Selected Correspondence Peter

Ancient Wisdom and the New Dark Age

I remember when I first came across the writings of Eastern spiritualism and was struck by the wisdom of what was said. Eastern Spiritualism points to the fact that grim reality is an illusion – that it is only a layer of despair, sorrow and fear that ‘I’ as a psychological and psychic entity impose on the physical world we live in. The problem with Enlightenment, the prized achievement of Eastern spiritualism, is that it doesn’t eliminate this entity – it only does half the job. They merely dissociate from their ‘bad’ psychological identity, or ego, and aggrandize their ‘good’ psychic identity, or soul, resulting in an altered state of consciousness or God-realization.

It took 17 years of hands-on experience in Eastern religion, and meeting an ex-Enlightened whistle blower, to see that what I initially saw as wisdom and truth was nothing but an elaborate fairy tale. What I initially thought and felt was clarity in Eastern spirituality was a half-truth elaborated into the big fantasy of the Truth – it states that grim reality is an illusion of ‘my’ creation but then trips off into a further impassioned illusion of a Greater Reality.

It takes a good deal of courage to abandon the seductive half-truths/big lies of Eastern spirituality, particularly when it empowers such glorious narcissistic feelings as Goodness, Godliness and immortality.

I like the word clarity but it is an extremely rare commodity, for the world is awash with puerile Ancient ‘wisdom’ and impassioned ‘self’-centred beliefs.

These great and holy wise men were people who believed the earth was flat and was the centre of the cosmos, who had no understanding of processes of the formation and reproduction of animate life forms, who lived in isolated communities in constant fear of wild animals and other human beings and who believed in ‘other worlds’, both above and below, that were populated by mythical ‘spirits’ or Gods.

All this led to a meta-physical, spirit-ual viewpoint, an imagined understanding of conscious animate life upon this material earth in the infinitude of the physical universe. Further, the excesses of the human instinctual passions of fear and aggression were believed to be due to being ‘possessed’ by bad or evil spirits and succour and relief was sought by praying to the good spirits or God(s) for favours, forgiveness, redemption and salvation in a future life-after-death. At the core of the Eastern religious/spiritual view of the world is the concept that all humans are born ‘innocent’ and have only been conditioned with ‘evil thoughts’ since birth and it is further believed that it is possible for a chosen few to regain this mythical ‘natural’ innocence, in this lifetime on earth, hence the search to find one’s ‘original face’ or Divine Self.

Given that these beliefs in God, spirits and ‘other-worlds’, formulated and formalized over centuries into various conflicting and competing dogma s – either carved in stone or written on animal skins, papyrus or rice paper – are upheld as mankind’s Supreme Wisdom, it is somewhat troubling to dismiss it all in a flash. One would only dare to do so if one found something far better.

The Eastern spiritual philosophy’s dismissal of ‘all that you can touch and see’ as being purely ‘a dream’ is an act of the utmost denial, and the claim that what is Real is that which you can’t touch or see is ‘self’-gratifying, or should I say, soul-gratifying fantasy.

This ‘anything that you can’t touch or see’ is called the spirit-ual world and includes a plethora of competing, conflicting and confusing entities, spirits, Gods, beliefs, concepts, faiths, convictions, etc.

My point is that what No. 12 has done is to transcend – as in rise above – the ‘real’-world or the grim reality into a personally-created Greater Reality. Given that ‘I’, as a psychological and psychic entity, create this grim-world reality in the first place it, is only ‘me’ as a God-realized entity who creates a Greater Reality – both realities are a figment of ‘my’ impassioned imagination. There are in fact three worlds – the real world and the spiritual world, both a creation of a ‘self’, and the actual world, experienced only in a completely ‘self’-less state.

The actual world is anything but boring for perfection and purity is happening right here in this place in space and right now in this moment of time – not there and now as in the ethereal spiritual dimension that we can’t touch and see. To experience the perfection of the actual world one needs to eliminate both facets of one’s identity – both one’s parochial ego and one’s precious soul.

The other day I heard of a person who is a New-Age-Zen-Buddhist-Roman-Catholic which is a clear indication that the Eastern religions are rapidly diluting to be nothing other than an ethical and moral code that is now blending into Western traditions. As for the fervent fringe, all of the Gurus and God-men that have emerged from the Eastern traditions have been found to be anything but pure and perfect, as have their Western counterparts, the Popes, saints and priests. Type the word ‘spiritual’ into your search engine and you will find ample evidence of a rapid demise by duplicity, dilution, deceit, contradiction, factionalism, confusion and conflict.

I noticed you made a comment on the following post to the list, and I thought I’d put my two bob in –

‘Killing while protecting one’s own body from death at the hands of another is a violation. Whether or not any justification seems apparent, the violation exists.

(Long pause.) Because you believe that physical self-defence is the only way to counter such a situation then you will say, ‘If I am attacked by another person, are you telling me that I cannot aggressively counter his obvious intent to destroy me?’ Not at all. You could counter such an attack in several ways that do not involve killing. You would not be in such a hypothetical situation to begin with unless violent thoughts of your own, faced or unfaced, had attracted it to you.’ ‘The Nature of Personal Reality’ Seth via J. Roberts

I find it curious that these words of wisdom about physical self-defence supposedly come from a disembodied entity. As such, I would say that an ethereal entity without a physical body would be the least qualified to offer gratuitous moral advice to we corporeal earthly humans.

I found the business of delving back into Eastern spiritual teachings, meta-physical sciences, philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc. and finding the loop holes, so top speak, a very freeing experience. Digging beneath what is seemingly being said and finding the core argument, theory, concept or belief that underpins and substantiates what has passed as the great, profound and Sacred truths of the Human Condition is very daunting but it is the only way to actually free oneself of the Human Condition. Facts must replace beliefs for facts are actual but beliefs shackle ‘me’ to the Human Condition and keep ‘me’, the believer, in existence. This process of investigation is exactly why we actualists do tend to be a wordy lot and interested in exploring all of the aspects of the Human Condition.

The several modern day sages that I have encountered were not propagating any ancient belief structures but were speaking from their own realization of a living perspective and I think you are generalizing when you refer to ‘Eastern religion’.

I have no doubt that many are speaking from their own realizations, either from having had a glimpse of the Divine as in a Satori, epiphany, revelation, awakening, etc. or as a full-blown permanent realization where their own personal ego-program has crashed and their identity has shifted to their instinctual feeling-only ‘Self’. This experience, commonly known as an altered state of consciousness, does have cultural, religious and fashionable variations, and you are correct in saying that I am generalizing, for not all of these experiences are related to Eastern religion. I was referring to the Eastern religious realization of Enlightenment for that is the broad field of enquiry of this list.

What is common to all religious /spiritual experiences and realizations is the ages-old belief that there is life after death and we are just ‘passing through’ before we go to a better place ‘somewhere else’.

You have divided everyone into the two camps of ‘normal’ and ‘becoming spiritual’, leaving only your view as the third alternative. Could there be other alternatives that you have not yet discovered?

The wonderful thing about the Internet is that everyone and anyone who has something to say, usually gets around to ‘sticking their poster up’ on the Web. So far, extensive searching has revealed that everyone is either trying to cope, as best they can, in the ‘normal’ world or propagating some form of spiritual alternative to what is seen as, and felt to be, the human dilemma. Many, many humans have tried to find a solution to human malice and sorrow and many have tried to break the stranglehold that spiritual belief has over the search for freedom, peace and happiness. It is only now, thanks to modern rapid travel, instant world-wide communication and access to written material and religious texts that we are able to scrutinize both the teachers and their teachings, free of the fear of ostracization, retribution and retaliation. For the first time we are able to make sensible choices of our own, based firmly on facts, rather than merely believe what others tell us.

Unless I find otherwise, and I would be delighted to find that I am wrong, everyone is either coping with being normal or escaping by becoming spiritual. There are only a handful of people, thus far, who are trekking the other way.

The several sages that I referred to in my previous reply are definitely pointing to the same FACT. None of these ‘teachers’ have spoken of a belief in life after death and all have been speaking from a very PRESENT realization of what I would describe as Absolute Wholeness.

No, all sages have their wisdom firmly rooted in the past. The lotus flower they proffer has its roots firmly in the mud of past ignorance. They still talk of good and evil, going in, finding one’s true self, discovering the Truth or whatever. Many are shifty about how they present their message and many are selective in their interpretation the underlying message of the Ancient ones – but their essential message is still the same – be anywhere but here and anywhere but now, for human existence on earth is ultimately a suffering existence. Increasingly a discernable shift can be seen as many attempt to convey a more sophistic and less radical spirituality, but the spiritual world is the spiritual world, be it Franklin Jones at one end of the spectrum or Oprah Winfrey at the other.

I am not advocating a return to the ‘real’ world for that would be silly for those who have at least seen its follies.

But there is a third alternative – step out of the real world, and the spiritual world, into the actual world and leave your self behind where ‘you’ belong.

The old belief structures of organized religion, be it eastern or western, certainly never attracted my attention with the promise of an answer after death. I think you are separating yourself from a huge community of sincere fellow beings who want to know the Truth of What Is ... Now!

Yes, the attraction for me on the spiritual path was the seductive promise of enlightenment – a period of experiencing freedom, on earth, not after death as in Western religion. It certainly was a better deal. I only abandoned it because I began to be suss of those who had obtained this state of freedom, suspicious of turning away from tangible sensuous delights, of feeling more withdrawn from my fellow human beings, and of feeling special. A further realization came when I realized the famed spiritual path was nothing other than a dressed up, fashionable, more casual reinterpretation of old time Eastern religion.

But the final straw only came when I realized there was now, at last, something better on offer. Even then it took me months and months before I was finally willing to let go of my spiritual world-view. By giving up belief I am no longer part of the ‘huge community’ of spiritual seekers but I have become a citizen of the world, free of all religious, metaphysical, cultural and social beliefs. I am released from the burden of having to be someone, of being an identity, of being remorselessly driven by instinctual passions, be they good or evil. This freedom is palpable and tangible – I find myself living in sensuous delight in the actual magical paradise of this verdant planet.

You seemingly agree with what I am saying and then say... ‘however’, which means you don’t agree with what I am saying. This discussion is not about agreeing with me or believing me, I am simply presenting the facts as to why peace on earth has not happened after 3,500 years of fervent prayer and well-meaning effort by billions of humans and offering another alternative for consideration and scrutiny. As such, I will reply to you in detail.

The great beings of the earth have one and all been able to step outside their personal agonies and see from a historical perspective.

The ‘great beings of the earth’, whose wisdom we still salaciously follow and take to be sacred and inviolate, lived thousands of years ago in a world that bears no resemblance to the one you and I live in. Ancient, ignorant and fearful understandings of earth and the cosmos led to the universal human belief in ‘other worlds’, both above and below, that were populated by mythical ‘spirits’ or Gods. Further, ‘spirits’ or nature ‘forces’ were deemed to live on, or be a part of, earth itself leading to a spirit-ual view of nature – a metaphysical-only understanding of physical life upon this material earth. A fervent and desperate belief that there was a future life-after-death for the human ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ in these imaginary ‘spirit worlds’ was common to all ancient tribal groups.

The great beings were flat-earth god-men, their wisdom naught but fairy stories elaborated and altered over the millennia and, as such, their wisdom is firmly rooted in an ignorance of the facts and workings of the world that other humans have since been discovered. The long dead, supposedly wise and great ones, had no historical perspective as we have and were ignorant of modern scientific empirical discoveries of the functioning of the human body, this planet and the universe. In fear and ignorance they stepped out of, or turned away from, their real world ‘personal agonies’ and into an imaginary world of spirits – thus believing that they, as spirit only, would survive physical death in the spirit world.

What I am saying is step out of the real world, and the spiritual world, into the actual world and leave your ‘self’ behind, where ‘you’ belong.

They council against this limited view as it is very destructive, if we have nothing else to hold on to.

Given that the ‘great beings of the earth’ – the forerunners and original authors of all present day religious belief – lived thousands of years ago, theirs was a limited view. We modern humans, you and I, living now, are obviously capable of seeing and understanding far more than the ancients. I am clearly able to see that their wisdom and teaching is a belief and not a fact because since their time billions of human beings have diligently and sincerely attempted to put into practice and live their teachings, and peaceful co-existence amongst humans is nowhere in sight. The ancient human’s life would have really been a tough and relentless battle for survival and to retreat from the physical world into an inner world was the only alternative.

When I realized that the pure consciousness experience or peak experience offered a third alternative, I simply gave up believing in ancient Wisdom, waiting for Godot, praying, hoping, trusting, or trying to become God-on-earth as in the Eastern religious belief-system. Once you stop believing in God, he/she/it simply doesn’t exist anymore and then you free yourself to begin tackling the job of becoming actually free of malice and sorrow.

I can see now why I was uncertain where you were coming from in your previous post. As I read through this post I felt pulled between, on the one hand, your spark of revolutionary spirit to realize an end to conflict on earth and on the other a set of fixed ideas about the inadequacy of the spiritual approach to this dilemma.

By fixed ideas I presume you mean the fact that after 3,500 years of belief, trust, faith and hope in Gods, Goddesses, Spirits, Sources, Higher Selfs, Essences, Creators, Doomsdays, Good and Evil, we are still merely praying for peace on earth, while indulging in the fantasy that the only ‘true’ peace possible is after physical death. The human condition on earth is typified by malice and sorrow and the man-made idyllic antidotes of love and compassion have failed to stem the carnage. It is well-documented that the last century was the bloodiest to date – over 160 million human beings died at the hands of their fellow human beings and over 40 million people killed themselves in suicides – and there is no end in sight. Religion, be it Eastern or Western, actively contributes to this carnage as is evidenced by the countless religious wars, persecutions, recriminations, repressions, ostracizations, denials, retributions, perversions and conflicts that are ever ongoing ... Eastern religion is particularly insidious for it deliberately promotes the practice of turning away and withdrawing from the physical world of people, things and events where we human beings actually live to a spirit-ual, meta-physical world, to an ‘inner’ private isolated world of furtive imagination and impassioned feelings. These are not fixed ideas, these are facts.

Peace on earth is ultimately sacrificed by the utterly selfish pursuit of immortality for one’s soul – ‘who’ one feels one is as opposed to what one actually is, a mortal flesh and blood human being.

Hence I was confused as most of your post focused on the latter and covered the passion you claim for liberation of the human spirit.

No, you are still confused about what I said. It is the ‘passion for liberation of the human spirit’ – the fervent belief in an eternal, timeless, spaceless ie immortal spirit – that compounds and actively contributes to malice and sorrow on earth. Religion, be it Eastern or Western, actively contributes to this carnage as is evidenced by the countless religious wars, persecutions, recriminations, repressions, ostracizations, denials, retributions, perversions and conflicts that are ever ongoing ... Eastern religion is particularly insidious for it deliberately promotes the practice of turning away and withdrawing from the physical world of people, things and events where we human beings actually live to a spirit-ual, meta-physical world, to an ‘inner’ private isolated world of furtive imagination and impassioned feelings.

I have a vital interest to end the ‘passion for a liberation of the human spirit’ – manifest as the search for enlightenment – for it stands in the way of peace on earth.

I do not share your view that the spiritual approach to ending conflict and misery is what went wrong. In my own experience I see it is because of the reluctance of the individual to pay the price to live up to what was realized in the spiritual approach that is really why nothing fundamentally changes. Despite those rare few who are willing to live up to the demand of the spiritual approach and have inspired us to see it is possible to go through the ‘sacred ceiling’ most of us do not want to give up our selfishness to do so.

Now I am confused. ‘Those rare few who are willing to live up to the demand of the spiritual approach’ are the very ones who are ensnaring their gullible followers beneath the ‘sacred ceiling’. By sacred ceiling I do not mean the mythical transcendence between mortal human and the immortal Divine. Breaking the sacred ceiling is daring to question the sacred and taking action to break free of ancient beliefs in Gods, God-men and Spirits. It does not mean swapping or reaffirming one’s beliefs – merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It means getting out of, and breaking free of, the whole institutionalized insanity of the spiritual world, full stop. By sacred ceiling I mean the out-dated meta-physical belief in the immortal and Divine that prevents sincere seekers of freedom, peace and happiness from actualizing it, as this flesh and blood body only, here on this physical earth, where we human beings live.

I have just finished reading the new WIE? magazine on ‘What is Ego – friend or foe’ and in it there are at least 3 rare individuals who are interviewed who make your heart sing with the fire of their victory over malice and sorrow. It’s well worth reading.

I spent some 17 years on the spiritual path with both a singing heart (love) and a bleeding heart (compassion) but I had a brief pure consciousness experience where I saw, with shocking clarity, that I had been seduced into and was firmly entrapped in nothing other than an old time Religion, albeit the fashionable Eastern pantheistic version. It took me some years to tear myself away from the instinctual need to belong to a group and strike off on my own to search.

After six months of withdrawing from the world and indulging in intensive spiritual reading and meditating, I had a particularly overwhelming altered state of consciousness experience, or Satori, when I was walking along a beach experiencing being ‘pure love’. I was Love, and love for everything poured out of me. ‘Existence’ and I were one, and all was love. ‘I’, as I normally was, was definitely not there – ‘I’ had become pure love. Or, put another way, I had an experience of the ‘self’ becoming the ‘Self’. For me, I realized if I continued on this path I was doomed to become enlightened, yet another Saviour of mankind, another God-on-earth and that was enough to ring the alarm bells. Somehow I knew that this was not what I was after, as I wanted to be an ordinary human being, not an extraordinary divine spirit like the so-called Enlightened Ones. Besides, I had not met one of these gurus whose life I would like to emulate. I didn’t like how they were with their women, I didn’t like their lifestyle and I had seen too many ‘off stage’, as it were, as emotionally driven and devilishly cunning. I had also seen enough of their power and authority, with its subsequent demand of worship and adoration, to be dismayed at the thought that the Master-disciple system represented the pinnacle of human endeavour. There had to be something better.

There is a third alternative to remaining normal or becoming spiritual and it brings to an end the genetically-instilled instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Human malice and sorrow is a product of neuro-biological instinctual survival programming and not the result of a battle between good and evil spirits, not some perverse plan of a God by whatever name, or a necessary suffering prelude to an ultimate peace after physical death, in Heaven, Parinirvana or whatever other name.

‘I searched outside for water, always more thirsty. Just before dying of thirst I dove inside, and I drank deeply from the wells of my soul, crying because I had not realized how empty I had been, laughing because I had not realized how full I was.’ Author Unknown

There is that diving ‘inside’ for a bit of ‘emoting’ again. The trouble is that even if you find the feelings of Good or God or Love in there, it is but a temporary fix and does nothing at all to cure the dis-ease of the Human Condition.

For the 0.0001% of seekers who manage Enlightenment (that of the permanent kind, not the modern ‘got it one day and lost it the next’ or ‘I already am, I just need to realise it’ variety) then one becomes fully deluded. Even of this crew, many report a ‘leakage’ or occasional anger or sadness.

Now, with these statements, this is where you lose credibility with anyone who sees, or has glimpsed REALITY.

Credibility means ‘believable, worthy of belief, trustworthy’, and if I have a point to make it is to stop believing what others say. It is imperative to find out the facts rather than merely believe, to sort out what is silly and what is sensible rather than merely accept what others say is right and wrong, good or bad, if one is to be actually free of the Human Condition in it’s entirety.

And show yourself for nothing but a perfectionist, a judgmental asleep one at that!

It’s a good thing I gave no credibility to the Mother of all beliefs – ‘No one’s perfect’, ‘life’s a bitch’, and ‘you can’t change Human Nature’.

What helped to crack this one was that it was okay to call yourself God, and then have other people worshipping you?

It is a strange world we find ourselves in, and it is good to make sense of this nonsense.

If you don’t understand this poem, you just don’t get it.

I do understand the poem, its perfectly clear that it points to getting nourishment from one’s soul, retreating from the real world into the spiritual world of the soul. Maybe, just maybe, it is you who do not get what I am saying.

It took me about 6 months of pride-demolishing, scary investigation, contemplation and ‘self’-demolishing realizations before I was able to get it, and even then the work was not over, as I dug deeper and deeper.

But it does end. The search does stop – the train does arrive at the station – as I am fond of saying.
Well I’ve enjoyed it again, it’s such a pleasure to write of something that requires no belief, imagination or affectation.

Something that is actual, tangible and available right now – the actual purity and perfection of the physical universe, right now, right here, happening at this very moment.

And of how to get here...

*

Hello!!!!!!! I said YOU LOSE CREDIBILITY, meaning that you show us that you don’t get the meaning of the poem.

Okay, since you have credibility, and have glimpsed REALITY, and I don’t get the meaning of the poem – enlighten me as to the meaning.

What does it mean for you, and where am I wrong in my interpretation? At least then we will have something to discuss.

I recently saw an interview with Neale Donald Walsch, the author of a book entitled ‘Conversations with God’. It has been a best-seller in USA for some time and has appeal to both Western and Eastern religious believers. He offered a syrupy message spoken to him from the real God whose message was He-is-All, We-are-All-One and love is all there is. The He-is-All scenario means that He is the God of all the religions, people and all the belief-systems. Walsch is now setting off on a mission to convince the world’s believers that he has been talking to their God lately and that He has recently updated and modified His story, just a wee bit. For the We-are-all-One scenario he uses the words Oneness and Source thus appealing to the Eastern religious pursuers of altered states of consciousness. It’s a cunning concoction that fails, like all the other fairy-tale beliefs, to address the perplexing on-going issue of human malice and suffering – the salient features of the human condition on earth.

According to Walsch’s clairvoyant message, violence exists in God’s world because human beings do not live by the golden rules of goodness, love and treating others as we would have them treat us. God also told him that He occasionally sends souls into the world as lessons for us humans in order that we may see the evil that is in each of us. According to Walsch, God said He deliberately sent Mr. Hitler down so that we would know and experience the lowest of lows, the most evil of evils, but that ‘no harm was really done because there is no such thing as death’. Methinks he will have a hard time convincing the Jews that the millions who died was a calculated put-up job by the He-is-All God, that no harm was really done, it was all just a lesson and there is no death. Some forty million humans died in WW2 and God glibly declares ‘I did it’. No wonder some prayers start with – ‘Have mercy on us Lord ...’

In this sick scenario, earthly suffering exists as God’s test for humans and therefore the more one suffers the more God is testing you personally and the more gratitude one should feel towards God. Indeed, so ingrained is this belief that many who suffer deeply pass through a profound ‘dark night of the soul’ whereby the depths of depression can be alleviated by an epiphany, Satori, awakening or re-birth. One’s soul or psychic entity makes an instinctual chemical-fuelled grasp at survival and hallucinatory states result. Thus one sees God, talks to God, sees His Grand Plan, realizes there is no death, etc. and one’s body is swamped with bliss-inducing chemicals. These visions invariably follow cultural, religious and tribal pre-conditioned trends – thus a Hindu sees Krishna, a Christian sees Christ, a Buddhist realizes the world is an illusion, etc. In Walsch’s case a New Age Christian talks to God and also feels Oneness – a New Age Christian message that incorporates the traditional white bearded God in heaven story and tacks on a dash of fashionable Eastern religion.

So we are lead to believe that God has changed His mind of late, as no doubt He is entitled to do, but it does seem to leave those who are faithfully following all of the other messages He sent to earth a little out on a limb. Perhaps this fashionable trendy New Age God watches Oprah and re-writes his script every month or so and sends yet another message down to earth.

In Eastern religions, earthly existence is seen as an endless cycle of rebirth, escaped by only .0001% of the population who manage to see God’s joke and realize that suffering, death and the physical universe is only an illusion. In psychiatric terms they induce, via torturous rituals and the assiduous practice of denial, a mental aberration known as dissociation.

Dissociation – A process, or the resulting condition, in which certain concepts or mental processes are separated from the conscious personality; spec. the state of a person suffering from dissociated personality. Oxford Dictionary

Dissociation is exemplified in Eastern religion and philosophy by the core belief of ‘I am not the body, I am not the mind’ – and the constant repeating of this mantra leads to the inevitable conclusion that ‘I must be spirit-only’. If pursued to its extreme a feeling of Oneness with all other disembodied and non-physical spirits develops, leading to the narcissistic realization that ‘I am All, and All is me’. And for those sufficiently seduced by this delusion, bingo ... the ultimate dissociate state of ‘I am God’ is realized.

The eastern practice of inducing dissociative states or altered states of consciousness does nothing to elevate human suffering and malice. Only by actively rejecting the traditional turning away and squarely facing the issues is it possible to actually change the situation. If it is God’s plan that over 160 million human beings were killed by their fellow human beings and that over 40 million killed themselves in suicides then it’s time to tell God to butt out.

Intelligence, innovation, stubbornness, experimentation, ingenuity, perseverance, intent and altruism have bought an end to the naturally-occurring plagues and diseases that killed millions in past centuries. Human beings put an end to this death and suffering, not some mythical god. The same human intelligence, innovation, stubbornness, experimentation, ingenuity, perseverance, intent and altruism will eventually and inevitably rid this fair planet of the instinctual ‘natural’ sorrow and malice that causes the human species to laud and cherish suffering and indulge in senselessly killing and maiming each other.

Good Hey.

P.S. Just as a bit of an aside. One of the latest God-men to hit the circuit calls himself Maitreya Ishwara and he was a follower of Mohan Rajneesh for many years. He is putting out the story that the collapse of Rajneesh’s Utopian city Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, USA was God’s will and all the suffering, pain and recrimination was pre-ordained. Same old perverse fairy story – human suffering is all part of God’s plan.

I don’t think there’s a point in writing to me further. I guess I can’t let go of my fear (I say this to make it plausible to your mind). You can write me if you want to but then I would prefer you to be more brief. It takes too much of my time to answer.

I only write to someone when they write to me or comment about, or distort on the list, something I have said. You stop, I stop. It is obviously all wasted on you anyway. It is hopeless to discuss anything with a fatalistic nihilist who actively espouses denial, total negation (via negativa), and who takes no standpoint at all. Sums up Eastern philosophy and wisdom pretty well. Still, you are nothing if versatile and flexible, and I bet you will take on a few words like ‘flesh and blood body’ or ‘actual’ and weave them in to your wisdom, merely distorting them to fit your philosophy. There is a Guru type in Europe who tacks a bit of Richard into his philosophy on the ‘Richard and I are best mates’ scenario. Thought I’d leave you a bit from an ‘actualist’, vitally interested in finding out what it is to be a human being, and in ‘full flight’ to find out –

...‘I remember thinking at some stage what an enormous relief it was to not have to suffer on the spiritual path any more, to find something that I could actually, practically do to fix myself up. Richard said he had met many people who would agree that the spiritual path had not worked for them, thank him for pointing it out, go away and give up looking any more. Well, not so for me, thank you! However, it meant that in Star Trek terms I was ‘going where no man had gone before’. Of course, Richard had done it, had mapped a course and was waving a flag saying, ‘Over here – it’s okay’, but I still had to do it, for myself, by myself. I was faced with venturing beyond the norm – in effect, stepping outside ‘Humanity’, that biggest of clubs that clings together in fear, believes in ‘a something else’ and fights horrendous wars as to who is following the right ‘Something’ or ‘Someone’.

So here I was, about to push off into the deep end of the swimming pool, without anything or anybody to rescue me or look after me if things went wrong. And in my head I was continuously singing the Janis Joplin song, ‘...nothing left to lose...’ It sounds dramatic, I know, but I was involved in an experiment – a new escape route from malice and sorrow.

So far, only Richard had left this squabbling, sorrowful ‘Humanity’ behind but he had gone a torturous route through Enlightenment and out the other side. I saw myself as a pioneer on a new, much easier, more direct course. I am full of admiration for the Richard who did it. He likened it to discovering a new continent in the days of old, in a tiny, leaky sailing ship, taking years for the perilous journey. Once discovered it was then easier for others, and now people can fly there comfortably in hours. I likened myself similarly, knowing what I was looking for, but plotting an easier course, avoiding the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ – the lure of the Glamour, Glory and Glitz – that had thwarted all previous attempts.

You could regard this book as the log of my journey. At the time of writing there is a handful of others involved, Vineeto included, making their own escape, but everyone has to do it for themselves. I thought a personal account of my journey could be useful to anyone else who wanted to ‘escape’ from malice and sorrow and allow the delights of the actual physical world to become apparent. It is a thrilling journey. Nothing I have done in my life even remotely compares with this adventure, and I am doing it for myself. My experiencing ‘of the wondrous physical universe of people, events and things’, as Richard puts it, daily intensifies as the journey into myself continues. It works on the way, and I experience this in my daily life – after all, the point of it is to become happy and harmless now. The goal is always immediate, the results actual in this moment, and the question continuously running is, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive,’ here, now! It was amazing that this entire journey was just occurring inside my head. It was a journey into my psyche, dismantling the ‘who’ that I thought I was – my very ‘self’.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Intelligence’

That was a bit from the chapter called ‘Intelligence’ ... something definitely lacking in Ancient Wisdom.

To No 31: You seem to have twisted what Ancient Wisdom says so much that you can make out of it what you want, which is what everybody does anyway. I certainly did in my spiritual days.

And you still do, Peter, you still do...

Just a note –

No, the Ancient Wisdom of the East clearly points to a belief in God and an after-life, in other words, it is simply ‘Old Time Religion’. This is a fact, not the twisted version that I conveniently believed on the spiritual path. I took it at face value that the spiritual path was about a personal peace for me and peace on earth.

In fact, it was an attempt by ‘me’ to turn away from the ‘real’ world and aim to become an Enlightened God-man. What I talk of has not one skerrick of God or immortality in it.

What I talk of is physical and actual – not meta-physical and imaginary.

Let’s call it Ancient Foolishness then.

Couldn’t agree more. If it was merely foolishness it would be fine, but it is pertinent to remember that Ancient Wisdom – be it Eastern or Western, spiritual, philosophical, secular, male or female, profound or mundane – represents the book of how it is to be a human being on the planet. We are born into the world and told this is how it has always been, this is how it is now and this is how it will always be. If anyone says ‘Well, can’t we change the way it is? Does it really have to be this way?’ everybody else simply wheels out the dusty testaments of what a Mr. Socrates, Mr. Jesus, Mr. Shakyamuni, Mr. Moses, Mr. Bodhidharma and the like are ‘supposed’ to have said and says ‘These are the Rules – thus it was Spoken’. There is usually a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning and that’s that. End of discussion. So, Ancient Wisdom is the Wisdom of Humanity – the set of ‘rules’ how it is to be a human being on the planet.

The mother of all Wisdom is ‘you can’t change Human Nature’. When I met Richard he said ‘Of course you can! ... Why not?’ I liked that... Why not indeed!

Contrary to you, I’m not an expert on traditional Eastern and Western Wisdom in general, and there is no need. Common sense tells me that any system will be too rigid to suit all human beings. Best is to see it as a set of guidelines, an indication, some kind of food one has to digest to make it into one’s own flesh and blood. I prefer to see the earth as ‘the lotus paradise’, not as ‘paradise’. A lotus needs mud to grow, in this sense ‘mud’ or, as you call it, the Human Condition, is useful. No mud, no lotus. Religious systems and philosophies are part of the mud.

Your preferring to see the Human Condition as ‘useful mud’ which the lotus ‘needs to grow’ is a perfect example of the Ancient Wisdom which you yourself described as ‘Ancient Foolishness’. The poetic metaphor of the mud and the lotus means that we humans need to suffer in this life on earth in order for our souls to grow to become God and live in the ‘lotus paradise’. So you are suggesting the reason we need ‘religious systems’ is so that the chosen few can then imagine that the earth is their own particular ‘lotus paradise’. Hence the Ashrams, temples, monasteries, and churches become Oasis’ of Consciousness where the devout pray and meditate to reach a state of detachment such that the earth is seen as a ‘lotus paradise’. In other words, we need the ‘mud’ of the Human Condition and its religious systems purely in order that the religious people can rise above it. It’s the old ‘we need to suffer in order to feel God’ number. If you eliminate suffering you eliminate the need for God – it’s as simple as that. You can twist it anyway you want but suffering is essential for God’s very existence.

*

If anyone says ‘Well, can’t we change the way it is? Does it really have to be this way?’ everybody else simply wheels out the dusty testaments of what a Mr. Socrates, Mr. Jesus, Mr. Shakyamuni, Mr. Moses, Mr. Bodhidharma and the like are ‘supposed’ to have said and says ‘These are the Rules – thus it was Spoken’.

It’s only the finger pointing to the moon.

So we humans are to not only to turn away from the real world, conveniently ignore the inanities of Ancient Wisdom and its obvious failure to bring results, turn a blind eye to the corruption, persecutions, repressions and power abuses that happen in all religion and groups of followers of Gurus, Masters and teachers, and certainly never dare to question the Gurus and God-men’s personal conduct or motives. One indeed would not want to look at the ‘finger’ at all – it is essential to keep looking at the ‘moon’, for fear that one sees the spiritual world as an equally horrendous world as the real world.

And to respond to Mr. Unknown
(He gets around a bit on this list – I went to the local New-Age bookshop but they said he was unknown there as well. I guess he is well known around the world in all the other bookshops as being unknown as well.)

‘I searched outside for water, always more thirsty. Just before dying of thirst I dove inside, and I drank deeply from the wells of my soul, crying because I had not realized how empty I had been, laughing because I had not realized how full I was.’ – Author Unknown

There is that diving ‘inside’ for a bit of ‘emoting’ again. The trouble is that even if you find the feelings of Good or God or Love in there, it is but a temporary fix and does nothing at all to cure the dis-ease of the Human Condition.

For the 0.0001% of seekers who manage Enlightenment (that of the permanent kind, not the modern ‘I got it one day and lost it the next’ or ‘I already am, I just need to realise it’ variety) then one becomes fully deluded. Even of this crew, many report a ‘leakage’ or occasional anger or sadness.

So, it’s been fun again ...

‘I searched outside for water, always more thirsty. Just before dying of thirst I dove inside, and I drank deeply from the wells of my soul, crying because I had not realized how empty I had been, laughing because I had not realized how full I was.’ – Author Unknown

I do understand the poem, it is perfectly clear that it points to getting nourishment from one’s soul, retreating from the real world into the spiritual world of the soul. Maybe, just maybe, it is you who do not get what I am saying.

You do not understand the poem.

Maybe, just maybe, you would like to say what it is that you understand the poem means – and where I have got it wrong?

Only if you are interested in discussing these matters, that is.

I am not interested.

First, there is no such thing as ancient wisdom... wisdom is neither ancient nor modern.

First, to say that there is no such thing as ancient wisdom is plainly ridiculous. All of the major Religions and their systems of morals and ethics have as their roots the reported teachings of long dead Masters, Gurus, and Prophets. All of the major philosophical movements are built upon the supposed teachings of long dead wise men, pundits and philosophers. Any so-called modern wisdom is but a re-hash of the past. Have you not read any religious, spiritual or philosophical books?

It is timeless and always individual... always a discovery.

Always individual? Do you mean that the feelings one gets from spiritual practices are individual? Such as in ‘my’ Truth, ‘my’ Bliss, ‘my’ space, ‘my’ way? Indeed then these feelings are individual – they go on inside people’s heads. I remember once being time-keeper for some meditations in Buddha hall and watching people meditate and wondering what was going on inside everyone’s head? Strange, to watch hundreds of people sitting isolated with their eyes closed, going inside and imagining ‘feeling connected’. There were indeed a few variations on a theme, no doubt. But the aim was the same – find that ‘blissful inner state’. That is, after all, the common aim of all ancient Eastern spirituality.

What you do over and over is to make a false statement such as ‘Ancient wisdom is good old religion’ and then groove on your own misunderstanding. On the other hand you could be a Boring Again Christian yourself because you are so deaf and dogmatic...

To call someone a Christian seems to be the ultimate Sannyas insult. Bit of a hangover from the Ranch days when Rajneesh berated and goaded the Christians towards the end. I wonder, will it grow to be enshrined as bad blood between two religious groups? His insults almost caused a potential Waco on the Ranch, as No 32 pointed out.

And by the way, Freedom is just freedom. When you qualify it as ‘actual’ you are comparing it with something else which according to you is not ‘actual’. So actual freedom is not freedom at all, just another concept. depending for its definition on another concept.

No, actual means actual. Actual Freedom is a freedom from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. One of the first steps is to become free of the belief in God and an after-life. To become free of the belief in good spirits and bad spirits. To break free the slavery of the Master-disciple business and being beholden to any God, Guru. To free one’s self from the insidious platitudes of Eastern spiritual Wisdom with its seductive poetical promises of Bliss and Nirvana.

This is an actual freedom that is so liberating it is often hard to restrain from jigging when walking to the computer to write about it. Beholden to no-one and nothing. Free to be happy and harmless – at last.

You wrote in answer to my comment about silence –

...this Ancient Wisdom talk of spirits and Gods and going Somewhere Else rather than being here... not the ancient wisdom, but the ancient superstition.

Ancient wisdom is ancient superstition – there is no difference. Soon you will be inventing Real ancient wisdom or True ancient wisdom.

This ancient wisdom all originates from a common belief system of Gods, spirits or energies that represented both good and evil on the earth.

No disagreement here. You seem to have got the gist of what they all say.

The Ancient Wisdom talks about being here and now, seeing that all forms (thoughts, emotions, feelings etc) arise and vanish and are utterly empty.

Ah! And now comes the slide. Ancient Wisdom in the East talks about realizing your original face, your original self, your Buddha nature, that you are That, This, God, at One with All, Divine, etc.

Anything other than being ‘here’, as a flesh and blood human, on this physical earth, as it is. Further, they all talk of an after-life, Parinirvana, the Further Shore, the Ocean of Oneness, Paradise, the Cosmos, the Universe, etc.

Any-time other than ‘now’ as a flesh and blood mortal human being with a terminal life span.

Your second part about seeing ‘forms arise and vanish’ obviously refers to the dis-association of the watcher, and I have gone into that at length in other posts.

The ancient Wisdoms says that nothing is spiritual,

Now it’s getting really silly. What it is that they point to surviving the death of the body if not the spirit – or soul, atman, essence, bundle of memories, etc. and what is it that merges with, melts into, realises, becomes One with, etc. if not the ‘spirit’ – or soul, ...?

that you either are awake or asleep

All point to being asleep as in ‘normal’ ... or awake as in Awake, Realised, Enlightened, Self-Realised, God-Realized, Agapé-Realised, Awakened, etc.

and the ancient Wisdom says that whatever the ancient wisdom says is totally unimportant and not is to be bothered about – that insight frees

So why bother to read it or take any notice of it in the first place? That insight frees the Ancient God-men from any sensible scrutiny, ensuring their followers remain in a state of ‘no-mind’-devotion.

You seem to have twisted what Ancient Wisdom says so much that you can make out of it what you want, which is what everybody does anyway. I certainly did in my spiritual days.

It was only when I found it wasn’t working for me, and others around me, that I began to dig in a bit deeper.

‘If all else fails, read the instructions’, as it says on the Cabot’s paint tin.

When I did read the instructions, without rose coloured glasses, I saw that it was all bound to fail and why it was bound to produce only God-men and followers, why it was bound to, not only endlessly perpetuate misery and suffering, but to produce multiple Religions and continuous religious wars.

Eastern Spirituality and Philosophy is nothing more than a convoluted form of Western Religion – they have the same ancient roots in the world of good and evil spirits, Gods and Demons, all from the cave-man days when the earth was flat and a horrendous place to be.

Ancient Wisdom produces and perpetuates religious wars, ‘sectarian’ violence, repression, torture, persecution, enslavement – anything but silence, and certainly not peace.

Still, you make of it what you will, to me it is twaddle.

Good to have another chat about what the mystics are really saying and try to make some sense of the spiritual path. After all, so many seekers are on the spiritual path. Most are seemingly attracted by the feel-good aspect or belonging to a group but some are sincere. Some are concerned about finding a personal peace, and a few of these may even be concerned about peace on earth.

Basically many have opted out of Western religion and followed the swing to Eastern spirituality as the solution to the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. I would think a good honest investigation of Eastern spirituality and philosophy might be a good idea – even on a Sannyas list.

At present Humanity has a lot of hope and faith invested in the Ancient Wisdom of the East – I would venture to say we have put all our eggs in the spiritual basket! Even the Western Religions are swinging to a spirit-ual interpretation and away from the ‘white bearded man on a cloud’ version

So let’s see what the Ancients are saying about the Human Condition, what advice they have that is relevant to us humans on earth, here, now – 3000 years on.

*

The mystics all talk of an ethereal mystical world, the inner world of feeling peace and feeling God. They knew something was wrong with us human beings, but their solution was to attain an altered state of consciousness (ASC) such that the identity shifts from being a mortal, lost, lonely frightened and very, very cunning ‘self’ to become the ‘Self’ – Realizing that it is God and Immortal.

Where do you get this from?

Any one of the spiritual teachings – they are all variations on a common theme. Maybe you haven’t read any spiritual books.

Mystics never said that something was wrong with us, human beings, they pointed out how the human condition is functioning.

The ancient mystics had no knowledge at all of psychology, sociology, physiology, anatomy, neuro-science, genetics, behavioural studies, animal studies, etc. They thought that when people suffered depression or fits of rage they were ‘possessed by evil spirits’ and as a cure they used exorcisms, magic potions, used mystical rituals and prayed to the good spirits or Gods for solace or relief.

Some modern mystics have tacked on a bit of therapy and other modern concepts, but at the core of their teachings is the ‘wisdom’ of ancient primitive men and women.

I am not making this up – an open eyed skim through a few books will confirm the facts.

The old mystics said: ‘Remember the example of an old cow, she’s content to sleep in a barn. You have to eat, sleep and shit – That’s unavoidable – Beyond that is none of your business. Patrul Rinpoche

Well it left me a bit confused for a bit. I guess he is saying it is unavoidable that we have a physical body that is animal and he sees that as gross and lower. That it is ‘none of your business’ points to the fact that ‘you’ inside the body are destined to higher things and what higher ‘business’ than the business of the mystics – becoming God or realizing you are God?

It is only a guess though. Maybe they were really saying it is good to be like the cow and be content to sleep in a barn?

Can you post me as to your interpretation of this mystical wisdom? I would like to know what sense you make of it?

*

These are not my words!!

You posted them as though they were, so I thought you were agreeing with them in order to make your next point.

It is hard to know where you stand on Ancient Wisdom, other than your endless denying of what they clearly state.

*

And the ancient Wisdom says that whatever the ancient wisdom says is totally unimportant and not is to be bothered about – that insight frees

So why bother to read it or take any notice of it in the first place?

Indeed, why are you so preoccupied by it, you keep talking about ‘the ancient wisdom’

Because the belief in God’s, spirits and an after-life have resulted in the formation of over 6,000 religions on the planet, with all the resulting wars, ‘sectarian’ violence, tortures, persecutions, repressions and bigotry that still are rampant on this fair earth. This does concern me as it is all so pointless to battle over which God is the Only God, which master is the only Master and which Truth is the only Truth.

For me personally, Ancient Wisdom is of no concern as I am free of it, but I do care that the all-encompassing universal belief in it perpetuates the malice and sorrow on this fair planet.

So I write about it so that others may get a chance to consider another alternative to the ‘Tried and True’

Well I couldn’t resist joining in the correspondence. I hope you don’t mind, but I have followed with fascination your attempts to defend the indefensible and attempt to re-interpret what is actual and factual into yet another meta-physical or cerebral construct. Your philosophy and Guru-ship consists of merely another hotchpotch of Ancient wisdom, some current reading of yours and a bit of Richardism that you have taken on board.

It is amazing to see you beginning to mouth and mimic the words of Richard and twist them to suit your conditioned meta-physical view of the world and attempt to hobble the lot together in a way as to present them as yet another new version of the Truth. And to know your efforts are doomed to failure. 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. <snip>

The Gurus have failed to deliver, they have had their day. The old ancient, long dead ones have eschewed morals and ethical precepts for their followers who have fought horrendous wars as to the Rightness of their masters or own particular God’s vision. And as for the modern Gurus, I know them well to be pretenders. I have seen the despair that ravages their private lives and those around them. The chaos and duplicity of their personal lives, their sexuality, their treatment of women, the psychic powers and the entrapment, surrender and eventual total emotional dependency and enslavement of their disciples is but a sad useless re-run of all that has gone before. No wonder the spiritual or religious pursuits require bucket-loads of faith, trust and hope – it is needed in the face of its continual failure to produce the goods – peace on earth.

Do you know they also believe the land is roamed by giant spirit animals and that their social wisdom involves a brutal form of ‘payback’ undertaken by spearing or wishing evil and death on the other. Another popular form of settling disagreements is for two antagonists to sit opposite each other and beat each other on the head with wooden clubs until one falls unconscious or dead. Is this also what you call ancient wisdom?

Show me an ancient aboriginal relic of an electron microscope, and then I’ll agree you have a point.

Are you trying to say there was once a golden age of scientific knowledge, or that the planet was once ‘seeded’ from other planetary systems and somehow, for some strange reason, humans have since lost the plot? These common beliefs of the Paradise-Lost type have no at all evidence to support them – quite the opposite. Recent studies have revealed the sheer brutality of ancient spiritual belief with physical evidence of ritual human sacrifices to heavenly Gods and earthly spirits in almost every religion on every continent going right back to the Bronze Age.

Everyone believes it is impossible for intelligence and consciousness to have evolved from matter for to acknowledge this would be the ending of any spiritual/religious belief. This fact also means that both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as spirit/soul are but illusionary fabrications and the real me is this flesh and blood body only. Faced with this information which ‘I’ take to be an appalling threat to ‘my’ very existence, ‘I’ frantically seek to deny it and desperately imagine a way out of being here in the material world.

There is an alternative to this fantasy of denial and escapism that is fuelled by ‘my’ fear of exposure and ‘my’ fear of death and that is to deliberately embark upon a process that will eventuate in ‘self’-immolation – to experience a psychological and psychic death of my ‘self’ before physical death and thus become what I am – this flesh and blood body only.

*

The Indian Skeptic Society has been running an on-going campaign that is continually debunking the magic tricks of the sages and shamans of India who make a living feeding off the superstition and fear of others. The standard of sleight-of-hand, or hypnotic-based, magic they encounter is woeful and pathetic compared to the slick tricksters of the West.

Actualism Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust