So for me, in hindsight, it was apperceptive awareness – the ability of the brain to be aware of itself – that does the job, dismantles and demolishes both the normal and spiritual, both the psychological and psychic entity. When one has a realization about a belief and ‘sees’ the facts there is an actualisation that can occur which is not of ‘my’ doing. In the face of the blinding and glaringly obvious fact, sensible down-to-earth action can ensue. In the spiritual realm, one merely ‘realises’ and takes on board a new belief such as ‘I am really God after-all!’ or ‘I am Immortal – thank God!’ – and non-sensical action inevitably occurs.

Many people who have read a bit of the Actual Freedom writings think that the dismantling of spiritual beliefs is some sort of side issue, or a sort of ‘put down’ as is common in the spiritual world between various teachers and Gurus. This is to miss the essential iconoclastic nature of Actual Freedom. To live in the spiritual world i.e.. to have spiritual beliefs is to be twice removed from the actual world. The spiritual world is an imaginary world that the spirits dwell in. The psychic entity or soul within the flesh and blood body is a ‘spirit’ i.e.. non-actual and metaphysical. The self as soul ‘dwells’ in the spiritual world while the self as ego ‘dwells’ in the normal world.

To be an actual flesh and blood human being is to be without ego or soul – then one can find a personal peace in the actual world, free of the Human Condition.

One other point – No 33 brought into this discussion the idea of a ‘bird’s eye view’. I think that point is relevant here to the general issue of semantics. Tom Nagel, the philosopher, has brought into recent philosophical discussion a distinction of a ‘view from nowhere’ versus ‘what it’s like from the inside’.

Personally I don’t relate to the idea of a bird’s eye view, let alone ‘the distinction of a ‘view from nowhere’ versus ‘what it’s like from the inside’’. When I recalled my first substantive PCE, I wrote about how I experienced the actual world and it was a sensual experience – as ‘down-to-earth’ an experience as you can get.

I remember walking in the shallow water 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! Peter’s Journal Introduction

The relevance of that sort of distinction is to see that from a ‘bird’s eye’ view – my life and all it comprises can be ‘puny’ or ‘pathetic’ – even from the point of view of a PCE, my life in the ‘real’ world can be seen as ‘death-like’ – but it is due to the sheer contrast of perspective – when one resumes life in the ‘real’ world – it just won’t work to see one’s life as ‘pathetic’ or ‘death-like’. From the subjective point of view, people describing your life from the ‘bird’s eye’ view or even the ‘PCE view’ are to be disregarded as irrelevant – or worse, can become a ‘threat’.

The other point that is relevant to your objections is how I experienced other human beings in my PCE – they were fellow human beings.

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, am able to experience with my physical senses the perfection and purity of the 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. Peter’s Journal Introduction

No matter what others read into the actualism writings, the intention of the Actual Freedom website has always been to simply convey information to fellow human beings that it is now possible to become actually free of the human condition. Speaking personally, an integral part of this process of becoming free of the human condition is the essential understanding that we are all fellow human beings and this understanding has always been an undercurrent in my intent in writing to others. Whilst others may instinctively react to what I am saying and feel it to be polarising in some way, what is in fact being offered is information that is invaluable to any of my fellow human beings who wish to become from free of the human condition of malice and sorrow.

No 37 – What I see now is that you have not only applied the word ‘spiritual’ to religious belief, but also to ‘being’ itself. In other words, to ‘be’ is to be ‘spiritual.’ Personally, I think that usage is ripe for misunderstanding.

To No 37 – With regard to my use of the word spiritual, the preceding entry in the glossary may throw some light on the subject, particularly as I did write the glossary sequentially.

spirit — The animating or life-giving principle in humans and animals. This as a disembodied and separate entity esp. regarded as surviving after death; a soul. A supernatural, immaterial, rational or intelligent being, as an angel, demon, fairy, etc. The divine nature or essential power of God, regarded as a creative, animating, or inspiring influence. Oxford Dictionary

Spirit is the basis of the word spiritual and yet many spiritual people, when asked, somehow manage to deny that they believe in spirits or that a spirit lives within them that will be going ‘somewhere’ – after physical death. Religious and spiritual leaders are but the representatives of the good spirits on earth or practice the cultivating of a good spirit within themselves that will then go to the place where all good spirits go. Of course, the good spirits are there to counteract the bad or evil spirits that are deemed to make human beings violent, murderous and sadistic. All this is a gigantic play of the imagination resulting from ancient mythical interpretations. We now know that the ‘evil’ of malice and sorrow is simply an instinctual programming of fear and aggression instilled in all human beings by blind nature in order to ensure the survival of the species The elimination of this ‘evil’ can now be taken out of the hands of priests, gurus and imaginary Gods and put where firmly it belongs. It is now up to each of us to eliminate instinctual fear and aggressions from within ourselves – and with it the complimentary so-called good instincts of nurture and desire.

