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Selected Correspondence Peter Facts
The first thing is the business of finding out the facts of the human condition we find ourselves born in to, as opposed to what we have been told is the truth about the human condition. What we have come to believe and commonly accept as the truth is what has been passed on to each and every human being from their parents and peers ... who got it from their parents and peers ... who got it from their parents and peers ... stretching back into the dark mists of time. Our bondage to the human condition can be summed up as –
In order to become free of the human condition it is essential to laboriously crack through these shackles – the beliefs, morals, ethics, values, viewpoints and psittacisms that bond humans to a life of essential suffering and heart-wrenching misery. The easiest and most direct method to do this is to read the AF web-site and confirm what is written by your own life experiences and your own investigations. The method I used to confirm that what Richard was saying about the human condition was factual and sensible was to read, watch TV and browse the internet for further information. This process of finding the facts does involve a fair bit of work and investigation. One needs to check many sources, look for contradictions, be very wary of the source of the material and the bias of the authors or presenters, seek out the data behind the conclusions others are making, etc. Initially I ran a little game whereby I simply assumed that I, and everyone else, had got it wrong and looked for why and where – this way the investigation became exciting and thrilling – not daunting and fearful. Pretty soon I was able to confirm that I and everyone else had got it wrong – I had been searching for freedom and meaning 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Re-wiring my brain was how I saw this process. A bit from the Introduction is relevant to this business –
But it’s gone beyond theory now and into actuality? The proof of our misuse of thought is collapsing this very environment and the physical actuality of that, confronts us everyday. Mankind’s erroneous theories have bolted and cannot be contained by merely shutting the gate afterwards, and haughtily looking down our actual nose at mankind’s silly imaginings. The imagination is a force to be reckoned with, it can manoeuvre arms and legs into all sorts of mischief. It has wrought life threatening havoc on this planet! Okay, before I get into detail, it may be useful to look at how it is possible to ascertain what is fact and what is theory, postulation, concept, commonly agreed, belief, assumption, psittacism, speculation, feeling, intuition, imagination, myth, wisdom, real or true. The first step would be to at least entertain the idea that the notion you have about something may not be factually correct. It would be good to put one’s real-world and spiritual-world cynicism aside and crank up a bit of naïve curiosity at this stage, even if you have to pretend an innocence, a not knowing when you ‘really do know’... To do so would be a blow to one’s pride and the way I dealt with that was to turn it on its head and say that I would be really silly to continue believing something that was not factual. The next obstacle is the moral and ethical stance I have – if I think it is ‘right’ or ‘good’ to believe this particular issue then I will not even bother to investigate it. Again, I refused to let arbitrary moral or ethical judgements stand in the way of wanting to know the facts for that would be silly and beneath my dignity as a supposedly intelligent, supposedly autonomous, supposedly free human being. So, you crank up a bit of naïve curiosity, clear the decks of pride, morals and ethics and you are ready to take a clear-eyed look at the particular issue. I can offer a few clues as to ascertaining facts based on my experience which may be useful. This is bound to end up a long post but you seem to be a reader which is a very good thing for someone interested in an actualism. I am putting in words a process I have done so many times it has become automatic, so it is best to regard this as a schematic outline rather than a fixed approach. But I do see a few elements common to any investigation –
So, taking a deep breath, we plunge into Environmentalism, using the above outline as a touchstone. I’ll try and keep on track but, in fact, all these elements tend to overlap, as one makes an investigation into a particular issue that may run from hours to weeks to months, or even years in some cases.
Eventually I saw that my physical survival depended upon the ATM machine continuing to spit out enough printed pieces of paper when I put a plastic card into it for me to be able to afford to pay for food, clothing and shelter. Anything in excess to this basic requirement was then available to buy toys for leisure and pleasure. Thus, my only job was to ensure that the numbers on my receipt remained within sensible limits given the ebb and flow of expenditure. It’s amazing the degree to which one can simplify their life to cover the basic contingencies. Since I quit my job, austerity measures have gone into effect. I’ve been out of work for a month now, unable to collect unemployment compensation because I quit my job, but I’m in good financial shape. For spending cash, I’ve been rolling up some of the coins I kept stashed about the house (I’ve got about a ton of these in various locations), reserving my bank account for emergencies. I did manage to land a job in pretty short order but I don’t officially start work for another 2 weeks or so, so I’m still on ‘vacation’. I was talking to a New Dark Age healer the other day who was extolling the virtues of ‘alternative’ medicine. In claiming he was alternative, he blithely ignored the fact that he was practicing traditional ancient medicine – herbal infusions and potions, spirit-energy readings, etc. – while the last century has seen a phenomenal growth in new scientific-based medicine that has been instrumental in almost doubling human life expectancy and reducing the debilitating effects of disease and accident. As I am wont to occasionally, I pointed this fact out to him but he dismissed my comments by then riling against ‘the pressures of modern living’ and the value of alternative medicine in addressing these ‘evils’. I said that what I had done was deliberately eliminate stress from my life, noting that some years ago I had assured my doctor that I would not die of stress. It is such an obvious thing to do – to simplify one’s life so as to reduce stress. Not only does one become physically healthier but by reducing the franticness and busy-ness of continually complicating what is simple, it makes it easier to set aside the necessary time to investigate the real causes of your malice and sorrow. Again be wary of the usual alternatives – deliberately engaging in battle to prove your warrior-worth or deliberately withdrawing form battle to prove your good-ness. No need to add that the third alternative is the common sense approach – eliminate the ‘he’ or ‘she’ who feels stressed-out and/or seeks refuge in feeling blissed-out.
