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Selected Correspondence Peter Mind
It may sound spiritual but I have called this ‘mindfulness’. The action of the brain functioning unimpeded by an entity. It does sound spiritual to me. An actualist who applies the method
of actualism will find the method leads to an expertise in identifying and investigating the feelings and
emotions that impede the clear and benevolent functioning of one’s own brain. Methinks ‘you’ are a
watching entity who is being mindful of what your body/mind is doing – the classic spiritual practice of
dissociation. There is a ‘you’ who is being aware and mindful, which is most definitely not a bare
awareness – the capability of the human brain being aware of its own functioning ... when it is functioning.
A bit of reading on the spiritual practice of watching can be found Yes. I think I am reinforcing my ego/soul by believing ‘I’ am the doer of the happening moment ... from experience this can degenerate into further problems. This is not my experience of the happening delightful serendipity though. I am confused. Which is your experience? Yes ... with a mindfulness awareness of the ugly rising head should it venture forth, like a discordant note, from places unknown ... so that we may observe and benefit. Apperception we call this? Could you describe ‘the ugly rising head’? What forms does it take? How is it manifest in your daily life and in interactions with those around you? Why do you say it ventures forth ‘from places unknown’? Surely the point of utilizing the actualism method is to find out about ‘the ugly rising head’, the ‘unknown places’ and the ‘discordant notes’ such that they are eradicated? This is where the method of actualism is of genuine benefit to others but there is nothing in it for No 13 except happiness and harmlessness. This process is both tumultuous and disorienting, fearful ... and iconoclastic. One does not cruise through this process unscathed and soothingly ‘self’-benefited for one is actively demolishing one’s safe and secure social/spiritual identity and then embarking on a journey of truly epic proportions – the extinction of one’s instinctual animal self, one’s very being. What you are describing is not apperception at all – it sounds very much like playing the usual spiritual game of being superiorly mindful. Being ‘mindful’ is but to adopt the moral high-ground, feeling ‘above others’ and remaining very selectively aware of one’s own feelings, thoughts and actions. I don’t know if you have been watching the news lately, but in the Middle East at the moment there is a classic confrontation between religious/ spiritual groups who each insist that they have the moral high-ground. The monotheist religions are blatantly obvious in their battle for supremacy of their respective Gods and their God’s loyal and faithful followers. Eastern religion has a twisted version of this psychic power battle whereby any pundit can, with practice and diligence, get to feel so morally superior, become totally self-deluded and end up truly believing themselves to be God-on-earth. Whatever the source, East or West, the result of religious/ spiritual belief is the same – malice towards others and the perpetuation of sorrow. The battle between the monotheist Gods has produced some of the
West’s most horrendous wars, crusades, pogroms, perversions and atrocities but none rival those found in the
East. Even the Nazis where appalled at the butchery at It is only by fully comprehending the horrendous violence and mindless slaughter that is triggered, sustained, reinforced and actively perpetuated by religious/ spiritual belief that one is forced to do something about it in oneself. To practice ‘mindfulness’ is to be a fence-sitter to this violence – hardly the business of an actualist vitally interested in peace on earth. Why, if you can see maintaining any religious/ spiritual belief whatsoever actively perpetuates superstition, fear, isolationism, ignorance, recrimination and retribution, would you want to have anything at all to do with it? Why do you claim to have a certain clarity of thinking and yet show no evidence of having seen the utter futility and stupidity of clinging on to any religious/ spiritual belief? Why do you not see the fact that maintaining any religious/ spiritual beliefs whatsoever is what initially prevents one from beginning the process of becoming a free and autonomous human being? Debunking religious spiritual belief is not a side-issue for an
actualist – it is the main issue in the early stages leading to Virtual Freedom. You can read my Journal if
you are interested in This is no little thing that is offered on this Mailing list and the AF web site – this is no rehashed or ‘new’ belief system or something that can be clipped-on to one’s old beliefs. If that is how you treat it, it is your business, but you will get no support for mindful fence-sitting here on this list – the benefits of actualism are far too profound and pragmatic for that, both for No. 13 ... and for the actualizing of peace on earth.
I’ll answer more when I have time. (As I have arthritis I am sometimes limited in my staying power on the typewriter). You obviously object to the term ‘mindfulness’, Peter? I don’t object to the term mindfulness at all ... after all it is only a word. However, the spiritual practice of mindfulness is obviously silly for it only leads to the creation of another, and higher, identity – ‘the watcher’. This new identity, ‘the watcher’, is even more dissociated from actuality than one’s ‘normal’ identity, for he/she/it is selfishly obsessed with the practice of spirit-ual awareness. Please ... do not mistake the word for some ethical ‘right mind’ controlled by some external authority ... I am my own highest authority until I am actually free not enlightened. Ah, give me a monotheist any day. Their belief is much simpler, for monotheists believe in a single external ‘highest authority’. Eastern spiritualists believe in an inner ‘highest authority’, an entity that can only ever be fully satiated and fulfilled by the final ‘realizing’ of personal Godhood aka Enlightenment. If you insist on remaining your own highest authority you may well find that, as you put it, ‘... this can degenerate into further problems’. The simple, direct way to eliminate problems is to make facts the highest authority in your life and then you get to experience the experiential thrill of all your precious beliefs collapsing like a stack of cards. Facts are the very death-knell of all beliefs. If you prefer I will use a word with which you are more comfortable? Do you have any suggestions? I much prefer dictionary definitions of words unless you clearly qualify your meaning to be something other. It is what is known as calling a spade a spade and is most useful in communicating facts and demolishing beliefs – which is why so many people object to the practice.
Choicelessness and Being Present ‘Go with the feelings, the intuition, not with the mind. That is choicelessness. All that I have said about choicelessness applies to presence as well. Presence is being in this moment with acceptance, including all the facts and disconnecting from them.’ Paul Lowe, ‘In Each Moment – A new way to live’ Put so clearly, choicelessness is a choice made by one’s feelings, a decision solely based on the emotions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Deciding anything this way is guaranteed to produce an utterly selfish and self-centred result or decision, not the best decision, the most appropriate and most sensible. In deciding ‘not with the mind’, the spiritual claim of choicelessness can be best described as thoughtless and senseless, selfish decision making.
Your conclusions are obviously coming from the mind and not from a knowing from within. Some brief replies. No, my conclusions come from a study of the facts. I undertook a great deal of reading of exactly what it is the spiritual Masters offered, promised and actually delivered. I decided to look beyond the limits of what was accepted as true or ‘known’ another word for accepted) and venture into the unknown. I rather dramatically referred to it as ‘going where no man has gone before!’ Except for Richard, but he got ‘here’ by going through Enlightenment and out the other side. A far tougher journey and not to be advised. It is a bummer coming out off the delusion that you are the Absolute.
No 23: Why do you allow yourself to be in any way affected by this person’s poison, this person is quite obviously a mind dweller and mind dwellers love to mind fuck, it is their expertise, just watch these experts disappear up their own arises if you just give them enough rope. No 4: You know, it is unbelievable that minds can be so thick. I haven’t given up hope that there must be a gap, a small slice of openness for communication to peep through, but it seems not so. I’ve never before in my life come across someone so totally brainwashed and it makes me a bit curious – how is it possible? But you’re right, it is poison and it doesn’t do good. Great that you haven’t given up hope of finding any small slice of openness. When I met Richard I was intrepid in both my questioning and scrutiny of what he was saying – there was no way I was just going to take on another set of beliefs. What he was saying that he had found out about the Human Condition was both incomprehensible and frightening to ‘me’. I would often recoil in bewilderment but I was determined to ascertain for myself whether or not what he was saying was factual. To go away, read, contemplate, question, investigate, recall, ponder, ruminate ... and then come back and ask again. I would pursue this process with each of my dearly-held beliefs until the clear facts emerged. I have written more of it in the Intelligence chapter of my journal, if you are interested. As for never coming across someone so brainwashed before, it is not that I am sprouting Wisdom or a new belief system. I am simply stating facts. When talking to Richard, I always tried to avoid getting into a ‘tis’ – tisn’t’, ‘right and wrong’ type of discussion. Much better to look at the facts of the situation – and they were always 180 degrees different to what I had been taught. The certainty and surety comes from facts and common sense, whereas doubt and confusion are the direct result of belief and feelings. And what I talk of is the actual world of purity and delight that we have all experienced in a pure consciousness experience – that world that is right under our noses when ‘I’ temporarily abdicate the throne. It is not a philosophy or something Richard has invented. This actual world is ever-present, but it is not a world that ‘I’ can experience, therefore ‘my’ demise is essential.
The Mind is an awesome resource. Whereas human intelligence, freed of all of the social conditioning (particularly the belief in God or some form of afterlife and immortality) and the animal instinctual reactions is capable of such clarity and common sense that it has to be experienced to be appreciated. Such is the functioning that I am capable of understanding the whole of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow as I am immediately outside of it and no longer dwell in the normal world or in the spiritual world. It is the actual physical universe, not some ‘inner’ world of imagination.
There is such a space as no-mind. I sometimes like to refer to it as real energy. In my experience, no-mind has two poles, male and female. In my male energy, I experience no-mind as silence...meditation. In my female energy, I experience heart energy ... love. And all, without cross-dressing ;-) To me, the poem in question celebrates no-mind. I agree with your interpretation of the poem, this is indeed what underlies all Eastern spirituality and philosophy. It is the very foundation upon which all the temples, ashrams and monasteries are built. No-mind means an unquestioning trust and faith in the Ancient texts. This calls for the setting aside of intelligent thinking and common sense in order to not only believe in God but to arrive at the state whereby you believe yourself to be God (or Realized or That, or Awakened or whatever other term ...). What a massive ego-trip if ever there was one. Do you honestly believe that this earth is some sort of horrible place that we humans have been sent to in order to suffer and fight with each other endlessly, and that the ‘chosen few’ will gain Immortality and be whisked away to a better place after death? That we are alien visitors sent to some cosmic penal colony? Yes, the East certainly celebrates and demands ‘no-mind’, for when exposed to the bright light of awareness, the Ancient Texts are clearly seen as fairy tales. For me, way back then, I wanted to believe because the only alternative to giving up the ‘spiritual’ was to go back to ‘normal’. In the end I could no longer live a lie when I saw that Eastern Spirituality was no more than Eastern Religion, when I saw I had got ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’. It was only when I serendipitously met Richard that I started to even begin to dismantle my spiritual beliefs – despite the many times I had of ‘bleed throughs’ of good old fashioned doubt and scepticism. Those ‘doubts’ were in fact the native intelligence and common sense that operates in this brain of this body, and is hidden in the brain of every human. As such, everybody is capable of becoming free of the Human Condition – if they stop believing. Without the belief in God, our destiny is in our hands. Bugger God’s will ... what has he/she done for us humans anyway...?
If you go beyond the mind first all the stupid belief systems are exposed for what they are! Again, for me, I came to see that the Eastern religions and philosophies tackle the mind (ego) only to give full reign to the heart (soul). This has the effect of completely stifling and denying any clear intelligent functioning of the brain. This stifling causes the mind to retreat into the fantasy world of blissful and divine feelings and taken to it’s extreme can result in an altered state of consciousness (ASC) whereby one becomes Love or God. The second ‘I’ of Ramana Maharshi’s fame, the Self, is a mere delusion – a self-aggrandizement. Giving people things to do with their minds is a waste of time! The most intelligent thing in the universe is the human brain. The technological achievements wrought by this intelligence never ceases to astound and amaze me. This physical universe, in its perfection, purity, infinitude and fairy-tale like magic is indeed a paradise beyond our fantasies. And yet we humans feel sorrow and malice, sad and lonely, separate and alien. And the remedy to this – the spirit-ual way – is to cultivate ‘feelings’ of bliss, Love, and Divinity. What about questioning ‘feelings’ themselves – the passions and feelings that we kill and die for, the instinctual urges that take us over in fits of rage or depression, the instinctual needs to belong to a group, blindly follow and trust a leader, the need to belong? Ask yourself the question ‘Who is thinking?’, what is beyond the mind? If you ask this question you end up with the Buddha Nature, God, Love Agapé, That, Self, The Universe, Existence, or whatever other name. It’s funny isn’t it that one always discovers one is ‘God’ at heart. By asking ‘what’ am I, one discovers a different answer – the third I, this flesh and blood body and definitely mortal – free of the illusion of ego and the delusion of soul.
