RESPONDENT: Now I feel it’s the time to finish talking with you. And some of my impressions.

PETER: No, I was simply presenting the facts of the failure of religious and spiritual pursuits to bring an end to human suffering and maliciousness on the planet. This is not about right and wrong but what works and what doesn’t work. For me, the spiritual path didn’t make me happy and harmless, it only gave me the illusion and feeling of being on the ‘right’ path with the ‘Master of Masters’. When I acknowledged that the spiritual wasn’t working for me I was ready to start looking at the facts of why it didn’t work and why Rajneesh’s ‘dream’ had failed and why it never could work.

My intention of talking to you were to report what my experiences were on the spiritual path, and what happened when I stopped believing and started to look at the facts. The discussion has been about fact and belief, not about right and wrong. Right and wrong is a moral judgement, a judgement made on what one believes to be true or feels to be right. It’s the very stuff that religious, ethnic and ethical conflicts and wars are fought over.

RESPONDENT: After all, you are against Rajneesh.

PETER: No, it is nothing personal. There have been about one thousand Enlightened Ones, according to one figure I have read, and all of them were deluded, and all of them promised the un-deliverable. They only have power and authority because people desperately want to believe the fairy stories of an ‘after-life’ and another ‘world’. This belief in the Divine-ness of the God-men is given credence by the feelings of love for Them and the self-gratifying feeling of being a chosen one. The chance for a genuine personal peace and an actual global peace is forfeited on the altars of the God-men – all for a bit of utterly selfish ‘feel-good’.

RESPONDENT: And in a sense I wanted to prove you have misunderstood him.

PETER: I understand him and the Guru-disciple business only too well for the likes of most people. When I talk of the facts of the business, particularly when I get to the point of discussing exactly what it is the God-men are saying and what was the actual result of the theory when put into practice, they invariably ‘head for the hills’. Still it’s early days... this is the first time in human history that a way has been found to actually break free of the Human Condition. To break with Ancient Wisdom and the belief in Gods and Devils, Spirits and Auras, Ghosts and ‘Other’ Worlds, Immortality and God-men and also to irrevocably break free of the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

To become modern humans, discontinuous from the past. To finally stop battling it out with each other for ‘survival’ and to stop believing in ‘spirits’ and in a spirit-ual world.

RESPONDENT: You are right, I have not read too much about things related to actual freedom. I read quite a bit of Richard’s web site when I got on this list in December but then I stopped reading it. I enjoyed ‘Attentiveness ...’ a lot. In fact, I got a ‘gem’ from it, and because of that I am doing new experiments.

PETER: Ah, I see you have found at least something that is of interest. In fact, Richard has the best descriptions of attentiveness and awareness I have ever seen. The spiritual ‘Masters’ were always so secretive and so vague in describing their experiences and deliberately so.

It is very apparent that the only danger in applying Richard’s method is that one could become Enlightened. It is such an instinctually driven act of narcissism that it takes an awareness that far exceeds the normal spiritual ‘half-baked’ efforts to avoid the entrapment. I wrote my journal largely as an expose of the fakery and fraudulence of the Master-disciple business and the blatant abuse of psychic and psychological power by the supposed God-men. The facts of following Masters as opposed to the dearly held beliefs. Richard’s Journal is an insider’s view as he was Enlightened for 11 years before finally freeing himself of the delusionary state.

RESPONDENT: My next interest is to read about PCE. I read quite a bit of your journal in Dec./Jan. but it was not useful for things I was looking for at the time. I will go over the PCE section, if there is one, in it again.

PETER: I wrote my journal as I was coming out of the ‘spiritual’ world and wrote of the things that interested me as flesh and blood human being, as opposed to a spiritual one. As my interest in, and experience of, the actual world increased I wrote of what I was interested in – death / living with a woman in peace, harmony and equity / exploring the failure of love and discovering something better / exploring and discovering the unfettered and free sensuous enjoyment of sex / ridding myself of the insidious delusion of anything spirit-ual, religious or ‘other’-worldly / freeing my intelligence from the act of believing / finding a personal peace and a solution that offered genuine global peace / being able to live peacefully in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are / eliminating fear as a constant underlying instinctual emotion / de-bunking the mythical and mystical perception of the physical universe, time and human existence. But it is only useful for someone who is interested in Actual Freedom as it is a journal of how to become Virtually Free – a necessary pre-requisite if one is to avoid the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ that has sunk all previous attempts at finding an actual freedom.

Actual Freedom is, after all, a new, down-to-earth, non-spiritual freedom.

New as in never been discovered before.

Down-to-earth as in able to be comfortably, effortlessly and easily liveable by anyone in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. Non-spiritual in that it is both self-less and Self-less – it is most definitely not an Altered State of Consciousness based on earthly denial and heavenly transcendence.

Freedom as in free of the Human Condition of malice and sorrow – an actual and demonstrative freedom from instinctually-driven passions of fear and aggression, as opposed to the delusion of a spirit-ual freedom, based on Ancient Wisdom’s fairy-tale-battles of good and evil, Gods and Demons.

Well, I’ve done my ‘shop assistant’s’ bit – extolled the benefits of the products available in the ‘How to become Happy and Harmless’ shop. So, happy browsing ...

*

P.S. Saw a bumper sticker down town that said – ‘The earth is my church – my body is my altar.’ I guess the car belonged to one of the local Gods or, more likely, a surrendered disciple of a God.

Mind you, there are so many God-men and God-women around here, many struggle to make a living for lack of followers.

It’s becoming a very crowded market and the whole Guru-disciple business may well have reached its zenith.

*

RESPONDENT: Dynamic meditation helped me get the first PCE and other Osho’s meditations helped me get consequent PCEs. That is a fact, take it or leave it.

PETER: What you said in your post was – ‘Osho created situations in which we could get PCEs and hence have a bench mark to work with’. What I pointed out was that Rajneesh aka Osho created situations in which his disciples could get Satoris – brief glimpses of an Altered State of Consciousness whereby one experiences oneself as Divine and Immortal, Spaceless and Timeless. Given that he has been dead 10 years he obviously knew nothing of what Richard is saying for it was only 7 years ago that Richard discovered a state that is beyond the delusion of Enlightenment. It was only 3 years ago that he used the term Pure Consciousness Experience to describe a self-less state that is devoid of any delusions of Divinity, Immortality, Divine Love and Divine Compassion. Even you had not heard the term PCE until a few months ago and obviously have difficulty in comprehending the fact that it is 180 degrees opposite to an ASC.

