RESPONDENT No 61(R): Try to focus your attention only as these eyes and these brain thinking (for a considerable time, it was in my case like gazing in one point to calm down fidgeting ‘I’)

RESPONDENT: Yes, this is basically Richard’s/Peter’s ‘mimicking the actual world’ tech. I found this to be the key to a more and more self-less experience of life. One has to ‘play’ with it on one’s own to see the best way to use it. After I check into ‘how I’m feeling’ I go right to this ‘special’ way of seeing. Given time (usually no more than 30sec to a minute) it automatically produces a EE, so I never have to ‘try to make myself happy’. A EE is much better than any normal ‘happiness’.

PETER: I thought to comment on your reply to No 61(R) as it contains an agreement and a misconception that could lead others to imagining the actualism method to be something other than what it is.

The phrase ‘mimicking the actual world’ means that ‘I’ do whatever ‘I’ can in order to mimic the actual world in both its purity and in its perfection … and the way that ‘I’ do this is by being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible, each moment again. This intent is single pointed in that being happy and being harmless is one and the same thing – it is impossible to be happy unless one is harmless and it is impossible to be harmless unless one is happy. In the early stages of actualism I focused all of my attention solely on this aspect – the first task being to get my attentiveness as to how I was feeling and what I was feeling in each moment of my waking hours up and running such that it became a constant awareness.

After I got a grasp of the method and of its single-pointed aim and found that I started to enjoy being here doing this business of being alive more and more then I was able – only whenever I was feeling particularly excellent – to bring my attention to sensate experiencing more and more. By bringing one’s seeing to the very surface of the eyeballs, bringing one’s touch to the fingers or the hairs on the skin, experiencing one’s taste as the activation of the taste buds on the tongue and the inside of the mouth, experiencing one’s hearing as it happens in the eardrums and experiencing one’s sense of smell as it activates the receptors in the nose what one is doing is mimicking the sensate-only experiencing that happens temporarily in a PCE or as a permanent experience in a PCE.

The reason I make this point is that if someone focuses on this latter aspect of coming to one’s senses and ignores the first and foremost aspect of the actualism method – removing the obstacles to being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible in this moment – then they are ignoring the crux of what actualism is all about and may well be doing nothing other than treading the well-worn traditional path of denial and dissociation.

RESPONDENT: Hello to everyone and everybody,

PETER: Matter, the stuff of which a thing is made, is commonly classified into three types – animal, vegetable or mineral.

If you asked a biologist, a doctor, a zoologist, a microbiologist, a mother or a teacher whether animal matter is passive, as in inert or inactive, he or she no doubt would look at you askance. That animal matter is ‘not merely passive’ is surely obvious but the extent to which it is not passive is literally breathtaking.

As an example, the smallest unit retaining the fundamental properties of life are cells, the ‘atoms’ of the living world. A single cell is often a complete organism in itself, such as a bacterium or yeast. Other cells, by differentiating in order to acquire specialized functions and cooperating with other specialized cells, become the building blocks of large multicellular organisms as complex as the human being. It would require a sheet of about 10,000 human cells to cover the head of a pin, and each human being is composed of more than 75,000,000,000,000 cells.

As an individual unit the cell is capable of digesting its own nutrients, providing its own energy, and replicating itself, in order to produce succeeding generations. It can be viewed as an enclosed vessel composed of even smaller units that serve as its skin, skeleton, brain, and digestive tract. Within this cell vessel innumerable chemical reactions take place simultaneously, all of them controlled so that they contribute to the sustenance and procreation of the cell. In a multicellular organism cells specialize to perform different functions. In order to do this each cell keeps in constant communication with its neighbours. As it receives nutrients from and expels wastes into its surroundings, it adheres to and cooperates with other cells. Cooperative assemblies of similar cells form tissues, and a cooperation between tissues in turn forms organs, the functional units of an organism.

In other words, the flesh and blood body known as No 32 is a cooperative assembly of cells that has developed from the multiplication of cells produced by the union of a male sex cell and a female sex cell. One day sufficient of these cells will cease to function as living organisms causing the flesh and blood organism known as No 32 to cease to function as a living organism. The dead cells that constitute the organism known as No 32 will then decompose, becoming the minerals of the earth again, and those minerals in turn will to help nourish or form other cells, be they vegetate or animate. The matter that is this planet is in fact in a constant state of being cycled between animal, vegetable and mineral – i.e. matter is ‘not merely passive’. Information on cellular life forms gleaned from Encyclopaedia Britannica

If you asked a botanist, a horticulturist or a gardener whether vegetate matter is passive, as in inert or inactive, again the response would be predictable. Having done a little bit of gardening and a good deal of tree planting in my life I am constantly amazed at the variety and virulence, prodigiousness and persistence of vegetate matter on this planet. Indeed scientific research has revealed vegetate matter that uses chemo-synthesis rather than photo-synthesis as its energy source together with many species that blur the distinction between vegetate and mineral matter and between vegetate and animal matter.

Similarly, if you asked a geologist, a meteorologist, a mineralogist, a chemist, an engineer or an architect whether mineral matter is passive, the answer again can only be no. It is obvious that inanimate matter is ‘not merely passive’ when in a gaseous state – the ever-changing atmosphere that surrounds this planet consists of a mixture of gases, water vapour and minute solid and liquid particles in suspension – this ever-changingness is what we humans call the ‘weather’. Equally it is obvious that inanimate matter is ‘not merely passive’ when in a liquid state – the very water of this watery planet is a constant hydrologic cycle of evaporation, movement within the atmosphere, precipitation, the downhill flow of river water, lakes, groundwater, ocean currents, glaciers, ice flows and icecaps.

What is not so obvious to many is that mineral matter in its solid state is also anything but passive and this is so because of the vast time spans involved in the movements and changes of mineral matter. Geological materials – the solid stuff the earth is made of – consist of mineral crystals continuously being cycled through various forms of host rock types – igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. This ongoing process – commonly referred to as the rock cycle – is dependant on temperature, pressure, changes in environmental conditions within the earth’s core, within the earth’s crust and at its surface, and time. So slow is the general rate of change that geological changes are measured in millions of years, although events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions bear instantaneous evidence as to the intensity of change.

I recently saw a computer graphic representation of the palaeogeographical changes of the European continent that have been mapped as occurring over several billion years. Whilst the time span is so enormous as to be almost inconceivable, what could be readily seen from the speed-up graphic was the constant rising and falling – literally a wrinkling and buckling – of the earths crust, an example of matter being ‘not merely passive’ on a scale that is astonishing. As if this were not proof enough, one needs only to consider the extent of changes and timescales involved in the study of astro-geology – the scientific discipline concerned with the geological aspects of all of the mineral matter in this infinite and eternal universe.

Whilst the fact that matter is ‘not merely passive’ should be patently obvious to modern-day humans, this was not so for those who lived in ancient times when ignorance of the actual nature of the matter of the universe led to the fear-ridden fables, superstitions and beliefs that all matter, be it animate or inanimate, was infused by good and evil spirits. It is obvious that if one ever aspires to live in the actual world, the first necessary step is to stop giving credibility to any of the ancient fables, superstitions and spirit beliefs that constitute so-called ‘ancient wisdom’.

RESPONDENT: Is (all) matter (water, trees, animals, various objects) alive and intelligent when experienced in a PCE?

PETER: No. Matter, when experienced in a PCE, does not change its properties for the properties of matter are inherent to matter itself. Water is not alive, as is animate matter, nor is it intelligent. Intelligence – the ability to think, reflect, plan, communicate, and to be aware of that ability as it is happening – is a faculty unique to the animate matter of the human brain. Trees are alive in that they are vegetate matter and I have described vegetate matter as being ‘not merely passive’ above. Trees are not intelligent.

Animals are alive in that they are organism consisting of cooperate collections of animate matter or living cells. 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.

When the intelligence that is a function of the human brain is temporarily freed to operate unimpeded by the animal survival passions, as ‘experienced in a PCE’, the normal ‘self’-centred values that human beings impose on the matter of the universe – it’s ugly, she’s ugly, it’s abhorrent, he’s abhorrent, it’s dull, he’s dull, she’s dull, it’s depressing, he’s depressing, it’s annoying, she’s annoying, it’s aggravating, he’s aggravating, it’s beautiful, he’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, it’s dear to me, he’s dear to me, she’s dear to me, it’s spiritual, it’s divine, he’s divine, she’s divine, and so on – all fall away, as if a veil has suddenly been lifted.

What is suddenly seen is that the matter of the universe – all matter, be it animate or inanimate, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, be it unfashioned by humans or fashioned by humans – has an inherent quality. The inherent quality of matter is something that is experienced sensately and a sensate-only experience of the quality of matter experienced in a PCE is a sensuous experience – it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s moist, it’s dry, it’s shiny, it’s smooth, it’s soft, it’s sweet, it’s tangy, it’s quiet, it’s boisterous, it’s loud, it’s scintillating, it’s fascinating, he’s a fellow human being, she’s a fellow human being, and so on. In a PCE the universe is experienced as it actually is – perfect, pure, pristine and peerless.

RESPONDENT: Is there a difference (concerning the quality of the object involved) when looking at a polyester cup in a PCE compared with our ordinary experience of it?

PETER: Again, the quality of an object does not change when an object is looked when one is having a pure consciousness experience, because the quality of an object is inherent to the object itself. What happens in a PCE is that ‘I’ temporarily disappear, along with the ‘self’-centred and anthropomorphic values and judgements ‘I’ automatically impose upon all matter, be it inanimate or animate – a constant evaluation of every thing as being good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, something to envy, scorn, fear or desire, something felt to be ‘mine’ or ‘yours’, someone felt to be friend or foe, and so on.

A currently fashionable value that many people unwittingly impose on objects is that they regard any objects that are fashioned by human beings from the mineral matter of the earth as being ‘unnatural’, hence artificial, going against nature, alien, improper, false, ugly, deviant, corrupted, evil, harmful and so on, whilst they feel matter in its raw state to be natural, wholesome, beautiful, beneficial, good, pure, innocent, true, unadulterated and so on.

The root source of these emotion-backed judgements imposed on the objects fashioned by human beings from the mineral matter of the earth, is the belief that human beings were pure and innocent in their primitive stone-age state and that this purity and innocence has been corrupted by the technological progresses of the iron age, the bronze age, the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the invention of electricity, the silicon chip and so on. In its crudest form this belief manifests as a collective feeling of guilt that human beings are aliens who have and are still corrupting and polluting the natural environment of the planet.

As can be seen, for an actualist there is a good deal of work to be done in demolishing these beliefs by replacing them with facts before one can expect to be able to sensuously experience the inherent quality of the matter of the universe, unimpeded by ‘my’ beliefs, values and judgements that ‘I’ unwittingly and automatically superimpose on everything I see, touch, hear, smell and taste as well as every human being I meet in person or hear about.

RESPONDENT: And is that perception objective, in the sense ‘that’s the way that cup really is’?

PETER: There is a world of difference between the normal human perception of the way it ‘really is’ or the way ‘‘I’ feel it to be’ and the ‘self’-less perception of the actuality of the universe as experienced in a PCE. (...)

*

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 have made some progress in some areas ... (although as yet I have had no PCE during this period). The progress I have had is slow ... but fairly steady and undeniable. I will describe this progress in two areas: externally (sensory awareness of my outer environment) ... and internal (awareness and exploration into thoughts-feelings ... basically anything that seems to stand in the way of being happy and harmless right now):

PETER: Something Richard said that I found useful was to practice bringing my visual awareness to the very front of the eyeballs. I found this is the best ‘I’ can do to mimic ‘self’-less seeing – there is less of the feeling of ‘me’ looking through the eyes and more of the feeling of the eyes seeing. In this way you also avoid the risk of becoming ‘the observer’ watching ‘the observed’, but more closely mimic what you actually are – the universe sensately experiencing itself as a thinking and reflective corporeal human being.

Whilst sight tends to be the most dominant of the physical senses for most people, there is a wealth of sensate enjoyment to be had in the other senses. The business of sustaining oneself – eating food and drinking liquids – is a rich sensorial experience in itself as the tongue, in concert with the mouth and nose, is capable of detecting an extraordinary range of distinct tastes and flavours.

The physical world we humans live in is often replete with an extraordinary variety of sounds we hear set against the background of the ever-present stillness. As such, an increasing auditory awareness is accompanied by an increasing awareness of the vast milieu of stillness that exemplifies this physical universe.

The human body’s external skin is the largest of our sensorial receptors, capable of detecting a range of sensate experience, be it warmth or cold, hardness and softness, wetness or dryness, roughness or smoothness and so on. The human body also ‘swims’ in air rather as marine animals swim in water, which means that one’s skin is always receptive to the movement, temperature and humidity of the very air we breathe and move through. And with each breath we take, sensors in the nose are continuously monitoring the ingoing air for the smells, fragrances and odours given off by the physical objects around.

It does take stubborn intent and a good deal of effort to deliberately poke holes in the veil that ‘I’ as a psychological and psychic identity invariably impose over the actual world – to free one’s sensual awareness such that one can begin to experience that the actual world is indeed a pure and perfect bountiful paradise.

RESPONDENT: A quick note on an experience I had the other night... I was experiencing some anxiousness about the ‘meaning of life’ and noticed that much of my thoughts revolve around searching for an enduring value or figuring out whether my life has had enough enjoyment – wondering how I would evaluate my life if I were lying on my death bed... when I realized how silly the whole thing was ... why would I spend my final moments reminiscing about the past – which is not even present anyway?

PETER: I am always somewhat surprised that so few people seem to stop to spend the time to do a bit of stocktaking and re-evaluating as to what they have done and where they are headed. Many of my generation had both the opportunity and time to think about the ‘meaning of life’ and many indeed did begin searching for something better than grim reality and something less shonky and self-indulgent than Olde Time Religion.

Unfortunately, most followed fashion and found Eastern religion and that sucked the very life out of them. By becoming believers in Truth, they have become as morally-superior and as intellectually-disingenuous as the countless generations before them who surrendered their will to a mythical God in exchange for a front row seat in an imaginary afterlife. And I can only say this because I too went down that path for a good many years.

And the only reason I stopped being a follower and a believer was that I took the time to do some stocktaking and re-evaluating of my life – and I didn’t like what I saw, so I determined to change. Better to make such evaluations now – even if it involves contemplating lying on your deathbed – and make the necessary changes now rather than end up dying in sad regret of never having fully lived.

RESPONDENT: It was strange to recognize that I often spend my time looking for some narrative that ties ‘my’ life together into some meaningful narrative, and I realized that this sort of enterprise is one of the hopeless things that ‘I’ do, since the ‘meaning’ of my life depends upon some interpretation of the events of my life.

PETER: Who else but you is going to interpret the events of your life and who else but you is going to determine what meaning it should have? There is no one better qualified, or more vitally interested, than you to decide what to do with your life.

I know, for me, it was glaringly obvious that if I wanted to become free of the human condition in toto, then the doing of it was up to ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: Then and there I realized experientially, not just intellectually, that this is my only moment of being alive – what a waste to cling to the past or future! Or to try and compose meaningful narratives out of the past and future – any such emotional story is always ‘up for grabs’ and must be defended by the identity. Anyway, it dawned on me that the only reliable meaning one can find is ‘now’ – since that’s all that’s actually here, now. :o)

PETER: Given that you have asked for input on your reflections, I will offer some suggestions based upon my experience as an actualist. They are only suggestions but you might well find them useful.

Whenever I had an experiential realization that this is the only moment I can experience being alive I deliberately made the effort to focus my attention on sensate experiencing, be it hearing the full range of sounds about, smelling the smells of various things, seeing with either soft-focused or investigative eyes, feeling with the whole of one’s skin or the touch of the finger and taking the time to savour the variety and intensity of taste. By doing so I started to become more aware of and more familiar with the sensual pleasures of the physical world. Cultivating this awareness and familiarity leads to a sensual delight in being here which in turn can sometimes lead to a delicious slipping into a PCE of the actual world.

As well as focussing my attention on sensate experiencing of the physical world, I would often deliberately contemplate on the nature of the physical world. This meant that in looking at the sky, I started to understand that we human animals ‘swim’ at the bottom of the earth’s atmosphere rather as fish swim in the sea. The air we breathe in and out and move around in ebbs and flows in the form of breezes and winds, its temperature varies seasonally, daily and often momentarily, it varies in moisture content between dry and decidedly wet and visually it offers a constantly changing scene varying from starless or star-filled nights, endless varieties of sunrises and sunsets, and a constantly changing scene of cloudless or cloud-filled days. Added to all this is the precipitation cycle that draws water from the land and oceans and deposits it around the planet in the form of rain, constantly nourishing the vegetate life and thereby sustaining the animate life on the planet.

This very same combination of sensate experience and reflective contemplation can be applied to all of the physical world we live in, without discrimination. Thus the materials, objects, tools and machines that human beings fashion out of the earth equally become things of fascination – the very matter of the earth made even more wondrous by the application of ingenuity. Over time these experiences of sensual delight in being here can develop into a marvelling at being here doing this business of being alive and then things really get cooking because you then start to become obsessive about wanting to live this experience as an on-going actuality, 24/7.

What can also be gleaned from such moments – provided one is observant and doesn’t latch onto the experience and claim it for one’s own self-aggrandizement – is that such moments of sensual experiencing and pure contemplation only occur when ‘I’ am absent. You can observe that such moments weren’t occurring when I was feeling bored or lacklustre a while ago, in fact it couldn’t have occurred then because the predominant experience I was having then was feeling bored or lacklustre.

In such moments you can realize that only ‘I’ stand in the way of the perfection and purity of the actual world becoming apparent. Then it is clearly seen that ‘me’ is the problem, not ‘me’ choosing to ‘cling to the past or future!’ or attempting to ‘try and compose meaningful narratives out of the past and future’ . In such moments you can realize that the traditional approach of practicing detachment (as in not-clinging) and practicing denial (as in no past and no future) can only lead to disassociative states of being – the antithesis of the experience of being fully alive in this very moment of time, in this very place in physical space.

What actualism offers is a way of progressively dismantling ‘me’, the spoiler who stands in the way of the pure consciousness experiencing of being fully alive in the actual world. Actualism is not about dissociating from, or associating with, the grim reality of normal human experiencing. What is on offer is a third alternative – eliminating ‘who’ you think and feel you are and discovering what you are – but for this to happen work needs to be done to get from A to B.

As you have probably gathered, the main point of my input regarding your reflections is to encourage you to more and more make your contemplations as down-to-earth as possible. This way you not only avoid the trap of spirituality but you will find yourself more and more coming to your senses, both literally and figuratively.

*

RESPONDENT: I have been keeping your advice in mind over the last few days with some interesting results. First, an emphasis on sensuous attention to the senses – rather than trying to analyze what’s going on in my head. What I find is the more I am able to experience sensuously what is presented by the senses – that intellectual concerns begin to lose significance – since what is actually happening is much more interesting anyway.

PETER: Just so you don’t misinterpret what I was saying, I’ll just post a bit from the Library –

sensation – The three ways a person can experience the world are: cerebral (thoughts); 2: sensate (senses); 3: affective (feelings). The aim of practicing ‘self’ awareness by asking ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ is to become aware of exactly how one is experiencing the world and to investigate what is preventing one from being happy and harmless in this moment. It is therefore important to discriminate between the pure sensate sensual experiences, as in sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and the cerebral thought and affective feeling experiences that are sourced in the instinctual animal survival passions. The Actual Freedom Trust Library

The relevant wording is that it is important to discriminate between the ways you experience the world and that this discrimination is done by becoming attentive as to how you are experiencing this moment of being alive. If this discriminating is done by repressing, ignoring or denying affective and cerebral experiencing whilst concentrating on sensate experiencing then it is nothing more than a ‘Stop and smell the roses’ philosophy – a philosophy that does nothing to facilitate a freedom from the human condition.

I’m not dismissing your investigations and experiences, far from it. The whole point of the process of actualism is to more and more develop a delight at being here and delight is sensuous appreciation. But don’t forget when you’re not feeling good or not feeling excellent or not experiencing delight then you have something to look at and something to investigate – i.e. there is work to do.

I noticed in your post to Richard that you are starting to realize that sincerity and integrity are vital to the actualism method. It is exactly these qualities that will prevent you from deluding or fooling yourself when you ask yourself ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ A little catch phrase that struck me in my early investigations and still sticks in my memory is that ‘fooling others is one thing but fooling myself is really, really silly’.

RESPONDENT: It’s amazing what ‘wisdom’ the senses seem to have all on their own – their ability to discern and navigate without ‘me’ doing anything.

PETER: Although wisdom is not a word I would use, I like your line of thinking. The observation of how I as this body can and does function remarkably well without that ‘little man in the head’ having to continuously pull at the levers can then lead to observing how many times that little man in the head (and his soul mate in the heart) manage to well and truly stuff things up. And not only for this flesh and blood body, but for others as well.

RESPONDENT to No 33: The question ‘Is there a type of thought and thinking that is entirely without any emotional investment or emotional involvement?’ I’d say yes there may be. You might like try to do the following:

PETER: Just a comment about your observation that may aid the ‘coming to one’s senses’ that is aim of actualism. Firstly it makes no sense to separate the word hand from the object it is describing just as it makes no sense to separate the words computer monitor from the object it is describing. The word is a description of the object and in that sense they are one in the same thing. The moment I read the word hand I knew what it was you were describing. There is a common psittacism that floats around in philosophical circles that the word is not the thing, which is but a clever ruse designed to give credence to intellectual-only discussions devoid of any down-to-earth meaning or factual evidence.

It is also common in Eastern philosophy and is used as intellectual support to that ultimate dissociative mantra – ‘I am not the body’. You will have noticed that this is the whole basis of No 22’s philosophy of denying the existence of anything physical in order to argue that only that which is meta-physical is real.

It is possible to look at something and appreciate the visual quality of a thumb without thinking the word thumb but this does not mean that it is not a thumb. Similarly you can touch your thumb with your other thumb and feel the warmth and texture of the skin without thinking the word thumb or having any affective feeling about your thumb.

One can be sensately aware of one’s own hand without an affective feeling operating and if you then contemplate upon exactly what it is you are seeing can even give you a glimpse of the fact that what you are is the flesh and blood body. I mention this because I well remember the experience of first really looking at my hand and seeing the corporeal nature of it. It was physical in the sense that it is matter, albeit animate matter, and it was also actual in that it was not merely passive, it grew from matter, it is sustained by the input of matter, it is now showing signs of aging and decaying and it will inevitably die and decompose and the cells that are left will again become the inanimate matter of the earth.

I’ll post a bit that I wrote a while ago which might give a clue as to the delights of sensate-only experiencing as distinct from one’s normal experiencing that is both constantly pre-empted and totally dominated by affective feelings –

[Peter]: ... ‘Recently someone said of Richard’s writings: ‘Why is he talking of everyday things?’ Well, when I wallowed in the world of emotions, feelings, energies and spirits, it was a full-time neurosis, and I couldn’t savour the delights of food, sex, conversation, doing ‘nothing’, playing FreeCell, reading a book, walking, sitting and watching the sky (or the ceiling). Now increasingly I do. Having nothing meaningful or useful or significant or urgent or exciting to do, day after day: and yet experiencing every day, each moment as near-perfect. Everyday life, everyday things. It has to be lived to be fully understood.

We rent a small flat, television, video, a couple of computers, two couches, a balcony with another couch and a couple of comfortable chairs, and a kitchen stocked with our favourite foods. In short, there is everything I need in life, and I live life in this flat almost as I did on the yacht those nights, many years ago. The physical ordinary things of life in this house are as actual, as extraordinary, as the wonders of nature. The universe has done a wonderful job in providing me with all the necessities I require for a delightful life, and I only need to work a little to earn sufficient money to pay the bills.

I remember about twenty years ago there was a lot of talk about the future, when automation and computers would reduce the amount of boring, repetitive and dangerous work humans did. And that then we would all work less and have increased leisure time. Well, that time has come, and suddenly we are calling it unemployment and a crisis! A few years ago I took on a young lad on the building site and he has turned out to be a good carpenter, so I figure he can take my place in the workforce – I’ll take the leisure time. And as for ‘Sustainable’ communities and ecology, I see them as nothing else but sustainable already – they already exist! And in constant change of course, as that is the nature of things. That the universe exists involves no effort on my part. When I get up in the morning I am aware it is here and doing well again. After all, there is no one in charge – there is no-one running this show – it is actually self-sustaining.

The physical universe is infinite and perfect – the ‘stuff’ of the universe being defined as animal, vegetable and mineral. The ‘energies’ of the universe are purely the physical forces of the universe, regulating the ‘stuff’ of the universe. And I, as a human being, am made of the same stuff as the universe. Undeniably, I am the product of the meeting between a sperm and an egg. I remember once looking at my hand and it was obviously the claw of an animal, and a sexual one at that.

I was not here before birth and I will not be here after death. I already know from my peak experiences that there is nothing ‘inside’ me as this body or separate from me to continue after I die. As a physical animal in the physical universe I have made it my aim to be happy and harmless, and the universe will do it’s ‘universe thing’ to aid in the creation of the best possible. I remember pondering this one day while walking along a country road and seeing a tree that had seeded beneath a log. It had bent around the log and then grown out at a steep angle towards the light. It only grew limbs on one side of the trunk so as to maintain its balance and strength. To say there is a God who looks after every tree, giving instructions, is plainly ridiculous. It is a life-force, if you like, but the tree was growing in the best way possible.

Another image that struck me was a showing the beginning of the formation of a human foetus. It showed the growth in the first days when the main activity is the fervent multiplication and creation of new cells. The cells lined up to form an ever-thickening line which was to be the child’s backbone. As the cells began to form the beginnings of limbs and a head, a sack formed in the chest area, and a pulsing motion could be seen. All in the first few days! Astounding to see, and so extraordinary, that to put a God or anything else in the way was to entirely miss seeing the physical universe in operation. To call life ‘sacred’ is to completely miss the point. Removing God, energies, emotions and feelings is seeing and experiencing the actual world free of a skin or film layered over the top.

That I, as this body, am a collection of pre-programmed cells that forms a whole, which is sensate, mobile, able to think, reflect and communicate with others, and that this whole bundle eventually wears out and dies is so extraordinary, so amazing!’ Peter’s Journal, The Universe

Maybe this is of use to you in understanding the striking difference between sensate-only experiencing and affective feeling.

Another way of understanding the process of actualism is that if one makes a conscious effort to distinguish, separate and eventually remove affective feelings from one’s sensate experiencing of the physical world then one can more and more sensually experience the delight that this actual world really is.

Similarly, if one makes a conscious effort to distinguish, separate and remove affective feelings from one’s thinking then more and more one’s innate intelligence – down-to-earth common sense – is able to operate freely.

But there is now something that can be done about both these programs – both the social identity and the instinctual passions.

*

RESPONDENT: I will be interested to know how did you manage to replace it ‘with a rock-solid sensibleness and sensuous ‘self’-less experiencing of the actual world ‘

PETER: If you set about questioning and demolishing your spiritual beliefs and begin backing out of the spiritual world there are several things that can happen to you. Some people I know who have had a taste of actualism have backed out of the excesses of following spiritual belief and gone back to being normal in the ‘real’ world again. They have benefited from this as they are more able to cope with the ‘real’ world as they are a bit more sensible and don’t go round with their head stuck in the clouds so much.

Others who have been initially attracted to actualism seem to imagine or feel that by abandoning their cherished spiritual beliefs they will only end up in cold stark reality or even in some sort of hellish realm – the traditional old dualistic thinking whereby the opposite of human morality of good being the human morality of bad, the opposite of the human created grim reality being a human created Greater Reality, the opposite of the human-imagined God being the human imagined Devil, and so on. In order to allay this fear it is vital to remember that what is on offer in actualism is the opportunity to step out of grim reality and its antidotal spiritual unreality and step into the actual world.

Those who are committed actualists are those who have a memory of a pure consciousness experience as a guide or have managed to induce a PCE by their own intensive inquires into the nature of their own psyche and/or the human condition in general. This ‘self’-less experience is what I am referring to when I said ‘a rock-solid sensibleness and sensuous ‘self’-less experiencing of the actual world’. If you haven’t had this experience yet, it will come as an inevitable result of committing yourself 100% to the process of actualism – one cannot demolish one’s social programming without at some stage bringing about a temporary crashing of the whole psychic and psychic faculty leaving only a bare awareness and sensuous delight as one’s experiencing.

The only proviso I would make, and it is an important one, is that it is vital to have substantially eliminated one’s dearly-held spiritual beliefs lest one ends up having an altered state of consciousness experience whereby ‘I’ claim the experience of perfection and purity as ‘mine’, resulting in totally narcissistic feelings of Godliness, divine love, omnipresence, omnipotency and the like.

Some suggestion come to mind as to how to encourage the ‘replacing the fickleness and ‘self’-centredness of ‘my’ normal cerebral and emotional experiencing with a rock-solid sensibleness and sensuous ‘self’-less experiencing of the actual world we humans live in.’

PETER: One needs to start to become sensately aware of the physical marvellousness of this planet we live on – the extraordinary abundance and variety of life, the astounding things that human intelligence has fashioned solely from the matter of this planet, the ever-increasing amazing safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure that human beings should now be enjoying instead wasting their time bitching and complaining about life, arguing, competing and fighting with each other, feeling needy and greedy and being sorrowful and miserable.

One needs to crank up wonder and amazement at this physical infinite and eternal universe, whilst being aware not to get into feelings of awe or gratitude. One needs to devote time for sensual contemplation, whilst being aware not to get into self-centred meditation. One needs to really take on board how utterly senseless it is to waste one’s time – meaning this very moment, the only moment you can experience being alive – by feeling miserable, bored, worried, sad, lonely, upset, annoyed, resentful, angry, God-realized, omnipotent, etc., when it has been startlingly obvious to everyone at some stage in their lives what a paradise this actual physical world really is.

Actualism is about being here in this physical sensual paradise where we flesh and blood humans actually live – 180 degrees opposite to the traditional escapism of going ‘there’ to an imaginary metaphysical paradise supposedly peopled by spirits, souls, Gods, Godmen, Goddesses and the like. It takes quite some verve to dismiss all of the traditional wisdom of humanity as tried and failed, decrepit and well passed its used-by-date but a clear-eyed overview of the senseless woes of humanity, both past and present, should leave a reasonably intelligent, caring and concerned person no other option but to take the path never travelled before.

There is a dare in actualism that should prove irresistible to those who feel they have nothing left to lose.

GARY: This morning, as I was preparing my usual cup of coffee, I became aware that in the past month or so, my intake of caffeine has been sharply increased, so much so in fact that I am wondering if that may be part of the reason I am experiencing anxiety. Caffeine has been a trigger for me in the past and it is an insidious kind of thing – it kind of sneaks up on me without my realizing it. So I am planning on cutting down on the coffee and see what happens.

PETER: During my spiritual years I dutifully followed most of the dietary beliefs and social mores associated with New Dark Age spiritualism. I dutifully became a vegetarian during these years, as this was the expected norm in the group I was involved with. However, as I became free of spiritual belief, I also became free of the need to blindly follow the herd. I quickly resumed meat eating as I personally find it the most flavoursome way of getting protein and I also developed a connoisseur’s delight in fresh brewed coffee. There is a general poo-poohing of coffee-drinking in the local NDA community and much hype about its health consequences. Given that coffee drinking is so wide-spread in so many countries in the world with no discernable health consequences as opposed to non-coffee drinking populations, I have put the general anti-coffee drinking hype into the not-proven, scare-mongering myth category. Coffee drinking then becomes a personal preference because I enjoy the taste of good coffee and I have no adverse reactions to caffeine. I have sometimes noticed a rush after a particularly excellent cup, but then again, I sometimes get a similar rush from a particularly good piece of fish, duck, ham, fruit, etc., not to mention the sensual pleasure of sex. Perhaps this rush could be classified as a brief sensory overload as it is physically based and not emotionally based.

