RESPONDENT: Anyway, you can assert all you want, the plain fact is, you’re saying nothing different from what Zen, Dzogchen, Advaita and several other systems, Eastern AND Western, say. I wouldn’t say your message is exactly common as muck, it’s quite rare, but not all that rare, and certainly not unique as you claim. I guess the sort of ‘Ayn Rand on acid’ aspect of what you’re saying is slightly unusual, but even then, the combination of pure objectivism and materialism with mysticism isn’t all that unknown. With genuine enlightenment comes an understanding that both ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ are sort of hokey, and the truth is quite at right angles to either, so either can be used quite comfortably by the experienced mystic. So, the fact that you claim your schtick is unique, what can that mean? Giving you the most benefit of the doubt, it seems to mean that you’re not very well read in this business. Perhaps you immersed yourself for a long time in some obscure, out-of-the-way system that doesn’t interact much with others, and doesn’t recommend much triangulation or ‘cross-training’ (so to speak). I guess living in Australia, that’s possible :-) Either that, or (less charitably) for some reason you haven’t recognised what you’ve read, and you think this thing you’ve stumbled on is something different from what you’ve read about. (That’s possible – it’s not always easy, because of the fact that much of this stuff is not in English, for English speakers to understand what the ‘Sages’ were on about – especially when you take into account translations by mystically inexperienced Westerners with ‘West Bad/East Good’ axes to grind.)

Or perhaps (and now we’re getting down and dirty) you’re just a not-very-clever con artist? (What could you get out of it? Well, what do males who play the enlightenment game get out of it? Chicks, and a living, I suppose – but mainly adulation. Adulation. Adulation.) Or perhaps (perish the thought!) it’s something different: perhaps you’ve fallen into what the Tibetan Tantrists call ‘vajra hell’: your ego has subtly inflated itself to the point where you think you’re some kind of Saviour or Redeemer. You’ve come here to save poor little Us, have you? Come to show Us the Way? Is that it? Which is it ‘Richard’? It’s certainly not what you claim it is, because, as I’ve said, what you’re talking about is not unique at all. No system of any note or repute that I’m aware of (certainly not ‘biggies’ like Zen, Advaita or Dzogchen) view ASCs as Enlightenment. They all say ASCs are a blind alley. They all say ordinary, fresh perception, but without any self-sense present, is the genuine Enlightenment, and that the only ‘training’ required is getting used to THAT. The very essence of the Buddha’s enlightenment was that too. Buddha = Awake. Awake to what? What else is there to be awake to? Great, grand symphonies of unusual and wonderful experiences, cultivated through odd practices? Well, possibly – that fellow Gotama certainly tried all that stuff: but what happens when you stop cultivating such experiences? What’s still there, all along? What do you think ‘Middle Way’ means? So what’s it to be? Who is this ‘Richard’? Not very widely read? Not linking what he’s read with what he’s experienced very well? Vanilla con artist? ‘Saviour’? It’s got to be one of these, or something like one of these, because (for the last time) the notion that what this ‘Richard’ character is offering (however true and worthy it may be) is unique is ... well, not to put too fine a point on it, laughable.

PETER: Your post is an excellent example of why the revered wisdom of Eastern spirituality has had its day.

The clamouring for the moral high-ground has indeed become frenetic as each new pundit on the block not only routinely bites the tails of others but feigns to bite their own tail in some sort of ritual public display of male, or female, superiority. If you had cared to skim through the correspondence on the website you would have seen that we have had a good many such types who have regularly paraded through this list, offering nothing but vacuous objections. None have had anything original to say because all of them desperately cling to the narcissistic feelings that come from over-immersion in spiritual beliefs and none have stayed because in the end they have nothing at all to say about peace on earth.

As we say in Australia, come in spinner.

23.10.2003

RESPONDENT: Anyway, you can assert all you want, the plain fact is, you’re saying nothing different from what Zen, Dzogchen, Advaita and several other systems, Eastern AND Western, say. I wouldn’t say your message is exactly common as muck, it’s quite rare, but not all that rare, and certainly not unique as you claim.

I guess the sort of ‘Ayn Rand on acid’ aspect of what you’re saying is slightly unusual, but even then, the combination of pure objectivism and materialism with mysticism isn’t all that unknown. With genuine enlightenment comes an understanding that both ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ are sort of hokey, and the truth is quite at right angles to either, so either can be used quite comfortably by the experienced mystic. So, the fact that you claim your schtick is unique, what can that mean? <snip>

So what’s it to be? Who is this ‘Richard’? Not very widely read? Not linking what he’s read with what he’s experienced very well? Vanilla con artist? ‘Saviour’? It’s got to be one of these, or something like one of these, because (for the last time) the notion that what this ‘Richard’ character is offering (however true and worthy it may be) is unique is ... well, not to put too fine a point on it, laughable. Respondent to Richard 17.10.2003

PETER: Your post is an excellent example of why the revered wisdom of Eastern spirituality has had its day.

RESPONDENT: I don’t think you even understand the first thing about Eastern spirituality. Nor Western, come to think of it.

I was never much interested in the philosophy of either Eastern spirituality nor Western mysticism for that matter – being a practical person, I was more interested in finding out how Eastern spirituality worked in practice, i.e. in garnering an experiential understanding.

When I got the spiritual ‘bug’, I turned my back on the materialist world, abandoned my worldly goods, literally wore the orange robes and lived full-time in several spiritual communes – which is to say I lived the spiritual life fully for a period of 17 years. I sat at the feet of arguably one of last century’s most influential Enlightened Masters for a good many years and was eventually able to get to see first-hand the behind-the-stage goings-on of his rise and eventual demise. I then sat at the feet of another, lesser-known Enlightened Master for several years and had yet another opportunity to experience first-hand the behind-the-stage shenanigans … and I was about to join yet another commune of a New-Age Guru when I finally came to experientially understand that the whole of the famed Eastern Spirituality was nought but ‘Olde Time Religion’.

Nowhere did I experience the peace and harmony within the communes that I expected would be the result of devotees who passionately believed ‘We Are All One’ or ‘We Are All That’ or ‘We Are All One Consciousness’ et al.

At present I live in a town that is a Mecca for spiritualists of all ilks and again no-where do I see anything that remotely resembles peace and harmony within the spiritual communities, let alone between the various spiritual communities. Not only that, the spiritualists hold themselves aloof from the rest of the community in which they live by clinging to a spurious moral high-ground based solely on the belief that their particular beliefs are superior to the spiritual/religious beliefs of others. And from this righteous lofty perch they look down on the unwashed, the unaware and the unawakened on whom they lay the blame for the all of the ills of mankind – all the while in denial of the part that they themselves are playing in sustaining the fictitious, but played-out-as-if-it-was-real, battle between Good and Evil, the mythical battle that is the very crutch upon which of all spiritual and religious beliefs are founded.

In other words, spiritualists are busily attempting to rise to the top of a heap which has no existence outside of human imagination – both the heap and the top.

Maybe by now you are getting the gist of why I was attracted to becoming actually free of not only the instinctually-fuelled battle of materialism but also of the instinctually-fuelled fantasies of spirituality as well. Contrary to your assertion that I ‘don’t understand the first thing about Eastern spirituality’, it was because I lived Eastern spirituality for 17 years and found it wanting that I was attracted to something that clearly delivers what spiritualism professes to offer but always fails to deliver – the day-to-day, moment-to-moment inherent peacefulness and perfection of the actuality of this, the only universe there is.

*

PETER: The clamouring for the moral high-ground has indeed become frenetic as each new pundit on the block not only routinely bites the tails of others but feigns to bite their own tail in some sort of ritual public display of male, or female, superiority. If you had cared to skim through the correspondence on the website you would have seen that we have had a good many such types who have regularly paraded through this list, offering nothing but vacuous objections. None have had anything original to say because all of them desperately cling to the narcissistic feelings that come from over-immersion in spiritual beliefs and none have stayed because in the end they have nothing at all to say about peace on earth.

RESPONDENT: What about the narcissistic feelings that come from over-immersion in something that claims to be new and exciting?

PETER: Narcissistic feelings are part and parcel of the feelings that come from being an instinctually-driven being and they are definitely one of the things that an actualist has to look out for on the way to becoming happy and harmless. I have written about encountering such feelings in the journal I wrote about my early experiences as an actualist, and whilst you are clearly scornful not only of actualism but of those who write about their experiences of becoming free of malice and sorrow, it might be of interest to others on the list to post it here –

[Peter]: ... ‘About this time I started to come to grips with an undercurrent of feelings that had been welling up in me as I got further along this path to freedom. As I began to increasingly understand the full extent of what Richard had discovered, I had begun quite cunningly to plot my role in the Movement that would sweep the world. Images of money and fame began to subtly occur – and sometimes not so subtly. I would see myself travelling and talking to halls full of people, spreading the message! Yes, it was good old power and authority again – the attraction of the Glamour, Glory and Glitz. No wonder the Enlightened Ones are seduced and then trapped by it! It seemed to me an instinctual grab for power by my psyche, which rightly felt threatened with elimination. I also had to admit to myself that power and authority was a definite attraction in my desire for Enlightenment – a sort of spiritual version of ‘Money for nothing and your chicks for free’.

It was further brought home to me in my situation with Vineeto, as I would try to tell her where she was wrong and ram it down her throat. Finally I saw that it was up to her to do what she wanted to do with her life, and that I had no power over her. Now I would not want it any other way; it would not be perfect otherwise. A similar thing happened with friends when I tried to inspire them; they usually felt attacked and no wonder – this path is anathema to the ‘self’. To see power and authority in myself and to have seen them in the Enlightened Ones was to prove the critical point in the process of eliminating them in me.’ Peter’s Journal, God

RESPONDENT: You could consider the possibility that part of the reason why you get so many objections is because people see in your position nothing but another vacuous attempt at ‘originality’.

PETER: Before I met Richard I was told by a friend that he a spiritual teacher so I was more than a bit sceptical about anything of consequence coming from meeting him because I had had my fill of the aloofness of spiritual teachers and, not only that, I was even beginning to doubt the spiritual teachings themselves. Again I have written about my first meeting Richard in my Journal and I’ll post it because it points to some of the things that initially attracted me to actualism – the things that stood out as being original and unique, as in never talked about in any of the spiritual teachings nor in any the various fields of consciousness studies.

[Peter]: ‘It started off as a slightly awkward social evening but as it continued it proved to be profound for me. I do not remember a great deal of the post-dinner conversation, but a few things stick in my memory.

‘Everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong,’ Richard said at one stage. I was starting to have some doubts about Enlightenment, and that ‘crack in the door’ was enough for me to reply, ‘Really? – I’ll think about that for a bit’.

‘The only danger is you might become Enlightened,’ said Richard about the experimental method he had devised to eliminate the identity in toto – that psychological and psychic entity that is the root of sorrow and malice and that dwells within all human beings.

‘It is possible for a man and a woman to live together, twenty-four hours a day, in utter peace, harmony and equity, totally enjoying each other’s company, and the sex is great,’ said Devika. Now I was really interested!

‘I was Enlightened for eleven years before I managed to break free from the delusion that I was God’, said Richard. My brain went into gridlock, but this sounded like an interesting path to investigate, particularly considering what Devika had said about man and woman living together. Little did I know that the first statement was to lead to nearly a year of examining almost every belief I had taken on as to what it is to be a human being on this planet, and to reject every one of them as silly! And little did I know that I was soon to prove Devika’s statement as a fact in my life.

And needless to say, I have managed to avoid becoming Enlightened, or indeed any form of Guru-ship.’ Peter’s Journal, Foreword

RESPONDENT: So what are you then, ‘Peter’, a recovering Randroid?

PETER: I remember having read an Ayn Rand book once but I can’t remember any of it so I was obviously unimpressed by her philosophy. I would not describe myself as widely-read at all and I’ve certainly never been interested in, nor been at all impressed by philosophy. I tend to be a practical person – whenever I come across someone spruiking an idea, a principle, an opinion, or a belief about something, I am wont to ask ‘Yeah, but does that work in practice, i.e. is it a fact … or is it just an idea, a principle, an opinion, or a belief.’ If it is the latter, then I just let it pass on by.

But there was an irresistible lure to Richard’s report of his discovery that I could not just pass on … an actual freedom from the human condition, being brand new to human history, called out to be road-tested. An end to all of the malice and all of the sorrow that afflicts human beings proved too big a lure.

*

PETER: None have had anything original to say because all of them desperately cling to the narcissistic feelings that come from over-immersion in spiritual beliefs and none have stayed because in the end they have nothing at all to say about peace on earth.

RESPONDENT: ‘Peace on earth’ is just about the one thing every asshole has an opinion about. Haven’t you noticed?

PETER: Yes, I have noticed that every one of my fellow human beings I have met has an opinion about peace on earth when the subject arises. And not only does everyone have an opinion about peace on earth but everyone I have met has an opinion as to whose fault it is that there is no peace on earth … and many are quite acrimonious towards those whose fault they think it is. Some mention that they pray to their God to bring peace on earth, many are quite despairing about the possibility of there ever being peace on earth, whilst still others tell me that they ‘accept’ that human beings are the way they are, because this is the way they have always been, which means that this is the way they always will be.

I for one couldn’t accept any of these opinions because I refused to believe the mother-of-all cynical beliefs, ‘You can’t change human nature’ – that’s why I became an actualist.

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