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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 13
PETER: Good to hear from you again. You wrote in response to my post to Gary – RESPONDENT: Yes. I am still here after two years ... enjoying the discussions as much as ever. Seemingly more relevant than ever too...but the old, old story of mans humanity and inhumanity to man goes on and on. PETER to Gary: The notion that consciousness itself has levels gives rise to the commonly-held
belief that ‘I’ as consciousness have deeper levels which in turn gives rise to the feeling that there is a real ‘me’ lurking somewhere
inside and if ‘I’ can only become this real ‘me’, ‘I’ will find freedom and fulfilment, not to mention power and immortality. RESPONDENT: For ‘me’ it was as though the more ‘I’ understood the more would be revealed ... within this realisation a degree of clarity, peace and harmony would follow. I knew that which was good and right for ‘me’ ... but ... nobody could ever ‘walk in my shoes’, so to speak ... nor I in theirs. Looking back ‘I’ was emotionally separate, misunderstood, aloof by necessity and by ‘my’ own doing/thinking. Physically I am alone, (and always will be), but the desire to be one with others is born of sorrow, fear, loneliness, etc. I called this the ‘gilded cage syndrome’ ... never quite fully belonging, (or wanting to fully belong), to the club called ‘humanity’, with all its impossible pros and cons. There still remained ‘inner’ conflict because of ‘my’ deep belief that everything needed to make deep and profound universal sense to ‘my’ idealistic ‘self’ from within the human condition and as part of the human family, (world community). Pursued harmony not to mention, ‘freedom, fulfilment, power and immortality’ never quite delivered. My actions were often at odds with the sensual delight of the physical world. I sought universal, collective understanding along the way, (of the human condition and everything), as a palliative ‘solution’, (or method), of dealing with my sorrow, fear, loneliness, isolation and powerlessness. Now I see someone had to be first ... to say, once and for all, ‘no humanity’s modus operandi does not work ... we are going the wrong way’. PETER: I am always interested as to what others make of actualism. The other day I met someone who had been interested in Richard and actual freedom at about the same time I became interested in actualism. His active interest only lasted for a few months until the realization set in that being an actualist would inevitably involve radical change. When the consequence of what this change would mean in practice kicked in, he very soon drifted away. We had a chat and while I extolled the pleasures and peacefulness of being here in the world as-it-is, he complained about how hard it is to be in the world as-it-is and how good it was to meditate and go ‘inside’. Consequently our chat was reasonably brief. Another meeting was with an elderly woman who has maintained a curiosity about actualism for several years now. She said she liked much of what she read but that she could never give up her belief in the Christian God. I said to her that that this was okay because the good thing about actualism is that you can have a little bit – you don’t have to take on the lot. She said what she liked about actualism was the possibility of becoming happy and harmless. I pointed out that if even you believe in an afterlife, you are still here on earth before you go ‘there’ – so why not try and make the effort to be happy and harmless anyway. She was well pleased with the news and it may well be that she keeps reading the website whenever she remembers. I could relate other anecdotes but the point is the writings of actualism are available for anyone to do with them as they are wont to – be it scorn, rejection, objection, doubt or fear, interest, fence-sitting, trying a little or taking on the lot. I fully acknowledge that the prospect of taking on actualism ‘boots and all’ is a daunting business but I can only relate that it is the most thrilling thing to do and any emotional traumas encountered on the way very quickly fade and leave not a skerrick of scars. I now have little memory of the dramas and difficulties that I encountered, so well does the process of becoming happy and harmless work in practice. The explorations of the human condition are wide ranging in content – nothing is too sacred to question and investigate for an actualist – and amazing in context – for no adventure is more thrilling than investigating one’s own psyche and being an active participant in one’s own radical change. * PETER to Gary: You will have no doubt noticed in your own investigations the various levels of
programming that the human mind has been subjected to. You will have noticed that as you strip away an outer layer of belief you are more easily
able to acknowledge the facts and make sense of a situation. Similarly as you remove the outer layers of social programming you are more able to
understand and experience the deeper layers of instinctual programming that have been genetically encoded by blind nature. This basic survival
programming of fear, aggression, nurture and desire forms the deeper layers that have been wrongly construed as being deeper layers of
consciousness or unconscious layers in some jargon. RESPONDENT: How quickly people jump on whatever bandwagon seems to offer the best immediate fix. Nothing less than a complete personal revolution of thinking and the elimination of ‘self’ is required. PETER: What interests me is how long people are prepared to keep on doing the same thing when it obviously doesn’t work. I know of many people who are still picking over the wreckage of the baby boomer’s flirtation with Eastern religion looking for something that might give them some temporary solace from grim reality or who now make a living selling the hollow dream that they and the rest of their generation have failed to realize. As No.12 has said some two years ago, actualism may well be for the next generation. * PETER to Gary: Because actualism is so radically different to anything else that has passed for
knowledge and wisdom about human consciousness, I eventually gave up looking for the similarities with past thinking so as to concentrate my focus
on the differences. This is not to deny the contribution that many human beings have made to the study of human consciousness but actualists are in
fact involved in a process that is a radical departure from all that is considered normal, natural, wise, profound, traditional or esoteric. RESPONDENT: Yep ... it is seeing facts and doing in the most appropriate manner. PETER: My aim was always to get rid of the ‘me’ who was forever bound to having decide what was right, wrong, good, bad appropriate or inappropriate. The process is disconcerting because it involves actively lifting the lid of one’s own moral and ethical programming so as to see what lurks underneath. This seeing of the facts of what one’s own psyche is made of, and how it operates, allows the bright light of awareness to eliminate the ‘he’ or ‘she’ who has to remain constantly vigilant lest the instinctual passions come brutishly to the fore. This seeing of the facts can’t be done just intellectually if one wants to radically change so as to completely eliminate malice and sorrow form one’s own life. In order to evince actual change it is essential to also have an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of one’s own psyche in operation. An actualist needs to put theory into practice in order to gain hands-on working knowledge, which then automatically translates into expertise based on personal experience of what works and what doesn’t. I am not wanting to discourage your interest in obvious actualism, far from it. What I am suggesting is to be aware of taking on actualism as ‘doing in the most appropriate manner’, of adopting yet another moral or ethical belief system. Actualism offers the opportunity for ‘self’ investigation so as to confirm by one’s own experience what is on offer – the permanent eradication of malice and sorrow in one, and one only, flesh and blood body.
PETER to Gary: Because actualism is so radically different to anything else that has passed for
knowledge and wisdom about human consciousness, I eventually gave up looking for the similarities with past thinking so as to concentrate my focus
on the differences. This is not to deny the contribution that many human beings have made to the study of human consciousness but actualists are in
fact involved in a process that is a radical departure from all that is considered normal, natural, wise, profound, traditional or esoteric. RESPONDENT: Yep ... it is seeing facts and doing in the most appropriate manner. PETER: My aim was always to get rid of the ‘me’ who was forever bound to having decide what was right, wrong, good, bad appropriate or inappropriate. The process is disconcerting because it involves actively lifting the lid of one’s own moral and ethical programming so as to see what lurks underneath. This seeing of the facts of what one’s own psyche is made of, and how it operates, allows the bright light of awareness to eliminate the ‘he’ or ‘she’ who has to remain constantly vigilant lest the instinctual passions come brutishly to the fore. RESPONDENT: Your point is well made ... I can see where you might question the phrase, ‘most appropriate manner’, Peter. PETER: I wasn’t questioning the phrase you used, I was pointing out that the only way to do what is appropriate – and for me that means doing what is sensible – is to first get rid of all of the social conditioning that automatically causes us to try to do what we have been taught is the right and good thing to do. As you are no doubt aware, it is impossible to think and act intelligently – to do what is appropriate in a situation – whilst being a normally passionate tribal human animal, let alone whilst being a super-natural passionate non-physical being. * PETER: This seeing of the facts can’t be done just intellectually if one wants to radically change so as to completely eliminate malice and sorrow form one’s own life.RESPONDENT: Yes. One of the first things ‘I’ realised, (and you continue to make clear), about actualism was that investigation would involve both ‘me’ and me, (as flesh and blood), experientially, incrementally destroying ‘me’, (as an instinctual, alien, moral, ethical conditioned entity). PETER: Does this mean the realization and the subsequent investigations have lead to you being less malicious in your interaction with other people and less sorrowful about being here in the world as-it-is? The reason I continue to attempt to make the actualism method clear is that it can, if applied with diligence, produce results and these results are what speak louder than words. When I received my academic training as an architect I ended up knowing virtually nothing about the practice of architecture or the nuts and bolts of building. After two years in an architect’s office I still knew bugger all because I knew nothing about how buildings were built. After 5 years working in management on building sites I knew a bit more but when I went back into an office I still lacked practical hands on experience. Some 15 years of actual hands-on building later, I now know sufficient about designing and constructing buildings to be able to do things in what I consider the most appropriate manner. Not that many people are willing to accept my 35 years of practical experience as being appropriate for they are oft swayed by fashion and driven by passion but that is neither here nor there. It is this learning by hands on experience based on trial and error, a keen observation of what works and what doesn’t and an intimate involvement with all facets of the process that has led to expertise. This expertise is not the result of book learning and has not been acquired by parroting the words, knowledge or styles of others. It is exactly the same with learning to be an actualist – at some stage one needs to turn theory into practice, lest one remains an academic theoretician, liable to be swayed by fashion and driven by pride or passion. * PETER: In order to evince actual change it is essential to also have an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of one’s own psyche in operation. An actualist needs to put theory into practice in order to gain hands-on working knowledge, which then automatically translates into expertise based on personal experience of what works and what doesn’t. RESPONDENT: I have had an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of my ‘own psyche in operation’, predating actualism by over twenty years. As a youth worker and in the classrooms of secondary colleges ‘I’ cunningly identified, laboured to modify, learnt to hide and continued to refine ‘myself’ by experiential necessity to fit in and become more what ‘I’ thought ‘I’ should be. More recently as a small business in the competitive multimedia industry ‘I’ have continued to gain experiences of myself in operation. With the assistance of actualism I no longer contort myself to fit into the impossible human condition known as humanity. My intention, Peter, now, is to completely eradicate this, cunning, laboured, learnt and refined, ‘self’ experimentally. PETER: Speaking personally, my understanding of how my psyche operated was virtually non-existent until I became aware of actualism. I was straight normal for 32 years, i.e. I coped as best I could, and then I became a spiritualist, a superior soul as it were. Although I learned a bit about how the real world operated, I never did dare to question the spiritual teachings themselves until I met Richard, nor did I begin to sincerely question my own social - spiritual and instinctual programming. I also have had the opportunity to observe many seekers in my spiritual years and I have never met anyone undertaking an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of their own psyche in operation let alone be bothered with becoming happy and harmless. As such, I cannot relate to your comment about doing so ‘predating actualism by over twenty years’. Maybe some down-to-earth examples of your understandings and their consequences in your daily life would make your comment clearer to me in case I am misinterpreting what you are saying. * PETER: I am not wanting to discourage your interest in obvious actualism, far from it. What I am suggesting is to be aware of taking on actualism as ‘doing in the most appropriate manner’, of adopting yet another moral or ethical belief system. Actualism offers the opportunity for ‘self’ investigation so as to confirm by one’s own experience what is on offer – the permanent eradication of malice and sorrow in one, and one only, flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Yes. It began as a theory which was constantly verifiable and continues almost automatically without need for verification. Practicing actualism in the market place has become a thrilling and more fully ‘alive’ way of living. Intellectually wrestling and filtering has all but stopped. I am well on the way towards, the permanent eradication of malice and sorrow in myself, and in the only, flesh and blood body I know myself to be ... and can only ever fully be. Yes, Peter, I cannot recommend actualism more highly. PETER: Within a few months of becoming interested in actualism I also sought verification, i.e. I wanted to trial the method in practice. I chose one of the trials of human life that everyone invariably fails – to be able to live with one other person with no conflict and discord whatsoever. Living with a woman in peace and harmony had always been a longing of mine, as was the desire to eradicate my sexual conditioning and fears that invariably led to sexual inhibition and fantasy. In hindsight my approach was similar to the one I adopted in my work – bone up on the theory a bit and then get stuck into putting it into practice in all its facets. Perhaps you would like to share some of your successes in eradicating malice and sorrow from your life as it is often these stories of practical success that can be of use to others who may be investigating or tackling similar issues. None of us are unique in our social or instinctual programming and because of this those who are involved in the process of investigating and eliminating this programming will inevitably have much practical information and anecdotes to share on this list that will be useful for anyone.
PETER: This seeing of the facts can’t be done just intellectually if one wants to radically change so as to completely eliminate malice and sorrow from one’s own life. RESPONDENT: Yes. One of the first things ‘I’ realised, (and you continue to make clear), about actualism was that investigation would involve both ‘me’ and me, (as flesh and blood), experientially, incrementally destroying ‘me’, (as an instinctual, alien, moral, ethical conditioned entity). PETER: Does this mean the realization and the subsequent investigations have lead to you being less malicious in your interaction with other people and less sorrowful about being here in the world as-it-is? The reason I continue to attempt to make the actualism method clear is that it can, if applied with diligence, produce results and these results are what speak louder than words. RESPONDENT: Certainly in my experience, ‘results are what speak louder than any words’ ... especially when one recognises the problem, is motivated by the solution and finds the results to be beneficial permanently, (or incrementally). Peter, your book inspired me to apply the method about two years ago so I am appreciative of your continuing efforts to make the actualism method clear ... especially when illustrated with personal examples. I do not wish, however, to trap anyone by making them the expert and me the fool, (or visa versa). We are after all free to live our lives as well as we are capable. I was more than ready for actualism ... others apparently are not. PETER: I have no problem with acknowledging someone else’s expertise in a particular field, nor do I have any problem acknowledging my own foolishness when it occurs. Even after some 4 years of actualism I still come across a belief that I have taken to be a fact for want of investigation or do the occasional silly thing. I certainly had no problem acknowledging Richard’s wide-ranging expertise about the human condition in general and how to become free of it in particular, nor in acknowledging my own foolishness in being a follower of a God-man’s wisdom for all those years. The realization of my own foolishness was made easier by fully understanding that, not only I but everyone else had also got it wrong. This is evident by the fact that every human being on this planet is both socially and instinctually programmed to be malicious and sorrowful and to fear and resent being here. No one escapes this programming. Every baby born comes with a genetically-inherited instinctual program which is well-established by about age two. On top of this crude animal programming is layered a social program which is instilled by one’s parents and peers in order to make one a fit social identity. This program consists of the beliefs, morals, ethics and values of one’s parents and peers which they have been taught by others who were here before them – and so on back into the mists of time. Once you fully take on board the fact that this programming is only programming and therefore can be deleted, you are presented with the challenge that your own freedom is indeed totally in your hands ... and no one else’s. As for everybody is free to live their lives – this psittacism does stretch the meaning and the spirit of the word free somewhat since to be socially and instinctually ensnared within the human condition, be it as a normal identity or as a spiritual identity, can hardly be described as being free. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, for the most part, people are free to choose how they live their lives within the human condition, be it with feelings of acceptance, resentment, rebellion, denial, resignation, indifference, aloofness, gratitude, humility, or whatever. I simply chose to turn my dreams into actuality this lifetime ... and not wait for some mythical next one. * PETER: When I received my academic training as an architect I ended up knowing virtually nothing about the practice of architecture or the nuts and bolts of building. After two years in an architect’s office I still knew bugger all because I knew nothing about how buildings were built. After 5 years working in management on building sites I knew a bit more but when I went back into an office I still lacked practical hands on experience. Some 15 years of actual hands-on building later, I now know sufficient about designing and constructing buildings to be able to do things in what I consider the most appropriate manner. Not that many people are willing to accept my 35 years of practical experience as being appropriate for they are oft swayed by fashion and driven by passion but that is neither here nor there. It is this learning by hands on experience based on trial and error, a keen observation of what works and what doesn’t and an intimate involvement with all facets of the process that has led to expertise. This expertise is not the result of book learning and has not been acquired by parroting the words, knowledge or styles of others. It is exactly the same with learning to be an actualist – at some stage one needs to turn theory into practice, lest one remains an academic theoretician, liable to be swayed by fashion and driven by pride or passion. RESPONDENT: When I received my academic training as an art teacher I ended up knowing virtually nothing about the practice of teaching ... or ... the nuts and bolts of living well. If living well, (and to help others to learn to live well), was the purpose of my education, I was indeed ill-equipped. Even now not many people are willing to accept my 20 years of practical teaching experience as being appropriate for they are oft swayed by fashion and driven by passion ... but that is neither here nor there. It is this learning by hands on experience based on trial and error, a keen observation of what works and what doesn’t and an intimate involvement with all facets of the process, (of living well), that has led to expertise. This expertise is not the result of book learning and has not been acquired by parroting the words, knowledge or styles of others. PETER: As for living well as you mentioned, when I met Richard and understood what was involved in actualism, I had to admit that, despite my years on the spiritual path, I had yet to even begin to live well in terms of being genuinely happy and completely harmless. Richard obviously not only had the expertise but, even more tempting, he had devised a method specifically designed to enable anyone sufficiently motivated to become both happy and harmless. RESPONDENT: Remarkably I find a great deal of resentment and hostility towards others living well while fearful of illuminating their own flaws and problems. PETER: When I first came across actualism I would often talk about the facts of the human condition with people which naturally provoked a defensive reaction as I was actively challenging not only their beliefs but their very identity. I soon learned to keep my counsel as it were and nowadays I have delightful interactions with nearly everyone I meet. I now confine my talking about the facts of the human condition to this mailing list given that discussing these matters is the very purpose of this list. RESPONDENT: Equally remarkable is the person who makes available the words, anecdotes and methods, (for others to live well), without requiring the usual prizes of power, fame-recognition and fortune. PETER: To make such things freely available is part and parcel of being an actualist for the prizes of power, fame, recognition and fortune are the hollow rewards offered to the hapless suppliants of the human condition for being noble – or ignoble – warriors in the on-going conflict between all human beings. Such prizes as these are beneath the dignity of an actualist although, as I wrote in my journal, their social and instinctive lure has to be recognized and surpassed in order to avoid becoming yet another pious Saviour of Mankind. * PETER: It is exactly the same with learning to be an actualist – at some stage one needs to turn theory into practice, lest one remains an academic theoretician, liable to be swayed by fashion and driven by pride or passion. RESPONDENT: Ah. This may be a stumbling block? I never tried to ‘be an actualist’ or even an expert actualist. My focus is to live this life-span as well as I can using actualism until I need it no longer. PETER: Given that you are free to choose how you live your life, this apparent stumbling block is entirely your choice and entirely your creation. To be an actualist is to deliberately choose to turn around 180 degrees from one’s previous directions in life and set upon a path that leads out of the human condition. This involves abandoning not only one’s precious social and spiritual identity but also one’s very sense of belonging and feeling of being. If I read you right, you are attempting to meld some of the facets of actualism that appeal to you with your previous understandings and predilections so as to live a better life. For instance, you have said –
While this clip-on approach to actualism is not the ‘Full Monty’, I have witnessed the tangible benefits to several people of taking on a bit of actualism in their lives. Any move towards being more happy and more harmless, in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are can only be of benefit ... not only personally but also to those one comes in contact with in daily life. To actively work on being less angry and less blameful of others as well as less sorrowful and less resentful at being here is to make the only practical contribution possible to genuine peace on earth between humans. As I related last time in the anecdote about the Christian lady, even if someone believes in an afterlife or in a reincarnation, it does make good sense to be as happy and harmless as possible whilst being here on earth in this lifetime. However, should anyone want to become actually free of the human condition, one needs to abandon all spiritual and religious beliefs – i.e. it is a pre-requisite that one be a practicing actualist. * PETER: In order to evince actual change it is essential to also have an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of one’s own psyche in operation. An actualist needs to put theory into practice in order to gain hands-on working knowledge, which then automatically translates into expertise based on personal experience of what works and what doesn’t. RESPONDENT: I have had an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of my ‘own psyche in operation’, predating actualism by over twenty years. As a youth worker and in the classrooms of secondary colleges ‘I’ cunningly identified, laboured to modify, learnt to hide and continued to refine ‘myself’ by experiential necessity to fit in and become more what ‘I’ thought ‘I’ should be. More recently as a small business in the competitive multimedia industry ‘I’ have continued to gain experiences of myself in operation. With the assistance of actualism I no longer contort myself to fit into the impossible human condition known as humanity. My intention, Peter, now, is to completely eradicate this, cunning, laboured, learnt and refined, ‘self’ experimentally. PETER: Speaking personally, my understanding of how my psyche operated was virtually non-existent until I became aware of actualism. I was straight normal for 32 years, i.e. I coped as best I could, and then I became a spiritualist, a superior soul as it were. Although I learned a bit about how the real world operated, I never did dare to question the spiritual teachings themselves until I met Richard, nor did I begin to sincerely question my own social - spiritual and instinctual programming. RESPONDENT: Personally I questioned everything including religions and spirituality as well as the so-called normal conditioned 9 to 5. I remember as long ago as 1976 grasping the idea that to experience life well involved ‘delusion lost rather than wisdom gained’ ... perhaps you agree that your native intelligence or common sense has got you to actualism? PETER: No. My desire to be genuinely free, in this lifetime, got me into actualism. To do so I had to free my native – as in born with – intelligence of its social and instinctual programming such that common sense could prevail in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: My point is that I questioned myself and social conditioning relentlessly. Either I was wrong or society was wrong ... only after reading your books did I begin to put actualism into practice ... and grasp the third alternative both intellectually and practically. PETER: Given that you have said above – ‘I never tried to ‘be an actualist’ or even an expert actualist’ – I find your point to be somewhat obtuse. How you practice actualism, grasping it ‘both intellectually and practically’ without being an actualist is simply beyond my comprehension. * PETER: I also have had the opportunity to observe many seekers in my spiritual years and I have never met anyone undertaking an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of their own psyche in operation let alone be bothered with becoming happy and harmless. As such, I cannot relate to your comment about doing so ‘predating actualism by over twenty years’. Maybe some down-to-earth examples of your understandings and their consequences in your daily life would make your comment clearer to me in case I am misinterpreting what you are saying. RESPONDENT: Whenever I felt angst, disquiet, emotional discomfort of any kind I wondered what I was doing to cause it. I have known that I was always the cause of my problems and yet the world offered no actual alternative or lasting, permanent solution. PETER: Contrary to popular wisdom, it is the instinctual passions – both the so-called savage and the so-called tender passions – that are the root cause of human malice and sorrow. It is these passions, together with their accompanying beliefs morals, ethics and values, which need to be thoroughly investigated if one is to ever become permanently free of the problems of being human. As such, it is vital to pay equal attention to the desirable and cherished emotions as it is to the undesirable and repulsive emotions, and it is this insight that distinguishes an actualist’s ‘self’-eliminating awareness from a spiritualist’s ‘self’-aggrandizing selective awareness. * PETER: In order to evince actual change it is essential to also have an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of one’s own psyche in operation. An actualist needs to put theory into practice in order to gain hands-on working knowledge, which then automatically translates into expertise based on personal experience of what works and what doesn’t. RESPONDENT: Yes... ‘An experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of one’s own psyche in operation’, may prevent one from making the same silly mistakes, may facilitate and even evince an actual and permanent change. If however, I then believe I am an expert and (therefore), presume to know better than others how to live their lives, (as an actualist), I make a presumptuous mistake which may repel others from the very benefits of actualism. PETER: Speaking personally, I do not presume to live my life better than other people – I know I do. I only need to engage in conversation with others to know that I no longer nurse malice and sorrow in my bosom. I only need to observe my fellow human beings relating to each other to know that none live in utter peace and harmony with each other. I only need to see how Vineeto and I live with each other to know that it is extra-ordinary whether it be in comparison to either spiritualists or materialists. The best on offer so far has been to think and feel one is free of the human condition, or hope one will be one day, which is a far cry from being actually free of the human condition. This stating of facts will inevitably be interpreted as arrogance by those who choose to remain normal or those who cling to being spiritual ... but what to do? If someone deliberately sets out to become happy and harmless and succeeds ... is he or she to shut up and not bother to tell others that it can be done and how it can be done, simply because others demand it of them for whatever reason. * PETER: I am not wanting to discourage your interest in obvious actualism, far from it. What I am suggesting is to be aware of taking on actualism as ‘doing in the most appropriate manner’, of adopting yet another moral or ethical belief system. Actualism offers the opportunity for ‘self’ investigation so as to confirm by one’s own experience what is on offer – the permanent eradication of malice and sorrow in one, and one only, flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Yes. It began as a theory which was constantly verifiable and continues almost automatically without need for verification. Practicing actualism in the market place has become a thrilling and more fully ‘alive’ way of living. Intellectually wrestling and filtering has all but stopped. I am well on the way towards, the permanent eradication of malice and sorrow in myself, and in the only, flesh and blood body I know myself to be ... and can only ever fully be. Yes, Peter, I cannot recommend actualism more highly. PETER: Within a few months of becoming interested in actualism I also sought verification, i.e. I wanted to trial the method in practice. I chose one of the trials of human life that everyone invariably fails – to be able to live with one other person with no conflict and discord whatsoever. Living with a woman in peace and harmony had always been a longing of mine, as was the desire to eradicate my sexual conditioning and fears that invariably led to sexual inhibition and fantasy. In hindsight my approach was similar to the one I adopted in my work – bone up on the theory a bit and then get stuck into putting it into practice in all its facets. Perhaps you would like to share some of your successes in eradicating malice and sorrow from your life as it is often these stories of practical success that can be of use to others who may be investigating or tackling similar issues. None of us are unique in our social or instinctual programming and because of this those who are involved in the process of investigating and eliminating this programming will inevitably have much practical information and anecdotes to share on this list that will be useful for anyone. RESPONDENT: Yes. I am now willing to give some accounts of my successes. The main limitations to date have been time ... and ... a reluctance to convert the experience into a meaningful written anecdote. Initially I wanted to write a book but soon realised that I had a lot of work to do on ‘myself’ first. PETER: I found the very act of writing to be an invaluable way of making sense of the human condition, and while I realize it will not be everyone’s cup of tea, I would always encourage those who are inclined to do so to do so. For me it was simply a way of getting off my bum and forcing myself to put my money where my mouth was, as it were.
PETER: It is exactly the same with learning to be an actualist – at some stage one needs to turn theory into practice, lest one remains an academic theoretician, liable to be swayed by fashion and driven by pride or passion. RESPONDENT: Ah. This may be a stumbling block? I never tried to ‘be an actualist’ or even an expert actualist. My focus is to live this life-span as well as I can using actualism until I need it no longer. PETER: Given that you are free to choose how you live your life, this apparent stumbling block is entirely your choice and entirely your creation. To be an actualist is to deliberately choose to turn around 180 degrees from one’s previous directions in life and set upon a path that leads out of the human condition. This involves abandoning not only one’s precious social and spiritual identity but also one’s very sense of belonging and feeling of being. RESPONDENT: Without getting bogged down in semantics or intellectually nit-picking, the possible, ‘stumbling block’, I was referring to was between you and I, (and therefore by inference between any two people) ... if there are un-stated, un-named ‘pre-requisites’ to learning to ‘be an actualist’ known only to ‘you’ but not ‘me’, (or visa versa). PETER: But there are no un-stated, un-named prerequisites to learning to be an actualist. There are no secret hidden agendas to being an actualist – the only prerequisites are clearly and unambiguously stated by the three actualists whose writings constitute the Actual Freedom Trust website. There are also no stumbling blocks between actualists because the disagreements and disharmony between human beings are solely due to clinging on to beliefs, morals and ethics and to cherishing ‘self’-centred feelings and passions. In the process of dismantling this programming, an actualist therefore increasingly experiences no stumbling blocks with other actualists purely because what is being discussed is what is actual as opposed to that which is believed, imagined, concocted, felt or intuited to be true. RESPONDENT: This is why I distinguished between your learning ‘to be an actualist’ as opposed to my focus ‘to live this life-span as well as I can using actualism until I need it no longer’. I don’t think it will be a problem given your subsequent explanations. PETER: You may ponder as to why Richard still calls himself an actualist even after becoming actually free of the human condition. RESPONDENT: Living ‘this life span’ encumbered by the effort of having to fit a new set of pre-requisites would be jumping out of the fire and into the frying pan. PETER: And yet to be an actualist is to divest oneself of all of the social/spiritual prerequisites and instinctual imperatives that keep one from being actually free. There are no new pre-requisites in being an actualist other than to devote oneself to this very business of being free of this social and instinctual programming. Further the process to do so is purely a do-it-yourself business – it involves no new programming nor the cultivation of a new identity for what you are is what emerges when all identity is expunged. If however you want to stay free of being a practicing actualist then you choose to stay free of becoming actually free of your past ... and all that implies. RESPONDENT: ‘Being an actualist’ ie: identifying with a new pioneering endeavour (to, for example, save mankind from himself), becomes incrementally redundant with automatic expert doing ... incrementally one learns not to identify with any prerequisite as being ‘the prerequisite way’ which would become ‘liable to be swayed by fashion and driven by pride or passion’. PETER: If you say so, but what you are saying is entirely outside of my experience of being an actualist. Being an actualist involved stripping all of my past away – my social and instinctual identity is in such tatters that I no longer fit in with, nor identify with those who bitch and complain about being here or with those who extol the virtues of going some-where else. RESPONDENT: My point was simply that this very identifying could be keeping the method exclusive and could be counter productive to the aim towards first and foremost knowing happy and harmless living in this actual world as opposed to providing intellectually clever anecdotes for a suffering world, (for example), while unchanging myself fundamentally. PETER: There are traps on the path to becoming free, the most notorious one being the instinctive lure of self-aggrandizement. Richard has said, and I would concur by my own experience, that the only real danger with using the actualism method is that one could become Enlightened. It is impossible to identify with being an actualist because there is nothing to identify with. The word actualist is a label – a very convenient tag that serves to distinguish one from being a materialist or a spiritualist, the only two categories of human possibility up until now. Whenever I happen to get involved in spiritual talk I usually say I gave up spiritualism long ago and if they would happen to ask me what I am in to now I would say I am an actualist. A simple but very descriptive label. Whatever it is you want to read into the word actualist or imagine to be ‘un-stated, un-named ‘pre-requisites’ to learning to ‘be an actualist’’ is entirely your own business but to let these imaginings prevent you from setting sail on a course of fundamental change does seem to be in the league of inventing objections ... and a piddly one at that. Personally, I found it such a relief when I finally realized the futility and senselessness of continuously trying to be uniquely ‘me’ in a world of 6 billion other human beings, all of whom were striving to be unique and craving to be special. * PETER: If I read you right, you are attempting to meld some of the facets of actualism that appeal to you with your previous understandings and predilections so as to live a better life. For instance, you have also said ‘I have had an experiential nuts-and-bolts understanding of my own psyche in operation, predating actualism by over twenty years.’ RESPONDENT: No. I know actualism both intellectually and experientially. I also know ‘myself’ intimately predating actualism by over 20 years. PETER: All I can relate to you is my experience in being an actualist which is that I had to actively dismantle all of the beliefs I had about how my psyche operated before I became an actualist precisely because my understandings and experiences were based on the traditional spiritualism vs. materialism viewpoints and philosophies. It is the fear of breaking free from this programming that causes most angst and turmoil for an actualist and it is this action of breaking from past conditioning that I attempted to anecdotally document in my journal. Time and time again I wrote about what didn’t work in both my real-world and spiritual world programming and why and what worked when I abandoned these beliefs and acknowledged facts and actuality. * PETER: While this clip-on approach to actualism is not the ‘Full Monty’, I have witnessed the tangible benefits to several people of taking on a bit of actualism in their lives. Any move towards being more happy and more harmless, in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are can only be of benefit – not only personally but also to those one comes in contact with in daily life. To actively work on being less angry and less blameful of others as well as less sorrowful and less resentful at being here is to make the only practical contribution possible to genuine peace on earth between humans. RESPONDENT: Mine is not ‘this clip on approach’ but I thank you for warning me about the possible pit-falls in actualism. PETER: Far from warning you about the possible pit-falls in actualism, I was indicting that there are none. Even a little bit of becoming genuinely more happy and harmless is far better than doing nothing. Actualism is not an all-or-nothing process – it has been proved to offer incremental success. * PETER: As I related last time in the anecdote about the Christian lady, even if someone believes in an afterlife or in a reincarnation, it does make good sense to be as happy and harmless as possible whilst being here on earth in this lifetime. However should anyone want to become actually free of the human condition, one needs to abandon all spiritual and religious beliefs – i.e. it is a pre-requisite to being a practicing actualist. RESPONDENT: Yes ... I understand ... thank you Peter. PETER: A pleasure. Should you be not inclined to post some anecdotes about your successes with actualism on this list, I would nevertheless encourage you to undertake the process of writing about the sense you make of the human condition for your own benefit. I learned so much about how ‘I’ had been programmed to think, feel and operate by writing my journal that I have no hesitation in encouraging others who are so inclined to put their life experiences into words. Good to talk to you again. I do appreciate those who are willing to write on this list – it is no little thing to investigate how to become free of malice and sorrow.
PETER: Something you wrote to Gary has twigged my curiosity – RESPONDENT: By asking, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’... I have ‘gone into’ the feelings of sorrow without blocking, or distracting, myself from their horror. I have felt over-whelming pangs of sorrow, too. Spontaneously, on one occasion, eleven years ago, I saw that there was no purpose to it all. I have experientially grasped the emotion of both sickness and death to find that it was a toothless tiger. I have realised that life itself must end someday ... along with all the hope, love and nurturing, (as well as fear and anger) ... but the grip of sorrow is almost gone from my life now. <Snip> I did not seek it out to ‘go into’ sorrow to wallow in it ... but when it came to me I refused to hide any longer and I faced it down until it lost its grip and ‘it’ eventually weakened and before long it withered and died. The rewards are incentive enough to continue, (not to wallow in, run from or fight sorrow), but to embrace and examine, ‘that which came my way’ and to live an automatically peaceful/ joyful/ sensible life one delightful moment at a time. No 13 to Gary 8.12.2001 PETER: What interests me particularly is your description that when sorrow came to you that you ‘faced it down until it lost its grip and ‘it’ eventually weakened and before long it withered and died.’ Your description is markedly at odds with my own experience of investigating and becoming progressively free both of my social imprinting as well as the feelings, emotions and passions that give substance and validity to ‘me’. In the process of actualism I was often aware of and involved in investigating a number of intertwined issues and therefore it was often difficult to separate out one particular emotion, track the course of its demise as well as be aware of how the process in fact worked. I was often too busy separating out and making sense of my social programming – looking at my moral stance and ethical values that stood in the way of me clearly seeing and experiencing the emotion in its raw and basic state to have an overview. Because I was busy doing it as it were, I was much more fascinated that the process worked rather than in how it worked. Often I would be startled to discover that what had been a major worry or a pervasive and debilitating emotion had disappeared out of my daily life and all I had done was investigate it, root around in it, make sense of it, understand how it operated, look at it from all angles in order to get to the bottom of it. I did, however, eventually come to realize that the very process of focussing my full attention on the feeling or emotion, investigating it as it was happening in all its aspects and then thinking about it afterwards in order to make sense of the experience was exactly what weakened its grip. As Richard describes it – if I remember rightly – you shine the bright light of awareness on the issue, problem, debilitating feeling or consuming emotion and it will eventually wither in the light of awareness. The work you have to do, and it is indeed work, is to be willing to bring it out of the cupboard and be stubborn enough to stick with it until it is resolved. Speaking personally, I would not describe this process as ‘facing it down’ – it being the particular feeling or emotion – because that to me implies keeping the lid on it or forcing it further down or away from one’s awareness. It may be your choice of words but your description fits with what I did in my spiritual years. I, exactly like everybody else, was taught to separate my feelings out into two piles – the good ones that earned ‘me’ kudos and brownie points and the bad ones that got ‘me’ into trouble and that ‘I’ then felt ashamed of. Thus ‘I’ was forever on the lookout, forever on guard, just in case my dark side showed through. And invariably, every now and again, it would despite my best efforts and good intentions and these bleed-throughs were what finally twigged me to begin to really investigate my dark side as well as its opposite number, my ‘good’ side. There’s another experience I had that might shed some more light on the issue of attentiveness and awareness. It relates to an event that happened about 5 years before I met Richard and became immersed in actualism. At this time I was following the spiritual principle of ‘self’-ishly sorting my feelings into good and bad, right and wrong, desirable and undesirable rather than going any deeper into investigating how ‘I’ ticked. I had a consuming experience of grief after my son died that served to put my spiritual smugness on the sidelines for a while. I wrote about it in my journal and I’ll just include a snippet for reference –
In hindsight, and it is only hindsight for at the time I was following no method at all, I simply became aware one day that the grief had gone – that the feeling had left me. All I had done was allow it to run its course without judgement, without indulgence, without suppressing it or repressing it. What I did was a lot of experiencing of, and thinking about, grief and one of the most striking aspects I clearly remember was how much this emotion was a part of my identity. When the emotion finally left me I was no longer a grieving father with all that being that identity involved. It was literally as if a part of ‘me’ had disappeared along with the associated reoccurring emotional memory. This is why I can’t relate to the description of facing the emotion nor embracing the emotion, which is another description you used. It wasn’t as though a stronger ‘I’ faced the emotion down or a loving or wise ‘me’ embraced the emotion but more like the grief went away by itself and took a bit of ‘me’ with it. In hindsight I would describe my experience with grief more as sitting with it, or walking with it in my case, feeling the feeling, thinking about it in all its aspects and checking out ‘my’ investment in hanging on to it, suppressing it, rejecting it or whatever. It was as though I had a good look inside the feeling and I do mean a good look. I sometimes plumbed the depths into despair and dread, I went up all the side alleys looking at all the related feelings such as guilt, self-pity, resentment, altruism, and the like. It took about four years in total until, as if by magic, one day I found I could no longer even dredge up the feeling of grief and until Peter, the grieving father – that particular aspect of my emotional identity – finally disappeared along with the feeling. It is clear to me now that the most vital aspect of finally ridding myself of grief was my becoming aware of what I described in my journal as my ‘personal investment in continuing my grief’. What I experienced was that the feeling formed an integral part of ‘my’ identity, so much so that there was most often no distinction between the two. When I was in the throes of grief, ‘I’ was grief and grief was ‘me’, so consuming was the feeling. Eventually it became apparent that if the feeling of grief was to go, then that part of ‘me’ would have to go – and I willingly acquiesced to that happening. Just to make this perfectly clear – at this point, only at the end of a long and exhaustive period of experiencing and investigation, ‘I’ willingly agreed to this part of ‘me’ disappearing. ‘I’ did not actively do anything to finally bring an end to this part of ‘me’ – ‘I’ simply agreed to its demise. This particular event sticks out in my mind as typifying the actualism method even though it predated my becoming an actualist by some years. It stands out particularly only because it was a one-off solitary event and not part of the kaleidoscope of investigations that typified my early years of actualism. However, all of my actualism investigations have followed the very same pattern and all of them invariably end up with the same result ... provided I have been persistent enough, and thorough enough, in my investigations. It is important to discern and make clear the differences between the traditional spiritual practices of selective awareness, which is designed to be shallow and superficial, and the down-to-earth, all-inclusive, attentiveness that is the actualism method. Only by understanding the full extent of the difference between the two is it possible to go beyond the moral and ethical restrictions of spiritual belief and indoctrination and be able to dive deeper into the instinctual passions that are the root cause of malice and sorrow.
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