6.1.1999

PETER: Hi,

At the time of writing there is a handful of others involved, Vineeto included, making their own escape, but everyone has to do it for themselves. I thought a personal account of my journey could be useful to anyone else who wanted to ‘escape’ from malice and sorrow and allow the delights of the actual physical world to become apparent.

RESPONDENT: It is your own spiritual arrogance that sees the rest of the world (outside of you, Vineeto and a few others) as needing to escape from malice and sorrow.

PETER: As there is not a spiritual bone or spirit entity in this body I’ll pass on the spiritual bit. As for arrogance, as I have written many times before I regard it as the height of arrogance to call oneself God and have others as fawning disciples ‘loving’ and worshipping you. That this sick system has prevailed for so long, and has been revered as The Solution to the human dilemma begs the question – Why?

RESPONDENT: Since you seem to feel you have cornered the market on becoming happy and harmless by using Richard’s methods,

PETER: No, it is freely available to anyone who wishes to change to become happy and harmless. It is entirely up to them. I write precisely to make others aware of this new alternative. I am no one special, I had not a miraculous childhood, I am not specially blessed with great intelligence, or Divine realizations. I simply took an opportunity that serendipitously came my way and decided that as what I had been pursuing for 17 years had not freed me from malice and sorrow, I’d give it 100%.

RESPONDENT: which apparently involved only seeing what is actually right in front of your noses,

PETER: No, it involved an active and relentless period of investigation, contemplation and elimination of both the psychological and psychic entities that dwelled in my head and heart. The churning feelings and emotions that refused to let me, as this body, be here – to fully be the senses – to be these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, these fingers typing and this brain thinking – and to be aware that it is all happening in this very moment. Have you ever contemplated that this universe is happening in this very moment, that there is no master plan, no existence, no God? That there is a vast and actual freedom available right now for those intrepid enough to journey out of the real world and out of the spiritual world. For those willing enough to come to their senses both figuratively and literally.

RESPONDENT: how can you possibly know from your own experience that there are no others who are happy and harmless? Have you in fact encountered every other single human being alive on this planet in order to be able to judge the absolute state of humanity? I think not...

PETER: A lot of people on the list seem to have this objection. I wrote in the introduction to my journal that ‘... as I gradually forced myself to admit, I was as mad and as bad, as everyone else.’ It was difficult as I had a good dose of spiritual arrogance running such that I was on the path, I was seeking, I wasn’t one of them who was fighting and killing and arguing. A sincere and honest self-appraisal soon revealed sorrow – sadness, melancholy, compassion, sharing, etc. and malice – resentment, withdrawing, ‘subtle’ revenges, sarcasm, gossiping, etc. But the thing that really got me going and up off my smug complacent bum was reading of the Milgram experiment – it’s in my journal in the Peace chapter.

And then to contemplate what I would have done at the end of the Ranch when an armed conflict looked a distinct possibility.

The level of honest introspection required in becoming free of emotions and feelings is frightening to most. And rightly so as it would be the end of you as you know yourself now. You readily and willingly ‘self’-immolate.

As for my ability to judge the absolute state of humanity, it is universally (albeit a little reluctantly) acknowledged, that we are born with the instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire. It is denied by those who believe we are born ‘innocent’, but not only do we have the evidence of behavioural studies, direct personal observation but specific genes are beginning to be discovered that relate specifically to this instinctual programming.

No doubt some freaks and genetic mutants do exist who may have escaped a bit of this genetic programming but it essentially tars us all with the same brush. Most people do a bloody good job on keeping a lid on these instinctual urges in themselves, but this very need to control oneself is the cause of most of our sense of ‘not being free’ or having shackles on as I experienced. Only when these instincts are tackled and eliminated is the individual capable of becoming actually free from malice and sorrow.

It’s just that 160,000,000 have been killed in wars this century alone not to mention all the murders, suicides, rapes, tortures, corruption, repression, depression, etc.

*

RESPONDENT No 16: You’re not interested in trying to prove the existence of life after death. It’s easier to deny it. You’re in for denying anything which doesn’t agree with your arbitrary standards. But really life after death is not my concern. It’s not believed by me. Not denied either.

Your actual world is as illusory as the ‘real’ world.

PETER to No 16: There is a simple test that can be undertaken to test the facticity of your statement. You take some strong tape, preferably surgical or ‘Gaffa’ tape, and stick it over your mouth such that you can’t breathe. Then pinch your nose and when you come up gasping for breath after 2-3 minutes you will know what is actual and what is illusory. This test has to be performed to get an experiential understanding and not merely a Zen one.

RESPONDENT: Is name calling and snide remarks part of leaving malice and sorrow behind and becoming happy and harmless? Perhaps some introspection here will allow you to see that your own words (and evidently emotions) belie the fact that you are now happy and harmless.

PETER: Thanks, I did check up. This reply was to someone who dismissed the actual world – that which is tactile, palpable, corporeal, material, and tangible – as an illusion! I suggested a simple test, and then followed it up with the above remark as I knew he would not dare to test this purely cerebral and philosophical statement. What he was saying is obviously silly and I call a spade a spade. Of course, there are many who have been fooled by Eastern philosophy, as was I ... until I came to my senses, that is.

So, it’s been fun again ...

14.1.1999

RESPONDENT No. 12:

[quote]: ‘I searched outside for water, always more thirsty. Just before dying of thirst I dove inside, and I drank deeply from the wells of my soul, crying because I had not realized how empty I had been, laughing because I had not realized how full I was.’ – Author Unknown

PETER to No 12: There is that diving ‘inside’ for a bit of ‘emoting’ again. The trouble is that even if you find the feelings of Good or God or Love in there, it is but a temporary fix and does nothing at all to cure the dis-ease of the Human Condition.

For the 0.0001% of seekers who manage Enlightenment (that of the permanent kind, not the modern ‘I got it one day and lost it the next’ or ‘I already am, I just need to realise it’ variety) then one becomes fully deluded. Even of this crew, many report a ‘leakage’ or occasional anger or sadness. Peter to No 12, 9.1.1999

RESPONDENT No 12: If you don’t understand this poem, you just don’t get it.

PETER to No 12: I do understand the poem, it is perfectly clear that it points to getting nourishment from one’s soul, retreating from the real world into the spiritual world of the soul. Maybe, just maybe, it is you who do not get what I am saying. Peter to No 12, 9.1.1999

RESPONDENT: You do not understand the poem.

PETER: Maybe, just maybe, you would like to say what it is that you understand the poem means – and where I have got it wrong?

Only if you are interested in discussing these matters, that is.

*

RESPONDENT: I am not interested.

9.2.1999

PETER: It’s good to get a response from you, so we can continue to discuss these matters. It does seem a long while ago now, but I know of many who are still suffering from the collapse of the Ranch and the many unresolved questions. ‘Time heals all wounds’ is a platitude I was never fond of, as emotional memories from the past would often return to ‘haunt’ me.

I deliberately chose to investigate my feelings, emotions and instincts as they arose in my daily life in order to experience life at the optimum, here, now, in this only moment of being alive that I can experience. Delving into the past, as in childhood stuff, is most often a futile skimming of the surface and an attempt to blame others, but the Ranch became pivotal for me in investigating the instincts of fear and aggression that we are all instilled with by blind nature.

*

RESPONDENT: As one who was there, in residence, full time for over four years, all I can say is I’m not there now and I am no longer able (or willing) to answer hypothetical questions or comment on ‘some reports’.

PETER: Why are you responding to me then, if you are ‘no longer able (or willing) to answer hypothetical questions or comment on ‘some reports’? Are you taking up No 12’s point that because I wasn’t there at the time I can’t ask myself this question. Are you denying the facts of what I am saying or merely indulging in ‘point scoring’. I remember No 11 had me 3-nil at one stage in point scoring and now seems to have disappeared over the cyber-hill.

RESPONDENT: You say it ‘was’ very real... that’s the operative word, WAS, as in not presently happening in this very moment, and not coming from your own experience of being there at that time so it is meaningless as well as a waste of time to speculate.

PETER: I spent a lot of time in the last two years contemplating on life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. My motive was two-fold – to find a personal peace on earth for me and to find a solution such that peace on the planet could actually eventuate rather than remain forever a dream.

In order to do this I had to stop ‘turning away’ from the world as it is. This meant to abandon the methods prescribed by the Ancients of closing my eyes and going ‘in’ to find an ‘inner’ imaginary peace. The peace I sought was such that it was liveable in the world as it is, in this lifetime, here, now, as this flesh and blood body, 24 hrs. a day, everyday. In short – the genuine, down to earth variety rather than the ethereal, spirit-ual, feeling version that is commonly sought after.

To do this, my ‘meditation’ became of the down-to-earth variety as in –

Meditation – contemplation, reflection, continued thought, deliberate, explore, ponder. Oxford Dictionary

As I said, I usually find hypothetical questions not very useful, but given this was a situation that I could very well have found myself in, it was very a appropriate one for me to ask myself. In exploring into my ‘self’, I wanted no dark corners unexplored, nothing fudged over, all the ‘evil’ to be exposed.

I was exploring all the facets of the Human Condition, this collection of beliefs and instincts that are common to all human beings. The lot, every single bit.

RESPONDENT: As for this situation being ‘very real’, on what experience of your own do you base this generalization? Actualism = generalizations about ‘the rest of us’.

PETER: Are you saying that there was not, at the time, the ‘distinct possibility’ that armed force would be used against the Ranch? Certainly the Ranch put on a show for the media of arms training. Certainly Rajneesh riled against both the Christians, the local community and various government officials. I read and heard many reports, including some from Sannyasins who were on the ranch at the time, of the National Guard being at least on ‘stand-by’, if not in readiness for ‘action’. Presumably they would have had guns (and I assume bullets in them!)

Surely then, my question was not all that hypothetical. I explained in my post to No. 30 why I asked myself the question – to find out why we human beings so passionately fight and kill each other for ‘love’ of Country and ‘love’ of God ... or Master.

Actual Freedom provides, for the first time, a tried and proven way to become free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow. An essential first step for anyone interested in becoming free of the Human Condition is to recognize oneself as one of the 5.8 billion human beings on the planet – the same species as everybody else.

To consider oneself one of the ‘chosen few’ is to be in complete denial of this fact. One is then ‘special’, removed, remote, and has no interest in, or connection with, the world as it is and further develops a ‘them and us’ attitude towards other human beings that is set-in-concrete. This is a general feature, common to members of all Religious groups. Some even go to the extent of denying that they have instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire and that they ever feel sorrowful, let alone malicious.

Denial is after all, an essential prerequisite to Transcendence...

But, it is never to late to come to one’s senses ...