Selected Correspondence Peter

Malice

To No 37: When I see Peter in action, I see the very same blind cretin who was once prepared to kill and die for his belief in Mohan Rajneesh. Same person, different set of beliefs – only now he’s utterly impenetrable, an impregnable fortress of certainty.

This is what I actually said –

‘The question that most haunted me later was a theoretical one: ‘If I had been there at the time, what would I have done if the city had been attacked? Would I have fought to stop them, to protect Rajneesh? Would I have taken a gun if offered? Would I have killed? The answer is most probably ‘yes’, given the fervour, paranoia and passion of my faith and belief at the time. I had actually experienced what it is that makes people kill others, to die for their belief or to protect their leader.’ Peter’s Journal God 1998

Has it not occurred to you that the reason I asked myself the theoretical question and gave an honest most probably ‘yes’ answer – and even made public the answer – was that I was being scrupulously honest with myself not only about the insidiousness of belief but also of the depths of passion that ‘I’ am capable of? What I was describing was me getting off my moral high horse and digging down inside myself and discovering that deep down inside ‘I’ am no different than any other ‘I’s.

Here’s yet another example of me getting in touch with my feelings and being scrupulously honest with myself about the depths of feelings that all human beings are capable of –

‘A few months ago I even felt the thrill of what it would be like to kill someone, after reading a newspaper article about a murder, and that really brought malice home to me. To experience it in me that intensely was shocking indeed.’ Peter’s Journal Intelligence 1998

Immediately followed by –

‘This process of identifying various aspects of the human condition within me became a full-time occupation. Whenever I was not experiencing myself at the optimum level possible at the time, I had something, some aspect of the Human Condition, to look at. This constant looking within myself – my psyche – would then expose that particular belief or instinct as silly, not sensible, and it would eventually disappear. Often the change was sudden and dramatic with a corresponding thrill of freedom, while other issues brought a slow, sluggish release. Often I found myself impatient at an apparent lack of progress, just to realise that this was exactly the issue to look at – perhaps the desire for excitement and achievement, or good old boredom. It was extraordinary that the next thing would come along, and the right circumstances and events would occur, confronting and aiding me. Sometimes, seeing through some part of ‘me’ as a mere belief or instinctual pattern would come as a flash of realisation, sometimes as a slow painful dawning, which I would fight tooth and nail, reluctant to even acknowledge, let alone throw out. But gradually I could notice the psychological/psychic entity becoming thinner, actually weakening its hold over me’. Peter’s Journal Intelligence 1998

And further for the record, this is what I wrote immediately after my theoretical question –

‘In the end, his [Rajneesh’s] departure diffused the situation and the Ranch fizzled to an end amidst much acrimony and bewilderment. In the commune in which I lived, we watched most of the drama on television as Rajneesh was arrested and put into chains, no doubt as a form of public humiliation. I remember being almost physically ill as the appalling tales of deception, drugging and even poisoning emerged – this was what lay beneath the outer facade of peace and love. People had actually been psychologically and physically harmed!’ Peter’s Journal God 1998

Little did I know that by making the depths of my feelings known in public that I would one day be pilloried for having acknowledged having such feelings on a mailing list set up as a forum for those interested in discussing how to investigate and become free of such feelings.

But then again this forum, like all of the events in one’s daily life, does provide all of the participants and all of the readers the opportunity to observe the human condition in action – provided one doesn’t dissociate oneself from it, of course.

Now, the real question goes to Vineeto & Peter only, as Richard never claims any quality except those which RIPEETO is so naively describing.

Peter, Vineeto, may you not find your lives completely wasted but profit in the best possible way from your ‘big leap’. I’m certain you will enjoy life with Richard. For taste’s sake, try not to be too hypocritical about honesty – and don’t, if possible to avoid, tell people you’re just being honest about honesty. Well, I guess it’s impossible to avoid. Human Comedy Goodbye List. 7/9/2005

Despite the fact that you asked a loaded question and not a real question and that your question was but a prelude to a premature evacuation the very next day, I’ll post the following as it is what I wrote immediately preceding the quote I sent to No 60 last night with regard to my honest-to-myself attentiveness of the full range and extent of my feelings –

‘Malice is a bit different as it is generally not upheld as a human virtue and most people even manage to deny it in themselves. It is always someone else who is cruel, jealous, vindictive or violent and I am simply responding to their malice! It was amazing to see in my own children unprovoked and unlearned acts of aggression. The idea that children are born innocent is just an idea, not a fact. I have some memories, even as a kid, of plotting revenge against someone – but of course most of the actual malicious actions were condemned. One didn’t break things, hit people, or say certain things – I was taught to behave ‘properly’. The trouble is, all the malice was then forced into cunning, clever and subversive actions that were to persist in my life. The willingness to tell a tale on someone as a subtle revenge is a classic. We call it gossiping, to disguise the maliciousness. I remember a few times actually having to will myself to stop, biting my tongue. The worst situation, of course, is in ‘relation-ship’ (or ‘battle-ship’) with a woman. The malice often took the form of withdrawal – an insidious revenge, but also a self-inflicted pain; a terrible price to pay in the long run.

