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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Correspondent No 32
PETER: Hi, RESPONDENT: Apart from the words I’m more interested in the way you live your lives, the real strengths and weaknesses you gained, your attitudes and most of all PCEs or states created by all those ingredients. To resume, what has changed in you and in your lives? PETER: One of the most fascinating aspects of the human species as distinct from other animals is that we can communicate with each other by spoken and written words. Of the two, the written word is far more accurate and succinct – it is capable of standing separate from the speaker, as it were, and it is capable of being studied, reviewed, verified, revisited and reflected upon at leisure, by anyone, anywhere. For these very reasons, the written word is the chosen method of describing actualism and actual freedom and the Net the chosen method of dissemination of this information. There are no meetings, no gatherings, no charismatic leaders, no chosen few, no therapies, no pay as you go groups, no ivory tower philosophies, no hidden agendas. The information you are interested in can be found on the Actual Freedom Trust website and I would commend to you something that is very often overlooked – at the beginning of each chapter in Richard’s Journal is a description of how he lives his life – a description of how someone experiences the world as-it-is with people as-they-are when actually free from the human condition. You may also find reading All that has been written thus far is more than sufficient for anyone to be able to establish for themselves a prima facie case as to whether actualism makes sense or not. If the answer is yes, then it is up to you what you do with the evidence and experience presented on the Actual Freedom Trust website because becoming free of the human condition is purely a do-it-yourself business.
PETER: I flagged your post for reply but waited in case someone else wanted to comment. Given that no-one else has commented, I’ll jump in belatedly – RESPONDENT: It’s late in the night and I’m walking escorted by Police together with a few friends to the nearest police station. The dark, clear, sparkling summer sky, the pleasant-chilly air of the night is in sharp contrast with the blood springing out of my injuries, with my wrecked T-shirt and with the noisy talk of the people walking alongside me. They speak about revenge, about justice, showing off their injuries, saying that the aggressors will pay dearly for their doings, making battle plans, being clouded by an instinctive atmosphere of hate and irrationalism. They resemble somehow with an infuriated bull at a Spanish Corrida. Contrary to my fellow companions, I’m feeling very peacefully, at ease with myself, somehow bemused by the whole story, enjoying the night walk. It’s not always like this. I remember on other occasions having moments of absolute and irrational anger, being obsessed with revenge plans, sometimes taking the form of criminal impulses. I could see, on this particular life situation, the spiral of violence, the vicious circle which swallows one if responding by the same means, the process of crime, the process which makes you think that you can end violence with even more violence. This is a random example of what is happening at this very moment perhaps with greater consequences in another place on Earth. PETER: From your description you seem to have had an other-than-normal experience of some sort, bought on by the shock of the incident. I have talked to many people who have related similar experiences after car accidents and the like. Some people are even shocked out of their normal ‘self’-centred state into the actuality of being here and when the ‘self’ re-enters the stage, this can lead to various scenarios. If the shock is of having been near-death, a feeling of being grateful (to a Saviour of some sort) for being saved from death is common. If the shock is the death or departure of someone close, a yearning for a permanent (as in immortal), unconditional (as in all-loving), companion (a God of some sort) is common. Both of these reactions are disassociative, in that they are an escape from grim reality into the passionate fantasy of a Greater Reality, a ‘turning away’ if you like. I have had versions of both these types of after-shock experiences in my lifetime and I know well the seductive power of indulging in disassociative states. But I also have had occasions where the shock of particular incidents in my life resulted not in disassociative states but in brief periods of utter clarity. These pure consciousness experiences can be quite challenging because, for a brief period of time, one clearly sees the world as-it-is and people as-they-are. One of these experiences afforded me the opportunity of experiencing that we human beings are involved in an on-going grim instinctual battle for survival – fought psychologically and psychically as well as physically – that is utterly senseless given the cornucopian abundance and perfect splendour of this verdant paradisiacal planet. I saw that this battle was ‘self’-centred, in that it was fought out by psychological and psychic entities who thought and felt instinctively they were different to and alien from each other. As I pondered the nature of this instinct-driven battle, I understood that only by becoming completely ‘self’-less could flesh and blood human bodies be actually free of this battle. And I also understood that the venerated age-old spiritual path headed in the opposite direction to the solution of ending this ‘self’-centred battle because it was clear that the aim of all spiritual practice is ‘self’-aggrandizement and not ‘self’-extinction. This pure consciousness experience seemed other-worldly at the time, as indeed it was, because I was shocked out of my normal dream-like reality into the actual world – the actuality of what I am as opposed to being ‘who’ I think and feel I am. I knew not what to do with the experience at the time except that it gave me a glimpse that freedom meant not only becoming free from normal grim reality, but also from the sham of a Greater Reality. Some years later, I serendipitously came across a man who had not only become free from both of these ‘realities’ but was also able to tell me how he did it. No matter what experience you had after your brush with violence – and I am no arbiter of others’ experiences – any opportunity to be free of the ever-present veil of grim reality whilst avoiding the traps of disassociative states, can afford a human being with a wealth of invaluable information. The insights and questions that come from the temporarily lifting of the veil of reality can also offer a daring challenge – to become actually free from being a passionate participant in the grim instinctual battle for survival that inflicts the current human species. The reason I write to you is to say that the method Richard used to become free of malice and sorrow works – and it brings incremental tangible results in becoming happy and harmless on the way. RESPONDENT: The words most used by my companions were ‘we had no fault’, we were just standing in the Disco, when they began to hit us, the reason being someone within our group looked at somebody’s girlfriend. I’ve asked myself what is the proper conduct when someone hits you with no apparent reason and what would be the response both to the outer and inner (self) world? It is obvious the fact that you cannot be happy during the time and after the hit, the life of this ‘flesh and blood body’ being at risk, what can one do? The impulses I’m talking about are the automatic response of the body’s defences to a dangerous situation, the instinctive programming designed to face it, ‘fight or fought’. And if so why not using it if one’s life is at stake, even with the risk of harming other person’s lives? Is there a better way, that of being harmless? Being harmless, but dead? It is important to say that nobody hit me or had the intention of hitting me, but there were 6 persons beating one of my friends, the one who presumably looked at someone’s girlfriend. I couldn’t just stare so I’ve entered between and tried to calm them, explain it was a misunderstanding; they started hitting me, my friend got away but I’ve received the remaining hit-points. Was ‘the belonging to the group’ responsible for my injuries, the wrong perception of the aggressors, their mood for violence or my infatuated friend? The general question is how would you respond to a situation when someone is using physical and/or psychological force in obtaining from you something they believe is right, being that a cod of honour, a property good, an idea, desired behaviour, etc. I’m aware I’ve received my education, set of beliefs, behaviour through power, violence & lies used by my peers and society in order to digest something they thought as right but which was evident error to my common sense. I remember I could do nothing as a child but to cry, be permanently furious, sad and in despair for their conduct. The oldest memory of the world I recall is from the age of 2. I didn’t like the taste of a cup of milk, but my parents forced me to drink it despite my protests, saying at the bottom I’ll find a frog. Of course I didn’t believe it, yet I had no choice but to drink the milk, secretly hoping to see the frog... PETER: Perhaps I could refer you to For further investigation there are also the library topics * PETER: I like it that you wrote of your experience and that it brought up so many questions for you. My advice and experience, for what its worth, is to make it your business to seek answers to these questions – not just intellectually but experientially. The experience of the 5 years since the actualism method has been made available to all has demonstrated that the intent or impetus to investigate the dark side of the human condition – the instinctual passions of fear and aggression – has to come solely from the readers’ own insights based on their own lived experiences. Without this intent or self-motivation, any attempt to have a free and unfettered discussion about the full extent of the human condition can only result in instinctually-defensive reactions such as apathy, denial, resentment, disassociation, resistance or even outright hostility coming to the fore. Only by understanding the human condition in toto – and experiencing how it is programmed to operate in you – can you become free of it.
PETER: Whilst you addressed your post to ‘everyone and everybody’, I thought to reply as it gives me an opportunity to write a bit more about sensuousness. RESPONDENT: Hello to everyone and everybody, I remember seeing something on the site like PETER: Matter, the stuff of which a thing is made, is commonly classified into three types – animal, vegetable or mineral. If you asked a biologist, a doctor, a zoologist, a microbiologist, a mother or a teacher whether animal matter is passive, as in inert or inactive, he or she no doubt would look at you askance. That animal matter is ‘not merely passive’ is surely obvious but the extent to which it is not passive is literally breathtaking. As an example, the smallest unit retaining the fundamental properties of life are cells, the ‘atoms’ of the living world. A single cell is often a complete organism in itself, such as a bacterium or yeast. Other cells, by differentiating in order to acquire specialized functions and cooperating with other specialized cells, become the building blocks of large multicellular organisms as complex as the human being. It would require a sheet of about 10,000 human cells to cover the head of a pin, and each human being is composed of more than 75,000,000,000,000 cells. As an individual unit the cell is capable of digesting its own nutrients, providing its own energy, and replicating itself, in order to produce succeeding generations. It can be viewed as an enclosed vessel composed of even smaller units that serve as its skin, skeleton, brain, and digestive tract. Within this cell vessel innumerable chemical reactions take place simultaneously, all of them controlled so that they contribute to the sustenance and procreation of the cell. In a multicellular organism cells specialize to perform different functions. In order to do this each cell keeps in constant communication with its neighbours. As it receives nutrients from and expels wastes into its surroundings, it adheres to and cooperates with other cells. Cooperative assemblies of similar cells form tissues, and a cooperation between tissues in turn forms organs, the functional units of an organism. In other words, the flesh and blood body known as No 32 is a cooperative assembly of cells that has developed from the multiplication of cells produced by the union of a male sex cell and a female sex cell. One day sufficient of these cells will cease to function as living organisms causing the flesh and blood organism known as No 32 to cease to function as a living organism. The dead cells that constitute the organism known as No 32 will then decompose, becoming the minerals of the earth again, and those minerals in turn will to help nourish or form other cells, be they vegetate or animate. The matter that is this planet is in fact in a constant state of being cycled between animal, vegetable and mineral – i.e. matter is ‘not merely passive’. Information on cellular life forms gleaned from Encyclopaedia Britannica If you asked a botanist, a horticulturist or a gardener whether vegetate matter is passive, as in inert or inactive, again the response would be predictable. Having done a little bit of gardening and a good deal of tree planting in my life I am constantly amazed at the variety and virulence, prodigiousness and persistence of vegetate matter on this planet. Indeed scientific research has revealed vegetate matter that uses chemo-synthesis rather than photo-synthesis as its energy source together with many species that blur the distinction between vegetate and mineral matter and between vegetate and animal matter. Similarly, if you asked a geologist, a meteorologist, a mineralogist, a chemist, an engineer or an architect whether mineral matter is passive, the answer again can only be no. It is obvious that inanimate matter is ‘not merely passive’ when in a gaseous state – the ever-changing atmosphere that surrounds this planet consists of a mixture of gases, water vapour and minute solid and liquid particles in suspension – this ever-changingness is what we humans call the ‘weather’. Equally it is obvious that inanimate matter is ‘not merely passive’ when in a liquid state – the very water of this watery planet is a constant hydrologic cycle of evaporation, movement within the atmosphere, precipitation, the downhill flow of river water, lakes, groundwater, ocean currents, glaciers, ice flows and icecaps. What is not so obvious to many is that mineral matter in its solid state is also anything but passive and this is so because of the vast time spans involved in the movements and changes of mineral matter. Geological materials – the solid stuff the earth is made of – consist of mineral crystals continuously being cycled through various forms of host rock types – igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. This ongoing process – commonly referred to as the rock cycle – is dependant on temperature, pressure, changes in environmental conditions within the earth’s core, within the earth’s crust and at its surface, and time. So slow is the general rate of change that geological changes are measured in millions of years, although events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions bear instantaneous evidence as to the intensity of change. I recently saw a computer graphic representation of the palaeogeographical changes of the European continent that have been mapped as occurring over several billion years. Whilst the time span is so enormous as to be almost inconceivable, what could be readily seen from the speed-up graphic was the constant rising and falling – literally a wrinkling and buckling – of the earths crust, an example of matter being ‘not merely passive’ on a scale that is astonishing. As if this were not proof enough, one needs only to consider the extent of changes and timescales involved in the study of astro-geology – the scientific discipline concerned with the geological aspects of all of the mineral matter in this infinite and eternal universe. Whilst the fact that matter is ‘not merely passive’ should be patently obvious to modern-day humans, this was not so for those who lived in ancient times when ignorance of the actual nature of the matter of the universe led to the fear-ridden fables, superstitions and beliefs that all matter, be it animate or inanimate, was infused by good and evil spirits. It is obvious that if one ever aspires to live in the actual world, the first necessary step is to stop giving credibility to any of the ancient fables, superstitions and spirit beliefs that constitute so-called ‘ancient wisdom’. RESPONDENT: Is (all) matter (water, trees, animals, various objects) alive and intelligent when experienced in a PCE? PETER: No. Matter, when experienced in a PCE, does not change its properties for the properties of matter are inherent to matter itself. Water is not alive, as is animate matter, nor is it intelligent. Intelligence – the ability to think, reflect, plan, communicate, and to be aware of that ability as it is happening – is a faculty unique to the animate matter of the human brain. Trees are alive in that they are vegetate matter and I have described vegetate matter as being ‘not merely passive’ above. Trees are not intelligent. Animals are alive in that they are organism consisting of cooperate collections of animate matter or living cells. The only animal with the capacity to be intelligent is the human animal – albeit that this intelligence is somewhat impaired by the genetically-encoded rudimentary instinctual survival passions that have now well and truly passed their use-by-date. When the intelligence that is a function of the human brain is temporarily freed to operate unimpeded by the animal survival passions, as ‘experienced in a PCE’, the normal ‘self’-centred values that human beings impose on the matter of the universe – it’s ugly, she’s ugly, it’s abhorrent, he’s abhorrent, it’s dull, he’s dull, she’s dull, it’s depressing, he’s depressing, it’s annoying, she’s annoying, it’s aggravating, he’s aggravating, it’s beautiful, he’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, it’s dear to me, he’s dear to me, she’s dear to me, it’s spiritual, it’s divine, he’s divine, she’s divine, and so on – all fall away, as if a veil has suddenly been lifted. What is suddenly seen is that the matter of the universe – all matter, be it animate or inanimate, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, be it unfashioned by humans or fashioned by humans – has an inherent quality. The inherent quality of matter is something that is experienced sensately and a sensate-only experience of the quality of matter experienced in a PCE is a sensuous experience – it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s moist, it’s dry, it’s shiny, it’s smooth, it’s soft, it’s sweet, it’s tangy, it’s quiet, it’s boisterous, it’s loud, it’s scintillating, it’s fascinating, he’s a fellow human being, she’s a fellow human being, and so on. In a PCE the universe is experienced as it actually is – perfect, pure, pristine and peerless. RESPONDENT: Is there a difference (concerning the quality of the object involved) when looking at a polyester cup in a PCE compared with our ordinary experience of it? PETER: Again, the quality of an object does not change when an object is looked when one is having a pure consciousness experience, because the quality of an object is inherent to the object itself. What happens in a PCE is that ‘I’ temporarily disappear, along with the ‘self’-centred and anthropomorphic values and judgements ‘I’ automatically impose upon all matter, be it inanimate or animate – a constant evaluation of every thing as being good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, something to envy, scorn, fear or desire, something felt to be ‘mine’ or ‘yours’, someone felt to be friend or foe, and so on. A currently fashionable value that many people unwittingly impose on objects is that they regard any objects that are fashioned by human beings from the mineral matter of the earth as being ‘unnatural’, hence artificial, going against nature, alien, improper, false, ugly, deviant, corrupted, evil, harmful and so on, whilst they feel matter in its raw state to be natural, wholesome, beautiful, beneficial, good, pure, innocent, true, unadulterated and so on. The root source of these emotion-backed judgements imposed on the objects fashioned by human beings from the mineral matter of the earth, is the belief that human beings were pure and innocent in their primitive stone-age state and that this purity and innocence has been corrupted by the technological progresses of the iron age, the bronze age, the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the invention of electricity, the silicon chip and so on. In its crudest form this belief manifests as a collective feeling of guilt that human beings are aliens who have and are still corrupting and polluting the natural environment of the planet. As can be seen, for an actualist there is a good deal of work to be done in demolishing these beliefs by replacing them with facts before one can expect to be able to sensuously experience the inherent quality of the matter of the universe, unimpeded by ‘my’ beliefs, values and judgements that ‘I’ unwittingly and automatically superimpose on everything I see, touch, hear, smell and taste as well as every human being I meet in person or hear about. RESPONDENT: And is that perception objective, in the sense ‘that’s the way that cup really is’? PETER: There is a world of difference between the normal human perception of the way it ‘really is’ or the way ‘‘I’ feel it to be’ and the ‘self’-less perception of the actuality of the universe as experienced in a PCE. RESPONDENT: Experienced in an enlightened state, I am the cup and the cup is Me, the cup has intelligence and is not merely dead matter, My perception allows me not only to represent it in the brain but also to Be the elements which make the polyester cup (the atoms and the molecules). PETER: This is an excellent description of the extent of the delusion that can eventuate when someone is afflicted with an altered state of consciousness. Common sense is the first casualty whenever anyone embarks on the spiritual path. RESPONDENT: At this stage I can see a difference in experiencing the same cup in an ASC (via Self) – being the cup, ordinary way (via self) – associating a qualia which distorts the perception, like watching a mirror image of the cup in the mind (different image for different persons), or seeing it in a PCE – naked perception, direct experiencing, crystal-clear view (for the moment, that’s only theory in my case). PETER: Whilst I realize it can only be theory for someone who cannot remember having had a PCE – nevertheless if the explanations you read make sense to you, you could up the ante and call it a good working theory or a prima facie case such that it tweaks your curiosity to explore further. RESPONDENT: I suppose things get more complicated when dealing with people, how do you xp them? PETER: As I said above, animals are alive in that they are animate animal matter, but the only animal with the capacity to be intelligent is the human animal – albeit that this intelligence is somewhat impaired by the genetically-encoded rudimentary instinctual survival passions that have now well and truly passed their use-by-date. A practicing actualist commits himself or herself to removing all of ‘my’ values, judgements and demands that ‘I’ unwittingly impose upon other people such that they can be clearly seen, and treated, as being what they actually are – fellow human beings. Or to put it another way, a practicing actualist is someone who has devoted his or her life to actualizing peace on earth. RESPONDENT: I remember experiencing people in the ASC pretty much like the polyester cup, only with the difference of ‘seeing’ their products, emotions and thoughts, like clouds orbiting their body. There is no way you can cheat someone living in an enlightened state, the last One having a good deal of control and power over the people he’s interacting with (influenza :-/). PETER: I like it that you have not only experienced the power and control over others that often accompanies an ASC but also that you have the integrity to write about it. Whilst a person afflicted with either a temporary or a permanent ASC may feel that they have control and power over others, they still need people willing to surrender their will to them in order that they can exercise control and power over others. As an example, the other day I chatted with an acquaintance who had recently returned from visiting a renowned Godman in the East. He explained that for the first week he resisted doing what all the other followers were doing – prostrating themselves at the Gurus feet at the end of the discourse – but in the end he surrendered, prostrated himself and said he felt much better for it. RESPONDENT: After reading your conversations with various respondents I’ve noticed that there is a constant thread permeating your discussions both ways, something like ‘I am right, you’re wrong and I can prove that to you’, then some of the co-respondents ‘soften’ their stance, yet again beginning to stay firm when approaching core issues. PETER: Yes, this is a common thread of nearly all of the correspondents thus far. Despite the fact that the website is totally up-front that actualism is something brand new in human history, is utterly non-spiritual and totally down-to-earth, correspondents insist on writing to us telling us that we are wrong and that they are right – or to put it more succinctly, that their ancient, spiritual, other-worldly beliefs are the inviolate Truth. I can understand the cognitive dissonance that happens whenever anything new is encountered – it was a major hurdle I had to overcome in coming to terms with the new technology of the computer age – but I am amazed at the arrogance of those who stubbornly persist in continually insisting that the old ways are right when the old ways have clearly failed to bring anything remotely resembling peace on earth between human beings. RESPONDENT: I think you’re sometimes perceived having an attitude like ‘I don’t mind and they don’t matter’ with your correspondents, which might be a little bit troubling and perceived as a lack of consideration. PETER: I find it curious that you should think this. Since Richard discovered that it is possible to be actually free from the human condition he has devoted most of his waking hours and a good deal of his personal money to not only making the discovery available to others who may be interested but he has also personally answered thousands of objections from hundreds of correspondents, the majority of whom persist in insisting that he is wrong and they are right. When I came across actualism and found that it worked to the extent that I became virtually happy and harmless, I sat down and wrote a journal explaining the steps I had taken in the process, the beliefs that I encountered on the way, the unliveable morals and unworkable ethics I had to discard and the changes I had to make on the way. I did so on the basis that the information would be both interesting and useful to anyone else who decided to head off down the path to becoming happy and harmless. And both Vineeto and I have gladly taken the time, and made the effort, to answer any correspondents who have written to us so as to pass on any relevant information we have gleaned in using the actualism method. If you think this constitutes a lack of consideration, I am left wondering why you continue to subscribe to a mailing list that has been established by such people. RESPONDENT: I personally was quite irritated by your lack of personal ‘touch’ in our email exchange. PETER: I don’t know who you are addressing as you mention no one by name in this post but many correspondents have been irritated about what has been written to the point of being downright rude and angry. The more polite often resort to criticizing the style that the information is passed on rather than addressing the content of the message, whilst those less polite have no qualms about resorting to ‘shooting the messenger’. RESPONDENT: Now, I appreciate this present way of interacting, as opposed to the spiritual one (being as near as possible to the Master) in order to receive his positive energies and original thoughts; it’s relaxing. PETER: Not only is it more relaxing when one ceases being ‘quite irritated’, it then becomes possible to be begin to be able to hear what the others are saying without the whole issue being emotion-swamped. RESPONDENT: A further question: how is it that still perceiving the qualia of a polyester cup, you can experience it directly? PETER: I think I have answered this in what I have said above, but if this is not the case come back to me. RESPONDENT: And if I were to knock-knock at your brain, there will be no-one to answer? PETER: This is apparently a question for Richard. I suggest you ask him yourself directly. RESPONDENT: Is there no person who can influence or change you? PETER: There have been many people who had an influence on my life. The three stand-outs that are relevant to this discussion are my father, Richard and Vineeto. My father, because the only advice he ever offered me was ‘It doesn’t matter what you do in your life, you can be a brain surgeon or a dunny-cart man (the man who used to call and collect the pan of excrement from beneath the toilet at the bottom of our garden), as long as you are happy’. What he didn’t tell me was how to be happy because he, along with everybody else, didn’t know how. For the ‘how to’, I had to wait some 35 years before I came across Richard who had discovered not only how to be happy but how to be harmless – it is impossible to be happy unless you are harmless. And Vineeto’s influence was that I was able to see first-hand that the actualism method worked not only for myself but for someone else – the proof of the pudding that the actualism method produces happy and harmless people, regardless of gender, nationality or prior belief. As for the possibility of another person changing me, I gave up this belief by becoming an actualist – becoming an actualist is the practical acknowledgement that no one can change me but myself. Further, becoming an actualist is the practical acknowledgement that I cease wanting to have power or control over the lives of others. Whether or not an actualist can influence another person is entirely up to the other person and what their interests are. In my case, I was vitally interested in what Richard had to say as well as how he lived his life. RESPONDENT: Well, enough about polyester cups for now… do you like red wine? PETER: I used to like red wine but nowadays I find that it dulls me down and also that it has a residual effect the next day. I have come to realize that the main reason people use alcohol is that this dulling down is a way of temporarily escaping from normal everyday reality. Currently, I am partial to mango and apple juice as an occasional alternative to a fresh brewed cup of coffee.
RESPONDENT: I think you’re sometimes perceived having an attitude like ‘I don’t mind and they don’t matter’ with your correspondents, which might be a little bit troubling and perceived as a lack of consideration. PETER: I find it curious that you should think this. Since Richard discovered that it is possible to be actually free from the human condition he has devoted most of his waking hours and a good deal of his personal money to not only making the discovery available to others who may be interested but he has also personally answered thousands of objections from hundreds of correspondents, the majority of whom persist in insisting that he is wrong and they are right. When I came across actualism and found that it worked to the extent that I became virtually happy and harmless, I sat down and wrote a journal explaining the steps I had taken in the process, the beliefs that I encountered on the way, the unliveable morals and unworkable ethics I had to discard and the changes I had to make on the way. I did so on the basis that the information would be both interesting and useful to anyone else who decided to head off down the path to becoming happy and harmless. And both Vineeto and I have gladly taken the time, and made the effort, to answer any correspondents who have written to us so as to pass on any relevant information we have gleaned in using the actualism method. If you think this constitutes a lack of consideration, I am left wondering why you continue to subscribe to a mailing list that has been established by such people. RESPONDENT: Well, you have every reason to be curious about, it was a showing off from my part, just to let you know how smarty I am. I don’t really think that, quite the opposite ... The full quotation: ‘Life is a thing of mind and matter, I don’t mind and they don’t matter’. It was something like an irony: an actualist never gets upset (‘I don’t mind’) and the correspondents’ selves aren’t worth a penny (‘they don’t matter’). PETER: Your reply has only left me more curious as to why you made the comment in the first place when you think the opposite? If nothing else, this mailing list is an opportunity to not only practice clear thinking but also to practice clear communicating. As for ‘Life is a thing of mind and matter’ – you would be well aware that Eastern spiritual belief has it that the human mind creates the illusion of matter, that matter does not in fact exist. Those who are suckered into this belief can even be left feeling that ‘I’ am the sole creator of all matter (everything and everyone) – a totally ‘self’-centred delusion of monumental proportions. Those who have been indoctrinated into Eastern spiritual belief find it impossible to consider what is obvious to an actualist – that consciousness arises out of matter, that consciousness and matter are not separate, the proof being that human flesh and blood bodies are matter being conscious. RESPONDENT: I understand from your response (very considerate and useful by the way) that both you and Vineeto live in a virtual freedom from the human condition. It’s suggested that the process of living together with a partner who is also interested in becoming free may enhance the actual experiencing of the world. I’ve also considered lately such an alternative, but here the available girlfriends are more interested in the latest parties or fashion trends. PETER: No. I have never suggested ‘that the process of living together with a partner who is also interested in becoming free may enhance the actual experiencing of the world’, nor is it suggested anywhere on the website. Human sensate experiencing of the actual world is a function of the sense organs of human flesh and blood bodies and this experiencing is largely a common-to-all experience given that the human species has the same genetic makeup with the same sense organs. Whilst ever-so-slight variations may occur from individual to individual, the sensate experience of the matter that is the actual world is a common-to-all experience in that each and every bodies’ sense organs experiences the exact same actual world – the universe being universal. Because of this over-arching commonality of sensate experience it is a delight to be able to swap notes as to the sensual experiencing of the actual world with a fellow human being who is equally capable of delighting in the sensuousness of the actual world. It is impossible to delight in the sensuous of the actual world if one is feeling resentful, aggrieved, annoyed, melancholic, detached, cynical, blissed-out and so on, and it is impossible to swap notes about the sensuousness of the actual world with a fellow human being who is feeling resentful, aggrieved, annoyed, melancholic, detached, cynical, blissed-out and so on. In my case, living with a fellow human being who is virtually free of the debilitating feelings of malice and sorrow is an added bonus to my own ongoing experience of delight – it is not, as you imply, the reason I delight in being here. The sole reason I delight in being here is that I have, by my own efforts as an actualist, become virtually free of the feelings of malice and sorrow as well as the antidotal feelings of love and compassion – i.e. virtually free of feeling resentful, aggrieved, annoyed, melancholic, cynical, detached, blissed-out and so on. Very, very rarely nowadays am I affected by the ungracious moods and emotional maladies of others such that it impinges on my feeling excellent or on my experiencing delight, so much so that I could live with any other person without inflicting any emotional demands upon them. The process of actualism is about ridding oneself of malice and sorrow – it is not about finding a companion who has rid themselves of malice and sorrow, or is in process of doing so, in order to attempt to live a vicarious happiness and a surrogate harmlessness by association. At some seminal stage soon after meeting Vineeto, I realized that the only way I could live in peace and harmony with her was for me to clean myself up – for me to get my head out of the clouds and to get off my bum and set about ridding myself of my feelings of malice and my feelings of sorrow such that I didn’t deliberately or unwittingly continue to impose them upon her. When I realized that the only way I was ever going to be able to live with any of my fellow human beings in peace and harmony was for me to become happy and harmless, I set about the business of making it happen. This is what I wrote about the realization soon after –
RESPONDENT: There is however this very close friend of mine and ex-lover (the one whose Self I’ve experienced in an ASC when we broke up) who at this moment is a psychology student and who is also exploring various ways (gestalt – have any idea what it is?, psychotherapy, Jung, etc.) of making her happy and others sane. It makes her a suitable candidate for me at this stage but at the same time I have some problems with the idea of a RE, those things like ‘the second time won’t work’, ‘once you brake it, you cannot make it back the second time’, etc. I’m aware now that our first relationship (1, 2 years) hasn’t worked as a result of the love involved and its constant companions (jealousy, possessiveness, hurt, boredom, fury, etc.), I can also see that these popular beliefs about ‘second try’ are quite irrelevant viewed with AF eyes (sometimes opened) as this is a completely new way of relating to people, different from love. PETER: Yep. One of the first things I had to acknowledge to myself before I set about wanting to change myself was that my past attempts to live with a companion failed because of my feelings of ‘jealousy, possessiveness, hurt, boredom, fury, etc’. It was a significant step to acknowledge the role I played in the previous failure as opposed to indulging in the usual diversionary tactic of blaming the other. Such an acknowledgement can lead to wanting to do something about having these feelings – regardless of whether you are currently in a relationship or not. As I have indicated above, only you can do something about your ungracious moods and emotional maladies. If you make the effort to become happy and harmless now you will then be doing all you can to make yourself a better, and presumably more appealing, companion for someone to live with in the future – and this will be so regardless of whether that companion is interested in becoming happy and harmless or not. RESPONDENT: I initially thought (after the ASC) that our relationship hasn’t worked, despite her and mine best intentions, because there was no ‘True Love’ and that ‘earthly love’ was only a pale and false substitute for the divine state of experiencing the other as his/her True Self. I’ve even wrote a poem titled Love, these two verses are quite relevant for what I thought back then about ‘earthly love’ – here is a very approximate translation: ‘Alchool tear fallen from the skies, arrived to end the humans longing for immortality’. I’m still left wondering about it, her intentions and the means to reach them have to be taken into account as well ... and at this point they are not too clear. PETER: The turning point in my being able to live in peace and harmony with Vineeto only came when I realized that I had to stop wanting to change her intentions and her behaviour because the only person I could change – and needed to change – in order to live with her in peace and harmony was me. If you are interested, in my journal I have written a good deal about the challenges and the rewards of living with a fellow human being in peace and harmony. RESPONDENT: Is that old Socrates saying ‘know thyself’ still actual for you? Have you attached a ‘next’ to it? PETER: Within months of becoming interested in actualism it occurred to me that none of humanity’s revered philosophy and venerated spiritual beliefs have any relevance whatsoever to the process of actualism. All philosophy and spiritual belief has its roots in the dim dark fear-ridden past of humanity, from times when human beings had no knowledge at all of the physical processes that create and sustain life in the universe. I remember likening this reverence for the ‘wisdom of the ancient ones’ as digging through the rubbish bin of history in a vain attempt to find some old tried and failed ideal or scheme in order to dust it off, repackage it and give it yet another re-run. Richard’s discovery makes a total break with the brutal dim dark past of humanity together with its endless re-runs of hackneyed ideals and regurgitated beliefs. It follows that those who aspire to tread the path he has pioneered and aspire to become free of the human condition must also make a complete break from the crippling legacy of the past – to draw a line through it as it were. As for Socrates, he believed himself to be charged with a mission from his God to make his countrymen aware of their ignorance and of the supreme importance of knowledge of what is good for the soul. When he says ‘know thyself’ the intent of the quest is to find goodness and Godliness – the antithesis of an actualist’s intent to search within the dark corners of his or her psyche in order to expose the full extent of the instinctual being that is ‘me’. I have never attached a ‘next’ to any of the dimwitticisms As the belief crumbled I continued on with my investigation so as to set about finding out the facts of the matter. By making this effort I didn’t fall into the age-old trap of swapping one belief for another, I replaced belief with fact. In this way I was able to gain the confidence and surety that an understanding of the facts of the matter brings with it, which in turn emboldened me to tackle the next belief that popped up and so on down the line. The investigation of beliefs is an essential part of the actualism method as it serves to actively demolish one’s social identity – ‘I’ am inevitably scrutinized along with the beliefs ‘I’ hold so dear – and as each belief crumbles so does a piece of my prized social identity. RESPONDENT: Is knowing oneself a by-product of one’s intent of becoming happy and harmless or a necessary condition? PETER: For a start I prefer to use the expression exploring one’s psyche rather than Socrates’ ‘knowing oneself’ for the reasons I have outlined above. Secondly, the intent to become happy and harmless is something you either have or don’t have. In other words, if you don’t have it you need to uncover and rediscover it by removing what prevents you having intent in the first place. From my observations and discussions with a good many people over my lifetime, I would say that every human being has an innate desire to live with his or her fellow human beings in peace and harmony – it is simply that this intent is buried beneath a world-weary cynicism or, in the case of those who follow Eastern spiritualism, has been deliberately relinquished for the sake of their own personal pursuit of spiritual glory. The search for peace on earth – the possibility of human beings actually living together in peace and harmony – has always simmered beneath the surface throughout my life. This urge was a prime motivator in my abandoning the real world and immersing myself in spiritual communes for a good many years. The reality of the dream of living in peace in a commune was failure – as it always is and always has been. The reason for this I discovered only later – to live in utter peace and harmony is impossible for two instinctually driven beings let alone a community of instinctually driven beings. After my long experiment in communal living ended I settled for being a lone goody-two-shoes spiritualist only to discover that one day I lost my spiritual cool and got overtly angry with someone. It was a bit of a shock at the time as it made me realize how much ‘I’ needed to be in control in order for ‘me’ to feel superior to those beneath me in the spiritual hierarchy. When I came across actualism two things made so much sense to me that I was really forced to sit up and take notice. The first was the simple statement that the animosity and despair that plague the human species is the result of the instinctual passions that each and every human being has been genetically encoded with – not, as is universally believed, due to insufficient goodliness or Godliness in the world. That common sense explanation accorded with my personal experience of a suppressed anger that lay lurking beneath the surface of my prized spiritual identity. The other simple statement that grabbed my attention was something I read in Richard’s Journal –
I took this as a personal challenge because living with a companion in utter peace and harmony was always something I yearned for, and always something I had failed to do. And I knew that if I could live in peace and harmony with one other person it would be the proof that the actualism method worked – the proof that I could actually change. Along with a lifetime yearning for peace on earth, these two statements served to fire up my intent to become happy and harmless. The understanding that my feelings of animosity and anguish had a physical cause and not a metaphysical cause gave me the intent to abandon my spiritual identity, and the challenge of living with fellow human beings in utter peace and harmony gave me the intent to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless. The process of becoming happy and harmless involves an exploration of what is happening in my psyche at this very moment – a momentary exploration that was first set in motion by making the effort to form the habit of asking myself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Once I had got rid of my spiritual goody-two-shoes feeling of superiority it was then relatively easy to become aware of any feelings of animosity and resentment as they arose and then to dig in deep down to the core instinct of aggression – the thrill of killing was how I experienced it. Feelings of melancholy were about the limit of my personal feelings of sadness I became aware of in everyday life, but feeling sad for others was stickier territory that required more exploration. When I came to really dig deep into sorrow itself I came across feelings of despair, and deeper than this I experienced levels of instinctual fear, dread and terror. It felt as though I was literally entering what I can only describe as being a truly hellish realm. The feeling of terror was an unbridled experience of raw instinctual animal fear, the self-same fear that the earliest humans experienced whilst trying to survive in a world full of meat-eating animals looking for something to kill and eat, as well as marauding groups of other humans looking for something to kill, eat or carry off. What I experienced was the very root of ‘my’ fear of death – the animal instinctual fear of survival. It’s amazing what you can discover in your psyche if you are willing to go looking. I do acknowledge that such an exploration is a daunting prospect for many – I remember the choice to become an actualist was as if I was staring into a dark tunnel form which there was no return, or as if I was about to set off on a path that everyone else had marked ‘Do not go this way’. I guess, in hindsight, the latter was part of the attraction, part of the dare. For those enabled with the sincere intent to become happy and harmless the process of becoming free of the human condition is a thrilling adventure – thrilling rather than fearful provided you resist the temptation to take yourself too seriously. Should you want to get a taste of the nature of these explorations I recommend reading Peter’s Journal as it is thus far the best comprehensive personal account written of the process of becoming virtually free of malice and sorrow. As you can see, the actualism method of exploring one’s psyche – in vivo, in situ, ad momentum – is totally different in intent, in scope and in intensity to Aristotles ‘self’-serving spiritual admonishment to ‘know thyself’. Becoming an actualist means deliberately making a complete break from the past – in other words stopping believing that there is anything useful to be found in the words of Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Heraclitus, Hume, Kapila, Kant, Nietzsche, Patanjali, Plato, Plotinus, Sartre and co. just as nothing useful is to be found in the so-called sacred words of Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Jesus, Krishnamurti, Lao-tzu, Mahavira, Meher Baba, the Pope, Rajneesh, Rama, Ramana Maharshi and co. It’s such a grand thing to do, to dare to wipe the slate clean of the past, to dare to stand on your own two feet, to dare to explore, to reveal, to uncover, to demystify, to discover – to dare to discover the facts of the matter of what it is to be a human being. I highly recommend the journey.
PETER: You recently wrote a post to everyone on the list and I would like to comment on a few of your statements as well as directly address a few of your questions. RESPONDENT: I don’t want to become an actualist but a free, happy and fully autonomous human being. PETER: This is rather like saying, I don’t want to be a materialist but I want to be a rich, famous and universally-envied human being, or I don’t want to be a spiritualist but I want to be a rich, famous and universally-worshipped God-man (or Goddess). I am somewhat bemused that so many people who profess they have an interest in actualism – the method by which to actually become ‘a free, happy and fully autonomous human being’, to use your words – have an aversion to the word actualist. I simply see it as a useful label. I was a materialist for the first stage of my life until I gave it up because I found it be wanting. I then became a spiritualist for the next stage and eventually found it wanting. Then I came across actualism and became an actualist. I even use the term practicing actualist to make the point that I don’t hold it as a philosophy – a nonsensical thing to try and do – I am putting it into practice. I can only speculate as to why people have an aversion to the word actualist. It would appear that many confuse the autonomy that is on offer in actualism – I am what I am, this flesh and blood body as distinct from other flesh and blood bodies – with the real-world independence – as in ‘I’ am ‘who’ I am, and to hell with anyone else. And most people are so world-weary that they cannot understand that calling oneself an actualist is a descriptive term and that it does not imply being a member of any of the competitive and hierarchal groupings that typify all the materialist and spiritual associations between human beings. Or maybe it is simply a sign of a refusal to commit to being an actualist – having a full-blooded commitment is seen as foolishness by many. RESPONDENT: The question is: Can Peter and Vineeto still live in a virtual freedom for let’s say a month, without practicing actualism? If not, then someone is in control there creating its actual world. Maybe an actualist I. PETER: A pure consciousness experience is evidence that this flesh and blood body is effortlessly jovial and benign when ‘I’ am not around to continually stuff things up. By practicing the actualism method I have got to the stage where I am virtually free of malice and sorrow, which means that it is only very rarely that ‘I’ and my problems and passions interject such that my happiness and harmlessness is momentarily disrupted. Any such aberrations are of minor consequence and in no way spoil my sensual delight in being here in the world-as-it-is with people as-they are. As you would know, whilst I make no claims to being actually free of malice and sorrow, I have no hesitation in recommending a virtual freedom from malice and sorrow to anyone who is interested – it is to live beyond human expectations. RESPONDENT: As a person who has witnessed the end of me (as ego) I would say that the cunning component of the identity is one of the main obstacles to self-immolation. PETER: When I had an altered state of consciousness it was clear to me that whilst my personal identity (or ‘I’ as ego as it is oft called) disappeared for a while, a new identity emerged, the Real ‘Me’ (or ‘me’ as soul, or ‘me’ at the heart of my being, or whatever other name it masquerades as). An ego-less, ‘self’-aggrandized, Self-realized identity is an identity never the less. RESPONDENT: This method as far as I can see is designed to work in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are and not to try to change the world (things and events) or the people. PETER: Yep. It is essential to grasp the fact that it is an exercise in futility to attempt to change others. Actualism is about making the only contribution ‘I’ can actually make to peace on earth – to actively facilitate the pure consciousness experience of the already existing peace on earth by doing all ‘I’ can to rid myself of ‘my’ malice and ‘my’ sorrow. RESPONDENT: These are secondary by-products of an actual freedom, but not the aim of the method, so any schemes about how the future of the world or the people should be like smacks of evangelization. PETER: Secondary by-products, hey. If I read you right, you are completely misunderstanding an actual freedom from the human condition by relegating its prime attribute to a secondary by-product. One of the very things that attracted me to actualism was that it offered a down-to-earth freedom, not an other-worldly freedom, in other words, a freedom in the actual world of people, things and events as-it-is – not in a metaphysical world of ‘my’ imagination nor in a world that ‘I’ hoped it would be one day ‘if only everybody else ...’ . I think you have got the wrong end of the stick here and are busy trying to use it to beat up actualism for what it isn’t. For me the fact that actualism offers an actual freedom in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are is unquestionably its primary feature. If actualism hadn’t offered that, I would have passed it by … and rightly so. As for your ‘smacks of evangelization’ comment – as you would know most people who have dipped into the spiritual world and have inadvertently stumbled across actualism have trotted out the same hackneyed objection. If you insist on seeing actualism as yet another spiritual promissory enterprise then you can’t help but read everything with spiritual eyes, rather than take what is written as saying what it means and meaning what it says. Actualism is the third alternative to materialism and spiritualism and because of this it is vital to understand that one needs to think outside the traditional boxes if one ever wants to aspire to experientially understand what an actual freedom from the human condition is about. RESPONDENT: Also, if I cannot live in ‘the real world’ – i.e. business world (as-it-is) or ‘dog-eat-dog of people’ (as-they-are at work), as Peter called it, and not try to retreat on a leisure seaside house by the ocean (as-I-want things to be) with a choice person (as-I-want people to be) and create the circumstances (events that I like), then would I be as happy as I am? PETER: I have no problem at all how other people choose to live their lives – it is after all their lives they are living and they will reap the rewards and suffer the consequences of any choices they make or don’t make. Speaking personally, I liked living in cities when I was younger – I had a ball living in London in the 70’s – but I also enjoyed living in a smaller city in Australia when I had children. When my child-rearing responsibilities finished I came across a small sea-side town in the subtropics and deliberately chose to live here as it was the best spot I had discovered in all of my travels. In other words, I chose to arrange my living circumstances ‘(as-I-want things to be)’, to use your words. After making that decision, the next consideration was making money to support myself and the easiest option was to do what I enjoyed doing and was good at – designing and building houses. I gradually found a small group of carpenters and subcontractors who were interested in doing good work and who enjoyed doing good work and we all had a good time building nice houses for nice people, i.e. I chose to work with people ‘(as-they-are at work)’, associate and live with people ‘(as-I-want people to be)’ and create working circumstances ‘(events that I like)’, to use your words. All of this seems eminently sensible to me, I simply organized my life in a way that provided the most safety, the most comfort, the most pleasure and the most leisure possible commensurate with the least amount of working time possible – I never believed there was anything at all to be gained by suffering. The only thing that was still very obviously missing from my life was that I knew I was not free of malice, I would occasionally suffer from melancholia and I wanted to rectify my life-long failure to live with a companion in utter peace and harmony. Then I came across actualism … and the rest of the story is in my journal. As for your question ‘then would I be as happy as I am?’, it is important to note that I was living in the idyllic circumstances I described above and yet I was not happy and, even more importantly, I had to acknowledge I was nowhere near harmless. The fact that I lived in what is literally a paradise made my lack of happiness even more poignant and even more obvious – and this glaring incongruity was one of the motivations I had for committing myself to actualism. RESPONDENT: Seems to me like an artificial paradise you two have created, like the one advertised on the tourist booklets. PETER: Ah! Far, far better than that. The paradise I live in is not artificial, it is actual and I now have an almost constant sensual appreciation of that fact. And further to this, I would now have the same sensual appreciation no matter where I lived on this luxuriant and cornucopian planet. I have simply chosen to live in the best bit of the planet I found in my travels – I voted with my feet to find a place I prefer to live, as millions of migrants do every year on the planet. As for ‘you two have created’, I presume you are referring to the fact that we live together in the same flat in utter peace and harmony, 24/7. This is not a mutual creation – the fact that I live this way with Vineeto is testimony that actualism does work in that I am now virtually free of malice and sorrow, which means that I am a pleasurable companion to live with. And I can attest to the fact that Vineeto, also being virtually free of malice and sorrow, is a delightful companion to live with – we have none of the disputes, disagreements, altercations, withdrawals, retreats, estrangements, holding-backs, holding-ons and time-outs that typify normal relationships. In short, I am every moment reaping the rewards of my full-blooded commitment to living with a companion in utter peace and harmony. RESPONDENT: What Peter failed to see is that the ‘dog-eat-dog’ is created by him. PETER: You appear to have misunderstood what I said –
By circumstance I found myself in a work situation in which I would normally not choose to be in, nor prefer to be in. Whilst I had great fun it was clear to me that nobody else was enjoying what they were doing, everybody was competing with each other and everybody was bitching about each other, either openly or behind each other’s backs. In other words, I had an in-my-face reminder of the grim reality I had left behind when I abandoned materialism. This dog-eat-dog world is not created by me, I am not making it up, it is not an illusion, it exists in its own right, it is real – people do bitch and moan, complain and compete, get depressed, get angry and so on. I simply chose, many years ago, not to be a materialist – not to be a willing participant in this dog-eat-dog world and then I set about finding a better and more harmonious way of working for the money I need for shelter, food, clothes and a few further luxuries. RESPONDENT: I live 8 hours a day in this world, is there a problem? PETER: If you are happy to choose to be a willing participant in this world, then there is no problem at all. RESPONDENT: I’ve also contemplated a situation in which these exchanges would take place involving face-to-face conversations. Would that alter anything? This method is not designed to be practiced in a group as I understood it (it’s DIY), but there is a thin red line, as people tend to influence each other emotionally when coming together. PETER: Perhaps you have answered your own question. Personally I prefer one-to-one conversations such as this as they tend to be more direct and hence more intimate. And I have also come to prefer the written word as a concise way of getting to the bottom of a particular subject whereas spoken conversations usually tend to ramble a lot – a particularly delightful trait of spoken conversation. As for groups, I agree that ‘people tend to influence each other emotionally when coming together’ – anger and resentment, and doubts and fears, can be spread like wildfire amongst a group of people, as the recent activity on the list testifies. Actualism is about standing on one’s own two feet and thinking for oneself, not kowtowing to those who seek to rise to the top of the heap by preying on the fears of others – as all the priests and Godmen have done over the centuries. RESPONDENT: Personally speaking, I’m influenced in my everyday existence by ideas, things, people and situations (events). PETER: Nowadays I find myself rarely influenced by the ideas of others because their ideas are mostly based on materialistic values or spiritual fantasies. Practical ideas are another matter as I tend to keep an ear to the ground in case someone has a better way of doing something or has invented a better something-or-other. I tend to live what would be regarded as a quiet life and as such find myself remarkably uninfluenced by things, people and events that are not in, or occurring in, my immediate locale. I used to be emotionally influenced by things, people and events that were happening in all sorts of places on the planet– no matter that I never met the people, nor was ever likely to, and no matter if I had never been to the place, nor was ever likely to – until I realized that all I was doing was overlaying ‘my’ sadness and ‘my’ anger over people and events that ‘I’ had nothing whatsoever to do with. In short, when ‘I’ stopped wanting to save the world or have it refashioned the way ‘I’ wanted to be, I got on with the only thing ‘I’ could do to foster peace on earth between human beings – rid myself of ‘my’ feelings of righteousness and ‘my’ feelings of sorrow. RESPONDENT: What would happen if Peter and Vineeto would end their relationship and start a new one with a non-actualist? Would they have the same 99.9 happiness 24 hours a day / 7 days a week with their new business man/woman? PETER: Of course. My happiness is not dependant on who I live with. It was serendipitous that the last companion I chose to live with was someone who was also interested in ridding herself of her animosity and her misery, but my happiness is an autonomous happiness that comes from the inherent sensuous pleasure of being alive in this paradisiacal actual world – no matter where I am in this moment, no matter whom I am with in this moment and no matter what I am doing or not doing in this moment. Living with a companion is a bonus on top of this on-going happiness and being able to partake of the intimate delights of sexual play with a willing companion is a bonus on top of that bonus. RESPONDENT: I personally have no problem in interacting in the business world and it doesn’t seem to me to be a ‘dog-eat-dog’, I enjoy much of the interactions, deals, presentations and the like. It requires some skills to be successful as in any other work or craft, yet that’s it. You do your job and you get paid for that. That’s because you have to work some hours in order to eat, clothe, shelter and live, yet most of the time is fun. The logic is simple: I don’t exist so there is nothing that can affect me apart from this physical Universe either in the form of things-events or physical people. If something or someone affects me, then this is an opportunity to inquire and to discover why is this so. If ‘the real world’ has an influence on me to such a degree that I immediately want to exit, it might be the case to take a good look at the ‘virtual freedom’ I’m so fond of. As 99.9% pleasurable existence is equivalent to 99.9 self-less existence, I wonder if living in the real world of battling selves would change that ratio for you. PETER: This may be your logic, but I chose not to live in ‘the real world of battling selves’ – as I said, I don’t believe in right suffering. I remember thinking at one stage early on that Richard has dropped out, he has abandoned ship, he no longer fights the good fight, which makes him a deserter or a traitor in the eyes of most. My recent dip back into the midst of someone else’s battlefield made me realize that now others would also see me as being a drop out, a deserter and a traitor. Such is the price for becoming happy and harmless. Weird isn’t it? RESPONDENT: About infinity... Lately I’ve had a few glimpses about actualism of which I cannot somehow exactly report, glimpses that last less then a second and then vanish. They are scary if judged for their consequences. In these short moments it seems I sense something radically different from how I use to live my life or think and relate to the world, akin to not having buffers, a full-contact game between me and the facts of my life. PETER: A glimpse of the possibility of fully living life can indeed be scary. But then again, the lure is so … so seductive. RESPONDENT: I realize that I’m not living a life but other people ideas and expectations about how my life should be. PETER: Yep. I can relate to that one. I remember the feeling was as though I was wearing a straightjacket, a tight binding around the chest that I longed to be free of. RESPONDENT: The funny thing is that those actualist writings seem to be so simple and naive at first glance ... PETER: Yep. For me that was the attraction, the seduction as it were. When reading my way through Richard’s Journal, it took me quite a while to notice the particular way in which he started each chapter. I won’t spill the beans here but you may find it interesting to investigate for yourself. RESPONDENT: Recently I stumbled across my aggressive impulses, and I was amazed how much hatred, irritability and aggressive behaviour I’m capable of, as I couldn’t control and/or repress them. It hadn’t happened for years to such an extent and for such a long period of time with no apparent or valid cause. PETER: I remember a similar thing happened to me when I was working on a building site in my spiritual years – the anger that I thought I had sublimated came bubbling up to the surface for no apparent or no ‘good’ reason. T’was one of the events that spurred me on to find a way of really getting rid of it, once and for all. RESPONDENT: Or maybe the cause was that I’ve read PETER: The only feedback I would give is to swap stories and tell you what I did, the changes I made and the steps I took in order that I could live with a companion in peace and harmony. If you are interested, I suggest reading the relevant chapters in my journal – Living Together, Love and Sex and you could try Peace and People for good measure – as its much more fresh than I could write it now from memory. RESPONDENT: Perhaps that’s why I’m so puzzled by the relationship between Peter and Vineeto; if you were to separate would you feel no emotional pain (sorrow)? I know you’re not connected like in-a-love affair, but there is nothing to feel when you’ll have to live separate lives? PETER: Perhaps I should preface my reply by saying that at the start of my living together with Vineeto I made a boots-and-all commitment that I would do anything and everything I needed to do in order that I would be able to live with her in amity and harmony. This once and for all commitment left me with no excuses, no escape route, no ‘next time’, no ‘other woman’ – my commitment ensured success as I was unwilling to accept failure yet again. My success has meant that I have found my longed-for life-long companion, my best mate as it where, and I have no need at all to maintain an exit strategy, no need to ‘take space’, no need to keep an eye out for someone better or someone younger or whatever it is that normal men do. Because I have fully committed to this companionship I have never held anything back, which means I will have no regrets should it come to an end before I die. If it were to end before then, for whatever reason, I would miss her being around, but the missing would not be emotional in that I would have neither regrets nor guilt that I had held anything back, that it ‘could have been better if …’, no ‘self’-indulgent feelings of mourning or loss or grief, no feeling of loneliness, and so on. RESPONDENT: I appreciate the type of frank and open discussion and with all cards on the table: exposing me for who I am at this moment in time. PETER: Exposing ‘me for who I am’ is your business and your business entirely. Whilst I found discussing particular topics with someone else can be an aid to understanding life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being – and this is particularly so if the other person has more expertise in a certain field than I do – when all is said and done it is no substitute for developing one’s own ability to think autonomously and precipitating one’s own ability to act sensibly such that one can finally stand on one’s own two feet. To become ‘a free, happy and fully autonomous human being’ as you put it. It’s been a pleasure to chat with you.
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