Selected Correspondence Peter

Pure Consciousness Experience

In a recent post to Richard you asked a question concerning  me –

My first questions relate to what is (apparently) lost in AF. If there is no imaginative faculty, no mind-space at all in which to visualise objects and processes, how is it possible to understand systems and processes that do not occur right before one’s eyes?

For example: could Peter continue being an architect if he were to experience the final physiological transformation that Richard has undergone? By what means could he design and mentally manipulate new architectural plans if he had no imaginative faculty? How could he understand and discuss plans with a colleague, without seeing an actual representation of them? How could he rearrange mental images if he has no ‘mind space’, no inner eye? Would he become useless (as an architect) without his CAD software?

The reason I thought to respond was that I have made a living as an architect whilst being a ‘normal’ person and continue to do so whilst being virtually free of malice and sorrow. I have also had numerous PCEs so I know by experience what it would be to be work as an architect free of the burden of passions and imagination.

As I remember it, when I was normal the design process was a somewhat tortuous process – it was an essential part of the process to try and form a mental image of what I was designing before I tried to convert the mental image into a drawing. This forming of a mental image sometimes began even before the job started, before I met the clients or saw the land. The mental image was then based solely on what ‘I’ wanted to do, which was often at odds with what the client wanted to do or had the money to pay for or what best suited the site, the climate, the local regulations, the ease of construction, and so on. In other words the image of what I wanted to do was utterly selfist, passionate and imaginary and not at all not rooted in actuality.

This process of forming a mental image and then trying to actualize it in some form is often termed ‘the creative process’ and I very often suffered angst and anguish going through this process – feelings that are well-documented as being part and parcel of being a ‘creative’ person. Of course many self-aggrandizing feelings also arise – there is no more smug feeling than ‘me’ feeling that ‘I’ am being creative – particularly when ‘I’ receive the plaudits of others for being ‘the creator’.

However this feeling of smugness always had a hollow ring to it for me because ‘I’ was often aware that ‘I’ was claiming credit for something ‘I’ was not responsible for. Sometimes I would put this feeling into words such as ‘it wasn’t me who did it’ and I have heard others do likewise. I have also heard people say things like ‘there is a creative force that works through me’, often implying that ‘there is a Creative, aka Divine, Force that works through me’ and the more megalomaniacal even get to think and feel that ‘I am the Creative Force’. There is so much self-indulgent twaddle that has been written about creativity as to make the word creative hackneyed and I was aware of this even in my pre-actualist days.

When I became an actualist I started to become more attentive to my feelings and this included the feelings that were happening when I was trying to mentally conceptualize a design, as well as those feelings that were happening during the putting-it-down-on-paper stage. I started to become attentive to not only the emotional ups and downs that I went through but also to the effect these feelings had on others in my interactions with clients and builders, as well as those most close to me.

Late one night in my first year as an actualist, as I was working on the drawing board, I had a pure conscious experience whereby my mind became aware of itself working. There was apperception happening in that there was no ‘me’ being aware – there was simply the brain being aware of the brain in operation, in this case doing the task of designing a house. The process that was happening was fascinating to observe – there was a continual consideration of the parameters that governed the design: the client’s requirements, past experience, site considerations, planning and building regulations, structural considerations, climate considerations, budget, ease of building, appearance, durability, workability and so on.

There was a repeated shuffling of ideas and information operating – a trial and error process of working out the best solution – and it was magical to observe, even more so because there was awareness of only part of the process that was going on, there was a good deal happening ‘on the back burner’ as it were. Sometimes a particular issue was set aside for a while whilst another issue was addressed and when I returned to it later the best solution came instantaneously which made it apparent that there was an awareness only of the surface activity of the brain in action.

The operation of the human brain is such an exquisite intricacy as to be truly wondrous. With no ‘I’ in the road to agonize over the process, nor a ‘me’ present to either exalt or despair at the outcome, there was simply the brain doing what the brain does – think, plan, reflect, evaluate, compare, compute, assess and mull over, as well as simultaneously being aware that this is what it is doing. And not only that, whilst the brain is being apperceptively aware, it is also serving as the central processing unit for the sensory perceptive system of the body – continually processing the myriad of sensate information that is this flesh and blood body’s sensual sensitivity to whatever is happening in this moment.

In a PCE, it is wondrously apparent that the brain itself is not doing the sensing, it is only interpreting or making sense of the sensory input – and only doing so when and if it is needed to do so. There is an awareness that it is the eyes that are doing the seeing – there is no image of what the eyes are seeing that is transferred to the cerebral brain, there is an awareness that it is the ears that are doing the hearing – there is no sound that is transferred to the cerebral brain, there is an awareness that it is the skin that is doing the feeling and touching – there is no tactile response felt in the cerebral brain … and so on.

In a PCE, the brain, bereft of any illusionary identity together with its associated affective faculty, is incapable of forming mental images or indulging in imaginary scenarios – it is either apperceptively aware that it is involved in doing what it does, thinking and interpreting sensory inputs or it is not, in which case there is no thinking or interpreting going on, simply a sensual awareness of being conscious of being alive.

Now whilst such ‘self’-less experiences of apperception only occur in a PCE, an actualist who has got to the stage of being virtually free of malice and sorrow can operate and function with very little of the debilitating effects of ‘I’ stuffing things up or ‘me’ strutting the stage like some disembodied drama queen in a dream, or a nightmare, of ‘my’ imagination. In virtual freedom it is readily apparent that there is no need to indulge in imaginative fantasies nor to attempt to create mental images – in fact should they occur they are quickly seen for what they are – a pathetic substitute for the sumptuousness of actuality.

To bring this back to the business of being an architect, it means that any attempt on ‘my’ part to form a mental image, either prior to or during the design process, only inhibits the doing of the designing – a practical doing that happens anyway and happens at its very best whenever ‘I’ am absent from the scene.

I don’t know if that answers your question but I had fun writing of my experiences as an actualist. As I said, there is so much twaddle written about so-called creativity that it is good to have some sense written about the actuality of creating something.

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The operation of the human brain is such an exquisite intricacy as to be truly wondrous. With no ‘I’ in the road to agonize over the process, nor a ‘me’ present to either exalt or despair at the outcome, there was simply the brain doing what the brain does – think, plan, reflect, evaluate, compare, compute, assess and mull over, as well as simultaneously being aware that this is what it is doing.

What I was describing was the functioning of the human brain in a pure consciousness experience when ‘I’ am temporarily absent, and as you know, a pure consciousness experience is a rare event. In normal experiencing the ‘‘I’-complex’, to use your words – doesn’t regard itself as the very heart and soul of intelligence, ‘he’ or ‘she’ so totally dominates that there is precious little thinking happening that is not ‘I’ thinking and moreover whatever thinking is happening is most often dominated by ‘my’ feelings. In short, ‘I’ don’t tend to regard myself as being the centre of ‘my’ world, ‘I’ am the centre of my world.

The actualism method is specifically tailored to break down dominance and if the process is allowed to fully run its course self-immolation is the end result.

Yes, but as you know, there is a vast difference between single-mindedly focussing one’s attention on a task and having a ‘self’-less pure consciousness experience, which is what I was talking about.

I don’t want to put a damper on your reflections about the subject but history shows that seeking fulfilment and meaning via the single-minded fixation on artistic, academic, scientific or sporting pursuits is a fickle business. I remember about 10 years ago doing a job when everything went well – not only the design but the building process as well. When it was completed I remember thinking ‘now what’ – this is as good as it gets doing what I do for a living and even if every job was as good as this it was definitely not the meaning of life. I then understood experientially that what I did to make money – what people pretentiously call ‘being creative’ – was no more and no less than what I did to make money, which helped in that it put a final line through the idea that what ‘I’ did for a living was the meaning of life.

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In a separate post you also wrote –

I’m wondering if parts of this experience offer a glimpse of what AF is like.

Is this what is meant by a PCE?

From what you have written, the experience you had sounds very much like a PCE … but only you can be the ultimate judge of the nature of your own experiences. You will find a description of a PCE that served as my touchstone in the actualism process in my journal and Vineeto has catalogued a section on PCEs in the library section of the AF website. For descriptions of what it is like to live actually free of the human condition there is Richard’s Journal.

As you have probably twigged to by now, remembering a PCE is one thing, what you want to do with that memory is yet another.

Yes indeed. Not only does one drift into a bubble of perfection, as you put it, but that character or person who only a moment or so before felt anxious, or annoyed or indifferent or lonely or bored … has disappeared, as though ‘he’ never existed.

Yes. The stand-out qualities of a PCE is both the purity and the perfection of the actual world and the utter sensuousness of the experience affirms that this purity and perfection are innate qualities of the physical universe, i.e. one isn’t swooning around in some aggrandized or altered state in meta-physical imaginary world.

Altered states of consciousness are far more tempting because denial and dissociation are easier options than taking responsibility for actually doing something to bring an end to human malice and sorrow. But when I came across Richard, I had had enough of the duplicity of the spiritual world and I was hooked by Richard’s sincerity and a burning desire to do something meaningful with my life.

Reading and practicing is a good combination.

If you can’t remember having had a PCE in the past, then contemplating on what you are reading may well induce one. What I did was read deliberately looking for the differences between actualism and spiritualism and the resulting realization that everyone has got it 180 degrees will induce a PCE, because one can only fully realize that everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong by being temporarily outside of the human condition.

The most direct way to induce a PCE, of course, is by practicing actualism – asking yourself, each moment again, ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ There will often be serendipitous opportunities occurring when you are not feeling worried, stressed, anxious, annoyed, melancholy or such, when a brief lull can occur in one’s normal ‘self’-centred perception and a sensuous appreciation of the purity and perfection of the actual world seeps in. When this happens you get to directly experience that there are in fact three worlds – an illusionary real world, a delusionary spiritual world and an actual world that is incorruptible in its perfection.

The aim of asking oneself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is to develop a fascination with the immediate-only business of being here. A self’-less sensuous appreciation of being here is often likely to happen when one is not busy with one’s feelings but when one brings one’s fascinated attention to the very surface of the eyeballs as it were, to the very surface of the skin, to the eardrums when hearing, to the nose when smelling, to the taste buds in the mouth when eating or drinking. Whenever a PCE happens you get to directly experience the freedom from the human condition that is being freely offered on the AF website.

I have appreciated your sincerity in our communications – it is an essential attribute that will stand you in good stead in your future reading and practicing.

If you set about questioning and demolishing your spiritual beliefs and begin backing out of the spiritual world there are several things that can happen to you. Some people I know who have had a taste of actualism have backed out of the excesses of following spiritual belief and gone back to being normal in the ‘real’ world again. They have benefited from this as they are more able to cope with the ‘real’ world as they are a bit more sensible and don’t go round with their head stuck in the clouds so much.

Others who have been initially attracted to actualism seem to imagine or feel that by abandoning their cherished spiritual beliefs they will only end up in cold stark reality or even in some sort of hellish realm – the traditional old dualistic thinking whereby the opposite of human morality of good being the human morality of bad, the opposite of the human created grim reality being a human created Greater Reality, the opposite of the human-imagined God being the human imagined Devil, and so on. In order to allay this fear it is vital to remember that what is on offer in actualism is the opportunity to step out of grim reality and its antidotal spiritual unreality and step into the actual world.

Those who are committed actualists are those who have a memory of a pure consciousness experience as a guide or have managed to induce a PCE by their own intensive inquires into the nature of their own psyche and/or the human condition in general. This ‘self’-less experience is what I am referring to when I said ‘a rock-solid sensibleness and sensuous ‘self’-less experiencing of the actual world’. If you haven’t had this experience yet, it will come as an inevitable result of committing yourself 100% to the process of actualism – one cannot demolish one’s social programming without at some stage bringing about a temporary crashing of the whole psychic and psychic faculty leaving only a bare awareness and sensuous delight as one’s experiencing.

The only proviso I would make, and it is an important one, is that it is vital to have substantially eliminated one’s dearly-held spiritual beliefs lest one ends up having an altered state of consciousness experience whereby ‘I’ claim the experience of perfection and purity as ‘mine’, resulting in totally narcissistic feelings of Godliness, divine love, omnipresence, omnipotency and the like.

Some suggestion come to mind as to how to encourage the ‘replacing the fickleness and ‘self’-centredness of ‘my’ normal cerebral and emotional experiencing with a rock-solid sensibleness and sensuous ‘self’-less experiencing of the actual world we humans live in.’