I came to see a lot of New Age-spiritual-therapy behaviour as only thinly disguised malice. ‘I have to be honest with you’ or ‘I would like to share something with you’ is usually the opening line of someone who is about to take revenge or be spiteful. Again much of what we humans regard as entertainment is but our pleasure at witnessing malice and violence inflicted upon fellow human beings. Competitive sport is another arena for malice to be played out, whether watching or participating. A few times in my life the lid would really fly off and rage would surface, quickly followed by shame.

In particular I remember a time when we were working with some Indian stonemasons in Poona. One of the workers was doing something wrong despite my having just warned him. Well, I gave him a full serve of rage, only to discover afterwards that he really was doing it right all along. I was deeply ashamed, not only that I had lost my temper, but that I had done the typical thing at the time – chosen an Indian as my victim. A few months ago I even felt the thrill of what it would be like to kill someone, after reading a newspaper article about a murder, and that really brought malice home to me. To experience it in me that intensely was shocking indeed.’ Peters Journal Intelligence 1998

I remember once talking to someone on our balcony about the business of taking a good clear look at my feelings and beliefs – ‘to bring them out into the open in order to shine the bright light of awareness on them’ is the way that Richard has put it. As we talked, my visitor was somewhat bewildered as to why I would want to do it. He indicated that I was somehow kidding myself by wanting to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – in fact, I got the impression that he thought me dishonest and insincere because his conviction was that to be ‘honest’ meant to cherish one’s feelings and to be ‘sincere’ meant to let them all hang out and to hell with everyone else.

Exploring and investigating the dark side of one’s own psyche while neither expression nor repressing is only one aspect of the business of examining one’s own feelings and passions – there are some very sweet aspects to be discovered as well. One exploration that is fascinating to make is to get in touch with one’s childhood naiveté. A lot of people are well acquainted with getting in touch with their childhood hurts and wounds – the times they were bullied, the times they were wrongly accused of something they didn’t do, the feelings of indigitation, the feelings of resentment, loneliness and so on … but I found that there were also wonderful memories of carefree days of leaving home in the morning and riding my bike for hours on end, either alone or with mates, simply riding for the fun of riding, exploring for the fun of exploring, being aimless for sheer exuberance of being aimless – the only restriction being that I needed to be home before dark. They were days immersed in a childhood guileless naiveté, the closet to being innocent that is possible within the human condition.

By the simple act of getting in touch with this childhood naiveté once again, I realized that it had never ever quite gone away in my later life – that despite all the trials and tribulations of later life I had never quite lost it entirely and bowed under to cynicism. On reflection, I guess this is why I was such a ‘fool’ or so ‘dishonest’ or so ‘insincere’ or so ‘hypocritical’ as to want to eliminate malice and sorrow from my life in order that I could again become as guileless and as carefree again as I was in those childhood days.

Of course, as you have rightly pointed out, this is not an actual freedom from malice and sorrow – it’s still ‘me’ being a feeling being – but for me feeling felicitous and being once-again naïve sure beats feeling miserable and being resentful.

Part 2: {intro: – Original Message – From: Peter To: Freedom List Sent: 9 September 2002 Subject: No 23 Re: Changing others ...

I have been thinking a bit about the subject of politics lately following my reply to your last post. I have had occasion to watch a few of the recent debates about ‘should the US force a regime-change in Iraq?’ on television and was reminded at how far I had come in becoming free of the morals, beliefs, values and opinions I passionately held a few years ago. I was able to listen to the discussions without emotionally siding with the doves against the hawks, without automatically believing those I wanted to believe and distrusting those who I felt were being deceitful, without liking the so-called good guys and hating the so-called bad guys, without feeling angry or becoming depressed.

I have had simular experience with watching a football (soccer) match. Not taking sides for any of the teams the game can be watched and each player be ‘evaluated’ solely on his performance taking into account technical expertise, intent to win and generally playing in a certain style. Thus it becomes possible to enjoy the performance of as well the both teams as well as the performance of the individual players.

There is a marked similarity between humans doing battle on the battlegrounds and humans competing on sports grounds. The Romans and Incas amongst others certainly enjoyed competitive gladiatorial games as a substitute for the glory and gore of war and only in the last century isolated tribes in New Guinea were actively encouraged to take up competitive inter-tribal games as a substitute to their eons-old habit of indulging in cannibalistic inter-tribal warfare.

Lately I also have acquired this observing mode when following debates and/or particularly related to the subject about ‘should the US force a regime-change in Iraq?’ I found it helpful to keep in mind that whichever ‘expert’ was presenting his opinion, likely he had accessed information that I had not, as for many of them it is their profession to acquire data and hence they have spent more time than myself in doing so.

Yeah. As I remember it, this was the starting point for me in turning away from being obsessed with, angry about or sad about things, people and events that I actually knew little, if anything, about the facts of the matter. Then I started to realize that most of what I thought I ‘knew’ was based on the subjective reports of others, be it rumour, opinion, speculation, propaganda, spin and so on. When I began to understand the futility and senselessness of this in-grained habit, it was the beginning of the end of the habit, which in turn meant I was able to begin to focus on my own anger and my own sadness rather than be obsessed with the anger and sadness of others.

I am going in to where I worked this afternoon for an ‘exit interview’ and I am keenly aware of not wanting to bad-mouth anyone and leave on the best terms possible. This was not true over the weekend when I got myself in a worked-up state, resentfully focusing on getting ‘revenge’ by maligning my supervisor’s handling of the situation. As I told you before once, I have always had a terrific resentment of authority figures and it has dogged me my entire life. If there is anything good to come out of this situation, it is to screw up my determination and intent to rid myself of this destructive feeling, as well as the other feelings.

One of the toughest things to do is break the ingrained habit of blaming someone else for my feelings – to stop saying he/she made me angry rather than saying I am angry and that someone’s words or some particular event was simply the triggered. Not only is this going against our childhood cunning of learning to blame others but it also goes against our ‘natural’ instinctual behaviour.

What I did was start with the most obvious people and they were the people I most interacted with. I had always failed at living with a woman in anything remotely resembling utter peace and harmony so that was the obvious place to start. Once I managed to stop blaming Vineeto for my failures and feelings, I was able to see what it was in me that stopped me being able to live with her completely peacefully with no disagreements, no annoyances, no conflict, no resentments, no begrudging compromises, no secrets, no differing viewpoints. This involved tackling all the man-woman issues that forever condemn men and woman to belong to two separate waring and suspicious camps and my success was stunning, to say the least. The end result of my efforts is a pure and simple delightful companionship and unfettered intimacy with a fellow human being, with the added pleasure of sexual play between male and female.

Once that the problem of living together with a woman was out of the way – and it took many months of very intense effort to be successful – I was then able to fully focus on other areas where I traditionally blamed others for me being unhappy, thereby inevitably feeling malice towards them. Anyone whom I felt had power over me inevitably brought up resentment and when I eliminated this issue I stopped senselessly riling against bosses, police, neighbours, friends, politicians, the system, some life force or ‘life’ – in short, I stopped blaming others and solely focussed on ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

Crucial to this business of not blaming others or my circumstances for my unhappiness, my sorrow, my annoyance, my fear, etc. is to realize that I was in fact blaming everyone else for not having the same values, morals, ethics or beliefs that ‘I’ did. As such, every woman I had lived with needed to kowtow to my changing and fickle version of perfection and had to put up with my moods, my worries and my resentment. Everyone I worked with was similarly judged as not coming up to my standards and of wrongly judging and treating me – they were wrong, they got angry, they were selfish – they all needed to change, not ‘me’.

It soon becomes apparent that it is ‘me’ who is incapable of living or working peacefully with any of the 6 billion people on the planet – that the problem was ‘me’ – and not everyone of the other 6 billion people.

My next topic is a general observation about malice. Many people who get angry at others do manage to control their anger at the time – i.e. they do not get verbally or physically abusive – but then they most often take their bottled-up anger out on other people later. As an example, I would often notice a moodiness and irritability in someone at work, only to discover later that he had a disagreement with his wife the previous night. Even if anger is not directly expressed toward others, there is a definite resentful or irritated mood that is passed on to others unfortunate victims – a sort of seeping out of pent-up emotions that are crippling for both the person suffering from anger and for those he or she comes in contact with. A similar scenario happens if someone is feeling sad or depressed – these feelings are always spread out on to others in a unending cycle of mutual suffering. This continuous leaking of emotions is why it is vital to become virtually free of malice and sorrow as soon as possible – for even to become virtually harmless is an extraordinary freeing experience and a significant benefit for those we come in contact with.

I like your style of writing, very similar to mine with a good measure of sarcasm and ridicule. Well done. Haven’t had time to respond to it in full but will do so in a few days.

PS Were you a Sannyasin once? You sound a bit like all the other cynical disillusioned ex-sannyasins (which is not to say your comments are not without validity).

The Oxford Dictionary defines sarcasm as ‘a bitter or wounding expression or remark, a taunt’, and ridicule as ‘Subjection to mocking and dismissive language or behaviour; the action or practice of ridiculing a person or thing; mockery, derision.’

I have assessed my post to you and cannot see any sarcasm in it at all. Any ridicule in my writing is directed towards Eastern religious belief, which is in itself ridiculous by nature. There was no ridicule directed at you personally, rather I clearly pointed out that I understood that you had either been misquoted or, at worst, had not fully considered your response to the comments that you had obviously received about Byron Satsang.

My ridicule is always directed at those who would call themselves God-men or God-women for they are clearly suffering from extreme delusions of grandeur. The followers of the Deluded Ones are merely followers, and the reason I sometimes am moved to write to them is to point to the fact that there is now a third alternative available to either staying ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’.

In writing to you I was merely pointing to the fact that your self-professed sarcasm could easily be seen as selective vindictive religious intolerance – i.e. ‘a bitter or wounding remark’ directed at someone else’s beliefs.

As I said in my previous post, my intolerance is of all religions, both Western and Eastern, and it is the true-believers of all faiths who feel offended by my remarks.

Ninety percent of the first edition that I read was aimed at lampooning the Gurus and teachings of non-Sannyasins. If the magazine was ‘intended mainly for the Sannyasin community’ then surely it should have been better passed from hand to hand amongst Rajneeshees only so that the followers of these Gurus and teachers did not feel singled out and selectively targeted. After all, you were reported on the back page of the local paper as saying that in your recent satirical magazine, ‘none of the content was intended to be a piss-take of Osho’ but your ‘targets were the parasitic gurus/teachers who try to identify themselves or their teachings with him, while still playing it ‘safe’ – unlike Osho himself who spoke spontaneously and openly, regardless of the consequences.’

Can you not see that those people so ‘targeted’ may well feel persecuted?

Words such as ‘target’ and ‘fair game’ imply a hunt –

chase, give chase, pursue, stalk, track, trail, follow, shadow, hunt down, hound; Oxford Dictionary.

Could it not be that those people ‘targeted’ as ‘fair game’ feel hunted?

As I said above, this is a playground taunt from one who wants to fight to one who doesn’t want to fight. I lost all interest – and instinctual urge – to fight a good while ago. I have found genuine freedom, peace and happiness.

If you stubbornly persist with offering stereo-type criticisms and objections, then you are being stereo-typical, if I can coin a phrase. But for you to offer something original, based on a knowledge of what it is that I am saying means that you would have to progress beyond the stage of ‘of course I don’t understand actualism’. You are indeed in a bind, a sort of a rebel without any knowledge of what it is you are fighting against and why.

I recently watched a TV show where a scientist was studying and trapping pythons in Africa and putting radio collars on them. Before leaving, after a few months of field work, he then set fire to the hut of some native hunters who trapped snakes for food and to sell their skins. He looked a bit unsure of himself and his ethical motives but justified his action on the basis that the ‘survival of the planet’ depends on the ‘survival of the python’ and thus was more important than the survival and livelihood of this particular group of humans. Another program followed a U.N. funded group studying monkeys in East Africa and the colony was declared ‘endangered’ by the encroachment of a local village that was growing in population. A local U.N. health official who was interviewed said that U.N. funding for birth control and community health programs had recently been drastically cut, but maybe they could divert some money from those studying and preserving wildlife ‘as their funding was substantial and growing’. Animals before people is now not only a New Age obsession, but official well-funded policy. I have no dispute at all with sensible environmental programs or polices, but there is a plethora of popularist dooms-day beliefs and many dubious scientific theories are used to justify these paranoid fears. These grim world theories are all fuelled by the sensation-seeking media and lapped up by the gullible.

At the end a request, if you choose to answer, please don’t just copy big parts of your journal and send it to me. I don’t think I will read it at this time of my life. If short parts of your journal are relevant to what I am asking please send them, otherwise I will prefer to read what you write about what is in your mind now.

It’s pretty obvious, at this time of your life, that you have decided to post to this list just to ‘give us a serve’. The experience of writing to the Sannyas list exposed the extent of malice stirred up when their Holy-One was de-bunked for the deluded failure he was. And you ask me why I talk of the ‘tried and failed’?

A good open-eyed look at the Sannyas community will very clearly reveal the fact that, if these people represent the ‘New Man – Zorba the Buddha’, yet another Guru and yet another Religion has failed to bring an end to malice and sorrow.

At one point, you wrote:

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

As far as I am concerned, that is the only path. I learned it from Osho via dynamic, you learned it from Richard. We can call it spiritual or non-spiritual, actualists’s or non-actualists’s. Only thing I learned from Osho is: I have to look into myself and I am on my own. Now what came out of writing to you. I saw violence in me, raw violence of the kind I have never seen before. I also observed my tendency to be cruel (malice ????). I noticed need-for-love is still working in me. I also saw lots of other things.

It would seem that ‘what came out of writing to me’ is that you have been diving a bit deeper than you have before even with dynamic meditation. It is my experience that many people become quite upset to the point of feeling violent when presented with facts. It is the facts that cause the offence, not who writes of them or how they are presented, for to acknowledge a fact rather than uphold a belief is anathema to one’s very ‘self’. After all, people are willing to kill others or sacrifice themselves for their dearly-held beliefs, such are the deep-seated passions that are unleashed. This is the very reason for all the religious wars, persecutions and bloodshed. To become aware of these raw passions is to do a bit of deep sea diving into one’s own psyche – to be aware of the Human Condition in action, the beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions. This awareness involves neither repressing, nor expressing as in dynamic meditation. To merely indulge in a bit of artificial emoting such as therapy groups, active meditations, etc. is not to be aware of the role that the feelings of malice and sorrow play in ordinary life. As for ‘we can call it spiritual or non-spiritual’ – just because you choose to call different things the same doesn’t make them the same. They may appear to you to be the same, or you may want them to be the same, but they clearly are not. ‘Non’ means ‘a negation, a prohibition’ – as per Oxford dictionary.

It is astounding to think that there is now the possibility of eliminating malice and sorrow to the point that one is incapable of being offended – of having no-thing to defend – no beliefs, no ideals, no principles, no rights to fight for, no ‘me’ who could take offence. And of a happiness that is not dependant on others or on being in an Altered State of Consciousness – a genuine happiness in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. It is so very good to start exploring feelings and emotions – both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ – for the secret to being actually free of malice and sorrow lies in this very exploration – and to investigate the spiritual world is to investigate the ‘good’ in the arbitrary package of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The trick is to understand that your feelings and emotions are part and parcel of the Human Condition and thus not a personal fault, failure, stigma or evil, but something everybody is programmed with by blind nature and society’s imprint. This is an investigation few are prepared to make for many see that if they dare to question the spiritual they will simply end up back in the ‘real’ world that they are trying to avoid or escape from. Some see that to question the spiritual beliefs is to go towards the devil or evil while others see it as ending up in a sort of robotic state of non-feeling. What belies these fears is the PCE where the purity, perfection and benevolence of the actual world becomes magically apparent as having been here all the time... if only ‘I’ wasn’t in the way.

Actual Freedom offers a tried and tested method to eliminate the ‘I’ – both ego and soul – such that what is actual, genuine, unique, pure and perfect can become evidenced and evident.

The following words you wrote are the base assumption underlying all that you (Peter, Vineeto, Richard) are spewing – take that one basic premise away and what have you got? ... NOTHING !

Vineeto: ‘Given that the base feelings are malice and sorrow (sadness, resentment, hate, depression, melancholy, loneliness, etc.)’

Obviously your temperament and world view fit in quite well with the idea of ‘original sin’ THAT is your biggest error.

A few words in reply to your post –

Well, I have written many times in my journal (Peace-chapter) of the malice I felt in me to the point of wanting to kill someone, and many times of sadness to the point of despair. These feelings I felt in me and often they would overwhelm me to the point of feeling possessed. A ‘blind rage’ would come over me, be it jealousy or anger. Similarly a deep melancholy would sometimes ‘swamp’ me and I know in others that this can be a deep depression to the point of suicide. What I have discovered is that these feelings are the instinctual feelings of malice and sorrow that we are born with. They are biological ‘software’ if you like and hard wired in, unlike the social conditioning and identity. This is what people mean when they say ‘you can’t change human nature’.

This is accepted in the west as born in sin or acknowledged in the east as the karmic cycle of suffering. Or do you go along with the theory that we are born innocent and pure (Tabula Rasa)? Can you tell me what you see as the source of sadness and violence in the world? It is a great topic to discuss. I know that for me it was essential to see and acknowledge both the sorrow and malice in me before I had any chance of eliminating it. Malice was the toughest one, because generally I was what is called a nice guy, I went out of my way to be good, not rock the boat, but eventually I saw that, no matter how ‘good’ I was, I still caused ripples. Even if it was only in withdrawing, being sullen, a word here, a gesture there.

To No 11: The Enlightened Ones, having found God and Love, are compulsively driven to spread their message and to gather their disciples. It is intrinsic that if one discovers the Truth then one is impelled to teach it. Truth does not exist without the teachings. They are in effect teaching their versions of the Truth, but a Truth must be told, must be passed on, otherwise it withers. And the one who teaches the Truth has the power and authority, for people are hungry for the Truth with its promise of salvation, bliss and immortality.

Dear Peter and anybody else following these (endless?) discussions: I can do no other thing than totally disagree with this. Not only does Truth need the existence of teaching, nor are there personal versions or other version of Truth, but to claim that an Enlightened Being has the urge to teach and that his bliss is the others who praise him for it is utter BULLSHIT to me. Enlightenment nor Truth are bargains or business for which rewards are to be expected. Neither is there any need to claim Enlightenment or anything Beyond.

Normally I just answer to posts in the order I receive them but your last post intrigued me so much I am willing respond out of order –

I have got no idea what you are saying to me here. By the bullshit bit you are obviously pissed off – but at exactly what, I am at a loss. Maybe you could enlighten me about your position on the matter of how you see the Truth and Enlightenment.

As far as all the other writings over the past months I don’t feel like commenting since others are already so busy doing that but I wonder why my simplest of simple question still remains unanswered. I sent this question to you personally but now I’ll give it out to the whole list just to expose what is not true. If you know truth why all these words and so many discussion? Simple question, isn’t it? Let me add a second one, why didn’t you answer this question? Third: does this mean there is still a motive or purpose?

Exactly what is it you are ‘exposing’ – the fact that it took me three days to reply to you? The fact that you wrote to me privately? The fact that I might have some hidden motive or purpose other than what I have stated? That I really am Enlightened and are gathering cyber-disciples so we can all go to some cyber-heaven when the apocalypse comes?

So you are obviously pissed off in this post and yet your reply to my answer to your simple question is as follows –

Are you for real?

Just what I am I to make of all this. Is your last post pure sarcasm? One post you are exposing me and telling me that what I am saying is BULLSHIT and the next post is sprinkled with thank you’s, enjoyments and love.

I can only think that this is similar to the Sannyasins I would see all ‘lovey-dovey’ in the ashram and would see them half an hour later abusing some rickshaw driver.

I remember when I saw that I behaved this way. I was working on the Samadhi one day in the ashram ...

I wrote about it in my journal and it is relevant to much that goes on in the list in postings usually signed ‘love’ ...

‘Sorrow is one thing... ... Malice is a bit different as it is generally not upheld as a human virtue and most people even manage to deny it in themselves. It is always someone else who is cruel, jealous, vindictive or violent and I am simply responding to their malice! It was amazing to see in my own children unprovoked and unlearned acts of aggression. The idea that children are born innocent is just an idea, not a fact. I have some memories, even as a kid, of plotting revenge against someone – but of course most of the actual malicious actions were condemned. One didn’t break things, hit people, or say certain things – I was taught to behave ‘properly’. The trouble is, all the malice was then forced into cunning, clever and subversive actions that were to persist in my life. The willingness to tell a tale on someone as a subtle revenge is a classic. We call it gossiping, to disguise the maliciousness. I remember a few times actually having to will myself to stop, biting my tongue. The worst situation, of course, is in ‘relation-ship’ (or ‘battle-ship’) with a woman. The malice often took the form of withdrawal – an insidious revenge, but also a self-inflicted pain; a terrible price to pay in the long run.

I came to see a lot of New Age-spiritual-therapy behaviour as only thinly disguised malice. ‘I have to be honest with you’ or ‘I would like to share something with you’ is usually the opening line of someone who is about to take revenge or be spiteful. Again much of what we humans regard as entertainment is but our pleasure at witnessing malice and violence inflicted upon fellow human beings. Competitive sport is another arena for malice to be played out, whether watching or participating. A few times in my life the lid would really fly off and rage would surface, quickly followed by shame.

In particular I remember a time when we were working with some Indian stonemasons in Poona. One of the workers was doing something wrong despite my having just warned him. Well, I gave him a full serve of rage, only to discover afterwards that he really was doing it right all along. I was deeply ashamed, not only that I had lost my temper, but that I had done the typical thing at the time – chosen an Indian as my victim. A few months ago I even felt the thrill of what it would be like to kill someone, after reading a newspaper article about a murder, and that really brought malice home to me. To experience it in me that intensely was shocking indeed.’ Peter’s Journal, God

But it is possible to free yourself of malice ... if you are interested, that is.

*

No I am not sarcastic and I am for real. Exposing what is not true has nothing to do with you but I’m sorry you took it that way.

