25.3.1999

PETER to Alan: While it is both fascinating and intriguing to contemplate upon an Actual Freedom – what would it be like, how would it be, etc. – it must always remain unknowable to ‘me’ as ‘I’ am now. Peter to Alan, 17.3.1999

RESPONDENT: The above is part of your post to Alan. So from this, should I assume you cannot really talk about Actual Freedom at all.

PETER: You are obviously free to assume anything you want. I personally gave up assuming along with believing, trusting, hoping. I don’t know how much of my story you have read, how much of my journal, the sense I make of being a human being, my experiences on the path to becoming happy and harmless, how I live in peace and harmony with Vineeto, etc. If you are making your assumption on the above isolated one-sentence quote, I guess you will make of it what you want to make out of it. I find it curious that you said nothing about the rest of what I said –

[Peter]: ‘While it is both fascinating and intriguing to contemplate upon an Actual Freedom – what would it be like, how would it be, etc. – it must always remain unknowable to ‘me’ as ‘I’ am now. The only thing ‘I’ can actually do to facilitate an actual freedom from malice and sorrow is to get myself to a state of Virtual Freedom as rapidly as possible. This involves ridding myself of my social identity and instinctual-based sense of ‘self’ as much as is ‘humanly’ possible. To get to the 99% stage is what ‘I’ can do to facilitate ‘my’ demise. There is work to be done and plenty of it, for continual perfect days are well beyond normal human expectations anyway – for one becomes virtually happy and harmless, 24 hrs a day, every day. Depression, sadness, loneliness, boredom, resentment, anger, animosity, annoyance become but vague memories as ‘I’ become less and less substantial, less of the one who is experiencing, less of the one who is controlling, less of the one who is thinking and feeling. Apperception, naiveté and sensate experience replace confusion, doubt, fear and alienation.’ Peter to Alan, 17.3.1999

Maybe becoming free of depression, sadness, loneliness, boredom, resentment, anger, animosity, annoyance, etc. is not of interest to you.

Richard was recently talking to someone who had an academic interest in Actual Freedom but when he met Vineeto and I he appeared to lose interests rapidly for we were the proof that the method to become happy and harmless – free of the Human Condition – actually works. That meant that he came to a point to move beyond a mild curiosity and a safely-distanced philosophical appraisal to seeing it as something practical that worked. To get off his bum, up out of the lotus position, out of his head and heart and come to his senses – there are many ways to say it. Seems he may well join the countless others who have turned away to follow the tried and failed. At least there is no chance of failing on the spiritual path – one simply becomes a devotee, it requires neither effort nor intelligence, neither independence nor autonomy, neither sincerity nor any degree of risk at all.

To have come to a Virtual Freedom is to live beyond normal human expectations anyway. Being virtually free is second best to being actually free, but it is far superior to the spiritual insanity whereby one sells one’s freedom, denies one’s intelligence and surrenders ‘lock, stock and barrel’ to some God-man. One is then twice removed from the actual world, and usually trapped in the spiritual world for the term of one’s natural life by the demands of loyalty, trust, faith and hope.

So, I would be interested in what it is you assume, on what evidence you base your assumption and whether you had come to a conclusion that evinced any action?

Of course, if your stand is to ‘assume you cannot really talk about Actual Freedom at all’ you can ignore everything I have written ... including this post.

27.3.1999

RESPONDENT: No, Peter, you did not understand what I was trying to say. I am not assuming anything instead I asked you my question.

I am saying if Actual Freedom is unknowable to you, can you, Peter, still talk about it, that is, Actual Freedom? All along, I had thought you and Vineeto had achieved this state of Actual Freedom, whatever that means. But when I read your post, I was alarmed and I asked you the question. So would you please try to answer my simple question?

PETER: Okay, given that you say your question is simple and you have nothing to say about the context from which you plucked the quoted sentence that formed your question – my answer is ‘I wouldn’t advise you to assume anything’. I know that is a bit embellished and complicated. I could have said a simple ‘No’, but you might have taken it as some sort of advice.

RESPONDENT: As for why I did not say anything for the rest of what you said, I have nothing to say.

PETER: Nor do I.

*

PETER: So, I would be interested in what it is you assume, on what evidence you base your assumption and whether you had come to a conclusion that evinced any action?

RESPONDENT: No, I did not assume anything and I have not come to any conclusion. I asked you ‘Should I assume ...’

PETER: I’ve managed to clock up some 200,000 words, as has Vineeto, to describe as accurately and honestly as possible the success encountered on the path to Actual Freedom. I rather naively considered that it might be of sufficient interest to others who were discontent with the results of the spiritual path. I deliberately wrote it as a personal journal, in simple language, but it has had zilch impact on those who even bother to read it. I take it from your comments that you have read little of what Richard, Vineeto or I have written. It would also seem that you must have deleted most of our posts to the Sannyas list – ‘too many words’ was the usual comment. Your comment about ‘Actual Freedom, whatever that means’ does indicate a lack of reading and investigation.

As you yourself said to Vineeto – [Respondent]: ‘What bothered me at the time was that, for me, your messages were largely content-less and highly verbose’. [endquote]. Seems you are still bothered.

You also said – [Respondent]: ‘Once I came to know what you and Peter were so excited about, Richard’s technique, ‘How am I ...’, I was mad with you. Because there is nothing new in the technique’.

‘What surprised me, however, was that you and Peter went in so much lengths to trash Osho in particular and eastern religions in general. And for what, a simple technique which perhaps everyone knows, at least, I believe, everyone on the sannyas list does’. ‘In my opinion, Vineeto, you and Peter acted like two idiots who tried to do the same on the Sannyas list’.

‘In fact, if you spent 10-20 years with Osho and/or eastern religions and you missed the bottom-line, which is no different from what Richard is saying, don’t blame Osho or eastern religion or any other religion. But blame yourself that you missed it!!’ [endquote].

In order to save you from being bothered, mad, surprised, alarmed and obviously confused about what we are saying it would be appreciated if you would read a bit so you at least have a basic understanding of what it is that we are talking about. A good deal of the million or so words written about Actual Freedom are in answer to objections to being happy and harmless.

The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List has been established as a forum for those with a genuine interest in being free of malice and sorrow and assumes they at least have some degree of reading and investigation. To this very purpose Vineeto is currently changing our web-site into being topic-oriented with associated links to a glossary, writings and relevant correspondence from Richard, Peter and Vineeto. We are setting this up deliberately in order to allow quick appraisal, personal preference and in-depth investigation.

Most spiritual seekers seem either to want an easy path to instant Enlightenment or when that fails, to ‘hang around’ the spiritual scene to absorb a bit of Feel-Good-energy. The ‘all or nothing’ approach as Richard recently said. Given that only .0001% get it ‘all’ and become Enlightened that makes the rest the ones who settle for nothing as they become devotees, worshipers, followers, true and faithful believers, at the slave-end of the Master-disciple business.

Actual Freedom is about getting off your bum, or out of the lotus position, and doing something to become free of malice and sorrow. You, yourself, as-you-are-now, can get to the 99% stage, a virtual freedom – this is factually validated by the experience of the handful of people who are writing of their successes on this list. The next quantum leap to the state of being actually free of the Human Condition has yet to be actualised in anybody other than Richard. That it is possible in others is clearly evidenced by the PCE, an experience very common to humans whereby the psychological and psychic entity is in temporary absence or abeyance. We all have had a glimpse of our destiny – a glimpse of an actual freedom, a glimpse of the actual world. The combination of the PCEs I have experienced and the continuous, superb, so-near-to perfect life of Virtual Freedom means that I now know permanent actual freedom is imminently inevitable... and that ‘I’ will never experience it.

There, I’ve blown it again. Just when I said I have nothing to say. The spiritual people accuse me of being a ‘Born Again Christian’ or a ‘Jehovah’s Witness’ which I find cute. One shouldn’t be enthusiastic ... or they will try cut you down to size!

It’s just that there is an actual world of purity and perfection under our very noses ... and the time is ripe for those who want it.

30.3.1999

PETER: Maybe becoming free of depression, sadness, loneliness, boredom, resentment, anger, animosity, annoyance, etc. is not of interest to you.

RESPONDENT: No, Peter, your speculation about me is way off the mark. At present I am learning where my anger is coming from. I think my need for love is bringing that and lately I am trying to find where the need for love is coming from. I am also looking as to where do the random feelings of unconditional love I get, come from.

PETER: No, it is neither speculation nor ‘way off the mark’. Up until now the only way to become ‘free’ of malice and sorrow has been to indulge the imagination and affective faculties (feelings) such that one achieves a ‘spiritual’ freedom – usually referred to as Self-realization, or in its full-blown delusion, as Enlightenment. This is done by negating or denying the ‘bad’ feelings of malice and sorrow and giving full reign to the ‘good’ feelings of love and compassion. To call this figment of the imagination ‘freedom’ is to abuse the meaning of the word which is why Richard used the word Actual Freedom for his discovery. Given that you are firmly on the spiritual path, as is evidenced by your objections and refusal to want to even begin to understand what Actual Freedom is really about, you are obviously only interested in an imaginary freedom. The traditional ‘beam me up, Scottie’ solution, or the ‘beam me up, Bhagwan’ version.

This is not a criticism of you personally – these spiritual fantasy ‘escapes’ have, after all, been the only thing available up until now. But you are writing on The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List and any efforts to convince us, deride us, condemn us, or put us down will fall on deaf ears. We actualists stubbornly refuse to settle for a second-best freedom – a synthetic freedom that leads to the Master-disciple system which perpetuates the fantasy world of good and evil spirits, after-life, God, Religions and all sorts of meta-physical mumbo-jumbo. An actualist rapidly moves from learning, thinking, trying, and looking to investigating, pursuing, discovering, uncovering, finding, implementing, activating, challenging and dismantling feelings, emotions, beliefs and instincts. From a mere snorkelling around on the surface to a bit of sincere deep sea diving into one’s own psyche.

*

PETER: Richard was recently talking to someone who had an academic interest in Actual Freedom but when he met Vineeto and I he appeared to lose interests rapidly for we were the proof that the method to become happy and harmless – free of the Human Condition – actually works. That meant that he came to a point to move beyond a mild curiosity and a safely-distanced philosophical appraisal to seeing it as something practical that worked. To get off his bum, up out of the lotus position, out of his head and heart and come to his senses – there are many ways to say it. Seems he may well join the countless others who have turned away to follow the tried and failed. At least there is no chance of failing on the spiritual path – one simply becomes a devotee, it requires neither effort nor intelligence, neither independence nor autonomy, neither sincerity nor any degree of risk at all.

To have come to a Virtual Freedom is to live beyond normal human expectations anyway. Being virtually free is second best to being actually free, but it is far superior to the spiritual insanity whereby one sells one’s freedom, denies one’s intelligence and surrenders ‘lock, stock and barrel’ to some God-man. One is then twice removed from the actual world, and usually trapped in the spiritual world for the term of one’s natural life by the demands of loyalty, trust, faith and hope.

RESPONDENT: When I read this the first time, I said: why is Peter writing this. I find this to be your normal diatribe which I find useless for me.

PETER: I thought it would be, but I always take the opportunity to write something that might be useful to the others on the list who are genuinely interested in Actual Freedom. Then the list can be an exchange of experiences, observations and information on becoming actually free of malice and sorrow, rather than the meaning-less protest and objection. To criticise what you refuse to even try to understand is meaning-less. Your criticism is about as useful as a blind man judging a painting competition. Of course, if you are interested in becoming actually free of malice and sorrow, that is another matter.

RESPONDENT: I will go over it in detail.

PETER: If it is useless to you, why bother going over it in detail? Are you indulging in criticism for criticism’s sake? Could this be a purely academic exercise? An opportunity for a bit of ‘venting’ or ‘sharing’ as they say in the spiritual world?

RESPONDENT: Why are you telling me about this guy with only academic interest in Actual Freedom ? What has it got to do with the question I asked you, or with me, or you / Vineeto / Richard in relation to the question I asked ?

PETER: I did think you might have had some interest in Actual Freedom – this is, after all, The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List – some curiosity, but obviously not.

