PS: It is definitely a good idea to get out of the spiritual world. Here are two examples that I came across the other day that made the institutionalized insanity of spiritual belief-systems ever more apparent. The first is pure Buddhism from a Buddhist mailing list.

Question: In my East Asian Buddhism course a student asked why the Dalai Lamas show human imperfections if they are reincarnations of Avalokitesvara. In other words: what is the doctrinal reasoning to explain the absence of a bodhisattva’s perfections in its human incarnation? Thanks for anyone willing to step up to the plate.

Response: There are several ways of responding. An obvious one from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective is that apparent imperfections are only apparent, that is, that Dalai Lamas are fully awakened beings, and so our perceptions of their flaws are simply reflections of our own limitations. This response would be related to the guru yoga system, in which students are taught to visualize their teachers as fully enlightened buddhas, even if they don’t seem to be. Students are taught that even if gurus have the flaws one sees in them, by perceiving in this way one develops the flaws oneself, but if one learns to perceive them as buddhas, one acquires the enlightened qualities of buddhas. Another perspective would be to think in terms of upaya (skill in means): from this perspective, any apparent imperfections, limitations, etc. are merely expedient devices skilfully used by Dalai Lamas for teaching purposes (even though these may be too subtle for ordinary beings to fathom). Thus, for example, the 6^th Dalai Lama decided that he didn’t want to live in the Potala and be confined by monastic restrictions, so he got himself an apartment in town and had numerous affairs with women. He wrote a number of poems about his love of romance and drinking, and these are generally viewed by Tibetans as examples of very subtle skill in means. The bottom line is that if one accepts Dalai Lamas as physical manifestations of Avalokitesvara, one is committed to the proposition that any apparent limitations or imperfections are not what they appear to be.

Isn’t it amazing to hear the opinion from an obvious expert on the subject matter. As a faithful student you are to put aside your common sense and practice denial and transcendence in order to become as much of a hypocrite as the Guru whose ‘apparent’ flaws you should not perceive. ‘Very subtle skill in means’ indeed!

And the other quote is from a NDA mailing list, following Master H.W.L. Poonja’s spiritual approach of ‘Thou Art already That and All is an Illusion Anyway’

KL brought up the issue of ‘illusion’ seemingly suggesting that perhaps the ultimate nature of many issues we consider significant, such as gender, may be nothing but illusion ultimately. I may have raised this issue before, but I feel it is an important one. What do we mean it’s an illusion? My suggestion is that even if we all agreed that the nature of everything we see is just ‘light’, is that what it feels like? Is matter an illusion? Is it possible that the illusion that the mystics and enlightened referred to was in how we conceive of life? Is the earth an illusion? Perhaps the illusion is mistaking one’s thoughts (concepts, images, memory) for the actual manifestation they refer to? When we draw a line on the Earth and call one side Mexico and the other the U.S., are these actualities? If we believe them to be ‘actual’ separate nations, is this not an illusion? We can assign names to the diverse aspects of life, but perhaps it makes no sense to believe them to be actually separate. When we conceive or think of a human being as separate from it’s surroundings and sustaining environment, is this not a conceptual illusion? Does this mean there is no diverse manifestation, or merely a confusion in thought?

Well, those are some of my honest views of one possibility. Perhaps someone else has a different notion of illusion.

I particularly liked the ‘different notion of illusion’ – it says it all! The simple test to ascertain if the border that separates Mexico and the US is actual, is to stuff a suitcase full of drugs and try to drive across ‘the line on the Earth’ and experience what is an illusion and what is actual. Sitting in prison, he will have all the time in the world to intellectualize about a ‘different notion of illusion’ .

Peter has summed it up perfectly when he wrote on the mailing list C:

I find it curious that spiritual ‘freedom’ means retreating from the physical into the meta-physical, from the real world into a spirit-ual world, from the market place into the Ashram, from the senses into unfettered imagination, from the actual to the cerebral, from the outer to the inner, from sensible thinking to passionate feeling – from head in the sand to head in the clouds. Peter, List C, No 25

I is not a singular pronoun. It is a collective pronoun. It is THE collective pronoun. The only I is the I we are. Present-centered consciousness is the God-realized activity of Self. I’m wanting to avoid esoteric sentences. That last one was too far out. We never find God because we look for God outside ourselves or in ourselves and God is neither outside or inside but is the us. Never mind. I won’t go on. Maybe I’ve provoked something for us to talk about.

I must admit I had your letter sitting in my Inbox for a few days, looking at it and being completely baffled as to what you mean by your statement.

Do you mean, that with whatever you say you speak for everyone else? Do you mean, when I go to the toilet, everyone goes to the toilet? If ‘God is the us’, as you say, why do you then call ‘us’ God. Why not just call us what we are: human beings. If all 5.8 billion people are God, what’s the point of calling them God? The outcome is, as you admitted, ‘esoteric sentences’. Why do you have to bring the concept of God into the matter? But then, you have given the answer in the first part of your letter:

I see 3 levels of consciousness. Briefly...

1. I don’t know where you got your definition of ‘EGO’from, because it is neither from the dictionary nor from Mr Rajneesh’s teachings. I’ll give you the Macquarie definition here: the ‘I’ or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, willing and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.
   Ego is much more than just unawareness of unawareness! It is the little man in the head that controls our thoughts and actions. It is who we think we are.
2. Your second level of search is not a level at all. Many people become only more proud and therefore feel superior as the ‘chosen few’ because they now have a ‘higher’ and ‘better’ ideal to follow than ‘normal’ people.
3. Your third level, what you call ‘freedom’, sounds as if one simply gives up searching and resigns into confusion and being lost. Not a very attractive alternative at all!

What is usually completely overlooked is that there is not only an ‘ego’ controlling our thoughts, but also a ‘soul’ producing our emotions and that both are running on the fuel of our innate animal survival instincts. Both, ego and soul, have to be eliminated in order to experience an actual freedom from the Human Condition. Only without the intricate system of instincts, emotions and beliefs can the magnificent perfection of actuality be experienced, which is then it self-evident and obvious. Actual Freedom is neither a devastating truth nor a mystery to be lost in – but the continuous experience of this abundant life in this pure and infinite universe, experienced through the physical senses.

No amount of talking or typing will ever awaken anybody unless there is trust and surrender, such as what can exist in a master/disciple relationship. I say these words to add clarity where there might otherwise be frustration from not being heard.

Trust and surrender only lead to the confused lost-ness, that you describe your freedom to be, and to eternal dependency from the person one has chosen to be one’s master. You surrender your will to a higher authority. Not much of a freedom I would say!

Freedom is to be free of authority, free of one’s ‘self’, free of any psychic, mental and emotional construct, free of churning emotions and the sorrow of compassion. Freedom is to be free to be the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being.

The first thing I had to do after 17 years of spiritual conditioning was to switch my brain back on. I delighted in using my intelligence again, started doubting the old, used scrutiny and discrimination to slowly question everything that I had taken for granted wisdom. What a gullible person I had been, you could have told me any fairy-story of astrology and invisible energies, channelling and chakras, and I was ready to believe it all! Investigating and using my intelligence again, I felt like being back in High school or University, where intellect and intelligence are being trained, where it was o.k. to think, where I learned about facts – though even many of those so-called facts later turned out to be mere assumptions, disguised as scientific theories. I re-discovered the joy of discrimination, of relying on myself instead of authority, of using ‘silly’ and ‘sensible’ instead of moralistic appraisals.

I found this post of Vineeto’s very clear and interesting. FOR A CHANGE! And I see how Vineeto missed Osho.

I am glad I said something that is clear and interesting to you. I am really giving my best each time, you know, to describe the new discovery that people can understand. I am still curious why you never responded to the description of my ‘enlightenment story’ and how I saw through the delusion it is, that I have sent to you last month (see first letter). I would be interested in your response so we can compare notes to your experiences.

So, you believe that I missed Osho. As I see it, I finally saw him with both my eyes and heard him with both my ears wide open. Despite all the in-built contradictions Osho was clear on one point: The only difference between me and you is that I have realised that I am God (the Divine, One with the Universe), and you have not. Well, I have described at length in the above mentioned letter as to why I decided that I’d rather live in the actual world of people, things and events than get lost in the imagination of the psychic world with its passionate imaginations of Compassion and Truth. In that sense I have serendipitously ‘missed Osho’ and now have turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction to everything spiritual and non-actual. Life has not only gained immense meaning, but I am finally able to be happy and harmless, live at ease in the world and at peace, on my own and with other human beings.

You’re in for a very rude awakening I’m afraid.

Are you maybe referring to the Ancient Wisdom of Christianity, Islam, Shinto or Buddhism? This is what I found in their Scriptures and it looks very similar to your warning of the ‘very rude awakening’ –

‘My Pure Land is not destroyed, though all view it as being burned up, and grief and horror and distress thus fill them to the full. Those creatures, full of sin by reason of their evil karma, throughout kalpas numberless hear not the name of the most Precious Three.’ Buddha, Lotus Sutra 16

‘The victorious World-renovator and his helpers... shall make the existence renovated—ageless, deathless, unputrifying, uncorruptible, ever-living, ever benefiting, ruling at will. The dead shall rise up, life shall prevail indestructible, and existence shall be renovated at the will of God! The worlds shall be deathless, by the will of Right, benefiting all! Evil will stand against, but will flee away, here and there causing death to the holy and his progeny and creatures, but running to its death and destruction at the will of the Judge!’ Zarathustra, Avesta, Zamyad Yast 19.11-12

‘Those who believe in God and repent will witness the coming of the new world, and they will be able to start on the road to salvation. But those still heavily burdened with sin and unable to overcome their malicious ways will end this life in absolute misery and may find no salvation in the next.’ Sekai-Kyusei-Kyo. Johrei’

The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’ Jesus, Matthew 13.47-50

‘On the day when the earth will be changed to other than the earth, and the heavens likewise, and they will come forth unto God, the One, the Almighty. You will see the guilty on that day linked together in chains, their raiment of pitch, and the Fire covering their faces—that God may repay each soul what it has earned. Lo! God is swift at reckoning.’ Mohamed, Qur’an 14.42-51

And war is not a waste, it is only suffering that awakens anybody, so from this heightened perspective, it serves. And it’s not like they aren’t going to die anyway ;-)

Sounds like Ancient Eastern Wisdom or dis-associated cruelty again, this time from the Bhagavad Gita –

‘For a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil. The warrior confronted with such a war should be pleased, Arjuna, for it comes as an open gate to heaven. But if you do not participate in this battle against evil, you will incur sin, violating your dharma and your honour... Death means the attainment of heaven; victory means the enjoyment of the earth. Therefore rise up, Arjuna, resolved to fight! Having made yourself alike in pain and pleasure, profit and loss, victory and defeat, engage in this great battle and you will be freed from sin.’ Bhagavad Gita 2.31-38

And this is where I see one of the main differences between the freedom, Peter and I talk about, and the teachings of the enlightened masters of all ages: the concept of life after death. ‘Eternity’ was a good attraction at the time, improving on the notion of the Christian heaven and hell. The idea was that the soul was eternal, and would live on for ever and ever, evolving and in bliss, or, in endless re-incarnations of sorting out one’s karma. It offered the dream of ‘me’ living on for ever, even after physical death, ‘I’ would continue... and it leads to the most insidious postponement – everything will be fixed with enlightenment or in Nirvana after death...

I don’t know where you as a sannyasin got all these ideas from, because all what you are saying here are just your interpretation of what enlightened masters of all ages intended.

How did you interpret all the stories about life after death, about dissolving into the divine energy of Existence, about re-incarnation and karma? Wasn’t re-incarnation one of the very reasons to become enlightened in this life-time, to stop the wheel of endless births and deaths? It definitely was it for me.

This belief in eternity comes in many forms and disguises, but if you take a closer look, you will always find that the Divine, the Melting with the Universe, the Dissolution into the Greater Whole – life after death – are part of Eastern teaching.

‘Eastern Teaching’... this again illustrates your tendency to generalize. There are many different so called Eastern teachings. And certainly Osho isn’t part of it. You’re on a sannyas-list and ‘Eastern Teaching’, or what you present of it, is irrelevant here.

Ok, if you want to – I can give you two quotes to ponder about:

‘Never Born, Never Died, Only Visited this Planet ...’ His tombstone.
‘When I say to you that you are free, I mean that you are a God.’ The Beloved/2, Chapter 10

I have come to see Osho’s teaching as a modern version of Eastern Teaching. He talked on Buddha, Krishna, the Zen-Masters, Zarathustra, the Sufi-Masters, Lao-Tzu, Ramakrishna, on all the important representatives of Eastern and Western religions.

But in order to question the Master after a devotional relationship of almost two-thirds of my adult life, I first had to question several ingrained concepts in me. I found the belief in authority was a big issue and a strong need, to always have somebody to guide me, love me and to belong to. Surrender to his authority was an easy option. There was also the belief in God or Existence, the ultimate and invisible authority, some (non-physical) energy outside of me and outside of the physical universe. This energy represented the ultimate power and Wisdom.

I had taken all those things quoted as facts, before I met Richard, but they could not stand the scrutiny of my discrimination. I had strong experiences or ‘realisations’ about truth, love, hope etc. and that had made it all the easier to believe them as real – I don’t deny that those experiences are real. But they are not actual, which means, you cannot verify them through seeing, touching, hearing, smelling or tasting them. They exist in the head and only in the head (or are felt in the heart), and they are different for everybody. A Christian sees Jesus in a vision, a Sannyasins may hear Osho talk ‘truth’ in their minds.

So you’ve learned, you have seen that YOU made concepts. The trouble was not in the words ‘everything is perfect as it is’, but in you. The trouble is not in the teaching but in you who interpreted it. There’s no need to shit on the teaching as you are now or is there.

I had always defended the Master and blamed me. It is part of believing in authority.

Once that belief in authority was questioned and eliminated, I could come back to the issue, examine the teachings of the master and the life of the master, what he said, what the result was, for me, for others and for the country that had been stricken with Eastern teachings since millennia. It revealed a totally different picture.

But everybody has to do that for him/herself. That’s all that this discussion is about – to twig anybody who is interested into finding out for themselves, rather than believing what others say...

I don’t think you read Akashic records, do you?

Yes, I have been tapping into those Akashic Records when ‘I’ still lived in the psychic world, and I have been studying the phenomenon as such on my way to freedom. It is a fascinating subject. As I have seen it, ‘Akashic Records’ is another word for the whole of humanity’s beliefs, the whole of Ancient Wisdom. For some reason this collective belief is accessible to whoever expands his or her ambition and search in the direction of collective beliefs and feelings.

Nevertheless, those ‘Akashic Records’ are nothing but humankind’s collective imagination with millions of details and variations. They are the whole of the atavistic beliefs and, as such, an intrinsic part of the Human Condition. In that collective psychic world one finds Universal Sorrow with its opposite – Compassion and Universal Dread with its opposite – Bliss. Those feelings, when one taps into them, are very powerful and convincing. You have probably experienced them yourself. They seem so all-encompassing as if there has never been anything as compelling and true as this experience. So powerful as to be convincingly real – one feels that one has discovered the Hidden Secrets of Humanity – that All has been revealed! That is simply due to the nature of the collective.

And yet, these compelling feelings and thoughts are not actual. They only exist in the head (or heart). The moment I become aware of what is happening and, as a result, stop feeding them, they shrink into normal size emotions and eventually die away. Here is a bit that I wrote when I had an experience of Universal Dread – if you are interested... The desperate feeling of being forever trapped in the psychic world that I experienced during that dread is summed up in the saying that you keep quoting: ‘There is nothing new under the sun’.

What a funny way to say ‘I don’t wanna change’. Are you from Sirius, or the Plejades or maybe the Little Prince from A. de Saint-Exupery, who tends his rose and his monkey-bread-tree on his faraway little planet – and now you are waiting for an other-worldly power to help you to be happy with your ego that you so excellently described?

Yes, maybe I am Sirius-ian or Plejadian or maybe the Little Prince from Dain-Expupery! I am not sure, but if it is true, it’s Fucking cool, man, thanks Vineeto.

It seems to me that Peter and I are the only Earthlings here on the list, saying what a wonderful planet this can be without the shackles of the Human Condition.

Wow!!! So it means the rest of us are all Sirius-ian or Plejadian or maybe the Little Prince from Dain-Expupery. Mmmm too fucking cool, man. I must tell this to my friends, they are sure to envy me and the list, and the rest around me are to frown.

This story that Peter and I are the only Earthlings was an actualist joke, pointing to the fact that everyone looks for the solution to life somewhere else than on this beautiful planet. Either it is waiting for heaven or for Nirvana, and help comes from a bodiless God or a dead spirit. Do you know the story of the Little Prince from A. de Saint-Exupery? This prince lived all by himself on his little planet with only one rose and one monkey-bread-tree, which he needed to guard. He went on a journey and came to earth. After he had seen enough of earth, he wanted to go home to be with his beloved rose. A poisonous snake in the dessert had to bite him, so he could die and reach home.

I thought it quite a good story for the general accepted spiritual belief that life on earth is a vale of tears and one has to die to reach ‘home’ again. To make sure that home is really reached we practice dis-association from body and mind and ‘connect’ with our ‘real self’, which is ‘not the body’.

According to spirituality we are to dis-identify from body and mind as the alien part of ourselves, the idea being that body and mind are the hindrance to become one with God. It has been such a relief and joy for me when I found that one can actually live here on earth, as this body, in my senses, and enjoy it too. When I found out that ego, soul, ‘self’, emotions, feelings, beliefs and instinctual passions – in short, the Human Condition – are constituting the real ‘alien entity’ in me. When I found out that this alien ‘thing’, the Human Condition, can be investigated and deleted.

So, you see, people actually all behave as if they come from somewhere else or are going somewhere else, and that we only ‘visit’ this ‘alien’ physical world, while the only thing that separates us as ‘aliens’ from this perfect universe is our identity, our ‘self’. Once we eliminate the ‘self’ we can live the perfection of this

But for that, one has to ‘self’-immolate. Nobody else can do it for you.

Mmm, but as you mentioned before, if I and the rest of the list are Sirius-ian or Plejadian or maybe the Little Prince from Dain-Expupery, how can I and the rest of all do it? Cheers and comradeship from the outer space.

Ah, here comes the cop-out. I only used the expression ‘from outer space’ because you believe in this alien entity or soul. The conviction of having a soul alien to one’s physical body is combined with the belief in some higher forces which will solve the problems here on earth, be they God, Osho, Mother Earth, Gaia, Feng Shui, Somebody Else or some other Mysterious Energy. As long as one chooses to leave the responsibility for one’s life with those imaginary higher forces there won’t be any change. Humans have prayed to their particular Gods for millennia and shed their blood for them.

How can you have peace-on-earth, in this life, now?

The only way to change the world is to change ourselves, individually, to become happy and harmless, freed from instincts, beliefs, feelings and emotions. Nothing to fight for, nothing to suffer about, I can have peace-on-earth for myself and as such contribute to world-peace the only way possible.

To do it, passionately and daringly.

... but I considered those beliefs as part of the ego that I had set out to leave behind ...

The I setting out to leave the I behind, hahaha. Great Idea! But it’s a good warning – thanks!

This is one of the insidious beliefs of spirituality and of Sannyas, that you can’t change yourself. People believe that simply loving the Master of obeying God will do the trick. That’s why everybody who believes it keeps going round in circles. We are not only born with instincts and then filled up with the usual social conditioning but we also have a brain equipped with intelligence and awareness. Both intelligence and awareness are very good tools to change one’s behaviour, to get rid of emotions and beliefs that don’t work in life. Just to call it ‘I’ and then pretend that you are helpless to do something about it is an easy cop-out and a cheap excuse. It smacks of fatalism. Maybe it is threatening when I state that it is possible to change myself because it reveals this great belief for what it is – an excuse to stay malicious and miserable.

The second ‘key’ is to examine the underlying reason why anger (and any other feeling and emotion) arises in the first place. What is ‘my’ perception of the world, which of ‘my’ expectations are not met, what is it that ‘I’ am imposing on the world-as-it-is and the people-as-they-are that ‘I’ feel angry about? Persistent questioning of the root cause of my getting angry as well as applying common sense had immediate and drastic results – more and more the ‘self’ was seen for what it was in the light of this awareness; it was seen as an alien intruder that continuously spoiled the joy and ease of being ‘here’.

Yes, this examining for the reason of ‘bad’ feelings was an automatic following step after having ‘watched’ it using Vipassana. But now I am surprised that I never raised questions about the ‘good’ feelings.

Questioning ‘good’ feelings is the first step to investigate the highest values of Humanity and the very idea of the spiritual ‘Self’. No wonder that nobody has ever dared to question the ‘good’ feelings before because they are what has traditionally been used to keep the lid on the ‘bad’ feelings and actions. We have learned to battle or transcend the ‘bad’ feelings and enhance the ‘good’ feelings – but to throw the whole lot out of the window is to fly in the face of all of Ancient Wisdom. Ancient Wisdom had 5000 years to produce a result and it has brought neither personal peace-on-earth nor global peace. It has only strengthened the belief that you can’t change Human Nature, that is impossible to get rid of emotions and instincts, that it is impossible to rid yourself of malice and sorrow. Well, I found out that you can – and what a delightful outcome it is!

I don’t see how [anger passing away] can be ‘the result of good old Vipassana’, where you were ‘the witness watching the anger passing away’, if you say that at the same time you ‘know that [’you’ are] not different from anger’. Either you know that ‘you’ are the anger, that ‘you’ are the emotion, which is not what is taught in Vipassana – or you practice Vipassana and merely witness the anger passing away until it arises next time. But that does not eliminate the emotion, as ‘you’ remain intact, and at the most ‘you’ only transcend the emotion.

To really grasp the fact that ‘you’ are emotions and emotions are ‘you’ results in you being willing and eager to investigate into the deeper layers of ‘you’ to eliminate the very cause of anger arising in the first place. To really face the fact that ‘you’, and only ‘you’, are the cause and reason of anger arising – as well as all the other emotions – is the first and essential step to do something about this emotion rather than merely witness it. The acknowledgment of the fact that the Human Condition in you is preventing you from being happy and harmless creates the burning intent and necessary guts to investigate further into the very substance of ‘who you think you are’ and ‘who you feel you are’. That’s when common sense starts to come to fruition.

I am now seeing Vipassana in a different light. It is very helpful in putting me at ‘this’ moment ‘here’ and it also puts me back to this physical body. Vipassana is not limited to watching of breathing only. It can be extended to watching any sensation in the body. In the beginning, of course there is a watcher, but I was told that gradually watcher goes away and there is only watching happening. I have, though, no personal experience of the watcher going away. But I could do away with emotions like anger with the help of extended Vipassana where apart from watching you also understand anger. The term ‘watching’ is used to be non-judgmental. That means I did not try to fight with anger, In fact I did not even wished that it should go away, but that doesn’t stops me from investigating. And just by understanding it and understanding the reason behind it, it goes away. It becomes foolish to get angry. That’s why I said it gives rise to common sense. As I have said earlier I did not try this method for all the emotions. Perhaps I never thought of listing down all the emotions and worked on them one by one.

Vipassana, according to its ‘home-place’, Theravada Buddhism, is practiced so that

‘the view of self will then be totally removed and security will be finally gained against the danger of rebirth in the realms of the hells, animals and petas. In this respect, the exercise is simply to note or observe the existing elements in every act of seeing. It should be noted as ‘seeing, seeing’ on every occasion of seeing. ... If not, based on this act of seeing there will arise sakkaya-ditthi, which will view it in the form of a person or as belonging to a person, and as being permanent, pleasurable, and self. This will arouse the defilements of craving and attachment, which will in turn prompt deeds, and the deeds will bring forth rebirth in a new existence.’

What you call extended Vipassana is still Buddhism with its understanding that who you really are is your ‘consciousness’, ie the ‘watcher’ as distinct from body and senses and from the bad emotions and thoughts, which then are merely ‘seen’ or ‘observed’. Upon enlightenment, as you were told, the ‘watcher [is] going away’, but only because you then dissolve into being ‘one with everything’.

Anger passes away, not because you ‘understand the reason behind’ it but because you become the watcher and remove yourself from your anger. In the same way you can remove yourself from any feeling or emotion without ever having to investigate into the substance of your very ‘self’. To really face the fact that ‘you’, and only ‘you’, are the cause and reason of anger arising – as well as all the other emotions – is the first and essential step to do something about this emotion instead of merely witnessing it.

Further, Buddhism, and therefore Vipassana, is clearly based on the understanding that

‘one usually experiences many painful sensations in the body, such as tiredness, heat, aching, and at the time of noting these sensations, one generally feels that this body is a collection of sufferings. This is also insight into suffering.’ (Both quotes from: ‘Satipatthana Vipassana, Insight through Mindfulness’ by The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw)

You see, their aim is to ‘get out of the body’ and ‘into consciousness’, because the ‘body is a collection of suffering’. Similarly, you ‘get out of anger’. But ‘you’ remain intact. That’s why anger arises again. Looking back I can see that at some point early in my relationship with Peter I made the decision not to let emotions come in the road between us and prevent a peaceful living together. Peace was the priority and for that I was ready to sacrifice everything – I was even ready to change, radically, completely, drastically.

Were I not spiritually inclined I might not be interested in actual freedom web pages. I think spiritualism also promises the same thing (being happy and harmless) as actualism. Whether it delivers or not – I don’t know. But neither do I know if actualism does.

For me, it was my search for freedom, peace and happiness that made me enter the spiritual world in the first place and not the other way round, in that the spiritual teachings led me to be interested in achieving freedom. When this search for freedom, peace and happiness was not fulfilled with my shallow success of 17 years of meditation I then became interested in actualism. I think you are crediting the wrong account here.

I think there is some confusion in my usage of the term spiritualism.

Here is another example of using the trick of a superficial substitution. You say ‘who/what am I, it is adhyatma’? ‘Who’ points to ‘I’, the being, the passionately imagined identity, while ‘what’ is simply this flesh-and-blood-body without any identity whatsoever. Adhyatma is ‘coming to yourself’ or your ‘self’, who your believe yourself to be, feel yourself to be, want to be, hope to become and, lo and behold, you discover your Higher or True Self – God by any other name.

Actualism goes in the opposite direction. An actualist chisels away at the being, dismantles the being, takes it apart, exposes it for the mirage it is, investigates the emotions and instinctual passions that force one to desperately want to be somebody, a higher self, ‘me at the core of my being’, an advanced being, anything. Actual freedom is freedom from being any identity whatsoever. What remains is ‘what’ one is, this flesh-and-blood body only, not ‘who’.

It is all very simple. Whenever I have been hurt by something or someone, this was my ‘self’ being hurt. This ‘self’ is what we actualists investigate, dismantle, lay bare and eliminate. It includes investigating ALL emotions, including love, compassion and bliss. When you uncover and eliminate the underlying instincts, there won’t be anybody left feeling hurt or even peeved.

I went cruising on the internet and found in one of the spiritual periodicals such an amusing counselling session on chat-line that I thought it would be worth translating the non-sense into straight English. The non-sense of the conversation becomes much more obvious when one removes the New-Dark-Age cover of decorative language. These sessions are actually offered for money and will therefore be considered even more valuable than if they were distributed free for just compassion’s sake.

*

Here you go – have fun ... ... I recognized a lot of my own way of talking, way back then.

One woman who inquired what my non-spiritual lifestyle was all about got noticeably upset when I did not agree with her that ‘we are all looking for the same thing’. She insisted that everybody deep down looks for the same truth, and how come I dare say that she was not on the same ‘Path’ as I was? I explained that I am questioning emotions in order not to create ripples in people’s lives, and she then affirmed that she liked her emotions and wanted to keep them. She would just watch them come and go in the usual ‘spiritual’ fashion. Two days later she returned only to tell me that I had tried to make her feel wrong. I had merely stated that I am not on the spiritual path and why it was not the same thing that she pursued. I explained that I did not want to create ripples in my life with my own sorrow and my snide remarks or expressions or malice and that’s why I had started to question the value of emotions as such. She was obviously happy with her emotions, yet felt attacked the moment I said I wasn’t on the same spiritual path.

Another interesting conversation happened with a very old friend who also insisted that ‘deep down I know that you and I are searching for the same thing. There is only one truth, I feel,’ he said. This statement was somewhat a surprise as he had read the whole of Peter’s book! We had quite an animated discussion where I explained in detail that I am neither looking for truth nor that we are ‘deep down’ looking for the same thing. He is searching for love, bliss, enlightenment, freedom from the misery of ‘having a body’ and admitted that he wants to escape from the world. Whereas I am questioning my emotions, beliefs and instincts and consequently can live happily in the world as it is with people as they are. After 30 minutes, being somewhat challenged by the presented facts, he said, ‘you haven’t changed at all, you are still a missionary!’ Well, that arrow completely missed its target since I had no emotional investment as to the outcome of our conversation. It won’t influence my state of well-being whether he gets interested in actual freedom or stays on his torturous search for the ultimate escape. His outlook reminded me of the last guy in the diagram which I sent to the list last week: ‘from the Dark Age to the New Dark Age’. How is it that people think that worshipping a passionately imagined ‘Truth’ or God is going to make them suddenly free and happy when it has not worked for thousands of years?

If you start to think that everything is an illusion, you give away your control over your life. I got the feeling I have. In Richard’s journal he tells something similar, he had to fight to get his will back working. And then I found you guys. Well, to come short, I’ve ‘practised’ with the method of ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ for about a month now. It’s to short to say if there is ‘something happening.’ If you have something to recommend please do. I’m determined to go on, that’s for sure. Sorry I talk so much about myself but that’s the only way to give an image of my ‘reality’. You know what’s the worst one can do: to say that you can be happy all the time and then lead people on a road to nowhere by talking Chinese. As if happiness is only for the ‘wise and intelligent people.’ I’m not stupid but I don’t understand Ramana Maharshi at all.

Your last sentence I enjoyed the most. Yes, it needs people to be bold enough to stand up to the gods and gurus and expose them for the frauds they are. Richard says they have feet of clay because they did not dare to go all the way and eliminate all of their identity instead of only getting rid of the ego. Consequently their identity shifts from ego to soul and is blown up into insane proportions.

It took me at least 6 months to question and take apart all my dearly held beliefs, reverence, love, devotion and hope that I had towards the Master (Rajneesh), because admitting that the master was wrong then made me a fool to have followed him. But what a liberation and relief when I understood the whole intricate net of the master-disciple-relationship, when I saw through the half-truths and mysteries, the fairy-stories and Eastern gobble-de-gook. What a freedom now to think for myself, to use my intelligence freed of fear and hope, and to walk upright for the first time in my life – beholden to no one.

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