Selected Correspondence Peter

Actualism and Actualists

The writings of actualists will no doubt be picked over, scrutinized and taken to pieces line by line over time, as they should be. The writings will be the fuel for many an academic debate as well as providing a rich source of plagiarism for spiritualists. However, those with a genuine interest in peace on earth will be sufficiently motivated by the radical nature of what is on offer and will want to find out if what is being said is fact or theory by the only way practically possible – giving it a go and road testing the method for themselves.

I can relate to the ‘whoosh of results’ that you talk about – I had many realizations in the early days of my investigations that were both utterly thrilling and fundamentally life-changing. I did however get to a stage when the work involved in the actualism process produced what seemed to be less dramatic results … but then I noticed, and appreciated, the less drama-filled, more down-to-earth, consequences of setting my sights on being happy and harmless.

The squeaky clean thing about actualism is that you can’t explain it to anyone who isn’t interested in becoming actually free of malice and sorrow.

Cult-busting hey. Well, this is encouraging news.

The objectors to actualism are progressing by leaps and bounds.

When I first came across Richard he had just finished writing his journal – the first-ever account of actualism and an actual freedom from the human condition. Some months later he started writing on a mailing list notching up all sorts of objections including ‘being a Guru without a following’. The next year I wrote the first-ever account of becoming virtually free of malice and sorrow and then Vineeto and I began writing on mailing lists only to be accused of being disciples of a Guru. A few years and a few million words later, we now have a well-catalogued website, and a flourishing mailing list.

In one of No. 8’s latest objections she has had to expand her list of actualists to include a few more people and suddenly we are a cult – albeit a mini-cult, as you rightly observed. Thus a one-man show has now grown to cult status in a only a few years. Given this exponential growth, the mini-cult will in due course become a full-blown cult and then we would have a whole lot of people being happy and harmless.

Eventually things could really get out of hand and equanimity, fellowship and co-operation would gradually replace suspicion, competition and conflict in many parts of the world. Over the years, lawyers, courts, police and armies would slowly but surely become a thing of the dark past of history. Religion and superstition would wilt and expire for want of customers as it became increasingly hopeless trying to sell the notion that peace on earth is unattainable as more and more humans began to directly experience the already existing peace on earth.

As the years tick by, the cult-busters will fight a recalcitrant rear-guard battle but their cause will be hopelessly hampered by suspicion, competition and conflict – the very characteristics of the same outmoded human condition they desperately desire to preserve.

Ultimately altruism will emerge triumphant and perfect peace and harmonial happiness will prevail but should it not, for whatever reason, we alliterative actualists will have unreservedly lived life to the full – free of malice and sorrow.

As you yourself observed, No 12, there is no malice and sorrow in the actual world – in clouds, rain, sunshine, trees, grass. The feeling of malice and the feeling of sorrow only exist in the heads and hearts of human beings and a way has now been discovered to eliminate it. If you are sincere in having absorbed and understood Richard’s insights, I am befuddled as to why you would want to devote your life to busting the cult of the happy and harmless – Cult, as in ‘a fashionable enthusiasm’ Oxford Dictionary. It is as futile an exercise as being angry at the rain or feeling sad while watching a sunset.

For an actualist these ‘momentary events or reflections’ are vitally significant for these bleed-throughs of instinctual passions are opportunities to investigate one’s psyche in action. Some people do reasonably well in coping with, or ignoring these momentary flashes of anger, irritation, or frustration, gloominess, melancholy or despair, but for others these feelings can permeate for days or weeks or flare up into more serious ‘events or reflections’ such as outbreaks of verbal or physical aggression or experiences of overwhelming sadness or despair. These feelings and emotions that directly arise from our instinctual programming are the root cause of all the violence that humans inflict on each other and all the sorrow and despair so evident on the 7 o’clock news. You do well to stick with ‘creative imagination’ for the ‘real’ world of human interaction is a ferocious place.

Actualism is only for those who are unwilling, or unable, to turn away to the imaginary spirit-ual world.

This process of actualism is not effortless, for if it was the human condition would not still be exemplified by malice and sorrow. Millions of people have searched for a genuine freedom for thousands of years but the priests, shamans, wise men and Gurus have always taught, by carrot and stick, the effortless paths of devotion or surrender. It is because of this religious/spiritual conditioning that most of the people thus far who have been attracted to actualism, including those who have ‘seen the light’ and stopped their spiritual seeking, invariably cool themselves down when they realize that actualism is not an effortless path.

Effort is required in actualism and none more so than to begin the process. Once started, effort is still required to sustain it in the face of the occasional adversities as well as the persistent adversaries. The effort required is in no way super-human – it simply requires that you make becoming free of malice and sorrow the most important thing in your life and to not stop until the job is done.

To regard freedom from malice and sorrow as effortless is to demean the efforts of the countless human beings who have searched for, and are still searching for, a way to bring peace to this fair planet. That freedom should be effortless is one of the most insidious and deepest ingrained of all spiritual beliefs for one invariably imagines freedom to be one’s God-given right.

For an actualist it is essential to break free from the iron grip of ‘effortless’ belief, fully grasp the fact that there is ‘no-one or no-thing’ stopping one from being free, shout halleluiah, roll up one’s sleeves and become fully committed to making peace on earth a fact rather than a dream.

Just a comment on something you wrote at the end of last post.

