What I understood of the method, briefly, was to make being happy your immediate goal, enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive as much and as often as possible – after all, this is your only moment of being alive that you are able to actually experience. Being happy yesterday is useless and imagining or hoping for it in the future is avoiding the issue. ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ was the question to be continuously asked until it becomes a non-verbal attitude or a wordless approach to life with the aim to minimize both the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ feelings and maximize the happy and harmless feelings. If you are not happy now, then you have something to look at. Richard suggests getting back to feeling good before investigating the source of the unhappiness as it makes the investigation so much easier, of course. What particular belief, conditioning or instinctual passion is causing your unhappiness in this moment? Once having discovered the cause or the issue behind the diminishing of happiness, one can root around layer by layer until it is exposed to the bright light of awareness and the silliness of it all is clearly understood.

For sorting out one’s beliefs and social conditioning there is a useful test that can be applied: ‘Is it silly or sensible?’ Does my conviction make sense? Is it supported by facts, or is it a belief; does it work? Whatever is preventing my happiness now deserves my total attention and thorough investigation – simply believing the opinions, beliefs and values of other similarly inflicted people is to be gullible in the extreme. It is my life I am living and it is happening now. I then became vitally interested in my happiness for the first time. And I was looking to get to the root of it, to be free of whatever was causing my unhappiness, such that it would never come back. Finished, gone. And nobody else does it for me – I do it for myself!

What Richard was saying was daunting, bewildering, a complete reversal of all I had understood up until then! But a few things appealed: he was saying that if you make your goal in life to be happy and harmless then you will succeed given sufficient intent. Then it is possible for a man and woman to live together in peace and harmony, and then peace on the planet will be possible. Well, since the spiritual path had sort of petered out and was leading in ever-confusing circles, I thought what the hell! The alternative was to go back to ‘comfortable and numb’ again (which was actually uncomfortable and tortured underneath), so I decided to plough on. Peter’s Journal, ‘God’

The essential method was to undertake a total investigation into anything that was preventing me from being happy and harmless now – after all, the point of living is to be happy and harmless now, not at some time in the future, or at some time in the past. The question to ask myself was, ‘How do I experience this moment of being alive?’ Now is, after all, the only time I can experience being happy. Any emotion such as anger, frustration or boredom that is preventing my happiness now, has to be traced back to its cause – the exact incident, thought, expectation or disappointment. At the root of this emotion is inevitably found a belief or an instinctual passion. The ruthless challenging, exposing and understanding of these beliefs and instinctual passions actually weakens their influence on my thoughts and behaviour. The process, if followed diligently and obsessively, will ultimately cause the beliefs to disappear completely and the instinctual passions to be greatly minimized. The idea, of course, is to eliminate the cause of my unhappiness, ‘me’, so that I can experience life at the optimum, here, now.

It soon presents success incrementally, as freedom from these beliefs and instinctual passions will indeed inevitably result in increased peace and harmony for myself and in my relating with those around me. The method does bring up fear and resistance, because one is dismantling one’s very ‘self’, those very beliefs one holds so dearly.

It sounds so simple, but most people who had talked to Richard were not even willing to take a small step along the way. Most people would seemingly like their life to be better, but faced with the prospect of actually having to do something themselves, or having to change the way they are, they soon turned away, only to re-run the ‘tried and failed’ methods. Of course, the major fear is that it will work and the identity will go in toto! For me, I just figured that I had ‘nothing left to lose’; it was either a slow, miserable, painful, death-like life or a quick death of what I saw as the problem – the ‘self’ or ‘psychological and psychic entity’ within. Peter’s Journal, ‘Introduction’

The method that Richard and Devika proposed was simple and proved stunningly effective. The collection of beliefs, instinctual passions and behaviour patterns that are common to all human beings is known as the Human Condition. In undertaking any mutual investigation into what it was that caused the perpetual battle of the sexes that we knew so well, we resolved to put any issues that arose ‘on the table’, to discuss them, probe them and make mutual sense of them. By regarding them as the Human Condition, i.e. common to all humans, we were able to largely avoid ‘taking the issue personally’, which had proved the downfall of all previous attempts at discussing sensitive relationship issues. We further resolved that anything one disclosed or discussed would not be used by the other at some later time as revenge or to score points, and this gave us the confidence to dig deeper and explore further than we had dared to before.

The other vital ingredients to guarantee success were intent and peak experiences. We both had intent. I was willing to give it everything I could, and Vineeto likewise. The point was that I was doing it for me, I wanted to make it work and I would do everything I could to make it work. I regarded this as my last, and therefore only, chance to prove that it was possible for me to live with a woman in perfect peace and harmony – nothing less would do. Then, even if it did fail, I wouldn’t be left with that feeling that I had held back; that I could have done more, that the ‘shackles’ had won out again. But, of course, failure was not on my agenda, and we quickly organised our lives in order to spend as much time as possible together. Also, we both had had fleeting ‘peak experiences’ or pure consciousness experiences in our past where, for brief times, everything had indeed been utterly perfect. I now had a goal to aim for, and I also had a willing companion who was to prove perfect for the task ahead. Serendipitous really! Peter’s Journal, ‘Living Together’

One day, as I was driving to see her, it struck me like a thunderbolt. This is not just an intellectual theory – this is about changing my actions, changing my life. A theory is useless unless it is practical, workable, i.e. can be proven in practice that it works. If the battling was to stop, then it was me who had to stop it! This was not about changing Vineeto – this was about changing me! When I saw her that evening I told her I was not going to battle her anymore, wanting to get my way or wanting to change her. The realization that it was me who had to stop battling was so obvious, so complete and so devastating that it was impossible to continue on as I had before.

It was to prove a seminal point, a break from my past view of relating with women. It meant that instead of trying to bridge a separation, there was a beginning towards finding a genuine intimacy – to eliminate the cause of the separation. Instead of wanting to prove ‘my’ point or defend ‘my’ position the emphasis shifted to discovering what was common ground, what was mutually agreed. Instead of conflict the emphasis shifted to peaceful resolution. This realization proved to be the beginning of being able to sincerely and openly investigate all that inhibited our living together in peace and harmony – a 180 degree shift from the normal relating. Not a ‘surrender to the other’ as in losing a battle, not a withdrawal, not a sit it out on the sidelines, but a genuine seeing and understanding of the very futility of the battle itself. It was the beginning of getting down and getting dirty to look unabashedly at all the emotions, feelings and instinctual passions that arise between men and women. To talk about and thoroughly investigate love, jealousy, dependency, sex, authority, power, gender roles, etc. without any conflict or battle. Our investigation became an exploration of the Human Condition it self and how it was manifest in a male body and how it was manifest in a female body. We became fascinated with finding and analysing the differences rather than continuing to blindly and stubbornly defend them. Which of these differences were merely socially imprinted, which were instinctually programmed, and which, if any, were genuine? This investigation and fascination proved to be the beginning of the end of conflict, and this was despite the fact that at many times the findings were uncomfortable, confronting, disorienting, bewildering, and at times appalling.

As we became aware of the ‘big picture’ of the Human Condition there remained the issue of how to apply this to changing ourselves such that we could instigate a freedom from malice and sorrow within ourselves. We found that by concentrating on ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’ we immediately had the particular issue at hand. If something, some feeling, some thought, some worry, an annoyance, an aggravation, etc. was preventing my happiness now then that issue was the one to track down, to find the source, to investigate, to discover, to uncover. Relationships between men and women present a veritable goldmine of issues to look at, a fact I was well aware of when first propositioning Vineeto. One can feign and pretend being happy and harmless in a cave, a monastery or in a crowd, but the ‘test of fire’ is one on one. If one cannot live with one other person 24 hours a day in equity, peace and harmony, then all the theories, beliefs, ideals, sacred teachings, and holy feelings are but unliveable dreams and ancient fairy-stories. It’s called ‘putting your money where your mouth is’... to put it bluntly!

The first layer to be tackled is one’s social identity, the set of beliefs one has been taught by well-meaning parents, teachers and peers and that is constantly reinforced by society at large. We are taught to believe what is right or wrong, good or bad, proper or improper, valuable or harmful, true or false, etc. One undertakes a ruthless and relentless investigation into all of these beliefs, testing them against what are the facts, do they work, have they ever worked, is it sensible or silly? By replacing belief with fact one is weakening and demolishing the very need to believe itself, and one’s freedom from one’s socially-imprinted identity is tangible and palpable. This programming of the social identity is the ‘guardian at the gate’ of instinctual passions, its very instilling is designed to suppress, modify and control our instinctual behaviour. As such, it is necessary to incrementally free oneself of the associated beliefs, morals and ethics to be able not only to investigate but to eventually instigate a radical freedom from instinctual behaviour.

For the male of the species these behaviour patterns are well documented with only a few minor variations due to cultural influences. This instinctual behaviour, necessary in ancient times for the very survival of the species, is simply no longer relevant and, in fact, dooms any attempt at equitable companionship to failure. It became obvious to me that I no longer needed to hunt for food to provide for my mate and offspring – I simply work to provide sufficient money.

In days of old, with the dangers and unreliability of hunting, enough was always only temporary; hence the constant drive for more and the constant fear of too little. It was necessary to compete and fight with other animals and humans for scarce food, shelter and territory and it was also necessary to physically protect the women and helpless offspring. Indeed, survival was a grim business – an instinctual obsession. This is just not the case with me, here, now, in modern times. I simply do not need to behave in this manner any more, it’s plain silly. So much for the need to be constantly driven by this cave-man era behaviour. In ancient times the men would band together in order to hunt, attack and defend more successfully; hence bonding, leadership and group behaviour codes were developed. All this nonsense, however, is simply not applicable to me here, now. What a freedom to realise that I am now free to leave the men’s camp and be rid of this rubbish – to at last leave the protection of the cave and walk upright, safely and autonomously, and freely enjoy the sensual delights of this paradisiacal planet. However, the actual changing of behaviour required my total self-obsession in order to be aware of what I was doing or feeling at every moment. What is it, in me, which is in the road between us? Why am I upset? Why am I annoyed or moody?

What is it now that is preventing my experiencing peace and harmony? I was totally interested in what it was in me. If Vineeto had an issue she wanted to talk about, fine, and if she was willing, and we could look together at something, even better, but it was my peace and harmony in living with her that I was interested in and focused upon. And Vineeto was interested in her peace and harmony. We were then each responsible for our own actions and feelings and for doing whatever was necessary to ‘clean’ ourselves up – to free ourselves of the Human Condition. Peter’s Journal, ‘Living Together’

So, it was obvious that the sex drive was the problem and the problem was in me. As an experiment, I decided to plunge fully into both masturbation and fantasy, to allow myself to push beyond the feelings of guilt and shame that had plagued me since my teenage years. I kept going beyond self-indulgence; and something curious began to happen. It became clear to me that this was just plain silly, stupid, mad and destructive. Here I was with a willing woman, to whom I was sexually attracted, and there was this drive in me that prevented me from being with her as a real woman. When I was with her sexually I would be thinking of other women, and I knew this to be a common male situation. When I saw other women I would be sexually attracted to them and fantasise about them. Facing this squarely in myself and contemplating it led me to a devastating conclusion. This sex drive within me is not concerned with me being happy with one woman; in fact, it is actively conspiring to prevent it!

Nature, or more accurately blind nature, wants only reproduction – the survival of the species – and it doesn’t give a damn for my happiness. The physical enjoyment of sex and the euphoric orgasmic climax is a by-product of the reproductive process itself. As a male animal I am programmed with a sexual instinct which drives me to impregnate as many women as possible. Crudely put (for it is indeed crude): find woman, fuck woman, move on; find woman, fuck woman, move on… The sex drive, when coupled with the instinctual passion of aggression, produces the rapist. In all the wars, the soldier’s spoil at the end of battle was rape. And despite the attempt to ‘keep a lid on it’ with morals and noble ideals, this blind instinctual passion lies at the very core of man’s sexual behaviour. At last I had the bugger by the throat: the very instinctual passion that prevented my free enjoyment of sex with this woman.

It is very interesting what happens with this method of ridding oneself of beliefs and instinctual passions. It actually works! I had been around the spiritual/therapy world for years, had probably heard parts of this before, done ‘work’ or groups on the issue before, but here I was able to go straight for the jugular. This was the core of the problem, it was in the road between us, and I needed to be free of it! After all, it was preventing my happiness and enjoyment of life now! I recognised the behaviour and feelings in myself, saw the appalling consequences both to my happiness and that of others … and then they simply disappeared. The complete and total understanding of a belief and its accompanying emotions actually results in their elimination. It took a little time, a lot of diligence, introspection and plain ‘self’-obsession – and the will to keep going, to find out. It was often very fearful and I found myself not only dealing with my fears but also with the fear of all humans now and who ever have been. And then, as though by magic, one day I realised I was no longer driven. It had been a gradual process but it had come to an end – it worked. The sex drive, or instinctual passion, had virtually disappeared from my life. Peter’s Journal, ‘Sex’

At first it felt like a very delicate process, as I was extremely sceptical and wary, given the failures I had endured previously. I was aware of the gullibility and cunning that ‘I’ was capable of, but I knew that fooling myself was stupid in the extreme! I would continuously check myself, being scrupulously honest with myself. Whenever some issue was on the table, or even if I thought it had been resolved, I would ‘sweep around in the cupboard with a broom’ – as I called it. I would check around to make sure that nothing was hiding and no ‘dirt’ remained.

It felt like I was actually re-wiring my brain, and that is exactly was I was doing. I, as a human being had been wired or programmed in a certain way. This wiring consists of the beliefs that had been instilled in me from the time when I was first rewarded for ‘good’, or punished for ‘bad’ behaviour and included the morals, values and ethics that made me a fit member of society. On top of it, and developing from the age of about seven were the beliefs and traits I would take on and develop as ‘my own’ identity. Underlying all of it were the animal instinctual passions of aggression, fear, nurture and desire that we are born with.

If it doesn’t work, and I couldn’t make it work after all those years and after all that trying, then ‘get rid of it – try something new’, became my approach. Particularly when that belief is causing me to suffer or causing me to inflict suffering on others! The multitudinous beliefs around gender and sex are potent examples of the continual failure of the traditional mish-mash. There is always a third alternative to the traditional, failed approach – always! The third alternative to staying ‘normal’ or being religious or spiritual is to use my own intelligence to contemplate and discover the facts of what it is to be a human being. Without a belief in a God, there is nothing else to use anyway.

I found it was definitely not the so-called ‘intelligence’ of men – that rational or intellectual thinking that passes for wisdom in the world. That produces tortured arguments as to how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin and which passes for wisdom in the world. Or the silly question about the tree in the Amazon jungle: does the tree actually fall down if no one sees it falling? Useless sophistry! I think this way of thinking evolved from the nonsense men talked about as they sat around campfires, looking at the stars, wondering. The modern astronomers are still trying to find God out there.

No, I am talking about the intelligence that declares: ‘I am here, what can I do to make my being here better, more enjoyable, easier?’– that’s common sense. To undertake a study of ‘who’ and ‘what’ I am – Ontology – facts not beliefs. Actual, not imaginary. I found I could wield a sword of common sense and the ‘Wisdom of the Ages’ would just crumble into dust – a pile of ancient, useless, old beliefs. Peter’s Journal, ‘Intelligence’

Soon a daring, then an obsession takes over, as it becomes the most incredible thing to do – to actually fix yourself up. Just as the body repairs itself, so can the brain be re-wired. As it becomes re-wired – more and more freed of the primitive brain and its instinctual fear and aggression – an actual freedom becomes increasingly apparent as being possible. The brain is the tool: I apply liberal doses of common sense to the affected areas and watch the beliefs fade away. Facts replace beliefs. It is so simple – and it works. Also I personally sometimes found marijuana useful, when used with intent, as an aid to discussing a particular issue or when musing over some aspect of the human condition.

I found it gave me the ability to delve deeper or see more clearly. It is a stimulant that somehow allows an opening to the actual: free of the primitive brain. Used socially to get ‘out of it’, it is a dead loss, of course, but to get ‘in’ to the psyche, I found it was useful to me. Also, marijuana is possibly useful in order to induce a peak experience of the actuality of being here in the physical world, with all its accompanying delights, its purity and perfection. Peak experiences are like signposts on the way – invaluable as knowledge of what I am aiming for, of my destiny from the moment I decided to give this one hundred percent, from the moment I determined I had nothing left to lose. Peter’s Journal, ‘Intelligence’

The fear of survival that we emotionally experience appears real but it is only the fear of survival of the psychic and psychological entity within the body. It is nothing but an elaboration of the base animal fear inherent in the rudimentary ‘self’ that we are born with. Exactly as a dog or any other animal will lash out and fight or cower in fear, so do we. The challenge for human beings now is to rid ourselves of these behaviour patterns and the key is to recognise, understand and wipe away this instinctual fear from our brain via ‘self’-immolation.

These instinctual animal behaviour patterns are located in what is commonly termed the lizard brain. So what we are talking about is an actual disconnection from this part of the brain. Such that the lizard brain becomes redundant and obsolete in humans. Rather like the appendix which, as I understand, is now a redundant organ left over from our grazing days. Richard personally experienced it as a physical disconnection from the lizard brain – ‘Like the turning over of a long playing record’, but to never, ever to turn back again. Extraordinary! And what ‘I’ am able to do is to prepare and facilitate the possibility of that happening in me. To lay the ground-work with sincerity and honesty. To eventually self-immolate. To die as a ‘self’. It is fascinating beyond belief to be aware that a re-wiring is occurring in one’s own brain. To know and experience that it is possible to change Human Nature. Definitely the adventure of a lifetime!

I’ve always tended towards the practical in my life; above all I’ve liked things that are simple and that work. My job as an architect and builder has meant that I have built other peoples’ dreams, but my concern has always been the practical – have I got the materials on site, will the roof leak, and so on. My dream was to become free of the neurosis inside my head and the passions in my heart, that undercurrent feeling of ‘Is this all there is’, that feeling of having shackles on, of seeing and knowing that things were wrong in me and in the world. The doubt, the discontent, the feeling of something being wrong, was really the innate knowledge that I was not being the best human being possible.