One needs to start to become sensately aware of the physical marvellousness of this planet we live on – the extraordinary abundance and variety of life, the astounding things that human intelligence has fashioned solely from the matter of this planet, the ever-increasing amazing safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure that human beings should now be enjoying instead wasting their time bitching and complaining about life, arguing, competing and fighting with each other, feeling needy and greedy and being sorrowful and miserable.

One needs to crank up wonder and amazement at this physical infinite and eternal universe, whilst being aware not to get into feelings of awe or gratitude. One needs to devote time for sensual contemplation, whilst being aware not to get into self-centred meditation. One needs to really take on board how utterly senseless it is to waste one’s time – meaning this very moment, the only moment you can experience being alive – by feeling miserable, bored, worried, sad, lonely, upset, annoyed, resentful, angry, God-realized, omnipotent, etc., when it has been startlingly obvious to everyone at some stage in their lives what a paradise this actual physical world really is.

Actualism is about being here in this physical sensual paradise where we flesh and blood humans actually live – 180 degrees opposite to the traditional escapism of going ‘there’ to an imaginary metaphysical paradise supposedly peopled by spirits, souls, Gods, Godmen, Goddesses and the like. It takes quite some verve to dismiss all of the traditional wisdom of humanity as tried and failed, decrepit and well passed its used-by-date but a clear-eyed overview of the senseless woes of humanity, both past and present, should leave a reasonably intelligent, caring and concerned person no other option but to take the path never travelled before.

There is a dare in actualism that should prove irresistible to those who feel they have nothing left to lose.

Every PCE has a slightly different flavour and is revealing in different ways, depending on the situation and the circumstances. All PCEs are exemplified by a sensuous sensate-rich 360 degrees awareness of this astounding universe and a total absence of any persona – either a neurotic ‘I’ or an impassioned ‘me’. However, each PCE can bring different realizations as you become more comfortable in the experience and more note-full of the differences between these pure ‘self’-less experiences and one’s normal ‘self’-centred chaotic existence. As such, each and every PCE is a fresh opportunity to glean even more information about these differences by direct experience and when the PCE passes, it is this information that often provides the issue that next needs to be worked on.

Everyone has these ‘self’-less experiences, often very briefly in a moment of utter peacefulness when you suddenly realize the absurdity and futility of the passions and neurosis of the person ‘you’ were, only moments before. It is as though all your worries and passions suddenly fall away and the startling immediacy of the infinitude of the actual paradisiacal world is suddenly right here, right under your nose.

Yep, it is insane to consider that the peace and meaning we humans desperately seek is not in some non-material imaginary spiritual world ‘somewhere else’ but that it exists, and always has existed, right here, under our very noses.

And to round this post up, the PCE confirms the purity and perfection of the actual world is not something Richard has invented or concocted – he was simply the first to discover that one can permanently experience the peace and meaning that is always here, has always been here and always will be here in the actual world. As such, an Actual Freedom from the human condition is available to everyone, as is the method and map of actualism that describes how to get here.

Do I have reasons to doubt Richard as such an extension?

For what it is worth, I can assure you that Richard does in fact exist and he does in fact type all of his words – with two fingers. Richard is not extending himself through his words with some psychic energy if that is what you mean by ‘such an extension’. The words mean what the words mean, i.e. they convey information ... for anyone who is interested. There is no mystical message behind the words or coming through the words or hidden in the words.

There is only a message from some fellow human beings to say you can stop fighting now, the struggle is over. It’s time to step out of the real world, and the spiritual world, and leave your ‘self’ behind where it belongs. It’s time to bail out, desert the ship if you will. We are not saying go back to grim reality, we are saying come here to the actual world.

Every body has had a glimpse of the actual world at sometime in their life. It might just have been a sudden sensation of déja vu – a heightening of the senses when you suddenly become aware of the sensation of the wind on your skin or suddenly become are of the sounds all around you as though the volume was suddenly turned up. During such heightened awareness every thing is perceived as being crystal clear and crisp, as if a veil has been removed.

There is a freshness to everything and everyone, as if you are here for the first time. There is also a friendly familiarity and an immediacy that is a recognition that I, this flesh and blood body, belong in this actual world – whereas ‘he’ or ‘she’ – ‘who’ I thought and felt I was only moments before – can only ever be alien to this actual, physical world. This temporary ‘self’-less sensual experience of perfection and purity is what is known as a pure consciousness experience.

In a ‘self’-less experience there is a comfortable ease and an intimate sensuousness to being here. The experience is sensate-only, sensational in fact – the feel of the air on your skin, the flamboyant colours , the sounds all around you. There is a bare awareness of being here. There is an intimacy with one’s fellow human beings for they are precisely that – fellow human beings. Life in all its forms on this planet becomes fascinating, an inexplicable wonder.

There is a crystal clear clarity, a vibrant physicality to things. Objects are seen to be not passive, dead or dull, for they are all fashioned from the material of the universe and fashioned by the only intelligent life forms in the universe – human beings – and one marvels at the ingenuity of that intelligence. Not only do things become things to wonder at, but everyday events have an unrehearsed spontaneity that is fascinating to be a part of.

It is as though you are suddenly seeing and experiencing the world as it actually is, when there is no ‘me’ to prevent this sensual experiencing from happening. ‘He’ and his worries and moods are left behind as it were, it is as though a burden has been lifted from one’s shoulders, as if one has woken up from a bad dream or nightmare and as though you have entered another dimension – the actual sensate-luxurious world that this world really is.

The ongoing richness of sensate experiencing, be it touching, hearing, seeing, tasting or smelling, confirms the actuality of this world. This universe is perfect, it is incomparable in its majesty, being infinite it is unsurpassable, being eternal it is peerless. Being benign it is faultless, without malice. Being fascinating it is enchanting, without sorrow. It is the ongoing 24 hrs a day, every day, experiencing of the actual world that is on offer on this list, complete with a method to make this possible.

If this is of interest to you, then it pays to read what is written carefully, to make the effort to understand in order that you can take the necessary action such that you can become virtually free of malice and sorrow ... because it is obvious that it is impossible to become actually free from the human condition whilst nursing malice and sorrow in one’s bosom. If one is unwilling to make this level of ‘self’-sacrifice, then forget the whole business.

The process of actualism is pragmatic and down-to-earth and in no way theoretical, imaginary or spirit-ual. Actualism is about becoming happy and harmless in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

I began to see the madness of this two-world view and I began to see that I had been socially conditioned to believe that ‘this was the way it is because this is the way it has always been so this is the way it will always be’. I also began to see that we humans, being an animal species, are genetically programmed by blind nature to instinctually fight it out with each other simply in order that the strongest and most brutish will survive – come what may.

This type of clear-eyed seeing can only occur when ‘I’, with all of my myopic self-centred thoughts and genetically-encoded self-ish feelings, briefly step aside and let thinking happen by itself. These seeings or realizations can build incrementally until a brief spontaneous collapse of the whole construct of one’s ‘self’-centred thinking and feeling can occur. Provided ‘I’ don’t immediately leap in and claim this clear thinking and direct sensate experiencing as ‘mine’, then a pure-conscious, sensate-only experience of the paradisiacal actual world we human beings live in can occur. Richard has coined the term pure consciousness experience, or PCE, for this brief experience of self-lessness in order to make a clear distinction between this pure pristine experience and the spiritual/religious narcissistic Self-centred experience when ‘I’ claim the experience as ‘mine’.

It is this pure consciousness experience, or PCE, that then becomes an actualist’s own touchstone for the work that needs to be done when the temporary experience abates.

The information gleaned from a PCE is invaluable but by no means precious, because the experience is available to everybody and anybody, there being ample evidence that everybody has had at least one PCE at some stage in their life. The common, universal mistake thus far has been to regard these experiences as precious – most usually as a personal sign from some divine entity or life-force especially for ‘me’, typified by the expression the ‘Chosen Ones’ or the feeling ‘I am the One’. It is only by demolishing his or her own spiritual beliefs that an actualist can become sufficiently aware and capable so as to not make a PCE precious or personal.

In a pure consciousness experience, thinking happens by itself, unimpeded by ‘me’, and the world we humans all live in can be clearly experienced and understood for what it is – meaning is unambiguously perceptible in the bountiful pristine sensuousness of the non-inertness of the physical universe. In a PCE, a temporary experience of being free from the human condition, it is clearly seen that it is only ‘I’ who stand in the way of the meaning of life becoming apparent.

There is clearly no place for ‘me’ in the pure and perfect actual physical world for ‘I’, by my very ethereal, non-physical nature, am forever doomed to be an alien, an outsider forever seeking to feel connected to this physical-only world. ‘I’ am also fated to feel an alien from other similarly alien entities and the best ‘I’ can conjure up is a need-felt feeling of love for some or a grandiose feeling of Union with some mythical Whole – none of which can ever satisfy ‘my’ insatiable craving.

The work to be done in a PCE is to root around while clear thinking is happening so as to re-wire one’s brain from the previously entrenched pattern of thoughtless belief. Equally important is to delight in the pure and perfect sensuousness of a PCE so as to fully understand that, while the experience is indeed other-worldly from the world of grim reality, the PCE is in fact a direct sensate-only experience of this actual physical world we humans live in and have always lived in.

It is vital to remember and experience that an actual freedom is not only non-spiritual but it is down-to-earth. It is the very down-to-earth sensuousness experienced in a PCE that prevents an actualist from being sucked into self-delusion or suckered into self-aggrandizement. The information gleaned from a PCE – clear thinking coupled with the magic of sensuous non-affective experiencing – afterwards serves as a touchstone, both as a guiding light and an anchor, throughout the oft alarming and disconcerting process of ‘self’-immolation.

In a pure consciousness experience it is readily apparent that peace on earth already exists and has always existed – it is only ‘me’ who stands in the way. In a PCE, it is clearly seen that ‘I’ am but a social construct, the sum total of all that I have been taught to believe by my parents and peers – which in turn was passed on to them by those who were here on the planet before them, and so on, back into the dark mists of time. It is also clearly seen that ‘I’ have also been programmed by blind nature to instinctually fight for ‘my’ survival, come what may. This program is chemical in nature – all of ‘my’ passions and precious feelings are but the result of the flow of hormonal substances through this flesh and blood body, which are then inevitably interpreted as a feeling instinctual ‘me’.

This ‘me’ is no ordinary chimera, for its roots lies deep within and its elimination requires far, far more than a mere change of identity – it requires the extinction of all of one’s instinctual identity. This instinctual identity is brute animal in nature and its elimination requires nerves of steel lest one does only half the job and falls for the traditional instinctual trap of transcending the savage beast so as to become a Divine and all-Loving Being.

This is why it is vitally important for an actualist to steadfastly and diligently go about his or her own moment-to-moment, day-to-day, in-the-market-place, business of unearthing and demolishing all skerrick of imbibed belief as well as experientially investigating the direct cause-and-effect role that the instinctual passions have in generating malice and sorrow in one’s own psyche. It is a thrilling investigation that requires only one method – the on-going investigation of one’s own psyche in action.

The sheer power of realizations such as these can lead to feelings of hopelessness and despair which can lead to ‘dark night of the soul’ experiences with their flip side ‘I’ve seen the Light’ experiences. Sometimes the path to freedom can feel like a tightrope walking act as the very ground of one’s social identity and instinctual being starts to shimmer, shake and, sometimes, even disappear temporarily. The cute thing is when it does disappear temporarily, suddenly there is a pure consciousness experience; suddenly all is perfect and pure, pristine and peaceful as the storm of emotions and neuroses that was ‘me’, just a moment ago, disappears.

An actualist needs to experience several PCEs so as to confirm, by direct sensuous experience of the actual world, that it is possible to step out of one’s ‘self’ and live outside of Humanity. As such, these PCEs are the essential guide, fuelling the confidence and pure intent of one’s autonomous pursuit of Actual Freedom.

But given that this is a brand new process it is essential to be wary of the traps of lapsing back into the old spiritual well-worn patterns. Richard pasted a bit out of my journal recently about period I passed through where the lust for power and Guru-ship instinctually kicked in. As I remember it, it was soon after this that I realized that I was in danger of lapsing into being an experience-junkie as is common with spiritual people. I remember going through months and months wanting an experience that would get me out of here, be a sign, or give me relief from boredom, frustration, fear or whatever other feeling was dominant at the time. Pure consciousness experiences are not ‘mine’ to claim, they serve only to be a guide for what is possible 24 hrs. a day, everyday – upon ‘my’ demise. It is the relentless, incessant work done that brings an end to malice and sorrow, not the chasing of experiences or the experience itself. PCEs will sneak up on you anyway, and then the important thing is to mine them for information and to remember the experience afterwards. What I would do is take notes during a PCE to aid my memory afterwards when I returned to ‘normal’ afterwards.

Most, if not all, people have had PCEs in their life but they become quickly forgotten for, being ‘self’-less experiences, they leave no emotional memory. Others quickly possess the experience as there own as their emotions flood in and the experience becomes one of passionate awe and imaginary Oneness, rather than one of fascinating wonder and sensuous intimacy.

Some people have had PCEs after lengthy periods of discussion with Richard or by intently reading his words but then they proceed to dismiss the experience and drop their interest in actualism quickly when they find out that they have to do something. To abandon their cherished beliefs and precious pride, turn around 180 degrees and do some bloody hard work in order to experience the 24 hrs. a day living of it.

This is clear evidence that having and remembering PCEs is vital as a taste of what is possible, but then it is what you do with the knowledge gleaned from the experiences, the amount of work and the intensity of effort that you do between the experiences that frees you from the human condition.

You earn your own freedom and autonomy by your own efforts and pure intent – it would be a perversity if it were any other way.

As a child I was able to see the folly of following One-God religions, if only for the fact that the quandary of which God was the True God and which Gods were false Gods has produced almost continuous religious wars and conflicts. Then I got sucked into following a Godman’s promise of joining a community or Sangha that would bring peace on earth. When the experiment failed, as was inevitable, I began to see that the famed spiritual path was nothing other than olde-time religion.

That quite simple realization, i.e. an acknowledgement of fact that shattered the belief I previously held to be a truth, was sufficient to begin the process of extracting myself from the spiritual world and its blatantly ‘self’-centred beliefs and truths.

Realizations still seem important to me.

The process of actualism is chock-a-block full of realizations. However, it is important to make a distinction between the realizations that happen in the process of actualism and the traditional Spiritual Realizations, which are better termed Revelations.

For an actualist a realization is an acknowledgement of a fact that shatters a belief that was previously held to be a truth.

For a Spiritualist a realization is the emotional embracing of a belief that then serves to obfuscate a fact that he/she did not want to acknowledge.

One of the clearest distinctions between the two is that for an actualist, at some stage, there is a realization that there is no life after death, that the belief is nought but a gigantic multifaceted fairy-story, whereas for a Spiritualist, at some stage, the realization is a heart-felt embrace of the belief in a spirit-world life after death for ‘me’ as a spirit-being, i.e. only ‘my’ body dies and ‘I’ am immortal.

One of the realizations I had recently, after all the business of quitting my job, was that spiritual values, or spiritual-type thinking still has a hold on me. I still have within me, probably from hundreds of thousands of years of conditioning, the tendency to think of myself as a flawed ‘sinner’, which results in considerable ‘self’-castigation and ‘self’-loathing. I thought I saw this rather clearly in operation when I was filled with ‘self’-recriminations and ‘self’-criticism after leaving the job. I measure myself to an impossible standard of perfection, and naturally do not measure up and then berate myself most strenuously. I literally flagellate myself. It is, I think, a hangover from my spiritual days. It is form of behaviour which characterizes spiritual believers who blame themselves when they do not measure up to the impossible standards of their chosen spiritual teachings. I observed myself doing the same thing with actualism. Turning it into some kind of Almighty system that I had to measure myself against, and then berating myself because I didn’t measure up. It is something that was quite literally operating in my own psyche and not something that I have picked up from actualism. This is, I think an important insight, and I have caught myself up to the same shenanigans from time to time since then and I am quicker on the uptake this time. So, I think I am still extricating myself from the spiritual world, even though I do not hold any blatant spiritual beliefs, I do still have spiritual-like thinking and behaviour which causes me to berate myself mercilessly. I’m about sick of it and want something better for myself.

I can assure you that what you are going through is par for the course for an actualist. It is not something I have written about much but it is something that everyone will go through in one way or another. I saw myself as being so perverse that I would never entertain doubt in all my spiritual years, turning a blind eye to all sorts of shenanigans and skulduggeries, and yet here I was, not prepared to give my all to becoming happy and harmless. I eventually came to recognize what an extraordinary level of gullibility is required to be a spiritual believer and what an extraordinary level of naiveté is required in order to deliberately set upon a course that leads to ‘self’-immolation. Always the memory of the potential of what is humanly possible – as I know from a pure consciousness experience – would serve to lift me out of any downward spirals.

The only solution to being continually consumed by these entrenched feelings is to make your own pure consciousness experience your focus, your objective. This way any dodgy comparison, insidious feelings of guilt and doubt and impractical notions of perfection are all seen for what they are – ‘me’ raising all sorts of objections to ‘my’ demise.

It is as though you attach a rope or mental thread to your PCE and use it as a guide to what is your touchstone or loadstar – the exemplary innocence of a ‘self’-less experience.

Until you are actually free from the human condition, the living of a pure consciousness experience 24 hrs. a day, everyday is ‘your’ goal, ‘your’ measure, ‘your’ standard ... and ‘your’ business to do.

This is what makes actualism – the business of becoming free of the human condition – the adventure of a lifetime.

I read with interest your description of your spiritual awakening on your web-site and was taken by your very precise description. Few who have had these experiences are willing to be honest about what actually happens. I suspect it serves them better not to expose the fact that ‘I’ the self lives on through the experience to become ‘Me’ the Self who is both messenger and saviour. What saved me from this delusion was an experience I had where, like you, I had a glimpse of the perfection and purity of the physical universe, the infinitude, the sparkling paradise we live in as human beings. But, and I had a ‘but’ and I have written about it in my journal of the time:

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

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

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

Most, if not all, people have had PCEs in their life but they become quickly forgotten for, being ‘self’-less experiences, they leave no emotional memory. Others quickly possess the experience as there own as their emotions flood in and the experience becomes one of passionate awe and imaginary Oneness, rather than one of fascinating wonder and sensuous intimacy.

So we could well say it is vitally important to remember the exact nature of pure consciousness experiences for they are vibrant experiences of the pure and sensuous nature of ‘self’-lessness. The traditional mischief has been to claim these experiences as ‘mine’, either sometime during the experience or immediately afterwards, which is exactly what all spiritual seekers have been trained to do. Even without this spiritual intent fear can well up, the passionate instincts of survival can automatically kick in and the instinctual lust for power and immortality can completely take over – giving rise to the ‘I am God’ or the ‘God and I are best mates’ syndromes. Once you know the dangers to be avoided, and maybe even had a taste of them, the next times you are able to check out what is happening during the experience, as in checking out for any emotions or identity present. This should be a relatively simple task for you because, by having the benefit of having read and understood so much about the spiritual imperative, you are forewarned of the instinctual lures that have seduced past seekers of freedom, peace and happiness.

One PCE in 1976 which lasted for a few hours was actually ‘only’ tantalizing Enlightenment... Divine Love. An extraordinary and powerful phantom that only fades to nothing but memories.

For an actualist is it essential, vital and critical to make the distinction between an ASC and a PCE. If you had an experience that was ‘tantalizing Enlightenment’ , it was an ASC – an Altered State of Consciousness – whereby one’s consciousness or identity shifts to becoming the feeling experience of the universe, thus one feels Love, Divinity, Wholeness, Unity – one feels oneself to be Godly. This is most definitely not a PCE – a Pure Consciousness Experience. The only similarity is that one gets a glimpse of something other than the real world – in an ASC one gets to see a golden, glowing, self-fulfilling and self-aggrandizing dream world with you at the centre of it all. All seems an illusion including one’s body, as the heart literally bulges from the chest and poetic and loving thoughts surge through one’s brain. Yea, I’ve been there and done that, and it sucks. What alarmed me most was that I would end up yet another God-man which is the inevitable result of becoming Enlightened.

I particularly liked the way Richard explained AF as being like a blind man who has his other senses heightened... as if our energy is concentrated when appropriately focused or perhaps when our inner conflicts are not allowed to detract from the purity of the moment...???

My experience of the sensate-only experience of the PCE is that there is no psychological or psychic entity whatsoever inside this flesh and blood body. There is no ‘I’ being ‘focused’ or thinking rightly or concentrating on the senses. There is no inner conflict for there is no ‘inner’ at all. With no ‘inner’ there is then no ‘outside’ to experience as feeling separate from or feeling at-one with. All affective, self-centred feeling disappears as if by magic as do all self-centred neurotic thoughts. One is able to think, and my thoughts are usually one of amazement at the physical, magical fairy-tale like universe. The contemplation upon the fact that we sit somewhere on of a huge lump of rock that hurtles through space orbiting around a sun that gives life to plants and animals, that there are cycles like days, seasons, tides, life-cycles, that there are land masses, oceans, mountains, rivers, snow, rain, that the universe is infinite and eternal and that it is all happening right here, in this very moment. The senses are literally on stalks, imbibing the sensory input from all that is happening around – and we can see it, smell it, hear it taste it and touch it and we are made of the same stuff as all around. There is no separateness, rather one is directly and sensually intimate with everyone and everything. In the PCE one is literally the universe experiencing itself as a human being for there is no self, and definitely no Self, as an entity inside the body affectively experiencing an outer world – let alone passionately imagining an inner world.

The other thing that is startlingly obvious in a PCE is that amidst this always present perfection and purity of the actual world, the human species battle it out with each other to the point of waging horrendous wars, resent having to be here at all and are generally miserable to the point of depression.

When I met Richard I decided to devote my life to the eradication of the Human Condition within me. I wanted to live the experience of the PCE – the self-less state of purity and perfection – 24hrs. a day every day. So, I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck into the doing of it. It was so liberating to be able to do something about myself and my behaviour and not allow myself to be blindly led, not to believe what others told me was true, not to merely do what everyone else was doing simply because everyone else was doing it, not to keep doing things that didn’t work and not to be automatically driven and run by my instinctual passions. To become incrementally free of the Human Condition. The amazing thing about the doing of becoming actually free from malice and sorrow is that one becomes more happy and more harmless on the way. And one literally comes to one’s senses such that the senses do become heightened, one thinks less neurotic thoughts and feels less passionately driven by one’s instinctual drives. It is a win, win and more win situation on the path to actual freedom.

In those three years, for me, thinking was everything I could do. It was as if I was standing in the middle of a landscape, the Land of Thinking. I could only see land as far as my eye could reach. By thinking about thinking, I started to see that the Land of Thinking has clear borders. That land suddenly became a small island in the middle of an endless sea. This happened one week ago. The experience is extremely frightening and at the same time, it fills me with bliss that I have never experienced before. I went beyond the island that I knew, and discovered that I could still see everything very clear, better than clear, much much better than clear. I spend hours and hours looking from this endless unimaginable sea of clarity.

The experience you describe could well have been what is known as a pure consciousness experience (PCE). Everybody has had a PCE sometime in their life where, for a brief period, one magically finds oneself in a ‘self’-less state of sensate-only experiencing and the perfection and purity of the actual world – the fairy-tale like physical universe – becomes stunningly apparent.

The PCE offers a glimpse or window out from the ‘real’ world everyone is born into (and therefore assumes to be all there is), and one suddenly finds oneself in the unimaginable, magical, fairytale-like actual world.

The PCE is a sensuous, sensate-only ‘self’-less experience of the perfection and purity of the actual universe. There is no ‘self’ as an interpreter, censor or spoiler. All is directly evidenced by the physical senses to be pure, perfect, delightful. One’s intelligence is freed of any emotions and affective feelings – thinking becomes benign, clear and concise – free of malice and sorrow. The already-existing innate purity and perfection that becomes stunningly apparent in this ‘self’-less state instantly renders redundant the need for any morals, ethics or any kind of ‘self’-control. With awareness and intelligence operating totally freed from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow, ‘I’ can then be clearly seen for what ‘I’ am – an alien psychological and psychic entity dwelling within this flesh and blood body.

This physical universe is seen to be already perfect and it is obvious that it is only what goes on in human heads and hearts – the dis-ease called the Human Condition, manifest in each of us as a separate, personal ‘self’ – that is the cause of the appalling human malice and sorrow. What has always been avoided up until now is the fact that the affective instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow – the loves and loyalties, impulses and urges, ideals and beliefs that human beings are willing and eager to fight and kill for, or to suffer and die for. One’s own ‘self’-inflicted problems lie in the feelings and emotions that arise from the animal instinctual passions – and the PCE experientially confirms this fact.

The ‘self’-less state of the PCE is, however, commonly distorted or tainted by cultural or religious teachings into what is known as a Satori or Samadhi in Eastern religions, or an epiphany or revelation in Western religions. A pure consciousness experience is thus perverted into an altered state of consciousness as the ‘self’ claims the PCE as its very own. In pantheistic Eastern Religions one has a glimpse of being God personified, as an Awakened One or an Enlightened Being, whereas in monotheistic Western religions one has a glimpse of being in the presence of God, as a messenger, prophet or Son of God. All this misinterpretation and misappropriation of the pure consciousness experience is fuelled by ancient belief and wisdom and the passionate instinctual narcissism of the ‘self’. The chance to feel that one is a God-on-Earth is the seductive, seemingly irresistible lure that fuels Eastern religious belief.

A pure consciousness experience, if untainted by spiritual belief, is a different kettle of fish. It points to a different dimension and a different possibility for those who are less gullible and more aware than spiritual believers.

Earlier I heard Andrew speaking about the fact that ‘there is only one’. I always found this very inspiring and poetic. I thought he meant that you should not wait for others to become enlightened first. Somebody must be the example, somebody must make that leap, why not you? I don’t think that I misunderstood him, but now that I see this other perspective I see that he wasn’t speaking in a poetic or metaphorical way at all. He was speaking very literally. There are literally no others!!! That is the shocking conclusion that I draw since I see that other perspective: I did not know that the secret is so incredibly big!!!!! I did not know that I am literally completely alone. I see all the people, I see that secret and realize that I am completely alone.

The feeling that ‘there is only one’ or ‘there are literally no others’ is but a feeling – an affective interpretation of the actual experience of no separation that is startlingly apparent in a PCE when the ‘self’ is temporarily absent. The aching feeling of separation arises from the fact that there are 6 billion human beings on the planet, each with a separate ‘self’, engaged in a grim and desperate instinctual battle for survival. There are also those few who have induced in themselves an altered state of consciousness whereby they have adopted a new identity – a higher ‘Self’ passionately deluded into ‘being’ Oneness. For these few unfortunates, and their followers, the feeling of aloneness is simply replaced by a feeling of Oneness. A sensible, modern aspiration is to be free of the Human Condition in total, both aloneness and Oneness, both illusion and delusion – and an unadulterated pure consciousness experience is the proof that this is possible.

I find reality as I thought it was very flimsy, a small island in an endless sea, but in no way an illusion. So I agree with No. 00 that there is something to say about how we conceive of life, it is very flimsy.

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

*

Do more people have this experience? From the perspective of the little island, the truth seems a mental illness, it really frightens me to death. The past days the idea of a mental illness pops up when I REMEMBER my experience. But from the perspective of the endless sea, the life on the little island seems a dream. Often I read and heard what people like Andrew and J. Krishnamurti said about this dream. I thought they spoke in a metaphorical or poetic way, now that I see that it is literally a dream, everything is completely inside out and upside down.

Indeed, an altered state of consciousness is a mental affliction, albeit very fashionable and much sought after. The very idea that this wondrous, eternal and infinite universe was created or is maintained by a God or is some sort of illusion of God’s or human’s consciousness is nothing other than ancient mythical fables – an imaginary fear-ridden fantasy arising from primitive ignorance. To actively maintain these myths is to deny both fact and intelligence, and to actively aspire to be God or to realize God-consciousness is to court mental illness. An altered state of consciousness such as enlightenment is a mental aberration and an affront to intelligence. The spiritual world is a world of institutionalized insanity.

There is a way out of this madness and that is to actively pursue a pure consciousness experience (PCE) and have the courage to turn one’s back on the delusion of an altered state of consciousness (ASC).

The pure consciousness experience that I remembered that drove the wedge between the actual world and the spiritual world happened to me some 15 years ago, curiously while I was on the spiritual path, some fourteen years ago. I had arranged with my partner at the time to spend a weekend in a holiday house by the foreshore of a large salt-water lake. We arranged a comfortable picnic spot by the lake and, as I strolled off by myself, a pure consciousness experience crept up on me. I remember walking in the shallow water and marvelling at my magical fairy-tale-like surroundings. A vast blue sky overhead with an ever-changing array of wispy white clouds. The sun glistens on the tiny ripples of water washing gently over my feet. The sensual feel of the mud oozing between my toes as they sink into the muddy beach. Huge pelicans glide overhead and I liken them to the jumbo jets of the bird world as they come in to land on the water some distance out. The sun on my skin is warming me through and through, the breeze is ruffling my hair and tingling my forearms, and the water is cooling on my feet. It is so good to be alive, my senses bristling and everything is perfect. Absolutely no objections to being here – pure delight!

After a while I turn to my partner who is sitting in the shade beneath a wonderfully gnarled and ancient tree on the lake’s edge. There sits a fellow human being to whom I have no ‘relationship’. Any past or future disappears; she and I are simply here together, experiencing these perfect moments. The past five years that I have known her, with all the memories of good and bad times, simply do not exist. It is just delightful that she is here with me, and I do not even have any thoughts of ‘our’ future. In short, everything is perfect, always has been, and always will be. It is an experience of actual freedom where I, as this body only, am able to experience with my physical senses the perfection and purity of the physical universe, free of the psychological and psychic entity within. And also free of the delusion that it is all the work of some mythical maker to whom I owe gratitude for my being here. I am actually here, in the physical universe and enjoying every moment of it.

It was the memory of this pure consciousness experience that was later to be the driving force to wanting to experience this actual perfection and purity 24 hrs. a day, every day. For this to happen there must be the death or extinction of both ego and soul – the illusionary entity in its entirety, both one’s real world identity and one’s much prized and much praised spiritual identity. It’s a tough call to be a pioneer and break from tradition, but the spiritual world is such a wank and I highly recommend becoming free of being a spiritual identity.

So No. 1, I am not denying the validity of your experience. I am simply pointing to a sensible and vital interpretation that is not influenced by ancient ignorance and dour religion and philosophy, particularly that of the Eastern ‘spiritual’ variety that is currently fashionable amongst even the most genuine seekers of freedom.

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

If you can recall having a pure consciousness experience you would remember that there is not a skerrick of rigid religiosity nor slippery spirituality in it at all. It is an experience where there is no psychological or psychic entity whatsoever present in the flesh and blood body. There is no ‘I’ to feel glorious, to feel Oneness, to feel Divine, to feel Whole. There is no Love, God, Essence, Source, etc. that is the grand reason, plan, creation, essence, energy, life-force, etc. that gives the psychic entity in the body a grand and glorious place or part to play. In the pure consciousness experience there is no affective faculty, nor any capacity for imagination in operation. So vast, so perfect and so pure is this physical universe directly experienced by the body’s physical senses that the immediate becomes vibrant, alive, sensuous, tactile and actual. There is no feeling of separation, nor any feeling of unity for it is obvious and apparent that I am this body, made of the same stuff of the universe, live cells made from the union of sperm and egg, sustained by eating the stuff of the earth, swimming in and breathing the air of the earth, surrounded by stuff made from the earth – and when this body dies the stuff left goes back to the earth. Finish, kaput, finito, gone, extinct, stuffed, no more. Perfect.

Because a pure consciousness experience is a temporary ‘self’-less experience with no emotions or feelings operating whatsoever there is no emotional memory of the experience afterwards. As such it can be lost in the memory or can easily be dismissed as an aberration and not taken for what it is.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for anyone who discovers the utter simplicity of the ‘PCE’ is to remain humble, to realize that, for all the ‘malice and sorrow’ that has been waged in the name of religion, at the heart of each tradition is a vast body of REAL wisdom about not only the ultimate fact of our essential non-dual nature, but about how a human being can come to realize and ultimately express that nature as themselves – an area about which all but those few perfected beings among us still have much to learn.

Anyone who has experienced a pure consciousness experience will know that there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ to be either proud or humble. There is nothing but an overwhelming sensuousness, an astounding clarity of thought, a glaring obviousness and a sheer delight at being the physical universe experiencing itself as a flesh and blood human being. Pride and humility, good and evil, right and wrong, illusion or delusion, spirits and other worlds and spiritual searches are all seen as human inventions of ‘me’, the alien entity.. What is clearly seen is that human beings are still involved in a grim and desperate battle for survival fought out either covertly or overtly. The spiritual search, spiritual wisdom and all meta-physical ideas are clearly seen as escapist nonsense. With the knowledge gleaned from this ‘self’-less clarity, when one returns to normal one merrily sets about the task of ‘self’-immolation in order to live the pure consciousness experience 24 hrs’ a day, every day.

The actual becomes the seduction, not the synthetic.

If you mean by ‘ we’ve all had this experience of getting out of our own way ’, that we have all had a pure consciousness experience where ‘I’ as thinker and ‘me’ as feeler was temporarily absent and a direct, unfiltered experience of this extraordinary physical actual universe became apparent, then I would agree with you.

However, most people usually forget these ‘self’-less pure experiences immediately after, or too easily dismiss them, because there is no affective feeling ‘me’ present at the time and ‘I’ therefore have no affective memory of the experience afterwards. On the other hand, what is most common is that sometime during a pure consciousness experience, or immediately thereafter, ‘I’ jump in and claim the experience as ‘mine’. Thus, instead of this flesh and blood body only having a direct sensate experience of the infinite and eternal actual universe, ‘I’ feel as though ‘I’ am eternal, infinite, timeless and spaceless – which is to feel like God, for one seems to be omnipresent, omni-powerful and immortal. This is the mightily ‘self’-aggrandized feeling state known as an Altered State of Consciousness and has proved irresistible to the seeker of freedom, peace and happiness ... up until now.

But the ‘nut has been cracked’, and the sham of an Altered State of Consciousness experience revealed for what it is. A way has now been pioneered to avoid the instinctual ‘self’ making a grab for power and glory during pure consciousness experiences ‘ of getting out of our own way ’ temporarily and eventually to ‘ stay out of the way ’ permanently – i.e. to actively bring about one’s own ‘self’-immolation.

Then one gets to live the pure consciousness experience 24 hrs. a day, every day.

The third alternative to being a normal suffering being or a supernormal Being, is to set upon a path of totally eliminating ‘who’ I think and feel I am in order to reveal ‘what I am’ – a free and autonomous, i.e. beholden to no-one, flesh and blood body brimming with sensory receptors that enable a direct sensual intimacy with the physical world, i.e. not in any way separate from actuality.

Everybody has had, at some stage in their lives, temporary experiences of this sensate-only experiencing of actuality whereby this direct sensual intimacy is so paramount that it briefly purges any feeling of separateness. These ‘self’-less pure consciousness experiences far surpass any feelings of Oneness and Godliness generated by the altered state of consciousness experiences so lauded in the spiritual world because they are a sensately-evident experience of the wonder of the perfection and purity of the actual world and not a dream-like ‘self’-centred delusion.

These pure consciousness experiences are often described as nature experiences and I certainly, with hindsight, had quite a few in my ‘normal’ lifetime. There are a number of experiences that stand out in my memory, some of them drug-induced but others that simply happened by themselves. There are memories of particularly intimate moments with other human beings or of particularly friendly, familiar or comfortable places, memories that fuelled my discontent with life as-it-was because they offered the tantalizing evidence that there was more to life than being normal ... or having to become God. These memories stand out as experiences of utter peacefulness and perfection as the utterly sensual delight of being here as a flesh and blood body in this cornucopian paradise temporarily obliterated ‘me’ and ‘my’ petty worries and ‘self’-centred feelings.

A pure consciousness experience is an exceptional experience for two noticeable aspects. Firstly, there is suddenly and clearly no ‘me’ and ‘my’ petty worries and ‘self’-centred feelings existing – the experience is one of a bare and clear consciousness. Secondly, there is suddenly and clearly a noticeably heightened sensate input – the experience is one of a direct and explicit sensuousness. It is as if one is seeing the actuality of things for the first time with a friendly inclusiveness, rather than a fearful guardedness. It is as if one is hearing sounds that were previously muted or non-existent. Touch comes to the fore as the feeling of air, water and objects on one’s skin is felt as a direct and sensual intimacy. Taste becomes distinctive as one savours the delights of food rather than devours it. One becomes effortlessly aware of aromas and smells that only a moment before did not seem to exist.

In a pure consciousness experiences all of this is effortless – it is not contrived, concocted or imagined. While the experience at first can seem otherworldly, it is this heightened sensate experience – the pure sensuous delight of being alive in an obviously physical world – that provides the evidence that a PCE is an explicit and ‘self’-less experience of the actuality of the physical universe we live in and not most definitely a dream-like non-physical other-world.

What I was attempting to convey to No. 4 was that actualism is 180 degrees opposite to spiritualism in that one needs to cultivate and develop a sensate sensual awareness of the physical world we live in rather than turn away from, resent, reject and deny all physicality as is taught in spirituality. This is why I was writing about the importance of cultivating sensualness while demolishing one’s ‘self’, lest one ends up in a stark meaningless reality or a grandiose Greater Reality.

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