RESPONDENT: Perhaps I might spread my load a little and direct a few questions to the virtually free, to Peter and Vineeto:

Is there a difference between the benevolence of the universe and the universe actively conspiring to give me things I want to be happy? I want a good job, a good woman and a good house.

PETER: Speaking personally, I discovered in my own experience as well as by observing others that ‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness. This is how I described this ‘something missing’ stage of my life in my journal –

[Peter]: ‘After leaving university I galloped full on into marriage, as it seemed the only safe way to have a sex partner, and besides, we were in love. Several years later my wife announced she was pregnant, and within a few years here I was, a husband and a father with two kids. We were in England at the time and I wanted to change jobs and, as we had young kids, we decided to return home to give them a bit of space to grow up in. We bought a Land Rover, filled the roof rack with disposable nappies and headed off across Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, India and on. It was the sort of adventure that I liked to do when I was younger – to see the world, different cultures, different places and different people. When we completed our journey we settled down, I got a job, and eventually the two kids were in school. But ... and this ‘but’ was that I was not happy and nor was my wife. There was something missing – intangible, unknown, unspoken, but definitely missing…! <snipped for length>

Still, I made the best of life as it was and fulfilled my role as father, husband, provider and protector with a sufficient level of competency. I was in one of my ‘comfortably numb’ periods despite a nagging feeling of ‘is this all there is to life?’ Often I would think of my father’s only words of advice to me, ‘…it doesn’t matter what you do in life – be happy’. I was not, really, but then again, I saw nobody doing any better, so I figured this must be how it is. As good as it gets…?’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Living Together’

RESPONDENT: Is there any intelligence in the universe giving or withholding those pleasures?

PETER: This is what I said about this subject in the ‘Introduction to Actual Freedom’ –

Peter: Human intelligence – the ability to think, plan, reflect and communicate, has resulted in the astounding development of the human species, from a grim and deadly fight for the survival of the species to one of increasing safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure.

Paradise on earth – This last century, in particular, has seen astounding advances made in agriculture, manufacturing, health, life expectancy, wealth, transport, information processing, instant and world-wide communications, social services and education. An increasing proportion of the human population is enjoying comfort, safety, leisure and pleasure the likes of which has never, ever, existed before.

Yet, despite the amazing technological advancements and organizational development of the human species on this planet, the Human Condition is still epitomized by two major factors … The next significant and timely challenge facing the human species is to bring an end to human violence and suffering. As with every discovery that has advanced the human species, this necessitates pioneering individuals to prove that it is possible to become actually free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. Introduction, Human Beings

RESPONDENT: Are my desires spurious?

PETER: Speaking personally, the only desire that I found not to be spurious at root was the desire to become free of the human condition – simply because it makes the most sense.

RESPONDENT: Can I be exactly as happy in poor job, relationship and house as in good ones?

PETER: It would obviously depend upon whether you are seeking an unconditional happiness or whether you are going to make your being happy dependant upon circumstances over which you ultimately have no control – as in any job can turn ‘bad’, any relationship can end and any house can be destroyed – or whether you set your sights higher than that.

RESPONDENT: Seems to me to be unlikely (as repetitive pointless tasks, carping hidebound women and dark uncomfortable housing are not ‘good’ for me).

PETER: Indeed it makes sense to arrange one’s life as best as one is able to … but to seek fulfilment, not to mention the meaning of life, in the fickle world of materialistic pursuits does seem somewhat bourgeois.

RESPONDENT: Is my idea of ‘good’ innately defective while I live an un-PCE life?

A little reflection reveals that any notion of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is as innately defective as any notion of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – in short, it is a recipe for living a life of continual frustration.

RESPONDENT: Do you have any tips on how to locate a PCE other than those on the website? I am attentive to my fingers now on the keypad and have been ‘what am I’ attentive to much of my life; is there some kind of subtle error I am making that is not definitely revealing a PCE?

PETER: I can only recommend doing what worked for me – getting rid of any impediments that stand in the way of the direct sensual experience of the peerless perfection that this physical universe actually is.

As a suggestion, and it is only a suggestion, the best place to start may well be with a single issue that you personally feel is currently the most important issue for you to get to the bottom of in order that you can break through, as it were, to being able to have such an experience happen right now. And only you will know, and can know, what the particular issue it is that you want to be able to make sense of in order to be finally actually free from it.

28.7.2005

RESPONDENT: Perhaps I might spread my load a little and direct a few questions to the virtually free, to Peter and Vineeto:

Is there a difference between the benevolence of the universe and the universe actively conspiring to give me things I want to be happy? I want a good job, a good woman and a good house.

PETER: Speaking personally, I discovered in my own experience as well as by observing others that ‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness. <snipped>

RESPONDENT: Lordy no. <snipped>

PETER: If you have already understood this in your own experience, then why bother to ask me a question about the universe actively conspiring to give you these things you said you want in order to be happy?

4.8.2005

RESPONDENT: Perhaps I might spread my load a little and direct a few questions to the virtually free, to Peter and Vineeto:

Is there a difference between the benevolence of the universe and the universe actively conspiring to give me things I want to be happy? I want a good job, a good woman and a good house.

PETER: Speaking personally, I discovered in my own experience as well as by observing others that ‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness. <snipped>

RESPONDENT: Lordy no. <snipped>

PETER: If you have already understood this in your own experience, then why bother to ask me a question about the universe actively conspiring to give you these things you said you want in order to be happy?

RESPONDENT: Because although they don’t guarantee happiness they do seem to bring it in some sense, and, perhaps more the point, when these things are not there, it does seem to be painful.

PETER: If I can just backtrack a bit, you may have noticed I snipped quite a lot out of the previous post – a good deal of supplementary information I supplied in order to flesh out my response as well as whole raft of supplementary questions that you asked, all of which moved the conversation further and further away from the topic at hand. The reason I did this was to avoid having a conversation that was so wide-ranging and meandering as to be meaningless and to attempt to focus in on one issue only, in this case that ‘‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness’.

In my many conversations with Richard over the years I have learnt the art of thinking in a linear manner – examining and investigating one particular matter by sticking with the issue, no matter how uncomfortable or confrontational – in order to get to the bottom of the issue. To put it quite simply and succinctly, I wanted to get to understand the fact of the matter under investigation – to get a factual answer to my question – such that I could then be confident in once and for all dismissing all of the beliefs that normally relate to this particular matter. This simple act of thoroughly investigating, understanding and unreservedly acknowledging the facts of the matter then enabled me to act upon the fact and not remain suckered into believing what others believed, or would have me believe was the truth about the particular issue.

It does seem somewhat odd to me to have to point out the value of finding out the facts of the matter and acting upon the fact of the matter given that this type of straightforward down-to-earth thinking is often used by people in practical pragmatic problem solving. But I do acknowledge that it is difficult to apply such thinking in investigating the human condition in action – in particular with such close to the bone issues as the societal and instinctual causes of malice and sorrow – because not only is there are plethora of beliefs disguised as truths and wisdom that need to be investigated and thought about in order to get the facts of the matter but one also discovers experientially that the human psyche itself has innate resistance to being exposed. The latter is no doubt the reason why so many people are so adverse to using the actualism method of moment-to-moment ‘self’-investigation – indeed the very act of conducting such an investigation into one’s own psyche in action means the investigation is an experiential hands-on investigation rather than the dissociated intellectual-only analysis that has thus far masqueraded as investigating the human condition.

I don’t know if what I am saying makes sense to you or not but I can only suggest as someone who is experienced in these matters that it may be worthwhile contemplating upon because it is central to your being able to gain something meaningful for yourself from the contributions of others on this mailing list. After all you did ask me a question (presumably because you were interested in my answer) and as such would it not be sensible to pause at least for a moment to consider the answer you got before summarily dismissing it by immediately launching into objections, diversions and a long list of further questions.

Having said that I’ll now get back to the topic at hand – your yes-but acknowledgement of the fact that ‘‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness’.

This was something I personally discovered to be a fact in my twenties, not only from my own personal experience but also from close association with people who were above my rank on the materialist ladder of success as well as from copious anecdotal evidence that even those who are at the top rungs of the ladder – the much-envied rich and famous – invariably suffer from bouts of sadness, melancholy, anxiety, insecurity and the like. This combination of my own experience and the understanding that the experience was universal as in common-to-all with no exceptions meant that I never went down the path of materialism in the belief that it could, despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, be the means to happiness.

Clearly seeing and acknowledging the fact of this particular matter, fully taking it on board with no ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ or ‘maybes’, combined with an innate sincerity I seem to have had at the time, meant that I didn’t waste my time in a fruitless search for happiness in the fickle and fierce world of materialistic pursuits. Clearly seeing and acknowledging the fact of the matter meant that I was compelled to act on the fact rather than take it on board as a feeling–only agreement (a moral stance) or as an intellectual-only understanding (an ideal or an ethic) – which would have only meant merely continuing to be a combatant in the materialist rat-race whilst feeling guilty about it or sprouting the ethics of equity all the while frantically squirreling away as many nuts as I could lest others get more than me.

So – in the interest of at least finding some common ground for continuing this discussion– I ask you, do you agree with the statement I made that ‘‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness’? In other words, do you agree that it is a fact … or do you not agree that it is a fact as your yes-but, yes-maybe qualifications and your yes-but-what if, yes-but-what-about questions appear to indicate?

6.8.2005

RESPONDENT: Perhaps I might spread my load a little and direct a few questions to the virtually free, to Peter and Vineeto:

PETER: Speaking personally, I discovered in my own experience as well as by observing others that ‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness. <snipped>

RESPONDENT: Lordy no. <snipped>

PETER: If you have already understood this in your own experience, then why bother to ask me a question about the universe actively conspiring to give you these things you said you want in order to be happy?

RESPONDENT: Because although they don’t guarantee happiness they do seem to bring it in some sense, and, perhaps more the point, when these things are not there, it does seem to be painful.

PETER: If I can just backtrack a bit, you may have noticed I snipped quite a lot out of the previous post – a good deal of supplementary information I supplied in order to flesh out my response as well as whole raft of supplementary questions that you asked, all of which moved the conversation further and further away from the topic at hand. The reason I did this was to avoid having a conversation that was so wide-ranging and meandering as to be meaningless and to attempt to focus in on one issue only, in this case that ‘‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness’. (...)

So – in the interest of at least finding some common ground for continuing this discussion– I ask you, do you agree with the statement I made that ‘‘a good job, a good woman and a good house’ are in no way a guarantee of happiness’? In other words, do you agree that it is a fact … or do you not agree that it is a fact as your yes-but, yes-maybe qualifications and your yes-but-what if, yes-but-what-about questions appear to indicate?

RESPONDENT: I agree that a good job, a good woman and a good house are in no way a guarantee of happiness. I agree with everything you say about those things.

PETER: Okay. Given your agreement that it is a fact, I also take it that you know this to be so from your own experience.

This is vitally important as it makes no sense to simply agree with what someone else says – one needs the confidence of lived everyday experience that it is a fact to garner sufficient confidence to act on the fact of the matter. In this case, I suggest the appropriate action would be to abandon the pursuit of happiness conditional upon materialistic pursuits and values.

RESPONDENT: However bad jobs, bad women and bad houses make me suffer.

PETER: Then it would obviously make sense to find a good job, a good woman and a good house all the while being fully cognizant of the fact that a good job, a good woman and a good house are in no way a guarantee of happiness. This way you can focus on a happiness that has no price to it – an unconditional happiness that is not dependant on the vagaries of circumstance and the fickleness of others.

RESPONDENT: Physical, mental and emotional discomfort make me suffer. This is indeed a yes-but qualification, but it is the truth for me and it would seem for many people.

PETER: Indeed you are by no means alone in your suffering.

What always interested me was why – despite the fact that by far the majority of people in the world have a level of physical safety and comfort and have a level of leisure and pleasure that has never ever been before – is mental and emotional suffering endemic to the human condition, so much so that the only panacea available was to follow the eons-old spiritual path of  dissociation from, and  'transcendence' of, this physical world we flesh and blood human animals actually live in.

Do you not find this perverse?

RESPONDENT: A nice coat when it is cold is not a guarantee of happiness. BUT no shirt at all is usually a guarantee of discomfort. I refer you to my questions about headaches.

PETER: Are you saying that you really have to go shirtless in cold weather … or are you merely proffering a hypothetical argumentation designed to shift the conversation sideways?

In short, are you now adding having a shirt in winter to your list of things that you want in order to be happy? I don’t know where you live but in the town I live in there are both governmental agencies and non-governmental agencies whose job it is to make available money, clothing and shelter to those who for whatever reason cannot or do not provide these things for themselves.

I remember in my late twenties being interested in homeless and companionless old men who would spend their days doing nothing but sitting on park benches, and wondered whether I could be happy in such circumstances. The answer nowadays is ‘yes, of course’ – whether I would prefer to compared to my current circumstances is another matter altogether.

To get back to the central point of this discussion, and given your acknowledgement that ‘a good job, a good woman and a good house are in no way a guarantee of happiness’, would you now agree that unless you are looking for an unconditional happiness then your search for happiness will be ultimately doomed to failure?

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