Please note that Peter’s Journal was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.

Selected Writings from Peter’s Journal

on Ancient Wisdom and the New Dark Age

The Human Condition is exemplified by the universal and inviolable acceptance that human life is typified by malice and sorrow and the only possible ‘solutions’ are spiritual or religious, all firmly based on Ancient Wisdom. Life on earth ‘is the way it is’ and there is nothing one can do about it. Acceptance is praised in the spiritual world as understanding that the world, the body and indeed even death itself, are an illusion. The most insidious teaching that now seems to be emerging from the East is a form of ‘it doesn’t matter what you do – it is all an illusion anyway’. For me, my son’s death ruled out the option of accepting that ‘this was all there was to life’. I wanted to be sure I got the most out of my life – to actually live the promised freedom, right here, right now, as this flesh and blood body.

What I have found is that all of the religious and spiritual doctrines and concepts about death are simply intricate fairy-tales retold and reinforced for millennia. They require constant injections of Faith, Hope, Trust, Devotion and Surrender to effectively maintain the belief in an afterlife – all to keep the underlying fear of death at bay.

Never Born Never Died

I remember when Rajneesh died we selected a piece of marble and had an Indian stonemason chisel on it: ‘Never Born, Never Died, Only Visited This Planet…’ as the epitaph on his tomb. Rajneesh had dictated this to his secretary some months before his death.

It seemed curious to me at the time, because I thought I had understood that the whole point of the spiritual search was the dissolution of the ‘self’ – in other words, ‘peace of mind’ or freedom for me, on earth. And here was Rajneesh proclaiming that he was only a ‘visitor’ here anyway, and even hinting that maybe he went somewhere else in the physical universe. There arose in me more questions than answers, but at the time I took it as was merely ‘par for the course’, given the inconsistency of his teachings. Now, of course, I am able to clearly see that the denial of living as this body, on this earth, at this moment of time, of all the spiritual teachers is both legendary and well documented – if one bothers to investigate. Peter’s Journal, ‘Death’

Believing in God means believing that someone else is going to make it all better one day, and one only has to have faith and trust that it will happen. I found that I had simply given up waiting for God to do it. I was fixing myself up as much as is possible, and it was working. I just got impatient, I guess! This gave me the confidence to squarely tackle that most insidious of beliefs – that there is such a person or thing as God (or Goddess, the Truth, This, or That, Energy, Tao, Spirit, Consciousness, the Source, Love – either Divine or Universal – Essence, The Universe, Existence, Aliens, etc…); in short, something other than this actual physical universe.

When I met Richard, I had long ago rejected Western religion and had, like many of my generation, sought the answers in the East and in spirituality. Now I had begun to see, particularly by re-reading the ancient texts and stories, that Eastern spirituality was nothing more than Eastern religion. I remember talking to friends at the time, asking them if they wanted to become Enlightened, and all of them said no. I was fascinated to find out why they followed Masters if they did not want to be like them. I would also ask people if they believed in God, and all of them said no. But when I pointed out that their particular Master taught about God in whatever form, they would all deny it. I realised that most people hung around for the ‘Energy’, and the Master could have been saying anything. It was shocking to see how gullible I had been, and only recently. (By the way, did you know that the word gullible is not even in the dictionary?) Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

The spiritual path had originally appealed to me as I saw it offered the chance of relief from suffering in this lifetime – from this ‘self’ within me, the psychological entity. Enlightenment was far superior to and more appealing than waiting for the good times promised in Heaven. At the time the spiritual path seemed the best on offer as a way to escape the misery and suffering of the world. It certainly appeared better than trying to ‘keep the lid on it all’, like the Western religions with their morals that so obviously fail. At least it acknowledged the problem of the ‘self’ and attempted to address it. I know that spiritual people generally are well meaning and have good intentions but the problem is that Eastern religions, by trying to eliminate the ‘self’, aim to transform it into the ‘Self’ – in other words realising that you are God or at one with God. And then, of course, as the latest saviour of mankind, one gathers disciples, scorns others who have seemingly found a different God, and eventually form yet another Religion. And so on ad nauseam. In the end, the apparent solution to suffering actually contributes mightily to the problem – and with horrific consequences.

