PETER: Hi Everybody,

[quote]: It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then just to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone – to relax I told myself – but I knew it wasn’t true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, ‘What is it exactly we are doing here?’

Things weren’t going so great at home either. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother’s.

I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, ‘Look, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.’ This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with the boss. ‘Sweetheart,’ I confessed, ‘I’ve been thinking ...’

‘I know you’ve been thinking,’ she said, ‘and I want a divorce!’

‘But, surely it’s not that serious.’

‘It is serious,’ she said, lower lip aquiver. ‘Your thinking too much ... if you keep on thinking we won’t have any money!’

‘That’s faulty thinking,’ I said impatiently, and she began to cry.

I’d had enough. ‘I’m going to the library,’ I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors ... they didn’t open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. ‘Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?’ it asked. You probably recognise that line. It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster.

Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video.

Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.

Life just seemed ... well easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. [endquote].

23.5.1999

PETER: Hi Everyone,

I am left wondering why theoretical physicists and cosmological mathematicians feel compelled to suppose ever more complicated theories that rely on invisible virtual particles of matter such as quantum spacetime foam, new non-sequential concepts of time such as Planck-time and new imaginary dimensions to three dimensional space. It does not make sense.

Even Darryl Reanney, an authority in microbiology and microchemistry, admits that you have to leave your common sense behind in order to follow the logic of quantum physics –

[Daryl Reanney]: Quantum mechanics is par excellence the field of science where commonsense breaks down completely. In particular, the link between cause and effect blurs. <snip> Quantum mechanics also demolishes another commonsense concept – the idea of ‘nothing’. The quantum view of ‘nothing’ is crucial to our understanding of Genesis, which require us to believe that ‘nothing is where ‘everything’ came from. <snip>

In modern physics, a vacuum is not empty – it contains spacetime. Spacetime is far from featureless. The smallest dimension at which the word ‘structure’ has meaning in contemporary physics is called the Planck length, i.e. about 1/10³⁵ of a metre. At this minute scale, the random fluctuations so characteristic of the quantum world are believed to give spacetime a highly complex ‘topology’ – a foamy texture. The nature of this spacetime foam is bizarre in the extreme. Some scientists believe that spacetime consists of a complex matrix of cross-connecting ‘wormholes’. Others liken the spacetime vacuum to a mish-mash of Planck-sized black holes jammed together. <snip> Perhaps the most starling aspect of the vacuum is that it is filled with an evanescent flux of ghostly particles called virtual particles. <snip>

It is important to remember that the vacuum is the dominant structure in the physical reality – the particle of the so-called ‘real’ world are only minor blips n this ocean of incessant virtual action with its paradoxical background of spacetime foam. Across the breadth of the cosmos, the familiar building blocks of matter are outnumbered by the infinity of come-and-go ghost particles that boil in the vacuum state. Darryl Reanney, The Death of Forever, Longman Australia, 1991, p. 145

It is apparent that this theoretical description of the universe does not make sense as it theorizes about matter and energies that are so minute as to be imperceptible to detection by any known, or any conceivable, instrumentation – i.e. you have to believe, take in good faith, what theoretical science proposes.

The reason why these theories don’t make sense in view of our everyday experience of the physical laws of nature is because those theories are purely mathematical or merely conjectural. A now-classic mathematical invention is that of cosmic Spacetime and its quantum off-spring, spacetime foam.

I will give you an example how quickly commonsense disappears when you combine space and time into a space-time continuum in mathematical calculations –

Take the following situation –

1. I am hungry now.
2. I was also hungry ten minutes ago.
3. You are also hungry now.

If you believe in a space-time continuum then space-time mathematics could well have it that you would need to order three pizzas for three hungry-people. No doubt some could argue that two real pizzas and one virtual pizza would suffice whilst others could argue that any such philosophizing would only cause the delivery to be late, thereby necessitating the need for even more pizzas for even more hungry-people.

The more I delve into the theories of cosmologists, the more gaps and blatant nonsense I find. Once I recognized that the notion of a God is the mere product of my social and instinctual identity, and that He/She/It does not exist outside of my passionate imagination, I also stopped believing in any of theories that propose a meta-physical supra-natural world.

24.5.1999

PETER: Hi Everyone,

Just a note with some more about theoretical scientists. I had dug out some relevant quotes but Richard was quicker to reply. I thought I would leave it but a recent meeting twigged me to post them anyway.

Vineeto and I were invited out to dinner recently, and after the meal the evening turned to an interesting discussion on life and the universe. We merrily talked of what is actual and they merrily talked of what is spiritual, so few alleys of conversation were pursued to any depth. The woman was particularly interested in the ‘method’ we were using and I asked her: ‘method to do what?’ As it turned out, she didn’t have an aim in life but was just interested in finding a new method per se. She was simply on a spiritual quest for methods, paths and teachers.

That conversation soon dwindled, and in an attempt to inject a bit of common sense into the evening I steered the discussion back to the actual – tapping the arm of the chair to give an illustration of what is actual. The man immediately told me it was a scientifically proven fact that the chair did not exist as the essence of matter was ethereal and constantly fluctuating between here and there – pointing over there – and as such could not be actual. Needless to say I nearly fell off my chair, literally, as what I was comfortably sitting on had magically been transported, by scientific theory and this man’s belief, over to the opposite corner of the veranda.

Which only goes to prove that believing what theoretical scientists say could be a danger to one’s health – as well as one’s sanity.

So a few quotes – from the late Darryl Reanney’s book – The Death of Forever – A New Future for Human Consciousness. Longman 1991

While his teaching background is microbiology and biochemistry he draws on a broad range of theoretical sciences to substantiate his vision in understandable form. As such, he reveals much that is usually ‘hidden’ from the lay person by scientific jargon and bewildering mathematical complexity.

[Daryl Reanney]: Now, however, we reach the threshold of the truly mysterious, for we must look to the far reaches of physics, to the paradox-ridden realms of the very small and the very large. There await us bejewelled creatures, strange beyond dreaming, that are born of the highest faculties of the human mind. In this mirror, we will see almost nothing we recognize. Does this mean that we are abandoning reality for illusion? Not at all: we are doing just the reverse. In reaching this far into the realm of the invisible, away from the homely metaphors of everyday life, we are approaching reality. We must not complain if we find it strange. Indeed, it is this very strangeness that tells us that we are ‘on the right track’. When science was young common sense was our guide. The model of the world we built up from new discoveries was based on familiar objects – clocks, pistons, billiard balls. As science has progressed through its great conceptual revolutions – relativity, quantum mechanics, super symmetry – its discoveries have become more exotic, more remote from everyday experience. Easily recognizable images based on familiar things have given way to abstract theorems which tell of particles moving backwards in time, of a universe structured in eleven dimensions and so on. During this process, the status of common sense has been inverted: no longer our guide in the search for truth, it has become our adversary. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 138

Hard to even make a comment on that one, given that science is reaching far into the realms of the invisible – and apparently the realms of the unmeasurable – exotic imagination runs riot in the search for the truth.

[Daryl Reanney]: Mathematics is like a fishing line which we can cast into the future by virtue of its logical coherence and predicative power. When we analyze the cargo of information it brings back into the present, we find ourselves struggling to understand concepts for which there are no words, no images, no layers of reinforced experience. What we see in these mathematical cryptograms are signals from the future which our brains, at this verbal, ego-self stage of their evolution, cannot hope to comprehend. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 140

No words for the truth as we try to interpret the signals from the future? No words to describe the truth from the further shore?

[Daryl Reanney]: ... quantum mechanics is par excellence the field of science where commonsense breaks down completely. In particular, the link between cause and effect blurs. In our everyday world of ordinary experience, we take it for granted that a ball will not move unless some force (like a kick) is imparted to it. In the micro world of the quantum, an electron on one side of a barrier can simply ‘reappear’ on the other, without physically ‘moving’ – an effect called quantum tunnelling. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 145

Now we get to the crux of the matter as to why I nearly fell off my chair – it was being ‘quantum tunnelled’ at the time. In a bid to inject a degree of common sense (?) into this I’ll risk a quote from Paul Davies about Quantum Theory.

