The major puzzle at this time, however, remained – why did all my relationships fail? Why was it that there seemed to be things that both I, and whoever I was with at the time, would not, or could not, talk about? Why did every attempt to do so seem doomed to end in emotional scenes, covert battles, confusion and final withdrawal? It felt to me that if I ‘surrendered’ on an issue I was dismissed as a wimp, and if I ‘won’, I would have to pay for it later. I hated the conflicts and in the end hoped they would simply pass by, or I would ‘tread carefully’ so as not to upset things. The battles would pass – but then eventually, so would the relationship.

Why did I yearn to be with a woman when I was alone, and yet feel trapped when I was in a relationship with a woman and secretly yearn to be free again? Was it that I had to accept the bad times in a relationship on the basis of ‘this too will pass?’ or ‘that is the way it is – the ups and downs of life.’ In the end, like everyone else I knew, I gave up on relationships; it was just that some chose to stay in their relationships on the basis of it being as ‘good as it gets’. Others stayed because the thought of starting again was too much. I chose to give up. I simply wasn’t willing to get to the same place of ‘stuckness’ and compromise, nor did I want to inflict that on anyone else.

As I now look back on these relationships I find it amazing how my attitudes and actions were formed by my social conditioning, and that those instilled beliefs, ‘truths’, ethics, values and morals inevitably ensured the failure of an unliveable ideal. I had simply been re-taught that which had caused the failure of men and women to live in peace and harmony since time immemorial. It became obvious that there was something dramatically wrong with the whole male-female relating business, and that the problem was universal. I simply played out, like a puppet on a string, ‘my’ particular role in a play that was pre-scripted to failure or, at best, a second-rate compromise. Such was my disillusion with the whole business that, by the time I met Richard and Devika, I had not been in a relationship for some three years and had also been celibate for the same period. Peter’s Journal, ‘Living Together’

I won’t bore you by going through the litany of failure of all my love affairs. One thing from my teenage years I find worth mentioning is that whenever I ‘fell in love’ with a girl it was a curious thing. To be accurate and honest, what had happened was that – using the current jargon – I had ‘fallen in lust’. At that age, I would do anything to get into a girl’s knickers, and then along would come a set of totally confusing and bewildering instinctually-fuelled emotions that sort of ‘came with the territory’. In particular I remember my first serious love affair. We were both about sweet sixteen and very horny; the complication being my fear of getting her pregnant. The sexual tension mounted to an excruciating level, but I was terrified of the consequences of going ‘all the way’. After one excruciating evening of ‘almost’, she suddenly disappeared out of my life, only to turn up dating someone else. Sure enough, she immediately became pregnant by him, and I heaved a sigh of relief. But it did seem odd at the time – was that all she had been with me for? And what about love? Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

It was only when I was finally with Vineeto, with a firm, mutually agreed pact in place that I was able to experience, investigate and make sense of the full range of feelings and emotions that arise in a love relationship between a man and a woman. As you know by now, there was an unusual start to our relationship. I had met Richard and Devika some weeks earlier, had been impressed by their story, and was determined to try out the method they had evolved for living together in peace and harmony. After deciding Vineeto was the one to approach, and finding her willing, we began our association. I told her I wanted to live with a woman in perfect serenity and equity; that I wanted to look at whatever was in the way, and that I was willing to give it one hundred percent. All of these propositions appealed to her very much, although she later admitted that I was not the ‘type’ she would normally have been attracted to. Our first three weeks were a sort of sounding-out period, a getting to know each other. Sex was pretty good considering that both of us had previously been on sexual diets – more like a starvation in my case. What proved excellent and decisive was our willingness and ability to talk and to explore beyond the limits of our previous efforts. We had set our sights on nothing less than perfect, not merely doing better than before or better than average and, as such, there was no time for hesitancy, compromise or postponement. We both understood that this was our best, last and only chance at sorting out for ourselves why we could not live in peace, harmony and equity with someone of the other gender

I wanted us to live together right from the start, but as Vineeto preferred to maintain her ‘independence’, we arranged to spend the weekends together, plus one night during the week. This arrangement, however, was to prove perfect for me. I soon scheduled my time with work in the mornings, Richard and Devika in the afternoons and Vineeto at the weekends; an arrangement that was to continue for six intense months. I had read a good deal of Richard’s journal at this stage and yet understood very little, as it was so radical and confronting to my ‘normal’ and ‘spiritual’ mind-set. Nevertheless, I did glean enough to know that the solutions to the problems of men and women relating were to be found beyond the norm, and if this meant challenging love as a way of relating then I was willing to at least consider it. When I talked to Vineeto about this idea she was, understandably, more than a little sceptical! Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

Then subtly things began to get a little awkward, which I first attributed to the radical issues we were discussing and my particularly chaotic and nomadic life at the time. But something else was at the root of the problems between us – something else was causing this ‘dis-ease’ I felt.

I found myself continuously bringing up the issue of her not wanting to live with me and would strongly question her motives for wanting to maintain her ‘independence’. She was more cautious about what Richard was saying, quite rightly stating that she ‘didn’t want to just take on another set of beliefs’, but I took this as stubborn resistance. I began to become jealous of her around other men and of her time when we weren’t together. We both started to get anxious about meeting times and some misunderstandings occurred because of this. Once I misunderstood something she said, didn’t bother to check, and took it completely the wrong way. By the time a few hours had passed, I had made a mountain out of a molehill, interpreted what she had said as her wanting to get out of the relationship, decided this is how women always treated me, and that I wasn’t going to stand for it any more! However, finally I came to my senses, thinking what a good boy I was as I had ‘seen’ an old pattern of mine. Little did I know that what I had ‘discovered’ was to prove to be but the tip of the iceberg. The final straw came as I waited to meet her one evening and she was late.

Over the next few days something continued to nag me. Why was it that this relationship seemed to be going off the rails? Why, increasingly, were there misunderstandings, petty conflicts and difficulties between us? Why was I becoming more and more obsessed about what Vineeto was doing when we weren’t together, and what she was thinking about when we were together? Over the next days I contemplated on what was wrong and suddenly it dawned on me that, despite our matter-of-fact contract and investigations, we had fallen in love! We were both exhibiting the classic symptoms, emotions and feelings associated with being in love. I was battling her and trying to force my opinions on her. I realized that I had been jealous, possessive, pushy, demanding and obsessive with her. And, most appallingly, I saw how when the impossible demands of love are not fulfilled then it can all so quickly turn to disappointment, resentment, withdrawal, spite and eventually hate. It had got to the stage where it was obvious to me that, unless something changed, this relationship was heading exactly the same way as all my previous ones – doomed to failure. Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

Armed with the conviction of the blindingly obvious, I confronted Vineeto with the news. I told her I was simply going to stop battling her and acting the way I had been. I remember her response as somewhat bewildered and unbelieving, but I knew that, at least, I had to stop the torment of raging feelings in me. What happened in the ensuing week was quite remarkable. I found that the strength of my intention for peace and harmony made me able to completely drop this destructive behaviour. Somehow I knew this was the only course of action I could take to make this relationship work and I knew it was my last chance. The realizing and facing of the facts, coupled with a clear intent, left ‘me’ with no choice. It wasn’t that ‘I’ made a decision – there was actually no decision to make. Action happened by itself, exactly as it would in swerving to avoid hitting another car while driving.

A calmness and surety replaced the swirl of feelings; no longer was I thinking about Vineeto when we were apart, and when I was with her I was no longer suspicious, doubtful, impatient or moody. I began increasingly to accept her as-she-was. I was no longer driven to change her. This then brought a corresponding ease in myself for I was then able just to be me and more able to focus on how I was experiencing this moment of being alive? It was the beginning of realizing that the only person I can change is me and I was then able to start working on exactly that.

One thing that did arise was the fear that, given I no longer found myself emotionally-driven to the same extent, I could risk losing her, but at least I would not be acting in a way that was destructive to my happiness or hers. But what to do? The pact said peace and harmony, come what may … and if taking a risk, and feeling some fear, was the price to pay, so be it. In the end I had to assume that Vineeto was with me because she wanted to be with me, and I was with her because I wanted to be, as simple as that. This was a free association and companionship with no other conditions, bonds or deals other than our agreement to look at anything in the way of peace and harmony.

A week later, we both realized the full extent of the dramatic change that had occurred. A certain excitement seemed to be missing, a passion and a bond in our lives. It was quite tangible, and a sense of loss overwhelmed us. It was apparent I had fallen in love about three weeks after we met and had been in love for about six weeks until I had called a halt to the battle. I hadn’t recognized at the time that this behaviour of mine was really love in operation; I only saw it in the end as an emotional turmoil that was destroying my enjoyment of being with Vineeto. So, what we had seen was love in operation – a practical demonstration in our lives, not just a theoretical concept.

As we sat down to talk about what had happened we both had tears in our eyes.  Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

Over the following weeks we delved into exactly what love is; recounting all the experiences that had caused such difficulties between us, as well as our experiences with others in the past. The ‘falling in lust’ syndrome is an obvious one and sexual attraction or arousal causes a well documented instinctual surge in the body – and directly experienced as an emotional response. This response, particularly when it occurs simultaneously in both parties can cause the ‘flash’ known as the ‘love at first sight’ syndrome. The other interesting discovery was that falling in love is usually a decision made, whether it is a ‘Yippee’, a ‘Yes’ or a ‘… might as well’. But by far the strongest factor in the feeling of love is the instinctually-fuelled hormonal response. Over the centuries we humans have formalized these instinctual functions of procreation, protection and nurturing into the institution of marriage. Strangely enough the concept of romantic love seems to have only come to real fruition in the Middle Ages when it was idealised in ballads, mythical tales and fables. The beliefs and myths surrounding love are mammoth, but I was only interested in the facts of how this ideal translates into human emotions and behaviour – and mine in particular.

Those facts were that I had wanted to possess, control and manipulate this woman. I would make her into ‘my’ ideal, ‘my’ woman. This behaviour is strange indeed, because one of the things that attracted me to her in the first place was her strength of will, her independence. I remember clearly in past relationships when the battle of wills would surface as a ‘‘tis / ‘tisn’t’, right / wrong undercurrent which would occasionally arise over the pettiest of issues. There would also be a subtle (or with some people not so subtle) putting down of the other, as though trying to keep the other from getting stronger than me, or getting more than me. If the other was getting more attention than me, jealousy would enter. If there was a hint of another man around her then jealousy raged up like some out-of-control monster and I would find myself driven to do utterly stupid things, or be driven to the brink of madness as my mind raced out of control. Crimes of passion and lovers’ suicides are horrific extremes of the destructive power of jealousy. Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

Love, particularly in the early heady days of a relationship, evokes an obsession to be in the other’s company – here at last is one’s ‘soul mate’, someone to spend the rest of one’s life with. No more loneliness. Well, as we all know, this never works out, even if some sort of friendship or bond remains after the fire of love burns out. If, after some time, the couple is separated by death or other circumstances, I have often witnessed that the one who is left behind pines away, his or her life finished, meaningless. This has always appalled me, and I have seen it happen with my mother and countless others. When one’s partner goes, so does the reason for living for the other. Often such people either live in misery and loneliness, or die very soon after the death of the partner. Others form in their memories an idealized version of the lost love, to be forever achingly recalled throughout the remainder of their lives.

It was obvious to me that love had failed in my life again and again. Also I have never seen any love affair between a man and woman that lasted; or if it did, it morphed into some sort of compromise or bargain. I simply wasn’t prepared to accept that this was the best possible. The cynicism and the general acceptance of the continual and inevitable failure of love in relationships beg the question why people even keep trying. Hope of a True Love rings eternal in romantic novels and women’s magazines while at the same time all the ‘love’ songs croon of the pain and suffering of lost love! Surely love is supposed to be the cure-all for suffering and loneliness?

It’s just that it doesn’t work and never has. Is it that human beings suffer love because they love suffering? I have experienced this bitter-sweetness of sorrow many times in the past. It’s that ‘at least I’m alive because I’m feeling something’ syndrome. We seem to be as attracted to the suffering of love as we are to the bliss of love. I’ve often heard the saying that people grow and get strength from their suffering – it definitely makes more sense to me to stop inflicting it on myself and others. Love and compassion can be seen as an agreement to suffer together. Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

Of course there is an alternative to love, something vastly superior, and I knew it that day I looked out over the ocean. There is an ease, a simplicity and a delight in being in the company of a fellow human being who is equally committed to discovering and permanently experiencing this very perfection that is the physical universe.

There is a contentment, satisfaction and exhilaration in knowing we have virtually eliminated sorrow, resentment, jealousy, dependency, moodiness, pining, competitiveness, neediness – indeed, all the emotions and feelings of love. The reward is a near-actual intimacy that is tangible, sensual, priceless, magical, alive, ever-fresh and ever-present. And this direct unfettered experience of the other is both delightful and delicious! We now get to constantly enjoy the fruits of our own labours. Cute hey!

We do indeed live in virtual peace and harmony... Peter’s Journal, ‘Love’

What we experience in our companionship is the direct result of mutual hard-won effort and not of some hand of fate or Karma. It is silly to worry whether this will last forever or that, given a change in circumstances, either of us may have a different companion at some future time. But I live with her as though it will be forever; totally, with no doubt – one hundred percent!

No emotional bond binds us, and because we are free to be together, there is simply no feeling of separateness. Indeed, we no longer belong to, or identify with, the camps of men and women; we have actually removed ourselves from the battle of the sexes and, as such, are regarded by both sexes as traitors to the cause. Seemingly, one is supposed to forever fight for sexual and gender equality, and to simply stop the fight is regarded as an act of extremely naive foolishness. We have set up as two human beings living together, and it is delicious to share time in talking, shopping, watching TV, eating, and of course sharing the luscious, sensual pleasure of sex. It is all so easy, peaceful, harmonious and equitable. I thoroughly recommend becoming a traitor to both sides in the battle of the sexes. Peter’s Journal, ‘Living Together’

At the time life had come to another of those ‘comfortably numb’ stages: good job, house, wife, two kids, two cars. My wife then started to make a few new ‘spiritual’ friends, all while I was at work, so I knew little about what she was becoming involved in. I knew nothing at all about anything ‘spiritual’ and we talked little if anything about it. Suddenly one day she announced she was leaving, taking the children and going to live at the local Rajneesh commune. My mind went into denial, but as the day of her leaving came closer, the enormity of my life falling apart became brutally apparent. I had lived life as well as possible within the value systems that had been instilled in me and now, in a few short weeks, it was all shattered. I plunged to the depths of despair as all that I had loved, valued and that gave my life meaning, was torn from me.

Richard had got himself Enlightened some seventeen years before by an intensive method aimed at finding the condition he had experienced some time earlier in a pure consciousness experience. He achieved an altered state of consciousness complete with feelings of Oneness and Timelessness, Love for all, Compassion, and a drive to spread his Message. What in fact he had been aiming for was what he had experienced previously – a direct experience of the purity and perfection of the physical universe, but what he had attained he eventually called ‘Absolute Freedom’ – an extraordinary state of bliss and self-aggrandisement. He became at one with God or the ‘Absolute’, as he named it. As he began to talk to people they told him that what he was saying was very like what the spiritual Masters were saying, and he then discovered that he was in a state known in the East as Enlightenment. Despite the extraordinary wonderful feelings, a few doubts remained simmering beneath the surface: why was this state different to what he had aimed for, why was he driven to save mankind, why did he feel timelessness when the clock still ticked away?

He travelled to the East seeking answers but came back even more troubled. Over a period of twelve years he was to question all of the sacred tenets of the Enlightened Ones – the massive delusion as he puts it – and emerged some six years ago into what he now calls ‘Actual Freedom’. The man I sat talking with for hours and hours in his suburban living room had actually forsaken the Glamour, the Glory and the Glitz of Enlightenment! In Eastern Spiritual terms, he had eliminated not only the ‘self’ but the ‘Self’ as well, not only the Ego but the soul. 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’

I am no longer continually run by emotions or feelings like sympathy, empathy, love, compassion any more – they are a failed cop out, a film I used to put over things to avoid seeing the actuality of my behaviour, and of doing something about it. Now that I know that there is an alternative that works, and that malice and sorrow is optional for people, I regard those who reject this alternative as suffering needlessly and inflicting suffering on others needlessly. One of my prime motives has been that I saw my very interactions with other people as causing pain and suffering in them, even when I was being ‘good’ and ‘loving.’ To suffer myself is one thing – to inflict it on others is malice.

I care enough to eliminate my selfish malice and sorrow and I will stand no nonsense from others about not being ‘caring’; when what they really mean is not being ‘loving’. Like Richard, I’ll stick my head above the parapet and say, ‘All you have to do is get rid of your ‘self’ entirely, and then you will enjoy unparalleled actual peace for yourself twenty four hours a day, every day.’ Peter’s Journal, ‘Peace’

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