Selected Writings from Peter’s Journal

on Intelligence

And the rewards are extraordinary – l have complete freedom to be ‘me as I am’, and for Vineeto it is likewise. No expectations, no bonds, no wanting to change the other – why should we? She is perfect; she has made herself that way by ‘cleaning herself up’. And what a delight to meet equal intelligence, equal common sense and an equally sexual being! We experience equity as two human beings and delight in the physical differences, as those differences allow us to enjoy delicious, lusty sex! The hours and hours of talking, discussing and dissecting the Human Condition; the ‘What it is to be a man or a woman’; the ‘What’s going on for me’; the ‘Oh! That’s how you see it?’ – the fascination of discovery! It is astounding to actually meet another human being, naked of pretence and defence. It leaves temporary fickleness of love for dead! Peter’s Journal, ‘Living Together’

Fear welled up in me as I realised I no longer believed in the Spiritual – it was obviously just the religion of the East, and religion had obviously failed in the East as it had in the West. After thousands of years, nowhere is there peace on earth or happiness. But I knew I could not just believe Richard either. The enormity of it all was beginning to dawn on me. Nobody could help me. I could only rely on the facts, my own intelligence and experience. But the facts were undeniable. And a fact is a fact, whereas a belief is only a belief. In short it meant everybody else has got it wrong and I have got it right. I knew that would place me as a heretic – the very people who are persecuted and burnt at the stake! Besides, what about all those years of belief and faith – how could I have been such a fool!

Pride reared its ugly head, but I recognised it as the same pride that had bound me to the spiritual path in the first place and had given me a feeling of superiority. I then realised the connection between pride and humility, so subtly hidden beneath the ‘good-ness’ of the spiritual world. In the end I came to realise that I would be a greater fool to continue pursuing something that didn’t work, simply because everybody else was! It was useful to see Vineeto also struggling with exactly this same pride, as I often saw something in someone else that was relevant to turn in on myself. In the end I realised it was my life, and to worry about what other people thought is not to be free – and freedom was the very thing that I was after. Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

So now I had to find out what was left given that I had abandoned the belief that God or at least a ‘something else’ was taking care of, or was responsible for, me and everyone else on the planet. Even if there was ‘a something else’, it was obviously doing such a rotten job it was now time to take the helm and steer myself out of the muddy waters. And ultimately I had to give up worrying about anyone else – it was, after all, my happiness I was vitally concerned with.

I remember thinking at some stage what an enormous relief it was to not have to suffer on the spiritual path any more, to find something that I could actually, practically do to fix myself up. Richard said he had met many people who would agree that the spiritual path had not worked for them, thank him for pointing it out, go away and give up looking any more. Well, not so for me, thank you! However, it meant that in Star Trek terms I was ‘going where no man had gone before’.

Of course, Richard had done it, had mapped a course and was waving a flag saying, ‘Over here – it’s okay’, but I still had to do it, for myself, by myself. I was faced with venturing beyond the norm – in effect, stepping outside ‘Humanity’, that biggest of clubs that clings together in fear, believes in ‘a something else’ and fights horrendous wars as to who is following the right ‘Something’ or ‘Someone’. Photograph courtesy of NASA

So here I was, about to push off into the deep end of the swimming pool, without anything or anybody to rescue me or look after me if things went wrong. And in my head I was continuously singing the Janis Joplin song, ‘...nothing left to lose...’ It sounds dramatic, I know, but I was involved in an experiment – a new escape route from malice and sorrow.

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 ‘Intelligence’

You could regard this book as the log of my journey. At the time of writing there is a handful of others involved, Vineeto included, making their own escape, but everyone has to do it for themselves. I thought a personal account of my journey could be useful to anyone else who wanted to ‘escape’ from malice and sorrow and allow the delights of the actual physical world to become apparent. It is a thrilling journey. Nothing I have done in my life even remotely compares with this adventure, and I am doing it for myself. My experiencing ‘of the wondrous physical universe of people, events and things’, as Richard puts it, daily intensifies as the journey into myself continues. It works on the way, and I experience this in my daily life – after all, the point of it is to become happy and harmless now. The goal is always immediate, the results actual in this moment, and the question continuously running is, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive,’ here, now! It was amazing that this entire journey was just occurring inside my head. It was a journey into my psyche, dismantling the ‘who’ that I thought I was – my very ‘self’.

This brings me back to the point of the ‘log book’. I found it necessary to spend a great deal of time with my investigations into the Human Condition, removing the belief in ‘spirits’ and ‘gods’, as they have such a tenacious hold on the human psyche. The elimination of the belief in any gods then clearly leaves me responsible for me – right now and at every moment. One of the essential first steps that I spent a lot of time talking about, thinking about and reading about was what exactly is wrong – what exactly is the nature of the beast I am to tackle? The first obvious thing was that the problem lay in my mind.

I called it the neurosis – that constant delving into past events and suffering them over and over again, and that continual rehearsal and fear of future events. Some people seem to not even get to this stage of recognising that the problem is inside themselves and not elsewhere. I had always assumed that anyone on the spiritual search had this basic understanding, and that was why they were searching. I am astounded at the number of seekers who still blame other people or events for their own unhappiness. So the first thing was to recognise that I suffered from an ailment, a dis-ease, called the Human Condition – the core of which is malice and sorrow. Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

This process of identifying various aspects of the human condition within me became a full-time occupation. Whenever I was not experiencing myself at the optimum level possible at the time, I had something, some aspect of the Human Condition, to look at. This constant looking within myself – my psyche – would then expose that particular belief or instinct as silly, not sensible, and it would eventually disappear. Often the change was sudden and dramatic with a corresponding thrill of freedom, while other issues brought a slow, sluggish release. Often I found myself impatient at an apparent lack of progress, just to realise that this was exactly the issue to look at – perhaps the desire for excitement and achievement, or good old boredom. It was extraordinary that the next thing would come along, and the right circumstances and events would occur, confronting and aiding me. Sometimes, seeing through some part of ‘me’ as a mere belief or instinctual pattern would come as a flash of realisation, sometimes as a slow painful dawning, which I would fight tooth and nail, reluctant to even acknowledge, let alone throw out. But gradually I could notice the psychological and psychic entity becoming thinner, actually weakening its hold over me. It then became apparent to me that I was indeed fixing myself up! Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

At first it felt like a very delicate process, as I was extremely skeptical and wary, given the failures I had endured previously. I was aware of the gullibility and cunning that ‘I’ was capable of, but I knew that fooling myself was stupid in the extreme! I would continuously check myself, being scrupulously honest with myself. Whenever some issue was on the table, or even if I thought it had been resolved, I would ‘sweep around in the cupboard with a broom’ – as I called it. I would check around in my brain to make sure that nothing was hiding and no ‘dirt’ remained.

It felt like I was actually re-wiring my brain, and that is exactly was I was doing. I, as a human being had been wired or programmed in a certain way. This wiring consisted of the beliefs that had been instilled in me from the time when I was first rewarded for ‘good’, or punished for ‘bad’ behaviour and included the morals, values and ethics that made me a fit member of society. On top of it, and developing from the age of about seven were the beliefs and traits I would take on and develop as ‘my own’ identity. Underlying all of it were the animal instincts of aggression, fear, nurture and desire that we are born with.

I remember lying in bed one night and seeing all of this programming as a huge mountain that loomed over me – vast and impossible impossible to climb. Then I went to sleep, forgot about it, and the next day found I was busy demolishing some particular part of it. It reminded me of how I would deal with fear in my life. I would stop my mind from going off into all the worst possibilities and just do the next thing that needed to be done. Applied to the process I was involved in, it worked well, and if it sometimes didn’t, it just meant waiting for the fear to wear itself out – which it always does – and then getting on with the job. So, I found myself using my own intelligence to re-wire my brain. With correct intent, diligence, and a reliance on ‘silly and sensible’, I found that I could challenge every single belief with the facts of the situation.

It is plainly silly to continue to believe something when the facts of the situation prove the belief to be without substance. If it doesn’t work, and I couldn’t make it work after all those years and after all that trying, then ‘get rid of it – try something new’, became my approach. Particularly when that belief is causing me to suffer or causing me to inflict suffering on others! The multitudinous beliefs around gender and sex are potent examples of the continual failure of the traditional mish-mash. There is always a third alternative to the traditional, failed approach – always! The third alternative to staying ‘normal’ or being religious or spiritual is to use my own intelligence to contemplate and discover the facts of what it is to be a human being. Without a belief in a God, there is nothing else to use anyway.

I found it was definitely not the so-called ‘intelligence’ of men – that rational or intellectual thinking that passes for wisdom in the world. That produces tortured arguments as to how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin. Or the silly question about the tree in the Amazon jungle: does the tree actually fall down if no one sees it falling? Useless sophistry! I think this way of thinking evolved from the nonsense men talked about as they sat around campfires, looking at the stars, wondering. The modern astronomers are still trying to find God out there.

No, I am talking about the intelligence that declares: ‘I am here, what can I do to make my being here better, more enjoyable, easier?’– that’s common sense. To undertake a study of ‘who’ and ‘what’ I am – Ontology – facts not beliefs. Actual, not imaginary. I found I could wield a sword of common sense and the ‘Wisdom of the Ages’ would just crumble into dust – a pile of ancient, useless, old beliefs. Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

Then, increasingly, a curious thing began to happen. I remember talking to Richard one day, realising that I had got to a point where I was actually for the first time understanding what he was saying – or at least, most of it. I was hearing what he was saying rather than trying to interpret it as either fitting in with or opposing my belief system. An ability to see the facts of a situation through the fog of belief. It was as though I could see a common intelligence operating – a common sense in the literal meaning of the word. Not that there is an ‘Intelligence of the Universe’ – a concept that only turns the physical universe into another God. No doubt most of the intelligence in the universe is located in the human brain. I know you will say, ‘what about the dolphins’, and yes, I do know of people who talk to their dogs or to trees, but I am being sensible here. There is also no doubt that an intelligence that can put a man on the moon, construct a network of computers spanning the world, and perform the medical and scientific miracles that we see today is indeed amazing. I see this intelligence within the human brain as the ‘cutting edge’ of evolution.

Therefore, the intelligence within my brain is simply the intelligence of the universe – common sense, if you like. Common in the terms of it being readily available to everybody when one’s self or separate psychological and psychic entity is absent, even if only temporarily as it is in the peak experience. And this body’s intelligence does have a few quirks and eccentricities due to my experiences and genes, I guess: diversity and variety are two of most delightful characteristics of the physical universe.

The common sense part of the brain has the ability to observe the thinking in the brain – a sort of checking-out function. This is what Richard calls apperception – the mind’s ability to be aware of itself. It is simply a function of me, this body, not some foreign entity or spirit. Apperception enables me to monitor my thoughts and words, checking their appropriateness to the situation happening in this moment. This very function is the anchor point or reference point in this process of eliminating the psychological and psychic entity within me. The instincts of fear, aggression, nurturing and desire contaminate this bare awareness to produce an illusion of a ‘self’. It is illusionary in that it does not actually exist, but real in the malice and sorrow it produces – not to mention all the wars, rapes, tortures, domestic violence, suicide, etc. When the self is eliminated, or absent as in the peak experience, what remains is bare awareness or apperception.

Apperception is best understood as experienced in the ‘peak experience’, when the bare awareness gives what appears to be a 360 degree vision. One experiences life with heightened physical senses and one’s intelligence operates without obstruction, free to respond to each situation appropriately – to people, things and events. All emotions and feelings (sorrow and malice) simply do not exist. Everything is then perfect, immediate, effortless, actual and delightful – free of the psychic entity. But, of course, recalling or remembering the ‘peak experience’ is tricky since there are no emotions happening at the time and therefore no emotional imprint is left to anchor the memory. I found it useful to deliberately attempt to bring whatever information possible ‘back’ from the peak experience to the ‘me’ functioning in the real world. Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

The inducing of peak experiences is therefore an essential process and can be undertaken by whatever means best suits. For me this includes sex and certain activities I particularly enjoy – sitting on the balcony late at night or early morning or walking the beach. The transition from the emotional, feeling self to the free functioning of apperception eventually produces a radical mutation, and requires a pure intent firmly based on the peak experience. Ridding oneself of emotions and feelings is a shocking concept to human beings, anathema to what we regard as our very human-ness. But therein lies the cure to the disease of the Human Condition for those courageous enough to face the illusionary demons and dragons on the way. What I found happening was that as ‘I’ became thinner and was less in the way, an innate intelligence or awareness became obvious as functioning in my brain.

A common sense was operating that made any morals, ethics, or any need to believe anyone else, simply redundant. I came to a sort of delicious halfway point where I found I was not doing ‘the clean-up’ but, rather, it was happening to me. The right circumstances seemed to occur – an ease, a rush, as though I was on a kid’s slide, and all I had to do was let go and stop resisting ... and then whoosh, I would become free of the psychological and psychic entity. It appeared as though I could at last let go of the burden of being ‘me’ – the pretence, the trying, the struggle, the effort – and could just relax into being the actual me: not who I am, but what I am. Not to become some super-ego inflated ‘Man of God’, but the me as this flesh and blood body who has been there all along; the one who was searching for a way out of the madhouse he was in; the one who knew he was similarly inflicted as the other inmates and was searching for a cure. From then on I had no more doubt that I was becoming free of this psychological and psychic entity inside myself.

I used a technique that Richard suggested which was invaluable, and that was to pretend or try to mimic the peak experience of being in the actual world when back in ‘everyday’ moments. I described it at the time as pushing myself as far as possible to the surface of the eyes – to be purely my senses. This means definitely not creating a watcher or Self’ with a different set of morals and beliefs – usually vastly superior to that which is being watched – but simply practising to establish a direct connection between the senses and the actual world. It is 180 degrees the opposite of the spiritual ‘awareness’, which is to focus on some blissful, still or peaceful space inside. The aim was to bring myself out of my inner world of the psyche into the actual world of my senses – to become fully engaged in the actual world. It takes constant effort and vigilance at the start not to be sucked back into misery and sorrow, not to resort to malice.

The usual constant interacting with other similarly afflicted people creates a common ‘psychic world’ of fear, malice and sorrow as everyone battles it out for survival. It all, of course, simply happens in the imagination. This world appears to be real because of the commonly shared emotions and feelings, but it is not actual, factual. Many people I know are constant travellers in this ‘psychic world’ and have developed quite an expertise in interpreting the many and varied highways and byways. Therapists, astrologers, psychic readers and mediums are the experts in this world with the spiritual teachers as the indisputable Masters. Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

I simply stopped believing (or trusting) what everyone else told me was right or good or real and used ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive now?’ as my guide. The thread that holds it together is the knowledge of the peak experiences, when I know and experience everything as perfect. Everything really is and always has been perfect except for the churning self-centred thoughts and resulting feelings and emotions. It is as though the psychological and psychic entity creates a film or skin over every thing I see, feel, hear, taste and smell. This reminds me of the similar experience of the feeling of ‘shackles’ on me that prevented my freedom. Those shackles are real in the ‘psychic world’ but, as I have discovered, they are not actual. When I eliminate the ‘psyche’ or ‘self’ I become free of the ‘psychic world’ at the same time – free of those shackles I had experienced way, way back when I stood in front of my son’s coffin.

When this psychological and psychic entity fades a veritable smorgasbord of sensual delight becomes available: the air on my skin, the sounds around, food, coffee, sex, walking, thinking, talking – the whole lot. So then even trying to mimic the peak experience ceased at some point as I naturally became aware that I was residing more and more in the actual world, here and now, and not in the world of fear and imagination. At this point I really knew that to be free was my destiny; even if I wanted to go ‘back’ I couldn’t – and why would I want to anyway? I saw it as a matter of de-hypnotising oneself, of establishing a confidence in a new way of living as a human being, outside of ‘humanity’.

Of getting used to the fact that in freedom there are no limits – I can even become an author if I want to! And what a wide and wondrous path dissolving this entity has been. The process of getting there involves devoting as much time as possible to lazing around in comfortable positions talking with someone about what it is to be a human being – making sense of it all. I only say with someone, because that is my experience – it is just good fun to do it with a ‘mate’. It is delightful comparing notes, delving into things, no matter how outrageous, how embarrassing or how fearful. It is like flexing the brain muscle, using it more than I have ever done before. Initially it can sometimes be quite tiring and bewildering, as the psychological and psychic entity screams for survival. But this fades into insignificance as the sheer exhilaration of finding things out for myself gripped me. Nobody told me there could be days like these. This path is definitely not about suffering – it is about being happy and harmless.

Soon a daring, then an obsession takes over, as it becomes the most incredible thing to do – to actually fix yourself up. Just as the body repairs itself, so can the brain be re-wired. As it becomes re-wired – free of the primitive brain and its instinctual fear and aggression – a vast and actual freedom becomes increasingly apparent. The brain is the tool: I apply liberal doses of common sense to the affected areas and watch the beliefs fade away. Facts replace beliefs. It is so simple – and it works. Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

So what I initially saw as a paradox actually works: the only way to fix up the problem which was inside my brain was to use the only tool left available – the intelligence of my brain. This is definitely 180 degrees in the other direction to the spirit-ual; it is definitely a third alternative. I liked the stage when I did not even need to question any more the ‘tried and true’; I knew that it was not the solution, for it had not worked. I then simply looked at what was sensible to do in each situation. It then becomes apparent that Richard is actually trying to seduce people out of feeling sorrowful and acting maliciously, by saying ‘Why don’t you stop?’

It is really so easy to be a human being, effortless – you simply do what is happening. With no ‘self’ to run amok, to be wary of, an utter ease and confidence pervades the physical universe – and I can be me, at last!

The actual experience of living with Vineeto in peace and harmony is proof that applying common sense works.

My experience is: ‘Get it while you can’... Peter’s Journal ‘Intelligence’

I saw it as a bit like when you drive along a country road and a rabbit appears on the road. Blinded by the headlights he freezes, and splat – dead rabbit. The only difference for me when I met Richard was that wobbling around in doubt or freezing in fear meant simply more of the same – prolonging my ‘normal’ life of suffering and confusion. The suffering of knowing that something was seriously wrong in my life but staunchly denying it out of pride, or hoping that the latest guru or belief would work, when deep inside I had already seen it wouldn’t work. The confusion I was in at the time was because I had seen ‘behind the curtain’ of the spiritual world. I had seen the Gurus for what they were, and I had started to see that it was all the same ‘old time religion’. The facts didn’t gel with the beliefs and there was a certain discord; a ‘something’s not quite right’ – not that I knew what it was at the time.

So when I met Richard I found myself saying ‘I’ll give this a try, and I’ll make it the most important thing in my life’. That, as I look back, was my innate intelligence operating – the ‘if it doesn’t work, throw it out and find something that does’ or ‘don’t just freeze in the headlights’. Common sense, really. It wasn’t courage – it was common sense. I also had to retrieve my will and not ‘surrender’, leaving it up to Someone else or Existence – some imaginary roll of the cosmic dice. ‘Leaving it up to Existence’ is to accept being malicious and sorrowful – the dice are in fact loaded that way. Peter’s Journal ‘Fear’

I don’t expect you to believe me, I would just hope you don’t believe everything that everyone else has told you...

After all, that is the point of this book...

I remember when Richard first said ‘Everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong’ and I struggled to consider the enormity of the statement – it was hard to conceive. But I asked myself over and over – ‘What if he is right?’ And the more I thought about it, the more it explained a lot that was wrong. It allowed me a ‘crack in the door’ and began an incredible journey on the wide and wondrous path to freedom. So should you be moved to try something different to the ‘Tried and Failed’ then more information is available.

Serendipity is, after all, what happens when you take the opportunity that comes along. Peter’s Journal ‘Afterword’

© The Actual Freedom Trust