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Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List with Irene
PETER: Hi Irene, I’ve been following your correspondence with Vineeto with interest, but as you are beginning to not only present your philosophy but bend a few facts in the process I thought it time I responded. So a few words in reply to some statements of yours: IRENE: Now, although you may be convinced that Richard is not an authority for you (‘because he says so himself’) why don’t your words and attitude bear that out? Why do you put into practice his methods, aim for the state he is in, defend him and criticise others using his words and phraseology and prove him to be right by your own experiences? Is it possible that you may not be aware that this is actually the classic indication of following an authority? The ‘born-again’ Christians show the same behaviour, so did most of the German subjects of Hitler, or Sannyasins or ‘students’ of Barry Long, Andrew Cohen, Adida (or whatever his name is this week!) etc. PETER: I find it amazing that you of all people would wheel out this thorny old accusation of us being mere blind followers of a Divine Master (I assume that was what was meant by the use of bold letters in the passage above) and that you further equate this with following Hitler. It is really quite a simple matter for me. Throughout my life I have tried to make sense of being a human being on the planet, why we humans are as we are, and how I could find a way to be free of fear, which I have experienced as the ground of all malice and sorrow. I rejected the claims of the spiritual freedoms as I discovered that they involved a swanning off into an imaginary inner world of love and bliss. Then I came across a man and a woman about my age who had obviously taken their investigations much further than I had, so I thought what they were saying was worth checking out. Now I was at a stage that I wouldn’t have cared who was offering this different approach (man or woman – in fact I got as much from you as I did from Richard in the early days). I liked how Richard was as a human being – happy and harmless – and I liked how he was with you (and how you were with him) and decided to test out his words rather than merely believe him. The point was he was saying something different than all the other Gurus, he had nothing to hide and would talk and discuss anything. There was nothing unspoken, nothing sacred or secret. Given that I had followed a few Masters and discovered first hand the duplicity and deceit, the power and authority, the surrender and blind trust of disciple-hood and its consequences, I was wary in the extreme of Guru-ship. I had looked up to them (and loved them) as Mentors, wise men and someone to emulate in my life. But after 16 years I could no longer turn away from how they were as men, how they were with women, sex and power. The last thing I wanted was to be an Enlightened One – they were not worthy of emulation as I had a few ‘backstage’ glimpses of their ‘private’ life in my time. What impressed me most at the time was the obvious peace and harmony that existed between you two and the depths of investigation you had undertaken into the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. So check it out I did and was so impressed that it worked that I wanted to write a journal of my process in case someone else was interested. I have not heard even you deny that I now live in peace and harmony with Vineeto, but then again you will probably say we are only pretending. That you have now turned away from what you experienced and talked to me about for hours and hours is your business. I simply see that you abandoned the chance for peace and harmony and equity for love, sorrow and woman’s liberation. The concept of Guru-ship and Divine Masters is so ingrained in us as to forever hobble us to their energy and power, and blind us to the consideration of something genuine, something free of power and authority. I know personally as I had to battle and eliminate in me the subtle (and often not so subtle) seduction of becoming yet another authority, yet another saviour. Actual freedom is not about surrendering your will to some higher authority, quite the opposite if you read the words. One needs all the will one can muster to go against all that has been held to be wise or sacred up until now. IRENE: Living with Richard made it eventually clear to me that it is not nature that is to blame but the overlaid male interpretation of human life; how it should be instead! In other words knowing better than nature the universe itself. I don’t have to explain to you how every culture and religion (all invented by male minds, based on their interpretation of how life should be organised and regulated for women as well) denigrates particular aspects of our natural faculties and have tried to suppress them, repress them, to forbid them and demand that they must be changed into unnatural behaviour and beliefs, in order to keep the male supremacy intact. In most cultures and religions we can observe, for instance, that sex was the culprit – it had to be either repressed completely (like the catholic priests) or limited to the wishes of the man only. In both scenarios a shocking amount of victims were created: repressed sexuality reveals itself in perversity, as is more and more exposed in the use of young children by