PETER: Hi Gary,

Given this thread has started to produce long posts, I’ll take the opportunity of culling a good deal out –

GARY: Nowadays while there is occasionally that cognisance of an emotional void needing filling or feelings of boredom, I recognize these as opportunities to delve into in order to pump as much information as I can about ‘me’, rather than as negative emotional states that I either need to flee from or seek the emotional solace of others in order to soothe. What happens is that in fairly short order, the feelings dissipate and I can return to the fascinating business of being here: a really outstanding, second-to-none happening.

PETER: I was thinking the other day about the difference between the words awareness and attentiveness. If we look at the dictionary definitions –

• Awareness – 1 Vigilant, cautious, on one’s guard. 2 Conscious, sensible, not ignorant, having knowledge
• Attentive – Steadily applying one’s mind or energies; intent, heedful. Oxford Dictionary

– it becomes apparent that awareness and attentiveness have different qualities and can even mean totally different things in certain circumstances. If we take the first definition of awareness, it generally alludes to a ‘me’ being aware whilst the second definition of awareness can be taken to be a knowledgeable form of consciousness such as the Divine awareness claimed by spiritual aficionados. Thus, in common usage of the word awareness, everyday awareness is always ‘me’ being aware and spiritual awareness is always ‘me’ feeling superior. In actualism the process is to incrementally remove the ‘me’ out of awareness such that a bare and ‘self’-less awareness can increasingly operate.

The word attentiveness, however, has less of the ‘self’-centred implications of the word awareness and the dictionary definition includes both thoughtfulness and intent – two attributes vital to an actualist. No doubt this distinction between the meanings of the words awareness and attentiveness is why Richard uses the word attentiveness and not awareness when he describes the method of actualism.

But to get back to your personal observation, an actualist has times of feeling excellent when the normal debilitating human feelings are in abeyance and one is in a state of an on-going attentiveness that incrementally reveals more and more of the sensual delight and perfection of this material universe we flesh and blood bodies actually live in.

GARY: I don’t know if I had ever mentioned it or not, but at an earlier time I was interested in investigating why I so often had the ‘Monday morning blues’, you know, that feeling of let-down after the weekend is over and its’ time to get cracking again. I often found myself experiencing a kind of acute anxiety on Monday mornings, in particular, as I dreadfully hashed out in my mind how terrible the day was going to be and how much I would have to get done. I found my partner also doing this too and resentfully sighing that she did not want to go to work, wanted to stay home, and such like comments. This led me to investigate the combination of feelings and emotions that are involved in these Monday morning experiences. From what I could observe from listening in on and talking to other people, particularly co-workers, it seemed that these feelings were well nigh universal, just that some people were more vocal in their sighing and complaints than others. Rather than accept ‘the way it’s supposed to be for everyone’ on Monday mornings, I set about eliminating this constellation of feeling and belief from my life.

PETER: Essentially, the resentment at having to work for money can be sheeted home to a resentment of having to be here on this planet. But overlaid over this fundamental resentment, there are also layers of resentment that result from the social conditioning all human beings are invariably subjected to. I can remember when I finally left school and entered the work force, I was shocked at the thought that this was ‘it’ – working 5 days a week with only weekends off and a few weeks break each year for the rest of my life. I also quickly saw that the workforce is not called the rat-race for nothing as it was fiercely competitive at the top, a bun-fight in the middle and a miserable business at the bottom.

The only two alternatives so far have been to stoically join in the battle or resent and rile against the necessity of having to work to survive. However, if one cares to investigate the nature of one’s resentments and frustrations it becomes apparent that almost all of it is due to a common-to-all social conditioning – in the form of morals, ethics, beliefs and psittacisms – about the actual nature of trading one’s time to someone in return for money.

As you start to notice, understand and strip away this social conditioning what also becomes apparent is that the unquenchable desire for more and more money and goods is but the desire to have one’s efforts rewarded for having to do battle in the workforce. The more passion, time and effort expended in this battlefield, the more reward in terms of money, goods, possessions, recognition, etc. is demanded, regardless of the cost to others.

There is a rich field of investigation to be had in becoming attentive to, and clearly understanding, the source and nature of not only one’s own feelings and passions about such issues as work, money, possessions, and the like. I only need to extrapolate my own experience with actualism to be assured that even a substantial outbreak of a virtual freedom from malice and sorrow would swiftly bring an end to avarice as well as resentment, corruption as well as despair, gluttony as well as famine, and self-indulgence as well as poverty.

The ending of the numbing excesses and tragic inequities produced by the compulsive ‘self’-ish desire for ever more may be seen as the stuff that pipe dreams are made of – however, it is no coincidence that nearly everyone has this dream because everyone has had glimpses of the utter senselessness of human beings instinctually-driven battles with each other for more possessions and more power. These glimpses are known as pure consciousness experiences – a glimpse of what it is like when one no longer identifies in any way with humanity, either as a socially-related identity or as an instinctually-bonded identity.

Even with a global dissemination of a virtual freedom from malice and sorrow there would be such a marked reduction in ‘self’s battling it out for survival that the world would be free of the passions, feuds and confrontations that plague any progress of common sense over myth and superstition. The human condition would not be marred by conflict, turmoil, vitriol and despair but by co-operation and consensus, peace and harmony as well as equity and fairness.

GARY: I know that most of the people I work with are spiritually inclined if not outright religious believers. Talk of reading the Bible, or going to church, crop up in conversations from time to time. I’ve never had anyone ‘put me on the spot’ and question me about religion. I know that some of the children I work with as clients believe in God or pray or what-have-you. Other children are entirely turned off to the thought of there being any God whatsoever and they remind me of myself in my younger years. First there was the entire rejection of the whole edifice of religious belief and practice with a kind of nihilistic atheism, albeit with a deep resentment of the idea of God or anything associated with religion. In later years, as I approached my late 30s and 40s, there was the spiritual quest, perhaps brought on by the Zeitgeist of Eastern spirituality. Now there is a fascination and a wholesale obsession with experiencing the present moment apperceptively, without any intervening beliefs or feelings to clutter things up. I know what it is like to experience the very best possible and that is now my constant benchmark, you might say.

PETER: As for a Zeitgeist of Eastern spirituality, it is very fascinating to have witnessed first-hand the fashionable movements and cycles of religious and spiritual fervour. Animism and pantheism are clearly the current universally-accepted flavours of the day but it is also instructive to have witnessed first-hand the chameleon-like capacity of religious/spiritual groups to continually re-invent themselves in utter denial of their past misdeeds and failures.

The tendency to set off on a spiritual search is almost par for the course in mid-life, simply because at this stage of a life span death is closer than birth. This awareness of the inevitability of death is why the spiritual belief in an immortal soul is such a passionate affair because it is fuelled by the strongest of all instinctual passions – the fear of death. Not only are human animals mortal, but we are also aware of our own mortality and it is this impassioned awareness that is pivotal to creating and sustaining a psychological and psychic entity, a non-corporeal ‘self’, whose primary motivation is ‘self’-survival, at any cost.

GARY: I have found that palpable evidence of the demolishment of the social identity is a relative absence of what I will, for lack of a better term, call the ‘inner critic’. There used to be an ‘inner critic’ who was a rather noisy chap in the head who would almost immediately categorize others according to their racial, ethnic, class, weight, size, etc.

PETER: The ‘inner critic’ or the ‘rather noisy chap in the head’ is in fact one’s social identity in action. ‘He’ or ‘she’ is naught but a social construct and as such only exists relative to, or in relationship with, other social identities. ‘He’ or ‘she’ is typified by such thoughts as ‘I wonder what he or she is thinking about me?’, ‘Does he or she like me?’, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’, ‘Am I saying the right thing?, ‘I don’t like what he or she said’, ‘They don’t understand me’, ‘What about me?’ and so on.

The creation of this social identity was both a purposeful action and a necessity given that all human beings are instinctually programmed with ‘self’-centred animal survival passions that compel each and every human being to fear and be wary of each other as well as battle or compete with each other. The only way to tame the crude instinctual animal programming in human beings is to teach each newcomer a set of dos and don’ts, shoulds and shouldn’ts, rights and wrongs, goods and bads and this programming directly leads to the formation of an ‘inner critic’ or ‘rather noisy chap in the head’ whose ‘job’ is to keep the crude instinctual passions firmly ‘in control’. It therefore follows that the only way to really get in touch with the subjugated instinctual passions – to be able to fully experience them and therefore be able to fully understand them – is to take one’s social identity apart, bit by bit.

Every time you become attentive to this ‘inner critic’ trotting out yet another moral or ethical platitude or psittacism is another opportunity to investigate the sensibility of ‘his’ thoughts or feelings. Provided one’s aim in life is to become actually happy and harmless, what is silly and what is sensible is always apparent and because of your intent you are compelled to do is what is sensible – despite what your ‘inner critic’, and other people, think or feel about it. In this way one actively diminishes one’s social identity to the point where ‘he’ or ‘she’ no longer rules the roost and inhibits the opportunity to experiential investigate the crude instinctual passions in operation.

GARY: Yes, I can see the importance of relationships, particularly very close relationships, for an actualist. In normal, everyday relating to others in society, the rules of fair play as expressed through ordinary morality, values, and ethics often take precedence. But in relating to one’s mate or partner, often one’s instinctual behaviour is laid bare, with the full range of selfishness and greediness occurring. It is not for no reason that in the large majority of marriages, statistically for instance, there is at least one episode of actual physical violence at some point. In normal society, for instance, one can often put one’s best foot forward and be an exemplary citizen, so to speak, yet at home be a perfect beast and a dreadful rogue. One’s mate knows things about one that nobody else knows because they live in close proximity and see the ‘real’ person. I have no doubt that it people wanted to know what I am ‘really’ like, they should ask my intimate partner, for she is the one who spends the most time with me. That is why the closer relationship is the acid test of actualism. The so-called intimate relationship is going to be the test ground of the actualism method – if one cannot live in peace and harmony with one’s intimate partner one is neither happy nor harmless.

PETER: The challenge that really got my head out of the clouds was Richard’s comment that ‘if you can’t live with one other person in utter peace and harmony then life on earth is a sick joke’. It was a statement of such obvious fact that it made me see that my waiting for someone else or something else to bring about peace on earth, or my wanting to be anywhere else but here, was an absolute cop-out.

Serendipitously, ‘I’ took it as a challenge to turn what was but dream into an actuality.

*

PETER: Both I and Vineeto have already written a good deal about our relationship and the explorations we made. I won’t go over this territory again but it may be relevant to note that, thus far, it seems that we are the only man and woman who are living together who have a common interest in practicing actualism. Because of this our relationship could be seen as being unique, but it is important to grasp that the process of actualism is an individual process – i.e. an actualist’s becoming happy and harmless is not in any way dependant on anyone else becoming happy and harmless. Vineeto did her thing, I did mine – we just happened to be serendipitously doing it at the same time, whilst living together.

GARY: Your situation does seem quite unique. I should think it would be a good deal more revealing to be in a relationship with someone who is investigating these things because they are ‘raising the bar’ as well as you. While contemplating it a bit, though, it does seem like it would be a lot easier to be happy and harmless with an intimate partner who is happy and harmless, rather than a partner who is peevish and resentful.

PETER: My experience with the process of actualism is that the appropriate circumstances are always available to either begin or sustain your own investigation as to ‘how’ you tick. In fact, the only time one can make this investigation is right now, in the circumstances you find yourself in now. Given that there is very little variation in social conditioning within the human condition and the animal instinctual programming of the species is identical, every actualist will be investigating common-to-all issues, no matter where they are, if they live with someone or live alone, if they are male or female, black or white, young or old, rich or poor, and so on. To blame one’s lot in life, to see others as more able or better equipped, or more fortunate or whatever is but ‘me’ objecting to very considerable challenge of becoming happy and harmless.

GARY: I am aware at times that my partner’s negative moods get me down, yet this alone is fertile ground for investigating what is standing in the way of my being happy and harmless, as I agree that becoming happy and harmless should in no way be dependent on someone else’s behaviour or moods. In any ‘normal’ relationship, there seem to be powerful expectations and beliefs at work, as two people have formed a pact and come together, sometimes with the most unrealistic expectations imaginable, and it is no wonder that these relationships do not work out, as love has brought together essentially two strangers who, once loves’ rosy glow wears off, stand confronting each other and wondering ‘what the hell am I doing here?’

PETER: I remember seeing normal relationships as being similar to the three-legged races that were popular picnic games when I was a kid. The idea was that you and a partner tied two legs together with strips of cloth, put an arm around each other’s shoulders and then tried to run faster than other three-legged couples.

*

PETER: Because Vineeto and I share a common interest in actualism, the main focus of our relationship was a mutual agreement that each would investigate what stood in the way of our living together in utter peace and harmony. Once I stopped my habitual program of trying to change others to suit ‘my’ whims, moods, foibles, demands and expectations, I was then able to become aware of, and be fully responsible for, my feelings, passions and behaviour that were causing me to not be able to live with Vineeto in peace and harmony. Just to make it clear – you don’t need another’s agreement to do this work, because it is something only you can do for yourself and for others you come in contact with.

It is an enormous step you take when you fully grasp the reality that expecting or demanding that your companion, wife, husband, son, daughter or whoever, should change in order to please ‘you’ is an essentially malicious intrusion – and that wanting to or trying to change them is an utterly futile exercise that can only provoke hostility and resentment. Then and only then, can you can get on with your own business of changing yourself. This does not negate the fact that you, as an actualist, can share your discoveries with a fellow human being – provided they are interested, of course.

GARY: I must say that I don’t think I have fully grasped the reality that expecting or demanding that the other change is a malicious intrusion, as I have not completely ceased expecting or demanding. I would like to stop, however, as it is no fun whatsoever expecting or demanding anything of anybody. Thus, my relationship with my ‘significant other’ is precisely the place where these expectations and demands can be examined and uncovered. I know through my own experience that it is possible to live without these expectations and demands, as I have had this happen for brief periods of time, and it is most delicious. During these ‘self’-less interludes, one’s normal petty expectations and demands are nowhere in evidence. It must require extremely pure intent to continue on and demolish all of these so-called ‘normal’ expectations of intimate relationships.

PETER: It is no small thing to break with the habit of meddling in the lives of others because it is an activity that is universal within the human condition. The psychological and psychic bonds that tie human beings together condemns everyone to think and feel they have to live vicariously through others, via relationship and contracts, comparison and competition with others. The resulting cycle of expectations and disappointments, doubts and suspicions, demands and conflicts as well as hope and despair the ensues from ‘normal’ human relationships means that people are always friend or foe, with me or against me, right or wrong, good or bad, and so on – anything but fellow human beings.

When you say that you ‘haven’t yet fully grasped the reality that expecting or demanding that the other change is a malicious intrusion’ I can understand this totally. The whole process of actualism is a step-by-step process of extracting yourself from the human condition and it is my experience that the most difficult aspect of this process is breaking free of the social and passionate bonds that tie people together. It is this passionate and instinctual involvement in the lives of others that directly leads us to inevitably expect or demand that others change – that ‘I am right and you are wrong’, that ‘you’re hurting my feelings’, that ‘I need to stand up for my rights’, that ‘I want you to respect my wishes/ opinion/ feelings’, and so on.

The only way to fully grasp ‘the reality that expecting or demanding that the other change is a malicious intrusion’ as an experience and not merely an intellectual understanding, is to be actually free of the human condition. The process of actualism is a step-by-step process of experiencing, becoming attentive to and cutting the emotional ties and passionate bonds that give substance to ‘me’ as a social identity and as an instinctual being. You don’t step out of humanity and leave your ‘self’ behind in one step – it takes many steps to get from A to B. But the longer you practice actualism, the more bits of your social and instinctual identity fall by the wayside, as it were, which in turn means the less you demand, expect or hope that others change.

But as you point out, you do get tangible rewards on the way for your persistence and patience.

24.3.2002

PETER: I have just finished reading a book that I think you might find worth reading. It is called ‘The Sceptical Environmentalist’ by Bjørn Lomborg. Published by Oxford Press.

A sample chapter and index is available online and it can be purchased online at Amazon and other online booksellers. The reason I think you will be interested is that it documents the vast discrepancies between fact, belief and propaganda in regards to the environmental sciences. Whilst I have been aware for some time of some of what the book documents, it is good to see the facts so well presented and documented.

What is equally revealing is to scoot around the Net and sample the tone and quality of criticisms of Lomborg and his book, for it reveals much about the passions of environmental scientists, their social and spiritual leanings. What I found particularly interesting in all the critics is their total failure to address the central theme of his book – that life on earth for human beings has never been better than it is now and that it will only get better.

I don’t usually recommend books to read simply because everybody has got it wrong, but I do so for this book because it documents facts vs. belief in what is the latest of a long line of doomsday scenarios that arise from human instinctual fear. I mentioned the book the other day in conversation, saying how good it was to read a well-researched book that debunked the doomsday beliefs that are being taught to children. I said how debilitating it was to teach children that this world is dying and that things are getting worse, whereas exactly the opposite is true. My acquaintance shrugged his shoulders and said something like ‘it’s good that they have something to fight about’ which stunned me into silence.

I was going to continue on with the conversation but then I remembered that he is a practicing Buddhist which means that he firmly believes that ‘life on earth is essential suffering’. Not much use talking to him about the fact that life on earth has never been safer, never been more comfortable, never been more healthier, never been more leisurely, never been healthier, never been more informed, never been more pleasurable. For him to acknowledge these facts would mean to go against his spiritual beliefs, and as I oft say, ‘t’is a pity to let facts stand in the way of a good belief’.

Given that you are in the business of actively questioning beliefs, I thought to mention the book to you as well as any others on the list who may be interested.

30.3.2002

PETER: Just a comment on something you said to Vineeto recently –

GARY to Vineeto: Although I find that I can do many things well if I apply myself to them, I can relate to your comment about doing nothing really well. I think what has happened in my case is that the ambition to succeed has diminished a great deal, over a considerable period of time, both before and during my practice of actualism. I am very satisfied to do an adequate and competent job at what I do for work, for instance. Yet I do not feel I do it ‘really well’.

PETER: I remember reading it at the time and thinking ‘I know that one’ but I was reminded of it again yesterday when meeting with a potential client. She was in the design business and said she would like to build an award-winning house and would I be interested in helping her. I said that none of my work had won any awards but since I had given up battling it out with clients in order to get ‘my’ way, I now had no trouble giving my clients any style they wanted. After all, ‘award-winning’ style is only a style after all, and I know by experience that actually winning an award is another business entirely.

This event led me to contemplate on the fact that success has a well-defined set of criteria both in the real world and the spiritual world. In the real world success is measured by how rich you are, how famous you are and how much power and influence you have over others. In the spiritual world success is measured by how self-righteous you are, how famous you are and how much power and influence you have over others. The measures of success are well-defined criteria according to cultural and social values, i.e. someone else has set the standards by which you are to judge yourself.

Even before I came across actualism I had begun to question theses values. I had already abandoned the idea of either becoming rich or famous from my work because I saw that ‘money don’t buy you happiness’ nor did fame bring satisfaction and fulfilment. What I had begun to do was set my own standards in my work – standards that were in fact higher than those esteemed by others. I made safety the major priority on my building sites and then did my best to make the site a happy site. I did this in practical ways by such things as making sure the site was clean, organized, with clear instructions, clean cups, deck chairs to sit on at lunch time and that everyone was fairly paid, on time.

I also abandoned the values that I had been taught as an architect – that ‘I’ always knew best and that whatever ‘I’ was designing was ‘mine’. I started to develop my own standards whereby I moved towards a mutual search for the best solution and came to the understanding that whilst my clients were employing me for my experience as a designer and builder, the building was in fact theirs and not mine. As I began to put my own standards into practice, I also experienced a marked reduction in my own angst, worry, annoyance, frustration and the like, i.e. not only did others benefit from the situation, I benefited as well.

When I came across actualism I was embolden to go all the way in this process of setting my own standards. In fact, I set a completely new standard – becoming actually happy and actually harmless. Despite humanity’s bleating, bemoaning, moralizing and ethicising about peace on earth, the standards by which individuals live – and by which society judges success – are totally counter-productive to human beings living together in peace and harmony. I knew very well there was a risk in putting all my eggs in one basket as it were, in committing myself 100% to only one thing in life. The risks were that I would lose everything, the esteem I got from working, my relationships, my social standing – my identity in total.

But as I analysed each possibility, I realized that if I lost my profession I would be happy doing anything – because what I did as a job has no relevance to being happy. If I ended up living alone, I would be happy living alone – because my being happy is not reliant on other people. And if I ended up having no social or instinctual identity, I would be free of the human condition, which is what I wanted anyway.

So by society’s standards I am a failure, but society’s standards of judging success, be they normal or spiritual, are driven by the narcissistic feelings inherent in the ‘self’-centred instinctual survival passions. It is far better to have your own standards of doing ‘really well’, rather than live entrapped by the paltry standards of humanity.

I thought I would mention this aspect again because heading off in a totally different direction to everyone else is a difficult thing to do. You get no encouragement or support for devoting your life to becoming happy and harmless from those who like to battle it out within the human condition, or those who prefer their sorrow. You may well come across some people who resent you turning your back on society’s standards and values and these times will test your mettle as to how much you are willing to risk to become free of malice and sorrow.

7.6.2002

PETER: Just thought I’d write a note about some aspects of the human condition that have particularly struck me in the last few weeks. Most relate to items I have seen on television – a marvellous way to observe and experience the full gamut of the human condition from the comfort and safety of one’s own house.

I recently watched a documentary called ‘Reason for Hope’ about Jane Goodall, anthropologist, environmentalist and renowned chimp researcher. After her early years of studying chimp behaviour, she went through a difficult period in her life when her husband died and she came to observe what she described as the ‘dark side’ of chimp behaviour – sadness, depression, anger, warfare, murder and cannibalism. After initially being shocked that chimps were not ‘innocent beings’, she came to regard the fact that chimps have a dark side to their nature as evidence that chimps were ‘even closer to being human’ than she first thought.

Jane Goodall then described a seminal event in her life, an experience of what is sometimes called a nature experience. From her description, her experience seemed to be a pure consciousness experience – a sensate-only experience of the purity and perfection of the actual world. Thinking about it afterwards, she felt the experience must have been a mystical experience or a spiritual revelation – simply because there was no other explanation available to her. This experience proved to be a turning point in her life – she changed from sceptic to spiritualist, from scientist to saviour, from feeling lonely to being loved, from feeling hopelessness to having a ‘reason for hope’. She saw human evolution as the eventual triumph of Good over Evil and began to cement her place as a champion of the good in the battle against evil – a Saviour, not only of Mother Earth and ‘her’ creatures, but also of Humankind.

It was a classic story, common to many. A period of loneliness and depression, an experience of personal loss or grief, a life-changing experience and a life born again as a Saviour – by whatever name, for whatever cause. What was of most interest to me in Goodall’s case was her description of what appeared to be a pure consciousness experience, her after-the-fact interpretation of the experience as a mystical experience and that she then went on to claim the experience as ‘her’ own – as being a personal revelation from God.

I find it always useful to remember why spiritual belief and superstition have thus far cornered the market in the human search for freedom, peace and happiness. Once someone has had ‘the Truth’ personally revealed to them in an altered state of consciousness – or as appears to have happened in Goodall’s case, misinterpreted a PCE as an altered state of consciousness – they are bound by a combination of gratitude and their own inflated sense of self-worth to spread the word that, while earthly life is a bitch, there is really truly a God who loves you.

Speaking of earthly life’s a bitch, this brings me to the Dalai Lama, who recently visited this country. He did the usual celebrity tour, at one stage addressed a gathering of some 6,000 school children. His message to the young was that suffering was a necessary aspect of human earthly life, that it was the working through of karma accumulated from past lives and that materialism is the root cause of evil in the world. A national newspaper ran an article about the meeting entitled ‘The platitudes of the Dalai Lama’ pointing out the banality of his message of love and compassion and his total inability to make any sensible or pertinent comment on down-to-earth questions raised by the audience.

In taking all this in, I was struck by the fact that only some 30 years ago Eastern spiritualism was relatively new to the West, so much so that most who were interested needed to leave the West and travel to the East. Nowadays Eastern spiritualism is mainstream in the West, Western religions are reviving their mystical roots and absorbing Eastern spiritual concepts and Buddhism is reportedly the fastest growing religion in the West. It only goes to show the staying power of olde-time religions.

And speaking of 30 years ago, I also watched a concert given to celebrate the Queen of England’s fiftieth year of reign and was taken by the fact that many of the performers were the rebellious young of 30 years ago. They had now become totally absorbed by the establishment that they now were the establishment, as the likes of Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John, amongst others, performed for their beloved Queen. So much for youthful rebellion, ‘love is all you need’ and ‘give peace a chance’ as a way to evince change.

The other program I watched with interest was a speech given by the Environmental Guru, David Suzuki to a gathering of journalists. He was publicizing his recent book, which evidently points out that all is not doom and gloom but that there have been signs of some environmental successes in the past decades. As the questions and answers drew to an end he was asked if he had a message for the young to which he replied, ‘keep fighting’ and he then praised those who ‘put their lives on the line’. I wondered if he realized the consequences of what he was saying for he was, in fact, condoning youthful violent protests to the point of ‘putting lives on the line’. Ah well, I suppose by his reckoning there is nothing like a good stir or a good stoush – a cause, by whatever name, does gives the kids something to fight about.

Speaking of which, someone asked me the other day what I would do about the war in Palestine. I replied that if I lived in the area, the first thing I would do was stop being a Jew or Muslim because it is obvious that religious fervour fuels much of the hatred on both sides. The second thing I would do was stop being an Israelii or a Palestinian, because nationalistic fervour and territorial instincts fuel much of the hatred on both sides. And finally, I would leave the area, vote with my feet, abandon ship, get out, be a traitor to the cause.

The person who asked seemed to think I was somehow cheating by not offering a solution, not taking sides, not apportioning blame and so on, but he completely missed the point of my answer. He asked me what I would do and what I would do is make the only practical contribution I could – take unilateral action by stop being a believer, stop being a passionate combatant, stop looking for someone to blame and stop seeking retribution in the name of justice and fair play.

It is quite extraordinary to see – as well as personally experience – the grip that the combination of ancient beliefs and instinctual passions has over Humanity, so much so that no-where is common sense to be seen. Common sense reveals that the only thing that can be done about peace on earth is personally doing whatever needs to be done to become actually free of malice and sorrow.

I realize that the things I write about that strike me about the human condition may not have the same impact on you, but I relate these stories so as to encourage a clear-eyed seeing of the human condition. It is my experience that every time I have an insight into the workings of the human condition, it aids me in understanding the nature of the programming that makes ‘me’ tick, that gives ‘me’ substance, as it were. Then it becomes a matter of persistently and stubbornly refusing to blindly follow the herd so enthralled with doomsday visions and so hell-bent on revenge and retribution.

So that’s it from me. It’s currently back to school time for me – I’m trying to learn a 3D architectural CAD program that lacks sufficient instructions.

*

PS to the Jane Goodall story –

One of her colleagues commented that the research into chimp behaviour was clear evidence that ‘the dark side of human nature was inherited from ancient primate life’. What would have made this observation more even-handed would have been an acknowledgement that the so-called good side of human nature was also inherited from ancient primate life. So far, it appears that only actualists dare to make such a clear-eyed assessment of the human condition – and, as yet, we are few on the ground.

22.6.2002

PETER: Just a comment on some points from your last post –

It was a classic story, common to many. A period of loneliness and depression, an experience of personal loss or grief, a life-changing experience and a life born again as a Saviour – by whatever name, for whatever cause. What was of most interest to me in Goodall’s case was her description of what appeared to be a pure consciousness experience, her after-the-fact interpretation of the experience as a mystical experience and that she then went on to claim the experience as ‘her’ own – as being a personal revelation from God.

GARY: A human being’s imaginative faculty is carefully nurtured and hurried along in childhood through nursery rhymes, fables, stories of all kinds, and the belief in the supernatural, the mystical, and the otherworldly is the result. It is not surprising, then, that people hurry to interpret a perfection experience in the framework that they are most comfortable with – as a mystical, otherworldly experience, or as a frank communication from God himself.

PETER: There are several aspects to this tendency. Firstly, there is a long, long tradition of mystical experiences, both in Eastern and Western religions, so much so that to feel oneself to be God, or to feel oneself to be a specially chosen friend of the creator God, is but the status quo. Secondly, given that human experience is universally deemed to be a battle between good and evil, every experience is automatically classified as either good or evil … and a PCE is invariably interpreted as being in the ‘good’ or Godly camp.

Underlying this social/historic programming are the instinctual survival passions – passions which are non-existent in a PCE but are given full reign in any altered state of consciousness experience. This means there is a powerful instinctive lure to claim any and all experience as ‘mine’.

The reason I point this out is that not only has an actualist to be wary of the spiritual programming that actively encourages the pursuit of altered states of consciousness, but also of the crude instinctive narcissistic drive that has thus far always corrupted the human search for freedom, peace and happiness.

GARY: In a way, it almost seems that it is exceedingly difficult for a human being to recognize the immediate and actual as exactly what it is, rather than what it is not. I wonder if it would be possible to raise children with an immediate appreciation and delight in what is actually present, something they have innately anyway, with no imaginative fabrication of what is not there.

PETER: Also innately present in children are the instinctual passions and these passions will always take precedent over any potential for an ‘immediate appreciation and delight in what is actually present’ – in fact, the crude animal survival passions exist to do precisely this. Which is not to say that it makes good sense not to indulge a child’s natural tendency for fantasy and imagination – a tendency that will anyway be fostered by interaction with their peers, despite the wishes and actions of any parent.

And just a note on fairness. It may not seem fair that each and every human being born is pre-programmed with an inevitably-emergent set of instinctual passions – that each and every child is born programmed to be malicious and sorrowful and that this instinctive program is then calcified by the social inculcation of one’s parents and peers. To regard this as unfair is but to rile against the processes of life itself – the very processes that produces human flesh and blood bodies in the first place and continues to sustain them whilst they are alive.

These life processes that transform matter into animate matter are by no means static nor unchangeable – and nor are they the subject of mysterious other-worldly forces as was fearfully imagined in ancient times. The evolution of these physical life processes have in fact culminated in producing the human animal species with its innate ability to think, contemplate and reflect as well as be aware of the physical life processes itself. These capacities, unique to the human species, have emerged fairly recently relative to emergence of animal life on this planet and the current stage of the life process of the universe now includes a freely-available process of eliminating the crude and redundant ‘self’-ishness from the human animal.

When contemplating upon the vast scope of life, the life that is this universe, it can be seen that the concept of fairness is but a ‘self’-centred value within the human condition and this act of contemplation can eventually result in the demise of the feelings of unfairness and unjustness. It can be seen that these feelings arise out of a fundamental resentment at having been born in the first place, having to suffer being here and then having to die.

From the standpoint of a PCE, it can be readily understood and experienced that these feelings are but the feelings of ‘me’, the alien non-physical entity that inhabits this flesh and blood body. In a PCE, there is no experience of separation from the physical matter of life, be it mineral, vegetable or animal. There is an aliveness to all matter that is palpable, vibrant, alive – as in non-passive, metamorphotic – and intimate – as in of the very same nature, identical in substance, no different or distance between.

There is an enormous amount of information that can be gleaned for a PCE because, for a brief period, one is directly experiencing the actuality of the physical universe – not as an affective ‘self’-centred experience but as a sensuous apperceptive awareness. Then when one returns to being a normal affective being, one can devote one’s life to whittling away at the all of the beliefs, morals, ethics, platitudes and psittacisms that constitute one’s social identity as well as become attentive to the feelings, passions and compulsions that constitute one’s very being, one’s instinctual self. By doing so, one sets in motion a process that, when combined with pure intent, can only lead to ‘my’ demise and freedom for this flesh and blood body, and for every other body.

Well that’s it for fairness, I just thought it worthwhile to give it a good run for its money.

9.7.2002

PETER: I’ve done a bit of snipping so as to focus on a few topics only –

*

PETER: Underlying this social/historic programming are the instinctual survival passions – passions, which are non-existent in a PCE but are given full reign in any altered state of consciousness experience. This means there is a powerful instinctive lure to claim any and all experience as ‘mine’.

The reason I point this out is that not only has an actualist to be wary of the spiritual programming that actively encourages the pursuit of altered states of consciousness, but also of the crude instinctive narcissistic drive that has thus far always corrupted the human search for freedom, peace and happiness.

GARY: And I would hasten to add that the ‘pursuit of altered states of consciousness’ does not necessarily always mean the hankering after religious experiences. The use of mood-altering drugs is often a case in point. It could be a simple everyday thing like stopping off in the tavern for a few drinks or smoking a few joints after work. What makes it the craving for an altered state of consciousness is that it is ‘me’ looking for an escape from normal, everyday ‘reality’.

Also, there may be the desire for other ‘out of body’ experiences, as through meditative practices and such. The pursuit of altered states of consciousness is impelled by the same instinctual survival passions that make life on this verdant planet boring and lacklustre for so many people.

PETER: Yeah, ‘me’ looking for an escape from normal, everyday ‘reality’ is an understandable passion, given that normal everyday reality sucks. By the time I was 33 years old, I was well and truly ready to escape grim reality and I took the only road then possible – the Eastern spiritual path. 17 years on, whilst I had seen the failures and hypocrisies of the spiritual-world Greater Reality from the inside, the desire to escape grim reality had been neither quenched, nor satisfied. This experience was why I could ditch the spiritual path and try something new – the desire to be free was still burning strongly.

Unless people are genuinely seeking an escape from normal everyday reality, and are suss of the hierocracies and hypocrisies of the spiritual path, actualism will have no appeal.

*

GARY: In a way, it almost seems that it is exceedingly difficult for a human being to recognize the immediate and actual as exactly what it is, rather than what it is not. I wonder if it would be possible to raise children with an immediate appreciation and delight in what is actually present, something they have innately anyway, with no imaginative fabrication of what is not there.

PETER: Also innately present in children are the instinctual passions and these passions will always take precedent over any potential for an ‘immediate appreciation and delight in what is actually present’ – in fact, the crude animal survival passions exist to do precisely this. Which is not to say that it makes good sense not to indulge a child’s natural tendency for fantasy and imagination – a tendency that will anyway be fostered by interaction with their peers, despite the wishes and actions of any parent.

GARY: Yes, of course. In hindsight, I see I made a rather big speculative leap in considering the raising of children who are devoid of the instinctual passions. While such speculation is interesting, it is just a sidetrack from the main event: freeing oneself from malice and sorrow. In my work with children, it is amazing to me to see the degree to which malice and sorrow are inveterate to the human condition. I have also seen a large degree of denial about the presence of malice in children – people are wont to believe in the innocence of children and cannot seem to see that sometimes their actions are most malicious. I was at a training recently and the trainer was describing a child lashing out in anger and hurting someone else’s feelings, and added the proviso: ‘But it wasn’t really a malicious action’ or something of that sort. There seems to be a deep-seated human need to believe that childhood is a time of innocence which malice and sorrow cannot intrude into. But this is obviously not the case.

PETER: Whenever an adult observes a child there can be a degree of envy at what seems to be a carefree state. This is due to the fact that the instinctual animal ‘self’ is not substantially formed until about age 2 in children, i.e. the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire are not yet fully functioning. The other relevant aspect is that the child’s social identity – the befuddled mishmash of an individualistic persona and a collective social conscience – is not yet fully formed until the age of about 7 years, which means much of the childhood years are spent in ignorance of the grim everyday reality that every adult experiences. Whilst very early childhood is an ignorance of the grim instinctual battle for survival in the real-world – as well as the repercussions of the socialization process – this psychological and psychic battle will inevitably be experienced first-hand by every child in family interactions, playground exchanges and, after puberty, in the world-at-large.

The deep-seated belief that the ignorance of the formative, preoperational years of childhood is an innate innocence is what fuels the whole fanciful notion that nurture is the panacea for instinctual malice and sorrow, and that ‘proper’ nurture can even prevent their onset. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the faith that nurture can assuage or overcome malice and sorrow is seen as inviolate within the human condition. Like all belief and faith, it only has legs for want of a new and effective workable alternative.

*

PETER: And just a note on fairness. It may not seem fair that each and every human being born is pre-programmed with an inevitably-emergent set of instinctual passions – that each and every child is born programmed to be malicious and sorrowful and that this instinctive program is then calcified by the social inculcation of one’s parents and peers.

To regard this as unfair is but to rile against the processes of life itself – the very processes that produces human flesh and blood bodies in the first place and continues to sustain them whilst they are alive.

GARY: I scanned my original e-mail to see if a notion of ‘fairness’ had crept into it, but I could not locate any such reference. I have never thought of it as ‘unfair’ that human beings are pre-programmed with a rough-and-ready survival system. I can easily recall in earlier years, however, feeling that life was essentially cruel and unfair. I find now that whenever the thought of something either being ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ creeps into my psyche, I immediately catch myself and look at it. Usually, it is associated with some underlying feeling of resentment. It is also associated with what I consider to be my ‘rights’, whether territorial, personal, or political. Notions of fairness are, I think, ultimately ethical and moral standards and as such reveal the socially inculcated values of the social identity overlying the primitive instinctual ‘self’. There can be no applying of these values to the processes of life. Such would not be scientific thinking. It would be akin to the anthropomorphic view that says it is not ‘fair’ that the lion attacks the gazelle, or that the gnat only lives for a day, or the human being on average 88.5 years or what-have-you.

PETER: In introducing the subject of fairness I wasn’t particularly referring to anything you said, but rather making a comment that I thought was relevant to the topic of children.

As you know, the beliefs and passions that form the human condition are so intermeshed and overlapped that they form a reality that is so utterly convincing that it is held to be real. Rather than dismiss this reality as illusionary and set off in pursuit of a Greater Reality based on a new set of beliefs and passions, the business of an actualist is to firstly become aware of, and then experientially investigate the veracity of all beliefs and the nature of all passions that give substance to both the real-world and spiritual world realities.

In a PCE, both these realities – both grim reality and its panacean Greater Reality – temporarily disappear, as do ‘me’ and ‘my’ worries, beliefs and passions. When the PCE fades and ‘I’ resume centre stage as it were, ‘I’ then have something to do – resume the business of becoming aware of, and then experientially investigating the veracity of all the beliefs and the nature of all the passions that give substance to both these real-world and spiritual world realities.

Which is why I thought to introduce the issue of fairness – nothing personal, just a comment general to the human condition.

I’m going to end this post here as it’s getting a bit long, so I’ll finish in part two.

14.7.2002

PETER: I’ve finally got around to part two.

GARY: There is a shift back and forth between the sensuous apperceptive awareness and the ‘normal affective being’. One day this week I was experiencing the most painful sense of alienation, loneliness, and angst, all rolled into one. But the remarkable thing is that the next day these feelings vanished completely and hardly make any sense at all.

PETER: What you are saying relates to something I said in my previous post –

[Peter]: ‘When the PCE fades and ‘I’ resume centre stage as it were, ‘I’ then have something to do – resume the business of becoming aware of, and then experientially investigating the veracity of all the beliefs and the nature of all the passions that give substance to both these real-world and spiritual world realities.’ Peter to Gary, 9.7.2002

This ‘resuming the business’ equally applies whenever a period of feeling good or feeling excellent fades – it is important to become aware of and then experientially investigate exactly when and why feelings such ‘alienation, loneliness and angst’ returned to centre stage as it were. What was it that triggered off these feelings – was it something someone said, or didn’t say? What particular event or incident happened or what anticipated event or incident didn’t happen?

This combination of self-awareness and self-investigation is essential if you are to make sense of how ‘you’ tick. Unless you make sense of how and why you have reverted back to the normal human default programming of feeling malicious or sorrowful, then similar events or incidents will inevitably produce the same results – a rapid decent from feeling good or feeling excellent back into feeling peeved, annoyed, melancholic, sad, frightened, lost, lonely and so on.

I particularly like the way Vineeto recently described this investigative process. She said this process of de-programming as akin to changing the default settings in a computer program by searching for the ‘option box’ in order to take the ‘tick’ out of the default setting. It is this default programming setting – both the socially-instilled programming and the genetically-encoded instinctual programming – that automatically causes human beings to get angry or sad whenever particular incidents or events occur, threaten to occur or are imagined to occur.

Unless one makes the effort to take the ‘tick’ out of the ‘box’, the human default setting of malice and sorrow runs automatically – regardless of normal efforts to ignore it or suppress it, or the spiritual efforts to sublimate it or transcend it. This is the practical down-to-earth business of actualism – a step-by-step deprogramming. And, of course, if you miss a chance or don’t quite get it the first or second time, life is excellent at providing another opportunity.

As a bit of an aside, I’m reminded of a discussion I had some time ago when I happened to explain the process of becoming happy and harmless. As I described the process, the woman I was talking to said ‘but that’s being dishonest’. I was somewhat taken aback because in no way was I pretending to be happy and harmless, as in ‘positive thinking’ or just trying to ‘look on the bright side of life’ – what I was doing was sincerely and scrupulously investigating and examining all of superficial reasons and all of the root causes of my being malicious and sorrowful in the first place.

My efforts to explain the sincerity of my intent fell on deaf ears because the woman had spent years immersed in therapy programs whereby expressing one’s feelings, whether it be anger or sadness, was upheld to be ‘being honest’. Someone who believes that being angry and being sad are signs of honesty and virtue can only see someone who is both happy and harmless as dishonest and evil.

GARY: I would hardly wish to devote my life to whittling away the social identity unless it led to palpable results – which it most decidedly has ... sensuous apperceptive awareness is a most superior mode of functioning.

PETER: Yes, and it continues to astound me that people are not only content with being sorrowful and malicious, but actually prefer to be sad rather than happy and malicious rather than harmless. But then again, those who wear their feelings of self-righteous anger and self-serving pity for others on their sleeves are lauded in society as being the most caring and most concerned of citizens – the champions in the grim battle betwixt good and evil.

Given that an actualist is heading in the opposite direction from all of society, he or she will receive no acclaim, reverence, fame nor support from society for their efforts. Which is why palpable results are essential if one is to proceed contrary to the collective wisdom of one’s peers.

*

PETER: I would like to take the opportunity to post a bit about another set of beliefs that fuels much anger and anxiety within the human condition – those related to health and healing. Whilst these beliefs have never been a major concern for me, I am well aware that beliefs around health issues are central to countless people’s lives.

Many people who believe in so-called ‘alternative medicine’ unquestioningly accept that following restrictive diet regimes, imbibing herbal concoctions, invoking healing spirits or undertaking mystical rituals can not only alleviate and cure illness and disease but can even prevent their onset in the first place. Those who hold to these beliefs invariably expend considerable time, effort and money, not to mention worry and anxiety, in a furtive and futile effort to ward off the evils of potential disease and inevitable death. Most of the current anthology of these beliefs are rooted in, or at least heavily influenced by, Eastern spiritualism and its long mystical traditions of cleansing, purifying and healing both body and soul through fasting, regimented dietary restrictions, imbibing herbs, plants and animal parts deemed to have magical qualities, indulging in mystical rituals and so on. The ancient spiritual roots of these beliefs also mean that the believers necessarily have an associated distrust and hatred of materialism in general and modern medical science in particular.

Most who believe in these ancient mystical healing methods passionately believe that people were healthier in ‘the good old days’ because the revered ancient ones lived a more ‘natural’, in-tune-with-God lifestyle. They doggedly hold to this belief despite the fact that the doubling in life expectancy in the last century was entirely due to the combination of material progress in living standards and the application of modern empirical medical science … and not to the preservation of primitive living standards and the application of ancient healing methods. These beliefs blind the followers to the fact that the application of modern medicines and technology in the last century has saved, improved and lengthened the lives of billions of people due to the almost complete elimination of hygiene related illnesses and infectious diseases across much of the globe.

This stunning progress has meant that an ever-increasing majority of the global population now live longer and healthier lives, which has meant more people becoming susceptible to diseases that naturally occur later in life – diseases such as cancer, organ failure and the like. With this recent focus on treating the diseases of middle and old age in the second half of last century, those who are now living longer and healthier lives are reaping the rewards of human effort and ingenuity. The cure rates of an ever-increasing number of diseases are rising, their death rates are falling and the prevention and elimination of many diseases is now feasible. If one needs more evidence of the shortcomings of ‘natural’ primitive lifestyles and the failure of ancient spiritual healing methods, one only needs to look at the fact that in undeveloped ‘Third World’ countries infant mortality rates are higher, life expectancy is markedly less, illnesses due to dietary deficiencies are commonplace and infectious diseases are still prevalent.

And yet, despite the astounding progress and successes of the last century, faithful believers in ancient spiritual-mystical healing continue to rile against the evils of materialism and modern technology and traditional healers and sellers of snake oil continue to make extravagant and unproven claims for their healing practices and magical potions and the fearful and gullible continue to unquestioningly believe and have faith in their claims.

Many who hold to these ancient healing beliefs do so, not only with fervour and passion, but also with a good deal of hypocrisy. When push comes to shove, most very quickly turn to modern empirical medical science for help whenever accident, illness or disease produces a serious or life-threatening situation. Afterwards they are apt to blithely resume their riling against the very people and technology they had unabashedly turned to in time of need when their ‘alternative medicines’ failed them.

With hardly a blush, they continue their search for the latest fashionable belief, superstition or resurrected old-wives-tale about what diet, what new ‘natural’ product or what new healing process is claimed to prevent or cure what illnesses – a search which only serves to perpetuate their anxiety and stress as well as their anger and resentment. Not only do the believers suffer from having these feelings but the associated hormones produced are known to have detrimental effects on the immune system which only increases the susceptibility for un-healthiness and illness.

This persistence of the beliefs in ancient healing methods only attests to the vice-like grip that ancient tried and failed beliefs have within the human condition – despite their abysmal failure to produce tangible results and notwithstanding their propensity to be harmful, precious few people are willing to completely abandon their favourite pet-beliefs.

The reason I mention this is that ancient spirit-ual beliefs permeate all facets of the human condition and currently none more so than in the fields of health and environment. The feedback thus far from those who have come across actualism indicates that some people think that by simply abandoning their belief in some God or other, or in some Godman or other, they are then free of spiritual belief. Whilst this first step is certainly a useful and beneficent beginning to becoming free of one aspect of the human condition, an actualist needs to dig much, much deeper than this if he or she wants to become genuinely happy and harmless and aspires to become actually free of the human condition.

The constant on-going investigation of one’s own psyche reveals the full extent of the human condition in action and understanding the human condition is the only way to become free of it.

Again these comments are general to the human condition, not personal – I am merely taking the opportunity to write something on an aspect of the human condition that has come to my attention lately.

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