PETER: Hi,

RESPONDENT: A little bit long Quotation from ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’ by Osho Rajneesh.

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘There are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like idealism – it is the most poisonous of all poisons. Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills you in such a way that you never become aware of it. It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are very cunning. Rarely a person becomes aware that he has been committing suicide through it. Once you become aware, you become religious. Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis <snipped for length>

PETER: Just a note on your post of one of Mr. Mohan Rajneesh’s talks. I will stick to his starting theme which was idealism and, in an effort to be brief, concentrate on a few salient points –

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘Once you become aware, you become religious. Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of the impossibility of idealism – of all idealism.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis

Curious stuff from a Guru who’s central message, the inspirational core of his teachings, is that his followers are the New Man – Zorba the Buddha. To quote the same man –

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘A great meeting I teach: the meeting of Zorba and Buddha. I teach Zorba The Buddha – a new synthesis. The meeting of the earth and the sky, the meeting of the visible and the invisible, the meeting of all the polarities – of man and woman, of day and night, of summer and winter, of sex and samadhi. Only in that meeting will a new man arrive on the earth. My Sannyasins, my people, are the first rays of that new man, of that homo novus. And it all depends on you. If you remain clinging to the old, then the old man has prepared in every way to commit a great suicide, a universal suicide. The old man is ready to die; the old man has lost the zest to live. That’s why all the countries are preparing for war. And the Third World War will be a total war. Nobody is going to be a winner, because nobody is going to survive it. Not only is man going to be destroyed but all life on earth. Beware! Beware of your politicians – they are all suicidal. Beware of the old conditioning which divides you as Indians, as Germans, as Japanese, as Americans. The new man has to be universal. He will transcend all barriers of race, religion, sex, colour. The new man will not be of the East or of the West; the new man will claim the whole earth as his home.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis

So ... peace will come to earth when the New Man arrives! Now if we translate this bit of idealism into down-to-earth language it means ‘when everybody follows Rajneesh’s teachings’ there will be peace on earth. Given he has a following of less than 100,000 out of 6,000,000,000 people on the planet and that the whole religion is in a watered-down decline, peace will again remain a promised ideal with no possible chance to eventuate. Rajneeshism is merely yet another of the sixteen hundred religions on the planet, all competing for market-share. It would be rather amusing except so much of the competition results in armed conflict such as was evidenced in the last days of the Rajneeshpuram when Rajneeshees went ‘head-to-head’ with the Christians. When the big boys of the Religions go head-to-head the most horrendous wars eventuate.

The interesting thing is that none of Rajneesh’s followers cares ‘two bob’ about the New Man or peace on earth as is evidenced by my discussions on their mailing list. See No 6 and No 9, No 12 and No 32. Such is their cynical disregard for his teachings. They know he spoke twaddle, they know he was full of contradictions and inaccuracies and know it was just idealistic humbug. Humans really just desperately want someone or something to believe in – and anybody and anything will do.

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘[Idealism] goes on saying to you, ‘Do something – improve yourself. Do something – change yourself. Do something – become perfect.’ It appeals to the ego. Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are; in fact you should be more perfect than you are. My message to humanity is a new man. Less than that won’t do. Not something modified, not something continuous with the past, but utterly discontinuous. The first thing to be understood: you ARE perfect. If somebody says to you that you have to become perfect, he is the enemy – beware of him! Escape from him as soon as possible. Don’t let him poison your being. Don’t let him destroy you. He may have been destroyed by others; now he is doing the same to you. He himself may be a victim. Have compassion on him, but don’t allow him to destroy you.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis

‘You ARE perfect’ is the delusion of the spiritual view-point. The spiritual world is in complete denial of the modern discoveries of the fact that we are not ‘perfect’ – that we have an in-built instinctual survival program of fear, aggression, nurture and desire that inevitably causes us to live in fear and to be aggressive. It is this fact that prevents peace on earth, not the failure to live the – unliveable – spiritual ideal that if only we ‘all follow one God and one God only’ and then all will be magically okay, one day, in the future. When I finally stopped deluding myself that this insanity was going to bring peace to earth, and when I stopped being dishonest with myself in believing that I was ‘already perfect’, was I able to do something about becoming actually perfect.

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘Man has lived up to now not truly, not authentically; man has lived a very pseudo life. Man has lived in great pathology, man has lived in great disease. And there is no need to live in this pathology – we can come out of the prison, because the prison is made by our own hands. We are in the prison because we have decided to be in the prison – because we have believed that the prison is not a prison but our home. My message to humanity is: Enough is enough. Awake! See what man has done to man himself. In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars. You cannot call this humanity healthy. And only once in a while has a Buddha bloomed. If in the garden only once in a while a plant brings a flower, and otherwise the whole garden remains without flowers, will you call it a garden? Something very basic has gone wrong. Each person is born to be a Buddha: less than that is not going to fulfil you. I declare to you your Buddhahood.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis

There are currently about one million Buddhists on the planet, and many, many self-declared ‘Buddhas’ and yet this has been the bloodiest century yet. I think you have recently read of the Buddhist-inspired atrocities in Nanking (http://www.darkzen.com/) only some 60 years ago. Surely it is time to question why there is such a gap between the idealistic and ethereal teachings of the God-men and Gurus and the actual result of their teachings in practice. There have been billions of Buddhists and only about a thousand of them managed the state of Enlightenment and after 2,500 years surely it is time to call a halt to believing that if we all become Buddhas then ‘our garden will be full of flowers’. What fantasy in the face of facts.

Talk about dreaming! A seductive, poetic dream, but a dream never-the-less.

‘You need do nothing but surrender to me and follow me and all will be well!’ It is these seductive unliveable dreams perpetuated by the God-men for there own Self-interest that have prevented humans from actually doing anything about peace on earth. Not only prevented peace but actively promoted the continuation of aggression in the form of religious wars, repression, torture, suppression, corruption and intolerance.

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘Up to now, humanity has been schizophrenic – because you have been told to repress, to reject, to deny, many parts of your natural being. And by rejecting them, by denying them, you cannot destroy them – they simply go underground. They go on functioning from your unconscious; they become really more dangerous. Man is an organic whole. And all that god has given to man has to be used; nothing has to be denied. Man can become an orchestra; all that is needed is the art of creating a harmony within oneself.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis

You can see he has a problem here because he believes that God has made man ‘an organic whole’ so there is no chance of eliminating the instinctually programmed malice and sorrow. He has to propose transcending it, or rising above it. It’s the same old Ancient Wisdom from the Dark Ages. But it is the next bit that is interesting, and it’s from the very same discourse.

Remember above, he says –

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘you have been told to repress, to reject, to deny many parts of your natural being’

 and then he follows with –

[M. Rajneesh]: ‘I have been fighting in the universities, ‘Why don’t you teach about Socrates? Why don’t you teach about Chuang Tzu? Why don’t you teach about Bodhidharma...?’ These are the right side of consciousness. And teaching about the wrong kind of people gives you an idea that it is perfectly good if you are wrong. If you are going slowly to be a Genghis Khan it is perfectly right. You are not doing something new, man has always been doing this. We have to sort out history, cut out all those wrong people and protect our children from being conditioned that man has been involved in nothing but war, fighting, competition, greed. We should teach our children not what has been but what can be – not the past, but the future.’ Osho: Philosophia Perennis

What he is clearly proposing is repression, rejection, and denial of the facts of history. Is this not ‘right and wrong’, ‘good and bad’, Buddhas and Tyrants, Gods and Devils? Is this His solution? What a fairy tale, what a massive delusion. It almost sounds like Christian morality to me but when one digs a bit deeper the morality of the East and that of the West are little different.

So, I could go on but I have written much of my experiences as a grateful follower of Rajneesh. In the end I had to admit I had been ‘sucked in’ by his poetic idealism of a New Man and the utterly selfish attraction of me being one of those ‘specially chosen’ for the role. It proved a mortal blow to both my pride and humility, for I could no longer deny the facts of Rajneesh’s failure and my own desperate need to believe in fairy stories. The dream failed in Oregon, fizzled to a whimper by the time he died and is hardly even mentioned now.

All that is left that binds the followers together is ‘love’ and ‘gratitude’ for Him – the very feelings that are the hallmark of human’s humble servitude to the Gods since time immemorial.

5.4.1999

RESPONDENT: Now I feel it’s the time to finish talking with you. And some of my impressions.

PETER: No, I was simply presenting the facts of the failure of religious and spiritual pursuits to bring an end to human suffering and maliciousness on the planet. This is not about right and wrong but what works and what doesn’t work. For me, the spiritual path didn’t make me happy and harmless, it only gave me the illusion and feeling of being on the ‘right’ path with the ‘Master of Masters’. When I acknowledged that the spiritual wasn’t working for me I was ready to start looking at the facts of why it didn’t work and why Rajneesh’s ‘dream’ had failed and why it never could work.

My intention of talking to you were to report what my experiences were on the spiritual path, and what happened when I stopped believing and started to look at the facts. The discussion has been about fact and belief, not about right and wrong. Right and wrong is a moral judgement, a judgement made on what one believes to be true or feels to be right. It’s the very stuff that religious, ethnic and ethical conflicts and wars are fought over.

RESPONDENT: After all, you are against Rajneesh.

PETER: No, it is nothing personal. There have been about one thousand Enlightened Ones, according to one figure I have read, and all of them were deluded, and all of them promised the un-deliverable. They only have power and authority because people desperately want to believe the fairy stories of an ‘after-life’ and another ‘world’. This belief in the Divine-ness of the God-men is given credence by the feelings of love for Them and the self-gratifying feeling of being a chosen one. The chance for a genuine personal peace and an actual global peace is forfeited on the altars of the God-men – all for a bit of utterly selfish ‘feel-good’.

RESPONDENT: And in a sense I wanted to prove you have misunderstood him.

PETER: I understand him and the Guru-disciple business only too well for the likes of most people. When I talk of the facts of the business, particularly when I get to the point of discussing exactly what it is the God-men are saying and what was the actual result of the theory when put into practice, they invariably ‘head for the hills’. Still it’s early days... this is the first time in human history that a way has been found to actually break free of the Human Condition. To break with Ancient Wisdom and the belief in Gods and Devils, Spirits and Auras, Ghosts and ‘Other’ Worlds, Immortality and God-men and also to irrevocably break free of the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

To become modern humans, discontinuous from the past. To finally stop battling it out with each other for ‘survival’ and to stop believing in ‘spirits’ and in a spirit-ual world.

RESPONDENT: Now I understand it’s not my business. Who am I that I try to change your understanding of him? Your understanding and mine are different. That’s all for me now. I don’t think you are on the wrong path. I just don’t know. So there is no bridge between us now.

PETER: When I first met Richard I had two things going for me. One was that I was beginning to question the gap between the ideals and promises of the spiritual world, and what was the down-to-earth results, both for me after 17 years of effort and for billions of others over a period of 5,000 years.

The second was that although the gulf between Richard and I was so enormous that I could not understand what he was saying about the actual world and actual freedom, I did remember a Pure Consciousness Experience – a glimpse of the actual world in which my ‘self’ in its entirety, both ego and soul, was temporarily absent. This proved to be the ‘bridge between us’ such that I could understand of what he was talking about. I described the PCE in my journal –

RESPONDENT: I want to say in the end that I like the phrase ‘How are you experiencing of being alive’ ... And the phrase ‘Happy and Harmless’.

PETER: Yes, the first is the method applied with pure intent and the second is the goal, and Actual Freedom is the result – unless you settle for Enlightenment, in which case you will settle for second best.

So, I’ve enjoyed our talks – peace is such a great subject to talk to anyone about.

Another good phrase, a favourite of mine, is ... ‘Personal peace and global peace’.

7.4.1999

PETER: Just a comment on your note to Alan –

RESPONDENT: I have seen my possibility in the presence of Rajneesh. And I think you have seen your possibility in the presence of Richard, Peter and Vineeto.

PETER: I found your proposition intriguing, particularly the words ‘in the presence of’.

The Eastern tradition of Moksha or freedom is always a transmission of a ‘feeling’ of liberation from the world-as-it-is into the spiritual world – an escape from reality into a Greater Reality. Being ‘in the presence of’ one who has realised this Greater Reality is regarded as the best way to facilitate the necessary spiritual feelings of Unconditional Love, Unity, Oneness, etc. The initiation into disciplehood and the formation of Ashrams, Sanghas, Monasteries or other spiritual communities was a way of reinforcing the feelings of escaping into a Greater Reality – of ‘coming home’, ‘being chosen’, being lovers of the Master and being loved by the Master. The possibility offered was that the follower or disciple too could become like the Master, despite the overwhelming evidence that those who became Enlightened did so by their own efforts and not by being mere disciples of other Masters. The ‘being in the presence of’ is the great attraction of being around a living Master, and ‘belonging’ to His group is the similar attraction with dead Masters. The wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom neither contains nor entertains any of these religious authoritarian and hierarchical structures. It is free of any power of one over the other, be it the psychic power and strangleholds of worship, surrender, gratitude, loyalty, devotion and prayer that binds the disciple to the Master, or the necessity to belong to the group, contribute to the movement, pay your dues in time or money, support the ideals, and defend the Master. Those involved in Actual Freedom are those intrepid individuals who have taken it upon themselves to change the only person they can change – themselves. Their motive is a personal peace for themselves – a freedom from malice and sorrow – and to prove that global peace is possible, as in – ‘if I can do it, and I am nobody special, then anyone can rid themselves of malice and sorrow’.

There is no ‘in the presence of’ in Actual Freedom. This is it. A few Web-sites, a mailing list and about a million words so far. The story of how one man escaped from the delusion of Enlightenment, the method he devised to become free of the Human Condition and the writing of others reporting their success in applying the method. Also documented are the countless objections of many correspondents to the new and radical discovery that human beings can be actually happy and harmless, and the detailed and considered responses to these objections.

Anyone can now be free of the Human Condition (including the belief in a spiritual ‘other-world’ and a life after death), as sufficient words conveying the method, the results, the pitfalls, and the objections are now accessible on the Net.

The ‘possibility’ I saw when I met Richard was that I could live with a woman in peace and harmony, and for me that was a prerequisite to finding a personal peace and there ever being a chance of global peace. If I could not live with one person peacefully and harmoniously then how could I ever expect there to be peace on earth – then life was indeed a sick joke. The other possibility I saw was that I could live the PCE I had experienced as an ongoing state 24 hrs. a day every day. I knew it would prove the death of ‘me’ but I was getting very tired of ‘me’ by then anyway. The effort of maintaining a social identity and the being ‘on-guard’ constantly against instinctual passions arising was both debilitating and shackling – a second rate life.

An actual freedom was what I sought, and I’d settle for nothing less.

So, I wanted to throw some light on the differences between the spiritual path in practice and the path to actual freedom in practice. The nuts and bolts of how both work and the factual differences between the two paths.

12.4.1999

RESPONDENT: So we start to communicate again.:)

PETER: I also said ‘and other spiritual communities’, and given that you are a disciple of an Indian Guru, a Sannyasin, I have no idea what it is that you are agreeing with. Are you trying to say you are in someway different from the usual Eastern religious followers? You yourself said that ‘to make friends with other disciples all over the world is fun to me’, which sounds very much as though you are part of a spiritual community.

RESPONDENT: I just don’t know whether there is other life or a life after death.

PETER: Mr. Rajneesh’s whole teaching is based on life after death. The whole continuation of the Sannyas movement after his death is based on the belief that Rajneesh has only ‘left his body’ and his ‘energy’ can be still be felt by his lovers. This energy is apparently available to any individual Sannyasin, is strongly felt in meditation, is more strongly felt in gatherings or celebrations and is evidently most strong in the Ashram in Pune. Are you really saying that Mr. Rajneesh was just an ordinary Indian who thought he was God and Immortal ... but he wasn’t really? That when he died, that was it – finito, kaput, finished, dead, no more. That his epitaph that he ‘only visited this planet’ was another of his jokes, like the one about throwing Buddha out of his bed?

You were the one who said – ‘I have seen my possibility in the presence of Rajneesh’. Is the possibility you saw that you would become enlightened and Immortal? The guarantee of an afterlife is what Rajneesh was offering, and that is what the whole Sannyas business is about – life after death.

RESPONDENT: My disciplehood is an individual matter.

PETER: If you mean it is a private, special matter between you and Rajneesh, then you are not alone in that feeling. At one time, there was more of a community feeling around Rajneesh but as the ‘dream’ faded that feeling has since dwindled and broken down into every man/woman for themselves – each with their ‘own connection’. The individual matter of disciplehood is much easier to imagine now that he is dead, for now everyone can ‘carry Him’ in his or her heart, he can ‘visit’ hundreds of places all over the planet simultaneously, and ‘answer’ thousands of prayers, and have a ‘personal’ relationship with tens of thousands. He is indeed much busier and active now that he is dead, but I guess the God-business is much easier to manage without the encumbrance of a physical body.

And you say you don’t believe in life after death? You are the disciple of a dead Master and you don’t believe in life after death? I think you are stretching credibility to its very limits.

RESPONDENT: But to make friends with other disciples all over the world is fun to me.

PETER: I had a great time too.

RESPONDENT: For personal peace and world peace.

PETER: Now hang on. How can you be ‘for personal peace’, when you are on the spiritual path and aspire to Enlightenment? You do know that the Enlightened Ones are driven in their Divine mission to spread their message, that they are desperately trying to attract followers, that they often have weird bodily experiences, that they can’t have a normal down-to-earth companionship with anyone, that they are constantly adored, worshipped, coddled and feted, that they ‘suffer’ for Humanity and their disciples, and that they have a mentally-diagnosable massive delusion of self-aggrandizement whereby they are convinced that they are God and that they are Immortal. Doesn’t sound at all peaceful to me.

And as for ‘world peace’, you are a self-confessed, certified, name-carrying Sannyasin of a dead Master. That makes you a man of Religion, and a true and faithful man of Religion will always kill or die for his particular God. It is ‘par for the course’. As you yourself said on this list – ‘I am completely surrendered to him with my whole being’. People are always ready and willing to kill and die for their Faith, as hundreds and hundreds of millions have done already and are still doing so.

I noticed that you said to Alan that Japanese people are atheists, yet millions fought and died for their Emperor who, unless I am wrong, they regarded as a living God. These are facts that I am writing, this is not some belief of mine. This is all well documented, proudly trumpeted, written in books, recorded on film, video and tape. Historical archives, libraries all over the world, the Net, the Holy scriptures, the discourses, all attest to these facts. Given that you are a Sannyasin, and that you are for world peace, you obviously believe in Rajneesh’s ideal that world peace will come when everyone in the world becomes one of ‘his people’. Not Christians, not Buddhists, not Hindus, not Jains, but Sannyasins. This means that all the other religions will have to magically disappear somehow. To quote Rajneesh –

‘My Sannyasins, my people, are the first rays of that new man, of that homo novus. And it all depends on you. ... The new man will not be of the East or of the West; the new man will claim the whole earth as his home’.

So, I suggest you start recruiting and converting, if you really are for the Rajneesh version of world peace.

But should you want to be pragmatic, realistic, down-to-earth, astute, sensible, reasonable, informed and discerning instead of being spiritual then there is another alternative ...

I see that you are interested in the idea of peace and being happy and harmless yet you are not at all interested in Actual Freedom, the practical way to achieve both. I’ll try to explain again what we are on about, although it appears that I am ‘flogging a dead horse, as they say –

Maybe another way of looking at it is that all we humans are engaged in a big play called ‘being human beings on earth’. It’s our first time in the play, so we look to the others who are already playing to learn the rules and regulations.

Now when we enter the game we find the whole scenario of the play is already written and the name of the game is ‘It’s a dog eat dog world, life’s a bitch and then you die’. Given that it is a tough and miserable game, our main interest and constant obsession is self-preservation, survival, come what may. As such our underlying traits are that we are fearful and suspicious of all the other characters in the play and that we will fight for our rights and our life, come what may. We also find that we have to be members of a tribe to survive and, as such, we are taught the remainder of our script – the particular character role that we play within our tribe. We are further told that it is impossible to leave the protection of the tribe or you will die, and unless you constantly keep fighting for your survival you will die – no letting up, or letting your guard down. In a game like this ... no wonder we feel lost, lonely frightened and very, very cunning.

But what if you found some players who told you – you can play the game without having to be a tribe member, and without the constant fear of survival? What if you could re-write your particular script in the play? And it is not a dream, it is now possible for those who want to, to play the game of being a human being with a new script. All you have to do is to leave your old character behind. Or as Richard puts it ‘step out of the real world into the actual world and leave your ‘self’ behind’. It is a brand new script and most will object and still play the game of malice and sorrow, but soon the other game will become more and more played. Seeing it as an obviously more sensible game people will eventually join in with hardly a thought as to the old ‘survival’ script that they were wired to play. The game of survival is, at core, a grim game as we know it – 160,000,000 killed in wars this century alone, not to mention all the murders, rapes, ethnic cleansing, sectarian violence, tortures, domestic violence and suicides. The new play eventually would see humans playing in a world without wars, without domestic violence, rape and torture. With men and women living together in peace, harmony and equity. With sexual pleasure freed of guilt, shame, aggression and perversion. With no religious or territorial wars fought over right or might. With no police, no legal battles, no need for justice or retribution. Where everyone treats each other as fellow human beings and wishes well of each other. Where equanimity, co-operation, consensus and helpfulness are readily apparent in all interactions. Where the current money and effort used to fight wars and keep the ‘peace’ are used to bring the benefits, comforts and pleasures now possible for the few to all humans on the planet. Where care and consideration replace greed and avarice, ending pollution forever...

We actualists are simply saying – stop believing what the other players tell you is your fated script and stop believing that the rules of the game can never be changed. That it is possible for individual players to delete the old, ancient and decrepit, survival program in its entirety and to now run on the sensible and sensate, stripped-down version, free of malice and sorrow. One can now become free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow, if you want to make the effort.

14.4.1999

RESPONDENT: Ummm, I feel some gap between you and me. But I try to bridge it.

PETER: If you mean that you want me to agree with you that the spiritual path offers the possibility of actually being happy and harmless, then you are going to need more than a bridge.

As you have said –

[Respondent]: ‘[with Rajneesh] ... My possibility I have seen is to live happy and harmless for 24hr a day, 365 days a year.’ [endquote].

As I say – I am happy and harmless 99% of the time 24hrs. a day, 365 days a year, so the ‘gap’ seems to be between ‘seeing a possibility’ and actualizing it.

The God-men have been offering the possibility for peace on earth for millennia ‘if only’ everyone follows and worships them as a God and by some miracle everyone on earth becomes Their people. The God-men having been touting Enlightenment as a possibility but only .0001% of disciples achieve it. And those who did offered the possibility of peace on earth ‘if only’ ... and this insanity has gone on for millennia. But now that Richard has blown the lid on the Enlightenment business there is a third alternative – an actual personal peace and an actual peace on earth.

I am also curious how did you get the phrase ‘happy and harmless’ from your time with Rajneesh? I sent the search engine through all of Rajneesh’s writings and no-where at all does he mention being happy and harmless.

*

RESPONDENT: ‘My disciplehood is an individual matter.’

PETER: If you mean it is a private, special matter between you and Rajneesh, then you are not alone in that feeling. <Snip>. And you say you don’t believe in life after death? You are the disciple of a dead Master and you don’t believe in life after death? I think you are stretching credibility to its very limits.

RESPONDENT: Ummm, you already have your own answers to your questions. There is no space to me to answer.

PETER: No, you made a statement

[Respondent]: I just don’t know whether there is other life or a life after death [endquote].

immediately followed with

[Respondent]: My disciplehood is an individual matter. [endquote].

I was simply responding with some factual information on the subject. You are giving one of the typical responses of spiritual devotees when faced with the facts of what their teacher said, how the teachings have been put into practice and how their particular teacher is no different at all to the thousands of others who have failed to deliver on their promises. The whole point of facts is that they give ‘no space’ for imagination, flights of fantasy, denial, duplicity, or self-deceit. A fact is a fact, open for all to see, verifiable, obvious, evident and evidenced. ‘No space to answer’ really means ‘I can’t dispute the facts so I will go on the attack’. You claim to be trying to bridge a gap whereas objecting for the sake of objecting appears your motive and forte. Sort of a ‘modern cyber-Zen warrior’. So, none of this ‘no space to answer’ ploys ... lift your game a bit. But if you really would like to talk about anything I said in the above passage I have plenty of space, time and KB’s. I’ll kick my feet up and wait for an answer ...

RESPONDENT: I have said that if the meaning of surrender is gratitude. And I will not kill or die for my Faith.

PETER: What you said was –

[Respondent]: If the meaning of surrender is deep gratitude to Osho, Yes, I am completely surrender to him with my whole being. [endquote].

So we can now add ‘but not enough to kill or die for Him’.

This is indicative of what happened to Sannyas and Sannyasins after the end of the Ranch. You may remember that Rajneesh was raging against the Christians at the time and to quote him –

[Rosemary Hamilton quoting M. Rajneesh]: ‘More blood has been shed by Christians than by anybody else; more wars have been shed by Christians than by anybody else. People have been massacred, butchered, burned alive by Christians!’ ‘Hellbent on Enlightenment’. Rosemary Hamilton. White Cloud Press. Oregon. 1998.

Outrages like these, combined with poisonings, buggings, arson, vote stacking, etc. caused a situation where armed conflict became a distinct and very real possibility. There were a number of police and FBI investigations under way and the National Guard was reportedly on stand-by. Both sides were armed and ready. Rajneeshees were armed and deliberately invited the press in to show off their weapons and training. In the end, Rajneesh flew the coup, so the situation was diffused, but it shook many people’s faith to the point that many dropped Sannyas, became disillusioned or ‘watered down’ their faith – exactly as you seem to have done. The end of the Ranch indeed ‘scared the shit’ out of many disciples.

*

PETER: I noticed that you said to Alan that Japanese people are atheists, yet millions fought and died for their Emperor who, unless I am wrong, they regarded as a living God. These are facts that I am writing, this is not some belief of mine.

RESPONDENT: I was born after the world war Second, and have learned the Emperor was a just fellow human being who was responsible for the War.

PETER: So, in the case of Japan in the war, it was the Emperor who was responsible. I take it that aspires to the popular theory that it is evil leaders who cause wars. It does seem a little simplistic to me and to directly fly in the face of many studies and many documented accounts of the apparent ‘delight’ in killing and blood-lust that happens in wars. The Buddhists at Nanking seemed not to have been forcibly driven to serve the Emperor. Were they not proud to kill and be killed? This is the whole point of surrender, love, gratitude, service, devotion, loyalty – and the supreme test (particularly for the male of the species) is his willingness to lay down his life for his beliefs, for his ideals.

On the Sannyas list I said I was probably willing to ‘defend’ the Ranch and Rajneesh to the point of killing, and I said ‘probably’, only because it is a hypothetical question. I got howled down for saying so, which I took as sheer hypocrisy on the part of most.

*

PETER: Given that you are a Sannyasin, and that you are for world peace, you obviously believe in Rajneesh’s ideal that world peace will come when everyone in the world becomes one of ‘his people’. Not Christians, not Buddhists, not Hindus, not Jains, but Sannyasins.

RESPONDENT: I don’t think so. I am not interested in to convert any one to Sannyasin. It’s just not my business. My wife is not a Sannyasin. My daughter is not a Sannyasin. My girl friend is not a Sannyasin. I am working at the Japanese largest publishing company wearing a Mala which, as you know, is a necklace with a photo of Rajneesh. But nobody cares including me.

PETER: It is certainly very clear why you would not kill or die for your faith. It does seem a bit of a weak faith if you don’t care, which makes me wonder what it is that you are so grateful about.

To be grateful to someone because they have shown you ‘a possibility’ seems pretty poor to me. Anyone can peddle a dream, an ideal, a possibility and people will flock and join in. Anyone, be it an Emperor, a Dictator, a Revolutionary, a Faith Healer, a scientist or a Guru. An excellent study known as the Milgram Experiments was conducted which documented this very willingness to believe, and willingness to follow, and I have written about it in the Peace chapter of my journal. But beware – it is a factual study and, as such, will probably give you ‘no space to answer’.

*

PETER: I see that you are interested in the idea of peace and being happy and harmless yet you are not at all interested in Actual Freedom, the practical way to achieve both.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I agree with you about the above.

PETER: Which makes me wonder what you are doing on this list. I noticed the other day you wrote on the Sannyas list that you had joined the ‘Actual Freedom (does it sound nightmare?) mailing list’.

It’s such a fascinating thing to be a human being and make sense of the Human Condition. To look at the facts of the business of being here, and compare them to the story we have been told, the script we have had written for us, the fairy-tales we have been spun, the ‘truths’ we have been told are Absolutely True... ‘just trust me, have faith, and surrender to me and, ... one day, ... there will be a Golden Future’.

I gave up waiting for Godot, the Second Coming, the New Dawn, the New Millennium, the Apocalypse, the End, or the New Bhagwan ... who I see is the latest Guru on the block.

I know it is inconceivable to you that there is now a way to get out of all this mess – as it was to me at the start. But I was curious enough to find out for myself, and it seemed eminently sensible to investigate whether the things I believed to be ‘true’ were facts or not. Did they work and had they ever worked? What was actually being said, what was being promised? Had the promise been kept?

So, you are attempting the impossible to ‘try to bridge a gap’, or to use the local vernacular ... pissing into the wind. There is no such thing as a bridge between the Spiritual World and the Actual World. They are two separate, distinct dimensions. The spiritual world is other-worldly, ethereal, dreamy, affective, emotive, imaginative, idealistic, unrealistic, ever-hopeful, non-sensical, delusionary, spirit-ridden, mythical, mystical, shamanistic... The actual world is sensate, tactile, tangible, palpable, corporeal, material, sensual, obvious, factual, sensible, pure, perfect, peaceful, eternal, infinite, delightful, pleasurable, ambrosial, hedonistic and happening right this very moment, under our noses as it were.

It’s such a great adventure to find out for yourself what it is to be a human being, and to discover the Actual World.

15.4.1999

RESPONDENT: Sorry but I mistook. I am not different from the Eastern religious followers as you defined. It’s a mistake. It maybe confuse you like Zen ;-) ‘I am different’ is a right version. Sorry for my poor English.

PETER: I suspect you may have a mild case of ‘definiendum dementia’. As for me, I am even more Zen-fused and be-mystified.

But I liked what you wrote to Vineeto in your third post to this list –

[Respondent]: ‘We Japanese usually think harmony and peace is the best values in relation. So sometimes, or often, we suppress our thinking to avoid disagreement, especially among the intimates.

We are too much conditioned by the concept of harmony and peace and we often mistake disagreement as disharmony or anti-peace in relation. And then we miss the possibility to discuss more which maybe lead to go into deeper harmony and peace, and hung in the superficial harmony and peace or pretend to be in harmony and peace’. No 14 to Vineeto, 13.1.1999

What you and I have been doing in our correspondence is digging a bit deeper than the usual superficial and the mere pretence and getting down to the facts of the situation. It is uncomfortable stuff, confronting and bewildering and threatening to No 14 the dreamer, or No 14 the disciple, or No 14 the ... But these No 14’s are the ones that have to go for the genuine No 14, the flesh and blood body, free of an alien psychological and psychic entity to roam free and upright in this actual world of sensual delight where peace, harmony, benevolence and a pristine purity are rampantly and intrinsically abundant.

It’s a tough call, looking self-extinction in the face, but it sure beats a life of pretence and being hung in the superficial.

I have no other interest in the discussion other than looking at and discussing the facts of the Human Condition that we humans find ourselves trapped in. We humans have endlessly sought solutions ‘within’ the Human Condition – never daring to question the Human Condition itself. We have all looked in the same old places and at the same old solutions that have obviously failed to deliver anything remotely resembling peace on earth. We have forever believed and trusted that Ancient Wisdom would provide a solution to the horrendous mayhem and suffering that we humans inflict upon each other. We have huddled together in fear and trepidation around the temples and God-men, unwilling to strike off on our own to question, discover, uncover, investigate and find out for ourselves exactly what it is to be a human being.

This is why both this list and the writings are unabashedly iconoclastical. There is no solution to be had in spiritual or religious pursuits, in fact any belief or faith actively supports, ‘nourishes’, enhances and embellishes the very problem – the psychological and psychic entity, the ego and the soul.

It is obvious that the solution has to lie outside of the Human Condition – it is the whole of the Human Condition itself that we have to become free of in, order to find an actual personal peace and facilitate an actual global peace.

This mailing list offers an opportunity for those intrepid pioneers to swap stories, facts, experiences and discoveries on the wide and wondrous path to an Actual Freedom from malice and sorrow.

17.4.1999

PETER: There is no solution to be had in spiritual or religious pursuits, in fact, any belief or faith actively supports, ‘nourishes’, enhances and embellishes the very problem – the psychological and psychic entity, the ego and the soul. It is obvious that the solution has to lie outside of the Human Condition – it is the whole of the Human Condition itself that we have to become free of in order to find an actual personal peace and facilitate an actual global peace. This mailing list offers an opportunity for those intrepid pioneers to swap stories, facts, experiences and discoveries on the wide and wondrous path to an Actual Freedom from malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: I understand what you have said. But I wonder why you have misunderstand what I have said.

PETER: This is but another of those useless debating ploys. It falls into the same category as ‘I agree with you, but ...’, which really means ‘I don’t agree with you’.

If you had understood what I have said you wouldn’t be concerned about your disciplehood, you would be wondering how it was that you fell for the fairy story in the first place.

RESPONDENT: In short, you have said I am on the tried and failed path as far as I am a disciple of Rajneesh because master-disciple relation prevents a person from questioning every blind belief.

PETER: Not only you. This is nothing personal.

It is writ large in the Human Condition, sub-section, ‘Religious and spiritual pursuits’, sub-section ‘Peace on Earth’...

‘Each Religion, God-man or Guru offers the promise of peace on earth in return for the follower or disciple’s love, gratitude, faith, loyalty, trust and surrender. Peace on earth will then occur when everyone (all 6 billion, at the moment) similarly ‘sees the light’ and becomes a disciple or follower of that particular religion, thus finally ending religious wars and conflicts on the planet. Until that magical event occurs, there will still be ‘pockets of resistance’ (wars) caused by the ‘others’ who dearly and stubbornly want to hold on to their religious beliefs – but one day, hopefully, one of the religions will win out and conquer the world – and peace will reign. The other common theme is one of Armageddon or the End of the World, in which case the true believers of one of the particular religions will be the sole survivors and, as such, peace on earth will ensue. The keys to maintaining this system in existence are firm belief, love, gratitude, faith, loyalty, trust and surrender of disciples and followers.’

RESPONDENT: And I have said my disciplehood is different from your definition.

PETER: Another of the ploys that fails to impress me. Alan has already posted the dictionary definition of disciplehood. For clarity in communication, can you choose a word (from the dictionary preferably) that more closely defines exactly what you mean?

RESPONDENT: It doesn’t prevent me from questioning but rather encourages me to question.

PETER: This again gets pretty silly. Given that you don’t accept the dictionary definition for the word disciple, maybe before we go further down this blind alley, we could see what you mean by the word question. From the Oxford Dictionary –

‘Question – seek, inquire:

1. What is inquired (about). 1 A sentence worded or expressed in a form such as to elicit information from a person; inquiry. 2 The interrogative statement of a point to be investigated; a problem, a difficulty; a doubt; gen. a matter forming or capable of forming the basis of a problem. Also, a matter or concern depending on or involving a specified condition or thing.
2. The action of inquiring. 3 The stating or investigation of a problem; inquiry into a matter; the expression of some doubt; discussion of a doubtful point. 4 The action of questioning a person; the fact of being questioned; judicial examination; interrogation.’ Oxford Dictionary

Now from the above definition, for you to question you have to have a problem, a difficulty, a doubt, a matter or concern to be inquired into, a doubtful point – and you clearly have none of these prerequisites. You are obviously very happy and proud to be a disciple of a spiritual Master – full stop. Beginning and end of questioning. You have no doubts, no problem, no concern, so there can be no questioning. The very act of being a disciple prevents questioning. Having trust, faith, hope and belief are the antidote to doubt, problems and concern. You already have your answer to your doubt and he is called Rajneesh.

Any questioning of Rajneesh would involve questioning your disciplehood and you have ruled that out of court, so I think I might have saved us both a few KB’s on our monthly bill.

RESPONDENT: I wonder why you are so stick to your definition of it.

PETER: I am vitally concerned with peace on earth and see no sense at all in people sitting silently hoping it will happen by itself, or by some mythical Divine intervention. I see a great deal of sense in questioning and investigating the reasons that we humans live in misery and suffering and, despite our well-meaning efforts to date, continue to inflict misery and suffering on each other. For the discussion to be meaningful, a common agreed definition of words is essential and the vital interest of both parties is essential. A vital interest in peace on earth is necessary for anyone to at all consider an Actual Freedom rather than continuing on the selfish, self-centred and Self-gratifying spiritual path of denial and fantasy. One either stays in the Human Condition or actively and rigorously pursues an actual freedom from its insidious grip. There is now a choice, a third alternative, for those who want it.

The question is – are you, vitally concerned with peace-on-earth and do you want to become free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow?

19.4.1999

RESPONDENT: Rajneesh was a living example of being happy and harmless to me, as I already said in the post to Alan. I have found my possibility of being happy and harmless by meeting him. This is my meaning of disciple-hood regardless of any dictionary’s definition as I already said in several times in different ways.

So it’s useless to discuss about disciple-hood in general.

PETER: I think you are beginning to see the uselessness of our discussion.

RESPONDENT: It’s useless to discuss about spiritual path or religion’s path in general.

PETER: I think you are beginning to see the uselessness of our discussion.

RESPONDENT: And I have said I agreed with you when I agreed and when I did not agree with you I did not. It is not debate ploys. I feel that you just labelled me with concepts and categories.

PETER: You are the one who insists on wearing the label of disciple, even to the extent of wearing a mala with his photo on it in everyday life. I live in an area where there are many Sannyasins and I have never seen anybody wearing a mala in public. Methinks you do wear your label proudly. The label clearly points to your belief in Rajneesh’s ‘concepts’ and your ‘category’ of Disciple of Rajneesh. You happily ‘label’ yourself, and then try to blame me for it.

Any sort of disciple-hood, be it love, gratitude, trust or surrender, is the very anti-thesis of freedom.

To be actually free is to be free and autonomous, to be beholden to no-one.

RESPONDENT: I just want to know how you think my disciple-hood is a blind belief and the hindrance to be happy and harmless in our communications in specific.

PETER: So according to your rules of discussion, I am not allowed to discuss disciple-hood, the spiritual path or religion in general but I have to answer your question ‘in specific’. You insist on either ignoring or avoiding any comment I have made specifically about Rajneesh and his ‘peace on earth’ dream which I thought was getting reasonably specific to your disciple-hood of ‘seeing the possibility in Rajneesh’.

Your style seems to be to tie both my hands behind my back, stuff a gag in my mouth and see if I can still type by banging my nose on the keyboard – and then declare I haven’t answered your question. As I said in my last post you have to have a problem, a doubt, a concern before you have a question, let alone be willing to listen or attempt to understand any answer given

I also said in my last post –

[Peter]: ‘I am vitally concerned with peace on earth and see no sense at all in people sitting silently hoping it will happen by itself, or by some mythical Divine intervention. I see a great deal of sense in questioning and investigating the reasons that we humans live in misery and suffering and, despite our well-meaning efforts to date, continue to inflict misery and suffering on each other.’ [endquote].

Being a disciple of a spiritual Master or God-man, as you have declared yourself to be, clearly puts you (specifically) in the group of ‘people sitting silently hoping it will happen by itself, or by some mythical Divine intervention’ – meaning Rajneesh’s intervention. How can I be more specific?

Millions of people are suffering the stupefying horrors and atrocities of wars this very moment and all they have been able to date is pray to imaginary Gods, or believe the fairy stories of demented God-men, that ‘one day’ there will be peace. It’s time to put our store in human intelligence, for there is obviously no such thing as Divine Intelligence – any sensible reading of the inane fairy-stories of the Sacred Texts will soon attest to that.

Of course, it means abandoning our belief in an after-life, but how else can one fully be here, doing what is happening.

100% committed to being here, in this very actual world, as a sensate, thinking and reflective, flesh and blood body – without any ‘self’ whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: What a puny price to pay for personal peace and peace on earth.

And as for your question, sure I want to become free of sorrow and malice. I am vitally concerned with my personal peace and peace on earth.

PETER: I don’t doubt your sincerity in wanting and being vitally concerned, many humans are. It is the source of our deepest sorrow when we become aware of our instinctual willingness to inflict suffering upon each other.

I’m just being busy trying to tell you that there is another alternative to blindly following what everyone has been trying for thousands of years and which obviously hasn’t worked, isn’t working, and never will work.

If you want to put your faith and trust in the past failed efforts, then fine. If you want to find out about an alternative, there is only one way – for you to find out for yourself. And there is only one way to do that – read about it.

Finding out for oneself makes much better sense than believing others.

24.4.1999

PETER: Awhile ago I wrote to you of an extensive study done documenting our ‘natural’ human propensity for inflicting suffering on others. I am interested to hear what you made of the study and what your conclusions are.

[Peter]: Anyone can peddle a dream, an ideal, a possibility and people will flock and join in. Anyone, be it an Emperor, a Dictator, a Revolutionary, a Faith Healer, a scientist or a Guru. An excellent study known as the Milgram Experiments was conducted which documented this very willingness to believe, and willingness to follow, and I have written about it in the Peace chapter of my journal ... April 15, 1999

It is fascinating that this particular line of study was stopped as being ‘unethical’! We either deny our instinctual malice (bury our heads in the sand) or seek refuge in fairy tales (stick our heads in the clouds). But everyone, be they ‘normal’ or ‘spiritual’, manages to shift doing something about peace on earth by blaming someone else. Looking forward to your comments...

28.4.1999

PETER: Awhile ago I wrote to you of an extensive study done documenting our ‘natural’ human propensity for inflicting suffering on others. I am interested to hear what you made of the study and what your conclusions are.

RESPONDENT: Yes I am aware of this propensity in me. Before I felt I was into debate in this mailing list. I don’t like debate. It’s a kind of fighting by using words to me. And the reason why I felt I was into debate is my fear that maybe I am defeated, maybe I am wrong. So I was inflicting this my fear on others here.

PETER: Great. It is so rare for a spiritual seeker to acknowledge this simple fact. All the spiritual teachings are in complete denial of the instinctual passions imprinted by blind nature on human beings. They, in fact, teach the theory of ‘you are not the body and you are not the mind’ so as to turn away from this simple fact. Thousands of years ago these instinctual passions were seen as good spirits and bad spirits that ‘invaded’ the body but for us to continue to follow this philosophy and belief-system is to defy intelligence.

As for debate, that is what this list is about – words, discussions, facts, view points, experiences. There is no sitting in silence, energies, ‘you know what I mean’, ‘I feel you are ...’ etc, nor is there any philosophy or need to believe, trust or surrender. The trick is to see that what we are debating or discussing is the Human Condition – the state we humans find ourselves in on the planet. It is not a question of right or wrong or even true or false – given the spiritual corruption of the word true, as in Truth (that which cannot be spoken of) – because it is nought but a feeling, albeit a Grand Feeling. We talk of the facts of what it is to be a human being as opposed to the ancient spiritual ‘wisdom’ and mutually-agreed social beliefs. As such, when I write, I always present the facts ‘on the table’, and then it is completely up to the other what they do with the facts. This can have the effect of a seemingly confrontational debate, but who would have it any other way. It is not only your peace we are talking of, but peace on earth. The stakes are enormous and ‘treading softly’ or being ‘meek and mild’ is seen for what it is in the face of 160,000,000 million killed in wars this century alone. It is time to end this madness – so write on, No 14, write on.

*

PETER: Anyone can peddle a dream, an ideal, a possibility and people will flock and join in. Anyone, be it an Emperor, a Dictator, a Revolutionary, a Faith Healer, a scientist or a Guru. An excellent study known as the Milgram Experiments was conducted which documented this very willingness to believe, and willingness to follow, and I have written about it in the Peace chapter of my journal

It is fascinating that this particular line of study was stopped as being ‘unethical’! We either deny our instinctual malice (bury our heads in the sand) or seek refuge in fairy tales (stick our heads in the clouds). But everyone, be they ‘normal’ or ‘spiritual’, manages to shift doing something about peace on earth by blaming someone else. Looking forward to your comments...

RESPONDENT: I see. I think the only way to peace on earth is peace on person at first. But I don’t agree with that ‘everyone’, be they ‘normal’ or ‘spiritual’, manages to shift doing something about peace on earth by blaming someone else. I think not everyone.

PETER: Okay – tell me who. Even the pacifists run on the theory of ‘if only everyone stopped fighting ...’, and those who march and demonstrate for peace do so at angry rallies. There are curiously those like the Buddhists monks in Vietnam who will suicide for peace but few who are willing to change radically, completely and irrevocably to actually eliminate sorrow and malice within themselves.

Still it’s early years and this is new and radical.

But, you have found the very place, the very mailing list, at the right time, for we actualists recognize and acknowledge the factual source of fear and aggression – and we have a proven method for its eradication.

I couldn’t take it all in at the start – the enormity of being able to be free of the Human Condition and its radical consequences for the human species. I just figured someone has to do it – and why not me? Richard was just a normal human being, a boy from the farm, as he puts it, and I had the necessary qualifications – I was just a normal human being, a boy from the suburbs, I could say.

Good Hey...

3.5.1999

RESPONDENT: As Vineeto has said before, I am usually aware of myself made up with human relationship around me. To say further, I am usually experiencing my self as feelings to relationship around me. And I see that these feelings are most commonly expressed as emotion-backed thoughts which are reactions to other people’s behaviours and words. I usually interpret them whether it’s good for me or not. And when I can interpret them as good for me, I have a good feeling. And when I cannot, I have a bad feeling. Then I try to find another interpretation which can make me have a good feeling.

To say it specifically, I have been married for 11 years and have one daughter. And I have had a girl friend for 5 years. Open triangle relation. I have not been able to choose one of two for 5 years. And now my girl friend says that she will not see me anymore until I divorce. I like all of them. (I don’t want to use love in this time). When I imagine I divorce I feel too much miserable. When I imagine I live without a girl friend I feel too much miserable. I am totally at a loss. And now I am alone at the office typing on the keyboard and feel miserable. Why am I miserable? Because I am thinking about future. But this answer does not make me happy and harmless. I see my fear about the loss of all of them. This means my belief that I cannot live happily without them. Any comment?

PETER: Well, it’s one of the best, concise descriptions of the problem of human ‘relationships’ I have read.

These are the very problems that have driven monks into caves – and celibacy – in order to avoid facing them. Where I live, people pay a fortune to go on ‘retreats’, sometimes for weeks on end, as a relief from exactly these issues in daily life. Others save frantically in order to go to ashrams, attend groups or do courses in sheltered ‘nurturing’ environments in order to escape from having to feel these feelings and deal with these issues.

When I met Richard I had almost given up on relationships and was on the ‘being alone, celibacy’ path. One of the major reasons I jumped on to the path to Actual Freedom was the chance to live with a woman in peace and harmony and to unravel the mysteries of sexual pleasure. I wanted to find the answers to these issues and the spiritual path offered none.

The cute thing about the method Richard devised is that anyone can do it, anywhere in the world, doing an ordinary job, fulfilling one’s essential tasks like making money, being a father, etc. It requires no retreating, no avoiding, no withdrawing. ‘In the world as-it-is’, ‘with people as-they-are’ are phrases that describes a vibrant, fully-engaged actual freedom – not a second-rate living in denial or wrapped in spiritual ‘cottonwool’. A happiness and harmlessness that is not dependant on the ‘right’ circumstances, ‘good’ times or that old cliché – ‘being grateful’.

One discovers the actual world – a peaceful, sensual world free of fear and aggression, a fairy-tale like paradise that is here under our very noses. In this discovering one is also able to live in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are with such an ease and comfort that would have been unimaginable 2 years ago. Both the ‘spiritual’ and ‘real’ worlds are seen for what they are – ‘psychic battlefields that are the direct result of 6 billion people fighting it out for survival. The most estimable feature of Virtual Freedom is that one lives free of fear for 99% of the time, for there is no fear in the Actual World.

So, it sounds as if you may well be at one of life’s turning points that are often fascinating opportunities. I know, for me, the ending of relationships, deaths around me, changes in circumstances or places I lived, all gave me an opportunity to sit back and ‘take stock’ of my life. My wife leaving set me on the spiritual search, my son dying got me serious about it, another failed relationship got me single-pointed and then I met Richard who pointed out that I was looking in the wrong direction.

To not only experience failure in both the ‘real’ world and ‘spiritual’ worlds but also to acknowledge my failures, proved to be essential prerequisites for an active and passionate pursuit of Actual Freedom.

All proved to be serendipitous events ...

serendipity –– The making of happy and unexpected discoveries by accident or when looking for something else; such a discovery. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: The long life lived by most humans with multitudinous events and interactions with people and things provides for many opportunities for the making of serendipitous discoveries. Most people are so emotionally overloaded or trapped in repetitive behaviour patterns that serendipity goes unnoticed or, if seen, is so astounding as to be put down to some divine blessing or intervention or is being dismissed as luck. Serendipity is often claimed to be a prayer answered, good luck, God’s will, or ‘existence providing’, while blindly ignoring the other times when prayers go unanswered, ‘life’s a bitch’, it was bad luck or ‘someone else’s fault’, or it was ‘good’ to suffer as a ‘growth’ experience.

On the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom serendipitous discoveries are a constant occurrence. With the ever-running of the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ one is continuously presented with opportunities to discover, investigate and understand what particular feeling, resulting from an event or interaction, is preventing you from being happy now.

Yesterday’s happiness or some future – imaginary – happiness or harmlessness has absolutely no relevance right now, this only moment you can experience being alive. If you miss the opportunity this time around, this moment, you have another chance immediately, this moment, for one’s life is perpetually experienced in this moment only. And serendipity will always present you with the next issue, belief, instinctual pattern, mood or emotion, etc. – right on cue.

But, as serendipitous as the incident or discovery or event may be, it is what you make of it that is of more significance. A serendipitous discovery, if dispassionately contemplated upon, can lead to a realization such that it becomes a life-changing event. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

What a wonderful adventure life is ...

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