Selected Correspondence Peter

Living Together

I can only comment on my experience with Vineeto. I tried for many months to influence her or change her until it dawned on me one day that it was not only a futile exercise but it was a gross intrusion into her life.

When we met my contract with her was that I would look at everything that came up in me that prevented me living with her in peace and harmony – not that she had to change to suit me or that she had to be in to what I was in to. When I realized I was slipping back into my old ways of wanting to change the person I had chosen to live with it came as quite a jolt, but it did mean that I was finally able to focus on the main issue – ‘me’ and ‘my’ moods, ‘my’ anger, ‘my’ resentment, ‘my’ sadness, ‘my’ loneliness, ‘my’ beliefs, ‘my’ values, etc.

Curiously enough, the fact that I actually stopped trying to change her after I had this realization also made her very curious as to what changes were actually possible by practicing actualism. This indicates that the best way for an actualist to help someone is by practical example – by proving that it is possible to eliminate your own malice and sorrow – and then allowing the other person the total freedom to be interested, or not.

Again just a note that I don’t know your personal circumstances and this is not to be taken as a direct comment on your situation. I am only relating my own experiences in what may well be different circumstances, but what is common to all is the Human Condition – notably the human fascination with others’ lives and with trying to change others and the legendary reluctance of human beings to examine their own lives and to change themselves.

What I discovered about my friendships was that the moment ‘I’ stopped maintaining them and cultivating them for my own self-ish purposes that the friend would also stop contacting me and the friend-ship would eventually sink because it needed two people, both constantly rowing, to keep it afloat. I started to see that everybody is busily engaged in living their friends’ lives and not their own. When I eventually saw this clearly, I stopped the insidious practice of seeking others out for emotional support – mutually agreeing how tough things are – or blaming others for the mess my life was in. This proved a turning point in my living with Vineeto, as I started to take total responsibility for my behaviour, feelings, moods and actions.

I think you are right that people are engaged in living their friends’ lives and not their own. I have wondered if perhaps I were trying to insulate myself emotionally from the pain of being attached and related to someone in a close relationship and I think I am. I find the sticky mess of friendship too much to endure, and I neither want to experience the painful emotions related to having a friend nor the positive emotions of love and affection for another. Probably that makes me an ‘emotional cripple’ in some people’s eyes, but that has been my experience.

I found myself in a similar position after my third major live-together relationship with a woman came to an end. I clearly saw that I didn’t want to do it again only to suffer another failure, and to cause another woman to suffer because of my failure.

When I came across actualism, I wanted to get beyond the debilitations of being an ‘emotional cripple’, or the cruelty of being an ‘emotional crippler’. It was clear to me that the only way to do this was not to withdraw but to go fully into the business of friendship and one-on-one relationship so as to discover what the debilitating feelings of love are preventing from becoming apparent.

What I found was that underneath the surface layer of the feelings of love, and its co-emotion hate, lays a direct flesh and blood human being to flesh and blood human being intimacy that far surpasses the fickle conditional feelings of friendship and love. Turning away or withdrawing from this potentiality was not possible once I knew the quality of this intimacy that was evident in a pure consciousness experience.

This is why I went into my relationship with Vineeto with a 100% commitment, with none of the holding back I had always done before.

The same approach applied with other people I knew or met. It was not that I wanted to withdraw from people, I wanted to be able to experience the same intimacy with all my fellow human beings, no matter who they were, no matter what values or beliefs they held.

Actual Freedom is not about making the best of life within the human condition, ‘me’ choosing to be this and not that. Actual Freedom is about becoming free of the human condition and as such there is always a third option or choice available to the traditional approaches.

In writing this I am well aware how serendipitous it was that I had a companion who was equally willing to explore all of the ingrained beliefs and deep-seated emotions that constitute the ammunition for the on-going battle of the sexes. It can be rightly said that our success in living together in utter peace and harmony was made easier by this mutual agreement that each of us was willing to look at whatever it was in ourselves that prevented each from being happy and harmless. However, there is no reason why exploring the feelings of love cannot be done in any deeply-felt relationship because the process is identical – undertaking a personal commitment to become aware of, and actively explore, one’s own beliefs, morals, ethics, values, feelings and passions as they arise.

As I re-read what I wrote to you I was reminded of something you wrote recently –

This desperation that I talk about comes out of my life experience. Everyone I know has been affected by war and violence. Nobody has escaped the carnage, at least nobody I know. I myself have been both victimized by violence and prone to violence myself in the past.

I don’t want to leave the impression that dispelling belief and unearthing facts is an intellectual exercise based upon reading and discerning what others have discovered. The quickest, most direct and most effective way of determining what is fact, i.e. what works and what doesn’t work, is by your own life experiences. By the time mid-life comes around, most people have had sufficient life experiences to already know what doesn’t work and only if there is still some doubt about a particularly sticky issue do you need to investigate further. As an example, I needed only to draw on my own life experiences and my observations of others around me to know that love does not work, and never can work, to negate malice or sorrow. This is why I wrote my journal in the style I did, including many examples of my life experiences and my inevitable failures to find peace and happiness, both in the real world and the spiritual world.

The other kind of investigation is by deliberately setting out to make sense of a vexing issue, as we did in our recent conversation about intelligence vs. instinctual passion. In this type of investigation you root around and dig up all the information, data and observations you can and balance those against the currently accepted viewpoints and beliefs that others have about the subject, and then you eventually come to find an answer – to come to an understanding of the facts of the situation. Vineeto and I have spent many, many hours mulling over issues relevant to the human condition with no disagreement or disharmony simply because we were searching for the facts – something that is clearly evident, obvious and indisputable.

