See Richard, List B, No 26

I followed with interest your conversation with Alan about thoughts and emotions. Your last comment to Richard or ‘about’ Richard has twigged me to join.

Richard is on this big sell about the wonderful state of actualism ...

Why do you call it a big sell? If I go to a shop and find a CD with the music that I looked for I am happy to buy it and to pay the prize. And I am glad that it is available. And Actual Freedom doesn’t even cost money. But of course it costs effort, one needs to want to change oneself ... Not that Richard or anybody else gains anything if you change your life, except the delight of a mid-wife or witness maybe, but you will definitely gain something. That’s how I see it for myself.

... and there is this part is me that wants to go for it and that doer force was a few days ago squeezing my head trying to force it to happen, quite dangerous. So what is he trying to sell to ‘me’, why is the question ‘How am I...’ not enough.

When you say, ‘that doer force’ that was ‘squeezing my head’, it sounds like it it somebody other than you forcing you to do something you don’t really want to do? I have found it a general practice in spiritual circles – and have done it myself quite a lot too – to refer to emotions or ‘forces’ as if I had no input and no control over ‘it’. To my delight I found out that I have! All the control and all the responsibility is mine! When I don’t like something, like pushing myself into misery, I can see it and stop it, because there is nobody else that is creating the misery but me.

Of course, to be able to sort out between the ‘forces’ inside my head – or heart – I have to be clear with my intent, where I am heading and what I want to achieve. With a peak-experience as landmark I can judge the different on goings – with me they were usually emotions – and sift the chaff from the wheat. I understand from your mail that you seem to make Richard responsible for your forcing yourself ‘dangerously’. But nobody is responsible but you, you choose what you do, that is the wonderful thing in actual freedom. There is no authority and nobody gets the credits when you reap the rewards. It is all in your hands. Nobody can stop you either.

As for ‘heart’ at the moment I have ‘no heart’ no doubt that will change in due course. So how am I experiencing this moment, there is the usual things ‘wants’, that pop up and are at least noticed. The doer is noticed, the tension between the eyes and base of the head is noticed, ah, an occasional burning feeling is happening at the head base. I also notice the subtle wanting of approval of my achievements which seems to occur more with Richard with that is the fear of being challenged.

Isn’t it amazing how many things pop up once one puts one’s attention to them! In the beginning it can be quite a madhouse up there in the head, even to the extent of physical discomfort. Specially fears would usually cause tightness in stomach, guts and back of the neck with me – and still do sometimes. But most of the time it is not enough to just notice. That’s the crux with all the meditation-techniques, they never eliminate the problem, the emotions and their underlying causes. Noticing only shifts them, and they will be back in due course.

See, that’s why the question: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ is essential and at the same time only the entry-ticket to your discovery-journey into yourself or your ‘self’. To get rid, permanently, of a certain fear, for instance, I had to investigate into the underlying reasons – why do I have this fear, what is the belief that holds it up?

You mentioned ‘approval of your achievements’, so I use it as an example. I found that wanting approval – or pretending to reject it – was based on the belief in authority. I believed that I was not authority enough to judge my doings and leavings, to approve of me or judge certain behaviour silly. As a woman I had it especially with men and thus had spoiled all my relationships with men. It took quite a bit of digging into the causes of why I believed everybody else more competent to judge me, to judge right and wrong, than me. One thing is, it is a strong part of every upbringing. But underneath the conditioning I found an immense fear to stand on my own feet, alone, by myself – the survival instinct of belonging to a group or a person. I was continuously looking for an authority to protect me, guide me, love me, and for a gathering around those authority figures. Now it looks silly to me but at the time it produced immense fear-attacks, days of wanting to hide, to run away, a nightmare to decide between Richard/Peter as the supposed authority figures or Rajneesh and his disciples as the guiding principle.

To dissolve the nightmare I decided to not stop until I had found the root cause. And the root cause was, strangely enough, a belief in God. I had thought I had dismissed God years ago, when I went to Poona and left Christianity behind. But the Christian God was just replaced by Rajneesh then. Questioning and understanding my fear as the fear of a judging, punishing and very powerful suddenly made it all very clear – finally I could step out of the circle of creating and then fighting human authorities (God’s representatives) and simply decide for myself, with my own intelligence and common sense, what I wanted to do with my life, in each particular moment, in each situation.

It has been a fascinating and liberating discovery. To sort out and eliminate authority was essential for living with Peter in peace, harmony, equity and intimacy. And it was necessary for avoiding the trap of believing anybody – and that includes Richard – and now I am happy to find it out for myself, in my own autonomous experience. Of course, Richard is still the expert on actual freedom, but not an authority figure to be believed and followed.

If you are interested, I have written more about it in ‘a bit of Vineeto’ on our website. (Just type ‘the next major issue’ into the find-function, if you don’t want to read the whole chapter.)

So, maybe these paragraph are of use for you. Maybe you have a different agenda. Let me know. Great to have you on the list. I am looking forward to having a good discussion.

8.1.1999

Richard is on this big sell about the wonderful state of actualism ...

Why do you call it a big sell?

Actually I think I was wondering about the big sell in terms of an idea which would tend to make one a bit futuristic. Now this is of course only one aspect, there is the other aspect of there actually being the possibility of living in delight and another trying to communicate that. So what I seem to have a problem with is a futuristic goal which is forced on to the present. That is where this forcing comes from. To me immediate freedom comes from being aware of what activity is creating the struggle right now.

So, what activity is creating the struggle right now?

*

When you say, ‘that doer force’ that was ‘squeezing my head’, it sounds like it is somebody other than you forcing you to do something you don’t really want to do? I have found it a general practice in spiritual circles – and have done it myself quite a lot too – to refer to emotions or ‘forces’ as if I had no input and no control over ‘it’. To my delight I found out that I have! All the control and all the responsibility is mine! When I don’t like something, like pushing myself into misery, I can see it and stop it, because there is nobody else that is creating the misery but me. Of course, to be able to sort out between the ‘forces’ inside my head – or heart – I have to be clear on my intent, where I am heading and what I want to achieve. With a peak-experience as landmark I can judge the different goings on – with me they were usually emotions – and sift the chaff from the wheat.

Hmm what is this control you have, control to do what? Are you going to do something or are you already doing it which implies no control, not in the normal sense anyway. The force inside my head is ‘me’ trying to do freedom.

Maybe ‘control’ is a word that can be misunderstood. What I meant is that I realised that I have a choice and with that option of choice I took control over my life for the first time. I didn’t let Existence decide, or some higher mysterious force, or some other authority, but I had a choice to go for freedom, freedom from everything. So I went for it. Choice happens out of an understanding that the prison I was living in is not all there is – from seeing the prison in its complexity from the outside – in a peak-experience. Then no ‘force’ is needed, it is simply obvious which choice to take.

*

But most of the time it is not enough to just notice. That’s the crux with all the meditation-techniques, they never eliminate the problem, the emotions and their underlying causes. Noticing only shifts them, and they will be back in due course.

Yes agreed as I have had much trouble finishing with certain things. Although difficult at times that question has been of great help.

What do you mean by ‘finishing with certain things’?

*

See, that’s why the question: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is essential and at the same time only the entry-ticket to your discovery-journey into yourself or your ‘self’. To get rid, permanently, of a certain fear, for instance, I had to investigate the underlying reasons – why do I have this fear, what is the belief that holds it up?

Yes, I have found an unexpected ease in freeing previously unnoticed activities. Which supported the emotional state of ‘me’. Some activities do at times seem like a brick wall then I sense the ‘me’ trying to do awareness of this activity.

What exactly is this ‘freeing previously unnoticed activities’? How do you free them? What activities? Emotions? What emotions? And what underlying belief behind the particular emotion?

Yes, authority has been one of my main blockages, this dependency on someone to tell you how it is, how it should be, what to do and so on. Being used to someone telling you what to do and then not having it can induce fear which helps to maintain that dependency. Of course a grownup has there own internal authority which when falters causes one to rush to find a better authority.

Isn’t it incredibly complex how much this authority issues spoils the quality of relating to people? But simple mental understanding has not been able to eliminate the problem. I had to dig deep into the underlying emotions and dearly held beliefs and fears behind the apparent issue. But what a freedom to have no one as an authority over me now! It needed a lot of questions like ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and ‘Why am I doing this, why am I upset now?’ to discover the roots of any emotion or feeling.

Could you share your ‘how am I experiencing this moment...’ It seem more relevant than digging up memories. So ‘how am I ...’, Hmm having difficulty coming up with suitable descriptive words. I am not feeling great though... pain in the head front and back, stomach discomfort and through this there is a mild sense of clarity. There is also the sense of ‘me’ trying to hang on and keep control.

You want to know how I am experiencing this moment of being alive? Or do you want to know how I am using the question to explore my emotions and instincts?

As for the first question: I am having a perfect time, one perfect day after the other, right now clicking my fingers on the keyboard while the cicadas and birds chirp their song, the holiday traffic busily runs up and down the coast, the sound of running water while Peter is taking a shower and the fan is blowing softly on the skin of my back. In a few minutes I will have a steaming hot strong tasty cup of coffee with honey and a bit of cream, the beginning of another perfect day in paradise...

That’s why I use the past tense when I am describing my experiences of how I investigate emotions. It is mainly out of memory, as it is hardly necessary anymore because the emotions have almost had their day. Nevertheless I think it can be of great use to anyone who starts to investigate into the Human Condition, since we all start off with more or less the same software.

As for the second question: I have tried to convey in the last mail how I am using the question to discover whatever emotions were going on at the time, using the example of authority. I’ll post it again, this time broken into the different steps, in case you did not recognize the method. This is not just digging old memories, as you say, but a detailed description of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

*

To get rid, permanently, of a certain emotion, what I did was –

1. investigate the underlying reasons –
2. why do I have this fear,
3. what is the belief that supports it? In this case I found that wanting approval – or pretending to reject it – was, for me, based on the belief in authority. I believed that I was not authority enough to judge my actions or in-actions, or judge certain behaviour as silly or sensible.
   As a woman I had this issue especially with men and this had spoiled all my relationships with men.
4. It took quite a bit of digging into the causes of why I believed everybody else more competent to judge what is right and wrong for me.
5. One thing is, authority is a strong part of everyone’s upbringing.
6. But underneath that conditioning I found an immense fear to stand on my own feet, alone, by myself – the survival instinct of
   a. belonging to a group,
   b. or a strong person.
7. I was continuously looking for an authority to
   a. protect me,
   b. guide me,
   c. love me,
   d. to be part of a group around those authority figures.
8. The struggle looks silly to me now, but at the time it produced immense fear-attacks, days of wanting to hide, to run away, a nightmare to decide between Richard/Peter as the supposed authority figures or Rajneesh and his disciples as the guiding principle.
9. To dissolve the nightmare I decided to not stop until I had found the root cause.
10. And the root cause was, strangely enough, a belief in God. I had thought I had dismissed God years ago, when I went to Poona and left Christianity behind.
    But then the Christian God was just replaced by Rajneesh.
11. Questioning and understanding my fear as the belief in and the fear of a judging and punishing God made it all very clear.
12. Finally I could step out of the circle of
    a. creating and consequently
    b. fighting human authorities (God’s representatives) and
13. simply decide for myself, with my own intelligence and common sense, what I wanted to do with my life, in each particular moment, in each situation.

I have done this process of tracing with every single irritation, emotion and belief that I found lurking inside ‘my soul’ and in this way have reduced ‘my soul’ to a very small percentage of its original size. With it my troubles, worries, fears and irritations have also been reduced to a very small percentage of their original appearance. It works, immediately – and that, for many, is the scary bit. One actually diminishes and eliminates one’s soul and one’s identity.

But unless one investigates one’s emotions, one’s beliefs and at last one’s instincts at the root of a physical unpleasantness, tension or sensation, there is no way to get to the bottom of the matter. It will stay a sorry-go-round of ‘noticing’ and disappearing, reappearing and ‘noticing’ again ad nauseam. Richard has described the method in an earlier correspondence with you:

Richard: Affectively, of course ... that is how you are experiencing this moment. Look, let us not unnecessarily complicate things here. The ‘how’ simply means ‘what feeling am I experiencing right now with’ ... which is: ‘Am I bored?’, ‘Am I resentful?’, ‘Am I at ease?’, ‘Am I glad?’, ‘Am I sad?’ and so on. You see, peace-on-earth is here right now – the perfection of the infinitude of this universe is happening at this moment – and you are missing out on it because you are feeling what it is like to be here instead of actually being here. Hence: ‘How am I experiencing this moment’ means ‘What feeling is preventing the on-going experiencing of peace-on-earth?’ It is essential for success to grasp the fact that this is your only moment of being alive. The past, although it did happen, is not actual now. The future, though it will happen, is not actual now. Only now is actual. Yesterday’s happiness and harmlessness does not mean a thing if one is miserable and malicious now ... and a hoped-for happiness and harmlessness tomorrow is to but waste this moment of being alive in waiting. All you get by waiting is more waiting. Thus any ‘change’ can only happen now. The jumping in point is always here ... it is at this moment in time and this place in space. Thus, if you miss it this time around, hey presto ... you have another chance immediately. Life is excellent at providing opportunities like this.

As one knows, from the pure consciousness experiences (PCEs) that everybody has at some stage in their life, that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end that good feeling? Ah ... yes: ‘He said that and ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most. (‘Feeling good’ is an unambiguous term ... if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all.)

Thus, by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ the reward is immediate; by finding out what triggered off the loss of feeling good, one commences another period of enjoying this moment of being alive. It is all about being here at this moment in time and this place in space ... and if you are not feeling good you have no chance whatsoever of being here in this actual world. (A grumpy person locks themselves out of the perfect purity of this moment and place). Of course, once you get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’. These are all feelings, this is not perfection personified yet ... but then again, feeling perfect for twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes a day is way beyond normal human expectations anyway. Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’ for the first time in one’s life.

Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination ... and fascination leads to reflective contemplation. Then – and only then – apperception can occur.

... but it requires the 100% cooperation of the other. I cannot be more interested in another’s freedom than they are. Having had nigh on eighteen years experience of talking to recalcitrant egos I have no intention of inspiring, enthusing or exhilarating anyone. I am more than happy to participate in another’s enquiry until they ‘get it’ and begin their voyage of discovery into their psyche – which is the human psyche – but it is their energy that is needed to vitalise their search. Richard, List B, No 26

This 100%, boots and all-approach is my experience too. Until I had decided to give it a go, because I had to acknowledge that nothing else had worked in my life to my satisfaction, there was only miserable pondering, cerebral torture and emotional distress. Once I decided to dare to give it a try, things became easier, I became focused, clear and determined. It has been so ever since. Nothing can stop me becoming completely free in one of these moments. It is a great adventure!

12.1.1999

Today you get a short one, how about that?

An added note: this question ‘how am I...’ causes me to examine the contents of consciousness moment to moment. I am not aware of a method or needing one because when it occurs it is an immediate and actual freedom.

With the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ I examine the contents of what is in the road of bare awareness, all the contents of the Human Condition, which are mainly emotions and underlying emotional backed up thought, meaning ‘beliefs’.

When you are feeling good, it’s great. When you are not feeling good, that is when one needs to look at the reasons, why one is not feeling good in this moment. When you are feeling good most of the time, you raise the bar – feeling excellent.

Did you ever try to trace down such an obstacle to bare awareness? What did you find?

As Alan said so aptly: ‘I tell you, the sound of one hand clapping is a piece of cake compared to this.’ Alan to No 3, 9.1.1999

12.1.1999

To me immediate freedom comes from being aware of what activity is creating the struggle right now.

So, what activity is creating the struggle right now?

---

I still would like to know.

*

Choice happens out of an understanding that the prison I was living in is not all there is – from seeing the prison in its complexity from the outside – in a peak-experience. Then no ‘force’ is needed, it is simply obvious which choice to take.

Yes, choice as in the possibility of not struggling, firstly because it’s painful and secondly because, simply put, struggling is not freedom however you look at it.

Do you mean that ‘not struggling’ is your priority, your landmark? So, whenever you have a choice you choose non-struggling?

For me the ultimate goal to reach was and is freedom – and often it has been a struggle to free myself of the shackles of the Human Condition which were preventing that freedom. Struggling against the fear to do something so new and radical, struggling against habits of conditioning, struggling against doubt. With my eyes firmly oriented on the experience of the peak-experience (my intent) I struggled to reach my goal each time emotions, beliefs and instincts were pulling me back into being ‘normal’.

*

Yes agreed as I have had much trouble finishing with certain things. Although difficult at times that question has been of great help.

What do you mean by ‘finishing with certain things’?

‘Finishing with certain modes of thoughts and feelings’ ie. the questioning has not followed through the moments of those thoughts and a new thought has been just added on.

Ah, now I understand. It is not easy to keep asking, when all means of resistance or fear are activated to stop you from freeing yourself, from discovering a certain belief, from understanding the root of a certain behaviour. That’s what I meant by ‘struggling’, the persistence to keep investigating despite the fear, the bloody-mindedness to pursue freedom against all odds. And, it helps immensely to activate delight, as Richard has described it so well (see the last exchange between Alan and myself).

*

Yes, I have found an unexpected ease in freeing previously unnoticed activities. Which supported the emotional state of ‘me’. Some activities do at times seem like a brick wall then I sense the ‘me’ trying to do awareness of this activity.

What exactly is this ‘freeing previously unnoticed activities’? How do you free them?

No, I as ‘me’ do not free them, questioning in the present does that. It is a mechanism of waking up to it.

Well, I would call it awareness, not a mechanism. Questioning the mechanism of instincts and conditioning creates awareness and gives the choice to move in the direction of freedom.

*

Isn’t it incredibly complex how much this authority issues spoils the quality of relating to people? But simple mental understanding has not been able to eliminate the problem. I had to dig deep into the underlying emotions and dearly held beliefs and fears behind the apparent issue. But what a freedom to have no one as an authority over me now! It needed a lot of questions like ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ and ‘Why am I doing this, why am I upset now?’ to discover the roots of any emotion or feeling.

Yes an important point here, the ability to question rather than just create another conviction.

Questioning every belief, emotion and finally investigating my instincts has enabled me to sensately experience the world-as-is, that what is left after every man-made interpretation and filter is taken away. It is magnificent.

*

As for the first question: I am having a perfect time, one perfect day after the other, right now clicking my fingers on the keyboard while the cicadas and birds chirp their song, the holiday traffic busily runs up and down the coast, the sound of running water while Peter is taking a shower and the fan is blowing softly on the skin of my back. In a few minutes I will have a steaming hot strong tasty cup of coffee with honey and a bit of cream, the beginning of another perfect day in paradise...

Gee, even in cyber space it doesn’t sound half bad.

Since we are still on the question of ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ I will give you another description that Peter has sent today to someone on the mailing list C.

The amazing thing about running ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ as opposed to being a ‘watcher’ to this moment of being alive is that one is inexorably drawn to eliminate anything in the way of one’s own happiness in this moment – the only moment I can experience being alive. If I was happy ten minutes ago, it is of no consequence if I am not happy now. If I am not happy now, then I have something to look at, something to root around in, something to discover. Inevitably the root of my unhappiness will be some belief or psittacism (parrot-fever), some instinctually driven pattern, that is causing me to feel fearful, angry, melancholy, peeved, guilty, resentful, etc. And searching, finding, investigating, understanding, contemplating upon and realizing will have the same effect as one does when one shines a light in a dark corner – all becomes startlingly clear and obvious, and eventually the feeling, emotion or instinct withers and dies, never to return. Peter, List C, No 28

It is a scary process, for these feelings and emotions are ‘who’ we ‘think’ and ‘feel’ we are – one is demolishing one’s very ‘self’. This is the reason that most people will firstly deny that it is possible to eliminate them, (much, much safer to merely watch one’s ‘self’ and cultivate a superior spiritual Self) or if they do allow the possibility that it might just work – they ‘head for the hills’.

16.1.1999

An added note: this question ‘how am I..’ causes me to examine the contents of consciousness moment to moment. I am not aware of a method or needing one because when it occurs it is an immediate and actual freedom.

With the question ‘how am I ...’ I examine the contents of what is in the road of bare awareness, all the contents of the Human Condition, which are mainly emotions and underlying emotion-backed thoughts, meaning passionate ‘beliefs’.

When you are feeling good, it’s great. When you are not feeling good, that is when one needs to look at the reasons, why one is not feeling good in this moment. When you are feeling good most of the time, you raise the bar – you aim to feeling excellent. Did you ever try to trace down such an obstacle to bare awareness? What did you find? As Alan said so aptly: ‘I tell you, the sound of one hand clapping is a piece of cake compared to this.’

I have found that there is usually something which you are carrying with you that goes unnoticed (sorry about the word), ie. a particular feeling/ conviction that you have been carrying with you for so long that it is taken to be part and parcel of reality.

Yes, isn’t it fascinating, when one start peeling the layers of the convictions, find the feeling underneath and suddenly the outlook on ‘reality’ changes that one has taken for granted all along! Life becomes really thrilling, a bit of fear, a bit of adventurous excitement and the great joy of discovering of what it is to be a human being.

At the moment I have the opportunity to look at pain and the objection to that. As the pain gets more extreme the objections become more pathetic like ‘Oh I’m dying’. Then there is a moment of stillness and no objection at all. I guess you could call it at peace with pain.

Yes, I know that struggle. I had it particular strong with fear. First fear arises, whatever the trigger was. The first reaction is objecting to fear, trying to make it go away. Sometimes it took hours until I realised that this does not work. Now, it goes a lot quicker. Now I take on the challenge, ‘o.k. fear, show me your face, show me your name, what is the issue today!’ Fascinating how at least half of the terrifying emotion disappears by simply neither repressing nor expressing.

But then the investigation starts, I want to get the bugger by the throat, examine the issue so it won’t be back tomorrow with the same emotion again. And this ‘peace’, as you call it, is the perfect inner condition for investigation, for I can coolly, with no objection, investigate into the background of this fear, root around in conditioning, collective fears, or unquestioned conviction.

And then, when everything is pulled into the open, examined in the bright light of my awareness, it cannot uphold its existence – fear turns into thrill, the thrill of impending destiny, my extinction. And I know I am back on the track to freedom. Yippee!

18.1.1999

Hmm, as long as the questioning is running there is sensation but no struggle so I would have to say that absence of self-awareness in any particular moment is what creates the struggle.

– Just had a thought. Surely if you are aware of emotions and struggling and goals of PCE, all must go for the actuality of PCE.

From your comments it looks to me that you are using watching and the identity of the ‘watcher’ to get through the day without much struggle.

For me, once I understood from the peak-experience that I wanted to go for Actual Freedom and not for any substitute like enlightenment, I went for it ‘boots and all’. That also meant abandoning everything that I had learned in my spiritual years – the terminology of the ‘inner’ world, the meditations, the mind-twisters. I understood – and strangely enough it happened after a small car-accident – that I cannot drive two cars at the same time – especially when one – actual freedom – goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the other – the spiritual.

I went through a period of anguish and dis-orientation because all the tricks and disciplines of the spiritual and therapy world did not apply for the path to freedom. But once I had set my mind on the goal, there was no turning back. I already had understood too much about the act of believing itself – everything that I believe is not actual, because it is ‘me’ who is doing the believing. That gave me enough back-pressure to keep going despite the doubts and fears.

24.1.1999

I’ve been thinking about ‘struggle’ for a while.

I can agree with you on the point that struggle in itself is not the ‘sound-proof’ criteria for going in the right direction. Further, I discovered actual freedom in a peak-experience and understood that no bit of ‘me’ is required to produce perfection or to keep it up, that on the contrary it was only ‘me’ that was in the road of perfection. It was a tremendous relief. I don’t need to produce it – it is already here. The actual world and living in the actual world is not a struggle at all.

*

From your comments it looks to me that you are using watching and the identity of the ‘watcher’ to get through the day without much struggle.

Certainly this does occur at times but that does ultimately lead to struggle as it is a controlled freedom. You seem to believe that the road to freedom is one of struggle, struggling to be free.

I don’t believe anything. I knew that I was not living my peak-experience all the time. ‘I’ came back and took over my life, the malicious and sorrowful entity returned to rule my life. ‘I’, by its very nature, does not want to retire, to disappear, to die. The ‘self’ wants to stay in existence.

That is where, in my experience, but also in Peter’s and Richard’s experience, effort comes in. You can also call it intent, sheer or grim determination, bloody-mindedness, relentless pursuing and ruthlessly honest investigation. It takes effort to overcome the fear and look into one’s own ‘self’. It requires pure intent to ruthlessly find out the tricks of this very very cunning entity that we call ‘I’.

And merely ‘watching’ one’s behaviour does nothing to eliminate feelings, emotions and instincts – the very substance of ‘me’.

I feel that struggle is not about freedom at all, it is just the nature of ‘me’ to struggle. Of course, action of some sort is required to change the status quo. This is where the ongoing question comes in. Now what is beyond questioning? Or to put it another way, what is being withheld from the light of awareness?

That ‘struggle is not about freedom at all’ is a feeling, or, to be more precise, an idea. The nature of ‘me’ is lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning – and, as such, resists the effort to be eliminated.

But it is not just your idea. It is the core of Eastern teaching. ‘Just become aware that you are already ‘It’, and that’s all you need to do’. It is part of identifying with the ‘watcher’, the so-called aware identity, and ‘all will be well’. That method might make you enlightened but it will never get you an inch closer to Actual Freedom.

To become free, one has to want freedom with all one’s might and passion. One has to put all one’s eggs in one basket. And in order to eliminate emotions one will first have to experience them, feel them. One has to play the drama on stage (experience one’s emotions with neither expressing nor repressing them) in order to know all the actors involved. One has to ‘get down and get dirty’. Peter described really well in one of his letters:

At first I thought there was nothing new about running the question ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ until it dawned on me one day that when I was not feeling good then I had something to look at immediately, something to investigate, some feeling (an emotion backed thought) that was the cause of my unhappiness. It gave me something to do! I had some work to do – to ‘get down and get dirty’, go digging around in there. Look in all those corners I dared not look at before. Gather some courage and look into both the ‘good’ feelings ‘I’ hold so dear and the ‘bad’ ones lurking underneath. After all we only need love and compassion because we feel malice and sorrow – resentment and despair.

The answer lies in eliminating both the ‘good’ and the bad’ feelings – for we only need the good ones because are afflicted with the bad ones. It soon became obvious to me that to be happy and harmless meant that all sorrow and malice had to be eliminated in me – not merely covered over by ‘good’ feelings – in order to evince an actual freedom from malice and sorrow rather than a synthetic one.

But do see it as the Human Condition – as a ‘bummer of a birthmark’ – it’s just the way we humans have been programmed with beliefs and instincts. That way it becomes delicious fun and a thrilling journey through the human psyche. And it all just goes on in your head anyway. Oft times I would think I’m going mad as ‘I’ was actively dismantling my own sense of self.

But then I’d find myself making coffee and toast the next morning ... and wondering what’s next? Peter, List C, No 13

Could this PCE that is used as the goal be just a state brought on by delusion of some spiritual teachings including Richard’s? I.e. I want it so I’ll invent it.

Once you have experienced a PCE you don’t have to ask that question. A PCE is characterized by the – temporary – complete absence of any ‘self’ whatsoever, including your faculty of feeling and imagination. You can’t invent the actual world – it is already here. A tree is a tree, I can’t invent it. I am this flesh and blood body, and it is obvious that I can perfectly live without a ‘self’. After feeling and imagining has ceased completely, the actual world becomes apparent. A bit like taking one’s grey and rose-coloured glasses off and seeing the world for the first time. One experiences perfection and purity, no separation from the things and people around, but neither love nor bliss are felt as in the feeling-induced spiritual experiences.

Here is a joke that conveys very well the very, very cunning ‘entity’ that we are, when we refuse to take off the grey and rose-coloured glasses:

Billy Bob goes to the local novelty shop and finds a pair of x-ray glasses. He checks them out, and isn’t fully convinced, but as usual, the store assistant comes along and closes the deal. On his way home, Billy Bob puts on his new x-ray glasses and, bingo! He sees everyone in the street naked. He takes them off for a moment, and everyone has their clothes on. Puts the glasses back on... everyone is naked! ‘Cool!’ As he arrives back home, he is eager to show his new toy to his wife but can’t find her. He goes up to the bedroom and finds his wife and the postman, naked in bed. He takes his glasses off, and the two are still naked. He puts them back on, and they are still naked. Billy Bob then says: ‘Damn, I just paid fifty bucks for these and they’re already broken!

31.1.1999

I don’t believe anything. I knew that I was not living my peak-experience all the time. ‘I’ came back and took over my life, the malicious and sorrowful entity returned to rule my life. ‘I’, by its very nature, does not want to retire, to disappear, to die. The ‘self’ wants to stay in existence.

That is where, in my experience, but also in Peter’s and Richard’s experience, effort comes in. You can also call it intent, sheer or grim determination, bloody-mindedness, relentless pursuing and ruthlessly honest investigation. It takes effort to overcome the fear and look into one’s own ‘self’. It requires pure intent to ruthlessly find out the tricks of this very very cunning entity that we call ‘I’.

And merely ‘watching’ one’s behaviour does nothing to eliminate feelings, emotions and instincts – the very substance of ‘me’.

Oh now I get it, you mean watch with the sense of a ‘me’ watching. No, true investigation sees the ‘me’ as well. As you suggest, with this type of inquiry nothing is sacred or beyond inquiry. Which reminds me last night I had the feeling of a sinister being, quite different from the usual selves the pop up.

Just to make sure that we are talking about the same thing: With ‘true investigation’, do you mean your apperception functioning, the mind being aware of itself? You are probably aware of the definition of apperception –

‘Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being alive now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to there, along the way to there you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and that it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity.’ Richard, List B, No 19

Then, ‘true investigation’ is indeed able to become slowly, slowly aware of the whole complex psychic and psychological entity, sometimes disguised as ‘the watcher’, ‘the true being’, ‘the experiencer’, ‘the seeker’.

When you talk about that you had ‘the feeling of a sinister being’ – does that mean you felt sinister or had sinister feelings?

If yes, don’t you then need effort or intent to keep investigating against the eerie-ness and fear? Or do you keep the ‘feeling’ at a distance with the so-called awareness, which is only another word for control?

What is it in you, that keeps you going when dark sides of the Human Condition come to the surface, when malice and fear and sorrow rage in their full force?

For ‘true investigation’ one needs effort, intent and courage as well as a determination not to be fooled by the cunning of this ‘self’ – the feelings, emotions, beliefs and instincts – that want to stay in existence by all means.

*

Could this PCE that is used as the goal be just a state brought on by delusion of some spiritual teachings including Richard’s? I.e. I want it so I’ll invent it.

Once you have experienced a PCE you don’t have to ask that question.

I don’t agree here, a vague memory of a distant PCE is nothing compared to the conditioning of ‘me’ with emotions and imagination. A PCE does point out though, the possibility of living a better quality of life, a standard to strive for.

In a PCE you experience the actual world of ease and perfection which might tempt you too, not to stop at second best.

See, No. 3, for me it was the stunning, shocking and eye-opening experience of the PCE that kept me going when the investigation brought up sinister, fierce, embarrassing or otherwise uncomfortable feelings. When the floor rocked under my feet, when I had yet again lost the ground of beliefs I thought I was standing on – the memory of peak-experience reassured me that I was on the right track. I knew the direction that I was heading for, I knew the purity I was aiming for and I knew that nothing could go wrong. In a peak-experience you know that the only thing that is ‘wrong’ is ‘you’, the alien ‘self’ – nibble away the ‘self’ and nothing can go wrong – you inevitable end up in the actual world – the only danger is you can ground on the Rock Enlightenment...

Even a vague memory of a PCE can give you the first flavour to dig deeper and to act as a landmark. It is a perfect landmark for freedom and there is nothing better.

8.2.1999

Just to make sure that we are talking about the same thing: With ‘true investigation’, do you mean your apperception functioning, the mind being aware of itself? You are probably aware of the definition of apperception –

‘Apperceptive awareness can be evoked by paying exclusive attention to being alive now. This moment is your only moment of being alive ... one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever you are, one is always here ... even if you start walking over to there, along the way to there you are always here ... and when you arrive ‘there’, it too is here. Thus attention becomes a fascination with the fact that one is always here ... and that it is already now. Fascination leads to reflective contemplation. As one is already here, and it is always now ... then one has arrived before one starts. The potent combination of attention, fascination, reflection and contemplation produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought – is when ‘I’ cease thinking and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the thinker and the feeler – ‘I’ as ego and soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity.’ Richard, List B, No 19

Then, ‘true investigation’ is indeed able to become slowly, slowly aware of the whole complex psychic and psychological entity, sometimes disguised as ‘the watcher’, ‘the true being’, ‘the experiencer’, ‘the seeker’.

Yes, I experience this as the sense of everything fitting in its place, like a wonderful sense of order and balance. At times when there is a sense of stuckness or forcing I realize there is ‘I’ attempting to ‘do’ and the question running in my mind has taken a break.

In my investigation into the Human Condition, I didn’t bother much about the differences between the various ‘I’s’ that were trying to take charge, I preferred to focus my attention on my feelings and emotions. I had understood that feelings and emotions are definitely part of the Human Condition, and being conditioned as a woman to express emotions made that even more obvious to me. From there I could proceed to examine the different feelings and emotions and un-cover the underlying beliefs.

Whenever I attempted to cerebrally sort out which ‘I’ was telling me what to do, or which is the real aware ‘I’ and which the watcher, or perhaps the actual I, there was only hopeless confusion. The spiritual training of creating a distant ‘I’ had made me a confusing ‘I’ behind the ‘I’ behind the ‘I’.

So identifying which feeling I am experiencing, be they sadness, distance, listlessness or boredom, is a much better landmark from where to unravel the Human Condition than finding which ‘I’ is attempting’ to do what.

Peter wrote about it:

The self is made of feelings, emotions, instinctual urges, cunning thoughts, etc. These are the very substance of who we think and feel we are. It is their elimination we seek by the most efficient direct method possible. The question of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ is a proven and ruthlessly efficient way of identifying the self. If you are feeling peeved, that is your ‘self’ that is spoiling your happiness right now. That is what you are aiming to eliminate. Any spiritual ideas of watching, standing back, witnessing have to be thrown out the window. It’s a case of get down and get dirty. There is something to do in this method. An action to be taken, some contemplation to be done, some investigation to be undertaken, an old closet door to be opened, a dark corner to be looked at, an opportunity to be taken, a serendipitous event to be acted upon ... a life to be lived fully.

For me, the way to go ‘deeper into my senses’, was to eliminate everything that was in the way. What I found I really had to do was go deeper into my feelings to discover the root emotions that are their source. Neither repressing, nor expressing. To sit with them, investigate, root around, find out there source. This method has the advantage for men of being able to get fully into their feelings for the first time and for women to be able to examine their feelings rather than being run by a basketful of them all at once.

It’s a great adventure to investigate ‘who’ you think you are and ‘who’ you feel you are and to finally discover ‘what’ you are ...

To come to one’s senses both literally and figuratively. Peter, List C, No 13

*

When you talk about that you had ‘the feeling of a sinister being’ – does that mean you felt sinister or had sinister feelings?

The sense of ‘me’ took on a sinister presence.

And then, what happened then to the sinister presence in you?

If yes, don’t you then need effort or intent to keep investigating against the eerie-ness and fear? Or do you keep the ‘feeling’ at a distance with the so-called awareness, which is only another word for control?

Yes that’s the trick isn’t it, awareness becomes an idea, a feeling, which then becomes a secondary reaction as in, the idea pops up at appropriate times of inquiry. Then there is the ‘now ‘I’ am aware’ response. In my inquiry I have realised that I may well have objection to the intensity of the content of awareness. Some things that appear in the mind are indeed intense and one is not used to that.

At the same time that’s when it gets really fascinating. The ‘intensity’ for me was usually coming close to discover a dearly held belief that I was afraid to look straight in the face – because then I could not keep it as ‘truth’. And yet, those feelings are the door to discover yet another one of the shackles of the Human Condition and become free from it.

What is it in you, that keeps you going when dark sides of the Human Condition come to the surface, when malice and fear and sorrow rage in their full force?

For ‘true investigation’ one needs effort, intent and courage as well as a determination not to be fooled by the cunning of this ‘self’ – the feelings, emotions, beliefs and instincts – that want to stay in existence by all means.

I challenge myself to be aware of it all, good or bad, intense or barren, there can be no obstacle to freedom here and now.

I found that the challenge to be aware of it all was not enough to carry me through the periods of doubt and fear. On my way to freedom I had to muster my intent again and again, link it to the peak-experiences and gather all the daring and bloody-mindedness I could find. Richard has written about intent:

The ‘death of the ego’ is only for the orthodox-minded people; it is for those who are easily seduced by the Glamour and the Glory and the Glitz of the much-touted Altered State. This is why pure intent is an essential prerequisite to ensure a guaranteed passage through the psychic maze. With pure intent one will not rest until one has gone all the way. One will not be bewitched by the psychic Power and Authority, either. All these allurements are but welcome food for the cunning entity, which wanting only its own survival, readily sublimates itself into The Spirit. With the clarity born of pure intent one can see this play for what it is and move on freely and willingly to what lies at the end of the wide and wondrous path ... the end of ‘being’. With pure intent one will not settle for second best, for it has been seen in the peak experiences that the very best is possible, here on earth. One sees that ‘I’ must disappear entirely. There will be no transcendence, no transmutation, no metamorphosis ... not any of these. For one who goes all the way, no phoenix will exist to arise from the ashes – nothing Metaphysical will remain. There will be no ‘being’ at all. ‘I’ will become extinct. Richard’s Journal, Appendix # 2

Could this PCE that is used as the goal be just a state brought on by delusion of some spiritual teachings including Richard’s? I.e. I want it so I’ll invent it.

Once you have experienced a PCE you don’t have to ask that question.

I don’t agree here, a vague memory of a distant PCE is nothing compared to the conditioning of ‘me’ with emotions and imagination. A PCE does point out though, the possibility of living a better quality of life, a standard to strive for.

In a PCE you experience the actual world of ease and perfection, and maybe this experience might tempt you too – as it has convinced me – not to stop at second best. See, for me it was the stunning, shocking and eye-opening experience of the PCE that kept me going when the investigation brought up sinister, fierce, embarrassing or otherwise uncomfortable feelings. When the floor shook under my feet, when I had yet again lost the ground of the passionate beliefs I thought I was standing on – the memory of peak-experience reassured me that I was on the right track. I knew the direction that I was heading for, I knew the purity I was aiming for and I knew that nothing could go wrong. In a peak-experience you know that the only thing that is ‘wrong’ is ‘you’, the alien ‘self’ – nibble away the ‘self’ and nothing can go wrong – you inevitable end up in the actual world – the only danger is you can ground on the Rock Enlightenment...

This sounds a bit idealistic. Say I am facing fear but am holding on to the memory of a PCE. The memory of a PCE can be a suitable distraction for a self-response that doesn’t want to face those emotions. Those emotion are, after all, the bread and butter of ‘me’. Years of being imprisoned as a self plus the experience of freedom is enough to want to be free.

What is this experience of freedom, if it is not a PCE? How do you know that you are looking for an actual freedom if you have never experienced it? How do you distinguish between a possible mental construct, maybe called ‘absolute permanent freedom’, and the experience of living here, at this moment, fresh, sparkling, alive and free from the Human Condition? A PCE is not ‘a suitable distraction’, it is your landmark, your goal, your burning desire, when fear and confusion threaten to overwhelm you and hold you back. A PCE is what gives you the daring to call a belief a belief, even if the whole world insists on it being a truth. Unless you know what you are aiming for, you will get lost in the labyrinth of the very cunning entity of the ‘self’.

I give you the references in Peter’s journal, where we described such peak-experiences. I’m sure Richard has lots of descriptions of the actual world in his journal...

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Ah, a thought just popped up ‘permanent freedom’. Do I really want it and not just the holidays from ‘self’?

Verily, a valid question.

But once you had several holidays from the self such as described in the above references, the urge and obsession for permanent freedom for 24 h a day, every day, all year round becomes more and more inevitable. An infectious ease...

16.2.1999

Struggle or no-struggle, that is your question? For me, I pursue with relentless stubbornness the permanent freedom from ‘me’, and with that, struggle will then disappears of its own accord. Until it goes by itself, becoming free of the Human Condition is a struggle the like of which is not happening anywhere on the planet. It is the very newness of the enterprise that creates most of the struggle – to be a pioneer, to leave suffering and fighting Humanity behind, it requires nerves of steel and a burning dissatisfaction with life as it is.

That’s just the point, if it is only a memory, how can one know what one is aiming for? Actually I feel it is ok not to ‘actually know’ what one is aiming for as long as one knows from experience that there is ample reward be it whatever for facing the stuff of ‘self’.

And: Cheers, now where’s that wine glass..

Do you mean, much better than aiming for a memory to aim for the wineglass? Just kidding...

And in the second post:

Yes it is feelings or emotions or anything that one thinks is not worth looking at.

And then, what happened then to the sinister presence in you?

Unfortunately it wasn’t around long enough to investigate in any depth. It departed as quickly as it came. Sometimes when something like that happens there is a jump back into the old familiar sense of self.

‘Worth looking at’ is a term you can only define for yourself if you know what you are aiming for. What are those ‘releases’ that you are you aiming for?

This would seem to mean that pure intent is based on fact. For me this would be the fact of the release that occurs when a major hurdle is realized. The point that dullness masks emotion and emotion masks belief has also been of assistance. I have a bit of trouble summoning up delight (as Richard suggests), as it seems imaginary, as opposed to the release that comes with facing issues. That is still under consideration though.

Pure intent is based on the fact of a peak-experience.

If the intent is based only on the release from the tensions of hurdles one will be content with temporary and second rate solutions.

Richard explains it simply and clearly in his journal:

One has to be daring to proceed alone and to stand on one’s own two feet. One has to be intrepid to look the facts of life squarely in the eye and freely admit and acknowledge them to be actual, regardless of what it does to the preconceived wisdom one holds tightly to. Pride evokes cynicism and a cynical mind promotes contempt. If one has contempt for this world, this actual world humans all live on, then one is doomed to miss out on the splendour of life’s abundance here on earth. This universe is prolific with its pure blessings, it is dispensing blitheness to the point of extravagance ... to one who is not proud, cynical and contemptuous. Intellectual snobbery – erratic despisal of the facts – is a pathetic substitute for the wonder of being here, for the intrinsic joy of being alive. To treat this universe with disdain, the only universe there is, is to perpetuate suffering for the sake of a priggish principle. This is not being sensible – it is being silly to the extreme.’ Richard’s Journal, Article 21

The alternative is to start from the other end:

It is actually simple. One starts from the other end, from the viewpoint of the peak experience – which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is a spontaneous moment wherein everything and everyone is seen for what it is, including oneself. All is suddenly revealed to be already perfect and in its rightful place ... ‘I’ and ‘my’ world-view have become irrelevant and there is no longer a sense of ‘being’. Everything is simply here as-it-is, no longer needing the support of any ‘presence’. The ‘Mystery of Life’ has been penetrated, albeit briefly. It is important to realise that a peak experience is not to be confused with an Aesthetic Experience, a Spiritual Revelation, a Religious Vision, an Intellectual Insight, or an Emotional Intuition. It is in a category of its own. It may last for only a few seconds or it may stretch into minutes ... many people have had it last for hours. It does not matter how long, what matters is what one does with it. The experience is indelibly locked away in memory but is generally overlooked in the press of everyday life. Yet it works away, giving rise to thoughts such as: ‘there must be more to life than this’, or something similar. It is what drives humanity on to seek a better way of living, a better way of doing whatever it is that humans are all doing whilst being here on this planet. The search for fulfillment stems from the peak experience, for humans all know, or hope, that it must surely come about some day. Why not make that day now? Why not stop procrastinating and putting it off into some imagined future?

One can induce a peak experience – with practice on a daily basis – by pure contemplation based securely on the previous peak experiences. One of the main characteristics of the peak experience is purity. An unimaginable purity permeates the whole of existence, showering its blessing over all and sundry. From the condition of being human, one can plug into that purity with pure intent. Pure intent is the connection between the intimate aspect of oneself, that one usually keeps hidden away for fear of seeming foolish, and the purity of the peak experience. In normal life one avoids acting in a way that invites scorn from the insensitive philistines, who would rather perpetuate misery than admit they were wrong in their judgment on life, but the time eventually comes when one can stay quiescent no longer. The urge wells up to penetrate into the ‘Mystery of Life’, to find that ultimate fulfillment, and to achieve peace-on-earth. Pure intent is the highway to this utter freedom, to one’s destiny ... and it is a wide and wondrous path. Richard’s Journal, Article 15

I can say from my own experience – it is a wide and wondrous path, but it needs a commitment to digging into one’s sinister presences, one’s dullness, one’s fear and one’s pride and all the tricks that the very cunning entity of ‘self’ comes up with. Without the memory of a peak-experience there won’t be enough intent to instigate one’s own self-immolation.

22.2.1999

In the communication with you I often have the sense of completely groping in the dark. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you are using different words for feelings or emotions that are happening for you, maybe there is another reason. I am curious as to what you think the cause could be. Usually when I answer your mail I sit there and read them three times before I start guessing what you might mean by what you are saying.

Maybe you are one of those ‘strong and silent’ men of the movies. It is just that on the internet it is necessary to use more explicit words. Words are all we have for communication – if you want communication, that is.

*

‘Worth looking at’ is a term you can only define for yourself if you know what you are aiming for. What are those ‘releases’ that you are you aiming for?

Those ‘releases’ is a dissolving of the divisiveness normally associated with an emotion. No, I was not talking about what is worth looking at, I was talking about the usual human response of not wanting to face the stuff of ‘self’ by saying ‘its not worth looking at’.

Yes, I understand the ‘not worth looking at’. In me, I have identified it as fear. In the beginning it was possible to put issues aside when I did not want to deal with them, but the more I understood experientially that I have only this very moment of being alive, it more and more was like an awful waste of time to avoid the surfacing issue. The real kick came when I ‘realised’ that there cannot be a God to help and therefore no afterlife to wait for. Afterlife has been an option that I will discover when I die, but then I realized with certainty that I had been sold a dummy. I wrote about it at the time:

Finally one evening, when talking and musing about the universe, I fully comprehended that this physical universe is actually infinite. The universe being without boundaries or an edge means that it is impossible, practically, for God to exist. In order to have created the universe or to be in control of it God would have to exist outside of it – and there is no outside! This insight hit me like a thunderbolt. My fear of God and of his representatives collapsed and lost its very substance by this obvious realisation. In fact, there can be no one outside of this infinite universe who is pulling the strings of punishment and reward, heaven and hell – or, according to Eastern tradition, granting enlightenment or leaving me with the eternal karma of endless lives in misery.

This insight presupposes, of course, that there is no place other than the physical universe, no celestial, mystical realm where gods and ghosts exist. It also implies that there is no life before or after death and that the body simply dies when it dies. I needed quite some courage to face and accept this simple fact – to give up all beliefs in an after-life or a ‘spirit-life’. But I could easily observe that as soon as I gave up the idea of any imaginary existence other than the tangible, physical universe, everything, which had seemed so complicated and impossible to understand became graspable, evident, obvious and imminently clear. When the enormous consequence and implication of slipping out of this insidious belief in any God or Higher Being dawned on me, I was at the same time free of anybody’s authority.’ A Bit of Vineeto

And not only free of authority but free of postponement too. Knowing as a certainty that this life is all I have then every minute not lived in perfection is a waste of time. The best I can do with such time is to turn it into the inquiry to make this moment perfect. And then, everything that hinders my happiness is worth looking at.

This would seem to mean that pure intent is based on fact. For me this would be the fact of the release that occurs when a major hurdle is realized. The point that dullness masks emotion and emotion masks belief has also been of assistance. I have a bit of trouble summoning up delight (as Richard suggests), as it seems imaginary, as opposed to the release that comes with facing issues. That is still under consideration though.

Pure intent is based on the fact of a peak-experience. If the intent is based only on the release from the tensions of hurdles one will be contented with temporary and second rate solutions.

Yes, I have considered this. It is always a hurdle getting out of struggling and the agitated state of objection to an emotion. So when that state of struggling ends it does feel like a reward of sorts. My solution is a permanent ‘no objection at all’. That at the present is not a one off and requires continual effort of inquiry.

When an emotion is happening, for instance anger, it is harmful in two ways. Firstly I am not happy because I am angry and second I am angry at someone else and may cause harm to that person, be it by snide remarks, withdrawal or any other action. Of course I don’t want to be angry. If the aim is to be happy and harmless then I no longer tolerate anger in my life. One does everything possible to eliminate it and not merely watches its rising and falling in the mind or heart.

But the only way to successfully get rid of anger is to examine the root cause of me getting angry in that particular situation, find the expectation, the frustration, the ‘self’ in operation. Once I found the root cause and ‘got it’ – as Alan says – it is immensely rewarding, a great relief and a joy to have dismantled yet another obstacle to being free.

And with every success there was more eagerness to find the next hurdle. The obsession for freedom takes a life of its own, wearing down the original objections. And then it is like Mark was writing on the list a few days ago:

‘After reading Richard’s and then Peter’s writings I could see similarities in what they were saying to the experience that I was having and started to apply ‘how am I...’ as diligently as possible to my life. The result of this exploration has been more freedom and autonomy than I have experienced before in my whole life with some wondrous times of virtual freedom lasting sometimes for minutes, sometimes for days.’

And:

‘My journey so far with this ‘way’ has yielded more freedom and unconditional happiness than any thing I have experienced before and I have reached the point of no return – normal or spiritual are no longer options.’

Your ‘permanent solution’ of ‘no objection at all’ sounds a pretty dry experience to me. Freedom from the churning emotions, feelings, beliefs and instincts, which is freedom from ‘me’, results in a delicious, sensuous continuous enjoyment moment after moment, fresh each time, rich and magnificent, crisp and perfect. An ongoing delight to be alive.

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