The whole area of distinguishing and separating emotional reactions and the associated chemical reactions from peak sensate experiences and bountiful sensual enjoyment is a fascinating field of exploration. To experience this change of focus of your awareness from ‘self’-centred affective-chemical to pure sensate-sensual will become more and more interesting as you eliminate more of the normal emotional reactions that act to distort, pervert and obscure the sensual delight of the world we actually live in. As more and more of ‘me’, the spoiler, is progressively eliminated, I began to increasingly directly experience the paradisaical nature of this planet we humans live on. The local supermarket becomes a cornucopia of taste with delicious things to eat, almost jumping off the shelves at me. I swim through the air when walking downtown – sometimes moist and heavy with tropical scents, sometimes brisk, sparkling and effervescent. My flat is a comfortable cave, so chock a block full of comfort and pleasure that it alone satisfies all of my needs.

The very things, objects, implements, appliances and electronic toys become fascinating things – the matter of the universe. Everything on this planet is fashioned from the animal, vegetable or mineral of this planet. Nothing is experienced as alien or unnatural, separate from or different than me, this flesh and blood body. This flesh and blood body is, in fact, animate matter of this planet. I am an earthling, created from the joining of a sperm and an egg of other earthlings, grown and sustained by consuming animal, vegetable and mineral matter of this very same planet. What I am, however, is not only animate matter, as in animal, but what I am is conscious animate matter, bristling with sensory receptors, which also allows me to not only experience the rich lingering mouth-filling flavour of a fresh brewed cup of coffee ... but to thoroughly enjoy the sensuousness of it.

And to think I was socially and instinctually conditioned to constantly complain about, and even resent, being here and that I once believed in the traditional sop to this conditioning by constantly being grateful to some God-man or non-existent mythical God, force or energy ... It does seem more than a little strange that I once believed all this crap.

*

PETER: The whole point of actualism is to be happy and harmless in the world as-it-is – i.e. not to rant and rave about how bad the world is and not to fluctuate between being angry or sad at one’s lot in life. If you want to change your lot then you change it. Similarly the whole point of actualism is to be happy and harmless with people as-they-are – i.e. not to rant and rave about how bad people are and not to fluctuate between being angry or sad at the human condition. If you want to become free of the human condition then you set about irrevocably changing yourself.

Once you get the gist that actualism is about going down the road never travelled before in human history you start to realize the full implications of the fact that everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong. One then starts to see the folly of the human condition in toto and the envy, umbrage and criticism of others still ensnared by the old ways can be easily and clearly seen for what it is.

GARY: Yes, I think it has never been done before but now it is and I want to be in on it in a front seat. It means the end of ‘me’ and nothing but experiencing the 24hour a day perfection and purity of this physical universe, all while doing what one usually does, whether it be working, driving, tending a garden, going to meetings, whatever.

One needn’t go off to some monastery or trooping off to Byron Bay to make a pilgrimage to visit Richard to begin to experience this pure sensuous quality of life. It is right here right now. One becomes progressively more and more practiced in identifying what it is that is standing in the way of experiencing this perfection all the time, 24 hours a day.

PETER: Yes. Actualism is about getting in to being fully alive for the first time in one’s life. It isn’t about getting out of it, as in escaping from this physical world into an imaginary spiritual world. It isn’t about having instantaneous access to some Cosmic Wisdom, being Chosen to be a Saviour of mankind, acquiring Divine Protection as an antidote to one’s primordial fears or having Existence miraculously provide for one’s basic needs.

Actualism is firstly about freeing this body’s intelligence from any belief that there is any form of Higher Intelligence whatsoever in the universe, then progressively becoming free from the piffle that passes for Wisdom in the human species and then becoming free from the instinctual passions that give rise to the deep-seated emotions of malice and sorrow and their antidotal pacifiers, love and compassion. From my experience the order is important – you start with the outer layers of nonsense and work your way deeper.

And as you diligently go about this process you increasingly become aware of the extraordinariness of what is usually dismissed by realists as ordinary and prosaic or by spiritualists as illusionary and secondary. One’s first PCE is a very startling experience, as if a curtain has suddenly been ripped away to reveal a previously hidden paradise, the utter purity and peacefulness of the actual physical world. But as one proceeds to deconstruct this ‘curtain’, these pure consciousness experiences become less starling and seemingly other-worldly and become more ordinary, down-to-earth and familiar – hence what was once humdrum grim and grey reality becomes increasingly a sensuously extraordinary actuality.

*

PETER: Just the other day I had a conversation with a woman about sex and intimacy that I could have equally had with Vineeto or with a man if he were willing and able to broach such subjects. In the past I had often found women much more down to earth than men, much more interested in what is really going on in life. Talking to men was another story but sometimes they let their competitive guard down long enough to allow a little sensible talk.

Having explored and eliminated the social mores and instinctual programming that divide the human species into two warring gender camps, there is now no thought or feeling of a man-woman divide from my side to inhibit any communication or interaction with a fellow human being of either sex. For me there are no male topics, no female topics, no men’s business, no women’s business, no taboos, no secrets, no differences.

I am very well pleased with the efforts and results of my investigations into the sexual imperative.

GARY: Sound like you are reaping great rewards from your investigations into the sex drive. I am still a bit hung up sexually. One of the things I have really needed to look into was the guilt that was always associated with sex. As I said, the emotional-memory part of my psyche appears to be undergoing somewhat of a progressive shrinkage, and with it is disappearing the guilt feelings associated with the sex act. These guilt feelings are extremely deeply ingrained and a major hurdle to experiencing the pure delight of enjoyable sex. I still am quite inhibited sexually. I think, however, that the feelings of guilt are gradually diminishing as I have been examining these feelings when they do pop up. As I continue with this examination, I am less and less ‘driven’ sexually, and I am freer to examine what you call the sexual imperative.

PETER: I like it that your description of your investigations indicates that any investigation into the passions that prevent one from being a happy and harmless citizen of the world must first be an exploration into the societal beliefs, morals and ethics we have been imbibed with since birth. It confirms what I was saying above and what Richard says – you need to first start investigating the outer layers of social programming in order to expose the deeper layers of instinctual programming. . So many people want to take a short cut and somehow imagine that they can get to the core of the problem without penetrating the outer crust.

Sex is a fascinating topic to explore in that it is so obvious that one needs to first investigate and eliminate one’s morals and ethics in order to become free of inhibitions, hang-ups and taboos. It also is clear that one needs to stop believing what others say about sex for everyone stuffs it up be they in the real world or the spiritual world.

One local Tantric teacher has made it very plain in his sermons that sex is evil and only by making sex into a consciousness-raising exercise can it be purified of its innate evilness. He, of course, was then ready and willing to ‘raise the consciousness’ of any gullible and pretty young women who crossed his path. The carrying-on of such Eastern gurus was the inspiration of my ‘money for nothing and your chicks for free’ comment in my journal.

Personally I found the exploration into sex most revealing as to both the extent and deep-seatedness of my social and spiritual conditioning. It was a very close to the bone exploration as it was always apparent that it was ‘me’ and ‘my’ morality, imagination and fears that stood in the way of the possibility of unencumbered and guileless sexual enjoyment. It also became clear that as I began to break free of this outer layer of conditioning what new and fresh unexplored territory lays beneath – delicious sensuousness and an exquisite actual intimacy and mateship. Then the thrill of being here really starts to kicks in.

RESPONDENT: Peter ‘sees’. Others ‘theorize’ or ‘imagine’. Hhhmm. I see.

PETER: (...) The third alternative to being a normal suffering being or a supernormal Being, is to set upon a path of totally eliminating ‘who’ I think and feel I am in order to reveal ‘what I am’ – a free and autonomous, i.e. beholden to no-one, flesh and blood body brimming with sensory receptors that enable a direct sensual intimacy with the physical world, i.e. not in any way separate from actuality.

Everybody has had, at some stage in their lives, temporary experiences of this sensate-only experiencing of actuality whereby this direct sensual intimacy is so paramount that it briefly purges any feeling of separateness. These ‘self’-less pure consciousness experiences far surpass any feelings of Oneness and Godliness generated by the altered state of consciousness experiences so lauded in the spiritual world because they are a sensately-evident experience of the wonder of the perfection and purity of the actual world and not a dream-like ‘self’-centred delusion.

These pure consciousness experiences are often described as nature experiences and I certainly, with hindsight, had quite a few in my ‘normal’ lifetime. There are a number of experiences that stand out in my memory, some of them drug-induced but others that simply happened by themselves. There are memories of particularly intimate moments with other human beings or of particularly friendly, familiar or comfortable places, memories that fuelled my discontent with life as-it-was because they offered the tantalizing evidence that there was more to life than being normal ... or having to become God. These memories stand out as experiences of utter peacefulness and perfection as the utterly sensual delight of being here as a flesh and blood body in this cornucopian paradise temporarily obliterated ‘me’ and ‘my’ petty worries and ‘self’-centred feelings.

A pure consciousness experience is an exceptional experience for two noticeable aspects. Firstly, there is suddenly and clearly no ‘me’ and ‘my’ petty worries and ‘self’-centred feelings existing – the experience is one of a bare and clear consciousness. Secondly, there is suddenly and clearly a noticeably heightened sensate input – the experience is one of a direct and explicit sensuousness. It is as if one is seeing the actuality of things for the first time with a friendly inclusiveness, rather than a fearful guardedness. It is as if one is hearing sounds that were previously muted or non-existent. Touch comes to the fore as the feeling of air, water and objects on one’s skin is felt as a direct and sensual intimacy. Taste becomes distinctive as one savours the delights of food rather than devours it. One becomes effortlessly aware of aromas and smells that only a moment before did not seem to exist.

In a pure consciousness experiences all of this is effortless – it is not contrived, concocted or imagined. While the experience at first can seem otherworldly, it is this heightened sensate experience – the pure sensuous delight of being alive in an obviously physical world – that provides the evidence that a PCE is an explicit and ‘self’-less experience of the actuality of the physical universe we live in and not most definitely a dream-like non-physical other-world.

What I was attempting to convey to No 4 was that actualism is 180 degrees opposite to spiritualism in that one needs to cultivate and develop a sensate sensual awareness of the physical world we live in rather than turn away from, resent, reject and deny all physicality as is taught in spirituality. This is why I was writing about the importance of cultivating sensualness while demolishing one’s ‘self’, lest one ends up in a stark meaningless reality or a grandiose Greater Reality.

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