RESPONDENT: Most attractive were the very basic principles presented by Zen – I particularly liked Bankei, he seemed to have a grasp of the real essence. Why did they then have to bring in all the goofy chanting and incense, and what about that stick? Sheesh.

PETER: Have you ever considered that maybe there was something essentially rotten in Bankei’s ‘real essence’?

RESPONDENT: I was relating historically, careful to use the past tense. I was simply giving you a bit of background as to how I arrived at this juncture. All religion and spirituality is rotten to the core.

PETER: The reason I posted the piece about Bankei’s teachings of ‘realizing the Unborn’ is that you said in the last post –

[Respondent]: ‘I have since realized that what I was attracted to in Zen – that stripped down elemental simplicity – I have found in these parts.’ Respondent to Peter, 9.2.2003

This is a present tense statement, implying that you still see a link between spiritualism and actualism – if not in subject matter, at least philosophically. Actualism is not a stripped down elemental philosophy, nor a non-spiritual form of Zen, nor a happy-go-lucky form of materialism.

RESPONDENT: No such implication. What attracted me to Zen back then was the element of direct experience of the actual. Perhaps that was only my interpretation, but there is plenty of evidence (on the AF site and elsewhere) that the inspirations for that religion, amongst most or all others, were likely PCEs experienced by the original practitioners. However, they were unanimously misinterpreted, and the experiencers translated them into bliss, satori, ‘Thou Art That’, bla, bla, bla.

PETER: If I can cut to the quick here, what attracted me to actualism in the first place was that it offered freedom from the grim reality of the human condition but what really made me aware to the fact that actualism was the genuine article was that it also necessitated becoming free from all of the spiritual and religious Greater-reality fantasies.

Given your interest in actualism, I am left wondering why you would want to continue to claim that there are similarities between actualism and the spiritual teachings of Zen Buddhism whilst providing no evidence at all to support your claim?

*

RESPONDENT: To relevance to actualism: If in fact the universe is electric, or if in fact it is filled with rubber duckies ... how is it relevant to actualism?

PETER: If you want to contemplate on life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, ...

RESPONDENT: Most assuredly.

PETER: … and your contemplations are based on the currently-fashionable pseudo-scientific theories of an expanding universe – replete with a Big Bang beginning, full of or even empty of, all sorts of unseen, unseeable and unmeasurable phenomena and which will suffer some Diabolical End –

RESPONDENT: Most assuredly not.

PETER: ... then you will remain in the grip of spiritual belief.

RESPONDENT: What few spiritual beliefs I had in the past are gone now. That was the point of describing a bit of my history ... how it was not a spiritual path.

PETER: Are you saying that reading Eastern spiritual texts, liking what you read and being attracted to the teachings is to be not on a spiritual path? ‘Path’ as in a motivational direction or line of enquiry or the pursuit of an interest or course of action. Perhaps because you took no action, i.e. didn’t get involved in the nuts and bolts of applying any spiritual teachings, you don’t see it as having been on a path but your point does seem somewhat moot to me.

RESPONDENT: Yup, as in ...

[Peter]: ‘Path’ as in a motivational direction or line of enquiry or the pursuit of an interest or course of action. Perhaps because you took no action, i.e. didn’t get involved in the nuts and bolts of applying any spiritual teachings, you don’t see it as having been on a path but your point does seem somewhat moot to me. Peter to Respondent, 22.2.2003

PETER: Okay. If I read you right, you were not on the spiritual path because you were never motivated by, or committed to, the spiritual teachings, rather you were only pursuing a ‘line of enquiry’. And again, if I read you right, you have found the spiritual teachings somewhat lacking – particularly when they are put into practice – and you are now pursuing a similar line of enquiry with actualism.

This seems an eminently rational approach as the central proposals and methodology of actualism should be capable of standing up to the rigours of intellectual scrutiny, lest it be yet another spiritual teaching dressed up in the guise of something new. It makes sense to check out what is on offer in order to find out if actualism is something you are willing to commit yourself to after you have made your enquiries – because commitment is an essential ingredient to bring success in any pursuit in life.

*

PETER: When I first began to dig into these scientific theories I was amazed how unscientific they were, and I say this as a layman with only a basic knowledge of mechanics and engineering. The reason I posted the links about an alternative explanation to the empirical observations of the universe was that the explanations make far more sense to me than those currently held to be the truth.

RESPONDENT: Granted that the present Big Bang theory has many holes, and that the electric universe contingent makes some compelling arguments. This is the scientific method at work: conjecture (aka guess at) a scenario hitherto opaque, conduct experiments to test the scenario, and assess the scenario given the acquired data. Some of these are easy (right angle theorem), some more complex (fundamental nature of the universe). The Big Bang theorem is still a theorem as it has not yet passed the test of the scientific method. Nor has the electric universe theorem. A key element of this process (particularly the first step) is common sense, as you use the term.

PETER: You may have missed the fact from the last post that the man who formulated the Big Bang creation theory was Abbé Georges LeMaître, a central figure in the Vatican’s Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma. In other words, the very first step in the process of the formulation of the Big Bang theory, was LeMaître’s religious belief that God created the world out of nothing, that the universe had a beginning – a creation event. The ‘scientific method’ employed in this case was to take a transparently creationist religious belief, create mathematical formula to support the belief, assess any empirical observations solely in the light of the belief and, when holes appear in theory, persist by adding complications to the theory.

After nearly a century of theories built upon LeMaître’s initial theory, some scientists have even come out claiming that they see the Mind of God at work in the universe. The Vatican must be mightily pleased with the current score line in cosmology – Vatican 1/ Empirical science 0.

You might have noticed Richard’s recent post where he posted documentary evidence that the Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama is deliberately meddling in, and influencing, what could be termed the human behavioural sciences in precisely the same way that the Catholic Pope meddled in, and influenced, theoretical cosmology. It’s a good ploy on the part of the churches because the distinction between science and religion – between fact and fantasy – remains so blurred in most people’s minds that it is impossible for common sense to even begin to get a toehold, let alone a leg in.

RESPONDENT: No, I didn’t miss your point. It just wasn’t pertinent to my line of questioning. I fully agree that many scientific theories are proposed on the basis of the presenter’s belief system, and that science is used to propagate religious ideas. Just because a theory appears to have the stink of personality, doesn’t disqualify it as a subject of the scientific method. That method, when applied correctly, is impersonal, and the truth will out.

PETER: Given that the topic of our conversation is a scientific explanation of the nature of the universe that explicitly contradicts the explanation of the nature of the universe used in the Big-Bang-creation theory, it seems to me only pertinent to point out that the original source of the Big Bang theory was, by accounts, a vested scientist with more than a passing vested personal interest in upholding the creationist theories of the Catholic religion. Whilst this information is most decidedly not sufficient evidence in itself to disprove the theory, to summarily dismiss it as not being pertinent to this discussion is to be closed-minded, not open-minded.

It makes sense to understand both the source of, and the impetus behind, any belief, concept, theory or action – it is useful information in any investigation, be it that of an actualist, a lawyer, a scientist or an engineer.

As for every theory and belief and religious idea being a worthwhile ‘subject of the scientific method’, I find it hard to take this seriously as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different creationist theories amongst the tribes, cultures and religions of the world. In order to even consider that all of these are a worthwhile subject of the scientific method, one needs to abandon science –

‘the intellectual and practical activity encompassing those branches of study that apply objective scientific method to the phenomena of the physical universe’. Oxford Dictionary

– ignore its fundamental methodology, ignore the basic principles of physics in order to accept that there even is a meta-physical universe in the first place. What you are arguing is that scientists should remain ‘open’ to the belief in meta-physical realms and energies – the belief that underpins all spiritual belief and religious ideas.

The other point I have made previously is that the scientific method itself is often the first casualty in the passionate pursuit of supporting a belief or substantiating a theory –

[Peter to Respondent]: ‘Just as a point of interest, you will have noticed I am not alone in questioning the common popular theories in cosmology. You will have noticed that I have previously posted some comments made by Hannes Alfvén, astrophysicist and joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 in which he questioned not only the methodology but the substance of the scientific rationale for a finite created universe with a beginning and end.’ Peter to Respondent, 22.2.2003

*

RESPONDENT: From an experiential point of view, it ‘can only be actually experienced in this moment of time’ is certainly true, but that does nothing to describe the universe’s physical evolution over time.

PETER: Whilst there is ample empirical evidence in the fossil record of this planet to support the theory that vegetate matter emerged from the mineral matter of this planet due to a unique combination of physical conditions – and that it then further evolved into animate matter, conscious animate matter and apperceptive animate matter over time – it is a leap of pure imagination to propose that the universe itself has evolved over time.

The physical universe is ever changing but it is not evolving, because implicit in the word evolution as it is commonly used is that the process of evolution has a beginning point. The universe, being eternal and infinite, had no beginning point, no creation event.

Further, the physical universe is not evolving towards perfection – it is already perfect, as can clearly be experienced in a pure consciousness experience.

RESPONDENT: While that experience implicitly involves my flesh-and-blood, hence can only be happening in this moment, I know also that the flesh-and-blood is subject to physical laws and will eventually become dust. Why would similar laws not apply to the universe too? I ask this in all sincerity, and I’m not arguing the physical nature of the universe, nor its perfection and purity, just how it is pertinent to the matter at hand.

PETER: If I read you right, you seem to be willing to acknowledge that the universe may not have had a beginning, i.e. was not created by someone or something out of nothing, but you are hedging your bets by saying it does not necessarily follow that the universe won’t have an end – an extinction caused by someone or something whereby the universe wimps or bangs into nothing.

I am left wondering why you would abandon half of a belief and yet hold on to the other half?

RESPONDENT: You read me wrong. All I wrote was that the dictionary definition of the word evolution does not imply a beginning point, hence I retracted my statement that the universe ‘evolves’.