[Paul Davies]: ‘The basis of this theory is that in nature there is an inherent uncertainty or unpredictability that manifests itself only on an atomic scale. For example, the position of a subatomic particle such as an electron may not be a well-defined concept at all; it should be envisaged as jiggling around in a random sort of a way. Energy, too, becomes a slightly nebulous concept, subject to capricious and unpredictable changes.’ – ‘The Edge of Infinity’ ... Beyond the Black Hole. Penguin, p 90

Now, if we note the word theory and Mr. Davies words ‘... only on an atomic scale ..., ... may not be ..., ... should be envisaged ..., ... slightly nebulous ...,’ then I am quite happy for them to imagine, invasive and theorize for all they will, as long as the chair doesn’t fly across the room and the coffee cup becomes so nebulous that it can’t hold coffee. It is a far, far stretch from Mr. Davies description of the ‘theory of things so small that we can’t actually substantiate them’ to the fantasies of Mr. Reanney and the Mystics. They are frantically clutching at straws in order to turn the actual into an illusion, the substantial into the insubstantial, the obvious into the apparent, the material into the ethereal – in short to escape from this actual world, as evidenced by the senses into ‘another’ world of imagination.

[Daryl Reanney]: Quantum mechanics also demolishes another commonsense concept – the idea of ‘nothing’. The quantum view of ‘nothing’ is crucial to our understanding of Genesis, which requires us to believe that ‘nothing’ is where ‘everything’ came from. <snip> D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 145

It is important to remember that the vacuum is the dominant structure in physical reality – the particles of the so-called ‘real’ world are only minor blips in this ocean of incessant virtual action, with its paradoxical background of spacetime foam. Across the breadth of the cosmos, the familiar building blocks of matter are outnumbered by the infinity of come-and-go ghost particles that boil in the vacuum state.

The almost unthinkable amount of energy locked up in the quantum vacuum may turn out to be the key that unlocks the penultimate secrets of Genesis. If a bulb of vacuum contains enough energy to destroy a universe, surely something equally small must contain enough energy to create one, under the right circumstances. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 146

[Daryl Reanney]: As the cosmos shrinks beyond atomic dimensions, the matter it contains will become dense beyond imagination and the radius of spacetime will contract towards zero. At its ultimate limit, this process leads to a spacetime singularity in which the curvature of spacetime becomes infinite, enfolding in its vanished embrace a universe of imploded matter. Like an image fading in the mind of God, reality itself dies and the sum of all things ceases to be.

Some faint hint of what this means can be garnered from an examination of Figure 7.2, which shows that an ordinary black hole is smoothly connected to the ‘flat’ spacetime structure of the surrounding universe. It is this matrix of surrounding spacetime that enables science to measure properties of black holes such as mass. However, if the cosmos is closed, everything is ‘inside’ a black hole. Thus, as the cosmos implodes inwards, there is absolutely no frame of reference to serve as a guide.

Here, then, is the Shiva of cosmology, the destroyer of worlds. Nothing can survive transit through a singularity. The spacetime fabric with its embedded ‘memories’ of past events (in which billions of human lives lie encrystallised) is annihilated. The fine structure of matter, everything which gives form to physics, is unremittingly ‘ground out of existence’. By this, I do not simply mean that it is destroyed in a physical sense, overwhelmed by the colossal tides of gravity: rather, infinitely warped spacetime sunders us completely from anything that might have gone ‘before’, just as it does from anything that might come ‘after’. The present incarnation of the cosmos can never remember its parents (if there were any) or transmit a legacy to its children (if it has any). D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, pp. 148-9

What to say? It appears that cosmology has invented the lot. The cataclysmic ‘end’ of the world, the black hole of hell, the ‘parallel’ universes as in levels of consciousness and reincarnation on a universal scale!

I guess we will soon see a rash of Past-Universe Therapies for the ‘therapeutically under-nourished’. Alan, if you ever get to this side of the world we could make a bob or two running ‘Meet the other-you’ sessions. We could connect people to their other selves that exist in parallel universes. We could issue certificates to people who could wave them at their partners or the police and say ‘It wasn’t me – It was the me that is now in a parallel universe that did it!’

Could be a winner ...

[Daryl Reanney]: In order to bring spacetime back into the realm of physics, Hawking is forced to abandon ‘real’ numbers and use ‘imaginary’ ones. Real numbers give a positive quantity when multiplied by themselves; pure imaginary numbers give negative values when multiplied by themselves. The special virtue of imaginary numbers in this context is that they cause the distinction between space and time to disappear. This makes it possible to use Euclidean geometry to build models of the cosmos because, in this representation, time has no privileged status. <snip> Hawking defends the use of imaginary numbers on the grounds that it is ‘merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real space-time’. However, the universe we live in exists in real time. Hawking’s model predicts that in real time, ‘it [the universe] would collapse again into what looks like a singularity in real time. Thus, in a sense, we are still all doomed, even if we keep away from black holes’. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 154

Does that also mean that if somehow we could all manage to avoid living in ‘real’ time and hang out in ‘imaginary’ time we would avoid being ‘doomed’ and avoid the black hole? Having invented black holes – a mathematical supposition given credence by the discovery of some, as yet, unexplained observational irregularities in the vast depths of space, the theoreticians are indeed having a field day. I find it telling that the scientists have to resort to fanciful speculation as they approach ‘nothing’, the subatomic where mass (as in substantially evident) disappears; and when they explore the ‘vast’ – the more distant (as in substantially evident) realms of the infinite universe.

[Daryl Reanney]: Some years ago, Stephen Hawking was elected to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University, the chair once occupied by Isaac Newton. Hawking’s inaugural lecture had the ambitious title ‘Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?’ That is, Hawking was suggesting that science was close to accomplishing its ultimate goal – the unification of all the laws of physics into one coherent, consistent framework which would define and encompass the whole of reality. Such a unified scheme would not just ‘represent’ truth in some abstract way, it would in an important sense be truth. By now, this should not surprise us. As we have seen, the homely metaphors of commonsense and everyday life offer us no guidance when we look at the bewildering cosmos in which we find ourselves. Only mathematics, in whose code nature writes her secrets, can tell us what is ‘real’. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 156

It comes as no surprise that science is firmly rooted in mysticism, shamanism and alchemy and steeped in the search for the meaning of life. It has been a bare few centuries since science has very hesitantly emerged from the control of the church in Europe. Galileo was forced to publicly recant his finding that the earth orbited the sun because it did not fit with the flat-earth version of the universe described in Genesis. Nowadays we have the ability to eliminate many hereditary diseases with the simple manipulation of genetic codes but research has been curtailed as ‘unethical’ – religion still reigns supreme. One should not meddle with ‘Mother Nature’ or God, or whatever – or there will be Hell to pay!

Well, I’m busy meddling with Mother Nature’s implanted instincts – and the rewards are extraordinary. Those who think genetic engineering is the answer to the human dilemma ignore the stranglehold that morals and ethics have on the Human Condition. Better to get on with the job yourself – neither God nor science will be of help.

Well there are a few more quotes so I will just tootle on and finish ...

[Daryl Reanney]: As Fred Allen Wolf says in Parallel Universes:

[Fred Allen Wolf]: The past, present, and future exist side by side. If we were totally able to ‘marry’ corresponding times each and every moment of our time-bound existences, there would indeed be no sense of time and we would all realize the timeless state, which is taken to be our true or base state of reality by many spiritual practices. [endquote].

Through mathematics and experiment, we have deduced the existence of a fourth spacetime dimension but we do not experience it as it is. We see it in glimpses, strangely fractured into ever-dissolving, non-dimensional planes called ‘now’.

We know this is less-than-perfect because our reality is locked into fiction – this Dali-esque ‘now you see it, now its gone’ trick-state called the present. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 203

It would seem to me that Mr. Einstein’s greatest contribution to physics is to theoretically propose ‘another’ dimension – space-time – which gave validity to the mystics ‘other’ dimension. Interestingly after the publication of his theory it was Herman Minkowski who offered a geometric picture of this new spacetime and it was only reluctantly that Albert accepted it. On my reading he seemed wary of the many extrapolations that resulted from his theory but by then Fame and Fortune were his for the basking in. Mr. Hawkings recently added imaginary time to the space-time dimension and ‘Bingo’, the theoreticians have completed the scenario of the actual being illusionary – both in matter and space, as well as time.

[Daryl Reanney]: At this stage in the evolution of our minds, our experience of reality is like that of the shadow, a limited, impoverished ghost-image projected into the three-dimensions of our present (average) mode of consciousness by the invisible (to us) four-dimensional ‘truth structure’ that lies beyond and behind it, extended in time as we are extended in space. I cannot stress too strongly that it is this four-dimensional truth structure which is the universe’s reality. What we call objective reality, our everyday commonsense world, is but a dim phantom construct of the timeless hyperstructure that exists, in or perhaps as, the ‘mind of God’, to use religious imagery. Yet, just as our present three-dimensional state of consciousness evolved from the one dimensional mode of our remote ancestors, so there is abundant evidence that the four-dimensional mode is struggling to be born in the homo sapiens species at this human moment in the cosmic story. We are almost there.