RESPONDENT: Now that we are talking about this guy. You write:

[Peter]: ‘... but when he met Vineeto and I, he appeared to lose interests rapidly for we were the proof that the method to become happy and harmless – free of the Human Condition – actually works.’ [endquote].

Why would he lose interest because you and Vineeto were the proof that the method works. Your explanation does not make sense to me. Did this guy tell you why he lost interest. May be you could not explain the method to him well to evoke his interest. There are a number of possibilities as to why he lost interest, you are just giving me one. Did you think of all the possibilities why he lost interest.

PETER: So far there are hundreds of thousands of words written by hundreds of people who have objected to the idea of becoming happy and harmless. These objections were all on the theoretical, ‘it can’t be done’ basis, rather than reports of failure. Your criticisms fall squarely in the same ‘stand back and criticise’ category. You have obviously not even got to the stage of being interested, apart from your enjoyment of the ‘put-down’ type conversation. T’is a fun game to play – it is just that what you are putting down is the possibility of your becoming actually free of malice and sorrow. It’s called ‘shooting oneself in the foot’.

RESPONDENT: When you came to the Sannyas list, I could not understand what you were saying, so I requested you to be brief and to the point. But you kept going with your largely content-less and verbose messages so I stopped reading your messages on the Sannyas list. Even on this thread, I asked you a simple question but instead of answering the question you went on to give your standard schpeel with denunciations.

PETER: So I take it you continue to write to me out of some sort of masochistic enjoyment – a sort of a constant complaining with denunciations.

*

PETER: That meant that he came to a point to move beyond a mild curiosity and a safely-distanced philosophical appraisal to seeing it as something practical that worked.

RESPONDENT: Is it another speculation on your part. Maybe your constant complaining is a put off because it hides the info one is looking / asking for.

PETER: And maybe your constant complaining and proudly and stubbornly parading your ignorance about Actual Freedom hides an agenda? But, then again, I would be accused of yet another speculation.

T’is and T’isn’ts are a bit like playing table tennis. Your serve...

*

PETER: Seems he may well join the countless others who have turned away to follow the ‘tried and failed’.

RESPONDENT: Now this is what wastes my time – you saying ‘tried and failed’.

PETER: Yet another complaint? You continue to write and I can continue to waste your time?

There is a solution to your problem, but I won’t tell you just yet – I’ll keep writing.

RESPONDENT: Richard likes to say it and you like to repeat it. First, define the terms and then give me proofs of your statements. tried? tried what? Give me the details of the method tried. Then define success and failure quantitatively. Then tell me how you can determine with certainty that a person tried a method with sincerity for whatever period. And oh, tell me your method of determination the above info too. Then tell me what they got, success or failure, and tell me how you come to conclusion about success or failure. Then go on to the next person and so on and so forth. Give me the count, Peter.

PETER: Since you stubbornly refuse to read my ‘largely content-less and verbose messages’ this all seems rather pointless. Rather than waste KB’s I refer you to Peter’s Correspondence with the Sannyas List No 10 and No 11 where this was discussed at length.

RESPONDENT: If you do not like what I am saying above let us talk about it. But until then don’t give me any sermon with platitudes such as ‘tried and failed’.

PETER: I would have thought the issue was – what have you tried, is it working, has it failed, are you happy and harmless? This list offers a third alternative to becoming spiritual or staying normal. If the spiritual ‘tried and true’ is working for you – fair enough. Just don’t give me sermons about Actual Freedom while simultaneously declaring you don’t know what it is. Proudly trumpeting one’s ignorance with such platitudes as the ‘Truth cannot be spoken’, ‘Ignorance is bliss’, ‘No-mind’ ‘You are That’ and the ‘The Truth Is’ – the sermons of Ancient Wisdom are just plain silly, and totally unoriginal.

*

RESPONDENT: Now about Richard’s method, he calls it ‘tried and tested’. If nobody objects, I would say, at least you, Vineeto and Alan have tried it sincerely. If success is to be defined by achieving Actual Freedom, then you have not succeeded by your own admission. I guess then it is Richard and maybe Vineeto and Alan. I do not know anybody else in the running. So, by my count, it is one definite success (Richard), two may-be-successes (Vineeto and Alan) one not succeeded yet (Peter).

PETER: If nobody objects? You’re free to indulge in whatever fantasies you want. Have you ‘placed’ yourself in the Freedom ranks yet, or are you happy to remain on the sidelines as a resident critic and ‘keeper of the score’? You could consider a move from ‘scorekeeper’ and ‘critic’ to participant, or would that be too radical a move? Is there a saying that goes something like ‘There are those who do and those who merely criticise?’

Given that you have been on the list for a while now I’ll let you in to some inner-circle secrets. Actual Freedom, as you already know is completely non-spiritual and is in fact a front for the I.H.S. (International Hedonists Society). The I.H.S. grew out of the N.H.S. which was established by M. Python, H. Wilson, T. Beatle and L.S.D in England in the 60’s. The Indian mystics M.A.Rijuana and M.E.D.Tation attracted many of the followers away but it is currently enjoying a clandestine revival using the A.F.T. as a front. The original N.H.S. charter extolling the virtues of H.H (Happiness and Harmlessness) was derailed by esoteric and meta-physical influences but is now firmly back on the rails, sailing full steam ahead, has a full tank of petrol, is soon to turn the corner and then you won’t see it for the dust of the mixed metaphors left in its wake. So, your interest could not have come at a better time for both the organization and yourself, as the revival is in full swing. You are definitely right about Richard – he is the genuine article. He has demonstrated an unswerving ability to remain totally happy and harmless despite the severe provocation of Web mailing lists and the abounding cynicism of ex. N.H.S. members. I did, however, manage to draw level with him for several hours at our last competition where, despite the extreme provocation of no less than 6 eager spiritual-ist volunteers, I managed to remain both happy and harmless. I almost had to apply some effort in the last 10 minutes but I managed it right to the end un-assisted. A deep breathe and I leaped up on the top step of the dais, arm in arm with Richard, claiming my share of the trophy. It’s definitely a tough business, this being happy and harmless – the training is gruelling, the opposition relentless and uncompromising, the social ostracising palpable – but the delicious slide into an anonymous, selfless happiness and harmlessness is delectably delightful.

*

PETER: At least there is no chance of failing on the spiritual path – one simply becomes a devotee, it requires neither effort nor intelligence, neither independence nor autonomy, neither sincerity nor any degree of risk at all.

RESPONDENT: First, why are you telling me this. What is in this for me. Why is this relevant to what I had asked ?

PETER: It is only relevant to you if it means something to you. It meant something to me when I realised what lay at the core of the spiritual quest – surrender – which is, as per definition, an acknowledgment of defeat.

RESPONDENT: Second, what facts these statements are based on. Did you go through these stages, devotee without effort, with no intelligence, dependent, without sincerity and no courage to take risks. If you went through these stages, did you choose to go through it or somebody put a gun to your head? Or are you talking about others. If you are talking about others, how many people are you talking about? How are you sure each of them went through some or all of these stages? Did you interview them extensively? What are your methods to determine that you are correct in what you are saying? Or do you like to make such statements because Richard makes similar statements?

PETER: Again I’ve written extensively about my own experiences on the spiritual path in my journal so I won’t ‘waste your time’ in replying at length. If the spiritual path works for you – if you’re happy with devotion, love, trust, faith, hope, loyalty, gratitude, surrender – well and good. For me it didn’t work, and the simple acknowledgment of that fact was the beginning of the end of the insidious feeling of pride and its associated arrogance, so rampant in the spiritual world.

*

PETER: To have come to a Virtual Freedom is to live beyond normal human expectations anyway. Being virtually free is second best to being actually free.

RESPONDENT: Good for you.

PETER: Ah ha, the No 5 stamp of approval! I could put this one beside my last I.H.S. half-trophy in my H.H. bookcase.

RESPONDENT: This brings me back to the original question: Can you talk anything at all about being actually free ?

PETER: About 200,000 words to date but you stubbornly refuse to read anything I have written about the matter. If I did say anything more about it, it would only go well over your head as you have already declared you don’t know anything about Actual Freedom at all. I do find it indicative that you re-post your original question back so quickly as it is clear that you had neither time nor inclination to find out for yourself by reading anything further. When you said ‘I ignored some of your comments in your last post to me’ that obviously included my answer to your original question.

*

PETER: But it is far superior to the spiritual insanity whereby one sells one’s freedom, denies one’s intelligence and surrenders ‘lock, stock and barrel’ to some God-man. One is then twice removed from the actual world, and usually trapped in the spiritual world for the term of one’s natural life by the demands of loyalty, trust, faith and hope.

RESPONDENT: Again I do not know if you are talking about what you went through i.e. you sold your freedom, you lacked intelligence and surrendered lock, stock and barrel to Osho (?) and forgot about the day to day pleasures by choice or otherwise. Or other people told you about their experiences. Or you are just making general statements again.

PETER: Do you merely see Actual Freedom as some sort of clip-on to your spiritual belief-system? Whenever I talk about my experiences and observations and talk of facts you merely revert to general statements about me, while deliberately and blatantly avoiding the factual evidence presented. Have you read anything written about belief and facts in any of our writings? Are you interested in moving beyond believing what others tell you is the truth into the scary waters of finding out for yourself? Your question is obviously spuriously rhetorical as you have already ranked me as ‘not-yet succeeded’.

RESPONDENT: At the end a request, if you choose to answer, please don’t just copy big parts of your journal and send it to me. I don’t think I will read it at this time of my life. If short parts of your journal are relevant to what I am asking please send them, otherwise I will prefer to read what you write about what is in your mind now.

PETER: It’s pretty obvious, at this time of your life, that you have decided to post to this list just to ‘give us a serve’. The experience of writing to the Sannyas list exposed the extent of malice stirred up when their Holy-One was de-bunked for the deluded failure he was. And you ask me why I talk of the ‘tried and failed’?

A good open-eyed look at the Sannyas community will very clearly reveal the fact that, if these people represent the ‘New Man – Zorba the Buddha’, yet another Guru and yet another Religion has failed to bring an end to malice and sorrow.

I too have a request, ‘please don’t just copy <big chunks of meaning-less criticisms> and send it to me. I don’t think I will read it at this time of my life. If short parts of your <criticism> are relevant to what I am saying please send them, otherwise I will prefer to read about what is in your mind now.’ ie maybe you could lift your game a bit, raise the level of discussion from beliefs and fantasy to facts and actuality?

But if you want to talk about becoming happy and harmless, I’m an expert by now. It is something I searched for all my adult life – I just got way-laid on the spiritual path for 17 years.

Such simply words ... Happy ... and Harmless.

What they translate into is Personal Peace and an eventual Global Peace.

So, I’m off to the shop now to buy some plot as Vineeto lost hers last night and I couldn’t find mine either.

1.4.1999

PETER: While it is both fascinating and intriguing to contemplate upon an Actual Freedom – what would it be like, how would it be, etc. – it must always remain unknowable to ‘me’ as ‘I’ am now.

RESPONDENT: The above is part of your post to Alan. So from this, should I assume you cannot really talk about Actual Freedom at all.

PETER: You are obviously free to assume anything you want. I personally gave up assuming along with believing, trusting, hoping. I don’t know how much of my story you have read, how much of my journal, the sense I make of being a human being, my experiences on the path to becoming happy and harmless, how I live in peace and harmony with Vineeto, etc. If you are making your assumption on the above isolated one-sentence quote, I guess you will make of it what you want to make out of it. I find it curious that you said nothing about the rest of what I said – <Snip>

RESPONDENT: No, Peter, You did not understand what I was trying to say. I am not assuming anything instead I asked you my question. <Snip>

PETER: Okay, given that you say your question is simple and you have nothing to say about the context from which you plucked the quoted sentence that formed your question – my answer is ‘I wouldn’t advise you to assume anything’. I know that is a bit embellished and complicated. I could have said a simple ‘No’, but you might have taken it as some sort of advice.

RESPONDENT: You did not give the following as the answer to my question, but for my needs, this is the answer to my question. This is what I was asking from you –

[Peter]: ‘That it (Actual Freedom) is possible in others is clearly evidenced by the PCE, an experience very common to humans whereby the psychological and psychic entity is in temporary absence or abeyance. We all have had a glimpse of our destiny – a glimpse of an actual freedom, a glimpse of the actual world. The combination of the PCEs I have experienced and the continuous, superb, so-near-to perfect life of Virtual Freedom means that I now know permanent actual freedom is imminently inevitable... and that ‘I’ will never experience it.’ [endquote].

PETER: Jolly Good – you have found an answer that you were searching for all along, and Lo and Behold – it was the answer you ‘assumed’ anyway! Spiritual people usually only ask questions to get answers to suit their ‘needs’, it’s part of their training. One asks rhetorical questions, ‘safe’ questions, intellectual questions. They sort of troll through the beliefs (and facts!) to find something that vaguely suits their beliefs and tack it on as a bit of a ‘clip-on’. They adopt and adapt the latest beliefs, the current fashions, all the while being ‘flexible’ and ‘open’, which is really – confused and gullible.

It seems you are doing a bit of ‘cyber shopping’ to see if there is anything here that might be useful sometime. Given that what we are ‘selling’ in this ‘cyber-shop’ is a tried and tested method of becoming free of the Human Condition – which includes the whole of the spiritual and religious non-sense, it does take more than a mere browse through to ‘get’ what we are saying.

RESPONDENT: You are right, I have not read too much about things related to actual freedom. I read quite a bit of Richard’s web site when I got on this list in December but then I stopped reading it. I enjoyed ‘Attentiveness ...’ a lot. In fact, I got a ‘gem’ from it, and because of that I am doing new experiments.

PETER: Ah, I see you have found at least something that is of interest. In fact, Richard has the best descriptions of attentiveness and awareness I have ever seen. The spiritual ‘Masters’ were always so secretive and so vague in describing their experiences and deliberately so.

It is very apparent that the only danger in applying Richard’s method is that one could become Enlightened. It is such an instinctually driven act of narcissism that it takes an awareness that far exceeds the normal spiritual ‘half-baked’ efforts to avoid the entrapment. I wrote my journal largely as an expose of the fakery and fraudulence of the Master-disciple business and the blatant abuse of psychic and psychological power by the supposed God-men. The facts of following Masters as opposed to the dearly held beliefs. Richard’s Journal is an insider’s view as he was Enlightened for 11 years before finally freeing himself of the delusionary state.

RESPONDENT: My next interest is to read about PCE. I read quite a bit of your journal in Dec./Jan. but it was not useful for things I was looking for at the time. I will go over the PCE section, if there is one, in it again.

PETER: I wrote my journal as I was coming out of the ‘spiritual’ world and wrote of the things that interested me as flesh and blood human being, as opposed to a spiritual one. As my interest in, and experience of, the actual world increased I wrote of what I was interested in – death / living with a woman in peace, harmony and equity / exploring the failure of love and discovering something better / exploring and discovering the unfettered and free sensuous enjoyment of sex / ridding myself of the insidious delusion of anything spirit-ual, religious or ‘other’-worldly / freeing my intelligence from the act of believing / finding a personal peace and a solution that offered genuine global peace / being able to live peacefully in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are / eliminating fear as a constant underlying instinctual emotion / de-bunking the mythical and mystical perception of the physical universe, time and human existence. But it is only useful for someone who is interested in Actual Freedom as it is a journal of how to become Virtually Free – a necessary pre-requisite if one is to avoid the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ that has sunk all previous attempts at finding an actual freedom.

Actual Freedom is, after all, a new, down-to-earth, non-spiritual freedom.

New as in never been discovered before.

Down-to-earth as in able to be comfortably, effortlessly and easily liveable by anyone in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. Non-spiritual in that it is both self-less and Self-less – it is most definitely not an Altered State of Consciousness based on earthly denial and heavenly transcendence.

Freedom as in free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow – an actual and demonstrative freedom from instinctually-driven passions of fear and aggression, as opposed to the delusion of a spirit-ual freedom, based on Ancient Wisdom’s fairy-tale-battles of good and evil, Gods and Demons.

Well, I’ve done my ‘shop assistant’s’ bit – extolled the benefits of the products available in the ‘How to become Happy and Harmless’ shop. So, happy browsing ...

*

P.S. Saw a bumper sticker down town that said – ‘The earth is my church – my body is my altar.’ I guess the car belonged to one of the local Gods or, more likely, a surrendered disciple of a God.

Mind you, there are so many God-men and God-women around here, many struggle to make a living for lack of followers.

It’s becoming a very crowded market and the whole Guru-disciple business may well have reached its zenith.

7.4.1999

PETER: I just noticed I have been spelling your name wrong. Might be time for me to use my glasses when typing – it could make things clearer for me as well.

RESPONDENT: I have summarised below what I was trying to say. I am not criticizing Actual Freedom, I do not know what Actual Freedom is.

PETER: One of the major resistances to Actual Freedom for many people is that it involves reading to find out what it is about and then it involves effort and a willingness to change oneself to take it from theory into practice.

RESPONDENT: I am/was not criticizing you, I do not know who you really are.

PETER: Just an ordinary human being who serendipitously ran into someone who had managed to free himself of the Human Condition. I liked that he said I could be both happy and harmless and that I could live with a woman in peace and harmony. So I gave it a go ... And now I get to write to you about how it works – the theory into practice. It’s no little thing we do, for a world without malice and sorrow will be a literal paradise, but in hindsight at the time it just seemed the sensible thing to do in my life.

RESPONDENT: I was definitely criticizing your style of writing on the list. In short, what I was saying: For my taste, you normally spend too much time denouncing ‘spiritual path’ without exactly defining which part of the ‘spiritual path’ you are denouncing.

PETER: That’s easy – all of it. This is, after all, a non-spiritual path to freedom. ‘Non’ as in – ‘a negation, a prohibition’ Oxford Dictionary. Having realized my freedom from the spiritual world it often takes restraint from getting up off my chair and jigging all over the keyboard in an iconoclastical tango. To be in at the very beginning of the end of the stranglehold that religion and spirituality has held over human beings for millennia. I was talking to someone the other day about the ‘goings-on’ in his particular spiritual group and we compared notes as to why we turned a blind-eye to things that weren’t quite right, to cronyism, corruption, power-plays, lies, deception, put-downs, repressions, etc., and we both agreed that we saw them as side issues to the main event – the spiritual pursuit. It occurred to me that the only reason I stayed so long was that there was no other alternative to the spiritual, so I had to turn a blind eye, or face going back to the ‘real’ world. In the end I left the group and searched elsewhere in the spiritual world but only found the same duplicity, the same yawning gap between ideals and dreams and the facts. Then I discovered the new third alternative, Actual Freedom.

RESPONDENT: You normally do not make it clear why you are denouncing whatever it is i.e. whether certain things did not work for you or you are positive they will not work for anybody. You have made these things clearer in your response to my criticism.

PETER: I am astounded. I wrote my journal with the express purpose of detailing why ‘things did not work’ for me on the spiritual path and in all the actualism writings specific facts are presented as to the failure of the spiritual path to bring an individual peace to billions of devotees or anything resembling peace to earth. Quite the contrary, the God-men have left such an appalling trail of bloodshed and suffering in their wake that it beggars description. But as you said you haven’t read enough of Actual Freedom to understand. What is written is no mere criticism for criticism sake but factual catalogue of failure, both personally documented and historically evidenced.

RESPONDENT: At one point, you wrote:

[Peter]: ‘An actualist rapidly moves from learning, thinking, trying, and looking to investigating, pursuing, discovering, uncovering, finding, implementing, activating, challenging and dismantling feelings, emotions, beliefs and instincts. From a mere snorkelling around on the surface to a bit of sincere deep sea diving into one’s own psyche.’ [endquote].

As far as I am concerned, that is the only path. I learned it from Osho via dynamic, you learned it from Richard. We can call it spiritual or non-spiritual, actualists’s or non-actualists’s. Only thing I learned from Osho is: I have to look into myself and I am on my own. Now what came out of writing to you. I saw violence in me, raw violence of the kind I have never seen before. I also observed my tendency to be cruel (malice ????). I noticed need-for-love is still working in me. I also saw lots of other things.

PETER: It would seem that ‘what came out of writing to me’ is that you have been diving a bit deeper than you have before even with dynamic meditation. It is my experience that many people become quite upset to the point of feeling violent when presented with facts. It is the facts that cause the offence, not who writes of them or how they are presented, for to acknowledge a fact rather than uphold a belief is anathema to one’s very ‘self’. After all, people are willing to kill others or sacrifice themselves for their dearly-held beliefs, such are the deep-seated passions that are unleashed. This is the very reason for all the religious wars, persecutions and bloodshed. To become aware of these raw passions is to do a bit of deep sea diving into one’s own psyche – to be aware of the Human Condition in action, the beliefs, feelings and instinctual passions. This awareness involves neither repressing, nor expressing as in dynamic meditation. To merely indulge in a bit of artificial emoting such as therapy groups, active meditations, etc. is not to be aware of the role that the feelings of malice and sorrow play in ordinary life. As for ‘we can call it spiritual or non-spiritual’ – just because you choose to call different things the same doesn’t make them the same. They may appear to you to be the same, or you may want them to be the same, but they clearly are not. ‘Non’ means ‘a negation, a prohibition’ – as per Oxford dictionary.

It is astounding to think that there is now the possibility of eliminating malice and sorrow to the point that one is incapable of being offended – of having no-thing to defend – no beliefs, no ideals, no principles, no rights to fight for, no ‘me’ who could take offence. And of a happiness that is not dependant on others or on being in an Altered State of Consciousness – a genuine happiness in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are. It is so very good to start exploring feelings and emotions – both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ – for the secret to being actually free of malice and sorrow lies in this very exploration – and to investigate the spiritual world is to investigate the ‘good’ in the arbitrary package of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The trick is to understand that your feelings and emotions are part and parcel of the Human Condition and thus not a personal fault, failure, stigma or evil, but something everybody is programmed with by blind nature and society’s imprint. This is an investigation few are prepared to make for many see that if they dare to question the spiritual they will simply end up back in the ‘real’ world that they are trying to avoid or escape from. Some see that to question the spiritual beliefs is to go towards the devil or evil while others see it as ending up in a sort of robotic state of non-feeling. What belies these fears is the PCE where the purity, perfection and benevolence of the actual world becomes magically apparent as having been here all the time... if only ‘I’ wasn’t in the way.

Actual Freedom offers a tried and tested method to eliminate the ‘I’ – both ego and soul – such that what is actual, genuine, unique, pure and perfect can become evidenced and evident.

In these early pioneering days, it seems it is for the desperate and daring. Well, I tried to be a touch less iconoclastic but it never works. It’s impossible for me to pretend that God exists, that there is an after-life or that the God-men sell anything else but snake oil. Once you know it is all a fairy story, it all disappears like a puff of smoke ...

11.4.1999

PETER: Good to get a note back from you. I am always both surprised and delighted to get a post back from anyone. This business of determining the facts of living as a human being rather than simply living a life believing what we have been taught and what every one else believes is the truth or the Truth is a challenging and confronting business. It is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee. It takes guts, determination and sheer bloody mindedness to fly in the face of Ancient Wisdom. One will be admonished for madness, warned against being foolhardy, cut down to size and ostracised by friends and society at large. But once there is a crack in the door, once a belief is seen to be nothing other than a belief, once the facts become evident ... it is hard to continue to believe.

Pride was the big one for me – ‘How could I have been such a fool?’, ‘Surely I am not that stupid?’ or ‘How could I be that wrong?’ I turned it on its head and used my pride to say – ‘I’ll be a pioneer, one of the first in a new adventure’, ‘I’ll find out the facts for myself, come what may, and I’ll let nothing stop me’, ‘I simply refuse to live a second-rate life’, ‘It’s my life and I’ll do what I want to, rather than what I have been programmed to do’ ...

Then, no matter what the result, life becomes a genuine adventure, a sincere search, as distinct from the usual wandering around in the dust and mould of the ancient temples looking for a new version of Ancient Wisdom to hang one’s hat on. One can see it in the New Dark Ages quite clearly as the ‘latest discovery’ such as Tibetan Tantric Tarot, Summerian Shamanic Shiatsu, or my personal favourite – Heliotropic Holistic Healing. To call this trolling through the trash cans of Eastern Mysticism ‘discovering’ or ‘exploring’ is a blatant abuse of the words.

If one is sincere about searching, discovering and exploring it makes scant sense to recycle the flotsam of Ancient Wisdom, but if you do dare to be different, to really question, ... be realistic about the consequences. The lot of the trail blazer is not easy or comfortable, but it is such good fun.

RESPONDENT: As for why I got offended, I am looking into it and if I find something new and interesting I will let you know. I am also looking into the origin of my need-for-love and its implications.

PETER: Aye, ‘tis a fascinating journey into one’s very own psyche. I’m going back through my journal editing it at the moment, in the light of conversations I’ve had with people since first writing it and I have just finished re-writing the ‘Living Together’ chapter. It now contains a bit more nitty gritty, nuts and bolts information on the process of awareness, ‘looking’, investigation, discovery, realization and eventual actualization and elimination of such issues as being offended and giving offence and needing love and giving love.

It will be up on our site under ‘Living Together ’ ...

‘Living Together’ is essentially about the gender divide between men and women that ultimately dooms any attempt to live together in peace and harmony. I’m well pleased with the re-write, I think it will be more helpful and useful to others who will follow.

‘Love’ is the next chapter which may be of interest to you as well and I’ll let you know about that one as well when it is edited. So that’s it – a bit of a rave and a plug for the journal. I do like it that you are looking at feelings and emotions, so few people bother to make the effort. Most take the easy way out and go for transcendence and ‘rising above’ them, or the even lazier simply opt for doing nothing and loving one’s self – the ‘You are already That’ school of modern mysticism. To go the other way and look into feelings and emotions is new territory completely. It is the same with beliefs – most people are comfortable with, even proud of, their beliefs but to look into them, and to dare to ascertain the facts, is new territory completely.

26.4.1999

PETER: You wrote to No 14 a note of such breathtaking duplicity that I am moved (as in ... up off the couch) to reply before all the spiritualists on this list start to declare Rajneesh and other similar God-men to be actually free from the Human Condition. Still people do believe that Jesus walked on water, that the planets influence their moods and the sun goes around the earth. It’s just that this list is about facts and actuality – and not fiction, hopeful imagination, wishful thinking, slippery re-interpretation, Ancient Wisdom or ‘Truth’.

RESPONDENT to No 14: I did not get this PCE stuff on this list in the beginning. I kept thinking about it for a while. For weeks I would get stuck on 2-3 experiences which stood out and seemed close to the way PCE was being described here. The first PCE happened to me after I did rigorous dynamic everyday for 2 months. This PCE happened 2 ½ years ago. I also noticed that for last 2 ½ years, I have always wanted to repeat that experience. I have had some much tinier ones but nothing compared to the first one.

Now I understand the whole thing about PCE. Osho created situations in which we could get PCEs and hence have a bench mark to work with. While Richard is asking us to remember a PCE, defined with a description, to take it as a bench mark.

PETER: It does seem a waste of all that thinking time to have come to the conclusion that there is a God after all, and that Rajneesh is your God. Still Humanity’s obsession with believing the fairy-tales of the God-men is both legendary and endemic and has been around for thousands of years. This is the very beginning of a new down-to-earth non-spiritual Actual Freedom and, as such, will not be for all. It does take a certain courage, tenacity, stubbornness and bloody-mindedness to strike off on one’s own to discover and investigate.

So, let’s look at your preposterous proposition that ‘Rajneesh created situations where we could get PCEs’.

Let’s start with a quote from Rajneesh about the path from Satori to Samadhi –

[Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘Watch the mind and see where it is, what it is. You will feel thoughts floating and there will be intervals. And if you watch long, you will see that intervals are more than the thoughts, because each thought has to be separate from another thought; in fact, each word has to be separate from another word. The deeper you go, you will find more and more gaps, bigger and bigger gaps. A thought floats, then comes a gap where no thought exists; then another thought comes, another gap follows.

If you are unconscious you cannot see the gaps; you jump from one thought to another, you never see the gap. If you become aware you will see more and more gaps.

If you become perfectly aware, then miles of gaps will be revealed to you.

And in those gaps, Satoris happen. In those gaps the truth knocks at your door. In those gaps, the guest comes. In those gaps God is realized, or whatsoever way you like to express it. And when awareness is absolute, then there is only a vast gap of nothingness.

It is just like clouds: clouds move. They can be so thick that you cannot see the sky hidden behind them. The vast blueness of the sky is lost, you are covered with clouds. Then you go on watching: one cloud moves and another has not come into the vision yet – and suddenly a peek into the blueness of the vast sky.

The same happens inside: you are the vast blueness of the sky, and thoughts are just like clouds hovering around you, filling you. But the gaps exist, the sky exists. To have a glimpse of the sky is Satori, and to become the sky is samadhi. From Satori to samadhi, the whole process is a deep insight into the mind, nothing else.’ Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding

Well, as the man says – the whole process is a deep insight into the mind, nothing else. In other words, it all happens in the mind i.e. it is a passionate imagination. Now how you can equate this description of a glimpse of the ‘sky’ with Richard’s descriptions of the direct sensate ‘self’-less experience of the actual world is beyond me.

To make the point very clear, let’s look at another quote from Rajneesh describing his Enlightenment experience –

[Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘In that explosion the old man of yesteryear died. This new man is absolutely new. The man who was walking on the path is dead and is no more. There is no story after that explosion, there are no events after it. After the explosion there is only void. Since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it.’ Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding

Doesn’t really sound like a man who is flesh and blood body only. In fact, it sounds as though he is experiencing a state where He has his head in the clouds and is no longer associated with his flesh and blood body – an imaginary state of ‘leaving the cycle of karma’ and being Immortal.

Does it not also make you wonder how this man claims to be ‘herenow’ when he says: ‘Since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it.’ This is not a description of someone who is a flesh and blood body only but a description of someone who has completely and utterly identified with his Spirit, Soul, Atman, Buddha Nature or whatever other name one calls the psychic entity that dwells within the physical body. This is a description of a man suffering from a mental state of delusion – an Altered State of Consciousness, whereby he ‘thinks’ and ‘feels’ he is God, immortal and divine.

Let’s dig a little deeper and see the extent of his delusion. Again a quote from the man himself –

[Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘No-thinking is a must if you want to be completely freed from sin, freed from crime, freed from all that goes around you – and that is the meaning of a Buddha.

A Buddha is a person who lives without the mind; then he is not responsible. That’s why in the East we say that he never accumulates karma; he never accumulates any entanglements for the future. He lives, he walks, he moves, he eats, he talks, he is doing many things, so he must accumulate karma, because karma means activity. But in the East it is said even if a Buddha kills, he will not accumulate karma. Why? And you, even if you don’t kill, you will accumulate karma. Why? It is simple: whatsoever Buddha is doing, he is doing without any mind in it. He is spontaneous, it is not activity. He is not thinking about it, it happens. He is not the doer. He moves like an emptiness. He has no mind for it, he was not thinking to do it. But if the existence allows it to happen, he allows it to happen. He has no more the ego to resist; no more the ego to do. That is the meaning of being empty and a no-self: just being a non-being, anatta , no-selfness. Then you accumulate nothing; then you are not responsible for anything that goes on around you; then you transcend.’ Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding

Cute Hey. With a leap of imagination he is no longer responsible for his actions even to the point of killing. He becomes quite literally ‘above’ the mundane, the ordinary, the laws, the earthly, the sensate. One leaves the wheel of suffering, or earthly existence and transcends. This ‘lofty perch’ of the God-man has relevance in the Sannyas world as to his denial of any wrong doing in Rajneeshpuram – not that the American law courts believed him. No. 14 will recognize the dis-association of Rajneesh from any of his actions as identical to the position taken by Zen warriors in the ritual slaughter of 300,000 Chinese at Nanking – enthusiastically supported by the Buddhist Masters.

In case you are confused about the word ‘transcend’, Mr Oxford’s definition is –

transcend — climb over, surmount. Go beyond or exceed the limits of (something immaterial); esp. be beyond the range or grasp of (human experience, reason, belief, etc.). Be above and independent of; (esp. of God) exist apart from the limitations of (the material universe) Ascend, go up, rise. Oxford dictionary

Indeed Mr. Rajneesh has transcended the ego – he has clearly become an ego-maniac in that he thinks and feels himself to be God. An ego transcended gives full reign to the soul – the ‘feelings’ – and delusion is the obvious result.

Another quote from the Master of deceit –

[Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘In all the Eastern traditions, before a person starts learning no-mind, there are techniques and much emphasis that he should stop being negative, because if you once attain to no-mind and your trend remains negative, you can become a dangerous force. Before the no-mind is attained, one should become absolutely positive. That is the whole difference between white and black magic.

Black magic is nothing more than when a man has accumulated thought energy without throwing out his negativity beforehand. And white magic is nothing more than when a man has attained too much thought energy, and has based his total being on a positive attitude. The same energy with negativity becomes black; the same energy with positivity becomes white.’ Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding

Interesting first part that clearly points to the emphasis on ‘good’ feelings as opposed to ‘bad’ feelings. I think many people think we make up a story about Eastern mysticism and the dross it is but here it is unambiguously stated. He further introduces a bit of ‘wisdom about black magic that again relates to good and evil spirits or ‘energy’ to use the more modern terminology for spirits. Of course Mr. Rajneesh represents white magic personified. This drivel could not be further from Actual Freedom and the PCE – it is, as we continually state, 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

I’ll take the opportunity to flog a dead horse a bit more with another quote that is relevant to discussions that we had about instincts and their pernicious grip on Humanity. Remember that this is from a man peddling an Ancient tradition which was in complete ignorance of modern genetics, neuro-biology and behavioural studies. He says:

[Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘ANGER IS BEAUTIFUL; SEX IS BEAUTIFUL. But beautiful things can go ugly. That depends on you. If you condemn them, they become ugly; if you transform them, they become divine. Anger transformed becomes compassion – because the energy is the same. A Buddha is compassionate: from where does his compassion come? This is the same energy that was moving in anger; now it is not moving in anger, the same energy is transformed into compassion. From where does love come? A Buddha is loving; a Jesus is love. The same energy that moves into sex becomes love.

So remember, if you condemn a natural phenomenon it becomes poisonous, it destroys you, it becomes destructive and suicidal. If you transform it, it becomes divine, it becomes a God-force, it becomes an elixir; you attain through it to immortality, to a deathless being. But transformation is needed.’ Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding

Anger is beautiful, hey? Tell that to the woman being raped, the man being killed, the child being abused. Rajneesh would ‘use’ anger in active meditations and groups as a way of getting people emoting in order to ride on the energy into a state of hormonal-charged bliss, exactly as people do when engaging in dangerous sports or how the psychopathic killer gets his kicks. To call this transforming anger into love is nonsense – it is nothing more than stirred up hormones. It would all be a joke really except that people kill out of anger and Rajneesh’s famed Dynamic Meditation is nothing more than a hormonal stir-up for a hit of bliss afterwards.

As for ‘anger transformed becomes compassion’, this sleight of mind can only happen if one ‘feels’ spiritually superior to the other. Then one has divine anger as Rajneesh did on several occasions when he could not control his rage in public. Displays of ‘divine anger’ (compassion?) have also been well documented in many other God-men.

Further on in the discourse comes the ‘big hook’ for his Sannyasins – the chance to not be identified, to ‘let-go’ and everything will be okay –

[Mohan Rajneesh]: A Sannyasin is just like the sky: he lives in the world – hunger comes, and satiety; summer comes, and winter; good days, bad days; good moods, very elated, ecstatic, euphoric; bad moods, depressed, in the valley, dark, burdened – everything comes and goes and he remains a watcher. He simply looks, and he knows everything will go, many things will come and go. He is no more identified with anything.

Non-identification is Sannyas, and Sannyas is the greatest flowering, the greatest blooming that is possible.’  Rajneesh, Tantra: The Supreme Understanding