Selected Correspondence Peter

Peace-on-Earth

A post came in from No 99 a while ago that I had earmarked to respond to but didn’t get around to. The relevant part of his question was this –

Where does it say that the universe is peaceful and perfect? Is there a mission statement for the universe to only experience being happy and harmless here on earth? If all is the universe, what is all the stuff that actualists are trying to be rid of?

When I sit and pause and look at what is now, I can see everything as what is and then any movement seems to be a subtle shift in view, discernment or preference, or, as I often do, make a stand, draw a line in the sand and attempt to enforce this stance. What I have read from the actualists seems to support the latter.

There seems to be much judgement and condemnation of people and the human condition on this site, which to me, is incongruent and very un-actual, according to your parameters, of what is ‘actual’.

Again, this isn’t to make you wrong, it’s just that it doesn’t make sense to me. What you claim and what you say are incongruent in some areas. No 99, Coffee with Richard 24/4/06

Recently a post came in from No 100 asking very similar questions so I thought to respond to both together –

What is peace-on-earth is already always existing? What does peace on earth mean? What kind of peace? How is it equivalent to saying ‘it is already just here, right now, as it always has been and always will be’ No 100 Naiveté 10/5/06

Whilst I can understand the difficulty that some people have with the notion that peace on earth already exists and has always existed, let alone grasp that this is a fact – and particularly so if they cannot remember having had a pure consciousness experience themselves – this need not be so, particularly in the current times we live in.

One of the most telling examples of the already existing and always existing peace on earth for me was looking at photos and videos taking by human being beings from spacecraft whilst orbiting earth, journeying to and from the moon or even whilst standing on Earth’s moon. I have written of this before to another correspondent –

‘Some of the human beings who have seen the globe of the earth from space have had a perspective of this planet that temporarily did not include borders between warring tribes, conflicts over varying beliefs and the ingrained despair that typifies human habitation on earth. From their perspective, outside of Humanity as it were, the pristine purity and the peerless perfection of this azure planet was startlingly evident, so much so that some even had life-changing religious realizations.

A practicing actualist can also have the similar perspective as did those astronauts of this astounding planet we flesh and blood humans actually live on, whilst also having a down-to-earth overarching perspective of the ‘closed-loop, ‘self’-perpetuating psychic and psychic nightmare’ that is the human condition. This clear-eyed perspective of the disparity between the abundant cornucopia this planet actually is and the grim passionate battle for survival still being waged by its human habitants provides the constant fuel for my drive for an actual freedom from the human condition’. Peter, List AF, No. 23, 7.5.2002

I was so taken by the blue and fluffy white actuality of this planet that for a long time I had a photo of an earthrise taken from the moon’s surface as a desktop image on my computer in order to remind me everyday again of the sheer magnificence of the peerless perfection and peacefulness of this planet.

Of course one does not have to leave the planet or see photos of the planet taken from afar to gain such a perspective or to have such insights – I had a similar experience in the desert one evening whilst watching the red ball of the sun setting over the western horizon only to happen to turn around and be confronted by an equal-in-size red ball of the moon rising over the eastern horizon, directly opposite. It was immediately apparent that this very earth itself was also a similar ball hanging in space and a little reflection revealed that the borders and boundaries, conflicts and chaos, emotional trials and self-centred tribulations on this ball are all human impassioned fabrications. The reason I mention this experience is that this experience in the desert was not a ‘self’-less pure consciousness experience (and nor was it an altered state of consciousness) – it was simply an opportune moment whereby the actuality of the perfection of this physical planet became apparent and obvious.

I have also written of similar experiences in my Journal–

‘I would deliberately take the midnight-to-dawn watch, alone on deck at the helm, while the others slept below. The sky was velvet black, carelessly strewn with a myriad of diamond stars, the moonlight dancing on the dark ocean. The sky was intense, endless in depth; the ocean fluid, also seemingly endless in depth, and I and the boat I was on, insignificant in size and location. The nights were superb; it was a constant pleasure and delight just to be alive – just to be here! These were nights when I understood the vast endlessness of the physical universe and there was no question of a god or an ‘energy’ or a ‘creator’ of any sort. It was all actually sensational – purely of the senses. The warm feel of the tropical air, the salty smell of the ocean, the movement of the boat, the sound of the water on the hull, the delightful feast to the eyes – the vast stillness and purity of it all. I was no-where in particular, a mere speck on the globe of the earth, hanging somewhere in an infinite black space. The days had no names, the hours no numbers, so time had no reference, I was simply here’. Peter’s Journal The Universe.

Many people I have talked to have had comparable experiences or similar insights such as these at some stage in their life whilst sensately experiencing the magnificence of the physical universe but most have affectively interpreted – or misinterpreted – what they are experiencing in exactly the way human beings have always habitually done – by feeling awed (at the work of some mythical Creator), by feeling grateful (to some mythical Creator) or by becoming totally delusional (by feeling that they are at one with the Creator or indeed that they are the Creator himself, herself or itself). When the emotions take hold of the experience in this way what is totally obscured is the actuality of the physical experience itself – a taste of the already and always existing peace on earth.

What I am attempting to point out in this response is that one does not necessarily have to remember having had a PCE to twig to the fact that peace on earth already, always exists – there are a myriad of clues laying all round that allude to this fact – providing one is willing to let go of one’s accrued real-world cynicism or one’s imbibed spiritual-world fantasies that is. And the cute thing is once you start to become aware of these clues, one’s own innate naiveté will be not only rekindled but will begin to blossom … and this will in turn allow for the circumstances to be ripe for a PCE to occur, all by itself as it were.

No 71 to Richard: No mad man would agree that he is mad, non?

Richard: I will first draw your attention to the following (so as to refresh your memory as to just what particular type of crazy person my co-respondent, in all their sincerity, has chosen to pick on):

No 38 to No 60: ‘The man [Richard] is a textbook sociopath’. (Wednesday, 1/02/2006 12:43 PM AEDST).

That term (popularly known as ‘psychopath’) properly refers to a person with an ‘Antisocial Personality Disorder’ who, according to the DSM-IV, is someone who has a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others – as indicated by three, or more, of seven specific criteria – and for whom there is evidence of ‘Conduct Disorder’ (a repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour, in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated, as manifested by the presence of three, or more, of fifteen particular criteria).

Now, whilst copyright regulations preclude me from publicly listing those twenty-two criteria, it would not have taken anyone with access to the internet very long at all to determine for themself that, as it is patently obvious that what [quote] ‘seems’ [endquote] to my co-respondent to be happening most certainly has no existence outside of their intuitive/imaginative facility, their sincerity is indeed entirely misplaced ... yet it would not be at all surprising if it turns out that you did not do such an elementary thing as that before reaching for your keyboard to type out your latest load of hogwash.

No 71 to Richard: Do you talk like this in live interactions as well?

Most probably does, which would explain why no one from his life (other than his two doting sycophants) ever contributes here to confirm their physical witness of his actual caring in the flesh. Not a one? None of his four children or their children, none of his siblings, parents or past companions (even Irene saw thru him) no one? Not one confirmation – after all these years – of his actual intimacy from any of them. Now why do you think that is?

Unlike you, I have no need to resource to speculating and fantasizing as to why this is so.

Firstly, I know by personal experience that none of my children, parents or past companions have any interest in actualism whatsoever ...and why should they be simply because they either knew me in the past or still know of me nowadays?

Secondly, regardless of whether or not they were interested in actualism, why should they bother to write to this mailing list to attest to the degree of my caring, one way or the other, particularly given that anyone who did so would be dismissed by those with an axe to grind as being either ‘doting sycophants’ or lauded as being another person who ‘saw thru him’.

Thirdly, all of those who do know Richard personally and are interested in actualism have reported to me that they have no interest in writing to the mailing list … and why should they, given the handful of flamers who eagerly lurk, ready to pounce on anyone who has anything at all positive to say about actualism, its practitioners or its founder.