Whether a four-dimensional state of consciousness is the ultimate truth of the universe or whether beyond this lie higher states of being that extend into an infinitely rich, multi-dimensional hyperspace and hypertime we do not know. One day our descendants may. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 205

Having ‘confirmed’ that matter, space and time are illusionary we then have to evolve to a four-dimensional state of consciousness to access the ultimate truth. This theory gels so neatly with the mystical Altered State of Consciousness or Higher Consciousness as to make a mockery of theoretical mathematics, physics and cosmology.

[Daryl Reanney]: I find it fascinating that Hawking himself recognizes that his use of imaginary time, far from being a ruse or trick, may in fact be a door to a higher order of insight. Listen to his own words:

[Stephen Hawking]: ‘This might suggest that the so-called imaginary time is really the real time and that what we call real time is just a figment of our imaginations. In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down. But in imaginary time, there are no singularities or boundaries. So maybe what we call imaginary time is really more basic, and what we call real is just an idea that we invent to help us describe what we think the universe is like.’ [endquote].

This goes to the heart of the matter for the defining quality of the inner eye in its most highly evolved forms is that it can ‘see’ the deepest hidden structures of reality without impediment. If timeless-ness is an authentic feature of consciousness – and the evidence I have summarized in this book very strongly suggests that it is – then consciousness may just as well ‘exist’ in what the mathematicians call ‘imaginary’ time as in ‘real’ time. Indeed, it may be precisely because the ego-self lives in real time that it ‘knows’ death while it may be precisely because consciousness lives in imaginary time that it ‘knows’ eternity. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 207

And just to round off, the late Mr. Reanney managed to convince himself – with the help of theoretical science – that his consciousness is eternal. Of course, he will not be reporting back from the fourth dimension as no information can cross the space-time ‘boundary’ at a black hole or a naked singularity. Thus this theoretical (and mystical) forth-dimension will remain forever ‘unknown’ to mortal man in his state of ‘lower’ consciousness.

Well enough twaddle – time to kick back for a coffee and couch in three dimensions.

There is a ‘high probability’ that the couch is still where I left it, and the coffee is still in the jar. There is a lot to be said for what is actual and that’s a few more words for the case for the affirmative.

28.5.1999

PETER: Hi Everyone,

Just a bit more from the meta-physicians of mathematics, theoretical physics and cosmology. I thought I would post some quotes on the subject of infinity as they reveal much about the tortured imagination of the human mind. Imaginative flights of fantasy, such as we see in children’s fairy stories, are well documented, fervently believed in, passionately defended and financially well supported in the ‘adult’ worlds of science, religion and philosophy. Much convoluted and twisted thinking has gone into making up stories about ‘what lies beyond’ – whether it be beyond the stars in the physical world, or beyond death in the spiritual world. The theoretical scientists realm is supposedly that of the physical world but when they encounter infinity – the fact that this physical universe has no limit, no ‘outside’, no edges, nothing ‘beyond’ – they eagerly succumb to the spiritual or ethereal.

I remember, it was a stunning realization when I contemplated on the fact that the universe is infinite. No outside ... this is it. And I am nowhere in particular – there is no bottom left-hand corner in infinite space. And there is no room for God.

I had had previous glimpses of the infinitude of the universe while sleeping out at night in the desert when the stars alone were as bright as a coastal full moon night. Or the evening when we stopped to camp and sat out on deckchairs to watch the sunset. As the sun was setting to a huge golden-red ball I turned to see the moon rising behind me – an equal sized golden-red ball on the opposite horizon. What a sight, I didn’t know which way to look, such was the magnificence of it all.

The actual leaves any paltry imagination for dead.

So, on to some quotes from – Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, Beyond the Black Hole, Penguin 1994, Chapter 2 – Measuring the Infinite

[Paul Davies]: In science, however, infinity is frequently encountered, sometimes with dismay. Long ago mathematicians began attempts to get the measure of the infinite and to discover rules which would enable infinity to join the ranks of other mathematical objects as a well understood and disciplined logical concept. <snip>

Even in science, for many purposes, infinity is only an idealization for a quantity which is actually so large that to treat it as strictly infinite involves negligible error. From time to time, though, the appearance of infinity in a physical theory denotes something much more dramatic – the end of either the theory, or the subject of its description. This is the case with spacetime singularities. There we are brought face to face with infinity, and it seems to be telling us something profound: that we have reached the end of the universe. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 22

The ‘end of the universe’, in spacetime terms, is an illusion built upon an illusion. Spacetime is an imaginary ‘other dimension’ invented by Mr. Einstein – so whatever is theorized to happen in spacetime is twice removed from the actual universe (with actual time and actual space) that we live in. All this nonsense is based on the stubborn and instinctual fear of acknowledging the fact that the physical universe is infinite and eternal – no other worlds, no other place, no other dimensions.

[Paul Davies]: None of the results quoted will be rigorously proved, for the proofs would require many years study of advanced mathematics to comprehend. It is important to realize that the subject of discussion is not a theory about the world, but mathematics. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

A little disclaimer he slips in here but then proceeds to apply his mathematical theories to the real world – predicting the existence of black holes and singularities in the physical universe despite a stunning lack of any factual evidence.

[Paul Davies]: Given the fundamental axioms on which all mathematics ultimately rest, the results are therefore correct, beyond any possibility of doubt, as all the proofs rest on concrete and universally accepted logic. This point is stressed because the results often seem impossible to believe; yet they are true. We shall see that measuring infinity can be a very strange experience indeed. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

‘... impossible to believe, yet they are true’. ‘True’ is a word that is currently so abused as to be useless. Christians believe the virgin birth was true, NDA-followers believe that inert planets hurtling through space affects their moods and behaviour, Trekkies believe in Warp-speed and wormholes, and Mr. Davies believes in an edge to the infinite universe. Strange tales, but ‘true’ ...?

[Paul Davies]: The first step on the road to infinity is to discard any ideas about ‘very, very large’. Infinity is larger than any number, however large that number may be – and there is no limit to numbers. We shall see that not only is infinity beyond all limits, but is, in a sense, so large that it is almost impossible to make it larger. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

I hate to quibble about words, but Mr. Oxford says of infinity –

‘Having no limit or end; boundless, endless; immeasurably great in extent, duration, degree, etc’. Oxford Talking Dictionary

So how is it almost impossible to make it larger? Could it be by inventing a plug hole in the middle – a black hole – so we can all disappear down there one day? Or how about a hole that ‘new stuff’ comes flowing in one day? Of course, you would have to bend space a bit around the holes but ... then again ... why not? It is just a theory after all ... truly ... honestly ...

[Paul Davies]: [The concept of infinity] in 1600 even contributed to the death sentence passed on Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Church. Bruno had declared a belief in the infinity of worlds, against the established doctrine that only God was infinite. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

How not to win friends in the church. Mr. Davies has no such trouble, as he collected a cool million dollars in 1995 for the ‘Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion’.

[Paul Davies]: Many people first encounter the idea of infinity when thinking about the universe. Does it extend for ever? If space is not unlimited in extent, does that not mean that there exists a barrier somewhere – in which case the barrier must lie beyond, and something beyond that ...? Another question, frequently asked by children, is of the ‘what happened before that’ variety. It seems that every event must have been preceded by some cause, and every elapsed moment must have come after an earlier moment. We shall see that the answers to these questions can be bewilderingly different from the obvious. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

Questions ‘frequently asked by children’ and adult cosmologists? Answers provided by science fiction writers and cosmologists – if there is a difference between the two. The only difference between Paul Davies and George Lucas is that one writes science fiction books and the other makes science fiction movies.

As for the cosmological ‘answers’ – beyond the stars we see from earth have come pictures of vast nebula thousands of light years across, fantastic arrays of particles, rocks, gases, storms, eruptions, explosions, lights, clouds. All actual – requiring no imagination. All obvious – raising no question. All perfect – requiring no solution.

