Also, what is it that actually happens to cause a PCE?

As for your question how to make a peak-experience happen I can say that I started to approach it the other way around. Given that peak-experience is our actual state when no emotion or belief is in the road, I am going for whatever obstacle I find at the time whenever I don’t experience this moment of being alive as perfect as I remember those moments of the peak experience. As you may know, I have been finding lots of interesting ghosts in my cupboard, often unexpected, expressions of pride, fear, impatience, annoyance, competition, love, loneliness, boredom and yet again another fear.

Whenever I am taking the bull by its horns and dig around in that specific emotion, explore, understand and eliminate it, what’s left is the perfect experience of the world as it is, delightful, safe and imminently fascinating – there it is, the searched-for peak-experience or PCE! So my approach is kind of indirect, being busy with the obstacles rather with the outcome. Of course, my intent and my goal is to eliminate those obstacles and each time round it becomes more easy and more of an adventure and a scientific enquiry rather than a ‘having-to-do-thing’. This way I am becoming more and more confident, I stop believing in my own emotions and I know that absolute everything will be examined under the microscope. By now, the ‘cupboard’, which was packed full of ‘ghosts’ is getting pretty clean...

ALAN: No, I did not mean ‘I know the truth’ by ‘knowing’. I meant a ‘getting it’ – an experiential (as opposed to intellectual) understanding that this is correct, obviously so, factually evident, blindingly obvious. I think this is the same as Peter was talking about with ‘serendipitous discoveries’ – one does not seek the discovery. There is just a sudden ‘click’, an ‘of course, how interesting and obvious’.

VINEETO: There was a time when I would miss not having those blindingly obvious ‘getting its’ and stunning insights, which were so diametrically opposite to everything else I had believed at the time – and I would measure the ‘truth’ of the insight according to the degree of surprise, newness and stunning-ness of my first startling insights. Then I noticed that the more my life got easier, less emotional and more perfect each day, that and similarly the peak experiences themselves became something almost ordinary, utterly simple, adding a tinge more clarity and intensity to the experience of the tangible actual-ness of every day life. The extreme experiences were disappearing out of my life, and at first that left me with an uncertainty as to not knowing if I had gone back to being normal.

But then I only had to compare my life with how I had been before, with the problems I observe in other people around me or with what is presented on TV, to know that I have actually and clearly improved my quality of life to such a degree that I forget what ‘normal’ looks or feels like. In interaction with others I forget that they could get offended, insulted, or be self-condemning for little mistakes, and only by their behaviour I deduct that an emotion must be surfacing in them – then a faint memory comes back to how it has been for myself not so long ago.

Now, as I see it, putting a retrospective story together of what the brain was doing with all this wiring, programming and reprogramming, is not a matter of sudden insight like the spiritual insights, where one taps into the collective ‘Knowledge’ (read imagination). Further, making sense in hindsight is not a matter of replacing a belief one has cherished before and acknowledging an obvious fact for the first time – for instance, seeing that this universe is infinite and that there is physically no ‘outside’ for a god to sit, pulling the strings. Putting together a story in hindsight of how the human brain functions is collecting the data that are available about scientific research – which is not much as far as actual facts are concerned – and comparing them to one’s own experience of how the process has been. It leaves room for speculation and for more accurate adjustments when more data are collected, both by us actualists and by practical scientists. It is a continuous collection of and an investigation into facts rather than a blindingly obvious insight replacing a former belief. Those insights are more an insight into the falseness of a belief or ‘truth’, a disappearance of a dearly held conviction, be they religious, spiritual or pseudo-scientific. Like your report when you said that you ‘got it’ that there is no life after death, 100% sure.

Does that make sense to you?

In a PCE I can see the world as it is, people as they are, my emotions and beliefs and my ‘self’ for what it is – a passionate illusion – and thus I can easily discriminate facts from ‘truths’, beliefs, convictions, instincts and fears. I will only know what I have investigated so far, there is no magical all-knowing or all-understanding, no god-like wisdom. But because during a PCE the brain has no ‘sand’ ie emotions, beliefs and instincts in the system, it can function smoothly and I can see the facts for what they are. Old synapses have been severed, so the neurons can engage in free-flowing brainstorming. Mark described this kind of brainstorming really well in his last two letters.

What it does not explain is how a PCE occurs – any ideas? Perhaps some temporary pathways are formed, or maybe part of the substantial unused part of our brain is temporarily ‘fired’ into action? In the PCE, it appears to me that, for the first time, I start to use my brain to its full capacity. I know that part of the reason for the ‘lightning speed’ of thought is because one is operating without any inhibitions whatsoever – no feelings or beliefs to slow one up. Hence also the absolute clarity. I just remembered ‘I’ used to believe that the unused part of the brain could, if activated, enable ‘me’ to become telepathic and have all the other ESP abilities – too much science fiction reading, I guess. <snip> That is the great thing about it – the results are more or less immediate and continually incremental, apart from the occasional ‘backslide’.

How a PCE occurs? Peter called it a ‘glitch’ in the program, the ‘self’ goes in abeyance for a certain period of time. That would explain that many PCEs happen after near-death experiences, after a shock, during an intense period in life or as a result of a drug experience. After my first PCE I knew what to look for, I intentionally searched for the alternative to my normal programming and thus created new ways to think in the brain, functioning better each time. But I think that originally a PCE happens when the normal functioning of the program in the brain comes to its limits and ‘crashes’ – and then the actuality of the world without the program of the self becomes apparent. But there is always the possibility that a certain chemical in the brain is triggering this ‘crashing’ on normal thinking and maybe scientist will one day be able to produce it for everybody who wants it...

My first major peak experience happened after 3 months of emotional turmoil while I was trying to figure out how I could live with Peter and his new ‘philosophy’ and at the same time not give up my spiritual beliefs and friends of the spiritual community. It became more and more obvious that this was impossible. Within my ‘normal’ way of thinking, feeling and believing there was no solution, and the need for a solution became increasingly vital for my mental sanity. Further, my intent to not settle for second best made any compromise within myself impossible. Then, with the help of a mild joint and some wine, my whole belief system crashed – I popped through the fog of beliefs and saw the actual world for the first time in its – then shocking – purity.

Last night we were invited for a dinner party and one of the men described a peak experience he had when he was 19 years old. He had been diving off the West Australian coast when he got caught in the high surf while looking for an interesting ship wreck and, being completely exhausted after one hour in the cold water, did not know how to cover the long distance through the wild surf to the beach. He decided to take the risk to be smashed unto the rocks which were closer by – and just survived. His brother helped him out of the water unto the cliffs. Coming out, he experienced the world as pristine, perfect, without emotions, without a personal self and was simply astounded to be still alive. This remarkable PCE, which lasted for several hours, unfortunately later got diverted into the spiritual search and ‘translated’ into the ‘non-dualistic reality’ of Advaita Vedanta, where you are supposedly already ‘here’ and only need to stop believing in your ‘imaginary’ ‘self’. There is more in the The Actual Freedom Trust Library about this spiritual version of complete insanity, 180 degrees in the wrong direction – if you are interested.

The findings of LeDoux are, indeed, serendipitous and I have read them with great interest, though have not yet visited his website. The diagrams are extremely useful and one question which arises (to which I do not have an answer) – what happens in the brain when a PCE occurs?

That is a fascinating question. I have also wondered how it might work in the brain. Mind you, whatever I say is mere speculation and still has to be explored and verified in the laboratories. My speculation is that in a Pure Consciousness Experience the connection from the amygdala to the neo-cortex is temporarily out of order, like when you get a numb foot from an interrupted blood circulation. Very often this temporary interruption is caused by drugs or brain-sourced chemicals in intense situations, be they near-death experiences, shock, intense fear, or overwhelming sensual input like sex or nature. Also a PCE can occur after contemplating on a vital issue, while gaining a sudden insight, or just as an accidental short-circuit. With this temporary disconnection of amygdala and neo-cortex there is no input from the instinctual self, and the psychological self becomes fleetingly redundant and keeps quiet until something triggers both the ‘selves’ back into action.

Now to our ‘issue’ on hand, no PCE and the ever-ending of ‘me’...

I have felt nary a trace of fear for the last 2 weeks or so. I am very aware of ‘my’ attempts to ‘grab’ for actuality, in a futile attempt for survival – and simply ‘note’ them. It is as though I am living constantly ‘on the edge’ of a PCE, without having a PCE and is quite delicious. So, I am just enjoying each moment and have (largely) stopped attempting to ‘get there’. I suspect there will not be any more PCEs and the next time I experience this moment of being alive will be permanent.

And to Peter you wrote: One thing I cannot explain is why I have not had a PCE for some time. My life now is, continuously, very close to a PCE, in that there is no (or very little) ‘self’ in existence. I experience my life as being 99% perfect. Every activity is a pleasure. What is missing is that extra sparkle and vivacity – the 360 degree awareness. Can one little connection in the brain make all that difference?

Do you still experience PCEs?

I noticed that PCEs are different to the stunning delightful surprises in the beginning, which were full of tumbling realization, psychedelic-like experiences of my surroundings. They lately seem to be more rare and short minute-long flashes, just long enough to recognize the sparkle and the absence of ‘me’, before ‘I’ appear back on the scene. I put it down to the fear of the ‘real’ thing that might just ‘accidentally happen’ while ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance, and also to the fact that my continuous persistent obsession with the final event is keeping fear close at hand and thus prevents the ‘extra sparkle’. Since you brought up the question I thought about it and figured that this fear is actually part of me keeping death at bay, as much as I may be convinced that I don’t do it – ‘I’ am verily lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning through and through.

But we have lots of very ordinary moments of living together, Peter doing his thing – being an architect or watching cricket or whatever else he takes pleasure in – and I do my thing – playing with pictures or on the website – and then we share lots of delightful pleasures of cooking, eating, a walk into town, a talk on the couch or a rompacious romp. These times seem so normal and ordinary that only in hindsight I recognize their innocence and particular taste of well-being. And then there are these moments, often hours of being excellent, but not quite experiencing a PCE, obsessed with the conundrum in my head of what is in the road of me disappearing. And while I am searching for and finding more and more blinding evidence that there is really, really no solution whatsoever within the boundaries of the ‘self’, there is this deliciously sweet and thrilling ‘taste or smell’ of the approaching inevitability, what Richard calls one’s destiny and I call ‘the proof of the pudding’. And, admittedly, that’s what I am more fascinated with than inducing a PCE.

Could it be that the ‘continuous persistent obsession with the final event’ is what is keeping it from happening? This has been my experience of the last few days. I have (largely) given up the attempt to get ‘there’ and by concentrating more and more intently on what is happening and activating ‘delight’, the ease and palpable perfection, which Peter speaks of, has become more and more evident.

On further observation re ‘how PCEs and PCE-like times changed for me’ I can say that what I used to call a PCE in the beginning of my exploration into actual freedom is now only ‘PCE-like’. This has to do with the fact that I am well aware of the thin, condom-like layer of the ‘self’ separating me from the universe and thus preventing the 100% direct experience of the magical actual perfection. Life is nevertheless pretty magical, much more than ever before are my days filled with delicious deepened sensuous experiences, an easy well-being, a delightful doing what I am doing; but the ‘self’ is hardly ever completely absent. It seems that my observation has become sharper with there being less difference between ‘normal’ and ‘magical’.

The second thing is that I wasn’t quite accurate when I said: ‘I put it down to the fear of the ‘real’ thing that might just ‘accidentally happen’ while ‘I’ am temporarily ‘in abeyance’. I know that ‘it’ won’t happen ‘accidentally’ but that it might soon happen by deliberate choice – and I have been toying with, observing closely and trying to understand the feelings and instincts about this death of ‘me’. No big realisation has come out of it but a gradual deepening of understanding the term ‘in concurrence’ that Richard used in the correspondence below. I am finding subtle objections, smug and cunning excuses, impatient pushing or worry that sometimes surface and need to be examined, and I have now developed a thorough knowledge about, and a familiarity with, my fears and survival mechanisms like one does with pet-dogs. I reckon that I won’t be likely to be surprised or overtaken by any of them any longer.

I went to the couch to follow up on this hot trail of contemplation and there it was – the sudden recognition and experience that the universe was breathing me, I was part of the big rhythm of life in its infinite variety, just one of 6 billion people, one human being out of the vast and boundless immensity and magnificence of this infinite, eternal, alive, magical and perfect universe, being breathed, being lived, being here, moment by moment. And it is safe, utterly safe, because this experience also makes clear that the physical universe is benevolent. As much as there is no fear in a rock or a tree there is no malice in a rock or a tree. There may be volcanic eruptions or earthquakes as part of earthly events, but there is no malice in that the rock is directed at me to destroy me. The universe is not out to get me, on the contrary, it is supportive and benevolent; the idea of danger was simply part of my chemically-supported instinctual imaginary identity.

In this moment I understood that survival instincts are indeed redundant. With no identity there is no threat and no need to fight for survival. The instinctual survival program has done a great job to facilitate evolution, species by species, to this point in time. Now sensate and reflective human beings are the peak of this development so far – and the next opportunity for evolving has come into reach – life without the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, life without identity, life without the feeling of separation from the rest of the universe.

While having these realizations, I had to check if there was possibly some grand ‘me’ lurking around the corner, someone wanting to claim the merit of this insight – but no, I was simply acknowledging the facts and delighting in the experience that the universe is breathing me, as it has always done. It is only throughout my life that ‘I’ had an altogether different story going in my head and heart.

Using the opportunity, I looked around for the remaining ‘self’. It was but a shed skin, twitching and jerking like a headless chook, pretending to have a life on its own, pretending to be actual. A very strange experience, while the stomach was trembling with thrill and the chemical hormones did their number, I could see the non-actual-ness of ‘me’, the passionate yet imaginary player that plays its part very convincingly. It will never have the same convincing effect again.

And all the while I am thrilled to the bone and rolling in the pleasure of being alive, each moment again.

I’ve had the PCEs Richard describes. Quite a few of them actually, this past year especially. Have seen in them that in spite of what I usually believe, there is nothing to fear in the universe, that it is utterly and completely friendly, including death.

Yes, that is how I experience it too. The peak experiences are feeding my intent, the urge me to do something about the time when I am not having a peak experience. The memory of these perfect moments, hours or days have always been driving me forward, to investigate further, to face fear, pride, embarrassment, loneliness, doubt and dread. And these peak experiences have been my reference point, the lively proof, that it is a fact that the solution to all my problems lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction than I had always searched for. The fact of experiencing the moment of being alive as a direct intimacy with everything around me made it impossible to turn this into another belief-system. With that clarity one can face and investigate any ghost in one’s cupboard until it is eliminated.

My experience with PCEs is that they are a rather sudden, intense, seeing all the way through to the heart of the matter, cutting through all fear, all identity, all sense of ‘me’ and its associated purposefulness and with them there is a sense of completeness and belonging to the universe, just as actually I am, without any resistance whatsoever.

PCEs are the flashlights in a basement of rubbish. One can enjoy being relieved from the misery and confusion, which is a wonderful thing to have. But when you have the PCE you can also look at the Human Condition from the clarity you have then and find out which particular bit stands out and needs to be tackled next. The clarity from the PCE always helped me to work out in which way I am obstructing perfection and that understanding then became my work-line.

If ‘I’ knew of a button to push to bring it about continuously, I would push that button right now.

There is no button, sorry. I found only heaps of rubbish obstructing this pure consciousness perception of the actual world on a permanent basis and that rubbish needed facing, questioning, abandoning, changing behaviour, losing identities, losing friends, losing the very ground I thought and felt I was standing on. Yes, wouldn’t it be nice, someone could push the button and then it’s all over? But the satisfaction from each belief I freed myself from was such a joy that it made every day of the journey fascinating and still does.

And that is the problem. While there is any button pusher left, there can be no PCE.

It is much more than just the ‘button pusher’ that is in the way. It is all that humanity has believed in up to now that needs to be investigated and eliminated – it is the very psychic and ‘self’-ish world we are living in, the way we see, feel, imagine, evaluate, reject everything we perceive.

RESPONDENT: 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.

VINEETO: 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:

[quote]: 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! [endquote].

*

RESPONDENT: 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.

VINEETO: 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...

RESPONDENT: 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.

VINEETO: 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’.

VINEETO to Alan: I told you my story of the first few months of actual freedom to make it clear that without the intense search to solve my paradoxical situation of having two beliefs – the spiritual conviction and the then-belief of actualism – I would not been able to prepare the ground for, and thus facilitate, my first major peak experience. As I see it from hindsight, my pure consciousness experience only occurred because of my intense questioning and investigation into the nature of my spiritual beliefs. The word ‘PCE’ contains the word ‘pure’, a purity from one’s beliefs and feelings for this particular time, a purity from the very substance of ‘self’. It is well documented that a PCE often occurs after a particular shocking or dis-orienting experience, and I had actively caused that situation in myself by questioning beliefs and daring to look at facts squarely in the eye!

I was at a point where I was willing to question ALL my beliefs, whatever the outcome, because I had understood that this was the only way out of my dilemma, hanging between two opposing choices as to what to do with my life. I had no way to figure out the ‘right’ thing to do, because there was no authority that could point out the direction for me. There was no moral, ethical or ultimate spiritual value that I considered ‘true’ enough to rely on for a decision. I figured that ‘truth’, as I called it then, could not be something that one has to support by believing it or trusting it. It has to be something so obvious, so evident and reproducible that it can stand for itself.

The intensity of wanting to find that which could withstand all questioning, made me ready for the eye-opening break-through, tearing open and dissolving the curtain of my passionate beliefs that had blinkered my perception, obscured my clarity and prevented me from seeing the actual.

The PCE did not appear out of the blue by the grace of ‘Existence’ to be leisurely compared to my ancient spiritual beliefs – it was born out of my intent to find a way out of the need to believe and to find a solution to my failure to be happy and free. There was already a rip in the curtain, so to speak, of my nicely settled, second-rate existence, and that rip widened dangerously with every questioned emotion, belief or ‘truth’. It got so big that it became un-patchable and then, despite my fears, I thought: ‘Well, let it rip, I can’t hold it together anymore’ ... You’ll find the continuation of the story in ‘A Bit of Vineeto’ on our website.

The green arrows: During Pure Consciousness Experiences one is taking short excursions into the actual world, for minutes or hours, experiencing life as a kind of holiday stripped of the restricting, burdening, agonizing selfish and self-centred worldview of everyday life. In the beginning those PCEs open one’s eyes to a world never experienced before, never considered possible. On the path to freedom those PCEs are vital, absolutely necessary to determine the direction, to kindle one’s naiveté, to fuel one’s pure intent. The actual world is seen for what it is, and everything is self-evidently clear and obvious, and one recognizes that ‘what I am’ has always been here, I just never got a word in edgeways.

Nevertheless, once the PCE is over and the ‘self’ takes control again, there is only a faint memory left. The world of ‘grey arrows’ and the world of ‘green arrows’ never meet. Given that during a PCE one is without beliefs, feelings and emotions, there is consequently no emotional memory to draw from when one comes back to the ‘real’ world, and the experience can vanish without a trace unless one is very aware. Likewise, back in the world of beliefs, feelings and emotions, the faint memory of the purity and perfection can only be vaguely remembered but not relived or imagined. That’s where naiveté and pure intent are absolutely essential if one wants to experience an actual freedom state for 24 hours a day.

One other important point – spiritually inclined people, and that is almost everyone who is on a search for freedom, peace and happiness, usually confuse the ‘green arrows’ with some sort of spiritual higher ‘self’, Satori, god-experience, beauty, love, bliss or enlightenment. The ‘green arrows’ have clearly nothing to do with any emotion- or feeling-based experience, any Altered State of Consciousness or anything happening in the head or in the heart. ‘Green arrows’ is the sensate-only, sensuous and pure experience of the actual physical universe in its pure, magical, delightful and sparkling perfection.

The grey arrows: Due to the intrinsic quality genetically built into the physical fabric of the universe to be the best it can be, every human being has the potential to evoke naiveté and intent – the innate drive to look for a way out of the grim everyday experience of life. Given that Richard has discovered that one can totally eliminate one’s identity, conditioning and instinctual passions, and has also devised a practical and effective method to do so, it is now possible to use the experience of a PCE to reach to a permanent actual freedom from the Human Condition.

It is no longer necessary to interpret one’s glimpses of the perfection and purity of the actual world as some kind of ‘god-given Grace’, thus degrading and distorting the experience of pure magnificence into a feeling-based self-centred interpretation of beauty, love or ‘the divine’. Out of those moments of a pure consciousness experience one can dare to acknowledge ‘what I am’, a living and apperceptive organism, lived by this splendid and perfect universe, without any sense of ‘being’ whatsoever – and take the first step in direction of an actual freedom.

In order to get closer to one’s avowed aim, the living of a PCE for 24 hours a day, one then has to get off one’s bum and dismantle the ‘grey arrows’ – who one thinks and feels one is. The change that needs to happen can only happen in the ‘grey arrows’. The only thing ‘I’ can do is actively diminish ‘me’ – examining and investigating my social and spiritual conditioning and my set of survival instincts – all my passionate beliefs and my affective imaginations. So when I get confused, or impatient, or fearful, or greedy for more PCEs or discouraged, or, or, or ... this is where I have to look, this is where I can change something. This is where ‘I’ can speed up ‘my’ demise. When I am emotional, slightly off-track or very disturbed, I am the ‘grey arrows’ – and I can only do something about the ‘grey arrows’. That means, ‘I who I think and feel I am’ is the thing that needs to be taken apart, the thing that needs my full attention, pure intent and concentration. The ‘grey arrows’ is the only thing I can do something about, because that is ‘me’, obstructing and preventing the perfection that is already here from becoming apparent. In that sense the ‘green arrows’ don’t really get bigger, ‘what I am’ becomes more and more apparent.

RESPONDENT: Whilst I have no memory of a PCE, I do remember that I used to sit outside my parents’ house and contemplate the beauty around me until I one day came to a point where there was, for a split second, no ‘me’ there. Unfortunately the feeling function kicked in suddenly I felt the ‘tremendous love’ for the universe and ‘God’. This unfortunate incident led me down the path of the spiritual seeker who is trying to attempt to ‘make sense of it all’.

VINEETO: I know from my own experience how tempting this grand feeling of ‘tremendous love’ for all is. I am glad that Richard had warned us not to ground on the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’, so I did not have to get lost into that passionate fantasy for too long. But it is good that I had the experience of that tremendous love so clearly because I know now from my own experience, where not to go. It only leads to power, sorrow for all and the whole enlightenment-saga.

That ‘split second’ of your experience is, as Alan points out, a fascinating bit, a split second of a PCE. When such a moment comes around the corner next time, you could stay with the physical – with the actual – with the senses. Then feelings of love and beauty have less chance to overtake the pure consciousness experience.

Could you describe what you refer to a PCE experience some more.

I see that you have asked Richard about the same subject – a very good idea.

After all he is the expert, living it 24 hours a day, every day. Peter and I have both described our outstanding peak-experiences in Peter’s Journal, I will give you the exact spots, if you want to read for yourself:

• Introduction
• Love
• People
• Intelligence
• Universe
• Bit of Vineeto

Those descriptions are to help you either induce or remember a peak-experience and distinguish it from any other emotional, blissful or spiritual experience where, upon examination, you will always find that wonderful warm buzzing loving feeling present. In a pur consciousness experience there is no ‘feeling’ entity present, that’s what makes it different to the usual ‘highs’. In a PCE you experience a clarity, a delight, heightened senses, and everything around you is just as it is, obvious, magically perfect, always been here. For me, whenever it happened, I thought, ‘where have I been?’ It, the actual world, is so very obvious, it needs no explanation. Answering the questions below I describe my every day life, where sometimes a ‘bleed-through’ of fear happens. In a peak-experience those emotions are completely absent.

Actual freedom is to strip yourself from all of your ‘self’ – your ‘Self’ included.

To understand what that means it is vitally important to remember or induce a peak experience. Richard, Peter, Alan and I have written a lot about peak experiences or Pure Consciousness Experiences to explain its nature and its significance. A peak experience gives you the opportunity to experience life without the otherwise ever-present self for a brief period of time. It is like breaking through a layer of thick clouds of one’s beliefs, emotions and inherent instinctual passions and seeing the actual world, as-it-is, for the first time. My first major peak experience happened after intense questioning and heart-churning investigations into my spiritual belief system of being a follower of Rajneesh – and it gave me the first glimpse that I was on the right track, finding the actual world that lay underneath all my constructs of fears and hopes, notions of right and wrong, good and bad. I have described it in ‘A Bit of Vineeto ’ –

It was such a life-shattering experience in that it made it blindingly obvious that the world runs perfectly well without my so dearly held beliefs and emotions, in fact, it made it clear that with all of my instinctual passions ‘I’ am but a dangerous disturbance, yet another loose cannon, to the peace and perfection of the physical universe. In the peak experience I could experience the world as it is and thus experience ‘me’, who I think and feel I am, as the alien entity inside my body, messing everything up. From this I understood and determined my aim in life, and born out of this pure consciousness experience was my intent to sacrifice this alien ‘self’, boots and all, in order to join the perfection that is already existent in this wondrous magical and perfect universe.

When I look back to see what it was that gave me the first glimpses of the actual world as opposed to my only-known world of thoughts and feelings, I can say that it was a repetitious reading of Richard’s journal, extensive discussions with Peter to find out what his words actually mean and the desire to find out exactly what it was different to the spiritual teaching that I knew. I was looking for the difference, not for any seeming similarity. I was not satisfied with the outcome of my spiritual search, I was looking for something that worked – and Richard obviously had discovered something that worked.

The next vital and essential break-through in understanding was my first major peak experience (PCE). What had started off one evening as ‘a roaming in the vast chambers of my mind’, psychic experiences and an expanded state of consciousness suddenly took a turn from ‘inner reality’ to actuality. It happened when Peter looked at me and said ‘hello, how are you doing?’ I popped out of my inner world of feelings and imagination and, questioning the very validity of all I felt and thought, entered the world beyond beliefs and feelings – the actual world. Here was another human being, a flesh-and-blood person without any particular identity and he wanted to talk to me. And here I was, also a flesh-and-blood person without a particular identity, sitting on an old couch and curious to talk to this man that I was meeting for the first time.

I had never met the actual Peter; I had only related to him through the curtain of my expectations and classifications, through the filter of my social identity, through the grey or rose-coloured glasses of my ‘self’. What was initially a shocking surprise quickly turned into fascination and delight to have discovered something so simple and so pure – actual intimacy with another person and the perfection of the actual world. Here we were, two human beings, meeting for the first time, without past or future. No grand feelings, in fact, no feelings at all, but the pleasure of mutual undivided attention as to what the other is going to say next...

All my churning questions from the weeks before as to what was right and what was wrong had disappeared from my tortured head and heart; the experience of the moment was all that mattered. In the course of the evening and the following night, insight upon insight occurred as the edifice of my beliefs system tumbled – the actual world, the world beyond belief opened up. Unbeknown to me it had been here all the time, a world where everything was simply obvious, perfect, pure, delightful, actual, factual and ‘wysiwyg’ (what you see is what you get). No deeper meaning, no God, no soul, no philosophy – meaning and significance abounds when living this moment without the burden of the ‘self’. A complete description of this PCE here.

This pure consciousness experience became my reference point for what I wanted to achieve. It was also an essential reference point to understand what Richard was saying and writing. After all, this actual world is the very world he is living in all the time, and my PCE had just demonstrated how this world is usually tucked away behind the normal/ spiritual worldview.

When you wrote to Richard on mailing List B, you related an experience of the actual –

I experienced the actual today and it is so clear that it is always right here right now because it is what actually is. The closest description I can give is that it was a direct experience of everything as it was happening. Everything was perfect as it is and I was where I should be. There was perfect clarity. Respondent to Richard, List B, No 39, 30.10.1999

The remembrance of this ‘self’-less perfection is the starting point to the dismantling of the ‘self’, first the outer layers of one’s social identity and then the core of one’s being, the instinctual passions. From the reference point of a PCE one is able to distinguish the actual from normal or spiritual, facts from beliefs and sensuous experience from affective feelings. One starts from an experience of the actual and daringly questions every truth, belief, faith, hope, trust and feeling. The clarity of a PCE is vital to distinguish facts from ‘truths’, and the PCE reveals feelings of fear and pride as unnecessary stumbling blocks and exposes the ‘self’ in action that is spoiling the already always-existing perfection.

What adventure, what delight, what serendipity.

You say you have had many awakenings. Did it ever occur to you that there is more awakening possible – maybe even awakening from the spiritual, compassionate dream?

... when the bubble of beliefs bursts and you experience the actual world for the first time with clean eyes, unrestricted by emotions, beliefs or instincts... I have described that bubble bursting:

... ‘I could see more of my ideas or concepts and other people’s ideas, but they were simply ideas. None of them had any relevance to the actuality of the physical world! In seeing the fact, everything stood still and the whole construct of beliefs suddenly disappeared. Then, for the first time in all my years of the spiritual search, I experienced several hours outside of the ‘psychic world’. Being outside, I could see that this ‘world’ is a huge, all-encompassing construct, created and held in place by the dreams, beliefs, bonds, power-battles, emotions and different spiritual ideas of all of humanity. Everyone is part of it, weaving and reproducing bits of this ‘psychic carpet’. The more people believe in one particular version the more that version becomes ‘real’ or ‘true’. Intuitive or ‘psychic’ people are simply a little better acquainted with the rules and occurrences of this ‘other-world’. It is never actual though, because it relies on constant re-creation through imagination and belief. The moment people cease to believe in a particular religion, idea or value, that very concept eventually disappears from the earth. Actual, on the contrary, is what is already here without anybody applying a feeling, an interpretation, a belief or any other ‘psychic effort’. It is simply here, visual, tangible, audible and tastable. A Bit of Vineeto

Those feelings are constantly changing and they are part of the ‘self’. In my peak-experience, and in moments of actual intimacy with Peter, I understood that there is ‘life beyond beliefs, emotions and feelings’. You might remember for yourself one of those periods, when the world is seen crisp, clear, perfect, magical, without emotions or feelings and experienced as utterly safe. The signals of our senses are usually filtered by the ‘self’, the psychological and psychic entity within each of us, resulting in ‘normal’, edited sensate experience. When this filter is temporarily absent, as in the peak experience or some drug-induced states, the sensate experience can be direct and unfiltered. Then the sensate-only experience is extra-ordinary. One has a heightened sensory perception free of any sense of ‘I’ or ‘me’.

These peak-experiences free from the ‘self’, and the resulting understanding that the self mainly consists of emotions and beliefs – any emotions and any beliefs – gave me the courage and the intent to investigate into each of my beliefs and emotions when they occurred. The resulting intimacy with Peter and also with everybody I meet is far superior to the sweet, yet unreliable feeling I had before. It is a constant experience of actually meeting the person without any moods or expectations, offence or hope.

This action of prizing apart and eradicating my spiritual identity was for me the most difficult part of the journey. I was torn apart between the terror of leaving a familiar world and the fascination and common sense of actualism. The psychological tension of not knowing which was the ‘right thing’ to do became so strong that for a short period my normal-spiritual worldview gave way and I had a pure consciousness experience. I discovered the world that Richard had talked about; I discovered a world beyond my beliefs, anybody’s beliefs – the actual world.

The actual world is this physical material world when you see it with eyes untainted by feelings and beliefs, unpolluted by passionate ‘self’-centeredness. It is vibrant and alive, magical and abundant, infinite and unblemished. This actual world is always here, always now and once you enter it you recognize it immediately as your destiny.

Your entry ticket to the actual world – question everything, particularly your own beliefs and passions, the human condition in action as yourself.

It is a grand adventure.

I have been thoroughly enjoying and what more, benefiting by all the recent discussions in the list. Thanks to No 38 and No 37. And as always, to Richard, Vineeto, Gary and Peter.

I wanted to add my observation. There is a clear dichotomy as to what is actual and what is not in the actualist’s writings (Richard, Vineeto, Peter). And they have no use for what is not actual, which is only there to be exposed. And what is actual is arrived through PCE, not logical reasoning, though the latter is an aid. Is this correct? I noted this particularly in the dialogue between No 37 and Richard where No 37 tries to bring out the good aspects of imagination, whereas Richard has no use for it, as he is with the actual, which is more delightful and malice-sorrow free. More than logically seeing why ‘not actual’ is not so good (though seeing logically can be useful), it seems to be important to see that the ‘actual’ is beyond comparison with the other.

Yes, and the only way to understand what is actual beyond doubt is to remember one of your pure consciousness experiences, which everybody has had at some time in their lives. It could even be a memory of childhood when one experiences the world, very often nature, as magical, sparkling, vibrant, abundant and pristine.

I remember when I was about 8 years old and strolling through the meadow behind my parent’s house. It was summertime and the grass was about chest-height for an eight-year-old, the summer flowers were in full bloom and the grass itself was blooming. I lay down and completely disappeared in the high grass and all I could see were the tips of the swaying grass and the clouds drifting by in the sky. Everything was perfect, there were no worries in the world and I was engulfed by the magic of the meadow and the sky.

Later on I tried to have this same experience again, by simply lying down in the grass and I thought that I couldn’t have the same experience because the grass wasn’t the right height. No matter what time of the year I tried, I didn’t manage to repeat the same innocent, carefree and delightful experience that I had on that particular day. Only when I learnt about actual freedom and understood the difference between a pure consciousness experience, normal every-day experience and a spiritual experience, did I understand that on this particular day I had a glimpse of the perfection and purity of the actual world.

There are a few simple guidelines to recognize a PCE when you remember one. In a pure consciousness experience, your senses are heightened and you experience peace and wellbeing that comes from the absence of ‘me’, worrying about ‘my’ survival. There might also be a sense of déja-vu as you realize that ‘I have always been here as this flesh-and-blood body’ and everything in this actual world has always been perfect, is perfect now and always will be perfect. The critical difference to any spiritual experience of altered states is that in a PCE there is a complete absence of any feelings of awe, gratitude, beauty, love or grandeur. For reference you can check out various descriptions of pure consciousness experiences where several people have described their PCEs.

Once you have experienced the absence of your ‘self’ in a pure consciousness experience you know beyond doubt that ‘the ‘actual’ is beyond comparison with the other’.

Although, the suggested method of trying to recall a PCE to get out of stuckness only helped in that it brought the obstacle into focus.

This is great success, don’t you think? To have ‘brought the obstacle into focus’ and to know what the obstacle is about which keeps you in ‘stuckness’ is an excellent starting position for investigation. Now this obstacle can be identified, labelled and experientially explored, using apperceptiveness to detect its reasons, connections, source and implications. This has nothing to do with the Buddhist method (Vipassana) of labelling a feeling and then dis-identifying from it. 180 degrees opposite again. An actualist labels the feeling to get the bugger by the throat, to explore it as a scientist, to check out its silliness or sensibility, to determine how it is part of the Human Condition and then, when all is said and done, to permanently step out of having that emotion. This final stepping out often results in a pure consciousness experience.

Last night I was contemplating about Alan’s description of his ‘reflective contemplations’, ‘practising the actual’ and arriving here in the actual world and how this records with my experience. Further Alan says:

‘Reflective contemplation’ is the way to not only get out of stuckness but also to discover what is preventing one experiencing this moment. I realised that this is what had occasioned all of my PCEs – this is what leads to wonder at the joy of it all. Alan to Vineeto, 29.4.2000

Recalling step by step my own process into a PCE last night I found that contemplation serves to focus on the direction – being happy, dismantling the self, comprehending enough of the real world in order to see the self in operation and to step out of it. Contemplation always helps to focus on and remove obstacles and then, with no feeling or belief interfering I can build up the sensuous awareness of this moment of being alive. The wind on the skin, the sounds around, the wiggling of my toe, visual delights, tastes and smells ... Increasing sensuousness tips over into gay abandon, the self as both the controller and the feeler are abandoned and bingo ... I am experiencing what I had previously only reflectively contemplated about – this moment of being alive as a flesh and blood body only.

The gay abandon can, of course, also happen without the reflective part, as a nature experience, in sex or any time when sensual pleasure is sensuous enough to tip over into the self-less experience of being alive as a flesh and blood body only.

The next night the fear happened again but was all much less dramatic, the temptation was there to delve into the fear, the physical symptoms were ready to emerge again, but this time I didn’t believe in the actual danger and it quickly went.

Then appeared another temptation – to divert into a journey into the psychic world, with all its ‘deep and meaningful’ insights and glorious ‘enlightenments’. But I had explored that area enough, I wanted to see what actuality there is without fear and beyond or beneath the psychic world. What I found is a magic, a stillness, unemotional, without excitement and strangely enough without ‘form’. The best description I could come up with is the definition we have here for an idiot: ‘All the stubbies are there for the six-pack, but the plastic between them is missing that would keep them together!’

Senses are operating but nobody is seeing or hearing, and then there is no difference between me and the desk that I am seeing, no distance, no ‘I’. Last night I experienced life beyond ‘being’, in a strange way hollow, but very alive and sensate. Now I can slowly and diligently examine the ‘plastic between the stubbies’, what it consists of, because recognized and understood it disappears. Sometimes it consists of fear, sometimes a vague feeling, sometimes a sense of continuity, of having past and future and definition...

Richard: I cannot help but prick up my hears where you say ‘strangely enough no form’. I am presuming that physical objects were still extant as you say that you were seeing without fear and the psychic world ... and thus by ‘no form’ you do not mean the metaphysical ‘formlessness’. Do you mean that there was no form to an ‘I’ as in an on-going identity ... like you write about in your next paragraph? Are the ‘stubbies’ the days gone by since birth – all events and occurrences – and the ‘plastic that would keep them together’ is this ‘me’ that is the ‘form’ that was missing in this experience?

With the stubbies I meant in this incident my actual senses including the brain, fully functioning, better than with the ‘plastic’ of emotional interpretation around them, but they had no definition or identifiable form, hence the description ‘strangely enough no form’. It is more the idea of there having to be a form that was missing. I seemed to consist of the pieces of information that the senses gave me, the seeing, hearing, thinking, but there was no continuity, no person as such, no identity.

Your use of the word ‘definition’ brings me back to your ‘strangely enough no form’ description above and I relate ‘definition’ with ‘outline’ ... as I wrote in Article 9 of ‘Richard’s Journal’.

Yes, Richard, I agree with your term ‘outline’, it is a very good description of this fictitious entity. It seems to come on so silently, that if I don’t turn my attention to it I hardly notice that it has slipped in yet again, pretending to be someone, while only the experience of the particular bit of the universe is happening. Right now it takes a lot of remembering and awareness to discern it, or better, to focus on the actual experiencing of coffee, food, sound, or whatever I am doing.

I used to get a bit confused by actualist’s descriptions of ‘feeling good’, ‘feeling fine’, and ‘feeling excellent’, and tried to differentiate how this contrasted with other feeling and emotional states because after all ‘feelings are feelings’. I still cannot determine if the feeling-good part of the so-called excellence experience or PCE is a feeling or a sensation. My memory of PCEs I have had is that there is certain exhilaration associated with it. Not a manic type high at all, or even a drug-like euphoria, but there certainly is an exhilarating, ever-fresh, yes, vividness is a good word, and there is an exceptional clarity to it all which is the chief difference so far as I am concerned. The PCE is characterized by an incredible clarity of perception and sensation. The most ordinary and mundane objects are fascinating in their own right and everything is imbued with a clarity and liveliness that is missing in the ordinary ‘normal’ state. So the experience itself must be one chiefly of sensuousness and not emotion. Nevertheless one can speak of ‘feeling excellent’ as the word ‘feeling’ can also refer to the faculty of sensation. I’ve probably taken something here and over-complicated it all, but I thought I would mention it. When both bad and good feelings disappear, something so exceptional happens that everything else pales by comparison. The realization that ‘I’ am the only thing standing in the way of this magical perfection and purity turns what is initially an interest into a full-time obsession to experience the best that life on this planet can offer.

Only in a pure consciousness experience is my feeling-fed self temporarily absent. The rest of the time ‘I’ am a feeling being, however inconspicuous. ‘My’ best choice is to feel good – or to feel excellent – which is the closest I can get to experience the world as it is. Feeling excellent means that no specific emotion spoils my experience of the day, thinking only happens when needed for the particular action I am involved in, my senses are heightened compared to normal-day reality and I immensely enjoy simply being alive. However, a simmering hesitation, a vague holding back, an awareness of a controller, a slight sense of ‘me’ lurking in the background marks a very noticeable difference to a ‘self-less’ experience.

A PCE, as you have described it, is not a feeling-experience. It is magical purity, experiencing everything in its directness, a stillness that has always been here, with psychedelic colours and glimmering textures, distinctly multi-layered sounds, sensations without filter and I am aware of sensately and reflectively experiencing the world and I am also aware of being aware. This apperception adds the depth and magic to everything experienced, fear disappears and I am no longer separate from the universe that lives me. For me, a PCE always starts as if a curtain rips in my head that then opens the view to this magical wondrous being here.

Actually, I often then find myself in love, in peace with the world as it is. It is not unlike the love for a woman because I have the need, the desire to be here, to enjoy it right now; the way it is. There is a certain feeling of intensity, sensual perceptiveness. There is also the sense of being undisturbed by hostile people or events. It makes me very comfortable and happy. I think it is what you refer to as a PCE.

Richard writes about a PCE –

Richard: In a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the ‘actualness’ of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe. Richard’s General Correspondence, No 9

Richard: In order for a PCE to happen one’s identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) go into abeyance and perception becomes apperception (which is the mind’s awareness of itself being conscious as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious). Apperception is an unmediated awareness ... a pure and clean consciousness unpolluted and uncorrupted by any identity whatsoever. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, Alan

My first pure consciousness experience happened after 3 months of emotional turmoil while I was trying to figure out how I could live with Peter and partake in his new discovery of actualism and at the same time not give up my spiritual beliefs and friends of the spiritual community I was involved in. It became more and more obvious that this was impossible, as I increasingly felt torn between two opposites. Within my ‘normal’ way of thinking, feeling and believing there was no solution to my dilemma, and the need for a solution became increasingly vital for my mental sanity. Further, my intent to not settle for less than the best made any compromise with myself impossible. Then, one evening while reflectively contemplating upon my conundrum, my whole belief system crashed – I popped through the fog of beliefs and saw the actual world for the first time in its – at first shocking – purity and simplicity.

In a PCE I am not in love with the world. In a PCE ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance, thus freeing this body for a short period from the impact that my instinctual passions together with my beliefs have on sensory and reflective perception. There is no ‘me’, an instinctive feeling entity, assessing the situation and dividing the world into friendly and hostile people or events. Rather, I can look at the Human Condition in toto and I understand how it is operating in its totality, as myself and therefore in everybody, because I can see it from not being afflicted by it for a certain period of time.

A pure consciousness experience is vital for an actualist in order to experience the actual world in one’s own right so as to not have to rely on merely believing what any of us says or writes. A PCE is the touchstone by which I ascertain my direction towards my goal – to live a PCE 24hrs a day, everyday.

However, for me the path to actual freedom so far has always been about ‘the meantime’ – what do I do when I don’t have a PCE? In the meantime is where life is happening and this moment is the only moment I can experience being alive. To waste this moment of being alive by being grumpy, miffed, miserable, vindictive, dreamy, ‘out-of-it’ or fearful is simply wasting this moment. If I want to become actually free from the Human Condition then in the meantime I have a job to do. Actualism is certainly not an effortless path.

In the meantime I examine what prevents me from being happy and harmless right here, right now, whatever the circumstances. In the meantime I dig into my belief systems, my social conditioning, my automatic instinctual program whenever it interferes with feeling excellent. In the meantime I am using all the insights I could gain from my pure consciousness experiences in order to tackle the Human Condition in me. In the meantime I am virtually happy and virtually harmless 99% of my time. In the meantime I am now having the time of my life.

Yesterday I had the first really clear and unequivocal PCE since starting with this and I thought to write about it a bit. Previously, I had had what I call ‘mini-PCEs’. They lasted only very brief periods of time, say an hour or so, and I wasn’t really sure it was a PCE. Yesterday, however, I had no doubt at all about the experience, as it accorded in all details with what I have read about PCEs.

Another thing I noticed about the experience was how any object, even the most ordinary and mundane, instantly had become amazingly interesting and wonderful to look at. Everything I looked at had a life of its own. Everything appeared fresh and new. Everywhere I looked there were sensual delights to behold. Another thing was that there was some kind of very pleasurable sensation located near the solar plexus region. I find this difficult to convey but it was a very satisfying visceral sensation. I shall have to, in future, see what I can notice about it.

What serendipity. I remember at the beginning of my path to Actual Freedom, PCEs would often occur when I had dug my teeth right into a topic and there was no turning left or right, because all the ‘tried’ had failed and my usual escapes were simply too embarrassing to me. Finding myself between a rock and hard place with the grim intent to find the solution to my particular puzzle at the time – for instance ‘what about God’, I experienced a suddenly ‘whoosh’ and a veil in my perception opened to reveal the actual world where everything was imminently clear, obvious and self-evident. At other times PCEs would sneak up on me, so to speak, when life was easy and carefree, pleasurable and delightful and I suddenly noticed the magical quality that makes the PCE stand out from feeling excellent. You have described the difference really well in your letter to Richard.

I found it useful to gather as much descriptive memory from my PCEs to have a touchstone for what my aim is, and I also look for as much information as possible about the various aspects of my ‘self’ while having a PCE. Standing outside the ‘self’ in a PCE, so to speak, lets me see clearly and without doubt what facet of ‘me’ I want to tackle next, what overall understanding about the human condition I can extract, what part of my ‘self’ I am stuck with or how it all works both in me and in humanity as a whole. Most of the stunning insights that happened in my early PCEs about Human Nature and my conditioning have now been forgotten, as all of the realizations and understandings are integrated in my daily life and are experienced as normal as going shopping. All the seemingly complex realizations and understandings about the human psychology and psyche had only one purpose – to get out of it, to leave it behind.

*

As I said above, in order to understand what Actual Freedom is about it is essential to remember a pure consciousness experience. It is vital to investigate precisely those ‘direct experiences’, and determine when and where and how the experience is being polluted by the ‘self’, by the feeling and spirit-ual interpretation of the actual sensate, sensuous experience. It is a fascinating adventure to explore one’s sensate experiences with the magnifying glass of attentiveness and heightened awareness and to discover the ingredients that invariably occur to stop or prevent one’s direct experience of the actual world.

I selected this excerpt because it reminded me of some of the questions I have about the PCE. I was wondering yesterday what made the experience fade away or diminish. Conversely, I found that I could refresh the experience by running the ‘How am I...’ question and by increased attentiveness to the feelings that contaminated the experience. A couple of times, the experience would come back in full bloom in all its’ lustrousness. The PCE stands out in such dramatic contrast to ordinary, every-day perception and sensation. I wonder if, as one advances on the path to Actual Freedom, they become more frequent, more a part of the landscape, so to speak? Or are they relatively rare? I gather from what Richard writes that his experiencing is like having a permanent PCE 24/7. How wonderful that must be! Which reminds me of another key feature of the experience – no affective element, no feelings, no disturbance whatsoever-there was nothing that could disturb the experience, take anything away from it, or detract from it. In other words, there was no feeling ‘me’ to spoil the experience.

How amazing.

Yes, how amazing. It is great news – a confirmation that actualism works for another human being via reading the words when the information is combined with the stubborn and pure intent to find out for oneself. As the actual world is already always here one is bound to stumble upon it by diligently removing the obstacles in front of one’s ‘psychic eyes’ that we have inherited by default – through no fault of ours.

As for the frequency of PCEs I cannot make a definite statement. By the very nature of the process the PCEs of my first year of actualism stand out in my memory because they were in stark contrast to the emotional turmoil and the mental confusion that was then my normal state of mind. Now, as life has become infinitely better to the point of being virtually perfect, PCEs are rather rare, silently sneaking up and softly disappearing and only a few stand out in my memory as a stunning experience. When and how and why PCE occur is one of the things in actualism that I cannot make sense of yet and maybe never will. I have a few guesses as to why the intensity and frequency of PCEs has changed – one reason could be that I expect my final extinction to happen at any time and this expectation causes ‘me’ to be on guard. Another speculation is that PCEs are a glitch in the brain-circuit and, as the brain becomes rewired, those glitches, born out of contrast, are less frequent. A third option is that PCEs now vanish out of memory the moment they are over. However, as there are no records about the ‘workings’ of PCEs in actualism other than reports from Peter, Alan and me, this is simply not enough information for a scientific judgement. Frequency and memory of PCEs could merely be a personal attribute.

However, excellence is definitely a stable part ‘of the landscape’. There is hardly any interruption now in being excellent, having a perfect day, every day – only once in a while I get to work out some emotional hiccup.

Gary, I don’t know if that answers your questions or if my information is of any use to you. With your own outstanding PCE you are now becoming your own expert and it will be your reports that are contributing to the research we are conducting on the project of ‘Freedom from the Human Condition’. It’s the latest science, people simply have not twigged to it yet...

Pure Consciousness Experience: A PCE occurs when ‘I’ as ego is temporarily ‘stunned’ and ceases to have any control. It is more than a difference of degree when compared to the peak experience, it is almost as if one has stepped into a different dimension. One can no longer even recall the problems one had, but a moment ago. Everything seems alive, sparkling, as if one has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear. This is knowing by direct experience – one knows that life is actually perfect.

The affective content of the PCE varies according to the extent to which ‘me’ (as soul) is prevalent. At one end of the scale is the ‘epiphany’, the mystical experience, the Satori experience. Feelings of love, bliss and rapture are common and one can even imagine oneself to be the saviour of mankind. This reaction is largely caused by the person’s environment, upbringing, social conditioning and experiences. It is this experience which gives rise to the ‘Awakened Ones’ and, should (rarely) the ego be permanently expunged, the ‘Enlightened Ones’.

In the interest of having clear, definable terms, a pure consciousness experience is just that – an experience of pure consciousness, where the ‘self’ is temporarily absent, completely. This means that there is no affective experience in a PCE whatsoever, no ‘love, bliss, rapture’ or the imagination of being ‘the saviour of mankind’ . Whenever there is any feeling or emotion experienced whatsoever, it is not a PCE. For most people, the experience may well start as a PCE, but invariably ‘I’ will step in and seize the experience as ‘mine’ and interpret and feel it to be a spiritual experience. One needs to understand and practice actualism to be sufficiently aware of one’s beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions in order to avoid the trap of Enlightenment on the path to Actual Freedom.

The way the Human Condition works, ‘this reaction’ of ‘love, bliss and rapture’ is not merely ‘caused by the person’s environment, upbringing, social conditioning and experiences’, but it is the instinctual passions – ‘me’ at my very core – that inevitably cause ‘me’ to grab the experience as a way of ensuring not only my survival, but also my immortality and my ultimate power. On the path to Actual Freedom, those instinctual passions need to be investigated deeply and thoroughly because they constitute what ‘I instinctually know myself to be’. These instinctual passions are the core ingredient of the ‘self’ whereas one’s social identity of ‘environment, upbringing, social conditioning and (life) experiences’ is merely the outer layer. Unless these instincts are seen through, understood and weakened by experiential investigation, ‘I’ will seize every opportunity to re-establish my identity, particularly after the ‘time-out’ of a pure consciousness experience.

If the social conditioning and beliefs are reduced or eliminated, the PCE takes on a new meaning. One no longer interprets the experience as religious or spiritual and can see that ‘I’ am all that is standing in the way of the perfection and purity being evident. Then, one has the opportunity to avoid the pitfall of ‘enlightenment’ and heading straight ahead for an actual freedom.

What do you (and anyone else) think? Magnificent adventure this pioneering business, is it not?

‘The opportunity to avoid the pitfall of ‘enlightenment’ and head straight ahead for an actual freedom’ only presents itself when one has experientially explored and understood the role that our instinctual passions, ‘me’ as soul, play in the whole spiritual scenario of enlightenment. The difference between PCE and ASC is not merely a matter of religious or spiritual interpretation and conditioning; a pure consciousness experience is 180 degrees opposite to a spiritual experience. In order to become actually free, it is not enough to reduce one’s social conditioning and eradicate one’s spiritual belief system, one then needs to dive deep into one’s psyche and investigate the core of one’s being – ‘me who I instinctually know I am’, the animal instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Any shortcut at this point would inevitably lead to Being – ground on the Rock of Enlightenment.

As Richard wrote earlier about PCEs –

Richard: In order for a PCE to happen one’s identity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) go into abeyance and perception becomes apperception (which is the mind’s awareness of itself being conscious as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious). Apperception is an unmediated awareness ... a pure and clean consciousness unpolluted and uncorrupted by any identity whatsoever. However, it is very common for the feeling of ‘being’ (identity as ‘me’ as soul) to re-establish itself whilst the sense of ‘doing’ (identity as ‘I’ as ego) permits an interregnum. This is where the PCE devolves into an ASC. This happened to me in 1980 (as described in the second paragraph of ‘Appendix One’ in my ‘A Brief personal History’) and – Lo! and Behold! – a year later, I was to become enlightened for the next eleven years. It is the instinctual feelings coming rushing in to take over the experience that does the damage ... and self-aggrandizement reigns supreme. Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, Alan, 1.12.1998

As for ‘reconciling the experiences [you] had before encountering actual freedom with what [you] have subsequently discovered’ – I can only say that, after investigating all of my past beliefs and my spiritual conditioning, any reconciliation of my former outstanding experiences with a PCE is impossible. Before encountering Actual Freedom I simply did not know that one could eliminate one’s emotions, that there is more to extinguish than my ego and that there is more to the Human Condition than social conditioning.

However, it has been of great benefit to remember in detail some of my outstanding experiences of my spiritual days in order to investigate the cunning entity in action. For this exploration I was more interested in the differences between my former experiences and the pure consciousness experience in order to determine at what point of the experience ‘I’ was taking over and what were the reasons that a stunning experience turned into an indulgence of feelings.

Now, having become familiar with the intensity and power of my instinctual passions, I agree with Peter’s theory that atrophying them in a period of ongoing excellence experiences is the most promising approach of success –

My experience is that sufficient time is needed living and experiencing a state of virtual freedom such that the fuses don’t blow when the whole ‘signalling’ system collapses or atrophies. In practical terms, this is a period of virtually no ‘signalling’ from the amygdala and virtually no personal ‘self’-centred thoughts. When one checks out by asking ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ and there is no ‘signalling’ , no sadness, no being peeved, no boredom, etc. and no mental worries or anxieties and no desire to go looking for them, then one simply ‘cruises and grooves’. Just a note that I am talking here of the latter stages of the process – in the early days one’s life is so full of discoveries, investigations and insights into the Human Condition and how one functions that one can barely catch breath with the often tumultuous excitement and pace of events.

This latter period of ‘nothingness’ can be daunting at first but gradually an existence devoid of any ‘real’ world and ‘spiritual’ world meanings and values becomes delightfully delicious and sensually rich, not as a feeling but as a magnificent and overwhelming actuality. This ‘nothingness’ can be seen as a milder version of Richard’s angst or mental anguish period when all ‘signalling’ had ceased. Peter to Alan, 4.1.2000

Finally, to emphasize a clear distinction between an ‘excellence experience’ and a pure consciousness experience, I endorse Richard’s latest correspondence –

Richard: The rule of thumb is to ask oneself: is this it; is this the ultimate; is this the utter fulfilment and total contentment; is this my destiny; is this how I would want to live for the remainder of my life ... and so on. It is up to each and every person to decide for themselves what it is that they want ... as I oft-times say: it is your life you are living and only you get to reap the rewards and pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. <snip>

It may be relevant to report that my companion, who is exacting when it comes to grading herself/her experiences, has classifications ranging from good, very good, very, very good, excellent ... and PCE. She is most particular to not confuse an excellence experience with a perfection experience ... and the most outstanding distinction in the excellence experience is the marked absence of what I call the ‘magical’ element. What I describe as ‘magical’ she prefers to call ‘entering into the fourth dimension’ (not to be confused with the Hindu fourth state known as ‘Turiya’). This is where time has no duration as the normal ‘now’ and ‘then’ and space has no distance as the normal ‘here’ and ‘there’ and form has no distinction as the normal ‘was’ and ‘will be’ ... there is only this moment in eternal time at this place in infinite space as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (a three hundred and sixty degree awareness, as it were). Everything and everyone is transparently and sparklingly obvious, up-front and out-in-the open ... there is nowhere to hide and no reason to hide as there is no ‘me’ to hide. One is totally exposed and open to the universe: already always just here right now ... actually in time and actually in space as actual form. This apperception (selfless awareness) is an unmediated perspicacity wherein one is this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

In a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the ‘actualness’ of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe.

It is one’s destiny to be living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is. Richard, General Correspondence, No 9

This is the nub of what I am getting at – the affective response during the experience. I agree with you that, after the experience, ‘‘I’ will step in and seize the experience as ‘mine’ and interpret and feel it to be a spiritual experience’. I am discussing what happens during the experience – when ‘I’ am not extant. It may be that we need another definition for what these experiences are and you went on to define ‘peak experience’:

‘The affective response during the experience’ proves that the experience is not a PCE. Affective means there is the feeling ‘me’ present, alive and kicking as in. ‘When ‘I’ am not extant,’ when there is no ‘self’ whatsoever, there won’t be any affective response.

*

Peak Experience is obviously a generic term used for a wide variety of exceptional experiences, which can range from being very happy to feelings of great love or beauty, from pure consciousness experiences to epiphanies, Satoris or full-blown Altered States of Consciousness.

But, this is too wide a definition for what I am talking about.

Exactly, it is because the term is so wide – that’s why we no any longer use the term peak experience. For actualism, I found it enough to make the distinction between any affective experience with the ‘self’ in action and a PCE with the ‘self’ in abeyance.

*

My sole interest is to eliminate all of my ‘self’, both the normal ‘I’ and spiritual ‘I’, in order to be the actual I, ‘what I am’, this flesh-and-blood body brimming with sense organs. As such, any experience that is not a PCE, however unusual or seductive, needs to be thoroughly investigated. That’s what makes the pursuit of Actual Freedom so simple.

The difference between the spiritual search and actualism is that spiritual people give great significance to a temporary absence of the ego in a out-of-the-ordinary experience, Satori or ASC, while for an actualist such absence of the ego only signifies the unabated and uncontrolled presence of the soul, the animal-instinctual part of the identity. Whenever one removes only one’s personal ‘self’, the ‘ego’, with one’s ‘soul’, the animal-instinctual ‘self’, still intact, this will result, by its very nature, in the ‘soul’ running amok, unfettered by a personal ‘self’, inevitably evolving into an impersonal ‘Self’.

To assume can be to egotistically presume superiority.

The other day I had a pure consciousness experience where I understood once again that the Human Condition of malice and sorrow is indeed the particular flavour of human beings on planet Earth. I experienced a broadened awareness that gave me an overview of planet Earth floating in space, observing all that is going on and seeing its common flavour of humanity, whatever the place, race, gender or age. Human beings, by their very nature are inflicted with the genetically-encoded instincts that produce malice and sorrow. They pervade every thought and action, are the fuel for every emotion and passion and make ‘life a bitch and then you die’. The social identity and the instinctual ‘self’ are intrinsic to and a result of the evolution that took place on this fair planet, the third rock from the Sun, in the Milky way galaxy, in the infinite universe. Yet now the evolution has reached a point where humans can free themselves from the now unnecessary ‘appendix’ of the social identity and the animal survival instincts. What serendipity!

In this PCE I could also see that even though a staggering six billion people think, believe, feel and act within these parameters of the Human Condition, the actual world is nevertheless infinite, eternal, perfect, silent and magical. The actual world is always and everywhere present underneath the doom and gloom of our ‘self’-centred perception and can be discovered any moment. In such a PCE I can see that it does not matter that right now there is only Richard who lives in the actual world 24 hours a day, every day. This blithesome, magnificent and benevolent actual world exists always and everywhere around us, it is always here, always now and immediately experienced when I leave all of humanity behind.

Out of this and similar experiences, I don’t need ‘to assume’ – I know the Human Condition in its totality, in myself and therefore in everybody, because I can see it from not being afflicted by it for a certain period of time. Such experience is the opposite of ‘egotistical’ because a PCE is only possible when the whole ‘self’ is absent – in spiritual terms, both ego and soul. And yes, such an experience, even for a short period of time is vastly superior to any experience within the Human Condition. That’s why I want to live it every day, 24 hours a day. I don’t need to ‘presume superiority’, I simply write from the memory of the superior state evident in a pure consciousness experience and from the ongoing experience of Virtual Freedom.

*

I must point out that I am not ‘just’ writing, but like you, I am writing from experience.

Because Actual Freedom is so new and radically non-spiritual, it often happens that it is difficult to distinguish between Actual Freedom and the teachings of ‘wisdom’ that have been around for centuries. Having had several experiences of PCEs and of Altered States of Consciousness I can say that I am an expert on the pitfalls and seductions of the spiritual world. If you are interested you can read about my exploration into death and the psychic world.

If by ‘I am writing from experience’, you mean life-experience, it can only be an emotional experience from within the Human Condition and, as such, is worth sharing to enhance the inquiry. If you mean you are writing from an experience of a PCE, I can only go by what you write and your words and descriptions don’t convey the experience of a self-less state.

In our exchange before last you used expressions like: ‘There being no thinker there is however an awareness remembered... I watch the whole interaction without being a watcher ... timeless sense of PCEs ... In my experience I can only attempt to convey a flavour, style or ambience of the ‘thing’ rather than the emotional or intellectually factual remembrance.’

To me these expressions are indicative of a spiritual experience, and are not describing a pure consciousness experience. In a PCE one is this flesh-and-blood body only with the clear awareness of what is actual. Everybody who can remember a PCE can recognize when someone describes the purity of the actual world. In a PCE the ‘real’ world does not exist because the ‘real’ world consists of ideas, beliefs, emotions and passions produced in the head and in the heart. In a PCE there is no ‘emotional ... remembrance’ because emotions are the very substance of the self.

Re: PCEs, excellence experience, etc. I wrote to Richard, a while before the site went down, about an experience I felt was a PCE. After reading all the information that has been going back and forth the past week, I am sure that it was. I won’t go into great detail, but for an hour the whole affective feeling layer of me was peeled away and I experienced directly with no feeling sense mediating, mitigating, or interfering in any way. Everything was remarkably vivid, like if you had a very dirty window and then cleaned it. Answering the question, was this the ultimate, is this how I want to experience my life from now on? Yes, without doubt.

What serendipity! A PCE, and the memory of a PCE, is an invaluable guide for an actualist, it is the ultimate authority to ascertain and confirm one’s aim in life. My first PCEs often came as a shock, firstly as to the remarkable difference to my normal experiencing of life, and secondly to the obvious implications that they had for ‘me’, my identity. The PCE makes it startlingly and devastating clear that all that is preventing me from experiencing perfection is ‘me’, who I think, feel and instinctually know myself to be. If I want to experience perfection 24 hrs a day, ‘I’ will have to disappear completely.

However, to become actually free it is very helpful, and eventually vital, to remember a PCE in order for you to have clear experiences of the freedom that you are aiming for. But don’t let the worry of not remembering one right now spoil your enjoyment of the moment or diminish the intent of your investigation into your emotions and beliefs. Sooner or later, if you are sincerely, honestly and persistently inquiring, a PCE will sneak up on you, possibly after you have seen through a particularly ‘dense’ belief. When it happens, it is good to look out for the ‘good’ emotions of gratefulness, bliss, love and beauty so they do not to take over, thus inviting the ‘self’ back in and destroying the purity of the peak experience.

At the same time that I was watching this I was distinctly aware of my thinking and my journeying in this magical ‘inner’ world. At one stage I even experienced what it is to be mad. I understood the temptation of staying forever in an easy, illusory world of psychedelic wonders, where the mad person is the magician in his own world enjoying the power and safety of his dream. But anybody who dares to question this dream has to be considered a deadly enemy. However, I was always aware that I had the choice to stay in this imaginary world or not.

When I tried to tell Peter about my experiences and insights his simple response gave me quite a shock. ‘But all this is just inside your mind, it is simply your own interpretation, it may appear to be real, but it is not actual.’ Yes, that was true. I could easily see that I was inside the ‘mind’, roaming about in the different chambers of my assembled beliefs-systems, trying to find the one that was ‘right’ and ‘true’ – while in fact, I was just having a little grander and unusually complex perception of this huge labyrinth of thoughts and feelings! I could see more of my ideas or concepts and other people’s ideas, but they were simply ideas and feelings. None of them had any relevance to the actuality of the physical world!

In seeing the fact, everything stood still and the whole construct of beliefs suddenly disappeared. Then, for the first time in all my years of the spiritual search, I experienced several hours outside of the ‘psychic world’. Being outside, I could see that this ‘world’ is a huge, all-encompassing construct, created and held in place by the dreams, beliefs, bonds, power-battles, emotions and different spiritual ideas of all of humanity. Everyone is part of it, weaving and reproducing bits of this ‘psychic carpet’.

In regards to your description of your psychic nightmare I agree with Peter here. All the madness is inside the mind. Human beings are all walking around in a cloud of mental noise and madness.

You seem to have conveniently overlooked that I was describing a pure consciousness experience, after I stepped out of the ‘psychic nightmare’:

In seeing the fact, everything stood still and the whole construct of beliefs suddenly disappeared. Then, for the first time in all my years of the spiritual search, I experienced several hours outside of the ‘psychic world’.

A pure consciousness experience is when fear, generated by the instinctual programmed self, stops and is not replaced by any other feeling, be they bliss, gratitude, being present, Grace, Oneness, Truth, Love, Compassion, ‘Surrender’, Beauty or Wholeness. Simply because the self is temporarily absent, because all feelings have ceased, one is able to experience the magnificence, magic and abundance of the actuality of it all. One then is the universe experiencing itself as a flesh-and-blood sensate and reflective human being. There is no sense of ‘being’ whatsoever. There is only this actual world and the overlaying real world and spiritual world of feelings, imaginations and instinctual passions can clearly been seen for what it is – a passionate illusion.

From the self-less perspective of a PCE, the self can be seen, labelled, explored and discriminated as the overlaying chemical-induced self-centred structure that encapsulates each human being in a shell of survival fear and the ensuing instinctual passions and emotions. In these moments one can thoroughly understand what one’s psychic structure consists of – an intricate web of conditioning, feelings, beliefs and fervent passions complete with vivid imagination.

It is good to be precise with words. A clear understanding can lead you to a realisation, which can lead to a peak-experience. Then you can experience for yourself the actuality of what we are talking about – the purity, the obviousness, the fairy-tale like magic of the ‘self’ being temporarily absent.

Ahhh, now you lose me. Clearly you are saying that there is more for me to experience. Clearly you believe I do not experience the actuality of what you are talking about. Perhaps this is the case. Truthfully, when you talk about the ‘self’ being temporarily absent, I do not know what you are talking about. Can you explain more how one knows when one’s self is absent???

From my own experience of the first big peak-experience I know that without the comparison of such an experience it is difficult to locate and isolate the ‘self’. Only after I experienced that the ‘self’ consists of my emotions as well as my beliefs could I get a grip on this amorphous psychic entity that is ‘me’. I come here into this moment and leave my ‘self’ behind.

When you have a peak-experience and the ‘self’ is absent this fact is very obvious to you. There is no sense of separation to anything and anybody whatsoever. There is no feeling or emotion and you know that this is not your imagination, it is simply so. I have written to No 13 about Pure Consciousness Experiences (PCE) – and you may want to read a few descriptions in Peter’s Journal. It takes a bit of reading to get the gist of it, a PCE is so very different from our everyday experience of life as a ‘self’. These are the links:

• Introduction
• Love
• People
• Intelligence
• Universe
• Bit of Vineeto

If you can’t remember a peak-experience, another way to approach the subject is to determine how the ‘self’ is present – what feeling do ‘I’ have now?, what’s my objection to being here?, what longing to connect with someone?, what slight feeling of numbness or boredom?, what irritation about someone’s words or behaviour? Driving a car was always a good test for me, so many ways to get irritated, and so unnecessarily. The ‘self’, when investigated, can be very cunning in disguising itself as the imagination of having arrived – because then one stops dismantling it. ‘I’ have every investment not to be found out, not to die. And yet, ‘I’ am the only thing in the way of experiencing this blithe and perfect moment of being alive.

VINEETO: I was reminded of a particular outstanding experience during the Anti-Fisher-Hoffman-Process in Pune. It was my second time I did the group, the first time that I was a staff-member. The AFH, as we called it, is a 10-12 day process of looking at childhood issues and overcoming fear, resentment, anger, attachment with intense bio-dynamic methods. By the third day, with lots of ‘work’ and little sleep, everybody hit their limit. I dragged myself forward, fantasizing about the time when I could sleep again as long as I wanted, if I only made it through the next ‘hellish’ days. Suddenly it dawned on me that what I was doing was waiting. I was wasting my time for ‘redemption’. And I realised that there was no difference to ‘waiting for heaven’ or for enlightenment, or for the right man, or...

With this insight that there is only now, that I live only now, and that there is no heaven to go to – I woke up into full awareness and aliveness. Postponement only brings more misery, hope is for the hesitant one who does not want to take the first step to freedom. This peak-experience lasted for several hours, and while everyone else was tired to the bone I bounced in refreshed aliveness. Later on the event got filed into the category of ‘group-highs’ and the memory of it soon faded away. But for those few hours I had lived in the actual world, here, now, without God, heaven, authority, love, hope and postponement. I had experienced that this moment is the only moment we have got, the only moment we can experience being alive, to be either miserable or happy, complaining or fully alive.

Suddenly, I recognized that the world is absolutely complete and perfect, exactly as it is. The present moment was whole and integrated. Any sense of fundamental separateness was gone. ‘I’ was still there, but any anxiety I had ever felt was completely eliminated. All I knew/felt/experienced was the complete and absolute perfection of the present moment.

This was a moment of overwhelming revelation, of pure and absolute joy. The perfection and wholeness of the universe seemed so obvious, so simple, so complete, so absolute. Like a bliss-filled fool, I alternately laughed and cried, spontaneously and irresistibly, at the exquisite perfection of All That Is. Even as I eventually awakened my partner, and began to shower and prepare for our client’s meeting, this astonishing energy continued to move through me, in wave after wave of sweet and unspeakable joy.

What you describe here sounds like a powerful Peak Experience. It can be brought on by various circumstances including certain drugs and lasts for periods from a few minutes to days. ‘I’, my identity, get a taste of the actual world in its utter purity and ‘as-it-is-ness’, in its clarity and perfection, and I experience everything including me-as-my-body being made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. In a pure consciousness experience I don’t have the feeling of ‘Oneness’ but know for the first time that there is no actual separation between you as a physical body and the rest of the universe. In a peak experience I experience the world as it is, in its marvellous actuality, factuality, while ‘me’, the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance, not interfering. Then it is possible to see the world as-it-is, without the psychic and psychological web of human emotions, beliefs, instincts and fear. The peak experience is a glimpse into what it is to be a human being without the ‘I’ being present and spoiling it all.

Actualism Homepage

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Vineeto’s & Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer and Use Restrictions