I was not pissed of but I strongly disagree on what you said about that whomsoever found truth would feel the urge to find disciples and ‘preach’ ie teach. But anyway disagreement to me is not that I don’t enjoy what you are doing on this list. Discussion is never bad since everybody is forced to at least make up his own ‘mind’ instead of consoling him/herself with borrowed knowledge. So, I am for real, you misunderstood by words you mistook but since this is media which goes no further than only words and not feelings I can’t blame you, couldn’t happened to a nicer fellow English would say.

So I ‘mistook’ your words, I ‘misunderstood’, but you can’t ‘blame’ me, but you are sorry ‘I took it that way’. I guess you have therefore ‘exposed’ me anyway – to prove that it was me that got it wrong.

How did you manage to free yourself of the instinctual drives of fear and aggression that are at the root of all human malice? Do you mean you never get angry, peeved, upset, impatient with someone, annoyed with a bad driver, niggled if someone butts in, and do you manage this while living and working with other people? Just curious.

*

The sort of discussion we are attempting to have here is one that investigates and exposes all the ‘borrowed knowledge’, Wisdoms, psittacisms and beliefs. And it is not only confrontational to dig deeper, it is downright threatening. It is life-threatening to the ‘self’ – the who you ‘think’ you are and who you ‘feel’ you are that in fact consists of nothing more than this ‘borrowed knowledge’, overlaying a primitive instinctual self.

It is so scary that most people will not even begin the process of a serious discussion of these matters – blindly flapping that they already ‘know’ it all, this is ‘nothing new’, it’s just another ‘truth’, they have no beliefs or ‘borrowed knowledge’, they have found an ‘authentic self’ or a Divine self, an unconditional Love or even a ‘no-self’ self.

For me, when it was scary or confrontational I knew it was ‘me’ who was feeling scared, or fearful. It was fear in my body and I wanted to be free of fear.

The only way to be free of fear is to get rid of ‘me’ who was fearful. When I met Richard and understood that what he was offering meant the end of me, I plunged right in. I figured ‘I had nothing left to lose’ except more of what I knew was a second-rate life, and then I’d die.

To be free of fear – happy and harmless, benign,

Anything but even begin to question ‘what’ it is to be a human being. The lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity that is ‘me’ desperately avoids any discussions that are at all scary, preferring to ‘play in the shallows’.

Maybe one day we can begin to dig a bit into the Human Condition rather than snorkel around the surface wondering whether these are safe waters to swim in. They are not – they are anathema to the very ‘self’ – the seat of malice and sorrow within us.

But dare to eliminate the ‘self’ and ... hey presto! – the actual world of delight, perfection and purity is immediately apparent and obvious. That which we so desperately seek in the ‘inner’ spirit-ual world with a synthetic ‘feeling’ of love or Love is actually here – a direct palpable intimacy with things, events and people.

It was here all the time, only ‘my’ very existence was preventing me, this flesh and blood body, from being here. The only way I can be here in the actual world is for ‘me’ to self-immolate.

And it’s the journey of a lifetime ...

You’re right about one thing though ... there is even more laughter.

Do you laugh with or at? The answer is telling of your character.

I do enjoy black humour of the Monty Python, Black Adder, variety as it is often cuttingly incisive of the way we humans behave. A lot of what else that passes for humour I find simply vindictive and malicious. I certainly don’t take myself seriously, but as I look back, I acknowledge that much of my past behaviour has hurt others, and there was a seriousness about this that caused me to want to clean myself up.

I am interested in where else you have heard these ‘well-used words’? Would you care to reply, and it would be helpful to the discussion if you could quote the source(s).

It seems to me, you think you’re the only one who sees the misery in the world? To me and most people I know, this is totally obvious.

Not only did I see it in the world, I saw and acknowledged both misery and violence in me. I also saw that the only one I could change was me, and that everyone else was simply trying to change everybody else. This was the turning point for me. I then had both intent and direction as to my searching ‘within’ that was lacking in the ‘spiritual search’. My aim in life then became to be happy and harmless.

Where was I, oh yes, would I kill for the master? Well I didn’t have a weapon (that’s what we army guys called pistols and rifles), but if I did and they came shooting to kill all of us, which I’m sure they would have done if Osho hadn’t found a safe way to get us all out safely, you can bet your sweet bippy I would have loved to shoot it out. Why not? What’s wrong with it?

I just watched a TV program on war and it highlighted the main causes of warfare as territorial, religious and ideological. Territorial conflicts are perhaps understandable, but religious wars over whose God is the only God defy sanity. And ideological wars are equally inane as both sides always believe they are right and the other is wrong.

Whatever the reason, it is always one group against another group.

Do you get that everyone must leave this body?

No, when I die, I die, for I am this body. There is nothing to ‘leave this body’.

I do like the way opportunities to investigate the Human Condition in action pop up in one’s life. I have written mostly about the spiritual world recently but a social gathering recently reminded me again of the ‘real world’ that I had all but left behind when I was lured on to the spiritual path.

