PETER: Hi

Welcome to the Actual Freedom List.

You recently wrote two enthusiastic posts to the mailing list the day after coming across the Actual Freedom website. Whilst not wanting to dampen your enthusiasm, it is apparent from the content of your posts that you have inadvertently misconstrued what Actual Freedom is about. Whilst this is completely understandable given the radical nature of Actualism and the brief time between reading some of the website and making your comments, you may welcome some feedback.

You wrote in your first post –

RESPONDENT: Hello Richard and everyone. I am very new to this material ... although I find it oddly familiar, comforting ... and encouraging.

PETER: ‘Oddly familiar’ it might seem to be at first glance in that actualism offers a freedom from the grim reality of normal human existence, yet actualism in fact offers a totally unfamiliar method and a brand-new path to an actual freedom from both grim reality and its fantasy panacea of a Greater Reality. Rather than being comforting, I found actualism to be utterly confrontational. When I first heard Richard say that everybody has got it 180 degrees wrong and when I understood the implications this had for me – the prospect of deliberately setting off down a path to ‘self’-immolation is about as confrontational as it gets.

But I can relate to ‘encouraging’ for it was obvious to me that peace on earth was not possible if human beings – meaning me – continued to keep mindlessly treading the same old, well worn paths that had been trod by those who were here before us.

RESPONDENT: It is as if I was now looking around for something ... my hand reached out, and I grasped a baton labelled: actual freedom. I don’t claim to have had any PCEs ... except perhaps some glimpses in early childhood ... but I am in the course of a long practice of emerging into conscious awareness ... over the course of many years.

PETER: The good news is that long years of practice on the spiritual path do not necessarily inhibit you from becoming an actualist.

Personally I found my 17 years on the spiritual path to be an invaluable experience in that I knew by my own experience that spiritual practices don’t work to actualize peace and harmony between fellow human beings. Because of this hands-on experience, I was more able to ditch the whole fantasy and get on with the business of finding out why I couldn’t be happy and harmless, in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

In other words, the quicker you are able to abandon your spiritual past, the quicker you can set about the new-to-the-world business of actualism.

RESPONDENT: I am noticing colour and shapes more. I am noticing thoughts, feelings with more of an interest and curiosity ... and with less fear and aversion. I am less at odds with life; more comfortable with being here. AF is an opportunity to encourage this process ... even up the bar a bit. I just finished reading most of Alan’s journal. Great stuff! Toward the end of part two, Alan was speaking about effort and efforting ... and when he became aware of this within ... it stopped ... and he became more present ... more alive (my words). Upon reading his words, I instantly became aware of efforting in me ... and this helped me to relax ... and my physical senses became more acute.

PETER: I don’t know who your teacher was, but such so-called wisdoms, or dimwitticisms as I like to call them, are rampant in Eastern spiritual teachings. Such teachings are specifically designed to widen the already existing rift between the ‘me’ as a spirit-like entity and what I am – this flesh and blood body – thereby validating ‘my’ existence as being separate from the corporeal mortal body in which ‘I’ have temporarily taken up residence. Such teachings are meant to encourage the aggrandizing of ‘me’ and ‘my’ ‘self’-centred thoughts and feelings whilst simultaneously denigrating the wonders of the workings of actual flesh and blood bodies as well as the delights of sensate experiencing. Following such teachings is indeed effortless, not only because it is eminently fashionable to do so, but also because all ‘self’-centred activity is instinctual – being ‘self’-centred comes natural to all human beings.

Actualism, on the other hand, requires effort like you have never known effort before –

• First comes the intellectual effort required to make sense of the radical ramifications of Richard’ discovery.

• Second comes the impassioned effort required to acknowledge one’s gullibility in believing in a spirit world, to then abandon one’s real-world cynicism and crank up one’s naiveté and to then make a full-blooded commitment to becoming happy and harmless.

• Third comes the intense effort required to get the actualism method up and running as a constant moment-to-moment attentiveness.

• And finally comes the stubborn effort required to stick at it, through thick and thin, no matter what the consequences.

Becoming happy and harmless is an utterly down-to-earth pursuit and, as with all down-to-earth pursuits, no effort = no result. Or, to put it another way, dreaming is effortless but actual change require actual effort.

If you haven’t already found it, you may find the Introduction to Actualism useful in giving you an overview of what actualism is really about.

PETER: You wrote in your second post –

RESPONDENT: Just wanted to pop in and say hi! My name is <> ... and I just discovered this site yesterday ... and so far, it is just what the doctor ordered. I have been working for some time with #1 bringing in more awareness to the present moment and #2 dropping belief systems/ reference points. There is rich material on this site to assist with this.

PETER: As you will discover when you dip a bit deeper into the Actual Freedom Trust website, the actualism method is not about ‘me’ ‘bringing in more awareness to the present moment’. Such a practice can only result in an increased ‘self’-centeredness – not only do ‘I’ think and feel myself to be the centre of ‘my’ world but, with time and effort and practice, ‘I’ can eventually get to think and feel ‘I’ am the centre of the whole world, and all sorts of narcissistic feelings and altered states of consciousness can result. Actualism, on the other hand, is about being attentive to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive with the committed aim of doing whatever is needed to become as happy and as harmless as humanly possible.

Richard explicitly describes the actualism method in his article entitled ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

As for #2, if you are sincere in working on ‘dropping belief systems/ reference points’ then this sincerity will serve to provoke you into examining the nature of your current spiritual practices and beliefs. The first part of this examination is to determine whether your spiritual beliefs can stand up to intellectual scrutiny – i.e. do they make sense? Most people who have come across actualism have baulked at this preliminary stage of questioning their beliefs and have resorted to raising objections to the central tenet of actualism – objecting to becoming happy and harmless in the world as-it-is, with people as-they are.

Should you manage to get beyond the stage of defending your spiritual beliefs – defence being the first naturally occurring instinctual reaction – then the possibility arises of being able to read what is on offer on the Actual Freedom Trust website with clear, non-spiritual, eyes and then the unbridled fun of investigation and exploration as to what it is to be a human being can really begin.

RESPONDENT: I have been discovering so much within myself ... that in the past I could only see in others ... and I have been discovering that so much of the time I appear to be ‘lost in thought’ ... and that the great majority of my life has been this way.

PETER: Should you one day decide to become a practicing actualist, you will discover that rather than being ‘lost in thought’, you are in fact ‘wallowing in feelings’, as is every other sentient being on the planet – which is precisely why the salient traits of the human condition are feelings of animosity and anguish. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. With the discovery that it is now possible to become free of the human condition in toto, a grand opportunity beckons for those who are sufficiently motivated to become free of this instinctual and social heritage.

RESPONDENT: How delightful to finally notice my own hands on the steering wheel as I drive to work ...

PETER: Yeah. When I came across actualism I was challenged to stop blindly following the wisdom of the past and to firmly grab the tiller and steer myself out of the mess I had unwittingly landed myself in.

RESPONDENT: … or the richness of a body-guilt feeling as it begins to emerge.

PETER: Maybe you could explain what a ‘body-guilt feeling’ means to you as the term doesn’t make sense to me. It could well be a rich topic for discussion – only if you want to, of course.

RESPONDENT: With all of my heart, I want to know more about life. I have been down many spiritual roads ... dead ends to be sure.

PETER: Yep. There’s far more to life than the pursuit of spiritual fantasies. What actualism points out, in clear and unequivocal terms, is that there is a perfect and pure, peaceful and pristine, actual world – right here in this moment in time and this place in space, under our very noses as it were. And not only does actualism make this clear, it also provides a pragmatic method to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ – to get from being an instinctually-driven socially-embroiled being trapped within a grim instinctual reality to incrementally becoming what you are – a sensuously aware flesh and blood corporeal body able to think and reflect on the infinitude of this, the only universe there is.

RESPONDENT: I am left again with just me ... and I am happy with that ... for there is much to see, feel and explore with this alone.

PETER: If you aspire to be an actualist, you will have to set your sights a good deal higher than being happy being just ‘me’. The Eastern spiritual teachings of ‘be content with being ‘who’ you are’ has enticed so many seekers to give up seeking peace on earth and conned them into settling for second best. I couldn’t do it.

RESPONDENT: I am fascinated right now with intent ... to use intent in the most fierce way to #1 live in the present more and more ... and #2 to shed the numerous skins of beliefs and identities.

PETER: Well, you are on the wrong mailing list if your intent is for ‘#1’ but you are on the right mailing list if your intent is for ‘#2’. You seem to have serendipitously come across a fork in the road – which way you go is solely a matter of your intent.

And, as you said, your hands are on the steering wheel …

29.5.2003

RESPONDENT: Peter ... thank you very much for your feedback. After considering your response, it is evident that, at times, I do not communicate accurately.

PETER: Having just re-read your post, I cannot see that you have not communicated accurately. Such a statement could also imply that I have misunderstood what you said – which is a different matter all together.

In the interests of accurate communication, would you like to re-visit the content so that we can sort out the matter?

RESPONDENT: And also, that I harbour some spiritual beliefs that I wasn’t even aware of.

PETER: You certainly are not alone in this. Spiritual and religious beliefs are part and parcel of the human condition – as a human being one either believes in some form of spiritual or religious belief, is tolerant of religious or spiritual beliefs, is antagonistic towards spiritual or religious beliefs, or is agnostic towards spiritual or religious beliefs. There has been no other alternative up until now.

If I may point out, when you said –

[Respondent]: ‘I am in the course of a long practice of emerging into conscious awareness ... over the course of many years.’ [endquote].

– this was a dead giveaway that you have been practicing Eastern spiritual beliefs for a good while.

And again, when you said –

[Respondent]: ‘I am left again with just me ... and I am happy with that ... for there is much to see, feel and explore with this alone.’ [endquote].

– this clearly indicated that you believe in the Eastern spiritual practice of accepting and being content with ‘who’ you are.

You might find the following link useful as it points out many of the fallacies and failures of Eastern spiritual belief. You may well be able to easily relate to it as the writing is in the form of a book review of a Western man who has written about Eastern spirituality, in other words it is an easily understood debunking of what has come to be known as the spiritual path.

RESPONDENT: I am beginning to practice: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’? I have some questions about this: I find myself asking this question to myself during the day. Is this just a mental thing? that is ... just asking these words over and over again. Do I tune into the body and ‘listen’ for any sensations that arise? I am afraid of doing something just mental for fear it will provide just mental responses ... eg thoughts giving birth just to more thoughts. Do you understand what I am asking? Thank you.

PETER: Yes, I do understand, but you do seem to still insist on putting the cart before the horse.

If we can just backtrack to our previous conversation you will notice that you mentioned you were fascinated with intent –

[Respondent]: I am fascinated right now with intent ... to use intent in the most fierce way to #1 live in the present more and more ... and #2 to shed the numerous skins of beliefs and identities.

[Peter]: Well, you are on the wrong mailing list if your intent is for ‘#1’ but you are on the right mailing list if your intent is for ‘#2’. You seem to have serendipitously come across a fork in the road – which way you go is solely a matter of your intent. And, as you said, your hands are on the steering wheel. [endquote].

In the same post, I also made the following comment –

[Peter]: ‘Actualism, on the other hand, is about being attentive to how I am experiencing this moment of being alive with the committed aim of doing whatever is needed to become as happy and as harmless as humanly possible.’ [endquote].

The question I would ask is what is your intent – your committed aim – when you ask yourself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’

Why are you asking the question? What is your motivation when you ask the question? Do you have a purpose when you ask the question? What are you looking for when you ask the question? What type of answer are you looking for? What do you do when you come up with an answer?

You might notice that all of these questions are to do with intent.

For an actualist the importance of intent is obvious – if you are practicing a method specifically designed to facilitate your becoming less harmful and more happy, and you have no intent to become less harmful and more happy, then any attempt to be attentive as to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive will be an aimless practice, a meaningless practice, an ineffective practice and a fruitless practice, or to use your words – ‘just a mental thing’.

The question of intent, put plainly, is – ‘what is it that you want to do with the rest of your life?’

22.6.2003

RESPONDENT: My first thought, after reading some of the material, was that I had come to terms with my current spiritual beliefs ... fundamentally that I had none. Was I ever wrong ... first, after reading I think Peter’s journal, and Peter coming to the conclusion that after death there was nothing ... this was a shocker ... and continues to be one (and I thought I had come to terms with death). This one hit me hard ... because in all my ‘spiritual’ wanderings ... I thought I had accepted the finality of death ... finally. But I discovered that even my initial interest in Western and Eastern mysticism was fuelled by my hope ... that something followed ... that I would be able to continue in some way ... some fashion.

PETER: When I wrote my journal it was obvious to me that I needed to address the subject of death in the very first chapter. This was so because unless anyone reading was willing to question and ultimately abandon their belief that there was life after death then they would have neither the interest nor the impetus to devote their life to the business of becoming actually happy and harmless, here on earth, in this lifetime – which is what the journal is about.

There are two aspects to the answer to your question ‘how do I know that death is the end?’ The first is the intellectual knowledge that death is the end of life for a human flesh and blood body as well as the end of the consciousness inherent to that flesh and blood body. The second is the experiential knowledge of that fact – either temporarily in a PCE or permanently when actually free of the human condition in toto.