On the spiritual path one merely ‘feels’ silent on those occasions when one is in a trance-like state of ‘no-mind’ or when one has the delusion of feeling ‘one with the Universe’. A synthetic silence achieved by turning away from the physical and the actual – to the metaphysical and imaginary. Peter you have not experienced silence, you are talking a load of horseshit. Silence is our nature, silence I am while the world happens around me, and then noisy I am when I want to be. Silence is always the backdrop of my noise! You are firmly stuck in your mind and to you that is the only possibility. I’m telling you, you are wrong, silence is not a trance like state, it is our natural state! From my observation sadness, loneliness, despair, melancholy, anxiety, fear, excitement, anger, jealousy, resentment, etc. are our ‘natural state’ and we attempt to escape by turning in to a silent inner world – usually achieved by stilling the bad selfish thoughts and concentrating on the good divine thoughts. A temporary imaginary silence. Easily disturb-able by again finding a post from the terrible twins – from the actual world. You have opted for a convenient way out for your mind! I’m sure your mind is very happy with this option! The path to actual freedom is not only convenient, it comes with an easy-to-follow set of instructions, you don’t have to bow down or pay allegiance to anyone, it’s totally free, it’s available to anyone, it’s obligation free – and it works. To be happy and harmless is to be me as I am, this flesh and blood body, free of both ego and soul.
Although I have the option to avoid the kind of energy that is dominating nowadays the list by unsubscribing, I hope you might become a little bit more sensitive about what is worth sharing and what is only mind-fucking. I think you have other options to cut out what I say and still stay on the list, but that is up to you. Curiously, I was thinking of abandoning the list but your plaintive cry for ‘sensitivity’ spurred me on. ‘Sensitivity’ is such a mis-used word in spiritual circles in my experience. When meditators become more ‘sensitive’ they usually talk in terms of the market-place being so hard and so tough, and everybody else being so insensitive and unloving. This creates a superiority and separation from others that is both palpable and insidious. What spiritual people really mean by ‘sensitive’ is that they are intolerant of others and other beliefs. This is, of course, a common feeling of all believers of all faiths and is part and parcel of the spiritual and religious worlds. Not that I am a defender of the ‘real’ world. What I write of is a third alternative – an actual down to earth freedom that is eminently liveable in the market place. It requires not retreat, withdrawal, or exclusivity. I take it by mind-fucking you mean the ability to think, talk, write and make sense of things rather than feel, emote, assume, accept, trust, surrender or have faith. Yes, thinking has such a bad press in the Eastern Religions. I remember as a kid being told don’t think, don’t question, don’t argue ... just do it!!! It was okay when I was a kid at home or at school but it was a habit that I retained all my life, until I met someone who pointed out that it was my life I was living, and to unquestionably accept what others told me was a second-rate way to live. It did mean eventually challenging the hallowed and sacred Ancient Truths and Wisdoms, but an actual freedom emerges that is so vastly superior to the synthetic and Divine freedom on offer to date, it bears no comparison. I find it curious that spiritual freedom means retreating from the physical into the meta-physical, from the real world into the spirit-ual world, from the market place to the Ashram, from the senses to the imagination, from the actual to the cerebral, from the outer to the inner, from thinking to feeling – from head in the sand to head in the clouds. People have been sharing their ‘feelings’ since time immemorial, and still hope that love (or Love) will overcome our innate feelings of fear and aggression. Still, it is your life, and your ‘sensitivity’, but thanks for the spur on to write more about the third alternative.
Slowly, slowly one gains courage. Be brave, Anand Deleeto, trust your intuition. It was not there before, it is not there now. Dare to wipe away and enjoy the bliss. On the spiritual path, Deleeto, you will be admonished to leave your mind at the door, surrender your will, and trust your feelings. You will be encouraged to sit silently and go within to encourage a stilling of personal thoughts in order to begin to feel Bliss and Oneness. In short, you will give full reign to your feelings and emotions. ‘You’ who you feel you are will become grander and grander, bigger and bigger, and if you really work hard at it, one day – POP! ... you will realize that you are GOD! So if you trust your intuition, trust your feelings – you are but doing a wonderful job in keeping your ‘self’ in existence – from ‘self’ to ‘Self’. For me, I knew my ‘self’ was the problem and eventually saw that to blow it up in self-aggrandizement was to be going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. But this is just what I have found. You will obviously make your own observations and judgements as to what you do with your life-time on earth. Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