The religious wars, persecutions, torture and perversions of the self-righteous God men are legendary and appalling, and they continue even today.

Of course, the East is equally appalling when one takes off the rose-coloured glasses and really looks. I only have to remember that I would have been willing to kill or be killed for Rajneesh on the Ranch to know this is so. Hinduism is too silly to even be taken seriously – a little reading will show that – but then again it forms the basis of much of modern spirituality! The brutality of the clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India rivals any of the atrocities man has inflicted on man.

Buddhism is another kettle of fish – or should I say bucket of worms! The core of modern Buddhism, while conveniently ignoring the inanities of its ancient God-ridden scriptures, seems firmly rooted in the principle of compassion. The dictionary definition of compassion is ‘common pathos’, i.e. ‘suffering together’. What I came to see in Buddhists was a moral smugness or superiority in following a higher code, which, of necessity, requires a lesser, poorer class to be maintained in order to practice one’s compassion on. Compassion actually works to maintain and perpetuate misery and suffering. You only have to look at the East with its appalling ignorance, arrogance, oppression, poverty, class structure and religious persecutions to see the results of thousands of years of intense devotion to Eastern religions.

To believe that spirituality holds the solution to violence and misery is to maintain faith, hope and trust in the face of the fact of total and continuing failure, after thousands of years, to bring even a semblance of peace to the planet. Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

If the aim of the spiritual path was to deliver to me the much sought-after ‘peace of mind’ then I had to admit that it had also failed. It was possible, through intensive effort and surrender, to still the mind, but from what I had experienced and seen in others, this involved a ‘getting out of it’, into some ‘other’ world. I came to see meditation as no more than sitting in the corner with my eyes shut, pretending the world didn’t exist. When they say the world is an illusion, they do indeed experience it that way. The inner, imaginary world becomes real and the actual physical world becomes an illusion!

I myself have experienced this when, after six months of withdrawal from the world, intensive spiritual reading and meditating, while walking along a beach I had an experience of being ‘pure love’. I was Love, and love for everything poured out of me. ‘Existence’ and I were one, and all was love. I, as I normally was, was definitely not there – I had become pure love. Or, put another way, I had an experience of the ‘self’ becoming the ‘Self’. It eventually wore off after about two hours but, on reflection, if I had continued on the spiritual path for longer with the same intensity, I could well have been typing very different words now – no doubt proclaiming myself as the latest saviour of mankind!

Somehow I knew that this was not what I was after, as I wanted to be an ordinary human being, not an extraordinary one like the Enlightened Ones. Besides, I had not met one whose life I would like to emulate. I had also seen enough of the power and authority, with its subsequent worship and adoration, to be dismayed at the thought that this system represented the pinnacle of human endeavour. Some spiritual teachers, seeing this objection in people, are now deliberately trying to appear ‘ordinary’ and make much of the fact. Was it set in concrete that the only way to get rid of the ‘self’ was to become the ‘Self’? Was the only way to escape the misery of being a human being to become a God or God-realised? Well, not according to Richard, and that was encouraging – and inspirational! Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

The case for the defence was definitely not looking good, but I still found myself defending at least something of the spiritual and hanging on grimly. Surely there was a ‘Something’ else? Was it possible that I, and everyone else on earth up until now, had got it wrong and that only Richard was right? I had been reading widely throughout this time to check out the facts of what Richard was saying and what I found was astounding. I found that the whole of philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, astronomy, physics, indeed all of man’s knowledge, and wisdom is based on an underlying assumption of a ‘something more’ than the physical universe. A belief in the meta-physical permeates all human thinking and wisdom. If one eliminated this assumption or belief the whole lot comes crashing down like those card stacks I used to make as a kid. Then it all started to make sense to me, to fit the facts – everyone has got it 180 degrees wrong – everyone!

There has been no actual evidence nor factual proof after thousands of years to support the belief that there is a God or a Something else. The cry in the churches, temples, ashrams and satsang halls is still one of trust, faith and hope to maintain the belief in a Something else. It was as though I was able to begin to see through the whole charade and fantasy of the spirit-ual world – to be able to see things from another perspective. It was like a mist or a veil clearing. It was then that I realised that Richard was the only atheist I had met and seemingly the only one that has ever been. Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

Fear welled up in me as I realised I no longer believed in the Spiritual – it was obviously just the religion of the East, and religion had obviously failed in the East as it had in the West. After thousands of years, nowhere is there peace on earth or happiness. But I knew I could not just believe Richard either. The enormity of it all was beginning to dawn on me. Nobody could help me. I could only rely on the facts, my own intelligence and experience. But the facts were undeniable. And a fact is a fact, whereas a belief is only a belief. In short it meant everybody else has got it wrong and I have got it right. I knew that would place me as a heretic – the very people who are persecuted and burnt at the stake! Besides, what about all those years of belief and faith – how could I have been such a fool!

Pride reared its ugly head, but I recognised it as the same pride that had bound me to the spiritual path in the first place and had given me a feeling of superiority. I then realised the connection between pride and humility, so subtly hidden beneath the ‘good-ness’ of the spiritual world. In the end I came to realise that I would be a greater fool to continue pursuing something that didn’t work, simply because everybody else was! It was useful to see Vineeto also struggling with exactly this same pride, as I often saw something in someone else that was relevant to turn in on myself. In the end I realised it was my life, and to worry about what other people thought is not to be free – and freedom was the very thing that I was after. Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

Up until now I have either buried my head in the sand and pretended that all the violence and suffering in the world didn’t exist, or stuck my head in the clouds trying to rise above it all to get to where God was – basically in cuckoo-land! I now find myself bewildered that there are people of my generation who still believe that the world is going to somehow one day miraculously change as if by the wave of some magical wand!

I often mused at how the idea of God began in the first place and why he has had such a long run despite such an abysmally bad performance. Since I do not believe in past lives, I can only guess, of course. Life must have been incredibly tough in the early cave-dwelling days – survival, shelter, food, warmth, protection, procreation, defence and attack. It was a purely animal existence, but humans had a brain that was able to reflect. Living in sheer terror of and dependency on the elements seems to have created the idea that some sort of appeasement or sacrifice was necessary to curry favour, or at least to not incur their wrath. Some of the earliest Gods were actually Fire, Sun, Moon and the Earth itself. At the heart of some modern day Eastern temples a perpetual fire is still kept burning – a tradition stretching back to these times. The leaders of the tribes would then have found it advantageous to take over the position of messengers or representatives of the Gods. This was only natural, given man’s cunning, and thus were born the priests, shamans and God-men! Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

Richard had the courage to leave God behind and he has charted a course to freedom that I am able to follow easily. There is now a third alternative to being either ‘ordinary’ or God, and it works! You simply get out of the world of imagination and into the actual world, and leave both your ‘self’ and ‘Self’ behind. Now there is an escape route that does not involve becoming God, or cunningly becoming ‘one with him’ – a sort of a ‘God and I are best mates’ scenario that men have used to wield power over others and to wage horrendous wars for centuries. It is good to have left God, including all of his aliases (Truth, This, or That, Energy, Tao, Consciousness, Something Else, The Source, Love – either Divine or Universal – Gaia, The Universe, Mother Earth, Aliens, etc…) where He/She belongs – in the world of imagination.

Finally, it was just a matter of seeing the idea of God or anything else apart from the physical universe as pure imagination. The idea of God, the Good and Love to fight the Devil, the Bad, and Evil is ingrained in us as the only solution to fight the malice and sorrow that we are born with. But now there is available a direct, down-to-earth practical method of ridding oneself of that wiring in the brain – and it works! It does involve having the courage to leave the imaginary world of Gods, Spirits, Love and Good behind, but the understanding and experiencing that the Devil, Bad and Evil are equally illusory is the key to the door. One is then simply able to step out of the so-called real world and into the actual world and leave one’s ‘self’ (and ‘Self’) behind.

To be free of both God and the Devil, both Good and Evil, and to begin to enjoy the vast freedom and physical delights of the actual infinite universe … is yet another essential precursor to becoming actually free! Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

Of course it gets a lot more complex than that, because humans have a highly sophisticated brain, able to reflect and communicate, and also a rudimentary ‘self’. This ‘self’ has developed into a cunning and perverse entity, layered with beliefs, myths, morals, fears, fairy stories, gods and devils. The psychic world was born and flourished in fear and superstition, peddled by the witches, shamans, priests and God-men. A world of spirits – the spirit-ual world of Good and Bad. The world of ritual and ceremony, prophecy and divination, belief and faith, charms and omens. Supreme in this world on the side of the Good are the saints, popes, and the Enlightened ones, not to mention a few thousand Gods. And a continual battle is fought against Evil, the non-believers, the heathens and the godless. It is all fought out in the ‘cosmos’ – some sort of ancient mythical version of cyberspace. And it is fought over vast eons of time in alternate universes, on different planes or astral dimensions.

The Heaven I was told about as a kid – and thought to be silly – has nothing on this! The whole world is increasingly becoming a psychic battleground as New?-Age bookshops, and the magazines, therapists and gurus provide the ammunition. They are selling medicine and remedies for fear, while at the same time actively fuelling people’s fears, as it is good business to do so. The predictions and prophecies of doom and gloom, the stories of suffering and mental anguish are insidiously spread, reinforced and embellished to actively promote and maintain fear.

I remember after the Ranch I was living in a seaside town that had a small Rajneesh centre. Rooms were available providing various people a chance to offer sessions in past lives, tarot, astrology, psychic readings and other divinations. A friend and I would often look at the notice board, fascinated at the ever-increasing variety on offer. One day we decided, as a prank, to place a fictitious advertisement in the community newsletter offering ‘Capology – the Ancient Tibetan Art of Knee-cap Reading’. It went on to describe that the knees are a critical junction point for the flow of ‘Quong energy’. We also offered half price to pensioners and amputees! We gave the telephone number of the local Concerned Christians, a cult-busting group, which had occasionally given Rajneeshees a hard time. We thought nothing more of it until the editor of the newsletter bailed us up one day to tell us that the Concerned Christians had rung up to complain that they had had so many phone calls, and how come? Which made me think, even then, that people will believe anything. It just took me a while to admit to the fact that I was as gullible as everyone else. So in this journey out of the psychic world – 180 degrees in the opposite direction to accepted Wisdom – those lead weights of doubt and fear around my ankles had to be tackled and removed. Peter’s Journal, ‘Fear’

The means to finding peace for oneself and harmony in living with others is actually so simple and easy. In fact it is devastatingly easy; it weakens and eventually eliminates malice and sorrow. In large part it involves looking at the facts of living as a human on this earth and courageously investigating all of the societal beliefs held as sacred or set in concrete. We, as human beings, seem to intrinsically know that something is wrong. Is life really a sick joke? Are human beings doomed to forever live in misery, suffering and violence; living in eternal hope that some imaginary God will come back to stop the suffering? Is this really some sort of halfway house where we have to suffer rightly according to some Ancient Wisdom of some long dead Guru or mythical God?

Is the best that we can aspire to become either a Saint or an Enlightened One – those appallingly arrogant and deluded God-men? Or are we part of some vast cosmic game-plan in which the Chosen few will be whisked away to some utopia either in this universe or another? Of course not!

If, as a human being, you are concerned with these matters, this book offers the benefits of following in Richard’s footsteps ... not as another solution within the ‘tried and true’ system of beliefs that has forever bound human beings to the concept of ‘it’s impossible to change human nature’. The fact is that an evolutionary change has now begun, pioneered by a human being who simply dared to question the accepted wisdom of ‘Long Dead People’.

There is simply no ‘Wisdom’ to be had in believing what Zoroaster, Jesus, Buddha and the like are supposed to have said precisely because they lived thousands of years ago. They lived in a primitive time when humans had only recently emerged from the caves, believed the world was flat and the sky was another world inhabited by Gods.

It is now time for an evolutionary change that will simply make the past beliefs and animal instincts not only archaic and redundant but silly. The way is now open for a new species of human beings to supersede the old. Peter’s Journal, ‘Evolution’

Peter’s Selected Writings

Peter’s Journal

Library – Ancient Wisdom

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

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