Freedom and perfection is only possible with the extinction of the animal instinctual passions in human beings...

Freedom and perfection is only possible with the extinction of the animal instinctual passions in human beings...

Again you use inverted commas as though you are directly quoting words that were written. Vineeto never used the words ‘intense romantic encounters’. In fact, it was only by removing the passions of needing to be loved, feeling sexual cravings, feeling hate, feeling dependent, wanting ‘space’, wanting to be open but keeping secrets, promising to forgive but looking for revenge, wanting to surrender but feeling resentful, making compromises that satisfy neither, wanting to give fully but being afraid to, etc. that we are able to live together in utter equity, peace and harmony.

One often hears in the spiritual world the admission that human love does not work and the only solution is to feel Divine Love for all, but this experiment has been found wanting for feelings of Divine Love, no matter how grandiose, are but feelings based upon the same instinctual passions. Divine Love includes right and wrong, good and bad, jealousy, anger, blame, retribution, disappointment, demand, loyalty, power, surrender, etc.

Actual intimacy is not possible between humans who are programmed by blind nature to feel they are separate beings, and merely adopting a new identity who then feels non-separate and all-loving does nothing to tackle and eliminate the instinctual passions at their very source.

Differences of opinion and different way of looking at things are conflicts. I don’t have any differences of opinion with, or different way of looking at things than Vineeto – which is why we live together in peace and harmony.

I am also curious that you say ‘could we start again?’ and then in the next sentence proceed to dredge up your fuzzy emotional recollection of a long past event – as distinct from the facts about our exchange. This is the ‘let’s wipe the slate clean ... but I just want to tell you that I haven’t forgotten that you hurt me in the past’ approach that is common to all relationships were the promise to ‘forgive and forget and start afresh’ is never kept. In normal human relationships there is inevitably a scorecard of emotional memories and past wounds that either build up to form an undercurrent of mutual resentment or are dusted off and waved under the other’s nose when ‘payback time’ comes. Thus it is that eventually each side learns to ‘play safe’ and be wary about what they say and how they say it, how much they expose and how honest they can be with the other for they always run the risk that whatever is said will be used against them later. ‘The right to remain silent’ is eventually seen as the best option and antipathies, compromises or accommodations naturally accumulate. Each side comes to have an increasing collection of ‘things that are not to be talked about’ and soon a strict limit is imposed on any mutual understanding that proves impossible to break.

Actual intimacy with others is impossible unless one has the courage and sense to break this cycle.

Yes; my communications are emotional catharsis. Every word had been me trying to mirror you and Vineeto. And it all fails dismally. Ok. Fine. I see now that it cannot work.

By your use of the words ‘trying to mirror’, I take it that you are justifying your emotional catharsis because you were only being a mirror of others. This is a very New-Agey psycho-spiritual approach to mitigate all sorts of emotional outbursts, behaviour and reactions whereby one’s catharsis – as in abreaction or emotional release – is justified in that ‘I am simply innocently reflecting back others completely misguided and unwarranted antagonism towards me’. Any relationship or friendship based on mutual mirroring is bound to be an emotional roller coaster of blame and recrimination, an emotional fight with the best ‘mirror-or’ winning or a dull and insipid affair based on mutual wariness.

The New Age cliché of mirroring is a way of avoiding taking responsibility for one’s own emotions – it is always the other and not me, it is always me mirroring the other’s anger – not me being angry and certainly not me doing anything to provoke, cause or instigate the reaction. It is a game ‘I’ play where ‘I’ always get off scot-free and ‘I’ can always falsely claim to be innocent and pure. The Gurus and God-men use a similar ploy when they say their anger is really a device to make the disciple wake up and I have seen this in action many a time.

Unless one is willing to take responsibility for being resentful, unhappy, moody, unkind, aggrieved, angry etc., then any relationship or friendship is doomed to fail or to be second-rate at best. Unless one deliberately sets about removing the debilitating effects one’s own emotional outbursts and reactions have on oneself, and on all of the people one interacts with, one will be forever forced into the belittling prospect of having to apologize ... after the harm is done. I always found having to apologize a degrading business for myself, and a futile exercise that did no good to redress the situation for the other.

It was my inability to always keep my emotions ‘under control’ such that I inevitably caused harm to others that attracted me to the proposition of being able to eliminate these automatic thoughtless malicious reactions.

Perhaps the offer of friendship is open. I respect you greatly. Anyone who manages to get out of Sannyas and all the spiritual conditioning and find living day to day pleasure with a woman I admire.

And yet you obviously don’t want it for yourself. When I met Richard I wanted to be how he was and was willing to do anything to achieve it.

When I previously looked on your website on 25^th June, I found that you offer counselling in Spiritual Intimacy –

Making Love is an aspect of the The Art of Spiritual Intimacy. When we make love with another human being from a place of Spiritual Intimacy we relate physically and sexually with such an honesty and intensity that the enlightenment buried deep within each of us is released.

This does not sound like someone who has managed to get out of spiritual conditioning and yet all the while you have defiantly maintained a position on this mailing list that you are not spiritual ... in any way, shape or form.

When I asked you ‘where you were coming from, what your point is, what your motive is, what is your interest in writing on an Actual Freedom mailing list, what was your interest in meeting Richard’ and got no answer, I again checked your web-site.

You have since altered your website and now offer ‘Intimacy Coaching’ via email. Whichever way you phrase it, the advice you offer on your web-site is the very antithesis of the process I used – and that I described in my journal – to attain an intimacy with my fellow human beings which is why I find your admiration and respect a touch baffling.

The cure for feeling admiration and respect for others is to emulate them – this is the only practical way to eliminate feeling inferior to others.

I like your sense of aloneness I saw when I last met you in the cafe in Byron.

I have no idea what you saw or sensed the last time we met but if you liked it and want it for yourself the same comment I made above applies. Whatever you perceived and liked certainly was not the result of withdrawing from the world and ‘resting-in-self’ that you had advocated on your web-site in June.

The key to revealing more of yourself to the people in your life already is to spend some time every day alone with yourself doing nothing but resting-in-self.

The key to spending time alone with yourself doing nothing but resting-in-self is to know that the universe goes on, with or without your ‘doing’. Knowing that the universe goes on, with or without your doing, the joy of spending time every day, doing nothing but resting-in-self, arises of its own accord. Once the joy of spending time every day, doing nothing but resting-in-self, is arising of its own accord, there is no question about how to make it happen, how to find the time – it will happen, the time will be there.

The key to knowing that the universe goes on, with or without your doing, is to do a lot at times, and do nothing at times. Experiment. Play with it. When stress is there, when impossible deadlines are there, when conflicting demands on your time and energy are there, sometimes ... not always ... sometimes, stop. Just stop ... sit in a chair, watch the thoughts go by in your head and see that some of the activity that you imagined was essential can in fact be postponed or dropped all-together. It is often hard to see this whilst continuing on the treadmill of activity. The best place to see that not all your activity is required, or beneficial to your deeper happiness, is in a chair, doing nothing. If you don’t like sitting in a chair doing nothing, you can alternatively sit in the lotus position on a yoga mat. If you prefer.

You have since changed your web-site to omit any direct spiritual references but the gist of what you offer is very much in the psycho-spiritual tradition although you have yet to rework your section on aloneness yet. Changing names or editing style does not necessary change content or intent. Actual Freedom lies 180 degrees opposite to any form of affective/imaginary freedom, by whatever name.

Whatever you sensed or saw is partly the result of my getting ‘out of Sannyas and all the spiritual conditioning’ ... which is an option freely available to you as well.

Why not have what you want and what you like? The only danger in actualism is that you will get much more than you bargained for ... or ever thought or imagined was possible. But that is what adventure is about.

But I do not like it that you have an agenda and you will use anything to prove it.

Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. And that is tiring.

I am always upfront about my ‘agenda’ – I make no bones about what I am saying. I am frank, honest, open and sincere and I will use any facts I can to prove it. This is precisely why I have resurrected our previous conversations on the Sannyas list and re-posted them so that we can separate facts from assumption and allusion. This is also why I went to your web-site and posted your agenda – so that we can separate facts from assumption and allusion.

As you yourself wrote to me on the Sannyas mailing list –

I am interested in finding out what spiritual beliefs I still hold on to, and examining them, finding out if any facts are associated with them and getting rid of the garbage. Keeping the facts.

I am learning to state things more clearly and to drop the allusions.

But in the end one can be as clear as glass and people will still come to what one writes with their rose coloured glasses. Surely you experience that through your conversations on the Sannyas list. Did you not find that no matter how you precisely formulated your posts, most of the responses came from people who twisted what you were saying? I find your writing pretty clear, but still it does not get through. Perhaps slowly some begin to understand what you are talking about, through repetition and through your tenacity. Good on ya.

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Peter I am a human being. So are you. Period.

But there is a marked difference – the most pertinent to both your professional and personal interest may be the fact that I live with a woman in utter peace harmony, simply because ‘I’ dared to make it happen. I full-bloodedly took up the challenge that ‘if I couldn’t live with at least one other person in utter peace and harmony (... on my part!) then life on earth is indeed a sick joke.’

You may remember I wrote of my first meeting with Vineeto in my journal –

‘I briefly told her what I was into and said, ‘I want to be able to live with a woman in peace and harmony. I realise that I have been equally responsible for the failures in the past, and I recognise that I will have to clean myself up to do this. But I’m willing to give it one hundred percent. Do you want to give it a try with me?’ When I look back it was quite audacious, but it proved an effective line to get her interested. She explained later that she had previously come to the resolution that she was not going to try and change the other, or resort to blame in any future relationship – so my proposition was very tempting. But it was the ‘one hundred percent’ bit that really got her!’ Peter’s Journal, Living Together

What serendipity to meet her ... but then again, life abounds with unnoticed, or easily dismissed, serendipitous events.

Serendipity is, after all, what happens when you take the opportunity that comes along.

And to finish, I will just dismiss any presumption that intimacy is only possible with others if both parties are willing to undertake a mutual contract such as Vineeto and I did. Whenever anyone is free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow they are able to be intimate with everyone they meets for the other is a fellow human being after all ... not an ally or an adversary in a perverse and bitter instinctual game of survival or avoidance.

I also have a question regarding the fact that your experiment concerns only you and your companion living together in utter peace and harmony.

My experiment, as you put it, does not only concern my companion and I living together in utter peace and harmony. I included that fact as a down-to-earth, here and now, proof that peace on earth is possible. What bothered me in my spiritual search was that the idea of male-female companionship and the sensuous delight of sex were always placed second to one’s own spiritual ‘attainment’. Indeed, at the root of most ancient belief is the yearning to leave the problems and failures of human one-to-one intimacy behind, together with the ‘evils’ of instinctual predatory sexual urges, and seek a ‘higher consciousness’, above and beyond the mundane domestic and instinctual animal.

In my life I have observed and investigated both gender worlds, and eventually came to see them as culturally instilled and instinctually programmed. Together with my companion, I was able to break free of my social and instinctual identity as a man and she was able to break free of being a woman and thus we were able to free ourselves from the perennial battle of the sexes. No-one won, no-one lost, no-one compromised, we were simply able to step out of the whole mess. The process involved some 9 months of intense and oft scary investigation, exposure and elimination of all that stood in the way – I cleaned myself up, she cleaned herself up, and we had the fun of doing it together.

This is, in fact, the main event – the process of irrevocably changing oneself to eliminate malice and sorrow. It is futile, degrading hypocritical and aggressive action to attempt to change anyone else. Being able to live with another person in peace harmony, equity and parity is certainly not the be-all and end-all of human experience, but I used it as a touchstone, a down-to-earth proof that my explorations and investigations were not mere wankings but could be verified by my on-going, everyday experience in that toughest of tests – man-woman companionship and sexual play.

There would be room here for self-delusion should your companion choose to compromise, to go along to get along.

Yes, indeed. What I see, and personally experienced, in human male-female relationship is a battle of the sexes, either covert or overt. Much of this is passed on from father to son and mother to daughter and is an integral part of our social identity. Certainly the first thing we notice about others is their gender and this instant classification invariably colours our interactions as human beings. The other thing that kicks in automatically, and with disarming ferocity at puberty, is the sexual instinct, and it forever lurks, no matter how well controlled or ‘transcended’, to act as a spoiler to most male-female interactions and to actively inhibit free and sensuous sexual play.

As for self-delusion, I have already said one of the things that I didn’t like about the Enlightened Ones was how they were with their companions. The mere fact that one is more ‘evolved’, more ‘conscious’ or more ‘realized’ than the other, actively prevents equity and parity. If you remember, what I said in my post was –

‘What started me on this opposite path was accepting the down-to-earth challenge that if I couldn’t live with one other person in utter peace and harmony, equity and parity, 24 hrs. a day, every day, then life on earth was indeed a sick joke. I took the challenge and, together with my companion, proved it is possible.’

I don’t doubt that many Enlightened Ones achieve a feeling of living together in peace and harmony but it is always at the expense of parity and equity – someone is higher and someone is lower.

Even the thought of having another human being fawn over me, surrender to me, be devotional, or feel they have to compromise because of me, was beneath my dignity as an autonomous human being – neither would I be free nor would the other person. This fact alone was enough to put me off any self-delusion. So when I eventually came across a woman who was equally willing to strip away everything that stood in the way of peace, harmony, equity and parity between us, I leapt at the chance and gave it 100%. And it worked ... beyond my wildest dreams.

Of course it is quite possible that you have indeed proven that two human beings can choose to live in utter peace and harmony, and if two can accomplish this then it would be possible for ‘all’ to do likewise.

As I said, I have proven it for myself and it is beyond my wildest dream. It has been going on for 24 hrs. a day, every day so long now that I regard it as normal and cannot understand why others bicker, fight, need to take space, or give up. I have to rack my memory and think back on my past relationships and how I was then. It is only by freeing myself from my social identity and the instinctual animal programming that I have become a delightful and fun companion to be with, and a rompacious sexual playmate. Before that, I was straight-jacketed ‘normal’, only to then become sanctimoniously goody two-shoed ‘spiritual’ – and both of them were a pain in the bum for any woman to live with.

I’d like to write more, but there are more questions, so I’d better move on. However, I think you probably get the gist of what I’m saying.

And yes, it is possible for anyone but, given it is pioneering stuff, in these early years not everyone who hears of it will be willing to take the risk, be prepared to do the hard work or to pay the price. It is possible for anyone who is vitally interested and that will not be everyone – as in ‘all’.

As for your experiments in your relationship I think it is really great to have that open of an approach to getting beyond our conditioning. Far too many relationships never bother to question such things. They just seem to blindly go on and no one grows from them to the degree that is possible. I was married for almost 20 years to a wonderful woman and we went through much of what you wrote about. At the end of our marriage it wasn’t out of not caring for each other that we ended it. It was out of a deeper love and openness to the fact that we had different directions to go and freely and lovingly let go of each other. It has been good for both of us and we are still very close to each other.

My last relationship was with another wonderful woman. We were together for 8 years and never had any harsh words toward the other or any problems at all. We are still very close and talk with each other a few times a week. We saw that it was time to move on and did so lovingly. I am much older than her and wanted her to be able to learn from others. She saw my need to be alone to go deeper into what has been my life’s work. I have been a hermit for 12 years now and it has been very good for me. When I talk with people about my relationships that ended they can’t relate to us still being such good friends. As though we should hate each other like too many people do.

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.

Sometimes the real test of a relationship isn’t so much being together but how does it end, if it does? And how free is it?

For me the main event is always here and now, which means if I am living with someone then I have no concern about when, how or if it will end. If I am not happy now, if I am annoyed, moody, discontent, out of it, lacklustre, sad or whatever then I am somewhere else but here and now, not doing what is happening in this moment of time. By fully taking on board the fact that this very moment is the only moment I can experience means that I have abandoned the idea of postponement. For me there is no end of this relationship for, if it happens, it is not happening now. The exquisiteness and sensual delight of being here, doing what is happening, means the ending of the idea that I am coming from somewhere or that I am going somewhere. Freedom lies in being absolutely locked into, and fully committed to this very moment of time – to fully embrace being a flesh and blood human being on this paradisiacal material earth.

A friend of mine had his lover leave him for another man. He was heart broken and was talking about how evil his lover had been for leaving him and how bad the other man was for taking her away. I asked him if he loved her? He said he did. I said, then if you love her you only want for her happiness. It became clear that he was not speaking from love, but from insecurity and a feeling of loss that was coming from the ego. He saw the point and changed his perspective and showed her love and understanding. In about a week she came back to him. They are now far more open with each other. Relationships are a very rich field for growth and learning to express more love.

My experience with Vineeto is that love and its accompanying roller coaster of deep-seated emotions and feelings is what really prevents actual intimacy – the direct experience of the other. How can two people relate to each other as human beings with this constant churning of deep-seated emotions and feelings? Love is but a failed antidote to fear and loneliness, an attempt to bridge the separateness that inevitably occurs when two lost, lonely, frightened and very, cunning entities attempt to live together. The only solution is to get rid of the fearful and lonely ‘self’ in order to allow the direct intimacy hidden beneath. To get rid of all imagination and belief enables one to experience the wonder of the actual and physical. We have found that living without this emotional burden of love allows us to live together with an ease, comfort, delight and level of consideration that we never thought possible.

The Eastern approach of blaming thinking and letting the emotions that arise from the instinctual passions get off scot-free is a process that can only lead to an altered state of consciousness – not peace on earth, in this lifetime. Instinctual passions when freed of any sensible thought and earthy sensuousness results in impassioned delusion, altered states of consciousness and finally, the infliction of theomania.

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They (relationships) too can be gone beyond. Now I feel my relationship is with Life Itself, and that includes all beings.

I gave up on going beyond anything because I found, by a wonderful process of deleting absolutely everything that was illusionary and instinctual, that I like being here on earth. I like my fellow human beings, I like my householder life, I wallow in the sensual pleasures of delicious food, intimate companionship, sumptuous sexual play, espresso coffee, TV watching, couch lazing, computer play, hot showers, soft pillows, warm bodies, afternoon walks, etc. Life on earth was meant to be simple and easy ... and peaceful.

Being here on earth as a flesh and blood mortal body is such a yummy experience I am nowadays fluxomed when I come across people who want to go beyond.

That’s why I enjoy writing, for it is such a pleasure to be able to point out that there is now a third alternative to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’.

It is really quite a simple matter for me. Throughout my life I have tried to make sense of being a human being on the planet, why we humans are as we are, and how I could find a way to be free of fear, which I have experienced as the ground of all malice and sorrow. I rejected the claims of the spiritual freedoms as I discovered that they involved a swanning off into an imaginary inner world of love and bliss. Then I came across a man and a woman about my age who had obviously taken their investigations much further than I had, so I thought what they were saying was worth checking out. Now I was at a stage that I wouldn’t have cared who was offering this different approach (man or woman – in fact I got as much from you as I did from Richard in the early days). I liked how Richard was as a human being – happy and harmless – and I liked how he was with you (and how you were with him) and decided to test out his words rather than merely believe him. The point was he was saying something different than all the other Gurus, he had nothing to hide and would talk and discuss anything. There was nothing unspoken, nothing sacred or secret.

Given that I had followed a few Masters and discovered first hand the duplicity and deceit, the power and authority, the surrender and blind trust of disciple-hood and its consequences, I was wary in the extreme of Guru-ship. I had looked up to them (and loved them) as Mentors, wise men and someone to emulate in my life. But after 16 years I could no longer turn away from how they were as men, how they were with women, sex and power. The last thing I wanted was to be an Enlightened One – they were not worthy of emulation as I had a few ‘backstage’ glimpses of their ‘private’ life in my time.

What impressed me most at the time was the obvious peace and harmony that existed between you two and the depths of investigation you had undertaken into the Human Condition of malice and sorrow.

So check it out I did and was so impressed that it worked that I wanted to write a journal of my process in case someone else was interested. I have not heard even you deny that I now live in peace and harmony with Vineeto, but then again you will probably say we are only pretending. That you have now turned away from what Irene, experienced and talked to me about for hours and hours is your business. I simply see that you abandoned the chance for peace and harmony and equity for love, sorrow and woman’s liberation.

Living with Richard made it eventually clear to me that it is not nature that is to blame but the overlaid male interpretation of human life; how it should be instead! In other words knowing better than nature the universe itself. I don't have to explain to you how every culture and religion (all invented by male minds, based on their interpretation of how life should be organised and regulated for women as well) denigrates particular aspects of our natural faculties and have tried to suppress them, repress them, to forbid them and demand that they must be changed into unnatural behaviour and beliefs, in order to keep the male supremacy intact.

If men and women will ever want to live in peace and harmony, the very root-cause must be addressed: a law can only be fair if both genders define that law, not only men. But men would not voluntarily choose to share all responsibilities and rights with women, because they are too proud of and too used to their supremacy, plus they would – quite understandably! – feel afraid that they might become redundant altogether, once women were given the chance to have equal say in the decision-making processes that are necessary for the organization of all men, women and children into a peaceful and fair living together.

I find myself bewildered in the face of the depth of resentment women have towards men. As a man said to me the other day: ‘Do they want us to wear skirts?’ As you say above ‘they feel afraid that they might become redundant altogether, once women were given the chance to have an equal say in decision making processes’. This seems a statement not about equity at all but about justice which is but a nice word for revenge. Your Matrilineal dreams are of a Golden Age when women ruled over men and there was supposedly peace on earth.

There seems to be a lack of understanding among women of the suffering and sorrow that men experience. This is understandable, as the instinctual male role is one of provider and protector. As such he displays courage, bravado and strength to impress the female. In her selection of a mate this is what she demands, albeit sub-consciously, in many cases. This instinctual behaviour has resulted in the typical male displays of toughness, competitiveness and aggression, essential for the hunter and protector in the past and still played out in sport, business, politics and unfortunately in war. It is simply the male role – as it is the role of the female to procreate, mother and nurture and be protected.

This leads directly to the assumption that all violence is the fault of the male and women are but innocent victims. And yet it is the men who are still expected to die for family or country.

The other common belief is that men are not emotional or feeling ‘beings’. I had thought I had experienced the full gamut of human emotions and wrote a lot about them in my journal, smugly thinking I had not repressed anything. But recently when I stuck my head into fear to see if I was maybe avoiding something I found more. Beyond fear I discovered stark terror, angst and a dread the like of which I have never experienced before or want to experience again. I had previously, at the death of my son, experienced a form of dread that I would describe as personal, but this dread was as though I was experiencing the dread of humanity – every tortured soul, every rape, every horror, every fear. It literally tore my heart out as I realised what lay at the very core of my ‘being’ and every other being – I had tapped the very source of human psychic fear – the psychic opposite of the Divine Love and Bliss of Enlightenment.

So maybe this will illustrate the point as to why I truck little with those who accuse men of having no feelings. Feelings rule and ruin the lives of both men and women equally; this is my experience. After a near fatal illness, my father deliberately went back to work with the avowed intention of at least leaving something to my mother – he died two years later and she got a house. One night I witnessed a car crash. Going to help I was confronted with a seriously injured teenager who muttered over and over through the blood ‘she left me, she left me’. I have suffered from the fear of getting a girl pregnant and of being forced to become a husband and provider in my teens and as such was a fearful bumbling virgin when married. I have suffered heartbreak, jealousy, dependency, loneliness – need I go on?

By the time I came across Richard I was ready to give the whole lot up, not only for the failure of the system but in seeing how these Gurus were as ordinary people. In the end they offered little to emulate and much to avoid. What really lit me up about what Richard was saying more than anything was the possibility that I could live with a woman in peace and harmony. It is a point that many spiritual seekers completely ignore, and indeed many scorn. Some have relationships based on them being the guru and their companion being a disciple or student but that to me is a complete sham and deceit.

Equity, peace and harmony is a more accurate description of what I have with Vineeto. If it is not possible to demonstrate as an actuality with one other person in my life I figured peace on earth would forever remain but a dream. And I have proved it, which is why I can say with utter confidence that it is now possible for anyone and everyone – should they want it. So it is good to see your interest in something non-spiritual and down to earth. Something actual rather than something imaginary. If the Gurus can’t put their money where their mouth is in their personal relationships it’s time for them to shut up.

For me the clue was in my aim to be happy and harmless . Even in my spiritual days I wouldn’t have described myself as unhappy. Probably that I was reasonably happy, particularly when things were going well. But what I had to admit, almost force myself to admit, was that I was not harmless. Well-meaning, yes, but when push came to shove, or when things weren’t going my way – certainly not harmless. My inability to live with a woman in peace and harmony was ample testimony to this fact. When I read Richard’s journal for the first time it was the first chapters on ‘living together’, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ that pricked up my ears. It was to prove to be my test of fire.

I asked myself a simple question. ‘Could I live with a woman in peace and harmony?’ The honest answer was ‘no’. The next question was – ‘Why not?’ The answer to that question took me off on a 12 month investigation into the beliefs, emotions, passions instinctual programming, morals and ethics of gender, sex and living together. As a man, I was fascinated to discover the extent that my social and biological programming actively conspired to prevent anything remotely resembling intimacy – hence the need for the feeling of love to bridge the chasm. As a practical example – the feelings of male superiority, again the result both of social and instinctual programming, was a shocking thing to discover in myself – but it is universally a part of the Human Condition. It is a belief, covertly reinforced by men, and it is a feeling but not a fact, and therefore possible to eliminate. It proved, for me, to be a large and necessary step to live with a woman in peace, harmony and equity. This step towards intimacy was the direct result of being in touch with my feelings.

Actualism is the practical implementation of scientifically and historically proven facts – a radical departure from the myth of spiritual celibacy, transcendence and ‘watching’. It is implementation, not avoidance. It is involvement, not detachment. It is change and action, not acceptance and procrastination. It is sensible, not silly.

So, to be reasonably happy is relatively easy. To be totally harmless – to have no instinctual fear or aggression – to be actually free of malice and sorrow is an evolutionary leap. The stakes are high in this game ... but so are the rewards.

To say it specifically, I have been married for 11 years and have one daughter. And I have had a girl friend for 5 years. Open triangle relation. I have not been able to choose one of two for 5 years. And now my girl friend says that she will not see me anymore until I divorce. I like all of them. (I don't want to use love in this time). When I imagine I divorce I feel too much miserable. When I imagine I live without a girl friend I feel too much miserable. I am totally at a loss. And now I am alone at the office typing on the keyboard and feel miserable. Why am I miserable? Because I am thinking about future. But this answer does not make me happy and harmless. I see my fear about the loss of all of them. This means my belief that I cannot live happily without them. Any comment?

Well, it’s one of the best, concise descriptions of the problem of human ‘relationships’ I have read.

These are the very problems that have driven monks into caves – and celibacy – in order to avoid facing them. Where I live, people pay a fortune to go on ‘retreats’, sometimes for weeks on end, as a relief from exactly these issues in daily life. Others save frantically in order to go to ashrams, attend groups or do courses in sheltered ‘nurturing’ environments in order to escape from having to feel these feelings and deal with these issues.

When I met Richard I had almost given up on relationships and was on the ‘being alone, celibacy’ path. One of the major reasons I jumped on to the path to Actual Freedom was the chance to live with a woman in peace and harmony and to unravel the mysteries of sexual pleasure. I wanted to find the answers to these issues and the spiritual path offered none.

The cute thing about the method Richard devised is that anyone can do it, anywhere in the world, doing an ordinary job, fulfilling one’s essential tasks like making money, being a father, etc. It requires no retreating, no avoiding, no withdrawing. ‘In the world as-it-is’, ‘with people as-they-are’ are phrases that describes a vibrant, fully-engaged actual freedom – not a second-rate living in denial or wrapped in spiritual ‘cottonwool’. A happiness and harmlessness that is not dependant on the ‘right’ circumstances, ‘good’ times or that old cliché – ‘being grateful’.

One discovers the actual world – a peaceful, sensual world free of fear and aggression, a fairy-tale like paradise that is here under our very noses. In this discovering one is also able to live in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are with such an ease and comfort that would have been unimaginable 2 years ago. Both the ‘spiritual’ and ‘real’ worlds are seen for what they are – ‘psychic battlefields that are the direct result of 6 billion people fighting it out for survival. The most estimable feature of Virtual Freedom is that one lives free of fear for 99% of the time, for there is no fear in the Actual World.

So, it sounds as if you may well be at one of life’s turning points that are often fascinating opportunities. I know, for me, the ending of relationships, deaths around me, changes in circumstances or places I lived, all gave me an opportunity to sit back and ‘take stock’ of my life. My wife leaving set me on the spiritual search, my son dying got me serious about it, another failed relationship got me single-pointed and then I met Richard who pointed out that I was looking in the wrong direction.

To not only experience failure in both the ‘real’ world and ‘spiritual’ worlds but also to acknowledge my failures, proved to be essential prerequisites for an active and passionate pursuit of Actual Freedom.

All proved to be serendipitous events ...

and the idea of man and woman living together in peace, harmony and equity just too impossible to even contemplate.

It is not impossible and it is not an ‘idea’.

Are you stating this as a fact from your personal experience? I certainly have not seen it as a fact in the hundreds of relationships I have observed except for the brief ‘honeymoon’ periods. Most spiritual relationships seem to operate on the ‘taking space’ principle whereby the couples eventually need to live apart for substantial periods of time to avoid the staleness or antipathy that any ‘closeness’ brings on.

And so we use different words. But they seem to understand only dictionary words, which tells me of lack of flexibility and intelligence.

Yes, I had this with talking to Vineeto in the early days when we began to question spiritual conditionings and beliefs. She would say things like ‘you are twisting my words’ or ‘that’s not what I mean by that word’. After much to-ing and fro-ing, we eventually realised the sense in having a conversation using words with mutually agreed meanings – otherwise any sensible or meaningful conversation was impossible. We now communicate using the dictionary definition of words (a world-wide accepted standard) – and it is always clear what she says and means, and vice-versa.

As for ‘flexibility’, this direct and clear communication also meant that we could not ‘slide’ away or ‘fudge’ anything between us – it has helped to bring a directness, honesty and intimacy that is delicious and ever-sparkling.

It seems to me, you think you’re the only one who has a wonderful relationship. I have been having a great time living with my lover for the last four years, but I don’t believe I’m alone in this... but perhaps it is just you and me;

Good to hear it. In my experience, and by observation of others, it is an extremely rare thing. Of course, there is no love between Vineeto and I, we threw that out 18 months ago. We set our aim higher, and aimed for peace, harmony, equity and actual intimacy (the direct experience of the other – free of any affectation at all) for 24 hours a day, every day.

Peter, what you are describing here, between your excessive discursive pronouncements is simply... taking responsibility for one’s feelings. And I know, it is not popular, widely accomplished, frightening, etc, etc,... BUT IT IS HARDLY NEW!!!! New for you obviously.

It is a good opportunity to examine that hoary old platitude ‘taking responsibility for one’s feelings’.

I always wondered what was at the core of it? What it really meant?

Let’s stick to some practical personal examples – those that concern the actual world of people, things and events.

I had a number of relationships with women in my life that all degenerated to the point where neither I, nor my partner, were happy. I saw that my feelings, be they jealousy, anger, sullen withdrawal, resentment or whatever, were not only making me unhappy, they were directly causing my companion to be unhappy. And that further, on many occasions the feelings I had towards her were malicious (albeit psychically conveyed). To ‘feel’ anger towards someone is to be malicious – one does not have to resort to physical or verbal violence.

When I began to realise this I was so horrified that I withdrew from relationships altogether. It was only when I met Richard that I decided to do something about my feelings and emotions. Eliminate them entirely so not only could I live happily – free of sorrow, but that I could live 24 hrs. a day with someone else and not cause unhappiness in other – free of malice.

I see that I scored a side-mention in your post to Vineeto, so I thought I would comment –

To Vineeto – I have perceived your care, which with pure love is compassion by the way, in most of your posts. So my next question is, How did you get stuck with a head-fucker like Peter? ;-) Love ...

Simple. Within weeks of meeting Richard I was challenged by the obvious fact that unless I could live with a woman in peace and harmony 24 hrs a day, every day, then life was indeed a sick joke. If I couldn’t live with one other person in peace and harmony, how could I expect there ever to be peace on earth. So I propositioned Vineeto and asked her if she was interested – which she was. I have posted the story before, but in case you were practicing the Sw. Deleeto ‘no-mind’ deletion-meditation at the time, the story is told in Introduction, Living Together, Love, Sex and a bit of Vineeto in my journal.

I assume from the above that you are also saying that you find my posts lacking in compassion. Given that compassion is

‘Participation in another’s suffering; fellow-feeling, sympathy. Pity, inclining one to show mercy or give aid. Sorrowful emotion, grief’ Oxford Dictionary,

you are right. When one has eliminated sorrow in oneself it is then an impossibility to share it with others. To uphold compassion – an agreement that we all must suffer together – as a Noble ‘set-in-concrete’ feeling is to forever condemn Humanity to suffering.

I simply stepped out of the whole mutually-agreed scenario that says ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy, you only grow through suffering, no pain – no gain, you can’t change Human Nature, etc.’ I could only manage this by fully experiencing the range and depths of human feelings and emotions, by not ‘turning away’, by neither repressing nor expressing, but looking with open eyes at the Human Condition and acknowledging the facts. This then evinced an action such that the only option open was to do what I could about the appalling situation we humans find ourselves in on the planet.

That action was to do all that was possible to actually eliminate malice and sorrow in me.

With the elimination of malice, the need for love is extinguished to reveal what is intrinsic in the actual world – benevolence.

With the elimination of sorrow, the need for compassion is extinguished to reveal what is intrinsic in the actual world – delight.

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

For me the idea of being able to live with a woman in peace and harmony was something I wanted to do all my life, and had a few failed attempts. It seemed to me in the end that it was but an impossible dream. Like a lot of other seekers of freedom I put it on the back burner and pursued the spiritual path. On the spiritual path it is assumed that the search has priority over the relationship as can be clearly seen in the East with the emphasis on celibacy, retreat, monk-ship or nun-ship. Women mostly are servants to men, and are considered incapable of attaining Enlightenment unless re-incarnated as a man. The Masters and Gurus I met or read about all had or have relationships with women as their disciples – loving slaves who worship them. for me this was one of the things that first caused me to begin to the spiritual. How come the answer to it all does not include man and woman living together in peace, harmony and equity – not to mention sexual delight. It would all be a sick joke if paradise does not include this as an actuality.

Well I’m pleased to report and write about the fact that it does. When I first met Richard and contemplated trying this new path to actual freedom (as opposed to the spiritual) I wanted an actual way of determining if it works on the way. So I picked a woman ‘out of the hat’, literally by random except for a physical attraction. I’ve told the rest in the journal but the important thing I would emphasize is that I wanted to do it for me and it involved me focussing exclusively on changing me and not trying to change her. Vineeto wrote about the process of actively getting rid of everything that stood in the way between us. It has been a fascinating journey, the bulk of which was accomplished in 12 months of intense, exciting and scary times. We are both literally different people than when we started in that nether of us are malicious or sorrowful. We have not had even the hint of any disagreement or ripple of unease for 12 months or more. The change is permanent and is not dependant on us being together exclusively. We would each be capable of living with another in exactly the same way if the other had the same commitment – to investigate and eliminate in themselves everything that is in the road of peace and harmony. You do, of course manage to achieve what the Enlightened aim for the demolition and annihilation of the self as well – but that was my real aim anyway.

So maybe this is of use. If you are really interested it could be good to re-read the journal because unless your intent is pure and unless you make it the most important thing in your life, failure is guaranteed – you only have to look around to see the litany of failure of men and women living together. No wonder cynicism abounds.

Hi, Peter. I usually am pretty swift with my delete key when reviewing postings to the sannyas list, so I never read some of your postings which, I gather, may have been criticised?? Loving and harmless, men and women relating... this is the gold of life, in my estimation. I’d like to refer you to a very active, very open minded, very stimulating list, moderated by a lovely woman who is the founder of ‘Loving More’ magazine, which espouses the philosophy of just that – loving more, poly-amory, being in open non-monogamous relationships, successfully.

If you had read any of my journal particularly the Living Together , Love and Sex chapters, you would have discovered that my companion and I undertook an intense and extensive investigation into the failure of men – women relationships.

We began our relationship with a simple commitment – that we would investigate everything that stood in the way of us having a perfectly peaceful, harmonious and equitable companionship. Absolutely everything! – no holds barred, nothing hidden, no bargains, no deals. The essential addendum was that we would look at what it was in each of us – not the other.

What we found was astounding to say the least. Not only are men and women socially conditioned to be forever in two camps in the battle of the sexes, but that we are genetically programmed with instinctual drives and emotions that actively prevent any chance of a direct intimacy being at all possible. To adopt the traditional approach of love, love and yet more love as a solution to temporarily bridge this gap is to either invite the usual failures or at best a set of hopeful bargains and deals. These very compromises cause either a simmering resentment or feeling of sacrifice that covertly conspire to prevent not only the actual freedom of each party, but inevitably result in a second-rate life being lead by each of the parties.

To cobble oneself with a partner, as a succour to loneliness, is but a sad compromise.

However all is not lost.

Given sufficient intent, courage and sheer bloody-mindedness one can overcome and eventually eliminate both one’s personal fears, social conditioning and instinctual programming and succeed in enjoying the delights of living with a companion in a free, mature and direct intimacy that leaves love for dead!

One is then neither a man nor a woman, not blindly driven by instinctual behaviour, not beholden to the other as a sop for loneliness. One finds at last one’s ‘best mate’, as they say in this country, one whose company is constantly and irrevocably delightful, interesting and ever-fresh. And the mystique of sex is exposed and laid bare such that each and every sexual encounter is a new, sensate, sensual experience of such astounding physical pleasure as to leave no room for such interfering emotions as love.

So, as you can see, the web-site you offer would be of no use to either me or my companion.

We have discovered and unearthed a far superior way of living together in peace, harmony and equity.

When I propositioned Vineeto about investigating the possibility of living together in peace and harmony, she was still firmly in Sannyas and for some 6 months we agreed not to talk about the ‘war’, as we put it. But seeing the success of ruthlessly questioning all beliefs around gender, sex, relationships, love, etc., she eventually became interested and was able to question her spiritual beliefs, love and loyalty, surrender and trust.

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