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Selected Correspondence Peter Spiritualism
I got the same post from No 7, with nothing attached. I did send a very short reply, which I no longer have, which just said I didn’t think it would be of any use to respond. I also sent in my last post to the group, but it looks like No 7 didn’t like it because he hasn’t posted it. I find the level of disagreement on the list about spiritual matters to be astounding. There are so many conflicting views about how a Enlightened master should be and behave, what is Enlightenment, which teachings to follow, whether to follow the fundamentalist path or the watered down path, whether to retreat from the world or try and be in the world, whether peace and happiness is possible ‘while having a body’, etc. All of this disagreement and conflict is okay as long as it is addressed in terms of ‘I agree but’, or if it is dressed up in loving ‘we are all one’ feelings. As I said in that last post, I am tired of hearing my self speak/write and need to be quiet again. So I won’t be on the group any longer. I don’t feel it does any good anyway. I do not like having to defend anything. Not that I mind being wrong, when I am, it is just contrary to the simple life I live. I wish you well, Peter. Keep on their backs. Even though I disagree with some of what you say I also agree with where you are coming from. I take it that your agreement with ‘where I am coming from’ is based on the only point of agreement that we ever reached in our exchanges. From my first post to the list to No 1 –
From your first post to me –
From that time on you keep insisting, in every way possible, that your awakened viewpoint has nothing to do with the Truth, Ancient Wisdom or Eastern religion. Just be open to the possibility that there is more that you are missing, which I try to do in my own case all the time. I deliberately and with forethought turned my back on the spiritual world but I can see that you are probably too enmeshed and enshrined in it to even consider that there might be a third alternative. I only wrote to the list to let anyone who had doubts about the spiritual path know that there is now a third alternative. Interestingly, this alternative was pioneered by an ex-Enlightened being who managed to extradite himself from spiritual delusion and dared to live in the actual world free of any identity (being, Self, feeling of Oneness, Allness, etc.) whatsoever. I wrote to No 1 about my ‘experiences’ that led me to question the spiritual world, to ‘be open to the possibility that there is more’–
I know very well the possibility I am missing and I am well pleased to have missed it. Somehow the career of a spiritual teacher or God-man never quite suited me. I have enjoyed our exchanges and have taken the opportunity to archive them on the actualism web site as a record of a discussion between an actualist and a spiritualist on the subject of peace on earth.
The next trap I am discovering in this delicate process is then not to fix what I have discovered as true in this moment as necessarily being true in the next. By this I take it that that you are following the spiritual psittacism that one’s life should always remain a continuous search and one should never discover. The only way I am able to enjoy the safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure that I and many others experience is because of the efforts of those humans who have searched, questioned, experimented by trial and error and discovered something. The dissemination and implementation of these human discoveries is exactly what has bought human beings out of the Stone Age. Progress, moving forward, building upon what has gone before, seeking betterment – call it what you will. Why should we adopt a ‘delicate process’ of not fixing on what we have discovered in the search for peace on earth – a way to bring an end to human malice and sorrow. Could it be that the Great One’s don’t really have the answer and are hiding behind their great wisdom of ‘not knowing’ or of ‘knowing something so profound that it cannot be put into words’. These wise men proudly and defiantly proffer their ignorance as wisdom by offering such dimwitticisms as ‘The man that really knows doesn’t speak and the man that speaks doesn’t really know’. There is a lot of puerile nonsense in Eastern ‘wisdom’ and it is rapidly beginning to be exposed as more and more people have unfettered access to the sacred ancient texts. This really is demanding to pull off but being in the company of those who are committed to do it is the most ecstatic and fulfilling human experience I know and in this I have discovered this process actualizes the end of conflict and makes REAL the possibility of peace on Earth. Personally, I found it impossible ‘to pull off’ the idea of not-knowing for I had to suspend commonsense – down-to-earth intelligence as opposed to rational or emotional thinking – and deny all that was actual, as evidenced by the physical senses. Ancient wisdom has it that thinking is the problem simply because they were in ignorance of the fact that it is the instinctual passions, manifest as feelings and emotions, that are the root cause of human malice and sorrow. They got it 180 degrees wrong but it is understandable for way back then they thought the earth was flat and populated by Demons, and the sky above a half-dome, populated by Gods. However, if you have discovered that ‘this process (suspending the belief that I already know what is true) actualizes the end of conflict’ , then no doubt you will be easily able to set aside your feelings of being upset and attacked so that we can continue our discussion about peace on earth. I do like the Internet for the communication is by words and not feelings. Everyone is thus free to make their own judgement based on a sensible evaluation of what is written rather react on the basis of impassioned feelings. Goodness knows, in the good old days I would have been thrown out of the temple and stoned to boot. Personally, I found it such good fun to investigate and explore my beliefs and feelings for therein lay the way to actualize peace on earth – the ending of all belief, illusion and delusion and the extinction of the instinctual passions. It is not easy or comfortable for it does stir up feelings and emotions that most regard as being best left alone but the results are both extraordinary and actual. An actual freedom from instinctual malice and sorrow beats any synthetic feeling of freedom by a country mile.
You are just upset and angry because you haven’t found the peace you’ve been looking for. You don’t want to believe in spirituality anymore for personal reasons and so you are trying hard to make others feel just like you do. It’s very simple. You don’t need to complicate it. Stay in peace. Well, your very first assumption about what I was writing was correct but this assumption about my motives is not. 50-50 is about right for intuition. I was aiming to post a short post for those who dislike words and reading but you have made an assumption about me that is wrong in fact so I will respond. As I have already said, I came to the spiritual path after becoming disillusioned with the ‘real’ world, i.e. I stopped believing in the ‘real’ world any more. One dark night of the soul, I saw that the ‘real world’ was but a nightmare and, as I had been reading my first-ever spiritual book at the time, the idea of a greater Reality seized me in its grip. This process of real world disillusionment and attraction to a greater Reality seems a very common transition from real world to spiritual world – a common story to many seekers. What really got me moving on the search for freedom, peace and happiness was the death of my son, some 10 years later. It was indeed a shocking experience to stand beside my 13-year-old son’s coffin and be confronted by the sight of the dead body of someone so young and so close. Shocking to my very core. It was then that I really determined to find out how to remove the ‘shackles’ that I felt had always bound me, and to experience life free of them before I died. What my son’s death at such a young age did for me was to intensify the sense of urgency to find the meaning of it all – after all, I saw how short life can actually be. Here I was, my father dead, my son dead; I was still alive, in my early forties, and I was obviously living on borrowed time – as I saw it. And I knew that I was not even really living yet – there was fear, hesitancy, and that feeling of invisible shackles from which I yearned to break free. This experience was to prove for me a seminal point – the beginning of my search really. The other relevant point was that I realized that I had discovered nothing that I could reliably and honestly pass on to my children, there was nothing I knew that worked that would definitely make their lives happier or richer. This personal experience gave me the driving force to dare to stop at nothing even, as it subsequently proved necessary, daring to question spirituality, both the teachers and the teachings. As part of this questioning I did pass through a phase of being angry at the teachers for I saw that they were wielding their psychic power to ensnare gullible disciples. This quickly dissipated when I realized that they only had power over me because I had let them have power over me and that the real issue was my susceptibility, gullibility and laziness in wanting to be a follower and a believer and not an explorer and a discoverer. I had a wonderful time in the spiritual world. It was an amazing opportunity to immerse myself totally in the following of a living master and to experience the overwhelming experience of group highs, fervent belief and burning idealism in full flight. It was only by fully immersing myself in and experiencing both the ‘real’ world and ‘spiritual’ world without resorting to resentment, blame, bitterness or cynicism that I was able to remain naïve enough to even consider that there was a third alternative.
I’ve been reading your posts to the list and I do find your arguments very well written and engaging. But with respect to a spiritual inquiry that has the potential for lasting transformation, I find them lacking substance. Yep. They contain no substance that supports spiritual beliefs – quite the contrary. My central tenant is that all religious pursuits aka spiritual enquiry, has failed after 3500 years of intense effort to bring peace on earth – quite the contrary – and surely its time to try something new. In this post you fail to address this issue but raise all sorts of sorts of objections such as style, properness, but not my religion, ... etc. I also find them increasingly troubling. Does this mean that you were troubled by what was written? As in ‘disturbed, upset, worried, disquieted ...’ The reason that I find them lacking substance is that your basic premises are consistently laden with straw men. A straw man argument is one in which the way that you define the argument, what information you include or exclude, enables you to conveniently arrive at a predetermined conclusion. What I consistently find is that your interpretation of various dimensions of the spiritual life allows you quite unfairly to reach troubling conclusions. By crying ‘unfair’ I take it that you believe in the idea of playing fair when it comes to questioning the delicate fragile nature of religious belief. This ideal of ‘I will be tolerant of and not question your beliefs on the proviso that you don’t question mine’ is now firmly set in place as the universal principle of religious tolerance. Religious tolerance is absolutely essential in the real world so as to limit the amount of suspicion and keep a lid on the animosity that results from the many conflicting and competing religions in the world. Most people deem it fair to criticize other religions within the confines of their individual religious group either overtly or covertly by implication, whereas anyone who criticizes their own religious beliefs is deemed to be being unfair. The hypocrisy of the ideal of religious tolerance is legendary. As I am a thorough-going atheist, I have no tolerance whatsoever of any religions or any religious/spiritual beliefs, so crying ‘unfair’ falls on deaf ears. The reason that they are troubling is that they seem very cynical. If you mean ‘disparaging, contemptuous, scornful, sceptical, scoffing, doubting, unbelieving, disbelieving, distrustful, suspicious, misanthropic, critical and sardonic’ then you are spot on. The reason I write unfairly and, as you see it, cynically, is simple – All spiritual belief is based on the concept that human existence on earth is a ‘necessary suffering’ and that ultimate peace and fulfillment lies ‘elsewhere’, after death. This ‘necessary suffering’ is the Human Condition of malice and sorrow and includes wars, murders, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, despair and suicide. Therefore, this cynical belief that this appalling human suffering is ‘necessary’ is actively perpetuated by Eastern spiritual belief, by the God-men and shamans and their followers. With this belief firmly habituated on the planet, and particularly so in the Eastern religions, it is no wonder that human suffering and violence continue to flourish. For example, you write:
Not only is this disrespectful towards individuals who actually did and do have a tremendous amount of true wisdom to offer in the name of the evolutionary potential of our species – i.e. how do I make the right decision as the right time for the right reasons – but it assumes that:
These assumptions do serve your conclusions, but are they true? Firstly ‘you’ can never trust yourself to make the right decision at the right time for the right reasons for one man’s right is another man’s wrong, or woman’s wrong. It becomes a matter of whose opinion you respect, who you feel is right, who you doubt and who you trust, what your ideals are, who speaks to your heart, etc. The whole effort of trying to live unliveable ethics and morals is the cause of so much angst and confusion that it is much better to ditch the lot and decide matters on the basis of what is silly and what is sensible, what works and what doesn’t. This is what I mean by eliminating one’s social identity. Then what remains is the problem and effort of keeping the feelings and emotions that instinctually programmed to automatically arise under control and hidden from view. Better to ditch the lot for these ‘self’-imposed shackles are the very feelings and emotions we yearn to seek freedom from. This is what I mean by ‘self’-immolation. By the way, just to correct your assumptions in the interest of clarity –
The question of whether something is true or false is one that fascinates spiritual seekers for they are obsessed with doing the right thing. I remember watching an interview with a medical researcher and he was questioned about the ethical and moral considerations of implementing the results of the research. He replied that we don’t necessarily do what is the best thing; we have to do what is right thing. Give me a fact any time – you can rely on a fact, there is no doubt, no right and wrong, no good and bad with a fact. A fact is a fact, whether we like it or not, whether we think it is good or bad does not change a fact nor make it magically go away. I might add that, as a celibate yoga fanatic who meditates a lot, it seems that you might be missing what the point of these ‘bizarre practices’ are really all about. What do you mean ‘seems that you might be missing the point.’ Do you doubt your celibacy, yoga, fanaticism or meditation? I know what they are really all about – being anywhere but here and anywhere but now, in the world as-it-is, with people as they are. They are about turning away and tuning in to what is REAL. Given that you believe in the REAL, I fail to see your objection – or are you merely objecting to my ‘unfair’ way of calling a spade a spade. * Another example, your write:
You seem to conclude that the true holy life, in all of its myriad forms, is ‘an act of repressing sensible thought’, based on the assumption that, in the holy life one must deny ‘the actual world as evidenced by the physical senses.’ Yes, there is some weird stuff going on out there that seems all too preoccupied with the task of denying the physical senses, but to therefore conclude that the whole matter of spiritual practice is a repression of sensible thought is rather a selective interpretation of the data. Given that I would include the spiritual practices of meditation, calculated celibacy and meaningful yoga as a turning away from the sensuous delight of the actual world as evidenced by the senses I am at somewhat of a loss as to the point you are making. A common spiritual mantra is ‘you are not the body, you are not the mind’, which sums it all up pretty well I think. You seem to object to the fact that I am making a generalization about the holy life and thus drawing conclusions that you find disturbing. What would be fairer in your eyes would be if I didn’t include the ‘true holy life’ in my conclusions and confined my remarks to what you must consider the ‘false holy life’ . You would prefer me to be selective and exclude your personal beliefs from my presentation of facts ... and then we could sit back and mutually agree that we are right and everyone else is following false beliefs that cause all the countless recriminations, persecutions, vitriolic conflicts and religious wars that are ever ongoing ... Personally, I found it a too troubling business being in the spiritual world. There were too many questions without answers. If you only look at the weird stuff, the shallow, and the corrupt, all sorts of critical conclusions may be drawn. But this has nothing to do with inquiry, or objectivity, and your albeit well-written prose leaves me sensing that you have chosen first your conclusions, then decided to interpret only those spiritual expressions that serve that conclusion. That’s a straw man, Peter. The old ‘straw man’ argument is an oft-used debating method employed in desperation to divert attention from what is being said by objecting to how it is being said. Objective enquiry is a method of avoiding coming to any conclusions and when taken to extremes, as in spiritual enquiry, it leads to the ridiculous business of those who claim to REALLY not know being deemed to have great wisdom. I went in the other direction of subjective investigation – I wanted to explore, investigate, uncover and eliminate everything that prevented me from being happy and harmless. I wanted answers such that would cause an irrevocable change – the ending of malice and sorrow in this flesh and blood body. Again:
You seem to completely miss the point about what these traditions, ancient and in your view antiquated, have to say about illusion. I would offer another definition: Illusion refers to our seemingly endless struggle to want for ourselves, and in so doing not see things clearly as our perception is distorted by this wanting. To state that illusion means that the world materially does not exist is simplistic, though a simplification that is necessary to support your conclusions. That straw man again. You say that ‘Illusion refers to our seemingly endless struggle to want for ourselves, and in so doing not see things clearly as our perception is distorted by this wanting’ . I take it therefore that you do not want to become Enlightened, Awakened, Free or whatever other name the goal of the spiritual search is, or that you do see ‘a spiritual inquiry’ only as a ‘potential for lasting transformation’ for you. In my experience, unless you really want something you will never get it, unless, of course you, believe it is granted by the grace of God. I have never said ‘illusion means that the world materially does not exist’ . You are putting words in my mouth. This material physical universe, being eternal and infinite, is always ever-existing. Eastern spiritual philosophy has it that the material physical world is illusionary, resulting in a condition known as solipsism. Are you not familiar with words such as Maya or Samsara? The test I proposed was for those who suffer from solipsism. You continue:
I’m not sure that this is what the term non-dual is getting at. The fact that we are animals driven by instinctual behaviour (and I agree with you on this) in no way means that it is a forgone conclusion that another human possibility, one that enables us to care rather than compete, create rather than destroy, give rather than take – because we are not separate from a greater whole – does not exist. Western spiritual seekers have only discovered Eastern spirituality in the last 50 years, yet they arrogantly think that it is some new discovery or new possibility. I know I felt that way when I ‘discovered’ it and was full of enthusiasm. The possibility to feel ‘not separate from a greater whole’ has existed and has been thoroughly investigated by billions of people both in the East and the West for millennia with no perceivable reduction in human malice and sorrow. ‘We are all God’s children’ is a common feeling in monotheist religions as well, and yet despite all these good intentions and good feelings ... the last hundred years are well documented as being the bloodiest century to date. My point is that despite all the well-meaning efforts and heart-felt feelings the human condition is still one of malice and sorrow. Which is why I pose the question, for anyone daring enough to investigate further – Surely it’s time to consider a third alternative?
Do you really mean that you disregard every aspect of spirituality, aren’t there some insights that can be won within the spiritual traditions? I have eliminated every skerrick of spiritual belief for it is but a belief, albeit an almost universal one. Any passionate insights won within the spiritual traditions are always invariably taken as spiritual signs and affirmations of one’s selfish beliefs, unless they are sensible insights of doubt and dis-belief in which case they are summarily squashed. Even PCEs can be seized upon by the ‘self’ and turned into epiphanies, satoris or awakenings in order to further fuel one’s spiritual narcissism and give credence to one’s impassioned imagination of being a Saviour of humanity. My conviction is that it is only about extraordinary individuals, regardless of what tradition (spiritual or non-spiritual) that one comes from. What comes from the spiritual extraordinary beings such as Mr. Jesus of Nazareth and Mr. Siddhartha Gautama, to name but two of the many, are shaky mythical stories of their lives and character, a set of unliveable morals and ethics and an idea of human existence on this planet that is firmly rooted in ancient superstition and ignorance. We have dismissed the old views of the earth being flat, that women are full of little people that pop out every now again for some strange reason, that the planets are gods in the sky, that good spirits do battle with evil spirits in the cosmos, etc. And yet we still desperately cling to the concepts of a spirit-ual world in whatever image, a God by whatever name, and an ongoing life after death, in whatever form. We now know that we humans come from the meeting of a sperm and an egg, and after at least 3,500 years of spiritual belief, trust, faith and hope there is still no empirical evidence of an ‘other’ world apart from this physical, actual universe. Any of the traditional stories, teachings or wisdoms coming from the extraordinary ancient spiritual ones still require faith, trust and hope for us to believe the stories to be true. Non-spiritual is another matter. While the spiritualists have been busy sitting with their heads in the clouds in their churches, monasteries and ashrams other human beings have been getting on with the practical down-to-earth business of making life on earth more safe, comfortable, leisureable and pleasurable for human beings. Actualism is firmly in the latter category, for it is all about eliminating malice and sorrow in oneself. The next step in human progress is both obvious and urgent ... actualizing peace on earth. The ideal being not to hold on to any tradition ultimately, taking no position. That is what the spiritual teachers tell us but I don’t think that they are living up to it. The first thing Andrew should do is to dissolve all his spiritual communities, then he would at least be one step closer to manifesting sanity on this earth. Not only does it not serve the thinking individual but it also creates distance to ‘the rest of the world’ ... us and them as I think you expressed it. I see a life lived without taking a position as a life of confusion, bewilderment – a sort of Bob Dylan – being ‘blown by the wind’. Unless you search in order to discover answers for yourself – what is condemned as ‘taking a position’ – you are forever reduced to believing what others tell you is the truth or the Truth. It is interesting to note that those who say ‘take no position’ are usually those who most definitely have taken a position and then play every trick possible to avoid scrutiny and questioning by others of their venerable position. Any investigation of the peace offered in spiritual teachings will reveal that what is on offer is an inner peace or a peace after death. The only way any spiritual followers can realize a pseudo peace on earth is by huddling together in their own separate communities, isolated from other communities and the evils of the world. A little look around will confirm this fact and also point to the tragic failure of many individuals to realize a feeling of ‘inner’ peace as well as bringing to light the inevitable conflict, suspicion and hostility that results between the many fear-full and so called peace-loving separate groups on the planet. The feeling of isolation in my spiritual life in various communities was both a comfort for it gave the illusion of no-separation and peaceful co-existence but the problem always arose whenever I ventured ‘out’ into an increasingly alien world where other increasingly alien human beings lived.
Excerpt from my letter to the author – ‘I presume when you wrote – ‘I remember at one stage it actually became fashionable in ‘spiritual’ sannyas circles to wish that this was the last life, that enlightenment was necessary if only to stop the endless wheel of suffering that being in the body was meant to be’ you are referring to ‘sannyas’ as being a disciple of Rajneesh. If you are, then you re-writing history and re-interpreting the central message of Rajneesh’s teaching. Rajneesh’s core teaching, as in all Eastern Religion, is that ‘you’ are not the body, not the thoughts, not the emotions, not the actions. ‘You’ simply have taken up residence in the body and will have an endless round of re-births into earthly suffering and gross form unless ‘you’ can get off the roundabout. The only way to get off the roundabout is Self-realization or Enlightenment. What Rajneesh taught was that we are all ‘only visiting the planet’ and the name of the game on earth is to ensure you get yourself a ticket to ‘somewhere else’ when you die, or else .... His essential message is chiselled in marble in his mausoleum – ‘never born, never died, only visited ...’ – i.e. He was most definitely not the mortal flesh and blood body! So, to call this a mere ‘fashion’ at one stage, is to demean and belittle the teachings of Rajneesh in no small way. I also find curious the use of the term ‘spiritual Sannyas’. Do you use this term derogatorily as a means of distinction from the non-spiritual ‘social’ sannyasins? Does this define seekers from non-seekers, the piously religious from the perpetually rebellious, those who are still looking from those who have merely given up? I am curious, for you are writing as one who ‘sets the tone’ of what purports to be a ‘Magazine of the Buddhas’ and yet you factually misrepresent and appear to demean the essential message of the Buddhas. Are we perhaps seeing the emergence of yet another new and unique spiritual message? As for ‘it actually feels a bit Christian to me, and we all know what that means!’, are you saying that what Rajneesh taught feels a bit Christian? If so, then it is a reasonable statement, for Eastern Religion and Western Religion are essentially the same. Both offer the belief in a ‘spirit’ in the body that survives physical death and, if you follow the words of the God-men faithfully, then ‘you’ – the spirit, soul or atman – get to go to Heaven or Nirvana when your body dies. If, however, you are saying the Eastern religious teachings of Rajneesh – of endless re-births into suffering unless you become Enlightened – ‘feels a bit Christian to me’, then this is most definitely factually wrong. The Christians are quite clear in that one gets no second chances. Their hell is ‘somewhere else’, not ‘back here’ on earth again, as the Eastern religious stories have it. As for ‘we all know what that means!’ – I don’t. Are you playing on the hatred of Christians that Rajneesh cranked up on the Ranch and perpetuated by his later claims of being crucified? This is the only sense I can make of what you mean and, if I am right, it smacks of religious intolerance to me. Personally, I have no religious tolerance whatsoever – all religious and spiritual belief is nothing other than ancient fairy stories and senseless drivel that has enthralled the gullible for millennia. But ‘Here and Now’ still carries a Rajneesh flavour and to actively encourage and perpetuate the Rajneeshee-Christian bigotry may be unwise, and particularly alienating, at a time when Jesus is being re-invented as a Spiritual Master and the Son of God bit is being downplayed. Well, these were just some thoughts on the factual accuracy your article, from one writer to another. Personally I find it useful to write accurately although in my case it does reduce one’s ‘popular appeal’ to zilch. But then again, in my last article in ‘Here and Now’ I ridiculed and heaped scorn on all spiritual belief and the spiritual world and yet it still got published in a spiritual magazine! I still shake my head in amazement at what anyone sees of any value in spiritual belief other than the opportunity for ‘self’-aggrandizement – Guru-ism – and the myth of ‘self’ perpetuation – life after death. Still, these fairy stories have been around for millennia and it will no doubt take some further generations to wean people ‘off the dummy’, on to actualism and here to the actual world.’ As you can see, this type of NDA writing represents a classic denial of the essential spiritual message and, I suspect, an attempt to ‘clip-on’ a wee bit of actualism completely misrepresented as ‘isn’t it fun to be in the body!! ... when you are feeling really fucking good’ (And if you’re not feeling good, you can always sneak into a Satang or do a group which usually picks you up again for a while.) Ho, Hum. It’s cute to see what is happening in the spiritual world ‘some thirty years on’ from the start of the West’s ‘fashionable’ flirtation with Eastern religions and philosophies.*) *) The influence of Eastern ‘wisdom’ began to have a profound effect on academic, scientific and philosophical thinking from about the mid 19th Century onwards, but the mass movement of followers only gathered momentum in the later half of the 20th Century. In these earlier years in particular, theoretical studies such as quantum physics, cosmology theory, mathematics, philosophy, sociology, environmental theory and psychology were dramatically influenced by Eastern philosophies – giving rise to the oft-touted dimwitticism that ‘science is only now discovering what the East has always known’.
Don’t you think that the modern approach of science is more inclusive than exclusive, isn’t that something we’ve also learned along the line of evolution? Theoretical science has always been grounded in mysticism, be it Western or the now fashionable version of Eastern mysticism. All theoretical cosmology can best be described as mystical cosmology for their search is based on proving a theory that they cannot prove by empirical observation – that there was a beginning and that there may be an end to the physical universe and that there is ‘something else’ or ‘somewhere else’ apart from this observable physical universe. Ever since the time of Albert Einstein’s mystical theory of a space-time continuum, a lot of common sense has gone out the window in both the search for the big picture and the search for the micro picture. When scientists lose their grip on sensate actuality and go searching for a greater reality they are following a long tradition of mysticism. What we have learned from any form of mysticism is that all it produces is yet even more fanciful versions of mysticism. That it’s helpful with crossovers in the search for new insights, to take in information from all valid areas, including theoretical science etc. The great explorers and practical scientists have contributed to mankind, yes, but they were also quite limited in many aspects and TERRIBLE human beings in some cases, they were also very influenced by their cultures that were anything but civilized. Ah, well now you are talking about something different, which is human behaviour. Are you saying we should look to mysticism for the solution to peace on earth – an actual ‘civilization’ of human beings rather than the current fragile veneer of civilization, liable to break down at any moment, in any place? Surely the mystics have had long enough to prove their case. Mysticism, spirituality and religion have proven to be rotten to their sacred core – both the teachers and the teachings. So you can’t put them on a pedestal either even though they have achieved results, maybe it wasn’t even worth the prize in some cases. The great explorers also managed to kill and exploit quite a few individuals in their quest for new discoveries. You are putting words in my mouth again. What I said is that these practically oriented people have contributed far more to human comfort, safety, leisure and pleasure than have all the mystics, shamans, God-men, priests, theoretical/ mystical scientists and the like. As a human being I enjoy a myriad comforts and pleasures that were developed by my fellow human beings and I unreservedly appreciate the efforts of those who were here before me and who struggled to make human life no longer a matter of grim physical survival. The point you are conveniently ignoring is – why do we abandon this practical down-to-earth approach when it comes to finding a way to bring freedom, peace and happiness in our life? Why do we continuously look where billions of well-meaning seekers have looked before? Why do we still pray to God or look to God-men for the solution to peace on earth when peace on earth is not even on their agenda? Even though spirituality has failed in many aspects we can’t know what the world would have looked like today without spirituality. It might, it just might be that we would be looking at an even greater mess today if it hadn’t been for spirituality etc. That’s probably the limpest argument for spirituality I’ve come across in a long while. Given that over 160,000,000 human beings were killed by other human beings in wars in the last century, all of whom undoubtedly prayed to their God before dying, I fail to see your point. Are you saying that without God or the God-men even more would have been killed? How much worse do you want this present century to become before you question whether spirituality may well be a part of the problem and not the only solution? This century it may well be Eastern countries and followers of Eastern spirituality that conduct a nuclear stand-off. Do you have abiding confidence that those who regard their existence on the planet as transitory or the physical world as illusionary, will be more concerned about not pressing the button than those monotheistic materialists of the West? Have you not noticed that it is the pragmatic imposition of laws and regulations upheld by courts, judges, jails, armed police and armies that prevents ‘an even greater mess today’ rather than the prayers said in churches or the consciousness-raising meditations in the ashrams and sanghas? I would remind you of your stated position –
* Further more I’m not sure that portraying us humans as merely ‘flesh and blood creatures’ and nothing else serves mankind in a constructive manner, it can function as an escape as I mentioned and also give rise to or strengthen cynicism. There is no viewpoint more cynical about life on earth than that of spiritualists for they have already given up on earthly existence and have turned away to the spiritual world for solace and succour – anywhere but here and anytime but now. How more deeply cynical a view can one have about human existence than this? Depending on one’s spiritual beliefs, we believe we are all born sinners and can only be redeemed upon death, we are endlessly reborn into suffering until we discover the Truth, that this physical life is not real but there is a Greater Reality or that if we sacrifice our lives to God or some God-man we will get our reward in some imaginary afterlife. And overlaying all this cynicism and doom and gloom, humans are all taught to believe that ‘you can’t change human nature’ – i.e. this is the way it is because this is the way it has always been, so this is the way it always will be! The fact is that we are flesh and blood creatures, created only by the meeting of a sperm and an egg, and the fact is we are mortal and we will die and any remaining matter will then rejoin the other matter on this planet. The illusion is ‘who’ we think and feel we are – a social identity instilled since birth overlaid over an instinctual animal ‘self’. The acknowledgement of both these simple facts means that one can escape one’s fate of being a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity who feels trapped inside the flesh and blood body and thus one can realize one’s destiny – to be the physical universe experiencing itself as a flesh and blood human being. Certainly we are driven by our instincts to a degree but that doesn’t mean that we need to surrender to our instincts. I think that that is what you are implying in a way. Quite the opposite, in fact. The grand experiment of suppressing the savage instinctual passions by the carrot of instilling ‘good’ morals and ‘right’ ethics and the stick of imposing and enforcing regulations and laws has clearly failed, and will continue to fail, to actualize peace on earth. The current fashionable notion of transcending the savage instinctual passions while giving full reign to, and indulging in, the tender passions, has clearly failed as it has done for millennia in the East. What is now available, for anyone sufficiently interested and motivated, is a method whereby they can eliminate these redundant instinctual survival passions, thereby actualizing peace on earth for themselves and freeing one’s fellow human beings of the burden these passions impose on others. We’re lost for the time being but there might be a chance when we become more developed somewhere in the future. I would instead claim that peace on earth is possible NOW despite our apparent physical and psychological limitations. Two very contradictory statements here. I take it that your first statement refers to some generational change, over hundreds if not thousands of years – so that counts you out in this lifetime. By your second statement you seem to be indicating you are going to accept your apparent limitations and put your faith in God. For me, once I realized that I had got myself into the ridiculous situation where I had put my faith in God, or a God-man as it happened, I decided to take the helm and do a bit of determined steering myself. It was my life after all and it was clear that nobody was going to do anything about me, if I didn’t. Personally I have no belief in God by whatever name, therefore the notion of God has ceased to exist. When one stops believing, hoping, trusting and having faith that something exists it simply withers away by itself. I recently saw an interview with a Christian monk who said the first thing he was going to ask God was ‘How come there is so much pain and suffering?’ – an excellent question I thought. If there is a god or something that is pulling the strings or creating all this human suffering then it is about time we told He/She/It to butt out. The excellent thing about stopping believing in God as the ultimate authority was that I was able to grasp the tiller, so to speak, and steer the boat away from the rocks – including the rock of Enlightenment. That monk didn’t have very strong beliefs ... or maybe poor teachers. Even I was (should I use the past tense or not ... hmm) able to get past this stage in my relatively brief spiritual career. You haven’t gone past this stage at all – you either haven’t gone far enough or you have just dabbled at the edges. All spiritual belief, both Western and Eastern, is founded on the fundamental principle that human existence on earth is essentially a suffering existence. I’ll post the piece I snipped from my reply to the list moderator about the famed and revered Mr. Siddhartha Gautama’s deeply cynical view of suffering on earth –
I thought this topic was over and done with among Christians. God created man in his own image and gave us the freedom of choice out of love for the humans, one can’t blame God for us making the wrong choices. Methinks I was right in suggesting that one can only be interested in an actual freedom from the human condition if one has had sufficient experience with, and knowledge of, the spiritual path in order to understand its central message and why it has not, and never can, deliver peace on earth in this lifetime for anyone – let alone everyone. Your statement is another classic example of human beings forever blaming themselves – and not daring to even question the Gods or the God-men. This belief is so drummed into humans as guilt for our sins or penance for our very existence on earth that it is a miracle that someone has broken free and others are rapidly following. Who said that life was supposed to be easy!? Who said life was not meant to be easy and why do you believe them? Just because God said so or Siddhartha Gautama said so or some Johnny come lately God-man repeated it doesn’t mean it is true or True. Of course life was meant to be easy and we all know it except we live in fear of the wrath of God or the scorn of our peers. The cute thing is once you stop believing in God you are free to stop believing that life was meant to be about suffering rightly. This then frees your senses to a literal smorgasbord of sensual delight that is on offer in this day and age on this cornucopian planet. Life was meant to be easy – only a masochist would believe otherwise. Living life is extremely challenging and what else could it be? As humans, we are all subject to physical dangers, ill-health, accidents, earthquakes, floods, fires, etc. which can cause loss and pain. But to have, and actively indulge in, emotional suffering additional to the hardship is to compound the situation to such an extent that the resulting feelings are usually far worse than dealing with the facts of the situation. What impresses me is the extraordinary steps taken in wealthy, materialistic countries to not only reduce the hardship caused by physical dangers but to prevent them from happening in the first place. Early warning systems for fire, flood and storm, earthquake and storm proof buildings, emergency services, evacuation and relief plans, etc. all help to minimize and in many cases negate hardship, loss, injury and physical suffering. Think about it ... would we really appreciate in the long run to have things just as we want them to be, to know exactly what life was about. No, I would not think so. Life is an enigma and that’s perhaps the only way it could be. It’s good you said ‘perhaps’ because this is another of the furphies given to the world by the God-believers in order that nobody dares find out for themselves. The actual world is literally bursting with meaning, each moment again, whereas the real world is steeped in lament and the spiritual world is wallowing in compassion. The Christian monk should maybe consider another line of duty if he can’t come to terms with the fundamentals of Christianity ... where’s the trust for Gods sake!? I take it that you are now saying the monk should come to terms with the fact that human pain and suffering on earth is fundamental to Christianity yet above you indicated that God ‘gave us the freedom of choice’. Which is it or are you having a bet each way? By the way, having a bet each way is not a sign of trust – it is a sign of doubt. Let’s face it, whatever messages God has sent or whatever human form God is manifest in, He/She/It demands that we suffer rightly because this God also suffers for us and He/She/It demands that we defend our belief in this God even to the point of sacrificing our lives. God is indeed a sorrowful and wrathful God, but as you said – ‘God created man in his own image’.
I have only a general game plan so far and it goes like this.
The following is New for me:
Good to hear from you. You seem to be having great fun. Indeed, at first when I heard that investigation into ‘me’ would be a wonderful adventure I couldn’t really see how, as emotions are sometimes hard to deal with. With bare awareness in full swing though, everything becomes fuel for a curious mind. I found an advertisement in the local spiritual magazine that states very clearly the distinction between the spiritual approach to dealing with the emotions arising from morals, ethics, beliefs and animal instinctual passions and that of an actualist. I know there is an enormous amount written on the AF web-site about this subject but every now and again something catches my eye that blatantly exposes the spiritual approach of actively creating a new identity who transcends or rises above the unwanted bad or savage passions. The advertisement is for a 4-day workshop entitled ‘Dis-identification’ – Letting Go of Self Hatred. He writes in his introductory section –
This description very well describes the spiritual practice of dis-identifying from unwanted and undesirable emotions and identifying with the wanted and desirable emotions. The undesirable real-world identity is transcended and a new desirable spiritual identity is created. The newly formed spiritual identity dis-identifies with the old identity and becomes aware of and suppresses, pushes away or ignores the unwanted emotions. This is not a bare awareness operating but an identity splitting itself into two – one good half being aware of the other bad half. To call this action awareness is to misuse the term as the awareness is so selective it would be best termed as occultation or denial. It is this very labelling and judging of feelings and emotions as good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable that prevents an active and equal investigation of all emotions and their instinctual roots.
Further more I’m not sure that portraying us humans as merely ‘flesh and blood creatures’ and nothing else serves mankind in a constructive manner, it can function as an escape as I mentioned and also give rise to or strengthen cynicism. There is no viewpoint more cynical about life on earth than that of spiritualists for they have already given up on earthly existence and have turned away to the spiritual world for solace and succour – anywhere but here and anytime but now. How more deeply cynical a view can one have about human existence than this? Depending on one’s spiritual beliefs, we believe we are all born sinners and can only be redeemed upon death, we are endlessly reborn into suffering until we discover the Truth, that this physical life is not real but there is a Greater Reality or that if we sacrifice our lives to God or some God-man we will get our reward in some imaginary afterlife. And overlaying all this cynicism and doom and gloom, humans are all taught to believe that ‘you can’t change human nature’ – i.e. this is the way it is because this is the way it has always been, so this is the way it always will be! The fact is that we are flesh and blood creatures, created only by the meeting of a sperm and an egg, and the fact is we are mortal and we will die and any remaining matter will then rejoin the other matter on this planet. The illusion is ‘who’ we think and feel we are – a social identity instilled since birth overlaid over an instinctual animal ‘self’. The acknowledgement of both these simple facts means that one can escape one’s fate of being a lost, lonely, frightened and very cunning entity who feels trapped inside the flesh and blood body and thus one can realize one’s destiny – to be the physical universe experiencing itself as a flesh and blood human being.
Once you wrote to Alan something of the kind that: Whenever you (Peter) ask people about the way Gurus behave towards women, you get blank faces. What did you observe in reference to Osho’s (or any other Guru’s) behavior towards women. Do you have some first hand information ? You want to write about them. Those personal observations/experiences would be facts. Your facts, but facts. How on earth can you have a fact that is ‘your’ fact – that would mean
that you have your own versions of facts. Methinks you are talking about truths which are definitely not facts, as Mr.
Rajneesh has clearly pointed out above. As I wrote to Alan, Richard has written Some ‘first hand information’ from a post to the Sannyas mailing list about the same question that you have asked – ‘Rajneesh certainly did not have an ordinary life in terms of being free to come and go as He pleased in anything resembling normality, and the women in his life all worshipped the very ground He stood on. Any semblance of direct down-to-earth intimacy (or communication) between ‘fellow human beings’ is inherently impossible in the God-man – disciple system. After Rajneesh’s death I came in contact with another Enlightened Master who led a life more resembling ‘normal’, but still his women worshipped him as a God, I saw him get very angry on one occasion when I was with him on some business, and he was condescending and dismissive of any who dared to question his Divinity. Another Guru, with whom I some extensive business dealings, showed ‘personality quirks’, as he called them, which I found to be bordering on rude and belligerent. I do not wish to name names or go into more detail about those that are still alive. It is the business of guru-ship that is rotten to the core. The men and women involved are merely playing their roles of Ultimate power and Ultimate authority. It rocked me to my very core when I saw that one of the major reasons that I wanted to become Enlightened was to have that power and that authority. To have people worship and fawn over me – sort of a ‘money for nothing and your chicks for free’ scenario. Once I had seen this in myself I understood a lot about the God-men and that the enormous psychic power they wield. P.S. The famous J. Krishnamurti had clandestine affairs in his life, and kept them hidden to protect his God-man image, and a revealing book has been written by his mistress’s daughter – ‘Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti’ by Radha Rajagopal-Sloss.’ I would only add an additional fact and that is that Guru is a Sanskrit word meaning elder or teacher and as such is one who propounds Eastern Religions. It is common in Eastern Religions to regard women as second-class citizens, needing to be re-born as a man in order to be worthy of even undertaking spiritual practice, being excluded from temples, being mere possessions of men, etc. This attitude is still very prevalent in the Eastern Religions and permeates into popular spiritualism. All of the male Gurus have women disciples who worship them and regard them as Gods, and this is actively encouraged by the Gurus – a pathetic and abysmal behaviour towards women.
I think it is true that the anticipation, excitement about the expected ‘final event’ in one’s brain is a form of dreaming, escaping the reality. Is it a final barrier? I don’t know. Of course there is only one way for you to find out for yourself, otherwise you will never know or you will have to resort to believing what others say. Merely believing is a poor substitute for a full-blooded finding out for yourself. The act of finding out for oneself, by oneself, is the adventure of a lifetime. And who would have it any other way. This patent nonsense of sitting at the feet of Masters who then tell you in mystical poetic terms of a Truth that cannot be spoken of, cannot be put into words is nothing but twaddle. ‘The Divine Mystery that can only be lived ...’ The reason is that their Truth is nothing more than a feeling – a splendid, all encompassing, overpowering, enveloping, Self-aggrandized feeling of Unity, Oneness, Divinity and the like. Beneath the wonderful feelings lies a dim, dark and ancient ignorance – a turning away, a turning ‘in’ that is epitomized by the aesthetic retreats and lives of denial and renunciation lead by the spiritual pundits, monks, Gurus, etc. The classic expose of the pride of ignorance of the ‘Ones Who Do Not Know’ was Richard’s meeting with a contemporary Guru. Richard stated that he had been Enlightened and had found something that was beyond Enlightenment and was he interested in knowing about it. The Guru said he doesn’t know with firm conviction as though ‘not knowing’ was in itself the Answer. When asked straight up whether he wanted to know, the answer was no. You hear it often in spiritual ‘jargonese’ – ‘I find I know less and less nowadays and its SO good’ What they mean is they can’t make any sense of anything on the spiritual path, so they give up any common sense and let their feelings and imagination run riot – and run riot they do! Ignorance is proudly proclaimed in the spiritual world as Wisdom and this is most clearly evident in Eastern Spirituality. As Mr. Mohan Rajneesh said in reply to a question –
Behind the lauding of ignorance and the perverse relating to a supposed childhood ‘innocence’ – the ancient Tabula Rasa theory – there exists nothing more than a belief in a ‘Something Else’ or a ‘Somewhere Else’ – traditionally masqueraded as the Truth. In some Religions this ‘Something Else’ is defined as a particular mythical figure, spirit or God; in others it becomes an amorphous Energy, Source or Intelligence. Likewise, the ‘someplace else’ is defined as a particular place, a Heaven, a celestial realm, a Paradise, while in other beliefs it becomes an Energy field, an Ocean of Oneness, a ‘Home’ for the soul or spirit or a cosmic womb. Modern spirituality often cleverly and conveniently ignores the more inane historical interpretations of the original ancient texts and substitutes totally amorphous and nebulous concepts that are naught but a frantic and senseless chasing of blissful feelings. As such, the more ignorant one is, the less one attempts to understand, the less one knows – and the more revered, Holy and Wise one is deemed to be! There is none more ignorant than the spiritual seeker – the more ignorant, the better the seeker – for they seek that which cannot be known, only imagined as thoughts and given sustenance by feelings. It can only be accessed by imagination and feelings for it only exists in thoughts and feelings – none of it is actual. Ignorance may well lead to blissful feelings, but it is still ignorance. It would all be a hoot except for the wars, rapes, murders, genocides, ‘cleansings’, tortures, repression, perversion and corruption that are all the direct result of passionate feelings run riot.
Recently, I have not read spiritual books (maybe just one in half a year). I would over indulge, ‘feed’ on them in the past. They made me feel good. I was on a path to the goal of enlightenment and most importantly, immortality. I don’t try to meditate nor I follow any gurus any more. Yes, I understand the ‘feel good’ aspect of reading spiritual books. The spiritual message is literally music to one’s ears, a sop to one’s very soul, to be told that there is a life after physical death for ‘me’, the psychic and psychological alien entity within this flesh and blood body. One is told what one always thought was the Truth – that life on earth is about suffering, that it is an illusion because one feels cut off and isolated from people, things and events. One is forever condemned to be an outsider, a watcher, an alien on the planet, and then to have Wise men to tell you that this is the Truth and that one is only visiting the planet and there is a ‘somewhere else’ after physical death, certainly does give one a hell of a good feeling. If pursued with vigilance this good feeling can be blown up into an extraordinary narcissism, whereby one becomes the Universe experiencing itself as a Divine and immortal being. This Timeless and Spaceless feeling of Oneness is but the result of shift of identity of the alien entity – the self becomes the Self, a purely feeling state, an Altered State of Consciousness. Unfortunately the Enlightened One is still trapped within a flesh and blood body but ‘when the body dies’ a final liberation or Moksha is fantasized.
Just a comment on your note to Alan – I have seen my possibility in the presence of Rajneesh. And I think you have seen your possibility in the presence of Richard, Peter and Vineeto. I found your proposition intriguing, particularly the words ‘in the presence of’. The Eastern tradition of Moksha or freedom is always a transmission of a ‘feeling’ of liberation from the world-as-it-is into the spiritual world – an escape from reality into a Greater Reality. Being ‘in the presence of’ one who has realised this Greater Reality is regarded as the best way to facilitate the necessary spiritual feelings of Unconditional Love, Unity, Oneness, etc. The initiation into disciplehood and the formation of Ashrams, Sanghas, Monasteries or other spiritual communities was a way of reinforcing the feelings of escaping into a Greater Reality – of ‘coming home’, ‘being chosen’, being lovers of the Master and being loved by the Master. The possibility offered was that the follower or disciple too could become like the Master, despite the overwhelming evidence that those who became Enlightened did so by their own efforts and not by being mere disciples of other Masters. The ‘being in the presence of’ is the great attraction of being around a living Master, and ‘belonging’ to His group is the similar attraction with dead Masters. The wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom neither contains nor entertains any of these religious authoritarian and hierarchical structures. It is free of any power of one over the other, be it the psychic power and strangleholds of worship, surrender, gratitude, loyalty, devotion and prayer that binds the disciple to the Master, or the necessity to belong to the group, contribute to the movement, pay your dues in time or money, support the ideals, and defend the Master. Those involved in Actual Freedom are those intrepid individuals who have taken it upon themselves to change the only person they can change – themselves. Their motive is a personal peace for themselves – a freedom from malice and sorrow – and to prove that global peace is possible, as in – ‘if I can do it, and I am nobody special, then anyone can rid themselves of malice and sorrow’. There is no ‘in the presence of’ in Actual Freedom. This is it. A few Web-sites, a mailing list and about a million words so far. The story of how one man escaped from the delusion of Enlightenment, the method he devised to become free of the Human Condition and the writing of others reporting their success in applying the method. Also documented are the countless objections of many correspondents to the new and radical discovery that human beings can be actually happy and harmless, and the detailed and considered responses to these objections. Anyone can now be free of the Human Condition (including the belief in a spiritual ‘other-world’ and a life after death), as sufficient words conveying the method, the results, the pitfalls, and the objections are now accessible on the Net.
My disciplehood is an individual matter. If you mean it is a private, special matter between you and Rajneesh, then you are not alone in that feeling. At one time, there was more of a community feeling around Rajneesh but as the ‘dream’ faded that feeling has since dwindled and broken down into every man/woman for themselves – each with their ‘own connection’. The individual matter of disciplehood is much easier to imagine now that he is dead, for now everyone can ‘carry Him’ in his or her heart, he can ‘visit’ hundreds of places all over the planet simultaneously, and ‘answer’ thousands of prayers, and have a ‘personal’ relationship with tens of thousands. He is indeed much busier and active now that he is dead, but I guess the God-business is much easier to manage without the encumbrance of a physical body. And you say you don’t believe in life after death? You are the disciple of a dead Master and you don’t believe in life after death? I think you are stretching credibility to its very limits. Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust |
