25.11.1998

PETER: Hi,

RESPONDENT: I am one of those who seek freedom especially from beliefs and conditionings. I was a Christian for many years before I met Osho. Now, after many years of listening to him, visiting the Commune and reading his books I have realized that there is no difference between my being a Christian and being a Sannyasin. It is just the same dog with a different collar.

I am going to look into this ‘third alternative’.

PETER: There is a great myth put about by many in the spiritual world that goes something like ‘you are already That or God, or Enlightened, you only have to realize it’. It is a prime example of being in cuckoo land as it denies the fact that, as human beings, we are born with instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. And it attempts to transcend the animal biological heritage by inventing some mythical ‘divine world’ and going off and dwelling in it ‘for eternity’. The problem in humans is a neuro-biological, not meta-physical. And only by ridding ourselves of the Ancient belief in Gods and Goddesses, can we begin to tackle the problem. Without God it is up to each of us to sort out our own ‘self’ and why not? It is such an amazing journey of discovery that it makes any normal or spiritual therapies seem like kindergarten. To find out ‘what’ you are as opposed to who you ‘think’ or ‘feel’ you are!

No longer do I dwell or wallow in the psychic world. No longer do I need good spirits, Masters, guides, omens or charms. No longer does a battle rage inside my head or my heart. Free of fear, doubt, feelings and emotions I am able to be here, in this moment of time, sensing the physical world – delighting in typing, with a fan blowing cool air on my back, my body still loose and tingling after a ‘romp’ with Vineeto. The actual physical experiencing of the perfection of the physical world, the ease, the comfort, the pleasure of food, sex, coffee, writing, reflecting, talking. The delight, the thrill of doing what is happening is definitely where it is at!

To be free of my ‘self’ and the psychic world is to be free of doubt and fear – to be actually free.

3.12.1998

PETER: Just some comments on what you wrote the other day –

RESPONDENT: How would things be different if we were motivated by truth?

PETER: The problem with being motivated by the ‘truth’ is that everyone has their own version of the truth, as in ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’, and that each Religion has their own particular version of the Truth according to the Teachings of their particular Master, Messenger or Guru being followed. Further, some people believe that there is but One Truth, an obvious fantasy as it is such a nebulous thing as to be ‘beyond words’. When it is put into words the fighting begins in earnest as to which version is the Real Truth. This nonsense has gone on for millennia and is a mere excuse to have a mythical God to bow down to or look up to. Just because everybody believes something to be true doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. It just means that everybody believes to be it to be true. To believe means ‘fervently wish to be true’ as per dictionary definition. Whereas a fact is a fact.

RESPONDENT: What about if we were motivated by a common sense evaluation of facts rather than imaginary concepts?

PETER: What about if we considered that there was no life after death? What about if we were motivated to become happy and harmless, rather than the frantic desire to visualize an after-life? What if we stopped believing in mythical Truths and looked at the facts for a change?

RESPONDENT: How would things change here on Earth if we all worked to help one another instead of just ourselves?

PETER: One of the significant problems with the tribal system of clinging together for support is that we are socialized, cajoled and forced into ‘helping’ others. This means that we constantly focus our awareness on the behaviour and conduct of others and completely neglect our own emotions, feelings, words and actions. This results in a scenario where the other is always wrong or at fault and results in those insidious ‘if only’ ... scenarios. ‘If only we all loved one another...’ ‘If only I found the right partner...’ ‘If only it had lasted...’ etc.

I simply adopted the sensible approach that the only person I could change (or help) was me. To consider the possibility of changing the other 5.8 billion people to suit my version of how things could be better is ridiculous in the extreme. And waiting for God to do it with a wave of some magic wand is but a fairy-tale with diabolical consequences. Since He/She/It is nothing but a figment of our imaginations we wait in vain (not to mention despair, anguish, hope, trust and faith).

RESPONDENT: How would people live if we made decisions to support the All rather than each as individuals?

PETER: As humans are now, because we have a set of well-meaning morals and concepts practiced by almost every religion and culture, that concept alludes to a common good, to mutual support and compassion for those less well-off, rights of minorities, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, love for neighbour, etc. And it does a reasonable sort of job of keeping the lid on our instinctual malice and sorrow. We have managed to stamp out cannibalism at least, but have a long way to go to make a dent on war, rape, domestic violence, suicide, corruption, etc. I suggest it is time to sort out ourselves rather than others, firmly based on the fact that the only one you can change is you.

RESPONDENT: How would our decisions change if we understood that whatever we do to our neighbour we do to ourselves?

PETER: The concept falls down badly on the first point which is that when ‘push comes to shove’ nobody cares what they do to their neighbour, everybody reverts to ‘survival’ mode. Each human comes into the world wired with a set of instincts (fear, aggression, nurture and desire) and a primitive self. This is overlaid with a set of social conditioning and we then adopt a social identity in order to fulfill the role expected of us. Thus there are 5.8 billion humans, each with a ‘self’ that is basically lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning. No wonder, we still need to keep up law and order with the point of a gun. Adopting moralistic or idealistic concepts is to treat the symptoms and not the disease. It is merely sticking one’s head in the sand.

To go ‘in’ to some imaginary world of bliss, God, Oneness, Love, Truth, etc. is merely to put one’s head in the clouds – to go off into an imaginary la-la land. The only reason this imagination maintains any credibility is that it appeals to the psychological and psychic entity within each of us which desperately fears death and seeks immortality in some ethereal metaphysical realm. The soul going to heaven, the spirit going home, the essence rejoining the Source, or however else it is imagined according to the belief held.

Personally, I found a thorough investigation and understanding of all the social conditioning and instinctual drives with their resulting feelings, emotions and passions led to the stage that I am free of them. Being free of malice and sorrow is a state so superior to moral rightness or spiritual bliss; and it is actual and factual, not imaginary and fickle.

RESPONDENT: How would things differ if we each did just what we wished for a living, and loved it!?

PETER: I always mistrusted ‘if only-s’, particularly as I got older and saw all the dreams fail and eventually fade, only to be replaced by some ‘new’ version of the old dream. The chance to try something radically different that had never been tried before is what attracted me to try out Richard’s method to become actually free of the Human Condition. The problem with this ‘if only’ is our self and the associated survival instincts programmed in us. My experience is you can get rid of the lot.

RESPONDENT: How would the world look if we All realized that We Are All One?

PETER: The other day I was watching TV and yet another set of leaders and diplomats trying to settle another outbreak of some ancient religious or tribal war or some revolutionary ‘protest’ and I saw nothing but band-aid being applied yet again. 160,000,000 killed in wars alone this century and we have had several failed attempts to have a world government (League of Nations and United Nations) – and we are no closer to having peace on the planet.

I then mused on the possibility of having a United Religions set up and what would happen – all the Religions of the world would have to agree that there is only one God. Thus the Christians have to admit that Jesus was not Son of God since there is only One World God. So Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Osho, etc. would all be declared Non-Gods and all Religions would become One Religion. The trouble is it is a fantasy as people actually kill each other and sacrifice their lives for their beliefs. People kill and die for their God and their Country. We are instinctually programmed to sacrifice ourselves for what we perceive to be the ‘good’ of the particular tribe we are in. We need to free ourselves of this instinctual drive, and the way to do this is free ourselves from our beliefs. For individuals to stop believing in God and anything meta-physical is an essential step to bringing peace to this paradisiacal planet.

RESPONDENT: What is our collective will? Do we even have one?