Those who present themselves as the spokespeople and representatives of the forces of ‘good’ are going to put up a hell of a struggle, such is their vested interest in keeping everyone miserable and dependant. The lure of an Actual Freedom from malice and sorrow will eventually win out for there is nought but purity and perfection, delight and fascination in the experiencing of the actual world. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

No, this doesn’t clarify anything, it just muddies the waters again. It’s another example of the lack of discrimination between: (1) Having spiritual beliefs (eg. belief in a God; belief in an immortal soul; belief in a spirit that is separate from matter, etc); and (2) Having the feeling of ‘being’ or ‘Being’.

Personally I discovered that there was a very close association between spiritualism (as in having spiritual beliefs) and having a feeling of ‘being’ or (as in ‘me’, a non-material entity or spirit, so much so that I very often wrote the word spiritual as spirit-ual in my journal and other early writings so as to emphasize the association of the words spiritual and spirit.

In the discussion between Richard and No 37 it emerged that U.G. Krishnamurti is alleged to be ‘spiritual’ because of (2), not (1).

Yep. In one quote U.G. Krishnamurti clearly makes reference to his ‘state of being’ and in another he defines this state of being as ‘the state of samadhi, sahaja (natural) samadhi’. In other words, he doesn’t hold spiritual beliefs, his has permanently realized a spiritual state of being.

Now once again the distinction is blurred to the point of non-existence.

In the (1) and (2) example you provided, it is an either or situation – one is either spiritual because of the beliefs one holds or one is spiritual because of one’s state of being. Either way, the person is spiritual.

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To No 37 –

spirit — The animating or life-giving principle in humans and animals. This as a disembodied and separate entity esp. regarded as surviving after death; a soul. A supernatural, immaterial, rational or intelligent being, as an angel, demon, fairy, etc. The divine nature or essential power of God, regarded as a creative, animating, or inspiring influence. Oxford Dictionary

Spirit is the basis of the word spiritual and yet many spiritual people, when asked, somehow manage to deny that they believe in spirits or that a spirit lives within them that will be going ‘somewhere’ – after physical death. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

Perhaps they ‘manage to deny’ it because they actually DON’T believe in such things?

In my case I don’t have any spiritual beliefs left due to my own intent to expose my spiritual beliefs but I do acknowledge that ‘I’ am a spirit-like being and will remain so until ‘self’-immolation occurs. Unless I am having a PCE, ‘I’ experience myself as being inside this body, looking out at the outside world through the body’s eyes, hearing through the ears, smelling smells through the nose and so on. There is no question of my not believing ‘I’ am a spirit being – sincere observation reveals that ‘I’ am a non-material entity.

It seems to me that No 37 went to a fair bit of trouble to tease out the two very different ways in which a human being can earn the ‘spiritualist’ label. He suggested that using the same word to describe such different things is begging for misunderstanding, and I agreed with this based on my own experience in discussing these matters with actualists. Unfortunately, you seem to be oblivious to the problems this creates for your readers, and it seems that no amount of discussion will penetrate your head on this issue.

I freely admit that I don’t see this as a problem at all. The best way to get to the bottom of any misunderstanding is to discuss the matter, which is what we are doing. It was only by discussing our misunderstandings that Vineeto and I came to get to the bottom of the issues that stood in the way of us living together in peace and harmony –

‘The collection of beliefs and instincts that are common to all human beings is known as the Human Condition. In undertaking our mutual investigation into what it was that caused the perpetual battle of the sexes that we knew so well, we put any issues that arose ‘on the table’ to discuss them, probe them and make mutual sense of them. By regarding them as the Human Condition, common to all, we were able to largely avoid ‘taking the issue personally’, which had proved the downfall of all previous attempts at discussing sensitive relationship issues.’ Peter’s Journal Living Together

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To No 37 –

Religious and spiritual leaders are but the representatives of the good spirits on earth or practice the cultivating of a good spirit within themselves that will then go to the place where all good spirits go. Of course, the good spirits are there to counteract the bad or evil spirits that are deemed to make human beings violent, murderous and sadistic. All this is a gigantic play of the imagination resulting from ancient mythical interpretations. Actual Freedom Glossary

Sure, and many of us grew out of these fairytales in adolescence, which is why we do not regard ourselves as ‘spiritual’.

And, of course, a good many people were then suckered into the Eastern spiritual fairy tales since it became a fashionable thing to do in the 60’s – myself included.

In the short time that I’ve been posting here, there have been at least half a dozen people who have no apparent ‘spiritual’ beliefs: me, No 58, No 59, No 38, to name a few.

As you know I was a full on-spiritualist for many years but when I started to disentangle myself from these beliefs I was surprised at the extent and the subtlety of the spiritual beliefs I had taken on in my life. And yet none of these beliefs were apparent to me as being beliefs before I started to investigate them – if that is what you mean by ‘no apparent spiritual beliefs’.

No 33 described it well when he said –

I used to think that I didn’t have beliefs and values and controls – that I am a rational person who arrives at conclusions out of reasoning – but I discovered that I do have beliefs and values when I control my internal behaviour (I couldn’t discover them by simply asking ‘what is my belief’ – the inquiry into why I am feeling bad uncovered it). Observations ctd., 19.12.2003

To call any of us ‘spiritual’ (derived from the definition of ‘spirit’ above) is plain ridiculous, and it’s just asking for unnecessary trouble.

I have already explained that I had no trouble at all associating ‘me’ as a spirit being with my spiritual beliefs – indeed it is because ‘I’ am a spirit being that the imaginary freedom to be had in the imaginary spiritual world was so seductive. Curiously enough, understanding this direct association between the words spirit and spiritual proved to be a seminal event in Vineeto understanding the underlying motivating force of spiritual belief which in turn led her to question her own spiritual beliefs.

I am not saying that this would necessarily be the case for everyone for that would be silly – I am simply reporting that the particular association between the words spirit as in spirit being and spiritualism as in having spiritual beliefs, was of significance for me. If you don’t make the same association, then any trouble that arises from it is obviously unnecessary.

On the other hand, if the mere fact of being a ‘feeling being’ is sufficient to warrant the ‘spiritualist’ tag, then spiritualists we all are – regardless of what we do or don’t believe. Is there any possibility of getting some clarity on this issue? What, for instance, is the ‘spiritual’ status of a person who does not believe in any ‘disembodied and separate entity esp. regarded as surviving after death’, or any ‘supernatural, immaterial, rational or intelligent being, as an angel, demon, fairy, etc.’?

I have already laid my cards on the table as to what I mean by the word spiritual – in short, although I have spent years ridding myself of all of my spiritual beliefs, ‘I’ am still a spirit-being until self-immolation happens. (As distinct from UG Krishnamurti who spent years ridding himself of spiritual beliefs until he attained a state of being known as sahaja (natural) samadhi’).

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To No 37 – With the benefit of hindsight, much of my early writing could have been better but as the very act of writing was one of the means I found most effective in beginning to think clearly, it is inevitable that it has occasional flaws and that nowadays I could do better.

Nowadays, I simply don’t have the interest or inclination to re-editing my writing every time someone raises an intellectual or philosophical objection. ...  Peter, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, No 37, 5.4.2004

Yeah, well ... some days clarity and precision are regarded as the hallmarks of actualist writings. Other days clarity and precision are portrayed as unnecessary pandering to a bunch of quibblers, quite beneath you, eh?

The problem with re-editing my writing is that I know I would end up re-writing most of it because I would inevitably write it differently now which means that that the writing would no longer be experiential account. Besides, I would much rather spend my time discussing any objections people may raise as the very act of laying one’s cards on the table and openly discussing and thinking about these matters is the means to clarity. To seek clarity by believing the words of others is to court gullibility. .

I also went on to say this in the piece you snipped –

To No 37 – My writing is experiential in that I write from the experience of being virtually free of malice and sorrow and from the direct understanding of what it is to be free of the human condition based on many pure consciousness experiences of the actual world. As such it will be of interest and use to others who want to know about the nuts and bolts of how to become free of the human condition themselves but one day it will be of only historical interest, as the next generations of actualists will write better, fresher and more concise accounts. Peter, Actual Freedom Mailing List, No 37, 5.4.2004

And yet whilst I am still writing on this mailing list correspondents get to question me on the meaning of words and phrases I have used and are thus able to become clearer about the issues. And if they are so inclined they can even utilize the interactions on this mailing list as an opportunity to understand the their own psyche in operation and thereby gain valuable insights into the human condition.

Good, hey.

At the time of writing there is a handful of others involved, Vineeto included, making their own escape, but everyone has to do it for themselves. I thought a personal account of my journey could be useful to anyone else who wanted to ‘escape’ from malice and sorrow and allow the delights of the actual physical world to become apparent.

It is your own spiritual arrogance that sees the rest of the world (outside of you, Vineeto and a few others) as needing to escape from malice and sorrow.

As there is not a spiritual bone or spirit entity in this body I’ll pass on the spiritual bit. As for arrogance, as I have written many times before I regard it as the height of arrogance to call oneself God and have others as fawning disciples ‘loving’ and worshipping you. That this sick system has prevailed for so long, and has been revered as The Solution to the human dilemma begs the question – Why?

The mind can only endlessly repeat thousand year old arguments. There is nothing new under the sun. It is all a futile exercise like moving furniture around in an empty room.

Anand Deleeto, here he is obviously referring to the Ancient texts and myths. Indeed within the spiritual world there is nothing new under the sun. Rajneesh himself talked endlessly about all sorts of Masters and all sorts of other religions and teachings and was a master at telling old myths, stories and legends

What I am talking of is outside of the spirit-ual world. You see, I am an atheist – I live in the actual world where Good Spirits and Evil Spirits, Gods or Demons simply do not exist. They are but a collective fantasy of the psychic world. These Spirits or ‘energies’ – all generated in the psyche by a fear ridden ‘I’ do not actually exist.

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