PETER to Richard: Despite the fact of having had a substantial peak experience (PCE) some 15 years ago and a substantial experience of Divine Love (ASC) some 3 years ago there was still a piece missing. It all seemed to involve either a looking back into my past or sideways to your experiences and trying to draw a parallel. The other nagging issue was a feeling of the unfairness or even perversity of being born into the Human Condition, of being who I thought and felt I was, finding out it was a pretty rotten mess and then having to die, or self-immolate in order to be free. To do that in order to become Enlightened is one thing as one gets to have worshipping disciples, psychic power, fame and wealth – ‘Money for nothing and your chicks for free’ as I cheekily put it. Becoming God seems a not too bad reward for the effort involved – well on the face of it anyway, as long as you are not too discriminating. Of course, once you see the down-sides of Enlightenment, it very rapidly loses appeal – but at least ‘I’ am around to enjoy it.<snip>

The other morning a peak experience snuck up on me – after a particularly good ‘romp’ with Vineeto. It was one of particular clarity marked by a complete absence of any sense of ‘self’ or ‘being’ within my body. All was perfect and pure with a magical intensity that was palpable. Not merely static – a sense of the whole universe happening at this moment with a vibrancy that was sensately experienced.

I was quickly able to discern the fact that, if I had launched ‘myself’ into that experience, it would have rapidly changed to ‘me’ taking on the experience for ‘myself’. ‘I’ would have become that experience, ‘I’ would have become the experiencer of that pure and perfect immediate happening-ness of it all. ‘I’ would have become the experience of the universe happening. ‘I’ would have become the Universe – or at very least, at One with it. I could have taken that experience and translated or interpreted it for myself, as I had done in the past in an ASC whereby I became Divine Love.

However, this experience was different as ‘I’ was absent and I was able to be appreciatively aware of what was occurring. I was able to clearly see that there could be an almost instinctual grab to make the experience ‘mine’. If one follows the spiritual path, I was at the point of Enlightenment – ‘I’ only needed to jump in, boots and all, and away one goes – Divinity, Immortality, Oneness, Infinite, Timeless, Spaceless, Fearless, Blissful and the rest. All this, however, was apparent afterwards, on reflection.

What was obvious at the time was that it is the physical universe that is always present, eternal, infinite, pure and perfect – exquisitely and pristinely so. And that I, this flesh and blood body, is the intelligent bit that goes ‘Wow! – how extraordinary’. And I am the universe experiencing itself as a flesh and blood human being.

It is for this that I would willingly sacrifice my grubby ‘self’ for – no matter how ‘cleaned up’, no matter how good Virtual Freedom is, there is no comparison. For this ‘I’ will depart the scene and nothing else. This is what Enlightenment merely mimics, as a feeling, but with such appalling consequences of narcissism and Self-aggrandizement. The Enlightened Ones had and have feet of clay – to claim to ‘Be the Universe itself’ is an insanity on a incredulous scale and makes clear that whole business of God and God-men is nothing more than institutionalized insanity.

It is only with a sincere intent and a firm down-to-earth experience of Virtual Freedom – a period of coming to one’s senses both literally and figuratively – that it is possible to avoid the seduction and instinctual pull towards self-aggrandizement that Enlightenment offers. I would suspect that those who have stood at the door marked Enlightenment would gladly sacrifice their ‘normal’ mortal identity for the Glamour, Glory and Glitz of feeling like God. Similarly, as I experienced the infinitude, purity and perfection of the physical universe happening – the Actual World – ‘I’ gladly and willingly self-immolate for that perfection and purity to be evident as me, this flesh and blood body. I firmly experienced it as my destiny – an actual freedom from the Human Condition.

PETER to Richard: Despite the fact of having had a substantial peak experience (PCE) some 15 years ago and a substantial experience of Divine Love (ASC) some 3 years ago ... Peter to Richard, 25.2.1999

ALAN: In view of my current conversation with Richard, I am interested to hear anything you may care to contribute on the differences between the two.

PETER: What occurred to me follows on from what I have been saying about Virtual Freedom. With an Altered State of Consciousness it was always experienced as ‘I’ went Somewhere Else – a world of blissful feelings, an ‘escape’ from the world as-it-is. With a peak experience the world as-it-is, is experienced as perfect and pure, and I, this flesh and blood body, was as perfect and as pure as the actual world. The closest one can get to this, whilst remaining normal, is to live in Virtual Freedom – whereby the necessity to have a feeling or affective distance from the world as-it-is is eventually reduced to paper thinness. When someone asks me if I am free yet, I find myself raising my hand with thumb touching first finger and saying ‘that close’. It is a sign that ‘I’am doing the most ‘I’ can to precipitate it.

*

PETER: I thought I would drop you a note since I seemed to have been ‘otherwise occupied’ for a while. As you know Vineeto and I ‘dropped in’ on the Sannyas mailing list for a few months. We had heard that my journal had been discussed on the list, but the rumour seemed to be a false one. We watched for a while, Vineeto wrote a few things, and after a while I couldn’t resist. I opened by innocuously questioning a quote from Mr. Rajneesh talking of two worlds – real and spiritual. I pointed out there were three worlds – real, spiritual and actual ... and away it went! About 150,000 words and 3 months later we were finally cut off after I dared to question not only the teachings but the Teacher!

ALAN: Is your ‘questioning of the teacher’ on your web site yet?

PETER: PS: The ‘questioning of the teacher’ basically consisted in my stating that Rajneesh had failed as a Guru. It particularly upset the correspondent who then repeated the passage on the list several times to flag everyone’s attention and shortly after that we were cyber-executed.

PETER to Alan: Your conversations with Richard set me thinking about this business of self-immolation and the difference between what we are talking of and the spiritual ‘ego-death’. In my reading of the Enlightened Ones’ ‘ego death’ experiences the drama and trauma involved sounds so convincing that one would indeed give credence to a wondrous transformation such that one had found something genuine – one’s Real Self, one’s original face, the Source, Divine Love, the Truth or whatever. There is no doubt that a transformation of their identity has taken place, that they have suffered a death of their personal self – ego – and as a reward have become a universal, all encompassing, glorious Self – God by whatever name. This I have understood and have personally experienced in an hour long Altered State of Consciousness, or Satori, whereby I was Love personified, and all was Glorious and Golden. Also as the result of many Pure Consciousness Experiences and some 18 months of Virtual Freedom I well know the difference between a ‘self’-less state of Actual Freedom and the ‘ego-less/glorified soul’ state of Enlightenment.

But I still had a nag, and the nag was how to explain it schematically. It must be my architectural training, but often processes can be schematically represented in a way that aids clarity. There are about 2 million words on the Actual Freedom Trust website and many are devoted to this very difference between Actual Freedom and the traditional Pseudo Freedom, so we have come up with two schematics that set out the difference.

The schematics are too big to post to the list, so we have put them on the Actual Freedom Trust website for perusal. I suggest it would be useful for you bring it up in a second window, if possible, so as to refer to it in association with the following description. There are two schematics – the first refers to Actual Freedom, the second to the spiritual path. The first schematic is

As you can see, the title is ‘What I am vs. Who I am’, and the diagram essentially addresses the issue of the process of the extinction of ‘who’ I am – the psychological and psychic entity and the emergence of ‘what I am’ – this flesh and blood body only, actually free of ‘who I think and feel I am’. The diagram quite deliberately separates out the active diminishing and eventual extinction of ‘who I am’ – and the emergence and eventual freedom of ‘what I am’. ‘What I am’ has always been here, it is just that it has been obscured and totally dominated by ‘who I am’ – and it is only by systematically and methodically daring to peel back the layers of social conditioning, beliefs, morals, ethics, psittacisms and instinctual passions that ‘what I am’ is more and more able to become apparent. ‘What I am’ thus becomes incrementally freed, strengthened, gaining confidence from the surety of facts, the increasingly unfettered intelligence and the heightened senses – all actual, down to earth, sensible and verifiable experiences. ‘What I am’ is not a new creation, a new identity – it is simply what remains when the ‘who I am’ disappears in total. To put it another way, the ‘who I was’ when I first met Richard will never meet the ‘what I am’ that will emerge when ‘I’ become extinct.

Of course, one has glimpses of this ‘self’-less state in the PCE, when for a period ‘who I am’ exits the stage, or is temporarily absent, but ‘what I am’ can only be totally free when ‘who I am’ ceases to exist permanently. ‘Who I am’ is capable of resurrection or fighting back at any stage – indeed it is passionately driven to do anything possible to survive – including selling off Grandmother if need be – which is where the middle line of the diagram comes into play. This is a simple representation of the wide and wondrous path to Actual Freedom – from naiveté to Actual Freedom. We have started the line with naiveté, for it surely requires naiveté to not only consider that an actual freedom from the Human Condition is possible, but that you, personally, are the one who can do it. To fly in the face of the Wisdom of the Ancients – ‘to go where no man has gone before’ in Star Trek terms, as I put it in my Journal. I conveniently ignored Richard in my dramatization as I figured that the next pioneers were plotting a brand new course – avoiding the instinctual seduction of the Rock of Enlightenment that had dashed the efforts of all before. The other point about naiveté is that the spiritually cynical and the worldly cunning, by their very attitude, exclude themselves from the adventure, and this has been evidenced by the many who have met Richard, or read a bit about Actual Freedom, and turned away.

For those willing to consider the possibility of an actual freedom, the next step is to tap into pure intent – an intent to make it something one is willing to dedicate one’s life to and a purity such that one will settle for nothing less than the purity and perfection so obviously experienced in a Pure Consciousness Experience. If it is possible for a brief time it must be possible as a permanent state – purity and perfection is possible as a flesh and blood human being, it requires one’s sincere intent to become a ‘self’ consuming passion in life.

As an ongoing experience one moves into a state of Virtual Freedom whereby one goes to sleep at night time knowing one has had a perfect day and that tomorrow will also be a perfect day. This perfection is not the perfection of Actual Freedom but a 99.9% perfection and the hic-ups or stumbles are so minor and brief, that they fail to daunt one on the journey. Serendipity abounds and a fascination with life activates delight and sensuousness as one does all one can to mimic the perfection and purity that becomes increasingly apparent all around in the physical world. One’s mind, more and more freed of imagination and the chemical influence of instinctual passions, is capable of great clarity, and as apperceptive awareness replaces self-centred neurosis one knows one’s days are numbered. By this total and sincere dedication to what is actual, pure and perfect, one abandons control, so to speak, whereby the very process of self-immolation is set in motion – then it is not a process that one has any control over, it is happening by itself.

The ending of ‘me’, when seen dispassionately, is the amygdala doing its survival thing – one encounters surges of chemicals from an obsolete program playing out its death throes – fighting for its very survival as it is programmed to do. This last stages of the ending of ‘me’ is both a psychic and psychological affair, thus accompanying the chemical rushes (fear) one also experiences the psychological equivalent (angst), but one is committed by now – there is no ‘back door’, no turning back, no phoenix to rise from the ashes. ‘My’ end is nigh.

However, to even get to the point where one abandons control requires sincere intent, lest one settles for second-best. Sincere intent is one’s companion on the journey from beginning to end.

In order to make the differences between Actual Freedom and the spiritual ‘ego-death’ clear we produced a second schematic that indicates the famed so called self-less state of the Buddhas and Enlightened Ones is but the result of a process of self-aggrandizement.

The diagram is on the same page as the other one. It’s a very glitzy diagram for a very glitzy transformation. I think it’s clear what happens – a shift in identity from mere mortal to Divine Immortal that is well documented in all the spiritual texts – it’s just that people are so seduced by the fantasy that they will live on ‘after their body dies’, that they are blinded to facts. An interesting and rarely acknowledged facet of the idea of God is that to have the Good one must still have Evil lurking somewhere, to have the Divine one needs the Diabolical, to have God one needs the Devil, by whatever name. The spiritual merely sublimates personal fear and aggression (the bad) for one becomes God (the good) and therefore protected by one’s own imaginary aura or cocoon of Divine Love. Again this is well documented in all the spiritual fables, in all the religious fairy stories – it is only passionate belief and the resulting blindness to facts that prevents the whole silly nonsense becoming apparent.

Ah, give me a fact any day. I was going to post ‘fact’ from the glossary but this post is getting a bit long. But it’s at the glossary under ‘fact ’, if you want a bit of bed-time reading. It’s a great piece from Richard that is a useful touchstone in the journey from ‘who I am’ to ‘what I am’. Give me a fact any day.

Well Alan, that’s about it. A couple of more schematics courtesy of the wonders of computer graphics and Vineeto’s skill. Somewhere down the track is the idea of putting together a little visual word/ picture/ schematics/ voice over?/ presentation of what we are on about. It hasn’t quite got a form yet but it may be useful in order to give a quick over-view of Actual Freedom. Any feedback on the schematics is welcome. I do like it that this process is clearly describable in words, is able to be schematically represented, is substantiated by current experiences, is verifiable by scientific records and research, is repeatable in different people, from different cultures, backgrounds and gender, it has nothing to do with faith, trust, hope or belief ... and it works! And all of that is what makes it a fact.

An Actual Freedom from the Human Condition is now possible for anyone who wants it.

And peace on earth is the reward for one’s efforts.

PETER: Hi Alan, hi Mark,

A post firstly about something Alan wrote that particularly ‘pricked up my ears’.

ALAN: And, to insert a quick ‘plug’ for the benefits of virtual freedom, even if one does not go all the way. At a time considered to be the most stressful there can be in a persons life – selling a house, selling (or closing) a business and a likely break up of a marriage – here I am, enjoying every moment and delighting in the experience of being alive – I thoroughly recommend it.

PETER: Yes, indeed – this is what it is all about. This is why we delve into beliefs, explore feelings and emotions, contemplate upon the Human Condition, and dare to be different. The practical, down-to-earth results in everyday living – for what else is there? The whole aim of the exercise is to become actually free of malice and sorrow – to become happy and harmless. And this is done incrementally, bit by bit, and the results come incrementally, bit by bit. The ‘events’, realizations, wobbles, etc. are then seen for what they are – interesting by-products of coming closer to a sensible and sensate experiencing of the ‘main event’ – that which is happening right now. There is no suffering on the path – anything that occurs in the head or heart is but the consequence of daring to devote oneself to becoming free. While the challenges may seem daunting on occasions, the rewards for stubborn persistence are abundantly apparent in the increased ease and delight in everyday life. It is this everyday happiness and harmlessness that gives one the confidence to pursue the unimaginable – the living of the Pure Consciousness Experience 24 hours a day, every day.

It reminds me that whenever I have written, or said to anyone, that one of the reasons I abandoned the spiritual world was ‘that I did not like how the ‘Enlightened Ones’ were with their women, I didn’t like their lifestyle, and I didn’t like how they were with each other! ’ – I have had no response. Sort of a blank look, as though – ‘What is he on about?’ The Divine Status of the Gurus apparently exempts them from regarding and treating their fellow human beings as exactly that – fellow human beings. This superior and ‘Holier than thou’ attitude also permeates into the minds and hearts of their disciples as they worship, idolize and attempt to emulate the Gurus. Why do humans persistently worship the elite few God-men as having achieved the pinnacle of human achievement yet persistently ignore their ‘personal’ lives and behaviour when ‘off stage’. There is no ‘on-stage’ and ‘off-stage’ in actualism, there is no divine life and secular life, there is no other place or other life – be a past life, a next life or a life beyond physical death.

Actualism is 180 degrees opposite to the spiritual escapism and, as such, I was delighted to read of your experiences, Alan. They accord with my own everyday experiences and are evidence of the success being reported by the handful involved at the moment.

Mark summed up the success he is having compared with his years in the spiritual world so well recently, and it is well worth repeating what he wrote –

[Mark to Alan]: Yes, my reference in this case to love and compassion should have been ‘Love and Compassion’. From my viewpoint at this point in the journey I must be aware of any ‘good’ behaviour and its origins, for I do experience a growing feeling of altruism and ... it is the type of feeling that one in the spiritual paradigm ‘tries’ to ‘generate’ and ‘nurture’ through ‘feelings’ of love and compassion. So, here I am arriving at a place (genuine goodwill towards fellow humans as opposed to a managed, ‘being loving’ discipline) for which I was searching for 20 years or more on the spiritual path of love and compassion, and arriving here by giving up all feelings of love and compassion. So, spooky in that I arrive by going 180 degrees in the opposite direction to what is collectively perceived to be the best way to get there. Understandable in that as ‘self’ disappears, purity is that which is left, evident in a PCE. Mark to Alan, 14.6.1999

This is written by someone with 20 years experience on the spiritual path – an experiential understanding of the significance of those three words, ‘fellow human beings’. Whomever you meet is simply a fellow human being – and one finds oneself increasingly regarding and treating others as such on the path to freedom from malice and sorrow.

Those three words – ‘fellow human beings’ – are the very key to peace on this planet and it will eventuate incrementally as more and more people have the experiential understanding that Mark has written of.

RESPONDENT: This question arose as I was thinking about what you wrote. It seems possible that when an emotion looses its hold then so do all the associated beliefs. So I wonder why the beliefs have to be questioned one by one. Why not get down to the task of seeking out the emotions and not the beliefs as such. Or is it that it does not really matter which belief is questioned, as once the associated emotion is disbanded, other beliefs based on the same emotion will also loose their authenticity.

PETER: It may be useful to look at the different path and process that Richard took to Actual Freedom and the one we are pursuing. As you will probably have read, Richard experienced a Pure Consciousness Experience wherein he experienced a ‘self’-less state of purity and perfection lasting some 4 hours. Over the next 9 months he used the method of ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ to question and virtually eliminate all the bad feelings and emotions. At the end of this period, instead of achieving what he was aiming for – the PCE as a constant state – he died an ‘ego-death’ to emerge into what he called Absolute Freedom – a state he soon discovered was akin to the coveted Enlightenment of the Eastern Teachings. While his aim was the PCE, he had lobbed inadvertently into an Altered State of Consciousness. He was not at all familiar with Eastern teaching or philosophy during this process, so it would appear that the inevitable result of tackling and eliminating the ‘bad’ is that one can end up with a new identity – the ‘Good One’, or in full blown delusion ‘God’. I suspect many seekers of freedom have befallen this trap despite their sincere intentions at the beginning of their search, while others have made a blatant and obvious bee-line for the Glamour, Glory and Glitz. As you know, it then took Richard a further 11 years to dismantle and eliminate this second identity – soul, Self, spirit, being, or whatever. Now, the path I am following is to run these two stages together, if you like – to eliminate both ego and soul, to eliminate both good and bad feelings to achieve a complete ‘self’-less state as is evident by the PCE.

The path to Enlightenment is a well-worn track and given that the bad, ‘evil’ and socially frowned-upon values are the easiest to eliminate, and one gets enormous kudos for doing so – to be adored and worshipped as a God-man or Goddess is about as much kudos as one can possibly get! But in questioning and eliminating the so-called good there is nothing in it for ‘me’ – indeed, it is the end of ‘me’ as a social identity and instinctual being. I become an anonymous non-entity, or non-identity, as well as having no instinctual-based self. It became very apparent to me that this social identity held the clue to tackling the other half of the feelings and emotions – the social identity is the ‘guardian at the gate’, as I have written recently. It is impossible for a ‘moral’ person to tackle the so-called good feelings, it is impossible for a ‘spiritual’ person to tackle the idea of a spirit, it is impossible for a ‘ethical’ person to tackle right and wrong, it is impossible for a ‘prudish’ person to tackle sexual issues. One must dismantle these values taught by Humanity in order to dig deeper – to get below the surface, as it were.

In my experience, this social identity is a conglomerate of all the beliefs, morals, ethics, values, principles and psittacisms that I have been programmed with since birth. It is only when I have eliminated or wiped this programming back to a stage where I cease to be a believer, where I cease the very act of believing, that I can look and investigate the core instinctual being that is ‘me’. A lot of work is done on the way in eliminating the effect of these emotions on one’s daily life such that one achieves a virtual freedom – a stable ‘base’ from which one can look with clear eyes at one’s instinctual self, without the guardians of the social morals, ethics, principles, etc. relentlessly churning and stirring. Another way of putting it is that one is then able to dismantle the psychic entity without the psychological entity ‘jumping up and down’ so much. You have reduced the effects of the instinctual emotions in daily life to almost zero such that ‘I’ is almost ephemeral, ethereal, ghostly and hardly able to maintain its existence.

Now this is, at the moment, just the experience of a few but I would say, on the basis of the evidence so far, that in order to avoid the trap of enlightenment, one needs to dismantle the beliefs that form one’s social identity in order to avoid the trap of becoming yet another Grand and Glorious identity. I would suppose that, as more and more people become actually free, that this ‘step outside Humanity’ will become less fearful and dramatic as one will have the confidence of knowing that others have done it.

As I wrote in my Journal –

[Peter]: ... ‘So far, only Richard had left this squabbling, sorrowful ‘Humanity’ behind but he had gone a torturous route through Enlightenment and out the other side. I saw myself as a pioneer on a new, much easier, more direct course. I am full of admiration for the Richard who did it. He likened it to discovering a new continent in the days of old, in a tiny, leaky sailing ship, taking years for the perilous journey. Once discovered it was then easier for others, and now people can fly there comfortably in hours. I likened myself similarly, knowing what I was looking for, but plotting an easier course, avoiding the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ that had thwarted all previous attempts.’ ... Peter’s Journal, ‘Intelligence’

This avoiding the ‘Rock of Enlightenment’ is at the very crux of tackling beliefs – unless the belief in God, an after-life – any form of ‘something else’, ‘somewhere else’ or ‘sometime else’ – is fully investigated and de-bunked you could end up Enlightened. And for those who have experienced a PCE, to end up a God-man is but a piffling waste. Then once one has done one’s homework, demolished one’s social identity one takes the final step with confidence born out of surety of the many PCEs experienced in Virtual Freedom, not to mention the glimpses of ASC’s experienced as a contrast.

RESPONDENT: ‘Beyond’ clearly means on the same path.

PETER: Why do you assume that ‘beyond clearly means on the same path’? The Oxford Dictionary gives the following definitions of the word beyond –

1. At or on the further side of, at a more distant point than.
2. To the further side of, so as to leave behind, further than.
3. In addition to, besides, over and above; (in neg. contexts) apart from.
4. Later than, past.
5. Surpassing or exceeding in quality or quantity; superior to; more than.
6. Outside the limit of; out of the reach, comprehension, or range of; not subject to. Oxford Dictionary

When Richard uses the word beyond as in ‘beyond enlightenment’ he is obviously using the word as meaning ‘Surpassing or exceeding in quality or quantity; superior to; more than with’ along with ‘outside the limit of; out of the reach, comprehension, or range of; not subject to’.

RESPONDENT: If that is the case, why is actual freedom, a state which lies ‘beyond’ spiritual enlightenment (according to Richard) ‘180 degrees opposite’ to enlightenment.

PETER: Given that it is not ‘the case’, one only needs to read the writings of actualists to know that Enlightenment, a permanent state of dissociation from the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are, is the antithesis of being happy and harmless in the world-as-it-is, with people as-they-are. Enlightenment and an actual freedom from the human condition are worlds apart – 180 degrees opposite.

If you want the difference spelt out in detail, I recommend reading The Actual Freedom Trust Library section ‘180 degrees opposite’ –

RESPONDENT: As enlightenment is an extinguishing of the ego, isn’t that a pre-cursor of the total annihilation of the psychic entity.

PETER: My own experience of the altered state of consciousness commonly known as Enlightenment is that it is not an extinguishing of ego but it is a delusion whereby one’s personal identity is transformed into an impersonal grandiose identity. Having experienced this myself there is no way that I am going to become Enlightened – integrity, sensibility and sincerity stand in the way of such a calamity.

RESPONDENT: And if so, is it enlightenment that is to be condemned or the stopping at that stage and not going further towards psychic self-immolation?

PETER: Even before I came across actualism I was suss of the revered Godmen and Godesses – I was sucked in by the lure of their message but the end product in terms of how they lived their lives and how they treated their fellow human beings was far less appealing. When I became an actualist I passed through a phase of being angry at these charlatans and snake-oil sellers who prey upon the hearts and minds of their fellow human beings in return for their adulation and worship, particularly as the whole idea of having fellow human beings as fawning disciples never sat well with me. However, the more I became happy being here, the less interest I had in the beliefs and passions of others, hence I no longer condemn Enlightenment, or those who pursue it – indulging in any spiritual belief whatsoever is just a very silly way of wasting one’s time.

RESPONDENT: On a relative scale, isn’t enlightenment a better state than the normal state of fearing and scheming and conniving and killing others?

PETER: On a relative scale of comparing degrees of the carnage that following one’s instinctual passions can produce, I have read that Nazi officers who witnessed the Nanking slaughter by Japanese soldiers – soldiers who followed the common Eastern religious belief that ‘I am not the body’ – where appalled at the utter callousness of this belief put into action. The following excerpts may well be of interest –

[Josh Baran]: ‘The barbarism was so intense that the Nazis in the city were horrified, one declaring the slaughter to be the product of a ‘bestial machinery’. Chang recounts the following incident: ‘In teaching new Japanese soldiers how to behead Chinese civilians, Tominaga Shozo recalled how Second Lieutenant Tanaka instructed his group. ‘Heads should be cut off like this’, he said, unsheathing his army sword. He scooped water from a bucket with a dipper, then poured it over both sides of the blade. Swishing off the water, he raised his sword in a long arc. Standing behind the prisoner, Tanaka steadied himself, legs spread apart and cut off the man’s head with a shout, ‘Yo!’ The head flew more than a meter away. Blood spurted up in two fountains from the body and sprayed into the hole. The scene was so appalling that I felt I couldn’t breathe’. This is Zen bushido in action: Killing as high art. The soldiers are being taught the perfect etiquette in beheading – the exact way to cleanse the sword, the proper way to swing the weapon, the strong virile shout.

With this image in mind, consider the following passage that D.T. Suzuki wrote at the same time as the Nanking massacre: ‘... the art of swordsmanship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the sword that gives life. The one that is used by a technician cannot go any further than killing ... The case is altogether different with the one who is compelled to lift the sword. For it is really not he but the sword itself that does the killing. He had no desire to harm anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is though the sword automatically performs its function of justice, which is the function of mercy ... the swordsman turns into an artist of the first grade, engaged in producing a work of genuine originality.’

*

‘Kodo also advocated, as did other Zen teachers, that if killing is done without thinking, in a state of no-mind or no-self, then the act is a expression of enlightenment. No thinking = No-mind = No-self = No karma. In this bizarre equation, the victims are always left out, as if they are irrelevant. Killing is just an elegant expression of the koan. When Colonel Aizawa Saburo was being tried for murdering another general in 1935, he testified, ‘I was in an absolute sphere, so there was neither affirmation nor negation, neither good nor evil.’ Excerpts from a book review by Josh Baran of ‘Zen At War’ – Brian Victoria Weatherhill, 1997 (228 pages) Paperback and ‘The Rape Of Nanking’ (The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II) – Iris Chang Basic Books, 1997, (290 pages) hardcover) The review was published at: http://www.darkzen.com/

But why bother about ‘relative scales’ within the human condition when it is obvious that there is something rotten at the very core of the human condition – something so fundamental that everyone is busy either denying it, turning away from it, covering it up, fervently hoping that ‘Good’ will triumph over ‘Evil’ or frenetically praying that there is a life after death.

RESPONDENT: It may not deliver the goods totally but I don’t think it delivers nothing at all.

PETER: Indeed, the whole pursuit of Enlightenment has ensures that billions of people in the East have remained in denial of the animal instinctive roots of the human condition and have avidly practiced dissociation, all in the hope of ending up in la-la-land – and this malaise is now infecting the West at an astounding rate. This worldwide obsession with Eastern religion and philosophy has delivered a New Dark Age – this time around based on the morals, ethics and superstitions of pantheism as distinct from monotheism.

RESPONDENT: After all the only person who has so far achieved actual freedom arrived their stage ‘through’ enlightenment.

PETER: And that same person has made it abundantly clear that it would be utterly silly for anyone to follow in his footsteps.

RESPONDENT: Is it not possible that the way to actual freedom lies through enlightenment for all?

PETER: No.

It stands to reason that it is much easier to come to one’s senses from the condition of being a relatively normal human being than from being trapped in a delusionary state, whereby all of one’s passions are aggrandized.

RESPONDENT: Why is it that others should avoid treading the same path?

PETER: I can’t speak for others but integrity, sincerity and common sense are my reasons for avoiding Enlightenment.

RESPONDENT: Whether it is easier to be actually free without being enlightened must be an open question as no one else has become actually free till date.

PETER: Your statement makes no sense to me given that the only person thus far to become actually free has reported that there is an easier and more direct way – and he is speaking with the benefit of hindsight.

Your post leaves me wondering whether you have any particular personal experience to draw upon in making such a definitive statement to your fellow correspondents on this mailing list … or are you just mounting a defence for the status quo, in this case the revered state of Enlightenment?

RESPONDENT: Gary posted an interesting bit that rang true with some of my other recent investigations :

[Gary]: ‘I was acutely aware of ‘my’ need to create a cozy nest and cling to my relationship with my partner. <snip> I realized that human beings usually all create this comfortable and peaceful corner of reality in their homes as a means of warding off or keeping out the harshness and cruelty of the outside world. This seems to be an instinctive pattern of behaviour, harkening back to the time when our ancestors hunkered in deep caves for protection against predators and other perils of the night.’ Gary to Vineeto, 19.1.2003

PETER: This is a particularly accurate description of the lure of self-aggrandizement.

Within the human condition, there are only two choices – remain within the grim reality and relentless competitiveness of materialism – ‘the grim battle of survival’ – or seek an illusionary protection of some mythical God, or in pantheistic belief, indulge in the ultimate ‘self-aggrandizement’ – the delusion that your are, in fact, God.

This ‘seeing the Light’, ‘being born again’, or feeling oneself to be immortal and eternal is rather like putting on a suit of armour – ‘a new kind of consciousness’ – in order to protect oneself from the ‘suffering’ and ‘stupidity and carelessness’ of others who continue to live in the illusion of grim reality.

In the town where I live, there are literally hundreds of people in various stages of self-aggrandizement, all of whom proclaim they are a God-man or God-woman of some sort, all of whom are willing and eager to proclaim this to anyone they meet, to pass on their message that everyone is the same and to trumpet the message of humanity entering into a new kind of consciousness, because this planet has been ‘well suffering long enough from stupidity and carelessness’.

Each of these teachers has their own particular realization to pass on and their own group of followers. There is no consensus between the teachers nor between the followers of different teachers at all – indeed there is very often dissension between the followers of the same teacher. The belief that ‘a new kind of consciousness’ based on self-aggrandizement will bring peace on earth between human beings is just that, an idea – it does not work in practice, has never worked in practice and can never work in practice because it fails to address the root cause of human violence and suffering.

Rather than bringing an end to human violence and suffering, spiritual and religious belief simply adds another dimension to human conflict and misery – the battle for the moral high ground, a battle ultimately fuelled by the self-righteous anger of those who feel ‘holier than thou’ or maintain a position of being ‘above it all’.

RESPONDENT: None of this has the purity of a PCE, but it’s getting closer.

PETER: Yes if you are having a PCE, then second-best is second best, but if your not having a PCE then second-best is a darn sight better than wasting one’s time wallowing around feeling miserable about having to be here or about doing whatever it is that one is doing or needs to do, or feeling bitter about and being antagonistic towards one’s fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: I think dissolving the ‘inner family’ has made it possible to travel more lightly, and there is less sense of ownership (including ownership of ‘my’ ‘own’ consciousness) than there was before. More and more often I’m experiencing myself as the actual physical universe experiencing *itself* through my eyes and ears and heart and mind. If this has any mystical connotations, it shouldn’t.

PETER: It took me a bit to come to appreciate that if ‘I’ had the feeling – as in the affective experience – that ‘I’ was ‘the actual physical universe experiencing *itself* through my eyes and ears and heart and mind’ then I was but a step away from delusion. The way to check this out for yourself is to compare whatever it is you are feeling against how you experienced yourself in a PCE. This way you can determine for yourself whether what you are feeling is on-track or whether or not you might be wandering off track. It’s not for nothing that it is essential to be attentive to both one’s so-called bad feelings and one’s so-called good feelings.

RESPONDENT: It’s more like amazement that this universe and life on earth have evolved from a chemical soup into increasingly complex forms of organic sludge and finally into self-aware and world-aware creatures. There’s a simple delight in being conscious of it all, and an amazement that it should exist at all.

PETER: Yes, it is indeed amazing and magical and delight-filled when you take a clear-eyed look at it. And to think that there are those who claim that this amazing physical actuality is but an illusion and that their own inner affectations and imaginations are the only true reality.

*

PETER: Altered states of consciousness are far more tempting because denial and dissociation are easier options ...

RESPONDENT: Jeez, not for me. I’ve found ‘denial and dissociation’ so bloody boring as to be an impossible way to live.

PETER: I made the comment because this was my experience – even a good many months after I had a good intellectual grasp of the fact that actualism had nothing to do with spiritualism and that any ‘self’-aggrandizing states were but a wank, I gradually became aware that I was having subtle behind-the-scenes ‘self’-aggrandizing feelings. The only reason I discovered them was that they came bubbling to the surface such that I could neither deny them nor dissociate from them. I mentioned it in my journal so as to flag a warning as it were to others who might tread the path –

[Peter]: ... ‘About this time I started to come to grips with an undercurrent of feelings that had been welling up in me as I got further along this path to freedom. As I began to increasingly understand the full extent of what Richard had discovered, I had begun quite cunningly to plot my role in the Movement that would sweep the world. Images of money and fame began to subtly occur – and sometimes not so subtly. I would see myself travelling and talking to halls full of people, spreading the message! Yes, it was good old power and authority again – the attraction of the Glamour, Glory and Glitz. No wonder the Enlightened Ones are seduced and then trapped by it! It seemed to me an instinctual grab for power by my psyche, which rightly felt threatened with elimination. I also had to admit to myself that power and authority was a definite attraction in my desire for Enlightenment – a sort of spiritual version of ‘Money for nothing and your chicks for free’.’ Peter’s Journal, God

RESPONDENT: Experienced in an enlightened state, I am the cup and the cup is Me, the cup has intelligence and is not merely dead matter, My perception allows me not only to represent it in the brain but also to Be the elements which make the polyester cup (the atoms and the molecules).

PETER: This is an excellent description of the extent of the delusion that can eventuate when someone is afflicted with an altered state of consciousness. Common sense is the first casualty whenever anyone embarks on the spiritual path.

RESPONDENT: At this stage I can see a difference in experiencing the same cup in an ASC (via Self) – being the cup, ordinary way (via self) – associating a qualia which distorts the perception, like watching a mirror image of the cup in the mind (different image for different persons), or seeing it in a PCE – naked perception, direct experiencing, crystal-clear view (for the moment, that’s only theory in my case).

PETER: Whilst I realize it can only be theory for someone who cannot remember having had a PCE – nevertheless if the explanations you read make sense to you, you could up the ante and call it a good working theory or a prima facie case such that it tweaks your curiosity to explore further.

RESPONDENT: I suppose things get more complicated when dealing with people, how do you xp them?

PETER: As I said above, animals are alive in that they are animate animal matter, but the only animal with the capacity to be intelligent is the human animal – albeit that this intelligence is somewhat impaired by the genetically-encoded rudimentary instinctual survival passions that have now well and truly passed their use-by-date.

A practicing actualist commits himself or herself to removing all of ‘my’ values, judgements and demands that ‘I’ unwittingly impose upon other people such that they can be clearly seen, and treated, as being what they actually are – fellow human beings. Or to put it another way, a practicing actualist is someone who has devoted his or her life to actualizing peace on earth.

RESPONDENT: I remember experiencing people in the ASC pretty much like the polyester cup, only with the difference of ‘seeing’ their products, emotions and thoughts, like clouds orbiting their body. There is no way you can cheat someone living in an enlightened state, the last One having a good deal of control and power over the people he’s interacting with (influenza :-/).

PETER: I like it that you have not only experienced the power and control over others that often accompanies an ASC but also that you have the integrity to write about it.

Whilst a person afflicted with either a temporary or a permanent ASC may feel that they have control and power over others, they still need people willing to surrender their will to them in order that they can exercise control and power over others. As an example, the other day I chatted with an acquaintance who had recently returned from visiting a renowned Godman in the East. He explained that for the first week he resisted doing what all the other followers were doing – prostrating themselves at the Gurus feet at the end of the discourse – but in the end he surrendered, prostrated himself and said he felt much better for it.

PETER to Gary: Which brings me to the other aspect that occurred to me about your comment about current world events. I’ve written about it in my journal but I’ll repeat it here, as it is directly relevant to our discussion. Before I came across actualism, there was a period of some 18 months where I lived alone in a self-contained flat by the ocean and started to really enjoy my own company for the first time in my life. Living was easy; safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure abounded and I was, what I would describe in hindsight, as being at peace with myself – rather like a Buddhist monk would be hiding in a comfortable cave.

I was reading spiritual books at the time and induced a full-blown Satori experience, which was confirmed by a local Guru as being the ‘genuine article’. I remember being a bit perplexed at the time for it seemed as though I was inexorably heading for a career as God-man – whereas I had already determined that I didn’t like their lifestyle, I didn’t like how they were with their women and nor did I like the whole Guru-disciple business. The other doubt I had was that the experience was so utterly self-centred that it seemed not only was the world enrapturing, as in beguiling, but it was also chameleon-like as in unreal, dream-like, insubstantial, illusionary.

While it was marvellous, to say the least, to have such an altered state of consciousness experience, it did also mean that all of the other people in the world also appeared to be unreal, insubstantial and illusionary as well, which only served to confirm my dislikes of the exalted state of the God-men and how they treated other people. I eventually came to understand that the revered spiritual states of consciousness were in fact a retreat from the world of people, things and events such that the entire physical world appeared to be an illusion and it felt as though only ‘I’ existed. Hence, despite the fact that I lived a life dripping in safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure, the only way I could manifest a feeling of perfect peace was to retreat from the world and go ‘inside’, evoking a dream-like state of utter self-centredness and self-glorification.

This period of my life proved to be a valuable experience, for when I met Richard and heard him say ‘everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong’, for a brief moment the penny dropped, as it were. All of a sudden, all the doubts I had about the God-men and the spiritual search were crystallized into an ‘of course, the God-men are trying to get out of it by going ‘there’, retreating ‘inside’ – whereas what Richard is talking about is coming here to the actual world where we flesh and blood human bodies really live.’ That brief moment of understanding proved to be sufficiently revealing that I likened it to a crack in the door – and I have been persistently widening that crack ever since.

So, in a bid to rope in this rave and wrap it up, the two thoughts that occurred to me was the futility of Humanity’s search for peace by persisting with the long-tried and always-failed methods and how this contrasts with the radical new approach – the do-it-yourself method.

If all else fails, which it clearly is – take unilateral action.

RESPONDENT: And the new science called ‘paradise engineering’ is offering a practical potent method for that ... and one day you will see that your list musings and your self-musings are just the tail end of the methods and paths that you quite rightly proclaim as part of the problem, rather than of the solution ... but don’t stop there at www.benares.com, ... at the doorway into a new understanding ... as most people do.... drill right down thru the sites accessible from there, thru the paradise engineering presented there, which is the only viable method for actual freedom.... and begin to understand that you are still in delusion, still in denial, and still living in an illusion.

PETER: The so-called new possibility for freedom on offer at www.benares.com is not new at all, it is just a contemporary rehash of a well tried and well failed practice that has been around since humans first discovered hallucinogenic plants. The great ancient myths and legends that form the basis of spiritual belief, religious dogma and human wisdom have all emerged from altered states of consciousness induced by some sort of ‘paradise engineering’ – by imbibing some form of mind-altering substance.

As far as I know, each of the tribal groups and great civilizations had their drug or drugs of choice and the high priests, gurus, shamans and witchdoctors were always amongst the most ardent users. There is a long tradition, particularly in the polytheist religions, of hallucinogenic drug use that continues to this very day. Taoists monks in Japan still ‘retreat’ to the mountains in search of magic mushrooms, Hinduism is awash with ganga smoking out-of-it gurus and the current fad for Eastern spiritualism was initiated by the youth of the 60’s tripping off to the East in search of the permanent drug experience.

Not only have the spiritualists endlessly experimented with paradise engineering, so have the materialists. Alcohol in some form or another has generally been the sop of materialists even to this day. Although one doesn’t ‘get out of it’ in an altered state of consciousness by imbibing alcohol, its effects dulls the senses sufficiently to provide many people with a sense of temporary relief and refuge from the stresses inherent in the rat race world of material pursuit.

In the last century particularly, there has also emerged what are called designer drugs – specifically engineered and targeted at lessening the debilitating effects of undesirable emotional states or at heightening the euphoric effects of desirable emotional states. Many of these drugs have been invaluable in ensuring a better quality of life for many people who suffer from the extremes of the emotional see-saw that characterizes the human condition and no doubt both their use and effectiveness will increase as pharmacists continue to fine tune their effectiveness.

But to prophesise that ‘paradise engineering ... is the only viable method for actual freedom’ is to ignore the fact that paradise engineering has been very much part and parcel of the human condition for thousands of years and stuff all has changed. Why should something that has been tried for thousands of years by millions upon millions of people, and has failed to bring anything remotely resembling peace on earth, all of a sudden work? ‘Paradise engineering’ has been a path trod for millennia – nothing new is offered in the slick presentation of the Hedonistic Imperative other than the futuristic fantasies of what genetic manipulation may or may not do.

No doubt some people in the next generation will give up waiting for Godot and start waiting for Genome.

Having said that, hallucinogenic drugs do undoubtedly cause a physical change in the functioning of the human brain and whilst the most common result is a mild, or even full-blown, altered state of consciousness, there is also the possibility that a pure consciousness experience can eventuate. The first, and most substantial, PCE I can remember was triggered by taking MDA. That I had a PCE and not an ASC was a serendipitous event, for most people I have talked to had Love experiences whilst on MDA and they all felt aggrandized in some form or other.

It is only a speculation on my part but the idea of ‘self’-love and its inherent power never sat well with me and maybe that is why I had a self-less pure consciousness experience and not a self-aggrandizing altered state of consciousness, but I wouldn’t hang my hat on it. After this first experience, repeated usages of the drug failed to produce the same result and I soon after abandoned its use as retaking it only resulted in the usual up and down cycle associated with all drug use.

What is available now is a no-cost, do-it-yourself, drug-free method of firstly being able to provoke the onset of a pure consciousness experience and then being able to remove the impediments that prevent one from being free from the human condition in its entirety. Already in my short stint of practicing actualism, I experience ordinary life as better than a pure consciousness experience simply because it is constantly excellent – there is no experience of being here briefly and then having to go back into the grim reality of the real world. Once the realization set in that I am here anyway, I set about removing the objections and excuses, buts, bitches and blames, ruses and resentments that got in the way of me being happy and harmless, 24 hrs a day, every day. To aim for anything less than this, or settle for anything less than this, is but to continue to waste this moment of being alive.

To miss out on the sensual delight of being here in this earthy physical paradise by being angry at or sad about people as-they-are, or by being resentful or miserable about things as-they-are, clearly makes no sense whatsoever.

After all, actualism is about coming to one’s senses ... literally.

RESPONDENT: I have just read Richards book ‘Actual Freedom’ and now realize that I have been deluded for many years ... while trying to avoid guru-worship, it now seems I have been chasing an enlightened state of bliss or Love ... akin to being filled by a Holy Spirit...

PETER: Yes, for me a significant turning point was the understanding that Eastern Spiritualism is nothing other than Eastern Religion. The core of spiritual/ religious belief is of a Divine Entity, or Spirit or Energy or Love, which is the Source, or Creator, or Sustainer of all that is Good, or True or Right and one only needs to ‘tap’ into this by prayer, devotion, surrender and one’s soul, or spirit, or ‘true self’ will be guaranteed a ticket to a blissful after-life. As I wrote recently – ‘The current New Dark Age fashion for Eastern religious belief as opposed to Western religious belief has all but run its course. The more strict and inane of the practices and ancient wisdom has been watered down into ethical and moral values that are but a mirror of Western morals and ethics. The practice of meditation – sitting silently and hiding from the world as-it-is – is but an escape from the ‘real’ world into an ‘inner’ world where imagination and fantasy can run riot. One is extolled to abandon sensible thought, surrender one’s will to a Divine energy or entity, and trust one’s feelings. Giving full reign to one’s ‘good’ instinctual passions while ignoring and denying the ‘bad’ has led to nothing other than an endless stream of human beings who believe themselves to be God-realized or God on earth. These primitive beliefs must be abandoned if one is to move on to tackle the elimination of instinctual passions.’

One of the major by-products of religious or spiritual belief is the instilling and adopting of moral and ethical values. Then, every person, every event and every thing is judged as being good or bad or right or wrong. One needs to abandon these values and foolish, self-ish judgments in order to see the world as-it-is, and you as-you-are, with clear eyes. One is then able to judge or discern or assess on the basis of silly or sensible – a far more valuable and freeing criteria than accepting the morals and ethics of other, usually long dead, people.

As a bit of an aside, I watched a program on instincts the other night and it was reporting on some of the current research of the chemical nature of instinctual passions and their source in the amygdala. However, the whole of the program was slanted in moral and ethical psittacisms – we had the ‘good’ instincts and the ‘bad’ instincts, the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour. Science was confirming ‘evil’ so we had to be ‘good’ and not lose ‘control’. I still remember watching a scientists say ‘we can’t do what is best, we have to do what is ‘good’’ when talking of the opportunity to eradicate genetically-inherited diseases and deformities.

The astounding opportunity offered by Actual Freedom is that one can be the best and not settle for being ‘good’ by eliminating the instinctual passions that give rise to malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: ‘My’ delusion was thinking ‘my’ intelligence to be real love... which has resulted in ‘my’ sense of Aloneness for many years...

PETER: My experience of this sense of Aloneness that I had in my spiritual years was that is was accompanied by a smug, self-centred feeling of superiority that cut me off and isolated me even further from the ‘real’ world – which is the point of being spiritual, now that I look back on it. It was only when I had an Altered State of Consciousness or Satori that I realized how removed I would be in Enlightenment – and how Alone. No wonder the Enlightened Ones desperately need Love and people to worship them.

RESPONDENT: One PCE in 1976 which lasted for a few hours was actually ‘only’ tantalizing Enlightenment... Divine Love. An extraordinary and powerful phantom that only fades to nothing but memories.

PETER: For an actualist is it essential, vital and critical to make the distinction between an ASC and a PCE. If you had an experience that was ‘tantalizing Enlightenment’ , it was an ASC – an Altered State of Consciousness – whereby one’s consciousness or identity shifts to becoming the feeling experience of the universe, thus one feels Love, Divinity, Wholeness, Unity – one feels oneself to be Godly. This is most definitely not a PCE – a Pure Consciousness Experience. The only similarity is that one gets a glimpse of something other than the real world – in an ASC one gets to see a golden, glowing, self-fulfilling and self-aggrandizing dream world with you at the centre of it all. All seems an illusion including one’s body, as the heart literally bulges from the chest and poetic and loving thoughts surge through one’s brain. Yea, I’ve been there and done that, and it sucks. What alarmed me most was that I would end up yet another God-man which is the inevitable result of becoming Enlightened.

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