PETER: Just a comment on your last post to Gary –

RESPONDENT: A method may be useful to a certain point but then one has to fly on one’s own.

PETER: What method are you talking about, what results have you achieved, what difficulties did you encounter? Are you saying you personally are beyond the ‘certain point’ where a method is useful? If so, when did this happen and can you describe flying ‘on one’s own’? This is valuable information to share with others on this list if it is substantiated by personal experience and experiential evidence.

RESPONDENT: Yes ... I think the method leads to an automatic expertise in the actual doing ... the doing of best and without the accompanying fear.

PETER: My experience of the ‘the doing of best’, if I understand you right, may be the equivalent of what I described in my journal as mimicking the perfection and purity of the actual world, as best ‘I’ could. Yet I was always very conscious that this mimicking was just that – ‘me’ mimicking what is actual. I was always careful not to deceive myself that this was a ‘self’-less perfection for I had seen enough of the spiritual con-men strutting and posing their Divineness while being nothing other than an instinctual human being ‘off stage’, as it were.

Nonetheless I found it a useful approach for one needs to do all one can to seek perfection and purity whilst maintaining a genunie intent – and that means an intent uncorrupted and unsullied by any notions of spirituality whatsoever. As such, this approach will only lead to a Virtual Freedom from the Human Condition if one has first thoroughly investigated and eliminated one’s spiritual and social conditionings and beliefs. If not, ‘the doing of best’ is yet another religious/ spiritual wank.

RESPONDENT: It may sound spiritual but I have called this ‘mindfulness’. The action of the brain functioning unimpeded by an entity.

PETER: It does sound spiritual to me. An actualist who applies the method of actualism will find the method leads to an expertise in identifying and investigating the feelings and emotions that impede the clear and benevolent functioning of one’s own brain. Methinks ‘you’ are a watching entity who is being mindful of what your body/mind is doing – the classic spiritual practice of dissociation. There is a ‘you’ who is being aware and mindful, which is most definitely not a bare awareness – the capability of the human brain being aware of its own functioning ... when it is functioning. A bit of reading on the spiritual practice of watching can be found here, if you are interested.

RESPONDENT: Yes. I think I am reinforcing my ego/soul by believing ‘I’ am the doer of the happening moment ... from experience this can degenerate into further problems. This is not my experience of the happening delightful serendipity though.

PETER: I am confused. Which is your experience?

RESPONDENT: Yes ... with a mindfulness awareness of the ugly rising head should it venture forth, like a discordant note, from places unknown ... so that we may observe and benefit. Apperception we call this?

PETER: Could you describe ‘the ugly rising head’? What forms does it take? How is it manifest in your daily life and in interactions with those around you? Why do you say it ventures forth ‘from places unknown’? Surely the point of utilizing the actualism method is to find out about ‘the ugly rising head’, the ‘unknown places’ and the ‘discordant notes’ such that they are eradicated?

This is where the method of actualism is of genuine benefit to others but there is nothing in it for No 13 except happiness and harmlessness. This process is both tumultuous and disorienting, fearful ... and iconoclastic. One does not cruise through this process unscathed and soothingly ‘self’-benefited for one is actively demolishing one’s safe and secure social/spiritual identity and then embarking on a journey of truly epic proportions – the extinction of one’s instinctual animal self, one’s very being. What you are describing is not apperception at all – it sounds very much like playing the usual spiritual game of being superiorly mindful. Being ‘mindful’ is but to adopt the moral high-ground, feeling ‘above others’ and remaining very selectively aware of one’s own feelings, thoughts and actions.

I don’t know if you have been watching the news lately, but in the Middle East at the moment there is a classic confrontation between religious/ spiritual groups who each insist that they have the moral high-ground. The monotheist religions are blatantly obvious in their battle for supremacy of their respective Gods and their God’s loyal and faithful followers. Eastern religion has a twisted version of this psychic power battle whereby any pundit can, with practice and diligence, get to feel so morally superior, become totally self-deluded and end up truly believing themselves to be God-on-earth. Whatever the source, East or West, the result of religious/ spiritual belief is the same – malice towards others and the perpetuation of sorrow.

The battle between the monotheist Gods has produced some of the West’s most horrendous wars, crusades, pogroms, perversions and atrocities but none rival those found in the East. Even the Nazis where appalled at the butchery at Nanking (http://www.darkzen.com/) which was directly fuelled by the dissociative spiritual practice of Zen Buddhism. Not only were the enemy seen as mere evil spirits, but the perpetrators of the slaughter believed themselves to be disembodied Holy spirits and, as such, the butchering of other bodies held no qualms for these moral high-grounders. Similarly the practice of deliberate suicide was upheld as the noblest of actions for these ‘Zen warriors’.

It is only by fully comprehending the horrendous violence and mindless slaughter that is triggered, sustained, reinforced and actively perpetuated by religious/ spiritual belief that one is forced to do something about it in oneself.

To practice ‘mindfulness’ is to be a fence-sitter to this violence – hardly the business of an actualist vitally interested in peace on earth. Why, if you can see maintaining any religious/ spiritual belief whatsoever actively perpetuates superstition, fear, isolationism, ignorance, recrimination and retribution, would you want to have anything at all to do with it? Why do you claim to have a certain clarity of thinking and yet show no evidence of having seen the utter futility and stupidity of clinging on to any religious/ spiritual belief? Why do you not see the fact that maintaining any religious/ spiritual beliefs whatsoever is what initially prevents one from beginning the process of becoming a free and autonomous human being?

Debunking religious spiritual belief is not a side-issue for an actualist – it is the main issue in the early stages leading to Virtual Freedom. You can read my Journal if you are interested in a passionate personal story of an ex-insider to the spiritual world and you might get a taste of what is involved in stepping out of the world of spiritual belief.

This is no little thing that is offered on this Mailing list and The Actual Freedom Trust website – this is no rehashed or ‘new’ belief system or something that can be clipped-on to one’s old beliefs. If that is how you treat it, it is your business, but you will get no support for mindful fence-sitting here on this list – the benefits of actualism are far too profound and pragmatic for that, both for No 13 ... and for the actualizing of peace on earth.

2.11.2000

PETER: As I explained to Gary, I have been nose down and bum up learning a CAD program hence my delayed reply to your post. My days of writing are fewer at the moment. I was also writing on a spiritual mailing list but it appears I am now being censored as my last posts have not been posted and even ‘the Moderator’ fails to respond to my queries. If that is the case, it makes two cyber- executions now – it is amazing how closed-minded and paranoid the supposedly ‘open and aware’ people really are. Anyway, back to your reply to my post that questioned the usefulness of pursuing the practice of mindfulness.

*

RESPONDENT: A method may be useful to a certain point but then one has to fly on one’s own.

PETER: What method are you talking about, what results have you achieved, what difficulties did you encounter? Are you saying you personally are beyond the ‘certain point’ where a method is useful? If so, when did this happen and can you describe flying ‘on one’s own’? This is valuable information to share with others on this list if it is substantiated by personal experience and experiential evidence.

RESPONDENT: In my posts to Gary I referred to the actualists’ method but any ‘method may be useful’ especially leading to expertise i.e. to acquire any skill or number of interconnected skills, eg: living ‘harmlessly and happily’, driving a car or typing a letter.

PETER: Well, given that this mailing list is devoted to peace on earth and the personal eradication of malice and sorrow, I suggest we limit a discussion on methods to that particular aim. Actualism is a proven method whereby one can eliminate one’s personal malice and sorrow – i.e. become actually happy and actually harmless. I know of no other method which offers this potential, let alone even points in this direction. Certainly none of the ancient Eastern spiritual methods do – they are specifically designed for one purpose only – to retreat from the real world, and the actual world, and to lead the practitioner to self-aggrandizement, as in God-realization.

Are you saying there are other methods possible that will lead to peace on earth? Have you discovered something else other than the traditional spiritual methods?

RESPONDENT: The comment, ‘flying on one’s own’, refers to the proficiency one acquires without the mental effort and physical clumsiness first encountered when first one tries an unfamiliar task. Do you remember the first time you learnt to drive, Peter?

PETER: Not really, and I fail to see the relevance. Competent car drivers are thick on the ground where I live, but there is a dearth of any people who are happy and harmless, as is clearly evidenced by the inability of even two people to live together in utter peace and harmony, let alone any group or community anywhere in the world. Becoming free of malice and sorrow is patently a far more difficult exercise than learning to driven a car, otherwise there would be peace on earth by now.

*

PETER: What method are you talking about, what results have you achieved,

RESPONDENT: Ok. Lets start with simple physical task examples. I am better at living now than I have ever been before in any number of these tasks however the certainty accompanying such expertise comes with the gradual measurement and incremental improvement clearly observed in everyday normal life situations compared against my aims. How well I communicate with you may depend on my criteria of being understood or by how well I type and spell and form grammatical syntax, etc. So far I seem to score very poorly on all counts. I may also measure my performance by how emotional I am during and after a task, and so on and on until I have improved.

PETER: Perhaps a few practical examples, relating to specific incidents, would serve to communicate what you mean. As you have reported them, your results do appear a bit woolly and nebulous and could be read as an exercise in ‘self’-improvement and not ‘self’-immolation.

I spent years on the spiritual path becoming more holy and more superior, ‘being in the world, but not of it’, etc., so I know the ethereal nature of the spiritual path very well. The reason I wrote my journal was both to explain the falsehoods and failures of the spiritual path and to trumpet the practical, down-to-earth benefits of pursuing actualism. As such, one of the core themes of the Journal was my success in finally being able to live with at least one other person in peace and harmony, certainly the most difficult of task for any human being to accomplish, be they normal or spiritual. It is these practical, very pragmatic examples of ‘improvement’ that give authenticity to what otherwise can be misinterpreted as nice-sounding wordiness or misconstrued as another rehashed form of spiritualism.

Spiritualism only offers the feeling of ‘we are all one’, while in fact each Guru, and his or her followers, are separate and competitive. Spiritualism only offers the feeling of harmlessness while in fact actualizing peace on earth is not on any spiritual agenda. Spiritualism only offers the feeling of happiness, but only if one goes ‘inside’ and dissociates from the world of people, things and events. An actualist, however, is vitally interested in actualizing happiness and harmlessness and not just imagining it as a fickle and illusionary inner feeling or ‘realizing’ it as an aggrandized altered state of consciousness.

For an actualist the proof that the method works is to be found by a demonstrable lack of malice and sorrow in the robust and fully committed living in the world of people, things and events. Do I get pissed off at other drivers when driving? Do I get moody around my partner? Am I 100% committed to living with my partner? Am I avoiding intimacy? Am I affected by the weather? Do I bitch about, or blame, other people for my moods and emotions? Am I affected by other people’s moods? What makes me angry and why? An actualist looks for pragmatic answers and practical evidence of change – not as an inner feeling but as a demonstrable fact.

Alan said it well recently when he was involved with setting up his computer system in his new house. Despite all the protocols and pit-falls, networks and nuisances, set-ups and setbacks, he found that he accomplished the task without the usual anger and frustration that would have been present had he not been practicing actualism for a goodly time.

RESPONDENT: By the asking of the question each moment again ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’, (as I might ask when learning to drive a car by asking ‘how relaxed am I while driving in this moment of being alive?) I make ‘my’ ‘purpose’ and ‘my’ ‘method’ more in the moment each time again until the two merge. I have found that by practice, keen observation born of the repetitious asking of ‘myself’, ‘I’ can improve more quickly than by not asking any questions until I am virtually free of ‘purpose’, ‘method’ and ‘myself’.

PETER: Why do you imagine that you will become virtually free of ‘purpose’ before you are actually free of malice and sorrow, assuming that this is your purpose? It does sound a bit like the spiritual practice of acceptance to me.

Why do you imagine you will be virtually free of ‘method’ before you are actually free of malice and sorrow, assuming the method is what makes you virtually free of malice and sorrow? It does sound a bit like Van Morrison’s ‘No Guru, no method, no teacher’ popular spiritualism to me.

As for improving until you are virtually free of ‘myself’, you would have to provide some personal anecdotal evidence of both the inevitable turmoil that the process of becoming virtually free produces and of the tangible down-to-earth successes it produces, otherwise it sounds a bit like the usual spiritual delusion to me.

Spiritualism has a long, long tradition of ambiguous wordiness solely devoted to promulgating ‘self’-indulgent feelings, imaginary states and ever-promised but never-delivered outcomes. T’would be a waste to miss the opportunity that the actualism method offers by remaining ensnared in this archaic tradition of double-speak.

*

PETER: What method are you talking about, what results have you achieved, what difficulties did you encounter?

RESPONDENT: The full gamut ... fear, love, awe, wonderment, dread, clumsiness, awkwardness to name a few.

PETER: Perhaps you could elaborate a bit on just one of the full gamut. The only value in a communication such as this is to be as specific and clear as possible, both for you and for others on the list. Then we can exchange experiences, swap stories and proffer any information that may be useful in becoming free of the debilitating effects of malice and sorrow, as fellow human beings and not as competitors.

*

PETER: Are you saying you personally are beyond the ‘certain point’ where a method is useful?

RESPONDENT: No. I was simply reminding myself, (as much as anyone else), that method is not the goal but a means to becoming the happening moment without a self/ ego/ soul, i.e.: by definition ‘no method/ purpose’ by a ‘me’. When the lawn mows itself, for example, it is quite extraordinary and perfect. After all, life is made up of all these little happenings as much as by the grand historical newsworthy events you may witness on TV.

PETER: Indeed the grass does grow by itself as the spiritual dimwitticism goes, but it does not mow itself. That requires a human body and a lawn mower. When a spiritualist talks of doing something that feels as though it is happening by itself, it is only because they have retreated inside into a feeling world and are dissociated from the event itself. This is why spiritual people have to do things ‘meditatively’, which means they have to go on an inner retreat in order to feel peace and harmony. In a PCE, the doing of something, or the doing of nothing, is such a sensate, sensual experience that it can be accurately said that what he or she is, is the experience of what is happening. This is what is meant by pure consciousness.

My experience, both in my normal and spiritual lives, was that it was quite easy to feel good while mowing the lawn – provided the mower started easily, of course. It was often something I really enjoyed but there were many, many things I did not enjoy, many times I was melancholic, many times I was annoyed, many times I fought and battled.

Your comment about the grand historical newsworthy events witnessed on TV may be related to my comments in the post about the appalling lack of anything even remotely resembling peace on earth. If so, my writing about the broader, less myopic, aspects of the Human Condition in operation, happening right now even as I write, all over the planet, obviously did not strike you as more significant than your own ‘extraordinary and perfect’ ‘little happenings’. This does sound a bit like spiritual ‘self’-centredness to me.

*

PETER: Are you saying you personally are beyond the ‘certain point’ where a method is useful? If so, when did this happen and can you describe flying ‘on one’s own’? This is valuable information to share with others on this list if it is substantiated by personal experience and experiential evidence.

RESPONDENT: On many, many occasions too numerous to mention. When mowing the lawn for example, I am the senses. The smell of freshly cut grass, the warmth of the sun, the limbs moving in rhythm and the brain doing its own thing without a ‘me’ operating a No 13 identity.

PETER: Perhaps you could offer a more emotionally-challenging occasion than lawn mowing where you moved beyond the ‘certain point’ where a method is useful? What about an occasion where you would normally have got upset, pissed off, sad or moody and you suddenly found that it didn’t happen as it usually does? In that case surely one would have even more reason to see the method as useful for one would want more of this happiness and one would want to be even more harmless towards one’s fellow human beings. You would be brimming with success at using the method and eager and willing for even more success.

You also said in your post to Gary –

[Respondent]: I think I am reinforcing my ego/soul by believing ‘I’ am the doer of the happening moment ... from experience this can degenerate into further problems. [endquote].

Yet, this same ‘I’ am the doer of the happening moment is the only substantial evidence that you offer in reply to my question for evidence of being beyond a ‘certain point’ where a method is useful. In the light of this previous statement perhaps you could offer other evidence.

As for your phrase ‘without a ‘me’ operating a No 13 identity’, this does seem to leave the door open to the possibility that there is a ‘me’ operating another identity ... maybe a Grand identity this time?

RESPONDENT: I’ll answer more when I have time. (As I have arthritis I am sometimes limited in my staying power on the typewriter). You obviously object to the term ‘mindfulness’, Peter?

PETER: I don’t object to the term mindfulness at all ... after all it is only a word. However, the spiritual practice of mindfulness is obviously silly for it only leads to the creation of another, and higher, identity – ‘the watcher’. This new identity, ‘the watcher’, is even more dissociated from actuality than one’s ‘normal’ identity, for he/she/it is selfishly obsessed with the practice of spirit-ual awareness.

RESPONDENT: Please ... do not mistake the word for some ethical ‘right mind’ controlled by some external authority ... I am my own highest authority until I am actually free not enlightened.

PETER: Ah, give me a monotheist any day. Their belief is much simpler, for monotheists believe in a single external ‘highest authority’. Eastern spiritualists believe in an inner ‘highest authority’, an entity that can only ever be fully satiated and fulfilled by the final ‘realizing’ of personal Godhood aka Enlightenment.

If you insist on remaining your own highest authority you may well find that, as you put it, ‘... this can degenerate into further problems.’ The simple, direct way to eliminate problems is to make facts the highest authority in your life and then you get to experience the experiential thrill of all your precious beliefs collapsing like a stack of cards.

Facts are the very death-knell of all beliefs.

RESPONDENT: If you prefer I will use a word with which you are more comfortable?

PETER: Do you have any suggestions? I much prefer dictionary definitions of words unless you clearly qualify your meaning to be something other. It is what is known as calling a spade a spade and is most useful in communicating facts and demolishing beliefs – which is why so many people object to the practice.

3.11.2000

PETER: In response to your second post on the subject of mindfulness –

RESPONDENT: Yes ... the method leads to an automatic expertise in the actual doing ... the doing of best and without the accompanying fear, etc. presumably and possibly leading to Actual Freedom, (best in the future)?

PETER: My experience of the ‘the doing of best’, if I understand you right, may be the equivalent of what I described in my journal as mimicking the perfection and purity of the actual world, as best ‘I’ could. Yet I was always very conscious that this mimicking was just that – ‘me’ mimicking what is actual. I was always careful not to deceive myself that this was a ‘self’-less perfection for I had seen enough of the spiritual con-men strutting and posing their Divineness while being nothing other than an instinctual human being ‘off stage’, as it were.

Nonetheless I found it a useful approach for one needs to do all one can to seek perfection and purity whilst maintaining a genuine intent – and that means an intent uncorrupted and unsullied by any notions of spirituality whatsoever. As such, this approach will only lead to a Virtual Freedom from the Human Condition if one has first thoroughly investigated and eliminated one’s spiritual and social conditionings and beliefs. If not, ‘the doing of best’ is yet another religious/ spiritual wank.

RESPONDENT: Exactly so, Peter ... until ‘I’ abdicate. Agreed. ‘I’ cannot do this ... but I can mimic perfection, which is to do my best in the meantime. This is AF seduction to reap the benefits along the way in the meanwhile, e.g.: ‘good, better, best, never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better best’ (as my grade 3 teacher used to say), is it not? Is this wanking?

PETER: Well, if you are still on the Eastern spiritual path it certainly is, for the pinnacle of spiritual perfection is Enlightenment – a delusionary altered state of consciousness whereby one feels Oneself to be pure and perfect, timeless and immortal as in God-personified. There is an ever-growing body of factual evidence that these so-called great men and women were and are anything but pure and perfect in their lives and deeds. Anger, despair, deceit, corruption, denial, blatant manipulation, dishonesty and sexual exploitation are prevalent amongst the God-men and women. The ‘best one can be’ in Eastern spiritual terms is clearly to be a wanker ... or should it be Wanker?

*

PETER: Yet I was always very conscious that this mimicking was just that – ‘me’ mimicking what is actual.

RESPONDENT: Yet ... did you not also realize that you were becoming more ‘that’ to which you most aspired, (or less that to which you did not like about yourself)?

PETER: No. It was not a question of becoming more of what I liked and less of what I didn’t like. The whole lot of ‘me’ had to be put under scrutiny and observation – the good, the bad, the right, the wrong, the liked, the disliked, my aspirations and my aversions. The old ‘me’, at the beginning of this process, was programmed to be a social being – to aspire to attaining power and position in the ‘normal’ world or to attaining power and position in the spiritual world. The aspiration for power and position is an instinctual program arising from the animal needs to battle it with others of the species for survival. The parameters of this battle are set by our peers as moral and ethical limits to stop us running amok and slaughtering the opposition.

When I realized that ‘who’ I thought and felt I was, was nothing other than this social and genetic programming, I knew some new criteria needed to be set for ‘me’ to be able to steer a course to freedom from this programming – a freedom from what is commonly known as the Human Condition. Facts had to replace beliefs and silly and sensible had to replace good, bad, right and wrong. An overarching consideration for those around me ensured a vital concern with becoming harmless and the pursuit of the purity and perfection, startlingly evident in a PCE, became my single-pointed aspiration.

This business is not about a better ‘me’, for ‘I’ am instinctually rotten to the core. The only way to get at this rotten-ness in order to expose it to the light of awareness is to dig deep beneath the outer layers of one’s social identity. This is brand-new work, never been done before – and certainly not by the spiritual people who follow the traditional, safe, well-worn and comfortable road of rightness and goodness leading towards Godliness – which does nothing but perpetuate the opposing moral and ethical values of wrongness, badness and Evil. These morals, ethics and ancient concepts, be they Eastern or Western, can be likened to the socially acceptable, mutually agreed, operating system within which everyone plays their role, like some marionette on strings. An actualist needs to dare to investigate this social/ spiritual programming in order to get at the underlying genetic-instinctual operating program.

Actualism is not about staying safe and comfortable within the Human Condition – actualism is about becoming free of the Human Condition in total.

RESPONDENT: Your best has lead you to where you now are has it not, Peter?

PETER: No. If it had been up to ‘me’, I would be still striving to become rich and famous ... or Divine and Glorious. It was only that some inherent common sense prevented me from being happy and content with my lot in life and that left me with a healthy suspicion about the traditional spiritual illusion of ‘freedom’. This drive for the best is seen in many, many people and has led to the amazing progress in safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure that an increasing amount of humans now enjoy. The next, and glaringly obvious, goal for humans is to turn this drive for betterment to aspire to an end to their own instinctual malice and sorrow.

Being a pioneer in this process is thrilling stuff indeed.

RESPONDENT: You are on a path of improvement ... you rolled up your sleeves and are having a go? You describe your successes and breakthroughs as such ...

PETER: There have been a few people who have had a taste of actualism by meeting Richard, or by reading the Journals or Website, and have definitely benefited and improved many aspects of their lives. For some, it has simply been to give up their spiritual search and become more comfortable in the real world. Others have taken on some particular aspect of their lives and sorted it out such that they are a little more happy and less stressed. This trickle-down or flow-on effect is not to be sneezed at and will no doubt gather a substantial momentum in the coming years, but for a committed actualist this self-improvement would never be sufficient, never be enough. This is why I write as I do, pragmatically and iconoclastically, for compromise and half-heartedness never brings success in any pursuit and peace on earth is the worthiest of prizes.

RESPONDENT: With me it meant withdrawing sometimes physically/ psychologically/emotionally from larger and larger chunks of humanity, (the lying, loud, fearful, insecure, loving, possessive, egotistical grabbing mobs), while still needing to feel very much a part of the whole system ... I became conflicted and aloof but at core I was not much better if push came to shove. I believed that if ‘might was right’ who was I to swim against the stream? I eventually stopped believing I needed societies morality, truth and belief systems. I stopped banging my head against the wall. I realized if I was better for not working, (at that which I did not fully believe), then so too would a society or community of intelligent like minded individuals. I saw that our whole systems were flawed.

PETER: Okay, my comment would be that it is one thing to have these realizations and it is another to act upon them such that one can be become free of this human spirit. The human spirit is epitomized by emotional suffering, a grim instinctual endless battle for survival, an eternal battle betwixt Good and Evil spirits, a search for beauty and poignancy in the face of revulsion and hopelessness, and an endless despairing and a continual turning away.

What twigged me to action was one particular PCE where it was obvious to me that ‘I’ was one of the 6 billion people engaged in this horrendous instinctual battle for survival, and to hove-to in some quiet backwater and blame others for the appalling violence endemic in the species was no longer good enough. I saw clearly that nothing less than a total freedom from my social and instinctual programming would free me from complicity. The total extinction of ‘me’ as a social/ spiritual identity and an instinctual/ animal being was the only freedom possible.

*

PETER: I was always careful not to deceive myself that this was a ‘self’-less perfection for I had seen enough of the spiritual con-men strutting and posing their Divineness while being nothing other than an instinctual human being ‘off stage’, as it were.

RESPONDENT: I had lived with an enlightened individual who, though profoundly sincere, was unable to live his absolute delusion, and to his credit continued to question ... giving me my freedom from his grasp. Yes ... I have always resisted the insidious pull of these pretenders no matter how sincere.

PETER: I never had any knowledge or contact with Eastern religion until my real-world existential crisis at the age of 32 and in a dark night of the soul experience I ‘saw the light’ in the form of Rajneesh – an Eastern God-man my then-wife was in to. I adopted the boots and all approach that led me to many counties, to live in many communes and, to see backstage as it were, the goings on of three famed gurus. With Rajneesh I had the good fortune to see the death of a Guru and the birth of a religion, an invaluable priceless experience. I simply adopted the same boots and all approach when I met Richard. Up until then spiritual freedom was the best on offer – the feeling of freedom. Now it is possible to be actually free – not as a feeling, but as an actuality.

*

PETER: Nonetheless I found it a useful approach for one needs to do all one can to seek perfection and purity whilst maintaining a genuine intent – and that means an intent un-corrupted and unsullied by any notions of spirituality whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: Now you are re-stating, Peter, what I was trying to explain to Gary, but without using the word spirituality. I am not at all interested in the spiritual, (though I have gotten too much into my head at times). I am a practical person.

PETER: No, I am not restating what you were trying to explain to Gary. I am stating my own experience, in my own words. If that is what you are trying to say, then it must be your experience in order to be authentic. As I have said, what you say does sound spiritual to me, but I can only go by what you write on this list.

You don’t have to be interested in something to be influenced by it. Every human being, without exception, is imbibed with religious/ spiritual beliefs, morals and ethics and understandings about the very nature of what it is to be a human being. This understanding is programmed into every human being and the only way to be free of this spiritual program is to undertake a thorough and complete de-programming process – which is what actualism is. This is not about right and wrong words – this is about a radical, complete and unequivocal break with the one’s past.

*

PETER: As such, this approach will only lead to a Virtual Freedom from the Human Condition if one has first thoroughly investigated and eliminated one’s spiritual and social conditioning and beliefs.

RESPONDENT: Granted ... is this not a first step along the way ... this ‘only’ Virtual Freedom? As you, Peter, are ‘only’ virtually free, how can you imply that Actual Freedom is the logical next step hinting at arriving at a permanent PCE, (and everything else is a wank)? How can you denigrate your achievements thus far as a wank?

PETER: What I said was that unless one has first thoroughly investigated and eliminated one’s spiritual and social conditioning and beliefs, one will never become virtually free of the Human Condition, let alone ever become actually free of it. Unless you undertake this first stage of the process you will remain firmly locked into the malice and sorrow of the Human Condition ... or simply become one of the many who have taken to sprinkling actualism terms throughout their spiritual beliefs. The mailing list Richard was writing on has some classic examples of this clip-on approach with words such as actual, instinctual, ‘self’-immolation, factual, etc., magically appearing in the writings of the list’s pundits.

As for ‘‘only’ Virtual Freedom’ and ‘wanking’ – I am on record as continually praising and lauding a virtual freedom from malice and sorrow as being far, far superior to any of the revered spiritual states. Why do you think I wrote my journal and hung my dirty washing on the line for all to see? To make clear that I had spent 17 years indulging in an utterly selfish wank – the Eastern spiritual path.

*

PETER: If not, ‘the doing of best’ is yet another religious/ spiritual wank.

RESPONDENT: Yes of course, if I do not arrive at my objectives ... if I believe, or conclude, or deduce, an Actual Freedom as a permanent state I am certainly not being fully in the moment now? As this is contrary to my aims, I am destined to chase my tail and never smell the actual along the way. Am I not then wanking, (or pissing in the proverbial breeze)?

PETER: I am not writing to you to make judgement on you, your life or your aims. I only comment on what you write and communicate to me. I do, however, have a very good working knowledge of the spiritual world having lived in it, full-on, for 17 years. I also know well the effort required, and the fears that are encountered, when leaving this fantasy world. It is this information I am attempting to pass on. How you receive it and what you do with it is entirely your business.

RESPONDENT: Do I now reinforce a desperate alien psychological or psychic entity by entertaining my dilemma? I.e.: not to wank, as you so nicely describe, (whatever that means)?

PETER: Having a dilemma sounds good to me, because a dilemma presents a challenge that can always be resolved.

Wank – ‘to maintain an illusion: deceive oneself; behaviour which is self-indulgent and egotistical.’ Macquarie Dictionary.

As can be seen from the definition, wanking is endemic in the spiritual world. I know, for I wanked with the best of them.

16.11.2000

PETER: I am not writing to you to make judgement on you, your life or your aims. I only comment on what you write and communicate to me. I do, however, have a very good working knowledge of the spiritual world having lived in it, full-on, for 17 years. I also know well the effort required, and the fears that are encountered, when leaving this fantasy world. It is this information I am attempting to pass on. How you receive it and what you do with it is entirely your business.

RESPONDENT: I have not taken offence from anything you have written. I know that you are not telling me how I should live my life.

PETER: Excellent, then you realize that becoming actually happy and harmless, 24 hrs. a day, every day, is entirely your business, totally in your hands, and your success will be directly related to your own effort.

RESPONDENT: I am attracted to actualism because it offers a sharing of opinion and practical solutions to real problems. You communicate very well.

PETER: Sharing of opinions is the normal way of communicating, whereas what I am communicating are facts, empirical evidence and experience based upon my intensive investigations of the Human Condition, both as it is universally manifest and as it is socially and instinctually programmed as ‘me’. When I came across Richard it was not a sharing of opinion but a communication based upon me learning as much as I could from him. I very quickly realized that my opinions were generally the opinions of others – my father’s or my peers’ generally. What came trotting out of my mouth was what I believed, what I had taken to be true, what I had assumed was right, what I had taken on board but never bothered to question. What I discovered about Richard was that he had questioned everything human beings held dear and that he ruthlessly pursued the facts of what it is to be an aware thinking human being.

The aim of this mailing list is to lift our communication above the usual stilted sharing of opinions, beliefs and psittacisms that passes for normal or spiritual communication.

RESPONDENT: I would appreciate, too, your opinion on why I ‘sound Spiritual’ ... I don’t doubt your obvious expertise in this field but would appreciate specific examples, if possible. I do not wish to be ruled by ancient wisdoms, truths etc. My inherent common sense has always steered me away from the tried and failed logic of my family and ancestors.

PETER: I have commented repeatedly about specific points in your posts that sounded spiritual to me and I see no point in going over old ground, ad nauseam. In your last post you said – ‘I am not at all interested in the spiritual’ and I don’t doubt you at all. I would only say that not being interested is not the same thing as actively investigating your spiritual conditioning, be it Eastern and Western or both, such that you become free of it. As an example, what you said in full was ‘I am not at all interested in the spiritual (though I have gotten too much into my head at times)’ which indicates a typical spiritual viewpoint of what ‘being spiritual’ is.

The current New Dark Age spiritualism can be seen generally as having two broad paths or approaches.

There is the right thinking/being the watcher approach, whereby thinking – or wrong thinking to be accurate – is deemed to be the source of all evil and one develops a new identity as an aloof right thinker. This path is typified by J. Krishnamurti’s teachings and most of Buddhism.

The other is the more emotive heart approach where any and all thinking is derided and one forms a new identity as a truly loving being. This path is typified by devotee religions such as Rajneeshism, various forms of Hinduism, Sufism, etc.

To become free of the real world and the spiritual world requires an active deprogramming of all of the opinions, beliefs, morals, ethics and automatic instinctual reactions that have been programmed into your brain. To do this requires a burning curiosity and an intense observation and investigation of this programming, in you, in action – in short you need to develop a vital interest in what it is to be spiritual and how it manifests in yourself.

You need to become interested in what makes you ‘tick’ – what makes you moody, worried, angry, sad, lonely, upset, peeved, melancholy, dissociated, lacklustre, bored, remote, etc. if you at all aspire to becoming actually free of being continually run by these emotions.

Is this not good sense?

*

RESPONDENT: If I may also enquire with regards the following passages, which seem unclear to me:

PETER: You certainly may. Anyone who writes consistently on this list shows stubbornness and guts, which are essential attributes for an actualist.

*

RESPONDENT: Your best has lead you to where you now are has it not, Peter?

PETER: No. If it had been up to ‘me’, I would be still striving to become rich and famous ... or Divine and Glorious.

RESPONDENT: Who, (or what), was ‘it’ up to in the final analysis if not a ‘you’ Peter doing your best, (in whatever moment you found yourself)?

Peter: In fact there are three I’s and only one is actual –

1. normal I – A psychological and psychic entity residing within the flesh and blood body comprising both the ego (who you think you are) and the soul (who you feel you are).
2. spiritual I – A Grand identity wherein the ego is not eliminated, but escapes into a massive delusion (ego-trip) of grandeur and Divine Splendour, Oneness and Immortality, while the soul is given free reign to indulge in psychic powers and blissful imagination.
3. actual I – Richard: What I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware. The first person pronoun is not used here to refer to any psychological or psychic identity because in actuality there is nothing other than the physical – this carbon-based life-form being conscious. There is a consistent quality of perfection – an unvarying purity. Here is an on-going innocence, an ever-fresh magnanimity, which ensures a nobility in character that is vitalized as an endless benevolence – all effortlessly happening of its own accord. Thus probity is bestowed gratuitously – dispensing forever with the effort-filled vigilance to gain and maintain righteous virtue. One is free to be me as-I-am, benign and beneficial in disposition. One is able to be a model citizen, fulfilling all the intentions of the idealistic and unattainable moral strictures of ‘The Good’: being humane, being philanthropic, being altruistic, being beneficent, being considerate and so on. All this is achieved in a manner any ‘I’ could never foresee, for it comes effortlessly and spontaneously, doing away with the necessity for morality and ethicality completely. One is swimming in largesse. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

The last piece of writing on the ‘actual I’ is Richard’s, who lives what he says as an ongoing experience.

What ‘I’ had when I met Richard was a firm memory of this third I – what I am as an actuality – experienced in a PCE that I described in my Journal. From this experience it was obvious that these other imposter ‘I’s had to leave the stage and the first one to tackle was the spiritual ‘I’, for that was my latest identity and the one that initially stood in the way of my freedom.

Spiritual teaching has it that there are only two ‘I’s – normal and spiritual. Hence the spiritual teachers use questions such as ‘who is thinking?’, ‘who is feeling angry?’, etc., which are aimed at conditioning the hapless victim to immediately dissociate from their wrong thoughts and bad feelings and revert back to being a superior transcendental spiritual identity. The Advaita gurus, in particular, seem to be fond of using this ruse as a standard ploy.

*

PETER: It was only that some inherent common sense prevented me from being happy and content with my lot in life and that left me with a healthy suspicion about the traditional spiritual illusion of ‘freedom’.

RESPONDENT: Surely a suspicion (healthy or otherwise) is still only always your best, (sincere, honest and pure) suspicion, (based on your current knowledge/ intelligence/ inherent common sense). This is all good sense to me...and not spiritual in nature.

PETER: Again when I met Richard, the ‘I’ that I was then had very little common sense because I was stuffed full of beliefs, morals, ethics and dimwitticisms. I had run blindly with the mob, as I was programmed to, albeit more than a little uncomfortably at times. I had to work bloody hard to rid myself of all this rubbish in order to develop a common sense – an ability to make a non-‘self’-centred, factual assessment. There was, however, previous fleeting flashes of common sense that stood me in good stead in my normal and spiritual times. These were often manifested as doubt and suspicion – which thankfully never developed into cynicism – and was also evident as what is best described as a bullshit detector.

I have always said that what Richard did was seduce and encourage me to go all the way in developing this fledgling and fragile common sense.

*

PETER: It was only that some inherent common sense prevented me from being happy and content with my lot in life and that left me with a healthy suspicion about the traditional spiritual illusion of ‘freedom’.

RESPONDENT: Who (or what) was ‘it’ only prevented you in the final analysis? Is this still not ‘your’, (your or Your), best ... what is this inherent common sense? A self freed of ego and soul? This is all good sense to me ... and not spiritual in nature

PETER: What commonly passes for common sense is but society’s varied versions of common practice – a confused jumble of morals, ethics, ancient wisdoms, compromises and platitudes. Intelligence, interminably straight-jacketed by a social conscience, and ceaselessly inflamed by the instinctual survival passions, is incapable of exercising common sense.

*

RESPONDENT: Your best has lead you to where you now are has it not, Peter?

PETER: No. If it had been up to ‘me’, I would be still striving to become rich and famous ... or Divine and Glorious. It was only that some inherent common sense prevented me from being happy and content with my lot in life and that left me with a healthy suspicion about the traditional spiritual illusion of ‘freedom’. This drive for the best is seen in many, many people and has led to the amazing progress in safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure that an increasing amount of humans now enjoy. The next, and glaringly obvious, goal for humans is to turn this drive for betterment to aspire to an end to their own instinctual malice and sorrow. Being a pioneer in this process is thrilling stuff indeed.

RESPONDENT: Is this ‘thrilling stuff’ your best at the moment? This is all good sense to me ... and not spiritual in nature.

PETER: Yes. But careful discrimination is needed, for all of the traditional – i.e. spiritual – paths to freedom aspire to an Altered State of Consciousness whereby a new Grand Identity is created who only ‘feels’ free of malice and sorrow.

*

PETER: If not, ‘the doing of best’ is yet another religious/ spiritual wank.

RESPONDENT: Yes of course, if I do not arrive at my objectives ... if I believe, or conclude, or deduce, an Actual Freedom as a permanent state I am certainly not being fully in the moment now? As this is contrary to my aims, I am destined to chase my tail and never smell the actual along the way. Am I not then wanking, (or pissing in the proverbial breeze)?

PETER: I am not writing to you to make judgement on you, your life or your aims. I only comment on what you write and communicate to me. I do, however, have a very good working knowledge of the spiritual world having lived in it, full-on, for 17 years. I also know well the effort required, and the fears that are encountered, when leaving this fantasy world.

It is this information I am attempting to pass on. How you receive it and what you do with it is entirely your business.

RESPONDENT: Do I now reinforce a desperate alien psychological or psychic entity by entertaining my dilemma?

PETER: Having a dilemma sounds good to me, because a dilemma presents a challenge that can always be resolved.

Wank – ‘to maintain an illusion: deceive oneself; behaviour which is self-indulgent and egotistical.’ Macquarie Dictionary.

As can be seen from the definition, wanking is endemic in the spiritual world. I know, for I wanked with the best of them.

RESPONDENT: By entertaining I mean give credence and substance to these delusional entities ... This is not good sense to me unless one moves on beyond the process ... and this is spiritual in nature if I fail to savour the actual along the way, (which you seem to be thoroughly engaged in).

PETER: It is not a matter of you giving credence and substance to these delusionary identities – they already have credence and substance.

‘Who’ you think and feel you are is given credence by your peers, family, friends and society.

‘Who’ you think and feel you are is given substance by your genetically-encoded animal survival passions.

‘Who’ you think and feel you are is very, very real and it takes considerable effort to become virtually free of the insidious influence of these identities – let alone become actually free.

To do this is to be totally engrossed in the process of actualism – you don’t ‘move on beyond the process’ at all, you stick to it until the process has run its course and culminates in ‘self’-immolation. Any experiences of ‘savouring the actual’ are only possible in what are known as Pure Consciousness Experiences – in which case there clearly is no ‘you’ thinking and feeling that you are savouring, but only the eyes, ears, nose, skin and mouth savouring.

*

RESPONDENT: What you, (Vineeto and others), do is all good sense to me ... and not spiritual in nature ... but spiritual is a most pervasive and insidious phenomenon imbibed into us with our mothers milk, (the physical desire to survive even beyond death is strong while punishment and reward leads to fear, etc ...). This being best in the moment, ‘being intimate’ will greatly benefit mankind, (and my own personal relationships), especially if and when I am permanently actually intimate?

PETER: And what I am suggesting is to thoroughly investigate all your morals, ethics and beliefs that form ‘this most pervasive and insidious phenomenon’ that is your spiritual identity.

*

RESPONDENT: So your ‘inherent common sense’ tells you that a dilemma ‘sounds good’ because ‘a challenge can always be resolved’ and it is ‘thrilling stuff’? This challenge is superior, (better), to lying down, giving in, self-delusion, denial, etc. (but this is not best as you know from a PCE). This is all good sense to me ... and not spiritual in nature.

PETER: The usual Eastern religious/ spiritual approach is to abandon the dilemma posed by being an alien psychological and psychic identity and opt for transcendental wanking – developing, cultivating and finally becoming a new Grand Identity. The new challenge is to not turn away from the challenge of peace on earth, in this lifetime, and this challenge is definitely good sense and definitely 180 degrees opposite to the search for an illusionary feeling of inner peace and the delusionary feeling of immortality.

RESPONDENT: Why then, Peter, as ‘a committed actualist aspir[ing] to an end’ to end your ‘own instinctual malice and sorrow’ do you defeat yourself before you start with ‘self-improvement would never be sufficient, never be enough’?

PETER: Firstly I am way beyond the start of this process, I am into the challenge of bringing it to an end. At the start I very soon understood that this process was about ‘self’-immolation and not ‘self’-improvement for I knew ‘I’ could never be pure and perfect. This fact is obvious in a PCE. The world is full of ‘self’-improvement programs and watered-down Eastern spirituality that offer nothing other than a feeling of ‘self’-improvement.

Having said that, I do not want to discourage your interest, far from it. But to confuse what is on offer with spiritual freedom or a feeling of freedom is to miss the whole point of actualism. The only way for you to discover the difference is to read what both offer and then reflect about the differences between the two. That is what I did – find the differences, not the similarities.

The other reason I write the way I do is to encourage you to consider the full actualism program rather than Actualism-Lite, to use a computer analogy. The full program leads to irrevocable and permanent change. The Lite version gives some improvements – and definitely valuable improvements for others if you become more harmless – but experience has shown the beneficial effects are not necessarily enduring and total reversions to ‘normal’ can even happen.

RESPONDENT: Do you believe in permanent ‘self’-immolation and that all challenges can ‘always be resolved’? Is this not wishful thinking?

PETER: If it is possible for one person it must be possible for others, especially given the fact that everybody has had brief glimpses of this ‘self’-less state in PCEs. As for wishful thinking – it has driven the spiritual search for millennia and I see good sense in searching for freedom, peace and happiness. It is simply time to abandon the ancient ways, old fairy-tale stories and search for ‘self’-fulfillment, and set our sights for something that will bring an end to instinctual malice and sorrow, once and for all.

RESPONDENT: Sounds to me as if this ‘being happy and content with my lot in life’ was less important than ‘a healthy suspicion about the traditional spiritual illusion of ‘freedom’’ and perhaps the identity you gain with such a search, ie. becoming the anti-guru Guru perhaps?

PETER: My search for freedom, peace and happiness was always the primary aim in my adult life and this became even stronger in my latter years. As for being an ‘anti-guru Guru’ – you might have missed my recent conversation with Gary where I scrupulously avoided anything that even hinted at such a role. Not that the trap of Guru-ship did not arise during the process and I wrote about my Saviour of Mankind phase in my Journal so as to inform others of this instinctually-driven compulsion.

We are fellow human beings writing on this list.

RESPONDENT: Is the ‘thrilling stuff’ more important than the end ... or ... is the goal and the journey one and the same in the perfect moment?

PETER: No. Firstly comes the desire for a genuine freedom, peace and happiness that arises from a discontent from one’s lot in life. Then comes the checking out the options stage, which up until now has only been the spiritual option, for there has never been a third alternative available before. Then comes the decision stage – stay spiritual, or chuck it in and try something new. Then comes the process, which is the thrilling stuff. The whole point of the process is to get to an end – an end of ‘me’, the lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning alien entity that dwells in this flesh and blood body.

On the spiritual path it is oft said that the journey and the goal are one, and usually for two reasons. For those who never become Enlightened or give up, the statement serves as a comfortable sop to their lack of achievement. Even for those who achieve the Enlightened state, their final reward and their ultimate freedom lie beyond physical death – so they say they are still journeying.

RESPONDENT: Perhaps being a ‘committed actualist’ (at the present) is simply better than your spiritual life?

PETER: There is no perhaps about it at all. It is so vastly superior that I find it amazing that people still desperately cling to their religious/ spiritual beliefs, failed morals, unliveable ethics and precious feelings. They pay a terrible price in running with the herd.

RESPONDENT: These questions/ observations are given with the same sincerity that they are asked/ observed and in the context of your initial observations about mine re mentoring/ mindfulness. This is all good sense to me ... and not spiritual in nature.

PETER: What always attracted me to actualism was the good sense of it all. As for ‘not spiritual in nature’, I am well aware I could be accused of being excessive in attempting to drive a wedge between actualism and Eastern spiritualism. Given that they both offer freedom, peace and happiness it is important to investigate and look for the differences between the offerings. I had sufficient in-depth, first-hand experience to know that an ‘inner’ spiritual freedom was a bogus ‘self’-indulgence and its historical track-record is appalling, to say the least. Taking on something new is a daunting prospect but what was written about actualism at the time – which was only Richard’s Journal – made such good sense to me that I was encouraged to dig in to find out what was really on offer.

30.6.2001

PETER: Good to hear from you again. It must be full-on winter on the south coast by now – wood fires and hot soup as I remember that part of the world. Byron Bay has that holiday-town-in-winter magic – very often clear sunny days and relatively empty of tourists. It’s makes life so simple not to need to go anywhere for a holiday in order to ‘get away from it all’ – I holiday all year round in a holiday town.

RESPONDENT: Peter, you wrote,

PETER: You quote a snippet from a sentence of mine but I cannot find it anywhere in my recent posts. From your comment I take it I was talking about why I write about actualism, but it is only a guess.

RESPONDENT: You write very well and you sound like you live well too.

PETER: Writing has been a whole new adventure for me. It was another of those things I started and then went ‘what have I got myself into?’ The only reason I started writing was that, for the first time in my life, I had something to say and that was ‘the actualism method of becoming happy and harmless works’ Writing about a process while it is happening does present some interesting challenges but my bottom line always was ‘can I stand behind what I say?’

Much of what I write is simply a factual hindsight report of the practical application of actualism. It is both personal and general in that many of the issues I tackled and many of the areas I explored in the human condition are by nature, common to all. There will of course be some minor variations depending upon the nature of one’s personal social conditioning and life experiences but I have always said that it is no coincidence that Richard’s Journal was followed by Peters’ Journal as actualism publications. One points to what is now humanly possible, the other is a personal account of how to get yourself to the stage where it is possible.

As for my living well – it is solely due to following Richard’s lead and applying the method of actualism. The only thing ‘I’ did was admit that everything else ‘I’ had tried had failed and then naively decided to give actualism a 100% go.

RESPONDENT: What is there not to get? There are no opposites to this eternal and infinite universe. The creations, (humanity’s mindsets and fears etc.) and over-zealous instinctual survival modes are the only real problem. Simple.

PETER: What I said to No 23 recently is relevant to your question and subsequent answer –

[Peter]: ‘All the problems that blight humanity can be sheeted home to the instinctual animal survival passions, genetically-encoded by blind nature in each and every human being. Security is only a problem because human beings are driven by fear, aggression, nurture and desire, and pollution is only an issue because of the relentless and senseless drive to procreate and proliferate, come what may. The seeing and understanding of this is one thing, the next and obvious question is – what am ‘I’ going to do about it?’ Peter to No 23, 23.6.2001

Countless people have had altered states of consciousness experiences where they temporarily stepped outside the illusion of reality thus becoming a see-er of the problems that ‘I’ and others needlessly suffer from. Having had this experience they then adopt the identity of being see-er or Seer, thereupon spreading the traditional message that the solution to the ills of humanity is simply to become a Seer.

Fairly early on in the process of actualism I had a realization that served to jolt me to my senses – so much so that I was impelled to turn my intellectual seeing and understanding into down-to-earth action ... to put my money where my mouth was, as it were –

[Peter]: ‘Two other ingredients necessary for success are patience and consideration, and my lack of these was soon to become a major issue between us. In typical male fashion I leapt into the process, determined to make it work. I had found a ‘solution’ and I proceeded to attempt to ram it down Vineeto’s throat. I would take the discoveries about Actual Freedom I had made in talking with Richard and try to convince her of their ‘rightness’. She was still very much on the spiritual path, whereas I was beginning to have very serious doubts. Of course, she sensibly dug her heels in – she saw it as her simply taking on yet another belief system. We often would come to loggerheads over this, and this was in stark contrast to the mutual discoveries we were making about love, sex and gender differences. Here I was again acting in stereotype – arrogant, authoritarian and wielding power. What this meant practically was that I was again doing ‘battle’, and with the very woman with whom I had vowed to end all this nonsense! Our pact had in fact been about living together and did not include her having to abandon her spiritual beliefs – that was her business, not mine.

One day, as I was driving to see her, it struck me like a thunderbolt. This is not just an intellectual theory – this is about changing my actions, changing my life. A theory is useless unless it is practical, workable, i.e. can be proven in practice that it works. If the battling was to stop, then it was me who had to stop it! This was not about changing Vineeto – this was about changing me! When I saw her that evening I told her I was not going to battle her anymore, wanting to get my way or wanting to change her. The realization that it was me who had to stop battling was so obvious, so complete and so devastating that it was impossible to continue on as I had before.

It was to prove a seminal point, a break from my past view of relating with women. It meant that instead of trying to bridge a separation, there was a beginning towards finding a genuine intimacy – to eliminate the cause of the separation. Instead of wanting to prove ‘my’ point or defend ‘my’ position the emphasis shifted to discovering what was common ground, what was mutually agreed. Instead of conflict the emphasis shifted to peaceful resolution. This realization proved to be the beginning of being able to sincerely and openly investigate all that inhibited our living together in peace and harmony – a 180 degree shift from the normal relating. Not a ‘surrender to the other’ as in losing a battle, not a withdrawal, not a sit it out on the sidelines, but a genuine seeing and understanding of the very futility of the battle itself. It was the beginning of getting down and getting dirty to look unabashedly at all the emotions, feelings and instinctual passions that arise between men and women. To talk about and thoroughly investigate love, jealousy, dependency, sex, authority, power, gender roles, etc. without any conflict or battle. Our investigation became an exploration of the Human Condition it self and how it was manifest in a male body and how it was manifest in a female body. We became fascinated with finding and analysing the differences rather than continuing to blindly and stubbornly defend them. Which of these differences were merely socially imprinted, which were instinctually programmed, and which, if any, were genuine? This investigation and fascination proved to be the beginning of the end of conflict, and this was despite the fact that at many times the findings were uncomfortable, confronting, disorienting, bewildering, and at times appalling.

The success of this approach brought instant, tangible results in our living together peacefully and harmoniously – so much so that an eagerness to bring all of our ‘dark secrets’ out of the closet rapidly overtook our inherent fear of exposure. At last I had found a ‘best mate’, someone I could talk to about absolutely everything – without holding back; without any men’s or women’s private stuff. I am able to be naked and honest with her – and why shouldn’t I be? I am able to say anything about myself without that classic fear that it will be used against me later in some future battle – the hackneyed ‘forgiveness’ that never works as it is only added to the store of resentment. Any exposing or discussion about ‘personal’ issues was always undertaken in the light of it being yet another fascinating discussion or observation of the Human Condition in action. Peter’s Journal, Living Together

As I said to No 12 recently, there is a wonderful freedom in being able to become free of the human condition – the very process itself gives meaning, purpose and direction to ‘my’ life for the very first time. It is utterly delicious to devote oneself 100% to something and not remain a fence-sitter or a spectator to this extraordinary business of being alive as a flesh and blood human being.