PETER: The collective will of the species is a will to survive as a species. Blind nature wires each species with an instinctual response mechanism in order to perpetuate the particular species. It is a very clumsy package and in many species it actually conspires, making survival difficult. The migratory patterns of many birds and animals are such as to cause the futile death of many. For humans these instinctual responses are fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

Fear and aggression are necessary to attack and defend against other animals that would kill or eat us. In the human species this includes to attack and defend against other humans in competition for territory, food, mating partners, etc.

Nurture is essentially the instinct to procreate, provide for, protect and pass on any knowledge, customs, morals, ethics and beliefs to the next generation.

Desire is the drive to survive – it translates into sexual conquest, power over others, and attaining the necessities of survival such as territory, food, offspring, and the protection of others. Played out by 5.8 billion humans these instinctual patterns combined with tribal conditioning results in the Human Condition as we see it in operation on the planet. This is what we humans agree we are, and we further believe that you can’t change human nature. So we all agree that we can’t change ourselves, so no one dares to try.

It is now possible to become free of the collective will. But it does take the courage to stand on one’s own two feet, to stop believing what others tell you as truths and start looking at facts. Then one discovers and sensately experiences the delight, ease, magic and perfection of the physical universe.

RESPONDENT: Well, at this point, we are facing the results of all of our past and present actions taken, actions to help each of us as individuals/small groups rather than the whole. The results we are creating are not punishments. Rather, we are about to face the results of our actions because these are the natural laws within which we live. We are getting what we’ve created.

PETER: This seems to be a concept that humans have consciously or unconsciously created something together. The idea that there is some thing that binds us to act together or that there is someone in control is not supported by the fact that each human has a self and is automatically driven by self-preserving instinctual passions. To perpetuate this belief in a solution to your dilemma which involves everyone miraculously changing together or acting together is to miss the point entirely. The cause of all the sorrow and malice is in you. It is the psychological and psychic ‘self’. Who you think and feel you are as distinct from the physical body you are. Unless this issue is tackled individually, unless people are willing and courageous enough to want to change themselves, nothing will change for them. The rewards of this change are indeed extraordinary.

RESPONDENT: But what have we created? It is not a pretty picture from my perspective. The results are not what we would call ‘best.’ It is not a beautiful thing in my estimation to watch our cities destroyed by floods caused by extreme weather and higher oceans due to global warming through the destruction of our atmosphere. It is not a pretty thing to watch people starve because plants burn up and the rains don’t come.

PETER: I see you are a believer in the theory of global warming and subsequent disruptions in weather patterns. It was a debate that I followed with interest for a while to see if I could discern the facts as opposed to the media hype, the vested interests and ‘Doomsday’ beat ups. There certainly seems a great deal of disagreement in the scientific community (not an uncommon thing) with the usual competitiveness, brinkmanship, and blarney abounding. What does seem a constant thread is that it is still a theory searching for hard evidence and actual proof. The problem of such a limited time span of precise meteorological and atmospheric data – only about 100 years – has lead to nothing more than theoretical extrapolations. Still, it does suit the agenda of the extremists and ‘Doomsdayers’ to promote the worst case theories as ‘truths’ in order to promote their particular ‘truth’ as the only solution. They are also people who simply do not want to be here, they hunger for an escape from living life, here, now, on earth.

I have developed a discerning eye and ear in order to ascertain what is fact and what is merely theory, postulation, concept, truth, common agreement, belief, assumption, speculation, imagination, myth or wisdom. At the start it does take intent to dig around and it does take a bit of an effort, (like reading what I am writing, for a start). It can result in a few blows to one’s pride, but otherwise one would simply believe what everybody else tells as the Truth.

RESPONDENT: It is not an awesome thing to see some hoard that which they’ve extracted by leverage, holding it when they have that which the rest of the us need to survive because they fear the worst. It is not a pretty thing to watch weather and natural disasters blow down and burn our towns and cities due to changes in our jet-stream and tectonic changes due to general abuses of our planet.

PETER: We certainly see a lot more natural disasters and results of fierce weather now that we have such an excellent TV coverage, and I often hear that something was the worst ... in 50 years or 100 years. But I have yet to see the scientific communities agree on a link to global warming. The environmental lobby has grown to such a powerful force it is hard to discern facts from hysteria. It seems to me that it is an unproven theory and a bit of a furphy, considering that the main news items I see on TV are yet another war, another bombing, another shootout, another massacre, another famine... The murders, rapes, suicides, and domestic violence are usually too numerous and common place to even get a mention. And yet when I point out that the Human Condition is malice and sorrow and that it can be eliminated by whoever cares, no-one is interested. They would rather blame someone else and peddle another version of the old ‘tried and failed’ methods.

The other curious thing is that most of the religions have a Doomsday scenario, or a Day of Judgement. This is an essential part of any belief-system that espouses a Way or a Truth in order to ‘escape’ from evil and damnation. It has been going on for centuries and it is amazing to see the Doomsday slip back decade after decade, despite the wishes and convictions to bring it on.

RESPONDENT: It is not a beautiful thing to watch thousands starving in the streets, as they already are and will more so in the future if things continue on the path we’ve collectively chosen.

PETER: To say that we have collectively chosen assumes firstly that human beings are a collective. We are obviously the same species but are in fact there are 5.8 billion humans each with a separate sense of ‘self’. Each is born with primitive sense of self, reinforced by a set of survival instincts. We then are imbued with a social identity from birth onwards so as to fit in one of literally thousands of tribal and/or religious groups. Further, from our peers we ‘round out the package’ with a personal selection of beliefs in order to form what we then consider to be a ‘unique’ identity. It is from our social conditioning that the belief comes that we are a ‘collective’.

We are instilled with a set of morals and ethics such as to make us ‘fit in’ and to curb our instinctual aggression. The major problem is that each person within the particular group, tribe or religion then depends on the group for survival. This dependency is both instinctual and imbibed with the mother’s milk and is so strong that group members will kill and die for the group’s survival in the face of both actual and perceived dangers. To imagine that we choose to act this way is to defy factual evidence to the contrary.

RESPONDENT: It is not a lovely thing to see world financial collapse due to ignoring that which is obvious, driven by short-term profit motivations and the idea that this is an ‘us vs. them’ game we are playing here on Earth.

PETER: I see you use the word ‘truth’ rather than fact. That ‘We All Are One’ is a belief, and belief means ‘to fervently wish to be true’. The fact is that 5.8 billion of us fight it out for survival against each other.

RESPONDENT: This is what we get if we decide that ‘survival of the fittest’ is the name of the game, though very few will survive.

PETER: We don’t casually decide that ‘survival of the fittest’ is the name of the game, we are instinctually driven. It is wired in us in what is commonly known as the Lizard brain, the seat of our instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Unless one faced this fact one either spends one’s life trying to be good or chasing some Altered State of Consciousness wherein one became ‘not the body’. Head in the sand or heart in the clouds?

RESPONDENT: And it will not necessarily be those surviving who now call themselves ‘fittest’ today, but rather those who listen to their inner voices – the ‘chosen ones’ as some would call them. The choosing for the ‘chosen ones’ is not done by some outside entity, but through our own personal decisions to wake up, remember who we really are, and love again – working to help others, knowing that there is enough for everyone. If we do not, this Earth will soon be unable to support us given our collective irresponsible actions.

PETER: Ah. So here is the rub. After the Doomsday, only the ‘chosen ones’ will survive. I have often wondered which of the chosen ones it will be – the Rajneeshees, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Hindus. Who chooses which of the chosen ones survive, or go to some other planet or ethereal realm. Maybe it depends on who causes the End to happen, whether it is Jehovah, the Christian God, Technology, etc. And how to sort out the various claimants as to who’s God caused the End, and which disciples therefore deserve the right to a ticket ‘out’.

RESPONDENT: Now, I’ve stated before that we must each do what is best for ourselves. That is true. It is a truth that if one does not do what is best for one’s self, then one can do nothing truly good and long-lasting for others. But the trick here is to determine what is truly best for one’s self.

PETER: Yep, you’ve got a problem here. Everyone has their own version and that constantly varies on top it, given that the ‘self’ is ‘any of various conflicting personalities conceived of as coexisting within a single person’ – as per Oxford Dictionary.

RESPONDENT: What is good for all is good for each of us, because We All are One. In considering each action you take, just think to yourself ‘if everyone took this action, would it benefit Us as One, or would it not?’ Choose accordingly. That’s how we can choose a different path – a path of love that benefits Us All.

PETER: This concept has been tried by every religion for centuries and does a reasonable job (aided by armies and police forces) to keep our violence and aggression to reasonable limits. Only 160,000,000 killed in wars this century.

RESPONDENT: Your actions will serve as a seed in fertile ground – others will understand through your actions. Others will catch the spirit of the truth in that way.

PETER: Religions, philosophies, revolutions, popular movements, Gurus and the like have been planting seeds for millennia and we get no end to malice and sorrow. A little discerning reading of history will attest to this fact. Or you could just watch the television news – we humans inflict far more violence on each other than we do to anything else. In fact we enjoy it. One of the best selling computer games involves killing pedestrians while driving a car. Most jokes are based on putting somebody down. All of our ‘entertainment’ involves either violence or sorrow (usually termed ‘love’ stories).

RESPONDENT: If there is something different you would do given the truth that We Are All One, simply change what you do. Change your actions to those that are helpful for All. Show others by your example what works better. Together in this way, we can make a difference today for tomorrow. It is the natural way of things – to choose again.

PETER: The ‘natural’ way is sorrow and malice – it is programmed into us by blind nature. It is time to be un-natural.

The way is now open to for anyone, given sufficient intent, to rid themselves of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. To re-run another version of Ancient Wisdom is to follow the well-worn track leading no-where new. If becoming happy and harmless seems a worthy aim in life, there is an alternative.

If you wish to remain with another group of ‘chosen ones’ then, of course, you will wait for a Doomsday for your ‘rewards’. It is good we are all free to make choices in our lives.

I simply made an assessment of the Old Ways and found that they hadn’t worked. When I dug further I found out why. Someone read my Journal the other day and said he liked it and that it was a modern version of what all the mystics are saying. He missed the point completely – still it’s early days.

I do enjoy living in these times of comfort, technology and communication, when I can type a few words, a few clicks and off it goes, and then I waddle over to the couch for an afternoon nap.

Sorry the reply took so long ...and is so long – but I like to try and get things clear.

4.12.1998

RESPONDENT: Your conclusions are obviously coming from the mind and not from a knowing from within.

PETER: Some brief replies.

No, my conclusions come from a study of the facts. I undertook a great deal of reading of exactly what it is the spiritual Masters offered, promised and actually delivered. I decided to look beyond the limits of what was accepted as true or ‘known’ another word for accepted) and venture into the unknown. I rather dramatically referred to it as ‘going where no man has gone before!’ Except for Richard, but he got ‘here’ by going through Enlightenment and out the other side. A far tougher journey and not to be advised. It is a bummer coming out off the delusion that you are the Absolute.

RESPONDENT: First of all, how can you help others when you yourself are helpless? First you have to help yourself and this means knowing yourself and accepting it (not changing yourself by force or doing something to change yourself). Then, the way to work to help one another is just a sharing, being yourself. This will bring the change on this earth. Religions and beliefs will not bring change.

Neither will a person who is mind oriented. A heart-oriented person can bring change and that too not by force or trying to help others.

PETER: So, by not changing yourself and accepting yourself as you are, the world will be changed. Does this process involve waving those fairy wands I see in fashion at the moment? I fail to see how this method of yours works. Everyone fights and even kills with a heart-felt passion be it the rejected lover his competitor, the man for his country, the woman for her beliefs, the rebel for a cause.

RESPONDENT: By meditation or ‘going in’ it is not something metaphysical or even spiritual. It is simply seeing. You keep on talking about things like ‘God, soul going to heaven, the spirit going home’ etc. etc. This is not what a Sannyasin’s world is all about. I used to believe in these things before but I am free of them. Now I make fun of the word ‘god, lord, hallelujah and others’. It is a source of laughter and fun for me, seeing how stupid I was before and the bullshit of it all.

PETER: Yes, apart from the devout few in Pune the Sannyas world seems to have little to do with what Osho was really talking about. It seems to have become yet another quasi-religious social club able to loosely contain all manners of beliefs and New Age fads.

RESPONDENT: When I said, ‘How would the world look if we all realized we are one’, I know that if this would happen the world would look like paradise, indeed, it would be a paradise. We are one in the real sense not if we have one god or one religion. We are one and yet we are multi-faceted’ ones. Religions, Gods and Beliefs are the reasons why we cannot realize that we are one. If the universe is one, then why is it not that humans on the universe are also one?

PETER: I did point out that humans are born with a primitive sense of ‘self’, consisting of the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire, and that this is overlaid from birth by a social identity which produces a separate self in each 5.8 billion humans.

Any amount of wishful thinking, prayer or fairy stories will not alter this fact. 3,000 years of well-meaning effort by billions of people give proof to the failure of the traditional methods to end suffering and violence in human beings. I decided to give something new a whirl and am simply reporting that it works. It is a fact that the ‘tried and true’ doesn’t work.

7.12.1998

RESPONDENT: Obviously, you have never listened to any of Osho’s Discourses or you would know that Osho talked about sex many times and he used very ‘green’ or ‘sex-full’ jokes in his discourses (jokes about blow-job, prostitutes, sexual intercourse, etc.). Osho used words like fuck, shit, bullshit, orgasm, penis, vagina, cunt to name a few. Do you think other so-called gurus like Sai Baba, Radha Swami, Maharishi would speak this way? These people think that to be spiritual you have to be very polite and avoid obscene language. For me, it is these gurus who are full of shit.

PETER: When reading and listening to Osho discourses, what I see is a traditional Eastern approach whereby one is to eventually transcend sex as a bodily, earthly, function. He also talked a little of Tantra, regarded in the Eastern traditions as a ‘lesser’ path. No-where have I read of him talking of the physical pleasure of intimate sex. No descriptions that indicate that this was his personal experience, rather than merely a teaching of the traditional path. As for being the sex-guru, my thinking is he assumed that given sufficient ‘indulging and expressing’, that one would eventually transcend sex. This same theory was used in therapies where by expressing and indulging in emotions such as anger, sorrow or aggression he assumed a transcendence could be achieved. The actual success rate seems very poor to say the least. For the few, a transcendence (rising above) may be achieved but the problem is that, if the boat is rocked too much, the emotions and feelings eventually re-surface. Hence the tradition of the celibate nun or monk in a cave or monastery.

RESPONDENT: Also you say,

Peter, what the fuck are you talking about? Do you really know what enlightenment is? Obviously you do not know so how can you expose it?

PETER: I have learnt more about Enlightenment, the spiritual world and the Human Condition in the last 18 months than I did in 18 years of treading the spiritual path. This is because I stopped believing what others told me was the truth and went in search of the facts. I also have had experiences of Enlightenment (an Altered State of Consciousness) wherein I became at ‘One with everything’. I was Love, everything was Golden, my thoughts were poetry and my centre had shifted to my heart. It was indeed glorious, amazing and so, so seductive.

RESPONDENT: Enlightenment has nothing to do with being spiritual. Enlightenment just means living in awareness and consciousness. It has nothing to do with spirituality.

PETER: Enlightenment as it is spoken of in the East and by Osho involves a permanent shift or alteration in consciousness wherein one becomes Love, at One, Eternal, Timeless, or whatever other word is used. As I understand it, Enlightenment is the goal of the spiritual search, the very aim of being a Sannyasin. Maybe you are on the spiritual path for some other reason.

RESPONDENT: Just because you meditate, do not eat meat or drink alcohol and do not use cuss words do not make you spiritual. It only makes you egoistic and holier-then-thou.

PETER: I don’t meditate at all, it is too good being here in the actual world to sit with eyes closed trying to ‘go in’. What I experience 24 hrs. a day is a state of bare sensory awareness that far exceeds anything I achieved after days of meditative effort. And I have this experience while eating meat, smoking cigarettes, having sex with Vineeto – and walking into town on a balmy summer’s evening for a late night sweet and coffee afterwards. Laying on the couch, watching TV, or typing these words – the sensate experience of doing what is happening in this only moment of being alive.

RESPONDENT: Enlightenment is simply knowing yourself and being natural and unpretentious.

PETER: I don’t know what your aim in life is, but, as a general observation it seems to me that many people have ‘watered down’ the original search for freedom to mean acceptance rather than change. For me, I saw that what I hoped to achieve on the spiritual path – Enlightenment – became less attractive the closer I got. So when I came across Richard I decided to try something new. I then set some realistic goals – living with a woman in peace and harmony and becoming happy and harmless. These I saw as eminently achievable in a short time, such that I could then live the fruits of my efforts, as this flesh and blood body, before I died.

RESPONDENT: But then again, you are British ... It is difficult to find a British person who is natural and does not act ‘gentlemanly’.

PETER: No ... a false assumption. That’s what I like about the Net. I am totally anonymous and the only way to communicate is by words – energy, body language, appearance, intuition – all fail. There is only a fellow flesh and blood human being typing these words. As for acting ‘gentlemanly’ I find words like benign, considerate and innocent to be more appropriate. However, I do call a spade a spade, a fact a fact, which occasionally has the effect of causing offence in some people who prefer to continue to believe rather than acknowledge facts.

RESPONDENT: 3-cheers ... gulp!gulp! ... hik!hik!

PETER: Nice chatting with you.

12.12.1998

RESPONDENT: Why don’t you just tell us how to experience this freedom that you talk about. How to live life in freedom 24 hours a day? You keep on talking about everything but you never share how we, poor ignorant sannyasins can also live in this ‘third alternative’ realm. Isn’t it not the time that you once and for all share the ‘how’ to this thing you are always talking about?

PETER: Just a note from me as Vineeto has already written to you on this subject, but I wanted to add a bit...

A bit from my journal about ‘how to’ – it’s from the God chapter ...

[Peter]: ... ‘What I understood of the method, briefly, was to make being happy your immediate goal, enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive as much and as often as possible – after all, this is your only moment of being alive that you are able to actually experience. Being happy yesterday is useless and imagining or hoping for it in the future is avoiding the issue. ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ was the question to be continuously asked until it becomes a non-verbal attitude or a wordless approach to life with the aim to minimize both the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ feelings and maximize the happy and harmless feelings. If you are not happy now, then you have something to look at. Richard suggests getting back to feeling good before investigating the source of the unhappiness as it makes the investigation so much easier, of course. What particular belief, conditioning or instinctual passion is causing your unhappiness in this moment? Once having discovered the cause or the issue behind the diminishing of happiness, one can root around layer by layer until it is exposed to the bright light of awareness and the silliness of it all is clearly understood.

For sorting out one’s beliefs and social conditioning there is a useful test that can be applied: ‘Is it silly or sensible?’ Does my conviction make sense? Is it supported by facts, or is it a belief; does it work? Whatever is preventing my happiness now deserves my total attention and thorough investigation – simply believing the opinions, beliefs and values of other similarly inflicted people is to be gullible in the extreme. It is my life I am living and it is happening now. I then became vitally interested in my happiness for the first time. And I was looking to get to the root of it, to be free of whatever was causing my unhappiness, such that it would never come back. Finished, gone.

And nobody else does it for me – I do it for myself!’ ... Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

And a bit more, later in the chapter, that might be relevant to the question –

[Peter]: ... ... ‘Simultaneously I proceeded to investigate with Richard all things religious and spiritual. What became apparent was that he was no spiritual Master whose ‘Energy’ created blissful feelings. There were no discourses, no spiritual practices, no meditation – just a frank and open discussion ranging over all facets of the Human Condition. What these investigations started to reveal was confrontational to the very core of ‘who’ I thought I was, because I was one of those human beings suffering from the Human Condition. Every time we would talk about something that I took as ‘right’ or ‘true’ or ‘real’, I was challenged to look at it afresh. Was this just something I had heard or read and assumed to be a truth – or was it that I simply believed, assumed or wished it to be true? Was it silly or sensible? What were the facts of the situation? What was my actual experience about this?

My mind would sometimes go into a sort of gridlock, unable and unwilling to withstand what it took as an assault. Rightly so, because the very ‘I’ who I thought I was, was being found out as made up of nothing more than the beliefs of others, society’s conditioning and a set of primitive animal instinctual passions! It was both exciting and terrifying at the same time as I found myself questioning all that I held to be true. I was conducting an investigation into my very own psyche – how extraordinary! Often it all felt too much as yet another wave of fear swept over me, but three things kept me going.

One was the memory of the purity and perfection of the peak experience I had had some ten years previously – and I was beginning to have similar experiences again, little reminders of my goal. The second was my intent. I wanted to live as I had experienced in a pure consciousness experience. I had arranged my life in such a way that I could devote almost the whole of my time to this investigation, whether being with Richard and Devika, Vineeto, or taking the time to contemplate by myself. I was also reading prolifically to investigate what was the current wisdom on a wide range of the Human Condition. I soon found myself obsessed, so fascinating was it to discover, for myself, exactly what it is to be a human being. Therapy had been like fiddling with the parts, rearranging the furniture to suit the particular beliefs of the therapist. Here I was taking the whole package apart – stripping away and delving deeper than I ever had before. It occurred to me that no wonder nearly everyone else who had come across Richard had run for the hills!’ ... Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

Maybe this has been of use, it’s a lot of words, but it is the only way to convey this to another. It is so good, so clean, so pure. You are free to make your own assessment of these words ... you have total freedom .. no bonds, no bargains, no deals, no promises.

As you can see, we are ‘doing’ the method now, ‘live’, on line – we are questioning beliefs, and no doubt similar reactions as I have described in my journal are happening to some on the list.

13.12.1998

PETER: It’s a Sunday morning here after one of those Saturday night parties that we went to yesterday. It was a nice gathering of people, outside, in a lush, well established semi-tropical garden – where the palms are old enough that they form a high, cooling canopy. People were at their best as many had just done the ‘Path of Love’ group and were still in their ‘post-group’ high. It was good to catch up with some old friends – some for a bit of ‘boys talk’ about building, but generally to meet and exchange about what we have been doing since we last met. On a few occasions the talk dipped a bit deeper than social chat and I had a couple of those interesting conversations such as we have on the list. Sometimes we can really get into talking of a few things and at other times it quickly becomes clear that I am ‘treading on toes’ so we steer clear of ‘sensitive’ issues.

I did have a fascinating talk with someone who I knew as a long-time Sannyasin, who extolled to me the teachings of an Eastern Guru she was into. Basically his teachings are that ‘everything is perfectly all right as it is – nothing to do’, and certainly ‘nothing to change’ and if and when ‘something happens’ it will be ‘by Grace’. In my usual irrepressible style I said ‘oh, then you believe in God?’ She looked startled and said ‘No’. She then said the teachings (or no-teachings?) were not about God and I asked her whose Grace it was that granted whatever it was that might or might not happen. She said ‘Existence’ and when I asked her ‘is not that another name for God?’ she said ‘no, it is an energy?’ She ended up desperately pleading a case that there must be ‘something’, because she has ‘felt’ it ... so we wandered off into talking about my second favourite subject – sex.

Later on I sat by myself under the stars and mused a bit on the conversation. I thought back to the time I was passionately searching for freedom. What would I have made of some-one who said ‘You don’t have to do anything – just wait for God’s Grace’ and ‘you can’t do anything about finding freedom – and the very act of trying is a hindrance’?

It might have been a tempting cop-out, but my being ruthlessly honest with myself always prevented me from the trap of fatalism or resignation. Also, it always involved a surrendering of my will to someone or something else. To be a mere puppet in some Cosmic play, with others puling my strings, was not the freedom I sought.

*

PETER to No 11: You say, if by Agapé you mean DIVINE LOVE ... it is wasted on me. I am one of a only a handful of atheists on the planet.

RESPONDENT: Atheism is also a belief ... you also believe that there is no god just as theist believe that there is a god.

PETER: Now, my reply to your note.

I think you are looking for a ‘bet each way’ here. I have met many people who proclaim that they don’t believe in God, but a little digging reveals that they believe there is a ‘something’ – call it what you will – Energy, Source, Truth, Essence, Existence, Mother Earth, Aliens, That, or whatever. God, by whatever name you want to call it, is still a ‘something else’ and people rather have that belief than face the fact that one is alone as an independently functioning and operating human being – one of 5.8 billion who are currently on the planet. And that when I die, that is it ... dead, finished, obliterated, finished, ... compost.

The concept of God is a belief, not a fact.

RESPONDENT: It does not make any difference

PETER: As for it not making any difference, it is my experience that it makes a world of difference ... the difference is that one cannot be a mortal flesh and blood human being living in the actual physical universe if there is a something (ego and soul) that is inside you that is going to live on after physical death.

RESPONDENT: A real intelligent person would not have any beliefs. He would be a ‘seeker’ and at the same time rely on his own understanding and not believe.

PETER: Yes, but you said above that it does not matter whether you believe in God or not ...

You want a ‘bet each way’ ... which is the very thing that prevents us humans beings (as flesh and blood bodies only) from being fully here in the actual world and not seeking some Union or Oneness with the Divine as an escape route.

RESPONDENT: You also say that if a person says he is god he has ego. I do not agree.

PETER: How Big can an ego get that calls oneself God? Maybe Supreme God is bigger than God ... or God of Gods?

When I was a kid they locked people up in asylums if they went off ranting that they were God, or the Saviour returned. I remember a couple of them used to be on Hyde Park corner in London with signs saying ‘The End Is Nigh’, and ‘follow me and ye shall be redeemed,’ and I regarded them at the time as having a bit of a screw loose.

RESPONDENT: A person may be ego-less and yet have discovered his own godliness (or god nature) within him or her and is sharing it. You have to be very aware to see if the person is speaking with an ego or not.

PETER: Yes, if only we know what the ego is – in my experience it is used in the East as expressing the fact that some-one still has a personal self and has not yet realised his or her Divine sense of self, or that they are God, or at One with God.

RESPONDENT: How can you judge if a person is free of ego? Are you really free of ego? I very much doubt it...

PETER: Yes, from your point of view I am not free of ego, unless I call myself God, Enlightened, That, at One, etc ...

What I am (in a pure consciousness experience) is this physical body only, there is no psychological and psychic entity inside, no ‘I’ – the little man inside my head who was controlling things.

There is also no ‘me’ as a psychic entity, no feeling ‘me’, no soul or spirit, that will live on after I, this body, dies.

That is why I say that everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong.

So much confusion exists in Eastern teaching about the ‘ego’, and generally it is put out as an admonishment to surrender your ego to God (or the Master). And once you have surrendered your will to anyone, or anything, you are really stuffed ...!

Good to chat ... good subjects to get out in the open – ‘on the table’, so to speak.

But, one can get into torturous semantics with all this stuff about ego and soul, while simply setting your aim in life to become happy and harmless cuts right through the lot.

4.1.1999

PETER: Some replies to your post. I’ve just picked a few that have some substance to them and not merely of the ‘Up Yours’ variety. Doesn’t your delete button work? But I do enjoy your comments anyway as you persist in not only reading my posts but even go through effort of replying.

*

PETER to No 16: I had thought that Sannyasins might have been a market but it seems I was wrong. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: That’s right. Look for another market (there are suckers all over the world) Funny? It’s boring that’s why nobody wants to buy it.

PETER: I am definitely wrong with you but there are and will be others who welcome a sincere and ‘open’ discussion even if it steps over that sacred and holy barrier of daring to question the teachings themselves. I use the word sincere deliberately as I think it is this sincerity that you confuse with a lack of sense of humour. It is just that billions of people have followed, trusted, surrendered to, and worshipped God’s and God men for millennia with an appalling lack of success.

Could it be the teachings that are at fault? A simple question to pursue and I would put it to you that it may be a worthwhile exercise?

If not for you, then there will be others who consider personal peace and happiness a worthwhile pursuit deserving of investment in time reading something new and radical.

As for humour I recommend the film I saw yesterday – ‘Adventures of Baron Münchhausen’ – particularly the King and Queen of the Moon.

*

PETER to No 16: It’s a funny thing trying to sell a book on how to become happy and harmless, and be able to live with a woman/man in peace and harmony and equity. To not only find no takers, but a myriad of objections or nihilistic responses. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: There are a lot of intelligent people and you cannot fool them.

PETER: I was kidding about selling a book! It is free to read on our Web-site and deliberately so. There are too many Gurus, therapists, shamans, diviners, Healers and the like who prey on the suffering of others offering snake-oil, palliatives and platitudes. I watch in amazement as the next wave of fashion sweeps through the town I live in and the desperate fork out hundreds, even thousands of dollars, for a quick fix, a feel-good week, or to sit adoringly at the feet of the next self-proclaimed God-man. Are these the intelligent people you are talking about? I was one of those seekers only 2 years ago, the difference being I was willing to ‘dig deep’ and question the teachings itself – the whole construct that is revered as Ancient Wisdom.

Just because everybody believes something to be true doesn’t make it a fact.

*

PETER to No 16: It’s a tough challenge I’ve set myself here, but I am determined to be a successful author. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: Best of luck! It would have been a best seller (during the dinosaur era)

PETER: No, the Ancient texts and scriptures date from the dinosaur era – well, almost! Certainly from the era when the earth was regarded as flat, when the sun, moon and stars were regarded in fear as gods, demons and spirits, and physical survival was a constant and actual desperation. The books of myths, fairy tales and wisdom from this era we still hold in sacred unquestioning esteem ... curious. But then again some people even believe, despite the lack of any historical factual evidence that way back then there existed some mythical Golden Age!

*

PETER to No 16: I got a bit old to build any more – [building] is a bit too physically tiring at my age. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: How old are you? Maybe too much sex with Vineeto is taking a heavy toil on you.

PETER: 50, which is probably about the average age for those who were around in the early-ish days of Sannyas. A lot of them are starting to die off now, so I am immensely glad to have found actual freedom and be able to live it as an on-going, constant, down to earth, 24 hours a day experience, as this sensate body.

– as opposed to some temporary feel-good moments of bliss, or some Altered State of Consciousness whereby one becomes God or ‘At-One’ with God.

The most estimable feature of Actual Freedom is a total lack of fear of death such that drives normal humans to seek the spiritual with its seductive promise of immortality.

And yes, often I get that ‘weak at the knees’ feeling hours after a particularly good ‘romp’ with Vineeto.

*

PETER to No 16: and I do like writing, but it seems I have picked an unpopular subject. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: Try writing children’s stories or fairy tales.

PETER: The new-Age bookshop where I live offers thousands upon thousands of books – all fairy tales of Ancient healings and esoteric medicines, divinations and prophecies, energies and auras, folk tales and legends, gurus and shamans, fairies and goddesses, sacred sites and cosmic planes, chakras and levels of consciousness, telepathy and spiritualism, visions and entities, ESP and UFO’s, somas and souls, mysticism and meditation, rituals and rites, reincarnations and past lives, karmas and dharmas, devils and demons. The market for fairy tales has been well and truly flooded.

*

PETER to No 16: I didn’t follow that old marketing saying – find out what people want and give ‘em plenty of it. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: What people want (at least on this list) is something of substance. Something we can sink our teeth into.

PETER: You seem to do a good job sinking your teeth into what I write. And spitting it out ...

*

PETER to No 16: The Gurus have got that market covered, selling immortality. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: Not Osho.

PETER: ‘Never born, never died, only visited this planet’ sounds like a declaration of immortality to me ... and it is chiselled in marble.

*

PETER to No 16: Obviously no one wants to be happy and harmless, Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: Everyone wants it but not to be bored to death with endless blah, blah, blah’s

PETER: In my experience some want it, but faced with the fact that they have to change and that they may have to ‘get down and get dirty’ by exploring, questioning and investigating, they turn away to follow the tried and failed yet again. Better to follow than risk a genuine search ...

*

PETER to No 16: and the idea of man and woman living together in peace, harmony and equity just too impossible to even contemplate. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: It is not impossible and it is not an ‘idea’.

PETER: Are you stating this as a fact from your personal experience? I certainly have not seen it as a fact in the hundreds of relationships I have observed except for the brief ‘honeymoon’ periods. Most spiritual relationships seem to operate on the ‘taking space’ principle whereby the couples eventually need to live apart for substantial periods of time to avoid the staleness or antipathy that any ‘closeness’ brings on.

*

PETER to No 16: So I think I’ll look at the younger market. They may be ready to question the ‘set ways’ of the Eastern spiritualism of the ‘older’ generation. Peter to No 16, 2.1.1999

RESPONDENT: Asking questions is a sign of intelligence. But only if it frees you from beliefs and religions and you can don’t take anything seriously. Be more playful, Peter, Okay?

PETER: Good to hear you are younger than us ‘oldies’. As for asking questions being a sign of intelligence, I know of many who incessantly ask questions without pausing to consider the answer given, or merely use ‘questioning’ as a way to feign interest or intelligence. I found the most intelligent thing I could do as a human being was to run the question ‘What am I ? – not ‘Who am I? and to dare to question the whole of the package of Ancient Wisdom.

In my journal I wrote the following that might explain it a bit ...

Okay, I’m not trying to flog a book ... it is just that I wrote my journal as the post-script to this period of intense investigation as a way of making some sense of it all, but also with the idea that it would be useful to anyone interested in Actual Freedom.

[Peter]: ‘ ... Since I met Richard I have been challenging the very act of believing itself, and I am actively dismantling the beliefs that I find so as to strip away the veil of misery and sorrow, which they maintain and constantly reinforce. No longer seeing the world through grey or rose coloured glasses, no longer with my head in the sand or in the clouds, means that I am different from other people. I actually experience the world as it is as a near-perfect place (except for human beings, of course). It requires no belief, faith, hope or trust to see that this is the case; the physical universe simply is perfect, pristine, pure, infinite, and happening this very moment. Human beings have just been programmed, socially and instinctually, into believing that this is not so. This programming consists of the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire that we are born with, overlaid with the beliefs we have been indoctrinated with since birth – in total called the Human Condition.

Further the advice of parents, teachers, priests, gurus, philosophers – indeed all of the human Wisdom – is founded on the belief that you can’t change Human Nature.

	Not only is life on earth a sick joke, but there is no cure possible! The Mother of all beliefs! It is only a belief-system, but it is very insidious. It creates an imaginary world, made of beliefs, that is so dense, so elaborate and so convincing that it seems real. But it is not actual or factual. And when one first peeks through a crack in the door out from this world it can look overwhelming fearful – that is why it takes sincere intent and a certain courage to tackle the journey out. The essential thread for me was having had a significant pure consciousness experience in which I had experienced an absence of ‘self’, and where I actually experienced the delight, ease and magic purity of this planet. I think most people have had similar experiences at some times in their life and these glimpses of such a startling potential sent so many to the East in the first place.
	But then, of course, with the newly acquired ‘spiritual’ beliefs firmly in place any subsequent experiences became spiritual in nature – and I’ve had a few in my time. I am not talking about the fickle feelings of bliss, love, beauty, or oneness experienced in an altered state of consciousness. Here I am talking about a direct experience of the actual physical world of people, events and things as they physically are – be it an ashtray, a sunset, a rainy day, talking to the cashier at the bank, the bedroom ceiling, going to work on a Monday, getting a flat tyre, doing nothing or something, having breakfast for the 17,000th time – in short, everything and anything actual. The world of people, events and things – not the world of imagination.
	By seeing the facts of what it is to be a human being I now associate with people in an entirely new way. Gone is the need for ‘friends’ to share my sorrow with. Gone is the need to be part of a ‘group’ as a protection from imaginary fears, or for the sharing of common beliefs. Gone is the need for someone to look after me, someone to care and support me. I have no need for love as a temporary bridge to overcome the feelings of loneliness and separation. I have always been on my own and looked after myself very well in my life, and people have simply come and gone, for varying periods of time and involvement. It’s only that now I don’t have any pretences or bargains, where I do something for someone only in return for their helping me. Now if someone does something for me it is an unexpected bonus and if I do something for someone else it is a pleasure, freely given.

I am, for the first time, beginning to live my own life, not someone else’s. The bargains, bonds, deals, clinging and neediness have all but disappeared. I now regard allowing freedom, as far superior to giving love, with its accompanying needs and expectations. To allow anyone I meet to be free of me, as I am free of them. A free association. I am now able to enjoy and delight in the company of my fellow human beings for as long as is appropriate. It may be rather constantly with Vineeto, or briefly with the check-out girl at the local supermarket. However, I am under no illusion, and know that the essential nature of people is malicious and sorrowful; in fact, now it is even more obvious to me, so well do I now know the Human Condition. I am now free to take people as I find them, without investment or expectation, suspicion or competition, attack or defence. Consequently my interactions are invariably delightful and interesting? I harbour no hidden suspicions or doubts, fears, secrets or ulterior motives – those feelings we usually label as ‘intuition’. What you see is sincerely what you get. It is such a relief not to have to battle it out or herd together with others in order to ‘survive’.

What I have found is that this is the only game to play in town, and it’s called actually becoming happy and harmless, not just pretending or avoiding. I become more free incrementally, as each belief is replaced with the facts. If something pops up that is preventing my happiness or causing me to be harmful to others right now then I have something else to look at. And I simply work my way through the list… Then the day will eventually come when being happy and harmless is my very nature, rather than being malicious and sorrowful, as is Human Nature. Only then it will be effortless – once my part is done.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘People’

 

It is indeed a wide and wondrous path to freedom.

So, just in case you got this far ...

9.1.1999

PETER: Hi, just a note on some of your comments, as I am trying to be brief –

I am definitely wrong with you but there are, and will be, others who welcome a sincere and ‘open’ discussion even if it steps over that sacred and holy barrier of daring to question the Teachings themselves.

RESPONDENT: What teachings are you talking about? Osho never gave any teachings, at least none that I am attached to.

PETER: There seems to be a common use of this phrase ‘attached to’ in spiritual circles that is indicative of the creation of a ‘watcher’ – another identity who watches and is not ‘attached to’ what is actually observed with the senses, what is actually written, said or felt.

Hence one is not concerned with, interested in, or effected by what is actually happening – one remains merely watching and observing. Many take it to the point whereby, when they feel sad or angry (sorrow and malice) they are not ‘attached to’ it or merely watch it. This they then wrongly interpret as ‘being aware’. Merely to remain a dis-embodied, uninterested and unattached ‘watcher’ is to cop-out of the act of being an aware , senate, reflective flesh and blood human -fully involved in the act of living.

For me the awareness sparked by continuously asking myself, each moment again, the question ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ left no room or possibility of remaining a dis-embodied and unattached watcher.

I became vitally interested, then fascinated, then obsessed with any thoughts, feelings and actions that prevented my happiness in this, the only moment that I can experience. This, of course, assumes that ones intent is to be happy in this moment – a rash assumption I know.

*

PETER: I use the word sincere deliberately as I think it is this sincerity that you confuse with a lack of sense of humour.

RESPONDENT: Sincerity is questioning and at the same time not being attached to anything and taking everything lightly. When you KNOW there is no attachment and nobody can destroy what you KNOW. I can make fun of Osho because even though I am grateful to him I do not take him seriously).

PETER: Sincerity in questioning is to genuinely question to the point that one finds a factual answer, even if this answer shatters all that you believed and held dear.

To question and not seek an experiential answer such that will change your life is a total waste of time, and mere wanking.

And to set limits, or stop the process at the first sign of fear, or offence, or doubt, is insincere.

And to remain unattached is to be disinterested and ensures that the questioning remains a cerebral concept rather than active, vital and on-going to the point where an answer in terms of a clear, obvious and direct conclusion. Should the aim and intent of this questioning be to become happy and harmless, one then is sincerely forced to do something to actualise the result of the questioning.

One is then forced – out of sincerity – to do something that one would not normally do – change one’s behaviour – actually demolish or eliminate a bit of ones own ‘self’ that one holds so dear.

The other benefit of continuously asking yourself ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is that if your intent is to become happy and harmless then one is irrevocably forced to consider the ‘ripples’ one’s feelings, moods, words and actions have on others as this too effects one’s own happiness.

Someone wrote the other day saying: ‘is this all you offer? – I do this all the time, and it is what the spiritual people teach anyway’. All you are is anti-Osho and I’m pissed that this is all you offer.’

No, the ‘offering’ is 180 degrees different to the spiritual.

The point of the spiritual question is to create a watcher, a spiritual identity who watches and is ‘unattached’ to the instinctually based feelings, emotions and driven behaviour. This watcher identity then ‘transcends’ the mortal flesh and blood human animal to become the immortal, divine soul (spirit, essence, atman, bundle of memories ...) and eventually, given sufficient delusion, one realises one’s destiny – to become God, or at One...

Because actual freedom lies diametrically opposite to the divine – it is down-to-earth, palpable, tangible, sensate, sensual, sensible, apparent, direct and ever-present in this very moment, in this very space – it is available to anyone and everyone. But it is not something that one ‘clips on’ to the spiritual, and that’s the rub for most people who fervently cling to their spiritual beliefs despite its failures and abysmal record in bringing anything even remotely resembling peace to this paradisiacal planet after thousands of years and billions of loving devotees.

And yet we dare not question the teachings for they are Sacred ... the very love, devotion and surrender demanded is the direct cause of the anger, resentment and hostility at those who dare to question – hence all the wars, tortures, repression, hostility, violence and animosity that exists between all followers of different Masters for millennia.

Now, to even acknowledge that in one’s ‘self’ could well be the beginning – a crack in the door – to questioning what is the most enormous ‘con’ in history.

I know how scary, and frightening, an activity daring to question to Teachings and the Teachers can be. Not only ones personal fears but some real consequences have to be faced – for me it was alienation and ostracism by former ‘friends’, no longer having the feelings of security and comfort that comes from belonging to a group, and losing the financial security that having the group as architectural clients offered.

There are also the atavistic fears, such that one feels one will incur the ‘wrath’ of the God’s, that you will be sent to hell, that the club of the Divine Ones will organize a personal and horrendously painful exorcism on me.

While the fears are real they eventually proved to be as illusory as the belief in God was. It is all just a fantasy played out in the head and the heart, but these fears have doomed humanity to the institutionalised insanity of religious and spiritual pursuits.

It would all be a joke of course, except for all the actual wars, rapes, tortures, suicides, loneliness, depression and sorrow in the world perpetuated by this fantasy of the head and heart.

The not insignificant side benefit of Actual Freedom, is that one becomes happy and harmless and thus ceases to be a contributor to the endemic malice and sorrow on the planet.

Still it’s early days ... or early centuries, but a start is being made on calling the bluff and bluster of the Gurus, and to writing of a third alternative to being normal or spiritual, mortal animal or immortal Divine.

14.1.1999

PETER: Just a brief note to your comments on the Human Condition of malice and sorrow –

RESPONDENT: These are the real causes of the ‘Human Condition’

1. People take everything too seriously (no sense of humour)

PETER: Tell that to the woman who has just been seized, held at knife point and raped by a group of soldiers in the Balkans while on an ethnic cleansing patrol.

RESPONDENT:

2. People do not take their experiences and events playfully.

PETER: Tell that to the African child who for the second time in three years faces starvation because ‘tribal conflicts’ in his country mean there is no food to be had.

RESPONDENT:

3. People do not trust themselves and existence as a whole.

PETER: Tell that to the 16 year old prostitute and heroin addict, who has just been beaten up by her pimp for ‘answering back’.

RESPONDENT:

4. People are brainwashed with teachings, religions, conditionings and lots and lots of words that do not mean anything at all (like the THREE EGGHEADS – Peter, Richard and Vineeto)

PETER: Tell that to yourself, over and over, over and over, ... to avoid being brainwashed. Then again there is always the ‘avoid brainwashing’ button.

RESPONDENT:

5. People do not love themselves first and foremost.

PETER: Tell that to the man who, in a fit of jealous rage, has shot the man he found in bed with his wife.

RESPONDENT:

6. People do not know the value of meditation, awareness and consciousness.

PETER: Tell that to the Buddhist monk who entered an isolated monastery at the age of 13 and, after 40 years, is still ‘seeking’ Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT:

7. MANY MORE...???

PETER: And I’ve got many, many more as well ...

There’s the one about the man who stood by the coffin of his 13 year old son, and ...

Oh, well – I’ll just get more of those long boring posts about being serious again – It’s called ‘foot in mouth’ disease.

17.1.1999

PETER: It seems that our differing viewpoints highlight an essential difference between a spiritual seeker and an actualist.

RESPONDENT:

1. People take everything too seriously (no sense of humour)

PETER: Tell that to the woman who has just been seized, held at knife point and raped by a group of soldiers in the Balkans while on an ethnic cleansing patrol.

RESPONDENT: She can just relax and enjoy the experience especially if the soldiers are very handsome. Maybe she will even want more.

*

RESPONDENT:

2. People do not take their experiences and events playfully.

PETER: Tell that to the African child who, for the second time in three years, faces starvation because ‘tribal conflicts’ in his country mean there is no food to be had.

RESPONDENT: You could do him a favour and send him some fried chicken from KFC or a burger from Mcdo. Or you should adopt him.

*

RESPONDENT:

3. People do not trust themselves and existence as a whole.

PETER: Tell that to the 16 year old prostitute and heroin addict, who has just been beaten up by her pimp for ‘answering back’.

RESPONDENT: She should beat the pimp to a pulp. She should answer back with ‘FUCK YOU’ complete with ‘dirty finger’.

*

RESPONDENT:

4. People are brainwashed with teachings, religions, conditionings and lots and lots of words that do not mean anything at all (like the THREE EGGHEADS – Peter, Richard and Vineeto)

PETER: Tell that to yourself, over and over, over and over, ... to avoid being brainwashed. Then again there is always the ‘avoid brainwashing’ button.

RESPONDENT: I wash my brain everyday as much as my body. I also wash me my ass...hahaha

*

RESPONDENT:

5. People do not love themselves first and foremost.

PETER: Tell that to the man who, in a fit of jealous rage, has shot the man he found in bed with his wife.

RESPONDENT: Why did he not shoot his wife also? Better to be free from both of them, right?

*

RESPONDENT:

6. People do not know the value of meditation, awareness and consciousness.

PETER: Tell that to the Buddhist monk who entered an isolated monastery at the age of 13 and, after 40 years, is still ‘seeking’ Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Let him ‘seek’ as long as he enjoys the seeking and does not get tired of it. Life is full of adventure and everybody has his own ‘trip’. That is his trip and he can enjoy it.

*

RESPONDENT:

7. MANY MORE...???

PETER: And I’ve got many, many more as well ... There’s the one about the man who stood by the coffin of his 13 year old son, and ...

RESPONDENT: and ... he laughed at the sight of his son lying there wearing a funny bowtie and funny cowboy hat.

PETER: Oh, well – I’ll just get more of those long boring posts about being serious again – It’s called ‘foot in mouth’ disease.

RESPONDENT: Thanks god you stopped your boring posts ... Hallelujah!! Amen!! By the way, have you washed your mouth lately, it stinks ... Cheers and Shouts of Glee ...

PETER: I am vitally interested in my fellow human beings. Each one of the above people I have met in person or have read about or seen on TV. They are fellow humans – the same species – and their situations or suffering are very real.

And yet the much lauded solution to human lament on this planet that is on offer to date has been to ‘turn away’ and seek an ‘inner’ peace or to become God.

But now there is another alternative...

I wrote a bit in my journal 12 months ago about my feelings and response to the suffering I saw around me, that may be of interest to some –

[Peter]: ‘The way I learned to cope was to stick my head in the sand, not watch TV or not want to know anything about it – a denial of the facts and that perverse human attitude that it was others who acted this way, not me. Becoming spiritual was a further denial in that I regarded the ‘outer’ world as an illusion and the ‘inner’ spiritual world as real. To get ‘out of it’ in any way possible was the aim, be it drugs, alcohol, Prozac or bliss, meditation, becoming a ‘watcher’ or, if you hit the ‘million to one jackpot’, Enlightenment. Anything was welcome to avoid feeling and acknowledging the malice and suffering intrinsic to the Human Condition. What I eventually found was that by looking it squarely in the face and not avoiding it I was forced to do something about it in myself.

‘No more turning away’ as Pink Floyd sang.

Ultimately I was seeking peace for myself, of course, but I found it extremely useful to gather as much motive and intent as possible. It can be useful fuel or ‘back pressure’, as Richard calls it. And what better motive to find peace for myself than to become a non-contributor to the malice and violence on this fair planet. To prove peace as an actual fact – for it not to forever remain a hope or an ideal. Isn’t it extraordinary that it is now possible? I’m not asking you to believe me: but I’m unabashedly trying to inspire or seduce you to ‘give it a go’.

I am no longer continually run by emotions or feelings like sympathy, empathy, love, compassion any more – they are a failed cop out, a film I used to put over things to avoid seeing the actuality of my behaviour, and of doing something about it. Now that I know that there is an alternative that works, and that malice and sorrow is optional for people, I regard those who reject this alternative as suffering needlessly and inflicting suffering on others needlessly. One of my prime motives has been that I saw my very interactions with other people as causing pain and suffering in them, even when I was being ‘good’ and ‘loving.’ To suffer myself is one thing – to inflict it on others is malice.

I care enough to eliminate my selfish malice and sorrow and I will stand no nonsense from others about not being ‘caring’; when what they really mean is not being ‘loving’. Like Richard, I’ll stick my head above the parapet and say, ‘All you have to do is get rid of your ‘self’ entirely, and then you will enjoy unparalleled actual peace for yourself twenty four hours a day, every day.’ And as more and more people care enough, peace will gradually spread through the world like a chain letter. However, I am under no illusion that most people will keep with the ‘tried and failed’, leading a dull second-rate life of trying to repress their emotions, of being as good as they can. And yet others will continue the futile aim of transcending their emotions with meditation, right thinking, and other ‘spirit’-ual devices. Most will indeed ‘turn away’ and peace may well take a few generations to establish but at last it is actually possible for those who want it.

It is so amazing to at last begin to find ‘peace of mind’ – that for which I had searched so long. Most people seeking peace of mind have to withdraw from the real world and find that ‘peaceful place inside’. This is the traditional meditative approach, notoriously so hard to maintain outside of meditation. This approach simply develops a ‘watcher’, another superior, spiritual identity who watches and observes the normal neurotic ‘self’. This watcher or second ‘I’ can then, given sufficient intensity (or a poisoned lolly), be permanently created in the psyche as the ‘Self’ or ‘God-realisation’ or even ‘God’. What a delusion of grandeur on a massive scale if ever there was one. That it has remained unquestioned for so long is tribute only to the desperation of the followers of the various God-realised men and women. Therein lies the cause of the problems that Richard calls the ‘institutionalised insanity’ of the spiritual and religious worlds. That delusion is definitely not what I refer to as peace of mind.

What I experience now is a lack of almost any disruptions, neurosis, worries, emotions or feelings in my day. Waking up in the morning knowing I will have a virtually perfect day is what I call peace of mind. This contrasts markedly with the so-called peace or transcendence of the Enlightened Ones, some of whom I have personally witnessed as being angry, frustrated and wearied. Reading biographies of others served to shatter the myths of those ‘held in esteem’, and I do not regard the legends of the long dead ones as worth the stone they were supposedly chiselled on (...or the rice-paper they were supposedly written on!)

The continuous experience of the much sought after ‘peace of mind’ is proof that this method works. The total elimination of malice and sorrow is now a possibility. There is now a third alternative available for the adventurous and caring. Now it is simply a matter of choice.

The remarkable thing about the path to an actual freedom is that it will eventually make peace a fact for me and for others. Not only to be happy but to be harmless as well is to enjoy peace for myself and to be a non-contributor to suffering and malice in the world.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Peace’

1.2.1999

PETER: In response to the quote you posted –

(I see you have gone into silence, so maybe I’ll just leave this post outside the door and you can read it later if you want to) –

[quote]: The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not and never persist in trying to set people right. – Hannah Whittle Smith

It is such a useless thing to give advice to others. I had two children and I always saw that it was their life that they were living and for me to advise them how to live it was an imposition on their freedom. I would tell them a few practical things, the way I would do something, what I had found out about being a human being, but that was it, really.

Being in the position of a parent it gradually became obvious to me that I was only passing on what my father had told me and what society expected me to say. It was a useful spur to find out ‘for myself’ about life.

When I found out about Actual Freedom and wrote my journal, I sent my son a copy of it, but what he does with it is his business entirely. I haven’t heard a comment back, nor am I curious.

It is, after all, his life he is living, his own freedom he has to find – his adventure.