It was a timely reminder of what I had noted in a recent post –

‘It is this (social and genetic-instinctual) programming that has ensured, until now, only two options for every human being – either a real life of malice and sorrow or a spiritual life of malice and sorrow with the additional programming of denial and transcendence.’

The gathering was of a group of normal people and not the peace, love and brown rice types that have been my social scene since my early thirties. What was an eye-opener was the rawness of the malice and sorrow, untempered by spiritual morality and ethical niceties. Not that it was better or worse, it was just less sugar-coated and less cunningly disguised. It was fascinating to see that most of the conversation was a whinge and a whine about something, opening with the usual complaints about the weather as delicious sub-tropical rainstorms were swirling about outside during the evening. The lamenting very quickly moved on to complaints about local politics and soon got into malicious comments about other groups and other people who were evidently making their lives miserable in some way or another. Malice, sorrow, sad story, blame, hard done by, tough times, gripe, things are getting worse, it’s difficult, bitch, grievance, pet hate, ..... on and on it went all night. It was like a toned down Monty Python sketch but it made clear that the real world is really the ‘Land of Lament’, as Richard so aptly calls it. It is literally awash in sorrow and it is always someone else’s fault, which is malice in action.

It’s all so easy to see malice and sorrow in action in others, as entertainment, as humour, as news, as gossip, as ‘causes’, as social issues, etc.

‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ simply gives one the opportunity to see malice and sorrow in action in oneself and to do something about it.

What a wonderful, ruthlessly efficient way to become happy and harmless. The fact that there is much vitriolic reaction to actualism and stubborn resistance to being happy and harmless is proof of the stranglehold that malice and sorrow have on human beings.

What an extraordinary thing to devote one’s life to becoming happy and harmless, not as a feeling but as an actuality.

This was just a short note to balance the investigations into both real world and spiritual world beliefs that is essential in order to become free of the Human Condition. While spiritual seekers are on the wrong track heading in the wrong direction, at least they do have some degree of dissatisfaction with the real world and some expectation of something more to human existence.

No 52: Four years ago my daughter died. She was 26 yo. She died from suicide, having stood bravely in front of a speeding Amtrack train in a suburb of Fresno, CA. She was identified by a single rose tattoo on her hip ... which she acquired in Georgia only a few months before. This event was preceded by a year or so of increasing depression and two unsuccessful overdoses. She was a beautiful young lady ... and before this year so filled with talent, ambition ... and an outward zest for life. Deep down inside, all of us knew it was coming ... all of us: her mother (my ex wife), her brothers, sisters, other relatives and some few friends. But in the end, we were all helpless to stop this train. The shock of her passing was so strong ... I could barely hold on.

No 47: I decided to comment on your post because I saw many similarities between your daughter and myself some years back. Although I was fortunately unsuccessful in my attempt to take my own life away, I still remember what I went through and so do my parents. However, as I never finished, or was never finished by, the last step … my parents never knew the likes of your grief. But I have seen enough to wish it upon no one.

I also sincerely wish your daughter had not had to go through with it, and I also wish you had never felt the resulting pain because of it, and that is why I commit myself entirely to the purpose of doing something about it.

A comment that Richard made recently when asked about his use of the words malice and sorrow in describing the human condition seems pertinent to the discussion –

‘Basically, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself ... as a broad generalisation’. Richard, Abditorium, Malice & Sorrow

Malice readily comes to most people’s minds as being a salient aspect of the human condition – in the last one hundred years an estimated 160,000,000 human beings were killed by other human beings in wars alone – but we tend not to be so attentive of the central role that sorrow plays. Maybe this is because we are not so cognizant that an estimated 40,000,000 human beings also killed themselves in suicides last century.

And all of this mayhem and misery is the direct result of the blind and brutal instinctual passions that human beings insist are essential if human beings are to remain being human beings. T’is enough to make you want to abandon ship but in order to do so you may well find that the strongest emotional tether to break is that of sorrow.

I don’t want to pre-empt your own experiential observations about the sorrowful feelings but in my own investigations I discovered that feelings of malice is more readily discernible than feelings of sorrow. Speaking metaphorically – malice can be experienced as being peaks or flare-ups of emotion, sadness can be experienced as valleys or troughs of emotion, whereas in general the constant plain or milieu of human feelings is one of seriousness and sullenness. The other observation I have made is that sorrow in the form of the feeling of compassion – the compulsion to participate in another’s suffering – is the essential emotion that binds Humanity together, and hence binds ‘me’ to Humanity. Which is why I described sorrow as being a strongest emotional tether to break free of.

Actualism Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust