PETER: Hi,

RESPONDENT: I was noticing what had transpired between my last PCE and a rather downtrodden way I was feeling. Well ‘I’ that being my walking identity came roaring back with a vengeance. Thoughts like, ‘of course ‘I’ am in place. I’m not like an appendix!’ This continued to how there is useful anger and fear, as opposed to overreacting and histrionics. Then came the coup de grace! I had an extensive thought-stream about the ‘triune brain’ by Dr. Paul McLean. This is how there are in effect three different brains serving different functions.

PETER: As you start to get into actualism, all sorts of weird, wild and wonderful thoughts and feelings will begin to emerge, which is why it is essential to remember your PCE and make it your lodestone or reference point. From your own experience of the perfection and purity of ‘self’-lessness you can make sense of the fact that while there are three I’s, only one is actual (see The Actual Freedom Trust Library, I). This simple observation will prevent you from falling into the habit of splitting yourself into two identities – desirable and undesirable, good and bad, and so on – as you would have done in your spiritual years.

What I did was keep it simple – there is what I am and there is ‘who’ I think and feel I am. From my own PCE, I knew that perfection and purity only happens when I am what I am, this flesh and blood body only, and not by continuing to be ‘who’ I feel and think I am (see The Actual Freedom Trust Library, What I Am /Who I Am and The Actual Freedom Trust Library, 180-degrees Opposite).

RESPONDENT: I went back to the question after my digression and realized how cunning and smart this ‘identity’ is. It actually believes it is here for my protection and well-being. Certainly the most prudent action taken was to not by any means treat it as an enemy, or something to be gotten rid of. Richard’s seemed to have atrophied naturally, rather than intentionally wanting its destruction which causes conflict and friction, which is the very antithesis of this work.

PETER: Devoting your life to becoming happy and harmless cannot be seen from a real-world point of view as ‘prudent action’, as it is commonly-held wisdom that life on earth is essentially a suffering business – in other words, that one needs to fight to survive and that one learns and grows through suffering.

Devoting your life to becoming happy and harmless is by no means an easy business because it goes against all of your social programming and it goes against all of your own survival instincts – which is exactly why ‘self’-immolation is the only way to become actually free of malice and sorrow.

Consequently, if you want to devote your life to becoming happy and harmless, you have to want it like nothing you have wanted before.

22.5.2002

RESPONDENT: I would really appreciate comments from any senior actualists.

PETER: I no doubt qualify by age, but couldn’t find any reference to rank or serial number. Nevertheless, I decided to reply.

RESPONDENT: I’ve read of the natural kind of spontaneous interactions when Peter-Vineeto, or Richard-his partner decide to have sexual relations. Since I’m not currently involved, most of my sexual activity involves masturbation, which I see is obviously mind-based fantasy.

PETER: What I discovered in my experience with sexual desire was that when the initial full-on passionate fantasy with a partner peters out then a purely mind-based fantasy sets in. From what I can gather from observation and talking to others, this is common to the human condition.

RESPONDENT: When I’m having a PCE or doing fine I find myself free from desire. This feels good. Actually unfulfilled desire is physically and emotionally uncomfortable.

PETER: Instinctual desire, whether unfulfilled or fulfilled, is not only ‘uncomfortable’, as you put it, it is also an impediment to peace and happiness.

The spiritualists say that the heartless pursuit of materialistic desire brings neither happiness nor peace but they are only half-right, because what is evident to a clear-eyed, non-spiritual, observer is that the mindless pursuit of spiritualistic desire also brings neither happiness nor peace. The only solution is to be totally free from the instinctual passion of desire, whether it be material – money, power and fame – or spiritual – money, power and fame.

RESPONDENT: If you folks weren’t involved how does non-identity emotive-less sexuality manifest? Before I send this let me question myself? I get that sex is functional like going to the bathroom, eating etc. It is different though since it involves a partner.

PETER: If you remember back to when puberty set in, sexual desire is not a function like going to the bathroom or eating – it is an all-consuming obsession that is only reigned under control by strict social morals, codes and laws. This combination of the blind instinctual compulsion and the impedient social taboos is what prevents the free and innocent enjoyment of sex.

The only solution is to be totally free from both the social-spiritual mores and the animal-instinctual passion for sex.

RESPONDENT: You folks give such raves to your sex lives these days. I would really appreciate more detail if you are comfortable.

PETER: Sexual play, when freed of social taboos and the instinctual drive to procreate, is pure unfettered sensual delight manifested as an actual physical intimacy with a fellow human being. Many people have had this experience briefly in their lives but the full range of instinctual passions and social mores soon set in to complicate and contaminate the experience.

RESPONDENT: My greatest sexual encounters seem filled with lusty animal like passion; intense focused kissing + contact unique to the desires and predilections of my partner. It all seems very based on my deep contact & emotive intimacy with my partner. Since there are so few female actualists, it doesn’t bode well that I would find a potential partner who wasn’t interested in love and the concomitant emotive involvement that 99.9% of the world exists in. I can still go about my business of self-immolation but that’s the facts.

PETER: I would suggest that if you ‘go about your business of self-immolation’ – in other words, the business of becoming happy and harmless – you will make yourself a more appealing potential partner than you are now. Then anything can happen.

Some years ago, when I sat down and thought about my failures to break free of my sexual prudishness and rapaciousness, I came to the fact that my failures were my failures and not my partner’s failures. This realization meant that I gave up the fruitless search for a perfect partner or, even more debilitating, accepting that perfection was not possible. I was then free of my own self-imposed restrictions such that I got on with the business of freeing myself of my moral and ethical inhibitions that prevented me from investigating the instinctual sexual drive that was at the root of my inability to freely enjoy the delights of sex.

As you said –

[Respondent]: ‘When I’m having a PCE or doing fine I find myself free from desire. This feels good.’ [endquote].

So it makes sense that when you are not having a PCE or not ‘doing fine’, then you have something to look at, something to do and something to change. This way you will begin to become aware of, investigate and eliminate the social and instinctual programming that prevents you from seeing and treating females as fellow human beings and not as objects of sexual predilection, resentment or aversion.

For me, being able to experience the intimacy that comes from the demolishing of the programming that divides humans into two alien predatory camps is of greater significance than the personal rewards of unfettered sensual pleasure. But then again, I always put being harmless just a bit ahead of being happy, because you can’t be happy without being harmless.