Selected Correspondence Peter

The Third Alternative

I, as this flesh and blood body sans any psychological or psychic entity whatsoever, suddenly found myself in the paradisiacal actual world of sensual delight. There was an utter stillness, a stillness that has a vibrant aliveness to it that is scintillating and sensately rich. There is an utter purity because there is no evil in the actual world and there is an utter perfection for actual world is peerless. It is as though one is fully alive for the first time in one’s life, one’s senses are literally on stalks delighting in seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking and reflecting and in being aware of the experience of being alive.

From the perspective of this experience of utter freedom from the human condition, brought on by the temporary disappearance of ‘me’, returning to being ‘normal’ is experienced as being once more cut off from the magnificence of the actual world. In other words, I experienced normal/spiritual life as a being a death-like state compared with the experience of being fully alive, as a flesh and blood body only, in the actual world.

I don’t know if this explanation helps to throw some light on the passage you objected to, but I thought putting it in context might help. <snip>

So, while I appreciate your feedback and comments, given what I’ve said above, I’ll let the passage stand as-it-is as an apt expression of my experience at that time in my early stages of actualism and the contrast between being reasonably happy with my life as it was and the experience of being fully alive as experienced in a PCE.

Thanks for putting the passage I objected to into context for me. I do find it helpful. It seems to me that you were using the phrase ‘death-like’ in the context of sort of a ‘crossroads’ experience – only two choices available – living fully or settling for being separated from the actual world – which can feel ‘death-like.’

Let’s not forget that what is on offer on this list is the third alternative. There are three choices – remaining normal where the best on offer is to be reasonably happy, or becoming spiritual where the best on offer is a dream-like utterly-selfish state of God-realization or a ‘God-and-I-are-best-mates’ scenario … or becoming actually free of the whole lot.

Put into context, I have no objection to your description. It is rather quite a good description when understood as your experience.

Not just my experience, but an experience that everyone has had at some times in their life.

I have to wonder though about how it is related in the entry ‘How to Become Free of the Human Condition.’

Let’s juxtapose the two statements... from your Journal...

‘For me, I just figured that I had ‘nothing left to lose’, it was either a slow, miserable, painful, death-like life or a quick death of what I saw as the problem – the ‘self’ or ‘psychological and psychic entity’ within.’ Peters Journal, Introduction

then from the entry, How to Become Free from the Human Condition...

‘But the choice is simple. It is either a miserable, painful, death-like life of not fully living or a quick death of what is clearly seen as the problem in the peak experience – the ‘self’ or ‘psychological and psychic entity’ within.’ AF Library, How to Become Free from the Human Condition

I can appreciate the sensibility in reusing material that is already written. The second passage drops the reference to the personal, the ‘for me’ part. The way it reads then becomes universalised – as if this is the case for all.

Given that everybody has had a PCE at some stage in his or her life, what I am talking of is universal. I would remind you that you have written of having such an experience yourself –

‘The most defining part of the experience was that time seemed to slow down – I began to notice each and every detail – virtually effortlessly. There was virtually perfect calm. I did notice some ‘issues’ that I normally ‘struggle’ with, but they didn’t have their normal strength. The ‘strongest’ part of the experience probably lasted only about 15 seconds – it seemed like I had been taken into another world, though it was obviously the same world, but yet it was in sharp detail that I hadn’t completely noticed before. And it did have a benevolence about it. I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by the wonder of it all, which may be what brought the most intense part to an end – but the calm and ‘presentness’ lasted the rest of the evening and a bit into the morning.’ No 37, ‘Getting’ the PCE 12.5.2002

I would suggest from your description that you may well be able to relate to what I am saying. After all, you did open this conversation by saying –

‘Put into context, I have no objection to your description. It is rather quite a good description when understood as your experience.’

It also drops any sort of reference to your personally experienced PCE and the vitality of the actual world that you experienced. It seems to me that it was a vital part of your experience – both remembering a PCE and realizing that it is possible for you to make your way to the actual world – not to mention your personal life history and trajectory. So it seems to me that ‘death like’ phrase is ripe for misunderstanding if it didn’t refer back to your experience – which is not referenced in the entry ‘How to Become Free from the Human Condition.’

Are you implying that every passage I write has to be prefaced in this way when what I am talking about is universal, i.e. personal to everyone?

Wouldn’t it be an easy jump from reading the second passage to the idea that a life lived in the ‘real’ world is not a life worth living at all?

Apparently so, but then again, it never occurred to me that anyone who was genuinely interested in actualism would want to mount a defence of the ‘real’ world. I always assumed I was writing to someone who was dissatisfied with their life as-it-is in the ‘real’ world.

If I can put it another way – the passage you are objecting to is on the Actualism web-site in a section entitled ‘How to become free of the Human Condition’. It has not been spoken from a soapbox on a street corner, it is not in a pamphlet dropped into your letterbox. The location of the passage presupposes that the person reading it is interested in becoming free from the human condition and, as such, some plain talking would seem appropriate.

Now the reason this sort of question is important for me is because that I realized as I was putting the AF method in practice for me – it became very important how I considered the value of the lives of others.

Speaking personally, when I began to put the AF method into practice I simultaneously began to focus my attention on my own life. This was because I came to understand that the only person I can change, and need to change, is me. By doing so I took what Richard was saying personally whilst also regarding it as being universal in that I am but one of an estimated 6 billion human beings on the planet ensnared within the human condition.

Is it worth bringing children into the ‘real’ world?

It seems that you are a bit late in asking that question.

What sort of happiness can we want for them?

My experience is that children learn a lot from observing their parents.

This meant that, like it or not, I had to lead by example – which is why I found it impossible not to take up the offer to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless.

If one sees a life in the ‘real’ world as worthless – then it can get rather depressing – very quick.

If I may suggest, the alternative to becoming depressed is to make sure you do something worthwhile with your life.

Now, I don’t see you, Richard, and Vineeto as saying that a life lived in the ‘real’ world is without worth – yet it seems hard to reconcile a description of life in the ‘real’ world as ‘death-like’ with a description of life in the ‘real’ world as ‘valuable’ or ‘worthwhile.’ But, maybe I’m reading too much into the description of ‘death-like.’

If it’s possible to be both ‘reasonably happy’ and ‘death-like’ at the same time, then I suppose we can just call it a quirk of language and how our experience is expressed with language.

And yet you said at the start of this post –

‘Put into context, I have no objection to your description. It is rather quite a good description when understood as your experience.’

I don’t see your difficulties in reconciling living life in the ‘real’ world with the experience of being free of the human condition as a quirk of language at all, but rather that you are trying to reconcile the description in question from the standpoint of two distinct experiences. For someone who is reasonably happy with the experience of being a being in the ‘real’ world the description can be felt to be offensive, but for someone who remembers a PCE – the experience of being fully alive, sans identity, in the actual world – the description is a matter of fact statement.

Perhaps this will be of some use in understanding the nature of the quandary you seem to have arrived at, at this stage of your investigations. All sorts of doubts and hesitations arise whenever anyone is faced with chucking out the old and beginning something entirely new. Despite this resistance for things new, the universe itself has an inbuilt propensity for betterment that can be seen in action in the human species as a combination of daring, curiosity, naiveté, altruism and intelligence.

These qualities are what an actualist continually taps into on his or her path to becoming free of the well-and-truly-passed-its-use-by-date human condition.

Along with this, I am questioning so-called spiritual values that I have had for a long time. For quite a while, I have embraced a variant of Gnosticism, believing that the world we see is an illusion, and that I actually exist in a timeless realm, in other words, somewhere else other than where I am right now. The logical extension of this has been the experience that I don’t want to be here, that this world is not my home and I really exist somewhere else.

The spiritual world is a safe haven for ‘me’, as the spirit dwelling within the flesh and blood body. When I first discovered the spiritual world I was disillusioned with the real-world and, as such, the teachings were music to ‘my’ ears. There was an instinctual recognition of the truth of what was being said, a feeling of coming home, a deep passionate longing to escape from the real-world. The real-world soon became a bad dream and the spiritual world soon seemed real, whereas I now understand and experience that both of these ‘worlds’ are illusionary. Both are but the product of ‘my’ beliefs and ‘my’ feelings yet are made very real by the fact that these worlds are all ‘I’ can know and can perceive for ‘I’ am but a psychological and psychic entity that has taken up residence inside this flesh and blood body. It is only by purging this physical corporeal body of every skerrick of identity that the always ever-present physical tangible palpable actual world – that we occasionally have glimpses of in a PCE as being delightful, perfect and pure– can become evident, 24 hrs. a day everyday.

Actual Freedom is far, far superior to the feeling of enlightenment for it is actual.

The real-world is an instinct-fuelled, blind and senseless survival battle of humans vs. humans, exemplified by all the wars, rapes, murders, domestic violence, child abuse, corruption, suicides, despair and loneliness. The spiritual world is a massive denial of, and dissociation from, this madness, based on the belief that there is a Greater Reality. The only substantive evidence for this meta-physical world, apart from my feelings, beliefs and imagination, is the primitive fairy tales of Gods, spirits, afterlives and other-worlds passed down from the Bronze Age and dispensed as Wisdom to the desperate and gullible by the priests, shamans and Gurus.

Thank goodness there is now a down-to-earth, God-less, actual freedom available.

So you found Richard’s Website by accident – most extraordinary: the find of a lifetime really. The man has impeccable credentials having been there, done that, survived, questioned and emerged from the delusion of Enlightenment to report that all is indeed rotten in the world of Gods and Spirits. It was amazing for me, at that stage, to find someone who said ‘Keep questioning – deeper and deeper – dare to question Every belief. No matter how sacred, no matter how dear to me.’ It was also good to find Vineeto to investigate all the gender / sexual / love beliefs and conditionings and understand them not only intellectually but practically: down-to-earth if you like. The discoveries, realizations and sorting out of the full extent of the Human Condition is indeed a fascinating journey. To challenge and go beyond what human beings have believed to be the Limit – beyond Human Nature is quite something.

But I’ve also held that once one did it, then it is easier for the next, even easier for the next and so on. Not that this is a movement with Richard as a leader – the latest saviour – it’s just that there is increasingly more information, more words, a broad map of common sense if you like. In the context of these maps each person is then able, with increasing confidence, to undertake a journey within to rid themselves of the Human Condition. That was what motivated me to write, to try and describe in words, in practical terms, so it was good to hear you enjoyed it.

And, of course, it is extraordinary that everyone does it by themselves, for themselves.

You asked about being here... For me ‘How am I experiencing myself now?’ translates into the optimum when I am so here in this moment that there is no room for anything else – doubt, emotion, feeling, love, etc. I am fully engaged in and aware of what is happening. I am fully involved sensually in doing what is happening. No room for sitting back on the fence feeling or observing. Not to say that I am not considerate or sensible in my words or actions: they then become naturally appropriate to the situation. Then each moment is indeed delightful, sensual, immediate, apparent and obvious.

Occasionally I have pulses of fear race through as the audacity of living this way strikes a primordial chord – like a cosmic chorus of ‘how dare you ...’ thundering from somewhere, but lately I experience this as a good and thrilling sign. What a journey ... as one makes sense of the Human Condition and actively wills its demise in oneself.

To Richard: This first process had two components – an intellectual understanding such that the fact of being a human being made sense, and this involved a rigorous, challenging, exciting and revealing investigation into the Human Condition and its bedrock of Ancient Wisdom. This is essentially the understanding of the non-spiritual nature of Actual Freedom. The second component was the practical day to day stuff (and what else is there anyway?) of what it is to be a human being – the theory into practice if you like. The experience that Actual Freedom is not a philosophy, not a theory, but a down-to-earth experience as a flesh and blood body. Peter to Richard, 25.2.1999

Couldn’t agree more. The combination of the two is vital – and perhaps inevitable. Sort of convincing ‘me’ that it is possible, while experiencing its actuality.

Just to clarify my post. Up until now the only path to freedom has been a spiritual path to a spiritual freedom – the traditional path of denial, renunciation and transcendence leading to an Altered State of Consciousness known as Enlightenment. The path leads to There – another dimension, a metaphysical realm.

The aim of the path to Actual Freedom is to come here to the actual world. The actual world is that which is evidenced and apparent in the PCE or peak experience and that is where the path to Actual Freedom leads. The actual world is the world as-it-is, stripped of the veneer of reality or Reality that the ‘self’ or ‘Self’ layers over it.

From my investigations and experiences it is obvious that ‘who’ I think and feel I am – ‘me’ at the core – encompasses both a deep-set feeling of separateness from others and the world as perceived by the senses as well as a deep-set feeling of needing to ‘belong’.

This over-arching feeling of separateness – of being a ‘separate self’, who is forever yearning to ‘belong’ – is the root cause of sorrow in me and the all encompassing ‘ocean’ of human sorrow in the world.

The tradition approaches to these conflicting feelings has been either –

• to make the best of one’s lot in life, promoting the good feelings and chemical flows as much as possible, being a good and moral real-world citizen, or
• to throw one’s lot completely into the fanciful spirit-ual world, practicing ‘right-thinking’, ‘good-dreaming’ and ‘blissful feeling’. This transcending of the real world is a disassociation from the world-as-it-is. It involves identifying oneself with the instinctual passions of nurture and desire – the soul – and also satisfies the need to ‘belong’ with feelings of ‘Union’ and ‘Oneness’. It’s a very powerful instinctual lure, given substance and credence by the chemicals that flow from the amygdala. Most importantly, it not only maintains the instinctual self in existence but it also enhances it – ‘I’ become noble, grand, all-encompassing, all-powerful, rising above the world-as-it-is and people as-they-are – in short, Divine and Immortal.

Thankfully I’m pursuing a third alternative, which is the total elimination of my ‘self’ in total – the whole of the amygdala’s instinctual programming that gives rise to the animal passions. The startle, quick-scan function of the amygdala still operates as a physical safety function but the chemical surges that give rise to the emotions of fear, anger, nurture and desire have almost ceased to be of influence. I am left with a lot of shifting sensations in the head, neck, heart and belly that tell me something chemically is still happening but these very rarely translate into emotions or reactions.

I remember in the first few weeks of coming across Actual Freedom and realizing that to become actually free of the Human Condition would not only mean the ending of ‘me’ but also it would mean being a traitor to Humanity. To live without malice – to have no ‘me’ to defend and therefore no need to attack, no need to struggle to survive, achieve, be somebody – was to cop-out of the struggle. To live without sorrow – to not be sad, to not commiserate with others, to not seek consolation, to not wallow in self-pity or to pity others, to not play the game of ‘Oh what a miserable existence being a human being is’ – would be to be judged heart-less. And yet, here I am doing it and riding out the chemical surges that warn me – don’t do this, or else...! The thing that I have discovered is that there is no ‘or else...!’ As long as I don’t goad a fanatic, and I obey the laws of the land and sensibly avoid trouble, the world as-it-is is an eminently safe place – chock full of sensuous pleasure, delight. A life of consummate ease is readily and freely evident when one’s fears are seen for what they are.

I fully realize that this process has taken a considerable time – over 2 ½ years now – but I had to explore the nuts and bolts of it, finding out for myself. It’s a bit like when I first worked in an architect’s office after having studied the theory of design and building for 5 years. After 2 years of office work I gave up and ‘went building’ on building sites to find out what really happened in building. Same thing with Actual Freedom, but in this case a large part was unlearning the spiritual teachings and cynical view-point of the world as-it-is. To dare to consider that there is a third alternative to the human dilemma and then set off exploring it, on one’s own, has taken a while. I fully acknowledge your writings and guidance, Richard, and that my journey was only possible due to your efforts. What I do like is that I can explain the process, not in esoteric, poetic terms but in down-to-earth terms that fully concur with modern scientific studies and that can explain exactly why all past attempts at freedom have ended in narcissism.

It’s an extraordinary thing being a human being in 1999. It’s definitely not an experience to be missed.

On a retreat this August I wrote the following: My room has a window facing an inner area of the complex; there is grass and a stand of three pine trees in the middle of it, just about straight out the window. It’s quite light in here with the curtains open, especially sitting here at the desk right in front of the window, stopping writing every now and then to look out at the sun on the grass and gleaming on the edges of some of the pine needles. The trees look like Ponderosa pines, but they aren’t, quite. There’s a big shady place under the stand of pine trees. I may go sit there sometime while I’m here.

The room is simple, with a small bed, one pillow, a sink, a tiny little open closet space about a foot wide. It adjoins a bathroom, shared by the man next door whose face I have yet to see but whose snoring I can hear most of the time when he’s sleeping. It doesn’t bother me in the least. The room is part of a long hallway of twenty rooms on either side of the hallway. There being rooms on both sides of the hall, it is very dark — there aren’t any windows. I have taken to leaving the door to my room wide open. It creates a beautiful trapezoid of natural light in the hallway. Could life be this way too? An open door on to a simple room. Light inside. Nothing to hide, keep, or hang on to? I am: what is happening in the present moment. I am pain in my knees and gurgling in my belly. I am desire and the thought of love. I am the robin hopping with a cricket in its beak and I am the wind blowing a wasp to and fro near the pine boughs, a secret in the sun. And I am memory and sadness, a wound as big as the world, filled with tears. And I am the joy of those tears. And I am my misdeeds, and I am their consequence. And I am readiness for death. And readiness for life. These are wonderful opportunities. Thank you.

Yes, I remember my days of meditating and going on retreats and the wonderful feelings induced. The heart full of love, the sittings, the silences, the fellow travellers. I once spent about $1000 to travel thousands of kilometres to spend 3 days with a particular Guru for a bit of bliss. But, of course, the problem was it was only a temporary relief from the ‘real’ world – the bliss was an antidote to suffering, the silence a relief to the neurosis, and the ‘loving’ company an escape from loneliness. It was totally dependant on the Guru’s ‘energy’ or that of the group and indeed was a getting out of it or rising above it into some ethereal other spiritual realm. All a figment of my imagination and as fickle and as impermanent as any other emotional state.

By the time I came across Richard I was ready to give the whole lot up, not only for the failure of the system but in seeing how these Gurus were as ordinary people. In the end they offered little to emulate and much to avoid. What really lit me up about what Richard was saying more than anything was the possibility that I could live with a woman in peace and harmony. It is a point that many spiritual seekers completely ignore, and indeed many scorn. Some have relationships based on them being the guru and their companion being a disciple or student but that to me is a complete sham and deceit.

Equity, peace and harmony is a more accurate description of what I have with Vineeto. If it is not possible to demonstrate as an actuality with one other person in my life I figured peace on earth would forever remain but a dream. And I have proved it, which is why I can say with utter confidence that it is now possible for anyone and everyone – should they want it. So it is good to see your interest in something non-spiritual and down to earth. Something actual rather than something imaginary. If the Gurus can’t put their money where their mouth is in their personal relationships it’s time for them to shut up.

Or better still it’s time for their followers to give up hoping and trusting that they will produce the goods – and I think peace on earth is a good basic goal. And peace at home is undoubtedly the first essential step. In breaking free of the all – enveloping spiritual mindset, a useful tool for me was to realise that just because everybody believes something doesn’t necessarily mean it is a fact. And becoming a detective in search of the facts is a fascinating activity – sort of like growing up and finding out for myself, rather than believing what I had been programmed to believe. It’s so good to be free of the need to go on retreats or meditate to find stillness, peace and contentment when I can now experience that right here, now.

It is effortlessly available right here in the actual world – it is the very nature of the physical universe.

This question arose as I was thinking about what you wrote. It seems possible that when an emotion looses its hold then so do all the associated beliefs. So I wonder why the beliefs have to be questioned one by one. Why not get down to the task of seeking out the emotions and not the beliefs as such. Or is it that it does not really matter which belief is questioned, as once the associated emotion is disbanded, other beliefs based on the same emotion will also loose their authenticity.

It may be useful to look at the different path and process that Richard took to Actual Freedom and the one we are pursuing. As you will probably have read, Richard experienced a Pure Consciousness Experience wherein he experienced a ‘self’-less state of purity and perfection lasting some 4 hours. Over the next 9 months he used the method of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to question and virtually eliminate all the bad feelings and emotions. At the end of this period, instead of achieving what he was aiming for – the PCE as a constant state – he died an ‘ego-death’ to emerge into what he called Absolute Freedom – a state he soon discovered was akin to the coveted Enlightenment of the Eastern Teachings. While his aim was the PCE, he had lobbed inadvertently into an Altered State of Consciousness. He was not at all familiar with Eastern teaching or philosophy during this process, so it would appear that the inevitable result of tackling and eliminating the ‘bad’ is that one can end up with a new identity – the ‘Good One’, or in full blown delusion ‘God’. I suspect many seekers of freedom have befallen this trap despite their sincere intentions at the beginning of their search, while others have made a blatant and obvious bee-line for the Glamour, Glory and Glitz. As you know, it then took Richard a further 11 years to dismantle and eliminate this second identity – soul, Self, spirit, being, or whatever. Now, the path I am following is to run these two stages together, if you like – to eliminate both ego and soul, to eliminate both good and bad feelings to achieve a complete ‘self’-less state as is evident by the PCE.

The path to Enlightenment is a well-worn track and given that the bad, ‘evil’ and socially frowned-upon values are the easiest to eliminate, and one gets enormous kudos for doing so – to be adored and worshipped as a God-man or Goddess is about as much kudos as one can possibly get! But in questioning and eliminating the so-called good there is nothing in it for ‘me’ – indeed, it is the end of ‘me’ as a social identity and instinctual being. I become an anonymous non-entity, or non-identity, as well as having no instinctual-based self. It became very apparent to me that this social identity held the clue to tackling the other half of the feelings and emotions – the social identity is the ‘guardian at the gate’, as I have written recently. It is impossible for a ‘moral’ person to tackle the so-called good feelings, it is impossible for a ‘spiritual’ person to tackle the idea of a spirit, it is impossible for a ‘ethical’ person to tackle right and wrong, it is impossible for a ‘prudish’ person to tackle sexual issues. One must dismantle these values taught by Humanity in order to dig deeper – to get below the surface, as it were.

In my experience, this social identity is a conglomerate of all the beliefs, morals, ethics, values, principles and psittacisms that I have been programmed with since birth. It is only when I have eliminated or wiped this programming back to a stage where I cease to be a believer, where I cease the very act of believing, that I can look and investigate the core instinctual being that is ‘me’. A lot of work is done on the way in eliminating the effect of these emotions on one’s daily life such that one achieves a virtual freedom – a stable ‘base’ from which one can look with clear eyes at one’s instinctual self, without the guardians of the social morals, ethics, principles, etc. relentlessly churning and stirring. Another way of putting it is that one is then able to dismantle the psychic entity without the psychological entity ‘jumping up and down’ so much. You have reduced the effects of the instinctual emotions in daily life to almost zero such that ‘I’ is almost ephemeral, ethereal, ghostly and hardly able to maintain its existence.

Now this is, at the moment, just the experience of a few but I would say, on the basis of the evidence so far, that in order to avoid the trap of enlightenment, one needs to dismantle the beliefs that form one’s social identity in order to avoid the trap of becoming yet another Grand and Glorious identity. I would suppose that, as more and more people become actually free, that this ‘step outside Humanity’ will become less fearful and dramatic as one will have the confidence of knowing that others have done it.

As I wrote in my Journal –

... ‘So far, only Richard had left this squabbling, sorrowful ‘Humanity’ behind but he had gone a torturous route through Enlightenment and out the other side. I saw myself as a pioneer on a new, much easier, more direct course. I am full of admiration for the Richard who did it. He likened it to discovering a new continent in the days of old, in a tiny, leaky sailing ship, taking years for the perilous journey. Once discovered it was then easier for others, and now people can fly there comfortably in hours. I likened myself similarly, knowing what I was looking for, but plotting an easier course, avoiding the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ – the lure of the Glamour, Glory and Glitz – that had thwarted all previous attempts.’ ... Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

This avoiding the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ is at the very crux of tackling beliefs – unless the belief in God, an after-life – any form of ‘something else’, ‘somewhere else’ or ‘sometime else’ – is fully investigated and de-bunked you could end up Enlightened. And for those who have experienced a PCE, to end up a God-man is but a piffling waste. Then once one has done one’s homework, demolished one’s social identity one takes the final step with confidence born out of surety of the many PCEs experienced in Virtual Freedom, not to mention the glimpses of ASC’s experienced as a contrast.

Well, that got a bit long, but I hope it is of use and may explain what many regard as the obsession of actualist with anything spiritual . One cannot be obsessed, preoccupied, consumed, engrossed and curious enough as to the machinations of the spiritual and psychic worlds. Not only are beliefs and passions preventing your being actually happy and harmless, there are also 160,000,000 million people who have died in wars fought this century alone and have died senselessly for these very same beliefs and passions.

Yesterday when I was contemplating on ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’, I realized that I am not really understanding the word ‘experiencing’. What I was asking myself was, in fact, ‘How am I feeling in this moment of being alive’. This is so because I was always coming out with answers like ‘happy’ or ‘not happy’ or ‘gloomy’ etc. Which are all feelings.

Aye, indeed. And until ‘you’ leave the stage your experience of life will be an emotional, feeling interpretation of the actual. It can not be any other way – human beings are wired that way. The amygdala – the primitive lizard brain – is an organ that is designed as an early warning system to quickly scan the sensorial input for any real or perceived danger and react with fear and aggression. This constant ‘on-guardness’ can be seen in any of the animal species, and in the human animal it produces feelings of fear and aggression. The amygdala is also the source of instinctual nurture and desire producing feelings that again actively conspire to ruin our happiness. So it sounds as if you are starting to realize the primary role that feelings play in the Human Condition. ‘You’ as an entity, existing inside the flesh and blood body can only think or feel about the actual world, and the only direct experience possible is when you cease to exist – either temporarily in a PCE, virtually in Virtual Freedom or permanently in Actual Freedom.

In last two or three days, what I have found is different. To me it looks like that I can experience the actual world sensately, even while ‘I’ is alive and is in charge most of the time. Both ‘I’ and I can exist simultaneously at least for some time. My proposition is that if I focus more and more on experiencing and less and less on feeling, ‘I’ will dissolve gradually in due course of time. It may be boots and all approach, but I think it is working for me. The best part is that I don’t have to wait till ‘I’ completely annihilates itself, I can enjoy the sensate physical world right now. It doesn’t happen for 24 hours, but even those few moments when I can really enjoy the physical world are satisfying enough. And I am not even talking of peak experience. I don’t have any. I am talking of ordinary events like while sipping my tea, my taste buds enjoying the warmth of it and my nose enjoying the flavour. Or while taking a bath, my skin enjoying the cool water drops falling from the shower.

It seems that you are saying that the traditional spiritual approach is going to work for you. It didn’t work for me after 17 years on the spiritual path, and once I acknowledged the fact of the failure of this approach to eliminate sorrow and malice in the world I dropped it like a hot brick. I realized that literally billions of people had ‘practiced’ being happy and good for millennia with nil result. This last century has, in fact, been the bloodiest in history.

When I first came upon the spiritual path I remember practicing being here and being centred and focused, but my relationships still failed, I still got pissed off, annoyed, melancholic, irritated and occasionally angry. Later I got into Vipassana meditation and then the ‘food queue syndrome’ kicked in – blissful sittings that eventually ended, which meant returning to the real world populated by ‘un-meditative’ people. This approach did nothing to address the primary, central role that instinctually-sourced feelings and passions have in producing malice and sorrow. But I don’t want to get into a right and wrong discussion with you – I just went with the facts and what worked and what didn’t work. For me that meant focusing on feelings with the intent of eliminating malice and sorrow.

Your approach is to focus less and less on feelings. I fail to see how the instinctual passions are going ‘to dissolve gradually in the due course of time’. It hasn’t happened over the 3,500 years of recorded spiritual history, in fact, quite the contrary has occurred. The instinctual passions have been co-opted into appalling battles between good and evil and as for ‘‘I’ will gradually dissolve’ – history has it that when this method of dis-association is practiced, ‘I’ become Self-realized – for the few, or ‘I’ become self-centred, self-satisfied, humble, grateful – for the many.

When I talk of a sensible, sensate only experience I talk of it at the end of some 2 years of intensive effort aimed at eliminating the debilitating effects of having a social identity and having an instinctual self. I am talking of an experience whereby I have so totally and thoroughly changed myself to the point where feelings and instincts play no role in my life.

I do not know what to say to you Peter except that you seem to be obsessed with Osho. Twenty years of following Osho, it must be hard to let go of him. You are worse than some of Osho’s devotees.

It took me about 3 years to let go and a few years of checking out 2 other God-men and then about 6 months to ditch the lot after meeting Richard. It’s not easy to ditch the ingrained proposition that the only possible freedom from misery and sorrow is to become Enlightened. But if I can do it anyone can – it only requires that one looks at the facts as opposed to dearly hanging on to one’s beliefs. To find out the facts for oneself one only needs to read. As for being obsessed by Rajneesh it is you who are a disciple of his, it is you who keep mentioning him on this non-spiritual mailing list. But we could have a pact if you like – you don’t mention him and then I won’t. But I warn you, should you mention him then I will continue to point out what it is that he was flogging and I will quote his words so as to present the facts and avoid any emotionally-biased interpretations. As for being worse than some of Rajneesh’s devotees, the usual response from his disciples is that I am worse than a ‘born-again’ Christian.

Nonetheless, what I will not allow you to do is for you to shove your experiences and your interpretations down my throat. I am going to conduct my experiments and find out things by myself.

I take it you are going back to the Sannyas list then – they never question the Teachings there, let alone they dare to question the Teacher.

What is on offer here is an alternative to the whole Master-disciple business. The aim of this list is to offer and spell out this third alternative to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’.

Many people in the world seek a freedom from being trapped in ‘normal’, many aspire to something better and many have had glimpses of that possibility. Up until now there has been only one other alternative – spiritual ‘freedom’ or transcendence, which inevitably and inexorably leads one to an Altered State of Consciousness, resulting in the continuation of the Master-disciple business and thence to religious devotion, bigotry, persecution, hostility and war.

Now there is a simple choice, a third alternative is available, and it is for you to judge what you want to do with your life.

So, if you want me not to type some of Osho’s long discourses and not waste beautiful spring (autumn) days on this task then don’t quote him as an authority in your posts. He hadn’t a clue what we are talking about – after all, actual freedom hadn’t even been discovered before his death. It is factually impossible for him to have known about Actual Freedom.

But if you do mention Rajneesh, I do enjoy delving into some of Ancient Wisdom for a bit of de-bunking of myths and beliefs. I don’t even need to interpret – it is all written down in their very own words quite plainly what they are on about.

A year after writing this, the same issue is coming home to me again as I find that, after 2 years of ‘cleaning myself’ up – digging deep into my psyche and exploring the roots of fear and aggression, it is blatantly obvious that there is nothing that can be done, within the Human Condition, to eliminate malice and sorrow. No matter how good, moral, ethical or well intentioned the individual or group attempts to be, the instincts will always win out. There have been billions of people who have prayed for peace, attempted to live moral and good lives but peace on earth is still no closer to happening.

Peace on earth is an impossibility while human beings are instinctually driven to fight each other.

The clearly unworkable, unliveable and unsuccessful reliance on morals and ethics to bring peace on earth – let alone within tribal groups, families or couples – can surely now be abandoned as a failure. Of course, one would not want to venture off and begin to question the ‘good’ if one had no evidence that there was something better, and that evidence is the Pure Consciousness Experience. One of the prime qualities of the ‘self’-less state of the PCE is the fairy-tale like purity and perfection of the actual world, and the quality of a human being in a PCE is one of innocence – there is a total absence of instinctual fear and aggression. This is the innocence much sought after on the spiritual path but what one ends up with is feeling Good or becoming Divine – a perversion and human corruption of the actual state of innocence. A synthetic, fragile, supposed innocence that does nothing to tackle the inbuilt programming of fear and aggression in the amygdala – the ‘primitive brain’ within humans.

I had about 17 years of experience on the spiritual path and came to know at least four of the Gurus well enough to see that they didn’t practice what they preached. From this personal observation and a little bit of reading it is evident that the personal lives of all the Gurus are tainted by ‘normal’ emotions and behaviour despite their claims of Divineness. They get away with it because their disciples ‘turn a blind eye’ and as you said, because there has been nothing better on offer. The shenanigans and hypocrisy of the Gurus are reasonably well documented, as are those of most religious groups.

As one goes further back in time to the ancient and usually mythical God-men, such as Jesus, Buddha and Mahavira, we have to rely on the fairy stories of miracles and Divine attributes told in the Sacred texts and Holy Books. Many people attempt to claim that these Divine figures actually existed as flesh and blood human beings in some Golden Era, but an open-eyed reading of any of the texts reveals their purely mythical nature. I remember as a kid thinking what a funny idea the Western God was, and later being appalled when I read of the atrocities carried out in the name of various Gods and the churches. The war mongering – and whore mongering – of the Popes was particularly stunning. And I later found out that the Eastern Religions are no different. Modern ‘Spiritual’ belief is firmly founded on the fairy stories spun around mythical God-men and their fables, miracles and unliveable teachings. So, we are faced with the continuing failure of any spiritual or religious teachings to bring peace on earth after 5,000 years of billions of people attempting to live the unliveable and attain the unattainable – an actual innocence. An actual innocence is only attainable if one can rid oneself of the instinctual animal passions. Both the so called ‘good’ ones and the ‘bad’ ones – both have to go, for the experiment of praying to the Gods for help, living a Good life or becoming a God-man or Goddess, has clearly failed.

I have lived in a virtual freedom from instinctual passions for some 18 months now – ‘virtual’ as in as near as actual freedom as one can get while remaining a ‘self’. All of the coarser feelings and emotions such as anger, grievance, despair, sadness, resentment, etc. have disappeared from my life and my ties to a blighted Humanity are almost non-existent. But just in the last 2 days I have noticed a touch of annoyance on several occasions which is a clear sign that the only solution for my personal peace and for peace on earth is the complete elimination of my instinctual self – there are no short-cuts, there is no ‘other’ solution, for all have been tried and found wanting, by me and billions of others.

I remember when I first met Richard I joked to him that he should have a sign above the door that says – ‘Abandon hope – all who enter here’. I was fortunately ready to abandon hope (and trust) that following the traditional methods could ever make me happy and harmless. I had seen too much of the hypocrisy, power-plays, corruption, deception and duplicity in all religious and spiritual worlds. The utterly ‘self’-ish search for immortality that has forever plagued human beings must be clearly seen for what it is – narcissism in the extreme.

But it is not something that one person convinces another of – it is for each to make their own discoveries, make their own decisions as to what they want to do with their lives. It takes a bold decision to admit to failing to find peace and happiness, to admit that one is not being the best one can be, to admit that one is neither happy nor harmless. And then to decide to set out in completely the opposite direction to what everyone else is doing, one needs to be both desperate and daring.

For me, I always enjoy writing of the third alternative to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual’ and participating in – and documenting – its success. To not only point out what doesn’t work but also to report on what does. This physical actual universe is too grand, too magnificent, too amazing for human beings to be forever trapped in primitive survival mode – endlessly battling it out for survival, endlessly living in fear. And we have all had glimpses of that – now there is a chance to put an end to malice and sorrow for those who want to.

But beware – it works!

Thanks for your words of encouragement ... (for personal peace and ‘peace-on-earth’) ... do you know anyone, (other than Richard), who has achieved, actual freedom permanently?

No. When I first met Richard I soon twigged that what he was on about was an actual peace that was already existing – and has always existed – in the actual world. This seemed so blindingly obvious and something I had always suspected and had glimpses of in Pure Consciousness Experiences. Surely others had seen it, were writing of it and living it? I spent about 3 months digging into both conventional wisdom and spiritual wisdom and found zilch. ‘Normal’ real world wisdom is that needs to be normally neurotic – bound by confused and conflicting morals and ethics, controlling one’s instinctual passions within tolerable limits and blindly fulfilling one’s instinctual and societal obligations as best one can. Generally it all works pretty well – except for all the wars, rapes, murders, tortures, corruption, suicides, etc. and people are quite often happy. Spiritual wisdom is that life on earth is an ‘unsatisfactory’ experience or that human suffering is essential in the Grand Scheme of things and that personal peace is to be realized by living as a God in a higher metaphysical ‘other world’.

Real world wisdom is that ‘you can’t change human nature’ – you just have to make the best of it. Spiritual wisdom is that ‘you can’t change human nature’ – you just have to transcend it and find your Divine Nature.

All I found was evidence of a trail of human investigation, experimentation and effort over millennia but inevitably the instinctual drive of the parasitical alien entity ‘self’ to stay in existence lead to altered states of consciousness and not a permanent freedom from one’s ‘self’. Personally, I found this wonderfully challenging, exciting and freeing as it lead to an understanding of why, after all the past efforts, peace on earth had not happened and could not happen. It meant I was able to do something about my personal peacefulness – being happy and harmless – and in doing so prove that peace on earth was possible. Being the first , sixth, sixtieth or six thousandth is irrelevant when it is your own peace that is at stake.

I just didn’t want to miss the bus that serendipitously arrived at my doorstep ...

PS – U.G. Krishnamurti seems to have arrived at some state ‘beyond Enlightenment’ but he doesn’t know how he got there, claims he is a sport of nature and doesn’t seem to fully enjoy being alive. Even the not-yet-permanent 99.9% perfection of Virtual Freedom seems far, far better than his state as he describes it.

*

I, (this body), has left the marriage and the things I love many times but we reunite to enjoy the fruits of our life together ... of less than 100% companionship, less than 100% intimacy. I want 100% actual freedom... 100% actual intimacy... and I know the cost is 100% high... and believe the rewards are 100% great. Any comments about gambling?

I trod the traditional path for some 17 years until I realized that I had seen Western religions as silly as a teenager but had managed to get myself sucked into Eastern religions at the age of 33 when my real world persona was at collapse stage. The other realization was that the current Western fashionable interest in ‘spirituality’ I was involved in was a mere blimp on the history of Eastern religious pursuit. Literally billions had been pursuing Buddhism, Hinduism and the like for thousands of years and there are few more serious or intense devotees than the millions of Buddhists monks who devote their entire adult lives to meditation and ‘right’ thinking. And for what result – rampant narcissism, appalling poverty, stifling repression, entrenched ignorance, endemic corruption, debilitating theocracies, insidious sexism, etc.

Oh, and a few new God-men every now and again, to keep the system going.

I saw I was senselessly pissing into the wind – gambling my life away – all for my own ‘self’ interest. The odds are steep but becoming a God on Earth is the grandest of prizes. So, when the spiritual balloon finally popped for me – and I had already found the real world less than fulfilling – I figured I had ‘nothing left to lose’, which is the title I chose for my journal cover.

If you have ‘nothing left to lose’ then the path to Actual Freedom is a cinch. I firstly made it the most important thing to do in my life – numero uno ambition. I still worked, did all my normal daily things and most definitely did not retreat from the world as it is. Running the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the method that allows you complete freedom to maintain normal life while cleaning yourself up on the way. This involved occasional adjustments or betterments to normal life but the actual changes are internal – to the brain’s programming.

The process is one of self-immolation, and personally I found the ridding myself of my social identity easy. I had already chopped and changed from normal to spiritual, had moved to different places, had different groups of friends, etc. so to extricate myself from the mess was not overly difficult. It did mean abandoning my spiritual friends who all stubbornly kept insisting that life on earth is a miserable experience. The business of replacing belief with fact was one of fascinating discovery, and the replacing of right and wrong, good and bad with silly and sensible was wonderfully liberating. The instinctual levels were a bit more of a ‘new territory’ as one is abandoning Humanity – in defiance of the genetically-encoded instinctual program that makes ‘me’ one of the species – but no emotional scars or memories whatsoever remain of what were, on occasions, ‘interesting’ experiences.

It’s been 2 ½ years now since I first came across AF and the results are stunning. As one demolishes one’s self the actual world of purity and perfection becomes increasingly apparent and obvious – for it is always here, happening right now.

It is an amazing thing to journey into one’s own psyche and rewire one’s own brain ... and to experience the effects that result.

What has happened is I have picked up new sets of beliefs. I compare others with my own belief of how they should live their lives. I have a set of beliefs on what a Master is supposed to be, why I or everybody else should meditate in order to ‘know themselves’ and be happy, peaceful, blah, blah, blah...

I am going to look into this ‘third alternative’.

There is a great myth put about by many in the spiritual world that goes something like ‘you are already That or God, or Enlightened, you only have to realize it’. It is a prime example of being in cuckoo land as it denies the fact that, as human beings, we are born with instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. And it attempts to transcend the animal biological heritage by inventing some mythical ‘divine world’ and going off and dwelling in it ‘for eternity’. The problem in humans is a neuro-biological, not meta-physical. And only by ridding ourselves of the Ancient belief in Gods and Goddesses, can we begin to tackle the problem. Without God it is up to each of us to sort out our own ‘self’ and why not? It is such an amazing journey of discovery that it makes any normal or spiritual therapies seem like kindergarten. To find out ‘what’ you are as opposed to who you ‘think’ or ‘feel’ you are!

No longer do I dwell or wallow in the psychic world. No longer do I need good spirits, Masters, guides, omens or charms. No longer does a battle rage inside my head or my heart. Free of fear, doubt, feelings and emotions I am able to be here, in this moment of time, sensing the physical world – delighting in typing, with a fan blowing cool air on my back, my body still loose and tingling after a ‘romp’ with Vineeto. The actual physical experiencing of the perfection of the physical world, the ease, the comfort, the pleasure of food, sex, coffee, writing, reflecting, talking. The delight, the thrill of doing what is happening is definitely where it is at!

To be free of my ‘self’ and the psychic world is to be free of doubt and fear – to be actually free.

*

How would our decisions change if we understood that whatever we do to our neighbour we do to ourselves?

The concept falls down badly on the first point which is that when ‘push comes to shove’ nobody cares what they do to their neighbour, everybody reverts to ‘survival’ mode. Each human comes into the world wired with a set of instincts (fear, aggression, nurture and desire) and a primitive self. This is overlaid with a set of social conditioning and we then adopt a social identity in order to fulfill the role expected of us. Thus there are 5.8 billion humans, each with a ‘self’ that is basically lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning. No wonder, we still need to keep up law and order with the point of a gun. Adopting moralistic or idealistic concepts is to treat the symptoms and not the disease. It is merely sticking one’s head in the sand.

To go ‘in’ to some imaginary world of bliss, God, Oneness, Love, Truth, etc. is merely to put one’s head in the clouds – to go off into an imaginary la-la land. The only reason this imagination maintains any credibility is that it appeals to the psychological and psychic entity within each of us which desperately fears death and seeks immortality in some ethereal metaphysical realm. The soul going to heaven, the spirit going home, the essence rejoining the Source, or however else it is imagined according to the belief held.

Personally, I found a thorough investigation and understanding of all the social conditioning and instinctual drives with their resulting feelings, emotions and passions led to the stage that I am free of them. Being free of malice and sorrow is a state so superior to moral rightness or spiritual bliss; and it is actual and factual, not imaginary and fickle.

*

What is good for all is good for each of us, because We All are One. In considering each action you take, just think to yourself ‘if everyone took this action, would it benefit Us as One, or would it not?’ Choose accordingly. That’s how we can choose a different path – a path of love that benefits Us All.

This concept has been tried by every religion for centuries and does a reasonable job (aided by armies and police forces) to keep our violence and aggression to reasonable limits. Only 160,000,000 killed in wars this century.

Your actions will serve as a seed in fertile ground – others will understand through your actions. Others will catch the spirit of the truth in that way.

Religions, philosophies, revolutions, popular movements, Gurus and the like have been planting seeds for millennia and we get no end to malice and sorrow. A little discerning reading of history will attest to this fact. Or you could just watch the television news – we humans inflict far more violence on each other than we do to anything else. In fact we enjoy it. One of the best selling computer games involves killing pedestrians while driving a car. Most jokes are based on putting somebody down. All of our ‘entertainment’ involves either violence or sorrow (usually termed ‘love’ stories)

If there is something different you would do given the truth that We Are All One, simply change what you do. Change your actions to those that are helpful for All. Show others by your example what works better. Together in this way, we can make a difference today for tomorrow. It is the natural way of things – to choose again.

The ‘natural’ way is sorrow and malice – it is programmed into us by blind nature. It is time to be un-natural.

The way is now open to for anyone, given sufficient intent, to rid themselves of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. To re-run another version of Ancient Wisdom is to follow the well-worn track leading no-where new. If becoming happy and harmless seems a worthy aim in life, there is an alternative.

If you wish to remain with another group of ‘chosen ones’ then, of course, you will wait for a Doomsday for your ‘rewards’. It is good we are all free to make choices in our lives.

I simply made an assessment of the Old Ways and found that they hadn’t worked. When I dug further I found out why. Someone read my Journal the other day and said he liked it and that it was a modern version of what all the mystics are saying. He missed the point completely – still it’s early days.

I do enjoy living in these times of comfort, technology and communication, when I can type a few words, a few clicks and off it goes, and then I waddle over to the couch for an afternoon nap.

Just a little comment on what Mr. Watts has said,

In a certain sense

instead of feeling something about life. Alan Watts

It is another of those poems that clearly point to the spiritual path as being a feeling path to an ‘inner world’. One becomes a ‘watcher’, ‘feeling’ one’s way in the world and as such is cut off from the direct sensate experience of the actual world that is ever-present – under our very noses.

To ‘feel’ life is not the same as fully living life, exactly as ‘thinking’ about life is not the same as fully living life.

To be actually here is to be here in this moment of time, which is the only moment one can experience anyway.

To be actually here is to be in this place which is no-where in particular in the infinitude of the physical universe.

Coming from no-where and having no-where to go, we find ourselves here in this moment in time, in this place in space.

To be here is to be the universe experiencing itself as a human being.

For those who are interested, below is a fuller explanation of the three ways that we humans can experience life – cerebral (thought), affective (feeling) and sensate (senses). Dictionary definitions are given in italics for clarity.

[see glossary for thought, feeling and sense ]

Can you see that out of three indications (on the sannyas list; the word boredom in a sentence; reference to ‘our children’), you made an assumption?

Each of those indications involved an assumption on your part. Assumptions built up into meta-assumptions, and before you knew it you saw it as obvious that I was talking about some sort of next lifetime interaction. I was not. That is a fact. Can you see that your assumptions led you to an erroneous conclusion? The conclusion was in regard to how I was thinking about things, so surely you reached an assumption about my state of mind. Is it the case that you began with the pre-supposition that No. 8 is speaking from a spiritual mind-set and then you let my words prove that to you? Ok, do that if you like. But I am really glad that we can write words to each other so that you can begin to understand me a little more clearly.

If you say so. But I obviously can’t ‘assume’ anything by the words that you write.

As you yourself have said –

‘I seem to do it the opposite way around to you. For years, decades, (lifetimes?) I seem to have been asking myself who I am, or what is beyond, or what am I for, or who is experiencing’

It still seems a spiritual mind-set to me – oh. well. Maybe next lifetime?

I find that sometimes after I have taken someone at face value, I get to communicate with them more deeply, and then I really understand what they were communicating to me from the beginning of our interaction and then I wonder how in hell I could have got the original impression at all! Sure, written communication is great here. It is great to go back to the words that someone wrote to us and say ‘Ah! I didn’t see that the words meant that, before’

As you yourself have said –

‘part of the reason I get off the Sannyas list for awhile is I am becoming more and more aware of my tendency to write unclear sentences. I have a tendency to allude to things rather than state them clearly.’

I am still fascinated by what Richard and you are saying. I am slowly going through the journals. As I read I relate your words to my experience.

Just a suggestion – if you try and relate what is being said to your experience you will end up no-where. What the words relate to is that the fact that, at last, ‘there is something new under the sun’. New, as in never seen before, new as in never experienced before (except in a PCE), new as in non-spiritual, new as in down-to-earth. To attempt to fit it in with your existing ‘experience’, terminology and spiritual mind-set is a total waste of time. You will confuse both yourself and those you attempt to communicate with. Exactly as Mr Edison would have stared in wonder at this computer and would have had to sit down and learn it from first principles, Mr Buddha would have had to throw out all his beliefs, concepts and ideas of spirits, other worlds, perpetual suffering, etc. and simply begin again.

What a wonderful, amazing thing – to wipe the slate clean of old psittacisms, to begin life again. Not only free of all that has been programmed in us and that we have adopted in order to be a ‘fit’ member of this fighting, squabbling, fearsome and suspicious Humanity, but to be actually free of malice and sorrow. To have gone beyond the limits of Enlightenment.

The spiritual path is nothing more than an ancient attempt to transcend our instinctual malice and sorrow with the idea of Good, good spirits, God and a better place ‘somewhere’ else. And it not only has failed to produce peace on earth after five thousand years – it has actively and mightily contributed to the appalling violence, misery and suffering on the planet.

Nobody can change this sad planet. Look this way, right now we have about six billion people, so many religions and religious movements, so many conflicts, so many bloody wars, so much hunger, rape, crime, killings ... and very powerful people whose are very much alike with such a situation, and average man is full of fears for himself, for his job, for his children ... It will be, what it will be and if some says to me ‘I want to change myself’ I’m due to believe him, but if some says to me ‘I write to finally put an end to war, rape, torture, famine, suicide, sexual abuse, repression, suicide, slavery’ – I don’t know man. I didn’t lose my faith but ...

I remember when I first came across Richard and he said it is possible to be happy and harmless, and to live with a woman in peace and harmony. I had tried the normal path of family, career, money, relationships, being part of a group, etc., and had the feeling I had done it all. I had got to the stage that the career option of being a Guru didn’t seem what I wanted to be. So I simply decided make being free of malice and sorrow my main business in life. And I was successful. So, I really did it for me, for my personal peace. But if others take this on as an aim in life then we may well eventually have happy and harmless people on the planet. It may well take thousands of years but it is now possible.

This insanity has gone on unquestioned since unquestioning obedience in the name of ‘trust’ and ‘faith’ is the inherent price one pays when joining the various groups involved.

Again more speculation and projections. What the fuck do you know about what people have or have not questioned.

I made it a point when I came across Richard and his writings to check out for myself the facts of the situation rather than merely believe him or blindly defend my own beliefs. In the many, many books that I read (and re-read in some cases) I found no one who had dared to question the whole package of both Eastern and Western religions, yet alone offer an alternative path to freedom. Many do indeed question bits and pieces now and then, criticizing others as being not as good as them, or flawed in some way as they have the only true message, but this is usually only a self-serving exercise aimed at attracting more followers.

So, if any have questioned and come up with any other solution to remaining ‘normal’ apart from becoming Divine, they seem to have kept it to themselves.

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