Personally I don’t see the word mentor, nor its implications, as appropriate in actualism.

Mentor an experienced and trusted adviser or guide; a teacher, a tutor. Oxford Dictionary.

guide, advisor, counsellor, therapist, guru, spiritual leader, confidant, teacher, tutor, coach, instructor. Oxford Thesaurus.

To take such a radical path in life as to be an actualist and to strive for an actual freedom from the Human Condition can only be done under one’s own steam, following the expertise of others who have gone before. It is a simply process that is purely self-motivated – no-one can do it but you and nobody else can do it for you or to you.

Perhaps a few anecdotes will illustrate my point.

I always found being a parent a somewhat strange business – it was something I had no training for, it came at a stage in life when I knew nothing about life and it was clearly a case of the blind leading the blind. I always found the business of teaching or instilling my morals and ethics a bit hollow and phoney so as much as possible I adopted a tread lightly approach – which was still an approach. As quickly as possible I abandoned a fatherly teaching role – opting instead to allow my children as much freedom to explore and find out for themselves, make their own judgements, have their own successes and failures.

In the work I have done, I have often been involved in co-coordinating and supervising the work of others and again found adopting the role of teacher or mentor to be not my cup of tea and to be inhibiting of another’s learning for themselves. Another more pragmatic reason is I find if I do offer advise, no matter how sound and sensible, it was rarely followed and often resented or rebelled against. The last episode that stands out was when the teenage son of the owner of a house I was building came to work on site, fresh from school. After about 2 weeks of turning up late on the job, I said ‘I will tell you the only rule you need to know about work – turn up on time’. I said if you find yourself coming late, just take the day off because every one else is on time and you don’t want to be seen as the owner’s son taking advantage of the others. From then on, he wasn’t late and he picked up the necessary carpentry skills himself by observing others he worked with. I think I taught him all I knew about working for someone else – they are buying your time and the mutual bargain is time and effort exchanged for money.

In the case of actualism, all I can say is it works, and the return is related to the time and effort that you put in to actually changing yourself. Enough words and writing exist on the AF web-site for anyone to pick up the necessary skills needed to become more happy and harmless and to become free of the human condition, if that is your goal.

The idea of teaching or mentoring is not for me, as I see it as the antithesis of freedom, both for me and others. Actualism is, by its very nature, squeaky clean – it is about autonomy, freedom and actuality, 180 degrees opposite to the spiritual path.

*

I know Richard used the term in his journal but I think the word mentor has too many fuzzy connotations for our use. I guess it stems from the current local fashion of SNAGS to use the word mentor in running groups for teenage boys whereupon they are instilled with all sorts of moral values and ethical codes. Vineeto and I had a good mull over an appropriate word to use that would be free of social/spiritual preconditioning. One way is to invent a new unique word but this sort of spluttered out, so we have come up with two new terms for consideration.

Firstly, the proposal is to use the term ‘experienced actualist’ for someone who is virtually happy and harmless, i.e. someone whose intelligence is no longer fettered by personal instinctual passions. As such, having a conversation or interaction with such a person would be of great benefit for someone interested in actualism and who is seeking a sensible conversation, clarity, direction and evidence. Vineeto and I certainly fit this description.

Secondly, the proposal is to use the term ‘expert actualist’ for someone who is totally free from the Human Condition, à la Richard.

This may seem over simple and pragmatic, but given the human propensity for over-complexity and ambiguity, these labels then allow others to freely make use of another actualist, and their level of expertise, in any way that is mutually appropriate. This definition also ensures it is a fairly simple business to debunk any pretenders, clip-oners or wannabes – they plainly have to exhibit a clarity of thinking, an absence of instinctual malice and sorrow and, most tellingly, show that it works by the down-to-earth demonstrable living of actualism in the world of people, things and events.

Again at the risk of seeming over pedantic, you are on your own in this exercise, which is exactly what makes the process so thrilling. Nobody but you can journey into your psyche, nobody but you knows what is the next thing you have to do, the next vital issue to be faced. I have no special perception, or sense of what is going on, other than what you report and all I, or any other experienced or expert actualist, can do is pass on knowledge, experience and technique – the most valuable of information, for it is all factual.

I like the term ‘to let one’s guard down’. It addresses the issue of one’s instinctual survival program, it requires an active naiveté, and it allows one to experience firstly one’s personal psychological and emotional programming and then to experience the collective psychological and emotional programming of the human species. It beats spiritual vulnerability by two country miles for the spiritual people retreat inwards and create a protective bubble around themselves in order to be ‘present’ in the world. To let one’s guard down is to be considered insane by both real world and spiritual world viewpoints, which is why neither will understand what you are doing – but that is simply the way it is for all pioneers.

No apologies necessary Gary, on the contrary. We are all in this actualism business for the first time and we are plotting the course for ourselves and others as we go. The recent discussions about the difference between affective spiritual experiences and pure self-less experiences was a case in point where we were all becoming clearer in communicating and more concise in our terminology. The same thing is now happening around the term mentor and I like the aliveness and immediacy of this pioneering business. It’s one of the side benefits of pioneering – you get to write the journals and tweak them as appropriate. I have really enjoyed this conversation and the associated contemplations and await your comments on our suggested terms.

I know Richard used the term in his journal but I think the word mentor has too many fuzzy connotations for our use. I guess it stems from the current local fashion of SNAGS to use the word mentor in running groups for teenage boys whereupon they are instilled with all sorts of moral values and ethical codes. Vineeto and I had a good mull over an appropriate word to use that would be free of social/spiritual preconditioning. One way is to invent a new unique word but this sort of spluttered out, so we have come up with two new terms for consideration.

SNAG means ‘sensitive new age guy’ over on this part of the planet. As such mentoring has a connotation of teaching what is currently fashionable – the feel-good over-indulgence in the supposedly good passions and the well-meaning but misguided infliction of moral standards and ethical values by similarly inflicted people.

Given that actualism is such a radically different process than this, I simply want to try avoiding any possible misconceptions as much as possible.

*

Firstly, the proposal is to use the term ‘experienced actualist’ for someone who is virtually happy and harmless, i.e. someone whose intelligence is no longer fettered by personal instinctual passions. As such, having a conversation or interaction with such a person would be of great benefit for someone interested in actualism and who is seeking a sensible conversation, clarity, direction and evidence. Vineeto and I certainly fit this description.

Secondly, the proposal is to use the term ‘expert actualist’ for someone who is totally free from the Human Condition, à la Richard. This may seem over simple and pragmatic, but given the human propensity for over-complexity and ambiguity, these labels then allow others to freely make use of another actualist, and their level of expertise, in any way that is mutually appropriate.

Just a note on something I have been musing over and that also seems to be an issue with others on the list.

To No 7 – Some time ago I remember thinking about that quite a bit and remember coming to the realization that the wonderful thing about the way of actualism is that firstly it is not too difficult to work out where your at. i.e.: good 99% of the time, great 99% of the time, or PCE 99% of the time. Of course, in the last example any brain pain could just be the beginning of the end. Secondly, it is possible to explore any of the above to see if there is any emotion behind it.

That is a pretty sure indication that it is made up by ‘me’.

I think it may be useful that we coin another term for that lingering on the edge of a PCE or that almost, but not quite, 99% PCE. There is a woman who describes this as an ‘excellence experience’ – the best one can be while the ‘self’ is still present. It is most definitely not a PCE for one can look inside, as it were and there is still a ‘me’ as a feeler and an ‘I’ as a thinker but it is so far above normal it is worthwhile naming and labelling.

The benefit of this acknowledgement for an actualist is that these experiences are the proof of the pudding that one’s effort is bringing reward. The idea is to expand these ‘excellence experiences’ until one can go to bed at night-time saying that one has had a 99% perfect day in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

This is no small thing in a world where doom and gloom is the norm and were escaping to the self-deception and fantasy of yet another world, is held to be the ‘only’ solution.

So, what I am proposing is a new term – an excellence experience – in order that we don’t get into the spiritual trap of watering down experiences and confusing terms such as in the fashionable interposing of Awakened and Enlightened. Thus Virtual Freedom – living in an almost constant experience of excellence – is a prerequisite stage for an actualist prior to Actual Freedom. Once one can reach this stage, it is then possible to begin the next stage of dismantling the tender emotions, exactly as Richard did in his years between Enlightenment and Actual Freedom. This is more subtle, and in many ways more demanding, work for this is entirely new territory – way out beyond both normal and completely opposite to spiritual. Because of this, a considerable period of gaily living via common sense, freed of emotional turmoil, is vital and a necessary preparation for the final and irrevocable step into an actual freedom from the human condition.

What do you think? Is this a useful new term or is it only confusing? Actualism is totally new and we are writing the script, forging the path, and I welcome your comment and any others from the list.

You of course would argue that your point of view is evidently more sane since you have the empirical proof to back it up. But I can’t see the use of dismissing the theoretical side of science and everything else that isn’t possible to verify directly by empirical methods.

The problem I found with believing others’ theories and ideals was that they are changeable over time as more factual evidence became available, or as fashions changed. Further theories and ideals are culturally and spiritually influenced and the many variations only open up rich avenues of conflict, confusion, fantasy and fear, hope and hopelessness. Believing theories merely added more fuel to the fire of my instinctual passions, imaginations, dreams and nightmares – which is why I eventually abandoned the very act of believing. Give me a fact any day.

Facts are great but I also think that we need to be our own ‘philosopher’ to be able to evaluate and make use of the facts. As I understand, practical philosophy is also about learning to communicate one’s views in an understandable way and we all need that to make any sense to others.

I find ‘practical philosophy’ a contradiction in terms. Philosophy means thinking about life.

Actualism is not a philosophy – it is a practical down-to-earth method of becoming free from the human condition.

An actualist needs to be discerning of all the spiritual / religious beliefs about the world as-it-is in order to become free of the Human Condition, for it is these very self-same beliefs that actively perpetuate sorrow and malice on the planet. To repeat the point I made earlier – if indeed one continues to believe the current fashionable fear-ridden theories then one would have a grim view of the world as-it-is and one would therefore seek an ‘escape’ from the world as-it-is and not a freedom from the Human Condition – two diametrically opposite seekings. Unless one is willing to tackle first things first – one’s social identity – then one is only ‘swapping coloured glasses’ and one will never experience the perfection and purity of the actual physical world that is perpetually here. Under our very noses, so to speak.

Actual Freedom is eminently liveable in the world as-it-is. The more one becomes free from the Human Condition the more one is able to have an open-eyed view of the world as-it-is. It then becomes apparent that what ‘I’ can do for peace on earth is stop being a participant in either the appalling instinctual ‘battle for survival’ or the spiritual game of denial and fantasy escape.