grown men for their own benefit only and to the detriment of many, many children, as they were made helpless and guilty by intimidation and threats. The other alternative was the licence granted to men over women and girls by cultural and religious authorities, whereby women and girls are seen as just cattle, for the men to use as they please. It lies all in the mistake of man believing himself to be the authority over woman, as was decreed by their ancestors who were to be believed to be in direct contact with a creator-god. If men and women will ever want to live in peace and harmony, the very root-cause must be addressed: a law can only be fair if both genders define that law, not only men. But men would not voluntarily choose to share all responsibilities and rights with women, because they are too proud of and too used to their supremacy, plus they would – quite understandably! – feel afraid that they might become redundant altogether, once women were given the chance to have equal say in the decision-making processes that are necessary for the organization of all men, women and children into a peaceful and fair living together. PETER: I find myself bewildered in the face of the depth of resentment women have towards men. As a man said to me the other day: ‘Do they want us to wear skirts?’ As you say above ‘they feel afraid that they might become redundant altogether, once women were given the chance to have an equal say in decision making processes’. This seems a statement not about equity at all but about justice which is but a nice word for revenge. Your Matrilineal dreams are of a Golden Age when women ruled over men and there was supposedly peace on earth. There seems to be a lack of understanding among women of the suffering and sorrow that men experience. This is understandable, as the instinctual male role is one of provider and protector. As such he displays courage, bravado and strength to impress the female. In her selection of a mate this is what she demands, albeit sub-consciously, in many cases. This instinctual behaviour has resulted in the typical male displays of toughness, competitiveness and aggression, essential for the hunter and protector in the past and still played out in sport, business, politics and unfortunately in war. It is simply the male role – as it is the role of the female to procreate, mother and nurture and be protected. This leads directly to the assumption that all violence is the fault of the male and women are but innocent victims. And yet it is the men who are still expected to die for family or country. The other common belief is that men are not emotional or feeling ‘beings’. I had thought I had experienced the full gamut of human emotions and wrote a lot about them in my journal, smugly thinking I had not repressed anything. But recently when I stuck my head into fear to see if I was maybe avoiding something I found more. Beyond fear I discovered stark terror, angst and a dread the like of which I have never experienced before or want to experience again. I had previously, at the death of my son, experienced a form of dread that I would describe as personal, but this dread was as though I was experiencing the dread of humanity – every tortured soul, every rape, every horror, every fear. It literally tore my heart out as I realised what lay at the very core of my ‘being’ and every other being – I had tapped the very source of human psychic fear – the psychic opposite of the Divine Love and Bliss of Enlightenment. So maybe this will illustrate the point as to why I truck little with those who accuse men of having no feelings. Feelings rule and ruin the lives of both men and women equally; this is my experience. After a near fatal illness, my father deliberately went back to work with the avowed intention of at least leaving something to my mother – he died two years later and she got a house. One night I witnessed a car crash. Going to help I was confronted with a seriously injured teenager who muttered over and over through the blood ‘she left me, she left me’. I have suffered from the fear of getting a girl pregnant and of being forced to become a husband and provider in my teens and as such was a fearful bumbling virgin when married. I have suffered heartbreak, jealousy, dependency, loneliness – need I go on? IRENE: The human conditioning can be studied and understood, so that it does not affect us any more in living our natural potential. It is not something we can deny away or just hate and throw out. Once we have understood it empirically then we loose our emotional reaction to it and although the conditioning is still active in the world, it doesn’t disturb us any more in a personal way. Then we are free from the conditioning. PETER: This leaves me a little lost for words if this is an example of your ‘new’ philosophy. Are you seriously proposing that all is okay with the human condition ‘as long as it doesn’t disturb us any more in a personal way’. That war, rape, torture, domestic violence, child abuse, etc. etc. which is the present human condition on the planet (easily witnessed through your TV) is okay as long as you can ‘lose your emotional attachment to it’. Are you talking about practicing a detachment from it or merely witnessing it because it is all an illusion any way. Either way it is a turning away that does nothing but perpetuate the misery and violence. But I guess at least you won’t be disturbed and can lead a pleasant life – albeit a selfish one. And I have heard you accuse Richard of being selfish! IRENE: Only a person who is deeply troubled by emotions will turn against them in anger and try to rid themselves of the whole plethora of emotional experiences. To me they are the palette that I use to paint my every moment on to the canvas of my immediate environment, except that this is 3-dimensional and it depicts more my atmosphere than colours or figures. PETER: This agrees with my experience as well and I see it in others. It is only because I have been ‘deeply troubled’ by grief, anger, jealousy, despair, violence, greed, rape, suicide, love, empathy, sorrow, compassion, loneliness, etc. etc. that I wanted to be rid of them in myself for personal peace as well as to stop inflicting my sorrow and anger on others. IRENE: To me compassion is the full understanding through experiencing all the accompanying emotions of a particularly testing aspect of life, that this is what it is to be grieving, or to be angry or to intensely hate or to be desolate, lonely, utterly discouraged in all of life etc. and to accept it as belonging to the all-round human experience in order to become wise. Not that only the so-called negative feelings will grant wisdom; the positive ones can be even more important in that respect! PETER: So your ‘new’ philosophy is based on acceptance of anger and suffering. What is new about it then? This is as good as it gets? No wonder people give up in despair or wish like hell for some better after-life. Surely you can offer something better than acceptance...it hasn’t worked up until now. IRENE: The richness, the depth of each human feeling reveals the understanding of what it is to be a human being in such an empirical, intimate way that it is later instantly recognised in a fellow human being who is going through the same emotional, human experience and who can then be met by compassion, that very kind understanding that you will have enjoyed with another, not only when life was being particularly difficult or sad, but also when you wanted to share your utmost joy or love. PETER: Compassion is, as per definition, an agreement to share pathos – share suffering. Do I recognise a touch of Buddhism in your philosophy? The Dalai Lama’s title means ‘the Lord who looks down (with compassion) on all sentient beings’ and despite the compassion of millions of Buddhists for thousands of years the East has appalling poverty, repression of women, corruption, violence, etc. Or maybe it is part of your philosophy that women suffer so much more than men, that suffering and being able to share your suffering is a noble human attribute. In this way I could be tempted to agree but then I would just fall in to the same old gender trap. Both genders are just playing out their instinctually assigned roles and both are sorrowful and malicious. To argue degrees and apportion blame is to miss (or avoid) the point. IRENE: For most of my life I had looked automatically for an authority in the field of human interests, whom I believed to be better equipped and more knowledgeable than I, which of course was very understandable and sensible to do in the first 10 or even 20 years of my life, as I had not developed my own integrity enough yet and there was still a lot to learn from others. PETER: I take it from this that Richard was an authority figure for you given that he was Enlightened when you met and you were a spiritual seeker. I further take it that after leaving him you now reject him as an authority figure and blame all who listen to him as blind followers of a Guru. What interest is it to you what others think of Richard? What is your interest in comparing us to followers of Hitler. I smell sour grapes or a woman scorned or wounded pride, but I could be wrong. IRENE: But now I can say that my integrity can stand proud on its own, although this doesn’t mean that I am closed off to another’s input and remarks about me, on the contrary, I always check them for value, as I wouldn’t want to overlook anything! PETER: I find that checking things out for facts far better, because I tend to only value that which I want to value – things like praise, sympathy, emotional support, appreciation, etc. IRENE: Even when they do play an attacking or defending role with me, I find that I am not disturbed by this at all and therefore emotional reactions simply do not come up any more, so I there is nothing at all that I have to get rid of, exterminate or otherwise repress or suppress. These days I can virtually instantly discern the understandable reaction of the other as a natural human defence of themselves. PETER: Above you had said that you accepted emotions and feelings as good and now you say you don’t have any anyway. Exactly what is your teaching – you seem to have a bet in each way. Are you advocating a middle road – an actual freedom with a bit of belief and femaleness thrown in or is it just a freedom for women only? As you can see you get no support from me for the philosophy of retaining human conditioning or instincts. I remember being astounded when you said you would seek love again even though you acknowledged it could bring great suffering in the event of your partner dying or leaving. You said you would welcome the suffering. Well, not for me – my chest is still bruised from feeling and suffering the universal dread!
Re: Vitriolic confusion IRENE: Wow, some fire has erupted, I read in your e-mail! Despite your vitriolic confusion about me and my new(?), old(?), woman only(?) anti-man(?) philosophy, I couldn’t help chuckling about you here and there and saying ‘fair enough, Peter’. PETER: So I guess if you regard my last letter as vitriolic we are coming to an end of our correspondence. We seem to ground on the major rock of feelings and emotions and we have wide philosophical differences on the matter. If I can attempt to broadly summarise the positions I see it as the following – Your stated philosophy from your last post is that of –
Briefly in response to the above points my position is –
So, there seems a gulf so wide that we have nothing in common philosophically. I do understand you have ‘tread the boards’ with all this with Richard for all those years and I hear your warnings. But I figure I’ve got nothing left to lose, so I’ll keep going. Besides, I’m having a grand time and it’s such fun to dig into this stuff about us human beings. I have no wish to interfere with your happiness. I just want to make it clear why I am continuing with the findings of the ‘other 50% of the experimenters’ and that I have neither doubt nor fear of the consequences. At the risk of again being seen as vitriolic, I will give you a quote from my journal that I wrote after an incident I witnessed where a group of people confronted Richard and accused him of being cold, uncaring and deceitful.
I know it’s strong and leaves no room for compromises but that’s how I see the Human Condition. You may see it as vindictive but for some reason it seems appropriate again right now. I guess it is that I watched the black-humour film ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ on TV last night with its running score sheet of ‘losses’ in the ‘games’ that the generals played in the War to end all Wars. The losses after 2 years of playing one game at the Somme were 607,000 dead on the English side alone for a nil gain of ground. I guess it is that I yet again understood Richard’s desire to find a way to actually end wars and his radical understanding that, for this to be possible, both the good and bad feelings and emotions and instincts have to be eliminated. Those men, after all, died for love of god, country and family. Their pride eventually disintegrated to the point where they simply shivered in their mud filled trenches, ridden with lice and listening to the rats feeding on the dead and wounded, singing endless choruses of ‘we’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here ... we’re here because we’re here...’ But then again you know all this and we have talked of this at length many times before so maybe just write me off as a hopeless case ...
PETER: Well, we pursue our philosophical differences over the copper wires again, hey. To keep things on track I’ll respond to the 5 points where we seem to differ.
IRENE: I can only wholeheartedly agree with you. You seem to be more in disaccord with Richard as he maintains that you cannot achieve this as a human being. He says that he is no longer a human being. I can talk about being a human being at ease, at peace with myself and other people, without malice nor emotional grudges or reactions towards any person. PETER: Point taken. I was using the word human being as in ‘fellow human being’. Richard is most definitely not a ‘normal’ human being in terms of having malice and sorrow and the elimination of these animal instincts involved an apparent physical mutation. I’m at a bit of a loss at your second point, as you have previously stated that you have feelings, emotional reactions and deep grudges and have lauded your capacity both to feel sorrow and to share in suffering with others. * PETER:
IRENE: Although aggression and fear are indeed instincts which do come to the fore in an extremely threatening situation on a physical life-death level, your aggression and fear are linked to your personal unresolved dilemmas and painful disappointments around women and love that you have learnt to condemn as not worth looking at because you believe that you can deal with them by ‘eliminating’ and ‘getting rid’ of ‘all those feelings that have been a nuisance and a pain for all my life’. You have learnt to concentrate on the delightful, tasty aspects of your daily life – which by the way is incredibly important on this wide and wondrous path! – and because everything feels and appears so perfect, you mistakenly believe that all your deep grudges have been eliminated. But because they haven’t seen the light of day for a while by you ignoring them, it doesn’t mean that they have left gracefully... It’s not your human condition that harbours your accumulated fear and aggression but your conditioning, by others and yourself. And indeed, as long as you keep looking away, this disease, this madness as you call it will prevent you from ever being able to rely on yourself, because now you can only act out of this suppression of old feelings and the mistaken interpretations you have made in order to keep your appearance, your act together. PETER: The argument that we are born innocent and pure and we are corrupted by some ‘evil’ force defies the countless well meaning efforts by millions of people to break the stranglehold that violence and suffering have over human beings. But for all our efforts to be good, and live a moral life relying on our own ‘inner’ senses, we still need to maintain ‘peace’ in the world at the point of a gun. * PETER:
IRENE: For a start, I don’t see you being malicious and sorrowful at the core of your being. It’s your defence of this core of your being that lashes out when triggered, justified by your mistaken beliefs and interpretations of yourself and of women. Ignoring them means that you cannot ever rely on yourself and must therefore rely on another or others to keep you under control. This dependence on others for your own survival comes at a price: you must sacrifice, compromise your integrity in order to be safe and kill or die for the survival of your group. PETER: Yes, we are all wired with a survival instinct, a will to survive, that consists of feelings of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Rather than treat the symptoms with therapy, morality, ethics or transcendence I have chosen the path of eliminating the disease – to actively pursue the elimination of the animal in me. Sure it’s radical, but I and countless others over the centuries, have diligently pursued the other solutions to no avail. Besides, it is such a fascinating adventure to participate in at my time of life. I’ve done all the normal things very well, investigated them all, so I’m trying something different now. It does mean I’m on my own, but then again I always was. The curious thing is that I no longer ‘feel’ lost, lonely or frightened on my own or have the need to ‘feel’ part of a group to survive. My interactions with all I meet are therefore not driven by animal survival instincts. It’s so good to be rid of bad feelings and the need to maintain the good one’s in order to keep it together. The bad feelings are hard wired in us (fear and aggression) and up until now the idea of abandoning the Good, Right, Sacred or Holy has been absurd. These feelings – and the point of a gun – are all that has held it all together to get us to our present state of development as a species. It is only possible to eliminate the good when one has eliminated the bad and the bad is a biological and neurological problem located in the primitive lizard brain. But you know all this and have experienced many times a ‘disconnection’ from fear and aggression that is apparent in the peak experience when all is obviously benign, perfect, pure and pristine – with not a skerrick of fear or aggression apparent anywhere. * PETER:
IRENE: I’m not surprised, it is crippling you. PETER: Okay, if that is how you see me now compared with 18 months ago. It’s certainly not how I experience myself. * PETER:
IRENE: No Peter, with ‘authentic’ I do not mean the natural instincts we are all born with. They become only active in a physical or deeply emotional threat to your well-being. Authentic means genuine, actual, trustworthy, reliable. To be your own authentic self means that you know yourself honestly, in other words you are your own potential growing in quantity. Fear is seen and understood from the inside and doesn’t play any role any more in my daily life of living, be it doing business, talking to a friend, meeting somebody new or any situation that used to make me fearful in the past. Freeing myself from aggression and fear didn’t come about by covering them over with a golden blanket of physical delights and chanting my own praises, avoiding others who may disturb the peace that I had woven so securely around myself as a cocoon. My aggression and fear that I had not wanted to look at yet, would come out in my attitude and sharp remarks from time to time until I was willing to listen to others when they would object to me and acknowledge how the fear of loneliness was driving me to do or say things that went against my most intimate sense of correctness. I am so pleased with what I’ve done Peter, you have no idea... I couldn’t have envisaged this particular outcome ever. Wherever I am I am at peace and that’s all that I ever dreamed of anyway. I now find myself living what my very first peak-experience showed me to be my destiny. Its quality of atmosphere is here now, but according to the vision there is an abundant quantity to follow... and I am already so content with this abundance so far!! I am a fully human being with all my feeling-faculties and instincts in tact, and free to live here in the most peaceful spot on earth, free to enjoy other people as they come with each showing me their endearing qualities and tell me about their hopes, their dreams, their goals, their loves and from time to time also their fears and vanities of course, but nothing to be afraid of or ashamed. Each and every one of these fears and vanities inevitably proves to be based on a conclusion that a certain type of people have agreed on, your type of people. ie. the people who have had an important influence in your character-forming, of course they could have very well been different types in different times through your life. They sought your influence and you thought theirs, so their conclusions (=opinions so far about aspects of human life on earth) you have allowed to influence your opinions so far and they did the same (only when there was an amicable mutual exchange of course). It is very difficult to actively learn something from a person whom you don’t like and therefore you don’t expect to hear them say something worthwhile for you to listen to and even be influenced by, it’s easier to condemn them to the ‘hopeless case’ basket, or ridicule them, or avoid them out of fear. But it is equally easy to accept every word from a person you admire or like very much, to be correct at face value. So you don’t have to be clever to deduce from the sources of your conclusions that they are built on, to say the least, ambiguous foundations, if not ambivalent ones. Armed with these conclusions you found the seeming solution for all these unresolved conflicts in yourself and decided to run for the jugular, that would cut off all of these conflicting emotions and instincts with one fell swoop, so you would never have to face yourself ever again and believing hard that you are therefore free of them. Nobody can escape themselves forever, what’s not authentic must come out, unless you are superficial enough to content yourself with a veneer of hedonistic perfection, that can’t stand the slightest critique because it is so busy defending itself from being found out, any moment ... Before I had mentioned the word ‘type’; I mean this as opposed to ‘character’, which is closer to authentic, less ‘typical’. Whenever I have talked with you in the past, I remember often using theatre-terms with you, because you can relate so well to them. You probably know that a master playwright distinguishes themselves from a lesser qualified one, by writing scripts for characters in stead of types. So it requires only a pretty actor/actress with a good memory and a well groomed social identity to play the roles of types (think of all the same bland faces on the average American serials). They are easy to watch as so many people can identify with ‘typical’ behaviour. But for a character role you need an actor who has not just a pretty face, but who knows his own character in a much deeper sense and can therefore be open to finding out about other human character-traits and live himself into those roles. So it is in life. I am the main-character in my life-scenario, my stage is wherever I find myself physically and my co-actors are all the people with whom I play out scenarios that we improvise on the spur of the moment. So the lines are being written as I utter them, already influenced by what the other has just improvised. You are always free to exit any stage if that is in your control and sit for a while in the audience watching other people’s sketches or change your character into a more lively or more interesting or less boisterous role and see how inspiring that is. As an authentic being I am not afraid of others, nor of myself, because I have nothing to hide or to cover up any more, or to be afraid or ashamed of. I didn’t know that it would be so deliciously easy. As my sister is staying here for a few more days, I’d like to invite you for coffee on Tuesday 5 pm. Good idea to start with a beach-walk, Peter. If I won’t hear from you I assume you go accord on coming on Tuesday. PETER: Irene, I understand that you have given actual freedom your best shot and have found it wanting in the role you want to play in life. I keep going because I have a different (megalomaniacal, if you like) version of the whole scenario of the ‘play’. My play envisages humans playing in a world without wars, without domestic violence, rape and torture. With men and women living together in peace, harmony and equity. With sexual pleasure freed of guilt, shame, aggression and perversion. With no religious or territorial wars fought over right or might. With no police, no legal battles, no need for justice or retribution. Where everyone treats each other as fellow human beings and wishes well of each other. Where equanimity, co-operation, consensus and helpfulness are readily apparent in all interactions. Where the current money and effort used to fight wars and keep the ‘peace’ are used to bring the benefits, comforts and pleasures now possible for the few to all humans on the planet. Where care and consideration replace greed and avarice, ending pollution forever. And it is not a dream, it is now possible for those who want to play the game of being a human being with a new script. All I have to do is become a new character and leave the old one behind. Or as Richard puts it
It is a brand new script and most will object and still play the game of malice and sorrow, but soon the other game will become more and more played. Seeing it as an obviously more sensible game people will eventually join with hardly a thought as to the old ‘survival’ script that they were wired to play. The game of survival is, at core, a grim game as I know it – like a ballet dancer with lead weights tied on the ankles, is how I described it in my journal. So we differ still, but I did enjoyed the other evening in your little beach-side house, and your visit today. Hope your matchstick is holding in your computer and you get this note ....
PETER: I did enjoy hanging out with you the other day. Many laughs and a few reminiscences. I liked it that we found so much in common in agreeing that any solution to the human dilemma must include an end to wars – peace on earth; that men and women have to live in peace and harmony, and we have to stop being ‘men’ and ‘women’ in separate camps. You did strongly make the point that you felt that Richard, Vineeto and I (... to a lesser extent, you said) are confrontational in our writing to people. I did question whether it was not the content that people found offensive rather than the ‘style’. Since you find what I write offensive to you I will stop. I learnt about 12 months ago that once someone says he or she is offended by what I say, then any further conversation on that particular subject is best avoided. Then we can just hang out like the other day.
PETER: Just remembered that I offered to send you We have since posted the lot on our web-site under It is impossible to get them to even begin to acknowledge that they MIGHT be followers of a religious leader and therefore that they MIGHT be religious believers or MIGHT be members of a religion. So strong is their faith and belief. So happy reading ... Good night ... ...
IRENE: Well-executed lyrics learnt by rote were performed smugly by the 3 chief-disciples in turn, not only boring like hell because of the predictable repetitiveness but alienating in no uncertain terms the other 3 people present, including the hostess ... whom you all failed to acknowledge even politely, but simply used as your servant only and a pair of ears... I couldn’t help but noticing the austere and churchlike atmosphere you four people were intent on creating ... <snip> This way of zealously‘ winning souls’ for the greater glory of the man who originated the sect or religion or way of life, is so typical and predictable for all new sects, and something so obvious to everybody else. The new disciples themselves are usually unaware of their fanaticism, yet instantly rail against it when recognising it in disciples of other masters... and as you well know Peter, that is exactly the sure-fire way to war, that you and I would like so much to replace with peace amongst people ... if I take your words sincerely? PETER: I was confused by your last letter to me as it didn’t gel with last time we hung out together. What is it that seems to offend you about people claiming to be happy and harmless and then trying to seduce other people into maybe trying it? As one of those people trying to do it I can tell you it is a strange business (albeit a part time one – maybe a couple of hours a day, whichever day), because all you get is objections. The fun bit for me is to try and tickle my way around their defences and see that being alive is not such a bad thing after all, to meet the happy and innocent person. And maybe get them to consider even to enjoy being here, and then maybe to be happy, and maybe become concerned as to not cause ‘ripples’ for others. Given that it does mean dropping both learned and instinctual behaviour and self, I have come to understand that the very nature of what I am saying is confrontational and anathema to the ‘self’. I have also discovered that my happiness does not depend at all on others, it’s just a bonus to see a bit more happiness and common sense in the world and a bit more peace and harmony. IRENE: As I have originated the bleeding phrase (The Wide and Wondrous Path) myself some years ago, I feel rightfully justified in reminding you that I never had in mind that the ‘trodders’ on this path (incl. me) would regularly need to retreat into the magical long grass along the side of this path and beat themselves up first with all kind of ridiculous self-admonishments and then sink into the bare-pit of fear, dread, malice, evil and plain yukkiness, in order to ‘exterminate this self forever’. And then having to vomit out the nausea of hell itself, literally. The logical next step is then fighting this demon out of pure survival- instinct and with the utmost use of sheer will-power prove to yourself that you can conquer this ‘worst of human beingness’... I did not incorporate this into my vision, precisely because I had seen a more attractive way than the catholic self-flagellation and the eternal Battles Against Evil that have been the flavour of the day since the myriad of mythologies with their boring fights against human nature... <snip> All the dread and malice was an induced belief in the first place and not even true, but look what it did?! That’s what you get from believing and trying to convince yourself that you are malicious and ‘rotten to the core’ as your deepest self and Self ... and the ensuing belief that therefore you must eradicate all of your self, your feelings, your soul, your being human ... But even when you are convinced that you are perverse, rotten to the core, malicious and fearful, you cannot even do something constructive to rectify this, apart from ‘sitting this dread out’, enhancing its power over you! Whilst your objective was to at least diminish it if not exterminate it altogether. PETER: When I talked to you last time I was telling you my discoveries about fear and telling you of an experience when I experienced what I can only describe as universal dread. I talked to you to about the wide and wondrous path to actual freedom and described this as the only hiccup that I had discovered recently. Very occasionally something goes on inside my head that produces what I would describe as a mist of a feeling but it is so good to now be both happy and harmless – it is definitely beyond my wildest dreams. Is your embellishing and blatant misrepresentation of what I said to you about this particular experience an attempt to fabricate some ‘visions of evil’? What image it is that you are trying to concoct? I find it bewildering to say the least. Do you remember your teenage years when you both wanted to leave home but it was scary too? Well, when I finally left university, I became alone in the world and found that I no longer belonged to a group. I experienced what it was like to be on my own in a crazy world where people fought it out for ‘survival’ despite the fact that the only thing they needed to fear was each other, while it seemed to me there was enough to go round, for all of us to live in comfort and peace. I could never understand why people could never get along. Well, I had thought that childhood was the tough part and being an adult would be cool as I would get to be free of what I sensed as ‘shackles’ – social conditioning and blind instinctual drives. It just took 50 years to finally be here but in the end it was as easy as falling off a log (or laying on a couch) I am now fully living that freedom. Good hey... I don’t know what the reason is I’m writing this to you.... It’s just turned into one of my ‘life is so good raves’ and I haven’t addressed any of your points in the last postings.
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