Selected Correspondence Peter

You may not be thanking me if you understood that what I am saying is 180 degrees opposite to your spiritual knowing.

But I write for the ‘doubters’ – those who still have some common sense operating.

Very early on, after having established a prima-facie case that actualism made sense and was worth a whole-hearted go, I wanted to find out for myself if what Richard was saying was true, as in factual, and whether using the method would work, as in bring about actual change. Spurred on by my early successes I then wanted to write of my experiences, investigations and findings so as to put it on record for others to read and assess for themselves. At the time of writing my Journal I stopped seeing Richard on a regular basis and did a lot of investigating, sorting out, and making sense of the human condition as it manifested as ‘me’.

I sometimes have the greatest doubts about what I am undertaking. And why shouldn’t I? Nobody I see, from the evidence around me, has taken it upon themselves to end their instinctual malice and sorrow forever. So occasionally it occurs to me ‘Maybe I am all wrong – maybe I’m way off base’. It occurs to me that I am just going through another of many phases that will end in my complete disillusionment, scrapping the whole thing, and finding something else to chase for awhile – in other words, it will end like all my spiritual searching – in abysmal failure.

I can well relate to what you are saying. I went through a similar stage and included the fear chapter in my Journal deliberately to explain this phase. Certainly part of the reason for my doubt was that I had been so gullible in the past in taking on beliefs, ideals and causes, all of which proved failures. The only thing that got me over the hump, so to speak, was the success I was having in becoming more happy and harmless, confirmed by my interaction with others, and the memory of my pure consciousness experiences.

I also saw that he fact that I was a failure in both the real world and the spiritual world gave a firm basis on which to dare to explore further afield. This dissatisfaction and disillusionment, based on life-experience and not theory, was to provide the backpressure that got me through doubt and on to certainty based on the confidence of success. I know you have read it before but my dead rabbit story from my journal may be relevant –

‘The fear that I faced at the start of this process of ridding myself of a psychic entity, and on the way through was psychic fear – fear that was present in my psyche. It is the very same fear that ruled my every action and thought for most of my life. The: ‘what does that person think of me?’, ‘what am I going to do next?’, ‘what if something goes wrong?’ – the instinct of fear I was born with. This fear we transform into doubt, and more doubt. I remember calling it the ‘what if’ syndrome at some point. In the face of it the most usual reaction is to freeze – not do anything.

I saw it as a bit like when you drive along a country road and a rabbit appears on the road. Blinded by the headlights he freezes, and splat – dead rabbit.

The only difference for me when I met Richard was that wobbling around in doubt or freezing in fear meant simply more of the same – prolonging my ‘normal’ life of suffering and confusion. The suffering of knowing that something was seriously wrong in my life but staunchly denying it out of pride, or hoping that the latest guru or belief would work, when deep inside I had already seen it wouldn’t work. The confusion I was in at the time was because I had seen ‘behind the curtain’ of the spiritual world. I had seen the Gurus for what they were, and I had started to see that it was all the same ‘old time religion’. The facts didn’t gel with the beliefs and there was a certain discord; a ‘something’s not quite right’ – not that I knew what it was at the time.’ Peter’s Journal, Fear

Just to make it clear, I am not saying don’t doubt, for that would involve either denying or suppressing it or looking for some other antidotal feeling such as faith, trust, hope or optimism. Doubt is a feeling and like all other feelings that arise it is a rich goldmine to experience, investigate, explore and understand in action. Doubt can also be a good tool in t e pursuit of actuality for it serves to keep one’s feet on the ground as its only effective antidote is to continue to seek and take continual note of your practical successes in becoming more happy and more harmless. Without this proof of perceptible change, doubt can only be countered by belief, faith, trust and hope in an imaginary dream world of the ‘truth of actualism’. What I found I had to do regularly was to acknowledge my successes even to the point of figuratively patting myself on the back. And when things got really tough I took some time to sit down and ask myself again what it was that I wanted to do with my life, what was my goal – and soon the memory of a pure consciousness experience would swan in.

A distinct memory of a PCE combined with an understanding of its significance is a very haunting experience after which it is very difficult to ever again settle for second best.

What an adventure ...

as long as ‘I’ live, Richard is a liar. ‘I’ cannot imagine how an identity can die! How can I take Richard’s words that ‘Richard’ died? I need an extraordinary proof. As long as ‘I’ live, I think there will be doubt. To totally admit that ‘Richard’ vanished will be the end of ‘me’ I think! ‘I’ think ‘Richard’ is very much around. ‘Richard’ is lying. Extraordinary Proof 1.7.2005

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Or maybe Richard is not a liar but he is fooling himself. And fooling others as a side effect (but not No 58 – no, he can’t be fooled!). To summarize, these are the possibilities:

1. ‘Richard’ actually died

2. ‘Richard’ is lying that he died

3. ‘Richard’ is fooling himself that he died are there more?

4. Maybe there is no ‘Richard ’... it is a group of people (or just one!) that write the story under that assumed name. It is all fiction. No such ‘Richard’ character exists. So the question doesn’t make sense.

Let me sleep over this stuff. The question of death 1.7.2005

I thought to write to you to let you know that I am currently working on a project that will put paid to your inference that Richard does not exist as a flesh and blood body. Whilst I am under no illusion that there are those who will dismiss a video image as being proof of existence (given that there are those who dismiss the beamed-to-earth images of men walking on the surface of the moon as being a hoax) I know that many will find it assuring that a fellow human being has written, and is still currently writing, of his experiential knowledge of the human condition and of his experience of how to become free from it.

As for your other list of doubts, I am reminded of a time when similar doubts would swirl around in my mind. The particular question that I remember that arose for me was ‘what would happen if Richard disappeared’ – packed up and left, disappeared over the horizon, as it were, never to be seen or heard of again. Upon reflection I realized that what he had written and said made sense to me – and far more sense than anything I had read, heard or experienced in the spiritual world – and that I actually begun to become more happy and more harmless by simply being attentive to whenever I was feeling unhappy or feeling resentful or feeling antagonistic towards any of my fellow human beings. It then struck me that both of these factors meant that I already had the confidence to not have to rely on Richard but that I was, in fact, already beginning to stand on my own two feet as it were.

Of course, I was no fool – I made sure I had a hard copy of Richard’s writings in the form of his journal as a guide for my own investigations into the human condition – but this particular time sticks in my mind as being significant in that it marked the end of my futile attempts of settling for being a faithful follower and the beginning of my journey to an actual autonomy, and all that that entails.

Whilst I am writing to you I’ll just mention another thing that might be helpful to you as it also relates to the issue of doubt. In my early days of actualism I was often taken aback by the attitude of others whenever I happened to mention that I had given up my spiritual search and had decided instead to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless. Not only were some of my spiritual friends affronted by my decision, even to the point of calling me ungrateful, but even those who had never trod the spiritual path would often cast doubts and make disparaging comments on my aspirations to become happy and to be harmless. As I investigated each of these objections to being happy and harmless – for that is indeed what these comments were in fact – what I found was that the objections invariably fell into predictable categories – moral and/or ethical objections based on various religious and/or sectarian dogmas, objections based on inculcated beliefs that suffering and fighting are necessary in order to ‘survive’, objections based on the fact that ‘the world’ (read ‘my’ world) is indeed a miserable place, objections rooted in the fear of change and of moving too far from the herd or, when all else failed, visceral reactions of either head-in-the-sand denial, head-in-the-clouds piousness and even on occasions outright hostility.

I remember many a time being astounded at the reactions of others to what seemed to me at the time – and still does, of course – an eminently sensible and completely do-able goal in life – to become actually free of malice and sorrow, in other words to become actually free from the human condition. However I never allowed either the objections or the objectors to get me down for long as it was just plain silly to take on board the words, or allow myself to be cowered by the vibes, of those who are in essence doing nothing but disparaging those who dare to pursue radical change whilst they at the same time offer nothing other than a defence of the human condition and/or a championing of the status quo.

Anyone who dares to set their sights on becoming happy and harmless, particularly in this early pioneering phase, is bound to experience the same reactions from their fellow human beings who have decided for whatever reason to stay ensnared within the human condition. It is after all no little thing to abandon humanity, to cease battling it out with one’s fellow human beings who remain instinctually driven to do battle with each other, often in the name of some spurious cause or other on the basis of a compulsive yet phoney ‘need to survive’.

I would like to finish by making a comment on something you wrote several weeks ago as it seems relevant to your current questions.

No 33: Yes I was following all the conversations about ‘No 33’ in the mailing list :). I thought of jumping in and clarify – but I was quite messed up!

I indeed did go crazy (a major psychosis) for two weeks (or maybe 4 weeks) and it took me almost 8 months or so to pull myself out of the kind of beliefs that kind of experience left in me. My hindsight reasoning with some extensive investigation is: beliefs, misconceptions, not practising what was said, imagination, desire to achieve, probably some medical condition – all these together must have caused the whole episode. But however, in hindsight after recovering without any scratch (many things could have happened... I passed through a lot of dangers), I am glad to have the experience and glad to have ventured in it again. Virtual Ho-Hum 26/5/2005

What occurred to me when I read of your experience is that such experiences are best left as one-off experiences, i.e. one such experience can be said to have been a learning experience, a repeat of such an experience can be said to be silly if one is at all cognizant that one is indeed slipping down the same slippery slope again. I remember having an experience of absolute dread in my early years of intimately exploring the human psyche in action and the experience left me literally bruised and battered for days. Whilst the experience was revealing in and of itself, to experience first-hand the horrors of the hellish realm that is the root of dread is not something that I recommend to anyone and it was certainly an experience that I never wanted to repeat for myself – if ever there is a dead end, then the feeling of dread is it.

The point I am making is that even if the opportunity presented itself for me to go down that path again, I would have declined and declined emphatically. As you have probably guessed by now I am suggesting to you that it may well make sense for you to do the same, given the nature of the experience you had last time and given that it appears to me that you could be at the start of the same slippery slope to the same experience. I do realize that I could well be wrong in my assumptions (which is why I very rarely offer personal advice to anyone) but I thought I would pass on my personal experience as it may well be of use to you – after all, the human condition is a condition that is common to all human beings.

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PS: Vineeto has suggested that the following links might be of interest as they relate to the issue of doubt, as well as the issue of confidence –

../peter/list-af/alan-b.htm#03.6.1999

../actualism/peter/list-af/gary-a.htm#16.7.2000

../actualism/peter/list-af/gary-c.htm#21.10.2000

../actualism/peter/list-af/gary-e.htm#doubt

However, as I am very new in this enterprise, I have many doubts and objections. Perhaps one of the strongest reservations I have is this: I have been deluded so many times before in searching for ‘the answer’ in spiritual groups, therapy, and ‘self- improvement’ activities, I feel that I am ‘waiting for the left shoe to drop’, to use an expression to point to the experience of being disillusioned.

Yep. When I started on this path I was very wary, very cautious, for the discoveries I had made on the spiritual path had led to more doubts and objections than answers and truths. I had seen ‘behind the curtain’ of three living spiritual teachers and witnessed the disparity between how they were as human beings and what they taught. It was a gradual dawning to the understanding that to follow the teachings of someone who does not live what he teaches is nonsense, no matter how seductive the teachings are. Further investigations led me to discover that all of the flesh and blood Gurus and teachers have skeletons in their closets, that none are what they say they are, or would have us believe they are.

Therefore, much of my early period with Richard was spent in quietly checking out how he was with other people and whether he was he living what he wrote about. The other thing I did very early on, as soon as I had established a prima facie case in favour of actualism, was set about trying it out – finding out if the method worked, and the particular challenge I took on was ... ‘if I couldn’t live with at least one other person in equity, peace and harmony then life on earth was indeed a sick joke’.

This ‘finding out if it works’ is the only way to deal with doubts and objections.

There is a healthy dose of skepticism at this point, a not wanting to take the whole thing hook-line-and-sinker. I guess I am saying that, whereas I thought I was willing to take the plunge unreservedly, there is a hesitation, a wait and see approach. And perhaps that is as it should be.

I would say it is impossible for those who have been on the spiritual path to immediately take actualism on, hook-line-and-sinker, for it is completely opposite to Spiritualism. To do so, without understanding the radical difference between the two, is to completely miss the point and to only indulge in further delusion, or attempt to take on actualism as a yet another belief-system. This is why so much of one’s early investigations involve freeing oneself from spiritual morals, ethics, values and beliefs such that one begins the process of turning around and facing the other direction.

It does seem that you may well be reporting doubts after the fact, something I often found myself doing. Sort of a ‘what have I got myself into this time’. I can only report: it’s simply the best because it’s actual!

But I want to forge on with this. One example of this is writing this post. My usual approach is to reticently test the waters before jumping in on a list such as this. I am excited to have this opportunity to ‘compare notes’ with others that are going through this, and so I am jumping right in there.

A lot of what I write is in hindsight about the process and when I look back what I did was jump in straight away, but I kept my wits about me. I had this burning desire to be free, and a burning discontent with my life as it was. I was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and, as I was already suss of the spiritual path, I figured ‘I had nothing left to lose’ by jumping straight in. I jumped in to finding out about what was on offer, and finding out if it worked as opposed to my falling for spiritual belief where I had left my mind at the door, surrendered my will and trusted my feelings. If anyone attempts to take actualism on as a belief it will do nothing for them, there will be no radical change.

Just be open to the possibility that there is more that you are missing, which I try to do in my own case all the time.

I deliberately and with forethought turned my back on the spiritual world but I can see that you are probably too enmeshed and enshrined in it to even consider that there might be a third alternative. I only wrote to the list to let anyone who had doubts about the spiritual path know that there is now a third alternative. Interestingly, this alternative was pioneered by an ex-Enlightened being who managed to extradite himself from spiritual delusion and dared to live in the actual world free of any identity (being, Self, feeling of Oneness, Allness, etc.) whatsoever.

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Thanks for the Web site address. I wish you had shared that with me at the beginning, and also to the group, which you may have before I joined.

Given that the mailing list is a discussion forum that purports to question ‘What is Enlightenment?’ I joined the discussion in order to see if some people had some doubts about the veracity and usefulness of the Enlightened state itself. If someone does have doubts about the spiritual path then I take the opportunity to offer more information, eventually including the AF web-site address. I am not proselytizing, only offering an alternative to those who might be interested. Given that no one expressed any doubts and I was quickly silenced on the list, this opportunity never arose. One person corresponded with me privately and I gave him the address although his interest may well prove be intellectual only and not applied.

The Christian monk should maybe consider another line of duty if he can’t come to terms with the fundamentals of Christianity ... where’s the trust for Gods sake!?

I take it that you are now saying the monk should come to terms with the fact that human pain and suffering on earth is fundamental to Christianity yet above you indicated that God ‘gave us the freedom of choice’.

Which is it or are you having a bet each way? By the way, having a bet each way is not a sign of trust – it is a sign of doubt.

Let’s face it, whatever messages God has sent or whatever human form God is manifest in, He/She/It demands that we suffer rightly because this God also suffers for us and He/She/It demands that we defend our belief in this God even to the point of sacrificing our lives.

God is indeed a sorrowful and wrathful God, but as you said – ‘God created man in his own image’.

What about changing the scenario and asking how man has created God in his own image, only magnified?

Keep looking, but don’t limit your understanding to the past. It can always go deeper. I mean that for us all.

I am surprised you keep responding at all. The only reason I came on to the mailing list was to offer a third alternative to those who were having doubts about Eastern religion and philosophy and the fact that it will bring peace on earth. You obviously have no doubts at all but I do think you should qualify your statement –

‘It is very clear that religion has failed to bring about anything close to peace, and in fact has caused far more suffering than any other system in the world’

– lest others also question your teachings in the future.

I have a very limited contact with people, and even less contact with people who are trying to understand. The little time I spend on the net is the minimum I can do to help. I don’t know how long I will be on there, but as long as there is some feedback. I am still waiting for my copy of the ego issue so I can respond to what is said in it. I don’t know if anything that has been said here will make any difference to you. It doesn’t really matter.

I find that you are making your position clearer with every post, which I do appreciate. What I like is that an actualist can have a conversation with a spiritualist about such a vital and urgent matter as peace on earth and I think that matters a lot. So far the only hope for peace on earth has been to pray for God’s intervention or follow the teachings of God-men. It is good to get a voice for, and scrutiny of, the third alternative and even if it is censored from being posted on a public mailing list, it will go into the actualism records for others to read.

To get to this state of complete dissociation is for most a very complex and torturous process and only a rare few manage to pull it off completely. The level of denial of the physical world alone requires an extraordinary effort. To regard all that we see, hear, touch, feel, smell, eat and breathe to be illusionary requires a mind-bending act of astounding tortuousness. It is because of the complexity and difficulty involved that most mystics had to renounce the obvious pleasures and delights of the physical world and go off to caves, monasteries, ashrams and lone wanderings and indulge in often bizarre practices such as meditation, yoga, chanting, whirling, special diets, celibacy, etc. in order to strengthen their fantasies.

The ‘self’ (including all its cunning spiritual variations) is an illusion, not the physical, tangible, palpable physical world.

The simple test as to what is actual is to place a peg on the nose, place some Gaffer tape firmly across the mouth and wait 10 minutes. As you rip the tape from your mouth and gasp for breath you will have an experiential understanding of what is actual and what is illusionary.

When I had my altered states of consciousness experiences I couldn’t quite pull off the denial of the physical bit. Something always made me suss about the need for renunciation, the isolationism, the elitism, the head-in-the-cloud feelings. The grand and glorious feelings were sure seductive but thankfully I held on to my doubts and my common sense and didn’t trust my feelings.

Peace on earth does not lie beyond ego-death – the shift of identity from a personal self to the delusion of an impersonal self – as we now well know from examining the lives of the Enlightened Ones. Peace on earth lies beyond both psychological and psychic death – the extinction of both ego and soul, to use the common spiritual terms. It is something that many spiritual people know, including the Enlightened Ones, but few are willing to broach the topic for fear of losing their psychic power over others.

Thanks for your post, No. 11. It is vital to examine these matters and, as you can see from the mailing list, few people are even willing to discuss these matters at any depth for fear of raising doubts about their faith and for fear of other’s reaction within the group

The aim of the path to Actual Freedom is to come here to the actual world. The actual world is that which is directly experienced and sensate-only evidenced in the PCE or peak experience. The actual world is the world as-it-is, stripped of the veneer of grim reality or metaphysical Reality that is layered over it. If one makes one’s aim in life to be here, now and be happy and harmless as experienced in the PCE, one always has an immediate goal and aim every moment – to be as happy and harmless as one can possibly be right now. ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is the key to firstly ascertaining how one is doing relative to one’s aim in life and, if necessary, finding out what is inhibiting one’s happiness, or preventing one from being harmless, in this moment. This gives ‘me’ something to do – ‘I’ clean myself up as much as possible by rigorously and relentlessly examining all the beliefs, morals, ethics, truths and psittacisms that form my social identity, and then begin to tackle the instinctual program and resulting passions that are the very core of ‘me’.

This process, if undertaken with a pure intent, will inevitably lead to a state of virtual freedom. One then goes to bed in the evening knowing that one has had a perfect day, and knowing that tomorrow, without doubt, will also be a perfect day. Unless one is willing to contemplate being happy and being harmless, virtually free of malice and sorrow, 99% of the time – then forget the whole business. The challenge of virtual freedom is to be the best one can be – to mimic the perfection and purity of the actual as much as one can while remaining ‘human’ – an alien entity and not a free flesh and blood body. Then, and only then, does one have the confidence and surety to step out of the real world and into the actual world – leaving one’s ‘self’ behind.

Virtual freedom is available for everyone and anyone who has the pure intent to be happy and harmless. If someone is not willing to make that level of ‘self’-sacrifice then any interest in Actual Freedom would remain a purely cerebral exercise – a useless ‘self’-deception. The path to an Actual Freedom is not only non-spiritual but it is down-to-earth and practical – you sort out what it is to be a human being – delve into the human condition and then you put what you discover into practice.

Maybe this is where I’m still questioning your doctrine; can we be ABSOLUTELY convinced that we can rely on the so called facts ... I mean psychology, biology and other sciences investigating the human body and mind haven’t been known to be that exact this far. I agree that these findings are MORE likely to qualify as a ‘truth’ or ‘facts’.

Given that a simple definition of a fact is that it is something that can be verified by seeing, touching, hearing, smelling or tasting and that it demonstratively so to anyone. For instance, the computer monitor you are watching and these words on the monitor are facts. This may seem simplistic but many meta-physically inclined people have trouble with even this level of sensibility. The other definition of a fact is that it should work, and this should be able to be demonstrated, replicated and substantiated by repeatable experiments. This eliminates belief, trust, faith, hope, conviction, intuition and doubt from any investigation for one always has fact as a reliable touchstone.

In a PCE it is startlingly evident that the human condition we are born into doesn’t work – it begets either cynical acceptance or fanciful denial as the prime mechanisms of coping with malice and sorrow. It then becomes an imperative to question all the morals, ethics, ideals, theories, ideas, concepts, truths, doctrines and dogmas that have been passed on to us by those who were here before us. Once begun in earnest, this process does not result in endless questioning loops for as one replaces fact with belief one’s confidence grows to the point where one no longer needs to believe others – the very action of believing stops. This is not a meta-physical ‘knowing’ or feeling, but a sensible down-to-earth discovery and acknowledgement of the facts of human existence on earth. From this feet-on-the-ground state of increasing confidence and heightened sensuousness one is then able to step out of the human condition with gay abandon and impunity.

Do you really mean that you disregard every aspect of spirituality, aren’t there some insights that can be won within the spiritual traditions?

I have eliminated every skerrick of spiritual belief for it is but a belief, albeit an almost universal one.

Any passionate insights won within the spiritual traditions are always invariably taken as spiritual signs and affirmations of one’s selfish beliefs, unless they are sensible insights of doubt and dis-belief in which case they are summarily squashed. Even PCEs can be seized upon by the ‘self’ and turned into epiphanies, Satoris or awakenings in order to further fuel one’s spiritual narcissism and give credence to one’s impassioned imagination of being a Saviour of humanity.

It was about 8 years later after looking ever deeper into it that I awoke one morning and from the time the eyes opened until they closed in sleep that night there took place a complete transformation of what was left of this being. The ego was dead, there was no god to take its place. It was clear that the very words we use to communicate were a symptom of an underlying illness of misidentification. That we had evolved in such a way as to turn everything into abstractions and rarely, if ever, saw what was real before our eyes.

To regard that which is physical, tangible, palpable, visible, touchable, smellable, eatable, audible as an illusion is a trick of the impassioned mind that requires enormous effort. In the East this effort requires the torturous abandonment of sensible thinking and common sense – giving rise to the term ego death and the emergence of what could well be termed soulism – a feeling-only state of delusion. The lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning psychological and psychic entity that is the self becomes the Self – cunningly feeling Oneness, Wholeness, Timeless and Spaceless. The Eastern pursuit of ‘Ego-death’ has proven to be a very tragic delusion, for one becomes completely dissociated from what is actual as evidenced by the senses. This means that one renounces the world, both real and actual and begins a process of turning away, turning in, letting go, withdrawing, disidentifying and finally complete dissociation aka Enlightenment. The reason I use the word tragic is that spiritual seekers – many of whom began the spiritual search to find a way to bring about peace on earth – have now been seduced into turning away from the endemic malice and sorrow in the physical world we human beings live in and now regard it as illusionary, not real. They regard the spiritual world as REAL, the normal world as a nightmare to be avoided and the actual physical world as a dream created in their own minds.

The question I ran for a long time is ‘Has everyone got it 180 degrees wrong?’ The fact that all these theories of human existence on earth were cooked up thousands of years ago was the beginning of my doubts. The other thing I found as I contemplated on the question was that it started to explain an awful lot of things about why the spiritual path that didn’t work.

The reason that I find them lacking substance is that your basic premises are consistently laden with straw men. A straw man argument is one in which the way that you define the argument, what information you include or exclude, enables you to conveniently arrive at a predetermined conclusion. What I consistently find is that your interpretation of various dimensions of the spiritual life allows you quite unfairly to reach troubling conclusions.

By crying ‘unfair’ I take it that you believe in the idea of playing fair when it comes to questioning the delicate fragile nature of religious belief. This ideal of ‘I will be tolerant of and not question your beliefs on the proviso that you don’t question mine’ is now firmly set in place as the universal principle of religious tolerance. Religious tolerance is absolutely essential in the real world so as to limit the amount of suspicion and keep a lid on the animosity that results from the many conflicting and competing religions in the world. Most people deem it fair to criticize other religions within the confines of their individual religious group either overtly or covertly by implication, whereas anyone who criticizes their own religious beliefs is deemed to be being unfair. The hypocrisy of the ideal of religious tolerance is legendary.

As I am a thorough-going atheist, I have no tolerance whatsoever of any religions or any religious/spiritual beliefs, so crying ‘unfair’ falls on deaf ears.

The reason that they are troubling is that they seem very cynical.

If you mean

‘disparaging, contemptuous, scornful, sceptical, scoffing, doubting, unbelieving, disbelieving, distrustful, suspicious, misanthropic, critical and sardonic’ Oxford Dictionary

then you are spot on.

The reason I write unfairly and, as you see it, cynically, is simple –

All spiritual belief is based on the concept that human existence on earth is a ‘necessary suffering’ and that ultimate peace and fulfilment lies ‘elsewhere’, after death. This ‘necessary suffering’ is the Human Condition of malice and sorrow and includes wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, despair and suicide. Therefore, this cynical belief that this appalling human suffering is ‘necessary’ is actively perpetuated by Eastern spiritual belief, by the God-men and shamans and their followers. With this belief firmly habituated on the planet, and particularly so in the Eastern religions, it is no wonder that human suffering and violence continue to flourish.

We have totally different approaches to relationships with totally different results. The only thing that brought total success for me in the relationship was in eliminating all my instilled social, cultural and spiritual conditioning in order to get stuck into the animal instinctual passions. The first layer is what most people fiddle around with by trying to find a way of compromising, accommodating or following the latest fashionable theories and beliefs. In past relationships I went from real world male to SNAG and finally had to delete the lot in order to fundamentally change. That was the thrilling bit, for underneath is a not too pretty set of animal passions. I went through many a scary time exposing layers of fear, aggression, nurture and desire that had been covered over by beliefs, ethics and morals. I came to see my social identity as the guardian at the gate of the instinctual passions. It is instilled in us to control them and unless you remove your social identity you can never dig in to explore the underlying survival instincts – ‘me’ at my very core.

What serendipity to find someone who was equally willing to remove absolutely everything that stood in the way of living together in peace and equity. I decided to give it 100% commitment – all or nothing. I came to understand and face the fact that I was at least as much at fault as my partners in all my past failed relationships. I also came to understand and face the fact that in past relationships most of time I was not really living with the woman because I was usually ‘some-where’ else. By ‘some-where’ else I mean avoiding, withdrawn, self-absorbed, resentful, suspicious, defensive, careful, worried, fearful, annoyed, scared, etc. This time I wanted to know that if we did part at any time it would be with me knowing that it was not my fault – that I had given it 100%.

What a delight it is to now live with a woman in easy companionship, where I can simply be myself with no pretence, no effort, no compromises, no bargains, no bonds. I am with her because I enjoy her company in all the activities we do together – just in her ‘being around’. It is delightful to have her as a companion. ‘It’s good you’re here’ is our favourite expression to each other. People around think that we are in love (little do they know!), and that it will wear off, as it always does; or that we are ‘soul mates’, having by some miracle found the ‘right one’. It is silly to worry whether this will last forever or that, given a change in circumstances, either of us may have a different companion at some future time. But I live with her as though it will be forever; totally, with no doubt – one hundred percent!

As you can see, my approach to living with someone in equity, peace and harmony was to bring to an end the process of forever learning, from having good endings, and from continuing to grow and move on. I had already moved on from three relationships and I wanted an end to continually growing and learning – I was challenged to prove that peace on earth was possible in this lifetime. The idea that we grow from our suffering or should be continually moving on is a bit like the idea of a never-ending spiritual search – one is supposed to be in a state of not-knowing, life is a journey to somewhere else, life is a mystery that cannot be solved, etc.

I became vitally interested in peace on earth is this lifetime – with people as-they-are, in the world as-it-is.

Surely when one experiences the falling away of all false belief structures and human conditioning and programming it becomes obvious that there are no separate selves in the first place.

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

Many beliefs are masqueraded as ‘truths’ or are merely accepted as facts in lieu of any serious scrutiny, or are protected by the blatant and stubborn refusal to question the facticity of that which is ‘dearly held’ to be true.

How long will we continue this denial of the central role that genetically-encoded instinctual passions have in causing human malice and sorrow?

And how long will people keep turning away from the facts and proudly indulging in utterly ‘self’-ish theories and beliefs?

What I did was keep asking questions until all of my beliefs were replaced by substantiated verifiable facts. I would not settle on anything if I only felt something to be right and true or because someone else said it was so. I kept asking myself questions until I removed all doubt from my life. It became obvious that if I had to trust, have faith, believe or hope that something was so then it was not a fact but merely a belief or a feeling. When I came across the radical proposition that there was a third alternative to remaining normal or becoming spiritual I ran with the question: ‘What if there isn’t a God, by whatever name?’

This question can easily lead people into despair and hopelessness but when combined with the question: ‘What if there is a way that I can actually rid myself of malice and sorrow’, a whole new exciting and challenging ball game opens up.

Rather than ego death, I think that for the practical purpose of living in the world, just as it is useful to have a house with walls and a roof to offer shelter against the elements, so it is useful to have a sound and mature ego structure to enable us to act with optimum wisdom and compassion, to express the goodness and Love of Truth with least distortion. What is not needed is the self arisen from identifying with the ego because that leads straight into conflict, greedy consuming, fighting and defending. Being free of attachment to substance and self in physical or mental things means we do not believe that the building defined by the walls of the house is independently real or absolute, we are not fooled into believing that the person defined by the egoic boundaries is a separately existing being. Knowing the true nature of things we can live peacefully and joyfully within the world, using everything skilfully for the welfare of all.

Well I don’t doubt the sincerity of your beliefs but the fact of the matter is people are not living peacefully and joyfully in the world.

It is well-documented that the last century was the bloodiest to date – over 160 million human beings were killed by their fellow human beings and over 40 million people killed themselves in suicides – and there is no end in sight to this human slaughter and bloodlust. These are real human beings, on this planet and not illusionary human beings, in an illusionary world. That means at least 200 million of today’s children will suffer a similar fate.

I know that while I was in the spiritual world I had the feeling that if only everyone could feel what I feel then the world would be awash with peaceful and loving people. But I eventually became aware that this feeling was still self-centred, ego-centric, me-oriented, ‘inner’, private, etc. It was after all, only a feeling that ‘I’ had, not a fact that I or anyone else I had met, or read about, was living. The other fact that shook me up was that a sincere Christian has the same feeling, a sincere Buddhist has the same feeling, a sincere Muslim has the same feeling and yet when push comes to shove people are willing and eager to kill and die for their beliefs – so passionately and fervently do they believe in their feelings and their Truth or God. This is not only a well-documented historical fact, it is clearly in operation today amongst the New Dark Age religions. In the town where I live the Rajneeshees are involved in public conflict with the Poonjarians, the Course of Miracle followers are squabbling with the Christians, and the splits and chasms that are inevitably forming amongst the followers within the various spiritual groups, particularly after their Guru dies, are anything but peaceful or joyful. When I was on the spiritual path I always felt that ‘my’ Guru, ‘his’ teaching, which became my Truth, was superior to everyone else’s belief – this is the very nature of spiritual belief for one is extolled to trust one’s feelings, have faith, and above all, don’t doubt (which means don’t dare question the teacher or the teachings).

I know that you have these affective experiences, knowings and feelings of goodness and Love of Truth (God by another name), for I have had them myself – I know them well. But the fact is that religion, be it Eastern or Western, actively contributes to malice and sorrow as is evidenced by the countless religious wars, persecutions, sacrifices, penances, recriminations, repressions, ostracizations, denials, retributions, perversions and conflicts that are ever ongoing ...

I find reality as I thought it was very flimsy, a small island in an endless sea, but in no way an illusion. So I agree with Howard that there is something to say about how we conceive of life, it is very flimsy.

Both a real world reality and a spiritual world Reality are indeed very flimsy. Both these conceptions about what it is to be a human being and the physical, actual world we find ourselves in are illusions conceived by the psychological and psychic entity that inhabits the flesh and blood body. ‘Who’ we think and feel we are is the flimsy thing – lost lonely, frightened and very, very cunning. Eastern religious philosophy has it that ‘who’ we think we are – the ego – is the problem and teaches devotees to give full reign to ‘who’ we feel we are – the soul. Spiritual believers are continuously admonished to ‘leave your mind at the door, surrender your will and trust your feelings’. This shift of identity from ego to soul gives rise to a narcissistic soul uninhibited by intelligent thought, and there is no greater narcissism or stupefied intelligence than to believe oneself to be divine. The path from ‘self’ to ‘Self’ is a path of self-aggrandizement, not self-immolation. No wonder there is such doubt and confusion on the spiritual path for one is constantly having to deny common sense, the physical world as experienced by the senses and the fact of physical death as a finality.

I was fascinated to learn that Richard had been Enlightened and had now found a state that he said was vastly superior to Enlightenment. Given the doubts I was beginning to acknowledge to myself about the ‘tried and true’ methods of Religion and Spirituality, I became intrigued that here was something that was new and totally different. The other attractive part was that Richard and Devika had investigated together all the conditioning and beliefs that prevented men and women from living together harmoniously. I decided – after my fifteen years of failed attempts to find any sensible meaning in life on the spiritual path – to give this particular way my total effort.’ Peter’s Journal, Introduction

For the rest of your discourse, sales pitch, what ever it is... you certainly make being a Sannyasin...no you never said Sannyasin did you? You make being a Rajneeshee sound repulsive and I guess being one could be! (depending on the dreamer) Now had you tried Sannyas perhaps you’d be having a different story.

Well I only tried it for about 15 years, some must be clocking up 25 or more by now. Have you tried longer, or are you intending to get Enlightened soon? Do you have a time frame?

Well Peter, there’s not much more for me to say, you are in control of your dream. You too have the ability to allow contentment, peace of mind when you are doing whatever it is you do. You can even allow the world to be worldly... all the options still exist, but an option is not the same as a promise. Options come with personal responsibility.

Option implies choice, and yes I certainly exercise choice based firmly on what is silly and what is sensible, what is a fact and what is merely a belief, what works and what doesn’t work. It takes the angst, doubt and fear out of choice and is magically freeing. I don’t even have to ‘feel’ responsible any more given that I am no longer malicious (hence no guilt, shame or repentance arise) nor am I sorrowful (hence no sadness, compassion or resentment arise).

I hope you find what you look for. All I could ever offer would just be more Promises and Options.

Yeah, I know.

I am going to look into this ‘third alternative’

There is a great myth put about by many in the spiritual world that goes something like ‘you are already That or God, or Enlightened, you only have to realize it’. It is a prime example of being in cuckoo land as it denies the fact that, as human beings, we are born with instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. And it attempts to transcend the animal biological heritage by inventing some mythical ‘divine world’ and going off and dwelling in it ‘for eternity’. The problem in humans is a neuro-biological, not meta-physical. And only by ridding ourselves of the Ancient belief in Gods and Goddesses, can we begin to tackle the problem. Without God it is up to each of us to sort out our own ‘self’ and why not? It is such an amazing journey of discovery that it makes any normal or spiritual therapies seem like kindergarten. To find out ‘what’ you are as opposed to who you ‘think’ or ‘feel’ you are!

No longer do I dwell or wallow in the psychic world. No longer do I need good spirits, Masters, guides, omens or charms. No longer does a battle rage inside my head or my heart. Free of fear, doubt, feelings and emotions I am able to be here, in this moment of time, sensing the physical world – delighting in typing, with a fan blowing cool air on my back, my body still loose and tingling after a ‘romp’ with Vineeto. The actual physical experiencing of the perfection of the physical world, the ease, the comfort, the pleasure of food, sex, coffee, writing, reflecting, talking. The delight, the thrill of doing what is happening is definitely where it is at!

To be free of my ‘self’ and the psychic world is to be free of doubt and fear – to be actually free.

The human brain is the most sophisticated development of this extraordinary universe. Not only does it see, hear, smell, taste and touch with its nerve tentacles or stalks, but it can think, cognitize, reflect and communicate, and be aware of itself doing all these things. It also comes in a pretty neat package able to move freely and easily and perform an amazing amount of dexterous activities. The prime activity of human animals that sets them apart from other animals is their ability to think and reflect.

Unfortunately this same faculty is the source of so much suffering and angst.

Given our self and our social identity, so much of our thinking is self-centred producing a relentless avalanche of neurosis. These thoughts are often backed by emotional responses of past hurts, fears, doubts, aggression, etc. which produce chemical responses in the body, giving rise to deep feelings and passions further adding to our confusion. This self-centred neurosis is identified in the East as the problem with humans but they attempt to eradicate only half of the problem. Eastern religions aim to eradicate the ego (who we think we are), while ignoring the soul (who we feel we are). The resultant attack on, or repression of, all thoughts and thinking (not just the self-centred neurosis) results in the complete denial of intelligent thought such as can be readily seen by the East’s lack of technological progress, appalling poverty, repression of women, theocratic empires, etc. If there is no God (a radical concept, I know) then humans only hope is intelligent, sensible, non-spirit-ridden, down-to-earth thought (another radical concept, I know). To date most people have trouble considering two radical non-populist thoughts in a row – still it’s early days.’

And secondly, to experience this Actual Freedom one would have to actively pursue ‘self’-immolation.

For me, once I found out about it, dug into it, remembered a peak experience, it re-activated a pure intent in me – a burning desire that we humans find a way to live together in peace and harmony on the magical fairy tale like, paradisiacal planet.

As I explored into things in the spiritual world, I eventually realised that the only reason I needed to trust was that I kept having these feelings of doubt. If I had no doubt, if I was absolutely certain, if it was obvious and factual – then I had no need to trust, trust then is irrelevant. Once I saw the role trust played as the guardian and defender of beliefs, I was then able to investigate the doubts to see how valid they were. To really begin to challenge my beliefs which required trust, faith and hope to sustain – to ‘prop up’ as it were. Of course, then the feelings of guilt, being a traitor, being ungrateful, etc. come up, but what to do.

For me, once there was a crack in the door I couldn’t keep from peeking further.

I use the word sincere deliberately as I think it is this sincerity that you confuse with a lack of sense of humour.

Sincerity is questioning and at the same time not being attached to anything and taking everything lightly. When you KNOW there is no attachment and nobody can destroy what you KNOW. I can make fun of Osho because even though I am grateful to him I do not take him seriously.).

Sincerity in questioning is to genuinely question to the point that one finds a factual answer, even if this answer shatters all that you believed and held dear.

To question and not seek an experiential answer such that will change your life is a total waste of time, and mere wanking.

And to set limits, or stop the process at the first sign of fear, or offence, or doubt, is insincere.

And to remain unattached is to be disinterested and ensures that the questioning remains a cerebral concept rather than active, vital and on-going to the point where an answer in terms of a clear, obvious and direct conclusion. Should the aim and intent of this questioning be to become happy and harmless, one then is sincerely forced to do something to actualize the result of the questioning.

One is then forced – out of sincerity – to do something that one would not normally do – change one’s behaviour – actually demolish or eliminate a bit of ones own ‘self’ that one holds so dear.

The other benefit of continuously asking yourself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is that if your intent is to become happy and harmless then one is irrevocably forced to consider the ‘ripples’ one’s feelings, moods, words and actions have on others as this too effects one’s own happiness.

Someone wrote the other day saying : ‘is this all you offer? – I do this all the time, and it is what the spiritual people teach anyway’. All you are is anti-Osho and I’m pissed that this is all you offer.’

No, the ‘offering’ is 180 degrees different to the spiritual.

I doubt it that their ‘way’ will prove to be the final answer to the ‘human condition’, that it will accomplish what until now no other teaching has been able to achieve.

There is a general acceptance that goes ‘you can’t change human nature’. It is at the root of Ancient Wisdom – hence the search for the Divine – another ‘realm ‘ to dwell in on earth or in heaven or the Cosmos somewhere.

I turned my doubt around and asked ‘what if what Richard is saying is a fact’. And then I journeyed on and found it is so – you can change human nature – I did it in me.

If it were truly the only answer, then surely Richard would actually, factually be the only real savior, the only messiah, whether he likes it or not. He would be, if not the only son of god, very close to God’s image.

People who believe in God have to see Richard as God. But what if he is a fellow human being who had rid himself of malice and sorrow?

But of course, he couldn’t do that because then he would be God...

Bit of a circular argument you have running there ... a conundrum, as is all philosophy and wisdom to date.

By the by it’s very good that Vineeto and Peter challenge lazy, sleepy Sannyasins, their views, belief systems.

It is good to be challenged, is it not? I found the last 2 years to have been the most challenging of my life, the most thrilling, the most alive ...

*

Good for you, but it will never be something for humanity as a whole in my view. Nothing ever is. In this sense Richard will prove to be a failure as well.

So, nothing ever is ... But what about you, will the teachings fail you or are you going to succeed in whatever it is you are looking for? Are you having success, are the teachings working for you? This is a sincere enquiry.

I think I will have to watch this suggesting thing ... I just couldn’t resist it. But I do enjoy a good muse over things. I’ll put a little muse from my journal at the end.

And now a reading from The Journal – chapter God ...page 92. In the beginning there was ... (just kidding)

... I often mused at how the idea of God began in the first place and why he/she/it has had such a long run despite such an abysmally bad performance. Since I do not believe in past lives, I can only guess, of course. Life must have been incredibly tough in the early cave-dwelling days – survival, shelter, food, warmth, protection, procreation, defence and attack. It was a purely animal existence, but humans had a brain that was able to reflect. Living in sheer terror of, and dependency on, the elements seems to have created the idea that some sort of appeasement or sacrifice was necessary to curry favour, or at least to not incur their wrath. Some of the earliest Gods were actually Fire, Sun, Moon and Earth itself. At the heart of some modern day Eastern temples a perpetual fire is still kept burning – a tradition stretching back to these times. The leaders of the tribes would then have found it advantageous to take over the position of messengers or representatives of the Gods. This was only natural, given man’s cunning, and thus were born the priests, shamans and God-men! Peter’s Journal, God

During this time, I remember driving up the escarpment that encircles the lush semi-tropical coastal plain where I live. I stopped and looked out at the edge of the greenery, where a seemingly endless ribbon of white sand neatly bordered it from the azure ocean. Overhead great mounds of fluffy white clouds sailed by in the blue of the sky. Right in the foreground stood a group of majestic pines towering some thirty meters tall. I was struck by the vastness, the stillness and the perfection of this planet, the extraordinariness of it all, but ... and the ‘but’ are human beings! Human beings who persist in fighting and killing each other and can’t live together in peace and harmony.

It was one of those moments that forced me to do something about myself, for I was one of those 5.8 billion people. It was exactly one of those moments that forced me to do something about being able to live with a woman in peace and harmony. To prove it was possible.

No longer was it then sensible to relentlessly pursue that which has failed for billions of people for thousands of years. Hope, faith and trust, when they fail, turn inevitably to despair, doubt and suspicion. I put my stock in confidence, certainty and a good deal of bloody-mindedness to try something different and the results are beyond my wildest dreams! First, I made it the most important task in my life. Second, I realised that nobody could do it but me. Then I simply had to ride out the fear that arose from changing my behaviour – from actually eradicating part of myself. To live without the emotions and feelings of love defies all that we hold dear, but the facts are that love always fails, always ends in misery and suffering, or at best in compromise and bondage. Love is, after all, a well-meaning but doomed attempt to cover up the maliciousness and sorrow that is at the core of the Human Condition.’ Peter’s Journal, Love

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