The only way to actually do this is for ‘me’ to cease being. And the way to do that is to get off my bum, stop sticking my head in the sand or in the clouds, roll up my sleeves and get on with the job.

Well Alan, it’s probably time to reign all this in. I could rave on about the world as-it-is for a lot longer. It’s such fun to debunk beliefs and uncover facts – a delightfully freeing pastime. The person whom I was talking to about real-world beliefs headed for the hills soon after meeting Peter and Vineeto, the ‘litmus’ twins. He was interested in meeting and talking with Richard-the-Guru, but when it came down to actually doing something and actually changing himself it was too much. Others seem to get to a stage where they realize that to take on AF would be the ending of ‘me’ and then zoot – off they go. For me, I knew very early on that what Richard was talking about was the ending of ‘me’, but it seemed a pittance of a price to pay for a personal freedom from malice and sorrow and an end to the grim battle for survival that Humanity engages in on this wondrous planet earth. The New Dark Age is indeed the Savage Age.

Now I get to play the peace on earth vs. God in Heaven game, and what a hoot.

What children know is what children are taught. Thus what we think we know or take for granted is, almost without exception, what we have been taught by our parents, teachers and peers. We take this information to be true, as in factual, whereas an extraordinary amount of it is theory, fashion, belief, concept, current idea, old wives tales, psittacisms, prejudiced view, etc. One only needs to consider what the school curriculum would have been like a century ago and consider how much of it would be relevant today, how much our world view has changed and yet how much of the past we desperately cling to. However, what we have been taught as truisms forms the very substance of our social identity – ‘who’ we think we are. One’s social identity is the conglomerate of all the beliefs, morals, ethics, values, principles and psittacisms that each of us has been programmed with since birth.

Unless this programming in the brain is questioned and sorted into silly and sensible and old redundant neural connections severed and new ones formed, one remains a victim of one’s social identity – whereas an actualist’s avowed aim is freedom from being this identity that has been imposed upon this flesh and blood body. Therefore it is vital that all one’s beliefs, morals, ethics, principles and psittacisms be questioned and reviewed.

This is the practical business of an actualist, this is the very down-to-earth pragmatic work to be done. It is an uncomfortable, tedious, seemingly-pedantic, fear-provoking process that people are very reluctant to undertake for you are quite literally dismantling a very large part of your ‘self’. Most of this information is programmed into us at the early years but quite a lot of what we hold dearest is what we have adopted later in life as we ‘moved with the times’. Environmental belief and Eastern religious belief were two that I adopted later in my life, and as such, I found them relatively easier to question for they were a bit like the layers of clothing I had swapped during my adult life as fashions and times changed.

So, the first thing to be aware of is that you are doing the very business of dismantling your social identity by questioning and challenging your dearly held beliefs. The second thing is that they don’t magically disappear by themselves. It requires stubborn effort to dig in and question and you will find much resistance, wariness, hesitancy and objection in yourself to devoting the necessary time and effort required. The third thing is that it is something you have to do yourself to the point that the ‘penny drops’ for you, otherwise you are back with simply swapping beliefs or adopting another belief – a useless enterprise that will do nothing to free you from the human condition.

Actualism is not a philosophy – it is a down-to-earth practical method that can enable you to become free from the human condition.

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

see  AF 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

see  AF 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.

And the point I was trying to make is that every spiritual practice ignores the scientifically proven fact that humans are emotional beings and that the primary source of those emotions are the instincts of fear and aggression. Merely to attempt to be good, while a noble ideal, will do nothing to alter this fact. Only a total, radical and complete change will do. As I said in the bit which you snipped – ‘These two facets – reducing the influence of feelings and emotions – both the supposed ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – and demolishing the social identity, the ‘guardian at the gate’ ultimately brings one’s bare awareness to focus on the Amygdala and its instinctual programming. The focus is then on the instincts in operation both in the body and in the brain – with minimal psychological and emotional effects.’

I encourage you to make the journey into your feelings rather than ‘focusing on them less and less’. Actualism is most definitely not a new theory about having no feelings, or that feelings are bad – men have played that game for centuries, whether it be hiding in caves, practicing celibacy, by intellectual wanking or indulging in rationalism. Denial, repression and controlling emotions has failed to work. Indulging, expressing and emotive therapizing has also failed to work.

There is a third alternative for the sincerely curious adventurer.

Now about Richard’s method, he calls it ‘tried and tested’. If nobody objects, I would say, at least you, Vineeto and Alan have tried it sincerely. If success is to be defined by achieving Actual Freedom, then you have not succeeded by your own admission. I guess then it is Richard and maybe Vineeto and Alan. I do not know anybody else in the running. So, by my count, it is one definite success (Richard), two may-be-successes (Vineeto and Alan) one not succeeded yet (Peter).

If nobody objects? You’re free to indulge in whatever fantasies you want. Have you ‘placed’ yourself in the Freedom ranks yet, or are you happy to remain on the sidelines as a resident critic and ‘keeper of the score’? You could consider a move from ‘scorekeeper’ and ‘critic’ to participant, or would that be too radical a move? Is there a saying that goes something like ‘There are those who do and those who merely criticise?’

