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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 37
Hi, You recently wrote to Richard querying the accuracy of something I have written – I did look up the word in the actualist glossary and found a few noteworthy statements: ‘As this is being written, only a handful of people have managed to become free of the Human Condition ...’ As it has recently been established that the number is 1 – that hardly constitutes a ‘handful’. Respondent to Richard Re: ‘Spiritual’ 30.3.2004 It is quite clear that the statement, when taken at face value, is not correct but it is relevant to consider the timing and circumstances in which it was written. When I became a practicing actualist, I found it useful to write down my understandings and realizations in a notebook as I found the very act of writing itself was a very practical way of ordering my thoughts and keeping my thinking on subject and on track. Very often I would do this last thing at night as a way of reviewing the events of the day, noting the emotional reactions I had to particular events and then taking a clear-eyed look at whatever aspect of the human condition that had caused me to feel aggravated or to feel unhappy. After about a year of this intense process of ‘self’-investigation, I came to stage where I noticed that my life had changed so much that I was indeed virtually free of malice and sorrow, i.e. feeling excellent was my normal state. It struck me at the time that it would be useful to others if I wrote a journal that documented the steps I took in this process and the discoveries I had made about the nature of the human condition – so I purchased a computer and wrote my journal. After I had finished it, it then occurred to me that it would also be of use to others to write a glossary of terms used in actualism as many people who had read either my journal or Richard’s writings did so without bothering to understand the meaning of the words that were written, i.e. they skip-read looking for a feeling-understanding within the context of the human condition and their own particular conditioning rather than take on board the iconoclastic message that the actual words conveyed when taken at face value. Writing the glossary proved much more difficult than writing my journal as it often involved writing about issues and topics that I had not necessarily tackled in my journal and a good deal of the writing remained unedited as can be seen from the piece you quoted. As I look back on it now, much of the writing reflects the difficulty I had in understanding many of the issues and much of it is very passionate in nature. The very business of exposing the human condition is not an intellectual exercise – it is a passionate, hands-on business and whilst I wanted this fact to be reflected in my journal this passion is also evident to me in the writings that form the glossary. Much of my writing in the glossary reads as though it was written as the realization, or moments of clear thinking, were happening and some could have indeed even been written whilst I was having a PCE, which would explain the statement I made that you have queried – for when one is having a PCE, one is temporarily free of the human condition. Indeed it is my experience in being virtually free of the human condition that I am, in fact, free of most of the human condition for most of the time – which is not to deny that I will only be actually free of the human condition in toto when the singular event of self-immolation occurs. This is exactly the reason I decided to start writing when I did – I had some hands-on experience to pass on about the actualism process and the nature of the human condition that was best written raw and first-hand rather than as a hindsight account. If you read my journal and some of my early correspondence you will also find many other statements I have made that you could also rightly dispute. At the time they were written I was full-on into investigating the human condition and the very process is a daring and passionate one and whilst I fully stand by my earlier writings in terms of substance, flavour and intent, they were not necessarily intended to stand close intellectual scrutiny. At one stage I thought to go over my earlier writings and edit them for accuracy and terminology but I realized that in doing so I would inevitably loose some of the immediacy and spontaneity of an experiential account so I haven’t bother. Thanks for pointing out the inaccuracy. I have changed the particular statement you pointed to, but I will leave my journal unedited for the reasons stated above.
I did look up the word in the actualist glossary and found a few noteworthy statements: [quote] ‘As this is being written, only a handful of people have managed to become free of the Human Condition ...’ [endquote]. As it has recently been established that the number is 1 – that hardly constitutes a ‘handful’. Respondent to Richard Re: ‘Spiritual’ 30.3.2004 It is quite clear that the statement, when taken at face value, is not correct but it is relevant to consider the timing and circumstances in which it was written. <snipped for length> Writing the glossary proved much more difficult than writing my journal as it often involved writing about issues and topics that I had not necessarily tackled in my journal and a good deal of the writing remained unedited as can be seen from the piece you quoted. As I look back on it now, much of the writing reflects the difficulty I had in understanding many of the issues and much of it is very passionate in nature. The very business of exposing the human condition is not an intellectual exercise – it is a passionate, hands-on business and whilst I wanted this fact to be reflected in my journal this passion is also evident to me in the writings that form the glossary. Much of my writing in the glossary reads as though it was written as the realization, or moments of clear thinking, were happening and some could have indeed even been written whilst I was having a PCE, which would explain the statement I made that you have queried – for when one is having a PCE, one is temporarily free of the human condition. Indeed it is my experience in being virtually free of the human condition that I am, in fact, free of most of the human condition for most of the time – which is not to deny that I will only be actually free of the human condition in toto when the singular event of self-immolation occurs. This is exactly the reason I decided to start writing when I did – I had some hands-on experience to pass on about the actualism process and the nature of the human condition that was best written raw and first-hand rather than as a hindsight account. If you read my journal and some of my early correspondence you will also find many other statements I have made that you could also rightly dispute. At the time they were written I was full-on into investigating the human condition and the very process is a daring and passionate one and whilst I fully stand by my earlier writings in terms of substance, flavour and intent, they were not necessarily intended to stand close intellectual scrutiny. At one stage I thought to go over my earlier writings and edit them for accuracy and terminology but I realized that in doing so I would inevitably loose some of the immediacy and spontaneity of an experiential account so I haven’t bother. Thanks for pointing out the inaccuracy. I have changed the particular statement you pointed to, but I will leave my journal unedited for the reasons stated above. It did occur to me at the time that the intent of the statement might have been to include those that are virtually free as well, yet that wasn’t clear at all in the statement – which is the reason I mentioned it. By the way, my recent conversation with Richard regarding ‘spiritual’ has cleared up much of the misunderstanding I have had regarding your statement that Richard is (was) the only atheist on the planet. I would have never have guessed when I wrote my journal, or the glossary for that matter, that I would one day be involved in discussions about the intellectual/philosophical correctness of particular words or phrases I used. After I had written my journal I employed a professional proof reader to check it, principally because it was my first writing effort and Vineeto had offered to fund its printing as a paperback. Apart from the usual typos and grammatical errors the only query she had with regard to the accuracy of its comment was the following sentence –
As it turned out the reason why she queried what I wrote was that she also regarded herself as an atheist because she did not believe in the Christian God and yet she was the follower of Mohan Rajneesh, a recently dead Eastern God-man of the Jain tradition who taught pantheism as distinct from monotheism.
I didn’t alter the statement because the main point I was making, when taken in the sequence of what I previously said, was that Richard did not ‘disbelieve or deny the existence of God or gods’ but that he has the ongoing direct experience that no such things as Gods or gods exist outside of human beings’ impassioned imagination. You will have noticed in our recent discussions I nowadays use the term ‘thorough-going atheist’, largely in order to avoid the bias that most Westerners apply in defining the word –
What I see now is that you have not only applied the word ‘spiritual’ to religious belief, but also to ‘being’ itself. In other words, to ‘be’ is to be ‘spiritual.’ Personally, I think that usage is ripe for misunderstanding. With regard to my use of the word spiritual, the preceding entry in the glossary may throw some light on the subject, particularly as I did write the glossary sequentially.
From here, it would seem better to apply the word ‘spiritual’ to ‘spiritual’ belief as in religious belief and practice, etc. then possibly ‘metaphysical’ (or some other word?) could cover better what it means to simply be a ‘being.’ With the benefit of hindsight, much of my early writing could have been better but as the very act of writing was one of the means I found most effective in beginning to think clearly, it is inevitable that it has occasional flaws and that nowadays I could do better. Nowadays, I simply don’t have the interest or inclination to re-editing my writing every time someone raises an intellectual or philosophical objection. My writing is experiential in that I write from the experience of being virtually free of malice and sorrow and from the direct understanding of what it is to be free of the human condition based on many pure consciousness experiences of the actual world. As such it will be of interest and use to others who want to know about the nuts and bolts of how to become free of the human condition themselves but one day it will be of only historical interest, as the next generations of actualists will write better, fresher and more concise accounts. Of course, this is all new territory, so actualists are free to adapt or create whatever vocabulary they please. We actualists are doing this for the first time – we don’t have any precedent to follow. And this is, after all, what makes the whole business so utterly thrilling.
You wrote commenting on something that I wrote to No 60 –
No 60: Perhaps they ‘manage to deny’ it because they actually DON’T believe in such things? In my case I don’t have any spiritual beliefs left due to my own intent to expose my spiritual beliefs but I do acknowledge that ‘I’ am a spirit-like being and will remain so until ‘self’-immolation occurs. Unless I am having a PCE, ‘I’ experience myself as being inside this body, looking out at the outside world through the body’s eyes, hearing through the ears, smelling smells through the nose and so on. There is no question of my not believing ‘I’ am a spirit being – sincere observation reveals that ‘I’ am a non-material entity. No 60: Yes, I can understand that you did this, and I can understand why. Given your background when you first became interested in actualism it makes sense. The problem, as I see it, is that the feeling of ‘being’ does not always go hand-in-hand with spiritual beliefs (as in belief in a separate spirit, or an immortal spirit, or a belief in a divinity, etc). Perhaps you could provide an example where ‘the feeling of being does not always go hand-in hand with spiritual belief’ as I cannot think of a single example. The reason I ask is that I remember being quite shocked, after having spending years on the spiritual path, at how little I understood about spiritualism and what really lies at the core of all spiritual belief. Nowadays I see that very few people understand spiritualism because belief inevitably blinds one to the facts. I wonder whether this is the root of why there is divergence on this issue. On the face of it Peter, the statement that you cannot think of a single example of where ‘the feeling of being doesn’t go hand-in hand with spiritual belief’ is simply an absurdity. As you will have already noticed I have since responded to No 60, pointing out how the misunderstanding occurred. An absurdity either because you refuse to look at the facts, or are ignorant of them, or because you are using words in some ill-defined way. Or … there could well be another alternative, no? That it wasn’t ‘an absurdity’ at all – rather it was that you misunderstood what I was saying? I will also say that I think it is for this reason why I haven’t yet attempted another response to the 3 Fallacies thread that I left off a while back. I did wonder why you broke off the conversation and left your claim that I
was ‘doggedly hanging on to a personal (incorrect) thesis’ ( At least it is now clear that it was because you think that I ‘refuse to look at the facts, or are ignorant of them, or because [I am] using words in some ill-defined way’. You will have noticed that they are familiar criticisms – you are in good company on this list. I’m still processing what you said – but each time I think about the people I mentioned as atheists which you rephrased as ‘conditional’ atheists – it is at such a point that I begin to wonder whether you and I can have any productive conversation or dialogue on this topic at all. It would obviously be impossible given your present predisposition towards me. You say you cannot think of a single example where the ‘feeling’ of being is not also accompanied by spiritual beliefs. And as I pointed out to No 60: meaning I cannot think of a single example where spiritual beliefs are not always accompanied by a feeling of being. But for the sake of continuing the conversation, I understand that you are using the alternative meaning of the phrase – namely that it is possible for a person to have a feeling of being without having any spiritual beliefs. Let’s see if I can help. 1) Me 2) No 60 3) AJ Ayer 4) Corliss Lamont 5) Stephen Weinberg 6) Paul Kurtz 7) Isaac Asimov 8) James Randi 9) Bertrand Russell 10) JL Mackie 11) Richard Dawkins. There are plenty more – these are just some that we may be mutually acquainted with in some form or another (and that I’ve read enough to be confident that they are non-spiritual (as in no spiritual beliefs) – which is why I started with this particular list. Now, if you mean something like ‘the feeling of being always goes hand-in-hand with either spiritual belief OR not knowing for certain there is nothing spiritual in existence’ – then that is another matter entirely. Or possibly you would say that most of these people on the above list have ‘spiritual’ beliefs because most of them believe in the truth of relativity, the big bang, ‘self’ and other beliefs you might call ‘spiritual?’ You will have noticed that I made the following comment to No 60 –
In the case of the people you list above, I would ask how is it that you are ‘confident’ that they have no spiritual beliefs? Have they, for example, ever published any articles or written any books describing the process by which they have managed to free themselves from all spiritual beliefs? Have you sat down and conducted in-depth interviews with these people? You may recall that we have previously discussed this question of authenticity and verification in our conversation about atheists who believe that the physical universe is an ephemeral creation that has arisen out an underlying reality that is timeless, spaceless and formless –
And so we are back having the conversation you abandoned because you say I ‘refuse to look at the facts, or are ignorant of them, or because [I am] using words in some ill-defined way’. If you decide that you want to continue the discussion let me know, but whilst you consider your being confident (because you have read enough) that there are plenty of people who are non-spiritual (as in have no spiritual beliefs) makes it a fact then any further discussion on the matter will no doubt be unproductive. * I think it is an apt opportunity to more fully explain to you why I have said that the whole ongoing issue of the meanings of the words spiritual, atheist and materialist is a beat up. Vineeto and I occasionally watch a television program devoted to exploring all things religious, spiritual and metaphysical and a recent show featured a debate between a priest and a spiritualist on one hand and a well-known avowed atheist and an academic secular humanist on the other. The to-ing and fro-ing went on with the priest and spiritualist holding the moral high-ground whilst the atheist and secular humanist presented reasoned arguments that spiritual belief was unnecessary, puerile and very often the cause of human conflict and animosity. As the debate went on, the spiritualists eventually reverted to the fall-back position that spiritual belief is the only effective way to assuage feelings of sorrow and grief and they presented several heart-rendering examples of this. In a counter move the atheist immediately went into ‘life-without-God-is-jolly’ mode in order to prove that an atheist’s happiness is better than a spiritualist’s happiness-born-out-of-compassion. The presenter of the program, a spiritualist herself, then interjected, making the comment to the atheist ‘but I know that you get very depressed from time to time’ and immediately the wind went out of his sails. The debate continued on but in the end the telling point was that the spiritualists had an answer to emotional suffering (succour) and the atheists and secular humanists clearly didn’t. The whole debate encapsulated the spiritualist vs. materialist debate – the spiritualists will always maintain the moral high-ground over the materialists because materialists have no solution to the feelings of sorrow that invariably afflict all human beings from time to time. This is why I say that all of the discussions on this mailing list as to the meanings of the words such as spiritualist, atheist, materialist and so on are but a beat-up. Whichever side one chooses to sit on, or believes oneself to be on, or whether one sits in the middle or refuses to sit down, it is clear that neither the spiritualists nor the materialists have any workable solutions to bringing an end to human malice and sorrow. When you sit down and think about it, does not it strike you as being somewhat bizarre that all this running for cover, duck-shoving, side-stepping and re-labelling goes on on a mailing list that has been set up specifically in order to discuss a proven method of bringing an end to human malice and sorrow? * In response to your postscript – P.S. Also, in light of the fact that Richard has recently acknowledged No 53’s denial of being a ‘spiritualist’ – and that his terming him a ‘spiritualist’ was at least possibly a misapprehension – does that acknowledgement help you think of a possible case where ‘the feeling of being does not always go hand-in hand with spiritual belief’? If this is this post you are referring to, then it is clear that you have misinterpreted what Richard said –
If this is not the comment you are referring to, could you please provide the quote? It is most interesting that even though actualists suggest taking their own words at ‘face value’ – that sometimes actualists do not do the same with non-actualists words, eh? (As in, Peter not acknowledging that No 60 is privy to the fact that he has no ‘spiritual beliefs’ and that No 60’s words are all that Peter has to go on – which results in the situation where No 60 says ‘I have no spiritual beliefs’ and Peter responds ‘Yes you do’ – which can only result in ‘No, I don’t.’ – ‘Yes, you do.’ – ‘No, I DON’T.’ – ‘Yes, you do.’ nonsense.) It appears that you missed the piece that No 60 snipped out of his reply as
in it you will see that I did indeed take
To No 71 – So, you see that Peter immediately admitted that his original rendition was ‘a bit sloppy’ thus, incorrect. It might be better to say that many spiritual teachings hold that we ‘originated’ as innocent beings, rather than ‘born’ as innocent beings. If it is put this way, then even the doctrine of original sin allows for a time where the human being was innocent, prior to the fairy tale Fall in the Garden of Eden. … or in the case of those who believe in the notion of Karma, common sense would have it that there must be a pre-karmic state of innocence from which one had digressed by being born into this world in the first place. But then again, the teachings do refer to an ‘endless cycle’ of birth and rebirth which apparently negates a prior karma-free state … but then again this is at odds with the overall increase in the total number of supposedly karmicly-inflicted souls on the planet. If nothing else, my sloppiness does seem to encourage a few people to think about such issues for themselves. Thanks for the suggestion – as some form of amendment does seem in order to clarify the issue, I’ll give it some more thought when I finish my current work commitments.
I have been somewhat reluctant to send this post off, but in the end I have decided to mainly because it includes an explanation as to why I have lately had no inclination whatsoever to post to the mailing list. It appears that the difference in your current discussion boils down to 2 things: 1) No 60 never intended his comment about ‘omniscience’ to be taken literally – rather, it was intended as a hyperbole to illustrate in principle that since a human being doesn’t know everything, it follows that there are some things that he/she will not know. Vineeto appears to be taking the comment about ‘omniscience’ literally, thus the continued [*fruitless] discussion. I am curious as to why you adjudge No 60’s conversation with Vineeto to be fruitless? Whilst it may well be fruitless to you, could not the conversation be fruitful to those who are conducting it? They are after all discussing an aspect of the human condition that is very pertinent to explore and make sense of – should one aspire to become free of the human condition. As a further question, I would ask why you seem to attribute this ‘fruitlessness’ to Vineeto taking No 60’s comment about omniscience literally, as in what has actually been said, without exaggeration or distortion? How do you expect Vineeto to know No 60’s intent when No 60 did not make his intent clear? I would be interested in your response as I assume your training in philosophy would mean that you are well acquainted with the nuances and rules of discussion, debate and argumentation. As a layman, it seems to me that if one wants to have a sincere discussion about matters, it would be essential to take what someone says literally, as in accurately, without exaggeration or distortion? You might have noticed that I have not written to the mailing list for a good while now and quite frankly have no inclination to write at all. What baffles me is that by far the majority of conversations on this mailing list are of the head-banging ‘I want to be the alpha male’ type of confrontations, seconded only by the ‘I am on your side, you are on their side’ playground allegiances – neither of which I see as being at all conducive to conducting a sensible discussion about any matter, let alone the sensitive and close-to-the-bone discussions about the human condition that are sometimes undertaken on this mailing list. * ‘Fruitless’ because Vineeto is addressing No 60’s comments literally when they were never intended literally, so the discussion continues at crossed purposes. When you say that No 60’s comments were never intended literally, are you saying this because you know this to be so i.e. that you have clarified this matter in an off-list conversation with him, or are you simply making an assumption about another correspondent’s intention? If the latter is the case, why do you make this assumption and what motivated you to make your assumption a matter of public record? I am curious because I no longer have the ability to imagine what your intent was in making the comments you have made in this post. 2) There are multiple definitions and uses of the word ‘agnostic.’ Vineeto and Peter normally use it to mean ‘a person who claims something (essential to actualism) is impossible to know.’ It has another meaning as well – simply ‘not knowing.’ The second meaning doesn’t necessarily couple with the former. Try www.onelook.com and type the word into the various dictionaries available – some of them have one meaning listed – others have more than one. Even Vineeto’s presented definition contains two meanings that can either go together or be pulled apart – as in the verbiage ‘Also....’
These 2 definitions can go hand in hand and together – or – they can be pulled apart as they often are. I fail to see the point you are making as your comment makes no reference at all to the definition of agnosticism that No 60 provided, be it hyperbole or not. As for your statement that I normally use the word agnostic to mean ‘a person who claims something (essential to actualism) is impossible to know’ – this is not so. I have, however, had occasion to talk to people who claim to be agnostics and define agnosticism to mean that it is impossible to know, let alone experience, that the universe is infinite and eternal, as in utterly peerless in its perfection. Note that they use the word ‘impossible’, not that they are ‘uncertain’ or ‘non-committal’ about the subject – they claim it is impossible. Personally I find it fascinating that the word agnosticism was originally coined by a scientist in order to describe his stance with regard to religion –
And yet, only some 130 years later, the very the same word that was originally coined specifically to describe a person’s stance with regard to religion is now used by some people to describe their stance with regard to something that is utterly unreligious – actualism. Given this very odd reversal of usage, it is little wonder that there is such confusion about the meaning of words agnostic and agnosticism. It seems that one can use the word to mean anything one wants to nowadays – including it to mean non-omniscient.
No 82: The same could be said about your journal samples using MS Word /MS Reader format instead of the ubiquitous and portable PDF, or even plain HTML. We did look into PDF format but the cost of buying the PDF-publishing program was prohibitive, whereas the MS Reader program is free, both to the publisher and to the reader. <snipped> Peter, you may find this website useful: http://www.pdf995.com/download.html It installs as a printer driver – free of charge. If you prefer not to see their sponsor pages, then its $9.95. The Adobe Acrobat reader is also a free download. If I can just expand on my answer to No 82 you might understand why I don’t find the link useful to me. What I could have also mentioned in my response was that I don’t find the PDF format appropriate for books per se as it seems to be a format more appropriate for technical literature, and I personally find it somewhat cumbersome even for that purpose. The reason for choosing an E-book format was in the part you snipped.
One of the inherent pleasures of doing something by oneself, or in co-operation with like minded colleagues, is that one gets to choose to do it in the manner and in the style of one’s own preference.
Footnote: 1.) To No 60: This is what I said in the piece you snipped –
And from your comment that you ‘waver between transcendence of the ‘human drama’ and elimination of the ‘human condition’ it would appear that you had by no means rejected spiritualism a few months ago’. As you can see I have been upfront as to why it is that your claim to have no
spiritual beliefs (and to have never have had any spiritual beliefs?) is somewhat spurious. To attempt to shift this
conversation off the topic and on to the meaning of the word spiritual is an obvious attempt to avoid the issue that we
are discussing – spiritual beliefs.
Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