My guess is his speech is exactly like his writing, chock full of derision, disparagement, scorn, mockery, disdain, belittlement, vilification, denigration, contempt, castigation, disapprobation, denunciation, condemnation and discrimination (as evidenced by bad-mouthing, backbiting and a whole range of slurs, smears, censures, admonishments, reproaches, reprovals, and so on)’.

Which only goes to show how wrong one can be when one has to resort to guessing what goes on when one hasn’t a clue as to what actually goes on.

And then he plays the martyr, they avoid me because they don’t want to be free of wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression, suicide, like I do? Sickest reasoning I ever heard.

That’s quite a spin you have put on what actually goes on this mailing list – has it escaped your attention that far from avoiding Richard, the vocal minority apparently cannot stop themselves from tapping away at their keyboards so as to pour scorn on those with any interest whatsoever in becoming both happy and harmless? Apparently the status quo reasoning for those staunch defenders of the human condition who take the time to write to this mailing list is that anyone who aims at being happy and harmless is seen as fair game for their cheap pot-shots, derision and scorn.

I have heard it happens to many soldiers after returning from war. They come home with a lopsided view of the human condition as being predominately subject to wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide, so much so some of even DO commit suicide.

And I have personally witnessed that many of those who have never been to war, or have never been directly affected by war, remain so utterly self-centred and selfish that they have no interest whatsoever in doing anything at all about actualizing the already peace existing peace on earth. Even the few who are interested in doing something about the perpetual conflicts that epitomize the human condition on a global, national, tribal, neighbourhood and family level, do nothing other than spend their time and expend their energy blaming others as being responsible and culpable, all the while ignoring their own feelings, their own impulses and inclinations that provide the evidence that deep down they are as mad, as bad and as sad as every other feeling being on the planet … the only difference being one of degree and not of kind.

In Richard’s case he’s working on committing psychological suicide which didn’t work so he ran for the hills.

Yet another example of No 65’s spin on things, yet another spin which has nothing at all to do with the facts of the matter. As you well know by what you read here, Richard did not stop at the traditional death of the ego pulp that has resulted in the folly of men and women swanning around declaring themselves to be the latest saviour of humankind – Richard went all the way and eliminated not only ‘I’ as ego but ‘me’ as soul as well … and far from running for the hills he spends a good deal of time at the computer debunking the falsehoods and fabrications that you and others similarly inclined seem so compelled to keep trotting out.

Yes it truly is fascinating to sit here, and watch human benevolence parade across the screen time and time again only to be countered by His Malcontent dressed up with the glitz of fancy words.

And yet another example that your derogatory repertoire is so uninspired that it rarely rises above the level of the puerile repetitive taunts that can be readily heard in any schoolyard anywhere in the world.

*

About half way through this post I had a phone call from a woman I had never met but had been given my phone number by someone who knew me. She wanted to know if I could help her with some queries she had about a video editing program that I use and I was only too happy to pass on my own knowledge about editing and my own experience in using the program. When I had finished the call and returned to this post I was struck as to how odd it was that I was replying to someone who spends their time sitting at their computer typing out derogatory comments and then sending them to a mailing list specifically set up by some fellow human beings in order to freely pass on their expertise and discuss with others the way and the means of becoming personally free of the human condition of malice and sorrow. The contrast in attitude and motivation between the two communications, being so close together, was and is palpable.

I don’t know what motivates you to do what you do but it obviously involves a good deal of persistent cerebral activity combined with a passionate emotional-intuitive drive in order to come up with all the guesswork, speculation and imaginative scenarios about people, things and events you clearly know nothing about and that are, as a consequence, so far from the facts as to be risible.

Have you not noticed that all the ‘wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence, child abuse, sadness, loneliness, grief, depression and suicide’ in the world are perpetrated by human beings who value their intuition and gut feelings to such an extent that any consideration, let alone an actual caring, for their fellow human beings is nowhere to be seen? Again I don’t know whether you have also noticed but actualism is all about having the intent, each moment again, to not only stop but to become free from this natural predilection of trusting one’s own feelings, thereby giving such credence to them that senselessness prevails. Actualism is about becoming attentive to the full gamut of one’s own feelings, both the so-called good feelings as well as the so-called dark feelings, and this very act of being attentiveness disempowers their invidious influence such that sense and sensuousness can prevail which then frees one to become increasingly able to be more and more harmless and more and more happy each moment again.

And speaking of war, I don’t know whether you are concerned about the current worldwide war but I heard that someone has labelled it ‘The Long War’. I thought it an apt label, for this war will indeed be very, very, very long as it is being fought not so much by armies and not so much by nations but by a plethora of disparate and divergent groups and/or individuals from all cultures and all creeds, all of whom who all have an axe to grind of some sort – in short, any disgruntled youth, no matter what gender, who wants to express their anger can take up any one of a multitude of grievances, causes and/or ideologies, arm themselves with a gun or a bomb, a banner or a keyboard and join in waging war against whomever they currently choose to take a dislike to.

Indeed a little look at history of humankind reveals that the current ‘Long War’ is only the latest episode of what has been and continues to be the ‘Never-Ending War’. In other words, whenever feelings rule the roost, sense flies out the window and human beings continue to find ways to wage war against their fellow human beings in all sorts of ways, both covert and overt, subtle and not so subtle … and not only that, to top it all off, they also passionately feel their antagonism and anger towards their fellow human beings to be righteously justified!

You guys are pathetic. The amount of time and verbage you waste protecting your ‘precious’ self on a list like this is beyond stupid.

I didn’t regard my response as a waste of time at all. By and large I tend to let a good deal of the falsehoods and beat ups that pass for criticism on this list pass me by, but the reason I chose to respond to this comment was that I could succinctly point out that it was false in a single sentence. The rest of the ‘verbage’ was to do with the nature of the cycles of fashions as to what is currently believed to be right and wrong or good and bad.

By the way, if you think I am ‘protecting’, it stands to reason you must feel I am being attacked – the question then would be why correspondents choose to do so on a list specifically set up to discuss the means of actualizing peace on earth.

The thing to remember when humans open their mouths and squawk like plucked chooks – as we inevitable do – is that each of us is responsible for the way in which our correspondent responds back to us.

Whoever told you that this is so? This simply makes no sense at all. Methinks you are taking on a burden if you feel responsible if someone who is having a ‘bad hair day’ chooses to take it out on you, or if you feel responsible when someone who is angry at someone else for some reason takes the opportunity to dump their load on you instead.

I remember particularly becoming aware of this on a building site one day when one of the men was angry at everyone and every thing. It turned out that his anger had nothing to do with anyone or anything on the building site, he was in fact angry at his girlfriend and had come to work pre-primed to be angry.

If we ignore the issues (or questions) brought up for discussion and focus instead on the emotional content in which they are inevitably couched (as the instinctually driven animals we are) and use every opportunity to send out our war cry ‘attack!’ or ‘you are attacking me!’ (as we have done for centuries) we simply reinforce and inflate the very ad hominem attacks one is accusing the other of.

If I can just remind you, this was the comment you made to which I responded –

Top quality gullible, hypnotizable, narcissistic, brown nosed, copy cat stock. I would not be surprised if you are growing a big ol’ granddaddy beard as we speak. Just like Peter did. Ugh.

The reason I replied was to correct the falsehood that I had grown a beard after meeting Richard in order to copy cat him. Not that it would matter one iota if I did, of course – there is much about Richard that I have chosen to emulate given that he is actually free of the human condition.

Growing a beard happens to be not one of the things I copied – provided one is free of thoughtlessly following current fads or fashions, such things are then a matter of personal predilection.

Each is equally responsible for slamming the door on sensible discussion and no lessons learned here are being applied at all.

Again this makes no sense at all as a generalization. By this logic, one should make no distinction between an antagonist and his or her target and by extension no distinction between a perpetrator of violence and his or her victim.

I remember at one stage thinking that I was equally responsible for the ending of my marriage – that I was equally moody, that I was equally withdrawn, that I was often resentful and so on. But I soon came to see that by thinking this I was simply avoiding taking a good hard look at myself such that I made sure that I wasn’t being a contributor to any animosity or angst this time around with my current companion.

In short, the only way ‘I’ can evince change is to take sole responsibility for *my* malice and *my* sorrow.

I am not saying that this is an easy thing to do because putting theory into practice initially proved to be a traumatic event for me, one that I have written about in my journal –

‘Then subtly things began to get a little awkward, which I first attributed to the radical issues we were discussing and my particularly chaotic and nomadic life at the time. But something else was at the root of the problems between us – something else was causing this ‘dis-ease’ I felt.

I found myself continuously bringing up the issue of her not wanting to live with me and would strongly question her motives for wanting to maintain her independence. She was more cautious about what Richard was saying, quite rightly stating that she didn’t want to just take on another set of beliefs, but I took this as stubborn resistance. I began to become jealous of her around other men and of her time when we weren’t together.

We both started to get anxious about meeting times and some misunderstandings occurred because of this. Once I mis-understood something she said, didn’t bother to check, and took it completely the wrong way. By the time a few hours had passed I had made a mountain out of a molehill, interpreted what she had said as her wanting to get out of the relationship, decided this is how women always treated me, and that I wasn’t going to stand for it any more! However, finally I came to my senses, thinking what a good boy I was as I had seen through an old pattern. Little did I know that what I had discovered was to prove to be but the tip of the iceberg.

The final straw came as I waited to meet her one evening and she was late. As the time ticked away, so my mind raced away, and after about thirty minutes I was furious. How could she be late? How could anything else or anyone else be more important in her life than me? As my fury built and built, as my mind churned over countless possibilities as to why she was late, suddenly I began to see the stupidity of it all. Here I was, comfortably sitting at a seaside café, drink in hand, looking at a spectacular sunset on a warm summer’s evening. I’m involved in the adventure of a lifetime, I’ve found out more about what it is to be a human being in the last months than I have in a lifetime, there is this wonderful woman in my life – and I’m being neurotic because she is thirty minutes late! Gradually I came out of it and was able to be where I was, delighting in the balmy evening air and the gaiety of the scene as the last of the beach-goers drifted home. When Vineeto arrived she apologised for being late, and I explained what had happened to me. We had a beach walk, dinner at a nearby restaurant, and tootled home to bed.

Over the next few days something continued to nag me. Why was it that this relationship seemed to be going off the rails? Why were there increasingly misunderstandings, petty conflicts and difficulties? Why was I becoming more and more obsessed about what Vineeto was doing when we weren’t together, and what she was thinking about when we were together? Over the next days I contemplated on what was wrong and suddenly it dawned on me that I was battling her and trying to force my opinions on her. Further, I realised that I had been jealous, possessive, demanding and obsessive with her. And, most appallingly, I saw how when the impossible demands of love are not fulfilled then it can all so quickly turn to disappointment, resentment and eventually hate. It had got to the stage where it was obvious to me that unless I changed my behaviour this relationship was heading exactly the same way as all my previous ones – doomed to failure. This was my last chance and I was watching it wilt away ... and I was actively causing it to happen. At this point I wasn’t interested so much in why I was acting this way, I realised I had to stop!

Armed with the conviction of the blindingly obvious, I confronted Vineeto with the news. I told her I was simply going to stop battling her and acting the way I had been. I remember her response as somewhat bewildered and unbelieving, but then again I knew that at least I had to stop the torment in me. What happened in the ensuing week was quite remarkable. I found that the strength of my intention made me able to completely drop this destructive behaviour. Somehow I knew this was the only course of action I could take to make this relationship work and I knew it was my last chance. If I was going to beat this thing I had to do it now!

A wonderful calmness came over me; no longer was I thinking about Vineeto when we were apart, and when I was with her I was no longer suspicious, doubtful, impatient or moody. I began to accept her as she was. I was no longer driven to change her. This then brought a corresponding ease in myself for I was able just to be me. After all, the only person I can change is me and I was working on exactly that. In the end I had to assume that Vineeto was with me because she wanted to be with me, as simple as that. And I was with her because I wanted to, as simple as that – no conditions other than our agreement to look at anything in the way. Peter’s Journal, Love,  P 41

No 66 and Peter, if your claim is genuine – that actualism is working for you and making you more happy and harmless – then show it by example and correspond accordingly, to your passionate fellow human beings.

The problem with this bit of advice is that you would have me sit back and not respond at all to any falsehoods, untruths, verbal abuse and presumable even physical attacks in order to meet your particular (pacifist?) belief as to what it means to be happy and harmless in practice.

If the majority of your replies are focussed on taking them to task for being ‘who they feel they are’ as though it were a personal fault, you are not only contributing to the ad hominem attacks fully, but you are lying to yourselves and peace on earth is NOT on your agendas.

If the majority of my replies were in this category, you might have a case …. but by far the majority of my posts to this mailing list have been in response to correspondents who have expresses an interested in actualism. In my replies I endeavour to pass on my personal experience of my success in becoming virtually free of malice and sorrow and to correct the usual misconceptions and common misunderstandings that I know by experience inevitably occur in trying to understand and put into practice what actualism is on about.  On the occasions I do respond to ad hominem attacks, I also very often take the opportunity to include some information that may be of use to readers ... which is after all the reason I write. 

None have had anything original to say because all of them desperately cling to the narcissistic feelings that come from over-immersion in spiritual beliefs and none have stayed because in the end they have nothing at all to say about peace on earth.

‘Peace on earth’ is just about the one thing every asshole has an opinion about. Haven’t you noticed?

Yes, I have noticed that every one of my fellow human beings I have met has an opinion about peace on earth when the subject arises. And not only does everyone have an opinion about peace on earth but everyone I have met has an opinion as to whose fault it is that there is no peace on earth … and many are quite acrimonious towards those whose fault they think it is. Some mention that they pray to their God to bring peace on earth, many are quite despairing about the possibility of there ever being peace on earth, whilst still others tell me that they ‘accept’ that human beings are the way they are, because this is the way they have always been, which means that this is the way they always will be.

I for one couldn’t accept any of these opinions because I refused to believe the mother-of-all cynical beliefs, ‘You can’t change human nature’ – that’s why I became an actualist.

In an article by William H. Calvin, entitled ‘The Emergence of Intelligence’, in Scientific American (November 1998), the author expounds on a rather advanced aspect of human intelligence: the ability to engage in advance planning.

From observing documentaries on humans who, due to isolation, still live a primitive hunter-gathering lifestyle, they also engage in planning – they make shelters, they store food, they share workloads, they make tools and weapons, they plan attacks, they organize defences, etc. It is clear that it is human knowledge that has advanced and not human intelligence given that that modern humans still fight and kill each other – ‘excepting they fight with cruise missiles ‘stead of spears’ ... to plagiarize Banjo Patterson.

But the advancement of human knowledge is intelligence, is it not? Again, the first definition of intelligence in my dictionary is:

You seem to be making a somewhat arbitrary distinction between the advancement of knowledge and intelligence. Whereas I see them as the same thing. Using the example that you outline above – humans engaging in extensive defensive preparations, making tools and weapons, etc. – I see that as a definite sign of intelligence, according to the definition of intelligence I have provided.

According to this definition of intelligence human beings have been very intelligent in developing and making weapons. There were three great wars in the last 100 years on the planet, WW1. WW2 and the Cold War. The First World War saw the development and use of poison gas, a way of killing and maiming others, very effectively and at a safe distance. The Second World War saw the development of aerial bombardments, culminating in the fire bombing of cities, Dresden being amongst the first with 800 aircraft used to kill over 35,000 people. This practice culminated in even greater efficiency with 300 planes used to incinerate 120,000 civilians in the Tokyo firestorm raid. Soon after a further refinement in weapon development saw only single planes used, each dropping 27 kilotron atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 105,000 people.

Insatiated by these advancements, weapon development took yet another exponential leap with the development of the Hydrogen bomb, initially some 15 megatons each – 700 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb.

During the Cold War that soon followed WW2, more than 8,000 ICB missiles, mostly armed with multiple hydrogen bomb warheads, were aimed, ready to fire, in an almost-instant preparedness for war. Neither side had any effective defence from such overwhelming destruction and consequently the Americans used the acronym MAD for this war-footing – Mutually Assured Destruction. Far from being dismantled, this weapon system still exists and is still held at minute readiness by both sides.

In only 50 years, the human ‘ability to learn or understand from experience; ability to acquire and retain knowledge’ resulted in a phenomenal development in devising better and more efficient ways to kill other human beings. However, I see no signs of intelligence in any of this appalling suffering. A fiendish cunning, as in malicious intent, is evident in a development from hand to hand, one-on-one combat to the obliteration of whole countries with the press of a button from armchair air-conditioned comfort, but to call this intelligence is to make nonsense of the word.

I am not making a moral or ethical stance in this – it was common sense that Germany and Japan had to be resisted. Armies prepared to fight are as necessary as policeman prepared to shoot to keep the worst excesses of the instinctual passions in check – what humans fondly regard as Civilization is only maintained and sustained at the point of a gun. But a species that gets to the stage of MAD is not intelligent, it is a species driven by senseless passion. To bring a permanent end to this MAD-ness would undoubtedly be a triumph of intelligence over blind passion.

I fail to see that I am making a ‘somewhat arbitrary distinction between the advancement of knowledge and intelligence’. If the advancement of knowledge includes ever efficient and cunning ways to kill and maim other human beings then this is not intelligence in operation but this is simply the cunning exhibited by any animal that stalks and toys with its prey.

If however human beings can ‘learn or understand from experience’ as to what doesn’t work in bringing peace and harmony amongst human beings then maybe, just maybe, they would be willing to try something different which would surely be the intelligent thing to do. I don’t see this as arbitrary, this is surely common sense – the same practical, pragmatic application of intelligent thinking that has resulted in every other advance in human knowledge and betterment of everyday living conditions should be finally be applied to bringing peace to a beleaguered Humanity.

Given that humans still fight and kill each other, we are looking at the instinctual passions in operation, chiefly the savage passions of fear and aggression. The use of tools and weapons is intelligence – the savage passions blindly impel us to engage in aggressive, warlike actions that ultimately destroy us and others. This is what is killing people throughout the world, not intelligence. In a war, nobody really wins.

The use of weapons is essential within the human condition – without armed police and armies; anarchy and barbarism would quickly break out. I am well pleased to live in a country with an effective police force, legal system and punishment system and to live in a country that happens to be on the same side as the current big boys in the battle of the nations for global supremacy. As such I have the luxury of not having to carry weapons myself – I contribute via taxes to pay for others to do my weapon carrying.

But to get back to the main point I am trying to make – why separate the advancement of human knowledge from intelligence?

I am on record as lauding the advancement of human knowledge that has allowed an increasing proportion of the human population to enjoy unprecedented levels of safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure. I simply make a very clear distinction between these practical advancements and the advancements that abet an instinctual MAD-ness on a global scale. In seeing this I was then able to tackle my personal instinctual madness that prevented me from being anything but happy and anything but harmless.

Going back to the making of tools and weapons – these things allowed humans to advance in their societal and cultural development beyond the point of huddling in dark caves, starving for the most part. They have allowed a level of material comfort and ease of living, and I myself am not prepared to hurl all the tools and weapons on the bonfire just because they are also put to destructive uses.

T’will be a long time before the human species hurl their weapons on the bonfire. I simply decided to stop waiting in hope for this impossible fairy tale to come true and decided to take on the realistic proposition of eliminating my own malice and sorrow.

It is true that we each will become free, but only when we graduate. The ‘undergraduate’ always goes through a stage where he believes the curriculum and infrastructure needs changing. It is a great awakening to realize that all is perfect, even these well meaning and painful attempts to alter the ‘status quo’.

Would you tell the children in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Northern Ireland, North Korea, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Eritrea, etc. that they should just realize ‘all is perfect’? This ‘all is perfect’ philosophy was invented in the East by reclusive monks who were provided with money, wealth, food and sustenance by others and then spent all day in sheltered seclusion from the evils of the world looking ‘inside’ for perfection.

This is called denial and dissociation and is now practiced in the West by spiritual seekers who ‘turn off’ their television sets, if they own one, ‘tune out’ from the world of people things and events and ‘tune in’ to an ... ‘individual ‘inner’ reality’ ... to use your words.

It is a wonderful experience to slow the process of thought down enough to break that cycle. You are given an awakening to a new dimension to you very being.

And thus peace on earth – the ending of human malice and sorrow – is willingly and eagerly forfeited for one’s own wonderful thoughtless and impassioned experience of being divine and immortal. Over 160 million human beings were killed by their fellow human beings in wars and an estimated 40 million humans killed themselves in suicides in the last century and those who supposedly are the ‘caring ones’ are beguiled and ensnared by Eastern spirituality and blissful ‘other-worldly’ experiences. To actively practice a so-called attentiveness based on ignoring and denying any feelings of anger and sorrow in oneself is but to turn away and stick one’s head in the clouds. I know what I am speaking about for I know well the seductive wonderful experiences and I know that what I was doing was more and more turning away from, and becoming dissociated from, the world of people things and events.

For peace on earth to be actualized, the spiritual predilection for thoughtless behaviour and impassioned ‘self’-ish feelings must be abandoned and we must now look to a combination of knowledge, experience and technique to tackle the elimination of animal instinctual passions in human beings. This is the challenging pioneering work for those who are willing to put their concern for their fellow human beings above their own innate self-ishness ... or their passionate desire for Self-realization.

stillness,

Gods and God-men, shamans and priests have forever demanded that their followers seek stillness of thought and thinking so as to allow the traditional, much sought after, feelings of fullness, completeness, wholeness, oneness, timelessness and spacelessness to come welling in to fill ‘the void’. In the East millions of monks have isolated themselves from the world and practiced sitting with their eyes closed for hours upon hours as a way to achieve the prized feeling of stillness. From isolation, sensory deprivation and physical pain comes the relief of stillness and, if one is passionate enough, the prize of feeling Fullness.

peace,

Gods and God-men, shamans and priests have forever demanded that their followers abandon any notions of actualizing peace on earth for what they preach is a feeling of ‘inner’ peace as an escape from the necessary suffering and inherent evil of the world and they dangle the alluring promise of an eternal peace after physical death.

It really matters not a fig what the faithful feel or preach, for they are but supporting the religious wars of the Gods and the petty battles of the Gurus. But for someone who is genuinely interested in peace on earth, the true messages of spiritual/ religious teachings are worthy of serious scrutiny rather than blind unquestioning loyalty.

Personally, I enjoy being here and have no problem, should the need arise, in aggressively countering another’s obvious intent to destroy me. Obviously I would do all that was reasonable to avoid being in the situation in the first place, or get out of it with all the cunning I could muster, but if all else fails, to lay down and die for a moral principle is clearly silly.

I notice that you used the word ‘aggressively’ in talking about countering another’s obvious intent to destroy you. So it appears that this is the sticking point: one is still aggressive and falling prey to the instincts, is one not? I have variously tried to imagine what it must be like to be without fear, like Richard. It seems like a mostly futile enterprise, as the fact remains that I am fearful. But I should think that were one without fear, having extirpated the emotional faculty, one would not ‘aggresively’ respond to anything. There would be no need for aggression as intelligence and common sense would guide one as to what to do in any given situation.

Remember that we are talking of a hypothetical situation as I live in a reasonably ‘safe’ village in a ‘civilized’ country and do nothing that would provoke violence in a ‘reasonable’ person. And yet, if I were to be physically threatened I would firstly use whatever cunning I could to escape the situation but, if this failed, I would defend myself aggressively – as in forcefully, vigorously, robustly. If my life was being actually threatened and there was no avenue of escape, it would seem folly to defend myself in any other manner. And the extent and level of aggression would be appropriate to the situation. If it got to the stage of kill or be killed then there is no question as to who should live – the wanton attacker or the innocent victim – and this distinction is upheld in most legal systems.

I used the word aggressively quite deliberately for two reasons –

Firstly to highlight the fact that to be an actualist is to challenge all beliefs, morals, ethics, values, ideals, dreams and psittacisms. Many ‘good’ people hold to the ideal of pacifism – the fantasy that all we need for peace on earth to happen is for everyone to simply stop fighting all at once. These same well-meaning people generally live in countries with a reasonably effective system of armed police and punitive legal systems to maintain law and order and professional, sophisticated armies to defend their borders. In short, they can afford to pay for other human beings to defend them to the point of killing their attackers if necessary – their idealism of non-violence is ultimately based upon paying others to do their killing for them.

The arch-advocate of pacifism, the Dalai Lama, is the theocratic leader of Tibet but, when push came to shove and the Chinese invaded, he chose to take the gold and flee behind the protection of the Indian Army, leaving his people undefended and overrun. The history of human existence has been one of continuous attack and defence, vanquish and surrender, plunder and retribution, vengeance and revenge. In this senseless grim battle of survival the meek and mild are most often the first to suffer, for it is the ruthless and callous who invariably attempt to inherit the earth.

Pacifism is an ideal, a dream, a fantasy that makes no sense in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. I would recommend Richard’s writings on selected topics on the subject of peace as he has more thoroughly researched the subject than I have and has had the direct experience of being in a war. There is no substitute for first-hand direct experience. The Peace chapter in my Journal may also be of interest.

The second reason I used the word aggressive is to indicate that what we are talking of is the elimination of the automatic instinctual imperative that is constantly in operation, or lurking ever-ready to break through, in human beings. This relentless compulsion leads humans to feel fearful even if there is no apparent physical danger, to feel aggressive towards others even if it is not acted out, to be driven to cultivate nurture for those we consider ‘ours’ as a defence against ‘them’ and the evil of a hostile world, and to be blindly driven by avarice, greed and sexual desire even when we have more than sufficient.

In Virtual Freedom all of these instinctual drives are diminished to the point where they can be clearly seen and experienced as not only unnecessary but totally destructive to my peacefulness. Even more significantly, one also becomes aware of how destructive ‘my’ instinctual passions are to those around me and usually to the ones closest to me. This period of almost-elimination of the instinctual passions is quite disconcerting for one is literally letting one’s guard down, without the protective armour of the good or tender passions to shield oneself. One finds oneself actively doing what no one would advise doing – certainly not the spiritual people for they would see me as abandoning God and heading towards immorality and evil, and certainly not the psychiatrists would see me as heading towards irresponsibility and insanity. The guiding light through this period of almost-elimination of the instinctual passions, where ‘I’ increasingly let go of the controls, is always the PCE, where I know by direct experience that the actual world, this physical infinite eternal universe, is perfect and pure and it is only ‘I’ and ‘my’ tender and savage passions who invariably spoil the game of being alive as a flesh and blood body.

When one dares to temporarily let one’s guard down or, to be more accurate, ‘I’ contrive to allow the guard to slip by itself, one discovers that rather than feeling fear there is utter safety in being alive, firmly locked in this moment of time, rather than feeling aggression there is a direct intimacy with all of one’s fellow human beings, rather than being blindly driven to nurture there is a kindly disposition and well-wishing for all of one’s fellow human beings and rather than unremitting desire one discovers one already has whatever one needs. Of course, I am talking of both purity and perfection and for these qualities to be apparent ‘I’ can claim no credit, for these experiences only happen when ‘I’, as a psychological and psychic entity, have melted into the background sufficiently as to be almost non-existent – when ‘I’ have temporarily left the stage, so-to speak. It now only needs ‘my’ finale, ‘my’ swansong to happen for this to be permanent.

When the ‘game is over’, as you put it so well.

My experience with Virtual Freedom is that I will have had sufficient experiences of both purity and perfection such that when ‘my’ demise occurs ‘the fuses will not blow’, I will not have a period of angst such as Richard had when he popped out of his enlightenment delusion and discovered he was in the actual world, and ‘I’ will not re-emerge after the experience as a vainglorious saviour of mankind.

Not that the latter is an option for it would be an affront to both my dignity and intelligence and I could hardly front up to those who know me and say – ‘guess what, I was wrong. There is a God after all ... and I’m It.’

To get back to your point that

There would be no need for aggression as intelligence and common sense would guide one as to what to do in any given situation.

In Virtual Freedom one gets to experientially understand the senselessness of instinctual aggression despite the fact there is still the shadow of ‘me’ lurking around who is ever-ready to re-claim the stage. However, what one increasingly experiences when ‘I’ am almost extinct, is that these blind instinctual reactions become chemical rushes only and more and more lack any emotional or feeling substance. In Virtual Freedom one is virtually harmless.

In a PCE or Actual Freedom there is no ‘me’ as the ever-ready usurper, and intelligence and commonsense operate totally without any restraint and uninhibited by the blind instinctual survival program – as such, innocence, purity and perfection become one’s very nature. Then if aggression is an appropriate response it will appropriately happen of itself, so to speak.

An example of this process of elimination of the instinctual imperative that also comes to mind is the most curious loss of sexual drive that progressively occurred during Virtual Freedom as I explored the true nature of my sexual passions. It was quite bewildering at first, and has taken a good deal of getting used to, but now my sexual play is even more lusty and sensual than when I was a normally inhibited male or a spiritually constrained male with imagination, jealousy and the need for control still operating. Similarly with exploring nurture and debunking love – I now find I am more considerate and caring of others than I ever was.

The commonly held belief is that the excitement and tension that results from instinctual fear is essential to feeling alive and many actively court danger in order to ride the rush of fear. Contrary to this belief, the experience of the near-elimination of instinctual fear allows the thrill of doing what is happening to become increasingly apparent – and this includes doing nothing really well. Again it is universally upheld as a truth that one needs the instinct of aggression, currently manifest in the phrase ‘standing up for my rights’, or else I will be trampled, done in, taken advantage of, etc. What is discovered is quite the opposite, for one increasingly discovers that the actual world is a safe place, brim full of serendipity, delight and wonder.

Whenever the blind animal passions are near-eliminated, or magically fall by the wayside, one always has tantalizing glimpses of what lays beneath – actuality is so much more superior to feelings and imagination for it is actual and effortless as it requires no ‘me’ to be continually maintaining the tender feelings and passions in the face of the savage feelings and passions.

In order to become virtually free, ‘I’ very deliberately get off the stage, and the relief of not having to put on an act is palpable. A leisurely game of delight is increasingly played out before my eyes. In Actual Freedom ‘I’ expire, immolate, die, to let the play be what it actually is – utterly unscripted, uncontrolled, unrehearsed, adlibbed, perfect and pure, moment to moment, right here where I have always been, and as events, people and things are ... right now.

Isn’t that the freedom we all want – to stop having to be a ‘me’, and all it entails?

In a recent post, No 8 wrote –

But the information is fascinating. Seth is no advocate of irresponsibility; he declares you are absolutely responsible for every minuscule event that ever happens to you. The archives of every word he spoke have been stored at Yale University and physicists are studying his probability theory which you can read about in a book titled Bridging Science and Spirituality. ‘The Nature of Personal Reality’ Seth via J. Roberts

In reply, you wrote –

‘I’ll pass No 8, although I did put my foot in my mouth in a post to Gary entitled ‘disembodied morals’.’ Peter to No 8, 24.7.2000

It’s a rather big foot, Peter, and I was wondering if you might like to reply. I called it the ‘sticking point’, because I feel there is a point that most of us get to when we are severely challenged and up against something that refuses to budge. Faced with an adversary who is intent on putting an end to your life at the point of a gun or some other equally potent weapon, it is interesting to speculate as to whether one would respond instinctually with a ‘kill or be killed’ mentality or whether something else would happen, something more akin to intelligence and common sense. Of course, I may be neglecting to recognize that common sense might dictate speedily dispatching the onerous adversary with a well placed shot. A kind of ‘putting him out of his misery’, as it were.

If you would care to respond, you might comment on whether or not you were caught unawares when you responded in that way by saying ‘aggressively’. It was a rather revealing remark, as I think we are all in that boat, unless of course we are in Actual Freedom.

It looks as though we have a crossed-post situation where I have answered most of the points you raised by answering your first post on the subject. At the moment I am quite busy working so I tend to be slow in my responses if the inbox gets full. I also like to respond in reasonable detail to questions raised which was another reason that I was attempting to pass on the longish piece of Sethism that No. 8 posted, but it looks as though my attempt failed. You quoted No 8 –

‘Seth is no advocate of irresponsibility; he declares you are absolutely responsible for every minuscule event that ever happens to you.’ ‘The Nature of Personal Reality’ Seth via J.Roberts

Common to most spiritual/ religious teachings is the moral principle that everyone is responsible for their actions, whereas one only has to take a clear-eyed look at the sacred teachings to discover that this is not so in fact.

In monotheist religions the issue is very clear. There is one God only, usually a creator God, and everyone is ultimately judged by this Big Daddy who offers the carrot of a heavenly after-life, or the stick of a hellish after-life.

This threat of Divine punishment and the promise of Divine reward ultimately means that everyone is responsible only to God for his or her actions and to no-one else. Thus a mythical God becomes one’s ultimate authority and the beleaguered believers dance to the tune of their God as well as His or Her earthly representatives – the Popes, Bishops, priests, Gurus and God-men, pundits, teachers, etc. When my God is ‘The one and only God’ it means that all other Gods are impostors, fakes and competitors, and those who follow other Gods are therefore non-believers, heathens or barbarians.

This battle of the ‘I-am-the-one-and-only’ type Gods has meant that millions upon millions upon millions of impassioned believers have attacked, slaughtered, maimed, killed and tortured other human beings in thousands upon thousands of pogroms, missions, retributions cleansings, wars and crusades, that have gone on for at least 3,500 years of recorded history. This senseless violence, spawned of religious belief, is still on-going with no sign of abating as all the prayers for peace on earth to these self-same mythical Gods have curiously gone unanswered.

In the monotheist system violence and killing is not only condoned as in ‘I’m fighting for God’ or ‘I lay down my life for God’ but it is Glorified in that the very action of killing, or being killed, ‘for God’s sake’ is a guarantee of a glorious redemption and salvation for one’s immortal soul.

This action of deliberately surrendering one’s responsibility is predicated on believing in the ancient ignorant beliefs and superstitions of good and evil spirits, Forces or Beings as the underlying cause of the animal-instinctual savage and tender passions in operation in human beings. As such, to hold any skerrick of belief in any of the ‘I-am-the-one-and-only’ type Gods – by whatever name – is to renounce responsibility for one’s actions and ignore the fact that every flesh and blood human is automatically driven by instinctual animal passions. These passions arise from a genetically-encoded very crude program instilled by ‘blind’ nature purely in order to ensure the survival of the strongest (i.e. most brutish) of the species. Animal ‘evolution’ in action is not a pretty business ...

Last century, when the last world war after the ‘War to end all Wars’ finished and yet another (Cold) War developed with each side playing a game called MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – many people who were desperate for peace on earth turned their backs on Western Religion and adopted Eastern ‘spirituality’ with open-hearts and lofty expectations. Given that any belief demands faith, trust, hope and unquestioning agreement, none bothered to stop and investigate the basic tenets of this ‘spiritual movement’ – Eastern religion and philosophy. The core belief that underpins Eastern religion and philosophy is that ‘who-one-truly-is’ is spirit only and one is most definitely not the body. To sustain this belief one needs to deny the body and its functions, as in ‘I am not the body, I am not the mind’, etc. This belief, if fully indulged, can lead to a state of solipsism:

‘the view or theory that only the self really exists or can be known’ (Oxford dictionary) –

which is the most extreme form of denial, pathological dissociation. This denial represents an abdication of any and all actions that ‘the body’ and ‘the mind’ happen to do for they are not ‘me’, they are but vessels for ‘my’ earthly journey or even ethereal manifestations of the real, substantive ‘Me’. This core belief in the East is most graphically seen in the teachings of Ramesh Balsekar and the wisdom and culture of Zen Buddhism.

A bit from Ramesh Balsekar which you may think of as extreme, but it is nothing other than a ‘tell it like it is’, unambiguous description of the deep-seated belief that ultimately prevents a spiritual believer for taking full responsibility for their malicious and sorrowful words, thoughts, feelings and behaviour –

WIE: Do you mean to say that if an individual acts in a way that ends up hurting another, then the person who did it, or, as you say, the ‘body/mind organism’ who did it, is not responsible?

Balsekar: What I’m saying here is that you know that ‘I’ didn’t do it. I’m not saying I’m not sorry that it hurt someone. The fact that someone was hurt will bring about a feeling of compassion and the feeling of compassion will result in my trying to do whatever I can to assuage the hurt. But there will be no feeling of guilt: I didn’t do it!

The other side of this is that an action happens which the society lauds and gives me a reward for. I’m not saying that happiness will not arise because of the reward. Just as compassion arose because of the hurt, a feeling of satisfaction or happiness may arise because of a reward. But there’ll be no pride.

WIE: But do you literally mean that if I go and hit someone, it’s not me doing it? I just want to get clear about this.

Balsekar: The original fact, the original concept still remains: you hit somebody. The additional concept arises that whatever happens is God’s will, and God’s will with respect to each body/mind organism is the destiny of that body/mind organism.

WIE: So I could just say, ‘Well, it was God’s will that I did that; it’s not my fault.’

Balsekar: Sure. An act happens because it is the destiny of this body/mind organism, and because it is God’s will. And the consequences of that action are also the destiny of that body/ mind organism.’

Interview with Ramesh Balsekar from ‘What is Enlightenment’ magazine, Moksha press.

The most telling expose of Zen Buddhism I have come across can be found here and, in the interests of brevity and non-repetition, I’ll let you follow it up if you are interested.

As a rough rule of thumb it is useful to bear in mind that when Western religions talk of peace they talk of ‘Rest in Peace’ as in peace after death. Peace on earth is usually only referred to when a day of reckoning happens and whichever of the ‘I-am-the-one-and-only’ type Gods returns to earth and saves His people and wipes out rest, usually in some horrific cataclysmic slaughter. When Eastern religions talk of peace they talk of ‘inner’ peace only – retreating ‘in’ to find one’s true self as a way to escape from the suffering of the material physical world. In this scenario earthly existence is seen as suffering, i.e. as earthly suffering is essential and end to it is neither desirable nor possible in this belief -system therefore peace on earth is not on the spiritual agenda. As such, to hold any skerrick of Eastern spiritual belief is to renounce the possibility of peace on earth for the utterly self’-ish feeling of ‘inner’ peace (Nirvana) and the promise of an eternal peace after death (Parinirvana).

Some interesting recent correspondence I had on a spiritual mailing list about spiritual teachings and peace can be found here.

I know that some people regard actualism as an endless repetitive denunciation of religion and spirituality but they miss the point entirely for one cannot begin to come to grips with instinctual aggression, let alone sorrow, while at the same time holding on to any religious/spiritual belief, whether it be Western or Eastern, Earth-bound or inter-Galactic.

Becoming aware of anger in oneself is a great start – acknowledgement is an essential first step in any cure. For those who have trod the Eastern spiritual path this step seems almost an impossibility for they have been so immersed in the practice of denial that the program has become both automatic and overwhelming. Not only did I have to take this step of abandoning the spiritual path, but then I came across the suppressed underlying Western-spiritual feelings of guilt and shame that shrouded, inhibited and crippled my common sense investigations of aggression and anger.

These investigations are not for the faint of heart, but the reward of an actual peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body, is now, for the very first time, alluringly available ... and the tantalizing prospect that this could spread like a chain letter around the world over time is breathtaking in its implications.

I’m writing today to let you know that we’ve decided to make a slight readjustment in the focus of this forum. Our initial aim in hosting this list was to create a forum for readers of our magazine to discuss the various articles and issues raised in the magazine. Although initially the discussion was centred around our issue on gender and enlightenment, gradually it has moved away from a focus on the magazine – a movement which, while perhaps no less interesting, has ultimately taken us away from our original objective of creating a complement to the magazine.

Obviously, there will be some judgment calls. Let’s find out together.

I assume this post is directed to me. Fair enough. I realize I was pushing the envelope to dare to try and talk about how to actualize peace on earth on a spiritual mailing list. Your ruling does add substance to my point that peace on earth is not on the spiritual agenda, a bit less interesting than the main event. I have yet to see it mentioned in any spiritual teaching for all religious belief is concerned either with ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’, ‘inner’ peace or ‘Resting In Peace’, after death.

On another note, I also wanted to (delicately) try to encourage a spirit of brevity in the postings. Let me know if I’m alone in the perception that long-winded waxing, however eloquently delivered, often serves the writer more than the reader. Thanks again for all of your heartfelt participation. Looking forward to a new era of dialogue . . .

Very delicately put. To call a spade a spade, as I like to do, I see that you are saying my posts are spoiling your game, that I am being non-spiritually egotistical, a real pain in the bum and you hope I will go away. Sort of a polite pre-sentence comment prior to cyber-execution?

To avoid vagueness do you have a number-of-words limit per post? It seems a fairer way of avoiding arbitrary judgements based on prejudice.

There are some more posts on the subject of peace on earth that have been sent to me and I will send my responses to you. If the decreed deadline for not talking about peace on earth is ABSOLUTE perhaps you could forward them privately to the individuals concerned to avoid offending any recalcitrant egos or contumacious souls.

Sweden calling! (born Finn though). Just to let you know that my native language isn’t English and that might explain some misspellings and such ... it takes an awful lot of time checking the spelling of every other word. I followed the exchange with you and others even though I didn’t participate actively, I had my hands full just absorbing the extensive mails ... you must have been working long hours to respond to all of the mails ... or maybe you are very connected to the lord above and the divine wisdom just FLOWS through you ... hehe ...

When I reply to someone on the mailing list I always assume I am writing not only to one person but to all on the list – after all, sharing of experiences, discoveries and information is the point of enquiring mailing lists. Mere Guru-bashing is a waste of time and is most usually undertaken by cynical spiritualites or real-world cynics.

My motivation in writing is peace on earth and my main point on this list was to point out that it was not even on the spiritual agenda. So, I do take care in writing and attempt not only to point out what doesn’t work and why, but also to clearly offer a method of discovering an actual down-to-earth freedom rather than the synthetic ‘other’-worldly spiritual freedom that has been the only thing on offer to date.

*

Here’s something for you to sink your teeth in ...

Objections to becoming happy and harmless are par for the course, and beliefs and psittacisms are grist for the mill, for an actualist. If you had visited the Actual Freedom web-site you might have noticed that hundreds of correspondents have written to us, all loudly proclaiming the old way of doing things is best and that the spiritual teachers and the sacred teachings should not and cannot be questioned. It reminds me of that spiritual story of the woman looking outside her hut where there is more light for a needle she has dropped inside in the dark. The current situation is that everyone is looking for peace on earth were billions of people have looked for millennia and a handful of actualists say it’s not over there with the old beliefs or else it would have been found by now. We are saying it is right here but everyone is afraid to leave the crowd of humanity stumbling around in the dark, and mainly for fear of leaving the spiritual crowd.

*

I’m sure that many people would be extremely thrilled to hear about your view, than they would get even more confirmation of the fact that we’re just human animals of flesh and blood and not really responsible for our actions. It’s all chemicals rushing around in the body, we just can’t help but acting upon our instincts.

Are you kidding? No one takes responsibility for their actions anyway and how can they? Have you never experienced being overcome by anger or a jealous rage? Have you never experienced being overcome by sexual lust or swamped by feelings of deep sorrow? Have you never been overcome by fear or felt yourself sinking into a black pit of depression? Have you never felt grief such that it racks your body with pain? These are not experiences human beings can avoid while remaining bound to instinctual animal passions and it is these passions that make the human condition primarily one of malice and sorrow. The only way to become free of this ‘self’-imposed burden is ‘self’-immolation. The noble but ultimately failed idea that we can somehow cling to the tender, good instinctual passions while suppressing or transcending the savage, evil ones has clearly had its day.

It’s time for those who are vitally concerned about peace on earth to take responsibility and stop being contributors to malice and sorrow or becoming an escapist by burying their head in the clouds. But the fact that there is a third alternative is something that no one wants to really hear for to do so, even for a brief flash, would mean that they knew they were settling for second-best by pursuing the spiritual path to a synthetic freedom.

*

The ages-old failure of this withdrawing is that one then becomes even further isolated from one’s fellow human being, even further removed from the sensual delights of the actual sensational physical world and one deliberately turns one’s back on the chance of tackling the task of eliminating the instinctual passions that are the cause of human malice and sorrow. The chance of an actual peace on earth, in this lifetime, as a flesh and blood body only is forfeited for an utterly selfish personal feeling of peace and the fantasy of an ultimate state of peace – after physical death.

I honestly can’t see what you are aiming at in pursuing the question of peace on earth. I personally think that it is on the agenda of many spiritual traditions. Even if it’s not being expressed like; ‘Yes, peace on earth is our goal’.

Are you saying, it’s a ‘secret message’ that’s hidden between the words of all the spiritual texts which say that peace is an inner peace or that peace is only possible only after physical death? Is it another of those things that cannot be spoken or cannot be put into words? Why would the spiritual teachings not explicitly state that their message is peace on earth in this life time and that they have the solution to ending human malice and sorrow on earth?

Real people are killing each other, real people are suffering to the point of killing themselves and you are telling me you ‘think’ it is on the agenda of many spiritual traditions. I went looking into four spiritual teachings in vain when the moderator of the mailing list glibly tried that one on and I haven’t heard from him since; and now you also think it is on the spiritual agenda but it might not be written in plain understandable words. This gooblygook makes any conversation about peace on earth meaningless. Do you blindly trust that it is on the agenda even though it is not put in words or spoken of – in fact when quite the opposite is written?

In my view it’s absolutely clear that Andrew includes peace on earth as a very important goal, the most important goal actually! He usually calls it ‘heaven on earth’ though but I assume there being no wars on this planet in that heavenly existence. The thing is that Andrew and others go much further than ending all wars (if that is what you mean by peace on earth), if we had paradise on earth I would expect that not only did we end all wars but we made possible a new and radically different way of relating to each other so that we could eventually end even most of our minor conflicts etc. The power of LOVE is strong as you know, Peter ... ...

Given your present line of thinking I would assume that you see Andrew Cohen’s spiritual communities as manifestations of this promised ‘heaven on earth’ and a living expression of the power of LOVE. If this is the case he is succeeding where no other Guru has managed to succeed and he then would truly demonstrate that his is the Only Way and he is the True and Pure messenger. Sort of reeks of ‘My God is the only True and Right God’ to me.

By assuming ‘ there being no wars on this planet in that heavenly existence’ I would take it that all the other religions and religious beliefs would have to magically disappear from the face of earth for this to happen. That’s 1600 religions that would have to disappear not to mention all the current crop of NDA awakened ones would all have to agree that Cohenism is the only true and right teaching. Methinks that if you truly believe this is the answer to peace on earth you had better join up and begin converting others from their beliefs.

I realize I was pushing the envelope to dare to try and talk about how to actualize peace on earth on a spiritual mailing list. Your ruling does add substance to my point that peace on earth is not on the spiritual agenda, a bit ‘less interesting’ than the main event. I have yet to see it mentioned in any spiritual teaching for all religious belief is concerned either with ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’, ‘inner’ peace or ‘Resting In Peace’, after death.

Keep reading. It’s definitely out there. See Mahayana Buddhism, Sufism, the writings of Swami Vivekananda, and more recently, the works of my own teacher, Andrew Cohen, which speak extensively about this subject. Visit www.andrewcohen.org for more info.

If you want to make a point of substance and worth, it is of no use to wave your arms and say it’s somewhere ‘out there’. Please provide some evidence to substantiate your claims for saying one thing while doing another – stifling a discussion about peace on earth – does somewhat weaken your stance. However, looking briefly in the directions you indicated I find –

Buddhism’s central tenet is that

• ‘life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering’ – the first and underlying principle of Mr. Siddhartha Gautama’s ‘Four Noble Truths’: Given this ultimately debilitating view of human existence on the planet it is clear that peace on earth is not a part of any Buddhist teachings.

• The second Noble Truth is ‘suffering is a result of one’s desires for pleasure, power, and continued existence’ – no mention of the role of instinctual passions in causing human malice and sorrow.

• The third Noble Truth is ‘in order to stop disappointment and suffering one must stop desiring’, which points to the ages-old practice of denial and renunciation, i.e. a turning away from human malice and sorrow and the physical world.

• The fourth Noble Truth is ‘the way to stop desiring and thus suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path – right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration’ which clearly points to obtaining a feeling of ‘inner’ peace.

Peace in the Buddhist world of fundamental disappointment and suffering is maintained either by keeping one’s inner cool, remaining focused within and being morally and ethically ‘right’ or, for the serious practitioners, finding an sheltered peace by retreating to isolated monasteries or spiritual communities of like-minded people. Nowhere do I find in Buddhist teachings any mention of peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only.

As for Sufism, again one needs to go back to the fundamental principles of the teachings otherwise fashionable fuzziness and spiritual slipperiness can easily fog the investigation –

‘The path (tariqah) begins with repentance. A mystical guide (shaykh, pir) accepts the seeker as disciple (murid), orders him to follow strict ascetic practices, and suggests certain formulas for meditation. It is said that the disciple should be in the hands of the master ‘like a corpse in the hand of the washer.’ The master teaches him constant struggle (the real ‘Holy War’) against the lower soul, often represented as a black dog, which should, however, not be killed but merely tamed and used in the way of God. The mystic dwells in a number of spiritual stations (maqam), which are described in varying sequence, and, after the initial repentance, comprise abstinence, renunciation, and poverty – according to Muhammad’s saying, ‘Poverty is my pride’; poverty was sometimes interpreted as having no interest in anything apart from God, the Rich One, but the concrete meaning of poverty prevailed, which is why the mystic is often denoted as ‘poor,’ fakir or dervish. Patience and gratitude belong to higher stations of the path, and consent is the loving acceptance of every affliction.’ Encyclopedia Britannica

Constant struggle against the lower soul, the ‘black dog’, indicates the ancient idea of evil and darkness as the cause of human malice and sorrow and in no way acknowledges the modern understanding of genetically-encoded instinctual animal passions in humans. The path of constant struggle, repentance, abstinence, renunciation, poverty, patience, gratitude and acceptance of one’s lot in life clearly leads to God and nowhere do I find any mention in Sufism of peace on earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only.

As for the teachings of Swami Vivekananda –

‘Throughout the history of mankind, if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of all great men and women, it is that of faith in themselves. Born with the consciousness that they were to be great, they became great.’ Vivekananda website

In Eastern religion to become great means to become a God-man and the measure of greatness and power is measured by the number of other people he manages to convince of his Godliness. If successful, yet another religion or religious faction is born to add to the plethora of insular and competing religions already on the planet.

‘Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself. But it is better for us that we should know it from the very first. Why should we have all these bitter experiences in order to gain faith in ourselves? We can see that all the difference between man and man is owing to the existence of non-existence of faith in himself. Faith in ourselves will do everything.’ Vivekananda website

This is the superficial argument at the centre of Vedanta – the only reason we feel malicious and sorrowful is that we have yet to realize that we are God. Once we realize we are God, then the bad feelings disappear in a puff of smoke and everything will feel okay. This puerile belief does nothing to address or change the underlying root cause of human malice and sorrow.

‘He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religion said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself. But it is not selfish faith, because the Vedanta, again, is the doctrine of oneness. It means faith in all, because you are all.’ Vivekananda website

In Vedanta it is not selfish to believe you are God-on-earth, ‘because you are all’. As long as you feel and show compassion for those who have not yet realized they are God then one’s exalted position is justified. The Vedanta system did very well in India where thousands would queue for hours to kiss feet the of Ramana Maharshi and worship him as God, but this adoration is usually toned down in the West to a humble form of boot-licking rather than the more traditional feet kissing.

‘Love for yourselves means love for all, love for animals, love for everything, for you are all one. It is the great faith which will make the world better.’ Vivekananda website

This great ideal and faith has failed lamentably to bring anything even remotely resembling peace on earth. It is founded on the fundamental principle that earthly suffering is essential in order to undertake the great search for God-realization – if human beings didn’t fight and suffer then we would have no need for the belief in God or the need to feel we are God. Nowadays we can nip this nonsense in the bud for we now know the root cause of human suffering and go for the jugular rather than wallow in denial and God-inspired fantasies.

‘It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body – to cast it off like a well-worn garment. But I shall not cease to work. I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall come to know that it is one with God’. Vivekananda website

Life and peace after death is clearly indicated as is the continuation of his greatness after death – the longed-for immortality of each God-man’s message that inevitably forms warring and competing religions.

As for the teachings of Andrew Cohen, I ran the search engine through all the writings on his web site and found only four references to peace in all of the writings –

‘Through simply letting everything be as it is, we will experience SPACE – a vast, expansive emptiness where there is deep, deep peace. This is a place where nothing ever happened, a place before the universe was born. When we experience that miraculous depth inside our own self, we recognize who we really are. In this state of deep and profound peace, we experience our True Self.’ Who Am I? & How Shall I Live? © 1998 Moksha Press

He is clearly talking of a feeling of ‘inner’ peace ... a peace ‘inside our own self’.

‘When we ask the question, How shall I live?, we want to know how to be true to our True Self, how to be true to the peace, joy, bliss and perfect contentment that we found in the experience of deep meditation.’ Who Am I? & How Shall I Live? © 1998 Moksha Press

Again, he talks of an ‘inner’ peace such as is ‘found in the experience of deep meditation.’ and not in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are.

‘Spiritual practice done in earnest can bring us to a place where the life that we live, the very human life that we live, is free from fundamental contradiction, a place where our own personality becomes a clear expression of that perfect peace that lies deep within us.’ Who Am I? & How Shall I Live? © 1998 Moksha Press

The place that spiritual practice leads fundamentally ‘is a place where nothing ever happened, a place before the universe was born’ as is evident from the first quotation. By residing in this ‘place’ the spiritual person is then able to cope with all the trials and tribulations, misery and suffering and fundamental contradictions of life in the ‘real’ world by staying isolated in the place of ‘perfect peace that lies deep within us.’

The following quotation does not mention peace but it well illustrates the traditional religious approach to at least feeling peaceful – the best on offer, up to now.

‘Many of my own students, recognizing that a division still existed within them in spite of having experienced a deep penetration into the Absolute, consciously began to embrace a life of renunciation. Endeavouring to face into and come to terms with that division, which was recognized as being the essence of the spiritual predicament, they chose to give up the world for that end alone.’ An Unconditional Relationship To Life© 1995 Moksha Press

The ages-old failure of this withdrawing is that one then becomes even further isolated from one’s fellow human being, even further removed from the sensual delights of the actual sensational physical world and one deliberately turns one’s back on the chance of tackling the task of eliminating the instinctual passions that are the cause of human malice and sorrow. The chance of an actual peace on earth, in this lifetime, as a flesh and blood body only is forfeited for an utterly selfish personal feeling of peace and the fantasy of an ultimate state of peace – after physical death.

Most spiritual people are very happy to question and scrutinize other spiritual teachings and teachers but soon feel mightily offended and attacked when their own beliefs and teacher are questioned and scrutinized. Because of this I have attempted to steer clear of quoting particular teachings and teachers but you did make unsubstantiated claims in your rebuttal of my comment that ‘peace on earth is not on the spiritual agenda’.

I am more than happy to pursue this matter further with you in order to verify the facticity of my statement.

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