Any feedback on the schematics is welcome. I do like it that this process is clearly describable in words, is able to be schematically represented, is substantiated by current experiences, is verifiable by scientific records and research, is repeatable in different people, from different cultures, backgrounds and gender, it has nothing to do with faith, trust, hope or belief ... and it works! And all of that is what makes it a fact.
There is a dare in Actual Freedom that sends most people scurrying for cover, for very few are interested in radical and permanent change. I am very interested in your comment that ‘there were many others that demonstrated this as well’ for I haven’t come across any other experiments. If you can remember any specific studies, can you let me know? Although this particular experiment was repeated many times, in the end it was declared unethical and any similar research was frowned upon. This restriction on human behavioural research represents denial of facts in action, but given the Galileo precedent, this denial usually only lasts for a few hundred years before common sense eventually prevails as the empirical evidence becomes widely accepted. It was left to this current Pope to begrudgingly give the earth the right to orbit around the sun. And one doesn’t hear much of the Flat Earth Society after the stunning photos of earth were taken by the Apollo astronauts. A similar begrudging process of on-going denial will happen with the empirical evidence that human beings are genetically-encoded with the animal instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. It is this hundreds-of-years time span from initial publication to begrudging acceptance that I find most interesting. In fact, I understand that the theory that the earth may revolve around the sun had been around about 2000 years ago, was mathematically calculated by Copernicus in 1543, and then empirically confirmed by Galileo’s observations in 1613. If one takes this process from initial thought to empirical proof to final Papal approval of the earth’s behaviour, then the time span is in millennia, not centuries. In the case of acknowledging animal instinctual passions in human beings, we are looking at a time span of maybe one hundred years from theory to the current emergence of empirical neuro-biological evidence – given, of course, that everybody conveniently ignores the blatantly obvious behavioural evidence of all the wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, corruption, loneliness, despair and suicides that are endemic on the planet. What is apparent to me is that peace on earth will be a long time coming and many, many human beings will miss the bus. And that the spiritually-inclined will do everything in their power to deny the existence of instinctual animal passions in human beings for without the mythical belief in ‘bad’ and Evil, there is no need for the mythical belief in ‘good’ and God. It is good not to have missed the bus as it passed by.
I do find your change of tack a bit abrupt, for you were speaking somewhat in actualist terms in your last post when you said –
Something in our recent conversation does seem to have changed your mind a bit from your previous stance. Since I am very interested in looking into what is actually happening I tried to do just that. I know that I was being a little sluggish in my approach but my goal is always the same thing; to see clearly. For me that means questioning everything, not only the facts but also where one is coming from in stating different opinions and views. It means that I’m equally interested in reading in between the lines as I am in the cold hard facts. Reading between the lines means you are then free to disregards the facts, reinterpret them, dismiss them as belief or opinion, etc. This philosophical approach to life means that one can never be fully committed to living life for one always maintains a safe, cautionary distance. Likewise the psychic checking out of another’s position means that one is always on-guard and wary. I do understand, for this approach to living is what we have been taught, which is why I eventually abandoned the approach and began to listen to the facts speaking for themselves as it were. After all we don’t want to create new ideals but instead come to terms with the malice and sorrow in our lives, and life is happening right here and right now in this communication we have with each other, we don’t want to continue fooling ourselves. I’m not fooling myself – I am simply responding to your questions. That’s part of the reason I was a little provocative in my mail even though I didn’t plan it that way. I just tried to respond to the parts of your mail that I was questioning in some way. I could have pointed out other passages that was inspiring and helpful in my investigation but since your writings are very extensive I chose to concentrate on the parts that I didn’t agree with totally or wanted to question a little bit. I always take what is written at face value, without tying to second-guess or interpret the motives that may lie behind the question, statement or objection. Thus when you say one thing and then the opposite or agree and then disagree, I take it that you have changed your position. It is now clear that you quite literally and deliberately take no position about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. I cannot see any value at all in this style of intellectual ‘questioning’ for you but I do enjoy writing about my favourite subject and will continue to take your comments at face value. When I’d written the mail I thought that it might be too rough around the edges but I was convinced that you wouldn’t take it the wrong way. But I actually detect a lot of defensiveness in your reply. I also see limitations in the way we communicate, breaking everything down to small parts. Sometimes the details obscure the bigger picture. Being a pragmatic, down-to-earth builder by profession I know that a house is built stick by stick, bit by bit, day by day and eventually one has a finished house. The human psyche is constructed exactly the same way. From a base operation program of an instinctual animal ‘self’, a psychological and psychic self is layered over bit by bit, day by day, until by the time one is an adult the big picture of who we think and feel we are is complete. If one is interested in radical change this instinctual, psychological and psychic package has to be taken to pieces bit by bit, detail by detail, in order to discover what you are. Anyone interested in bigger picture solutions is usually talking of meta-physical viewpoints or philosophical approaches to living life. So how am I to respond to this mail? I don’t want to continue quoting your quote of my previous quote etc in absurdity ... ... I’ll try to make some short comments and then we might be able to move on. I would also like to clarify one thing; when I respond to your writings, it isn’t always ‘my’ view that I present, directly anyway. I see it as my prerogative (and everybody else’s) to step out of myself and question from a hopefully objective viewpoint. For instance I might question something that I quite agree with but still want to investigate further, that’s the approach I’ve been using anyway. So when I respond to you from a seemingly ‘spiritual’ viewpoint it can be that I try to see things with their eyes. Personally, I find maintaining an objective viewpoint to living life an abysmal approach compared to undertaking an active subjective exploration of one’s own psyche in order to be able to fully indulge in this business of being alive as a flesh and blood, thoughtful, reflective human being. An exchange with another correspondence may illustrate my position about remaining objective
As I’ve mentioned a few times I’m not sure it’s very constructive to be too ‘one-sided’ and that’s of course the reason I continue to plague you with ‘defending’ the spiritual camp in some ways. I guess I’m not quite as radical as you are ... ... not yet anyway. But I am very interested in an alternative way of looking at (and living) life and this ‘third way’ is certainly of great interest. I can also understand that you are totally fed up with the ‘spiritual bunch’ after battling with them through the years and that it can be extremely frustrating to deal with all the fixed ideas ‘they’ have ... ... there’s that ‘us and them’ again, how can we move away from that ... I wonder. The ‘spiritual bunch’ doesn’t have fixed ideas at all. They vacillate, fluctuate, oscillate, equivocate, pontificate, tergiversate, fudge the issue, pussyfoot around and waffle profoundly, all in order to defend their beliefs. A bit like squeezing a balloon – the hot air simply oozes in another direction. As I have said before, we have over a million words on our web-site from correspondent’s objections to being happy and harmless and all of them fall in to the category of people being unable or unwilling to take a position about life based on facts and their pure consciousness experiences, and all insisting on living life according to their beliefs and their altered state of consciousness experiences. I do like it that you are interested in this third alternative to staying normal or becoming spiritual, so I will continue to respond in detail to your points and will continue to take what you write at face value. We may well break records for the length and ‘weight’ for e-mail correspondence but it is a delicious day to sit at the keyboard and I do like to write to a fellow human being who is interested in this new discovery. * You of course would argue that your point of view is evidently more sane since you have the empirical proof to back it up. But I can’t see the use of dismissing the theoretical side of science and everything else that isn’t possible to verify directly by empirical methods. The problem I found with believing others’ theories and ideals was that they are changeable over time as more factual evidence became available, or as fashions changed. Further theories and ideals are culturally and spiritually influenced and the many variations only open up rich avenues of conflict, confusion, fantasy and fear, hope and hopelessness. Believing theories merely added more fuel to the fire of my instinctual passions, imaginations, dreams and nightmares – which is why I eventually abandoned the very act of believing. Give me a fact any day. Facts are great but I also think that we need to be our own ‘philosopher’ to be able to evaluate and make use of the facts. As I understand, practical philosophy is also about learning to communicate one’s views in an understandable way and we all need that to make any sense to others. I find ‘practical philosophy’ a contradiction in terms. Philosophy means thinking about life. Actualism is not a philosophy – it is a practical down-to-earth method of becoming free from the human condition.
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.
And Peter, I’m sure that even you have beliefs. Even if you base your approach on the ‘facts’ there’s belief involved without a doubt, you have to believe in your interpretation of the facts. This is pioneering work that you do so therefore it is also likely that you have to change your position somewhat in the future. This is where the personal knowledge of a pure consciousness experience is vital – one knows for a fact what is possible and then one sets out to live the pure consciousness experience, 24 hrs. a day, every day. Then the only position that changes is that one becomes actually free – thus making the fact of the experience constant, permanent and irrevocable. Isn’t the third way a theory amongst others until it’s really proven on a larger scale? Don’t we have to wait and see if it’s going to make a difference at all? This, of course, doesn’t prevent you, me or anybody else to live life the way we decide to right now, we shouldn’t wait around for anybody else, I mean. One man has proven it is possible and a handful of others are proving that the method to become free works. If you want to wait ‘until it’s really proven on a larger scale’ – that is a different matter completely. However, there is no imperative, no urgency – hundreds of people have rejected the possibility of becoming actually free of malice and sorrow in favour of remaining normal or continuing on the traditional spiritual path.
Most people live their lives on the basis of feelings, imagination, hope and belief and stubbornly ignore facts and sensibility. My exchanges on the Sannyas Mailing List offer ample evidence of the stubborn hold that fervent belief and impassioned feelings have on human beings. Hiding behind, and wallowing in, spiritual belief makes any sensible consideration and discussion of facts an impossibility, and forestalls any consideration of the third alternative that is now available to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’. Are you doing the same again? What’s the difference between a ‘spiritual belief’ and a ‘factual belief’? Are you for real? A ‘factual belief’ is a contradiction in terms – a gross distortion of words, an insane inanity. The criterion of a fact is that it works, it produces results. An insight is seeing the fact. When one sees the fact there is action ... and this action is the actualizing of the insight so that one’s personality is changed, irrevocably. * Our paradigm of reality allows us to ‘believe’ something is ‘fact’ How do I ‘know’? I don’t. I believe that I’m typing this on my computer and any number of people will support this belief. For all I know this could be the projection of some alien thought form directly into my brain – I don’t ‘believe’ for one minute this is so but it COULD be possible. Are you on some strong medication or something? Your comment is nothing other than Eastern philosophy whereby what is physical, tangible, palpable and actual is seen as illusionary. Another example of this philosophy is –
Your statements –
– represents pure Buddhist philosophy. These are all puerile psittacisms that have been bandied around the East for millennia, in one form or another. It is stretching the language a bit to call it philosophy for the highest accolade in the East is to ‘really know that you do not know’, or to ‘truly know the Truth which cannot be spoken’.
But now I can say that my integrity can stand proud on its own, although this doesn’t mean that I am closed off to another’s input and remarks about me, on the contrary, I always check them for value, as I wouldn’t want to overlook anything! I find that checking things out for facts far better, because I tend to only value that which I want to value – things like praise, sympathy, emotional support, appreciation, etc.
To Alan: Recently I heard a lunatic defined as someone who continues to do something again and again despite the fact that it doesn’t work. So things are going extraordinarily well. The numbers of people interested is growing exponentially as a confidence gathers as many can see that the practical benefits to themselves of becoming happy and the relief of becoming harmless to others. It does seem that the essential first step is for people to be honest enough to admit that they are not happy, whereas to admit that they are harmful to others is seemingly impossible. It is always the others fault or the fault of ‘society’ or the ‘system’. P.S. – Heard this recently – ‘Between grief and nothing, I chose grief ...’ – some French philosopher whose name I missed. Sums it up really, the stubborn insistence on maintaining grief and sorrow as Noble human traits. I have clearly identified that I am both a lunatic and an unhappy producer of suffering, and so your statements have attracted my full attention. I would like to read the Journals you describe. Good to hear from you. The lunatic definition I heard from the chief executive of Continental Airlines who joined the company when it was well on its way to its third bankruptcy crisis and he was trying to change the ‘mind-set’ of the employees.
But what have we created? It is not a pretty picture from my perspective. The results are not what we would call ‘best.’ It is not a beautiful thing in my estimation to watch our cities destroyed by floods caused by extreme weather and higher oceans due to global warming through the destruction of our atmosphere. It is not a pretty thing to watch people starve because plants burn up and the rains don’t come. I see you are a believer in the theory of global warming and subsequent disruptions in weather patterns. It was a debate that I followed with interest for a while to see if I could discern the facts as opposed to the media hype, the vested interests and ‘Doomsday’ beat ups. There certainly seems a great deal of disagreement in the scientific community (not an uncommon thing) with the usual competitiveness, brinkmanship, and blarney abounding. What does seem a constant thread is that it is still a theory searching for hard evidence and actual proof. The problem of such a limited time span of precise meteorological and atmospheric data – only about 100 years – has lead to nothing more than theoretical extrapolations. Still, it does suit the agenda of the extremists and ‘Doomsdayers’ to promote the worst case theories as ‘truths’ in order to promote their particular ‘truth’ as the only solution. They are also people who simply do not want to be here, they hunger for an escape from living life, here, now, on earth. I have developed a discerning eye and ear in order to ascertain what is fact and what is merely theory, postulation, concept, truth, common agreement, belief, assumption, speculation, imagination, myth or wisdom. At the start it does take intent to dig around and it does take a bit of an effort, (like reading what I am writing, for a start). It can result in a few blows to one’s pride, but otherwise one would simply believe what everybody else tells as the Truth.
No 23: Why do you allow yourself to be in any way affected by this person’s poison, this person is quite obviously a mind dweller and mind dwellers love to mind fuck, it is their expertise, just watch these experts disappear up their own arises if you just give them enough rope. No 4: You know, it is unbelievable that minds can be so thick. I haven’t given up hope that there must be a gap, a small slice of openness for communication to peep through, but it seems not so. I’ve never before in my life come across someone so totally brainwashed and it makes me a bit curious – how is it possible? But you’re right, it is poison and it doesn’t do good. Great that you haven’t given up hope of finding any small slice of openness. When I met Richard I was intrepid in both my questioning and scrutiny of what he was saying – there was no way I was just going to take on another set of beliefs. What he was saying that he had found out about the Human Condition was both incomprehensible and frightening to ‘me’. I would often recoil in bewilderment but I was determined to ascertain for myself whether or not what he was saying was factual. To go away, read, contemplate, question, investigate, recall, ponder, ruminate ... and then come back and ask again. I would pursue this process with each of my dearly-held beliefs until the clear facts emerged. I have written more of it in the Intelligence chapter of my journal, if you are interested. As for never coming across someone so brainwashed before, it is not that I am sprouting Wisdom or a new belief system. I am simply stating facts. When talking to Richard, I always tried to avoid getting into a ‘tis’ – tisn’t’, ‘right and wrong’ type of discussion. Much better to look at the facts of the situation – and they were always 180 degrees different to what I had been taught. The certainty and surety comes from facts and common sense, whereas doubt and confusion are the direct result of belief and feelings. And what I talk of is the actual world of purity and delight that we have all experienced in a pure consciousness experience – that world that is right under our noses when ‘I’ temporarily abdicate the throne. It is not a philosophy or something Richard has invented. This actual world is ever-present, but it is not a world that ‘I’ can experience, therefore ‘my’ demise is essential.
Instead of them inquiring into our experiences, they go on and on exclaiming themselves to have got it right and the rest of us to be wrong. That doesn’t set the ground for talk between equals. No where have either Vineeto or I exclaimed ‘to have got it right and the rest of (you) to be wrong’. A fact is a fact – it stands on its own as it were – it is neither right or wrong. To me it is far better to live one’s life based on facts rather than beliefs – then one is free to judge things as ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’ firmly based on facts. Simple things like – if you want to live with a woman (or man) it would be good to do so in peace, harmony and equity. In the case of Vineeto and I, we had a contract to look at everything (in ourselves only – not the other) that was in the way of that being possible. And within 12 months we succeeded – and one of the first things I had to throw out was ‘right and wrong’.
There exists nothing such as facts. I think you are in real trouble if you say that your computer screen is not a fact and these very words you are reading are not a fact. Next you will be telling me that I am not a fact and I am but a figment of your imagination. Not even in your wildest imagination could you anticipate my response to your words. No, these words are actual given that you can see them on the screen On my screen, they are flowing – as if by magic – from my fingers on the keyboard, right now, right here.
I am surprised that you do not find it a fact that people react against the truth. You say it is a myth. This seems strange to me. As I read What does the word truth mean? It means that which is in accordance to the actual state of things; conforming to fact. Truth is not about beliefs. Certainly, as you rightfully point out over and over again, the proponents of each belief system or religion or spiritual path take it that they have found the truth and that the others have not and many are prepared to fight bloody wars to support that. You say ‘True courage and intelligence is to investigate and discover the facts for oneself’. Yes. That is so. True courage and intelligence is to investigate and discover truth for oneself. Have you not discovered facts? Have you not presented those facts to people on the Sannyas list. Have you not presented truth? And do you not find a gross allergic reaction to the truth – the facts – that you are presenting? I agree with Doris Lessing. It is my observation also. The more one presents the facts, the more reaction is generated. This is nonsense. Doris Lessing was talking of meta-physical truth not facts. They have as much similarity as Santa Claus and his ‘flying reindeer’ do to Neil Armstrong and the Apollo moon mission. One is a fairy tale belief and the other is factual – as evidenced by sufficient witnesses, written, audio and film evidence, as well as physical objects, such as capsule, rocket, etc. such as to very reliably taken as a fact. No wonder people ‘assume wrongly’ what you say. As you yourself said –
It does seems a deliberate policy in that it enables you to attempt to assimilate what is obviously new and factually based, into what is obviously the same old fairy tale of truths. The spiritual world is literally twice removed from the actual world, in that common sense is completely absent in the spiritual scriptures and in those who follow them. To equate a ‘truth’ and a fact is nonsense. Yes Peter, ‘There is indeed a perfect and pure actual world right under our noses, right now, right here.’ And most people are allergic to being told anything about it. As you yourself said –
And just because everybody believes something to be the true, doesn’t necessarily make it a fact. A brief, open eyed, look at history will affirm this as a factual statement. At one point everyone believed the earth was flat. At one point everyone believed the sun went around the earth. At one point everyone believed that there was a physical bit in the body called the soul. At one point everyone believed malice was the result of evil spirits possessing the body. At one point people believed that we humans were meant to forever suffer on earth as some sort of cosmic penal colony – woops ... I’ve jumped ahead a bit there ... Oh well, It’s all such good fun, such a delight to be free of ancient truths – such a liberation, such freedom. * It does seems a deliberate policy in that it enables you to attempt to assimilate what is obviously new and factually based, into what is obviously the same old fairy tale of truths. The spiritual world is literally twice removed from the actual world, in that common sense is completely absent in the spiritual scriptures and in those who follow them. To equate a ‘truth’ and a fact is nonsense. I think before we talk further about this you might consult a good dictionary. You might add a definition of ‘truth’ to the Glossary on your web-site. I like the definition in Macquarie, which reads, in part ‘the true or actual facts of a case’, ‘conformity with fact or reality’, ‘a verified or indisputable fact...’ We have been corresponding with the Sannyas list for about three months and have made it a constant point, in many, many posts, to distinguish between the spiritual truth and facts. The spiritual pundits have made the word truth meaningless to give credence to their particular philosophy or mythical tale. Many, many times in the spiritual world one will see the word truth used, often with capitalisation to denote a Divine Truth. Given that there are about 6,000 religions on the planet, there are at least that many versions of truth or Truth (as in God’s Word). My local new-age bookshop has thousands of books all proclaiming a truth about human existence – and most, if not all, offer contradictory versions, and wildly so. Even within one religion, such as Rajneeshism, there are so many versions of the truth, as he spoke on so many religions and philosophies offering a broad church of Eastern Mysticism to his followers. It is in this context that the word truth, both in the spiritual world and the real world, has lost any meaning, any sense, any credibility as to what may have been a useful dictionary definition. It is for this reason that the words actual and fact are used in our correspondence and deliberately so. We leave the word truth to the duplicity and deviousness of the spiritual world.
Actualism is the process of weeding out allusion and belief and replacing them with facts. The process is not a subjective mind-game, there are not ‘my’ facts or ‘your’ facts, there are simply facts. But you know this, or at least you did before your current bout of resistance –
To merely have insights about others and their motives and behaviour without having the intellectual rigor and intestinal fortitude to shine the same light of awareness on one’s own ‘self’ can only lead to a ‘self’-centred feeling of comparative superiority and a supercilious feeling of pity for others who are ‘less aware’. Spiritual seekers who lust for the sense of power that accompanies such insights about others and go on to make a business of this practice can eventually develop their feeling of superiority into a full-blown holier-than-thou demeanour which, if nourished and nurtured, can be further developed into full blown ‘self’-love. Their pretence of sympathy for those who are unaware can be cunningly presented as a holier-than-thou compassion and then off they trot on the Guru circuit, satsang-ing and sangha-ing, preaching and proselytising, competing and squabbling in order to attract as many followers as possible, simply in order to try to rise to the top of a very smelly heap. When I started to acknowledge my own spiritual beliefs and acknowledge the facts of the situation in the spiritual world, I was able to stop separating ‘me’ out from others. I was able to clearly see that ‘I’ was not unique, not special and by no means superior. When I sat down and made an assessment of what I was doing with my life I finally realized that it was only pride that stood in the way of acting with integrity. When I weighed ‘my’ pride and ‘my’ beliefs against integrity and the facts it then became very clear as to which direction I needed to move in life – I abandoned the falsehood of spiritual pride and became an actualist. In short, I opted for peace on earth.
Your perception of whole Eastern spiritual world is of no value to me. After all it’s just a limited / edited / interpreted / coloured / perception. And we all know how flawed one’s perception can be. Perception is definitely a flawed way of looking at the world. Much better to rely on facts. And curiously enough those who have read my story have not disputed any of the facts. At this stage only very few have had the courage to read something that is challenging to accepted wisdom and belief, so it’s early days.
So, it’s one more time again for you – OK, one more time with feeling. Perhaps we can get somewhere here. (Progress on the road to nowhere.) If you are trying to ‘change my mind’, get me to ‘see the light’, show me where I have got it wrong, then – it is indeed the road to no-where. As Galileo is reported to have said to the Pope when hauled before him for contradicting the Bible – ‘Okay Mr. Pope, but even if I do say that I am wrong and the sun does go around the earth it won’t change the fact that the earth goes around the sun.’ The facts are that in Ancient times primitive humans believed the sky was another world inhabited by strange objects – the Sun, Moon, Planets and Stars. They gave them names and worshipped them as Gods, prayed to them and offered them gifts. Soon particular tribe members took over the roles of shamans, the representatives of the God’s on earth. The God’s were split into Good and Evil and anyone in a fit of rage or depression was said to be possessed by Evil and the power of the Good spirits was evoked. Of course, now in 1999, we know that the source of sorrow and malice in humans is but the instinctual program of fear and aggression. In a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt we have called on the instincts of nurture and desire as a balancing act. The Good to do battle with the Bad.
So Peter and Vineeto are remembering us of a good thing, but at the same time they are proof of the saying that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. Their judging the failure or success of a master, guru or teacher by the lack of improvement in the condition of humanity as a whole is questionable. Questionable because it is not a fact. Most people who avidly follow the teachings of masters, gurus or teachers, get offended whenever the words of their particular master, guru or teacher are questioned. This is a fact. This offence is often taken to the extreme and then the believer is willing to kill or die for his/her belief. At root, it is the same as being offended at anyone daring to question one’s own master, guru or teacher. This is a fact. For thousands of years, thousands of masters, gurus and teachers have been preaching and extolling the message that we are all Divine, that there is an after-life, that another world exists – the inner world – and all we have to do is dwell in it and all will be well. 160,000,000 million people have actually been killed in wars this century alone, and most of these wars have been fought in the name of God. This is a fact. And this carnage will only stop when we stop believing in, and defending, our own particular belief in our own particular God. This is a fact. Yes, but what’s not a fact is that a teaching is a failure because carnage has not been stopped. Understanding of a teaching can’t be pushed down peoples throats. They have to do it themselves. A master or teacher can’t force himself on people. He offers an opportunity to understand, but many people unable to console themselves with third rate concepts, after all it’s easier, with all trouble you mentioned as a result, yes. Okay, here is another idea you can deny or object to. I’ve got an endless supply, by the way. So let’s say there have been about 10 billion human beings who have walked the planet since cave-man times. Let’s say there have been about 1,000 masters or ‘good-quality teachers’ who have known and not merely pretended. My guess is that there have been at least 1 billion who have given the teachings a ‘fair go’ in their lives. They may not have realized the Truth but they have sincerely tried their best to live by the teachings. And yet, we humans still fight and kill each other. There is not even a semblance of hope that peace and harmony is possible on the planet. So what you are saying is that the 1,000 teachers are right and the 1 billion followers are wrong. This is only a suggestion, but maybe, just maybe, you might consider, if only for a second or two, that the ... teachings could be wrong? What twigged me was the possibility that ... everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong.
My perspective is somewhat different from what I have been reading here. I, too, have had many awakening experiences over a span of 35 years. I, too, have seen the madness of believing in gods, heaven worlds and all that. 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. I saw this many years ago and knew that if I was to find the truth it would have to be just seeing the facts as clearly as possible. Sounds a sensible approach to me but what I came to see was that I didn’t have to see a fact, a fact is something that already exists and I simply had to acknowledge it. I am not being pedantic here but many people ‘see’ fairies, goblins, ghosts, Santa Claus, flying saucers and all sorts of apparitions but that doesn’t necessarily make them factual. All of these seeings are culturally, religiously or historically influenced. A follower of Eastern religion and philosophy doesn’t hear the Voice of God, a Christian doesn’t feel Buddha in his heart and 19th Century people saw horse and carts in the sky and not flying saucers. A fact, on the other hand, stands by itself whereas any belief is nonsensical. By its very nature a belief is not factually true ... otherwise it would not need to be believed to be true. A fact is obvious; it is out in the open, freely available for all to see as being true. To believe something to be true is to accept on trust that it is so. A fact does not have to be accepted on trust – a fact is candidly so. A fact is patently true, manifestly clear. A fact is what is ascertained sensately and thus demonstrably true. A fact has actual verity, whereas a belief requires synthetic credence. Something I am curious about is that you stated that – ‘I,
too, have seen the madness of believing in gods, heaven worlds and all that’ and yet you continued on
following Eastern religion and philosophy. Did you not see the madness in Eastern religion or was your seeing
based on a rejection of the Western religious world-view and the adoption of the Eastern religious world-view?
Many spiritual seekers tend to wear rose coloured glasses when looking at the East and fail to see the
appalling ignorance, arrogance, oppression, poverty, class structure and religious persecutions that is the
result of thousands of years of intense devotion and practice of Eastern religions and philosophy. It is only
now that some brave scholars are beginning to question, investigate and document the Eastern religious ‘madness
of believing in gods, heaven worlds and all that’. Methinks the next generation may not be so blindly infatuated with the East as ours was.
Iow, how can you know the difference between what actually happened (emotional memory) and what your imaginary projections are? In order to prise these three separate issues apart, – actual experience, emotional memory and future projections – a practical down-to-earth example may be useful. I will use an example that I have written about in my journal, a time when I was waiting to meet Vineeto – <story snipped> As I have described, at the time this event was happening, ‘I’ had feelings of jealousy raging, and these feelings prevented me from enjoying the sensual delight of what was actually happening at the time. If ‘I’ now had an emotional memory of what happened, ‘I’ would simply be reliving ‘my’ feelings of jealousy in this moment, thereby preventing me from enjoying the sensual delight of being here. By evoking an emotional memory of having been jealous in the past, ‘I’ re-vive the emotion in this moment and thereby run the danger of imagining situations or events to justify ‘my’ feeling jealous now. Given that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, ‘I’ therefore exist over time – in other words, ‘I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations. Good! So I am simply ‘knowing’ that [‘I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations.] as a fact. You don’t need to rely on ‘knowing’ this to be a fact, you can experience it to be a fact for yourself by being attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. Knowing is a only start, but knowing is not a word I would use because spiritualists have so abused the word that they claim they know God exists when what they mean is they think, feel and believe God exists. [I’ exist as past emotional memories, current affective experience and future fearful or worrisome imaginations.] Ok <snip now is the only moment ‘I’ can experience any reference to future or past (ability to discriminate) can only be arrived upon as a factual instance by appliance of time as a concept (a measure tool) hence I say the discriminating mechanism is the ability to conceptualize time. While you may well think and feel all sorts of things about time, it does not alter the fact that this moment is the only moment you can experience being alive. If you are wasting this moment of being alive by wallowing in past emotional memories or worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future, then it is impossible to be attentive to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. * The computer screen is an object made of the stuff of this planet we humans live on, it is not a concept. As to [object made of the stuff of this planet we humans live on] Technically speaking you are now implying that [this planet we humans live on] is made of glass. It would however be a sign of extremely superstitiousness from me, if indeed I would take [stuff of this planet] as such that. You actually tried to make me believe that you meant glass in this context. And yet I didn’t say or imply that this planet is made of glass. What I said is that the computer screen is made up of the very stuff that this planet is made of. Traditionally glass was made of soda, lime and silica, all sourced from the earth and nowadays all sorts of other minerals are utilized in the process, depending on the type and specific characteristics of the glass. There is nothing superstitious or supernatural about glass and yet I always find it magical that glass is made from the rock of this planet. It’s quite stunning what human ingenuity is capable of. So ... I take this ‘stuff’ as what has been scientifically proven to be a movement of matter. No. This stuff – the physical matter that this planet is – exists as a fact. It doesn’t matter whether this stuff exists in its raw state or whether it has been fashioned or formed by human ingenuity and effort into other stuff – it is all the stuff this planet is made of. This stuff doesn’t need to be scientifically proven to be so – it is so. Nor do any of the scientific theories, concepts, hypotheses and fantasies about the ‘movement of matter’ alter the fact that the matter of this physical world exists as a verifiable empirical tangible fact. Assuming thereby that the formulae E = mc square is correctly representing the actual relationship of energy to matter, ie. matter becomes energy or energy is materialized thus the universe in motion. It is commonly assumed that Einstein’s theory is a law that relates to the physical world we live in. I don’t make that assumption, for even a little investigation will reveal that this is not so. Contrary to popular belief there is not one theory about matter, there are currently some eight main theories of matter, and a myriad of sub-theories. Nowadays there is a good deal of consternation in the world of quantum theory because the whole edifice of theoretical particles and assumed relationships has been thrown into question by the lack of any empirical evidence to support it. Some heavyweights in the quantum world are even proposing abandoning the whole thrust of the last century’s theories and beginning again with a new set of theories and concepts. I always find it kind of cute that spiritualists make a big deal out of digging up meta-physical quantum theories of matter, time and space and desperately wave them as a flag in support of their own meta-physical beliefs. Ever aware of the fragility of their own belief-system, they seek comfort in a belief-system that is equally as fragile and spurious – one that is already threatening to collapse like a tower made of playing cards. * This type of conceptual thinking, i.e. thinking abstracted from facts and actuality, is common in spiritual circles and can only lead to a ‘me’ who imagines ‘I’ am real and the past, the physical world and other human beings are but an illusion. Indeed: one safely can assume that this ‘but’ in [other human beings are but an illusion] can be considered as the great danger that lures in this way of conceptualizing. In the normal world, the concept that we should all get on with each other is always sabotaged by ‘self’-centeredness and in the spiritual world the feeling that ‘we are all one’ is always sabotaged by the ‘Self’-centred feeling of ‘I am God’. Both concepts are well-proven failures. This ‘I’ is capable of any type of imagination as long as it can keep playing a part as in such a way that it can discriminate itself as being ‘separate’ from its own imagination. Thus from that separateness comes either self-aggrandisement as in ‘I’ playing an exclusive/ important as Godman or God himself or the other side a self-degrading ‘I’ as ie. the one at mercy of the divine blessing/ will, aso. Either case in fact is distortion of actual experience because of an ‘unbalanced/ unrestricted functioning of the above discriminating mechanism. Iow, a case of more or less ‘insanity’. And yet it is not only spiritualists who fail to discriminate fact from imagination. Theoretical scientists also seek glory and fame by searching for the Meaning of Life by developing all sorts of meta-physical concepts about space, time and matter. They do so by imagining all sorts of things that cannot and never can be seen, touched, smelt, heard or tasted and by imagining all sorts of events that have never, can never and never will be actually experienced by them. I thoroughly recommend the active challenging of all of humanity’s cherished beliefs – not only spiritual beliefs but real-world beliefs, theories, concepts and psittacisms as well. How do you expect to experience the perfection and purity of the actual world if you fervently believe in a Greater Reality, gullibly fall for the stories that make the world as-it-is into a grim reality or unquestioningly accept the theories that make the world as-it-is into a world of science fiction. * One of the major difficulties for newcomers to actualism is that they think there is something new to learn in actualism – something they can add on to what they have already learnt. This is quite understandable because all that human beings think and feel to be true or ‘the truth’ has been learnt from someone else. The tendency therefore is to see actualism as something new to learn, a new form of wisdom to be clipped-on or melded in to their existing belief, a new and superior philosophy than the one they had before, a new set of rules and regulations as to how to live one’s life, a convenient excuse for continuing to suppress emotions and feelings, a clever mask for sublimating undesirable emotions and feelings, a catchy concept to strut around and teach others, and so on. I say now so far: To stubbornly hold on to the hypothesis that: given that time is a fact [to have a concept of time is neither sensible nor practical] is a not sensible statement from an actualist point of view] is to miss the boat completely. Hence the question: Can for the flesh-body time only be a concept? Must be answered with no. Only to ‘I’ be it spiritual or social ‘I’, time can be a concept. Thus as already has been mentioned in [This type of conceptual thinking, i.e. thinking abstracted from facts and actuality, is common in spiritual circles and can only lead to a ‘me’ who imagines ‘I’ am real and the past, the physical world and other human beings are but an illusion.] the statement [to have a concept of time is neither sensible nor practical] I wholeheartedly agree with and even more say ‘to stubbornly hold on to ones ‘self-fabricated’ concept of time is stubborn insanity and an utterly redundant activity’. PS. Really, Peter a brilliant move this moment a fact. The amazing thing about a fact is that it doesn’t need anyone’s agreement or anyone’s passionate support for it to be a fact. You can disagree with a fact, deny a fact, distort a fact or try and make a concept out of a fact, but none of these tricks or objections change a fact, make it go away or change it in any way. I like facts because facticity and actuality are intrinsic to the actual world. * My point was that objecting to the fact that this is the only moment you can experience being alive is of the same ilk as objecting to the fact that material objects exists as a fact. As such, I’ll pass on your offer to continue this line of conversation. You will find that Richard has written a good deal on both these topics if you want to pursue this line of investigation for yourself. Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