[Paul Davies]: If the infinity of all even numbers is as numerous as all the even and odd numbers together, it looks, crudely speaking, as though doubling infinity still leaves us with the same infinity. Moreover, it is easily shown that trebling, quadrupling or any higher multiplication of infinity has equally little effect. In fact, even if we multiply infinity by infinity itself it still stubbornly refuses to grow any larger. The square of infinity is only as numerous as the natural numbers. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 27

[Paul Davies]: Cantor’s great discovery was that the set of all decimals (i.e. all rational and irrational numbers) is a bigger infinity than the set of all fractions (i.e. rational numbers alone). These issues may appear to be mathematical quibbles, but they run very deep. Centuries of groping towards a proper understanding of time, space, order, number and topology lie behind the work of Cantor and others to grasp the infinite as an actual, concrete concept. Some of the greatest minds in human history have foundered on the rock of the infinite. Few ideas can have so challenged man’s intellect. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 32

[Paul Davies]: Measuring the infinite must rank as one of the greatest enterprises of the human intellect, comparable with the most magnificent forms of art or music. Mathematics, ‘eternal and perfect’ in the words of Lord Bertrand Russell, can be used to build structures more beautiful and satisfying than any sculpture. Yet Cantor’s edifice of infinity – ‘a paradise from which no one will drive us’, as his contemporary David Hilbert was moved to say – took its toll. Grappling with the infinite evidently proved such disconcerting experience that when the respected mathematician Leopold Kronecker pronounced Cantor’s work on set theory as ‘mathematically insane’, he seems to have struck a raw nerve. Cantor suffered several nervous breakdowns, and eventually died in a mental hospital in 1918. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 37

Yep, insanity and madness prevail. And the passion and fervour of Holy Mathematics is indicated by the phrase – ‘a paradise from which no one will drive us’. Their search for God, ‘eternal and perfect’, involves trust, faith and belief in concepts that are held to be truths, all firmly based on the quick-sand of imagination. An imagined new dimension – spacetime that bends, folds and warps, that has holes and peaks; an imagined time that can run backwards, split into two or more and even loop the loop, imaginary numbers that are unreal, irrational and illogical; imaginary matter that is negative, uncertain, anti or virtual, particle and/or wave or even string-like.

And from this mish mash come theories which are ... ‘impossible to believe, yet they are true’.

‘True’ they may be called, but factual they are not – nobody has found a black hole, or a worm hole, let alone a naked singularity! It was nuclear chemists and engineers who developed nuclear energy and the bomb. According to the book,

[Robert Jungk]: ‘Einstein assured the American reporter W. L. Lawrence that he did not believe in the release of atomic power’, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns by Robert Jungk – as late as 1939

i.e. he didn’t think it was possible. Further, Edward Teller states

[Edward Teller]: ‘I believe at the time he had no very clear idea of what we were doing in nuclear physics’. Edward Teller

The Americans got to the moon with Newtonian physics and engineering, not Einsteinian theory.

[Paul Davies]: Einstein’s general theory of relativity is regarded by many as the supreme intellectual achievement of the human species; certainly it surpasses Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory in elegance, economy and scope. <snip> Yet Einstein’s theory leads irresistibly to a singularity, to unbounded gravitational collapse. It is frequently proposed that the theory should be abandoned in the face of this absurdity. <snip> Tinkering with this great edifice of descriptive and predictive power in order to alleviate the singularity crisis seems like a ‘cop-out’. It was not the way out in 1911, and it would be surprising if it were the solution today. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, pp. 176-7

The more I read and understand Mr. Einstein, the more mystical and Guru-like he becomes.

It’s all mythical tales and wishful thinking of anywhere but here, and anytime but now. Anything to avoid the fact that we are mortal and that neither goodness nor Godness can make us happy and harmless. Anything to avoid the instinctually-sourced malice and sorrow of the Human Condition. Anything to avoid the fact that this is the only moment one can experience being alive. Anything to avoid being here and now in this very actual world, happening at this very moment.

What a waste to bury one’s head in the sand or in the clouds when what is actual is perfect, benign, delightful, magnificent, tangible, tactile, tasty, vibrant, alive, immediate and right here on this planet.

And it is the destiny of all committed actualists to experience this actuality 24 hrs. a day, every day. To sacrifice one’s self – to psychologically and psychically self-immolate, in order that the perfection and purity of the infinitude of the physical universe can become actualized in a human being.

In order that the universe can experience itself as a human being.

Good, Hey.

20.6.1999

PETER: Hi Alan, hi Mark,

A post firstly about something Alan wrote that particularly ‘pricked up my ears’.

ALAN: And, to insert a quick ‘plug’ for the benefits of virtual freedom, even if one does not go all the way. At a time considered to be the most stressful there can be in a persons life – selling a house, selling (or closing) a business and a likely break up of a marriage – here I am, enjoying every moment and delighting in the experience of being alive – I thoroughly recommend it.

PETER: Yes, indeed – this is what it is all about. This is why we delve into beliefs, explore feelings and emotions, contemplate upon the Human Condition, and dare to be different. The practical, down-to-earth results in everyday living – for what else is there? The whole aim of the exercise is to become actually free of malice and sorrow – to become happy and harmless. And this is done incrementally, bit by bit, and the results come incrementally, bit by bit. The ‘events’, realizations, wobbles, etc. are then seen for what they are – interesting by-products of coming closer to a sensible and sensate experiencing of the ‘main event’ – that which is happening right now. There is no suffering on the path – anything that occurs in the head or heart is but the consequence of daring to devote oneself to becoming free. While the challenges may seem daunting on occasions, the rewards for stubborn persistence are abundantly apparent in the increased ease and delight in everyday life. It is this everyday happiness and harmlessness that gives one the confidence to pursue the unimaginable – the living of the Pure Consciousness Experience 24 hours a day, every day.

It reminds me that whenever I have written, or said to anyone, that one of the reasons I abandoned the spiritual world was ‘that I did not like how the ‘Enlightened Ones’ were with their women, I didn’t like their lifestyle, and I didn’t like how they were with each other! ’ – I have had no response. Sort of a blank look, as though – ‘What is he on about?’ The Divine Status of the Gurus apparently exempts them from regarding and treating their fellow human beings as exactly that – fellow human beings. This superior and ‘Holier than thou’ attitude also permeates into the minds and hearts of their disciples as they worship, idolize and attempt to emulate the Gurus. Why do humans persistently worship the elite few God-men as having achieved the pinnacle of human achievement yet persistently ignore their ‘personal’ lives and behaviour when ‘off stage’. There is no ‘on-stage’ and ‘off-stage’ in actualism, there is no divine life and secular life, there is no other place or other life – be a past life, a next life or a life beyond physical death.

Actualism is 180 degrees opposite to the spiritual escapism and, as such, I was delighted to read of your experiences, Alan. They accord with my own everyday experiences and are evidence of the success being reported by the handful involved at the moment.

Mark summed up the success he is having compared with his years in the spiritual world so well recently, and it is well worth repeating what he wrote –

[Mark to Alan]: Yes, my reference in this case to love and compassion should have been ‘Love and Compassion’. From my viewpoint at this point in the journey I must be aware of any ‘good’ behaviour and its origins, for I do experience a growing feeling of altruism and ... it is the type of feeling that one in the spiritual paradigm ‘tries’ to ‘generate’ and ‘nurture’ through ‘feelings’ of love and compassion. So, here I am arriving at a place (genuine goodwill towards fellow humans as opposed to a managed, ‘being loving’ discipline) for which I was searching for 20 years or more on the spiritual path of love and compassion, and arriving here by giving up all feelings of love and compassion. So, spooky in that I arrive by going 180 degrees in the opposite direction to what is collectively perceived to be the best way to get there. Understandable in that as ‘self’ disappears, purity is that which is left, evident in a PCE. Mark to Alan, 14.6.1999

This is written by someone with 20 years experience on the spiritual path – an experiential understanding of the significance of those three words, ‘fellow human beings’. Whomever you meet is simply a fellow human being – and one finds oneself increasingly regarding and treating others as such on the path to freedom from malice and sorrow.

Those three words – ‘fellow human beings’ – are the very key to peace on this planet and it will eventuate incrementally as more and more people have the experiential understanding that Mark has written of.

Other than spiritual and religious morality the ‘best’ that Humanity has come up with in order attempt to bring some semblance of ‘civilized’ behaviour to the planet is the ethical concept of Human Rights. Human Rights do naught but enshrine the differences and separateness in noble moral and ethical codes that are not only unliveable but actively perpetuate the continuation of division, conflict and war – an endless fight for one’s Rights, and the endless despair at having them ‘denied’ by others who are fighting for their Rights. One man’s God is but another man’s Devil. What is right for one is wrong for another. Justice for one means that someone else has to have revenge wrought upon him or her. Retaining one’s ‘heritage’ means retaining the prejudices, superstitions, ‘hurts’ and angers of one’s parents and tribe. The concept of Human Rights is a well-meaning, but futile, attempt to force human beings to try and stop the instinctual urge to kill each other. ‘Twill never bring peace and harmony.

So Mark, you have ‘hit the nail upon the head’ in your seeing through the failure of the ideals of Love and Compassion in the spiritual/religious world. It is, after all, no different to the love and compassion that continuously fails in the real world. All are but failed attempts to ‘keep the lid’ on the animal within us. The only way to peace and harmony is to get rid of the animal in us completely and Actual Freedom does just that.

Actual Freedom heralds the beginning of peace on earth for human beings, an end to the appalling suffering, violence, oppression, corruption and despair. An end to all the wars, ethnic cleansing, sectarian troubles, fights for Rights, revenges, genocides, repressions, rapes, murders and suicides. One at a time, we will step out of that real world and leave our ‘selves’ behind. Fear and aggression – the animal survival instincts of a dog-eat-dog world – are now redundant for modern human beings. They need to be eliminated in order that we can begin to treat each other as fellow human beings and not as ‘friends’ or ‘enemies’ in a perpetual battle for succour, security and survival.

It’s such a buzz to get to the bottom of what it is that ails the Human Condition.

To see that it is naught but the ‘self’-centred survival instinct that is at the root of sorrow and malice and to set about eliminating it in oneself.

What an amazing time to be alive ...

*

P.S. I’m running on a new mail program, so I will send the background to this message later – maybe in a few days when I have sorted things out a bit...!

19.8.1999

PETER: Hi all,

I was doing a bit of editing in the Glossary the other day and came across some definitions that I thought was particularly pertinent to the discussions on the list. Most of the people I have talked to about Actual Freedom seem to have no idea what constitutes a belief and what constitutes a fact. Often I would enter into a conversation and find that the person had absolutely no idea of the difference between a belief and a fact. They would insist that something was true, the Truth, ‘my’ truth, they ‘felt’ it to be so, it was their understanding, they heard it was so, etc. and that was good enough for them. When I pointed out that other people of different cultures, spiritual or religious leanings, political or social views held differing views and these differences were the source of confusion, confrontation, conflict, persecution and warfare, I was met with bewilderment. Nobody was willing to admit that their own particular cherished views and understandings were beliefs. It is always the same – I’m right and the others are wrong, my God or Guru is the only God or Guru and everyone else has beliefs – not me!

According to the Red Cross over 1 billion people have been directly affected by war or armed conflicts in the last 20 years. ‘Affected by’ includes death, being maimed, tortured, raped, imprisoned, displaced, losing family members, possessions, homes, etc. The vast majority of these wars and armed conflicts are fought over religious, spiritual, tribal, ethical, moral and political beliefs – dearly held and dearly fought over beliefs!

Those people who have been, or continue to be, on the spiritual path are those least likely to actively challenge their beliefs for they have been indoctrinated and taught to value belief over fact and they further hobble themselves with faith, trust, hope and loyalty as well. A potent, and very often, lethal mix.

So here’s a bit on belief –

belief – that which is believed, an accepted opinion. Conviction of the truth or reality of a thing, based on insufficient grounds to afford positive knowledge. Confidence, faith, trust. A Religious tenet or tenets. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: To believe means ‘fervently wish to be true’. The action of believing is to emotionally imagine, or fervently wish, something to be real that is not actual – actual, as in tangible, corporeal, material, definitive, present, obvious, evident, current, substantial, physical and palpable. A belief is an assumption, a notion, a proposition, an idea that requires faith, trust or hope to sustain in the face of doubt, uncertainty and lack of factual evidence. Whereas a fact is a fact, demonstratively evident to all that it is actual and/or that it works.

Many beliefs are masqueraded as ‘truths’ or are merely accepted as facts in lieu of any serious scrutiny, or are protected by the blatant and stubborn refusal to question the facticity of that which is ‘dearly held’ to be true. Simply because everybody believes something to be true doesn’t make it a fact. At some stage in history everybody believed the sun went around the earth and that the earth was flat, but both notions, believed and accepted as ‘true’ at the time, have turned out to be mere beliefs.

Indeed, what is esteemed as ‘Ancient Wisdom’ is a literal plethora of beliefs, ‘truths’, superstitions, myths, opinions, assumptions, theories and misconceptions that require active scrutiny and intelligent investigation by anyone who sincerely wants to become free of the Human Condition. After all, the very charter of the Human Condition is firmly based on, and rooted in, this same ‘Ancient Wisdom’.

It does take immense courage to stand on one’s own two feet, to stop believing what others tell you are facts, ‘truths’ or the ‘Truth’ and start investigating for yourself – to ascertain and distinguish between fact and belief.

A belief is an emotion-backed thought – made to appear real or true only by ‘my’ emotional support for the belief, by ‘my’ passionate feelings, intuition and imagination. As such, ‘I’ fervently wish many beliefs to be true, none more so than the belief in a metaphysical world with its implied promise of an after-life for ‘me’.

It is no wonder that all sorts of meta-physical beliefs permeate every corner of human thinking and wisdom, and that these beliefs are so passionately defended. People actually kill each other and sacrifice their lives for their beliefs. People kill and die for their God and their Country. We are instinctually programmed to sacrifice ourselves for what we perceive to be the ‘good’ of the particular tribe we are in. One tribe’s God becomes another tribe’s Devil and, as such, horrendous religious wars, conflicts, persecutions, repressions and tortures are fought over the spreading or defending of particular beliefs.

Who ‘I’ think I am as a social being is nothing more than the opinions, values and beliefs of others – my parents and those of my parent’s generation, which in turn came from their parents, and so on and so-on, back into the dim dark ages of the cave-men and cave-women. These very beliefs are what ‘I’ am made of – they form the very substance of ‘my’ social identity. The reluctance, fear and stubborn refusal to question and investigate beliefs can be sheeted home to this crucial fact – to question one’s beliefs is to question one’s very ‘self’. To replace a belief with a fact is to eliminate a piece of one’s ‘self’.

The very act of believing supports and sustains ‘my’ very existence for ‘I’ have no existence in actuality. ‘I’ am an impostor, an alien, a usurper and an illusion. However, the effects of this psychological and psychic entity are very real in that it results in feelings of sadness, loneliness and despair, not to mention anger, resentment and hate. Only by challenging the very act of believing itself, can one actively dismantle and eliminate all of the beliefs that ‘I’ hold so dearly. It needs a full-blooded commitment to eliminate belief and acknowledge fact in order to free oneself from malice and sorrow.

The physical universe simply is perfect, pristine, pure, infinite, and happening this very moment – it requires no belief, faith, hope or trust that this is the case. Human beings have just been programmed into believing that this is not so. This programming consists of the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire that we are born with, overlaid with the beliefs we have been indoctrinated with since birth – in total called the Human Condition. Further the advice of parents, teachers, priests, gurus, philosophers – indeed all of the human Wisdom – is founded on the belief that you can’t change Human Nature. Not only is life on earth a sick joke, but there is no cure possible – the Mother of all beliefs!

If one is to become actually free of the Human Condition, in its entirety, then it is imperative to find out for oneself the facts, rather than merely perpetuate believing, to sort out what is silly and what is sensible rather than merely accept what others say is right or wrong, good or bad. Then, and only then, can one discover and sensately experience the fact of the delight, ease, magic and perfection of the actual world.

Actual Freedom is not a belief, it is a fact. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary, Belief

And now ‘fact’ from the glossary which is from a Richard post that I particularly liked. The comment on intimacy is so glaringly obvious as to shake to the very core anyone attempting to live in a ‘relationship’ with another human being. If 1 billion people affected by war and armed conflict is not enough to make us question beliefs, maybe the conflicts that occur in our very own homes will.

It will make it a long post ... but you do get quality with your quantity –

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 Glossary, Fact

As you can see, you can’t have beliefs and be harmless and you can’t have beliefs and regard and treat others as fellow human beings. It’s a simple choice and one that defines and identifies an actualist.

An actualist is a relentless pursuer of what is factual and what is actual.

So that’s it. Just another attempt to encourage, cajole, tickle, lure, entice, beguile and seduce others to stop believing and start looking at the facts of life, the universe and what it is to be a human being – in 1999.

24.12.1999

PETER: Hi Everybody,

I thought to post the latest article I have penned for the local spiritual magazine. I didn’t write one for their last issue as I found it a bit difficult to water the facts down sufficiently in order that the perpetual pursuers of Truth would consider publishing it. But the editor gave me a ring the other day asking if I would write another article for the next issue. He said that ‘people really like my writing’, so I asked him did he want me to pursue the theme thread of instinctual passions a bit more. There was a silence on the end of the phone and when I questioned further it was obvious that he hadn’t really understood what I had been trying to say at all. Musing about it later I wondered what I could write that would make any sense to any reader of a New Dark Age magazine. When I sat down to write, what came out was obviously influenced by those wonderful social and religious commentators of the 60’s and 70’s – Monty Python – who I had just happened to have been watching on television the evening before.

Any serious or thoughtful consideration of the Human Condition is obviously lost on the folks from La-La Land, so I decided to write a bit of millennium humour. It’s hard to send ‘up’ those who are already so far ‘up and away’ – there is only one thing madder than the ‘real’ world and that’s the ‘spiritual’ world – but I gave it my best shot anyway ...

Proposed Article for the NDA magazine ...

[Peter]: Austradamus’s New Millennium Predictions

Well, now that the Millennium has passed and the end of the world didn’t happen, the usual air of gloom-now and doom-soon should reform and settle over the planet. The reason for this on-going existential human predicament can be gleaned from the fascinating insights of a little known prophet called Austradamus who lives in seclusion in the sub-tropical rainforest, just inland of Byron.

Born some 2,000 to 3,000 years ago from the miraculous union of Buddha’s mum who was travelling through at the time and a Persian fellow named Ugh or Urr – the bark scrolls are a bit white ant-ridden at this point – he lived a typical Guru’s life and upon death went off astral back-packing for hundreds of centuries. He has recently re-incarnated to settle down to a leisurely semi-retirement on earth. His newly penned and Self-published book, called Austrababbles, chronicles not only his miraculous earthly life and his subsequent visit and adventures on the Further Shore, but also offers a tantalizing preview of this next millennium of human existence.

Having come across his book recently, I thought it would be fun to visit him and check out his current earthly manifestation. I tried in vain over several long sittings to tune into his vibrations to contact him for an appointment and finally out of desperation tried the dolphin frequencies. Going deeper and deeper, suddenly there was a distinct sound of Om Shanti Om in a broad Australian-dolphinese accent. Waiting until the incantations finished, I introduced myself and asked if we could meet for an interview. He was most reluctant until I mentioned the possibility of an article reviewing his book in ‘Here and Now’ and all of a sudden the deal was done. He matter-of-factly said that he could do with some book promotion as having amphibians as disciples didn’t pay at all well. He was wearying of living off their offerings of fish, and could I bring some lamb chops and rollie papers from Woollies as he was running low.

On meeting, my first impression was how normal he looked but I quickly remembered that his body may have looked earthly but it was the who that was ‘inside’ this body that was extraordinary. We tootled up his path together, exchanging the usual introductory small talk and settled down on his veranda for a cup of lemon grass chai and some vegan cookies. He said the vegan crop had been particularly good this year but, waving the papers I had brought, welcomed the chance to smoke some rather than bake it. I nodded in agreement and suddenly found that I could not stop nodding, in fact the nodding lasted throughout the afternoon and did not wear out fully until two days later. It was obvious that I was in the presence of no ordinary, mortal human being. I mentioned my nodding to him and he simply nodded back, casually mentioning the difficulty he had at first in getting his new disciples to nod. I nodded sympathetically and knowingly, adding just a touch of humility to cover my swelling pride at being such a good nodder.

He explained to me that the major problem with dolphins was that they couldn’t stomach vegan cookies and smoking was not culturally acceptable in their society. He had to revert to mass meditation sessions which, while resulting in a good deal of nodding, he felt was not as effective as direct vegan infusion. He then launched into a story chronicling the close relationship between hallucinogenics and altered states of consciousness throughout Guru-history. I stretched out on the deck chair, bathing in his energy and immersed in his tales of the phantasmagorical, when all of a sudden a mosquito bit me. I took this as a sign from Existence and immediately struggled to make sense of it.

Ah, yes. It was a reminder of why I was here – to glean from this mystic his prophecies for the future of mankind. I patiently waited for his current story to end, desperately running my question around and around in my head lest I forget it and lapse back into my state of UA. Some mystics propound that one should strive to achieve a state of UL (Universal Let-go) but what makes Austradamus’s teachings truly unique is his emphasis on UA (Universal Agreement). I had gleaned from his writings that his emphasis on UA had, as its cultural roots, the ancient Austra-wisdom of ‘She’ll be right mate!’ which has been since been abbreviated into the current Austra-vernacular of ‘No problems’ or ‘No worries’ It occurred to me that this was a good line of enquiry to pursue with him but I was suddenly awash with another wave of UA and subsequently lost the plot completely.

Then, appearing as though out of the mists of time – had it been a minute, or an hour, or an eternity – I heard his voice chanting in a strange intonation. Opening my eyes I saw him peering into the top of the rainwater tank, miraculously blowing smoke from his mouth, chanting Om Shanti Om, scratching his crotch and swatting a passing mosquito – all at the same time. Despite being in awe of his sublime grace, I rose and edged closer in order to see the object of his attention. There before my very eyes was a bottle-nose dolphin, head peeking out of the water, eyes aglaze with ecstasy, snorting in the smoke. What struck me as unusual was the fact that the dolphin was laying back in the water on a deckchair with its tail up on an old whipper-snipper petrol can, exactly as I had been only moments before.

My head swam at the sight before me and I struggled to come to grips with the evolutionary consequences of what I was witnessing. That this was definitely no ordinary man was already obvious and that this was no ordinary dolphin was startlingly apparent. The air was literally alive with static, as I could feel the love mutually emanating from both man and dolphin. I was truly blessed at being present at an event that I knew instinctually was the mere precursor to the extraordinary developments that were to unfold in this new millennium. In a flash of insight I saw that the evolutionary process of Existence is, in fact, a gigantic, endless relay race and I was privileged to witness the first tentative steps of the ‘handing on of the baton’ from human to dolphin.

In deep reverence at the significance of the spiritually-rich event I was honoured to be a part of, I watched enthralled. Soon the dolphin closed its eyes and went within and after a suitable pause Austradamus reached up and, unclipping a pair of headphones from the veranda post, slipped them on to the mammal’s head. ‘It’s a bit old-fashioned I know, but Pink Floyd did a lot for me in the early days. Besides, if the buggers would only learn to talk it would make my job easier and this may help. There is so much wisdom I need to pass on and, although he’s cute, he’s still a bit slow on the uptake. Still, it’s early years’ he said reflectively.

We left his chief dolphin-disciple to its blissful state and settled back on the veranda again, my head swimming with questions. As though he was reading my mind, Austradamus launched into explanations.

It seemed that his current second coming arose from a vegan-fuelled rave he had with a few of his LDM (long dead master) mates at a cosmic trance dance. The thorny old subject of ‘returning to Earth’ was raised by some spoilsport, whose name Austradamus compassionately refused to reveal when I pressed him. I did, however, glean that we are talking about some pretty well known LDM’s from the names of his ‘mates’ that he casually dropped into the conversation during the afternoon. It seemed that none present at the cosmic gathering were at all keen to come back again for another bout of earthly misery and frustration and besides, as Austradamus put it, on the Further Shore ‘the vegan’s for nothing and the chicks are free’.

To cut a long story short, it was agreed that someone should do the ‘right thing’ and go back and, in order to decide, they would all go for an aura reading the next day, and whosever’s aura was dirtiest would have to go back to Earth. Needless to say, Austradamas lost – ‘my mantra of ‘she’ll be right’ caught up with me’ he noted glibly. So, about the middle of last century, he re-incarnated into a human body and here he was back on earth again.

He said he had a normal earthly upbringing and tootled off to the East with the rest of his hippy mates and subsequently watched with interest the spread of Guruism through the West. Since his teenage years he had been keeping an eye on the human battle betwixt good and evil, Divine and animal, Immortal and mortal and, by his score card, human beings were losing the battle. ‘Guruism has become a crowded market, competition is fierce and the returns aren’t good’ he noted with just a touch of fatalism. The other issue was that he couldn’t reveal his true mission on earth – that of ‘returned-messiah elect’, as he would either be taken as a nutter and lynched or would have to spill the beans on those of his cosmic ‘mates’ who had shunned the mission – not a revelation guaranteed to endear him to his mates’ disciples.

While mulling over his Existential dilemma one day, in a cloud of vegan-inspiration, he had hit upon the scheme of preparing a New Species to replace the self-destructive human species – to hand on the ‘Baton of Consciousness’.

He said he is currently also looking for some like-minded human helpers who are qualified in genetic engineering to aid his vision. ‘Some arms and legs would be good for the New Species’ he said. ‘The feelings and emotions are already similar in both animals but t’would be good to put more ‘good’ into the dolphins before we increased their brain size, or we would just end up with more dolphin wars, I guess.’ A question pushed off from the deep end of my mind and slowly swam into form. ‘Surely it is the animal passion to fight that causes wars and not thinking ability?’ but the thought faded like a hung-over millennium reveler as another wave of UA engulfed it. Powerful stuff this UA!

Austradamus’s hypnotic voice droned on explaining that he spends long hours in another rainwater tank at the opposite end of the balcony sitting underwater on a deck chair, feet up on a whipper-snipper petrol can, listening to tapes of dolphin-speak. ‘I am preparing myself’ he said. ‘If I am to be the messiah of the dolphins I must be able to live among my people and effectively communicate with them’. The cute thing about his new idea, he said, is that ‘Existence gets the chance to wipe the slate clean of human beings altogether and I get to be the One-and-Only Messiah of the New Species. For I am the Creator of the New Species! Now it can be truly said that I am Existence and Existence is Me’.

His voice boomed through the gum trees, seemingly rattling their very leaves, on its thundering journey through the valley. I squirmed a bit in my chair, feeling uncomfortably mortal and insignificant in the face of his Divine Vision. Overcome with weariness – or was it wariness – I bade my leave and wound my way back home. A troubled night’s sleep followed and I awoke as though I had been having a dream. Then I remembered the spiritual teachings that in the spiritual world all is an illusion anyway, and the memories of my visit suddenly all made sense again.

As I recently reflected it was obvious that the most meaningful and lasting thing that came out of my visit to Austradamus was that it gave me a story to write for ‘Here and Now’.

Oh, and Austradamus’s prediction for the new millennium – gloom-now, doom-soon, whoopee after death (same as usual) – and get ready to trade your meditation cushions for snorkels and deckchairs ... [endquote].

Well that’s it from me folks.

I was thinking of learning dolphinese in order to warn them of the impending wave of human Guruism but the field of animal do-gooders is a crowded one already.

17.1.2000

PETER: Hi everyone,

I recently wrote an article for the local ‘Magazine of the Buddhas’ entitled ‘Austradamus’s New Millennium Predictions’. You may remember I posted it to the list a while ago. It was a lampoon of the spiritual world and spiritual beliefs and they not only published the story it but said they liked it a lot. In the same issue the editor wrote an article which caught my eye, so much so that I was moved to write to him.

It is such a classic case of spiritual denial and/or ignorance that I thought it worthwhile to post the relevant piece together with my comment to the author.

Excerpt from the article from the ‘Magazine of the Buddhas’ –

[Here and Now Magazine]: A thousand orgasms a year for a thousand years!

‘Sounds a wonderful millennium wish doesn’t it. Gets you all squishy just thinking about it doesn’t it! Is that steam I see? Actually someone commented that they’d rather not be around for that long, and it got me wondering. Is there really any place more interesting, more fun, than here in the body?

Personally, when I’m feeling good, I mean really fucking good, I have no interest at all in being beyond the body. I really enjoy all the bodily things, feelings, emotions, thoughts, actions. I remember at one stage it actually became fashionable in ‘spiritual’ Sannyas circles to wish that this was the last life, that enlightenment was necessary if only to stop the endless wheel of suffering that being in the body is meant to be. I wonder if perhaps this subtle rejection of the body is a hindrance to realization, enlightenment itself. It actually feels a bit Christian to me, and we all know what that means! No passing ‘GO’! I mean really, isn’t the body where everything takes place, the temple in which ‘life’ happens, the vehicle through which ecstasy, sex, wafts of coffee sailing the morning breeze, frangipani adorning the evening air, music that seduces, teases or releases passion, concepts become actual, ice-cream, the sun-sets that enrapture, love, how all the things enter our consciousness, how we become aware of them?

So my own wish for me in this millennium, is to be at such peace with who I am in the world and with myself, I am utterly happy to stick around for another millennium. (even if it means a thousand orgasms a year).’ <Snip> Here and Now, Magazine of the Buddhas, January 2000

Excerpt from my letter to the author –

[Peter]: ‘I presume when you wrote –

[Author]: ‘I remember at one stage it actually became fashionable in ‘spiritual’ sannyas circles to wish that this was the last life, that enlightenment was necessary if only to stop the endless wheel of suffering that being in the body was meant to be’ [endquote].

you are referring to ‘sannyas’ as being a disciple of Rajneesh. If you are, then you are re-writing history and re-interpreting the central message of Rajneesh’s teaching. Rajneesh’s core teaching, as in all Eastern Religion, is that ‘you’ are not the body, not the thoughts, not the emotions, not the actions. ‘You’ simply have taken up residence in the body and will have an endless round of re-births into earthly suffering and gross form unless ‘you’ can get off the roundabout. The only way to get off the roundabout is Self-realization or Enlightenment. What Rajneesh taught was that we are all ‘only visiting the planet’ and the name of the game on earth is to ensure you get yourself a ticket to ‘somewhere else’ when you die, or else .... His essential message is chiselled in marble in his mausoleum – ‘never born, never died, only visited ...’ – i.e. He was most definitely not the mortal flesh and blood body!

So, to call this a mere ‘fashion’ at one stage, is to demean and belittle the teachings of Rajneesh in no small way. I also find curious the use of the term ‘spiritual’ sannyas’. Do you use this term derogatorily as a means of distinction from the non-spiritual ‘social’ sannyasins? Does this define seekers from non-seekers, the piously religious from the perpetually rebellious, those who are still looking from those who have merely given up?

I am curious, for you are writing as one who ‘sets the tone’ of what purports to be a ‘Magazine of the Buddhas’ and yet you factually misrepresent and appear to demean the essential message of the Buddhas. Are we perhaps seeing the emergence of yet another new and unique spiritual message?

As for ‘it actually feels a bit Christian to me, and we all know what that means!’ , are you saying that what Rajneesh taught feels a bit Christian?

If so, then it is a reasonable statement, for Eastern Religion and Western Religion are essentially the same. Both offer the belief in a ‘spirit’ in the body that survives physical death and, if you follow the words of the God-men faithfully, then ‘you’ – the spirit, soul or atman – get to go to Heaven or Nirvana when your body dies.

If, however, you are saying the Eastern religious teachings of Rajneesh – of endless re-births into suffering unless you become Enlightened – ‘feels a bit Christian to me’, then this is most definitely factually wrong. The Christians are quite clear in that one gets no second chances. Their hell is ‘somewhere else’, not ‘back here’ on earth again, as the Eastern religious stories have it.

As for ‘we all know what that means!’ – I don’t.

Are you playing on the hatred of Christians that Rajneesh cranked up on the Ranch and perpetuated by his later claims of being crucified? This is the only sense I can make of what you mean and, if I am right, it smacks of religious intolerance to me.

Personally, I have no religious tolerance whatsoever – all religious and spiritual belief is nothing other than ancient fairy stories and senseless drivel that has enthralled the gullible for millennia. But ‘Here and Now’ still carries a Rajneesh flavour and to actively encourage and perpetuate the Rajneeshee-Christian bigotry may be unwise, and particularly alienating, at a time when Jesus is being re-invented as a Spiritual Master and the Son of God bit is being downplayed.

Well, these were just some thoughts on the factual accuracy your article, from one writer to another.

Personally I find it useful to write accurately although in my case it does reduce one’s ‘popular appeal’ to zilch. But then again, in my last article in ‘Here and Now’ I ridiculed and heaped scorn on all spiritual belief and the spiritual world and yet it still got published in a spiritual magazine!

I still shake my head in amazement at what anyone sees of any value in spiritual belief other than the opportunity for ‘self’-aggrandizement – Guru-ism – and the myth of ‘self’ perpetuation – life after death.

Still, these fairy stories have been around for millennia and it will no doubt take some further generations to wean people ‘off the dummy’, on to actualism and here to the actual world.’

As you can see, this type of NDA writing represents a classic denial of the essential spiritual message and, I suspect, an attempt to ‘clip-on’ a wee bit of actualism completely misrepresented as ‘isn’t it fun to be in the body!! ... when you are feeling really fucking good’ (And if you’re not feeling good, you can always sneak into a Satsang or do a group which usually picks you up again for a while.) Ho, Hum.

It’s cute to see what is happening in the spiritual world ‘some thirty years on’ from the start of the West’s ‘fashionable’ flirtation with Eastern religions and philosophies.

23.1.2000

PETER: Hi everyone,

Another ‘new millennium’ message that is worth thinking about –

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s (the incarnated Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion, the Holy Lord, the Gentle Glory, the Compassionate, the Defender of the Faith, the Ocean of Wisdom, the Wish-fulfilling Gem) New Millennium Message

[Tenzin Gyatso]: ‘This past century in some ways has been a century of war and bloodshed. ... If we are to change this trend we must seriously consider the concept of non-violence, which is a physical expression of compassion. In order to make non-violence a reality we must first work on internal disarmament and then proceed to work on external disarmament. By internal disarmament I mean ridding ourselves of all the negative emotions that result in violence.’ http://www.tibet.com/NewsRoom/millennium-message.html

With Wisdom like that, let’s not hold our breathe for peace on earth. I saw him on television recently saying the next century should be the ‘century of dialogue’. Fighting with words instead of guns is obviously regarded as the best Humanity can hope to achieve in the next century. The letters to the editor page of the local newspaper where I live are increasingly full of vitriol, and most often from the ‘really-aware’ crowd. More and more people are turning to lawyers, courts and tribunals to fight others or seek retribution so the fashion for standing up for oneself, defending one’s rights – or sharing one’s truth – represents an escalation in malice, not a diminishing.

What happened in Tibet is a classic case of the ideal of non-violence in action. The Good and Holy Leader and his lackeys took the money and fled in the face of aggression, abandoning the ordinary people to their fate. The D.L went to seek shelter behind the Indian army, leaving those behind with no means to defend themselves. Pacifism is like hanging up a sign at the border saying please invade or a sign on your front door saying the doors open, help yourself...

To put one’s faith in the ideal of non-violence is to stubbornly remain in ignorance of the source of violence within the Human Condition.

Contrast the above piece of wishful thinking with an item that cropped up recently –

[ABCnews.com]: CHAT: Is man hard-wired for war?

Violence – Part of Being Human

Deadly wars may be the result of modern technology blended with our Stone Age instincts.

Humankind has lived through a hideously violent century.

World War I, WW II, wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Bangladesh, Korea, Nigeria and elsewhere have extinguished millions upon millions of lives. The killings continue today in Sierra Leone, East Timor and Sudan, to name a few.

Waging war is nothing new for us humans. Bloody conflicts from the Crusades to Kosovo have been a hallmark of our history. Which raises the questions: Is such behaviour simply part of human nature? Are we hard-wired for war?

There’s certainly no definitive answer. But enough scientists have looked into our past – and present – to shed a bit of light on why we do what we do.

New Environment, Old Brain

When interpreting human behaviour, it’s best to remember that the strongest human instincts are to survive and reproduce. What we need to satisfy those instincts hasn’t changed much since our primitive ancestors roamed the globe; it’s about getting enough food, water and mates.

Like it or not, write Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, co-directors of the Centre for Evolutionary Psychology at University of California, Santa Barbara, ‘our modern skulls house a Stone Age mind’.

Though modern-day aggressors may not be aware of it, those primitive instincts drive their behaviours too. A strong group benefits from attacking a weaker group if in the process the aggressors gain fertile lands, reliable water, greater market share – any resources that improve their collective livelihood.

There’s no denying that aggression has been a good survival strategy. Which is why we humans are genetically hard-wired to fight.

But what triggers that aggression and what can magnify it to the point of a Rwanda or a Kosovo?

Richard Wrangham of Harvard University sees two conditions necessary for what he calls ‘coalitional aggression’, or violence perpetrated by groups rather than individuals. One condition is hostility between neighbours.

Human aggression got more organized with the introduction of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, says J. William Gibson, author of Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood in Post-Vietnam America. With farming came the concept of land ownership – and defence – and the development of more complex and organized societies. Suddenly, there was more to covet, more to protect and more people around to help do both.

The other condition for group violence is an imbalance of power great enough that aggressors believe they can attack with virtually no risk to themselves. Majorities have persecuted minority groups, whether religious, ethnic or tribal, again and again, believing they’re immune from punishment. The tangled turmoil in the former Yugoslavia is only the most immediate example.

Animals Do it, Too

Humans aren’t the only ones who gang up. Chimpanzees, with whom we share 98.4 percent of our DNA, are another. Wrangham, who wrote Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, describes five chimps attacking one. Four will hold the victim while the fifth breaks bones and rips out the victim’s throat or testicles.

Examples of taking such advantage of imbalances of power are rare in the animal kingdom because that kind of behaviour requires a sophisticated level of coordination and cooperation. However, both chimps and humans are certainly capable of it.

‘There’s always conflict in societies’, says Neil Wiener, an associate professor of psychology at York University. ‘The issue is, when do these conflicts erupt into violence?’ ABCNEWS.com

So, a bit of ancient spiritual denial and transcendence contrasted with the dawning of scientific recognition of the facts about the Human Condition. The psychologists all say the instincts are ‘hard-wired’, for to contemplate and investigate further to even consider that they are only software would be devastating to their professional pride and their very livelihood. A bit like the Dalai Lama saying we should stop believing in God because he doesn’t exist and stop attempting to embellish the ‘positive emotions’ because it won’t bring an end to malice and sorrow – not only livelihood threatening in his case but threatening his reincarnation as well.

The Dalai Lama often cites a favourite inspirational verse, found in the writings of the renowned 8^th century Buddhist saint Shantideva:

[Tenzin Gyatso]: ‘For as long as space endures

And for as long as living beings remain,

Until then may I too abide

To dispel the misery of the world’. [endquote].

Sounds as though he would be out of a job if human suffering came to an end. It’s called ‘having a vested interest’ in supporting and maintaining human misery. No misery – no need for the Buddha of Compassion.

One of the most interesting aspects of the wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom is the de-bunking of mythical heroes, both ancient and current. The Peter I was 3 years ago still held the spiritual Masters in awe, the great philosophers in reverence and unquestioningly accepted the theoretical scientists as being in touch with reality. It was only a matter of overcoming my trepidation, and laziness, in order to investigate the facts and sense of what the philosophers and theoretical scientists were proposing before they toppled from their ivory tower perches. The spiritual Masters were a different kettle of fish as in order to become free of spiritual belief, one needs to break free from the psychic power of the spiritual world.

There is most definitely an aura or psychic field that surrounds the Masters and God-men – this is the very source of their power. Underpinning this aura is an almost tangible and palpable fear that locks one in to unquestioning faith, unwavering belief and unswerving loyalty. All of the ancient texts offering salvation or redemption have parallel stories of eternal suffering or hellish realms for those who are non-believers. I remember passing through an intense phase of fear-induced dreams when one of the Masters I had ‘betrayed’ was hunting and chasing me all night long – to pull me back into the fold, ‘or else’.

Once one has seen a fairy tale to be nothing other than a fairy tale it is impossible to go back to believing, if one is at all sincere. Then it simply becomes a matter of riding out the storm and dreams are sometimes outlets for the storm to surface. Realizing these fears to be nothing other than chemically induced fantasies is the clue to keep going. I always figured that whatever emotion-backed thoughts went on in my head, or whatever emotional-backed sensations that occurred in the body, were real but not actual. What is actual is what I can sensately perceive – the rest is nonsense.

The business of not only leaving the fold of a particular spiritual Master but of leaving the whole spiritual world is not for the faint of heart. One can pass through some hellish psychic realms on the way to freedom. One needs to become free not only of mythical Gods and the beguiling Good, but free from the pernicious Devil and the awful Diabolical as well.

What a thrilling adventure – a journey into one’s own psyche is a journey into the human psyche for ‘I’ am Humanity and Humanity is ‘me’. And on the path the God-men and Gurus, Lamas and Popes, Geniuses and Heroes topple off their thrones like nine pins, to become mortal flesh and blood human beings merely suffering from an overdose of megalomaniacal dementia.

Being an actualist is such good fun and well worth every dark night or fearful wobble.

Cheers ... ... Peter.

P.S. The leader of the strongest country in the world, Mr. Clinton, gave his ‘new millennium’ message saying that ‘we human beings need to have dreams that are stronger than our memories’. In other words, let us all try to forget the fact that the last century was the bloodiest to date and dream for some miraculous peace in the next century.

Yet, despite the religious prayers and unrealizable dreaming, the facts are –

26.8.2001

PETER: I recently heard an interview with a scientist who was researching a way to prevent the debilitating mosquito borne diseases that afflict human beings. He mentioned that there are about 3,500 species of mosquitos and about 20 more are discovered every year. I contrasted this information with the fervour and fear that is generated by the commonly accepted theories of biodiversity and species loss.

I always say that it is good thing that dinosaurs died out otherwise it would make for tough journey to the supermarket nowadays.

Just thought I would throw one in the ring as a start to looking intelligently at the beliefs that contribute to and constitute the generally held view that ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’.

5.5.2004

PETER: A snippet of a conversation on The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List – a mailing list specifically set up to facilitate discussion about the new discovery that it is possible for human beings to become both happy and harmless – which struck me as typifying the reaction to actualism that comes from those who have been influenced by the philosophy and teachings that emanate from Eastern religion.

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