7.12.1998

PETER: Hi,

RESPONDENT: I’ve enjoyed your point(s) of view very much. Quite refreshing. And I commend you on your guts – jumping into the fray so to speak here in Osho land, hahaha hahaha hahaha – what a riot! I also understand your exit – who wants to fight or preach ... and you do not strike me at such a person but rather as an individualist not afraid of reality or standing alone if need be.

Thanks for your sharing here.

PETER: Thanks for your note.

The great thing about asking yourself ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is that it works.

Which is why I write about it with such aplomb, which others merely see as arrogance.

I was having lunch with friends the other day and explaining to a woman that this is the only moment that you can experience being alive, the past is but a memory and the future, when it happens... will be now. So this moment is the only moment that we can experience. If your aim in life is to be happy and in this moment you are sad, angry, bored or whatever, then it is essential to root around, find the cause, the trigger and see where you went ‘off the rails’.

Then get back to being happy now. As success comes you are able to get free of more of the feelings, emotions, moods, instinctual passions, etc that prevent you from becoming happy and harmless.

As I was talking to her face lit up, at the enormity of realizing and experiencing that there is only this moment to experience. All of a sudden she was here, fully occupied with the business of being alive. She was not ‘somewhere else’, there was no ‘guard up’, no ‘interpreter’ – and we were able to talk human being to human being – intimate, direct.

She and her partner had read my journal some months ago and have been musing things over. She said that things have been up and down between them, and felt it was the right time to try to get a little deeper in their relationship – to set their sights a bit higher. We had a great conversation about this business of being a human being, past experiences and aims in life. What they make of it is up to them, of course, but it was so good to talk of these things. A rare privilege.

So maybe for you, you might find something useful, or food for thought and contemplation.

If so, good, if not, fine.

After all, it is your life you are living ... but I wish you well.

11.12.1998

PETER: You seem to be having some fun with all this, I certainly am. I always wanted to be able to discuss these matters in my spirit-ual years, to get down to the bare bones of things. To be able to question absolutely everything and anything, the lot, without fear of getting my head ripped off, being sent to Coventry, or told I was being ‘negative’. And to be able to look at things without the typical straight-jacket of ... ‘right or wrong’, ... ‘good or bad’.

By the way, is this new format of writing okay? I would welcome some feedback. It is easier for us, but is it clear your end?

So, to get back to where we left off –

The great thing about asking yourself ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is that it works. Which is why I write about it with such aplomb, which others merely see as arrogance.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I do the same. Make my distance’, follow my perceptions, express my self, learn. all I know is what I know at the moment, and when I follow it I see it change. Sometimes that is scary, sometimes not, but it’s never stagnate, unless I don’t express.

PETER: The query I would have with this is – ‘make my distance’. In many spiritual paths we are advised to ‘be the watcher’, to become an ‘observer’ of one’s actions and thoughts. This ‘watcher’ then is merely ‘watching’, unconcerned about ‘changing’ the feelings, emotions and thoughts that go on – with their resulting ‘ripples’ with others, or lack of peace and harmony in you.

*

PETER: I was having lunch with friends the other day and explaining to a woman that this is the only moment that you can experience being alive, the past is but a memory and the future, when it happens... will be now. So this moment is the only moment that we can experience. If your aim in life is to be happy and in this moment you are sad, angry, bored or whatever, then it is essential to root around, find the cause, the trigger and see where you went ‘off the rails’.’

RESPONDENT: Yes. And sometimes going off the rails is the right thing because a change is happening, and that is what one is feeling – the difference and wanting to go back to the same or the so called comfortable. So sometimes that period of discomfort is for looking, and is for good too.

PETER: Yes, if the aim is to be happy and harmless, then the boat will be rocked – to the very core. But it is never too much or too soon. And if you miss something, no need to worry, senseless to beat yourself up – the chance to look at the issue will come again.

*

PETER: Then get back to being happy now. As success comes you are able to get free of more of the feelings, emotions, moods, instinctual passions, etc that prevent you from becoming happy and harmless.

As I was talking to her face lit up, at the enormity of realizing and experiencing that there is only this moment to experience. All of a sudden she was here, fully occupied with the business of being alive. She was not ‘somewhere else’, there was no ‘guard up’, no ‘interpreter’ – and we were able to talk human being to human being – intimate, direct.

She and her partner had read my journal some months ago and have been musing things over. She said that things have been up and down between them, and felt it was the right time to try to get a little deeper in their relationship – to set their sights a bit higher. We had a great conversation about this business of being a human being, past experiences and aims in life. What they make of it is up to them, of course, but it was so good to talk of these things. A rare privilege.

RESPONDENT: A rare privilege. Receptivity. A flow. An insight with another.

PETER: For me the privilege is that intimacy is possible – the direct experience of meeting a fellow human being with no guards up. Simple, direct down-to-earth stuff about what sense do we make of it all, how do you see it, how do you experience being a human being.

*

PETER: So maybe for you, you might find something useful, or food for thought and contemplation.

RESPONDENT: Yes I already have, which is why I responded to you :-)

PETER: Good hey. Someone said to me the other day ‘it’s so good to talk of these things’.

RESPONDENT: I have thought myself many of the things you expressed – about the Eastern package, no matter how seemingly lovely and subtle, being the same package to finally get lost in for inspiration. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but just seeing it for what it is – because for me it finally comes down to the person. And what could be wrong with that is that it might make you think you have found something special something more – only to come back full circle to simply yourself. :-)

The idea of a God in the end is...what’s the word – redundant? – no, the word is ‘not necessary’.

PETER: I would add the words that ‘the very idea of a God is the very thing that is preventing my happiness’. And it is my happiness I am concerned about.

RESPONDENT: Because all we have is what we have now, and in reality. And who we are is who we are good bad and indifferent, crazy or sane. I am and have been all these things. and the idea that I might be something else more or less in the future is not real to me except to say sure okay fine, but what I am NOW is terrific. I have life and awareness and it’s an amazing ride. Life. Life itself.

PETER: Given the fact that we are only able to experience this moment of being alive the idea of life as a continuity is a bit of a furphy. Sure I can remember past events, people or places (with a bit of an effort in some cases) but I have no emotional memory of them. They simply happened in the past, there was no ‘me’ there as an experiencer and as such there is no emotional memory in terms of good, bad, right, wrong. As for the future I make sure I have a list of the things I need to do, but beyond that I have got no idea what will happen. Sure, today I will probably type a few e-mails, have lunch down-town, have a romp with Vineeto, we are going out to a birthday party tonight, but still I have no idea what will happen, who I will meet, what I will say, what they will say. To only experience this moment of being alive is so much more extraordinary than having a ‘life’ (as a continuity). It is, at last, to live freely and fully in the actual world of people, events and things. And it is all happening right now, this very moment.

RESPONDENT: For me it’s not even about being harmless – as in not hurting another. It’s about being as honest as possible with myself, and that in fact may mean not hurting another – but it may mean that someone is ‘hurt’ also.

PETER: For me, I often see the New-Age version of ‘I want to be honest with you’ or ‘I just want to share something with you’ as nothing more than I want to give you a ‘serve’. The only person to be honest with is yourself. If you are not honest with yourself then who are you kidding. It is your life you are living. It is your happiness that you are concerned about. What I found was that to become free of malice and sorrow is the only way I can be absolutely sure that I am not hurting others. They may well be offended or have whatever re-action they have but if a good, honest search around inside reveals no malice then that is the key. To really get into exploring feelings and emotions.

RESPONDENT: My own hurts tell me a lot. I learn from them a lot.

PETER: It is often said we grow and learn from our suffering. My experience is that this is in the same category as ‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy’, ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die’ No wonder we humans think it is inconceivable to be happy and harmless. I just decided, after I met Richard to raise the bar, set my sights beyond the normal limits. To break free of the shackles. And I found the only restriction was fear. There are no demons in the actual world and therefore there are no need for Gods. Cute, Hey.

And then life is perfect, easy, comfortable, delightful, carefree – and you get to do things, meet people, eat good food, have sex, etc. as a bonus on top of being alive.

RESPONDENT: John Lennon once said that God is a concept by which we measure our pain. That too has truth to it – just as the other all Glorious Universal Bliss Love As One god does, but shit, in the end just being my self is enough. It’s all I have, and it’s a lot.

PETER: Vineeto and I enjoy ‘Imagine’, ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over)’ and ‘Give peace a Chance’ – all by John Lennon. They served as inspiration, at the time, to keep going beyond the limits of what was considered ‘normal’ and ‘safe’.

So I’ve enjoyed this note to you ...

Summer has come with full force here, so we may well tootle into town a little later in the cool of the evening –

– so I guess I’ll swing on into another e-mail...

Continued on Actual Freedom Mailing List No 11