PETER: No. The reference to ‘holding on to half of a belief’ was in reference to your comment –

[Respondent]: ‘… know also that the flesh-and-blood is subject to physical laws and will eventually become dust. Why would similar laws not apply to the universe too? I ask this in all sincerity, …’. [endquote].

This to me indicates you are sincerely proposing that at least the second half of the creationist belief – that the material universe was created out of ‘nothing’ and can therefore be reduced to ‘nothing’ – has credence.

*

RESPONDENT: It may be changing (i.e. electrical energy flows), but it doesn’t necessarily become more complex. My point all along is that I do not have enough evidence to determine whether the universe is finite/infinite, eternal/starting/ending, etc. Nobody does.

PETER: Indeed. None who subscribe to any of the theories that the physical universe is finite in time and space have provided any substantive, verifiable evidence of there being an edge to the universe, let alone address the question of what lies beyond the supposed edge? If there is ‘nothing’ beyond the edge, then is that ‘nothing’ infinite or does it too have an edge? Similarly, if the physical universe was created out of nothing, what existed before the supposed creation event? Nothing? Was that pre-existing ‘nothing’ that the universe was supposedly created out of infinite or did it too have an edge?

The ‘present Big Bang theory has many holes’, as you put it, and yet those who hold to these theories and beliefs seem willing to suspend reason, ignore common sense, and blithely accept that the theories of modern cosmogony must have credence solely because the theories are proposed by scientists. What such people also ignore is the fact that these scientists have themselves been trained in cosmogony by the very cosmogonists who proposed the currently-fashionable theories in the first place. This closed-loop spoon-feeding form of teaching invariably leads to a blurring of the distinction between contemporary theory and verifiable fact. I know from my own experience that many of the things I was taught to believe at school as being facts have proved to be falsehoods.

Common sense has it that the universe is infinite in space, eternal in time and perpetual in matter – it simply defies reason to propose that anyone can provide physical evidence that all of the space and matter of the universe came instantaneously into being some 10 billion years ago. It equally defies reason to propose that anyone can provide physical evidence that all of the space and matter of the universe will instantaneously disappear at some time in the future.

It was this uncommon application of common sense that led me to contemplate on the consequences of the infinitude of the universe, which then led me to directly experience this infinitude in what is known as a pure consciousness experience. This is the reason I posted to the list the scientific findings that question the currently-fashionable creationist theories about the universe – contemplating upon such matters could well lead anyone sufficiently interested in actualism to experience for themselves the immediate vibrancy of the actual physical world we corporeal bodies are in fact made of.

RESPONDENT: I subscribe to no belief system regarding the nature of the universe, neither LeMaître’s nor Arp’s. They are all fodder for good discussion and experimentation, but we are far from saying unequivocally ‘that is so’.

PETER: Whilst you say you ‘subscribe to no belief system’, one of your first statements in this thread of conversation gave an unambiguous indication as to your leanings –

[Respondent]: ‘I think it’s a bit scientifically naive to assume that just because something is the ‘way we perceive it’, it must be the whole truth.’ [endquote].

*

RESPONDENT: At this point I do acknowledge that my common sense tells me that the universe is likely infinite in both time and space, but that is more opinion than scientific fact.

PETER: Perhaps, in the interest of getting to the root of this issue, you would like to post the scientific facts that provide evidence that the universe is not ‘infinite in both time and space’. Then we can put them on the table and see if they make sense or not.

Just as a point of interest, you will have noticed I am not alone in questioning the common popular theories in cosmology. You will have noticed that I have previously posted some comments made by Hannes Alfvén, astrophysicist and joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 in which he questioned not only the methodology but the substance of the scientific rationale for a finite created universe with a beginning and end.

RESPONDENT: Once again, I am not a proponent of the Big Bang theory, or any other theory. I can offer no proof that the universe is finite or not, and neither can you. It just doesn’t exist to any thinking person’s satisfaction. Maybe some day, maybe not. That is why they are called theories and not facts.

PETER: I notice that you have not commented on the evidence I did offer that other scientists also question not only the evidence offered in support of the theories of a finite or a created universe but also the scientific methodology used in sustaining these theories.

If your definition of a ‘thinking person’ is someone who remains open to the creationist theories being proved as fact ‘some day’, yet remains closed to any evidence that questions the Big Bang theory, then I am very happy at being excluded from your classification of a thinking person.

*

PETER: As part of my investigation I also delved into theoretical physics and cosmology in order to ascertain whether any evidence had emerged that contradicted Richard’s experience that the physical universe is eternal and infinite. That it had no beginning, can only be actually experienced in this moment of time and has no end, that it has no centre, no ‘holes’ or edges to it other than imaginary ones – and therefore there is no ‘outside’ to it. Reading a few books and scouting around a bit was enough for me to ascertain that, while all sorts of fanciful theories and spurious evidence abounds in theoretical physics and speculative cosmology, no empirical evidence has been found to contradict what Richard says and what everyone has directly experienced in a PCE sometime in their life – that the universe is infinite and eternal and hence peerless both in its perfection and purity.

RESPONDENT: To relevance to actualism: If in fact the universe is electric, or if in fact it is filled with rubber duckies ... how is it relevant to actualism? From an experiential point of view, it ‘can only be actually experienced in this moment of time’ is certainly true, but that does nothing to describe the universe’s physical evolution over time.

The universe, being eternal, can have no ending, no doomsday event.

RESPONDENT: Can you offer a scientific argument as to why the universe should have no end? Common sense or a PCE is adequate to propose the hypothesis, but not the proof.

PETER: I don’t have a scientific argument to offer because it is impossible to refute the arguments of those who believe in a creationist-beginning event or a doomsday-ending event to the universe.

RESPONDENT: That is the nature of beliefs, rather than facts.

PETER: Which in turn explains why it is far easier to fall in line with one group of believers or adopt the chameleon-like stance of agnosticism rather than bother to pursue the facts of the matter – no matter what the consequences may be. As I have said before, my bothering to take the time and make the effort to question the theories of modern cosmogony lead me to a PCE wherein the fact that the universe is, was, and always will be, infinite and eternal became stunningly apparent as a direct and sensual experience.

If I can use your stance as a counterpoint –

[Respondent]: ‘I think it’s a bit scientifically naive to assume that just because something is the ‘way we perceive it’, it must be the whole truth.’ [endquote].

… what about this direct sensual experience was a good dose of scientific naiveté.

*

PETER: This is akin to believers asking for scientific proof that God doesn’t exist or proof that there isn’t life after death. It is beholden upon those who believe to provide empirical scientific evidence to back up their theories and beliefs – after all, it’s their belief, their conviction, their fantasy.

RESPONDENT: But belief absolves one of the need to prove. This is an abdication of responsibility and robs one of the opportunity to experience the actual.

PETER: Yep. Faithfully believing absolves one of the need to prove – hence the need for all believers to have faith and trust. Whereas agnosticism – the doctrine of being ‘uncertain or non-committal about a particular thing’ Oxford Dictionary – not only absolves one of the need to prove but also serves to negate whatever desire or curiosity one may have to even bother to find out.

I would describe myself as having been somewhat of an agnostic in my early life and a spiritual believer in my mid-years – in spiritual belief not-knowing is raised to the status of being a Virtue. Whereas nowadays I have abandoned both of these forms of beliefs and become an actualist – in other words, I have committed myself to finding out the facts of life, the facts of the universe and the facts of what it is to be a human being.

*

PETER: To be stuck between a hypothesis and a belief is a hard place as I remember it, but out of this confusion came the understanding that certainty lies in the observable facts of down-to-earth matters. Or to put it another way, once I realized that actualism had nothing to do with any spiritual belief whatsoever, it gradually dawned on me that actualism is completely and utterly down-to-earth.

RESPONDENT: Are you referring to me in the above, or just making a general point? I can’t tell.

PETER: I was referring to my own experience as an actualist. I always assume that what I have discovered about the human condition is common-to-all as I have yet to come across anyone, bar Richard, who is un-afflicted by the human condition.

As to whether what I am saying relates to your experience, I noticed that you offered the following comment in your first post on this topic –

[Respondent]: ‘… I tended to the other extreme, that of sceptic to a fault. Nothing was ever true, a cold place to be indeed. Respondent to Peter, 9.2.2003

If I take a sceptic as being ‘a person who holds that there are no adequate grounds for certainty as to the truth of any proposition whatever’ Oxford Dictionary, my comment that ‘to be stuck between a hypothesis and a belief is a hard place as I remember it’ seems to indicate a mutually shared experience.

*

PETER: Having said that I don’t have a scientific argument to make, I will offer the scientific explanation as to why –

[Tom Van Flandern]: ‘Creation ex nihilo is forbidden in physics because it requires a miracle. Everything that exists comes from something that existed before, that has grown, or fragmented, or changed form. Growth requires accretion, nourishment, or energy input. Fragmentation ranges from chipping to evaporation to explosion into bits so tiny that we can no longer see or detect them. Changing form includes changes of state, such as solids, liquids, gases, or plasmas.’ <Snipped for length>

‘The counterpart of not allowing the creation of something from nothing is ‘No Demise as nihil’; i.e., something cannot become nothing. However finely a thing may dissolve, however undetectable the bits of ‘energy’ into which a thing may explode, if all the individual bits were brought together again with the same ordering, the original thing would be recovered. In other words, nothing has ceased to exist; it has merely changed its appearance or form.’ Tom Van Flandern, Physics Has Its Principles

RESPONDENT: This is a good point, based on our present understanding of physics.

PETER: As I have said previously, an agnostic is not someone who is free of belief; an agnostic is someone who remains ‘open’ to belief, who keeps his or her options open, who has a bet each way. In this case, you are keeping the option of a belief in creationism open by remaining open to some future new understanding of physics providing the necessary proof to turn the belief into a verifiable fact.

As I have said before when you made a similar disclaimer –

[Peter]: ‘human beings will never be free from the fear and hope inherent in superstition if they insist on believing in higher dimensions, supernatural forces, metaphysical realms, divine beings, good and evil spirits and so on – or persist in hoping that one day science will provide the empirical evidence that spiritual belief so tellingly lacks’. Peter to Respondent, 14.2.2003

*

RESPONDENT: While that experience implicitly involves my flesh-and-blood, hence can only be happening in this moment, I know also that the flesh-and-blood is subject to physical laws and will eventually become dust. Why would similar laws not apply to the universe too?

PETER: To propose that because flesh and blood human beings are mortal – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ – it therefore follows that the universe is mortal – ‘will eventually become dust’ – is an anthropocentric viewpoint. Thus far in human history, all of humanity’s wisdoms and truths have been founded upon an anthropocentric viewpoint, be it that of the spiritualists’ much-vaunted search for immortality for the human spirit – the ‘Unborn’ state – or the scientists’ futile search for metaphysical spirit-like creationist forces.

RESPONDENT: You have applied the scientific method to my hypothesis and it has failed. My argument is flawed.

PETER: Flawed or not, you still seem to be arguing for the belief in creationist cosmology, albeit as half a belief. On one side you offer ‘granted that the present Big Bang theory has many holes’ and yet on the other you ask ‘can you offer a scientific argument as to why the universe should have no end?’

RESPONDENT: Again, I am not arguing for any particular side. I am just stating that we do not have the knowledge, tools, etc to determine the veracity of any particular scenario. In fact, it seems you are the one that is holding tightly to a particular POV. From here, it sounds a bit like a belief.

PETER: I can well understand that you regard the perception that the physical universe is infinite in space, eternal in time and perpetual in matter is but a belief. It is becoming increasingly apparent that only way you could intellectually understand it as being a fact is if you abandoned your agnostic stance and dared to come down on one side of the fence or the other – something you appear unwilling to do.

It was only by intellectually understanding that the physical universe is infinite in space, eternal in time and perpetual in matter infinitude is a fact that I could then proceed to wanting to have an experiential verification of this fact and this very act of wanting to find out then led to one of many subsequent PCEs – each one of them born out of a naive curiosity as to the facts of life.

*

PETER: As I’ve said before, this is not an argument as to who is right or wrong, nor is it really even about the scientific explanations about the nature of the universe – this is a discussion between two fellow human beings, two actualists, about the origin, nature and tenacity of human beliefs, in this case using creationist cosmology as an example.

RESPONDENT: Sounds good to me. I am saying I hold no beliefs about the fundamental nature of the universe. Are you saying the same?

PETER: I am left wondering if you either don’t read what I say or think that I don’t mean what I say. I am saying the infinitude of the universe is a fact, a fact that is fundamental to the laws of physics, a fact that makes sense, a fact that is intellectual rigorous and a fact whose very magicality has been experientially experienced by everyone at some stage in their life in a pure consciousness experience.

RESPONDENT: If so, is this discussion about the popularly held beliefs as to the nature of the universe? I think that we are in agreement about that, and the subject is close to being beaten to death. My original point, and it still stands, is that making any statement about the nature of the universe (a ‘fact’) without a set of data that can withstand the scientific process (common sense), is presumptuous. In my opinion we are far from having enough data to determine whether the universe is finite, infinite, or filled with rubber duckies.

PETER: In restating your position you are again ignoring the evidence I offered of other scientists questioning the evidence used to support of cosmogonical theories, questioning the scientific methodology used in sustaining these theories and pointing out that the scientific principles underscoring these theories runs contrary to the basic laws of the inherent nature and observable behaviour of matter. Rather than beat the subject to death, you seem to be ignoring it to death.

As for linking the ‘scientific process’ with common sense, you yourself have indicated that common sense might be at odds with the currently-fashionable beliefs about the nature of the universe –

[Respondent]: ‘At this point I do acknowledge that my common sense tells me that the universe is likely infinite in both time and space, but that is more opinion than scientific fact.’ [endquote].

It took me a good deal of time to come to understand that common sense, as an actualist refers to it and uses it, is very uncommon in a world awash with, and fixated upon, the supposed wisdoms of archaic superstition-ridden societies.

*

PETER: If you want an example of scientific method in action this is it – examining the origin, nature and tenacity of human beliefs, in this case using creationist cosmology as an example. We could conduct exactly the same scientific method examination of any other beliefs – the pantheistic beliefs that underpins much of environmental science is another example that comes to mind.

RESPONDENT: Thanks, but I need a bit of a rest ;-)

20.3.2003

RESPONDENT: Speaking of which ... I’ve recently gone through a painful time in my primary relationship, and in the process peeled back a lot more layers of the onion. It has been very educational, and also offered more proof of the efficacy of the AF method. I have little remaining skepticism. It has dawned on me that HAIETMOBA is running most of the time, almost sub-consciously, and I detect and probe ever more subtle emotions and responses of all types. I also realized that the percentage of my day where I feel excellent is continually increasing. Most amazing. Now, however, I think it’s time to put some energy into inducing some real PCEs to reinforce the results to date. I’m using all the techniques I’ve gleaned from the site to that end.

PETER: One of the techniques you may have come across is the questioning of dearly held beliefs. <snip> This is, after all, what this discussion is really about – the nuts and bolts of abandoning belief and superstition in favour of actuality and sensibility.

RESPONDENT: Thanks. I’ve gleaned that, and other approaches from the site. Belief and superstition are not primary obstacles to me, ... I don’t believe either that the universe is finite or infinite, or that it is filled with gods or fairies.

PETER: To choose to not believe that the universe is finite or infinite is but to remain an agnostic – ‘a person who is uncertain and non-committal about a particular issue’ Oxford Dictionary. An agnostic is not someone who is free of belief; an agnostic is someone who remains open to belief, who keeps his or her options open, who has a bet each way.

RESPONDENT: Are you suggesting that I am an agnostic, or are you making a general statement? I am definitely ‘ uncertain and non-committal about a particular issue’, as I lack enough data to formulate a fact. What would one do, other than remain open?

PETER: As you are asking for advice, I thoroughly recommend abandoning your belief in the wisdom of agnosticism and whole-heartedly committing yourself to actualism. Only you can make such a decision, however – actualism is not about unthinkingly following others.

*

PETER: In my experience I found it useful to make a distinction between the many disciplines of science. The distinction I make is between what could be called the empirical sciences or applied sciences – engineering, mechanics, chemistry, geology, biology and so on – and the sciences that incorporate a good deal of theory or philosophical speculation – quantum physics, cosmology, climatology and so on. Simply by making this distinction it became clear that it is empirical science – the empirical understanding of physical matter and the physical forces and energies associated with physical matter – that has wrought the incredible progress in human safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure. It also became clear that the sciences that are driven by theory and conjecture – speculating on the nature of matter and then devising scenarios, forces and energies to suit their theories – produce little that is of practical use to anyone.

RESPONDENT: You’re right in that the applied sciences have produced much good (and bad too), …

PETER: I take it from your conditional agreement that you are somewhat sceptical or agnostic about the incredible progress in human safety, comfort leisure and pleasure that has been produced by the practical application of the scientific method of enquiry.

RESPONDENT: Hardly. I am greatly appreciative of advances such as modern dentistry. I am an engineer and like to think that I am doing something to better the lot of all. In fact, I work mostly on medical products, rather than weapons guidance systems, and enjoy my small contribution to the betterment of all.

PETER: Many people divide science into ‘good’ science and ‘bad’ science as though science itself was good or evil. Morals however are subjective values, in the last world war a scientist working on a weapons guidance system for the Allies would be seen as doing good yet one working for the Axis countries would be seen as doing evil. Similarly a scientist working on genetics would be seen as doing good by a sufferer of a disease able to be cured by such research and yet the same scientist would be condemned as evil by those who believed he was interfering with Nature or contravening God’s will.

I will post a piece I wrote about morals as it is also relevant to the latest ‘war’ of morals and ethics that is currently being publicly fought out on the planet –

[Peter]: ‘The path to becoming actually harmless involves the willingness to question and tackle the well-meaning ethics, morals, ideals and dreams that keep Humanity forever shackled to aggression and sorrow. As we grow in childhood years we are imprinted with a sense of right and wrong, good and bad by our parents, teachers and peers. As we emerge into the world we became increasingly indoctrinated into believing in and joining certain groups of people whose principles we agreed with. For many in this century the attraction was to socialism, peace, green and eventually spiritual groups. This, of course, meant that one then had to disagree and fight with the other groups representing opposing beliefs. And everybody is in one group or the other. As a consequence, in the world the Left fight the Right, Protestant fight Catholic, the poor fight the rich, Greenies fight the Greedies, Christians fight the Moslems, Democrats fight Communists, the workers fight the bosses, men fight women, women fight men, tribe fights tribe and so on and so on.

Good and right and true are words used by both sides in the arguments, fights and battles, but at the heart of it all that we human beings actually love to fight, blame and resent other human beings. A good example of this was evident in a TV show by Clive James called ‘A postcard from Chicago’.

In the show, he was escorted through the black ghettoes by a local policeman who explained to him the gang warfare that continually raged in the area. Boys as young as ten were initiated into a gang by breaking the law – robbing a store or mugging someone were typical acts. Eventually, to earn respect in the gang, the boy would have to kill someone and a random drive-by shooting was the popular method.

The policeman went on to explain that the gang structure was essentially split into two major groups - ‘Folks’ and ‘People’. This grouping did not represent old tribal, ethnic or religious groupings but was an apparently arbitrary split, invented only in the last decades. After centuries of oppression and slavery gradually coming to an end for these people they have now invented new groupings in order to inflict hatred and violence on each other - the ‘Folks’ fought it out with the ‘People’.

The key to eliminating this violence, anger, revenge, retribution and aggression is to see it in ourselves, rather than avoid the issue by blaming others. After all – the first step to curing addictions such as alcoholism, is to admit you have the disease in the first place.

At the very core of Human behaviour lies aggression and violence which, despite all the morals, ethics and good intentions, has not been eliminated after thousands of years of so called ‘civilization’. To remain a believer in these socially imbibed morals, values and ethics is to remain seeking a solution within the Human Condition and is to remain either one of the ‘Folks’ or one of the ‘People’ – a resentful social identity.

Only after the work has been done in dismantling one’s social identity consisting of well-meaning but failed ethics, morals, ideals and dreams, does the opportunity then present itself to go all the way and eliminate one’s very ‘self’, complete with the survival instincts of fear and aggression. This radical step of ‘self’-immolation causes a mutation such that the survival instinct no longer plays havoc – no longer does one operate on survival mode and be irrevocably bound to outbreaks of fear and aggression that continually threaten to, or actually do, over-ride any imposed ethics, morals.

Only when the instinctual passions of fear and aggression cease to operate is one actually free of their insidious grip. This freedom from instinctual malice and sorrow is what is now known as Actual Freedom.’ The Actual Freedom Trust Library, Harmless

*

PETER: This belief is somewhat understandable considering that it emerged in the days when it was universally believed that the world was three layered – a flat earthy plane full of dangerous animals and dangerous humans, a mystifying heavenly realm above and a mysterious underworld below. Eventually it was empirically observed that the earth was not flat but was spherical and subsequent explorations over centuries proved that this was in fact so. Nowadays photos of earth taken from spacecrafts have subsequently convinced all but the wacky that the earth is not flat.

RESPONDENT: This is my point exactly. We base our understanding of the universe on the facts we have gathered using the scientific method, and the tools we have available presently. A spacecraft is a sophisticated tool that allows us to gather useful information about the physical characteristics of the universe. Historically, the availability of ever more sophisticated tools (telescopes, microscopes, particle accelerators,...) has resulted in the refutation of previously held beliefs (masquerading as truths of course). So, the tool that someone invents in the 25^th century could prove conclusively that the universe is not actually filled with plasma as previously thought, but actually filled with rubber duckies.

PETER: By the same logic, an agnostic would say it is best to keep one’s options open because ‘higher dimensions’ or evidence of creation or other worlds or black holes or singularities or meta-physical forces, or whatever else one chooses to believe in, might well be found to be true after all. This line of reasoning is often used as a last resort by those who can find no evidence to substantiate their belief and fall back on claiming the evidence does exist but it ‘hasn’t been discovered yet’.

RESPONDENT: So what do you call someone who doesn’t have enough data to satisfy their common sense, therefore cannot make adequate determination of a fact?

PETER: Stubborn? I only say that because you consistently ignore the references I have provided that point to the fundamental flaws in the data and methodology used to substantiate the creationist theories of the universe, i.e. http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/PhysicsHasItsPrinciples.asp. On the other hand, you insist that you need to remain ‘open’ that the necessary data that will establish creationist theory as a fact will be provided, sometime in the future, by tools yet to be invented.

As for providing data to satisfy common sense, common sense tells me that the notion that the physical universe – all of matter, space and time – was created at some moment in time, in some place in space, out of nothing, makes no sense. One only needs to ask what existed before the supposed creation event – was there no moment immediately before that creation moment happened? Where did the creation event happen? Did this creation event happen at the centre of the universe and if so where is the centre of the universe? Was there no space existing the moment before the creation event happened? Did the creation event happen in something called no-space at a time called no-time? What is the nature of no-space? What is the nature of no-time? What exactly was the nature of the process that instantaneously caused the creation of all of the previously non-existing physical matter of the universe, set in motion all of the previously non-existing physical forces of the universe?

Speaking for myself, these questions need answers in the form of verifiable scientific data backed up by empirical observation based on sound scientific methodology before I will abandon common sense and acknowledge the theories of cosmogony to be fact.

RESPONDENT: I am presented with several conflicting belief systems, and I’m supposed to pick one? Sorry, no thanks.

PETER: And yet this is a conflict entirely of your own making. You have summarized your conflict before –

[Respondent]: ‘At this point I do acknowledge that my common sense tells me that the universe is likely infinite in both time and space, but that is more opinion than scientific fact.’ [endquote].

On the one hand you acknowledge what common sense tells you, yet on the other you seek scientific proof for a theory that cannot, by the very nature of the theory itself, be proved by empirical measurement. As someone trained in the sciences you would know that to provide empirical scientific evidence that the universe is infinite is an impossibility – for a start one would need an infinitely large telescope, or an infinitely fast spacecraft, or an infinitely long period of investigation.

Speaking personally, I found that if I chose to remain agnostic about the infinitude of the physical universe it meant that I had to deny common sense and this made no sense to me at all. I did realize that the consequences of relying on common sense meant that I was acknowledging that the universe was infinite and eternal. This means that there is no ‘other-world’ other than the physical universe, that there is no ‘out-side’ to the physical universe and there is no ‘other-time’ than can ever be actually experienced other than this very moment.

These are the down-to-earth fundamentals of actualism and, as such, essential to grasp for anyone aspiring to be an actualist.

*

PETER: I could go on tripping through other fields of scientific discovery and endeavour, but you probably have got the gist of what I am saying – human beings will never be free from the fear and hope inherent in superstition if they insist on believing in higher dimensions, supernatural forces, metaphysical realms, divine beings, good and evil spirits and so on – or persist in hoping that one day science will provide the empirical evidence that spiritual belief so tellingly lacks.

Anthropocentricity runs deep within the human psyche, manifested in each and every human being as ‘self’-centredness. Contrary to popular belief, the universe was not ‘created’ especially for human beings – the human species is manifestly a species of animate life that has evolved from the matter of the universe. So predominant is anthropocentric belief that early humans, out of ignorance, believed the earth to be the centre of our solar system – a geocentric belief – but it has been discovered over time that the earth is but one of a number of planets that orbit the sun, which is but one sun in a galaxy full of suns, which is but one galaxy in an endless cosmos of countless galaxies.

And yet these physical characteristics of the universe have always been so despite the early beliefs and superstitions that the earth was the centre of the world and that this world must have been created by a Someone or Something.

I don’t know wether you came across the modern ‘Fingers of God’ tabulation – if this didn’t send the alarm bells ringing amongst creationist cosmology as to how geocentric, hence anthropocentric, their observations are then nothing will http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm.

RESPONDENT: I guess I don’t really like the term ‘higher dimensions’ – maybe a better term is ‘characteristics of the universe that are not perceptible at present with the available human senses and tools’.

PETER: Maybe you would like to refect on what characteristics of the universe have changed since the beginning of human awareness of the universe? Such reflection might lead you to the conclusion that the characteristics of the universe exist independently of human sensory perception, and are unaffected in any way by human sensory perception.

RESPONDENT: No argument there. The universe goes about its merry way, caring not one whit for the theories, tools, and techniques of humans.

PETER: Human beings are all subject to universal beliefs that have been passed on unceasingly from generation to generation and are all subject to the passions generated by the genetically-inherited survival instincts. As a consequence of this social and genetic programming, all human beings think and feel themselves to be separate from the physical universe. This is obviously so, for ‘who’ I think and ‘who’ I feel I am is a non-physical being, an ‘I’ who ‘lives’ in a physical body, an ‘I’ who looks out through the body’s eyes, an ‘I’ who feels touch on the body’s skin, who smells through the body’s nose, who tastes with the tongue, who hears through the body’s ears.

This angst of forever feeling separate from the actual physical universe has spawned a world-wide plethora of beliefs and fairy tales about other-worlds and other-times, about mythical spirit-worlds and after-death lives, of metaphysical realms and forces, of Gods and Goddesses, of good and evil spirits, of a Mother-Earth God, of animal Gods, of river Gods, and so on.

Once I realized this experientially in a PCE, when ‘who’ I think and ‘who’ I feel myself to be was is in abeyance, I clearly saw the folly of human beings clinging to the fantasies of spiritual and metaphysical beliefs in a vain attempt to escape from the grim instinctually-fuelled battle of survival that is the human condition and feel some form of connectedness or Oneness. It was then obvious that the practical way to becoming free of this mess was to firstly abandon all spiritual and meta-physical beliefs and then commit myself to becoming free from the feelings of malice and sorrow that are part and parcel of being an instinctually-driven being.

In that way ‘I’ actively dismantle all that stands in the way of me being what I am – this universe experiencing itself as a corporeal flesh and blood body.

*

RESPONDENT: Again, I emphasize that none of what I am talking about has anything to do with metaphysics or spiritual belief.

PETER: And yet, despite your disclaimer, you have said previously in this post –

[Respondent]: The Big Bang theorem is still a theorem as it has not yet passed the test of the scientific method. [endquote].

The Big Bang theory is a creationist theory – metaphysical in that it presumes there was a force or energy existing prior to the existence of physical matter and that this non-material force or energy then created the physical matter of the universe – and spiritual in that ancient spiritual belief was the prior and still is primary source of all metaphysical theories and beliefs.

RESPONDENT: Or perhaps this pre-existing energy was transformed at some point into the energy and mass of the present universe, by some physical (not metaphysical) process that is beyond our present understanding. It’s not necessarily spiritual just because we don’t understand it.

PETER: This seems to be your standard line of defence of the cosmogonical theories that deny that the physical universe is infinite in space, eternal in time and perpetual in matter.

Leaving the door open to belief is the antithesis of the scientific method – at some point in any line of enquiry one needs to make a decision based on the information at hand at the time and then commit oneself to making some hands-on trial-and-error investigations and empirical observations.

RESPONDENT: So, the tool that someone invents in the 25^th century could prove conclusively that the universe is not actually filled with plasma as previously thought, but actually filled with rubber duckies.

PETER: And that the rubber duckies are hiding in the ‘black holes’ which is why we can’t see them and maybe never can. And maybe that is where the Tooth Fairy hides as well which is why children never see her. Such arguments tend to make nonsense out of attempts to have a sensible conversation – they are what could be called conversation stoppers.

RESPONDENT: Peter, occasionally I am having some difficulty with your posts. There are many places where I can’t tell if you are addressing me specifically or the general population.

PETER: If you look back through the conversation you will see that I have taken care to address all of the points you have raised – if I have missed any let me know. I have also taken the opportunity of making some comments relating to what you have written that are of a more general nature so as to make my comments relevant to everyone on this mailing list. After all this is a mailing list for those who are interested in becoming free of malice and sorrow and I do have considerable practical experience in the doing of the business.

RESPONDENT: This makes it tough slogging at times as I am hardly a defender of any popular belief system.

PETER: Yes, you have made it quite clear that your philosophy is to remain open to all beliefs.

RESPONDENT: If we are discussing those, that is one matter, and if we are discussing No 38’s particular beliefs, that is another.

PETER: Whilst there were many beliefs that I didn’t particularly hold to as being ‘my’ beliefs I was quite shocked when I became an actualist as to how many I remained open to. Whilst at first the business of abandoning beliefs was fraught with fear and angst, nowadays it’s more like ‘another one bites the dust’.

For an actualist any belief abandoned is a palpable freedom gained.

2.4.2003

RESPONDENT: Hello Peter and Vineeto... Thanks for your recent responses to this most interesting thread. I’ve attempted to distil the essence, hopefully not obfuscating the contexts.

PETER: I notice that while you have addressed this post to both myself and Vineeto and have headed your post ‘The Magic of It All’, the content relates to the content of a thread entitled ‘The universe’. So I have responded and maintained the previous title.

RESPONDENT: It seems I’ve been labelled an agnostic. In Peter’s definition...

[paraphrased]: ...an agnostic is not someone who is free of belief; an agnostic is someone who remains ‘open’ to belief, who keeps his or her options open, who has a bet each way. In this case, you are keeping the option of a belief in creationism open by remaining open to some future new understanding of physics providing the necessary proof to turn the belief into a verifiable fact. [end paraphrased].

I dug up this definition from Webster’s:

Note that I’m ignoring all common theistic inferences in this term and focusing on the root... a-gnostic.

PETER: Just to keep things clear, the root of the word agnostic is – gnoses (Gk gnosis) investigation, knowledge Oxford Dictionary and it appears that the prefix ‘a-’ then makes the word mean the opposite – agnosia (Gk agnosia) ignorance Oxford Dictionary.

It appears you do not object to the label agnostic, just to the definition that I had provided –

[Peter]: ‘a person who is uncertain or non-committal about a particular thing.’ [endquote].

The reason I chose that particular definition was, given your interest in the writings of actualism, I assumed you were being an agnostic with regard to actualism – that someday you may want to abandon your agnostic stance in favour of becoming certain and being committed.

I note however, from what you say in this post, that your agnosticism runs deeper than that – it is the doctrine of ignorance and the principle of neither-nor, rather than merely being uncertain and non-committal. That’s a far bigger hole to dig yourself out of. Not that it makes it any more difficult, of course. I had to write off 17 years of spiritual indoctrination in order to become a practicing actualist and in retrospect it was easy – beliefs are after all only beliefs.

I might just take the opportunity of posting a little story from my journal because it describes an event in my life that helped me to understand the nature of beliefs –

[Peter]: ‘I remember after the Ranch I was living in a seaside town that had a small Rajneesh centre. Rooms were available providing various people a chance to offer sessions in past lives, tarot, astrology, psychic readings and other divinations. A friend and I would often look at the notice board, fascinated at the ever-increasing variety on offer. One day we decided, as a prank, to place a fictitious advertisement in the community newsletter offering ‘Capology – the Ancient Tibetan Art of Knee-cap Reading’. It went on to describe that the knees are a critical junction point for the flow of ‘Quong energy’. We also offered half price to pensioners and amputees! We gave the telephone number of the local Concerned Christians, a cult-busting group, which had occasionally given Rajneeshees a hard time. We thought nothing more of it until the editor of the newsletter bailed us up one day to tell us that the Concerned Christians had rung up to complain that they had had so many phone calls, and how come? Which made me think, even then, that people will believe anything. It just took me a while to admit to the fact that I was as gullible as everyone else.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Fear’

RESPONDENT: First, I don’t think this jibes with your usage of the term as being open to belief, rather it rejects all beliefs.

PETER: If you re-read your preferred definition you will find that it defines an agnostic as someone who maintains ‘that doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies’. Webster Dictionary

Now whilst I may be somewhat of a layman in the finer points of English grammar, when I look up synonyms for the word ‘deny’, I find the words refute, negate and reject. As such, the doctrine could be reasonably paraphrased as ‘professing ignorance, neither asserting, nor rejecting’.

Given that we are talking about beliefs, it follows that an agnostic is someone who, while ‘professing ignorance, neither asserts nor rejects beliefs’ – in other words, an agnostic does not assert belief and does not reject belief.

In case you think that my use of the synonym reject for the word deny is a slight of hand, the definition could also be accurately restated as ‘that doctrine which, professing ignorance’, does not assert belief and does not deny belief.

Whilst you may think that agnosticism rejects all beliefs, the opposite is clearly the case.

RESPONDENT: Second, this definition is exactly what I’ve been talking about, so I guess you can call me a dictionary agnostic.

PETER: It appears to me that you are somewhat more than a dictionary agnostic (whatever that is) because you seem to hold to the doctrine of not denying or not rejecting belief as a practice, not only as a philosophy.

I notice that you said ‘I’m ignoring all common theistic inferences in this term’ but the philosophy of agnosticism, ‘the doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies’ is not only rooted in theism, its continued existence as a philosophy sustains theistic belief, and its current popularity in some circles is, bizarrely enough, sustained by Eastern spiritual belief.

From my brief reading on the subject, the term agnostic was publicly coined by T.H Huxley, a biologist, philosopher and champion of Darwin’s evolutionary theories, at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in London in 1869.

[Thomas H. Huxley]: ‘It came into my head as suggestively antithetical to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant.’ T.H.Huxley

Hence agnosticism, as a philosophy of professing ignorance, was rooted in opposition to those who claimed they had a special knowledge of spiritual mysteries, hence what some refer to as secular agnosticism owes its existence to theism – or to put it plainly, if you hold no theistic beliefs whatsoever there is no need to be agnostic to those beliefs.

The reason I say that the philosophy of agnosticism sustains theistic belief can be summarized by the following quote –

‘The Atheist asserts that there is no God, whereas the Agnostic maintains only that he does not know.’ Encyclopaedia Britannica

In other words, by maintaining he or she ‘does not know’ an agnostic leaves the door open to theistic belief.

Of course an actualist, whilst being an atheist, is not constrained to asserting that there is no God, he or she has, by the experiential evidence of a PCE, the direct knowledge that there is no God, by whatever name or gender – that any and all religious and spiritual belief is but impassioned fantasy.

That the current philosophy of agnosticism is sustained by Eastern spiritual belief can be seen from the following reference –

‘It is also possible to speak of a religious agnosticism. But if this expression is not to be contradictory, it has to be taken to refer to an acceptance of the agnostic principle, combined either with a conviction that at least some minimum of affirmative doctrine can be established on adequate grounds, or else with the sort of religion or religiousness that makes no very substantial or disputatious doctrinal demands. ...

The second possibility, that of an agnosticism that is religious as opposed to secular, was realized perhaps most strikingly in the Buddha (Gautama). Typically and traditionally, the ecclesiastical Christian has insisted that absolute certainty about some minimum approved list of propositions concerning God and the general divine scheme of things was wholly necessary to salvation. Equally typically, according to the tradition, the Buddha sidestepped all such speculative questions. At best they could only distract attention from the urgent business of salvation – salvation, of course, in his own very different interpretation.’ Nature and Kinds of Agnosticism. Encyclopaedia Britannica

If one believes the hand-me-down legends, Mr. Buddha remained agnostic about many issues that were of vital interest to his followers and this legend has served to imbed the principle of agnosticism within Buddhist philosophy – and therefore within much of Western philosophy of the last few centuries. In Buddhism agnosticism is exalted as a sign of great wisdom so much so that whenever a Buddhist professes ‘ignorance’ he or she is actually maintaining their feeling of superiority over others.

RESPONDENT: I suppose the difference here is that I maintain that matters such as the infinitude of the universe are fundamentally unknowable.

PETER: Rather than professing ignorance, neither asserting nor denying, what you are doing here is maintaining a belief – the belief ‘that matters such as the infinitude of the universe are fundamentally unknowable’.

In order to try and make this clearer I will juxtapose two of your statements –

[Respondent]: ‘Belief and superstition are not primary obstacles to me, ... I don’t believe either that the universe is finite or infinite, or that it is failed with gods or fairies.’ Respondent to Peter 16.2.2003

[Respondent]: ‘I suppose the difference here is that I maintain that matters such as the infinitude of the universe are fundamentally unknowable.’ Respondent to Peter 25.3.2003

Can you see that your second statement is a clear enunciation of what you believe to be true about the nature of the universe?

RESPONDENT: This is not an issue for you as

This is the nub: you are talking from the POV of someone privy to an understanding that is alien to me.

PETER: As a practicing actualist, I do not have a point of view about the infinitude of the universe – I know by direct and sensual experience, from many temporary ‘self’-less experiences known as a PCEs, the infinitude of the universe. Even a virtual freedom from the human condition allows one to speak with the authority of experience about such matters. As for such an understanding being alien to you, you might contemplate on the fact that it is ‘you’ and ‘your’ belief that are preventing you from allowing the possibility of an intellectual understanding precipitating a pure consciousness experience of the infinitude of the universe.

Beliefs are the bane of human existence – not only do they cripple the free operation of intelligence, they also serve as a constant stimulant for one’s own instinctual malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: I have no idea how a ‘sensual experience’ of the universe can be rationalized with cosmological physics of any doctrine. No clue whatsoever, perhaps some day. In fact, from over here this sounds suspiciously akin to a religious experience, but I’ll take you at your word that is not the case.

PETER: When I first came across actualism it all sounded like spiritualism to me and I assumed that Richard was yet another of the many Gurus in town.

But the more I listened, the more I read, and the more I thought about what was written, the more I realized how radically different it was to spiritualism. The challenge actualism offered to me was to abandon the safe haven of my spiritual years – the belief that life, the universe and what it is to be a human being is, and always will be, an unfathomable mystery, ‘fundamentally unknowable’ – and to set about finding out about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, no matter what the consequences of that search may be.

*

PETER: As for providing data to satisfy common sense, common sense tells me that the notion that the physical universe – all of matter, space and time – was created at some moment in time, in some place in space, out of nothing, makes no sense.

RESPONDENT: I spent some time considering ‘common sense’. I think this term is incompatible with the discussion at hand.

PETER: I would remind you that at one stage in this conversation you were upfront as to common sense –

[Respondent]: ‘At this point I do acknowledge that my common sense tells me that the universe is likely infinite in both time and space, but that is more opinion than scientific fact. ’ Respondent to Peter, 16.2.2003

In the course of this conversation, you seem to have abandoned what your common sense told you at some stage in favour of maintaining your belief that such matters are ‘fundamentally unknowable’. The reason I say this is because if you can see and acknowledge that this is so, you will also have an understanding as to why common sense is rarely to be found and why it so rarely is ever put into practice.

Belief prevents common sense from operating.

RESPONDENT: It certainly applies in such areas as ‘what’s a fair price for oranges today?’, but I think you have to be careful in this context. After all, it wasn’t long ago that common sense held that the earth is flat. The AF glossary chooses this definition of common sense:

Good sound practical sense in everyday matters; general sagacity. Oxford Dictionary

PETER: I wrote The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary specifically to flesh out the words and phrases – the terminology – that Richard used in his writing simply because in the early days of my interest I found many of them difficult to understand clearly, due not only to my spiritual conditioning but also due to my ignorance of such matters. Not a professed ignorance by the way, but a genuine ignorance.

So in the interest of the clarity, I will post the full definition from The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary –

common sense – Good sound practical sense in everyday matters; general sagacity Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Something rarely practiced individually and almost unheard of in collective decision-making. Emotions, feelings, passions and beliefs – in short ‘self’ interest – always over-ride any possibility of common sense operating.

When ‘push comes to shove’ the veneer of moral and ethical restraint is wont to collapse in the face of surging instinctual passions, particularly evidenced in the horror of war time or whenever ‘law and order’ breaks down. Further, these same feelings and passions are the very cause of wars as they are inevitably fought for honour, pride, justice, ‘rights’, retribution and love.

On an individual level, given that the base feelings are malice and sorrow (anger, resentment, hate, sadness, depression, melancholy, loneliness, etc.), we desperately seek relief in the ‘good’ feelings (love, trust, compassion, ‘togetherness’, friendship, etc.). Thus one is forever a victim of one’s feelings, forever in a battle, forever in confusion, forever needing to be vigilant, forever trying to be good.

This constant flow of emotion-based thoughts actively conspires and prevents any possibility of common sense operating in the human brain. The circuits are literally jammed almost all of the time, swamped by the emotion-based thoughts of a fictitious alien entity fashioned upon the instinctual primitive ‘self ‘ wired in by Blind Nature. This alien psychological and psychic entity could be seen as analogous to computer software that corrupts the hardware and only upon its elimination can body and brain function optimally.

With the elimination of this ‘software program’ one is able to come to one’s senses both literally and figuratively, and common sense is then able to operate freely, uncorrupted by instinctual malice and sorrow. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

RESPONDENT: The nature of the universe is hardly an everyday matter …

PETER: Well, it may not be to you but the nature of the universe is an everyday matter to me. I am left wondering where it is you live?

Do you regard the universe as being ‘out there’, somewhere in the sky? Do you think the universe somehow stops at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere and that this planet is separate from the universe? Does the universe stop at the edge of ‘your’ world or do you see that it might well include the city or town you live in, the trees and cars and dogs and people in the streets, the house or apartment you live, the room you are sitting in, the very chair you are sitting on reading these words.

You, as a flesh and blood body, can touch the stuff of the universe, smell the stuff of the universe, hear the stuff of the universe, taste the stuff of the universe – the ‘everyday matter’ of the universe. In fact you, as a flesh and blood body, are made of the very stuff of the universe – a finite arrangement of living cells that was produced by the process of a single cell being impregnated by another cell, neither of which were part of what has become you, but each of which were the stuff of the universe.

The only reason human flesh and blood bodies continue to exist is by breathing in the very stuff of the universe – ingesting the very stuff of the universe – the everyday matter of mineral matter, animal matter and vegetable matter. By contemplating on the actual nature of the universe you may well find that it is everyday matter.

And, if you take this contemplation a step further, you will find that what you regard as ‘your life’ is but an everyday event of everyday matter – getting out of bed in the morning, doing whatever it is that you do including the essential breathing in and ingesting bits of matter and then going back to bed to go back to sleep. The utter simplicity of the events of everyday life as the everyday matter of the universe does beg the question as to why one should waste so much of one’s life being unhappy and feeling malevolent when there is now an alternative available.

RESPONDENT: … and common sense is only one of the tools at hand in gaining understanding of such a meaty topic.

PETER: Indeed. If one has a materialistic understanding of the nature of the universe – neatly summarized as the belief that ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’ then one either succumbs to depression or one goes out and does battle with one’s fellow human beings in a grim instinctually-driven battle for survival. Or, if this isn’t one’s cup of tea, one can latch on to any one of the thousands of spiritual understandings about the nature of the universe and spend one’s life wandering around with one’s head in the clouds – being anywhere but here experiencing this place in infinite space and being sometime else other than experiencing this moment of eternal time.

Actualism offers a third alternative to these traditional purely-anthropocentric ways of understanding the nature of the universe – for those who are dissatisfied with living within the constraints of these understandings. I’ll post a section of the Glossary which may throw some light on the understanding of the nature of the universe that is inherent to actualism and why it is so radically different to the common understandings we have been taught to believe as being the only alternatives –

actual – existing in fact as evidenced by the physical senses, in action or existence at this time, existing in act and not merely potentially or apparently. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Actual is that which is palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical and material. It is that which can be experienced by the physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch only. That which is actual, being in action or in existence at this moment in time, is not merely passive.

In comparison, that which is deemed to be real is merely the cerebral and affective interpretation of the actual and physical by the psychological and psychic (social and instinctual) entity that dwells within the human body.

In comparison, spiritual Reality while feeling super-real and ‘other-worldly’ is merely an affective, imaginary, hoped and longed for, fairy tale – a further illusion built upon the initial illusion of reality. The myth of a spiritual Reality was created in ancient times as an escape from the very real horror, and the imagined evil spirits, evident in everyday earthly reality. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

actual freedom – Freedom from the Human Condition, as factually evidenced by the total elimination of instinctual malice and sorrow within an individual member of the species.

Peter: A down-to-earth, practical, matter-of-fact, sensual, sensately-evident freedom as opposed to any and all religious, spiritual, ethereal, metaphysical and mystical Altered States of Consciousness which merely masquerade as freedom. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

actualism – (Now rare) the theory that nothing is merely passive. Oxford Dictionary

Peter: Actualism, as applied and put into action in Actual Freedom, is the experiential understanding that nothing is merely passive. It is the experience of being the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, thoughtful and reflective human being as opposed to a being a ‘self’ – a lost lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity trapped within the flesh and blood body. This direct experience is available in brief glimpses known as Pure Consciousness Experiences and Actualism is the application of the method, and the undertaking of the process, which enables one to live this experience 24 hrs. a day, every day.

Thus applied, Actualism is no longer a dormant philosophical theory but is an innovative rule-breaking fact. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

actualist – an advocate of Actualism Oxford Dictionary

Peter: On the path to Actual Freedom, to be a mere advocate of Actualism is a second-rate choice. An Actualist is someone who is actively, intently, stubbornly, full bloodedly, whole-heartedly and totally consumed in the pursuit of an individual actual freedom from the Human Condition. An Actualist is concerned with action not advocacy, and with practical implementation and radical change, not theoretical observation and superficial adaptation.

An Actualist is a relentless pursuer of what is factual and what is actual. The Actual Freedom Trust Glossary

RESPONDENT: The residual question I have is why this is all so important. I don’t doubt the importance of the experience of the universe as magical and perfect, I just don’t understand what it has to do with its physical nature, and why you so tenaciously adhere to one particular theory (aka belief).

PETER: If you look back over our conversation, you will find that I have explained why understanding the nature of the universe is vital to understanding what actualism is about on many occasions. I would add that, unless one understands that the universe is eternal and infinite, then any pure consciousness experience of the universe being eternal and infinite that occurs can result in one being overwhelmed by the experience to the extent that the delusion that ‘I am eternal and infinite’ takes over.

RESPONDENT: My rubber duckies example was not meant to be glib, but rather to emphasize the point I was making, that the fundamental physical nature of the universe, while a fascinating subject for the curious mind, seems not pertinent to the real task at hand. But then, I’m an agnostic.

PETER: Maintaining an agnostic stance, be it a secular or religious agnosticism, thwarts any understanding of the fundamental physical nature of the universe and prevents the direct sensual experience of the actuality of the infinitude of the universe.

For me, common sense meant I had to tackle first things first in order to move in the direction that I wanted to move – taking on the task of becoming happy and harmless in order to become actually free of the human condition of malice and sorrow. And first things were my beliefs about the fundamental nature of the universe.

Speaking of first things first, whilst you keep insisting that ‘the fundamental physical nature of the universe’ is not pertinent to ‘the task at hand’, you might ponder on the fact that the ‘Introduction to Actual Freedom’ not only begins with the actual physical nature of the universe, it also ends with it. The words in between the beginning and end merely point to the lack of sagacity of human beings continuing to nurse malice and sorrow in their bosoms whilst offering a roadmap as to how it is possible, for any individual sufficiently motivated, to become actually free from these passions.

16.4.2003

RESPONDENT: I had meant to respond earlier to this post, but our area was hit with a nasty ice storm, which knocked out power (and internet access) over a large area for most of a week. It did afford the opportunity to experience instinctual fear, as tree limbs came crashing down on the roof repeatedly... that elicited a response that could only be from the lizard section of the brain. It was followed then by the fabricated worry response, which anticipated with dread the next limb. Anyways, it was an interesting (as in the Chinese curse?) observation of the whole range of fear responses.

PETER: Careful observation will reveal that the worry response emanating from instinctual fear is not fabricated – as in made-up or manufactured – but rather it is directly associated with the automatic instinctual response. The genetically programmed thoughtless instinctual response together with its immediate feeling aftermath, whether it lasts a few minutes or a few hours, are inseparable and any attempts to intellectually separate them can only result in dissociation.

I’ll just offer a comment on the matter of observation as it is relevant to all who have been attracted to Eastern spirituality or Eastern philosophy at some point in their lives. Vineeto and I have often discussed the fundamental differences between the Eastern practice of self-observation and the actualism practice of ‘self’-awareness as well as reflecting upon how difficult it was in the early days to stop being a dissociative observer and start becoming aware of exactly how I am experiencing this moment of being alive.

The fundamental difference between the two practices is due to the diametrically opposite intent of each of the practices – the aim of the spiritual practice is to cultivate a dissociated identity in order to avoid feeling the full range of instinctual passions, whereas the aim of actualism is to instigate radical change in order to become happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

Perhaps an example of how the actualism practice of ‘self’-awareness works in practice will serve to make this difference clear –

[Peter]: ‘The final straw came as I waited to meet her one evening and she was late. As the time ticked away, so my mind raced away, and after about thirty minutes I was furious. How could she be late?

How could anything else, or anyone else, be more important in her life than me? As my fury built and built, as my mind churned over countless possibilities as to why she was late, suddenly I began to see the stupidity of it all. Here I was, comfortably sitting at a seaside café, cool drink in hand, looking at a spectacular sunset on warm summer’s evening. I’m involved in the adventure of a lifetime, I’ve found out more about what it is to be a human being in the last few months than I have in a lifetime, there is this wonderful woman in my life – and I’m being neurotic because she is thirty minutes late! Gradually I came out of it and was able to be where I was, delighting in the balmy evening air and the gaiety of the scene as the last of the beach-goers drifted home. When Vineeto arrived she apologized for being late, and I explained what had happened to me. We had a beach walk, dinner at a nearby restaurant, and tootled off home to bed.

Over the next few days something continued to nag me. Why was it that this relationship seemed to be going off the rails? Why was it that this relationship seemed to be going off the rails? Why, increasingly, were there misunderstandings, petty conflicts and difficulties between us? Why was I becoming more and more obsessed about what Vineeto was doing when we weren’t together, and what she was thinking about when we were together? Over the next days I contemplated on what was wrong and suddenly it dawned on me that, despite our matter-of-fact contract and investigations, we had fallen in love! We were both exhibiting the classic symptoms, emotions and feelings associated with being in love. I was battling her and trying to force my opinions on her. I realized that I had been jealous, possessive, pushy, demanding and obsessive with her. And, most appallingly, I saw how when the impossible demands of love are not fulfilled then it can all so quickly turn to disappointment, resentment, withdrawal, spite and eventually hate. It had got to the stage where it was obvious to me that, unless something changed, this relationship was heading exactly the same way as all my previous ones – doomed to failure. This was, after all, my last chance to succeed and I was watching it wilt away before my very eyes. And, not only that, I was actively causing it to happen…! I was simply repeating the mistakes of the past as though nothing had been learnt. I was faced with the facts of the situation and could clearly see that it was the result of my feeling of being ‘in love’ with Vineeto. I realized my contract with Vineeto had put me ‘on the hook’ and there was no way to avoid the facts.

Armed with the conviction of the blindingly obvious, I confronted Vineeto with the news. I told her I was simply going to stop battling her and acting the way I had been. I remember her response as somewhat bewildered and unbelieving, but I knew that, at least, I had to stop the torment of raging feelings in me. What happened in the ensuing week was quite remarkable. I found that the strength of my intention for peace and harmony made me able to completely drop this destructive behaviour. Somehow I knew this was the only course of action I could take to make this relationship work and I knew it was my last chance. The realizing and facing of the facts, coupled with a clear intent, left ‘me’ with no choice. It wasn’t that ‘I’ made a decision – there was actually no decision to make. Action happened by itself, exactly as it would in swerving to avoid hitting another car while driving.

A calmness and surety replaced the swirl of feelings; no longer was I thinking about Vineeto when we were apart, and when I was with her I was no longer suspicious, doubtful, impatient or moody. I began increasingly to accept her as-she-was. I was no longer driven to change her. This then brought a corresponding ease in myself for I was then able just to be me and more able to focus on how I was experiencing this moment of being alive? It was the beginning of realizing that the only person I can change is me and I was then able to start working on exactly that.’ Peter’s Journal, Love

No philosophical umming and ahhing, no dissociating from unwanted feelings, no remaining aloof, no blaming others and so on – just the simple momentary awareness of the feelings that were preventing me from being happy coupled with an intense yearning to change in order to become actually harmless, come what may.

*

RESPONDENT: Back to the matter at hand...

PETER: You are not alone in playing the devil’s advocate to the business of devoting one’s life to becoming happy and harmless. By far the bulk of the correspondence on the Actual Freedom Trust website are objectors.

RESPONDENT: OK, so I’ve heard your messages loud and clear and this is my distillation: I take very seriously the repeated admonishment by the AF crew to not take all this on faith, but to prove it to oneself by direct experience, using the proffered techniques. Since I have not done so unequivocally, my ambivalence manifests as agnosticism, or perhaps scepticism. And logically there’s nothing you can do or say to prove it to me, only point out the general direction to go. So, while these threads have been very interesting and educational, I think they’ve run their course, and it’s time for me to get back to some fundamentals for a while, in order to prove this to myself. Or at least until the next compelling subject pops up. I will be spending some time in contemplation of the material we’ve talked about as it is central to this work.

PETER: Sounds a very reasonable approach if only because it is what I did. It became very obvious to me early on that actualism was not a philosophy or a non-spiritual belief but that it was solely – and I do mean solely – a pragmatic do-it-yourself business.

You may find ‘the universe’ chapter in my journal a useful aid in your contemplations about the nature of the universe, not for its academic argumentation but rather for its common sense.

RESPONDENT: Or is my identity bullshitting me again?

PETER: Speaking personally, I never saw any sense at all in splitting ‘me’ and ‘my identity’ into two parts. I had tried that in my spiritual years and saw that it was a wank.

The actualism method – the sincere intent to become happy and harmless – will evince a ‘self’-awareness that then generates the necessary changes so that you incrementally become more happy and more harmless, in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. It’s a profoundly simple scientific process – detect cause, eliminate cause (as in instigate the necessary change), eliminate effect.

All ‘you’ have to do, if you really want to do it, is do it.

Nice to chat again …

23.4.2003

RESPONDENT: I had meant to respond earlier to this post, but our area was hit with a nasty ice storm, which knocked out power (and internet access) over a large area for most of a week. It did afford the opportunity to experience instinctual fear, as tree limbs came crashing down on the roof repeatedly... that elicited a response that could only be from the lizard section of the brain. It was followed then by the fabricated worry response, which anticipated with dread the next limb. Anyways, it was an interesting (as in the Chinese curse?) observation of the whole range of fear responses.

PETER: Careful observation will reveal that the worry response emanating from instinctual fear is not fabricated – as in made-up or manufactured – but rather it is directly associated with the automatic instinctual response. The genetically programmed thoughtless instinctual response together with its immediate feeling aftermath, whether it lasts a few minutes or a few hours, are inseparable and any attempts to intellectually separate them can only result in dissociation.

RESPONDENT: In this case, I wasn’t attempting to separate them, it was merely interesting to notice that the total fear package had parts that originated in the genetic program, and parts in the conditioned response. I do have a tendency to ‘divide and conquer’, which happens to be one standard engineering practice ... I know it doesn’t work in these cases.

PETER: And yet what I was pointing out that in the case of an instinctive fear reaction to physical danger, it makes no sense to divide the reaction into two parts. In my experience of observing the feeling of fear, whenever the feeling of fear kicks in, whether it is in response to an actual danger or an imaginary one, there is no two-part reaction – no discernable first stage and no discernable, fabricated or conditioned, second phase to the feeling.

It may also be worthwhile considering that the male of the human species has been conditioned by his peers to rationalize his feelings in lieu of deeply experiencing his feelings. The significant understanding for an actualist is that this tendency to rationalize or intellectualize is only social conditioning and, as such, this habitual behaviour can be quite easily abandoned.

Feelings and emotions on the other hand are a different matter – they are not the result of fabricated, conditioned nor taught behaviour. Feelings and emotions are rooted in the instinctual survival passions – an understanding that is vital to understanding the essential nature of actualism.

RESPONDENT: Interesting point you made about dissociation. If I understand correctly your last statement above, you are suggesting that pigeon-holing the various responses serves to reinforce the identity by defining or creating new components: this is No 38’s genetic response, this is No 38’s conditioned response, etc. Making the identity more complex is of course contrary to the actualist’s work.

PETER: Well, the first aspect is that your pigeon-holing of feelings seems to be intellectual rather than experiential and, as you would know from your engineering background, there is often a vast dichotomy betwixt theory and practice. Men in particular have been unwittingly taught since very early childhood to suppress, intellectualize or rationalize their feelings and emotions as a way of dissociating from their feelings. In the East, the God-men and monks simply took this taught behaviour to its extreme.

Secondly, keeping it simple is anathema to the human psyche – the confusion that arises from the combination of passion and imagination nearly always eclipses any chance of intelligence and common sense operating. The only way I found that I could utterly focus my attention on ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ was to keep it simple – I made this attentiveness my number one passion in life. There are countless examples in human history where individuals have devoted their lives, and their passion, to a single cause and by doing so have contributed mightily to the betterment of their fellow human beings. Richard’s single-minded intent and eventual discovery of a way to bring an end to the insidious influence of the instinctual passions is but one example.

*

PETER: I’ll just offer a comment on the matter of observation as it is relevant to all who have been attracted to Eastern spirituality or Eastern philosophy at some point in their lives. Vineeto and I have often discussed the fundamental differences between the Eastern practice of self-observation and the actualism practice of ‘self’-awareness as well as reflecting upon how difficult it was in the early days to stop being a dissociative observer and start becoming aware of exactly how I am experiencing this moment of being alive.

The fundamental difference between the two practices is due to the diametrically opposite intent of each of the practices – the aim of the spiritual practice is to cultivate a dissociated identity in order to avoid feeling the full range of instinctual passions, whereas the aim of actualism is to instigate radical change in order to become happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

Perhaps an example of how the actualism practice of ‘self’-awareness works in practice will serve to make this difference clear – <snip Journal quote>

No philosophical umming and ahhing, no dissociating from unwanted feelings, no remaining aloof, no blaming others and so on – just the simple momentary awareness of the feelings that were preventing me from being happy coupled with an intense yearning to change in order to become actually harmless, come what may.

RESPONDENT: So, the dissociation aspect of the above would be ‘How could anything else or anyone else be more important in her life than me?’, bundling up a nice neat package of your emotions and displacing them on to an external entity.

PETER: No, your quote is an example of normal ‘self’-centredness, and I do mean normal, as humans are instinctually programmed to be ‘self’-centred.

When I said ‘no dissociating from unwanted feelings’ I meant that I didn’t sit there at the seaside café thinking ‘I’ am feeling furious or ‘my identity’ is feeling furious or wasting my time by asking ‘who’ is feeling furious. I simply acknowledged that I was – in that very moment of being alive – feeling furious. Utterly simple and down-to-earth – no evasion, no dissociation.

RESPONDENT: This is a process I am familiar with, and is very common amongst us humans.

PETER: It’s good to hear of successes. So much of the feed-back in these early years of actualism have been in the form of people objecting to using a method whose sole aim is to facilitate becoming more happy and less harmful to one’s fellow human beings. You may well find that persistence with the simplicity of the actualism method will move your success rating from ‘for the most part’ to an effortless 99.9% of the time and then you will find yourself virtually free of malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: As far as dissociative techniques of observation used by spiritual practices, I’ll defer to your knowledge as I don’t have any direct experience with them or their practitioners. My dissociation has been purely of the mundane secular flavour.

PETER: Yep, I was born a male and brought up to be a man, which was the start of dissociation. Then I allowed myself to be sucked into Eastern religion, which only lead me further away from sensibility and the actual world of the senses.

The only reason I mentioned the Eastern practice of being a dissociated observer was that you had previously mentioned that you had found similarity between actualism and the writings and teachings of Bankei.

[Respondent]: ‘Most attractive were the very basic principles presented by Zen – I particularly liked Bankei, he seemed to have a grasp of the real essence. <…> I have since realized that what I was attracted to in Zen – that stripped down elemental simplicity – I have found in these parts. Respondent to Peter. 9.2.03

Of course the good thing is that none of this is set in concrete – all of this is nought but social programming and, as such, can be undone if one so desires. All that is needed to begin the process of undoing this programming is the simple acknowledgement that ‘I, along with everybody else, have got it 180 degrees wrong’. Only then can one stop defending ‘me as I am’ and get started on the job of de-programming.

A bit from my journal is relevant –

[Peter]: ... ‘The case for the defence was definitely not looking good, but I still found myself defending at least something of the spiritual and hanging on grimly. Surely there was a ‘Something’ else? Was it possible that I, and everyone else on earth up until now, had got it wrong and that only Richard was right? I had been reading widely throughout this time to check out the facts of what Richard was saying and what I found was astounding.

I found that the whole of philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, astronomy, physics, indeed all of man’s knowledge, and wisdom is based on an underlying assumption of a ‘something more’ than the physical universe. A belief in the meta-physical permeates all human thinking and wisdom. If one eliminated this assumption or belief the whole lot comes crashing down like those card stacks I used to make as a kid. Then it all started to make sense to me, to fit the facts – everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong – everyone!’ Peter’s Journal, God

As you can see, recognizing and abandoning beliefs whilst cultivating a commonsense-only approach to the business of being alive is by no means an impossible task – I always figured that if one human being can do it then others can. Similarly if one man can deliberately dismantle his male conditioning, then other men can too and it also follows that there is no reason why women cannot do the same. All that is required is the sincere intent to become happy and harmless.

Given that you began this post with the subject of fear this bit from my journal is also relevant to our discussion –

[Peter]: ‘That type of fear is obvious and readily understood – it is when there is an actual physical danger. I, as this body, did what it did – it blacked out awareness when needed. The emotions I felt were just the interpretation of the event as fear by my psyche. The fear that I faced at the start of this process of ridding myself of a psychic entity, and on the way through was psychic fear – fear that was present in my psyche. It is the very same fear that ruled my every action and thought for most of my life. The: ‘what does that person think of me?’, ‘what am I going to do next?’, ‘what if something goes wrong?’ – the instinctual passion of fear I was born with. The fear we transform into doubt, and more doubt. I remember calling it the ‘what if’ syndrome at some point. In the face of it the most usual reaction is to freeze – not do anything.

I saw it as a bit like when you drive along a country road and a rabbit appears on the road. Blinded by the headlights he freezes, and splat – dead rabbit. The only difference for me when I met Richard was that wobbling around in doubt or freezing in fear meant simply more of the same – prolonging my ‘normal’ life of suffering and confusion. The suffering of knowing that something was seriously wrong in my life but staunchly denying it out of pride, or hoping that the latest guru or belief would work, when deep inside I had already seen it wouldn’t work. The confusion I was in at the time was because I had seen ‘behind the curtain’ of the spiritual world. I had seen the Gurus for what they were, and I had started to see that it was all the same ‘old time religion’. The facts didn’t gel with the beliefs and there was a certain discord; a ‘Something’s not quite right’ – not that I knew what it was at the time.

So when I met Richard I found myself saying ‘I’ll give this a try, and I’ll make it the most important thing in my life’. That, as I look back, was my innate intelligence operating – the ‘if it doesn’t work, throw it out and find something that does’ or ‘don’t just freeze in the headlights’. Common sense, really. It wasn’t courage – it was common sense. I also had to retrieve my will and not ‘surrender’, leaving it up to Someone else or Existence – some imaginary roll of the cosmic dice. ‘Leaving it up to Existence’ is to accept being malicious and sorrowful – the dice are in fact loaded that way.’ Peter’s Journal, Fear

You might have also noticed that I mentioned the subject of pride in this chapter. Over the years of many people corresponding with Richard it has become apparent that the majority would rather hold to their feeling of pride rather than admit that they, along with everybody else, have got it 180 degrees wrong. Speaking personally, I got over this hurdle because I ranked integrity and sincerity above the ‘self’-centred and fickle feeling of pride.

*

RESPONDENT: Or is my identity bullshitting me again?

PETER: Speaking personally, I never saw any sense at all in splitting ‘me’ and ‘my identity’ into two parts. I had tried that in my spiritual years and saw that it was a wank.

RESPONDENT: Sometimes I use incorrect terminology, all those identities, self’s, me’s, mine, I’s ... I will try to refer to the AF glossary in the future. The intent was something like: Or is my identity attempting to maintain its existence at all costs?

PETER: I can only suggest re-reading the first piece I posted from my journal again and considering again the utter simplicity of the potent mix of being aware of how I am experiencing this moment of being alive combined with the single-pointed intent to change such that I become as happy and harmless as possible.

You may then find that the simplest, most straight-forward, phrasing of your original question would be ‘am I bullshitting myself again?’ as opposed to ‘is my identity bullshitting me again?’ Common sense would then have it that your second question would be ‘am ‘I’ attempting to maintain ‘my’ existence at all costs?’ because actualism is about ‘self’-immolation and not the physical death of the corporal body called No 38.

You might have noticed by now that I make no distinction between I and ‘I’ when I am being a normal human being. I do intellectually understand the distinction – t’is writ large all over the Actual Freedom Trust website – but the only way I, or indeed anybody else, can actually experience this distinction is when ‘I’ am not strutting the stage as it were – when ‘I’ am temporarily in abeyance during a pure consciousness experience. To attempt to split yourself into two parts while remaining an identity is an act of dissociation – vis –

dissociation – A process, or the resulting condition, in which certain concepts or mental processes are separated from the conscious personality. Oxford Dictionary

This is the whole thrust of the spiritual search for freedom – split yourself into two identities, become free from ‘I’ as ego and Realize that ‘who’ you really are is ‘me’ as a disembodied soul. The spiritual process is to practice dissociating from ‘I’ as a personal ego, and from the illusion of a grim reality, whilst simultaneously aggrandizing the real ‘me’ until I get to the delusionary state of thinking and feeling I am best mates with some God or other or, in the Eastern tradition, thinking and feeling I am God Himself or Herself.

Whilst none of this is a problem – the tradition has been going on for thousands of years – t’would be a pity for someone who is genuinely interested in becoming actually free of malice and sorrow to unwittingly continue on with the age-old habit of dissociation.

No 37 recently put the whole issue of dissociation very succinctly –

[Respondent No 37]: ‘Who does the identity belong to – if not to ‘me?’ If so, then you’ve got ‘me’ and ‘my identity’ which makes two. ‘I’ don’t ‘have’ an identity – ‘I’ am an identity.’ No 37 to Respondent, 20.4.03

And on that note, I might leave it at that – it’s so refreshing to hear someone call a spade a spade.

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless