path to Actual Freedom and the spiritual path – that they both start with a search for freedom, peace and happiness – but it also clearly indicates that they are, in fact, separate paths and explains in what way they are different. The diagram makes potently clear that continuing on the spiritual path by practicing denial, sublimation and transcendence which results in impassioned delusion, leads one further away from the actual world and actively perpetuates the Human Condition of fighting and suffering.

For those determined to go all the way to Actual Freedom the one and only option is to turn around and head 180 degrees in the opposite direction – abandoning and dismantling all of one’s ancient spiritual beliefs – the lot, every morsel – and then one can really start on the path to an actual, down-to-earth freedom. It is this very aspect that is the most daunting for many – because to dare to question one’s cherished spiritual beliefs would seem as though one would have to retreat back to grim everyday reality again. It is here that the memory of the Pure Consciousness Experience is vital, as you then have experienced your potential destiny – Actual Freedom. One then backtracks with gay abandon, scurrying delightedly to rid oneself of the moldy, fear-ridden, ancient beliefs as one sets off on the alternative path to actualizing that potential.

Of course, a component of the wide and wondrous path is the sensible and sensate experience, and any moves away from purely cerebral or affective experiencing can only improve one’s life. Thus it is that there will be those who go all the way and those who take on board what they are comfortable with – but even that will bring a degree more of happiness and harmlessness to the person concerned. And there will be a bit more of the genuine product in the world to counter the ancient superstition and beliefs – sort of a flow-on, or rub-off effect. It is most definitely a win-win situation.

I do like the schematic. I remember some 2 years ago trying to make sense of the difference between what Richard was saying and what the Gurus were saying and doodling with a diagram – must be my architectural training – and here it is.

Good hey.

Just a little note to let you know how it is for me as I face extinction – as it becomes inevitably and inexorably imminent. It becomes increasingly difficult to hold ‘myself’ together – almost as though I could float off the planet, which is what the Enlightened ones do. There is so much sensate, sensual pleasure that it is disorientating – it is, after all, this very sensual pleasure that lifts ‘me’ off, while it is the surety and experience gleaned from PCEs that keeps my feet on the ground. I know, from the PCE, that what is sensate, palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical and material is actual. ‘My’ standing in the way and trying to ‘keep the lid on’, is the only thing that has to cease now – all else has been done. It has got to the point that it is impossible to distinguish between ‘me’ doing this and it happening to me – all attempts at control and understanding are falling away – and the ride is wild and thrilling. The brakes don’t work – and the wheels are falling off. As we put the schematic together I realized I stood literally on the brink where the arrow emerges from the Human Condition into Actual Freedom. I can look back at the Human Condition and the old Peter and see I have no ‘hooks’ or connection with the past – but also there is nothing ahead for ‘me’, no future for ‘me’ in the actual world.

‘I’ am but a program of the social and neuro-biological imprint that is the substance of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow – ‘just another brick in the wall’ as P.F. put it. The very best ‘I’ could do was clean myself up 99.9%, and live a life of pleasure, delight and carefree-ness that was beyond ‘normal’ human expectations – but ‘I’ still remain, at core, an instinctual human animal. I can locate this instinctual passionate ‘me’ in the heart area and the controlling ‘me’ in the head – untroubling to me in daily life, but ever-lurking, ready to pounce ‘when push comes to shove.’ 99.9% ain’t the full Monty!

It is also blindingly obvious from a solid experiential understanding over a period of some 18 months of Virtual Freedom that ‘I’ stand in the way of the perfection and purity of the actual universe becoming apparent as a new species – and for this to eventuate requires ‘my’ willing extinction.

Then comes the realization that ‘I’ am going to do this, that extinction is the next and only thing on the menu. In writing my journal I painted myself into a corner but managed to leave a comfortable niche to play around in for a while – now it is as if I have painted myself even further to the point of precariously balancing on tip-toes and trying not to fall over. And yet falling over is inevitable – for ‘I’ can no longer hang it together, so nebulous and insubstantial have ‘I’ become. ‘My’ time has come.

It makes life very thrilling indeed knowing extinction, obliteration, the end, the finish, the finale, the cessation of ‘me’ is right here – any moment.

5.9.1999

Thought I’d drop you a line about a subject that led me to a bit of pondering lately. Several times over the last 2 years Vineeto and I have met with people who have been interested in Richard and what he has to say. The reaction to us has been fascinating to observe for it is a subject of vital interest to me – at its core, ‘What am I in relation to other people and what am I in relation to Richard?’ The reaction to us can best be summed up as ‘piss off, I want to talk to Richard’ or ‘Who do you think you are – some over-enthusiastic disciple mouthing off the words of the Master?’ or some similar theme. Consequently, we have dubbed ourselves the ‘Litmus Twins’, for we seem to upset or offend those who seek only a bit of time (and space?) sitting with the ‘master’ but not those who are genuinely interested in actual Freedom and in changing themselves. My theory – and that is all it is – is that we are ‘offensive’ simply because we are the proof that it is possible to change, whereas regarding Richard as some sort of master, as in the spiritual tradition, means that all one has to do is sit back and imbibe the wisdom and truth of what he says and writes. I don’t doubt that they get something from the ‘contact’ but, for the life of me, I fail to see that any radical change can come from such a casual and cautious approach.

But I gladly admit to bias, as I am continuously amazed by people’s stubborn refusal to even admit that they have less than perfect relationships, that they are prone to malice and sorrow, anger, resentment, despair, resignation, self-deception, or whatever other feeling. Those still on the spiritual path see themselves as having risen above these mundane worldly matters and having ascended into the higher realms of ‘love for all’, feeling ‘That Which Is’ or being ‘grateful to Existence’.

Just as an aside, while I think of it, I once chatted to a man who had just been newly inducted into the spiritual world and we got to chatting about sex. He proclaimed to me that he now had a freer attitude to sex and was not only with his partner but with other women as well. He said sex had never been better as he now felt he was making love to all women when he had sex. It was ‘universal woman’ whom he made love to – the archetypical woman. It suddenly dawned on me that this Tantric-like practice was nothing more than a fantasy escape from the actuality of having sex with the particular flesh and blood woman he was in bed with at the time. In the ‘real’ world men and woman invariably revert to fantasies to maintain an interest after the initial instinctual attraction wanes, and Tantra is simply the spiritual version of these fantasies. Of course, it is a ‘higher’ and more ‘noble’ fantasy, but it is nothing more than an escape from the reality of sex. It is demeaning to the partner one is with as he or she is not the flesh and blood body person but is reduced to a figment of one’s own fantasy world – and then they have the audacity to term this fantasy ‘being intimate’. All the ‘action’ and ‘intimacy’ goes on only in one’s head. One literally goes into cuckoo-land – all in denial of the shameful, guilt-ridden reality of the sexual instinct in action. It is all about feeling and has nought to do with the luscious sensuality of the sensate sensuous experiencing of innocent sexual play.

For me, it was such an adventure to get to the bottom of the stifling mystery, the conspiracy of silence, the moralistic mumbo-jumbo and beliefs that actively prohibit free sexual enjoyment and a direct intimacy between any couple, be they normal or spiritually inclined.

Which brings me back to people-as-they-are – (a feeble attempt to round this rave back to some semblance of order). Whenever Vineeto and I talk or write of becoming free of the Human Condition, we are often seen (judged?) as being judgemental or attacking and not tolerant or respectful of the other’s position. In considering this, the only sense I make of it is that we are threatening in that we are putting into practice the concept that one can become free of the Human Condition – i.e. how human beings think, feel, believe and imagine themselves to be and how they are instinctually programmed by blind nature to function. Now any sensible investigation of the Human Condition involves observation, investigation, comparison, contemplation, consideration and judgement. One has to come to a conclusion as to what is silly and what is sensible, otherwise the whole exercise is merely intellectual wanking. Having made a judgement as to what is best, then action is required – one is compelled to action, unless one wants to settle for second-best – but that’s another story. So no bleatings of ‘you’re being judgemental’ will work with me – it’s a furphy that’s been bandied around since morals and ethics were first chiselled in stone and devised to silence the sensible. ‘Judge ye not’ is a platitude invented by God-men and other charlatans in order that no one would question the rest of their inane platitudes. It is one of many dimwitticisms, passed off as Guru-wisdom, that have no other meaning or purpose than to keep their followers and disciples under control, humble, grateful, loyal and above all non-thinking.

But if anyone wants to remain as they are, second-rate, rooted in the past, or off in la-la land, then fine. Somewhere there is a Peter or a Vineeto who might appreciate a bit of ‘judgemental’ straight talking, a first hand account about becoming free of the Human Condition, what it’s like to challenge all beliefs, what it’s like to leave one’s ‘self’ behind. I strongly recommend being judgemental – making a judgement, an evaluation, a discernment, a decision, a finding, an appraisal, an assessment, a conclusion. At the very least one practices thinking, at best it may provoke action, at worst you may be inaccurate and need to re-assess. This is the process of learning called trial and error. One simply proceeds to what is sensible and what works, and one finds one has discovered a fact. And one can rely on a fact. It takes a little practice but eventually ‘you’ become redundant in the game as the facts start to speak for themselves.

Which brings me back to Richard and people-as-they-are. When I first met Richard there was quite a period of regarding him as a Guru for that was what a ‘wise man’ was to me at the time. It seemed that he was talking of another world or dimension, which he was, and that he was in touch with some ethereal wisdom, which he wasn’t. I remember at one stage laying on the couch – yet again – and saying ‘Okay, you can let me into the mystery now. Is there a space craft that is coming to pick us up, is this some ‘special’ group and you’re gathering people for the new world after the ‘end-of-it-all’, or what?’ All I got was a laugh, but it cleared the air for me. After that, he increasingly became a flesh and blood normal person to me, who had actually found a way to become happy and harmless. It is not that the process became any less radical and un-‘natural’, but it meant that it was possible for me – a normal flesh and blood human. It also meant that I was not going ‘somewhere else’ in the spiritual sense but it meant that the answer to the mystery of life lay under my very nose, as it were – in the world-as-it-is, with people-as-they-are. It was only that ‘I’ was in the road of the actual world’s perfection and purity becoming apparent and that was something I could do something about. If Richard could, I could. It is, after all, a process of elimination – a stripping away of the veneer of reality and the veneer of Reality in order to more and more experience the actual world. The process involves nothing more than replacing belief – both real and Real – with fact, for fact is what is actual. And the last of the line – not the first – or even the middle – is the experiential understanding of the illusion or non-facticity of ‘I’. Self-immolation then becomes imminent.

Once I had managed to get the last of my spiritual concepts and notions out of the way, on the couch that day, it became simply a matter of emulating Richard and this new way of being a human being – his manner, words, the facts he presented – how he was as a human being. Exactly as I had done when I found a good architect or builder or expert in any field – soak up all you can about what you regard as the best – why is it so good, how is it different, why does it work, why is it better than how I do things? Lately for me has been the stage of seeing what it is that is different between Richard and me – what are the innate quirks of character, differences of style, preferences, life-experiences that are genuine differences.

It has been a fascinating journey to see not only the universality of the Human Condition, to discover why and how Richard is different from ‘normal’ and ‘spiritual’, and now I come to see how I am actually different from Richard. Merely to remain following and mimicking would be to forever remain virtually free – the dare now is to be unique and individual – actually free of the Human Condition – to stand on my own two feet.

Well, it’s been another of my raves. I never know where they are going when I sit down to type, so you just get what’s been mulling around for a bit or what pops up on the way through.

Which reminds me of a cute story that happened lately. About a year ago I got a bee in my bonnet to write a piece for the national newspaper as they were publishing readers’ stories in their weekend magazine under the banner ‘Real Life’. Inspired by the fact that I now had something to say about ‘real life’ I sent off a piece on death, culled from my journal. Lo and behold they published it – I had kept it very mild and watered down. Then I sent another piece culled from the Living Together chapter and called it ‘Liberation from being men and women’. Nothing happened and about 3 months ago they returned it with a ‘Thank you, but ...’ note. About 3 weeks ago Vineeto brought home a copy of the local Rajneesh Sannyas magazine, and there on the cover were the words ‘Liberation from being men and women’. ‘Something familiar about those words ...’ I thought, and looked inside to find my article printed word for word with ‘Author unknown’ at the end. It turned out that Vineeto had given it to a woman at work who was associated with the magazine at the time to see if they were interested in publishing it. Nothing happened and we both forgot about it, and meanwhile the woman ceased her involvement with the magazine. It seemed that the article – author unknown by now – was found by someone who considered it interesting enough to publish. So the traitor-to-the-cause, the blacker-than-black sheep gets his article published anonymously in a Rajneesh magazine. They haven’t a clue how much of a heretic I am. Maybe they just think I’m a Guru basher – if they think at all, that is. Cute Hey...

When the editor found out t’was me he rang up to apologize and casually mentioned they would consider publishing something else; so I popped one in to him but ‘upped the ante’ just a bit this time – sprinkling the piece with a few words like instincts, beliefs, morals, ethics, peace, fear, aggression, malice and sorrow. It’s entitled ‘Folks and People’ and is hung around the story I recently related on the list about the waring gangs in Chicago. We will see what becomes of that. It is amazing to see serendipity in action – to watch the marvellous quirks and twists and links and opportunities and events that occur – as though by magic.

As I said in my journal of the path to Actual Freedom – ‘Serendipity is, after all, what happens when you take the opportunity that comes along.’

Well, before I wander up some other alley, I’m off to the couch ... so it’s goodnight from me ...

20.9.1999

Your conversations with Richard set me thinking about this business of self-immolation and the difference between what we are talking of and the spiritual ‘ego-death’. In my reading of the Enlightened Ones’ ‘ego death’ experiences the drama and trauma involved sounds so convincing that one would indeed give credence to a wondrous transformation such that one had found something genuine – one’s Real Self, one’s original face, the Source, Divine Love, the Truth or whatever. There is no doubt that a transformation of their identity has taken place, that they have suffered a death of their personal self – ego – and as a reward have become a universal, all encompassing, glorious Self – God by whatever name. This I have understood and have personally experienced in an hour long Altered State of Consciousness, or Satori, whereby I was Love personified, and all was Glorious and Golden. Also as the result of many Pure Consciousness Experiences and some 18 months of Virtual Freedom I well know the difference between a ‘self’-less state of Actual Freedom and the ‘ego-less/glorified soul’ state of Enlightenment.

But I still had a nag, and the nag was how to explain it schematically. It must be my architectural training, but often processes can be schematically represented in a way that aids clarity. There are about 2 million words on the AF web-site and many are devoted to this very difference between Actual Freedom and the traditional Pseudo Freedom, so we have come up with two schematics that set out the difference.

The schematics are too big to post to the list, so we have put them on the AF web-site for perusal. I suggest it would be useful for you bring it up in a second window, if possible, so as to refer to it in association with the following description. There are two schematics – the first refers to Actual Freedom, the second to the spiritual path. The first schematic is

As you can see, the title is ‘What I am vs. Who I am’, and the diagram essentially addresses the issue of the process of the extinction of ‘who’ I am – the psychological and psychic entity and the emergence of ‘what I am’ – this flesh and blood body only, actually free of ‘who I think and feel I am’. The diagram quite deliberately separates out the active diminishing and eventual extinction of ‘who I am’ – and the emergence and eventual freedom of ‘what I am’. ‘What I am’ has always been here, it is just that it has been obscured and totally dominated by ‘who I am’ – and it is only by systematically and methodically daring to peel back the layers of social conditioning, beliefs, morals, ethics, psittacisms and instinctual passions that ‘what I am’ is more and more able to become apparent. ‘What I am’ thus becomes incrementally freed, strengthened, gaining confidence from the surety of facts, the increasingly unfettered intelligence and the heightened senses – all actual, down to earth, sensible and verifiable experiences. ‘What I am’ is not a new creation, a new identity – it is simply what remains when the ‘who I am’ disappears in total. To put it another way, the ‘who I was’ when I first met Richard will never meet the ‘what I am’ that will emerge when ‘I’ become extinct.

Of course, one has glimpses of this ‘self’-less state in the PCE, when for a period ‘who I am’ exits the stage, or is temporarily absent, but ‘what I am’ can only be totally free when ‘who I am’ ceases to exist permanently. ‘Who I am’ is capable of resurrection or fighting back at any stage – indeed it is passionately driven to do anything possible to survive – including selling off Grandmother if need be – which is where the middle line of the diagram comes into play. This is a simple representation of the wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom – from naiveté to Actual Freedom. We have started the line with naiveté, for it surely requires naiveté to not only consider that an actual freedom from the Human Condition is possible, but that you, personally, are the one who can do it. To fly in the face of the Wisdom of the Ancients – ‘to go where no man has gone before’ in Star Trek terms, as I put it in my Journal. I conveniently ignored Richard in my dramatization as I figured that the next pioneers were plotting a brand new course – avoiding the instinctual seduction of the Rock of Enlightenment that had dashed the efforts of all before. The other point about naiveté is that the spiritually cynical and the worldly cunning, by their very attitude, exclude themselves from the adventure, and this has been evidenced by the many who have met Richard, or read a bit about AF, and turned away.

For those willing to consider the possibility of an actual freedom, the next step is to garnish a pure intent – an intent to make it something one is willing to dedicate one’s life to and a purity such that one will settle for nothing less than the purity and perfection so obviously experienced in a Pure Consciousness Experience. If it is possible for a brief time it must be possible as a permanent state – purity and perfection is possible as a flesh and blood human being, it requires one’s pure intent to become a ‘self’ consuming passion in life.

As an ongoing experience one moves into a state of Virtual Freedom whereby one goes to sleep at night time knowing one has had a perfect day and that tomorrow will also be a perfect day. This perfection is not the perfection of Actual Freedom but a 99.9% perfection and the hic-ups or stumbles are so minor and brief, that they fail to daunt one on the journey. Serendipity abounds and a fascination with life activates delight and sensuousness as one does all one can to mimic the perfection and purity that becomes increasingly apparent all around in the physical world. One’s mind, more and more freed of imagination and the chemical influence of instinctual passions, is capable of great clarity, and as apperceptive awareness replaces self-centred neurosis one knows one’s days are numbered. By this total and sincere dedication to what is actual, pure and perfect, one abandons control, so to speak, whereby the very process of self-immolation is set in motion – then it is not a process that one has any control over, it is happening by itself.

The ending of ‘me’, when seen dispassionately, is the amygdala doing its survival thing – one encounters surges of chemicals from an obsolete program playing out its death throes – fighting for its very survival as it is programmed to do. This last stages of the ending of ‘me’ is both a psychic and psychological affair, thus accompanying the chemical rushes (fear) one also experiences the psychological equivalent (angst), but one is committed by now – there is no ‘back door’, no turning back, no phoenix to rise from the ashes. ‘My’ end is nigh.

However, to even get to the point where one abandons control requires a pure intent, lest one settles for second-best. Pure intent is one’s sure companion on the journey from beginning to end.

In order to make the differences between AF and the spiritual ‘ego-death’ clear we produced a second schematic that indicates the famed so called self-less state of the Buddhas and Enlightened Ones is but the result of a process of self-aggrandizement.

The diagram is on the same page as the other one. It’s a very glitzy diagram for a very glitzy transformation. I think it’s clear what happens – a shift in identity from mere mortal to Divine Immortal that is well documented in all the spiritual texts – it’s just that people are so seduced by the fantasy that they will live on ‘after their body dies’, that they are blinded to facts. An interesting and rarely acknowledged facet of the idea of God is that to have the Good one must still have Evil lurking somewhere, to have the Divine one needs the Diabolical, to have God one needs the Devil, by whatever name. The spiritual merely sublimates personal fear and aggression (the bad) for one becomes God (the good) and therefore protected by one’s own imaginary aura or cocoon of Divine Love. Again this is well documented in all the spiritual fables, in all the religious fairy stories – it is only passionate belief and the resulting blindness to facts that prevents the whole silly nonsense becoming apparent.

Ah, give me a fact any day. I was going to post ‘fact’ from the glossary but this post is getting a bit long. But it’s at the glossary under ‘fact ’, if you want a bit of bed-time reading. It’s a great piece from Richard that is a useful touchstone in the journey from ‘who I am’ to ‘what I am’. Give me a fact any day.

Well Alan, that’s about it. A couple of more schematics courtesy of the wonders of computer graphics and Vineeto’s skill. Somewhere down the track is the idea of putting together a little visual word/ picture/ schematics/ voice over?/ presentation of what we are on about. It hasn’t quite got a form yet but it may be useful in order to give a quick over-view of AF. Any feedback on the schematics is welcome. I do like it that this process is clearly describable in words, is able to be schematically represented, is substantiated by current experiences, is verifiable by scientific records and research, is repeatable in different people, from different cultures, backgrounds and gender, it has nothing to do with faith, trust, hope or belief ... and it works! And all of that is what makes it a fact.

An Actual Freedom from the Human Condition is now possible for anyone who wants it.

And peace on earth is the reward for one’s efforts.

Good Hey.