PETER: Hi Gary,

I thought I would get in another reply to you before I strip my computer down again. My glitch hasn’t gone away despite me renewing most of my hardware and re-formatting completely. The next thing is to strip it all down again and try again. The marvellous thing is that I have not got upset or frustrated throughout the whole business which is proof to me that it is possible to be virtually happy and harmless with people, things and events exactly as they are. At this stage in the process of actualism, ‘me’, who I think and feel I am, is so weakened that it is extremely rare that I get upset about the people, things and events that constitute this actual world we live in. Gone are the days of wanting to fit in or wanting to change people, things and events to suit ‘my’ whims and ‘my’ moods. There is nothing like pragmatic success to confirm that something works.

Something occurred to me to write to you about, and it is the business of writing. Often over the last three years since I wrote my journal I have been challenged with the comment ‘but you are not actually free yet’. Despite the fact that these challenges always came as a put-down from someone who hadn’t a clue what Actual Freedom was anyway, the question was nevertheless valid. Whenever this occurred or any other relevant and valid question arose, I would matter-of-factly re-evaluate what I was saying to check its authenticity and facticity, as well as run a check on own integrity.

What I always found was that I could authentically write of the experience of actuality and the actual world from my pure consciousness experiences and that I could write with integrity and expertise about the process of actualism simply by the fact that I actively was doing it and logging up down-to-earth success. Unless both of these factors are present, it is relatively easy to detect someone who is talking the talk rather than walking the walk, as the expression goes.

This is not to say, as I look back over my writing, that my experience, knowledge and expertise has not developed and that some of what I wrote in the past I would now rephrase in hindsight given the understanding I have now. But what I always wanted to do was document the lively process of actualism, warts and all so to speak, as it was happening because I knew it would be useful for anyone else wanting to become happy and harmless.

PETER: So, on to your post –

Having been full-on on the spiritual path for 17 years I had a few friends who either were either left limping along as church-going spiritualists or were still shopping in the spiritual supermarket. I naively thought they would be interested in actualism but the moment they realized it involved questioning their spiritual beliefs, their automatic self-defence mechanism cut in and when they realized it also involved effort and work it was way too much for their spiritual ego. I just refused to let this experience muzzle me, which is why I chose to write about my experiences rather than try and change other people.

GARY: I had a lively back-and-forth with some people about love and compassion recently. It provided an opportunity for me to investigate my own beliefs and feelings about love and compassion, as well as to determine how other people think about it. What I found was that I became rather exasperated or frustrated that either I couldn’t express what I was trying to say or that people didn’t want to hear what I was trying to say. This feeling of exasperation was a red flag to me that I was dealing with my own beliefs and feelings.

There is absolutely no reason why one ought to become frustrated or irritated about what someone else is saying unless it challenges or threatens some belief that they hold dear. And I think this is what was happening to me in the course of this correspondence.

PETER: Well said. My most recent experience of this was writing to No 22 and I was well pleased that I was neither frustrated nor irritated at all by the exchange. What did happen at one stage was that I got a glimpse of the utter madness of attempting to have a conversation with someone who denied even the physical existence of people, things and events and, as such, any attempt to even begin to discuss actualism is utterly futile. I experienced it as having my mind twisted around as I was confronted by someone who denied and negated every thing as no-thing, every fact presented as wrong thinking and every other human being as existing only as ‘behaviour’.

But, I find it kinda cute that the list has now attracted its own resident God-man.

GARY: I was trying to influence others, and when their opposition to what I was saying became even more determined (naturally so), I felt misunderstood and frustrated. I then commenced to ask myself why I was trying to influence others, questioned myself on my stake in the discussion, and investigated into my own deeper fears, conflicts, and doubts about love and compassion. Because I was deliberately questioning the emotion of love, and I was getting determined opposition from others, it really highlighted for me just how highly love is sought, coveted and valued by human beings. Love and compassion (and their allied emotions: pity, sympathy, empathy, etc) are really regarded to be the pinnacle, indeed the summit of all earthly dreams and hopes. To reject love is to be dead, according to what I heard these other people to be saying.

Since I have begun to investigate into these tender instincts, I have been able to see what a hold they have on Humanity, indeed what a hold they have on ‘me’. ‘I’ need love in order to confirm my existence. Without love, ‘I’ am nothing – I might as well be dead. Love, if I was following the thread of these conversations, is the do-all and end-all of earthly existence. Without it, life has no meaning, no reason. So, even though I was taking one side in the discussions, the discussions themselves were reflecting back to me the deep questions and doubts that I myself have on the topic in question.

PETER: In hindsight, in similar types of conversations I see I was simply presenting the fact that the much-vaunted feeling of love didn’t work because it has always failed to bring about peace between human beings. The same is evident with the revered spiritual feeling of unconditional love-for-all – it also has failed miserably in eventuating anything remotely resembling peace on earth. I was not presenting a viewpoint nor taking a side, I was simply stating a fact ... and offering an alternative.

But like you, these discussions did serve to make me look even deeper into ‘me’ than I would have had I not discussed these matters and been challenged. What I also found was that often people liked the discussions, provided they didn’t become too offended, because they rarely if ever talked about their feelings in such a way, rarely if ever sat back and reviewed how they lived their lives, what beliefs they held, in terms of what worked and what didn’t work and why not.

You may have noticed a peculiar twist in that if the person you are talking to takes a discussion about the human condition personally then they invariably become offended. If they don’t take it personally it is a sure sign they are dissociated in some way from their own complete range of feelings and beliefs that epitomize the human condition and the discussion usually trips along as a philosophical-type conversation with no depth at all. (...)

PETER: I simply gave up talking to people face to face about Actual Freedom and reverted to occasionally dropping in a bit of common sense into a conversation – a much less confronting exercise, although even this does appear to stir up some issues in some people. I tried writing on a few spiritual mailing lists and was cyber-executed from one and censored off another, so I do my writing on the Actual Freedom mailing list now, but as you will have noticed even this list has now attracted a few perfervid objectors to peace on earth.

GARY: Hmm ... interesting. I was not aware that you do not write to other lists anymore.

PETER: It does take time to write and I have always preferred quality to quantity, interest to disinterest, vitality to weariness, down-to-earthness to holier-than-thouness and talking common sense rather than exchanging hackneyed and rehashed platitudes. Which is why I particularly enjoy writing to you given that we are able to talk freely about any-thing at all.

GARY: What I found in my brief experience of writing to others recently was that, yes, it did seem to be stirring up some issues in others, but it was stirring up the same issues in me. I found it was a fascinating way of observing my own psyche in action, and to sharpen my own thinking about some things. I think in the future I am going to be a little more circumspect in what I say to others. I have noticed that when I involve myself in groups, cyber or otherwise, I tend to come in guns a-blazing. Perhaps for me this is some kind of defence mechanism in action – you know, the best defence is a good offence. I have sometimes jumped right into these things and offended other people, rather than trying to ease in gradually and observing etiquette (or nettiquette).

PETER: I do like the Net as a means of communicating. The very nature of writing brings out a clarity and conciseness that is not possible in the normal vagaries of casual conversation. The written word encourages a consistency of thinking, by its very nature it can expose contradictions and inconsistencies. On this mailing list particularly, it can lead to a common understanding of the facts of the human condition and can serve to eat away at and eventually demolish belief.

I am often aware that what I write is often repetitious but I know, for me, that repeated little incremental understandings would begin to prise a ‘crack in the door’ such that it would eventually swing open and I was able to have a realization about some fact or another. Often it was a different phrasing, a different way of putting something that would all of a sudden make something clear that before had been obtuse or unclear – or hidden by ‘my’ emotional reactions.

This type of conversation is such a pleasure and such an adventure, yet to others it is often boring and apparently even offensive in the extreme. The only alternative that would satisfy some would be to shut up, which would only mean that the chance to spread peace on earth would be stifled by the spiritual-ists. This is not an alternative that makes sense to me.

Whenever I wrote on mailing lists I always liked to be up-front about what I am writing about. I wanted to make it clear that what I was writing was both iconoclastic and brand new – not that many really listened or took the time to try and comprehend what was being said. I was, however, initially very taken aback that so many people took what I was saying personally, or Impersonally, and those who wrote to me became progressively desperate and silly in their denial and, if they persisted, ended up offended and often downright angry.

It was then that I remembered that once upon a time I too was so passionate about ‘my’ beliefs that I was even willing to kill, or be killed, in order to defend ‘my’ beliefs.

*

PETER: I find myself more and more unable to write of a process that now seems to have passed its active phase where ‘I’ am in any way involved in it happening or continuing to happen. It is as though my work is done both as an active actualist and as a documenter of the process of actualism. This stage has been going on for some months now and shows no sign of abating. At first I attributed it to laziness but I suspect it is more than that. I suspect it is the end of an era, the end of one extraordinary adventure and the beginning of another.’

GARY: I can relate in a sense to what you are saying. I am not sure if it is the same thing though. I feel some greater hesitancy in writing now than I used to. It seems that I have read so much about actualism and talked so much about it on this mailing list, that now the only thing left is to do it, rather than talking about it or thinking about it. It seems like most of my questions have been answered and, if they have not, somebody else has asked the same questions and I could find a response somewhere in the writings and correspondence. I no longer feel quite the thrill of writing and I seem to take a great deal longer to mull over what I am going to say and how I want to say it. I have thought that taking this more deliberate approach to writing, as opposed to a more spontaneous, off-the-cuff style, is throwing a wet blanket over things. However, I think what I am talking about is a bit different in what you are saying in this respect: I think there is still plenty of ‘me’ left in my writing, as evidenced by emotional reactions of not wanting to appear foolish or ignorant or anything else. I also have the uncomfortable sense at times that I do not know what the blazes I am talking about and that I have got it all wrong after all.

PETER: What I was saying was typified recently when I was writing about fear and then you made comment in a subsequent post about the atavistic fears that you experienced when abandoning the comfort zone of spiritual belief. It struck me that you were more able to write of this experience because it was for you a recent experience, whereas I had forgotten the experience because it has long past and has left no emotional scars whatsoever.

The other issue about writing is that I have always regarded it as a way of exploring my psyche and of making sense of the world I found myself living in. To write while you are in the process of still making discoveries and whilst still in the human condition is a risky business for you are continuously sticking your neck out or putting your hand up to be counted.

But what to do – sit meekly on the sidelines of this business of being alive?

PETER to No 33: Perhaps it might also be appropriate to explain the history of the glossary at this point. After my initial successes with actualism I wrote my journal in order to provide a personal account of the successes of practicing actualism. When it was finished I then took on another project that I thought may be of use to anyone interested in making sense of what actualism is about – a glossary of terms that are commonly used in the actualism writings so as to define their meanings and point out where they differ from common spiritual meanings. I did this because when I first came across actualism, my own cognitive dissonance – my inability to understand new concepts due to a lifetime of programming of real world and spiritual world beliefs – meant that I initially understood actualism to be another form of spiritualism purely because I was incapable of considering, let alone understanding, anything so new and radical.

Writing the glossary was a considerable challenge at the time because I have always attempted to write in my own words, independently of Richard. In fact, from the time I started to write my journal, I deliberately made a decision to stop reading Richard’s writings because I wanted to suss things out for myself, understand for myself, be able to describe actualism and actuality in my own words and from my own experience. It was also obvious that it was useless to merely parrot Richard’s writings and regurgitate them as ‘my’ wisdom, as is common practice with the ‘do as I say but not necessarily as I do’ spiritual teachers and famed Gurus’. This is why I term myself a practicing actualist – I can stand by what I write because I write from lived experience and not from wishful thinking, plagiarized theories or impassioned imagination.

Some of the phrases and terminology I used in the glossary, and indeed in all my writings, are those that Richard uses and I use them because they are concise, to the point and very well thought about. Some sections of the glossary are also direct quotes of Richard’s because they were topics where I was out of my depth as it were, i.e. I lacked the understanding and direct experience of the subject to write authoritatively on the subject. I make no bones about acknowledging Richard’s superior expertise – he has not only spent far longer studying the human condition than I have but also he is actually free from the human condition – he writes from the ongoing, 24 hours a day, experience of a flesh and blood body sans identity.

Writing for me is a way of being able to cultivate clear thinking about the human condition and, like all first-time activities, a lot of trial and error occurs and a lot of nutting out has to be done in the process. I am a practicing actualist and the practice of actualism is to strip away the beliefs and passions that constitute the human condition in me so as to experientially unearth the facts of what it is to be a human being. The way I did this initially was to read the words of the only person thus far free from the human condition, and check out whether what he was saying made sense, i.e. was it factual, and then get on with the job.

But nowadays a world wide dissemination of actualism is happening and this is where reports from practicing actualists about the difficulties encountered, the issues that commonly arise and the successes achieved are equally important and useful to someone genuinely interested in actualism. If someone only reads Richard’s writings and ignores the rest of what is offered on the Actual Freedom Trust website and this mailing list, the natural tendency will be to remain an armchair theoretician, forever dreaming of change or to regard Richard as some sort of non-spiritual, spiritual Guru and clip on a bit of actualism terminology to their borrowed spiritual wisdom.

It is in this light that the two sections of the Actual Freedom Trust website – the Third Alternative and Actualism – should be understood. Richard writes of a brand new alternative in human experience – to be actually free of the human condition as distinct from the spiritual delusion of Freedom – whereas the practicing actualists write to verify that this possibility can only be actualised by doing it yourself.

You may have already noticed that some fervent spiritualists hold Richard in high esteem, lauding him for his Wisdom and writing style, whilst simultaneously deriding whatever the practicing actualists have to say on this list . Being a believer and believing in a Guru is far, far safer than finding out for oneself, because that involves both stubborn effort and actual change. You can see the same propensity played out all over the planet – spiritual believers are amongst the most passionate resisters to change. Their held to be sacred wisdom is firmly rooted in the dim dark past when it was believed that the world was flat and inhabited by good and evil spirits, when life was indeed a grim and desperate battle for survival. To continue upholding and defending these primitive beliefs and superstitions is plainly nonsensical in this emerging post-spiritual era.

PETER: You recently wrote to Richard querying the accuracy of something I have written –

RESPONDENT: I did look up the word in the actualist glossary and found a few noteworthy statements: ‘As this is being written, only a handful of people have managed to become free of the Human Condition ...’ As it has recently been established that the number is 1 – that hardly constitutes a ‘handful’. Respondent to Richard Re: ‘Spiritual’ 30.3.2004

PETER: It is quite clear that the statement, when taken at face value, is not correct but it is relevant to consider the timing and circumstances in which it was written.

When I became a practicing actualist, I found it useful to write down my understandings and realizations in a notebook as I found the very act of writing itself was a very practical way of ordering my thoughts and keeping my thinking on subject and on track. Very often I would do this last thing at night as a way of reviewing the events of the day, noting the emotional reactions I had to particular events and then taking a clear-eyed look at whatever aspect of the human condition that had caused me to feel aggravated or to feel unhappy.

After about a year of this intense process of ‘self’-investigation, I came to stage where I noticed that my life had changed so much that I was indeed virtually free of malice and sorrow, i.e. feeling excellent was my normal state. It struck me at the time that it would be useful to others if I wrote a journal that documented the steps I took in this process and the discoveries I had made about the nature of the human condition – so I purchased a computer and wrote my journal. After I had finished it, it then occurred to me that it would also be of use to others to write a glossary of terms used in actualism as many people who had read either my journal or Richard’s writings did so without bothering to understand the meaning of the words that were written, i.e. they skip-read looking for a feeling-understanding within the context of the human condition and their own particular conditioning rather than take on board the iconoclastic message that the actual words conveyed when taken at face value.

Writing the glossary proved much more difficult than writing my journal as it often involved writing about issues and topics that I had not necessarily tackled in my journal and a good deal of the writing remained unedited as can be seen from the piece you quoted. As I look back on it now, much of the writing reflects the difficulty I had in understanding many of the issues and much of it is very passionate in nature. The very business of exposing the human condition is not an intellectual exercise – it is a passionate, hands-on business and whilst I wanted this fact to be reflected in my journal this passion is also evident to me in the writings that form the glossary.

Much of my writing in the glossary reads as though it was written as the realization, or moments of clear thinking, were happening and some could have indeed even been written whilst I was having a PCE, which would explain the statement I made that you have queried – for when one is having a PCE, one is temporarily free of the human condition. Indeed it is my experience in being virtually free of the human condition that I am, in fact, free of most of the human condition for most of the time – which is not to deny that I will only be actually free of the human condition in toto when the singular event of self-immolation occurs.

This is exactly the reason I decided to start writing when I did – I had some hands-on experience to pass on about the actualism method and the nature of the human condition that was best written raw and first-hand rather than as a hindsight account. If you read my journal and some of my early correspondence you will also find many other statements I have made that you could also rightly dispute. At the time they were written I was full-on into investigating the human condition and the very process is a daring and passionate one and whilst I fully stand by my earlier writings in terms of substance, flavour and intent, they were not necessarily intended to stand close intellectual scrutiny.

At one stage I thought to go over my earlier writings and edit them for accuracy and terminology but I realized that in doing so I would inevitably loose some of the immediacy and spontaneity of an experiential account so I haven’t bothered. Thanks for pointing out the inaccuracy. I have changed the particular statement you pointed to, but I will leave my journal unedited for the reasons stated above.

RESPONDENT: Just a simple question, maybe you can spare some time to answer it. What motivates you to spend so much time writing to all these people here?

PETER: I have posted several replies in the past, which you may have missed in your deleting –

[Peter]: I always wanted to be able to discuss these matters in my spirit-ual years, to get down to the bare bones of things. To be able to question absolutely everything and anything, the lot, without fear of getting my head snapped off, being sent to Coventry, or told I was being ‘negative’. To be able to ask, scrutinize and get a straight answer.

And to be able to look at things without the typical straight-jacket of ... ‘right or wrong’, ...’good or bad’. To sort fact from fiction. To really find out what it is to be a human being. To be able to fully live as a human being on this paradisiacal planet ... free of malice and sorrow, happy and harmless, innocent and pure.

As you can probably tell I am enjoying this discussion immensely. This is pioneering stuff and it’s happening right now as I type these words. Nothing is more thrilling than this... being here, doing what is happening. To be actually typing these words and not knowing what I am going to say next...

The thing, of course, is that this is not anything personal that we are saying. We are talking about an actual freedom from the Human Condition, a condition that afflicts all humans. This freedom is available for everyone although it is clear that not everyone will want to take it on. Peter, List C, No 14, 11.12.1998

From another post –

[Peter]: I am not flogging a spiritual or religious method. I am saying that there is now an alternative to being normal or becoming spiritual – there is now available a a new, down-to-earth actual freedom from the Human Condition.

I do a few hours a day on the computer and nothing much else. We walk downtown for a meal, watch a bit of TV, have a romp, lay around a lot. I do enjoy writing and did think I might make a living out of it, but what I am saying is not very popular stuff. The only way to get a discussion going so far, has been to drop in on this list. I know it is pissing some people off but a few seem interested, so I’ll keep going for a bit.

It is funny, though. I naively thought that the spiritual seekers, Sannyasins in particular, would be the ones who would be interested in this.

Particularly seeing the religion is so obvious now. I suspect that many have invested too many years to even consider something else.

I gave a few books to friends but they have gone mostly unread.

I think many are scared that it might actually work, and nobody – deep down – wants to change.’

So, I have plenty of time, I never run out of time – it’s impossible. Peter, List C, No 25, 15.12.1998

From another post –

[Peter]: The other thing I have been musing over is the curious reaction from Sannyasins to my Journal. I liked Sannyas and Sannyasins, particularly in the early days. There was a sense of pioneering, challenging the norm, giving it a boots and all approach. Now I get many people telling me ‘I’m all right’, ‘I’m watching my self’, ‘I’m happy’, ‘Life goes on and I’m going with the flow’, ‘I am already That, all I have to do is realize it’ ‘There is nothing I can do – it is all in God’s hands’ etc. etc. Acceptance was always an acceptance of me as I was, whereas if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t the best I could be – I wasn’t free.

That’s all – I want to keep it short, but I just wanted to say this is nothing personal, humans are all inflicted with the same disease. The scientists are starting to isolate the genes, or software, that triggers the instinctual behaviour patterns relating to fear, aggression, nurture and desire – so it is a fact. But now there is a chance to do something about it, in you. Peter, List C, 10.12.1998

From another post –

[Peter]: ‘During this time, I remember driving up the escarpment that encircles the lush semi-tropical coastal plain where I live. I stopped and looked out at the edge of the greenery, where a seemingly endless ribbon of white sand neatly bordered it from the azure ocean. Overhead great mounds of fluffy white clouds sailed by in the blue of the sky. Right in the foreground stood a group of majestic pines towering some thirty meters tall. I was struck by the vastness, the stillness and the perfection of this planet, the extraordinariness of it all, but … and the ‘but’ are human beings – human beings who persist in fighting and killing each other and can’t live together in peace and harmony. It was one of those moments that forced me to do something about myself, for I was one of those 5.8 billion people. It was exactly one of those moments that forced me to do something about being able to live with a woman in peace and harmony. To prove it was possible.’

No longer was it then sensible to relentlessly pursue that which has failed for billions of people for thousands of years. Hope, faith and trust, when they fail, turn inevitably to despair, doubt and suspicion. I put my stock in confidence, certainty and a good deal of bloody-mindedness to try something different and the results are already beyond my wildest dreams! First, I made it the most important task in my life. Secondly, I realised that nobody could do it but me. Then I simply had to ride out the fear that arose from changing my behaviour – from actually eradicating part of myself.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’ Peter, List C, No 13, 8.12.1998

So, I delight in reporting to others that the path to a new, non-spiritual, down-to-earth, Actual Freedom works.

PETER: Hi, in reply to your good question –

RESPONDENT: Are you a missionary?

PETER: A missionary, by definition, usually refers to the spreading of a particular faith. Since I see no sense at all in merely believing what anyone says I pass on that one. I am not flogging a spiritual or religious method. I am saying that there is now an alternative to being normal or becoming spiritual – there is now available a new, down-to-earth actual freedom from the Human Condition.

‘Missionary’ can also refer to the ‘style’ of presentation or wording. I thought a lot about this when I wrote my journal as I was writing with enthusiasm at the time, and I knew with the general cynicism abounding in the world, that it would generally be regarded as missionary. But what to do ... I am enthusiastic that at least we are beginning to talk sensibly about that ‘which cannot be spoken of’.

At some point in my spiritual search I noticed that my scepticism was turning to cynicism and I deliberately attempted to turn my scepticism into investigation and scrutiny.

The other thing about a missionary is that he has the power of God with him, he is doing God’s work. He represents the ultimate authority – God.

I am, most definitely, not an authority in that sense, but I am an expert on how to become happy and harmless and how to live with a woman/man in peace, harmony and equity.

So it is my pleasure, for a few hours a day, to get an opportunity to write of how it is to be actually free of the Human Condition.

It beats Enlightenment by a country mile ...

RESPONDENT: It is amazing how much time you find to post these many 10 to 30 KB heavy messages to the list every day. Do you still find the time to connect with people in real life or is your computer just the most beloved companion, meeting all your needs?? Just wondering.

PETER: I do a few hours a day on the computer and nothing much else. We walk downtown for a meal, watch a bit of TV, have a romp, lay around a lot. I do enjoy writing and did think I might make a living out of it, but what I am saying is not very popular stuff. The only way to get a discussion going so far, has been to drop in on this list. I know it is pissing some people off but a few seem interested, so I’ll keep going for a bit.

It is funny, though. I naively thought that the spiritual seekers, Sannyasins in particular, would be the ones who would be interested in this.

Particularly seeing the religion is so obvious now. I suspect that many have invested too many years to even consider something else.

I gave a few books to friends but they have gone mostly unread. I think many are scared that it might actually work, and nobody – deep down – wants to change.

So, I have plenty of time, I never run out of time – it’s impossible.

A bit from the end of the Time chapter of my journal might explain why ... (I managed to tackle all the big topics in my journal – it was the only way to come to my senses).

[Peter]: ... ‘When I met Richard I soon realised that I had not even scratched the surface of what was necessary in order to become free. I quickly re-organised my life into a semi-retirement of working about three hours a day, in order to devote the rest of my time to be either with Richard or Vineeto. Thus, the major focus of time and effort I devoted totally and selfishly to my burning ambition in life. I also found that I needed time to myself to contemplate and mull over what was happening as all the beliefs were being challenged – uninterrupted time to string some thoughts together, to dig around, to make sense of things. The hours and hours spent with Richard and Vineeto were largely devoted to this exploration, but I had to sort it out for myself, and that takes time. In this period, time wasted on unnecessary things was simply time wasted.

A curious thing began to happen when I contemplated on what it is to be a human being, when I pondered the Human Condition, when I became ‘self’-obsessed.

Soon everything that I did, every action, every word, every thought, was analysed in terms of ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Then I was able to identify the lost, lonely, frightened, and very cunning entity that ‘I’ am – the cause of malice and sorrow within me. This is definitely not meditation, it is 180 degrees opposite. This is being fully occupied in the world of people, things and events: not retreating or hiding from it. The whole point of the exercise is to identify that identity in action – a sort of a psychic ‘search and destroy’ mission, if you like – and the aim is to become as happy and harmless as is humanly possible. The point of meditation on the other hand is to merely ignore and ‘rise above’ the behaviour in question: to dissociate from and transcend it, as they say. Transcending, per definition, is to ‘go above and beyond’, which is really ‘Above and Beyond’, as we all know.

The other essential difference is that Richard’s method concentrates all of the attention on this moment in time, this actual moment now. The whole emphasis is on how am I experiencing myself NOW? This has the effect of eliminating the future as something to worry about, and the inevitable postponement that it brings. The ‘there’s always tomorrow’, ‘one day I will…’, or the spiritual ‘in my next lifetime’ are simply a cop out. By bringing my attention to the fact that this is my only moment of being alive, and that if I was happy ten minutes ago and I’m not happy now, the fact is: I’m not happy now. So what is the cause, the source? I don’t deny that I didn’t have a goal and that this goal was in the future – to be happy and harmless 24hrs. a day, every day. However, my immediate aim was to be happy and harmless now, in this very moment of being alive! But it does take time to work through each of the societal beliefs and instinctual passions, to thoroughly investigate them. I always considered it nonsense to delude myself with the advice that I was already Enlightened, ‘That’ or perfect, when I knew exactly how I was inside and how I acted. It always seemed as though I was kidding myself that I was all right when, if I was honest with myself, I knew I wasn’t.

So my retirement in the last twelve months was really a retirement from the busyness of life, with all its effort, emotions and worries. A retirement from constantly ‘being’, from having a purpose and a continuity. Then increasingly I become aware that I, this body, is simply doing what is happening, which right now happens to be typing these words. I know that at some time today Vineeto will go off to work, I will eat, type whatever words come, laze around and eventually go to bed.

I know that later on, if I’m still alive, I soon will have to work to earn some money, but beyond that there are no plans, no desires, no expectations. Of course, I have preferences and also practical things to do, but I will simply be doing them when I’m doing them; they require little, if any, planning.  This has nothing to do with the spiritual ‘being in the moment’ or ‘being here’, which is an attempt to hold on to an inner state of bliss, which in turn involves practising a constant detachment from the physical world, the body and the emotions. To attempt to bring one’s meditation into the marketplace is to attempt the impossible. As I know from my experience meditation is an artificially contrived, imaginary state of bliss that is notoriously fickle and temporary. Only very rarely does it lead to a more or less permanent altered state of consciousness, but then the real trouble begins as one practices losing all touch with the actual, sensual world. Peter’s Journal, ‘Time’

I learnt from my pure consciousness experiences that by not ‘being’, or becoming, or having come from somewhere, or going somewhere, I, as this body, am safely and firmly located in time. I am never out of time. I am never busy or not busy. I always have enough time because it is right here, this very moment of being alive, doing what is happening now. This moment is the only time I can experience; the past is nothing but a memory stored in the brain cells, only some of which I can recall if required. And the future hasn’t happened yet, and when it comes it will be this moment. Living this as an actuality leaves no room for the ‘self’, that identity who always has a past and a future.

By doing what is happening in this moment, ‘I’ momentarily cease to exist, for my awareness is involved fully in what is happening, in this case typing these words, feeling the cooling breeze on my legs and occasionally being aware of traffic and bird calls outside. It is all becoming so eminently effortless, near-perfect but, as I discovered, it does take time to get used to living this way. There was a ‘can it be this easy, this simple, this lazy, this effortless, this good, this near-perfect?’ It goes totally against the ideas of struggle, effort, achievement, being creative or useful. I now see everyone else as wasting time by avoiding this very moment by living with their past, usually sad memories, or by dreaming and planning their future in a futile attempt to give purpose or meaning to their lives.

They all are avoiding or missing out on the thrill of experiencing this moment of being alive as a sensate human being. The method Richard devised to eliminate the ‘self’ – malice and sorrow – is flawless and ruthlessly effective. If my awareness is constantly focused on ‘How I am experiencing this moment of being alive?’ as a silent attitude, a non-verbal attentiveness, there is simply no room for a past or future, a sense of continuity. There is no room for feelings or emotions or for ‘going inside’ as a way of avoiding and withdrawing. Should they occur then there is something to look at – the aim being to get back to being happy and harmless as soon as possible. Practised assiduously, the psychological and psychic entity actually withers and will one day eventually die, as does anything starved of nourishment or sustenance.

Then ‘what I am’ will eventually emerge one day, I as this body, the one that was here anyway, the one that had been struggling at the shackles for freedom. Fresh each moment … again and again and again.

I am now beginning to discover the meaning of life.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Time’

Good, Hey ...

So, that was another good few kilos ... but a lot of it was ‘copy and paste’, and it was such a pleasure to write to you.

RESPONDENT: You are feeling responsible for all the unenlightened people on the planet?

PETER: No, I pass on that one. I found that the only person I could change was myself. I tried blaming others, trying or hoping everybody else would change and then it would be all right. I set a realistic goal of changing myself. Now, it is possible to help someone else but only if they are interested. But I limit myself to a few hours a day, a few e-mails seems a good balance.

I wrote my journal as a definitive piece and reading a bit of it the other day it is a good story. I wanted to ‘point the way’ to Richard’s writings, which were the tool by which I became free. So, anything I do beyond that bit of writing is a bonus... I do like the ‘live’ aspect of typing these words ... not knowing what is coming next ...

RESPONDENT: or you are intellectual masochist ...

PETER: No, neither. I trained as an architect but found the whole business a bit too intellectual. So I spent most time actually building, on site, hammer and nail bag stuff. I like practical hands-on work so words, writing, and the like are new to me. I have no interest in intellectual pursuits – I find so much of it to be mere ‘wanking’ (masturbation).

I write now because I enjoy it, it is good fun to offer – for the first time – an alternative that works.

It is the next significant change that will happen with humans – that we will gradually see peace and harmony spread on the planet. It is no small thing that Richard has discovered. It is a leap to a new species no longer driven by felines of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

And each person is free to do it themselves or not. Cute Hey ... Perfect.

As for masochism, I aim for safety, comfort, and avoid the possibility of pain. I am a coward of the first order.

RESPONDENT: I pay you respect and I’m not sarcastic. But tell me what is the real reason for all this?

PETER: Why do I write?

To finally put an end to war, rape, torture, famine, suicide, sexual abuse, repression, suicide, slavery. This is happening right now as I write these words to real, actual flesh and blood human beings. It is not an illusion. I live in a relatively safe place, but we have policemen with guns to curb and control the worst of violence, and this country spends a lot of money on maintaining an army to keep other tribes from invading.

If you are in it for yourself then Enlightenment is the thing – self-aggrandizement if ever there was one. If you care about your fellow human beings then to become actually free is the only game to play. I write iconoclastically because we have been fed too much bullshit, lied to, conned, promised the moon, put off asking questions and told to trust, have faith and it will ‘all be right’. It is time for some straight talking ... a dialogue, a discussion about the Human Condition, some intelligent conversation based on facts... rather than what some fairy-tales some guys made up 2 or 3,000 years ago, and what we still regard as Sacred or Wisdom. Or should I be more humble? Am I not bowing low enough to the Divine? The good thing about not believing in the Divine is that I also don’t believe in blasphemy, so I am free to write of facts rather than merely regurgitate beliefs!

Why do I write?

Because there will be another Peter out there who admits to be lost, lonely, frightened and very, cunning ... and desperately wants to be free.

For me, as I was when I first came across Richard ... I just felt I had nothing left to lose ... and what else was I going to do with the rest of my life anyway?

The idea of becoming happy and harmless and of being able to live with a woman in peace and harmony was the best offer I had come across yet.

And what an adventure ...

So, good to chat to you, I enjoyed it.

*

RESPONDENT: Maybe your intentions are sincere, but then how can you expect from the people to just believe you and take you for granted only on the basis of dead words presented somewhere on the Internet?

PETER: I said in the Afterword to my journal, and here in this mailing list, not to merely believe what I am saying. It is such a poor way to live one’s life on the basis of believing what other people say.

For me, facts and common sense beat belief and feelings any day. If I was running a business and wanted to be successful I would rely on facts and common sense. I simply applied the same sense to being here as a flesh and blood human being and then the magic really began to happen.

PETER: Richard has something to write about that is invaluable for any who are sufficiently interested. The writings on the Actual Freedom Trust website probably total well over a million words and yet are but a drop in the ocean compared to the trillions and squillions of words parroting and trumpeting the ancient spiritual gooblygook.

G. G.: But no one reads all of them or his words.

PETER: No, all seekers of freedom peace and happiness are seduced by the ancient spiritual gooblygook for t’is sweet music to the soul and very, very few even bother to read spiritual words with a sensible clear eye for they are usually in-love with the whole fairy tale idea of spirituality.

G. G.: Are those your words? They seem old-fashioned and like Richard.

PETER: No they are my words typed on this very keyboard. If they do seem similar to Richard then it is due to the fact that we use consistent terms and that we are talking of the same thing. If they seem old-fashioned to you it may be due to obsession with style and not content. (...)

*

PETER: You seem interested in what others think of him, his appearance, etc. but what do you make of the content of what he is saying?

G. G.: Too tiresome for the most part. PCEs exist – so what? I don’t think it as astonishing as he makes out. He obviously still has an ego because he talks about himself. You now repeat yourself twice – duplicating two paragraphs. Are you trying to bore me?

PETER: Not at all. You are the one who is bored yet still writes to me in order to be even more bored. I’m having the time of my life writing to people about being happy and harmless and logging up countless objections for the record.

PUBLISHER No 2: I am left wondering why you are so concerned about the image of Sannyasins.

PETER: At one time I had many friends who were Sannyasins, as I was, and most were very sincere and totally dedicated in their search for freedom, peace and happiness. As I have said before, at the time Sannyas was the best game to play. I now see a watering down of this search amongst many Sannyasins to the point were many are ‘happy and content’ exactly as they are, with no desire for change. I think this is evidenced by the fact that many are attracted by the teachings that ‘you are already That – all you have to do is realize It’.

To me this is a sorry and lamentable demise of a movement that began in the fervour of 60’s and that was going to change the world and bring peace to this fair planet. This passionate search for freedom, peace and happiness has degenerated into an utterly self-centred fashionable New Dark Age spiritualism that cares not a fig about peace on earth. The current image of Sannyasins in the wider community is that they at the forefront of this self-centredness and are deliberately turning away from the original spirit that was around in the ‘early days’.

Perhaps this just makes me an old fogie but I, for one, still remain vitally interested in actual peace on earth.

A bit I wrote for the Introduction to Actual Freedom may be relevant –

[Peter]: The human search for freedom, peace and happiness has been a search for freedom from the rigid shackles of one’s instilled social identity and an end to the personal and global malice and sorrow that arise from the instinctual passions – a freedom from the Human Condition.

The shamans, priests and God-men have commandeered this innate search with the promise of peace and happiness in a mythical ‘life-after-death’. This seductive promise of immortality for one’s ‘self’ or soul is a powerful lure that is passionately fuelled by the basic fear that underlies the innate survival instinct – the fear of death. The Eastern religions further add the possibility of becoming a God-man – a position of ultimate power and authority over others that is irresistibly appealing for many. The resulting enslavery of the master-disciple system is the very antithesis of freedom and is but to forfeit any possibility of an actual personal peace on earth for the promise of an imaginary and ‘eternal’ peace, after physical death.

The search for a ‘spiritual’ freedom, peace and happiness, based on ancient superstition and metaphysical ‘other-worldly’ beliefs, has been on-going for thousands of years and has now had its day. It’s time for a modern scientific, practical approach to finding a genuine and actual freedom from the Human Condition in total. A freedom from ancient belief and spiritual superstition. A freedom from the necessity of forever attempting to obey pious morals and follow unliveable ethics in order to keep one’s instinctual passions under control. And, finally, a freedom from the instinctual animal passions themselves – fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

It’s time to get to the very root of the problem – that ancient, hoary belief that ‘you can’t change human nature. Introduction to Actual Freedom, ‘Actual Freedom’

Sannyas has become yet another ‘old time religion’ and peace on earth is sacrificed yet again. As you can see, I am more concerned about the content and consequences of the Sannyas message than the image of Sannyasins. That’s why I write – purely and simply to say to anyone who is discontent with the spiritual path that there is a now a third alternative available to remaining ‘normal’ or becoming ‘spiritual.

The reason I wrote to you guys was to warn you of the apparent perception of intolerance towards other religions in your magazine. But you don’t seem to see what I see, so I see no point in continuing to flog a dead horse.