As to the first, I have written in my journal about my son’s death and how this gave me an intellectual understanding that death is the end – I saw the dead body and it was obvious he was dead and it was equally obvious afterwards that ‘he’ had not gone anywhere else unless I imagined (as in, believed) he had. Upon reflection I had a similar experience at age 16 when my father died – I saw the dead body and knew ‘he’ had not gone anywhere else. That experience was a matter of fact at the time because I didn’t believe in the Christian Heaven at the time, but the matter of fact of my son’s death proved to be the start of extracting myself from my latterly adopted Eastern spiritual belief in an after-life and an ‘other-world’.

This questioning and ultimately abandoning my belief in an afterlife eventually led to me having an experiential understanding that the whole notion of an afterlife is nought but an impassioned culturally-impregnated ‘self’-preservation fantasy.

With regard to the facts of what happens after death, I recently watched a television documentary about a research facility in the U.S. where forensic scientists are documenting the after-death decomposition process of human bodies. I was fascinated by the documentary as it was about something new to my experience because both my father and son were cremated soon after death. Within the grounds of the research facility, recently dead bodies where laid out in the open so that the natural processes of decomposition could be studied.

The scientists noted four distinct stages of decomposition, the first being an initial stiffening, decolourisation and then a slackening of the body over a 2-3 day period. The next stage was the onset of blowflies, which laid eggs in the various orifices of the bodies. Each fly laid thousands of eggs and within 6 hours the eggs hatched into maggots, which then began to consume the flesh of the body. Simultaneously the naturally-occurring still-living bacteria within the body’s gut and lungs began consuming the dead cells of the gut and lung and in the process of doing so produced considerable quantities of biological gas, causing the corpse to bloat. This stage can be completed within 2 weeks in warm periods or tropical climates whilst in cold periods or cold climates the stage can last months.

The next stage, which lasts the longest, is the advanced stage of decomposition. The skin becomes leather-like and the remaining internal flesh is consumed either by external maggot and insect action or by internal bacterial action. This residual biological activity is exothermic and steam can be seen rising from the corpse on chilly mornings. The earth around the corpse is blackened by the remnant fatty acids leaching from the body.

The last stage is a total loss of bodily flesh with only the bone skeleton and the dry leathery like tissue of the skin remaining. And as we know from archaeological excavations, even the dry skin decomposes over time leaving only the bare bones of what was once a living flesh and blood human body.

These are the facts of what naturally happens after death, unless of course one believes that the corporeal body contains a parasitical soul or spirit, which survives the death of the body to live on in some meta-physical world – but that’s another story entirely.

2.8.2003

PETER: I thought I would reply to your post as the subject matter is right up my alley. You wrote –

RESPONDENT: Vineeto and others: I have been working with the Actual Freedom material for only about three months now and would like to provide a personal update: I have been both reading a lot of material ... sometimes several times ... and applying: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ throughout the day.

PETER: I can relate to reading things several times over. When I first came across Richard, he had just purchased a computer in order to be able to word process his journal and print it out. As the editing was finished, I had a copy of his journal as sheets printed on his inkjet printer in a loose-leaf binder and this was added to with several of the later chapters as they were produced. I have a distinct memory of sitting down with the journal and spending hours going over and over a 4 or 5 sentence paragraph, trying to understand exactly what it was that he was saying. In hindsight, this now sounds somewhat extreme but overcoming cognitive dissonance is the lot of everyone who attempts to ‘wrap their mind around’ something new.

This will become less of an impediment over time as more and more people from different backgrounds and different life-experiences write about the process of actualism. Not only will there be an increased variety of ways of saying the same thing but also there will be an increased confidence and comradery that comes from the knowledge that other fellow human beings are daring to tread the same never-trod-before path.

RESPONDENT: My early erroneous conclusion was that I could just jump in and use the process and would be that. I noticed, however, an underlying, solid reluctance to apply the process. I even found it very difficult to even remember what the question was! I finally got it imprinted into my brain.

PETER: Yep. I can relate to that one as well. I found it quite amazing to discover that ‘I’ ran on automatic almost all of the time – so much so that there was no possibility of being aware of how I was experiencing being alive. Great slabs of the day would pass by without me remembering to be aware of whether or not I was enjoying being alive or not. Even if I did remember, I often found it difficult to accurately describe how I was experiencing this moment, as I would usually come up with an intellectual response such as ‘I am concerned about …’, rather than the more explicit feeling response such as ‘I am feeling anxious’ or ‘I am feeling scared about …’.

It is good to remember that being constantly aware of how you are experiencing this moment of being alive is not a natural thing – after all, ‘I’ have so dominated the stage, for as long as I can remember, that glimpses of ‘self’-awareness only occurred rarely and erratically. It takes a good deal of conscious effort to establish asking the question until it becomes habitual and it takes a good deal of stubborn intent until it becomes a constant automatic silent question each moment again.

Because of these quite natural difficulties, beware of beating yourself up when you miss out asking the question because the very moment you become aware that you haven’t been aware of how you are experiencing this moment of being alive, you are right back on track again.

RESPONDENT: I then began to activate the investigation phase ... ie anything that appeared as an obstacle, right then, that prevented me from being happy and harmless. This was and is to some extent now the difficult one. This great reluctance surfaced time and time again. This came as a surprise since I also thought myself to be open to self-exploration. Nothing could be further from the truth. I recounted to myself how ... even in my past spiritual pursuits ... I would gloss over or skim quickly through a teaching that pointed to personal exploration. I discovered also how I have always felt pursued, chased, caught, dominated and even haunted by negative feelings of guilt, fear, inadequacy. And ... how these feelings dominate my days ... colour and cloud my life. In the early stages of investigation of these mental-emotional states ... I noticed my habitual response ... ‘don’t even go there!’ Yet I persisted.

PETER: What you are experientially discovering are the morals and ethics that have been instilled into you by your parents and peers – ‘It is not good to feel angry’, ‘It is not right to feel jealous’, ‘Why can’t you be quite like your brother’, ‘If you don’t stop doing that I’ll …’ and so on. The imposition of morals and ethics is a necessary process in every child’s development given that every child is by nature a passionately driven being, which means that your awareness of when, how and why these morals and ethics operate is yet another experiential discovery of the universal nature of the human condition. Name them and feel them as they are happening but don’t judge them, for it is vital to remember that what you are starting to become aware of is the instinctual passions themselves and these passions are universal – in no way uniquely personal.

The awareness of one’s own morals and ethics is a big hurdle to negotiate as they form a goodly part of one’s social identity. If one allows oneself to get stuck here, there is no way to discover the further layers of one’s identity that lay lurking beneath – that which is often referred to as the dark side of human nature. You will have noticed the essential piece of advice that Richard has offered when you allow yourself to start to feel the dark and invidious feelings – keep your hands firmly in your pockets – meaning don’t act on these feelings, simply become aware of them as they are happening.

The brutish survival instincts were an essential component of the predacious phase of the evolution of animate life on this planet and you will come recognize that they are not only redundant but you will also experience that these very passions ultimately stand in the way of you being able to live with your fellow human beings in peace and harmony.

RESPONDENT: Now, somehow, for the most part my attitude about the process has shifted. Most of the times now, there is an eagerness to investigate ... a certain excitement clicks in. In this regard, what has helped is an intent or deep resolve to face what ever it is ... to refuse to run and hide.

PETER: Persistence rewarded, hey.

Another hint that was passed on to me that I found useful was to remember not to take yourself too seriously. This is the trick to turn fear into excitement – and excitement is having fun. Excitement is a felicitous feeling when excitement is the thrill of becoming more happy and more harmless.

RESPONDENT: When I stand firm and face the feelings ... with the attitude and approach to want to understand ... not to demolish the feelings ... but really to be open to truly feel the feelings, to understand the meaning ... to desire to get at the very root of what is creating this block or obstacle that occludes, obstructs and prevents real or actual freedom in my life. So the fear and aversion of doing this very personal process of examining any and every obstacle that stands in the way has lessened. And for me this is quite significant.

PETER: Again I can relate. For me the most fear I encountered was prior to deciding to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless. After that the fear turned into the excitement of the thrill of discovery – and there is lots to discover.

RESPONDENT: I do want to bring up a concern that has been going over and over in my mind. I don’t know what to do with it ... so I’ll just spit it out and maybe it will dissolve in the ethers of cyberspace! Here it is...

PETER: Well, for a start there is no evidence to the contrary. Richard himself has done a good deal of trolling through the writings of others and all he has ever found is evidence of people who have experienced a spiritual freedom of the soul and not an actual freedom from the soul. I have also satisfied myself that this is so by my own investigations – I remember at one stage realizing that not only was Richard the only one who was actually free of the human condition, he was also the only genuine atheist on the planet.

In other words I take it as a reasonable assumption of fact because there is, thus far, not a skerrick of empirical evidence to the contrary.

RESPONDENT: Maybe there was a culture eons ago that discovered this ... maybe just one person ... and maybe the culture was in no way receptive to Actual Freedom ... so this individual kept it to his or her self.

PETER: Contrary to popular belief, speculations such as ‘maybes’ or ‘what ifs’ are not empirical evidence – no matter how many speculations or how many speculators there are.

I don’t know whether your reference to ‘a culture eons ago’ refers to the widely-held notion that there was somehow a Golden Age or that at sometime, somewhere on the planet, there existed a peaceful tribe of uncorrupted innocents. If so, there is no evidence that supports this notion in any way – the archaeological and anthropological evidence is that all tribes and all cultures were deeply fear-ridden, dominated by superstition, enraptured in mythology, fiercely territorial, and so on. I fail to see such tribes and cultures as being fertile ground for someone to be able to take the time and make the effort to become free of malice and sorrow.

The other notion – that maybe someone became free of the human condition and kept it to his self or her self – has been floated before but it is my experience that this theory lacks any credibility – simply because the intent needed to become free of the human condition is pure in that one does it not only for this body but for ever other body. Or to put it another way, the very process of wanting to become harmless is motivated by a genuine concern and caring for all of one’s fellow human beings and this alone makes the idea of keeping the discovery of an actual freedom to oneself a red herring.

RESPONDENT: And, even if Richards claim is true ... why make it? I mean no disrespect ... but I would like some feedback from anyone ... including Richard ... so I can go on with my life!!!

PETER: I remember that I could not but write my journal in order to tell others that the actualism method worked in that it produced down-to-earth results – that it was possible to live with a companion in utter peace and harmony and that it was possible to be virtually free of malice and sorrow. To imagine that one could keep an actual freedom to oneself beggars belief.

While on this topic, I’ll just add a note of sensible caution. In my early days of being an actualist I was so enthused that I would often talk about actualism to people who were not interested in anything else but battling it out in the real-world or who were so convinced their spiritual beliefs were right that they could not even conceive that what I was saying had nothing at all to do with spiritualism. I soon discovered that it pays to be prudent as to whom, where and when it is appropriate to discuss the discovery of an actual freedom from the human condition.

One other piece of sensible piece of advice I gave myself came from my time of exploring the dark underbelly of piety and morality – and that was to ‘never goad a fanatic’. I do like the leisure and the pleasure of being able to report my successes and share my experiences in using the actualism method here on this list from the safety and comfort of my own lounge room.

RESPONDENT: And Vineeto ... and all others ... thank you for all your helpful words of instruction, explanation and encouragement.

PETER: Speaking for myself, t’is always a pleasure.

10.8.2003

RESPONDENT: Now, somehow, for the most part my attitude about the process has shifted. Most of the times now, there is an eagerness to investigate ... a certain excitement clicks in. In this regard, what has helped is an intent or deep resolve to face what ever it is ... to refuse to run and hide.

PETER: Persistence rewarded, hey. Another hint that was passed on to me that I found useful was to remember not to take yourself too seriously. This is the trick to turn fear into excitement – and excitement is having fun. Excitement is a felicitous feeling when excitement is the thrill of becoming more happy and more harmless.

RESPONDENT: Yes ... this is a helpful hint. In the past, I would take on the attitude that I had to accomplish a particular spiritual goal by ‘hell or high water’. I do believe now that one can be softly vigilant and diligent in applying, eg: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’.

PETER: I found it useful to distinguish between being sincere about wanting to achieve a goal and being serious about it – serious as in grim or sombre. When I realized how silly I had been in taking on a precocious spiritual identity and all the nonsense that implied, I could no longer take myself seriously and that meant that I could hardly take seriously any further whittling away at the beliefs that made up my social identity.

I found having a sense of humour an essential asset in the process of actualism and no more so that when I found myself stubbornly holding on to a belief or moral or ethical stance. I would often find myself chuckling and saying to myself ‘Come on, this is silly’.

*

RESPONDENT: When I stand firm and face the feelings ... with the attitude and approach to want to understand ... not to demolish the feelings ... but really to be open to truly feel the feelings, to understand the meaning ... to desire to get at the very root of what is creating this block or obstacle that occludes, obstructs and prevents real or actual freedom in my life. So the fear and aversion of doing this very personal process of examining any and every obstacle that stands in the way has lessened. And for me this is quite significant.

PETER: Again I can relate. For me the most fear I encountered was prior to deciding to devote my life to becoming happy and harmless. After that the fear turned into the excitement of the thrill of discovery – and there is lots to discover.

RESPONDENT: I agree that often making a genuine decision precedes authentic change. Otherwise, one is still dangling feet in the water ... clearly a decision has not been made to swim.

PETER: Or one remains but a commentator frenetically running up and down the bank, limply criticizing those who are busy with giving it a go.

*

RESPONDENT: I do want to bring up a concern that has been going over and over in my mind. I don’t know what to do with it ... so I’ll just spit it out and maybe it will dissolve in the ethers of cyberspace! Here it is...Richard claims to be the first one on the planet to experience Actual Freedom: How can he or anyone know this to be a fact?

PETER: Well, for a start there is no evidence to the contrary. Richard himself has done a good deal of trolling through the writings of others and all he has ever found is evidence of people who have experienced a spiritual freedom of the soul and not an actual freedom from the soul. I have also satisfied myself that this is so by my own investigations – I remember at one stage realizing that not only was Richard the only one who was actually free of the human condition, he was also the only genuine atheist on the planet. In other words I take it as a reasonable assumption of fact because there is, thus far, not a skerrick of empirical evidence to the contrary.

RESPONDENT: Maybe there was a culture eons ago that discovered this ... maybe just one person ... and maybe the culture was in no way receptive to Actual Freedom ... so this individual kept it to his or her self.

PETER: Contrary to popular belief, speculations such as ‘maybes’ or ‘what ifs’ are not empirical evidence – no matter how many speculations or how many speculators there are. I don’t know whether your reference to ‘a culture eons ago’ refers to the widely-held notion that there was somehow a Golden Age or that at sometime, somewhere on the planet, there existed a peaceful tribe of uncorrupted innocents. If so, there is no evidence that supports this notion in any way – the archaeological and anthropological evidence is that all tribes and all cultures were deeply fear-ridden, dominated by superstition, enraptured in mythology, fiercely territorial, and so on.

I fail to see such tribes and cultures as being fertile ground for someone to be able to take the time and make the effort to become free of malice and sorrow. The other notion – that maybe someone became free of the human condition and kept it to his self or her self – has been floated before but it is my experience that this theory lacks any credibility – simply because the intent needed to become free of the human condition is pure in that one does it not only for this body but for ever other body. Or to put it another way, the very process of wanting to become harmless is motivated by a genuine concern and caring for all of one’s fellow human beings and this alone makes the idea of keeping the discovery of an actual freedom to oneself a red herring.

RESPONDENT: You said: ... he (Richard) was also the only genuine atheist on the planet. In other words I take it as a reasonable assumption of fact because there is, thus far, not a skerrick of empirical evidence to the contrary. The problem is that a reasonable assumption of fact is still not a fact.

PETER: I experientially understood that Richard was the only (genuine) atheist on the planet when I had a pure consciousness experience of the actual world – the physical-only world that has no room in it for any meta-physical entity, force or energy.

Atheist : 1. A person who denies or disbelieves the existence of God or gods. Opp. Theist. 2. A person who denies God morally; a godless person. Oxford Dictionary

Richard neither believes nor disbelieves the existence of Gods or gods – he permanently lives in the actual world where there are no Gods or gods. In other words he is a genuine atheist not a philosophical atheist, or an agnostic, and nor is he in denial. I realize the semanticists and pedantocrats on the list will have a field day with my use of word atheist – I thought it meant someone who has no beliefs in Gods or anything metaphysical – but it appears that at least some on the list had no trouble in understanding my meaning.

By the way, I see the rumour that Vineeto said Richard was the only atheist on the planet has taken hold, but in an effort to lay it to rest before it gathers even more legs and becomes a factoid, I offer the following piece from my journal.

[Peter]: ‘I was looking for evidence and facts – not hopes or beliefs.

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!

There has been no actual evidence nor factual proof after thousands of years to support the belief that there is a God or a Something else. The cry in the churches, temples, ashrams and satsang halls is still one of trust, faith and hope to maintain the belief in a Something else. It was as though I was able to begin to see through the whole charade and fantasy of the spirit-ual world – to be able to see things from another perspective. It was like a mist or a veil clearing. It was then that I realised that Richard was the only atheist I had met and seemingly the only one that has ever been.’ Peter’s Journal, God

RESPONDENT: From what you and Richard say ... you are both well-read and experienced in many spiritual circles. There are, however, many teachers who’s words have not been published and are relatively unknown. Given this fact ...

PETER: Given that you claim this to be a given fact – perhaps you could supply some names of these relatively unknown teachers whose words have not been published in order that we can all check them out. Thus far, many people have made the claim that there are other teachers who are talking about an actual freedom from the human condition and that there are other methods that offer a way to become actually free from the human condition and all of the claims have thus far proved to be bogus – including the most recent to this list.

RESPONDENT: Given this fact ... it still seems quite a stretch for Richard to make these claims ... Richard could only make this claim as genuine fact if he had read everything that had ever been written and has somehow eavesdropped on every teaching that had ever been heard ... and examined the result of that teaching ... to see if the fruit was ‘actual’.

PETER: I think Richard has since directly addressed this matter but I would re-iterate that I never had any trouble at all with his claim. But then again, I do acknowledge that I am naïve.

RESPONDENT: Actualism may be genuine and real ... rather actual.

PETER: I’ll pass on that one. The statement makes no sense to me whatsoever.

RESPONDENT: I am applying the process ... time will tell. I just have an issue with these claims ... which are similar to so many other carrots that have been dangled in the past.

PETER: The only proof ultimately worthwhile is one’s own experiential evidence that it is so. I found naiveté was the key to remaining open to taking Richards claim being genuine and being able to see ‘my’ doubts to be precisely what they were – ‘my’ doubts. It was then that I discovered that my doubtful feelings have their roots in fear.

*

RESPONDENT: And, even if Richard’s claim is true ... why make it? I mean no disrespect ... but I would like some feedback from anyone ... including Richard ... so I can go on with my life!!!

PETER: I remember that I could not but write my journal in order to tell others that the actualism method worked in that it produced down-to-earth results – that it was possible to live with a companion in utter peace and harmony and that it was possible to be virtually free of malice and sorrow. To imagine that one could keep an actual freedom to oneself beggars belief...

RESPONDENT: My question was, and perhaps I wasn’t clear, why does Richard make the claim that he was the first person on the planet or in the universe to discover and live Actualism? Even if he was ... and he knew it factually, why state it?

PETER: I did answer your question but I phrased it by using an example from my own experience. It may have been a bit obtuse but I was saying that I completely understand why Richard has gone public with his discovery that it is possible to become actually free from the human condition, in toto.

I must admit that I have trouble relating to your objection. Would you take a scientist to task for claiming he had discovered a cure for a disease you had that was thought by everyone else to be incurable? Or would you take the time, and make the effort, to find out if his claims were valid. If not, why would you take to task someone who claims to have discovered a way of becoming actually free of the human condition of malice and sorrow?

Because I wanted to be free of the human condition, I naively took his words at face value and set out to prove that his discovery is repeatable. And, if I take your words at face value – ‘I am applying the process ... time will tell’ – I take it that this is what you are also doing.

I didn’t, and couldn’t, wait for the end of the process to happen before going public with the news that actualism can – as Richard said it would – lead to anyone with the required commitment becoming virtually free of malice and sorrow. I did not see any sense at all in withholding such a discovery from my fellow human beings.

And cynics, sceptics, naysayers, red flag wavers, flat-earthers, deconstructionists and destructionists aside, if I take what others are reporting on this mailing list at face value there is evidence that others are using the actualism method and finding that it produces tangible results. I would say that not only is actualism proving to be effective in that it is producing repeatable results but also that its growth is proving to be exponential – which is what the phrase ‘spread like a chain-letter’ means to me.

But then again, I do acknowledge I am naïve.

22.9.2003

PETER: I’ll take up your offer to anyone to respond to your post.

It’s an excellent day to sit at the computer writing, occasionally looking out across the lush subtropical scenery towards the rocky headland that stands sentinel to the broad sweep of the sandy bay this village is built upon. The onset of spring has bought with it its usual delightful variations – coolish remnants of the past winter and warmish reminders of the summer to come. T’is grand to be alive.

RESPONDENT: Personal update: For the past four months I have been investigating actualism. My investigation has consisted of reading much of the material on the web site... and a practice consisting of applying attentiveness outwardly and inwardly, applying contemplation and asking the question: HAIETMOBA. A quick assessment of actualism at this point: It is far more difficult ... and at the same time... far more significant than I first surmised.

PETER: I am reminded of a conversation I had with an acquaintance recently. We were mutually chatting about what we are doing with our lives and I mentioned that I had abandoned the traditional supposed meanings of life and made being happy and harmless my goal. He said that that sounded like ‘a good philosophy’ and when I went on to attempt to point out that it was not a philosophy I held but that it was something I put into practice in each-and-every-moment, he again reiterated that it was ‘a good philosophy’ and the conversation soon ended.

RESPONDENT: I have made some progress in some areas ... (although as yet I have had no PCE during this period). The progress I have had is slow ... but fairly steady and undeniable. I will describe this progress in two areas: externally (sensory awareness of my outer environment) ... and internal (awareness and exploration into thoughts-feelings ... basically anything that seems to stand in the way of being happy and harmless right now):

PETER: Something Richard said that I found useful was to practice bringing my visual awareness to the very front of the eyeballs. I found this is the best ‘I’ can do to mimic ‘self’-less seeing – there is less of the feeling of ‘me’ looking through the eyes and more of the feeling of the eyes seeing. In this way you also avoid the risk of becoming ‘the observer’ watching ‘the observed’, but more closely mimic what you actually are – the universe sensately experiencing itself as a thinking and reflective corporeal human being.

Whilst sight tends to be the most dominant of the physical senses for most people, there is a wealth of sensate enjoyment to be had in the other senses. The business of sustaining oneself – eating food and drinking liquids – is a rich sensorial experience in itself as the tongue, in concert with the mouth and nose, is capable of detecting an extraordinary range of distinct tastes and flavours.

The physical world we humans live in is often replete with an extraordinary variety of sounds we hear set against the background of the ever-present stillness. As such, an increasing auditory awareness is accompanied by an increasing awareness of the vast milieu of stillness that exemplifies this physical universe.

The human body’s external skin is the largest of our sensorial receptors, capable of detecting a range of sensate experience, be it warmth or cold, hardness and softness, wetness or dryness, roughness or smoothness and so on. The human body also ‘swims’ in air rather as marine animals swim in water, which means that one’s skin is always receptive to the movement, temperature and humidity of the very air we breathe and move through. And with each breath we take, sensors in the nose are continuously monitoring the ingoing air for the smells, fragrances and odours given off by the physical objects around.

It does take stubborn intent and a good deal of effort to deliberately poke holes in the veil that ‘I’ as a psychological and psychic identity invariably impose over the actual world – to free one’s sensual awareness such that one can begin to experience that the actual world is indeed a pure and perfect bountiful paradise.

RESPONDENT: Internal: Much of my entire life has been spent internally ... not apparently by choice ... but almost as if being held prisoner to desires ... aversions ... aspirations ... regrets: An inner dream-like movie was always running ... and stopped only when someone or something outside was trying to get my attention. When actualism came along ... and I first began to consider to explore and investigate this inner world of beliefs, fears, etc. ... I couldn’t seem to ... because basically I didn’t want to: it seemed to be both too much work and way too scary.

PETER: Yep. It seemingly does take a certain amount of courage to drop old habits and start doing something new, although for me the way I put it was that ‘I had nothing left to lose’. And, as you seem to be indicating, once you make that decision, the fear of starting – or the fear of not having yet started – is then very rapidly replaced by the thrill of the doing of it.

RESPONDENT: Now ... it may appear that I am just building up my ego with all of this ... and it is possible ... I don’t know.

PETER: Whenever ‘I’ started to claim the glory – i.e. whenever I started to feel I was the Saviour of Mankind – I found that it was good to remember that the ability to think and reflect, to be aware, and to be aware of that awareness is, at core, a function of what I am – this flesh and blood body. By doing so, I avoided the spiritual path trap of feigning a ‘self’-effacing humility whilst sprouting ‘self’-aggrandizing nonsense.

Another approach I found useful was to regard the process of becoming happy and harmless as one of actively freeing the intelligence inherent in the physical brain in this physical body from the mind-numbing constraints of the socially-instilled moral and ethical programming and the debilitating effects of its genetically-encoded archaic-instinctual operating system.

In other words, I gave credit where the credit is due.

RESPONDENT: I just know that I am applying attentiveness more and more to everything ... and with a strong intent to discover more and more internally and externally ... esp. in areas that appear to prevent here and now happiness. I am also investigating intent born from a PCE ... a faint one recalled from childhood. I am using contemplation here to encourage ... even coax at times ... more vividness here. Any way ... that’s it for now. Anyone ... respond if you desire.

PETER: The harmless part of the intent to become happy and harmless ensures that one’s sincere intent becomes a genuine intent – i.e. it ensures that ‘I’ do not lust for fame and glory and seek power over others. One’s sincere intent to be happy and harmless is ultimately consolidated in a PCE where it is directly experienced that there is neither the need, nor the compulsive desire, to change the world as-it-is nor to change people as-they-are, for peace on earth always already exists here in the actual world of the senses. (Editor’s note: Pure intent is, of course, a manifest life-force; a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. See Library on Pure Intent)

Nice to chat again. I do appreciate your regular updates.

5.10.2003

PETER: In response to your ‘some insights’ post –

RESPONDENT: This may be somewhat of a ramble ... but I have found that expressing thoughts, as they come, may lead to insight and helpful feedback from others.

PETER: Yep. When I first came across Richard and his writings I had to learn how to think, and I kid you not. I learnt that the only way I could discover what were the facts of the matter was to persist in thinking in a linear way, as it were. Initially when thinking about a particular topic I would find that my thoughts would flitter all over the place or my mind would go into a blank or I would become aware that I was afraid to go further or that I would become weary or annoyed or angry or whatever. I eventually came to realize that emotional reactions were usually a sign that I had come across a belief that was standing in the way of me pushing on to be able to clearly see that facts of the matter at hand. Sometimes I found that I was maintaining a moral position, sometimes an ethical stance, sometimes a chauvinistic attitude, sometimes just being cynical. I came to reluctantly acknowledge that if ever I aspired to be totally free of malice and sorrow I had to become attentive to each and every aspect of my identity, no matter how ‘bad’ or how ‘good’, no matter how repulsive, no matter how captivating.

This process cannot be done intellectually or by sitting in the corner with your eyes closed, this process can only be done moment to moment in daily life in order that one is fully cognizant with all of the hows and whys of the programming that makes up one’s social and instinctual identity.

RESPONDENT: I have been reading some of Richard’s main articles this morning ... reading and rereading quite slowly. And as I was reading to reflect, contemplate ... but mostly to practically digest and apply, as best as I could, what was being said. I felt I was in the midst of quite a struggle ... and an image came to mind of hiking up a cinder cone laden with pumice: It took all of my energy, balance and focus to keep on track, upright ... trudging upward ... alternately gaining and losing ground. A real struggle ... no doubt about it.

PETER: I can relate to what you are saying. There is a definite physical aspect to the difficulties involved in being brought up to only think one thing and then to have to abandon that thinking, and that way of thinking, in order to be able to think something different in a completely new way. This physical difficulty has been documented by researchers and is been termed cognitive dissonance.

Whilst I relate to your struggles, my experience is that at some seminal stage I came to realize that it was ‘me’ who was causing the strife and maintaining the struggle by insisting on holding on to ‘my’ viewpoints, ‘my’ beliefs, ‘my’ morals, ‘my’ ethics, and so on. When I discovered this, I found it easier to abandon whole lumps of what were previously very precious and dear parts of my identity because I came to understand that holding on to them not only made me unhappy, but caused harm to others around me.

RESPONDENT: It occurred to me then that I have always avoided struggle ... looking for an easy way.

PETER: Me too. That’s why I abandoned materialism – I could never see any sense at all in wasting one’s life in a constant struggle for a never-ending pursuit of more and more material possessions, status, wealth and power. That’s why I opted out of the real-world struggle into spiritualism … only to discover that similar struggles permeate the spiritual world. The only thing that really got me off my bum was the challenge to be both happy and harmless and while it did take a bit of effort to get the process up and running it has been a grand adventure since then – simply the best.

RESPONDENT: Every now and then, I would apply attentiveness externally ... and look around the room ... this was helpful. After this session of reading and applying, I felt a little lighter and more aware ... better than before ... although I felt I could easily loose ground if I allowed determination and resolve to wane. It occurred to me finally that: Actually, it is impossible to genuinely live as a sensate human body if one is still identified as one of the millions of ordinary beings with human instincts and social values and psychological feelings. Just to contemplate the significance of this.

PETER: Indeed and it is not as though one can merely disidentify with the rest of humanity – which is the traditional chicanery of creating a seemingly new identity – one needs to cease being a social and instinctual identity altogether. A far bigger job.

RESPONDENT: It occurred to me also that reflection and contemplation are useless if engaged in without attentiveness.

PETER: Yep. The classic instance of this is the practice of sitting in the corner with your eyes closed. By deliberately withdrawing from the world as-it-is and people as they are, one can train oneself to completely cut off all sensory perception and all sorts of dreaming and imagining can result. I have had it that I have imagined myself to be bathed in white light, floating through ether, bathed in golden light, expanding into a void so that I became as big as the void, and so on.

It’s no wonder that for millennia humanity has been seduced to believing and feeling that the meaning of life is not to be found here, in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are.

RESPONDENT: One needs attentiveness as a feedback guide ... a rope or even signal ... at least I have found that true for me. Without attentiveness ... I feel awash ... and at the full mercy of endless, countless disorienting waves of feelings. With attentiveness ... I can examine these feelings in a backdrop of a physical environment. There is a certain anchoring that attentiveness provides.

PETER: It would appear that at some point at the beginning of actualism I abandoned the pursuit of a spiritual meaning of life and made a commitment to being here, in the physical world. Although I can’t remember a particular moment, I suspect with hindsight that it was when I took on the challenge of living with at least one other person in utter peace and harmony – it being the most down-to-earth challenge I could think of taking up at the time.

But whatever situation one finds oneself in, the total commitment to being happy and harmless, here in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, ensures that one’s attentiveness disempowers any sad or acrimonious feelings whilst simultaneously encouraging the felicitous feelings. When one is virtually free of any sad and acrimonious feelings one’s felicitous feelings produce a fascination with the very business of being here as a flesh and blood human body. This fascination then in turn leads to a sensuous awareness of the splendours of the happenings of this ongoing moment of the infinitude of this wondrous universe.

Speaking personally, I didn’t spend a great deal of time reading Richard’s Journal – the only writing available at the time. Once I got the gist of what he was talking about it was apparent that the only way I could find whether what he was saying was credible was to try the method he used to become free of the human condition to see if it worked. When I did, so much of what he was saying began to make sense to me solely because I was then able to understand experientially what he was saying about the nature of the human condition rather than struggle to understand it intellectually.

And just another comment on the topic of struggling. Since Richard has gone public with his discovery, I have had occasion to observe a number of people who have been interested in actualism but have struggled with the issue of totally committing themselves to becoming happy and harmless. Some have turned away at this stage, others have backed off to a safe distance whilst yet others continue to vacillate and therefore struggle with the issue.

I do realize that making a total commitment to becoming happy and harmless is a daunting challenge. I remember it being like looking into a dark tunnel that I knew if I entered would literally be the end of ‘me’. The tunnel metaphorically represented the entrance to the path that Humanity has deemed ‘not to be travelled under any circumstances’ but I found I had no choice but to do so because I had nothing left to lose but more of the same … and I had tried the same and it ain’t fun.

What I did find, however, was that once I decided to let go of the past, I never looked back for I was from then on fully immersed in being attentive to the business of being here, and that, as you appear to be discovering, is a full-time obsession for an actualist. Fully committing oneself to any challenge is an all-consuming passion and there is no more altruistic a challenge than ridding oneself of malice and sorrow.

14.10.2003

PETER: Hi No 52 & No 47,

RESPONDENT: Four years ago my daughter died. She was 26 yo. She died from suicide, having stood bravely in front of a speeding Amtrack train in a suburb of Fresno, CA. She was identified by a single rose tattoo on her hip ... which she acquired in Georgia only a few months before. This event was preceded by a year or so of increasing depression and two unsuccessful overdoses. She was a beautiful young lady ... and before this year so filled with talent, ambition ... and an outward zest for life. Deep down inside, all of us knew it was coming ... all of us: her mother (my ex wife), her brothers, sisters, other relatives and some few friends. But in the end, we were all helpless to stop this train. The shock of her passing was so strong ... I could barely hold on.

RESPONDENT No 47: I decided to comment on your post because I saw many similarities between your daughter and myself some years back. Although I was fortunately unsuccessful in my attempt to take my own life away, I still remember what I went through and so do my parents. However, as I never finished, or was never finished by, the last step … my parents never knew the likes of your grief. But I have seen enough to wish it upon no one.

I also sincerely wish your daughter had not had to go through with it, and I also wish you had never felt the resulting pain because of it, and that is why I commit myself entirely to the purpose of doing something about it.

PETER: A comment that Richard made recently when asked about his use of the words malice and sorrow in describing the human condition seems pertinent to the discussion –

Richard: ‘Basically, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself ... as a broad generalisation’. Richard, Abditorium, Malice

Malice readily comes to most people’s minds as being a salient aspect of the human condition – in the last one hundred years an estimated 160,000,000 human beings were killed by other human beings in wars alone – but we tend not to be so attentive of the central role that sorrow plays. Maybe this is because we are not so cognizant that an estimated 40,000,000 human beings also killed themselves in suicides last century.

And all of this mayhem and misery is the direct result of the blind and brutal instinctual passions that human beings insist are essential if human beings are to remain being human beings. T’is enough to make you want to abandon ship but in order to do so you may well find that the strongest emotional tether to break is that of sorrow.

I don’t want to pre-empt your own experiential observations about the sorrowful feelings but in my own investigations I discovered that feelings of malice is more readily discernible than feelings of sorrow. Speaking metaphorically – malice can be experienced as being peaks or flare-ups of emotion, sadness can be experienced as valleys or troughs of emotion, whereas in general the constant plain or milieu of human feelings is one of seriousness and sullenness. The other observation I have made is that sorrow in the form of the feeling of compassion – the compulsion to participate in another’s suffering – is the essential emotion that binds Humanity together, and hence binds ‘me’ to Humanity. Which is why I described sorrow as being a strongest emotional tether to break free of.

18.10.2003

PETER: I don’t want to pre-empt your own experiential observations about the sorrowful feelings but in my own investigations I discovered that feelings of malice is more readily discernible than feelings of sorrow. Speaking metaphorically – malice can be experienced as being peaks or flare-ups of emotion, sadness can be experienced as valleys or troughs of emotion, whereas in general the constant plain or milieu of human feelings is one of seriousness and sullenness. The other observation I have made is that sorrow in the form of the feeling of compassion – the compulsion to participate in another’s suffering – is the essential emotion that binds Humanity together, and hence binds ‘me’ to Humanity. Which is why I described sorrow as being a strongest emotional tether to break free of.

RESPONDENT: Thank you for your response. After some reflection, it appears that I am still participating in the feelings of compassion ... not as strongly as before ... but it is lingering around from time to time. I like your definition: ‘the compulsion to participate in another’s suffering’.

PETER: The deep feelings that come from being an instinctual being are not likely to disappear overnight as they are the very core of ‘me’. The reason I used the word compulsion was to emphasize the instinctual nature of grief, sorrow and compassion. Because these feelings are ‘me’ and ‘I’ am these feelings, the best ‘I’ can do is to be attentive of these feelings whenever and wherever they kick in, name them, observe them in action, feel what they feel like and, as soon as possible, get back to feeling good about being here. This way you disempower the sorrowful feelings before they set in and totally whisk you away from the sensual enjoyment of being here.

RESPONDENT: Now, if compassion were in some way genuinely useful ... if it actually worked in freeing one from insidious feelings that were either destructive to others or oneself, then at least compassion would have some positive purpose or value.

PETER: What really got me wanting to do something about my sadness and melancholy was a sincere consideration for other people – particularly those closest to me. When I started to become aware of my sad feelings, I also started to become aware of how my feelings affected other people – and feelings of sorrow have a way of spreading from person to person rather like a dark cloud of malaise. The curious thing is that when I started to be attentive to my own feelings of sorrow and thereby gradually stopped being a contributor to this cloud of malaise, I was also less and less affected by the sad feelings emanating from others.

RESPONDENT: I do conclude that when I moved into compassion from compassionless states ... I felt more connected with myself and others ... more in touch with feelings ... as opposed to not feeling or just feeling fear all of the time. Being compassionate, I felt myself to be coming from and living from my own heart. I was tapping into ‘love’ that I could finally experience for myself and share with others. I covertly set myself up as a ‘better’ person ... able to discern the difference between compassionate people and their actions and uncompassionate people and their actions.

PETER: Yes. The more you start to become attentive to how your own psyche operates, the more you allow yourself to feel the quality of feelings, the more you come to experientially understand the human condition – how feelings of sadness and grief have a bitter-sweet self-indulgent flavour, how feelings of compassion and pity have a cop-out element to them, how feelings of love and compassion for others are inextricably entwined with feelings of superiority and dependency, how the so-called bad feelings are debilitating and the so-called good feelings are aggrandizing, and so on. And the more you experientially understand the human condition the more you come to understand that there is no one to blame – the whole notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is but a human invention that has no existence outside of the heads and hearts of human beings.

RESPONDENT: I do not actively do this any longer. I take this back! I do from time to time. Now, with actualism, compassion is up for grabs and may be more closely examined. If I throw out compassion, will I revert to the carefully guarded, encapsulated person I used to be. Will I loose my warmth and become cold? I’m not sure how to proceed with this. Yet, I will examine it.

PETER: Only you can dare to question the tried and true ways of humanity, only you can dare to take the necessary practical steps that are necessary if you want to be actually free of the human condition of malice and sorrow. I always said I went a fair way in questioning the tried and true ways of humanity before I met Richard and was emboldened by his success in becoming free of the human condition to keep going all the way. Those of us who follow Richard’s precedent have it much easier because there is now a path to follow but the wonderful thing is that you get to walk the path by yourself, for yourself and in doing so you prove by your actions that you genuinely care about actually facilitating peace on earth.

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