Given that you have been on the list for a while now I’ll let you in to some inner-circle secrets. Actual Freedom, as you already know is completely non-spiritual and is in fact a front for the I.H.S. (International Hedonists Society). The I.H.S. grew out of the N.H.S. which was established by M. Python, H. Wilson, T. Beatle and L.S.D in England in the 60’s. The Indian mystics M.A.Rijuana and M.E.D.Tation attracted many of the followers away but it is currently enjoying a clandestine revival using the A.F.T. as a front. The original N.H.S. charter extolling the virtues of H.H (Happiness and Harmlessness) was derailed by esoteric and meta-physical influences but is now firmly back on the rails, sailing full steam ahead, has a full tank of petrol, is soon to turn the corner and then you won’t see it for the dust of the mixed metaphors left in its wake. So, your interest could not have come at a better time for both the organization and yourself, as the revival is in full swing. You are definitely right about Richard – he is the genuine article. He has demonstrated an unswerving ability to remain totally happy and harmless despite the severe provocation of Web mailing lists and the abounding cynicism of ex. N.H.S. members. I did, however, manage to draw level with him for several hours at our last competition where, despite the extreme provocation of no less than 6 eager spiritual-ist volunteers, I managed to remain both happy and harmless. I almost had to apply some effort in the last 10 minutes but I managed it right to the end un-assisted. A deep breathe and I leaped up on the top step of the dais, arm in arm with Richard, claiming my share of the trophy. It’s definitely a tough business, this being happy and harmless – the training is gruelling, the opposition relentless and uncompromising, the social ostracising palpable – but the delicious slide into an anonymous, selfless happiness and harmlessness is delectably delightful.

An actualist rapidly moves from learning, thinking, trying, and looking to investigating, pursuing, discovering, uncovering, finding, implementing, activating, challenging and dismantling feelings, emotions, beliefs and instincts. From a mere snorkelling around on the surface to a bit of sincere deep sea diving into one’s own psyche.

Mysticism and spiritualism are an attempt to ‘feel’ your way to God, philosophy and theoretical science are an attempt to ‘think’ your way to God. For an actualist – awareness and pure intent lead to apperception – a bare awareness whereby one figuratively and literally ‘comes to one’s senses’. With apperception operating almost exclusively an Actual Freedom from the Human Condition is the inevitable result.

Actualism is most definitely not a traditional path, which is why only a handful of Sannyasins have been at all interested of the hundreds who have had the opportunity to investigate what it is we are on about.

Actualism is for pioneers and adventurers, not believers of truth and followers of fashion.

There is none more ignorant than the spiritual seeker – the more ignorant, the better the seeker – for they seek that which cannot be known, only imagined as thoughts and given sustenance by feelings. It can only be accessed by imagination and feelings for it only exists in thoughts and feelings – none of it is actual. Ignorance may well lead to blissful feelings, but it is still ignorance.

It would all be a hoot except for the wars, rapes, murders, genocides, ‘cleansings’, tortures, repression, perversion and corruption that are all the direct result of passionate feelings run riot.

But, as you know, the whole point of being an actualist is to find out about what it is to be a human being. To explore, investigate, uncover, discover, dig in, find out, realise and then put into practice what you discover. As with anything new there will be pit-falls, wobbles, fears and doubts, stuck periods, wrong alleys, etc. But given a pure intent to be the best one can be, a willingness to abandon what doesn’t work and a daringness to take risks, success is inevitable. This exploration into the Human Condition, conducted in one’s own psyche, is brand new on the planet. Not only has it never been done before, it could never have been done before. It is only in the last 40 years or so that the human species is emerging from a genesis based entirely on survival. The survival-only phase is over, for those who want it, and for whom the circumstances are right. Only now, with the dawning of the information age, is it possible for the individual to find out for themselves. To access and read all of Ancient Wisdom, mankind’s history, philosophy, science, current happenings, etc. on a scale, and with an ease of accessibility, inconceivable even in my childhood. To be able to easily and directly ‘find out’ from the convenience of a computer, and the comfort of a couch. To study the Human Condition in action, global-wide, on the 7 o’clock news.

And then, you get to put what you have found out into practice ... in your daily life ...

This is not a revolution that will instantly sweep the world – for those who espouse ignorance as a virtue obviously have strong vested interests in maintaining ignorance and stifling and ridiculing inquiry, intelligence and free will.

But 12 months ago this mailing list didn’t exist and only 3 years ago Richard was wondering if anyone else would ever be interested in being free of the Human Condition, so, things are going swimmingly ....

Actual Freedom is a freedom from the insidious fairy-tales told by all the Gurus – no exceptions, no maybes, no “it’s only the same thing that everybody else is saying”. For me, this meant that I would have to desert my Master, not only being ungrateful but disloyal as well. It soon became obvious that this meant I would also have to desert Humanity – be a traitor to Humanity – to be ‘a rat deserting a sinking ship’, as Richard put it recently.

And the only way ‘out’ – to actually become free – was to do it, despite these values, ethics and morals that bound me to Humanity’s perpetual suffering and fighting. Once one begins to break these bonds and ties, to actualize one’s own freedom, one discovers that one has been instinctually programmed to be a member of the species, and to break with Humanity – the emotional-backed concept that binds the species together – necessitates an extinction of the these instincts in operation in this flesh and blood body. The ending of ‘my’ connection to Humanity is the ending of ‘me’.

So, even in the first weeks after reading Richard’s Journal, I knew what the consequences of my actions would be if I gave the path to Actual Freedom a ‘go’. But I had had enough experience to not get into the trap of believing what others said merely because it sounded ‘right’ – so I wanted some practical proof that Actual Freedom worked. In the beginning of the Richard’s Journal are the chapters on living together in peace and harmony, ending the battle of the sexes and unravelling the mystique of sex, and this is what I decided I would ‘cut my teeth on’ – to see if this would work. I simply acknowledged that what I, and every body else, had been doing didn’t work and would never work, and decided to actually try something new. Not just read, study and understand, but put it into practice and see if it worked. To see if I could live with one other person in peace and harmony and get to the bottom of the mess of human sexuality. Actualism is not a cerebral pastime nor a feeling-based escape from ‘reality’ – it is a full blooded commitment to expunging the alien entity within this flesh and blood body that prevents one being the universe experiencing itself as a human being. Anything less is chicken shit.

As a human on the planet, at this time, we clearly see that much of the essential explorations have been undertaken in order to provide comfort, shelter, food and safety from wild animals and that the next major exploration and effort will be to end ‘man’s inhumanity to man’. Many people are still seeking excitement, fame, meaning and a sense of purpose by physical exploring and adventure pursuits but it has got a bit ridiculous such that it comes as no surprise to hear of someone being the first to hop all the way to the north pole or being the first woman to circumnavigate the globe the wrong way in a bath tub. Many people are now devoting there lives to helping wild animals survive, having abandoned the post-WW2 hope of peace on earth for humans. The focus has shifted to the fashionable ‘saving the earth’ rather than saving the human species.

An actualist is one who devotes his or her life to actualizing peace on earth in the only way possible and gets to have the adventure of a lifetime on the way. It is the most significant thing one can do with one’s life – one’s ‘three score and ten’ of existence as a human being.

Then whatever goes ‘on and on’ is not of my concern, for I will have done my bit for peace on earth.

This whole business of becoming free of the Human Condition is to do with the doing of it. At present it still remains but a nice theory, proposed by someone who can still be rightly labelled as a freak of nature as in – ‘an abnormal or irregular occurrence, an abnormally developed person or thing’. It is now up to others to prove – for themselves – that it is possible for them to be free from the Human Condition.

T’is about quality not quantity, the individual not the group, facts not belief, actualization not theory.

Of course the process works, but it only works for those doing it. Even a Virtual Freedom is to live beyond normal human expectations and would be sufficient to bring peace to this fair planet. But to go all the way is always the only way – stopping at ‘base camp’ is not for the true adventurer.

Actualism is firmly based on what is actual, factual, physical, sensate and sensible as opposed to ethereal, imaginary, affective, spirit-ual and based on ancient wisdom and tradition. See ‘Time-Chapter’ of my journal for a description of the spiritual here-now as opposed to actually being here.

Do you remember the scene from the Life of Brian when he is queuing up and the guy asks him in for ‘crucifixion?’ or ‘freedom’? and he says ‘freedom ... no, just kidding!’

I liken it now to the question ... ‘Enlightenment?’ ... and most will opt for the traditional.

Still, there is now an alternative.

Actual freedom or actualism is, of course, not merely a theory or philosophy but a new, down-to-earth non-spiritual path to freedom – an actual freedom from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow.

Now actual means it works. It means that given sufficient effort and intent that one can virtually eliminate sorrow and malice from the human body. This means in practical terms that one no longer suffers from feelings of sadness, melancholy, boredom, neediness, sympathy, empathy, despair or fear, let alone annoyance, offence, anger, revenge or violence. It is then possible by practical demonstration to live with a companion in total equity, delighting in freely and mutually enjoyed sex, discussion and physical intimacy. The physical pleasures build and build, as does the awareness of the immeasurable and limitless perfection and purity of it all, increasingly off the scales. One literally ‘buckles at the knees’ as the paltry attempts of the old ‘I’ to fearfully hang on wither in the helter skelter slide to freedom.

And all this is actual, sensate – as evidenced by the physical senses – not merely cerebral or affective. You know, things like the smell of a woman’s armpit during sex, the feel of the breast or bum, the way you can tease a nipple to hardness, the fresh unique journey that is each sexual encounter as a literal salubrious smorgasbord of sensuality unfolds as wave after wave of pleasure engulfs us both. To feel a woman as equally sexual such that you don’t know who is thrusting or who is wiggling or where you end and she begins. To ride wave after wave of pleasure of such intensity that ejaculation is but a side order, not the main meal. And after ... to lie back and chat about how it was for each of us, to compare notes, to discuss the nuances, pleasures, particularly delicious bits, or just to lay back in that state where all the cells of the body are sexually alive and tingling and drift off into a delicious half asleep state. To drift off entirely or to eventually surface and wobble to the shower where you realise that to have hot water on tap to pour over your body is a simple pleasure that rivals any. Then maybe a cup of freshly ground coffee and a post-coital cigarette, and wonder what other pleasures are next, and in what order they will come. Hedonism has got nothing on this. Freedom is this and much more, much more. Can’t I tease you into considering the possibility of living in paradise, here, now, on earth.

It is a paradise not only of physical pleasure as it also offers a stillness and purity wherein one is no longer driven by the instincts, where the mind is a perfectly clear and delightful and playful thing and the usual feelings of fear and aggression are replaced by a consuming sense of well being and benignity. And loneliness disappears as one immensely enjoys ones own company. Good Hey...

So, unlike the other metaphysical and philosophical theories of freedom this one works and delivers and, as such, easily rebuffs charlatans and frauds. The proof is in the actual and in my experience if you can prove an end to malice and sorrow in equitable one-on-one companionship you have ‘put your money where your mouth is’. There is no greater test of fire than sexual freedom and equity, than for man and woman to live together in utter peace and harmony – not in theory but in practice.

I noticed your heading to the first post was about convert numbers. There can be no converts to AF for the simple reason that one has to do it for oneself, by oneself. There are no meetings, rallies, practices, groups, etc. Just a handful of people so far, their words, a web-site, and a mailing list.

The other reason is simple – AF is a life-as-you-know-it threatening occupation and, as such, not of great attraction to many.

AF is about quality not quantity. The best, not the most.

As Richard pointed out, an actualist doesn’t aim for a self stripped of emotions and, as such, it is vitally important, firstly to crank up Actual Freedom as one’s meaning in life and secondly not to strangle this passion by suppressing it. This is where the constant remembering of a pure consciousness experience becomes absolutely essential as one’s constant guiding light and aim in life. This memory will serve to keep you on course as you weave your way through the maze and it will prevent you from settling for second best.

This passion for Actual Freedom is exactly why I wrote my journal – to capture the excitement and thrill of the early period of breaking free from the two traditional life-paths within the Human Condition. But I do know what you mean – the falling away of all the traditional meanings of life is a fascinating business, to make sense of the meanings our parents and peers have told us are important and then to discover how blind nature has programmed us to implicitly feel, think and act. The socially instilled meanings vary from tribe to tribe, and produce cultural variations to our basic instinctual programming designed solely to continue the propagation of the species – hence the over-arching predominance of the sexual drive. The other predominant instinct, the fear of death, fuels the search for security, fame and wealth in the real world and security, fame and immortality in the spiritual world. In exploring the brute animal instinctual passions, one soon discovers that blind nature cares not a fig for your being happy and harmless – quite the opposite, in fact.

Yet, as all these meanings, drives and passions drop away, it is vital to remember that the third alternative is definitely not a passionless path.

I distinctly remember a period where life seemed so devoid of meaning that I discovered a stark grey reality – not as a desperation but more of a pointlessness. This proved to be but a passing phase whereby I had left the familiar meanings, feelings and worries behind and began the real business of cranking up sensate delight, a joie de vive and a resounding Yes to being here in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. I found this was initially like daily swimming against what felt like a tide of my own resistance and that of Humanity as a whole. Then came a point where I realized that it was only ‘me’ who had the foot on the brakes, so to speak, and then the whole business became even more thrilling and fascinating.

So, No 3, the ending of the animal instinctual passions is a passionate affair, as life becomes brim-full with meaning and purpose.

Actual Freedom is not for everyone in that it requires a pioneering adventurous spirit to try a third alternative to the traditional, but there is a lot of beneficial results in people’s lives simply in being more sensible, being less driven, even in considering an new alternative way of living.

A ‘trickling down’ of anything new undertaken by pioneers, of any new discovery, takes years, decades or even centuries. When the new discovery is one so radical as to change human nature the resistance will be frantic and furtive. After all, the Human Condition has existed as long as humans have existed which may well be millions of years according to some research.

Those with ‘vested interests’ made Galileo recant but they couldn’t make the sun revolve around the earth. Literally hundreds and hundreds of people have tried to make Richard recant over the years by insisting that ‘you can’t change human nature’ or that a meta-physical realm complete with Gods and an afterlife does exist in fact. Mainstream society has declared that he is insane while the spiritualists insist he must be a God!

Aache Aye. (? my attempt at a bit of Scottish) It’s a strange world we find ourselves in ... but such fun, such a hoot.

What is it that makes one want to conform to an ideal way of life, what is it that makes one want to imitate someone whom one considers as wise or more experienced?

Speaking personally of my early years of adulthood, on those once rare occasions when I could sit back and contemplate on the state of my life, I often thought that I would like to be free of the lot of it. I had no idea that is was possible at the time so the best I could do was to be on the look-out for better ways of living in order that I could at least be less resentful of my lot in life and more able to be happy. Part of this being on the look-out was to assess how other people lived their lives. One of these checking out exercises that comes to mind was that I came across an architect who also was a builder and I liked his lifestyle as well as the way he did business and I liked how he was with the people he dealt with in his business. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I unabashedly ‘imitated’ his way of working simply because it made good sense to me.

In my spiritual years, I found no one who I would have liked to ‘imitate’ or emulate – I eventually came to see that Mohan Rajneesh was nought but an Indian God-man, a self-aggrandized snake-oil seller and this was made even clearer after his death when I realized that I had been suckered into yet another ‘olde time religion’ albeit of the Eastern variety. A few other gurus followed before I finally came to understand that there was nothing in any of the revered gurus, God-men or Pundits that I wanted to emulate – I didn’t like how they treated their followers, I didn’t like how they treated their women and I didn’t like their lifestyle.

When I came across Richard, I quite naturally assumed he was of the same ilk as the spiritual gurus – it takes a while to come to fully understand that actualism is diametrically opposite to spiritualism – so I was particularly interested in how he was with other people, how his lifestyle was and how he was with his companion. Once I had established that he was totally free of both malice and sorrow, I knew that he was indeed the genuine article and I soon found myself compelled to emulate the freedom he lived as an ongoing 24/7 experience.

Isn’t it an attempt to exalt oneself?

I discovered that to want to imitate those who have risen to the top in the spiritual world is certainly an attempt to exalt oneself – or more precisely to seek the exaltation of others – after all spiritualism is, at root, all about self-aggrandizement. Actualism on the other hand is all about becoming happy and harmless and provided one fully commits oneself to the process one inevitable discovers that ‘I’ am rotten at core through no fault of mine – hardly the stuff worth exalting.

These days, whenever I write or think something, Richard’s observations seem to be the controlling factor. I hesitate to use the words ‘love’ and ‘feelings’ in a positive way and I am all for ‘benevolence’ and ‘caring’ and ‘investigation’ ...

Yeah. I found myself doing the same thing, simply because it made sense to no longer follow the herd of my fellow human beings who were all busy complaining about being here, blaming others for the universally-perceived ills of humanity, cherishing their capacity for feeling sad and being proud of their righteous anger.

And I can see this same trait exists to a massive extent in Vineeto, and No 66, for example.

I remember at one stage having to tackle the perversity of my feeling guilty about feeling happy when all those about me obviously liked to wallow in the bitter-sweet feeling of sorrow, who thought they were actually doing something for others by feeling sad for them, who saw it as their right to feel angry and who liked to share their feeling of anger and resentment with other like-feeling people.

There must be something sinister in human psyche which repeatedly leads to such states of affairs.

I do understand that many people will feel it sinister that some people will want to devote their lives to becoming both happy and harmless … but then again, those same people are very often those who make a virtue of feeling sad and of being angry.

As I look at my own past, it has been a succession of buying into a thought-system and then leaving it for something else.

Yep. Many people I know never ever left the thought-system they were born into and yet others fondly look backwards to ancient thought-systems somehow imagining that archaic thinking has an intrinsic value simply because it is ancient.

The important thing I found was whenever I discovered something didn’t make sense or that something didn’t work was not to stick with it but to leave it behind and move on until I found something that makes sense and that does work. It sounds as though you have done well in this regard.

Non-violence, then J Krishnamurti, then Vipassana, then Vedanta, then Actualism (which is continuing at the moment). Each of them felt just right at the time. Each of them felt as if it was not a thought system, but the real way to live life happily.

Yep. Life is indeed an adventure. There is a lot of chaff to sort through, a mountain of it. The human condition is such a vast construct that it takes a good deal of persistence and a good dose of daring to get to the bottom of it all. It has often felt to me that I am pulling myself out of treacle, so sticky and glue-like are the revered wisdoms of the real world.

And I see many of my friends who are caught in a circle which I have long escaped from, but who knows, this actualism might also be another trap, another attempt at self-glorification.

Perhaps what I wrote to No 60 might be worth repeating at this juncture –

‘... When I took this on board, I realized that I was starting to think in a way that was fundamentally different to the rest of my fellow human beings, and I do mean fundamentally. This inexorably lead to me coming face-to-face with the realization that it is a deeply cynical viewpoint to think that we human beings will never ever be able to live together in peace and harmony – and the flip-side of this realization was the beginning of a hundred percent certainty that this is not only possible but that it is inevitable now that the way out of the human condition has been forged.’   Peter, List AF, No 60, 10.5.2005

What a nature humans are endowed with!

And yet … the seeing of it – and acting on that seeing – is both the way and the means of becoming free of ‘human nature’.

*

I would like to add a note to this post about the very real difficulties of being a pioneer in this business of actualism. I have written that at the start I saw that the path to becoming free of the human condition in toto had a big sign hanging over it saying ‘Go Back! Do Not Enter Here!’ As I looked at it I could see that the sign had two facets to its meaning.

One was that this was what everybody else says in that humanity has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo – the very notion of ‘humanity’ itself is given credence by the fact that human beings are essentially feeling beings, no matter that the most salient of these feelings are sorrow and malice. It stands to reason that to deliberately set one’s sights on eliminating these hallowed feelings of malice and sorrow – the very core feelings of humanity, of what it is to feel oneself to be human – is to be literally a traitor to one’s fellow human beings.

In seeing this perversity clearly – and I can only call it a perversity – I also saw that this is no-one’s fault but that it is the inevitable result of an ongoing process that has seen matter become animate, aware of being animate and finally aware of being aware of being animate and that the present stage in this process is the eradication of the brutish survival passions in order that the next stage – a self-less sensuous apperception – can flourish. This clear seeing of the ‘big picture’ as it were helped me to assuage the gut-instinctual fear that I felt at the beginning of the path because I knew that a decision to fully commit my life to becoming actually happy and harmless would be the end of ‘me’.

As I umm-ed and ahh-ed for a while, I realized that all ‘I’ could do was procrastinate because having come across the path and despite having read the warning sign, I had nowhere else to go. Turning back was not an option because I had well and truly walked the traditional paths and had found both materialism and spiritualism wanting, to say the least. So I went ahead … there was simply no way I could go back.

I don’t know whether you can relate to my experience or whether it is even relevant to what you were saying about looking back on where you have travelled and wondering about what you have now discovered, but I thought to ‘put my two bob in’ as the saying goes in this part of the planet.

Actualism Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust