8.1.1999

RESPONDENT: Testing. You’ll grow out of it!! Hopefully.

PETER: A brief reply to your brief comment –

The amazing thing about eliminating feelings, emotions and instincts is that they are then finished, kaput, finito, gone, stuffed, finished, never to return.

So, no, I won’t grow out of it, or return to normal, nor will I become Divine, to go ‘somewhere’ else.

I will be this flesh and blood body, happy and harmless, until I die and then I will be finished, kaput, finito, gone, stuffed, finished, never to return.

Good Hey.

13.1.1999

PETER: To continue on with our chat –

RESPONDENT: Testing. You’ll grow out of it!! Hopefully

PETER: The amazing thing about eliminating feelings, emotions and instincts is that they are then finished, kaput, finito, gone, stuffed, finished, never to return.

So, no, I won’t grow out of it, or return to ‘normal’, nor will I become Divine, to go ‘somewhere’ else.

I will be this flesh and blood body, happy and harmless, until I die and then I will be finished, kaput, finito, gone, stuffed, finished, never to return. Good Hey.

RESPONDENT: Let me get this straight. Are you saying you have no feelings, emotions or instincts?

PETER: The amazing thing about running ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ as opposed to being a ‘watcher’ to this moment of being alive is that one is inexorably drawn to eliminate anything in the way of one’s own happiness in this moment – the only moment I can experience being alive. If I was happy ten minutes ago, it is of no consequence if I am not happy now. If I am not happy now, then I have something to look at, something to root around in, something to discover. Inevitably the root of my unhappiness will be some belief or psittacism (parrot-fever), some instinctually driven pattern, that is causing me to feel fearful, angry, melancholy, peeved, guilty, resentful, etc. And searching, finding, investigating, understanding, contemplating upon and realizing will have the same effect as one does when one shines a light in a dark corner – all becomes startlingly clear and obvious, and eventually the feeling, emotion or instinct withers and dies, never to return.

It is a scary process, for these feelings and emotions are ‘who’ we ‘think’ and ‘feel’ we are – one is demolishing one’s very ‘self’. This is the reason that most people will firstly deny that it is possible to eliminate them, (much, much safer to merely watch one’s ‘self’ and cultivate a superior spiritual Self) or if they do allow the possibility that it might just work – they ‘head for the hills’.

When I met Richard I remember thinking ‘What if he is right?’ and ‘What if it works?’ It would mean the end of ‘me’, extinction, finished.

But I figured I was on a search to find freedom, in this lifetime, as this body, and if this was the cost – so be it. The alternative was more of the same, obviously second-rate life, or going back into the spiritual to search where I had already looked fruitlessly for 17 years.

After all, the definition of a lunatic is someone who endlessly keeps doing something despite the fact that it doesn’t work.

So, yes. The last time I was angry was some 2 years ago and the last time anyone got me upset was 18 months ago. I can’t remember the last time I was sad, and even melancholy has disappeared from my life. I actually enjoy being alive, and in the last 12 months have come to like my fellow human beings – and not to react to them out of fear (with its partner – aggression).

After all – to be happy one needs to be harmless, to be harmless one needs to be happy.

This process of eliminating feelings, emotions and instincts one does oneself – one does not wait for some mythical Divine intervention. Hence it is essential to rid oneself of the belief in a God, an after-life, an Existence that is ‘looking after you’ ... all an ‘escape route’ for the very ‘self’ you are aiming to eliminate to stay in existence.

Only when one has done all one can do eliminate one’s very ‘self’, when one lives in a virtual freedom, is it possible that a final, and irrevocable, death of the psychological and psychic entity – a self-immolation – will occur.

This virtual freedom – obtainable by anyone, given sincere intent – far exceeds the wildest dreams of what is possible to experience as a human being, as I have described in my journal.

So, I hope this gets it a bit straighter for you. I know it is difficult, if not downright inconceivable, that everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong. It took me months and months, but I always remained ‘open’ to the possibility that it might be the case. And it sure explained a lot that was wrong, and why after all that time and diligent effort spent on the spiritual path, I could not honestly claim to be either happy or harmless.

19.1.1999

PETER: A very good question and one I am pleased to answer. I do find it excellent that we can swap observations about these matters – to dare to question both the bona fides of the Gurus as well as their Message(s).

RESPONDENT: In a recent reply to No 11 you stated –

PETER: Well, not many people had ‘intimate contact’ with Osho for he led a life of increasing isolation and separation from his disciples. I did, however, see enough ‘back stage’, as it were, to see a lot that was hidden from many.

The bit I write about in the journal will give you a brief idea –

[Peter]: ... ‘I was doing a bit of casual ‘worship’ in the architect’s office one day towards the end of my stay when we were all asked to come up with some ideas for a new bedroom for Rajneesh. Within a week I found myself working in the inner compound where he lived, converting the original open meeting hall into a huge glass and Italian marble circular bedroom. What an opportunity! So when my visa expired, I went back home, sold a house I had purchased with others, and returned within three months. The project took almost two years, and I worked daily in his house, gaining many insights into the inner workings around Rajneesh himself. I met him twice, very briefly, which was quite a rare event as, apart from discourse, he spent his whole time isolated in his room. My impression of him was that he was on ‘another planet’, but that was what I expected anyway. The last time I saw him was when we had finished his room, and he looked very fragile and weak. The room was completed and he moved in for a week, and then went back to his old bedroom.

Image from http://sannyas-spanish-noticias.blogspot.com.au/

I was then offered a job overseeing the building developments in the ashram, with the lure of becoming a Resident – free food, rent paid and other appropriate privileges of rank. I worked closely with the leaders of the ashram, sometimes travelling to Bombay on business, but I became increasingly uncomfortable with the level of politicking and scheming – to put it plainly, power-tripping and ingratiating behaviour. I guess I thought things just ‘happened’ around Rajneesh, but to see this cesspool of power, plotting and intrigue below the surface reminded me of the failure of the Ranch. It came to a head at one particular meeting when suddenly I could see the whole hidden agenda operating beneath the surface. It became glaringly obvious: here was power and corruption again, but this time done by highly skilled ‘operators’, not amateurs. Whether the motive was Good or Evil, Right or Wrong, I simply saw power as power over someone else. And, of course, it had the authority of Rajneesh behind it, which was curious given that he had denied being the power and authority behind the goings-on at the Ranch.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Spiritual Search’

The main point about Rajneesh was that he was not available to scrutiny, and deliberately avoided it. I was witness to one incident when a disciple of many years was publicly dressed-down in Buddha Hall because he had been overheard by someone casting doubts on His truthfulness.

Rajneesh certainly did not have an ordinary life in terms of being free to come and go as He pleased in anything resembling normality, and the women in his life all worshipped the very ground He stood on. Any semblance of direct down-to-earth intimacy (or communication) between ‘fellow human beings’ is inherently impossible in the God-man – disciple system.

After Rajneesh’s death I came in contact with another Enlightened Master who led a life more resembling ‘normal’, but still his women worshipped him as a God, I saw him get very angry on one occasion when I was with him on some business, and he was condescending and dismissive of any who dared to question his Divinity. Another Guru, with whom I some extensive business dealings, showed ‘personality quirks’, as he called them, which I found to be bordering on rude and belligerent.

I do not wish to name names or go into more detail about those that are still alive.

It is the business of guru-ship that is rotten to the core. The men and women involved are merely playing their roles of Ultimate power and Ultimate authority. It rocked me to my very core when I saw that one of the major reasons that I wanted to become Enlightened was to have that power and that authority. To have people worship and fawn over me – sort of a ‘money for nothing and your chicks for free’ scenario. Once I had seen this in myself I understood a lot about the God-men and that the enormous psychic power they wield.

I could go on, but in the interest of brevity I’ll stop. I do rave on sometimes but it needs words to communicate what we have found out about the business of being a human being. How else do we communicate accurately and intelligently.

*

P.S. The famous J. Krishnamurti had clandestine affairs in his life, and kept them hidden to protect his God-man image and a revealing book has been written by his mistresses daughter – ‘Lives in the shadow with J. Krishnamurti’ by Radha Rajagopal-Sloss.