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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 3
PETER: Thought I’d reply to your post as Vineeto is consumed with the new web-site and cataloguing all the correspondence and writings by subject. And you write of my favourite subject – being happy. RESPONDENT: For example, I have had this feeling that there is something wrong with feeling good all the time and so never attempted to feel good all the time. Then I looked at this in more detail and found that there was an additional objection to feeling good (at times) and what was behind that was a belief that as a human I was unworthy to feel good all the time. In other words it was an opinion of personal worth. PETER: I remember well my father’s only advice to me was ‘be happy’. It was at the time when I had to make a decision as to what direction my studies would take – would it be technical, scientific – would I go on to university? His advice was ‘It doesn’t matter what you do in life – you can be a brain surgeon or a sewerage worker – just be happy’. Of course he didn’t tell me how to be happy and, as I was eventually to find out, nobody knows how to be happy all the time and nobody even expects to be happy all the time. I often mused, when I sat down to work out what course to do at university, would I have taken the 2 year course on ‘How to be Happy and Harmless’, and then followed it up with some vocational course. Yep, you bet I would have. It’s just that it wasn’t available at the time so I bumbled off into marriage, family, business, career, spiritual searching for the next 30 years but never did find happiness. Then I ran into Richard and his method to become happy and harmless and took it on with Gusto. And I can report, as one of the first to take the ‘course’, that it works, that it works incrementally, and it is such fun on the way. You do lose your friends who stubbornly refuse to even consider doing something new and different with their lives, but what to do – stay miserable and grumpy, resentful and spiteful? The issue of worthy or unworthy seems to me to be a bit of a side issue. The main question is what do you want to do with your life? If you want to be happy and harmless then nobody does it but you. Nobody judges you worthy or unworthy as in success, money, power and prestige or spiritual advancement, hours meditated, Guru followed, Satoris attained, etc. From early childhood we have been taught by the carrot and stick, right and wrong, good and bad – but always within society’s limits. Once anyone dares to step outside the limits – it’s ‘You can’t do that – Who do you think you are?’ Once the decision is made to devote oneself to being happy and harmless one simply ‘weathers the storm’, both in the ‘inner’ maelstrom that is often evident as one dismantles the beliefs that form one’s social identity and frees oneself from the instinctual passions, and in the reactions of one’s fellow human beings to the radical course you are taking. It’s all just a storm in a tea cup, or a bit of mental and emotional drama that is but par for the course. That’s where pure intent comes in – you can lift your head up out of what may seem a very convincing and real drama and remember the goal, what all the hard work is really about. I wrote a piece on Perfection for the Glossary of our web-site which I think may be useful to put the business of being a human being in 1999 in perspective –
Just a side reflection. Don’t you find it cute that it is not okay for a human being to be happy and harmless, free of malice and sorrow – i.e. perfect – but it is okay for a human being to call himself or herself a God, or God-realised? Such is the insidious perversity of the Human Condition. I could even say the atavistically insidious perversity but t’would border on baroque verbosity. So, maybe that was of some use or interest. It’s such a pleasure to be able to write about how to be happy – to have found out for myself and then on top of it all, to get an opportunity to write about it as well ...
PETER: The issue of worthy or unworthy seems to me to be a bit of a side issue. The main question is what do you want to do with your life? RESPONDENT: I think what I want to do with my life is only apparent from one moment to the next and that seems to be constantly changing but it seems to do with being curious, seriously curious about the workings of self. I had actually decided to end this ego self 10 years or so ago but because it was self trying to end self without a ‘relentless inquiring attention’ there was bound to be failure. Now with the aid of ‘How am I question...’ more of the moments are caught rather than the usual see one moment then skip a few moments and get lost in self intellectualization again. Curiosity I think, needs to be given complete leeway. PETER: I was trained as an architect but on graduating found working in an office to be too removed from the building site where the business of building buildings actually happened. Consequently I became an architect-builder-carpenter as my interest was more in the practical implementing of a idea. When I came across Richard I had spent 17 years on the spiritual path attempting to end the ‘ego-self’ but was ready to abandon the effort. I had begun to have some Altered State of Consciousness experiences but the suspicions and doubts I had of the Master-disciple business, the God-men’s lifestyle, how they were with their women, etc., meant that Enlightenment was losing its attraction. I was also becoming more and more aware of the fact that Eastern Spirituality is nothing more than Eastern Religion. I soon came to see that there were two identities preventing me being happy and harmless – the ‘normal Peter’ who was father, man, architect, etc. and the ‘spiritual Peter’ – the believer, searcher, superior one, etc. So I set about dismantling both these ‘I’s by actively challenging the beliefs, feelings, emotions and instincts that gave substance to both the psychological and psychic entity that was ‘me’. What I increasingly discovered was that the brain of this flesh and blood body has an inherent ability to be aware of itself, an ability of apperception. When I ask ‘What am I thinking?’ or ‘What am I feeling?’ or ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ it is this apperceptive awareness that can provide the answer. It was enormously difficult and bewildering sometimes at the start but as fact replaced belief, clarity replaced confusion and pure intent replaced ‘open-ness’ and listlessness, ‘what’ I am – not ‘who’ I am – gradually emerged and became apparent. At first, the whole exercise can feel like a weird ‘self trying to dismantle self’’ exercise, but soon one realises that it is fact dismantling belief, apperceptive awareness dismantling self that is happening. So for me, in hindsight, it was apperceptive awareness – the ability of the brain to be aware of itself – that does the job, dismantles and demolishes both the normal and spiritual, both the psychological and psychic entity. When one has a realization about a belief and ‘sees’ the facts there is an actualisation that can occur which is not of ‘my’ doing. In the face of the blinding and glaringly obvious fact, sensible down-to-earth action can ensue. In the spiritual realm, one merely ‘realises’ and takes on board a new belief such as ‘I am really God after-all!’ or ‘I am Immortal – thank God!’ – and non-sensical action inevitably occurs. Many people who have read a bit of the Actual Freedom writings think that the dismantling of spiritual beliefs is some sort of side issue, or a sort of ‘put down’ as is common in the spiritual world between various teachers and Gurus. This is to miss the essential iconoclastic nature of Actual Freedom. To live in the spiritual world i.e. to have spiritual beliefs is to be twice removed from the actual world. The spiritual world is an imaginary world that the spirits dwell in. The psychic entity or soul within the flesh and blood body is a ‘spirit’ ie. non-actual and metaphysical. The self as soul ‘dwells’ in the spiritual world while the self as ego ‘dwells’ in the normal world. To be an actual flesh and blood human being is to be without ego or soul – then one can find a personal peace in the actual world, free of the Human Condition. * PETER: If you want to be happy and harmless then nobody does it but you. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that this inquiry is done by the self without regard for the self almost like jumping off a cliff. It is amazing how after having gathered enough information about the woes of self, the self then in its own pathetic way attempts to dismantle itself. I think though this is the point where attention plays an important role. I am finding this curiosity-lead attention to be most liberating. PETER: We are attempting to develop a consistent ‘story’ and terminology in describing the path to Actual Freedom not as a philosophy or another ‘ism’, but to attempt to clearly communicate our experiences to each other – to swap stories and experiences on the basis of a commonly understood language. As such the ‘curiosity-lead attention’ may well be what I was describing above as the combination of sincere intent and apperceptive awareness. If your curiosity includes an investigation of the myths and beliefs of Ancient Wisdom – the foundation of the spiritual world – then a sensible, sensate experiencing will become more and more apparent. One finds oneself engaged in the thrilling business of actively dismantling one’s own psychological and psychic entity – doing what every one warns you not to do, or says is impossible to do. * PETER: Nobody judges you worthy or unworthy as in success, money, power and prestige or spiritual advancement, hours meditated, Guru followed, Satoris attained, etc. From early childhood we have been taught by the carrot and stick, right and wrong, good and bad – but always within society’s limits. Once anyone dares to step outside the limits – it’s ‘You can’t do that – Who do you think you are?’ RESPONDENT: I still find myself occasionally falling for authoritarian right and wrong mainly because of the passion associated with it. That doesn’t last long though as I note the emotion trying to make truth out of something. PETER: The great thing for me was to by-pass Richard as an authority or Master-type figure and acknowledge that he was an expert on the Human Condition and how to get free of it. It has been a little tricky as he was Enlightened and dug himself out of the delusion over an 11 year period, and the new experiment is to demolish and eliminate both the psychological and psychic entity together in order to avoid the instinctual grab for Glory and Immortality that the entity makes when facing death. But it is working. Certainly both Vineeto and I will avoid Enlightenment as we have patiently and diligently explored and investigated the instinctual passionate trap of self-aggrandizement. As a pre-requisite to avoiding Enlightenment it is absolutely essential to eliminate one’s spiritual identity – and there-in lies the radical-ness of this method. * PETER: Once the decision is made to devote oneself to being happy and harmless one simply ‘weathers the storm’, both in the ‘inner’ maelstrom that is often evident as one dismantles the beliefs that form one’s social identity and frees oneself from the instinctual passions, and in the reactions of one’s fellow human beings to the radical course you are taking. It’s all just a storm in a tea cup, or a bit of mental and emotional drama that is but par for the course. RESPONDENT: Well, the weather forecast is for smooth sailing. You never can trust those forecasts though. PETER: I was talking to Vineeto last night and we were reflecting on some of the ‘rough’ and bewildering times when we wondered what we had let ourselves in for. The ‘Why can’t I just settle for being normal again?’ or ‘Why didn’t I just settle for the comfort and feel-good times of spiritual denial of facts rather than the fear that arises from exposing beliefs?’ But there was a burning discontentment that wouldn’t allow each of us to settle for second best. And what an adventure! * PETER: That’s where pure intent comes in – you can lift your head up out of what may seem a very convincing and real drama and remember the goal, what all the hard work is really about. I wrote a piece on RESPONDENT: Just an additional point to this perfection. It is apparent in the absence of a judgmental emotional self. So I am more interested in the assertion that this world is not perfect or that I am not perfect that is more butter for the bread. PETER: I wrote a bit in my journal that may be relevant to what you are talking of. It was at a time when I was busy with investigating love – its promise and its failure.
What I ‘saw’ is that the actual world is perfect, pure, infinite and eternal – it is just that we humans are inflicted with a soft-ware program called the Human Condition. It is made up of nothing more than beliefs and instinctual emotions, and, being software, we can delete them if we really want to. This deletion allows an incremental emergence of what is factual, what is actual, as evidenced by the senses and one’s own apperceptive awareness. The experiencing of the perfection and purity of the actual world as experienced in the PCE is essential as this provides the ‘pure’ in the pure intent. Having experienced the actual one then will be better prepared to avoid the power-crazed state of Enlightenment.
RESPONDENT: Just some thoughts – How is it possible for all the bad stuff to go, those bad emotions etc., how can they go for good? PETER: I assume from your posts that you have had a good grounding in the awareness-watching business, which is a reasonable starting point. You also seem interested in the possibility of getting rid of at least some of the emotions i.e. the bad ones. One of the problems usually with the traditional awareness approach is that one can spread oneself a bit thin on the ground and not zero in on a particular issue. It makes good sense to pick one issue out of the bundle of feelings and emotions that assail one every day. Anger is an excellent starting point as it is an easily recognised and strongly felt emotion. The next trick is to pick a situation that causes you to be angry. It could be when driving your car, an excellent time for self-observation. The aim would then be not to get angry with other drivers, pedestrians, traffic jams, slow drivers, red lights, etc. To be aware of when anger arises, with the aim of not letting anger ruin your happiness while driving the car. For me, I particularly remember someone at work who could raise my heckles and ruin my happiness for hours afterwards. I made it my mission for a few weeks not to let him get at me. Not to get angry, not to let anyone get me angry. Not to let the bugger get me down! It wasn’t him personally – it could have been anyone or any situation. And anger itself went. I suggest giving it a go in an actual situation, give it a try. RESPONDENT: What removes them? PETER: You, there is no one else who is as vitally interested in your happiness as you ... and there is no God to do it. RESPONDENT: Is it the removal of the verbal belief or is it some times more the removal of an actual false impression about something ie. the removal of an impression that is stimulated under a certain condition but which has no real substance apart from itself and if so why keep it? PETER: No, in the example I gave above anger is anger and it not only ruins your day but it will probably do no good to the person you get angry with. RESPONDENT: What is left? Yes, that is certainly a concern. PETER: From my experience – two things, both positive. One is a little bit less of ‘No 3’. ‘No 3 the angry one’ will have disappeared. Second that means that there is more possibility of and more opportunity for being happy and harmless. It is but the simple putting into practice of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ In this case it is while driving the car, driver cuts in on you, flash of anger, reported and noted, back to being happy. Next time driver breaks sharply in front, got it even quicker then, even quicker back to being happy and eventually ... ‘well that was a pretty silly thing he did, good thing he missed me ... what a lovely day it is to be driving a car ... such a good thing, this being alive business ... funny ... I used to get really angry about things like that...’ RESPONDENT: Not knowing what will be next. So what is this having to know what comes next? Hmm I don’t know at the moment because I don’t care what comes next. What about the concern about what I have written? The mind is busy in the background worrying about the next response which might be someway hurtful. So there is a constant fear of being hurt in relationship. What is being hurt? Nothing really, it is more the belief that any revealing of weakness will result in an attack of some sort. So what are the weaknesses that fear attack? It is this impression of a precious self, probably the spiritual one, plus all the associated feelings. No, there is more to it, it’s the worrying about being dumb, having said something and then the fear of being publicly humiliated. This brings to mind an instance at school when I was severely put down in front of the class. It seem that these instances can form the basis of self beliefs. PETER: If your concern is about being hurt it may well be due to a sense of pride. I remember well the fool I felt when I realised I was firmly entrenched as a disciple of an Indian Guru and shouting ‘Ya-Hoo’ at the top of my voice to an empty chair on a podium while dressed in a long white robe with a few thousand others. ‘My god’, I thought ‘Is this what my life has come to? Here I am in a spiritual version of a Klu Klux Clan rally!’ And yet it still took me 5 more years to fully get out of the spiritual belief-system – polite words for Eastern Religion. Such were my feelings of pride, loyalty, wanting to belong to the group, etc. Of course there was no other alternative to the spiritual path in those days. All this is new, no one has discovered this before, no-one has dared to consider that it is possible to eliminate both one’s social identity and one’s instinctual self. And to discover that one can then live life to the optimum without the lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity that spoils and inhibits one’s sensate, sensual enjoyment of being a flesh and blood body in this actual paradisiacal world. But you can whittle away at the bugger, reduce the spoiling factor, actively reduce its influence, diminish its effect, stretch out the times of being happy and harmless, raise the bar a bit ... Yes, if you continue on with these investigations you will be a fool, an idiot, a nutter, a raving maniac, a lunatic, etc. , but what to do? For me it was eventually obvious that I was being even more of a fool, more dumb, and would suffer more hurt and humiliation by staying with doing something that I knew was false, that I knew didn’t work, and that I knew would never work. I always liked the saying which I came across a few months ago – ‘the definition of a lunatic is someone who keeps doing something he/she knows doesn’t work.’ I just figured, whatever I did someone, somewhere, sometime, was going to think I was a fool anyway, or, as you said, try to put me down ... so I might as well be a happy and harmless fool. As for writing on this list, it is always a delight to hear of someone’s investigations, fears, doubts, feelings, experiences, etc. We are all in this business of being a human being for the first – and only – time, and this list is for those intrepid few who have at least some doubts about the life within the Human Condition. This is an experiment, so it is good that we report to each other what is going on in order that we can each make intelligent and informed decisions about becoming free of the Human Condition. This is not only a personal thing and this is not a small thing we do, we are all in this business together, and your writing and contribution is valuable. To have one person actually free of malice and sorrow can be put down to a freak of nature, but to have a handful, all following a mapped-out, well defined and documented method and path, is irrefutable proof that peace on earth is possible. And then what about a dozen, two dozen, a hundred... But to keep one’s feet on the ground – even an easily obtainable Virtual Freedom is to live beyond normal human expectations anyway, and Virtual Freedom far exceeds the old well-worn, flogged to death, delusionary state of Enlightenment. A ‘win-win’ situation as Richard puts it. As for your comment on relationship, I’ll flog my new version of Living Together again. I have written it specifically about what we have been talking about – putting actualism in practice in one’s daily life and, as such it may be of interest. Vineeto has been busy collecting together writing and correspondence about the Pure Consciousness Experience which she is about to upload, so I am also announcing that for those interested.
RESPONDENT: Are you STILL happy? (Is there such a thing as being stuck on happiness – I think so). PETER: Yes, it seems it is a permanent affliction by now, bordering on an inherent addiction. So commonplace is it in my life that it requires no effort, no excitement, no looking for it, no trying. It is a delight to be alive, there is a tangible, palpable underlying well-being – and I get to do enjoyable pleasurable things as a bonus. Those extras sensation-al activities such as eating delicious food, smelling and drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee, strolling through town or trolley-pushing through the supermarket, or a romp with Vineeto, tip the ever-present sensate pleasure of simply being alive over into rampant full blown hedonism. So ingrained is malice and sorrow in the Human Condition that the life I lead now would have been inconceivable to me 2 years ago, yet now it is the effortless norm. So much so, that I ‘take it for granted’ that I will have a perfect day when I get up in the morning. The ease comes from this very being able to ‘take it for granted’, for perfection is intrinsic to the actual world. Now, in this new scenario, ‘I’ as a social identity am totally redundant and ‘me’ as an instinctual ‘self’, no more than an occasional whiff of nuisance. There is a final break yet to be made, an extinction, a self immolation, and it is one of the reasons I write on the list – to facilitate this end, to avoid being stuck where I am now. I met a friend of ours lately who has had some inklings that Vineeto and I were ‘doing something different’ with our lives. We got chatting and I said that it was about being happy and harmless. She seemed interested but when I said this meant being free of malice and sorrow she seemed doubtful. When I asked her wouldn’t you want to be free of sorrow she said she really liked to feel sad occasionally. Unperturbed, I asked her about being free of malice and she said that she liked to get angry, to defend herself, to make her point. She said she wouldn’t have survived in her life without her anger. I asked if she had ever been in physical danger and she said no, she just wouldn’t have survived ... And so it was that the conversation rapidly moved on to the weather – (or El Nino as it is now called – all our weather forecasters here talk Spanish now – La clouda, Ill Stormo, coldo fronto, etc.) It is during conversations like that that I realize how far I have come in these last 2 years towards becoming actually free of malice and sorrow and how easy and simple the whole process has been. * RESPONDENT: How is it possible for all the bad stuff to go, those bad emotions etc., how can they go for good? PETER: I assume from your posts that you have had a good grounding in the awareness-watching business, which is a reasonable starting point. You also seem interested in the possibility of getting rid of at least some of the emotions i.e. the bad ones. One of the problems usually with the traditional awareness approach is that one can spread oneself a bit thin on the ground and not zero in on a particular issue. It makes good sense to pick one issue out of the bundle of feelings and emotions that assail one every day. RESPONDENT: So what do you do with the other feelings that arise? Do you mean you don’t attempt to go into them and find out more? PETER: I find that I can best concentrate on, and contemplate upon only one thing at a time. I can drive a car while thinking or talking but as far as tasks requiring my full attention and awareness – I do one at a time. So for me at the start, rather than try to spread myself thin by trying to being aware of hundreds of feelings, reactions, doubts, thoughts, emotions I zeroed in on one to study in detail. I always found that there was one particular pertinent issue at any one time that was spoiling my happiness. It was usually the issue that I was avoiding, that bought up most fear, or dominated my thoughts most. This was then the one to ‘tackle’, the one to dig in to, talk over, focus on, contemplate upon, etc., but it was usually obvious. * PETER: Anger is an excellent starting point as it is an easily recognised and strongly felt emotion. The next trick is to pick a situation that causes you to be angry. It could be when driving your car, an excellent time for self-observation. The aim would then be not to get angry with other drivers, pedestrians, traffic jams, slow drivers, red lights, etc. To be aware of when anger arises, with the aim of not letting anger ruin your happiness while driving the car. For me, I particularly remember someone at work who could raise my heckles and ruin my happiness for hours afterwards. I made it my mission for a few weeks not to let him get at me. Not to get angry, not to let anyone get me angry. Not to let the bugger get me down! It wasn’t him personally – it could have been anyone or any situation. And anger itself went. I suggest giving it a go in an actual situation, give it a try. RESPONDENT: I don’t quite understand the above. Is it a determination not to get angry or an effort to discover why one is getting angry? My experience is that anger is usually supported by other feelings and beliefs. It is funny though that I have never really made the decision to be free of anger full stop, even though I tend to be a ‘do it all or not at all’ sort. It seems easier to assume that you’re committed. I will have to investigate this. It is interesting to note that my way of not getting angry at others is to get angry only at myself which means it is only controlled not eliminated. PETER: I just made the decision one day. I acknowledged that anger was ruining my happiness and wasn’t at all pleasant for those I was angry with. Then you feel guilty, remorseful, the other ‘forgives’ you, then you feel resentful and on, and on, it goes. I was a ‘good’ man and didn’t get violent or shout or rant and rave, but the anger would come out as snideness, sarcasm, withdrawal, indifference, etc. I got so fed up with the whole mood-driven business, particularly in my relationships with women that I even abandoned the whole idea of relationship altogether. Then I met Richard and discovered I could eliminate these churning feelings and emotions such that I could live with a woman in peace and harmony. It was such a good decision I made and the rewards are spectacular, to say the least. RESPONDENT: Sorry my brevity has mislead you. What I was looking at was some feelings which arose with no apparent connection to belief which where just hanging around. So in this case it seemed there was no discovery of belief to be made only a letting go and the fear of not knowing what was next, was a fear that arose when it became apparent that there might be no ‘known’ next. Not knowing what will be next. So what is this having to know what comes next? Hmm I don’t know at the moment because I don’t care what comes next. What about the concern about what I have written? The mind is busy in the background worrying about the next response which might be someway hurtful. So there is a constant fear of being hurt in relationship. What is being hurt? Nothing really, it is more the belief that any revealing of weakness will result in an attack of some sort. So what are the weaknesses that fear attack? It is this impression of a precious self, probably the spiritual one, plus all the associated feelings. No, there is more to it, it’s the worrying about being dumb, having said something and then the fear of being publicly humiliated. This brings to mind an instance at school when I was severely put down in front of the class. It seem that these instances can form the basis of self beliefs. <snip> It’s funny how sometimes I honestly don’t care less what people think and other times it effects me physically. This seems to be related to how I’m feeling physically i.e. tired, weak or in pain. PETER: I wrote a chapter about fear and doubt in my journal. It was not a major item for me, once I had decided to start. Then the intent was such that fear was simply a feeling associated with the next discovery, and the feeling of fear was what made the journey thrilling. It is a journey of discovery, after all. Many, many humans have made journeys of discovery over the millennia to facilitate humankind’s emergence from the caves. Those who make this new journey into their psyche in order to free themselves of the Human Condition will facilitate not only a personal peace for themselves but the ending of malice and sorrow in humankind.
PETER: I met a friend of ours lately who has had some inklings that Vineeto and I were ‘doing something different’ with our lives. We got chatting and I said that it was about being happy and harmless. She seemed interested but when I said this meant being free of malice and sorrow she seemed doubtful. When I asked her wouldn’t you want to be free of sorrow she said she really liked to feel sad occasionally. Unperturbed, I asked her about being free of malice and she said that she liked to get angry, to defend herself, to make her point. She said she wouldn’t have survived in her life without her anger. RESPONDENT: I agree that some of these emotions have their attractiveness but if that is weighed up against all the times one missed out on opportunities because of the negative effects of certain emotions then a strong argument can be made for sacrificing the ones that are found to be somehow enjoyable. PETER: Yep. Tis writ large in the sacred texts of the ‘Human Condition’, sub-section ‘Human Attributes’ – ‘The faculty that distinguishes the human species from other animal species is our ability to feel. In short we are ‘feeling’ beings – take away our feelings and we are but animals or robots’. Of course, this sacred tenet was written in ancient times when the only chance of keeping fear and aggression in reasonable control was to emphasise nurture and desire. Thus it was that ‘good’ and ‘bad’, together with ‘right and wrong’, was chiselled in stone and written on rice paper as the morals and ethics of tribal groups. This was further reinforced by fairy-tales of Gods and Demons, good and bad spirits, and the power and influence of the shamans was set in concrete. To dare to question the Gods and the good was to tempt the Devil, invite the bad to run riot and invoke the wrath of the shamans. All of this is based on primitive ignorance of modern human biological knowledge only evident this century. Human and animal behavioural studies combined with stunning genetic and neuro-biological knowledge has made the futility of sticking with Ancient and spirit-ual solutions patently obvious. What we now know is that human beings have an instinctual program of fear, aggression, nurture and desire and that this is located in the hypothalamus primitive lizard brain. Its task is largely the regulation of stereotyped, or instinctive behaviour patterns and responses. In lower animals this response, sometimes known as ‘fight and flight’ is a simple response to sensorial input – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. In humans with our more complex brain, thought, memory, reflection and self-awareness this simple response becomes an emotional response – an emotion according to Mr. Oxford – Any of the natural instinctive affections of the mind. Our treasured and dearly-held feelings are most commonly expressed as emotion-backed thoughts, firmly rooted in the ‘fight and flight’ instinct of fear and aggression. Hence we are ‘feeling’ beings – we live constantly with the feelings of fear and aggression implanted in us by ‘blind’ nature. Fear hobbles us with a desperate need to belong to a group, to cling to the past, to hang on to whatever we hold dear to ourselves, to resist change and desperately seek immortality. Aggression causes us to fight for our territory, our possessions, our ‘rights’, our family and our treasured beliefs – seeking power over others. We seek solace in the so-called ‘good’ feelings, or ‘trip off’ into unbounded imagination and delusionary feelings of the spiritual. Nurture causes us to care, comfort and protect but also leads to dependency, clinging, empathy, sacrifice and needless heroism. Desire drives us to sexual reproduction, avarice, greed, corruption and power over others. If you think ‘a strong argument can be made for sacrificing the ones that are found to be somehow enjoyable’, do you realise that thinking like that, if actualized, could eventually lead to an end of religions and of religious wars – an end to malice and sorrow. RESPONDENT: It is amazing how this human trap can be desirable, even after great suffering. PETER: We do indeed love to suffer and to inflict suffering on others – our ‘entertainment’ is either sad ‘love’ stories and tales of suffering or ‘action’ and violence. We have turned suffering into a virtue and pleasure into a vice. All of the religious and spiritual texts point to the essential and unending human suffering on earth. It is understandable for they knew nought of instinctual programming, and life on earth was a ‘fight and flight’ business – a man eat man business – to put it in its brutal perspective. But it is 1999 after all, and the ‘sacred’ words of Jesus, Buddha and the likes can be seen for what they are – ancient spirit-ridden drivel of no relevance at all to the situation we – you and I, and the others on this list – now find ourselves in. RESPONDENT: Or is it that the trap is accepted because the possibility of freedom requires opening a big heavy door and that is too much effort. PETER: Well, up until now only one person has done it, and he did it via Enlightenment. To give up the power, glory and blissful feelings of being Divine and Immortal is indeed a big heavy door and it is extremely doubtful if any of the present lot will repeat the effort. They have ‘feet of clay’ as Richard puts it. But by utilizing the method Richard has devised – to eliminate one’s social identity, who you ‘think’ you are, the ‘ego’ if you like, and then eliminate one’s instinctual self, who you ‘feel’ you are, the ‘soul’ if you like – when you finally get to the door it’s a ‘step through’ job only. Is it that you are worried about the end of the journey before you even begin? * PETER: I wrote a chapter about fear and doubt in my journal. It was not a major item for me, once I had decided to start. Then the intent was such that fear was simply a feeling associated with the next discovery, and the feeling of fear was what made the journey thrilling. It is a journey of discovery, after all. Many, many humans have made journeys of discovery over the millennia to facilitate humankind’s emergence from the caves. Those who make this new journey into their psyche in order to free themselves of the Human Condition will facilitate not only a personal peace for themselves but the ending of malice and sorrow in humankind. RESPONDENT: Just an additional thought. I have found at times that there is a strong resistance to the ‘How am I...’ and the question starts off in a more personal way. Other times the ease is simply surprising. After reading that sometimes the attention can increase depth of sensation I would surmise that I am at times avoiding the strong almost pain-like sensation. PETER: There is a lot of denial, ignorance and deliberate misinformation regarding emotions and feelings in spiritual teachings. One God-man, describing himself as a Western Master, even declares that love is not a feeling but it is a sensation, in a desperate attempt to validate what he teaches as ‘true’ love. He is merely reinforcing the common belief that the good feelings are ‘natural’, i.e. a sign from God, and the bad feelings are evil – he preaches that sex is the Devil. Feelings are indeed natural – instilled by ‘blind’ nature – but that does not mean that we have to forever suffer their consequences. A local therapist proudly trumpets on her poster offering a group on Anger, that ‘anger is natural’ – her ‘solution’ is to somehow ‘transform’ anger into love and compassion. The proof that feelings are ‘natural’ is that they are felt in the body as sensations and, no matter what you do you can’t get rid of them. Denying, transforming, transcending and expressing have all been tried and all have failed. It is essential to differentiate between the sensate experience (sensations) produced by feelings – the bodily response, and the source of feelings – the instinctual emotions. For clarity, let’s look at how Mr. Oxford defines sensation –
I’ll leave you with a bit of Richard on the matter – you might recognize it...
So, good to get clear on the subject of emotions and their source and the distinction between sensations and feelings. The only way to discover ‘what’ you are is to discover ‘who’ you have been taught to be and ‘who’ you have been programmed to be. To investigate the Human Condition with the single-pointed aim of becoming free of the Human Condition.
RESPONDENT: Or is it that the trap is accepted because the possibility of freedom requires opening a big heavy door and that is too much effort. PETER: Well, up until now only one person has done it, and he did it via Enlightenment. RESPONDENT: No, I was talking about the effort of questioning conditioning as opposed to accepting it. PETER: Well, my experience is that once the decision is made to change the questioning, unearthing and exposing of the beliefs and psittacisms that constitute one’s social identity, it soon produces such tangible and delicious results that any effort seems paltry. In short, the rewards are beyond human expectations – one can change oneself radically and irrevocably. * PETER: To give up the power, glory and blissful feelings of being Divine and Immortal is indeed a big heavy door and it is extremely doubtful if any of the present lot will repeat the effort. They have ‘feet of clay’ as Richard puts it. But by utilizing the method Richard has devised – to eliminate one’s social identity, who you ‘think’ you are, the ‘ego’ if you like, and then eliminate one’s instinctual self, who you ‘feel’ you are, the ‘soul’ if you like – when you finally get to the door it’s a ‘step through’ job only. .Is it that you are worried about the end of the journey before you even begin? RESPONDENT: Indeed there are the occasional pop up thoughts of fear, but that is not my main problem. Mine is one of ‘trying’, the effort of thought rather than the effort to be aware. This though is an intermittent fault only, with the help of the Question. PETER: ‘The effort of thought rather than the effort to be aware’ has got me stumped a bit. How I would have described myself 2 years ago is that I had constant turmoil and churning in my head. This is probably due to being a male, and women may well describe it more as churning in the heart. When I met Richard my aim was firmly established to reduce and eventually eliminate this churning to the point where I experienced life as I had in the PCE – free of this neurosis. By running the simple ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ I was able to isolate and investigate the particular issue that was the cause of my not being happy at the time. With that one dealt with, up popped the next one and away I went again – success breading success. As for the ‘help of the Question’, again I’m at a bit of a loss as to what you mean. I stopped having a big Question, rolled up my sleeves and concentrated on the little questions such as why was I irritated by what Vineeto was doing, what was the source of that, why did that feeling come up, what was that feeling? I brought the question back to something I could do about myself. The question was not just for the sake of questioning but the question was to investigate in order to find and discover an answer. In the discovering of the answer, the facts as opposed to the beliefs, a small but significant change resulted – I was more happy and more harmless. T’is of such little steps that Virtual Freedom is obtained. This is, after all, a practical method to become free of the Human Condition – it is not a philosophy. RESPONDENT: One intellectual question still comes up even though I may be solving it in practice. Even though I know that feelings are the premature conclusion of fact, once it has been accepted by the body as truth how does the body undo those part truths? My answer would be to review those beliefs & feelings in detail without jumping to conclude at the first emotional impulse and see what happens. PETER: Again, I’m having trouble following you. You say ‘I know that feelings are the premature conclusion of fact’. For me, it is clear that any feeling that arises is commonly expressed as an emotion-backed thought. This is evidenced when one identifies a feeling, say annoyance (mild anger), and traces it back to its source – say, something someone said an hour ago. One can clearly see that the feeling, those churning thoughts or worries, are due to an emotional response to what was said. These thoughts can linger on to produce a ‘feeling of annoyance’ that can last hours and days even – ruining any chance of being here. Often people relate feelings to a more dramatic outburst, such as a rush of anger, or a flush of love, while remaining in ignorance of the long term general background of feelings. A fact has nothing to do with feelings. A fact is a fact, a tree is a tree, a coffee cup is a coffee cup. No doubt, when people discover or read a fact it could produce a feeling response in them – but that is a reaction to the fact. When we point out that, after 5,000 years, and with billions of people following the spiritual path, there is still no peace on earth that is a fact. Now when one discovers a fact for oneself, acknowledges and realizes it, one can have a realization – a blindingly obvious flash of such intensity that a change is evidenced – one can no longer go back to believing what one believed before. What this will do is eliminate the associated feelings one has in relying on the belief and not the fact. It is such a painful, confusing and bewildering life most people lead in relying on belief, as one is never confident, able to proceed in any activity or relating with the surety that a sensible reliance on facts can give. RESPONDENT: In other words, the result of having an instinctual primitive self is to suffer and rooting out the cause of suffering in whatever form is essentially a learning about the active and accumulated influence of that primitive self which is the ending of it. PETER: Of course, ‘the learning’ you describe would not be the normal usage of the word. The learning I experienced was more of an un-learning of all the teachings, Teachings, beliefs, conditionings, etc. that made up ‘Peter the Sannyasin’, the father, the man, the lover, the ... It was a self-demolition process – hence the fear and angst that arises. When I first started, it quickly became apparent that I had to throw all I knew out the window, wipe the slate clean and acknowledge that what ever I thought I knew was really what others had told me was true. It is impossible to throw the lot out at once, but this was the attitude I adopted. This is easy to see in one’s work or in learning something new when one tries out for oneself, find out what works, adapts and changes. But when it comes to the Human Condition this means being willing to question the Revered Teachers – the mythical Wise and Holy Ones and their teachings. Thus it was that ‘Peter the spiritual seeker’ was eventually demolished and then one can get at the instinctual primitive self – the root source of the primitive instinctual emotions of fear and aggression. The path to Actual Freedom is not a learning but a self-immolation, and the first phase is the demolition of one’s social identity – the ‘guardian at the gate’ if you like. To ‘learn’ or redefine Actual Freedom words is but to ‘clip-on’ a bit of knowledge to one’s already dearly-held beliefs. Actual Freedom is not a philosophy or yet another belief-system – to treat it as such is to miss the main event – an actual freedom from malice and sorrow.
PETER: I am enjoying our correspondence. It is a chance for both of us to make sense of this business of feelings and emotions and, no doubt, it is useful for others on the list to do likewise. It is all a new, and to many, quite a preposterous notion that one can rid oneself not only of ego but of one’s very soul as well. RESPONDENT: Indeed there are the occasional pop up thoughts of fear, but that is not my main problem. Mine is one of ‘trying’, the effort of thought rather than the effort to be aware. This though is an intermittent fault only, with the help of the Question. PETER: The effort of thought rather than the effort to be aware has got me stumped a bit... RESPONDENT: What I meant is that I was thinking about whatever presented itself and not giving it complete attention. PETER: Thinking has had a very bad press in the spiritual world – ‘You are not the mind’, ‘leave your mind at the door’, ‘no-mind’, etc. are all phrases that attest to the spiritual belief that thinking is the problem, while not only letting feelings off scot-free but piously giving full reign to the supposed ‘good’ set. This misinterpretation of the human dilemma is based on the ancient ignorance of the genetically implanted instinctual passions and their subsequent effect on human behaviour. The revered ancients firmly believed that violence, masochism, torture, rape, etc. were the result of being possessed by evil spirits, and you can fully understand this if you have ever felt rage well up from somewhere deep inside you. ‘Something overcame me’, ‘It wasn’t me’ are common expressions used for this experience. For the less spectacular feelings such as sadness, melancholy, irritation and annoyance the ancients pegged thought as the problem – hence the Buddhists’ emphasis on ‘right thought’ and the meditative practices aimed at stopping thought. Given that it is 1999, our knowledge and understanding, not to mention our physical circumstances, have so dramatically altered that we now can clearly see that these archaic beliefs about the workings of human biology, neurology, genetics and behaviour have no basis in facts. We now know why the spiritual ‘solutions’ didn’t work and why they can never work. The belief in God is an obvious fairy-tale but the belief in Good feelings will be a tough one for many to shake. It appears that good feelings – love, compassion, etc. and the accompanying morality of good and bad, and the ethics of right and wrong, are all that stop humanity from running amok. Indeed, they do a reasonable job – despite the fact that this has been the bloodiest century so far in human history, a substantial number of people have been spared the horrendous experiences of total warfare, me included. It is only from this reasonably comfortable and secure position that we are now able to tackle becoming free of the Human Condition in its entirety. So, given the failure of God, the failure of ‘transcendence’ and the failure of morals and ethics, we now have discovered a method to eliminate the problem rather than merely seek solutions to the problem. The problem is that our instinctually based emotions contaminate thought and produce in us feelings of malice and sorrow, and, when ‘push comes to shove’, our moral and ethical safeguards rapidly break down to reveal the appalling dread, horror and violence of war and genocide. Given our autonomous human make-up – flesh and blood body, able to think and reflect – the only resources we have available to ‘clean ourselves up’ is our ability to think and reflect. Contemplative thought is the tool for the job – to make sense of the Human Condition and to become aware of how it is operating in oneself. As one gets the knack, this contemplative thought gradually becomes less contaminated, less churning, less confused and apperception can then occur. Apperception is when the mind becomes aware of itself as distinct from ‘I’ being aware of ‘my’ thoughts. Apperception is a Pure Consciousness Experience – a bare awareness. It is as though one has 360 degree vision or, as Alan said the other day, as though hearing and the other senses are amplified. The brain, freed of the pariah-like ‘self’, is capable of startling clarity in these times, and much can be gleaned from these experiences. The trick is to try and remember these ‘gleanings’ so one can take them back into ‘normal’ life, as it were. It can be difficult at the start as one has no emotional memory of a PCE, but I would often write things down, jot notes, look at how I was in ‘normal’, see what action was appropriate to take, see what the issue was, think it through. It’s enormous fun, although sometimes a bit overwhelming in the beginning and I often felt quite split, as though I was two people. Looking back, these experiences often eventuated from setting aside time for contemplation and I would use Richard’s Journal as a catalyst, a kick start, to get the old brain working after all those years of spiritual drifting and day-dreaming. The brain really ‘likes’ to think, just as the legs like to walk or run. Thinking is its job, its function, and a brain freed of feelings and emotions is an amazing thing to behold. I’ve written more on this subject in the Intelligence chapter in my journal, if you are interested. The other part of our ‘normal’ perception are feelings and the trick here is to aim for the felicitous feelings – care, consideration, patience, well-wishing, etc. while tackling the more pernicious ones that prevents one from being happy and harmless. Again the PCE will give invaluable insight as one checks exactly which feelings operate – and what is actual – when our perception is freed of an emotional ‘self’. When back to ‘normal’ again, you are then able to use whatever feelings are running to your advantage, to achieve your goal – passion became fuel for the fire to become free, stubbornness a refusal to give in, power the ambition to be one of the ‘few’, compassion the possibility to actually do something, rather than just feel sad for those fellow humans who suffer horrendously. So, think away, think away ... as in contemplation ... opposed to meditation. (It’s that 180 degrees bit again). * RESPONDENT: Often when faced with raw emotion I have no idea what to do other than ride the tide. PETER: I was browsing the local bookshop yesterday and came across a book by the author of ‘The Primal Scream’, whose name I have forgotten. I think it was one of the influential books of the ‘express your feelings – don’t repress them’ movement that gathered momentum in the 60’s. That Guru (whose name I won’t mention) adopted this philosophy into his active feeling-expressing meditations and America particularly seems to have taken the philosophy on as a national characteristic. ‘To wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve’, Sharing’, ‘Getting it out’, ‘Childhood Traumas’, ‘Re-birthing’, ‘Past-Life Therapy’, ‘Being Sensitive’ etc. – they all point to expressing one’s feelings as a noble pursuit. Not only the current ones but regularly digging into the re-cycling bin for a re-play of past ‘hurts’ if you’re are a bit weak and lack-lustre in the feeling department. This re-living, re-playing, emphasising, stirring up, inventing, re-inventing, empathising, sympathising, getting sympathy and ‘letting go’ simply keeps the whole lot in existence and sometimes can even give a bit of post-adrenalin ‘feel-good’. At best, it can only result in a re-arranging of the furniture on the Titanic. Recent reports from America are that the therapy boom, largely based on expressing one’s emotions, is dwindling – many have spent decades (and thousands of dollars) for zilch results. No need to say anything about repressing emotions – the failures are well documented and obvious. This third way is to neither repress nor express. From experience I would say that exactly this doing nothing to dispel, avoid, deny, escape from, repress or express creates a tension and ‘self’-awareness that is the very situation that causes ‘something’ to change. And then that change is not of ‘your’ doing – it happens at a level deeper than your normal consciousness. No need for esoterics – it is a change in the brain’s software programming – the brain becoming free of the pernicious effects of the social identity and instinctual self. This was very well illustrated by Alan’s recent post about lust disappearing – in hindsight he noticed the feeling had gone! No ‘doing’ that Alan could point to, no specific event – but gone never the less. Again, a bit of experience from myself and others who are treading this path – besides occasional feelings of confusion, bewilderment, split-personalities, etc. there are often some physical effects such as headaches, bodily tensions and the likes that can occur, but these are ‘par for the course’ for such a radical procedure as re-wiring one’s brain. For me, I just figured that whatever went on, I would wake up the next morning and make breakfast again. Whatever went on in head and heart was okay by me because it meant I was incrementally becoming free of malice and sorrow. * PETER: This is, after all, a practical method to become free of the Human Condition – it is not a philosophy. RESPONDENT: And thank goodness not godness for that. PETER: Well said.
RESPONDENT: This question arose as I was thinking about what you wrote. It seems possible that when an emotion looses its hold then so do all the associated beliefs. So I wonder why the beliefs have to be questioned one by one. Why not get down to the task of seeking out the emotions and not the beliefs as such. Or is it that it does not really matter which belief is questioned, as once the associated emotion is disbanded, other beliefs based on the same emotion will also loose their authenticity. PETER: It may be useful to look at the different path and process that Richard took to Actual Freedom and the one we are pursuing. As you will probably have read, Richard experienced a Pure Consciousness Experience wherein he experienced a ‘self’-less state of purity and perfection lasting some 4 hours. Over the next 9 months he used the method of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to question and virtually eliminate all the bad feelings and emotions. At the end of this period, instead of achieving what he was aiming for – the PCE as a constant state – he died an ‘ego-death’ to emerge into what he called Absolute Freedom – a state he soon discovered was akin to the coveted Enlightenment of the Eastern Teachings. While his aim was the PCE, he had lobbed inadvertently into an Altered State of Consciousness. He was not at all familiar with Eastern teaching or philosophy during this process, so it would appear that the inevitable result of tackling and eliminating the ‘bad’ is that one can end up with a new identity – the ‘Good One’, or in full blown delusion ‘God’. I suspect many seekers of freedom have befallen this trap despite their sincere intentions at the beginning of their search, while others have made a blatant and obvious bee-line for the Glamour, Glory and Glitz. As you know, it then took Richard a further 11 years to dismantle and eliminate this second identity – soul, Self, spirit, being, or whatever. Now, the path I am following is to run these two stages together, if you like – to eliminate both ego and soul, to eliminate both good and bad feelings to achieve a complete ‘self’-less state as is evident by the PCE. The path to Enlightenment is a well-worn track and given that the bad, ‘evil’ and socially frowned-upon values are the easiest to eliminate, and one gets enormous kudos for doing so – to be adored and worshipped as a God-man or Goddess is about as much kudos as one can possibly get! But in questioning and eliminating the so-called good there is nothing in it for ‘me’ – indeed, it is the end of ‘me’ as a social identity and instinctual being. I become an anonymous non-entity, or non-identity, as well as having no instinctual-based self. It became very apparent to me that this social identity held the clue to tackling the other half of the feelings and emotions – the social identity is the ‘guardian at the gate’, as I have written recently. It is impossible for a ‘moral’ person to tackle the so-called good feelings, it is impossible for a ‘spiritual’ person to tackle the idea of a spirit, it is impossible for a ‘ethical’ person to tackle right and wrong, it is impossible for a ‘prudish’ person to tackle sexual issues. One must dismantle these values taught by Humanity in order to dig deeper – to get below the surface, as it were. In my experience, this social identity is a conglomerate of all the beliefs, morals, ethics, values, principles and psittacisms that I have been programmed with since birth. It is only when I have eliminated or wiped this programming back to a stage where I cease to be a believer, where I cease the very act of believing, that I can look and investigate the core instinctual being that is ‘me’. A lot of work is done on the way in eliminating the effect of these emotions on one’s daily life such that one achieves a virtual freedom – a stable ‘base’ from which one can look with clear eyes at one’s instinctual self, without the guardians of the social morals, ethics, principles, etc. relentlessly churning and stirring. Another way of putting it is that one is then able to dismantle the psychic entity without the psychological entity ‘jumping up and down’ so much. You have reduced the effects of the instinctual emotions in daily life to almost zero such that ‘I’ is almost ephemeral, ethereal, ghostly and hardly able to maintain its existence. Now this is, at the moment, just the experience of a few but I would say, on the basis of the evidence so far, that in order to avoid the trap of enlightenment, one needs to dismantle the beliefs that form one’s social identity in order to avoid the trap of becoming yet another Grand and Glorious identity. I would suppose that, as more and more people become actually free, that this ‘step outside Humanity’ will become less fearful and dramatic as one will have the confidence of knowing that others have done it. As I wrote in my Journal –
This avoiding the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ is at the very crux of tackling beliefs – unless the belief in God, an after-life – any form of ‘something else’, ‘somewhere else’ or ‘sometime else’ – is fully investigated and de-bunked you could end up Enlightened. And for those who have experienced a PCE, to end up a God-man is but a piffling waste. Then once one has done one’s homework, demolished one’s social identity one takes the final step with confidence born out of surety of the many PCEs experienced in Virtual Freedom, not to mention the glimpses of ASC’s experienced as a contrast. Well, that got a bit long, but I hope it is of use and may explain what many regard as the obsession of actualist with anything spiritual . One cannot be obsessed, preoccupied, consumed, engrossed and curious enough as to the machinations of the spiritual and psychic worlds. Not only are beliefs and passions preventing your being actually happy and harmless, there are also 160,000,000 million people who have died in wars fought this century alone and have died senselessly for these very same beliefs and passions. RESPONDENT: Another thought, are there feelings that are specific to a belief? For example if I believe I am a callous cold person then I seem to be able to create the associated feeling. It seems though, that the feeling is really based on whatever gave the belief its authenticity in the first place. PETER: Aye, indeed. When first one begins to question beliefs a flurry of feelings and deep-seated emotions surface – some very strongly and fiercely. One can experience this from the other end as it were – should one be silly enough to question someone else’s belief. The animosity and vitriol that Vineeto and I experienced on the Sannyas list is testament to this, and the wars fought to defend beliefs and the crusades to impose one’s beliefs on others are the global equivalent. This self-questioning, this questioning of the very beliefs that constituted who ‘I’ felt and thought ‘I’ was as an identity, bought forth the fear of ‘my’ survival and was simultaneously an enormous blow to ‘my’ pride – ‘my’ self-esteem. ‘I’ am my beliefs, my feelings, my imaginations, my dreams, my passions, and they are ‘me’. They are not actual but they are real. What I can do is do everything possible to ensure their demise in order that I, this flesh and blood body may be free. The trick is to regard it all as the Human Condition, something ‘I’ was taught and programmed to be. Taught as in programmed since birth, programmed as in genetically programmed with a set of survival instincts – fear, aggression, nurture and desire. As one gets on in life and has sufficient experience on can look with clear eyes at who one is and decide to change if one wants to. To change one’s identity is a relatively simple operation – many change from ‘normal’ to ‘spiritual’ – to change to ‘actual’ simply involves wiping the whole program back to the empty hard drive to discover what one is, not what others decided you should be. In removing the social identity one is able to see that one is a sensate, reflective flesh and blood animal. Eliminate the instinctual animal passions – your animal heritage, and you’re free of malice and sorrow ... you then have achieved your destiny and escaped your fate. So, in answer to your question, it’s a bit of both. One tends to tackle what is on the plate at the time, what issue is apparent at the time. It may well be sex that is a major issue, relationship, disciple-hood, being ‘good’, or whatever. It is not essential to sort all of it out – a bit of cleaning up can be done after the event but sufficient has to be tackled to give one confidence and surety that life without a ‘self’ – without ‘me’ – is the only alternative you will settle for – to live the Pure Consciousness Experience, 24 hours a day, every day.
RESPONDENT: Thanks for your post. Just one point, I notice that there is a lot of repetition in your post. Is there a reason for that? PETER: No. I was responding to your post and in writing to you I was sorting it out for myself and most often that ‘sorting it out’ is a repetitive business. I know I have spent countless hours studying, considering and contemplating upon the Human Condition and it certainly seemed to me to be endlessly repetitive at times. What I see now is that the ‘real’ world view and ‘spiritual ‘world view are so invasive, so persuasive and so ingrained that they are almost indelibly wired into my brain and a constant repetition of fact rather than belief is a vital necessity for freedom. Again and again I seemed to go over the same point to get the new brain-pattern working so the realization was not merely intellectual but became a cellular change, a synapse re-routing, or whatever the physical process is. The habits and archaic thinking of a life-time have to be deleted from the brain’s programming, and this takes time and repetition, for me at least. The other point is that this whole question is a new realisation for me – that one needs to substantially dismantle the social identity in order to be able to get a clear-eyed, unemotional look at the instincts in operation in their rawest and crudest terms. I had never seen the point so clearly before. In writing to you I have had a few shocking glimpses of the insanity, horror and hopelessness of the Human Condition in operation. These glimpses would not have been possible for the old moralistic, ethical and ‘good’ Peter. It is only with the elimination of the social ‘me’ that I can abandon the concept that there is a solution within the Human Condition and gaily consider ‘my’ demise, for ‘I’ am Humanity and Humanity is ‘me’. The other issue is that only when ‘my’ personal feelings are sufficiently diminished can I ‘get at’ the almost palpable psychic net that binds me to the Human Condition. Freedom is then firmly in sight. RESPONDENT: Also I would just like to say that the results are in, and it won’t be long (only ten years-ha) before feeling good 99% of the time will be a base. These are some of the indicators that I can recall so far:
PETER: Sounds good to me. Once I started to get results on the path it was hard to see why anyone could object to being happy and harmless.
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